Jilted

by Lilah Suzanne

  Carter snorts. “No. If anything, you should be worried about Paige hurting you.” Eli laughs, Carter doesn’t.

  “Well, I’m pretty tough. Don’t worry about me.” Eli’s expression seems to harden, a lightning quick shift in his so far happy-go-lucky demeanor. He glances inside, where Paige is screaming at the TV, and his face softens further. “I like that she’s… very honest. It means I can be honest. We know what we’re getting into and how we feel, right away, no hiding. Makes things easier.”

  It’s a concept Carter is unable to relate to. “Right,” he says.

  Eli rubs at his scruffy chin, picks his hat up, and turns it backward. He seems to be working up to saying something in particular. “You know, I moved out here right after I transitioned. I wanted a fresh start, I guess. I didn’t really know just how lonely I’d be. I thought about giving up and going home every day for months even though it wasn’t a healthy place for me to be.”

  Carter looks away. Paige has been talking about him to Eli. Of course she has. He doesn’t know what Eli’s angle is here, other than to butter Carter up in order to get close to his sister, or do her bidding more likely, but it’s not necessary. He and Paige don’t have that kind of relationship. “You don’t need to worry about me, either,” Carter says.

  A plane flies overhead, and they watch as its lights blink a path across the night sky. Inside, everyone cheers; something happened in the game that makes Eli glance back. Carter wishes he would just go, as he clearly wants to, so Carter can slip out unnoticed. He is trying though, for whatever reason, so Carter can try a little, too, he guesses.

  “When did you start to feel like you should be here?” Carter asks. “Because I am securely in the regretting-it-every-day stage.”

  Eli’s eyelids are heavy, and it takes a second for him to drift out of whatever daydream he was zoned out on. “Hmm. It was gradual. Sold some art. Met Link. Sold some more art. Met some more people. Found a community and a life and… it took a while. Starting over is fucking hard.” His nose wrinkles. “Does it sound totally dumb if I say I had to find myself before I could find other people?”

  Carter looks over the top of his head and says, unconvincingly. “No…”

  Eli laughs. “Well, it’s true. Put that shit on a motivational poster.”

  Carter’s mouth twitches. “Over a picture of the beach at sunset.”

  “Exactly, yes.” Eli pushes off from the railing and scoops up the glass pipe and lighter on his way toward the door. “I get it. Link’s thing with you.”

  He slips back inside before Carter can clarify what he means by “thing” and if it’s good or bad. Why didn’t he get stoned? What would stoned Carter do? If he were more like Paige, he would be honest with Link and tell them that he hasn’t gone a single day without wondering how Link is—without missing them—and that he is incredibly confused about where he stands.

  He just told himself to be more like Paige. Is this rock bottom?

  He and Link catch each other’s eyes across the room. Carter panics, bolts for the door and speed-walks down the corridor outside. Well, at least he knows now that stoned Carter and sober Carter both have the same instincts when it comes to flight or fight. Flight wins every time.

  Twenty-two

  Carter waits for the elevator to arrive on the tenth floor with his arms crossed and fingers tapping his elbows impatiently. This is stupid. He’s being stupid. He can occupy the same space as Link without making such a thing of it, or at least he can with the buffer of a group of people and a basketball game to get in between. And wine. Wine helps. If Paige and Eli are whatever they are, it’s likely he and Link will run into each other again if Carter does stay in New Orleans, and he’ll have to figure out a way to be around Link without being so weird.

  The elevator arrives; Carter steps forward, then back, then forward again. He groans at himself and turns around. The elevator door closes behind him. Carter runs right into someone.

  “Oh, sorry—oh.” Carter stumbles back, flushing with embarrassment.

  “Hi,” Link says.

  “Hey. Hi.” Carter flattens his hair and spins back to face the closed elevator door. He whistles for some reason. He stares so hard at the shiny metal door he could bore holes through it. In his peripheral vision, he can see Link swaying slightly back and forth, staring up at the ceiling. Finally, there’s a ding, and the doors slide open, and, naturally, no one else is inside. Carter steps on and turns to face front. Link does the same, on the far side of the elevator. Carter catches a whiff of coconut; it tugs at his belly. He takes a breath. “You leaving?”

  “Mm. Yep. I am,” Link says. “You?”

  Carter nods. “Yeah.”

  They’re saved from the next stretch of uncomfortable silence when the elevator stops on the ninth floor to pick up a person who is mid-phone conversation and stands between the two of them while talking loudly to someone.

  “Yeah, I’m getting off now,” the new elevator occupant says. “Well, I very much look forward to meeting your poodle.” They step off. The doors close. Link and Carter make eye contact across the elevator and snicker at the same time. The moment doesn’t resolve the tension completely, but Carter relaxes from his closed-off body language and Link leans back against the wall a little closer to Carter instead of standing stiffly in the corner.

  “Carter, about the way I left—”

  The elevator stops again, and a group files in, large enough to crowd Link and him into opposite corners. Several conversations layered on top of each other fill the space. Carter catches fleeting glimpses of Link through the crowd. When the group exits at the lobby, Carter moves to follow, since he’s parked on the street. But Link doesn’t get out, so he doesn’t. The doors close, and Carter turns to tell Link to not worry about what happened before, it’s fine, old news.

  Link speaks first, saying in a rush, “I shouldn’t have left the way I did. It was an awful thing to do to you, and it was not your fault. It was me being a coward. I’m sorry. I totally understand if you want nothing to do with me.” The elevator doors open on an underground garage lit by jumping fluorescent bulbs and sweeping headlights. Carter doesn’t get a chance to respond. “This is my stop,” Link says, sadness weighing their shoulders and voice. “It was really good to see you, Carter. Really. I hope you find what you’re looking for here.” When they step off, Carter follows, without deciding to. His legs move, his heart thumps, his stomach twists.

  When he confronted Matthew at the condo, it had been two hurt people lashing out at each other. Matthew was defensive, laying the blame at Carter’s feet and trying to center his own feelings by using Carter’s forgiveness to make himself feel better. And Carter didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Carter, wounded, wanted to wound. It’s the same way his family deals with conflict, the blueprint for every relationship he’s ever had. That’s not what Link is doing, though, their apology was honest, and so Carter can be honest too.

  Starting over is fucking hard.

  “I’m sorry as well,” Carter calls out. A few feet away, Link stops. “I’m not great about being open with my feelings.” To Link’s unsurprised reaction he adds, “You may have noticed.”

  Link’s full lips quirk at the corners. “Maybe a little.” Even in the harsh, haunting lights of the parking garage, Link takes Carter’s breath away. What Carter felt was real, but it was messy, and he needs to start from there.

  “There was so much I wanted say, but I didn’t know how,” Link starts.

  Carter nods. “I know. Me either. We were both in this really bizarre place; we were hurt and pretending and—I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had to end a fake marriage before. I think we were bound to mess it up.”

  Link’s smile stretches wider. “Fake divorce, I guess.”

  “Yes. Well, in that case,” Carter says, “I’d like to request primary custody of the beignets.”<
br />
  Link’s face twists into outrage. They set their hands saucily on their hips. “Uh. No way. You’ll be hearing from my fake lawyer, mister.” It’s so nice, being able to joke around with Link again. It’s nice to feel comfortable again, at least. Link gestures at a tiny, boxy red car at the end of the row. “Did you need a ride?”

  He could use a ride, instead of leaving Paige to find a way home, but things feel too tentative right now, and it’s best to leave on this first small step forward. “I should probably see what Paige wants to do,” Carter says. “Unless she’s staying the night.” He involuntarily makes a face that Link chuckles at. Carter shakes his head, shooing that thought away. “I’ll let her know I’m leaving and to call for a pickup. It’s fine.”

  Link asks if he’s sure, and Carter says that he is, and Link says they’d like to see him again sometime, and Carter says sure. And then it’s awkward again when they both say goodbye and end up walking in the same direction because the street exit is next to Link’s car. Link leans against the driver’s side door and says, “Well.”

  Carter lifts to his toes and replies, “Well.”

  Link reaches out for a handshake. “See you around?”

  “Mmhmm.” Carter nods and takes Link’s hand, so soft, those long fingers wrapped around Carter’s palm that have been wrapped around other things on his body. Carter has a very ill-timed flashback. He’s staring at Link’s hand in his, staring in a way no one should be staring at a hand. He snaps his attention to Link’s eyes, which are staring rather blatantly at Carter’s lips. “I should… go…” Carter makes no motion to leave.

  “Okay.” Link says, eyes unfocused, licking across their lips.

  They both move at the same time, meeting in the middle, crashing into each other, mouths meeting first in a hard kiss. Link’s hands move up to cup Carter’s face, and Carter lifts one hand to tangle in Link’s long, thick hair and the other to curve around the dip of their waist. The kiss is messy and demanding and desperate. Carter captures Link’s bottom lip between his own too eagerly, biting down instead of scraping his teeth lightly across as he’d meant to, and Link whimpers, surging suddenly against him, catching Carter off guard, and sending them both tripping backward. They bang against a car, tripping the alarm, then spring apart at the loud wailing.

  Carter heaves a breath.

  Link delicately wipes their slick, bitten-red mouth.

  Carter clears his throat and smooths his shirt.

  “Okay, well. ‘Night,” Link says.

  “Yep. Yeah. Uh. Drive safe.” Carter shoves his hands in his pockets and walks from the parking garage, slightly hunched over, lips tingling, heart pounding. That happened.

  That was not supposed to happen.

  Twenty-three

  Paige doesn’t return until early the next morning. She pads upstairs and peeks into Carter’s room. He’s cross-legged, back propped against the wall, making one last run through a blueprint to ensure all the measurements are accurate and the codes all legal so construction can begin. After this, he’ll have to tell his firm that he isn’t coming back. And after that he’ll have to find a new job.

  “Good morning,” he says.

  The upstairs is flush with sunlight in the mornings, and Paige stops in a slanted beam of it. She’s wearing the same thing she was last night, only much more disheveled.

  “Morning.”

  She smiles. Carter hasn’t stopped smiling since last night. “Sorry for ditching you. Were you able to get home okay?”

  Paige squints, puzzled. “Obviously I did. Why do you look so happy, what’s your angle?” She looks above and around her, panicked. “Are there more spiders? Are you keeping me here until one drops on my head? Is there one on my head, Carter?” She frantically smacks at her head and spins around.

  “There’s no—” Carter sighs and goes back to his work. “I’m just in a good mood. Or I was. Anyway, thank you for making me go out last night. I could have done without the water torture and threats, but you were right. And I’m glad I went.”

  Paige’s head tilts, and she squints at him again. Her hair was already a mess when she came in. And after the spider panic, it’s standing up in frizzy tufts. He wants to make fun of her, but he’s trying to move past that.

  “You’re welcome or whatever,” Paige finally says. “I’m gonna change.”

  As she thumps around in the bathroom, Carter congratulates himself on having an entirely pleasant interaction with his sister. Things can be different for him.

  “By the way,” Paige sticks her head out of the other bedroom to yell across the hall. “I heard about your makeout in the parking garage. Classy.”

  Carter says nothing, and takes out his phone to snap a picture of her hair in its disastrous state. He holds up the picture. “I’m posting this all over social media.”

  She scowls. “Like you even know how.”

  “Suit yourself,” Carter says, and goes back to his work. After wrestling for his phone for a while, Carter agrees to delete the picture if she goes and gets breakfast. It’s hardly even a win because Carter is paying for it, but she looks put out enough to satisfy him.

  They eat biscuits and eggs with little cartons of orange juice in the camping chairs set up in the living room. It’s been stripped to the original wood floors and plaster walls; both are desperately in need of refurbishing before he brings in any furniture. “Maybe I’ll start with a table,” Carter says. Greasy wax paper is spread across his knees to catch biscuit crumbs.

  “Finally decided what to do with the place?” Paige sits cross-legged, not bothering to worry about getting crumbs everywhere as she eats with one hand and texts with the other.

  “Not really.” In his time here so far, what Carter keeps coming back to is how complex New Orleans is, how it exists at the intersection of so many things that shouldn’t work, but somehow do. “Eclectic, I think.” And suddenly he knows just the place to start.

  Paige has been to Eli and Link’s studio, so she inputs the address to his phone after he asks her to write it on a piece of paper and she rolls her eyes, asking him to “Please join us in the twenty-first century, Carter.”

  The studio is in a big warehouse next to a noisy train overpass and surrounded by a large gravel-filled lot. Metal sculptures line the front, and interesting graffiti covers the exterior walls. Carter didn’t really know what to expect of a metalworking studio—a showroom? Link at a desk with a little soldering tool? He enters the wide-open bay door, and whatever expectations he may have had, Carter is not at all prepared for Link’s long, nimble form in black coveralls and a black space-agey helmet with a full-face mask, perched on a stepladder, holding a blowtorch, and blasting fire at what looks like gaping fanged jaws.

  It’s the sexiest thing Carter has ever seen.

  “Carter Jacob!” Link carefully puts the blowtorch down and pushes the mask up, revealing cheeks glowing red from the heat and dewy skin. Their hair is pulled back and damply matted. A bead of sweat trails down a tendon in their neck. Oh god. Link hops down from the ladder and jogs over, tugging off thick yellow gloves. “What are you doing here?”

  “I…” Did he come here to be turned on by a sweaty Link wielding fire like a sexy wizard? No, that can’t be right. “Oh. I came to commission something from you.”

  Link sends him a flirty look. “Oh?”

  “Um.” Carter forgets again why he came. “Oh. Yes! A table.”

  “Ah.” Link pouts a bit at that, then lifts a shoulder, and removes the protective helmet entirely, setting it on a scorched wooden counter littered with small welding tools, twists of coil and wire, and seemingly random hardware. “Well then, let’s make you a table.”

  Link leads the way to a back office, passing several works in progress, some with forms Carter can recognize, some that just look like twisted snarls of metal. The back half of the warehouse appears to be
Eli’s space, with an open kiln that is currently cold, various clamps and rugged metal shears and other unfamiliar tools, a spinning work wheel, and clear glass tubes in a variety of sizes and colors.

  “No Eli today?” Carter says, curious but much more interested in the slinky stride of Link walking in front of him.

  “He’s out delivering to some stores that stock his pieces.” Link sweeps out a hand in an after you gesture. Carter goes first into the cramped office.

  “That’s nice for him.”

  “It is,” Link agrees, sitting at a desk made from metal pipes and a thick, trapezoidal sheet of aluminum that looks almost like an airplane wing. “Eli has worked really hard to be where he is. Now, what can I do to you—” Link blushes. “I mean. Do for you.”

  Carter looks at his hands, trying to hide a grin. The office is in a dark, dingy corner, yet the space is bright and inviting. “I don’t have anything in mind. I trust your artistic vision.” He looks up from beneath his eyelashes and confesses, “I mostly just wanted to see you,” because now he knows Link is more than okay with him being here, and he’s trying to be more honest. Carter can’t resist the hope that he and Link can fall back into step.

  “Just when I think you can’t get any sweeter,” Link closes the sketchbook they’d just opened. “Well, I have some ideas for your table, but right now, I have something else I’d like to do.”

  “Oh.” Carter stands. Jeez, he just dropped into Link’s workplace in the middle of the workday without warning, demanding Link see him and make something for him. “Sorry. I’ll go. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” There’s probably a waiting list for Link’s work, as talented as they are.

  “Carter.” Link holds out a hand to Carter, laughing. “Come with me.”

  Twenty-four

  Together they clang up a metal staircase to a closed-off loft space above the office. Link opens a door, then tugs their hair loose and unzips the top half of their protective coveralls, tying the sleeves around their waist to reveal a thin, tight tank top underneath. “Oh, wow,” Carter says, eyes wide and mouth parted. “Gosh, I love the use of the existing steel I-beams to create divisions in the space.” The loft is an open L-shape, tucked in a corner of the warehouse; it was probably a space for machinery or control panels in the warehouse’s original iteration.