Chapter 2
Miles sat down at the table across from his sister, as she greeted him with a smile. “Miles! I’m glad that you managed to make it!”
He lifted his brows slightly. ’Why wouldn’t I have been able to make it?” he asked, eyeing her.
She grinned. “I thought that you’d be so busy with your successful news show that you wouldn’t have time to talk to your little sister.”
Miles frowned. “It’s not that difficult, making the show,” he pointed out to her. “It’s only an hour and a half a day.”
She shook her head. “Same old Miles,” she said with a chuckle. “No sense of humor whatsoever. So serious. You need to lighten up, bro.”
Her words stung him, so soon after the similar ones that Farley had said to him outside his dressing room. “I don’t see why its so bad to be serious,” he said in irritation. “Its better than being a clownish airhead.”
His sister Melanie cocked her head. “I hope you’re not talking about me,” she said in a mock-severe tone of voice.
“No, I’m not,” he said shortly.
Her eyes narrowed a little. “Then who are you talking about?” she asked curiously.
He could feel his shoulders tensing. “If you must know, its that guy I work with. The weatherman.”
“Farley Koninger,” she said, taking him by surprise. “I watch your show every day, bro,” she told him.
He was startled that his sister watched the program. She wasn’t gay, although she had always been very supportive of him and his sexual preferences. “Thank you,” he said.
She shrugged. “You’re welcome, but really it’s the most entertaining news show on TV. That Farley guy is adorable and funny as all get out. Especially when he flirts so outrageously with you, Miles. You’re a lucky man.”
Baffled, he stared at her. “Lucky? In what way?”
Now she looked rather puzzled. “For having such a cute boyfriend. Although you really could have called and told me that you were dating him, you know. Its not nice to keep me in the dark about your love life.”
His jaw dropped. “You…you think that I’m dating FARLEY?!” he squalled in total, utter disbelief.
Melanie stared at him across the table. “You’re not dating him?” she said questioningly.
“No I am not! If I had every gay man on the planet from which to choose to be my boyfriend, Farley would be at the back of the line!” Miles said tightly.
“Oh,” Melanie said. “I really thought that you two are together. Bet everybody else who watches the show thinks so too,” she added shrewdly.
He grimaced. “I’m sure they do, with the outrageous things he’s always saying to and about me. He’s made me into a joke, and I don’t appreciate it.”
“I don’t think that that’s true, Miles,” she said gently. “Most people think that its kind of romantic, that you two are together and that you work together as well. Yes, they think Farley’s pretty outrageous - but nobody thinks that about you, even though they think that you two are dating. To we the viewers, it just seems a case of opposites attracting, that’s all.”
He felt relief at her words, even though he still wasn’t happy to learn that so many people thought that he and Farley were dating off-screen. Damn that weatherman! He wasn’t really surprised to learn all of this. Farley’s behavior would of course lead their viewers to assume that the two of them were together. And unfortunately, he had no idea how to change that. He supposed that he could announce on the air that he and Farley were not an item, but that wasn’t very professional. And knowing people, everybody would assume that he was just lying for some reason. He sighed as the waiter appeared to take their order.
Melanie grinned at his expression as she ordered a chicken breast in cream sauce. Her brother’s utter seriousness had always rather amused her; she’d hoped that dating Farley Koninger would help to loosen him up a bit. Too bad about that. Still, there was nothing she could do to push the issue if her brother really disliked his weatherman as much as he seemed to. Miles was incredibly stubborn and hardheaded. If she pushed all he’d do is dig in his heels and push back.
She sighed soundlessly as Miles ordered poached salmon for himself. She worried about her brother sometimes. He’d always been too serious and very driven, but had become much worse after that incident in high school. She could still remember coming out the doors to go to lunch and seeing, to her shock, her older brother duct taped to the flag pole out front. He’d been mostly naked, and someone had used poster paint to write the word ‘fag’ in large letters across his chest. His complete and utter humiliation at the hands of someone(she suspected the football team, but didn’t really know because Miles refused to ever talk about the incident) had left Miles mistrustful, bitter, angry, and, she suspected, with a lingering dislike of acting ‘gay’ in any way. It was as though he were working hard to prove to both himself and the world that being a gay man didn’t make him something bad or wrong. The sad thing is that he should never have had to prove that, either to himself or to other people. It always made her want to cry whenever she thought about it.
That’s why she was so unhappy that he wasn’t actually dating the flamboyant but decidedly cute and fun Farley Koninger. That would have meant that he’d loosened up a bit about himself and being gay. Oh, if only…but this was the real world, not a fantasy one. She had to accept that, and hope for the best.
With that in mind, she asked casually: “So if you’re not seeing Farley Koninger, are you seeing someone else? Going to bring a date to Mom and Dad’s anniversary party?”
Miles shrugged slightly. “No, I’m not seeing anyone right now. As you know, I was dating Ross for awhile…but it didn’t work out.”
Melanie wasn’t surprised about that. Ross had been too much like Miles himself for that relationship to ever have worked out. Worse, Ross had also been kind of pompous and overbearing, which Miles was not despite his sometimes sour attitude about life in general and gay people in particular. She’d never liked Ross, and was glad to hear that he was out of the picture. “So no date, huh? You know that Mom’s going to be worried about you if you go stag. She’ll probably start throwing the neighborhood gay guys at you, so be prepared.”
Miles began to look rather alarmed at her words, and she hid a smile by looking away. “That’s another reason its too bad that you’re not dating Farley,” she remarked casually, “Because Mom watches your show too. She’s just bursting with pride at you being on a national cable channel, you know. She gets to boast to all of her friends that that’s her oh-so-successful son. And I hate to tell you this, bro…” she glanced back at him now that her face was under control again, “But Mom thinks that you two are an item too. She’s going to be horribly disappointed when you tell her that you’re not dating him. She calls him ’that nice Farley boy’, and I think she tells her friends that you’re dating him when she’s boasting about you. You could be in for a hard time, Miles,” she said with an evil gleam in her eyes.
He looked chagrined, not that she blamed him. Their mother could be a formidable person, even though she was as sweet as the day was long. Her disappointment over his not dating his co-star would be epic. He swallowed a little and reached for his glass of wine hurriedly, and Melanie snickered almost inaudibly. “But there’s a way you could avoid all of that,” she continued after a moment of letting him stew.
He looked up at her. “What? What are you talking about?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Bring Farley as a date to the party. Invite him along as a friend, since you don’t want to date him. Let Mom think that he’s your boyfriend. All you’d have to do is let him hang on your arm for an afternoon. How hard could that be?”
He grimaced horribly. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
Miles was feeling decidedly grumpy later as he drove home. Damn his sister and her ideas! But now that she’d planted the seed in his brain, it wouldn’t go away. He did NOT want to drag Farley to his parents’ thirtieth anniversary party, but if Melanie was right(and she usually was about these sorts of things) then his mother thought that Farley and he were a couple. And, as Melanie had put it, her disappointment over it not being true WOULD be epic. He could expect lectures, woeful looks, eligible men being thrown at him…all kinds of horrors. Would having to spend just one afternoon with Farley be as bad as that? Sadly, the answer to that one was NO. So , much as it felt like he was willingly going to the guillotine, he’d ask Farley if he wanted to attend the party with him tomorrow before the show. He had no doubt that the blonde would say yes - no doubt whatsoever.
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