“Carter? Are you back home?”
“No. I—” Carter stops pacing and presses his forehead against the cool cement wall. “Please tell me a rebound fling would be a terrible idea, particularly because they would also be having a rebound fling with me, and we’d just be making everything worse. Tell me that what I’m feeling isn’t real, it’s just loneliness.” He waits for her to yell about how stupid he’s being, how pathetic, how he’s making his life difficult for no reason, as usual.
“Well,” she says. “Like, a meaningless fling isn’t always a bad idea.”
Carter spins away from the wall. “Seriously? You choose this moment to experiment with moral ambiguity? And I didn’t say meaningless.” Whatever confusing feelings he has for Link, they most certainly are not meaningless.
“‘Experiment with moral ambiguity.’ God, you’re so dramatic.” That is more like her. “So, like, sometimes it can help you get over someone. Matthew left a void inside you, and so maybe someone can fill that void for a little while.”
Carter squeezes his eyes closed and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Paige, that’s really inappropriate, and I don’t appreciate your references to my sex life,” he says diplomatically, tamping down his outrage over her advice.
“Not like that! You’re disgusting!”
“No, you’re disgusting!”
His retort echoes in the hallway, and he recalls why he never talks to Paige about anything personal; suddenly he’s six years old again, having a slap fight with his sister in the back of the family SUV while Mom screams at them and swerves all over the road and Dad blanks out as if he’s ascended to a different realm where only he exists.
Carter pushes a hand through his hair, focuses on breathing in and out, and finger-combs his hairstyle neatly back into place. “Okay. I have to go. Um, thanks.” He starts to hang up, but Paige calls out his name just before he hits the button.
“I meant it. When I said I wanted you to be happy,” she says, when he puts the phone back to his ear. “So. Whatever. If this will make you happy, then I think you should go for it.”
Maybe, for the first time in her entire life, Paige is right.
Heart pounding, throat dry, Carter makes his way back to the room. If Paige really is right, then comforting each other physically could be exactly what they both need. What if they really could go ahead and get over Matthew and Jamie once and for all, together? Carter is attracted to Link and he’s pretty sure now that it’s not totally one-sided. He feels comfortable with Link, who is interesting and fun and charismatic, and whose genuine affection and flirtatiousness toward Carter is the only thing keeping his self-esteem from plunging into a free fall. So what if their relationship isn’t real? Maybe, for a little while, it could be.
Standing outside the room, Carter decides: He’ll propose it. He’ll be respectful. He’ll just float the idea out there, and if Link wants to, great. If not, also great. He opens to the door to find Link sprawled gracefully on the bed, arms open as if in invitation, mouth quirked into a smile. Urgent heat has already begun to pool in Carter’s belly.
His phone rings. Paige, to add her further two cents, naturally. With a sigh, he retrieves his phone from his pocket, intending to toss it into his suitcase. Instead he freezes with his arm stretched out, as if he’s afraid to bring the phone any closer.
Link sits up in alarm. “Carter? What is it? Are you okay?”
Carter blinks at them as if emerging from a trance, as if he accidentally got caught in the veil between reality and fantasy and fell right on his face back in reality.
“It’s Matthew.”
Nine
Link stands. The phone stops ringing, then starts again. Matthew’s name flashes onto the screen. The phone stops ringing. Matthew’s name disappears. Should Carter have blocked him? That seems petty. Of course, Carter will have to speak to him again at some point; they lived together, they at least have to figure out how to navigate that whole minefield. That must be what he wants.
“Are you gonna…” Link says, as Carter tosses the phone on top of a cable-knit sweater in his suitcase. Carter wipes damp hands on his corduroys, then shakes his head to clear it. What was he doing? He was going to proposition Link, that’s right. Because they’re both lonely castoffs and should fill each other’s voids or something. God. That Paige thought it was a good idea should have been his first clue that it is, in fact, a terrible one.
“Hey, are you hungry? I’m starving; let’s order room service.” Carter plops onto the bed and snags the receiver from the heavy, utilitarian hotel phone.
“Carter, are you okay?” Link swivels, eyebrows pulled low.
“Sure,” Carter says. He presses 2 for room service. “Burgers sound good?”
Link nods, then hauls a huge hardside suitcase onto the bed and removes various brightly colored bottles and tubes as Carter orders the food. Link stands and tugs off their long asymmetrical sweater to reveal a tight white T-shirt, then cranks up the heat.
“It’ll be forty-five minutes,” Carter announces, dropping the phone back into the cradle. He cocks his head at Link, who is now lining up tweezers and brushes, something that looks like a tiny green paint roller, and something else that looks like a tiny vacuum.
“Spa day,” Link says to Carter’s unasked but obvious question. “You need a spa day.” Carter allows himself to be led into the bathroom, where Link nudges him onto the toilet and unfurls a fluffy hotel towel. “You can take your sweater off,” Link encourages. Carter scoots awkwardly back, situating himself as well as one possibly can on a closed toilet seat.
“Is that really necessary?” Carter hedges.
Link flaps the towel in the air like a matador’s cape. “It’s nothing I haven’t already seen, Carter Jacob, but suit yourself.”
It’s not a matter of having seen it before, it’s how far Carter allowed himself to think about Link like that and how far he now has to yank himself back from the brink. Draping the towel over Carter’s sweater, Link sets to work, picking up the paint roller thing first.
“What is that?”
Link holds it up, then presses it to Carter’s cheek, rolling it up and down; it’s cool and smooth and strange. “This is a jade facial roller. Improves circulation and reduces puffiness.”
Carter touches his face, worried now. “Am I too puffy?”
“We all are, Carter,” Link answers tartly. “We all are.”
The proximity is awkward and easy at the same time, too much and not enough: Link’s body close to his, Link touching his face and shoulders and smiling down at him. Yet the easy camaraderie returns, and Carter is able to push Matthew’s intrusion and his own near-indiscretion down and away.
“You ever had a spa day before?” Link massages moisturizer into Carter’s face and then his hands.
Carter swallows when Link’s fingers pull at his. He closes his eyes. “Yes, sort of. When my sister can’t find anyone else to go she’ll take me to get a manicure.”
Link mmhmms, turning Carter’s hand over to rub circles into his palm. It sends little zaps of pleasure up Carter’s arm. “What’s she like?”
“Paige? She’s—” How to describe Paige? Pushy? Judgmental? Opinionated? Mean? “Let’s say, she’s very forthcoming.”
“Interesting.” Link snaps open a tube and squeezes green goop onto the vacuum thing, which seems to be an exfoliator. It buzzes and spins on Carter’s cheek.
“Why is that interesting?”
“Well,” Link says, drawing the word out slowly. “I wouldn’t really describe you as forthcoming, so I think it’s interesting that your sister would be.” Link moves the exfoliating tool to Carter’s chin, making it difficult for him to respond, not that he knows what to say. Carter is quieter, perhaps not as bluntly and loudly in touch with his feelings as Paige. He’s always thought of his reticence as a good thing, a sign of maturi
ty that Paige doesn’t possess. But if he held back his true self and real feelings in his relationship, then what chance did he and Matthew really have? It’s a lot to unpack for a spa day.
Link wipes off the green goo, then spreads some other goo that dries and tightens as a mask on Carter’s skin. “I don’t have siblings,” Link says, “that I know of.”
“Okay, you have got to share more details of your childhood,” Carter says, though it’s difficult to move his mouth.
“Well.” Link flicks their fingers in a casual mock-dismissal. “My mother is sort of the last hanger-on of a hippie movement that ended a couple decades before she got there. She’s very… open. And my father works as a road tech for touring musicians, so spending time with him meant being gone somewhere, always moving. We’re not very close; sometimes it feels like I don’t really know him.” Link twists the cap back onto the tube of green goo, mouth pressing into a flat line. “My folks were together but not, if that makes sense.”
Link peels the mask away, leaning close to inspect whatever it was supposed to do to Carter’s face. They lean back, seemingly satisfied, and Carter scrunches his cheeks and nose and opens and closes his mouth. His skin does feel very fresh.
“Can I shape your eyebrows?” Link asks, snapping tweezers in the air. When Carter nods, they lean in very close, mouth level with Carter’s eyes, shining lips, plump and pulled into a pout as Link concentrates, softly parted and—Carter forces his gaze away to his own knees.
“I had a great childhood, don’t get me wrong. It was unusual, but—” Link cups one side of Carter’s face so their fingers are around his jaw and their thumb presses his temple. With the other hand, they yank. Carter winces, closing his eyes. Ow.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Link chides, then continues their story. “I couldn’t have asked for better parents to be there for me as this artsy, nonbinary, pansexual queer kid, right? I was always accepted and respected. I never lacked for adults who took me seriously and encouraged me and taught me weird card games. I’ve been all over the U.S. and other parts of the world. Still, there were days I wished for a normal life with a regular, normal family.”
Carter winces with every yank of an eyebrow hair. “I—ow—I—mmh—had a ‘normal, regular’ family, and I would have traded places with you in a heartbeat.” All his family cares about is appearing as regular and normal as possible, maintaining the status quo, and keeping up with the Joneses and all that nonsense, and it’s made them all miserable.
“I wasn’t allowed to watch TV or play video games,” Link says.
Carter pretends to shudder. “Never mind.”
Link laughs, then savagely yanks another eyebrow hair. “Lately, especially, I’ve really craved stability. I settled where my roots are and I just really, really wanted someone to share that with. I want a partner. I want commitment. I want someone there for all the regular, boring days and—” Link sets the tweezers onto the counter with a clack. “I want something I guess I can’t really have.”
Link is still standing close, so close. Their legs are between Carter’s open legs, and one hand still cradles Carter’s face; their eyelids are heavy, and their tongue is wetting their bottom lip. Carter swelters under the towel with his thick sweater still on. He should have taken it off. Link’s shirt is so transparent Carter can see their dark nipples through the fabric. Being with Link, like that, would be a bad idea. Right?
“Carter, I want—”
Carter’s phone rings from the hallway. Probably Matthew again. As Carter looks toward it, considering whether to pick up, Link packs up the spa day and leaves the bathroom. He wasn’t going to answer, he’s pretty sure.
What was it that Link wanted? What does Matthew want? And most confusing of all, what does Carter want from either of them?
Ten
Carter and Link eat their burgers in silence at opposite ends of the tiny room. Matthew’s phone calls have punctured their cozy little bubble, whether or not Carter speaks to him again. He still exists, and that’s enough.
Carter has to know. “Has Jamie called you?”
Link’s head shakes no. Is it better, Carter wonders, being completely forgotten so easily? Or is the repeated and sudden reminder of being left behind the worse scenario?
“I’m taking a depression nap,” Link announces, so Carter, sitting cross-legged on a far corner of the bed, watches the TV on mute and with closed captions on. Two episodes of This Old House later, Carter feels his own depression nap coming on, tips over onto his side, and blinks drowsily as the host explains the many uses of C-clamps in home remodeling.
“Gonna get some C-clamps,” Carter says to no one. He yawns and pulls the brown blanket around him.
He’s in and out of consciousness for another episode and a half, until Link gets up and makes too much noise in the bathroom, then comes out and turns the TV off and a light on.
“Hey.” Carter sits up and blinks against the glare. “I was watching that.”
Link sets on hand on a hip. “You were fast asleep.”
“No.” Carter shakes his head, rubs his eyes, blinks at the TV, and says in a sleepy voice, “I really wanted to see them replace that garage door opener.”
“I’m sure you did,” Link replies, grabbing Carter’s wrists and tugging him up, saying curtly, “You’re very adorable right now, but I need you to go change into something nice that is also machine washable and stain-resistant.”
Carter does as he’s told and doesn’t ask any follow up questions, because Link called him adorable and it makes him feel squirmy inside in good and bad ways and also because, given the haunted tour and an afternoon at a cemetery, he’s afraid to ask why he needs stain-resistant, machine washable clothes.
It’s still raining on the car ride to wherever they’re headed, and the already dark sky shifts darker, into evening. The usual vibrant and vivid city is cast in pallid, somber gray. Neither he nor Link, caught up in the heavy gray mood, speaks at all until the driver drops them off at the end of a narrow city block tightly packed with old brick buildings and a view of the Mississippi River.
“Dumping a body?” Carter guesses, scanning the area from beneath an awning.
Link squints at him, then opens a door leading to a steep staircase too narrow to go up side by side, so Link’s rather nice behind ends up right at Carter’s eye-level. Carter keeps his eyes trained resolutely on his shoes; he’s liable to trip on these stairs anyway. Before Matthew called, Carter might have joked flirtatiously about the current proximity of his face to Link’s behind, and Link might have arched a saucy eyebrow and flirtatiously joked back. It might have meant nothing, or it might have meant something, but it would have been a moment that belonged only to him and Link. Instead, they’ve both been reminded that they really are merely two people who have been cast aside and are still hung up on the ones who left them.
Upstairs is a bright, cheerful room with six chrome-topped kitchen islands that have single-burner cooktops and sinks, and a long front counter with six sets of bowls filled with cooking materials and ingredients.
“A cooking class?” Carter guesses, relieved that his clothes only need to resist sauce stains and not, say, blood.
Link nods and retrieves the bowl of needed items, and the instructor hands Carter two aprons with Sweetheart Cooking School embroidered on their fronts. It’s charming, Carter thinks, as he drapes the apron over his head and Link does the same, though the “a” in “heart” is a tomato, which makes it look as if it reads “Sweetheort.”
The rest of the class trickles in, takes their places, and puts on aprons, and the instructor waves and looks appropriately enthusiastic, saying in a strong Louisiana accent, “Hey everyone! Welcome to couples Cajun cooking!”
Couples? Stomach sinking, Carter looks around. At every station, he sees people holding hands or giving one another loving touches on arms or backs, soft smiles, and
sweet glances.
“Couples Cajun cooking?” Carter hisses. The instructor informs them they’re making gumbo and starting with something called a “roux.”
Link shrugs. “When we planned it, I thought it was a little touristy, and probably not authentic, but it was also expensive, so that’s something.”
“Not the—” Carter is interrupted by a whisking demonstration and then six whisks all going at once. One couple is even whisking together. “The couple thing, I meant.”
Link whisks and rolls their eyes and whisks faster. “I thought that would be obvious.” The instructor moves on—and then the class moves on—to chopping celery.
“Well, I wish you would have said,” Carter says, louder over the racket. “I could have mentally prepared myself.”
Link stops chopping and loudly replies, “It’s not like we have to make out in front of the entire class, Carter,” just as everyone else stops chopping and the room goes silent, waiting for further instruction. Eleven people turn in their direction. Carter wants to fling himself into the nearby river. Link smiles and says without missing a beat, “This isn’t that kind of class, right?” The class titters, and Link resumes chopping.
Carter was caught unawares, is all. And he’s still kind of sleepy. And he maybe has feelings for Link that are complicated by the fact that he was dumped by his fiancé and hasn’t let himself feel anything about that, let alone figure out what his feelings for Link might mean. “I’m sorry,” Carter says. He’s sorry for a lot of things lately.
“It’s fine,” Link says, accepting the apology with a frown and averted eyes. “I get caught up in my own head sometimes. I should have told you before we came here. Just mince the garlic, please.”
Carter minces garlic and takes over vegetable chopping duties while Link whisks the roux. Link, keeping a close eye on the color and texture of the mixture until it’s a smooth deep brown, looks comfortable and confident while cooking. Link takes it off the heat and whisks a little longer, before the instructor tells them to.
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