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they were driving home on thursday after a week on the job when it came up. they were at the world’s longest red light, stuck behind a horse trailer, and wrench, who had been so quiet the whole trip, through the whole job, turned to numbers, who was boredly flipping through his guitar magazine for the hundredth time. they looked at each other.
do you want to go out to eat this weekend? wrench said.
sure, numbers said. what, diner?
wrench glanced back at the road. nothing. no, he said, i mean like we go out. to a restaurant.
numbers perked up. he sat straighter in his seat. restaurant? he said, eyebrows raised.
wrench nodded. numbers noticed something a little hopeful, a little soft in his eyes.
sure, numbers said. he felt a little like some high school girl, accepting a date. absolutely.
wrench’s hands hovered like he was about to say something else, but the horse trailer began to pull forward in front of them. he turned his attention back to the car, the road, and numbers was left to his own devices again. he started flipping through the magazine once more, daydreaming about seasoned entrées and messy desserts.
a real restaurant. numbers thought of their reconciliation, right before the job they were driving away from - the grand scuffle they got into, numbers shouting through tears. saying that he missed wrench. after all that shit, i still missed you, he’d said.
are you trying to prove something? numbers thought, watching wrench drive.
on friday, while he sat in front of the tv with his guitar, half-watching old reruns of family feud, he got a text from wrench. tomorrow? it said.
sure, numbers replied.
on saturday, numbers stood in front of his bathroom mirror anxiously running his hands over his beard. it was growing in nicely - worlds away from the patchy mess he tried to grow in high school - and it made him look pretty… cool. debonair. handsome, even. he ran a hand through his hair - still not much to do with that kinky mess. he smoothed down his shirt, patted down the thighs of his pants. “you’re ready,” he mumbled at his reflection. he shook his coat out, throwing it over his shoulders. “you’re ready. it’s just wes.”
just wes. it was just wes that you broke up with last year.
he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. he turned off all the lights in the place except the little one above the kitchen sink. he grabbed his keys, and he left.
it was a shitty place - that was fargo, a shitty city of shitty places - but once his lease was up, he was going to move back in with wrench. wrench kept the apartment when they broke up - it was just as shitty as the rest of them, but it was bigger, and numbers’s bed - their bed - was there. wrench kept everything when they broke up because numbers hadn’t given him much of a choice. he walked out during an ugly, explosive fight and he didn’t walk back in except to grab his things. and even then, he only grabbed what he could carry.
numbers realized when he sat himself behind the wheel of his beat beige sedan that he was shaking. “fuck,” he said. it’s just wes, he repeated. his mantra for the evening. just wes, just wes. you know him. he knows you.
does he, though? that stubborn, self-doubting voice in the back of his mind said. how much can someone change in a year?
i’ve known him my whole life, numbers countered as he began to drive. it’s just the same wes.
when he pulled up to their building, wrench was standing on the sidewalk. waiting. numbers waved. wrench waved back. he came around to the driver’s side. numbers rolled down the window.
let me drive, wrench said.
no. why? numbers said.
i’m taking you to dinner, that’s why, wrench said. do you even know where we’re going?
numbers chewed the inside of his cheek. fair point. he unbuckled himself without a word and got out. wrench swatted him on the ass as he passed.
hands empty and mind without the blissful distraction of driving, numbers was left to sit in the passenger’s seat jiggling his leg as wrench drove, the jittering, sputtering sedan driving more like a bugatti off the assembly line under his partner's hands. bastard, numbers thought, helpless to stop his mind from imagining himself under those hands once again. he shivered, not quite cold, and remembered all the assholes he’d hooked up with who hadn’t known quite what to do with him, quite how to handle him, how to treat him. what he liked.
they pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall and there, standing proud and shining, was a tgi friday’s. bright red, like a beacon in the night. am i overdressed? numbers thought, looking down at himself in his half-buttoned shirt, worn suit jacket and matching trousers. am i underdressed? he looked over at wrench, who looked a little outside himself in the brown-and-cream patterned shirt he wore under his jacket. numbers noticed how shaggy his hair was, more than a little unkempt-looking - i need to trim that, numbers thought. numbers always took care of wrench’s hair, if he didn’t then wrench wouldn’t bother - has he even been to a barber since… ?
wrench looked at him. you want me to open your door for you, princess? he said.
numbers smirked, rolled his eyes. shut up, he said.
they got out of the car, and they walked up the path, and they went inside.
“hi!” the hostess said, flashing braces. “two?”
“yeah,” numbers said.
she seated them quickly in a sticky booth of red vinyl and fake wood right next to the bar. the menus she gave them were just as sticky. gonna have to scrub my hands til i bleed, numbers thought as he paged through it, its sticky laminated pages crackling.
“good evening!” a bright voice said. there was their server, a girl with orange hair in a jumpy, swinging ponytail who looked barely over twenty. her nametag said carole. “i’ll be your server. can i get you guys something to drink?”
what do you want? numbers said to wrench.
water, wrench said.
“is he - ” carole the waitress started.
“just some water, please,” numbers said, flashing his most civilian smile at her.
as she trotted off, numbers snatched the drink menu from the corner of the table. he flipped through it with great speed, barely passing his eyes over the drinks. are you gonna drink tonight? he said. wrench shrugged. i want an irish car bomb.
wrench made a face. you still drink those? he said.
numbers flushed. so? i like to have fun, he said. some of us do.
wrench rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything further. he went back to paging through his menu. numbers, feeling self-conscious, put the drink menu back in its place tucked behind the condiment caddy. he glared down at the table where his menu was spread open, absentmindedly reading through his options. his eyes fell on onion rings - okay, he thought, that’s done.
before long carole was back, and numbers ordered for them - onion rings and…
what did you get? numbers said as carole walked away. he chuffed despite himself. i forget already.
wrench, looking lighter than he had all evening - all month, even - said mozzarella sticks. numbers watched him spell mozzarella, his hands so familiar, so mesmerizing, so fluid. he’d missed them. not that they hadn’t been working together this whole time - numbers was the only guy in the whole operation that understood wrench, after all, and they worked better together than apart. at least, on numbers’s end. he knew, shamefully, that wrench could and did handle jobs on his own.
“i love your hands,” numbers mumbled. he felt safe saying it - the music was loud, the patrons were louder, but no one was paying attention to them anyway.
what’s that? wrench said.
nothing, numbers said.
wrench raised an eyebrow. you know i know you’re lying, he said. he nudged numbers’s foot with his own under the table. he was smiling, looking like the boy numbers always knew. what’s up?
numbers sighed. fine, he said, pretending like it was some big trouble. i said i like your hands. he wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t being completely truthful.
wrench laughed. he splayed his hands out on the sticky table and studied them. numbers did the same. smooth skin, blunt nails. long fingers. wrench took up his hands and began to recount a story: i was with this guy this year, and he told me this thing about -
numbers’s heart sank like a stone. he waved his hands, cutting wrench off mid-sentence. hold on, he said, hold on. you were with someone? he imagined it - wrench touching someone the way he touched numbers, wrench loving someone the way he loved numbers. the images filled him with jealousy, anger, sadness. fear.
wrench’s eyes narrowed. weren’t you? he said.
numbers drew back in his seat. yeah, he said, puffing his chest out like a bird.
so… ? wrench said. he sat up straight, squared his shoulders. numbers immediately lost his chutzpah and sank into his jacket. what? when you said “we’re through” and stormed off what was i supposed to do? sit around and wait for you to come back? no way. do you think i just stop existing when you’re not around?
numbers screwed his mouth shut. he was sweating everywhere - the low red lamplight of the restaurant - fucking mood lighting - only made him feel hotter.
you do, don’t you, wrench said. he took a sip of water, looking self-satisfied. his brows were so low over his eyes - you think my life revolves around yours. how many guys did you fuck?
numbers gasped, unable to stop himself. “excuse me?” numbers said, taken aback. incredulous. he stood and tried to step out of the booth, raised his hand to grab the bartender’s attention. the bartender, no older than themselves, looked over at him, “buddy, can i get four irish car bombs?” he felt wrench’s hand on the back of his coat, and suddenly he was being yanked backward, sprawled across his seat.
would you sit? wrench said. numbers could see him clenching his jaw. just sit, you brat.
“fuck you!” numbers said, righting himself. some of the patrons at the tables around them looked at him, eyeing them warily. any other time, he would’ve taken notice - on the road, in some anonymous diner in the middle of nowhere. but they were in fargo. they were on home turf. there were no small town schmucks to keep an eye out for, no one to notice noticing them. where do you get off asking how many people i fucked?
if you’re not answering, wrench said, a nasty snarl curling his face, a holier-than-thou look in his eyes, then there’s something you’re hiding. something you’re ashamed of.
the angry tears in his eyes blurred numbers’s vision. “yeah, i’m ashamed that i thought you would be any different if i came back!” numbers said. just then, a server set the four car bombs on the table. in his fervor he downed half of one before he threw himself out of the booth and stalked back toward the bathroom, scrubbing at his eyes, wrench unmoving in his wake.
the bathrooms, mercifully, were mostly white with red accents. the white fluorescent light bouncing off the white tile helped - it gave numbers a reprieve from the hot red lights of the dining area. he stumbled into a stall and locked it, pressing his forehead against the tiled wall. cool - cold…
the shakes came on almost immediately. he didn’t want to perch on the dirty toilet, nor the piss-soaked ground, so he just propped himself up against the stall, braced himself. “jesus christ,” he mumbled as he shook, trembled - his hands, his legs - “jesus christ, i want a cigarette. i just want a cigarette. i want a cigarette.”
if it were a year ago, there’d be a crushed pack in his back pocket, and he could take one out and smoke and all would be well, all would be grounded, but wrench made him quit - fucking bastard, numbers thought, fucking self-righteous piece-of-shit ruin-my-life stick-in-the-fucking-mud-bastard. “i’m gonna kill him,” numbers mumbled, his fingers itching to trace over the knife he kept strapped to his ankle, another creature comfort. “i’m gonna kill him, gonna kill him, i hate... “ he stopped.
if it were a year ago, they would be together just as they’d always been, high and drunk and hand-in-hand. they would be going on jobs and scrubbing blood out of their clothes shoulder-to-shoulder kneeling at the bathtub in whatever motel they were stuck in. they would be laughing, they would be - numbers covered his mouth and squeezed, trying to will the tears back into his eyes. it’s just wes, he thought. just wes. you know him, you know him.
do you? the evil voice in the back of his mind said. a lot can change in a year away from you. maybe he finally broke free of your spell.
“shut up,” he hissed against his palm. “shut up.”
still shaking, he unlatched the stall door. miraculously, no one else had come in. he made it to a sink and he thrust the handle all the way to the right - cold. he held his hands under the faucet until it was biting cold, and he ran his cold, wet hands over his face. cold - cold. too hot. he breathed into his hands.
when numbers returned to their booth, no one was there. the car bombs sat untouched. he grabbed the one he’d half-finished and downed the rest, the shot glass inside smacking him on the nose as he finished. he was wiping his face with a red-and-white napkin when their server - carole - passed. “hey,” he said. she stopped, whirling around wearing the widest, fakest smile.
“sir?” she said.
“did you, uh,” he said, “did you see where my - companion went?”
“oh! yes. he just stepped outside,” she said. “your apps will be out in a moment.”
“okay, thanks…,” but she had already motored on, tending to some other depressed, hungry patron.
numbers found wrench standing outside by their car. he was fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot, his back to numbers as he approached. finally, as he drew closer, numbers noticed the smoke.
he grabbed at wrench’s shoulder. wrench turned sharply, looking down at him, a cigarette dangling on his lip. kidding? numbers said. he could feel it, the heat under his collar again - “are you fucking kidding? i’m done. fucking - hypocrite.” he turned to stalk around to the driver’s side, to get in the car and slam the door and drive away forever, but wrench was faster - he grabbed his shoulders, squeezing, shaking his head.
hold on, wrench said, taking his hands back, just hang on. he spat his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his shoe. numbers’s fingers twitched as he watched, and he mourned the cigarette. he was still itching for one, still shaking, still hungry for it. the familiar smoke, the smell, the sting of nicotine on his lips, his fingers…
i’m sorry, wrench said. i’m sorry.
so? numbers said.
i shouldn’t have said that -
“damn right. you should’ve kept your goddamn mouth shut.”
but what did you think i did? honestly? i knew what you were doing.
numbers bit his lip. it was only then that he noticed how heavy wrench’s eyes looked, the shadows under his lashes. he looked like he hadn’t slept. numbers felt his heart breaking a bit - how could he not notice wrench was hurting? had he been looking like that the whole time they were off on that last job?
if i didn’t find someone i’d just sit around thinking about you and i couldn’t just do that, wrench said. i would’ve died. do you know how much it hurt?
of course numbers knew how much it hurt, he was the one who ended it - it was like he’d cut off his own arms. numbers couldn’t make himself say yes, so instead he said the closest he would come to it: no one was as good as you.
wrench cocked his head and gave numbers a watery little smile. he reached out and held numbers’s face in his hands, then, like he was glass, like he was delicate. they kissed. numbers couldn’t help but notice wrench’s heavy, smoky breath.
after a moment, numbers tried to pull away, but wrench doubled down. he kissed numbers again, harder - numbers didn’t mind. he let wrench have his way, it was the least he could do. but he tried to pull away again, and wrench just followed, mashing their mouths together. numbers shoved him. “what the fuck, man?” he said. wrench stood there, looking a little contrite and dumb. his hands hovered where he’d held numbers’s face. “what’s wrong with you?”
i’m worried, wrench said.
that was new, wrench worrying. about what? numbers said.
us, wrench said. you.
what about us?
i don’t want to break up again, wrench said. i don’t want you to go off and get another stupid tattoo. i don’t want you to fuck other guys. i don’t want to worry about you doing coke or dying or getting in trouble.
numbers’s cheeks flared. i don’t do coke, he said.
wrench raised an eyebrow.
i don’t do it a lot, numbers said. i don’t do it when i’m with you.
wrench curled his hands to talk, but across the parking lot numbers heard a faint hey. he held a hand out to wrench and looked over at the restaurant. carole, their server, was poking her head out.
“your appetizers are out, sirs. i’m not - i’m sorry, i’m interrupting,” she said.
numbers started to say “no, it’s fine” but she had disappeared just as quick as she’d appeared. numbers turned back to wrench, who looked wrecked. annoyed and wrecked.
come on, numbers said. let’s eat.
the sight of the car bombs on the table made numbers feel sick, the first having sat poorly in his stomach alongside the guilt and anxiety. he pushed them aside as he sat back down and stared down at his appetizer - a plate of onion rings that looked so unappetizing, so flat and greasy, he felt less hungry the longer he stared at it, and more queasy. he looked at wrench, who was staring back at him.
i can’t eat, numbers said.
me either, wrench said.
wrench took his wallet out and before numbers could protest, he threw a hundred dollars onto the table. coming? he said as he stood, pocketing his wallet. numbers stood, and they walked out of the friday’s together. numbers heard carole chirp a faint “sirs?” as they left.
wrench drove them back. when is your lease up, again? he said as they idled in front of his building - their building.
numbers sighed. end of the month, he said. everything where i left it?
wrench nodded.
they looked at each other. wrench raised a hand, reaching for numbers’s cheek. numbers leaned into it, his warm hand. they kissed, slow and right - it felt like it always had, soft and warm and familiar.
did you mean it earlier? wrench said.
numbers raised his eyebrows.
when you said no one was as good as me.
numbers laughed in an attempt to hide his sorrow. of course i meant it, he said.
wrench smiled, and leaned in to kiss along numbers’s neck.
for the first time in a year, numbers was laying in his own bed. naked, with wrench clinging to his middle as he slept. numbers laid awake, staring at the familiar, water stained ceiling. he could feel his tattoo across his collarbones - feel it like it was burning him. like a brand. i won’t do it again, he thought. i won’t leave you. i won’t hurt you. of course, he would hurt wrench again, and again, and again, but he had no way of knowing that, no way to look into the future. he stroked wrench’s too-long hair and listened to him breathing, and that was all that there was: himself and wrench, tangled together again.
nothing was quite right. nothing was quite as it had been, but numbers could wait for that. it could come later, would come later. as long as he had wrench again, he had somewhere he could start, somewhere they could start again. and they would start again. because what else was there, besides the two of them together?