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I snatched the Belvedere from the liquor cabinet, brine from the fridge, and a glass of ice from the freezer. Back upstairs, I fixed myself a second martini in the shaker, my head already making me feel like I was trapped at the center of a maelstrom.
Picked up the phone. New message alert. Some stupid voice at the back of my head said to wait, to savor the moment. But my lizard brain screamed, “ME WANT DOPAMINE!” and hit the notification before I could think otherwise.
Bennett:Who is this?
Damn. No dopamine. Only heartache. Did that have a chemical in the brain?
Okay. I could rationalize this into two very specific camps. One, he deleted my number when he deleted my heart from his. Made sense. No more Connor, so why keep his phone number?Sayonarasoldier boy, I don’t need you and I don’t need your contact info. Two, hedidhave my number, but he played dumb. Pretending like hedidn’thave the digits to the man who gave him the best sex of his life. Fourteen years ago. Along the river. Fumbling in the dark.
Slow down with the vodka, killer, I told myself as I took a healthy gulp from my second glass. I needed to navigate this like the captain of a ship in fog. Who knew what dangers lurked beneath the mist?
Me:It’s Connor. This is Bennett’s number still, right?
Me:I hope it is…
I sent a thinking emoji, the one where the yellow face is scratching his chin.
Dots. Bouncing dots, like they were doing the cancan just for me.
Bennett:Oh.
Bennett:Alright.
Bennett:Well, good to know she’s doing okay.
Damn it. I couldn’t work with that. He gave me nothing to feed from. I was a vampire with my fangs sunk into a bloodless body. A husk of a human. Lifeless.
Me:Thanks again for your help this morning. I know you were just doing your job but I am still thankful.
And then nothing for ten minutes. For six hundred seconds, I took three sips of my martini and paced the room while wringing my hands. Thoughts swirled in a twister of wrong decisions. Too many questions to answer, not enough logic to sort out the dumb from the good. Regret and confidence waged a battle I couldn’t quite understand, like two chess grandmasters determining a game before it even began.
I rummaged through the drawers of my old desk while I waited for a response. In the middle drawer, I discovered a single of my senior yearbook photo. I wore a thick silver chain necklace over a black sweater. Behind me was a Bob Ross scene of peak New England foliage in shades of lemon yellow, pomegranate red, and blood orange. My face was thinner, no beard, shorter hair on top. A sly smile played on my lips, as if I had a secret that no one else knew. Maybe because I had learned how to calculate the hormonal moods of the elusive closeted high school jock. I filled my time with baseball and karate class, the latter of which was where I met my friends from Acton High School. I made out with girls, figured out how to tease them just enough to go to second base, then shyly back off when they wanted third.
The secret life of a closeted gay boy in the early 2000s was unlike any other.
A chime from my phone cracked the air like thunder. I dropped the photo into the drawer, slammed it shut, and dashed back to my bed.
Bennett:Sorry, working right now.
Okay, nowthatI could work with.Turn on the charm, Con. You can’t see him, but make Benny smile.
Me:Midnight shift, that’s right.
Me:Please keep an eye out for any rental cars that might not be paying attention to the speed limit.
Dots bouncing. My personal Charleston dance. They stopped, started again, stopped. Boy, he had trouble figuring out what to say. Was he smiling?
Bennett:No rentals tonight. Just crazies.
Me:So if I hop in my rental and start speeding around, you’ll have to stop me, right?
Me:I mean, you couldn’t just let me do fifty in a thirty-five again.
Me:Surely not.
Bennett:Yes, I’d have to pull you over but this time I would probably give you a ticket. Please don’t make me do that.
Bennett:And it was fifty-five.
