(Maybe) Chapter 2
Not entirely unexpectedly, Leonard popped into the comic book store on Tuesday at lunchtime. Stuart had been curious if the lunch time visits would continue, given the awkward pause they'd had at the gallery. Coming out to people tended to fall into a couple of well-defined groups, generally unsurprised and supportive people, who then tried to fix him up with all the wrong people, people who were basically indifferent, people who thought there was no such thing as bisexuals and it was all a ploy to get head from as many people as possible, people who were worried that you were hitting on them, and then the small minority who either told him he just needed to meet the right girl, or stomped off for fear of catching the gayness.
"Hey," Leonard said. "I brought you another loaf of sourdough, if you want. Sheldon's feeding his yeast colony some new imported barley, and it's sort of exploding. Metaphorically."
"Thanks," Stuart said. "The last one was really good." It wasn't so different from any other sourdough he'd had, but it was a nice gesture, and even if things were looking up financially, Stuart wasn't one to turn down free food.
"I'm sorry I left on such a weird note at the show," Leonard said. "It probably came off really badly, I just didn't want Sheldon to cause a scene and it looked like it was headed that way."
"No, it's fine. I didn't really want to have that conversation there anyway."
Leonard nodded. "So you … date guys and girls? How does that work? Do you alternate back and forth, or like, date one person of each gender?"
"Um…" Stuart raised an eyebrow. Seriously, who says things like that? "Well, lately I don't really date anyone. But also no. To all of the above. Just … no."
"That's um, well, I mean … good for you." Stuart stared at Leonard uncomfortably shifting his weight from one foot to the other, wishing he could fast forward to the end of this conversation. "I didn't want you to think I was judging you or anything, I just didn't know."
"It's not something that usually comes up in comic book sales," Stuart said
"Right! Exactly! Anyway, enjoy your bread, and I'll um, I'll see you around!" Leonard left without even a cursory glance at comics. Stuart shook his head. Not awkward at all.
*
Looking at his quarterly tax statement, Stuart decided it was time to stop working on Mondays, sales were up enough to have Dale in one full day a week, in addition to random half days when Stuart had other things to do. Monday was still his slowest day, and it seemed like a good way to ease Dale into more hours.
Stuart settled down at his desk to work on his newest project, a manga inspired book about the Civil War being written by a friend of a friend, when he realized he'd left his good pencil box at work the previous day. He rooted around in a couple of other boxes, found a crappy #2, and decided to head over to the store and pick it up. It couldn't hurt to make sure that Dale hadn't burned it down or sold off the entire inventory of vintage comics at face value.
He walked in and bumped into Leonard, walking out.
"Hey, Dale said you weren't working today," Leonard said.
"I'm not, I just came to pick up something I left yesterday," Stuart said, as Leonard followed him back into the store.
"Bossman!" Dale greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey Dale, did I leave a blue pencil box behind the counter?"
Dale started poking around on the shelf next to the printer. Stuart turned back to Leonard. "Find what you were looking for today?"
"Oh, yeah, another plush toy for my brother's baby. They said their dog got ahold of the last one." Stuart wondered if he should tell Leonard that was usually a cover story.
"I don't see any pencil box back here," Dale chimed in.
Stuart frowned, "I wonder where I left it, I can't find it anywhere, and I was using it here yesterday."
"Is it the one on top of the microwave in the back room?"
"Huh?" Stuart looked confused.
"There's a blue box on top of the microwave. But you asked if there was one behind the counter."
Stuart gave him a vexed smile, wondering if there was some new small business version of "Punked!" That he was going to be featured on, and headed to the back room. Leonard followed him.
"I was hoping we could talk," Leonard said quietly, hoping to be out of earshot of Dale.
"About what?" Stuart asked, dropping the pencil box in his backpack and heading for the door.
"Um …" Leonard stammered until they were outside again, "I feel like it's been kinda weird lately." Stuart shrugged, it was true, but seemed rude to point out.
"Do you want to get a cup of coffee?" Stuart offered. He hadn't planned to stay out, much less buy overpriced coffee at the shop across the street, but Leonard had been extra fidgety lately, and it seemed worthwhile to find out what was bothering him.
They settled into a booth in the back. Leonard silently stared at his cup for a minute, like he was suddenly unsure of what to say now that he had a chance to say it. Stuart decided to jump in.
"So what's up with you? You've been a little weird since finding out I have an ex-boyfriend."
"No I haven't!" That got Leonard to look up.
"Yes you have. What's up with that? Because if this is going to be a conversation about how you're cool with it, I've heard it, and frankly I'd rather you just act cool with it, instead of tell me, but act all jumpy."
"I just don't know a lot of other guys who are relaxed about dating guys and girls. And I hate to say that Sheldon is rubbing off on me, but I guess I'm kind of used to rigidly defined roles for everyone, so when you went out with girls I just figured you were straight, and then you … weren't, and I just don't know anyone who's so relaxed about saying ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend in the same sentence. If I tried to say I had a boyfriend in college to anyone I know, I'd get a million questions…" he stared at his cup, clearly hoping Stuart picked up on the implication of the last line.
Stuart nodded. "You never know. They might just get all jumpy around you." Leonard looked up, and Stuart smiled and winked to make sure Leonard picked up on the joke. Leonard relaxed his shoulders and smiled back.
"Would you maybe wanna get some coffee sometime?" Leonard asked, apparently forgetting where they were.
"We’re having coffee now."
"Right. What about a movie? There's an indie theater doing a screening of some old Superman movies on Saturday. We could catch a late show, after the store closes and maybe dinner?"
"Just to be clear, you mean like a date, right? Because your friend Raj asked me if I wanted to go dancing with him, and it turns out he did not mean as a date, and that was a little strange. Less strange than it's been with you, but still strange."
"Yeah, a date. I mean, I haven't been on date with a guy in a while. Movie and dinner still qualifies as a date, right?"
"As far as I know it does," Stuart said, "Unless they changed the rules. But I guess we're both still using the old edition of the rule book, so it should fine." He wondered if the joke sounded as lame out loud as it did as he was saying it. "It'll be fun," he added.
*
Leonard drove Stuart home after the movie. They parked outside and sat for a minute, not saying anything.
"This was fun," Leonard said, finally.
"Yeah," Stuart agreed. In all it had been one of his better dates. Work had gone fairly well (usually if he had plans for after work the day would be crap, and he'd be exhausted start dozing off the minute he sat down), dinner was good (no awkward surprises about Leonard only eating kale and ginger), the movie was good for a first date (unlike the time he'd taken a date to see Flawless and then found out she was trans). Even the vegan fro-yo place that Stuart suggested after the movie (remembering what Leonard said about the cheese tray), they agreed sucked.
"Maybe we should do it again?" Leonard fiddled with his keychain, avoiding eye contact.
"Do um, do you want to come upstairs for a cup of tea?" Stuart offered. He immediately second guessed himself. He didn't want the date to end, he could have kept talking to Leonard for hours. But he didn't want Leonard to think he necessarily wanted sex tonight. Not that he didn't want sex tonight, but crap, did he have condoms? Were they going to do things that necessitated condoms?
"Yeah, tea is nice." Leonard's voice snapped him back to attention.
Upstairs, while Stuart plugged in the electric kettle, Leonard started flipping through some of drawings on Stuart's desk and wall.
"Is this the book you're doing for your friend? The Civil War book?" he asked, holding up a page of stylized Union and Confederate leaders.
"Yeah. I just finished it this morning. I think it's going to be pretty cool. If it works out, she has a colleague who may want to do one on WWI. Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade my computer before then, and it will go a little faster."
"That sounds awesome. Depressing and all, but awesome that you're getting work and all. Good for you."
"Thanks," Stuart fiddled with a box of teabags. Not the accolades for minor crap again. He'd graduated top of his class from art school, his career shouldn't just be taking off when he was closing in on 40. Even if he'd taken a hiatus for a while. Dozens of less talented classmates had won awards by now…
"Are you doing anything for any galleries?" Leonard's voice snapped him out of the vicious cycle of comparing himself to others.
"Not right now. I was flipping through some of my old sketchbooks, and found a couple of things I might work on when I've got some time. Maybe if the comic store picks up a little more, and I can bring in Dale twice a week, instead of just once a week."
The kettle interrupted them. Stuart turned back to get the mugs, and Leonard settled on Stuart's desk chair. There were only two chairs in the apartment, a desk chair at the drawing table, and a barstool at the kitchen counter.
"What's this one?" Leonard held up Stuart's newest sketchbook, opened to a page with an ethereal castle surrounded by a maze.
"Oh, that was sort of a dream I had, and I thought it might be an interesting concept piece. It's not my usual style, but seemed like it could be fun to play around with. You know, how some people write down their dreams? It's like that, but with water colors."
"What kind of fucked up dreams do you have?" Leonard asked, flipping through the pages, past the fish-dragons and vertigo-inducing drop from a tower.
"I had some pretty fucked up dreams for the two weeks I spent on Cymbalta," Stuart started. "One of the many fun side effects."
"Oh. Well, that has to be fun, being less depressed and getting creative ideas," Leonard said, seeming unsure of what to say. Ah, mental health issues, the only thing more awkward than surprise bisexuality. Maybe he could find a way to work in dead grandparent stories, to really round things out.
"It would have been, if it hadn't also made me feel like my skin was melting off my face and leaving me too tired to work on anything when I got home."
Leonard looked confused.
"It's been a little bit of a hassle," Stuart explained, handing Leonard a mug, and fiddling with the tag on his tea in his own cup. "My first shrink put me on Zoloft, which was sort of helping, but then he killed himself. Then I got a new doctor who gave me a couple of weeks of Cymbalta, to see if that would work better, and I had like every side effect listed and a few that weren't listed. So then she switched me to Lexapro, and that seems to be working pretty well."
Leonard nodded. Stuart wondered if this was oversharing. Leonard started babbling about his mom's research in neurotransmitters and quoting offhand statistics about anti-depressants. Eventually the conversation segued back to Stuart, what his parents did, where he'd grown up, what he'd wanted to be when he grew up… The mugs empty they finally looked at the clock, it was after 2 AM.
"I should go," Leonard said, toying with his mug.
"Yeah. I have to be at work tomorrow," Stuart said, walking Leonard to the door. The awkwardness kicked back in, and they stood in silence for several seconds, when Leonard hesitantly kissed Stuart. It started chastely enough, and Stuart found himself deepening the kiss, parting his lips slightly, dropping a hand to the small of Leonard's back and pulling him in closer. They parted, a little breathless and leaned forehead to forehead, taking in the moment.
"Right. Um. Going." Leonard said. He opened the door and turned back to Stuart, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of Stuart's neck and pulled him in for another kiss. Leonard pulled back sooner the second time.
"Bye," Stuart whispered, smiling, as Leonard stepped out into the hallway. He started to second guess himself, should he have invited Leonard to stay the night. They were really clicking, and he wanted to see where it would go, and his past relationships that started with sex rarely worked out. He leaned against the door for a minute, wondering if Leonard was thinking the same thing, if there'd be a sudden knock on the door. A minute later he could hear the car start from the open window in the kitchen.
*
Stuart should have known that the movie was going to suck when the film fest organizers were handing out free drinks before the movie, not even opting to wait for the glad handing reception and Q-and-A afterword. True to form, very few people stuck around, and eventually Leonard, Stuart, and a bottle of wine sat on terrace watching the cars whiz by below.
"That was a horrible movie," Leonard laughed. "I'm never letting you pick the movie again."
"I can't help it! The art director was my housemate in college! I think I'm contractually obligated to support her legit career after the time I accidentally insulted the porn she was directing. And accidentally got her pregnant. There for a while she said I owed her, for ruining her life."
"Wait, you have a kid?" Leonard did a spit take and turned sideways to face Stuart.
"Not really," Stuart leaned back against the bench and avoiding eye contact. "I mean, biologically I guess. But we arranged for an adoption. Besides, you've donated sperm, it's basically the same thing. Except my donation method was, without doubt, a hell of a lot more fun."
Leonard looked absolutely terrified. "What if he just shows up one day?"
"Been there," Stuart smirked. "She stopped by the store one day. Howard hit on her, so you were probably there, too. It was the most troubling thing I've seen in my entire life. But I think she expected me to be a lot more interesting. I kinda doubt she'll be back."
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Los Angeles | Chapter 2 | Providence | Chapter 3 | Oakland | Chapter 4 | Alhambra | Chapter 5 | Epilogue