Chapter Six Mateo #2
Jamie bursts out laughing—a literal eruption of sound that turns a few heads—and I'm proud of myself for making it happen. When he quiets long enough to order, he ends up with strawberries, Nutella, and powdered sugar. I'm content with my more traditional treat.
We look for a table nearby, but everything is taken, and I'm glad I know my way around.
It's not much longer before we're sitting on the ground on the back side of several booths, a bunch of cardboard boxes and someone's golf cart keeping us company.
I frown when Jamie stretches a leg in front of him, disappointed in myself for not thinking this through.
"It's fine," he says.
And I leave it at that.
Eating keeps us from talking for the next minute or two, neither of us making sounds more coherent than mumbled pleasure.
We watch each other because it's easier when nobody's watching us, and I smile around a mouthful of sugar.
Then I glance at the penguin in Jamie's lap and let myself feel too many things until I swallow comfort and reach for something else.
"So," I start, that single syllable dragged too far. "How's Melanie Bishop?"
He's sinful about the way he sucks the tips of his fingers clean, but I don't know whether it's aimed at me or just how he is. I wipe my fingers on a napkin and wait.
"You're good at a lot of things, Mateo—"
"Teacher, coach—" I interrupt.
"But you're shit at casual jealousy," he snaps back. It's gentle, mostly. An admonishment not meant to sting for more than a moment. I think I flinch anyway, barely looking at him when he goes on. "I haven't seen her since the banquet."
"She seemed interested in seeing plenty of you."
"She was," Jamie says.
"You didn't seem uninterested."
Jamie goes back to eating, but I think I've had enough.
I set my paper plate on the grass and close my eyes, the many sounds of the carnival giving me something to focus on while I scrape the rest of an argument off my tongue.
We don't get to spend much time together, our long wait for each other crowded with distance.
It would be stupid to waste this chance we've got.
He touches me, a careful, barely-there thing, and it’s a lot like his pinky reaching across a blanket at the beach. I’m at least as far gone now as I was then.
"Does the Scrambler count as a big-kid ride?" Jamie asks.
I look at him again when I playfully shove him away.
A minute later, we're walking across the fair to the chaos we'd left behind, and I'm as excited to get back to this as he is.
If the Scrambler is a bad idea with a stomach full of funnel cake, neither of us worries about it now, but maybe we should've worried about the physics of the ride itself.
Once it hits full speed, we're pressed together with no finesse at all, and the giggles consume us before and after Jamie uses his stuffed penguin to block the next unintentional hip check.
We go from there to the giant slide and a pile of burlap sacks, a couple of small children the only reason we’re careful not to race.
Then it's off to darts and underinflated balloons, and a few more tries with wiffle balls, even more ridiculous about our competition now.
Jamie's earlier win remains the only one of the day, and he taunts me with it because he knows he can.
After we wander a while longer, I point to another ride.
"How do you feel about Ferris wheels?"
"Sitting next to you while we enjoy fresh air and a nice view?" he asks. "It's familiar."
I glance toward the sky, then return to him. "It's certainly something."
Whether it feels good to joke around the hollow ache in my chest, I don't know, but Jamie is studying me as if he might figure it out.
It won't do either of us any good to stand here though, and I walk toward the line because I know he'll follow.
Within minutes, we're tugging on the lap bar and ignoring instructions we don't need, then moving further from the ground to a hard rock soundtrack that fades as we rise.
It's all start and stop for as long as it takes to load several more riders, and I'm lulled by the rhythm of it.
We become nearly invisible the higher we go, and I hold his hand because I break my own rules sometimes.
He lets me, but I think he’s crossed lines since people learned his name.
“Tell me more about your family,” he says, his voice just louder than the music.
“It’s a longer story than we have time for up here,” I warn, frowning a little because I know it’s the opposite for him, an only child who sought off-ice comfort at a bar owned by his best friend’s dad.
Jamie squeezes my hand. “The short version?”
“Ah, let’s see. My mom was young when she had me, and she didn’t know my biological father. Not even his name. She met my dad just before I turned five. He and his mother—my grandmother—took me in as their own from the very beginning. His father never really has.”
“What'd he have against you? You were five.”
“I wasn’t his family,” I shrug, the Ferris wheel finally full and moving without interruption.
“Worse than that, I was clingy with my mom. Soft-spoken. Weak. He’s every macho stereotype, and I wasn’t someone he thought worthy of being my dad’s firstborn—literally or otherwise.
Once I started school, and my sisters came along, I adjusted to being around more people and I changed, but he never stopped thinking of me as a mama’s boy—or calling me that outright. ”
Jamie nods. “And being gay didn’t help.”
“No. So, I’ve lived my life, but I’ve also kept a low profile. No trouble. No reason for anyone to regret making my mom and me part of their family.”
“Boring as self-defense.”
“Something like that,” I agree.
“But you’re close to your sisters.”
“Very. I’m close to everyone else, really. My grandmother, my parents, my sisters, their husbands and kids. I have no complaints about my life. I really don’t.”
Unspoken rebuttals stay that way, and Jamie lets go of my hand.
Untethered, we enjoy the fresh air and the nice view as we go around and around, music and laughter louder on every downswing, and then quieting again.
I push away most of the noise in my head and appreciate where I am, stupidly grateful he stashed the penguin on his other side while we're in no danger of crashing into each other.
The space between us is plenty.
By the time we're back on solid ground, it feels very little like it. Nothing under our feet has been stable since the first time we stepped from the sidewalk to the sand, but we keep walking anyway. The back of my hand brushes his now and then, and I think we’re making a lap around the carnival to avoid making decisions about anything else.
"You called me your friend today," Jamie says after another minute. "Twice."
I remember introducing him that way and forget when else I might have said it, but I trust his ability to count to two.
"Is there a better word for what we are right now?"
“I suggested that once—that we be friends. You weren't sure you could do it.” He doesn’t waste more time reminding me of things I already know, but he slips further away from my side. "We don't really talk."
"We don't. You said I'm not allowed to tell you I miss you—that I'm not allowed to tell you I hurt like you do. And sometimes it's hard to know what else to say."
"Is that what I left on your voicemail? On New Year's? I know I called you, but I didn't—it was late and I—"
"And you were drunk."
"It was New Year's," Jamie says again. "But you stopped saying those things anyway."
"Probably because you were right."
"So, we can be friends as long as we lie about how we feel?"
I stop short at that. There’s an omission technicality, but I don’t point it out. “Do you think we’ve lied today?”
“I haven’t,” he tells me.
“Good. Neither have I.”
A couple of toddlers run past us, chased by their tired parents.
I smell popcorn and fries. Then a mob of teenagers—Harper and Lizzie nowhere among them—giggles and pushes and shoves and laughs as they tumble by.
It’s all so normal, and as soon as there’s room to do so, I follow, speeding up like I can have more of that and less of whatever made me stand still.
Nothing is wrong. Jamie and I are no worse off than we were before.
But after we’ve walked another several minutes in relative silence, it makes perfect sense that we find ourselves in front of the funhouse without having spoken about it first. As long as we're unsteady, we might as well get lost in an attraction designed for it.
The darkness is abrupt, but it could be good for us.
The narrow halls put Jamie just behind me, and the first moving walkway is enough reason for his free hand to land at my hip.
He takes it back just as quickly, and we climb wobbly stairs before walking through a spinning tunnel and past mirrors that stretch us out or squash us down.
There's a ladder we can barely trust, and more metal plates shifting beneath our feet, and then we run into another series of mirrors—literally, actually—a maze welcoming us with maniacal laughter piped through a speaker overhead.
I think I laugh too, collisions impossible to avoid when we don't know where else to go.
Some kids scurry past us, and then we're alone for another minute, Jamie using those precious seconds to push his body against mine.
With his chest to my back, we're facing a mirror we'll need to sidestep eventually, but for now, I freeze.
It's the first time I've seen us together, and even this blacklit visual is enough to choke me up.
We're gorgeous like this. We're right like this.
Jamie moves us anyway.