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Xavier passed Sebastian briefly, for a fleeting moment, on his way out of his party.
He'd just premiered The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, and standing at the party, he felt a hush around him. He spent most of his time sitting with Pierre-Luc, downing glasses of whiskey and soda, listening to Pierre-Luc tell funny stories in French.
Remember that time, Pierre-Luc said, when Antoine threw up on the cat? It had been Xavier's cat, named Jack Dawson after the Titanic character, and Jack had moseyed past the couch, tail swaying, as the music thumped around him. Antoine, laying on the couch, had rolled over and mumbled "mondieu, lechat," and vomited a splatter on Xavier's area rug. Xavier smiled when he heard this story, a momentary reprieve from thinking about the first review of his film, already online, that said his career was over.
Now he was tired from the fake plastered smile. The photo he'd taken with Susan Sarandon and his mother. He was partway drunk on the way out to the cab, parked in the cold lot behind the hotel, and Sebastian passed him in the other direction.
Sebastian wore a dark suit and cultivated stubble, like Alain Delon circa 1964, and he touched Xavier's sleeve. "Hey."
"Hey," Xavier returned, not wanting to smile too much.
Then Sebastian kept walking, on his way in with Nicole Kidman, and Xavier got in the cab.
Sitting in the back seat, his heart pounded. He looked at the cab license there. Singh, Aarav. "The Delta hotel," he mumbled, and sat back, feeling for his seat-belt.
As the street lights passed, he thought about the last time he'd seen Sebastian. The I, Tonya premiere, when he'd ridden with him to the restaurant, and sat at the other end of a long table, waiting to be summoned. Eight people had separated them then - hangers on, managers, other friends who were actors - and Xavier had drank and picked at the appetizers until the time read 2:07 on his iPhone, and he'd skulked out in the dark. An invitation that had amounted to nothing. An opportunity lost. He'd slid out of the restaurant without even a glance from Sebastian, and gone back to the hotel, and looked at his own hollow eyes in the mirror as he brushed his teeth.
Just a glimpse of Sebastian in the dark was all it took for his heart to pound again. It pounded as the cab slipped down Yonge Street, through the milling traffic and the clusters of people on the sidewalks. He pressed his forehead to the window and wondered if his career really was over, and if Sebastian knew that, and if it even mattered to him. He'd unfollowed him on Instagram earlier that year, not wanting to see the chipper updates of Sebastian's selfies with friends, of Sebastian working out in the gym.
Maybe, he thought, he was wrong all along. Maybe he really couldn't have these things.
**
He woke the next morning without his alarm, his eyes blinking open at 8:30 a.m. with thoughts of Quebec. Pierre-Luc and his crew were in his new movie. They'd all come along just for the party, and now they were all heading back to work.
Xavier pushed himself into a sitting position, bare legs swinging over the side of the bed, and looked at his phone. More reviews. It was as if he was relitigating arguments in which everyone had ever wronged him, one said, and rewritten them so he could win them all.
His eyes were half open as he stepped into the shower, skimming his limbs with a bar of soap, the warm water running off his tattoos. He dried off and packed his little Louis Vuitton suitcase and dressed himself in sweats and a ball cap.
On his way to the airport, a green text bubble appeared on his phone screen.
Is this still your number?
He sat up straight and opened the text window. The last text from this number as the word ok when Xavier said he was on his way to the premiere.
Yeah, he texted back.
The blinking ellipses, then a response. Sorry we couldn't talk more. I had to get inside.
Xavier tapped out a quick response with his thumb. It's ok.
Are you still in Toronto?
Xavier glanced out at Highway 401. A transport truck rumbled by. Already, jets flew low over them. I'm heading back to Montreal now. He sent the text, and it sat there, the weight of the sentence heavy on his heart. Before he even processed it, his thumb flew over the keyboard again. Come visit if you want.
"Fuck," he whispered. Why had he done that? He'd already extended enough invitations to the guy. He'd walked all the way to the other side, and without a word, been turned away.
He dropped the phone in his pocket, not wanting to see the response. Not expecting one. He kept it hidden as the cab headed up the on-ramp to the departure area, and he got out and dragged his Vuitton suitcase after him.
The silent doors slid open for him. Long lines wound through nylon ribbons that led to calm workers in airline suits. He wheeled his suitcase to the self-boarding line and needed his phone for his boarding info. That's when he saw the response.
Ok.
**
Toronto to Montreal was a short flight. Xavier turned off his phone and looked out the oval window. The clouds were thick and white and looked solid enough to step onto. "Simpsons clouds," Pierre-Luc said next to him, and Xavier smirked and kept watching.
He hadn't answered Sebastian. That was good, right? He'd answered enough on Instagram a year ago, when he'd told Sebastian for the world to see that he could come be with him. Could come care about him. Sebastian had given a chuckling, uncomfortable response, like it was weird to be gay, and that was that.
Xavier took a cab back to his first-floor condo and left his suitcase by the door. He flopped on the couch and Jack Dawson crawled into his lap. Xavier pet his small, warm body, and returned the gleaming eye contact.
Only then did he look at his phone again.
There was nothing from Sebastian. There were, however, three new reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie was decidedly not queer enough, one said. It was a disorganized look at fanboy-dom. Kit Harington was lifeless. None of it worked.
He dropped the phone on the couch and looked at the ceiling. What if his career really was over? What would he lose?
So they didn't like him, he decided. They'd never liked him. None of them. Not one.
**
He was asleep in bed that night, Jack Dawson at his feet, when the doorbell woke him.
He sat up straight at a 90-degree angle, crying out in a half nightmare. Strange things happened when he was half awake - faces forming in folded blankets, mystic streaks from the clothes on the floor.
He waited. Listened. And the door bell came again.
He swung his legs over the bed and padded barefoot across the room, cat in tow. Through the dark living room with the high ceilings, past the open-concept kitchen to the door. His heart thumped in his throat, mind imagining evil possibilities, and he saw a dark figure through the vertical windows. He froze and called out. "Who is it?"
"Me."
He cocked his head. Was it...could it be...
"Who?"
"Sebastian."
Xavier looked down at himself. He wore fuzzy boxer shorts and no shirt. His hair was a tangle of chestnut curls. His eyes bore the same dark circles they had all week, darkening with each review and settling there permanently with the Rotten Tomatoes score so far. Eight per cent.
His brow furrowed as he inched toward the door and looked. Sebastian stood on the other side of the window, heavy bag slung over his shoulder, cap pulled down past his eyebrows.
Xavier unlatched the lock and opened the door, and Sebastian's vibe wafted at him, like sweet cologne and fresh laundry. "You told me to come."
Xavier stepped back, rubbing the back of his head as he made room for Sebastian to enter. He did, and they stood in the darkness.
"I'm intruding," Sebastian said.
"No, you're not." Xavier locked the door and entered the dark living room with him, and gave an absent gesture. "Take off your coat."
Sebastian stepped closer, their auras overlapping, and planted a kiss on Xavier's lips. Xavier's head was turned sideways, looking elsewhere, and their noses collided. He breathed in against Sebastian's lips, then shifted to turn sideways, adjusting to the sudden intrusion of tongue pushing into his mouth. He raised his hand toward Sebastian's chest, wanting to stop it, and instead just rested it there. He kissed back.
Sebastian broke the kiss but stayed hovered so close that Xavier looked at his blurry eyes in close up. "I missed out," Sebastian said.
"Not really. My movie bombed."
Just saying that made his heart crack like lightning. Had Sebastian even read? Had he understood?
Then the face came closer, and the kiss landed again. This time, it was slower. A tongue given and a tongue received, melting with equal pressure. Xavier couldn't quite breathe out yet, but he came close.