Topher cracked a smile. “You mean Queen?”

  She nodded. “All I have is one of their greatest hits CDs, but that’s fine with him. I don’t think he’s all that particular, just as long as it’s Freddie Mercury singing him to sleep.”

  James handed Candice the joint and rose from the couch, saying he’d be right back. She and Topher continued passing the joint back and forth. A cartoon show played on the television, one aimed at adults, where profanity and sex jokes were meant to make up for shoddy animation. She and Topher watched, laughing at every fresh crudity. He enjoyed these nights with James and Candice. There was a blessed calmness that fell over him whenever he entered their home. The house itself wasn’t much. There was no central air or heat, dirt clung to the corners and grime etched the grouting of the tiles, and every room featured a slightly musty smell. But Topher felt safe there.

  “Did I tell you?” Candice said, blowing out an impressive bank of smoke. “Petey starts kindergarten after this summer.”

  “Is it already that time?” Topher had honestly lost track. He found it impossible to guess a child’s age, even when the child in question was very young. It was a blind spot, perhaps a willful one.

  “It’s so hard to believe.”

  “Was he ever in preschool?”

  She hooted, almost dropped the joint. “Like we could ever afford that.”

  Topher smiled and looked away. Sometimes he forgot James and Candice didn’t have as much money as his other friends. They never chided him for his presumptions, which made him regret them all the more.

  “It’s okay,” she continued. “My mom says the main reason you send kids to preschool is for the social aspect, and he gets plenty of that here on the block.” James and Candice lived in a row of more than a dozen tiny houses, all in need of paint and insulation. Theirs was the only white family on the block, but Topher studiously never mentioned this. More than once, he had parked across from their house and seen their son sprinting across the yard with two or three dark-skinned boys his age.

  “What are you going to do with all that time on your hands?”

  “You mean besides work?” she said, and laughed. Topher had done it again, made an assumption about Candice that had no bearing in her reality.

  “Yes, besides that.”

  “I don’t really know. Thinking about it, it’ll be nice just to have that time with James. You know, we’ve never really been together for any length of time without Petey underfoot.” She smiled at him, as if the notion surprised and delighted her. “Maybe we’ll finally get to know each other. You gonna hit that?”

  Topher looked down to find he was still pinching the joint she had passed him. He had no idea how long he had been holding it. Suddenly embarrassed, he lifted the joint to his lips and took a huge drag. The coughing fit came almost instantly. He managed, after a few moments, to gather himself.

  “You two seem like an old married couple already.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

  “I wish I could’ve seen it.” He passed her the joint.

  “Oh, you’ve seen one wedding, you’ve seen them all. James looked handsome, I wore white. My mother cried. I think she would’ve preferred I have Petey after the ceremony. Hell, she would’ve preferred for James to be the actual father. But life just ain’t fair that way, is it?”

  On a previous visit, James had shown Topher the wedding photos, pointing out with pride that Candice had made her own gown, a simple yet provocative dress that Topher still remembered a year after seeing it. The two men had been alone when James showed him the photos, and Topher wondered—not for the first time—if Candice knew how much James had told him about his marriage.

  “Maybe you guys should have a baby,” Topher said. Immediately, he regretted this. He felt as if he had been reaching for a tasty snack on a high shelf but had managed only to knock it farther back.

  “That’s exactly what this world needs,” she said. Then, pausing to consider the notion, she held the joint to her lips and let it stay there. “I wonder how differently I’d do things if I had another…?”

  As much as he liked Candice, Topher didn’t feel comfortable discussing such personal things with her. He felt he was betraying James. He wondered how much she knew about his and James’s one-time relationship, or affair, brief as it was.

  A slinky bass beat stomped through the room, followed by the familiar, steady rhythm of snapping fingers. This was “Under Pressure.” Topher couldn’t imagine where Pete might have first heard this song. He couldn’t fathom James puttering around the house with this noise blaring over the speakers, and he didn’t know Candice well enough to speculate how she spent her time alone. The child’s liking of this band was simply a fact of their home, like James’s love of cartoons or Candice’s laughter.

  “You just wait,” she said. “When Petey gets old enough, I’m going to play this CD for him and remind him how much he used to love it. I bet he’ll tell me he hates it. You know how kids are—show them something they liked growing up, and they’ll turn against it on general principle.”

  Topher smiled. He enjoyed the petty philosophies in which Candice indulged after getting stoned. They were a welcome respite from the heavier musings he and James pursued after smoking pot.

  “Have you noticed,” she said, “that he remembers you now? Sometimes he’ll ask, ‘When’s Toph coming back? When’s Toph coming back?’ I never know what to tell him. You just appear, like a leap year.”

  James sauntered into the living room. He glanced at the television. On the screen, a scrawny cartoon rabbit rotated its large head in a complete orbit, as if shocked by something. “You like this show?” he asked Topher.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”

  “No one likes those dopey things but you, honey,” Candice said.

  With mock anger, James replied, “Woman, what did I tell you about coming between a man and his cartoons?”

  As he handed the joint to James, Topher studied his ex-lover. He was tall, almost six and a half feet. He could touch the ceiling without straightening his arm. His limbs were long and thick, coated in a pleasing weight that was not muscle but wasn’t really fat, either. He had an impish smile that gave him the look of a sly cat. His eyes were dark and milky. When he spoke, he always sounded as if what had been said before stunned him in some way. His voice was edged with a constant tone of genial confusion.

  “I got the munchkin in bed,” he said.

  “Did you leave the CD on repeat?”

  “Nah, I’ll just let it play out. He should be conked out before it gets to the end.”

  “Come sit with me. Topher isn’t being very interesting.”

  “You just gotta give him time,” James said and reached out to touch Topher’s shoulder. His fingers lingered there just long enough for Topher to become aware of them. “He’ll spout off something wise when you least expect it.”

  After James sat back on the sofa next to Candice, Topher returned his attention to the television. The cartoon rabbit was now running. Running, they always ran in cartoons these days. Topher could imagine the lovely grit in James’s voice if he had complained about that. What a lovely sound it would have made.

  Topher didn’t have to ask if he could spend the night. It had been decided when he took his first sip of beer. On the occasions when he only smoked weed but didn’t drink, Topher typically headed back to Longview. But when he had been downing beer as well, he stayed. A long-ago arrest for drunk driving made him cautious. He had told James about this when they were sleeping together. He didn’t know if James had told Candice, or how he would feel about it if he had. While Topher watched television, James worked on blowing up an inflatable mattress. With just his lungs for power, he was having a hard time.

  “Can’t remember the last time I worked this hard for a blow,” he said.

  “Pervert.”

  “You know, since you’re gonna be the one lying on this, I should make you trade. You know, blow for blow?”

  “I think we’ve exhausted the blow jokes by now.”

  “Probably.”

  “Can I leave the TV on while I fall asleep?”

  “Yeah, Candice is probably already dead to the world, and you know I can’t hear shit anyway.”

  “Have you two thought about having a baby?” The question just popped out, tangible between them.

  “That was fucking random,” James said.

  “I know, I just—”

  “We hadn’t thought about it, really.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I mean, think about it, wasn’t our getting married surprising enough?”

  Topher had to agree. He remembered his shock when he learned that James was even seeing Candice, let alone proposing to her. The two men had run across each other online, and Topher had been heartened to hear that James had ditched Bernard. He agreed to visit. As he pulled up to the curb, he was further encouraged by James’s eager wave in response to his own. He bounded from the car, and they sat on the porch, smoking cigarettes, sitting perilously close. Topher brushed his hand against James’s thigh, and when James neither indulged nor rejected the advance, he drew back his hand, uncertain how to proceed. James said he had been seeing someone and it looked like they were “going to get together,” as Topher indelibly remembered him putting it. When he asked who the guy was, James shrugged and said it wasn’t a guy at all, but a woman. A woman named Candice.

  “You’ve always been full of surprises,” Topher said as his friend slouched on the floor, the half-inflated air mattress on his lap.

  “Never thought my sex life would become so topical, huh?”

  “Was it that way when you were having sex with me?” Sometimes Topher took absurd risks like this. For him, it was part of the romantic thrill, the retelling of a conquest to the very man who took part in it.

  James smiled slyly, faked a look in the direction of his and Candice’s bedroom. He said in a low voice, “You were always a good fuck, boy. You know that.”

  “It’s nice to hear it now and again.”

  James blew again into the tube, caught his breath. “Toph is a good fuck.” He blew again, took another breath. “Toph is an incredible fuck.” He blew again, another breath. “Toph made me come twice.”

  He was touched that James remembered their sex with the same clarity he did. There’s no lonelier feeling than recalling an ecstatic memory only to realize no one shares it. He wondered how often James reflected on those few nights they spent in his modest twin bed with the mismatched sheets. Topher studied his ex for a moment, as if he were a deer in the wild he didn’t want to spook.

  James finally looked up from the air mattress. “What is it?”

  “I’ve always wanted to know something.”

  “Yes, you turned me straight.” He laughed at his own joke. “Seriously, Toph, what is it?”

  “Does Candice…?”

  “Does Candice what?”

  “Does she ever ask about us?”

  “What would she ask?”

  “You know, how we met. What we were doing…” He didn’t want to use the word fucking. He preferred to let the image fester in his friend’s imagination.

  “She’s a smart girl. I’m sure she knows we weren’t pitching tents.”

  “But she’s never asked?”

  “I guess it didn’t really matter to her.” Topher’s hopeful smile faltered as his ex-lover continued. “I mean, she knew whatever happened between us was definitely over, so what was the point, you know?”

  “I was just curious.”

  James blew a healthy breath into the mattress. Its surface rose. “What made you think of that?”

  “Eh, just horny tonight.”

  “That’s nothing new. What’s really going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  James narrowed his milky dark eyes at Topher, who suspected he knew the effect that look had on men—and women, too, apparently.

  “I’ve been having a bit of a drought lately.”

  “No nice hard cock for Topher-boy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, if this were the seventies, I’d definitely slip you a hard one.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You know, the seventies.”

  Embarrassed, and elated, Topher looked away, his fingers to his lips. “Thanks, buddy.”

  James let out a gust of air but it wasn’t a laugh. He craned his head back over the air mattress. He did not look at Topher again until it was completely inflated.

  Topher remembered the tingle he got when James opened the door the night they first met. He filled the door frame from top to bottom. From his picture online, Topher had imagined someone shorter and thicker, certainly older looking. Even at just a shave under thirty, James could pass for someone a half-decade younger. Topher offered his hand, but James simply grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in for a bear hug. They remained like that, embracing, for moment after moment, until at last James bowed his head to meet Topher’s lips. Topher remembered that kiss with a fervor that sometimes shamed him. It seemed James was already speaking before their lips parted.

  “Damn,” he said. “Guys almost never look like their pictures.”

  “Impressed?”

  “Very.” He kissed Topher again.

  After that, Topher spoke. “You’re hugely tall.”

  “Don’t ask if I ever played basketball.”

  “I hate that sport.”

  “Hate is a strong word. A dozen grown men in their underwear running back and forth: there’s something to be said for that.”

  “I should re-examine it, then,” Topher said.

  James picked him up from the floor and looped his arm under his knees. Topher was a slight, slim boy and easy for James to carry. They made their way to the bedroom, laughing as James accidentally knocked Topher’s head against the door frame.

  Recalling that first time in the dark night, while the air mattress groaned and squeaked beneath him, was foolish, thought Topher. Queen still wailed from Pete’s room. James had already left for his bedroom. Topher had glimpsed the room during previous visits, the simple off-white blinds closed over the window, the deep orange bedspread, the shoes dotting the floor. He tried to imagine himself there, waiting for James. What would he say as James undressed and slipped under the covers? How would Topher please him, make sure he fell asleep in total bliss? It had been easy when they were together in bed, a sensuality they had achieved time and time again. He turned over on the mattress, thinking about that wonderful month with James.

  Fingertips touched his shoulder. In his half-sleep, he tried to ignore them. He turned his head to find James staring down at him.

  James smiled and said, “I knew it. You never go to sleep early.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Not really. I just had to ask you something.”

  Could this be it, the confession Topher had been waiting for? James was in his gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, his hair already disheveled. Topher was sure he looked awful himself. If this was going to be a conversation he recalled for the rest of his life, he wanted to remember it differently.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “You remember what you said about me and Candice having a baby?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, do you think I’d make a good dad?”

  “You’re already a dad. What about Petey?”

  “It’s different when the kid’s not yours.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s hard to explain without sounding like an asshole.”

  “You are an asshole.”

  “Stop being funny,” James said. “I’m serious.”

  “I know.”

  “So what kind of father would I be?”

  “I don’t know.” Topher propped himself up on an elbow. “That’s a weird question.”

  “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “I was teasing you.”

  “But I wanna know.”

  “How would I know? We’re the same age.”

  “I can’t ask anyone else.”

  Despite himself, Topher thought back to James lying beside him in bed, thought about how he would describe this man to a stranger.

  “You’d be gentle, kind.” He paused, thinking. “Giving. I think you’d be really generous.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you’d make the poor kid go out and play basketball while you sat on the sidelines acting like an asshole.”

  James laughed. Topher remembered James chuckling as he carried him off to bed all that time ago. He knew no one would be joining him on the mattress tonight.

  “I think we might do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “A baby, have a baby.”

  James had touched Topher’s shoulder again before heading back to bed. Without thinking, Topher had reached out to grab his hand. James did not withdraw from his touch. When he was gone, Topher found himself falling, easily and gratefully, into sleep. Queen rumbled on from Pete’s room. He wasn’t a fan. He only remembered their big hits, and this wasn’t one of them. The music muffled them at first, but Topher eventually heard small footsteps tracking toward his head. He rolled over and saw Pete standing there. He was dressed in his pajamas, a menacing Transformer on the chest. He rubbed his half-closed eyes with one of his fists. In the other, he held the gun made of Tinker Toys.

  “What are you doing out of bed, buddy?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Do you want me to get your mom?”

  Pete slowly shook his head, as if the question puzzled him. Topher felt stupid just staring at the boy, but he didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say.

  “If your mom catches you out of bed, you’ll get in trouble.”

  Pete offered up the gun. Topher looked at the toy in his hand, unsure what to do. Finally, he asked, “Is that for me?”

  Pete nodded. The music from the other room ended. Silence filled the house. Topher was intensely aware of the cool draft through the windows, the old and ugly sofa, how the air mattress squeaked and sighed under his weight. He wanted very much to leave this house, perhaps never come back. But where would he go this late at night? He took the gun from Pete.

 

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