Looking In

by Michael Bailey

  “That guy. The one that stared at you through the window.”

  I knew who she was talking about, but I tried to play dumb. I hadn’t realized she had seen Adam that day. “Trish, there are literally hundreds of guys that come in here. I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  “The built one. Tats, blond, beard. Ring any bells?”

  Yeah, it did. She was describing Adam, almost to a T. But I couldn’t tell her that. I mean, what was I supposed to say, “We’ve been texting. I enjoy it. He seems really nice. I really like him.” Even to me, the whole thing sounded odd, and I was an active participant. I had no idea what to call what we were doing other than to say we were friends. But I didn’t even know if that was true. I still didn’t know if he was gay. I hadn’t found the courage yet to ask him. I assumed he was, but voicing that assumption could easily get me punched. And I’d had enough fights in my life to last, well, a lifetime.

  When I didn’t answer, she leaned in closer, almost conspiratorially. “Something’s going on. I know it.”

  Finally finding my voice, I said, “You’re high.”

  She snorted. “Nope. Something’s going on, and I think I know what it is.” Then she leaned in even closer and whispered into my ear, “Good for you.”

  The store’s phone rang, pulling her attention from me. She turned to get it, stopped, turned back to me, and said, “We’re not done.” Then stormed off to the front counter.

  Oh yes, we are. If I can’t define it for myself, how can I for someone else?

  I turned back to the stack of books I was working with, and pulled a few from it to put on the shelf.

  “David, phone!” Trish yelled through the store.

  Phone? For me? But I don’t get calls. Especially not at work. But maybe it was Adam.

  Without much more thought, I jumped up, dusted off my knees, and raced to the front counter. Trish handed me the phone. Leaning against the glass counter, I pressed the receiver to my ear, and said, “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?” I said.

  I heard rustling in the background, but no one spoke.

  “Hello?” I tried again.

  Still no response.

  Then the click of the dial tone.

  I pulled the receiver away from my ear and glared at it, like the inanimate piece of plastic and wires would give me answers. Placing it back in the cradle, I turned to Trish and said, “They say who it was?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Maybe it was your mystery guy.” Then she gave me a knowing smirk. The problem with that was that she had no idea what she was smirking about. And, if it was Adam, why hadn’t he called my cell or texted like he usually did?

  “Again, Trish, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Fine, don’t tell me. But whatever’s going on, whoever that was, keep at it. You’ve been…well…happy, smiling, for the last couple of weeks. Deny it all you want, but I think I know what’s going on.”

  Frustrated with the circular conversation, I said, “If you do, please tell me. Because I have no clue.”

  She huffed, threw a hand into the air, and stomped away.

  Confused by the conversation and the mystery call, I returned to the stack of books I’d been putting away.

  There’s one significant downside to brainless work, and that is that it allows your mind to wander.

  Had the call been from Adam? No, he would have texted me, he never called.

  Did I miss a text from him, and he called me instead? I pulled my phone from my back pocket and checked the screen. No, no missed texts.

  Everyone else I knew was here at the store. No one else would have needed to call me.

  Unless…

  My breath caught in my throat. I held a hand out to grip the bookshelf. My head spun.

  Him.

  He found me.

  He knows where I am.

  These thoughts spun around and around until I finally had to sit. I closed my eyes and willed my brain to go black.

  It wasn’t possible. There would have been no way he could know where I worked. I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. He knew nothing about me, at least not anymore.

  But the thought still nagged at me. My first reaction was to text Adam.

  When had that become a thing?

  I thought better of it. I would have to explain, and how would I do that without telling him everything? I couldn’t dump that on him, not with everything he was going through. It would be unfair of me to dump my issues into his lap. I also knew what the outcome would be when I finally did tell him. The selfish part of me, the part that had been enjoying whatever was going on between the two of us, wanted to keep him around for as long as possible.

  My natural instinct was self-preservation. I had learned a long time ago to handle things on my own, not to depend on anyone because at some point, they would let you down. However, that line of thought contradicted my desire to keep him around.

  I was probably blowing things out of proportion. There’s no way he could find me. Trish had to have heard the caller wrong. Or the caller had asked for David, but when I answered, realized he had the wrong David and the wrong number entirely. That sounded reasonable, right? There was no reason to tell Adam because there truly was nothing to tell him. At least, this was what I told myself as justification for not texting him.

  The nagging at the back of my skull wouldn’t go away, and stayed with me for the rest of the day.

  That night, my phone buzzed from its resting spot on the couch and Adam’s name flashed on the screen. We’d texted multiple times throughout the day, but I hadn’t told him about the weird call at work

  -Yo.

  I picked up my phone, and with a grin, sent back -Hi with a smiley emoji.

  -Whatchya doin’?

  -Nothing. Light reading. You?

  -Going stir crazy.

  -Sorry.

  -Not your fault. I need to get out of here for a little bit. Ry wants alone time with Lucas.

  I could understand. Lucas was going to be in the hospital for an extended period of time while undergoing his treatments. I was sure Ryan would miss his son, and I was also sure that Adam wanted to give him the space to enjoy their time together.

  -Not surprising. I responded.

  I was, however, surprised by his response. -Dinner?

  Dinner? Was he making dinner? Was he going to dinner? Was he asking me what to have for dinner?

  Because I was the master in interpersonal relations, I answered, -Huh?

  -Come to dinner with me?

  I’m sure I stared at my screen for a few years. At least, that’s the way it felt. I bit my lower lip, debated on my response. I wanted to go to dinner with him. I really did. But I was nervous. What would we talk about. Texting was so…easy. No pressure. You could respond when you wanted to. You didn’t have to worry about body language and facial expressions making the wrong impressions.

  I may have taken too long deliberating because another message came through. -Please? My treat.

  I could almost hear the plea ringing in my ears.

  Before I could change my mind, I typed out, -OK.

  Instantly, I got three smiley face emojis. -Pick you up in an hour?

  My fingers moved without thought. -OK.

  Crap. He didn’t know where I lived. I had never told him. I looked around my studio and a wave of embarrassment passed over me. I couldn’t have him pick me up here. I couldn’t show him my home. It was small, sparse, and screamed loser.

  Giving myself a moment to think, I typed out, -Remember the comic shop?

  -Yeah.

  -Meet me there.

  -OK.

  Nerves settled in. My stomach wanted to leap out through my throat. I had never been on a date before. Was it actually a date? No, probably not. Just two friends having dinner. Were we though? Friends? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what proper decorum was for situations like that. I was flying blind without a map or knowing where
the destination was.

  I had an hour. Well, less really. My intent was to meet him downstairs in the parking lot. Not have him meet me at the studio.

  I jumped into the shower and scrubbed every inch of my body. Once finished, I brushed my teeth and threw on deodorant.

  Standing naked in front of my closet, I pulled out shirt after shirt, and held them up to my torso in the bathroom mirror. Nothing seemed to work. Why was I trying so hard? It wasn’t a date.

  Finally deciding on a baby-blue long-sleeved button-down, because I thought it brought out the color of my eyes, I put on a T-shirt and slid into the button-down.

  No, this wasn’t a date.

  I pulled on my best pair of jeans and tucked in my shirt.

  Still not a date.

  Once dressed, I rewetted my hair for styling, adding a little bit of gel, and combed it until it was this side of just right. Then I brushed my teeth, again.

  Definitely not a date.

  I grabbed my phone, wallet, and keys, shoving them into my pockets and stopped in the middle of my studio.

  My messenger bag. Did I need it? I never went anywhere without it. I usually put everything that was currently in my pockets into that bag. But taking it to dinner seemed odd. Would Adam think it weird if I brought the bag? It was only dinner, after all. I shouldn’t need it.

  Leaving the bag on the couch, I turned off all the lights and left, locking the door and checking its security. Twice.

  I was in the parking lot twenty minutes before Adam was supposed to be there.

  NERVOUS. AS. FUCK!

  I had been to war, but I had been trained for that. When you’re in the field, your training takes over and it saves your life. There was no training for this, no how-to manual. I was flying by the seat of my pants, about to jump out of a plane without a parachute.

  Metaphorically, of course.

  Ryan and Lucas were at the dining room table eating their own dinner while I was getting ready. I knew my brother, and he was doing everything in his control to bite back a laugh. The last thing I needed was to be made the butt of a bad joke from my brother. His son, however, didn’t seem to have the same tact.

  “Lookin’ to get lucky?”

  I wheeled around to face him, and Ryan’s composure broke, letting out a snort. I turned to him and said, “Can’t you control your son?”

  “He was easier to control before you moved in.”

  “So, his mouth is my fault?” I was irritated, and they clearly thought my irritation was ripe for the picking.

  Lucas snorted as well. Like father, like son, I guess.

  Snagging my wallet, keys, and phone from the kitchen counter, I stuffed them into my pockets and made a mad dash for the door.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” That came from Ryan.

  “Eat a dick,” I snapped, then remembered Lucas was in the room. Maybe Ryan was right and I was corrupting poor, innocent Lucas.

  “So that is on the menu, then. And, yeah, I wouldn’t do that, so…” Ryan couldn’t keep the grin off his face.

  I flipped him off as I closed the door, muffling the sound of their uproarious laughter.

  Truth be told, I honestly wasn’t that put out by the jabs. If it meant putting a smile on their faces, I would gladly be their target any day of the week. Anything to relieve the stress we had all been under those past few weeks.

  Ryan was doing his best to hold himself together. I could hear him at night, after Lucas was asleep and I was sequestered in my room. He would pace from his room and out into the rest of the condo. He barely slept. The bags under his eyes needed handles so that he could carry them. He was short tempered with me. I knew when we argued that it wasn’t about me, it was about the disease. I was an easy target, something tangible that he could fight. I was fine being the metaphorical punching bag if it helped him keep his sanity. You can’t yell at a disease and expect to get anywhere.

  Strange as it may sound, the bright spots had been my text conversations with David. They had become a welcome distraction from all the stress I was feeling. I didn’t normally open up to people, and I got the sense that he didn’t either. My hope in sending the initial text was to make inroads with him, to open the lines of communication. There are those people that find it easier to talk when they’re not face-to-face with the person they’re talking to. You don’t have to worry about making eye contact or physical gestures. There’s a certain amount of safety and comfort when chatting with someone from behind a keyboard, or, in this case, a phone screen. It was for that very reason that I knew he had to be nervous. Hell, I was too. Would I do or say something wrong? Did I look okay? Would I laugh at something, thinking it was a joke when he was actually being serious?

  His texts seemed more…open, I guess the right word would be. He never talked about family, although he knew about my brother and nephew. He barely talked about his job or the people he worked with. But beyond that, the sky seemed to be the limit. My hope was to change that.

  I was curious as to why he chose to have me meet him at the comic shop. I assumed it was because I knew where it was. I would have been just as happy picking him up at home. Maybe he’d let me drop him off there.

  I pulled into the parking lot behind the building that housed the comic shop, and saw a lone figure standing under the light on the back of the building. As I pulled closer to him, my breath caught in my throat.

  He looked…beautiful. Now, I know that’s not a particularly masculine thing to say about another dude, but he did. I’m not sure if it was because of the glow of the parking lot light, or the baby-blue shirt he was wearing, or if it was simply because it was him, or all of it in some weird combination.

  I pulled up beside him and jumped out of my car.

  He looked as nervous as I felt, barely making any eye contact. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to throw him my best disarming grin. I was afraid it may not have come out that way. Probably more along the line of friendly stalker. “Hungry?”

  At that, he did grin. “Starving.”

  My fingers itched to touch him. I had to stuff them into my pockets just to keep them under control. “Good. Me too. How does Mancy’s sound?”

  He eyes went wide as saucers. “We can’t go there,” he almost shouted.

  I was confused. Did he know someone there that he didn’t want to see? Had he run out on a bill? “Why not?”

  “Adam, do you have any idea how expensive it is?”

  I did. I had researched restaurants close to where I was picking him up after our last text exchange, and had purposely selected that one. I wanted to treat him to something special. He worked in a comic shop and rode a bus to the grocery store, for God’s sake. I knew there would be no way in hell he’d be able to afford a restaurant of that caliber under normal circumstances. I wanted to be the one to give it to him. Damned if I could figure out why. “It’s okay. My treat.”

  “I can’t let you.”

  I had fully expected his protest. “Let me. I want to. I can’t do anything for Ryan and Lucas. Let me do this for you.”

  Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m not a fucking charity case.”

  I threw my hand up. “Whoa, whoa. No, I know you’re not. That came out wrong. I don’t think of you that way.”

  “Oh? And how do you think of me?” Still defensive. And we hadn’t even made it out of his parking lot yet.

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “As someone I’d like to get to know better. If you’ll let me.”

  His stance seemed to soften. He’d dropped his arms to his sides, at least. “Fine. But I take care of the tip, understood?”

  At that point, I knew that it would be foolish to argue. I had bruised his ego enough apparently, I would have to at least give him that. “Fine.”

  I don’t know why I did it, but I ran and opened the passenger’s side door for him, then instantly regretted it. Wou
ld he think I was being chivalrous or condescending? Not that I thought of him as feminine. He was very masculine, as near as I could tell. I wanted to be considerate. Then I feared I was laying it on too thick, so I raced around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. He stood outside of the truck for a moment, as if he were still trying to figure out if this was a good idea. My seatbelt was clasped across my lap by the time he got in and had closed the door.

  The restaurant was only a few blocks from the comic shop, so it didn’t take us long to get there. That area of town was old, most of it being built in the early 1900s when brick and mortar were the primary construction tools. The restaurant itself was housed in a building constructed in 1907, but the exterior looked completely refurbished with a fresh coat of paint and giant sign stenciled onto the side proudly proclaiming its date of establishment in 1921.

  In all the years I had lived in Toledo, I had never been to Mancy’s. David was right, it did have a reputation for being rather pricey. Perhaps that was the reason my parents never brought my brother and me. Who would want to spend that kind of money on a meal with two screaming little boys? Plus, it wasn’t like we were loaded as a family. I knew my parents had to scrimp and save for everything. That kind of frivolity wasn’t necessary.

  This, however, was a special occasion as far as I was concerned. I wanted to treat David to something special, so money was no object to me.

  Walking into the restaurant truly took my breath away. I instantly felt underdressed. I cast a glance toward David, and I could see the discomfort on his face. He stood there with one arm across his chest holding his other elbow, as if he were shielding himself. I immediately regretted the idea. The last thing I wanted to do was to make him uncomfortable. I wanted our night to be easygoing, free of drama, not tense. I mentally kicked myself in the ass.

  The maître d’ approached us, and I could feel David tense. “How many in your party?” he said.

  “Can you give us a sec?” I gently grabbed David’s arm and pulled him to the side. “You okay?”

  He wouldn’t look at me, but said, “Yeah.”

  I knew he was lying. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  He tilted his head up slightly, raising his eyes so they were just visible. “But you wanted to come here.”