The Layover

by Roe Horvat

  “Ondro?”

  Come with me.

  But why? I don’t remember sitting down, but I must have because suddenly I was on the sofa, my hands frozen midair above my thighs. Jamie stared at me, his mouth slightly open. His beautiful blue eyes were glistening.

  Why? He couldn’t want that. Could he?

  “You want to try?” I repeated dumbly.

  “Yeah,” he whispered.

  My first instinct was to reassure him, to protect him. To give him whatever he wanted. But what did he want? Did he know what he was asking? Could I say yes? I had to. The alternative was unthinkable. There was no choice. I’d go anywhere he asked.

  “I… I’m going to fix this by myself,” I said. “I need to feel like I’m doing something I’m not ashamed of.”

  Amazingly, Jamie understood what I meant better than I did. “You will. We’ll split the rent, and you’ll find a job, and if it feels like moving too fast, you could find your own place. Just… I know you wanted to try again in Bratislava. I respect that, I admire you for that. And it’s selfish of me to ask you this. But I had to try. I’ve… I thought about it the whole day yesterday. I would hate myself for saying goodbye without asking you first. It’s just… I need to know. Do you want to? That is the question, isn’t it? If you want to come… with me?”

  Of all the luck that could ever happen to me, this was the most glorious thing. So much that my brain couldn’t take it.

  “Ondro?”

  Jamie was kneeling in front of me. He took my hand in his, and his palm touched my cheek. I felt his thumb under my eye. Was I crying? Shit, I was! Again?

  “Yes,” I blurted, not deciding to say it. It took me a while to recover, but then I was crushing Jamie to my chest, kissing his cheek, his neck. “I’d love to. I’ll come with you.”

  Jamie giggled into my shoulder. It was the most beautiful sound. We found ourselves on the floor in front of the sofa, Jamie half in my lap, teasing me and tormenting me. I dug my fingers into his hair and untangled the rubber band just like I’d wanted to for the last six days. His hair slipped through my fingers, and I caught his upper lip between mine. The pain I’d felt in my core dissolved into a sluggish ball of warmth that grew and spread through my limbs. We kissed for a long time until Jamie leaned back, pressing one fingertip on my mouth.

  “You have to book a ticket, like, right now,” he said, always so practical. I grinned.

  LATER, WHEN I was forced to let go of him, it felt awkward. I moved as if in a dream, unsure of the tangibility of the world around me. Maybe if I’d lean on the dresser, it would disappear with a poof? Maybe Jamie would send me packing after a few weeks. I should find my own place in Edinburgh fast before I destroyed everything by being too clingy.

  Jamie started coughing again. It wasn’t violent, but it wouldn’t stop. I forced the medicine on him and called the airlines to see if there were still seats on the plane that day. It was insanely expensive, but I didn’t care.

  We were supposed to leave together. I was dazed, the meaning of our agreement an elusive brittle thing I tried to hold with my hands like a soap bubble. The unanswered question was squirming in the back of my skull. Why?

  When I finished the call, Jamie was sitting on the bed smiling up at me. I smiled back foolishly. I knelt in front of him and hugged him to me. He slid down and straddled me on the floor. I loved to feel his weight on me. He always looked a little otherworldly with his huge eyes, his fragile beauty, and paleness. But this, his ass and thighs pressing mine into the carpet, the dampness on his palms, it made him real. It soothed me.

  “This will sound terribly presumptuous.” He looked away, chewing on his lip. “You said that Bratislava was as good a place as any, and that you wanted a destination.” He hesitated again. He looked back at me, then at our intertwined hands between our stomachs as he played with my fingers. “Maybe we can try to make it a reason, this thing, how it feels right now…. Maybe after some time I can persuade you to make Edinburgh your destination.” He spoke low until he trailed off into silence.

  I smiled at his insecurity, knowing how far gone I was for him. I’d tell him soon. Just not yet. I’d only scare him. So I nuzzled his jaw, kissed his cheek. “You can convince me of anything,” I said.

  “What the hell did I just say to you? I told you that cough medicine made me loopy,” he complained. I chuckled and kissed him again.

  I didn’t ask why; I was terrified that he didn’t know. That it was all just a whim.

  WE PACKED quickly and efficiently, then went downstairs to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. We kept bumping into each other, touching accidentally and not so accidentally. He brushed my elbow and my forearm in the elevator, and we bumped shoulders in the hall. We ate in silence, smiling like fools. I hooked my foot around his under the table, and he chuckled.

  Jamie was still tired even though the coughing was less frequent now. Thankfully, the meds had kicked in. He took my hand in the elevator and smiled at me shyly. We held hands all the way back to the studio, and I felt like a teenager playing with labels in my head, imagining meeting his friends, being introduced as Jamie’s boyfriend. Suddenly I was all about labels and possessive pronouns. My boyfriend, my Jamie. I’d let him use it first, though. Part of me was giddy, putting up party balloons in my head. Another part was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still hadn’t asked why.

  I CALLED a taxi and insisted on dragging our luggage down by myself. Jamie was coerced to stay resting on the bed until the taxi arrived. We found ourselves in the back of the car, holding hands on the seat between us. I watched Jamie’s profile from the corner of my eye. His face was earnest, but his eyes shone, and his knee bounced up and down. Just like me, he couldn’t keep still. I squeezed his hand, and he looked at me, smiling. He looked happy. I dared to think that it was because of me. I made Jamie happy.

  At the gate, I bought an overpriced latte while Jamie sat in the corner stuffing himself with gummy bears, of all things. He looked apologetic, so I couldn’t let it go and not tease him for his guilty pleasure.

  “There is a jumbo pack of those things in the duty-free shop. Shall I buy them for you while I browse for grown-up food?”

  He punched my arm lightly. “Gummy bears are for flying. It’s like a tradition.”

  “It seems there won’t be any left when we’re actually flying. Are you sure you don’t want the jumbo?”

  He pretended to scowl, and I laughed.

  “KRISTI, I’M not going to make it,” I said, getting an odd sense of déjà vu.

  “What?” she mumbled, sounding distracted.

  “I’m at the gate. I’m going with Jamie to Edinburgh.” I squeezed my eyes shut and hung my head. I hated disappointing her.

  “What?” Sharply now, Kristina’s no-nonsense voice echoed through the line.

  “I’m so sorry, Kristi, I miss you so much. You’re my family. But I have to take this chance. He’s… completely and totally amazing. You’ll see. You’re going to meet him. I can’t let this go. He asked me to come with him, and I have to try.”

  I was miserable that I wasn’t going to see her, beating myself up. And she laughed. Out loud and merrily.

  “That’s amazing, honey. I’m so happy for you! That’s like a fairy tale! Like Pretty Woman!”

  I laughed too, short and astonished. “Except she was a hooker, and nothing in the movie even remotely resembles my life?”

  “You know what I mean. This is the perfect unlikely happy ending. It never happens in real life.”

  “Kristi, calm down. It’s just… just an experiment. We’ll spend some time together, and we’ll see. It’s no Happily Ever After.”

  “Not yet.” I could hear the smugness in her voice. There was no talking to her.

  Still, her happiness was a little contagious. I felt my face split into a foolish grin.

  “I have to go now. I’ll call you from Scotland.”

  “You do that. I’m so glad you’re not coming here, Ondro. H
owever much I want to see you, you don’t need this shit. You don’t have to punish yourself. Go, fly away, fall in love, and be happy, okay?”

  I watched Jamie as he sat maybe twenty steps away, leaning against the glass wall behind him, hugging the half-empty pack of gummy bears, his eyes closed. “I’ll try,” I rasped, a little choked.

  “I love you, Ondro.”

  “Love you too. Miss you.”

  I pocketed my phone and went back to Jamie. His eyes opened when I approached, and he smiled at me tiredly. I lowered myself next to him and took his hand immediately. His head fell on my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she understands.”

  “We could go together to Bratislava in the spring. To visit Kristina. And I want to see the city.”

  “We could.”

  THE FLIGHT from Basel to Edinburgh took two hours and eleven minutes. The old lady who sat next to us leaned forward and blatantly appraised Jamie.

  He slept in my embrace; his body was bent at impossible angles, his knees pressed against the window. The meds had finally knocked him out. I absentmindedly played with the tiny knot of wavy hair at the back of his head. I almost stopped, self-conscious under the woman’s scrutiny. But she was smiling gently and winked at me.

  “You’ve found yourself a lovely man,” she whispered, the British accent making her sound like some generic movie character.

  “And he’s brilliant too,” I whispered back, and she patted my knee with a papery hand.

  If I were a believer in those things, I would have taken her easy acceptance as a sign. As it was, it made me grateful.

  WHEN WE stepped out of the plane, the Scottish rain met my face for the first time, and I took it as a christening. I didn’t believe in much, but suddenly I had faith in this dream. However slim, we had a chance. We could make it. I was happy and restless and felt gross from the flight.

  Ginny waited for us in the terminal with a giant black umbrella, her wet blonde hair in a messy ponytail. She was maybe in her early thirties, only a little older than me, dressed casually in jeans and a parka. Her face was small and round, with big brown clever eyes and freckles. She looked both fierce and cute.

  Jamie dragged me toward her. I saw her eyes widen as she took in our intertwined hands. I wished for the tiled floor to open under my feet. Instead, the ruckus of the luggage we rolled behind us accompanied our approach like a fanfare.

  She gaped for a bit and then frowned at me. Her disapproval was apparent.

  “You didn’t tell her?” I asked Jamie through clenched teeth.

  “Forgot to update her,” he answered in the same manner.

  “Hi, Ginny!” he called enthusiastically, and she scowled even more.

  “Hi, Ginny,” I echoed lamely.

  She was tiny but scary. Jamie didn’t let go of me when she hugged him.

  I offered her my other hand, and she took it reluctantly.

  “Andrew, hi. Nice to meet you in person,” I tried.

  “Ondro,” Jamie corrected.

  “Andrew is okay,” I added.

  “No, it isn’t,” he said.

  Ginny watched us like a tennis match.

  “I’ll call him what I want,” she finally said, and Jamie made a protesting noise that she ignored.

  She looked back at me and narrowed her eyes.

  “He doesn’t look gay,” she deadpanned.

  Only then did Jamie release my hand. He needed both of his so he could drag them down his face and groan.

  GINNY INTERROGATED me all the way to the corner of Cambusnethan Street and Marionville Road, where, on the third floor of a hundred-year-old stone house, Jamie lived. She didn’t pretend to be happy about me following Jamie like the parasite she suspected me to be. I liked her more for it because, in her place, I’d think the same. But Jamie was snappy and annoyed.

  They had a talk in the hall while I waited in Jamie’s living room, looking around in a daze. I didn’t worry about Ginny. She’d come around if I managed to prove myself worthy of her approval.

  Gazing at Jamie’s posters and books and geeky knickknacks, the determination to do just that grew into a living thing inside my chest. I had a purpose, and it felt divine.

  I studied the room, trying to learn as much about Jamie as possible. There was a small book collection in an old, dark, wooden case next to the couch. Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Tolkien. Then Rimbaud. Huh. There was no TV, just a medium iMac and a shelf of Blu-rays and old DVDs: Iron Man, Avengers, Miyazaki…. And Julio Medem? Red Dwarf and Black Books. I smiled.

  On the wall next to the computer screen was a large M. C. Escher print. I went up and down and around those damn stairs on the painting for minutes before I caught up with myself. Then I marveled at the exotic beer bottle assortment on the windowsill.

  The door echoed shut, and I heard Jamie’s approaching steps. I imagined hearing the exact same sound tomorrow and the day after that.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said when he joined me on the sofa.

  I shrugged and continued smiling. My cheeks hurt. I was happy.

  “Come here.” I tugged on his hands until he was pressed against my side. I untangled his hair band and let the strands slip through my fingers while I searched his face. It was already so familiar—the crinkles in the corners of his eyes betrayed his amusement long before his lips twitched.

  “What?” he asked and laughed briefly, probably at my expression.

  I think I love you. “Is there a grocery store close?” I asked.

  “Yeah?” Jamie answered, but it sounded like a question.

  “Good, then kiss me, and later, we’ll eat, okay? I want to make you dinner.”

  He chuckled and kissed me.

  With his taste on my tongue and my hand under his T-shirt, I gathered courage. I was here, in Edinburgh, at Jamie’s place, my luggage on the floor. I still hadn’t seen where I was going to sleep. I didn’t know where the closest grocery store was. I didn’t need any visa or work permit; we were in the EU after all. But I had to get a bank account, a job, a Scottish phone number, insurance…. That was not what freaked me out, because I’d done this dance before. Only, this was the first time I desperately wanted not to fuck this up. So finally, I asked.

  “Why, Jamie?”

  He started and peered at me, frowning. “Why what?”

  “Why did you ask me to come?”

  He paused, staring at my face, analyzing again. Jamie played everything safe. He wanted to have control, to know things beforehand. All the more reason to doubt his decision to invite me along. It seemed out of character for him. I didn’t know what he saw in my face, but his changed into an expression of surprised hurt. What? “You think we shouldn’t have…?”

  Whoa. “No! No, I’m exactly where I want to be.” I was. I took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering why you took the risk. Because it is risky. You don’t know me, you don’t—”

  He caught my hands with both of his, interrupting me. His next words forced a rush of heat in my face. “This is why. Exactly this. Never has anyone taken care of me like you have. Even the first night when you asked me what I wanted….” I squeezed my eyes shut. Pictures of Jamie’s naked body flicked through my brain in a stroboscopic rhythm. The sexual frustration of the past few days accumulated, and I didn’t know what would explode first, my cock or my head. Jamie continued, but his voice got breathy. “Then in the hospital and the hotel. When we slept, you would turn on your side at the same time I did, and you’d hold me. You’d even move your arm so you wouldn’t add weight to my chest. Even in your sleep, you took care of me. Even now, you are only worried about me. Well, what I want now is to give you what you want.”

  I think I must have winced because Jamie raised his voice. “Stop that! I met you when I needed you the most. I consider myself lucky, understand?”

  I guess I had a thick layer of self-hatred to work through, so no, I didn’t understand. Not really. I opened my mouth to say
some white lie, but Jamie intercepted me. He knew me already. He leaned closer, pressed his cheek to mine, and talked into my ear, his breath tickling my jaw and neck.

  “I like the way you look at me, intense and focused. You listen when I talk, you remember what I say, and you make me think. You’re independent and sharp but kind as well. You speak like a bazillion languages and have been everywhere, but you never brag about anything. I like the way you smell, in the middle of the night when you’re a little sweaty and the scent of your body wash has almost disappeared. I love the way you touch me, how you find these unguarded moments to kiss my hair or stroke my arm when you think I’m asleep. I love the way you make me want you all the fucking time even when I’m feeling sick and terrible….”

  “Jamie,” I warned but I moaned at the same time, so it was highly counterproductive. I fisted his T-shirt at his sides when his mischievous fingers played with the short hair at my nape, sending tingles down my spine. He leaned back so he could look in my face. I hurried to make things right. “We can’t. Not yet. You’re not well enough.”

  “I know,” he said and clenched his jaw. “You make me feel brave. Even in bed.”

  I groaned, and he laughed shortly, then sighed heavily. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I hugged him tighter. We sat like that for a minute, my mind swirling. There was no time to process all the beautiful things he’d said. My desire for him made my brain foggy.

  “You must be exhausted,” I ventured. “I’m just going to buy us something to eat, and meanwhile, you could get into the shower. Just point me in the right direction.”

  “There’s Sainsbury’s just five minutes away from here,” he mumbled into my shoulder.

  “Great, I’ll fix us something quick. Is there anything you don’t eat?”

  “Sheep intestines.”

  “Some Scot you are.”

  “Do we have plans for tomorrow?” he asked, still grinning.