Chapter Twenty-Seven

Due to scheduling issues—and also that I couldn't bring myself to tell the lovely old queer gent that I literally had no other place to go—I did end up spending one more night in my car on the beach. But this time it felt ... different.

My first day of work had gone well. I was tired. I didn't have enough space to hang up my overalls.

I'd opted for janitorial. Mary-Bruce Santorini, whom everyone called MBS like she was the FBI, told me it was the most flexible department. "And I don't let anyone pull crap on my watch, so you don't have to worry about being treated like trash just because you're picking up trash." MBS was short and wide, and I believed every word she said. Though mostly I'd gone for janitorial because it meant I'd constantly be moving around instead of pinned behind a counter. Apparently selling stuff in the stands themselves was a sought-after promotion in the hospitality department, and I wasn't qualified. "And Marlo wants you for other things—just keep me out of your TweetToks or whatever it is."

I could not decide if every woman working at the stadium was gay, or if they all just had resting lesbian energy, but whatever it was, I liked it.

Mostly I'd spent the day following people around and trying to map out the entire place in my head until my direct supervisor, a dark-skinned guy called Guy whom my Spidey senses identified as local , gave me some advice I seriously wished I'd had earlier. "Come in at the same guard station, park in the same place, enter through the same gate, clock in at the same computer. Learn where everything is relative to what you already know, and it becomes much easier." He'd gestured around and added, "Then suddenly one day you realize you know the whole joint inside out, and what you'd intended to be your ‘I just graduated and don't know what to do with my life' job has become your career."

I'd almost said something bland, but curiosity got the better of me. "Do you wish you'd done something else?"

And Guy had grinned. "Hell no. My kids get to go to school and tell their classmates that they've been to a barbecue at Bram Hunter's house, you know? That makes me the cool dad. Can't buy that kind of cred."

In short: everyone I met was nice, I had three sets of overalls that would be laundered at the stadium after every shift so I'd never run out, and I still hadn't actually met Marlo Ramos, but MBS assured me that she'd be in touch.

As far as first days went, I was tired, my feet hurt, and I did not feel any sensation of impending nightmare job doom. It had been a win all around.

One more night on the beach and then I'd go to work in the morning and move into my new in-law unit in the evening. I'd promised Sammy I'd stop by for coffee on my way to the stadium. (She was deeply invested in the Conquistos FC. "Before I transitioned I was so determined to get on the team, and like, I'm too tall and gangly and even before boobs I was never gonna make it, but that was the dream. There's a women's rec league that I've always thought about going for, but I don't know." So we talked for a while about the potential issues of joining the rec team, and she almost convinced me to sign up at her gym so we could work out together. I promised I'd look into it after I had a couple of paychecks in the bank.)

I figured I'd pass out immediately, in my little wind-rocked car bubble, curled up inside my all-weather sleeping bag, but I didn't.

It was the damn piece I'd written. Five thousand words of introspection and history and a broader cultural context I was pretty sure I'd nailed. After almost an hour of trying to resist the urge, I pulled out my phone and read it again, on the tiny screen.

Yep. Still good. Still totally unreadable by anyone else.

Except . . .

I mean, I couldn't very well send it to Orion's publicist. No freaking way. For one, it did allude to the fact we'd kissed, which he might not want his publicist to know. I didn't go further than that, but the kissing was integral to how I'd reconceptualized myself as a person who could be kissed, even though I was flawed, even though I had, intentionally or not, caused harm.

And for two, just, like, no. Ick. Private. It was private . It was a very private, very personal ... five-thousand-word essay I'd written about a famous former pro soccer star. Right, sure. Normal. Probably happened ten times a day.

I could pretend it was fan fiction and post it on Archive of Our Own.

Obviously not.

It just.

I put away my phone and looked out into the vast dark sea. I was just a little grain of sand. Not a soccer star. Not even a guy with a soccer star's email address.

The idea of sending it to Orion, with all its confessions and admissions and vulnerability, made me want to curl around my vital organs for protection. And even so, I couldn't totally convince myself I wouldn't have done it if I had the chance. If somewhere along the line, he'd told me his email address. Or even if I was certain I could mail him a thumb drive and absolutely guarantee it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands, but I still only had the name of the cabin, not an actual street address.

It was fine. The essay would die with me, and I'd live to write another day. Though not, I didn't think, about falling in love with Orion Broderick. Once was probably enough on that subject.

The next couple of weeks went quickly. I moved into my new, tiny, very tiny, really cannot stress enough just how tiny it was, in-law unit. I rescued my mattress from my old apartment by merit of bashfully asking Vix if she'd pick it up for me in her truck, which turned into an all-day extravaganza of me taking a Greyhound bus to LA, getting lost in Union Station, finally managing to find Vix (and her truck), only realizing once I'd unlocked the apartment door that I hadn't totally finished packing, which was never a good look when someone was there specifically to help you move. She'd gone out for coffees while I'd torn around shoving everything in the kitchen into reusable grocery bags and a couple of leftover boxes.

And then, despite my claim that we could just take it all to the dumps and I'd buy a new mattress (with money I really did not have), Vix drove me all the way to Conquistos. With my mattress. A four-hour drive. Each way. Making me really happy I'd opted for the bus, which I'd only really done because I wasn't sure my car could take another long trip before I got an oil change and ideally some kind of tune-up.

I introduced her to my landlord, Mr. Bisset, who enjoyed referring to himself as "the gaylord," and we all managed to get my mattress into my room, and I tried to buy Vix dinner, because that was traditional for moving, but she refused and bought me dinner instead.

And that was just the first weekend.

I didn't manage to get any good goss out of Vix about Marlo, but Marlo loved talking about Vix, whom she called "the ex–ball and chain." But she said it in this—it was hard to describe, but it felt very lesbian , it was a particularly lesbian way to have affection for an ex, if that was a real thing, and maybe it wasn't? But that's how it felt. It never seemed offensive or anything like that.

Marlo was a trip. I hadn't realized, when we first talked, that she was the operations director for the entire stadium. Which, if you're unfamiliar, is a wildly high-up position from which to dictate the hiring of a janitor. I had no idea what she'd said to MBS (or anyone else) about me, but it was a bit humbling the first time I saw her office and understood just how high in the org chart she was.

On the first day of my social media job, which came late in the second week of my part-time-quickly-becoming-overtime janitorial job, Marlo apologized for the fact that her current social media person was doing finals at the community college and wouldn't be around to train me until the end of the semester.

"I believe in higher education as much as the next guy, but come on, can't they schedule finals for a different time of year? They get us coming and going!" She might have gone on to clarify if she hadn't caught sight of a wrapped box on her cluttered desk and cursed. "Fucking Christ Almighty this was supposed to go out days ago. Listen, bubba, I need you to do a spot of courier duty, okay? I gotta get this to a man today, and you gotta deliver it."

"All right. Sure." I could probably do that, right? I knew the city well. The package was addressed to James Bond , but the street numbers seemed real enough.

"Good. Then go on home after, hey?"

"Okay, thanks."

James Bond turned out to be Jesse Diaz, a player from the FC's biggest rival team, Sacramento United, who, judging by the array of fit dudes behind him when he opened the door, was having some kind of party.

I'd always liked Diaz. He had this wild long hair he'd shake out at the end of the game like he didn't give a fuck if he was doing the surprise!lady character taking off her hat/helmet/mask and revealing her gender with her golden locks move. He thanked me enthusiastically and told me to have an awesome day before closing the door, and I had a fraction of a second to (maybe) recognize Bram Hunter in the background, i.e., Conquistos's star defender. Did they hang out? Because that would be cool, but mind boggling, considering they seemed like polar opposites.

In some alternate universe, would Orion have been there? In a universe where I never printed that article? Or where the photographer of That Photo hadn't gone to work that day? Or where we lived in a world where kissing a man wasn't a thing you had to do in hiding if you were a professional athlete?

It wasn't until I was halfway home that I suddenly understood the implications of what I'd done. A courier. Was that even a thing? And if it was, did they have it in Bakers Mine?

It turned out they did, or at least there was a courier about thirty miles away who could deliver there for an eye-watering price that almost made me ditch the idea for driving instead, until I imagined the awkwardness of seeing Orion again. I entered my credit card number without another thought.

What would I even say? I know this is weird, but I just really want someone to tell me how good this is ? Or maybe Thought I'd give you a chance to mock me to my face about how dumb it is to have feelings for someone who hates you .

Or I just really wanted you to know it was real for me, even though I pretended I could just walk away and not look back . A plaintive voice in the back of my head desperately wanted to ask if kissing had meant as much to him as it had to me, or if he kissed everyone like they were all that mattered in the world.

The idea of something that stark was nauseating. I'd pay twice the price to avoid having to say any of those things.

Then I was buying a thumb drive and saving the file to it and sending it off (certified mail) to the courier. Confidentiality is assured, the website had proclaimed.

And that's when my single-minded pursuit of a workable idea turned to dust, and I fully grasped what I'd just done.

He was going to see it. Orion was going to know how I felt. I should have written Burn after reading on it.

The impact only really began to hit me once I was eating a dinner of ramen and a pear and I had to stop eating because I genuinely thought I might vomit. What the shit had I just done? Why hadn't I stopped to think about it first? Mind you, I had stopped to reread the piece and confirm it was as well written as I remembered. Which would have been an ideal time to stop everything and actually imagine Orion reading it.

At the time I'd only had a random Oh, he'll like that line thought here, with a I wonder if he remembers this thought there. Somehow I had skipped over the extremely relevant bit where he'd read everything else, all the moments of insecurity, and doubt, and attraction, and ... desire.

It was the desire that terrified me most. Those moments I'd wanted him, wanted him to want me, had to stop myself from fantasizing about some mythical future in which we could be together, in which we'd have a dog and a little house and a shared life. It wasn't even the low-key embarrassment of that fantasy starring me and someone who didn't even like me, though that wasn't a great feeling. It was the existence of that image at all, the existence of that desire, when I'd spent my whole life considering it sort of ... absurd. Why even bother with relationships? Shouldn't I be happier alone? Wasn't that what I deserved?

And maybe I did. Or maybe it wasn't a thing one did or did not deserve so much as it was a thing one did or did not earn through taking actions like actually dating people . Or in my case, accidentally getting snowed in with people . One person. The only person I could even imagine being with.

Fuck, anyway, I couldn't believe I'd already put the thumb drive in the mail; I couldn't get it back, and my payment had already gone through to the courier, so it would have been absurd to, what, call them up and ask them to throw away what I'd sent and forget the whole job? That would just raise more questions. "Please, whatever you do, destroy the thing I asked you to hand deliver. No, don't deliver it, that would be the worst outcome; just, like, ritually burn it in a fire hot enough to melt metal, no big deal."

Since I couldn't take it back without making things worse (imagine finding a tell-all about an affair with a former pro athlete just sitting in your mailbox ... there was no way it wouldn't end up all over the internet), I resolved to ignore the whole thing.

Which had always gone so well for me in the past. Des Cleary, Chief of Ignoring Shit, that's me. Only really not so much.