15. Jeremy

After about three dozen Post-it notes were scattered on the table, Davis began sorting them, chewing on his lip as he moved the slips of paper around.

“Can you tell me what you’re thinking as you sort?” Jeremy asked. Davis went pink but began to explain the web of connections he was creating, why certain things were grouped together. And Jeremy realized he was doing it again. He had asked Davis to explain something and had settled for half listening. He was still a professional, of course, though he thought that there was a small chance that his right hand was operating independently of his mind. Because while he still sketched ideas and wrote down key phrases that Davis was saying, Jeremy’s brain remained entirely focused on his eyes when Davis looked up at him. Those golden glimmers that sparked when he made a wry ecology joke that Jeremy didn’t quite get. The way he effortlessly tied concepts together made Jeremy nearly weep. He wanted to introduce him to Phoebe and have them go down rabbit holes about educational interpretation. He wanted to watch Davis explain why it was so important to “leave no trace” to a group of first graders and have them all go on a trash expedition. He wanted to know if those golden eyes flickered when someone touched him.

He wanted, and that was a dangerous emotion. Jeremy drew an especially harsh line and grunted as he struggled to erase it.

“What?” Davis said, interrupting Jeremy’s thoughts.

“Nothing,” Jeremy said with a forced laugh. “I believe you were telling me about a forest fire in 1910?”

After about an hour more, a map of ideas was organized and laid out on the table, and they had assigned tasks for both of them. Jeremy would do a bit of online testing of a few exhibit concepts to see which ones people were drawn to. Davis would talk to the rangers in the field to see who would like to share their expertise and stories in the exhibit and in a series of online videos that Jeremy suggested.

“I produced a few videos for the museum during lockdown,” he said.

“A few?” Davis said, raising his eyebrows. He had caught on to the way Jeremy liked to play down his accomplishments.

“I mean, it was a series,” Jeremy admitted.

“Hmm,” Davis said, leaning back in his chair. “You don’t like to talk about yourself much, huh?”

Jeremy shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I mean, it’s not polite to brag.”

Davis snorted. “City boy,” he laughed, leaning back in his chair and spreading his legs wide. A straight man’s position, but one that was obscenely attractive, showing off the expanse of his thighs.

“What makes you say that?” Jeremy asked, straightening again in his chair.

“Nothin’,” Davis said, and Jeremy noticed that the more relaxed he became, the more his speech changed. Became a bit rounder, softer, the vowels drawing out and seeming to sway in the space between the men. When Jeremy didn’t respond, Davis leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs. “It’s not a bad thing. Just different. You dress nice and hold yourself in the way that tells me you went to good schools. What city?”

“New York,” Jeremy admitted. “Greenwich Village.”

“Even I’ve heard of that,” Davis laughed. “What brought you out here?”

An icy chill ran through Jeremy’s body, the same way it always did when someone asked him how he ended up in Vanberg. Usually, he laughed and talked about choosing a job or, if he was in a flirtatious mood, he would tell the man that he needed to up the percentage of queer men near the mountains.

But something about Davis made Jeremy feel honest, feel open. Davis had this uncanny ability to look at Jeremy and suss out whether he was being true. He had seen it with other people as well, in the visitors he encountered on the trail or the stories he told about former coworkers as they worked. But Jeremy didn’t think he was ready to fully tell the story of what brought him to Colorado without some liquid courage. “I’m happy to tell you my life path,” Jeremy said, getting up and happy to move, “but I’m going to need a glass of wine.” He crossed the living room and found a bottle of pinot noir, something he had been gifted as a thank-you from the museum’s board of directors for some reason or another. “Do you want one?” He looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Davis’s wide smile.

Instead, he found Davis looking up at the ceiling and, for a moment, wondered if he had a crack in the ceiling, had a desire to grab plaster and fix it so Davis wouldn’t find his place wanting. “I, uh,” Davis began, crossing his legs. “I don’t drink.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, unsure of what to say next. He knew it wouldn’t be proper to ask why or to inquire for more details. Sometimes people didn’t drink. Phoebe, one of his best friends, often preferred to smoke weed instead of consuming alcohol. Before Jeremy could change the subject to something less awkward, he heard Davis take a deep breath. He interjected first. “Sorry. I can make a cup of tea for myself.” There. That was a good solution. And then, the next time Davis came out, Jeremy could make sure to hide all the alcohol in his house, empty the fridge of the few beers Foster had brought over.

“No, no,” Davis chuckled. “I’m not at that stage anymore. I can be around alcohol. I just don’t drink it. I’m not allergic or afraid of it. It’s just that I used to drink a lot— too much— and now I don’t.” Jeremy paused again, awkwardly holding a corkscrew in one hand and an unopened bottle of wine in the other. Davis, laughing that same soft chuckle again, got up and crossed the room. He sidled up next to Jeremy, smelling of leather and fresh earth, and gingerly plucked the bottle out of Jeremy’s left hand. “May I?” he asked before taking the corkscrew. Jeremy focused on the way Davis’s hand wrapped around the wine bottle, his fingers meeting around the width of the bottle. With an ease that told Jeremy this wasn’t the first time, he wiggled the cork out with a satisfying pop. “Glass?” Davis asked casually. Jeremy, still unsure of what to say next— don’t break your sobriety for me, though that seemed a tad bit dramatic, even for Jeremy— took a crystal glass from the bottom of his liquor cabinet (art deco, covered in bakelite decorations, purchased at a vintage market in Fort Collins) and set it on the top. Davis swiftly poured a glass of wine, popped the cork back in the bottle, and handed it to Jeremy.

“Thank you?”

“A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them that I can be around alcohol. I like having options to drink something when people are having booze, but there’s always a glass of water.” Davis said it like it was so simple, the way he navigated his life without this cornerstone of social culture. But to Jeremy, who couldn’t handle more than one glass of wine without falling asleep or blurting out what he really thought, was stunned.

It was so impressive. The work, the confidence, the continual thought. It was something Jeremy had never encountered. It was even kind of sexy, the way Davis announced his sobriety and his adjustments to Jeremy without batting an eye.

But it would be inappropriate to say that to Davis. A client who had become a coworker who seemed like he was on the way to becoming a friend. And though Jeremy knew that the world wasn’t about equality, he felt like the scale of their blossoming friendship had shifted. Davis had shared this kernel of his soul with Jeremy, so Jeremy needed to share something in return.

A truth for a truth.

He took a sip of wine and sat down in his Eames chair, nodding toward his couch for Davis to sit on, which he did. While the Eames chair was, admittedly, not the most comfortable chair, it was one of the first purchases he had made for this house with the windfall of money. It had made him feel like a real adult, something to hold on to when everything else he had taken for granted had crumbled.

“You asked how I ended up here,” Jeremy said. Davis took a sip from a Nalgene water bottle covered in stickers and nodded. “I went to undergrad in New York City— art history and studio art— and then was doing graduate school in Philadelphia. A master of fine arts in exhibition design. I think— no, I know— I chose this path because of my parents.” Another sip of wine. “My dad was an engineer and my mom illustrated children’s books. You’re right— I am a city boy. I was constantly at museums and art shows and the library, and when I went to NYU, I wanted to do something that would honor both of my parents.” A slightly larger sip. “I’m their only child.”

Davis, to his credit, remained quiet, only shifting to interlace his fingers and hook them over his knee.

“So I was in Philly for grad school and was deep into the preparation for my final thesis, which was an exhibition on the development of carbon-14 testing, and I got a phone call. I knew Mom was sick, but I didn’t realize it was as bad as it was.” Jeremy’s nose stung. “She went quickly. I was able to get back for the funeral, then my dad was able to attend my graduation but, um.” His eyes were leaking now. “But right after, the doctor said his heart just gave out.”

Davis made an empathetic noise but didn’t say I’m sorry, which Jeremy appreciated. He knew that people often didn’t know how to react to this kind of news, but it was never their fault. Just random chance.

“Did you know that there’s a medical diagnosis for a broken heart? Takotsbuo cardiomyopathy,” Jeremy recited the syllables with care, something he had spent hours trying to learn after his boyfriend had left him, saying that he was “moping all the time.”

“I can see that,” Davis said quietly. “My Gram wasn’t the same after Pap died.”

“So yeah, I was kind of a mess then, going through their things. I ended up chasing anything that reminded me of them. Mom and Dad met attending Vanberg as undergrads. They lived on the same floor their freshman year, and my dad, as corny as it was, had packed a guitar and played her a song. They both said it was love at first sight.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, so I moved here with no plan and a double inheritance and bought this house. I did a bit of consulting work— which I’ve recently restarted, as you may know— and then the university had an opening for an exhibit designer.” He drained his glass. “I love what I do. I love my friends that I get to work with.”

Davis sat for a moment, and Jeremy imagined, again, that words hung in the air between them. But instead of a heavy cloud of worry, it was something that seemed to sparkle above them. A truth for a truth, and mutual acceptance of two difficult stories.

“Thank you for sharing,” Davis said simply.

“Well, you did it first,” Jeremy replied, sounding annoyingly like the children he worked with at the museum from time to time.

“Nah, I just told you something about myself. You shared something deep.” Davis let out a warm laugh. “I’d toast to you if I had something to drink.”

“I have seltzers,” Jeremy said, hoping that was okay.

“That’s great. I tend to drink a lot of carbonated water or Diet Coke. Don’t tell my dentist. I mean, not like I ever had one growing up anyway, but, you know.” Davis chuckled, and Jeremy gave a sympathetic laugh, which was what he thought was the right move.