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“Hey, Mazz, um, I think… I think we need to talk about what happened last night.”
Mazz had, in his time on earth, made some rather poorly thought out decisions, some of which might even qualify as mistakes, but he prided himself on not being the kind of person who forgot the stupid shit he did, so when he looked at Chris and replied, “Huh?” He really meant that he had no idea what was going on.
Last night, as far as he knew, Paige had introduced him to Chris at the bonfire, and they had talked and flirted. It hadn’t gone further than that, though certain thoughts had crossed Mazz’s mind.
Chris flushed, looking like a deer caught in headlights, or like Mark when a teacher called on him in class. Also like Mark, Chris struggled for words for a second, then ducked his head. “Sorry. My mistake.” He turned and hurried down the hall into the crowd.
Mazz thought about calling after him, but he was already too far away for there to be much of a point. He attempted to shrug it off, but something about the exchange lingered, remaining with him for the rest of the school day while he spaced out in his classes.
He caught up with Mark on the way out of the building, in his usual rush to get as far away from school as possible in the least amount of time.
“Mark, buddy, hold up!” He reached out, but caught himself before he grabbed onto Mark’s sleeve; unexpected touching wasn’t something Mark liked. “This is going to be a weird question.”
“When isn’t it with you?” Mark asked, turning down the alley that would take him to Main Street and the post office.
“Did anything weird happen last night?”
Mark frowned. “I don’t know, weren’t you there?”
“Yeah, but that guy, Chris, came up to me and said he wanted to talk about what happened, but I have no fucking clue what happened, or what he wanted to talk about.”
“With Paige’s friend?” Mark shrugged. “I didn’t notice. You talked a lot, but that’s not weird. You always talk a lot.”
“Do you think I talk too much?” Mazz asked, momentarily distracted. “Wait, never mind. Is that all you remember?”
“Yeah. Hang on I have to get my letters.”
Technically speaking, they were Harry’s letters, or that’s what the people who sent them thought. People like Mazz’s friend and crush, Confused, who he’d been talking to on the phone for a couple weeks now, starting not long after he’d found out that Mark and Harry were one and the same.
“Three today, that’ll be enough to keep the show going,” Mark said, “I didn’t have much to say tonight.”
That usually meant Mark’s day had been relatively good.
Mazz looked at the letter on the top. “How come that one’s fucked?”
Mark shrugged. “I don’t pay enough for them to take good care of the letters.”
It had been crumpled up and folded awkwardly, as if it had been forced into the narrow mailbox slit the wrong way. The address was scrawled across it, but there was no stamp.
“Can I read it?”
“Nah, I’ll save them for tonight. Are you going to come by after the show?”
Mazz smiled. “I’ll be there.”
“Let me know how it goes at the field.”
Hours later, Mazz was listening to Harry talk about their shit school, only half paying attention. The other half scanned the crowd, searching. Are you here Confused?
“This last letter is from a repeat offender,” Harry said, and Mazz looked at his car radio, as though that might make him talk any faster. “Dear Harry, remember me? I’m Confused. You gave my number to a friend of yours, and we’ve been talking for a few weeks. I liked him a lot, but I didn’t know who he was.”
Mazz was holding his breath, leaning into the radio like his life depended on it.
“I met him last night,” Harry said, still reading aloud from the letter. “I met your friend, and we talked, and it was just like being on the phone, but I could see his face and he was right there!” Harry stopped reading. “Folks, I think it’s important that you know that he underlined that.”
“Get on with it!” Mazz muttered, and he thought about driving to Mark’s house to take the letter from his hands, but he didn’t want to lose the signal on the way.
“I met him, but then today, after we’d talked practically all night, he acted like he didn’t recognize me at school, but I’m sure he knew. Why would he do that? Yours, Confused.”
Now Mazz did start the car, because he realized what an idiot he’d been, because everything made perfect sense.
He screeched to a halt in front of Mark’s house, leaping out of the car and over the wall into the back yard where he nearly ran directly into the glass door leading into Mark’s room.
He waved his hands frantically, and Mark looked up, slightly panicked. He covered the microphone. “What?”
“Tell him to… tell him to meet me where we were last night!”
Mark sighed and nodded. “Well, I just heard from my friend, Confused, and he really wants to talk to you. Meet him where you saw him last night if you want to hear him out.”
As soon as he’d heard the words, Mazz went back to his car and drove away, out into the desert until he’d gotten to the old campsite where they’d had their fire the night before.
It was cold enough to justify the many layers Mazz usually wore and he was grateful for his jacket as he settled in to wait.
It felt like hours went by as he sat in silence, too far from Mark’s house to get the signal for his show.
When he eventually heard the sound of tires crunching over old sand, he jumped out of his car, hitting his head on the door frame just in time to see Chris riding his bike into the campsite.
“You came!” Mazz said, long before his brain had caught up with him.
“What happened?” Chris asked, his eyes darted around as though he expected someone to pop out of the scruffy desert bushes any second. “This morning you acted like you didn’t know me.”
“I didn’t!” Mazz insisted, “Well, what I mean is, I didn’t know you were, you know, you. Confused. I thought you were Chris.”
“But last night…”
“I didn’t know last night!”
“How… We talked for ages, you didn’t recognize my voice?”
“You recognized mine? Mazz asked, feeling oddly warm, despite the cool breeze.
“Immediately.”
“Wow. I’m… Well I told you I’m kind of an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Chris answered. “I just… I thought you were embarrassed or something.”
“Me?” Mazz asked, gesturing to his outfit and his hair and trying to encompass everything about his existence with one word. “I have never felt shame in my life.”
“Oh.” Chris glanced at the ground. “So…”
“I like you too,” Mazz blurted. “Just, you know, in case you were wondering.”
“Right…” Chris hesitated. “So… what now?”
Mazz didn’t know how to answer that. He wasn’t the kind of person who made plans, or thought about things before he did them. So he relied on old habits and didn’t let himself think before he stepped closer to Chris and leaned in, stopping just before he kissed him.
You’re supposed to ask, right? He thought, hesitating for a fraction of a second. “Is this–”
Chris closed the space between them, drawing Mazz in with a hand on his neck.
The broke apart after a moment of awkward, fumbling perfection, blushing and a little breathless.
They made eye contact and laughed, both looking away.
“That was–”
“So how–”
Mazz paused. “You first.”
“Um… What now?”
A glance at his watch told him that they had probably missed the end of the broadcast. “We could… Do you know anything about stars?”
Chris looked momentarily flummoxed. “A… A little I guess. I know like… why they’re called what they’re called and stuff.”
“Perfect,” Mazz said. “Let’s stay here for a while and you can tell me about stars.” Now that he knew whose it was, he wanted to listen to that voice for a little longer.