—3— Wyatt
Wyatt
I ask my parents for advice.
Y’know, on what to do in a hypothetical petulant man-child-next-door situation.
But ever since leaving on their cross-country “journey of self-discovery”—which we all knew was code for “midlife crisis/second honeymoon”—it’s difficult to get them to take me seriously.
Mom always sounds high. Dad’s always in the middle of a nap.
I’ve been on my own for the last few years and no one’s fooling anyone.
And is this really something worth bothering them over?
Lottie and Marcos’s nightmare nephew?
I invite a few friends over after work on the guise of a movie night, which is just an excuse to hang out and blow off steam.
We always throw on a movie everyone’s seen a hundred times.
All the lights stay on. We talk through the whole thing.
Someone’s always in the kitchen making something.
That would be Billy tonight, his hubby Tanner in the armchair with tears of laughter in his eyes from the movie, glued to the screen with a beer in hand.
It’s one of those nights both of their boys are staying over with friends and they’re free.
Mindy and Joel weren’t as lucky tonight, turning my invite down.
Lance and Chad are here, which is nice, because even without kids they’re always busy.
We all grew up together, same age give or take a year, but with the exception of me and Lance, none of us were all that close in high school.
Times were different even fifteen short years ago.
Sadly, the last thing anyone cares to chat about tonight is my next-door nightmare situation.
Whenever I try to bring it up, the conversation steers elsewhere.
“Yep, Trey’s ten-year reunion, you heard me right,” says Lance, “and I don’t think many people from his class are flying in for it. RSVP count was low, last I heard.”
“He’s already found the love of his life, anyway,” says Chad on the couch next to him. When he gets a look, he shoots a funny one right back. “What? You already forgot how the hell we happened?”
“Oh, duh, us.” Lance gathers a handful of popcorn and shrugs. “We were an astronomically improbable anomaly.”
“Don’t go usin’ big words he don’t understand,” says Tanner.
Chad reaches around Lance to smack Tanner over the head, causing him to laugh. “Watch it, I will take you down on this floor in front of your husband!”
“I’m not gettin’ involved,” calls Billy from the kitchen. I still don’t know what he’s whipping up, but it smells vaguely like pizza. Chefs’ minds never rest, I’ve learned. He runs T&S’s Sweet Shoppe.
Y’know. Where I recently got a couple banana-nut muffins.
That someone probably threw away.
I glance at the window nearby, noticing the guestroom light on next-door. The blinds are open, but I see no one inside.
It’s not that I need to talk about Diego to my friends.
I’m not even sure I want to.
But I have a crisis here.
And all my friends have is popcorn.
“Please, please, please tell me Nadine went to you about flower arrangements for the reunion,” says Lance.
It takes me ten solid seconds before I realize he’s talking to me. “Oh. Nadine?” I shrug. “Well, um … I mean …”
“Nooo,” breathes Lance, scandalized instantly. “She’s still using Marcy from Brighthouse??”
“Nadine needed a sort of all-in-one thing,” I quickly say in her defense, eyeing Tanner who happens to be Nadine’s son—despite him not seeming to be paying attention. “I really don’t have any hard feelings. Besides, I helped with flowers at the recent Boomin’ Barbecue thing on the Fourth, and she—”
“That was at the McPhersons’, not the Strongs’, and—wow, I cannot believe her.” Lance nudges Tanner on his other side. “Knock a little sense into your sweet mama. Why isn’t she supporting her local businesses?”
Tanner, way too glued to the movie, mouth full of popcorn, only half-turns to Lance. “Say what?”
Lance gives up instantly and reaches over to put a hand on my knee. “Listen. If Cassie and I get our shit together, we’re doing this big fashion runway thing in the fall, it’s gonna be ridiculous. Like, over-the-top country-chic. Very ‘yee-haw but make it Vogue’.”
Chad snorts.
Lance leans in and adds: “I’m withholding sex from Chad until he agrees to be a model.”
Chad snaps to attention. “You’re doin’ what now?”
“And we’ll need flowers,” says Lance to me. “Tons of flowers.”
“You ain’t withholdin’ anything from me!”
“Cassie and I got your back.” Lance winks at me, then throws an arm over the couch and calls out at Billy. “Seriously, what are you making in there? A four-course meal? I thought you were just getting wine!”
Something catches my eye in the window.
Diego is suddenly seated in a chair right next to it, head down, looking at something. Phone, maybe. Or a book?
I fight an instinct to draw my own curtains shut, realizing I’m fully visible if he turns his head on a whim.
But he doesn’t.
He just sits there, staring down at something.
And I just sit here in my armchair, sweating internally, eyes wide and uncertain.
“Wyatt, buddy, is there a raccoon?”
I snap my eyes onto Chad, asker of the question. “Uh, no.”
“You’ve looked outside, like, nine times.”
I wonder if this is my chance to bring it up. That’s kinda why I threw an impromptu movie night thing, right?
So I start: “Actually, it’s my—”
“You could call HHPC,” says Ethan.
Everyone in the room turns to him, sitting by himself in the corner by my potted hydrangeas with an opened bag of Twizzlers on his lap, gnawing on one.
I think I literally forgot he was here.
It’s sort of an accident he gets roped into our movie nights.
He came with Harrison and Hoyt once, the cousin to Turtle, a fellow guy they know from Gary’s ranch.
Ethan’s quiet. Keeps to himself. A little on the eccentric side.
But so’s Turtle, so that makes sense. He’s about ten years younger than us.
Gay … I think. Doesn’t have any friends his age, but also doesn’t actively pursue them.
Except us, I guess?
Ethan peels his eyes from the TV. “Happy Home Pest Control. HHPC. The Myers’ business. They can handle the raccoon.”
“Oh, sweetie, I don’t think there’s a real raccoon,” says Lance. “Chad is just a big cute oaf, and I think the raccoon’s a metaphor.”
“We just got a raccoon out of our attic,” volunteers Tanner.
Then Lance has something smart to say, Tanner makes a snide remark about Chad being “extra feisty” tonight, Ethan laughs way too hard at that, and the imaginary raccoon outside the window is long forgotten.
It’s just as well, because Billy shows up a second later from the kitchen with a tray of Italian-inspired finger foods that look like a tasty little marriage between tiny pizzas and fancy garlic breads.
I wonder suddenly if I should’ve invited Diego over, too.
Then I laugh that the notion even crossed my brain.
Seriously? Grumpy, hates-the-world Diego? Gobbling on these fancy-ass snacks? Watching a movie with a bunch of gay dudes? He’d sooner thank me for that toolbox I got him. Or apologize for holding an argument with me with his shirt off.
Shit.
Now I’m thinking of my sweet and adoring neighbors’ nephew with his shirt off.
Former neighbors, I should get used to saying.
They’re gone. Some part of me won’t accept that fact.
Like they’re just on a trip and will be back soon, and Lottie and I can hang out on either one of our porches laughing about all the funny kids playing in the street, or whatever ridiculous story she just heard from the ladies at her book club.
That’s all gone now.
Replaced with an ugly car. Ugly blinds.
A shirtless angry man.
Things are starting to wrap up (i.e. Chad is getting drunk and Lance is dreading the twenty-minute drive home since they live on the outskirts of town halfway to Fairview) when Billy and I are in the kitchen cleaning.
“So what’s the story with that situation outside?
” asks Billy at the sink, washing the tray.
I fumble with the cup I was drying off, dropping it. “What?”
“That big clunker in the driveway.”
I glance at the window.
The car sits there with its hood up, rag draped over part of the engine, tools on the ground in front of it. The garage is open, light spilling out.
No Diego in sight.
“Lottie and Marcos’s nephew.”
Billy squints at me. “They have a nephew?”
“He’s in from out of town. Watching the place until they get it sold. He’s our age. And a …” I shake my head, not wanting to speak ill of him. Then suddenly I can’t not. “He’s a bit of a dick.”
Billy cracks a smile. “Like, in a hot way? Or …?”
I frown at Billy.
He lifts his sudsy hands. “Just teasing, just teasing.” He peers out the window. “So I take it you met him and it didn’t go well?”
“I even brought him a welcome basket. With your muffins.”
“Oh, that’s who those were for?”
“And he revs his engine at, like, ass-crack-of-dawn-o’clock.”
“Y’know, Tanner was a bit of a dick at first. Now we’re married with kids.”
“And he completely mowed over the flowerbed.”
“Actually, so was Chad with Lance, and they’re a thing, too …”
“And that ugly, ugly car …”
“Maybe there’s a thing about dicks being secret princes …?”
I turn to Billy. “What are you even going on about?”
Billy shrugs. “You always get mad when people don’t let you be nice to them.”
I’m about to argue back, but his words strike me into silence.
Is that what’s going on?
Billy, smiling suddenly, takes the cup from my hand and gives it another quick washing, since I’d dropped it. “Knew it wasn’t a raccoon,” he says, proud of himself.
I let him have his victory.
It isn’t much longer after that we’re on the front porch saying our goodbyes.
The night is thick and warm. It’s one of those nights you can really feel the weight in the air.
Chad keeps insisting he’s “thoroughly sober” while using poor Lance as a human crutch on their way to their truck.
Tanner keeps apologizing about his mom, even though I seriously have no hard feelings, and Billy gives me an extra-long hug.
They’re Ethan’s ride, so he heads off with them, still working on the same bag of Twizzlers.
Doors shut. Engines on. Laughter trails down the street as my friends disappear.
Just like that, I’ve got my peace back.
Almost.
Diego emerges from the garage and hunches over the hood, a rag over his shoulder, dirty tank top glued to his body from sweat. He wrinkles up his nose as he fights to loosen something with a wrench. Or a ratchet. Or whatever it is he’s holding that I’d likely misname if put on the spot.
I watch him for too long.
His arms tensing as he fights the engine.
Scowling. Gritting his teeth. Then sighing in frustration.
The guy never looks happy. Not ever. Not even for a flicker. Not even when working on this car, doing what he loves to do, and it begs the question, why does he even do it? Where’s the joy?
He gives up. Or succeeds. It looks like the same expression on his face either way.
And he glances over at me.
Eyes locked on mine.
His scowl, too.
I don’t wave back. I don’t smile, either. I’m not sure I have any nice left to give that guy.
But I don’t look away either.
Then he snatches his rag off his shoulder, wipes his forehead, and returns his focus back to the car, wrenching and ratcheting, clicking, twisting, tightening.
And I go inside.
When I close the door, I reach for the lock.
For the first time in years.
Fingers on the deadbolt, ready to turn it.
Why did I have that instinct just now?
I let go, annoyed, then pass by the kitchen window without daring to give Diego another look.