—You’re not breaking up with me, Nate says.
Brad stares. At the three dozen roses and the car Nate seems to have jacked from Batman.
—Uh, he says, and then looks at Nate. How grim he looks. And determined, and chilly. Brad just wants to wrap his arms around him, warm him up. It’s been a bad few days, though.
—I’m in love with you, he continues. Not a picture of you, not an idea of you. You. That includes your tendency to fall on your sword and spare everyone else.
Brad is stuck on the first sentence. He glances at his bike and then walks over to Nate. He puts a hand on the silly wool cap he has on, another hand on his hip and examines him.
—Your parents are everything to you, Brad says. He gets that. But his mother won’t ask him to choose.
—Yeah, Nate says. A hopeful smile finds it way to them both.
—And you’re more than that. And then Brad parks his bike in Nate’s shared garage and they get in the car and go to Grandma Patricia’s for the weekend, and it’s all very romantic, and she shows Brad her photographs from when she was an equestrian and a debutante and a war protestors, and they smoke cigars together.
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