Page 37 of Margins

“I'm gonna head back over to my grandpa’s house for the night,” Elijah says, answering a question Alex is almost positive he didn’t ask.

“You don’t have to. I mean, you could stay here,” Alex offers.

The look Elijah gives him makes him want to take it back, Alex certain that he’s screwed up again, when he really just doesn’t want Elijah to go. He wants this mess, whatever it is, and he thinks maybe if they say goodbye tonight, it will hurt in a way that isn’t guaranteed to heal. And then Elijah pushes himself away from the table and stands just to shuffle across the house, his fingers still threaded through Alex’s as he wriggles back into his shoes and then falls back against the front door.

“I definitely cannot stay here,” he finally says.

He doesn’t do anything else either, though. He doesn’t turn to leave, and he doesn’t drop Alex’s hand, and he doesn’t look away, and when Alex closes the space between them and tilts his head for a kiss, Elijah doesn’t stop him. Alex needs this, and maybe so does Elijah, this one thing that might be familiar to them already. Every other step Alex takes seems to be set in the middle of a carnival funhouse, uneven ground and mirrors that lie, and no obvious way to make it to the other side, but kissing Elijah is something quick to warm his body and leave it believing it could have so much more.

It's not even tentative now, the first touch enough to have Elijah’s mouth open, Alex’s tongue there to taste wine and chocolate and a sound he gives right back. They must not be holding hands anymore because Elijah’s touch is gentle at Alex’s back, first over his shirt and then under it, where he skates up and down Alex’s spine with his fingertips. Alex’s fingers are buried in Elijah’s hair again because he can’t help himself, and he doesn’t know how he’s able to press himself any more tightly against Elijah’s body, but he needs something firm when everything else is so incredibly soft. It’s the wine, he thinks. It’s what makes each second syrupy sweet. But Alex can’t actually care about it for long, Elijah’s tongue sliding against his while they hold each other at his front door for a very long time.

Elijah leaves eventually, but neither of them says goodbye, and Alex doesn’t know if that’s how any story is supposed to end, except that he can’t help but remember Elijah’s confession from the day they learned each other’s names.

Maybe I’m too good at it—at letting go. Giving up. Walking away.

Chapter Ten

You wanna come over for dinner again?

Alex sends the text around lunchtime and tries to push the phone away so he doesn’t keep staring at it, but Elijah’s response is too quick.

Thanks but I’ve gotta take care of some stuff around here.

It’s not a surprise somehow, how easily Elijah blows him off, and Alex has a hard time knowing why he’s upset by something he should have expected all along. He vaguely remembers Elijah telling him that inevitable things can still suck, and this definitely does, the disappointment on his face apparently enough to have Steven stop by Alex’s desk to make sure he’s okay.

He’s not. Or maybe he’s always been fine. But Alex wants to be so much better than that now.

He refocuses on work the rest of that afternoon and runs too many errands on his way home. On Wednesday, Alex goes to the office early and jogs around the track at the neighborhood park when he gets home, and he avoids the detours that could take him to Elijah’s grandpa’s house. Thursday brings Steven by his desk again, with a happy hour invitation Alex accepts, and he’s careful to avoid getting drunk enough or sad enough or stupid enough to leave a voicemail he’d regret. Friday is weirdly fine, and the kind of busy he doesn’t mind when his job is mostly predictable, and his mind needs somewhere safe to wander.

Through the entire week, all his texts to Elijah are answered within a reasonable amount of time, but nothing either of them has to say is more meaningful than something Alex could send to Elena’s fourth grade teacher, and he can’t help but wonder whether an actual fight would feel any better, a blatantly bleeding wound maybe better than the ache of a phantom limb.

As if it’s gone in search of an answer, it’s Alex’s body that wakes him in the middle of Friday night, his hips grinding downward into his mattress while a moaned name gets mostly smothered by his pillow, and he wants to cry because he can’t do this now. He can’t be desperate for Elijah’s touch when they aren’t even talking the way they should, but Alex is only caged by bars he’s very carefully placed one by one, and he finally gives in to the need to kick at a couple of them, rolling onto his back and stroking himself over his boxer briefs until it’s not enough. Alex shoves his boxers out of the way and thrusts into his own hand, already so fucking close and hating that everything could be exactly this easy if he would only allow it to be. He imagines Elijah on top of him again, and he thinks about Elijah’s fingers and Elijah’s tongue and Elijah’s cock, and that’s all it takes before he’s coming all over his hand and onto his bare stomach, his body shaking with something too close to a sob until Alex is on his feet just to force himself out of a moment that must be unfair to at least one of them.

By late Saturday afternoon, Alex is just frustrated enough to keep rattling the bars of his cage, and maybe to keep being a little unfair too, stuck on the idea of seeing Elijah after five days apart. It’s not the same as a date out in public, but Alex decides that making another appearance at the bar has the chance to scare the hell out of him almost as much, and perhaps Elijah will see it for the small step it is.

Alex’s shower lasts too long, and getting dressed afterward seems to take even longer, everything about the process making him feel increasingly bare even when the exact opposite is happening. It’s not all that late when he leaves home, and the traffic treats him well enough, giving him hope that maybe the bar isn’t all that much more crowded than the streets, Saturday night or not. That maybe he and Elijah can talk, however selfish that might be.

There’s music coming from inside as he walks up the sidewalk toward it, and Alex realizes he’d forgotten about the live band there once a week. He considers turning around, but then someone coming out of the bar holds the door open for him, and there’s no real option but to thank them and take what’s been offered. Dodging a handful of people hanging out near the makeshift stage, Alex notices two bartenders he hasn’t seen before, then Tyler, and then Elijah, just returning from the back and finding Alex immediately, like there was any way he could’ve known.

There’s some kind of smile there, but it takes Alex a moment to find it.

The table he’s sat at the first two times is taken now, but he’s impressed enough to find another one open next to it, most of the crowd in the room seeming to gravitate toward the patio and the music and the bar itself, Alex’s dark wall there only for the people like him who don’t have anywhere else to go.

He slides onto the stool only a few seconds before a coaster and beer land in front of him.

“I'm not really working anywhere but behind the bar tonight,” Elijah says.

Alex assumes it’s the truth, but he’s not sure what to do with it. He looks around, blinking at the new view of everything, so much the same while it’s also just different enough to make him a little dizzy.

“Okay. Does that mean I should stay or go?”

Elijah shakes his head, the weight of something else slowing him down. “It doesn’t mean anything, Alex. Just letting you know where I’ll be.”

He’s gone again, as smoothly as he’d appeared, back to work as Eli, with his wide smile and bright eyes and the ability to charm every person in front of him at once. Alex watches, as much to see whether a seat might open up there as for any other reason, but nobody moves away from Elijah, and Alex can’t imagine why they would. It’s a convenient excuse, of course, a bullshit explanation for why he remains exactly where he is when he could be anywhere he really wants to be. Tyler stops by eventually—whether to check on him professionally or otherwise, Alex doesn’t know—but he waves off a second beer and thanks him for the trouble and finishes what he’s got while nobody bothers to watch him all that closely.

Then Alex slips some cash under his empty glass, nods one more thank you to Tyler, and leaves the bar.

The drive home is all loud music and rolled down windows on a crisp, windy night, and he doesn’t hear the text he wouldn’t have seen until later anyway. But when he picks up his phone after he’s parked in his driveway, he couldn’t look away from Elijah’s name if he tried.

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