Calling Calling Calling Me

by Natasha Washington

  Every time Patrick kissed him, Josh felt it in his fingertips and his toes.

  When Ramon had started flirting with him, he’d felt that usual pull he’d always felt around Ramon, the attraction that would probably always be there. But there’d been something else there too. A resistance.

  He would never invite Ramon to his family Hanukkah party, Josh realized. He couldn’t imagine dancing with Ramon at 90s Dance Night, or talking him through his Thanksgiving worries, or jumping in a car and driving three hours to see him because he missed him that much.

  Those were only the things Josh had already done with Patrick, and that didn’t even include all the things he could imagine them doing. He could imagine them traveling together, and writing a show together, and going to Comic-Con. He wanted to celebrate Patrick’s birthday with him and buy him some dumb but adorable present to see the way his face lit up. Josh had made plans with Patrick, and he wanted to make them real.

  He couldn’t remember ever wanting that with anyone else.

  He blew out a breath. “Fuck,” he said. “I think I do.”

  Artemis put her hand to her chest, feigning shock. “Josh.”

  “I know.”

  “Josh!”

  “I know.”

  “I’m so proud of you, is the thing.”

  “Maybe right now is not the best time to be proud of me,” Josh said. “Being as I may have screwed it all up.”

  “Look, all I know is that I ship it, and you gotta do whatever is going to convince him that he’s different than the rest.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And also he needs to know that you’re not going to jump into bed with Ramon Ramirez even if that would be so hot, oh my God.”

  “Artemis,” Josh said.

  “My point is that if Patrick’s the guy, you have to show him.”

  “I’ve been trying to do that,” Josh said. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Artemis took a generous sip of Josh’s drink. “Yeah, well, guess what, buddy,” she said. “Try harder.”

  Josh considered this. He leapt from the bar stool, nearly crashing into Artemis, and dropped several bills onto the smooth wood surface.

  “What are you doing?” Artemis asked. “Other than almost killing me, of course.”

  “Changing the pattern,” Josh said.

  * * *

  Josh would have looked everywhere in the city of San Francisco for Patrick, but thankfully he didn’t have to. He knew where Patrick would be.

  It helps me think, Patrick had said. The last time Josh messed things up.

  Ocean Beach on a Tuesday night in December was cold as anything. The fog was settling over the water, and Josh shivered in his too-thin sweatshirt and jacket, pressing his whole body into the wind.

  Patrick didn’t even move when Josh settled down next to him. He was hunched over, wearing the leather jacket he’d worn on Halloween. He never wore that jacket. He must have taken the first thing he’d been able to grab. He was silent, and Josh realized that he hadn’t quite thought beyond this moment. He’d thought: Change the pattern. Be different. But he wasn’t sure how.

  Patrick pushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and tilted up his chin. Josh couldn’t see him clearly in the moonlight, but he thought Patrick’s cheeks might be wet.

  “Hey,” Josh said. “Hey, don’t—”

  “Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” Patrick said.

  I deserve that, Josh thought. I deserve all of this.

  “Are you…”

  “I’m not okay,” Patrick said. “Obviously.”

  Josh’s throat felt like it was closing up.

  “Who was that guy?” Patrick said.

  Josh took in a deep breath. “I’ve been in touch recently with an old friend of mine from high school. Ramon.”

  “I thought you were in touch with a lot of your friends from high school,” Patrick said.

  “I am with a few, yeah. Mostly the ones who are still around here,” Josh said. “Ramon didn’t stay in SF, though. He went to UCLA. We kind of lost touch after high school.”

  When Josh didn’t offer anything more, Patrick said: “Was he a close friend?”

  “He was,” Josh said.

  “Why did you lose touch?”

  “I…” Josh stopped. “It was something stupid, probably.”

  Josh didn’t know how to say it. How to explain. Or…he did, but every time he went to say it, the words got caught in his throat.

  Patrick let out a frustrated noise. “See, this is the thing,” he said. “You know all these things about me in high school. You know where I lived, and where I slept, and who beat me up. You know I didn’t have any friends. You know I was homeschooled because I couldn’t cut it in regular school. You know about my family. I don’t know any of those things about you. I don’t know where you went to school, or what you were like back then. I feel like I’ve told you everything about me, even the ugly, terrible parts. And you haven’t told me anything.”

  “That’s not—” Josh started to say, but then realized this was one of those moments where he really needed to shut up.

  Patrick turned to look at Josh, and he was crying. Fuck. Josh wanted to die.

  “Patrick,” Josh said, and his voice wavered.

  “What the hell was happening in that kitchen?” Patrick asked.

  Josh sighed. “I would have stopped him.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Patrick said.

  “No,” Josh said. “I—I should have told him that I was involved with someone. I’m not…I’m not used to doing that. To not being available.”

  Patrick was quiet for a moment. Josh tried to breathe more slowly.

  “If you think I’m going to teach you how to be a boyfriend,” Patrick said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I have zero experience, and you know that.”

  “That’s the thing, though,” Josh said. “So do I. I’m not used to being a boyfriend either.”

  Patrick pushed his hair back from his forehead. He looked so tired, and Josh felt like shit.

  “It doesn’t excuse what I did,” Josh said. “It doesn’t. I know it doesn’t.”

  “Is he your ex?” Patrick said.

  Josh shook his head. “No. We were never together.”

  Patrick rubbed at his eyes. “I can never compete with that, you know,” he said. “Be the thing that you’ve never had.”

  Josh exhaled.

  “There’s always going to be someone else,” Patrick said. “Another possibility.”

  “I know,” Josh said. “I don’t want you to compete. I want you to be who you are.”

  “What, familiar and boring?” Patrick said with a hollow laugh.

  “No,” Josh said. “I’ve never—I’ve never felt like this about anybody, Patrick. The way I feel about you? It’s all new to me.”

  Patrick sucked in a breath.

  Josh wanted to reach out and take Patrick’s hand, twist their fingers together and say: I’m sorry.

  “I want to kiss you,” Josh blurted out, and it was the truth—it was always there, in the back of his mind, a constant hum: the desire to touch his mouth to Patrick’s.

  But this wasn’t going to be a simple kiss-and-make-up. Josh could see that. He could see it in how Patrick clenched his jaw. They sat in silence for a few minutes that felt like a lifetime.

  “You know, I told my mom,” Patrick said finally. “Over Thanksgiving, I told her.”

  Josh’s head snapped up. “What did you tell her?”

  Patrick curled his fingers into a fist, then opened them, a flower blooming. “That I thought you were the real thing.”

  Josh could feel the tears collecting in his own eyes. “Please,” he said. “Please, Patrick.”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me,” Patrick said.

  “Please,” Josh said. “I want us to try. I want to be better. Can I—let me try again?”

  Josh slid his hand across the sand and
took Patrick’s hand in his. The sand mixed between their palms.

  Patrick didn’t say no.

  “I know you think I haven’t opened up to you the way you’ve opened up to me,” Josh said. “But I’ve taken you to so many of my favorite places. You’ve met my family.”

  “I know,” Patrick said. “But those are happy things.”

  Josh suddenly understood. Patrick felt exposed and raw, and Josh had been playing it safe.

  He had to stop playing it safe.

  “What if,” he said slowly, “after we finish all our exams and papers, I take you to a couple of places…”

  Patrick looked up at him.

  “I want to give you a different kind of tour,” Josh said.

  “I’m listening,” Patrick said.

  33

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re staying?” Patrick asked. He’d had to deal with his mom’s epic guilt trip about taking two extra days before coming home for Christmas, and he thought he deserved to at least know why.

  “No,” Josh said, then leaned in to say to the Lyft driver, “We’re close.”

  “I just want you to know,” Patrick said, “that if you kidnap me, someone will probably send out a search party. Eventually.”

  “What, like an AMBER Alert?” Josh asked.

  “For the 415th time, Josh, I am not a child,” Patrick said.

  “I’m sorry, I get confused,” Josh said. “You look like you’re—”

  “What does that say about you exactly?” Patrick said, arching an eyebrow.

  “I like feeling like a cradle-robber?” Josh said. “I’m okay with it.”

  Patrick pouted for the remaining few blocks.

  Once they got there, though, it was hard for Patrick to keep being sullen, because the place was amazing. This B&B had personality and history, two things Patrick appreciated. The furniture was all antique and the architecture was classic San Francisco Victorian: bay windows, high ceilings, dark wood, built-ins, crown molding.

  “This is beautiful,” Patrick said, dropping his bag onto the hardwood floor and going to peer out the window onto Haight Street.

  “I love this place,” Josh said. “A friend of Benny’s owns it. He bought the place back in the sixties when it was mad cheap and fixed it up, and now it’s worth, like, a billion dollars.”

  “That’s so cool,” Patrick said. “You stayed here before?”

  “Yeah,” Josh said. “Me and a few friends rented a suite here on prom night, actually.”

  Patrick had a flash of Josh in high school, decked out in a tux on prom night. It was a nice visual. Patrick had never gone to prom. He’d never even really considered it. He suddenly had so many questions for Josh—about who his prom date had been, and where they’d held it, and—

  “Oh my God, did you lose your virginity here?” Patrick said, the words slipping out without his permission.

  Josh laughed, but it sounded a bit forced. “No. No, I did not.”

  “You’re not going to tell me the story, are you?”

  Josh glanced away, rubbing a hand through his curls, and Patrick smothered a sigh.

  Of course, Patrick thought. Because God forbid Josh tell me anything.

  “I’m going to…go take a walk,” Patrick said.

  “I can—”

  “I want to go by myself,” he said, because he did, and Josh didn’t push him any further.

  The air outside was chilly, and he could see fog still misting over the hills, burning off as the sun rose higher in the sky. He went into Lava Java on Haight, and a sleepy cashier took his order and stuffed two croissants into a small parchment paper bag that would surely squish them.

  Patrick huddled in one corner with his latte and put in his earphones. He listened to four Weepies songs in a row. There was only one other guy in the café, an old man wearing a leather jacket and huge black-rimmed glasses, and when their eyes met, the man saluted him with a twist of his wrist. Patrick smiled into his coffee. This was San Francisco: a city of people being alone, together.

  Patrick wished that he felt less alone with Josh, though. The way things felt between them right now was better but it wasn’t right. He didn’t know how to say it any other way. I want you to let me see you, he thought. But Josh already knew that. He knew.

  * * *

  When Patrick got back to the hotel room, Josh was sitting in the window seat, resting his chin on his knee. He looked strangely small for someone who usually seemed to fill the room with his presence.

  “How was your walk?” he asked.

  “Good,” Patrick said. “I needed some air.”

  Josh nodded, but didn’t say anything else.

  “So did you have anything special you wanted to do today?” Patrick asked.

  “I thought we’d go to my high school,” he mumbled. “I mean, if that’s okay?”

  A different kind of tour, Josh had said.

  “Sure, that’s fine,” Patrick said.

  “My brother has a show in the evening with his band,” Josh said, “but we have basically the whole day for whatever.”

  “Whatever, eh?” Patrick said, trying to lighten the mood, and when he elbowed him playfully, Josh gave him a small, secret smile.

  * * *

  Saint Felix’s was all arches inside rectangles, peaches and browns; part Hogwarts, part California, perched above the Pacific, a visual representation of the endless possibility the school promoted with its motto, emblazoned on a sign above the entrance: Audentes fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold.

  “This is not a school,” Patrick said. “It’s an oceanfront estate.”

  “It is pretty nice,” Josh admitted.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Patrick said. “How did you ever get any work done?”

  Josh shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  “I would never get used to this,” Patrick said, holding his hand above the wall that bore the school’s crest, the letters SF above a sun. The wall was slick with water, a fountain they never seemed to turn off.

  Isn’t this the definition of privilege? Patrick thought. To not even be conscious of the things that make you lucky?

  “So is Saint Felix your average Catholic prep school?” Patrick said as they walked to the theater entrance. “All—navy blue and rules?”

  “Not quite, no,” Josh said. “It’s Jesuit, so it’s pretty intense academically. Competitive.”

  “So you’re saying you were a smarty-pants,” Patrick said.

  “Why the past tense?” Josh said, indignant. “Also, we didn’t wear uniforms.”

  “That’s sort of disappointing.” Patrick frowned.

  “Does the uniform do it for you?” Josh asked. “Because I wore one in middle school, and I can probably dig that shit up from my closet somewhere—”

  Patrick’s laugh was louder than he meant it to be. He curled his hands in the lapels of Josh’s peacoat. Another reason San Francisco was all right—the cold bite of the wind invited layers, and gave Patrick something to hold onto.

  “You do it for me,” Patrick murmured.

  Josh’s eyes were so soft and sweet. Patrick wanted to kiss his fingers, just the tips that peeked out of his fingerless gloves. The blush in Josh’s cheeks made him think of sunsets. He wanted to write a song.

  34

  The theater smelled like floor polish and sweat and Febreze. Josh stepped inside the doors and felt memories crawl all over him like overexcited little kids. He could hear the director shouting, the rustle of fabric, the smell of grease and pepperoni from late night rehearsal pizza runs. Running lines, running scenes, running gags, running jokes.

  He ached, a little. He didn’t know what he wanted, what exactly he missed. Josh turned and Patrick put one hand on his arm.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “M’good,” Josh said.

  Patrick looked like he was in the process of formulating follow-up questions, but then there was a swish of fabric, the curtains parted, and a tall, thin wom
an wearing abundant perfume descended upon them.

  “Josh, Josh, Josh,” the woman said, and enveloped him in a hug.

  “What’s up, Mrs. Antoine?” Josh said, his voice trailing off into a laugh. “Thank you for coming to meet us here today when school’s not even open.”

  Mrs. Antoine pulled back and examined him with warm brown eyes. Her hair was cut short but was teased up into peaks, and a small diamond twinkled in each of her ears. She wore cropped jeans, a plaid shirt, and black boots.

  “You did grow up so handsome,” she said. “Is it inappropriate for me to say that?”

  Patrick coughed behind them, and Josh blushed.

  Mrs. Antoine peered around him, and her hand tightened on Josh’s arm.

  “Oh my goodness,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “It’s me!” Patrick said, his eyes wide. “Hi. I’m Patrick.”

  “Honey, I know who you are,” Mrs. Antoine said, and before Josh could explain that Mrs. Antoine definitely followed him on Instagram and messaged him weekly, she pulled Patrick into a hug.

  “You are so gorgeous,” she gushed. “That skin! Is that natural?”

  “Um, thank you,” Patrick said.

  “Sweetie,” Mrs. Antoine said. “Josh told me all about you. How talented you are. He’s quite enthralled with you, you know.”

  Josh knew he was getting red. Patrick was clearly smothering laughter.

  “Well, Josh exaggerates,” Patrick said. “Plus, he has to say such things, or I might not pay the rent.”

  Mrs. Antoine guffawed. “I see why he likes you,” she said. “Come on, I’ll show you the place where Josh learned everything he knows.”

  * * *

  Josh tuned out most of the “tour.” He was feeling hazy being back here, his brain fogged over like Mount Tam in the early morning and early evening.

  Patrick seemed quite taken with Mrs. Antoine, which made sense. Mrs. Antoine was the most charming woman alive, unapologetically queer and effervescent and kind. Once, when Josh had shown up to rehearsal looking like a hot mess, she’d told him the greatest asset a person had was the ability to smile no matter what.