- GARRETT -
I was in awe of him. And not just because of how awesome it felt to rub off on each other in the shower.
I didn’t peg Blair as the creative type. He didn’t have that tortured artist attitude or look about him, but his writing was amazing.
When he said he was worried about me hating it, I thought it might not be any good. I wasn’t worried because I could bullshit with the best of them. It was part of my job to critique others’ work, so I knew how to sugar coat my words.
This, though. There was no need for sugar coating. It had the essence of those successful shows he was aiming for, but it also had depth and emotion, which was hard to pull off. It wasn’t recycled jokes over and over again. Of the three shows I named, I was sure you could’ve found the same trope passed between them countless times. Blair’s story was original, realistic, and funny.
I stood from the dining table and walked into the living room to find him pacing.
“You’re really that nervous about what I think?” I asked.
“No. Pacing is a good workout. Don’t get my impressive four-pack from sitting on my ass.”
I laughed. “You’re snappy when you’re nervous.”
“Fuck you.”
I laughed harder and put him out of his misery. “I loved it.”
He stopped wearing a path into his carpet and narrowed his eyes, studying my face.
“What?”
“I’m trying to see if you’re saying that to placate me or if you mean it.”
“I definitely mean it. I have one question though.”
“Shoot.”
“There’s no LGBT character.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Why aren’t there any?” I asked.
Blair sighed. “Because many reasons. The main one being you put a gay character in a movie or TV show and they end up being stereotyped—even if they’re not written that way. The lesbians are butch and the gay guys are flamboyant. They’re there to fill a quota and make it seem diverse when, really, it’s not. The other reason is I don’t want my sexuality to define me. It’s a big part of who I am, yes, but I don’t want my whole life to revolve around the fact I’m bi. And writing in a bi character, or a gay one, would make me feel like I was being preachy or something.”
“I get that.” I more than got it. It felt as though I’d been living my life around the fact I was gay. Where Blair didn’t let it define him, I let it all but run my life.
“What’s that look for?” he asked.
I snapped out of my trance. “Nothin’. Just thinking I’m the opposite of you.”
“How so?”
“My sexuality is the only thing that defines me. Right now it seems it’s all I have. The rest of me is fake.”
“That’s because you’ve been hiding it for years, and you don’t even know how to be you anymore.”
He had a point, but I didn’t know how to fix it, and I didn’t want to get into it in that moment.
“I’m beat. I’m gonna go to bed.” I started for his room and then turned back. “I really think you should reconsider having a gay character. Make him the complete opposite to stereotypical so there’s no confusion when it goes into production. Like that guy from the TV show Happy Endings. You know who’d make an awesome gay dude? The Brent character.”
Blair laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“Brent? He was based off you.”
***
Blair:
Busy tonight? I had an idea. Bring gym clothes.
Garrett:
Are we going to fuck at a gym? Coz I’m in. I wanna know what the hype is all about.
Blair:
No. Just get your ass over here.
Garrett:
So we’re fucking before going to the gym? Coz I’m still in.
In the month or so we’d been doing … whatever the hell it was we were doing, Blair never once invited me over. I always turned up on his doorstep. I never messaged first because that would’ve given him the chance to say no.
The other night, something changed between us. It wasn’t just about fucking anymore. I wasn’t sure if it ever was for me.
It was the first time in a month that we actually had real conversation other than small talk, and I wasn’t at all surprised that I wanted more of that with him.
I could be myself around Blair. No pretences or acting how I thought I should act.
The only problem was we were clear from the beginning that it was what it was. Casual. Exclusive but not serious. The fact he was actively seeking me out instead of the other way around … I had to tell myself not to get my hopes up. I was pretty sure I was ready for more, but I had no idea where his head was at.
When I turned up to Blair’s place, he was ready to go, but not in the way I was hoping. He pushed me out the door and led me to the underground carpark to his car.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
“That sounds like something a serial killer would say.”
He scoffed. “If I was a serial killer, I’m pretty sure you’d be dead by now.”
“That’s reassuring, I guess.”
I had absolutely no idea where he was taking me until we pulled into a parking lot at an indoor sports centre near the local uni.
“What are we”—I read the sign out the front—“Indoor soccer?”
“The other night you said you didn’t know who you are outside of being gay. This was the first thing I thought of.”
I had to swallow the lump in my throat. “You know I haven’t played since high school, right?”
“Yeah, but come on, all-star soccer player. Captain of the team. You’re Garrett-fucking-Erikson. Remember him?”
“Vaguely. I-I’m not sure about this.”
“I Googled local games and this place popped up. It’s a social match for guys over twenty-five. It’s not serious, and it’s not a competition. I just figured you should start doing something you used to love that has absolutely nothing to do with your orientation.”
“What if they—”
“You’re not gay or straight here. There’s no sexuality. Just soccer.”
“Is that their slogan?” I quipped.
He laughed. “No. That’s my rule. So we going in or what? You can totally mock me for my lack of ball handling skills.”
“I know from personal experience that your ball handling skills are top notch.”
“Do you seriously think I don’t know you’re stalling right now?”
With a sigh, I forced myself out of the car.
I was nervous for all of ten minutes while we were introduced to the other guys, but then the game started, and I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed playing.
It all came back to me naturally, as if I didn’t have an eleven-year gap in between games.
I was a force to be reckoned with, and my competitive side gave me an adrenaline high I hadn’t felt in years. Everything else was forgotten except for chasing around that black and white ball.
Blair wasn’t kidding when he said he sucked, but that didn’t stop him from playing. I hated it in a way because it made me even more envious of him. Growing up, if I wasn’t good at something, I’d give up pretty quickly. I never had to work hard for anything I wanted. I embraced what I was good at—sport—and scraped by at things I wasn’t so good at, giving them up the second I was allowed to. Like math. Screw that shit.
Blair was the type of person who persevered no matter what. And even though he knew he could improve, he was still confident in the way he carried himself. It was admirable, but fuck, if I didn’t wish I could be that way.
Confidence was nothing but perception. I knew that because I could fake it like no other, but Blair didn’t need to fake it. It was just him. The only time I’d ever seen vulnerability in him was about his writing, but that showed how important it was to him.
By the time the first half of the game was over, I’d scored one goal and was sweatier than I’d been in my entire life.
“Holy fuck,” I said, sitting next to Blair on the bench. “I forgot I had those muscles.” I stretched out my legs.
He gave me his water bottle to take a drink. “I think I’ve used muscles I didn’t even know I had. And there’s another forty-five minutes of this?”
A chuckle came from behind us. “Looks like the newbies are out of shape.” I couldn’t remember the guy’s name. We met a billion people when we walked in.
“Come on,” Sam—the organiser of the group—said, “you two are the youngest ones here. You should be running circles around us.”
It was true. The game was for over twenty-fives, but most of the guys were in their thirties to early forties.
“Still, good hustle out there, newb.” Sam placed his hand on my shoulder.
I expected to flinch at the contact, but I didn’t.
Sitting there, completely drenched, muscles aching, I hadn’t been that happy in a long time. I’d forgotten how awesome it was to be part of a team. To have that sportsmanship and bond with others that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else but the game.
It took forty-five minutes of sweating and running around a field with a bunch of other men to realise not everything was about my sexuality. Go figure.