Stumble Forward

by Alex Jane

  Ethan clunked his cue on the table, laid it flush against the cushion, and drained the last of his bottle. “Well, I’m going to console myself with a piss and a smoke, while you get the next round in. You going to be okay?”

  Alec nodded and smiled, and muttered something unflattering as Ethan walked away. He contemplated the dregs in his own bottle but opted to wait for a fresh one, took a deep breath and headed for the bar.

  Even though it wasn’t close to being Saturday-night-busy, the bar seemed to be pretty popular for a Tuesday, and the combination of the short bar and far too many people taking up stool space against it, meant the available places to order were three bodies deep. Except, once it was his turn to be served, Alec had almost forgotten why he was there in the first place.

  What started as a bit of friendly banter with the leggy brunette crushed next to him, if only to make the awkward proximity a little easier, had become something else. She was pretty, and funny, and had seen both versions of “The Dirty Dozen”, so there wasn’t a whole lot not to like.

  By the time he made it back to the pool table, Ethan had the balls re-racked and was melodramatically tapping his watch and holding it to his ear as Alec approached. Alec put the two bottles down on the closest table and dropped a packet of peanuts between them as Ethan walked around the table, proffering a cue. “Did you pay them in pennies? I was about to call search and rescue!”

  “Very funny. Nope. I—I got talking.” He leaned back, taking the cue in one hand as he took a swig from the bottle in the other.

  Ethan raised his eyebrow again but not to mock. “Well, look at that! That’s a smile I’ve not seen in a while. Don’t tell me. The cute brunette that’s been checking out your ass for the last hour?”

  The bottle paused on Alec’s lips before he pulled it away, “For fuck’s sake. Why didn’t you say something?”

  Ethan laughed. “Al, have you seen the guy she’s with? His bicep is the size of my thigh! You’re on your own with that one!”

  Alec raised the bottle to his lips and took the opportunity to sneak a peek at the table. The brunette, Jesus! She has a name, Alec, Alicia was sitting at a table with another girl and two guys. The one next to her, admittedly, looked pretty huge.

  She had said that she was with friends from work, but it was possible that the hitch in her voice before she spoke could have meant something else. She wouldn’t be the only one keeping her cards close to her chest. And he couldn’t blame her.

  The guy was gorgeous, dark hair curling back over his ears, broad shoulders and soft features, and when he laughed, he threw his head right back. The sound of his voice carried through the room making something catch in Alec’s chest, and he had to remind himself to breathe.

  The not-a-date pushed his chair back and stood up, still smiling at the joke, dimples visible even from that distance. He casually touched Alicia’s shoulder and headed for the bathroom. The touch didn’t bother Alec but Ethan wasn’t wrong about the biceps. Alec pushed away the irrational urge to follow him to get a closer look.

  Instead, he swallowed and shook his head. “She said he’s a friend. From work.”

  “Uh-huh, sure he is.” Ethan nodded and bent down to line up his break shot.

  Alec leaned down a little, and in what passed for a whisper over the music and chatter filling the room, hissed, “Dude. She’s a nurse. Don’t ruin this for me.”

  Ethan pushed forward on his cue, the satisfying smack of the white ball, scattering the triangle of colors and sinking two. “Well, thank God, ‘cause you’re going to need medical care once Gigantor gets his drunken hands on you.”

  Alec laughed but he knew Ethan was only sort of joking.

  The two of them had spent a whole evening, when they first started hanging out, which consisted almost entirely of Alec reeling off the names—that he could recall—and horrific circumstances of every girl he’d been involved with. Sound judgment was never his strong suit, so there were more than a handful of occasions when he’d ended up with a black eye or split lip, or worse. And when he wasn’t having to scramble out of windows to avoid husbands, or hooking up with girls who were picking out bridal wear after two dates, nothing seemed to stick.

  There had been three serious relationships. There was Rhona in high school, if any relationship at sixteen can be called serious, but they had gone off to colleges on opposite sides of the country, and decided to call it quits. And even if they hadn’t, Alec felt by the end that she was with him out of habit more than anything else, and it would have finished sooner rather than later anyway.

  Next was Sara. Sara had felt like the real thing but she wanted something that he didn’t understand how to give. You’ve put up this barrier, Al. I don’t know why or what it is but even when you’re here, you just feel distant. I need more. I need all of you. It was his own fault for getting involved with a Psych major in the first place.

  And then there was Stella. There was no mystery in that one. It had been perfect; she had been perfect. He had all but picked the ring when it had gone wrong. Scratch that. When he had gone wrong. No amount of forgiveness from her would undo what he had done, the pain he had caused. It haunted him. Please stop, Alec. Please, for me. For us! I don’t understand why you’re doing this to yourself. Why won’t you talk to me! After that, he figured that maybe he should stop trying altogether.

  Ethan’s shot bounced wild and he cussed. As he watched Alec step up, he tried to sound casual when he asked, “So—did you get her number?” He didn’t quite pull it off.

  Alec smirked without looking at him, sinking his ball with ease. “Do you even need to ask? ‘Cause I sure as hell didn’t have to.”

  “And you’re going to call her?”

  Something in Ethan’s tone made Alec look up, and then stand up. He’d known Ethan long enough to know when something wasn’t right. Ethan was a straight arrow, calm and kind and insightful, but subtlety wasn’t his strong point. And the fact that his friend wasn’t coming right out and saying what he was thinking made Alec feel twitchy. It wasn’t like Ethan. Not at all.

  He gripped the cue and leaned on it. “Yeah. Yeah, I was. Why? Do you think I shouldn’t?”

  Ethan shrugged, and walked up beside him. “No. No, you should do what you want. I just thought—”

  “Just thought, what?” Alec felt genuinely confused.

  Ethan glanced over at the table where Alicia and her giant friend were talking, then shook his head, smiled and bumped Alec with his shoulder. “Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Now you wanna move? It’s my shot.”

  Alec huffed out a laugh, and bumped him back. “No way. I sank the last one.”

  “Yes, you did. But that was my ball, Stupid, so move your ass! And thank you, by the way.”

  Alec frowned at the table and cursed himself, all his concerns now focused back on the game. Ethan grinned as he bent and lined up his cue. “If this is the effect that girl has on you, I think you should definitely call her.”

  Chapter Three

  Alec pressed his cell to his ear, and walked the line of mismatched paving slabs back and forth outside Blake’s Diner. He wondered absently whether he could get away with hanging up, and claiming he’d gone into a tunnel but figured Alicia wouldn’t think that was very funny. His stomach was rumbling, and he was conscious that he didn’t have all day. Plus, he could see Ethan inside, perusing the menu and chatting to the waitress; smirking at him through the glass and tapping his watch with a semi-serious look on his face. But Alicia kept talking, and although the hungry part of him wanted her to wrap it up so he could eat, he really didn’t want to hang up either.

  “But you got the tickets okay?”

  Alec nodded to no one. “Yes. Yeah, and no pillars in the way this time so we might actually get to see something.”

  Alicia laughed. “That would be good. So, I’ll meet you there at seven-thirty?”

  “I could always pick you up, if you want?” Even as he said the words, Alec knew what her answer would be.


  They had been out a few times, but she still wouldn’t let him anywhere near her house. It was kind of a running joke. He had been relieved when she said that she wanted to take things slowly, get to know each other and keep it casual for now. He wasn’t convinced that he was ready for a relationship that went beyond friends, so friends with the promise of something more suited him just fine. But it still amused the hell out of him that she had this unspoken set of strictures and rules to keep him at arm’s length. He wasn’t even sure she realized she was doing it.

  “No, that’s okay. It’ll be easier if I just meet you there.” Alec smiled. It was always the same. He opened his mouth to say something potentially witty but she got there before him and asked, “So how are you going to amuse yourself until then?”

  He stopped dead in his tracks, and rubbed his knuckle over the scar on his chin. “Well, right now, I’m watching Ethan read the menu at Blake’s, so we’ll eat and then I’ve got some errands to run—” The words flowed out and he kept talking, and she was funny and sweet but the whole time a great big pink neon sign flashed in his head. LIAR. LIAR. LIAR.

  By the time he slid onto the shiny red leather of the booth opposite Ethan, muttering his apologies, he wasn’t sure how much appetite he had left.

  “So I’m assuming from the way you’ve kept me waiting that things are going fine and dandy with the new squeeze?” Ethan folded his hands over the menu laid out on the table as he asked, smirking and clearly amused at Alec’s discomfort.

  Alec barked out a laugh and shrugged off his jacket, “Fine and dandy? Really? Yeah, well I guess so.” He met Ethan’s eyes for a second but had to look away, suddenly uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

  Ethan cocked his head and frowned at the way Alec was fussing his shirt and wouldn’t hold eye contact, before he huffed out a sigh, and slumped back dramatically in his seat. “You haven’t told her.” He didn’t even bother to phrase it as a question.

  Alec glared at him, and yanked the menu out from under Ethan’s hands. He held it up in front of him like a barrier, and started reading, determined to not rise to the bait. “Did you order yet? I’m starving.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I thought you were going to tell her? Jesus, Al, this is not smart. What the hell does she think you do every afternoon?”

  Alec kept his eyes on the menu for as long as he could. But the sensation of Ethan’s baby-blues boring a hole into the top of his head started to burn, and he relented. He lowered the menu, turned his hands palms up and shrugged in defeat. He sighed out, “Errands. I have lots of errands.”

  Ethan looked at him with incredulity for about two seconds before blurting out a laugh. Alec smiled, and looked contrite as he shook his head. “I know we talked about this but really—I’ve known her all of five minutes. We’ve been out, what—five? Six times? I don’t want to dump all that crap on her, y’know? It’s not like we’re serious or anything.”

  Ethan nodded, and inched forward towards the table as Alec spoke, laying his forearms flat against the laminate surface, fingers laced together like he meant business. When he eventually said something, he wasn’t smiling. “And not being serious? That’s all her idea, is it?”

  Alec didn’t so much as meet Ethan’s gaze as outright stare at him. He opened his mouth to speak but the waitress appeared at his elbow and his mouth slammed shut again until he gave her his order.

  It wasn’t that Ethan was wrong. It was that he was right. Too right. Alec knew it. He was so determined not to be that guy anymore; the one that held back, the one that couldn’t be the whole of himself with another human being, the one only giving half-truths and keeping everything else hidden.

  Nothing good ever came of it and if he didn’t want to end up back in the emotional gutter, he couldn’t be that person anymore. He’d thought he’d kicked that habit but evidently he hadn’t. Seems he’d simply managed to find other ways to keep his distance.

  It was a great loophole come to think of it. If they weren’t serious, there was no need to go telling her all his dirty secrets, and if he didn’t tell her all his dirty secrets then how serious could they really be?

  He’d never been in therapy but he imagined that talking to Ethan had much the same effect. He would say something, Ethan would reply with something seemingly innocuous that ended up being horribly insightful, and Alec would free-fall into a chasm of self-doubt and denial before realizing that his mind was doing its best to protect him from his own bad decisions in a way that he was completely unaware of. Alec knew the process was making him better but it still sucked.

  When the waitress finished talking about specials and sides, she took the menu back with a flourish and a smile as she walked away, mostly directed at Alec even though he was clearly in a less-than-receptive mood. The two men sat quietly for a moment, letting the background music, sounds of cutlery scraping, glasses clinking, and general conversation fill the space between them.

  After what was about thirty seconds but felt more like an hour, Alec cleared his throat and leaned forward, mumbling, “Ally —Alicia— thinks we should double date.”

  Ethan didn’t even blink. “Double whatnow?” The horrified look on Alec’s face was obviously what he had been aiming for as Ethan grinned wide before saying through a laugh, “Well, I’ll give anything a try but we might have to keep the lights off.”

  Alec laughed and threw up his hands. “Christ, man! That’s just gross, just so you know.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Thanks a lot. Way to make a guy feel special.” He watched Alec slump back in his seat and smirked, before going on, “Double date, huh? Is that even a thing anymore?”

  “I don’t even know, man. Her words not mine. I think she wants to get to know you, being that I talk about you a lot, and she figured it would make sense for Kate to come along too.”

  Ethan nodded and said, “Sure. How about we go to that new Mexican place down the street from us? Kate’s been dying to try it.”

  Alec pressed his lips together, and shuffled in his seat, then ventured, “I was thinking further afield? Not so close to home? Y’know. Somewhere we could drive to?” He knew he looked even more pathetic than he sounded but not half as pathetic as he felt.

  Ethan frowned. Alec flinched but Ethan nodded and said, “So we could drive there—in separate cars I’m assuming?” He smiled but his eyes looked a little sad.

  “I would never ask you to lie for me, Ethan.”

  “No? Maybe not. But you’re lying to yourself if you think this is going to end anyway but badly, my friend.”

  “I just need some more time. I can’t—I like her, y’know? She’s a friend, and I like the way she doesn’t look at me like I’m—I don’t wanna screw it up and I’ll come clean, I will. I just—” Alec couldn’t finish the sentence; he tried but the words wouldn’t come. His eyes pleaded with Ethan for forgiveness and understanding and patience, but he knew he’d had more than his fair share of all three.

  And Ethan got it. He smiled and sighed, reaching out and patting his giant paw on Alec’s wrist, the action managing to release some of the tension in Alec’s shoulders.

  The waitress arrived with the food, and an extra glint in her smile and bounce in her hips for Alec. Ethan chuckled, but Alec ignored the pair of them and set to devouring his lunch. They ate mostly in silence, with what little conversation they could muster, consisting of scintillating small talk along the lines of, Did you see the game last night? How did that thing go at work? and a variety of other grunts and mumbles.

  By the time Alec had crammed the last piece of burger in his mouth, Ethan was pushing away his scraped-clean chili bowl, and signaling for the check. As they slid out of the booth and headed for the door, Ethan asked, “Did you hear anything back about that job at Carl’s place?”

  Alec shook his head, as he pushed open the door with one hand and adjusted the collar of his jacket with the other. “No, well yes. I heard but it was a no. I think they hired a guy internally, but—�
� He looked at Ethan and grinned. He had been dying to talk to Ethan about this but wanted to wait for the right moment. But now seemed like as good a time as any. Ethan made a ‘go on’ gesture as they started to walk down the street, and Alec continued sounding rather more upbeat, “Do you remember I mentioned I was going to give Matt a call?”

  “Your college buddy?”

  “Yup. Well, I finally managed to get hold of him and he’s got a position opening up in September that sounds more than perfect, and he really thinks I’d have a shot.”

  “September’s five months away. You really wanna wait that long?”

  “I know, but this wouldn’t just be a programming gig. It’s more managerial, with more creative input, chance to shape the direction they go in. And the company—? It’s small right now, but it looks set to land a couple of big contracts and if that happens, to get in on the ground floor—”

  Ethan held up his hands to the barrage of enthusiasm and laughed out, “Okay. Okay. I’m sold. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime!”

  Alec huffed out an embarrassed laugh, and looked at his shoes, mumbling, “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but if I get it, I sure as hell won’t be looking around for anything else.”

  Ethan smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets as they both turned in unison, treading a familiar path, across the road, and turning left down a side street. Ethan asked, “But—Matt’s based in Austin, right?”

  Alec shrugged. It wasn’t exactly around the corner. “I know. It would be one hell of a commute.”

  The two men smiled without looking at each other and came to a stop on the sidewalk at the low gates to a parking lot in front of a red brick building abutting an impressively steepled church. There were a couple of cars in the lot, but there were more people, standing around in groups of two or three, talking quietly to each other, some smiling and cheerful, some looking grim and pale. They all looked like they were waiting for something.