Take It Outside (Trailhead #1)

10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Adrian

W e don’t talk for a week or so after New Year's, Beau working some longer hours to make up for the extra time he took off during the holiday week, while I’m refocusing on everything I’ve let slide over the past 164 days. I’d rented a small studio space when Levi and I moved to California, mostly to avoid taking over our rented house with my pictures and equipment—or maybe to cling to a different reality elsewhere—but I haven’t been there for longer than an hour in months, and I really need to get my shit together. I’m fortunate to have money saved up from years in a stuffy Manhattan office, but I need more than the random photoshoots I’ve booked so far, and revamping my website is a good place to start. Networking will help, too.

But then I get lonely and text Beau about meeting for breakfast. We both need to eat, and we might as well do it together.

A few days later, we go out for dinner. After all, we also need to eat at night.

When we aren’t hungry, and when I’m done pretending I want to try a new restaurant anyway, we find other ways to spend time together and other places to go, and if any of it feels like a date—well, it doesn’t really matter when that’s not what we’re doing. We’re hanging out as friends, and texting each other when we’re not doing that, and I tell myself I’m learning how to stop hating everyone I hated the night I fucked Beau up against a wall. I’m trying to forget how heavy the wedding band has felt against my skin every day since.

After another couple of weeks, one of us calls because a text doesn’t feel like enough. The other returns the favor the following night because maybe it’s going to become one more thing we do. We start listening to each other as we clean up after dinner and double check the locks on the front door and get ourselves ready for bed, and the conversation is usually quieter than all of that. It’s not like we plan it ahead of time, and it’s easy when we can hide under the lie that something we wanted to talk about might’ve taken too long to type.

Except that goodnight takes longer to say.

Our conversations wind from one thing to another, and almost two weeks into February, I get a little too relaxed when I’m working late at my studio, staring at a computer screen and longing for a darkroom. We’ve been on the phone for a while, and Beau’s voice is low and gentle because he’s probably already in bed and halfway to sleep.

“When are you gonna go home?” Beau asks .

“Soon. The heat in this building sucks, and I’m tired of being cold.”

“You’re from New York. How the hell are you cold here?”

I groan. “California already made me soft.”

“Gotta get you a space heater or some heavy winter coats or a stack of quilts or something,” Beau suggests. “Hate to see you struggle to survive another few weeks of less than perfect temperatures.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Of course I am.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “My niece and nephew just sent me a silly throw blanket for my birthday—it’s got their faces all over it—so I’ll bring that next time, and you’ll never know when I’m suffering.”

“Whoa, hold on. Nope. You don’t get to do that.”

I snort. “You really want to know when I’m suffering?”

“I really want to know when your birthday is.”

Fuck . I pinch the bridge of my nose and give up on the photos I’ve been editing and squeeze my eyes shut like I can disappear.

“Not a big deal, Beau.”

“When is it?”

“I don’t really celebrate it, Beau.”

“Is it today? Tomorrow?”

“Already passed, Beau.”

He growls into the phone, and it’s almost enough to make me smile. “Tell me. Please. You already know mine.”

“Only because you’re having a crisis about turning 40 when you’re not even 39 yet,” I say. “I’ve still got time to ignore a couple of years.”

“You know I’m about to show up at your house with the biggest cake and about a hundred balloons while I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the most off-key voice possible. Your neighbors will love me.”

“I hate you.”

“I’ve been immune to that for a while now,” Beau laughs. He’s still quiet though, and his voice is still so low, and while I get goosebumps and blame them on the cold, he goes on. “You gotta get new material.”

“Three days ago.”

“Three days ago you got new material?”

I sigh. “No. My birthday was three days ago, so you’ll have to wait 362 days before you can show up with a cake and balloons.”

“Or you can come over tomorrow night,” he says. “You asked someone for my address before you had dessert delivered to my door on New Year’s Eve, so don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

It has, and I want to be furious that Beau knows that, but I don’t have it in me. “Don’t want cake and balloons.”

“Fine, I’ll make you dinner. What sounds good?”

“This isn’t—you don’t—” I force myself to stop because my real answer is right there, and Beau is waiting for it. “Is Mexican okay?”

I think he must roll his eyes in the pause before he answers. “I moved from Texas to Southern California. Yeah, I think I can handle it.”

And that’s how I end up outside Beau’s apartment building 198 days after Levi died, biting my lip like keeping each panicked exhale inside my mouth will help me breathe any better. There’s nothing to be nervous about, except that Beau is going to be at least as nice to me as he was on Christmas, and I don’t have my comforter or the excuse of exhaustion to get me through the night. I’d picked up my phone to bail on dinner at least three separate times, but something made me put it down again, and it feels too late to try now.

My stomach growls then, reminding me of how hungry I am, and I push into the small lobby only to find that the elevator is broken, detouring to the stairwell with a shrug nobody is around to see. The quick jog up the stairs is probably good for me and the energy I’ve had trouble shaking, and by the time I knock on Beau’s door, I’m at least temporarily convinced that I can do this. His grin appears, and I’m still mostly sure, following him into the apartment to kick off my shoes before taking another couple of steps forward to look around.

He had told me his apartment is a studio, so I had sort of expected to take in everything at once, but it’s nowhere near that simple. Only the kitchen, dining area, and the deep blues and greens of the living room are visible from where I stand now, the position of the bathroom offering a touch of privacy for where Beau must sleep just on the other side. One entire wall features exposed brick and large windows that open toward the city, and the kitchen is full of wine bottles and liquor and sleek lines and steel, but I’m drawn to the softness everywhere else—candles and curtains and books and blankets—so much Beau here that I’m almost dizzy with it.

“Ready for a margarita?” he asks from the kitchen, surprisingly gentle about it, like he knows I would be easy to startle right now.

“A margarita? Um, yeah, thanks,” I wince around a tiny smile. “I haven’t had one of those in a very, very long time. Kind of a rough night a million years ago.”

“College?”

“High school.”

Beau studies me for an extra beat or two, slotting the revelation into place. It should be unnerving, but somehow it never quite gets there, his interest in cataloging these little pieces of me a habit that feels far older than new. It’s not a particularly interesting fact, and I think I could say the same about most of what he knows so far, but it’s still a way to keep coloring the outline in, and I want to be worth the trouble as much as I want Beau to throw the entire picture away.

“Do you think you’ve recovered enough to try again, or is there something else you want instead?” he asks. “I can—there are other things, just not—”

“No, a margarita sounds kind of perfect.”

Beau cocks his head. “You okay?”

Yes. No. Very much. Not at all. “Yeah, I’m—this place is just so you .”

“Were you expectin’ it to be someone else?”

“Don’t want it to be anyone else,” I mumble without thinking, rubbing a hand over my face as I finally make my way to the kitchen, a glass pushed into my hand as soon as I get there. The salted rim is as unfamiliar as it is tempting.

Beau holds his up for a toast and I meet him there. “Happy belated birthday.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Beau tries not to choke as he takes a drink, turning away from me to hide whatever’s left of his smile as he fusses with the food he’s prepped for dinner, his glass set back down on the countertop while confident hands move from one thing to another.

“I’m making fajitas. Steak and chicken. Onions, peppers, cheese, sour cream. Making fresh guac, too.”

My stomach makes another sound, and while it’s the perfect chance for Beau to tease me, he lets it go, and I lean against the opposite counter to take a long sip and give him the room we might both need. There’s music playing from somewhere, but it’s a comfortable hum that matches a mood I couldn’t name if I tried.

“I almost canceled on you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

A shrug doesn’t buy me the time I want it to. “Because Christmas and New Year’s were nice.”

The honesty quiets us for a while—that seems to be true more often than not—and he helps himself to his margarita with a steady hand I envy. For several seconds, I work through other potential explanations in my head, but my voice fails me, and he never hears a thing .

“All the firsts are messy,” Beau says eventually, his focus on the seasonings he’s pulling from a rack mounted beneath the cabinets, and whatever he needs to do with them after. “The first holidays, first birthdays—all those times that he’s supposed to be there and isn’t. All of it sucks, and it’s allowed to suck, and I’ve tried to be there with you on those days because I’m a big guy who can take up some of that empty space.”

The movement of his body is mesmerizing beneath the t-shirt, and it draws far too much attention to the play of the muscles in his back. I let myself stare for a moment, because as much as I don’t want the memory of what those muscles had felt like the night I used his grief to soothe some of mine, it might hurt less than whatever Beau is saying now.

I want to keep looking, but I need to turn my head.

I’m afraid to listen, but Beau continues because it’s something I need to hear.

“Those days are predictable, though. You can brace yourself and I can show up and maybe it’s not so bad after all.” He pauses and shakes his head, frustration taken out on the avocados mashed in front of him. “But all the other days—he’s supposed to be there then, too. And you won’t think to brace yourself and I won’t know to show up and I—it’ll knock the wind out of you sometimes.”

“Beau—”

“No, listen. We fucked up a lot, and I get that. I fucked up a lot. But I need you to know that on the days when you can’t breathe, I will always want to show you how. Text me or call me or break down my door—I don’t care. Just let me show you how.”

There’s still a lot Beau doesn’t understand. Easy assumptions he’s made. And it would be unfair to blame him for any of it, especially when I haven’t taken the time to explain, but even now, with a strong drink in my hand and dinner sizzling just a few feet away, I keep my secrets and respond with a single word.

“Why?”

He finally looks at me again, so little time for him to bother when the food demands his attention. “Because I’m your friend.”

He’s gone again before I can respond, masterful as he juggles the different utensils for each different pan, and I slip closer long enough to grab his glass and take it to the nearby table with my own. He set the table before I arrived, three trivets, two plates, and a bowl of chips already there, and by the time I turn back to the kitchen, Beau is holding the guacamole out for me without a word. The next minute or two are the same—him handing over small bowls of sour cream and cheese before giving me the folded dish towel that will help me carry a few cast iron skillets from the stove to the table. Warm tortillas are the last addition, arranged next to the rest of the food with an unnecessary flourish.

Everything smells incredible, and I say so. Beau presses a hand to my lower back and urges me to sit down.

Our socked feet touch under the table, the sensation so different from that night at The Grove and the result so much the same. I am grounded—cared for—in a way I’ve rarely known, and I only ignore it now to talk about things that won’t get caught in my throat .

“So, Noah has V’s accounts mostly under control now?”

Beau nods and wipes wayward sour cream from the corner of his mouth while I’m too far away to help. “Yeah, last I heard from Darren, Noah was able to get her caught up with whatever permits and licenses had lapsed, plus she was a month behind in rent for the building because while everything was falling apart, she forgot all about keeping the current shit current. She feels stupid for letting anyone take over all her financial responsibilities like that, but she got so focused on managing the staff and runnin’ the bar itself that it was easy to let the rest go.”

“Is Darren still working only for tips?” I ask.

“He is. And he probably will for a while longer,” he says. “The first couple months of the year are always a slower time for Trailhead, and the bookkeeper wasn’t exactly leaving her a pile of cash to work with. The guy kept everything rollin’ for a while, probably because he needed the place to stay open so he could milk it, but he took a lot right before getting caught.”

“What about back taxes and penalties and all that shit? Any progress there?”

“Yes and no. I think Noah’s filed some paperwork. Just gotta get the money together now.” He takes a long drink and I match it, Beau smiling a little when he puts his glass back down. “Darren said Jake’s been hangin’ out at Trailhead even more than usual, but he’s paying twice as much for each drink and acting like he forgot how to count.”

I tilt my head, my brain whirring for a while before I finally hear what Beau has said, and stop with an overfilled tortilla halfway to my mouth. “Do I know Jake?”

“Mmmm, no, maybe not. Older guy. Smoothest, quietest flirt I’ve ever met—apart from Riley, maybe. Sexy leather jacket. All biker, no cowboy.”

“The Harley I’ve seen out front.”

“That’s the one,” he says. “Heart of fuckin’ gold, but you wouldn’t know it because he’d rather pretend he’s as ornery as you are.”

“Cute,” I deadpan, throwing a chip at Beau’s head. “How’s he flirting so smoothly if he’s busy pretending to be ornery?”

“I dunno. Maybe you can come up with a theory or two.”

I stare at my plate, busy myself with another bite, and eventually slow my busy thoughts about Trailhead when Beau lets the topic go. We talk a little about his job, and how he got into massage therapy all those years ago—he was looking for a quieter career, and some half-naked stranger wouldn’t stop talking about Beau’s hands while coming apart beneath them, so he decided to find a legit way to capitalize on his skill—and I roll my eyes. I don’t have any room to talk though, a truth he unearths far too quickly, and I tell him about how I first took up photography as a hobby when a hot T.A. in college handed over a camera and asked me to take an artistic nude or several.

“Not sure what it says about either of us that we both settled into careers that have us interacting with the public while only barely interacting with the public,” I say. “You’re in a dim room with more mellow instrumental music than conversation, and I keep my distance from behind my camera until I can go back to my studio and hide behind my computer instead.”

“Guess Levi had the energy of both of us combined. Can’t imagine you and I would do all that well being in front of a classroom all day.”

“Probably not,” I agree, throwing back the last of my margarita.

Beau watches, probably too closely. “Was he exhausted by the end of the day?”

“We literally just established that neither one of us could do it.”

He pushes away from the table and I watch him pull a small pitcher from the refrigerator, a refill of our margaritas something neither of us needs, and both of us want. There’s still enough food to give us an excuse to drink, and I’m not about to turn him away, even when I think maybe I should do exactly that. My breath catches on a hiccup, but Beau is steady for both of us when he hands me my glass and asks another question.

“Did he have a drinking problem?”

Taking a strong sip seems like a strange response, but it’s my first instinct before I blink up at where Beau still stands. “Why would you think that?”

“There’s always a flash of something in your eyes when we talk about him,” he shrugs, moving to top off his own drink before he returns the pitcher to the kitchen. When he drops back into his chair, he picks up a piece of green pepper from one of the skillets and licks his fingertips once it’s gone. “It looks like more than grief. Like maybe there’s more you want to say every time, and then you give up. And I haven’t decided whether that’s because of you, me, or Levi.”

“Trailhead is a bar,” I point out, an uncomfortable stretch to defend decisions Levi and I made, though Beau isn’t quite aware of them yet. “Wouldn’t be the smartest place to hang out with an alcoholic.”

“He mostly danced with me and took a single sip of beer for each of your Jack and gingers.”

“Watching us that closely?”

“Do you need me to apologize for that now?”

“No,” I sigh. “He didn’t have a drinking problem.”

I tear a tortilla into smaller strips and drag them through the mess on my plate before giving up and grabbing a handful of chips instead, my margarita right there to wash each one down. Beau does the same for a while, and everything is a little too quiet and a little too warm, and I still don’t want to be anywhere else because he always makes me want to be a little too stupid.

Then Beau is gone again, and he comes back with a weird little frown and a bag in his hand.

“This is—my timing sucks given whatever the hell I just said, but I—happy birthday.”

“You didn’t—”

“Have to,” Beau finishes. “Yeah, I know. But like you said, Christmas and New Year’s were nice, so—”

He doesn’t say anything else, just gestures for me to open his gift, and sits back like it’s not the big deal I’m sure it must be, regardless of what the present is. I haven’t had friends in so fucking long, everything about my life with Levi making it easier to keep our world smaller, and I want to stop to thank Beau before I open the bag. Silence is a habit though, and it holds for another minute, giving me time to reach into the bag to pull out a bottle of whiskey. I swallow hard when it’s not the Jack I’m used to, and I run a finger over the label until I’ve read enough to know that it’s from Texas, and whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter when it’s almost impossible to swallow again.

“So, I guess I really didn’t have to drink your margaritas, huh?” I whisper, all the volume I have in me.

There are other things to say—basic, polite things to say—but Beau’s eyes crinkle when he grins in response.

“Nope, but I wanna hear about this high school disaster version of Adrian. What happened?”

“It’s not much of a story,” I say, grateful to be let off the hook. “A friend’s parents were out of town for the weekend. Said friend thought she knew how to make margaritas, so we ordered a bunch of street tacos and let her go wild. I don’t know what she did to those drinks, but they tasted nothing like yours, and until tonight, I couldn’t imagine drinking tequila again.”

“Wait, you didn’t just swear off margaritas?” Beau asks. “You swore off tequila ? What about shots? With salt and lime?”

“Never tried. The one terrible tequila experiment was enough.”

“Lord, help me. Get your ass up.”

I arch a practiced eyebrow. “You’re very demanding on my birthday. ”

Beau doesn’t look impressed. “Your birthday was four days ago.”

He empties his glass and stuffs a couple more bites into his mouth before he stands and drags me with him, and I follow easily when the liquor has already made me relax into this person I barely know. Beau lets me go when he pulls the tequila from his stash of a few familiar bottles, and I watch a cutting board, knife, lime, saltshaker, and two shot glasses follow close behind. He cuts the lime into wedges, pours the shots, and then turns back to me with an utterly unreadable expression on his face.

“Okay, there’s nothin’ complicated about it. You lick the side of your hand, shake some salt onto it, lick the salt off, throw back the shot, suck on the lime.”

Before I can argue, he’s doing everything he described, my eyes locked on all of it even while there’s a quick flare of disappointment and confusion I should probably let burn out on its own. Instead, I glance at my hand, then at Beau’s, before I cock my head.

“That’s not how most people do them.”

“No?” he chuckles. “The hotshot who’s never taken a tequila shot is suddenly the expert on how to do ‘em?”

My cheeks warm. “No, I—I’ve been around them before, I thought—don’t people lick the salt off someone else?”

Beau stares at me for a long time, everything about his expression a lot more readable now, and it’s terrifying except for how powerful I feel in the moment, Beau left to do nothing but nod.

“Fine,” he says, holding out his arm. “Have at it. ”

I step closer, and while there’s no sleeve to push out of the way, I smooth my palm over Beau’s forearm anyway, wrist to elbow and back again, my fingertips probably too light against his skin. I don’t look up as I lift his arm and lower my head and hold him still and drag my tongue over the bare space I’ve been given. Beau’s free hand holds the salt, and neither of us speaks when I take it from him and shake it over his arm, the silence stretching on as I trade it for the shot glass next, my gaze finally catching his.

“Have at it,” Beau says again.

The swipe of my tongue is faster this time, and nowhere near as gentle as my touch had been, licking the salt from Beau’s arm before I down the shot and grab for the lime, sucking it the same way he had a few minutes ago.

My heart is pounding and my hand shakes, but I set the lime on the cutting board and get ready to fight because surrender feels like the wrong choice tonight. I clear my throat and summon my voice from wherever the cowardly thing has gone, and after another few seconds, I take a deep breath.

“People don’t only use their arms.”

“No, they don’t.”

“What else?”

“M’not laying you down so I can drink tequila from your belly button.”

I snag my lower lip between my teeth and wonder if it bleeds by the time I let go. “Guess I’m a still a married man.”

“Among other things,” Beau says.

“Our necks, though.”

“Because it’s your birthday?”

I just laugh, a cold kind of sound that has no place in his kitchen. I’m tired of this and I don’t even know what this is, just that I’m held back by a guilt Beau can’t understand as long as he still thinks of me as a grieving widower.

“My birthday was four days ago.”

“Right,” he murmurs. “So, do you want to drink first this time, or should it be me again? In case you—maybe you want to be sure you know what you’re doin’?”

“Yeah, you,” I agree. “So I know what I’m doing.”