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Morning. Eugene Roe wakes up slowly, light filtering in through his window and making half-formed, abstract white shapes across his face. He’d half climbed out of his duvet after a fitful, disturbed night, leg bare and cold. He looks at the pillow, he half-smiles, pulling the rest of his body out of his covers, running his hand through night black hair.
His apartment has seemed very quiet recently. Empty.
It wasn’t always that way.
When she was here, there was always music. His beautiful, noble medical student, what was she doing with a chump like him, a rough, no-good guy from the Bayou who was training to be a paramedic? They’d met by chance, a transfer student from France at a University party back in Louisiana. She was distant and serene, an enigma to all, who surprised him and probably everyone by taking an interest in that quiet guy who always looked worried. They moved to Telegraph Avenue so she could continue her studies in Berkeley, setting up this small apartment. It was crazy but they were young, in love, reckless. They chattered away in French all night and she brought him chocolate to eat between shifts. It was a sublime 8 months.
Gene cursed to himself through gritted teeth.
It had been years, years and years since he’d thought about Renee. Years since the car accident, years since he gave up his training because it was too painful to think about how he had the skills and the expertise to save her but couldn’t, didn’t know, wasn’t there in time. Years since he took a job at a bar and surrendered to loneliness and grief, resolving to never let anyone near him again. So many years.
He knew she would say it had been long enough.
She would tell him it was time.
She was always right.
Eugene had the day off, a rarity that seemed almost fateful. He decided to walk up to the hill to clear his head.
He walked past the coffee shop, where Harry and Kitty waved cheerfully, past the bar where Winters swept outside, always doing the chores despite being the owner. Lipton and Speirs were out on the street with their dog, arm in arm, Lipton offering Gene a warm smile and Speirs giving him a perfunctory nod as they crossed paths. He hurried past the burgundy storefront of Nixon Records, where Webster was ribbing Liebgott mercilessly in a fond sort of way about a photograph of the young Joe in Israel on a Jewish summer camp trip, dressed in the garish bright neon that was symptomatic of the 90’s. Liebgott was retorting that he had no room to talk about embarrassing teenage behaviour, ‘Kenyon’, because when Webster was Joe’s age in the photograph he was a hardcore, obsessive Easy Company fan. They grinned at each other, Webster tucking the picture into the breast pocket of his button up and marvelling at his magnificent luck. Nixon was in the corner, nursing his usual hangover and texting Winters, requesting some advil and a ‘nice big hug’.
Resuming his march, Gene passed the great big poster advertising Easy Company Troopers new album, Points, the 5 Star ratings from various critics blaringly evident in bright red. He finally came to his destination. The grassy hill, lined with great big redwood trees and bursting with carefully planted tropical flowers calmed him greatly. He began to climb.
It could have been 2 hours or 30 minutes that Gene sat on top of the hill, thinking. Out of nowhere, in amongst the digetic noise of rustling leaves and the distant cars from the bustling street below, he heard a loud, thickly accented shout that he had grown especially attuned to. He felt his pulse speed up.
Perhaps this was too coincidental, occurring just when he was having his epiphany.
No. There is no such thing as coincidence, as his Grand’Mere would say. Everything is planned.
Babe was trudging up the hill, wearing a bright blue patterned anorak that was flapping around in the wind and shorts, exposing rosy, freckled knees. His grin was massive, blinding, and he was practically exploding with excitement, shouting at Gene noisily, a cheerful rupture in the peace of the hill. His ginger hair was flying around in the breeze. Almost halo-like. Gene thought that he’d never seen anything so endearing.
“Hey! Gene! Eugene!” He jogged over, a little out of breath but still smiling. “I thought I could find you here.” Once Gene had mentioned that he enjoyed this particular little hill, a beauty spot, when he wanted time alone, months ago. It was not particularly surprising he remembered, Babe seemed to retain information like a sponge. He flopped down next to Gene on the ground, all long limbs and boyish charm, looking fondly at him with his head to one side. Gene struggled to find his breath when he looked at him like that. His golden red hair, sweet smile, eager eyes, long eyelashes with light ginger tips. It was all too much. It muddled his head, turned his brain into cotton wool. He had to turn away from Edward a lot recently, something aching in his chest, growing harder to ignore.
He stood up abruptly and Babe sprung up next to him, full of energy, undeterred and seemingly unaware of Gene’s warring emotions
“Guess what?”
“What?” Babe shuffled closer, barely containing his joy. Gene bit his lip. He was so warm.
“I’ve been signed! Nixon wants me on the label!”
“Babe,” Gene started. He fully intended for his next words to be “Congratulations” punctuated with a genuine smile.
Instead, what ended up tumbling out of his mouth was “I think I’m in love with you.”
What on earth was he saying? He had no idea why…not a clue…and yet to deny would inadmissible, wouldn’t it?
He was ready.
Well, that’s that then, he thought.
Three beats of silence.
Babe was gawping, jaw hanging open like a trap door. Eugene half wanted to just run all the way down the hill and forget all about it, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t have much of a capacity for cruelty, especially when it came to him.
Babe’s lip quivered dangerously.
Whispering ‘Aw, hell.’ Gene stepped forward, crossing the space between them, getting closer than he had ever allowed himself. It was time to surrender, to tear down the ramparts, to just give in. He reached up, touched Edward’s hard jaw, tilted his head down gently and grazed his lips against the corner of his mouth. That was a clear enough sign, he hoped. He backed away, giving them a little distance and looked up at Edward from under his creased eyebrows. Gene was worried at the fact that he seemed to be frozen, motionless as a statue. He didn’t even appear to be breathing.
Ever so slowly, Babe’s mouth lifted up into an enormous, face-eating grin, eyes shining, beaming like the sun. Gene could barely stand to look at him. He ran forward, crashing into Eugene, a freight train of happiness, bringing them both down to the ground in a clumsy tackle. Tangled, they lay for a second, staring at each other. Babe’s smile was infectious.
“Gene.” He exclaimed. “Are you serious?”
Gene thought about it for a second, a smile fighting its way onto his face.
“Yeah.” He said simply. It was true, wasn’t it? He could have loved him from the first moment he saw him, the first time he cried on his shoulder, if he’d let himself. The boy had worn away his defences like a steady ocean, sweet and sincere.
Babe began to laugh, light and ecstatic, cackling. Gene laughed too, carried away on his wave, like always. He allowed himself to absorb this happiness, sinking into it.
“This is the best day of my life.” Babe choked out in between bouts of laughter. “I’m not joking.”
Gene let his laughter die out, enjoying the warmth of Babe lying next to him. He propped himself up on his elbows and eyed the dreamy-looking kid at his arm, gangly and sweet. The dam had burst and it was all flowing in now, the divisions that Gene had bolstered with an uncaring back breaking away, dissolving. Those evenings at the bar, once lonely and silent, now filled with chattering laughter and brightness, the sweet smell of diet cokes. Getting annoyed at himself for watching that stupid kid’s movie about dinosaurs and wishing he had him there, with his boundless enthusiasm. Glancing in the record store to catch Babe drumming his fingers on the counter and mouthing along to the music, eyes closed. Smiling against his will at the tableau. The sweet little song he wrote.
“How about you?” He asked.
“Huh?”
“What about you?” He repeated. Babe fixed him with a disbelieving expression.
“Gene.” He said slowly, like someone explaining a painfully obvious fact. “Come on. You know. Everyone knows.” A self-deprecating snort, he poked Eugene with his foot.
“Knows what?”
“That I’m in love with you.” So matter of fact, stated with complete devotion.
Gene settled back onto the ground, his heart fit to burst.
“That so?” He asked, voice low.
Babe grinned at him, and he grinned back, eyes wrinkling. Brow furrowing, Babe grew solemn momentarily.
He shifted around until he was on face level with Gene and leaned forward, pausing when his mouth was about an inch away from him. He seemed nervous. A second of anticipation, almost painful. Then he closed the gap, grabbing Gene roughly by the collar and kissing him ferociously, furiously, like he’d been waiting forever.
They kissed on the ground in a heap, only stopping when they realised that they were starting to slowly roll down the hill and were getting perilously close to a patch of scrub.
“Ow! Fuck!” Laughed Babe, mouth red and eyes bright, reluctantly removing his hand from under Eugene’s shirt, where he had been causing havoc on his skin with cold fingertips. “We should probably move, right?” He clambered upright, brushing his boyishly grazed knees, and then pulled Gene up too.
“Right.” Agreed Eugene, dusting himself off. His mouth felt almost numb. Babe had a smudge of dirt on the side of his face, so Gene impulsively reached up and wiped it off carefully. Babe leant into his touch, exhaling slowly, with a slight catch. They locked eyes, Babe muttering ‘Jesus’ under his breath before taking him by the shoulders and kissing him again urgently, hand locking in his hair, twisting. Eventually, he pulled away, chuckling.
“Shit! Sorry Eugene, couldn’t help it.” Gene wanted to tell him not to apologize, but unfortunately the connection between his brain and his mouth appeared to be severed. Instead, he just blushed. Someday he would tell him everything, about Renee, about Louisiana but not yet. Later. They had time.
Babe held out his hand.
“Shall we?”
He looked bashful, breaking Eugene’s heart. How had he held out so long?
“Sure.” Gene placed his hand in Babe’s, intertwining fingers. Smiling warmly, they both made their way down the hill in heavenly silence, ready to embrace life.
- END