“Forced may have been the wrong word to use,” Taylor said, sipping his wine. “I’m just of the mind that such things should be up to the states to decide. Not the courts. And Arizona had made its position clear. Repeatedly.”
“Right,” I said. “I can only imagine what it must feel like to be laughed at by everywhere else. Other than Indiana and Texas, of course. That’s good company to have, I guess. Maybe throw some Kentucky in there and you’ve got yourself a party.”
Darren’s grip tightened on my hand and I knew I was close to pushing it too far. The conversation up to this point had been polite, almost overly so, as if any one of us was worried about saying the wrong thing. I didn’t want Darren to regret this, especially if he really did want this chance to make some sort of connection with his father. Maybe I could never understand coming from such a man who seemed as if he could hate you just for being who you were, and maybe I didn’t think that was fair that Darren had to know what that felt like. Especially since we were here with me as his girlfriend, when he should be able to proudly introduce me as his boyfriend. That he didn’t have to hide the person he cared for, that he could be proud of the relationship he had and have his father be excited for him. That he’d be—
Except.
Except even if his father was here for him, happy for him, loving him in the way that every parent should, I wouldn’t be here as his anything.
In fact, if his dad cared about him, the real him, we wouldn’t even need to be doing this.
Because this whole thing was faked.
And for a second there, I’d forgotten that.
And that hurt a little more than I thought it would.
That… was not good. Apparently I wasn’t as Meryl Streep as I thought I was. That was disappointing. The real Meryl would be crushed if she knew. I hoped she’d never find out.
“Maybe we should just drop it,” Darren suggested. “That might be better for everyone.”
“I apologize,” I said before Taylor could speak again. “Obviously we’re not here to talk politics. We’re here because I care about your son and….” And I didn’t know how to finish that. I was stuck on that last part. Because I wasn’t lying. And if I wasn’t lying, then that meant I was telling the truth. And if I was telling the truth, then that meant—
Oh dear god.
No.
No, no, no.
When the fuck had that happened?
Absolutely not.
Taylor was waiting for me to finish. But it soon became obvious I’d swallowed a mouthful of crazy and wasn’t planning on saying anything more given that I was having an internal meltdown. He said, “It can be difficult when one of us is almost entirely political. But such is life, I suppose. We can always agree to disagree.”
“Of course!” I said, my voice much higher than it should have been. My skin felt clammy and hot, and I thought there was a very high chance I was about to get sort of shriekish, which, given that I wasn’t the most masculine person to begin with, tended to be high-pitched. “No more gay talk! In fact, let’s just pray the gay away right now.” Oh, fuck me sideways. “Er. Not what I meant. I think I need to use the room. The big room. The ladies room. Because that’s what I am right now.” I needed to call Paul and I needed to call him right the fuck now because this wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to be an entirely mutual arrangement where I got what I wanted and Darren got… well, he never told me what he got out of this, but I was sure it was something that he’d lord over me later and that was fine. That was perfectly fine. I could deal with that, because that’s what we did. We gave each other shit, we snarked and clawed and annoyed each other and that was it.
But here I was sitting next to him in a skirt, meeting his father, for fuck’s sake, a known goddamn homophobe, dressed like a fucking woman, like I was his son’s girlfriend and what the fuck had I been thinki
ng? I liked him? That was not okay. That was not acceptable. Darren Mayne was a fucking asshole and I hated him. I hated everything about him. Somehow, he’d tricked me into this whole thing, and it was probably part of some elaborate ruse in order to exact a revenge against me for some perceived slight. I was the victim here. I was the wronged. Not Darren. And I despised him. Everyone knew I did. It wasn’t even a secret. I made my disdain known as clear as anything.
I hated him.
Except for the way he was looking at me now, his eyes crinkled in concern, a small frown on his face like he was worried about me, for fuck’s sake. He still held my hand, thumb rubbing over the back, comforting and sweet and—holy Jesus shit. He was either out–Daniel-Day Lewising Daniel Day-Lewis or he was legitimately worried. But that couldn’t be true. Because I remembered the look on his face all those years before. That contempt. That disdain. The sheer disgust at having to talk to someone as beneath him as I was. It wasn’t anything like what it was now, but I knew he was capable of such a thing. I’d seen the pointed snarl to his lips as he looked down upon me. It didn’t matter what he was doing now.
Or, rather, that’s what I tried to tell myself.
“You okay?” Darren asked, and I had to bite my tongue to avoid demanding he feel me up right then and there, regardless of location and present company. I didn’t care that his dad was watching us with increasingly suspicious eyes. In fact, Helena liked the thought of making his dad watch (I never claimed Helena was in her right mind, remember). I tried to remind myself that I was a respectable fucking lady who didn’t need no man, especially not Darren.
“I’m fine,” I managed to say, trying to force myself to pull my hand away from his, but not having the strength to do so (because it felt so damn good). “Just… remembering some stuff. Like. Cake. That I made. In the oven. For church.” Good. Good job. That was good.
“Your church cake,” Darren repeated flatly because he knew I was full of shit. “That’s in the oven.”
“What church do you attend?” Taylor asked.
“The one with Jesus,” I said distractedly. “I need to use the restroom. I’ll be just a moment.” I grabbed my purse and fled the table, probably looking like I was slightly crazy. I asked a waiter where the restrooms were, and he pointed me down a hallway. There was a moment of dread when I realized I couldn’t really go into either set of restrooms without fear of someone seeing something they shouldn’t, but there was a single family restroom on the opposite wall that was unoccupied. I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, trying to take deep, even breaths.
The worst possible thing had happened.