Bowl Full of Cherries (25 page)

Crowley nodded very slowly. “Of course. I care about you, too, Tyler.”

“Rell and I had an argument before we left.” He puffed out his cheeks for a moment before slowly letting his breath escape. “Not unusual. As I’m sure you’ve figured out.”

Crowley’s lips twitched, but his heart wasn’t in the small laugh that bubbled up.

“But this time we fought about you. I told him off for… well, for hooking up with you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want him to hurt you.”

“Tyler—”

“I know. Rell isn’t Peter. Rell’s thoughtless. Rell’s an idiot. Rell’s a lazy slob with no ambition and—”

“
Tyler
.”

“But he wouldn’t
intentionally
hurt you. But do you hear the italics in my voice?” He was drawing beams of energy around the heart now, and Crowley watched him as they bumped along down the tracks.

“Yes, I hear your italics.”

“You are better than Rell. You deserve better than him.”

“You told him not to come with us, didn’t you?” Crowley asked. It was no big reveal—he’d figured
something
must have happened to change Rell’s mind. And truthfully, it didn’t change anything. Rell was a big boy. Whether he argued with Tyler or not, in the end it was his decision. He made the choice to stay behind.

Crowley looked down at his hands, mindlessly moving his fingers to the sound of the gentle holiday music playing over the train’s speaker system, fingering the notes.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “I don’t want Rell in my house if he’s not going to pull his weight.”

“I understand,” Crowley said. Even Xondee, who frequently crashed with them, had donated the couch. What could Rell give? The warmth of his arms wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Tyler. It might even be a mark against him.

“He can visit,” Tyler said, his tone yielding, a parent placating a child. Except Crowley wasn’t throwing a tantrum, he was just thinking. Thinking about tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Trying to decide what it was that he wanted.

“Sure.”

“And if anyone can do a long distance relationship, Crowley, it would be you. You’re so—”

“Tyler?”

“Yes?”

“I think I want to busk.”

Tyler’s finger stilled in his artwork, so complex now that it didn’t really look like anything anymore.

“Like… in the art district?”

“Yes.” Crowley nodded. “I want to play my fiddle in the art district and wear a bowler and put out a tip jar.”

“You… don’t have a fiddle.”

“I have a violin. A fiddle isn’t an instrument, it’s a style of playing. When I get back, I’m going to turn my violin into a fiddle,” Crowley said, some of the fog disappearing from his brain. He’d said something similar to Rell. “When we get back.”

For a long time, Tyler was silent and then he asked, “Are you trying to get over Rell by losing your mind?”

“I got completely naked for your cousin’s camera when I can hardly stand being naked by myself. And when I did, it was like something in my brain flicked on—understanding.”

“Are you planning to busk naked?”

“I’m planning on finding Owl Fredericks,” he corrected. “No more sacrificing my dreams for responsibility.”

“I guess if you’re
really
serious….” Tyler trailed off, and he began to form a surprisingly detailed plan. Who they should talk to, which corner would best suit their needs, partnering with some of his friends to do an art-plus-music-plus-vegan bake sale. Before Crowley had agreed to anything, Tyler had already posted a selfie on Instagram captioned
Perpetrating Creative Ventures w/Sir Fredericks.
His thumbs flew over the keyboard, and his mouth had fallen silent.

No, Crowley was not going to cry over Averell. This was
not
going to be one of those stupid boy-loses-boy soap opera plots. Whatever it was that Rell needed to do before he came to Avona, Crowley would give him the space to do it. In the meantime, he closed his eyes and fingered the air, fingertips gliding over the imaginary neck of his imaginary fiddle.

He’d felt for a long time that the conservatory was his only option. That classical violin was his only option. He hadn’t even realized how stifling that feeling was.

But he could be the next Corey Cartwright if he wanted.

And when he and Rell met up again, Crowley would play him a song.

T
HE
APARTMENT
wasn’t exactly the sparkling haven Crowley had hoped for when they finally got home. Obviously, Xondee had been by again because the fold-out bed was open. Crowley’s roommate walked past the mess without a second glance, heading straight for the bedroom. He needed to wind down and recharge. Some PBR, vinyl, and a bit of knitting; then he’d come around.

Crowley, on the other hand, was full of energy and a buzzing need to be productive. So he worked around the apartment until the afternoon started to burn out of the sky. He took loads and loads of laundry down to the basement where he washed and dried them; he changed the sheets on the couch’s fold-out bed and tucked it away until Xondee’s next visit; he did dishes and took out trash, and cleaned out all the leftovers in the fridge that had started to turn. He scrubbed the toilet and the bathtub, and he put both arms into the job of scraping the lipstick off the bathroom mirror.

And when the chores were done and the space was livable again, Crowley got his violin out and he went and sat on their balcony, right under the eaves, and he played for the whole alley.

Mistle-mistle-mistle-toooooe!

T
HE
NEXT
morning, when everything was cold and silent except for Tyler’s steady breathing, Crowley Fredericks opened his eyes and thought,
shit
. It was December twenty-eighth. His stomach rumbled. His boyfriend was back in Susset, his roommate was asleep, and Crowley had an adult choice to make.

What to eat for breakfast.

To anyone else, it would probably seem like a joke. Drag yourself out of bed, pour a bowl of cereal, and eat, cross-legged on the couch in your underwear. But Crowley had been skipping breakfast for so long, bullied by the extra calories, that the thought of pouring a bowl of cereal by himself daunted him.

There was no Rell there to hold his hand or smile at him or encourage him.

Crowley looked over at Tyler and thought for a second about waking him up. It was still early in his transformation. That meant it was all right to depend on his friends, yes? Except he wanted to be strong, confident Owl, who stood in front of Sondra’s camera, completely naked.

He couldn’t say he loved himself or his body. But he could say that he
wanted
to, and that was something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He’d even taken off his shirt and walked around the apartment, just to fight the feelings of dislike that crept back. The defiant act helped him recapture what he’d had during the photo shoot.

Quietly, he slipped out of bed and grabbed his phone. No messages.

Crowley padded into the clean kitchen, got down a bowl, pulled a spoon out of the drawer, and kept his breathing steady.

“I’m hungry,” he said aloud, talking to the part of himself that wanted to skip the meal. “I’m going to fuel my body. I’m going to fuel my mind.”

Tyler kept boxes of whole-grain cereal and granola in the cabinet. All organic, of course. They tasted like cardboard, but they were healthy. Crowley considered this for a second. And then he took a box down, popped the top, and poured himself some breakfast. His stomach thanked him.

Carefully spooning the seven-grain goodness into his mouth, Crowley sat at the counter and thought about Peter Yeats. They were careful, measured thoughts. If it started to get intense, he’d run. He chewed thoughtfully and imagined what Peter was like today.

What had made him that way?

Who had hurt Peter Yeats so much that he needed to bully and humiliate Crowley to feel better about himself?

Crowley thought about holding Katie’s baby, warm and sleepy. That small child did not have the capacity to hurt anyone. Peter had been a baby once too.

Crowley closed his eyes and raised another spoonful to his mouth. He chewed. He enjoyed the food as it slid down his throat.

Something must have changed inside of Peter. Crowley knew he’d never find out what it was. He could look Peter Yeats up on Facebook, maybe find his address online, but even if they sat down together for a civil conversation, he didn’t think Peter would be able to really articulate the transformation, even if he knew what events preceded it.

Crowley had spent a lot of years hating himself as a direct result of Peter’s cyber-bullying.

He’d lost a lot of time fearing Peter.

Fearing his own body.

Fearing food.

And Crowley didn’t want to be afraid any longer.

So he ate for his health.

He was just finishing off the milk in the bottom of the bowl when his phone dinged. There was a moment where his heart constricted. Was it Rell? Writing to him? His mother maybe? With excited hands, he grabbed the phone and checked. An e-mail message. It was from Sondra and she’d CC’d Rell.

All it said was:

You are beautiful. Thank you for letting me capture your spirit
.

There were three attachments. Photos he opened on his phone. For a second, he didn’t even recognize them. And then he realized the man posing comfortably, completely nude, was him. He touched the screen, stunned.

R
ELL
’
S
ROOM
was quiet, even with the low hum of the record player. He’d played
Rain Queen
for a while, watched some television, lain in bed, and then, God, the world was ending, he’d gone out to the garage and cleaned some more. It was sort of cathartic, getting down in the junk and throwing things out. They could now fit an SUV plus several bikes.

He did not text Crowley.

He did not call Crowley.

But God, he thought about Crowley.

He thought about his soft lips and his freckles, that hair Rell had so quickly become obsessed with, the feel of his body, the sound of his voice in passion and in humor. His laughter, his smile, his wit, how easy it was to be in the room with him. He was comfortable and familiar like an old friend, despite being a very new one.

And Rell cared about Crowley. A
lot
.

But he couldn’t text.

He couldn’t call.

Not until he figured out what he was going to do. How he was going to be worthy of Crowley Fredericks.

And it wasn’t just idiot Tyler and his idiot talk about Rell ruining Crowley’s life. That was all kinds of bullshit. He knew moving up to Avona wouldn’t
ruin
Crowley’s life. Maybe sidetrack it for a while, but ruin it? He wasn’t so arrogant as to think he had that kind of power. But there was some truth about Rell’s inability to hold down a job.

Something in his brain was broken like that.

He
tried
. He really did try—but he got bored with repetition. He hated office work. He hated fast food. He hated retail. He was okay at sales, until a streak of morality hit him and he wound up telling the customer what he
really
thought about the cheap shit he was hocking. He wanted a job where he could be creative. He wanted to make things with his hands. Build. Design.

But all of that required a degree.

So, instead, he lay there in the post-Christmas chill and thought about how he could support himself without losing his mind and, one day, losing Crowley, too.

Goddamn, he missed Crowley.

And then the e-mail came. He was on his computer playing
Rain Queen
when a notification popped up in the bottom right corner. It was from Sondra, and he would have ignored it normally. She was always sending him forwards that she hadn’t checked against the scam websites. So he got things all the time about politicians and their secret whale hunting campaigns or retailers who used children to stock their store shelves at night.

Today, maybe just because he was lonely, he sent his character to an inn to rest, and logged out of the game.

God, he was glad he did.

The photos were stunning. He’d seen Sondra’s work before, of course, and sure, she was talented. She knew how to use her lens so that she had a fuzzy background and a super crisp foreground, that sort of thing. She also knew how to play with light to make everything look dramatic. And he had to admit, he’d checked out her
Beautiful Body Experiment,
and the people she featured did have their own appeal.

But the pictures of Crowley jerked at his brain, his heart, and his cock simultaneously.

The shots she’d sent were beautiful. Crowley on the bed, butt cheeks exposed like a delightful heart, Crowley standing with a towel around his waist, looking pensively at the camera, and Rell’s favorite, Crowley at the window, the snowy light bright, his back all shadows and light from Sondra’s strategically placed lens. He had one hand up, fist twisted in the curtains, the other he used to pull down the pair of boxers Sondra had asked him to put back on for the shot. Crowley stood, his body dark. The light beyond him picked out, highlighted, the best parts of his physique. Rell could see the dip of his strong back and shoulders, his hair-roughed thighs, his powerful calves. Crowley turned his head, just slightly to the left, his face mostly in shadow, his hair parted forward over his shoulders. Rell wanted to kiss the screen.