by Gwen Martin
The studio feels smaller, like the walls are closing in around him, and Jesse needs to get out. He runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Can you get them all figured out and—”
“Yeah, man, don’t worry I got this,” Aiden says with a wave of his hand, smirking. “Get the hell out of here. You look like you’re about to murder a microphone or something.”
Jesse rises from the chair, leaning back to stretch out his lower back. He squeezes Aiden’s shoulder on the way out. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Aiden says with a distracted air about him. “Now go before I change my mind.”
The sun shines high and bright against a clear sky, leaving a white blanket of light against the concrete of the parking lot. Jesse has to shade his eyes with his hand even with his sunglasses to protect his vision from the aggressive rays. A part of him considers just getting into his car and driving to the beach, to watch the water crash against the sandy surface and stare off into a setting horizon. He used to do that with Sheila a lot when they were first dating, long before the whole social media gig took off, when the possibilities between them were as endless and vast as the ocean in front of them.
Jesse doesn’t want to fight with Sheila anymore. They had spent so much of their time fighting toward the end, it’s hard to pinpoint the last time they had a happy moment together. Even phone calls are turning into an antagonistic affair and the only reason Jesse is even playing up this spectacle of amicability is because he doesn’t want to make things worse than they already are.
He ends up driving back to the apartment, and notices that Luke isn’t home. Jesse figures he’s working late at the office. Luke has been working for his father—a high-end divorce lawyer whose clientele includes half of Hollywood’s A to C-listers—for about two years after he graduated from college. He jokes it’s because he loves the familial benefits and how he doesn’t have to pay for most of the amenities, but Luke has always been about independence and maintaining his own. Despite working for his father, he made sure that nepotism never became an issue, working hard to move up from being a file clerk to an assistant paralegal.
Jesse has always admired how hard he works.
The night that Jesse walked out on Sheila, he ended up here at Luke’s apartment at damn near two o’clock in the morning. Luke had answered the door with sleep-mussed hair, and nothing but a pair of flannel pajama pants on. He took one look at Jesse, with his shoulder carrying a duffle, and stepped aside, making room for him to enter.
He never asked what they fought about. So he’s never known that their last argument was how Sheila accused Jesse of being in love with Luke.
After a long, super hot shower that has Jesse’s skin radiating heat like a high school blacktop, he orders takeout Chinese from up the road and has it delivered. There’s an antsy vibration that sits under his skin, clawing its way deeper into his core, leaving Jesse irritated and rattled. He tries to settle it down with the only thing that has ever calmed him: playing guitar. It became the first love of his life, back when he was just a gangly teen trying to cope with the fact that the hard-on he was sporting in the hallways went to both the girls and the boys. He would slip into the sanctuary of his bedroom and play and play for hours on end, missing meals and skipping homework.
Luke would come over after school and sprawl out on the floor, resting his head into the palms of his hands, closing his eyes to listen. Then the early evening sun slanted into Jesse’s bedroom, pooling light over Luke’s supine position, his hair splayed over the carpet, that small smile curling at the corners of his mouth. Sometimes Jesse would stare at him, strumming against the strings, and random words like beautiful would show up in the forefront of his mind, leaving him stumbling on a note and flustered for a few silent seconds. Luke never opened his eyes, never moved or say anything. He waited for Jesse to start back up again, that soft smile still resting on his face.
Jesse doesn’t hear Luke come inside, doesn’t hear the clatter of keys on the table near the door. He barely registers the soft patter of footsteps on the wooden floors of the apartment. Instead Jesse gets too lost in the notes to fret, in the wave of music, the soft squeaking slide of the strings. It isn’t until he feels the dip on the couch that he’s shuffled out of his reverie. Jesse blinks to Luke’s hazel eyes, warm and inviting.
Jesse sucks in a sharp breath.
“What are you working on?” Luke asks, his voice soft, nodding to the guitar. Jesse suppresses the shiver that runs down his spine.
He shrugs instead. “Nothing in particular.”
The silence hangs too long. Jesse plucks at the strings again.
“Bad day?”
Jesse tilts a wry grin. “What gave it away?”
“You got that emo aesthetic going on right now. All that’s missing is the choker and side swept bangs.”
Jesse barks out a laugh. Luke’s settling back into the couch now, tucking a leg under his knee. “Got into a fight with Sheila. Again.”
“Ah, the ever present powers of one Sheila Wilson. I swear one day she’s gonna end up in a Marvel film as a new villain.”
Jesse chuckles, setting the guitar on the stand and leaning back into the couch with Luke. Their knees brush together, just the smallest amount of pressure and that comforts him, grounds him in a way he wasn’t expecting.
“I ordered food. Should be here soon.”
“Oriental Garden or Mr Wok?”
“Mr Wok.”
“Yasssss,” Luke squeals throwing his arms into the air in a victory pose. “You got the—”
“Crab rangoon, yes. And I also ordered extra egg rolls because I know you always want two.”
Luke places a hand over his chest. “You love me. You really love me.” His voice is high pitched and thick on the dramatics and Jesse knows he’s joking, but something about the words make heat rise from his chest to his neck.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he whispers, staring onto a small stain on the hardwood floor. The apartment came with it, something about a previous owner and a suspicious liquid. Luke always has insane theories that he has gleaned from a short obsession with murder documentaries. Some of them are so outrageous Jesse can’t help but laugh.
“Do what?” Luke asks. Jesse realizes he wants him to say what he’s thinking out loud.
He inhales a deep breath and soldiers on. He shifts until he’s face to face with Luke, who’s auburn hair is a wild mess on top of his head, and somehow it works for him. The tiny flecks of gold against the hazel of his eyes illuminate from the sun slanting in through the window next to them. Jesse loses his train of thought for a moment before focusing on an absent fingertip tracing over the top of the couch.
“The wedding...pretending everything. We don’t have to do it.”
Luke’s eyes widen for a moment, his mouth parted. He says nothing for a beat before the words stumble out. “What are you saying? That—”
“I mean,” Jesse says, focusing on the street below. He swallows, the tightness in his throat almost unbearable. “I mean, that putting up the charade for Sheila and her followers isn’t worth it if it will make things weird between us as friends. I don’t want you to feel...uncomfortable.”
Luke says nothing for a long time. When he speaks his voice is small and quiet. “Oh. Right.” Jesse watches out of the corner of his eye as Luke’s frown shifts into a sly smile so quick he almost doesn’t catch it. “Well, it’s too late. You have RSVP’d, and it has been promised to me that a rather infamous tie will be on display to annoy the shit out of the bride.”
Jesse wants to reassure Luke again but then the door rattles with a heavy knock and Luke is doing his happy delivery food jig he came up with when they were in college, and the moment is abandoned and forgotten.
Later that night, lying in bed Jesse listens to the sound of the city below. There’s music somewhere in the distance, a Tejano beat pulsing through the streets, a knowing rhyth
m that blends with the vibration of the tires on the freeway, horns blaring along with the buzz of cicadas.
Sheila sends a text apologizing about the fight they had earlier. Jesse ignores it. The sting of her words before they broke up has always left a wide space between them, a hole that refuses to be filled with apologies and platitudes. Today it came out again. The words were different, but the intention was the same. Jesse doesn’t have the energy to give a shit.
Another text vibrates against his hip and he lifts the phone close to his face in the room’s darkness. He makes you happy, and I want you to have that.
Thanks, he replies, and turns the phone on silent, flipping over to fall into a dreamless sleep.
Four
Luke
“You will not believe the amount of shit is required to go to a fucking wedding,” Luke laments to Annelise over a burrito. He takes a huge bite of it and moans, eyes reaching heavenward in bliss. Luke spent most of his morning running around with Jesse taking care of the last minute errands for this little wedding escapade, which included a suit fitting, making sure they had travel times and hotel specifics, and begrudgingly acquiescing for that Cirque show that Jesse vowed he wouldn’t pay for.
“Apparently it’s great,” Jesse had said over the door of the dressing room. “Aiden told me if I didn’t go, I’d regret it or some shit, and frankly I’m tired of fighting with Sheila.”
“Pushover,” Luke called back, shrugging the suit jacket over his shoulders. He turned in the mirror to study the fit. Jesse snorted, and then Luke announced, “Yeah, I think I will go with this one. It’ll fit great with my tie.”
“You and that fucking tie,” Jesse muttered, the door squeaking as he exited. “All right, stop checking out your ass and get out here to see how we look together.”
Luke narrowed his stare at the door, knowing full well Jesse had called him out. “Shut up, my ass is great.”
“That it is,” Jesse replied with ease, as Luke exited the dressing room. When he came out into the large showcase area, Jesse was already standing on top of the platform, a tailor inspecting the fit of his dark blue slacks. He had rolled the dress shirt up to his elbows, taking a selfie for his Instagram, earning much irritation from the tailor. Jesse’s grin was smug when he said, “I think I’m gonna wear this with my leather jack…”
His voice trailed off when he gazed over Luke’s slim cut bright blue suit, and champagne white shirt. Luke had even taken the time to choose a black pair of brogues to go with the whole get-up, with absolute determination to one-up Sheila in every way possible.
“Think this will do?” Luke asked, quirking a curious eyebrow.
Jesse’s eyes snapped back up to his, and the heat in them made his chest tighten.
“Yeah,” Jesse said breathless, a bit of flush appearing on his high cheekbones. He licked his lips and nodded again before turning around and straightening up so the tailor could get back to his job.
It left Luke off kilter and spinning with a sudden wave of desire.
Annelise snaps her fingers in front of Luke’s face, pulling him out of his daydream. “Did you hear a goddamn thing I just said?”
Luke shakes his head to clear his brain, blinking several times before Annelise comes back into focus. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”
Annelise rests her chin on her hand, waiting. “Yeah, no shit. You had this dopey ass look on your face—”
“Hey! I never look ‘dopey’,” Luke argues, using his fingers to air-quote her erroneous choice of vernacular. “This face has never experienced a dopey appearance in its life. You will take back those words, you filthy swine.”
“Chill, buddy,” Annelise says in a cool tone. Her blonde hair rests in a low-lying braid shining white against the bright sunlight. “You’re acting all kinds of foolish right now.” Luke forces the stiffness in his shoulders to relax with a deep, long breath. “You looked dopey, but I know it’s because you were thinking about Jesse.”
Luke shakes his head. “No, it was the burrito.”
“I have seen you devour that same burrito at least a hundred times, and your face has never come close to the way you looked thinking about Jesse.” Annelise pauses, setting Luke’s nerves on fire at her cruelty. She stretches the silence by taking a moment to lick off the queso that fell onto the side of her hand. Definitely a sadist. “So what are you thinking about?”
Luke’s been cataloging moments with Jesse since he was about fourteen years old. It began during that moment when the way he felt around Jesse took on a similar emotion to the way he talked about Skye Walker throughout their previous school year. The difference was that Skye didn’t even know that Luke existed, and Jesse did. Jesse always listened to Luke gush about a book he was reading, or how he found a new indie grunge band at the local record store. He always smiled and laughed at Luke’s jokes and let Luke hug him and tell him he wasn’t alone when he fell apart in fear that he’d lose his best friend over having a crush on a guy.
So when Luke caught the way Jesse’s mouth parted at the tailors, his eyelids heavy against the bright blue of his eyes, and the way his voice sounded husky and shattered—Luke indexed that. He replayed it in his head all afternoon. He couldn’t help it. It was like a song on loop that he couldn't get enough of. But he can’t tell all of this to Annelise, even if she is his most trusted friend about his feelings with Jesse.
“It’s nothing,” Luke says.
“Liar,” Annelise retorts, with a shake of her head.
“Honestly, it’s nothing. Can we get back to the part where Jesse spent almost a thousand bucks on these damn Cirque tickets just to get Sheila to shut the fuck up?”
“You’re joking,” Annelise deadpans, narrowing her eyes. “This woman is gonna put Jesse into bankruptcy.”
“Most likely,” Luke agrees, munching on a corn chip. “Might mean he’ll have to live with me forever.”
“Oh, how you’d love that,” Annelise notes dryly, cackling when Luke throws his half eaten chip at her face.
They’re eating dinner when Jesse asks, “What else do you want to do while we’re in Vegas?”
Luke looks up from his pasta with wide eyes. “Didn’t Sheila have, like, a whole schedule?”
“Yeah, she did,” Jesse answers, peeling a piece of garlic bread in half and shoving it into his mouth, examining the other half and giving up on it. “And I told her that since I had to drop nearly a grand on some water circus show, she can spare me the rest of the weekend.” The sly grin that spreads over his lips is almost too much for Luke to handle. He focuses on his rigatoni again. “We still will have to go to the bachelorette party and she’ll most likely try to rope us into brunch the next day, but we have a lot of time to do whatever we want in between.”
Luke has been to Vegas all of two times, once right out of college with a now ex-girlfriend who was dying to go because she was turning twenty-one, and once with Jesse when he had some kind of Instagram Influencer event he was invited to but Sheila refused to attend. Both times were a bit of a blur of vivid lights, too much alcohol, and a lot of terrible decisions.
“Vegas and I don’t have the best track record,” Luke says, getting up to put his empty bowl into the sink. “You’ve been way more than I have. I trust you.”
Jesse follows Luke into the kitchen, placing his dishes in the sink and Luke gasps when Jesse grabs for his arm spinning him around. They’re standing close to each other, not touching but enough that he can feel the heat radiating off of Jesse’s skin, smell the spicy tang of his cologne, see his pupils widen in the shifting light, eclipsing his fierce blue eyes.
“We also should talk about...other things,” Jesse murmurs, his voice sounding unsteady and unsure.
Luke swallows hard. A moment of silence hangs between them, stretching on like hours before Jesse speaks again. “Everyone will know you’re my date so...we should probably act like…”
“We’re dating?” Luke supplies faintly. His mouth is dry, heart hamm
ering into his chest so hard his ribs ache.
Jesse’s hand slides up Luke’s arm and onto his shoulder, his eyes searching Luke’s face and landing on his lips. “Yeah. That.” He flicks his gaze back to Luke, and adds in a low voice, “Which means we should establish some, you know, ground rules.”
“Gr—Ground rules?” Luke sputters.
The heat of Jesse’s hand is like a brand through Luke’s shirt, and he’s guessing that he’s either nauseated or incredibly turned on because his stomach is flipping at an alarming rate and his dick is definitely getting hard. Can a person be sick and turned on at the same time? Luke doesn’t want to find out.
The dark laugh that rumbles out of Jesse’s mouth is both sinful and knowing. He steps closer to Luke, and Luke backs up with each step until the counter hits his lower back. “So what do you think is acceptable to do in front of everyone else?”
Luke lifts a carefree shrug. “Well, you know me. Anything that would piss off Sheila is a plus in my book.” He chews on his bottom lip, tapping his chin with a finger. “Maybe should rule out penetration though. Don’t want to be full on x-rated, you know?”
Jesse takes another step, their chests brushing together. “So oral is okay?”
“Only in dark seedy corners where the light shines just right.”
Another step and their chests are flushed. Jesse’s eyes keep focus on Luke’s mouth. “What else?”
Luke swallows hard, the tightness in his throat clear. He’s certain his heart is pounding out of his dick and the room is hot, too hot.
When he speaks again, it’s a whisper. “Jesse, what are you doing?”
The spell between them breaks. Jesse takes several steps back, running a shaky hand through his hair and turning to stare at the bread on the counter as if it’s the most important thing in the room. Luke is breathing hard, his breath coming out in gusts, but his lungs feel restricted, like he can’t keep giving them enough supply.
“Fuck,” Jesse mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I just—Sheila’s been on my ass about this whole thing and she’s being a complete Bridezilla about me having you as my date—”