Work Text:
Here's how it starts:
By pure coincidence, Jay is one holding Matt's phone when the texts appear:
dom: this party is going on forever
dom: thinking about you
Jay blinks. Matt's been pulled away by someone — the overenthusiastic 2nd AD — to go talk to someone else, two PAs who have that bright-eyed and half-crazed look of twenty-somethings who desperately want a job. Matt had laughed and said, wait, just wait a sec, watch the rest of the video, I'll be back, and then he shoved his phone into Jay's hand and then fucked off into the crowds of people.
And so Jay's holding Matt's phone, halfheartedly watching a shaky recording of some dailies footage, when the notification slides down over the top of the screen
dom has sent a photo
dom has set the disappearing message timer to 1 day.
Jay shouldn't. It's probably nothing. It's a violation of Matt's privacy. It's probably not even Dominic; it's probably one of Matt's friends sending him pictures of a holographic Magic card or a tiny figurine or a screenshot of a Warhammer meme, ha ha. It's stupid. It's nothing. He's insane for even thinking it—
But then again, he's never felt the same sense of boundaries with Matt as he does with a normal friend.
Jay opens it. And then closes it again.
His first thought was that it was probably smart to use one of those encrypted apps instead of iMessage. Matt has a few iPads floating around his house, plus his workstation that his girlfriend borrows for photo editing. So it was quite smart to use a different app. Lessens the chances of someone opening up one of Matt's many Apple devices and seeing an up-and-coming young Hollywood star's dick pic.
His second thought was, it really is a very tastefully done dick pic. Well-framed, good lighting, not too blurry (which would be amateurish), but also not too posed (which would look vain). And no face in frame, which should've decreased the chances of anyone recognizing who it is, but Jay had just seen that green striped t-shirt earlier that evening. Had felt the slubby cotton under his hands when he went in for a hug. Had said hello and traded light pleasantries about his flight into Boston with the owner.
He opens it again; closes it again. Where is Dom right now? Hard to see the background in the photo, but the lighting is harsh. If Jay has to guess, probably the washroom.
The Tony wrap party is held at the function room of a rented-out yacht club. The walls are panelled in dark wood, hung with faded photos of tennis tournaments and a million boats that all looked the same to Jay. The slatted wooden floors keep tripping up the few women who made the wrong decision to wear heels. Next to the finger foods and the sweating ice buckets holding screwtop bottles of wine is a cheap disco ball someone had plugged into an extension cord. Periodically it throws handfuls of coloured specks on the nearby wall like limp confetti.
It's not a big room, and Jay doesn't see Dom anywhere. He wonders if the photo was saved from earlier in the day or taken live. Maybe Dom's still in the washroom now, waiting for Matt to find him. Maybe—
Wait, no. That's stupid. Matt hasn't seen this yet; Jay is literally holding his phone.
Is this a new thing? Has it been going on for a while? Or are all the Hollywood clichés true: actors and directors and the casting couch and so on? Not that Jay should pass judgement: no one who was in the indie music scene circa 2009 has any right to criticize another's insane, ill-advised, possible career-destroying hookups.
He takes another sip of his lukewarm wine and scrolls upwards. The last message was yesterday, some insipid back and forth about scheduling (i think 10 works better, see you then!). A few days ago they sent each other YouTube links to music.
dom: i like the live woodstock one the best https://youtu.be/PVxDqtv5L2A
dom: really high energy
dom: this is the version i was looking for in the car
matt: if you want something different you should listen to this one, reminds me a lot of you https://youtu.be/7Z5aPaDwAkU
matt: she has an amazing quote like what we were talking about.
matt: "There are certain emotions in your body that not even your best friend can sympathize with, but you will find the right film or the right book, and it will understand you."
dom: i think you understand a lot though
dom: about me
matt: it's just paying attention
Jay opens the link, then closes YouTube before it fully loads. He can hear the opening chords in his mind even with the volume turned off. The wistful rhythmic groove alternating between the D-flat major seventh and the G-flat major seventh, Indian-ish percussion on tablas, Björk's wailing vocals: He believes in beauty / He's Venus as a boy.
Fucking Matt. Fucking, fucking, fucking classic Matt. It was exactly the sort of thing that annoys him about Matt, had annoyed him for the last twenty-five years of knowing Matt. The smarmy condescension, the pseudo-intellectualism posing itself as game, the sheer cheesiness (Venus as a Boy! For fuck's sake!). The fact that it had been Jay who had told Matt about Björk's existence in the first place, all those years ago. Matt had such a narrow range of musical knowledge throughout their teen years that Jay could tell him about bands long after everyone else had moved on. He distinctly remembers slotting his CD of Debut into the Queen West apartment's TV sound system circa 2009, laughing at the time because how could a guy list every obscure French samurai film ever made but had never heard of Björk or The Sugarcubes? Was he dumb?
He even remembers Matt's sullen expression afterwards. "She sounds like two cats fighting over the world's last helium balloon."
"She's a genius," Jay said, knowing full well that Matt would make fun of him for saying so afterwards. "She was making music from the future twenty years ago, and it still sounds like it's from the future. Her arrangements are incredible. I mean, no one pairs together textures and sounds the same way. It transcends genre."
"Is that what they teach you at fancy music school?" Matt said, and Jay had punched him. For days afterwards he did a terrible warbling pastiche of Björk around the apartment, some song he made up about Dunkaroos made from real kangaroos.
He did it to annoy Jay, who did genuinely love Björk, who'd fantasized for a brief time about moving to Iceland to become an experimental musician and maybe one day meeting Björk and then getting her to fall in love with him, rolling on ecstasy together under the Icelandic moon and fiddling with their analog synthesizers together, watching the sunrise on black sand beaches. He could show her the cover of Hyperballad he did for school, but not in a braggy, douchey way. In a way that's like, isn't it crazy how much you understand me, specifically me, and your music has reached me like the light of a distant star that has travelled over galaxies to reach me? Just to specifically illuminate how I feel in this moment, right now?
And she would say—
She would say, it's just paying attention.
Jay drops the phone into his jeans pocket and stands up. It occurs to Jay that maybe he both knows Matt and he doesn't know Matt. He's disappointed in Matt, but he's not shocked. The whole thing with Dom — Jay's disappointed (he's fond of Angie, it's probably cruel of Matt to do this to her) but he's not shocked. More than anything, he feels hurt. Matt had said nothing to him about this. They are not as close as he thought they were.
Two bartenders are working behind the bar tonight. One of them is an older guy who looks like he came from the same era as the vintage wooden oars and tuna tail trophies mounted on the wall. His sun-darkened skin looked shellacked into agelessness in the same way. The other bartender is a younger woman who smiles way too much, in a half-cheerful, half-nervous way that makes Jay think of old nature documentaries, about how animals grin to show submissiveness. Standing at the bar, he hopes he gets served by the older guy.
Perky Bartender comes over. “Hiya! What can I get you?” She smiles at him. It’s a lot of teeth on show.
“Can I have another Chardonnay?” Jay asks.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, but we’re out of the Chardonnay.” Perky Bartender presses a hand against her heart, as if no other news in the world has devastated her more. “Can I get you another white?”
“No, uh—”
“How about one of the signature cocktails?” She points at a sign with Bourdain’s favourite cocktails written on it in bold font. “A Negroni?”
Jay studies the menu. “Can I have a piña colada?” he says on a whim.
She blinks, and then Jay gets treated to the overwhelming display of teeth again. “Of course! I love them too! Any preferences for what kind of rum? No? Okay, let me just open the can of crushed pineapple...” As the blender whirs away at full speed, she says, "Really fun choice!"
"Yeah," Jay says. "I'm a fun guy."
"Really? You look pretty serious."
"Oh. Okay."
"How's your night going so far?"
"It's really great," Jay says. "Really great."
Matt is in the corner of the yacht club’s trophy room, deep in conversation with an overeager PA. The eager PA makes an unhappy moue when Jay drags Matt away, but Jay ignores her. She can plead for a job or promote her niche comedy series or beg for a podcast appearance or whatever later.
He gives Matt the phone and waits for a reaction, but Matt doesn't check anything, just thanks him and drops it into his pocket without even checking the time. “How’s the party going for you?”
“It’s good,” Jay says. "Fine."
“Dunno about you, but do you want to leave?”
“Now? Don’t you still need to—” Jay makes a vague gesture that he hopes convey the overall concept of networking. Matt’s too important these days to skip it. He doesn’t need to meet people, but people need to meet him.
Matt grimaces. “I’m wiped for the evening, and I have an early start tomorrow. You wanna get out of here? If you want, there’s something I want to show you. If you want, though, I won’t drag you out of here if you’re having a good time.”
It’s nice of him to pretend otherwise, but Jay’s only here at Matt’s invitation. Why else would a composer be at the film’s wrap party? Curt and Bobbie are back in Toronto; Miller has a wedding in Muskoka. If Matt’s leaving, what’s the point of Jay even being there?
The party's still going on, but no one looks as they slip out. Outside, a few Tony people are huddled by the yacht club's main door, cupping their cigarettes to protect them from the Atlantic breeze. Jay doesn't recognize them, but Matt nods, addresses them by name, and does the whole hi, how are you doing thing without slowing the pace of his footsteps. It’s impressive. He's being brisk but not unfriendly, doing that thing that famous people do in crowds, when a sea of people all desperately want the famous person to acknowledge their existence, and so the famous person moves through the sea nodding and pointing at each tiny fish just to be like, hi, how are you doing. I see you.
In another life, Jay opened shows for the truly famous. He and Stef used to laugh about those people in their shitty hotel rooms, sprawled on the hotel carpet, passing their post-show comedown joint back and forth. They used to laugh at themselves too, the way their thin veil of mockery could barely disguise their covetousness. They wanted to be those people. The more they tasted of success, the more they wanted it. To be famous, to be the big fish in the sea, to pretend like you don’t notice how your presence subtly alters the gravitational field in the room. That was how they thought in their twenties, before the weariness set in. For every ecstatic night performing and snorting and drinking, they paid for it the next day when they woke up sweating and aching in strange hotel beds, in strange people’s houses, surrounded by strange faces. For a brief and glorious period he and Stef lived what they imagined was the life of rock stars. Then it all ended, and he was glad.
“What are you thinking about?” Matt says.
“Hotel rooms,” Jay says.
“What about hotel rooms?”
“I was trying to count how many hotel rooms I’ve stayed at in my life.”
Matt laughs. “There’s a poem by this British guy, and he says, um: I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. In our case it’s more like, ‘I have measured out my life with hotel rooms.’”
“Yeah,” Jay says. Matt always knew what he was talking about.
“Yeah,” Matt echoes. “Well, how many?”
Jay thinks. “Over a hundred.”
“Me too, I think.”
They’re heading towards the main commercial part of the marina. It’s late at night and the quaint shops selling postcards and saltwater taffy have closed, but the bars and restaurants are still open. The breeze blowing against Jay’s face smells like French fries and spilled beer.
Amongst the late-night crowd of tourists and clubbers, Matt looks more relaxed, more like himself again: a guy in rolled-up sweatpants and an old t-shirt beginning to stain at the pits. An ordinary man, humming a few bars of a melody Jay recognizes from an old cartoon theme song. He kicks a loose pebble down the road until it rattles down a sewer grate. “Fuck,” he says, and Jay laughs.
It feels right to bring up the topic now. “What’s up between you and Dominic?”
Matt glances over. “What do you mean, what’s up? He’s great, it’s all great. Why? Did you hear something?”
“Sort of,” Jay says. “He seems really attached to you.”
“Dom’s a really great kid,” Matt says. (Was it Jay’s imagination, or is he putting on his interview voice?) “But he’s also been put into a weird kind of bubble. It’s not his fault; I’m just trying to explain what I’ve observed. I think when you’re an actor, like a proper capital “A” Actor, you want your director to be everything for you. He’s your best friend, your shrink, your cheerleader, your kindergarten teacher, your drill sergeant, your priest, your lover—“
“Your lover?”
“Non-sexual lover,” Matt says, easy as anything. “You know what I mean.”
“He’s really talented," Jay says. "Good energy on camera.”
“I know, right? That clip I was showing you, did you watch until the end? I thought Leo was bringing a lot into it, look at his body language, you can’t fake that kind of openness, it’s almost a form of elasticity. You sort of have it or you don’t. And Dom’s doing so much with just his eyes. It’s so interesting. So interesting. It’s like watching an athlete. You didn’t know what the human body is capable of until you see them do their incredible feat. I feel like I learn something new about the human race every day just by looking at him go.”
Jay doesn’t know his way around Provincetown, so he’s following half a step behind. It gives him a view of Matt’s right ear and half his profile, illuminated by the sporadic streetlights. Even so, he can't miss incandescent happiness radiating off Matt. Matt’s always been effusive with his praise, but Jay believes that the hyperbole is just a natural extension of his manic energy. Every artisanal pizza is amazing; every quote from some dead American novelist is an intellectual masterpiece. But this isn’t hyperbole. Just look at the set of Matt’s shoulders. It’s pure happiness, tumbling out of the body. Jay grits his teeth.
Eventually they cross the enormous parking lot, its cracked cement strewn with loose sand, and head down the path leading towards the dock. The boats are dark, hulking shapes on the water.
“Here,” Matt says. He stops in front of a slip where a houseboat is moored. “C’mon.”
He steps onto the houseboat deck without looking back. The house part is locked, but Matt fishes out a key from his sweatpants pocket and lets himself in. The inside of the houseboat looks like it came straight from the eighties: wooden walls, a hokey little sink, sun-faded curtains with a pattern of seashells and ice-cream cones. Two futons are fixed to the walls on each side, covered in plain sheets.
“Isn’t this awesome?” Matt says. He sits down on one of the futons. “People actually live here during the summer. It’s cheaper than trying to find a room on land.”
Jay picks his way across the tiny room. He knows that the boat is moored, but still a part of him feels off-balance just knowing he’s on water. “Matt, what is this place?”
“I got to know a few locals during filming. Restaurant owners, bar owners, you know—people who actually live the life. One of them owns a few places in town, and he always needs extra staff in the summer. But because rent’s so expensive, he lets a few of the boys working for him sleep on his boats. He has this one, and a sailboat too, but the sailboat’s undergoing repairs right now.” Matt beams at him. “Isn’t it incredible? What an amazing life.”
Jay looks around. On the floor there’s a bait box, a few miscellaneous pieces of fishing gear, a stack of yellowing National Geographics, their pages swollen from the damp salt air. “Yeah,” he says. “Amazing.”
“You don’t get it, man,” Matt says. “One of the bartenders took me out here once. They just hop in and out of each boat. After work they hang out on the deck and play cards and drink beers. You can hear live music sometimes from the parking lot, so you’d just be chilling on your boat, watching the seabirds circle above you and listening to a free concert. The guy told me they threw parties all the time. No one cares. Can you imagine? Here, thirty people crammed in together on the water watching the sunset?”
“It sure sounds like a good time.”
“Maybe I should get a houseboat. I’d like to live on the water,” Matt says. He stretches out on the bed, clasping his hands behind his head. “Hey, Bird—how come you never stayed in Boston over the summer? You could play bar piano here or tutor rich kids or something. How come you never had your own Anthony Bourdain summer?”
“I dunno,” Jay says. “I wanted to go home, I guess.”
“You should’ve stayed,” Matt says dreamily. “And I should’ve joined you here. This could’ve been our life for three months. Forget everything else Bourdain did, I don’t want to go to Vietnam with Obama or whatever. But I think I could do one perfect summer in Cape Cod. Summer job at the bar. Fishing at two in the morning. Hey, you know what the guy told me?”
“What?”
“He said, and I’m quoting him verbatim here, 'On the water you can see some of the most existential sunrises you’d ever see in your life.'” Matt sighs. “Existential.”
“I don’t think Angie would love having to take care of a boat in Toronto weather,” Jay says.
It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it as soon as he’d said it. This is Matt’s boy’s fantasy; Jay wasn’t supposed to bring up girlfriends and partners. Jay was supposed to sit down at the piano and play a song (in Matt’s imaginary world the houseboat would, of course, have a piano). A jaunty sea shanty. Stand by Me.
“Yeah, maybe the boat ownership life isn’t for us,” Matt says. “They say the best two days of your life as a boat owner are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Might as well speed run it and do both days at once, let them cancel each other out and don’t get the boat at all.”
“Right.”
“Right,” Matt echoes.
“One of us would drown the other one by the second week.”
“Probably me,” Matt says. The way he says it leaves it ambiguous: is he the one killing Jay? Or the one getting killed? Jay wants to ask, but Matt’s already standing up from the futon. “Should we get back? I’m fucking exhausted. You want to head back to the rental house, call it a night? I have a Zoom thing at nine tomorrow anyways.”
Jay looks around the houseboat. There’s a dead basil plant by the kitchenette and a blurry watercolour of a beached whale tacked up by the futon. It’s an objectively claustrophobic place filled with dead things. And yet, he’s sorry to leave it now. He and Matt couldn’t share an apartment in bustling downtown Toronto without wanting to kill each other half the time—imagine what they’d do to each other on a tiny boat.
Still, a tiny pang of grief struck him over this tiny world that never existed and will never exist. Maybe they could revisit it one day. A Nirvanna Season 3 episode called The Boat. Not impossible. Maybe…
But the moment is over. The fantasy is dead. He follows Matt out the door and onto the deck and back to dry land. On the beach, the wind blows the water into shades of black and darker black.
They’re on the way back to the rental when Matt takes out his phone and absentmindedly begins thumbing through the notifications.
,Jay watches. He could have booked a hotel before he flew down but Matt, over the phone, had said, No, no, no, I’ve got this whole rental cottage to myself out here, you can sleep in the second bedroom. Jay wishes now that he had not listened, had not been persuaded by Matt, had booked that hotel room. Because then there would've been a solid excuse to split off for the night. Now he has to stay and see the whole thing through.
He knows the exact moment when Matt sees Dom's message by the furrow of Matt's brow and the sudden, tense way Matt grips the phone
He casually angles his gaze over (friendly curiosity, nothing more). Pretends to be shocked. “Oh. Wow.”
“Fuck,” Matt says. “Oh my god. Did you see that?”
“Yeah. Was that—”
Matt laughs, nervous. “It is. What the hell? I swear to God, I was not expecting that. I can't believe it. This is a crazy thing to do.”
“I didn’t know you two were, uh—”
“Uh, we’re not. Fuck, Jay, what should I do? This is ludicrous. Maybe I should pretend I lost my phone, just say I dropped it into the Atlantic and Apple refuses to retrieve any of my data. This is just…it's just embarrassing.”
“Ah,” Jay says. “So you two, you’re not—”
“No!” Matt looks at him. He's either very shocked or very good at pretending to be shocked. “That would be so inappropriate, man. That’s some pervy casting couch stuff. And I’m in a relationship. Why are you even asking me this?”
“I dunno,” Jay says. “All things are possible. You’re the director. You have a lot of power over people. Over actors.”
Matt grabs him by the bicep. He’s so strong these days; Jay feels circulation getting cut off. “Uh, I think you’ll find that I’m the victim here, since I’m the one getting unsolicited dick pics." Jay starts to speak, but Matt steamrolls him. "What are you implying, that I’ve been like, abusing my power somehow? Like I—I’m both dumb enough and evil enough that I’m going to take advantage of a twenty-three-year-old? It's crazy. He’s practically a kid. He’s my friend.”
He was Venus as a boy when you texted him last week, Jay thinks, but doesn't say out loud. He touches Matt's hand, still clenched around his arms. Matt lets go at once, casting an ashamed look at the finger marks under the sleeve of Jay's t-shirt. "Sorry," Jay says.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry…”
“It’s okay."
They’ve been standing on a street corner next to a shuttered photo gallery. People passing by are giving them strange looks. It reminds Jay of another life, an earlier life, when he and Matt would make up conversations to startle people on streetcars and fast food restaurants. The most innocent part of their life together was when they were being playful, screaming, mock-fighting, excited—for no reason other than to entertain themselves.
Matt starts walking again, so fast that even Jay with his longer legs has to jog to keep up.
“No disrespect to your girlfriend, by the way,” Matt says after a few minutes of painful silence.
“Sorry, what?”
“I mean—oh. You know what? Never mind.”
"It's fine."
Another silence spread between them.
She’s not twenty-three, Jay wants to say, but even in his head it sounds like the sad defense that it is.
The Sad Girl Musician has been a touchy subject between him and Matt since Jay started dating her a few months ago. She’s basically the same age as Matt’s fiancée, but Matt gets funny whenever that fact is brought up. One forty-year-old man dating a girl fifteen years younger can be politely ignored, especially now that the ring has been bought and the wedding invitations have been stamped and sent out and everyone has been socially obliged into saying congratulations, what amazing news, so happy, etc. One guy can just about get away with it, but two guys both dating two twenty-somethings? That’s the set-up to a comedy sketch. People's lips twitch at social settings; they titter to each other. Matt never acknowledges it, would never acknowledge it, but Jay knows what he’s thinking: it’s not cool anymore now that Jay’s also doing it. It’s getting high-key cringe—as Matt's own fiancée would say.
At a friend's 40th birthday party months ago, Jay got into a heated discussion on the back patio of a natural wine bar. Was it inherently misogynistic to date a much younger woman? He had not started seeing the Sad Girl Musician at the time; he'd been thinking about Matt, who at the time was thinking about proposing to Angie. Maybe because of that — mounting a defence for a friend who wasn't even there —he had been more passionate than the occasion called for. Isn't it more misogynistic to deny women their agency? he'd said. (He was proud of that word) Assuming that no one coerced these women into dating someone, how was it misogynistic to respect their choice?
One of the women frowned at him, a dental hygienist doing "gentle co-parenting" with the host's brother. And then when Jay protested, the conversation took a bewildering turn into pay gaps and child support laws, and then, as more women wandered over and joined in, it went from bewildering to downright incoherent: the biological clock, the lack of childcare support, gendered violence, the unfair chore split in heterosexual households. The argument, as far as Jay could surmise, is that sometimes men kill women and sometimes women wash more dishes, and because of this, dating someone below twenty-five made you not just evil, but an abuser and a misogynist.
Jay wonders what the dental hygienist would say in Matt's case. Presumably it’s no longer misogynist if it’s a twenty-three-year-old man making advances. Why don't we have a glass of orange wine and hash the whole thing out? Item number one: is it really unsolicited, if anyone with eyes and a brain can see how hard Matt's been flirting beforehand? Fuck him, honestly.
They make it to the street of the rental house. It's a sad grey stucco house on the outside, built by someone seemingly unaware of the quaint nautical theme that perfuses the rest of the town. Inside, whoever bought it and rented it out has overcompensated with the decor: everything is made of wicker, and the lobster/seashell/ship's wheel motifs run amok over every available textile. Standing in the extremely blue kitchen on his first night, Jay felt like he's a lobster himself, trapped inside a giant nightmare aquarium. He sent a photo of a particularly revolting art print of a busty cartoon mermaid to the Sad Girl Musician, and she texted back, ooh kinda cunty.
“You go ahead,” Jay says in front of the house. “I’m going to walk around a bit more. I need the fresh air.”
Matt turns, looks at him with concern. “You alright?”
“Yeah, of course. I might actually head back towards Commercial, I want to spend some more time by the water.”
“I can come with you—”
“No, no, I want some solo time. Decompress after the party.”
“Okay,” Matt says with a yawn. “Don’t expect me to be still up when you come back though. I’m on an old man’s schedule these days. It’s disgusting. By seven a.m. I’m up and answering e-mails.”
Jay studies his face. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“What are you going to do about the text?”
“Oh, Christ. I have no idea. Ignore it and leave it until morning. I don’t know if it’s even serious, maybe it’s Dom’s idea of a joke. I’ll talk to him next time I see him. I don't know. Why?"
"Just curious."
"Jay, you don't really think I'd do anything, do you? It's crazy. I'm getting married. I would never do something like that. I'd never take advantage of someone like that."
Matt's being sincere. Of course he's being sincere. When they were in their twenties, Jay thought that Matt sometimes lied to him to manipulate him, forcing moments to their crises for his own reasons. Then later he wondered if Matt’s emotional crises were real, or at least had some kernel of truth to them, and he's projecting his own insecurities onto Matt, blaming Matt for his own problems because it's easier to look outwards than inwards. These days he's reconciled to the idea that Matt can be both truthful and manipulative; he’s always lying but not lying at the same time. The truth is such a watery, transparent thing. Matt met his fiancée through a class that he taught; she worked on one of his film sets, though technically, they did not date until after it wrapped. No doubt they texted each other, though (and who knows what song Matt sent her). Matt would have a better way of explaining it all, but to Jay, it comes down to this: there's one set of rules for single men and women, another set for soon-to-be married men and other men.
"You're overthinking things," Matt says. He pokes Jay on the shoulder. "Stop overthinking it, okay? Don't stress out on my behalf. I'll handle it, I hate the idea of handling it, but I'll talk to him tomorrow. It's gonna be okay."
"Sure."
"He's twenty-three. People do all sorts of dumb shit at twenty-three."
"Sure," Jay says.
Without warning, Matt hugs him. “I’m so happy you came down. So happy, man. I can’t wait to hear what music you’re gonna make when you see the finished cut. It’s gonna be beautiful.”
“It might not be beautiful," Jay says.
Matt lets him go from the hug, but he keeps his hands on Jay's shoulders. He's tearing up, Jay notes. It has never ceased astounding him how easily Matt cries.
“It’ll be beautiful because it’ll be true to the story, and anything true is beautiful. People will feel it. I don't believe you're capable of making anything that's not beautiful."
Matt smiles at him, and Jay smiles back. He can't help it. It's an old pattern. He gets mad at Matt; he gets over it. It's ingrained at this point. He doesn't know how to live any other way. He and Matt don't have a normal friendship. Jay has other friends outside of Matt, very close friends, boys whom he's known since the soggy unremembered days of kindergarten. Take Peter Kowalski, who grew up four doors down from Jay's house and owned the largest collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics that Jay'd ever seen. When they were in university, Peter steal/borrowed his sister's Toyota and drove down to see Jay for American Thanksgiving, something Matt never did. He's known Peter forever, but the two of them don't talk about how they feel toward each other. Jay would happily take a bullet for Peter, but he has no idea how Peter feels, or what Peter feels, or why Peter feels. The same goes for most of his friends: Jared, for instance, or Miller, or any of the men whom Jay has known for decades. The only man who talks about his feelings to Jay, and about Jay, is Matt.
But then, as Jay wanders the streets of Provincetown, away from the weird magic of being in Matt's immediate vicinity, what Matt said starts to bother him. No disrespect to your girlfriend, by the way. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Jay’s feet carry him back towards the yacht club.
The evening’s wrapping up. People are leaving now, pulling on their hoodies and jackets, fixing their tired faces into pleasant expressions of farewell. Their excited chatter from earlier mellowing out into laconic questions. Have you seen my bag? Want to walk back together? When are you flying back to L.A.? On the table, empty wine bottles bob up and down in their buckets of melted ice. Someone has unplugged the disco ball.
“Back again!” Perky Bartender says. “My favourite piña colada customer. Another one before we close?”
“Sure,” he says, even though he thinks he might throw up at the taste of coconut milk. When she hands him the glass, he says, “Did you ever date someone everyone disapproves of?”
"I guess no, not really," Perky Bartender says. "There was this guy in sophomore year, um, he liked my best friend—-"
"What about someone much younger or older? Age really is just a number, right? It's 2025, you wouldn't tell someone that so-and-so is unsuitable because of their gender, or their race, or their religion—"
"Okay."
"I just think," Jay says helplessly, hopelessly, "that people are complicated. They're really complicated."
He doesn't feel like he's taking advantage of his girlfriend. If anything, she's taking advantage of him. The Sad-Girl Musician likes coming over to his house so she can sit at his kitchen table in her underwear and one of his t-shirts, smoking the pack of cigarettes he keeps in the cupboard above the fridge "for emergencies only" and reading her battered copy of Lolita. She has a photographer ex who shoots her music videos; he gets the impression that she's often waiting for him to pick up a camera and take a photo of her as well. Exhibit A — A sensitive young woman in a torrid love affair with an older man.
It's hard to defend and harder to explain, but the appeal of the Sad-Girl Musician is not her youth or her prettiness but her simplicity. Her needs are so simple, so easily met. Money, sex, attention, validation, a new guitar pedal, someone to read her writing and say, "It's amazing, you really have a gift." Someone to do the magic trick of disappearing the tedious, tedious, tedious parts of life (bills, rent, obligations) that distract you from thinking about music. He understands this because these were the same things he wanted at that age. And now he can give these things to her. So at least he can provide one person in his life with exactly what they want.
"I think people hate the idea because no one wants to think about how painful it is to be younger themselves," Jay says. "But it's a little puritanical, isn't it? Don't bad things happen in relationships all the time, no matter who you are and what is your age? You could be traumatized by someone who's — I don't know — two years younger, or your own age…it's so complicated…"
He should stop talking. Perky Bartender is giving him signals with her face and posture that mean she really wants him to stop talking.
She smiles at him again, but the strain is showing. “Hey, yeah, listen—can I get you a glass of water?" She's gone very gentle all of a sudden.
"No, thanks."
"It's going to be fine," she says kindly.
"I don't know." Jay watches the bartender do something that involves lemons and a cutting board. He's never worked in food service in his life. It seems quite wonderful to him in this moment—always having something to do with your hands and so forth. "Can I have another glass of wine?" he says.
Then it all comes apart like a bad film:
Jay gets up from the bar with his wine glass and nearly collides with a lanky torso in a striped t-shirt.
“Sorry, sorry. Didn't see you there.”
“You’re good," Dom says.
Although Dom says it very politely, Jay always found that turn of phrase a bizarre Americanism and a little condescending as well. Who are you to tell someone if they're good or bad? Why not just say, 'it's alright' like a normal person?
They stare at each other. It’s the first time they've spoken face-to-face this evening, since Jay came here with Matt and Dom arrived later with the other actors. They should've just brushed each other by, but social niceties compel Jay to linger. Dom must feel the same. They hover next to each other, uncertain.
Dom's the first to speak. "How's the party going for you?"
"It's alright," Jay says. "How's it for you?"
“Not bad,” Dom says. He looks distracted. “It's good I ran into you, actually. Have you seen Matt?”
“I think he went home already.”
“Oh.”
“Were you looking for him for something specific? I can try calling him.” It’s petty to say, but Jay can’t resist. “He probably just went home to FaceTime Angie. I’m sure he’s still up. ”
Dom’s expression doesn’t change. “Right, never mind. I’ll see him tomorrow or something. We’re supposed to get coffee.”
“Okay,” Jay says. Dom turns to leave.
Jay watches him weave through the thinning crowd. With a few quick steps, he catches up to Dom close to the exit and grabs hold of his shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”Dom has the door pushed halfway open. Standing at the threshold, he’s lit from the left by the cold fluorescent light from the hallway and from the right by the rich yellow glow of the function room’s lamps. On this improbable battlefield, the two lights chose not to clash but instead to work together to illuminate the sculptural construction of Dom's face. He has an amazing cupid's bow, Jay can't help but notice. He's dimly aware that some women pay a lot of money for their mouths to look like this. Even his skin looks like a girl's: very pale, with patches of high colour coming through on the cheeks—like how pretty girls' faces look after they cry.
“Stay and have a drink,” he says to Dom. “Let’s talk. I want to know more about you. Matt’s told me a lot already, but I want to hear it directly from you.”
Dom’s brows pull together. “Hear what directly?”
“I dunno,” Jay says. “Life. Your thoughts on Bourdain. What music you like. Do you actually enjoy lobster? Matt said you never thought you’d be an actor. Is that true?”
Something in his ramblings made Dom soften, turn his body fully towards Jay. “Between you and me, lobster’s not that good, right?”
“No.”
“It’s something you only like because you’re supposed to like it. I read somewhere that there was a men’s prison in New York, back in the 20th century, where they were only fed lobster because it was cheap. And the prisoners rioted. It’s all psychological! People will like anything if you tell them it’s exclusive.”
“That’s funny,” Jay says. He plays his ace. “Matt always said you were really funny.”
“Ha, yeah, well — maybe.”
It takes a lot of mental resilience to polish off an entire bottle of Cabernet and still stand and speak normally, but Jay feels he has reached that stage of ability. Mentally, he rolls the dice on his sobriety check: at least a fifteen, if not more. The world settles around his ears, pleasant and fuzzy, like a show watched on an old analog TV. He finishes what's left in his wine glass, sets it down, wipes his hands on his jeans. “Actually, I'm done with this. You want to go outside for a smoke instead?”
Dom nods. They avoid the stream of people passing through the front door and head instead for the fire escape door at the back of the yacht club, leaving it propped open with an old brick someone definitely left on the ground nearby for that exact purpose. There’s only a sad limp pre-roll in Jay’s pocket from the dispensary in Boston. He feels slightly bad offering it to Dom, who must get offered much better drugs at much better parties, but Dom takes it without comment.
“It’s really cool you came to P-town,” Dom says. He blows out a tiny cloud of smoke, aimed very tidily away from Jay. “It’s really cool that we’re getting to like, hang.”
“Sure,” Jay says.
He doesn’t know Dom very well. They've met a few times, usually with Matt as an intermediary. Each time Jay's been struck by Dom's voice: deeper than expected, with that flat, emotionless New Jersey jock affect. He used to play prep school hockey, Jay remembers.
"I'm jealous of you two," Dom says. Jay must have pulled an incredulous face, because he flushes pink and says, quickly, "I mean, I'm jealous that you two have like, found your people. You've done it — you've done it. It's crazy to me that you've known each other since high school. You're both so lucky."
The bout of unexpected sincerity throws Jay off. "Yeah, I guess."
"I didn't, uh, grow up in a super artistic family. I'm not like, complaining or anything, but growing up I didn't actually know anyone who made movies. Even when I got a scholarship to a really good school, it was like, before, the people I knew said they wanted to be nurses and teachers; at the new school they wanted to be surgeons and tech CEOs. I didn't really believe that it's real. Making movies, I mean. It's easier to imagine going to the moon."
"Right—"
"I was afraid of looking stupid a lot of the time," Dom says. He's already standing close to Jay, but his voice is so low that Jay has to lean in even closer to hear. "I wish I hadn't been so afraid. And it's not even about movies."
Jay's struggling to keep up. "What's not about movies?"
"It's cool that I'm doing this with Matt—" Dom waves his arm, a vague gesture that suggests that "this" encompasses Tony, the entire cast and crew, all of Provincetown. It's cool we're doing this with Matt, Jay thinks, petulant, but Dom's still talking. "—but I was just thinking, what if no one watches it? What if it flops? Does it matter?"
"It won't flop," Jay says.
"—but even if it flops, I don't care. I got to meet Matt, and you, and a lot of people, really. Matt knows everything about movies. It's what he cares about. He loves to talk about movies. He loves it. And we — I don't know, it's hard to explain — we did this thing together. I wasn't just brought in and told where to stand and what to say. For the first time I felt like I didn't just act in a movie, I made a movie. And so I've found my people, but it's only for a few months—it's not like you guys. Like, not just you and Matt but your entire team in Canada, I love the way you guys worked together for years. You had an idea, and someone else understood your idea, and together you made it happen in this world." Dom breaks off. He looks down at the ground. "It's lonely to be on your own. Do you understand what I'm saying? "
Jay’s thinking about himself. At fourteen and sixteen, the ages when he and Matt first met, why did they do what they did? Why do people do anything? YouTube wasn't even the spark of an idea at the time; neither of them made their silly videos for views or popularity, they did it for the same reason that shipwreck victims build bonfires and spelled out S-O-S on the beach. It was a flare, a signal to attract the attention of someone who was the same. Please come find me. Let's rescue each other from the wreck of suburban Mississauga. Let's be each other's people.
"Yeah, " he says to Dom. "I understand."
Poor Dom, cursed by a quirk of fate to have been born twenty years too late and 800 kilometres too south to have met Matt first. Through no action of his own, Jay got there first. This made him feel almost magnanimous. Almost certainly Dom, with his sculpted cheekbones, will go on to be vastly more famous and wealthy than Jay (if he isn't already), but in this one moment, this one shining, selfish moment, Jay has something that even one of Hollywood's top 25 under 25 rising young stars can't have: half a lifetime with his best friend.
“You should be more careful,” Jay says. “With Matt.”
Dom’s face doesn’t change, but something in his posture does. He presses the burnt-out end of the joint into the brick wall and holds it up, studies it. “What do you mean?” His tone is neutral.
“He’s not going to say it to your face because he’s—he’s nice that way. But he’s not…you’re wasting your time, basically.”
A measured pause. “What did he tell you?”
“He showed me his phone earlier.” It’s a tiny lie from Jay, but who’s going to know?
Dom makes a low noise. “He showed you?”
“Look, not the uh, full image—”
“Oh my god,” Dom says.
“He’s quite happy with his partner,” Jay says. “I don’t think you want to mess that up for him. And messing something like that up…it’s a burden to carry around for you, you’re better off leaving it alone.”
“Oh my fucking god.”
“Look—”
Dom runs his hands over his face. “This is so fucking embarrassing.”
A mutual discomfort fills the air between them.
“Matt likes women,” Jay says. “I’ve known him for a long time. He says a lot of nice things and he comes on strong, but at the end of the day he likes women.”
“He doesn’t like women,” Dom says.
Now it’s Jay’s turn to be defensive. “What are you saying?”
Dom drops the joint end into his pocket and straightens up from his slouch against the wall. “Whatever. I dunno. Forget it. I say dumb shit all the time.”
“But what do you mean?”
“C’mon, man.”
Jay laughs. The weed makes the awkwardness kind of funny. “Just spit it out.”
“I dunno.” Dom looks at him for a long moment. “I’ve met Angie before, y’know. When she came down in July. She’s nice. She’s pretty. She likes movies. She’s smart, but she’s not like, brilliant. A few of us had dinner together at a restaurant and afterwards Emilia said to me, ‘Matt brought exactly the person I thought he’d bring.’ She meant like—sorry, this is mean, but she meant like—we were all a bit wasted coming back, and we were just talking shit to each other, this doesn’t mean anything. So Leo and Emilia were just saying to each other how of course Matt wants someone who’s never going to surpass him. Because that’s what it is, right? If you’re a talker, you want someone who’s a listener. If you take up a lot of space, you want someone who doesn’t take up any space.” Dom shakes his head. “I liked Angie. I just mean—we were joking that we all liked Angie, but I mean—we didn’t know if Matt did. Liked her. You know? You know that scene in Lady Bird? When Lady Bird’s like, ‘Do you like me?’ And the mom says, ‘Of course I love you.” And Lady Bird’s like, ‘That’s not my question.’”
Having delivered his speech, Dom falls abruptly silent. He crosses his arms in front of his chest.
Noises from the front of the yacht club drift by on the night breeze. Someone shouted something indistinct; other people burst into laughter. Jay watches them in his mind’s eye: the goodnight hugs and the fist bumps and the tap-tap-tap on lit up phone screens, looking for somewhere open for a plate of fries or an afterparty. He wishes he was there with those happy people instead of here, not looking at Dom.
Because, well—what’s even new here? Hasn’t Jay always thought the same thing, in that secret treacherous corner at the back of his mind? Matt likes women, but what does Matt even know about women? Jay’d always thought that Matt, despite his series of steady, long-term, monogamous relationships with women, did not genuinely enjoy the company of women, despite a steady stream of friendly acquaintances. But Matt has no close female friends, doesn't even talk much to his sisters. Jay is the one who genuinely likes women. He likes their little thoughts and feelings more than Matt does. Finds them more interesting, actually enjoys the ways that it challenges his own worldview. At parties and dinners, he gravitates towards the women. The way they talk, to each other and to him, is refreshing. Men don’t think about things the same way.
Case in point. “Sending Matt pictures of your dick isn’t going to help with anything,” Jay says.
“Okay, so I’m an impulsive, selfish bastard,” Dom says. “So what? Why does he act the way he does? Why would you even say the kind of stuff he says to me, unless he wants it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated!”
Jay is silent. It’s so easy when you’re twenty-three, and you have a sense of conviction like a silver arrow flying true. You want what you want, so how absurd are all these other people? Ridiculous!
“Listen, Dominic—the thing with Matt… there are a lot of things with Matt. The thing with Matt is that it's impossible to know what he wants, so stop thinking about what he wants.”
The joint is making Jay lightheaded. He searches for what to say. The idea that he wants to convey is that Matt is so prone to loving people, and people, stupidly, tend to love what loves them back. Maybe if he’s talking to a woman, he could find a way to explain it, but there’s no socially acceptable way to talk to another man— a near stranger— about love. It’s excruciating. Near unthinkable.
“Don’t let him inside your head, okay?” he says instead.
Dom looks at him strangely. “You telling me from experience or something?”
When did he move so close to Jay? Jay gets the sense that he’s waiting for a certain response from Jay. There’s energy snaking outwards looking for a crack in the surface to penetrate. It’s a bit like being flirted with. Dom’s too tall to peer up at this from beneath his lashes, but he’s giving Jay that shy sideways look. Down, then up, letting his eyes do the talking. Strange for Jay to see one of his own moves mirrored back at him.
Dom gestures at the doors. “You wanna—”
“Okay,” Jay says.
It's hard to say who truly initiated it. To Jay, it seems like one moment they were outside by emergency exit doors, the next they're pressed up against each other in the handicap washroom.
Dom kisses like the ex-hockey player that he is: a lot of forceful tongue action, as if he's afraid of losing the game if he concedes. His mouth tastes like weed and spearmint gum. It's not the first time Jay's been with this exact kind of guy (he lives in fucking Toronto, for god's sake). He relaxes his mouth, kisses that incredible cupid's bow, lets himself be pushed up against the wall, even does the girly thing and throws his hands around Dom's shoulders. Dom grunts; Jay runs a hand through the mop of curls and tightens his grip at the nape, willing Dom to relax the assault on his mouth. "Easy there," he says.
"Oh my god," Dom says. He buries his face in Jay's neck. "God, fuck. Fuck. Can you pull my hair again?"
For the first time all evening, Jay feels himself relax, even though the situation is objectively insane. Finally, he's in a situation where he's being asked to perform a task he's good at, where he understands what the other person wants from him.
Dom's rolling their hips together. He has an exceptionally mobile spine that seems capable of gyrating independently from the rest of him. Jay slips his other hand under Dom's t-shirt and presses it against the bare skin of his back. It's furnace-hot, taut with youth, the muscles underneath trembling minutely from their owner's exertions.
"You're really incredible," Jays says, because instinct tells him he should be saying something here.
Dom groans. His mouth has found Jay's earlobe, which is now getting alternately bitten and sucked in some esoteric pattern. "Can you, uh, can we try something?"
"Sure," Jay says, mostly to move on from the business around his ear. He's never been an ear guy, hates the wet feeling inside his ear canal. "Anything."
Dom maneuvers them towards the sink and positions them so Jay's in front. Jay has an idea where this is going. Obediently, he undoes the button of his jeans and unzips. Dom's pressed up behind him; he can feel the blatant bulge of Dom's dick press against his back. Jay doesn't need to see it to visualize it: cut, nice length, doesn't curve in any particular direction. Thank you, Matt's terrible phone etiquette.
Poor Dom again, probably been worked up all evening, thinking he was about to get some action. Jay wonders what Dom thinks about his consolation prize. It's like going through the looking glass: in their twenties, it had been Jay who effortlessly got hot girls' attention at parties, and it had been Matt sulking in the corner, pretending like he didn't care at all when it was so obvious he did, so obvious that he hated when Jay's attention was on anyone except for him…
He hears rather than sees Dom unzipping his own pants. It's made out of a material that's nicer than Jay's faded Levis, in a cut that Jay doesn't understand but the Sad Girl Musician could probably appreciate as being trendy or whatever. With a start, he realizes that it's the first time he's thought about his girlfriend since this whole insanity began.
"Press your legs together," Dom says.
Jay presses his legs together. He hears Dom spit, and then there's a hot, hard dick being pushed between his thighs, breaching them right under his ass and coming to a rest against his balls. He makes a noise of surprise that Dom must misinterpret, because Dom just mumbles, yeah, yeah and kisses him on top of his shoulder, over his shirt.
"You look so fucking hot like this," Dom says. He kisses the shell of Jay's ear. "So beautiful."
Jay's still reeling from the switch from aggro jock to affectionate boyfriend. "You too," he manages.
Blame the alcohol or the joint or the overall strangeness of the night, but Jay feels numb, not quite present. He doesn't know how to untangle the mess of this situation. He's aware in a dim, shadowy way that while sleeping with the star of Matt's film is a very bad idea, to reject sleeping with the star of Matt's film, while the guy's dick is already pressed against Jay's hole and scrotum, is probably an even worse idea.
Dom starts to thrust. It's not good. They're going at it dry with no lube, so sensitive areas chafe almost immediately. Dom snakes his hand around, going for the gentlemanly reach-around handjob. Jay moves it away. He makes a show of taking his own dick in his hand.
Thank god for the architect who chose the exact height and position of this Provincetown yacht club bathroom counter; it hides his lacklustre half-erection as if engineered to do so.
After a few minutes of this, Jay is resigned to the fact that the only way out is through. “Hey,” he says. “Let me blow you."
He doesn't wait for an answer before turning and dropping to his knees. Sucking dick is an easy weapon from his arsenal. And Dom is very obliging about it. He makes pretty noises above Jay's head and keeps the thrusting to a minimum. His glutes and quadriceps have the kind of muscle tone that Jay lacks the mental ability to even aspire to, much less achieve.
Jay thinks he could finish him off like this, but after a few minutes Dom tugs him to his feet and pushes him back against the counter. Jay moans and closes his eyes. They're going to do the fake-anal thigh sex thing or die trying. He crosses his legs to tighten the grip; maybe that'll make it go faster. At least it’s easier now with more spit to slick the way.
"Open your eyes, look at yourself," Dom pants between thrusts. "Fuck, we look really good together."
Jay lifts his head and does the thing he's been trying to avoid, which is to look himself in the eyes in the mirror. They do sort of look good together. Similar. The same sort of long-ish face and lanky build, though Jay wasn't as slender as he used to be. The yellowish lighting of the bathroom hides his greys, so their hair looks like one shade of dark brown. Dom's long fingers are gripping his shoulder; he reaches up and laces his own long fingers through them. They look like two pieces from a matching set.
"We should take a picture and send it to Matt," he says.
(Wait, why the fuck did he say that?)
"Yeah, yeah," Dom says, breathless. His curls are matted to his forehead with sweat. "Fucking…show him what he's missing."
"That's a bad idea," Jay says.
“Okay, then let me keep it for myself.”
To Jay's horror, Dom's actually pulling back, crouching to fumble around the puddle of his pants on the ground for his phone.
"Put it away!" he says. It comes out high-pitched and panicked. "Are you crazy?"
But the evil little camera eye is already winking at him in the mirror. Click, goes the iPhone camera.
“Delete it,” Jay says.
Dom giggles. “No, dude, I’m messing with you.”
“Delete it.”
“No—man, c’mon, look.” Dom turns his screen around. It’s an abstract grey and yellow blur of the bathroom wall with a hint of the mirror in the corner. “I’m not dumb,” he says, sullenly. He wraps his arms around Jay from behind and nuzzles his face into Jay's neck. A cutesy non-apology with an erection attached to it. "No photos, yeah, I wouldn’t do that. I don't want a stupid hacking scandal either."
Jay grips the counter, knuckles white. His mouth tastes like metallic fear and pineapple juice. He wishes that he had gone home along with Matt. What would he be doing right now? Puttering around the background while Matt videocalls Angie (both of them politely ignoring how Jay is not going to call his own girlfriend), then maybe thirty minutes of streaming a mid-brow 90's drama, then good nights and both of them off to their respective beds.
He almost misses Dom's question. "—like with him?"
"Hmm?"
Dom pulls back. In the mirror, his expression is innocent, almost shy. It's at odds with the way his dick is thrusting away again between Jay's legs. “I’m just asking, what do you think it’s like with him?”
“I don’t know,” Jay says.
“Tell me something, anything.” Dom drops his head on Jay’s shoulder. “I just like hearing that kind of stuff, it kinda helps me finish. Just say something. How would he fuck you?”
First of all, Jay wants to say, Matt would never be caught fucking in a public bathroom. Matt’s a wannabe edgelord who frowns when people litter. Matt talks a big game but told Jay once that he only lost his virginity at twenty-two. Matt went to Bible camp, for fuck’s sake. If Matt ever lost his mind and wanted to sleep with Jay, it would be at home, on clean bedsheets, missionary. Matt would call it, with one hundred sincerity, making love. And then he’d cry afterwards.
And also, wait. In this totally imaginary homosexual relationship, why does Dom assume Jay's the one taking it up the ass? What the hell?
Jay opens his mouth. And then he says, “He would call me Birdie. He likes to call me Birdie.”
"Oh shit,” Dom says, voice muffled. “Oh my god, that’s so cute. You two are so sweet.”
And despite himself, Jay finds himself getting into it, his body finally waking up to the inevitability of heat and friction. It’s kind of hot, right? To be fucked by a gorgeous guy who wishes he was someone else, fucking you? Or maybe he wishes he was you, being fucked by someone else…
“He does want you,” Jay says. “He wants you even if he won’t admit it. He made this movie for you. He makes movies with people instead of fucking them. You should have taken a real photo earlier. Let him act all horrified and then spend the rest of eternity jacking off to it.”
“He’d delete it immediately.”
“He’d delete it,” Jay says. “And then think about it for the rest of his life.”
“Shit, shit,” Dom pants. His hands are sweaty against Jay’s hip. He trembles with each thrust. “Birdie, I think I’m gonna come.”
And he does. Jay moans through it.
"Sorry, man," Perky Bartender says. "Bar's closed. Actually, I can't believe there's anyone still here. We're cleaning up. I thought it's staff-only now."
"Can I just have a glass of water?" Jay says.
Perky Bartender bites her lip.
"Please," Jay says. His shirt feels damp under the armpits. His underwear feels like it's disappearing up his asshole—he'd wiped himself down with a wad of damp brown paper towels, but in his hurry he didn't fully dry off before pulling everything back on and leaving the washroom. There's a thunderous headache building between his temples, a reminder why he stopped drinking red wines and dark liquors. His tongue is fuzzy. He wants, simultaneously, a hot shower, a cool pillow, and a host of angels descending to announce the end of the world. Sorry, everyone, but let’s start again from the top. This time around, Jay’s going to hit the right notes. He’ll get it right. He’ll be a good friend and brother and partner. He’ll love everyone the way they deserve to be loved. He’ll be good this time.
—that’s what he wants, but right now he would settle for a drink of water.
“Here,” Perky Bartender says. She rolls a plastic bottle of water across the bar top. “On the house.”
Jay thanks her. She nods at him, shrugs, then goes back to wiping things down, putting things in other things and stacking them on more things. She doesn’t ask him to leave, which he takes as tacit permission to remain where he is. It’s soothing to watch someone very good at their job do their job.
A thought strikes him. “Did you ever sleep on a houseboat?” he says.
She looks up. “Uh, no.”
“Are you from here?”
“Nah. Just here for the summer, I’ll be heading back to Boston in two weeks.”
“Where do you stay when you’re here?”
“With my aunt. She has a house here. I have to sleep in a bunk bed with my second cousin, but at least they don’t charge rent.”
“I used to sleep in a bunk bed,” Jay says nonsensically.
Perky Bartender looks up at him. She’s on her knees scrubbing something, rubber gloves on and a gold-coloured can of cleaning powder next to her knee. The expression on her face is the expression common to bartenders and marble saints: gentle weariness mixed with an all-encompassing professional pity. They’ve seen it all. It makes Jay think of that one Arcade Fire album, the one with the classical statues. Except Arcade Fire’s cancelled now, aren’t they? One of them is a sexual predator or something: slept with young fans, sent bad texts, got divorced. Men love to self-sabotage themselves for no reason.
“That’s cool, man. Better than a houseboat, to be honest. I get seasick.”
She smiles again. Jay can’t believe he ever thought she had too many teeth. She’s so sweet. He wants to cry.
He’s about to say something to the bartender when his phone buzzes. It’s a text from Dom. Jay stares at the notification but doesn't open it. They had performatively traded numbers a long time ago but never texted until now. When something does come up, they used email. He’d almost forgotten he had Dom’s number at all.
There's a text from the Sad Girl Musician, too. How's the party going? 😘
Been to better, he texts back.
She sends back a lengthy response that he has no capacity to parse or answer; he taps the heart react and hopes he’ll remember to check again in the morning. By reflex he opens Instagram, but the images all look the same to him: a distraction from distraction from distraction.
His phone keeps buzzing. Dom has a lot to say.
Dominic: here’s the photo in case you were worried, it’s nothing honestly :)
Dominic: I want to check if youre ok, sorry about taking the photo I thought I was being funny for some stupid reason but looking back its not funny…its a super emotional time wrapping the movie and saying goodbye to ppl im just crashing out for no reason…matts been really nice but sometimes I don’t know whats up with him…but youre right and I need to get over it, i'll talk to him and apologize
Dominic: thanks for talking with me, I said a bunch of stupid stuff so don’t judge haha
Dominic: I like you a lot, don’t tell matt if thats weird
[Message deleted]
Dominic: I like talking with you a lot, hope to see you around?
What the fuck does anyone say in this situation? Jay taps open the photo attachment and studies it. It’s an abstract grey-and-black blur of the bathroom wall, with a hint of the mirror in the corner. Dom’s telling the truth. It’s nothing, honestly.
Unless—
—unless there’s another photo. Because it’s not hard to fake, right? Just snap another photo later and claim that’s the original one? Somewhere on Dom’s phone right now there might be a life-destroying, friendship-ending photo of a momentary lapse in judgment. Same as what’s on Matt’s phone. Because you can never really delete a photo, right? He read that somewhere. The ghosts of everything linger in glass and silicon forever.
—or, hang on. Everything that happened tonight—isn’t this all very convenient for Matt? Dom’s backing off without Matt having to go through any of the awkward moments of rejection. Jay did it. Jay somehow did Matt’s dirty work for him: fucked the lead actor, rejected him, and now somehow everything is smoothed over, at least on the surface. Matt’s at home, sleeping. Jay’s the one sitting here feeling used, a wrung-out dish rag hung up to dry. What an incredible coincidence it is for Jay to be the one holding Matt’s phone when Dom’s message appeared. Who does that? Who leaves their phone unlocked with someone else when they go to talk to other people?
But Matt seemed genuinely shocked earlier.
But Matt can be lying and not lying.
But Matt's not here.
Jay presses his forehead against the dark wood of the bar top. He’s being paranoid. He taps his phone screen and types.
Jay: …ok
The three dots appear on Dom's side. They go on for a while, then disappear. Jay stares at the screen until it goes black.
When he looks up, the room is empty. The bartender has disappeared. Dom is still silent. They're gone, and they've taken all their youth with them.
“Hello?” he calls out.
No answer. Someone, somewhere, begins to turn off all the lights in the building.
At the end of everything, there’s nothing to do but return to where one started from, so he stumbles back home.
Opening the door of the rental house, he calls softly into the dark interior. “Matt?”
No answer, only the faint hum of the refrigerator and the creaking of the floorboards as he moves deeper down the hallway. His room is behind the second door on the left, next to the small washroom, but to his own surprise he takes the first door on the left instead. He pushes the door open. It swings open without a sound.
Inside, Matt’s asleep on the bed. A faint suggestion of moonlight spills in from a gap in the room’s linen curtains. In the faint silvery non-light Matt looks very peaceful. One meaty arm, the size and colour of a Christmas ham, is curled around himself over the old-fashioned quilted bedspread. He's smiling slightly in his dreams, the beatific expression of milk-drunk babies. Relaxed in sleep, his face looks smooth and full.
Jay, an inveterate teeth grinder since his thirties, envies him. How does Matt do it? Get younger and younger while the rest of them get greyer and greyer?
He shakes his head. It’s not true, he reminds himself. He sees Matt stressed all the time, and the saggy paunch of middle age is coming for all of them, no matter how much time Matt puts in at the gym. But in his drunken miserable haziness he can’t shake the image of the two of them in their seventies: Jay with his hair white, back hunched, hands covered in toad spots, while Matt—Matt will go on forever and forever.
Matt’s phone lights up on the bedside table. Some stupid notification from one of his games. Jay picks it and enters the passcode (Matt checks his phone four thousand times a day in front of him). He opens the messages to Dom and finds—nothing. Matt must have deleted their entire conversation history in the app. Jay scrolls. It's gone. Nothing has ever happened. No one was ever here.
Jay locks the phone. On the lock screen is a picture of Matt and Angie at a summer wedding, a smooth, glassy lake behind them, smiles golden in the fading sunlight. He looks at it. A vague image floats into his mind about the ghosts that live inside that phone, under that glassy lake, nestled somewhere in the silicon chip or on iCloud (chips and clouds! how whimsical is the modern world?). Then he flips the phone over so the screen’s hidden and puts it back down.
He climbs into the single bed and lies down beside Matt.
The rental house has two bedrooms. Matt, very considerately, had given Jay the larger room with the double bed and the en-suite bathroom while he decamped to the smaller room. The room Matt's sleeping in now has been repainted landlord white and re-decorated, but traces of its former existence remain. It used to be a child’s bedroom. A toy model ship still lingers on the high decorative shelves, moored for eternity under a coat of dust. There’s an old clock ticking away on the wall, its frame decorated with little moulded clay mermaids combing their red seaweed hair.
Lying down like this, Jay sees the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. They're dim with age, but they're there. He can also get a whiff of his own smell emanating from his scalp and pores: sour sweat and sea air and the remnants of a foreign cologne, something far sweeter and spicier than what he’d pick out for himself. It smells like the expensive version of Old Spice. Jay hasn't worn Old Spice since high school.
Beside him, Matt stirs. He rolls over, blinks at the intruder next to him in the dark.
“…Dom?”
“No, not Dom,” Jay says softly. “It’s just me.”
“Oh,” Matt says. He relaxes, eyes sliding shut again. “Okay.” He doesn’t ask what Jay’s doing, lying squeezed next to him on this tiny bed. After a few seconds, he wriggles over a few inches, leaving a warm divot behind him on the mattress for Jay.
Jay stretches out, careful to still leave a little gap between them. Matt moves his blanket, but Jay doesn’t get under it. He’s not stupid. On the tiny bed they remain as chaste as brothers. This is why Jay is here, and Dom is not. It’s why they’re going to keep making films together long after Dom becomes a polite nod at an industry party, a funny anecdote at the 10th anniversary re-release. Jay knows the rules. Jay always behaves. Jay was here first. He’ll be here last. He'll be here forever.
“You have stars on your ceiling,” he whispers.
“Is this a dream?” Matt says, eyes still shut.
“Yeah. It’s a dream; I’m actually my younger time-travelling self. Go back to sleep.”
Matt yawns. “I like stars,” he mumbles.
“We can glue a few to the ceiling of our houseboat.”
There’s no reply except for Matt’s soft breathing.
A rush of tender emotion bursts up through Jay’s chest into his throat, a blood surge that wants to climb its way into his mouth and come out in the form of something like I love you I hate you I want to be your friend I want to kill you I wish you loved me back I wish I knew who I am and what I want but all I want is—all I want is—
But after a few minutes he gets bored with himself and his own predictable lameness. No moment of crisis can last very long in a warm, cozy bed. It’s very difficult to lie down next to someone so peaceful and not feel sleepy also. It’s been a long night. Jay should get up, go brush his teeth, drink another glass of water, and go sleep in his own bed like a real adult. But his eyelids are so heavy. His body is so heavy. Someone came along and weighed down his limbs with rocks and pushed him into still, warm water. He’s sinking. The mermaid girls on the wall clock are singing. Tick tock, tick tock.
“Birdie?” Matt mumbles. In the darkness, it could be the sound of a child calling out to another child.
“Yeah?”
“What'd you think of the party? D'you enjoy it?”
"It was really, really awful," Jay says, but very softly. Matt doesn't reply. Maybe he didn't hear Jay, or maybe he has nothing to say.
Jay closes his eyes. He's forgotten what else he wants to say. He doesn't want to say anything anymore. He wants to go home. But also he's already home. He's here, with Matt.