Into the Light

I didn’t see the guys at all the next day. I spent most Sundays hanging out with them, but Dan wanted to ride, and I didn’t think it was quite time for me to be going to the barn, yet. Which was probably why Dan insisted on going there; he hadn’t been impressed when Robyn and I broke up, and it was absolutely like him to want to punish me. No matter how many times I told him that Robyn had dumped me, not the other way around, Dan would believe his own version of things. “She dumped you because you wanted her to, Chris - you don’t get to pretend to be a good guy, just because she was enough of a sucker to do your dirty work for you.”
I had to admit that Dan wasn’t totally wrong. The thing with Robyn had been good, but it hadn’t been great. It hadn’t felt perfect. I didn’t know if I was being unrealistically romantic, expecting more than anyone ever really got, but I didn’t think so. If I could find something as good as Dan and Justin had been, I’d stick with that for life. Or even as good as Dan and Evan and Jeff were making things. Their relationship wasn’t exactly conventional, but they all seemed to be wired into each other in a way that I’d just never found.
Well, honestly, I think maybe Dan I were connected that way. Justin was my best friend, from when we were babies right up until he died, but even before Justin was gone, there was always something between Dan and me. Justin and Danny were the couple, but Danny and me were - something. It wasn’t sex, and it never would be. I might have had a few confusing, disturbing flashes of attraction to the guy, but that wasn’t what the two of us were about. Still, if I could be that close to Dan, then it showed that I wasn’t incapable of that sort of relationship. I just had to keep looking for the right person, the one for emotions and hot sex.
So, yeah, I had wanted to end things with Robyn, but I’d liked her too much to want to hurt her. I liked her even more for seeing what I was up to and calling me on it. She hadn’t been cruel, but she hadn’t pulled any punches, either, and it was good that she’d cleared the air. I was pretty sure we’d get back to the ‘friends’ stage eventually, but until then - Dan and the guys were riding, and it wasn’t a good idea for me to go to the barn where she worked, which was right under the apartment where she lived. It was a bit awkward that I had my own horse boarded at the barn, but it’s not like I had all that much time for riding anyway, usually.
Still, I didn’t have anything too pressing on that day, and I was kind of at loose ends. I got dressed and took a stroll downtown, but it only took about half an hour to go from one end of the main street to the other, and then turn and come back along the other side. And that was with a stop for coffee and another to chat with Kirsti at the bakery. I guessed I could drive into the city, but that seemed like a waste of time - I was in there five or six days a week for work, so why would I go in on my day off?
I swerved into Trinkets and Treasures, the antique store, on a whim. The middle-aged man behind the counter gave me a perfunctory nod but didn’t come any closer or seem to even care what I was doing. That suited me fine. If the guy had wanted to help, I wouldn’t really know what to ask for - did the store sell ways to spend your time when your best friends were punishing you for trying to be true to yourself? Did they have a stock of solutions to vaguely-existential, pre-mid-life mini-crises? Or maybe some stop-being-so-melodramatic-you-jackass pills.
I didn’t see any of those options in stock, but they did have a pretty excellent wing back armchair, its dark brown leather soft but still in really good condition, as far as I could tell. It wasn’t something that I’d been looking for, exactly, but now that I’d found it, I was intrigued.
“We had to reupholster it - the original leather was damaged beyond repair.” The voice came from right behind me. I turned to find the man from the counter, somehow out and across the floor without any sound. “If you’re a purist, that’s a problem. But if you’re just looking for a well-built piece of furniture with some character and history - you wouldn’t have to be as careful with this one as you would with a totally original chair, and the price is lower than it would have been otherwise.”
I lifted the laminated sheet from the seat of the chair and had a look at the price. I hated to think what the damn thing would have cost if it hadn’t been damaged. Still, I made good money, and never spent all of it. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but this antique-buying thing was kind of fun. I turned to look at the man. “It’s okay if I sit in it?”
“Of course.” The man gave me an easy smile, and I lowered myself into the chair.
“Damn.” I let my hands fall onto the armrests. The chair fit my body perfectly. It wasn’t too hard or too soft, and the wings wrapped around enough to give me a sense of comfortable enclosure without making me feel claustrophobic. I could already picture where it would sit. I was renting the ground floor of a Victorian house, and there was a bay window in the office. The chair would be perfect there.
I wasn’t exactly sure how much haggling you were supposed to do at antique stores, and I’d never been much good at that, anyway. My mom would bargain people down at the damn grocery store - the big chains, not the mom-and-pop types. She’d find some bruised apples or something, and ask to see the produce manager and offer to take all the bruised ones for half-price. They almost always went along with her, but it was probably just to get the crazy lady out of the store. It was weird, because Dad had a good job and they were living on Mom’s family farm mortgage-free, so it wasn’t like they were ever really short of money. I think she just did it for fun.
But I’d never picked up the habit, so I just said, “If I buy it right now, can I get free delivery?” I was a hard-ass when I had to be, working as the liason between Evan and his vast network of lawyers, but I was pretty much a pushover in my personal life.
The guy nodded happily. “Absolutely.” Then his face got sad. Too sad, making it clear that he was putting it on. “”But we won’t be able to have anything delivered until next Wednesday. Our delivery man is on vacation.”
“Next Wednesday, like three days, or like ten days?”
“Ten, I’m afraid.”
That was annoying. Now that I knew the chair existed, I wanted it in my house. “How much would delivery cost, if I weren’t getting it for free? I’m in town, just a few blocks down and over.”
“For one chair? That would be seventy-five dollars.”
I doubted sincerely that he’d charge that much in real life, but it fit into my little plan. “Okay. Knock that off my bill, and I’ll carry it home.”
He didn’t look pleased. “Carry it? It’s quite heavy.”
I took an experimental lift of the corner, and he was right, it was damn heavy. But I’d said I’d do it, and I didn’t want to back down. “It’ll be fine. I won’t need to go to the gym today.” I pulled out my wallet and nodded toward the counter. “You take credit cards?”
He didn’t argue anymore. Why should he, when I was paying the full price, practically?
When we were done with the paperwork, I got him to hold the door open for me, and I hefted the chair up onto my back. I had it set up like I’d been sitting in it and then just stood up and took the chair with me. I was bent pretty much double in order to keep the seat from tripping me, and the wings came down on either side of my head and eliminated any peripheral vision. And I couldn’t really look forward, because I couldn’t bend my head that far with the back of the chair braced on it. The sidewalks weren’t too crowded, thankfully, and anyone who was on them would surely notice the demented leather turtle staggering towards them and get out of the way. Or so I hoped.
So I set off. I almost lost it on the steps of the store, but I managed to shuffle down sort of sideways without too much trouble. The next problem came when I hit the first cross street. There was really no way to look both ways for oncoming traffic. I was already pretty tired, so if I set the chair down I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again. I had decided to just step out in the road blind, but then a pair of jean-clad legs appeared beside mine, and a hand gently tapped on the top of my burden.
“There’s no traffic, man, if you’re waiting to cross. But I can help you carry the thing, if you want.” It was a male voice, kind of familiar, although I couldn’t place it. It was friendly, with just a hint of amusement.
I decided that I could tolerate being someone else’s entertainment if it got me help with the damned chair. This whole operation would be easy, with two people. “Help would be great, if you don’t mind.” I started to swing the chair sideways off my back, and he caught it and helped to ease it to the ground.
I straightened a bit slowly, giving my back a chance to adjust. And of course, once I looked at the guy, I realized why his voice was familiar. “Ryan, right? From last night.”
“Yeah, hi.” He offered his hand. “Are you Chris? Dan’s said a lot about you.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he has.” I shook the guy’s hand, but I was thinking about more than greetings. If Dan had talked about me to Ryan, that sounded like they were still in touch. But Dan hadn’t mentioned that to me, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t told Evan, either, since I hadn’t heard any outraged rants about it.
Dan wasn’t the cheating type. Not at all - he’d stayed faithful for the whole last year of Justin’s life, when Justin had been unconscious in a hospital bed with no real hope of recovery. But Danny could sometimes be a bit secretive, and I’d never been sure whether it was deliberate or if he just didn’t think anyone would be interested. In this case, I knew Evan would absolutely have wanted to know, but I could see why Danny maybe wouldn’t have wanted to have that fight.
“Do you want me to carry the leg end, and you carry the top?” Ryan was moving around as if he’d already decided that he’d found the best positions, and was just waiting for me to agree.
I called myself back to the task at hand. I maybe shouldn’t be consorting with the possible enemy, but I needed to get the chair home. And Ryan clearly wasn’t Dan’s enemy, at least, so maybe he wasn’t mine, either. “Yeah, okay. That’s the heavy end for you, though.”
“You already got it this far, man.” Ryan cut me a quick glance, his eyes crinkling a little. “And you look like it took a lot out of you. Take a breather; we can switch if I get tired.”
I didn’t argue, and we set off. Ryan was in front, holding a chair leg in either hand, facing forward so he could see where he was going. I’m not exactly in the habit of checking out male bodies, but my two best friends in life have both been gay, so I’ve got a bit more awareness than a lot of men might. I could absolutely see how Dan could have been attracted to this guy. Ryan wasn’t all that tall, but he was well-built, and I could see his shoulder muscles shifting under his grey T-shirt. His hair was longer than most of the corporate lawyer-types that I hung out with, but it made sense for him, fit the ‘musician’ stereotype pretty well. And his face had been good, back when I’d been able to see it - not as pretty as Danny, but then, who was?
I stopped walking at the corner, but Ryan didn’t, and it jerked his arms a little. “Shit, sorry. We need to turn left, here.” Ryan obliged, and I decided I should give him a bit of advanced warning about our route. “Another block, and then it’s the house on the far side of the road - the Victorian with all the trim.”
“I know that house - it’s nice. You own it?”
“No, just rent. And just one floor.”
Ryan nodded. “Dan said you work in town - for Evan?”
I wondered what else Danny had been saying. “Yeah.” Maybe it was time for a little turnabout. “I thought you were off touring, or something. Did that not work out?”
“No, it worked out great. It was meant to be a three-month thing, and they doubled the time, got us a bunch of new gigs.” He half-turned his head, enough that I could see part of his happy smile. “Now they want us to get some songs together to record - so they gave us a couple months off, to write and rehearse.”
“And you came back here.” I wasn’t trying to be judgemental, but if any part of the area’s appeal involved Danny, I felt like that was something I should know. Not that I had any idea what I’d do about it.
I guess he picked up on the reservations in my tone. “Yeah. Most of the guys are from around here, and we all liked it well enough before the tour. So it made sense to come back.”
“Not LA, or somewhere with more of a scene?”
“We’re supposed to be working, not partying. And after six months on the road, I think we were all happy for a break.”
That all made sense, I guessed. And like I said, Danny wasn’t the cheating type, so it wasn’t like anything would come of this, no matter what Ryan’s plans were. Still, I wished Danny had told me he was still in touch with the guy. I didn’t like going into this blind.
We were at the house then, and we made it up the stairs sideways, with only two near-catastrophic moments. Once we were safely on the porch, Ryan balanced the chair while I dug through my pockets and found my keys. We made it inside and I directed him across the hallway into the office. He helped me set the chair down by the big bay window, and we both stepped back far enough to see how it looked.
“Not bad, man,” Ryan said. “You can sit there and do all your big legal stuff, right?”
“Or read the sports page.”
“Yeah, okay, it’d work for that, too. Nice chair.” He dusted his hands off on his jeans and took a step toward the door. “Okay, well, good luck with it.”
That didn’t seem right. He’d gone well out of his way, and even with two of us, the chair had been pretty damn heavy. “Do you have to be somewhere? Do you want a beer, or something? Or - have you had lunch, yet? I mean, I owe you, man.”
Ryan shook his head, but his expression had changed a little. “You don’t owe me anything. But, yeah, if you haven’t eaten yet, we could grab a bite.”
It shouldn’t have taken me so long to remember that Ryan was gay. I had no idea what Danny had told him about me, whether he’d bothered to mention that I was straight. If Ryan thought I’d just invited him on a date, I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t really a problem - we could just eat, and if he still seemed interested afterward, I could clear up the misunderstanding. No big deal. No, it wasn’t the possibility of a misunderstanding that had my stomach tightening; it was the possibility that I might not want to clear things up.
I wasn’t really sure what I was feeling, or what I was thinking. I’d certainly considered putting a little variety in my dating life, before; like I said, I’d had two best friends in my life, and they’d both been gay, so I’d considered a lot of things that most straight guys hadn’t. But I’d never acted on anything. I mean, I liked women. A lot. So what was the point of going through all the trouble of being with a man, if I didn’t have to?
But I’d just been wishing I could find something different, something special, and lord knew I hadn’t been having much luck with women. Maybe I needed to broaden my horizons.
I don’t mean that I thought through all of this at the time, not consciously. I just - looking back, I think that’s what made me willing to take a bit of a chance. So instead of backing down, or clarifying things right off, I just smiled at Ryan. “Great, man. Zio’s okay?”
Ryan nodded, and we headed out the door.
Everything went smoothly. I remembered Danny saying something like that about Ryan, that he just made things easy. It definitely worked for me. We walked back to Main Street, talking about the town, and stories Ryan had from his tour, and by the time we sat down I was telling my own tales, about my family back home, and about my new life in California.
Ryan had worked at the restaurant, before he left town, so half the staff had to come over and say hi. I felt a bit awkward, like I didn’t belong, but I ate at the place often enough that I knew most of the servers, too, so it wasn’t bad.
Finally, the excitement died down and we were left mostly alone. We kept talking through the meal, and we weren’t flirting, I wouldn’t say, but it wasn’t like having a meal with a regular guy friend. Maybe it was just Ryan’s way - when I talked, he listened like I was fascinating, his eyes on mine almost all the time, his smile easy and warm. It wasn’t sexual, exactly, but it definitely felt good.
It freaked me out, a little. Had it been this easy, all along? Was this what I’d been missing? I was only a few years short of forty, for god’s sake - it seemed a little late for me to be having some big realization. There were a couple women at a nearby table, both attractive, and I looked over and tried to imagine myself with them. It was easy. I didn’t let the fantasy go too far, but I absolutely could have. So things hadn’t changed all that much. Then I looked at Ryan, and tried the same thing.
It was different. It was fuzzier, somehow. With the women, I’d jumped right to the good part, all of us naked, horizontal, going to town. Trying to imagine myself with Ryan, I couldn’t get much past where we were there, in the restaurant, eating our lunch. But then I thought about reaching across the table, running my fingers across the skin of his hand, and it didn’t feel wrong. I got a flash of the two of us standing up against a wall, Ryan pulling his shirt off over his head, exposing all that warm, golden skin, and I felt a familiar stir of arousal in my gut. Damn. That probably meant something.
“You okay, man?” Ryan was looking at me curiously. Still no pressure, just calm and accepting.
“Is this a date?” I blurted it out, and instantly felt like an idiot. “I mean - well, yeah, is it?”
Ryan gave me an amused look. “I don’t know - you paying?”
“That was supposed to be a thank you, for the chair.”
“Okay.” Ryan shrugged like he was fine either way.
“Yeah, but - what did you think it was?”
“I thought you were straight, man. Dan told me you were dating Robyn.” He looked like he was deciding how much more to say. “But then - yeah, I don’t know, I thought I was getting a bit of a vibe. Was I wrong?”
Pretty good question. I could have lied, but I wanted to be honest. I was looking for any help I could get, in figuring all this out. “I don’t know. I mean - I’m straight. You were right. But - yeah, maybe there was a bit of a vibe. Is that weird?”
“I’m pretty irresistible, really.” Ryan leaned back in his chair and smiled smugly. “I have this effect on a lot of people.”
I snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m serious, man. It’s a burden. I mean - I don’t want to disappoint you all, but there’s only so much Ryan to go around.” His eyes were dancing, and if we’d been somewhere private, if I’d been a couple feet closer to him, I think I might have tried to kiss him. I’d felt that way about Danny, a few times, but I’d always just hit him or given him a noogie or something, and the urge had gone away.
Ryan was still relaxed, but I was starting to freak out. Things were happening way too fast. I’d thought about this, sure, the same way I’d thought about what to save if my apartment caught on fire, or whether my nephew was going to be better at basketball or baseball. Idly wondering about something was not the same as making a plan. Not even close.
I drained my glass of beer. “Okay. I need to get going. It was nice to spend time with you, though. And thanks a lot for your help with the chair. That was great. Thanks.” I stood up, hoping that would make me stop talking, but I had no luck. “So, I’ll get the bill on the way out. And I’ll see you around. Good luck with the writing, and everything. The recording, and...”
“Chris.” Ryan looked like he was wondering about my mental health. “It’s fine, man. Calm down. It’s not a big deal.”
I forced myself to take a deep breath. “Yeah. Right, sorry. I just freaked out a little bit, there.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” He stood up easily. “I can pay my share, if it’ll help you be okay with this.”
“No! No, it was a thank you. Seriously. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” He smiled and headed slowly toward the door. “It was nice to get to know you, man. I’ll see you around.”
I had to keep myself from following after him. Instead, I walked to the cash register and paid the bill. By the time I made it out to the sidewalk, Ryan was out of sight, and I wasn’t sure whether I was sorry or relieved.