Caleb

When I opened the door to find the man I’d thought about and watched videos of for the last few weeks standing on my doorstep, I had a moment of dislocation so strong it was like waking up on tour and realizing you were in an entirely different city than you’d thought you were in, the trappings similar enough that you’d read familiarity where there was only foreignness.

The blur, I’d called it, back then. “I’ve got the blur, man,” I’d say to Rhys, and he’d nod, and say, “Memphis,” or “London,” because he always knew just where we were.

To open my grandfather’s door on Theo Decker had given me the blur like I hadn’t had in more than a year. All this time, I’d thought the house, the land, the trees, those ugly fucking sunflowers, had a clarity to them that my life before had lacked. But they all stood dimmed and fuzzy in comparison to the sharp edges of the man before me. He was the most in-focus thing I’d ever seen.

And I…I let him in. Opened the door and let him slip inside as sharp and sweet as a needle. I let him in because the idea of turning him away was more than I could bear. The quiet isolation of this place had been a necessary precaution; then a balm, when my every nerve was raw and each sensation felt like an amp turned to 10. It took Theo standing there, silver-snap eyes hopeful and sheepish, all sharp angles and messy hair and bitten lips, to let me feel. Really feel. And what I felt was a wave of longing so strong it nearly knocked me on my ass.

Longing like that isn’t born of lust, it’s born of loneliness. It’s born of lack. It’s born of knowing the depths inside yourself that can gape wide enough to lose yourself in forever. And it’s about the hope that maybe, somehow, something has come along that makes you want to turn away from the abyss and face the light.

Watching Theo in the garden was a trip. He wore black jeans that had broken in to skim his body like a second skin, another pair of old Chucks—red, this time—and a Warhammer concert T-shirt that had probably once been black, but was now laundered to gray. His hair was like wild black feathers curving around his finely drawn face, eyes made fathomless by the remainder of what must have been days of caked-on eyeliner, black nail polish chipped and bitten, and a tangle of black strings tied around his left wrist.

On his knees, in the dirt, he looked like a crow, gleaming black in the dusty sunlight, sharp beak scratching at the dull ground.

“I got one!” he called triumphantly, holding up a small onion as if it were the surprise of an Easter egg hunt, and not a row I’d carefully planted a foot apart, with visible stalks. “Uh, what do I do with it?”

“Just brush the dirt off it and put it in the basket.”

He nodded, and went back to work, squinting in the sun as I clipped peppers nearby, taking ones that had sweetened to yellow, orange, and red, and leaving the green ones behind. I’d had enough bitterness lately.

“How was your tour? The DeadBeat Festival?”

“We had a really good show in Helsinki. You know those shows where the whole thing goes by really fast but also feels like it’s relaxed onstage?”

I nodded. I knew the feeling well. The dilation of a song so that you could see its strands intertwined, reach out and touch their colors in the space between you, then come back to yourself realizing the show is over and you went someplace else.

“Coco added this solo in the second half of ‘Galaxy,’ and the crowd loved it. Scandinavian crowds are always way more into solos than US crowds,” he mused. “And, damn, Ethan was ridiculous. He’s been singing more harmonies with me recently, and there’s just this, like, disconnect in my brain of how he can sing and drum at the same time, so I love to watch him, so then I had my back to the crowd to see him, and they thought I was playing coy or something, so they were screaming so loud and when I turned around it was this wave of just bam lust or something. And Ven was in a good mood that night so he was all chatty. It was almost like I was actually a part of them.”

He brushed another onion off gently, rubbing at it with the hem of his shirt, and it tugged at me when his shirt came away dirty and he didn’t seem to care. The second I’d given him permission to stay, showed him that he was welcome here, he’d shed the sticky skin of awkwardness that had strangled our earlier conversation, and slid back into being the man I’d met that night in New York. Expressive and open, lilting from topic to topic, and telling stories seeded with tiny gems of detail that gave me glimpses of how his brain worked.

It wasn’t just about music, either. He talked about the cities they’d been through, the hotel rooms and airports, and the food, all of it spangled with observations that pricked at me, made me want to see the world as he saw it.

“The DeadBeat Festival was…I dunno, the rest of them loved it. They thought being invited meant we’d arrived or something. But it felt…off somehow, to me. Like we were a pack of exotic animals in a zoo. I don’t know, maybe it’s that way for some people at a regular show, but it felt different. Kinda corporate or something? Like we were just there because we’d been deemed the right combination of chum to bait the masses.”

He shook his head and added another onion to the pile. “I sound ungrateful. I know it was an honor to be invited. A big deal or whatever,” he amended.

“I get it, man. Sometimes things are an honor because of what they mean but still feel like shit to do, because of what they are.”

“Yeah, exactly. Like how sometimes the most expensive thing on the menu is awful. Like caviar or that baby pig that’s fed only, like, acorns or some shit.”

I laughed and Theo’s answering grin was brighter than the sun.

---

“Seems only right you stay for dinner,” I said an hour later when we trooped back into the house, hot, dirty, and lugging a lot of produce. “After all, you helped source it.”

I threw it out between us like a hand resting palm up and waiting to be taken. I did it because I couldn’t bear to see him go, after he launched himself into my day and made it sparkle. I did it because watching him, listening to him, I was the most alive I’d felt in years. I did it because maybe—just maybe—I wouldn’t suffer for it later. And if I didn’t, then…what else might be possible?

“Okay.” Theo smiled up at me with a smear of dirt on his cheek and another over his eyebrow. He looked alive and so beautiful it took my breath away. I found myself cataloging his features in an attempt to find what made my heart beat faster and my insides turn to jelly.

His blue-gray eyes were bluer in the sunlit afternoon than they’d been the night we met, and they seemed to glow against his dark hair. His plump lower lip was a little chapped from the sun and I wanted to bite at it to feel him tumble against me in a fall of sinewy limbs, soft hair, and hot breath.

“I should shower.” He held up hands and forearms streaked with dirt. “Isn’t it funny how if you grow it yourself food’s actually filthy?”

I led him to the bathroom and got him a towel and some old clothes of mine that would certainly be too big for him. Then I forced myself to go back into the kitchen and not picture his lithe body moving under the fall of the shower where I’d jerked off thinking about fucking him at least ten times since the night it had happened.

When he came back into the kitchen, squeaky clean and warm, my cut-off sweats hanging precariously on his hipbones and my white undershirt thin enough to see through to nipples and tattoos, I almost cut my thumb off, staring.

The tension sizzled between us as he stared back. I’d stripped my dirty, sweaty shirt off and washed up at the sink, and was now cutting potatoes in just my jeans.

We stood, eye-fucking each other, until the oil spat in the pan.

“What are you making? Should I help? I shouldn’t help, really.”

Theo hitched himself up and sat on the counter exactly where Rhys had sat the last time he was over, and I amused myself imagining them both here at the same time, Rhys’s matter-of-fact truths dancing with Theo’s colorful ramblings.

“A hash kind of thing—the peppers and onions from the garden. With eggs. And, no, you’re fine.”

“Yeah, I tend to…not help well. I get annoyed. I don’t like cooking, just eating.”

“I’m not great at it, but I can get by.” I didn’t mention that nearly everything I cooked was some variation on thing-mushed-over-heat-with-eggs.

I plated the food and set the ketchup and hot sauce on the table, reminded again of Rhys and his invitation for me to write with him for his new album. I’d been fiddling around with a few things since he’d come by and should probably text him to tell him I had stuff for him to listen to.

“—can’t believe you grew this,” Theo was saying, gesturing with a forkful of potato, onion, and pepper. “In the ground. Damn, this is good. Thanks.”

He was eating food I’d prepared, and even though it wasn’t much, it felt good to do something to take care of someone. Felt like it’d been a while since it hadn’t been the other way around.

“You said earlier that it felt almost like you were part of the band. Do y’all not get along usually?”

He’d mentioned feeling outside the group back in New York, too.

“We get along,” Theo said slowly, as if testing the accuracy of the statement on his tongue along with the hot sauce he’d liberally doused his food with. “It’s more that they fit together really well. They met freshman year of college and formed a band that summer. Coco sang lead. Their stuff was more straightforward rock, I guess?”

Riven’s music, I could now say, because in the middle of a sleepless night I’d downloaded both of their albums, was also rock, but created its unique sound by drawing from heavy industrial drum lines, the soaring vocals of opera and glam rock, and jazzy changes.

“They worked so hard to get signed, and they had great chemistry. Plus, they’re all attractive, which doesn’t hurt.”

It was undoubtedly a factor. Coco Swift was small and energetic, with long braids that whipped around as she played. Her dark skin was flawless and she had the kind of perfectly symmetrical features and high cheekbones that looked almost unreal. Ethan Duskie was white, with light-brown hair and blue eyes, and looked like a yachting ad come to life. Venedictos Petros was Greek, with flashing dark eyes, glossy dark hair, and bright white teeth that gleamed against his olive complexion.

Theo outshone them all. Of course, I might have been biased.

“They got good feedback from a few agents and labels, but Coco isn’t really a singer, you know? She’s pretty good, but she never really loved it. She just wanted to play guitar. And she and Ethan are decent songwriters, but their stuff was just a little…”

“Generic?” I offered.

“Yeah. But they wanted it so bad. And they knew a ton about the industry. So they decided they would just get a singer who wrote songs and then they’d be golden. And…that ended up being me.”

“You don’t sound that enthusiastic,” I said.

He shrugged and bit his lip.

“We get along best in the studio because we’re all kind of perfectionists, so we want to get the tracks laid down right. But on tour is hard ’cause they’re…They dreamed this whole dream of success together, and I was the afterthought. The one they needed to get big, but maybe didn’t want.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t know, it’s not like they hate me or anything. It’s just…”

He shook his head like he couldn’t explain it.

“I kind of hate it,” he said, softly. When he looked up at me, his eyes were stark, his expression a delicate balance of hurt and angry.

“Hate the band?”

“No. I hate being famous. Being…me.”

He started shoveling food into his mouth as if to stop any more words from coming out, but it didn’t hide the tremble in his mouth or his hand.

I put out a hand and ran my thumb over the smooth inside of his wrist, skin black, red, and blue with tattoos.

“What do you hate about it?”

“It’s too…loud. Not the music. That’s the part I love. The people. It’s like they’re too in my head. Their voices. Their opinions. Their grabby hands. They want something from me, you know? I don’t like them looking at me, or—it’s like they make me into this puppet. A doll. A version of myself that isn’t real and that they get to control. Doll Theo can do whatever they want because they made him up. It just…it fucks with my head kind of, and makes me feel all slimy. And then…”

He trailed off and shook his head.

“What?”

“And then I remember that I did it to myself. Like, I joined the band, I recorded the music, I was so excited when people liked our shit. So like, really what am I complaining about, getting what I wanted?”

“First of all, you didn’t know what being famous would be like, so you had no clue whether you’d like it or not. And you certainly didn’t choose it. You just made music. If I learned anything in this business, it’s that getting what you thought you wanted doesn’t necessarily feel anything like what you thought it would. And second”—I slid my hand into Theo’s and squeezed—“you’re allowed to feel however you feel. Not admitting it doesn’t make the feelings go away.”

“You learn that in this business, too?” Theo asked, his eyes wide and vulnerable.

I disclosed the thing that needed to be on the record before we could go any further. It would be painful if he left now; it would be unbearable if he stayed and left later. That, I could already tell. And it terrified me.

“Ah, no. That I learned in rehab. And NA meetings. And from my friend yapping in my ear over and over again.” Fucking Huey, all insistent on me being in touch with my feelings and shit.

I forced myself to glance up at Theo. His eyebrows were drawn together in concern, but he didn’t look disgusted by me, which was a welcome change.

“Yeah, I, uh, I kinda figured when I saw you were super successful and then disappeared. I mean, I might have looked you up. Online. On tour. A lot.”

Relief flooded me at Theo’s casual reception of my drug problem, though I hoped that was open-mindedness and familiarity with the business, rather than the impression it wasn’t a big deal. I decided to let it go and focus on the part where he’d apparently been as liberal with YouTube about me as I’d been about him.

“Is that right?”

“Mm-hmm. I watched you play. You’re amazing, Caleb.” He said amazing like it still wasn’t enough and my stomach felt light, like instead of food I’d ingested pure joy. “That song you did in Memphis?” He hummed a few bars of “Down at the Heels.” “That song haunts me, man. For real, I must’ve listened to it ten times trying to figure out how it just…fuck, cuts sideways, I dunno. And your voice is…sexy as hell.”

He was making eyes at me, and fuck could the man make eyes. With his hair drying in messy curves around his face and the remnants of eyeliner still darkening his lashes, I wanted to keep looking at him forever.

“I might have looked you up, too,” I allowed, delighting in the flush that spread over Theo’s cheekbones at that massive understatement. The pleasure in that quirk of his mouth. “You’re like a snake shedding its skin onstage.”

“You mean ’cause I’m less awkward than in real life?”

“Nah, I mean because you move all liquid and prowling, and you eye-fuck the audience. Kinda like you’re doing to me right now.”

“Is that bad?” he murmured, and cut a look at me that made my stomach clench and my balls tighten. “I thought…I thought we were pretty hot together before.” He didn’t sound quite as confident now. “Course then you left, so…” When he shrugged, he seemed to shrug with his whole body. A lost thing wanting to be found.

I leaned forward and caught his shoulders in my hands. His lips parted and his eyes widened at the proximity.

“I didn’t leave because it wasn’t hot between us.” I let my desire for him spill into my voice. “It was definitely hot.” His pupils dilated and his eyelids grew heavy. I could practically feel the lust coming off him, and I definitely wasn’t unaffected. “I left because you make me want things. And it’s easier not to want anything. Safer.”

“You don’t seem like the safe type,” he murmured.

I snorted ruefully. “Yeah, I’m not. Hasn’t served me all that well.”

Theo nodded, then slid forward in his chair, put his hands on my knees. Just a firm pressure, but it felt like more.

“I feel…better around you,” he said softly. “Like, here, with you. I feel like I can actually just be myself instead of that person that everyone sees me as. You…you see me. Just me. And I like you. And, yeah, I kind of want to fuck you constantly.” He shot me a look and I couldn’t help but smile. “But, your call.” When he removed his hands I felt like I might float away.

I swore under my breath. I wanted him, of course I did. But I’d spent the last year learning to mistrust the things I wanted. Learning that chances were if I desired it, it was going to kill me eventually. It was hard to reconcile that lesson with the man in front of me, offering himself with one hand and protecting me with the other.

I just needed to know that I wasn’t powerless in the face of the things I wanted. That they weren’t uncontrollable forces that would suck me under like sand in the surf. I needed to know I could exert some will.

“I…want that, too,” I murmured. “The fucking you constantly part, I mean.” I winked at him. “I think I just…Just not tonight, all right? It kills me to say that, especially with you all…shit, look at you.” I pulled away from him a little, as if the distance had any hope of quelling the combustibility of the air between us. “I just need to think a little bit. Make sure I’m making a choice. You can stay, if you want? Long drive back to the city. But I’ll crash on the couch. God knows I’ve done it often enough before. Okay?”

“Course. I mean, of course it’s okay to not, uh, you know, tonight.” His sudden shyness hit me right in the gut. “But I’m sleeping on the couch. Jesus, I’m not kicking you out of your own bed.” Then he squeezed my hand and cleared the table before I could respond.

Part of me couldn’t believe I’d just turned down sex with the most gorgeous guy I’d ever been with. Especially when I was quite aware of how good it could be between us. But, as with Rhys’s offer, I felt a deep need to slow things down. To do the opposite of what I would have done before. Not forever. There was no timeline in my head. I just needed to make sure I was acting rather than reacting. That I was making a choice instead of allowing the tides of other people’s feelings to pull me under.

All or nothing was a cliché, but it felt dangerously accurate to describe the way I tended to operate, barreling full speed into anything I took even one step toward.

When Theo asked for a blanket and settled on the couch after we’d talked for a bit, I draped one over him and retreated to my room. It felt like there was some kind of force magnetizing my attention to the living room. I could hear Theo tossing and turning for a while. Then I heard low humming and the sound of the porch door opening. I followed, to find him standing on the porch, looking out at the stars as I’d done so often in the past year.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked softly so I wouldn’t startle him. He was wearing only black boxer briefs, and I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the straight line of his spine, the wings of his shoulder blades. In the dim light, his tattoos looked like they were being projected over the canvas of his pale skin. I wanted to reach out a hand to make sure they were real.

“Your couch is uncomfortable as shit,” he said, low, with no resentment at all. “And my clock is still all fucked up from being on tour.”

I grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the ledge and held it up. “Bother you?”

He shook his head and gestured for one before I put the box down.

“Bad for your voice,” I said. He shot me a quelling look and smirked.

We smoked in silence for a while, Theo with an arm wrapped around his waist. The position looked natural, like he had been made to hold himself together in the absence of anyone else.

When we went back inside, we didn’t need to speak. He followed me to my room and got into bed beside me. He pressed a fierce kiss to the back of my neck, then rolled over and threw an arm under his pillow, curling into a comma with his back to me. I lay awake beside him for a long time, watching the moonlight dance across the messily plastered ceiling, half hard, and feeling comforted by the fact that I could choose to do nothing about it. Sometimes, he would shift in his sleep, and I’d catch a whiff of his scent. He made small sounds, light snores, and a few muttered words I couldn’t make out. Everything about him worked its way under my skin, like a bullet slowly making its way to my heart.