Playing Along

by Louisa Keller

  “You stopped responding to my texts and calls,” I said, feeling pathetic. “I thought…well at first I thought I had fucked up somehow. But then I started worrying about you, and I ended up getting in touch with one of your roommates. Leo? He told me what happened and I…oh god, I swear I’m not a creep, Dom. I know I haven’t been in your life for very long, and I know that we haven’t talked about what our relationship is, but when I heard what had happened, I needed to be with you. I needed to support you. And so I’m here, to help you in any way I can.”

  Dom just blinked at me slowly.

  “I’m so sorry if this is an intrusion,” I rushed to add. “If you want me to go I can, of course, I can leave you alone and never bother you again. Fuck, you must think—”

  “Smith,” he said, and it sounded almost reverent.

  “Yeah?” I gulped.

  “You flew to New York? For me?”

  “I, uh, yeah. But before you—”

  He cut me off, holding out a hand. “You came even though I stopped talking to you? Even though I didn’t ask you to?”

  “I did. Yeah, I totally did that. And I know that’s probably—”

  He shook his head, silencing me again. “Why?”

  I swallowed, staring him straight in the eye. God, he was so fucking beautiful.

  “I did it because I’m in love with you,” I said, trembling.

  Dom narrowed his eyes. “Say it again.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping to god that he wasn’t about to laugh in my face or call the cops or something.

  “I’m in love with you. I came here because I love you.” I opened my eyes. “I love you, Dom.”

  He nearly knocked me flat on my back in his haste to kiss me, pulling our bodies tight together and moaning as our lips met. I parted my lips and he dove in, wet and sloppy and absolutely fucking perfect. God, he was everything I wanted and more. And despite the fact we were both wrung out and exhausted and hadn’t bathed recently, it was the best fucking kiss of my entire life. I held him to me, cradling the man I was so gone for.

  I could’ve stayed there forever, just messily making out in his treehouse. But eventually he pulled back and his face was very serious.

  “Let me tell you what happened,” he said.

  “I know what happened,” I protested. “You don’t have to—”

  “Let me tell you the whole story.”

  15

  Dom

  It’s bizarre how life goes sometimes.

  It seems like the good and the bad always come at the same time. You can’t fully enjoy the good things because you’re also coping with the bad. Or, depending on how you look at it, you can’t get too caught up in the bad things because there’s also some good.

  That morning in the kitchen with Carson, eating Greek yoghurt and talking about phone sex, I was happy. Good things were happening. Things with Smith were looking up, I was spending time with my best friend, I had a roof over my head and food on the table.

  And then my mom’s obnoxious boyfriend called.

  Alistair and I had never gotten along, but we were both cordial because we didn’t want to stress out my mom. We both loved her, and that trumped any bad blood between us. Besides, my beef with him was on principle, not because of his personality or anything. I just found it annoying that he was ridiculously rich and hired people to do all of the stupid annoying tasks the rest of the human race has to do for themselves.

  Like, learn to iron a shirt, man.

  He didn’t like me because I had declined his offer to get me a job in his family business. As if I would make a good businessman.

  So up until that morning, our interactions had all been terse and overly polite for my mom’s sake. But then he called and told me that she had just had a very serious heart attack, and that the doctors didn’t know if she would make it through the night. I dropped the phone—I think Carson actually picked it up and asked Alistair some questions. I was just kind of sitting there, catatonic, dripping yoghurt onto my pants because at some point I knocked over the whole container.

  Carson was the one who looked up plane tickets and handed me a clean pair of khakis and packed my backpack. I was just kind of stumbling around, fraught with worry and desperate to be with my mom. I didn’t even notice where I dropped my phone—probably somewhere in my bedroom, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I got back to Seattle and dug around for it. By the time I landed in New York, my phone was dead back home, good for nothing except filling up with Smith’s voicemails.

  We didn’t even stop at Mom’s house, just headed straight to Mt. Sinai, where she was being treated. She was hooked up to all these tubes and monitors, lying very still and breathing shallowly. I probably spoke to her doctors, probably interrogated Alistair about her condition. But mostly I just sat with her, holding her hand and reading aloud to her and begging her not to leave me alone in this hostile world.

  Carson, to my surprise, maintained his stoic attitude. I had expected him to have some kind of breakdown upon getting to the hospital, expected it to bring up the horrible, thorny memories of the last time he sat at someone’s bedside waiting to see if she would survive.

  But Carson was strong, stronger than I ever could have expected. He brought me food, he sent me home to sleep and sat with Mom while I was away. He made polite small talk with Alistair, and convinced him not to fly his two adult sons to New York. Carson knew it would only make things harder for me and for Mom.

  On our fourth day in New York, the doctors said that Mom was strong enough to sustain the surgery that could potentially save her life. If she lived through the procedure, she would be in the clear. But her chances were around fifty-fifty, so they suggested that we prepare ourselves. Whatever the hell that means. How do you prepare yourself to lose your mother?

  So, they carted her off to an operating room and told us that it would take most of the day. Exhausted and expecting the worst, I went back to her house. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around with Alistair all day, waiting to hear if she had died on the table. I couldn’t watch Carson lose another person he loved. I couldn’t find out whether or not I was an orphan inside a damn hospital.

  So, I went to her house, and straight up the ladder we had constructed together. I spent the day in that treehouse, periodically checking the spare phone Alistair had given me, waiting for the worst news of my life.

  It didn’t occur to me to call Smith. I didn’t have his number memorized, didn’t have the energy to think of another way to contact him. Didn’t have the energy to risk being rejected on the same day that my mom lay on an operating table fighting for her life.

  And then, without warning, the man I was falling in love with appeared in my treehouse. He appeared before me, professing his love for me.

  See what I mean about the good and the bad?

  Love is arguably the best thing that can happen to a person.

  And death is arguably the worst.

  You don’t get the good without the bad, or the bad without the good. They can’t be isolated, because they are intrinsically tangled together.

  That day was the best and worst of my life.

  16

  Smith

  “Oh, Dom,” I said, reaching out to take his hand in mine as he finished his story. “Tell me what I can do to make this better for you.”

  I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth that they were idiotic. There’s no way to make it better when someone’s waiting to hear if their mom is dead. But before I could start beating myself up about it, Dom squeezed my hand and managed this little half-smile.

  “Just having you here, knowing you came all this way to be with me…nothing really helps, but that’s as close as anyone could get. So, thank you, Smith. It means so much to me that you’re here.”

  I nodded, suddenly exhausted by the days behind me and those in front of me. Whatever happened with Dom’s mom, we were in for an emotional rollercoaster. And I had arrived like a knight in shining armo
r, except instead of riding in on a white horse I showed up hungover, unshowered, and uninvited.

  Some hero I was.

  “Do you know what time they expect to be done with the surgery?” I asked.

  Dom glanced down at the phone sitting beside him. “Should be in the next couple of hours, I think. Carson’s going to call as soon as they have news.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to be at the hospital? To see her as soon as it’s over?” I asked.

  Dom shook his head, his eyes filling with tears. “I can’t be there if she dies. I can’t—if I have to hear that news, I want to hear it here. In the treehouse she and I built.”

  “Okay,” I said gently. “Is it alright if I stay here with you?”

  He didn’t bother responding, just pulled me into a chaste kiss and then curled up in my lap, his face tucked into the crook of my neck and shoulder. I wouldn’t have known he was crying if I hadn’t felt the tears slowly sliding down into my shirt.

  We stayed there for a long time, tangled together. I alternated rubbing soothing circles into Dom’s back and murmuring sweet nothings in his ear. After what felt like an eternity, we shifted so that he was lying on his back with his head in my lap.

  Staring up at me unseeingly, he asked, “Will you read to me?”

  “What would you like me to read?” I asked, grabbing my phone.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said vaguely, “I just want to hear your voice.”

  I opened up my Kindle app and scrolled through the various novels and biographies that I had been meaning to read. My eyes caught on a book I had barely even thought about since childhood.

  “How about The Phantom Tollbooth?” I asked.

  Dom managed a small smile at that. “I used to love that book when I was a kid. I took it out of the library so many times that the librarian eventually told me to just keep it.”

  “Sounds like a winner,” I said fondly, enjoying the image of a tiny Dom pouring over the pages, tracing his fingers across the bizarre little illustrations.

  I launched into the story of Milo, a peculiar child who finds himself in a magic land full of puns and lovable characters. I wasn’t experienced at reading aloud, but it didn’t take long to fall into a steady rhythm. The words seemed to flow off my tongue, and I ran my free hand idly through Dom’s hair as I read. We were a third of the way through the book when I looked down to find him fast asleep, breathing shallowly and looking utterly peaceful.

  I took the opportunity to type out a message to Lola.

  >>SMITH: found him in new york, there was a family emergency

  She wrote back right away.

  >>LOLA: thank god

  >>LOLA: i hope everything is okay

  >>LOLA: are you with him?

  I looked down at Dom, considering how to answer that.

  >>SMITH: i’m not sure if everything’s gonna be okay

  >>SMITH: but i’m here with him regardless

  >>SMITH: thanks for giving me leo’s number

  Before Lola could respond, Dom’s temporary phone started to ring. He sat bolt upright, eyes wide and terrified. We both looked down at the phone, reading Carson’s name on the screen.

  “You gonna answer that?” I asked gently.

  Dom was frozen to the spot, shaking his head.

  “Do you want me to answer it?” I pressed.

  Ever so slowly, Dom nodded. His eyes were fixed on something in the distance, something only he could see.

  I picked up the phone with trembling hands and answered the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Dom? Is that you?” Carson asked, sounding confused.

  “This is Smith,” I said, wondering how the hell to explain. “I’m with Dom, he…he’s right here. He asked me to take the call.”

  “Where the hell did you come from?” Carson asked, almost as if he was speaking to himself. Then he cleared his throat and said, “His mom came through the surgery. She’s still in recovery but they think she’s in the clear. Can you guys get to the hospital? I know she’ll really want to see him when she wakes up from the anesthesia.”

  “Oh thank god,” I breathed, and Dom’s face broke into pure relief.

  “She’s okay?” he asked.

  “They think she’s going to be fine,” I said. “Do you want to talk to Carson?”

  Dom nodded, taking the phone from me with still-trembling fingers.

  “She’s really okay?” he asked. I heard the indistinct sound of Carson answering him, and then Dom said, “Thank you. God, thank you. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  Ending the call, he looked up at me.

  “I can’t believe it, I really thought she was going to die,” he breathed out.

  “She’s fine, she’s going to be totally fine,” I assured him. “The hard part is over, okay?”

  “I just—it doesn’t seem real, you know?” he asked.

  I drew him into a tight hug. “Let’s get you to the hospital so you can see for yourself.”

  A typical relationship unfolds as a sequence of events, each one leading to the next.

  Meet.

  Date.

  Sleep together.

  Fall in love.

  Meet friends and family.

  Commit to something long term.

  Support each other through good times and bad.

  Dom and I, naturally, did it all out of order. We met, we fell in love at first goddamn sight like some kind of rom com, we slept together, then we started to date. And before we ever had a chance to talk about labels, or how we were going to define our relationship, I was holding his hand through the toughest challenge of his life. An hour later, I was meeting his mom.

  Our relationship was, without a doubt, a hot fucking mess.

  Trust me, I was well aware.

  So, the idea of meeting Dom’s mom—especially when I looked like hell warmed over—was incredibly intimidating.

  “Listen, I’ll just wait in the waiting room. She doesn’t want some stranger in there, she wants you,” I insisted.

  “Smith,” said Dom, looking me right in the eye. He was pale and there were deep frown lines etched into his beautiful face. “If I let go of your hand, I’m going to keel over. You are the only thing keeping me going at this point, okay? I need you to come in there with me.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and thought it over.

  I’m not ready for this, I thought. But maybe nobody is ready for these situations. Maybe this is just how life goes.

  “You’re sure you want me in there with you?” I asked one last time.

  Dom pulled me into a tight hug. “I don’t want you in there. I need you in there. Please don’t make me go through any more of this day on my own.”

  And, well, when the man you love says something like that, you fucking listen.

  He knocked firmly on the door of his mom’s hospital room, and a guy who looked to be around our age opened it.

  “Dom,” he said, relief saturating his features. “Come in, man, she’s been asking for you.”

  The guy drew Dom into a tight hug and then his eyes landed on me. As Dom headed over to his mom’s bed, the guy looked me up and down, clearly assessing, and then held out his hand.

  “I’m Carson,” he said.

  “Smith,” I replied, shaking his hand firmly. “Thank you so much for being here for Dom.”

  “I should be saying that to you,” Carson said, waving my words away. “Sydney is family to me, I wouldn’t be anywhere else while she’s in danger. But you, you came here just for Dom. I really appreciate that.”

  I looked past him to Dom, perched on the edge of the hospital bed and talking seriously with his mom. She looked like someone who had just been through major surgery—exhausted, pale, in a bit of pain. But there was a determination in her gaze that reminded me of Dom. I could already tell that she was a firecracker…it made so much sense, too. Of course Dom was raised by a woman with spunk. I loved seeing another puzzle piece of his life fa
lling into place.

  “Dominic,” she said, loudly enough for me to hear, “who the hell is that handsome boy over by Carson?”

  “Oh,” said Dom, blushing deeply. “That’s my—I mean, that’s—”

  “I’m Smith,” I said, stepping forward and taking Dom by the hand. “Dom’s…uh…boyfriend?”

  “You sure about that?” she asked, cracking a wide grin. “You shouldn’t end a statement like that with a questions mark, kiddo.”

  It was my turn to blush. “We haven’t, uh, had a chance to talk about labels, but…I’m in love with your son. So…uh. Yeah.”

  Sydney raised her eyebrows and turned back to Dom. “Sounds like you’ve been holding out on me.”

  “Aw, mom, come on. I had other things on my mind this week. Like your heart?”

  “Well, my heart is going to keep on beating for another few decades at least, so can you spill the juicy gossip? I’ll die of boredom if I have to depend on tv for my daily dose of drama,” she said, her eyes alight with mischief.

  Dom rolled his eyes, but there was a smile firmly on his face.

  “We met while I was in Paris,” he said.

  “That was just last week. You say you’re in love?” Sydney asked, grinning. “That’s mighty fast. I don’t suppose—”

  “Don’t act all superior,” Dom shot back with a grin. “If memory serves, you’re the one who get knocked up from a one-night stand. You know things don’t always go according to plan.”

  She flicked him, laughing, and then narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Are you a good man?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” I said immediately, hoping to god I was right.

  “You’re close with your family?”

  “Not, uh, really,” I confessed. “They’re not big on the whole gay thing. Or the YourTuber thing.”

  She snorted. “They sound like tiresome people.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “That doesn’t upset you?”

  “What, that you’re not bothering to pander to people who don’t appreciate you?” she asked. “Why would that upset me? I want Dominic to be with someone who has strong values and sticks to them. Sometimes that means knowing when to set boundaries with family.”