Faster Than A Speeding Bullet, part 2
Part 1
Jesse is crossing the street when his phone rings, which is why he doesn’t look at the caller ID before he answers it.
“Jesse’s phone.”
“Well, there’s always video-chat.” It takes Jesse a moment to place the voice. He does, though, probably because he’s been half expecting Ryan to call again ever since they’d talked after Jesse got back to New York a few days ago. He may not have been expecting this particular inanity, but he thinks he ought to be able to figure it out with a little context.
“You mean in the world or...”
“You don’t like texting and talking on the phone makes me-well, I don’t like it. I’m just saying, that rules out most modern methods of keeping in touch. I mean, I guess we could be penpals, or set up very tall smoke signals-”
“-very tall. You could light up a redwood, I guess?” Jesse is smiling, partly at the conversation, he guesses, but mostly because he made it to the sidewalk alive, which he’d actually doubted for a second when he’d stopped short in the crosswalk at the sound of Ryan’s voice and been treated to an aggressive honk from the taxi.
Ryan laughs too, says, “I’m pretty sure Officer Matt would disapprove. And Smokey The Bear. Plus, it’s only a short-term solution, because how would you respond? No redwoods in The Big Apple that I know of.”
“Jesus Christ, what-Officer Matt?” Jesse manages to choke out.
“My friendly neighborhood police officer. Some of my neighbors are very sensitive to noise or something, I guess.”
Jesse guesses that’s fair enough. “And you might be wrong about New York, you know. Central Park contains multitudes.”
“So that’s decided, then? Smoke signals? I can, like, disable the calling feature on my phone?”
“You can if you want. I’m not promising to commit arson for you, though. And I thought you wanted to preserve a good relationship with Officer Matt?”
Ryan sighs, sounding put-upon. “Officer Matt expects so much from me.”
“Tyrant. You should tell him he’s not your father. He isn’t, right?”
“Unless the world is weirder than I thought.
...
Jesse is always glad to be back in New York. There are people who tell him they could never live there, but Jesse thinks they’re probably all actually New Yorkers at heart and just don’t know it yet. Nearly everyone is-there are so many different ways to be a New Yorker that it’s almost hard not to be. If anything, their refusal to even listen to the city’s virtues again are an example of a kind of stubborn, judgementalness which is very New York.
Jesse loves it here, though, and it’s the kind of pure, uncomplicated love he doesn’t have for much of anything else in the world. Even when he hates it, he loves it. New York is, to American show business, L.A.’s classy, intellectual older cousin who got into a little trouble in college and most of the family like to whisper behind their hands about at reunions, but who’s really only a bit more open and honest about its dysfuctions than little family-golden-child L.A. Jesse’s kind of place, essentially.
His therapist is pleased to hear this-Jesse doesn’t generally have all that many unconflicted positives to tell the guy about, and he knows it, so Jesse throws him a bone, now and then, rhapsodizes about Times Square traffic or the cut-out shapes of the sky for a few minutes now and then. Just to give the man a control group to work with.
Usually when Jesse gets back from L.A., everything he does is like breathing another sigh of relief-getting a new set of foster cats, hiking out to his parents’ place for dinner, dutifully restocking his cupboards with non-perishables, digging out that old Underwood typewriter that he knows makes him more and more of a pretentious bastard every time he uses it, but which he still gets his best ideas writing at.
This time isn’t really any different, only each milestone of re-immersed New York-ness seems to be marked by another phone call from Ryan Ross, who seems to have taken, “You should call me sometime,” as an open, standing invitation, rather than the impulsive, offered platitude it was meant to be. Jesse is surprised to find that he really doesn’t mind too much.
For one thing, weird as he is, Ryan is never boring, and while Jesse does love slipping back into his routine, it is nice to have something new to add to it-a new perspective, or a new person who hasn’t heard him complain about how his downstairs neighbors still haven’t mastered the fine art of putting out their trash in such a way that it doesn’t endanger the lives of pedestrians a hundred times already.
...
When Ryan goes back to the shelter on Monday, the grey kitten has been adopted, as well as five of the seven other kittens that had been in the ‘nursery’. “Weekend rush,” Michelle says when Ryan asks her about it.
He doesn’t mind, or anything. The little grey one, whom he definitely hasn’t started to refer to in his head as ‘Smokey,’ in a two-for-one namesake move covering Smokey the bear and also Smokey Robinson, completely deserves to have gone to a good home, and Ryan is choosing to believe she’s found one. Surely they don’t let just anyone walk out of here with such tiny creatures.
As soon as he’s filed Smokey’s adoption as a good thing in his head though, it occurs to him to wonder why the little stripey kitten hadn’t made the cut. “She’s still sick,” Michelle tells him from across the room, and she sounds so much more friendly than she has to Ryan at any other time he’s been working here, and she’s saying such sensible things, of course the shelter wouldn’t let sick kitten get adopted-her new home might not know how to take care of her.
“No, they allow it,” Michelle says. “It’s just that not everyone wants to adopt a sick baby like this one,” and she’s lifting the striped kitten up in her hands, and the tiny thing is mewling at her, scratching out with little needle claws to try to get back into the enclosure. She’s holding onto the kitten just fine, but she doesn’t look too happy about the scratches, either. Ryan holds out his hands and Michelle passes the cat over. It struggles a little more, draws a little bit of Ryan’s blood, on his wrist above his gloves, but then settles down a bit, distracted by watching the movement of Michelle cleaning out the enclosure.
While she’s more occupied by that than by seeking to cause him pain, Ryan pulls her in a little closer, cradled next to his chest. She likes the dark, he guesses, as she turns away to burrow her head into the crack between his hands and torso, the shape of her skull against his ribs. When Michelle finishes cleaning out the enclosure and reaches out to take the kitten back and put her back in, Ryan doesn’t want to let her go.
He does what he has to so he can take her home, instead.
...
They’ve been talking on the phone every few days for nearly three weeks when Jesse asks, “So what’s the deal with Jon? I mean, you talk about him a lot, but you don’t seem to ever talk to him.” Jesse thinks it’s a pretty valid question-as far as he can tell, Ryan seems to be in limbo musically based on this Jon guy’s private life, and it seems to Jesse like talking to him would be a pretty good step towards figuring that kind of thing out. The fact that Ryan hasn’t brought the subject up should maybe be kind of telling in some way, but Jesse has never claimed to have much tact.
Ryan doesn’t answer for a moment, and that in itself isn’t really that unusual-Jesse has grown used to the fact that talking to Ryan on the phone is a fairly decent exercise in patience, since he’s kind of easily distracted. Still, Jesse gets the feeling that this is more of a ‘how should I say this?’ pause than a, ‘what is going on with that bush by the neighbor’s porch?’ one, so he stays quiet as well instead of trying to prod the conversation along.
“I guess it’s-I might be a little mad at him?” Over the course of the past few weeks, Jesse has heard Ryan profess violent hatred towards parents who bring small children to movie theaters, “Or anywhere out in public, if they’re going to run around screaming like little monsters,” people who abandon their pets at the shelter, loud chewers, parking meter attendants who won’t be reasoned with, and the entire internet. This tentative half-question sounds a hundred times more damning than any of those condemnations.
“Because of the band thing?” Jesse doesn’t even really pretend to know what he’s talking about. Being in music sounds more and more twisted and incestuous the better Jesse gets to know Ryan. Jesse has often made friends with his co-workers, and it has never been a problem because the actual ‘working’ part of their working relationship has always been pretty well dictated by a greater corporate structure. Even in littler, independent movies, there were always contracts going through agents and intermediaries. Being in bands, Jesse is getting the impression from Ryan, is a lot of trying to make serious business deals and decisions with your closest friends.
“No. Well, yeah, but-” Ryan’s answer pretty much makes Jesse’s point for him. Who wants to get caught up in that kind of conflicted blurring of guidelines with the people you’re closest to? (“It’s not like you ever want to be in a band with assholes,” Ryan will tell him later, acerbic, when Jesse brings up this list of complaints against his chosen profession. “And if they’re good people, which is the only way you’ll be able to stand touring with them, being around them all the time will make them your closest friends whether they started that way or not, for as long as tour lasts, anyway.”)
“It’s like, taking a break like this after one album just wasn’t a big deal for him, I mean, yeah, he wanted to get married or whatever, but still-and Panic was my band, you know? It’s not anymore, I’m not crazy, but it was, it was all I had and all I cared about for a while, and leaving was a big deal. It’s like-it’s like when you leave your wife for your mistress, it can’t just be because things aren’t working with your wife, right? What you have with your mistress has to be special, it has to be worth it, because even when things aren’t working, your wife is your wife and you married her, you promised to be together for better or for worse and you can’t break that kind of promise for just anything. You’re going to be upset, right, when you find out that to her, to the person you left your wife for, it was just a fling.”
“So ...in this scenario, Jon is your mistress and, um, and Brendon and Spencer are your wife?”
“Ex-wife, now. And no.”
“No?”
“The, um, the bands, not the people, The Young Veins was-you know what, never mind. You can say it, you know?”
“Say what?”
“This is why there were all those rumors on the internet about me sleeping with everyone in my band.”
“There were? And were you?”
“Yeah, I guess it was kind of a while ago now. Still, it’s like half of what comes up when you google me.”
“Well, I haven’t done that. Were you?”
“What, all of them? What exactly are you thinking of me, Mr. Eisenberg? And what do you mean, you haven’t done that?”
“I haven’t googled you. I don’t know, were any of the rumors true? I don’t know what they are, you know, so I’m not thinking anything in particular about you, but the extended metaphor about Jon being your mistress seems kind of telling, don’t you think?”
“That was not what I meant, I told you, I was talking about the bands, Jesus, Jesse.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Really, he only meant it to sound teasing, but they don’t always read each other right, or maybe Ryan got caught up in the relentlessness of the implied question. Either way, he sounds slightly pissed when he replies.
“Methinks you’re butchering that quote.”
“I’m word perfect-which of us would you trust to answer a daily double question on Shakespeare on Jeopardy?” That’s kind of a stupid reply, Jesse knows, kind of mean spirited, but he really doesn’t like being doubted on trivial things like this. Obsessive attention to detail is something he makes work for him, thank you very much.
“You don’t even have a TV.” And okay, this conversation is going somewhere ugly.
“No need to get defensive-”
“And just because you’re an actor doesn’t mean you know Shakespeare any better, you pretentious-”
“I just meant that I-”
“And don’t think just because you went to some-” Does he really have to do this again? Jesse doesn’t get it, this needling urge of Ryan’s to pick at his own insecurities as if Jesse had been about to say anything about whether or not he’d finished college. He hadn’t been going to even though it was relevant, because he really hadn’t wanted this to get vicious. Not for the first time, Jesse wonders what the hell they’re doing.
“I was not going to bring that up, what the fuck, Ryan?”
“I slept with Spencer when I was sixteen.”
Jesse takes a breath. That is not at all what he was expecting, he’d already almost forgotten about the original question. He just needs a second to get himself situated on this new conversational track. He takes another breath. And another.
“Jesse?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Is that an ‘I didn’t hear you’ kind of ‘what’ or a ‘I don’t know why you said that’ kind?”
Jesse considers for a moment. “Neither. Closer to the second one, I guess.”
“You asked.”
“I know.”
“It was before the band, it was over a long time before the band was going anywhere and it was never an issue.”
“Okay.”
“We were just kids. We were trying things out.” Jesse and his friends had never tried out anything like that when they were just kids. Still, he had asked.
After a pause, Ryan asks, “You didn’t internet-stalk me at all? What am I, boring or something?”
…
The first few days she lives with him, Alleycat skulks around under beds and in corners and Ryan barely catches a glimpse of her. He begins to understand why Jeff had said he might want to start by keeping her shut in one room for a few days-if it weren’t for the slowly disappearing bowl of cat food and the clumped up litter in the litter box in the laundry room every morning, Ryan might have started to worry that he’d lost her.
Finally, though, on the third day, Ryan’s patience in resisting the urge to chase the kitten from room to room trying to get her to stay still for just a few seconds is rewarded. He’s pretty proud of himself for the ‘ignoring her’ strategy later, when he knows her well enough to see how cat-like it was, and it was even half his own idea, even if the other half was that it was also Jesse’s advice.
Anyway, on the third day, Ryan is sprawled out on the couch watching some cop show-he never can remember which is which past the theme song-when he feels the barely-there impact of a small cat leaping from the floor to the cushion next to him. He glances at her from the corner of his eye, murmuring as non-threateningly as he can manage, “Hey, you, up for some murder and mayhem?”
The kitten walks around in a circle a few times settling, before curling up with her back to the TV. Ryan laughs and Alleycat startles at the sound, whipping her head around to glare at him. “Not a cop show kind of girl, are you?” he asks her. “Let’s see if we can find something more your speed.”
He flips around the channels for a bit, trying vaguely to remember what the TV Guide channel is, before stumbling across an Animal Planet special about rescuing cats from up trees or burning buildings, and one of the TV cats meows, Alleycat’s head swings around to stare at the screen, before settling so she’s facing it casually, instead of twisting to see it. “So you do like cop shows after all, as long as they’re the right kind,” Ryan muses, half to himself. “Makes sense. More of a reality TV buff.”
The program is actually kind of interesting, Ryan gets pretty into it. One of the cats is only a year old, and has climbed up a giant palm tree and can’t get down. The police officer is, like, rappelling up it, or something, to catch the cat in the net, and then there’s a shot of the ground from the tree and Ryan says, “Wow. That’s pretty intense, right?”
Alleycat glances at him disdainfully.
“Well, maybe not for you. I’m sure you could hack it. I’d be pretty freaked, though.”
...
Apparently, the not-having-internet-stalked-Ryan thing is actually an issue, or that’s what Jesse finally decides the third time Ryan brings it up after he calls the next day. Finally Jesse’s got to ask, “Really? This means that much to you? Setting aside the extreme narcissism implied, you really care that much what I think?”
Ryan is quiet for a minute and Jesse thinks that might have been too much, a little meaner than he meant it to come out, knows it when Ryan says, “So am I insecure, or am I a narcissist? Just so we’re clear.”
“Wait, no, let’s not do this.”
“Let’s not do what?”
“Do you want me to look you up? Give me a minute, my computer is on the other side of the room, I’ll google you right now.”
“No-wait.” There’s something odd in his tone, strange enough that Jesse actually does stop walking, halfway across the room, to respond.
“Yeah?”
“Can you, um, can you not?”
Jesse is pretty sure this is one of those situations where he can let his silence speak for itself-the what? seems pretty well implied, so he just waits.
“I just-I did a lot of stupid shit as a kid?”
“Who didn’t?” Jesse has to ask.
“Yeah, but. I did a lot of stupid shit on the internet.”
That’s fair enough, but doesn’t explain why he’s been so insulted that Jesse hasn’t checked out his internet presence before. Shouldn’t he have been relieved instead? He asks as much, and Ryan laughs, which is good, means this probably isn’t going to turn into a debate, and says, “Yeah, I don’t know, I’m friends with a lot of creeps, I’ve gotten used to people knowing things before I tell them and so I kept waiting for you to-but you never did. Do you really not do that? Weren’t you in that movie about facebook?”
“No,” Jesse smiles, Ryan mentioning a movie Jesse was actually in, that’s got to be progress, doesn’t it? Progress towards what, he doesn’t know. Still, it’s something. “I mean yeah, I was in that, but no I really don’t-I get to know people by, you know, knowing them. Or I don’t.” A terrible thought occurs to him. “Why, um, did you?”
“Check you out on the internet?” Ryan’s voice sounds like he’s smirking, it’s awful, Jesse doesn’t even know how he does that. “You should be flattered-it means you’re interesting.”
“So what did you-”
“Nothing weird, you know, it’s not like you’ve got tons of sites up, just, you know, interviews and articles.” That smirky voice again. “A few fansites. Stuff about you seems pretty tame, though you’ve gotten bigger since The Social Network, obviously.”
“Thanks for the update,” Jesse says, dry, and Ryan laughs. “So, you want me to not look you up?” He tries. He’s starting to think trying to be clear is an uphill battle, but he hasn’t given up yet.
“Not really.”
“And if I don’t, will you let this go?”
“I just wanted you to want to,” is the answer he gets, and it sounds kind of sulky, but Jesse lets it go. It kind of makes sense to him, and he’s quitting while he’s ahead this time.
“So, did I tell you about that thing in the coffee shop this morning?”
…
The problem with Jesse, Ryan has decided, is that he’s really kind of hard to read. In a weird way, though, where he’s really smart but with an edge of that socially-awkward-kid-from-high-school vibe, only he’s a movie star, so some of that has to be an act, he’s got to have some better social instincts than he seems to. Unless he doesn’t. Ryan knows he’s probably not the best person to be judging ‘normal’, anyway, so mostly he doesn’t try, but every once in a while, he feels like he’d really like to know if Jesse is being an asshole just for fun (Ryan can respect that. He can. It’s a lot easier to see it as funny if it’s not directed at him, though) or if he really is that oblivious. For instance:
“I’m pretty sure the barista was flirting with me,” Jesse says, and he sounds kind of delightedly amused. “There was a heart in the foam in my coffee,” Jesse goes on, and Ryan kind of hates this person already.
“Are you going to go back?” Ryan can have conversations like a mature adult. Around his friends he doesn’t really have to that often, but that doesn’t change the fact that he can. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of it, too, until Jesse says, “Why?”
The bastard actually has the nerve to sound confused. “You sound pretty excited about getting hit on-I just thought you must have liked her-or, um, or him. Liked this person. Is all.”
“I, uh, I guess,” Jesse says, and, “She’s not bad, and you know what they say about Starbucks-work there long enough and get shares of the company. So I could always marry her for her money. No, I was just, you know, enjoying it. I don’t get people throwing themselves at me too often. Or, like, ever.”
And Ryan would understand that, would appreciate it as a logical reason, only, you know. It’s not true. And Ryan gets to be living proof of its not-truth, and maybe Jesse just isn’t thinking about who he’s talking to right now, which is actually kind of nice, only it isn’t, since Jesse has kind of just sarcastic-quip-ed Ryan out of existence and he is still on the phone so, you know, he feels justified in having a reaction, even if that reaction is just an only slightly forced laugh and a, “Dude. Dude. You were only just out here a couple of weeks ago-how long is ‘never’ in your head?”
“What are you talking about, what would you know about it?” Jesse sounds a little bitter and Ryan has no idea why.
“What would I know? Just, you know, primary sources. The burden of experience.” Ryan is kind of afraid of what is coming out of his mouth-that is, he isn’t quite in control of it, this is the state he gets to where he says things like, “This isn’t working, I know you can see how this isn’t working,” or “Don’t be an idiot, I don’t have the voice for the songs I want to write and you do,” or even “I’m going and you can’t stop me, you don’t even want to, don’t you know you don’t even want to yet?” This is the way he gets when big things are going to happen. He only hopes it’s not one of the silent-treatment-forever-ending kind of big things. Hard to tell, though. This time, he just says, “I have been told I’m not as subtle as I think I am, and I don’t even think there was anything subtle about asking you home with me.”
That’s pretty chatty, when it comes to Ryan and feelings and emotional reflections that are neither chemically induced nor set to music. He stops talking and waits for Jesse to start. He waits like that for a while.
Finally, “You meant that?”
“No, I think inviting people to come sleep with me and then leaving them on the curb is hilarious. It’s only when they just want to come over for pizza that they get to see my Batcave.”
“You’re a riot.”
There is way too much silent breathing-into-the-receiver. Ryan is almost about to break it-start talking about something else entirely, say, or just make his excuses and hang up, when Jesse says, “I thought it was that you were drunk.”
“I was drunk,” Ryan says. No use denying that. “And you were nice, and you were there, and I didn’t have a cat yet.”
That makes Jesse laugh, then makes him ask, “So you wouldn’t do the same now? Because of Alleycat?”
Ryan thinks about that a second. “Now I’d ask you to go out first.”
“Okay,” Jesse says, but Ryan is pretty sure it isn’t any kind of agreement-more like a settling himself, calm-the-fuck-down kind of ‘okay’ like when Spencer will put one hand over his eyes sometimes when he’s stressed. Ryan waits him out, but all he gets is an abruptly lighter tone of voice and a “I’ve got to head downtown to meet Emma, I don’t want to be late, but I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Then there’s just the dial tone.
…
Emma wants to know, “What the fuck is up with you, Eisenberg, it’s like you dropped off the planet since you left L.A.!” And Jesse doesn’t know what to say, so instead he asks her where she wants to start tonight.
“I don’t know, you lead the way, local,” she says, so Jesse leads her in the direction of a restaurant he meets interviewers at sometimes. He likes the font on their menus, and tells Emma so, and she laughs at him the way she has that makes everybody love her, even if she’s laughing at them, because she just sounds so glad so much ridiculousness exists.
They’re neither of them all that hungry, so they order an appetizer to split and a couple of drinks, and Jesse asks how shooting has been going and tries to laugh in the right places, but Andrew has already told him a few of these stories and he can’t help it-his thoughts keep drifting back to the way Ryan had sounded on the phone earlier, incredulous and maybe a little hurt, and Jesse isn’t socially inept enough not to take, “Come home with me, we can screw if you want to,” as a come-on (Ryan is right, that was not subtle, Jesse thinks he’d have to be dead not to notice it) but for some reason he’d dismissed it.
He interrupts Emma’s story about a mouse in the make-up trailer to ask, “When someone hits on you, and you’re insecure enough to assume they must just do that with everyone, is that insulting? Or, like, endearingly self-effacing?”
Emma doesn’t look too put out at being interrupted, and takes a second to consider the question. “Depends, I guess. Was this hypothetical person just being a little flirty or...”
“Asking me to come home with him.”
“And you assumed that he must just proposition every reasonably attractive guy he meets?” Jesse’s glad Emma doesn’t seem to have any trouble moving from hypothetical to reality without giving him shit about it.
“When you put it like that, it sounds so bad.”
“Yeah,” Emma agrees, signaling their waiter over. “Excuse me? We’re going to need another round if we’re going to have this conversation, I think,” she says, casting an appraising look Jesse’s way.
Jesse toys with his straw, says, “It’s not a big thing, or anything. I mean, it’s not like I need to dull the pain with ethanol, or anything, it’s just a thing.”
Jesse really needs to work on being reassuring, because that send Emma’s eyes widening, prompts her to ask, “Is this even the place for this conversation? You want to be able to come back, right? Let’s go find a bar first,” and yeah, that’s exactly the opposite of the reaction he was going for, and he has a feeling if he forces a smile, he’ll just make it worse. He goes for the other option, instead, reaching for the beer the waiter brings by and taking a long pull before speaking again. Emma nods approvingly, proving once and for all that yes, she is just as weird as the rest of his friends, she’s just more charismatic about it.
“I don’t know,” Jesse tells her, “I guess he’s a friend?” Emma waggles her eyebrows at him. “Not that kind of friend,” he goes on, partially because it’s true and partially because Emma’s crestfallen face is too great not to provoke every once in a while.
She doesn’t give him the satisfaction, though, just sends a halfhearted pout his way for a second before going on, “And then your friend hit on you and now it’s weird? What’s the problem, is he ugly?”
“No, shit, Emma, he’s really really not. And that is not what happened.” And then he tells her what did happen. And she laughs at him. She also calls him an asshole and won’t quite say why, and the waiter kind of pointedly brings their check, and Jesse realizes momentarily that they’ve gotten a little loud, but promptly puts it out of his mind. He asks Emma where she’s staying this trip as they leave, and she tells him, “On your couch of course!”
“I thought you were joking.”
“You mean you didn’t mean it?”
Jesse is a little confused. “I mean, of course you can, I just thought-it’s not like you couldn’t get a hotel. And it’s a couch, it’s not like it’s all that comfortable.”
Emma goes into lecture voice a little-it’s a really great counterpoint to the way she’s linked arms with him and is dragging them in a zigzagging pattern down the sidewalk. “We are normal people, Jesse. With normal lives. It is how we don’t become Hollywood assholes-we need to do normal people things with our lives or it all goes into jeopardy-one day we’re just getting hotels instead of staying with friends and the next we are buying different colors of the same model of car so we can color-coordinate our outfits.” She trails off, and Jesse thinks she’s either remembering someone who actually did that with horror or wishing she didn’t have principals preventing her from doing so. It’s kind of hard to tell with Emma sometimes.
She pulls herself out of her reverie with a quick shake of her head, though, before asking, slow and teasing, “Why do you think Ryan likes you then? Is it because you’re a movie star, or because you don’t act like one?”
Jesse feels his brow furrow before he even processes the thought, says, “I don’t know. I think it might be a novelty thing? I don’t think there are too many neurotic musicians.”
Emma snorts a laugh, and Jesse thinks about what he said for a second, recants, “Okay, I don’t think he knows any neurotic musicians.”
Emma doesn’t think that’s likely, though-she’s known some musicians, she says, leaning against the wall as they wait for the elevator up to Jesse’s apartment, and if all the ones Ryan knows are well-adjusted human beings, “He must be doing it on purpose, he must be purposely excluding the crazy ones and that shit just isn’t cool,” and then Jesse has to explain that this is all extrapolation, he hasn’t actually met any of Ryan’s friends, and Emma says he isn’t as good at reading people as he thinks he is and he tells her he doesn’t think he’s very good at all, and she’s tripping over Jesse’s shoes as she walks in the door, and she’s somehow got Jesse’s phone, which probably isn’t a good idea.
“What-what are you-?”
“You obviously have no idea what he likes about you and that’s just sad, Jesse, there are so many things to like about you, and figuring out which ones he does like is how you should figure out if he’s worth liking back.”
“Emma-”
“I mean, I’d say just go for it and figure out whether you want to date him or just do him later, but, like, this is you. So we need a game plan.”
“Emma...”
She waggles his phone back and forth in his face, “Shhhh. It’s ringing.”
Jesse snatches his phone back and yes, sure enough, the phone is ringing and the screen says it’s calling Ryan, and then before Jesse can decide whether or not to hang up, Ryan picks up the phone, says, “Hey, Jesse?”
“Yeah, uh, um, hi.”
“What’s up?” Ryan sounds ridiculously bright and interested, and Jesse looks at Emma desperately, but she’s just laughing, leaning against the wall of his hallway. Into the expectant silence, Ryan says, “Didn’t you have plans tonight? With Emma? How was that?”
“It was good, um, is good, Emma is traumatizing the new cat,” Jesse is pretty sure that is true, she’s crouched down by the tabby and is exclaiming over its ears. Ryan laughs. “Yeah, that does sound good. So she’s over at your place?”
Jesse nods. “She’s staying with me. Apparently. She’s very pushy lately.”
Ryan laughs again, but it sounds strained, “Well, it’s kind of late, and I wouldn’t want to stop you from entertaining.”
Jesse nods again, sadly. “Probably best. If I stay on the line anymore, she’s going to notice me again and start trying to set me up with you or something.”
Emma looks up from the cat at that, sharp and way too knowing, and probably Jesse shouldn’t have said that out loud if he wanted to avoid her attention. Ryan says, “You guys have weird slumber parties,” and his voice sounds kind of off and Jesse doesn’t know why.
“Why does your voice sound weird?”
“Jesse Eisenberg,” Ryan says, and he sounds delighted now, happier than at any other point during this phone call. “Have you been drinking? What kind of an example are you setting for the new cats?”
“Do as I say, not as I do,” Jesse tells the cat Emma has finally released from her clutches, who is vigorously washing himself a safe three feet away from her. The cat doesn’t need to worry, though-Emma has already lost interest and is standing up, telling Jesse, “You’re betraying the sanctity of the mission, give me the phone.”
He tries to evade her, but she’s really pretty coordinated and manages to get it away from him without too much trouble, telling Ryan, “Don’t be nervous, but this is a test. Now, what are your intentions towards our Jesse?”
Whatever Ryan says, Emma seems pretty pleased by it, smiles and then laughs and says, “Alright, you have my blessing. Just don’t forget to court him properly. And this is all probationary pending a real live interview when I’m back in L.A.” She laughs again, says, “You just keep thinking that, baby,” and then, “Jesse will call you tomorrow,” and hangs up, turning to Jesse and saying, “Okay where’s your damn couch?”
...
Jesse wakes up with the edges of what promises to be a pounding headache creeping up on his mental horizons. The sounds he hears coming from his kitchen would usually lead him to assume that his house has been broken into and he’s about to be brutally murdered, but today he’s pretty sure his abnormally loud burglar is Emma-shaped and all she’s murdering is, possibly, his coffee maker.
Oh. Maybe his love life, too. Jesse checks the log on his phone and, no, he was not lucky enough for it to be a terrible dream, there’s an outgoing call to Ryan Ross last night that lasted seven minutes. Perfect. Jesse forces himself up and out of bed with a groan. Emma doesn’t get to sabotage him socially and then deprive him of caffeine, it will only breed bitterness and resentment in their relationship. Jesse needs to go rescue his coffee maker before she can do any lasting damage. After that, he’ll figure out what to do about Ryan.
...
Jesse calls back the next morning, which Ryan wasn’t expecting. He says as much, answers the phone with, “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for a few more hours at least,” and Jesse laughs, so he figures he’s actually managed to hit upon the right tone.
Jesse groans a little, asks, “How drunk did I sound last night?”
Ryan has to admit, “Not too much.” He notices he’s making a ‘so-so’ kind of gesture with his hand and drops it down on the table.“So how was the rest of your night?” Ryan is pretty sure he sounds politely interested, which is maybe actually kind of telling-he doesn’t usually manage sincere politeness too well, it might be a give-away. Not that it matters.
Jesse says, “There wasn’t much of it, I crashed pretty soon after I got off the phone,” and then goes quiet. Ryan doesn’t respond, doesn’t really know how to, doesn’t know if this is just a normally abnormal call, or an Addressing The Issues type of conversation, doesn’t even know which he wants it to be. Jesse’s breathing on the other end of the line is all short puffs of air, quiet in Ryan’s ear, though he thinks Jesse must be breathing pretty loudly for Ryan to hear it at all.
After a moment, Jesse asks, “Are you still there?”
And Ryan doesn’t know where Jesse thinks he would have gone, he answers, “mhmm” and wishes, suddenly and sharply, that he had houseplants to water, or dishes to wash, or something. Something domestic to do with his hands so he could hold the phone between is shoulder and his ear as more of an afterthought.
Ryan stays quiet and walks over to the kitchen drawer with the takeout menus in it, the image of a half empty packet of cigarettes in it clear in his mind. He opens the drawer and there they are-not his brand, and he thinks Brendon might have left them, months ago, in an awkward visit that was so strained that Ryan had felt stirrings of superstition about the cigarettes, afterward, afraid that getting rid of them would have broken the tenuous friendship they’d been trying to rebuild irrevocably, so he’d left them there in the drawer to be forgotten.
In his ear, Jesse is apologizing for calling last night, saying, “I didn’t mean to, Emma dialed it and I only just got the phone away from her when you picked up,” and Ryan is pulling out a cigarette and fumbling around the jumble of junk in the bottom of the drawer for the book of matches he knows must be there somewhere, and none of this makes any sense.
“Why did Emma want to call me? I don’t know her.”
“I, um, kind of told her about you.” Jesse mumbles a little over the words.
“Just about, like, who I am? Or about-?” Ryan does not have to ask this question. He remembers talking to Emma last night, and he knows. He doesn’t have to light this cigarette, either, though-doesn’t have to nearly drop the match as it blazes to life, doesn’t have to hold onto it once the cigarette is lit until it burns his fingertips and he drops it on the counter, blowing it out frantically. He doesn’t have to do any of these things but he does them anyway.
Jesse says, “About what you said, yesterday,” and Ryan knew it, he knew it but it never hurts to get outside confirmation. He breathes smoke and Jesse goes on, “And she had no right to call you and I’m sorry,” which Ryan thinks is really not the issue to be focusing on, here.
He tells Jesse, “I didn’t mind,” which is true and “She was nice,” which is less true from an objective standpoint, he thinks, but true enough to Ryan. Emma reminds him of his own friends. What he really wants to ask is why Jesse is sorry, but he’s suddenly struck by the thought that maybe he doesn’t want to hear the answer out loud. He walks over to the back door, opens it to lean on the frame, takes another drag.
Jesse says, after a pause, “Well, good. I wouldn’t want to think that she’d messed anything up.”
“Anything like what?” Ryan asks on the end of a breath.
“Anything like this. Like talking to you.”
“Yeah.”
“And like, maybe, something else?”
“Yeah?” Ryan suddenly kind of wishes he wasn’t smoking.
“You said-“ Jesse sounds nervous. “You said that if you’d just met me now, you’d ask me out.”
Ryan isn’t totally sure that’s what he’d actually said, but it’s probably close enough that saying anything contradictory would just muddy the issue. He stays quiet, not sure what Jesse is waiting for-if there was supposed to be an implied question in the statement.
Jesse asks, “So why not now?” and Ryan can’t think of anything to say but, “Are you asking?” which is stupid, of course Jesse is asking something and the structure of the question of what that something is implies that it is probably not what Ryan is asking if it is, and all of this makes utter sense to Ryan, though he thinks he’d probably rather stab himself than try to articulate it, but none of it matters anyway, because Jesse seems to get what Ryan was getting at. Ryan is almost too busy marveling at that to take in the fact that Jesse is saying, “Yeah, I guess this is me asking.”
He does, though, he hears that, takes it in, rolls it around in his mind for a second, and thinks he already knows the answer when he asks, “So is this just a trans-continental booty call, or are you asking me to go steady?”
Jesse laughs, and he sounds relieved, says, “I meant the second thing, but if the first is on the table-“ and Ryan is smiling, can feel his muscles stretch and curve, says, “Maybe we can do both?” and Jesse says yes in a way that means Ryan can practically hear that he’s smiling, too, and Ryan doesn’t know exactly how to give him both parts of that statement at once except-
“So, um, what are you wearing?”
...
“So, um, what are you wearing?”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, I can’t have phone sex with you.”
“You can’t-”
“Okay, I said that wrong. I will not try to have phone sex with you, Jesus, Ryan. Does that sound like any kind of a good idea to you?”
“Well-” Jesse is glad it sounds like Ryan has at least some idea how badly that would turn out, “But you’re not here,” and okay, he’s got to stop that half-plaintive, mostly-monotone-thing now, it’s making Jesse’s fingers itch to start looking up flights to L.A. or possibly install a webcam. Possibly both. Um, wow. He thinks it’s possible that he’s just gotten involved in a long-distance relationship in the twenty minutes since he got back from walking Emma to the subway. He’s a little impressed with himself.
…
Shannon is less so. “You were already in a relationship, Jesse.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He’s pretty sure he should have noticed that. However, he’s also pretty sure he called Andrew, not Shannon, and yet this conversation is still happening, so maybe she’s on to something.
She seems to think so, anyway. “Not officially, maybe, but it’s not like it was a spontaneous thing, right? You’ve been building up to it for a while now. It’s like how couples celebrate their anniversaries for their first date, not the day they finally had the conversation where they decided when they were going out a couple weeks later.”
“People do that?” Jesse has never really been big on anniversaries anyway. He thinks it will probably work in his favor the way Ryan never seems to even know the day of the week, and right, there was a reason Shannon started talking about anniversaries, a reason that didn’t even seem to be about giving Jesse a panic attack, which is unusual when it comes to this subject.
Still, Jesse doesn’t think Shannon really knows what she’s talking about here. “I haven’t gone on a date with him, though.”
“Do you want to?”
“What-that is so not the point.” It isn’t. She isn’t following any kind of logical argument. Still, Jesse is pretty sure that yelling at Andrew’s girlfriend is a bad idea. It’s not her fault she isn’t making any sense. Actually, it might be. Who else’s fault could it be? It’s still probably a bad idea. He asks her, “Hey, is Andrew there?”
...
Spencer sounds relieved when Ryan tells him, casually, he thinks, he’s pretty sure he sounded casual and offhand about it, that he’s been seeing somebody. Ryan thinks this probably has something to do with that phone call a few months back when things were maybe not going quite so well.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal that Ryan called, Spencer shouldn’t have been worrying because of it, but then, Ryan also feared, in the back of his mind, that he shouldn’t have called to begin with, shouldn’t have needed to, so he maybe saw Spencer’s unspoken point. Enough, anyway, not to object to the concern in Spencer’s voice.
(The guy had had a knowing smile, and this stupid, floppy hair that made Ryan think of his own as a teenager, or what his teenage hair had aspired to be. And he’d stood really close to Ryan at the bar, and leaned in closer to talk to him, close and hot till Ryan could feel the guy’s breath near his ear. It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea to ask him to stop by for a drink.
And it had been fine-not traumatic, just uninspired, the guy had turned out to be a little pushier than Ryan liked, and not in a hot way, and Ryan got the feeling he hadn’t exactly been a life-changing lay either. That is, it’s not like he’d been expecting anything, or he hadn’t thought he was. That was why he’d surprised himself as well when, not long after the guy was out the door and out of Ryan’s life, he looked down at his phone to see that his finger was hovering over the call button, and Spencer’s number was on the screen.
He’d pressed the call button even as he was still trying to weigh the pros and cons of doing so. It hadn’t been a particularly good conversation. Ryan likes to pretend he can’t remember it, but when he’s being honest, he remembers blurting something embarrassing, near the end. Something about people leaving. Ryan doesn’t want to think about that conversation, but remembering that it existed makes him understand why Spencer might have worried.)
Worry is one thing, though. Spencer’s oddly fervent “Thank fuck” seems a bit over the top, though Ryan doesn’t mind too much, since Spencer doesn’t dwell on the relief. Instead, he goes on to actually ask about Jesse.
“He’s, um-he’s nice, he’s a nice guy and he has cats? He lives in New York,” is the best description Ryan can give him off the top of his head. He knows it’s probably not that helpful, but he doesn’t particularly think it’s funny, either, doesn’t know what Spencer is snickering about.
“Are you sure you’re not dating Jon? Chicago and New York are both cities, I can understand how you might get them mixed up-”
“-don’t be a dick, it’s not like that. Jesse is not nearly as laid back as Jon, for one thing.” Ryan feels a little bad for putting it like that, so he adds, “And Jesse’s not so down with weed, and he’s way more awkward,” but neither of those sound all that much better, either. “He’s an actor,” and then, more firmly, “I like him.”
“That’s good,” Spencer says. “You probably should, if you’re dating.”
…
Jesse thinks he really should have been expecting it, when Ryan asks him when he’s going to be in LA again-it’s a pretty logical leap, since it’s where they met, and Jesse pretty much non-specific, long-distance asked him out a few weeks ago and he supposes he hasn’t really brought it up again. That’s not really like him, he realizes as Ryan is saying, “You were out here for so long last time, but that could be because you’re out here a lot, or because you try to get as much done every trip here as you can so you can stay away as much as possible, and I don’t know which it is,” because normally, Jesse would be obsessing over this. By all rights and precedent, his mind should be going a mile a minute, trying to figure out what deciding to go out over the phone from three thousand miles apart really means but he hasn’t been at all.
It’s probably just that he’s been busy, Jesse decides-he really thinks he’s got production secured for Asuncion, and he’s been taking classes again, and when he’s gotten on the phone, he’s wanted to talk to Ryan about both of those things, maybe complain a bit, ask how Alleycat is doing, listen to some of that weird, musician gossip Ryan likes to pass on sometimes or hear him get excited talking about some sports team’s chances. Jesse wants to talk about the psychology of essay structures and why the dialogue in his play is going to sound so stilted unless he can find the exact right actors for the parts. He doesn’t want to start picking apart meanings or wonder when exactly things are going to change. It’s stupid, really.
“I don’t know,” he hedges, and it’s true, yes, but it isn’t helpful, Jesse knows this. “I don’t have any trips planned right now.”
Jesse was trying to do some cleaning up around the apartment when Ryan called, and he’s turned off the vacuum in acknowledgment of the conversation, but he’s still holding on to it, standing just where he’d gotten to on the floor. Now he leans the vacuum against his knee, so that he can hold on to the phone with one hand and press the other to his temple, because this thing could end before it starts, and if it does so because Jesse hasn’t spent enough time obsessing, he will be pissed, he really will.
“Okay,” Ryan says, and then, “I was talking to Alex the other day,” And Jesse thinks it’s good that Ryan is changing the subject, good that he’s letting this go. Jesse was just worrying that Ryan wouldn’t, really he should be glad right now, but he isn’t, he reaches out to pick a piece of lint off the back of the couch, accidentally knocks over the vacuum, which jams into a really painful spot on his knee as it goes down, but he still hears it loud and clear when Ryan says, “He was talking about this really great exhibit at the Met last time he was there,” and then, “I’ve never been to the Met,” and, “I think I’d like to, someday.”
Jesse takes a jerky, painful breath, prods at his knee with his fingers, trying to determine whether it will bruise, and then says, “It’s a pretty great place, you should probably go,” and then, “You could come stay with me when you do.”
...
Ryan doesn’t really regret promising to introduce Alex and Z to his new boyfriend some time when he’s in New York until a few days before he flies out of town. They’re at brunch, for some reason, probably mostly because Z likes the word and Ryan likes breakfast food he doesn’t have to wake up before noon for, when Alex says it, almost completely out of nowhere-they were talking about paparazzi, but that’s not exactly a subject that connects very easily to Jesse, at least not in Ryan’s head.
Alex is talking about fucking with them, though, about the battle between the dignity of the free press and, well, tabloids, when he turns to Ryan and says, “It’s too bad you’re not dating a good movie star or anything.”
Ryan feels himself tense up, even though Alex sounds like he’s probably joking, and Alex must see it, too, because he goes on, “I mean, I’m sure he’s great or whatever, but it’s not like you’re dating Brad Pitt or anything. it’s not like I could sell your torrid forbidden-love story to The Enquirer and have anyone care.”
Z disagrees, “You could at least sell it to People and get a feature-Ryan is totally classier than The Enquirer, it has stories about women giving birth to alien babies that are also Jesus.”
She grins at Ryan, and he gets the impression that he ought to be thanking her right now. He’s not sure, maybe he should be, but he’s distracted.
“Besides, the guy got an Oscar, right?” Z goes on. “Of course they’ll want vaguely incriminating pictures of his secret gay affair.”
“Nominated,” Ryan corrects absently. “He was nominated for best actor, but he didn’t get it.”
The thing is, Jesse and Ryan haven’t talked about whether they’re having a scandalous secret affair yet. They haven’t seen each other in person since they started this thing, really. They haven’t even kissed. It’s all hypothetical, even if Ryan would like to take Jesse mentioning a few days ago the possibility of buying a webcam as a profession of commitment, he’s fairly certain it wouldn’t be a good idea. And in a few days Ryan will be in New York again, seeing Jesse, and a few days after that, Ryan’s friends will be there too, Alex because he lives there and Z because she’s a nosy bitch and also because she misses east coast thrift stores, and then they’re going to want to meet the guy Ryan hopes to still be dating at that point, although he guesses that assuming that everything will just work out in person as well as it has over the phone is hopelessly naive, so he’s trying to be realistic and not expect too much.
But Ryan hadn’t thought twice about telling a fair few of his friends who Jesse was and the nature of their probably-still-going-to-happen relationship, and he and Jesse have never had a conversation about how much of a problem it would be for Jesse to have the relationship be public, what with Jesse being an actual celebrity, and Ryan being a kind-of-sort-of-celebrity, too.
Ryan doesn’t automatically think of other people-not in terms of thinking of their feelings and not in terms of thinking about or being in any way able to assess what they’ll think of him, which is probably why it hadn’t occurred to him before, but Ryan is thinking of it now in over-drive. He thinks it’s probably a conversation they should have.
...
One of the nice things about being on good terms with Brendon again is that he’s a really great person to ask to take care of your pet. Not that Ryan’s other friends wouldn’t be trustworthy, he’s pretty sure none of them would let Alleycat starve, but Brendon gets really into it. He plays with your pet, he gives it treats, he makes it love him so much it misses him when you finally come home. He does the same thing when he babysits his sister’s kids.
Brendon is a lot more of a dog person, really, but the last time he came over, he had Alleycat scrambling around the floor, pouncing after stray pens and then butting up against Brendon’s leg and purring when he kicked them to get them moving and chase-able for her. Ryan doesn’t even remember feeling jealous, just happy.
He remembers that point when he was just starting to share custody of Hobo with Keltie, how she’d always had such strict, specific instructions-“She likes a walk after breakfast when I can manage it, and no more than two treats a day,” and so on until Ryan felt like he ought to be taking notes. He’d tried to joke about it once and she’d said it was because she cared.
Ryan cares, more than he’d really like to, but he’s pretty sure that’s not coming across, since he can’t think of anything all that specific to leave as instructions. “So, uh, yeah, the food is over there, you can just fill it whenever it’s getting low, and if you think of it, if you could change her water sometimes, even if it’s not running low, because it gets dirty, you know, and, um-I don’t know if you’ll have any time but if you do, and you want to hang out, she likes to sit on the couch next to you sometimes-not on your lap, she’s not much of a lap-sitter, but next to you. You can pet her or whatever but it’s like-she wants to hang out, you know? She’s not like a dog, she doesn’t need you or anything, but she likes the company. I just don’t want her to get lonely, you know?”
Brendon is looking at him like he does know, but also like maybe Ryan is trying to say something really normal and obvious, but when it comes out it sounds really sad to other people. He hasn’t gotten that look too often since high school, and when he does, it’s usually from someone who knew him back when he gauged his ears and wore sweatbands unironically. As nice as it is to be getting on with Brendon again, he’s suddenly reminded of why he hadn’t been bothered by how long it took them to get there. Still, Brendon is a good friend, even if he can be kind of a douche. He says, “I’ll take good care of your cat, Ross. Alleykitten and I won’t even miss you, will we, girl? Now go fly cross-country and get some.”
Ryan does.
...
Ryan has been told he has a melodramatic streak, that he tends to go over the top, and he’s vaguely aware that his body of work supports that, but really, the problem with this particular scene can and should be blamed on Jon.
Jon loves Christmas, and that includes Christmas movies, and knowing Jon well involves watching “Love Actually” way more often than any normal person does, Ryan is sure. It’s not a bad movie, either, it’s not like Ryan goes around protesting, there are much worse movies to have stuck in the DVD player on tour, letting the song clip that loops through the menu screen work its way into his mind, his subconscious, probably into his DNA. So yeah, the problem is Jon, not because Ryan was always an unwilling participant in the “Love Actually” watching, but because he wouldn’t have chosen to watch it so often without Jon, and if he hadn’t seen it so many times, he wouldn’t have such unrealistic expectations about airports, and the scenes that should take place in them.
He does, though, which is why it feels a little anticlimactic when Jesse greets him with a kind of hesitant, one-armed hug. He takes one of Ryan’s bags, though, which seems kind of out of character, so Ryan guesses it might be meant as a gesture, and then when they’ve already gone through the airport, on the subway, off the subway, up the stairs to Jesse’s place, once they’re in the little hall in Jesse’s apartment, that is when Jesse kisses him.
...
And this is always the part that gets awkward for Jesse, the part where he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to turn his mind off but he can’t, and it’s all will-we won’t-we and how-far-will-we-go style silent negotiations he has never been that confident in his ability to parse, at least not at first, not during his first time with someone. He’s heard “grinding against each other like teenagers”, said like it’s a bad thing, but Jesse didn’t do too much of this as a teenager, and the still-clothed press of their bodies together, the frantic maneuvering of hands under clothes without moving any further back doesn’t make him feel young or immature at all.
Because of the way his mind keeps racing, though, he can’t forget that Ryan might not feel the same way, that Ryan might be lining up his body with Jesse’s, pressing them together from shoulder to ankle on one side, other leg hitched up around Jesse’s hip, arms locked tight around his neck just as a prelude to something more. He might be expecting the hand Jesse has sneaked under his shirt, fingers spread wide across his ribcage, to be going somewhere. It’s with that in mind that he wrenches his head back, lips wet in the sudden absence of contact, to ask, “Do you want-?”, gesturing vaguely downward with the hand he’s just unclenched from Ryan’s hair, unwilling to move the other from the hard-won stretch of warm skin so recently wrestled free from the confines of Ryan’s tucked shirt.
Except maybe he isn’t expecting any such thing, because Ryan tightens his arms around Jesse’s neck, tightens his hold so the leg around Jesse’s waist pulls his body up, flush with Jesse’s, hips lining up with a gasp of contact, and asks, “Could you just-like this?” And yeah, Jesse can do that, can take his free arm and wrap it around Ryan’s waist, pulling them even closer together, close enough to rut against each other, close and and damp and hampered by twisting clothes, until they come. Like teenagers. Yeah, Jesse can do that.
Part 3