Street Love: A contemporary standalone hurt/comfort romance

by Rhys Everly

  Pierce woke up with a craving for Rafe’s lips and good coffee. He got them both before leaving the apartment for another day of hunting real life snapshots.

  Rafe had worked a double the day before and was off today, so Pierce wanted to let him rest for the morning, especially after working him up overtime. They’d both slept after they’d finished, and Pierce couldn’t remember a time when he’d slept better.

  A shower the next morning was much needed, and when he came out, Wang was standing in the living room, staring at Pierce’s naked body. Pierce tightened the towel around his hips and greeted the old man.

  He was a Chinese guy with salt-and-pepper short hair and a skinny, creased face. He was wearing a marshmallow-colored shirt and black trousers, a man in his late fifties, and it showed in everything on him, even the way he breathed.

  “Who are you?” he asked Pierce with a soft accent and a high pitch.

  Pierce giggled and tiptoed closer to Rafe’s bedroom. “I’m Rafe’s friend. Remember me, Mr. Wang? I was here when Rafe moved in,” he said, clutching on the door knob, ready to dive in the safety of the bedroom when given the chance.

  “What are you doing here? Where is Rafe?” he asked, the cringe in his face staying there with the accompaniment of a frown.

  “I slept over. I hope that’s okay. Rafe is sleeping. He was working all day yesterday,” Pierce explained.

  Wang looked around the flat slowly. He turned to Pierce with the same expression, which seemed to be pinched on his face permanently now. “Tell Rafe I want to talk to him when he wakes up.”

  Uh-oh! Pierce was praying to whatever God existed at that moment that Wang just wanted to catch up on Rafe’s life and not tell him off for bringing overnight guests.

  “Actually, I’m just popping out and I don’t want to wake him. He’s really tired. I’m sure he’ll be up by noon, though,” he said.

  “Okay,” was all Wang responded, and Pierce found that to be the right moment to retreat back into the room and get dressed, trying not to make too much noise.

  Whatever Wang wanted with Rafe, he wasn’t going to wake up his baby. Rafe needed his sleep, and Pierce needed to get out.

  He put a kiss on his lover’s lips and left the apartment with his suitcase and camera in hand. He hadn’t had the time to fix his suitcase yet, only managed to tape it together, but he needed to take something with him to show he was leaving and wouldn’t cause further problems. He felt Wang’s eyes pinned to his back following him everywhere as he made his way across the hallway and out the door.

  When he left the building, he was greeted with a sunny glare and a cool breeze. Thankfully, it hadn’t snowed yet, and Pierce hoped it wouldn’t. Instead of worrying of what might happen, he decided to explore the streets of Brooklyn.

  Even though he’d never ventured on this side of the city while he was homeless, he naturally gravitated to the homeless people, feeling slightly out of place, with his camera and his project, even though only a few weeks ago he’d have been just like any one of them.

  He tried to explain to the people he met who he was and what his situation was, although the latter seemed to be problematic.

  Pierce wasn’t sure if he was homeless or not anymore. He was unemployed again, which sucked balls, but hopefully either Vance or Sam could take him back one way or the other or refer him to other friends. But his housing status was unclear.

  On one hand, he did not have a house, room, or bed that was his own, but on the other hand, he’d spent more than a few weeks in Rafe’s apartment, and it felt natural being there with him, especially now that all the tension had been released and they were an item.

  After a while of meeting new people and taking pictures he stopped explaining himself. He couldn’t. But he started talking to the people and asking them what they felt like, how they became homeless, what they did before.

  Half of them had been normal people with addictions that had cost them family, friends, and possessions, and the other half had been hit by a series of unfortunate events that led up to the culmination of their homelessness. Some were gay. They couldn’t hide it even if they wanted to. But there were other more ambiguous identities than the gays and the lesbians.

  There were two trans kids whose parents had abused them or kicked them out. A gay kid whose dad had sexually harassed him for years. There was a non-binary person whose parents had sent them to therapy camps, and when they remained vigorous on who they were, they were left out on their own.

  One kid’s parents had actually moved out of their house without telling their daughter and left her to find an empty apartment when she got back from school. She had no clue where they’d gone.

  Those stories were wilder than any fiction, and Pierce wasn’t sure what to do with them. He scribbled some of them down; some he didn’t have to. He was sure they’d haunt him for a lifetime. But even with that, he was annoyed he couldn’t help. He was disturbed that all he could tell them was to hang on and to keep fighting.

  His only sage advice to the young ones was to clean up and try to get a job in Manhattan, but even that felt ironic when himself had only managed to do so after forty or so places and had gotten a job with a crazy guy because Vance was crazy. Good, but certainly not your normal boss. Knowing him now, it didn’t surprise him he had hired Pierce after confronting him. But not every homeless person was Pierce, and not every boss was Vance.

  He didn’t promise them anything. He promised himself, leaving each and every one to their fate, that he’d find a way to help—if not them, the ones that would come after them, because he knew there would be more. Who said the world was getting more accepting? Just because the Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage across the nation didn’t mean the brains, thoughts, morals, and workings of its people changed with it. If anything, those people who spewed their intolerance left and right were getting more vocal, more infectious, even.

  After noon, he received a message from Rafe telling him a good morning and another I love you, but when Pierce replied, his phone remained silent. He was probably busy talking to Wang about whatever it was he wanted to talk about. He was staring at his black and white phone screen, about two blocks from the flat, when he caught the leftovers of a conversation.

  “I’m telling you man. Facebook is the shit these days. You wanna make money? You Facebook it. You wanna start a business? You Facebook it. You wanna say your penny of a thought? You Facebook it. Everyone’s on fucking Facebook nowadays,” the guy was saying to his friend, a couple walking in front of Pierce.

  The other guy started to dispute the validity of his friend’s words, but Pierce’s brain had already lit up. He used to have a Facebook page, but when no one had been there for him to offer him a bed, a couch, a chair to sleep on, when no one had gotten back to him, he had deactivated it. But now he thought it was time to turn it back on again. Perhaps by talking to his “friends” about the situation in the streets, he’d change their minds. Make them more generous. More open. More helpful.

  And why lie to himself? Maybe actually get someone to see his pictures and make some money. Perhaps a newspaper would want to write an article about homelessness in America and want to use his picture to go with it. The possibilities were endless. He had to try.

  He found an internet café inside a convenience store and logged into his account. He was welcomed back onto the website and was hit by the pompous newsfeed of his buddies’ self-indulgence. He connected the SD card to the computer and loaded up his favorite photos from that day on his wall with a few words about some of the people on the pictures. Not long after he posted an album of ten pictures, he got two likes and a comment.

  “Those are incredible and heart-wrenching. Make a Page and put them up. That way more people will see them,” a girl named Tanya Kosowski said.

  He didn’t know her. She was one of those people you added when you first created an account and found random people to boost your friendship count. He might not have known her, but he fol
lowed her suggestion almost instantly.

  A half hour later, his phone buzzed, but he ignored it, his mind too occupied by his current activity to be distracted.

  He finished uploading the same pictures he’d posted on his own wall, only he’d made a separate post for each of them with the stories of the people attached to them. He wrote them like eulogies, as if they’d already died, not because he wished it upon the subjects of the photographs, but because he felt that they were all doomed, and perhaps if people saw how doomed they really were they’d help more profoundly.

  Only when he hit Post to the last upload, did he check his phone. He got a text from Rafe.

  What time are you coming? the message read.

  On my way now. Did you talk with Wang? Pierce messaged back.

  Pierce paid for his time on the computer and left the store. The reply came in a single word that almost gave Pierce a heart attack.

  Yes.

  Twenty-Seven

  Rafe

  Pierce was back at the apartment in less than ten minutes, and Rafe was thankful; he wanted to get the problem out of the way as soon as possible and move on.

  He was still trying to calm his nerves when Pierce returned, and seeing him helped. Wang had locked himself in his bedroom as if nothing had happened, and Rafe pulled Pierce into his own room to talk to him. Pierce seemed agitated. Perhaps he could see the frustration in Rafe’s face.

  “What’s going on, baby?” he asked, and Rafe’s heart skipped a beat.

  He still couldn’t get over the fact that they were finally together. They had such a great night last night!

  Rafe also couldn’t believe that the magic of their first time had to be overshadowed by yet another problem in their happy ever after, but he guessed they might as well get that out of their way before moving forward with their lives once and for all.

  “I spoke with Wang,” Rafe started, “and he wasn’t happy that I invited you over for the holidays. And I explained that you were in an accident and all, but now he’s saying that if you don’t leave then I can’t stay here anymore either.” He tried to speak as slowly as he could to soften the blow, but it still hit Pierce hard. He took a seat, clutching his stomach, and stared at the floor rather than his boyfriend.

  “God! I’m so sorry, Rafe.” And there it was: the guilt pouring out of him as it had before. The sulking and the blame all mixed into his voice and his body language. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I thought you’d told him, and… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ll take my stuff and go. I wouldn’t wanna—” he continued, but Rafe couldn’t let him finish that sentence.

  That guy. That fucking guy. Pierce would do everything for him and he knew all he needed from the sentence he didn’t let Pierce finish. Pierce would sacrifice his own health and safety to keep Rafe out of harm’s way. He would return to the streets rather than have Rafe homeless and unmedicated. That was one of the thousand reasons why Rafe loved him. Yet he was failing to realize that they were a couple now, and they would face their problems together.

  “Pierce.” He knelt next to him. “don’t blame yourself. That guy is a douchebag. A heartless douchebag. I mean, who does that? Who kicks two sick guys out of his house? Don’t take this on your shoulders,” he told him, massaging his knee, trying to find Pierce’s eyes, which were lost somewhere in the empty space.

  Pierce closed his eyes and shook his head. Moments later he got up with a look of strain and pain in his face and got a couple books from the shelf above the bed, then zipped up the wardrobe and started to stuff his countless shirts into a small bag.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Rafe asked.

  Pierce didn’t stop. He didn’t look at Rafe either. “I’m gonna go. Like I said, I’m sorry for ruining your life,” he mumbled.

  “Ruin—” Rafe tried to say the word but choked on its hardness. He grabbed Pierce’s arm and stopped him. He got in front of him and put both his hands on Pierce’s cheeks, then looked straight into the abyss of his eyes. “You. Gave. Me. My. Life. Back. Never say that you ruined it ever again. Okay?”

  Pierce’s eyes turned red and the tears started falling, wetting Rafe’s palms. “What do you even want with me? I destroy everything I touch. I’m a nobody,” he sobbed.

  Rafe couldn’t help feeling like wrapping his arms around him and smacking him in the head, both at the same time. That guy. He was fucking clueless. “You are my world,” he said, making sure every word made an impact on him.

  “No. I make this world cruel with my presence. That’s why nobody wants me around. That’s why my parents kicked me out. That’s why Vance sent me away—” he kept muttering to himself.

  Rafe shook Pierce’s head to bring his attention back to him. “Listen to me, you idiota. Anyone who wants you out of their life, doesn’t deserve you in it. Because you make this world a sweeter, more beautiful place. You make my life better. You make my life worth living. Crappy life has given us each other, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we make a fucking good team. So stop beating yourself, put your things back where they were, and sit down. Because you are going nowhere. Okay? If someone has to leave this place it will be both of us. Together. Okay?” He shouted at him and his own eyes stung, but he didn’t care now. All he wanted was to get Pierce to stop.

  And he did. He stopped crying and kissed Rafe. It was a salty kiss, but it was their strongest yet.

  The both sat on the bed and Rafe wiped both their eyes before continuing. “So since the dickhead wants us out, I thought maybe it was time we went with our initial plan and found a place together.”

  “That sounds good,” Pierce whispered, and chuckled when Rafe rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a drama queen,” he apologized.

  “Oh, cariño, you’re the biggest one of all.”

  They kissed again and this time they both felt calm.

  “How are we going to afford it, though? Last time you didn’t have a job and it was a pain in the butt. Now I don’t have a job and I doubt things in the market have changed in the last couple of months,” Pierce asked, seemingly ready to deal with reality.

  Rafe shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. Okay? We still have some time. He gave us to the end of the month. So we’ll figure something out,” he added.

  Pierce nodded but didn’t seem so sure. Rafe wasn’t sure himself how they were gonna deal with the paperwork, and all the crap that came with looking for a room, but he wouldn’t stress about it right this moment. He preferred to spend some quality time with his boyfriend than worry about tomorrow.

  Stress would solve nothing. Plus he was working the next day; he could ask for the sage advice of Vance. He might have a solution. The important thing was that he and Pierce stuck together. They could conquer the world if they were. And that was what he wanted Pierce to see. That they were better together than apart.

  Twenty-Eight

  Rafe

  Rafe sliced the orange peel and squeezed it over the glass, then dropped the twist into the Cosmopolitan. He put the glass on the tray with the others and started the next ticket.

  It was Friday night at Les Fourches, and the place was packed with people dining or drinking. He was on bar duty today.

  Vance had told him he was thinking of promoting Rafe to supervisor now that the old one was leaving, and he was working so many more hours a week he’d had no time to look for an apartment with Pierce, who was still resting at home and making his morning photographic sessions a routine.

  He was good. He was getting better and grungier day by day, and he loved what he was doing. He spent the afternoons uploading pictures on Facebook and his evenings reading books or viewing apartments. It had been two weeks, however, and they’d had no luck with their search.

  It was like November all over again, only this time they didn’t have the funds to actually move into any apartment, despite having a guarantor in Vance.

  One would think with Rafe’s overtime he’d have a small fortune saved by now
, but they’d had no such luck. They still had to pay Wang and their bills. Uncle Sam was being a pain in the butt the more hours Rafe worked, and dealing partially with Pierce’s hospital bills, it was all in the way of finding a new house.

  He was basically working for two people, and the money wasn’t enough. Even the tips didn’t help. With the Christmas spirit emptier than ever, people went back to their stingy selves, and business had dropped during the week, so anything Rafe managed to make was during the coveted weekend. Vance had to drop three staff members—who had only been hired for the season anyway—so that meant Rafe had longer but less-rewarding work days. Hopefully he’d get the supervisor position soon enough, because it came with a pay rise, and he sure could do with that.

  Not that he was complaining. Three months ago he had nothing. He had no job, no house, no friends, no family. Now he had it all. So what if it came with a few roadblocks? They were part of life, right?

  As long as he had Pierce, everything was manageable. As long as they had each other, they would brave the storms.

  His phone vibrated in his back pocket. These days he kept his phone on him in case Pierce had an emergency or found a room and needed to check if Rafe would be free to look at it.

  He still hadn’t fully recovered from the attack and still had trouble getting up and sitting down or doing extremely physical things. But day by day he was getting better.

  He stopped pouring a beer and checked his screen quickly. It wasn’t Pierce. It was an unknown number. And the time was two a.m. He wanted to pick it up, but the place was still buzzing with life and disorder. He looked at his colleague who was busy serving people at the bar and tried to get his attention.

  “Can—can I get this real quick? I’ll only be a minute,” he whispered in his ear.

  His colleague nodded but wasn’t too happy being left to deal with the entire place on his own. Rafe couldn’t do anything about it, though.