by R. Cooper
“That your logical analysis?” Rocco’s arms remained crossed across his chest but his stance wasn’t belligerent. He was challenging or confused or both.
“Yes.” Iz bent two plastic lids wrong before he took a breath and calmed down enough to seal his coffee correctly. “With as much logic as I am currently capable of. I am not at my best at the moment, as you’ve probably noticed. But I think he’d say yes.”
He did not add that he had wondered if Ronnie had been waiting for Rocco to initiate something and if everything else, Ronnie’s feelings for Rahim, his vague crush on Iz, had been distractions to focus on while he waited. Those were only suspicions. But Ronnie himself had admitted to wanting Rocco.
“You told Ronnie love was terrible.” Rocco’s voice was higher than usual, tight and strained. He stared at Iz’s shoulder. “You were talking about me—and him. That’s how I knew you were drunk.”
Iz returned to stand in front of him, hands on the counter. “I don’t know what that means. I said it because I was drunk. I didn’t feel it because I was drunk. Ronnie said—do you really not believe that someone could love you?”
“Someone like you? No.” Rocco seemed sure.
Iz didn’t blink. “Do you need me to tell you why I do?”
Rocco took a step back and held a hand, either warning Iz to stop or asking him to. “If you meant it, you wouldn’t be trying to set me up with him.”
“What has that got to do with it?” Iz frowned. “My feelings have done nothing but cause trouble. Your feelings have not. This is the solution where the most people are happy.”
He had never seen Rocco’s eyes go so wide. Rocco took a breath and then let one out. The action seemed deliberate, like an anxiety breathing exercise except that Rocco didn’t have Capital ‘A’ Anxiety.
“He’s been hung up on you the entire time I’ve known him.” Rocco’s voice was level again. He didn’t say who ‘he’ was, but he didn’t have to.
Iz dismissed that as a combination of Rocco’s willful blindness and the very real scars Iz had given Ronnie.
“Did you want him to be hung up on you?” he returned softly. He was glad he’d picked this time of day to come in. The shop stayed empty.
Rocco inhaled again. He worked his jaw and didn’t take his eyes off Iz for a second. “I’m not you. People don’t want me like that.”
“I do.” Iz splayed his fingers, pressing down as if he could claw through the countertop. He couldn’t, but it helped him stay on his feet. The admission flew out of him, taking the butterflies with it. “I want you like that. I think he does too.”
Rocco didn’t move. But for all his hard stare, his tone was gentle. “That isn’t something that happens to regular people. People like you don’t understand.”
So many walls. “Like me?” Iz studied him, heart racing at the firmness and conviction of him, even if Rocco was so, so wrong. A fortress. Ronnie had named him right. “I’m not so much if I can’t even be smart,” he reminded Rocco quietly.
“You’re beautiful,” Rocco said bluntly, voice slipping back to roughness. “Talented. Wealthy. Pick any of those, but we can start with beautiful. When you’re beautiful, you don’t really know what beauty means, but an ugly person can tell you. Beauty means first kisses that aren’t because someone dared their friend to kiss you and then they all laugh about it. It means people swiping right instead of left and not strangers on dating apps coming into your inbox just to insult you. It means cards and balloons on Valentine’s Day. It means having hope when you have a crush.” Iz’s hands slid from the counter. Rocco didn’t stop. “You won’t understand, because people meet you and immediately pine for you. One look from those eyes and they are frozen and guilty because they shouldn’t want you, and it’s the stupidest thing to want you because you are on a level they will never reach. You are beautiful in a way that draws people in despite themselves. Don’t pretend I’m the same.”
Iz put his hand over his mouth. The sleeve of his sweater had fallen again. He was muffled, but audible. “Did someone do that to you? And I came bumbling in and brought it all up again?” He raised his head, but looking Rocco in the eye was too difficult, so he stared away, at the door. “Was it someone at your high school? I bet I could find them with minimal searching if you tell me their name. No—that won’t make what I did any better. You must hate me. I liked you and I didn’t even tell you. I let you think you weren’t special.” He blinked rapidly.
Rocco stepped out from behind the counter. He caught the end of one of Iz’s sleeves, then let it trail from his hand when Iz hiccupped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Don’t cry.”
At this point, Iz wouldn’t be surprised if he was crying. He hiccupped again, trying to ease whatever was blocking his throat. “You shouldn’t apologize,” he croaked in a voice that was not his own. “You meant it, and you were right to. I was challenging you.” He couldn’t tell if Rocco had expected him to admit that or not, but Rocco didn’t move back. “Your walls are yours and I should have left them for Ronnie to climb.” He lifted his chin to stare politely at Rocco’s shoulder. “Thank you for your time. Excuse me.”
“Izzy.” Rocco exhaled his name almost fondly.
Iz had started to turn away from him but stopped. “What?”
“You get formal when you’re uncomfortable.” Rocco’s lips had no reason to quirk upward. And yet they did. “Falling back on manners is your go-to. Okay.”
“It’s irritating?” Iz guessed.
“No,” Rocco answered shortly, a world beyond the single syllable.
Iz peeked at him from over his shoulder. “I challenged you only somewhat on purpose. You seem to draw that out of me. It’s not unpleasant. It would be, if you were someone else.” He meant Ronnie, but he supposed Rocco knew that. He took a deep breath to help get himself together. “I truly am sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way. My feelings have been building for some time, but I’m still not used to acknowledging them, and I’m learning how to handle them. But I really wasn’t planning on telling you, and especially not in that way. I already knew you didn’t like me and I wasn’t going to embarrass you.”
Rocco stiffened, then scowled, before finally sighing. “Did you not hear a word I just said?”
Iz nodded. “You find me attractive and you resent it. I heard.”
Rocco looked at the ceiling and sighed again, which was far from impassive but also not helpful.
“The party,” Rocco began, meeting Iz’s gaze again. His cheeks were darker. “The night of the party… you were flirting with me. I thought I was imagining it.”
Startled, Iz forgot the lump in his throat. “I suppose I was.” He had touched him, quite often, which was a sign of interest according to several of Alistair’s hated-beloved romantic comedies. “It was unintentional. I’m no good at it.”
This made Rocco drag a hand through his hair, leaving it more of a mess. “I was the one you had unrequited feelings for?” He was shocked, still, after all this time. “Me?”
“That I was aware of, yes.”
Rocco shook his head. “For how long?”
“I’m not sure when it started.” Iz shrugged. “It built up slowly, without me noticing.”
Rocco ruined his hair some more. He glanced at the door but no one came in. “When, Izzy?”
“You’re forceful sometimes,” Iz observed. It was a positive observation. But Rocco was staring expectantly, so he closed his eyes to find something that would appease him. “I told Patricio after Christmas break. Oh! That was it. Over break, I debated telling Patricio what I had noticed after finals. It wasn’t the last night everyone was still around before going home for the holidays, but it was when everyone was decompressing from all their tests and papers. You and Ronnie were in Eric’s kitchen—oh, I burst in on you. I didn’t realize at the time. I’m sorry.” He opened his eyes. “You were laughing with him—you do that a lot and I enjoy seeing it—and you looked up and saw me. You must not have been sober
, because usually when you see me you say hello but then you get quiet. It’s always bothered me, although no one is liked by everyone, and I can be annoying.”
“Izzy.”
The plea was understated, but there.
“You looked up and saw me, and drunk or not, you took my hand and dragged me over to stand between you so you could show me whatever you two were looking at on Ronnie’s phone.” Iz hummed. “I honestly don’t remember what. I was suddenly warm and unable to think straight, and I could barely hear over my pulse in my ears. It seemed like something I should contemplate. So I did.” Naturally, he’d felt something, he realized now. With both of them there, he wouldn’t have been able to ignore it. “I wasn’t drinking that night. If you were wondering.”
“I’ve always liked you, but we aren’t friends,” Rocco replied, and the blunt words made Iz’s breath catch. “No, listen, sweaterpaws.” Rocco lowered his voice. “How I am with you is not how I am with Ronnie. It’s not like how you are with him either. You and I are not close like that.”
Iz narrowed his eyes. “The distance was not my doing.”
“No,” Rocco said evenly. “It was mine.”
He was implying it was deliberate. Iz licked his lips. “You don’t have to tell me why.”
“You should know why.” If Rocco was scolding him, he was doing it very gently. “You were all he talked about when I first met him, and I didn’t get it until I met you too.”
“You were distant because I hurt him?” Iz put his head back and frowned. “Oh. Once again, this is all my fault.”
“No.” Rocco stopped, reconsidering, with a frown of his own. “Yes. But it wasn’t that you hurt him. You can reject someone, of course, you can. He could’ve dealt with that. It’s that you continued to be you, and you would lean on him and he’d kiss your cheek and it was—it was hard to watch, for a lot of reasons. Anyway, distance or not, you never noticed me.”
Iz couldn’t let that stand, not with what he knew about Rocco now. “Yes, I did. Too much for my own good.”
“God,” Rocco whispered shakily. “You really like me.”
Iz turned to face him, taking a moment to look over Rocco’s shoulders and the frayed cuffs of his hoodie, the bumps along his nose and the little scar on his chin.
“I have never done this before. I don’t know how to answer that in a way that’s appropriate for what you want to hear.” But Rocco’s insecurities could be addressed, at least. “Yes. I do. I like you so much. It was inevitable.” Iz waved one hand impatiently when his thoughts weren’t composing themselves into order fast enough, sleeves flopping. “You never do what I would expect, but it still makes sense. There is no place to put you, but you are never out of place. You make me feel so strongly that I noticed.”
He thought Rocco would look away, but he didn’t. He breathed in and out, a harsher sound this time, then spoke again. “But you like Ronnie. He’s not like that—like me.”
Iz had to agree. “No. Although you two have similarities in ways you don’t seem to see. But I know him enough not to worry that I might have upset him how I do with you. You’re safe, like he is. But he’s safe and familiar, and you aren’t, not yet. Despite that, I do silly things around him that I never connected to the nerves in my stomach. I thought it was our history. But I have let him drive me to get donuts at 3 a.m. because he wanted to get me coffee and I wanted to get him sugar. I don’t like staying out late. I prefer being warm and comfortable in bed. But I did it with him and the memory is golden to me. I managed to miss that all this time. Which I’ve already apologized to him for, useless as that is. Do you understand that?”
Rocco nodded.
It wasn’t enough.
“No, I meant, do you understand that?” Iz asked again. “Exactly that. How it feels to be around him? Is it the same for you?”
Rocco made Iz’s heart beat with the most fervent admiration. His eyes widened. His mouth softened. Iz’s question had caught him off-guard. But he stood his ground and held Iz’s stare. He didn’t answer, but his silence left an outline.
Iz had expected this outcome, so in one sense, it was nice to have his theory confirmed.
In another sense, he had to leave, right now.
“That is one of the ways you are like me.” Iz took no pleasure in being right again and didn’t think he would later either. “I don’t know if you’re speaking to him.” Iz realized, distantly, that he had gotten a coffee, and then forgotten it someplace. His hands were busy clutching each other and he couldn’t look at anything but the door. “But you should. He needs a good friend. Between me and Rahim, he must believe he is unlovable. That is how you two are alike, aside from your kindness. But hopefully, I’ve helped some of that now. You know how much someone could care for you.”
He flashed Rocco a smile, meeting his stunned gaze for the barest second. Then he bobbed his head in farewell and hurried out the door.
The problem did not correct itself even though Iz did his best to focus on his own emotional health. An expectant pause took up considerable space in his brain, not unlike the hollowness in his chest and the lump in his throat. He checked out books on coding languages he was already familiar with and not material on martial arts. The group chat remained active but Iz’s phone had no private messages from Ronnie. He hadn’t realized how often he’d gotten them until they were gone.
He spent another weekend lying in bed and poking around in the library. Some of the others contacted him, yet Iz was consumed with an emptiness that woke him whenever he tried to sleep. He thought it might have been hunger or thirst, and then boredom, so he ate bagels with his coffee and listened to Latin lessons since he had only learned the basics at the prep school Rocco had mentioned.
Insomnia and trouble sleeping were often symptoms of withdrawal, he had learned. He was not chemically dependent on anything but prescription medication and caffeine, but he supposed that not getting sparks of happiness from being near Rocco and Ronnie—and by extension, the group, since he had also been avoiding them—had left him in a permanent state of longing.
This did not seem like optimal emotional health. He suspected that news would cheer him up, make things a little less cold turkey, but had no way to ask the others without violating Ronnie and Rocco’s privacy, and he couldn’t ask Patricio without worrying him.
So he studied and he walked and bought full-price coffees at the chain outside of campus and painted his nails Sherwood Forest Green. Giselle cornered him on one of her afternoons off and used him in one of her videos.
Iz hadn’t realized that some in the group watched and commented on her videos until Ali mentioned it in the chat. Hearing from them, and being called a bitch for looking stunning in gold, made him smile for the first time in a week.
His clothes were especially soft and warm the next day. He got called ‘Miss’ by a well-meaning and then flustered barista, and received a mildly interested stare in one of his classes for the leftover sparkles on his cheeks, and still felt better as he found his couch on the third floor unoccupied and settled in to study or doze. He didn’t sleep, not for longer than ten minutes at a time, but he closed his eyes and tried to hold onto the nice feeling.
When he opened them, Ronnie was standing at the end of one of the aisles.
His clear gaze was steady on Iz, as if it had been for a while, and then Ronnie cocked his head to one side. He bit his lip, asking permission, and Iz knocked his bag to the floor in his hurry to sit up and leave him room on the couch.
Ronnie squared his shoulders before coming over, which was worrying, but Iz smiled anyway. Ronnie had a puffy jacket on and his hair had dried in little tufts around his ears. On his busier days, he tended to not style his hair after his showers. Maybe he’d run here for a study group.
But he took his time sitting down, deciding where to set his bag. He unzipped his jacket before he gave Iz a sideways glance and a small smile.
“The chat’s been quiet lately,” Iz remarked, appropriately
library-quiet although no one was sitting too close to them. “Everyone is probably busy.”
“And at least three people haven’t felt much like talking,” Ronnie added, pointed but subdued. He studied Iz without turning to face him. Iz submitted to it, hands fidgeting in his lap, conscious of the loose wisps of his hair, the bruises beneath his eyes. “Should I ask how you are?”
Iz shrugged. “Rocco said I looked terrible. You’re less blunt, but you mean the same thing. You know, he’s right; I’m used to being beautiful. Being less than beautiful, especially around the two of you, is… dissatisfying. Which is all pointless, since neither of you fell for me before and aren’t going to now. But there it is, anyway. You look good.” Iz hummed. He could have stared at Ronnie for hours. “Tired and stressed, but that’s usual for anyone. Did you get more hours working at the fitness center?”
“Three or four more a week,” Ronnie answered absently. He bit his lip again, then said, “Went for a run yesterday. Rocco was there.”
If they had talked, Ronnie wasn’t volunteering any more information about it.
“How did he seem?” Iz asked though Patricio might have frowned at him.
“Iz,” Ronnie warned, meaning Patricio definitely would have frowned at him.
“I only meant if he was okay,” Iz explained softly. “Not to press you or make you uncomfortable. I don’t want that. If you thought—” His voice broke, cracking as if he was twelve again. “If you thought I was going to harass you, if that’s why you left, please know that I wouldn’t have. Wait. No, that’s probably not true.” He sighed. “You would have woken up to a thousand questions. I don’t blame you for going. And you didn’t come over here to talk about it, I’m sure.”
“Do you want to know why?” Ronnie scowled at the floor, then at the new polish on Iz’s fingernails. “Why I left? I figured I should tell you.”
“Is it something anyone else would already know?” Iz wondered, chin up, gaze directed anywhere but Ronnie. “I may figure it out eventually,” he went on, startled at how angry he could sound.
