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Damen loosens his grip on the steering wheel as he merges onto the 110, trying to obey the dull drone in his head—eyes on the road, eyes on the road. All seven, congested lanes of it. He could try forcing his way into the far-left lane, but right now, he just doesn’t have it in him to make that kind of effort.
He calls Laurent instead, phone wedged between palm and steering wheel. To the right, the downtown skyscrapers rise like a mirage of dusty metal, tinting, and light.
He’s not sure what he’ll tell Laurent. He’ll probably have to start with what happened. Damen distantly remembers typing so furiously, it was like a channel had sprung up between his mind and his fingers, depositing shock—then disbelief—then dismay—into each text. He can only imagine the typos Laurent had been forced to decipher.
The connection clicks open. Before Damen can talk, Laurent says, “They didn’t believe you.”
Laurent has turned Damen’s text-message avalanche into a shard of a statement, flatly voiced. Hearing the words aloud shouldn’t fill Damen with fresh hurt. Over an hour has passed. More than enough time to stop denying how his family reacted.
“They didn’t believe me,” Damen says. “I said I liked guys, and…” His head starts to pound. On instinct, he tries shaking it off, like the feeling’s an insect, easy to shoo away. “They thought I was joking.”
For weeks, he’d run through worst-case scenarios. Red-faced spluttering from his uncles. Snickering from his younger cousins, insecure and hung up on machismo. Stony disappointment from his gran. He’d steeled himself against these snap reactions. Told himself his family knew him too well to take back their love after learning this one last piece of him.
Now the afternoon is over, and they haven’t learned a thing.
Downtown L.A. seems to solidify as dusk recedes into night. If only the highway were clear, he could stare ahead, mind blank, and speed off toward home. But at this hour, the lanes are incoherent with trucks and cars.
He needs to calm down. All his relatives did was laugh. There are kids whose parents do much worse when they come out. At least his parents understand, even if his extended family don’t.
Through the speaker, Laurent is quiet, but Damen can hear crackling oil, pans scraping the burner, the low murmur of ventilator and flame. Damen is stuffed full with sweet ribs, tamales, and cornbread—and there’s a foil-wrapped plate of leftovers next to him, thanks to his aunt—but the sounds of Laurent making dinner soothe him anyway.
The distance between bumpers starts to widen. Damen takes advantage when he can, accelerating in bursts. “You know what my uncle told me?”
“Nothing GLAAD would approve of, I’m sure.”
Damen halts his car forcefully behind a rust-red Nissan. In the backseat, two grinning children twist and fling their arms to music he cannot hear. “He looked over at me and laughed. And went—Right. Because you’ve always been real girly.”
Laurent makes a noise of disgust. It’s vehement by his standards and makes Damen feel like it’s okay to be mad, to feel hurt. He leans his foot onto the gas pedal. “It’s because they have all these stupid ideas about what gay men are like. I didn’t—dammit—” A car cuts his path; Damen slams the brakes, hand shooting out to catch the leftovers before they catapult off the seat. He inhales, sucking in air until his lungs start to ache. “I didn’t even touch the bi thing. And they still didn’t get it.”
“This was your first attempt.” Laurent’s voice drifts oddly, like he’s moving while talking, but it cuts through the food prep in the background. “You’ll keep trying. They’ll get it eventually. And if not, fuck them.”
“That’s not how it works,” Damen says. The first time Damen had watched Laurent interact with his uncle, he’d nearly protested in horror. “I can’t just drop them. They’re my family.”
“Alright,” Laurent says crisply. “Then you’ll keep trying.”
Getting on the 5 is a relief. To Damen’s right, lights fleck industrial buildings. Dark hills loom from the left. All that remains of the sun is a line of faded orange on the horizon. “I just need some way to convince them.” The freeway goes a steady 30, allowing him space to think. To wonder if he’ll have to act differently for his relatives to get it.
Over the phone comes sounds of swishing liquid, pots plunked on the counter. “The next time you’re invited to a family gathering,” Laurent says, “Perhaps you should waltz in with me on your arm.”
“Seriously?”
There’s a pause in which even the background sounds seem to stop. Damen assumes Laurent is busy adding the final components of his dish—an elegant garnish, or a hit of spice.
Finally, Laurent’s voice returns. “If you’d rather not make such a grand entrance, you could start with incriminating photos. Then send me in for the live finale.”
Laurent’s tone tells him they’re on the same page. Damen knows what it was like for Laurent in high school. He never wants Laurent to deal with that kind of crap again. They’ve been dating for two years, but until Damen knows his family won’t give Laurent shit, he’s making sure they stay far apart.
He senses his body tilting to the left, like it’s being tugged. He’s taken the correct exit by habit. Damen taps the brake. He knows how to compensate for the turn. He’s done so every day for the last four years.
He pulls to a stoplight, where the red light drenches the hood of his car, the windshield, his knuckles. He’s close—so close to where he wants to be, to where he’s wished he could be since those first sounds of laughter. “I’m almost home,” Damen says. He thinks, I’ll figure something out. I will.
* * * * *
The instant he sees his outbox clear, Laurent slams his laptop shut. The force he applies is a little theatrical, but he thinks he’s earned the right. For the last three hours, he’s been stripping investor reports of incriminating financials. Delousing a mutt would have left him feeling cleaner.
His watch reads 9:18am. Ten minutes to get ready, ten minutes to drive over. As long as he focuses, he’ll make it on time. Good thing he doesn’t have much to pack. Mostly because he has little to offer. He’s counting on Damen to supply most of the beach setup.
Laurent whips upstairs, through a kitchen where he’s microwaved all of five meals, past a dining table splayed with issues of the The Economist he’ll never have time to read. Light angles over the guts of his lifeless apartment. A draft moans like a haunting, rising to the high ceilings. It’s harsh coastal wind, blowing through a balcony door that’s refused to slide shut for weeks. Not that Laurent has been around to suffer it.
He hates the apartment. If it weren’t for its proximity to the airport—and Nicaise—he’d never have accepted it from his uncle.
Still, staying here means he can do certain things without fearing judgment from anyone but himself. Things like muttering sunscreen, sunglasses, water bottle en route to the bedroom. Like hopping on his left foot while trying to pull off his sweats, worn in feeble protest against working on a Saturday. Like sucking in a breath when he takes a false step and collides against the vicious edge of the dresser.
The outfit he assembles—sweater, shorts, Panama—isn’t impeccable. It doesn’t need to be. He knows he can pull it off.
From his carry-on he grabs sunscreen, sunglasses, and an RXBar he expensed at the airport last night. When he reaches into the compartment where he always stores his phone, his hand scrabbles air and he remembers: sweatpant pockets. He glances over. The sweats are coiled on the floor. The chagrin he feels at the sight is ridiculous. It’s not like there are witnesses.
He retrieves the phone and lets it rest in his hand. For a pause, he simply looks at the thing, its screen smooth to his palm.
When it’s face-down like this, he can pretend it’s innocuous, a block of circuitry rather than a herald of woe. Because he may have quadruple-checked the reports, but if his team’s feedback isn’t already stewing in his inbox, it will be soon.
He could untether himself altogether. Leave the phone behind.
Of course, by could, he means: yes, that is technically an option. He means: such an act wouldn’t be rejected by physical law. None of that means he’s bold enough, brave enough, give-no-fucks enough to go through with it. He’s no Lazar, glossing over details with blithe unconcern, turning down tasks because he finds them tedious. Screw this job for making him wish he were less competent.
He grips the phone without turning it over—and the fucking thing vibrates, like a cockroach shuddering to life.
Laurent denies the “goddammit” that so desperately wants out.
Had he been decisive enough to turn on Do Not Disturb, he might’ve avoided this purgatorial fate, but no. His hesitation cost him the right to claim ignorance. He’ll be checking the thing eventually, and if it turns out to be an urgent request, well. Damen will understand. Though that won’t stop him from asking whether the prestige of the job is really worth it.
So he doesn’t have the guts to stage a blackout protest. He can at least hold out until he gets to his car. Which makes this nothing more than a temper tantrum, Laurent thinks grimly, even as he shrugs his duffel over his shoulder and pushes the front door open, breaking into the brisk outer world. A temper tantrum—and, he can admit, an attempt to curb his perverse desire to check his phone now. He’s tempted to jog the short distance down the frond-lined walkway. But past the threshold of his apartment, he is measured. He is calm. He has everything under control.
The deep blue of his car is dappled in last night’s rain. Laurent arranges his left hand around the door handle and raises his phone in his right, nonchalant.
It’s a text, manic and shot through with emojis.
FUNDRAISER BRUNCH 
i hate every person here TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS LACOSTE HELL he’s coming for me fuck hes gonna force me in front of evryone again
Laurent never signed up to play guardian to a brasher, mouthier version of his 13-year-old self. Nicaise isn’t his responsibility. He’s already late to the beach. And he’s not dressed for an audience with LA’s political elite.
He’s also wasting time, delaying a decision he made the second he read Nicaise’s text.
Laurent places his things in the backseat, types a message to Damen, and begins the ascent to his uncle’s.