by Jerry Cole
It’s strange, he thinks, how much his life has changed in the span of two months. It feels as though he’s been stuck in limbo for five years, running on auto-pilot and never really trying to see past his grief, and all it took to change that was a lost photo album and a cup of coffee. He can’t really imagine his life without all of them in it now, though, jarring as it is to think about. He’s got his weekly coffee with Frances and Mitchell, he has Gabriel because he’s always had Gabriel, and he has Evan.
Evan, who he had found almost by accident, who had stumbled into his life like a baby deer, hesitant and unsteady and trying so hard to find his footing that he didn’t realize he had people to lean on. Evan, who had filled a book with photographs like he was trying to make a window into his heart instead of just saying the things he felt. Scott doesn’t quite know how, but somewhere along the way, Evan had become irreplaceable. It might be Frances at the center of their little patchwork family, keeping them all together like glue, but Evan is the one Scott keeps finding himself unable to tear his eyes away from.
He stumbles into his bedroom and strips off his shirt, tossing it blindly onto the laundry pile and fumbling through his drawers for a pair of sweatpants. Evan’s laugh filters through his head like a looping record, scrambling his thoughts until the only thing he can pin down is the tender look in Evan’s eyes when Scott had been about to kiss him. His fingers brush something hard in the drawer, he curls them around it and pulls out the little box he had shoved to the back of his mind.
For the first time in five years, he doesn’t feel like the sight of it is about to send him into a breakdown.
The ring is still there when he opens the box, sitting neatly in its holder. He hasn’t touched it in five years, not since before April died, when he thought he would slip it on her finger one day. It’s cold to the touch, the metal icy when he pulls it out from the box.
God, he had loved April so much that he felt like a part of him died in the crash with her. He had thought he would never get over her death for so long he never considered the possibility that he didn’t need to get over it.
Breathing in deep through his nose, he topples the walls in his chest on the exhale, letting the grief flood over him like a tidal wave.
He doesn’t notice the tears at first, not until he reaches up to rub at his eyes and stares at the way his hand comes back soaked and glistening. It’s cathartic, in a way. He’s not mourning, he was through with that a long time ago. It’s more a release of pent up emotions than anything else. He lets himself cry, lets his shoulders shake, lets the wetness of his tears drip from the point of his chin and spread out in puddles across the backs of his hands.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket again, spins it in his fingers like a toy. The strange, clawing feeling still sits in his chest and nestles between his ribs like it’s trying to make a home in his lungs. Inexplicably, the part of him that usually tries to run and hide doesn’t shove it down. He spins his phone again, pauses, unlocks it.
Sent 3:04 AM: Merry Christmas
Sent 3:04 AM: Sleep well
His phone is silent, but when he wakes up in the morning, a text from Evan sits neatly at the top of his screen.
Received 5:45 AM: Merry Christmas, Scott.
Received 5:47 AM: You too.
Chapter Twelve
The clock to the new year counts down in slow motion. Scott watches from his spot in the corner as his found family mills around, scrambling to get into position before the last strike of the clock. The flute of champagne in Frances’ hand looks dangerously close to spilling over as she skirts the edges of tables and chairs, making her way to Mitchell’s side. Gabriel reaching over to fill Mitchell’s flute with the bottle in his hand. The five of them are enough to fill the little coffee shop like this, with soft Christmas music filling the air and garlands strung with ornaments draped around the windows. Scott can almost believe that he was always meant to be here.
His circle is small, his friends are few, but he loves them with more ferocity than he’s loved almost anyone. April’s photograph sits in the pocket of his jacket, flush up against his heart, and as he reaches up to press a hand against it, he catches Evan’s eye from the other end of the room.
A slight blush is dusted across his cheeks, sitting red under his freckles and making the green of his eyes shine even across the distance. His champagne flute is half empty, and before Scott realizes he’s moving he finds himself reaching over for the spare bottle to his side, raising it in an offer. Evan lights up, brushing past Frances as he walks over. He puts a hand on her shoulder to steady himself, she turns and gives him a small murmur of recognition. Scott feels the phantom weight of Evan’s hand on his own shoulder, warm and comforting through the layers of his shirt and jacket.
“All by yourself?” asks Evan, rocking back on his heels once he’s close enough to speak. “It’s a small shop, yeah, but we can’t possibly be that far into your little bubble all the way out here.” He sways, unsteady on his feet. For a single moment he’s in Scott’s space, breathing his air, and Scott’s heart does a strange sort of thump-thump-thud in his chest as he catches the faint trails of vanilla and cloves in the air when Evan pulls back. He busies himself instead with refilling Evan’s glass, focusing on pouring straight and slow, not letting the champagne spill over the side.
Scott smiles, small and soft. “Well,” he replies, toying with the neck of the bottle in his hand. “You know me.” The corners of Evan’s mouth turn up at that, Scott watches the way the slight scrunch of his cheeks push his thick-rimmed glasses ever so subtly toward his forehead. A stray lock of hair, light brown and impossibly soft, falls across his left eyebrow, and the desire to brush it back into place flares up hot and aching between Scott’s ribs.
“Yeah,” says Evan, accent thick and weighed down with sweet alcohol. Something impossibly tender flashes across his face, softens his green eyes and smooths down the tension in his shoulders. It’s gone as soon as it comes, and Scott wants to chase it with his hands and his lips. “Yeah, I know you.”
The countdown begins behind them, Gabriel’s deep tenor and Frances’ cheerful voice ringing ten, nine, eight across the empty space of the shop, and Scott counts the seconds in the way the lamplight filters through the dust in the air, the way it catches on the tips of Evan’s curls and turns them from sandy brown to fiery, vibrant gold. His eyes go from Evan’s hair to his eyes, his sharp cheekbones to his freckles to his lips. There’s something wild and untouchable about Evan like this, with his carefully curated exterior torn down by the spirit of the holidays. He’s so human that it hurts, that it makes Scott ache with some vivid feeling that he can’t give a name to.
The clock strikes midnight and it’s January. It’s a new year, and somewhere in the distance Scott is vaguely aware of Frances leaning over to kiss Mitchell soundly on the lips, of Gabriel clinking his champagne flute against the others’ in a toast, and Evan blinks. His mouth opens in slow motion, tongue darting out to wet the seam of his lips, and Scott realizes with a heady spike of shock that he wants to kiss Evan. He could, too. The scent of vanilla and cloves fills his senses again and suddenly Evan is so close, swaying forward and letting his soft golden eyelashes brush the curves of his cheeks, and it would be so easy, so simple for Scott to just lean in the few extra inches.
The moment passes, Evan rocks back on his heels again.
“Happy new year, Carter,” he says, with a trace of something in his voice that Scott quite can’t put his finger on. A glass appears in the air between them, and Scott absently brings up his own drink to tap against it.
“Ah,” Scott replies, feeling a bit like he’s been turned inside out. “Yeah, you too.”
***
Scott falls back onto his bed still in his suit, head still reeling from the almost-kiss. The walk back home had been brisk, cold enough to clear the alcohol fuzz from his head, but he can’t quite shake the feeling in his chest. It had set in during the countdown, when Evan had been close enough that
Scott could count each one of the freckles on the bridge of his nose, and it just hadn’t gone away. It’s settled in the pit of his stomach now, curling hot and insistent in his gut.
Evan’s shirt had been undone at the top as he walked over, neckline pulled aside and collarbones sharp as they caught the light from the overhead lamps.
Scott forces the thought down, reaching up to loosen the tie around his neck. He can’t really hide from it any longer. He’s attracted to Evan, has been for God knows how long. He might have realized it on Christmas, sitting out on the beach with Evan at one in the morning, but if he really thinks about it, he had been drawn to Evan since long before then. Maybe it was early in the month, when Evan had asked him to help with his first meeting with Frances and Mitchell. Maybe it was the way Evan had looked up at him with hope brimming over his eyes like tears and whispered thank you for bringing them back. Maybe it was the way Evan’s hands had pressed into his own, steadying and real and alive. Maybe it had been the first night, the night they met, when Evan opened the door and let Scott into his life, when he had promised to keep in touch and then refused to let Scott fall away from him. Maybe it was the first time he saw Evan’s face, smiling out at him from the glossy photograph, so many months ago it feels like a lifetime now.
They’re a pair, aren’t they? Scott too scared to hold on for fear he’ll have to let go. Evan was too afraid to let Scott fade out of his life but still too nervous to stay in one place. Somewhere along the way, Scott had found something irreplaceable, and he feels like if he takes one step out of place, the entire illusion will shatter and fall to pieces like splintered glass. He wonders, not for the first time, if he’s irreplaceable to anyone. If he’s irreplaceable to someone, in particular.
He picks up his phone, dials a number, lets it ring. Holding it away from his ear, he checks the time. Nearly two in the morning, now, and the hum of the ring is small and tinny through the speakers. It rings, goes silent, rings again, goes silent again. Stays silent.
“Scott?” comes Evan’s voice, distant and distorted. Scott presses the phone to his ear.
“Happy New Year, Evan,” he says, at a loss for what to say. He hadn’t actually thought Evan would answer.
“You’ve said that already,” Evan laughs, breathless and a little slurred. His accent comes out more when he’s drunk or tired, and now that he’s a combination of the two, the musicality of it washes over Scott in tidal waves. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
Scott nearly laughs. He can’t possibly think about sleeping. Not now, not with electricity humming through his bones, a live wire on fire in the dead of winter. “Shouldn’t you?”
“Fair enough,” Evan says, and Scott can hear the smile in his voice.
“Are you still at Mitchell’s?”
“Where else?”
On the street below, a car honks, three blasts of the horn in short succession. “Think you can sneak out for a walk?”
Evan’s tone is wry when he replies, and it makes Scott’s heart do an odd little tap dance against the bars of his ribcage. “And disobey my little sister’s instructions to stay put?”
“Since when do you do what you’re told?”
“Since never,” is Evan’s reply. “I’ll meet you at the river?’
Scott hums an affirmative, hangs up the phone, looks at his hands.
***
He doesn’t bother changing out of his suit when he makes his way up to the railing at the waterfront, but Evan seems to have swapped out his dress clothes in favor of a warm coat and scarf over jeans and what looks like a turtleneck peeking out from above the fabric of the scarf. His cheeks are pink with the cold, dotting the tip of his nose red, and his hair is a messy heap on top of his head, buffeted by the breeze coming off the river.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Scott says, just to watch the way it makes Evan’s face split into a smile.
“I will when you will,” replies Evan with a lopsided smirk, ducking his head to bury his nose in the scarf. Scott fights back a grin.
They walk along the riverbank side by side, the fog rolling in over the water and draping the entire street in a sleepy curtain, the streetlamps haloed in soft light where they cut through the haze. It’s silent, past two in the morning, and the cars that roll by stay silent. It’s just cold enough by the riverbank that they’re left alone. The New Year’s parties spill out onto the main street instead, blocks away and far enough that the rowdy noise doesn’t reach them.
Scott feels like he’s in a bubble, like there’s an invisible barrier keeping the rest of the world away from him and Evan. It’s oddly reminiscent of Christmas Eve, of the way they had walked together like this only the week before, with the water at his side and his hands itching to reach out and touch Evan’s skin. So much has happened since then, so much has changed. Scott aches with the need of it all, with the sudden rush of feelings that had washed over him like a burst dam on the chime of the clock at midnight. Not for the first time, he wonders just how Evan had managed to enchant him so thoroughly.
They pass a handful of people on their way down the river. Drunken carolers singing Christmas songs off-key despite the fact that it’s hours into the new year, couples stuck so close together Scott could swear they were single figures.
“If we keep walking,” Evan says, “how long do you think it would take us to get to the ocean?”
“I think the ocean is behind us, actually,” Scott laughs.
“I was never any good at directions in the city.”
Eventually, they reach a little riverside park, a haven of green in the middle of the concrete jungle, and Evan swerves off the path to plunk himself down on the kiddie swing set. He’s comically oversized on it, knees bent past ninety degrees and feet still flat on the floor, but he makes a good effort to swing regardless. His heels kick up woodchips as they brush against the ground.
It’s been a long time since Scott’s set foot in a playground, and he finds himself laughing inwardly at the way he can forego the monkey bars altogether, reaching up to wrap his arms around the top support beam instead. With a bit of grunting and a lot of upper body strength he doesn’t quite have, he manages to clamber his way up onto the main part of the structure, swinging his legs as he sits on one of the structural beams extending out over the swing set. Evan looks up at him, head tilted backwards and a dopey smile on his face. Scott is suddenly very glad he’s at the top of the structure, because he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to keep from kissing Evan if he was on the swings beside him.
It has to be nearing three, the moon dipping low against the horizon.
“Tired yet?”
Evan huffs a laugh. “Not really, but I bet I will be in the morning.”
“You didn’t bother going back home for the night?”
“Ehh,” replies Evan, shrugging. “Mitchell offered me the spare bed, and it saves me a late night trip.”
They fall into silence, the only sound between them coming when Evan scuffs up the wood chips scattered across the park floor. It’s an easy silence, not quite the comfortable one Scott is used to around Evan, but it’s simple, uncomplicated, punctuated only when the streetlamps hit Evan at a certain angle that makes the spark of affection flare up in Scott’s chest again.
When the park clock chimes three-thirty, they walk back together, shoulders brushing. Scott drops Evan off at Mitchell’s door just a couple blocks away from his own apartment, savors the stilted beat after the goodbye when he realizes this is the point in a date where he’d kiss Evan goodnight.
He goes home instead, collapses into bed, and falls asleep with his fingers pressed to his lips.
Chapter Thirteen
On Mitchell’s birthday, halfway through January, the four of them find themselves sprawled across Scott’s living room, mixing drinks from a handful of standard liquor bottles Scott picked up from the grocery store and doing their best to stay awake for a marathon of truly terrible B-rated action films. They had offered a n
ice night, sure, dinner and drinks and a night on the town, but Mitchell had seemed hellbent on their little movie night double date, as she called it. None of them had the heart to say no.
It’s about an hour into the third movie that Scott feels shifting against his side and a whisper-soft voice reaches his ears.
“Hey, Scott?”
Scott blinks a couple times, looking down. Evan is slumped over, eyes half lidded and torso draped ever so slightly against Scott’s arm, and his eyes glimmer in that strange, half-tired and vulnerable sort of way when he looks up to meet Scott’s gaze. “Could you call me a cab?”
Scott feels something clench in his ribcage and he sits up a bit, blinking the haze from his eyes and peering over at where the girls are sitting on the floor. They don’t seem to notice the conversation, eyes still fixed on the movie. “Are you feeling all right?” Scott asks, furrowing his brow in concern. Evan chuckles, low in his throat and raspy with how tired he is, and Scott wants to bottle the sound and keep it.
“Just falling asleep is all,” he says. His accent is thick, made more pronounced by the drowsy edge that creeps into his voice. “You’re bony as hell,” he tacks on, and it makes Scott huff an amused laugh. “Terrible pillow.” Evan reaches up, pats Scott’s hip.
Warmth floods through Scott at the contact, and he steadfastly blames the fatigue and the proximity for the way it makes his heart thump unevenly in his chest. “You can’t head home like this,” he argues, only half debating whether or not he should really be offering. Maybe it’s a bad idea, maybe he’s opening himself up to a world of heartbreak, but he can’t really stop himself with the way Evan is staring up at him, groggy and vulnerable, a soft expression in his eyes. “You can stay the night. I’ll take the couch.”
A strange look flickers over Evan’s face, hazy and impossible to decipher.
“...Yeah, okay,” he concedes after a moment, voice muddled with sleep.
Scott tries valiantly to focus on the movie, but after about ten minutes of nothing but the warmth of Evan up against his side filling his senses, he gives up and tunes out of the explosions onscreen.
