If the Fates Allow

by Annie Harper

“I smile.”

  “Yours is practiced,” Javi said. “It’s a tactical smile.”

  “Maybe I just need a reason.”

  “To smile?” Javi said. “I’d say that this tequila is reason to smile.”

  “Cheers to that,” Jack said. He raised his glass again, and the muscles in his face loosened and lifted without so much as a voter in sight.

  “That’s a little better,” Javi said.

  “Contrary to what you might think, I do smile.”

  Mmm. Scratchy.

  Sorry, weekend scruff.

  I like it. You should let it grow.

  I don’t look good in a beard.

  Not a beard, just scruff; just enough to hint at the man beneath the suit.

  Joey had pushed, early and often, for Jack to loosen up, to present a more casual appearance, something more edgy than the close shave he had sported for so many years. But his moustache grew faster than his beard, and Jack hated the look and feel of it.

  It’s a porn ‘stache.

  You look hot.

  It’s easier to shave.

  You look like you just got back from a week off—and I like how it feels.

  They compromised, as they had on so many things—the stubble that Joey swore made Jack look worldly, and a trip to the barber to keep the edges sharp and the length consistent. Jack could live with it.

  But he wasn’t so sure that compromise was a two-way street.

  Joey had resisted becoming part of Jack’s professional life. He hated political events: the rubber chicken dinners at the Hilton, the election night marathons. He could be convinced to go along for the right event, the right cause. Jack had bought him the suit, had it tailored to show off Joey’s athletic build, and sprung for the hair appointment that controlled the volume of dark waves that Joey so often contained with a ponytail. He’d grimaced through the haircut, but bit his lip. It’s not every day that you’re a VIP at an inaugural dinner. But Jack felt the distance through the night: the aloof manner, the dead eye—the sense that Joey would rather be anywhere but in that hotel ballroom.

  “He thought I was trying to change him.”

  “Were you?”

  Jack shook his head and raised the glass to his lips. He muffled his words with a sixty-dollar shot of tequila.

  “He changed me.”

  You should get off the bar.

  The Dodgers are in the Series, and I’ll shake it if I want to. Get up here, Mr. Volarde.

  I’ll just sit here and enjoy the show. No need to risk a drunk and disorderly.

  You love the Dodgers. Dance with me. No one’s going to stop you.

  Only if you get off the bar.

  Behind it, then.

  “Do you dance?”

  “What?”

  “The song—George’s rule. Gotta honor it.”

  The Casa Blanca’s owner had programmed the music mix himself, proudly creating what amounted to a mixed tape of Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. But one song, the signature piece, had its own set of house rules: When “As Time Goes By” cycles through the rotation, hit the dance floor with someone you love.

  “You know the rules, Volarde.”

  “I’m not in love.”

  There was that damn smile again, accented with the slightest of winks.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Javi nodded his head to the side, toward a tiny space that doubled as a dance floor.

  “Let me stand in.”

  He held out his hand. As if compelled, Jack took it and followed him toward the dark corner. Javi turned, wrapping an arm around Jack’s waist. “Ready?”

  Jack responded by slowly falling into the embrace and letting it support him.

  They swayed in the glow of the multi-colored string lights. The moon slipped through the leaded window, casting shadows of ethereal dancers across the floor. A strong palm drifted down Jack’s back to settle into the notch above his waist, as if the spot had been carved specifically for this hand, these fingers so comfortably at home against his spine. How long had it been since someone had touched him there? Joey always teased him that this was his magic spot, like when you rub a dog’s belly until it kicks with uncontrolled joy.

  Jack shut his eyes and let the sensation wash over him: the warm comfort of being held, the cool breeze of the overhead fans. He rested his head on a welcome shoulder until he felt the tactile shift of a body delicately turning, adjusting, and of lips caressing his neck.

  The sensation stopped him cold. Jack pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “Too soon?” Javi asked.

  “Too familiar.”

  Jack rested his forearms against the bar, and lowered his head into a cradle of pinpoint cotton. Javi stepped alongside and placed his hand back on his shoulder.

  “Have you considered that maybe you need a little nudge; that maybe it’s time to move on?”

  That was the last thing he needed. He’d already tried giving in to the whims of an unsentimental body in an unsettling attempt to clear his head, if not his heart. He had convinced himself that was all he really needed—an anonymous moment to take and not give, time to tune out his mind and his heart and listen instead to the amplified cries of his libido. He was free to do as he pleased; no one would blame him. For god’s sake, friends were urging him to hook up with someone. It was nothing more than a release of a pressure valve, an anonymous blowjob that would be forgotten the next day as he tackled the unsettling work of moving on.

  But it wasn’t.

  There was a time when he was comfortable with casual sex. But that had changed with Joey. Jack had driven home after the encounter as if a police cruiser had followed him home from a bar—too cautious, too self-aware, and too anxious to get the hell home and slam the door shut behind him. Two months later, the lingering guilt still haunted him.

  “It’s not like I haven’t tried,” Jack said, his voice a whisper, a soft murmur of regret.

  Javi stepped behind the bar. He poured an ice water and set it in front of Jack, then pulled up a bar stool.

  “No more tequila for you.”

  “Am I going to get a lecture?”

  “No, just hydration.”

  Jack took a long, slow swig from the glass, then wiped his lips dry with the back of his hand.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Javi smiled. Those dimples.

  “Because you need it,” he said. “Call it a Christmas gift, if you like.”

  “You’re about to give me the ‘Isn’t this what he would have wanted?’ speech, aren’t you? I’ve heard it before.”

  “I’m sure you have, and that’s why I’m not.”

  The smile was back, with a certain restraint; the smirk was replaced by a soft expression that urged Jack on. He covered Jack’s hand with his own.

  “When people tell you that, maybe you should think about what they’re not saying, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Javi looked straight ahead, avoiding Jack’s gaze and letting his words make the contact.

  “No one’s saying you have to rush into anything. No one’s saying you have to get married. No one’s even saying you’ve got to get laid. You just need to get yourself into a place where that’s a possibility again—and no one’s going to judge you for it.”

  Jack pushed the water glass across the bar. Hydration was all fine and well, but he was having an evening that required something stronger.

  Javi raised an eyebrow and reached for the tumbler.

  “No, I don’t need more water,” Jack said. “Make it a red wine.”

  “You’re not going to like how your head feels tomorrow. But if you insist…”

  “I insist.”

  Javi grabbed two Bordeau
x glasses, stepped behind the bar, and returned with a dark green bottle. He turned it in his hands, showing Jack the label.

  “That’s a nice Cab. You sure George won’t mind?”

  “It’s Christmas, and I’m tending this place by myself. Yeah, it’s okay.”

  Javi uncorked the wine and poured a sample for Jack.

  “Oh, please,” Jack said. He took the bottle from Javi and poured two full glasses.

  He tapped their glasses. “Cheers.”

  “To moving on,” Javi said.

  Jack nodded and sipped. Lingering over the wine’s aroma, he kept the glass poised at his lips.

  “Thanks,” he said, “and I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me today.”

  “What? Because you’re talking about him?”

  “Talking to a stranger… about him.”

  “Maybe that’s what you need.”

  The grass wasn’t as lush or green as the fields in the suburbs, but that was kind of the point. After cutting the ribbon on the urban field, the mayor spoke of the importance of inner city soccer, how the sport’s suburban nature had essentially locked urban kids out of participating. This park would be the first step in changing that, the mayor said.

  Jack may have written the talking points, but they were largely of Joey’s making. He had come up with the proposal and, in his own way, lobbied for it by sharing the idea with the mayor’s wife at a dinner party the year before. She had become its champion—and his. When the park opened and a new inner city youth soccer league began, Joey was invited to stand alongside the politicians on the dais. For this cause, Joey would play politics.

  Jack stood off to one side, next to Marie. She looked at him and winked.

  “He’s a keeper.”

  “You’ve kept this all bottled up, haven’t you?”Javi said. “My mother used to say that grief was like breathing. You have to breathe to keep living, and you have to grieve to let someone go. You can’t free yourself until you free them. You understand?”

  “Not really.”

  “You have to let him go. You have to give yourself a chance to live.”

  “Is this standard bartender patter?”

  “This is common sense.”

  Jack stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the empty streets of the central city. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Library Tower. A bank had bought the naming rights years before, but Joey had always insisted on calling it by its original name and reminding him that it was the building the aliens attacked in Independence Day.

  You would have been up there on the top with one of those Welcome to Earth! signs, wouldn’t you?

  No way. I would have been Will Smith, punching out the alien and lighting up a stogie.

  Except you don’t smoke.

  Except I don’t smoke.

  He also got married before the final battle.

  It’s a metaphor, Jack.

  The Library Tower had style, even for a skyscraper—full of layers and fine details so lacking in many of the city’s high-rises. Panels illuminated its peak: a red and green luminescent crown for the holidays.

  Javi stepped alongside him and quietly took in the Los Angeles skyline.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It has an old aesthetic, a personality. And I like how they change the colors for the season—the red-and-green for Christmas,” he said, nodding at the tower. “But mainly, I like it when they just have the white lights. It’s like a beacon pointing to the heavens.”

  Jack nodded his agreement, but said nothing. He took the building in and held his fist to his mouth as if holding in the words that finally burst free.

  “We fought that morning,” he said. “Last Christmas. The day it happened.”

  It should have been a little thing, a spat, but Jack wouldn’t let it go. He wanted an answer. He wanted certainty. He wanted to get married and to announce an engagement among family at dinner that night. But it didn’t go according to script.

  Joey brushed it off, as though it was a simple suggestion, or maybe a joke, but certainly not a proposal. He laughed and said that he was allergic to rings.

  Don’t you love me?

  Do you need a ring to prove it?

  Maybe a conversation would be nice.

  I’ll make you a deal. You’ll know that you have my undying love the moment I give you my skate key, but please, no rings.

  A Christmas Eve proposal spilled into a Christmas Day argument.

  “We were supposed to have dinner with my family, but Joey said he was going to a friend’s place across town.”

  “He needed to get out?”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess—He went to see his old girlfriend.”

  “Oh.” Javi went silent, as if considering the possibilities. “Did you trust him?”

  Jack bit his lip. He knew the answer. He knew that Joey had always been faithful, even during rough patches. But a small, stubborn corner of his mind chose to believe the worst.

  “He was monogamous,” Jack said. His tone was guarded. Though he could speak convincingly on any number of policy issues he didn’t believe in, when it came to Joey—no matter how much he knew he should believe in him—he also knew that he lacked conviction.

  “It just didn’t feel right. I know that sounds bad, but we’d just fought, and then he up and left. He said if I wanted him to go to dinner with me, I’d have to go to her place and pick him up. And he grabbed that fucking bicycle and took off.”

  Jack stared off at the tower. Usually, its crown created a hazy glow as the soft evening fog rolled into the city, but the heat wave kept the lights at its peak oddly crisp, creating colorfully defined stripes along the top of the building.

  “I thought he’d call, but nothing.”

  “Didn’t you go look for him?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “I thought he needed space. I thought he’d be here when I got home.” His voice drifted off.

  He turned his back to the window and rested his weight against the wall.

  “I found out the next morning. They ran a check on his license. The address came up with my name. Someone recognized it and sent it up the ranks. My boss woke me up with the news.”

  A knock on the door at such an ungodly hour for a holiday—it could only be Joey.

  He must have forgotten his keys.

  But he opened the door to the mayor, alone and grim.

  Jack, I don’t know how to tell you this…

  He folded his arms across his chest, closing in on himself.

  “I should have gone after him. He never should have been riding that bike in the dark.”

  Javi pulled Jack into his arms, held him tight, whispered in his ear.

  “You can’t blame yourself. It was just a fight. He shouldn’t have left you like that.”

  Pressure built behind Jack’s eyes—That’s how tears should feel—yet the dust kicked up by the winter winds still scratched at his corneas. He inhaled and held his breath, suppressing tears, but Javi pulled back and gripped his forearm.

  “Don’t. Let it out.”

  The words willed him to cooperate, permitting his body to surrender its grip on his grief. He may not have had The Good Cry that so many people had told him he needed, but the pressure finally found its release. A tear, and then a second, rolled down his cheeks. For now, it was enough.

  Jack let the arms that he had pushed away minutes before enfold him, support him. He held on for dear life while “Stardust” played, and slowly calm overtook him. He exhaled and released the pressures and demons that had shadowed him.

  Ever-so-slowly, Jack let the music carry him in a hesitant step-ball-step. He wrapped his arms around Javi’s shoulders and swayed in slow syncopation with the ballad, in no hurry for the song to end.

  “If George was s
o determined to have Big Band era music in here, he should have used the Bing Crosby version. Nat King Cole didn’t record ‘Stardust’ until the fifties,” Jack said.

  “But Cole’s version is the best,” Javi said. He paused, resting his hand on Jack’s chest, near his heart. “You’re going to be okay, Jack Volarde.”

  Javi paused and angled his face to Jack’s. The kiss was brief, comforting, and gentle. Jack hesitated, but didn’t pull away.

  “Mistletoe,” Javi said, smiling. “I had to.”

  He laced a hand through Jack’s hair, and kissed him again. It was more determined, more certain—a cool, electric rush that started at Jack’s lips and rushed to his fingers and toes. It felt like life itself.

  He’d forgotten this feeling—a sensation not so much of want, but of need—and once reacquainted, Jack embraced it. His senses awoke as he gave in to lips, hands, and tongue.

  How do you tell a stranger that they know you better than they should, that they’ve pinpointed your tells and weaknesses and have zeroed in on the things your soul knows need to change?

  “When’s closing time?” he murmured into Javi’s neck.

  “Whenever I’m done.”

  “Then maybe you should close up,” Jack said.

  Javi loosened his hold.

  “You sure?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Is this the same guy who wandered in here wanting to be left alone with his memories?”

  “Maybe you were right,” Jack said. “Maybe it’s time to let go. It doesn’t mean I don’t still love him, but maybe it’s time to move on.”

  Jack let his hand drift to Javi’s hip.

  “Come on.”

  “Jack…”

  “Close up the bar. Let’s get out of here.”

  Javi stepped aside, creating a gap between them. He turned toward the window and looked out on the city lights.

  “I wish I could.”

  “What?”

  “I have to be somewhere.”

  “In the middle of the night? On Christmas? You’re just going to walk away?”

  Javi turned to Jack. The flirtatious smirk had been replaced by a half-smile that looked wistful, maybe even remorseful. He kissed Jack’s cheek; the sensation lingered against his skin.

  “I’m sorry.”