Coda Books 04 - Strawberries for Dessert (MM)

formality. It felt wrong, and it made me sad. It was as if the eight months we had been seeing each other had never been and we were little more than strangers.
    After breakfast, he showered, and I sat on my bed watching him while he shaved and got dressed. He was silent the entire time, watching me with wary eyes, but finally he turned to me with a dramatic sigh. “Good lord, love. Stop sulking and say whatever it is you want to say.”
    His brusqueness made me smile. “Cole, I need to know….” I trailed off, not knowing how to ask the question that was in my heart.
    Not knowing if he would answer or if I would want to hear it if he did.
    “You need to know what , love?”
    I couldn’t even look at him when I said it for fear that I would see only mockery in his eyes. I looked down at the floor between my feet instead. “I need to know what will happen to us if I move.”
    He didn’t answer at first. We were frozen there, unmoving, for what felt like a painfully long time. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I watched his bare feet instead. It was completely quiet in the room, and the silence seemed to stretch on forever. I started to debate telling him to forget I had even asked. But finally he walked over to me, and I felt his featherlight touch on the back of my head, his fingers weaving into my hair. It was such an unusual thing for him to touch me casually, and I found that there was a lump in my throat. “I don’t know, love,” he said.
    “The only thing I know for sure is I live here. Vegas and Utah are both easy trips. But Phoenix is my home.”
    I looked up at him, hoping to see something in his eyes that would help, but he had his walls firmly in place. I could see nothing through them. “Do you want me to stay?”
    “Please don’t try to make this about me. Whether you go or stay, it needs to be what you want.”
    “You’re not helping. Tell me what you want.”
    “I want you to choose what feels right.” He took his hand from my hair and moved across the room, away from me, like he always did.
    “I can’t help you, Jonny. You have to figure this out on your own.”

    I HAD a lunch date with my father, and although I invited Cole, he declined. I met my dad at the restaurant. He talked about basketball and about taking me to a game in a week or two if I was in town. He talked about having to wait three weeks to see his doctor and how the barber he had been using for the last ten years had retired and about the fact that his office wanted him to take a vacation, but he didn’t know where to go. And all the while, I was thinking about Vegas.
    It took me a while to get up enough courage to say the words. I was pretty sure that I had never said them before. Certainly not since turning sixteen. “Dad,” I finally said, interrupting his monologue about whether or not he should join a health club. “I need your advice.”
    He stared at me for a moment, completely dumbfounded.
    “Really?” he said at last in amused surprise. “Is the apocalypse upon us?”
    I had to smile a little at that. “Not as far as I know.”
    “Thank goodness. I’m hoping to have sex at least one more time in my life.”
    What the hell? My father had never, ever mentioned his own sex life to me before, and I felt myself blush. I stormed ahead before he could mention it again. “I’ve told you that my company might be restructuring. It took them months to get it together, but it’s down to the wire now, and I have to decide what to do.”
    “What are your choices?”
    “I can move. I have my choice of Utah or Vegas.” I didn’t even mention Colorado. “Or I can stay and accept a demotion.”
    “Utah or Vegas? That’s not much of a choice.”
    “I know.”
    “It’s simple, Jon. Do you want to move?”
    “No.”
    “Then don’t.”
    My whole life, and he boiled it down to one question? It just wasn’t that easy. “I’ve worked so hard, Dad,” I explained. “I’ve been with this company for nine years now. I worked myself up from the ground floor. Do you really think I should let them demote me?”
    “It’s not ‘letting’ them do anything, Jon. It’s your decision.” He was quiet for a moment, watching me, waiting for me to respond, but I didn’t know what to say. I felt exhausted and beaten. I wished I could go home and crawl into bed and sleep until it was all over.
    “Jon,” he said at last, “it seems to me your choice boils down to this: your happiness or your pride. You can let your