“Josh,” Artemis said, poking him in the side. “Josh.”
Josh was trying to drive, and though Artemis was a doll and he loved her, she was super-drunk and goofy, and Josh was…not here for it. Not tonight.
Not after seeing Patrick kissing that random dude who was a real redhead and hot as anything. The dancer from Ohio.
Fuck.
“You are like that Charlie Brown guy,” Artemis said, leaning into his shoulder. “Under your own little raincloud.”
“Well, it is San Francisco in October,” Josh shot back. “Rainy season all the way.”
Artemis pursed her lips.
“Tell me what’s up,” Artemis said. “I know I’m drunk, but I’m sobering up now.”
Josh didn’t know if he wanted to have this conversation with Artemis. He knew she was tight with Patrick. Who knew what she would say to him?
“I don’t know,” Josh said.
“I know it’s about Patrick, dude,” Artemis said.
Josh’s stomach dropped to his knees.
“What the hell,” Josh said.
“I’m psychic,” Artemis said. “But only when I’m drunk.”
“An interesting superpower,” Josh said. “Usually people become less intuitive when they’re wasted.”
“I also have eyes,” Artemis said. “And you were frosty as hell back there when you saw him with that cute ginger.”
“I was not—”
“Dude. We’ve had sex, like, multiple times. Stop acting like I don’t know you. Talk to me about this boy you like.”
Josh wanted to put it all out there and tell her everything. That he could tell that Patrick was complicated, and Josh didn’t like complicated. That the last time he’d done complicated he’d gotten burned. That the reason his relationship with Artemis had been awesome was that she didn’t want him to be someone else, didn’t care that he was pan. Artemis was perfect in that way, in it the same way Josh was: to have a good time.
But what about when it felt like this? When Josh couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful Patrick was, and how he still wanted to know everything about him?
What the fuck was Josh supposed to do about that?
Josh pulled the car over near Artemis’s place and put it in park. He sighed.
“I don’t know what to do,” Josh said. “Usually I know what to do.”
“Yeah, but Patrick isn’t your average club conquest,” Artemis said. “He’s special.”
“So are you,” Josh said.
“Of course I am. I’m too special for you, and we’re better at being friends anyway,” Artemis said, matter-of-fact. “But you were looking at Patrick tonight like you wanted to put a ring on it.”
Josh shot Artemis a horrified look.
“Hey,” Artemis said. “You’re, like, the least jealous person in existence. It’s one of the things that makes you awesome for a boy. But you were hot back there. Hot and bothered.”
Josh knew it was true. Seeing Patrick making out with that guy—it made him so fucking mad. Like Patrick was cheating on him, except Patrick wasn’t even slightly his boyfriend. They’d only just become friends. Josh was a hot mess.
Fuck.
“Is it wrong that I don’t know if we should go there, but I also don’t want him to go there with anybody else?” Josh asked.
“Totally wrong,” Artemis said. “Super fucked-up. You don’t even know if he wants you like that.”
“I—”
“I mean, of course he does,” Artemis said. “Everybody wants you like that. But that doesn’t mean you get to assume.”
Josh bit his lip. Artemis was right. Josh had no idea how Patrick felt about him. Not really.
“I need to think about stuff,” he said.
“Damn right you do,” Artemis said. “Use that superpower for good, baby.”
She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her lips were soft and she smelled like lavender.
“Don’t be an asshole,” she told him, and hopped out of the car.
* * *
Inside his apartment it was quiet, as Freddy was still working at the bar and Kai was doing shows this weekend in LA. Mike had taken his class on some special field trip today, and he was probably crashed out after that high-energy marathon.
Josh dropped his bag on the floor and collapsed on the couch. He felt like he couldn’t go to bed quite yet, even though it was late and he was exhausted. He made himself into a blanket burrito, turned on the TV, and drifted off to the sounds of CNN.
He awoke to the sound of the front door clicking open. He shifted on the couch beneath the fuzzy wool blanket. Patrick was hanging his coat on one of the hooks by the door, his back turned to Josh.
“Hey,” Josh mumbled. “You’re home.”
“I am,” Patrick said.
Josh sat up, tugging the blanket close, and blinked at Patrick with sleepy eyes.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” Patrick asked. “It’s gotta be more comfortable than that couch.”
“Oh, I was—I wanted to make sure you got home okay.”
That was clearly not the answer Patrick was expecting. His eyes widened, and he let the silence hang over them for a few moments before saying, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” Josh said. “But that’s what big brothers do, right? And I promised your mom.”
Idiot, Josh thought. Fucking idiot.
Patrick’s face was unreadable in the low light, but the silence spoke volumes.
“I was fine, you know,” Patrick said. “With Eric.”
Josh felt that unfamiliar burn up his spine.
“Sure looked like it,” he said. “Looked like you were super, super fine.”
Patrick’s eyes flashed, and Josh thought: That is so hot.
It was amazing how not helpful Josh’s brain was sometimes.
“You don’t—” Patrick started, then stopped abruptly. “Never mind. I’m going to bed.”
“No, hey, what were you going to say?” Josh said, climbing off the couch. He still had the blanket wrapped around him like a cape. He probably looked like a little kid.
“You don’t get to judge me,” Patrick said. “Not for—what I did with Eric or with anyone else.”
Josh’s stomach twisted. Right. Because Patrick didn’t need a big brother. He didn’t need Josh to be that.
“I—I wasn’t,” Josh said. “I mean—I guess I hope you don’t feel like you have to…hook up with the first guy who seems into you, because that’s not—you can be picky. You don’t have to feel pressure to do stuff like that because…I don’t know, because this is college and you’re in San Francisco, or—”
“I don’t,” Patrick said, “and—no offense—I think it’s a little ironic you’re giving me advice on this.”
Josh looked away, twisting the blanket between his fingers.
You don’t know the half of it, Josh thought.
“Yeah,” Josh said, voice soft. “You’re probably right about that.”
Patrick disappeared down the hallway. Josh heard the quiet click of Patrick’s lock and exhaled, then padded down the hallway after him.
In his room, he lay in bed, awake, for what felt like hours, listening to the sounds of the city outside his window: a bus barreling past, voices that rose and faded and fell, the clatter-clang of a bottle hitting the pavement, the thumping beat from a passing car’s stereo. He wondered if Patrick’s whole soundtrack was different here than Fresno. Was it quiet there all the time? Everything must seem so strange to him here.
He’d been living with Patrick for nearly two months, and he still had so many questions. He wanted to ask Patrick about whether he’d been bullied, or what his friends had been like in high school. Whether his parents knew he was gay. Whether anybody back home knew. He wanted to know what was different here, and what was the same. Whether San Francisco was what he’d expected. Whether he’d been disappointed by it.
Clearly, he was disappointed in Josh.
And why would
n’t he be? Josh had acted like a jealous jerk, then he’d tried to be the brother/mentor/spirit guide that Patrick clearly didn’t need.
Maybe Patrick had kissed Eric to prove something, to prove that he could, but how was that any of Josh’s business? Hadn’t Josh spent his entire freshman year fucking his way through everybody who’d looked his way at a bar/party/club/reading/coffee shop? Josh didn’t get to decide who Patrick fell for. Patrick had earned that right ten thousand times over, and just because Josh knew where that path sometimes led, didn’t mean he had to ruin Patrick’s journey down it.
Just because Josh thought maybe he wanted to be more than friends—
Josh swallowed that thought down.
Try being his friend first, genius, Josh thought. If you haven’t fucked that up already.
11
The next morning, Patrick woke up early but decided to stay in bed. He pulled his computer into his lap and switched it on. He had grand plans to work on some writing, but ended up checking email and Facebook instead.
Artemis had posted on his wall: RELATIONSHIP STATUS?!!!!???
He thought about Eric, and the way he’d tasted—sweet from the punch they’d both been drinking, his lips soft, the pressure perfect.
But then he thought about Josh, and Josh’s face when he’d seen them kissing, and the fact that Josh had waited up to make sure he’d gotten home safe. He thought about Josh’s earnest, sweet expression when he’d said: I hope you don’t feel like you have to…hook up with the first guy who seems into you, because that’s not—you can be picky.
Last night, Josh’s words had hit a nerve. Patrick didn’t want advice from Josh about who he should date, not after he’d seen and heard all about the way Josh treated his conquests. But in the light of morning, Patrick could see what Josh had been trying to do.
In his own misguided way, he’d been trying to protect him.
Patrick replied to Artemis: It’s complicated.
Patrick’s phone lit up.
I can hear you typing, Josh had texted him. If you’re up, you maybe want to go on a little field trip with me? I forgot to include it on the grand tour.
Patrick’s heartbeat sped up. He took in a deep breath.
K, Patrick texted back, then added: It’s creepy you can hear me through the wall, btw.
INORITE? Josh texted back. To be fair I have superhuman hearing, tho. It’s a thing.
Patrick felt a smile push up at the corner of his mouth. He snapped his laptop closed and pushed off the covers to get dressed. Outside his window it was still foggy, as if they were living inside a cloud.
He could hear Josh clattering around in his room, probably getting dressed, and oh, Patrick should not think about Josh getting dressed or undressed. He really should not. He should not.
He was gratefully distracted by a text from Taneisha, which read: I’m gonna sang tonite at the Make-Out Room!!!!! You bedda come and bring errrbody you know.
Patrick smiled and texted back: Of course. So awesome!
You could bring a friend, Taneisha hinted.
Patrick rolled his eyes at her lack of subtlety, but then there was a knock at the door.
When Patrick pushed the door open, Josh was standing there, his curly hair swept to one side, his eyes sleepy but bright.
“Hey, so, first things first,” Josh said. “I’m gonna buy you breakfast.”
Patrick blinked. “You don’t have to—”
“Oh, but I do,” Josh said. “Because I owe you an apology, and as you might have noticed, I like my apologies to involve pancakes.”
* * *
Josh took Patrick to Harvey’s, the same place he’d shown him on the grand tour when Patrick first moved in. It was Sunday and the place was packed, mostly with middle-aged guys in casual wear. The walls had paintings and photographs of what Patrick quickly identified as famous queers, including one huge portrait of Harvey Milk in a prominent corner.
Patrick remembered reading about this place once online when he’d gone down a bit of rabbit hole about Harvey Milk: how the restaurant and bar was a Castro institution, built as a tribute to the man who’d advocated so fiercely and fearlessly for the queer community of San Francisco that he’d been killed for it.
Josh struck up a conversation with the waiter, whom he knew, of course. The man was tall and well-groomed, and his smile had an adorable twinkle.
Soon they were consuming huge plates of pancakes and eggs, Josh nursing a Bloody Mary someone two tables over had bought him, apparently just for existing.
“Do you ever pay for drinks?” Patrick asked, and Josh flushed.
“Not if I can help it,” Josh said. “San Francisco is friggin’ expensive.”
“The price of paradise,” Patrick said.
Josh’s forehead crinkled.
“I guess,” Josh said. “I mean—SF is great in a lot of ways, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes I still think I should have left.”
Patrick didn’t know what to say about that. Was Josh too cool for the place Patrick had spent his whole life trying to reach?
“Why?” Patrick asked.
Josh stirred his drink. “I don’t know,” he said. “I have a lot of memories here. Sometimes I wish I’d gone somewhere that I could have started fresh.”
Patrick had never thought about the fact that Josh might have bad memories related to this city. That seemed crazy, but then again, what did Patrick really know about Josh’s past life, anyway? Less, in some ways, than Josh knew about Patrick’s.
“Did you spend a lot of time in the Castro growing up?” Patrick asked.
Josh took a sip of his Bloody Mary, the tomato juice leaving a smear at the corner of his lips.
“Yes,” Josh said. “Or—not always in the Castro, but with dudes from the Castro, definitely. I used to do all this community theater. Like—when I was eight, nine, ten years old, even. There was this man—Benicio. He was sort of my mentor, I guess? He’d help me learn my lines and took me out after rehearsals.”
“That sounds—” Patrick started to say, then was unsure how to phrase like a grooming situation without seeming like a douchebag.
“Maybe creepy, right?” Josh said. “I know. But it wasn’t like that at all. Benicio was in his sixties when I met him. He’d never really found anybody he liked enough to shack up with, and it’s not like marrying a man was an option anyway when he’d been younger. He loved kids, though. His day job was at this homeless shelter for families. He’d, like, help the kids put on plays and organize games and whatever. Everybody loved him.
“He used to take me here,” Josh continued. “To Harvey’s. I sat at that table over there”—he pointed to a corner under a giant TV—“and he had to help me get up onto the stool. I felt like such a grown-up coming here.”
Patrick stayed quiet, afraid to ruin the moment.
“I was kind of a weird kid,” Josh said. “I loved comic books and anime and theater, and I didn’t really like sports or other typical boy things. When I was maybe eleven, I got this crush on this boy in my class, Wes. He was smart and he made me laugh and he had this kind of…swoopy hair, you know?”
Patrick couldn’t help laughing at the way Josh gestured with his hands. Josh flushed.
Eleven. Patrick thought he’d known when he was five, but it wasn’t like he’d had any words for it then. Or anyone he’d have felt comfortable telling.
“Anyway, one day after rehearsal I came here with Benny, and I was like: I think I like this boy. And he was like, You like him how? I tried to describe it to him, how whenever I saw Wes I got this nervous feeling in my stomach, and I felt all tingly, a little like I might have the flu. Benny thought that was hilarious, but he didn’t make fun of me for it. He said it was natural. He knew I’d had crushes on girls too, and so he said: That’s called being bisexual. I’d heard the word before but I wasn’t sure what it meant, so I asked him if that meant I had to like boys and girls equally, like fifty-fifty. He said no, it meant that I could fall for pe
ople whether they were boys or girls. I said I didn’t know anybody who was bisexual, I only knew gay and straight people. Benny was like, Josh, all sexuality is on a spectrum. That’s what the rainbows mean. We’re all part of this rainbow, and sometimes we’re different colors depending on the day.”
Patrick realized he’d been holding his breath. He tried to imagine having someone like Benny in his life, someone who’d told him everything he felt was okay. He could hear the emotion in Josh’s voice, the rasp. Josh paused for a moment and took a big swallow of coffee.
“Then he said, I know you feel like you’re the only one because you don’t know anybody yet who feels the way you do. But you will find people like you. You’ll find them and they’ll find you, like I found my people here. You will.”
Josh’s eyes were wet. He let out a chuckle. “I know it’s super-cheesy,” he said. “Benny was a total cornball.”
“No,” Patrick said. “It’s lovely.”
It was lovely, imagining Josh in this place, this tribute to queer struggle, with a man who had clearly seen that struggle firsthand, telling Josh that it would be okay, that he would get through it.
Patrick wanted to reach out and hold Josh’s hand. He curled his hand into a fist in his lap. “I wish I’d had somebody like that,” he said. “I basically had strangers on the internet, and YouTube, and all of that was amazing sometimes, and terrifying other times. But none of that’s the same as having a person in front of you telling you it’s going to be okay.”
Josh’s gaze flickered up to Patrick’s. His eyes were soft.
“I wish you’d had that somebody like Benny too,” Josh said.
Patrick looked away first.
* * *
From Harvey’s, Josh led Patrick outside to the Muni ignoring Patrick’s questions about where the hell they were headed.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Josh said, gesturing to an empty seat, and they squished in close together as the train lurched forward. “We’re gonna be on here for a while.”
They didn’t talk for a few minutes, Patrick pouting about Josh being weird and mysterious. The train and other passengers provided more than enough background noise.
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