by Daryl Banner
Brant chimes in with, “Dessie’s weird like that. I think the whole actress thing … with the whole actress thing, Dessie is pretty used to putting on new skins all the time and shedding old ones.” Chloe keeps muttering under her breath as he talks, but I don’t catch any of it. “So I say, just take her advice with one tasty grain of salt, Sam. You just do whatever it is you want to do. She’s probably wanting you to emphasize those pretty eyes you got.”
The completely-out-of-left-field compliment inspires a dry chuckle from me, which catches me off-guard so much that I look away. I don’t want Dmitri seeing me blush. I’m trying to act cool, here.
But I’m so annoyingly nervous with wondering what’s on Dmitri’s mind on the other side of the table that I can’t help it.
“What?” asks Brant, prodding me. “Don’t like hearing that you got pretty eyes?”
I blush even harder. Shoot me now.
“Oh, hey,” cuts in Dmitri’s smooth, calming voice. “Sam, how are things with Tomas?”
My gaze flicks right up to him, my eyes widening.
Is he serious right now? He’s really asking me about Tomas in front of our mutual friends?
Maybe he’s trying to save you from Brant. He honestly wants to know the answer. He cares. My gaze softens at once, and I steady myself for a calm, even-toned answer. “Well, he still plays the bassoon.”
That earns a little smile from Dmitri.
Good. Keep going. “I’m bringing him to the Throng & Song this weekend to see Dessie.”
Dmitri’s deep eyes drift down my neck for a moment, thoughts turning behind them. Then he lifts his gaze, his forehead wrinkling cutely. “You two have been together almost a year now, huh?”
“Not really,” I answer too quickly, grabbing my napkin as the nerves threaten to unravel me in an instant, right here in the middle of the damn food court. What is wrong with me? I wring the napkin like it’s my sworn enemy. “Are we a thing? I don’t know. When does something become a something?”
“Let’s ask Brant,” suggests Chloe icily, her eyes lazily drifting over to him. “He’s an expert in this very subject.”
Brant, unfazed as ever, turns cockily to me and offers his opinion. “I’d say, it’s a thing when you really … feel it. You’ll know.”
“So, when exactly did you not feel this mystery thing for me?” asks Chloe, putting him on the spot as she folds her arms and cocks her head. “Just curious, Brant. By your very own theory, we ought to have become a thing the very first night we went out, considering you had my clothes off before we even got back to the dorms.”
I withdraw my hands (and napkin) to my lap. I don’t want to be caught in the middle of the fire Chloe’s setting between her and Brant. I suspect this is a confrontation that’s long overdue, and Dmitri and I get front row seats.
But as the two of them start to exchange words, I look up to find Dmitri ignoring the pair of them utterly. He’s staring right at me with the hardest, darkest, most piercing gaze I’ve ever felt. It strips me of all my nerves and replaces them with entirely new ones. I feel unchained somehow, like he’s the only person who really sees into my soul.
How does someone do that with just a look?
“We had sex three times,” Chloe blurts out. “Once in the dorms, and twice in Dmitri’s room.”
The spell between us is broken. Dmitri squints at her. “My room?”
Brant huffs at him. “My room had that smell last year, remember?” From the look on Dmitri’s face, he totally does not remember. “Anyway, Chloe, I’m sorry. I figured you were enjoying it while it lasted, too. I didn’t realize I was … obligating myself to some kind of …”
“Obligating?” she spits back at him. “Nice. What a big, smarty word for you.”
“It didn’t seem all that serious to me.”
“Maybe that’s because, no matter the girl you’re with, you don’t really see them, do you, Brant?” She purses her lips, which makes her nose rings gleam. “You act like you respect all the women you’re with, but we’re just … different sauces you can dip your corndog in.”
“Ew,” I mutter with a glance at Dmitri.
He winces playfully back at me. “Imagery,” he agrees, shuddering.
Chloe keeps going off on Brant while Dmitri and I instantly (and thankfully) regain the connection our eyes were making a moment ago. I feel like he’s trying to tell me something even though his lips don’t move and he makes no indication with his eyes. He just stares at me, piercing my armor with the sharpened spear of his coal-black eyes.
Then there’s a girl with big bouncing breasts hopping up to the side of the table like a redheaded bunny. “Brant! You didn’t answer my text, sweetie! Oh, hi,” she says flippantly to the rest of us, then returns her attention to Brant. “Are you up for it? Maybe six or seven tonight, sweetie? Or eight, if you got things? Or nine? I’m flexible.”
I watch the discomfort twist across Brant’s face as he carefully constructs an answer. “I got a, uh … a Theatre thing. I can’t. Sorry. I …”
“Oh? I can come!” the girl chirps, then continues describing exactly how free and available and totally perfect she is for Brant, who has clearly marked her off the list of girls he cares about in his mind, despite the poor redhead’s best efforts to not see it.
Suddenly my foot is tapped under the table. I look up to find Dmitri making a silly face at me, then tilting his head at Brant and his girl, as if to say, Get a load of this: Brant digging himself a hole. I offer a wince of sympathy. Dmitri returns it with an amused smile of his own and what seems to be a stifled chuckle.
“I was sorta just planning to go with my roommate here,” Brant is explaining to the girl, “since he’s friends with an actor in the show.”
“Playwright,” Dmitri hisses at Brant, his eyes remaining on me as he continues to show his amusement through his lopsided smile.
“Playwright of the show,” Brant says, standing corrected.
“That’s okay! I can just tag along,” explains the girl, the most persistent, determined, and/or horny girl I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching crash and burn before my eyes.
“Since the message is clearly flying over your head,” interjects Chloe in her loudest voice, the black lipstick on her lips flaring deeply as her mouth tightens with her words, “Brant here is trying to gently let you down. He’s lost interest and has moved on. There’s some girl at the art school he’s all obsessed with for now until he’s tired of her, too. We are all sitting here patiently waiting for your attempts at manipulating Brant into another date to die out. And really, it’s for the best.”
Dmitri’s amused smile turns into a guilty wince as he glances at Brant, who shoots him a look. I don’t know what that’s about.
The redhead’s demeanor has crumbled considerably. “Come to think of it,” she says, her voice five hundred miles away, “I think I have a rehearsal tonight for my recital in two weeks.” And then she spins on her heel and drifts away as quickly as she’d come.
Brant sighs to himself, then says, “You really know how to set it straight,” to the tabletop, though I know the words are meant for Chloe. She says nothing, but only sits there poking at her salad.
I help myself to a full bite of my cheeseburger, then glance up at the ceiling, praying for this awkwardness to come to a quick and merciful end. It never does.
“I got class soon,” mumbles Brant dejectedly. “See you later.”
“Brant,” Dmitri calls out as his roommate heads off. “Brant!” he tries again, but he’s long gone, his ego dragging in tatters somewhere behind him.
“He deserved it,” Chloe mutters. “Just let the bastard go. I have no idea why a person like you rooms with a person like that.”
Dmitri sighs, then shakes his head, apparently not bothering to say anything, whether on Brant’s behalf or not.
Chloe gives an annoyed sigh of her own. “Let me out, Dmitri. I need to pee.”
He slips out of the booth to let her g
o, and go she does, scurrying away as quickly as a shadow in the trees.
And then it’s just Dmitri and I sitting at a booth in the middle of the food court. He stares at me across the table and I stare back, still chewing a full bite of cold cheeseburger. Strangely, I feel myself grow calmer when it’s just the two of us.
He says nothing, a smart sort of half-smile on his face as he watches me eat. The longer he watches me, the more self-conscious I become.
“What’re you looking at?” I finally ask through my mouthful.
He shrugs coyly, then traces a finger along a crack in the tabletop, his gaze cast downward at it.
I swallow, then drop my cheeseburger onto my wad of napkins, my appetite gone. “Why did you ask about Tomas?”
“Why else?” he murmurs, still watching his finger slide around.
I squint. “What does that mean?”
“I was curious.” He looks up at me. “Just curious.”
My lips press together as I study him. There’s something in his eyes that reassures me. It reminds me of how we used to be before things got unnecessarily complicated and, instead of playing “friends” like we said we would, we just avoided each other altogether.
I take a quick sip from my drink, then fold my arms on the table and bring my gaze back to him. “I think Tomas and I may be turning into something. It’s difficult to say.”
“I met a girl.”
My insides twist at those words, until I continue to stare into his eyes and find no malice in them. He isn’t saying it to hurt my feelings. Why would he? We’ve barely exchanged any words for many, many months. And besides, I just told him that Tomas and I might be a thing. Surely those words affected him, too.
Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe we really are just friends.
“What’s her name?” I make myself ask.
“Riley.” He shrugs. “I don’t really know her that well. We … sorta just met a few Wednesdays ago. Or maybe it was just last Wednesday. I don’t know. Days just seem to fly by lately,” he says with a chuckle that doesn’t touch his eyes. “She’s a writer like me.”
Somehow, I feel myself relaxing. “She sounds nice. A writer like you. Can’t say the same for Tomas,” I admit, “as I’m not entirely convinced he’s a musician. He seems more like a technician.”
“There’s room for sound designers in your program, I’m sure,” he reasons.
I shrug. “That’s true.” Suddenly a smile happens on my face. I can’t explain it. “If working on computers can pull him away from that bassoon of his …”
“He plays the bassoon?” Dmitri teases. “Never would’ve guessed.”
“Ugh.” I make a face. “Let’s avoid talking about what instrument he plays. Hopefully someday he’ll just play a computer and that’s it.”
“Computer musicians are a big deal. Video game composers, yeah? They can be technicians in their own right.”
He remembers. “Maybe I’m more of a nerd than I realized,” I say with a giggle.
“Hey, nothing against nerds. I’m a technician with words.”
“You’re a poet. A wizard with words.” I smile at him. “And I hope this … Riley girl … recognizes that.”
“Time will tell.”
I suddenly feel like a feather caught in a summer breeze. Maybe this friend thing can work out after all. “Can we start talking again? I think I miss you, Dmitri.”
“I miss you too, Sam. And I like what you’re doing with your hair.”
My hand goes up to it, feeling its tangled length, which has reached my shoulders. “I haven’t really cut it since Dessie made me go chop it all off. I guess I’m growing it out.”
“I like it long. I like it short. I like it however you have it,” he says.
My cheeks begin to flush like a wave of wildfire coursing over the grass. I clear my throat. “No one … has to, um, know about … whatever happened with us freshman year. We can just be friends. We make really good friends,” I point out. “I am highly sensitive to your antics. And you kinda set me straight when I’m saying crazy things, like how I want to compose my next masterpiece with a quartet of bassoons.”
“What’ll you call it? If Hell Was A Song …?”
I laugh way too hard at that. It wasn’t even that funny a joke; I just need all of the tension inside me to crumble away. It’s been months now that I’ve felt knots tighten up in my chest and my stomach, knots that seem to tighten the more I’m around Tomas. I don’t have any actual friends anymore short of Chloe, who really only talks to me to bitch about guys, and Dessie, who mostly only talks to me through texts and the occasional run-in at the Throng & Song when she’s working on a new piece she wants my opinion on. I told her once we should co-write something. That hasn’t happened yet.
But Dmitri? He would make a perfect friend. We said we’d try the friend thing, didn’t we? And we haven’t yet. Not really. It doesn’t hurt that he’s adorable, as sensitive as a lightning bolt, and as sharp as a sword when it comes to his brilliance, creative integrity, and wit. I’ve always liked Dmitri, whether I want to be in a bed with him or not.
“You know,” he says suddenly, cocking his head, “I think you and I make really good friends.”
I fight the smile trying to dominate my face. “You think so?”
“Yeah. Really, genuinely, I do. There’s something about the way—”
“The way we click,” I finish for him.
“We’re always on the same frequency,” he points out. “Like, even creatively. We just ‘get’ each other.”
“We totally do,” I agree, my heart bursting into flames.
“Let’s just bury all our weirdness from before and … just be two really cool people who keep up with each other’s lives. But like, let’s actually do it this time. Can we do that? I sorta need it.”
“Me too.”
He slides a hand over the table to give me the second handshake I’ve had today. “Friends?” he offers. “For real, this time?”
I take his hand. His skin is as soft as I remember. “Friends.”
Chapter 17
Dmitri
Something was missing from my life, and it was Sam. Now that we have reconnected, I feel so much less alone. It’s like I have some secret companion in the world, someone I can rely on.
And after supporting Eric at the debut of his new play, we head out to the cast party where I tell him all of this. “I think it’s really cool,” he says back to me with a lighthearted shrug. “I didn’t think you and Sam were all that close, to be honest.”
I have to keep out the part about how we made out a few times. “It was inevitable that we’d keep running into each other, I guess, seeing as her old roommate and my old roommate are a couple.”
“She’ll pop the question at the end of the year,” says Eric with a cocky smirk.
“Who?”
“Dessie. To Clayton. I guarantee it. Or else he’ll be the one to go to one knee. Those two are, like, made for each other. Ugh, I wish I had someone like that.”
“Me too,” I admit, for some reason feeling odd about saying so.
“They’re still staring,” whispers Eric in my ear.
I look over his shoulder at the weirdos he’s talking about—two guys and a girl who’ve been eyeing us since we came through the door. Neither of us know them, but they seem to be super interested in what we’re doing. I imagine they’re just a triplet of freshmen who like to stare at people and gossip to each other.
“Wanna get out of here?” I ask.
“Run away from my own cast party?” Eric giggles. “Yes. I do.”
Ten minutes later, we’re driving back to campus while Eric sits in the passenger seat using my phone to text Brant on my behalf. “Just tell him there were creepers at the cast party and we’re heading back,” I instruct him. “Maybe we can pick up some tacos on the way since we got nothing at the apartment. Ask him if he wants any.”
“Dude, the fuck with your window?” mutters Eric.
“In blow jobs, I hope.”
“Bro-jobs,” I correct him, earning an amused snort from Eric.
“Uh, he’s not happy,” Eric mutters when my phone buzzes with Brant’s response. “We’re being cock blockers now.”
“For going back to our place?”
“Maybe he had plans with his mystery art school chick. Oh. Who’s Riley?”
I jerk my brakes too hard at the red light. “Huh? What?”
“New girlfriend?”
“Did she message me?”
“Hey, D. D? She calls you D?” Eric teases. “Is that for your big D?”
“Gimme the phone,” I demand, reaching for it.
Eric keeps it out of reach, turning away slightly to shield my own phone from me. “She wants your opinion on a word. Hmm. I can think of a few words you’re probably giving her.”
“Give me my damn phone, Eric,” I repeat.
Eric finally slaps it into my palm, relinquishing it to me with a big, knowing smirk. “When do I get to meet the unlucky lady?”
“She’s just someone I know in my writer’s workshop.” I stare at the words on the screen. D? She’s calling me D now? “A friend.”
“Oh. ‘Writer’s workshop’. Is that what the kids call it nowadays?”
The light turns green. I floor it. “Yeah, that’s what we call it. Just like how you call Bailey your ‘couch-warming buddy’. Yeah, I bet the couch is all you warm with him.”
“It is,” Eric insists. “I won’t warm my bed with him, if that’s what you’re trying to imply. He’s way too young. A total kid.”
“He’s two years younger than you. If that.”
“Total baby. So are you gonna respond?” he asks with a nod at my phone, which now sits in my lap, ignored, as I drive. “You gonna tell her you’ll workshop anything she wants?”
“Quit being such a dick,” I spit at him, annoyed. “You’re always acting like you’re king of all things sex, like you know everything about it because you’ve fucked your way through half the gay population of Klangburg.”