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Sand has had his oh moment enough times now that, instead of blushing in pleasant surprise about it, he gets pissed. Immeasurably pissed.
He gets looped with Ray on the stupidest job known to man and keeps him company for a ton of money that didn’t even remotely play any part in Sand’s decision. Ray doesn’t need to know that.
Later, in the music room, he makes Ray laugh—and Ray looks surprised at his own laughter, as if he can’t quite believe he just did that. It unsettles Sand but it also simplifies the contents of Ray’s perpetual cloak of misery: rich boy abandoned by friends. And then, Sand proceeds to allow himself room for sympathy—no, not sympathy. Ignorance.
The way Ray moves (slow, sensuous, clearly tipsy), smiles (ruminating, condescending, bitter), stares (dangerous), and the way he sounds (interesting, addicting) trip Sand up in his best efforts to stay nonchalant. Ray is a lot, and all of it is unmarked. (Wait, no.)
Sand’s hubris makes him claim that he can maintain the difference between money and friendship, while simultaneously making his mouth dry up at Ray’s calm side-profile, dipped in soft lightning and surrounded by his mother’s old music.
Ray’s energy is contagious. He is mischievous and charming, and he looks innocent with those eyes but Sand knows there’s not an ounce of naïveté behind them. Like a siren song, Sand thinks. The most forbidden of songs floating in the most dangerous of seas. Stop to listen to one and your flesh will be ripped to smithereens.
Ray’s smile is rough around the edges, his jacket a little too silky, and his hair tousled with restlessness. Everything about him wants to be careful and contained, but then violently set free. Like his skin rebels against another fabric because it’s too used to a particular brand, or like his hair doesn’t want to break the façade of emotionally charged sex-appeal because that way at least it’s appealing.
Most days, Ray is tipsy but sometimes, he walks up to Sand sober and in full control of his senses, and those are the more pleasant occasions.
“Sand,” says Ray, as he jumps right into Sand’s personal life. “Where are you going?”
Sand forgets to keep his guard up because he told Ray that he would be his friend, and friends are allowed to butt in at inconvenient times occasionally. Also, Ray’s foxy little trot distracts him from the girl immediately but that’s neither here nor there.
“Someplace with a friend,” Sand answers.
Inside, his worry grows—this looks vaguely like an intervention.
Ray’s eyes flit rapidly from Sand to the girl, Amm. He smiles sweetly as he lays down his trap, eyes bright under the club’s neon lights like a guileless child under pure moonlight. In true Ray-fashion, the invitation sounds anything like a threesome until it sounds like a threesome.
“Are you suggesting a threesome?” Sand hisses at him, after manhandling him away from Amm.
Ray looks up at him from under thinly veiled amusement. No, of course, he is not. He just wants Sand all to himself, probably because he’s bored and his friends ditched him again.
Ray’s soft fuzzy jacket slides against Sand’s rough brown one as he puts both his hands around Sand’s shoulders, dragging his attention away from the girl, insistent and insolent.
In hindsight, ignorance might be too kind a word for Sand’s utter lack of respect for the siren song, for the ache in his chest and the tingle in his guts with each melodious, fascinating note of music. Friendships shouldn’t be riddled with so many temptations.
But in the end, he lets Ray abuse that word for a long time.