Page 2 of Coffee and Tea

“So they’re not strangers,” Colby said, “and they’re willing to put up with me. Being, er, eccentric. And you’ll be with me. And it’ll be at that lovely museum and library. It’s not about the gala as such, or mainly not. It’s more, you see, I know who else they’re inviting, to be part of the celebrity draw, this year.”

“Someone you don’t want to see?” Someone who might require his, Jason’s, personal martial-arts-related attention? Or just playing human fortress, all stone walls and portcullis defenses assembled? “Who?”

“Oh, your face, love.” Colby balanced coffee in a hand, dove in, left a kiss on Jason’s mouth like the favor of a shooting star. “Nothing like that. I just don’t particularly want to talk to him. But of course Lakshmi put that in her note as if it’d be encouragement, something she thought I’d like…well, she knows I read romance, and Simon’s a big name, of course, and she wouldn’t know I don’t…”

“Hang on. Simon Ashley? Like…the bestselling romance novelist, with that TV series on the way—”

“Indeed.”

“—that film adaptation of A Duke for Christmas a couple years back—”

“That’d be Simon.”

“—the one in the news, a while back, because he’d been using a female pen name but somebody figured it out, and he turned out to be a duke’s son, but, like, disowned or something?”

“I didn’t realize,” Colby said, amused, “that you followed romance novelist news so closely.”

“Allie’s a fan. I mean, not like she is with you—” His younger sister had, once upon a time, more or less helped run the Colby Kent online fandom. Given the demands of law school, and the reality of Colby as her brother-in-law, she’d mostly stepped back. She did sometimes still share tidbits and photos, with Colby’s knowledge and permission. “But she’s read pretty much all his books, I think. So did Nonna. Which is not something I needed to know about my grandmother. So I heard about it all. That was a few years ago, though.”

“He’s publishing under his own name now. And more popular than ever. I’ve read one or two. They’re actually quite good. Surprisingly so.”

“Surprising?”

“Oh, drat,” Colby said into cinnamon cream, “did I say that out loud?”

“What do you know about him?” This time Jason tapped fingers against the back of his husband’s neck, not hard, but reinforcing the question. “Not a good person? He do something to you?” He’d actually wondered once, not with any weight, why Colby wasn’t a bigger Simon Ashley fan; Colby loved books and romance and history, and those novels seemed like the sort that’d be on a Colby Kent bookshelf. One or two were, but only one or two. Hadn’t been a significant question, at the time. Now it was.

“No…”

“Babe.”

“No. Not as such. It’s…a bit ridiculous, in fact. So long ago.”

Jason looked at Colby’s expression, touched the coffee-mug, said, “Can I take this?” and took it and set it down when Colby nodded. He put a hand out, after: cupping Colby’s face, holding his husband in place, comfort but also extremely gentle command. “Tell me?”

“I do remember Simon,” Colby said. “We met at a few events, when we were younger. We didn’t have much in common, though, I’m afraid.” That statement, considering the source, was the equivalent of shouting utter loathing from the rooftops. Jason felt his eyebrows fly up.

“Want to tell me why you don’t like him?”

“I don’t dislike him.” Colby shut both eyes, opened them: reacting, not hiding. “I haven’t even seen him for…at least twelve years? Fifteen? Some obligatory diplomatic reception of my father’s, I think it must’ve been, that last time. We’re both very different people now, I expect.”

“I do want to know,” Jason reinforced. “Explain it to me.” Colby didn’t simply dislike many people, in fact no one that Jason could think of, at least not in this ruffled-feathers kind of way: not serious, not wounded or hurting, but prickly as a kitten rubbed the wrong direction. He was starting to wonder whether he should be worried. “Do I need to punch him someplace painful?”

“No…”

“But you’d kind of like it if I did?”

“No! Er…well…no, it’s not like that. We didn’t not get on.” Colby abruptly sounded extra-English, and wryly upper-class. “We were both fairly young, very definitely gay, and extremely unhappy with our respective parents. It’s just…Simon was the sort of person who’d always want to break into someone’s drinks cabinet, throw a party, and seduce every straight boy in a five-mile radius by the end of the night, usually in someone else’s bed, with glitter.”

Jason said, “Ah.”

“And, you see, I was a terribly shy introvert who liked fantasy novels and rainbow unicorn stickers.”

“So…not that much different from you now?”

Colby’s mouth quirked. “Yes. Essentially. So he thought I was awfully boring, and I spent a lot of time being horrified, even though really I suppose we ought to’ve understood each other. His father—who happens to be a literal duke, and imagine being a duke, these days—oh, his father’s honestly horrid. The sort of horrid that threw Simon out of the house for being…not simply gay, but flamboyantly dramatically gay, not tastefully discreetly so, you see.”

“Fuck him, then. His father, I mean.”

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