14. Hail Mary
As a prayer or a sports term, both things Ryan knows nothing about.
Ryan
“If this is one of those you’ve fallen and can’t get up situations,” Zach said, standing over me with a skeptical look on his face. “You’ve got to tell me what I did to be your go-to-guy in this scenario so I can undo it immediately.”
If this was one of those situations, it was pretty rude that he was just standing over me and not offering me a hand up, judging me not only for needing help but for coming to him to get it.
I was lying down and he was standing over me, so this might be a weird way to have a conversation, but it didn’t stop me from trying. “If I was helpless here and in need of a rescue, you got my call and came here, but you’re just going to judge me for my choice of calling you in the first place and not help me up?” Yeah, that actually sounded pretty likely.
Zach sighed. “I guess I would help.” He didn’t sound too sure. “If you promised never to make me your first call again,” he added. Rescuing came with conditions.
I sat up. “That’s not why I called.”
Zach sat down next to me, seeming to relax now that he knew he wasn’t being called on for heroics or something else outside of his wheelhouse... Was there an actual thing called a wheelhouse or was that just a weird expression? No, not the point.
I was still under the tree. Don’t know how long I sat here feeling sorry for myself and wishing things could be different, but the sunset was currently happening somewhere off to my right or maybe was near its end. The last of the weak orange light filtered in through the shade of the canopy of leaves.
To use a sports term—let me just point out, that me using a sports term shows what dire straits I’m in—to use what I’m pretty sure is a sports term in what I’m pretty sure is the right way, this was a Hail Mary play. When it came to Luke and I, it felt like we needed to give up.
But I didn’t want to give up.
I called Zach instead. Maybe there was a way to fix our problem. Then it would all be okay. The distance would sort itself out eventually. The intimacy… I called Zach. He was the closest person I knew that might be an expert when it came to sexual relations. Well, I knew of that really old lady that gave people sex advice, but she was harder to get ahold of and Zach was already a contact in my phone.
“You might have noticed,” I told Zach. “I’m here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed wryly. “I caught on to that.”
“And Luke is in Chicago now. We both tried to—”
“Uh-huh,” Zach interrupted before I could finish. “If I wanted to watch this romcom, I would have rented the movie.”
Rude. I thought about turning my head to glare at him but that was too much effort.
“Which movie?” I asked. I couldn’t think of one. This didn’t happen in When Harry Met Other Harry or Sleepless in Gaytown or How to Lose a Gay in Ten Days.
“There’s probably about a million,” Zach argued. Just not the ones I was thinking about because those didn’t exist.
Okay, that might actually be a conservative estimate when it came to movies where a zany misunderstanding kept the two lovers apart. Still. “How many of those movies feature queer protagonists?”
Because unfortunately, there were no movies like The Gay Wedding Planner or What Women Want from Other Women or 10 Things I, a Gay, Hate About You, Another Gay… I was either really good at this or terrible at this. I couldn’t tell.
He made a noise of acknowledge. “Alright, you got me there.” I wasn’t enjoying the victory as much as I would have had I been in a better mood, but I thought about smiling smugly. “I still don’t want to see this movie though, so maybe you tell me the reason I’m here?”
Zach sounded annoyed and like he might actually get up and leave if this was a waste of his time. I wanted this, I reminded myself. I somehow thought it was a good idea to tell my problems to someone who seemed to have the emotional empathy of a rock. Though Luke said he often helped. I wasn’t sure if that was because he actually had feelings and emotions like everyone else or if he forced himself to learn the thing he was lacking because his ego hated to have such an obvious weakness.
Alright, I wanted this. I could do this. “Everything between me and Luke feels so hopeless lately,” I explained, really glad I was looking up at the tree and not at Zach. “And I just need something to give me faith our relationship can work and—"
“You came to me?” He wasn’t skeptical this time, he was outright judging.
“That would be a terrible idea.” Was that rude? Zach made a noise of agreement, so I guess not. I continued with, “I came to you because we we’re having trouble with, well, you know, you were there.”
“And that was my good deed for the year.” Zach did one good deed a year? Pretty nice of him. It could have been every other year or every decade. Or he could think that just gracing people with his presence counted, so it was good to know his douchebaggery had limits. Wait.
“How was that a good deed?" Maybe he did think just him being there counted. And just when I went and privately acknowledged he could be worse.
“You’ve never tried wrangling Joey and his siblings before. Word of advice? Don’t.” Aww, I was right, he could be worse. Also, I couldn’t think about any of the rest of that ever.
