The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know (Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years Book 1) (7 page)

He pulled back from the hug first, then I pulled back.

"It's funny," I said. "I saw you a couple of weeks ago. Out at U Village. But I lost you in the crowd."

"You did? Huh, I don't remember—oh, yeah, I met some friends for dinner."

I nodded. "So you're living in Seattle now?"

"I am. I moved back just a couple of months ago. I work for Amazon."

"Oh, God, don't tell me you're a 'brogrammer'!" There were two kinds of guys who worked in tech in Seattle: geeks and "brogrammers"—basically, jocky frat-type guys who've realized that tech is where the big bucks are. And it went without saying that Kevin was no geek.

Kevin laughed. "No, not tech. I actually work for IMDB—they're owned by Amazon. Editing."

"Kevin Land is an editor, huh? Who knew?"

"Turns out there's hope for us dumb jocks after all. What about you? What do you do?"

I told him about my two jobs. When it came to winning him back, I wasn't sure which was the better strategy: puffing up the jobs to make them sound more impressive than they were, or making them sound really pathetic and I was a complete lost wet puppy in need of rescuing. I couldn't decide, so I just told him the truth (which, unfortunately, was closer to "lost wet puppy in need of rescuing").

Kevin listened and smiled. He'd whitened his teeth at some point in the last three years—probably professionally, in a dentist's office, not with those stupid Crest Strips that I'd used (that had barely made any difference I could see).

When I told him about how I'd rescued Vernie, he said, "You actually saved someone's life? I'm impressed. Can't say I've ever done anything like that."

You saved
my
life
, I wanted to say.
Back in high school. Before I met you, I was this scared, lonely little boy. But in the end, you made me feel like a man. You made me feel loved and sexy and important for the first—and only—time in my life. And maybe, if things go according to plan, you can do all that for me all over again.
             

"Meh," I said. "It wasn't any big deal."

"It is!" he said. "It really is."

And I was so pleased that Kevin was impressed that I smiled. (But then I remembered how yellow my teeth were compared to Kevin's, so I closed my mouth again.)

"It's pretty great, isn't it?" Kevin said.

"What?" I said.

"I don't know. Seattle in the summer. Being out of college. Life. Everyone says the future is shit, but it doesn't feel that way. Does it?"

"No, it doesn't," I said, and I was mostly telling the truth again, even if the only reason the future felt bright to me right then was because I was starting to think there was a real chance that Kevin and I would get back together again.

"I feel bad," I said.

"For what?"

"The way we broke up."

Kevin looked confused.

"Remember? I was mad because you didn't come home for vacation? So I refused to talk to you?"

He smiled—more of those white teeth. "That's not the way I remember it."

"It isn't?" I smiled too—yellow teeth be damned.

He shook his head.

"Well, I'm sorry anyway."

"Russel, you don't have anything to apologize for. That was a long time ago. It's all good. I think of you all the time, and I only ever think good thoughts. In fact, I've been meaning to contact you."

"Really?" Needless to say, my heart was singing. And a chorus of angels too, all perfectly in tune.

He nodded—forcefully. "Yeah."

"Because I was just wondering..."

"Yeah?" he said.

"Well, we both live in Seattle now. I was wondering if maybe you wanna go out with me sometime."

Kevin's white teeth disappeared. Which meant his smile did too.

"Oh, Russel."

"What?" I said. Had the light in this store always been so bright? Had the floor always been this sticky?

"I'm really sorry."

"About what?"

"I have a boyfriend."

"You have..." At that, a massive meteor slammed into the Earth, totally wiping out me, Uwajimaya, and the entire chorus of angels. Or maybe a sinkhole opened under my feet and I fell down into it, all the way to the planet's molten core. I wasn't sure which it was, but it didn't matter, because I couldn't feel anything anyway.

Of course Kevin has a boyfriend
. People who looked like he did, people who were positive and optimistic about the future, they always had boyfriends, at least if they wanted them.

"We live together," Kevin said. "I should've mentioned him right away. That was so stupid. I don't know why I didn't. I didn't mean to lead you on. I thought you were with someone too. Weren't you seeing someone?"

"Sort of," I said. "But it didn't last." That had been two years ago, and it hadn't been serious anyway.

"Well, it's only a matter of time. Assuming that's what you want. I mean, maybe you're happy being single." He swatted at the air. "I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. I know you want a relationship. Geez, I'm an idiot, aren't I?"

I shook my head. "It's fine. It was just a misunderstanding. So you're living with someone, huh? What's he like?"

"He's good. He's great. But you don't want to hear about him."

"No, I guess not," I said. "I should get back anyway. I mean, I'm technically working right now."

"Yeah, okay. I understand. But Russel?"

I stopped.

"I really would like to be friends. Real friends, I mean. I totally understand if you don't want to. But you're an important part of my life, and we live in the same city now, and, well, I'd love to try to be friends if you do."

This was a serious decision. Did I want to be "friends" with Kevin Land? After all, I'd spent the last few weeks convincing myself he was the solution to all my problems—that if we ended up back together, I could recapture the passion and magic of my youth. But that wasn't going to happen now. So wouldn't being friends with him be like a seal trying to make friends with a shark? It would have been one thing if Kevin was happy in his life and I was happy in my own life. Or if I was happy and Kevin was unhappy. But Kevin being happy and me being unhappy had disaster written all over it.

So of course I smiled my biggest smile, even showing him my yellow teeth, and said, "Of course! I absolutely want to be friends."

*   *   *

Boston's apartment still smelled like dust and old kitchen grease.

That day after work, I'd texted him, the guy I'd had that hook-up with before. I'd asked if he wanted to get together again, and he'd said yes, so I'd come directly from work. Looking around his apartment, it occurred to me: this was probably the kind of place I'd be living in if I hadn't had a rich friend like Gunnar to sponge off of.

Why had I come here? It wasn't (just) that I was horny. It was that thing with Kevin, seeing him in Uwajimaya. It had really screwed with my mind, just like I'd been worried it would. Talk about tearing the paper lantern off the light bulb!

I'd wanted someone to talk to about Kevin again, but Gunnar and Min had both seemed so distracted lately. Plus, I guess I wanted a "gay" perspective.

Oh, and I
was
horny. There's that too.

"
Rustler!
" Boston said as I stood in the doorway. This was kind of fun. I'd only met him that one time before, and he already had a nickname for me.

I smiled. "Thanks for inviting me over."

"Sure, come on in."

He was wearing navy blue cotton pants and a light blue short-sleeve shirt with the words "Al's Auto" embroidered on the breast. He was leaner than Kevin, but had good lines.

"You're a mechanic?" I said.

"Yup, I'm a grease monkey." He held up his hands to show the actual car oil on them, but I resisted making the obvious "lube" joke. "Does that turn you on?" he said.

"Yeah, kinda," I said. I nodded down at my white "Bake" shirt. "I work at a bakery. That turn
you
on?"

He laughed at my joke, which made me feel a little tiny bit better.

"Wanna fuck?" he said.

"Yeah," I said, but when he started for the bedroom, I lingered in the main room. I guess that right then, I wanted to talk more than I wanted to fuck. Who knew?

Boston returned and puppy-dog-faced me. "'Sup, Rustler?"

"I just ran into my old boyfriend. From high school. He has a new boyfriend now."

"Ohhh, man." Somehow sensing that this was more than an anecdote, he turned for refrigerator and pulled out a couple of beers. He held one toward me.

I took it. After we popped the tops, we sank down onto his couch.

"It's funny," I said. "I saw him a couple of weeks ago, so I knew he was living in Seattle now." Then I explained how I'd worked it out in my head that if I could get back together with Kevin, all my current problems and frustrations would somehow go away. And how even at the time, I'd known it was stupid, so I'd avoided calling him, just to keep the fantasy alive. But now the fantasy was dead and cremated and the ashes were scattered across all seven continents, and I felt like absolute shit about it.

"I
totally
get that," Boston said. "I really, really do."

And just for the record? If it seems strange that I'd gone over to a guy's apartment for cheap hook-up sex and ended up talking about how I was still in love with my ex-boyfriend, then you've never had a fuck buddy before. Not that I've had a whole lot of them—or any of them, really. In fact, seeing Boston for a second time, that was the closest I'd ever come to a fuck buddy in my life. But I'm gay in Seattle in 2014, so I know how the concept works. The whole point is that it
isn't
a romantic relationship. Everyone is very clear right from the start. You're literally friends who sometimes have sex, and unlike in the movies, it's not confusing at all. So when one person talks about how they've just been devastated by an ex-boyfriend, the other person acts like a friend, not like someone you intend to be rolling around with, naked and sweaty, in just a few minutes.

If you live in a city and you're under the age of thirty, you already know all the pros and cons of fuck buddies. But right then, being with Boston and having him listen to me even as I knew I'd be kissing and holding him a few minutes later, it felt a little bit like the next step in human evolution.

Sure enough, Boston told me how he'd been crushing on one of his mechanic co-workers for months, even though he knew the guy was totally straight. (He even showed me a picture, and the guy was definitely hot.) He told me how the guy had spent the night at his place once, and he'd had an actual opportunity to make a move. But he didn't do it, and not just because he didn't want to come across as creepy or anything. He didn't want to ruin the fantasy that one day he and this guy would be together—not because of some drunken, late-night romp, but actually
together
. Boston said he knew it would probably never happen. But he was living on the .001% chance that it might, that the guy secretly loved him back, and in the end they'd be together. He clung to it like a barnacle to a rock in the ocean.

In other words, Boston may have been a self-proclaimed grease monkey, but he really did know exactly what I was a going through. It made me feel better, knowing that I wasn't the only one who felt stuff like this—that everyone went through things like this.

"But now it's too late for me," I said. "I know the truth. So what do I do?"

Boston leaned back against the couch and thought for a second. He took a swig of beer, then said, "Fuck him. Forget it and move on."

It wasn't the worst advice in the world. But it was also easier said than done.

"Don't take it all so seriously. Everything'll work out in the end."

He was being annoyingly
hakuna matata
all of a sudden, but he was still right about this too.

"And in the meantime, let's fuck!"

He stood up from the couch, and I could already see the bulge in his navy blue cotton pants. I wasn't kidding before when I'd said that his being a mechanic was a turn-on. It was also his whole casual, carefree attitude—because, if you haven't realized it by now, that is just so. Not. Me.

He popped the top button on his pants—he was wearing blue and green plaid boxers, which was actually very sexy, mostly because they reminded me that he was this butch mechanic—and started sauntering toward the bedroom, his pants sliding farther down as he walked.

"Come on," he said. "We can bareback now."

I stopped again. "What?"

He looked back at me. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm on PrEP. Been seven days now too."

This was this new-ish pill—I could never remember exactly what it stands for. But basically the idea is that HIV-negative people go on lower-level HIV medications, and then your chance of getting infected is really low—at least if you take the pill every single day. It's a little like the pill women take to not get pregnant, except it's a thousand times more expensive. The latest word was that every guy who is at any risk for HIV at all should take the drug (at least if their insurance pays for it). I'd been meaning to see my doctor about it too.