+ MARK +
"You know, a watched phone never rings."
Like Chica's, my ears perked up, eyes jolting to meet with Lindsay's as she continued putting groceries away. I'd completely forgotten she'd been there the entire time – she'd stayed at the hospital so long, it was miraculous she'd even come home within the same night.
This one will, the voice in my head said. Undoubtedly.
My actual lips, though, spoke otherwise.
"Just waiting for a friend to call," I fibbed, giving her my most genuine beam. "More of a business friend, actually."
"Someone from work?" she half-asked, half-demanded. "Is it that Danny fellow? The one that's dating Arin?"
I didn't respond just yet, having forgotten completely that he was the entire reason behind why I'd become a security guard in the first place. Arin, my closest friend outside of the band, had hooked me up with the job opportunity when times had gotten tough so long ago. It was a huge part of the reason behind why we were still together; he had his raging fits and his... "moments," but, through thick and thin, he was always the guy who'd be first to make you smile even on his darkest day, somehow still managing to take the whole world seriously despite the childish side of him.
And then there was his partner-in-crime, Danny. "That's my Danny Sexbang," he'd whistle whenever he walked by, earning a pose in response followed by "I'm a sexy widdle baby." (It was some kind of skit between the two of them.) Whenever they did it, it was, of course, awkward for me, but I absolutely adored watching how they flirted with one another, how Arin teased his curls or how Danny always told him to "look on the bright side." But now? Now, Danny's back to where he started, hooked on drugs yet again – I only hope that Arin will be capable of convincing him to go to rehab, or, heaven forbid, have Danny end up OD'ing and earning himself a forceful visit. I never wished for a friend to get hurt, but this case was surely an exception.
"He's just so different when he's on drugs," Arin said to me once. "As if something takes over him, as if he's completely different. Nowhere near the man I first fell in love with."
In some sense or another, the very memory of him saying that reminded me of every time Lindsay and I fought. No matter what the argument was over, whether it be a strange pair of panties scrunched up in the bottom of my underwear drawer (long story) or the bad meat left in the fridge, she always tended to change personalities, to swap out of her own corpse completely, earning an entire new person to replace the soul that'd seemingly disappeared. It was as if she transformed, as if she was someone else – just like Arin had said. Nowhere near the woman I first fell in love with.
The main thing we fought over was work. She worked too much, I worked too little. Our schedules could never synch because of it.
When I first lost my job, she got two. A small job unloading boxes at some nearby factory, one that only took up a short (but grueling) three hours of her day. The other job was stored somewhere within the top few floors of a glass business building, the kind that loomed over an entire city and could knock down all of the other glass business buildings if it someday decided to fall. I'd only been inside of it once, and even that one time was enough; the people, the atmosphere, the very look of such a formal surrounding was far too intense for the likings of a guy like me, which may be the reason why I got fired in the first place.
Eventually, she quit the boxing job and focused mainly on the business one, thanks to a promotion from her boss (who reeks desperately of cat piss). This, at first, sounded like astonishingly wonderful news – we went out to a dinner we could barely afford to celebrate. What we didn't know at the time, though, was that this promotion required a lot of dedication, far more than we'd been willing to give; she was forced to take on lengthy business trips across America, hauling suitcases every time she walked in the door (which became rare for a while). Every time I saw her, I felt like I was seeing an old friend I'd lost touch with – I promised myself that we'd never feel that way again.
She was still taking business trips, but, thankfully, much less frequently. I realized, as she kissed me gently with her lips to my forehead, just how lucky I was that things had changed for the better.
"It's Jack."
"Who?"
I felt my heart kick out from within my chest, beating harder and harder as I realized how stupid I'd just been. She knew every guy there was at my work, for I'd given her the entire story after my first day – new guys rarely ever came in, so I'd have to think up something good.
"Jack," I coughed. "He, uh, he's new."
"New? You said new guys rarely ever came in."
Where was this kind of photographic memory when she couldn't remember our anniversary?
"Yeah, well, he's quite the exception," I smiled. "He's really nice. You'd love him, honey. Very sweet, always cheerful." Thinking back to when he and I had first met, I then added, "He's just always in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She nodded as she closed the fridge door with her behind. (God, what a gorgeous view it was.)
"I guess that's better than being caught doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, right?" she suggested.
I thought back to what I'd been in the process of doing when he'd found me.
I swallowed. "Yep," I said hoarsely. "He's just genuinely kind all around, though. Pretty quiet, but still..."
"Oh!" she cried, head spinning to meet the gaze of mine. "Is that the Jack who was at Egoraptor's the other night? The one with the Swedish friend?"
"Yeah," I confessed. "That's Felix, another security guard. He's pretty bitter, but he means well."
"That's funny," she said, "because, if I remember what Wade told me, the two of them were complete strangers who just happened to be willing to fill in for Aaron. In fact, they were sneaking in – could've been burglars, or murderers!"
My teeth tugged on my lower lip, my mind unaware that it'd been living with Sherlock Holmes all this time.
"Those two wouldn't even hurt a fly," I pooh-poohed. "What Wade meant was that he didn't know them. I'd invited them, actually – I guess they got lost when looking to meet us backstage."
"But how'd they get in the closet? Wouldn't it be obvious that they'd wandered into a supply closet? And why'd they stay in there for so long?"
"Maybe they were in a hurry and the lock got jammed."
"But what were they in a hurry for? It still seems a little odd to me."
"I told them to come a few minutes early. Knowing those fools, they were running late."
"But there was still an entire half hour until the show was supposed to start! They must've known they'd have –"
"Maybe they just weren't in the mood for this sort of interview that questions everything and anything that ever happened that night," I said hastily. "Maybe they just wanted some time alone so that they wouldn't be seen as burglars or murderers, or anything other than security guards. Maybe they just wanted to get away from the kind of people who don't take their boyfriends' word and accept it."
Her jaw dropped as I rested my case, letting me bask in the glorious silence she'd finally decided to give me for but a moment.
Although, the moment of silence wasn't as precious as I'd supposed it'd be. When she got quiet, it meant that she was mad – really mad. Good things came with good prices, and the price for quiet appeared to be guilt. Tremendous amounts of guilt for one small slip-up.
"Fine," she said.
I nodded, rising free from my chair. We both knew an apology was due, but, for whatever reason, I wasn't in the mood to give one – I needed to be in a good mood for when Jack would undoubtedly dial for me, and I wasn't going to let her deprive him of my great attitude. I'd have to "I'm sorry" her later.
"I'm going to wait for this call in the bedroom," I mumbled. "Call me if you need anything."
She didn't say anything – just nodded. I knew she wanted to ruin this for me, wanted to make me feel sad for making her feel sad. And, just as undoubtedly as Jack would call me, I would feel sad for her, but after. Not now. Not when this was so important.
I walked into the other room, letting the door shut itself, welcoming me into a room with an entirely different kind of silence.
+ JACK +
I couldn't call now, could I? No, that would just make me look desperate, as if my entire life depended on him, as if I were just calling him for no apparent reason. I had to have a reason, had to have an answer for when he'd inevitably question "Why'd you call?", one that didn't involve the words "um," "err," or "uh."
It needed to be something relevant to the band. Perhaps a "Hello, Mr. Presumably-Fancy-Last-Name, I was wonderin' if I could join you and your band in a shallow attempt to replace your former, hospitalized drummer?" Or maybe an honest, polite "I'm not really callin' you for the sake of the band, but to tell you that I find you erotically sexy and charmin' and I want you to ditch your super-hot model of a girlfriend for a person of the sex you aren't even attracted to." Yeah, that'd win him over for sure.
"Dude."
My thumb, which I'd been nibbling on the entire time, escaped my lips, my eyebrows flying up as my pupils met with Felix's. He'd only bothered to raise one eyebrow.
"Sorry," I stuttered. "It's a really nice fireplace. Give a nice, rustic feel to the room."
"The fireplace question was twenty minutes ago," he rolled his eyes. "In case you haven't noticed, we're now in the master bedroom, far from any fireplace or telephone."
I shot him a questioning look.
"Telephone?"
"Yeah, telephone. For that phone number you've been crumpling up this entire time."
I opened my mouth to beg of another request, but, as I did, I heard a slight rustle arise from my balled-up fist, a fist that opened and crept closer to my face so that I could make out the smudged writing on the piece of paper that'd been hiding there the entire time. It was Mark's name hastily written, his phone number scrawled after it – I felt a tremendous amount of terror creep up at the sign of how smudged it'd become thanks to my sweaty palms and immediately threw it into my back pocket for protection. I decided to blame the up-for-sale home's thermostat instead.
"Whose phone number is that, anyway?" he asked.
"N-Nobody's."
"I don't remember seeing that last night."
"You don't remember anythin' from last night."
He shrugged. "That's true. But, still, whose is it? Where'd you get it from?"
"I told you, it's nobody's."
"I don't think you'd be staring into a scrawny, hastily-written note so intently if it weren't of major importance."
He shot me a set of fierce eyes, ones that pinned me down and against the polished wooden floor below. Before they could intimidate me any longer, though, I whisked my entire body in the opposite direction, sticking the very end of my thumb back into my mouth as I kept my eyes focused on a painting down the hall.
"Is that the bill from the bar we went to?" Felix said, noting that the paper was still sticking out from the top of my pocket.
Then, a gasp.
"It's that guy! The one who was all flirty-flirty with you!"
As quickly as I'd done it the first time, my body spun in a circle, speeding his way as I stuffed the paper deeper into my pants. I was a centimetre away from him as his Rapunzel-like mane turned to reassure that the realtor was nowhere to be seen, probably somewhere within the five storeys of the house we were searching through. When he'd confirmed that we were alone, he turned back to me, the contrast of his eyes fighting against that of his hair in order to see which could better perfect his already-beautiful face. I swear, if he were gay...
"You like him, don't you?"
My heart rate shot up in perfect synchronization with the hairs on the back of my neck.
"Of course not!" I said, not believing myself. "We're friends. It's a business number."
"'Business number?' More like fucking love letter! He was, like, practically obsessed with you the entire time we were in there."
"Oh, really?" I said, not believing him either. "In what way can you prove that he showed his affection to me, Mr. Kjellberg?"
"Somehow, some way, he came like Prince Charming to save the day just when we were in trouble. When you fell on top of him, he did absolutely nothing to move you or himself. And he was so unusually persistent on having you become a member of the band! Although terribly oversized and unfashionable, he gave you a free t-shirt. He touched your fingers as he handed you the drumsticks, and he clasped a hand on your shoulder once the show was finished. He offered to buy you a drink, and – oh, yeah – gave you his number. If you ask me, I'm astonished you two aren't already fucking."
"What is there to fuck!?" I exclaimed, astonished the words came out of my mouth. "He has a girlfriend, Felix. Not only does he already have someone to fuck, but she's a female. The exact opposite of what I am."
"Please," Felix scoffed, "you're the most feminine man I've ever met."
I elevated an eyebrow, admiring his pink button-up shirt.
"So, what do you suggest? I write him a love letter in response?"
"No."
My heart rate kicked itself up a notch, my hairs standing tall enough to brush the sky.
"Like you said, he has a girlfriend. Even though he said that he's considered being into guys –"
"How do you know he's considered bein' into guys?"
"I heard everything at the bar. I just needed a reason to bring it up, 'kay?" He nodded towards my back pocket, presumably at the bill (or, possibly, knowing Felix, my ass cheek). "No matter what, you can't screw up what you've started. He seems like a nice guy, someone to be friends with. Obviously, though, you can't keep him forever, so enjoy it while it lasts – don't screw this up."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we won't be staying in Los Angeles for very long. You'll only have a friend like him for a little while, so you may as well keep him. Confessing your love to a straight guy when you're gay probably isn't the best thing to do to support your relationship – as painful as it might be to hold your feelings back, you can't make things weird. You can't ruin your relationship. Or his."
I found myself looking down at my feet, covered only by socks due to the realtor suggesting we keep the floors clean. As much as I hated to admit it, Felix was right – telling Mark that I care for him would be nothing short of idiotic. I'd only known him for a day, and it wasn't like I was hung up on him, like my entire life fed off of his every statement. I was happy when I was with him, and I was fine when I was without him – as long as things kept going that smoothly, everything would be as fine as I felt inside.
But "fine" was such a bland word, in a way. I felt "fine" when I was without him. Whenever someone asks how you're doing, you don't say "fine" for fear of sounding like an arrogant prick. It makes it sound like you're hiding something, or that you're not truly as happy as you make yourself out to be. But, when I was with him, I felt happy, as if I were having a really good time, as if I truly enjoyed just genuinely talking with someone as charismatic and irresistible as him.
It was just something about him, I found, which was the main reason behind why Felix was so right. I couldn't ruin this with him, not when he managed to make me feel this way.
"Will you excuse me for a second?" I requested of Felix.
Slightly puzzled, he nodded, letting me wander off into the bathroom so that I could shut the door behind me. I heard him bring up a conversation with the realtor as I tore my phone free of my pocket, the phone number from the other. After less than one whole ring, it picked up.
"Hello?"
It was Mark.
"That was fast."
I heard a light chuckle from the other end.
"Just happened to be near the phone," he said. "But, anyway – Jack! How are you?"
I noticed then that I loved the way he said my name. So excitedly, so passionately. As if he, too, were genuinely glad to be with me.
Easing my back against the wall, I let my entire body relax into the bathroom tiles, my free arm stretched across my stomach to hold back the jar of butterflies bursting free from within it.
"I'm... happy," I whispered into the phone, my cheek pressing into it courtesy of my smile. "I'm happy."