Chapter Nine
I thought about staying another night, postponing the drive home until the next morning. Telling myself that it was the journey I was avoiding, dull hours behind the wheel, even though I knew that wasn’t the truth. Or, at least, not all of it.
Not like I’d been lying, when I’d told Flynn he painted a shitty picture of the charms of moving away.
Not enough money, and not enough time; no, I wasn’t sympathetic about his spiraling debt, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t understand it.
Just like I could understand that urge to pretend to be something you weren’t.
After all, it was the anonymity I was clinging to, now.
Enough strangers to make me just another face in the crowd.
Not surrounded by people who’d known my parents, and their parents before them, and seen me grow up from diapers and short pants.
Who’d heard every gossip-friendly story about me, been kept up to date on disappointing grade cards and classroom scoldings.
People who’d seen me graduate, and get the job at the thrift store, and who now - even if they’d not quite progressed to asking me to my face - were on track to wonder about marriage, and kids, and settling down.
The city might be cold, and aloof, and resolutely uninterested in me, but I couldn’t say that indifference didn’t have some appeal to it. At least it never asked me why I wasn’t dating, or when I’d finally give my parents some grandkids.
And I was angry, too, about how things with Flynn had gone. How it felt like I’d lost control of the situation, or at least my part in it. Stumbled back into old, resentful ways; trains of thought that no longer seemed so clean-cut and certain, after what I’d learned of his life, now.
The version of Flynn his mom talked about was arrogant, and cocky, and painfully successful. Clawing his way to the top, a cold sort of success that felt like a snub to everyone he’d left behind. Easy to resent, then, and by god, I’d resented him.
Seeing the reality, hearing him talk about it, felt like I’d stumbled onto the stage in daytime. Discovered just how fragile and artificial the set actually was.
Woven through, of course, with the fact that - for all he’d punctured my assumptions of his triumph - there were still things in Flynn’s life that I envied.
His relationship with William might not be what I necessarily wanted for myself, not in its details, but at least Flynn had someone in his life, romantically.
Sure, escape had cost him plenty, but he had more than just periodic hook-ups.
More than the sort of encounters where even knowing a first name felt like an unexpected intimacy.
I knew, though, that parachuting into this other world wouldn’t give me what I wanted.
I could add another night at the hotel, tell my folks I’d come back Monday; call in a favor to make sure the shop got opened up as normal that morning, even in my absence.
But all I’d do - all I’d be able to do - would be another one of those nameless trysts.
Where you call it a date, but everyone knows that really it’s about sex.
I was stuffing clothes back into my bag when my phone rang.
“I was an asshole. Can I buy you dinner?”
No hi, no hello. No “it’s Flynn,” though that would’ve been redundant. Not like I didn’t recognize his voice.
“I’m meant to be going back today,” I told him.
“Do you need to be back?” Silence; the faint crackle of static on the line. “Like, does it matter if you’re there tomorrow, instead of today?”
I’d just got done running through all the excuses; I could’ve easily listed them off to him now.
Flynn seemed to take my hesitation as reluctance. “Look, if it’s just that you don’t want to, you needn’t make up a story to let me down gently.”
“I wouldn’t.”
He laughed. “Exactly. So?”
“Would it be...” The thought of sitting across the table from him and William; of picturing myself buried inside Flynn’s boyfriend, while we ordered appetizers and chatted about their vacation plans, filled me with a sort of nauseous unease.
“Just you and me.” He paused. “William’s got other plans tonight.”
Either he could read my mind, or the invite list had been on his, too.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, brain whirring.
“You can say no, Oli.” His voice was softer, as though I was something skittish. Something overwhelmed.
I didn’t want to be that person.
“Dinner would be good,” I told him. “What time?”
“Let’s say, drinks at seven?” The smile was clear in Flynn’s voice. “I’ll text you the address.”
I chuckled. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my cuisine preferences are, and if I’ve got any food allergies?”
“Have you developed any new ones since you were a kid?”
“Nope,” I conceded.
“Didn’t think so. And you can check the menu when I send you the address; if you don’t like the look of it, we’ll go somewhere else.”
“You mean, if it doesn’t live up to the broad array of culinary options back home?” I teased.
Flynn laughed. “I’ll try to pick somewhere suited to your refined palate.”
“Pizza it is, then,” I said, and hung up.
#
I’d never had dinner with a hookup before. Then again, I’d never had a hookup that went quite the way things with Flynn and William did. It was turning into a weekend of firsts, in several ways.
And I’d be lying if I claimed not to be curious, still, about the dynamic in their relationship. The bigger question was whether I could sit across a table from him, and have both of us remain civil.
I really didn’t remember us squabbling so much, when we were kids.
Back then, it felt like I saw Flynn every day, for hours on end.
Some of that was probably skewed by childish perception, but there was no denying that he’d been a fixture in my life, and me in his.
The first to play with my new toys; the go-to distraction, when my mom scolded me to get out from under her feet in the kitchen.
We’d been, I was pretty sure, good kids on balance - few broken windows, no broken bones - but that hadn’t meant we couldn’t be rowdy, or rambunctious, or just plain silly.
I still wasn’t quite clear on how you could go from that, from someone so instrumental in your days, to hardly recognizing them.
Yet in so many ways, my interactions with Flynn as an adult were as though we were complete strangers.
People who’ve been shown a photo of their younger-selves together, assured that they have a shared past, but then left to piece together how that connects to the person in front of them today.
It’d be a challenge at the best of times, never mind with lingering resentments draped across the top of every conversation like a blanket of dark fog.
Then made only more confusing, by the fact that the man who was once my best friend had now seen me naked, hard, and screwing the guy he was in a relationship with.
There was a part of me that wanted to say fuck it and cut my losses: throw my stuff in the backseat of the truck and go home to the life I wasn’t necessarily ecstatic about having, but at least understood.
I didn’t, though. Took a shower instead, after calling down to the front desk to add a second night to my reservation.
Emptied the contents of my bag - which hardly amounted to much, given my original expectations for the weekend - onto the bed; stood, towel around my waist, looking over the options and trying to figure out what was going to be most appropriate.
Flynn had picked a Thai place, a decision I was secretly overjoyed by: there wasn’t a decent Thai restaurant anywhere near home, local tastes being closer to burgers and BBQ. It didn’t look fancy-fancy from the website, which was a relief because I didn’t even have fancy-singular options with me.
In the end, shaking my head at how ridiculous I was being, I pulled on fresh briefs and socks, and opted for dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt. There was every possibility that I could get peanut sauce down the front within minutes of sitting down, but satay would be worth the risk.
He was waiting outside the bar he’d suggested we meet at. Just a couple of blocks away from the restaurant, and both an easy stroll away from my hotel. I couldn’t imagine that was accidental.
“Hey,” Flynn said, softly, as I stopped in front of him.
“Hey, yourself.”
He frowned, just briefly. “Look, before we go in... about today...”
I shrugged. I’d been practicing this part on the whole walk over. “We were both dicks to each other. The buttons may be different, compared to what they were as we were growing up, but I guess we still know how to push them.”
A wry smile, at that. “Yeah. But I shouldn’t have...”
“And I ‘shouldn’t have’ plenty of stuff myself,” I said, interrupting. “It’s been a weird weekend, so maybe I just buy you a drink, and we chalk it all up to strange reunions?”
Flynn shook his head, the grin spread wider now. “No way. You bought the coffee, remember?”
Laughing, I pulled the door open for him. “Yeah, but you’re broke, remember?”
He gave me a pointed look. “Too soon, Oli, too soon.”
I flashed him my most winning smile as I followed him inside.
#
For all we’d been at each other’s throats, very nearly, just hours earlier, sitting at the bar with Flynn and teasing him about his drink preferences felt oddly easy. Then again, his outraged reaction after I branded him a soft city boy for insisting on a low-calorie mixer was too good to ignore.
“It tastes just the same, so why have more sugar?”
I figured the flush across his cheekbones was down to the teasing, since we were still only a few sips into our first round.
“Oh no, not sugar!” I threw my hands up to my face, pantomiming horror.
Flynn glared at me, then flicked the straw out of his glass into my face.
I laughed as I wiped myself with a napkin. “Fine, fine. Your drink is perfectly acceptable, and not at all a fey betrayal of your manly, country roots.”
He grinned, as he took another sip. “Yeah, right. We’re both perfect examples of old-fashioned masculinity, aren’t we.”