Chapter 7

 

 

“TODAY IS going to be an okay day,” Gus told the ceiling the next morning, because it had to be. It had to be okay, because if it wasn’t, Gus didn’t know what he would do. He might literally go out of his fucking mind. He thought how only a week ago everything had been fine. He didn’t even know what it was now. It made him anxious. Gus hated feeling anxious. He also hated warm ketchup, loud people, sunburns, parallel parking, jams and jellies, Instagram, Sarah McLachlan’s SPCA commercials, rubber glue, Michael Bay’s DVD commentaries, Michael Bay’s films, Michael Bay, and that weird feeling that tattooed, bearded hipsters caused in the pit of his stomach that felt like he had tripped down a flight of stairs into a frozen lake that got lit on fire.

He did his exercises. He told himself that he threw in an extra fifty push-ups because it helped him to clear his head. It had absolutely nothing to do with anyone who worked at Lottie’s Lattes and how they might enjoy Gus if his arms looked a bit stronger because that was just ridiculous.

He was sweating by the time he stood. Because everything was fine and it was going to be an okay day, he grumbled when he tore off yesterday’s inspirational message to see today’s. It was what he normally did, and even if he was anxious, he was going to keep up appearances. He was going to handle this the same way he handled everything else: with a scowl and a glower and eventually, it would go away and he would be just fine. He was not a fucking ray of sunshine and he liked it that way.

He looked down to read the inspirational message for his Monday morning.

Let today be the day when you release your inner sunshine for all the world to see.

“Oh come on!” Gus shouted. “Why are you mocking me?”

The inspirational calendar just sat there.

Gus stomped out of his room.

And he most certainly did not spend an extra three minutes in front of the mirror that morning making sure his hair looked okay because that would be just fucking stupid.

 

 

GUS STOOD outside his house, Harry S. Truman stowed away in his carrier, glaring at the door to Lottie’s Lattes across the street. Between the extra workout he did, the angry shower he took, and the time he did not spend in front of the mirror, he was running a bit behind today. Glowering at a coffee shop was not helping the situation.

“Just do it,” he said aloud. “Just walk across the street. Get your coffee. Go to work. It’s fine. It’s okay.”

He told himself his hands were slightly sweaty because it was awfully humid this morning.

He told himself his heart was thumping erratically in his chest because his family had history of arrhythmia, and he should see a cardiologist in the near future.

“It’s just coffee,” he said. “You do this every day. Except for Sundays. Because Sundays are when you go to the grocery store and get stalked by hipsters who write books with protagonists that are probably Holden Caulfield rip-offs that are trying to be existentially deep but are in actuality vapid twentysomethings who don’t contribute anything of value to the literary world.”

He felt a bit better after that.

He stood tall, squaring his shoulders.

His head was held high.

He marched across the street.

He entered Lottie’s Lattes because he was Gustavo Tiberius and he had a goddamn video rental store to open and he needed his coffee.

The bell rang overhead.

He opened his mouth to order (nay, demand) his black coffee and no, he did not want a muffin, thank you very much, he just wanted his coffee, and he would be on his way, that was fine and he.

Just.

Stopped.

Because life… life was completely unfair.

Casey was standing off to the left, at the front window of the shop, wiping against the glass with a paper towel, a bottle of Windex at his feet. His hair was pulled back again, artfully messy, but it was what he was wearing that caused Gus’s throat to constrict involuntarily. Deep red skinny jeans that clung to his hips. A thin white tank top, leaving his arms exposed. And he was stretching up, standing on the tips of his toes to wipe down the top of the glass, and there was more skin, a thin strip of tanned skin above the waist of his jeans. There was hair on his navel, trailing down, growing darker as it disappeared into his pants.

And Gus.

Well.

Gus just stood there.

Staring.

Because for some reason, he couldn’t not.

Casey finally looked over at him, a slightly glazed smile on his face. He said, “Hey, Gus. Glad you finally stopped glaring at the store and came in.”

Gus did what he did best when called out on the truthfulness of his actions.

He sputtered.

“What? I never—it wasn’t like that and—I just was standing there to—don’t even try to—I don’t glare I—”

When Gus got a good sputter going on, when he was really embarrassed, it could last upward of a minute.

This was a good sputter.

A very good sputter.

Casey, for what it was worth, just smiled at him and waited, eyes half-lidded and slightly bloodshot because it was wake and bake and he helped. He leaned against the freshly cleaned window, arms crossed over his chest, and Gus did everything he could to avoid looking at the chest hair that peeked out over the tank top because he was not emotionally equipped to deal with it at the present time.

Eventually, Gus stopped sputtering.

It just sort of… trailed off.

“Hey, man,” Casey said when he fell silent. “Ain’t no skin off my back. Do you not like the architecture or something?”

Gus didn’t really know what to do with that. “The architecture?” He sounded slightly aghast.

“The shape,” Casey said, fluttering a single hand around to indicate the shop. “The design. I thought you were glaring at the building because you didn’t like the way it looked. I don’t blame you. It’s so… square. Like. Square.”

“It’s a building,” Gus said, wondering how he had so quickly lost control of this conversation when all he wanted was coffee. “It’s supposed to be square.”

“Nah,” Casey said. “Not all buildings are square. There are the pyramids and that opera house in Australia and the Eiffel Tower and those houses in hills they have in New Zealand that you can go into on Hobbit tours. Those are circles. Or spheres.” He paused, face scrunching briefly. “Or domes.”

“What is even happening right now?” Gus asked.

“I don’t know,” Casey said, fingers scratching at his beard unfairly. “I was just happy to see you stopped being mad about the building and came over.”

“I wasn’t mad about—wait. Were you watching me?”

Casey shrugged. “S’washing windows, man, and there you were. Gustavo Tiberius, ready to go to battle against the building. You had your grr face going.”

“My what now?” Gus asked, sure his eyebrows were almost at his hairline.

“Your grr face,” Casey said. “You know. Grr.” He bared his teeth in what Gus assumed was supposed to be an approximation of his scowl.

And Gus was offended.

“I don’t have a grr face,” Gus retorted. “I don’t have any kind of face.” He tried not to think how petulant that sounded, but it wasn’t his fault. Casey was wearing a tank top.

“You have a nice face,” Casey said.

“What?” Gus squeaked.

Now, Gus wasn’t normally an anxious person, not really. He had a perfectly ordered world where everything had its place and everything was part of his routine. He did not deviate from said routine because that way lay madness.

The last few days, though, had been a strange sort of amalgam of events that did not occur to one such as him. He was flip phones and encyclopedias before bedtime. Beef jerky as a special dessert and having every day be an okay day.

It was all Casey’s fault. All of it.

Which explained why, when Lottie spoke from behind them, Gus let out a strangled sort of scream.

“Wow,” Lottie said, almost causing Gus to drop Harry S. Truman with how much he jumped. She affected a horrible French accent and said rather breathily, “La passion est incroyable.”

He had finished screaming by the time her terrible French ended, so he was able to catch the gist of it and he immediately made plans to find out if hexes were real so he could put one on Lottie Richards. But since one did not inform a party as to an impending hex, he instead chose to scowl at everyone standing in the shop, a look that was immediately ignored.

“Did I scare you?” she asked mildly and Gus decided it would be a bad hex.

“No!” Gus said. “Not at all. Not even a little bit. I was just testing the acoustics in here. They were terrible.”

“Uh-huh,” Lottie said. “So, what did you learn today?”

“Learn?” Casey asked, and Gus did not shiver slightly when the stoned hipster brushed by him, bare arm touching Gus even though there was plenty of room to avoid such an action.

“The We Three Queens bought Gus an inspirational message calendar for Christmas,” Lottie explained. Like a jerk. “They thought he could use some uplifting sentiments on a daily basis. To make sure he reads them, we have to ask him every day what the messages are.”

“Huh,” Casey said. “Makes sense.”

“How does that make sense?” Gus asked incredulously.

Casey looked confused. “It’s a calendar with quotes. It’s not that hard. Do you need help with it?”

“Oh my god,” Gus said. “No, I don’t need help reading a calendar.”

“Oh,” Casey said, sounding strangely disappointed. “Well, what did it say?”

He didn’t really understand the question, because Casey’s tank top had billowed out slightly under the arms and Gus saw a nipple and everything misfired in his head all at once.

“Uhhh,” Gus said rather poetically.

“Gus?” Lottie asked.

“Uhhh,” Gus said, sounding less poetic.

“He was glaring at the building earlier,” Casey said to Lottie. “I don’t think he likes the shape of it. He has a thing against squares. I don’t even know.”

And that snapped him out of his nipple-induced haze. “I have to release my inner sunshine all over the world!” Gus cried. And holy shit, the acoustics.

Lottie and Casey stared at him.

“Was today’s message,” Gus said, thinking now would be a perfect time to see if he could be a long-distance runner.

Casey’s lips twitched. “Um. You have to what?” Those eye crinkles were back.

“Release his inner sunshine,” Lottie said, obviously struggling not to laugh. “All over the world.”

“Wow, man,” Casey said. “That’s truly inspirational.”

Gus eyed him warily.

“If you’re a Care Bear,” Casey added.

“I’m not a Care Bear!” Gus snapped.

“Didn’t think you were,” Case said. “You’re much taller than a Care Bear is.”

“I think I got a contact high,” Gus said. “I think you’re high and there was contact and now I’m high and that’s why we’re talking about Care Bears.”

“Oh?” Lottie asked innocently. “There was contact?”

Gus flushed horribly.

Casey made a slightly wounded noise.

Lottie grinned evilly.

“Erm,” Gus said.

“He blushes all the time,” Casey said in awe.

“Really?” Lottie asked. “Because this is the first time I’ve seen it.” And then, just because she could, she said, “Gus! Best Adapted Screenplay category, forty-ninth Academy Awards.”

And since Gus couldn’t not, he said, “Robert Getchell, Nicholas Meyer, Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi, David Butler and Steve Shagan. William Goldman won for All the President’s Men.”

“What,” Casey said.

“I really enjoyed that movie,” Lottie said. “Robert Redford is like cheese: he ages well and I want to put him in my mouth.”

“No, but seriously,” Casey said. “What.”

“Oh,” Lottie said. “Gus can list off every Academy Award nomination and winner in every category of every year of the Oscars.”

“Dude,” Casey said.

“It’s just a thing,” Gus grumbled.

“Dude,” Casey demanded.

“Stop calling me dude!”

“Pastor Tommy could do it too,” Lottie said. “Taught Gus everything he knows.”

“Best Documentary,” Casey said. “1967.”

“The Anderson Platoon.”

“Best Musical Score 1952.”

“Alfred Newman for With a Song in My Heart.”

“Best Film Editing 1986!”

“Thom Noble for Witness.”

“Cinematography 1937!”

“Tony Gaudio for Anthony Adverse.”

“Dude,” Casey breathed. “You… you just…. Who are you?”

Gus frowned. “I’m Gus,” he said, though he didn’t know how well that explained it.

“No,” Casey said. “You’re—like, okay, stay with me here, okay? So, if Jesus was still alive and he was totally into movies and could memorize shit because of the way his brain works, that’s who you’d be. Don’t you get it? You’re a cinematic Jesus.”

Well. Gus didn’t know quite how to take that. “Are you… complimenting me?”

“Yeah. Yes. Holy shit, yes.”

“By calling me a cinematic Jesus.”

“Praise be!” Casey said, throwing his hands in the air.

“Contact high,” Gus said. “This has to be a contact high.”

And how Casey smiled.

 

 

WHEN THERE was a knock at his door that night, Gus was slightly confused. He understood the concept of knocking on a door (and had, in fact, done it a few times himself in his life). What was confusing to him, though, was the fact that someone was knocking on his door.

He set down the encyclopedia (halfway through the entry on Greece) and stared at the door from his spot in Pastor Tommy’s recliner.

The knock came again.

“Huh,” Gus said. “So that’s what that sounds like.”

Gus didn’t know if it were odd or not to hear for what was probably the first time someone knocking on the front door. Pastor Tommy always had an open-door policy for anyone who ever wanted to stop by. And people did because people loved Pastor Tommy, who would sit in his chair with a bong in one hand, his other flailing wildly as he told stories about the time he went scuba diving and was accosted by an amorous squid or when he outdrank an Irishman in an Irish Pub in Ireland (though, that last was really drinking with a guy named O’Malley in a pub in Portland). If Gus’s bedroom door was ever shut, it meant he needed privacy and Pastor Tommy respected that. (“You don’t need to be ashamed about masturbating, Gus, everyone does it, your teachers do it, police officers, the mailman, politicians, I do it, everyone seriously does it so stop being all weird about it and just shut your door and turn on music and go to town, oh my god.”)

After Pastor Tommy died, Gus never left the front door open and people didn’t come over anymore. It was easier that way.

Until now.

“Huh,” Gus said again as the knock came a third time. Then he remembered that when one has a door knocked upon, it is customary to find out who is on the other side.

Sometimes when he got home, Gus did not wear pants. He was thankful today was not one of those days. He didn’t think it would have been appropriate to answer the front door in nothing but his tighty-whities.

He reached the door and heard someone shuffling outside on the porch. The door didn’t have a peephole and Gus was not a stupid man, so he said loudly, “If you’re here to rob me, you should know that I have a basic understanding of martial arts and will not hesitate to unleash my fury upon your thieving ways.”

“Whoa,” a voice said on the other side of the door. “Are you serious? Dude. Please don’t karate chop my face.”

Gus sighed heavily and opened the door, flipping on the porch light.

Casey blinked, then grinned at him. “Gustavo,” he said, as if he were surprised to see Gus instead of the other way around. “Hello.” He fiddled with his glasses, pushing them back on his nose, then dropped his hand.

“Casey,” Gus allowed. “What can I help you with?”

“Are those your pajamas?” he asked, eyes raking over Gus.

“Yes,” Gus said, refusing to be embarrassed.

“You have sleep pants with tiny pictures of… is that Yasser Arafat?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“You have pajamas with a dead Palestinian leader’s face on them.”

“I am aware,” Gus said, trying not to fidget as Casey essentially stared at his crotch. “They’re my Yasser Arapants.”

Casey choked.

Gus waited.

“Oh my fucking god,” Casey mumbled to himself. “You’re like… just… like, this person.”

Gus waited some more.

“Gus,” Casey said, lifting his gaze. “Hey.” His mouth quirked.

“Hi, Casey.” And why did it come out sounding roughly fond? This would most certainly not do at all.

“So. Look.”

Gus waited even more. He wondered if he should invite Casey in, but he didn’t know that he wanted to. It was a very confusing time for him. He blamed the hipster and a society who helped promote them. He probably had a blog dedicated to beard maintenance where he also posted black and white pictures of dilapidated barns because he thought they symbolized postwar Americana and made him feel deep.

“There’s something you should know about me,” Casey said. “Before we continue doing what we’re doing.”

“I’m pretty sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gus said. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Sure, Gus,” Casey said. “Okay. So, hey. I’ve had sex before. With women. And men.”

And… wow. Gus really didn’t want to think about that. But not at all because he was thinking about Casey having sex with other people and getting jealous at the idea of it, but because he didn’t want to think about Casey as a sexual being at all. And he didn’t.

“Okay?” Gus said. “Uh. Thank you. For sharing.”

Casey nodded. “Good, that felt good. You too. You can share. This can be our share space.” He waved his arms around like he was encompassing the entire area.

“Our share space,” Gus repeated.

“Yes,” Casey said seriously. “You can share with me in our share space. It’s a safe place for sharing. Judgment free, that’s you and me.”

“I’m judging you,” Gus said. “You rhymed and I’m judging you.”

“Share space,” Casey whispered, staring at Gus intently.

“Are you stoned again?” Gus asked.

“Nope,” Casey said. “I haven’t smoked since, like, five this afternoon.”

“It’s seven fifteen,” Gus said.

“I know,” Casey said, completely missing the sarcasm. “But I didn’t want to be high when I came to talk to you so you wouldn’t blame it on the weed later. Share space.” He flailed his arms again.

Now Gus was reminded of why he didn’t want people knocking on his door. “Look, Casey—”

“You weren’t a Care Bear earlier,” Casey said. “Even with the whole sunshine all over the world thing. But you can be a Share Bear now. Share space.”

“A Share… Bear?” Gus couldn’t believe those words ever came from his mouth and hoped they never would again.

Casey nodded.

“And we’re sharing about….”

“Sex,” Casey said promptly.

“And then you’ll go away?”

Casey grinned.

Gus rolled his eyes. “Yes. I’ve had sex.”

“With?”

“Guys.” Three, in fact. Once when he was eighteen years old and decided he wanted to rid himself of his virginity and fucked a guy he’d gone to school with in the back of Pastor Tommy’s Ford Taurus. The second when he was twenty-three and wanted to be fucked so he didn’t have to think about it anymore and had slept with a person passing through Abby on his way to Seattle. The third was last year and there was alcohol involved at a bar and Gus didn’t really remember much about it, only that the We Three Queens had given him shit for days, saying they’d never known he was such a floozy. He’d never known he was such a floozy and pretty much thought sex was far too complicated. He only did it because he thought that’s what normal people did. He enjoyed it, or at least his body did. The rest of him wondered if that was all there was to it.

“Good,” Casey said. “My turn. I didn’t like most of it.”

And that…. Gus didn’t know what to do with that. A really, really awful thought struck him and he didn’t know quite how to vocalize it without making it sound bad. “Because it wasn’t… consensual?”

Casey’s eyes widened. “No, no, no! It was all consensual. All the consent was given. Nothing like that. I’m ace.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Gus admitted.

“That’s okay,” Casey said. “I’m asexual.”

And…. Gus still didn’t know what to do with that. “Is that… good?”

Casey nodded. “It took me a long while to figure it out, why I didn’t feel the way everyone else seemed to feel about sex. It doesn’t do a whole lot for me, to be honest. I thought maybe it was women, so I switched to men, but it wasn’t all that much better. It’s… it was mechanical, almost. I was going through the motions but it wasn’t really doing anything for me. I could get off but I didn’t care about it. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me until I figured it out and then it was like a big, fat asexual ray of sunshine fell over me and it was glorious. But it felt better when I figured out that I wasn’t weird and that it was okay to not want sex like everyone else. But I like touching and I like kissing most of the time and I can be there for a partner should the situation… arise. Sometimes, I’ll even jerk off, and I’m told I give really awesome hugs.” He waggled his eyebrows unfairly.

“Sure,” Gus said, trying not to let anything arise because the way Casey said hugs was like someone else saying blowjobs and that shouldn’t be doing it for him. “Okay.”

“We’ll work up to that, though,” Casey said.

“We will?”

“Yes. Just be patient with me. I’m very fragile.”

Gus squinted at him. “What the hell.”

“Share space,” Casey said.

“Right,” Gus said, because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening right now and it made him anxious again. He wondered if that was how he would always feel around Casey. Then he wondered why he was thinking about being around Casey long-term. He wondered many things.

“So you’re okay with that?” Casey asked, and for the first time since Gus had met him (two days ago, a tiny voice in his head supplied), he seemed slightly nervous, as if Gus’s answer was important.

And Gus couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked him a question that seemed to have weight in its answer. Either people didn’t trust him or Gus didn’t trust himself (more the latter than the former, if he was being honest). He didn’t even know why Casey would care what he thought, but he wondered how hard it was to share something like that about yourself and how much courage it took to admit it. So he answered as honestly as he could. “Yes?”

Casey let out a long breath and grinned at him. “I knew you would be, man. You’ve got those vibes. Lottie says your aura has been brighter these last couple of days. Maybe your aura and your vibes are the same thing because they’re vibing.”

“You believe in auras?” Gus asked, wincing slightly. “Er, vibes?”

Casey shrugged. “I believe in a lot of things. They don’t have to be real for everyone, just as long as they’re real for me.”

“My vibes are real to you,” Gus said, trying to follow along.

And there was that bright smile again. “Yeah, man. I dig them.”

“You dig my vibes,” Gus said.

“Sure,” Casey said.

“But,” Gus said.

Casey arched an eyebrow.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Gus said helplessly.

“We’re becoming friends, Gustavo,” Casey said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“We are?” Gus said, as if it were the least obvious thing in the world.

“Sure,” Casey said. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out as we go. I need your phone number.”

“Why?” Gus asked, suddenly suspicious.

Casey rolled his eyes. “So I can text you. That’s what friends do.”

“I don’t text.”

“That’s cool. I’ll show you how.”

“I know how. I just don’t do it, oh my god.”

“You will,” Casey said. “Lottie said your phone is a dinosaur so I can’t send you picture messages. We may have to fix that in the future. I take lots of pictures.”

“The future?” Gus asked faintly.

“Gustavo,” Casey said. “Focus. Phone number.”

Gus focused and gave Casey his number. It was awkward. He’d never given his phone number out before. Part of him hoped he’d messed it up and given Casey the wrong number. “If you text me after nine at night,” Gus said as Casey saved him as a contact, “I will unleash hell upon you in ways you’ve never before witnessed.”

“Whoa,” Casey said. “Dude. Hard-core.”

“I mean it.”

“But what if something amazing happens at nine twenty-six?”

“Save it for the next day.”

“But what if it’s life altering and you must be immediately made aware of it?”

“I don’t need to know your stoner thoughts about how you wish you could taste colors and how awesome it would be to lie in a pile of marshmallows.”

“But—”

“Casey!”

“Fine. Are you going to freak out when I leave? You look like you’re going to freak out.”

Gus was kind of offended. “I’m not going to freak out!”

He was so going to freak out.

“Uh-huh,” Casey said. “Well, don’t not freak out too much, okay? I have plans for you.”

“That sounds… ominous.”

Casey grinned. “Good night, Gustavo Tiberius.”

Then he was gone.

And Gus?

Well.

Gus freaked out.