Give Me Tomorrow - 1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

College wasn't what I had hoped for. In high school I was desperately confident that things would change in college. Different people, an academic setting – not that I was super intelligent. I just figured if people were there for an education, then they might not spend so much time being assholes. Maybe that wasn't fair. I'm not actually awkward, just gay. I'd had some friends at home, but to be honest I've spent some time realizing they weren't really very good friends.

Like Sharae. We seemed to get on pretty well. She was all 'love my gay bestie', and she'd tell me all the things about guys that she hated. We'd go out, we'd talk about plenty of things, but there was this one thing that kind of sent things downhill for us. Her cousin is a slut. I'd call her a whore, but they get paid. Sharae's cousin is the stereotype of the woman who has multiple kids by multiple dads with no clue who any of the actual fathers are.

I have to check that. She knows who one of them is, and the poor bastard is paying a fortune for a kid he never sees.

So Sharae and I were getting ready to go out, and I said something in their living room about this thing I saw where Timothee Chalamet was pretending to be Troye Sivan in a skit and how adorable he was – and she told me not to say anything like that in front of the kids. I looked at her, a little confused, because the things said in this house, kids or not, are completely unfiltered and not for anyone who's easily disturbed.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know. Keep the g-a-y from the kids. Let them be kids, you know?”

It bothered me all that night, left me in a foul mood, because the more I thought, the more I realized she liked me because I was 'safe'. Like a neutered pet, but one that may still bite. Wouldn't want the gay to spread like rabies. Plus they always ask the kids if they have a little girlfriend/boyfriend – but that's all hetero. It made me take a step back after a few days and look at other people around me. Hamish had gotten a little distant when I'd come out, but he'd slowly circled back to me. Things weren't what they had been, but his family is 'conservative'.

Being honest, I don't mind being by myself. I don't fit in with people my age – an anachronism. I know that because I read, but I hate to text. I'd much rather a phone call. I don't mind my e-reader, but I like my books. I like ornate libraries full of books. I like to run my fingers along the spines, row upon row of things I don't know, haven't experienced – literally at my fingertips.

Persnickety. I like the flavor of that word. It makes me think of crusty old people with hearts of pure gold, even though that's not the actual definition. It does identify me and people, though – especially after Sharae sent me that unmistakable wake up call. In truth, I'd fought it in my head for a bit, though looking back I was probably in mourning for a friendship that wasn't, not really.

Hamish...his family had emigrated and learned proper English, so he and I got along a little bit because I didn't mind that he spoke the language that way, whereas others would make him feel awkward. I was always impressed that he knew more than one language; I tried, but my pronunciation was clearly lacking. His parents were educated, which really made me question their whole 'conservative' worldview.

Can I ask – what are they conserving? They like to talk about tradition, but that's just – okay, never mind. I don't need that rabbit hole right now. What I need right now is to be a little irresponsible, because this start to college stinks. I'd wanted to join the club on campus for gay people – but guess what? They don't call it that. It was something that tried to be clever with words, but it just sounded corny. It didn't matter anyway; I had a class at the same time as the meeting. In desperation I'd joined the drama society. One small problem – I have stage fright. I mean full on locking up every muscle I have, except my colon. That opens wide.

No, I did not shit myself on stage. I don't trust my colon, and if it twitches, I clamp. I'd spent too many afternoons with my grandparents where my grandfather would pass the worst gas imaginable, and my grandmother would make comments that his guts must be hanging out of his behind, and I, too young to know better but old enough to be afraid my own guts would fall out of my behind, was petrified of passing gas.

And this is why I don't trust my anus; thank you for coming to my TED talk.

In further desperation, I ended up on the electrical crew. Since the limit of my electrical knowledge was flipping on light switches, I was given spotlight duty. I know what you're thinking, but no. I did not fall in love with the male lead, keeping the spotlight on him until he got sunburnt. Whenever I did place a spotlight on anyone, they were generally too small for me to make out their features anyway. By the end of the production I'd become fairly good at working the board that controlled the stage lighting, however, so there was that.

As far as meeting people – gay people in particular – I just...I guess I kind of work against myself. I always had reasons. For instance I wanted to stay at the school – and that bears some explanation all by itself. Community colleges in my state have this residency thing – you have to live in the county the college is in to get resident rates. If you live outside of the county the college is located in, your rates are roughly double plus a red-hot poker in your ass. I think they were aiming the poker at your wallet, but missed.

Not normally a big deal, but I lived all the way on the opposite end of the county – not practical for commuting, especially since I had no car. In order to keep my dorm room – something they recently opened and of which there were very few – I had a certain grade level to maintain. So when people would gather up after a rehearsal to go to a diner or some other social thing, I'd...nope out of it. I had homework. Projects. Lint in my belly button to stare at. So as much as I wanted to meet others like me, I was starting to think...maybe I was a limited edition? Maybe I'd need to travel to London or Bombay to find someone who'd been made from the same mold as I?

Honestly, maybe I'm just hopeless.

I don't like the idea, but there is a lot of evidence.

So I was forcing myself to go to this party. Everyone was invited, even though I was fairly sure the entire night would be filled with 'who are you?' if I actually managed to engage in conversation. I glanced at myself in the mirror that covered the back of my dorm-room door – not being able to avoid seeing the utter mess the room was. My roommate, Lamont, had left school with about three weeks left in the semester. He'd taken some of his things, but abandoned others – so the mess was now mine by inheritance, I guess. I glanced back at the mirror and tried to use it for its intended purpose.

Brown eyes, brown skin, hair that trended to black – but that liked to lighten to a sort-of-brown color in the summer months. Tan jeans, black tee with a pale yellow button-up left open and my black Airwalks completed my limited color palette. I brushed a few stray hairs from my forehead and sighed.

“This is stupid, Mason. No one here knows you. You're going to walk into a room – no, a house – full of strangers and hope for what? Gay tattoos? Neon signs? Maybe you can stand at the door and just ask the gay boys to raise their hands for roll call?”

I shook my head at myself. I had spent the entire week talking myself into this party, and at the last minute I was trying to talk myself out of it.

“Mason Colarco, there is something very wrong with you,” I told myself solemnly. “But no more excuses. For one night, you won't stay in your damned room.”

I sounded like my father. He was always encouraging me to “get out there and try things”. I sighed and then took a deep breath and frowned. There was something in my shoe. No! I was making excuses, just go. Ignore the shoe! I took a few quick steps to my door, trying to ignore the – probably – phantom issue with a – probably – imaginary stone. Pebble. I walked down the hallway and down the two flights of stairs.

There is no rock.

I smiled to myself, thinking of the kid in the Matrix who said “There is no spoon.” This was just mind over - “Damn it!” I stopped and leaned against the wall, popping my shoe off and shaking it. I smoothed out my sock in case it was just a fold or something and pushed my shoe back on. Better. I took two steps and – there it was again. This must be a message from the universe that this is a bad idea.

“Mace Face!”

Speaking of universal messages.

I turned and smiled at the small knot of people from the electrical crew. They all knew something more about electricity than “don't get zapped”, but they were nice enough to me – they even tagged me with a nickname.

“Hey,” I said, but got nothing else out as I was swept up with them in walking down the street. They were chattering about the end of term and heading back home for several weeks before things got started again. Many of them were actually part of the Theater Arts Program, though a few were studying as electricians. One had told me that two years at college brought them more money and more seniority than if they simply went to apprentice themselves.

We broke down into twos and threes as we made our way down the street. This was an old town with really indistinct lines between old and new, residential and small business. Some places were like strip malls – what they call “mixed-use”, where there are businesses on the ground floor and apartments or offices or both on the upper levels. Right across the street may be single family homes. Gentrification seems to have bloomed like acne, just here and there, like it seems to do on my face.

“So, Mase, looking forward to break?” asked a guy who I think was named, actually, Guy. A girl who I think was named Genevieve was walking beside him.

“Oh, I don't know. I guess it'll be nice to see my parents.”

“But it's been nice not seeing them either, right?” she asked with a laugh.

“Well, kind of?” I replied. Guy grinned at me and pointed up the street.

“That's the house. You ever been before?”

“To the house or a party?”

He grinned wider. “A party at this house.”

“Oh. Uh, no.”

“Okay. Friendly advice, my friend, Mace Face?”

“Number one, don't take a drink you didn't open or pour yourself,” Genevieve said immediately. “This party is one of those things that attracts all kinds. Just because you're in the theater and you might know most people, by face if you don't know their name, doesn't mean they won't try to rape you.”

I stared at her. “Uh.”

“She's right,” Guy said. “Parties at this house are really hit and miss. Try to stay near someone you know, at least where you can be seen, just to be safe. Second: don't mix. Beer before liquor makes you sicker; liquor before beer, in the clear.”

“Um, actually,” I said. “I did a paper on that this semester. There's no scientific evidence to back that up. A study done in 2019 actually disproved that and said it was related more to the amount of alcohol consumed.”

“He does sound like a professor,” she said with a smile, glancing at Guy. “But he also proves what I keep telling you – don't be a fucking lush!”

I pushed my tongue against my teeth at her description, something she noticed.

“Mase, no – I'm not making fun of you. Everyone could use some more smart in their life.” She placed a hand quickly on my forearm and withdrew it. “You just have a better vocabulary than three quarters of the people around us and came to college to actually learn.” She looked pointedly at Guy. “Not just to party and get laid.”

“All I get to do is party!” Guy said, throwing his hands up and laughing.

“That's because you're passed out – you never get to the laid part,” she said, laughing. I smiled at their exchange.

“Look, there is a bright side,” Guy said and turned toward me. “I don't have any little Guys running around.”

“Every time you say that I think of tiny geese running around pecking people,” Genevieve said with a roll of her eyes.

We arrived at the house, a raised ranch with a lot to either side of it without structures. One was grass and a flat foundation, perhaps from something having been removed. The other was overgrown with wild grass growing high. The lights were on in every window, and people were milling about in the front yard talking, many with a can or bottle or the ubiquitous red plastic cup. The group I was walking with merged with the crowd, and in short order I was separated from Genevieve and Guy.

So much for keeping in line of sight of someone you knew.

I made my way through the living room, weaving around people who were talking and a few that were leaning against walls, looking hungrily at the person they were next to. One couple was kissing – one of the dancers from the show, I think, and the leading lady. In the kitchen I found a fellow with a crooked top hat, probably a stolen prop, trying to speak with an English accent and play at being a bartender.

“You there, Guv? What'll it be?”

Oh. I guess I was 'guv'. “Uh. I'm not much of a drinker,” I confessed.

“Disagrees with your stomach, does it? Beer before liquor, never been sicker, Guv. Let me fix you up with something that'll settle your nerves and harden your nipples, eh?” He pulled a small orange juice container and popped the lid and set it on the counter. He set up a red cup, poured a small amount of a clear liquid – likely Vodka – and then reached for a bottle with a long, slender top. He put a splash of the golden colored liquor and then poured in the orange juice, likely to help mix things together.

“May I present to you, Guv'nor, the Harvey Wallbanger.”

“I. Uh. Thank you,” I said, accepting the cup.

“Pleased as punch! Cheers, Guv!”

He hoisted a cup and held it out, and I belatedly tapped my cup to his, then he sipped from his cup, so I did likewise. Fruity, the alcohol buried beneath the orange. Possibly dangerous if you liked something like this. You could get drunk before you knew it. I'd read many instances where people had.

“Well, Guv? What's the verdict?”

I glanced at the “bartender”, realizing he was still speaking to me. “Oh, um. Yes, it's very good. Um. Thank you.”

“Pleasure!” he said, grinning widely. “Get you a drink, Guv'nor?” he asked someone new, and I shuffled out into the living room. I took tiny sips of my drink as I glanced around the room, wishing there were little signs with arrows pointing to people's heads so I'd know who to approach. Conversation would be nice, even if they were straight.

I made my way downstairs after a time, starting to think this hadn't been such a good idea. It was really more of hearing my mother's voice in my head, telling me I had to “put myself out there” if I wanted to meet people. More and more it seemed like “other people” were more like a whole different species. I thought back to the kissing couple I'd seen earlier and wondered...how do they do it? How do you form those connections? Romance always seems to be some sort of... “and then something happened.” There's no...steps or pattern besides this nebulous “something”. It's always a gut feeling. I don't often trust my gut, unless I feel like I might throw up.

The downstairs of a raised ranch has a small landing at the bottom of the stairs with a doorway to one side through which you'd find a garage. In this house the garage was to the left. The door stood ajar, revealing a table where beer pong was being played. I wasn't really interested, so I turned and headed into the small cluster of people to the right, in another living room type space. There was a couple making out on a couch. My nose twitched with the smell of pot floating in the air. There are some smells I just can't deal with, and that's one of them, so I turned back and headed into the garage.

The room was kind of loud and had the atmosphere of a sporting event. A girl with long hair tied into pigtails was lining up to toss a ping pong ball. I noted she had a septum piercing and a few tattoos on her arms. Tattoos are another thing I don't find attractive. Of course, I don't tell people that, unless they ask – what they do with their body isn't my concern. But the idea of a needle running like a sewing machine on my skin and injecting ink gives me the shivers.

Piercing a body part seems like masochism.

She tossed the ball, and it glanced off the lip of a cup. The room erupted in chatter as her partner got ready to toss his ping pong ball. The smell of pot was getting stronger, and I sniffed my drink to help, then decided to head out the back door of the garage for some fresh air. Through the garage was a nice patio with a patio set and a fireplace, though it wasn't lit. I doubted it would stay dark all night; drinking and fire seem to be fellow travelers.

I sat down in one of the chairs, constructed of fabric and some kind of springy metal, and sipped my drink. The drink was starting to get a bit warm, so I set it on the table and entertained the idea of going up to ask the fellow in the top hat if I could have another. It was an inchoate thought; a second drink would be an extraordinary circumstance for me.

I had only attended one other party, back when I was in high school. There was a local hangout called “the pit”, and it really was nothing more than that – a local spot where kids hung out, set things on fire and drank illegally. It was something of a rite of passage, I guess. After graduation I went, just because it was the thing to do, and many people commented on the fact that – no. No, they didn't. I had a red cup of lukewarm beer in my hand for the ninety minutes I was there and was just as invisible as I had been for my entire public school education career. Or I should say if anyone noted me being there, they didn't say so in my hearing.

There's a difference between being unpopular and being a wallflower. Unpopular is an active thing, like the stupidly named Tom Sawyer in our graduating class. Why his parents named him that I'd really like to know; family name? Knowing T, as he was commonly known, the only time he might have cracked that book would have been in an English class. Not that I'd pick it up with interest; Mark Twain wrote some witty things, but the English he used is far enough away from commonly understood English that I don't find immediate connections with his characters. I have the same trouble with historical novels, as their language throws me for a loop.

I guess that makes me kind of rigid, not a great quality. I'd have to try and work on that, but I kind of wandered away from my point. What I've seen is that unpopularity is an active thing. Perhaps the person does something so churlish that it keeps building on itself. Take good old T Sawyer who, in a solid, reputation-building first step toward infamy, took a dollar to eat a chip someone had hawked a lougie on. Lougie is probably a term that doesn't carry well; maybe not even beyond the walls of my school. However, it's essentially someone spitting a wad of snot and spit...and T ate it. In the school lunchroom.

Or perhaps someone builds unpopularity for someone else, like a bad gift. Like getting a peanut anything when you're allergic to peanuts. Gabby Baker was the beneficiary in my high school. I'm still not sure why, but soon everyone knew she'd been giving blow jobs to random guys behind the announcer's booth at the football field. Just knew. She got so much verbal abuse it's hard to describe, and it was terrible to see. I tried to be nice to her, just to not be “those people”, but she was in so deep by that stage that she saw everyone as a threat.

A wallflower doesn't fit either of those categories. In most cases people don't really have strong opinions of wallflowers, or if they do it's only for a moment. Wallflowers are a lot like underwear – once you put them on you can't see them and may even forget what they look like. I'm not much for the spotlight anyway.

“Deep thoughts on the patio?”

I glanced up from my musing at the speaker. “Uh. Pot smell inside. Just...clearing my nose.”

“Bro, I hate that smell.” He smiled, his grin crooked and with a smug edge to it.

“I do, too,” I said, not knowing what else to say. He glanced around, and I gave him a once over. He wasn't overly tall, nor what anyone should consider short. He was slender, face pale in the patio lighting, with dark, curly hair shaved close on the sides.

“So what part of theater were you in?” he said, turning back toward me. “I don't remember seeing you.” He flashed that smug grin again, where the right side pulled up while the left stayed mostly in place. It was unusual, a defining characteristic of his appearance, I guess you'd say.

“I ran the spotlight,” I replied. “I can't measure or hammer, let alone cut in a straight line, so they shipped me to electrical. Then they realized what I knew most about electricity was flipping a light switch, so I was elected spotlight operator.”

His grin widened, the left side of his mouth finally pulling up a bit to even things out. “That's why I don't remember seeing you. Although...you do look familiar.”

I smiled wanly, the dim light of the patio making me feel somewhat braver than normal. “No. Wallflowers have that special talent of being visibly invisible.”

He chuckled and perched one butt cheek on the table. “Visibly invisible? There's an idea.” He rested his chin on his hand, pointer finger tapping his cheek. “So. If Lana finds out who you are, she's going to want to kiss you.”

Well. That's mildly disturbing. “Lana?” I asked.

“You know. Leading lady?”

I nodded in understanding. “I didn't know her name.”

He sat up and dropped his hand. “Really? You had a spotlight on her for how many shows and never found out her name?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I wasn't searching for it.”

He adopted a quizzical look. “Searching?”

“You said I never found out her name. I wasn't searching for her name, so....”

“Oh,” he replied and chuckled. “Okay. I see what I'm dealing with here.”

I felt a bit giddy that I was actually having a casual conversation. Normally they were short and rarely repeated. I think people just...forgot about me. Of course, I could never tell my father, otherwise he'd double down on the “go put yourself out there” nonsense. I mean, I've had conversations before, but it's fairly rare for someone to just...sit and talk. Usually it's a short conversation, or has been since I realized my friend standards were too low.

“And what are you dealing with?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes playfully. “A mystery!” he said, putting a finger in the air. I smiled again and swirled the liquid in my cup, thankfully remembering not to drink from it at the last moment. “Speaking of mysteries, what are you drinking?”

I glanced at my cup and set it down on the patio beside my chair. “It was a Harvey Wallbanger, according to the British barkeep who served me.”

He chuckled. “That's Keith. He really, really wanted us to do ‘My Fair Lady’. When they didn't choose that, he started speaking in a British accent in protest. I think that's why he had no speaking parts this time.”

I looked at my companion for a moment, trying to place him. He was familiar, and yet...oh. I think he was one of the dancers; the one who'd been kissing the leading lady when I came in. Lana? “Novel way to protest,” I said, replying belatedly.

“Well, people don't follow established norms in theater,” he said, fully seating himself on the table and letting his feet dangle. “It's one of the best things about it, really. You can just exist in your own skin, and most theater people are just fine letting you be you.” He tilted his head and adopted a faux serious expression. “I mean there are always some people, you know?” He straightened up and smiled again, that knowing smugness. “But most people in theater are chill.”

Uncharacteristically, my mouth galloped forward sans the filter of my brain. “Was that you being you by the front door? I think I saw you and Lana, uh, entangled at the tongue?”

He laughed, loudly, and then covered his mouth with both his hands. “You saw that? Oh, my God! Wait, so okay, the answer to your question is yes and no! And ‘tangled at the tongue?’ I love that!”

Okay. What I said was borderline offensive, even though I shouldn't feel like it was. Why do I feel like it could be? But his response dispelled the idea for me.

“So kissing with these people,” he waved his hand back toward the house, “theater people I mean. Like, most of them are bi or willing to try and figure that shit out. Some of them are pretty set, but Henry – my best friend, he played the – oh, never mind, doesn't matter,” he said with another hand wave. “He bet me I wouldn't kiss any female, and Lana overheard it and decided to make a dare out of it.”

I blinked a few times. “Really?”

“Totally,” he said, giggling a little. “Henry likes to push boundaries. He's already had a few drinks, so he'll be asleep somewhere within the hour, and I'll get my revenge with a Sharpie.” He grinned.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Sharpie seems kind of...permanent.”

“Trust me, he's used to scrubbing his face after a party – he should really know better by now.”

I thought about that for a moment, but decided I didn't know enough about the person I was talking to or Henry to make any kind of conclusion. “Does Henry get drunk a lot?”

“Eh. He doesn't shy away, but he's a bit of a lightweight. He pulls too many pranks for people not to pick his moment of weakness to get even with him.” He moved his chin to his hand again and resumed tapping his forefinger against his cheek. “I can't shake that I know you from somewhere.”

I smiled. “Not unless you're the kind of person that looks at the wallpaper when you walk into a room,” I said.

“I do pick up on details sometimes,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “My roomie, Jia, says small things sometimes stick with us because we find them important, even if others may not.” He rolled his eyes. “She puts on a fake accent when she says things like that, like she's this wise old Asian lady.”

I thought for a moment. “I don't think she's wrong,” I replied. “If you like a movie or a book series, something that triggers an association might stick with you whereas someone else, it wouldn't.”

He snapped his fingers and stood up suddenly. “That's it! You're Took!”

I leaned back a bit. “I'm what?”

He stood up, gesturing animatedly, and his face broken into a large expression of excited happiness. “We were in a study hall, and the proctor was leading this talk about The Lord of the Rings! Justin Gambino said something about how Gandalf was an idiot for sacrificing himself, since he didn't know what would happen, and you called him a great fool of a Took!”

I stared at him. “How could you know that?”

He laughed again. “It was one of the funniest things I heard in my four years of high school! I use that line all the time, now.”

I blinked. “Wait. We went to high school together?”

“Well,” he said, gesturing with his hand and planting a cheek back on the table. “We were in the same building, I guess would be a better way to put it. I think I was ahead of you by a year. You graduated this past spring?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, I was a year ahead.” He chuckled. “I've always thought of you as Took. I tell Henry he's a great fool of a Took sometimes.”

I smiled, almost cautiously. “I had no idea I'd...made an impression, I suppose. I just remember that Justin obviously didn't understand Gandalf was the Moses character.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “The what now?”

“The sacrificial character. Like Moses led the Israelites but wasn't allowed into the holy land. So Gandalf was leading, more or less, the Fellowship to Mordor. Instead he was sacrificed, not to reach the goal.”

“But...didn't he?”

I nodded. “But he wasn't really Gandalf anymore. He went from being Grey to White, and it fundamentally changed him. He was Gandalf and wasn't, not anymore – though I think for us, and for the story, it was easier to just keep his name and have him remember some stuff. It would have been interesting, though, if transitioning from one type of wizard to another completely reset the person. Name, personality. I think the wizards all had....”

I trailed off and my face felt flushed.

“Wizards had what?” he tilted his head.

“Sorry. I just...I was kind of just rambling.”

“I think,” he said slowly with that smug grin, “rambling would kind of mean you were moving from one topic to another. You're on wizards in Lord of the Rings, so I think you're still on one subject. So what about them?”

I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat. “I just thought that maybe each color of wizard had a specialty. I never looked into it.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Yeah. I can see that. I'm not sure what the logic would be in the colors. You might think blue would be for water or the sky, and then green makes you think nature – but water and air are part of the natural world, so where do you draw the lines?”

I sat up a bit. “That's true. I thought, maybe, white was for logic or higher thought process, but then what would that mean gray was?”

“Fuzzy thinking?” he asked with a chuckle. “Maybe how you think after a few Harvey Wallbangers?”

I smiled. “Maybe. Maybe.” I cleared my throat. “So you've...been here for a year already?”

“At school? Yeah. I mean, my first year was a dumpster fire, and I switched a lot of my classes. My dad is a certifiable math genius, but I didn't get that gene mutation.” He laughed at himself and looked up at the night sky for a moment. Looking back to me, he continued, “I took accounting stuff to make him happy, but it's just not me. My mom was always about movies and music, and I think my brain just works better with that. So I switched majors this year and added in theater. Even though I helped out last year, it wasn't for academic credit.”

“Oh. So is this where you met Henry?”

“Yep. We met through Jia.” He rolled his eyes. “She did the straight person thing of ‘Oh, you're both gay, so you should date,’ and let me tell you – I love Henry. I do. But I don't love Henry. Right?”

“Oh,”I said, nodding as if I had a clue. “No spark.”

“Eh,” he said, looking away for a moment. “Henry's cute. But there are a lot of cute guys out there. Open Instagram, go on – no, don't do that. Um. TikTok, I guess. Plenty of cute guys. The trick is finding someone you can talk to and not just drool over.”

Some muscles that I hadn't consciously tensed in my back relaxed, and I leaned back in my chair a bit and took a closer look at my companion. Perhaps I hadn't allowed myself to see him, in light of his tongue entanglement when I'd seen him previously, but now...he was attractive. His build wasn't athletic in the sense of the weight-lifting types, but his shoulders were broad and his waist narrow; his build might best be described as wiry. I was growing fond of his smug smile.

“I understand completely,” I said, feeling like I was putting something important in the air between us.

He hummed. “Maybe you do. I know for sure – and as a kid who grew up with online video games and is used to letting stupid talk or text slide off my back, let me tell you dating apps are the worst.” He laughed. “So many guys go straight to asking if you're a top or bottom, and just as many want to string...you along.”

His change in tone and hesitation were a clear sign of something important. Normally I'd have let the moment pass, but I had a sense – real or imagined – that this was one of those moments you seize. One of the times you look back to and regret not having done more in the time you had. I'd regretted my friends, my trying to be someone I wasn't, but I could still choose another direction as the author of my own story.

“That...sounds like you've had a hard lesson,” I said, setting the table for him.

The corner of his mouth moved up, but not with the rakish, smug angle I enjoyed. This was regretful.

“Yeah, I guess I let my mouth go on that one,” he said quietly. He looked up and flashed a very fake smile. “I was just stupid.”

It occurred to me that sharing something that made you feel poorly about yourself was easier if someone could demonstrate they'd been made a fool of as well. “I have some experience with being stupid,” I replied, crossing my leg, ankle on top of my knee. “In fact, I'm something of an expert at it.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, his tone unconvinced.

“I had a friend in high school – or someone I thought was my friend. She was very much ‘everyone should be who they are’, right up until small children in her family were in the room. Then gay was something that should be kept from the children, as though it were unnatural and may deform them.”

He frowned.

I looked up at him, hoping I was reading him correctly. “Many times this so-called friend would ask the small children in her family if they had girlfriends or boyfriends; many times she'd make comments about how they would break the hearts of the opposite sex.” I cleared my throat. “But if you'd reversed any of that, then you would be the one being odd.” I waved my hand. “Not like I enjoy being around small children anyway.”

He let out a small chuckle. “Yeah. Little ones take a special type of patience.”

“The actual point I wanted to make, though, was that I realized this person didn't really accept who I was – and that I had a choice not to accept her, either. At least not under the false pretenses she was using to pretend to be my friend.”

“Yeah. It's hard, sometimes, to leave people behind when they aren't good for you.” He paused. “Harder, sometimes, to realize they aren't good for you. Once you get that, leaving them can actually be easier.”

I nodded. “It's just maturing. When you're small you have friends because their parents hang out with your parents, or geographic friends because you can walk or ride your bike to their house and they to yours.”

He smiled a bit more believably. “Then you widen that geography when you get a car, and even more when you go find yourself at college. Right?”

“Naturally,” I replied, returning his smile.

He shifted and moved to sit fully on the table again. “I met this guy through a dating app. He was tall and slender, worked out. Really nice body in his pictures, so I was flattered and interested when he messaged me. We chatted a little. We had a date – he cooked. He wanted me to...stay over. But I didn't want to send the wrong message.”

I nodded in understanding.

His face colored, and he said, “We hung out more, and I...stayed overnight. But as time went by I felt like we weren't seeing each other much, and I wanted more from a relationship. I went over one night, all full of myself.” He flashed his crooked smile. “I told him I thought we should stop dating, because he wasn't invested in our relationship, and I wanted more than he seemed to be willing to offer.”

I leaned forward a bit, tension in my chest. “What did he say?”

He looked down at his hands for a moment and then straightened up to look at me. “He said ‘You thought we were dating?’ ”

“What an asshole!” I blurted.

He laughed and covered half his face with his hand. “Ugh, I felt so stupid. I left all dramatic and went home to curl up and beat myself up for a few days. Guys can be the worst.”

“Considering my friend was a woman, I'd say it's not restricted to one sex,” I replied sourly. “The thing I don't understand is, why can't there be some kind of clear discussion? I know nerves are part of things, but why can't people simply say what it is they want, and go from there?”

“Easy,” he replied, swinging his feet. “If you want something from someone, but they may not give it unless some conditions are met, then you say what you have to to get what you want. Problem is you don't account for – or care about – the other person's feelings.”

“It's greedy,” I said. Then, looking up, “It's selfish. You should be able to articulate what you want and see if that's what the other person wants and go from there.”

He shrugged with both shoulders. “Maybe. Sometimes people don't really know what they want, and they go with a situation until they figure it out. Everyone doesn't have a clear idea of what they want, maybe.”

“Seems like who you ran into had a clear idea,” I said, and then flushed at the implication. “I don't know if I'd give my former friend the same consideration; it still may not process through her thick head about how her thinking is so....”

“Offensive? Wrong?”

“Yes to both,” I said with a nod.

He slid off the table and wrapped himself up in his arms. “It's getting cold. Want to head inside?”

He was right, I'd been feeling a little uncomfortable, but didn't want to end the conversation. “Certainly.” I stood, and he smiled at me. “What?”

“Certainly,” he said, a tone that seemed to gently mock me. “Such an aristocrat.”

“You went to the same high school I did – something that still makes me shake my head – so you know there weren't any aristocrats there,” I said, following him into the garage door.

Turning to speak over his shoulder as he walked, he replied, “Maybe, but that doesn't mean you didn't walk away from there with a big vocabulary.”

I followed him into the the house proper and then up the stairs. As he walked ahead and just above me as we ascended, I couldn't help but notice how the fabric of his jeans wrapped his legs and behind to show off a very pleasing shape. The crowd was much thinner upstairs, though Keith was still in the kitchen with his faux-British accent. There was a knot of people in the kitchen with him. The rear door was glass, showing a group of smokers on the deck. We turned into the living room area; the dining room to our right had people clustered around it with some kind of discussion or maybe a game going on. The living room was nearly empty. Three people got up from the couch to move past us and head down the stairs, so we took their place, my companion tucked with his back into the corner so he could more easily look at me.

“I'm Skyler, by the way. Skyler Mazur.” He tilted his head and smiled. “Seems like names might be important at some point, and I'm pretty sure your actual name isn't Took.”

I smiled back. “Mason Calarco.”

He kicked off his shoes and crossed his legs, settling deeper into the corner of the couch. I turned, laying my leg on the cushion so I could better face him.

“So. You left our little town, came to college, became part of the,” he rolled his eyes and threw on an accent that sounded English-adjacent, “theater company.”

“All true.”

“And did any of it meet your...expectations?”

I frowned in thought. “Not exactly.” I looked up at him. “But, to be fair, some of that is just who I am.”

He leaned forward a bit. “And who are you?”

I opened my mouth and then shrugged. “I...guess I know part of that answer.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Skyler said, flopping forward and then sitting back up. “I thought I was the only one.”

My lip curling in amusement, I asked, “The only one who doesn't know who I am?”

He smiled and rolled his eyes again. “I mean that I'm not the only one who doesn't have themselves completely understood.”

I smiled a bit wider and pulled on my earlobe. “No, not the only one.” I probably should have asked him who he thought he was, but I felt like that might be seen as an evasion. This was clearly a situation where I could actually speak to someone and be heard, and that had been something a bit rare in my experience. “I stay in my head, a lot,” I said and glanced up at his face. “I figured there would be fewer people that weren't interested in getting smarter, more knowledgeable at college.”

“I know. Look at all these academics,” Skyler said, waving his arm at the party going on in the house.

I nodded, smiling. “It's true, I didn't expect it to be like a stuffy, Victorian novel about a boarding school or something. But I also...well, didn't find it easy to connect with people.” I looked down and twiddled my fingers into a tangle. “I don't mind my own company, but it can get a little lonely at times.” I shrugged and looked back to him. “I thought about joining a club, but the meeting times didn't work out with my class schedule. So...theater.”

“Theater. But not to act,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “Stage fright. No way I could get up in front of people.” No need to mention my bowels at this stage.

“Not me,” he said with a grin. “I'm a ham. Love to dance.”

“You are...outgoing,” I said, chuckling nervously.

“Sometimes,” he said agreeably. “But I have times I just want to be still, too.” He leaned forward a little and smiled, a secretive smile. “Not many, but a few.”

I wondered to myself what his quiet moments might be like.

“So. Electrical team. Are you headed for Engineering, eventually?”

I laughed softly, but genuinely. “No. I ended up on the electrical team because they had no idea what to do with me. I think they were reluctant to let a warm body get away, honestly.”

Skyler laughed and leaned back against the armrest. “So no electrical engineering for you, huh?”

I shook my head. “I'm not much of a tradesman,” I admitted. “I've been spending a lot of time coding and working on courses to let me end up working predictive models; machine learning.”

Skyler smiled. “I have no idea what any of that means. Except maybe coding – the term, anyway, not any actual code.” He laced his fingers together. “I wish I had some idea what I wanted to do.”

I nodded slowly. “My dad said what he's wanted has changed a few times, and he's shifted careers. I think...what I'm learning is interesting, but I don't know if there is anything out there I want to do for forty years and retire.”

“That's grim. Forty years and retire.”

I shrugged. “I want to do things. I just don't know which ones yet. But,” I hesitated, licking my lips. “It's kind of hard to think about when meeting people is so weird; connecting with people feels impossible.”

Skyler smiled crookedly and raised an eyebrow. “You seem to be doing all right, now.”

I nodded and let out a small breath. “This is...probably the most I've gotten to talk to anyone since school started, except for maybe a call to my parents or something.”

“C'mon,” Skyler replied, shaking his head. “You're lucky; I'd have talked your ear right off.” He made a slicing motion with his hand. “You'd never get to talk once I get going.”

I tilted my chin down. “So you're saying you wouldn't be listening to me?”

“More like I'm a well known chatterbox,” he said with a chuckle. “But, being fair, I also let other people talk. I'm just saying I don't need someone else to talk in order for me to talk.”

“Ah,” I replied. “Well, that sounds okay then.”

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “But right now I'm wondering about all the interesting things you haven't gotten to say. I have this theory about people who spend so much time observing others without feeling comfortable enough or welcome enough to participate.”

“There is also that they may simply not enjoy engaging; it doesn't have to be one or the other.”

He held a hand out, nodding. “Okay, exactly my point. Maybe a person doesn't need ‘society’, but how much does society suffer without the individual? Like I just said, I gave two options, and maybe my goal would be to try to get more people to be more comfortable – when the more I try, the more they resist, because they just don't like it. But to me – a ham – I don't process it like that.”

I hummed and nodded. “Yeah, I see what you're saying. It has something in common with the idea that traveling more, seeing more and interacting more with people – other people, other cultures – makes us more accepting of the world around us and of the diversity of thought, experiences and may even create more commonality, generally speaking, than if a person simply stays in one small town and has limited interactions.”

“Yes! But, okay, you see so much how – like holiday movies – a person from the big, multicultural city has lost touch and goes to a small town to close a business or something, and suddenly they learn the meaning of Christmas or something.”

“Eh. I don't think those are really equal.”

“What? How?”

“Well, in my example, I'm talking more about being more accepting of cultures the more you travel and experience them. What you're talking about is one version of living being shown to be lesser than another.”

He narrowed his eyes and rolled his hand at me to continue.

“So in these holiday movies, one system – the simple, small town process – is valued over the business, busy city lifestyle. In those movies, one simply accepts a new way of doing things and – presumably – leaves their old ways behind. In reality, you might replace some things as you grow and learn more, but not simply change your entire life.”

He tilted his head. “Are you disrespecting my holiday movies? I like some holiday magic, Mason.”

I swallowed.

He grinned. “Relax. Just tell me you were wrong, and we can forget it ever happened.”

“What? But I'm not.”

“Mason! The whole idea is that someone has an experience that changes something for them that, in turn, changes their view of the world. Isn't that the whole idea? The person from the city comes to see value in something they hadn't before?”

“That's only one step,” I argued. “It's also very limiting. Those movies set things up so that you think there are only two points of view, but there are far more.”

“Well, it's a movie, not a doctoral thesis,” Skyler said, laughing. “But the basic lesson of opening yourself to new ideas is the same.”

“I think you're trying to force a rectangle through a square peg – it doesn't actually fit, but it has some similarities. On the surface.”

Skyler rolled his eyes. “You just can't admit I'm right and you're wrong.”

I jerked my head back and stared at him as a grin crept across his face. “You never mentioned you enjoyed arguing,” I pointed out.

“Well, it takes time to learn all about me. What can I say?” He pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked the screen with his thumb. “Ah. Time to get even with Henry. Come along, Took! Revenge is afoot! Or at hand. Any other body part we can use for that?”

“Feet to get there,” I said, standing. “Hands to commit, brain to devise.”

“Seems like a full body workout,” he said with a grin. He checked his phone again and headed to the kitchen and out the back door. A few people milled on the small wooden deck, and I followed Skyler down the steps to a wooden landing that allowed one to enter the yard or go down a short flight to the patio where we'd first met. Skyler struck off into the yard, and I trailed behind him, wondering what might happen. There was a familiar thrum in my veins – nerves. This time it wasn't from me observing a situation, but from being involved. To a point, I suppose, but still more active than usual.

The yard had a floodlight near the house, and in the back there was another light – likely on a shed or something similar. In between were several seemingly random tiki torches of the mosquito deterrent variety. There were a few chairs scattered about, and Skyler seemed to cast about for a moment before homing in on a single chair with a slumped, but conscious person.

“Henry? Are you drunk?” Skylar asked as we drew close enough for conversation.

“I have not...not yet...what?” Henry wasn't clearly visible in the dim light, but he seemed to be a pale-skinned fellow with red hair and a smattering of freckles across his face. He had a strong jaw, a nose that flared a bit at the bottom and an upper lip that seemed thicker than his lower; that could have been a trick of the poor lighting, however.

“Oh, Henry,” a girl said, standing just behind his chair and resting her hands on the back.

“That...is a can...candy bar. Did you know that? Oh, Henry!” he warbled.

“Yeah,” Skyler said. “Oh, Henry is right. As in Oh, Henry, I owe you one, you jerk.” Skyler laughed and pulled on the bottom of Henry's tee shirt. Henry didn't so much struggle as wiggle. I watched, curious, as Skyler turned the shirt inside out and then forced it on a still wiggling Henry, but backward as well as inside out.

“Help me stand him up,” Skyler said to the girl.

“No way. I have to use the bathroom, and he'll make me wet myself,” she said, waving a hand.

“Well, go to the bathroom-”

“Oh, hell no. Have you seen the bathroom? I'm not sitting on that. You'd have to haunch over the seat, and I'm not made for balancing like that,” she said, shaking her head.

Skyler looked over at me. “Mase? Give me a hand?”

“Uh, with what, exactly?”

“I just need you to keep Henry here upright. I'm going to put his pants on him backward and inside out, then take pictures of it and send them to his phone,” Skyler said with a grin.

Well, as pranks went, seemed nicer than something involving a Sharpie. “Okay,” I agreed.

Sky got his hands under Henry's armpits, and Henry just kind of...slumped. “Little help?”

I moved to one side and tried to help lift. Henry giggled a bit and said something that may have been 'tickles', but that's debatable. Once we had Henry more or less upright, Skyler started pulling down Henry's joggers. Henry had on slides, so those were easy enough to slip off his feet, though Henry leaned heavily one way and the other while each pant leg was removed.

“Dinner first?” Henry mumbled and hiccuped.

Sky worked quickly, turning the pants inside out and then pushing them back onto Henry a leg at a time. Henry wobbled dangerously, and I had to move quickly to keep him from falling over, but outside of that we were done fairly fast. We let Henry slide back into the chair, and Sky put the slides on the wrong feet, backward so they were barely on, and then pulled his phone out.

“If I were a jerk I'd send these to his mom, but instead I'll just send them to him,” Sky told me.

“Send them to his last date so they know what a bullet they dodged,” the girl said. “Hurry up! I need to go.”

Sky's flash went off as he took a few pictures. “So? What do you want me to do about it?”

“Don't even,” she said firmly. “You know I can't walk home alone.”

Home. This must be the roommate he'd mentioned; Jia.

“You can-”

“Skyler James Mazur, I will edit your dating app details so fast you'll only be getting messages from people that want you to shit on them. Don't test me.”

Sky stared at her for a second. “Kink shaming now, huh?”

“Sky!” she said, her tone climbing.

He sighed and turned to me. “Uh. I need to walk Jia home. She has this weird toilet fetish thing and-”

“Fetish?” She must have pushed the top of the chair a bit; Henry and the chair tumbled to one side. Henry made a surprised grunt, but seemed to lose interest in the 'why' of it all and just adapted to his new position on the ground. “Do I need to remind you how easily-”

“Fuck no. No one wants to hear that,” Sky said, waving his hand and starting to laugh. He glanced at me and then back to his roommate. “It's just...Mase and I were kind of talking and-”

She looped her arm round his and then dragged him a tad so she could do the same to me. Looking up at me – which doesn't happen often – she said, “Walk me home, Mase. Short for Mason? I don't care right now – I'm going to burst. Let's go!”

“Wait,” I said, stopping. I glanced behind us and then back to my...companions. “What about Henry?”

“He'll wake up in a few hours with a headache and take a ride share to his apartment.” Sky grinned. “Trust me. There is a history.”

“My history better not be that I went in my pants. Let's go!” Jia urged, and we set off to the side of the house, passing through a gate – awkwardly, as Jia maintained her grip between us. We headed down the street, backtracking part way along the path I'd taken from my dorm, but diverging a few blocks away and heading deeper into the old town. I was comfortable keeping quiet and keeping track of where I was, but Sky chattered – as he'd mentioned he does – about anything and everything.

I'll be honest – it was kind of soothing. His tone was very relaxed, but what struck me most was his cadence. You hear it in movies, most commonly, but while online either gaming or just watching videos or TikToks you hear people with different speech cadences. People from the south may have a twang or not, but in general they have a slower delivery than someone from the north. Someone in Boston or Maine will sound very different from someone in Brooklyn – at least stereotypically.

“Sky, is English your first language?” I asked, breaking his monologue about how Jia should really just bring wipes with her to bring a toilet seat up to her standards.

His eyebrows popped up for a moment and he nodded. “Ukrainian and a little Russian. I understand more Russian than I actually speak, but not as much as I used to.”

“Interesting,” I said, nodding.

“How could you tell that - Oh, hurry up!” Jia said, urging us onward. We picked up the pace, so it wasn't really easy to talk. Fortunately we were closer than I'd realized. The building was squeezed between nearly identical buildings, perhaps the color of the siding being the only thing to differentiate one from the next. Jia let us go so she could slide her key home, and then, suddenly unsure, I slowly followed them up the narrow stairs to the tiny landing where they were depositing their shoes – Jia wiggling as though, well, she was going to wet herself. I followed suit and added my shoes to the small pile. Inside I heard Jia thumping deeper into the apartment and a door closing just short of a slam.

“It's a bathroom fetish,” Sky said in a stage whisper and smiled. “Drink? We have some iced tea, water and – I think – some Kool Aid, because someone in the house is a sugar fiend.” He looked at me. “It's me. I'm a sugar fiend.”

I felt the tiniest bit more at ease. “Iced tea, please.”

He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle, handing it to me and then he grabbed a pitcher and poured himself a glass of something that looked like radioactive piss. “Grand tour,” he said, gesturing vaguely around us. “Front room – we mostly just study there. Jia's room is right next to the bathroom in back and mine's up here, just off the living room. C'mon.”

My heart picked up a beat or two per second and I trailed behind him, feet quiet on the floor.

“Welcome to my wilderness of free expression,” he said, waving an arm and turning on a bedside lamp. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, and I looked around his space. It was small – a single window, if I had my bearings correct, faced the street. A poster-sized image of the U.S. Constitution was up on the wall next to a Ukrainian flag. There was a closet with no door, but a fabric curtain that looked like it was a tie-dye design. A dried out sunflower complete with stem slumped in a corner, dried and wilted but still recognizable.

“So what made you ask if English was my first language?” he asked.

I turned to look at him. “Your cadence. I first noticed it with someone I used to game with. He was Indian, but he didn't have the stereotypical accent – like Apu on the Simpsons or like someone in a call center.”

“Yeah, heavy accent, easy to pick up on,” he said with a nod.

“Exactly. He wasn't like that, but he did have a different cadence to his words. The pronunciation was slightly different, enough to notice but not enough that anyone could ever claim not to be able to understand him.”

He nodded and sipped from his cup.

“As it turns out, he learned English as a kid. The thing was, he didn't learn it here in the states – not at first. So he doesn't really have an accent, I guess...well. Actually, I guess I'd have to look into what, technically, qualifies as an accent.”

Sky frowned. “Do I have an accent?”

I tilted my head from side to side. “The cadence of your language has a different rhythm than someone else from our town.”

He grunted. “Yeah. I think people have commented on it a little, but never could say it like you do. It's true, I learned English around nine, before we moved here. My parents sold everything to get away from the war we all knew was coming with Putin.”

I nodded slowly. I'd imagine, being neighbors, they saw the writing on the wall more than any regular citizen elsewhere might.

“Oh, my God,” Jia said, bursting into the room and flopping on Skyler's bed. “That was too close.” She turned to glare at him. “You should really be more sensitive to my needs.”

He tilted his head to one side to regard her. “I left a party because you have a fetish. I think that's enough about your needs.”

Jia turned to look at me. “Can you believe this? How ungrateful he is.”

“Excuse me?” he said, laughing at her.

I shrugged. “I don't know what you mean.”

She pushed her self up into a sitting position. “Well, I know, and that's the important part. So. Who are you?”

“I'm-”

“He's Took, Jia.”

Jia's smile changed her whole face. “Really? This is Took?”

I shifted on my feet, feeling a little embarrassed, but not negatively so. “I...never knew that was a thing, until Sky told me tonight.”

“It's fucking funny is what it is,” she said with a laugh. “We watched Lord of the Rings over a three day weekend when three of us – me, Sky and Henry – all had Covid. I swear to Jeebus, I almost peed my pants laughing when Sky started calling Henry a 'great fool of a Took!' I mean, it was hilarious. But when he told us about you saying that in class? I swear, we must have laughed for ten minutes.”

I smiled. “Well, I'm glad I made someone laugh for the right reasons.”

“You're a legend,” she said. Then she plucked the cup from Sky's hand, took a sip, curled her lip and gave it back. “I'm going to get a drink. Is it too late for wings? I could eat.”

Sky looked at his phone, so I didn't bother to check the time on mine. “Maybe from Steve's Eats. If you hurry. They're open until two.”

“Let me get my phone,” she said, hopping off his bed and leaving the room.

“Hungry?”

“Uh. I could, I guess. Kind of...late.”

“Aw, don't go,” he said. “Do you have to get up early?”

I didn't want to leave; I just wasn't sure about...anything. What I was doing there, whatever Jia was saying about being grateful. I was in a strange place with a guy who was interesting and seemed to think I was interesting and that was...interesting. That didn't mean I was comfortable, though.

But then, maybe the point was to do something that wasn't completely comfortable. For now.

“Okay,” Jia said, coming back in and sitting back on Skyler's bed. “Three of us, so thirty nuclear wings?”

“Fuck. That,” Sky said and started to laugh. “I don't need to burn my asshole off. Fifteen mild for me.” He looked up at me. “Mase? What's your pain tolerance for spicy food?”

“Not into pain, but medium works for me.”

“Blue cheese or ranch?” Jia asked, looking at her screen.

“People use ranch dressing?”

Jia looked up at me. “I use ranch on everything.”

“It's a fetish.”

“I'll ranch your bed, wiseass,” she grumbled. “And fifteen nuclear for me.” She looked back and forth between us. “No trying to steal mine just because you regret not ordering the pain, boys. Just sayin'.”

“I don't know if that'll work for you,” Sky said, giving me a little smile before looking back to her. “Just you being in pain isn't enough. Normally you don't get satisfied until someone else is in pain with you.”

Jia stared at him for a moment and then looked to me. “Not that I want to prove his point for him, but I can't let him off the hook. So I'm sure he wants nothing more than to be alone with you, so hi, I'm Jia, your third wheel for the evening. Nice to meet you, Took.”

I smiled involuntarily. “I'm Mason. Nice to meet you.”

“I'm terrible with names, and to be completely fair, I think you're always going to be Took to me,” she said. “Come, sit. Sit!” She patted the spot on the bed next to her. I glanced at Sky briefly and was rewarded with her slapping the space next to her again, so I sat. She pulled my shoulder and I awkwardly followed the direction she was yanking me, laughing a little uncomfortably, until we were lined up next to each other against the wall.

“This is really unfair,” Sky grumbled.

Jia ignored him and turned toward me. “Don't listen to him; to understand Sky you have to watch what he does more than what he says.”

“You stole that from a movie,” Sky said, crossing his arms.

“He says that, but makes no move to throw me out. Now, how long have you known my Skyler?”

I leaned forward to make eye contact with Sky, but she moved her head to block me.

“Uh. I guess a few hours?”

“Now see, that's interesting, because he's known-”

“Jia,” Sky said, his tone laced with warning. To my surprise, she shifted her tone. That sent my brain, briefly, down some silly rom-com paths.

“So I've known Skyler for over a year. We were on different floors of the same dorm – Sky, me and Henry. I met Henry first and tried to fix them up, but they're just friends,” she said. I wasn't sure where any of this was leading – if anywhere – but I figured personal history is always helpful. “Henry likes pranks, and he pays for it – as you saw.”

I nodded. “Sky said something about that.”

“Henry's not ready for anything other than a mud-puddle deep relationship. His mother is someone I just don't have the energy to get into right now, and his dad seems like he just rolls over, beat down by his mother or just wanting to keep whatever peace he can get.”

I wasn't sure what to say to that.

“Did you get delivery, or do we have to pick the food up?” Sky interjected.

Jia turned from me to face him and then pulled her phone out. “Crap. It's pick up.”

Sky leaned forward to look at me. “Want to go for a walk?”

“Sure.”

“I see what you two are doing,” Jia said. “And I approve.” She yawned and moved off the bed. “I'll go find plates and stuff and try not to fall asleep before you get back.”

A phone rang, and Sky pulled his phone from his pocket. He chuckled and hit the screen. “Henry?”

There was a staticky silence for a moment, and then a voice drifted from the phone. “Alexa, call Siri.”

Sky smiled and looked from me to Jia. “Henry, you don't have Alexa on your phone.”

“I don't?”

“Nope. You okay?”

“Alexa, call Skyler.”

“Henry.”

“What?”

“It's Sky. You okay?”

“Oh. Alexa's being a bitch.”

The three of us looked at each other, smiling and chuckling a little at Henry's silliness.

“Yeah, you should be nicer to her. What up, Henry?”

“I need to go home. I can't move.”

Thinking of Henry, clothes on inside out and backward, I snorted a little to myself. Sky looked at me and grinned a bit wider. “Oh yeah?”

“I have to pee, but someone stole my zipper.”

“Uh oh. Who could have done that?” Sky asked.

“Zipper thief. I have to call Skyler and get some help.”

“Henry.”

“Yeah?”

“It's Skyler.”

“Oh. Bro, I was just wanting to call you.”

Skyler laughed and shook his head. “I'll come get you.”

“Okay. Gotta pee.”

“If you piss yourself, I'm not helping,” Skyler warned and shut the phone off. He glanced at Jia. “You get the wings; I'll go take care of Henry?”

Jia looked at me and then back to Sky. “Who gets Took?”

“Not leaving him with you,” Sky said firmly, and I just raised an eyebrow. “Trust me. Jia will just make shit up while I'm gone and make everything awkward.”

“Does it really get any more awkward than helping Henry home after he pisses himself? Really?” Jia asked, laughing at Skyler's scrunched expression. “Hurry up, and drop him at his room.”

I followed Sky from the room and back down to the street, where he struck out toward the house we'd been at for the party. “Is Henry going to be safe if you just leave him somewhere?”

“Oh, I'll bring him back to his dorm room,” Sky said as I fell in beside him. “He likes the dorms, but they only have so many, so I was okay with not getting one. Jia's mom got us a deal with the place we're in now – not that it's a palace or anything, but it doesn't have all the rules of the dorms either.”

“Jia's mom was good with her daughter living with a guy?”

“Yeah. I mean she met me, and once she saw I wasn't interested in her daughter – at first I think she was a little offended,” he chuckled. “But we got along okay. Especially after Jia told her mom there was some guy hitting on her and Jia latched onto me and pretended we were together. I went with it, kind of picking up the vibe.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that gets you some goodwill.” I cleared my throat. “So earlier, Jia was going to say something about how long you've known me? You cut her off?”

Skyler chuckled. “Jia is chaotic; sometimes chaotic good, sometimes chaotic evil, but always chaotic. If she doesn't have something factual to work with, she'll just make up whatever comes into the whirlwind of her brain.” He waved a hand toward me as we walked. “Like, of course you know she knew my 'Took' story. So technically I knew you for a few years, right?”

“Right.”

“But that all by itself isn't a big deal. But Jia, being Jia, would try to make it sound like I've been secretly pining for you for the last few years.” He glanced at me and smiled. “I haven't. I had a funny story about you, but we'd never actually, formally met each other until tonight. So no pressure, okay?”

Heat flushed into my face, and I smiled involuntarily. “I was wondering if she was going to, you know....”

“Oh, she was!” he laughed aloud. “By the time she'd have been done you'd think – even though you were in my room – that I had a shrine built to you and have your pictures on my phone and that I track all your socials. Trust me, it wouldn't have been a romantic looking thing either – total stalker. She'd have people with good sense running away!”

I shook my head. “Slightly changing the subject-”

“Thank you!”

“I've never understood that whole thing about stalkers. I can understand finding something that speaks to you about how someone looks, but to become...obsessed with someone you don't actually know?”

“Yeah. I guess it's kind of like a crush, short term, but normally people get over those.” He murmured an 'excuse me' as he slid past me up the walk to the house – we'd arrived more quickly than I'd thought we would. We went to the side of the house and through the gate. People were still on the patio and one waved at us.

“Mace Face! You're still here?”

Funny. I forgot I'd walked to the party with other people I sort of knew. I waved and continued behind Skyler to the spot on the lawn where we'd left Henry. The chair was on its side and Henry was on his back, snoring lightly.

“C'mon, Henry,” Skyler said, pulling on Henry's shoulder. It took a few moments to get Henry somewhat awake, and then it took us both to get Henry to his feet. We made an awkward three-headed, six-legged beast as we made our way around the side of the house and started down the sidewalk. As we moved Henry began to perk up a bit more, perhaps due to the movement. We didn't really speak; keeping Henry on track and upright took most of our attention – and frankly, I was getting tired. I wasn't completely sure what time it was. I vaguely recalled the place we'd ordered from closed at two, but what time was it when we placed the order?

We got to the dorms and awkwardly made our way to a different building than the one I lived in. There was a moment that should have been funny where Sky worked around in Henry's pockets for the badge that would let him in the dorm, and then we were in and headed up the elevator. Whatever bit of energy Henry'd had, he lost as we got to his door, and we kind of dragged him to his bed. We didn't exactly drop him, but it was pretty close.

“Glad his roomie dropped out,” Sky said and fought to pull Henry's pants off. “Gotta make sure he can walk to use the bathroom when he wakes up.”

“I thought you wanted to annoy him?” I asked, standing back while he tossed Henry's pants aside.

“Well, I'm not a total jerk,” he said with a laugh.

“I guess he didn't actually need to go,” I mused. “I mean, he's asleep, and he didn't wet his pants.”

“Yeah. He'll wake up and run for the bathroom. Classic Henry.” Sky grinned conspiratorially. “Bladder like a bean.”

I yawned and covered my mouth. “Oh, sorry.”

“Yeah, it's getting to late o'clock,” Sky said, his smile looking a bit more worn. “Hey, why don't you get a change of clothes so you don't have to wander over after we eat? You're still hungry, right?”

Wow. I think he just asked me to stay overnight. I had really mixed feelings rushing through me. On the one hand I wanted to have some kind of experience with Sky – I felt like we'd really connected. But part of that connection had nothing to do with sex; we just got along. On the other hand, inviting me to bring a change of clothes didn't mean we'd be having sex. Is that what he intended?

“Someone unplug you?” Sky asked, taking me by the shoulders and giving me a small shake.

I shook my head. “No, no. I just...my brain, I guess.”

He raised an eyebrow and then smiled. “Yes, sleep over, but just sleep. We'll eat our wings, we'll crash because the sun will start to come up, and...I don't know about you, but I'm a little hesitant to let this all end. I mean, of course it doesn't have to, but...give me tomorrow, okay?”

I tilted my head. “Give you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” His expression shifted, not quite smiling, but something I interpreted as vulnerable. “Let's go for coffee when we wake up. Let's go...walking. Or sit and listen to music. Or watch a movie.”

I blinked a few times. “It's already tomorrow,” I pointed out. “So it feels like, if I give you tomorrow, we're really talking about the next two days. Do you think we can find enough to talk about for two whole days?”

A devilish smile curled his lips. “Can you imagine anyone else playing Gandalf? Imagine if they'd put Patrick Stewart in the role?”

I put my head in my hands. “Sky, no. Sir Patrick is a legend, but he's not Gandalf.”

“But they're both classically trained, both excellent-”

I narrowed my eyes. “You've got a little bit of evil in you, don't you?”

He widened his eyes a tad. “You have two days to find out.”

From behind us a low groan floated through the air. “I gotta pee.”

Sky glanced over his shoulder at Henry and then back to me. “So?”

I cleared my throat. “I have some comfy PJs I could grab.”

A thump filled the room as Henry fell out of bed and sat up, flailing a bit. “Shit. I lost my pants.”

Sky chuckled and I followed him over to help Henry get up. Henry looked at me and smiled. “Hey. Who are you?”

I glanced at Sky and then back to Henry. “I think you may know me as Took.”

“Ha!” Henry said, smiling widely. “Sky always teases me with that. Ugh, I gotta pee.” Henry put his hands out, gaining some balance and wobbled to his door. Sky and I trailed behind him as he used one hand to follow the wall to the communal bathroom.

“So. Mason. Mase Face. Took. You'll give me tomorrow?”

My heart beat hard. “And today.”

Henry's voice echoed from the bathroom, which had no outer door. “Ah, shit.”

Sky looked at me. “I'm not going to see what happened. Let's go get your stuff, let's eat and get some sleep. And then....?”

I swallowed. “And then?”

A wet sound echoed from the bathroom.

Sky and I looked at each other. “Henry's made some kind of mess.”

I grinned. “Fly, you fool.”

Sky took my hand and began pulling me toward the stairs. “This is going to be legendary.”

The End