Dinner

512 Gap Filler


It's Brian/Justin/Jen because it's long past due for me to show Jennifer Taylor love.

This is for Bethany, my busy college girl whose idea this absolutely was before I absolutely stole it.

*********

When she asks him to dinner it puts rocks in his gut that rumble around and make him feel uneasy for the entire week. It’s the way she asks that has him wondering.

She calls his office, as if this is business.

“Brian, it’s Jen. Hello. I was wondering…um…are you busy Thursday night? Yes this Thursday night. Around 7? I would like you to meet me for dinner. No, no, just you and I. Well I wouldn’t ask you not to tell him. Yes, you understand. I just…I would like to talk to you. It would mean a lot.”

And so he says yes, figures there isn’t another answer to give, though he ordinarily wouldn’t even entertain the idea. Seems he finds himself doing nothing he normally would these days. Love fucks you up in that way, or so he’s discovered.

**

“Hey mom,” he struggles to get the midnight blue (so dark it’s nearly black, people will think it’s black, but then they’ll look harder, see the navy peeking through) across the bottom left of the canvas while balancing his cell phone between his right ear and his shoulder.

“Hi honey, are you free tomorrow night?”

“What’s tomorrow?” The question is genuine; his days tend to blend.

“Friday.”

“Friday?” he puts his paintbrush down and grabs a towel so he can hold his phone without ruining it.

Jen’s known her son long enough to understand the inflection, “It’ll just be a couple of hours, meet me at 6. You’ll be home before Brian.”

Justin sighs, he almost hates that she knows him that well.

“Okay,” he nods but she can’t see.

She gives him the details and says she loves him when she hangs up. He gets a dial tone before he can return the sentiment.

**

“Hello, Brian,” she leans up and he kisses her on the cheek. He wonders if she is as formal with everyone as she is with him. He imagines that she is, typical WASP.

“How are you?” he smoothes his tie and takes the seat across from her.

“Good, and you?” She sips red wine. She offers Brian a glass, he insists on pouring it himself. He recognizes the vineyard, knows it was a good year, wonders how much this dinner is going to cost him, dismisses the thought when he remembers he doesn’t concern himself with such things anymore.

“Fine,” he takes a sip too, it’s good…pretty fucking good. “Never been here,” he looks around, searching for the Maitre D’ that greeted him moments ago. The guy had a great ass and even better head of hair. Things Brian has come to know are important to him.

“It’s new,” she smiles, even blushes a bit and then explains, “Tuck brought me here last month. I’ve been dreaming about the manicotti.” She laughs a little; a smile takes over her face. Justin gets it from his mother. Brian’s glad for that.

They order, Jennifer doesn’t think Brian gets enough food but she keeps her mouth shut. Justin would have ordered half the menu, but he is still a growing boy. Brian could stand to gain a few pounds, enjoy himself more, but she’ll save nagging comments like those for holidays down the line.

She smiles to herself, thinks about holidays in the house that took her breath away when the last owner first showed it to her. Somehow she knew Brian would love it, and he did. Brian bought it on the spot (bought it for her son she would later discover) made an offer that took her breath away as well. He even insisted she take her commission, they’d argued about it all the way back to Pittsburgh. Between the loft and Babylon and his purchase of Chez Kinney, Ms. Taylor was having a record year thanks to her son-in-law.

She looks across the table at him now, his charcoal gray suit and perfect posture and the wounded soul that she can nearly see through to, but not quite.

“Brian, there is something you should know, something I want you to understand.” Her hand snakes across the table and covers his. He resists the urge to pull away, chants ‘this is your mother-in-law’ in his head. Whatever that means.

She clears her throat and continues, “I love you, like a son, I have for a long time. I was heart broken when you told me Justin turned down your proposal. I guess because some part of me understands you Brian, I really do. And I know what it must have taken for you to ask him in the first place. So I’m glad he’s changed his mind, and I don’t even want to know how you did it, but I’m happy for you, for both of you. I…I just,” she stops and her eyes shift away from his face for the first time.

“Jennifer,” he says quietly, doesn’t understand why tears are welling up in her eyes, this is exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.

She looks back and speaks quickly, “I just hope he doesn’t hurt you in the end.”

And you simply smile. You smile a smile that makes her smile. You smile a smile that makes you laugh a nervous laugh. You turn your hand over and squeeze hers and down the rest of your nearly-full glass of wine and pour another. Is this what she needed to tell you? Is this what she was concerned about?

Of course he’ll fucking hurt you. He’ll rip you in half and eat out your insides and leave you for dead. But you’ve decided forewarned is forearmed and it’s a fate that you have come to accept.

You hope and pray that you are his great love, as he is most surely yours. But you know that you’re not his only love. You’re not his last love. You know New York is calling from the corners of his mind and won’t stop until he answers the call. You know he has lifetimes to live beyond this simple existence with you. But for now he’s said yes, and you’ve never been happier. And you’ll move to a home in the hills and give up the life you’ve loved to hate and change every fiber of your being if it’ll make him stay for a month or a year, maybe more.

You’ll dote on him and love him to the exclusivity of all other things until that day comes when he has to leave you. And it will hurt, God it will hurt. But until that day…

**

“Hey mom,” he leans down, gives her a sound kiss on the cheek that smacks loudly as he pulls away. She wipes away the spit, gives him a look she would have if he were a child. God, he’s still a child in some ways. But they’re reducing in number by the day.

“Hey, sweetie. I ordered some wine so try to look older.” It makes them both laugh, Justin’s thankful that his mother has a sense of humor. With him as a son, she’d have to.

Justin thinks he slept with this waiter once, or maybe just got a blow job from him the back room. The way the guy looks him up and down makes him sure he must be right. It makes Jennifer squirm in her seat.

After they’ve ordered she starts to speak. “So I wanted to talk to you about…”

He cuts her off, “The most unlikely marriage of all time?” He smirks.

She nods and mirrors his Taylor grin. “Well, yes, that, but also…just what you should expect…what you should be prepared for.”

“Mom, I appreciate that you’re worried about me and how I’ll make this work, but honestly, if you think you have any idea what life with Brian is like…you really don’t.”

She isn’t sure if he means that no one understands how difficult it is or how wonderful it is, perhaps both? She hates that he’s right, on either account, but what she hates more is that he assumes she has no lessons left to teach him.

“I know Brian, better than you think. I think I understand why he is how he is and why he’s finally changing. But more than that, I know who you are and I want you to remember something.”

She takes a sip; he waits for her to finish her thought, already armed with a litany of defense statements on Brian’s behalf.

“Remember that you’re it for him. He’ll never love anyone like he loves you. Hell, he’ll probably never love anyone else at all. Not in this way. So…be careful with him.”

Justin furrows his eyebrows and considers his mother for a long moment. “Are you seriously telling me not to break Brian’s heart? Aren’t you supposed to be having dinner with him and feeding him these lines? I’m your son.”

“Well, yes and no. I did have dinner with him…”

He cuts her off, “What? When?”

She continues without missing a beat, “I just want you to remember what he’s been to you, what he’s done for you. And you said yes. You agreed to a life with him. He isn’t taking this lightly, neither should you.”

“I’m not…he’s not…we’re not…mom.” He can’t find the words to tell her that he’s not taking this lightly, he’s taking this the complete fucking opposite of lightly. He’s fucking marrying Brian Kinney. This is not an agreement entered into without the understanding that there will be screaming and drama and dissatisfaction to the tune of door’s slamming and suitcases zipping and hushed apologies whispered in the dark of night. But more importantly there will be passion and devotion and the most incredible love and dedication that anyone will ever give him. And he’s weighed both sides of the scales and the latter wins each time. So he said yes and he signed on the dotted line and he will say yes, for the rest of his fucking life thank you.

“You’re young. Things will happen. You’ll meet people. You’ll want to experience things. They won’t be better than him, just different. The urge to move on will surprise you. It always does.”

**

She tries to pay but of course he won’t hear of it. She smiles and blushes and lets him put her coat on. Sometimes she forgets that above all things Brian really is the perfect gentleman, the ultimate charmer.

“Thank you for coming,” she gives him a side glance as they each wait for the valet. He lights a cigarette, offers her a drag, she takes it and he looks shocked for the first time since she met him.

She blows out the smoke and laughs. He thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.

“There are things you don’t know about me. You can’t fit me inside that Jennifer Taylor box you’ve built.”

“Clearly not,” he smirks a smirk that makes her stomach tingle. He takes his cigarette back. They stare at one another for a moment too long. He absolutely sees what a much younger, and hot, man wants to do with her. She is a Taylor, after all.

“He loves you, deeply, he always has. I am sure he always will. It scared me when he was seventeen, the way he looked at you. It scares me now, but for different reasons.” He isn’t sure what she means exactly. He isn’t sure why he isn’t scared. But he’s not, not anymore.

He nods, “I love him, too.” It’s the first time he’s said it to her.

A warm smile breaks across her face as her car comes to the curb, “Remember that, it gets easy to forget.” She leans up to kiss him on the cheek, he turns his head and presses his lips lightly to her mouth and pulls away quickly. She looks taken aback for a moment, but then hugs him tightly.

“I was hoping all of us could go to dinner next week, you both can fill me in on wedding plans. I’d love to help. It’s time for celebration now.”

He nods, “Let us know when.”

A moment later she’s gone. He misses her immediately.

**

They eat in near silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. Justin wants to balk and yell at his mother for suggesting that he can’t handle Brian, or that he’d ever hurt Brian. But he’s trying to hear what she’s really saying; he’s trying to see into the future.

He isn’t that young, but he is young. And he’s not naïve, but he has a lot to learn. He tries to remember these things when he’s busy being a successful artist who’s lived more life than people twice his age. As grown up as he feels most days, he sometimes thinks about the fact he can’t walk into a bar and buy a drink (legally) and he tries to let that ground him. It doesn’t always work.

He orders dessert, his mother gets coffee.

“Mom,” he takes a bite of chocolate cheesecake, wonders if he’ll taste like this when he goes home to Brian. “I…I love him. I mean, incredibly. You know that.”

“Yes,” she nods and blows on her steaming cappuccino.

“I want to spend my life with him, I do. I can’t see my future without him in it. I’ve tried, trust me. I would never forgive myself if I walked away and didn’t see this through. It might last forever and it might not, but if he’s willing I have to give it a try. The only thing I know is that I’ll never love anyone this much. No one could convince me otherwise.”

She considers him for a long moment now, “I think you’re right. Just try not to forget that when it gets hard, because it will.”

He finishes his cheesecake and when the bill comes he lets her pay. The thought of her dinner with Brian last night makes it easy. He can’t wait to have that conversation when he gets home.

“Drive you home?” She leans against him as he walks her to her car. He lets her thread her arm through his. She might be a little tipsy, he smiles.

“Brian’s coming for me,” he hugs her.

“How?” she looks confused.

“I called him when I went to the bathroom, figured he’d be on his way home and he is.”

“You know him well.” She smiles.

“Incredibly,” as if on cue the Corvette rolls up beside them. Brian stops the car and gets out. He greets Jennifer first, giving her a hug and a chaste kiss on the cheek.

“Good to see you again so soon,” her words reveal that Justin knows they had dinner together now. Brian feels relieved; maybe the truth really does set you free. He laughs to himself.

“When did you want to have dinner next week? I thought you could come to the loft.” Brian looks down at Jennifer. Justin’s eyes shift quickly between them. There is something in their exchange that is private, secretive even. His stomach flip-flops and he wonders if he should worry.

“Maybe Wednesday. How’s that?”

“Perfect,” Brian smiles as he looks to Justin. “That work for you?”

“Does it matter?” Justin feels like a petulant child.

“Of course it does,” Brian leans down and grasps the back of Justin’s neck, pulls him in for a quick kiss that turns into a little more when he gets a taste of the sugar there. Justin melts under the warmth but pulls away when his mother clears her throat. Brian laughs and Jennifer smiles, not uneasily.

“Wednesday’s fine.” Justin shifts from foot to foot.

“Good, cause you’re cooking for us.” Brian slaps Justin’s ass and then leans down to hug Jennifer one more time.

“Around 7?” He says in her ear.

She nods, “That’s great.”

Justin gawks at them both. Brian smiles, “What? I thought you loved doing the home-cooked meal bit. I’m finally letting you be the little wife you’ve been dying to be. This is no time for retractions.”

Justin looks between Brian and his mother, they’re both grinning like fools. He sighs and nods, “I suppose it’s not. Salmon okay with you guys?”

They all laugh together. A moment later they are gone.

End

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