(no subject)
<< it has to be a big thing
it's bringing me to my knees
The next Friday found David alone at the bar at Carly's while everyone laughed and chatted together at one of the tables. He had been moody, drinking alone, when a ruckus at his back called his attention. He turned from his fourth beer to see the crowd cheering and wolf-whistling as Noriega kissed Archie thoroughly.
David made a disgusted face but couldn't pry his eyes away from the couple; Noriega stood up abruptly, a really disheveled Archie staring up at him in confusion, and offered his hand. David sighed when his best friend took it and walked away with Noriega.
"It should have been me," he muttered, facing the bar again, with his hands gripping viciously the beer bottle. "I should have been his first."
He didn't notice Carly, the owner of the bar, sneaking in front of him until she talked, startling him. "You know, as a bartender you do learn to kind of recognize those customers who need to talk."
"Carly!" he exclaimed, jumping a little in his seat. "I'm fine. But could I have, like-" he looked down at his nearly empty bottle and wiggled it in her face, "-six more of these?" He hated how his voice edged on desperation.
"No, Dave. You really need to talk."
"Carly, I-" David stopped short of spilling his heart right on top of Carly's bar. He coughed uncomfortably and started again. "I think that our friend Archie-might be falling in love with Danny Noriega."
"Yeah," Carly nodded with a small smile painted on her face. "Didn't have to be a bartender to see that one coming, Dave, sweetie."
"Right, but the problem with that is-" David stuttered, fighting for the right words to be said without throwing himself so much in the open. He guessed there was no easy way around that issue, not when Carly was looking at him with that look in her eye that meant she could read his soul inside and out. "-that I'm in love with Archie."
There wasn't the sharp intake of breath he had been waiting for, or the clink of a bottle hitting the bar that he could have anticipated. Instead, Carly sighed loudly again and leaned into the counter. "You know, David, I always thought that maybe you were." She reached out and caressed his arm, squeezing his shoulder before leaning back. "So how much do you love him?" she asked in a business tone. "Is it love, is it big love or is it great love?"
"What do you mean?" David was as confused as if Carly had been talking to him in Spanish.
"Let me get this straight to you, okay?" Carly clasped her hands together, the cloth she used to wipe the counter dangling off her left shoulder. "Love, you get over in two months. Big love, two years. And great love-" she trailed off, searching his face for answers.
"Yeah?" David dared to ask after a few moments of silence.
"Great love changes your life," she admitted, shaking her head.
David wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He stared at his beer and then lifted it as if cheering for some invisible event. He laughed sadly.
"Oh, my God," Carly exclaimed, seemingly horrified. "It's great love, isn't it?"
"Isn't that great?" David asked as he downed the remnants of his beer.
"Then you got to win him back!"
"Carly, trust me, I have tried everything," he clarified.
"What did he say when you told him that you love him?" Carly questioned, leaning again against the counter.
"Well, actually," David confessed, looking at his hands instead that at Carly's eyes. "Maybe not everything, but-"
"What did he say when you kissed him?"
"Maybe it's more like two things I haven't tried-"
"Well, what have you tried?" Carly demanded with an amused grin.
"I have very unsubtly implied how I feel about him," David said, illustrating his words with flaily movements of his empty hands.
"Okay, get up. Now."
"What?"
"Get your ass off the stool!"
"Carly," David warned her.
"Hey, if you feel it and you don't do everything in your power to reach for it, you are basically slapping life in the face."
"I hate to break it to you, but I don't stand a chance here, okay?"
"As my father told me when I said I'd never get out of Ireland, Dave, your odds go up when you buy a plane ticket."
"Sure, but have you realized I'm up against Danny Noriega?" David clarified. He had the feeling Carly wasn't getting the point of his whole desperation.
"You are Danny Noriega."
If David had been hit by a truck that very same moment, he wouldn't have felt anything at all. He looked up at Carly as if she had grown a second - or maybe a third - head in the few seconds he had been staring at his beer. She was still looking down at him; her whole body leaned into the counter and her inked arms trembling on top of the sticky surface.
"Don't you see?" she insisted. "Everybody's Danny Noriega to somebody. Archie is Danny Noriega to you, and Michael is Danny Noriega to me," she finished with a dreamy voice but a pain expression in her beautiful eyes. David nodded slowly - he had been aware all along of Carly's crush on the DJ, and he knew Michael felt something for their favorite bartender, but there was little he could do, with Michael dating this petite blonde everyone loved - David thought her name was Stacy, but he couldn't be sure because Michael hadn't brought her along that much.
"Carly," he whispered. "Thank you."
"So start acting like it," Carly advised him. "You really need to tell him, David, or you're going to lose him forever."
"Okay, fine." David nodded again, pushing himself up from the stool with his hands flat on the counter. "I will-I'm trying here. I'll let you know how this goes."
"With a little bit of luck," Carly replies wisely, "you won't need to tell me. I'll be able to tell when you walk back in hand in hand. So go make me proud!"
"You know, Carly, you are a really good bartender," David complimented her before taking his jacket from the counter where he had left it out of frustration before ordering his first beer and drowning in his other three. He walked out of the bar decidedly, his heels clicking the floor and imprinting his attitude with a shade of determination he hadn't known he possessed in him before hearing Carly's speech.
He walked around the town for hours, thinking about the best way to approach the subject, to breach it to Archie. It was almost midnight when he finally made up his mind and reached Archie's house. He was sure Archie was home no matter what - he had a curfew to answer to - but the thought of the activities his friend could have engaged with Noriega left David with an aching in his chest so strong that he thought he might have a stroke. He stopped for a second to catch his breath before walking up the few steps to Archie's front door. He knew those inside and out, having stomped on them far too many times during his childhood and teenage years.
He stopped shortly before pushing on the doorbell. He had so many things to say, so many things at stake that could go wrong that very same night, and he couldn't think about how his life was about to change, for the good or for the bad. He breathed in desperately trying to calm himself before squaring his shoulders and waiting for Jeff to open the door.
"David!" was the surprised greeting he got. He could see a glint of sadness in Jeff's eyes, but David didn't have the time to ask because he was being ushered inside. "Come in, son."
"Goodnight, Mr Archuleta."
"What's this nonsense?" Jeff smiled warmly. They had the same argument over and over every time David visited. "Didn't your mother show you manners? You can call me Jeff, son, don't make me repeat it to you again." But his voice was playful in spite of the severity he had wanted to convey in his words, so David winked, saluted military as a joke and kept his smile in place. He felt so at ease in that house, he wasn't sure if he could throw that out the window just because he had thought of confessing his feelings to Archie.
"Is Archie back?" he asked, almost timidly.
"Yeah, he's in his room," Jeff motioned for David to go upstairs. "He has some news, Dave. I'm not sure how you're going to take them, if I have to be honest."
"News?" David felt his heart constricting painfully in his chest. He closed his eyes briefly.
"He'll have to tell you, son. It's not my place."
With a squeeze to his shoulder, Jeff sent him upstairs to Archie's room, a path David knew by heart but that had never seemed as long and difficult as that night. When he reached the door, David sighed. It was open, and he could see Archie dancing around, picking outfits from his closet and moving them over the bed. David knocked slightly on the wood. "Hi," he greeted softly.
Archie turned around to face him, his smile lightening the room as he took in David's presence. "Hey! Come in, come in!"
David obliged - there was very little he could deny to Archie, anyway - and wandered over to the comforter. "I have something to talk to you about," he started.
"Oh, really? Me, too!" Archie retorted excitedly, flailing a little around, the shirt in his hand twirling.
"Really?" David bit the inside of his cheek and made a decision. "You go first."
"No, Dave, you go first. You came all the way here when you could have stayed over at Carly's and picked up any guy. And instead you're here to tell me something."
"No. Seriously, Arch, you go first. What I have to tell you can wait a little longer." David didn't voice his fear at being rejected as a reason to push his declaration as late as possible.
"Oh, fine. You know, Danny was working on his new album?" David nodded. As if he could have missed that bit of information after two weeks enduring the singer's presence everywhere. "He got a huge yes to do with it what he wanted to, and he has to go back to Hollywood to record it, and he asked me to go with him to California. We leave tomorrow afternoon," Archie took a break to catch his breath. "Isn't that great?"
Well, David thought as he leaned into the piece of furniture he was supporting his weight onto. Define great, then. "I-I probably should've gone first," he said lamely instead of breaking down into tears like he wanted to do.
"Why?" Archie was playing oblivious, and David was starting to wonder if it was just an act, because he didn't think it could be possible to be so naïve all the time. "What were you going to say?"
"It's-It's nothing. It was nothing. Just, you know, travel safely, and just really enjoy the experience." David began retreating, walking backwards towards the door as he attempted to tame down the feeling of abandonment that was washing over him. Frustration and anger battled in his soul as he watched Archie looking at him as if he had become some sort of monster who couldn't actually be happy for him when his dreams were obviously coming true.
David was warring inwardly. He knew nothing good could come out of that particular fight, and yet something inside of him kept screaming at him to stop being a coward and step forward and go for the fall. He knew it could be his last chance to win Archie's heart, but he also knew that he had already lost him altogether since he was packing for California, to spend time with Danny Noriega, and David wasn't even sure of how his own name could really fit in the fantasy that Archie would be living through from the following morning on.
He sighed deeply, made his decision and lifted a hand to run it through his hair before actually speaking. "Actually, no, I remember what I was going to say, Arch," he blurted, lunging forward. He caught Archie by surprise, completely unguarded, and he took advantage of that reaction to kiss Archie senseless.
He poured all his heart in that kiss, trying to convey in just a soft caress of lips on lips just how much he loved his best friend. He moved tenderly against supple lips, tasting almost like Heaven in every lick, until it was obvious that they both needed air to keep living, so he pulled back and touched his forehead to Archie's. "I love you, Arch," he whispered, no struggling in his speech. "I always have. If I've been a jerk this last two weeks, it's because I have been fighting. I-I have been fighting for you, Archie. I don't want to lose you to Danny Noriega or anyone else." David kept staring into his best friend's eyes all the time, hoping to see some reaction in them, something to tell him he was on the right way with his assumptions, but all he could feel was a blank stare where he had dreamed to glimpse a slice of love. "You're the one," he finished, sort of lamely. He was shivering with the force of his own feelings.
After a few moment so f awkward silence - and wasn't it ironic, how there had never been any uncomfortable moment between them until Noriega had stumbled upon their lives? - finally David dared to ask what his heart was dreading to know. "So, any reaction to any of this? Because now would be an excellent time."
Archie seemed to be thinking hard, his eyes falling onto every surface in sight except for David's gaze, and it was making the older man nervous. "Now?" Archie shook his head as if confused. "You kiss me now? You say this to me now, after so many years of being my best friend? Really, David?"
"Yes," David replied, because he had nothing else to do; he had bared his soul and all he was hoping now was for a nice let down. "To all questions."
"I'm-" Archie looked around for some sort of escape, and he found it in his open suitcase over his bed, overflowed by the clothes he would never be able to fit in it anyway. "I have to pack."
"What the actual fuck?" Archie winced at the swearing, but David was beyond the point of caring. "You're telling me that you can't answer the most important question I'll ever ask in my entire life because you have to pack?"
"Not only do I have to pack," Archie clarified. "But I have a load of whites in the dryer, and my dad called my relatives from Pasadena and they're expecting me, so-it's all in the works."
"But this is-" David couldn't believe his ears. That must certainly be some joke from the above; he half expected Michael to come out from somewhere and yell at him gotcha. "Archie, what's in your heart?"
He waited, and waited, and waited. But Archie lowered his gaze, gripped the shirt in his hand more forcefully, and shook his head. David thought he could see a faint blush covering his friend's cheeks, but that could be, just like everything else, wishful thinking. "I'm sorry," were Archie's final words.
"I'm sorry, too," David retorted, never waiting for Archie to lift up his gaze and meet the pain in David's eyes. He was too hurt to endure yet another pitiful glance, even if it was from the only man able to break his heart.
He stomped downstairs, his hands in his pockets, never caring about what his mother told him so many years ago - you should never walk up or down a set of stairs with your hands in your pockets, David, if you tripped you wouldn't be able to react in time and it would be messy - as he desperately tried to find a way out of that house. The porch seemed so far away, his feet were dragging him slowly to the front door. His heart thumped inside his chest, as if it wanted to get out and camp at ease on the floor so someone else could step on it even harder.
At least he knew what a broken heart felt like for real this time. All those false alarms from before - the tiny bits of ache he felt when all of his crushes scorned him or made him feel belittled or plainly left him after kissing him - were nothing to what he was feeling in that very moment. The way his very soul was crumbling to pieces onto the floor was excruciatingly painful.
"You okay, David?" Jeff Archuleta asked him when he finally got to the porch, the front door open and welcoming. The older man was sitting on the swing David himself had helped putting up about seven years before, right after his parents' accident when David had been trying to find his balance.
"Yes, sir," he lied. Jeff obviously didn't buy it, for he patted the free spot beside him on the swing. David sat down. "So many great memories," he whispered softly.
"I remember when you first stepped up here," Jeff chuckled. "You were how old? Three? Four?" He laughed a little. "My son was playing in the yard, and you just appeared out of nowhere and your mother was running after you, but you just stopped dead on your tracks to help him with whatever he was doing."
"He was building a sand castle," David provided the bit of information. "Don't ask me why he was trying to do that in your garden, but he was trying to."
"Your mother just stared at you and then, when she realized I was standing up in this very same porch, she shrugged and apologized." Jeff smiled, his eyes crinkled in the motion. "She said it was the first time you had been this quiet in days."
"I felt like I belonged here," David confessed. "Like, I don't know. I have never felt out of place here, Mr. Arch-Jeff."
"Listen, David, obviously we've all been a little seduced by Danny Noriega's presence. No one more so than me." Jeff looked straight into David's eyes, a hint of resignation in his own dark pupils. "But that doesn't mean I don't know who cares about my son the most and who he would be with if the world were fair."
"Well, it's not," David counteracted, rather bitterly. He swiped his sweaty hands on his jeans.
"No. No, it's not," Jeff agreed. He dropped his gaze back to the darkened rosebuds growing in his front garden, carefully taken care of by an external gardener Jeff had hired a few months before. "When I was your age I was completely in love with Gloria Estefan." David nodded curtly. He knew everything about Jeff Archuleta's adventure in Miami in his younger years, when he worked as an assistant for the most powerful Cubans in Florida. "She was a great girl, completely unpretentious," Jeff continued. "She had left Cuba a few months before I actually met her, and she was so nice to all other emigrants, just like myself. Anyway, there was Emilio, Emilio Estefan. You know, her actual husband. I didn't stand a chance."
David blinked. He knew Jeff was trying to tell him something, but David was still to raw, too hurt, to understand whatever message he was trying to deliver. Jeff would have to spell it out for him. "I don't think I-"
"It happens that way sometimes, son," Jeff nodded dejectedly. "It shouldn't, but it does. Sometimes Goliath kicks the shit out of David. It's just that nobody bothers to tell that story."
"Well, thanks," David huffed. "I feel much better now."
"I'm sorry, David," Jeff said after a second of hesitation, just as David was standing up to leave the porch. "I'm sincerely sorry."
"Well, that actually makes a whole lot of two of us, Mr. Archuleta."
He bit his lower lip and waved goodbye to the only parental figure he had had in seven years. He had so many things to do, so many decisions to make. He checked the hour in his wristwatch and came to the conclusion that he should make a couple of phone calls in the morning.
hey now, touch the sky >>
it's bringing me to my knees
The next Friday found David alone at the bar at Carly's while everyone laughed and chatted together at one of the tables. He had been moody, drinking alone, when a ruckus at his back called his attention. He turned from his fourth beer to see the crowd cheering and wolf-whistling as Noriega kissed Archie thoroughly.
David made a disgusted face but couldn't pry his eyes away from the couple; Noriega stood up abruptly, a really disheveled Archie staring up at him in confusion, and offered his hand. David sighed when his best friend took it and walked away with Noriega.
"It should have been me," he muttered, facing the bar again, with his hands gripping viciously the beer bottle. "I should have been his first."
He didn't notice Carly, the owner of the bar, sneaking in front of him until she talked, startling him. "You know, as a bartender you do learn to kind of recognize those customers who need to talk."
"Carly!" he exclaimed, jumping a little in his seat. "I'm fine. But could I have, like-" he looked down at his nearly empty bottle and wiggled it in her face, "-six more of these?" He hated how his voice edged on desperation.
"No, Dave. You really need to talk."
"Carly, I-" David stopped short of spilling his heart right on top of Carly's bar. He coughed uncomfortably and started again. "I think that our friend Archie-might be falling in love with Danny Noriega."
"Yeah," Carly nodded with a small smile painted on her face. "Didn't have to be a bartender to see that one coming, Dave, sweetie."
"Right, but the problem with that is-" David stuttered, fighting for the right words to be said without throwing himself so much in the open. He guessed there was no easy way around that issue, not when Carly was looking at him with that look in her eye that meant she could read his soul inside and out. "-that I'm in love with Archie."
There wasn't the sharp intake of breath he had been waiting for, or the clink of a bottle hitting the bar that he could have anticipated. Instead, Carly sighed loudly again and leaned into the counter. "You know, David, I always thought that maybe you were." She reached out and caressed his arm, squeezing his shoulder before leaning back. "So how much do you love him?" she asked in a business tone. "Is it love, is it big love or is it great love?"
"What do you mean?" David was as confused as if Carly had been talking to him in Spanish.
"Let me get this straight to you, okay?" Carly clasped her hands together, the cloth she used to wipe the counter dangling off her left shoulder. "Love, you get over in two months. Big love, two years. And great love-" she trailed off, searching his face for answers.
"Yeah?" David dared to ask after a few moments of silence.
"Great love changes your life," she admitted, shaking her head.
David wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He stared at his beer and then lifted it as if cheering for some invisible event. He laughed sadly.
"Oh, my God," Carly exclaimed, seemingly horrified. "It's great love, isn't it?"
"Isn't that great?" David asked as he downed the remnants of his beer.
"Then you got to win him back!"
"Carly, trust me, I have tried everything," he clarified.
"What did he say when you told him that you love him?" Carly questioned, leaning again against the counter.
"Well, actually," David confessed, looking at his hands instead that at Carly's eyes. "Maybe not everything, but-"
"What did he say when you kissed him?"
"Maybe it's more like two things I haven't tried-"
"Well, what have you tried?" Carly demanded with an amused grin.
"I have very unsubtly implied how I feel about him," David said, illustrating his words with flaily movements of his empty hands.
"Okay, get up. Now."
"What?"
"Get your ass off the stool!"
"Carly," David warned her.
"Hey, if you feel it and you don't do everything in your power to reach for it, you are basically slapping life in the face."
"I hate to break it to you, but I don't stand a chance here, okay?"
"As my father told me when I said I'd never get out of Ireland, Dave, your odds go up when you buy a plane ticket."
"Sure, but have you realized I'm up against Danny Noriega?" David clarified. He had the feeling Carly wasn't getting the point of his whole desperation.
"You are Danny Noriega."
If David had been hit by a truck that very same moment, he wouldn't have felt anything at all. He looked up at Carly as if she had grown a second - or maybe a third - head in the few seconds he had been staring at his beer. She was still looking down at him; her whole body leaned into the counter and her inked arms trembling on top of the sticky surface.
"Don't you see?" she insisted. "Everybody's Danny Noriega to somebody. Archie is Danny Noriega to you, and Michael is Danny Noriega to me," she finished with a dreamy voice but a pain expression in her beautiful eyes. David nodded slowly - he had been aware all along of Carly's crush on the DJ, and he knew Michael felt something for their favorite bartender, but there was little he could do, with Michael dating this petite blonde everyone loved - David thought her name was Stacy, but he couldn't be sure because Michael hadn't brought her along that much.
"Carly," he whispered. "Thank you."
"So start acting like it," Carly advised him. "You really need to tell him, David, or you're going to lose him forever."
"Okay, fine." David nodded again, pushing himself up from the stool with his hands flat on the counter. "I will-I'm trying here. I'll let you know how this goes."
"With a little bit of luck," Carly replies wisely, "you won't need to tell me. I'll be able to tell when you walk back in hand in hand. So go make me proud!"
"You know, Carly, you are a really good bartender," David complimented her before taking his jacket from the counter where he had left it out of frustration before ordering his first beer and drowning in his other three. He walked out of the bar decidedly, his heels clicking the floor and imprinting his attitude with a shade of determination he hadn't known he possessed in him before hearing Carly's speech.
He walked around the town for hours, thinking about the best way to approach the subject, to breach it to Archie. It was almost midnight when he finally made up his mind and reached Archie's house. He was sure Archie was home no matter what - he had a curfew to answer to - but the thought of the activities his friend could have engaged with Noriega left David with an aching in his chest so strong that he thought he might have a stroke. He stopped for a second to catch his breath before walking up the few steps to Archie's front door. He knew those inside and out, having stomped on them far too many times during his childhood and teenage years.
He stopped shortly before pushing on the doorbell. He had so many things to say, so many things at stake that could go wrong that very same night, and he couldn't think about how his life was about to change, for the good or for the bad. He breathed in desperately trying to calm himself before squaring his shoulders and waiting for Jeff to open the door.
"David!" was the surprised greeting he got. He could see a glint of sadness in Jeff's eyes, but David didn't have the time to ask because he was being ushered inside. "Come in, son."
"Goodnight, Mr Archuleta."
"What's this nonsense?" Jeff smiled warmly. They had the same argument over and over every time David visited. "Didn't your mother show you manners? You can call me Jeff, son, don't make me repeat it to you again." But his voice was playful in spite of the severity he had wanted to convey in his words, so David winked, saluted military as a joke and kept his smile in place. He felt so at ease in that house, he wasn't sure if he could throw that out the window just because he had thought of confessing his feelings to Archie.
"Is Archie back?" he asked, almost timidly.
"Yeah, he's in his room," Jeff motioned for David to go upstairs. "He has some news, Dave. I'm not sure how you're going to take them, if I have to be honest."
"News?" David felt his heart constricting painfully in his chest. He closed his eyes briefly.
"He'll have to tell you, son. It's not my place."
With a squeeze to his shoulder, Jeff sent him upstairs to Archie's room, a path David knew by heart but that had never seemed as long and difficult as that night. When he reached the door, David sighed. It was open, and he could see Archie dancing around, picking outfits from his closet and moving them over the bed. David knocked slightly on the wood. "Hi," he greeted softly.
Archie turned around to face him, his smile lightening the room as he took in David's presence. "Hey! Come in, come in!"
David obliged - there was very little he could deny to Archie, anyway - and wandered over to the comforter. "I have something to talk to you about," he started.
"Oh, really? Me, too!" Archie retorted excitedly, flailing a little around, the shirt in his hand twirling.
"Really?" David bit the inside of his cheek and made a decision. "You go first."
"No, Dave, you go first. You came all the way here when you could have stayed over at Carly's and picked up any guy. And instead you're here to tell me something."
"No. Seriously, Arch, you go first. What I have to tell you can wait a little longer." David didn't voice his fear at being rejected as a reason to push his declaration as late as possible.
"Oh, fine. You know, Danny was working on his new album?" David nodded. As if he could have missed that bit of information after two weeks enduring the singer's presence everywhere. "He got a huge yes to do with it what he wanted to, and he has to go back to Hollywood to record it, and he asked me to go with him to California. We leave tomorrow afternoon," Archie took a break to catch his breath. "Isn't that great?"
Well, David thought as he leaned into the piece of furniture he was supporting his weight onto. Define great, then. "I-I probably should've gone first," he said lamely instead of breaking down into tears like he wanted to do.
"Why?" Archie was playing oblivious, and David was starting to wonder if it was just an act, because he didn't think it could be possible to be so naïve all the time. "What were you going to say?"
"It's-It's nothing. It was nothing. Just, you know, travel safely, and just really enjoy the experience." David began retreating, walking backwards towards the door as he attempted to tame down the feeling of abandonment that was washing over him. Frustration and anger battled in his soul as he watched Archie looking at him as if he had become some sort of monster who couldn't actually be happy for him when his dreams were obviously coming true.
David was warring inwardly. He knew nothing good could come out of that particular fight, and yet something inside of him kept screaming at him to stop being a coward and step forward and go for the fall. He knew it could be his last chance to win Archie's heart, but he also knew that he had already lost him altogether since he was packing for California, to spend time with Danny Noriega, and David wasn't even sure of how his own name could really fit in the fantasy that Archie would be living through from the following morning on.
He sighed deeply, made his decision and lifted a hand to run it through his hair before actually speaking. "Actually, no, I remember what I was going to say, Arch," he blurted, lunging forward. He caught Archie by surprise, completely unguarded, and he took advantage of that reaction to kiss Archie senseless.
He poured all his heart in that kiss, trying to convey in just a soft caress of lips on lips just how much he loved his best friend. He moved tenderly against supple lips, tasting almost like Heaven in every lick, until it was obvious that they both needed air to keep living, so he pulled back and touched his forehead to Archie's. "I love you, Arch," he whispered, no struggling in his speech. "I always have. If I've been a jerk this last two weeks, it's because I have been fighting. I-I have been fighting for you, Archie. I don't want to lose you to Danny Noriega or anyone else." David kept staring into his best friend's eyes all the time, hoping to see some reaction in them, something to tell him he was on the right way with his assumptions, but all he could feel was a blank stare where he had dreamed to glimpse a slice of love. "You're the one," he finished, sort of lamely. He was shivering with the force of his own feelings.
After a few moment so f awkward silence - and wasn't it ironic, how there had never been any uncomfortable moment between them until Noriega had stumbled upon their lives? - finally David dared to ask what his heart was dreading to know. "So, any reaction to any of this? Because now would be an excellent time."
Archie seemed to be thinking hard, his eyes falling onto every surface in sight except for David's gaze, and it was making the older man nervous. "Now?" Archie shook his head as if confused. "You kiss me now? You say this to me now, after so many years of being my best friend? Really, David?"
"Yes," David replied, because he had nothing else to do; he had bared his soul and all he was hoping now was for a nice let down. "To all questions."
"I'm-" Archie looked around for some sort of escape, and he found it in his open suitcase over his bed, overflowed by the clothes he would never be able to fit in it anyway. "I have to pack."
"What the actual fuck?" Archie winced at the swearing, but David was beyond the point of caring. "You're telling me that you can't answer the most important question I'll ever ask in my entire life because you have to pack?"
"Not only do I have to pack," Archie clarified. "But I have a load of whites in the dryer, and my dad called my relatives from Pasadena and they're expecting me, so-it's all in the works."
"But this is-" David couldn't believe his ears. That must certainly be some joke from the above; he half expected Michael to come out from somewhere and yell at him gotcha. "Archie, what's in your heart?"
He waited, and waited, and waited. But Archie lowered his gaze, gripped the shirt in his hand more forcefully, and shook his head. David thought he could see a faint blush covering his friend's cheeks, but that could be, just like everything else, wishful thinking. "I'm sorry," were Archie's final words.
"I'm sorry, too," David retorted, never waiting for Archie to lift up his gaze and meet the pain in David's eyes. He was too hurt to endure yet another pitiful glance, even if it was from the only man able to break his heart.
He stomped downstairs, his hands in his pockets, never caring about what his mother told him so many years ago - you should never walk up or down a set of stairs with your hands in your pockets, David, if you tripped you wouldn't be able to react in time and it would be messy - as he desperately tried to find a way out of that house. The porch seemed so far away, his feet were dragging him slowly to the front door. His heart thumped inside his chest, as if it wanted to get out and camp at ease on the floor so someone else could step on it even harder.
At least he knew what a broken heart felt like for real this time. All those false alarms from before - the tiny bits of ache he felt when all of his crushes scorned him or made him feel belittled or plainly left him after kissing him - were nothing to what he was feeling in that very moment. The way his very soul was crumbling to pieces onto the floor was excruciatingly painful.
"You okay, David?" Jeff Archuleta asked him when he finally got to the porch, the front door open and welcoming. The older man was sitting on the swing David himself had helped putting up about seven years before, right after his parents' accident when David had been trying to find his balance.
"Yes, sir," he lied. Jeff obviously didn't buy it, for he patted the free spot beside him on the swing. David sat down. "So many great memories," he whispered softly.
"I remember when you first stepped up here," Jeff chuckled. "You were how old? Three? Four?" He laughed a little. "My son was playing in the yard, and you just appeared out of nowhere and your mother was running after you, but you just stopped dead on your tracks to help him with whatever he was doing."
"He was building a sand castle," David provided the bit of information. "Don't ask me why he was trying to do that in your garden, but he was trying to."
"Your mother just stared at you and then, when she realized I was standing up in this very same porch, she shrugged and apologized." Jeff smiled, his eyes crinkled in the motion. "She said it was the first time you had been this quiet in days."
"I felt like I belonged here," David confessed. "Like, I don't know. I have never felt out of place here, Mr. Arch-Jeff."
"Listen, David, obviously we've all been a little seduced by Danny Noriega's presence. No one more so than me." Jeff looked straight into David's eyes, a hint of resignation in his own dark pupils. "But that doesn't mean I don't know who cares about my son the most and who he would be with if the world were fair."
"Well, it's not," David counteracted, rather bitterly. He swiped his sweaty hands on his jeans.
"No. No, it's not," Jeff agreed. He dropped his gaze back to the darkened rosebuds growing in his front garden, carefully taken care of by an external gardener Jeff had hired a few months before. "When I was your age I was completely in love with Gloria Estefan." David nodded curtly. He knew everything about Jeff Archuleta's adventure in Miami in his younger years, when he worked as an assistant for the most powerful Cubans in Florida. "She was a great girl, completely unpretentious," Jeff continued. "She had left Cuba a few months before I actually met her, and she was so nice to all other emigrants, just like myself. Anyway, there was Emilio, Emilio Estefan. You know, her actual husband. I didn't stand a chance."
David blinked. He knew Jeff was trying to tell him something, but David was still to raw, too hurt, to understand whatever message he was trying to deliver. Jeff would have to spell it out for him. "I don't think I-"
"It happens that way sometimes, son," Jeff nodded dejectedly. "It shouldn't, but it does. Sometimes Goliath kicks the shit out of David. It's just that nobody bothers to tell that story."
"Well, thanks," David huffed. "I feel much better now."
"I'm sorry, David," Jeff said after a second of hesitation, just as David was standing up to leave the porch. "I'm sincerely sorry."
"Well, that actually makes a whole lot of two of us, Mr. Archuleta."
He bit his lower lip and waved goodbye to the only parental figure he had had in seven years. He had so many things to do, so many decisions to make. He checked the hour in his wristwatch and came to the conclusion that he should make a couple of phone calls in the morning.
hey now, touch the sky >>