Reunion

by Michael Bailey

  He looked around the bar, taking it in for a moment, before his eyes landed on me. For the briefest of moments, his expression softened. His head tilted to one side, eyebrows knit together in concentration. He knew me. I could tell by the way he looked at me. Strangely, I couldn’t help but feel as if I knew him as well.

  The moment passed and he continued into the bar, heading straight in my direction. My heart beat faster as he approached. I felt pinned in place by his stare, unable to turn or move. For the briefest of moments, I felt the need to flee, his gaze was that intense.

  He was in front of me before I knew it. “Charlie?”

  I searched his face for anything recognizable. The way his lips quirked to one side. The way his head seemed to tilt as if silently asking me to remember him. There was something about the shape of his eyes. Something familiar

  His eyes.

  I can’t do this anymore.

  The memory hit me out of nowhere. The decision I had regretted thirty years ago, the biggest reason I hadn’t come to previous reunions, was standing directly in front of me, almost unrecognizable except for those fucking eyes. Those eyes that could have made me do anything.

  Almost anything.

  “Hi, Noah.”

  I knew the moment I saw Charlie sitting alone at the bar, that I had a decision to make. I could pretend he wasn’t there and go to the opposite end of the bar to order a drink. Or, I could suck it up and talk to him. My night had already been shitty because of the problems with the hotel. It couldn’t get any shittier. What did I have to lose? We hadn’t spoken in almost thirty years. A simple hello wasn’t going to kill either of us. Would it?

  I’ll admit, despite the massive hotel fuckup, I felt this giddy sense of excitement as I approached him in the bar. I found that curious. It wasn’t something I had felt in a long, long time.

  He looked utterly terrified as I approached, and for some strange reason I found that humorously endearing. “How’ve you been?” I asked.

  “I’ve been…good,” he shuttered out. “You?”

  He was tense, but who could blame him. Particularly with the way things ended between him and me. But if I was willing to let things go after three decades, I hoped he was as well. “I’m good. What’re you doing here?”

  The question was out of my mouth before I had time to realize, making me feel like a complete idiot. Of course, he was at the hotel for the same reason I was. I was asking stupid questions. Proof positive that maybe he wasn’t the only one that was tense.

  Charlie took a sip of his drink and smirked. “I heard there was a reunion of some sort.”

  “I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.”

  “Why?” he asked bitterly. “I may not have been popular like you were, but I still had friends.”

  The severity of his words stung. He had always blamed my perceived popularity as the reason I wouldn’t come out and actually be with him in high school. He’d been partially right. Charlie, like the rest of my classmates, had no clue about the rest. There was so much I was forced to keep hidden back then. Revealing my sexuality was never an option with everything I had going on in my home life. “I know you did. I’m just surprised to see you at something like this. Reunions never seemed to be your thing.”

  “Don’t act like you still know me, Noah. We haven’t talked in thirty years, and you don’t know the first thing about me anymore.”

  Any of the joy I had felt at seeing my former friend evaporated. “And whose choice was that, Charlie? Certainly not mine. We could have stayed friends, you know. Even after everything.”

  “And how would that have worked, exactly? I’d been your secret for so long that no one even realized we knew each other.”

  “That wasn’t my choice, and you knew it.”

  “You always had a choice. I just wasn’t it.”

  He was right, of course. But he could never have known why I had made the choices I did. And arguing over it thirty years later was pointless. I couldn’t go back in time and change my decisions, even if I wanted to. I raised my hands in surrender. “You’re right. At least mostly.”

  “Mostly?” he questioned. “What does that even mean?”

  Sidestepping his question, I offered, “Buy you a drink?”

  The change in direction seemed to stun him for a moment. His mouth opened then closed a few times before answering, “Sure.”

  I dropped my backpack onto the stool next to him and leaned over it. He seemed to track my every movement. I raised my hand to wave the bartender over, then turned in Charlie’s direction. “What’s it gonna be?”

  He looked at me skeptically, as if he was trying to figure out what kind of game I was playing. I wasn’t. At least not really. I was trying to make the best of a crappy situation the hotel had created and pull myself out of the funk caused by it. If it took getting shit-faced to do it, so be it. If it also gave me the opportunity to reconnect with Charlie, even temporarily, then that would be an unexpected bonus.

  Charlie looked from me, back to the bartender, back to me, and then back at the bartender. He raised his glass and shook it, causing the ice cubes that hadn’t already melted to clink against the glass. The bartender gave a brief nod then turned to me. “For you?”

  “Bud Light.”

  The bartender turned to get our drinks. I grabbed my backpack from the stool and set it onto the floor. “May I?” I asked, gesturing to the now empty stool.

  Charlie looked around the empty bar before answering, “Sure. But wouldn’t a table be better for you and your friends?”

  I slid the barstool away from the bar enough to slide around and take a seat. “My friends?”

  “The guys I saw you come into the hotel with.”

  My turn to be surprised. For whatever reason, he’d watched me as I came in. “Oh, them. They’re settling into their rooms. They may or may not be down, all depends on what they find on the television.”

  “You’re not joining one of them?”

  I caught the double meaning in the question. It wasn’t about my sleeping arrangements so much as it was whether I was actually romantically involved with one of them. The unspoken insinuation made me laugh out loud. “I’m not fucking either of them, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he sputtered.

  “No, it is. But don’t worry about it. We get that a lot. Always have, in fact.”

  I think it finally dawned on him who my two companions were. His eyes went wide as he said, “Wait? Is that Thomas and Ethan? You still hang with those guys?”

  I think the last question was an indictment of sorts. Almost as if he had visions of three high school muscle bros, lost in the past because all they had were their high school achievements, that couldn’t have made it through life without clinging to each other because they were lost in the past. We were known as The Three Musketeers in high school. We had each other’s backs. Or, more accurately, I pretended not to have any personal problems while we had each other’s backs. When Thomas and Ethan found out what I had been keeping from them, they were livid. Not for keeping my secrets from them, but for not trusting them enough to share them. So, he would have been partially right. I wouldn’t have survived without those two, but for reasons he could never dream of.

  “It is,” I answered. “And, yes, I still ‘hang with’ them.”

  Charlie cocked his head to one side, probably catching the hint of sarcasm in my tone. “Sorry. Didn’t mean any offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “It’s just…most people outgrow their high school friends. It’s weird to see someone still connected, especially thirty years later.”

  “You’re right. But the three of us have always been unique.”

  “That would be one way to put it. Slightly codependent may have been another.”

  I could tell he was still angry after all this time, but I couldn’t blame him. Not really. It was my fault things turned out the way they had. That’s the
curse of hindsight: you can see all of the mistakes you’ve made in your life and what you should have done, but you’re powerless to do anything about it. Sometimes, however…sometimes this strange thing we call life throws you a curveball, and you have a chance to make up for it. A do-over, of sorts. Maybe this reunion was my do-over.

  “Charlie,” I sighed, “I hope you don’t think what happened had anything at all to do with those two.”

  “Why would I think that, Noah?” The sarcasm that dripped off his words left a bitter taste. “It’s not as if you three weren’t always in each other’s back pockets, or that I had to compete with them for your time, or that they were anything close to influential in your decision. Were they?”

  The truth was, yes, they were. At least somewhat. But I couldn’t tell him that. At the time, I couldn’t run the risk of outing myself and potentially losing the two best friends I’d ever had, or my family for that matter. Not with everything else going on in my personal life.

  “Not in the way you would think.”

  “I never thought anything at all.”

  “You’re not a very good liar.”

  Charlie smiled at that. “No. I don’t suppose I am.”

  The bartender returned with our drinks. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and paid while Charlie grabbed his drink and took a long drink before tilting his head in the direction of the front desk and asking, “So, what was going on out there?”

  “Fuckers lost my reservation.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I made it months ago. Had a confirmation number and everything,” I explained. “But apparently they had a software issue and some of the reservations were deleted out of their system.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  I shrugged. “Not sure yet. They’re looking for a room right now and are calling me if they find one.”

  He set his glass down, and I noticed that it was almost gone. Did I make him nervous enough that he needed to drink? Probably. After all, it’s not every day that you run into your ex at a high school reunion. Although, could you really call us exes? Our relationship, such as it was, was kept on the downlow. No one knew, and I’d suspected even then that it bothered him.

  “Why not just bunk with your buddies?”

  I smiled at that. “Thomas and Ethan each offered, but I declined. They have singles, and I didn’t want to make things too awkward by sharing a bed with one of them.”

  “You’ve known each other since high school. I don’t think it would be much of a problem for either of them.”

  “You’re probably right. But Ethan snores like a chainsaw and Thomas farts in his sleep, so…thanks but no, thanks.”

  “That’s really gross,” Charlie choked out.

  “Who are you telling? They were like that even as kids. Ethan used to swear he doesn’t snore, but then Thomas actually recorded him one night and he had to concede.”

  “And how do you know all of this?”

  “Oh, come on. You yourself pointed out that we were in each other’s back pocket through high school. Earlier than that, even. There was almost nothing that we didn’t know about each other.”

  “Almost?”

  “Almost.”

  “And now?”

  I lifted the bottle of beer to my lips and took a healthy swig. I knew what he was getting at, but I wanted to hear him say the words. “Now what?”

  Charlie sighed and rolled his eyes before asking, “Are you still keeping secrets from them?”

  And we were back on this discussion again. “What’re you asking?”

  “Are you finally out?”

  “As gay?”

  “No, as a furry.”

  “Smart-ass. And how do you know what a furry is anyway? Something I should know?”

  He choked at that. “No. I have the internet. I’ve seen things.”

  “Sure you have,” I joked. “We’ll discuss what ‘things’ you’ve seen at a later date.”

  “You’re sidestepping the question.”

  “No,” I said, smiling at him. “Just having a little fun at your expense. And, yes, they both know.”

  “So that’s the reason you’re afraid it would be awkward.”

  “Maybe a little,” I admitted.

  “But you’ve known each other forever.”

  I took another pull from my beer. “We have. But I think we’re conditioned to think that way. I think that there’s always that fear that we as gay men will be seen as predatory. That was one of my biggest concerns when I was playing baseball, that the guys would find out and I would be seen as someone that leers at them in the shower. You always hear about athletes saying they don’t want a homo on the team for that very reason.”

  “But shouldn’t it be different with your best friends?”

  “Believe me, it is. They’ve never been anything but supportive. They’ve never treated me any differently. It’s not their problem.” I tapped my temple, then added, “It’s mine, up here. I mean, how would they react if they woke up with me spooning them from behind?”

  I meant that last part as a joke. We were close, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t demonstrative. But I kept myself in check when I was with them.

  “First of all, if what you say about them is true, I don’t think either of them would have a problem.”

  I knew he was right on some level. But playing sports throughout high school had ingrained in me that dread of being seen as a predator so much that I had kept myself at a distance.

  “Second of all, are you saying you’re a cuddler?”

  The question caught me off guard. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was flirting with me. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Not after the tenseness of the conversation we were having. I had to be imagining things.

  “Depends on my mood. And the weather. Can’t be too hot, ya know. And, of course, who I’m with.”

  “That’s what an air conditioner is for.”

  Yes, he was definitely flirting with me. I liked it for a multitude of reasons. It meant that maybe, just maybe, things weren’t as bad between us as I had believed. Maybe some of the tension I had felt coming from him had dissipated. Whatever the case may be, I knew that I needed to proceed with caution. The last thing I wanted to do was come on too strong and scare him off.

  The moment I saw Noah, my heart almost hammered out of my chest and onto the floor. I’ll admit, I was scared shitless at first. Maybe there was a small part of me that hoped I would run into him. It’s not as if I hadn’t rehearsed in my head over and over what I would say to him. But if I ran into him, I figured it would be at the reunion, not the hotel bar. The setting was all wrong for all of the things rattling around in my head.

  Then he had the nerve, the nerve, to ask me if I wanted a drink, in the hotel bar, as if it was…nothing. Maybe to him, it was. Maybe because he had been the one to make the decision, he had been able to move on easier. He had no clue how badly he’d hurt me.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. As much as I wanted to blame Noah for what had happened, the decision had been purely mine. One made out of hurt and anger. And, one that I regretted as soon as the words were out of my mouth. But, unfortunately, as with everything else we say, once the words are out there, there’s no taking them back.

  Yet, could I really, in good conscience, hold something against him that had happened thirty years ago? We were both kids at the time. Neither of us knew what the world was like. We thought we did. We thought we had our futures set, or at least I did. I thought I would move to California, as far away from Ohio as I could possibly get, and become some world-renowned actor. Life, however, had other plans, and obviously none of that happened.

  Come to think of it, I didn’t remember Noah ever saying anything about his future.

  It was that revelation that made me wonder how much I had really known about him back then. If that was the case, maybe I didn’t know the real reason he decided to cut thin
gs off. I had always assumed that he was too afraid of losing his jock friends by being seen with me, but maybe there was more to it than that. Besides, it was thirty years ago. People and circumstances change.

  I wasn’t a lightweight when it came to my alcohol, but I could certainly feel the two drinks taking effect. I’ll use that as the excuse for the two questions I had asked. I was definitely not trying to flirt with him.

  Nope.

  No way.

  Ok, maybe a little.

  But it wasn’t intentional. Cross my fingers. The words were out of my mouth before I even knew it. I could blame the alcohol, but I think it was more than that.

  As if reading my mind, the bartender reappeared. “Refills?”

  Noah looked at me, eyebrow arching with an unspoken question. I was sure he would follow my lead; if I said yes, he’d follow suit. “Sure.”

  The bartender turned to Noah, who simply nodded.

  “So…um…are you still living in Toledo?” Noah asked.

  The change in topic almost gave me whiplash. I wondered if maybe I’d offended him or been too pushy. Maybe he had a boyfriend at home that I didn’t know about. Or maybe he was trying to simply steer the conversation into safer territory. Whatever the case may be, I was more than willing to go along with it. I’ll admit, I was curious about him. What had he been doing for the last several years? If he’d finally come out to his friends, had he also done the same with his family? And, if so, how had they reacted. The more I thought about him, the more I wanted to know about him. Maybe this new need to know him came from nostalgia, but I suspected it was something more.

  “No,” I responded. “I moved up to Michigan a few years ago.”

  “Oh?”

  “I needed a do-over and had nothing keeping me here.”

  “Not even family?”

  “Not even family,” I stated. I’d be lying if the question still didn’t get to me all these years later.