53. Davis

Davis was in the corner, explaining plans for trail expansions to the regional director, who had come down for this exhibit, when he heard the voices.

“Please. He’s with Jeremy. You know he has to expect lateness at this point.”

“We would have been here on time if Foster hadn’t made us wait until his phone was fully charged.”

“Please, you and Ryan still found time for a quickie make-out in Phoebe’s bathroom while you were waiting.”

“God dammit, Andersson, is there any time you can keep your hands to yourself?”

“Why would I when I have such great hands and Emmy has such a great— hi, Jeremy!”

Davis, who was doing his best to pretend that the emotional equivalent of a herd of hippos hadn’t arrived in his forest, snuck a look out of the corner of his eye. Jeremy was surrounded and entirely engulfed by his friends, who were dressed in various overly nice outfits. Jeremy, though, being the tallest, was able to see over the heads of all his friends to make eye contact with Davis. There was a part of Davis that wanted to hide, because all of these people knew. They had seen him hold hands with Jeremy, had watched them kiss at dinner in those small moments where Davis felt like he was just like everyone else. But that group was now here, in the world that he carefully planned and protected, and Davis was scared.

But another part of Davis, a part that seemed to be growing by each second, was happy. Because these people knew. These people saw him. These people knew and had somehow driven out to the mountains to see Davis’s exhibit.

“Where’s Davis?” Emmy was saying. “I’m so curious to hear his approach to the narrative in the design.” Quickly extricating herself from the rest of the group, she spotted him quickly and headed over. “Congrats!” she said to him, then added, “I’d give you a hug, but I’m really not a hugger.” She rolled her eyes. “I put up with it for everyone else.”

“I’m not a huge hugger either,” Davis admitted, feeling like he had found an opening in the fortress that was the tall woman.

“Good, and, um.” She chewed her left thumbnail and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Sorry.”“For what? You said sorry at the game?” Davis wasn’t used to people apologizing, let alone twice. It wasn’t done where he was from. You just grunted and moved on with what you were doing in life, preferably minding your own damn business.

“Yeah, but Ryan and Phoebe both laid into me about being an asshole to you the other week, brought up that I needed to explain myself better,” she said, walking farther away from the group, as if afraid that the rest of her friends would hear her being emotional. “I mean, they’re right. They always are. But I…” She scrunched her face and then let out a deep breath. “I’m protective of my friends. I worked really hard to build a life here, and there has been a lot of change in the past year and, well, I don’t want things to just crumble.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Yeah, so, but Jeremy loves you and, as my therapist is constantly reminding me, I have to trust people and let life be something I experience and not control.” She picked idly at a bracelet on her right wrist, a thin silver chain which had a series of waves as charms. “I grew up in a house and city that wasn’t big on talking about feelings.”

“Fuck,” Davis laughed. “Did you grow up in West Virginia, too?”

Emmy laughed. “Youngstown, Ohio. So replace your coal mines with steel mills,” she said it like his uncle did, still mills, “and you’ve got my neck of the woods.”

Davis felt a flicker of a connection with her, suspected that she was someone who also hid her vulnerable, soft belly. “Do you feel like this is enough feelings talk?”

“Fuck, thank you,” she said. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes and gave a soft smile. Davis had to give it to Ryan. She was terrifying, but she was also beautiful. “Could you give me a tour through the exhibit?”

“Can we all come?” Phoebe asked, heading over with Dec in tow. Davis looked to Jeremy, who was smiling at him while Ryan chattered away at him.

“Okay, I get why I’d be out here a lot, because this forest is amazing and there are a million trails to hike, but you’re not really a nature person, right?” Ryan asked, peeking out the window of the visitor center.

“It’s beautiful. Peaceful.” Jeremy looked right at Davis. “I love being here.”

It was only as Davis was showing Emmy the way he had made sure to highlight the efforts of early White settlers to preserve some of the forest as a wildlife preserve that Davis remembered something Emmy had mentioned, almost in an off-hand manner.

But Jeremy loves you.