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“Henry.”
There were a lot of things that Henry Cheng aspired towards — he’d been brought up to believe that most things were achievable if he really wanted them, and he was raised wealthy enough to know that he had the privilege to ease the way. Possibility, they say, was endless.
Henry had never considered the possibility of Richard Gansey III on the other end of his phone.
He dropped the Xbox controller from his hands in a flash. Cheng 2 complained something mild, pausing the game, but Henry waved him off, was out of the beanbag chair before he thought to breathe again.
“Richard Gansey,” he said, sliding onto the porch, silent sliding glass door. It was warm and humid outside, but he barely noticed, stretched his legs out across the wicker patio furniture. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Henry Cheng.” He could hear his grin through the phone, and Henry imagined it in person, the pristine photo-op shine of his teeth. “Would you believe I was just in the mood for the company of your voice?”
“With a little coaxing, maybe,” Henry supplied, sliding his arm over the back of the chair to swing it back and forth as he spoke, performative without him even really there. “ The Richard Gansey’s a busy fellow, I hear.”
“Well, it’s easy to believe everything you hear, Cheng, completely understandable,” he laughed, quietly, and kept his voice lowered, like he was sitting in the dark. “I seem to have a hard time sleeping, often.”
“ Completely understandable ,” Henry said like a shared joke between them, even though they’d never had a joke like that. He felt Gansey’s soft breath of a laugh again through the receiver and felt bolder. “You require the services of my sweet voice.”
“Precisely,” Gansey agreed.
“Consider me coaxed and flattered,” Henry agreed easily, because who was he to deny him anything? He couldn’t imagine a reality where the world didn’t bend at Gansey’s feet.
“I might,” Gansey stuttered a bit, and Henry felt the shift in him, the way he spoke, like the action had come out of him without him meaning it to. “I might also ask a bit of your advice.”
“Further flattered,” Henry said to be funny, but then he shifted too, scrunched himself further in the chair and squashed the pillows behind his head. He let his voice relax too. “What‘s up, Gansey-boy?”
“I —“ there was a pause there, a gathering of breathe. “You like. Women.”
Henry blinked. Rallied.
“Uh, yes. An equal opportunist, if you would. Bisexual, if you wouldn’t.” He’d minced words enough times that he’d grown tired of it, wanted to try it on Gansey.
“Mmhm. Do you — do you mind if I ask?”
Henry had never thought to plan this conversation out. He never had seen this coming, talking about his affinity for boys who looked exactly like Richard Gansey III with Richard Gansey III.
“Anything, m’boy.” He was proud for the lack of a quaver in his voice, but felt like Gansey would know anyhow.
“Do you have a preference? Or is it, say, strictly fifty / fifty?” Henry could imagine him saying this brusquely, as if they were discussing investment percentages. Instead, his voice is still low and quiet, just the two of them sitting on the airwaves.
Henry blinked away the lights in his eyes, the hum of the game that Cheng 2’s booted up again loud enough that he can hear it through the glass.
“The fairer sex — you and I, of course — draws me more, but there’s nothing strict about it.” There was a pause of air. “Do you agree?”
“You know that I do.” And he sounded unembarrassed but there was a hum of a joke in his voice, the Do you really have to ask? And Henry grinned with it.
“My chap, the whole school might know. You are the most magnificent casanova to play for our team and to grace the halls of Aglionby this century. They may as well plaque you!”
Gansey laughed again on the end of the line, like it was surprised out of him.
“Kind of you to take yourself out of the running, Cheng,”
“Who said I had? Everyday I live in your shadow, Gansey-boy. We’re in competition, you and I.”
“Are you going to wax poetic about your conquests?” Gansey asked, and Henry’s chest hurt with it.
“I would never dream of it. Good to just live in the moment, don’t you think? But you’re both, too? That’s the reason for this midnight ego stroke, I’ve gathered.”
A pause.
“You’ve gathered correctly.”
“I’ve got a plaque and a Pottermore quiz that agree I gather pretty well. But then, I ask, why does my charming voice come into play? I am many things, Gansey, but a woman is not one of them.”
Henry did not say: Why have you brought your sexuality crisis to me? Don’t you have two loyal lads at your beck and call?
He doesn’t say: Richard Gansey, you called me.
“I know that, of course. It’s just, do you think it feels differently? Between girls and boys?”
“I suppose. But I also suppose it feels different to love any one person, regardless. That may be the romantic in me, though.”
“Yes.” Gansey sounded defeated. Henry felt like he was vibrating above the patio furniture almost. He could barely breathe to ask.
“Are you thinking of someone specific?” Exhale.
“Yes,” he exhaled to match, as if rallying himself to it. “She just, she makes me…quiet.”
The admission of it felt too big for Henry to volley something back, and the static of the phone, the hum of night bugs out in the humid air like a balm over them. Often, Henry thought that some concepts were too big for him to hold, and to say. They spilled out of his hands.
He felt as if Gansey were cupping water perfectly in his palms in front of him, the drip of it over his knuckles. Backlit, for some reason in Henry’s mind, by some brilliant light.
The sun had already dipped behind the mountains hours ago, long and gone. Not even the dull outside band of light was visible, just twilight blue. Warm.
Nobody had said anything, and Henry realized that this was the culmination of Gansey’s unprecedented phone call. To make this vague, quiet, precise statement outloud and to let it linger.
Maybe he didn’t know how to hold it either. This thought spiked Henry’s chest hard enough that he was moved to speak, something, anything.
“So are you saying that boys make you loud?” He said it evenly but left the edge of the joke in his voice, if Gansey so chose to take the out, to pull them out of that moment, too hard to hold.
He did, laughing again like it was surprised out of him, the silence sucking back into the night. Loud.
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice lighter. “I suppose that’s true.” Henry licked his lips, throat gone dry. Too much of everything in the air. Everything is what he felt. Impossible, impossible. Henry tried to pull it back down to real, tangible feelings.
“If you’ll allow me to say it, I’d do more than suppose. I’ve heard things about rowing lads, Gansey-boy, and we might leave it at that.” He was laughing, now too, but he could still hear Gansey’s crystal voice on echo. She makes me quiet.
Gansey exclaimed, cursed so un-Ganseylike that it surprised Henry, his voice light enough still to know he didn’t mean it, just wanted to say it out loud. His voice sounded as natural as always, like it was molded from his lips, like he had invented the word ‘damn’ on the sixth day of Creation and here it was now. Henry would follow Gansey in a trance, he knew it. No question about it.
He’d follow Gansey across the globe.
“Small school, sorry my boy. Completely understandable ,” Henry said, laying on thick the joke twice, hoping that Gansey would take the bait. “A strong one among us who could withstand the raw power of a rowing lad’s thighs.”
He prided himself, then, on not imagining Gansey’s legs. Ankles. Boat shoes, perfect tie, square hands, perfect pink fingernails. Henry shook himself from the domino of visuals, focused on the hard press of his phone against his ear, the slight stick of sweat where it touched his skin.
“Gansey, mate, are your friends also of our persuasion? It’s said that we always do seem to flock together, one way or another.” His eyes flicked behind him back to Cheng 2, just briefly. Watched the shift of his fingers, TV screen bright on his concentrated face as he played.
“I don’t think I’m at liberty to say, Cheng,” Gansey said, evasive, smooth. But just the edge of uncomfortable, now, because Henry was bending that unspoken rule about them. Don’t talk about Lynch and Parrish . It followed him around, everywhere.
If Gansey had an Achilles Heel, as all golden people do, Henry thought he might know where to push.
“Of course. I’ve just wondered about Parrish,” Henry said, off-hand. Thought of Cheng 2 again. “You’re right, though, of course. It would be unchivalrous of you to divulge information like that.”
“Adam?” Gansey nearly cut him off, as if with surprise. “Oh, I don’t know about Adam…” He trailed off. “Imagine.”
“He’s got tragic golden boy written all over him. Now him , he might give you a run for your money.”
Gansey laughed again, but it was slower, low, sleepy sounding. Comfortable. As soon as Henry thought it, there was an inhale of breath as Gansey yawned on the other end of the phone.
“You’d vote against me, Cheng?”
“I didn’t say me , Richard. I mean the general prep-school population and their hard-on for Adam Parrish. Me, though? I’m your number one fan all the way, my boy.” He paused, swirled the rest of the words around in his mouth, uncertain. “It doesn’t change anything to know you root for both teams. You must know already, but I have to say it regardless.”
“Henry,” Gansey said, soft, but Henry felt his attention on him, unwavering, awake, awake. Call me and I’m summoned .
He sounded like a prince, truly.
“I’d follow you across the globe, Richard Gansey.”
“I would sure appreciate the company, Henry Cheng."
And every inch of Henry’s skin was baking, warm to the touch, bathed in the endless Virginia humidity and turned up to 400 degrees. Everything in Gansey’s voice sounded like he meant it, like Henry really could reach out and touch him, that this conversation was not something he had imagined. He thought his fingers might shake if he tried to lift them.
He said it so comfortably, suspended in the thick air, that Henry felt they could both hang up, wordless, and the spell still wouldn’t have broken.
But because Henry doesn’t understand when to speak, when not to, he felt everything condensing in his throat, catching there, unwilling to move a finger, press the button.
“One day I’ll really do something about it, man. I’ll take you out and everything, all nine yards and a tenth one too, just because I can.” He surprised himself that his voice didn’t betray him. “But only if ever you need the rebound of your Lady Luck, of course. I wish you both the best, but, ah, I did preface all of this and tell you that I’m an equal opportunist at heart.”
Gansey’s laugh was the quietest one the whole night, just his breath in a puff of air against the receiver, but it nearly sent Henry reeling, prickles of nerves up his fingers that were just previously stone.
“I look forward to it,” Gansey said, his voice the same golden certainty before, blinding him with it even still. “Goodnight, Henry. Thank you for answering.”
He hung up.
“Of course,” Henry said to empty air, the shadows of the trees beyond the patio. The lightning bugs blinking farther into the mist.
Miraculously, a second passed, another, and Henry kept breathing, and breathing, and the phone call with Richard Gansey the Third became a thing of the past, past, gone. God .