Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
harrison
I opened the door as soon as I heard his footsteps approach my landing. The cold light from the hallway beamed into my apartment and highlighted the tired look on Taylor’s face.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.”
We stood in the silence that followed, Taylor waiting to be invited, me looking at the sadness in his eyes. Was that a sadness of guilt or regret or indignation? What had happened to us? “You could use a glass of wine,” I decided aloud and moved away from the door, letting him in.
The door closed, shutting out the terrible overhead lights and leaving us in the near darkness of my atmospheric interior design.
I walked into the kitchen, where the bottle was already open and one glass was nearly empty. I found another clean glass in the cupboard and set it beside the first, topping up each. “I didn’t expect you here.”
“I came to apologize,” Taylor said.
“Why?” I asked, honestly bewildered. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” And he hadn’t. Just because it had made me feel a little too good to be kissed by him under false pretenses wasn’t Taylor’s fault. He wasn’t guilty of it.
“I think I did,” Taylor said. “I think I kissed you without thinking it through, and it caused a rift between us.”
I handed him the glass and a neat way out. “Taylor, you don’t owe me your friendship.”
Taylor smiled a little, mouth closed, pearly teeth hidden from sight. “I’m starting to understand the language you speak, Harrison. Only starting, though.”
I tilted my head fractionally and let my eyes narrow for half a second.
“I want to be your friend,” Taylor said. “Not because I owe you that, but because I think you’re interesting. And smart. And funny. And you make me feel relaxed and good about myself. What more can you ask a friend to do?”
You make me forget what I want, I thought. Because you look like you’re offering me all the worlds I’d never dared to dream about. “You’re just being kind.”
“And you’re fishing for compliments,” Taylor teased. “Forget about it.”
I laughed and agreed with a nod. “You make me feel good about myself, too. It’s strange, Taylor, that I sometimes feel like you’re the easiest relationship I’ve ever had.”
“You said it yourself. You just know how to make a guy happy,” Taylor said. He was pushing me into dangerous territory for the sake of a joke. “But yeah, I don’t want us fake-fighting and fake-breaking up. Let’s just…” He shrugged. “Let’s just hang out and not worry so much about it.”
I took a sip of my wine and held it in my mouth, letting the flavors sink into my tongue, spread through my mouth, and leave a deep, rich flavor as I swallowed and exhaled.
“I owe you an apology, too,” I said. “Missing a chance with Emma at the gallery upset me. And the kiss…well, it made me lose balance.”
“I sweep people off their feet all the time,” Taylor mock-bragged and laughed, teeth shining and those defined lips stretching wide.
I had the strongest urge to go over to him and put my arm around his waist and kiss him the way he had kissed me in the gallery. It was a dangerous impulse, and I wondered if I would ever be able to shake it off.
“How are things going with your frat brothers?” I asked.
Taylor shook his head. “They know. Well, Jason does, anyway. And the rest will hear before I’m back.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. “How did he find out?”
Taylor swirled the wine in his glass, focused on the rich, deep red of it for a time before looking up and into my eyes. “He believed it. And he believed that we’d fallen out. So he asked, and I told him it was a prank.”
“Not the grand finale you were hoping for,” I said.
Taylor shook his head slowly from one side to the other. “But he didn’t believe me then.” When he found doubt in my expression, he continued. “He thinks the silence hurt me, and I think he’s right.”
I winced. “I’m sorry, Taylor.”
He shook his head quickly to dismiss the blame. “You had Emma to think about.”
“I saw her,” I admitted. “Later that day, we met in the café on Whitmore Street.”
“Our first date,” he said cheekily.
“Same table,” I said. “She’d bought the lie, too, and it didn’t bother her. The reasons she’d wanted to come up to us in the gallery had nothing to do with clawing your eyes out for taking me.”
“So, it’s over?” Taylor asked, a little apprehensive.
“We don’t have a reason to keep this up,” I told him and braced for the inevitable end.
I didn’t specify what this was. I was ready for the impact of us parting ways as friends.
I was even looking forward to a new day and a new start, where my heart would be free to pursue something it could attain. Except…
Except.
“Will you come to our cookout on Sunday?” Taylor asked.
I looked at him for a moment before the words sank in. “I’ll be there.”
“No more faking it.”
“Friends forever,” I replied.
He shot me a teasing look I didn’t know how to interpret. “I’ll send you the details tomorrow.”
I knew he would.
He finished his wine, set the glass on the small dining table, and came close to me, hugging me goodbye.
When I was alone, I walked over to the French balcony in the living room and looked down, waiting. After a minute, Taylor stepped out of the building, crossed the street, and looked over his shoulder and up, right at me.
He raised his hand and waved.
I waved back, my heart leaping with a whole new excitement that I didn’t dare look at too closely. It wouldn’t go anywhere, but it felt good. It felt good to have something.
The cab left me at the bottom of a hiking trail on Sunday, just after noon.
The sun kissed the back of my neck as I lifted my backpack to my left shoulder and looked up the trail to where the smoke was already rising from between the bare branches.
A few cherry trees were blossoming, and the pines were as green as ever, but most trees were naked and asleep even now.
I hiked up the hill following the sight of smoke from their fire until I heard the laughter and music.
Though the cookout was mostly organized by and for the Bel House, I noticed a few impostors like myself.
Jason’s boyfriend, Bennet, was a notable example, though he had a tether to the fraternity despite belonging to the Thinkers.
I wasn’t the only guest Taylor had invited from his outer circles.
Kate was there, too, as was her friend. I resolved not to be hurt by this.
Why should I? I’d known all along that I was messing with a straight guy, and now the show was over.
He had no reason not to go after Kate if there was chemistry there.
No obligation to me was stopping him anymore.
I could still be his friend and still enjoy having conversations with him, joking, going places. I didn’t need him to be my lover.
I just needed to put two truths together and reach a positive outcome.
It was Jason who spotted me first. He lifted the spatula and waved at me, his striped apron marking him as the chef behind the grill. He wore a big grin on his face when he looked at me, and he waved me over with his other hand.
I hadn’t realized I was held in such a high regard, though Taylor had promised that these guys weren’t the typical frat bros I’d try to stay away from.
Jason bent down and pulled out a beer from the cooler just as I reached him.
“Here you go,” he said, opening the bottle swiftly for me. “So good that you came.”
“I was worried I’d be the only one from the outside,” I admitted.
Jason waved his hand to dismiss that silly belief. “We’re not a secretive brotherhood. Except for the initiation. All that candlewax. You don’t want to know.”
“I think I do,” I said, my eyes probably sparking with curiosity.
“I’m just messing with you,” Jason said.
I laughed and tipped my bottle toward my lips, saying before I drank, “I don’t think you are.”
Jason zipped his lips tightly together, then focused on the grill.
The place was designed for gatherings, so I guessed they rented it for the day.
The grill was a large, brick one with a tall chimney and two separate sides.
One was for vegetables, where I saw quite a few potatoes, bell peppers, and eggplants roasting, and the other side was for the meats, where sausages and burgers sizzled and dripped juice over the glowing coals.
Bennet was zipping back and forth around the grill, checking in with Jason if he needed help, then arranging the salads and sauces in the tote bags they’d dragged all the way up here.
I asked Jason a few questions about the grill.
It was mandatory. But I ran out of questions pretty soon, then settled into mildly awkward silence.
My gaze occasionally swept over the tables and benches and the grassy field around us, and I would see Taylor with Kate and Kate’s friend.
When Taylor finally noticed me, he grinned and held his gaze on me for a long moment.
He made a gesture for me to wait where I was; he would come over.
“I gotta ask,” Jason said. “I’ll die if I don’t.”
“Shoot,” I said, wary already but hiding it well.
“You and Taylor,” Jason said. “None of it makes sense.”
“Sure it does,” I said. “Have you met Taylor?”
Jason threw his head back and laughed.
“He’s a walking, talking contradiction,” I said.
Jason still laughed, but the look he gave me was far softer than it had any right to be. He held it on my face, waiting, scanning for something. “He’s a lot to take in.”
I reproached myself for a naughty thought that crossed my mind. That wouldn’t be a problem I had to deal with. “He’s interesting.”
“Fake-hiding a fake relationship just seems like a very convoluted strategy only Taylor would try to pull off,” Jason said.
“To be fair to him, it was my idea,” I said. “For, er, other reasons. Making an ex jealous, to be exact. So, in stupid ideas, we’re really matched pretty evenly.”
Jason laughed, flipping a burger with the spatula and turning over potato wedges with a pair of tongs.