“Jim?” I said again.

  “Huh?”

  It was an inside-only smile, but it still felt really fucking good. “Do you mind?” When he still didn’t answer, I waved my phone at him. “I just need the video—no sound, so it won’t bother you.”

  His lips were parted; they were chapped sometimes, dry, which I remembered better than I wanted too. He was breathing softly through his mouth. And then somebody must have turned all the breakers back on because he blinked and said, “Uh huh.” He tried again. “Yeah. I’ll just take this in my room—”

  “No,” I said as I got down on the mat and started the yoga video. “Don’t. I’m going to be totally quiet.”

  Pages rustled. A pen clicked. He moved, coming into my field of view as he stooped to recover the fallen pen, and if anything, his face was redder.

  After the warm-ups, we started with bridge pose. A nice amount of flexibility, my crotch on display, gravity molding the yoga pants around my dick and balls. My body started to loosen, the familiar warmth of movement kindling in my muscles. I could feel myself starting to swell, my dick lengthening visibly under the thin fabric of the yoga pants.

  Paper rustled. I snuck a look; Jim was white-knuckling a student report on, of all things, virginal knighthood.

  The video changed to cat pose, so I got on my hands and knees, facing away from Jim. I raised my back like the woman in the video, dropped my tailbone, let my head hang down. Between my legs, I could see Jim’s knee bouncing. When the woman in the video changed position, I copied her: cow pose, my belly lowering, my chest and sternum coming up, my ass rising. I was hard, the pants stretching until they were translucent, visible between the vee of my legs.

  I heard the unmistakable sound of a pen dragged across paper and then: “Oh shit.”

  Pages—including one covered by a long line of red ink—fluttered to the ground as Jim lurched to his feet. He stumbled past me, and a moment later, the door to his room shut. Hard.

  Dropping into child’s pose, my forehead cushioned by the mat, I gave myself a moment to consider the ache between my legs. “Well,” I said. “Fuck.”

  4 | JIM

  It couldn’t be my imagination.

  One day to Valentine’s, and that was all I could think about.

  At lunch, I took my twenty-six minutes and raced home. I’d stumbled through my morning classes, trying to explain adjectival phrases, flopping—completely flopping—the plot of Of Mice and Men, oblivious to the boys who had drawn penises all over the class set of Moby Dick.

  It couldn’t be my imagination; that’s what I kept coming back to. For months, Emmett had been operating at usual Emmett levels, which meant he was prickly, combative, and, occasionally, perceptively cruel. At least, when he wasn’t being sweet, or sad, or trying to make it (whatever it was) up to me. Those bouts lasted somewhere around five minutes, so I’d learned to enjoy them.

  But this—the shower, the yoga—it couldn’t be just in my head. I mean, yes, I’d been out of the dating game for, well, a while. And yes, the year before, when I’d stopped in San Elredo to see Emmett at the hospital where his parents had stashed him, when I’d stayed because he didn’t have anybody else, things had seemed like they were heading in a different direction. I wouldn’t have lied to myself. I wouldn’t have said he’d forgotten Vie. But I would have said he was moving on, which was healthy, and I would have said—not out loud, maybe, but to myself—that maybe there had been something between us. Something beyond Emmett’s need to seek approval. Or, at least, attention. We had kissed, hadn’t we? And that kiss had felt like it meant something.

  And then I’d seen him kissing Vie, and that had been that.

  Which was better than Emmett imprinting on me because I was the only adult male who had been positively involved in his life. He and Vie would break each other’s hearts all over again, because it was inevitable, and then Emmett could find someone his own age. So, like I said: it was better.

  It was definitely better.

  Definitely.

  Until I’d seen cat pose.

  I sat in the car. Twenty-six minutes shrank to nineteen. Nineteen shrank to eleven.

  He texted me, I told myself. He wanted me to catch him stepping out of the shower.

  He’s nineteen and one time he left his keys in an old McDonald’s bag, another part of my brain argued.

  He didn’t have anything on under those yoga pants. Nothing.

  Yeah, and he answered the door in a jockstrap one time because he thought it was the cute pizza guy.

  I chewed my nail to the quick.

  Finally, I pushed open the door and got out of the car. Eight minutes. Halfway up the stairs, I turned around. Then I stopped. I went back up. Down again. The door on a ground-floor unit opened, and Mrs. Hanover poked her cap of white hair out.

  Letting out a weird half-laugh that was mostly despair, I turned around and went up.

  Is something going on? No, I decided; that was too confrontational, too combative. And Emmett loved a fight, so he’d latch on to it. What’s up? Was that better? I groaned that half-laugh again and pushed a hand through my hair. Sure, what’s up? sounded so much better; maybe I should put on a baseball cap backwards and wear my trousers halfway down my ass.

  Do you love him, or do you love me, or can it be both?

  In Wyoming once, when a big storm came through, I’d seen a bolt of lightning split an oak down the center.

  When I pushed into the apartment, his voice came from his bedroom at the back. The words were indistinct. Then, unmistakably, Emmett giggled. His voice rose in protest, and then he giggled again. Two giggles. In one day. From Emmett Bradley, who had once spent an entire weekend making fun of me because I told him I had cried the first time I watched Old Yeller.

  I am a lot of things, few of them good. I tightened my hand around my keys so they wouldn’t clink, and I eased the door shut behind me, and I toed off my brogues.

  “—I said shut up!” The words became clearer as I crept down the hall. His tone was right, but he undermined it by laughing again. “You’re such an asshole. I knew I shouldn’t have called you.” His silence suggested he was listening. “Blond,” he said promptly. “I know; don’t start.” And then, in a voice I’d only heard from him a few times—stripped of the mocking distance, the perpetual razor-blade edge—“It’s hard. Well, he’s making it harder than it has to be, but it’s hard no matter what. Complicated, I mean.” He stopped again. I was close enough to the door to see that it was still open, and through the crack, I had a view of his bed. He lay there, one arm propping up his head, a blush filling his face. As I watched, he pulled his phone away to look at it. Then he said, “I’ve got to go.” He laughed again, said, “Fuck off,” and disconnected.

  In the silence, I could hear his phone buzzing.

  He studied the screen for a moment, the color in his face rising. Then he swiped the screen. For a moment, nothing. And then, in a voice I’d never heard from him before, so neutral it sounded like steel under tremendous stress, he said, “Hey.” He took a breath. “What’s up, tweaker?”

  The silence lasted a heartbeat too long, and then I heard Vie Eliot say, “Hey.”

  5 | EMMETT

  On Valentine’s, I made myself go out.

  I didn’t normally leave the house, not unless I had to. It wasn’t Grey Gardens-level shit; it was just smart. People didn’t like staring at me any more than I liked being stared at, so I figured I’d make it easy for both of us. But on Valentine’s, I had errands to run, and that meant leaving the house. I put on a hoodie, pulled up the hood, and slid my hands into my pockets. If I kept my head down, I might even pass as human.

  Vie was right, although I wouldn’t give the tweaker the satisfaction of telling him that.

  First, CVS, where their display of Valentine’s chocolates had been ravaged—a single, misshapen box remained. I bought it, tried to fix the cardboard as best I could, and kept going.

  My next stop was Trader Joe’s, for the flowers, but the same horde that had gotten to CVS before me had also pillaged TJ’s. I tried Whole Foods next, and then I tried a corner florist—appropriately named Flower Hut.

  Then Beach Blossoms.

  Then Everlasting Garden, which sounded like a place you’d have a funeral.

  I finally lucked out in the Safeway. The roses were small. Some of the petals were starting to fuse to the plastic wrap because they’d been in there too long. They were red, technically, but the color looked washed out, and you could tell these had been the roses rejected by places like Flower Hut. But they were roses—again, technically—and I paid the exorbitant price. Or, rather, my parents did.

  We needed dinner, but when I called around on the walk home, nobody had any openings. I offered to pay for a seat. No takers. I tried to bribe one lady, and she just laughed. I thought about calling Vie for advice again. But that would have been moving backward, and I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I could have bought pre-made stuff at the grocery store, but by this point I was already halfway home, and I didn’t want Jim’s roses to smell like rotisserie chicken, and the thought of walking back into the Safeway, with everybody looking and pretending not to look—no, thanks.

  The day was getting colder, the marine layer moving in, fog thickening between the houses and then gathering in the streets. Getting darker too. I walked faster. Maybe a sushi place would have an opening, I thought. Maybe an Indian place. Those weren’t—well, most people went American or French for Valentine’s. But Jim loved American. He’d want a steak. Or a huge salad and then a steak. I could make him a steak. Probably. It just meant going back to the Safeway, where the woman at the self-checkout had pretended to inspect her nails while darting glances at me.

  The sound of the ocean was much louder now.

  My phone vibrated with a text from Jim: Where are you?

  I dismissed it. The clock read quarter to five, so, of course, Jim was home. He’d be there when I walked in with the flowers that were literally decomposing with every step I took. He’d be there when I walked in with the mashed box of chocolates, before I even had a chance to make them look decent. I stopped next to a house with cedar shake siding, and I thought, for a moment, about screaming.

  My phone vibrated again: Can I ask you a favor?

  I dismissed that one too. No, I thought. No, I’m not going to pick up milk. No, I’m not going to run to the dry cleaners. No, I’m not going to do anything nice for you, Jim Spencer, because I love you, and I’m trying to tell you I love you, and it turns out I have royally fucked myself over by waiting until it was too late, so please let me panic for five fucking minutes.

  My phone vibrated again; I pushed it deeper into my pocket and refused to look at it.

  I stood there, breathing, my hand too tight around the flowers. The fog was wet on my face, and a car swept past, and when the headlights washed over me, for one moment the fog refracted the light, and I was standing in a neon cloud. Then the car drove on, and I took a breath, and then another, tasting the ocean and the fading hint of exhaust.

  Ok, I thought. Flowers are fucked, check. Chocolates are shit, check. Alrighty then.

  I walked the rest of the way home.

  When I got to our building, I took the steps two at a time. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my face felt greasy, and I didn’t even want to think about my hair after the hood and the humidity. There were still a couple of thorns on the roses, and they bit into my hand through the plastic. When I’d had Jim—as a teacher, I mean, my junior year—I’d totally fucked over an essay on The Great Gatsby. No interest in doing it. I’d written the thing in an hour, tops, based on movie clips Jim had shown and what I remembered from class discussion. I was smart, so it would have been a B. But Jim had always been a softie.

  As I flew up the stairs, I thought, That’s what I’ll say. I’ll say, This is like that Gatsby paper, remember? And it should have been a B, a B+ tops, but you’re always kind, and you’re always generous, and you know I’m a fuckup but you don’t hold it against me, and you know I can do better—you know I would do better if I weren’t such a fuckup. So, this is my fuckup attempt, the flowers, the chocolates, don’t even look at them. It’s my B+ attempt. But I’m going to do better because you deserve better. I can do better.

  And because he was Jim, he’d let me slide and call it an A-.

  The door was unlocked, and I stumbled into the living room-kitchen combo at the front. And then I stopped.

  Candles.

  Flowers—good roses, the kind you know are meant for Valentine’s—in a glass vase.

  The smell of something full of carbs and cheese floated in the air. Italian, a numb part of my brain noted. I should have thought of Italian.

  Music played in the background, quiet, acoustic indie stuff that was all sad girls with smokey eye makeup and guys in flannel and beanies, no matter the weather.

  I had time for one thought, bright and blazing: It’s perfect.

  And then Jim laughed in his bedroom—he had a nice laugh, quiet, moderated, always so controlled. That was Jim. Always locking himself down, battening the hatches, trying so hard to keep control. I didn’t hear him laugh much. Maybe that said something about me.

  A campy voice said, “Oh my God, you are so hot! Like, literally!” And then high, nervous laughter. Jim said something that I couldn’t hear, his voice low and assured, and the laughter cut off.

  When I heard the springs on the bed, it was like waking up. I shuffled out of the apartment, pulling the door shut behind me. I took the stairs down. I was moving on autopilot, not really seeing anything, rolling back the film on the last sixty seconds.

  I made my way to the dumpsters and opened the lid on one.

  Then I stopped.

  I had thought—

  Yeah, a part of me said. You sure did.

  I laid the flowers and chocolates inside, and the lid fell shut with a clang, and I pulled up my hood and walked out into the fog.

  FUEL

  This story is technically not canon, but I liked it so much, I’m including it here anyway. I wrote it for an anthology, but when I came back to write Queer Fires, I realized this story didn’t line up with the book I wanted to write. I hope you enjoy it anyway—in this alternate universe version, the story takes place between Ember Boys and Queer Fires.

  1 | EMMETT

  The apartment was in a small building half a mile from the coast. The doors were no long square, and when a breeze picked up, some of the shingles flapped up and down. The board-and-batten siding had gone gray from sun and salt and age. I didn’t mind not being able to see the beach; just being able to see Jim was enough. It was May, and the weather warm, and he was wearing a T-shirt with Hansen Moving on the sleeve. The shirt was big and boxy on him, but it didn’t hide his biceps or shoulders or the muscles in his back when he lowered a box. He had dark circles under his eyes; he probably thought he’d hidden it, but I knew he hadn’t been sleeping.

  Straightening, he wiped his face and said, “Am I doing all the lifting today?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Get your butt off the couch,” Jim said. He pushed some of his blond hair out of his eyes; it had gotten longer. “And get downstairs.”

  I did—not because he was the boss, but because it was fun to pull the rug out from under him when he thought he was.

  We actually didn’t have much to move. I had just gotten out of the psych ward of San Elredo Hospital, and Jim had been living out of his car. He had rented a truck, however, and we had bought furniture from a series of garage sales and secondhand stores around town. None of it matched: one of the beds was a queen with an old headboard that had gingerbread carving on the top; another was a twin with a pale pine frame and a safety rail that had obviously been put in for a child. Jim thought it was funny to say that one was mine. We each had a dresser, and we found an old plaid sofa at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. It smelled like the garage in my Wyoming house, the weekend before my dad had found a nest of mice in there. When I pointed this out, Jim just rolled his eyes.

  “With your knees,” Jim said, squatting to grab the sofa at the base.

  “I’m young,” I said. “That’s really more of an old man thing.”

  “With your knees.”

  “We’ll get you a nice bath with Epsom salt tonight.”

  Jim didn’t always respond, but I liked it when I got a bit of color in his cheeks.

  He had insisted on a two-bedroom unit, which seemed ridiculous, especially considering the fact that one, we had kissed, and two, we shared a bed before, and three, he knew I was ready to take things to the next level. But Jim said two bedrooms, so we got two bedrooms.

  After we put down the sofa, I headed into my room. I started putting together the pine bedframe using one of the screwdrivers Jim had purchased—it had come in a bag of tools he had bought in bulk at a garage sale. I didn’t make particularly good time with the project, and in the front room, I heard the door open and close several times. Jim’s steps echoed as he went up and down the stairs. I was just screwing one of the bed rails into place when he changed course and came towards my bedroom.

  “Could you help me with something?” he asked from the doorway.

  I looked up. Jim’s face was red.

  “Now?” Jim said.

  And instead of doing what any sane person would have done, instead of nodding or getting to my feet or asking how I could help, I flopped back onto the floor, scratched my stomach, and made sure to pull my shirt up a few inches to expose my abs. “Now?”

  “Get up, Emmett.”

  “I’m right in the middle of something.” My shirt rode up a few more inches. “Unless this is a sexual favor you’re talking about. Then I’m interested.”

 

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