Wait - it's YOU again? (Part Duex)

"heey," he said.

"hey."

His voice sounded familiar, but not in the way you would think. I mean, I tried to remember what his voice sounded like during those 4.5 hours I waited for the phone to ring. I tried to no avail, that is. Seriously, I couldn't remember his voice.

I tried to get in touch with him via email in the months that followed his telling me that he wasn't talking to me anymore. But the last time I emailed him I resolved to let it go completely if he didn't respond. And he didn't. So, I erased his number from my phone and kept it moving. I tried, right?

Well, when I finally DID hear his voice, it was like .. OOOOHHH. Yes, once I heard him speak I remembered. You know how when a word is right on the tip of your tongue, but you can't quite get it? It was like that, but only with a voice.

He proceeded to explain what happened:

His son explained to him that he saw my name on the caller ID and picked up. We had a conversation and he told his dad all the specifics - and he wanted his dad to know that I wasn't allowed to take him away from them. His daughter felt the same way. See, he's a single dad and is raising these two on his own and it was WAY too much for him to fathom that I would talk to his son.

Except, I didn't.

I never, ever called his cell phone and had anyone else pick up the phone. EVER. Apparently, however, his son and daughter picked up on the fact that he was on his way to getting involved and snooped through is call log, found my name and approached their dad with the story above in order to get him to stop pursing anything outside of their immediate family.

And it worked.

I was never given the opportunity to contradict his son's story because he never confronted me. He shut down instead, believed his son without question ... and consequently had no questions for me either. I mean, why would the 24 year old son lie to him?

Oh, I didn't mention his son is twenty fucking four?

Well, he is. He's a grown ass man who's afraid to lose his daddy. I can't fathom that type of thinking, especially considering I come from a home that really didn't give a fuck about the kids. (My mom married my step-father and told us about it three days LATER and also said he was moving in ... and we'd never met him) I left for college at seventeen and I wasn't looking back. By the time I was 24, I was the lead engineer on $68M work of work and live 700 miles away from my parents - so don't ask me to synthesize that one - I can't.

But how did he find this all out, I wondered? (tell me you were wondering that too ...)

Apparently, homeboy is talking to some dude right now. Yes, the same homeboy who wasn't ready for a gay relationship with ME... yuh him. Anyway, the "children" did it again - only this time the 24-year old initiated the call to the "significant other" and said whatever the son said ... and then the son called his father at work to say there was an emergency at home involving the "significant other."

Well, that's how he "found out" that I had done nothing wrong and that he totally shut me out based on a lie.

So, I did forgive him for it - I didn't blame him for believing his son ... after all, I'm a dad too and I'm a protective dad as well. So, I can understand. I'm definitely more confrontational than homeboy is, but then again I wasn't hiding in the closet and just LOOKING for an excuse not to move forward.

But I've got new issues now - I can forgive you for what you did then ... but what about what you're doing now?!? This was turning out to be a multi-call sorting out of issues. Because I've got issues with this ... why are you calling me with this shit - don't you have a man?

You know I asked him that, right?