You & Me

I had nothing to wear that would look classy and sophisticated enough for Juice & Butter.

After Landon left, I tore through my closet, discarding old polo shirts and button-downs into a heap. When I was finished, I had a bunch of swinging hangers on an empty closet pole, a lot of clothes I hated on my floor, and still nothing to wear.

Landon texted Sunday night while I was throwing together a chicken casserole for Emmet. He thanked me again for letting him crash at my place, said the ride to the airport with Bethany and Bowen was fine, and sent a picture of him and Bowen eating burgers on his back patio.

I took a picture of my casserole—chicken breasts and a few cans of vegetables dumped into a dish with biscuit mix on top to give it a crust—and told him he won.

My plan was to slip out at lunch on Monday and run to the mall to buy a new shirt, but Lakshmaan cornered me Monday morning and reminded me we had our monthly catch-up lunch that afternoon.

“Can we push it to tomorrow?” I really needed to hit the mall, and, more than that, I was exhausted. I wasn’t at my best after tossing and turning all night Sunday.

Lakshmaan was a great boss, but he liked details, liked to talk out our strategies, liked to create intricate structures of goals for the next thirty days. I didn’t know if I could deliver.

He eyed me. “Are you all right, Luke? You’ve been rushing out of here, and some days, you seem a little lost. Everything okay?”

A year ago, when Riley died, Lakshmaan came to our old house with his wife, Aarti, and helped me clean the place from top to bottom. He never tried to chat, he just helped me tape boxes together. He carried loads to his car and drove them to Goodwill. Aarti stocked my fridge with food, enough for a grieving man and boy, who were only picking at food, to live on for a month. He took over my accounts at the office until I dragged myself back two weeks later. He kept working on them for another two weeks while I stared at the walls and tried to reframe my world.

We’d only known each other for three years, and in all that time, I’d never seen him socially. Our encounters were limited to the office, business lunches, and his swooping in to save me when there was no one and I had nothing and Emmet and I were shattered and alone. We never spoke about what he did.

“I’m good,” I told him. “I’ve been volunteering at Emmet’s high school. They work the parents hard, and I’m tired.”

That was true, but it also wasn’t. I’d stayed up half the night for a whole different reason.

Lakshmaan lit up like a firework. His eyes sparkled, and his smile stretched his face almost to breaking. “Your son! Fantastic! Are you and Emmet working things out?”

He’d heard my son sobbing behind his closed bedroom door for three days straight. He’d heard Emmet curse me out, scream himself hoarse, tell me he hated his life, hated the world, hated everything in it. Emmet had stopped just short of saying he hated me, but the words hung unspoken between us.

After that, Emmet had stopped speaking to me. Until now. “It’s a work in progress.”

Lakshmaan squeezed my shoulder and gave me another big smile. “We’ll catch up tomorrow. Let’s talk about the Brookings account. We need to keep them on our books.”

“I’m going to work on them today.” My head was pounding. I needed another cup of coffee.

“We’ll figure it out. Bring your best ideas tomorrow.”

I clawed my way through the morning and escaped at lunch to the mall. I always retreated to the basics: khakis, wide-leg jeans, square polos. Button-downs that were a size too large and swallowed my figure. Part of me was still stuck in the baggy clothes era, when I’d hidden how gangly I was with layers of black fabric. Black jeans, black Henley, black T-shirt, black hoodie on top of that. Black boots. Black hair dye.

The colors had changed, but the bagginess hadn’t. I looked like Beaker from the Muppets on a good day.

Everything I’d thrown on the floor yesterday was baggy or shapeless or old. I wanted something new, something different, but I had no idea where to begin.

The mall was no help. That store was too young, with clothes for Emmet and kids his age, or that store was too stuffy, with clothes for my dad and his retiree friends. He’d moved to Phoenix to golf three hundred and sixty five days a year after my mom passed away. It was all Bermuda shorts and tropical shirts for him. Dressing up was a linen Hawaiian shirt and shorts, hold the sun visor.

I ended up in one of the department stores. Clothes for every stage of a man’s life circled me: waddling toddlers, rough-and-tumble kids, angsty teenagers, hungry young professionals, cranky old professionals, give up grandpas. I wandered the racks, pulling out shirts and putting them back. What did a middle-aged man buy when he wanted to look better than the rut he’d ended up in? What did better even look like?

Landon wore suits. I saw his jacket carefully folded in his back seat next to his briefcase after the team dinners. I spotted a Saint Laurent logo once. Tom Ford, too.

He had a body for suits. Put me in a suit and I looked like a kid on stilts wearing their dad’s clothes. Maybe I could make a fitted shirt work, if they came in sizes as narrow as I was. I flipped through the racks, discarding one shirt after the other.

Across the aisle, a pile of square polos winked at me. You know we never let you down.

Blessedly, Cheri, one of the sales assistants, found me before I threw up the white flag. I told her I wanted something new, something sophisticated.

An upgrade, she said, eyeing me from head to toe.

I screwed on a smile. Sure. An upgrade.

An hour later, Cheri had found four slim-fit button-downs and three new pairs of pants for me. The pants fit close to my body. I’d never had something show off my butt like that, and I stared at myself in the mirror. Did I look like a frog that had stood up and forgotten his ass somewhere? Or did those long lines look all right when they weren’t covered up and lost in fabric?

“You look good,” Cheri said when she caught me chasing my own reflection. Her eyes gleamed. She was gorgeous herself, warm brown skin, heaps of dark, tight curls piled on her head, a fitted suit dress that hugged all her voluptuous curves. High heels that made her legs look carved out of granite and silk.

Looking like that, she was someone I should trust about these kinds of things.

Cheri threw in two long-sleeve slim sweaters that looked like they’d fit a ten-year-old—“They’ll cling to your body and show off only the best parts”—and a chunky turtleneck.

“You’re going to knock her socks off,” Cheri said as she handed me my bag. I stared at her, confused, wondering if someone had slipped up behind me. “For your date.” She smiled. “She’s going to love your new look. Good luck.”

I retreated instead of correcting her. No, ma’am, this is not a date. My friend and I are grabbing a glass of wine. He’s way too sophisticated for me, and I don’t want to embarrass him when we’re out at his wine bar. Scruffy-looking at a sports bar was one thing, but I didn’t want people to look at us and think Landon was taking out someone less fortunate, like an adult version of Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

The afternoon crawled by. My thoughts were like lightning, zip-zapping from one to the other. What should I wear? What was Landon going to wear? What was he doing today? Ten to one, I bet he wasn’t anxious about making a fool of himself like I was.

I almost texted him just to get my mind off my racing thoughts, but… I didn’t.

I was too fidgety, too wired from the caffeine I’d downed to keep myself from collapsing. Too pumped on nerves. I bailed from the office as soon as the clock struck five and headed into rush-hour traffic. Inch forward, brake, inch forward, brake.

It all passed in a blink, and when I came back to myself, I was pulling into the grocery store parking lot. Milk. That’s right. Buy milk. And dinner for Emmet. I stared at the chicken and couldn’t think of a single thing to make. Whatever. I could order a pizza for him when I got home. My stomach was too sour from the gallon of coffee I drank to want food.

I couldn’t concentrate at home. I tried to sit on the couch, but a moment later, I leapt off and ended up cleaning the kitchen until the sponge was squeaking with every scrub. The house was too quiet, even with Emmet’s music pouring down the stairs. My gaze drifted over the half bottle of wine left on the counter. I had eleven Netflix shows Landon had added to my list. I could curl up in the corner, just like he had, and start on one with a glass of carménère.

But who would I turn to during the gasp moments? Who could I talk to about camera angles and the color palettes’ influence on the show’s mood and theme? I padded from my empty kitchen to my empty living room and stared at the dark TV.

Instead of turning anything on, I decided to go to bed early. Surely I’d pass out. I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before. But, again, I tossed and turned, and when 3:00 a.m. hit, I was staring at the ceiling and rubbing my gritty, aching eyes. Bet Landon is sleeping just fine.

I rolled over and groaned. What was it about Landon? Why did my friend occupy so many of my thoughts?

He got under my skin in all the best ways. I wasn’t an effusive man by nature. I had an artist’s distance from the world, observing rather than participating. Most of the time, it seemed like there was cling film between me and everyone else, or like I was shouting through water to try to communicate. I never knew what to say or what to do, so instead, I kept my mouth shut, but with Landon…

He was the easiest person to be around that I’d ever met. He’d burrowed into my life and set himself up like he had always been a part of my world. We were a puzzle made of two pieces, and when we fit together, all the sharp edges of life seemed squared off, blunted.

He wasn’t just a breath of fresh air. He’d blown into my life like a tornado.

Being near each other was like being trapped in a magnetic field, pulling me to him, him to me.

Was he like this with everyone he met? Did he exude warmth and wonderfulness, captivate anyone who spun into his orbit?

How the fuck was he single?

On Tuesday, Lakshmaan scraped my brain clean at lunch. We emerged with headaches, plans of action, and to-do lists that went down to the floor.

All afternoon, I was as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Spreadsheets swam in front of me. I couldn’t make sense of the numbers. Emails hit my inbox, and I read them and forgot everything. I stared at my mouse for a full five minutes.

Finally I escaped, leaving before the worst of rush-hour traffic built up. I made it home in record time, and even after showering, shaving, and putting more effort into my hair than I had in… God, too long, I still had an hour to kill before meeting Landon.

I paced. I perched on the edge of my bed and checked my phone. No texts from Landon all day. We were still on, right? Of course we were. Landon would have said something if we weren’t. Everything was fine.

Except for my hair. I’d run my hands through it so much the gel I’d used had failed. My hair looked like a mess again, rumpled and disheveled, but not in a cool way. Not like Landon’s hair looked after a Friday night game. I glared at my reflection and debated starting over.

Fuck it. I was going like this. If I tried to fix it, I’d probably make my hair worse. I grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys, and headed out. I was an hour early, but it was a bar, right? There had to be someplace I could hang and wait for Landon. Maybe I could order a shot and chill myself out.

Juice & Butter was twenty minutes away, in the upscale part of our neighboring town. I thought it would be something new and ultra-modern, but when I pulled in at the pin Google dropped, I was outside of a historic Victorian mansion built on a low hill overlooking a field of longhorns.

Little enclaves like this were all around Dallas-Fort Worth. This area used to be nothing but ranches, until the spreads were carved up and sold off to developing towns. Streets and neighborhoods and elementary schools all over the metroplex were named after big ranching families that used to own the land. This mansion, and the land and longhorns surrounding it, came from one of those families.

The Victorian was deep blue with white gingerbread trim and red accents and had a raised porch that hugged it on all sides. Bistro tables were scattered outside like jacks, spread to provide bubbles of privacy. Unlit candles waited on the tabletops. My boots echoed against the old wood as I walked inside.

Old homes were usually cramped, but someone had knocked down the interior walls to create an open space that ran from one side of the Victorian to the other. The back walls had been converted into floor-to-ceiling wine racks.

More bistro tables filled the floor, and beneath the windows, velvet-covered cuddlers huddled behind wooden tables. The candles inside the mansion were lit, and the overhead lights were low. A warm glow filled the space, turned the corners into silk and shadows.

On my right, there was a bar. Bingo.

Wine bottles lined a mirrored wall, with stemware stacked into glittering pyramids. I veered to the empty end of the bar, grasped the back of a chair, and hooked the heel of my boot over the bottom rung. My hands were clammy. Sweat seeped into the emerald velvet of the chairback.

“Luke?”

Landon. I twisted—

There he was, wineglass in hand. He’d been at the other end, ordering his own glass of fortification. His eyes were wide, his lips parted. He seemed frozen, stunned speechless.

“Hey.” Relief warred with a sudden rush of nerves.

I was right: he did look phenomenal.

He was in a suit and a burgundy button-down, but everything looked like it had been cut for him alone, like someone had sewn the suit around him as he stood and waited. His sleeves curved around the swell of his biceps and the width of his shoulders. His shirt followed the taper of his waist, not a millimeter of extra fabric bunching over his hips. He probably wore a tie every day, but he wasn’t wearing one now. Instead, he’d unbuttoned his top button, and his Adam’s apple bobbed over the dark fabric, almost the same shade as the wine in his glass.

I should have worn a jacket. No, I shouldn’t have bothered trying to look nicer. He outshone me. He outshone everyone in this place.

“You look great!” Landon sounded breathless as he strode to me.

I waved at him. “So do you.”

“You’re early.” Landon downed a healthy swallow of whatever was in his glass.

“So are you.” I smiled as he chuckled, caught out. “What are you drinking?”

“A zinfandel.” He slid the glass toward me. “Try, if you want.”

The zinfandel was smoother than the carménère. It went down easier, too, but it didn’t have the same punch to my brain. I nodded as I slid it back. “Not bad.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I liked your wine better. That was just all right.”

“I, uhh, made reservations for six,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “But we could probably be seated now, if you want?”

“Sure.”

The hostess led us to one of the couples’ tables along the far wall. It was in a nook created by a half wall and a pillar, private and nearly hidden from sight. I plopped down on the right side of the cuddler as Landon turned to the hostess and asked for a different table.

“Um.” The hostess looked from Landon to me and back.

“This is fine,” I said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, are you okay with it?”

“Yeah.” His eyes were saucers. “Sure.”

He put a healthy distance between us when he sat on the cuddler. As far as he could get, really. One of his thighs might have been hanging off the edge.

We were given novel-sized menus to peruse and told our server would be with us shortly.

I couldn’t begin to make sense of the words before me. My mind was too captivated by the way the candlelight from our table bounced off Landon’s features. How the glow caressed his skin, carved his cheek and his jaw out of russet and gold. Light and dark and beauty played tag with each other. My hands itched for a pencil and a pad of paper.

“So what are you think—” Landon’s voice died as he turned to me. He looked over his shoulder. “What is it? What are you looking at?”

“Sorry, I, uhh—” I flipped the pages of the menu like a fan. “I don’t know where to start.”

“I was thinking about ordering some wine flights.” His eyebrows rose. “Get a few different ones, let you try out a bunch of varietals? See what you like?”

“Awesome.” I flipped my menu closed. It thudded like a Bible. “Do they have carménère here?”

He grinned. “They do.”

My fingers curled. I needed to seize these moments, freeze time until I could capture the shape of his smile by candlelight on paper. The way his eyes gleamed. The little dimple in his chin and his right cheek.

“Let’s get that, too.”

Our server appeared. Landon ordered three wine flights, two glasses of carménère, and a large cheese board, something that sounded beguiling and French. He took another large gulp of his zinfandel and then held it out to me with a question in his eyes. I shook my head. He downed the rest and set the empty glass at the edge of the table.

We made small talk about our days and how Bowen and Emmet were doing. He worked in corporate law and had a boutique practice that catered to the clients who had followed him after he left his Utah firm. He’d been working with those same clients for over a decade, knew their businesses inside and out. I admired that longevity and the relationships he’d built. My work wasn’t nearly as interesting, and I tried to shift the topic back to Landon or to Bowen. Anything but me.

Landon hesitated. He didn’t pick up the baton of our conversational relay like usual. “Luke, I wanted to ask you something.”

I’d found a seam to pick on the inside of my pants beneath the table. My thumb worried over the spot. “Mmhmm?”

“We talk a lot—” Landon started.

“You’re very easy to talk to.”

A flush crawled up the side of his neck. “So are you, and I end up talking a lot about myself. I’ve told you things I have never told anyone else. I think sometimes I could tell you everything.”

“You probably could.” I turned toward him and pulled my ankle up over my knee. “I like hearing about your life. I like talking to you.”

He played with the menu, pushing it left and right and then back again. The flush on his neck had circled forward and dipped into the hollow of his throat. “I wanted to say…” He hesitated. His eyes flicked up, and our gazes locked. “I’m happy to listen if you wanted to talk about anything.”

I stopped breathing. Over the past year, anything had become a euphemism for your wife’s death. Can I help you with anything? Do you want to talk about anything? I bit down on the inside of my cheek and dropped my gaze. Studied the lines in the velvet on the six inches that spread between us. “I don’t,” I forced out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Landon didn’t move, but I felt him pull away from me like a wave receding from shore. He played with the menu again, straightened his empty glass. The light had dimmed in his eyes. “That’s fine,” he said. “I wanted to offer.”

“I’m not ready,” I blurted out. “Those memories are…” Treacherous. Deep waters filled those corners. I’d drowned in that darkness for over a year, and since I’d met Landon, I’d started crawling my way to shore.

I wasn’t ready to go back to that place. Not yet. I was only just beginning to breathe again. “When I’m with you, all of that fades away. I can breathe when we’re together. I feel normal again, and I want to hold on to that.” He’d turned back to me, looking into my eyes. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.”

“I’ll tell you,” I promised. “But right now, this is perfect.”

He nodded. He shifted, too, mirroring how I’d turned in to him. He crossed his legs and angled his body to mine, hooked his elbow over the back of the booth. Propped the side of his head on the tips of his fingers. “I still want to know more about you. Tell me about your art?”

“I want to draw you right now.” The words tumbled out of me. “Exactly this moment, exactly where you are.”

I squinted, taking in the lines of him, the way his suit blended into the darkness. How his eyes were wide and his lips were full, a swollen chrysanthemum blooming in the sun. The tabletop candle flickered, and the shadows thrown on his skin looked like fingertips were caressing the line of his neck before disappearing into his open collar.

“I haven’t drawn in years,” I said. “It’s been ages since I’ve even wanted to. I used to look at the world and want to grab everything I saw. Put down on paper the feelings that had built into each perfect moment. Emmet smiling up at me, or the way he curled up on his side and how the nightlight hit his cheek when he slept. I used to watch him in his crib and draw for hours. He probably heard the scratch of my pencil in his baby dreams.” I smiled. “But it was at the game last week…”

My voice trailed off. Those seconds flashed back: Bowen’s throw, the catch in the end zone. Emmet taking the field, dead center in the middle of the stadium and haloed by those huge lights and the soaring crowd. Landon cheering beside me.

“It all came back, and now these moments are flying by me and I feel like I need to grab them again.”

“And you want to draw me?” Confusion rippled across his forehead.

“I want to try, but I don’t think I can capture everything that you are. I could only capture parts of you. If I could sketch you right this moment, I’d come close.”

The candle flickered again, moving on my words and Landon’s sharp inhale.

“You’re classically handsome. You have the face that all men want,” I said, grinning at him. “But there’s so much more to you. Your looks would be empty on anyone else. It’s who you are that fills everything in.”

I was rambling now. Full speed on a wild tear. “I can see your dedication in the lines of your face. Your work ethic in the cut of your jaw. I know you love life when I see you smile, and even when you’re not smiling, the laugh lines show you’d rather be. I know you’re a father when I look into your eyes, and I know you’re a good one when I see those eyes are kind. When you’re you, you light up, and all these different parts of you combine, and everything that you are bursts free. You’re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.”

Landon hadn’t breathed since I started stringing words together. This was why I didn’t open my mouth. I came at the world differently, obtuse angles where people wanted square. How was Landon going to take being told he made an artist’s withered creativity want to live again?

“Here you are, gentlemen.” A cheese board appeared, lowered between us to the table.

Landon tore his eyes from mine and straightened. He cleared his throat, grabbed hold of one of the glasses of carménère the server was passing over. He gulped it down, two huge swallows all at once.

I spun my wineglass on the table and folded up my artist’s easel in my mind.

In front of us, the wine flights looked like a chemistry set, little wineglasses in place of test tubes. Our server spoke to Landon, identifying one flight as the Crush, one as the Drop. A third as the Terror. I knew enough, at least, to know that was a play on words.

“I’m sorry,” I said when our server finally left after Landon assured him, several times, that we were fine. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t. I’ve never— No one has ever—” He tipped his head, stared at me. “That was the most beautiful way I’ve heard anyone described. But you can’t be describing me. You can’t be.”

Relief was a physical thing that grew inside me. I smiled. “I am.”

Landon shifted focus, busying himself with passing me a mini glass of wine from the first flight. He described the flavors, how it was supposed to feel on my tongue, what I was supposed to smell and taste. “It’s only a sip,” he said. “It’s not a shot.”

I drank half and then held out the taster for him to finish. The wine was pleasant. A little flat. A little boring. “What’s next?”

He’d started me on the lighter wines and moved me through progressively darker and more intense varietals. I liked each one better and better, until we got to the Terror flight, which I loved.

“I can’t believe you like these.” Landon laughed, and he downed the second half of a petite sirah I’d tried and proclaimed my second favorite behind Landon’s carménère. “It takes ages for someone to be able to drink these bolder wines. Most beginners start with white.”

“Hey, I’m not a beginner,” I protested. “I have a deep bedrock of wine coolers inside me.”

“Don’t forget the boxed wine.”

We were facing each other. Those six inches between us had shrunk. We were almost side by side. He’d hooked his elbow on the back of the booth again, and I was twisted so he was all I saw. I’d rolled up my sleeves, too, and the dark lines of my tattoo glimmered in the low candlelight.

Landon’s gaze dropped to my forearm. He reached out and traced the curling lines of waves breaking around my forearm. Goosebumps rose in the wake of his finger. “Tell me about this?”

“What’s there to tell?” I shrugged. “I was a bad boy, or I wanted to be. I got this the summer before I turned eighteen. I thought it was artsy and evocative.” He tsk-tsked teasingly. “Imagine all of this—” I waved down my skinny body. “—but about fifty pounds lighter and with a hundred pounds more attitude.”

Landon tipped his head sideways, laying his cheek against his bicep, and laughed. God, I loved that sound.

“I was counter everything,” I said. “Counterculture, counter-establishment. I was running hot and wild. I thought I needed to feel life in its most raw form to be a real artist, and I didn’t think growing up in the suburbs was going to give me that experience.” I laughed at myself. “I chased what I thought was life with pot and wine coolers and going wild in the boonies. My friends and I would drag race our mom’s minivans when they were foolish enough to let us have the keys.” Landon was trying to hold back his snorts of laughter. “I was awful. I was absolutely not your type.”

He played with a velvet-covered button on the bench between us. He was still smiling. He hadn’t stopped smiling for an hour. “I don’t know, that sounds kind of adorable.”

“I wasn’t adorable at all.”

“It’s hard to imagine you like that.”

“Because I’m such a bad boy now with my insurance sales job and my kid in high school?” Another laugh from Landon. My heart was a bird about to take flight in my chest. I spun my wineglass to hide how my hands were trembling. “Fatherhood changed me. Once Emmet was born, I found everything I had been searching for in my arms. I could get lost in the swell of his cheek and the smell of his hair. It was the cuddles and the laughs and the moments we shared that took me over the edge of happiness. All I wanted was a happy life with my family.”

I’d wanted the couch and Netflix and a neck to lay a kiss on. I wanted to lose myself in the familiar, bask in the life I’d built with my partner. I wanted certainty and forever and gentle love.

“You’re right. Fatherhood changed me more than anything else has.” Landon pulled his finger from my arm. I felt the loss of his touch like a brand being removed. “Your tattoo is beautiful.”

We were so close. I could see the shift and twist of candlelight on his skin, where the shadows and glow played peekaboo in the hollow of his throat. I could feel his breath ghosting against my face, smell the traces of his cologne. It was clean and bright, just like him. Beneath that, there was something warmer, richer. Something that was all Landon.

That flush was back on his skin, dusting his cheeks and dipping beneath his collar.

I was close enough to count his eyelashes and name every shade that flickered inside of his irises.

If I tipped my head, our cheeks would brush. If he uncurled his arm, he could lay his fingers against my neck.

I twirled my wineglass on my knee, spinning, spinning, spinning. I needed to move. I needed to back away. Wine ran hot in my veins and blurred my thoughts. I’d had two glasses between all the ounces I’d shared with Landon, but I felt like I’d been plunged into a barrel and guzzled a gallon.

I hadn’t torn my eyes from Landon’s gaze in twenty minutes.

“Landon?” A woman’s voice broke through my haze. “Luke?”

Landon jerked like he’d taken a cattle prod to the small of his back. Those six inches opened between us as he slid violently across the cuddler. I forced my head to turn.

Annie stared down at our little nook. Her eyes darted from Landon to me and then to our litter of wineglasses and to the remnants of the cheese board we’d shared.

“Annie!” Landon hauled himself out of the booth and stood before her.

“Am I interrupting?” Annie stared hard at Landon as she grasped his forearm.

Landon gave her an almost imperceptible head shake. “No, not at all. We were just talking. Do you want to join us?” His flush had vanished, and now he looked pale, ghost white as he glanced once at me and then away. His hand squeezed her elbow before dropping.

“No, no.” Annie waved her hand, gave a little laugh. “No, I was just leaving. Me and some girlfriends were grabbing a drink. I didn’t see you guys on my way in.”

“They put us out of the way.” I finally contributed to the conversation. An obvious statement, but it was all I could drag up from my misfiring brain.

“I’ll say.” Annie laughed a little too hard. Landon said nothing. “Well, I’m heading out,” she said after a moment. “It’s late. Past my bedtime.”

Shit, what time was it? I hadn’t thought of anything but Landon since we’d slid into the booth. My phone said 9:29 p.m. Practice was almost over.

“Let me walk you out.” Landon laid his hand on Annie’s back and turned her toward the door. “I’ll be right back, Luke.”

Reality sank in by degrees. The table, the dark nook, our candle almost burned to the nub. The dim lights of the restaurant, the little tables full of couples. I saw one couple lean in for a kiss. Another was holding hands.

Our server appeared and started clearing our glasses and pulling away the cheese board. In moments, the table was bare, all evidence of Landon’s and my evening banished. I stared at a ring of red wine that had slipped around the base of one of our glasses. His or mine, I couldn’t tell. The buzz I’d had from our flights was gone. My thoughts were slipping and sliding. Everything felt numb, like there was a plate of glass between me and the rest of the world.

“Hey.” Landon reappeared. He didn’t sit. He stood across from me, his hands in his suit pants. A chill blew off him like he’d spent time outside. The heat I’d felt emanating from his skin only minutes ago was a memory. Or had I imagined all of that? “I paid. I didn’t realize it was getting so late.” He rocked on his heels. “I got a text from Bowen. He and Emmet were going to grab smoothies after practice. You probably want to get home before he does?” His voice rose.

His face was open but blank. Eyes wide but sheltered. Everything about him hidden.

“Yeah.” I pushed myself to my feet. I felt ridiculous all over again. “Thank you. This was…” What did I even say? I tried to smile. “Fun.”

We walked out side by side, but there was space between us now. I brushed against his shoulder, and his elbow ran into mine, but I couldn’t feel him anymore. All the vibrancy, the energy of him, the spark that dazzled me, seemed dimmer now. Subdued.

Our footsteps faltered at the base of the porch. He pointed behind him to a paved lot beneath an oak tree. “I parked over there.”

I was on the other side, on the gravel with the trucks. In Texas, sports cars took the paved lots, and trucks hit the gravel. “I’m that way.”

“I’m glad you had a good time.” He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “And I’m glad we found out you like a mourvèdre and a petite sirah.”

“I still like the carménère best.”

His smile grew, almost became real. “Good night, Luke. Drive safe.”

“Night. Thanks again.”

The streetlights waxed and waned across my dash as I drove home. Light, dark, light, dark. It reminded me of Landon by candlelight. I stomped on the gas at the next green light.

Something had shifted, something had changed, but I didn’t know what. There was a fizzle hanging in the air, like the feeling you get when a firework whistles and fails to ignite. All you can do is stare at the empty night sky where there should have been glory.

I jerked into the grocery store parking lot and ducked inside. I moved on autopilot, buying milk, going through the self-checkout, swiping my card.

Emmet’s duffel and flip-flops weren’t on the living room floor when I got home. I dropped the milk in the fridge and trudged upstairs to my bedroom.

I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror as I undressed.

The echo of Landon’s finger still brushed the inside of my forearm and over the lines of my tattoo.

Emmet arrived as I changed into boxers and a T-shirt. I left my door open and lay down in bed, listened to my son move through the house. I heard the peanut butter jar open. Heard him run the faucet and then slide his spoon into the dishwasher.

My eyes closed. I didn’t like this feeling inside me. This upside-down, inside-out feeling. I didn’t know what to do with this. What to think, what to do.

The waves of my troubled soul tried to pull me back out to that turbulent, treacherous sea.

Knocking on my bedroom door made me sit up. Emmet was there. He frowned. What was I doing lying on my back and staring at the ceiling? Wasn’t this angst reserved for teenagers only? “Dad? You okay?”

“I’m good.” I squeezed my eyes closed. Popped them open. Part of me wanted to drop. Another part of me was climbing the walls of my brain. “Just tired. I’ve had a long week.”

“You know it’s only Tuesday, right?”

Jesus, it was. I’d had enough emotional ups and downs to last a month. I scrubbed my hand through my hair. My fingers caught in the last remnants of the gel I’d applied hours before. How ridiculous had I truly looked, trying too hard? I sighed. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Emmet frowned at me again. “Um, what’s with all the milk, Dad? There’s, like, three gallons in the fridge.”

I blinked. Stared at my son, this wondrous creation of mine. I love my son, I love my son. Damn it, Landon filled every single one of my thoughts, even—especially—when he wasn’t there. “The milk is for you,” I said. “I have faith that you can drink it all, Em.”

He glared at the doorframe and played with the catch. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“’Kay.” He drifted back to his room and shut his door.

I brushed my teeth and splashed water over my face. Combed out the gel. The towel Landon had used that weekend was still hanging on my rack. I pulled it down and threw it in my hamper.

A text was waiting for me when I crawled back into bed. Landon. My heart started pounding as I swiped to open it. Get home safe?

Yeah, all good.

Cool.

Silence. I refreshed my screen three times. Waited. Nothing.

I flipped off my light and dropped my phone on the nightstand.

Vibration. I lunged for my phone and dragged it to me as I swiped on the screen.

I meant to ask you tonight. Would you and Emmet like to come with Bowen and me to the State Fair on Friday?

Isn’t there a game?

No, Friday is the bye week. There’s no school either. Bowen and I usually go to the fair on bye week, and I thought you guys might like to come with us?

I should know my son’s school schedule. Was it good or bad parenting if I texted my son two rooms away? Was I being respectful of his space or just a lazy bastard? I hauled myself out of bed and padded down the hall. “Em?”

His music stopped. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to go to the State Fair with Bowen and Landon on Friday?”

A pause. “Are you coming, too?”

The trick question. Yes or no? Which answer would he prefer? If it were anything else, I’d let him have his choice. But this was Landon, and I wanted to go. “Yes.”

Another pause. “Yeah. That sounds cool.”

“’Kay.”

We’re in, I texted.

Great. We’ll pick you up at 1 p.m.

I sank back into my bed and laid my phone on my chest. It didn’t vibrate again.

At 2:00 a.m., I rose and flipped on the light. In my sock drawer, shoved way in the back, was a battered sketchbook I hadn’t cracked open in eleven years. The last drawing I’d done was of Emmet. He was six years old and running away from me, decked out in his uniform and helmet as he ran down the field.

I’d drawn him like I was saying goodbye, even then.

I crawled into bed and propped the sketchbook open on my knee. My pencil hovered over the page, swift strokes cutting the air as I replayed the evening in my mind. I felt rusty, out of practice. Could I pull anything to life again?

My strokes gentled when my pencil hit the page. I could only tease this out. Trying to hold on to our moment was like trying to cling to smoke and shadow.

I shaded and shaded, darkening a negative space before carving out the shape of his eyes and the angle of his jaw. The bloom of his lips curling upward, a smile forming. His hair tousled, falling over his forehead. That triangle of skin at the hollow of his throat. I filled in his eyes last, stroking, smudging. A flicker of light, the reflection of an unseen candle. Shades of graphite to simulate all the shades of brown and gold and sunshine he carried in his gaze. Brown was never just brown. Nothing was skin-deep with Landon.

A predawn glow oozed through my blinds when my pencil finally lifted. The edges of the paper were curling, heavy with shading. In the center, Landon stared at me, his face thrown in profile. I couldn’t tell if he was sinking into the darkness or emerging from it.

Was I chasing after him into that unknown? Or was I caught forever outside the page, Landon only half-seen, half-discovered? Where did the rest of the picture lead?

I shut the sketchbook as sunrise climbed my bedroom walls.