by Rose, Katia
They help themselves to more fries anyway.
“So how goes the life of a kitchen manager?” Owen asks once our plates have been cleared and our milkshakes are on the way. “You must be busy. We haven’t seen you in—what, forever? It’s been forever, right?”
“And a day,” Stella chimes in.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, guys. Really. I’m a shit friend. I’ll be at next month’s slam, though,” I assure them. “Things have just been crazy with the reopening.”
“Last time we messaged, you were in the middle of hiring people,” Owen comments. “Did you pick a bunch of hotties?”
The sight of Renee in my bed last night pushes to the front of my mind, taking hold of my senses. I can still feel her in my arms, feel the rise and fall of her breath as she slept, feel the stillness that gentle movement brought to my thoughts. Lying with the warmth of her body pressed to mine in the dark, everything felt still.
Then the sun came up. The world rushed in, and I haven’t been able to stop moving since. My fingers toy with my napkin, and my knee bounces under the table, trying and failing to fend off the onslaught of doubts that crept in with the morning light.
I don’t know what my face does as I stare at Stella and Owen, but whatever it is, it’s enough to make them glance at each other, back at me, and then each other again.
“Oh, he so did hire a hottie,” Stella mutters as Owen nods.
“You know I can hear you, right?”
They both face me again and rest their chins on their hands.
“What’s her name?” Owen asks, making a show of batting his eyelashes.
“Don’t do that. It’s creepy as fuck.”
“Answer the question, Trottard.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Honey.” Stella reaches across the table to place her hand on my forearm and gives me one of her sweetest Stella smiles. “Cut the bullshit.”
They’re not going to let this go. I drop my head into my hands and groan.
“Oh, boy’s got it bad,” Owen taunts.
“So bad,” Stella agrees. “Tell us everything.”
“You two are impossible.”
I shift forward in my seat so I can stretch my hands behind my back as I figure out where to even start with this story.
“You know how sometimes you just...you just connect with someone? It’s like you’re standing in a packed metro car, and all of a sudden you look up and lock eyes with someone, and you can’t look away. You know you’re being crazy. You know there are so many reasons you should just drop your eyes back to the floor and keep waiting for your stop, but you just can’t look away, like this person who was a stranger to you just seconds ago is somehow tied to you now, like you’re linked. There’s this...connection, and no matter how much you know you should, you can’t break it. You don’t even want to.”
The two of them blink at me. Stella’s jaw has actually fallen open.
“I can’t tell if this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me or if I’m just setting my own life on fire.”
The words I haven’t been able to admit to myself, the doubt I’ve been trying to swallow down for so long, pours out in front of my friends. They’ve heard some of the most honest things I’ve ever said through my poetry, and I guess somewhere inside me, I know I can trust them now.
“Do you guys remember Renee Nyobé?”
“Oh my god, it’s Renee?” Stella’s whole face lights up. “I love Renee!”
“Yeah, she helped pick your cat gifts, actually.”
“Oh my god, I love her even more!”
“Didn’t she leave?” Owen asks. “She hasn’t been around the scene for years.”
“She was at school in England. I hadn’t seen her in years either, not until she walked into Taverne Toulouse looking for a job.”
“That’s so romantic!” Stella’s got huge puppy dog eyes going on now.
Owen takes a slightly more practical stance. “So you’re...her boss?”
I drop my head in my hands again. “Yeah, remember the part about setting my own life on fire?”
“I just, uh, want to get the whole picture here,” Owen continues. “How old is she?”
“Owen!” I look up just in time to see Stella smack him—except it’s Stella, so it’s more of a gentle tap. “They are in love! Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.”
“No one under forty says ‘Debbie Downer,’” he replies.
“No one under eighty wears hats like that,” she shoots back. “Now, Dylan, tell us more about how you fell in love with your young employee.”
I grimace. “Do you really have to say it like that, Stella?”
“How young?” Owen urges.
I suck in a breath. “Twenty-one.”
I wait for them to condemn me, but they both just look pensive for a moment.
“That’s not so bad,” Stella muses.
“Yeah,” Owen agrees, “I’ve definitely heard of worse.”
“Oh great, I’m on the scale of bad to worse now. This is fucking great. I’m that guy, aren’t I? God, I tried so hard to tell myself I wasn’t, but fuck, I am. I’m that guy.”
“Dylan, you are not that guy.” Stella reaches for my arm again. “That guy doesn’t ask himself if he’s that guy. That guy just goes around being that guy. You understand?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“You didn’t hire a hottie.” She shoots Owen a glare—or the closest thing to a glare that she’s got. “You hired someone who was the right fit for the job, and you ended up developing feelings for each other. I can tell just from the way you look when you talk about her that she means the world to you. Nobody who knows you would mistake you for ‘that guy.’”
“Agreed,” Owen pitches in. “I know I sounded sceptical, but Stella’s right. You’re clearly crazy about her. So what exactly is going on between you two? Are you dating?”
“We...We’ve been taking it slow.”
Flashes of last night play across my conscience: her hands digging into my back, the glint of her eyes staring up at me in the dim light of my room, that wild hair splayed out across my pillow.
Owen tilts his head to the side. “You’ve slept together, haven’t you?”
I really have to get my damn face under control.
“Just once,” I bite out. “Recently. Maybe we should have waited longer, but she...she had a rough night, and she just needed someone to be there, and...”
I wait for them to make a crude joke. My explanation is just begging for it, but instead I find them both watching me with understanding.
“You really care about her,” Stella says softly.
I nod. “She’s...she’s incredible. I’ve never felt like this before, not even close to it. We’ve just been meeting up on our days off, getting to know each other better. It’s been...everything. I could listen to her talk about anything for hours. I just keep thinking how damn lucky I am to sit across from her at a table, never mind have the chance to be...but that’s the thing. What are we going to be?”
“Boyfriend and girlfriend?” Stella prompts like it should be obvious.
I wish it was that obvious.
“So I’m just supposed to date my ‘young employee?’”
Stella waves her hand dismissively. “It’s not like you’re the prime minister and you’ve suddenly decided to date the latest parliamentary intern.”
The arrival of our milkshakes saves me from having to reply. Owen and Stella start slurping theirs down, but mine just looks like a pile of sludge to me.
“You know what?” Owen grabs a napkin from the stack and then pulls a pen and his phone out of his messenger bag. After a few seconds of writing, he hands the napkin to Stella. “It’s your number. If you don’t give that to him, I will. He was totally checking you out.”
“He was not!” Stella blushes as she turns back to us after watching the waiter walk away again. “Was he?”
; I nod. “I think he was.”
“Oh my god, you guys, I can’t do this. Should I do this?”
Owen and I continue to egg her on until she finally throws her hands up in the air.
“Okay. I’ll do it when we leave, and just so everyone is aware, if I can be brave enough to do this, Dylan can totally be brave enough to date Renee.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You’re giving your number to a waiter you met an hour ago. Is that really on par with me dating Renee?”
“You’re going to date a girl you’re in love with,” Stella drawls. “Seems pretty straightforward to me.”
“She’s a girl who deserves way better than me.”
There it is, underneath the small talk about our jobs and our ages. There’s the real road block I can’t get past, the one I keep butting heads with over and over again.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Owen makes a slow-the-hell-down gesture. “I thought we were discussing the logistical difficulties of you dating. You thinking she doesn’t deserve you is a whole other question. Is that the real reason you aren’t together yet?”
“There’s more to it than that.”
Way more.
“You guys know enough about...my past to see why that would be a problem, right? Why someone like her shouldn’t be with someone like me?”
They both sit in silence for a moment and watch me like I’m a particularly interesting episode of Doctor Phil.
“You know I could take you both much more seriously as psychologist stand-ins if you weren’t sipping milkshakes right now.”
Owen reaches the bottom of his glass and makes a perfectly timed and very loud slurping noise.
“I think Stella and I would make a great psychologist team,” he informs me.
“I agree,” Stella pipes up before reaching to squeeze my forearm on the table. “Also, you said it yourself, honey. It’s your past. The past can only touch you if you let it.”
Hearing that from her, after all she’s gone through to be who she is today, makes me put a stop to my protests and consider what they’re both trying to tell me.
“I just...I don’t know how to make myself believe that,” I finally admit. “When I’m with her, it feels so fucking right, but when I’m not, I question everything. Is that what love is even supposed to feel like?”
It’s the first time I’ve brought up the concept of love and Renee together, but I refuse to let myself look too deep into that. My psychologists can take care of it for me.
“Do you question what you mean to each other?” Stella asks.
I ponder that one for a moment.
“No,” I finally answer. “That is pretty much the only part I don’t question. This...it’s real. I know it is.”
“Then you’re not questioning love,” Stella tells me. “You’re questioning yourself.”
“Oh!” Owen points his straw at her. “That’s a good one! I tip my hat to you, Doctor Stella.”
“Okay, you two have started calling each other doctor. I think this conversation is done. The waiter will be bringing the bill soon anyway, and we need to get Stella prepared.”
“Oh my god, is he coming back?” Stella cranes her neck around, but the waiter isn’t in view yet. “Okay, I do need you to pump me up, but first I just want to say you’re one of the best guys I know, and Renee is really, really lucky, Dylan. I mean it.”
Owen nods. “Love never looks perfect. If you want it to work, you always have to make it work. That’s true for everyone.”
“Wow, Doctor Owen in the house!” Stella does a little raise-the-roof dance in her seat.
“You guys are idiots,” I tell them, “but thanks.”
I want to believe what they’re saying. I want to let the reassurance sink in and pump through my veins like liquid courage, but doubts are still circling my system by the time we leave the restaurant.
“He waved at me!” Stella throws her arms around Owen and nearly sends them both crashing to the ground as soon as we’re out on the sidewalk. “Oh my god, he waved at me! He saw my number and looked up and waved!”
“Congrats, Stella. Now please let go of me before we both end up with concussions.” Owen disentangles himself and turns to me. “So I guess we won’t see you before the slam?”
I want to tell him he’s wrong, but with how busy things are at Taverne Toulouse, it’s unlikely.
“Afraid not.” I clap him on the shoulder. “But it’s gonna be a hell of a slam. I might even spit for you guys.”
Stella wraps her arms around me now. “Oh, please perform! I need more of your poetry in my life.” I hug her back, and she whispers, “Everything’s going to be okay, all right?”
I hug her a little tighter.
“Well, we’re going this way,” Owen announces once the two of us break apart.
“And I’m going that way.” I point my thumb over my shoulder. “See you in a few weeks, guys.”
We start heading in opposite directions. I notice a guy leaning up against the restaurant wall as I pass him, but I don’t look closely until he calls out my name.
Then I stop dead in my tracks. I know that voice.
“Dylan, my man. Long time no see.”
Everything in me wants to keep walking, but I slowly turn to face him instead. He’s shoving his phone into the pocket of his baggy jeans, a black hoodie swallowing up his torso. When he blinks at me, the motion is delayed, like he’s really making an effort to keep his eyes open. He’s probably high, but his stoned persona wasn’t ever much different from his sober one, so it’s always hard to tell.
“Kyle.”
“Yeah, man. Almost didn’t believe it was you. It’s been, what, a fucking decade?”
Nine years. Nine years since I last saw this guy, and it still feels too soon to be seeing him again. He saunters over and grips my hand with his, giving it a typical bro shake. I want to pull away, but I’m finding it hard to move at all. Everything about this is unreal, like I’m stuck in a dream where even lifting my feet off the pavement feels like sifting through piles of sand.
“I was like, ‘Nah, that can’t be Trottard. No fucking way,’ but it’s you, man! It’s really you.”
Yep, it’s really me.
“What are you doing here?” I speak the words through a clenched jaw, and Kyle’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What do you mean, what am I doing here? I was walking up the street, man. Then I saw you standing there with those faggots—”
“Fuck off, Kyle.” As much as I hate to hear it, I’m glad he insulted my friends. It’s enough to snap me out of my haze and put an end to this bullshit. “Just fuck off. Why the fuck would you think I’d even want to talk to you? I don’t even want to see you. Get the fuck out of my way, and get the fuck out of my life.”
I start stepping past him, but he decides it’s a smart idea to block my path.
“I’m warning you, Kyle—”
“Look, man,” he cuts me off, “I know things got a little out of control, but you knew the risks. You knew what we were getting into. Shit happens.”
He’s right; I did know what we were getting into. I wasn’t blind. I made my own mistakes. I committed my own betrayals. The rage that’s making my blood boil at just the sight of him is fueled by a fury meant for me. He’s a reminder of everything I did wrong. I’m standing face to face with the past I’ve been running from, and it’s pushing me to the brink of self-control.
I need to get out of here. I won’t give him any more of my time.
I did my fucking time already.
“You need to go, Kyle. Now.”
“Hey, hey, hey.” He holds his hands up. “Easy there, big guy. Maybe it will make you feel better to know the cops got me too, just a few months after that fucking party. I got hit hard with the community service bullshit.”
He grins like he doesn’t know what he’s messing with. He can’t know what he’s messing with or he wouldn’t be smiling. He’d be running.
“Community service,” I
repeat, almost shaking with the effort to keep myself in check. “You got ‘hit hard’ with community service? And you think that’s, what, going to make me want to hug you or something?”
“I don’t need you to hug me.” He snickers. “I’m not a faggot. Is that why you were hanging out with them? Did prison—”
“Do you want my fucking fist in your face?”
I have one hand gripping the neck of his hoodie and the other aimed to hit him square in the mouth before I realize what I’m doing. My chest is heaving, and everything except Kyle is blurred.
“You’re gonna hit, me? Really, man? I was your best fucking friend.”
“You were never my friend.” My grip on his hoodie loosens. “You aren’t even worth the punch.”
I let him go as the realization hits. I’m standing on the sidewalk in downtown Montreal. It’s a wonder we haven’t attracted attention yet. Less than five minutes in Kyle’s presence, and I’m already priming myself for a fistfight. I’m already acting like a goddamn criminal.
Again.
“Get the fuck out of my sight, and if you ever see me again, you make sure I don’t see you. You got that?”
“Jesus, man.” Kyle straightens his sweater and shakes his head at me. “You think you’re better than me now? You’re a big shot, huh? Too good for guys like me? I wonder what all your big shot friends would think if they knew what you used to be.”
“I told you to go, Kyle.” I’m grinding my teeth into dust.
“And I’m telling you that shit sticks around. I wouldn’t be getting too full of myself if I was you.”
Something about the way he says it makes the back of my neck prick with sweat.
“Are you threatening me with something?”
He holds up his hands. “Nah, man, I’m just saying...”
“If you’ve got something to say, fucking say it, Kyle.”
He has to be bluffing. He can’t have anything on me. He can’t. It’s been too long.
“I just know you is all,” he admits, “and you aren’t a big shot, Trottard. You never were.”
He slides his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and lopes off. Even the way he walks screams drug dealer. I only watch him for a second before I turn and start heading in the other direction. I make it a few feet up the sidewalk before I have to stop and brace myself against a wall. I’m breathing way too hard, and the rush of the city around me is a distant roar.