Chapter Six The New Normal
I got maybe four hours sleep. And what he’d said about me waking up with a hangover and a—that was really uncalled-for, but also, okay, yeah.
But that’s normally how it is when I wake up.
And what I’d said to him last night about wanting to...
did not mean I was bi. I didn’t want to suck a bunch of guys’ dicks.
Just his. When I was drunk. I didn’t now.
There should have been another word for what I was. Something straighter than “bi.”
When I went to the living room, he was still there.
You know how it’s special when you get to see someone when they’ve just woken up?
That was how I felt seeing him lying on his back on my couch, a little scruff on his face and his hair messed up.
I handed him a towel, a spare toothbrush, and a razor and told him the bathroom was free.
He didn’t mention what I’d said last night, and neither did I. But I gave him a spare key to the building and my apartment. Because I wanted to keep being in his space, and I wanted him to be in mine.
“The keys are for if you want to come back.” I didn’t want to presume anything.
“I’ll be done work around eight,” he said.
“I’ll be back at six. And if you want to stay with me until you find somewhere better than the shelter, you’re welcome to my couch.”
“Thanks,” he said, and he sounded sincere.
I took the rest of the beer out of my fridge and put it in my backpack along with the bottle of peach schnapps my last girlfriend had left behind and the bottle of wine I’d been saving for a fancy dinner. I got popular at work giving it all away.
“Did you quit drinking?” Roger asked me.
I shrugged because I didn’t want to explain. Eddie didn’t drink, and he didn’t want to do anything with me unless I was sober, so from now on, I was always going to be sober around him. Assuming he stuck around.
I was worried he wouldn’t come back. Worried enough that I didn’t eat much dinner. I sat in front of the TV staring at whatever was on and checking the time every two minutes.
He came in at a quarter after eight. I heard the key in the door, and I felt a rush of happiness and relief.
I tried not to act like a dog that’s been left alone all day when its owner finally comes home.
He had a backpack on, and he shrugged it off at the door.
“There’s leftovers in the fridge,” I said. I’d put some aside for him when I was making dinner, in case he wanted some.
“Thanks.”
I went into the kitchen to join him. As the food was heating in the microwave, I said, “You want any help moving your things?”
“I already did,” he said.
“That’s all your stuff? In one backpack?”
“I don’t have much,” he said. Like it was normal to fit everything you owned into a backpack.
I realized I didn’t know much about him, how long he’d lived with Trish or where he was living before that or how old he was.
“Those films you acted in. Do you have them on DVDs?”
“Sure. You want to watch one?”
“Yeah. I’ve never known anybody who was in a movie.”
He got a DVD out of his backpack and handed it to me. “It’s rated NC-17.”
“Well, I’m older than seventeen, so I think I’m okay to watch it.” How sheltered did he think I was?
The movie was called Wanton Town. The DVD cover featured an overpass covered in graffiti. One of my exes had made me sit through The Incredible Lightness of Being. I was worried Wanton Town would be one of those boring art films.
It wasn’t.
The movie starred a lanky guy in tight, black jeans, with dyed black and red hair and a lip ring. He was dealing and doing a lot of drugs.
For the first while, Eddie wasn’t in the movie.
Then, forty minutes in, this kid sauntered onto the screen, slouched, with his hands in his pockets, seeming a lot smaller and younger than the Eddie I knew.
But his presence filled the screen. That little glimmer of what I’d seen when I’d first met him was turned up to eleven here.
“That’s you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re different in this. I mean, from how you are now.”
“It’s called acting.”
“I know, but it’s like I’m watching a completely different person who happens to look like you.”
“Again, acting.”
“Your hair’s longer in this.”
“Director’s orders.”
In the movie, his hair hung in his face, and he was peering through it, and he had that smile, the same one he’d given me at Tim Hortons when he’d told me I had five minutes to finish my bagel.
“Your hair looks...good longer.” Geez. How did that sound when I said it out loud?
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
His character and the drug dealer guy were flirting with each other. Drug dealer guy was a lot slicker than I was. Then all of a sudden the drug dealer kissed him against the crisscross railing of the Queen Street Bridge. I felt super uncomfortable.
“How old were you?” I said.
“Nineteen.”
Which, I guess, made it legal, but it still bothered me.
Then, not too much further into the film, I found out why it was rated NC-17. They were in a warehouse where his character had a sleeping bag spread out, and it was dimly lit, and they weren’t naked, but it was pretty obvious what they were doing.
When you see another aspect of someone you know, an aspect they haven’t let you see but maybe will... It was scary but exciting. I felt like I should look away out of respect, but I couldn’t. I untucked my T-shirt and tugged it down over my lap, trying to seem casual about it.
It was super awkward. I didn’t know what to say.
When the film ended, he took the disk out of the machine and put it back in its case.
I still didn’t know what to say, so I suggested we work on the model Avro Vulcan I got for my birthday.
He had steady hands, so I figured he might be good at model building.
We sat on opposite sides of my dining table.
When I started focusing on gluing the pieces in, I calmed down because I had something I could control.
He was good at it. He was so careful that I let him put the pilot into the cockpit.
“I felt bad for you,” I said.
“About what?” He was still holding the tweezers, positioning the tiny pilot.
“You were being exploited.”
“How?”
“What they made you do on camera. Sure, you didn’t take your clothes off. But what you did was private.”
“It was work. I got paid.”
“That makes it worse.”
“How?” He put down the tweezers.
“It’s like being a sex worker, isn’t it?” I was angry with the director but also, kind of, with Eddie. Maybe that awkward feeling earlier was me getting angry.
“The character I played wasn’t a sex worker. He was a kid living on the street.”
“But that drug dealer guy—took advantage of you. The director did too.”
“Do you feel that way about Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral?”
I laughed, because that was a stupid concept. Hugh Grant was rich and famous. Why would anyone feel bad for him?
“Grant had to pretend to have sex on camera,” he said. “And he had to take off his shirt.”
“That’s different.”
“Because he was pretending to have sex with a woman?”
“That’s part of it.”
“It’s not a secret that I’m bi.”
“Yeah, but.”
“You liked watching that scene.”
Oh god. He’d noticed. I remembered he was nineteen in that movie, and he’d had a boyfriend for years by then. He was even more experienced now. He looked innocent, but he wasn’t.
“That’s not the point,” I said.
“Does it bother you because other people can enjoy watching that scene too?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“Why? Were all the girls you dated virgins before they met you?”
“Only one was, but I didn’t sleep with her.”
“So they’d all been with other people. Other people had seen them naked before you. Other people had sex with them before you.”
“If I had to watch it on TV, it would bother me. Would it bother you if you saw someone you were with having sex with someone else?”
“Not if they were acting,” he said.
“But I’ve seen your O face, man. So has half the city.” Maybe it was the model glue talking, but this conversation was getting way too sexual.
“You only think you’ve seen it,” he said.
“Yeah, I think. But I have, right?”
“Are you trying to insult my acting?”
“Shit, no. Okay, you were acting in that sex scene. You didn’t really do it, but when you kissed that guy on the bridge, you actually kissed him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“How many people have you kissed for money, total?”
“I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”
The more I learned about him, the more I realized how little I knew.
“See, that’s the problem. That’s what’s bothering me.”
“That’s what’s bothering you? Not that you’re attracted to a man?”
“If I was dating an actress, it would bother me too.” Would it, though? I’d never gotten jealous over any of my exes.
“I think what’s really bothering you is you’ve seen someone kiss me, but you haven’t kissed me yet.”
“Did you feel used?”
“No. Are you worried you’re using me to find out if you’re bi?”
I just looked at him.
“I’m willing to let you,” he said.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
“Why not?” he said.
“Because I don’t think of you as a sex object. I care about you.”
I got up and went to the bathroom. I needed to clear my head of glue fumes, plus, I was losing the argument, and I didn’t want to fight with him anyway.
What did I want?
Him.
I wanted him all to myself. And that was selfish. He wasn’t mine to begin with. But I wanted him to be. And if this was who he was, I had to accept it, no matter how much it bothered me.
I splashed cold water on my face, then I started the bathroom fan, to clear the glue fumes from the apartment.
When I came back to the dining room, he’d put the cap on the glue and was quietly putting the loose pieces of the model away.
He didn’t look up. “I’m not quitting acting for you.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have to get used to it.”
“Did Trish?”
“No. It’s why we’re not together.”
So, she hadn’t wanted him enough. I had her beat on that.
“What if I get you a pass to come on the set while we’re filming?” he said. “If you see me at work, will that help you see it’s all make-believe?”
“What would you tell people about me?”
“That you’re my friend.”
Back in his kitchen two months ago, I would have taken that home and felt like the prince of the fucking world. But now, things were different.
“Your friend who at some point might be something else? No. Don’t say that.” I wasn’t ready to think about that.
“I’ll tell them you’re my friend,” he said. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
I stretched. “I’ve gotta go to bed. Didn’t sleep much last night.” Thinking about you.
We finished putting the model away.
“I couldn’t kiss someone if I didn’t want them,” I said.
“Actors can. We do it all the time.”
“How?”
“Haven’t you had to do something hard, and you found a way to shut off while you were doing it?”
“Cleaning up my dog’s puke when I was a kid.”
“See?” he said. “I’m not so unrelatable, am I?”
He went to the couch and unfolded the blankets he’d left there this morning. He was done talking, but we hadn’t resolved anything.
“When can you get me a pass on set?” I said.
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll call off work. Leave at ten?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I went up to him. “Eddie? I’m sober now, so...is it okay if I give you a hug?”
“Sure.” He dropped the blankets.
He stood there, and I moved into his space, carefully, because I didn’t know what he was going to do.
We were like two ships pulled together by gravitational force.
I’d felt that pull since the day I met him, but it was stronger this close to him.
I couldn’t not touch him at that point. I put my arms around him and held him gently.
Not because I was afraid I’d hurt him but because he felt so precious to me.
It felt strange to touch him properly, not incidentally like at Deep Ice or the subway station or while watching a movie on my couch.
It felt amazing too. Then he put his arms around me, and I felt his hands on my back.
He was so relaxed and steady that I relaxed too.
He smelled sweet, like molten sugar. I didn’t want to let him go, but I was feeling overwhelmed, so I stepped back.
“Thanks, Eddie.” I couldn’t look at him. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
I went to my bedroom and sat on the bed, trying to get a hold of myself.
The floor felt like it was tilting, and my head was spinning.
After a few minutes, things settled. I was thinking clearly, remembering how it had felt to hold him, how I could feel his ribs through his T-shirt, how fast he’d eaten his sandwich at Tim Hortons.
I left the bedroom door ajar when I went to bed. I heard him go up the hall to the bathroom, and I heard the tap running. He came out a few minutes later and went back to the living room. He didn’t stop to talk.