From New York

LaVieEnRose

It happened in August of 2011. I came home from work and Justin was in the office, signing to someone on his videophone setup, the thing he only digs out for the professional shit. I stuck my hand in the doorway, and he smiled and signed, one minute? I gave him a thumbs-up, wrinkled my nose when he blew a kiss at me, and went to the bedroom to get changed.

I was in the bathroom fixing my hair when he called, “Hey, I'm all done.” Too loud, but what can you do. I came back and leaned against the doorway, and he whistled—with no sound, this guy—and drummed his fingers on the desk. “Wow.”

I'm going out. You want to come?

Yeah, sure. I need to get changed. But he didn't get up.

Well...?

He tilted his head to the side. How was your day?

Christ, you're transparent. Tell me about the phone call, darling.

He spun around once in his office chair. I was talking to Marie about maybe could I take a sabbatical this fall.

Oh yeah? it sounded good to me. He'd been struggling to find time to get his own work done in-between helping Marie out with now two galleries, and pushing himself that hard was shitty for his health and meant he ended up having to take time off anyway. If he was willing to put a stop the never-ending guilt spirals every time he took a sick day, so much the better. It's not like we really needed his income, and he was pulling in a decent amount on commissions anyway. What'd she say?

She was hesitant at first, until I told her it was because I got a job offer from Samir Rahal. He watched me, pulling his lips between his teeth.

You...Samir Rahal?

He nodded.

Actual...

“Yeah.”

Holy shit, Sunshine. A little background here. Samir Rahal was an art world darling, a household name in the right kind of households, and probably one of Justin's favorite living artists. We'd seen his exhibit a couple months ago at MoMa, and Justin had a book of his work. He'd started out as a graffiti artist and gone on to be some sort of post-neo-expressonist figurehead. Loud stuff, political stuff, crazy amounts of detail work. The big three: color, anger, and sex.

I know.

When did this happen? I said.

I don't know, like...an hour ago? He ran his hand through his hair. I called Marie right away.

So you talked to him?

Justin nodded. Someone told him about my work I was doing, and he saw the train tracks...you know he does all that urban stuff, and now he's doing this huge mural project, it's...it's enormous, and a big fucking deal, and he wants me to be his apprentice. He said he wants my perspective, I guess...because I'm gay and disabled, so he's probably going to be disappointed by how boring I am.

I laughed. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

He wants to teach me. And pay me.

Justin. Fuck.

He bounced a little, looking nervous. Are you proud of me?

Take your pants off and I'll show you.

He grinned. I haven't said yes yet.

Why the fuck not? Marie said it was okay. Call him back right now.

Justin clasped his hands in his lap. “It's in LA.”

I will deny to my dying day the punched-in-the-stomach sound I made. LA.

He nodded, watching me.

For how long?

Three or four months, he thinks. He'd um, he'd put me up in apartment or something, he said...he said somewhere nice.

You know that I can't...I can't leave town for three or four months.

He sighed. “I know.”

I nodded slowly. Okay then.

“Okay?”

Okay.

He smiled a little. Okay.

Come on. We're going dancing.

**

“So he's really going to take it?” Daphne said.

“Are you kidding? This is his dream job. Once in a fucking lifetime shit. Of course he's taking it.”

She threw back her shot with a wince and a quick headshake. We were at this bar I'd come to like, this dive about a block away from the hospital where Daphne worked where a lot of the doctors hung out. It was about the only to hang out with her, since she worked every minute she wasn't sleeping, and Derek had a tutoring job downtown so he was in the area enough and Emily was a young queer so she was going to be in the Village anyway, so it had sort of become our de facto hangout spot. It wasn't a gay bar, but there were always plenty here anyway given the area, plus I had Nova for that shit. This was for drinking and bitching. Quality time with the kids and all that.

Derek wasn't there that night—he has some group of other friends he cheats on us with a few times a month—but Emily was there, and Gwen. Gwen was a veterinary surgeon, twenty-nine and from Minnesota. She drank whiskey straight and had hacked-off blonde hair and a whole lot of tattoos and she fostered kittens so she was always making Justin sneeze, but I liked her besides that. She and Emily had been together for about six months at that point, and from what I could tell they were playing it about the way I do, hooking up with other people at parties or clubs but going home together. Honestly, and I say this with as much of my bullshit pushed aside as I physically can, I think that's the most realistic way to do this. The way Justin does it, with Gabe and with the guys after Gabe, is good for him, and the way Daphne and Derek do it—yeah, I'll spoil the ending here, they're still together—somehow works for them, because straight people are just playing with a whole different deck of cards, I guess, but I think fucking around but letting one person in is the most foolproof strategy. Hell, if a relationship methodology works for me, I imagine just about any bastard could make it work.

Anyway, Gwen and Emily were over by the pool tables, cracking each other up with dirty jokes and making out against the pillar in the middle of the bar. I was keeping an eye on them because there were way too many fucking creepy straight guys watching them, but the signing would probably be enough to keep anyone from actually approaching them. People get freaked about signing. Salespeople fucking ignore me if they see me talking with Justin. As if I go to stores to show myself around. Pamper me, fuckers.

“Has he told Gabriel yet?” Daphne asked me.

“I don't know. Gabriel's got like twenty boyfriends he's juggling, he'll be fine. Probably grateful to have one less plate in the air. Though Justin's definitely his favorite.”

“Maybe they all think they're his favorite.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

“All right, look,” she said. She was three shots deep at that point and starting to show it. “Take it from someone who just did four months without their boyfriend. It fucking sucks.”

I waved her off. “Derek was on a different continent. Justin's going to be a five hour plane ride. I'll see him. God knows I'll have to go out and weep at his bedside at some point, knowing him.”

“Yeah, that's another thing.”

“That Derek's all shiny and healthy?”

“Justin's plenty shiny,” Daphne said, and I smiled a little. “Is it even...doable?”

“He can do anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know he can do anything, but that week we went snowboarding took a shit ton of preparation, and he wasn't alone for that.”

I downed my shot and motioned the bartender for another for each of us. “Well, it's a shit ton of preparation.”

“I bet.”

I sighed and threw down my next shot. “He hasn't had a major seizure since we got his new meds sorted out. Fucking eye drama aside, he's been pretty healthy for like...Jesus, almost a year now. Maybe he's all fixed and shit, assuming these meds don't try to fucking poison him like the last ones. He doesn't want to tell Rahal. Which I think is fucking bullshit. The guy already thinks Justin's interesting because his ears are nothing to write home about, he'd probably love the epilepsy. Think it gives him perspective instead of bruises. Which it does,” I granted. “Also bruises.”

“It's like you save all your words up for when you're drunk.”

“Eh, fuck off.” We clinked glasses and downed the next round. “He wants to do this,” I said. “He has to do this. He'll figure out how to make it work for him.”

“And how about for you?”

“I'll be fine.” I looked around the bar. Where's Emily?

“She's right there. Christ, you're wasted.”

She needs some water.

“You need some water. You know, some day you're going to have to talk about yourself.”

I scoffed. “I talk about myself.”

“Oh yeah? With who?”

I gave her a look.

She gave me one back. “So how's that going to work when he's gone?”

**

I'm going to miss pizza, Justin mused, as we walked home from this hole-in-the-wall place a few blocks from the apartment. California has the fucking worst pizza.

You loved it, though. LA.

He nodded. It'll be nice to see the beach.

We have beaches.

Okay, it'll be nice to see a beach that's not covered in trash. He stuck two cigarettes between his lips, lit them both, and handed one to me. I watched the gentle way his hand shook. It was a cool evening, for August in the city, and his hair was blowing around a little.

Well, don't go falling in love with it, I said. And not in that fake way like when I told you not to fall in New York but I really meant that you should. I'm not moving to fucking LA.

You've never even been to LA. You might like it.

There was some attitude there, so I raised an eyebrow and he looked away. No. None of that shit. I snapped in his face until he looked back at me. You can't still be pissed at me for not visiting you, I said. It was eight fucking years ago.

You kept saying you were going to come...

Yeah, and stuff came up.

Do you think I'm an idiot?

I looked at him sweetly. Do you want me to answer that?

He huffed out an irritated puff of smoke. Nothing came up. You were trying to...to do some slow fade out of my life like a fucking coward in case I didn't come back, even though I never gave you any fucking reason to believe I wasn't coming back.

What the fuck's your point, dear? I'm not going to do that this time, so why the fuck does it matter?

Why aren't you going to do it this time? he said.

I stared at him. You seriously think I'm going to, what, fucking ghost you when you get to LA? Emily taught me about ghosting.

No, I want you to say why it is that you won't.

Because it's been eight fucking years since then! Because you fucking...we live together, I'm wearing this fucking ring, are you seriously asking for a fucking commitment ceremony on eleventh avenue?

No, I'm asking you to tell me the fucking truth about why this time is different. He stamped out his cigarette and held the door of our building open for me.

I just fucking... I hit the button for the elevator and sighed. Can you just tell me what the fuck it is you want me to say instead of trying to fucking trap me into something? I hate this shit. I could see some people in the lobby watching us in that corner-of-the-eye way they think is sneaky. We'd lived here for two and a half years, but non-signing hearing people never get over gawking at sign language.

We got onto the elevator, and Justin said, out loud, now that we were alone, “You're going to come see me because I'm sick. You're going to call all the time and be in constant contact because otherwise you're going to be worried I'm dead. That's why this time is different.”

Would you rather I didn't care if you were dead?

“I didn't say that.” We got off the elevator and I unlocked our front door. “I just think you're using it as an excuse not to think about...anything else about me leaving,” he continued.

Okay, I'll bite. What am I supposed to be thinking about that's more important than, say, you alone in an emergency room with no one who speaks your language?

“You.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “Here alone.”

Yeah, the people in the ER speak my language.

“I'm not talking about fucking...can we for a second not talk about fucking emergencies? I'm talking about regular goddamn life.”

This shit is your regular life, and you're acting like it's not even a consideration—

So what, you don't want me to go because I'm sick?

Of course I want you to go. You fucking know that. But you're leaving in two weeks and you're not talking about finding doctors and modifying the apartment, you're talking about parties and studio spaces and fucking pizza. I yanked my jeans off.

“Because I'm trying to get you to fucking calm down. All you're talking about is—”

I kissed him, hard enough to hurt him, not entirely by accident. What am I, a yappy dog in a thunderstorm? I said when we broke apart. I don't need to be fucking managed.

“That's a lot coming from you,” he said, panting.

Bite me.

He did, while I pulled him down onto the bed. Last time I was gone, you were a mess, he said, as I climbed on top of him. And you're already drinking more now, already coming home late trashed, and I haven't even left yet.

You were a mess when you got home last time, I said. You were sick as shit from the crappy air out there, just like you're going to be this time. Not me.

“You,” he insisted, his hands busy on my cock, while I tongued the skin behind his ear. “You were tricking like some twenty-five year old and snorting anything you could fit up your nose. You would have thought I was in a fucking coma again.”

I kissed him. Charming.

“You don't do well when we're separate,” he said, groaning as I worked my mouth around his nipple and groped around for a condom. “I know it and you know it, so I don't know who the fuck you're performing for right now.”

Performing? I said, pushing into him.

“Oh, fuck.” He hissed in a breath. “Maybe you don't know it. Maybe that's the problem.”

God knows what your problem is, I said, my elbows propped on either side of him so I could sign, his knees jabbing me in the chest, pointy and painful and so fucking good in the midst of this absolute bullshit.

“Not my problem, your problem,” he said, clasping his hands behind my neck. “You're focusing on all this health stuff to distract you from the actual part that's scaring you.”

I grabbed his wrists and pinned his hands underneath him. Are you fucking kidding me? You think I want to be thinking about this shit? You think I wouldn't rather be—twist your hip out, there—thinking about fucking wallowing here by myself, wouldn't rather think about goddamn anything other than you fucking unconscious alone on the other side of the country? This isn't fun for me, Justin.

He kissed me. “Harder.”

Yeah. I would love to get this fucking shit out of my brain, okay? This is not something I'm doing for fun, but I keep fucking seeing it, and you won't goddamn...

“I don't want to think about it all the time.”

I don't either! Too fucking bad! Jesus Christ. This good?

“Yeah. So what, you can't think about how you're going to feel because—”

I can't think about else. And I know it's fucking driving you crazy but think about how goddamn fucking crazy it's making me.

“That's not how I want you to picture me.”

Yeah, and I want to picture you lying out by the ocean or painting or fucking safe and sick in bed at the very goddamn least but you haven't even faxed over your fucking records—

“Well, I don't want to picture you fucking—fuck—drinking yourself to death.”

I'll be fine, Christ,, it's a few months, as long as I know you're not—

“I just.” He panted. “I don't want you to not come like last time but I want you to come because you fucking miss me, not because you think I'm some fucking delicate—”

Sunshine, I am fucking you as hard as I can right now, you're not—

“I found a neurologist out there,” he said. “So you have to take care of yourself here too.”

Of course I'm going to fucking miss you, I said, and he drew in a breath and scrambled his hands out from underneath him and we came at the same time.

**

The week before he left went fast. We shipped out a bunch of his shit and made a ton of phone calls. I took him to Nova and out for an expensive dinner and fucked his brains out more times than I could count. He stayed over at Gabe's one night and I paced the empty apartment and felt like I was losing my fucking mind, because goddamn, did it feel empty over one fucking night.

So maybe because of that, and maybe because I watched in amazement while he spent a full two and a half minutes trying to figure out why the toaster oven wasn't working before he figured out that it wasn't plugged in and I realized expecting him to hook up his doorbell and alarm himself was just asking for his Californian visitors to get electrocuted, I suggested I fly out to LA with him and stay the first night to make sure he was settled in, and he agreed too quickly for either of us to really pretend he was just humoring me. I'd been wondering how the hell he was going to get his sedated ass off the flight and into a cab and to the right address without finding his half-unconscious self sex trafficked anyway, so at least this was one fewer thing to worry about.

We had everyone over for a makeshift party the night before he left. The usual gang, plus Molly and Gabriel. They gave him useless presents we'd have to find room for in his suitcase and Molly drank too much and hit on Derek and Emily cried a little. Justin was stressed and feeling it, so he was sitting on the floor next to me with his head on my shoulder, just kind of taking it all in. it was a little more of a hint that I like him than I'll usually allow in public, but every time I meant to shake him off I kept not doing it.

He got tired early, and his arm was shaking and making it hard to sign, so I kicked everyone out while they made promises about postcards and Skype and care packages. You would have thought the kid was going off to war. I kissed his forehead and told him to go to bed, swallowing against the little noise he made when my lips touched his skin, and I cleaned up the pizza boxes and beer bottles and brushed my teeth and put Justin's shampoo under the sink. He watched me from the bed, his hands clasped around his ankles, stretching out his back.

“It's not our last night together,” he said. “We have tomorrow, in LA.”

Is that your way of saying we're not having sex tonight? I'd already known, obviously, by fucking looking at him, but he'd think something was wrong if I didn't give him a little bit of a hard time.

“Yeah. I don't feel good.”

I came over to the bed and nudged him onto his stomach and worked out some of the knots around his shoulders. He rolled back over eventually, bumping his nose against my chin, and we pawed at each other lazily for a little while, kissing, looking.

“I'm scared,” he whispered.

You're usually scared.

“I'm scared of something real this time.”

I traced my thumb over his cheekbone. You're supposed to tell me that you're going to be fine, and I'm being neurotic.

“I will tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

He covered his face with his hands. “I'm going to fucking let everyone down. I'm going to call in sick all the time and Rahal's going to think I'm a fucking flake and he'll slander me to the art world and I'll die disgraced and penniless.”

I peeled his hands away. At least you're hot.

“There is that.”

He wants your delicate disabled soul, remember?

“Yeah, it's just a question of whether he wants the delicate disabled body when it's in front of him being all...”

Delicate and disabled?

“Yeah.”

I nuzzled the soft hairs under his bellybutton. It's a good body.

“Brian...”

Fucking ferocious body.

He whimpered as I bit down on his hipbone.

Stay still, I said.

“Okay,” he whispered.

It's okay.

**

Our flight out to LA was early, and Justin was quiet, chewing on his nails as I tried to straighten up his fucking train wreck of a carry-on bag. I bullied him into eating something and he slept the whole plane ride, his hand twitching on my lap.

I'd been to the LA airport on layovers but never actually stepped outside of it, so this was my first time seeing the palm trees and the mountains and getting hit with a level of sunlight that shouldn't be allowed. Justin shook out a pair of sunglasses and instantly looked like belonged here. People in this town pay thousands to get that blond.

I wonder what the Deaf community's like here, Justin said. I know there's a Deaf theater.

Don't, I said.

What?

You know where there's a great Deaf community? New York City.

He rolled his eyes. You are so paranoid. I've been here before, remember? I'm not going to get suddenly swept away.

You'd been to New York before I convinced you to move there, too.

Oh, you convinced me, that's how it went down? I thought I was the one with the fucked up memory.

The cab took us off the highway and through neighborhood after neighborhood of high, stuccoed houses. I kept waiting for the glorified dorm I'd pictured Justin staying in, until we pulled into the driveway of a goddamn mansion. A turquoise mansion, of all fucking things.

Who owns this place? Justin asked me, and then nodded to the cab driver. I interpreted.

“Hell if I know,” the driver said. “It's always rented out to someone or other. Most of the houses in this neighborhood are like that. People come and go.” I signed it all to Justin.

People coming and going, Justin said. Sounds like our apartment.

Or Debbie's house.

Justin laughed. I hope it's decorated just like hers.

No such luck. It was modern and minimalist, with high ceilings and and an echo that wouldn't bother Justin. We separated and did separate laps around the downstairs, and I tried not to think about the sound of our shoes on the hard floors, how many fucking hard floors there were...

He hadn't had a major seizure in months. He hadn't had a major seizure in months.

But that didn't mean he hadn't had ones where the muscles in his leg gave out and he ended up on the floor, or ones where he got disoriented and lost in our tiny goddamn apartment,

I checked the fridge—there was food, someone had gotten him food—and ran my hand over the kitchen countertops. I didn't hear Justin's footsteps anymore, so I circled back around and found him staring up at an enormous marble staircase.

No expense spared, huh? I asked him.

“I feel like I'm looking at my own death,” he said.

I laughed a little and pulled him into me with one arm. There's a downstairs bedroom.

He breathed out. Good. He looked around, spinning in a slow circle. I keep expecting to like, run into another person. All of this can't be for me.

“If there's someone else here, they're very quiet.”

That's good, so am I.

I snorted and kissed his forehead. No you're not.

He grinned. “Prove it.”

So I made him scream in several different rooms of his mansion, then we recharged with some goddamn incredible Chinese food, and Justin unpacked for about thirty seconds before he fell asleep on the wood floor in the foyer, and I hooked up his alarm and his doorbell and put up reminders on his fridge—his address and phone number here, contact information for interpreters, medication timelines, my phone number, his work schedule. I put sheets on the bed.

I looked at Justin sleeping with his neck at an awkward angle on the floor and dug the whiskey bottle out of his suitcase.

He always tastes like salt, always has, and late that night it reminded me of seawater, of beaches without trash, like it had always been there on his skin and I just hadn't identified it, and I was terrified.

**

He had his first day of work the next morning, so I left early. He was quiet, and his eyes were a little red, but it might have just been the shitty air. He made coffee and walked me outside. He was wearing this old t-shirt of mine, and his feet were bare, and I felt like something was being physically pried out of me.

I looked away from him. I am such a drama queen.

He smiled faintly. “I like the company.”

I could hear my cab approaching, and it was so hard to believe that I was the one who was about to get in it and go, because even though I knew it was really just semantics that had me leaving him here instead of him leaving me in New York, it felt so goddamn incorrect, so cosmically unbalanced for me to be the one walking away.

And Justin doesn't even walk away anymore, not really. He's been working on that.

I put my palm on his back and drew him into me, and I felt him bite down on the shoulder of my shirt. I moved my hand to his neck and whispered a “shh” even though he couldn't hear it and wasn't making any noise.

He pulled away and ran his hands down my arms. “Your heart is going really fast.”

“Yeah.”

He swallowed and forced a smile. What should I wear today?

Haven't I taught you anything?

I think I might get paint on the Prada.

I scoffed. Not Prada.

Gucci? Armani? I gave him a look, and he suddenly broke into his Sunshine smile. Oh, nothing?

There you go. Best foot forward.

I don't think anyone would be looking at my feet. The cab pulled up, and Justin breathed in sharply and bounced a little on his toes. “Okay. Okay. This is fine.”

I nodded.

“It's just space.”

I closed my eyes and kept nodding.

“When—” he said, and then cleared his throat, and I opened my eyes. “When will you be back?”

I don't know yet, I said. But...soon. Once you're all settled. You can show me LA.

Or we could just stay in and fuck in the mansion.

Or we could stay in and fuck in the mansion.

Don't start blowing off our friends, he said. If your signing gets all rusty I'm going to be really pissed.

I saw right through that, obviously—he just wanted me to promise I wouldn't be alone (like he'll be, my brain filled in helpfully) but I kissed him between the eyes and said, “Okay.”

He was a couple breaths away from losing it, I could tell, and if I was here when that started I was going to miss my fucking flight. So I took his face in my hands and I kissed him with my eyes closed, so I wouldn't have to look at him, so I couldn't, look at him, and his eyelashes were damp against my cheek.

I broke away to let him breathe.

“Later,” he breathed.

I kissed him fast, finally. Later.

And then I left him there.

**

It was evening by the time I was back in New York. The apartment felt enormous, a thousand square feet bigger, all empty spaces and silences. It's such a joke that Justin thinks he's quiet, he's the fucking loudest, snoring and sighing and shuffling around, vocalizing when he's signing when he's excited, purring like a motor when I touch him, blasting his music and laughing with his friends and leaving his shit goddamn everywhere, every fucking surface usually has something of his on it, his shirts or his paints or his empty bowls. I took his shampoo back out and went to the bar by the hospital.

There was no one there at first, but after an hour I felt a hand come down on my shoulder and Derek was there, signaling the bartender for two more of whatever I was drinking at that point, and he sat with me without talking for a while, just drinking and letting me pretend to care about the baseball game playing over the bar and every once in a while giving me a little nudge on the arm. Daphne came after, still in her scrubs, full of stories she probably shouldn't have been telling us about missing cups of piss and a guy who hacked off his own hand, and then it was Emily and Gwen, pulling me up to dance with them, blanketing me with kisses.

A song came on that Justin used to love, back when he could hear, one he'd just tried to sing the week before without any fucking regard for the tune, and I felt drunk and drowning and didn't know I was crying until their arms were around me.

I slept on Daphne's couch that first night, and Emily's the second, and then I went home to that huge goddamn bed.

**

Time passed, eventually. Justin was gone for a week, and two. I turned off the captions on the TV. I put his shampoo away again. Michael called every day with poorly disguised checks on my well-being, and Derek and Daph and Emily dragged me out a lot, and I fucked around Nova when they didn't. I went to the standing Sunday brunches with Molly, and we signed the whole time. I avoided home and quiet places unless I was late at the office, and I missed a few of Justin's calls and screamed at him when he missed mine.

“Didn't you say you weren't going to be such a miserable bastard?” he asked me.

I took in his peeling sunburn, his shitty wheeze, his shaking hand. Didn't you say you'd be fine?

He was fine, usually. He did Skype sessions with his therapist and kept his head above water. He liked his substitute neurologist. He emailed me pictures of the murals in progress, and they were incredible. He had funny stories about everyone around him trying to learn to sign and fucking up terribly, but trying. Stories about orgies with hearing people that were all of a sudden on the table for him, it seemed. Stories about people staring at him and asking him insensitive questions at parties that I was apparently supposed to find amusing instead of infuriating.

“I love it here,” Justin said, and I answered in monosyllables and hated both of us.

**

It wasn't always that bad.

I woke up horny and confused in the middle of the night from a dream I couldn't remember but could still smell, all lime and paint, and I had the light on and my phone propped in front of me before I really processed what I was doing, or what the fuck time it was.

He was still awake, though, eating a bowl of cereal in his big empty kitchen. He smiled at me and waved his spoon.

I yawned. Bedtime snack?

“Uh-huh.”

I wish I was your bedtime snack.

He grinned and got up and went to his bedroom—without even putting the bowl in the fucking sink, of course—and started pulling off his clothes. “All right,” he said. “So if I was there...”

After we'd talked each other off—didn't take long—we stretched out in our beds and looked at each other for a while. I set my phone on his pillow.

“When are you coming?” he said, softly. It was the first time he'd asked since I left.

I stretched. Next weekend. Not two days from now next weekend, but...the next one, that weekend.

He sat up. “Really?”

Yeah, I have the tickets already. I was going to surprise you, but... I shrugged.

“Brian, really? Shut up, really?”

Think you could tear yourself away from your society life?

“No,” he said. “But I think I can drag you with me. You might need some new clothes, though.”

Oh Lord. Three weeks in Hollywood and he's a snob.

“I'm not in Hollywood, you rube.”

Whatever.

He ran his fingers through his hair, and I felt a pang of jealousy that was actually painful. “I can't believe you're going to be here. I have to clean.”

Hire someone.

“Yeah.”

I yawned and burrowed into my pillow. You sound better, I said. Breathing...sounds better.

“Yeah, it rained today. Everyone was amazed. I told them it rains all the time in New York and I don't think they believed me. They don't think anywhere isn't actually just LA, somewhere else.”

It doesn't rain all the time, I said. Just sometimes.

“I talked to Emily today.”

“Mmm, yeah?” I said, too tired to pick my hands up.

“Yeah, well, I mean, I talk to her everyday, but we talked for a long time today. Has she talked to you about what's going on with her parents?”

I nodded, eyes closed, letting his voice break over me like a wave on the beach.

“So it sounds like things are getting better, but she's been so stressed out...thank God she has Gwen, I really like her, do you like her?”

I nodded again, I think. I was so tired, and his voice...

“They're talking about moving in together which is...so fast, but I guess if they're just talking about it...and I guess technically I was living with you for the first time a lot sooner than this, but look how that turned out. Though if I hadn't run away to New York then, who knows...” and he babbled on and on the way he does, and he couldn't hear it and I was half-asleep, and it was beautiful.

**

There was plenty of shit between then and now, though. Justin had a bad week over there, where his interpreter was out and he didn't like his replacement, and he got triggered and freaked out at a party and earned himself a seizure in the bathroom of a mansion that wasn't his and a two-day migraine as a result. I had to fire yet another person from the damn art department which I don't actually enjoy, contrary to popular belief, and it meant I was short-staffed from the bicycle campaign, Lindsay was having some sort of discipline issue with Gus that she for some reason thought I would have some damn clue how to deal with, the bathroom sink started leaking...just inconsequential, exhausting bullshit, most of which Justin could have handled in a second if he was here—the maintenance staff always listens to him and fucking ignores me—but, well, he fucking wasn't.

So I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself and listening to my dripping sink and waiting for it to be late enough to justify going out without feeling so completely goddamn pathetic, when there was a knock on the door and I gave up all hope of not being pathetic and let myself believe, for a second, that it was him, even though I knew it was probably Derek or Emily trying to coax me into some more wholesome form of distraction.

It wasn't Justin, of course, but it wasn't Derek or Emily either. It was Gabriel, his arms full of grocery bags. He thrust them into my arms and came inside.

I couldn't stop thinking about how Justin told me one time he didn't trust you to know how to turn on the microwave, Gabriel said. So I figured someone better come over and make sure you don't starve.

I set the bags on the counter. Tonight's actually not—

Yeah, I'm sure no night would have been good. Just sit the fuck down and let me make you dinner.

So...whatever the fuck, I did, because I'd lost just about all the fight I had in me at that point and because Gabriel was unloading the ingredients to Justin's shrimp noodle soup and I was suddenly starving. I sat at the table and closed my eyes while he cooked and pretended I was about to hear the kind of abysmal tuneless singing that usually comes with cooking noises in this house, but Gabriel was quiet. For the best, really.

We were quiet while we ate, too. I was sure he was going to to force me to launch into some dialogue about Justin, but he never did. He asked me casual questions about work and the new theme nights at Nova, and I found things to ask his roommates and his boxing.

But eventually I said, Are you going to visit him?

I don't know, he said, settling back thoughtfully in his chair. He hasn't asked me to. When are you going?

Saturday.

Took you long enough, he said.

I glared at him, and he just shrugged.

I have baggage, I said, and maybe he was expecting me to expand on that, but just those two signs took a fucking monumental effort, were more of a confession than I'd given in years.

Don't fuck this up, he said. It's a privilege, to get what we do. You know that.

I cleared my throat. Remember in April when he knocked his whole fucking painting off the balcony?

Gabriel laughed. Oh God, he was convinced he'd killed someone.

Did he ever tell you about when he was a kid and he thought you made motorcycles by cutting cars in half?

Fuck, and he tried to saw open his dad's with his fucking—

The safety scissors, yeah.

You know the one where he broke his ankle just fucking—

Just walking, yes, I said, laughing, and we roasted the fuck out of him for the rest of the evening.

**

I lay in bed that night and looked at the clock.

Four more days. Four thousand more miles.

It was just space.