by J. P. Oliver
“Good morning.”
He looked up, startled, before the light of recognition shone in his eyes. But then he kept looking at me. Like, for a while. And a tiny smile curved the corner of his lip. I didn’t know what that was about. I opened my mouth to ask him, but he cut me off.
“Good morning yourself. Did you and Jamie have a nice chat?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. He actually left something for you.”
“He…?”
Gavin shrugged. “I don’t know, dude. A few hours after he came by looking for you, he came back in, handed me this, and asked me to make sure you got it.” Gavin ducked beneath the counter and emerged with a rectangular package wrapped in shiny purple paper.
My jaw dropped. A present? I took it tentatively, like it was a living thing, like touching it might bruise it. It felt heavy for its size. I stared at it for a while. Neatly wrapped, with the dim lights over the counter glinting off the paper.
“Gonna open it?”
Gavin’s voice stirred me out of my stupor. I looked up at him.
“C’mon, Beck.” He grinned. “I’m as curious as you are. More so. I’ve been wondering what it was since last night.”
Hands trembling, I slid my thumb under a part in the paper, tearing it a little and peeling the tape. A rectangular white box, with a picture on it. Red patches, blue patches, and the number 9:41 staring up at me in white. It took me a moment to piece it all together.
A low whistle from Gavin, then, “Holy shit. Is that an X?”
“It’s a phone?”
“It’s a very expensive phone. I guess he wants you to keep in touch.”
The tape sealing the box was already broken. I opened it. Sitting on top was a small piece of stationery with thick black writing.
Beck, mi tesoro.
Leaving your room yesterday was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I imagine living through the next week will be even harder. I got this before leaving Harlan and programmed my number into it. Let me know when you get it, and text, call or FaceTime me whenever.
J.
I looked up at Gavin. “He wants me to let him know I got it.”
“So do it!” He was beaming from ear to ear.
“I…” I looked down at the glass and metal in my hand. “I’ve never used a cell phone before.”
“Oh, honey. Never?”
I looked around, making sure we were alone, then said, “My uncle never let me have one.” I swallowed, embarrassed. But it was just Gavin. He wouldn’t make fun of me. “He barely let me use his computer, even. He didn’t like me talking to people too much. It took me forever to figure out how to do internet stuff on that old laptop you gave me.”
He looked at me for a long time, and I couldn’t quite figure out what his eyes were trying to tell me. Finally, though, he smiled and stretched out his arm, palm up. “Give it here.”
I handed it to him. He fiddled for a moment, then gave it back to me, a white screen with Jamie Flores at the top and a keyboard at the bottom. “I’ll give you a lesson after we close up, but for now, just type him a message, then hit that little arrow.”
I did, using one finger to poke the tiny digital buttons.
Thank you so much for the phone. I like it a lot. Gavin’s going to show me how to use it later. I already miss you.
A soft bloop, and then my words appeared in a blue bubble.
“Sounds like you just sent your first text. Congratulations!”
I grinned up at him, and then nearly dropped the phone when it chimed, vibrating in my hand.
“Heh. To celebrate, I’ll buy you a case later. Don’t want it going tipsy-tumbles on the first day you own it.”
I heard him through a fog. More words had appeared on the screen.
I’m glad you like it.
Another chime. Another vibration.
Thank Gavin for me. Tell him I owe him one.
And again.
Can you talk at our usual lunchtime?
And again.
Just leave the phone on. I’ll call you.
I waited a little longer, just to be sure, but the phone was silent. So I typed, Yes
He responded immediately: Bueno. Tty in a few hours.
“What’s Tty?” I asked Gavin.
“Huh?” He held out his hand and took the phone. “Ah. Yeah. ‘Talk to you.’ Gosh! There’s so much to teach you. I’m excited for our lesson.”
I smiled, only feeling a little dumb. Mostly, I was glad I could be dumb around Gavin, so Jamie wouldn’t see it.
...
A little after 2:00, my pocket started buzzing and dinging. The weight of the phone had been present all day, a constant reminder of the man who’d given it to me, and I’d been even more aware of its weight as “our usual lunchtime” approached. Still somehow surprised by the cacophony at my hip, I fished the device out, nearly dropping it again.
Jamie Flores was calling me. I pressed what looked like a button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Mi tesoro.” His voice sounded weird. A little echoey. “Can you see me?”
I spent a split second in confusion, then—feeling like a dummy again—lowered the phone. The sight of the brown-eyed, dimpled man on my screen erased my embarrassment. “I can now. Sorry. Still figuring the phone out.”
He laughed. “No problem. I probably could have gotten you something simpler, but I wanted to get you something with a good camera. So I can see you, even when I can’t see you.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s not enough, Beck. You deserve nice things, and useful things. And I couldn’t go a whole week without talking to you.”
“It’s good to talk to you, too.” It was. It really was.
“Can you talk now?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re alone?”
“I’m in the stockroom.”
“So if I tell you I’m still thinking about how beautiful you are, how sexy you were yesterday, how good you taste, no one will hear me?”
My face had never gotten so hot so quickly. I looked around the room, making sure I hadn’t missed some dark-cloaked spy, then whispered. “It’s just me.”
“Fuerte, Beck.”
“It’s just me.”
“Good.” He grinned. I felt my knees go weak and sat down on a box. “I’ll be thinking about that until I see you again, but I miss just having you around, too. Sharing a meal. Chatting. Getting to know you.”
“Me, too.”
“I know. One week. And we can talk whenever we want. See each other, even if it’s just on a screen.”
“I’d like that.” Not wanting to sound needy, I paused before asking, “Can we talk tonight? After Gavin shows me how to use the phone?”
A wicked gleam came into his eyes. “I’d like to, but I think…I think I want you to do something for me. Something for both of us?”
“What?”
“Forget me. Just for one night. See if Gavin or Jay wants to go out. Spend time with people you trust, outside of work.”
“I… I’d rather talk to you.”
“I want to talk to you, too, hermoso. But if I won’t see you—really see you—for a week, I want to know you’re having fun. Living your life. I don’t like thinking of you alone all the time.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll ask them out tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Bueno, mi tesoro.”
I smiled and swallowed, and when I had the courage to speak, I said, “I love it when you call me that.”
...
O’Neill’s was loud. I don’t think I could have gone inside if Gavin and Jay hadn’t been on either side of me. Jay was telling us a story, something about his boyfriend, Corey, punching nine minutes instead of ninety seconds on the microwave and almost setting the kitchen on fire. Gavin laughed as we reached the door, but the sound of t
he music and chatter, even from the other side of the door, had me white-knuckling my fists, shoved deep into my pockets.
Gavin opened the door and stepped back, holding it open for us. The noise increased. I felt my muscles tense.
“Lead the way, Beck. You’re my guest tonight.”
“He invited us, Gavin. You should make him pay,” said Jay.
“Psssh. I know what I pay him. The least I can do is buy him some dinner.”
I hesitated. Gavin smiled down at me and let his hand rest on my shoulder.
“We don’t have to talk about this all night, Beck, but I know this is huge for you, going out like this. I’m proud of you, and I’m happy you asked me to be part of this.”
Jay, less formal, just bumped gently against me, reminding me he was there.
I exhaled, and walked inside, leading my friends.
Once we’d been seated, and Gavin had his wine and Jay had his vodka soda and I had my Sprite, Gavin demanded I show my phone to Jay. Over the next two hours, they showed me how the lock screen worked, and added their numbers to my contacts, and showed me how to download games and music. After his second drink, Jay started prank texting Corey from my number, and then Corey got mad, and then when Jay explained what was going on, Corey decided he’d come downtown and join us. Luckily, we had an empty seat at our high-top.
We closed the place down. We stayed all night, eating fried food and ice cream, talking and laughing. Mostly I just sat and listened—Jay and Gavin were so quick and so funny, it was almost like watching a comedy routine—but I had fun, and it wasn’t until the restaurant started to clear out and the jukebox shut off that I realized the noise had hardly bothered me at all.
It wasn’t as nice as being with Jamie, as going to bed with Jamie, but as Gavin walked me home, I realized these had been the best two days in a row I’d ever had.
12
Jamie
“So, Jay is moving in with Ace?”
“No,” I repeated. “Jay is dating Corey, the doctor. Ace is the cop, like me, and Ryder’s the detective, and they’re moving in together.”
“And who’s Elliot moving in with?”
“Have you even been listening?” Wren Lee was one of my oldest friends, and I knew he was an excellent listener. This whole game of romantic musical chairs was a little confusing. “Eli’s my friend, who works for Harlan PD. Ty is his boyfriend. They’re already living together. But he—Eli—is looking into apartments for me, and he said there’s going to be a fairly nice, really affordable place available once Jay is officially squared away with Corey and Ace and Ryder move in together.”
“But the point is,” Wren said, “you’re moving to BFE for a guy you’ve known for less than two weeks.”
I rolled my eyes. Another guy talking like that about Harlan, and about Beck, might have gotten a stronger response out of me, but Wren meant well. “I’m not moving there, güey. I’m looking into month-to-month rentals while I see where this goes.”
“And if it goes, you’re going to move there?”
I shrugged. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I knew what I felt for Beck was too intense to ignore. It wasn’t just the sex, although the image of him writhing naked on those messy sheets had been pretty fucking tough to shake. I liked him. I liked getting to know him. I wanted to help him, whatever that meant. And I liked how I felt when I was with him.
Luckily, I had a few seconds to recover from my thoughts as the waitress arrived, refilling our waters and clearing away our mostly empty bowls of tteokguk. Wren thanked her and told her we were doing fine, and then turned back to me.
“I probably shouldn’t judge. You’re a big boy, and you’ve always known what you wanted and been brave enough to go after it.”
“As my nearly two full years of college prove.”
“Indeed. But I wanted to be a surgeon. You were born to be a cop. No use in sticking around when you’re not getting what you wanted. Especially when you needed your Korean friend to help you out in Spanish class, vato.”
I laughed. “That wasn’t real Spanish. You can take that stuff you learned to Barthelona and eat tapas if you want. You wouldn’t last a day en la calle.”
“Barthelona,” he said, stressing the Castilian lisp even more than I had done, “is in Spain, if I’m not mistaken. What you meant to say is it isn’t real Mexican. Cholo.”
“Chino.”
“Eh-hem. Coreano.”
“El Chino más Latino,” I said, digging up the nickname I’d given him the first time he’d aced one of Señor Eisenberg’s quizzes and I’d barely gotten a B.
He shook his head, barely able to hide his smile. Wren was, if I was being honest, kind of a dick sometimes, but I loved the guy, and I really enjoyed those rare occasions when we could get together and bust each other’s balls.
“Anyway,” he finally said, gathering his dignity about him, “what’s the name of this one-horse town that you’re definitely not moving to so you can court a guy half your age?”
I sighed, a long exasperated exhale. “He’s not half my age, Wren. Not even close. I’m still in my thirties, mil gracias. And the town is called Harlan.”
Wren froze. I’d never seen anything quite like it. At least, not in a long time. He’d had some pretty dark moods when I’d first met him, getting lost in these clouds of anger and resentment over something he’d never really been willing to talk about. If I were completely honest, it was one of the things that drew me to him. He behaved sort of like someone who’d been bullied or abused, but there was a subtle difference I could never quite put my finger on, and my twin needs to figure out what was wrong and then fix it had compelled me to spend time with him. It was much later that I’d really gotten to know how smart and funny he was, and how good his heart could be when he put in a little effort.
I was about to ask him what was going on now, what it was about Harlan that made him tense up like that, when the waitress returned, japchae deopbab for him and bibimbap for me. This time I covered for him, giving him a moment to feel his feelings while I thanked the waitress and asked for another beer. If I knew Wren Lee at all, I knew pushing him would do no good and might just set him off, but my curiosity got the best of me.
“What was that?”
“Huh?”
“Your face, güey. You froze right the fuck up when I mentioned that town.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I gave him a long, level look, then dug into my dinner, letting the silence between us get heavier and heavier.
“I’ve been to Harlan,” he said eventually. “Didn’t like it. Happy to be in Denver.” He took a sip of water and the ice in his voice melted, accompanied by a return of the playfulness in his eyes. “You go toodle around in your horse and buggy, cabrón. Build a little cabina in the mountains for your new man. I prefer civilization.”
I let the evasion and the gentle digs pass, just happy to have him back. Anyway, my mouth was full of beef and noodles, so I couldn’t have spoken anyway. He launched forward, digging around with his own meal idly. “And speaking of los amores de Flores, you’ll never guess who I bumped into the other day.”
Listing my past loves wouldn’t take very long. Not the important ones, anyway. And the ones Wren knew personally didn’t include anyone I wanted to hear about. I glanced up, but kept chewing.
“Noah,” he said, hitting on the worst of all possible options.
“Hierba mala nunca muere,” I said after swallowing.
“And a bad penny always shows up,” he agreed.
“Where’d you see him?” I asked, mostly so I’d know where to avoid.
“At the hospital. Don’t get excited; he was there to see a client. Which meant he was perfectly mobile, and able to follow me around, asking about you, until I ducked into a restricted area.”
I groaned. “What was he asking about me?”
“‘Have you seen Jamie? How’s he doing? You know, he still has some stuff at my house. Could you let
him know to call me so I can get it back to him?’ That kind of stuff. At first I pretended I didn’t recognize him, didn’t know what he was talking about, but I guess there’s a reason I went into medicine rather than acting.”
“So you shook him?”
“And left him looking pretty grumpy.” Wren shrugged. “Whatever. He never liked me much anyway. Just put up with me whenever he had to because I was friends with his papacito.” His tone became sickly sweet as he repeated the name Noah used to call me, in bed and out, and I grunted in response. “So if I see him again…?”
“The past is the past, and that’s where Noah belongs, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Awww. But you were so cute together. A cop and a lawyer. Hanging out with you was like watching an entire episode of Law & Order.”
“Wren…”
“So I shouldn’t give you his number?” Wren moved as if to go for his wallet.
I froze him with a glare.
He shrugged, muttered, “It hasn’t changed,” and then went back to poking at his food.
We ate in silence for maybe a minute before the waitress brought me a chilled bottle of Amazing First Love. (One thing about Korean beers: the names aren’t boring.) I took a long pull, then broke the tension between us.
“Anyway, Wren, welcome home. It’s good to have you back in Denver.”
The ice melted immediately, and he grinned up at me. “It’s good to be back.”
“And you’re settling in okay?”
We talked for over an hour about his new job and his new place, and he told me a few stories about the hospital that had me laughing out loud. When he wasn’t deliberately being an asshole, or at least when he wasn’t being an asshole at me, he was fantastic company. Along the way I caught him up on the details of my family, and by the time I had my third beer, I’d forgotten all about his encounter with Noah, and my tumultuous break-up with my ex.
We were in high spirits as we walked out of the restaurant, and Wren waited for me while I ordered my Lyft, since I’d planned on drinking and left my car at my sister’s place. We parted with a manly hug, a clap on the back, and a promise to keep in touch.
