“I don’t know!” Fabian gave a high, frustrated laugh when he said it. “Believe me, if I knew I would stop.”
“Youshouldstop.”
“Yes, thank you,Vanessa. What about you?”
Ryan froze for a second, and then scrambled to catch up with Fabian. “What about me what?”
“Do you get a lot of hockey groupies?”
“Uh, no. The kind of guys I’m into...aren’t usually hockey fans.”
They stopped at an intersection, waiting for the walk light, and Fabian turned to look up at him. “And what kind of guys are you into?”
You. Exactly you.“Um.”
“Sorry.” Fabian took a step back, and looked at the sidewalk. “It’s none of my business. I won’t judge you, believe me. I have friends who are into just about everything you can imagine. But you don’t have to answer me.”
“No. It’s okay. I’m not that adventurous. But I like men who are...the opposite of me, basically.”
Fabian seemed to study him a moment, as if trying to calculate what the opposite would be. “So, small guys?”
Ryan shuffled his feet nervously. He’d never talked about his personal tastes out loud to anyone before. Even his past partners. “Usually, yeah. And other stuff.”
The walk light came on, and they crossed the street. When they reached the other side, Fabian picked up right where they’d left off. “Twinks?”
“Not exactly, no. But that’s close, I guess. Age doesn’t matter. It’s not even a body type. It’s more about...how they present themselves.”
“Okay, now I really am intrigued.”
Ryan could not believe he was trying to describe his perfect mantohis perfect man. “Okay. This is it: I like men who sort of look at what men aresupposedto be and say ‘fuck you.’ I like men who have the confidence to be themselves, even if it means a lot of people are gonna look at them funny.”
For an agonizingly long time, there was no reply. Ryan was sure he’d just spouted a bunch of nonsense at Fabian, and Fabian was now wondering why he’d allowed such a weirdo to walk him home. It wasn’t until they had approached Fabian’s street that he said, in a voice so quiet Ryan almost didn’t hear him over the wind, “I love that.”
“What?”
“Everything you just said. I hate to stereotype, but hearing words like that coming from someone like you...”
“A big, dumb hockey player?”
Fabian shook his head, but then said, “Maybe. Not dumb, though. Ryan, you are so far from dumb. But you know how I feel about hockey players. About jocks in general. They were always around, invading my life, growing up. My parents placed boys like that—menlike that—on pedestals. It was so obviously what they wanted me to be, and there was no way I could be that. Ever. As soon as they realized that, they lost interest in me.”
“I noticed,” Ryan said.
Fabian gave him a sad smile. “I know you did. That’s why you were different. You think I had other hockey players showing up at my recitals?”
Ryan’s heart skipped at the mention of Fabian’s recital. He hadn’t realized that Fabian remembered that night.
“Only you,” Fabian continued. “I never told you how much that meant to me.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was definitely not nothing. It was...” He laughed humorlessly. “Myfamilycouldn’t be bothered to make time to see me. That was my final recital at the Conservatory, and I was performing a piece that I hadcomposed, and even that couldn’t compete with a goddamned hockey game. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“When I saw you there, at the back of that room. It meant everything to me.”
They had reached Fabian’s apartment building, which was awkward because they were kind of in the middle of a big moment. They stood facing each other at the bottom of the stairs that led to the front door, and Ryan had no idea what to say next.
