Page 103 of Soft
The way she saidthat young manwas a compression of a great many things. I had spent enough years studying my mother's disapproval to understand the layers packed into three words. The age gap. Paxton's profession. The publicity of it. Underneath all of it was the simple fact that he was a man.
My parents had known I was gay since I was in college. Knowing had not produced acceptance so much as a sustained, low-level campaign of disappointment.
"The articles are not a spectacle," I argued. "They're a normal part of Paxton's career."
"Your involvement in his career," my pops’s voice appeared, which meant I was on speakerphone, "is one thing. What we're seeing reported goes considerably beyond professional standards. You're being discussed as a couple."
"We are a couple."
The silence that followed would have felt victorious if I hadn’t known what was waiting on the other side of it.
"Grizzly! You have worked very hard to build a credible reputation despite being destined for more. All of that is at risk when you allow yourself to become tabloid fodder."
"I'm not tabloid fodder. I'm a person in a relationship. What does it matter?"
My mother gasped. "At your age?—"
"My age is not the relevant factor here." The tightening in my chest had started, the old contraction that happened when I was in their proximity, physical or otherwise. "Paxton and I are together. That is not going to change because it made headlines from some pissed-off reporter."
"We're not asking you to end the relationship." My father interjected. "We're asking you to exercise some discretion. Surely that's not an outrageous request."
"It is when discretion means hiding."
Another silence.
"You've always been dramatic about this," my mother said.
And there it was. The word that had been applied to me since childhood whenever I expressed something they didn't want to accommodate.Dramatic.
My breathing picked up. My hands shook. My stomach lurched.
"Grizzly! We are trying to have a reasonable?—"
"I'd like you to stop."
The voice wasn’t mine, yet it was obviously meant as a reply to my mother..
I turned to find Auden standing, one hand held out toward me. I gave them the phone.
"Hello," Auden said into the phone. Their voice was pleasant, though I didn’t expect them to befriend my parents. "My name is Auden Keyes. I'm Grizzly's business partner. I'm going to need you both to understand something clearly. What you just said to your son—and I did hear it, thank you for that—is not something that gets to continue. Not on a call to his place of work, not anywhere. He has built an extraordinary business here. The clients who work with him trust him because of who he is, not despite it. The relationship you just dismissed is one of the best things in his life. And your son is one of the best people I have had the privilege of working alongside. If either of you would like to have a productive conversation with your son at some point in the future, that would be between you and him. But that conversation won't start the way this one did. I hope that's clear. Have a good afternoon."
They ended the call, leaving the office silent aside from my heavy breaths and the buzzing in my ears.
I wasnotgoing to cry in the office. I wasnotgoing to cry in the office. I wasNOTgoing to cry in the office.
Auden set my phone on the desk. "Come here," they said, without any ceremony, and opened their arms.
I didn’t hesitate to move over to them. Auden was smaller than me, as most people were. It didn't matter. They held onto me like they were worried I’d float away while patting my back gently.
"You're okay," they said. "That was awful, and you handled it. Now you're okay."
I nodded, which was probably unhelpful, but it was all I had at the moment. The door beside us opened as we were standing there.
"I heard—" Moseley stopped. He took in the scene quickly, then his expression shifted. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't fill the room with noise. He just crossed to us, put himself on my other side, and wrapped himself around me too.
When this day started, I didn’t picture an Auden-Moseley sandwich happening. Honestly, I could have never guessed it wouldeverhappen.
"Do you want me to call Paxton?" Moseley asked.
