The Best Four Years of Adam Becker - 26. Sophomore Year - Chapter 4

“I got you a toothbrush,” Kevin told me. He was flossing, not in a mirror, but at the foot of his bed, staring at me and wearing only a pair of boxer-briefs.

We were about to go to bed. It was a Monday night, and it was my first night staying over soberly, rather than just drunkenly passing out next to him as we stumbled back from the Iota Chi house or Bruno’s.

It was a big step but it wasn’t a terrible step, was it? Natural progression of things. We’d spent two nights in New York together, crammed in a twin bed.

I was mostly concerned with covering my bases, in regards to my friends: I was in Tripp and Erik’s room until around 11, when I faked heading off to bed and left strict orders with Patrick not to open the door to our room under any circumstances.

I propped myself up on an elbow, from underneath the covers. “What do you mean, you got me a toothbrush?”

“For here,” he said, moving on to another tooth. “I mean, for when you’re here--it’s gross that you don’t have one. Because, if you think about it, you’re missing two toothbrushing sessions. Night and morning.”

“I brush when I get home,” I told him. “And half the time, when I’m drunk, I pass out without brushing my teeth anyway.”

Kevin froze, mid-flossing, and looked scandalized. “Really? I could be blackout and I’d still remember to brush my teeth.”

“Yeah, that’s a lie,” I replied. “I’ve seen you blackout. I saw you blackout two days ago.”

He resumed flossing. “Well, you have one here now,” he continued. “It’s red. Republican red. Just for you.”

“I brought my toothbrush,” I said, looking over to my backpack.

“Well, for next time,” he said. He pulled the string of floss out of his mouth, and walked over to the garbage can. “Whenever you pass out drunk.”

“Still,” I said.

I never felt as coupled with Kevin as I did that very moment. The toothbrush, the longevity of the toothbrush, the idea that I would be here often enough where I required my own toothbrush. Not to mention the the flossing. Flossing was such a gruesome misadventure, a waxed string between your teeth, bloody, decomposing food, the kind of activity you did in front of someone when you had absolutely no mysteries left.

“Well, it was ninety-seven cents,” he replied, casually. “It’s a toothbrush, not an engagement ring. And it’s as much for me as it is for you because, periodontal health aside, I’m the one that has to smell your lousy-ass breath.”

“You love my lousy-ass breath.”

“No, I love you in spite of it.”

We paused. We let the L-word grenade detonate, wordlessly.

It was not lost on me that this was now the second time Kevin had accidentally used the word “love” in casual conversation over the last two weeks, and that was all sorts of disconcerting. Love, and the toothbrush, and the flossing, and suddenly our relationship seemed to be barrelling forward with centripetal acceleration.

I was the first one to talk, to pivot the subject away from that: “Just when it seems like you can’t get more fastidious,” I told him, “you do.”

“It’s really just teeth,” he replied. He squeezed two squirts of Purell into his hands, from the bottle on his nightstand, and rubbed his hands together lavishly.

“Clearly,” I said. “I’m learning so much about you.”

He threw back the covers, came into bed next to me. “There’s not that much to learn about me, really. I’m pretty shallow.”

“What kind of talk is that, Philosophy Major?”

He grinned. “It’s true. Everyone likes to say they’re like an iceberg. You know--90% of their mass below the surface? It’s all such a load of bullshit. I’m at least honest enough to admit it I’m not deep or unique or special.”

He put his arms around my waist, and I scooted in, so he was holding me, big spoon.

It was only, really, since the summer that Kevin and I started cuddling. Before that, it was sex and an abrupt departure. It was excellent sex, but living with Tripp last year--who would text me if he couldn’t find me--put me on a pretty short leash.

We did now. We’d gotten used to it. I’d gotten used to just lying back, his arms around me, or my arms around him--though he preferred the former--and staring up at his ceiling, feeling somehow placid.

“I think you’re special,” I told him. “And deep, and unique.”

“Well, sure,” he said. “You’re my boyfriend. Of course you’re supposed to think that.”

I wouldn’t refer to myself as an iceberg. But I wasn’t stage directions. I wasn’t convinced I was especially deep or unique or special, that my particular story was anything that millions of people had not already lived verbatim, but it mattered to me, and that had to be enough.

Stage directions continued to stick with me, so I blotted out the memory.

“I like this,” I told him, instead, snuggling into his arms.

“I like this, too,” he replied. He kissed me on the back of the neck. “I think I’ll always remember this moment. You sleeping over, and me holding you like this.” He kissed me again. “And, you know, me drilling your ass like no one’s business.” He kissed me one more time. “I want you so bad.”

I turned my head. “Then take me.”

“Fuck,” he said, with a big smile, and then I felt his finger between my ass cheeks, toying just ever so slightly with my hole. “Tell me how badly you want this cock.”

“I want your cock,” I told him. “So badly.”

He kept his finger near my ass, but flung the rest of himself across the bed so he could reach the lube. I could hear the telltale click as he opened the bottle, and the telltale squirt as he dumped lube into his hand, and then a different finger returned, a lubed up one, and it sunk slowly into my ass.

I let out an involuntary moan, as I felt my ass grip his finger, and Kevin exhaled with anticipation. And he slowly began pumping that one finger into me, and then out of me, and then finally, he withdrew it.

“Get on your stomach,” he said. I rolled over onto my stomach, and Kevin straddled me. I could feel his dick, his giant dick, lubed up and raw and fully hard even without any foreplay, resting on my ass, and he was right. I wanted his cock. So badly.

Kevin’s hands went on either side of my shoulders, and I braced for invasion, which came a second later. He knew to move slowly, so I could take it, because it was still so big that it wasn’t easy to take. And I could feel Kevin’s mushroom head fill me up.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re, fuck, you’re so incredibly tight.”

“I’m okay,” I told him. “Keep going.”

He sunk in slowly, inch by inch, and that was the thing about Kevin Malley’s dick: it was endless. And when I thought it was all the way in, there was another inch, and he kept slowly pushing it inside me until I felt the tickle of his pubes against my ass.

Kevin fucked me very slowly, just slowly bringing his cock up an inch, and back down softly onto my prostate, and I moaned anyway, because Kevin had a knack for hitting the exact spot. And he then he picked up the pace, like he always did, and he rocked in and out of me until he was full-on fucking my ass.

“Fuck me,” I told him, and he did, fucking, pounding my ass with his big cock.

He dropped down to his forearms, so his chest was pressed against my back, so he could get even deeper, and I moaned again, as he plunged so deep inside of me, as his lips rested on the back of my neck, kissing me, grabbing my skin with his teeth, as he continued to pound away at me.

“I’m going to try to turn you over,” he said, as he slowed the pace. “I want to look at you.” And I felt his hand on one of my shoulders, and he began to very methodically spin me around, his cock still buried deep inside my ass, until I was on my back, and he was still inside me, and he looked so goddamn proud of himself.

I wrapped my legs around his waist, but he had his own ideas: he grabbed both of my legs, and put them on his shoulders, and began to fuck me, his beautiful eyes meeting mine the entire time. And he bent my knees, so he could get in even closer, and his hand wandered to the back of my head, to pull me into a deep kiss. And then he knew he was close, because he abruptly sat back up, continued to fuck me, but began stroking my dick as fast as he could--and Kevin got there first, let out a yawp, and I knew he had cum deep inside my ass. But he kept stroking me, kept stroking me with his dick deep inside me, until I felt the dam bursting and I came too.

Kevin collapsed on my chest, even though I was covered in my own cum. “I should hop in the shower,” he told me.

“It’s too cold to get out of bed,” I whispered back, putting my arms on his shoulders. “I want you to hold me again. I don’t care if we’re messy.”

“Turn around,” he said, and I did and he wrapped me in his strong arms. I could feel my cum, from his torso, sticking to my back, but I felt like I could just fall asleep in his arms anyway.

But Kevin was in a mood for pillow talk. “So Chris Baker really got elected president of Iota Chi last night?”

I grinned at that, even though I wasn’t facing him. “He did.” We hosted our annual elections last night, Sunday night, after our weekly chapter meeting. It was a long, torturous, boozy affair that took nearly five hours, and Baker had been a dark horse. In true political fashion, he was hardly anyone’s first choice but virtually everyone’s second choice, and somehow he managed to sneak just past Matt Rowen in the run-off, after the vanquished factions behind the abortive Paul Pryce and Eddie Darien campaigns threw their support behind him.

“I didn’t think I’d win,” Baker told me, afterwards, when we had decamped to Bruno’s. “I shouldn’t have even run.”

“Great victory speech,” I had told him.

“Wow,” Kevin said. “It’s in God’s hands now, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “And I hear you’re the new historian.”

“Word gets around fast,” I told him. “So you’re dating Iota Chi royalty, I’ll have you know.”

“I’ll genuflect on my way out,” he said. “Historian. Did you only take the job because you know that if you’re the one tasked with taking all the photos you won’t have to be in any of them?”

I smiled. “You know me too well, Kevin Malley.”

“I do,” he replied. He paused. “I think I’m going to quit my job.”

I craned my head to look at him, though I could scarcely see him in the dark room. “You mean dealing?”

“No,” he said. “I mean my actual job, at Bistro Napoleon.”

In some ways, it was amazing how much Kevin was able to accomplish in the hours of the day, with five classes, dealing weed to Iota Chi, Tri-Gamma, and Lambda, and working in the Warehouse District three nights a week. I wasted long swaths of every day, only dragging myself to do work as the clock ran out.

“I thought you needed your job,” I told him. “Sending money home, and all.”

“Well,” he said, “I’ll be okay, just with dealing. And I don’t know.” He stopped, as if he was going to say something, but instead he just summed up: “Maybe I’m just in the mood to be spontaneous, and shake shit up a little bit. Don’t you ever get in the mood to do that?”

I did not. That was not even remotely the kind of person I was. Kevin was a renegade, which was maybe what made him so enthralling to me. The kind of guy who could decide something instantly--quitting his job, having sex on the beach in Destin.

“Sometimes,” I replied.

“Liar,” he replied. “I just feel trapped sometimes. Like, every day is the same, you know? Wake up. Go to class. Sell pot. Wait tables. Come home.”

“Have same old sex with same old Becker,” I finished.

He rolled his eyes. “You think you’d be confident enough to realize you’re a bright spot. You’re the bright spot.” He kissed the back of my neck, and neither of us said anything more right away--we just let his words, his kiss, hang in the night between the two of us.

“I think you’re deep,” I told him. “I think you know you’re deep.”

“I’m really not,” he replied. “Well, there is one thing I didn’t tell you.”

I turned my head around again, to look at him. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You know how I play the trumpet. And you know how I did some busking in New York over the summer.” He paused, as if this was going to be some watershed admission. “So I joined this small jazz ensemble. And we’re going to be playing at this club on Frenchmen Street, and I wanted you to come.”

I turned myself around, still in his arms, and leaned in to give him a kiss. “That sounds great.”

“Just you, Baker, and Veronica,” he told me. “I don’t want a crowd. But I want you guys.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said. “That sounds great. Look at you, being all deep.”

He grinned at me, through the darkness. “I told you, I’m not. I like music. Lots of people like music.”

“I think you tell people you’re shallow so they don’t go plunging in your depths.”

I felt his hand on my ass, and then his finger running up my buttcrack, and he whispered, in his creepy 1970s porn voice, “I enjoy plunging your depth.”

I gave him a quick peck on the lips. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he whispered.

 

We were woken up by frantic pounding at the door to the hallway, a few hours later. I looked over at Kevin’s alarm clock: five o’clock in the morning.

“What the fuck,” he said, turning on the lamp. He also noticed what time it was, and slowly shook his head, and then reached down for his glasses. He kicked off the sheets, grabbed a pair of boxer-briefs off the floor, and slid them on, as the knocking continued.

“Yeah, just a sec,” he called. As the knocking stopped, he turned back to me. “Becker,” he hissed.

“What?” I grunted, without sitting up.

“Shouldn’t you, like, hide?” he said. “What if someone’s coming in?”

I pulled the sheets over my head.

“Oh, that’s aces,” he replied. “Real master of disguise. Get in the closet.”

I grabbed my pillow, and the corner of the comforter, just in case I happened to be in their a while, and dragged myself across the room to the closet. Kevin watched me the whole time, arms folded, looking impatient.

Kevin’s closet was, of course, immaculate, with nothing on the floor, so I had plenty of room. Mine and Patrick’s closet was an avalanche risk. I burrowed myself into the pillow, covered myself with Kevin’s comforter.

And it didn’t dawn on me until that precise moment, as I buried my head into the pillow, that I was in fact, dating a drug dealer. And this very easily could be something that would result in Kevin getting arrested, or kicked out of school. Or, even more personally horrifying, they could throw over the closet door and see a naked Senator’s son curled up in the fetal position.

I sat up, frantic, as I heard Kevin opened the door.

“I’m so sorry.” It was Chris Baker, his voice strained and upset, almost like he had been crying. “I’m sorry, dude, but I need a ride to Central Lock-Up. Or your keys.”

“Shit,” Kevin said. “What happened?”

“Charlie,” he said, without giving any additional context.

“Okay, okay,” Kevin said. “Okay, I’ll drive you. Let me put on some pants and I’ll meet you upstairs.” He closed the door. In a hissed whispered, “Becker!”

I slowly pushed the closet door open, and stared back up at him. I was suddenly awake now, both out of the two seconds of panic and the fact that I was quite interested about what was going on. Charlie Baker, in New Orleans Central Lock-Up?

Chris and Charlie’s relationship was frosty--far frostier than I could ever imagine my relationship being with either of my siblings--but I knew there was a protective streak in Chris. And, obviously, his brother in jail had to be terrifying.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Baby Baker’s in some sort of emergency,” he said, diplomatically, picking up his clothes from the night before off the floor. “You heard everything that I did. I have to go, though.” He was turning a t-shirt right-side-out. “Is this yours or mine?”

“I had a red polo and a gray Iota Chi sweatshirt,” I told him. “Is Baker okay? Do you want me to come with you guys?”

Kevin shook his head. “And explain your presence in my bedroom how, exactly?”

I was still too tired to engage in repartee, so I just rested my head back down on the pillow in the floor of Kevin’s closet.

“You can stay here,” he told me. With a smile, he added, “In the bed, even. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait,” I said, even though I didn’t move; I felt the weight of exhaustion quickly weighing down my body, my eyelids. “Keep me posted, though, will you?”

I didn’t hear Kevin’s response; the next thing I knew, it was eight o’clock, and the sun was streaming in through the blinds, and I was still on the floor of the closet. And Kevin wasn’t back yet.

I picked myself up, grabbed the pillow and the comforter and dragged them both behind me, back to the bed. My phone was on the nightstand. He hadn’t texted me or called me, either, so I sent him one: “Is everything okay?”

He texted back almost immediately, succinctly: “Still waiting on him to be released, but I think it’ll be pretty soon.”

I climbed back into Kevin’s bed. And the next thing I knew, it was ten-thirty, and Kevin was coming in through the door from the hallway. I sat up.

“Everything okay?”

He looked awful, banged around, exhausted. “We got him out,” he assured me, taking off his jacket and tossing it into a ball on the ground--considering his general regiment of tidiness, he was definitely tired. “We had to wait for the courts to open, so they could set his bail.” He peeled off his shirt next, then his jeans, and threw them both on top of the jacket. “Crazy night.”

Kevin climbed back into bed, and fell asleep almost instantly, but I couldn’t. And, as much as I loved cuddling with Kevin Malley, his sleeping corpse wrapped around me just wasn’t entertaining for very long. So I got up, got dressed, lit a bowl the way Kevin had shown me, and started picking through his bookshelf to see if there was anything else to read.

At around eleven-thirty, he woke back up, looked briefly concerned that I wasn’t lying in bed next to him, but then realized I was in his desk chair. He propped himself up on his elbow and smiled at me.

“Oh, just go ahead and help yourself to my weed,” he deadpanned.

“Boyfriend’s prerogative,” I replied, holding up the bowl for him to see. “I get special privileges, don’t I?”

“You know you do,” he replied, still smiling. “But, really, after the night I had, I think you should bring me breakfast in bed or something.”

“What is it, Mother’s Day?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Fine. I’ll settle for the bowl.”

I closed my book, stood up, and sat on the edge of the moved to the bed, sat on the edge, and handed him the bowl.

“‘Wake up, bake up,’” he said. He exhaled a large ribbon of smoke. “Did we tell you we used to do that all the time freshman year? Me and Baker?”

“No,” I said. “I forget you guys were roommates.”

“Well, two years ago,” he said, handing me back the piece. “Back when you were still going after speech and debate trophies at--” In a haughty, British falsetto, he screeched, “--the Harrington School.”

“Oh, whatever, Public School,” I replied. “Are you still tired?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’ll take a nap this afternoon and catch up before Bruno’s tonight. You have to be there for friends, you know?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s nice to know you’re a good guy.”

He smiled at me faintly, then picked up the book that I had been reading. “The Prince,” he said. “Really? Never thought a nice libertarian boy like you would go for a thing like this.”

“Well, I’m considering taking over a small country,” I told him, as I lay back down next to him on his bed. “Nothing too ostentatious. Nicaragua, maybe. It’s been done. William Walker?”

“Didn’t know you had world domination ambitions,” he grinned. “That’s kind of sexy. Not that I’m usually turned on by dominance.”

“Just world domination?” I asked. And he nodded. “Should I grow a little Hitler mustache?”

“That’d make Daily Kos,” he replied, putting his hand on my chest.

“Well, luckily I just read it because everything else you have is, like, Plato, so there weren’t a lot of books to choose from.”

“Sorry if I’m so cerebral,” he told me, with a smug smile. “You have to bring your A-game when you pick off my bookshelf. All your smarts.”

“I’ll bring you some Joan Didion,” I said. “Some James Salter. How’s that? Get you some good fiction.”

“You know who’s great?” he said, his growing smile betraying the upcoming punchline. “That Stephenie Meyer. Twilight? I wish you could write as well as her!”

“Bring your A-game, Malley,” I replied. “All the smarts.”

“I always do,” he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. “I like you being here.”

“I like being here too,” I replied, and we kissed, just once.

There was a knock on the door, a soft knock, not like the cacophony from Chris Baker seven hours ago, and we both looked over. Kevin sprung quickly into action, diving off the side of the bed and grabbing the t-shirt he had worn to Central Lock-Up the night before.

“Whatever, it’s not incriminating that you’re here now,” he explained, dressing with tremendous speed. “You just came over to smoke on your way to class.”

“Back from class,” I corrected. “I had geology at 9:30. What kind of boyfriend doesn’t know his own boyfriend’s schedule?”

Kevin playfully stuck his tongue out at me. “Not like you’d ever go to a 9:30 class anyway.” He turned and answered the door. It was, once again, Chris Baker.

“Oh, hey, Becker,” he said, as he came into the room.

“He just came over for a little ‘wake up, bake up,’ on his way back from geology,” Kevin defended. “I needed to calm my nerves, and I figured you were still asleep.”

Baker grinned. “Been a while since we did ‘wake up, bake up.’”

“Feel free,” he said, motioning to the bed.

“Well, Becker,” Baker said slowly, as he sat down next to me, “I don’t know how much Kevin told you about our crazy night.”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Kevin said, very quickly, settling into the desk chair to face us. “I wasn’t sure if it was my place.”

Baker sighed, then looked to me, his eyes heavy with seriousness: “Charlie was in Central Lock-Up.”

I wasn’t a great actor, but I did my best to look as genuinely surprised as I could. “Oh shit, is he okay?”

It came off too affected to be a really stupendous lie on my part, but Baker didn’t really seem to notice.

“Well,” he said, “he wrapped a car around a live oak on St. Charles Avenue. Wasted off his ass, coked out. Police caught him as he tried to drive away, so he’s being charged with a bunch of shit. DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, coke possession. I had to go bail him out at five in the morning.” His voice warbled through most of that story. He looked tense. Intense. I wasn’t used to him being serious but, then again, how often were things serious around here?

“Wow,” I said. I paused, as if I was processing new information. “He’s okay though, right?”

“The little shit’s fine,” Baker told me, shaking his head. “Lawyers are already dispatched. Hopefully they can gloss it all over. But my parents are pulling him out of school though, though. Or they’re going to, once they sort all this shit out. I’ve never seen them so pissed. Especially because his grades are already such shit."

"Zeta," Kevin said, shaking his head somberly.

“Fucking Zeta,” Baker agreed. “He should’ve just gone Iota Chi, and we could’ve avoided this whole mess.”

“He didn’t want to go Iota Chi,” I reminded. “And you didn’t want him to, either.”

Baker’s eyes were watering up, and I could tell he was on the verge of losing everything he was trying to hard to carefully hold together. He was quiet, until he finally choked out, “I didn’t want this.”

“It’s okay, man,” Kevin said, smiling lightly. “It’ll be okay. He’s a Tulane student--the judge is going to give him community service or something, and then expunge his record. No one was hurt. He wouldn’t be the first Tulane kid to get out of a DUI.”

“Yeah,” Baker said, quietly. “I know you’re right. I hope you’re right. But thanks. For driving me down there, and waiting all night. I’ll miss you if you’re gone next semester, really.”

My eyes shot upwards towards Kevin, at the exact second the smile vanished from his face.

“Next semester?” I said, slowly. “What’s next semester?”

Kevin looked startling uncomfortable, and that’s how I knew this was some sort of big revelation that I wasn’t supposed to find out at this particular moment.

“Well,” he began, and he paused again. “Remember how I said I was thinking about going to Paris next semester, to study abroad?”

With Carver.

Yes, I remembered that conversation from several weeks ago vividly, but I also distinctly remembered how he had framed it: a crazy request from Carver that Kevin did not seem to take seriously.

“No,” I said. There was a long, indelicate pause. “I mean, I thought you were not going to Paris. Was where you landed on that.”

I did not quite know how to handle the fact that Baker was sitting between us, because I wanted to have what I could only imagine would be the most serious conversation--if not outright fight--of our relationship. Instead, I had to contort my face into a smile, as Kevin worked too intently on not looking at me.

Kevin quickly restored his smile, and said as nonchalantly as possible: “I mean, it’s a possibility. Nothing’s definite.” More forcefully, he repeated the last bit with a sideways glance to me: “Nothing’s definite.”

His manner was light, for Chris Baker; his eyes were pleading with me. And I was smoldering, but I couldn’t do anything but look relaxed, also for Chris Baker.

“You’re going with Carver, right?” I asked him.

Kevin paused for a second. “Not really. Separately from Carver. He’ll be in Paris, obviously, at the same time, but I’d be doing an all-Tulane program. If I went. Which I probably won’t. So.”

The added “so” was tacked on so lamely, so pitifully. And his eyes continued to plead with me, as I did my best not to let my anger seep through too much in front of Chris Baker. Last time, he said Carver wanted him to go, that he didn’t think he would be going, that he wasn’t going. It was not a discussion; it was an anecdote.

And now, he was considering going. And he had talked to Baker about this, told him (and who knew who else) that he was facing some agonizing decision, but he hadn’t told me. He hadn’t even mentioned the possibility to me, aside from an offhand comment months ago, saying that Carver wanted him to go and that he didn’t want to go.

“Yeah,” I said, and I knew I was toeing the line of notable bitterness so I smiled. “I definitely think you should go. I hope you’re very happy there.”

“Nothing’s been decided,” Kevin told me, quietly. “As I was saying. Nothing’s been decided, and I’m probably not even going to do it.”

Chris Baker lit the bowl again, blissfully unaware of the tension compressing him on all sides. “Well, in all seriousness, I think you should go,” he said, unhelpfully. “I’ll miss the shit out of you, but I loved Paris when I went. I think you’d have a blast. Oh--you know who else is studying abroad next semester?”

I did not want to pursue this conversation any further--not with Baker in the room. Without taking my eyes off of Kevin, I said, “You know, I think I should head out. I’m meeting Michaela and Jordan for lunch in fifteen minutes. And I think we’re just about wrapped up here.”

Kevin pretended to look at his watch. “Shit, I didn’t realize it was so late. I’m meeting band people at noon.”

Baker placed the bowl on the nightstand. “Yeah, I might try to take another nap,” he said. “I think it’s clear I’m not going to any classes today. But I can at least rest up for Bruno’s tonight.”

I didn’t say anything; Chris Baker ambled to the door to the hallway, and I followed him out; I didn’t want to look too comfortable with the side door, the Becker door. And he slipped back into his room, and I went upstairs to the main floor.

Kevin caught up to me by the time I was on his porch.

“Look,” he said, as he chased me down the stairs to the sidewalk. “I know you’re pissed. But I told you about this already--you knew this was a possibility.”

“No, you told me you were definitely not going,” I told him, but I didn’t stop walking; I just kept moving, as quickly as I could, because I didn’t want to do this in his front yard, in a house where five of my fraternity brothers lived. And he seemed to have realize this too, because he kept following me, a pace behind, not saying anything more until we reached the corner.

“I didn’t say I was definitely not going,” he said. “I said I was probably not going.”

“And, somehow, now you probably are? And you didn’t even tell me?”

“I didn’t say I’m probably going,” Kevin said. “I said I’m thinking about it. And God damn it, Becker. I’m telling you about it now, because I want us to discuss the possibility like adults.”

“You’re not ‘telling me now,’” I spat back. “Baker told me. You got caught specifically not telling me. So don’t act like I’m being irrational, and trying to avoid the conversation, because there was a way to tell me about this, and you fucked it up.”

“It just came up with Baker,” he said. “This morning. We were in a jail waiting room for eight hours, and everything comes up.” He shuffled in place, uncomfortably. “But you’re right: you should’ve been the first person I told, and I fucked that up royally. But now you know, and now I want to talk about it.”

I was suddenly buried underneath a cavalcade of emotion: of anger, that Baker was the one to tell me that Kevin had apparently been quietly plotting a semester in Paris behind my back; of terror, at whatever roadblock distance could throw up between mine and Kevin’s relationship.

So I kept walking. Kevin kept following.

Literally, twelve hours after he told me he got me a fucking toothbrush. After he flossed in front of me, after he came so, so, so close to tossing out the L-word that I didn’t want to hear then but maybe wanted to hear now, because maybe now I wasn’t so sure what he meant, what he was thinking, and that scared me and I hated being scared.

I picked up the pace. And so did Kevin. For two more blocks, until we were back on campus, behind Rogers Chapel.

“Fine,” I said, abruptly turning around so abruptly that Kevin almost ran into me, and I could feel the anger seeping out of me--I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, the night of stop-and-go sleeping suddenly catching up to me, the weight of personal fiasco. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Look,” he said, again. “I’ve never been out of the country. Did you know that? I don’t even have a passport. I grew up two hours from Mexico, and I’ve never been out of the country. Because everything has always been so goddamn small. You know what? Between waiting tables and slinging weed, do you know how much money I have saved? Eight thousand dollars. Even with expenses, even with sending money home, and I’ve never even seen that much money before. And it’s so ridiculous because I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I’d ever be able to do something so fucking bourgeois as study abroad in Paris, but I can actually do it.”

“That’s not even that much money,” I told him. “My mom has dresses she wears once that cost eight thousand dollars.” And I realized that was petty, the second I said it, that it had possibly sacrificed some of my moral high ground.

And he realized it to. His face curled into quiet anger. “Oh, yes, everything has always been so limitless for you,” he replied, his voice cold and measured. “I know. Your Royal Fucking Highness. How could I expect you to understand?”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “Just because I’ve been on vacation before doesn’t give you the right--look, my boyfriend wants to leave me for a whole semester. And I heard it from someone else. And somehow, you’re not satisifed with my reaction. Because, oh, why should I care that you’re going to disappear for six months, so you can go gallivanting around Europe with Carver? Carver, who hates me.”

“I’m not going with Carver,” Kevin said. “I told you. And he doesn’t hate you. He treats everyone like shit.”

“Except you,” I replied. “Because he’s so obviously in love with you. And now he’s gotten me out of the picture, and got you in another country all to himself, and I’m sure he’s already salivating at the prospect.”

There was a sudden crack in Kevin’s anger. “Is that what this is about?” he asked, softly, putting his hand on my arm. “You think Carver’s going to come between us?”

That is not how I meant any part of that, and my own anger did not waver along with his. “Fuck off,” I said, pulling my arm away. “It has nothing to do with Carver.”

He seemed to get the nuance, read between the lines, maybe more than I had even expected him to, because his response was just a very soft, “Oh.”

We stood there, for a second, daring the other one to speak, and I somehow got there first, because I thought for a split second that he was going to end it, right then and there, and so I cut him off at the pass: “You can’t get me a toothbrush, and then turn around and tell me you’re leaving me.”

My voice was more strained than I had anticipated, and those were not words I valued, because somehow they came off so cringingly adolescent, but they made Kevin smile.

“I wouldn’t go if it came between us,” he said. “If I go--and that’s an ‘if,’ Becker, an ‘if’--if I go, it’ll be with your blessing. And we would figure the rest out, because it’s only a semester. I promise you that. It’ll be a few months, and then maybe you can come for spring break, and then it’s just a few more months, and it’ll be just like it was in the summer. I waited for you then, and I still think you’re worth waiting for now.”

I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him, right then and there, but even though we were over by the chapel and out of earshot, we were not out of eyeshot from the students dragging themselves across the quad. And so I didn’t move. But how badly I wanted to.

“I don’t want you to go,” I told him, softly, choking back the hot tears that were gathering in the back of my throat because I certainly wasn’t going to do that now. “I don’t want a couple months where we don’t see each other. And spring break--what am I supposed to do? Tell my parents, tell everyone we know, that I’m just casually going across the world to visit a friend that I’m not secretly dating?”

“Just tell them the truth then,” he said. “Or lie. I don’t care. That’s what your mad about? Logistics about visiting me in Europe?” He put his hand on my arm again, and I didn’t back away this time. “Look, if you don’t want me to do it, I won’t do it.”

“I don’t want you to do it,” I told him. More pleadingly, I added, “Stay.”

He gave a sigh, and then ignored my decision: “Maybe we should talk about this when we’ve both had time to let it sink in.”

“No,” I told him. “You said you want me to give you my blessing. And you’re not going to get it.”

We stared at each other for either a half-second, or an hour, or somewhere in between, because time had abruptly stopped moving. And I turned around, and kept walking, and Kevin, to my chagrin, did not follow me anymore.

 

“So, Charlie Baker’s in the slammer,” Michaela greeted, lazily, as I arrived in the James Lounge at the Lavin-Bernick Center, five minutes later. There was life buzzing all around me--the LBC was full, but to me It didn’t feel like a regular Tuesday; it felt like the end of time.

Michaela was sitting cross-legged in an overstuffed chair across from her boyfriend, Tate McClendon. He was allegedly writing a paper, but he was wearing headphones and was clearly chatting with someone on his laptop, based on his occasional smiles and frantic bouts of typing.

“Chris Baker told me,” I replied. “How’d you hear?”

“My mom called me,” she said. “Mrs. Baker called her sobbing at, like, six in the morning. And seriously, our whole high school knows already. People keep BBMing me about it.”

“People keep BBMing you about it?” Jordan asked, with a sly smirk. “Or you keep BBMing people about it?”

Michaela did not dignify that with a response, which suggested it was more likely the latter.

“Well,” Michaela continued, huffily, “it’s news, is all. And seriously, what the hell was he thinking? Coked out at three o’clock in the morning on a Monday night?”

“Zeta,” I replied, before I realized Tate was sitting across from us, but he didn’t hear me through his headphones. That didn’t stop Michaela from giving me an icy rebuttal with her eyes.

“There’s lots of good guys in every fraternity,” she said, “and lots of bad ones. I think his parents are going to make him come home. At least for the semester. Maybe for good.”

Not that I’d be dumb enough to drive my car when I was wasted, let alone on a Monday night, but I couldn’t imagine what would happen if my parents had to fly down to New Orleans to yank me out of college by my ear. Returning to my childhood bedroom, with all the trophies, the tyrannical boredom of Hamlet, Maryland.

And my thoughts drifted back to Kevin, and the fact that, if he left, there would be something missing from me. And I could feel those tears still threatening a riot in the back of my throat, but I certainly couldn’t do that sort of thing in the James Lounge, certainly not in front of Michaela and Jordan and Tate.

“‘Make him go home,’” Jordan repeated. “He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t wind up in jail.”

“He’ll get community service, at most,” Michaela said. “Record expunged. Tulane owns this city. Really, it’s his parents who are going to make him suffer. He was always the perfect one.”

It was hard to imagine Charlie being “the perfect one” in the Baker family, but I supposed that personality counted for a lot. Charlie was the kind of person who could command a room; he was like Philip in that regard, the kind of person that attracted attention and accolades like a magnet. Chris was too quite, and shy, and introspective, and maybe insecure to be considered the best the Baker family had to offer the next generation.

And yet, one of them would be president of Iota Chi and the other one would be sitting in a childhood bedroom in Dallas thinking about how dramatically life can change in an ordinary instant.

“Time will tell,” Jordan told her. “Are we ready for lunch?”

Michaela nodded, pulled her Tulane ID out of her purse, and then looked to her boyfriend. “Tate, do you want anything?”

He tore out an earbud, glanced up at her.

“Food?” she asked again.

“Chicken strips,” he said, looking back down to his computer, “and… how about a Powerade?”

“Red?”

He thought long and hard for a second, a Sophie’s choice. “Blue.”

This lunch had been, effectively, the majority of my interactions with Tate McClendon. I didn’t know what to make of him, because he was so stoic and aloof. Around us, at least. The four of us sitting around a coffee table in the lounge, his focus on his computer and his headphones.

Unlike Patrick, who kept us quarantined from Annie Rue, Michaela really did try to integrated the rest of us with Tate. She organized these little lunches, where he paid no attention to anyone but her, and Jordan and I casually pretended he was not there, as Michaela hopped brightly between conversations, a task she was oddly adept and oddly okay with.

Michaela must’ve picked up on my discomfort, or Tate’s lack of attentiveness, because she looked at us and said, apologetically: “He has a lot of work to do.”

Jordan and I said nothing; the three of us left the James Lounge, and crossed the corridor to the food court.

“You guys are good together,” I told Michaela. Jordan gave me a disbelieving look, and sure, it was a lie but she craved affection enough where she beamed at the compliment.

“We are,” she said. “I know you don’t know him that well, and he’s shy, but he’s really such a great guy.”

I didn’t necessarily see Tate as shy, as much as I saw him as someone who only begrudgingly hung out with us to satisfy Michaela, but that was a different story for a different time.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s nice you guys are together.”

Jordan, by this point, looked suspicious, her face wrinkled like she smelled something fishy but couldn’t quite place what or where it was. And I knew that I wasn’t going to be able continue a line of questioning about a potential loss of boyfriend for a semester. Jordan was too adept, Jordan knew me too well, Jordan would be able to see through the pretense.

Michaela was only half-listening to me anyway; as she selected a red Powerade from the open refrigerators, she asked Jordan, “Are you getting a salad again?”

“Yeah,” Jordan replied. Stiffly, she added, “Diet.” She glanced at the Powerade Michaela was holding. “Blue.”

Michaela didn’t say anything; she set the red Powerade back in the refrigerator, on the wrong shelf, and pulled out a blue one.

“I think I want wings,” she said, because she was Michaela Birdrock and she ate whatever she want and seemingly never gained any weight, a point that Jordan had, with thinly-masked bitterness, had brought up more than a couple times. “Or chicken tenders.”

I had to ditch the spare weight. “You get your salad,” I told Jordan, quickly, before anyone could swoop in with an alternate plan. “We’ll get chicken and meet you at the register.”

Jordan went towards the salad station, and I didn’t actually want wings but I followed Michaela anyway, and tried to line up my shot, without seeing too specific: “Yeah, you guys are good together,” I said. “But I feel like college would be tough though, to be in a relationship. What would you do if, like, he decided to go abroad?”

“Tate’s the last person who would study abroad,” said Michaela, as she took a tray from the chicken place and set it on the counter. “He wants to see America first.” She looked up at the guy behind the counter. “Could I get the five piece tenders?”

Michaela was not being nearly as helpful as I had hoped, so I pushed a little bit harder: “But say he did,” I said. “What would you do? Would you be pissed?”

“I mean,” she said, as she took her box of chicken tenders, “if it was something he wanted, I wouldn’t want to stand in the way. If he wanted to break up, it’s one thing, but long distance for a couple months isn’t a deal breaker. Lots of people have made it work.”

She abruptly turned away from me, and headed towards the register. I scrambled to place my order, grab my food, and catch up to her, before too long of a lull had interceded in the conversation.

“What about you and Ken?” I asked, as she handed the cashier her Tulane ID card. “That didn’t work out.”

“Well,” she said, “that was different. We were seventeen when we got together, and doing long distance for four years of college is way different than doing long distance over study abroad. Sure, we thought we’d be together forever, but we both changed so much when we got to college that we realized it wasn’t going to happen. But I don’t think Tate would change. Tate’s Tate.”

And Kevin was Kevin, which meant he was probably going to do what he wanted to do, which would be go to Paris, and there was no easy answer.

“But,” she continued, “my one friend Natalie is still with her boyfriend from high school, and he’s at Rice and she’s at Vandy. And they’re making it work.”

“How?”

“Well, they realized when they were apart that they didn’t want to break up,” she said. “Like, Ken and I realized pretty quickly that we were a drag on the other person, being far away, but they figured out the opposite. That, in being apart, they realized they didn’t want to be apart apart.”

It was a thought, and of course, Kevin Malley had told me specifically that he did not want to break up, and it was a semester—a semester where we would think about each other and miss each other and visit each other, and then be back together, and maybe that was the sort of thing that would work.

Maybe.

It was food for thought.

Jordan caught up to us, as we were leaving the register. “Thanks for waiting,” she deadpanned, and we stopped, stood awkwardly in the middle of the hallway until she was done checking out, and then we started heading back to the James Lounge.

And there was Justine and Matt Rowen, sitting in the dining area together, just the two of them looking like a stock photo of innocuously attractive people, enjoying their wraps and a private joke.

This was, without a doubt, the worst day of my nineteen years on the planet.

I could not tell which was better or which was worse: the fact that my sister had a one-night stand with one of my fraternity brothers, or the fact that my sister was now in whatever early stages of dating one of my fraternity brothers. Because I didn’t even know they had been in contact since that morning when I saw the two of them together at the Iota Chi house. Justine had not mentioned it, and that nugget of information hadn’t made it through the typical Iota Chi channels.

And, okay, I didn’t dislike Matt Rowen. I liked Matt Rowen. And, being completely honestly, had he propositioned me instead of my sister, I’d be in bed with him in an instant. But I just knew how all the Iota Chis talked about women. Talked about tits, sex. I didn’t want Justine factored into that conversation. Even though I knew I lacked the moral high ground, and that I shouldn’t have been so brotherly, or so neurotic, because she was of course her own person. I knew all of that. It bothered me anyway.

Jordan grabbed me by the jacket and dragged me back over towards the James Lounge.

“Let them be,” she told me. “They’re not doing anything wrong.”

“I’m just saying,” I said, huffily. “Let’s change the topic.”

“Let’s talk about me!” Michaela said, excitedly. “And my birthday!”

Jordan offered me a theatrical eyeroll. “Your birthday’s not until December.”

“December 2nd,” she said. “That’s only six weeks away. Tate thinks we should get all of our friends together, go down to Bourbon Street, really do a whole thing. What do you think?”

Jordan gave me another look, which I was able to read: when did Tate and Michaela become a “we,” and when did his and her very, very divergent groups of friends become “our” friends.

The idea of that sounded odious, but still, Bourbon Street was always fun. December 2nd. Six weeks away. At which time Kevin Malley would be packing suitcases and buying a TGV pass.

Had Jordan and Michaela not been standing with me, I might have texted him, “Hey.” Just to open the line of communication again. And I might’ve texted him that he meant something to me, and I wanted him here, because I didn’t know how I could handle it if he wasn’t here.

But they were with me, sitting, the three of us with Tate McClendon, and I couldn’t, so I didn’t.

 

Old Bruno’s was closing that night, and New Bruno’s, which had opened across the street as a shining beacon of post-Katrina rejuvenation, would take its place. It was the third major change in forty-eight hours, after Charlie and Kevin, that seemed to be weighing heavily on Chris Baker.

“It’s just, like,” Chris was saying, mournfully, from behind a beer, “going to be so different when we have to go to New Bruno’s. It’s too clean. It creeps me out.”

“It’s literally the same bar with higher ceilings,” I told him. “Give Tulane kids two weeks, and it’ll be another shithole like this.”

Baker stared wistfully off at the jukebox, on the other side of the room. “Are you close to your brother?”

Baker, in this state, did not have time for segues, but I couldn’t blame him for being focused on that one thing.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re very close. I mean, I guess we’re close. Philip is amazing. He’s smart, and successful, and… I don’t know, we always got along.” I couldn’t tell if that’s the answer he was expecting. “But it’s tough, you know? Sometimes siblings don’t always click.”

Chris Baker said nothing; he still had his beer bottle pressed to his lips, staring off into some blissful distance.

“Where’s Charlie now?” I asked.

“Oh, he’s already back in Dallas,” Chris said. “My parents didn’t want to leave him here another night to get into trouble with a going-away party. He’s withdrawing for the semester. My dad’s coming in this weekend to clear out his stuff.”

“Has to be tough,” I said.

Chris shrugged. “You know, he was always one of those kids with a little bit of an edge. I was always the good one, and he was always the ones teachers were saying should be more like me. And I always thought I’d have liked to be more like him, you know? Like some sort of combination of us. Like a reined-in version. Responsible but still able to let loose.”

“You’re fun. You’re going to be the president of Iota Chi, and that’s not something they give to losers, you know?”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant,” he replied. “I just hate being around people I don’t know, and I just freeze up, and I hate that I do, but I do it anyway. And I know that totally limits my ability to expand my social circles.” He paused, as if he was debating whether or not he should go to a deeper level, but he did: “Especially when it comes to girls.”

“You’re doing fine,” I said, reproachfully. “It doesn’t matter how often you have sex. Really.”

He narrowed his eyes, and I immediately regretted saying it, because even though Chris Baker’s virginity was such a topic of conversation--mostly behind his back--it was not really a topic that was breached around him. For obvious reasons. Now that I had, I realized that maybe Baker hadn’t realized it was common knowledge, that he wasn’t somehow projecting an image of sexual machismo. “Kevin’s an asshole for telling you that.”

“It wasn’t Kevin,” I said, although I couldn’t imagine that made the situation any better. “I mean, it just came up in passing. There wasn’t a broadcast.”

“Whatever,” he said. “Yeah, I bomb with women. Big surprise there.”

“You know we all love you anyway.”

Chris Baker was still staring off into the distance, but less wistfully now; his face was suddenly resolute. “This is my year. Even if it’s someone gross like Marci Linden.”

“Don’t slum,” I said, with a smile. “You don’t want the first lay to be some ugly bitch, because then you’ll have to tell that story over and over again.”

My first time was with Patrick Sullivan, and that still seemed weird to think about. Weird to think that Patrick, largely straight Patrick, Annie Rue’s dutiful boyfriend, Iota Chi fraternity man, my roommate, my friend, was the first guy I’d gotten naked with.

Weird. It seemed like an eternity ago.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Well, now that secret’s out in the open, isn’t it.”

All I could offer was a smile: “And see how not big of a deal it is?” He smiled thinly, and then opened his mouth to say something else, but he hesitated. I felt like, right there, he was going to ask about me and Kevin, even though I had no idea if he even suspected about me and Kevin, but the very thought of being put on the spot panicked me, so I just quickly added, “I need to get laid, too. When’s the next mixer?”

“Psi Lambda,” he replied. “Three weeks.” He glanced over by the pool tables. “Should we get back to the group?”

Virtually all of Iota Chi had come out to celebrate the end of Old Bruno’s, but he meant our specific group, because Baker was right: hsi social circle generally consisted of the same small handful of people. Kevin Malley was playing pool against Brett Morton, cheered on by Veronica and Maddie, as Tommy and Dana were engulfed in a conversation that looked like there was a chance it would lead to sex in a couple hours. And I wasn’t officially avoiding Kevin Malley, but we hadn’t talked at all since our fight on the quad, which of course was only ten hours ago but seemed like an epic amount of time for this sort of crisis to fester.

And what could I say, to Baker, to anyone, but yes? So I nodded, and we headed back over to the pool tables. We got there just as the pool game ended, and luckily, Kevin didn’t seem to want to engage me in conversation either: he was, like he was doing when Baker first broke the news to me about Paris, intentionally avoiding making eye contact with me.

So I turned to Patrick, who was standing by the bar, trying to order a drink.

“Where’s Annie?” I asked, sidling up to the bar next to him.

Patrick shrugged. “Studying. She has a statistics midterm tomorrow.”

“I thought you two had statistics together,” I said.

“We do,” he replied. He didn’t say anything else on the topic. “Do you like Annie?”

It was a loaded question. I didn’t know Annie. Our relationship hadn’t developed very far beyond small talk, and only in that awkward window when we were both hanging around Patrick, usually in a group setting. What I knew about Annie: she was very pretty, she was a Tri-Gamma, Veronica and Michaela both spoke highly of her, and she was dating Patrick.

“I do,” I said. I lowered my voice: “Why? Are you thinking about, you know, again?”

The color went out of Patrick’s face, as he nervously glanced from side to side, but it was a crowded bar and no one we knew was standing even almost within earshot. And I hadn’t actually said anything.

“Oh, God, no,” Patrick replied. “That little proclivity could not be more over. This is specifically an Annie thing. I’m just not sure if it’s as much fun as it used to be. And there’s this smoking Delta Rho in my Spanish class that—well, I think we’re both flirting, but neither of really speak Spanish well enough.”

And I just thought of poor Annie Rue, in some study lounge by herself, slaving over statistics when her boyfriend was out drinking across the planet. And, at that moment, I caught Kevin, walking away from his group by the pool tables and over to the jukebox. So I told Patrick, “Look, you care about Annie. Sometimes relationships take work. But you should make it work.”

“I mean, I do love her,” he said. “Just, you know, it’s been a year, and sometimes things just feel very settled. And that’s a good thing, but it’s sometimes not a good thing.” And maybe I was laying it on a little thick, because he smiled, and said a very pointed: “So how are things with you?”

Kevin was still at the jukebox. “Fine,” I told Patrick. I glanced around, but again, no one within earshot of us. “Someone’s considering studying abroad next semester. Paris.”

I did not have to emote for Patrick to get the message. “Ohhh,” he said, his voice low and drawn out. “Shit. I’m sorry. Are you two, you know?” He sliced his index finger along his throat.

“No,” I said. “I mean, Someone doesn’t want to. I don’t want to either.”

“Oh,” Patrick said. He thought for a moment. “So, what, you’re looking for a hall pass or something? Afraid Someone’s going to ask for one?”

“No,” I replied, coldly, “it’s nothing like that, it’s nothing about sex. I just, I don’t know. It’d be weird to be here without him--Someone.”

“What were you just saying?” Patrick said. “‘Relationships require work? You should make it work if you care about Someone? Man up?’”

“You’re taking liberties with what I said,” I told him.

“Look,” he said. “You’ve officially spent one night at Someone’s, and Someone wasn’t even there for most of it. So you pass out there drunk sometimes, and you get laid fairly on the regular, though not as much as me and Annie, but other than that, what? You see Someone a couple times a week in a crowd, maybe go to dinner once a week? You’re with us way more than you’re with Kevin.”

I exhaled at the mention of his name, but Patrick seemed unconcerned, though he did return to pronouns.

“Look,” he said. “Have you been in a relationship before? Other than with Someone?”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit, I was being rhetorical,” Patrick replied. “You and I both know that chick from your high school was not a relationship. Anyway, look, I’ve been in a lot of relationships before, and let me tell you: when the girl breaches a topic this major, it’s because she really wants it. And the thing about girls is if they want something, they’re going to get it, or they’re going to hold it over your head until the end of days. And you can pick a fight about it, and mortally wound your relationship because you’ll be forever know as the guy who shat all over their dream, or you can suck it up and trust that everything will work out in the end. Especially if Someone is going out of the way to tell you that this isn’t the end of the relationship, that you guys are going to do whatever you can to make it work.”

Patrick had a way of cutting through the bullshit. Or, at the very least, he was the one person who knew about me and Kevin, the one person I was able to talk to this about without resorting to subterfuge like I did with Michaela. But he did have a point, because what had Kevin told me? That he wasn’t going to go unless it meant the end of us, that I was worth sticking around for, waiting for?

“Just go for spring break or something,” Patrick said. “Lord knows Senator and Mrs. Becker can afford it. Think about it this way: we’ll get back to school at the end of January, and then we have rush, and then we have pledging, and then we have Mardi Gras. Then boom, spring break, midterms, initiation, finals, and then you’re done.”

He paused, then smiled. “Wait, won’t you technically be a junior by credit hours next semester? Why don’t you just go with him?”

I had not even contemplated the idea that I could go with him. I was drunk by this portion of the night, but it seemed like an idea. It seemed like a good idea.

Because it was so easy, wasn’t it? And solved everything? That he could go to Paris, and I could go to Paris, and we could be together in Paris, and I thought about New York. Our two days together in New York, and how perfect it was: how open we were, and how there was no drama, and no posturing, and no side doors, and no frenetic lies, and maybe there was a chance we could start over. That we could do that sort of thing in Paris.

Because we could, couldn’t we?

Out of the corner of my eye, the jukebox lit up, and I heard the first few intro chimes of music, and I looked back to Kevin, who gave me a knowing smile from across the bar, before he turned back to his conversation with Tommy and Veronica. And then Madonna started singing. “Borderline,” the song I caught Kevin singing in the shower the first time we hooked up. Back when we were both “shy,” and both timid, and both completely unaware that whatever it was then would turn into whatever it was now.

It was the most romantic moment of my life. And I realized how badly I didn’t want to lose Kevin Malley.

 

“I just,” Kevin whispered, between kisses, “I just don’t want.” Kiss. “You to think.” Kiss. “That any of this is.” Kiss again. “About us.”

I was horizontal on his bed, in the dark room, my hands both resting on the back of his head, pulling him in for more, and I said, “I know.” He kissed me again. “I’m sorry.” “For being.” “Such an asshole.”

Kevin stopped his kisses, and I could see his bright smile glowing just inches from my face. “You weren’t the asshole. I know it’s a big thing. But I think it could be okay. And if it isn’t okay, then I won’t go. I told you. I’d rather have you than Paris, and if I have to decide between the two, it’s you. No contest.”

He rolled over, so he was laying next to me on the bed.

I didn’t say anything for a little bit. I knew he wasn’t going to ask me to make a decision right then and there, but I wasn’t going to anyway. I wasn’t going to tell him that I didn’t want him to go, but that if he did want to go, maybe I could go to, and I wasn’t going to ruin the romance of this moment with logistics. Instead, I put my hand on the side of his head, and rubbed the edge of his forehead.

“I was thinking,” I told him, as our eyes locked on each other, “about what you said last night.”

Kevin seemed genuinely confused, as he quickly tried to recall what conversations we had in this exceptionally long twenty-four hours. “What did I say last night?”

“You know,” I said. And I thought that this was the moment to pivot to something else, some other topic, any other topic, but I didn’t, and I said it: “You know, the L-word.”

There was a long pause, as Kevin’s mouth upturned.

“Oh,” he said. “That. It slipped.”

“So,” I said. “You don’t?”

“I didn’t say I don’t,” he replied. “I said it slipped.”

“So you’re saying you do?”

“I didn’t say I do either,” he replied. “The slippage of the L-word has nothing to do with whether or not I feel the L-word towards you.”

“But do you?”

He thought for a second. “I do,” he said, slowly. “That word. You.”

I propped myself up on one of my elbows. “You can’t even say it!”

“Fine,” he said, putting his hand on my bicep. “I’ll say it. I love you, Peter Adam Becker.”

“Triple-naming me?”

“Why not,” he said. “Maybe I love all three.” He paused, and he was still smiling, the lightness that came with saying this sort of thing, which I thought would be more anxiety-ridden and more seismic than it was, but it wasn’t. “Customarily, this is where you’d say, ‘I love you too, Kevin,’ or else it becomes really awkward.”

The words were caught in my throat, and I didn’t exactly know why. “I love you, Kevin Qantas Malley,” I told him. “I do.”

He smirked. “You do know my actual middle name though, right?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I know your actual middle name.”

He paused for a second, then darted his eyes back at me with suspicion. “What is it?”

“Michael,” I said. “Kevin Michael Malley. After your dad.”

“Damn,” he replied. “I thought I had you there.” He paused. “I love you. Wow.” He kissed me. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”