Olive Juice

 

 

YOU BREATHE.

You ache.

You live.

You die inside, sometimes. These little deaths. It’s how you know you’re still living. That hurt, that damnable pain in your chest that never really goes away, is meant to burn to show you that you’re human. After all, you have these little deaths because you live. You ache, but you’re able to breathe. And if you can breathe, then you can take another step. You can push yourself up and you can take another step.

His psychiatrist had told him that during one of their sessions.

He’d laughed.

She hadn’t laughed with him. Instead, she’d asked him why he found that funny, her chrome Tiffany T-Clip ballpoint pen scratching along a yellow legal pad. He’d tried to see what she was writing about him, but she’d smiled and angled it away. He probably hadn’t wanted to know, anyway. It couldn’t have been anything good.

“Why was that funny, David?” she had asked again.

He’d shaken his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“I breathe because I have to. It’s an involuntary action. I ache because it’s all I have. I live because I don’t know how to do anything but. And the deaths aren’t little. They’re big. They’re bigger than you could ever know. I take steps because if I don’t, the bigger deaths will catch up to me, and I can’t have that.”

“Why is that?” she’d asked.

David had learned early on that therapy was like having a small child because it was always why, why, why.

He didn’t remember what he’d told her.

She’d nodded and then offered him a prescription for Zoloft.

He’d declined graciously.

That was… what. Two years ago now? Maybe even three. He’d gone back a few more times after that because it’d seemed like the right thing to do, but he wasn’t much for talking to people he didn’t know. Especially about himself. No, David hadn’t liked that at all. He’d thought he could push through it, but in the end, it was a waste of his time, especially when his attention was needed elsewhere. There were more important things that needed to be done.

So, no. He hadn’t gone back.

He regretted it sometimes. Especially now.

He stared through the rain at the windshield wipers moving back and forth. He was early, but then he didn’t have anywhere else to be.

He glanced down at his phone, telling himself not to look at it again, but he couldn’t help it. The screen was bright in the dark as he pulled up the message tree for the hundredth time in the last three days. The last text was from him and it said ok and the one before that was Would nine work? On Friday? The hotel? And the one before was him saying I’d like that in response to I want to see you. It had come out of nowhere, startling him when he’d received it, like I want to see you hadn’t been something he’d typed over and over again the past couple of years, deleting it before he could do something foolish like actually send it.

But that was Phillip for you. He always liked to do the unexpected. Like saying I want to see you.

Or I can’t do this anymore.

That one had hurt. Another big death on top of all the big deaths that had come before.

Maybe he should leave.

Just go home.

If he left now, he could make it home in time to be settled in his chair by the time the ten o’clock news came on.

Maybe they’d say something about her since the anniversary was coming up.

He didn’t hold out much hope.

He sighed.

Looked at his phone again.

I want to see you.

He was about to reach for the push-button start on the SUV. Instead, he opened the door into the rain.

It was cold. He could see his breath.

He took the umbrella and opened it through the partially ajar car door before he stepped out of the SUV. He felt some droplets on his ear and reached up to brush them away. He rolled his shoulders, trying to will away the stiffness. He tightened the scarf around his neck and closed the door behind him. The lights blinked as he pressed the button on the fob, and he turned back toward the hotel.

He stood there, just for a little while.

When was the last time he’d been here? It’d been… before. A weekend away. A staycation Phillip always called it, that funny little smile on his face. This is our staycation. Just a couple of days, you and me. Clothing optional. That sound okay?

And yeah, that’d been okay. That’d always been okay by David.

Not tonight, though.

They should have picked somewhere else to go tonight.

Unless that’d been the whole point.

He looked down at his hand, at the ring on his finger.

He’d forgotten he had it on, as he sometimes did. He could go days without even being aware of it, only to have it catch his eye and bring everything around him to a halt. It was scuffed and scratched, worn with time. The gold band was thin, the inscription on the inside faded. He knew what it said. He tried to forget it sometimes. Just to see if he could do it. And there were days he had. He didn’t know if today could be one of those days.

He should’ve taken it off. He didn’t want Phillip to see it. It wouldn’t do. There’d be… questions that he was not ready to answer.

He propped the umbrella under his arm, ducking when it hit the top of his head. He reached over to take the ring off. Of course it was stuck. His fingers were a little thicker than they’d been twenty-odd years ago when it’d been slid on in a ceremony in a backyard in the spring of 1997. The cherry blossoms had been blooming along the Tidal Basin, the sun had been shining, and everything felt right. There had been a smile on both their faces, and it’d been right. It’d been beautiful. And she had been so pretty in her dress—

No. No. No. No.

Not her. Nothing about her. Not now. Not tonight.

He ground his teeth together and grunted as he pulled on the ring. For a moment, he thought it wouldn’t budge, and he’d either have to wear gloves for the rest of the night or he’d just need to go home. Yes. Yes, that sounded best. He could just go home and the ring would stay on and—

It slid over his knuckle, rubbing the skin a little raw. His elbow bumped the SUV and his arm went numb. He hissed out a low breath, the umbrella canting to the left, his shoulder getting wet from the rain.

It’d been raining for a week now. The weather reports said there was no end in sight.

He slid the ring into his coat pocket, buttoning it up to keep it safe and sound. When he got home later, he could put it back on again. No one would be the wiser, and Phillip—

David shook his head. Best not to think about it now. Phillip always had a way of figuring those things out.

He walked toward the brightly lit hotel. It was ten stories, the height of which had been restricted by the Height of Buildings Act of 1910, something all of Washington DC had to abide by. There had been talk a few years back of amending the act, but it hadn’t gone anywhere. He probably should’ve just taken the Metro in, but the thought of being surrounded by people on a train hadn’t appealed to him. Besides, the trains were always late. At least now he could be the first one here and allow himself to get used to being back in this place.

They’d held the reception here after that spring day in 1997. It’d been nice. Everyone had been happy. There’d been music and dancing, food and booze. Speeches had been given, and tears had been shed. And hadn’t everyone talked about how beautiful she’d been? They had. Oh, David, you’re handsome, and Phillip, you aren’t so bad, but would you look at her. She’s radiant.

His steps faltered.

His knees felt weak.

He told himself it was because he was fifty-four now. Knees were one of the first things to go.

He felt like a liar.

I could turn around, he told himself. I really could.

The automatic doors slid open. A burst of manufactured air rolled over him. It was warm. There were still Christmas decorations in the lobby, though the holidays were two weeks past. He’d turned his phone off during those days. It was easier than hearing the incessant beeping of messages received that he would ignore.

This was it, wasn’t it? His last chance to turn back around. Phillip would understand.

Sure, he was curious about why Phillip wanted to see him. And yes, David wanted to see him almost more than he wanted anything else, but with Phillip came things he hadn’t wanted to think about. The words he’d said. The things he’d done. The accusations he’d made.

He’d never felt more ashamed of anything in his life, even while it was happening. But that hadn’t been enough to stop him, had it? Because Phillip was there and it was so easy to lash out at him, to make him take everything he hadn’t been able to give to anyone else. Phillip had been the only one who’d understood, and David had laid into him with all of his might.

So, no, part of him didn’t want to see Phillip. Part of him was so embarrassed at the way he’d acted that, even now, it caused the breath to hitch in his chest. He’d been scared, sure, and it hadn’t been getting any better, but Phillip had too. And it wasn’t fair of him to take it out on Phillip. An apology had burned like bile in the back of his throat, and he’d swallowed it back down.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The devastated look on Phillip’s face had shown him that.

Yes. He could leave.

But the why of it wouldn’t let him.

David had always been a curious sort. As a kid, he’d gotten into everything, wanting to know as much as he could. It’d followed him all his life, and even after it’d all gone to shit, that need still burned through him. If anything, it got worse, because if there was one thing David hated, it was the unknown. It was the mystery. It was the infuriating secrets that might never be whispered in his ear to give him the relief he wanted to be able to sleep the whole night through again without needing to pop an Ambien. And those Ambien nights were the worst, because he’d wake up the next day, buried deep in a fog that wouldn’t lift until late afternoon, and by then, he wouldn’t be quite sure how he’d gotten through the day.

Sometimes he thought about staying lost in that fog.

But those thoughts were far and few between. They only came on the bad days.

He’d been standing in front of the automatic doors for a good three minutes. The two women at the front desk were staring at him strangely.

Great. Just how he wanted this evening to start.

He forced a smile on his face, the one that usually charmed everyone who could see it.

They smiled back at him.

I could leave, he thought again.

Instead, he went inside.

Holiday music played on the speakers overhead. He shook his umbrella out in the vestibule, scuffing his feet along the mat on the floor. A second set of automatic doors opened, and the music became louder, a string rendition of “What Child is This?” and oh, the fucking irony. How it almost choked him.

His smile widened, brittle though it was.

“Welcome to Hotel Madison,” one of the ladies behind the front desk said, her voice bright and cheerful. Her makeup was perfectly applied, her hair buzzed closer to her scalp like kids these days did sometimes. She had wide, innocent eyes and the perfect customer service smile. A consummate professional. “Did you have a reservation to stay with us?” She looked down to see that he wasn’t carrying any luggage. “Or are you dining with us this evening?”

He said, “Dining,” but it came out rough and low, like he hadn’t spoken in a while. And that caused him to pause because when had he spoken to an actual person last? He worked from home, and everything was done via e-mail, so it wasn’t as if he had coworkers. He hadn’t picked up the phone when friends had called, so eventually they just stopped calling. Family? Not hardly. His brother was in Phoenix, and they hadn’t spoken in… Jesus. He couldn’t even remember how long.

He thought back, a little panicky, through Thursday (no) and Wednesday (no) and Tuesday (no) and Monday—yes. There it was. Monday. His weekly phone call to—Christ, that couldn’t be healthy because when had he spoken to someone before that? Groceries were self-checkout these days, limiting any interaction. He got coffee, but they knew him so well by now, he didn’t even have to say anything before they’d have his order up. He’d smile at the kids behind the counter and tip them nicely, but it could all be done without saying a damn thing. So, Monday had been the last time he’d actually spoken with another human being. And then the Monday before that. And possibly the Monday before that. Like clockwork. Every Monday at three, his call was expected. And unless there was an emergency, every Monday at three, his call was answered.

He’d texted with Phillip a few days ago, but other than that….

No wonder it sounded like he was choking on his words.

The women stared at him expectantly.

He smiled again. He wondered if he looked manic.

“Dining,” he said again, forcing the words to be louder. “Meeting a… friend. At the bar.”

The woman with the buzz cut nodded. “Of course. Please let us know if we can do anything to make your time at Hotel Madison a five-star experience.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

So he didn’t say anything at all.

He stood there, dripping on expensive imported tile as if he was unsure of what he should do next.

Lady buzz cut started to look concerned.

Time to move on.

The lobby was bright and festive, garlands hung along the walls, a large, stone fireplace roaring and inviting. “What Child is This?” gave way to Dean Martin, and he thought maybe he could breathe clearly again. A Christmas tree blinked in the corner. A wreath of pine and ribbons and holly hung over the entrance to the restaurant. He tried to think if they’d ever been here during the holidays before, sure there must have been sometime they’d gone on one of their staycations, just for a couple of days, just you and me, David, doesn’t that sound nice? But he didn’t think they’d had. It’d been harder to get away during the holidays. They’d both had obligations that couldn’t be ignored. Not like when they were younger. Maybe it hadn’t always been easy, but they’d managed.

Hadn’t they?

There was a hostess at the entrance, a pretty young thing who probably hadn’t even known life outside her parents’ house yet. Maybe she’d be graduating this year. Looking forward to college next year. George Washington University? Somewhere on the other side of the country so she could stretch her wings, Dad, I know GWU is a good school, but so is UCLA, and you know I’ve always wanted to go to California. You know this, Daddy.

Yeah. It seemed like that’s how she was. This little hostess.

“Hi,” she said. “Welcome to Ubi Sunt. Table for one?”

“No,” he said, trying not to stumble over his words. He never used to be like this. “There’s a reservation. I… I’m a little early. I’d like to sit at the bar.”

“Name for the reservation?” she asked, blonde curls around her face.

“Um. Phillip? It’s… Phillip Greengrass.”

She frowned as she looked down at the tablet in front of her, tracing her finger across the screen. “Greengrass…,” she said. “Greengrass.”

Maybe it wasn’t there.

Maybe there wasn’t a reservation.

Maybe he wasn’t coming at all.

Or maybe, a little voice whispered in the back of the mind, that’s not the right name.

“Greengrass,” she said again.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm. Oh! Here it is. My apologies. I must have skipped right over it.” She looked up at him and smiled. She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “It’s been one of those nights, you know?”

His heart pounded furiously in his chest. “I know.”

“Are you sure you want to sit at the bar? I can get your table if you want. We’re not too busy tonight, so there’d be no wait.”

That… didn’t sound like what he wanted. Tables were intimate, especially the ones they’d had here in the past, where they’d be tucked off in a corner, out of sight from everyone. It had been exciting, doing something they shouldn’t, holding hands underneath the table, Phillip’s thumb rubbing over the jittery pulse in David’s wrist, the tablecloth hiding them so they wouldn’t be caught. Especially at the beginning, because in those days, they were just two men, out on the town for a night, isn’t that right, buddy? Phillip would always have a devilish smirk on his face as he said that, buddy rolling off his tongue like it was a sinful thing. And yeah, David would say, that’s right, but his would come out like a croak, his throat dry, skin hot.

“Sir?”

He coughed. Shook his head. Said, “No. The bar is fine for now. Thank you.” The bar wasn’t as private as a table. You couldn’t hide your hands. The bartender was always moving back and forth. You weren’t ever really alone.

Wasn’t that right, buddy?

“Right this way.”

As if he didn’t know the way to the bar.

He let her lead the way. It was easier.

There were others at the bar, a couple at the end leaning close and whispering to each other, martini glasses set in front of them and forgotten. The man brushed a lock of hair out of the woman’s face and she kept whispering, as if used to the action by now.

There were two others, a man staring up at the silent TV near the edge of the bar, watching highlights from a basketball game.

A woman sat near him, speaking quietly into a cell phone, fingers drumming on the surface of the bar.

The restaurant itself was half-full, the waiters and waitresses moving quickly and quietly among the tables. Conversation spilled through the room, a low, even hum like electricity crawling through the walls. It was usually always so crowded. He thought most everyone was probably still at home, wrapped up tightly in the postholiday blues.

The hostess pulled out a stool for him at the bar and offered to take his jacket and umbrella. “I’ll keep them in the coat closet near the front,” she said. “That way, you won’t have to worry about them during your dinner. And no one gets in the closet without a key, so.” She smiled up at him again.

He couldn’t help but agree.

“Wait,” he said as she started walking away. “Just… I’ve got something. In the pocket. Can you…?”

She handed him the coat, the scarf still in her hands, glancing back toward the hostess stand. He winced as he dug through the pocket until he found what he was looking for. He closed his fingers around the ring, hiding it in his fist. He handed the coat back. She took it and whirled away, smelling of lilacs.

He looked down at the ring. The low lights caught the metal, causing it to gleam dully. He could make out the words inside.

He closed his fist again.

The ring was cold in his hand.

He breathed.

He breathed.

He—

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

David flinched slightly, looking up at the toothy smile, then away, then back again. He tried smiling and tried not moving, but he needed to put the ring in his pocket.

The bartender reached over to put a napkin in front of him.

David slipped the ring in his pocket. His elbow bumped his smartphone on the bar top. The bartender saved it before it fell, setting it farther away from the edge, long, thin fingers trailing.

David pulled his hands from his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.

“It’s what I’m here for,” the bartender said with a wink, and maybe David flushed a little at that, because the bartender was handsome. He had olive skin, and the dark hair on his arms was thick. He wore black slacks and a white button-up shirt opened at the throat. A little tuft of hair stuck out from his chest. His teeth were white and even, his eyes beautiful, framed by long, dark lashes.

He was probably also half David’s age.

Not that David was thinking like that. Bartenders flirted with everyone. He might not have even been flirting. David wasn’t recently practiced in such a thing so he couldn’t be sure how it was done now. He didn’t think he really wanted to know. But even David could understand beauty when it was right in front of him, and this man could have anyone he wanted, man or woman. He probably got the most tips out of anyone else that worked here too, if the way his arms strained against his dress shirt gave any indication.

And here was David. David, David, David in his nicest pair of dress slacks that he still owned and maybe had forgotten to iron. A blue V-neck sweater over a white dress shirt. A tie that he wished he’d thought twice about. They didn’t fit like they used to, the clothes looser on him. He was sure his thinning hair was a fright from the short walk in the wind and rain, and fought the urge to reach up and brush it down.

The bartender looked like a model.

David looked like he was in his midfifties.

Which, to be fair, he was. He’d just… well. He’d just never thought about it much before. He hadn’t had time. Maybe he shouldn’t have come early.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all.

“What brings you out on this nasty night?” the bartender asked, leaning forward and spreading his hands out on the bar top like he had all the time in the world.

“Um,” David said, clearing his throat, trying to remember what it meant to be a human being. “I’ll have a Maker’s Mark. On the rocks.”

The bartender had little crinkles next to his eyes when he smiled. David noticed those almost right away.

“Maker’s Mark,” the bartender said. “That I can do. I’m Matteo, by the way. In case you need anything.”

“Oh,” David said, fumbling just a little. “Just the bourbon. For now. I’m… David.”

“David,” Matteo said. And then, for reasons David didn’t understand, he reached out his hand.

David stared at it for the briefest of moments before realizing what Matteo was doing. He reached up and took Matteo’s hand. He shook it up and down once, twice, three times, his grip firm and warm before he pulled his hand away.

“David,” Matteo said again. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

All the tips, David thought. He probably gets all the tips.

David just nodded.

“Maker’s Mark on the rocks, coming up,” Matteo said before he moved slightly down the bar. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh?” David asked. “I’m sorry. The question?”

Matteo flashed a smile over his shoulder before pulling a glass off the stack in front of him. “What brings you out on a night like this? Seems to me it’d be better to be safe at home.”

“Oh. Yes. Quite. Um. I’m just… meeting. Someone. I’m meeting someone here. We used—we used to come here a lot.”

“Did you?” Matteo asked, picking up the bottle of bourbon. “Funny. I don’t remember seeing you here before.”

“Years ago,” David said, looking down at his hands. He thought to check his phone to see if there were any messages, but it was a habit he’d gotten out of a long time ago. Now, messages would pile up for weeks before he’d remember. People knew to call if it was urgent. Sometimes, he’d forget to answer the phone then too. Besides, the only one who’d message him tonight was Phillip, and it was a quarter till. “You probably were… too young. To work here then.”

Matteo turned back around, setting the bourbon on the napkin. He bit his bottom lip, eyes watching David. “Too young? Why thank you, David. That is very kind of you to say.”

David hadn’t meant it like that. So he said, “Sure,” because he couldn’t think of anything else. He picked up the bourbon and took a sip. It burned, but damn did it burn so good. He hadn’t allowed himself to indulge in a long time. Not since—it was just safer that way. Those months that had followed hadn’t been kind, and he knew just how terrible hangovers could be.

He was older now too. His stomach couldn’t handle that anymore. Where once he’d have been able to bounce back the very next day, ready to go again, now it would probably take the remainder of the weekend to recover.

Besides. He had to drive tonight. Maybe that’s why he’d decided against the Metro, though he couldn’t be sure of the clear thought process in that. Subconsciously, he must have known he’d need to drive home and couldn’t let things go too far. The more he drank, the looser his lips became. He didn’t—he couldn’t run the risk of saying something he’d regret later. Because he’d already had a lifetime of regrets.

Matteo, though. He didn’t look like he had many regrets. The veins on his muscular forearms were pronounced where his shirtsleeves had been rolled up. His fingernails looked perfectly manicured, not bitten to the quick like Phillip’s usually were, a habit that no one, not even David, had been able to break.

Not that they needed to be compared. That’s not what David was doing. Or, rather, that wasn’t what he was starting to do. This man—this boy—seemed nice and sweet and he brought David alcohol as it was his job, but that was all it was.

“Must be a good friend,” Matteo said.

“What?” David asked, taking another sip.

Matteo blinked, slow and sure. “Your friend,” he repeated. “Must be a good friend if you’ll come out in this weather.”

“I suppose,” David said. “He’s… Phillip.” Because that made sense in David’s head. In David’s head, the word Phillip meant many, many things: good and kind and sweet and handsome and hurt and pain and that ever-present bittersweet ache that was supposed to show David that he was still alive.

“Phillip,” Matteo said, and for some reason, David didn’t like the sound it made coming from him. It felt wrong somehow. He shook it off. He was being ridiculous. Matteo continued. “I had a friend once. Named Phillip.”

“Is that right?” David asked politely because that’s what people did.

“He was very nice.”

“Must be a Phillip thing.” David took another sip. The burn wasn’t as sharp now. He wished it was.

“A Phillip thing,” Matteo agreed. “Do you want to open a tab?”

“Oh,” David said, fumbling a little as he put the glass down on the tabletop. He started to reach for his wallet. “I’m sorry. Here I am prattling on, and—”

He stopped when he felt a hand on top of his own. He looked up. Those little crinkles in the corners of Matteo’s eyes were back. “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t trying to—”

“No, no,” David said hastily. “I should have—”

The hand on top of his squeezed.

David sighed.

It pulled away.

“I’ll just open a tab,” Matteo decided for him. “Just remind me if you and Phillip decide to get dinner. I can either close it out or just add it to your final bill.”

“That’s… that’s fine.” David sat upright again. His tie was too tight. He really shouldn’t have worn it.

Matteo grinned and opened his mouth to say what, David didn’t know, but was interrupted when the man watching the silent television signaled for him, raising his empty beer bottle.

“I’m being summoned,” Matteo said, winking again at David. “Destiny awaits no man.”

David didn’t believe in destiny. He thought such things were only in fairy tales, but he didn’t think now was the right time to say so. He just nodded, and Matteo’s fingers brushed David’s glass of bourbon, which was wet with condensation. Little droplets of water were left atop the bar, catching the lights above, the flickering TV.

He was sad.

He knew this.

He knew this more than anything else.

David was sad, and he didn’t know how not to be.

It was all he’d known for years now.

There had been the Zoloft, or at least the offer of it. He hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t even given any real thought to taking it. He didn’t like feeling muddled. Besides, he’d told himself, he needed his mind clear as possible in case of any developments, especially given how he’d spent the third year. It just wouldn’t do for him to be a zombie of sorts and to have the phone ring and have the voice on the other end saying, David, we have news. We have news and I am about to tell you everything you wanted to know.

For the longest time, he hated the way a ringing phone had sounded. Ever since March 22, 2012, any time a phone rang, his heart would beat out of his chest, and he’d be sure, he’d be so goddamn sure that this was it. This was the one phone call he both hoped for and dreaded all at the same time. He would put the phone to his ear, and the voice on the other end would say, David, David, David, we finally have an answer. We finally know what happened. Here. Let me tell you. Let me tell you everything.

But that was never it. There were never any answers. Only questions. And any time his phone rang, anytime he put the phone to his ear and said, hello, hello, hello, he would have to push down on the rage that rose through him, that strange fury at whoever was on the other end of the call was not finally giving him what he wanted.

The first year had been the hardest.

Or maybe it was the second year.

The third hadn’t been too bad because he’d been drunk most of it, and numb. The less said about it, the better.

The fourth year had been bad because he’d been so goddamn tired, having to smile at people, having to pretend that he was getting better when he absolutely wasn’t. Phillip had seen that. And it’d become too much.

And this last year, the sixth, had been quiet. So very, very quiet. No wonder he was having trouble speaking.

Here he was now, approaching the seventh year, the sixth anniversary.

Dean Martin had fallen away a long time ago.

It was Vince Guaraldi now. Smooth, smooth Christmas jazz.

He breathed.

He ached.

He lived.

He died a little too, sometimes. These little deaths. He couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe he’d turn on the TV and see a woman with black hair and dark eyes, and his heart would suddenly be in his throat, his hands gripping the armrests of his recliner, fingers digging in.

Or maybe he’d be online, scrolling through celebrity divorces and a bombing in a faraway country that killed seventy-six people—twelve of them children—and how scientists had discovered seven new types of spiders, when he’d see an Amber Alert, or a photo of a smiling woman, standing in a garden, a fruity-looking cocktail in her hand, the picture oddly cropped as there would be a hand on her shoulder, but the rest of whoever it was cut out, and there would be a headline in bolded font that said REWARD NOW OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO—

That would be as far as he’d get before he’d be dry-heaving.

So yes. David was sad.

He knew this.

He also knew he should be attempting to do something about it.

He didn’t know what.

There’s always Zoloft, he thought as he took another drink of the bourbon.

It was five till.

There were no messages.

Matteo was laughing at something the young couple at the end were telling him, the man’s hands waving animatedly, like he was a few martinis in. The woman—his wife? girlfriend?—watched him fondly, rolling her eyes as if the man was full of shit. He probably was. Most men were.

He’d told this to her once.

She’d rolled her eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure I know that,” she’d said, scrunching her nose at him. She liked to tease him sometimes. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

Oh, but he did.

Matteo glanced back over his shoulder at David. He smiled that wicked smile and winked at him again, and David thought he’d probably need to leave a big tip. Matteo certainly seemed to be working for it.

Or maybe he has a daddy kink, David thought, surprising even himself. Maybe he thinks that I could be his daddy.

He snorted, rolling his eyes at his own ridiculousness. Daddy kink. God. If only his younger self could hear him now. Here he was, receding hair, his clothes hanging off his thin frame while he still managed to have a bit of a paunch. The bags under his eyes had become less pronounced (thanks, Ambien!), but he knew he still looked slightly hollow, like his insides had been scooped out and misplaced. There was something inside him, even after all that he’d been through, but it was a meager thing.

It was nine.

Phillip wasn’t here.

Which… wasn’t surprising. He was habitually late. It was one of those things, one of those funny little quirks that came with Phillip, like biting his fingernails or kissing his hand and touching it to the ceiling of the car he was in every time he rolled through a yellow light. He couldn’t exactly say why he did it, just that he always did. He was perplexing, aggravating, and oh so wonderful.

That hurt too.

So he was late. Again.

David wasn’t worried.

He checked his phone.

Two minutes after nine. There were no new messages.

He pulled up the message tree again, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

It said the same thing:

I want to see you

I’d like that

Would nine work? On Friday? The hotel?

ok

The good thing about text messages is that he could type in a word like ok and that’s all Phillip would see.

What Phillip wouldn’t see was how David’s hand had been shaking, how he had been breathing shallowly, reading over the words again and again and again, trying to parse out their hidden meaning. (Nine? What’s so special about nine? Do I have plans on Friday? Of course I don’t. I never have plans. The hotel? It’s just a staycation, after all. That’s it. That’s all it is. Right? Right? Right?) That one word, those two letters, ok, wouldn’t show how David had closed his eyes and leaned his forehead down onto the kitchen counter where he’d been waiting for his Lean Cuisine to finish nuking in the microwave (apple cranberry chicken—it’d tasted like shit), phone clutched in his hand, knowing he’d have one chance, one chance to get this right, to try and salvage something out of everything he’d become.

He’d been tall and proud.

And then a storm had come through.

He had swayed with it, but he’d still stood.

A tornado touched down.

Oh, the destruction that had followed.

He’d been nothing but rubble, dust and stone.

It wasn’t—

“All right?”

He jerked back a little, hands clammy, phone clattering onto the bar top.

Matteo was back, looking a little concerned.

Get yourself together, David scolded himself. Get yourself together, dammit.

He tried for a smile, but he thought maybe it died before it could grow. So he said, “Fine, fine. I’m fine. Just… thinking. About things.”

It was awkward. This was awkward. He’d made it awkward.

Matteo arched an eyebrow at him, something David had never been able to do. He remembered her laughing at him every time he’d tried, her fingers trailing along his face. He’d never been able to do it. Not really. Anytime he’d tried, he just looked surprised. Or constipated, she’d said.

How he loved her.

“Fine,” David said again, not sure who he was trying to convince.

“Okay,” Matteo said easily. He leaned forward, elbows on the bar, eyes sparkling. Vince Guaraldi had turned into Judy Garland now, singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” David had always thought it was the saddest song. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” David said, not sounding very sure. He took another drink of his bourbon, a little shocked when he got nothing but ice.

“Another?” Matteo asked, sounding amused.

And he hesitated then. He’d driven for this very reason. It wasn’t like he’d been an alcoholic, no matter what other people had thought. He hadn’t gotten drunk almost nightly for that third year because he was addicted to the taste or even liked the feeling it gave him. Quite the opposite in fact. He liked the feelings it didn’t give him. He was numb, and he could sleep, and yeah, maybe the next day he’d feel like shit, but then it’d be five o’clock somewhere, and he’d start all over again.

That had been the beginning of the end.

She would be so disappointed when she found out.

When she came back.

But what was another drink? Phillip wasn’t here yet, and he could nurse the next one, maybe have it through dinner. Two wouldn’t be so bad. He wasn’t even feeling it yet. Not that he wanted to be feeling it, but the food here was usually heavy, and it’d soak up the alcohol. He’d be fine to drive.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay. Another.”

Matteo took the glass from his hands, and he must have been really working for that tip because there was some unnecessary finger contact, wasn’t there? Enough to make David’s ears feel warm. It was… uncomfortable. Nice, but uncomfortable. Sure, he was a pretty young thing, and maybe he did have a kink for men in their fifties who looked like they’d just come from teaching an Introduction to Economics course at the local community college, but hey, David wasn’t one to judge. Nothing would come of it, but maybe David would leave him a twenty for his troubles. Matteo would probably blow it later on molly while at some club where the laser lights flashed and the bass pounded through the walls, a shirtless twink rubbing up against him, sucking his jaw, leaving bruises that Matteo would need to cover up for his next shift at the bar.

Jesus.

It was now six minutes after nine, and David picked up the phone again, sliding his finger across the screen, unlocking it. It was still on the message tree from before—ok ok ok ok—and he didn’t do himself any favors by scrolling up to the previous messages. The message before I want to see you was from six weeks previous, and it had been from Phillip to him. Like it always was. David never texted first. David never called. He’d lost that right. It’d been his fault.

The previous message from Phillip said, Detective Harper called. Said you missed a Monday check-in. She tried to call you, but your phone is off. Nothing new. Just thought you wanted to know.

He hadn’t responded.

“Here you go,” Matteo said, putting down a new napkin, like the one before it had become so completely soiled that the mere thought of placing the fresh drink upon it hurt Matteo’s sweet bartender heart.

“Thank you,” David said, setting his phone down (eight minutes after nine), and wrapping a hand around the glass. He didn’t lift it.

“No Phillip?” Matteo asked, as if he couldn’t tell from the fact that David was still alone.

“No Phillip,” David said.

Matteo looked as if he were waiting for more.

“He’s—uh. He’s late. Always. It’s one of his things.”

“And let me guess,” Matteo said, that funny little smirk back on his face. “You’re the one that’s always a little early.”

Yeah, that was pretty spot-on. David wondered how Matteo knew that (aside from the fact that he was obviously here early). Maybe it was the sweater. Or the tie. Or maybe Matteo was one of those bartenders like they showed on TV or in movies where they seemed almost clairvoyant and had hearts of gold and wiped down the bar top with a white rag while spouting little pearls of wisdom.

But it was true, though. David was always early. That was his thing, and it had always exasperated him about Phillip that he couldn’t be on time for anything. They’d fought about it before, little back and forths that hadn’t amounted to anything. Neither of them changed, but it wasn’t something that needed to be changed. It was just one of those things.

Like at the wedding. Everything had felt so goddamned surreal, and Phillip was running a little late as always, and David had been annoyed because of it.

“You know she’s going to get upset with us,” he’d said, trying to keep his voice even.

“I can’t find my socks,” Phillip had said, but he’d sounded so damn happy. “Where the fuck did I put the socks, buddy?”

“Okay, so she’ll be upset with you for making her wait,” David had amended. “I’ll be just fine.”

They’d found the socks. Eventually.

She had been upset, but only a little bit. And then she’d smiled, and nothing else had mattered.

“Yeah,” David said to Matteo. “I’m always the one that’s early.”

He shifted on the stool and felt the ring in his pocket press against his thigh.

“So how’s that work?” Matteo asked. “If he’s late, and you’re early.”

David shrugged, clearing his throat. “It just… did. I guess.”

Matteo leaned forward a little bit farther. He brought up two fingers, beckoning David a little closer. David wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He did it anyway.

“See those two down at the end of the bar?” Matteo whispered in a low voice as Bing Crosby dreamed of a white Christmas somewhere overhead.

David glanced down. The young couple. The man and woman. He looked back at Matteo and nodded.

“They’re married,” Matteo whispered. “But not to each other.”

David’s eyes widened. He didn’t care exactly, or at least he told himself he didn’t, but it was still slightly scandalous, wasn’t it? “How do you know that?”

Matteo had a strange glint in his eyes. “He brings his wife here. One of those rich Foxhall Crescent yuppies. DC money, you know? He’s a broker or a lawyer or a junior senator. It doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I see here. What happens. What people try to get away with. I’m waiting for the day the wife comes in. That happens sometimes, you know. They’ll be here, sitting in a dark corner, whispering to each other with these little hearts in their eyes and the wife comes in, guns blazing. There’s shouting, and things are thrown, the wife is crying, the man is trying to calm her down, and the other, the side piece, is sitting there like she’s unsure if she should get up and leave, or if she shouldn’t move and draw attention to herself.” Matteo snorted and shook his head. “It’ll happen. One of these days.”

“But until then, you don’t judge?” David asked, sitting back.

“Oh bullshit. I judge the hell out of them,” Matteo said. “But I keep that to myself. I am a master of discretion, after all.”

“Except you just told me.”

“Well, yes,” Matteo said, eyes crinkling. “But you seem like you can be discreet yourself.”

Yeah.

Fifteen minutes after nine. Maybe he should text. Or call him. Phillip was fine, David knew, he was just fine, but it probably wouldn’t hurt just to text him.

He took a sip of his bourbon instead.

“I suppose,” David said. “I thought they looked like they were in love.”

Matteo shrugged. “Maybe he has a big heart. Room for more than one person.”

Well, David knew all about that, didn’t he?

“I like you,” Matteo said.

David blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“I like you,” Matteo repeated. “You’re a nice guy.”

“You don’t even know me.” It wasn’t harsh, but it was the truth.

“I get this… sense, about people. I can read them.”

“Because you’re a clairvoyant bartender?” David asked without meaning to, fingers sliding along the condensation on the glass.

Matteo squinted at him. “Because I’m a what?”

“Never mind. It’s just—nothing.”

“My nonna could do the same thing.”

“Who?”

Matteo smiled. “My grandmother. She could read people. Could always tell what they were about by only the shortest of meetings.”

“Oh.”

“Mom couldn’t do it. Must have skipped over her.”

“That’s… that’s great.”

“So it’s how I know you’re a nice guy. It’s why I like you.”

Only two people had liked David so quickly. One was only God knew where, and the other was now eighteen minutes late. He should probably text him. Maybe one of the Metro lines was down. Or running behind schedule. The trains were never on time. Everyone knew that.

“Thanks,” David said. “I’m not the—thanks.”

Eartha Kitt purred about her Santa baby.

Matteo laughed. “You’re something else, David. You should—”

“David?”

And David closed his eyes at the sound of the voice behind him.

He gripped the bar.

He took in a breath and let it out slow.

It’d been—Jesus, how long now? Last summer, right? At the dinner at the end of the charity benefit where David and Phillip had pretended like everything was reasonably okay (ok), where they’d spoken to other people who said they’d gone through the same thing, they’d cried on their shoulders, and Phillip had hugged them close and tight, David standing a little farther back, trying not to make things more awkward than they already were. Phillip had looked back at him, jerking his head toward a man who looked like he was on the verge of breaking down, a photo of an older woman in his hands. David had taken a step forward, and suddenly it was like a dam burst, and the man with the photo had started crying, saying, this is my sister, this is my sister and she—and she—it’s been two years, oh God, two years and I didn’t even have a chance to, but then David hugged him, he had hugged this man, and there had been more tears, but not from David. No, he didn’t cry about these things anymore.

That had been the last night he’d seen Phillip until now. Sure, they’d texted or they’d talked on the phone, but it’d always been brief. It wasn’t like it was after March 2012, when there had been police and press and flyers and walking in a line with a hundred other people through the sparse woods at the park, shouting ALICE. ALICE. ALICE.

And it certainly wasn’t like before, with their staycations, when they’d find time to leave their lives behind just for a few days, where there wouldn’t be phone calls or meetings with editors or anything that could distract them. It was dangerous, sure, and maybe it made them a little complacent, but they had this. It was theirs.

Before last summer, it’d been stilted and awkward, both of them trying not to press against old wounds. David tried not to think back to the boozy third year, when it was beginning to end. The words that were said. The accusations made, hurled like grenades, not caring where they landed or who would be caught in the blast. Things that could never be taken back, no matter how much David had wanted to. He’d lashed out because he hadn’t known what else to do. The boozy third year came to an end and started the year of the false smiles that were so brittle, the smallest of things could crack them right down the middle. Phillip had seen through all of it.

And now, here he was, standing behind David, and all he needed to do was turn around and see him. That’s all he needed to do.

Matteo was still there, looking back and forth between them, brow slightly furrowed as if his powers as a clairvoyant bartender were consuming him, telling him all the secrets of the men before him.

David forced a smile on his face, pushing everything else aside. It wasn’t as fragile as it used to be. It felt foreign, sure, but it came easier than it had in a long time. Then he swiveled on the stool to look at—

And there he was. Phillip Greengrass, in the flesh.

He looked… good. He looked really good, better than David, that was for sure, but that’d always been the case. He was tall and slight, a wisp of a man who looked like he’d be blown away by the faintest of breezes. His mop of short black hair stuck up every which way as if he’d been running his fingers through it nervously as he’d sat on the train. He was still in the Chevy Chase house, so it’d be a good long trip to the hotel to get himself all worked up like he usually did.

He was wearing a scarf around his neck, a dreadfully bright green thing that looked like it was new. His coat was a little wet, and maybe his hair was too, but it wasn’t too bad. He probably hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, and it looked as if the rain had lessened. He wore a black sweater and jeans. A pair of beat-up Chucks, the same ones he’d had for years, purple with blue shoelaces.

It clashed horribly.

He looked wonderful.

“Hi,” David said. “Hi. Hello.” He started to rise from the stool, thought better of it, and sat back down.

“Hi, buddy,” Phillip said, glancing over David’s shoulder at Matteo. A strange look crossed over his face, but it was gone before David could make heads or tails of it. “Hey. You—you are….”

“Yeah,” David said, not sure what he was agreeing to but suddenly not able to find a reason to care. “Yeah, I guess.” Phillip looked tired. He had bags under his blue eyes, and he was biting his bottom lip in that way he did when he was unsure of what to do in the very next second. David changed his mind and stood up again. Maybe they could shake hands? That’d be good, right? They could shake hands, a firm grip, a tight grip, and it’d say everything that he couldn’t.

So he raised his hand out as he stood, and Phillip had looked at it, then back at him, then back at his hand. He frowned, shaking his head. Then he batted David’s hand aside and stepped in close, closer than he’d been since David had screamed at him that he didn’t fucking care about Alice the way David did, that he didn’t give two fucking shits about her, otherwise he’d be doing everything he could to bring her back. They’d been right up in each other’s faces then, eyes blazing, spittle hanging from their bottom lips, teeth bared and gnashing. The rage David had felt then had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, and it had consumed him, and there Phillip had been, the only other person who could possibly understand what David was going through, and David was so angry with him.

But here he was now, stepping in close, close, close, and it was tentative at first, their knees knocking together, chests bumping. They were of the same height, a little under six feet, so their gazes met and crashed and skittered away, but then Phillip’s arms were around him, hands clasping behind his back, and David froze. For a moment, or two or three, he just froze, unsure of what was happening, unsure of what he should do. He hadn’t been… touched, like this since—a long time. That was it.

He’d forgotten what a hug felt like.

It was a funny thing, right?

To forget that.

He breathed.

He ached.

He lived.

And this hug felt like death, another little death, only this time, the death was a good thing. It was a good death, and yes, everything still hurt and he could barely breathe, but he died a little death just the same.

He hugged Phillip back. Arms around shoulders, cheeks brushing together accidentally, causing him to stiffen momentarily before he leaned into it.

How strange that he’d forgotten what it felt like. To be held like this.

It was short, because he didn’t know if he could stand for it not to be.

He pulled away first.

Phillip let him go and took a step back, rubbing the back of his neck, like he was embarrassed. “Hey,” he said again. “It’s nice—” He shook his head.

“Hi,” David said. “It is nice.”

Phillip looked back up at him, then over his shoulder again. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” he said, sounding a little amused.

David was confused. “Interrupt? It wasn’t—” He glanced back and saw Matteo still standing there, strong arms crossed over a strong chest, looking slightly annoyed. “You didn’t,” he finished, turning back toward Phillip. “I was early. I was just having… a drink.”

Phillip’s eyes narrowed a little at that. “A drink?”

“First one I’ve had in over a year,” David said. “It’s not… anything. I promise.”

Phillip watched him for a moment before nodding slowly. “Okay. If you… okay. Do you want to sit here or…?”

“We could get a table,” David said. “Just—a table would be fine. You know?”

“Yeah, buddy. I know. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted to stay at the bar or not.”

Yeah, buddy. Like it was nothing. Like they were both twentysomethings again, chips on their shoulders, not giving two shits about most anything if it didn’t directly affect them.

“No,” David said quickly. “It’s not—we can sit wherever you want. I’m just here for you.” He winced at how that came out. It wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say, but he couldn’t take it back now.

“For me, huh?” Phillip said, never one to let anything go. “How about that.” He wasn’t smiling, but David could hear it in his voice. He felt a little better because of it.

“Just let me—” He turned back toward the bar, reaching for his phone. Matteo smiled at him. David gave a weak one in response. He picked up the phone. “I guess we’re getting a table,” he said to Matteo, unsure of why he sounded vaguely apologetic.

“Sure,” Matteo said easily. “You want to tab out now, or do you think you’ll be staying after dinner?” And it was—well, weird, the inflections he put on certain words, like he was trying to say something without actually saying it.

“I don’t—probably now? It’s just, I drove, and I probably shouldn’t—”

Matteo was already nodding and moving toward the register. David glanced over his shoulder to see the same hostess from before taking Phillip’s jacket and terrible scarf, giving the same promises she’d given David earlier, telling him that she’d be right back with some menus and then she’d seat them.

David turned back toward the bar. Matteo and a receipt were in front of him. “Oh,” David said. “Thank you. Thanks—I—” He reached for his wallet, grimacing slightly as his finger bent at an odd angle before it closed on the wallet. He pulled it out, flipping it open, grabbing the first card he saw. He set it on top of the receipt without looking at the charge. Matteo grinned at him, snapping them both up and turning back toward the register.

Phillip was still behind him, the hostess gone. He was running a hand through his hair, messing it up even further. He looked ridiculous, hair stuck up all over, his purple Chucks with the blue laces. David thought it was one of the nicest sights he’d ever seen. Phillip looked—he was a year older than David but looked far younger. It’d always been that way.

“Sign this copy for me,” Matteo said, and David turned back around, a pen being placed in his hand. He looked up at Matteo, then back down. He signed his name, a messy scrawl that probably wasn’t intelligible to anyone. There was a line for a tip. He put down twenty before setting the pen back down.

“Thank you,” he said seriously. “Thank you for—” David didn’t know how to finish that.

“Of course,” Matteo said, he of the eye-crinkles. “It’s what I’m here for. Here’s your copy. Make sure you don’t throw it away before taking a look at it.”

That—he didn’t know what that meant. Why would it be any different? It wasn’t as if—he picked it up. It crumpled a little in his hand. He opened his mouth, but then from behind him, the hostess said, “If you’re ready, you can follow me.”

David picked up his phone and his bourbon, the receipt getting a little wet in the process, before nodding at Matteo and turning back around.

Phillip was grinning now, that grin that said he knew something David didn’t. David used to both love and loathe that look all at the same time, because it usually meant he’d missed something important, something obvious.

“What?” he asked, trying not to scowl.

Phillip shook his head. “Oh, buddy. Never change.”

David didn’t know what to do with that, so he nodded at the hostess. She smiled her little bubble-gum and candy-heart smile at them, ponytail bouncing as she began to lead them through the restaurant. Phillip walked behind her and David behind him, and he tried not to think of all the staycations they’d had here when they’d done just this, Phillip wearing his silly shoes and David following him like he was on a leash. It was hard, though. Sure, the restaurant had changed a few times over the years and it certainly didn’t look like it had when they’d first started coming here, but the basics of it were the same. The bar, the tables, the people already seated, murmuring to each other, forks and knives scraping against plates. To the right, a harried woman wiped the mouth of a cranky toddler. To the left, a man was laughing a little too loudly, his face flushed. David knew that look well. Been there before, my friend, he thought.

The table the hostess stopped at wasn’t one of the secluded ones toward the back. They could have asked for it if they wanted to, but David was unsure of what this was, unsure why Phillip had said I want to see you. Those back tables were for staycations and whispered conversations, hands held under tables as if they were really fooling anyone, the remains of an appetizer or their dinner out before them. They took their time at those tables, never in a rush, knowing the night stretched out before them, and the day after that. It was theirs and theirs alone, and maybe she’d call. Maybe Alice would call, and he’d always answer, no matter what, but it would be short. Always it would be short.

Because she knew.

She knew what they were doing.

The hostess waited until they sat down before she handed Phillip his menu first, much to David’s amusement.

(“They always give it to me first,” he’d said once. “I know they’re supposed to give it to women first, but why me? Why can’t they ever give it to you?”

“My shoulders are broader than yours,” he’d teased, and how they’d laughed at that.)

Phillip saw David’s smile and rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath that David couldn’t quite make out but could take a good guess at.

The hostess, of course, knew nothing of this. “Your server tonight will be Melissa,” she announced as if it were the most important thing in the world. “She is going to take such good care of you. And let us know if you need anything.”

Then came that candy smile, the bob of the ponytail as she whirled around and headed back toward the front.

“Some things never change,” Phillip muttered.

“We’re older now,” David said, trying for levity but not sure how successful he was.

“Really,” Phillip said dryly. “You don’t say. I couldn’t tell by the crow’s feet I see in the mirror every morning.”

What he wanted to say to that was You look better than you ever have, but what he actually said was “Yeah. I think the same thing.”

“Did you do what your boy at the bar asked you to?” Phillip asked, lips quirking as he looked over the menu. “Seemed important.”

David flushed at that. “He’s not my boy—what the hell. He didn’t ask me to do anything.”

“Maybe you should check out that receipt.”

David was confused, because here they were, finally, and they were talking, actually holding a conversation, and they were talking about the bartender of all things. “I don’t—” He frowned and looked down at the bourbon. The receipt was wrapped around it, sticking to the sides. He carefully peeled it off, and there it was, written in jagged, clipped letters.

CALL ME IF YOU WANT

MATTEO xx

A phone number was underneath.

“What the fuck,” David said faintly.

Phillip snorted in that way he did when he found something really funny but was trying not to laugh. He cleared his throat, shook his head. Snorted again. And then he giggled, just a little, breath huffing out his nose in a staccato beat.

“He was hitting on me,” David said, as if Phillip didn’t get it.

“You clearly made an impression, buddy,” Phillip said. “He’s probably looking for a well-to-do older man, and you fit that bill to a—”

“What the hell,” David hissed, dropping the receipt as if it’d scalded him. “That’s not even—why would he do that?”

“Oh boy,” Phillip said, finally looking up. “If I have to explain it to you, then I must have been doing it wrong all these years.”

There it was. The first reference to them. David swallowed thickly, trying not to make it more than it actually was. Phillip had just thrown it out there, an off-handed thing, but it was there. An oblique allusion to a shared history that neither one of them could ignore. But Phillip hadn’t obviously meant anything by it other than what it was, so David tried to let it go as quickly as possible.

“I’m not going to—” He started. Then, “It wasn’t anything. I don’t want to call him.”

Phillip flipped to the next page, cool as ever. It was maddening. “And why is that?”

“Why? He looks like he’s in college.”

“Well, you know what they say about the stamina of college boys.”

“Jesus. I don’t care about the stamina of college boys.”

“They sure seem to care about you. He’s probably one of those macho studs asserting their masculinity but when you get them in the bedroom, their face is in the pillow, ass in the air, and they’re just begging to be fucked. I wonder how fresh the swordfish is.”

David almost slapped the menu right out of Phillip’s hands. “You can’t just—”

“Hi!” a woman said, appearing beside the table like it was the greatest joy of her life. “My name is Melissa, and I’ll be your server tonight. How are we, gentlemen?” Another bubbly college student, bright and peppy. She was tall and curvy, her skin dark and lovely. Her hair was tied back, a loose strand curling near her ear.

“Oh, we’re fine, dear,” Phillip said, affecting a casual air. He squinted up at her. “Just catching David here up on the birds and the bees.”

Melissa didn’t know what to make of that, but she powered through it. “That’s great. Have you either of you been here before?”

“Many times,” Phillip assured her. He wasn’t exactly effeminate, but he did have the slightest of lisps, and he moved his hands more often than not when he spoke. “I’d like a glass of your petite sirah, if you please.”

She nodded and looked at David. “And for you, sir?”

“I have a drink.”

“Great!” she said again, clapping her hands together. “I’ll be back with the wine momentarily. If there is anything you need, again, my name is Melissa.” She smiled at the both of them before turning away and disappearing just as quickly as she’d come.

“I’ll probably get the swordfish,” Phillip announced, closing the menu. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had—”

“I’m not calling him.”

“I didn’t ask if you were.”

“I know, just—I’m not. I don’t want… that. I don’t like that.”

Phillip arched an eyebrow at him, because of course he could also do something that David couldn’t. “You seem to be putting up an awfully big fight about it.”

David scowled at him. “I am not.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Phillip went back to the menu, even though he’d said he’d wanted the swordfish. It was awkward, the silence that came between them, awkward in a way it had never been when they’d come here before. It felt wrong, somehow, because this was supposed to be their place, their staycation, and they had laughed here, hadn’t they? They’d laughed here in the corner, sitting far too close to each other, never really talking about anything serious. There had always been a heat to their words, but it’d been a lazy thing, both of them knowing they could drag it out all night if they wanted to. Even after all these years, it was still there. Maybe it didn’t burn as bright as it had when they were younger, when everything was bold and exciting and new, but it’d given way to something more, something familiar and beloved.

When was the last time they’d been here? It’d been… before. Before March of 2012. David thought back as he picked up the menu, not really reading the words, the bourbon twisting sourly in his stomach. He wished he’d eaten something earlier, but he’d been too nervous, unsure of what Phillip had meant by I want to see you.

So it’d been before. David turned away from the wine list to the appetizers and decided it would have been October. October 2011. Right? Hadn’t that been right? He thought it was. There’d been Halloween decorations up, and David had just finished editing a rather long and arduous history textbook for a midlevel college course, something that had taken a month longer than he’d expected it to. The deadline had been extended a couple of times, and finally, he’d sat down for what felt like a week straight, working until he was done. That had been the first week in October.

Alice had kissed him on the cheek, telling him she was proud of him.

He’d texted Phillip to let him know.

Staycation? Phillip had texted back. You deserve it. And I’ve missed you.

Yeah. He had too. He’d been so busy that he hadn’t had time for anything else.

Yes please, he’d written back.

Good, came the reply.

It’d taken a couple of weeks of planning, but they’d gotten away Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and it was exactly what he’d needed. His bones were weary, and he’d been almost too tired for anything, but then Phillip had put his hand on David’s thigh under the table and squeezed, leaning over to whisper such filthy things in his ear, things he wanted to do to David, that he had wanted David to do to him. Maybe the fire hadn’t burned as brightly between them like it had when they were younger, but David had preferred it this way over anything else. This had been what he’d wanted. This Phillip, the one with lines around his eyes and mouth, a hint of gray in his hair and in the stubble on his face when he didn’t shave for a day or three.

When they’d left that Sunday morning, David had felt better than he’d had for a long time.

And then the holidays came, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and there just hadn’t been time to get away, not with all the familial obligations. And that had been okay too, because they’d still all been together, like they wanted to be.

And then came March 22, 2012. It’d been a Thursday.

It’d been a Thursday, and David’s phone had rung at three thirty-seven in the afternoon, and he’d—

His hands tightened on the menu.

No. Not now. He couldn’t do that now. Not when—

“Find something you wanted?” Phillip asked.

David looked up, sure his face was a little pale, covering up by coughing into his hand. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding a little creaky. “Probably just get the same as usual.”

“The cod.”

He nodded. “I like it, providing they haven’t changed the recipe since—”

And there it was. The second reference. Granted, Phillip had started it even before they’d gotten here by suggesting this place to begin with, but still. It was out there, and David didn’t know how to take it back. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take it back. Wasn’t it easier to just acknowledge it? They had come here before. They had come here for years. For their little staycations. He didn’t think Phillip was being cruel; no, he was sure the man across from him didn’t have a mean bone in his entire body. That could have changed. People changed over time. What’s to say Phillip hadn’t?

But David didn’t think that was it. Phillip wouldn’t do that to him, no matter what had happened between them.

“It’s been a while,” Phillip said lightly, and David almost sagged in relief. “They might have changed it, and you know how picky you are when it comes to cod.”

So they weren’t going to ignore it. They were going to acknowledge it. Maybe they were even going to revel in it.

David gave thought to standing up and leaving. Of not looking back. Of taking the coward’s way out and going home, locking the door behind him before he crawled up the stairs in an apartment he’d lived in alone for almost two years, haunted by the things he couldn’t undo, the people he couldn’t forget.

But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I am not that picky.”

“Please,” Phillip said with a haughty sniff. “You’re a snob, and you know it. Why, don’t you remember that seafood place in the Keys? I thought the owner was going to club you over the head.”

“Seafood place,” he said derisively. “It was a shack.”

“Still, the cod.”

“It smelled off.”

“It smelled fine.”

“You just couldn’t smell it like I could.”

“Oh that’s right,” Phillip said, lowering the menu like he was laying down his shield. “I’d forgotten. You’re the connoisseur of cod.”

“And what happened when I told you the same thing about your shrimp?”

“I ate it anyway.”

“And?”

“Spent the rest of the night on the toilet,” Phillip admitted. “Wasn’t sure which end was worse off.”

“He wasn’t wearing a hairnet.”

“I think that was probably the least of our problems if I’m being honest. Ah, well. Some good came of it. I lost five pounds and the taste for shrimp.”

It wasn’t until David opened his mouth to say, you didn’t need to lose five pounds, you were as thin as a whisper, that it hit him then just how dangerous that was. How dangerous all of this was starting to be. They were reminiscing. They’d been in each other’s company for five, six, seven minutes, and they were already reminiscing. He was chilled at the thought. His skin felt too tight, like it was stretched to the point where it’d tear at any given moment. He didn’t expect this, how easy it would be to fall back into old habits, this bantering back and forth like the past six years hadn’t happened, like everything was fine and they were just on a staycation.

He hadn’t expected this.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this.

He hadn’t understood how much this terrified him.

That he’d screw everything up more than he already had.

So, yes. This was dangerous.

And David was wary now. His therapist, the few times he’d gone to see her (“You can call me Debbie,” she’d said the first time they’d met. “Just Debbie, and I’m here for you, David, okay? This is a big step and I am here for you.”) had told him that he wasn’t a person anymore, that he’d pulled away from living, hiding behind an impenetrable armor meant more to shield him from the world than to protect him. “You’re a knight,” she said, a rueful grin on her face. “But a lonely one.”

He’d scoffed at her, sure. Because therapy was for nutjobs, right? Crazy people. People who were losing their minds. David had never been saner, and that was his biggest problem. He could see things with such startling clarity that it hurt. He wasn’t asleep. He’d never been more awake. And if he needed to shield himself, well. No one could blame him, could they? Anyone in his position would have done the same.

It was fine.

Her office had called three times after he skipped that last appointment.

Left three voice mails.

He’d deleted them all without listening to them.

He was fine.

Except now his armor was in danger of cracking, like it was an old, rusted thing that had stood strong all these past years but was finally starting to break.

All because of cod and shrimp and a seafood shack in the Keys.

His fingers tightened on the menu.

He looked down, forcing himself to focus on the words.

He heard Phillip sigh, but didn’t do anything to acknowledge it.

He was lucky, then, because Melissa came back, a glass of wine carried artfully in her hand. She set it down next to Phillip, then stood beside the table, arms behind her like she was at parade rest. “Gentlemen,” she said, as if this was the happiest she’d ever been. David never understood how they could pretend to be so joyful all the time. David thought he’d go mad within a week. “Have we had a chance to look through the menu? Our special tonight is a grilled halibut with peach and pepper salsa. It’s a flaky white meat with a firm texture, and the sweet and spicy salsa pairs perfectly with the smoky flavor of the grill.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Phillip said. “But I think I’ll go with the swordfish steak if it’s fresh.”

“Of course,” she said with a nod. “All our fish is same day.”

“Good. Please go easy on the lemon if you could. And I will have the potatoes and the vegetables.”

She smiled beatifically, taking Phillip’s proffered menu before looking at David.

“The same,” he said because he couldn’t order the cod now. It’d be too much.

Her smile never faltered.

He could feel Phillip’s eyes on him.

He handed her the menu.

She said, “I’ll put the orders in. Please let me know if there is anything else you need,” and then she was gone.

“The same,” Phillip said finally.

David shrugged, fingering the receipt with the phone number written on it. “Felt like trying something different.”

Phillip snorted. “Sure. You could call him.”

David’s neck felt a little stiff. “No.”

“No?”

“You know I don’t do stuff like that.”

Phillip looked a little sad when he said, “I know.”

Silence again, after that. David didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t as if he had nothing to say. It was that he had too much. All these words about breathing and aching and living and the little deaths. He had so many things to say, but he couldn’t find a way to say them. It was dangerous, like the reminiscing, and he didn’t want to scare Phillip away, not while they were face to face for the first time in a long time.

Phillip beat him to it. “How’s work going?”

He could do that. Small talk was safe. “It’s good. I’m. Um. I’m working on a new project now. It’s updating a previous edition. Nothing too complicated.”

Phillip’s smile was warm. “That’s good, David. That’s real good. I’m happy to hear it.”

David reminded himself he was human, and humans were supposed to ask questions too. “And you?” he asked, strangely proud of himself. “How is everything going? With the store.”

Phillip laughed, rough and quiet. “Good,” he said. “It’s good. Borders goes out of business, Barnes & Noble are closing down stores, Amazon opens brick-and-mortar in an effort to continue their plans for world domination, and my little-used bookstore somehow manages to thrive. It’s a conundrum that I cannot explain, but enjoy nonetheless.”

“It’s the hipsters,” David said. “It’s retro. They need a place to convene and argue whether Holden Caulfield was deep or just a spoiled brat.”

“They do seem to enjoy the irony.”

“Yeah,” he said, sipping again on his bourbon. It tasted a little watered down now, but he supposed that was okay. He wasn’t buzzed, but he did feel a bit looser. He’d take it easy. Take it slow. “That’s good, though. I mean, about the store.”

“Yeah,” Phillip said, sitting up a little in his seat. He put his hands on the tabletop, thin fingers stretching along the cloth. The candle in the middle of the table flickered, casting shadows along his skin. “It’s okay. I was worried for a little while. You remember Tiffany Ketchum?”

David frowned, the name familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.

“She owned that little bookstore in Bethesda.”

“Oh! Right. Yeah, her. How is she?”

“Her store went out of business,” Phillip said. “And, you know. It worried me. Because she’d been around forever. And if she couldn’t make it work, then what chance did I have?”

David wasn’t sure if he should be shocked or dismayed or whatever emotion was probably expected of him. He went with a little bit of everything. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t she… wasn’t that the store that had all the cats?”

Phillip chuckled. “Yeah, her store cats.”

“Like, thirty of them.”

“It wasn’t that many.”

“It was more than five. Which is too many cats.”

“It was her thing.”

“Probably why she went out of business.”

“Buddy,” Phillip admonished lightly even though he was still smiling.

“I’m just saying. A lot of people are allergic to cats. You’re cutting out potential consumers. It always smelled like cat piss in there.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’ve survived because I don’t have cats in the store.”

David shrugged. “Nah. You would have survived even if you did. You’re just… different.”

Phillip watched him.

David tried not to squirm.

Phillip had been a lawyer, working long hours for very little reward. He’d dreamed of doing public defense work, but his father had said there wasn’t money in it, and no son of his would be a public defender. “You’d be defending rapists,” Phillip had said, doing a full-throated impression of his father just under a year after he and David had met. “Do you understand that, Phillip? Rapists and murderers. Of children. Do you think you could sleep every night knowing you represented the scum of the earth?”

His father had been an intimidating man. He was also footing the bill for Phillip’s college education. Those things combined course-corrected Phillip’s career path so that he could work at his father’s firm as a personal injury attorney, representing those people in minor fender benders who showed up in court with a neck collar on, shouting for anyone to hear that their neck was hurt, and it was permanent, and they needed compensation.

He’d hated it.

For such a long time, he’d hated it.

One day, he’d had enough.

He couldn’t do it anymore.

It wasn’t something he wanted.

His father had been pissed.

But he’d died a year later, so in the end it hadn’t mattered.

By then, Phillip had opened his bookstore. His father had never once stepped inside it.

Phillip hadn’t minded. Sure, it’d hurt at first, but he was happier. Alice and David had seen it right away, had seen the weight lifted off his shoulders. It’d been scary, and uncertain, especially when the economy had tanked the next year, but somehow, Phillip’s store survived. Flourished, even. He’d added the little café three years after opening, nothing major, just coffee and pastries served on mismatched dishes, but it was something of his. Something his father hadn’t had a hand in. In the end, that was enough for Phillip.

“Different,” Phillip said, taking a long, slow sip of wine. David didn’t watch as his throat bobbed, no matter how much he wanted to. That too was dangerous. “Thank you.”

David shifted in his seat. “For?”

Phillip shrugged, watching him over the wineglass. “Being here.”

“Yeah,” David said, popping his neck. “Yeah, sure.”

“I planted,” Phillip said.

Conversational whiplash. “What?”

“The bulbs. In the flowerbeds. I planted them. Had to get some help. I thought the guy at the nursery wanted to punch me in the face with all the questions I asked.”

David… didn’t know what to do with that. So, he said, “You planted? You remembered when?”

Phillip set down his glass, leaning forward and folding his hands on the table in front of him. “I remembered,” he said. “The bulbs go in the ground in the fall before it freezes in the winter.”

“Right,” David said, nodding almost manically. “That’s right. Yeah, you gotta get them in there before—”

“I did.”

“Good.”

“Crocuses. Lilacs. Lilies. Some catmint, though I don’t know how that’ll turn out.”

He ignored the part about the lilies. He didn’t want to think about lilies. “They’re almost like little hedges. You have to shear them back after the blossoms fade.”

“I think that’s what the nursery guy said. Maybe. He also was probably trying to convince me to not try and plant as many things as I had in the cart.”

That didn’t make sense. Phillip hated gardening. Sure, he wouldn’t complain, but he’d frown at the dirt on his hands, and chances were he’d pull up flowers just as much as weeds, but it was never really about the act of gardening itself. It was something Alice and David had loved, and Phillip wanted to be with them, so he did it too. “I can handle this,” he’d said, ignoring the way they’d snickered at him as he pulled on white gloves with tiny little roses stitched into them. “Just you watch me, I’ll handle this yet.”

David said, “That sounds nice. It’ll be pretty in the spring.”

“Yeah,” Phillip said, watching him with an unreadable expression. “I’m sure it’ll be on the front of Better Homes & Gardens.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. They’re picky.”

“Those bitches.”

That shocked a laugh out of David. Phillip was good at that.

Phillip cleared his throat. “So, I wanted to—”

Melissa appeared at their table side, causing David to flinch slightly. “How are we doing?” she asked. “Does anyone need their drink refreshed?”

Phillip smiled tightly at her. “I think we’re okay.”

“Good,” she said. “Dinner will be ready shortly.” And then she was gone again.

“Peppy little fucker, isn’t she?” Phillip muttered.

“They all are,” David said.

“Wasn’t always like that, buddy.”

“Kids these days.” And then, before he could stop himself, “Remember that one waiter we had here?” He should have kept his mouth shut. That one was on him.

Phillip stared at him blankly for a moment. Then David could see the moment the memory hit. It started with his lips, quirking just a little, the lines around his eyes deepening. There was a flash of teeth, the smallest of chuckles. “That’s right. That guy. Oh, what was his name? Wasn’t it something just ridiculous? Like… Ferdinand or—or—”

“Forrest,” David said, because in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Forrest,” Phillip said, clapping his hands in front of his chest. “That’s right. God, what a terrible name. He was so damn rude. The entire time.”

“And then you kept calling him Woods.”

Phillip cackled, putting a hand over his mouth. “He was so mad at that. Remember when I finally asked to speak to the manager?”

“You told him that Trees wasn’t providing you with the level of service you expected here.”

“And the guy had no idea what I was talking about. Meanwhile, Woods—”

“Forrest.”

“Whatever. Meanwhile, Terrible Name stood there, getting angrier and angrier. I thought he was going to stab me with a steak knife.”

“Nah,” David said. “I wouldn’t have let him.”

Phillip rolled his eyes. “That’s not what you said then.”

“You were egging him on.”

“He wasn’t happy having to serve a faggot,” Phillip said, waving David off with a little flourish of his hand, wrist slightly limp. “I am not to be trifled with.”

That had been it, really. One moment, everything was fine on their little staycation, and the next, Phillip’s hand was on his on top of the table, fingers tracing on the back of David’s wrist, and Forrest had frozen, just a little, a frown on his face that quickly turned to the smallest of sneers. The manager had apologized profusely, given that he recognized them. They hadn’t come back for almost six months. They never saw Forrest working there again.

“No,” David said. “No, you’re not.”

Phillip’s face softened, and before he even spoke, David knew what his next words were going to be. He knew that look, the one that was almost pitying, but not quite. He’d seen it many times before. It was sweet, and kind, and David hated it.

“How have you been?” Phillip asked. “Really, buddy. How have you really been?”

He hated it, because there were only two people in this world, two people out of everyone in the entire world that could see right through his bullshit. Two people who could cut him to the quick, two people who wouldn’t let him get away with anything.

One was gone.

The other was sitting across from him.

“Me?” he said, trying to keep all of this under control. “I’m good. Good. Um, you already know work is going well. I started going to the gym. Working out. It’s—it’s something I do. At night. Sometimes on the weekends. I figured since I’m not getting any younger, I need to make sure the heart keeps on ticking.”

Phillip frowned at him. “Is there something wrong with—”

“No!” he said quickly. “No, no. I’m fine. I had a checkup a few months ago and my blood pressure is a little high, but everything is fine. Healthy as a middle-aged horse. I even ran! On a treadmill!”

“Really.” Phillip sounded dubious.

“I did,” David insisted. “I can get up to three miles now.”

“You’re too skinny.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I’ve always been skinny. You haven’t been. You were always a big guy. That was your thing.”

“Well, I used to have all my hair, too, but you can see how well that’s going.”

“You look nice.”

He snorted. “Thanks.”

“I mean it. I’m—I’m happy. That you’re okay.”

David didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to go there right now. Maybe ever. It wasn’t healthy, sure, to ignore it for as long as he could. But to acknowledge it made it real, and this was already the realest conversation he’d had in years. He was doing okay so far, but he didn’t want to push it.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said rather stiffly.

“You know I do, anyway. I always do.”

God, how he ached. How he wanted to tear into Phillip and say, Really? You really worry about me? Where have you been, then? Why haven’t you called me even though you knew I wouldn’t have picked up? Why haven’t you sent me a text message I could ignore? Why are we here? Why did I agree to this? Why aren’t you hurting as much as I am? Why didn’t you care as much as I did?

It was that last one made him the most bitter.

It’d been the one that he’d spat at Phillip on that last dark day.

He’d been breathing heavily, unsure exactly of what he’d just said, but hearing his words echo around the room. He’d watched as they’d struck Phillip like a physical blow, his eyes widening, his breath hitching in his chest. And he couldn’t take them back, no matter how much he’d wanted to. He’d said what he’d been thinking, unfiltered and harsh, because even if he hadn’t believed it, he’d thought it, and wasn’t that close enough? Wasn’t that just enough to fucking crack Phillip right down the middle? In all the years that David had known Phillip Greengrass, from that awkward first meeting in an apartment hallway to the day they’d been admonished by Alice for being late to the wedding, to March 22, 2012, to that moment, that moment when he’d screamed at Phillip, “Why don’t you care as much as I do?”

About her.

It hadn’t been said, but it might as well have.

Why don’t you care as much about her as I do?

That’d been it.

There’d been no coming back after that.

Everything that had been held together by tenuous hope and duct tape since that phone call on that March afternoon had fallen apart around them, leaving nothing but rubble at their feet, and that had been David’s fault. David had been to blame for that.

He’d known it even then.

He knew it even now.

Melissa appeared at their table, two large plates in her hands. She set Phillip’s down before him first and then moved to the other side of the table. “Here we are,” she said. “My, do those look delicious. You know, I had this very same thing just the other week, and you gentlemen are in for a treat. The plates might be a little warm, so please be careful. Is there anything else I can get for you at the moment?”

David thought, A do-over.

Phillip said, “No, this all looks fine. Just fine.”

“Wonderful!” she beamed. “I’ll leave you to it.”

She left.

The swordfish steak didn’t smell off. The broccoli looked a surreal green. The red potatoes were drizzled with oil. David sipped his bourbon.

Phillip opened his cloth napkin, spreading it down on his lap. He’d eat the potatoes first, David knew. Then he’d pick at the broccoli for a bit before he’d move on to the swordfish. It was how these things went.

He watched as Phillip speared the broccoli first, bringing it toward his mouth.

“How’s Keith?” David asked.

Phillip stopped, the broccoli in front of his face. His fingers tightened on the fork. He set it back down on the plate and took another sip of his wine. David could see the skin under his left eye twitching.

“Why?” he asked as he set down the wineglass.

“Why what?”

“Why do you ask?”

David spread his own napkin on his lap. He wasn’t very hungry. Everything was fresh, but he couldn’t have wanted it any less than he did right at that moment. But he had bourbon in his stomach, and he needed something on top of it. He picked up his fork and just held it next to the plate. “Just a question,” he said with a shrug.

Phillip narrowed his eyes. “Just a question.”

“You asked about my job. I asked about yours. You told me about the garden. I wanted to know more about what else was going on with you. Just a question.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Like what?” David asked, not sure if he wanted to play this game.

“Like—like it was anything.”

That’s what he’d told himself last summer when they’d been at that charity dinner, the benefit for the CUE Center for Missing Persons. David had shown up in an ill-fitting tux, and Phillip had been there looking as dapper as ever, and they’d tried acting like everything was okay, but Keith had been there with Phillip. Keith, he of the firm handshake, the broad shoulders, the wide smile and the tux that looked tailored specifically for him. His eyes had been this weird ice-cold blue, and David had disliked him immediately.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Keith had said, which by the way Phillip had elbowed him, he should have known was the wrong thing to say.

“It’s not a loss,” David had gritted out. “She just hasn’t been found.”

Later, after David had spoken to the enraptured audience, telling them about Alice, Alice, Alice, and after the man had shown him the picture of the older woman and had cried on his shoulder, Phillip had gripped David by the arm, dragging him to a quiet alcove, eyes bright, lips thinned.

“It’s not what you think,” he’d said. “It’s not.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” David had replied, even though that certainly wasn’t the truth.

“He’s a friend. I didn’t want to come alone tonight, and he volunteered.”

“What a nice friend,” David said. “How nice.”

“I didn’t even know if you were coming.”

And—yeah, okay, that’d been fair, because David hadn’t responded to any one of Phillip’s three phone calls or five text messages, but still. It wasn’t as if David had brought a friend.

“I’m here,” David had said.

“Are you?” Phillip had asked him. “Because I don’t think you’ve been here for a long time.”

He’d left shortly after, not looking to where Phillip and Keith were standing side by side, talking with a group of people he hadn’t recognized.

There’d been hints, sometimes, from friends, the ones David hadn’t quite managed to drive away yet with his bullshit, though that was coming soon. Hints as subtle as a sledgehammer, things like oh, I just had lunch the other day with Phillip and—with Phillip and Phillip seems to be happier lately, David, maybe it’s okay for you to be too?

David didn’t have many friends these days.

In all honesty, he really didn’t have any at all.

But that was okay. Mostly. He had other things to focus on. His job. His phone calls to Detective Harper on Mondays. Searching, though it was mostly done online and in message boards these days. After all, the trail was almost six years old now.

“It wasn’t like that,” Phillip repeated. “I told you that.”

“Oh” was all David said.

Phillip picked up his fork, slid the broccoli off, and speared a potato. He put it into his mouth and chewed angrily. No one could chew food angrily like Phillip.

David waited because he knew Phillip wasn’t finished.

And in fact, he swallowed and set the fork down again. “I didn’t want it to be anything.”

“Okay,” David said. “Did he?”

Phillip gaped at him.

Back off, David thought, because they were so far beyond reminiscing now. Back off, back off, back off.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Phillip said coolly, “but he did after I told him.”

“He seemed like a nice guy.”

The skin under Phillip’s left eye twitched. “The nicest.”

“That’s good,” David said, picking at the broccoli. It was so green, it looked fake. He didn’t know if he could stomach it.

“You aggravate me.”

“I know.”

“You don’t even know how much.”

“I have a good idea.”

Phillip ate another potato, but he wasn’t chewing as violently as he had been before. There was still a little bit in his mouth when he said, “I didn’t want that from him. He was just a friend. I’m allowed to have friends. And even if I wanted more, I don’t know that it would be any concern of yours.”

Right. Because David wasn’t anything to Phillip.

He ate a piece of broccoli. He could almost taste the green. He chewed quickly and choked it down. For a moment, it stuck in his throat and he couldn’t breathe, but then it passed and everything was fine. Everything was just fine.

He put down his fork. His finger brushed against the receipt. Unbidden, he glanced at the bar to find Matteo laughing with the young couple again. Like he’d felt David’s gaze, he turned and caught his eye. He winked before going back to the couple.

He almost said, Why are we here? Why did you want to see me?

Instead, he said, “I spoke with—”

Phillip said, “He kissed me once.”

David thought the broccoli was stuck in his throat again.

Phillip said, “And maybe I kissed him back, for just a little bit, but that was it. That was it, and I pushed him away and told him I wasn’t ready for anything like that and I didn’t know if I would be for a long time. He was a gentleman, said he understood, and I haven’t seen him in almost three months. I heard he’s dating an investment broker. So. There’s that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Phillip looked up at him sharply. “What for?”

Everything. “If you liked him.” He shrugged.

“I liked him,” Phillip said, and before David could do something with that, he added, “I liked him because he was my friend. He listened to me. He understood what I was going through.”

“Who?” David said quietly.

“His brother. Back in 1998. He’d been out with friends, said good night outside a bar, saying he was going to walk home. He never made it. They never found him. No leads, it was just as if he’d vanished without a trace. It’s been cold for a very long time.”

David hadn’t known that. He didn’t know if it would have changed anything, but he hadn’t known that about Keith. Hadn’t known that at all.

“So yes, maybe even I wanted to like him,” Phillip said, cutting a potato. “Maybe I thought I could, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, neat as you please, but that was it.”

“Okay,” David said.

“Okay,” Phillip snapped. “That’s it? Just okay.”

“It’s—”

“How is everything?” Melissa asked, and David didn’t even flinch this time. “The swordfish?”

“It’s fine,” Phillip said. “Everything is wonderful.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

“I’ll have another glass of—”

“On it,” she said, not even letting him finish. She looked at David. “And you, sir?”

He wanted to tell her to take his plate away, to just trash it all, but he shook his head.

She left.

“What about you?” Phillip asked. “Are you—”

“No,” David said. “No. You know me. I don’t… do well. Like that.”

Phillip glanced down at the receipt pointedly.

“That’s not anything,” David said, embarrassed. “He probably just had a daddy kink or something.”

Phillip choked on a potato.

David felt oddly proud of himself.

Phillip coughed, turning a little red.

David waited.

“Jesus,” Phillip gasped. “You can’t just say that.”

David fought to keep the smile off his face. “Look at me. Look at him. He wanted to be my baby boy.”

“Oh my God,” Phillip said faintly. “That’s amazing. You have to call him now. Just to see what would happen.”

“Please,” David said. “He’d want to stay out late, dancing and drinking, and you know me.”

“Pajamas by six,” Phillip said.

“Pajamas by six,” David agreed. “Probably not very compatible.”

“He’s got a great ass. Nice arms too.”

“He probably forgets leg day.”

Phillip giggled, that oddly endearing high-pitched thing he did when he found something really funny. “Listen to you, talking gym talk.”

“It’s not like the porn.”

“No jocks in the locker room waiting for a four-way?”

“None at all. Lots of flab. And back hair.”

“Not on you.”

He patted his stomach. “Still got this.”

Phillip smiled. “You gotta keep that. I always—I always liked your belly.”

David flushed, looking down at the table, twisting the fork in his hand. “Thanks. I think.”

Melissa dropped off the glass of wine at the table and left without speaking. She did smile at the both of them, but that was all.

The silence that came then wasn’t quite as awkward. It wasn’t—it wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t like it’d been before either. He was nervous still, his palms a little sweaty, but his heartbeat had slowed, and he wasn’t struggling with something, anything to say. He didn’t know where this was going, what they were doing, and that question was still stuck in his throat, but it wasn’t… bad.

It was kind of nice.

And then David opened his mouth and ruined it. “I spoke to Detective Harper this week.”

A neutral “Did you?” was the only response he got.

“I, uh. I still call her. You know? Just on Mondays.”

“I know.”

“Okay. Good. I just… I wanted to point something out to her, just to see if they’d heard of it.”

“She told me.”

And that startled him. “She told you,” he repeated flatly.

Phillip didn’t even look like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “She told me.” He ate another potato. They were almost gone. He’d go on to the broccoli next. But the steak had been there for so long, he might just move on to it before it was lukewarm. Nobody liked lukewarm swordfish steaks.

“When?” David asked.

“When I spoke to her on Tuesday.”

And now maybe he knew why they were here. “Before or after?”

Phillip looked confused. “Before or after what?”

“Before or after you texted me. Before or after you said that you wanted to see me.”

Phillip picked the napkin off his lap and daintily wiped his mouth. He set it back on the table and sighed. “Before.”

David wanted to punch something very hard. “I see.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it? I call and tell her that a sex-trafficking ring had been broken wide open in Baltimore and maybe they should look into it, and now here we are. You couldn’t call me, so you called her to check in, to check up, and once you heard that I’d fucking called her, trying to get them to do their goddamn jobs, you decided that maybe you should get me out, maybe you should make sure I wasn’t drowning like—”

“Lower your voice,” Phillip said.

“I’m not—”

“David. Please.”

And when had he ever been able to resist that? They’d found that out almost right away, that all Phillip had to do was say please. That’s all he had to do, and David was turned to putty, unable to do anything but what had been asked.

“I—” he choked out. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Phillip said. “And I can see where you’re coming from. How that would look. David, do you trust me? Deep down. Do you really trust me?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation, because even after all that’d happened, even after all they’d been through, he trusted Phillip Greengrass with everything he had. The things he said in the past might have contradicted that, but this was his truth. It was one of the few he had left, and he hoarded it as if it were precious.

“Thank you,” Phillip said. He closed his eyes briefly. “I was going to call you. Or text you. I told myself to call, but maybe I chickened out a little. But I didn’t know if you’d ignore it, so I called Detective Harper first, because she was the only one you talked to with any regularity. So I waited until Tuesday and called her. She told me you’d spoken the day before. She told me what you spoke about. She said she was checking into it. That every little bit helped. Then I texted you.”

David believed him. Phillip had never lied to him, not about the big things. And this was a big thing. “Why?”

“Why?”

The words almost got stuck. “Why did you want to see me?”

“Because I miss you.”

And there it was. There it was. The four words that meant more than anything he’d heard in the last six years other than we’ll find her, I promise, and he didn’t even know if he deserved them. After everything he’d done, he didn’t think he could have them and all that they potentially implied. Sure, it might have been just as a friend misses another, or something so much more, but still. It was something. And those four words were out there, Phillip just throwing them at him like it was nothing.

He didn’t deserve this.

He hadn’t earned it.

But he wanted it more than anything else in the world. So he said, “I miss you too.”

“Do you?” Phillip asked.

“All the time.”

Now they were reveling in it, weren’t they?

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Phillip shrugged. “Okay.”

He moved on to the broccoli.

David tried the swordfish. He could barely choke it down.

He set down his fork.

“You need to eat more,” Phillip said. “You’re wasting away.”

“Yeah,” David said. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”

Phillip had a fragile smile on his face, like he was unsure if it was okay for it to be there. “Might be. I like the tie. Nice touch.”

“It’s—I don’t know why I wore it.”

“I taught you better than that,” Phillip said. “You never need an excuse to dress up. I think you look very handsome.”

“It took me a long time to tie it.”

“Clumsy fingers.”

“I even stared at the mirror and everything.”

“How long?”

David sighed, pushing his fork around on his plate. “An hour.”

“An hour,” Phillip said, snorting into his hand. “David.”

“Yeah, well you should have seen attempts one through sixteen. It looked like I was trying to hang myself.”

“An hour.”

“Speaking of excuses to dress up. Nice shoes.”

“Buddy, I’ll have you know these are limited-edition Converse,” Phillip said with a scowl. “Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah, you and five thousand other people have the same shoes.”

“Out of seven billion people. That’s—that’s, okay, math is stupidly hard, but I’m pretty sure that’s a very small percentage of the population. Do you know what the chances of me running into another person with these exact shoes is?”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Excuse you,” he said, affronted. “These are brilliant.”

“They looked like they were made by someone who’s colorblind.”

“No accounting for taste.”

“Not your taste, that’s for sure.”

“You can just shut up,” Phillip said. “You philistine. Just because I wasn’t there to do your tie for you doesn’t mean you can take it out on my shoes.”

And that—that might have been too much. It wasn’t Phillip’s fault. No. It would never be Phillip’s fault. David was just as much a participant as Phillip had been. But the idea that Phillip hadn’t been there, hadn’t tied his tie for him was too much. The bowtie on the ill-fitted tux had been already pre-tied, hanging in the closet in a wrapped bag in the back. But this tie? This was the first tie he’d worn since… he couldn’t even remember when. Probably some meeting, like the group Phillip had found, other people having been through the same thing. David hadn’t wanted to go, but Phillip said it’d be a good idea, and please, David, just do it for me. Please.

That had been in year two and the trail was so cold it might as well have been ice, no matter what they’d chosen to believe at the time. He hadn’t yet discovered the joys of waking up after spending four nights in a row chasing the bottom of a bottle. But oh, it would be coming, and there wasn’t really anything that could have stopped it.

But first, the group meetings, the people who showed up a little dead-eyed, a little frumpy, saying this is my wife or this is my son or it is my father, he isn’t sick, he really isn’t, he was just gone. The cookies had been stale, and the coffee might as well have been tar, and they talked about missing-white-woman syndrome, that extraordinarily odd little thing where people go missing every single day, but it’s the upper-class white girls or women that get all of the media coverage, their blonde hair and blue eyes selling much better than a Hispanic woman or a black man. Men in general didn’t get much press. They were just gone. Probably running from their responsibilities. After all, it wasn’t like men could get taken, right? That was just sounded implausible. That didn’t happen.

It was the pretty white women, always. They were the ones on the cover of People, they were the ones whose awkwardly shot cell phone videos of that slightly drunken day at the beach were shown on CNN and Fox News, saying, “Look at this all-American girl, in the prime of her life, have you seen her? Sure, four women of color have gone missing while you’ve watched this, but look at this woman. She’s more important than all the others.”

Alice was black.

She’d been on the news.

For a little while.

But her videos hadn’t been on TV, at least not on the national stage. Not even the one where she’s grinning at David holding the camera, saying, “Is this really for me? Did you really do this for me?” while she’s unwrapping a present, the snowman paper falling around her. She’d been in her pajamas still, her hair up lazily in a bun, her eyes a little puffy with sleep, but she had looked amazing, and even the local news hadn’t played it, so he’d uploaded it to YouTube under the heading HAVE YOU SEEN HER?

It’d gotten just over three hundred views. David was convinced half of those came from himself.

Yes. That might have been the last time he wore a tie. Trying to go to that group. Hearing about missing-white-woman syndrome and knowing the missing woman in his life was black and two years gone, and wondering if anyone still gave a shit about her aside from him and Phillip. He’d eaten a cookie. He’d drank the coffee. He’d smiled when he was supposed to, answered a question when called upon.

But he’d never gone back.

Phillip had.

That was the last time, right?

Yeah. Except for the bow tie.

The chair scraped along the floor as he stands up quickly. His mouth was salivating in that way it does before he’s about to be sick—and God, didn’t he remember that feeling from year three—because Phillip hadn’t been there to tie his damn tie, why the hell had he even worn it to begin with?

“David—”

“Just have to use the restroom.” He smiled weakly. “I’ll be right back.”

He felt Phillip’s eyes on his back as he strode away. He didn’t look back.

The bathroom was empty and as lowly lit as the restaurant. The floor was tiled, the sinks clear glass bowls on concrete blocks. There were mints and complimentary mouthwash on a cart near the far wall, and if this was going to go like he thought it was, then he’d probably need them.

He was in one of the stalls, the door firmly latched behind him when his mouth felt flooded, and the toilet seat was up. He was on his knees and gagging, stomach twisting furiously, and yeah, this was what it’d been like for most of 2014, that acidic burn in his mouth, gut filled with booze, guilt just about crushing him. He’d vomit, and it’d come out in a brown mess, and he’d think to himself, Never again, never again, I’m not going to do this ever again, she would be so mad if she could see me, but then he’d finish, and the day would go on, and it would get harder and harder, and five o’clock would hit. Five o’clock would hit (when it became acceptable to drink, of course), and he’d want to be numb. He’d go on to the website that had been made for Alice, a clumsy thing with only one page, saying that on March 22nd, 2012, Alice had disappeared near the Foggy Bottom–GWU Metro stop, the only sign that she’d ever existed had been her purse on the ground, wallet and cell phone still inside. God knows how long it’d been sitting there. Had it been from that morning? Or had it been from later in the day? He might not have known anything was wrong if that Good Samaritan hadn’t seen the purse lying partially hidden in some small bushes next to the Whole Foods.

He’d been just a kid coming from George Washington University, backpack slung over his shoulder. He’d seen the purse and would tell David later he thought it was weird that it was lying there like it was and hadn’t yet been taken by a homeless person. His name was Maury “but everyone calls me Digger,” and he’d picked up the purse, looking around to see if anyone was coming for it.

Nothing.

He’d felt guilty about looking through it, remembering when he’d been little and had snuck some money from his mom’s purse. He’d been found out and had gotten into trouble for that, and it’d always stuck with him. That disappointed look on her face. So he’d felt wrong about it, but there was just something strange that this purse had been where it was.

He’d found the wallet. A few singles inside. A driver’s license. Credit cards. There was a bag of those Ricola Lemon Mint drops, leftover from a sore throat a couple of weeks before. Lipstick. Gum. A hair tie. A pen. Rubber bands. A Kindle. A smartphone that wasn’t password protected. He’d pulled up the last number dialed and had called it.

And at 3:37 on Thursday, March 22, 2016, David’s cell phone rang.

“Hey, what are you up to?” he’d said. “On your way home? I’ll see what I can scrounge up for dinner if you—”

“Uh, yeah,” a male voice had said, and David was confused. He’d looked at his phone, and yeah, it’d said ALICE was calling him, that ALICE should be on the other end of the line. “Sorry. Is this—”

“This is David. Who are you? Why do you have my—”

“Look, mister. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like this, okay? I’m just walking to the stop, okay? And I seen this purse, okay? It’s on the ground. And I’m thinking, wow, that’s not cool, because it looks expensive, okay? So I pick it up and there’s a wallet inside, and it’s weird, because it’s all still there, okay? And there’s this cell phone, and now I’m calling you. You know? This is Alice’s stuff. Nothing was stolen, okay? I didn’t take anything. I’m just trying to do the right thing here. I felt bad about going in the purse, okay? I’m not looking for any reward that—”

“You found it?” David had said, already feeling that low twinge of dread at the base of his spine. “What do you mean you found it?”

“It’s like I said, okay? It was just on the ground. Near some bushes. Man, I don’t know. It just felt weird, okay? Like, if someone stole it, then why didn’t they take the cards, man? You know? The phone too.”

And that had been the thing, right? The big thing. Because if someone had stolen the purse, if the motive had been robbery, then why hadn’t any of it been taken?

How had it gotten there?

There’d been a punched Metro card, timestamped for earlier that morning, so they knew she’d at least gotten off at the stop.

But from there?

Had she been just leaving the Metro or coming back?

No cameras had picked her up.

And no one, no one had remembered seeing anything. Not inside that Whole Foods. Or in the coffee shop where she’d stopped earlier according to the swipe of her debit card. Or on the train. Or anywhere.

And that’d been the thing too, right? How could these people, all of these people who had been around her during that Thursday not seen what had happened?

He’d been so angry at that. Later.

A thin string of bile was attached to his bottom lip as he dry-heaved into the fancy toilet, the tile cold underneath his hands. There was sweat on his forehead. His ears were ringing, and it was a lot. It was so much to take in, and he gagged again, but nothing came out. The string of bile broke and fell into the water. He spat once, twice, getting rid of the excess saliva. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, again and again and again, and until his vision cleared and his stomach settled.

The bathroom door opened and closed.

He didn’t move.

Someone moved to the urinal, humming under his breath.

He waited.

The man pissed for a minute or two, then washed his hands in the sink. He coughed and started humming again as he dried his hands.

The door opened, the sounds of the restaurant spilling through.

Overhead, Perry Como sang about how he’d met a man from Tennessee who was heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie.

David let out a dry sob but didn’t let it go further.

He pushed himself up, leaning his head against the stall door, the metal cool against his heated skin.

Digger had scrolled through the call list and had called the last number dialed. It’d been the night before, Wednesday, and she’d called him to say that she was going to be a little late getting in.

“Fire on one of the tracks,” she’d muttered. “Station is full. We’re gonna be packed like sardines in here.”

“Fire?” he’d said, a little startled.

“Way farther down the line, you old worrywart,” she’d said with a laugh. “Making everything run slower. Just wanted to let you know because of how you get.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. Love you!” And she’d disconnected the call.

She’d been an hour late, but she’d gotten home.

That was the last phone call she’d made.

David opened the stall door.

Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays/cause no matter how far away you roam….

He stood in front of the sink, watching himself in the mirror.

He looked tired. He was pale. He looked… faded. Like he was the copy of a copy. All the pieces were there and they made a full picture, but it was blurred and somehow less.

He turned the faucet and splashed water on his face. He cupped his hands, letting them fill, then drinking from it, swishing the water around before spitting back in the sink, trying to get rid of that acidic taste.

It’d have to do.

He took the mouthwash, served in a little plastic cup. It burned a little as he swished it around. He spat it out and then crunched on a mint. It was better. He felt better.

He went back out.

Phillip watched him as he approached, brow furrowed, a little frown on his face.

“All right?” he asked.

David nodded, sitting back down in his seat. “Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Your swordfish is getting cold.”

David tried to smile. “Not too hungry.”

“You gotta eat something.”

“I do. I will. You don’t have to—”

“When was the last time you ate?”

That wasn’t— “I had my oatmeal this morning,” he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “Even put some fruit on it. A little brown sugar.”

“And before that?”

“Why?” he asked.

Phillip shrugged. His own steak hadn’t really been touched. Half the potatoes were gone. Some of the broccoli. “I worry about you, buddy.”

David snorted. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“You don’t have to.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t. Someone has to. It might as well be me.”

“I’m fine,” David said, as if he hadn’t just been on his knees, face in the toilet.

Phillip sipped his wine. The candlelight flashed off the glass. “I’m not.”

David didn’t know what to say to that. So he said, “Oh?”

“Yes,” Phillip said. “Oh. Oh, David.”

“I’m sorry.”

Phillip laughed at that. It wasn’t the nicest of sounds. “For?”

“I don’t underst—”

“What are you sorry for? That I’m not okay? Or something else.”

He’d been gone for four minutes. Maybe five. He didn’t know what had happened. Things hadn’t been… comfortable, per se, but they’d been doing okay, hadn’t they? It’d been less stilted than he expected it to be. Granted, there were decades of history here between them, and he loved Phillip. God, he always had. Even after everything, he loved him. The same with Alice. She was six years gone and no one knew where she was, but he loved her as much as he had the day she’d called to say she was going to be late because of a fire farther down the line.

And yeah, he was sorry. Jesus Christ, he was sorry. He’d fucked up so many times since that Thursday. He’d taken it out on Phillip, even though he hadn’t deserved it. Then Phillip had had to put up with his shit as he spiraled out of control. As he became obsessed. As he spent so much money trying to find her.

At first, the police had been hesitant. She was an adult, they said. Are you sure she wasn’t at a friend’s house? Are you sure she wasn’t getting her hair done? Yes, sir, I heard you when you said her purse had been found on the ground, there’s no need to raise your voice at me, sir, but that could have been anything. She’s a woman in the United States who can legally go anywhere she wants to. Are you sure she didn’t just want to leave?

He’d called Phillip after that, enraged.

Hospitals didn’t have her.

She wasn’t in jail.

It took two days before the police had opened a missing person’s case, though he’d found out later that in DC, police were supposed to file a report no matter what when called, one of the few places in the country that did so.

By then, they’d gotten the purse back from Digger.

He was a nice kid, but David hadn’t had any qualms thinking that if Digger had been the one to do this, if he’d hurt Alice in any way, there wouldn’t be enough left of this boy to bury.

They’d interviewed him. Digger told the police the same thing he’d said to David. He’d been in class beforehand. He was heading to work. He’d found the purse, and that was that.

The police believed him. They didn’t even use words like person of interest about him.

Sex offenders in the immediate area were checked out.

Nothing. None of them.

They interviewed David. And Phillip. They understood why, that it was just protocol, but a great and terrible rage had filled David when the detective had asked if he and Alice had had any fights lately, if she had done drugs or was prone to leaving without telling anyone. Did she have a boyfriend? You know, anyone she was seeing?

“No,” he’d said to those questions, all the while thinking, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered.

She was just gone.

And late at night, when sleep wouldn’t come, David would stare at the ceiling and think about those two days it’d taken for the police to get their asses in gear. Two days it’d taken when even a layperson knew that the more time that passed, the less of a chance there would be to find them.

No witnesses.

No evidence.

Digger’s fingerprints were on her purse. But then so were David’s and Phillip’s and Alice’s herself. No one else.

She was pretty, and maybe that’s why they were able to get her on the news, because he’d find out later about the missing-white-woman syndrome. A black woman at the group meetings would tell him all about it, saying that her sister had gone missing, and no one had given two shits about her. “You lucky,” she’d said. “Latonya wasn’t—she had some johns, right? So, to them, to everyone else, she was just this prostitute. Just this whore who probably got picked up by the wrong person. You know what I’ve heard? That she probably deserved it. That she shouldn’t have been doin’ what she was doin’. They didn’t put her on the news. She didn’t have friends that handed out flyers. Her name wasn’t Dakota or Julie or Britney, so she ain’t gettin’ coverage. I got her kid now, right? She’s only three. She asks where Momma’s at. What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Sorry, kiddo, but Momma’s gone and people didn’t give a fuck about her because of what she done to make sure you had food in your belly. You lucky, David. Maybe not as lucky as you woulda been had your Alice been a white girl, but you lucky. I hope you find her. I hope we find them all.”

“David?” Phillip pressed.

“I don’t know,” David said finally. He didn’t look up at Phillip. “I just don’t know.”

Phillip sighed. “I know you don’t.”

“I am sorry, though.”

“I know that too.”

“Maybe I should—”

“I don’t think you should leave.”

Because of course Phillip would know what he was thinking. “Why?”

“Because,” Phillip said, “I haven’t gotten my fill of you.”

Fuck, that hurt. How long had it been since he’d heard those words? Before, to be sure. Maybe on one of their staycations when David had been above him, both of them panting, skin slick with sweat, muscles quivering in that way that showed they weren’t as young as they used to be. He’d probably said it jokingly, a saucy little smile on his face, chest and stomach covered in spunk, legs still wrapped around David’s waist.

And the first time, right? The first time he’d said that, David remembered very well. It’d been in September of 1992, and they’d been together for three days straight, and David was nervous that maybe he’d outstayed his welcome, that he was annoying Phillip. And when he’d fumbled through that, when he’d said, hey, if you want me to go, just tell me and I will, Phillip had squinted at him, that funny little smile on his face and said, “But I haven’t gotten my fill of you,” and David had maybe fallen a little bit in love right then. They hadn’t kissed yet. Hell, they’d only known each other for a few days, but it hadn’t mattered, not in the long run. Because Phillip hadn’t gotten his fill of David yet, and it became this thing between them. This mantra, this secret little code, and even when Alice had come crashing into their lives less than three years later, it still remained their thing. Like the staycations, it was there.

Here it was again, now. Like Phillip saying please, David was next to powerless to resist it. And maybe he hated Phillip a little bit right then, because he knew. He knew what that did to David, and it was unfair. Yes, everything David had done to Phillip in the last six years probably more than made up for it (or that’s what he thought; if he were being honest with himself, he would know that he had a long, long ways to go), but here they were, sitting across from each other like Phillip hadn’t shown up on the arm of another man last summer, practically daring David to say something about it.

Yeah, he deserved it. Sure.

But that didn’t mean he had to like it.