Chapter Text
He’d missed his window of opportunity and he knew it.
It’d rained earlier. The streets still smelled like it and the late afternoon remained muggy. Stiflingly so. There weren’t puddles—the sidewalk was well-maintained, flat, with good drainage—but if you got too close and brushed up with one of the shrubs near the road, you’d drench your sleeve. He’d made the mistake already, so now the elbow of his shirt sleeve was sticking and rubbing uncomfortably with that part of his arm. A bit gross. A bit distracting.
Maybe he was focusing on it because he needed the distraction. He wasn’t the mulling type, and he definitely didn’t make a habit thinking about things like drainage and shirt sleeves.
Usually wouldn’t have noticed he was thinking about distractions, either.
Eddy and the rest of the party were ahead. Brett was trailing. “A little tired,” he’d said with a small laugh, small smile, when his pace had been pointed out. That was true. Usually he’d be in the heart of the crowd, no mind how tired he was, finding energy in interaction, the joy of socialization, using it to buoy his body and his mind and his motivation and refill his zest for life. People were enjoyable. They were worth it. Usually.
Trailing in the back now, he found his gaze wandering between the small group and the scenery, not really thinking, not really intending to think. But coasting was hard today. There was some bozo in the apartment complex above them who’d left their window open.
Never good to tempt fate.
His shoes scuffed pavement. Brett could barely understand the chatter ahead, not so much from distance as from distraction. Eh. He wasn’t missing much, just details to plans he already knew. Today’s talk had centered on a singular theme: preparations. Leases and bed spreads, truck cargo and logistics. Carefully outlining the future, but excited about where it’d lead, and in what direction it’d change two lives.
Three lives, if he was selfish enough to make it about himself. Which he didn’t want to. “Celebrate others’ opportunities”: something that made his life and his interactions better, and he’d be glad to enact this here.
But it could have been different and he needed to feel his way through that.
It’s not like he’d intended to capitalize on his opportunity. He hadn’t even ignored or sidelined it. He’d talked it through. It hadn’t been in the loud public chatter of a humid afternoon, but a more intimate and vulnerable and secret setting, explaining and failing to explain, half-strangled in night’s hushed throes, avoiding the contract while staring longingly at it.
He’d said, best as the words slipped out of him, that he probably wasn’t going to pursue it.
“Probably” wasn’t.
Well.
There’s a funny thing about windows. Even if you don’t intend to touch them, you can still look through them. You don’t have to commit to walking inside, or cranking something open and letting the gunk from outside in. It’s smarter that way. You don’t get to smell the rain, but your home doesn’t get damaged either. It’s better long-term practicality.
And yet the window of opportunity had beckoned for a long time. Brett knew it. The window owner knew it. At any point in time, Brett could have taken it up. For years. For a decade. And he’d flirted with it. He’d flirted with Eddy.
You get complacent when the window’s there, don’t you? Walls are opaque. Windows are transparent. You’re still the special one, offered access to an intimate view, enjoying the comfort of looking inside and knowing the invitation is available and you are its designated recipient. It’s not yours, but it’s part of your life. You could have it yanked open if you wanted or left shut; the important thing was that it was your call.
There’s a way to choose not to commit, crafting your own comfortably ambiguous homeostasis. That’s a choice in its own right, and you can center your life around it. But in “letting it be,” in choosing to not commit, in telling them you won’t commit and they can find someone who does, you risk that, at any moment, they’ll find that someone.
As they have right to.
Fuck. Beyond it being their right as independent people… they’re doing what you said they could do. They’re doing this because they listened to you.
He couldn’t hear the cars on the road, he couldn’t hear the other pedestrians, he couldn’t hear his footsteps, he couldn’t hear the conversation of his companions just ahead, but Eddy’s laugh rang out like a siren, and Brett’s heart stood still.
Sometimes, it was still nighttime, and the choice still felt like his. “I’d have you in a heartbeat.” He could hear those words as if they were spoken to him now.
“I know. And I want it, too. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t… naw, I don’t… I don’t think I can.” There was nothing worse than thinking, I don’t know if I can give you what you need. He hadn’t been aware of how much he stumbled over the words, he didn’t know how clear or muddled he sounded, but he knew his tongue had been thick in his mouth, unwilling to move, unwilling to break two hearts, not just his own.
“Why not?” It hadn’t been an abrupt question, or offended: just trying to understand.
He didn’t know if he understood either. What he felt couldn’t be translated—even less in ways that’d come off “right." His heart craved every attachment, exclusive union, inexhaustible adoration; a “forever us”; an exploration into the intimate, devouring beyond the platonic; an end to status quo, of gazing beyond his reach; but he’d never had the tactile longings that Eddy would reach out for, and from past experiences with other people, different times, albeit more shallow and performative: he knew he couldn’t fake it. He’d heard people could make a match work without it, even with differing appetites, but out of all the risks he was willing to take, this was one with too great a potential loss.
It didn’t mean he longed any less, though. It didn’t mean he loved any less. He didn’t think he could love any more, really. And it was scary and torrential and conflicting and confusing, but also beautiful to gaze at through the other side of the glass.
He didn’t explain it that way. He didn’t have the words. He still didn’t have many words, but he’d known even less when they had the conversation.
“I guess I don’t feel that way?”
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
The worst thing to say. His heart screeched for something else.
But at the time, it’d worked, and the equilibrium he’d settled on had resumed, precarious and solidifying, tenuous but supporting, something that felt like it could go on forever even though it was built on an intentionally-undefined nothing. Their business was true legal connection, their friendship was a contract of the highest order, their love could never be ripped apart after health, after sickness, after wheelchairs, after close-calls, from one end of the globe to the other, from benches sleeping homeless on Australian streets to parties for Singaporean luxury, from Toronto to Vienna to London to Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur; and yet this extra element, this ambiguous, intentionally-undefined nothing, this play at Schrödinger's romantic, would only work so long as they touched nothing and let the status quo be. Which was borderline impossible, because Brett had said this opportunity wouldn’t be.
There was another conversation, years later. And it’d started out small, with a smile, with a small smile. A series of events, which started out small. Eddy grabbing his keys and walking outside the apartment, an evening out as any other. It’d happened before, many times, so nothing indicated this time would be different. Her visits. Her knocks. Her entrances. Her own set of keys. Brett handing his keys back to the leasing office. It was his choice and he nodded support at every step.
It’s one thing to deny an opportunity but watch through the window.
It’s different to know you’ll never have it. Never feel his hand on your back, pulling you in. His thick hand, brushing against your cheek in the excuse to fix a hair. His warm hand, squeezing yours, possessive and tender, never letting go. His breath on your cheek. His face close, his lips closer, fogging your glasses, blurring your vision with his intoxicating proximity. His hair caught up in the crook of your shoulder. You call him “mine.” Others call him “yours.”
And now Brett was left questioning. Not questioning Eddy, as Eddy had been clear and forthcoming and open and willing from start to end. No, not Eddy, as there would always be an Eddy, today and tomorrow and ten years from now just as much as he had been there yesterday. But Brett was the one who’d said, “No.” Brett was the one who’d said, “No.” Brett was the one who’d said, “No,” no mind his heart still shuddered with pangs, with desires, with a knowledge there’d never be a relationship as close as he had with him. Brett had said “No,” pretending like this meant it’d be open-ended forever, when of course that wouldn’t be the case. “No” had been the wrong word then. “No” was the wrong word now. He was losing nothing from Eddy and his steadfast friendship, strong and secure and eternal as ever, and he had no doubt they’d be happy in the future.
But Brett had forsaken himself by not chasing after something new they could’ve expressed. All in the name of a “security” he pretended to have.
There was still a window.
There was still a window, but the most recent time he’d passed it, the blinds were closed, and Brett could no longer see inside.
The offer was over.
Filming as TwoSet, Brett and Eddy had always closed the blinds in their windows before filming. For security.
Walking down the street, damp shirt sleeve rubbing against his elbow, his forgotten elbow, feet clopping against the street, his forgotten feet, beneath an apartment window, an egregious window, Brett could think two things:
He still trusted Eddy.
He just didn’t trust himself.