go for the body
previously on
And Street is terrified, scared like he’s scared of spiders, and he wouldn’t have expected that. He’s scared because his first night in town, Danny Haren invites him out and Harden is there, slouching against the wall with his shoulders up and his arms crossed, watching Haren kick a soccer ball around the yard.
Street slows, odd sideways angle of Harden, the tilt of the house, the fall of the sun, Harden’s clean neck and the cut of his cheekbone, scruffed jaw, and Street can see his fingers tapping away on his side under his arm. Seeing him is like getting punched right between the shoulder blades.
Harden hears his footsteps and looks back and the sun crashes into the back of his head, lighting him up, and Harden’s face is guarded, calm and watchful and pilot-lit, and Street can taste his own heart.
“Hey,” Harden says. Street just kind of stares at him, and Haren is shouting happily, bouncing the ball from foot to knee and back again.
Giving him an inscrutable look, Harden pushes off the wall and asks Haren if they’re ever gonna fucking leave, and then disappears inside. Street wanders over to Haren in a daze. Haren stops with the ball long enough to crack Street on the back a few times.
“What’s up, man, been like a year,” Haren says, smiling whitely. Street tries to echo it, but it doesn’t work, and Haren’s eyebrows hunch down. “You okay?”
Street shakes his head, finds his voice. “Fine, I’m fine.”
They go to a bar and Street does everything in his power to avoid being alone with Harden. His skin tightens at the simple thought of it, because he knows they won’t be able to talk, not like normal, not like before. Street can barely even remember what it was like before, when he and Harden would go for fast food in the middle of the night and stay up all hours watching movies they’d both seen twenty-seven times.
Street keeps a hand on Haren’s arm to make sure he doesn’t leave, snatching glances at Harden and biting the insides of his cheeks. He feels drunk already, drunk enough to be confused by written language and the mechanics of standing straight, listing constantly to the side.
He’s not talking much, not holding up his end of the conversation. Harden’s got pale thin strips on the side of his face from sunglasses. He’s wearing his lightning bolt necklace, though usually he never does when he’s not pitching, and sometimes he winds his fingers in the chain and Street can see the skin of his shoulder, which is probably neatly cooled and tastes like metal.
Street catches himself and there’s blood in his mouth. Haren is looking at him worriedly, Harden just cool, always so cool, still not really trusting him. Street spends a lot of time staring at his hands.
Danny goes to make a phone call at one point and it’s Street’s worst nightmare, alone with Harden and nothing to say. Harden sips at his beer and Street feels the pressure of Harden’s gaze, a red dot in the center of his forehead like he’s about to be shot.
“So.”
Street jerks, swallows hard. “Hmm?” he responds, trying to act like he hadn’t noticed the suffocating quiet, but he can’t look Harden in the eye. He keeps picturing it, Harden and Crosby, Harden’s hand sliding up inside Crosby’s sleeve, vanishing the top half of his fingers. Harden tilting his head back and opening his mouth.
“Fuck you, man,” Harden says harshly, and Street’s head snaps up, neck pops so sharp it hurts, and Harden is shoving out of the booth, stalking out of the bar.
Street doesn’t move for a moment, then gets up and follows him.
Standing in the streetlight, hands in his pockets, sliced out like a grainy newspaper photograph. Dull Phoenix cold in the air, Rich Harden sneering at him as he approaches and Street looks to the sky, wonders if he denies God at this moment, will he be struck down and never have to look at Rich Harden again, never have to force words past this hot itchy feeling in his throat?
“Rich?” he says, very soft like it’s made of eggshells.
Eyes big like for-rent signs in apartment windows and rife with anger, and Street can’t remember the last time that Harden wasn’t angry at him.
“You can’t even talk to me anymore?” Harden demands. “You can’t even, like, sit in the bar and say something about the fucking weather?”
Feeling awful, scratching at the hollows of his elbows, Street tries and tries, but there’s barely weather down here, just a breeze mild enough not to be noticed and a truck wheel moon taking up a quarter of the sky. Street tries, but he ends up just staring at Harden helplessly, badly wanting to touch his face.
Harden throws up his hands, half-turning away. “Fine. Jesus. Can’t even fucking talk to me. Disgust you that much, great. Real great.”
Street reaches out for him, stops short and pulls his hand back, curling it into a claw. “You. You didn’t give me a chance.”
“Well, shit, man, go right the fuck ahead. Is somebody stopping you?” Harden gestures hard, cuts the air in half, still showing Street his shoulder and not his face.
Five months shy of a year now, since Street saw Crosby kissing Harden in the hallway after they got back from the airport, since he turned away and pretended he hadn’t seen it, since his perfect life began to chip apart. Five months shy of a year and all of it climbing up into Street’s throat, pushed high out of his lungs. Stuff like, you don’t disgust me, and please stop being mad, please stop thinking I hate you, you make me crazy, don’t want it to be like this anymore.
All sorts of stuff. Nothing he can say out loud.
So he settles again, brokenly, for, “I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, would you quit saying that.”
Street flinches like he’s been hit, which is maybe not too far off, because Harden’s hands are hard in fists, and Street bites his tongue to keep from saying it again. He slumps back against the wall, totally useless.
“You said you were cool with it,” Harden tells him.
“I am.”
“Then fucking act like it, Huston. God.”
“What do you want me to say?” Flash like temper behind his eyes. Unaccustomed, Street blinks and Harden’s face appears slowly, rising like the moon. “I mean. I said we were cool, we are. Okay? But I can’t. I can’t talk like this. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Harden looks at him for a second, and blows out a breath. “I can’t spend the whole season waiting for you to decide it’s too weird and bug out again.”
Street shakes his head, watching the play of streetlight over Harden’s shoulders. “I won’t.”
“Fuck you won’t. I’m sure you’ve, like, never had to deal with it before, but just. Deal with it, will you? Because I don’t. I don’t want to not be friends with you anymore.”
Hits him right where he lives, every sense of it, low in his stomach where Street can’t get calm, and he’s astonished to find his eyes tearing. He looks quickly up, the dizzying slope of the building running away, blinking fast until his vision is clear again. He breathes for a little while, and when he looks back down, Harden’s body is curved protectively inward, hunched, waiting for him.
Street tries to smile, and moves forward, touches Harden’s arm. It’s no good for a second, Harden’s arm tensing and a distrustful expression casting across his features, but Street makes his fingers fold down and then it’s okay. He can feel a line of skin at the bottom of Harden’s sleeve, warm in the heel of his hand.
“Okay,” Street says, and that’s it. Harden narrows his eyes, moves as if to pull his arm away, but Street won’t let him go. “Okay,” he says again, and waits for Harden to relax, the muscle of his arm fitting into Street’s palm. Waits for Harden’s eyes to show up all glassy and relieved in the orange light, and Street’s whole world is localized at the place where his hand is touching Harden’s bare skin.
So then it’s better, and they go back inside and Haren doesn’t even seem to notice that they were gone. It happened fast. Street starts to pick up, starts to roll his eyes at Harden and argue about what to put on the jukebox and it’s okay then, honestly.
Harden smiles at him and Street can’t breathe. But that’s nothing to worry about.
They leave late, stretching out their arms on the curb, and Haren is happy drunk, hugging them both without reason. Harden laughs, pushes him off, says, “Man, careful, I gotta get back in one piece.”
“Wasn’t gonna tear off your arms,” Haren mumbles into Street’s hair, his arms heavy around his waist. Street stands stock-still, because he’s serving as a leaning post for Haren right now.
“You’re kinda creepy when you’re drunk.”
Haren grins, his chin digging hard into the top of Street’s head. Street bulges his eyes at Harden, please get him off me. Harden laughs and hooks a hand in Haren’s belt, drags him off, steadies him on the curb and hails a cab. Haren hangs half out the window, beaming at them.
“It was good to see you again,” Haren says to Street, bizarrely formal. Street pushes Haren’s hair off his forehead with a smirk.
“You’ll see me tomorrow.”
“I will! Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow we will be in the same place. Good.” Haren nods to himself. “Good.” Disappears into the backseat, dagger of white teeth and his hands pounding on the driver’s seat.
Left alone on the curb, Harden bends a tired grin at Street. “You want a ride back?”
Street thinks about that for a moment, fifteen minutes alone in the dark car with Harden and the terse apprehensive peace they’ve so recently forged. Thinks about Harden’s hands on the wheel, and shakes his head. “Nah. It’s the total opposite direction.”
Harden shrugs. He’s shivering a little bit, the wind tougher now, past midnight in the desert. “’Kay.” He stares off at nothing. “Bobby’s probably waiting up, anyway.”
Street nods, then a second later processes it. “Oh, I. I didn’t realize he was down here already.” Proud because his voice is unremarkable, though Harden looks at him briefly from under his eyelashes, waiting for him to bug out. But Street’s okay.
Shrugging again, Harden says simply, “Yeah.”
Harden’s hands are in his pockets and his arms are tight against his body, huddled against the cold, and Street thinks blankly, they’re in love.
He scrounges up a smile and claps Harden on the shoulder. “All right, man. See you at the ballpark.”
Harden catches hold of Street’s wrist and holds him still, his hand clasped on Harden’s shoulder, their bodies at canted angles. Street gives him a questioning look, pulse humming along, buzz of liquor in the back of his throat and forefront of his mind, and Harden seems to be looking for something in Street’s face. His fingers are hard and hot in a bracelet around Street’s wrist.
Then Harden lets him go and steps back, confusion rolling onto his face and making a line form between his eyebrows. Street tries to smile and fails. Harden turns abruptly and walks away, strange stilt-legged walk, shaking his head briskly. Street goes back alone to the small place he rented for spring training, white-walled and devoid, his bags in a pile by the front door and no other sign of life.
He lays awake for a long time. Can’t figure out what’s happening to him.
He expects Crosby to be at the ballpark, gears himself up for it, to see Crosby grinning and leaning into Harden, not as obvious as they were in Haren’s place in Los Angeles or in the bar, but clear to those who are looking for it. Crosby’s not there, of course he wouldn’t be, he’s not a pitcher or catcher and it would make no sense to those who don’t know.
It’s just like last year, first session with his body flaring and then screeching to a halt, stiffness settling in almost immediately. Everybody pale from the winter and talking too much, too fast. Harden might be avoiding him; it’s hard to tell. Spring training takes him down into little pieces and it’s almost a week before Street can sleep the night through, though he still doesn’t really.
Crosby is around, when they go out at night, when they congregate at the house he and Harden are sharing to pre-game. Street notices that there are two bedrooms, Crosby’s stuff intricately laid out on the dresser and the closet, but the bed is made and that is anathema for Bobby Crosby, so they’re not really fooling anybody.
Harden watches Crosby like he’s waiting for him to disappear. Street gets too drunk to drive home and can’t believe that he’s sleeping on their couch, thinking in dumb loops that he should just take Crosby’s bed, not like they’re gonna use it.
He can hear the two of them fighting through the wall. Too muffled to make out the words, and Street’s hand is on his own stomach under his T-shirt, slow rubs and the ceiling’s got no good advice.
Crosby’s sense of humor has narrowed, or sharpened, or something, maybe it’s just that their life together is beginning to fray, but Crosby calls Harden bitch and fucking bush league and only sometimes seems to be kidding. Zito, who usually never notices anything more concrete than colors and shapes, tells him to lighten up one night, and Crosby whirls on him, keep the fuck out of it, and everyone is uncomfortable for a while after that.
They argue quiet and fierce in the hallway. Crosby jerks his head to the side and his mouth sneers, and Harden slaps the wall, snarls something, and goes back into the living room. Crosby stands for a moment, visibly shaking.
Street can’t remember if they were like this before, if theirs is the kind of relationship where fighting is fun because making up is better. He doesn’t think it was. They were so calm last year.
He’s been told that being in love kinda sucks most of the time, though he never really believed that. End of the night, when they’re all yawning and slowly gathering themselves together to leave, Crosby will still crash down next to Harden and roll his head on Harden’s shoulder, and Harden just sort of twists and makes room for him.
They come and go like waves.
He can’t get it out of his head, the hum in the air when Crosby and Harden are in it, half violence and half darker, desire probably, the idea of which still makes Street flush and lose his footing a little bit. He corners Melhuse on the field, green all around them, asks quickly before he can lose his nerve:
“Bobby and Rich, they’re okay, right?”
Melhuse glances at him, sits down on the field to untie and retie his spikes. Street hunkers down next to him, his eyes darting side to side to make sure no one will sneak up on them.
“Guess so,” Melhuse says, gaze fixed on his shoes. “Um. Why do you ask?”
Street moves his shoulders, blue sky above him like he could drown from looking up. “Oh. No reason.”
Melhuse mutters something downward, but Street doesn’t catch it. Street’s missing everything, these days. Probably fifty times, he’s halfway across the room, gonna put his hand on Harden’s shoulder and make sure everything’s all right, but Harden is laughing every time he looks over, doing a really good impression of happy, if he isn’t really.
They’ve got two weeks to break themselves in, and they do all right. Harden’s got a new surgical scar on his left shoulder, five months healed and shaped like a crescent moon, and Street stares at it sometimes, when Harden is turned away from him in the clubhouse. Their Phoenix ballpark is small and beautiful and the light standards rise up in Street’s peripheral vision, haunt him on the drive home.
Harden shows up at Street’s rented house very late one night, pounding on the door and Street stumbles out in pajama pants and a workout shirt without sleeves. He can hear Harden mumbling through the door, smell the liquor on him immediately.
“That motherfucker,” Harden says, looking at Street balefully.
Street, half-asleep, steps aside and lets Harden come in, lets him kick over the trashcan, balled-up pieces of white paper littered like snow. Harden wrangles his shirt half-off and Street is stunned, not moving.
“He’s so fucking,” Harden begins, and trails off, gives up on the shirt. It’s wrapped around his neck and one arm, making him look tied up. “God.”
He buries his face in the cushion and is asleep before Street has time to ask what happened. It occurs to Street that his life took flight from reason months ago. He never understands anything.
Long internal debate and then Street walks over silently, carefully disentangles Harden from his shirt. Harden’s back is sloped and unmarked, fingerprints of his spine flickering. Street folds his T-shirt and puts it on the arm of the couch. Takes the blanket off his bed and lays it carefully over Harden.
He wants to curl up on the rug and make sure Harden is okay until morning, but that won’t work. Street goes back into his own room, cold for the whole night because that blanket is the only one he has.
He wakes up to the smell of coffee. Harden is drawn and hungover, the palms of his hand stained red from the heat of the mug. The same stain spreads on his face and down his neck as Street comes in, rubbing his eyes. Harden is embarrassed, Street realizes, and that makes something ease in Street’s stomach, simple low emotion like that, and Harden should know he’s got nothing to be ashamed of.
Street doesn’t ask, gets a cup of coffee from himself and sits on the counter. They’re silent for a moment, crackle of newspaper, crush of gravel as cars go past outside, and then Harden sighs impatiently, claps his mug down.
“I just needed to get out of there.”
Street nods, perfect friend, sympathetic and not bugging out at all. “Okay.”
Harden shoots him a look. “Look. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
Street shrugs, blows on his coffee. Rattle-thump of his heels on the cabinet. Overwhelming sunlight sluicing through Rich Harden’s matted hair.
“It’s just, sometimes, you know.” Harden leaves it at that.
Nodding like he understands, Street drums his heels a little harder, watching the familiar pinched line dig between Harden’s eyebrows. Bad hangover but Harden won’t tell him to keep quiet, because Street let him in last night and gave him his only blanket.
“You could tell me about it,” Street suggests, and then hides his grimace behind his coffee cup, not sure what possessed him to say that.
Harden makes a raspy little laugh, rolling his eyes. “Yeah. Doubtful.”
Even though he didn’t really want to hear it, Street still feels vaguely affronted, and he can’t keep watching Harden’s face, dark patches under his eyes, gold-brown scruff on his jaw, bitten mouth.
“Fine. Only took you in off the streets at three in the stupid morning, but whatever.”
Harden snorts. “Look at you.”
Street looks down at his legs and hands, but doesn’t see anything different. Harden’s talking on a different level.
“Why’d you come here?” Street asks. “Whyn’t you go to Danny’s? Or. A hotel?”
Harden stares at the tattered newspaper, his shoulders drawing up slowly. Street is beginning to get to know that very well, the way Harden closes up physically even though he’ll still say almost anything.
“Felt dumb, you know? Like. Me and him, it’s not. Easy. Never has been. And lately, it’s been. I don’t know. Feel like I keep getting kicked. Don’t know how to stay down.”
Street remembers Crosby playing on a broken ankle, thinking that the two of them have so much in common it’s almost scary.
“Anyway,” Harden continues, sighing. “Dan would think he has to fix it, so would anybody else. But it’s not like that.”
Sunken feeling in his chest, Harden looking dismayed, like he never expected to find himself here, and Street wants to touch him so much it makes him dizzy.
He clears his throat, banishes all the bad stuff from his mind. “You came here instead?” Didn’t mean for it to be a question. Too late, too late.
Harden looks up at him, slant-faced, sharp smile that is blue in his eyes and cold on his mouth. “Figured I hadn’t traumatized you enough for one year.”
And Street finds himself laughing, almost falling off the counter, Harden saying in surprise, whoa hey, and half-rising like he’ll be there to catch Street before he hits the tile. Street finds himself blindsided, knocked clear out of his senses because he’s got his best friend back just like that, and it wrecks him. It’s not what he wants anymore.
The position players show up and everything gets progressively louder and crazier. Harden and Crosby fuse back together in the chaos, brittle edges and neither of them look like they’ve slept in months. Street walks in on them with their arms around each other in the video room, so tight it’s got to be painful, Harden’s face hidden in Crosby’s shoulder. Street falls back out into the hallway, shouting behind him, “At least lock the door!” and it takes his heart almost an hour to stop pounding.
A week or two after that, Harden breaks Crosby’s car.
Starts off after a game, when Harden goes over to Crosby in the clubhouse and swats him on the knee. “Dude. You’re blocking me in.”
Crosby is playing Xbox with Chavez and doesn’t look at him. “’Kay.”
Harden shifts his weight, a scowl slowly moving onto his face. Street is over by the spread, watching them like a sitcom. “So. Move your fucking car.”
“Kinda in the middle of something, Richie,” Crosby tells him, twisting his shoulders. “Goddamn it, Chav. Knock it off with the laser thing.”
“Hey.” Harden is crossing from annoyed to mad, subtle change in the weather. “I’ve got shit to do, man, could you just move your car please.”
“Give me a fucking minute. Christ.” Crosby hasn’t looked up, not once.
Harden’s eyes are darkening and Street’s breath is short, twelfth-inning tension and everything in the room seems to have zeroed down to Crosby on the couch and Harden standing over him with his fists at his sides. Chavez is sneaking glances at him and gingerly moving down the couch, away from Crosby.
But Harden just turns and walks away, and Crosby mutters something under his breath that Street is glad he’s too far away to hear.
He thinks it’s over, and then he sees Harden rummaging in Crosby’s locker, roughly pulling out his bag and going right for the pocket where Crosby keeps his keys, which of course Harden would know. Street gets a bad feeling about this, watching Harden leave through the tunnel.
Three minutes later, Harden is back, red-faced with the keys clutched in his hand.
“Bobby.”
“What, I told you I’d move it when I’m done-” but Harden is laughing, crazy high-pitched laugh, and that finally, finally draws Crosby’s attention. Looks at Harden’s face, wide pissed-off eyes and the keys cutting into his palm, and Crosby gets up. “What the fuck did you do?”
Harden just shakes his head, still laughing, and tosses Crosby’s keys at him. Crosby snatches them out of the air, blurs across the room and slams his shoulder into Harden’s chest as he passes. Harden trips into the wall and covers up his face, hiccupping and calming down. His hands are shaking, Street can see from all the way over here.
Haren’s the first to follow Crosby, and then Chavez, and Street figures he should probably go too. Harden latches on to him in the doorway and Street walks the long length of the tunnel with Harden’s hand in his belt, knuckles on his hip. He asks Harden what happened, but Harden won’t answer.
Crosby is standing in disbelief at his car. The side mirror is torn almost all the way off, hanging by a wire, and there’s a jagged ugly dent along the driver’s side door, the paint scraped away. The stone post that did the damage is completely unharmed.
Danny’s got his hand over his mouth, which should be funny but isn’t really. Chavez is fingering the dent, paint chips flecking down to the asphalt. The damage is forcefully incongruent, big shiny black car, the broken mirror and naked dent like a wormhole in a waxy red apple.
Gets bad real quick, when Crosby sees Harden and starts screaming at him, and Harden, idiotically, starts screaming back. You stole my fucking keys; you should have moved it when I fucking asked you to; you’re not allowed to drive my car; except for when you’re fucking drunk, huh; son of a bitch; fucking cocksucker.
Street’s never been perfectly at home with profanity, but he’s gotten used to it, four-letter words and the casual way his teammates take the Lord’s name in vain. Painfully nostalgic, now, for his ears to burn, taste of soap in the back of his mouth, wanting to hiss at them imploringly, you guys.
Chavez casts a nervous look towards the pair of security guards smoking by the fence, and the kids still clustered at the entrance to the players’ lot, white baseballs and Sharpies in their hands, and says in a low voice, “Hey, dude, come on, keep it down.”
Harden and Crosby don’t pause. Street doesn’t think they’re even aware that they’re not alone out here. Crosby wrenches a hand in Harden’s shirt and Harden shoves him off. Harden’s eyes are terrifyingly bright.
“You’re fucking paying for it.”
“Like you don’t make enough money to pay for it yourself, you cheap prick?”
Crosby looks like he wants to howl. He swings away from Harden and in one quick motion, rips the mirror off the side of the car, snap of the wire, and then pegs it overhand into Harden’s car. Twenty years Bobby Crosby’s arm has been training for this moment, and a rifled crack splits the back window, and then they’re screaming again.
Chavez and Haren exchange freaked-out looks and vanish back into the clubhouse. Street stands watching for a while longer, as Harden and Crosby decimate each other with almost gleeful savagery. It seems like something he should bear witness to, because maybe later they’ll try to pretend it didn’t happen or it wasn’t so bad, try to stitch their patchwork relationship back together like they always do, and Street wants to be the innocent bystander who can swear without prejudice that, yes, they killed each other that afternoon, they went too far to get back.
So that’s that, and anyway the season’s starting, they don’t have time for this. There are steps to breaking up with the love of your life, Street thinks, denial and anger and bargaining and other ones that he can’t remember right now.
Their timeline is compressed, though, because they’ve got the team and the Yankees waiting for them back home in Oakland. They are obligated to heal and return and be oblivious to each other, because they are the hot pick this year and the lights on them hide nothing.
Harden gets kinda manic, climbing all over them, laughing that new screechy laugh. It’s godawful and unsettling. He’s usually so cool.
Crosby has mainly stopped talking.
Crosby threw him out, which is weird because Street had assumed that the house was Harden’s, Harden being the one who was supposed to be in Phoenix in February, but he must have gotten it wrong. Weeks later, Harden will tell him that he slept in his car the first night, before getting a hotel room to pass the remainder of spring training.
Street’s getting ahead of himself, but he can’t get rid of the image of Harden laid out in the back of his car, the moonlight a twining river line on his face, broken through the crack in the window.
Street makes a few aborted gestures, Canadian beer, a lightning bolt decal, the name of a garage that could fix Harden’s car without a seam, but Harden brushes him off, big smile on his face, it’s cool man, I’m okay.
Like Street can’t see his eyes. Like Harden hasn’t been smashed apart.
They get back to Oakland and Street moves in with Swisher and Blanton, a girlfriend and a wife, their rambling country-music house in the flatlands beyond the hills. Crosby and Melhuse are living together again. Harden got a place of his own. Street is glad to be removed, somewhere where love is normal and sweet and has a Kentucky accent, but he wakes up sometimes and there are no feet thumping on the roof over his head, no shouts of laughter, no rainbow-colored water balloons arching like daytime planets past his window.
In Kansas City, then, where the wind and rain populate the city more than the people, Crosby says drinks are on me and takes everyone out, except for Harden, who is not invited, and Street, who is not picking sides, just early-season tired.
Houndstooth pattern on the bedspread, red and blue woven together, and Harden comes in with two sixes of Molson, barefoot and wearing Street’s favorite T-shirt, which he thought he’d lost sometime last year, but instead was apparently stolen.
Street glares at Harden, broad shoulders stretching out the fabric and a burn mark on the hem. “Nice shirt.”
Harden looks down at himself, blinking a bit in confusion. “Yeah? It’s a little small,” he answers without guile.
Street rolls his eyes, feeling oddly better, because at least Harden isn’t a conscious thief. He’d cut the tag out of that shirt, the only bad thing about it, and he can imagine the ragged stub scratching at the back of Harden’s neck.
They drink for awhile, mirror images of each other on the two beds, pillows propped up behind their backs, the television muttering spastically. Not much to talk about, Street’s muscles all clenched up.
“You could have gone with them, you know,” he says eventually, not taking his eyes off the screen. “I mean, it’s kinda not cool for him to take everybody out and not invite you.”
Shrugging, Harden licks the mouth of his beer. “Whatever. He’s trying to be all, like, these are my friends, but I was here first.”
Harden stares resolutely at the television, and Street feels bad for bringing it up. He pushes his feet at the bedspread, scrunching it out of shape. His throat is greased and two beers in, he’s starting to haze at the corners. He thinks it’s kinda remarkable.
“I’m okay, though,” Harden says, out of nowhere.
Street nods confidently. “No, I know.”
Awkward silence. Harden sighs. “This sucks.”
Not knowing what else to do, Street kills his beer and goes into the bathroom, where they’ve got the rest icing in the sink. He looks at himself in the mirror and he could be sixteen years old still, nineteen, twenty-one like last year and his ID had gotten confiscated four times by bouncers thinking it was a fake.
“Hey?” he calls out, icy wet hand smoothing a cowlick down. Harden grunts something. “Do you think we should have gotten a place together? You and me and. I dunno. Adam or Dan?”
He can hear the laugh in Harden’s voice. “These are my roommates,” he mocks.
Street stands in the doorway and grins at him. Harden grins back charmingly.
“We coulda got a way better place than what he’s got, too,” Street says, leaning on his shoulder.
“As if that’s hard. Bobby’d be happy with a fucking roof and no walls.”
Street thinks about that, then says, “I’d definitely need walls.”
Harden starts to laugh, devolving into a cough in the middle of it and his face turns an alarming shade of red. Street gets frightened and comes over, puts his cold hand on the back of Harden’s neck and Harden jerks, coughing hard. Street pounds him on the back a few times and Harden pushes him away, shaking his head.
“Making it worse,” he says, gasping, but the spell has passed. Street sits down next to him and watches the color fade from his face, his breathing evening out. Harden tips his head back and his neck is still flushed.
“Fuck, man,” Harden says eventually. “You’re just so.”
Street’s head is swimming, maybe more drunk than he realized, and Harden is far outpacing him, four beers down.
“What?”
Shaking his head, Harden grins again, clean shine in his eyes. “You’re killing me.”
Street raises his eyebrows, his chest going thin and tight. “What’re you talking about?”
Studying him for a long second, Harden shrugs. “Ah. I’m drunk.”
Street nods, and gets uncomfortable sitting close to Harden like this, his hand on the bed behind Harden’s back. He goes back over to the other bed, opening his beer and downing half of it in one pull.
They drink for a little while longer, and Harden slumps back further and further on the bed, until his legs are sprawled out like matchsticks and his head is canted against the headboard in a way that looks painful. Street loses count of how many beers they’ve each had, just knows that when he goes into the bathroom for another one, there’s nothing in the ice. He also stumbles coming back into the room, almost falling, so he’s probably drunk.
He faceplants onto the foot of Harden’s bed, and Harden pokes him curiously with his foot.
“Outta beer,” Street muffles into the bed, rubbing his face on the slippery blue-red bedspread.
“Sucks,” Harden replies, and Street turns his head to the side, peers up at him, sees Harden with his head back and his eyes closed, his hand moving slowly on his stomach.
Street swallows, asks a dumb question, “Why’d you guys break up?”
Flinching, not opening his eyes, Harden’s hand comes to a stop and Street’s sorry he caused that, sorry that Harden’s hand isn’t slow and hypnotizing anymore.
“I mean, it wasn’t just because of the car, right?”
Harden exhales, his expression blurry and pained. “No. The car was just. What do you call it. Symptom. Last straw. Like that.”
Street rolls over onto his back, his legs hanging off the bed, the sole of Harden’s foot warm and flat against his side. Rolling over was maybe a bad idea, because now his mind is floating somewhere up near the ceiling, and Street puts his hand on Harden’s ankle to steady himself until the word comes back in focus.
“So why, then?”
Long pause, long enough for Street to be preparing his apology, didn’t really mean to bring it up, still none of his business. He checks and Harden is looking at him, eyelids half-mast and half-debauched, swollen around his eyes and his hair a pointy spiky curly mess.
“Why do you want to know?” Harden asks him.
Street plays his thumb on the bump of Harden’s ankle, liking the solidity of it, like a button he can press on and a door might swing open. “Drunk,” he offers, as if that’s the answer to everything.
“Lightweight.”
“That too.”
Harden smirks. He’s really very good-looking, in a way that makes Street feel fevered and slightly delirious, makes him want to drive too fast and burn photographs.
“He just bugs the shit out of me,” Harden tells him, but his mouth is moving strangely and Street would bet money that he’s lying. “He’s, like, always got to be so cool all the time.”
“You’re cool all the time,” Street mumbles without thinking. Harden rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, but I don’t got to be.”
Street’s confused by this logic, though it doesn’t seem to matter. Harden continues, “He thinks, like, we can hang everything on a good start. He doesn’t. Been on fucking autopilot. And he’s always there. Can’t get rid of him. Promised me it wouldn’t get like this. Promised. Then I was like, where the fuck did you go, and he was all, still here, and, like, fuck if he was, you know?”
Harden widens his eyes meaningfully at Street as if Street’s supposed to understand that. Street just nods, distracted by the blue.
“And then he kept picking fights, like if he wasn’t gonna want me anymore, next best thing would be to hate me, which, just. That doesn’t make any sense, right?”
Street shakes his head, his hair ruffling. He tightens his grip on Harden’s leg. “Not really.”
“So, okay. He’s crazy. Whatever. Wanted a fight, fucking well got one, didn’t he.”
Harden waves his hand indiscriminately through the air, closing his eyes again, his forehead lined. Street is all of a sudden impossibly sad, can feel it down in his bones.
He rubs a circle around Harden’s ankle bone, staring at the ceiling, more drowning than swimming now.
“Do you miss him, Richie?” Street asks, not at all sure what he’s going for here, so drunk the world looks like watercolor.
Harden sighs again. “He gave really good head,” he says wistfully. Street, shocked, jerks his hand off Harden, and Harden cracks up.
“Dude,” Harden says through his laughter. “Dude, what is with you tonight?”
Street sits up, the room reels, and he puts his hands on his head, steady now, steady. He doesn’t know if he wants to hear any more of this. Doesn’t know if he wants Harden to be all the way over at the top of the bed.
“I was just askin’,” dropping his g’s, accent coming on strong. He feels Harden sitting up, sliding down. Harden folds his legs in, sits Indian-style with his knee pressing into Street’s hip.
“I do miss him,” Harden says, serious for once. “He was, like. Everything. For so long. Keep trying to remember when it started, like, what day was it, where were we, what was our record. No good, man. Because, Bobby, he’s,” and Harden’s voice is breaking up like AM radio. “He’s always been. Just. Always been.”
Street looks at him and sees Harden all foggy and shivering, his hands fluttering on his knees. Street wants to place his fingers on Harden’s forehead, slip down so that his eyelids will close and he’ll stop looking at Street like that.
“Not enough to get back together, though?” Street says, hating the hopeful lift, showing too much just like always.
Harden considers it, then shakes his head. “Nah. I. I know about things being over.”
He looks awful for a moment, his face bleak and downcast, but then he smiles, sudden and sharp and fake, and touches his forehead to Street’s shoulder, making Street jump. They’re so close, and Harden smells like beer and the jelly beans they’ve been buying cheap since Easter.
“Wanna know something? ‘s a secret,” Harden murmurs, his breath clouding through the thin material of Street’s shirt.
Street swallows so hard he feels his throat click. He keeps thinking, he could half-turn and put his hand on Harden’s leg, above his knee, denim and muscle pulled tight. Keeps thinking that there are reasons why he shouldn’t, can’t, but when he tries to remember what exactly they are, they’ve vanished.
“Sure,” he manages. He can feel Harden smiling, can feel him lifting his head and propping his chin on Street’s shoulder, breath so warm on his face and Street’s so drunk, closes his eyes and forces his hands to stay on his knees.
Harden whispers into his ear, “I did it on purpose.”
“What?” Street whispers back, glad they’re talking so low, because he doesn’t think his lungs would provide him volume right now. Harden’s hand snakes around his wrist, and Street is doing everything he can to remain perfectly still.
“His car. Did it on purpose. Wanted to fuck it up. Bobby, he, he loves that car so fucking much.”
Letting out a shaky surprised breath, Street opens his eyes and Harden moves back slightly when Street turns to look at him. Up close like this, Harden’s face is dimly flushed and his cheekbones stand out. Street keeps picturing stone angels with upturned hands full of snow, but he knows that’s not right.
“That’s terrible, Rich,” he whispers, meaning it, because you shouldn’t try and hurt someone like that, it’s better when it’s an accident.
Harden lifts one shoulder, looking almost like he’s gonna cry. “It was pretty bad for me, too.”
And Harden shifts as if to move away, and Street doesn’t think, reaches up and curls his fingers on the back of Harden’s head and clumsily brings their mouths together.
Teeth-painful and Harden sucks in a stunned breath from Street’s lungs, split second to taste Molson and red cherry, and then Harden is slamming back, falling onto the bed, his eyes huge.
“What the fuck, Huston?” he almost screams.
Through his immediate and numbing mortification, Street has time to see that Harden looks scared more than mad, and Street stands, shoving his hands in his pockets, mumbling, “sorry sorry sorry,” like a rosary.
His eyes are wet and he thanks god he’s spent so many nights in hotel rooms, he can find the door blind. But Harden’s stopping him, saying his name again, saying, “Wait, hey, come on,” and the wheeze of the mattress as he gets up.
Catches Street’s arm at the door and flips him easily and Street wrenches his head to the side, blinking superspeed to keep the tears in, to keep from having to look at Harden’s face.
“What was that?” Harden asks, sounding completely lost.
Street shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Nothing. Stupid. Won’t do it again. Really sorry.”
“No, but,” and Harden’s hand is on his stomach, when did that get there, wide and firm and fingers curving around his side, holding him in place against the door. “You’re not. I mean. You’re from Texas.”
It’s almost enough to make him laugh, if he weren’t so destroyed.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Street says hopelessly, concentrating on the arch of Harden’s hand on his stomach, thumb clutching at the edge of the muscle.
“But you’re not gay,” Harden insists, half-panicked. “You don’t even like me being gay.”
Street tries to will himself out of existence, but it doesn’t work. His face is so hot he imagines the air between the two of them is rippled with heat shimmer.
“That’s not. You just assumed, but I never. Never said that.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, dude.”
“Don’t swear,” Street responds out of habit, then winces. He wishes Harden would let him leave, wishes Harden would take his hand away.
Harden does, and Street’s knees almost bow with relief, but then Harden touches his jaw, pushing his chin up, and that’s worse, because that makes Street’s eyes come open and Harden’s face fills his vision, white-black fuzz at the edges and Harden is dazed, staring at him like Street just pulled down the moon.
“You. You want this?” Harden asks in astonishment, moving his hand in the thin space between their bodies.
Street shakes his head automatically, his tongue feeling too big, his heart high in his throat. He doesn’t want this, doesn’t want the heartbreak that is Crosby and Harden’s defining feature right now, doesn’t want to sneak and hide, doesn’t want his life to be ruined, doesn’t want his car messed with.
Harden’s expression falls, anger swiftly planing his face. “Then what the fuck?”
Street takes a deep breath, cleaning the debris out of his chest until it’s vacant and free. “It’s not this that I want,” he says slowly. “It’s. You.”
And he doesn’t know where the difference is. He hasn’t explained it very well, it caroms around in his head like a lost marble, sucker punch to say it out loud, even broken up and incoherent. Now it’s in his mind forever, clawing to get out, want you, i want you, not this but you.
Harden stares at him, dumb blue eyes and his lips parted slightly, and Street feels about fourteen years old, waiting to get beaten up. But Harden never does what’s expected, and something flares in his eyes, spike of white teeth as he almost smiles, and then his hands are on Street’s shoulders and he’s driving him even harder into the door, hiking him up a little bit because Harden is kissing him.
Harden is kissing him, one hand rising to Street’s forehead and pressing down, angling his head back so that Harden’s got more leverage. Harden is kissing him, knows more about this than Street could ever hope to, with his teeth intentional this time, nipping at Street’s lip, and when Street gasps, Harden licks the insides of his mouth. Harden’s body is pinning him in place, knee pushing between Street’s legs.
Street is kissing him back, and he realizes that after far too long, after his hands are already cupping Harden’s face, coffee-hot ears under his fingers, soft wrinkled hair. His tongue is caught momentarily in Harden’s teeth, sting, and then he can taste everything, beer strong and cherry weak in the background, wet here and so hot he feels the paint peeling at his back.
Dropping his head into the crook of Street’s neck and shoulder, Harden carves strange patterns on Street’s collarbone, and he’s pushing Street’s shirt up, long battered fingers on Street’s ribs and stomach, and Street is fighting hard for air, his hips moving out of control.
Harden mutters, “here, let me,” and rips Street’s pants open, one-handed and the other is clutching at the back of Street’s neck. Street makes a sound he has never made before, strangled whine, and Harden brings them together again, kisses him hard enough that Street’s head clocks back against the wall, and stars, amazing collapsing stars behind his eyes.
Happens so quick. Harden’s hand pushing into his shorts and once, twice, thumb running in a line, bare and dry and Street has never been so naked, never done anything like this before. Harden knows, they’ve played I Never and Street didn’t drink once, so Harden is whispering into his ear, “It’s okay, c’mon, you’re fine,” as his hand is moving and Street is shuddering, begging him for something undefined.
Harden licks Street’s earlobe and twists his wrist and Street comes all over his hand and a little bit on his formerly favorite shirt, livewire through his whole body, vision whiting out. His legs give out and he slides down the door, crumpling on the floor at Harden’s feet.
High-note happy for a moment as he lies there and draws in ragged cuts of oxygen. Like he’s made of silver, like he could fly. Harden lies down beside him and his arm hooks around Street’s chest, kissing Street’s shoulder and throat. Awed, Street nudges Harden’s face until their mouths meet again, and Harden groans and sort of rolls on top of him, and that’s incredible. Paperweighted by Harden’s body, the rain can’t get to them and Street can feel all of him, hard against his stomach and Harden’s jeans chafing Street pretty badly as he works his way between Street’s legs. Street doesn’t care.
He’ll never care about anything again, because he’s got Rich Harden rocking into him, taking Street’s hand and wedging it between them, both their hands pressing against Harden through his jeans, and it’s not weird at all, like Harden’s harsh breath on his mouth is not weird, and Harden’s chewed-up voice saying his name is not weird.
Street rubs as well as he can, the angle being what it is, and Harden braces himself on his knees so that their hands aren’t crushed, free to move. Harden’s other hand is by Street’s head and Street can hear his watch ticking. Street stares up at him, still too drunk and too young and too new at this, can’t get over the way Harden bites his lower lip in concentration and tips his head to the side.
Baffled to find himself thinking that he wants to do everything, wants to skid down Harden’s body and put his mouth on the hollow of Harden’s hip, suck a bruise there, wants to touch him everywhere. Wants everything that Harden can do to him, even the stuff that will send him to hell. Even that, because this is the best he’s ever felt, right now.
Harden over him like the sky, and Street reaches up, brushes his fingertips across Harden’s cheek, and Harden looks down at him and smiles and finishes, gripping Street’s wrist.
They lie there together on the floor for a long time. Street is almost painfully happy. Harden burns a line all along his side, his arm back over Street’s stomach. Street’s shorts are tugged up, but his jeans are still gaping open, and he likes that, it feels cool and dangerous and grown-up and other things that he’s never been before.
Woozy from the fading drunk, yawning and his jaw pops, Street rests his cheek against Harden’s hair and falls asleep. He wakes up several hours later, to Harden prodding him and saying his name.
“Dude, you’re in front of the door. Hey. Huston.”
Street blinks slowly and the room is dark. Harden is crouching beside him, his hair wet and smelling of shampoo. Shower steam curls around Street’s body. Street is stuck half-drunk, half-asleep, like waking up after two hours with sleeping pills still dragging in his system, like a caffeine overdose.
“What’s going on?” Street asks hazily, his body protesting every movement. Takes him a minute to remember what happened, and then Street’s eyes fly open, Harden a dim silhouette.
“I’ve got to go, man. You’re blocking the door.”
Street stiffens, scared at once and so bad his teeth chatter.
“Oh, um.” He sits up. His jeans are still undone, and he fixes them with trembling hands. “Okay.”
Harden cocks his head to the side, and stands, offering Street his hand. Street lets himself be pulled up and weaves into Harden a bit, his equilibrium shot. Harden doesn’t steady him, though Street thought he might, with his hand flat on Street’s stomach, clasping his shoulder. Something.
It’s so dark, and adrenaline is making Street feel seasick.
“So, I’ll. See you later, I guess?” Street says, wondering endlessly why Harden isn’t staying, why they aren’t pulling the sheets back and crawling into bed, jeans finally gone once and for all, skinned and warm against each other.
Harden’s eyes glitter. “Are you, like. You’re not freaking out or anything?”
Street shakes his head emphatically. He’s been freaking out for eight months now; he’s well over his limit.
“Because you look kinda like you’re freaking out.”
“I’m not the one leaving,” Street snaps, and is horrified at himself, shrinking back. His eyes prickle with tears, and he’s so tired of this.
But Harden makes a surprised noise and comes to him, walks Street backwards into the wall and the memory snags heat through Street’s heavy limbs. Harden just leans into him, though.
“I’ve got to go. If I stick around somebody’ll see me leaving in the morning.” He speaks with assurance. He’s done this a million times before. Harden hooks his hands in Street’s front pockets. “You’ve got to trust me, man.”
Street nods, poled by the feel of Harden’s knuckles high on his legs. Harden kisses him, sweet and clean like Street’s life used to be, and whispers against his mouth:
“It gets better after this.”
Then Harden leaves, one last smile in the triangle of yellow light from the open door, then gone.
Street undresses mechanically, gets in bed and curls up with his knees against his chest and his heart hammering. Doesn’t realize he’s crying until he tastes salt. Harden might know all about it, second time through, but Street is going to be caught off-guard by everything, constantly losing his balance, his direction, his faith, every day until the day that it ends.
And it will end, of that there is no doubt. If his brief major league career has taught him anything, it’s that nothing this good ever lasts. That’s not even the worst part.
Huston Street is already clocking their descent. Just one night, and he’s already steeling himself for the holocaust ahead, not even in love yet and already waiting to fall out of it, because life rebounds like this, and Street only knows how to go up.
THE END