Chapter 5

 

 

October

 

FOR THE last twenty minutes, Guy Beckenham, a skinny, mousy man with a gray mustache who specializes in medieval literature, has been flipping through what appears to be some kind of illustrated manuscript. It’s either in Middle English or my upside-down reading skills have really deteriorated. Every so often he’ll lean back in his chair, hands over his stomach, and grin as if whatever is going on in this medieval tome is just tickling the hell out of him.

It’s Friday afternoon and I am in the last place that any academic ever wants to be, most especially on a Friday afternoon: a faculty meeting. As a graduate student, I heard faculty complain about them all the time, but I was so curious about who these people really were that I imagined there could be nothing more interesting than getting to see the inner workings of the English department—who is friends with whom, who is actually a pompous asshole and who has people’s best interests at heart, what’s the real reason so-and-so took a semester off, etc.

Wrong. Faculty meetings feel like some form of psychological water torture, each inconsequential point of order boring more deeply into my skull than the last. For people who are so smart about books and history and philosophy, my colleagues do not seem to understand the whole listen and then speak thing.

Certain I’m missing absolutely nothing, I let my tired mind wander to the two high points of an otherwise draining week. Number one. I was pretty sure that Rex was blowing me off on Saturday when he took my phone number instead of giving me his, but the next evening, when I was at the grocery store, he called me. It was awkward, but I was so glad he hadn’t thrown my number out the window of his truck while laughing at how pathetic I am that I was willing to overlook that. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello?

Rex: Daniel?

Me: Yeah.

Rex: Oh, hello, good, hi. This is Rex. From, um, from—

Me: I know who you are, Rex. Hi.

Rex: Right, of course. Well, I was wondering if you’re free on Saturday night?

Me (trying not to yell “yes” into the phone instantaneously): Yeah, I think so. Why?

Rex (his suave somewhat back in place): Great. I thought, if you weren’t doing anything, that maybe you’d like to come over and we could watch Gaslight. The 1940 version that your library didn’t have?

Me (trying not to yell “yes” into the phone instantaneously, again): That sounds great, sure.

Rex: Great, great. How about eight on Saturday?

Me (determined to use any word but “great”): Great! That works.

Rex: Oh, I just wanted to let you know that I put that work order in for a new lamp. I ran into Phil—ah, the guy in charge of that—at the hardware store, so I just went ahead and let him know.

Me: Wow, that’s some service. Thanks.

Rex: My pleasure. Um, okay, then. Have a good night, Daniel.

Me: Good night. Oh! Wait, um, I don’t know how to get to your house.

Rex: Of course. Do you have a pen?

Me: Can you just e-mail me directions if I give you my address?

Rex: Oh. I don’t have e-mail.

Me (impressed): Wow. Okay. Um….

Rex: Why don’t I call you on Saturday before you come and I’ll give them to you then. Okay?

Me: Yeah, sure, great.

Rex (in a ridiculously low and growly voice): Good night.

 

 

THAT’S IT. If you edit out the “okays,” “greats,” “ums,” and “ohs,” it’s really only a few sentences, but I hung up the phone and wandered through the produce section with a humiliating grin on my face. I even bought apples because it seemed like something someone who got asked on a date might do. Then, of course, I told myself that it wasn’t necessarily a date. That Rex might just be doing me a favor, since the Free Library of Philadelphia had failed me and the library here wasn’t likely to be of more help. Or that he just wanted to hang out, as friends, and share his love of classic cinema with someone.

Still, I allowed myself. If nothing else, it made Sunday not so depressing.

On Monday, as promised, there was a floor lamp in my office. It seemed to only take 25-watt bulbs, one of which flickered with an eerie irregularity that made me constantly jerk my head around to see if someone was behind me, but at least it lent the place atmosphere.

Tuesday and Wednesday were nightmares. Like a total idiot, I’d prepped the wrong readings for my classes (I blame Rex’s delectable ass in those worn blue jeans for distracting me during course planning), so I was scrambling around all day Tuesday, didn’t sleep Tuesday night, and cocked up class on Wednesday as a result, proof that I was getting old, since staying up all night never used to faze me. To add insult to injury, Peggy Lasher, a very well-meaning but extremely irritating colleague of mine, decided to be buddies with me.

Peggy is the kind of person I avoided all throughout grad school. She’s nice enough if she likes you, but she’s incapable of letting anyone be right or achieve anything unless she’s more right or has achieved something better. She’s snobby and passive-aggressive—a quality I cannot abide—and just when you think she’s leaving, she sees something in your office that reminds her of a story she simply must tell you.

She stuck her head in my door twice on Tuesday and three times on Wednesday, and when I finally told her that I really needed to concentrate she looked so offended that I found myself admitting to her that I’d done the wrong preps for class. Rather than leaving me alone, she told me a very long story about her own first year teaching here. It seemed, for a while, like it would be about a similar incident, but it quickly became clear that this wasn’t an I’ve-done-stupid-things-too story; this was an it-seems-like-I’m-commiserating-but-I’m-actually-bragging story that ended with Peggy having almost made a mistake similar to mine but catching herself in time because she pays attention to detail. I wanted to take her by her unfortunate bowl-cut and use her head to open another crack in the ceiling.

Needless to say, by Thursday all I wanted was for the week to be over, especially after I spilled coffee on my stomach walking to campus and had to go around all day with a shirt that made me look like I worked in a prison cafeteria. I got to my office already out of sorts, threw my stuff on my desk, and checked my e-mail, only to find that the afternoon’s faculty meeting, which I was going to have been able to miss because I had to supervise a lecture across campus, had been moved to Friday afternoon, so everyone was delighted that I’d be able to make it after all.

Which brings me to high point number two. Hands on my desk, I pushed myself back onto the two back legs of my chair in frustration, without thinking about it, then immediately froze, remembering that the last time I’d done so, the desk had scudded off its literary magazine stack and almost taken my computer to the floor with it. That time, though, all four of the desk’s legs stayed firmly on the floor. Confused, I looked at it more closely and realized that the literary magazines I’d shimmed the legs with were gone, and it was resting solidly on new legs.

And I knew it could only have come from one place.

I called Rex.

“This is Rex Vale.”

“Rex, this is Daniel.”

“Daniel, hi.” His voice warmed when he said my name.

“I, um, I—did you fix my desk?”

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t have your whole office collapsing.” He paused. “And you said you didn’t want me to put in a work order, so….”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It’s great. I just… you didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t expecting….” I didn’t know what to say. No one had ever done anything like that for me before. “Thank you,” I said, pleased to hear that I sounded genuine and not pathetically emotional. “Really, thank you. I’m sorry. I guess I should’ve started with that.”

“Okay, now, don’t worry. You’re welcome.”

There was a pause, but it didn’t feel nearly as awkward as the ones during our last conversation, which was heartening.

“Listen,” Rex said. “They say it’s going to get real cold on Saturday, maybe storm, so I just want to make sure you still want to come. To my place, I mean.”

“Yeah, of course I do,” I say. “I mean, this is Michigan, right? I knew it had to get cold at some point.”

“All right, then,” Rex said. “Good-bye.”

Then he hung up before I could ask for directions.

 

 

“AND YOU’RE all right with that, Daniel?” Bernard Ness is saying.

“Um, I’m sorry, Bernard, what was that?” I say. Clearly I’ve been nodding along with the meeting as I thought about Rex.

“You’re all right with heading the committee?” Crap. Way to not repeat yourself at all, Bernard.

“Yep, yep, sounds good,” I hear myself saying since I can’t think of any way to admit I’ve been zoning out.

“Wonderful,” Bernard says, and ends the meeting as I sit there, dazed.

I gather my things and make a beeline for my office to get my jacket. All I want is to go home, take a shower, and listen to music with a bottle of wine. I’m slipping on my jacket when Jay Santiago pushes my door open. Jay is maybe ten years older than me, in his early forties, and seems like a nice guy, though I don’t know him well.

“The first-year personal essay committee,” he says.

“Huh?”

“The committee Bernard stuck you on while you were staring out the window. It’s for first-year students’ personal essays. You pick a first place, second place, third place, and two runner-up essays and then they read them at an end of the year open house while their parents drink wine out of plastic cups, eat pepper jack cheese cubes, and brag about their kids to anyone who’ll listen.”

“Whoa, grim,” I say. But it could be worse. I actually like reading students’ creative writing. It’s kind of cool to see who they are outside the classroom, what they think is important on their own time.

“Yeah, I did it last year, so if you need any pointers, just let me know.”

“Will do,” I say. “Thanks, Jay.” He nods good-bye.

 

 

I WALK the long way home—well, it’s two blocks longer—so I can pick up some wine and get a pizza since I have nothing edible in my house. As I walk out of the store with my box of wine, though, there’s shouting coming from behind the store. It’s kind of a park, I guess, a patch of grass and a bench and a few trees.

Two guys are messing with a kid sitting on the bench. He’s maybe sixteen or seventeen, with longish, light brown hair and checkerboard Vans. You could ID him as a skater kid from thirty paces even if his feet weren’t currently resting on a skateboard. I can’t really see his face, but he’s skinny, and definitely smaller than the guys messing with him. They might be the same age, but they’re of the polo-shirt-and-boat-shoes variety, with lingering summer tans and muscles honed by football and fathers who expect certain things from them. I know the type.

Would I be intervening if it weren’t “fag” that the polo shirts were calling the kid? I’m not sure. But I was that skinny kid and I’m sure as hell not going to watch him get the shit beat out of him the way I did, even if these guys don’t look quite as hardcore as the ones who used to throw me up against crumbling brick walls and threaten me with busted bottles if I ever looked at them in the hallways.

The kid isn’t reacting to the polo shirts at all. Not sure if he’s scared of a fight or just knows they won’t actually throw a punch, but I walk over anyway. When I get a little closer, I can see that he’s smiling. It’s a mischievous, self-possessed smile. It’s a smile that’s going to get this kid a lot of ass in a few years, or in a lot of trouble, depending on who he’s smiling at. Right now, I’m banking on the latter, because the polo shirts do not seem amused.

When I’m ten feet away, the one in the salmon-colored polo shirt—seriously, kid, salmon?—throws a punch. Whatever skater said to him was too low for me to hear, but now they’re both on him, pushing him down on the bench.

“Hey!” I yell. “Get the fuck off him.” I pull salmon polo shirt off, bobbing to the side so the punch he throws goes wide. Both polo shirts step away and stare at me oddly, but I can’t tell if they’re scared of getting in trouble or are about to start in on me too.

I’m still dressed for teaching, in gray pants, a gray and black striped shirt, and the vintage black wingtips Ginger gave me as a going-away present, but my sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, showing some of my tattoos, I’m carrying a box of wine, and, as it’s the end of the day, my black hair is probably a mess. I must look like some kind of drunken hipster poet or something.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I yell, pointing toward the street, before they can decide.

“Screw you, asshole,” and “Fuck off,” the polo shirts say, but it’s halfhearted and they’re already leaving, shooting the kid poisonous looks from under the stiff brims of their baseball caps.

I smirk and set my wine and my messenger bag down on the bench. It felt really fucking good to yell at those assholes, especially since I’ve wanted to do it to students all week.

“You okay?” I ask the kid. I lean down to look at his face. There’s a red mark on one high cheekbone that will definitely be a bruise tomorrow, but he mostly just looks a little dazed. He has big brown eyes and his olive skin is spattered with freckles. He has a small, straight nose that will probably make him handsome in a few years, but now just looks cute. In fact, the only thing that keeps him from being pretty is that in contrast to his expressive eyes, his brows are straight, dark slashes that turn his otherwise sweet face serious.

“Omygod, you’re the guy!”

“Uh, sorry?”

“You’re the professor! The gay one from New York!”

“Holy shit. I am from fucking Philadelphia, for the love of god. And how does everyone know I’m gay? Not like I care. Just, seriously, you all gossip like a sewing circle.”

“Philly, right on,” he says. “I dig Kurt Vile and don’t laugh but I totally love Christina Perri. And, like, cheesesteaks. Right?”

“Right, as in, you’re listing things from Philadelphia? Yes.”

“Cool, cool.”

“So, are you okay?” I gesture to his cheek.

“Pshh. Those closet cases are just jealous because they know I’ll never make out with them. I’m fine.” But his lower lip is trembling a little. I sit down next to him and try not to look like a pedophile as I rest one elbow on my box of wine. I remember after I’d get in a fight all I really wanted was for someone to sit with me.

“So, Kurt Vile, huh?” I say, keeping my voice casual and tilting my head back to look up at the darkening sky. “What do you like about him?”

“Well, he’s kinda hot,” the kid says, testing the waters with me.

“He’s not as hot in person,” I tell him. “He’s kind of vapid.”

“No way; you’ve met him?” The kid’s eyes go wide and his genuine enthusiasm takes five years from his age.

“Yeah. I used to work at the bar in a club. He played there all the time. Nice guy, just kind of a space cadet.”

“Whoa,” the kid says. I hope I didn’t just sound like a music snob.

“I like Christina Perri too,” I offer. “Her voice is awesome and her songs are kind of addictive, even though they’re a little bubblegum. She uses interesting progressions. My best friend, Ginger, tattooed her once, said she’s really cool.”

“Hey,” he says, turning on the bench to sit cross-legged facing me. His face is serious again. “Thanks. For getting rid of them. I mean, I coulda handled it. Probably. I just. Thanks.”

“No worries,” I say, and hold out my hand. “I’m Daniel.”

“Leo,” he says, shaking it.

“Short for Leonardo?” I ask.

“No, short for leotard,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Smartass.”

“You love my ass,” he says, winking, and there’s that mischievous smile again.

“You must be okay if you’re trying to pick up a guy twice your age. I’ll leave you to your bench.”

“Well, whattaya say?” He inches closer to me, clumsy and enthusiastic. “Want to make out?”

I think he’s kidding, but….

“Leo,” I say, breathing out through my nose and trying not to sound 876 years old. “You’ve got to be careful. You don’t want to go around flirting with older guys. With strangers. Okay? You’ll get into trouble.” I am such an incredible hypocrite right now.

“Maybe I want a little trouble,” he says with an eyebrow waggle.

I take him by the shoulders firmly, the bones delicate under my hands.

“You don’t,” I say, as seriously as I mean it. “Not that kind of trouble.” Something changes in his eyes and he drops the smirk.

“Got it,” he mutters, looking down at his dirty Vans. I feel like I kicked a puppy. I pat him on the shoulder and grab my bag and my wine.

“I’ll see you around, okay?” I say. He brightens.

“Yeah, cool, man,” he says. “I work at the record store. You should totally come by!”

“Wait, there’s a record store in this town?”

“Um, well, they don’t only have records. But still! On Willow, near the alley behind the library. Come on, please come visit me some time. I get so bored.” He’s giving me a look that’s equally dangerous to the smile, only this one is puppy dog, through and through.

“Sure,” I say. “I’ll definitely check it out. Night.” I wave at him and turn to go. Leo jumps up, nearly tripping over his skateboard. Skinny arms snake tight around my shoulders and I catch a whiff of sweat and clove cigarettes before he lets go. God, it’s such a familiar smell.

“Thanks,” he whispers again. Then he grabs his board and runs away.

 

 

“SEE, BABYCAKES? He wasn’t blowing you off by asking for your number,” Ginger says.

I’m slightly buzzed on cheap red wine—the kind of buzz that happens after one and a half glasses of wine on an empty stomach after not enough sleep—and lying on my back, staring at my ceiling as Pink Floyd pulls me so deep into my bed that I don’t ever want to come out.

“Yeah, I know that now. But I still convinced myself of it, which made me think how dumb I would be to get involved with him.”

“Clarify, please.”

“Well, if it made me feel that shitty to think he didn’t want me when I’d only seen him, like, three times, then it’ll be that much worse when he loses interest a few weeks from now.”

“Oh, that’s logical,” she says. “So, the more you like someone, the stupider it is to actually date them because the more it might, hypothetically, hurt if the relationship ever ends.” She snorts. “Wow, you’re smart. That’s, like, Nobel Prize material. Daniel Mulligan’s theory of dating relativity.”

“Shut up,” I mutter.

“Oh, come on. What’s really going on?” she asks.

“Tomorrow,” I say. “I think I might have an actual date.”

“Aw, baby’s first date!” She pauses. “Does he know you have no idea how to go on a date?”

“I can go on a date,” I insist.

“You’ve never been on one,” she says.

“What about—”

“Getting picked up at the bar where you work and blown in an alley does not a date make, pumpkin,” she says sweetly.

“Fine,” I mutter.

“Tell!”

So, I start to tell her about what’s happened this week.

“Wait,” she interrupts me. “Is that ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’?”

“Yeah.”

“Put it on speaker so I can listen too,” she says. “I was just thinking I haven’t played this album in way too long.”

I put my crappy phone on speaker and turn up the stereo. Then I tell her about everything that’s happened with Rex as Wish You Were Here soars in the background.

“That’s awesome, babycakes,” she says. “So, are you going to finally—you know—uuuuggghhh,” she moans. “This song is so fucking good it’s making me cry right now.”

“Ha-ha,” I say. “You totally wish I were there.”

“I do!” she wails. Ginger’s very sensitive, but it makes her uncomfortable. “And thinking of you maybe, actually, possibly going on a date with a nice guy… I can’t do that and listen to Pink Floyd at the same time without getting emotional. I’m only human.” She sings this last to the tune of the Human League song and I groan.

“Music social foul: no singing a song when another song is playing. Double music social foul: don’t ever fucking sing anything while Pink Floyd is playing. What’s wrong with you?”

“I should be shot,” she says. “I should be dressed in a Dark Side of the Moon shirt and shot into space so I can never disrespect Pink Floyd again. And not even a concert T-shirt, but one of those ones they sell in head shops that white boys with dreads buy. But enough about me. What are you going to wear on your date?”

“I dunno. I mean, he’s already seen me in a suit and jeans and a T-shirt. Oh, and half-naked. Oh! And carrying a half-dead dog. So, I don’t think it really matters.”

“It matters because if you look like you made an effort to look nice then he’ll think you care about the date and if you don’t then he’ll think you think it’s no big deal.”

“Um. Is that true?”

“Yeah, totally true.”

“Huh. So, what do I wear, then? I don’t want to dress up. I’m going to his house to watch a movie.”

“Mmmm.” I can hear Ginger mentally flipping through my (very limited) wardrobe. “Wear the black jeans you got last year, your boots, and any shirt that doesn’t have writing on it.”

“Uh, okay, if you say so.”

“Ooh, no. Specification: wear the maroon button-down I gave you that that guy left at the shop after puking like a tiny wuss and running outside without it.”

“The sleeves are too short.”

“Cuff and roll, baby, cuff and roll. It’s hot. It draws attention to your forearms.”

“You like my forearms?”

“No, not yours in particular. I mean, they’re fine. Just, it’s a sexy body part.”

“I totally agree. I just didn’t know girls liked them too.”

“Oh, yes, Daniel. All girls like forearms. Every single one. No really, I’ve asked all of us and we all agree. We don’t even agree about whether or not the long arm of the law should be able to reach into our vaginas, but we agree about forearms.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ginger, have you been fighting with the pro-lifers again? They’re gonna bomb your shop.”

“They make me want to get pregnant just so I can get an abortion and make a YouTube video of it to send to them.”

“All right, the maroon button-down and black jeans. Thanks. I’m going to ignore the thing about forearms, since I think you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Hey, I think I accidentally kinda made a friend.”

“Oh yeah, someone you work with?”

“No. I stopped him from getting beat up. Little smartass skater kid. Babyqueer. He tried to make out with me.”

“Um, you didn’t, did you?”

“I didn’t make out with a kid, Ginger. What the fuck?”

“Just checking.”

“Jesus, you think I’m a pervert.”

“Well, yeah, but not in that way.”

I start to giggle.

“He was skinny and smelled like cloves and he said he liked Kurt Vile.”

“Oh my god,” Ginger says, laughing, “it’s like you have your own little you. I remember when you smoked cloves. And, jeez, you were scrawny.”

Then she says something about the universe sending us pieces of our past selves to embrace so we can heal them and I must be drunker than I thought because I don’t follow her at all.

“Aw,” I mutter. “The wine’s all the way over there.”

 

 

AND THEN it’s morning. I must have rolled over onto the phone and flipped it shut at some point because it’s lodged under my left hip bone. The light’s still on and my wine-stained coffee mug is perched on the windowsill, right about where my hand reaches if I stretch. My teeth feel grainy and I’m starving since I fell asleep without ever ordering pizza.

But, despite feeling a little muzzy, I’m not hungover and I’m going to see Rex tonight, so things are looking just fine.

My phone buzzes with a text.

Ginger: You alive, kid?

I text her back, Alive. Wish you *were* here, and jump in the shower.

 

 

AN HOUR later I’m showered, I’ve driven to Traverse City and bought a bottle of nice bourbon to bring with me to Rex’s tonight, and I’m parking in the lot at the library, congratulating myself on remembering to drive since I have a bunch of books to pick up and won’t be able to walk home with them. I have my laptop and I’m planning to get a ton of writing done today. Then I’ll get my books and run home with enough time to shower and change and get to Rex’s at nine. It’s a plan.

The Sleeping Bear College Library isn’t particularly expansive and it isn’t particularly nice; it kind of looks like a book prison. It also doesn’t have windows above the first floor. Still, I have a faculty carrel with an actual door, so I can tear my hair out in privacy. I collect a teetering stack of books and haul them to my carrel, ready to start the new section that I’m adding to chapter two.

A major part of what I need to do to get tenure is turn my dissertation into a publishable book. That means not just polishing what I’ve already written, but tearing it apart and rethinking central questions from a different perspective. Now, instead of having to prove to my committee that I know what I’m talking about and can make an interesting argument, I have to prove to an academic publisher that I have something to say about literature that hundreds of other academics will want to read.

After about three hours of deleting every sentence the second I write it, I begin to get into a rhythm, and I’m actually drafting some not-terrible stuff when I finally look at my watch and see that it’s already 7:30. I had meant to be home by now. I scribble a quick half page of notes to myself so I’ll know where I left off, gather my things, and go to check out the books I have on hold at the front desk.

 

 

ALL MY life I’ve had this fear—no, not really a fear. A niggling thought that my annoying brain lands on again and again. I have it when I come out of a movie theater or a concert, or when I’ve slept all weekend without hearing from anyone. It’s this thought that just maybe, when I step outside, the world as I know it will be gone and it will have been replaced by another. It’s half horror movie and half wishful thinking, but I’ve had it ever since I was a kid. I remember I had it the first morning I woke up after my mom died. I woke up and she was there. For a second. But then I remembered that she wasn’t there anymore. That I’d woken up to a world where she didn’t exist.

Now, that’s exactly what has happened. When I got into my car this morning, it was a pleasantly chilly day, one that made me glad I grabbed a hoodie. I vaguely remember that when I walked into the library the wind had kicked up a bit, but it was only a few yards into the building. Now, nine hours later, it is a world of swirling, whirling winter. There has to be at least a foot of snow on the ground and more is falling heavily, gusting against the side of the library and the few cars in the parking lot. It’s wet snow, creeping down my collar and into my nose.

I heave my bags of books onto my shoulders and trudge to my car. The snow is up to my shins and it soaks through my beat-up Vans and jeans immediately. I throw my bags into the backseat of my car and jump in, freezing. I’ll have to kick the snow away from the back of the car so I can get out of the lot, but I figure I’ll warm it up first. I turn the key in the ignition and—of course!—nothing. Crap. Thanks, car.

I figure I’ll walk home and call a cab to take me to Rex’s. It’s only a mile and a half or so to my house from here, and it’s cold, but it’s not too cold. I dig out my phone to check the time and remember that it’s still on silent from being in the library all day. When I flip it open to turn the volume back on I see I missed a call from Rex about two hours ago. He must have been calling to give me directions. I figure I’ll call to get his address when I get home, but as I’m slipping the phone back in my pocket, it rings. It’s Rex.

“Hi, Daniel,” he says. “Sorry to call again, I just wanted to give you directions to my place.”

“Um…,” I say.

“Is it—do you not want to come anymore?” he asks, sounding wary. “I mean, I understand. The snow and all.”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just. Crap, well, I’m just leaving the library to go home and I—my car won’t start. So I’m just going to walk home and then get a cab to your place, but I might be a little late. There are cabs here, right? Like, do I call a number or something?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Rex says, and the line goes dead. Well, shit.

I pull up my hood and pop the car’s to take a gander while I wait for Rex. It’s probably just a dead battery since this one’s old, but I might need a new starter. It’s hard to see anything with the snow swirling around.

“Daniel!” Rex calls from the window of a dark-colored Chevy Silverado that’s pulling up next to me.

“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, man. I would’ve been fine walking, really.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says, eyes flashing. “You don’t even have a jacket. You should have waited inside.”

“I wanted to see what was up with my car.”

“I told you it was going to get cold, remember? Because I didn’t want you to be unprepared. I know you’re not used to this weather.”

I’m annoyed at him for telling me what to do, but also a little weirded out because he actually seems concerned.

“Yeah, but it’s October. I thought you were just making conversation. Like, ‘oh, the seasons are changing.’ I didn’t know you meant there was going to be a freaking snowstorm. Anyway, it’s no big deal. It probably just needs a jump,” I say, patting the hood of my car.

Rex is looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and concern. Probably coming out in a snowstorm to pick up a guy he barely even knows wasn’t high on his list of pre-date activities.

“I’ll just get my stuff,” I say, and duck back into the car.

When I turn around with my bags of books and my backpack, Rex is right behind me. Even in the swirling snow I can feel his heat. He closes his eyes like he’s trying to get himself under control.

“Hey,” he says, looking into my eyes, “Sorry if it sounded like I was lecturing you. But every year a tourist freezes to death or gets caught in a snowstorm up here because they don’t know the weather.”

“Okay.” I nod.

He shoulders one of my bags and I follow him to the truck.

I’m soaked to the knees, so we head to my apartment so I can change and drop off all my books.

As we walk through the door of my apartment I’m suddenly struck with a familiar feeling. This apartment, like every one I’ve ever had, is run-down and musty, with garbage furniture, milk crate shelves, and floors that stay dirty-looking no matter how many times I wash them. I wish Rex would wait outside and never see my unmade bed, its mismatched sheets in a nest where I left them, my stove gummed with oil and dust and god knows what—not that I use it for much anyway—and my dresser with the drawers that sag out of their tracks from what must have been years of someone—Carl?—jamming them in and yanking them out, though dissatisfied with what they contained or the life that surrounded them I don’t know.

It’s a dump, depressing even with every light on. I’ve gotten used to it the last few weeks, since it’s become my haven from work and from a town that seems to know what I do before I do it, but now, looking at it through a stranger’s eyes, I once again see it for what it is.

“So, I’m just going to grab a shower,” I tell Rex. “Do you want some…?” I glance around the kitchen. Do I have anything to offer him?

“I’m fine,” Rex says.

“Wine,” I say, “or water?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay, well, make yourself comfortable. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

I grab the Ginger-approved outfit and duck into the bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself as I run the water, and make a mental note to buy a heavy winter coat, like, now. My lips are almost blue and my cheeks are dead white against the black of my hair, which my hood has squashed into an unattractive helmet around my head. I look tired.

“Great,” I say to the Daniel in the mirror.

As I step under the mercifully hot water, I think I hear the opening notes of Wish You Were Here from the living room, but then the hiss of the water is all I can hear.

 

 

IT’S NOT entirely true that I’ve never been out on a date, though I never told Ginger about it. Richard and I went on one date before falling into the pattern that I thought was dating and he apparently thought was just getting his rocks off. It was soon after we met at a lecture on campus. Richard was a grad student in the chemistry department, done with coursework and writing his dissertation like I was. The lecture was dull and the question and answer portion that followed downright painful, and I caught him smiling at me when I accidentally rolled my eyes at some pompous nonquestion that the chair of the history department asked like he was a king bestowing a knighthood.

We chatted. He was handsome and funny and incredibly smart and so not my usual type. He was very clean and well dressed, like a perfect ivory tower Ken doll. But there was something about him that made me feel… grateful that he thought I was interesting enough to talk to. He asked me to dinner the next night and I looked up the menu online in a panic to see what I could order that wouldn’t wipe out my cash for the whole month. Not much.

It was, I suppose, a good date, if a good date is interesting conversation, common tastes, and an appreciation of each other’s senses of humor. But the entire time we sat there, I could tell he was half listening to me and half planning what I was useful for. There was a cold, calculating air to him that made it feel more like an interview than a date. I was dressed all wrong for the restaurant Richard had chosen, I picked a wine that was (he informed me) a terrible choice given what I ordered, and when it came time to pay and I pulled out cash for my half, he slid the check from under my hand with a subtle shake of the head, as if I were embarrassing him. He paid the check, I realized later, the way I’d seen the fathers of fellow students pay checks when they took their kids out to dinner: with absolute knowledge that the person across the table wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for them, and with the gratification of being able to lift that person out of their sad world of cafeteria food and ramen noodles for one special night.

A treat. That’s what Richard thought he was giving me.

At the time, though, I was so distracted by trying to shove cash back in my wallet and thank him that I didn’t think about it. As we left the restaurant and I told him he needn’t have paid for me, he smiled indulgently and told me I could buy him a drink next time. That he wanted to see me again was a balm to my wounded ego; that he expected to see me again wasn’t something I thought about until later.

 

 

I PULL on my black jeans and the maroon shirt that Ginger gave me, cuffing back the too-short sleeves and thinking about my best friend doing battle with the pro-lifers on South Street. Every few months they mass at the Planned Parenthood near her shop and make everybody miserable. Ginger insists that she doesn’t just fight with them because she finds them ethically and politically abhorrent, but also because she thinks signs of aborted fetuses are a deterrent to getting tattooed.

I towel-dry my hair and put a little wax in it so it won’t turn into a knot the second the wind blows. I look okay. A lot better now than I did when I got in the shower. There’s some color in my cheeks and my eyes don’t look so tired anymore. I brush my teeth, take a deep breath, and go to find Rex.

He’s in a crouch, picking at the painted-over windows in the living room. When he sees me, he gets to his feet.

“You look great,” he says, looking me up and down.

“Thanks. Um, should we go?”

“It’s not safe to have these windows painted shut,” he says. “If there was a fire… or carbon monoxide.”

I laugh a little at the shitty luck of living my whole life the way I have and then dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say.

“Seriously,” he says. “Carl should fix them for you.”

“I’ll mention it if I see him,” I say, mildly irritated.

I grab my backpack with the bourbon I bought for Rex and shrug into my jacket.

“Do you have a warmer coat?” Rex asks, running a finger over the shoulder of my leather jacket.

With him standing in my apartment I’m more aware than ever of how low the ceilings are.

“Er, it’s on the to-buy list,” I say, tucking the cuffs of my jeans into my boots. I doubt they’re going to be much help in keeping me dry, though. The leather is worn and cracked from years of puddles and rowdy concerts and the soles are worn smooth. I wonder if there’s a cobbler in this town.

 

 

DESPITE IT killing my car, the snow is really beautiful. In Rex’s truck it doesn’t seem so formidable and the drive to his house passes in appreciative silence. The last mile or so is just the woods, dark and quiet, the laden pine boughs dipping to kiss the ground.

“I can see why Ethan Frome would remind you of here,” I say.

“Yeah.”

When we pull into Rex’s driveway, his little cabin is lit up inside like some kind of real-life Thomas Kinkade painting, the snow in drifts against the rough wood exterior and the windows glowing yellow. It’s beautiful, guiding us home like a lighthouse. Except, this isn’t my home. I can’t even imagine living someplace like this—someplace nice and clean and private. Someplace in the middle of nowhere.

Inside, it looks just like I remember. The wood makes it feel cozy and natural, and the scent of cedar seems to come from the walls themselves. The front door opens onto the living room, with the couch and armchair arranged near the fire, and the kitchen is off to the left, the bedroom and bathroom to the right. Everything is greens and blues and browns, but the cabin looks very clean. My eye catches on the blue flannel blanket neatly folded on the back of Rex’s forest green and black plaid couch. I’m flooded with memories of Rex wrapping me in that blanket back in February, of pulling it up over my nose after Rex went to bed, thinking it was the closest I would ever get to him. I know how that blanket smells, how it feels against my skin.

“So,” Rex says, once we’ve shed our snowy boots, “if you were at the library so late, you probably haven’t eaten, right?”

“Um, I had some soup earlier,” I say, distracted by Marilyn, who has come running to the front door to greet us. “Hi, Marilyn,” I say, squatting down to pet her. “Do you think… do you think she remembers that I was the one who hurt her?” I ask. “Like, when she sees me, does she remember that I broke her leg?”

“I think she remembers that you saved her,” Rex says. He steps close and takes my jacket, and then he runs his knuckles over my cheekbone. “Here, I’ll make us something.” He walks into the kitchen before I can say anything.

I follow Rex into the kitchen. He’s wearing another dark blue and gray plaid flannel shirt that doesn’t have even a centimeter of space to spare. You have to be born with the capacity for a body like Rex’s. No amount of protein or time at the gym would ever make it happen for me. I wonder what it would be like to be that big. I’m not small or anything, but it doesn’t feel like that long ago that I was a skinny kid getting kicked around at school. Rex’s size makes him seem… I dunno, impervious. Like I could throw myself against him with everything I am and he wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Can I help?” I ask as Rex pulls things out of the refrigerator and lays them out on the counter.

Rex gives me a singularly sweet smile and it transforms his whole face. There are faint lines around his whiskey-colored eyes when he smiles, the straight line of his brow softens, and he has dimples.

“I thought you didn’t cook?”

“Well, not really, no. But I could help cut stuff or whatever.”

“You only have macaroni and cheese,” Rex says.

“Were you looking through my kitchen?” I say.

“I was looking for a glass for water,” he says. “All you have to eat is macaroni and cheese and frozen burritos.”

“Looking for a glass in my freezer, were you?” I mumble.

“Looking for ice,” he says levelly, but I don’t quite believe him.

“I have soup.”

“Soup is flavored water, not food. No, just hang out,” he says. I slide onto a stool on the other side of the counter. He chops, slices, salts, and does a whole bunch of other things I couldn’t do if my life depended on it.

“You don’t use recipes?” I ask.

“Nah. More fun to just figure it out as I go along.”

“How’d you learn to cook?”

“My mom worked nights,” Rex says as he slices carrots into tiny uniform matchsticks. “She was an actress—well, she wanted to be. She wanted to be Marilyn Monroe.” I smile at him. “She was in a bunch of plays when we lived in Houston and Tulsa—that’s when I was little—so I just fended for myself. Didn’t really care if I ate peanut butter and jelly every night. Then, later, when we went to LA she was working as a cocktail waitress, so she was never home in the evenings. We didn’t have the money for getting takeout every night and I was sick of peanut butter, so I decided I’d learn. Mostly I just experimented until I got it right. Since I had to eat anything I messed up it was a pretty good incentive to learn quick. I didn’t really like it, though.

“Then, later, when I was living alone, I started watching the Food Network. That’s when I fell in love with cooking, I think. I could just watch someone do something and then I could do the same thing. It was like going to cooking school for free.”

Note to self: Rex talks more when he’s doing something with his hands.

“I’ve never really watched it,” I say. “My brothers would’ve thrown a fit.”

Sam watches nothing but sports, Brian watches sports and those shows where frat boys dare each other to eat bugs and crawl through sewers, and Colin watches horror movies or war movies where people get blown to pieces. He would take one look at the Food Network and start ranting about pretentious faggots and how only girls watch cooking shows.

“I like it,” Rex says quietly, and there’s something about the moments when he pulls into himself that make me want to protect him.

“Well,” I say, “maybe we could watch some.”

Rex smiles that sweet smile again. God, that one crooked tooth catches on his lip just a little. It kills me.

“So your mom wanted to be Marilyn Monroe, huh? How’d that work out for her?”

Rex looks back to his vegetables, chopping for a minute in silence.

“She was in some movies. Small-time stuff. You know: screaming girl number three, secretary—that kind of thing. In LA, she was always dating someone who could get her a part because she was pretty, just never a big part. She was actually really good, though. We would watch all the old movies—those were the ones she really liked: Old Hollywood glamour—and she’d do the parts. She wanted to be Marilyn, but she was actually better at the dramatic parts. The really high drama death scenes and all—Helen Hayes at the end of A Farewell to Arms, you know?”

I don’t, though I read the book.

“Anyway, she loved being in front of the camera, but she was never going to have the kind of career she wanted. Old Hollywood had been dead for more than twenty years. No one was looking for that kind of thing anymore.”

“That’s sad,” I say. “So, what did she do?”

“Oh, along the way she realized it was never going to happen. And then she dated some guys who didn’t want her acting anymore.” He quiets. “Anyway, she still loved the movies, even after. Sometimes I wouldn’t even be sure if she was talking or doing the dialogue from a movie.”

“Sounds like you were close.”

Rex nods, but his expression darkens.

“Are you still?”

“She died when I was sixteen.”

I feel a rush of sympathy and I wonder if I should tell Rex that my mom died too. That I know what it’s like. Only, I have no idea what his situation was, so maybe I really don’t know what it’s like. I hate when people presume that they know how you feel.

Rex slides two plates of food onto the table while I’m still deciding if I should say anything. “Here, let’s eat,” he says, obviously not wanting to talk about it. He slices some bread and puts out butter. “Do you want something besides water? Wine? Tea?” I shake my head.

He gestures for me to sit down, but I push up on my toes and kiss him on the cheek, my hand braced on his firm chest. His cheek is smooth, and I realize I haven’t ever seen him clean-shaven before. I wonder if what Ginger said about putting effort into your looks for a date is true.

“Thanks,” I say. “For dinner and for picking me up earlier. You didn’t have to, but I—thanks.” Rex covers my hand with his own where it still rests on his chest and squeezes, smiling that shy smile.

On my plate is pasta with strips of grilled chicken and vegetables in what I assume is a white wine sauce, since I saw him add wine to the pan. It smells heavenly.

“Holy shit,” I say with my mouth full of pasta. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Rex smiles and shakes his head, but I’m telling the truth. I guess I was hungrier than I thought too, because I barely stop to breathe for a few minutes, distracted by the food in front of me, which somehow manages to be hearty and delicate at the same time. Kind of like the man who prepared it. I glance up to find Rex looking at me, his expression unreadable. Immediately, I realize I’ve probably been shoveling food into my mouth like a starving orphan and I put my fork down, embarrassed.

“It’s so good,” I say, hoping to distract from my table manners. I usually eat while I’m reading or walking somewhere. Maybe Ginger should have listed “Don’t eat like a hammerhead shark” among her dating tips.

“I’m glad you like it,” Rex says. And though he’s staring at my mouth, he doesn’t seem disgusted at all. “I like watching you eat.” Then he blushes and looks down. That should seem creepy, I tell myself, but for some reason it’s just really hot.

Rex turns back to his own plate.

“No, seriously, you could be a chef or something.”

“I worked as a short-order cook at a diner for a bit,” Rex says. “But you have to go so fast that it kind of took the fun out of it.”

Rex has finished the food on his plate and is absently eyeing mine. I’m full and warm and happy and can’t eat another bite.

“I’m done,” I say, pushing my plate toward him.

“You sure?”

“I’m stuffed, man. I haven’t eaten that well in… ever. Please.”

He pulls my plate up and starts to take a bite with my fork.

“I don’t mean to be a pig,” he says, pausing, and it has the ring of someone else’s words being repeated.

“You’re not a pig. I was the one cramming food in my face,” I say, awkwardly trying to put him at ease. “Besides, you need fuel for all that.” I indicate his brawn, giving him an appreciative look.

He smiles and cleans my plate.

“When we were in high school, my brothers would practically fistfight over who got the last of the food,” I say. “They ate constantly. Don’t know how my dad kept enough to feed them.”

“You’re the youngest, right?”

“Yeah. Sometimes my dad would put a plate aside for me before he called out that it was ready. Probably afraid I’d starve to death otherwise. God, I was such a runt.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah, I was skinny and I didn’t really have a growth spurt until my senior year of high school. Don’t worry, though,” I joke. “I made enough trouble for two kids.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. I was a little runty kid from South Philly. I did what I had to do. Pissed everyone off doing it too.”

Rex regards me curiously.

“I can see it,” he says, considering me. “Not the runty part, I mean. So, you got in trouble at school?”

“Not on purpose, but yeah. When I was in high school my teachers thought I was a loser. I was always mouthing off because the teachers would say stupid things or I’d get bored. There were so many people in every class that the teachers could never keep people focused on the lesson, so it was hard to concentrate. I would cut class a lot to avoid people. Got in a lot of fights. As a direct result of my big mouth, no doubt.” I smile at him wryly. It’s true. As a teenager I just couldn’t stop myself from saying smart-assed shit to the wrong people.

“A lot of the time, they’d just assign busywork to keep the class under control, so I never did it because it was pointless. Then, when I actually did my homework, teachers acted shocked, which would piss me off. One year, I wrote an essay for my English class after I hadn’t turned in much homework and the teacher accused me of plagiarizing it. The only thing that saved me was that I’d written it out longhand because I had to type it at the library, so I had the draft and everything.

“Anyway, got in trouble at school, at home. You name it. I got suspended for fighting, suspended for smoking, suspended for skipping. Then when the school’d call my dad I’d get in trouble with him.”

“You get picked on?” Rex says, and I swear, a vein pulses in his temple like he wants to punish the kids who beat the crap out of me in high school. I smile at him.

“A bit. I wasn’t a bad fighter; I was just small. Had to play to my other strengths.”

Rex raises an eyebrow in question.

“You know, freak them out a little so they’d leave me alone.”

At first that was all I’d wanted—just to be left alone so I could pay attention when Mrs. Caballeros would talk about Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, and Mr. Seo about the Civil War. Then, later, when I was alone, I wished for a friend. A real friend. Not the kids I hung out with when we cut class, smoking while we leaned against the chain-link fence in the abandoned lot a few blocks from school, talking about nothing, fronting like we didn’t want anything else.

“Your brothers didn’t look out for you?” Rex asks.

I let out a bark of laughter. “Ah. No.”

The dark look in Rex’s eyes is back. He’s a rather strange conversationalist. It’s almost like he’s interviewing me. Not that he doesn’t seem interested; he does. His eyes never leave me when I talk. It’s more like he’s out of practice or something.

“Then junior year, when we did mandatory standardized testing and they found out that I wasn’t stupid, they gave me all this shit about applying myself and rising above my circumstances. Just total savior bullshit, you know. Like, we treated you like crap for years because you weren’t a good kid, and now that you have high test scores we suddenly believe you have a responsibility to yourself. It really turned me off school even more.”

“So, how’d you end up going on to college if you didn’t like school?”

“Um, I really liked learning, even though I hated school. I’d read in the library for hours. Just wander through the stacks and pull out books on whatever seemed interesting. Sometimes when I was there, there’d be free lectures downstairs and I’d go listen and just never want it to end. It was mostly adults in the audience and they were quiet and respectful and they seemed to care. I saw this guy speak once and he’d written a book about the Essex, this nineteenth-century ship that got rammed by a whale and sunk. The crew had to abandon ship and try and survive in these small boats and eventually they had to resort to cannibalism to survive. He was a really good speaker and he made it so interesting. I got his book from the library and read it and I was just amazed because this had happened, like, almost two hundred years before and was kind of a mystery in some ways and this guy had done all this research and was able to reconstruct something after the fact and then write the whole thing like an adventure story. I think that was the first time I thought, oh, learning doesn’t have to be like it is in my shitty high school.

“And I loved to read, you know? Ever since I was a kid. Just not the same book for two months the way it was in school, reading it out loud torturously. I read all the time and when I was in school, I would daydream, pretend I was a character in a book. Sometimes that’s how I got in trouble too, because I’d be thinking, hey, this is the scene where the scrappy hero tells off the bully, so I would. But things don’t usually go the way you write the scene in your head.”

Rex smiles. “I used to do that with movies sometimes,” he says. I grin, picturing him as a noir detective, the collar of his overcoat turned up against the rain, brushing his strong jaw, but he doesn’t elaborate, just keeps looking at me like he wants me to say more.

“Anyway, that’s how I met Ginger,” I say, smiling at the thought of her. “My best friend. I skipped school one day when I was seventeen. Don’t remember why. I walked over to South Street, just for something to do, and I ended up looking through the window of this tattoo shop around the corner. Really old place, not fancy or anything. There was this girl in the shop tattooing an older guy. Fifties, maybe. And the guy was just crying. Not from the pain or anything, but, like, sitting there totally still with tears running down his face. I couldn’t see what the tattoo was of, just their faces. I must’ve stood there for half an hour just watching them. I remember thinking that anything that could have that kind of an effect on someone, I wanted to know more about. Finally, the guy left and the girl looked right at me. She gestured for me to come in. Of course, I tried to play it off like I hadn’t been spying on them, but she just rolled her eyes and came outside.

“She sat on the steps of the shop and just stared at me. I had no idea what to do. I wanted to ask her about the man’s tattoo, but it seemed so personal. I wanted to ask a bunch of things. Eventually, after we sat in silence for two cigarettes, the girl said, ‘I’m Ginger. Who are you?’ I told her my name and she said, ‘Okay. I’ll give you a freebie because I can tell you’ll be back. What do you want?’ And she did. She gave me a tattoo and we talked and she was right. The second I had money, I was back.”

I smile absently, thinking of Ginger. Of how she, though only four years older than me, seemed to know everything. How she gave me stern talking-tos that helped me graduate, convinced me to follow my gut and take classes at the community college. How she let me crash with her when I had nowhere to go, or when my brothers were making life unbearable.

“What was it of?” Rex asks, yanking me back to the present.

“Huh?”

“That first tattoo. The one Ginger gave you that day.”

“Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “It’s silly.”

“Tell me,” Rex says gently.

I unbutton my shirt, pull my left arm out of the sleeve, and roll up the sleeve of my T-shirt to expose the flowers among the other tattoos on my left biceps.

“They’re Irish primroses. They were my mom’s favorite flower. It was all I could really think to get when Ginger put me on the spot. She said to pick something small, since she was doing it for free.”

Rex’s head jerked up when I said they were my mom’s favorite. He rubs his thumb over the little flowers and smiles at me.

“Of course, my brother, Colin, saw it when he walked in on me in the shower about a month later and gave me hell for being a fairy with a flower tattoo.” I shrug. “Anyway, we’ve been friends ever since.”

Rex’s hand is still on my shoulder.

“Um, I should—here, let me do the dishes since you cooked. Thanks again for dinner. It was amazing.”

“Leave it,” he says softly, still looking at my skin.

Rex traces the exposed tattoos with curious fingers, his hands warm and rough. Birds and a memento mori skull and some designs Ginger was obsessed with for a while. Rex reaches for the other sleeve of my button-down.

“Can I? May I, I mean?” he asks, and when I nod, he pulls my shirt off. He rolls the other sleeve of my T-shirt up, exposing the Philadelphia skyline, a wolf, and, running down my arm, the Ben Franklin Bridge.

Rex traces the line of the bridge down my arm and his touch makes me shiver.

“You cold?” he says. “Here, let me make a fire.”

I follow him into the living room where Marilyn is lying in front of the fireplace, just like she was all those months ago when we first brought her here. Rex kindles the fire quickly and the flickering light illuminates the strong planes of his face. Only this time, instead of staring at the television, all his attention is on me.

“Can I look at you?” he asks again. I start to pull my T-shirt off, but his hands are right there, sliding underneath the hem and lifting the shirt over my head.

Rex is looking at me so intently that I can’t quite meet his gaze, and I stare into the fire instead as he looks over my tattoos. He doesn’t touch me, just looks at me in the firelight. I feel like he’s reading me, reading the story on my skin. Of course, the downside to having a best friend who’ll give you tattoos for free is that you end up with a few you wish you could erase.

Rex moves behind me to look at the ones on my back and I can feel his breath touch the nape of my neck. His big hands curve around my hips and he presses a kiss to my neck. I gasp at the sudden touch.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, low.

“I guess I’m lucky you’re not turned off by tattoos,” I say.

I turn to face him. I don’t know why, but suddenly I feel very exposed. I reach for his shirt and he lets me pull it off him. God, he’s gorgeous.

“I feel like that skinny kid I was in high school next to you,” I say, immediately cursing myself for speaking out loud. Ginger always says confidence is the most attractive quality. Guess I blew it with that one.

Rex grabs me by the wrists and pulls me into the warmth of his body. His eyes are blazing but he looks at me tenderly.

“No,” he says. “You’re so—” He shakes his head and leans in to kiss me slow and sweet, like his kiss can reassure. It’s a good kiss. A great kiss. I wrap my arms around his waist to tug him closer and then somehow his mouth is gone and I’m just hugging him. Am I supposed to be hugging him? I don’t think so, but I can’t make myself stop. His heart is pounding under my ear like I’ve startled him. Then he wraps his arms around me and his heartbeat slows. The fire is crackling and the smell of wood smoke combined with Rex’s scent is heady. He runs his hands up and down my back and then cups my ass and pulls my hips forward to meet the firm bulge in his jeans.

“Mmm,” I mumble. Rex tips my head back and kisses me again, smiling now.

“I bet you were cute when you were a skinny kid,” he says. “I can picture you looking pissed off at the world, glaring at people, only they thought it was cute because your eyes are so damn pretty.”

“Um, my rage at the world was not cute,” I insist, winking. He squeezes my ass and my knees go a little weak.

“Right there,” he says. “Your eyelids flutter and your eyes go all sleepy.” He runs a rough thumb over my mouth. “You go from mad to liquid so easy.” His voice must be hypnotizing me or something because my eyes do not go all sleepy. Do they?

“I bet you ran your hands through your hair until it stuck straight up, just like you do now,” he says, smoothing my hair back. “Right? You probably leaned back against the school with a cigarette in your mouth like James Dean and closed your eyes. I bet there was some guy you drove crazy.”

“Like you?” I ask.

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t have even looked at me twice in high school.”

“I bet I would have,” I say.

He looks at my face, runs fingertips over my eyebrows, my cheekbones, the bridge of my nose, mapping my features like a blind man.

“I was so shy I wouldn’t have known even if you had,” he murmurs. “Never talked to anyone.” His accent comes out a little when he’s not paying attention.

“No one?” I ask, my breath coming a little quicker as his hand drifts down to my chest and finds my nipples, his rough finger pads tracing them lightly.

“No one,” he says. “Never talked in class. Never talked period. Stuttered if I tried. Didn’t look at anyone. Not at any of the schools.” His fingertip slides into my navel and down to trace the edge of my jeans where they’ve slipped below my hip bones.

“Schools?”

“We moved a lot.” He presses kisses to my collarbones and my chest as he unbuttons my jeans and pushes them down. “Made it easier ’cause no one really notices the new kid anyway.” His hands cup my ass, squeezing gently, and I shiver against him.

I run my hands up and down his sides, feel the huge expanse of his ribs as he inhales. Compared to his hands, the skin here and on his back is smooth and untouched. His stomach’s another story. At first I didn’t notice because of his dark hair, but the flickering firelight casts a scar into relief on the right side of his stomach.

“What’s this from?” I ask, running my finger over the raised scar.

“Had my appendix out,” he says, then kisses me again, dragging me tight against him. I grab at his waist to keep my balance.

“Daniel,” he grinds out, his voice like crushed rock. “I want you so bad.” I feel an answering pulse in my groin.

I nod, try to answer, but it just comes out as “Mmphfhm.” Apparently Rex understands, because he takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. It’s spare but comfortable. There’s an iPod and a Discman on the bedside table. I didn’t know anyone still listened to Discmen. Rex’s sheets are—I see just before I end up on my back on top of them—green flannel.

Rex drops his pants on the floor next to the bed and crawls on top of me. His legs are powerfully muscled, his thighs twice the size of mine, and his plain white briefs fail to contain his erection. He is, all in all, overwhelming. His size, his heat, the fucking delicious smell of him that’s now mixed with a scent that must be his arousal. I cup his balls through the damp fabric and he growls, shimmying out of his underwear and dragging mine down too.

He flips me onto my stomach effortlessly and kisses the back of my neck and down my spine. When he gets to the small of my back, he licks his way back up. I shiver as the wet stripe catches the air. He nuzzles my neck and kisses my ear and I turn my head to try and catch his mouth.

“You don’t know what you fucking do to me,” he murmurs. I can feel his erection pulse against my ass with the beat of his heart.

My skin feels too tight but my hips and spine are loose with desire. He flexes his hips and his hardness slides between my cheeks. Rex moans and kisses the center of my back. I feel shivery and a little uncertain, realizing that I’m about to fuck Rex. Or, what seems more likely is that he’s about to fuck me. I want to just lose myself in his body, his strength, but my heart starts to race, and a little voice in the back of my head is whispering things I don’t want to hear. It’s not safe to be this vulnerable, it whispers. You can’t trust someone like that. He’ll think you’re weak.

I shake my head to clear it and grab the sheets, the green flannel an anchor.

Rex’s heat recedes a little and I’m rolled gently onto my back. I open my eyes to see Rex leaning over me. His gaze is steady, hot with desire, but still calm. Like he’s totally in control of what he’s doing.

“You okay?” he asks. I nod and reach for him again. “What’s up?” I shake my head. “Daniel, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Rex says, sinking down next to me. His weight makes the bed dip and I roll into him.

“No, no, I want to. I totally want to,” I say, but my voice sounds a little shaky. “I just—it’s been a long time since I….” I look away.

“Bottomed?”

I nod.

“Just tell me what you want.” One big hand is stroking my back gently, but the look in his eyes is intense.

“I want to,” I say. “I want you.” I bite my lip. I can’t stand the sound of my own voice. I sound needy and weird.

Rex pulls me on top of him and tangles our fingers together. Then we’re kissing, our mouths and cocks straining together, but he won’t let us touch each other. I pull at his hands and he draws mine to his mouth and kisses each before he lets them go. I reach for his balls, hold them warm and tight in my hand and then I kiss him slow, watching his eyes drift shut. I tug gently and he gasps into my mouth. I reach underneath him and stroke his ass. It’s thick and strong and his whole body tightens when I squeeze, etching his muscles like stone.

Rex pulls me forward and kisses me deeply, our tongues sliding together, and I feel his finger at my entrance, just tapping there. But every tap zings a jolt through me and I shiver against him. Then the finger is gone and he cups my head, runs his hand through my messy hair and I moan into his kiss. He spreads me open with both hands and then his finger is back, slick with lube he must have reached for but I didn’t even notice. He rubs the slickness into my hole while he kisses me, then slides slowly inside. I tense up, but he runs his hand down my neck, stroking my back.

“Okay?” he says, and I nod, thrusting my hips as I adjust to his finger. Our erections slide together, his hips meeting mine.

“Fuck, baby, you feel amazing,” Rex groans and he slides a second finger inside me. I kiss his neck and throat. I can feel a spot he missed when he was shaving and I’m flooded with tenderness for him. I kiss the spot and shake my head at myself because apparently I’m turning into a total sap.

Rex looks at me curiously and I smile at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi there,” he chuckles.

I lean down slowly and kiss him on the cheek.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” I tell him, and kiss his other cheek.

“Thanks,” he says softly, looking at me like he’s surprised to hear it. He strokes my cheek.

He rolls us over, his fingers still inside me, and puts a pillow under my hips. He kisses the inside of my knee, then the sensitive crease of my thigh. He kisses my hip bones, avoiding contact with my cock, which is now straining upward, desperate for his touch. I can feel how flushed my face is and my lips are swollen and tingly from our kisses.

“Rex,” I say, and it comes out as a whisper.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says. There’s a strange ringing in my ears.

“I want you.”

“Yeah?” he murmurs, and he strokes my prostate with his fingertips. My hips shoot off the pillow and he holds me down easily. He slides a third finger inside me and I cry out, heat fizzing in my spine.

“Please,” I say roughly.

He slides his fingers in deeper as he reaches for a condom. My hole clenches around his thick fingers and I can see him shudder. I reach for him, but he bats my hand away, breathing heavily. He slides his fingers out of me, kissing me slow and sweet, and massages more slickness inside me.

All I can see is the tiny line of concentration between his eyebrows and the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheek as he kisses my opening with the tip of his cock. He tilts my hips up further and brushes a piece of hair off my forehead, taking a deep breath.

“Tell me,” Rex growls. I can feel him, hot, against me.

I nod frantically, searching for words.

“I want—I need—please!” I groan, and he breaches my entrance. My eyelids flutter and my breathing gets shallow, but he doesn’t go any farther.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, licking behind my ear.

“Please, please, fuck me,” I beg, and my voice is strained, my body trembling around him.

As he slides all the way inside me, I feel heat and fullness and a heartbeat of fear caught in my throat.

He’s so close. I’m in his house and in his bed and he’s inside me and there’s nowhere to go and, just for a second, I panic. My body tightens and Rex groans. I’m breathing a little too fast and his weight is immovable.

But then he opens his eyes and looks at me, and he’s here, right here. This isn’t a fuck in a bathroom stall. It’s not a blowjob in the alley outside the club, or jerking off one of my brothers’ straight friends at work, knowing they’ll come on my stomach and never look me in the eye again.

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again and he’s still right there, frozen, trembling above me.

“Breathe, Daniel.”

I loop an arm around Rex’s neck and pull his mouth to mine. I kiss him—just a touch of our lips—and rock my hips into his, sliding him the rest of the way inside me. He hisses and I groan as his thickness spears me open, fills me. And then, in the space of a heartbeat, we’re one body, melted together as my channel adjusts to his size and he relaxes into me.

“Oh fuck, baby,” he says, pulling back, and I can feel his thighs shaking with the effort not to hurt me.

“Go,” I say, and pull his hips flush with mine again. We both cry out, and then I cease to exist except where we’re joined. He’s surging into me and I’m pushing back at him and everything is slickness and heat. Every time he fills me he brushes over the spot that makes my whole channel pulse with pleasure. I reach down to stroke myself, but Rex pushes my wrists to the mattress, his huge hand stroking me in time with his thrusts.

I’m whimpering and moaning as he works me, his other hand holding my wrists easily. My spine is liquid heat and my thighs are trembling. I can hear Rex groaning, but my entire concentration is focused on the exquisite pulse of pleasure that’s begun deep in my ass, radiating through me like pebbles dropped in a pond. It’s joined by a boiling heat at the base of my spine and my groin.

Rex is stroking me and with every stroke, I am closer to exploding. I pull my wrists from his grasp and grab him around the neck, needing to hold on to something.

“Don’t stop,” I gasp, and he bears down on me, his added weight pressing his erection even deeper. I cry out and his stomach brushes the tip of my cock and white-hot pleasure explodes inside me, tightening every muscle and blowing every nerve ending. The sounds coming out of me are tiny whimpers because every muscle has clenched down in orgasm. My eyes are shut so tight I see stars and I shudder as my erection keeps pulsing.

Rex is wild above me, his hands squeezing my hips as he thrusts deeply into me. I cry out, my prostate zinging a last pulse of pleasure through me, and Rex roars, his heat flooding the condom, searing me even through the barrier between us.

He collapses on top of me, careful to take his weight with his elbows, and kisses my throat, moaning.

I feel languid, like I couldn’t possibly move. Rex gently eases himself from my body and leans to drop the condom into the trash. As his back is turned to me, I feel the prickling in my ears that means I’m in danger of tearing up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I reach out a shaky hand to touch his back, then hesitate. Maybe he doesn’t like being touched when we’re not fucking?

He rolls back over to face me and any hesitation I felt is gone as he drapes a heavy arm over my stomach and kisses the side of my neck. His breath is hot on my neck as his fingers draw absent designs in the puddle of my come. I’m a little gross and sticky. Rex must feel my stomach tense because he takes his hand away.

I ease over the side of the bed, biting my lip when my sore ass scrapes over the sheets. I pull my underwear on.

“I’m gonna just….” I gesture toward the door. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Of course,” he says. His eyes are warm, but he looks a little wary.

In the bathroom, I clean up, pee, and wash my hands. When I look in the mirror to see how ridiculous my hair looks, my eyes surprise me. I look scared and uncertain and vulnerable. I look like I let my guard down. And even though Ginger has told me often enough that that’s not a bad thing, I don’t believe her. You let your guard down and people fuck with you; you let your guard down and you get hurt. That’s what I know. So what the hell am I supposed to do now?

Rex is facing the door when I walk back in and I can see him relax at the sight of me.

I hesitate a foot from the bed.

“Um, do you want me to take off?” I ask, trying to sound neutral and failing.

“You don’t have a car,” Rex says evenly.

“Oh, right.”

“I can take you home if you want,” Rex says, “but I wish you’d stay.”

“Yeah?”

He smiles. “Yeah.”

He reaches for my hand and I let him take it. He pulls me on top of him, sliding my underwear back off, and I let him. I let him settle me next to him too, where he cradles my neck in his hand and strokes my hip with the other.

“Do we need to take Marilyn out?” I ask.

“She’s fine.”

“Should we do something to the fire?”

“It’ll die out.”

“Do you want me to—?”

“I want you here, in this fucking bed,” Rex says, and he pulls me closer against him, palming my ass with one big hand and turning off the bedside lamp with the other. I slide my hand under his shoulder for balance and lean my cheek on his chest. He rests his chin on my head. “Just stay,” he murmurs. He traces the cleft of my ass with his finger, slipping in the lube that’s still there. He slides his finger back inside me, just as he did that night in the woods. I huff out a breath.

“I just want to be inside you,” he says softly. He’s already falling asleep. I sigh, not letting myself think about the fact that I’ve never slept beside a lover before—not unless I’d passed out drunk, anyway. I try to match my breathing to Rex’s, feel his rib cage rise and fall, carrying me off to sleep like a ship held safe in port.