A Moth to a Flame

one

Colt Darling

Being jostled about in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd is anything but festive.

I came for a little holiday cheer, only to find myself squeezed between a family bundled in warm winter coats, a cluster of college girls, and a group of friends in their thirties, all of them trying to get closer to the food truck that sells the viral trend of the season, some chocolate drizzled, candy cane dusted, giant marshmallow stick.

Another tray of them is set in the window, and the volume around me rises, the crowd surging forward. The idea of a line is laughable.

In the chaos, I’m shoved aside, toward a smaller stall where a little round lady stands behind a counter heaped with crochet items. It’s not as packed here, but the entire holiday market is crawling with people, so some of the marshmallow hopefuls spill over in front of her.

I give her an apologetic smile, since she’s probably losing business by having her stall blocked by the sugar-hungry crowd, but she’s barking at some guy who stepped back from her counter with a bundle of pink crochet in hand.

“You have to pay for that,” she yells.

“I’m paying, chill,” he says, reaching for his wallet.

A jolt goes through me, but I’m sure I’m hallucinating. There are millions of people in this city, and unlike mine, his accent is not out of place here. But there’s something…

My first, cowardly instinct is to turn and disappear into the crowd, not let him see me.

It would be so easy.

And so impossible.

When he reaches for his wallet, my gaze follows the path of his hands to hips my hands once held; when he looks down into his wallet, my gaze travels the curve of his neck, one my lips once followed in the dark.

Making a split-second decision, I push past a couple, sure I’m seeing ghosts but unable to help myself from double checking.

I know I’ll never stop wondering if I don’t at least make sure it’s a stranger in his favorite Celine jeans, dark hair curled out the back of his cap and around his ears; expensive wool coat hugging his shoulders that somehow look even broader than last time I saw him.

Just as I reach him, someone knocks into me, and I knock into him.

His elbow shoots up, slamming into my solar plexus as he protects his wallet, probably thinking I’m trying to snatch it and run. “Watch it,” he snaps, turning away, his shoulder pushing me further back.

“You have to pay for that,” the lady in the stall yells again, over the noise of the hustle and bustle around us.

“Hey,” I say, grabbing his arm.

“What’s your fucking problem,” he says, jerking to free himself.

He turns, though, a fierce scowl on his face, like he’s still not above throwing a punch.

When he sees me, he freezes, and for a second, we only stare.

Everything stops—the crowd melts away, the lady yelling about the hat goes silent, the towering buildings and noisy traffic of Manhattan fade to black.

I find my voice first.

“Is it really you?” I ask, fighting back the flood of images that arise—watching him dancing on a rooftop, high out of his mind; drinking at the rock quarry until we could barely stand; waking in the middle of the night when he came to my house to ask for drugs—the last time I ever saw him.

“Is it you?” he asks, searching my face with just as much disbelief. I wonder what memories are flooding his mind right now, if they fill him with as much shame and trepidation.

“Hey,” yells the lady at the booth, waving her arm. “Hey, you!”

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I live here,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Shopping,” I say. “Fuck it’s crowded. Is it always like this?”

“Are you kidding? On Christmas Eve eve?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I say. “Just figured I’d do New York shit while I was in New York. My cousin told me to come here and get some of those marshmallow things. It was this or sit a hotel room watching shit TV.”

“You should have looked me up,” he says, and I know he doesn’t mean it.

I surprise myself by being sad about that, like when you run into any old buddy from high school, and they say, “Let’s get together for drinks sometime,” and you agree, even though you know you never will.

Duke and I used to be honest, if nothing else.

“What happened to you?” I ask, deciding not to play along with the old friend routine. We were never friends, after all. He may be all bullshit and fake pleasantries now, but I’m not.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“You just disappeared one day.”

“You mean after I got shot?”

“I’m calling the police,” the woman at the stall yells.

Duke glances at her and gestures his wallet in her direction. “Not really the time, man.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised by the disappointment that flares. “Right. Sorry.”

“What about you?” he asks, rifling through bills in his wallet.

“Also not really a story for here,” I say, frowning at the woman who keeps interrupting us. I want to tell her to shut the fuck up, can’t she tell he has the money for her dumb hat, and there’s more important things going on right now.

“Fair enough,” Duke says, fishing a hundred out and pocketing his wallet.

“Hey,” I say, not wanting that to be the end of it. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right now?” he asks, looking over the choking crowd around us.

“Yeah,” I say. “Unless you have somewhere to be?”

He shrugs. “I guess I could spare a few minutes to talk about your glory days.”

“Mine?” I ask, cocking a brow.

He smiles and leans over the stall, tossing the bill to the grumpy lady, and then turns to go.

We weave through the chaos. There’s not one part of the holiday market that’s not bustling with last-minute shoppers and tourists grabbing trendy food items to post on social media.

When we finally make it to the street, my head is buzzing from the noise.

For a second, we stand there, the silence louder than the past five years of it that stretch behind us.

“That’s an expensive hat you got there,” I say at last.

“It’s not just a hat,” he says. “It has mittens and a scarf too.”

I think about who he got them for, some girlfriend he’s never told about me, curled in their bed at home, waiting for him.

“Want to go somewhere and catch up?” I ask. “For old time’s sake.”

He hesitates, a frown darkening his brow, and some old reflex rises, to reach up and smooth the lines, to do something for him that no one else does.

Except I don’t know that. I don’t know anything about his life anymore.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he says at last, his gaze skating away, down the street.

“Scared to be alone with me?” I ask, tucking my hands in my pockets and rocking back on my heel.

“A little,” he admits.

His frankness catches me off guard, especially after the empty formalities he hit me with five minutes ago.

“Don’t make me beg,” I say, keeping my tone light. “You know I don’t do that.”

“You never had to.”

Again, his honesty puts me off balance. “Do I have to now?”

He shifts from foot to foot, and I can tell he’s contemplating.

“We can go to a bar,” I offer. “We won’t be alone there.”

“I’m sober,” he says. “Four years.”

Almost the entire time since I’ve seen him last.

“Me too,” I say. “Well, two for me.”

“Only two?” He raises a brow. “You were sober last time I saw you.”

This time, I’m the one who can’t meet his eye. “Shit happens.”

People pass us on the sidewalk, a group with big shopping bags bumping their legs at every step, laughing like those are the biggest burdens they carry.

“But that’s actually great to hear,” I say to Duke. “I’m really happy for you. I don’t know why I said the bar. I wasn’t going to drink, if that’s what you think, now that I said two years.”

He cocks his head, an old familiar smirk playing over those maddening lips of his. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” I say, scowling at him. “Why would I be nervous?”

“I don’t know,” he says, smiling wider. “Why are you?”

“I’m not,” I say, but I can’t help but smile back. “But come on, we can get a bite to eat.”

“You think you’re getting into a restaurant at seven o’clock on Christmas Eve eve? Without a reservation?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t live here. Surely you can pull some strings. Aren’t you a big shot around here? Don’t tell me you don’t have a table on reserve somewhere. Or hell, slip a ma?tre de some cash and show me how the great Duke Dolce lives it up.”

“You think I’m great?” he asks, an edge of cockiness creeping into his smile. “Guess you always were obsessed with me. I shouldn’t be surprised you haven’t changed. You look exactly the same.”

“You look… Different,” I say honestly, looking him up and down.

He was always huge, always one of the only guys taller than me in high school.

He was always muscular and fucking gorgeous too, with that glossy black hair and that plump lower lip that drove me to distraction.

But he looks better, somehow. Maybe it’s the sobriety, or the fact that he doesn’t look like he’s ready to knock my teeth down my throat, or that his eyes are no longer haunted and desperate, churning with a mixture of dread and fury and abject terror.

“You might have a few more piercings than last time I saw you,” he says. “Aren’t you a little old for all that metal in your face?”

“Okay, grandpa,” I say, shaking my head. “We’re twenty-five, not fifty.”

“Speak for yourself, old man,” he says. “I’m only twenty-four.”

“Well, damn,” I say. “We better get you to a piercing parlor before you’re too old for a couple holes in your eyebrow.”

“Why mess with perfection?” he asks, gesturing at the Greek god jawline, cheekbones, and square chin in front of me.

“Can’t argue there,” I say. “Wouldn’t want to fuck up that pretty face of yours.”

He smiles, then gives a quick nod before turning on his heel and starting down the street, past the big wreaths and twinkling lights decorating every lamp post. At the corner, he turns back and looks over his shoulder at me.

“Well, don’t just stand there like an idiot,” he calls.

I jog to catch up, ignoring the swoop in my stomach. I thought he was done, that he was walking away. But he waited.

He stands hunched against the wind, hands shoved in the pockets of that nice ass coat. When I catch up, he nods down a side street. “Come on,” he says. “I know a place we can go.”