I was sure that there was a better way to deal with the rotted feelings in my chest than drinking myself into oblivion.

But at the moment, the rational part of me was too busy wailing in defeat to actually come up with that better solution. So I ignored the desire to do better and went to a bar right after work on Friday.

I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept a good night since the motel in California. And after the other day in the supply closet, I couldn’t even close my eyes without picturing Luke.

It didn’t matter what part of him I pictured; if it was him happy, laughing at a joke in the car, then my chest hurt. If it was him angry, spitting words made out of knives at me on the side of a road, then that hurt, too.

And if I pictured him, hand against his mouth, to hold back whimpers—that hurt the most.

I knew that Luke wanted to talk; he’d asked me to talk. I couldn’t do it.

Luke deserved someone who didn’t have this much baggage. He needed me to be okay with things that I wasn't sure I could be okay with.

And as angry as that made me, I knew it wasn’t his fault. Luke would try to change for me, and I couldn’t let him. He shouldn’t change for me, but I didn’t know if I could change.

I wasn’t this guy—this guy who fell for stupid, idiotic, closeted, suck-up Scorpios. I knew better than that. I wasn’t that guy.

Except that I’d accidentally turned into that guy, and now I was dry-heaving in a bathroom at a bar, trying to get the taste of vodka and someone else’s tongue out of my mouth.

The dim bathroom smelled like smoke and vomit. I clenched my fingers around the sink and breathed deeply, trying not to gag from the odors.

The dark circles under my eyes were nearly black, deep divots on my face. My lips were chapped, and my hair was straggly and short. I hated it short.

Every time I had touched it, I’d thought of Luke’s fingers in it. It had to go.

My shirt was wet from beer and vodka and god knew what else. This bar was seedy, a little dive on the other side of the city that I hadn’t stepped foot in even back when I was a seedy college student. Now I was too old, and too sad, and too desperate, to even pretend like it wasn’t disgusting that I was here.

My lungs hurt. My guts felt like I’d been kicked, again and again, and I was having a hard time remembering any conversation with Luke differently from that.

I splashed water in my face. It didn’t help at all.

I slid out of the bathroom and looked around. The guy I had been making out with was standing at the bar, a beer between his fingers as he flirted with some new guy. Good. I didn’t want to ruin his night, too, when I ran away.

I grabbed my jacket from the table we’d been at and slipped out quickly.

I was too drunk to drive. What had I even been thinking? What was I supposed to do? Leave my car here in this dive bar parking lot and pay the forty-dollar cab fare home?

I was fucking losing it. When had I ever been this dumb, this reckless?

Luke thought I was reckless. For a long, horrible moment, I hated him for being right.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It took me a full minute to figure out what that buzzing meant. I scrambled to tug it out of my pants when I realized.

“Hello?” I asked, hearing how breathless I was. God, I was fucking gone.

There was a static crack, and then, “Half-Pint?”

Stella. I slumped against the side of my car, cradling the phone to my ear. “Stella, it’s so fucking good to hear from you.”

“Max, are you drunk?” Stella asked.

I let out a low whining sound. “Maybe. Leave me alone.”

She laughed. “Want me to go?”

“No!” I said quickly, turning in on the phone to hug it closer to me. I was glad she wasn’t here to make fun of me for the neediness. “Isn’t it, like, tomorrow there?”

“Yep.” Stella popped the p. “But guess what?”

“What?”

“I’m in yesterday.”

I frowned. I scratched at a spot behind my ear. “Wait, that’s confusing. I don’t get it. Ow, my head hurts.”

She huffed, but it didn’t sound that annoyed. “I mean, I’m in your time zone.”

I frowned, tilting my head, trying to connect the dots. “I—don’t understand.”

“How smashed are you?” Stella quipped. “I’m home! I’m in Seattle.”

I blamed my excited gasp on the vodka. “No you’re not!”

“I am!” She laughed happily.

I choked back a happy sob. I felt drunker now than I had ten minutes ago. Five shots of vodka was too many. “I want to see you.”

“I’m leaving the airport now. I can swing by?”

“I—am not home.” I looked around the empty parking lot, feeling colder and alone than I had in months. My skin was erupting in little goosebumps. I felt decidedly ridiculous standing there.

“Oh, right. Want me to meet you?”

I wrapped my arm around myself. “Actually, would you come pick me up? I am … drunk.”

She whistled. “No driver? It’s a good thing I’m your knight in shining armor.”

“You really could be,” I sang.

She huffed out a laugh. “Where are you? Billy’s? The Road’s Tavern?”

“No.” I scratched at my jaw and read her out the address.

“Goddamn,” she said in surprise. “What are you doing all the way out there?”

“It’s a long story,” I sighed.

Stella paused. “I’ll grab tacos on the way. Be there soon.”

She hung up, and I climbed into my car to wait.

The vodka was making me feel sick. Or maybe that was me—maybe I was making myself feel sick. It didn’t really matter; either way, the results were the same.

I didn’t realize I’d dozed off until I was startled awake. I cursed and jumped. Stella pounded on the window with her fist a second time.

I crawled out of the car and wound myself around my best friend, hugging her tight. She hugged me just as hard.

“You’re home early,” I said lamely.

“You smell like a distillery.”

I sniffled, choking back another sob. “I feel like a distillery!”

She chuckled, patting my back. “Oh, no. What happened?”

I sighed and pulled back. I felt ridiculous. “Did you get tacos?”

She nodded and took my keys out of my hands, quickly locking up my car and leading me to hers. I climbed in and buckled up, grabbing a taco and demolishing it quickly.

“Tequila?” she guessed, turning her car on.

“Vodka,” I corrected.

She ahhed in understanding. I ate two more tacos as she drove us back to my place.

Stella kept the music low, a playlist that I had made for her and demanded that she keep on her phone for when I was around, and while I appreciated the gesture, even listening to my favorite songs sort of sucked now. I had sung them around Luke, and he had made fun of me when I sang along. I curled up against the passenger side door.

“Bitch, get out of the car.” Stella sighed. We had been pulled up by my building for five minutes.

“It’s gross in there,” I mumbled.

Stella rolled her eyes. “Bitch. Get out.”

Reluctantly, I opened the door, practically pooling out on the sidewalk as I fell from the car. She stormed past me to the building, unlocking the door and shoving me inside.

I was glad that she had my keys. I didn’t think that I had the coordination at that moment to actually get the door unlocked.

I flung myself on my couch when I got inside. I threw off my button-up, glad that at least the undershirt I was wearing didn’t seem to be soaked in booze. I had somehow already lost my shoes.

Stella followed me inside and sat down on the floor next to the couch. She took out two more tacos and handed me one. We tapped them against each other in a cheers.

She chewed slowly, eyes narrowed as she watched me.

I only got halfway through the taco before all the contents fell on my shirt. My eyes watered. “My taco.”

“Can you get your sorry head out of your own ass for a half second so you can tell me what the hell is going on?”

I winced. “Missed you, too.”

“Oh, come on. I leave for—what, a month? Two? And you completely fall apart!”

“The two things are not necessarily connected,” I mumbled. I pinched the taco guts off my shirt and ate them. It was disgusting. I was disgusting.

Stella hit me in the head with a pillow. “Bitch! Where’s the moon right now?”

I frowned. “What?”

“The moon. Where’s that bitch at?”

“Um. She’s in Leo,” I said.

Stella quirked her eyebrow. “Want to blame all this on that?”

I sighed. “Yes, please.”

“Okay. So. What did that bitch, the moon, make you do?”

I grabbed the pillow she’d hit me with and buried my face in it. “I met a boy.”

“What?” Stella snatched the pillow away. “You want to repeat that?”

“I met a boy,” I whined.

Stella’s lips twitched. She smacked me in the face with the pillow again. “Ow!” I glared at her. “What was that for?”

“You complete dipshit, we promised we wouldn’t meet guys!”

“Technically, I already knew him?”

Stella’s eyes widened. “Jack? Tom? Billy? Oh, good lord, tell me it was Sean, I’ve been calling that since 2015!”

I shook my head. Stella scrambled onto the couch, pushing me up so we both had one side. “Tell me everything.”

I groaned and threw my arm over my face, covering my eyes. Then I told Stella everything that had happened since she’d flown away and thrown me to the wolves of my own emotions.

It took nearly an hour, and Stella laughed as many times as I almost cried. But by the end, when I was telling her about the quick blowjob in the office supply closet, she was burying her face in one of my throw pillows, shoulders shaking with the effort to not openly laugh at me.

She failed miserably. I started laughing too. “You’re living a porno!” she cackled, throwing her head back. Tears streamed down her face.

“Fuck off!” I tried to snap it, but it really lost its effect when I was also doubled over laughing.

“I can’t believe it. My dramatic, slutty little bud. I never should have left you alone.” Stella’s breathing steadied, but then she looked at me and lost it again.

I grabbed the throw blanket off the back of the couch and put it over my head to hide.

Stella lifted the end and joined me. “Listen,” she said, lips still twitching, but otherwise not openly mocking me anymore. “I get it.”

“You do?” I didn’t believe her. I frowned.

Stella sighed. “Not, like, exactly. I’ve never literally lived a dozen different porn plots in quick succession.”

“Unfortunately,” I added.

She nodded. “Unfortunately. But I have, like, been in love.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face. “I’m not in love.”

Stella’s eyebrows raised. “How sure are you about that?”

I swallowed hard.

Stella threw the blanket over off of us. I squinted against the light. My head was starting to hurt. “Are there any more tacos?”

“Max.” Stella reached out and grabbed my hands. “So there’s this guy that you’re not in love with, but you’re getting messy vodka drunk across town for?”

“Yes,” I confirmed.

Stella ticked a finger up. “Also, he is your bitchy fun enemy from work, also from college, who you clearly have had a crush on for years, even though you thought he was straight.”

“Nope.”

She ticked a second finger up anyway. “He has been actively a bitch to you for years, but then, as soon as you two are alone together, you’re jumping each other’s bones. Like constantly.”

I threw a pillow at her. She kept on. “Disgusting, like rabbits!”

I ground my teeth. “Only technically.”

“Only technically,” she repeated, rolling her eyes.

“Stella.”

“Look, man. You’re in love with him, and I think he’s in love with you.”

I glared at her. From the sympathetic twist of her smile, I must have looked kind of pathetic. “He hates me now.”

“He doesn’t,” she disagreed.

“I hate him now.”

“You really don’t.” She tapped her fingers against her thighs. “But you should probably apologize.”

I knew that. I looked down.

“Listen, I get your side. I do. But—maybe just consider if this guy is worth not being right over. Just apologize. Get your head out of your ass.”

I groaned. My chest hurt. I covered my face with my hands. “Are there really no more tacos?”

“You can’t taco your way out of love, man. Trust me. I’ve tried.”

I cracked an eye open. Stella was grinning. I sighed. “You’re terrible.”

“I’m an incredible best friend.” She dismissed my insult with a wave of her hand. “And you are gloriously thankful that I am me.”

I moved over on the couch so my head was on her shoulder. “Very true.”

Stella starting petting my head. “I can’t believe you cut your hair for him.”

“Stop making fun of me.”

“Luke Wilson,” she said wistfully. “Do you think he knows he’s named after a B-list actor?”

“Don’t you fucking dare make fun of Elle Wood’s true love.” I head butted her shoulder. She laughed.

“I haven’t seen him since college. Is he still dumb buff?”

I sighed, dreamily remembering his incredibly jacked torso. “Yes.”

“How did we not know he was gay?”

I looked up at her, shaking my head. “I don’t know! We’re both very gay.”

“And yet, the truest gay, a grandma’s boy gay, escaped our notice.”

I laughed. Stella joined in after a second. “Should we watch Legally Blonde now?”

“Fuck, yes.” I scrambled for the remote. I got the movie loaded up before changing into sweatpants and bringing an extra pair into the living room for Stella.

She changed and then got us water from the kitchen.

She sat next to me, bumped my shoulder with hers, and then procured two extra tacos from her purse. I kissed the side of her head in gratitude.

I wasn’t sure if she was right. I didn’t feel in love; it didn’t feel like it had when I was seventeen. This was painful, and aching, and even before all of that, I had felt so on the edge of a knife that a single kiss could have knocked me either way.

Luke hated me. He wasn’t out, and he had no intention of coming out. He didn’t want a single thing to do with me. He thought I was a liar.

But still—

I didn’t know if this was what love felt like. But hearing Stella’s confident voice say that he was in love with me?

That was definitely what hope felt like.