“The car is not the place to talk about this,” said Nolan. “What we’re going to do right now while I drive is record a nice little bit where we talk about how happy we are that we could make a true home for the Roberts. Then, I promise, I’ll take you back to my place and tell you everything. I can’t avoid talking to you about this much longer anyway. But you have to promise not to bring it up until I’m not behind the wheel.”
“All right.”
But that was not at all comforting. Whatever Nolan had to say was going to be big, and it was going to have an impact on their relationship. If it was something trivial, Nolan could have explained now.
So Grayson smiled and filmed the little car talk segment and then spent the next hour completely losing his mind, wondering what Nolan had to tell him.
When they finally got to Nolan’s place, Nolan asked, “You want a beer or—?”
“I want you to just tell me whatever you have to tell me so that I can figure out how to deal with it. Because whatever it is has to be better than the DEFCON One situation I’ve got going on in my head.”
Nolan sighed. “Let’s sit down.”
They settled into the living room area, next to each other on the big sofa.
“I need you to know something before I tell you everything,” Nolan said.
“Okay.”
“I really, genuinely like you, a lot more than I ever expected to. These last, what, six weeks? They’ve been amazing. I enjoy your company, you make me laugh, but more than that, you’ve made me feel things I didn’t know I could feel anymore. And that’s really not nothing. When Ricky died, it was like I totally shut down, body and soul. But now, finally, it’s starting to come back online.”
“Okay.” Grayson didn’t know what to do with that. It sure sounded like the prelude to a breakup. “I really like you too. And not only because I admired and lusted after you before we met. Getting to know you as a real person has been really great too.”
Nolan smiled. “I appreciate that. But let me talk, because this is hard, and I want to make sure you understand the whole situation.”
“Okay.”
“Before Ricky got his cancer diagnosis, we applied to be adoptive parents through an agency in LA.”
Grayson stared. Where was Nolan going with this? Did he want kids? Was this some kind of “where is this going?” relationship talk? He opened his mouth to ask, but Nolan held up his hand and kept talking.
“A lot of time passed and nothing happened. Apparently that’s normal, and sometimes it takes a few years for agencies to pair the right child with the right parents, and it’s harder for gay parents, but blah, blah…. Long story short, when Ricky got sick, I completely forgot about almost all of that. Well, not completely. We’d started designing the nursery in our house in LA. But I haven’t thought about it all since I moved to New York.”
“Okay,” said Grayson. It hit him that Nolan and Ricky had the sort of relationship in which they had big future plans. What must it have been like to have those kinds of big plans together and then abruptly have it all taken away? Grayson had never given the depth of Nolan’s mourning much thought beyond “it must suck to lose your husband.” But it wasn’t just losing someone close to him; it was losing a vision for what your life was supposed to be like. No wonder Nolan had taken a year off to mourn. Grayson wanted to take Nolan into his arms and do whatever he could to comfort him, but he opted to wait for Nolan to finish saying whatever it was he had to say.
Nolan took a deep breath. “Two weeks ago, I got a call from the agency that a mom had picked us to adopt her child. Except now Ricky is gone.” Nolan took a deep breath and let it out. “When I told the agency that my family status had changed, they invited me to come out to LA and meet this expectant mom, so that’s what I did.”
Nolan was right. This was not what Grayson had expected. “So… wait. You’re adopting a baby? That’s why you went to LA?” Of all things, this wasn’t even in the same universe as what Grayson had been imagining Nolan would say. A baby? Holy shit!
“Yes, it looks that way. I mean, the mother, Angela, took a few days to think about it, but I guess whatever I told her about wanting to be a father really got to her, because she picked me. The baby’s due in about seven weeks. I still have to talk to Helena about it, because it’s going to mess with our schedule a little. But the Cruz and Dunlop houses should be done by then. And that just leaves Justin and Peter’s house, out of the episodes we’ve committed to so far. So maybe we could take a little break in the middle of filming. Of course, I’ll hire a nanny, but—”
“You’re adopting a baby.”
“Yes. It’s a girl, by the way.”
Well, damn. Nolan’s words charmed Grayson—how could they not?—especially the way Nolan smiled when he said it. Hewantedthis. The timing might not be ideal, but he really wanted to be a dad. He spoke about the whole situation in kind of a detached way, but Grayson had gotten good at reading Nolan. He could tell by Nolan’s facial expressions that this meant a lot to him.
Grayson couldn’t believe he’d be dating a single dad. How weird was that?
“Congratulations,” said Grayson.
“The thing that really sucks is… I don’t want to stop seeing you.”
“Who says you have to?”
Nolan sighed and rolled his eyes. “I can’t possibly ask you to stay involved with me once I become a parent. You never signed on to be a dad too.”
“No, but…. Wait,areyou breaking up with me? Because I won’t accept that.”
