25
Some Other Guy
TJ
Maybe someday I’ll write a guidebook about how to spend three weeks in London. But it won’t be after this trip.
I can only imagine the conversation I’ll have with my friends when I return to New York this weekend. I’ll grab beers with the crew from college, and they’ll fire off the usual litany of questions to a returning young traveler.
How was Big Ben? Did you see the Crown Jewels? Ride the London Eye?
My answers will be something like this.
Big Ben was very large. Extra, you might say.
Not only did I see the Crown Jewels, I felt them too.
As for the London Eye, why yes, I did, only it’s not the London eye you’re thinking of.
But it has an eye, for sure.
Right now, I’m savoring the last few hours in this city, looking over the Thames with the guy I’m this close to falling in love with.
There’s no way I’ll tell Jude that. There’s no point. But some part of me wants to acknowledge what happened here in this city. I give it my best shot, though it’s terrifying to say.
“I’ll miss London,” I say to the river, managing to get the words past the tangle of emotions in my throat.
I wait, dreading that he doesn’t feel the same, hoping that he does, and wishing for him to understand what I mean.
His hand glides up my back into my hair, plays with the ends. “I’ll miss it too,” he says, and I shiver.
But that’s as close as I’ll come to telling him how I feel. “I can’t believe I’ll be in New York tomorrow at this time,” I say, shifting.
“Tell me all your big plans for your first weekend back. Will you gallivant around the Big Apple? Go to Central Park? Catch a musical?” he asks, rubbing his palms together, putting on a very excited air. Even though Jude is a good actor, I can see through his facade. This is a distraction tactic, so we don’t talk about what happens when I get on that plane.
I don’t want to talk about it either. Mostly because I don’t want to deal with it. But I also don’t want to go home with any expectations. We’ll have to bite the bullet of the goodbye rules, and we’ll have to do it soon.
“Yes, I have front-row seats to Wicked,” I deadpan.
He curls a hand around my shoulder. “I knew you were a secret musical lover. Soon, you’ll be sending me links to Amelia Stone tunes you found on Spotify.”
That’s as good an entrée as any. With a queasiness in my gut that won’t abate, I bite off the uncomfortable question. “But is that what you want?”
Jude’s expression transforms from a cheery bloke to a serious man. “Spotify links from you, you mean?”
I swallow roughly. “Yeah. That.”
He stares at the river, sighing deeply, then looks back at me. “I mean, we could. We could stay in touch. I could see how you’re doing with your book . . .”
“And I could watch Machine Love when it premieres,” I offer, even though I don’t know if that would help me live without him or make it harder.
“And I could send you links to fantastic styles of shirts, and you could hunt them down in New York,” he says. “And you’d let me know how things were going with your career.”
“And you’d do the same. Because I’d want to know,” I say, and I do want to know, but this sounds like an unsatisfying outcome. This sounds like the tale of two young guys staying in touch on only the most superficial level.
Because there’s no other way for us since the inevitable will happen when I leave, and he stays. Our lives will go on. My world will spin into new stories, new opportunities, and new romances.
His will do the same.
He’ll meet someone. He’ll date someone. He’ll fall in love.
And the mature, caring, thoughtful part of me does want that for him. I want all the good things for Jude.
If we cling to three weeks in London, neither one of us will ever truly live.
We’d check in every few months, we’d wonder what might have been, and we’d never let go.
Never move on.
We’d be stuck in the past because soon, very soon, that’s what this present moment that feels like everything will become.
“We could do that,” he says, but his tone is resigned.
“Yeah, we could,” I say, my voice matching his. “It’s an option. It’s an idea.”
Someone is going to have to say the hard thing. Someone is going to have to lay down the rules for goodbye. “But is it a good idea?”
He shrugs helplessly. “Probably not,” he says softly. “So, what do you think we should do? How would you write this in a story?”
I stare at the river, let the scenes unfold, imagine the words on the pages. I turn to Jude, run a hand up the front of his shirt. “I would write a different ending. These guys, they’d go their separate ways. They’d focus on their careers. That’s what they should do, right?”
“They should,” he says, underlining that new rule.
“The one guy should become the actor he longs to be,” I say, hoping he feels as strongly as I do about this.
Jude nods several times, clearly getting it, clearly agreeing. “The other guy should write and write and write.”
But I can’t shake the possibility of a happy ending. And I can’t leave without trying to write one for us. Far into the future, I imagine a wildly unlikely scenario. But one that’s too alluring to ignore. “Let’s make a deal,” I say, buoyed by this outside shot I’m taking.
He arches a brow. “I’m listening,” he says, then he does that thing. He drags his teeth across the corner of his lips.
“You know that drives me crazy,” I whisper.
“That’s why I did it.”
That’s also part of why I can take this chance. Jude and I didn’t hurt each other. We didn’t choose this ending.
I grab his face, run my thumb along his bottom lip. “Down the road, when we’ve made it, if you’re ever single and in the same place . . .” I pause to make sure I’m saying this the right way.
But Jude doesn’t miss a beat. “You want me to look you up?” He sounds enchanted by the idea. The smile that spreads on his face reaches deep into my heart, maybe touching the last part of it, the only part that hadn’t quite fallen all the way yet. That last piece of me tips into his hand.
“I do,” I tell the man who didn’t audition to become my first love. But he got the role anyway. “Someday, I do.”
“I will, TJ. I will definitely look you up.” He cups my jaw, presses a confident kiss to my lips that leaves me woozy. “And you better do the same, TJ Ashford. You really better look me up too. Make it a promise.”
“It’s the look-me-up promise,” I say.
“Now that’s a good title for a book. Look Me Up.”
“It’s not bad,” I say, and I make a mental note of it, then shift gears back to teasing. “But I have to tell you something.”
“Yes?”
“No one in New York calls it the Big Apple.”
He rolls his eyes. “If I bring my big eggplant to New York, I bet you’d call it the Big Apple for me.”
I crack up. “I probably would. But we both know I’m a sucker for your big eggplant.” For his charm too, so I give him one more promise. “Someday, when I become a famous novelist, I’ll be sure to write a hero named Jude. And give him a big cock.”
Jude covers his face with his fingers, laughing into his palm. He shakes his head, then pulls his hand back, flashing me a grin that’s going to grace billboards someday. That damn smile melts me. Bet it will melt millions someday soon. “That’s all I want, TJ. To be the inspiration for your big-dicked protagonist,” he says.
That’s fitting. He’s already been the inspiration for so much else. But I keep that to myself.
Some truths don’t need to be spoken. Some secrets you should protect.
Like the fact that I fell in love with Jude Graham in three weeks in London.
When I buckle into my airplane seat a few hours later, the last twenty-one days already feel like they happened to some other guy.