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It’s 2 AM, last call, but neither Buster nor Eddie feel like going back to the dorms just yet. Usually, Buster comes up with what to do next whether it’s racing in grocery carts or breaking into closed playgrounds to use the swings. No matter how many times they hang out, Eddie and Buster are always the last awake and Eddie’s the only one of their friends that’s willing to go along with all of the fun, if always vaguely illegal, things Buster wants to do. That includes, of course, drinking at the one bar in town Buster can talk his way out of getting his and Eddie’s IDs checked.
So when Buster turns to Eddie, eyes glazed and face flushed, and asks what to do next, Eddie’s proud of himself when he realizes that this time, he actually has a plan and hails the two of them a cab.
On the ride over, Buster belts out every single ridiculous pop song that comes on the radio. The era and artist don’t matter. He knows every one and he knows every word, much to the driver’s tight-lipped chagrin. Eddie chuckles. Then he remembers that Buster stubbornly matched him shot for shot and given their height difference, it wasn’t a shock that Buster was so gone.
The cab pulls up to a huge mansion in the hills. Eddie fumbles in his pockets until he unearths a wad of bills and hands it to the driver, then he and Buster stumble out.
“Where are we?” Buster asks.
“My folks’ place,” Eddie explains. He takes a card from his pocket, puts it up to a sensor, and then the doors swing open. “C’mon.” He pulls Buster by the arm and leads him to a huge pool.
“Wow,” Buster says. “Do you think your folks would want to invest in my theater?” Ah, yes. The theater. When Buster isn’t scheming fun things to do, it’s all about the theater. The one that his Nana sang at. The one that Buster’s dad is saving up for. The one Buster is going to transform for a new audience, a new generation. It’s not that Eddie doesn’t believe in Buster, and he’s certainly impressed Buster has ambition about anything when Eddie can’t seem locate it about anything, but he doesn’t want to have this same discussion right now.
So, he decides to jump into the pool - clothes and all. When he comes up, he sees Buster, soaked, with his arms crossed.
“I got dry clothes in the pool house. I’ll let you borrow something,” Eddie says by way of apology.
“What about your folks?” He asks. It’s a challenge. Buster knows how fearful Eddie is about upsetting his parents.
Eddie splashes Buster, easily soaking his clothes.
“They’re out.” At Soho or the Swiss Alps or someplace cold and fancy, he thought. Too fancy to drag him along, that point was made perfectly clear.
This is enough for Buster. He grins and cannonballs in.
For awhile they swim. Eddie does laps while Buster is content to just spin underwater over and over again. When they’re out of breath, they both hold onto the edge of the pool by the diving board.
For whatever reason Eddie asks, “What’s your favorite song?”
Buster scoffs. “That’s like asking what your favorite kind of food is.”
“Doritos.”
“Okay. It’s like asking what your favorite kind of Dorito is.”
“Cool Ranch, obviously. Are you telling me you really don’t have a favorite song?”
Buster thinks. “Well, I have I have favorites from types.”
“Types?”
“You know, old Broadway songs, current pop, love songs…”
“Alright. So what’s your favorite love song then?”
Buster breaks out into a big, dumb smile. “I Think I Love You.”
Eddie feels his heart drop into his stomach.
“By The Partridge Family,” Buster explains.
Oh. Right. He had asked him a question, didn’t he?
“Pfft. Of course it’s something old.”
“Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s not good. It has elation, confusion, fear, desperation - all things you feel when you’re in love.”
Now it’s his time to challenge Buster. “Then sing it.”
Buster scoffs. “No.”
“Why not. You sang literally every song in the taxi over here.”
“You just made fun of me!”
Eddie rolls his eyes. Buster always seems to find a new way to be difficult. “You know I didn’t mean it. C’mon,” He pokes Buster, who laughs. “I want to hear it.” Then, remembering the beginning of the song, starts is for him. “Ba, ba, ba, ba,” Buster laughs harder. “C’mon, I’m seriously ‘ba-ing’ for you over here. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.”
He motions for Buster to start. He chuckles through the first part. Then, a switch is flipped. Buster gets goofy and over dramatic. It’s so lame and so great and so…Buster. And at some point, Eddie realizes that he wants to do something very badly. Even worse, his impulse control has been completely shredded by booze and lack of sleep that there’s no part of him telling him not to do it.
Buster continues to sing. “I don’t know what I’m up against. I don’t know what it’s all about. I got so much to think about. Hey, I think I-”
There’s a moment of absolute terror when Eddie realizes he is actually kissing Buster. Ah, man.
Even worse, he isn’t kissing back. In a moment of panic, Eddie considers that he may have miscalculated. But, in his defense, only gay guys are obsessed with his Nana as Buster is. (That and during the brief tenure of their friendship he had yet to see him with a girlfriend or even mention girls.)
When he pulls back, his mind floods in a million apologies, a million excuses, and they come so fast and all at once, Eddie can’t quite get them out. All he can do is stare helplessly at Buster, who couldn’t look more confused.
Before either of them can speak, he sees a light go on from the house. From his parents’ bedroom.
And that’s definitely his dad’s voice that asks, “Honey, is someone singing outside?”
It is very possible Eddie might have been off a day or two on the departure date for his parents’ trip.
Fully alert in Danger Mode, he just turns to Buster, and says, “We gotta go.”
“I think it’s coming from the pool,” His mom’s annoyed voice rings out.
Quickly, Eddie hoists himself up out of the pool. “C’mon!” He whisper yells at Buster, but Buster’s still at the side of the pool, frozen, as if his entire body is lagging in downloading a response to anything that has happened.
So Eddie drags Buster out of the pool and races towards the pool house. Luckily, the key is under the same potted plant it always is, and he’s able to practically throw Buster in and lock himself inside.
Then, he peels back the shade of the pool house to see his dad, in his old robe, walk out. He suspects it’s only a matter of time until he notices the obvious wet footprints from the edge of the pool to the pool house. He shuts his eyes and considers he had a pretty good run at life and it was time to say goodbye to living.
When he opens them, he sees Buster, apparently done downloading, staring up at him seriously. Eddie is about to shush him, when Buster grabs him down to his level and begins kissing him - really, deeply kissing.
Which would be super rad, if he wasn’t so sure his dad was about to murder them both. Still, he can’t bring himself to pull away. If this is indeed how he dies, he guesses it’s not a bad way to go.
But then, a miracle. His dad is tired, isn’t wearing his glasses and shouts back to the house, “No one’s here!” Then he hears his dad waddle back to the house and shut the door.
Eddie and Buster break apart and can’t help but laugh under their hooves and paws.
“You, uh, wanna get some dry clothes?” Eddie asks. He expects a smart response, but only gets a giddy nod. He tosses Buster the smallest shirt he has - an old California T-shirt, but even so, it looks like a nightgown on him. Usually, he’d tease him about this, but right now, he likes it too much. So he just quietly changes into an old pair of pajama pants.
They don’t talk or ask questions. It’s weird. There’s nothing to say, but they have an understanding. And that understanding is that they just want to feel good, just want to keep making out. So they do. Until they fall asleep.
In the morning, tears right through the blinds and into their eyes. The two of them gather up their wet clothes and flee Eddie’s parents’ pool house to go back to campus. Both of them have brutal, searing hangovers and don’t speak on the cab ride back to the dorms.
Later, Buster will laugh and say he doesn’t remember anything after getting into the cab to Eddie’s place and Eddie will never be sure if this is true, but decides to drop it and goes on as if it never happened.
Then, one day, years and years later, after Buster’s theater has collapsed and he’s come to live with Eddie in his parents’ pool house. He announces that he’s going to borrow a shirt in a quiet, beaten down voice. And when he changes, Eddie freezes when he sees Buster’s in that same California T-shirt. Suddenly, it all floods back - swimming, his dad, Cool Ranch Doritos, and The Partridge Family.
He wants to ask Buster so badly about that night, finally find out if he really didn’t remember.
But it’s not the best time.
Perhaps it never will be.