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He was so much shorter than Max thought he was going to be. Like…basically an entire head shorter. He had to look up at Max to speak. With the way Jackie and Evan talked about him, he thought Damien would be at least 5’8” or something. But it was fine that he was short. It wasn't weird, or anything. Max was weird. His brain was weird because it short-circuited a little when he saw him for the first time.
They were all supposed to go out for drinks like normal, well-adjusted adults. Jackie had complained that they never actually went anywhere to hang out and she was getting cabin fever in her apartment and also that it was about time Max met her and Evan's coworker. “I think you'd like him,” she said with a little smile and he wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that. She'd compared him to an electrified chihuahua, whatever that was supposed to mean. And Evan of all completely-insane-people called him a little crazy.
Neither of them would say why;
“It would ruin the surprise!”
“He's also an amorphous, Lovecraftian being who cannot possibly be comprehended.”
He knew they were joking but it didn't make pulling up to the bar any less nerve-wracking.
He wasn't late but he was the last one to get there which was worse for some reason. He spent about fifteen minutes resting his forehead on his steering wheel trying to breathe hard enough so that his lungs would expand and keep his heart from suffocating. How the fuck could he hold a nail gun and wall on 10-foot-high scaffolding nearly every day but meeting someone new was so bad he had to practice the breathing exercises Rhys’ counselor gave to them?
Fucking childish, thats what Max was. But underage drinking was dope as fuck so he decided he might as well get out of his truck.
And that’s how he came face-to-face with the coveted coworker, mouth hanging open a little because God-forbid he act like a normal human being in any context.
Damien raised an eyebrow. “You good?”
He was right outside, putting a cigarette out in a mountain of dead ash that was lovingly piled above the gaping mouth of a trash can.
Max cleared his throat. “Yeah, sorry. Long day.” Wake up at 4, sit on the edge of the bed for about two hours, get ready, drive Rhys to school and then to work, then back to Rhys’ school then home then dig around in the fridge for dinner before taking them to their friend’s house to spend the night and then finally make his way to the only tavern/bar/thing that still had all its lights working. He didn’t express any of this to Damien but he still snorted like he knew exactly what Max was thinking. “Fuckin’ tell me about it.”
They both turned to go inside. Max held the door open because he wasn’t an asshole and that’s when Damien actually looked at him. Brown, bug-like eyes surrounded by a cloud of black eyeliner peered up. Max saw them squint through the dim lamplight. For some reason it didn’t feel like scrutiny.
They easily found Jackie and Evan who had planted themselves in the corner of the bar, with four drinks already sweating on the table. Jackie waved at them with both of her hands and Damien mimicked the gesture, though his was a lot cheesier.
Max didn’t think it was anything mean because Damien just as quickly skipped over and threw himself into the seat next to her. “Oh, my beautiful Jacqueline,” he sighed, resting a cheek against her shoulder. She had passed him a green bottle that glistened with condensation and from the size of his gulps, it sounded like Damien downed the whole thing in three seconds.
She’d gotten Max a double IPA—something random because he wasn’t married to a brand or flavor, just liked the bitterness and the fact that they were cheap enough not to burn your wallet from the inside out, but not so cheap that you’d feel like a stale piece of shit after two sips.
No one else was really there even though it was Friday night. There was a bar across the street that had a biweekly happy hour and Jack, because she was a genius, suggested they don’t go there “unless you wanna suffocate.”
She leaned on the palm of her hand, looking sideways at Damien as he raved about some audience member from a week or two ago;
“…and he kept stepping on my fucking cables. No sense of personal space. I mean, yeah, we were in a garage with no windows or anything, but he didn’t have to be all up in my ass like that. Halfway through the show my guitar got unplugged and I straight up almost killed him. Swear to God.”
“Why didn’t you?” Her smile told Max that she’d heard the story a million times already.
Damien shrugged. “Had to finish the set. They wouldn’t pay me if I beat a guy to death…or maybe I would’ve gotten a bonus…” He scrunched his eyebrows again and stared at the ceiling like the answer was written on it. “Damn. I think I would’ve.”
No one at the table responded. Max hoped it wasn’t because Damien would actually kill someone. But he couldn’t. Probably couldn’t. He was short—and don’t get him wrong, it wasn’t just a height thing because looking (really looking) at Damien now, Max could see that he was kind of small all over.
He was one of those slim street cats that slinked down alleyways. Bony hands and shoulders, a pale neck that tensed with how loud he talked, his eyes seemed big but he liked to narrow them into slits whenever he was annoyed (which seemed like his default emotion).
Max could probably pick him up without straining a muscle.
Or anyone could. It didn’t have to be Max. A stranger walking down the street could scoop him up into their arms.
He stared down at his glass. Only an inch of it had been drunk over the course of an hour. His reflection was warbled in a light shade of amber, like one of those bugs they found on the trees encased in resin. Or the lollipops that had scorpions in them (Rhys loved those, for whatever reason).
He only stopped studying his wonky frown when Damien actually spoke to him; “You must be a hell of a lightweight.” Max didn't even register that he was supposed to answer until the man in front of him leaned forward into his field-of-vision.
“What?”
“A blue collar like you should be slinging these things back.” Damien waved his hand like he was batting a fly out of the air.
Max twisted his glass between his hands. “Getting a DUI isn't really on my bucket list.” And it was something he couldn't afford. Other than, like, health insurance.
Damien was leaning on the palms of his hands with a dopey sort of smile on his face. “You're no fun.”
“So I've been told.” Max didn’t know why he felt compelled to smile back.
Jackie and Evan were lost in their own heated conversation. Something about movies (“Friday the 13th is the perfect horror franchise.” “Jason Vorhees isn't going to rim you, bro”).
Nothing he was interested in.
Damien cocked his head. “So…you and Jackie, huh?” His eyebrow raised in a similar manner.
Max risked a quick peek at his neighbor. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were pursed, ready to lash out at whatever bullshit Evan was spewing.
“What do you mean?” He leaned away from Damien, suddenly wary of the intensity in Damien’s eyes.
“She talks about you a lot.”
“Only good things, I hope.”
“Well, I don’t have a reason to hate you.” His smile was coy. Teasing. Max didn’t know if he was allowed to put his guard down.
“She’s a good friend; helped me a lot when me and—” He cleared his throat. Usually he didn’t drop the bomb this early…not unless someone asked.
Max continued, hoping that his slip up would go unnoticed. “When I moved in.”
Tough luck. Damien was a good listener, somehow. And nosy.
“You live with someone else?”
He almost had a sense of deja vu, like it was his first time meeting Jackie all over again. At least Damien wasn’t handing him a plate of massacred cookies.
“I have a kid.”
Unlike Jackie, Damien was more flabbergasted than embarrassed: “Shit, dude! How old are you?”
Max sipped his beer just so he’d have something to do with his hands. “Twenty-seven.”
Damien whistled and combed through his hair with both hands. “Jesus Christ.”
“What?” It was Max’s turn to smirk. Might as well joke so he didn’t get interrogated even more. “Do I really look that young?”
THe laugh Damien let out sounded more like a bark. “Fuck no. You’re geriatric!” It caught the attention of the two other people at their table—the two other people that Max had completely forgotten about.
Jackie asked what they were yelling about and Damien was more than happy to shoot his pointer finger at Max’s sheepish face. “He has a kid!”
Jackie played with one of her braids. “Yeah. I babysit.” Her coworker let out another baffled noise.
Damiens started saying something about being kept in the dark and how it totally isn’t fair for you to not tell me that you’re a babysitter. I love kids. I’m great with kids! He better be giving you a six figure check because all that work you’re already doing is…but Max had to tune it out.
His phone screen lit up with a shiny, new text message:
Rhys isn’t feeling good.
There was an invisible again at the end of it.
Throwing up?
Not yet.
K. I’ll be there in a few.
He wasn’t supposed to feel disappointed. Embarrassed, sure, but disappointed? To have an excuse not to talk to anyone?
Something small stabbed into his gut and it cut deeper when Damien noticed him standing up. His thin lips were pulled into a frown.
“Sorry, I have to, uh…” He jerked his thumb towards the exit.
Thankfully, Jackie nodded, not pressing him any further than he was already. “You’re all good.” Those words alone could’ve made the most stoic of anxious men cry.
Max fished around in his pockets for a ten-dollar-bill and before Jackie could protest, he slapped it on the table and made a beeline to the bar doors.
When he was back in his truck, the usual feeling of relief didn’t overcome him. There was no anxiety, either. It was…frustration? For who?
Not Rhys. Anyone but Rhys. He’d be a hypocrite if he got annoyed at them for wanting to come home early.
Evan wasn’t as much of a freak as he usually was, so it couldn’t have been him. And Jackie was out of the question. Max would sooner blame God than her.
He turned the key and his truck’s engine choked to life. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he tried to ignore the strange feeling in his stomach and focus on hauling ass over to Rhys. There wasn’t any use in trying to fix a problem he couldn’t name.