“Did you have a fight?”
“We disagreed.” I tried to keep my tone airy and light. “No big deal. Now I should go take a look at Harvey. The last thing he needs is a pressure sore.” I eased past her and strode off, aware she was standing behind me, staring at me.
As I headed down the hallway, I told myself it was a good thing I wouldn’t see Griffin for a while. Better for both of us. No emotional scenes in my workplace. No worries about what I would say to him. I ignored a little bit of inner drama queen that had been planning to either blow up at him in a screaming fury or beg him to make better choices. The fact that I wasn’t surewhich meant any encounter would’ve been a huge, embarrassing disaster, no doubt.
Owen’s bed was pushed back against the wall when I went in. He sat in a chair while Harvey lounged in his bed. A tray table between them held playing cards spread out in some game I didn’t recognize. They both turned as I entered.
“Hey, there’s my boy,” Harvey said. “You must’ve been busy. Been a while since you came by.”
“Sorry, yeah. How are you two settling in? Anything you want us to change?”
“The rail on Harvey’s bed?” Owen suggested. “The aides put his rails up for the night before they push the beds together and it sucks to have it between us.”
“Hmm.” I eyed the set-up. We couldn’t have the beds together all the time, because then there was no room to bring in the lift to get Harvey into his chair. But rules were there for a reason. Residents with low mobility had their bed rails raised at night. “It keeps him from slipping down between the beds, since we have no way to lock them together. I think for safety it should stay.”
“Well, it sucks,” Harvey grumbled. “I’m fully compos mentis. Not senile yet, that one infection aside. Can’t I take my own risks? I’ll sign something promising not to sue you if I break my hip.”
I had to smile. “I bet you were trouble all your life. Give you an inch and you take a mile. No. The poor aides would be heartbroken if something happened, and the Department of Health would come down on us like a ton of bricks.”
Harvey frowned. “Ever try to give a hand job through a bed rail?”
“Nope.”
We exchanged stares for a minute, then Owen laughed. “Well, it was worth a shot. So what’s new with you?” He looked me over. “I’d say you look like you were rode hard and put away wet, but truthfully, you don’t seem like you had that much fun.”
“Have you been watchingBrokeback Mountainagain?” I evaded.
“Nope. At my age, you get tired of sad endings. And you didn’t answer the question.”
My personal life was none of their business, but I didn’t have other older queer people in my life to ask. These two men had weathered a lifetime together and I knew they’d sometimes argued.
Owen had been watching my face, and he stood, pushed his chair my way with one foot, and perched on the side of Harvey’s bed. “Have a seat and lay it out for Daddy and Papa.”
I eased into the chair but asked, “Was that a come-on?”
“Well, we wouldn’t say no.” He chuckled. “We’re a bit past that age, though. What’s wrong?”
“You guys must’ve had fights occasionally, right?”
They looked at each other. “Hell, yeah,” Harvey said. “Some doozies over the years. I almost left a few times. He’s a stubborn old goat who always thinks he’s right.”
“Because I am,” Owen muttered.
Harvey blew a sloppy, one-sided raspberry at him.
“Why didn’t you leave?”
Harvey eyed me. “Well, I’m stubborn, for one thing. I was young when we got together, but I wasn’t inexperienced. I’d met a bunch of men by then and I knew a good one when I found him. Wasn’t giving him up if I had a choice.”
“And we didn’t let things fester,” Owen added. “I won’t say we never went to bed angry. I got real familiar with this one couch we had. But we tried hard to talk things out. Back in the day, we also worried that ‘roommates’ giving each other the stink-eye for days on end might make people wonder why we stuck together so long. That was added incentive to talk. And if that didn’t work, we fucked it out. Hard to stay mad when you’re cumming your brains out.”
I choked a laugh because yeah, I wasn’t likely to get deep relationship advice here. Except Owen nudged my foot with his. “You and Griffin had a blowout, huh?”
I shrugged rather than trying to deny it.
“Something he did? Something you did?”
“We’re just not compatible, I guess. He made a choice. I think it sucks.”I think it might kill him.My throat tightened. “If he won’t listen when it’s really important to me, who are we kidding? He’s not all-in on this relationship. He never will be.”
