Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Luke

Rafael was the sort of person who could show up at your doorstep with a smirk on his face, and you would drop everything just to be with him. And it would never be anything less than incredible. He had once taken me on a night tour through the streets of Paris. Much later, he had taken me to the battlements of the Kufstein fortress. Now, it was my turn to create an unforgettable memory.

We stopped a cab as we left Central Park behind us. On our way to Greenwich Village, rain began to patter the cab lightly, but as we stepped out, the clouds were slowly thinning. Golden beams of sunlight pierced through the leaden blanket of grayness, illuminating the beauty of the surroundings and hinting at the awe that awaited us at The Stonewall Inn.

"No way," Rafael said. It didn't take long for him to see the first destination I had in mind. If we were doing a date, we were doing it right. I was done with half measures. He snatched my hand and dragged me across the street with the sort of elation I could have only hoped for.

The dimly lit interior of the bar was alive with color and movement. Rainbow flags adorned the walls. As we made our way to the main bar area, it was like stepping through a portal. Reverence for the history of this place filled me to the brim.

I had never visited the Stonewall Inn before.

Rafael and I found a cozy booth along the wall and settled in. A small, slim girl with a nose piercing and another piercing on her lower lip took our orders and returned with two tall glasses of Stonewall IPA.

"I've never been here," Rafael said. "We moved away before I was old enough to come and appreciate the history of it all." He lifted his glass and touched mine. We each had a long sip of beer. The bitter flavor wasn't as sharp as IPAs could get but rounded and soft, leaving a satisfying aftertaste. A bit of white foam stuck above Rafael's upper lip, and he laughed as he wiped it away with the back of his hand. To be the foam on his lips for a heartbeat or two , I thought longingly, but Rafael's words pulled me out of my daydream. "This is a great choice."

"The thing is, I've never been here either, and I have no excuses," I admitted.

"Who has the time for beer?" Rafael asked pointedly.

I shot him a scolding look, but it only made him laugh. "What is it that you're working on?" he asked.

"I've got scribbles all over the place," I said. "Maybe I'll show you." That was sudden. I hadn't decided yet whether to invite him to my place later, but the words were out, and I couldn't take them back. Truthfully, there was nothing I wanted more, but I didn't want to be a desperate loser with silly dreams, either.

"You have to," Rafael said excitedly. "I'm dying to see what two years did to your craft. But…I was asking more in general. In five years, let's say. Where will you be?"

I didn't have to think about it. "Running into you, probably. Unless you're on the moon, in which case I doubt I'll run into you as much as float."

"I'm not entirely sure you appreciate the gravity of that statement," Rafael said, making me laugh way harder than he should have. And when our laughter quieted, he crossed his arms on the table and leaned in, looking at me, his lower lip moving between his perfect white teeth. "You really think we'll keep doing this in five years' time?"

"Rafael, I'm never sure about anything in my life. But this? Yeah. I'm pretty certain I'll see you again." It was too soon to blame the beer for my loose tongue. Maybe I was drunk on him.

"Then let's make sure it happens," he proposed.

I let out a soft laugh. "That's what we said we'd do the last time."

"Life." He picked up his glass and drank some more.

"You know what? Let's not make sure of anything," I suggested instead. "Let's just be here and now, like we used to." The last time I had seen him, getting ahead of ourselves was what doomed us. I didn't want to worry about tomorrow. He would leave. My life would go on. He would come back. I could live with it. I could survive on the IV drip of moments with Rafael. "We don't know what comes after. And for once, I really don't need to know."

"Are you sure about that, Luke?" he asked seriously.

"I'm sure." And I knew him well enough, I decided, to be confident in this plan.

Rafael lifted his glass. "Then let's make it a night to remember."

"Way ahead of you," I said with a grin, lifting my glass with him.

We had a round of drinks, settling into a familiar conversation about the universe and literature and the beauty of all that was new. I told him how, after he had left, I boarded the next train to Salzburg to get to my conference. A man had seen me drawing and realized we were heading to the same destination, joining me for a chat. It ended up leading me to my first proper job for an online magazine. "Like always, meeting you was sort of a herald of good fortune for me."

Rafael tried to be happy for me. Later, he said, "As I was leaving you, I wanted to die. If only it were that simple, right? I don't have that in me, you know? To do something bad. But right then, I wanted a bolt of lightning to take me out. When I said I was cursed, I believed it. It took a year of hell to crawl back out of that feeling."

But he had crawled back. He had risen from it, stronger and more beautiful than ever.

We left the Stonewall Inn behind and walked the streets of Greenwich Village, stopping for dinner and then pressing on. As we wandered the streets of New York City, Rafael told me about a photo shoot he had done in Buffalo with an artist couple. Paint splatters on industrial-like walls in a run-down warehouse, a pair of young men in nothing but their underwear and stains of red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and purple on their hands, arms, torsos. The imagery Rafael poured from his perfect lips made something in me heat up. I didn't care about the two artists and their bodies. I wondered what Rafael looked like when he wore nothing other than his underwear.

It wasn't the first time I'd fantasized about his body.

I had imagined him in so many unholy, extravagant situations over the years that it was almost a normal part of my waking consciousness. In my mind's eye, I know every curve and line and ridge of your body .

Rubbing his stomach after eating, Rafael shot me a challenging look. "What's next?"

"I saved the worst for the middle," I teased. Off-Broadway was lined with run-down theaters in deep basements next to reputable theaters with stellar casts. It was a symphony of flavors. From completely amateur venues with open stage nights to improv theaters to those that were going to launch era-defining pieces, Off-Broadway had it all. One, the Artista Showroom, was a place I had once visited. Something told me Rafael was about to enjoy it.

With seating options for under two hundred people, it was remarkably empty. Tickets were never sold out in this dim, slightly damp place. It reminded me of a time I had never lived in when adult films were being played in movie theaters, and men in nothing but trench coats roamed the streets.

Rafael and I sat in the middle. The chairs were plastic and broken more often than not. The stage was slightly below, with black curtains behind the set. A table, a chair, a bottle of water, and a large cardboard box were all the props there were.

"This is going to be amazing," Rafael said with childish enthusiasm.

Why is it that always you make me feel this way? I wondered . Whenever I see you, you spark this impossible sensation in my stomach. It takes hold of me, claims me, and makes me into something I am not—something happy .

The lights dimmed. Rafael grabbed my hand like we were on a roller coaster, and it was starting to move.

What ensued were nearly two hours of laugh-stifling, breath-holding attempts to respect the artist, a superbly confident man in a bathrobe with thinning blond hair and drooping cheeks, loose lips, and an abundance of makeup, as he narrated at length what the piece was about. At one point, his monologue had gone so far from the play he was supposedly introducing that neither of us knew whether this was the play. The man suddenly threw the bathrobe away.

Frightened, I shut my eyes, then dared myself to peek at the stage. The man wore a paperlike tuxedo and produced a top hat from the large box of props. Instead of walking from one end of the stage to the next, as if to illustrate what walking was, he moved in one place, mimicking what an alien might have imagined walking was like from only having it described in anatomical writing.

"I don't believe it," Rafael said excitedly. "Hush, hush," he hurriedly added as the man on the stage inhaled a deep breath of air.

"In the ineffable intricacies of cosmic composition, love ascends as the ethereal nexus, harmonizing the enigmatic melodies of existence into a transcendental crescendo of perpetual unity, enshrouding souls in the infinite embrace of eternity's enigmatic embrace." The booming voice slurred the last few words as the actor's head drooped.

"What the actual fuck?" Rafael whispered.

I bit my lip so hard against laughing that I could almost taste iron in my blood. I squeezed his hand like I would burst otherwise. A squeaky chuckle broke out of me, and Rafael slapped my knee, holding his own breath.

The man on the stage began to trash the scene and undress. When he was in his underwear, he dragged himself to the overturned chair and began moving obscenely.

"Ohmugod," Rafael hissed. "Is he fucking that chair? Luke, he's fucking that chair."

I couldn't hold it any longer. Laughter ripped from me despite Rafael's hand covering my mouth a moment later. He pressed it hard, and I licked it back playfully, not anticipating that the act would make my stomach heat up like I had drunk lava.

"Did you just lick me?" Rafael asked, pressing his hand against my lips harder and leaning toward me. As he turned, his chair scratched the floor loudly, interrupting the moans that filled the theater from the actor's booming voice. Rafael threatened to lick me back, then closed his teeth around my earlobe. I wished it hurt. Had it hurt, I would have contained myself through the distraction of pain. Like this, it made me whimper against his hand and set my going on fire.

"Hey!" That booming voice pulled us apart.

"Oh shit," I whispered.

"Whoops," Rafael agreed.

The actor was standing with his hands on his hips, his underwear sporting an obscene tent, and the chair lying next to him was defiled. "If you think this is erotic, you are completely missing the point."

"We better get out of here," I whispered.

"Already running," Rafael said, rising to his feet and pulling my hand. We apologized to the actor as we hurried between the rows of plastic chairs nobody occupied. Several smaller groups of people of all colors, ages, genders, and subcultures giggled from around the auditorium until Rafael and I slipped outside.

We ran up the stairs and into the cool October night. Only when we were on the street did we stop laughing like maniacs and running like mad. He still held my hand. "Luke, that was incredible."

"I knew you'd like it," I said. Words were just there to fill the space between us out of politeness. I didn't need them when I had his hand in mine.

A creeping thought snuck on me. Sadness opened in my chest before I could rebuild the walls. Do you have to leave again? I thought. I knew all the facts, the logic of it all, but my heart refused to understand what an ocean between us was.

Shaking it off for his sake, I kept my smile going. "You should see how nicely mulled wine goes down after a play like this."

"What was it that he said? ‘In the ineffable intricacies of cosmic composition, love ascends as the ethereal nexus, harmonizing the enigmatic melodies of existence into a transcendental crescendo of perpetual unity, enshrouding souls in the infinite embrace of eternity's enigmatic embrace.'" Rafael lifted his head and watched the indigo sky far above the lights of the city.

"How did you remember that?" I asked in absolute awe.

Rafael looked at me, his eyes serious and kind and big. "I never forget anything."

"You're telling me you have perfect memory?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Sort of. I mean, I forget some things. Sometimes. If I'm tired when I hear it, it fades after a while."

I shook my head in disbelief. He was full of surprises. And you don't know him at all , a voice whispered inside my head. I shut it out at once. Did I need to know any more about Rafael to enjoy him? No. Absolutely not. "I don't even know what that meant."

"Oh, darling," Rafael said in a sexy voice. "It means he's full of shit." After we laughed, he relaxed his shoulders and gestured at me with his head. "Show me that mulled wine you speak of."

So I did. A quaint bar three streets away with bright yellow and orange lights filling the wood-and-brick interior. Light green cushions softened the seats of the wooden chairs, and candles were burning on all the small tables.

We had our wine, and I watched Rafael recite verses from the play we had just watched. At times, he was so tender with the bullshit words that it sounded like real poetry, even if it was meaningless. "Within the heart, echoes shimmer, shadows dance, secrets glimmer." And if it weren't for the deep, smoky quality of his husky voice when he pitched it just so, the words would have been laughable.

"I'm out," I said, setting my empty glass on the table.

"Hmm," Rafael said, tapping his chin like a wizard in a fantasy book. "If only there were a way to refill the cup."

"I have a better idea," I said, my ears buzzing with nervousness, my heart lurching, and my fingers trembling. "Come to my place. I want to show you something."

His eyebrows wiggled. "You had me at ‘hello.'"

We left the bar and stopped a cab. For twenty minutes, I resisted the urge to hum soothingly to myself. And when we arrived at my little apartment in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, my nerves calmed down. My building was a rectangular brick-and-mortar structure with four floors and an unremarkable little staircase in front, completely unlike the quaint houses that lined the streets.

I led the way for once, and Rafael followed me as we entered the building and climbed to the top floor. Up there, the floor was separated into two snug one-bedroom units. Whenever I returned here, I thanked my grandfather for his inventions.

"Whoa," Rafael whispered as soon as I flicked the lights on, and we shut the front door behind our backs.

I intentionally used low-voltage bulbs to keep the place dim, with lamps scattered around the small living room, adding their brightness. The tones of the interior ranged from the brown faux hide of the sofa to the cream pillows thrown around and a dark orange accent color in places. A surprising red existed in the form of a wooden frame around a large mirror hanging from the wall. The rest of the furniture was English hazel, and the soft carpet had a cream base with dark chocolate and an aged gold pattern. My reading armchair had a faded olive cover and more soft pillows flattened by extensive use. I didn't have a TV hanging from a wall in the living room. Instead, there was a wall-to-wall bookcase with my entire collection. Some shelves had small framed photos before the books that had older, less exciting spines. And those shelves were the ones Rafael explored.

As if something had guided him through the clutter of my maximalist interior design, he lifted a framed photo off the shelf, and my heart sank. I had forgotten about it. It was part of a large number of trinkets and photos I had.

"The steel cup to protect the nuts," he said in an absurdly soft and loving voice. "You have a photo of us."

"That's…not what I meant to show you," I said in a somewhat embarrassed tone. "I forgot that was there. "

"You had it printed," Rafael said just as softly. He looked at it with sad eyes, then lifted his gaze to my face. "After I left you, you…wanted to remember that day."

"I wanted to remember you," I admitted. "Whatever else happened, it didn't change how good it was to—" hold you, kiss you, taste you. "—see you."

"So you had this photo framed to see in the one place where you spend most of your time," Rafael said. His skill at deduction rivaled Mr. Holmes', but I didn't linger at it.

"Does that bother you?" I asked outright.

He shook his head. "Of course not." He put back the framed photo.

There was no point in saying that I had put the photo up and never looked at it again. It was clean, whereas others were dusty. It was exactly in the line of my vision when I stood up, whereas others were above and below.

When I approached him, he had his hand resting on the shelf before the photo. Slowly, he turned to face me, arms dropping to hang by his sides, and he gave me that devastatingly sad smile of his. "It could have been so good."

I shrugged with one shoulder. "Never too late."

He pressed his lips together, eyes glimmering and smile fading. "Never the right time."

"What's right anyway?" I asked, making him laugh. My hands found his hips, and I looked up into his eyes.

He met my gaze and waited. He was thinking, and so was I. There wasn't a way. There had never been a way. When we were boys, imagining we could just go to Budapest for the sake of falling in love, learning to kiss, and exploring passion was childish. When he was taken, it was mad to expect we could find some slice of happiness. And now…

Rafael leaned a little closer, regret painted on his face. "Luke," he whispered apologetically. "I can't stay."

"I'm not asking you," I said.

"What are you asking, then?" I didn't miss the note of hopefulness in his words.

"Moments," I said. I hadn't known the right answer until now. As I said it, I believed it. And at twenty-two, I could believe it absolutely. I didn't yet know how costly it could be to let these things into my heart. I could still believe that things were fairly simple and easy to make right. "Just moments," I said. "Like this. Like Kufstein. Because I can't forget you."

"I could never forget you, Luke," he said urgently.

"I can quit you," I said. "Two years went by, and the moment you called, I was that boy again."

He licked his lips and shook his head. "It wouldn't work."

"You make me feel like my life is ahead of me," I said. "Like the best part is still in the future."

"And it is," he insisted. "For both of us. But…"

"But it can't work," I said. It wasn't anything other than a factual statement. It would never work for as long as we lived on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. It would be impossible so long as there were stars in the sky on a summer night. "And that's okay. I don't need it to work. "

"What if you fall in love with someone? What if I fall in love?" Rafael asked.

I'd thought of that. Little chance of my giving anyone my heart. It wasn't mine to give. It hadn't been for over four years. And if he fell in love? Oh, yes. That would hurt. That would hurt more than words could say, but he would never know. "So be it. It never stopped us before. If I get struck by a truck tomorrow, should that change what I do today?" Everything in life was uncertain, and Rafael was the most uncertain thing of all. I could swear only on the knowledge that this wasn't the last I saw of him.

I expected some feeble retort, some philosophical debate, or even some terrible poetry in return. I didn't expect him to inhale sharply and bend his head low enough to press his lips against mine. I didn't expect him to hold them there until the fires of hell seemed chilly in comparison to the blaze between us.

And when I rose to the tips of my toes, I kissed him back, pushing him against the bookcase with my torso pressed against his. He moaned gently into my mouth as we both parted our lips and let the tips of our tongues venture playfully toward one another.

I kissed him passionately, and I kissed him softly. In the span of a few minutes, I did it all. My kisses were greedy and hurried, then relaxed and gentle. Every one of them was a ride in a rocket ship. I was star-bound and weightless. Everything about these moments settled itself into my memory. And while mine was far from perfect, I never forgot what Rafael was like. And I would forever remember the gentle moans and the hoarse panting he switched between as we turned and pinned one another against the bookcase, the wall, and the door.

And when our brows touched and our heated lips parted, I shuddered at the absence of his honey-sweet mouth on mine. "You've always been such a good kisser," Rafael huffed.

I didn't tell him he was my only practice partner. Once you kissed Rafael, no other desire remained. In a way, I pitied that horrible man for having had a shot at Rafael and losing him in the most permanent way. By instinct, my finger traced the short, sharp scar on his temple. "If I ever see him…" My whisper faded. There were no words to describe the hellish horrors that would follow such a meeting.

"Don't let him have that power over you," Rafael said.

I pulled back from him and lifted an eyebrow inquisitively. "What happened in Khao San Road?"

Rafael let out an airy chuckle and shook his head. "I was an idiot."

"No shit. You said you almost got killed." My hands rested on his chest, and I kneaded his torso like a kitten getting comfortable. He put his hands on my upper arms and pressed a kiss on my brow, then on my left eyelid, and finally on my right.

"I was a serious moron, is what happened," Rafael said. As we pulled apart again, we crossed the room to the sofa, where we settled comfortably, and I waited for the story. "So. I was alone. I knew about the place, of course. It's famous for tourists doing all sorts of things. The street closes for cars and motorbikes, and terraces pop up with live music, skewered scorpions, and so many prostitutes you wouldn't believe me if I told you. People get drunk quickly. That's the whole point, right? So that's what I did. And because it was so crowded, I let a group of locals sit with me. I was burning cash that night. I paid for everyone's drinks at least twice. Still cheaper than dinner here, might I add, but that's not the point."

I let him find the point at his own pace. The truth was, I could listen to him narrate the most uneventful moments of his life, and I would still be as charmed as this.

"So we're drinking. We get one of those buckets of gin and tonic with swirly straws for everyone at the table. We're pouring the contents of our bottles into that bucket. Yikes, you were just kissing me, and now I tell you? Don't worry. I did a whole medical check when I returned to my senses. And not because of someone else's beer in my bucket, but because Robbie had been screwing around while we were together. Ah. I'm clean." We chuckled, although neither found it particularly funny. It hadn't even crossed my mind to worry. He was perfect. He was absolutely perfect. "They have these huge balloons filled with laughing gas. Is it legal? Eh, who's to say? So the balloon went around, and I was starting to black out. My friends for the night, a big-bosomed, middle-aged pimp, her much younger girlfriend, and a young man who was working a shift and waiting for the customer, took care of me. They splashed me with water, got me to clear my head. So when this absolutely horrible guy came for the guy at my table, I fucking lost it."

"Why?" I asked, the hairs on my neck rising. "What happened?"

"Imagine you go to a restaurant, and you expect a server to serve you your food. Now imagine some asshole expecting to be literally served, making everyone feel like worthless crap because he's getting served." Rafael's face lit up with the heat of anger. "Naturally, I meddle where I had no place to meddle. Call it a god complex, but I didn't fix anyone's life. And they tried to soothe me, tell me it's fine, but this guy…" His voice quivered angrily. "He got pissed. So when he pulled a pocket knife at me and proved to everyone that it wasn't fine and that he was as dangerous as I'd claimed in that drunken state…well, let's just say he wasn't happy I ruined his night. He leaped over the table and tackled me to the ground. It took the three of them to get him off of me and a couple of servers who dragged him away from the terrace." Rafael exhaled and calmed down. "I was in my shit-stirring era, Luke."

"You saved a stranger from an awful person," I said.

"Did I?" Rafael shrugged. "Or did I just interrupt one of the countless identical nights? It's not like I could protect him from every shitty guy who's there for nothing else but sex."

"Rafael," I whispered.

After a short silence, he smiled. "And that's how I got into that mess." His alarm sounded a heartbeat later. Rafael closed his eyes and muttered a simple, all-encompassing "Shit. "

It was time to go. And I wasn't even remotely ready for that.

"What did you want to show me?" he asked.

I chuckled and put my hand on top of his. "I think we're beyond that." But he lifted his eyebrows as if to insist. So I sighed and got up, crossed the living room to my desk, opened the top drawer, and waved an old notebook at him. "Take it with you. It's practice for a project nobody's buying."

As he took it from me, his eyes grew wide with wonder. "I…can't take it, Luke."

"It's only for practice," I said. I'd moved to digital drawing since the app on my tablet made a huge improvement and revolutionized the way I worked. "I don't need it."

He flipped it open and then shut it quickly. Getting up, he nodded. "Fine. I'll take it. But I'll bring it back."

A promise to meet again. It would leave me satisfied.

"And I'll call you," he said.

I believed him. This wasn't Kufstein. It wasn't one of those terrible moments that would lead to years of guilt and unrequited longing.

He pressed the notebook against his chest, exactly where his heart was, and put his free hand on mine. He leaned close to me and let his lips gently touch mine, waking up every desire in my body. It was like the first trickle of water in a desert, but it grew to a spring, spawning a whole oasis that gave life to the desolate land.

And when he pulled back from me, it wasn't enough. It was never enough. "I'll see you again. "

Rafael smiled. "I'm counting the days."

We chuckled and stood in silence, hesitating to do anything that would remind us that time had not frozen. Finally, Rafael nodded again. "And Luke, don't do something stupid like…wait for me," he said.

I let out a soft scoff, masking it as a chuckle. What else do you think I'll do?

Rafael knew me too well by now. "I mean it. I don't want to be the reason you miss out on happiness."

The only fair thing would have been to tell him the same, but I couldn't bring myself to speak. He was that happiness. Couldn't he see? There was none without him.

He lifted his eyebrows playfully, but he didn't fool me. His eyes glimmered just like mine. We hated this. In some bizarre way, the abrupt ending at Kufstein and the horrible turn of events in Paris had spared me the pain of saying goodbye. "Until we meet again."

"Mm," I managed. "‘Until' sounds too…uncertain."

He didn't reply. Instead, he pulled me by my sweater and pressed his lips hard against mine. In one fiery moment of total bliss, everything was right and perfect. In the next, our goodbyes had been spoken and Rafael was gone. My brain spun around the kiss he had left me with. It had been so sweet and brilliant that I couldn't even focus on the aching in my chest.