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She had a point there.
“Well, he probably didn’t want it developed?”
He thought of the house, which was a complete shitheap, but had been home for a bunch of university students who couldn’t have afforded anything else. He thought of the flat above the shop that was kept empty, just in case someone needed it. Jimmy might have made good with the properties he’d bought, but it was pretty clear that hadn’t been his motivation. Jesus. Even the sex shop had an entire wall devoted to local charities, events and resources to help those in need. It featured the weirdest community noticeboard Leo had ever seen, with a flyer for Father O’Malley’s soup kitchen next to one called The Queens’ Gamble, which was apparently a clothing exchange—‘DD breastplate wanted!’—for the local drag queens. But it worked. He wondered what his mother would think of the shop wasting all that prime sales space and decided he wouldn’t mention it. The sex shop was a whole other can of worms as far as his parents were concerned. They’d immediately make the assumption that he’d be selling it, and Leo wasn’t sure he wanted to. He liked Wei, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell her she no longer had a job, just like he didn’t want to tell Jack and Harry and Tristan—especially Tristan—that they no longer had a place to live.
Thinking about the sex shop and Tristan had him circling back round to the blowjob Tristan had given him, the one that had left him slackjawed and stunned, and to Tristan himself. What the hell had that been about? Not that Leo had regrets—he’d have to be insane to regret the best sexual experience of his life—but he did wonder where things stood now. Was this like the thing his mother had always warned him about, where drug dealers would inject naïve kids in the arm if they sat in the aisle seat at the movies, just to get them hooked on whatever they were selling? Should he expect a text from Tristan with a schedule of prices and available times now that he’d enjoyed his free sample?
“—unsavoury businesses will have to go, of course. Leo? Are you listening?”
“What? Why?”
Dad swept into the room, a tablet tucked under his arm. “It’s all about the optics. When you’re selling yourself as a provider of upmarket properties and developments, you have to be careful what people might dig up.”
“What people? Who’s digging anything up?”
Mum beamed at him. “Dad’s thinking of making a run for government, aren’t you, Ian? We’ve been in talks with the party brokers—local, or maybe state. We haven’t decided yet.”
“Whichever one, you have to be squeaky clean,” Dad said. “And Jimmy’s knock shop isn’t.”
“It’s not a knock shop,” Leo said, his stomach twisting. “Also, it isn’t your business, Dad. It’s mine.”
“Course it is,” Dad said. “But people don’t care about technicalities when the optics are bad.”
The optics of owning a sex shop. And, of course, going on a date with a sex worker. Yeah, his parents weren’t going to like that at all, were they? This was not the image they were going for. Just because Leo didn’t care about politics, it didn’t mean he didn’t know how they worked. Look at the guy from last election, the one who’d been a sure-fire thing—right until he’d had his entire campaign sunk on the strength of an old photo from uni days of him wearing a Nazi uniform at a fancy-dress party. Leo didn’t think consorting—were he and Tristan consorting? Was that a thing?—with a sex worker and owning a sex shop were going to do his dad any favours at all.
It made annoyance burn and itch under his skin, the idea that even now, as an adult, his life wasn’t his own, especially when he compared it to Tristan’s carefree existence, where he got to have sex and get paid and nobody seemed to give a fuck. Leo envied him, which wasn’t something he’d ever thought he’d say about someone who sold themselves for a living.
Of course, wouldn’t Leo also be selling himself, in a way, if he did what his parents wanted?
It was only one date with Tristan, though, so who’d even find out about it? It wasn’t like he and Tristan would suddenly be in a relationship where Leo would have to not only navigate his own very complicated feelings about Tristan’s sex work—yes, empowerment was great, but was it safe?—but also tell his parents before the local newspaper told them for him, in some lurid headline like ‘Ian Fisher’s Campaign in Tatters as Son’s Gay Hooker Sex Scandal Revealed!’ That was going to make Friday night family dinners incredibly awkward for the next few decades—assuming he was ever allowed back home at all.
No, he was just overthinking it. Going to dinner with Tristan didn’t mean anything at all. They were friends. And, if they weren’t friends, they were at least acquaintances who had things to discuss—like rent, renovations, and not blow jobs.
“So you’re really running for government?” he asked.
“Possibly state!” Mum trilled as she grabbed something from the fridge, and it was pretty clear where her preferences lay. “So it’s in everyone’s best interests if you unload that tatty shop and the house.”
“I’m renovating the house, Mum. People live there.”
Mum waved her hand. “Fine. Put the money from the shop into the terrace house. Once it’s done up, you can sell it for a good amount. It makes financial sense.”
Leo wasn’t sure where the burst of irritation came from, or the urge to argue the point with his mother, but he snapped, “Actually, the shop’s quite profitable. It makes sense to keep it.”
His father pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed out, “The optics, Leo.” Like that was all he needed to say on the matter. Possibly he thought it was.
Leo took a deep breath and reminded himself that even if their worldview differed drastically from his—even more so now he was spending time with Jimmy’s circle of friends—these were his parents, and he loved them…probably. Pasting on a fake smile, he said, “I’ll certainly consider your input when the time comes.” Which was a bullshit answer, and they all knew it, but he wasn’t prepared to have this conversation right now, not until he had the rest of the quotes for the renovations, at least. Maybe his parents were right and selling the shop made sense, but for once in his life, Leo wanted to choose for himself.
His mum puckered her mouth like a cat’s bum at the implied dismissal, but she didn’t say anything, just set down a dish of olives.
“Nothing’s set in stone yet,” Dad cautioned, “so keep it under your hat.”
As if Leo knew anyone who would care that his dad was running for local government or possibly the state legislature. “Okay.”
“It’s very exciting though,” Mum said. “Isn’t it?”
Hugely. Leo could not be more excited. He forced a smile. “Sure.”
“The preselection is almost a dead cert,” Mum said, with a gleam in her eye like she was Dad’s campaign manager. Leo actually pitied whoever got that job and had to try to tell Mum to take a step back. “We’ve been invited to dinner with Lillian Kingsbury next month. The Lillian Kingsbury.”
