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Lee got groceries, so the fridge is fucking overflowing. I have to get on my hands and knees to make room. He always shops like he’s stocking up for the apocalypse, which made more sense once I saw him disconnect, zipping through the aisles all dissociated. In the end I have to chuck the shrimp scampi. The fridge door shuts with a suctiony smack, rattling the magnets, and I wince as I realize how loud I’m being. I keep forgetting that if the game’s loud enough to hear from the kitchen, it’s loud enough to hear from the rest of the apartment. Poor Lee’s probably waking up to the goal horn.
I fix Patty’s crooked graduation invitation. I consider taking it down; it’s tomorrow, and Lee still hasn’t brought it up. But it’s the only thing on there, so I leave it.
I go and turn the TV off, then feel my way into the bedroom. Lee makes fun of me for never using the lights, but I can’t stomach the stimulation after a shift under those kitchen LEDs. I strip out of my clothes and collapse onto the mattress.
“I can’t go back there,” Lee whispers as I’m rolling over, bed springs squeaking underneath me.
“Shit,” I say, arm flying out. It hits him somewhere solid, and I grope after his blurry mass, petting him clumsily. “Sorry, surprised me. Thought you were asleep.”
His body’s rigid. I frown, framing his face with my hands, and his words catch up to me.
I’ll never forget the day Lee told me about the fire, because he stepped into the tub fully dressed while I was shaving at the sink. I remember staring at the opaque gray of the shower curtain as he laid everything out, feeling it slide down my throat like a fish bone. Anyway, Lee’s bedroom doesn’t have a window, and it takes some getting used to because the darkness is so absolute; you’re actually better off not trying to see, because the effort just tips you off balance, makes you feel like you’re standing on the edge of something. Lee knows that, and now he’s using it as another kind of curtain, another way to get the separation he needs.
The ceiling fan whirls around above us, disconcertingly fast. My eyes are so dry I swear they crinkle when I blink. Lee shudders, gagging, and buries his face in my chest. “It’s Patty, though. It’s his big day. I’ll beat myself up for the rest of my life if I miss it.”
“So we’ll go then.” I stroke his hair back and he nods, hissing out through his teeth. His breathing speeds up, punchy like a bike pump. I slip a hand under his shirt and his heart jumps out into my palm. “Hey,” I say, starting to get scared. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I don’t know,” he gasps, shuffling closer. My arm gets trapped between our chests. “I don’t know. It’s just—it’s too late. I kept putting it off, trying to ignore it, and now you won’t be able to get off work. And I don’t have anything to wear, my suit’s all wrinkled. Traffic’s going to be a shitstorm. I just can’t be there, I can’t deal with it. The fucking eyes following me everywhere.”
I shush him, mouth against his jaw. His head snaps to the side like it’s on a string. His leg twitches and I hook mine over it, hauling him closer, feeling his spine jut out through the fabric of his t-shirt. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Hey. I’ll take care of it.”
He snorts, belly constricting. “What?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
I’m dead serious, but he breaks down into delirious snickers. “Yeah? What’s that supposed to mean? You’re gonna stop the traffic? Stop everyone from looking?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.” My face hurts from smiling. It’s not super smooth, finding his mouth in the dark, but I do. The taste of copper explodes behind my eyelids, and I can practically see it, stamped into the dark void: him chewing up his gums as he lay here waiting for me, anxiety slapping his heart like a hamburger.
“Go to sleep,” I choke, pushing my squashed hand into his burning skin.
/ / /
I must wake up four or five times in the middle of the night to pee. It’s dark enough that I don’t have trouble getting back to sleep, except for the last time, when Lee wakes up too. I guess falling asleep froze him in all that tension, because it’s throbbing off of him. I huff, rolling him onto his back and rucking up his shirt. There’s a red line across his chest where he slept folded over.
“Won’t work,” he warns groggily, but his breathing skips when I get a hand on him, and keeps skipping, picking up resistance. Eventually it evens out, and when I finally get him there, arm burning, he jerks through it for a mind-boggling amount of time before melting into the mattress and drifting off again.
I go on a hunt across the apartment and find the ironing board crammed into the utility closet. He groans in protest when I shake him awake, but lifts his arms obediently, watching with glazed eyes as I work his arms through the still-warm sleeves of the dress shirt.
“S’that cologne?”
“Yeah,” I say, working my way down his buttons. “It’s a special occasion. You want some too?”
“That’s okay.” He butts his head into my chest, getting in the way. We’re good enough on time that I let it happen, holding his nape as he blows out slowly, nailing my heart with a straw-shaped channel of air. “I like it, though.”
I rub my thumb up and down the side of his neck. His eyes flutter closed and he dips his head, nuzzling my hand. I stare at his eyelashes, tracing his stubble with the backs of my fingers, over his jaw and up along the side of his cheek. He closes his parted mouth and swallows. “You know what, sure. Go for it.”
It takes me a minute to work back to whatever it was we were talking about, and while I’m doing that he squirms, flush spreading. I get the bottle from the bathroom and push up his sleeve to give him a spritz. “I’m going to go call in to work, and then I’ll be ready.”
“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t look up when I smack a kiss to his head, too absorbed in massaging his wrist.
/ / /
I keep an eye on Lee as he drives. He’s his usual manic self, following too closely, weaving through lanes without a turn signal. I’m expecting his body to lock up as we get closer, but he stays loose, leaning back in his seat with one arm across the door panel. The parking lot’s jam-packed. He’s cursing up a storm by the second go-around, and I’m thinking okay, here it comes, but then he wedges into an impossible spot and rounds the car whistling. I stretch my legs, thrown for a loop.
I follow him up to the back row of bleachers, where he sighs and splays out against the fence. I pick his hand up and move it out of the way so I can sit next to him. The corner of his mouth ticks up, and he nudges my thigh with his fingertips.
The sun shines in a slit across his face, zipping me into its warmth, and I get lost in it, drifting. I jerk back to earth with a dry mouth and vicious eye strain. I swallow, pinching the bridge of my nose. There’s an itchy sensation in my peripheral vision, and I turn to check on Lee. He’s angling his head away. Shit.
I swing my leg over to straddle the bleacher. Lee pulls away at first, making a noise of protest, but when I squeeze him it all comes up, wet coughs and tears. I rub his back forcefully, too worked up to hop on a train of thought, but a girl is giving a speech in the background and eventually her voice fits into my brain just right and it clicks. I picture Lee’s girls smiling at me from on top of the dresser. My heart pounds, goosebumps erupting all over my skin.
Lee tolerates me holding him for longer than I expect, only shaking me off once Patty’s red head is visible at the end of the stage. We get to our feet and holler ourselves hoarse. After the ceremony he bulldozes a path down the bleachers, and by the time I catch up, Patty’s clinging to him uncharacteristically, teenage clique nowhere to be seen.
Patty lets go, leaning down to retrieve his fallen cap. “Where’s everyone else?”
“I don’t know,” Lee tells him. “I don’t know where they were sitting. Here, I’ll trade you.” He swipes Patty’s cap and shoves an envelope in its place. Patty eyes him warily while tearing open the seal, parting it with his fingers.
“They’re balcony,” Lee says, smoothing his hands down his jacket. “For Game 2. I was thinking the three of us could go. Or you could take your little girlfriends, I don’t care. Whatever you want to do.”
Patty stares at the tickets, nodding to himself. He doesn’t make any of the obnoxious jokes I’m expecting. I guess he knows how much they go for, and how much it means for Lee to spend that kind of money. When I first started staying over, Lee owned a single three-piece set of silverware. If we ate together one of us would have to use the spoon.
“The three of us is good. Wow. Thanks, Uncle Lee.” Patty gives Lee another hug, one-armed. Lee pats him awkwardly.
Lee ducks out of the way just in time for everyone else to push through, tucking the tickets back into the inside of his suit jacket. Somehow I end up with a phone in my hands. I take pictures of the whole group together, of Patty and a couple with Lee; Patty and the couple without Lee; Patty and some kids; Patty with another couple and their baby. I’m snapping blindly, the sun too strong for me to see the screen. Patty directs the action, basking in the attention, but I have this odd sense that he’s aware of me specifically, and that he’s working himself up to something.
Patty bats away the hand of the blonde woman fixing his hair. His eyes land on me again, and I raise my eyebrows. He makes a face. “Dougie, get in here.”
I look to Lee for help, but he’s already helping the woman move her stroller out of the way. I pass the phone off and get in next to Patty, waffling over whether or not to put an arm around him. In the end I do, holding the pose uncomfortably as I wait for Lee, who’s gotten sidetracked, peering in politely as the blonde woman peels back the stroller’s plastic sun cover.
“He looks good,” he tells her in that signature rasp of his, vacantly sincere. “Looks healthy and everything.”
The woman’s face crumples in on itself like a popped bubble of gum. There’s a tremor in her hand as she flips the cover back down, adjusting it needlessly. “You look good too, Lee.”
Holy shit. That’s Michelle. It’s got to be. I can’t believe it took me so long to notice. A sour cocktail of feelings stirs up in my throat, and I have to put a fist over my mouth to keep from gagging.
Lee’s come so far since I met him that it’s hard to even explain. He used to sort of float in and out of his life, all numbed up from bad things solidifying inside him. It took a lot of elbow grease to break that shit up, and I still haven’t figured out how to get it out completely, but at least the whole awful tangle of guts is on my hands now, too. At least Lee’s not alone in it.
I’ve gotten used to clocking in to find half my line cooks MIA, so pretty much nothing makes me mad anymore, but seeing Lee flattened into 2D next to these people makes something ripen, peeling me down to my insides. I want to stuff Lee’s progress in their faces. But then I taste metal in my mouth and think about the soft bruisy stuff, like how the day before yesterday Lee picked up the phone in the middle of realigning someone’s strike plate, drill whirring as I ranted about the D-zone coverage under Sturm, and then spammed me with pictures of South Shore bar pies until I agreed to take him to Weymouth. He didn’t even drink but he kept pinching my thigh under the table, cracking himself up giving me these winks. Yeah, I’m not letting them get their hands on any of it.
“Lee’s been working out more,” I say, clapping Patty on the shoulder. “Pat, tell ‘em.”
Someone laughs. Lee looks up like he’s just remembering where he is. He ambles over, slinging his arm around Patty from the other side, and our hands overlap. I think about the day before the day before yesterday, and the day before that one, rewinding, and my chest pumps with all that I’ve protected, an endless stream of precious things.
/ / /
The restaurant’s mobbed, and of course nobody made a reservation. We’re stuck with a forty-minute wait. The kids couldn’t care less, sprinting back and forth across the docks. I could use some of their energy. I’m bracing myself on the bench where Lee sits hunched over, massaging his temples.
I go to rub his back and catch myself. Static sticks me all over and I wring my hands, flexing my jaw, which feels tight and misaligned. Fuck. Why couldn't Lee have given me some sort of game plan?
I’m relieved when George’s wife touches him on the shoulder. “I’ve got ibuprofen,” she says. “You want some ibuprofen, Lee?”
“It’s fine,” Lee mumbles, pressing the butts of his palms into his eye sockets. I make eye contact with her over his head.
“I’ll get water,” I offer.
“Wait. I have some here.” She passes me the Advil bottle and starts rooting around in her purse. I unscrew it and tuck the cap in my palm.
“Come on, here you go,” I say, prying one of Lee’s hands free. I don’t know why watching my mouth is making me so restless. I’ve never called Lee any names. I was always afraid of spooking him, and they felt weird coming out of my mouth anyway. But I’m looking down at the back of his head as he downs the pills mechanically, and my nerves start spitting everywhere. I want to wrangle the day into submission—to kill the droning boat engines and strangle the gulls that are doing too much cawing, flapping, and shitting, and flip the blazing sun back into the sky. I want to make these fucking people disappear.
The buzzer goes off, letting us know our table’s ready.
I mostly talk to Patty while we eat. We decide he’ll come up to Quincy on Friday night. We’ll park at my coworker’s place and take the T to the game. We make bets on the line combinations and the score after each period, and then I talk for so long about Geekie’s shooting percentage that he stops listening to me. I honestly couldn’t care less, but it’s the exact sort of thing Lee would tease me for; it’s so hard not to reach for him then, all crawled into himself and picking at his plate.
I go back and forth with George over the bill, mostly for Lee’s sake. I know Lee would hate not contributing. I actually have my card in hand ready to get the jump, but then George fakes a bathroom trip and intercepts the waitress, a level of competitiveness I didn’t even know existed. Oh well. I take care of the talking while Lee accepts hugs goodbye, and then we head down to the boat.
/ / /
I haven’t spent much time on the water, so it’s a real treat for me, leaning over the edge to see the boat suck up the waves. I can tell it doesn’t have the same novelty for Lee, who’s hovering behind Patty as he steers, or for Patty, who’s getting riled up by the proximity. I hear him snap at Lee, something about how he knows what he’s doing. I hear Lee mouth back. I peel my eyes away from the water, twisting around to watch them bicker.
Lee has his sleeves rolled up, gesticulating. He’s lost his jacket, and his curls are fluffy, wind-whipped. The wind must have cooked him up a nice big release of pressure, too, because here he is, all opened up again. The sight floods me with relief. He abandons his argument when I approach, looking at me expectantly, and gets flustered when I stand there silently, digging my thumbs into his hips.
“The cologne wore off,” he says, reaching up to fiddle with the knot of my tie. It doesn’t even need to be straightened. I tug his collar down to brush a finger across his collarbone, feeling strangely still and light. There’s no more buzzing.
“Yeah? You probably just got used to it.”
“It wore off,” he insists. “Yours is still there.” He tugs on my tie and I step closer obediently, squeezing his shoulder and hip. He’s so handsome like this, rumpled dress shirt sticking to his skin. I’m already thinking about getting home, about reheating those ribeyes and eating them in front of the TV. He always scarfs down his food before I can get it turned on and then drapes himself over me as I eat, whining about his heartburn.
“What?” he demands.
“Nothing.” I should dial it back before I freak him out, but my heart won’t stop expanding. “I’m just looking at you. Admiring my baby.”
“Jesus Christ.” Patty retches. “Get a room.”
Lee slackens his grip. With his eyes bulging out like that, he’s like a little fish looking up at me from a cutting board. I’m thinking about what kind he’d be when he tips forward and kisses me. The air’s a mess of mist, making my head fuzzy as I gather him up, linking my hands together behind his waist.
Patty shrieks in disgust. The boat makes a sawing noise and dips, throwing me off balance. I stumble across the deck, dragging poor Lee along with me.
“Okay, okay, I got it,” Lee wheezes, trying to land his palm on my chin to push me off, but he keeps missing. I smack kisses all over his humid skin. The sun reaches its peak, skewering the white boats in place on the water and lighting up Manchester-by-the-Sea, and by the time I circle back to Lee the curtain’s dropped, and I can reach into him and scoop out what’s left of the guts, every single last trace.