Chapter Fifteen Caravaggio, dir. by Derek Jarman #2
“I was his supervisor for a bit before he got a promotion, and we became team leads on a project a while back. Now we’re in
two different divisions, but we go to one another when we’re troubleshooting a lot of the time. Lots of overlap.”
“Oh, that’s way more involved than I thought it’d be.”
“We just wound up talking a lot, and he seemed friendly. It took a lot of prodding, a lot of one-sided conversations before we became friends. Though I’m not sure if he sees this as a friendship.”
“I’m willing to bet he does; Peter just takes a little longer than most people would bother putting in, I think.”
“Yeah, he’s a sweet guy.” Francine peers over Eli’s shoulder, daring him to turn around and look at Peter as he gives his
order to the cashier. “I was worried he wouldn’t come tonight; I invite him every time we do one of these get-togethers. But
I’m glad that he’s here with you.” Francine turns back to the bowling, clapping when one of her coworkers gets a spare. “Yeah!”
Eli keeps his gaze focused on Peter as he taps his card on the reader, stepping down to the end of the bar to wait for the
drinks. He must notice the eyes on him, because Peter turns, looking at Eli. He smiles so gently, giving Eli a careful wave.
And Eli waves right back.
***
It takes a little longer to get Peter into the swing of things, to go beyond just talking to Francine to chatting with his other coworkers. He meets his supervisor in person for the first time, though he assures Eli that he’s seen her face before in meetings and one-on-ones.
The Jedi Knight is named Jackson, a team lead who actually asks Peter for help with his current project, except it’s pretty
late in the night when this happens and he’s fairly drunk, so he asks Peter to message him on Slack when he realizes he’s
explaining things poorly.
Eli even gets Peter to bowl a full game where he just barely cracks a score of one hundred before he gets a strike on his
very last ball, and Eli can’t resist running up to him and giving Peter a soft kiss, Peter daring to wrap him in a hug and
pick him up for half a second. Eli wants the kiss to last longer, to bury his hands in that short black hair and make a fool
out of both himself and Peter while they make out in a very unprofessional way.
But Eli stops himself. They haven’t had that conversation yet; he can’t cross that boundary.
As the night goes on, the crowd begins to thin out until most of Peter’s coworkers are gone. Francine waves goodbye as she
begins her duties as the designated driver.
And soon enough, it’s just the two of them, the current game left unfinished as the bowling alley has gone dark, neon paint
and lights illuminating the building while increasingly random pop music videos play on the projection screens.
“How did I do?” Peter asks as the screen flashes with Jackson’s name as a reminder that it’s his turn, even though he’s long
gone.
“A little rough at the beginning, but I could see you getting comfortable.”
“Yeah... yeah...” Peter lets out a low sigh. “I don’t know why I shut down when I saw everyone here. I guess I wasn’t
expecting that many people.”
“That’s okay, I wasn’t either.”
“Were you nervous?” Peter asks.
“Oh, hell yeah.”
His brows knit together. “Seriously?”
Eli nods, taking Peter’s Pepsi cup filled with lemonade. “Absolutely. At least you’d talked to most of them before. I was
the total oddball out.” Not that many of the employees had seemed to bring dates, save for Peter’s supervisor bringing her
wife and Jackson bringing his partner. “And like you said, I wasn’t expecting that many new faces in a single night.”
“You didn’t seem nervous.”
Eli shrugs, sipping from the straw until he hears the empty sound of ice rattling in the cup. “I guess I’m better at hiding
it.”
“Is that the trick?” Peter asks. “Hiding it?”
“I prefer to think of it as fake it till you make it.”
“Meaning?”
“Fake being socially capable until you actually start to trick yourself into believing that you are.”
“Huh... I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“I don’t think it works for everyone, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to get over my fear of public speaking in college
when I had to present my papers.”
“I like that.” He looks toward the end of the nearest lane, watching whatever music video the bowling alley is playing on
one of their huge screens. “Oh, what are we celebrating?”
“Celebrating?”
“You said in your texts?” Peter makes it sound like a question.
“Oh!” It hits Eli suddenly. “Sorry, I was so worried about your dick I forgot to tell you.”
Peter blushes. “Sorry.”
Eli grins at him. “I, uh... the article, the one I wrote about you. I turned it in.”
“Yeah?” Peter smiles slowly as he realizes what Eli’s about to say. “Your boss liked it?”
“Yep!”
“You’re going to be a writer?”
“Professional, baby!”
“Eli, that’s amazing!” Peter wraps him in a quick hug. It’s a little awkward thanks to the angle they’re both sitting at.
“Wait, can I read it?”
“Of course, duh!” Eli reaches into his pocket to fish out his phone, going to the Google Docs app. Michael doesn’t seem to
have had the time to make any real substantial edits, so it’s mostly untouched from the last draft. “Here.”
Eli tries not to stare as Peter reads through the article. “‘Alex’?” he asks.
“Well, I couldn’t call you ‘Peter’ in the article. All the names were changed.” Not that Eli even brought Peter up that often. His story was just the framing device for what Eli really wanted to write about.
Peter keeps reading, and Eli watches for any subtle movements in his face, the twitching of an eye, the sinking of a smile.
Anything that might tell him what Peter really thinks about the article. He doesn’t realize just how fast his heart is racing,
how his right leg begins to bob up and down from the nerves.
Peter’s fingers scroll all the way until he finally reaches the end.
“So...” Eli can’t stop himself from blurting out. “What did you think?”
“It’s wonderful, Eli,” Peter says slowly. “I’ll admit, when you first told me about it, I really wondered why you’d want to
write about something like this. But actually reading it...” Peter pauses, grinning. “You got the jazz festival in there.
And my parents. The garden.”
Eli couldn’t avoid all the personal details.
“Is it good, like truthfully? Do you really think that it’s good?”
It’s a moment he’s been dreading. No matter what Michael thought of the article, Peter’s opinion always mattered more to Eli.
“It’s amazing. It really is, Eli.” Peter’s smile falters for the briefest of moments, just long enough for Eli to recognize it.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Peter assures him. “It’s nothing.”
“Did I get something wrong? Because there’s still some editing that needs to be done. This isn’t going up tomorrow or anything.”
“Nothing’s wrong with the article.” Peter smiles again, the uncomfortable kind, like when people laugh to fill a silence.
“I think... I think I’m jealous of you.”
“Jealous?”
“I guess reading the article, and seeing you finally go for something. I don’t know...” Peter sinks into the seat. “I’m
almost thirty and I don’t really know what I’m doing at Zelus, let alone with my life.”
“Well, you know life doesn’t end at thirty, right?”
“It’s not so much about life ending at thirty, it’s just... it’s more that... I’ve had this image of having things figured
out by then, that I’d be confident in my career choice, my relationships, my dreams. And so far, it just... hasn’t happened.”
“Huh.” Eli pauses. He’s familiar with those desires, that specific brand of jealousy knowing that Patricia and Rose—and even
his parents—are capable and confident in what they do, that they have actual careers they’re—mostly—happy in. “All I can say
is that you definitely aren’t alone in those feelings.”
“Yeah, I’ve tried to get over it, but it’s like it’s ingrained in my brain, and the thoughts always pop up at the worst time.”
“This is about your writing, isn’t it?” Eli asks.
Peter sighs, his gaze focused on the floor. “I just don’t like thinking about it,” he says. “It’s scary. That’s why I chose
comp sci instead of a BFA program. Writing... there’s no guarantee in it. I don’t know if I can find an agent, get published.
Hell, I don’t even know if I’m any good at it.”
“Have you ever shared your writing with anyone before?”
Peter shakes his head.
“What about with me?”
“You’d want to read it?”
“Duh.”
“You said that you don’t read romance.”
“Then I must really think that you’re talented if I’m willing to read fiction for once.”
“You don’t have to,” Peter tells him.
“You’re right, I don’t have to,” Eli says. “But I want to.”
Peter closes his eyes, but he can’t stop himself from smiling.
“Do you have any of it on your phone?” Eli asks.
“Yeah.”
“Gimme.”
“Eli...” Peter huffs.
And Eli huffs right back, mocking the tone of his voice. “Peter.”
“You really don’t have to do this.”
“Feedback and critique partners are a key part of any writer’s repertoire. My roommate Patricia reads all my stuff, even if
it’s never published. And when I get the staff job, then I’ll have a whole team of people checking my work.”
Peter must realize there’s no getting out of this, since he digs his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, unlocking it and
navigating to the bright white screen of the Google Docs app. He doesn’t have to scroll far to tap on a document that he opens
before handing the phone to Eli.
“‘Untitled.’ It doesn’t have a title?”
“Not yet,” Peter admits.
Eli goes back to the screen, scrolling to the next page where “Chapter One” sits proudly before he starts to read. There’s something about Peter’s prose, simple yet connective all at once; even just ten pages in he’s laughed quietly, the smile never leaving his face as he scrolls and scrolls.
“You don’t have to read the whole thing,” he hears Peter say.