A pair of light
snores fill the room. I stir as sunlight fails to penetrate Tim’s suede
blackout curtains, my dark skin blending into the shadows. It’s better not to
be seen right now anyway. His Etsy-purchased paintings of shows we
love-in-common catch what little light enters the room and reflects back at me.
For once, his TV isn’t buzzing from Netflix asking if he’s “still watching”
causing his XBOX to conserve power from inactivity. I wish his TV was as turned
on as I was last night. As still as the air is in this bedroom, I can’t stay
put much longer. Throwing off Tim’s Grandmother’s quilt into a pile of
questionably clean clothes, I push myself up off his carpeted floor, attempting
not to anger the creaky floorboards hidden underneath. I glance over to Tim
sleeping with Diego in his bed, his slim body barely in reach of Diego’s long,
burly arms. Tim must have gotten too hot again, because he knocked both his
boyfriend and his sheets off of him exposing their boxers. Odd, he usually
talks a big game about sleeping nude. My left hand starts to reach out to wake
them, but my right hand - ever the wiser - has already acquiesced our role in
this scenario. Using what little night vision I have, I exit the bedroom.
The
rest of the apartment is filled with light from the glass doors leading to the
balcony as it bounces off the barren white walls and linoleum floor paneling. I
walk past the two wooden chairs and floral loveseat I rejected as sleeping
surfaces last night in a contrived drunken stupor, but one that they both
bought into. My head starts to ring as the fridge calls out to me. I bless
Diego for being the patron-provider of Tim’s apartment – unlike me – as I reach
for the open bottles of orange juice and one of the plethora of cheap
champagnes named after me. With bottles in hand, I scan the kitchen. No doors
on the cabinets let me see a box of pancake mix. Even without glasses, I
spotted a carton of eggs and milk in the fridge. There might even be bacon in
the lunch meat drawer. Without Diego, we would starve.
Before
I begin clanking around in the kitchen and raising the temperature, I place the
bottle on the counter and retrieve three glasses from the cabinet over the
sink. I pause and hover; I grab a fourth glass. Pushing two of them aside, I
pour healthy amounts of Andre into each stout glass, topping it with enough
orange juice to count as one-eighth the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin
C. I return to the living room to search for a pen and pad while making sure
the snores are still audible.
Finding
what I need, I draw a hand using the upper third of the page as if it were
reaching for the glass of mimosa I positioned at the top of it. I add a few
more lines and squiggles that wouldn’t mean much to anyone passing by before I
start the message. “Dear Friend, I write to you in complete deference as I do
every Sunday. I fear I may have overstepped last night. It seemed good to go,
but you know how the mind justifies in the moment. I hope I stopped myself
bef-- ”
Before I can finish, an essence swirls out
from the top of the pen culminating on the opposite side of the kitchen island.
Before me stands a 7’4” Mesopotamian god with rich green skin, a horned hat
cocked to the side, a tunic starting beneath his v-line. “My dearest Nabu, care
for a libation? I’ll need one myself to save myself the embarrassment.” Never
letting me drink along, he unclasps his hands and joins me, trying his best not
to down the mimosa in one gulp.
Drink
still in hand, Nabu mentally writes a response to me, the words burning indigo
flames while his many voices recite them in my head. “Lust is complicated, my
disciple. At times disastrous. What exactly did you do?”
As his words
extinguish, I write my reply…
“I decided to be
independent for once, give them some space. A friend invited me over for some
party games that obviously turned into heavy drinking. Honestly, no, that’s a
lie. I would have invited Tim but I feel like he would have made a scene. Or
maybe I feel like Soraya doesn’t like him. Either, I ventured into drunkness
alone. I got drunk enough to be frisky. But in a room full of lesbians, the
only thing I would get is drunker.” I pause to take a sip of my mimosa.
Nabu took his turn to
tease, “You and your lesbians.”
I give him an
eyeroll. “ALL my friends being nocturnal, I banked on Tim and Diego still being
awake. As luck would have it, they were almost back home from their get
together at one of Tim’s friend’s place. I asked if I could come over to
post-game since I was only three blocks away. A hail mary in a way, but when
you spend five out of seven days with someone, you’re used to them saying yes.
He explained that Diego had finally met his match shot-wise, but I was welcome
to come over.
“I bid farewell to my
lumber of lesbians and associates and started my delightful but dangerous way
through the downtown Baltimore streets. I beat them to the steps of Tim’s
parent-funded condo, but only sat for two minutes before I heard a slurred but
familiar voice behind me. ‘Andreeee!’ Diego screamed in excitement. He
bearhugged me as I looked as Tim signing ‘It was better as a surprise.’
“After riding the
elevator up five floors, I headed to the bathroom after Tim opened the door.
Stopping in the mirror once I’d finish my business –“
“Ew,” Nabu
interrupts.
“Fine! When I came
out, Tim said, ‘Hey, we’re probably gonna go to bed actually.’
“I almost panicked
having lost the twenty minutes I thought I had, but I recovered quickly. ‘I
mean, do you mind if I just sleep on the floor like usual?’ Tim paused, knowing
I would come up for an excuse not to Uber home and looked towards his living
room. ‘Oh come on, that’s hardwood and someone you haven’t convinced your
parents to buy you a full couch yet. I can’t stretch-out out there.’
“’Yeah, he can’t
stretch-out out there. Don’t pr-persecute against us tall people,’ Diego called
out from the bedroom. I nodded in agreement.
“’He’s barely four
inches taller than me, ‘Go.’ Tim turned his brunette head and green eyes to
reason with his boyfriend but he kept whining. ‘Okay, fine. Slumber party in my
room.’ I thanked my friend and rushed passed him into his room. I looked for my
usual blanket, but Diego was already half wrapped in it. He waved at me as I
stood there ready to mingle but confused. I felt something suddenly drape over
me. ‘Here, you can use my grandmother’s quilt; just don’t puke in it, ok?’ I
assured him everything would be fine as I dropped to the floor at the foot of
their bed. I couldn’t see much, but it was nice to be that close to them.
“’So… how was y’alls
night?’ I asked. As Tim turned off the lights and slipped into bed next to his
thicker half, he turned on a playlist of mellow white girl pop as he recounted
the events of the night. As he bored himself out of the story, I saw Diego’s
hairy-toed foot pop out found under the covers. I figured it would be better to
start with Tim, since we have our… non-existent history, but drunk Andre took
what he got.
“I slid my left foot
from under the quilt and raised it high enough to start to play footsy with
him. It only took two seconds before Diego let out a snicker or Tim became
alert and raised his head because the next thing I heard was, ‘Andre, what are
you doing?’ I never snatched my foot back and pretended to snore quicker in my
life.”
“What is a ‘footsy?’”
Nabu asks in his most cartoonish chorus of voices, I can’t help but to laugh as
I cover my mouth.
“Basically, I tickled
his foot with mine… to test the waters before I initiated anything.”
Understanding, the
god replies, “So you did nothing wrong.”
“I mean, I tried it.”
Without looking up, I can feel Nabu’s blank stare again. “Tim will find it
offensive that I even attempted to sleep with them.”
“And what will Diego
think?” The words burned brighter than the last. I start to blush. Diego’s a
man of few words, but I always managed to get more out of him than Tim ever
could. He was half-asleep and drunk, but surely he felt my toes against the
bottom of his feet. Did he flinch or was he still? I can’t remember. Before I
could look up to Nabu with worry in my eyes, he vanishes, his mimosa glass
empty.
A
creak from the bedroom door causes me to panic and almost hurl the used glass
into the sink. Finding the time to place it gently in the basin, I turn around
to find Diego in a t-shirt and boxers making his own mimosa as strong as mine,
standing just a foot shorter than the god. “Excuse me, I was going to pour that
for you,” I protest.
“You
took too long,” he says in his low, gruff voice as he smirks. He takes a moment
to brush his slightly-salted black hair out of his eyes. “Liquid brunch?”
I
laugh. “Actually, I was about to make pancakes and bacon but I got lost in
thought.” I pause to see if he’ll say anything, but his glass is already to his
lips. “Tim awake yet?”
“Nah.
Just the two of us for a while as usual,” his eyes survey the counter as he takes
his first sip. He starts to reach for my pages to Nabu, but I slap his hand
with a spatula. “Oww. Rude.” I gather the pages up and fold them into my back
pocket. “Not like I can read your handwriting anyway, especially upside down. I
might still your style when I start writing prescriptions.”
“Yeah
okay, Mister Med School. Not like you’ll be here in a year anyway.”
“You
never know, with some luck maybe.” We lock eyes for a moment. Diego takes a
gulp and slams down an empty glass. “Now you can make me one.”
“You
just had to catch up to me, didn’t you?” I joke.
“Nothing
else to do,” he says.
We
share a glance, a cheers, a drink, a laugh. A chance.
Word
~~
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