by Hawkins, JD
“I don’t know,” she says reluctantly. “If I hear something tastes bad, I just avoid it, myself.”
“What about the first time you tasted beer? Or eating your greens as a kid? God knows half the energy drinks I’ve tried tasted like poison at first. People just need to get used to it.”
Melina thinks for a second, then shakes her head again.
“Even if it could work, Jim would never go for that.”
“We’ll be clever about it,” I say, dedicating all my attention to her now, filled with the rhythm of inspiration. “How about: ‘Divinity Kombucha: Tastes like it’s good for you’? Every other health drink tastes like sugar and artificial flavoring, but this—” I pick up the bottle from my desk for emphasis, “—you know this isn’t filled with high fructose corn syrup or chemical enhancers the second it touches your lips.”
Melina smiles.
“Actually… That’s not a bad idea.”
“We could even have a ‘Divinity Challenge,’ where we get regular people to down a whole bottle. Really drive all those ideas home. With the right clips, in the right places—it could easily go viral.”
“I…actually like it,” Melina says. “It sounds ridiculous, but also kinda fun.”
“Great,” I say. “Let’s sleep on it and see if it sounds as good tomorrow.”
Melina nods as she gets up out of her chair. “Got it. See you tomorrow then.”
I look at her for a second, suddenly feeling like I’ve got too much enthusiasm to just watch her walk away.
“Hold up,” I say, grabbing my blazer and slapping my laptop shut. “You wanna do something? Go for a drink or whatever the cool kids do around here?”
“Well…hmm.” She leans over to pick up her other bag from the floor and I notice it’s a big gym bag that seems heavy. “I’ve actually got plans,” she says apologetically.
“Really?” I reply, genuinely curious. “What’re you doing?”
“Um…I sort of have this hobby.” Melina delays her answer as she sweeps the bag onto her shoulder. “It’s just a little something I like to do. You know, blow off steam.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, stepping toward her. “Blowing off steam sounds like exactly what I want right now.”
She laughs shyly, shaking her head, but her eyes flicker up at me—an opening.
“I doubt you’d be into it,” she says. “Don’t think it’s your speed. Especially not when you’re dressed like that.”
“Try me,” I say, opening my hands wide. “Take me to this secret, mystical place of yours where people don’t wear suits.”
She laughs again as I pull my blazer on.
“I don’t know…” she says, a little less sure, a little more coquettish.
“Truth be told, I’m gonna be bored out of my skull otherwise. What else am I gonna do on a Monday night? Call up high school friends I haven’t seen in almost ten years? Cody’s too busy giving girls rides on his motorcycle and I’m already sick of Aiden’s bro jokes…”
I open the office door for her, putting my hand on the small of her back as she goes through—intimate but subtle, playing with the tension between us in a way I know I shouldn’t, but just can’t help myself from doing.
She passes through and looks back at me, her eyes scanning me from head to toe.
“Ok. If you think you’re man enough,” she says, playfully. “But I wasn’t joking—you’re gonna need a change of clothes.”
7
Melina
I don’t tell Wyatt what I have in mind. He’s always liked a little sense of adventure, trying out new things, so I keep up the teasing and let him enjoy the mystery.
We take my car to Hollywood Boulders, the climbing gym where I’m a regular.
As we get out of the car, his gaze darts from the building back to me in curiosity. I lead him inside.
“Well,” he says, laughing a little when he sees the curved, colourful climbing walls, “this isn’t what I expected.”
“Oh yeah? What did you expect?” I say.
He looks back at me and smiles, but doesn’t say anything, as if the thoughts in his mind are self-evident. I try not to blush again, and turn my attention to renting him some climbing shoes.
We change into our climbing clothes—Wyatt already has a t-shirt on, but ends up having to buy a pair of Hollywood Boulders logo shorts. He looks physically uncomfortable wearing something that isn’t super-expensive and cut fashionably, and I tease him a little about his outfit—though he still looks like a model wearing it.
There’s a sense of tension as we go out to the walls, both of us stealing glances at each other, catching the other doing the same. Even though we’ve seen each other naked, and even though my memory of his muscular, taut body is still fresh (and often) in my mind, it’s still nothing like seeing him in person. The twisting muscles of his forearms and those powerful legs.
The climbing area is big, and not too busy this time of day. A few people sit and watch on the mats as their friends make their way up the walls, shouting words of encouragement or teasing as people lose their footing or grab difficult handholds. We walk out into some empty space, to a particularly difficult section of wall that curls up and into a steep, almost horizontal section above our heads.
“You ever climbed before?” I ask Wyatt.
“No.”
“Maybe we should take an easier section then.”
Wyatt looks at me and grins.
“How hard can it be?”
Before I can answer he’s on the wall, making his way up in confident, large moves. I think of Winnie drooling over his butt, and have to stop myself from drooling over it myself.
He’s a little clumsy—obviously a first timer—but the way he grabs and pulls himself up, as if unafraid to explore, as if perfectly aware of his own body, can’t help but seem sexual to me now. A reminder of the intense focus he explored my body with…
“Careful!” I call out, as Wyatt shifts his weight, trying to swing out and grip a small handhold that’s a little too far to reach. He gets a finger on it, but it’s not enough, and he crashes down hard on the soft mat with a little roll.
I gasp, wincing, but only for a second. Wyatt gets up, shakes himself, and laughs.
“That’s pretty fun,” he says. “I’m going again.”
I laugh too, and hold out a hand to stop him.
“That wasn’t bad…for an amateur,” I say. “But let me show you how it’s done.”
I push past him and get on the wall, taking the exact same route he tried. In half the time, I make it to the move that brought him down, and execute it properly without hesitating. I suppress a triumphant grin and call back down to him.
“Are you watching and learning?”
“I’m definitely watching,” Wyatt says, and I blush at the wall, feeling a heat that’s coming from more than the exertion. Suddenly I’m only too aware of how my ass is tensed, and I can almost feel Wyatt’s eyes fixed upon it like a caress.
The reason I like rock-climbing is because it stops me from thinking. Because it focuses my mind on a task at hand instead of letting it spin out of control. But right now, all I can do is wonder about Wyatt’s tone, about the way he’s acting around me. Is he flirting with me? Is this like a date? Or is this just the familiar banter of old friends?
We haven’t spoken at all about what happened Friday night, about drunkenly fucking on my couch, about the way he couldn’t help himself, as if he’d wanted to for years, and about how much I moaned and begged like it’s the only thing I ever wanted.
And what’s making it all even more confusing is the way we somehow came to an unspoken agreeement that we weren’t going to mention it, and then spent the day at work acting like it didn’t happen, letting it go as easily as it had come. As if not talking about it would allow it to take care of itself. But unspoken understandings can get pretty confusing, and with the way he’s looking at me now, I’m starting to wonder.
As much as I understand him,
and as long as I’ve known him, it’s not like I really know Wyatt anymore—not after so many years apart. He’s always been so sweet and kind around me that it’s easy to forget about his reputation with women. But it’s a side of him I need to come to terms with, especially if he sees me as just another clichéd notch on the bedpost. I don’t want to believe that’s really all I am to him, though.
I force myself to focus and we spend the next hour or so climbing, though it’s hard not to blush or act awkward as I tell him what to do. I try to seem casual and confident when I touch his strong hands, adjusting his grip into the correct positions—though I stop short of pulling his ass so his center of gravity is more correct, however tempted I am.
“You’re pretty good at this,” Wyatt says, while we’re both on the wall.
“Thanks. I’ve been coming for over a year, so I’ve had tons of practice.”
“Oh yeah?” Wyatt says, grunting as he makes a tough move. “Makes me wonder what other secrets you’ve been hiding behind that Mona Lisa smile of yours.”
I look at him across the wall, trying to judge whether or not he’s flirting. Wyatt just smiles, warm and friendly like always. Guess I’m not going to figure him out anytime soon.
We drop down and I brush chalk from my hands.
“We done?” he asks.
“Yeah. The 5 PM crowd’s about to start flooding in here. Let’s go grab a smoothie.”
“Sure. Maybe get a kombucha?” Wyatt says, his mood infectiously playful now.
“I’m surprised the word can even pass your lips now.”
A few minutes later we’re at a pressed juice shop down the street from Hollywood Boulders, sitting on a shaded bench outside with a couple of smoothies. Our bodies still a little sweaty, glistening in the lowering sun. A sense of calm across both of us like a blanket, the kind of relaxation that can only come after doing something physically demanding.
“God,” I say, making a face after a long sip of the icy cold strawberry banana drink, “why can’t I be selling this?”
Wyatt looks at me, squinting a little in the low sun, so his eyes look sultry.
“I’m starting to kinda like the challenge,” he says. “Selling an undrinkable drink. Would be a hell of a thing to pull off.”
“I have enough challenges in my life, to be honest.”
“Oh yeah?” Wyatt says, sounding genuinely curious. “Tell me about it. I still don’t really know what you’ve been up to since I moved to New York. Was Brooks everything you dreamed it would be?”
I shrug and look down at the long shadows, sighing a little as I try to think of where to begin.
“Eh…” I shrug. “It was and it wasn’t.”
“I thought you loved going there.”
“I mean, I did. It was amazing, my professors were brilliant, and Santa Barbara is great…it’s just that I’m not sure it really helped me.I loved the projects I worked on, collaborating with the other students. But I guess I thought going there was pretty much ‘it,’ you know? That I’d have a long and fantastic career ahead of me afterward, doing something I loved, working with subjects that were stimulating, or that I could get passionate about…”
“And instead you’re taking Instagram pics of an ugly-looking bottle of liquid mold,” Wyatt says, trying to make it sound funny, though it’s a little too close to the truth for me to laugh.
I nod.
“Yeah. By way of some wedding photography projects, and a bunch of internships and unpaid ‘exposure’ work that amounted to nothing.”
I take a moment to gulp some more of the smoothie—now it tastes a little less great.
“You still take amazing photographs,” Wyatt says, slowly and carefully so I know he means it. “And you have a great eye. You see things that other people never would.”
“Thanks.”
“So…” He tilts his head, seeming to debate his next words. “Are you doing any of your own projects? Building up your portfolio? Whatever happened with that exhibit where they were going to show your Masks series?”
“Oh, that fell through. One of my professors asked me to do a group show, but it turned out the gallery wanted someone with more of a following. And I haven’t really worked on any of my own stuff since then,” I say, struggling to hide the hurt now. “I mean, I have ideas, and I know I should—but it’s hard, you know? It’s hard to find your way back to a passion for something when you’re trying so hard to make money from it too.”
I glance at Wyatt briefly, but enough to see the disappointment in his face, the pity that makes me almost embarrassed.
“You won’t be working like this forever,” he says. “This kind of thing takes time. One day you’ll look back on the stuff you’re doing now and laugh at how ridiculous it was—maybe you’ll even appreciate the things you learned, doing it the hard way.”
I try not to show how much that means to me, how much even such a simple—maybe even cliché—bit of advice feels when somebody actually cares enough to say it to you. When you want that advice to come true.
“Things didn’t take you that much time, did they? You pretty much hit the ground running out in New York from what I heard.” I smile so he knows I’m genuinely happy for the success he’s had, that I know how hard he’s worked.
Wyatt shifts a little and chuckles, accepting the compliment awkwardly.
“Maybe I was killing it career-wise…but the rest?” He shakes his head.
“What do you mean?” I think about our talk at the bar last week, how I asked why he came back and he admitted that he still hadn’t ‘figured it all out.’
Wyatt shifts and squints again at the horizon. I can tell he isn’t used to talking about this kind of stuff, and I wonder if maybe he trusts me in some way he can’t trust anyone else.
“The thing about New York is… I was pulling off moves nobody expected me to; making the work look easy.” He shrugs, taking a long draw from his smoothie before going on. “I was making crazy money. Had my pick of women. Tossing thousands every week at new clothes, watches, junk for my apartment that I never used. Always thinking about the next, faster, sexier car. Felt like I could do or have anything.” He pauses again, his face frozen in time. “But at some point, I started to hate it all. I don’t even know why. All that stuff, that lifestyle, it suddenly felt more like a trap than a home. And I realized that I wasn’t really having a great time anymore. That I’d just been…hiding from something.”
Wyatt forces a laugh, but I can see a shadow fall over his expression.
“That makes a lot of sense,” I say, resting my hand lightly on his arm. “I mean, we were all shocked by the divorce. I know it was worse for you and Cody, but you’re all family to us, and your parents always seemed so perfect together. It can’t have been easy.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt says absently. “I mean, I know it was the right decision for my parents. They’re better off apart now. But still…”
“I had no idea it hit you so hard,” I say. “Those times you came back, it seemed like you took it in your stride.”
He shrugs. “I had to keep it together. For Cody, for them. He was in high school still, and living through it. I was on the other side of the country. You remember when he disappeared for two weeks?”
I nod. “We were searching half the city for him until you called to tell us he was with you in New York.”
“I guess he figured I was all he had left,” Wyatt says. “And I suppose I spent so much time looking out for him, and thinking about how they would get through it, I never really took the time to deal with it myself.”
He shrugs, taking a long drink of his smoothie.
“I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing his arm before pulling my hand away.
He looks at me, but again it’s brief.
“It was like as soon as that divorce happened, everything changed, went back to square one, and I had to figure things out for myself all over again. Decide what I actually want, what’s worth fighting for, what really means s
omething to me in life. But it was more a process of elimination than anything else.” He forces a laugh. “What a waste of time.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” I say. “If nothing else, it was a learning experience. Good or bad, you came through it. You know what you don’t want, what doesn’t work for you. And now you’re here, and you’re finding your path, and that’s what matters.”
Wyatt looks at me fully now, a darkness in his face that reminds me there’s a lot more to this man than the laid-back guy who just discovered rock-climbing. He clenches his jaw a little and looks away.
“I guess only time will tell.”
I try to smile in a way that’s reassuring, hoping he knows that I’m here for him, in whatever capacity he needs—no matter what does or doesn’t happen between us beyond our decades of friendship.
“It will,” I say. “Come on. Let’s get back.”
8
Wyatt
Since we took Melina’s car to the rock-climbing gym, mine is still at the office. Rather than have her take me back there, I guide her to my temporary apartment—a pretty chic place at the outskirts of downtown that I’m renting for way too much money.
“This you?” she says, as she pulls up by the modernist building.
“This is me.”
Melina leans forward so she can look up at the intimidatingly expensive-looking glass building.
“I thought you said you were over fancy things?”
“I guess old habits die hard,” I laugh, and suddenly feel like I don’t want to say goodbye and let her go. I look up at the apartment myself. Big, empty, and so high it feels like I’m detached from anything real.
“You want to come up?” I say. “Check it out?”
She shakes her head. “Not now. I’m all sweaty. I need to take a shower.”
“The shower’s the best feature. It’s got a waterfall shower head. Great pressure.”
A flicker of light passes through her eyes.
“That almost sounds like a terrible pick-up line.”
I laugh easily.
