Chapter Text
These days, New Orleans makes his skin crawl.
Back when his mother believed Louis and Grace were “on the cusp,” they moved out to a suburb of Los Angeles where the weather was dry and the job opportunities were plentiful, but after Paul’s health issues took a serious turn during his teenage years, Florence had finally, reluctantly, moved the family back to New Orleans for more affordable housing. Louis, however, already nineteen and the only remaining “working” du Lac sibling, hardly saw the house they kept there. Instead of being around to help Paul, or drive Grace to school, or guard his siblings from their mother, he wandered between L.A. and New York looking for work.
Something still doesn’t feel right when he’s here. Once a month, always on the first Saturday, Louis flies to New Orleans from New York and rents a car at the airport. Paul is very serious about schedules, so he drives around the city aimlessly until it’s time to pick him up. Sometimes he stops by the house they used to live in before California, and parks by the curb just to look at it. Sometimes he drives into the Quarter just to be there, knowing he will be stuck in traffic, crawling along the cobbled streets behind tourists. Sometimes he goes to the cemetery where his mother is buried and stays in the car, too scared to get out.
He doesn’t go to the cemetery today, nor the Quarter, nor the house. He has the eerie feeling that Florence is hovering over his shoulder the moment the plane touches down; he’s hesitant to even enter the city. Instead, he sits in the rental car parking lot watching planes take off in the distance, and texts his agent, who he’s been working with for the better part of a decade.
Have you heard anything?
The phone is silent for thirty minutes before her reply comes.
Not unless you’ve gotten really chill about some things in the two days since you last asked…
He rolls his eyes, but calls her immediately. He starts in before she’s had a chance to say hello with, “You haven’t heard anything at all?”
“Oh, well, since you mention it, my phone’s been ringin’ off the hook with job offers since this morning! I just forgot to tell you.”
He groans, pressing the heel of his hand to his eye, and says nothing.
After a beat, Brick stiffly continues, “I did get a call back from the agency, though.”
“And?” Naively, his heart rate skyrockets hopefully.
“They say they’re rebranding, going in a new direction. Same shit as always.”
Louis’ face heats, sinful anger curling in his stomach. “You mean whiter and younger?”
Brick snorts. “Right, new direction, just like I said.”
He grumbles to himself and, suddenly restless and shaking with frustration, rolls down the window, letting humidity press into the car. “I can’t fucking believe this. I’m not even thirty!”
“I know, I know, you’re preachin’ to the choir. I’m looking for another mother agency, and with your experience, I’ll definitely find one, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be as lucrative.”
“So, what now?”
Brick hums showily, and he knows just by the tone that she’s going to annoy him. “Well, let’s see,” she starts wearily, as though reading from a long list, “more extra work like always, more commercials, more walk-on roles on TV shows that are definitely getting canceled, walk-on roles on TV shows that have been running for twenty years… Oh! Reality TV.”
“Jesus Christ, Brick. How many times I gotta tell you no?”
She has the audacity to laugh. “I’m just saying it’s always an option!”
“I’m not doing that! It’s embarrassing.”
“And you’re the first person to ever have to demean himself for money, I’m sure.”
He tries to level his voice before replying, but he’s always had his father’s rage, and the anger often takes a mind of its own. Biting behind gritted teeth, he tells her, “Call me back when you’ve got a fuckin’ Law and Order audition or something.”
He ends the call and throws his phone into the passenger footwell. Even cracking his phone does nothing to soothe the burn of anger in his body. Brick will surely be able to find him something, but it’s not likely to pay as well. Within a few months, his savings will run dry, and he’ll be scrounging for jobs and table scrap gigs, hand modeling by day and waiting tables by night.
The moment he saw the grey rooftops of New Orleans staring back at him from the plane’s window, he’d felt his mother’s disappointment weighing down on him as though she were still alive to click her tongue at him. But it’s a weight he must continue bearing indefinitely because New Orleans houses what is left of his family, and Paul is expecting him.
He texts Bricktop an apathetic apology for his attitude, rights himself with a deep breath, and drives.
Everything about Paul is clockwork. They spend the afternoon together like they always do, planned in precise fifteen-minute increments from start to finish. At exactly 12:15, Louis picks him up at the front door of his care facility and takes him to see a movie — as often as possible, this is an iteration of Star Wars, but sometimes Star Wars isn’t playing and a compromise is made — then they walk through the neighborhood if the weather is nice, stop for a 45-minute break at the chapel where Paul sits through a Bible study he won’t entertain skipping, then they’re back in Louis’ rented car and rolling towards Grace’s house by five.
Paul sees Grace and her growing family for dinner every Saturday, but every time Louis visits with him, Paul never fails to ask, before any greetings or niceties have been exchanged, “Are the girls old enough for Legos yet?” and Grace will inform him very regretfully that they are not. While Paul organizes an assembly line for a well-worn Lego set on the kitchen table, Louis says hello to his nieces, who have, at some point in the last month, learned how to run, and Grace finishes making dinner.
Louis spends some time chasing the girls through the house, tiring them out like Grace likes him to, and Paul spends time at the table, grumbling to himself about the noise as the girls screech and giggle. Only after the twins have been settled into their playpen in the kitchen do he and Grace take their usual seats at the table to wait for their dinner to finish and for Levi to return home from work so that it can be eaten. Depending on what Paul is working on, Louis may or may not be permitted to help, but today, several neat piles of blocks sit in front of him with instructions laid out in manageable parts, so he does what Paul has silently asked of him while they talk.
Naturally, Grace asks, “How’s your week been, Paul?”
“Father Mathias is letting me plan a Bible study next week, and someone new moved in, but they chew with their mouth open at lunch, and I’m not allowed to tell them to stop.”
Grace and Louis both laugh softly, even though this is the third time Louis has heard about this irritation today. Grace clicks her tongue and grimaces, an expression that reminds him painfully of their mother. “That’s real annoying.”
“Yes. It is.”
“You could always come back and live here,” she offers with a grin. As if on cue, the girls, who have been babbling nonsensically to each other in their playpen, suddenly screech and argue.
Curtly, he answers, ”No, thank you.”
“How’s work, Lou? You got a lot comin’ up?”
“Boring as usual, and not a lot, as usual,” he sighs. He hasn’t told her about the sudden and unfortunate loss of his agency contract, and if he had it his way, he would never have to. He has another handful of scheduled shoots in the next few months, but by the time summer comes and ends, he will be all but unemployed.
He’s not looking forward to the uncomfortable shift of their conversation where he has to admit to her, like he once admitted to his mother, that there is no new work to tell her about, when Paul impassively states, “I have a job.”
Grace and Louis exchange shocked looks with one another.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you Father Mathias let me plan Bible study,” he states with some annoyance, neck still craned over a fistful of colorful, single-tile Legos on the table.
“Is that a job? He’s payin’ you for it?”
“Yes, I’m planning Bible study and helping in the office for two hours every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
Louis is so surprised to hear it that he can hardly form a sentence.
“That’s great, Paul,” Grace says after a few amazed beats of silence, asking him the standard follow-up questions about when he started, if he likes doing it, how much he’ll be paid, but Louis hardly hears any of it. Open-mouthed, he stares at Paul, watching him adeptly break apart small pieces of Lego, just as he’s been doing since he was a child, back when the idea of Paul having a job was unthinkable.
He doesn’t know he’s entirely tuned out of their conversation until Paul suddenly stands without announcement and walks out towards the bathroom, leaving him alone with Grace. As soon as Paul is out of earshot, she tells him, in a low voice, “Probably a terrible time to bring it up, but the office called me again yesterday.”
Louis barely suppresses a groan. “I wish they’d stop doin’ that, they know when I’m coming in. I just signed four checks today.”
Grace ignores it. “You know Levi and I can always help, too. You don’t have to pay for it all on your own.”
Even two years ago, when Grace got a new job, and Louis had saved a sizeable amount, they’d never imagined how well Paul would do there, how much the independence and structure would benefit him. Then, Grace had twins unexpectedly, and with only one job between the four of their little family, Louis took on the responsibility of taking care of Paul like he had always done. If he can’t afford it, with his minuscule, rent-controlled apartment in New York, he knows very well that Grace and Levi can’t either.
“You don’t have to do that. Everything’s fine right now.”
“He can move back here whenever. I know it’s not the best situation for him, but if the facility’s too expensive, it’s too expensive.”
“We don’t have to worry about it yet,” he resigns, feeling the phantom of his mother at his shoulder again.
“Wish I could go back to work. I can’t believe I had two god damn kids at once,” she hisses. “You know how much day care is for two babies?”
Louis spares a small laugh, smiling. “Yeah, you’ve said.” In their pen, the girls are busying themselves with slamming small blocks into place on a little tower, sometimes taking turns and sometimes arguing wordlessly.
“I’ve been thinking about doing something else.”
Grace’s eyes widen. “Really? Has it been that bad?”
“No, it’s just— the instability, you know? It’s stressful, not knowing what’s next.”
“What would you do?”
He sighs, rubbing his face wearily. “I don’t know. I’ve been doing this shit my whole life. It’s the only thing I’m good at. And if I just quit now after torturing myself through it for twenty-something years, what was the point?”
Grace tilts her chin at him pointedly. “There wasn’t any point except makin’ Mama look good. And she’s gone, so I don’t get why you don’t move on if you want to.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to give up yet.” He has his phone out before he’s even finished talking, typing out a text to Bricktop before he can think about what he’s really doing. Is it persevering when he tells her he’ll do reality TV, or is it the most desperate show of quitting anyone could have imagined for him?
Brick replies instantly: what, you got on only fans that quick?
I’m serious. Nothing where you have to get married.
In most ways, Grace is nothing like their mother; she is capable of compassion and sympathy and care that Florence would rebuke. But she is so like her sometimes that it scares him, and he sees it now in the way she hums placatively with a little shrug of her shoulders that says one thing but means another. He knows she thinks he’s weak for never standing up to their mother in the ways that really mattered, knows that she would have made different choices if she were in his position, and that she’ll probably pity him no matter what he does next.
But he also knows that she loves him, and she shows this by keeping the rest of her thoughts to herself. Instead, she gets up to check the oven with a wry smile blossoming on her face. “You remember when Mama used to make me do foot modeling? Not shoes, feet.”
Louis looks up from his phone, dumbfounded. “Are you sayin’ I should try that?”
Grace laughs, shrugging. “I don’t know. There are more embarrassing jobs in the world.”
“I don’t think there’s a huge market for male foot modeling right now, but thank you for the suggestion.”
Paul reenters the room as he says this with the cold and effortlessly funny observation, “Louis can’t be a foot model, he has ugly feet.”
Louis laughs, the pressure slinking away inch by inch. This, they never had while their mother was alive, and he’s tremendously grateful for it. Grace has a house and family of her own and children she’s allowed to be kind to, Paul is better than Louis has seen him since elementary school, and the three of them are allowed to have joy together without their mother around to take it from them.
But then, the table is set, and the twins are already happily making a mess of themselves in their highchairs, and Levi comes home. They hear him swing open the front door and clamber into the dining room with several plastic grocery bags on his arm that he carries past the table and into the kitchen after kissing Grace’s cheek hello. When he comes back, he kisses each of the twins on the head, and the first thing he says to them all is, “I just saw Jonah Macon at the store. You remember him?”
And the good mood shifts. And the ghostly presence of his mother’s watchful eye returns. And Louis remembers why he doesn’t feel safe here, why New Orleans doesn’t feel like home anymore, why his heart beats faster and his hands start to shake the moment he boards the plane.
“Yes?” Grace wonders, “He lives over in Algiers, I think.”
“Well, I saw him at the store with a man,” he finishes slowly.
There’s no judgement in it, but the surprise by itself is enough to light a nervous fire in Louis’ belly, the fact that it was news he found important enough it had to be brought home to the whole family to share. “I’m pretty sure they’re married.”
It’s the way Grace recoils, the way she cocks her chin to the side like she’s heard something incomprehensible that makes Louis shake. “Really? Lou, didn’t you used to be friends with him?”
“Yeah,” he agrees breathlessly, straining to remember how to be normal. “We haven’t talked in a long while.”
“That’s so strange,” Grace continues to muse aloud, “I never would’ve thought,” she says, as though being gay is something that could be seen on someone and picked out from their appearance and speech like you can tell a man is white or black, rich or poor, Protestant or Catholic.
And, God, he’s shaking now — rage or anxiety or both. Maybe even jealousy, a deeply rooted envy that Jonah gets to walk to the grocery store with a man’s hand in his own, and Louis is still…
He presses the dull tine of his fork into his palm under the table and counts to five before he shakes free his hands and focuses hard on keeping a neutral expression and tone. Grace is staring blankly into the distance, thoughtful with a furrow in her brow. Louis clears his throat carefully. “Are we gonna eat?” and she jumps up to prepare their plates in the kitchen, the gossip blessedly dropped from conversation, at least until Louis leaves.
He takes Paul back to his apartment. The care facility is far closer to a collection of townhomes than a hospital, and Paul’s one-bedroom independent-living apartment is on the ground floor with free and open access to the outdoors, a privilege Paul once couldn’t afford to have. It’s expensive, but there are staff to make sure he takes his medication every morning and take him to his appointments and people around to spend time with on the rare occasion that he wants to, so that he doesn’t have to feel alone. And it’s worth it, as far as Louis is concerned, because Paul hasn’t been this lucid and comfortable in years.
He asks if Paul needs anything from the store before he leaves, and he doesn’t, so they sit in the car together for a few minutes, Paul making no move to get out, and Louis is happy enough to stay with him, because, as difficult as it is to talk to him sometimes, he misses him when he leaves.
“You like livin’ by yourself out here?”
“No,” he says. “But the twins are so loud. And you only come once a month.”
From nowhere, Paul also informs him, “There are places just like this in New York,” because he always says that, and he always says it just like this, a leading statement and not a question. It breaks Louis’ heart a little every time, because Paul is always craving independence he can’t handle and living at the whims of other people.
And it breaks his heart because he wants to see him more, but sometimes he can’t stand to come here, when he feels like he’s crawling out of his skin every time he sets foot in Louisiana. He can’t afford it, either. He wants to say that he’ll visit more, but how would he pay for it? He wants to promise that he’ll move him up to New York so he can be closer, or move himself back down here, but where would he work?
Instead, he says, “I’ll look into it,” then they say goodbye, and Paul leaves Louis alone in the car to stare into space for a few spare minutes.
When his final ritual of the evening is interrupted by his phone ringing, he answers with a flat, “What?” No attention paid to the ID because who else calls him besides Bricktop?
Brick starts in immediately. “I got you on Love Island. You’re gonna need, like, seventy bathing suits, but don’t even think about it, I don’t trust you to shop for yourself. You’ll be too conservative and the goal here is the sluttier the better.”
For a moment, he’s stunned silent. “I thought I said nothing where you have to get married.”
“You don’t! You just have to be in a couple every week and if you’re single, you get kicked off the island. It’s sort of like Big Brother with less clothes.”
“But it is a dating show?”
“Sure is. But don’t worry about that part, it’s all pretend anyway.”
“How did you get that so fast?”
“Louis, I’ve had people in my inbox talking about Love Island non-stop. You’re attractive, you’re under thirty, and your picture is on the agency sites, they’ve been asking for you for years.”
He drops the phone and presses his hands to his eyes, groaning. “Brick, you know I’m gay,” and he can’t help but feel like the word sounds wrong leaving his own lips, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s just another acting job! Haven’t you been pretending to be straight your whole life? How hard can it be?”
Louis is quiet for a minute, considering. It’s nothing he isn’t used to, but it feels somehow like he’s stepping over the threshold into something depraved, something tarnishing. It feels like once he does this, the respectable career he’s been wishing he could have for twenty years will never find him, that the work he’s done thus far to keep himself clean in the eyes of the business — not limited to staying in the closet even when it couldn’t have mattered less — will have been for nothing. It’s so demeaning to even think of that he wonders why he doesn’t actually try porn first. At least he wouldn’t have to show his face.
“There’s always Survivor. Or, like, American Ninja Warrior? Wait, you can’t sing, can you?”
“You think if I could sing my mama wouldn’t have already milked that for all it was worth? No.”
Brick clicks her tongue unhappily. “Well, do you want to do Love Island or not? I think it’d be good for you. Not only for the brand deals, but it’d get your name out there again.”
He’s quiet again, for so long that Brick sighs. “Okay, well, you have your last YSL print ad on Thursday, and there is always time to start learning TikTok dances. It’s never too late.”
“Fine. Fine,” he interrupts. “I’ll do it. Whatever.”
What else is he to do? Move back to New Orleans, get a job at Levi’s company like Grace has promised him, and become the man everyone whispers about at dinner? It feels like an inevitability now, and something he can’t put off much longer. At least this way, he’ll be getting paid while they whisper, and every time his ears burn, it’ll be the omen of another sponsored Instagram post cashing out thousands.
“I’m all for this, but are you absolutely sure?”
“Yeah. How hard can it be?”
Three months of iterative interviews and camera tests and stylized photoshoots later, Louis is officially one of the first five men about to walk into the villa for the newest season of Love Island. Brick says they couldn’t have possibly hoped for anything better and that the first five usually stay through to the end.
He stops in departures to use his phone one last time before he loses data. Louis only texts Grace now that the time has come for him to mysteriously disappear for two months, giving her the simple half-truth that he will be gone for work. If she doesn’t believe him, it’s unlikely that she’ll have the time to follow up either way. It’s Paul who gets a real phone call.
“Hi, Louis.”
“Hi, Paul.”
“It’s prayer circle. You’re interrupting.”
“I’m sorry, I just needed to tell you I’m not going to make it to the next two Saturdays. I’m filming a show in Fiji, and there won’t be much cell service, either.”
Paul huffs. “You always come on the first Saturday.”
“Sometimes I gotta work, you know that.”
“So you will come on September second.”
“Yeah, sure,” he agrees, because it’s easier to believe him than it is to do the math. “September second.”
“You’re interrupting prayer circle,” he says again.
Louis breathes a sigh of relief and smiles to himself. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ll let you go.”
“Okay.”
“You pray for me yet?” He asks, entirely joking, but Paul hums through the line, and Louis shuts his eyes, he can see him nodding, serious and resolute, as he answers.
“Yes, Louis. I always do you first.”