Mechanics of the Heart Ch. 05

"C'mon! Let's go!" he urged, waving at Danny to start moving.

In a flash, the evening had turned from delight to darkness. The drive to the stadium was oppressively uncomfortable, both men silent and staring straight ahead. As they turned onto the boulevard that led to the massive sports building, they were caught in a deadlocked traffic jam.

Roberto cursed and exhaled. The urge to ditch their plans, pull a u-turn, and blast onto the 305 instead overcame him for a second.

Beside him, Danny quietly asked, "Are we gonna be late?"

"Yeah," Roberto replied in monotone.

"Should we call Fred?" the brunet asked, stealing a glance at Roberto.

The mechanic looked at his phone mounted on the dashboard. He tapped on the touchscreen to call his best friend.

"Hey man, what's up?" Fred's friendly voice greeted amidst a wall of crowded noise.

"Hey Fred, we're caught in traffic on Front. We'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Oh yeah? The game's about to start...'kay, call me when you get here."

"Okay, thanks."

They were inching towards the stadium at a snail's pace; Danny was sure it would've been faster to walk there. In fact, at that moment, he felt compelled to get out the car and do just that.

The shame he was feeling began to turn into annoyance, then anger. 'Why is he treating me this way?' Danny thought. 'It's just workout stuff he wasn't using anyway.'

He folded his arms and glared out the window, at the throngs of pedestrians making their way across town. 'He asked me to move in. I'm just helping him clean up and get organized. How can he be so ungrateful??'

Meanwhile, Roberto rolled his eyes and wished this wasn't happening. 'Ugh. This is why I don't do relationships. It ALWAYS gets complicated.'

Though he was in a foul mood, the mechanic quickly reminded himself that he loved Danny, that he'd lost him once and wasn't going to lose him again.

Still, he was waiting for Danny to apologize.

Twenty minutes turned into thirty, until they finally rolled their way to the entrance of the stadium parking garage. Once through the automated gates, it then took circling down three floors before Roberto could find a parking spot. By then, both of them just wanted to get out of the car.

As he locked the doors to his red Lancer, Roberto considered saying sorry first. Then he saw that Danny walked ahead briskly to the elevator without waiting for him. He decided his boy didn't deserve the nice gesture.

In the elevator, they still weren't talking to one another. Roberto looked at Danny and saw the indignation written all over his face. The younger man didn't make eye contact, until they arrived at the seating floor. Danny sped out of the elevator, taking hurried steps, then stopped when he realized he had no idea where he was going.

In the noisy hallway, where baseball fans crisscrossed in droves, he turned back and glared at the mechanic, who was on the phone calling Fred.

"Hey Fred, we're here," he said, staring back at Danny. "Okay, thanks," he continued, then hung up.

Just as Danny was about to turn around, Roberto grabbed his arms and stopped him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You know what."

"Why are you so angry?"

"You know why," Danny spat.

"No I don't." Roberto pressed on, tightening his grasp on the brunet.

"Stop," Danny demanded, wringing his arms away from Roberto's grip. "Let go of me."

The hurt expression on the mechanic's face drilled right into Danny's heart.

"Guys, what's going on?" a voice demanded behind them.

It was Fred. He looked at Roberto and Danny with sharp eyes, sizing up the situation.

"Hey buddy, sorry we're late," the mechanic quickly said, going up to the office manager for a hug.

"How's Jen?" he asked, but before Fred could answer, Roberto patted his friend's back and urged, "C'mon, let's go."

Fred stayed looking at Danny, who looked like he was about to cry..

"C'mon, Danny," he finally said, nodding towards the direction of their seats. Roberto had already walked ahead.

Fred knew something was wrong. While the mechanic continued on in a brisk pace, Danny lagged behind.

"Hey Danny," the office manager said, extending an arm around the brunet's shoulders. "How's it going?"

Danny looked up and forced a smile. "Hey Fred. Sorry we're late. I..." He hesitated.

"We got held up...by traffic," he stammered.

"No worries. I'm just happy you made it," Fred replied warmly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roberto watched their interaction.

"Thanks for inviting us," Danny muttered, meeting the mechanic's eyes briefly.

They turned a corner and arrived at the bleachers, which were three-quarters full, stretching left and right in a giant oval. Danny was taken aback by how deep and wide and full of people the stadium was, as they descended towards their seats.

In the faraway green, the game was already under way, with a runner on second base.

"Have you ever watched a game here before?" Fred asked.

"No, I've never been here," Danny answered, a bit stunned by the magnitude of the locale. "I've never watched a baseball game," he added.

Several steps later, Fred stopped and turned into a row, shuffling past seated attendees. Roberto and Danny followed suit. Farther down, a woman looked up and smiled.

"Hi Jen!" Roberto greeted with a crouched hug when they arrived at their seats.

Fred patted Danny's shoulder and said, "Jen, this is Danny, Roberto's boyfriend."

Fred's wife wasn't wearing any makeup, and she was dressed in a casual hoodie, but she looked radiant. The smile that welcomed Danny was warm, adorned with beautiful laugh lines. Her eyes were quick and keen, just like Fred's.

"Hi Danny. Nice to meet you."

"You too."

It wasn't until the copywriter sat down that he noticed Roberto was seated three chairs away from him, on the other side of Jen and Fred.

Danny had never felt so alone in the midst of thousands. As Jen made small talk with him, he tried to reply as nicely as possible. At one point, she asked, "So how did you meet Roberto?" When she saw the pained look on Danny's face, she quickly changed topics.

It didn't take too much longer before the new mom stopped asking questions, giving Danny the space he needed.

But it wasn't space that he needed.

The game went on and on. Danny asked Jen a couple of questions about what was going on, but her answers didn't pique his interest. Soon, the cheering from every section, the random bursts of music that boomed through loudspeakers, the players that seemed to run on and off the field at random...soon, they all receded into the background, serving only to highlight his miserable solitude.

His focus was acutely centred on the man who sat three seats to the left. Danny stole evasive glances at Roberto repeatedly, all unreturned, which further tormented the brunet. Roberto seemed to be talking to Fred as if nothing was wrong, as if he wasn't bothered in the least.

Finally, some two hours since he sat down, Danny neared his breaking point. The two teams were tied and it was the sixth inning.

"How many innings are left?" he asked Jen.

"Three," Jen replied. "Unless if it's still a tie. Then they add an extra inning. They keep going until one team keeps the lead for one whole inning."

Danny's stomach turned and sunk. Gloom blackened his thoughts and emotions. This unwanted piece of information was the last morsel of a simmering, churning stew, a vat of noxious negativity that had completely swamped and suffocated his day.

He wished to be anywhere but there, three seats away from Roberto. He wished he was at work; with Richie; back at his parents'...well, maybe not. Even out on that baseball diamond, where he could sprint and scream out his frustration, arms outstretched. Naked, even.

"I'm going to the washroom," he announced, standing abruptly. Roberto was the only one in the group who didn't turn and look up. Danny tried his hardest not to let his emotions show, and he began walking.

"No, don't cry, no no no..."

He hurriedly paced down the curving, high-ceiling stadium corridor, passing by a few patrons buying snacks and drinks from a concession stand. Soon he heard a roaring cheer from the bleachers. He really needed to find the men's room and douse his face before the tears gushed forth.

When he finally found the washroom, he ran in and thrusted his hands underneath the automatic tap. But it was too late; he was already sobbing pathetically. He prayed that there was nobody in the stalls who heard his misery.

'What happened?' he asked himself. He looked up at the mirror: his face was ruddy and streaked with tears. Pitiful.

'This can't be love,' he thought. 'Love isn't supposed to hurt like this.'

He wondered why it couldn't always just be him and Roberto on the bed, naked, spooning, content. That was love. That was happiness. Wasn't it?

'If this is how it's going to be from now on, I can't do it.'

His breathing ragged, he looked towards the washroom entrance.

'I don't wanna go back there. I can't take this anymore.'

He shook his head and then he ran. He ran out of the bathroom, and ran in the direction where the sign pointed to the stairs. Then he turned and flew down the wide, spiralling steps, speeding past surprised faces and dodging bodies. He just kept spiralling and spiralling down, until the stairs ended and he saw big glass doors in front of him.

Pushing out into the cold night, he stopped and realized he didn't know this part of downtown very well. So he pulled up his hood and started walking aimlessly, wandering past people decked out in wool coats and scarves. He strided through intersections big and small, under sober lights and stoic skyscrapers that didn't seem to care about his problems.

He realized this was what he was best at: running away. Maybe it was all he knew how to do. It was a shameful realization.

He had no idea how long he ambled through the streets. He didn't pay attention to street signs, so clouded was he by questions he didn't want to answer, truths he didn't want to face. At times he wondered if he was walking around in circles.

Turning another anonymous corner, a blast of frigid wind cut into his face and he sneezed.

He lamented leaving his gloves in the apartment. The cold had gotten severe enough for Danny to stop walking. He considered heading indoors to warm up, then spotted a twenty-four-hour coffee shop down the way.

Once inside, he was relieved to find it devoid of customers. "Medium hot chocolate," he said to the half-asleep student behind the counter.

When he got his order and sat down with his drink, the doorbell chimed. In walked a couple, a straight couple, laughing.

Maybe the game had just ended and they came here for a post-baseball beverage. Or maybe they were on an amazing first date. Watching the young man and woman order two coffees, with arms wrapped around one another, Danny thought back to his first date with Roberto.

'Wait,' he thought, 'Did we even have a first date?'

They didn't have a conventional courtship. The first time they saw each other outside of Roberto's auto shop, it was at a gay club. At the end of the night, after the mechanic drove him home in Danny's own car, the brunet sucked Roberto off, in the same car where he took family trips with mom and dad.

Then, the next time they "hung out", Danny gave Roberto his anal virginity.

They ate at a diner before going up to Roberto's apartment...now their apartment. Past midnight at a diner, eating all-day breakfast...it was as close as they got to a first date.

A bout of spirited laughter drew his attention back to the present, to the downtown coffee shop he was in. A few tables down, the man was trying to grab the chuckling woman, who slapped her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

That gesture reminded him exactly of what he would do to Roberto, whenever his man said something naughty. He would slap his wide, firm chest, just like that.

Unexpectedly, he caught himself smiling.

'What am I doing here?'

He didn't have to watch these lovebirds flirt with each other. He had his own source of happiness. He had his own man, the love of his life.

'What am I doing here??'

Danny rushed out of the coffee shop. He was running again, but this time he was running towards Roberto, not away from him. 'That's progress, right?'

When he reached the big boulevard intersection, he quickly flagged down a cab. He was ready to go back home. He was ready to go back to Roberto.

On the way there, Danny took out his phone. Almost two hours had passed since he left the baseball game.

There were five missed calls, all from Roberto. It warmed Danny's heart to see the notification. Then he worried that Roberto worried. He scolded himself for setting the phone on silent, though he couldn't remember when he did that.

By the time Danny unlocked the front door to Roberto's apartment, their apartment, it was way past his bedtime for a weeknight, and he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was to fall asleep, wrapped in Roberto's hard, naked body.

The mechanic was up waiting. He had just sent Nadia an email. As soon as he heard the door unlock, his heart jumped.

"Where the HELL were you?!" Roberto demanded, stomping right up to Danny.

Danny just looked down and shook his head as he walked into Roberto's arms.

"Where did you go?! Why did you leave??" he pressed, lifting his lover's face. His heart was pounding.

The short, slim brunet continued shaking his head. He closed his eyes and buried himself in the mechanic's embrace.

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I hope you enjoyed this chapter of "Mechanics of the Heart". The end is in sight, but not before more drama and more filthy, nasty sex! Feedback is always appreciated.