“Well, if it isn’t Mr. I-don’t-do-public-holidays,” I exclaim as soon as Brian plants himself on a stool in front of me. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I ask, noticing the lack of his designer suit. He’s wearing his black leather jacket and faded-blue jeans instead.
“I took today and tomorrow off,” he responds.
“Since when?” I’m always afraid that boy will become the next Mr. Scrooge and get acquainted with the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Of course, knowing Brian he’d probably just have an orgy with all three of them instead of learning a lesson or two.
“Since Vance got something even bigger up his ass.”
“Your dick?” I smirk as I put a cup in front of him.
“He should be so lucky.” He scoffs. “And I wouldn’t fuck him if he paid me.”
“He does pay you,” I point out.
And of course he gets all defensive. “No, he doesn’t. I’m a partner in the firm. I pay myself. Which is precisely why I’m NOT working right now.” With a satisfied smirk on his face he picks up his cup and takes a sip.
“Oh, that’s very mature, Brian. Throw a fit,” I’m in a mother-mode now. He worked too damn hard to get where he is to act like a two-year old. Gus seems to be more mature than his father.
“I did NOT throw a fit. He wanted everybody to work all weekend to get ready for the fucking holiday season. And I kindly let him know that there was no chance in hell I was going to spend the weekend working my ass off while he puts on another ten pounds in front of a fireplace somewhere in the goddamn mountains. Besides, we couldn’t very well ask our employees to spend their whole weekend in the office instead of getting puking drunk and watching football, now could we?”
“And what did he have to say to that?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t stick around to find out, since I let everybody go early yesterday.”
“You what?”
“You know, told them to start getting into the holiday spirit a little earlier,” he smirks again.
I can’t help but snicker at that. “You? Holliday spirit? Jesus. The world IS coming to an end.”
He sticks out his tongue at me. Little asshole. “I didn’t say I was,” he says and takes anther sip of his coffee.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. So, are you bringing your boyfriend tonight?” That was as good time as any to bring THAT up. And it’s better to blindside him, so he doesn’t have time to prepare himself.
But when he spits out his coffee and starts swearing like there’s no tomorrow because he burned his mouth I wonder maybe I should have waited a little. Finally, he settles down and just stares at me like I’m crazy, which I probably am for even considering that Michael’s right about this. But I HAVE noticed changes in Brian as well lately.
“My what?” he finally asks, arching an eyebrow.
“Your new boyfriend,” I repeat even though we both know that he heard me the first time.
He snorts, shaking his head and takes another sip from the cup, very carefully this time.
“Well?” I look at him, expectantly. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for Brian to bring his new whatever-that-guy-is tonight with Sunshine there. Maybe I should have waited until Christmas, since Justin’s going to be out of the country. But maybe if Justin sees that Brian’s moved on, he’ll make more of an effort to let it go as well. And I don’t mean the kind of effort he’s been putting in all this time, dating all those guys. I mean, really let go of the idea of the two of them getting back together and try to build something with somebody else. Oh, they both act like there was never anything between them and they’ve got others fooled. But not me. I know them both too well. They’re still raw and bleeding inside. And I know this will kill Sunshine, but I promised myself the moment I saw Justin walk out of Babylon with that boy that I wouldn’t take sides and I’m not going to now.
“Your son has a big mouth and absolutely no idea what he’s talking about,” Brian finally says.
I hold his stare. He should know by now that his little strides at making people think what he wants them to think don’t work on me. He might be Rage, but I’m immune to his powers.
He gets up and throws a couple of bucks on the counter.
“Don’t be…” I call after him.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he waves me off.
“And bring HIM.”
He turns around, with a smirk, then shakes his head again and heads out. And I KNOW that Michael was right. Brian Kinney has a boyfriend.
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