LUKE
This sounds stupid, especially coming from a thirty-six-year-old man, but I’m nervous to say hey to my neighbor again. I’ve only been away six months, but those six months felt like forever.
The saying goes something along the lines of: you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. Well that’s exactly what Auckland was for me. It was six months of being in the Lost and Found box, and it’s the reason I couldn’t even glance up at Sam’s place as I came inside.
I was never meant to stay in this place. When I first moved here, seven years ago now, it was meant to be temporary until I found something better. I imagined living closer to work, somewhere in central Wellington. But then . . .
Well, then the boys next door happened . . .
I sit on the same spot at the end of the couch and stare over the coffee table at the black screen of the television. The mail is spread out next to me, a lot of swimming words that aren’t making much sense right now, and they’re not the words I care about.
I lean back, arching my torso to reach my pocket, and pull out a folded piece of paper. It’s worn and grey at the edges from my constant re-reading. The paper used to crackle, sharp and fresh the first few times I opened it, but now it unfolds soft and silent like a handkerchief.
This is why Auckland was like being in the Lost and Found box. This is why I’m nervous to say hey to Sam.
Before I left six months ago to help out with a family crisis, I’d gone over to give him my keys. He’d called out from his room that he’d be there in a second, and while I waited in the dining room, I chucked my keys on his writing desk. I threw them too hard and they slid over the top, taking down a pile of paper with them.
I gathered them up, and a list caught my eye. I don’t know what possessed me to read it—an overabundance of curiosity, perhaps. But I reached out and scanned the list, and once I’d gotten to the end I sucked in a sharp breath and with shaky hands hurriedly folded the paper and stuffed it in my pocket.
It’s been on me ever since.
It was there when I helped my mum through her breast cancer surgery and recovery.
It was there when my sister told us she was getting a divorce.
It was there when we all drove up to Orewa and strolled the beach side-by-side.
It was there when we went out for morning coffee and our afternoon walks.
It was there when I finally came out to my family.
It was there when they all told me I was a fool for waiting so long.
It was there when they asked me if I had someone special in my life, and I said yes without hesitation, without even thinking.
It was there when they demanded I bring him home so they could meet him.
It was there when I couldn’t say that my special someone didn’t know he was my special someone.
It was there when I realized he and his son were the reason I’d never moved from this place.
It was there when I caved in to my mum’s persistent nagging and blurted out that I’d introduce the boys from next door at Christmas.
It is there now as I wonder how on earth I can live up to that promise.
I smooth the paper over my thigh and read Sam’s 20s Must-Do List. These are words that mean something. They jump out at me, grab me, beg me to come and play. They are words that make me smile, make me sad, make me excited, and make me nervous.
Read the books I should have read in school.
Stay up the whole night dancing.
Have a hangover, wear shades, and eat mince pies.
Go out with someone and go to the bathroom when it’s time to pay.
Date someone ten years older.
Flirt, have fun, don’t fall in love.
Do something crazy with my hair.
Swim with the great whites?
Try a sport.
Take an interest class.
Understand Kanye West. Who the fuck is Kanye West? Find out.
Get into crazy, nasty shape. Lift weights before work!
I have my fingertips resting on the last line. If I don’t, I can’t seem to read the rest of the list. This last line is the one that is the loudest, the one that makes my insides somersault, the one that makes me feel like I’m jumping off a bridge and free falling. The one that makes me plot, plot, plot . . . the one that gives me nervous, hopeful energy.
I slowly pull my fingers back and my gaze goes directly to it.
Do something sexually taboo. (Or just have sex again.)
I run my thumb over the line again and chastise myself for thinking the way I do. For plotting in detail how I could convince Sam to be sexually taboo—with me. We can make it a game. We can call it experimenting. Later we can brush it off as something wild he did in his twenties . . .
I sigh. It’s all a ruse. I want it. I don’t want it.
I brush the edge of the paper over my frown, as if it will erase it. It’s better to have and lose than never have at all, right?
Seven years we’d been friends, neighbors, bros . . . and it took only a week on my own in Auckland missing him so damn much to realize what I had here. I love him, Jeremy, our routine together.
I love us.
I know it’s ridiculous to think that if Sam just tried the taboo with me he’d magically fall in love. I know things don’t actually work that way in real life.
But I just can’t help that niggling thought in my head. What if he does?
It’s this little thought that reassures me it’s okay to plot. That it’s okay to tease . . . I want to try. Want to know for sure.
A hearty knocking on the front door jerks me to my feet. I quickly refold the list, slip it back into my pocket, and answer the door.
There, cradling a pot with a dishtowel and an oven glove, is my someone special.
He turns his dark, thick-lashed eyes on me, just as a breeze blows a bang over his forehead. “Luke!”
I push aside any nerves I have and breathe out. “Hey.”