Chapter 1 Tobík
The air presses against my arms when I step onto the path, warm and thick the way Atlanta does in late June, and nine months in I still notice. Brno air is dry and polite. This air has opinions. It sits on my skin and decides it lives there.
The Beltline stretches ahead through trees so green they look like they’re showing off. I walk this path most mornings when I am not on road trips. I know which roots push the pavement up. I know which stretch smells like honeysuckle and which smells like the coffee shop a block over.
Most days I focus on the people and animals around me. The vegetables at the pop-up market. The new restaurant that opened. I am present and focused.
Today, my mind has fast-forwarded to two days from now, when the Czech national team comes to Atlanta for the World Cup group stage. Tomá? will be in this city.
And Damián will be in this city. I have been thinking about this since the draw came out months ago.
The flower stand woman is setting up near Piedmont, arms full of sunflowers taller than her head.
“Good morning.”
“Morning, honey.” She holds one up. “Take it. You posted that photo of my stand last week and I sold out before lunch.”
“I cannot take your flowers for free.”
“You can and you will. Hold it up next to your face.” She takes my phone before I can argue. “Smile. No, baby, a real one. The one you do with the dogs. There it is. You look like a summer postcard.”
“Thank you. That is very kind.”
“It’s not kind. It’s marketing. Go find that big golden one before he tears his mama’s arm off.”
She is right. Bagel has spotted me. Claire is holding the leash with both hands and losing.
Bagel is a golden retriever roughly the size of a piece of furniture who has decided, every Tuesday and Thursday since October, that I am the most important thing on this path.
He pulls forward with the commitment of a creature who does not understand restraint.
Claire lets go, not on purpose but in the way people accept physics.
“He heard your shoes,” Claire says. “I swear he knows your footsteps from fifty yards.”
“He is very perceptive.”
“He’s obsessed is what he is. Bagel, sweetie, at least pretend you have dignity.”
Bagel doesn’t pretend. He reaches me and sits on my left foot, his full weight, committed, vibrating with satisfaction. I crouch and scratch behind his ears, and his eyes close, and his mouth opens into the wide grin that simplifies everything.
“You are very brave,” I tell him. “Coming all the way across the path for me.”
“He’d cross the city for you,” Claire says. “I barely exist on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“That is not true. He loves you very much.”
“He tolerates me. He loves you. There’s a difference and he is making it very clear.”
I take a selfie with him and the sunflower. The skyline pink behind us, glass and climbing. In the photo I am doing the face Mueller once captioned this man is trying SO HARD to be cool. I was not trying. I was happy. Apparently those look the same on me.
The coffee shop is three minutes past the spot where Claire and Bagel turn around. Jordan starts my americano when I come through the door.
“Morning, Sunshine.” Jordan slides the cup across. “So someone asked about you yesterday. A guy. Recognized you from the photo we reposted. Wanted to know if you really come in every week.”
“Well, that is what you tell me.”
“Should I pass along his number? He seemed nice. Tall. Good jawline.”
“I think that is very flattering, but no. Thank you.”
“Your loss. I’m telling you, this is prime real estate for meeting people.”
“I appreciate the real estate report.”
Jordan shrugs, and I take the cup to the window seat that nobody else picks because everyone else wants the table near the outlet.
Jordan means well. The city lets me be visible in ways Brno never did.
I am gay in Atlanta, the way I am Czech in Atlanta, the way I am left-handed in Atlanta.
It is just a fact about me that lives in the open quietly and nobody treats it like news.
Drew from the foodie group set me up with his friend in March.
A graphic designer, kind eyes, good questions.
We got through appetizers before I realized I was comparing his laugh to a laugh I haven’t heard for three years, which was not fair to anyone.
I paid for dinner and walked home and have not tried again.
After I leave Jordan’s coffee shop, I head to the rink which smells like ice even in June.
The guys who stayed in Atlanta for the summer, showing up to skate and lift and then stand around in the locker room talking about whatever people talk about when there is no game every three days.
Davis is lacing up on the bench beside me.
“You saw the dog this morning.”
“How do you know?”
“Golden hair on your collar.” He doesn’t look up from his laces. “And you’re smiling like a person who has been outside already this morning.”
“I smile inside too.”
“Not like that, you don’t.” He glances over at me. "You look tired. How are you sleeping?”
“Fine.”
“Fine like fine, or fine like you read until two again?”
“I finished chapter fourteen last night. The chapter was very good. I could not stop.”
“You never can.” He laughs.
On the ice the pace is light. Summer pace, summer bodies, nobody pushing because there is nothing to push toward for a few more months.
I run my edges and work positioning drills and the puck comes off the boards and I read the lane before it opens.
The gap closes under my stick and for a few minutes the only thing I am thinking about is the game, the ice, the puck.
In the hallway after, Marchetti catches me at the water cooler.
“Hájek.” Both hands on my shoulders. “Tell me you started the new one.”
“I started it last night.”
“And? The hero. Is he worth fourteen chapters? Because in chapter two he left her standing in the rain. In the rain, Hájek. I need to know before I invest.”
“I think you should keep reading.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer that does not violate the spoiler policy.”
“Thompson has a spoiler policy. I have a need-to-know policy and my need to know is very high right now.”
“Your need to know is always very high. I think this is why you read so fast.”
“I read fast because I care, Hájek. I care about these fictional people.”
“So do I. That is why I will not ruin the experience for you. Keep reading.”
He stares at me. I stare back. Every time, underneath the loud warmth, Marchetti chooses that a story deserves its ending. He exhales, taps my shoulders twice, walks away.
“You are the most infuriating person on this team,” he calls back over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Marchetti. That is very generous.”
Thompson appears from the weight room, towel over his shoulder. “Did Marchetti just try to break the spoiler policy again?”
“He is very persistent.”
“And you held the line?”
“I held the line.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite, Hájek. You understand what’s sacred.”
In the group chat an hour later, Thompson posts a reading-pace check. I send my chapter number.
Thompson
Hájek are you reading at the speed of light?
I type.
I am reading at the speed of wanting to know what happens
Marchetti
UNFAIR
Mueller
HOW?
My apartment is quiet at night. Third floor in Midtown, close enough to the Beltline that I can walk to the path within a few minutes.
My bookshelf is the biggest thing in the living room.
Twenty-seven romance novels in nine months, some with sticky notes on the pages, some with page corners folded because those are the pages where someone said the truth and the world didn’t end.
I know folding corners is a crime but I don’t care. Those pages earned it.
I eat leftovers standing at the counter. I send my mother the photo of Bagel and the sunflower. She sends back six heart emojis and a voice note I will play later.
I open Instagram. Two hundred and seventy-one likes on the sunflower photo. Two DMs from the foodie group asking about the flower stand. I tap through my stories.
His name is there. Third row. Damián Mare?.
No follow, no like, no comment. Just the view.
For three years, his name has appeared on the list, a constant refrain.
I close the app and don’t think about how often I think of him watching my stories when I post. At this point, it’s almost a required daily action.
My phone buzzes. Tomá?.
I pick up because I always pick up. Not picking up leads to a text that says are you dead and another text twelve minutes later that says I’ll assume you’re dead and a third text four minutes after that which is just a photo of his disappointed face.
“Hi, Tomá?.”
“Tobík.” His voice fills whatever room he is in, through the phone, across time zones. “We land Thursday. The whole squad, little brother.”
“I know. You told me last week.” I stand in front of my bookshelf and run my fingers down the spine of one of my favorite books.
“I am telling you again because you do not always read your messages.”
“I read my messages.”
“You read your messages the way you read your calendar. Eventually and without urgency.”
“Tomá?. Get to the point.”
“I am excited, that is all. I want to see the rink. I want to see your apartment. I want to see these places you keep posting about.”
“You were here at Christmas and saw most of them.”
“Yes, but it was cold. Now it’s not. Listen. Damián is asking about restaurants. I told him you know everyone and everything in Atlanta. Show him around when he has free time. Take him to the good places. He won’t ask for himself, you know how he is, so I’m asking.”
Tomá? says his name and my stomach drops. Like it does when I hear his name.
“Of course,” I say. “I will show him around.”
“Good. He’ll appreciate it. You two always got along.”
“We did.”
“Get some sleep. And eat something that’s not those protein bars.”
“Good night, Tomá?.”
“Good night, little brother.”
I put the phone down. Outside, the air is still pressing against the windows, still warm, still refusing to cool down the way Atlanta refuses to cool down in late June.
My brother is bringing the person whose name has been in my story views every day for three years. I have read twenty-seven romance novels and I have been taking notes. The notes haven’t been useful in my actual life, but the research continues.