Chapter 12

So,he'd gone and blurted it out. No going back now. Unless, of course, Dan declined.

Dan stared at him with a deer-in-the-headlights-of-an-Amtrak-train expression. "Um."

"There's no right or wrong answer. Do you want to?"

Dan's nod was shaky, then grew more definitive. "I do." He kept nodding without actually moving. "If you want me to."

"I do. That's why I asked. It wasn't a survey."

"Right. Let me get the—hang on." He clambered off the bed and hurried over to his bag.

Joel tugged the top sheet aside so their legs wouldn't tangle in it but also to have something to do in these moments between Yes and YES.

Dan returned to the bed, pulling a box of condoms out of a plastic shopping bag.

So he'd bought new ones for their reunion. This small gesture gave Joel a warm rush in his chest.

Dan yanked out a strip, tore one off, then dropped the box onto the nightstand. "Is that position okay, or would you rather?—"

"Wait." Joel looked at the condom in Dan's hand, then down at the nightstand, the surface of which lacked an important item. "Did you forget something?"

"Huh?"

"I don't know about your ass, but mine is definitely not self-lubricating."

Dan's eyes popped wide. "Shit! They didn't sell that at the rest stop I bought these at." He picked up the condom box and peered inside, maybe hoping it was one of those combo packs with a convenient travel-size lube tube. "Or maybe they did, and I didn't see it because I'm an idiot." He dropped the wrapped condom onto the nightstand, then slumped onto the edge of the bed. "Sorry I'm so new at this."

"Don't be sorry." He swung his legs around to sit beside Dan, pressing their shoulders together. "I love being your first-ish. And it's okay if we don't do everything."

"But you just said you wanted to."

"I did. I do!"

He still did, right? Now that he'd had a moment to cool off, things felt complicated again.

"Is there an all-night drugstore we could go to?"

"Possibly." There was that place off Cedar Lane he sometimes stopped at on the way home from the community college.

"Great!" Dan started to get up, then sat back down. "But what would that look like, two guys waltzing into Walgreens at one a.m., buying nothing but lube?"

Joel smiled, his angst derailed by the image of them literally waltzing through Walgreens' automatic doors, dressed in tuxedos and top hats.

"We could buy other stuff as camouflage," Dan said. "I wouldn't mind more beer."

"Regular stores don't sell alcohol in Maryland. Remember?"

Dan furrowed his brow. "Wait. I do remember." He touched both temples, as though coaxing the memories to the front of his mind. "I remember being at that 7-Eleven, wandering the snack aisles…" he gave a breathless laugh "…stoned out of our gourds."

"I'll never forget you yelling, ‘Where's the beer?' at the top of your lungs despite the fact you were obviously underage."

Dan seemed to be scanning the curtained window, as though his memories were being projected onto it. "And you were trying to do basic math in your head to figure out if we had enough snack money. It's coming back to me now." He sighed. "I can't believe I forgot so much about that day."

"You were pretty wasted. And what happened later probably blotted out a lot of it." He took Dan's hand. "Not to bring up a painful subject."

Dan shook his head. "It's weird. Until I saw you again today, all I remembered clearly were three things: listening to The Cure, us dancing in the meadow, and…" he turned to meet Joel's gaze "…what it felt like to be with you."

A thousand words stuck in Joel's throat, each clawing to be the first released. But it wasn't his time to speak.

Dan continued. "Two of those memories were so specific—like closeup photos—and the third was like a background landscape, the kind you get lost in if you look at it too long." He let out the softest laugh. "That was a really good day before it was a really bad day."

Joel squeezed his hand to show he agreed.

"It pisses me off," Dan said, "those memories being tied up together, meeting you and losing my dad. It made both of you bigger and smaller at the same time." His shoulders twitched in an almost-shrug. "You asked the other reason I came. Maybe I wanted to see you again to untangle it all. I wanted to make new memories of someone who meant a lot to me, even though we only knew each other for a few hours seventeen years ago. I needed to see if our connection was real, or if I'd just been a stupid kid imagining things."

"So, mission accomplished?"

Dan nodded slowly. "Turns out my imagination isn't as wild as I thought."

Joel waited a moment, until it felt okay to flirt again. "I bet it's pretty wild, though."

"Maybe." He gave Joel a soft kiss on his forehead. "Not to change the subject, but I need to brush my teeth. I'm still tasting the scallions from those potato skins, and it's not fair to make you taste them too."

"I don't mind."

"You picked the scallions off the ones you ate."

He'd noticed? How could someone so beautiful also be so fucking terrific?

Dan headed to the bathroom with his shaving kit, a rugged-looking, no-nonsense brown vinyl container.

With him gone, the room felt chilly, so Joel got up and retrieved a T-shirt and pajama pants from his overnight bag.

Dan came out of the bathroom as Joel was pulling his faded black Free Winona T-shirt over his head. "You're getting dressed?"

"Doesn't have to be permanent." He gestured to his light flannel sleep trousers. "Clothes go on, clothes come off. Clothes are great that way."

"I agree." Dan put his hands on his hips in a superhero pose, still proudly naked.

Joel picked up his toiletries bag—a ridiculously bulky fold-over contraption with fourteen compartments of various sizes plus a hook for hanging—and went to the bathroom. He hung the bag on the back of the door and unfolded it.

There, waiting in one of the transparent compartments, was a travel-size bottle of lube.

Of course. He kept travel-size bottles of everything in this bag so he wouldn't forget them when packing for conferences or vacations.

He traced the outline of the lube bottle through its compartment's plastic cover. What he and Dan had already shared in that bed was far from a meaningless fling. If he took that bottle into their room and used it—if they did something that intimate—could he leave his feelings behind like a used condom in a trash can, or would they get packed up in his emotional baggage and follow him home? Was his life about to get as messy as this metaphor?

Maybe better to decide after brushing his teeth.

He didn't look in the mirror as he did so, or while he cleaned his contacts, washed his face, and applied his second-favorite moisturizer. In the mirror was a man on a precipice, ready to fall hard for someone who wasn't part of his life—a life he had no cause to complain about.

He snapped his toiletries carrier together and brought it back to the bedroom.

Dan was sitting with his camera, dressed in boxers and a Colorado Rockies T-shirt. "Wanna see the pictures?"

"More than anything." Joel stuffed the toiletries deep into his overnight bag. So it was decided. Probably. For now.

"I've got a USB cable we can connect to your laptop." Dan held up the cord. "Then you can see everything I took today, plus whatever older pictures are on the camera, if you're interested."

"A glimpse of you in your natural habitat? Yes, please."

They cleared their meal's remains, which Dan rolled into the hallway outside their room while Joel set up his laptop on the table. Then Dan plugged in the cable, connecting their electronic lives.

Joel displayed the pictures full-screen, leaning in to see clearly as his eyes adjusted to the lack of contact lenses—he sure as fuck wasn't going to let Dan see him wearing glasses.

He started with the oldest photo, dated a few weeks ago, of a hiking trail lined with squat pines. Ahead loomed an odd rock formation that looked like the stones had been stacked by a giant toddler. "I assume this is Wyoming?"

"This is on Turtle Rock Trail near Laramie," Dan said. "These are personal photos, not for work. I go to Turtle Rock a lot because dogs are allowed, and most of my friends have dogs."

"Is the sky really that blue, or have you touched these up?"

"These are all raw photos, so it's pretty true to life."

Joel sighed. If only the two of them could jump right into this photo—and bring Maisie, too. She would love sniffing all the new Western scents.

He switched to the next picture, taken on the same trail. It was shot from behind a dark-haired woman with a baby riding in one of those backpack slings. Beside her walked a yellow Lab, its tongue lolling out as it grinned up at her. "Who's this?"

"That's my best friend, Vanessa, plus Hailey and Ralph. Ralph is the dog."

Hmm, that affection in Dan's eyes right now… "Is Hailey, you know?—"

"Mine?" Dan shook his head. "She's like a daughter to me, though. I was there when she was born, after her bio dad skedaddled."

"Were you and Vanessa ever more than friends?"

"‘More than' makes it sound better than friendship, but it wasn't."

"Why not?"

Dan shrugged, predictably. "Some people aren't meant to be together."

"Couples aren't ‘meant to be,' dude. If you love each other, you should make it work."

Dan's expression was too amused to be called a glare, but it made its point.

"Then again," Joel said, "I don't know what I'm talking about, and I should butt the fuck out."

"Mm-hmm."

Joel tapped the arrow key to go to the next picture, which turned out to be a long-distance shot of himself giving the cicada lecture. "I thought you went home before coming here. No pictures from Colorado?"

"It's not my home anymore," Dan said in a flat tone. "It's just where my mom lives." He pointed to the screen. "Check it out—the cicada on the projector screen looks like it's crawling out of your head."

So once again they weren't talking about his family.

Joel skimmed the pictures from the costume contest, then slowly examined each photo of their time together, from the lakeside to the pier to the bed in this room.

Was this how Dan saw him? Joel had always considered himself average-looking, with points for personality. But in these pictures he was almost…

"Dan, these are beautiful. I wish I could—" He cut himself off.

"You can have any photos you want," Dan said softly. "But I understand if you can't."

Joel scrolled through the thumbnails. There had to be one he could show Sam, one that wouldn't reveal how much Joel adored the photographer.

"These." He selected three candid pictures of himself with the cicada at Lake Kittamaqundi and copied them onto his hard drive. Then he clicked to eject the USB cable. "Thank you for taking them."

"Sure." Dan put the back of his hand to his own mouth as a yawn broke forth. "Sorry. I swear I'm not bored, just tired."

"We've both had a big day." Joel shut his laptop. "Let's go to bed."

They switched off the light and slid between the sheets, where they exchanged drowsy kisses and caresses.

"Don't wanna go to sleep," Dan slurred. "Wanna stay awake with you."

"Me, too." He pressed his lips to Dan's throat, too tired to form an actual kiss. "I was up late last night tweaking my presentation."

"It was really good."

"Did you learn a lot about cicadas?"

"Yep."

"Like what?"

"Like…" Dan pulled in a deep breath that sounded on the verge of a snore. "Only the males sing. Maybe you told me before and I forgot. I assumed it was both males and females, like with fireflies."

"Fireflies don't sing."

"You know what I mean. They all flash. They all signal each other."

"Female cicadas flick their wings when they want to mate. So there's still two-way communication. Consent is important to a lot of species." He stopped himself from mentioning how the male bedbug literally dick-stabbed his mate through her abdomen. Traumatic insemination made for terrible pillow talk.

Dan's lips brushed his forehead. "What I want to know is, how do cicadas judge the best booty call? How do they know when they've found The One?"

"Well, to begin with…" Joel shifted to lie on his back, keeping his head on Dan's shoulder. "Each cicada species has a unique song, so the female uses it to find a male of her own species." He interlaced his fingers with Dan's. "But I think what you're asking is, given a choice of a whole tree full of male Magicicada septendecim, for instance, how does the female septendecim choose between them?"

"Exactly. Is it like with some songbirds, where the best chirper gets the girl?"

"It's more complicated, because of the sheer density. Imagine a massive, jam-packed speed-dating event where all of the guys are singing Outkast's ‘Hey Ya!' at the top of their lungs. And then every time a woman smiles at the man across the table from her, three other dudes show up and try to sing over their conversation."

"Sounds chaotic."

"Yet somehow they work it out, by being loud or lucky or both. Not very romantic, but that's a bug's life for you." He shifted again, turning to sling an arm over Dan's chest and a leg over his knees. It was sooooo nice to share a bed with someone who enjoyed a good cuddle. "Kinda makes sense, though. The Magicicada's main evolutionary strategy is for millions to emerge at the same place and time. Death may be the only barrier to reproduction—well, that and the sexually transmitted fungus that makes their butts fall off."

"Wait, what?"

Augh, he'd done it again, unable to resist being a fun-fact factory. "Never mind."

"How are you delivering a whole lecture only half-awake?"

"Behavioral ecology is my amphetamine." He traced the outline of the baseball on Dan's T-shirt, just north of his heart. "And one of my many aphrodisiacs."

"Yeah?" Dan turned to face him. "What are some others?"

He tapped the corner of Dan's mouth. "Possibly your toothpaste, but I need another taste to be sure."

This time their kiss was anything but drowsy.

With one clutching touch, it was clear that sleep would elude them—or rather, they would elude sleep—for as long it took to make each other come again. Maybe it was the darkness, but it seemed like they went more slowly and used more care than before.

Then they went back to kissing, their naked bodies entwined, the tastes of each other mingling upon their tongues. For once, Joel had no words, needed no words. Dan seemed to agree, as his astonished sighs morphed into the deep and even breaths of sleep.

Joel snuggled in close.

Drifting off was never easy, but there was always his sure-fire insomnia cure: counting backward in his head from a thousand.

1,000…999…998…

Funny how, ensconced in this bed shared by hundreds before them, he felt more at home than he had any night of his adult life.

997…996…

He opened his eyes, his lashes brushing Dan's bare chest.

No. This wasn't home. Home had a dog and a driveway and a partner who loved him—a partner he loved, even if right now that love felt as fragile as a cicada wing. Dan was simply the most challenging test that that love had ever faced.

The most challenging by a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

997…996…995…

What would failing that test look like? Uprooting his life and moving to Wyoming? His work was here. His future was here.

Would Dan even want him? He'd said he was still "figuring things out," so maybe he wasn't ready to come out as bi. Joel's days of cramming himself into someone else's closet were over.

He turned onto his other side so he could breathe.

99…6? 995...994...

With a drowsy murmur that may or may not have been "My little spoon," Dan slid an arm over Joel's waist. Then he buried his face into Joel's nape and planted a soft kiss there. Finally, his arm went heavy as he fell back to sleep.

Joel closed his eyes and let his body mold itself against Dan's. Maybe Dan was ready. Maybe he wanted Joel along for that journey. Maybe he needed him, maybe even enough to move east.

But what about little Hailey? How could Joel steal a baby's father figure?

Regardless, it wasn't fair to assume what Dan wanted or didn't want. They would talk in the morning.

Yes. Talk in the morning.

994…993…992…991…990…

And then what? No matter what he and Dan decided, Joel couldn't go home and act like nothing had happened. Sam always managed it, returning from business trips looking at Joel the same way as before. When (if?) he had dalliances in Chicago or Dallas or Jacksonville, it never showed. Sam never came home a changed man.

Joel couldn't not be changed by this night, maybe couldn't even walk away from Dan and remain whole.

990…989…988…987…986…985…984…983…982…981…980…979…

….

487…486…485…484…483…482…481…

….

245…244…243…242…241…

….

8…7…6…5…4…3…2…

Bloo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loop!

Dan jerked awake at the strange noise. Where was he? What day was it?

Bloo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loop!

A phone was ringing. In a hotel room. Joel's room. Right.

Dan lunged across the bed to pick up the receiver, interrupting the third ring.

Bloo-loo-loo-loo?—

"Hello?"

A beep. "This is your courtesy wakeup call," a female electronic voice said. "It is now ten a.m. on Sunday, May 30." The time and date were awkwardly inserted by a different voice. "Checkout time is eleven a.m. Please enjoy our free continental breakfast in the Chesapeake Room beside the lobby."

"Okay, thanks," he said, even though he was talking to a recording. His heart pounded from the jolt out of deep sleep.

The beep came again. "This is your courtesy wakeup?—"

"Bye." He hung up, then sank back onto the bed, resting his head on the pillow Joel had used. He closed his eyes and smiled at the scent of Joel's hair on the cool, starched fabric.

His eyes slammed open. Why was Joel's pillow cool? Hadn't he just gotten up to go to the bathroom? Dan held his breath. The room held no sound but the whoosh of the air-conditioning vent.

Maybe Joel had gone down to the lobby for coffee. Maybe he'd return any moment with steaming cups for both of them, chattering about today's adventures.

Dan stretched his legs. That familiar morning twinge in his left knee was joined by an all-body stiffness from the long drive. A leisurely stroll in the park or down at the Inner Harbor would be just the?—

With a loud click, then the squeak of a slowing fan, the A/C shut off.

The room's air sagged with stillness, like no one had moved through it in hours.

He sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. His bag was the only bag in the room, his clothes the only clothes.

The table was empty except for a single sheet of paper.

With heavy limbs, he slid out of bed and went to read it.

Dear Dan,

I wanted to have breakfast with you and spend the day together—or, since it's Memorial Day weekend, maybe even spend the day and another night and another day with you. But I was afraid I wouldn't want to stop at breakfast and another day and another night and another day.

And I was even more afraid that breakfast and another day and another night and another day would lead me to break Sam Joel's Rule Six: Don't fall in love.

A hot wave swept up Dan's neck and over his scalp.

I'm sorry I didn't have the balls to say goodbye in person. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I could never walk away from your eyes.

See you in 17 years,

Joel

Last night, the idea that atoms and the people they formed were 99.9999999999996% empty space had sounded like bullshit. But now, standing here naked with nothing of Joel but a single sheet of hotel stationery, Dan's bones ached with atomic emptiness.

He dressed and packed quickly, then brushed his teeth, skipping a shower because the memory of kissing and touching Joel beneath that stream of hot water was too raw. On the way through the lobby, he walked past the Chesapeake Room without stopping for continental breakfast.

Out in the parking lot, the summer swelter radiated from the blacktop into air that dripped humidity. He opened his cab and left the door ajar to release the built-up heat.

Pacing beside the truck, Dan opened his Rand McNally road atlas to the first map. The two-page spread showed the entire country, its interstate highway system threaded like veins across its length and breadth.

He didn't have to go back the way he'd come, on I-70 through St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Dayton. That route would take him to his mother's house, and he was not dealing with her right now.

Instead, after Pittsburgh he could angle north on I-80, passing through Toledo, Des Moines, and Omaha, finally arriving in Laramie—his real home now, where he had friends who loved and understood him. This way, he wouldn't pass landmarks like the Gateway Arch and remember how excited he'd been traveling east on Friday night, when Joel was still in the fluid future instead of this rigid past.

On the interstate, Dan drove well over the speed limit, the sooner to put space between him and Columbia. He blasted his new Avril Lavigne CD, which Joel (that fucking music snob) had given the side-eye to when Dan had bought it. A little post-punk power pop would help him get Joel out of his system.

No dice. This new album wasn't fun like Lavigne's debut. The grungy guitars and angsty lyrics matched his current mood all too well.

As the last song faded, Dan made a desperate-for-coffee break at a rest stop. He parked, then unzipped his camera bag and pulled out the CD they'd listened to last night in their room—Yo La Tengo, the band Joel associated with now instead of with the era when they'd formed, because naturally all time and the universe revolved around him.

With trembling hands, Dan opened the cardboard case.

It was empty.

"Son of a bitch." He'd left the CD in the hotel room's player.

He could buy another copy. If the music stores in Laramie didn't carry it, he could order it online and have it delivered in less than a week. But he needed it now, dammit.

For what, though? To torture himself? This wasn't a Hatful of Hollow situation. That Smiths cassette had been a comfort from a new friend. They hadn't even listened to that album together, much less danced and kissed and undressed each other to it.

Dan jerked open his door and stalked toward the nearest trash can. He shoved the empty CD case through the lid's swinging flap, then yanked Joel's goodbye message out of his front jeans pocket.

Read it one last time? No. No way. He punched the note into the trash too.

Then he went into the rest stop to buy his stupid coffee, because no one, not even Joel Fucking Mendel, would stand in the way of that.

Ten minutes later, he was in a line of cars leaving the parking lot. He gulped his throat-scorching caffeine fix and kept his eyes forward.

A few feet from the on-ramp—the point of no return—he slammed on the brakes, lurching to a stop and stalling his engine.

"Fuuuuuck!" he yelled at the world, but mostly at his own stubborn heart.

The car behind him honked. Dan restarted the truck, then wrenched the steering wheel to the left. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." He released the clutch and jammed his foot down on the gas. Tires squealed, and the engine nearly stalled again before revving hard. More horns honked as he wove the wrong way through the parking lot.

Joel's note still sat atop the rest of the garbage, wrinkled but unstained. Dan crammed it into his pocket and dropped the trash can lid back into place. He turned back to his truck, then stopped.

That noise. How had he only noticed it just now?

Up in the highest branches of the trees surrounding the rest stop, a million cicadas sang.

Was it just his imagination, or was the buzzing's pitch lower than yesterday's? Instead of a frenzied courtship song, this sounded more like a funeral dirge.

What were those asshole insects complaining about? They had four whole weeks to find the one they wanted. He hadn't even gotten twenty-four hours.

Dan put his head in his hands. He was really losing it if he was jealous of bugs.

He climbed back into the truck cab, turned off the engine, and rolled down the windows. It'd be easier to drink his coffee without scalding himself if he wasn't driving at the same time.

Sure, that was it. But while he was here…

He took his camera out of its case and turned it on. Then he slowly flipped through yesterday's photos, lingering on the ones where Joel was looking directly into the camera lens. The humor and fondness in Joel's eyes was obvious, but there was another layer beneath the whimsy.

He reread Joel's note.

I wanted…

But I was afraid…

Dan closed his eyes and listened to the rise and fall of the cicadas' song until his breathing synched with it, pulling him into a dreamlike state. Finally he shook his head, then reached for his coffee.

Ugh, lukewarm now. How long had he been sitting here, reliving the last day?

He examined the note again, lingering on See you in 17 years. Then he folded it carefully and slid it into his back pocket.

"Maybe you will, Joel," he whispered, "and maybe you won't."

But as he drove west, where a mile-high thundercloud was building in the hazy blue sky, his mind flew ahead to May of—holy cow—2021, which sounded like a fake science-fiction year. Maybe Joel's signoff hadn't been a ha-ha-fuck-you but rather a promise.

A promise that could go both ways.

"Maybe you won't," he said to his rearview mirror, "and maybe you will."