Page 22 of The Embrace of Evergreen
Even though I know Ethan is everything I shouldn’t want and everything I can’t have, I’d been happy to linger at the pub until we were almost late for Gabriel’s show. I’d been happy to laugh as he wrapped the tie-dyed blanket around his shoulders as we made our way down the sidewalk. I’d been happy to grab his wrist so that we wouldn’t get separated as I dragged him through the crowded streets toward the pavilion at the water’s edge in the center of the town’s park.
Standing with Ethan’s shoulder pressed tightly against mine as the crowd cheers for Charlize and Gabriel, there is no way to describe what I’m feeling other than…happy. We cheer and scream and clap along with the crowd as they take their final bows. We whoop and laugh, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the glorious sight that is Ethan when he’s relaxed and content and carefree. I watch him from the corner of my eye until the next performer strums the first chord on his guitar before I take his wrist once more and drag him through the throngs of people and back down the crowded street. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He simply allows me to cling to his arm and guide him to the wood-fired pizza place half a block away. There is a line snaking out the door long enough to stretch past four neighboring shops, but he doesn’t say a word when we walk past the line, and I press him up against the building’s large glass window with a smile and tell him to wait for me. I don’t want him to wait for me. I don’t want to leave him standing here even for a moment. I want to press my body against his and thrust my tongue into his mouth so deeply that the patrons on the other side of the window should have to pay us for the show we’re putting on. Instead, I pry myself from his side with a grin and slip past the crowd of people that nearly blocks the door.
I visit this town a few times a year, and I’m a sucker for anything that offers piles of cheese and way too many carbs in one shot, pizza included, so I always make a point of stopping here when I’m in town. It also just so happens that the fact the owner and I spent one wild and steamy night together a few years ago means that I was able to place a pre-scheduled pick-up order and bypass the line even though they don’t take call-ahead orders during festivals. When I catch Chad’s eye, he takes the time to bring me a handful of boxes personally, even though the place is absolute madness. He leans over the counter and offers me a kind smile anda kiss on the cheek in lieu of a hello since it’s too loud to attempt even a brief conversation, and I head back out the door. While quick one-night-only fucks have a bad reputation, it’s perfectly possible to walk away from them thankful for the pleasure you shared instead of irritated that it won’t continue as long as clear expectations are set at the beginning. Chad certainly isn’t the only lover I’m still on good terms with on the rare occasions I see them.
Ethan’s eyes nearly pop out of his head when I return in under five minutes.
“How in the hell did you manage that?” He chuckles.
I wiggle my eyebrows and drag my teeth along my lip ring suggestively. “I have my ways.”
He laughs even harder. “Your sexy lip ring got you pizzas without having to wait in line? Shit, maybe I should get one.”
I can’t convince my lips to form a response as we make our way back to the park. All I can think about is the fact that he called my lip ring sexy. Have I been reading his apparent disinterest wrong for months now? Fuck, I hope so.
By the time we maneuver our way back to the park, Charlize and Gabriel have changed into what almost appears to be full-blown winter gear and laid a couple of blankets down on a patch of grass far enoughaway from the stage that the music isn’t deafening, but close enough that the eight p.m. fireworks will be loud and brilliant. Gabriel hops up from the blanket in a graceful, athletic move I’ll never be capable of and pulls Ethan and me into a spine-snappingly tight hug.
“Thank you so much for coming. Both of you.”
“Thanks so much for letting me tag along with you guys this weekend. You were spectacular! In fact,” Ethan glances around quickly, looking almost panicked, “you were so good that, ummm…”
The pizza boxes are unceremoniously snatched from my hands. “I got you these pizzas.”
Gabriel’s eyes nearly close as he tightens his lips in an attempt to hold back his laughter. I know my expression must be almost identical. I’ve never seen Ethan this relaxed and chatty, and his attempt to woo Gabriel with stolen pizzas that he was already going to eat is hilarious.
“These are from you, darling?” Gabriel’s voice is trembling with amusement. “They aren’t from a certain local pizza shop owner who may or may not still be so enamored with Blue’s fantastical ability to dick a guy down until he forgets his name that he’s giving us free pizzas even three years later?”
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to meticulously plan and carry out his murder. Disposing of Gabriel’s body without Gabriel’s help will be hard, sure, but it willone hundred and ten percent be worth it if said murder can erase the crestfallen look that has appeared on Ethan’s face.
Gabriel must suddenly and magically understand that his inability to filter that mouth of his has sealed his murder fate because he quickly wraps an arm around Ethan’s shoulders and guides him to the pile of blankets. “Of course they’re from you, you cheeky thing. No one understands my love of carbs like you do. Plop your gorgeous ass down right here and share with me, huh?”
If one more of my friends mentions my phone-book-sized list of sexual conquests in front of Ethan again, I’m going to unfriend them all. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my sexual choices. I’m not at all. I enjoy sex, the same way some people enjoy bowling or fishing or Irish dancing. We don’t judge those folks for enjoying their hobbies, even if we probably should. It’s just that even though I don’t know all that much about Ethan’s dating history or sex life, he doesn’t seem to react all that well when mine is mentioned, and no matter how hard I try to convince myself that his opinions on the subject don’t matter, they do. I don’t really think he’s the type of guy who would think less of me because our sex lives are different, but I don’t want him to simply not think less of me; I want him to like me. I shouldn’t. I’m still trying to convince myself that I don’t believe in love. Not really anyway, not happy-ever-after, storybook-ending love that lasts. But moments like watching Ethan release all his inhibitions on the dance floor or spending hours on a freezing dock wrapped in a hideous tie-dyed blanket withhis leg pressed up against mine are starting to make that really difficult to remember.
“Yo. You having a stroke up there?” Charlize’s voice breaks me out of my introspective daydream. “Come on, man, get in on this.”
I don’t have to be asked more than once to flop down for a pizza picnic, and I settle myself as close to Ethan as I can without it seeming intentional. Although the look Gabriel shoots me when Ethan shifts just a bit closer and removes the blanket from his shoulders in order to cover both of our laps while offering me a small, sideways smile is hard to ignore.
We quickly burn through the pizza and the cooler of beer that Charlize was thoughtful enough to bring as we talk and laugh and half watch the other entertainers on the stage at the other end of the park. It gets dark early in September, and it’s barely eight p.m. when the fireworks start. Charlize shifts to lie with her head in Gabriel’s lap while Ethan and I lean back with our hands on the blankets and our legs stretched out in front of us, still pressed tightly together with our new shared-custody tie-dyed blanket tucked across our laps. It’s cold and dark as a hush falls over the crowd, and the only sounds that remain are the crickets and waves and the explosions that spark through the sky, and I’m lost to the rest of the world. There is nothing other than the heat of Ethan’s body at my side, the rise and fall of his chest in my peripheral vision, and the fact that our fingers are so close together that all I’d have to do is shift mine over aninch and they would cover his. I don’t want to fall in love with him, but in this moment, it’s hard to convince myself that I’m not already too far gone to stop it.
Ethan
I watch Blue from the corner of my eye as we get ready for bed. The absolute last thing I want is for him to catch me ogling him like a lust-crazed teenager. That’s not even close to what I’m doing, but I’m finding it hard not to stare, and it would be hard to explain staring at someone who’s half-naked in any other way. The tattoos that nearly cover his arms have drawn my interest from the moment we met. They’re black. Only black, and they seem to be a random compilation of everything he loves crushed together anywhere he could find free skin in a completely haphazard way that somehow works. There is a small stack of books, some paw prints walking up his forearm, several geometric designs, a compass, and a large, elaborate vine that crawls up and disappears under his T-shirts.
He showered first when we got back to the room, and when he came out in only a pair of sleep shorts, his blue hair damp and darker than normal, his skin flushed from the heat, I finally got to confirm my suspicion that they don’t end on his arms. The vine winds its way downone side of his chest, and something that looks like abstract paint strokes covers the opposite side of his rib cage, wrapping around his body to meet an elaborate depiction of stormy ocean waves breaking against a forest shoreline that stretches across his back.
I want to study them. I want to trace them with my fingertips and listen to the warm growl of his voice as he tells me about each of them - what they mean to him, when he got them, where he got them. I want to know everything. Some part of me has always envied people who cover their bodies with tattoos. So much of who we are is hidden from the world. Hidden even to those closest to us. But a few people are brave enough to take small moments and intimacies and items of such importance that they have become an integral part of their identities and ink them across their skin without embarrassment for the world to see. Even when they say things like “It doesn’t really have any deep meaning” or “I just thought it was beautiful,” there is more to it. Something drove them to that design, to that artist, to that moment in their lives. Even the ones they make light of or call insignificant hold meaning, and they share that with the universe proudly. I don’t think I’d ever have the courage to put my heart on display like that.
Blue is in bed when I step back into the room after showering and brushing my teeth. We’ve left the heavy balcony door curtains open, and while neither of us qualifies as morning people by any stretch of the imagination, the city lights reflecting against the water and the glittering stars in the black velvet sky visiblethrough the glass doors are too striking to cover up. We’ll just have to see who loses the game of morning chicken and ends up stumbling sleepily to close the drapes after the sun rises.
Blue is facing my side of the bed. I love that about him. In this situation, almost every other person on earth would curl up on their own side, facing away as a signal that their intentions are innocent. Even though I’ve never noticed Blue give any indication that he’s romantically interested in me, he doesn’t feel the need to adhere to such absurd social conventions. He’s comfortable smiling kindly at me as I slip in facing him to mirror his position, lying on my side with one arm curled up under my pillow.
It should be awkward, lying here in bed together. I’m always awkward. I’m even more awkward when any form of intimacy is involved, and even though this isn’t sexual, for me, it’s intimate. Very intimate. I’ve only shared a bed with a handful of people as an adult, and every single one of those times has come after miserable and failed attempts to enjoy sex. Every time I’ve shared a bed, I’ve lain in the dark, trying not to cry or scream as I’ve waited for the other person to fall asleep so that I could sneak out. There is no expectation here with Blue, no pressure to do anything I don’t want to or be anyone I’m not, and I’m…content lying here with him. More than content, I’m enjoying it enough that I wonder what it would be like to shift just a bit closer. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to fall asleep only to wake up tomorrow and find that the sense of calm and wonder that’s settled over me is the one-time-only combination of a long morning drive, too much beer, a magical evening, and exactly the right blend of conversation, friendship, wooden boats, and pizza that can never be recreated. I worry that in the morning, all the tiny sparks of something tingling and bright that have swirled through my chest and settled deep in my soul as Blue and I spent the day together will be gone, and I’ll be back to my normal, lonely self.
I battle with myself as we lie with our heads on adjacent pillows and sleepily half smile at one another as we start to drift off, and after a couple of minutes that, in the best of ways, feel like hours, I force myself to let go of my anxiety and fear and follow my impulses. For the second time today, I reach out and touch him. My fingers reach up and brush a stray lock of cerulean hair from his temple and tuck it behind his ear.
“Is this why people call you Blue?”
I don’t let my fingers linger, quickly snatching them back to rest on the pillow in front of my face, but adrenaline surges through me anyway. His hair is cool and silken and still just the slightest bit damp, and I want to touch it again. I want to shift closer and breathe in the scent of apple that always seems to cling to it. The tip of his tongue flicks out over his lip ring, drawing my attention to the shining silver, and I want to touch that too. I want to know if the steel is cool or if it’s constantly warm from contact with his lips. I want to drag my fingertip along his lips and find out if they’re soft. Theylook soft. I’ve never wanted to touch someone’s lips before. Not really. Not since Jordyn. It’s not the first time I’ve realized that there are things I might want with Blue that I haven’t wanted since Jordyn, but the tiny sparks have only been momentary blips, so fleeting that I’m not sure they’ve even been real, and I’m afraid to examine that too closely. I don’t want to break the spell my body seems to be under. I don’t want to lose this moment.
