A New Friendship Grows

Three hours had passed from the moment Eric and I entered Autumn’s for dinner. Three Hours! I couldn’t believe it! I’ve never had a meal that took that long to get through. The nice thing about it though was that it gave me a chance to get to know Eric a lot better; he was no longer just ‘Mike’s boyfriend’ to me.

“You were kidding back at the apartment, when you said that I would be the ‘first woman you’ve taken out for any kind of date, ever’. Right?” I inquired just after the waiter brought bruschetta and calamari fritti to our table. Since Eric had been to the restaurant often, I decided to trust him and let him do all the ordering for me.

“No,” he smiled at me. “I was 16 when I came out to my family; I had never been on a date before that I just knew that I wasn’t feeling what I should for the opposite sex.” I asked him how his family took it and his smile disappeared. “They didn’t want to talk about it; they would pretend that everything was normal, that I was just ‘confused’.”

“A year after I came out, my parents came home early from some event they were attending. They caught me making out with my ‘friend’, they freaked out, and the next day they kicked me out of the house.”

“I stayed with my grandmother until I finished high school and moved here to go to college. The rest of my family hadn’t talked to me since that night, 17 years ago.”

“You haven’t talked to your family in 17 years?” I couldn’t even imagine not speaking to Zack or Chad for that long, we were way to close for that.

“They didn’t want anything to do with me; they made that very clear the day they told me to leave. When I lived with my grandmother, they wouldn’t come over to visit her or even call, they didn’t want to see me. My grandmother wasn’t allowed to even mention me if she did see them.”

“It doesn’t bother you that you don’t talk to them?”

He shrugged, “It didn’t, I was angry for the longest time but last year, just before Christmas I had to swallow my pride and deal with them again.”

“Why? What happened?”

“A long time friend of my grandmother called me up to tell me that my grandmother had fallen ill and she wasn’t getting any better; she was asking to see me, she knew she was dying.”

“At first, I didn’t want to go back there; I didn’t want to see my family again or to watch my grandmother die. I kept putting it off, telling myself that she would be fine. One day I came home from work, Mike was waiting for me, we were supposed to go out to a show or something but he had packed my bags. He told me that my grandmother’s friend had called, begging him to convince me to go visit her. I told him I couldn’t go, he called me a coward and accused me of being ashamed of who I am. I told him he didn’t have any room to talk, since he hadn’t been home since he told everyone either. We ended up getting into a huge fight.”

“But you gave in, you went to see them.”

“Yeah, I did. I told Mike if I was going, he was going with me.”

“Did he?”

Eric nodded, “Yeah he did. We were going to stay in a hotel but my grandmother insisted that we stay at the house, even though the rest of the family hated it at first.” When I asked what changed their minds, he told me Mike did. “There’s something about him that just puts people at ease. He charmed my family, by the time we left, it was like the last 17 years of silence hadn’t happened. On the day we left, five days after grandma died, my mom invited both of us back for Christmas, Mike told her that we would love too but we couldn’t, we were going to his parents for Christmas.”

I frowned, “But you guys weren’t there at Christmas.”

“No, Mike got cold feet as the day we were going to leave approached.” Eric told me that they fought once again, this time he was the one who accused Mike of being ashamed of who he was. “I called him a hypocrite; he didn’t like that too much.”

I didn’t think he would. “So you went home with Mike and got to meet his parents, I can’t say I envied you.”

Eric’s eyes went wide as he took a sip from his wine glass. “That was the strangest thing ever, meeting John and Harriet, they were friendly but I couldn’t help but feel that they blamed me for Mike being gay. It wasn’t until I met Nick and Jordan at dinner New Years Eve, that I felt at ease. And you,” he chuckled. “You were something else! I heard all about you from the guys, Jordan especially, he couldn’t stop talking about you.” He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “You really made me feel welcome, and embarrassed.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “I tend to do that.” I rested my chin on my free hand and gazed at him. “Mike was really happy that night, the smile on his face and the excited tone in his voice; they were all because of you. It was the first time I ever saw Mike like that.”

Eric sighed.

“Eric,” I squeezed his hand. “You will get that back, I know you will. Whatever is going on, you and Mike will work through it.”

“I hope so,” he muttered, his attention now on the food that the waiter was placing in front of us.

The rest of dinner Eric told me more about his family and the work he was doing. By the time we finished dessert, he had an admirer in me, and I knew now why Mike was drawn to him. He was smart, funny and extremely generous. Not to mention, he was good looking.

“So what are we doing to do now?” I asked as he returned his pen to his pocket and pushed the closed bill folder towards the end of the table.

“I just want to go home and relax,” he told me as we stood to leave.

But ten minutes later, after we walked into a dark, empty apartment, he changed his mind. “I suddenly feel like going out,” he told me as he headed down the hall towards his room. “Do you want to go to the club with me?”

“As in dancing and drinking?” I called after him, he said ‘yes’. “Oh hell ya!” I exclaimed, it had been a long time since I had been in a bar…club…whatever you want to call it.

While he was in his room, I went into the bathroom with my overnight bag that Jordan took from Josh’s place when he picked me up. I changed into a pair of black pants and a dark brown top, applied a little make up and fixed my hair.

I came out of the bathroom, Eric’s door was still closed, so I headed out to the living room to give Josh a quick call since he asked me too before I left that morning. When his voice mail cut in, I was a little surprised, it was almost 10. Well, he’s probably already in bed, I thought as the ‘beep’ came over the line.

“Hey honey, so as you might have guessed, it looks like we are staying here tonight. I was really hoping to talk to you for a couple minutes, today has been a long one, it went from being good – waking up with you – to bad and then to horrible. But now it’s back to being good. I’m getting ready to head out to a club with Eric – he promised me dancing! I’m excited!” I noticed that Eric was now in the living room with me. “Well I guess I have to go now, I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you Josh.”

“Got his voice mail,” I told Eric as I flipped my cell closed.

“I did too,” he told me. “When I called Mike just now.”

When Eric and I left the apartment, he didn’t seem like he was really in the mood to go out but when I mentioned it, he told me that he needed to get out. “I called a cab,” he told me when he led me to the lobby instead of the underground parking.

The closer we got to the club, the more Eric seemed to relax. By the time we were standing in line at the doors of the club, he was joking around, telling me that he would have to ‘protect’ me from all the male attention I would receive.

“What are you talking about?” I laughed, “It’s not like they’ll find me all that attractive!” He asked me why not. “Well, I don’t think I’m their type, now am I?”

Eric seemed a little confused, and then a light came on. “Anna this isn’t a gay bar.”

“It’s not?”

“No,” he laughed. “Of course, I can understand why you think it would be since it is Mike’s favorite place but it’s not. It’s a regular bar that’s a little more open to all people than most.”

I felt really stupid. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“You shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “But I think it’s interesting that you would willing go to what you thought was a gay bar.”

Shrugging, I told him I was actually looking forward to it. “It’s not everyday that I get a chance to step outside my comfort zone and experience something a little different.”

Eric smiled, “I’m glad that you are open minded, a lot of people aren’t. It’s frustrating.” We were finally up to the doors; Eric turned to the woman in the coat check/ticket purchase room and pulled out his wallet to pay the cover change when a shadow fell over us. I almost peed myself when I looked up, way up, to find a scary looking man, dressed in all black with the word ‘Security’ stretched across his massive chest, staring down at me. “Ohhh,” I took a step back, kind of pulling Eric in front of me.

“Anna what are you…?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, hello Rock,” he addressed the man as if he weren’t so scary looking.

“Hey man,” Rock turned his attention to Eric. His eyes flicked back to me for a brief second before returning to Eric. “Is Mike working tonight? I didn’t see him.”

“No, he’s spending the night hanging out with his brothers; they came to town this morning.” Eric reached back and pulled me out from behind him. “Anna is my date tonight,” he said with a smile as he led me pass a confused Rock into the dark crowded room beyond.

I had the best time with Eric that night. We had a few drinks, toasted to having fun without our boyfriends and danced like there was no tomorrow. The only time that we weren’t having fun was just before we left, a slick, greasy looking guy came over to Eric and the whole time he was talking, Eric looked like he wanted to deck the guy.

On the cab right home, I asked Eric about the guy. “That isn’t even worth talking about,” he snapped.

“Ok,” I was going to let it go, I didn’t want another guy not talking to me.

“He wants Mike!” Eric exclaimed a minute later. “He has no chance in hell with Mike but it doesn’t stop him from trying to get him to go home with him when he’s at the bar.” He sighed, slumping in the seat. “He thinks it is fun to put me down and tell me what Mike needs. Like I don’t know what Mike needs!” Eric turned to me. “I’m his boyfriend, I know what my guy needs and it sure isn’t a sleazy bastard like Danny.” I told him that he was right; he did know Mike better than anyone else right now. That seemed to make him feel better.

It was ten to one by the time Eric and I made our way up to his apartment. We were laughing about something that happened as he slipped his key into the lock. “Shhh,” he tried to stop laughing as he swung the door open.

“Stop making –” We stopped dead in our tracks as we saw both Jordan and Mike standing with their arms crossed over their chests, glaring at us. I turned to Eric, he looked at me. We cracked up. They didn’t find it amusing; Mike rolled his eyes, spun on his heel and disappeared into the living room. Jordan stood there for a second longer, making sure that we knew he wasn’t impressed before he followed his brother into the living room.

I stopped laughing, turned to watch Eric lean against the door as he closed it. “Ohhh,” I giggled. “We are in trouble now.”

It wasn’t funny but we cracked up again anyhow; we were drunker than we thought.