A knock at the door. Either Maisie had forgotten her phone—which seemed unlikely given it was practically an appendage—or there were no shaded seats left for brunch and Clara was returning the kids to his care. Or, possibly, it was Grant's grape juice arriving too little, too late. (He had to stop giving that kid *carte blanche* to order room service.) Patrick tightened his robe, pressing the cold compress he'd made firmly against his throbbing head, then opened the door and instinctively stepped aside to let either Maisie or the room attendant in.
Except it wasn't room service standing there with an unwanted pitcher of juice, nor was it his niece or nephew. It was someone else—someone who took his breath away.
"It's you."
"Is that an accusation or surprise?" Emory asked with a wry smirk. His hair was longer than Patrick had ever seen it, flopping perfectly over one eye. Patrick couldn't tell if it grew that way naturally or was the result of a three-hundred-dollar cut.
"How?"
"You may have heard of a new invention called the airplane? New York to Milan, then I rented a car. I got here as fast as I could." No one had ever looked this handsome after a long red-eye flight.
"Why?"
"Are we going to do this one word at a time?" Emory looked past Patrick into the room, perhaps checking for Maisie and Grant, or perhaps to ensure Patrick wasn't with anyone else. "The kids said you needed me. And given that you have a compress stuck to your head, I'd say they were right."
"When?" Patrick asked, wondering how much Emory had heard about the disaster at the rehearsal dinner the night before.
"Honestly, the monosyllabic routine is getting old." Emory's smile betrayed his annoyance. "They called me yesterday morning. What can I say? I was on the next flight."
Patrick didn't have the energy to decipher whether yesterday morning in New York—or wherever Emory had been—came before or after the calamitous events of last night. But none of that mattered. Without a thought, he gripped Emory and held him as tight as he could recall ever doing. After a moment that lasted perhaps a beat too long for Patrick's liking, he felt Emory's long arms embrace him back.
"Are you going to invite me in?" Patrick glanced down, noticing two bags at Emory's feet.
He answered unintelligibly, his words muffled against his ex's shoulder. Realizing his response wasn't clear, Patrick crouched down to grab Emory's bags, his robe slipping open again in the process. He caught Emory staring.
Feeling sheepish, Patrick set the bags next to the bed, as there was limited floor space, and fumbled with his robe's tie. "We had a trainer on set. I guess I've become a bit of a gym rat." Emory helped Patrick secure the robe, cinching it playfully tight. Still nervous and out of sorts with Emory standing so close, Patrick added, "That means I go to the gym after midnight and eat their garbage."
Emory laughed, much to Patrick's delight—it was a much-needed icebreaker.
"Would you look at this," Emory said, turning his attention to the room. Out of his ex's sightline, Patrick allowed his knees to buckle.
"It's small," Patrick said apologetically, regaining his footing. When Palmina had stopped by his room earlier to check on Maisie, he was haunted by her upturned nose. She had said his room was *piccola*.
"Small," Emory repeated, rolling his eyes. "You can never just appreciate what you have." It was a pointed observation, and not the least bit about the room. His eyes passed the side of the bed where Maisie had slept; two pillows lay side by side, and both had been used.
"Maisie," Patrick explained. "Maisie spent the night." Patrick hoped it registered with Emory that Patrick did appreciate what he once had—that there was no one else in his life, at least not romantically—but if it did, Emory made no mention.
"So where are they now?"
Patrick looked around, as if unsure.
"The kids, I mean."
"Oh. Clara and Palmina took them down to brunch."
"Palmina?"
"Livia's sister. She's their launt." Patrick looked up at the ceiling. "Or, was going to be."
"Launt... Lesbian aunt?" Emory's lips fluttered. "There's no such thing."
"That's what I said!" Patrick exclaimed, relieved to finally have backup. "And yet this hotel is crawling with them. Lesbians, not launts, since that's not a thing. The whole fourth floor is like a road company of *The Vagina Monologues*. You should see them all with their snide looks and remarks." Patrick grunted his frustration. "They get my testosterone roiling."
Emory's face soured. "Well, try not to get any on people."
"Emory."
"Oh, like you've never made snide remarks."
Patrick flopped onto the bed, guilty. Emory knew him too well to believe him a victim.
He leaned over Patrick and straightened the compress on his forehead. "My perfect invalid."
Patrick smiled because he called Patrick *his*. "You shouldn't call people invalids. It's ableist."
"Says who?"
"Someone named Audrey Buckets, I think? I wasn't really listening."
"Big surprise." Emory continued his tour out onto the balcony. His silhouette against the bright water and distant mountains made for a perfect, romantic tableau.
After they were quiet for a moment, Patrick inquired, "They just called you yesterday?" which overlapped with Emory asking, "Was going to be?"
Emory turned and the two stared at each other, drinking in every detail. This time, Emory spoke first. "Yesterday. I told you. Early."
"And that gave you enough time...?"
"It's six hours earlier in New York."
"Right." With Patrick having been in Europe as long as he had, Emory could have told him it was both yesterday and tomorrow in the States and Patrick would have believed him.
"Is the wedding off, Patrick?"
"Huh?"
"You said Palmina was going to be their launt."
"Oh." Patrick scanned the lake for signs of Greg and Livia's boat; he imagined they would return with crucial, up-to-the-minute information he was currently missing. He turned back to look at Emory, whose eyes were as blue as the lake. In his head, Patrick had carved this image of Emory as boyish, but the person before him was very much a man. Not just his deep-set eyes, or the cut of his jaw, although they both played a part. It wasn't the few days' growth on his chin or the very first hints of graying at his temples. It was because he was someone who cared deeply, someone with obligations who would drop everything to help a loved one in need. Maisie, yes. Grant, obviously. But maybe—just maybe—Patrick, too.
"What?" Emory asked, uncomfortable but not withering under Patrick's stare.
"You look older than I remember."
"I just took the red-eye, asshole. And navigated a car rental agency in a language I don't speak to race straight to be by your side. I'm sorry I'm not refreshed."
This was coming out all wrong. "No, I mean older than when we first met."
Emory chuckled. "Time isn't standing still, Patrick, not for any of us." He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his hand against Patrick's cheek. The warmth of his palm caused tears to well in Patrick's eyes. "And yet somehow you figured out how to get better with age."
Patrick had never in his life felt more foolish. So convinced was he that Emory would lose interest with the years, it had never occurred to him that his love for Patrick might grow.
"What?" Emory asked, not understanding Patrick's sudden emotion.
Patrick wasn't yet able to form coherent thoughts. "You stayed in touch with the kids," he finally said, expressing his disbelief.
Emory play-slapped his cheek. "I wasn't just in a relationship with you, you dolt. I had a relationship with your whole family. That means Greg and Clara, too."
Patrick braced himself, thinking Emory might tell him that he and Clara met twice a week for coed pickleball, but he could only cross one bridge at a time. "That's very sweet, but they're growing up, you know. They're not all young and cuddly like they once were."
"Greg and Clara?" Emory joked.
"Maisie is a young woman now, and Grant—Grant takes long showers. God knows what he's doing in there."
Emory was unfazed. "You take long showers."
"No, I mean *looooong* showers."
Emory shot him a look.
"I have to exfoliate! I'm not a caveperson."
"You shouldn't use the word caveperson. It's ableist."
"How is it ableist?"
"You're able to live outside of caves."
"Isn't that classist?" Patrick sunk his head deeper into the pillow, hoping he could disappear. "You know what? This isn't about me, and it's certainly not about cavepeople or Audrey Buckets."
"No one is named Audrey Buckets."
"This is about the kids not being kids so much anymore." It was like having a small dog. When a dachshund wanted to go the wrong way you could just pick the thing up and redirect it. Now it was like Patrick was herding two Saint Bernards.
Emory rolled over Patrick to flop on the bed beside him. "Isn't it great?"
Patrick furrowed his brow. *Is it?*
"They're growing up and getting really interesting. Maisie always wants to talk about books she's reading. Her head is filled with ideas and it's so fun to see her reconcile them with her worldview. And Grant, he's no longer Maisie's tagalong, you know? He's his own little man with his own desires and needs. My favorite is when they disagree."
"I haven't noticed that so much."
"Really? They remind me of you and Clara and Greg."
There was a time not long ago when Patrick would not have thought this a good thing. But he and his siblings had become close over the past couple of years. Part out of necessity, but part because they were—at the core—his oldest friends.
Emory continued. "This is a time to know them better, not pull away. All the hard work that went into raising them? It's paying off in great dividends."
It was the second time Emory expressed aging as a virtue.
"They're less charmed by me than they used to be."
Emory laughed, but avoided saying *Aren't we all*. He fluffed Maisie's pillow with a few well-placed thwacks and together they leaned back to stare out the open doors at the water.
"Some lake, huh?" Patrick asked. And then he said the name in Italian. "Lago di Como."
"Remember Vegas?"
Patrick said that he did, as he was just recounting that trip to Grant. "Maisie got annoyed with me just now when I inadvertently suggested Greg getting remarried was the end of her grief over losing her mom."
"That doesn't sound like you." Indeed the observation was clumsy.
"I meant the end of the beginning." Patrick groaned, wishing he could have the conversation over again, but she was resilient. She would forgive him. "I was so young when I lost Joe. Not Maisie young, but still young."
Emory rolled his head to look at Patrick and he gently took his hand. It had been a long time since they had talked about Joe's accident.
"Trauma like that stays such a part of you. It changes your DNA. And yet I survived it. In part because I was young. So I know Maisie will be okay."
"Then who are you so worried about?"
Patrick remained very still. It sounded almost selfish to admit. "Me. The pendulum has swung, and I'm terrified of loss when I'm old. That because of our age difference, you will eventually lose interest and walk away." Patrick looked first down at his hand in Emory's, then he rolled his head, too, so that their noses were almost touching. His heart began beating faster. "And I'm not sure I would survive that."
"Have I given you any indication that I was going anywhere?"
Patrick tried his best to hide his face, his nose mushing into the pillow.
"Have I done anything other than fall more in love with you with each passing year? As ridiculous as you are?"
Patrick whispered, "No."
"Then what are we going to do about that?"
"I have work to do. On myself."
"Clearly." It was a little stab to Patrick's heart. Then Emory mussed his hair. "But. Don't we all."
Patrick took the deepest breath he could muster, like oxygen might bring him clarity. "Are you saying you would consider getting back together?" It was an honest question; in the moment Patrick felt so unworthy.
Half of Emory's face was lost in a pillow, his good side, Emory would say. But this other side was pretty perfect, too. "I hate to break it to you. But I don't think we were ever really apart."
Patrick grinned broadly. Emory had been staying in his apartment. But then his expression just as quickly flattened. "I was with someone named Pip," he blurted. It was best to have these things in the open.
"Pip?" Emory stared at him for a moment in a way that was hard to read. Patrick could hear a boat's motor cutting through the lake. "Is that short for something?"
Patrick bit the inside of his cheek. Pippin? Pip pip hooray? Emory wasn't the type to get jealous over the occasional Pip. It was emotional fidelity that had always been more of his thing. But Patrick wanted to start this new chapter as cleanly and honestly as possible. "But I don't think we were ever really apart, either."
Emory nuzzled into Patrick's chest.
"You don't think this is a terrible idea? Us getting back together, I mean."
"I do," Emory said, and Patrick's stomach dropped. But then he rolled on top of Patrick, grabbed the collar of his robe and smiled that winsome Emory smile. "But aren't terrible ideas always the best?"
They kissed deeply, and slowly Patrick pushed Emory off him, and they wrestled playfully until Patrick's wet compress fell on Emory's face with a perfect plop that made them both laugh. Emory brushed it aside and they continued their passionate embrace, Emory undoing Patrick's robe with one hand while unzipping his own pants with the other. Just as they were about to hit a point of no return, they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Emory froze. Was Patrick expecting anyone else?
"That would be a pitcher of grape juice." Patrick then laughed, picturing the Kool-Aid Man giving a polite knock before bursting through the door.
Emory laughed, too, but for a different reason. "I see you spared no expense welcoming me back."