A Charm of Finches

by Suanne Laqueur

  “I was talking to Stav about her volunteer work at Exodus Project,” Jav said. “I’m thinking I want to do something like that, too. Give back.”

  “Ask her to bring you along one day.”

  “Wouldn’t that be weird, though? Me volunteering where you work?”

  “I don’t work for Exodus Project.” Stef licked ketchup off the crease of his pinky. “I’m employed by the Coalition for Creative Therapy, which happens to be in the same building. If you come two days a week to work in the EP kitchen, I’ll just stay away from that side of the house those days. Who’s to know except Stav?”

  “You sure?”

  “As long as we don’t screw in my office, I don’t see a problem.”

  “Forget it, then. Screwing in your office was the point.” Jav tilted all the crumbs and bits of egg off the tinfoil into his palm, then offered the handful to Roman. He got up and started washing last night’s dinner dishes, moving easily around Stef’s kitchen.

  Roman stared up at Stef, licking his chops.

  “Help you?” Stef said.

  Roman put a paw on Stef’s knee and the liquid brown of his eyes deepened into pure adoration.

  Stef sighed and fed him a bit of bacon. He loved this damn dog.

  He loved everything right now.

  He and Jav weren’t moved in together but with no discussion, each moved over and made room for the other. A second toothbrush was a no-brainer. T-shirts and socks and sweats and jackets inevitably got left behind, so it made sense to free some space in the closet, clean out a drawer. Getting Roman a second water dish and leash to keep at Cushman Row was no big deal. Stef rarely used his desk, so why not clear it off in case Jav wanted to do a little writing?

  Or a lot of writing, as became the case in the second week of December, when Jav got back the first draft of The Chocolate Hour from his editor, Michael.

  “Congrats?” Stef said, not sure if this was good news.

  Jav shook his head. “I’m not going to be fun to be around the next few weeks,” he said.

  “Good to know.”

  “Oh, and the talking to myself thing? It’s about to get worse.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Jav nattering to himself became a weird background noise in both their apartments, like spoken Muzak. Jav stared into space mumbling. Or paced around muttering. After a while Stef tuned him out, no longer trying to understand the one-sided conversations.

  Sometimes Jav would be silent, eyes glued to the monitor, fingers on fire. Then he’d abruptly spin in his chair and point straight at Stef. His eyes lit up wide as if Stef had just cured cancer.

  “What?” Stef said.

  A slow smile spread across Jav’s face. “Yes,” he said. The pointing hand retreated and fell flat on Jav’s head. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Nothing. Thank you.” And he’d spin back to the computer again.

  Stef shook his head. “Glad I could help.”

  Often Stef came home from work to find Jav in a heated phone discussion with Michael. Almost all of them ended with Jav hanging up and muttering, “Prick.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  And assorted Spanish epithets Stef was sure weren’t flattering.

  “Why don’t you find another editor?” he asked.

  Jav topped up Stef’s coffee cup. “Because Mike’s good.”

  “But it sounds like you hate his guts.”

  “I hate him because he’s right, goddammit.” Jav put the milk away and slammed the fridge door. He stomped back to his desk, growling like a bear woken early from hibernation, while Stef and Roman exchanged indulgent looks.

  Stef was amused by Jav’s creative process, but oddly protective of it. Benignly ignored, he fell back into his artwork, sketching and painting and messing around. He cooked on the rough nights, put plates in front of Jav at the desk and took them away afterward. No matter how engrossed, Jav always said thank you.

  It was the little things.

  Things like Jav, who had an enviable and natty wardrobe, choosing to wear Stef’s clothes instead. Ignoring his cashmere V-necks or merino pullovers, he spent weekdays in Stef’s grubby old Skidmore hoodie, his scent lingering in the collar and cuffs.

  “Hold still.” Goddamn, but nothing could get Stef more worked up than Jav saying those two words.

  “Hold still, Finch,” he whispered, his hands and mouth gliding along Stef’s body, peeling his clothes off. Sometimes he pulled free from the tangle of their limbs and pushed Stef onto onto his back, pinning his wrists to the bed.

  “Hold still a minute,” he said, breathing hard, his hungry eyes wide.

  Stef went still under Jav’s touch and gaze, letting him look and touch and take it all in.

  It was Roman trotting up to greet Stef at the door, genuinely glad to see him. Or Jav carrying shopping bags for Rory and Lilia. Girls coming by the table at the bagel shop, shyly asking Jav for an autograph. Smiling at Stef as they waited, a little curiosity in their eyes.

  Stef smiled back, thinking, Sometimes I come home from work and Gil Rafael’s walking around my apartment in his underwear.

  Don’t hate me because it’s beautiful.

  Jav went through a background check, attended sensitivity training and started volunteering in the kitchen at Exodus Project. He picked the same days Stavroula worked, because he liked her.

  The Bake & Bagel became Jav’s downtown office. He kept the cup he bought from Stav behind the counter, and sat with it and his work at least three days a week. Word got around Chelsea that Gil Rafael frequented the local bagel store. Business boomed as people, women especially, dropped in for a bite and a glimpse.

  Sometimes Jav stepped behind the counter, put on an apron and took orders. Then the line snaked out the door. Stav looked on in amazement as all her pottery pieces flew off the shelves and the bacon bagels sold out.

  “Not to toot my own horn,” Jav said, “but I’m kind of a marketing man’s wet dream.”

  “You think?” Stav said, closing out the register. “You’re walking with me to the bank tonight, cookie.” She squared off the pile of receipts, tapping edges on the counter. Looked up to find Jav staring at her.

  “What?” she said, sweeping her long bangs out of her face.

  “You have the tiniest ears I’ve ever seen,” Jav said.

  She laughed, touching one. “I know. Aren’t they ridiculous?”

  Spending a lot of his daytime hours in Stav’s company gave Jav some funny feelings to chew on. He wasn’t attracted to her. He was pretty sure he wasn’t attracted to her, but her tall, Junoesque figure made his hands remember smooth, soft skin and the curved, heavy weight of a breast. When she bent low to pick something from the floor or pull something from a shelf, Jav had to slap his eyes away from her ass. Chiding himself to knock off the reminiscing of a woman bent over the bed like that, back arched and thighs quivering. His fingers curved around the knobs of her hip bones. Giving her the what-for until she screamed.

  Recalling sex with women made him horny and defensive, two things that didn’t go well together.

  I don’t want it, he argued to a mental courtroom. I just remember it. I haven’t had that kind of sex in four months.

  Objection, his dick cried. Jav was basking in sex. He and Stef were at each other all the damn time. Getting each other off in bed, in the shower, on the couch and at the kitchen counter. Pretty much any horizontal or vertical surface that would hold their weight. On the roof of Cushman Row once, which vindicated Jav in all kinds of ways. He came in Stef’s hand, in his mouth, all over his body. Then Jav opened hands, mouth and skin to willingly and enthusiastically return the favor. Without a shred of idiocy or an iota of doubt he liked having sex with men.

  Well, maybe not all men, he thought. But I sure as hell like it with Stef.
So yes, your Honor, I’ve had sex in four months. I just haven’t had any penetrative sex.

  The court fixed him with a penetrative look. And?

  Jav averted his gaze. Never mind.

  A metallic flash before his eyes broke his thoughts apart. Pablo, one of the EP residents, was waving his paring knife through Jav’s thousand-yard stare. “Ground Control to Major Tom?”

  Jav shook his head hard as laughter went around the large worktable where volunteers and residents were peeling potatoes.

  “Hearing voices again?” Stav said.

  “They’re telling him where the mother ship is docking,” Corley said.

  “Hey, don’t be dissing my imaginary friends,” Jav said. “They always tell me the truth.”

  “Unlike us,” Pablo said, laughing.

  Jav could’ve made any number of smartass replies, but didn’t. He minded his Ps and Qs down here, following other jokers’ leads instead of instigating his own. He shut down his natural propensity to ask questions, stayed far away from the subject of sex and avoided any and all terms for genitalia. Maybe he was being ridiculous, but better safe than triggered.

  The weeks went by and he got to know a few of the men. He spoke rapid, curse-laden Spanish with Juan and Pablo. Corley was one smart son of a bitch. Jeff could talk books from hell to breakfast. He was deeply offended Jav had never read any Neil Gaiman and pressed on him a personal, well-worn copy of American Gods.

  “Read it,” he said. “Thank me later.”

  Jav read it in two days and not only thanked Jeff, but begged forgiveness for his ignorance. In the weeks to come, he and Jeff became a two-man book club, discussing reads over prep work and dishes and mopping the floor. Jav made little casual relationships with almost all the residents he met, but he kept it tucked in the back of his mind all of them were here for a reason. When some of them shared bits of that reason, Jav didn’t know what to do.

  “You just listen,” Stef said, as they ran along the High Line, one extraordinarily mild December day.

  “I know, I know,” Jav said. “I learned that much in training. It’s just… Jesus, their stories are fucking horrid and I know I’m only getting a sliver. I don’t know how you deal with the whole story.”

  “You’re a storyteller,” Stef said. “Maybe I don’t know everything about you, but I know you can’t write a scene unless you’re totally immersed in the emotion of it. Which means you’re a sympathetic, compassionate guy. And that’s all you need to be.”

  “It’s weird, though,” Jav said. “Just like you have rules of confidentiality? I feel I’m sort of bound by different ones. Like I shouldn’t tell you about the relationships I have with these guys.”

  “You don’t have to,” Stef said. “But Christ, if you see a resident testing the edge of a knife against their wrist bone, tell someone. It doesn’t have to be me.”

  “So Wayne, let me ask you something,” Geno said. Casually. As if the question had just occurred to him, instead of being mulled over for weeks, waiting for Geno to work up the nerve to ask.

  “Shoot,” Wayne said.

  “How do you get out of a mounted attack when you’re facedown?”

  Wayne grimaced and blew his breath out pursed lips. “That, my friend, is the worst position to be in. You don’t have a hell of a lot of options. Come here, I’ll show you.”

  He lay prone and Geno got on his back, which was a hundred million times easier than straddling his groin, for fuck’s sake.

  “Turtle on his back has a better advantage than a man on his face,” Wayne said. “Your priority is to roll the fuck over. How do you do that?”

  “Push on your arms?”

  “You can use your arms as levers, sure,” Wayne said. “But with full weight on top of you already, you risk injuring your back and that does you no good. Key is your hips. To get them free, you have to curl in a ball. Don’t arch up, curl in.”

  He demonstrated, pulling his elbows in tight, shifting his weight onto this doubled-up platform and jack-knifing his knees in. “Buck like a bronco,” he said. “Rock and roll, throw the attack off balance. Anything you can do to get turned around and facing your opponent. Worst position to be in is facedown and pinned.”

  Wayne grinned then, his eyes twinkling. “But that’s not likely to happen to you, pretty boy,” he said. “Unless they’re trying to get your pants off.”

  Geno walked out.

  He didn’t look back and he never returned.

  “Guess who has a signing at the Union Square Barnes & Noble?” Jav said.

  “Dude,” Stef said. “Now you’ve fucking arrived.”

  At last, Jav didn’t have to imagine Stef on the perimeter of one of these events. Tonight, Stef was either right next to him or within earshot. The perfect wingman, always nearby but not hovering. Making small talk and being charming.

  He could’ve been a great escort, Jav thought.

  As well as a healthy reader turnout, Jav had his hometown crowd. His agent and publicist, naturally. His editor, Michael. Gloria came. Rory and Lilia. Stav couldn’t make it, but Aedith, Katie and Beau were there. Stef’s three co-workers. Now Jav’s friends.

  The Lark clan arrived en masse. A wave of adrenaline went up the back of Jav’s neck as his eyes took roll call. Alex and Val. Roger. Trelawney. And bringing up the rear…

  “Sobrino,” Jav said, coming around the table to fold Ari in his arms, noting with alarm he was a hair shorter than his nephew now. “Stop growing.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder.”

  “Fame makes your ass look fabulous,” Ari said.

  “My ass is always fabulous.”

  “Tell me about it,” Alex said from behind Jav.

  Jav turned around and Alex hugged him.

  He thought he’d put some distance between him and the affair. But one squeeze of Alex’s strong arms, one scrape of his goatee against Jav’s face, one good inhale of Alex’s skin, and…

  Holy fuck, I remember.

  Everything.

  “Let go now,” Alex said, slapping Jav’s back, then his ass. “Or I won’t.”

  It took less than a minute. English gave way to Spanish and then the two of them were laughing in a little depressurized compartment. Flinging open a toy chest of old jokes and lines and holding them up. Punching and shoving at each other. Flirting.

  Jav got lost in it until Alex’s eyes flicked once, twice over Jav’s shoulder and his expression turned genial and expectant. Jav turned around.

  “Oh, shit. This is Stef.” Quickly Jav slammed the toy chest shut, snapped back to English and the present. “This is Alex. Trelawney’s brother-in-law. And mine. Sort of.”

  “Wait, I think we’ve met,” Alex said. “At the Lark Gallery couple months ago, right?”

  “We did,” Stef said.

  As the men shook hands, Ari sidled under Jav’s arm.

  “This troublemaker,” Jav said, getting the boy in a headlock, “Is my nephew.”

  “And mine,” Alex said.

  “It’s complicated,” Jav said.

  “It’s your average American family,” Ari said, shaking Stef’s hand and giving him a frank once-over. On Jav’s other side, Stef was more subtlely considering Alex.

  Oh boy, it got weird in here, Jav thought.

  His nerves were jumpy as fuck. Having this cadre of friends (and my boyfriend) and relations (and my ex-boyfriend?) present made him wish he’d done a practice run with his material, instead of relying on cold memory and a couple of index cards. He kept gulping water but couldn’t get a dry tickle out of his throat. Finally Stef cut him off.

  “Famous authors don’t take pee breaks.”

  “I’m not famous.”

  “Yet. Your fly’s open.” Jav looked down and Stef clipped his nose. “Gotcha.”

 
“Fuck you,” Jav said.

  Stef brushed a bit of something off Jav’s shirt and smiled. “Maybe tonight.”

  “If I don’t drop dead first. Wait, what?”

  “Knock ‘em dead.” Stef leaned and kissed Jav’s mouth then walked away. Trelawney met up with him, graceful as a choreographed passage, and slid her hand around Stef’s elbow as they found seats.

  I’m having the weirdest night, Jav thought. Then the store manager was introducing him and it was time to go on.

  He didn’t bumble any of the material, but it felt like an out-of-body experience. After all those events on the road when he longed for Stef’s eyes to connect with, Jav found he couldn’t look at him, nor focus on any one face in the audience. All the heads blurred together until he got to his story about Roger Lark.

  Rog had kept a low profile so far. “It’s your night, man,” he said quietly when he first hugged Jav. “I’m here but I’ll be invisible.” He skulked in the stacks, incognito in a full beard and ball cap, then took a seat in the last row of chairs, slouched low and unobtrusive. He laughed loud at the passage about The Compass, raising a fist above his shoulder a moment, then flicking his index finger toward Jav.

  Jav didn’t point back, but he held onto Roger’s eyes and laughed along. His stomach unwound. The itch went out of his throat and he relaxed for the rest of the talk.

  The signing went long. Finally Jav found himself alone, standing on the edge of things and taking a breath. He wandered into the stacks, letting his fingers slide along the spines of books. Inhaling paper and ink and stories. Skimming the Rs in General Fiction to find his babies and ascertain none of this was a dream.

  Client Privilege. Gloria in the Highest. The Trade.

  “Jodidamente orgulloso de tí, carajo,” Alex said, sneaking up from behind again.

  So fucking proud of you.

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean it. This is amazing.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be an adventure.”

  “I’ll be watching.”