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“You guys surprise me,” said Patrick.
“Why?” they both asked.
“I don’t know. Will is just so different from…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“From guys like us?” Corey offered.
“Yeah. I guess that’s what I meant.”
“That’s fucked up,” said Hector. “That you would think that. About your boyfriend.”
“It really is.” Patrick nodded, the knot of shame he’d been carrying around in his stomach for years tightening. Only this time it wasn’t shame about who he was, or who he wanted. He knew nothing about those desires was wrong. He couldn’t say the same of the way he’d behaved. The things he’d said and done. The restrictions and rules he had laid down that made it impossible for Will to ever really get close to him, or at least as close as Patrick truly wanted.
“I’m going to die alone,” he announced to the vast sky above them. “Alone, in a big empty house, surrounded by supplement pills and magazines with me on the cover.” He laughed, but it came out all wrong, a warped and ugly sound. “That’s showbiz, baby!”
“I don’t know what’s messed with your head more,” said Hector. “Being gay or being an actor.”
“Yeah,” Corey echoed. “Sure, Will is a li’l zesty, but I mean, so are you, at least these last few months. And you’ve been a lot more fun to hang out with.”
“I have?” Patrick looked at Corey quizzically.
“So much more fun than you were on the first Kismet movie,” Corey confirmed.
“And yeah, Will might not be addicted to the gym and eating elk every day,” Hector continued, “but didn’t you see his death drop into a split? Do you know how much strength and flexibility that takes? I mean it, man. Those queens are athletes. The stuff they do is like the Olympics, but they do all of it backward and in heels.”
“Ginger Rogers!” Corey blurted out, clearly thinking he was helping.
“Which season of RuPaul did she win?” Hector asked.
“You watch Drag Race?” Patrick asked, incredulous.
Hector fixed him with the kind of stare he usually reserved for when Patrick crapped out on his tenth burpee.
“Pat.” He squeezed his shoulder. “I am a whole bisexual.”
“Oh.” Patrick stopped in his tracks. “I…I didn’t know.”
Hector simply shrugged. “You never asked.”
He was right, Patrick realized. These two men, these generous, patient, fantastic men, were probably two of the only real friends he had in the world, and he knew next to nothing about them. He’d succeeded in becoming exactly the kind of self-centered asshole he’d always bragged he’d never be.
“I am starting to think,” he said slowly, “that I may have been very stupid.”
“Yes,” said Hector.
“A real dark-sided dumbass,” concurred Corey.
“An absolute gobshite,” Patrick continued.
“I don’t know what that is,” said Corey, “but…sounds like it, yeah.”
“The question now is,” Hector continued, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Patrick said. “It’s over. It’s too late.”
Corey shook his head determinedly.
“What am I always saying?” he asked.
