Day 16 Boston, MA #2
I stare at him for a long time, trying to keep a straight face, but when I feel the corner of my mouth twitching, I turn over onto my back, stretching out my arms in the grass. “Fine, I’ll play the fucking drums.”
“Probably for the best,” Blake replies. “I don’t think those boys could find their way home without us.”
I sit up and rest my elbows on my knees.
It’s late afternoon, and people are starting to head home, but there are still a lot of folks sitting in little knots on the grass, couples and groups of friends having a good time.
This isn’t really my scene, I don’t think.
Everybody is too goddamn happy, for one thing.
But I dunno, maybe they should be? Everybody should get to fuck who they want to fuck. Fuck heteronormativity and all that.
My eyes come to rest on two girls sitting on a blanket not far from us. They’re kissing, really making out, hands buried in each other’s hair. Soft, I think — but then I push it away. None of my fucking business.
Blake’s phone beeps, and he flips it open, then sighs. “I have bad news for you.”
I turn my head and squint at him. “The assholes are ready to meet up?”
“Yeah, Max says he’s hungry. And that they’re standing next to some big tall pointy thing with a lady on top.”
I turn my head, shielding my eyes as I look around the field. There’s some sort of war memorial in the center, one of those dick-shaped things that are a little too on the nose if you ask me. “They probably mean that thing over there. I guess we should go.”
We fold up the blanket and make our way over.
Sure enough, Max and Sam are over by the war memorial, and we see them long before they see us, because they’re too absorbed in each other, holding hands with their faces tipped together, both of them grinning their stupid faces off, lost in their own little world.
“It has been a strange fucking week,” I observe to Blake, and I know I don’t need to explain.
He looks down at me and shrugs. “Nice, though.”
And yeah, I guess he’s right.
SAM
Today just keeps getting better and better.
I’m so in love with Max that I don’t know what to do with myself, and it scares me a little, letting myself relax into it, letting Max see everything that I’m finding it harder and harder to hold back. But he seems to be eating it all up, being so damn sweet and funny that I can’t help myself.
Max doesn’t know this, but there was a period of time when I was in high school that I was actually trying to have a better relationship with my mom.
She used to watch lots of romcoms, any bit of romance that she could put her hands on, and sometimes, when my dad was out of the house and not around to make snide comments about me being weak or something, I would watch with her.
Her favorites were the Meg Ryan movies, and she must have seen Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail dozens of times.
And I dunno, most of the time it just felt lonely, thinking I would never have anything like that.
But even though I pushed it away, I couldn’t help holding on to the hope at the same time, that someday I might get my run through the airport, my meeting on top of the Empire State Building.
And it scares the fuck out of me, but suddenly that hope is bouncing around inside my chest pretty much all the time and I don’t know what to do about it.
All that is a long way of saying that I’m up on the stage with Max and Roxie, playing to a crowd of Boston punks, and it’s a good thing I’ve played these bass lines thousands of times because my fingers are doing all the heavy lifting while my brain floats somewhere in the clouds.
Max keeps grinning over at me, shaking his head to flick the sweaty hair out of his eyes as he plays.
He’s still wearing my tank top and the rainbow flag bracelet he bought this afternoon, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at him.
The song comes to end, and Max turns to the microphone, giving Roxie and me a chance to take a quick breather.
“Thanks for coming, everybody, we call that one ‘I Would Have Made You Dinner but My Stove is Broken Because My Landlord’s an Asshole.’ We’re from a small town in eastern Pennsylvania and we —” He glances over at me.
“Um, actually, hold that thought. Could you all excuse me for just a moment? I need to talk to my bass player.”
I giggle nervously. “Max, what —”
But he grabs the guitar strap across my chest, his other hand sliding around my waist as he hauls me in and kisses me.
I’m not sure how long it lasts. Long enough to elicit a few catcalls from the audience, at least. My hands are still on my instrument, the angle a little awkward as his guitar knocks against my bass.
But my brain is just a mess of fireworks, because Max is kissing me in front of everyone, and it has to mean — it has to —
When he pulls away, he turns back to the microphone, chuckling apologetically.
“Sorry, uh — he’s distractingly pretty, isn’t he?
Sam’s been my best friend since I was a baby but now he’s, um —” He looks at me, and his eyes are so soft that I could scream.
“Well, a fuckload more than that. Anyway, Happy Pride, everybody. Roxie?”
Roxie counts us off, and we dive back in, lost in the music once more.
I wish I could stay in this moment forever.