Benny Schneider has lived in Las Vegas for a lot of years, working in medical billing for the past fifteen. In February 2021, he runs into new friend Dorian Weathers at the supermarket and they start a conversation that goes in some unexpected directions.
Dori’s seen a lot during his years of working as a hospital orderly, but hit the wall after eight months of coping with a pandemic. Now staying with a longtime friend, he’s been offered a free apartment in Los Angeles and help with tuition to level up his career. When Benny offers a room in his own house instead, Dori gets a vision of what might be possible.
By the end of that first conversation, it’s clear they’ll be housemates with benefits. Over the months that follow, they grow closer. Benny’s twenty years older and he’s been through a change that even most of his friends don’t know about. Before long, Dori wants everything Benny is, was, and ever will be.
With the support of their friends and the freedom of drag, they’re determined to embrace a new change. Can they carry it into the future along with everything else they are?
There was definitely a double meaning to what Dorian just said, and Benny promised himself he’d think about it later, but at the moment he needed to do something very impulsive and out of character. “If your nice rich people would stake you at a distance, would you consider living here?”
Dorian’s eyebrows flew up, eyes widening with astonishment. “With you?”
The tone of that was anything but horrified. Benny suppressed a surge of fierce delight. “I’ve got this whole big-ass house.”
“Wow, that’s, wow. I could ask? I mean, I could ask. Should I ask?”
“If you’d rather stay out here.” Benny didn’t think he was misreading Dorian’s expression. The man looked excited. He was digging for his phone, sending a text, staring at the screen as if the response might arrive any second. As, in fact, it did. Dorian held up the phone so Benny could see. He smiled. “You want to see the upstairs?”
“Fuck, yeah.” Without further ado, they cleared the table. Put away the leftovers, rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher. Then Dorian followed Benny up the stairs, saying, “I’ve never lived in a two-story house. Plenty of second or third-floor apartments, but that’s not the same.”
“It sure isn’t. I bought this house after my divorce.” Benny heard himself say that and almost choked. He didn’t talk about the divorce, or about his marriage, or any of it. Only three very close friends knew the whole truth. The three he could trust to keep it to themselves. But if he said anything now about how he didn’t talk about it, Dorian would get really curious about why, so Benny changed the subject. “It’s a lot more space than I need. At the time, I was thinking I wanted a place that was all mine, and this neighborhood doesn’t have an HOA.”
“Oh, sweet. Nobody to hassle you about your yard or make you hang vertical blinds.”
Benny laughed. “Yeah, exactly. This side’s the master suite.” He pointed off to the right of the landing. “And down here are the other rooms. One’s all my drag and the other one’s pretty much empty. There didn’t seem to be any options between a two-bedroom, one-bath ranch house and one of these. I figured it was better to have a little extra space, because you never know.” You never knew when a friend might need a place to stay for a week, or a month, or two years.
“Hmm.” Dorian leaned into the drag room, flipping the light switch. “Ooh, girl, look at your pretty dresses. How close am I to your size, because oh, wow! Is that you?”
Benny joined him in the doorway. “Yeah. Um.” How had he not seen this coming? How had he not remembered that poster-size print of him from the last year in the showgirl extravaganza, before the change? Or maybe he did remember. Maybe he was so damned tired of hiding his truth, his subconscious made the decision for him. Because he wanted Dorian to know, for so many reasons. Because none of the thoughts he’d had over so many lonely nights could come to anything unless the man knew.
Dorian was staring at him now. Eyes wide, soft lips parted, the light of comprehension all over his gorgeous face.
Before the other man could say anything, Benny said, “It’s not quite the obvious thing. Come see this last room, then we’ll go back downstairs and I’ll tell you what happened.”
Dorian closed his mouth. Swallowed, nodded, and trailed behind Benny down the hall. Past the big bathroom those two rooms shared, then into the generous bedroom. He finally said something. “I’ve never had a room that big all to myself.”
“You’d get to use the kitchen, too.”
A sound closely resembling a chuckle, a flash of dark hazel eyes, and then Dorian’s hand landed on Benny’s back. They’d touched each other many times, because gay men tend to, especially gay men who are also drag queens working on a show together. But this wasn’t one of those “behind you” touches everybody shared a dozen times a night in the dressing room. It was something different, something intentional. And Benny loved it.
They settled on the loveseat in the den, where Benny spent his nights watching whatever on TV when he wasn’t working on something for the drag show. He’d gone to his usual seat, and Dorian sat with him instead of choosing one of the armchairs. Benny loved that, too. He lifted his new glass of prosecco and said, “Here’s to you being someone I can tell the truth to.”
“Yes, indeed. Benny Schneider,” Dorian said, leaning toward him a bit, “your truth is safe with me.”
