Page 19 of Fanboy in the Falls (Devon Falls #3)

It’s the only way I know how to exist with him. —Tom Evers

“Gabe? Gabe, where are you? Little fox, call me back immediately. Please.”

I hang up the phone and set it down with a sigh as I rub my hands through the sides of my hair. Colin sits up next to me on the bed, his eyes heavy with sleep. He looks over at me and clamps his lips together so hard I'm surprised he doesn't break a tooth.

Ah, wonderful. Here we are. The Morning After Awkwardness.

One of the most shockingly beautiful and sensual nights of my life has resulted in this: my lifelong best friend is staring at me as though he's never seen me before, and the complete disappearance of the sweetest young man I've ever met, who may or may not be in a total panic after said best friend and I extricated a not-insignificant portion of his innocence from him.

Colin swallows again. He blinks and looks away from me. “Where's Gabe?" he finally asks. His voice comes out as a croak.

I shake my head. “I'm not sure. We were all lying here... together. He was in my arms. I must have fallen asleep, and I assume you did as well. When I woke up, Gabe was gone.” I look for the blaring light of the clock on the nightstand, which reports that it's 10:45 p.m. “I assume he needed to leave to pick up Lou after school, but now he’s not answering my calls or texts. "

Colin lets out a long breath in the stillness of the room.

His face is shadowed with the light from one floor lamp standing in the corner; it must have been on when we fell asleep.

The rest of the room is bathed in blackness, the only other brightness coming from a thin stretch of the moon outside the front window of Colin’s house.

The master bedroom in Colin’s house in Vermont isn’t all that large.

The bedroom of his penthouse apartment in Manhattan is at least twice this size.

But somehow, when the two of us stay here, it never feels small.

We always sleep in Colin’s room together, and the space is always just the perfect size for the two of us.

The right size for me to hand Colin coffee from the other side of the sheets in the morning while he's still in bed.

The right size for the two of us to bump elbows as we trade places in the bathroom.

But right now, this space feels smaller than an ill-designed closet. The walls seem to be closing in against me as I stare at Colin, watching his chest rise and fall as he keeps his eyes locked on the bedspread and away from me.

“I’m worried about him,” I add in a whisper.

I've dreamed of a night like last night for so long.

A night of seeing Colin on near full display, losing himself to passion and pleasure.

I'd so often fall asleep masturbating to visions of that scene when I was younger.

But now it's really happened, and I'm left sitting in the aftermath. Because not only has Gabe disappeared into the night (or afternoon; who knows exactly when he left), but I have to reconcile the hard truth that Colin didn’t have that night with me.

He had it with another man. A man I also have feelings for. And I chose to watch. In fact, I wanted very desperately to watch.

The walls are getting closer and closer now, the gray walls and off-white trim heading closer to me with every second.

I need to leave this room; that’s the only thing I’m certain of.

I jump from the bed, stuffing my feet into slippers and grabbing a fleece jacket from the back of the large wing-backed chair in the corner of the room, and I rush out of the front door and down the stairs.

Out on Colin’s wraparound porch, the cool fall air hits me with force, and I shiver against its rush.

The world is startlingly still, the only sound from nearby cicadas dotting the woods surrounding the backside of the cottage.

Lake Devon in front of me is smooth as glass, its surface shining gently with the reflection of the moon's simple light.

All around me is peace and calm, but I feel so full to the brim with nervous energy that I worry I might burst. I feel like I felt right before I left Hollywood for the last time.

“Why? Why all of it?” I ask the universe.

“Talking to the sky?” I turn with a jolt at the sound of Colin's voice. He's standing behind me, holding a blue wool beanie. Or tuque, as some people call them around here, on the edges of the Quebec border. “I was worried you might get cold,” he says softly.

I don't comment on the fact that he's wearing a t-shirt.

Colin is never either too hot nor too cold, regardless of the temperature.

He once raced in one-hundred-and-ten-degree cockpit temperatures in the desert for hours while other racers were forced off the track as they nearly passed out while driving at two hundred miles per hour speeds.

Colin won the race, vomited, and then announced to the paddock he was fine.

I, on the other hand, begin to sweat at seventy-seven degrees and freeze at fifty-five. When we're in Vermont, Colin seems to carry a constant supply of jackets and hats and handheld fans with him, ready to hand me something the moment I start to feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

“I’m just worrying about Gabe,” I tell him.

He raises an eyebrow and puts on the face that says he knows I'm lying. He rocks back on his heels and crosses his arms. “Are you having regrets about last night?” he asks me.

I can’t imagine how I would ever answer that question. In some ways, I have so very, very many regrets about last night. Regrets that Colin can never return the feelings I have for him. Regrets that the world has sentenced me to a lifetime of unrequited love for my favorite person on the planet.

But in other ways, I could never for a single moment regret last night. Every moment I spent with Gabe was spectacular, special. Big and bright. And having Colin there by my side, as I always want him to be, only made it brighter.

“No,” I finally tell him, because that seems like the simplest answer.

Colin purses his lips tightly and sinks in against himself. I haven't seen him look so small since the day I had to tell him about Christian’s accident.

He nods. “I can tell you’re really into Gabe,” he says softly. “And whatever the fuck is going on between me and him right now, I sure as hell don't want to get in the way of that.” He swallows. “So, uh, just know that I can still step away or whatever. Last night never has to happen again.”

I don't know whether to burst out laughing or howl with frustration. So instead I just stare at him for a long moment. “You’re serious right now?” I finally ask him.

He blinks and rings his hands together. “Of course. I'd never want to get in the way of you falling in love, Tom. You deserve love. You deserve it more than anyone I know.”

I can only stare at him again, startled into stillness. I stare at him and I remember.

“Where do you think we’ll all be in twenty years?”

Colin twists the four-leaf clover he’s holding around in his hands, frowning as he studies it closely.

I’ve got my eyes trained on his fingers, watching as they trail lightly over the delicate greenery between them.

Colin’s fingers have gotten longer. The calluses on the end, reminders of all the hours he’s spent behind the wheel of go karts, stand out against his lightly tanned skin.

I turn away quickly, moving my gaze back to the cloudless sky above me. Don’t stare at your best friend’s fingers, Tom. You can’t do that.

I sigh as I wiggle in the grass. I haven’t told Colin about all the confusing dreams I’ve been having lately. They started out as dreams of Jenny Safforing and Emily Pierce, but last week I had one of Albie Kent, a boy in my music class. And then there's what happened last night.

Don’t think about it, Tom, I scold myself.

This is the worst possible place to be reliving that dream—nightmare?

In some ways, the dream feels more like a nightmare.

Colin and I are spending the weekend at a cottage in Vermont that our parents rented for our two families.

It sits right on a little lake, and it’s surrounded by fields and woods and dirt walking paths.

Colin and his twin brother Christian and my brother Sam and I have spent the last three days kayaking and paddleboarding and playing frisbee golf and laying in this field, staring at the sky and picking four-leaf clovers.

Perfect final summer days before school starts again in a few weeks and I walk into a high school for the first time as a student.

Colin will be off somewhere else, studying with tutors while he trains to become the next big sensation in open wheel racing. These might be the final days we spend together for a long time. I can’t ruin them by telling him.

Not that I’m sure exactly what I’d be telling him. I might not be straight, Colin. But I don’t think I’m gay, either. Google says I could be bi or pansexual. I need to do more research.

I might be in love with you.

Definitely can’t say that one out loud. Last night my moms dropped us off at the movie theater in town and Colin ended up making out with a redheaded girl we met while we were buying popcorn.

Less than seven hours later, I woke up in a cold sweat, visions of a slipping dream dancing across my subconscious that were just clear enough to torture me: I’d become the redhead.

I was in her place, lips dancing across Colin’s and hands brushing against his as cars exploded on screens in front of us.

And it felt like everything I’d ever wanted.

Hence: nightmare.

“That’s easy,” I tell Colin. “You’ll be racing cars all over the world. I’ll be starring in blockbuster movies. Sam will be—”

“Bossing people around,” Colin says, and we both laugh.

He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. Sam’s the one in charge of our little group of four.

He always has been. “Christian will still be doing boneheaded shit. And Sam will still be trying to stop him,” he adds with a slight smile and he turns to look over at the lake, where Sam’s spent the better part of three days trying to keep Christian safe whenever he decides to try some new dive or jump.

Yesterday Christian was talking about finding a place where we could go cliff diving, and for a minute I thought Sam might finally just lock him up in his bedroom.

“Which is good,” Colin adds. “If he’s keeping Christian from getting killed, you and I can travel all around the world whenever we’re not working.

Have adventures.” He flips back onto his side to face me.

“You better not get any better friends than me this year,” he tells me.

The teasing note in his voice is underlined with something that rings of fear, a fear I know all too well. A fear I understand.

“Same thing, man,” I tell him. “But that won’t happen. It can’t. We’re going to be best friends forever. Right?”

Colin nods, his face a block of stone as he drops the four-leaf clover into the grass between us. Behind us there are shouts of laughter and then splashing as something hits the water. “Christian!” Sam’s exasperated voice echoes through the trees.

Colin’s lips turn upward in a smile. “Forever,” he whispers. “Nothing’s ever going to change.” He reaches out a pinky to me, a gesture I’m so familiar with that it feels like walking into my mothers’ kitchen while Mom makes homemade pasta and Mama sings.

Colin and I have been sharing pinky swears since before I can even remember.

Since his parents moved into the house next door to my mothers’ house and our parents became best friends.

Since before he started racing go karts and I decided I wanted to be in all the school plays.

Since before the world, I sometimes think.

“Ever,” I promise, as I link my pinky with his.

“Do you remember,” I finally say hoarsely.

“When our parents rented that cottage in southern Vermont? By the lake? It was a much bigger lake than this one,” I add, though I’m not sure why that feels so important right now.

“And we picked four-leaf clovers, and high school was about to start, and you were leaving for Europe. And.” I swallow.

“We promised nothing would ever change. We swore we’d be friends forever, bestie. ”

Colin takes a step closer to me, and the cicadas sing in time with his movements. “I remember,” he says. “You always found more four-leafers than I did. Used to piss me off. But not as much as it did when you started calling me bestie . Or when you refused to stop.”

I half-snort, half-choke on a laugh. I breathe in and then out again.

I’m holding in so many words these days, so many unspoken secrets.

Some new, some old. They’re choking me alive, piece by piece, like the algae that I’ve recently learned infected the lake where our families used to stay.

A side effect of chemicals used on nearby land, as I learned when I looked into renting the place again.

I thought about taking Colin there after Christian died, but when I discovered the algae problem, I knew I couldn’t.

I could never take my best friend, the first love of my life, to watch a place we both loved be swallowed whole by its own environment.

I’ve spent years protecting Colin wherever I could, sacrificing enormous parts of myself for him. It’s the only way I know how to exist with him. I’m sure of that now. This afternoon made that all so very clear.

I shake my head. “I have no regrets,” I finally say.

My voice feels high and tight and foreign to me, but Colin doesn’t seem to notice.

I’ve always found it fascinating that someone who can feel a curve in a road a hundred yards before they see it can also be so oblivious to what’s in front of him.

“I’m just worried that Gabe left so suddenly,” I add.

“That’s all this is. Let’s go find him.”

I turn and start a slow walk back inside the house. Away from Colin. Away from this lake in front of us, which is still sparking and beautiful, without a hint of algae in sight.