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Which is fair enough. Roman fully admits to being somewhere on the aro/ace/agen continuum but has very little interest in figuring out what that all means for them since they don’t really feel either romantic or sexual attraction and gender’s a bit of an ick construct that’s never made sense.
All right, gang, I type, I’m gonna do it.
I get a bunch of hearts and fingers crossed emojis as I pick up my phone and pull up the contact information Cameron gave me only a few hours ago.
What if he’s in the middle of something? I ask my friends.
Dude, come on. That’s Nick.
Do you really think he’s going to blow you off? Min asks. I saw the way he looked at you last night. He’s totally into you.
And he brought you a brownie, Dan adds. From B Patisserie, no less. Their brownies are the best.
Okay. Okay.
I take a deep breath and slowly type out: I don’t think I thanked you for the brownie today. I check it for typos, then press Send and hold my breath while I ignore the influx of messages from my friends.
A minute goes by without a response. A minute in which my heart slows, and the spike of adrenaline that had me bouncing in my seat starts to fade and leave behind a sense of futility and dread.
My phone pings with a message, but it’s only Dan who asks what’s going on.
Nothing, I text back. No reply.
Sorry, man, maybe he’s busy.
Yeah.
I tell my friends I haven’t gotten a response, then say I’m going to sign off for the night. We go through a round of goodbyes and make plans for our next after-work meetup. There’s some teasing about Nick needing to step up his game, and then I log out and turn off my computer. I sit at my desk for a few moments just staring at the blank screen, then pick up my sketchbook and wander into the living room.
I’ve got a roommate—what guy my age living in San Francisco doesn’t have at least one?—but he’s away on a business trip right now so I’ve got the place to myself. It’s strange how lonely it is, how empty even though our place isn’t that big. It’s one of those weird, dark nights in SF where there’s cloud cover and no moon, and it feels darker than it actually should be in a major city.
I open my sketchbook and look through the drawings I did of Cameron before I had a chance to meet him. They’re good, definitely fae prince vibes, but dark fae, his face closed off in a way that it isn’t when we’re talking. Flipping to a new page, I rough out a new image that gives him a sensuous mouth with full lips quirked into a quixotic smile and a direct, penetrating stare. Long hair, flowing like a Chinese BL character so that it almost feels like a living thing as it curls around his face and arms and waist. He holds a bow in one hand, an elegant, double curve of light-colored wood that’s covered with intricate spell carvings, and his chest is crossed with the leather straps of his quiver, a full complement of arrows visible over his left shoulder.
I do quick sketches of him in action poses: running, aiming at a target, loosing an arrow, throwing a fireball from his hands, and a strange one in which his robes are torn and tattered, his body bent forward as if straining against a strong wind, one arm thrown up to shield his eyes, his shoulder’s rounded in exhaustion and defeat. As soon as I start to see it emerge, I know I’ve got the beginnings of a new story. This is both good and bad, and the curse of almost every creative I know: do I finish what I’m working on or indulge in the heady rush of something shiny and new?
Sighing, I put the sketchbook down because I know I’ve got to work on my existing story or else it will never get done, and I’ll piss off my fans and supporters. After I glance at my phone again—still no response from Cameron, and I’m more disappointed about that than I care to admit—I get back in front of my computer and fire up the big screens so I can work on my illustrations.
As usual, once I get started, I get sucked into what I’m doing. I lose hours this way, and tonight’s no exception. When I glance at the clock, it’s nearly eleven, so I shut everything down for the night and get ready for bed. Of course, my phone dings just as I settle beneath my covers, e-reader at the ready. I almost ignore it because it’s most likely my friends, but a hopeful voice in the back of my head tells me to take a look, and then I’m glad I did, because it’s a text from Cameron.
It was my pleasure. Sorry about the delayed response. Crisis at work that couldn’t wait.
Before I can respond, it’s followed by another one: You still up?
No worries if you’re not, just a bit too wired to sleep.
I’m awake, I type as quickly as I can. I’d love to talk.
I hit Send before my brain fully catches up, and then I realize Cameron might not have meant that he wanted to call me. He hadn’t said anything about calling or even texting, actually; he’d only asked if I was still up, and I’d jumped to the idiotic conclusion he was asking if he could call me because that’s what I wanted to have happen.
I’m still mid-castigation when my phone rings.
“Hello?” I answer as if it was going to be anyone else at this time of night. Smooth, Ty, real smooth. And then I put my foot in it all over again by saying, “Hang on, I’m still self-flagellating.”
“Uh…excuse me?”
I can almost see Cameron’s confused and startled expression and want to bury my face in my pillows and die right on the spot.
“Shit,” I say, then laugh in chagrin at my complete lack of smooth. “I meant to say, ‘Hi, how are you? I was hoping you’d call, but I’m sorry if you felt like I pressured you into it. And thank you for the brownie.’ But instead, you got the full dose of my lack of a filter. I’m not doing anything weird or kinky, just mentally beating myself up because I’m an idiot.”
