Avalon's Last Knight

by Jackson C. Garton

  It’s been nearly a week since Arthur told me how he feels. In fact, he hasn’t mentioned our conversation at all, but given how many times a day he texts me—a good morning text right after I wake up, a good night text right before I go to sleep and a bajillion texts in between—it has to have crossed his mind at least once or twice. I’m not complaining, though.

  The streets are already deserted because all but one shop is closed, and this town doesn’t know how to operate outside of the hours of eight a.m. and eight p.m. I allow Arthur to slowly run his hands up and down my arms. His touch sends waves of pleasure from one limb to the other. He looks me in the eye and says the same thing he’s been saying since the night of the party. “Come over tonight. I can always drive you home if want me to.”

  But I never go home. We’ve ended up on his futon instead, watching reruns of American Horror Story—Coven, a personal favorite—and we sort of fool around until I kick him out of the living room and send him to bed.

  “I’ve stayed on your futon for the past three nights,” I say. I’m not sure when things changed between us, but I have been trying to just go with the flow. “If this keeps up, you might as well just buy me a toothbrush and keep it in your bathroom.”

  “Okay,” Arthur blurts out, his answer instantaneous. I’d meant it as a joke, a jab at his insistence that we spend every waking hour together. “Done,” he says. “I’ve got a six-pack under the sink. You can have the green one.”

  “Arthur.”

  “What? I’m just sayin’. It’s yours if you want it.”

  Arthur traces my chin with his thumb and eventually finds his way to my mouth. He spreads my lips apart and slides the tip of his finger inside, gently caressing my tongue. The sensation is strong enough to bring me to my knees, so I plant my palms firmly on the side of the door and deliberately push away from him. He watches me do this, then reaches out, taking my wrists into his hands. I know by the way he’s breathing that he feels the same.

  Relief washes over me when Gwen pops her head out of the door, reducing a small fraction of our tension, and says, “Hey, guys! I’ll be another twenty minutes or so. We’ve still got to do the floors and take out the trash. I hope you don’t mind waiting.”

  Neither of us breaks eye contact, but I reply, “Yeah, that’s not a problem.”

  After a loud clank on some metal patio furniture behind me, Gwen says, “My new pack of tarot just arrived. You should give Arthur a reading. I bet he’ll be into this deck.”

  The door slams and it’s just the two of us again.

  “Do you like me, Lance?” Arthur asks. “Because I like you. A lot.”

  I don’t think ‘like’ is a strong enough word for how Arthur makes me feel. Not even the word ‘love’ seems adequate. When I don’t respond immediately, he lets go of my hands.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “I do. Very much.”

  Arthur opens the passenger side door and hops out of his truck. “Sometimes I want you so much I can’t stand it.” I’m not sure if he’s talking about love or sex, or both, and I’m too afraid to ask. “You’ve been doing this to me since the fucking ninth grade, man.”

  I don’t know where this sudden confession is coming from, or where he expects it to go.

  I think back to when I was a student helper, one of the first memories that I have of Arthur. He had already been tall—over six feet—when he was fourteen, and gangly, not like he is now. I don’t know where Arthur traded in his old model for this new one. Back then he had been all legs and arms—scrawny, not muscly.

  When Arthur had come into the room the first day, with chin-length flaxen hair and sporting an old pair of busted-out Vans, it had been hard to miss him. He had just moved from Indiana, right across the bridge from Louisville, to be closer to his mamaw, who hadn’t been doing so hot.

  I still remember the first interaction we had.

  We had been well into the school year, halfway through the first nine weeks, and I had been tasked with handing out papers. The last paper in my hand had been his, but I had never heard or seen his last name.

  When I’d read the paper, I’d nearly dropped it. Pendragon.

  ‘Your parents must really hate you,’ I’d said, handing the exam to him. ‘Are they really into King Arthur or something?’

  ‘No,’ he’d replied with a smile, his brown eyes twinkling under the florescent light. ‘Monty Python.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ I’d said, my British accent cringeworthy. ‘King of the Britons.’

  ‘Well, that, and my great-grandfather’s name was Arthur, I guess. I’m not sure if my family has a weird sense of humor or what, but…’

  All it had taken was Arthur laughing at my stupid reference to seal the deal, because he wasn’t just nice to look at, but he was nice, too.

  ‘You know my name,’ he’d said. ‘I think it’s only fair that you tell me yours.’

  At that point, I had only recently come out as Lance, and had struggled with telling people my new name. Being put on the spot like that had felt awkward and scary.

  ‘Linda Lotte,’ the person sitting beside Arthur had said.

  ‘I don’t recall asking you for his name,’ Arthur had replied, his tone as sharp as a blade.

  ‘Lance,’ I’d said, intervening, not wanting to cause a scene. ‘Lance Lotte.’

  ‘Ah, so you’re Lance,’ Arthur had said. ‘You’re a math tutor as well, right?’

  After that, Arthur and I had hung out nearly every day before and after school. I’d snuck glances at him while he was correcting his homework during tutoring, and thought about how soft his hair must be, slowly but surely falling in love with every feature, every word spoken, every laugh laughed.

  The memory of our first encounter never changes for me, but often leads to other memories that I’d rather forget.

  “Do you know,” Arthur says, “I failed all five of those quizzes at the beginning of the year so that Mrs. Ramsey would send me to tutoring.”

  “What?” I ask, sitting down on a rusted patio chair. “Why?”

  “I even did the math, down to the very percent, of how poorly I would have to do in order to go to tutoring without Ramsey notifying my parents of my grades. I think the average was a seventy-two percent, high enough to be brought up, but low enough to impact the class average.”

  “Why would you do that?” I ask. “Are you insane?”

  Arthur shrugs. “To get to know you. Why else? I was a ninth grader in pre-cal. I could’ve done that math with my eyes closed.”

  “God,” I say. “You are crazy.”

  “Yes,” Arthur says, shuffling Gwen’s new tarot deck. “Crazy about you.”

  When he leans over to kiss me, I let him. No one’s around, and I don’t really care if Gwen is spying on us through the kitchen window. Let her assume what she wants. He drops the cards onto the patio table and places his hands on the sides of my head. His kiss is gentle and soft, like he’s restraining himself.

  Honestly, I’m still recovering from the shock of learning Arthur’s hidden feelings. He has a fairly established reputation of being a ladies’ man, and I’ve always just sat back in the shadows, watching him flirt with girls—and guys sometimes, I guess—never once thinking he was serious about being with me. I’d always thought us making out that one time had been a fluke, a lapse in his judgment.

  “I meant what I said the other day,” Arthur whispers. “I’ve been in love with you…forever. But I don’t want to force you to rush into anything, or make you uncomfortable by talking about it.”

  “Arthur.”

  “Just let me finish before you say anything, please,” he replies.

  I sigh and bob my head. “All right.”

  “You said we have the whole summer, but I already know how I feel about you, and I don’t need two and a half months to sort out my feelings. Fuck, I don’t need two seconds. And if you could just tell me how you feel, even a little, I think it would stop eating at me.”

  I swallow and look o
ff to the side, intentionally avoiding his gaze. “When you first moved here,” I begin, “I was still getting over that bastard Todd and everything he did to me. Those wounds were still fresh and raw. So I never thought for one second that you would want to talk to me, let alone hang out with me. But I knew.” I turn my head to face him, and we lock eyes. “The second I heard you laugh, that I loved you, and you’re the reason, the main reason anyway, that I’m still single. I don’t need the whole summer to sort out my feelings, either. I’m just really scared, you know.”

  Arthur leans back in his chair and exhales like a balloon deflating. It’s the first time I’ve admitted to myself just how I feel about him, about me, about the whole fucking situation. The look on his face is unreadable, and I’m not sure if I should say something or just let him be, so I decide to reach into my bag and pull out two oatmeal cream pies.

  “I’m sorry,” Arthur says, his eyes still closed. “I don’t know why I waited all this time to say something.”

  I throw one small plastic-wrapped cake at his chest. His eyes fly open and he looks down at his lap.

  “It’s not like we’re in our eighties,” I say. I fumble with the package before ultimately tearing it open with my teeth. “Or on our deathbeds, or something.”

  Arthur sighs. “Yes,” he says. “But I’m sure it hasn’t been easy seeing me with all of these girls and shit.” He’s angry now, and I’m not sure if it’s something I’ve said or done.

  “Look,” I say. “I know I’m not the only one in love with you. You’ve had the whole school after you ever since you moved here. I’m not a dummy. I always thought you were straight, that you saw me as a friend only. Until that day when you let me kiss you.”

  His eyes meet mine, his look now very readable.

  Idiots. We’re both idiots. For the past few years we have been dancing alone because we were too afraid of stepping on each other’s toes, and all it would’ve taken was a five-minute discussion. I sigh again and open another pie. Eating my feelings seems like a good idea at the moment.

  “I’m not here to give you a lecture on sleeping with half of Avalon, Arthur.”

  “Two girls,” he corrects me. “I’ve only ever slept with two girls, and I haven’t been with anyone since last summer. Since my dad found us.”

  Thankfully I don’t have to respond to this because Gwen and her co-worker burst out of the front door, the screen barely moving fast enough to allow their hasty departure.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Gwen says. “I hate working in the evenings.” She stretches her arms and pops her neck. I cringe at the sound. Her co-worker bumps Gwen’s fist with their own, and they leave. I think their name is Jo, but I’m not sure, because I’ve seen them only once.

  “Well,” she says, smiling at the both of us. “Did you like the cards? What did the reading say?”

  Arthur laughs and picks one up. “I definitely did.” Then Gwen looks at me.

  “And what about you?” she asks. “I mean, it looked like you had your hands full out here, so…”

  I realize that I had been too caught up in my feelings to even look at the deck, so I wipe the cream off my hands and reach for the first card. I turn it over.

  On the card are the words TWO OF CUPS, and below the writing is a picture of two men giving each other sixty-nine. I place it down on the table and roll my eyes.

  “Well?” Gwen asks. “Which card did you draw?”

  Arthur reaches for it, and I cover his hand with mine before he can turn the card over. “Nuh-uh,” I say. “Bad luck to let someone see the cards you’ve drawn for yourself.”

  Arthur slides his fingers into mine, and Gwen watches us with anticipation, like she’s critiquing a performance or something.

  “Okay,” she says, finally. Even though she’s practically shouting. “What fuckin’ card was it?”

  “Two of cups,” I say.

  “Two of cups, eh?” Gwen shoots me a look and folds her arms. “It’s about fuckin’ time. That’s all I’ll say.”

  I roll my eyes, ignoring her optimistic jab. “What about you, Arthur? What card did you draw?”

  “Death,” he says. The words printed on the card are as plain as day. “What does that mean? Am I going to die?” The humor in his voice indicates that either he doesn’t believe in the cards, or that he doesn’t care.

  Because tarot isn’t an exact science, there’s no way to be sure if the card means actual death, spiritual death or rebirth. Regardless, a hushed silence falls over the table, and Gwen and I exchange worried glances.

  “No, silly,” Gwen says. “It rarely ever means literal death. You’re probably going to see a big change some time this year. That’s all.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We weren’t doing a spread or anything, and you just picked a random card. We didn’t even ask the cards anything. Don’t get hung up on it.”

  Arthur laughs and runs a hand through his hair. “You know most of this shit goes over my head.”

  He hands me the card and I place it on the stack in the middle of the table.

  This will be Arthur’s last summer in Avalon, I just know it. I can feel it in my teeth.

  Chapter Five

  Mordred

  The next morning, I wake up to a text from Mordy. Something’s come up and he can’t make our coffee date, and he wants to hang out on my next day off instead, so that we’re not rushed. I send him a text agreeing to this, and check Facebook to see if the store’s gotten any new messages. But before I can log out of my personal account, I receive a friend request from Mordy—which I accept—and begin scrolling through his personal feed. It doesn’t take me very long to see that Mordy is passionate about his multicultural heritage, Cuban food and trans rights. Photos from various pride marches and Cuban restaurants litter his page. I begin to wonder if he or his sister is transgender, or both, because there are several tagged photos of them where they’re both posing in front of a pink-, white- and blue-striped flag.

  My excitement grows with every tagged picture, and I see a comment left by a relative, where Mordy handles being dead-named with grace. So, he is trans, or at the very least, non-binary. I wish I had that kind of patience and composure. Blowing up at friends and family members is not my idea of being mentally healthy. I know it’s something I need to work on, because I love these people and need them in my life.

  I lay my phone down on the coffee table and think about what I’ve just learned. If what I suspect is true, Mordy is trans and proud of it, black and proud of it. Crushing wouldn’t be an appropriate term to use, because I don’t feel that way toward him, but I do admire him, deeply. And he’s becoming a Santería priest. God, he and Morgan are so cool.

  When I shift my shoulder beneath Arthur’s chest and arms, he makes a noise and tightens his embrace around my body. He must’ve fallen asleep on the futon after I did, because I remember starting an episode of Charmed—in preparation for the reboot—and that’s it.

  “Hey,” I say. “Don’t you have to work this morning? It’s almost six-thirty.”

  Arthur’s body jerks and he scrambles to get up off the futon.

  “Fuck! I have like fifteen minutes to get ready.”

  After he jumps into the shower, I head to the kitchen and begin making us breakfast. He must have gone to the store, because he has a bunch of odd stuff in his fridge, like veggie sausages, baby spinach and egg whites. Now, I’ve been a vegetarian since I was fifteen, so the food itself is not weird to me per se, but I didn’t expect to find it in his fridge.

  When Arthur returns to the kitchen, I’ve already made us omelets and half a pot of coffee. His hair is still damp, pulled into a sloppy ponytail, and his shirt is covered in tiny wet spots from where he didn’t dry off completely. I hand him a plate, and he sits down on the futon.

  “Damn, this looks good,” he says. “Thanks.”

  We don’t really have much time, so we focus on eating and drinking our coffee. After Arthur’s finished, he puts his plate in the
sink and grabs the pan off the stove.

  “Hey,” I say, “I can wash those dishes when I wash mine. You’d better get your boots on. You’re gonna be late if you don’t get going.”

  Arthur walks over to me and tilts my head back slightly. His lips are warm and inviting, and if I had any sense at all, I would tell him to call in sick and spend the morning with me. But I don’t, and I lightly push his chest away.

  “Do you need me to drop you off before I head to work? I can come back on my lunch break if needed.”

  I shake my head and take another sip of coffee. “No,” I reply. “Gwen doesn’t have to work today. I’ll just get a ride from her or Lena.”

  “Okay,” he says and heads to the front door to get his boots. “You know, I wasn’t joking about that toothbrush thing last night. I wouldn’t mind if you stayed here with me until you have to go back to school.”

  “You looking for a roommate?” I ask. “You that hard up for rent?”

  “No, but I am that hard up for you.”

  After Arthur puts on his boots, he walks back over to me and kisses me again, licking my top lip as we pull apart.

  “I love you,” he says. “And I’ll see you this evening. Text me when you get off work and I’ll come get ya, okay?”

  “I will. Now get your ass outta here.”

  A lot just happened in the past fifteen minutes, and honestly, I’m glad that I’m alone to process it. Arthur basically just asked me to move in with him and casually told me that he loved me, like it’s the easiest phrase in the world to say to someone. I get up from where I’m sitting and head to the bathroom, to look for the green toothbrush he mentioned. I open the cabinet and stare at it. If I open the package, it’ll be an indirect acceptance of everything he just suggested, but if I leave it alone, he might return home and misinterpret my feelings. I decide to open the package and use the damn thing, before eventually placing it in my side bag. That way, if I get too freaked out or distressed over something, I can always just leave.