Page 36 of Love in Focus

He shows us pictures of the dogs from his Instagram. They’re basically two extremely cute balls of fur, one tan and one white, that are so cute I exclaim, “They’re adorable!”

Celeste grins at my outburst and snaps a photo of the moment.

When I ask the couple how they met, Brent answers, “We met at a club here in the city. It was…Jesus, it’s already been fifteen years!”

“Ew,” Aaron says jokingly. “You mean I’ve somehow been with your sorry ass for that long? Was I sober for much of it?”

Brent laughs. “Were you? Because I wasn’t.”

From behind her cameras, Celeste stifles a laugh.

“We’re kidding, obviously,” Aaron says with a grin. “But we do go out a lot.”

When I tell them about the club I went to with my friends recently, Brent gasps.

“Okay, that one is good, but we usually go to gay clubs,like Oasis,” he says. “I don’t do drag anymore, but I still love watching the shows.”

We spend a good ten minutes—that we’ll have to cut the majority of—talking about the best clubs in San Francisco and about the difficulties of saving for retirement when you live in the city.

“There’s so much going on all the time here,” Brent says. “Luckily Aaron is good with money, so he takes care of all that for us.”

“I work in finance,” Aaron explains. “Brent, however…” He sighs.

Brent laughs. “Fine, I admit it,” he says. “I’m an influencer, although I do prefer the term ‘content creator.’ I used to be in tech but… what can I say? My work keeps me young, and I enjoy it. During lockdown, I started documenting our day-to-day lives on social media and people loved it enough for me to make this my full-time job!”

“That’s so cool!” I reply. “Congratulations.”

“He posts about our dog children a lot,” Aaron says. “I think that helps.”

“So true. The internetlovesdogs,” Brent agrees. “Even the parts of it that don’t like old gay guys like us.”

“You’re not old,” I reply automatically.

Brent raises his eyebrows. “You try turning forty, and then we’ll talk. You’re what, twenty? Thirty?”

I give him a sheepish smile. “Twenty-nine.”

Brent and Aaron scoff.

“So, barely an adult,” Aaron says.

“Enjoy that natural collagen while it lasts,” quips Brent.“We’re almost forty-five, and I swear to god, my face sags more and more each year.”

Eventually, I circle us back to my usual set of questions, wrapping up with what I ask every couple: “What are your plans for the future?”

“Our plans for the future…” Brent trails off. He and Aaron look at each other.

“Well, when were in our thirties, we toyed with the idea of adopting kids,” Aaron says. “Or using an egg donor, a surrogate, you know, the whole deal. But we ultimately decided it’s not for us. We’re far too busy for kids. I’m always working late, and Brent takes trips in other countries for entire months, sometimes. So, we just want to keep being good guncles. And continue to live out our best healthy and happy lives.”

Brent nods. “Which sounds cheesy,” he adds. “But not really if you factor in the fact that an entire generation of our community elders was affected by the AIDS crisis. Being gay and living long, happy lives is not something we’ll ever take for granted.”

Aaron solemnly nods in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s definitely understandable,” I say. “Okay, one last question. How do you define love?”

“Being disgusting together,” answers Brent. “Disgustingly cute, disgustingly happy, and disgustingly sad.”

Aaron shoots Brent an amused look before turning back to me. “A raison d’être. If it weren’t for Brent, my life would just be a lot of numbers, booze, and meaningless sex.”

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