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“This is so fuckin’ stupid…”
Tyler jumps up and down, buzzing with alcohol as he flails his arms around. “C’mon, just do it, before I lose my nerve!”
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, uneasily shifting my weight back and forth.
“Absolutely. You ever do this kind of thing before?”
“No.”
“Me either. Come on, on three. No— surprise me.”
I sigh, taking a step forward and doing as he’d asked— I kiss him. He tastes like booze and lip balm and the cigarette he’d just smoked, and I know that I’d given him a taste of iron; I’d been chewing the inside of my lip to the point it was bloody. Tyler didn't seem to mind. When he pulls away, he’s grinning, and I can see a chipped tooth, front and center.
“Motherfucker, right on the lips, huh?”
I feel my face grow hot. “Ah… Did I fuck it up?”
“No, no, that was perfect.” He says, before pressing his lips back to mine.
Again, I'm met with booze, lip balm, and a cigarette, and I know more of my blood’s just gotten into his mouth, but I just can't bring myself to care. I'm lost in the oblivion that is Tyler Durden, and it's nothing short of divine.
I go up for air only when necessary, not wanting to exist outside this intimate little bubble we’ve made around ourselves.
We’ve only known eachother a few days, maybe even less than that, and here I am, practically fucking the guy. He’s got me pressed against a car door and it might just be the best thing that’s ever happened. This is the closest I've ever been to anyone, in proximity and emotionally. I am Jack’s rushing veins as I hang onto the collar of his red leather jacket, not daring to separate unless I absolutely have to, risking short gasps for air between each little infinity, as if Tyler is a drug I need every breath of.
Tyler must be holding me in the same regard. Pinpricks of stubble are against my cheek, and Tyler’s got me firmly in his grasp. I'm leaning against the door of a parked car, him over me, and in the neon lights, I catch him smiling.
“I never even got your name.” he says, and for a moment I forget I even have a name at all.
“Does it matter?”
“It means I'll know you better.”
“You already seem to know me pretty well.”
In a drunken moment of dizziness, Tyler falls on his ass to the rain-soaked pavement, taking me down with him, and we lay there for a moment in a heap before I roll over and straddle him, one leg on either side of his hips, and we’re connected again at the mouth.
I forget everything that’s happened— The meeting on the plane, my lost luggage, the burning apartment a few blocks down. All I can think of is Tyler Durden, Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. He’s pressing up into me like a starving man, like he just realized he needs me the same way I need him. His fingers are in my hair, I can feel rough calluses against the back of my head, and I make a mental note not to buzz my hair down so short next time, if it only means he has something to mess with.
“If this goes any further,” he says quietly, “I gotta know your name. You won't be another one-night stand, you know that, right?”
I know.
“Jack. I'm Jack Sebastian Moore.”
“Jack Moore,” Tyler repeats, and my name coming out of his mouth is the best sound I've ever heard. “But, in your little support groups, you're Cornelius, or Rupert, Neal, Phineas… How do I know which one to call you?”
“That's easy. You're not a stupid group, Tyler, you're so much more alive than they all are. With you, I'll always be Jack.”
“Have you always been Jack?”
“No. Does it matter?”
“Not at all.”
His fingers on the back of my neck are a rapturous sort of thing. When we stand back up, gravel and dirt sticking to us, he grabs my hand in his, and I run my thumb along the back of his hand, feeling the ghost of a kiss gone awry, gnarled and scarred and seared into Tyler’s hand with an alkaline finish. There's a question about it, hanging in the air between us, but it's a can of worms we can open up later, or never.
As we walk to his house, hand in hand, I consider how lucky I am to have met Tyler Durden.