Coffee and Cafés - Book Two of the Café Latte Trilogy

Café au Lait

I hastily said, "Hey, if it helps, I don't hold it against you. Like, you were in a pretty rough situation. I'm not saying I've always been super pro-you, there was a time during my teen years that I felt pretty betrayed and angry at the thought of ever meeting you. But it's been a long time since I felt like that."

Savannah gulped and said, "You have to know how much it hurt to give you up. But we had to, Tom, we just had to-"

I quickly interjected, "I know you did. And you did the right thing. I don't regret it. Not a single minute of it. I love where I grew up and who I grew up with. I grew up happy. I promise."

She nodded, and then quietly managed to say, "I just wish we could have been the people you grew up happy with."

I gestured to myself. "Well, to be fair, I'm only twenty-five, I've got a fair amount more growing up to do. I'm not saying it's the same, but you can't change the past. I can't ever be a kid again. But that doesn't mean we can't know each other. Or love each other. It'll just take some time."

Savannah sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I wanted to be easy-going for you."

Thomas patted her on the shoulder. "It's cool, Vanna, the door is unlocked, he can escape whenever he wants to. He could jump out the window and do a barrel roll if he was really desperate."

She laughed despite herself, and straightened up. "Okay, now I've embarrassed myself, I'm going to go and fetch Susie."

Savannah hurried out of the room, and I smiled awkwardly at Thomas. Women I knew how to talk to; my mothers were a constant presence in my life. Queer dudes I knew how to talk to; I was one, and so was literally everyone else in my life. Fully grown cishet dudes... I had no idea how to talk to them. My entire experience with them was teachers, other authority figures, and dickheads.

"So," Thomas said, clearly concerned about my very obvious inner battle. "Do you like sports?"

"No," I replied, thinking it was better to not lie than to pretend I was.

"Okay, thank God," Thomas sighed, visibly relaxing. "I hate sports. It was the first thing that came into my head. I'm sorry, I haven't spent much time with guys in their twenties since I was one."

I grinned sheepishly. "Forty year old straight dudes aren't my best demographic, if I'm honest."

"Yeah, just thirty-six year old gay dudes," he teased a little, his eyes crinkling at the sides into little laughter lines.

"Pan dudes," I corrected, my grin widening. "I'm not that fussy."

"I know that one," he said, looking pleased. "That's attraction regardless of gender, right?"

I nodded, feeling a sense of relief. It wasn't that I worried they were homophobic or ignorant; I knew they weren't. They knew my mothers, and where I had grown up, and they hadn't reacted with any hostility to the mention of Angelo. It was more that I often worried I'd have to spend 90% of any conversation about LGBT folks explaining the terms, and defending parts of our culture and lifestyle. I worried it would turn into a lesson, rather than a conversation.

"Susie, she..." Thomas trailed off, and then smiled. "Well, she told us the other day that she wants to be a boy." He laughed. "I think she only said it because a kid in the group we go to said Lego is for boys, and she did not like that. But we said, if it remains the case over the next few years, we'll try to help her figure it out."

I smiled gently. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it if that turns out to be the case. Kids are surprisingly intuitive. I think, anyway, I've never spent much time around them."