Page 90 of Julien (Confessions 2)

As the talking stopped for the first time since they’d arrived home, Robbie screwed his nose up and looked at Priest. “What is this music?”

“It’s Miles Davis,” Priest said. “I find it relaxes me while I work.”

“Relaxes you? I’m surprised you’re not catatonic.”

Priest shook his head. “I’ll have you know, he was an extremely talented composer and trumpeter. Perhaps you should expand your horizons.”

Robbie placed a hand on his hip and said, “Perhaps I will the next time it’s cold and rainy and I have a bottle of brandy handy. But since I’m not currently in Chicago, and we’re all here and to have a day of celebration, can we at least put on something a little more…mmm I don’t know, upbeat?”

“Such as?” Priest said, and when Robbie rolled his eyes, Julien came over to Priest and laid a hand on his arm.

“Give me your phone, mon amour. I’ll make us a playlist that will suit all of us.”

Priest walked to the table, shut his laptop, and when he came back, he held his phone out to Julien. When he reached for it, Priest kept a hold of it, pulled him in close, and said, “Embrasse-moi,” and Julien did.

“Je t’aime.”

“Je t’aime aussi.”

As they pulled apart, Priest looked over Julien’s shoulder to see Robbie watching the two of them with an expression in his eyes that matched their words, and he suspected Robbie knew exactly what it was they’d just said to one another—but this time, he chose to remain silent.

Then, as though he sensed Priest’s gaze upon him, Robbie put his hand to his heart before picking up several items off the counter and turning away.

The three of them then began to move around the kitchen after that, and Priest realized that love was in that room as they worked side by side. With every touch, every look, and every smile they shared, as they helped Julien celebrate a woman he loved with all his heart, the bond the three of them were carefully forging became that much stronger.

AROUND THIRTY MINUTES later, Robbie lifted the lid off the top of the pot on the stove and stirred the contents simmering inside.

Mm, smells delicious, he thought, as he scooped up a little bit of his nonna’s sauce and brought it to his lips to taste his handiwork. Hot damn, Nonna would be proud. It tasted as good as it smelled.

When he’d been at the store earlier with Julien and they’d been talking about what he’d like to cook, Julien asked Robbie if he would share a meal that his family had loved cooking together, something that made Robbie think of home. While this was probably one of the most common meals found in an Italian household—and likely nothing impressive to a world-renowned chef—Robbie had decided on his nonna’s spaghetti.

He remembered spending weekends with his sisters and cousins in their nonna’s kitchen mixing and kneading the pasta dough, and then arguing over who got to use the machine to roll it out into thin strips.

Today, however, Robbie had left the pasta making to the professional, and watching Julien move around the kitchen was something else. He was totally in his element. It was as if all of his worries left him the second he put his apron on and switched on that part of his brain. It was wonderful to see.

He’d poured flour onto a large cutting board, dug out a well, and cracked the eggs into the center of it with the ease of someone who did it every day. Then he’d added some olive oil and salt and mixed it altogether. After that, he’d pummeled the hell out of it.

Robbie remembered Julien saying that crushing things helped clear his head, and Robbie figured strangling dough would be a good replacement for his parents if he wanted to keep Julien out of jail.

Robbie placed the wooden spoon on the ceramic holder by the stove and turned to see Priest at the sink finishing off rinsing the cutting boards, pans, and cooking utensils as he stacked them into the dishwasher.

Julien was now sitting at the island with a glass of wine, waiting for the go-ahead from Robbie to start cooking the pasta, and just as Robbie was about to tell him he could start, the music switched songs and Priest’s man, Sinatra, floated around the room.

“Hey, it’s your guy,” Robbie said as “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” began to play.

“So it is,” Priest said, as he tossed the dishtowel on the bench, and walked over to Robbie. “Would you like to dance?”

“To this?” Robbie said, and Priest nodded. “Uh, I don’t know how.”

“Really?”

Robbie chuckled. “Yes, really.”

Priest’s lips crooked up at the side, and then he walked over to Julien, took a sip of his wine, and, gallant as ever, held his hand out to his husband. “Julien?”

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