afternoon…”

“About what?”

“About your sheets…” He started blushing again. “I miss those times. I miss waking up next to you.” He

looked at me helplessly.

“Things are more complicated now,” I said. “It can’t be like it was in New York anymore.”

He looked like he would start crying any minute now. I hugged him and buried my head in his hair. I

wanted to say to him that I missed those times too, that I wanted nothing more other than waking up next to

him forever. I couldn’t say it.

“I’ll try to be a nicer brother to you but I can’t do anymore than that. You understand?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said muffled.

I let go of him. We listened to the rest of the album and then went downstairs. Something had finally

been broken between us.

26. I can’t be like it was

At work we were polite to each other. Dad didn’t even notice that something was different. Brad did,

but probably he thought it wasn’t his place to say anything.

David still came home for Sunday dinners, just like me. Mostly, he only stayed for dinner itself and not

for the rest of the afternoon. We didn’t talk much, only about work.

He didn’t tell me that he was dating another guy. Christine told me that he’d met a guy at the gym and

that he was rushing into things again. He acted like he was head over heels in love again. I didn’t know if

he really felt that way or he only wanted himself and me to believe that this was the real thing.

After dating this new guy for a little over two months he asked if he could bring this guy over on Sunday

to one of our family barbeques. Juliette said yes of course and my dad reluctantly agreed too.

The new guy was already there when I arrived. I recognized him from a conference that I’d been to a

couple of months earlier. So he had to be a lawyer as well. I remember the conversation we’d had. He’d

been a real macho prick when I’d talked to him and I knew the firm that he worked for was close to ours.

He and David apparently worked out at the same gym after work and they’d been checking each other out

lifting weights. How typical.

The guy introduced himself to me as “Josh”. Apparently he had no idea that I’d seen him before.

“We’ve met,” I said. “We talked at a conference in L.A. a couple of months ago. You work for Johnson

& Beecker don’t you?” He looked surprised.

“Yeah I do. You must have a really good memory.”

“You made quite the impression,” I said and I knew that only Christine and David could hear that I was

being sarcastic. Josh lapped up the ‘compliment’ happily. He was sharply dressed and had a stern,

handsome face. He looked a bit like a younger version of dad, which freaked me out a bit.

The guy was all too happy to be talking to dad; I think he was using this opportunity to do a sort of

unofficial job interview. He talked to my dad and Brad all afternoon about court cases he’d won and how

he’d be even better working for another firm. David just listened to their conversation helplessly. I don’t

think this was what he’d imagined the Sunday to be like. Christine came up to me after dinner.

“I feel bad for David,” she said.

“You mean because he’s managed to find another dickhead like this again?”

“He’s so unlucky with his boyfriends,” she said. “This one is going to treat him like shit too, I just know

it.” She wrung her hands.

“He’s a grown man,” I said. “He can date what ever jerk he wants too.”

Christine wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Josh. After David left with him, my dad and Brad were

complaining too.

“I hope he doesn’t bring this one home again,” my dad said.

“I don’t get what David sees in him,” Brad muttered. “That guy is so full of himself.”

David only brought Josh over for two more times. They broke up after four months; as soon as Josh knew

that there was no way in hell that my dad would hire him.

David didn’t pine over Josh long but started seeing another guy soon after that. He never brought this

one home with him. Christine and Brad had a double dinner-date with them on a Saturday evening and

they both disliked this new guy too.

“I don’t get why he always picks out jerks like this,” Christine said. “This one was even worse than

Josh.”

“He was a financial controller,” Brad said. “There was only subject that he loved to talk about more

than ‘money’ and that was himself.”

“I don’t know why David does this to himself,” Christine complained. “He’s only dating guys that he

knows he’s never going to be happy with.” She sighed. “It’s like he want to get dumped.”

After that last guy did dump David after a couple of weeks he didn’t even bother to try to find a decent

guy to be with. I heard from Christine that he was going out a lot and even had lots of one-night stands. I

was worried. It was so out of character for David to just go home with a stranger for a night of mindless

sex. I didn’t want him to get hurt.

He looked like shit too, like he wasn’t sleeping well. There were dark shadows underneath his eyes

and I hadn’t seen him smile in weeks. When he came to the office in the morning he wasn’t focused and

his eyes looked glassy during our meetings. I hated what he was doing to himself. I thought that he was

trying to punish me for saying that things couldn’t be like they’d been in New York for us. I was afraid

that he was ruining himself just to get back at me.

He was working on a pretty important case at that point too. Finally dad had entrusted him with

something big and this was his chance to show dad what he was worth… But then during the court hearing

it turned out that he hadn’t focused enough on a seemingly unimportant detail and he lost the case.

My dad was furious at him. That Sunday over dinner my dad didn’t even want to look at him at first. I

was mad too that he’d screwed up this chance. When we were finishing desert, David said: “I’d better go

home early today.”

“You’d better do that,” my dad said. “You need your rest so that you can focus a little better.” His tone

was vicious.

“What do you mean?” Juliette asked. She clearly hadn’t heard about David losing the case.

“I lost an important case,” David said. “I’m really sorry.”

“Being sorry doesn’t change the fact that you lost,” my dad said. “You should have nailed this case. All

the evidence was there.”

“I did try very hard,” David said. “I’ve been working my ass off.”

“Literally perhaps,” my dad said sarcastically.

“What do you mean?” he shot back.

“It didn’t seem like work was one of your main priorities lately,” my dad said.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dad means that if you spend more time working on the case in stead of other things, you might have

won,” I said.

“Shut up,” Michael,” he spit back and turned to my dad. “I’m sorry I lost but I really don’t think I

could have done more work on this case.”

“If you’d spend more time on this case in stead of fucking around, you would have won,” I snarled.

“You take that back,” David screamed at me.

“Take back what? It’s the truth isn’t it? If you hadn’t been whoring around like a first year student, like

you told Christine, but spend more time concentrating on the case, you would have nailed the

prosecution!” I was yelling too.

“Fuck you,” David yelled back and threw Christine an ugly glance.

“I didn’t say anything like that!” Christine yelled at me.

“Like you don’t tell Michael everything I tell you in confidence,” David yelled at her. “I’m going

home!”

He stood up and pushed over his chair accidentally. It crashed on the floor with a dreadful sound.