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The neighbor whistled again. “My best friend loves that joint. Expensive as fuck.”
“Learned that the hard way. He ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, told me to get whatever I wanted, and…”
“Went to the bathroom and never came back?” the neighbor offered.
If I hadn’t known his voice as well as I did, I might have wondered. But no. It definitely wasn’t him. “Been there?”
“No, but you’re not the first person to meet the assholes of Brooklyn, sweetheart. The priest thing was new, though.”
I groaned, and he laughed again. “His vow of celibacy is starting to sound really good right about now.”
“Don’t say that,” the neighbor cajoled. “You’re too cute for that.”
“You have no idea what I look like,” I argued.
He snorted. “That’s fair, but trust me when I say there are a thousand ways for people to be cute. Your snoring for one.”
“I do not—”
“The way you sing when you brush your teeth. And you tap out beats when you’re lost in thought. Even your sad, heartless composing…”
I sat up, anger rushing through me. “Fuck you, stranger! My composing isn’t heartless.”
“It is,” he said simply like it was just a fact. “You’re way too talented to know that what you’re writing right now is garbage.”
“Compared to the crap you listen to?”
“Compared to what you’d be capable of if you let go of trying to be someone else. I know all music exists to prove a point. It exists as pieces of the people who write it. Right now, you’re lost. You’re a ghost of the man you’re supposed to be…or maybe the man you were. I don’t really know yet.”
“You a therapist?” I spat.
He laughed again. “Fuck no, but I’ve been to one or two in my life. I’m not saying you’re bad, sweetheart…”
“Julius.”
He went very quiet. “Sorry?”
“My name isn’t sweetheart. It’s Julius. Well, most people call me Jules.”
There was silence again, and just when I thought maybe I’d crossed the line, he murmured, “Forrest,” right against the wall, muffled a bit like maybe his lips were kissing the paint. “I don’t have any cute nicknames.”
“Forrest is nice, and nicknames are overrated. The guy I dated tonight was called Ever.”
He laughed. “Pretentious ass. What do you want to bet he gave himself that name when he graduated yoga teacher training. He’s white, right?”
I laughed along with him. “Yeah. He was. And I didn’t ask, but I wish I had.”
“Nah. Let it remain a mystery,” Forrest told me. There was more silence, then suddenly, from behind the wall, came that sound again—the rich, electric whine of two musicians with instruments between their thighs. Their pushes and pulls of the bow across electrified strings touched something in my gut I hadn’t felt in years.
“What is this?”
“I don’t actually know the name of them. My buddy downloaded them onto one of my playlists when he said I needed to be more cultured. He was tired of listening to me complain about you.”
I winced, but there wasn’t any cruelty in his voice. It was just honesty—like the way I’d first felt about him. I lifted a hand and traced a pattern along the wall to the rhythm of the song that was almost familiar. “I think I know this one.”
“‘Enter Sandman,’” he said. “By Metallica.”
It was something my parents used to listen to when I was very, very little. The memory that crept up through the dark recesses of my mind was a little sore and achy but welcome. There was laughter there, and kisses, and tender promises of happily ever after that were ripped away by one single decision.
