6 Ollie #2
“No I’m not,” Ollie says quickly, wondering if he is and doesn’t know it.
“I finished that book you recommended. Only a depressed person would enjoy that thing.”
Ollie laughs. “Really?”
“And you’re clearly stoned out of your mind,” Ian adds.
“It’s these new edibles. I didn’t want to waste them, but they’re so strong.”
Nicole, still holding Ollie’s hand, squeezes it. “It’s okay. They’re just trying to make us all as sad as they are since they still can’t get over Victor.”
“I’m over him!” Ian says immediately, slamming the table again. “I’m just still pissed at him.”
“Then why didn’t you ever call Tim back?” Brandon asks.
“Tom,” Ian corrects. “Because we’d never work. He’s too nice.”
Nicole nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, nice is terrible.”
“Oh, shut up,” Ian says, laughing. “Did you even ask out coffee girl?”
“Her name is Sam.”
“You know her name?” Ollie says, smiling.
“It’s on her shirt,” Nicole says quickly. She pulls her hand back, and Ollie feels the air rush in where she’d been holding it, colder than the rest of his arm.
“Still,” Brandon says, pointing his glass at her. “You noticed it and remembered.”
Nicole glares at him. “Fine, she’s hot, so I remembered it.”
“So ask her out,” Ollie says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“We make a date, but I have to work, so I reschedule, and then I reschedule again, and then she says to just forget it, and next time I have to get coffee, she gets a senior partner’s order wrong and he decides to dump it on me in the cubicle before firing me but the story of me getting covered in coffee gets around the legal world and everyone feels sorry for me but no one will hire me, and I have to go back to living with my parents, who have more of a social life than I ever will again, and I end up selling cheap tights on TikTok as part of a pyramid scheme. ”
Everyone is quiet for a moment. Ollie feeds Pete another piece of bacon.
“Well, it’s good you were thinking it through, I guess,” Ian says.
Everyone laughs, and for a moment, Ollie feels the warmth of being with them, with his best friends, again. Teasing, wanting the best for each other, even demanding it. He’s not lonely. Not when he’s with all of them.
It ends too soon. And it always ends the same way.
An alarm on Nicole’s phone goes off, and she calls over the waitress with the bill and pays it, waving off the promises from everyone else to Venmo her with a “when you can.” She gives them all a hug, says she has to get back to work.
“Just trash the phone, Brandon. I know you’re not going to, and I love you, but lawyer advice?
Wipe your prints off it, and trash the phone. ”
Ian leaves a little after her—they have a shift at the bookshop—but reminds them to come to drag brunch tomorrow at the Wreck Center.
Normally, Brandon would head home, saying he’s got stuff to do, though Ollie suspects he just goes on the apps and starts swiping. But today is special—today he’s coming with Ollie to walk the dogs, then maybe check out this mysterious meeting and find his Cinderella.
“I like brunch,” Ollie says as they walk outside toward the first of Ollie’s dog pickups.
“Me too,” Brandon says, wobbling slightly as he walks. “The mimosas there aren’t great, but they’re good enough.”
“Good enough!” Ollie says at almost the same time as Brandon, who stumbles into him, laughing. Ollie laughs too. They walk quietly, and Ollie feels the mood shift, brunch behind them. He barely spoke during brunch, he knows. Did anyone else notice?
“Do you think Ian was right?” Ollie asks. “Am I depressed?”
Brandon is quiet for a moment, and Ollie focuses on Pete trotting ahead of them, little legs pumping.
“I think you’d know that best, right?”
“But from the outside?”
Brandon sighs. “I don’t know. I mean, you’re quieter than you used to be. And you seem—you used to keep lists, remember? Of all the stuff you wanted to do.”
“That was transition stuff. Grow a beard. Karaoke a man’s song in the right range. Top surgery.”
“No, no, it started that way,” Brandon says quickly. “But there was other stuff, too. Pick a major. Have a threesome.”
Ollie thinks, listening to the pitter-patter of Pete’s feet on the sidewalk. “That was kid stuff,” he says eventually. “Checklists of like…adulthood.”
Brandon makes a shocked face, and then a surprised laugh bursts out of him. “A threesome is on that list? Then I guess I’m still a kid.”
“Maybe you should make a to-do list, then.”
Brandon laughs some more, the easy, too-loud laugh of someone still drunk, and they walk quietly again. He knows Brandon didn’t give him a real answer. Lists aren’t related to depression. But he also knows when he stopped keeping them—after his dad’s hit-and-run.
“I like Pete’s feet,” Brandon says after a while. “He’s a good little guy.”
“Yeah,” Ollie says. “He’s the best.”
They arrive first at Samba the Pomchi’s house, where Ollie has Brandon wait across the street as he takes Samba from the doorman.
Ollie tells Brandon about his new podcast and his theories about the sister as they pick up the rest of the dogs and head for the address from the phone.
Ollie can tell from Brandon’s body language that he’s becoming more anxious as they get closer.
His legs bend a little more when he walks, the knees coming up too high, and he starts balling his fists and then shaking them out and putting them in his pockets. Over and over again.
“Hey,” Ollie says, when all the dogs have fanned out in front of them, toes tapping on the concrete like rain on the window (except Harpo and Linus, whose owners walk their dogs themselves on weekends). “There’s nothing to be nervous about, okay?”
“I mean, this is crazy, right? I know I said I felt like I had a connection with him, and I think I did, but what if he didn’t? Maybe he wanted to leave everything behind and he’ll think I’m some crazy stalker. I mean, I am a crazy stalker right now, right?”
“I think it’s romantic.” Ollie says, deciding it as he says it. “As long as you’re not, like, expecting him to be happy. You’re trying. You’re going out of your way to do something nice for a guy you like. That’s good, I think.”
“I should have left the phone in the bag.”
“Maybe.” Ollie shrugs. “Still, what’s the worst that could happen? He sees you, takes it, tells you to leave him alone, right? At least then you tried. And you know he didn’t feel the connection. There’s nothing wrong with hoping for something great, if you can.”
“‘If you can’?” Brandon says. “That sounded pretty depressed, Ollie.”
Ollie laughs. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He’s pretty sure he didn’t. “I just mean it’s good to hope for love. I love how you never lose hope for it.”
He looks up and sees Brandon isn’t listening anymore.
He’s stopped short, staring across the street.
They’re at the address from the phone. It’s a pretty boring T-shaped intersection, sort of out of the way and quiet, more in Boerum Hill than Park Slope.
It’s a weird place to meet up. No one is around; most of the buildings don’t even have windows facing this way.
Like an alley more than a street. There’s a parking lot in one corner, the backs of some apartments everywhere else, a few stores across the street (including a weed one Ollie has been meaning to check out), and one of those old skybridges stretching over the alley.
Ollie thinks they’re so cool every time he sees one, though he imagines no one uses them.
But Brandon isn’t staring at the bridge; he’s staring at two men under it, who are talking in quiet tones even as their hands dance loudly.
“That’s him,” Brandon hisses.
“Which one?” Ollie asks, looking at the two men—one is bearded, maybe in his thirties, very hot, and the other is older, balding, and thin in a drained way.
“Which do you think ?” Brandon says back. “Should we hide?” He ducks behind the building next to them, still watching the men. One of them—the cute one, Jon—glances over and smiles at the gaggle of dogs but doesn’t spot Brandon.
“He just smiled at me,” Ollie says. The dogs start pulling at their leashes, confused as to why they’ve stopped walking. Zoey walks around Malkia to sniff at Brandon, wrapping Malkia’s legs in the leash. “He seems nice. Go give him his phone.”
“He’s talking to someone though.”
Ollie quickly moves to undo the knot that’s forming, but Pete wants to sniff Samba’s ass now and everything is braiding. “You want me to tell you when he’s done?”
“Yes,” Brandon says, leaning against the alley wall, out of sight.
“So I just stand here?” he asks, someone’s leash wrapping around his ankle—he doesn’t even know whose at this point. “Doesn’t that look weird?”
“I don’t know—pet one of the dogs or something.”
Ollie shrugs, then frees his leg and kneels down to give Pete some chin scratches.
He stays facing Jon and the other man. The dogs, feeling the leashes a little laxer, have started to pull out like a starburst. The men are talking louder, but they’re still trying to whisper, so their voices sound blurry.
He catches just a few words. “File.” “Fun.” Pete licks his nose.
Finally, Jon turns away, and Ollie is about to tell Brandon to come out of the alley, but then the older man turns and goes after him.
And then the older man’s head explodes.