Work and Play Pt. 13

I'm convinced I'll go out tonight with him. But every time I think on it further, my brain tries to talk me out of it. The possibility of things ending between us, whether its him, or me because of the things I learn, is enough to make me stand in the same spot for fifteen minutes: in front of my closet, staring at the squares on the shirt. I can't do this for hours. I mean, I physically could, but I shouldn't. Getting caught in those "what-ifs" until something interrupts my day is not what I'm going to do.

As if the universe takes a cue, my phone chimes.

GABRIEL: wyd

I stare at the letters. What the hell does that mean?

ZEKE: what?

GABRIEL: what are you doing?

I look around. I've just been staring at the squares on my damn shirt. Thinking about him.

ZEKE: Nothing.

GABRIEL: good, Shower and get dressed in whatever outfit you thought of when I told you to earlier.

I read that text in his voice. That deep, deep voice with the slightest hint of an accent. His tongue that flips the "R" sometimes when he speaks. I shake my head, looking at the blue shirt. And then the dark gray pants folded on top of my closet. And the black Sperry's I have never worn. Yes, I thought of what I would wear, asshole.

ZEKE: you can't just tell me what to do. And it's the middle of the afternoon? And I have a lot of questions.

GABRIEL: I am fifteen minutes away. See you soon.

I find myself trudging toward the bathroom, and before I know it, I'm showering vigorously, lips pinched and grumbling to myself about how I was really prepared to give him shit, but now I'm doing what he wants. If I'm going to do it anyway, I might as well get my last licks of being annoyed with him in before he sucks me into whatever he's gonna say to me. Or take me? I haven't gone into thinking that he might take me somewhere...

I'm brushing my teeth as my phone dings again.

GABRIEL: I'm outside.

I quickly run to my room and yank the clothing from my closet. Within minutes, I rush to my door, straightening myself out. I open the door, and Gabriel stands at his car, arms crossed. He's dressed in a thin longsleeve and thin, blue sweater vest. He can probably wear anything and look just... so fucking good. He has a bit more facial hair than he did when he left. I look down and feel my cheeks get hot. We basically match.

"Come on," he calls, waving me over. I step outside.

"Come where? And why?" I cross my arms. Gabriel walks over to me, and stands at the bottom of the stairs. "What do you want?"

"You look nice," he says. He brushes a lock of dark hair behind his ear, and looks up at me. "And I'm sorry that this past month was absolute bullshit. But I promise, I will make it up to you."

I think of his fiancée—the article hit just over a thousand reads recently; yes I've been checking, those thousand reads were probably 40% me anyway—and I think of all the conversations that were cut short between us, or had no spark, and I wonder if she's why, and I want to ask him, but I just want to exist with him for a second. For a little bit. Goddamn grey eyes.

"It's fucking 2:30. We should just stay here," I say softly. Gabriel shakes his head. "Gabriel... I have a lot of shit to say to you."

"I have even more to say. C'mon. Please. I'm sorry about the past few weeks—"

"Month and three days."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "For the past month and three days, I've been trying to figure a lot of things out. And you were on the list. So, please. Let's go."

"Let's go where?"

"On this damn date, fuck."

Date.

Date date date date date—the word just knocks around in my brain, and I freeze, blinking fiercely. "Okay," I finally manage to squeak. I run back inside to grab my keys, and lock the door.

Gabriel opens the car door for me, as if he's a chauffeur, but then he hops in the back with me. I'm surprised to see Jiao sitting in the front. She looks at us in the mirror. "Hello Ezekiel."

"H-Hi Jiao."

"How are you today?"

I guess I'll find out.

--------------------

This means he wants me. This means he's planned something. This means I'm going to have to ask about his fiancée.

We're dropped off after what seems like forever. No talking. Just music. What could I talk about right now? I decide not to say much in front of Jiao. As soon as she leaves, waving us off, I turn toward Gabriel. "What is this?" We're in front of an oddly shaped building.

"I know you have a lot of things you want to say, and I swear we will get there. But I just want you to know it'll be worth it. So... just let me take you out, yeah?" With that, he grabs my hand, squeezing gently. The mid-May sun catches just a few gray hairs on the side of his face, by his ear. I think he's caught a tan as well; he looks smooth, bronzy. I agree to go inside. I feel my heart beat hard. I wonder if he can feel it in my hand.

Inside, there are tall ceilings and various contraptions set up around the room, and down the hallway. Everywhere. I see giant beads and poles and see-saw looking stuff. A balance museum. I can't help but smile. How nerdy is this? There's only a few other people in here. It's quiet, save for the softest piano music haunting the room. Gabriel leads me to a contraption with a glass casing, and we stand on each side. There are shiny chrome pieces to roll into divots. A partner activity to try to balance the metal beam in the glass. Kind of like a maze. Gabriel drops the first piece in, it rolls past the divots, and into the middle.

I like this. It's sweet. Simple. Intriguing, still. It's a date. As I think about it, I break out in goosebumps.

"How was California?" I ask, breaking the silence. I want to get to the fiancée. That's the goal. How many steps to get there? What if it's a quick explanation? What if he ended things? What if he didn't?

"It was... needed. I realized a lot. Took care of some business." He nods to himself. He's nervous. "I'm so sorry that I wasn't the best at communicating."

I shrug. "I mean, yeah. I saw the interviews weren't always perfect."

"And specifically, Zeke," he rolls a little piece down the metal plate, "I'm sorry about the way I reacted to all that bullshit. You were trying to make me feel better and I acted like you were the issue, and you weren't."

So... what was the issue? I don't want to ask it, not directly. I want him to tell me. "I understand. I do wish you... could have told me that. Things got really spotty. And then, of course you lied to me." Good one, Zeke. I get really annoyed that my piece doesn't roll into the divot. Gabriel looks at me cautiously. "You told me you weren't coming back for months."

"Just to mess with you," he says it with the tiniest smile on his face. "Sorry."

I can't help but smile, too. He's contagious. "You don't even mean that. You grinned in my face at the elevator."

"I should've just showed up at your house."

"Oh, but you did that today; don't mess up the schedule," I fire back. Gabriel's piece stays in the divot, and the plate tilts his way, just slightly. We both watch intently. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too. And... Zeke. I know I was distant, and-and not giving you much hope for what things would be when I got back... It's just—" Gabriel sucks in his bottom lip. "There's some things I haven't told you. And I think... once I share, and explain, you're not going to..." he cuts himself off. I roll a piece into a divot on my side. It tilts the contraption my way, only slightly, as it lands higher up than Gabriel's piece.

"Let's play a game," I propose. "I'll say a topic, and you say one bad thing, and one good thing." The thing we did on our first "not date." It makes him smile, but it seems sad.

He shakes his head. "Zeke... I can't—"

"Friendship. That's the topic," I cut him off. I figure we'll get there somehow. Maybe my next word will be "relationship."

Gabriel nods, and closes his eyes. He rubs them, and takes a deep sigh. "Which one first?"

"Always the bad, obviously."

Gabriel rolls another piece, and stares at the ground. "Jiao... is my best friend. And I love her. Like a sister, of course." He pauses. "She may have told you some things about me, I don't know. Something she definitely didn't tell you—Jiao's ex-boyfriend... um, his name is Jalen Pratt. And I... we were in Vegas. Jalen and I ended up alone somehow. I slept with him while they were together."

I can't help my head tilt forward, jaw dropped once again. Holy shit. I think back to all those weeks ago, when I insisted to myself that he had been with a man before. And when I asked him about it. And he never denied it, he never did. He just asked if I'd talked to Jiao. Holy shit.

Gabriel only glances at me once.

I knew it. I knew it I knew it I knew it.

"A-and she may have told you that you were the first man I'd ever been with. But, that's not true. And... she doesn't know. And I feel like it might actually ruin our friendship. Sometimes."

I still process the "Jalen Pratt" news in my brain. Who? When? Where? Did he like him? Was it a thing? How many times? Gabriel watches me process the information. I nod, too many times, and finally ask.

"You're never going to tell her?" I ask. He shrugs. "How long ago?"

"Six years." So, two years after Gabriel sleeps with a man for the first time, he ends up with a woman. Were there any other men after Jalen? "He was the only man I'd ever had that attraction to... of course that's changed." So, no. I watch our little metal pieces roll onto the contraption.

"...And what does he look li—"

"And my good memory," Gabriel cuts me off, "is all the times I've taken vacations with her. She always makes me do something new. Exciting. She's a rarity." Gabriel rolls the piece that balances the scale. We both stare at it, watching it sway until it sits still. He reaches out his hand to mine; I take it. We walk to the next contraption. Little cubes and magnets. "Your topic is sex."

I scoff. "What? Why does mine have to be dirty?"

"Because I wanna know," Gabriel shrugs.

I shake my head with a laugh. "Okay... um, I guess it's not sex... not exactly um," I find myself shrinking in. I wanna talk about it. And maybe Gabriel can realize how much it sucked for him to not ask about it. "Clay Edgar," I finally say. Gabriel freezes instantly, and I sense the tension. "He was aggressive. And... trapped me. Mostly in my mind. Sometimes in a bathroom stall, or in my office, or in a storage closet." Gabriel just looks at me intently, listening. I can see him visibly calm himself. "He knows—knew—I was scared to come out or be out I guess. And I know he has problems. It just sucked. Him touching me, making me touch him."

"I should've done more," Gabriel says quickly, as if he has been holding it in. "I get destructive sometimes. And I-I wanted to do so many things but I didn't want to fuck it up. I wanted to do more than fire him, a-and I wanted to talk to you, and make sure you were okay, but I didn't know what to say. And I was so mad—"

"It's okay," I say gently, with a chuckle. His frantic tone tells me everything I need to know. "I'm just glad he's gone." If he really is, of course. I decide to withhold that Clay somehow knows about us. For now at least.

"I'd hurt him," Gabriel says softly, eyes closed, nostrils flared. "I wanted to that day I saw him on you, Zeke."

"I know." I slide cubes into square shaped holes. "But, then there was this one time on St. Patrick's day. And I was in a break room, and this asshole followed me... but he was alright in the end. Attractive. Tall." Gabriel can't help the tiny smile on his face. "And that was some of the best, riskiest sex I'd had in a long time. Maybe ever. I dunno." I feel my cheeks get hot thinking about our first night together.

"How did you know I liked you?" Gabriel asks. This is news to me. I thought I got lucky with that drunken kiss.

"I guess I didn't," I shrug. "Wait... did you follow me? Into the break room?"

"I... maybe subconsciously, I'm not totally sure." He chuckles to himself. "I didn't know there'd be another man I was attracted to. Sexually. Not after Jalen." There's that name again. I want to know more. I also don't. There's also a "Yessica Velasquez" problem.

"I'm glad that didn't stick. Relationships," I say, changing the subject. He's got to bring it up now.

He nods to himself. "I had a fiancée. I broke up with her." He looks at me to see my reaction. I raise my eyebrows, acting slightly taken aback. He continues, "Her name is Yessica. She cheated on me a long time ago. Then things just spiraled down. She... was not good to me; I developed some toxic habits—it was very recent. As in... I broke things off with her when I got to California."

The look of surprise on my face is actual surprise. I'm glad I knew something beforehand; just a little context. I don't know how I'd react otherwise. "Do you still have feelings for—"

"No," he interrupts. "I'm sorry. I should've told you. I-I mean of course I have some feelings there. Not for her but—goddamn I guess for what she did mean to me when she meant it. But... Zeke I like you. I really like you and I thought about you in every moment of my downtime. I thought of you when I broke things off. I thought of you when I was just... sitting. Eating. I would see a pair of glasses and think of you, or hear someone say a word you've said before." He takes a deep breath. "Please don't think that I don't have these feelings for you, or you're some kind of rebound... I can't think of anything more untrue."

My heart flutters at his words, his tone, the urgency while still passionate. He looks at me through the glass, and I feel the sincerity in his eyes. "I missed you, too."

We go through most of the series of contraptions, and I'm fascinated by the later ones. Moving a pin or piece shifts the contraptions immensely. Beautiful structures. We spend at least two hours in the museum, talking and being real.

In the late afternoon, he dials Jiao, our supposed chauffer. She happily takes us to our next destination: City Park. There are a series of food trucks wrapped around the street that surrounds the park. There's easily 200 plus people here. It makes me anxious, as I look around to see if I even remotely know someone. Gabriel squeezes my hand as if he knows what I'm thinking, and we stand in the middle.

"Have your pick?" he looks at me encouragingly. I see gyros, tacos, BBQ, Chinese and more. On cue, my stomach grumbles. I didn't even know my city did this. I feel myself relax at the environment, the smiling faces, the people with their dogs and kids. This is something Grayson and Sean would go to. I glance around to see if I find Grayson's salt-and-pepper head and Sean's dark skin, but nobody fits the bill.

"Gyros sound great," I say, gently dropping my hand from his. I've caught some woman looking at us curiously, and I figure I'd ease my stress; I'm still not used to being Out yet, just openly coupled with a man. "And definitely fried ice cream." I point to a stand nearby. Gabriel nods.

Once we have our food and ice cream, we easily find an unoccupied hill facing the lake. Gabriel says he wishes he had a blanket. I don't really care. We sit on the grass and eat in relative silence. At one point, he scoots closer to me, and puts his hand on my thigh, and continues to eat with the other hand. My heart pounds hard. I like this too much. I can't think of anything wrong in the world right now.

I squint when a cloud stops covering the sun. I feel Gabriel staring at me. "What?"

"You look amazing," he says with adoration. I feel my cheeks get hot, and Gabriel smiles softly, looking my entire face over. Then he pulls out his phone. "Tilt your head this way." He points. I'm surprised, but I don't argue. "Down the tiniest bit." He holds his phone up, leans back, and snaps a picture. "Now, ile-smay."

I laugh, "What?" Gabriel snaps photo after photo. "Gabe? I'm laughing in all of those now."

"Exactly. Pig-Latin always gets people to laugh a little. Take a look." He shows me a series of photos, and I am taken aback. I can't say I've had many candids taken of me. I look happy. "I bet you thought you were pale, but you look nice."

"Wow, way to read me," I scoff, and take his phone. I look though all the photos. "Wow... I—can you send these to me?" Gabriel nods. Then he scoots closer to me, and leans in, kissing my cheek.

"Say cheese." We take a photo together. Another. I feel strange, seeing us together in digital. Like it's evidence somehow.

This means he's choosing me, right? Like, after today, we're together, right?

We've moved onto ice cream by the time the picking begins. Gabriel teases me as I occasionally look around to make sure I don't know anyone, and I just shake my head at him and scoop spoonfuls into my mouth. We sit and watch the clouds pass by, the sun lowering in the sky. We watch people with their dogs and with their friends. As it nears 7pm, Gabriel seems antsy, and he texts his phone out of eyeshot. I just take in the park and rest my hand on his.

"Let's go?" he asks. At this point, I'm just letting him take the day into his own hands. Our lady pulls up, and then we're off. With some soft music in the car, we ride. Gabriel and I just talk lowly in the backseat. I feel like a teenager again, realizing someone likes me for the first time. I keep feeling myself blush at the things he says. The little things he remembers.

We pull up in front of a house, almost at the end of a hill. I stare, confused. It's far enough from neighbors, separated by a big yard. Nice grass. The sundown keeps the sky a dark shade of blue. I see another car in the driveway. Jiao's. We're at his house.

Jiao drives off yet again, and I wonder if she'll be coming back. As soon as I step inside, I feel almost a sense of relief wash over me. I don't know what I expected—maybe some obscure, impractical rich-people furniture—but it's one of the nicest places I've been in. The living room is all themed in dark wood and gold and peach and tan, accents of dark blue. Not intimidating at all. In fact, it looks like there's lots of antique or second-hand furniture. It all goes together so quaintly. I wonder if it was furnished beforehand. Something Gabriel said before reminds me that he's an artistic person, but I don't remember what it was.

I spot a picture on the wall separating the living room and kitchen. I instantly step up close to it, fascinated. It's a photo of Gabriel and Jiao, unmistakeably teenagery. Gabriel smiles with his mouth open, holding what looks like an empty beaker, and Jiao holds up two thermometers, some other tools. They appear to be in a science class. Jiao cheeses hard. They're both baby-faced. Jiao wears a t-shirt over a longsleeve t-shirt. Gabriel has nearly a bowl-cut. I can't help but chuckle at it. "When was this?"

Gabriel is pouring us glasses of honey whiskey over ice. "Science pic?" I nod. "Uhh, early 2000s. We were, 14, 15 ish."

"Wow," I shake my head at it. Wouldn't have suspected the round-faced kid in that photo would be the effortlessly husky man in the kitchen pouring us drinks right now. "Are there more?"

"Yeah, the living room has like, five or six." I'm unnecessarily excited, so I make my way around. Aside from the great furniture and little touches, I see some great photos of Gabriel and Jiao, my favorite so far being high school prom, where they went with other dates, but still managed to coordinate outfits. I'm reminded of Gabriel's family's wealth after seeing a picture of him and Jiao sitting in a limo, absolutely drenched in Fendi products, but still looking like teens.

"When was the Fendi pic?" I ask toward the kitchen.

"Mmm, we were 18? I think," Gabriel says. He joins me in the living room, handing me a glass. "Off to college with way too much money."