He could hear the self-deprecation in Santi’s sigh. “It’s very easy to blame things on booze and wishful thinking.”
“Tell me about it,” Matt answered without thinking, then felt a lurch in his chest.Wishful thinking.
“You trust me now,” Santi continued. “That means something—a lot. It means a lot. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, about this or your house. Will you tell me more about that? If not now, then later? I’d like to hear more, and, who knows? Maybe I can help somehow.”
Matt took another step closer but Santi was still on the edge of the light and impossible to read.
“I have to get away from them.” Matt gave Santi another secret thought. “Even only a few times a year.”
“At first,” Santi murmured, convinced Matt would leave for good and not even blaming him.
“So do you,” Matt pointed out. “Why do you stay here? It can’t be for the money from the vineyard paintings.”
Santi glanced away, and for a moment, the light spilled across half his face. “I think I’m already looking forward to visiting you in your castle,” he said in a calm, ready-to-shatter sort of voice. “But for right now, I should probably get home. The party is winding down, and I wasn’t in the mood for it from the start.”
“Me neither.” Matt should have been cold but he was warm in his skin and his lungs, in his fingers and toes. He was lighter. “But I like this, how we’ve been tonight. I don’t want that to end.” He rolled a shoulder. “I don’t think I could sleep now anyway. I might… would you like some tea? The good stuff from my stash at home?”
“I’ve never been in the small guest house.” Santi said it in a significant way, then shook his head like someone had dropped ice down his back. Which was how Matt should have been feeling; he was the one baring his soul tonight, one secret at a time.
“You can’t blame the décor on me.” Even with everything else going on, Matt wanted that to be clear. “Except for the bedroom. That’s mine. Not that I would be serving you tea in the bedroom. I don’t want you thinking that French provincial was my choice.”
“Yourmother did the guest house in French provincial?” Santi paused. “I am simultaneously shocked and unsurprised. Hmm.”
“It was a phase, I guess.” Matt wondered if this was a normal post-coming out discussion, or if that existed. But it was calming and it let him breathe and try to forget the heat in his face. “She can’t or won’t redo it until I leave. The kitchen’s all right. If you don’t feel like driving home yet. If I upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” Santi declared immediately, huffy. “I’m feeling a lot, but I am not upset. I told you before I don’t blame you for your secrets. I meant it. If I can ask, though, are you ever going to tell them?”
“About me?” Matt had no intention of telling his family about the dream until it was real and permanent. “When it matters.” He looked away from Santi for the first time in probably too long and stared up at the branches above them. “I try not to think about things I can’t have. So this is like the house, with even less planning.” He was an embarrassment to the LGBTQ community. He wasn’t eveninthe community, he didn’t think. “When I decide it’s their business and not a moment before,” he announced at last, and brought his eyes back down to Santi. “If I ever dated someone who wanted me even though I’m not like them, and who was willing to put up with them for me.”
“Because.”
Matt waited, frowning, but Santi didn’t explain that. “What?” he asked at last.
Santi reached into a pocket, pulled out a hairband, and twisted his hair into a sloppy ponytail with short, angry motions. “This person,” he bit out. “This possible future person should want youbecauseyou are not like the rest of your family. Not in spite of it.”
In better light, Matt would have been able to see all of Santi’s face. It didn’t seem fair. He pretended he wasn’t staring and hoped the dark protected him too.
He scoffed. “That sort of person might exist, but not in this town. Everyone here knows who I am. Matthew, who lives in the guest house and sleeps around, who has no pride or ambition, who isn’t brilliant.” Matt smiled with nearly his usual level of artificial brightness. “But it’s fine. I’ve never expected anyone to love me.”
Santi made a soft, hurt sound. “Oh. Oh, God damn. I should have known tonight would bring me to this point.”
Matt blinked away a bemused frown.
“Making changes leads to new paths, new decisions.” Santi was on a slightly anxious roll. “Fuck.Fuck.” He reached up to mess with his hair, but he’d already taken care of it. “I’m going to have to trust in you, Matty. Trust that you’re the same gentle boy you’ve always been, that you won’t—” He put his hands in front of his face instead of curls. He steadied himself, then spoke almost calmly. “I need you, Matthew—shit. That is, I need you to believe there are people who would love you—whodolove you. Who admire you, and covet you, and all those things you don’t think anyone could feel for you. So your future happiness is out there somewhere. Get your cabin and take your love there someday, all right?”
The words were ludicrous, but Santi clearly believed them. Or was too embarrassed at his sincerity to say them without hiding his face.
Matt put a hand to his throat. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak until he heard his voice. “Easy for you to say,” he said faintly.
“Is it?” Santi pulled his hands from his face. “Do you see me bringing a date to these events?”
No. Santi came alone and sat with the other single outcasts in the back somewhere, and drank a bit, and started to get self-deprecating and sad.Terribly cliché of me, he would say later. But he did it every time, with increasing intensity.
Until tonight.
Matt remembered Santi watching the engaged couple and how he had briefly thought Santi was wistful. It was deeper than that. Santi wanted so much it ached, probably because he didn’t hide from his feelings like anyone with sense did. He hid them from other people—Matt’s family mostly—but not from himself.
Santi thought he couldn’t have love.
