by Cooper, R.
“I… he recognized me from that?” Vincent hadn’t even had a booth or done a reading. “And… no! No.”
“Good.” Some of the ferocity left Cory’s expression, shifting to something more curious. “Because Ricky read your books after that, and he seemed to think, from what was in them, that you might be of a similar persuasion.”
“He’s read my books?” Vincent addressed the most alarming issue, then scratched nervously at his beard when the rest of the implied question hit him. “Oh.” He swallowed and studied Cory carefully. “I… dated girls, a long time ago. It was nice. But not, uh…. for me. But Lando, the book character, is a little more…. Yes. Or he was, at the beginning. Lately, well, that doesn’t matter right now. I suppose you could say he is, but leaning more toward men.” Fans had asked him this about Lando too, but Vincent was much better at answering questions when he had a computer to hide behind.
“Hmm.” Cory’s gaze was heavy, as if he was looking at Vincent and seeing Lando, although he hadn’t said he’d read the books. Before Vincent could work up the courage to ask if he had, Cory took a deep breath. “He also said there was sex in your stories.” He paused there, as if he hadn’t read them but that alone was enough to make him want to, and Vincent had the vision of him reading those scenes and liking them, and wanting to do what was in them.
Vincent didn’t look anything like his fictional hero, and he hadn’t done many of the things he had Lando do, but he felt heat spread through his chest and down his spine. There were scenes of daring semi-public sex, and bondage beyond the simple things he’d tried, and, in one of his favorite scenes, Lando had let someone who looked a lot like the bar owner fuck him on the couch in his office. That scene really should have clued Vincent in to that building romantic arc sooner than this.
Vincent glanced from Cory to his couch and thought of how Cory moved, thoughtful and confident, graceful, and how he might be with Vincent beneath him. He breathed harder. Then he went back into the kitchen to keep himself hidden behind the counter.
“You did!” Cory stepped closer. “I hear they were pretty freaky. Ricky is going to lose it when he meets you.”
“Face to face?” It was a relief to focus on that worry and not the idea of Cory reading and hating the sex scenes Vincent had written. “I don’t,” Vincent gestured at himself, “I don’t meet fans. Even having fans is… strange. I do go to those events, but only to support someone I know. I sit in the audience and sometimes the other authors will take me to get a drink after. I….” A few of his friends did seem to delight in pointing him out to their readers. Outgoing people were like that at times. “I. It’s to make money.”
“And a distraction from your other job, you said.” Cory pushed his lips out and frowned. “Writing, that’s pretty serious, right?”
“Oh please don’t start treating me differently.” It spilled out of Vincent in a nervous, shaky voice. “People they hear ‘writer’ and imagine, I don’t know, Hemingway or someone. I just write little mysteries, with some porn. It’s not that big a deal.”
“It is a big deal, Vincent.” Cory sighed. “I’ve wanted to read your books for a while now, but it felt weird, knowing that you didn’t know I knew who you were, if you get me.”
“No. I mean yes, I understand.” Vincent shook his head. “But I am the last person to ask if someone else is acting weird.” He was relieved to hear Cory’s laugh, as though Cory wasn’t thinking of Vincent as some kind of elevated, scholarly person anymore. “If anything, I’m glad you haven’t. If you do….” Cory looked upset at what Vincent was trying to say, so Vincent had to go on to explain what he meant. “If you do read them and you don’t like them, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend for my sake.”
“Vincent.” Cory pronounced his name slowly. “When you know me better, you will know I don’t do that. There’s no point when life is full of enough bullshit already. Unless you’re a customer,” he mused a moment later. “Then I have to pretend for the sake of paying my rent.”
The sentiment was beautiful. Vincent smiled and let silence fall while he thought about it. He thought about a lot of things, because if he thought about any one thing in detail he was going to freak out. He considered the pies he’d told Cory he was going to make and his own hubris for attempting them, and what his therapist would say about it—she’d be pleased he was trying. He studied Cory in his jacket and Cory’s fingers, and remembered his sight of his skin and the scent of flowers and the brief moment their hands had touched. He imagined Cory reading his silly stories and enjoying them.
Then he looked around his living room. His sister had paid to have one of his covers printed out and enlarged to nearly poster size, and then framed it. It was her way of being supportive without reading his erotic queer mysteries. But, somehow he’d never noticed the picture was the room’s only real decoration.
“Sorry,” he said at last, suddenly unwilling to raise his voice. The quiet had felt calm to him, as comforting as purple, fuzzy socks. But it wasn’t to other people. “It’s fine, for me. To not talk. You can talk if you want. I know it seems rude when I don’t, but I’m listening.”
“You don’t like small talk.” Cory nodded. “So what? My boss doesn’t either. He can talk about anything in the world, but ask him something light to pass the time and he gets fidgety. It’s nothing. That’s okay. I’m good at it, and that’s okay too. I kind of learned to be. Extra friendly is what people seem to need from me when they first deal with me. I’m a black, gay man. I can’t get away with as much as some others can.”
“That’s horrible.” Vincent couldn’t imagine anyone viewing Cory as a threat, but he didn’t doubt what Cory had experienced.
“I worry about what people think of me, same as you. I just have different reasons.” There was that look again, measuring and thoughtful, but now Vincent understood some of it. Cory had learned his own way of navigating the world, for far different reasons. But, oddly, there was a faint smile on his face as he talked about it. “You didn’t tell me I was making it up. You actually listen to everything I say, which is more than a lot of people, Vincent. And… and no one’s ever worried so much if I’ll like them.”
Cory had noticed Vincent’s nerves and was smart enough to know the cause. That was slightly mortifying. Vincent forced himself to keep his gaze up and was glad he did when it brought a full smile back to Cory’s face. But then Cory said something Vincent didn’t like. “I should let you finish your work.”
“Or take a nap.” Or lie there and panic in the grip of his every conflicting emotion. Vincent tried to sound funny and not disappointed. “It’s been an exciting day for me.”
“An exciting day?” Cory ran his fingertips along his bottom lip, not remotely attempting to look less pleased than he was to hear that. Yet he moved toward the door. “Thank you again for the ride. And for your jacket.” Vincent drooped as he watched Cory take it off and leave it on the back of the couch. “You’re good to have around.”
“It’s nothing.” Vincent waved his thanks away before the last part sank in. “I mean, thank you.”
Cory moved to the door, and there was nothing Vincent could do to keep him there, short of asking him to stay, or offering him a drink, both of which seemed really obvious and left him open to outright rejection. If that happened he’d have to start working later to avoid seeing Cory on the stairs. His writing would suffer. He’d get angry letters. And through it all he wouldn’t see Cory anymore.
“No, really,” Cory interrupted his chain of disastrous thoughts. “You helped me and you didn’t have to. Don’t downplay it, all right, Vincent? Lots of people wouldn’t have done that.”
“Vin,” Vincent corrected him finally. “Most people just call me Vin.”
“Vin.” Cory inclined his head toward him and for no reason at all, Vincent felt himself blushing. He’d probably let Cory call him Vinnie and he hated the name Vinnie. “Vin,” Cory said again, as though he was trying it out in softer and softer t
ones. Then he cleared his throat. “Now I’ve got to go get the place in order. First Thanksgiving all on my own, everything has to be how I want it. It’s a big deal.”
Vincent nodded, because it was.
“Serious,” Cory told him.
“Serious,” Vincent agreed.
Cory grinned, like a cat with a cream. “Then I’ll leave you to your pies.” He opened the door then paused to swing back toward Vincent. “But, if you need to borrow a cup of anything, let me know, all right, Vin?” He held Vincent’s gaze for another moment and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
In a fit of nerves and growing terror, Vincent opened one of his newly purchased bottles of pinot noir. It was a move he soon regretted. Rather than numbing his mind, the alcohol sent his thoughts racing between each event of the day and its hundred possible outcomes. Hot and restless on the couch, he felt like he was plotting a new book, or three, or just one particular romantic story arc.
He came to with his face in a couch cushion and his arms around a mound of blankets. He realized, in the span of seconds, that he’d had too much to drink and passed out, and that the drinking hadn’t worked because he remembered everything. Vincent had, unbelievably, spent the day with his cute neighbor, who was named Cory, who had possibly flirted with him, who was a smart and wonderful planner with an Earl Grey voice, and, and, he had promised to make a pie.
No, Vincent had promised to make three pies, one of them especially for Cory.
And he was hungover.
At least it was a mild hangover. After a while, Vincent made himself get up—slide to the floor—and climb to his feet. Then he took a shower, made some tea, and fortified himself with a bagel and cream cheese before he opened his laptop to determinedly focus on pie recipes.
There was no logic to a brain that could plan several murder mysteries at once but couldn’t figure out how to strategize a day of baking. There was never much logic to Vincent’s brain, but he did know when he needed help.
He popped two aspirin while he debated calling Judith, then consulted the internet in between getting all his ingredients out beforehand, which was apparently something bakers and chefs did.
It was then, right as his headache vanished and the clouds lifted, and Vincent noticed a detail he had overlooked the day before: the recipe on the can of pumpkin filling said he needed to add evaporated milk to make the pie. Vincent had no evaporated milk. He wasn’t even sure what evaporated milk was.
He could go back to the store. That would be the sensible, if terrible and exhausting, thing to do.
Or, if he were braver, if he were the kind of guy who could say with certainty that he was being flirted with, he would walk down to apartment 223 and ask to borrow some.
And if he wasn’t, it was probably still okay if he went over there to ask. Cory had told him to, and Cory had insisted he wasn’t the kind of person who would say something he didn’t mean. Vincent could walk up, knock on his door, and ask if Cory had some evaporated milk he could borrow. It would be easy. The worst that could happen was Cory would tell him he didn’t have any, then he would send Vincent on his way, and Vincent would know. It was simplicity itself.
Which was why Vincent changed his shirt and recombed his hair, and squinted at himself in the bathroom mirror to determine if he looked too casual in jeans and nice, soft, lavender plaid dress shirt before he went over to borrow a cup and a half of milk.
Simplicity itself.
He began sweating immediately.
Cory looked amazing. He opened the door wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, sweatpants, large rubber gloves, and scarf tied over part of his hair. He smelled like cleanser instead of flowers, and he smiled when he saw Vincent. Vincent waved at him—waved! From two feet away!— because he was too momentarily robbed of speech to manage to say hello.
Cory didn’t have that problem. “Vincent!” Surprise wasn’t the correct word for the pleasure in his tone and expression. “I wasn’t expecting you yet,” he added, which didn’t make sense unless Vincent was so helpless that Cory had predicted he would panic at the first sign of difficulty. That seemed likely, since Vincent had forgotten any reasons why he’d come over that weren’t to be near Cory again.
He suspected whatever his original purpose was wasn’t important. It had all merely been a ruse, an excuse concocted in order to experience more of this tantalizing possible-flirting and to talk to Cory.
First things first, however, he had to remember to speak. Then he could think about why he’d come here.
Some words escaped him at last. “You said I should borrow.” Oh god, he was a writer. He wrote for a living, and yet that was all he could think to say. Vincent didn’t know whether to frown or apologize or leave, but then Cory touched his shoulder and stepped back to gesture him inside.
“Come in. You can tell me what you think of it so far.” Cory was saying things Vincent didn’t understand, but he didn’t seem to mind Vincent on his doorstep, or Vincent crossing his threshold.
Being in a somewhat less nervous state today, Vincent got a better look at the living room. The room consisted of a couch with an older model TV in front of it, a pile of pillows on the floor by a heating vent, and a folding table that hadn’t been there the day before. It was probably for the meal the next day, although Vincent didn’t see any chairs except for the ones in the kitchen.
On one wall, where a fireplace might have been in a house, there was a long shelf, like a mantel, where someone had strung white lights and a garland of twisted strips of brown and red fabric with little, probably plastic, pumpkins. There was a similar arrangement on the short bookshelves behind him, and small, fat, scented candles were at the edges of the kitchen counter. Orange and brown fabric strips tied together in another garland managed to look like leaves. They were around the candles and in the center of the kitchen table.
He couldn’t imagine how long constructing the garland had taken. “Did you make all this?” Even if the fabric hadn’t been new, and everything was recycled, it was impressive. In fact, that made it more impressive. Vincent would never have been able to reuse anything, or made it look so good. “You didn’t say you were crafty. I was expecting more flowers, but this is incredible.”
“You think so?” Cory angled his chin up proudly for a moment, as though he knew it looked good, but then stuck his hands in his pockets and moved his shoulders. “People in the shop always ask for certain looks they see online, so after a while I started researching them myself. I do baskets and wreaths and other arrangements for people, in addition to the regular bouquets and boutonnières.”
“Is everything repurposed?” Vincent could have been making too much out of it, but it was astounding to him.
“Leftover ribbon scraps from work, some old shirts in the right colors… I would have used some pinecones and branches from outside, but I didn’t want it to smell like a car air freshener in here.” Cory seemed like he was trying to play down the compliment, but he reached out to touch his garland and then smiled to himself. “So,” he met Vincent’s stare. “Does it look like a place where you’d want to spend your Thanksgiving?”
Vincent nodded, because it did, even if Cory was only asking him in a general sense. “It looks great. I couldn’t make my place look like this in a million years.”
“Well, I’ve haven’t thoroughly cleaned the bathroom yet—too focused on this and the kitchen.” Cory peeled off his gloves and dipped into the kitchen to put them by the sink. He’d reorganized his stock of groceries too.
“Oh. Yes.” Vincent cleaned fairly regularly, and yet now he wondered if his house wasn’t visitors-clean and he had never noticed. He should do that. And then reassess his plan of attack for the pies.
“Do you think there should be music?” Cory needlessly straightened a box. “Or…. TV? My family….” He briefly tightened his mouth. “With my family, there might be football in one room, but usually there’s no television because everyone is talking too much. Discussing whoever
they think is the most scandalous.”
“We always had the TV on.” Vincent didn’t think he was meant to ask why Cory wasn’t eating with his family this year, though he knew all about judgmental family members. “But that was for the parade. My sister leaves it on for the parade too, except for when it’s time to eat. Her husband hates football, but the kids are usually watching something.”
“The parade? You watch that?” Cory stopped adjusting every can and bag on the counter. “With the lip syncing and the balloons and everything?”
Surprisingly, Vincent didn’t blush. “I watched it as a kid. It’s tradition.” And sometimes, if they’d been dealing with their mother, he and Judith would be tipsy by then, regardless of the time of day. “Sometimes the lip synced numbers are hilarious.”
“I see.” Cory was doubtful. He reached up to scratch his head, then seemed to notice the scarf he’d worn to clean still in place. He pulled it away and cleared his throat. “So. Vin.” He exhaled before smiling widely. “How can I help you?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Vincent stared at him for a few moments, his warm skin and parted lips, then blinked and studied every item arranged on his spotless counters. He blinked again. “I came here because—” It was on the tip of his tongue. He’d had a reason that wasn’t simply a chance to speak with Cory again and find out if Cory had been being polite yesterday or if he really did like him.
Obviously, Cory might like him as a friend. Cory probably had lots of friends, such as the ones dining here tomorrow, the ones he was cooking for. Vincent might be one of them now, and that was nice. It wasn’t kissing Cory, or curling up on the couch with him, or gasping into Cory’s ear as Cory made him come, but it was nice.
