Full Exposure

by Jerry Cole

  “He’s a very easy person to like, you know,” she says, picking her way through the aisles of flowers and get well soon cards. Scott trails along behind her, one hand reaching down to brush his fingers against the overgrown blooms that stick out into the walkway. A petal comes off in his hand, and he rubs it between his fingers and lets it fall to the floor.

  “Who, Evan?”

  Frances gives him a withering look over her shoulder. “No, the head of the secret service. Yes, Evan.” She turns back around, and Scott lets his lips pull taut. He knows that, knows exactly just how easy Evan is to like. Evan is all warmth and happiness and wide, mischievous smiles wrapped in a package and topped off with a bow, and Scott couldn’t quit him from the moment Evan crash landed into his life. Evan is easy to like, far too easy, and it’s that fact that got Scott into this whole mess in the first place.

  “Yeah,” he says simply, pouring emphasis into the word. “Yeah, he is.”

  Frances turns then, stopping abruptly in her tracks and making Scott skid on his heels to avoid ramming into her. She’s got a strange sort of expression on her face, resigned and a little melancholy. “He’s an incredibly hard person to love, though.”

  She turns around after that, continuing her stride as if nothing had ever happened, leaving Scott to play catch up as he weaves around the thorny rose stems that protrude out into his path. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she says, slowing her stride just enough to let Scott catch up and walk alongside her. “He doesn’t like to think of himself as a lovable person, or a particularly good one. I think he’s got it into his head that he has to make it all up to us by being nice, by keeping us at arm’s length and acting cordial. It’s hard to love someone when they don’t think they should be loved.”

  Scott wants to disagree, he does. It’s the easiest thing in the world to love Evan. Easier than breathing air. Instead, he brushes his shoulder against Frances’ and says, “So what do you think I should do, then?”

  “Well, you’ve already gotten past the hard part, I think. Just remind him that it’s okay to crawl into bed with you.” She pauses, makes a face. “And I don’t mean that in the sexy way.”

  “He didn’t seem to mind it too much last night,” Scott counters. “Asked me to stay and everything. I’d say that’s a pretty good improvement.”

  “That’s because you haven’t spoken to him since waking up. Tell me again, what did he do the last time you two woke up in bed together?”

  Scott grimaces, the memory washing over him unpleasantly. “Ran off to Europe?”

  “Exactly.”

  He takes a moment to consider that. Frances doesn’t seem wrong, not that she ever does. Absently, he thinks of the way Evan seems to act like a cat with its hackles up half the time, the way he’s always the first to initiate intimacy and then the first to back away. He thinks of the look on Evan’s face when he realized they had finally fallen into bed together. Resigned. Not sad, not regretful, just resignation painted over that same skeleton of fight or flight rigidity. Evan puts on a cheerful face, but he’s just as scared as he’s always been.

  “He’s used to being alone, that’s why,” says Frances, once she seems to think Scott’s had enough time to process her words. “He’s used to being the first one to leave. He doesn’t want to get hurt unless he’s the one doing it to himself.”

  That description sounds uncomfortably familiar, and Scott pulls a face. “So I, what? Push myself in until he realizes he can’t get rid of me?”

  Frances gives him a melancholy smile. “Not exactly. Just make sure he knows he doesn’t have to lose you.”

  Of course Evan doesn’t have to lose him. Scott’s the one who pushed into his life in the first place, unseated him from his cozy little hideaway by the ocean and brought him back to the world of the living. He isn’t really sure what more he can do in order to try and make Evan see that. After all, Evan was the one who ran, who left to spend three months in Europe because Scott finally got his act together long enough to kiss him.

  “You’ll think of something,” Frances says, like she can read his thoughts, and turns to examine a pink and white rosebush without another word.

  ***

  Scott finally manages to corner Evan the next day, ducking into the back room of Mitchell’s coffee shop to find him nursing a steaming, overly large mug of tea. He’s got headphones in, blaring something that sounds suspiciously like either very dramatic classical music or possibly film scores, and one leg propped up on the seat he’s sitting on, his arm resting on the bent knee.

  He jumps when Scott sits down next to him, perching himself on an unopened barrel of coffee beans and nudging Evan’s shoulder gently to get his attention.

  “Jesus Christ, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “Hey, not my fault you couldn’t hear me.” Scott laughs, kicking his feet up onto Evan’s chair and snickering at the way he lifts his drink out of spill range hastily. It’s easy, normal for a heartbeat, and then something constricts in him. Scott’s chest seems hellbent on swinging wildly between being blissfully content at the fact that Evan is back home where he belongs and paralyzing fear that he’ll disappear like smoke through Scott’s fingers again.

  “You gave us all a scare, you know,” he says after a moment, eyeing Evan’s profile to see the way his lips contort into a grimace. “Running out on us like that.”

  Evan stays silent, so Scott presses on.

  “All Frances said at first was that no one could find you. I didn’t read the note until later. God, I was so pissed at you I could hardly think straight.”

  Evan hunches in on himself at that, and Scott bites back the rest of his comment. “Sorry,” says Evan, small and tired.

  Scott sighs. “It’s fine, really. I got over it a couple weeks in.” It’s not even a lie, either. He had been upset, sure, had been angry and sad and confused, but once the shock had worn off, a melancholy kind of resignation sunk in instead, filling the gaps between Evan’s departure and his sudden appearance on Scott’s doorstep three months later.

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  That’s something Scott wasn’t expecting, and his heart clenches at the self-deprecating curl of Evan’s lips. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t think I would come back, you know,” says Evan, avoiding Scott’s gaze. Scott tries not to look too stunned, in spite of the way his heart clenches in his chest like a vice. “I considered it, really. With my father gone, there wasn’t much keeping me away.”

  Scott turns his head, avoids looking at Evan just as much as Evan avoids looking back at him. His pulse is dancing a waltz, loud enough that he can hear the rhythm of it pounding in his ears, feel it in his throat and fingertips. All at once, like a film reel played in fast forward behind his eyelids, he sees himself carrying on with Evan gone. At first, he thinks he would probably have retreated into himself, crawled back into the cave of his apartment and returned to a life of solitude and microwave dinners. After a second, though, he realizes he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have given up Evan, even if it meant booking a flight out to England himself to drag him back or demand an explanation.

  There’s not many people he would do that for, but he knows himself well enough to place Evan at the very top of the list. He doesn’t have much of a basis for being in love, but that seems like the kind of thing to do when you are.

  “So what brought you back?” Scott asks, forcing the lump in his throat down just enough to speak.

  “Mitchell, partly. Someone had to tell her.”

  “And the other reason?”

  Evan turns his head, fixes Scott with piercing green eyes. “You.”

  Something goes pang in Scott’s chest, sharp and aching. God, he doesn’t know how he ever managed to keep himself away from Evan in the first place. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right to make a vulgar joke, so Scott just twines his fingers together and stares down at his hands instead.

  There’s a pause, a breath so s
ilent that Scott knows Evan is about to speak, and he braces himself for something he can’t put a name to.

  “Do you love me?” Evan asks, low and quiet, and his voice sounds so broken that Scott wants to reach forward and hold him until his pained expression eases. He can’t though, can’t do anything at all, so he just sits there with his hands folded together uselessly and his throat feeling like he’s being choked by a python. Frances’ words filter through his brain like a backing track on loop. “Because I didn’t think you would. Or could, after April.”

  “Is that why you left?” Scott asks, half-wanting to hear the answer and half-wanting to scramble his way out of the coffee shop before Evan can open his mouth again. “Because you thought I didn’t love you?”

  “Because I didn’t see why you would,” Evan corrects, and Scott’s heart fractures like a lightning bolt right down the center.

  “You don’t get to make that choice for me.”

  Scott is surprised at himself for saying it, and more so that it doesn’t sound even the slightest bit bitter. Only hollow, filled with an aching he didn’t know he could put into words. Evan seems to pick up on it. He doesn’t quite deflate like before, but he does exhale, long and slow, like he’s trying to center himself. Scott wants to kiss the stability back into him, prop him up with tender touches, but he keeps his hands to himself, folds them over each other and turns them at the wrist to stare at his palms.

  “I did, you know,” he says eventually. He doesn’t need to clarify. He sees the way Evan’s eyes go wide and shocked behind his glasses, the way his mouth falls open before he can figure out what to say. “I do.”

  Evan is still searching for a response when Scott stands up, laying a hand gently against Evan’s shoulder as he finds his balance, leaving silently and shutting the backroom door behind him.

  Chapter Twenty

  The funeral comes too fast, Mitchell flying out the day after Evan breaks the news to see her father, Evan staying behind. Scott had thought he would go, for some reason, whether to get some last bit of closure or at least to help with funeral arrangements, but Scott finds him on his doorstep when he comes home after seeing Mitchell off, sitting with his back against the front door and playing classical music loud enough to hear even through his headphones. Scott has to cough to get his attention, even standing two feet away, and Evan jerks as if startling awake from a nap when he notices Scott.

  “Jesus shit, give a man some warning, Carter.”

  Scott scoffs jokingly, notices the expression on Evan’s face, backtracks. “Are you feeling all right?”

  Evan looks up, and Scott can see traces of the same dull, hollow sadness that had filled his voice the night he had come back from Europe. It’s a haunted look, like Evan’s spent too much time in his own head. Scott can sympathize. “Just didn’t want to head home yet. Mitchell gone?”

  Scott nods. “Dropped her off about half an hour ago. I was kind of surprised you weren’t going with her, actually.”

  A flash of something unrecognizable flits across Evan’s face, and he shakes his head. “I can’t do that again.” He pulls the headphones fully away from his ears, wrapping the cord up around his phone like Scott’s told him not to do so many times. “It’s probably best if I just keep my head down for a little bit, let her deal with it the way she needs to. She was always closer to him than I was.”

  Scott can understand that, he thinks. “Should you really be alone right now?”

  “What, are you offering to keep me company?” Evan counters, a wry smile breaking through the melancholy painted across his face. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  He hadn’t been, really, but now that the thought’s crossed his mind it doesn’t seem so bad after all. At the very least, it can let him keep Evan from spiraling into another bout of self-isolation, with Mitchell gone and Frances busy helping her arrange the funeral. “If you want,” he says, trying and failing to keep the concern out of his tone, and Evan’s eyes widen in surprise like he hadn’t really expected Scott to agree at all.

  In the end, Evan ends up following Scott into his bedroom, hovering awkwardly by the door as Scott digs through drawers and fumbles clothes into an overnight bag. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be staying. Mitchell and Frances will be gone for a week, at least, but the last thing Scott wants to do is overstep Evan’s carefully marked out lines and scare him off again. He’d extended his hand, had laid his cards on the table and offered to stay with Evan until the funeral was over. It was up to Evan, now, to take that step toward him.

  ***

  The ring box falls as Scott pulls a flannel shirt out of his drawer, snagging on the fabric and tumbling to the floor. For a heart stopping moment, Scott thinks Evan might run, might take one look at the box and remember the last person he loved was a dead girl, might close himself off and run back to Europe again, but Evan just pads forward, picks up the box and turns it over in his delicate pianist fingers.

  The ring is the same when he opens the box as it has been every other time Scott’s laid eyes on it, same as the day he walked into the jeweler’s shop and picked it out. One diamond, perched in the center of the ring and inlaid into rose gold, bracketed by two pairs of blood-red rubies in the shape of teardrops. It would have looked beautiful on April’s slim fingers.

  Evan lifts the box up to the light, turning it this way and that to watch the light catch in the gems.

  “It’s beautiful,” he whispers, no trace of bitterness in his voice.

  “So was she,” Scott says, and for once, it doesn’t hurt to talk about her.

  “Was she the love of your life?”

  It’s a small question, asked in a barely audible whisper, just barely reaching Scott’s ears before dissipating into the summer air like mist over water. Scott pauses, shirt half-folded in his hands.

  “I probably would have said so, before,” he replies. In the recesses of his mind, he can see her swaying to music from a cellphone speaker, long hair wild and smile like the sun. She was so bright. She was always so bright, a miniature sun taking up residence in the hollows of Scott’s heart.

  Evan shines quieter, but Scott thinks he’d take Evan’s easy warmth over April’s solar flare.

  “And now?” Evan says.

  Scott looks at him, really looks at him. The green of his eyes glimmers brighter than the rubies on the ring in his hand, deep green forest where April had been raging brushfire. Scott wants this, he needs this. Easy, where his life has been turbulent. Home where he thought he had lost his.

  “Now,” he says, tone careful and tender. “Now I think I have another.”

  The light in Evan’s eyes is bright enough to outshine the moon and stars, and Scott thinks he could drown in it.

  ***

  He parks his car in Evan’s driveway for the first time, unloads his bags like he plans to stay instead of just end up passed out on Evan’s couch. It’s a strange feeling, coming with the intention of not leaving. It’s the exact same sensation, except in all the ways it isn’t.

  Evan unlocks the door, makes a vague welcoming gesture, presses four warm fingertips gently against the small of Scott’s back when Scott walks in ahead of him. It’s comforting, in a way, solid contact that’s tangible enough for Scott to say yes, this is real, he’s here. He wonders if he can touch Evan back, just to remind him that he isn’t going anywhere.

  There’s a click as Scott steps into the living room, tugging his little duffel bag along behind him instead of swinging it over his shoulder as he walks. Evan closes the door, doesn’t lock it, hangs his keys on the key hook next to the doorframe. Scott looks around and the pull-out couch isn’t made up, not that he thought it would be. However, Evan makes a strangled noise of protest when he goes to set his bag down onto the couch. Blinking, Scott turns, half-bent at the waist in an awkward position.

  “You okay?” he asks, furrowing his brow in concern at the slightly pained expression on Evan’s face. He’s half ready to pack it in, to call it quits
and head back to the city before he makes Evan uncomfortable, but Evan stops him with a quick, jerky shake of his head. He opens and closes his mouth like a fish, babbling a series of ums and uhs until he seems to finally give up and stride forward instead.

  For a brief, heart stopping moment Scott thinks Evan is going to kiss him again, or maybe punch him in the face judging by the tight screwed look of determination on his face. Then, there’s a warm hand next to Scott’s own, tugging the duffel bag away. Evan pulls it, hoists it over his shoulder and walks away, and Scott follows trance-like down the hallway to Evan’s bedroom. He’s been here before, of course. He has spent more than a handful of nights tucking Evan back into bed after a long night, has borrowed clothes after being soaked by an unexpectedly large wave on the beach, has sat on the edge of Evan’s bed and swung his legs and talked about nothing and everything for hours at a time.

  This, though, this is different. Here, like this, he knows what Evan is asking of him without either of them having to utter a single syllable, and he knows that Evan can hear his answer, yes yes yes in the pad of his footsteps against the hallway floor. As if he would ever say no to Evan.

  As if he ever could.

  Scott wonders, as Evan dumps the duffel unceremoniously onto the mattress, if Evan has ever been annoyed by how often Scott imposes on him. He can barely keep track of the number of nights he’s spent on Evan’s pull-out couch. Then again, he’s never so much as taken a nap in Evan’s own bed. Then again, though, Evan’s spent more than his fair share of nights in Scott’s bed, and Scott knows the feeling of falling into the covers the next morning just to be enveloped in the scent of vanilla and cloves.

  “I’m sleeping here?” asks Scott, even if it’s just as a formality. Evan blinks at him, looks down at the duffel bag on the bed like he’s only just noticing it’s there when he was the one to put it down in the first place. He’s silent, worryingly silent for a moment that drags on far too long for Scott’s own comfort, then: