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The Orange Candy from the Corner Store

The five o' clock summer evening sun made Darby's shadow spread for yards over the sidewalk. The slivers of sand and glass in the concrete glinted off light in tiny arrows under his sneakers as he walked. Slow, long steps. Slow enough to appreciate the lazy drifting of the city around him.

Years ago, his mind stayed so full of clutter that he'd never see a lamppost in front of him until it was too late. Now that he'd been forced to slow down, measure his steps and fumble past the aches that still hadn't faded away, he noticed more. Or felt more.

The walks home took so much longer.

Bev.

Darby's throat itched. Where did the thought come from? A tingle like static in a tumble-dried sweater prickled down his shoulderblades. He raised his head.

It gripped him again. A ghost of minty, icy, sharp cologne.

He kept his eyes fixed on the sidewalk far ahead of him. The clap of his sneaker heels hitting the pavement and grinding grit was loud.

Memories taunted him too easily. Picked on him because it took no effort. Lost count of how many times he'd stumbled over his feet in his rush towards a tall figure in a suit or coat. How many times he'd gotten too sick to finish lunch because someone in the café had worn a cold cologne but it wasn't him.

The mint grew heavier in his head. His pulse throbbed deep in his skull, rumbling the gristle in his brain, louder than the traffic or distant construction work. A crosswalk post tilted to the left in front of him. If he could just grab onto it before his knees buckled—

Someone brushed past. The elbow almost grazed him.

Big. Tall. A long heavy coat with a hem as stiff as tarpaulin rustling around the knees. A flash of sunlight off the black bit loafers.

Darby dug his heels into the sidewalk when the mint delved into his lungs like an ice pick.

He swung around. The sidewalk veered on its side like a tilted snowglobe.

The man in the coat walked on. The tasseled tail of a red stocking cap trailed behind him.

Darby's hand went cold and dead as frostbite. The sunset filter went from orange to gray, fizzling around the edges.

"Bev?"

It gummed up in his throat behind the knot. The man kept walking. The tassel glinted from gold to silver with each step. The corner was so close. The bus stop sign for C-2 from Carrie Street to Robin Boulevard jutted up like a crooked toothpick from beside the wrought-iron bench.

"Bev!"

It came out this time. Came out hurting. Like hacking up a chip that had gone down the wrong way, scraping and scratching.

Bev kept walking. The crunch of soft rubber heels on cement faded behind sleepy city ambiance. If he turned the corner, he would disappear. A ghost shrouded in a big blue overcoat. It'd been years. Six. Six years. He couldn't disappear again.

Darby bolted. His shoes scraped. Wind tugged the empty sleeve of his cardigan behind him, dragging him back.

He called again and it sloughed up his throat even worse this time. Bev paused and straightened his back under the dumpy coat and turned and the startled eyes peering over his shoulder were the most beautiful thing Darby had ever seen.

Everything in his legs went to pudding. He rammed all his weight into Bev, sinking, melting against the big solid chest. Solid and real. Bev stumbled back with an "oof" of dislodged breath, grappling with Darby to keep him from dropping to the sidewalk in a heap. In desperation Darby clutched Bev's arm, urging it to wrap around him, squeezing the sleeve in his fist, crumpling and twisting. He smelled of mint.

Bev found steady balance and the world stopped teetering. Darby buried his face in Bev's chest. Rubbed his forehead against the hard slab of bone. Bev's hands gripped Darby's shoulders, firm and uncomfortable. Real.

Darby's throat closed up. Breaths couldn't come through. He clung to Bev with the last of his strength and his chest broke with hot, gooey sobs like an eggshell. The relief was better than puking up a sour meal after a two-day stomachache. The pressure behind his eyes eased up as he emptied tears and snot and spit into Bev's starched white shirt, soaking it and his ribbed undershirt through until the warmth of tan skin blushed through.

The reeling thoughts slowed. Darby'd been clinging to Bev and sobbing his guts out for hours or a minute. His head throbbed. When the cries settled into whimpers and the whimpers drifted into sniffles, Darby raised his head.

The halo of sunlight behind Bev dazzled. Darby squinted. Bev stared off, watching traffic crawl. His hands still held Darby's shoulders. Stiffly. The same awkward touch of a hug from an unknown relative.

"Bev . . . ?" His raw throat was so full of snot that it came out in a whisper.

Bev glanced down at him. A lopsided smile flashed, more dazzling than the blinding crown of light that made spokes jut from behind his head. Lines creased between his tired eyes.

"I'm terribly sorry," Bev said. He shifted. "I think you've mistaken me for someone."

Darby's stomach wrenched into a Gordian knot. He sank lower down Bev's chest, his knees buckling. The city humdrum blurred into a drone. Bev's gray eyes pinned him with brief glances and darted away, in that silent, universally understood pained expression that was a plea to passersby.

"What are you talking about, Bev?"

"It's Lexi. Uh, Nguyen." Bev released his grip on Darby, as if trusting he wouldn't leap on him again, but kept his hands flattened against Darby's arms. "I've arrived here only for business. I've never so much as visited before and I'll be leaving tomorrow for Red Bay."

It was a joke. It had to be. Bev was good at acting. Darby laughed, and it was just another sob that burned like a mouthful of vinegar.

"You jerk. I've been waiting on you for years and you wanna give me the old tug-around?"

Bev blinked. He looked furtively from side to side again.

"Pardon? I hate to disappoint you, but I assure you I'm not who you're looking f—or!"

The word clipped off then shot out on the breath that Darby knocked from him when he hooked his arm around Bev's neck and jumped. He slid, and in a flurry, like a squirrel putting its best effort into scaling a birdhouse pipe, Darby pinned his knees against Bev's hips and held himself there. Eye level. Bev stared back. The sleepy dreaminess in his eyes had scattered. He was stiff as an oak plank.

"It's not time for jokes, Bev. I've missed—I've missed you—"

Darby's voice broke. The wobbly heat in his chest built up again like a bonfire, a second wind after a short reprieve. His eyes flooded until Bev was just a kaleidoscope haze of black and blue. Just like a bruise.

Helplessly, Darby cupped his hand to Bev's cold cheek. His face was so soft. He trailed his heavy fingers down Bev's jaw, down his neck, too weak to keep his hand in place. Only able to hook his fingers beneath Bev's collar to keep holding on. His sore eyes sank shut and the darkness stung. He lowered his head. His nose nudged against Bev's. In the same path he'd followed so many times before, so long ago, he kissed the corner of Bev's mouth and held his breath when heat like melted butter spread under his skin. A shiver gripped him by the nape and made him sigh the smallest vibration of a moan into the kiss.

There was no hand tangling in his hair to draw him closer. No returning kiss or movement. No murmur of his name. No hum of appreciation through a smile.

A hailstone sagged in Darby's heart. His blood curdled thick as molasses in his fingers. Cracking his eyes open, he drew back. The kiss broke with a smack and for the first time in his life the sound made Darby sick.

Bev stared. The wide eyes were hollow, as if he'd just watched a suicide. Darby stared back.

Bev seemed to wake up from his daze. He tightened his shoulders. Darby released his collar, and his hand slid down Bev's chest.

"I don't know you," Bev said at last.

The stranger—Darby?—cried into Lexi's shoulder as if he'd just been gravely informed that his spouse had just perished in a particular gruesome horror flick way. Lexi closed his eyes. The wet patches in his shirt were tacky and unpleasant.

"Of course you know me," the stranger insisted through his sobs for the millionth time. "I'm Darby. Darby."

He was almost incoherent. Babbling like he'd just seen Jesus on Day Three.

"You know me, Bev. You know me just as well as Bonnie does."

As if he were expected to know who Bonnie was either. Lexi lowered his head. He'd certainly miss his bus at this rate.

"Do you have someone you're supposed to be with presently? It's getting late."

"What are you talking about!" Darby's voice pitched so high that Lexi flinched and drew up his shoulders. Darby's fist found his lapel again and grabbed and yanked.

"Listen to me, Bev. Listen. I can't take it, I can't, if you're trying to play a prank I'll never forgive you. I won't. I won't. I can't take it—"

Darby was going to faint right in his arms. Whoever Bev was, they certainly had a handful with this prizewinner. He'd hazard the guess that Darby might be off some medication.

"Calm down," Lexi said. He should have said it more gently and sanded down that sharp jab, but he couldn't be blamed when he'd been tackled and kissed and dragged into some sort of crisis by a complete stranger.

His command had barely the desired effect. Darby stiffened up in his arms. His jaw shook against Lexi's shoulder as he clenched his teeth to keep the big, strangling sobs back. Instead, the hiccups just huffed in and out of his nose.

A vague pity thawed Lexi's heart. How broken must someone be to dive into the arms of a stranger?

Lexi waited until Darby's hiccups tapered off into long, slow breaths like those of someone asleep. If only he were asleep, perhaps Lexi could spatula him onto the bench and whisk himself away to the hotel for the evening. But the insistent grip of the fist in his coat never relaxed.

"All right," Lexi said. "If you tell me where Bev is, I'd be perfectly willing to take you to them if you need help."

The voice against his shoulder was small.

"You really don't recognize me . . . do you?"

It was more of an observation than a question. Realization.

"We don't know each other," Lexi said.

"I know you, Bev."

Lexi almost retorted that he wasn't Bev, but it didn't matter.

Darby lifted his head from Lexi's shoulder. Wisps of bubblegum blonde hair were pasted over his sticky freckled cheeks. He might have been straddling the border of handsome if he hadn't been crying himself sick for the last ten minutes.

Darby sniffled and traced his finger over the stitching on Lexi's collar. He didn't look at him.

"I know you," he said again. "Your birthday is the thirteenth of December. Your parents moved from Vietnam but you lived in Boston with family friends until you were seventeen. You wear sleeve and sock garters like some old man. You like white wine and mille-feuille."

Darby spoke in a slow mumble, as if reciting from a book while drifting into a daydream.

"Before bed you drink decaf jasmine tea and read Whitman or Poe. You sleep on your left side. You're a wonderful painter, excelentísimo, and art history is your private passion. You're incredibly fond of Vermeer's work. You like to dance—" His voice cracked and it was ugly.

Lexi's head swam like a vat of syrup. He'd forgotten to breathe.

Darby watched him. The sunlight glittered in his wet eyes.

"Sherlock Holmes was skilled at making assumptions from observations as well," Lexi said. "It's not terribly hard to shoot some guesses. For example, I might very well guess that you enjoy California rolls and Karabeth Killborne novels."

How did Darby know these things? He couldn't read minds, could he? That didn't exist here. People here couldn't do that. Back home, maybe. But not here. Not in this world and most certainly not in a pinprick on the Texas map called Pasadena, where the single gas station was caving in and the skyscrapers had more empty floors for lease than busy ones.

"It's not guesses, Bev." Darby clutched his collar in a quick little pulse. Wrinkles lumped beneath his lower lip and his eyes glazed with water anew like a funhouse mirror. "It's—you lived with me and Bonnie. For two years. You—"

He broke off and ducked his head. All Lexi could see was the choppy red-blonde mess of hair.

"What happened to you two?" Maybe asking was tempting another round of wailing into his shirt. But Lexi's curiosity won over. This couldn't be merely woes of a deluded man whose imagination sent him into any stranger's embrace. He knew things that he shouldn't know.

"He left," Darby said. It was tiny and miserable. Defeated. He. Not you. Had he given up?

"He couldn't stay. They'd kill him if they found him. Well, I mean, I don't know. He never said. But it was something bad. It was trouble. I'm not sure. So he left. But he . . . he promised that . . ."

Please don't cry again—

Darby raised his hand. Lexi looked from Darby's red face to his hand. On the third finger, a chunky platinum band sent off spears of blinding light.

Oh.

Darby didn't finish. He watched Lexi, as if waiting. Lexi had to say it for him.

It tasted like copper in Lexi's mouth. So this was why Darby was so desperate to latch onto someone who reminded him of a long-gone lover.

"I've waited for you for six years. I knew you couldn't come home soon, but I called you. I always waited for you to answer or call back but you never . . . "

It trailed off into silence.

You.

He'd waited six years. Six years for nothing. Perhaps too enamored, or too stupid, to understand that he was a jilted lover left behind.

"I'm sorry" was all Lexi knew to say. He'd never asked for this. He was twenty pounds heavier.

Pasadena air lay stagnant overhead.

"I hope you find him," he said at last. "You have my condolences. But I'm really pressed to catch the next bus, if you don't mind."

Darby's knees tightened against Lexi's hips. "Please don't go."

"Darby—" and Lexi realized too late that he'd said Darby's name aloud for the first time, because Darby started as if he'd been smacked— "I'm not who you're looking for."

"Please. Please. I've waited, Bev. I can't go home without you."

The panic shone like stars in Darby's eyes. He leaned forward again and for an instant Lexi braced himself, fearing that Darby would kiss him again, but he only pressed his warm face into the side of his neck.

"Can you . . . " Darby swallowed. "Can you talk to me? Please. Just for a minute. Just so I don't forget how it sounds. Even if it's—"

Darby knew now. He knew Bev wasn't here. The acceptance made his voice so small and listless.

Somehow, the fact that Darby understood made the edge of Lexi's resentment soften.

He could act. If Darby was broken and Darby knew, Lexi could act. He was good at that.

He'd always been good at that.

Lexi folded his arms around Darby. He slid one hand up the slope of Darby's back, skimming his cardigan, up to his neck. He clasped the back of his neck and pressed his fingers into the soft, jaggedly cut hair that feathered at the back. Darby's sharp little intake of breath was the only sign he needed.

"Don't cry anymore," he murmured. He tilted his head so his cheek pillowed against the top of Darby's head. "I've got you. Bonnie would be loath to see you cry, you know."

He rubbed his thumb back and forth across Darby's nape. "It's been far too long, hasn't it? I hope you've managed well without me. But I'm . . . "

Even if it's lies.

"I'm here now. I'm here for you."

He didn't need to say more than that. It was plenty. But he kept going.

"I'm here for only you. Darby. Darby." Someone else's voice was butterscotch on his tongue and he wanted to pound back cupful after cupful and gag on it.

What am I doing?

"I won't leave you. Rest easy now. That's it. We're all right. No more worries, Darby; I won't have it. I'm yours. It's always been so."

His neck was getting wet. He glanced down. Big glittery tears tracked down Darby's face, fast, one after another, but without so much as a whimper. Maybe he'd wept himself empty already.

"Bev . . . ?" His voice was thick and slow again, as if he'd just woken up and stumbled out of bed to answer the phone. "Can you tell me the things you whispered to me . . . that night when we were on the couch, before you left, and we'd been up so late that we saw the flag fly on the TV . . . and the anthem sounded different somehow, it was somber, especial . . . and I leaned against your shoulder, and Bonnie was laying on the other, and you thought I was asleep?"

I don't remember. I don't know.

"I want to be pretend it's like that again."

Lexi continued stroking the messy hair. "This is everything I've wanted. Being with you, and finding home somewhere I've never been. There's something warm in your soul—"

Something warm, warm, an embrace, the amber end of a cigarette, an orange space heater glow, a speckled ceramic mug of posole, light from an antique bedside lamp, and if he wrapped his arms around Darby and crushed him close and squeezed until his ribs buckled and his heartbeat fizzled maybe that warmth could bleed through into Lexi and he'd be fine again, or Bev again, or just alive—

"—something warm and beautiful," he finished. "I never knew I could miss so much."

Darby went stiff as a nail. His head raised so quickly that he hit Lexi's jaw, clicking his teeth together in a snap that rattled his skull.

"You remember." Darby stared up at him. "Bev. You remember."

Remember what?

"Of course I do," Lexi soothed. "I could never forget you."

Darby draped his arm over Lexi's shoulder. Hesitantly, almost reverently, like a child poking an altar to see if lightning really would rain down from heaven. He settled himself in Lexi's arms and slid before catching himself, clamping his legs tighter around Lexi's hips.

"There, there. Careful now." Lexi secured his arm around Darby and made his way to the iron bench. He sat with less of his usual elegance and more of a thud. Darby's knees relaxed. He looked back up into Lexi's face, searching, beseeching.

Maybe it was the different angle of the light. Or perhaps it was because Darby had calmed down from his heaving sobbing fit. But he looked younger, hopeful, the kind of hope with sparkling eyes and bated breath.

Lexi tucked his furled fingers beneath Darby's chin to tilt his head upwards. He drew his thumb along the soft bottom lip. Darby's eyes sank halfway shut, and he glanced down.

"Bev." No sound. Only his lips moving against Lexi's thumb.

He didn't have to say what he wanted. Lexi knew. He knew every way to make someone melt into his arms. Lexi was a spy, an expert con. He'd more than once drawn people into ease and comfort with his looks and touch. It took precious little.

Lexi cupped his hands to Darby's cheeks. Darby closed his eyes. Lexi traced his thumbs down Darby's jaw to guide his face closer. Their lips brushed. A soft kiss, and another. Dry smacks. Darby knotted his fist in Lexi's sleeve. Lexi complied to the wordless request for more. Leaning closer, he opened his mouth and sealed it over Darby's. He tasted of salt. Lexi tangled his fingers in Darby's hair as he sucked on the sticky tongue. With his mouth open, Darby's moans were long and keening and shuddery.

What am I doing?

Lexi gripped Darby's head. He could crush the skull like a styrofoam cup under his fingers. Effortless. Did Darby know that?

He shoveled his tongue in deeper.

Darby was shattered over the loss of a long-gone lover. He was desperate for the Bev he loved, loyal to the memory of someone who had left him so many years ago. Holding onto the hope of a band that was cold and clumsy on his finger. And Lexi had him in his lap, kissing him until he choked for breath. A stand-in for a traitorous Bev.

Surely it wasn't wrong of him. He didn't feel anything. No sparks of desire for this lisping shortcake of a crybaby. It wasn't for his sake that he gripped Darby's face with one hand and rubbed his thigh with the other. He wasn't taking advantage of a vulnerable target for his own gain. He was running through the same script he'd played with so many others.

But Darby needed it. He'd asked. He'd asked for it.

Lexi couldn't deter the insistent sense that he was doing something inexplicably terrible. Something horribly wrong that he would have to pay for. A strange and cold apprehension welled up in him.

Darby looped his arm around Lexi's neck and tilted his head to angle the kiss. Something sweeter rose from the prickle of salt. Fruity, like gum or a candy. The sugar-crusted mango barrel jellies from the ZipMart.

Lexi froze. Darby kept moving his mouth in the kiss, seeming not to notice.

He'd never tried those cheap mango barrels. Didn't even remember seeing them until now. Some Spanish brand name that he couldn't pronounce. Where had that thought come from?

Twilight sank around them like a cool linen sheet. Darby's hair turned lavender in the blue light. Thank god the traffic was barely a couple of people on bikes and dogwalkers at this hour.

Suddenly Lexi was exhausted. He let Darby keep kissing him, long and slow and tasting of that mango candy. Every so often, he would squeeze Darby's thigh again, weaker than before, just to assure him that it was okay. For some reason, all his will had melted away like a snowflake on the back of a warm hand. He only sat, as if trained to do so, returning nothing, and only submitting to those tender, careful, aching, delicious kisses that would have driven him mad had they been meant for him.

He was stealing six years' worth of love and longing and desire. He'd never felt so loved without being loved at all.

But Darby had asked.

"Darby." Lexi gripped Darby's shoulders again and gave him a shake, dislodging him from the kiss. Darby broke it off with a little gasp, startled from the reverie.

Lexi stared at him. Clutched his shoulders, harder than he should have. Shook him again.

"I have a room at Brooke's Windmill Inn."

Please don't make me say it out loud.

Darby kept his half-shut eyes locked on Lexi's lips as if in a daze, waiting to lean in again. Maybe he hadn't even heard.

Gravels ground under six pairs of slow churning tires up the road. The bus creaked and huffed as it approached.

Lexi pushed Darby's legs to the side to let him stand and held onto his elbow when he faltered. Darby swayed in his grasp, swayed like he was dragging through a hangover.

The chilly evening air played through Lexi's curls, carrying with it the oily musk of gasoline and the green scent of distant rain.

Needles of rain pinged off the window behind the heavy velvet curtains. The heater rumbled. Lexi kept his arms behind his head, pressed into the overstuffed feather pillow.

Blue shadows drifted over the paint whirls on the ceiling, stretching and fanning and wavering. Hypnotic. Slow. Like watching fish trace figure-eights through a glowing aquarium.

Darby breathed deeply. A soothing sound. He was still and quiet, lost in dreams.

Lexi glanced at him, angling his eyes without moving his head.

Darby's cheeks were still dark. Maps of veins crisscrossed under the freckles. His hair splayed over the pillow, rumpled and tousled. The diamond-patterned sheets hid his body up to his shoulders, cool and smooth and clinging. Faint blue light glowed off the bare shoulder, pearlescent in its softness. It didn't matter that the sheets were draped around him, cocooning him from the cold night air. Lexi knew everything about him.

"I know we agreed to wait," Darby had said while he examined the television channel list. "But I've waited six years for you and . . . and if you're not going to stay . . . . "

The implication hadn't caught Lexi with his guard down. He'd been waiting for it. Clandestine hotel affairs weren't a foreign concept to him. Yet that chill of unease gripped him again as he'd groped for the chain on the lamp and pressed Darby into the mattress in the welcoming darkness.

It wasn't to satisfy any feelings of his own. He was doing nothing but soothing an abandoned lover who had six year's worth of frustrations to relieve. That was it. Nothing more.

He felt nothing.

Lexi didn't expect much. Darby was still subdued from his earlier crying fit and insisted that Lexi not unbutton his shirt. And Lexi got what he expected. The experience overwhelmed and haunted him like the clammy hands of a ghost at his throat.

Darby touched him so gently. Reverently. Tracing every muscle and bone as if to carve it all into his memory. Lexi knew the feeling of being grabbed at in desire or frantic desperation. But Darby settled his hands in Lexi's curls, caressed them, kissed him, and watched him. It wasn't a blind tumble. It was as though he wanted nothing except to be closer. And sandwiched between Lexi and the sheets without so much as a linen tuxedo shirt to separate them was as close as he could get.

Lexi had never known an intimacy like that. Never knew one in which the need to simply be close to him was the only thing that mattered. Darby found no rhythm with Lexi and met no crescendo, but he didn't seem disappointed. Not in the least. Being with Lexi—Bev—loving him—that's all that mattered.

First times weren't anything special to Lexi. Maybe they weren't special to Darby either. But Darby had waited long enough to share it with someone who was undoubtedly the love of his life. Something special between them. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe . . . maybe . . .

But Darby had kissed him over and over, whispering that name. Talking to Bev. Things that Lexi should have never overheard. The most heart-rending things were murmured against his ear and he was eavesdropping on every word.

Gentle fingers playing in his curls. A heavy heartbeat against his chest. A shaky breath and a sigh and the tang of soy sauce from room service sushi under his tongue when Darby kissed him again.

Lexi felt nothing for him.

He thought of Bev.

If he had someone who loved him so passionately, who adored him and remained loyal to him and trusted him so much, he'd never want for anything. He'd leave the bureau sine notitiam and move into a comfortable two-story suburban home with his lover and work a normal nine-to-five and come home every evening to sweep them up in an embrace as soon as he walked through the door.

Bev had missed out on six years of this. Suddenly Lexi hated him more than he'd ever hated anyone in the world.

Wherever you may be, Bev, I hope you're the most miserable man alive.

Lexi pressed his head back into the pillow and sighed. His hair stirred and settled over his forehead. Beside him, Darby muttered something thick and quiet in his sleep and eased closer. His nose nudged into the crook of Lexi's neck. Lexi clenched his muscles to keep from shivering when hot, humid breath puffed over his skin. Darby pressed his face into his neck and draped his bare arm over Lexi's chest.

"Love you . . . Bev'rly . . . ."

Lexi froze. Stared through the ceiling. It was so soft that he felt it more than heard it. Darby was warm and heavy and safe beside him. Somehow those words were like an anvil on his chest, crushing, crumpling his lungs.

What have I done?

Something coppery like a sweaty old penny weighed in his mouth. The traces of bleach in the night air were nauseating and the cold was tiny iron blades cutting and slicing down his windpipe.

He was miserable.

The night dragged. Every minute was an hour. The rain pattered on the windowpane. Darby never rolled over or released Lexi. Even in his sleep, instinct was to hold on.

Lexi's thoughts churned. Hot kisses, aching gut, Bev, pink hair smelling of sandalwood shampoo and the sun and cigarettes, midnight, hands on his face, I love you, 2AM, pleading eyes, green-brown with golden pinwheels sparkling, don't go, 4AM, he had to move.

He sat up. The mattress wobbled. Darby's arm slid down to Lexi's waist. He mumbled something and rubbed his cheek deeper into the pillow. Lexi held his breath. Watched for a long time. Darby slept.

He eased his fingers beneath Darby's arm and loosened it from around his waist.

Fumbling through the dark, Lexi dressed and packed his suitcase. The occasional headlight beams from outside illuminated the curtains an eerie yellow.

Lexi knelt by the nightstand. The blocky numbers on the digital alarm clock cast a modest red glow over the telephone with the knotted cord and the laminated list of service numbers. He tore a sheet from the notepad with the hotel logo and silhouette of a windmill. Squinting through the darkness, he wrote.

Darby:

My apologies for leaving early. I'm off to catch my plane. Please rest as long as you wish; the room will be paid. Breakfasts are offered downstairs.

I will keep you in my thoughts. You have my sincerest well wishes.

Yours in trust,

Beverly K.

As soon as he lifted the ballpoint of the pen from the paper, Lexi hovered it back to scratch out the signature, then stopped. He stared at it. The curly letters, stately loops, all his own, but a name that wasn't.

He lowered his head. Without looking, he placed the note in front of the alarm clock. Darby would see it when he woke up in the cold bed alone.

The sensation of dread spilled through Lexi again. Seeping like ink into carpet that wouldn't ever be cleaned again. He gripped the edge of the nightstand and tilted back his head. His tired eyes burned when he closed them.

God, please forgive me for this.

His knees hurt. He swallowed. He grabbed his suitcase and wrestled his way to his feet. The room swayed. He leaned over the bed.

Darby slept. Lexi smoothed aside a wedge of hair that had fallen over his face. His throat was sore. The cleaners and sprays that housekeeping used, no doubt. His eyes blurred.

"Rest well, Darby," he whispered. "Your Bev is the most loved man in all existence. I believe he knows that. May he come back to you safely and give you all that you deserve."

He bent forward. Stroked back the loose hair to expose the cool forehead. He pressed a kiss to it, one that burned his lips like menthol and made his heart forget two beats. His eyes sank shut.

He didn't feel anything for him.

He broke the kiss with a soft smooch but stayed in place. Nose against Darby's forehead and hand pinning back his tousled bangs.

Lexi felt nothing.

Please wake up. Wake up and don't let me leave. Keep your arms around my neck until it chokes me and beg me to stay just a little longer. Let me spend another day like this.

He felt nothing—he really didn't.

He kissed again and again.

He could crumple the note and toss his suitcase into the closet and slide back into bed. Nobody would ever know he intended to leave in the first place. He could wait an hour and see what Darby looked like under the first pink slabs of sunlight fresh after rain. He could taste coffee in kisses after breakfast. He could learn everything.

He hefted up his suitcase. The inklings of traffic churned outside. Dawn peeked through the slits in the curtains.

Lexi took the note from the nightstand and pressed it into his pocket. The paper crackled.

A square of sunlight warmed the bed. Darby kept his eyes closed.

The silent hotel room smelled of lingering mint.

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