Vincent's Thanksgiving Date (7 page)

“It’s a day to be thankful.” Cory pronounced carefully, perhaps edging past tipsy toward drunk. He had also been up early for work that day. Vincent had somehow forgotten that. Cory was truly exhausted and Vincent had given him
wine
.

“Would you like some coffee? Or tea? I have many teas to choose from.” Vincent hesitated, then went to heat some water for tea anyway. They would both need the caffeine boost.

“You are a very nice person, Vincent,” Cory told him, sinking further into his couch. “I’m glad to finally know you.”

“I…” Vincent trailed off, because what was there to say to that? “It’s just tea. Oolong? Darjeeling?”

“Oh, honey, whatever is fine.” Cory was
not
asking for honey in his tea. This time he definitely called Vincent that name. He might call everyone that. Vincent’s blushes didn’t seem to care.

Vincent put his hands to his face but doubted he looked composed when he glanced back. “You’re nice too,” he confessed shyly. “Most people would have lost patience with me by now.”

“One more thing to be grateful for then,” Cory murmured. He ducked his head, then twisted himself around to put his wineglass on the coffee table before returning to his backwards position, where he continued to watch Vincent. “What else was there this year?”

“Well.” Vincent thought about it while he got clean mugs out. “I made enough in royalties to add more to my retirement account, although Tayl—my business friends tell me it’s still too small. At work, we applied for and received a grant. One of my nephews got a new, better hearing aid. And I haven’t embarrassed myself around you enough yet to run you off.” He chose Darjeeling after staring blankly at the box for a while. “Of course, you haven’t read my books.”

Cory was silent for so long Vincent lifted his head. Cory had his eyes closed and was smiling to himself. “Hmm.” He opened his eyes before Vincent could pretend he hadn’t been staring at him. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you own your books like that. Ricky really likes them, you know. He doesn’t read a lot but he’s read all of them. Be proud. Even if they’re terrible, which I seriously doubt, they’re
your
terrible books. I couldn’t make a terrible book if I tried. … I might be buzzed.” He drew his eyebrows together. “But I think you know what I mean.”

“I wasn’t trying to get you drunk!” Vincent protested and was happy the kettle began to whistle. He turned to finish making the tea.

He could practically hear the delighted grin in Cory’s voice. “Tomorrow is going to be great. You know what I’m thankful for?”

Vincent shook his head, then focused on bringing the steaming hot mug over to Cory.

Cory accepted it with two hands, then held Vincent’s gaze. “That I’ve got a job I like that pays the bills, even if it’s not earth-shattering. That I’ve got friends to spend the day with me when I thought I might end up alone. And, that after a year and a half, I find out that you are exactly as sweet as you look.”

The tiny amount of wine Vincent had swallowed would not have rendered him this flushed and dizzy. He made a noise, a croaking sort of denial, then drew in a breath and stared down. “I, no, I’m not… sweet really. I only want people to be happy. I… I should probably lay off the wine until the pies are done. It’s going to be a long day and you already think I’m strange enough, I bet.”

“You don’t have to kid me.” Cory was speaking absolute nonsense as far as Vincent could tell. “You don’t have to act like I don’t mean it. You can’t possibly not realize that I….” Cory went quiet for a worrying amount time. When he finally spoke, his voice was once again level. “Vincent, I have something to ask you later. But not right now. Not when I’ve had a drink on an empty stomach. I bet you won’t think I’m serious.” He blew on his tea and took a cautious sip although it hadn’t seeped for very long. “I should probably go before I get messy drunk and ruin your good image of me.” His momentary pauses were more intimidating when Vincent realized they indicated Cory was considering something and probably adjusting his plans. Cory went still. “Is that why?”

“Is that why, what?” Vincent wondered, struck by Cory’s surprised expression.

“Is that why you hurry off so quickly?” Cory was too smart. Vincent froze in very real terror, his heart racing, but Cory only blew on his tea again, almost absentmindedly. “I’ll be talking to you, and everything will be going all right, I think, but then you bolt. I used to think it was me. Then Ricky said you were notoriously attention-shy. But it’s more than shyness. That’s what you were trying to tell me before, weren’t you? It’s, um, anxiety, right? How much do you overthink everything, Vincent?”

“Too much,” Vincent confessed in a rush. The beast had been named; there was no point in denying it. “Everything. All the time.” Moving in fits and starts, rethinking decisions after they’d been made and mucking up situations worse with his second-guessing, that was his life. “It doesn’t leave a good impression.”

“It didn’t leave a bad one. Not to me.” Cory toyed with the string on the teabag but continued to hold Vincent’s gaze. “You’re trying not to do the wrong thing.”

If Vincent was a braver man, he would say, “With you.” And then Cory would pause in confusion, and Vincent would gaze at him significantly and add, “I don’t want to do the wrong thing
with you
.” But Vincent wasn’t a braver man. So he finally shrugged, letting that stand in for the crap he couldn’t say because it made him sound barely functional. “That’s why I got the frozen pie crust too. In case I mess up. I want it to turn out all right. You wouldn’t want a burnt pie crust.”

“That’s just good planning.” Cory managed to make pie crust anxiety sound normal. Maybe it was. After all, what did Vincent know about pie? “But, Vin, you should stay, some time.”

“What?” Vincent had lost track of the conversation somewhere around the time Cory reached out to touch his arm. Cory’s hand was hot from holding the mug of tea.

“Stick around instead of running off, see what happens.” Cory’s melting eyes had Vincent captivated. “I might sound glib but I’m serious. Good or bad, you learn a lot that way.”

Vincent could barely breathe. “About what?”

Cory had a shrug of his own for that, but it was more tense than relaxed. “Other people. Yourself. I spent every holiday with my family for a long time. Long enough to learn that they love me because they knew me as a kid, but as an adult, they only tolerate me. They joke a lot, mean jokes, Vin, cruel jokes. They don’t think they’re being cruel, but they drag me to meet girls, over and over again. That’s not respecting who I am.” He released a long breath. “I learned what I can take, and what I won’t stand for, and who I’d rather spend a day off with.”

His hand was warm and solid on Vincent’s arm.

Vincent gaped at him.

He was suddenly nervous and dry-mouthed, and Cory might have been too. He removed his hand and took a huge, probably scalding, swallow of tea, then made a strangled noise. But he kept the mug in his hand as he rose to his feet. “I forgot to ask if you were coming over tomorrow.” He took another sip, slower this time, with his eyes on the mug. “You are, aren’t you?”

Cory blew on his tea some more, then took another swallow. Maybe he figured his taste buds were already gone or he liked his tea hot. Or maybe he was nervously avoiding Vincent’s eye. “I won’t leave you alone with strangers, I promise.”

That effectively stopped Vincent from reminding him he didn’t do well with new people. He thought of that pretty little room, so much more casual than a dining room. But a group of strangers…. For some reason, Vincent remembered his tea. He’d left it on the counter. How strange. But he’d been so eager to get closer to Cory again. He always was. Now he could do something about it. “I could…. I could stop by. Your friends wouldn’t mind?” He had no idea what he was doing. There was no way this was going to end well.

But Cory’s relieved grin made him feel like a hero. “Bring them pie and you could show up with Republicans and they wouldn’t care.”

“That can’t be true.” Vincent was too familiar with the pauses in conversation that he couldn’t fill, or couldn’t seem to fill right. He answered too fast, then too slowly. He’d get looks. He’d gotten those looks since he was a kid and he’d say something so incredibly gay. First, the adults stared, and then the other kids had started to as well. If it wasn’t that, that uncertain, judgmental pause he’d come to dread, it was how he wasn’t loud and confident. It was his mother reminding him that a strong boy wasn’t afraid of taking the lead. He was supposed to be outgoing. Successful people, successful men, were supposed to be, but Vincent wasn’t. Vincent didn’t mind people how they were, but they always seemed to mind how he was. “They’ll think I’m weird.
You’ll
think--” Vincent stopped himself a second too late.

There would be no hiding it, in that small of a space, around that many new people. Not even with a pill, although Ativan and wine together wasn’t a good idea anyway. Perhaps if he only took half a pill, like he had for his job interview, Cory wouldn’t completely see his every social failure.

“Weird? Vin, honey, you haven’t met my friends. They don’t know what weird is. That’s the point of this Thanksgiving for us.” Cory reached out, then seemed to rethink it and pulled his hand back. “It’s going to be us, being ourselves, doing what we want.”

“You still can’t actually want me there.” Maybe this was pity, Vincent worried. Cory had heard that phone call with Judith. He’d known Vincent would be pathetically alone on Thanksgiving and he wanted to offer him a place to go. Cory was a good man, thoughtful. Maybe he knew someone else with anxiety issues and had known that he’d have to work Vincent up to the idea—which was admittedly a lot for one stranger to go through for another stranger unless Cory was in the habit of rescuing people.

Perhaps he was setting Vincent up with someone. His friend Ricky seemed a likely candidate. It wasn’t as if Cory had seen Vincent around the complex and decided that the awkward, chubby, bespectacled loner in 220 was his kind of adorable. Vincent generally wasn’t anyone’s kind of adorable. Once in a while he attracted men who were into bears, but when they realized he wasn’t gruff or stern, or they got a load of his many issues, they hit the road. Vincent understood. It probably took a particular sort of person to desire a fucked-up cuddle bear of their very own.

“I invited you, didn’t I?” Cory could make his warm gaze harden to iron. Vincent gulped. Cory worked his jaw. “I’ve already got my family refusing to understand what I want, Vincent. I don’t need it from you too.” Vincent imagined there was an alarmed look on his face, because Cory tossed his head and briefly closed his eyes. Then he began again. “I’m inviting you to dinner tomorrow because I think you should be there. Would you like to come?”

His gentle voice after that hint of hurt and anger was almost painful. Vincent shivered and knew this was going to go one of two ways: he said yes and he humiliated himself all day tomorrow, or he said no, and humiliated himself right now and every day after that when he ran into Cory. There would be no way to impress Cory if he went. Cory would see how Vincent was around others. But chickening out wasn’t going to do the job either.

Vincent wished his monumental act of bravery was the kind of courage and daring that people noticed, and not the very normal act of attending a small party. He wished he could explain in some meaningful way the amount of strength it would require for him to talk to that many strangers for a long period of time. He wanted Cory to know he would do these things for him.

But all he said was, “Can I… can I leave if I’m uncomfortable?”

He was sweating, waiting for Cory to smile again. And then Cory did. “Of course. I’m not kidnapping you.” He leaned in, so close Cory’s eyes went even wider. He seemed to notice Cory’s tension. “That was a joke, Vin.”

Obviously it was a joke. Vincent’s nerves simply couldn’t handle humor right now. He nodded, a quick, jerky motion, and inhaled the tea on Cory’s breath.

“And if you’re too nervous, it’s okay. I mean,” Cory sighed, “I’ll be disappointed. But I’ll get it.”

But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t know Vincent had already convinced himself he had to do it. He was still talking and stepping slowly, gracefully, toward the door.

“I’m nervous too. Sure, if it doesn’t work out, I can make my guests something else to eat. No one will starve. But I’m still freaking out. Hey.” He drank more of his tea, then put the mug down on the counter because Vincent wasn’t moving. “Hey, if something is terrible tomorrow at dinner, lie to me. I don’t like to lie, but you can shield my feelings all you like.”

“Everything will be fine.” From the other side, irrational fear sounded as stupid as it felt. Vincent was less sympathetic than he probably should have been, but he’d already seen evidence of how talented and competent Cory was.

“You’re lying right now, aren’t you? I’d laugh, but oh my lord, I’m serving dinner to my best friends tomorrow. Thanksgiving dinner!” Cory marched toward the couch and coffee table, where he grabbed his wine and tossed it back. Then he straightened his shoulders. “I can do this. Millions go through this every year. I can do this.” He meant it. He was genuinely worried.

“You can do this?” Vincent tried to be supportive when he realized, then noticed his uncertain tone. He cleared his throat. “You can do this. We can do this.” He caught himself. “Not that we are together—working together. But we’re both doing something new.”