Henry wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Stewart. He tried to throw himself into his work, but he wasn’t able to concentrate as much as he normally would have. He hadn’t realized he was making lots of little mistakes, because his boss Charlie soon pulled him aside.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Henry shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “What am I doing?”
“You’re not… you’re acting like you’re not here,” Charlie replied. “You haven’t felt like you were actually her since you got back to work on Monday. Is everything okay?”
Henry nodded. “Sure,” he said. Charlie was his friend most of the time, but when they were at work, he was his boss. Once they got out or they had lunch, Henry might feel up to talking about it. Right then, with his hands still covered in grease and his mind wandering back to Stewart whenever he closed his eyes, he knew he was being deliberately obtuse and not necessarily easy to work with.
Charlie shook his head. “Let’s take lunch,” he said.
Henry’s eyes widened. “Together?”
“Sure, why not?” Charlie replied. “We haven’t eaten together in a while. We might as well. There’s clearly something on your mind, and it’s my job to make sure you’re present so you don’t accidentally ruin people’s cars. That leaves me liable for a lawsuit.”
Henry snickered. “As if any of these people were going to sue you,” he said.
“Right?” Charlie said. He wiped his hands on his coveralls and then shouted at no one in particular. “Henry and I are taking lunch together.”
He got some murmurs of assent from the rest of the guys. Henry walked in with him into the small room where they took customers then back into the break room. They took their overalls off before they went anywhere because they normally stank, and people didn’t want to be near them.
Henry was wearing his work jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt. It was perfect for working in the shop in case grease stains got on it. It had a few holes in it. It was probably time to throw it away, but Henry didn’t want to replace it. He didn’t have the money to buy new clothes. He barely had enough money to cover his rent.
After they both scrubbed down, Charlie was the first one out the door.
The little sub store everyone went to when they had lunch was only a few blocks away. Charlie walked alongside Henry, who was taking long strides without realizing it. He slowed down when he saw Charlie’s questioning look.
Charlie had his hands in his pocket. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Henry replied. “Okay, fine. I don’t know.”
“Is everything okay? Mrs. Ortega okay? Mr. Ortega?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “My parents are fine, Charlie,” he said. “This isn’t about my parents.”
“Aha,” Charlie replied. “But it is about something.”
Henry sighed. “Unfortunately,” he said. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
“We’re talking about men?”
Henry snickered. “It’s like you’re psychic.”
Charlie smiled. He opened the door for him and let him in. Henry smiled, enjoying the way the air conditioner felt on his face. He liked the smell of the store, too, though he would have liked it more if he had felt even slightly hungry.
Henry followed Charlie to the counter to order their food. He didn’t even have to open his mouth to order, because Marie already knew what he wanted, what they both wanted. She handed them a number to put on their table.
Charlie grabbed the number and went to sit down at a table near the window. He smiled at Henry as he went to sit down. Henry smiled back as he sat down, though his smile wasn’t nearly as earnest as he wanted it to be.
He sat back down in front of Charlie after getting both of them drinks. “Okay,” he said. “I guess I have to talk, since you bought me lunch and everything.”
Charlie smiled. “Exactly, so tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing is going on,” Henry said, as he took a sip from his drink and stared at Charlie.
“Yeah, don’t bullshit me with this,” Charlie said. “Like you said, I already bought you lunch.”
“Look, it’s nothing, really. I had a date this weekend.”
“And all you can do is think about him? Now you’re smitten?” Charlie said, smiling. “Okay. We’ve lost you to love. Got it.”
“No,” Henry said, shaking his head. “It’s not love. Not exactly. It’s more like… it didn’t go as well as I wanted it to.”
“It didn’t?”
“No,” Henry said. “The problem is, I really like him. A lot.”
“But you said it didn’t work,” Charlie said. “If you really like him, why didn’t it work?”
Henry cocked his head. He didn’t know if he wanted to go into everything that had happened with Stewart. “It’s complicated,” he said.
“Complicated,” Charlie echoed. “With you? How in the world could it be complicated?”
Henry shook his head and laughed. “Shut up, I know I have a reputation for being high-strung, but I’m not.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows.
“Logan was a dick,” he said. “You know it.”
Charlie nodded. “He was.” Marie was bringing them the sandwiches so the two of them stopped talking for a little bit. Henry was trying his best to not dump information on Charlie before the two had a little more privacy. When Marie left, Henry leaned in and spoke quietly.
“The problem is, honestly, I really liked this guy,” Henry said. “I really like him still.”
“But the date went poorly?”
Henry sighed, his gaze darting around the room. He wanted to make sure Marie was far away and wouldn’t be able to hear them. “He is gorgeous,” Henry said. “Super fun, super hot.”
“You’re putting it off,” he said. “You don’t want to tell me.”
“I don’t,” Henry said. “I don’t want to tell you, because I feel like if I do I’ll be jinxing myself.”
“Jinxing yourself,” he said.
Henry scoffed. “Right?” he asked. “As if there was anything to jinx.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to tell me what was so terrible about him if he is gorgeous and a riot?”
“Yes,” Henry replied, dropping his voice to a whisper again. “He was rich.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “The bastard.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Henry said, shaking his head. “It’s not just that he has a little more money than me. He owns one of those houses on Fourteenth?”
“Uptown?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “When I got there, I legitimately thought it was an apartment building.”
“Holy shit,” he said. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “As a heart attack. That’s the problem, right? We were having a great time, then we decided to go back to his place. I get there and it’s huge. I was… uncomfortable, honestly.”
“What did you say his name was?”
“Stewart,” Henry replied. “Stewart Miller.”
“Are you sure?”
Henry shrugged. “That’s what he told me, but hey, for all I know, it was a lie. I don’t know anything about him,” he said. “He invited me to stay, but it was so weird. It was clear to me he didn’t have room for a romantic relationship in his life and, to be honest, I would worry about filling those shoes.”
“You think he’d want to pull a Pygmalion on you?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “It wasn’t really like that. He wasn’t trying to change me. He was into me, I think, but the problem is that…”
“What? You balked because rich people scare you?”
Henry laughed. “Sure,” he said. “I guess that’s part of it, but it’s more than that. Like… I wanted to like him. I wanted to fit in.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” Henry said. “He wasn’t letting me though.”
“But you didn’t want him to let you,” Charlie said. He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly.
Henry sighed. “I guess not, which is why it’s weird that I’m so upset about this. It’s not like I’m old,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Dates will come and go.”
“Right,” Charlie said as he swallowed, “except the problem is that you’re devastated.”
Henry shrugged. “I’m trying not to be,” he said. “Honestly, I really liked him, and I don’t know why. I can’t get him out of my mind… and I’m really trying. I know I’m letting you down.”
“You’re not letting me down,” Charlie said. “Is this about your birthday?”
“No,” Henry said, smiling at him. Turning twenty-five didn’t seem like that big of a deal to him, but Charlie appeared to have a difference of opinion. “I mean, it’s not about the fact that I’m going to be twenty-five in a couple of months.”
“Good, because I’ve heard most gay guys don’t settle down until their forties.”
Henry glared at Charlie, which seemed to get the message across. He shook his head as he started chewing on his sandwich, which had been forgotten on the table in front of him as he was talking about Stewart. “Maybe it’s about your wedding,” he said.
Charlie smirked. “I thought you were happy for me.”
“I am happy for you. You and Diana are a very cute couple and it’ll be an awesome wedding,” Henry said. “Maybe I’m a little jealous. I don’t know. Like I said, I’m young. I don’t need to have it figured out yet.”
Charlie nodded, looking at him knowingly. “Right,” he said. “You don’t need to. You just want to.”
“Exactly,” Henry said, “and I felt like I might have found it with him… but I was wrong.”
“Because you’re from different worlds and it would never work?”
“Because he’s out of my league, and besides, he’s not interested in anything serious,” Henry said. “You know what I’m like.”
“You’ve had your share of flings,” Charlie said.
“Something like that,” Henry replied. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I’ll pull my head out of my ass and be the worker you need me to be.”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Charlie said. He had wolfed down his sandwich and was now working on his chips. “I would like for you to be in it. But I get it. You think you met the one that got away. It’s as good a reason to not be into it as any of mine. But honestly?”
“Yes?”
“There’s only so much I can take,” he said. “So tonight, when you get home, buy yourself a bottle of wine. Don’t worry, I’ll cover it—”
“You don’t have to—”
“As your friend and as someone concerned with your work performance, it’s my responsibility to pay for this,” Charlie said, waving his hand in front of his face. “Cry it out. Do whatever it is that you need to do. Go home, get shitfaced, cry it out. Use your hand. Do whatever it is you need to do.”
Henry looked at him, his eyebrows raised. “What I need to do for what?”
“You know,” Charlie said, “so that you can get over it.”
Henry cracked a smile. “Fine,” he said. “Needs met. Got it.”
***
He wasn't nearly as good humored about it when he was finally home, his shoes kicked off, the wine bottle on his coffee stand. His apartment was tiny, and it always stank like cat when he got home. Honey, his cat, had made herself scarce. He was her servant, he realized, and he needed to pick up after her. He just wasn’t feeling up to it tonight.
He closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa. It creaked under his weight. He wasn’t huge by any stretch of the imagination, but the sofa needed to be replaced and every time he leaned back, the frame kept hitting the wall. It had made a decent hand-sized hole in the wall already, one which he had no idea how to fix. He knew he would have to fix it before he moved out, which was around the corner. His landlord had sent him a notice to tell him that he was raising the rent by fifty dollars a month. He couldn’t afford that. He could barely afford things as they were. He had asked Charlie for a raise only a few months ago. Charlie had given it to him, begrudgingly. Not because he didn’t want to, but because the company wasn’t doing that well, despite the fact that they were busy all the time.
Even with the raise, he still barely made enough money to live. He couldn’t blame Charlie. He didn’t have anyone to blame, really, except maybe for people like Stewart Miller. Fuck, Stewart Miller, with his multimillion dollar home, and his beard, and those gorgeous blue eyes.
He would have been angry at him if it weren’t for the fact that all he could feel was longing. He told himself to get a grip. He barely knew the guy. In fact, he didn’t know the guy at all. He was probably only thinking about it because the wine bottle was in front of him, teasing him, telling him how stupid he was to be so into this man.
One date. Just one date. He needed to get over it, just like Charlie had said. He leaned over and took the screw top off the bottle. He considered getting a wine glass from the kitchen, or even just a regular glass, but he quickly dismissed that idea.
He had kicked his feet up and they were on the coffee table. The television droned in front of him. A psychic had found a serial killer in a show he had been binge-watching, but he wasn’t into it. He normally enjoyed it, but with Stewart on his mind… it was harder to focus on the little things he liked from day to day.
This day had been particularly difficult, too. After they had returned from lunch, the afternoon had turned long and hard, with several cars that needed a little more work than what Henry had expected. The several cars had turned into several disappointed customers, some of whom were almost in tears after he told them how much their repairs would cost. If there was anything that Henry could have done about it, he would have. The problem was, there wasn’t anything he could do. Dealing with disappointed customers was part and parcel of being a mechanic. He should have had enough experience with it to make it easier by now, but he still found it relatively difficult. He understood how expensive getting vehicles worked on was and he understood that most of the people in the neighborhood didn’t have much of a choice.
It wasn’t his problem. He could barely afford his own shit. He tipped the bottle into his mouth and took a huge sip of the bubbly sweet wine. It made him feel slightly dizzy already. Maybe Charlie was right, he thought as he moved the bottle away from his face and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Maybe this was exactly what he needed to do.
He was about to take another sip when his phone started vibrating on his coffee table. He watched it dance as it moved slightly closer to him. He picked it up, groaning. Only then did he look at the contact card popping up on his phone.
It was Stewart. He hadn’t deleted him, and he wasn’t sure why not. He had wanted to. He had been about to many times through the week. He was hoping he was going to have the balls to do it tonight. Now Stewart had called him, as if he had read his mind. He considered not answering—maybe it would be better if he didn’t. Maybe he shouldn’t have. He didn’t know if he should. He grabbed the phone and turned it in his hand.
The vibrating didn’t stop. He looked at his tiny screen and sighed. “Fine,” he said to himself as he answered the call. He supposed that was the only thing he could do. He needed to get rid of Stewart. He needed to forget about him. This was the easiest way to do that, he told himself. This was the easiest way to forget about his crush, to forget that Stewart might have ever been part of his life.
“Hello?” Stewart asked. “Are you there?”
Henry swallowed. “Yeah,” he said. “This is Henry.”
“Hey,” Stewart said. “Did I catch you at a bad time? You sound a little breathless.”
“No, I…” he considered telling Stewart he was drowning himself with wine, trying to forget about their date, but quickly decided that wasn’t the best of ideas. “No.”
Stewart didn’t answer for a second. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive,” Henry replied. “Just had a long ass day at work. How was your day?”
“Strange,” Stewart replied after a beat. “Every one of my last few days have been strange.”
“Huh,” Henry said, leaning back on the sofa. He was going to ask Stewart why he was calling him. That was definitely the plan. He just felt so good talking to him. He barely knew the man, but he felt like he had missed him so much, like this was the only thing that was right. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Stewart answered after a little while. “Sure,” he said, “but I think I would prefer to do so in person… if you’re open to it.”
Henry swallowed. “Are you asking me out?”
“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Wow,” Henry said, snickering. “That’s helpful. Really gives me a frame of reference.”
Stewart sighed. “Honestly, I wish I could be more helpful. There’s something I need to talk to you about, though, and I would prefer to do it in person.”
Henry closed his eyes. “You know, if you need your car serviced—”
“This isn’t about my car,” Stewart said. “I couldn’t care less about my car.”
“But you just put shiny new tires on it,” Henry said.
Stewart laughed. “You joke, but I’m serious.”
“About what?”
Stewart sighed again. “About… meeting. Look,” he said. “There’s something I need to discuss with you, okay? You might be interested, or you might not be interested, but I need to talk to you about it in person.”
Henry narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to try to offer me money for hooking up with you or something?”
“Are you going take money or—”
“No,” Henry said, laughing. “I mean, you don’t have to pay me to hang out with you. We could just be friends, you know. I might make you buy me a coffee every now and then but—”
“Coffee sounds good,” Stewart said. “How about we go have that coffee tomorrow? I can tell you about my strange week. You can tell me all about friendship.”
“You want to hear about friendship, huh?”
“From you? I want to hear anything,” Stewart said. “What time do you get off work? I can go meet you somewhere nearby.”
“Six,” Henry said, “and sure. I’ll text you.”