by Roan Parrish
They blocked out the world and created new ones.
Worlds where anything was possible, and I could jump from sorrow to joy or from anger to hope with the click of a button. Where the pace of a story changed the rhythm of whatever I was doing and the intensity of the characters’ feelings turned the simple act of cleaning or walking into something heroic. While I was immersed in those worlds, I didn’t have to wish that I was somewhere else, that I was someone else, because…I was.
Even though I wasn’t a teenager anymore, those were still my favorite books to listen to, and having a story to sink into while I was walking through the city or on the subway still made everything better.
Tonight, though, I was too nervous to hear how Sof’s audition had gone to pay attention to the story. At every footstep outside the door I waited for her to come in, but she still wasn’t home when I finished cooking.
She wasn’t home when I finished eating, either.
Finally, around ten, I heard her key and scrambled over the back of the couch, yanking the door open before she finished unlocking it.
“Dude,” she said. She was grinning and wide-eyed.
“It went well, then?”
“Yeah.”
She unlaced her boots at a maddening pace.
“Well…are you gonna tell me or are you gonna just say one word at a time until I scream?”
“Sorry, I’m just kinda dazed still. It went great. They said…Ven and Ethan said they loved me. But that they had to talk with their manager, who would have to talk to the label, et cetera, so they told me they’d get back to me. So I went to dinner with Case ’cuz I was over that way and I wanted to take my mind off waiting. I figured it’d be days until I heard, but then Coco called while we were getting dessert after and…it’s a go. Like, it’s really gonna happen. I mean, just the tour, on a trial basis. Nothing long term. Yet. But…it’s gonna happen.”
Joy and terror hit me at the same moment, two trains coming from different directions and traveling at the exact same speed. Joy for my sister, who wanted this so badly. Terror for myself, at what my life would look like without her. Their concurrence left me shaking, grasping for words. And underneath that was a petty, niggling hurt: that she’d gone to dinner with Casey when she knew I’d have been off work and waiting to hear about the audition. I pushed it aside. The audition had been an unpredictable, whirlwind occurrence for her. She hadn’t meant to hurt me. Hell, this wasn’t about me.
I took a deep breath.
“Holy shit, Sof, that’s amazing.”
She nodded, still wide-eyed, bypassed the couch, and plopped on my bed. She told me all about it, the way we told each other about everything, and by the time I went to bed the small hurt didn’t even seem worth mentioning. The terror I forced into the tiny box where I’d always kept dread, buried underneath responsibilities, fantasy, and distraction. All that was left, then, was joy. Sofia’s dreams were coming true and I wanted everything for her.
* * *
—
The next week Sofia began rehearsing with Riven. They were holding off on announcing hiring her for the tour until the right moment, so I was strictly sworn to secrecy and then presented with a nondisclosure agreement, which Sof handed over apologetically.
The NDA was no big deal, really. Over the course of that day, as I went to work, stopped at the store, cooked dinner, and watched TV, I realized that I didn’t really have anyone I would’ve talked to about it anyway.
A few people from work were the kind of quasi-friends I might occasionally grab a beer with after our shift, but…I’d never been that social on my own. Ever since we were kids, Sofia had mostly been in charge of our social life, her friends becoming our friends, and with her gone more it had become clear that I didn’t have one.
All that week, I went to work and came home and hardly saw her. I cooked dinner, ate alone, and put her half in a container in the fridge. I didn’t watch any of the shows we were in the middle of, instead letting my audiobooks play as I wandered around the apartment, absently doing chores we’d had on the to-do list forever: scrub the shower grout, wash the windows, sweep under the oven.
Then Tuesday night came, and instead of dragging me to this or that karaoke night like she had done religiously since her freshman year, she had a meeting with the band. I didn’t mind missing karaoke exactly. I enjoyed it, but it had always been her passion, not mine. But I was accustomed to her getting me out of the house, and it seemed wrong to spend Tuesday night at home, so I went to the movies by myself, something I’d never done before. Usually money was tight enough that Sof and I only saw something in the theater if we both really wanted to see it. This time I hadn’t cared about the movie, I just wanted to feel like I was a part of the world.
In the row in front of me a couple sat wrapped up in each other, touching through the whole movie. Her head was on his shoulder and his arm was around her shoulders, and they murmured to each other softly. The way they fit together made my heart race, and I looked away because the intimacy of it felt like something I shouldn’t witness.
I’d never had that. Never had someone I could touch like that, or who would hold me. Growing up, I’d spent most of the time I wasn’t at school working or with my siblings. I had friends I talked to at school, but most of them were involved in after-school activities like sports or theater and I was always running off to a job.
I had a few awkward fumbles in the walk-in freezer when I worked at the diner and a jerk-off race with a neighbor at a sleepover once when I was young.
Then there was Marshall, the boy almost next door. He and his brother and sister had lived across the lot behind our house growing up, and we’d all been friendly as kids. One afternoon, he kissed me in the woods behind our middle school. So began years of kisses and touches in secret. Our encounters were unpredictable and short, both of us working hard to make sure no one knew. Him because he didn’t want anyone to ever know he kissed boys; me because I didn’t want my siblings to tease me about liking Marshall. When I’d left New Brunswick, Marshall was still working the same job in the Bravo supermarket that he’d worked since our freshman year of high school. I hadn’t seen him since.
I didn’t sleep with anyone until I got to New York, and I’d only dated a few people.
It wasn’t that I was uninterested, just…when I thought about sex, it was always more than sex. It was little things like someone brushing hair away from my face, or kissing the sensitive skin behind my ear; tugging me in the right direction, or putting his hands on my shoulders. Giving me a bite of his dinner off his fork, or resting a casual hand on my thigh.
The intimacy of his voice as he was drifting off to sleep, or the smell of his hair.
A vision of Huey drifted unbidden into my mind. How would his large hands feel resting on my shoulders? How would the vast plane of his muscled chest feel against my shoulder blades if I leaned into him? How would his stern lips feel as they yielded against mine?
As I was walking home, Sof texted to say that she was going to a party at Casey and Dan’s place in Tribeca if I wanted to go. It was already ten thirty and I had to work at nine the next morning; besides, I wasn’t much for parties, so I told her I was just gonna go to bed.
The apartment was lonely without her. I was lonely without her. Having grown up with six of us in our small house, then living with her in the dorms, then living here together, I wasn’t used to the quiet. I wasn’t used to being unobserved. It felt frightening somehow, the sense that I could do anything and no one would ever know.
The next day at work, everything got to me more than usual. Generally, I liked my job okay. It wasn’t something that I imagined doing forever, but my boss was a nice guy and I’d save up the most ridiculous customer stories to tell Sofia at the end of the day. Usually she’d respond with her own stories of entitled students
or absurd bureaucracy from the Fordham office, and we’d roll our eyes and talk about how everything would be better in the future, when she was a successful musician and I could wander through museums listening to audiobooks all day.
But that night when I told Sof about the woman who wanted her bagel toasted but not sliced, and the guy who peered at the menu then asked for a “late” instead of a latte, it didn’t feel much like bonding because Sofia hadn’t spent her day at work, but in meetings with the band. She told me about it excitedly, but it wasn’t the fun eye-rolling, ranting, one-upping exchange it usually was.
Her future was now. And mine…I didn’t know what the hell mine would be.
Because the truth? Was that, no, I didn’t want to be a rock star. But for just a moment, when Theo and Coco had been looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to sing, I had felt it: that I was standing on the precipice of something more. Something big and exciting and just for me. A spotlight was illuminating the promise that there was more out there than what I had. And even though I hadn’t wanted that, it had made me realize that I wanted something.
* * *
—
A few days later, I’d made a decision: I was going to go back to the bar and talk to Huey. Because, okay, I might not know what the hell I wanted, like, out of life. But I couldn’t get Huey out of my head, even though we’d only spent about ten minutes actually talking. And that had to mean something, right?
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he held himself so still, like he was watching everything, taking in every detail with a sense of perfectly controlled power. Of how he remained quietly neutral no matter what I said, as if I could say anything to him without fear of how he’d react.
About how he asked if I was okay as if he really would have listened no matter what the answer had been. The way his voice curled around me, low and rough as a cat’s tongue.
How he kept giving me water. Okay, so that was probably just because he was a bartender, accustomed to giving refills. But it had felt a little like he cared.
The fact that I woke up from a dream about him where I was clutching at his thick shoulders, pressed against him as he ravaged me on top of his bar, was neither here nor there.
Odds were he wasn’t queer, and even if he was, I didn’t know why he would be into me. He was intense and hot, at least a decade older, owned his own business, and was friends with rock stars. I was broke, worked a job where I got food spilled on me, and had spent my formative years heating up SpaghettiOs and ironing sheets until I smelled like industrial bleach.
But even though we probably had very little in common, and even though he’d intimidated the hell out of me, I just liked him.
I wanted to see him again.
And there weren’t many people I got that instant vibe about. Usually, if Sof made friends I just hung out with them and didn’t give much thought to whether I’d choose them on my own.
Even the two people I’d dated since coming to New York had been more about being in the same place at the same time. Jimmy, who worked at Buggy’s for a while, had been blunt and bad at customer service, both at work and in our short-lived relationship, but we’d been attracted to each other and decided that meant we should date. Emil I’d met through one of Sofia’s friends at school, and he’d been a sweet guy, but it had just been a casual thing; neither of us put the effort into it we’d have needed to for it to last.
Most significant about Jimmy and Emil was the fact that I hadn’t cared much when the relationships ended. Neither relationship had been intimate or intense the way I’d always imagined romance should be, and though I’d wanted those things from them, I knew I hadn’t opened myself up to them either. It just hadn’t seemed worth it.
So, even if it was unlikely that anything romantic would come from paying Huey a visit, the fact that he’d been on my mind more than either of the guys I’d dated had to mean something. If nothing else, maybe he’d want to be friends. People could always use another friend, right?
Clinging tight to that premise, I went to the bar around six, thinking it might be quiet early in the evening, but when I got there I didn’t see Huey. I felt too awkward to ask for him, since we weren’t friends yet. Instead, I nursed my drink at the bar and decided I’d give it an hour, then either ask or leave.
It was strange being at a bar by myself and I considered popping in my earbuds and diving back into my book, but I knew I tended to have reactions to what I was hearing and I didn’t want to start talking to myself in public. So I watched people come in and order drinks and felt as if an invisible wall separated me from all of it; something that, if they tried to approach me or I tried to reach out, we would slam against like birds at a clean window.
The previous times I was here, I was happily trailing in Sofia’s wake, acting silly and singing with her. How had things changed so quickly? My stomach fluttered and my fingers trembled on my lap.
“Felix?”
I looked up to find Huey towering over me. He was even more massive than I remembered, with broad shoulders and a chest thick with muscle and biceps testing the limits of his T-shirt sleeves. His blue eyes were intense beneath dark brows.
“Hi,” I said. “Hey, Huey, hi.”
“Get you something else?” He jerked his chin at my glass of melting ice cubes.
“Oh, no thanks, I’m okay.”
He nodded. Then we just stared at each other and I realized I had no idea whatsoever how to ask someone out on a date—romantic or friendly. I doubted he was homophobic if he was good friends with Theo and his partner, but you never knew how people would respond when it came to their own shit. My eyes lingered on his forearms, as large around as my calves. What if I asked him out and he got upset and beat the shit out of me? Or got upset and somehow, through his friendship with Theo, ruined Sofia’s chances with Riven. What if he laughed at the idea of being my friend?
My heart was racing and I started to sweat. This. This was why I’d always let Sofia take the lead.
“Um.”
I couldn’t believe I’d come here. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in the bar of a near stranger trying to ask him if he wanted to be friends like I was seven years old. Jesus Christ, what was I doing? Sofia was the friendly one. Sofia was the one who approached people and charmed them at bars. Sofia was the one who invited people over to our apartment saying, “You’ll like so-and-so,” like my own personal friend matchmaker.
“I, um…”
I shook my head and slid off the stool. I didn’t know how to do this without Sofia. I was just making a fool of myself.
As my feet hit the ground, though, a hand closed over my biceps. Not pulling or squeezing, just keeping me in place.
“What’s going on?” Huey asked. Up close, he was an immovable wall of muscle, not even made of the same material as me. But his hand was a gentle pressure on my arm and when he took it away, I immediately wanted it back.
His eyes were wary, concerned, with a line between his dark brows, and he was frowning at me.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out and I blinked stupidly up at him, my breath coming short. He furrowed his brow even more, then put a hand on my upper back and steered me to the quiet back corner of the bar.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I forced out. Then, “Everything?”
I tried to laugh at myself, but it came out as a creaking groan. I clenched my fists and stared at the floor and forced the words out of my mouth.
“I wanted to see you again. I came here to see if you wanted to go get dinner with me sometime, or a drink, or, uh, just hang out or something. I didn’t know if you were into guys at all so I wanted to say it could be as friends, cuz who couldn’t use one more friend, right? But then I didn’t know how to ask, and I had this ocean of realizing that we don’t
really know each other and why would you even wanna be friends with me and I…I…um…panicked a little.”
I let out a nervous laugh and looked up, cringing in anticipation of what I might see on Huey’s face.
But he just looked…confused?
“You want to hang out with me.” He didn’t say it like a question, but like he was double-checking an order.
“I…yeah. Is that weird?”
And wow, Rainey, way to make it weird.
“Not what I was expecting,” Huey said.
“What were you expecting?”
He shook his head and shrugged his massive shoulders.
“So, um. Is that…Do you…want to?”
He looked at me for so long that I became certain he wanted me to leave and never come back. But then the line between his brows smoothed slightly and his eyes softened. He nodded once, jerkily, and blood rushed to my head in relief.
“Okay, cool, cool.” We stood staring at each other, and I squeezed my hands into fists to force myself to just ask.
“You don’t have to tell me your business or anything, but, um…would you want it to be, like, a date? Or…not a date. Really, either’s fine, I just…”
He cleared his throat, an awkward growling sound, and when he spoke again his voice was gruff.
“A date.”
Holy shit, a date. My heart fluttered in my chest. I hadn’t been lying that I’d be happy being friends too, but the idea that Huey might be attracted to me, that I might get to kiss him or feel the expanse of his muscled chest…it lit me up inside.
“Yeah? Okay, great. I work until four most days, so…maybe dinner?”
“I could cook,” Huey said.
If most guys had offered to cook on a first date, I might’ve assumed it was to ensure sex after dinner, but I didn’t get that vibe from him at all. Given the way he held himself still and spoke so deliberately and briefly, it seemed more like he was trying to control the environment of the date by inviting me into his space.