One afternoon, Chad stops by wearing Men's Warehouse and a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" button. He takes the button off and tosses it to Sonny. "When are you coming into the city?"
"Thought I'd wait until the weekend to join in on the crazy."
"Dude, it's St. Patrick's. It's literally the weekend right now."
"Not here it's not. See for yourself." He leads Chad into the smoking room, where Eli is up on a ladder patiently working on the plaster.
"Hey, Eli." Chad hooks his thumbs into his pockets, craning his neck. "That's quite some work."
"Sure is. How's Abi?"
"Driving me crazy planning the wedding. Just picked the cake yesterday. And you'd think our lives depended on it whether it had sugar roses or buttercream roses."
"The best thing you can do for something like that is just go along with whatever she likes best, and show up on the actual wedding day."
"You couldn't have told me that before I told her I preferred the buttercream roses, only to find out she'd made up her mind on the sugar roses?" Chad pulls out a bottle of Excedrin. "Got something I can take this with, Sonny? She's giving me such a headache."
Sonny picks up a half drank bottle of water, "So is this you hiding?"
"Just until she calms down." Swallowing the painkillers with the water, Chad walks over the drop cloth. "Did you do these walls yourself, Sonny, or did you hire someone yourself?"
"All me." Delighted, Sonny runs his fingers over the smooth surface of the walls. "Spent three whole days on this room alone." And nights, Sonny thinks, but doesn't say. "I think this color will really make the room look better than wallpaper. Looks so much better with the trim too."
"You're just the Property Brothers and Martha Stewart all at once, aren't you? So what came after that?"
"Library. Still have a few details to work out in here, as well as the kitchen, but library's up on the drawing board for next week. After that, I'm hoping I can start working on outside. Can I have a few of those?"
"Sure." Chad hands over the painkillers, along with the water. "Are your problems work related, or guy related?"
"Sort of both. Come out on the back porch, check out what the workers did with the garden."
"Heard you were Will's escort in a big black limo a few nights ago." Chad says as they move to the back. "Real classy."
"I am classy. It's what I do." Sonny hands the water back, opening the doors to the dining room.
"If you're planning on wooing him, it's a good start."
"I have way more planned than that." Sonny says as Chad drinks the water. "I'm gonna ask him to marry me."
Chad promptly chokes on his water, spitting it everywhere.
"Nice spit take." Sonny jokes. "You can keep the bottle."
"Jesus tapdancing Christ, Sonny. You and Will are getting married?"
"I was thinking of having the wedding here, sometime in the spring. In April, possibly." Sonny scans the back porch, the gardens. He briefly wonders what kind of bird is currently putting on an impromptu concert at the top of its lungs. "Definitely won't be finished by then, but that's part of its charm. Of course, if it takes me longer to get him to say yes, we could always wait till September."
"You don't wait around, do you?"
"Nope. Just a matter of keeping it up." Sonny smiles now as he looks at Chad's still flabbergasted face. "Oh, you meant Will. I haven't asked him. Not yet. If I try now, he's just gonna say no. Check it out, all the flower bulbs are starting to bloom. The workers told me we have peonies, tulips and roses. Underneath all the weeds and vines, probably been staying in bloom all this time. Ain't that the darndest thing?"
"Sonny, you seriously need something stronger than a painkiller."
"I'm not delusional. I'm in love with him. In fact, I think I've loved him long before I even met him. That's why I never let myself get serious about anyone. Not like this. Because he was always right here, and I just had to find him."
"Then I need something stronger."
"Whiskey's in the kitchen, ice in the cooler. New fridge comes tomorrow."
"I'm getting us both a drink."
"Make mine neat." Sonny says absentmindedly. "I've still got work to do today."
Chad comes back with two glasses in hand, taking a long sip of his own as he looks at Sonny's face. "Sonny, you know you're one of my best friends."
"I know I am."
"So I'm gonna talk to you like my brother-- the one I wish I'd had instead of the one I got."
"You think I've gone off the rails."
"Actually, no. In a few instances, hell, in most instances, a guy tends to think with his dick. By the time that leads to thinking with his head, he can usually see the situation for what it really is."
"Thank you, Dad."
Chad just shakes his head, pacing up and down the porch. "Will's a very attractive guy."
"I'm not gonna disagree."
"He just gives off some kind of pheromone or whatever it is, the thing they do to get another gay guy all riled up. All he has to do is breathe on you."
"You're saying I'm just infatuated with him, or just feeling good from lust."
"See? You get it." Chad puts a hand on Sonny's shoulder. "And nobody gay or straight blames you. And don't forget, Sonny, you're still on the rebound from a serious relationship, and knowing your tendency to carry guilt like it's precious cargo, I'm pretty sure you haven't exactly been taking care of your needs since Pablo dumped you."
"His name is Paul, you jackass." Amused and touched, Sonny leans back. "But it's not infatuation or lust. I honestly thought it was, with a side of lust. But it's not that at all. It's not about getting my needs met, and I'm not thinking with my dick. I'm thinking with my heart."
"Oh boy." Chad takes another gulp of his drink. "Sonny, you haven't been down here for two months."
"People keep saying that, like time has anything to do with it." And because the disapproving part of his mind had told him the same exact thing, he's more than irritated to hear it echoed by his best friend. "Where in the law does it say you can't fall for someone until enough time has gone by, all while you two talk, get to know each other, and maybe even have sex to make sure you're compatible? If a law like that exists, and actually works, explain the current divorce rates."
"If the current and former CEO of Titan Industries try to debate this now, we'll be here well into next week."
"Then I'll just say this right here and now. I have never felt anything like this, in my whole life. I didn't think I ever would. I thought something in me was just irreparably broken."
"Jesus, Sonny…"
"I couldn't truly love Paul." The guilt returns to Sonny's voice. "I thought I had, and I tried so hard to. I seriously came so close to settling for secret meetups behind closed doors, never being seen with him in public, and him never coming out, because I thought I was lucky enough to get even that, or give back. But I was wrong. I've never come close to feeling this before, Chad." Sonny says again. "And I love every second of it."
"If you want to be with Will, then I want him for you too. The problem with that, Sonny, regardless of how you feel, you can't know for sure he feels the same way."
"Maybe he's gonna break my heart, but I'll take feeling too much over feeling nothing at all any day of the week." That's what Sonny keeps telling himself, over and over, since he first realized he was in love with Will. "However it pans out, I have to at least try."
He swirls the drink he's yet to touch. "He has no idea what to make of me." Sonny murmurs. "And it's gonna be a thing of beauty to watch him try and figure me out."
Later that night, Sonny hears crying. A man's brokenhearted sobs. Sonny tosses in his sleep, weighed down by the grief, unable to push it away, unable to help or ask for it.
Even when the crying stops, the anguish doesn't leave.
