Learning-to-Feel (26 page)

"No, no," she said. "Just yourselves."

"Mom, is there anything else?" I asked. She had been acting weird all afternoon. It was as though she tried to keep a lid on her excitement. I’d dropped Bentley off at her house earlier, because Trent and I had a dinner date tonight. I mean, she always loved having her 'grandchild', as she called him. 'Him' being Bentley. And she spoiled him rotten. But it was different today.

"Oh, and Mom," I reminded her, "don’t give him any liver treats. Please.”

I swore I heard her roll her eyes at me. "Yes, Dear. And toast for breakfast. I know this."

I smiled. "Mom, I have to go," I told her. "I have to pick Trent up in forty minutes, and I’m not even showered."

She gasped. "Yes, you go. Don’t be late. Give Trent my love, and we'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Mom," I said to the dial tone.

See? Weird.

I was running short on time, so I raced up the stairs and grabbed a quick shower. I didn’t shave, because I didn’t have time and well, because Trent loved it when I didn’t.

I dressed in the suit pants I knew he liked on me. He said they hugged me in all the right places. I threw on a button down shirt, grabbed my dinner jacket, and when I sat on the sofa to do up my shoes, I noticed how much this apartment had changed.

The differences between then and now were so striking. We only stayed here a few days a month, I still worked two weeks straight, and had four days off, so we still spent every alternating four day weekend here.

When I lived here, before I moved to Belfast – before Trent - there was no trace of a person living here. Despite the furniture, it was just four walls. A shell, basically, a shell of a house for a shell of a man.

Now, four years later, it was our second home. There were paintings on the walls, photos of friends and family, my neatly organized books and Trent's piles of crap. It was
our
home.

Love lived here.

I smiled as I walked out, locking the door behind me.

Tonight's plan was for me to pick Trent up from his gallery, and we’d head out to dinner. That’s right,
his gallery.

Late last year when the opportunity came up, he made the decision to do it, and he'd never looked back.

Successful? Yeah, you could say that.

He’d worked so hard for it. His credit and reputation was well merited. He’d worked the last few days getting an exhibition organized for Montreal, that’s what he’d been doing today, and I had about five minutes to get there to pick him up for the dinner reservations he’d made.

This weekend, we'd been together four years.

Four years.

Four amazing, hard, crazy, sometimes-fucking-trying years.

The best four of my life.

I knew everything about him, as he did me. His faults, his strengths, his weaknesses. And he knew mine. He wasn’t the angry, scared man he was when I met him. He still had the sexy, flirty sense of humor, but he no longer used it as a defence mechanism.

And sweet fucking Jesus, he got better looking every year he aged.

When we went suit shopping for Adam and Dani's wedding, good Lord, I almost died when he tried on the grey suit. And then he came out in the black one.

Fuck me.

Needless to say, we bought both suits.

I smiled as I recalled the fun we had trying those suits on again at home. And taking them off.

He had gotten another tattoo. The solitary star on his hip, was now two stars. One for him, one for me, he'd said. And the two black stars looked striking against undone black suit pants and no shirt. He wore the black suit to Adam and Dani's wedding. We had fun taking it off that night too.

Traffic into the city was heavy. Stuck at a red light, I pulled out my phone and sent Trent a quick text letting him know I was on my way.

Two months ago we’d gone back to Texas. It was the fifteen year anniversary of his parent's death, and the first time he'd been back since he'd left all those years ago. We spent a long afternoon at the cemetery. Trent told me stories of his childhood, like what his Momma taught him and what things he did that made his Daddy shake his head. The things he did, the things he got busted doing, and the things he did and got away with.

He'd ummed and ahhed about seeing his aunt and uncle again. But he bit the bullet and contacted them, they were after all, his only living relatives.

He was nervous on the way to meeting them. Considering they'd rejected him out when he needed them the most, I was a little unsure as to how we'd be received, too.

But holding his head high, he walked into their home, holding my hand.

The reception was lukewarm at best. When his Aunt Carolyn clucked her Southern tongue and said, "I see this nancy-boy nonsense is still going on," I worried that the infamous Trent Jamieson temper would flare.

But it didn't.

He simply stood up, smiled and said, "Momma would be appalled at your manners. Gramma raised you better."

And we left.

He told me when we left, he understood now. He really,
really
understood now, his family isn't in Texas.

It was in Belfast and Boston.

My memories took me as far as Jackson Avenue, where I pulled up in the alley behind the gallery. I took the fire escape stairs to the upstairs office, knowing the gallery downstairs would be locked and alarmed.

I used my keys, and hurriedly let myself in, trying to get out of the rain. "Trent?" I called out, once I stepped inside. "Sorry I’m late," I explained, even though I couldn’t see him. "Traffic was terrible."

He appeared from around the doorway. He smiled beautifully. Nervously...

"Hey," I said, gauging his reaction to seeing me. "You almost ready? It’s already 7:30. We're late. My fault, sorry."

He shook his head. "No, it’s fine," he said quietly.

"Oh. Did you phone the restaurant and tell them we'll be late?"

He shook his head and inhaled and exhaled deeply.

"Trent, what's up?"

He held out his hand. "Come with me."

Okay, well now I was confused. And anxious.

He took me past his office door and down the darkened stairs to the gallery below us. Maybe he had done something new he wanted to show me, which was odd, because the display room lighting didn't seem to be on.

The gallery itself consisted of two rooms, both about twelve feet by eighteen feet, high ceilings and wooden floors. We walked down the stairs into the first room. The blinds were drawn, the only light coming from a candle, in the middle of the room, on a table set for two.

"Oh, Trent," my words were a whisper.

"Happy anniversary, Baby."

He smiled at me and let go of my hand. He nervously wiped his palms on his pants and quickly pulled out my chair. I walked over to the table, and kissed his cheek before I sat down.

The table was covered with my favourite food. "Mrs. Lin did this?" I asked.

He grinned at me, and took his seat. "I had them deliver... "

"And saki?"

He chuckled and nodded. "The very best."

"Oh, Trent," I murmured. "It’s perfect."

He exhaled loudly, relieved. "I wanted it to be just right."

I couldn’t believe how just right it was. "You must have had this planned for a while."

He nodded and swallowed thickly. "A while."

He was still nervous, so I reassured him. "This is absolutely perfect."

His eyebrows knitted together. He looked unsure, so I nodded. "I love you, Trent. This is perfect."

He grinned and turned his attention to the food on the table. Sashimi, gyoza, tempura domburi, it was all here. Trent poured two shot glasses of saki and held the first glass over the flame of the candle, warming it, before he handed it to me.

I waited for him to warm his drink and clinked my glass to his. "To us."

"Yes," he smiled. "To us."

As we ate, I told him I dropped Bentley off at Mom and Dad's, and how Mom acted a little strange.

"Oh, really?" he looked at me, startled. "What did she say?"

"Nothing really," I admitted, swallowing my mouthful. "Just excited. More excited than usual about having Bentley for the night."

Trent smiled. "And of course, lunch tomorrow."

This surprised me. "How did you know we were invited for lunch tomorrow?"

His eyes widened, just a fraction. "Oh, your Mom called by this afternoon," he said quickly. "You know she loves it here."

That was funny. I’d spoken to her twice today, and she never mentioned that she’d been here.

"Did she know you were going to surprise me with dinner?" I asked. "Is that why she was all excited and told me not to be late?"

He smiled. "Yeah, probably."

I rolled my eyes. My boyfriend and my mother, were as thick as thieves. I laughed quietly, pushing my empty plate away. "You two are as bad as each other."

"Have you had enough to eat?" he asked.

"I have, thank you," I told him. I saw he hadn't eaten a great deal, so I asked him suggestively, "Have you? Or did you have something else planned?"

He puffed his cheeks out, back to being nervous. "I do actually."

Oh.

"What is it?"

He blinked and breathed out shakily. Before I could question him, he stood. He took my hand again, walked me toward the back room, and I saw it was softly lit. But he stopped as we got to the door. He didn't say a word. He just looked at me. I opened my mouth to ask him what's going on, but he stepped inside the room. He still held my hand and led me in.

All the paintings that were on the walls were now gone.

In the centre, toward the back wall was an easel holding a square painting.

I looked at Trent, and he was so nervous he even looked a little pale. I walked toward the painting. He obviously wanted me to see it.

"Is this new?" I asked. He hadn’t told me he was painting something new.

He smiled. "Yes."

"Is it for me?" I asked. "Is this an anniversary gift?"

He nodded, but shrugged a little. "Do you like it?"

I looked back at the painting. It was so different from anything he had done before. It was predominately metallics and silver, glittery, but somehow like a flat base metal. The principal shapes were circular, with a spinning effect.

It was extremely well done. I’d never seen anything like it.

"Trent, it’s... it’s extraordinary."

His brow pinched again, like I answered wrong.

I tried again. "It’s so different from your other work. It’s remarkable." I looked from Trent back to the painting. "What does it mean?"

His voice was quiet. "You tell me."

Oh. Even after all this time, I still sucked at this game.

I started with the product it represented. "It’s elemental. The metal, it’s a raw material. From the earth?"

His lips twisted into half a smile.

See? I really sucked at this game.

He opened his mouth, but closed it again, obviously deciding on a different thing to say. "Tell me what you see."

"Silver. Metal. Wheels, turning wheels." Yes, that’s it. Now in the mind of Trent, what would that mean? "Motion. Wheels in motion."

He smiled, but shook his head. "No, baby."

I looked back at the painting and started again. Two wheels, spinning. No, he said that was wrong.

Trent stood behind me and rested his forehead on my shoulder. "Come on, baby. You can do this," he whispered. "What do you see?"

Circles.

Two joined circles. Metal circles, but they were not wheels. They were almost interlinked and looked like the symbol for eternity. Yes, the symbol for eternity! That’s it! It was...

Oh, fuck.

Eternity.

Two circles.

But they were not circles.

They were rings.

Oh, fuck.

I turned to face him, and he saw that I’d finally got it.

"Trent," my voice didn't work, my lungs had no air.

He nodded.

"Is that... ?"

He nodded.

Oh, fuck.

"Two rings?"

He nodded.

"Are you... "

He nodded. "Will you?"

I nodded.

And he crushed me in his arms, he held me so tight, kissing my neck, my ear and my hair. "Oh, baby," he said into my neck. Then he pulled my face back and brought our foreheads together, his eyes were a piercing a blue. "Will you? Marry me?"

I nodded again. "Yes. Yes, yes, God yes."

He kissed me with smiling lips and tears in his eyes.

"I love you, Trent Jamieson. Of course, I'll marry you."

He laughed, relieved and ecstatic. His face was just beaming. I imagined it matched mine.

Oh, my God. I was getting married...

"I’m getting married!" I said, rather stupidly.

"So am I!" he laughed. I tried to kiss him, deeper this time, but I was smiling too much.

He held my face against his, cheek to cheek. "Nathan Tierney," he said my name, reverently. "Thank you."

Thank you? "What are you thanking me for?"

"For everything," he said, his eyes brimming with tears. "For saying yes. For loving me. For teaching me how to feel, how to love, how to live."

Oh, Trent.

"For making me believe in myself, for giving me a family, your family."

"They’re your family too," I corrected him.

He smiled, and his tears fell. "For making me be the man you deserve."

I kissed him then, our lips and noses crushed together, my tears mixed with his. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I could have told him, what he meant to me, how much I adored him, how much he completed me, how he’d made me whole.

But I didn’t. Instead I told him, "It would be an honor to marry you."

His hands held my face to his and he nodded. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," he mumbled again and again.

He folded his arms around me, his hand at the back of my neck, holding me so close. So fucking close. I might have been holding onto him just as tight.

We stood like that for the longest time. Yet nowhere near long enough. He pulled away from me and looked down between us. "So... " then he smiled coyly. "We'll be in Montreal in four weeks... "

Like usual, Trent had lined up the opening of the exhibition with my four days off. I nodded, "We will be."