Coda Books 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (MM)

boyfriend?”
    I debated how to answer that. “Not exactly.”
    “So it was a one night stand?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the disgust in his voice.
    “Which would offend you least, Dad?” I asked, fighting to keep my irritation in check. “Hearing that he was a one-night hook-up or hearing that I was in a relationship with him?”
    He looked down at the table, and I could see the shame on his face. He wasn’t ashamed of me. He was ashamed of himself. He tried very hard to be understanding of my homosexuality. Sometimes he succeeded. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. He looked back up at me.
    “Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”
    “The truth,” I told him, “is somewhere in between.”
    He sighed. “I suppose it usually is.” He didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so I went in the kitchen and started the coffee brewing, then came back out with napkins. He took a donut out and handed the bag to me across the table. “Are you seeing anybody else?” he asked. He was once again avoiding my gaze, looking only at the tabletop.
    “No. There’s only him right now.”
    “Jon, I know you’re an adult—”
    “I’m glad you noticed.”
    “—and it’s none of my business—”
    “You’re right about that.”
    “—but I just hope you’re being careful.”
    That wasn’t what I was expecting, and it quelled my anger in a hurry. It took me a moment to respond. “Don’t worry, Dad,” I finally said, and he smiled.
    “Okay,” he said with obvious relief. “So, how about that coffee?”

    THE following Friday I was working at the office when I received a message that Marcus needed to talk to me. I found him in his office, finishing off a greasy hamburger and fries. “Marcus? You wanted to see me?”
    “I did! Come in, Jon. Close the door.” I sat across from him and waited for him to throw away the remains of his lunch. It still smelled like fast food in his office. “Jon,” he finally said, “I wanted to talk to you about the restructuring.”
    “Restructuring?” I asked stupidly. Of course, Marcus had told me back in May that our CEO was considering something like that, but after five months with no further mention of it, I had assumed that it wasn’t going to happen. Now that it was coming up again, I found myself dreading the idea.
    “Monty wants to go through with it. It won’t actually go into effect for a few more months. There are other things that need to be put into place first. But I wanted you to know that it’s definitely coming down the line.”
    “Meaning that I’ll have to relocate?”
    “Probably. I’m not sure yet how we’ll decide who gets which territory, but I wanted to meet with each of you and find out if you have a preference.”
    “What were they again?”
    “Arizona. San Diego, LA, San Francisco. Vegas, Colorado, and Utah.”
    “Well, obviously my first choice is Arizona.” But I also had to assume that was everybody’s first choice.
    “What about the rest?”
    What about the rest? Anywhere in California was acceptable to me. I knew my way around Vegas, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to live there. The idea of Utah scared me. And Colorado? Well, Colorado was a whole different issue.
    Colorado was where I had gone to college. Colorado was where I had met Zach and spent three years loving him. Colorado was where I left him and spent another year of my life waiting for him to come back to me. And Colorado was where he still lived to this day, with his new partner—the partner he loved more than he had ever loved me.
    I knew it was foolish, but the thought of going back was unbearable. Yes, it was a big state. If I moved there for work, I would undoubtedly be living in Denver. Zach and Angelo lived in the mountains now. Chances of me seeing them at all were almost non- existent. On the other hand, chances of me running into them while in Vegas were probably equally slim, and yet, it had still happened.
    The fact remained that, right or wrong, logical or not, moving back to Colorado would feel like a step in the wrong direction. It was linked in my mind in every way possible to my life with Zach, and it was a life I was never getting back. Somehow, being in a different state, I could accept that he had moved on. But if I were there, knowing that he was only an hour away, I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep my mind off of him. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to stop myself from seeking him out. It would be selfish and