fic: Once Life - Side Story: Jour d'Amour (2005)
Once Life
Side Story: Jour d’Amour
Valentine’s Day: by far the most dreaded day every year. For girls, it’s that they aren’t getting enough attention. For me, it’s that I get way too much attention. I seem to have a lot of charisma, because I’m not really that attractive, yet the girls swarm me on Valentine’s Day nonetheless.
It’s the day before Armageddon. I was considering asking some girl on a date, just to keep the other girls at bay, but that, too, would cause problems. I think that if I were to invite a girl to spend Valentine’s Day with me, she might get the wrong idea-which means I’d probably break her heart. Not only that, but the green-eyed monsters would make the poor girl’s life hell. I’m too nice to do that to anyone, not even to someone I hate.
Of course, I’d rather not be around any girls at all. I feel so uncomfortable around women, with the exception of my best friend, Angie. Our mothers are friends, so we’ve seen a lot of each other. I’m half-tempted to spend Valentine’s Day with her, but again, I don’t want to cause her any trouble.
I sighed. Valentine’s Day is a day for girls to be showered with love from their boyfriends. I’m not a girl, and I don’t have a girlfriend, so it makes the holiday rather useless and troublesome for me.
“Ange! You killed me again!” I yelped as her character landed a final kick on mine’s face. No matter how much I practice, I can never seem to beat Angie at Soul Caliber II.
“Boot to the head, nyah, nyah, nyah!” she cackled, sticking her tongue out at me. “What fun would it be if I just let you win? Besides, you always beat me at DDR. I have to have some payback.”
I shot her a mock glare. “You beat me at that today, too.”
“Yes, well, it’s your own fault that you’re so preoccupied. You need to stop thinking so hard. I can almost hear you trying to scream your thoughts to the world. I’m psychic, remember?” Sure, Angie claims to be psychic, but we both know that she really just knows me too well.
“Yeah, and what am I thinking about?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Le quatorze fevrier. Demain.” Ah, le français. As if Angie could ever best me with French.
“Really.”
“Yep. Something along the lines of keeping your admirers from terrorizing the world.”
“Are you saying you have a solution?” I asked hopefully.
“If you’re game for meeting new people, I know someone you wouldn’t mind hanging out with,” she said, one of those looks in her eyes.
“A blind date.” I gave her my best accusing glare.
“No! Not a date…just, you know, someone to hang out with who’s not after your eternal soul. You could…I dunno, go paintballing. There’s this huge indoor place just outside of town.”
“I’ve heard of it. Now, before I even consider it, how do you know this person?”
“A friend of a cousin’s.” Again that twinkle in her eyes.
“You promise it’s not a date?”
“Yes.”
“You swear? Remember when you tried to set me up with Renae? I think ‘fiasco’ is a good word for it.”
“I swear, it’s not a date this time! Just say you’ll do it,” she pleaded.
I sighed. “Why not. I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent a riot.”
“Great! It’s all set, then. We’ll meet at my house tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.” With that, she picked up her controller and commenced yet another ass-whooping at Soul Caliber II.
I woke up to a rather peaceful snowfall the next morning. It would’ve been a great day to spend reading and sipping a hot drink at a café, but today was Valentine’s Day, and all chances of peace and privacy would be gone in any place I might’ve found suitable. So I had to settle with hanging out with whoever Angie had picked for me. And that’s when I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about this person-the age, hell, I didn’t even know if this person was a guy or a girl!
I swore at myself for letting Angie trick me into something like this again. Heaving a sigh, I took a shower and dressed, trying to make myself look presentable but not attractive. After settling with something that looked okay, I left for Angie’s.
I was barely a block away from my house before I was bombarded by the first group of girls. One of them approached me with rosy cheeks and chirped, “Alex! We were hoping we would see you today. Here,” she said, handing me a gift bag, “we all chipped in to buy it. I hope you like it.”
I pushed the bag back into her hands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that. Take it and get your money back.” I shook my head at the group of crestfallen faces. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Good bye.” Trying my best to ignore them, I continued on my way to Angie’s. I was accosted twice more before I finally got there, and I was relieved when Angie’s mom, Linda, offered me some tea while I waited for Angie.
“So,” I said suddenly, “do you know who Ange has set me up with this time?”
Linda gave me an appraising look. “I might. But,” she interrupted before I could reply, “I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew for sure. Ange wouldn’t like it if I ruined the surprise. However,” she said, watching me glare into my tea, “I’ll tell you right now that it’s not some girl that’ll make assumptions.” Ah, yes, Angie’s mom knows how much trouble I’ve had with girls. I felt a little more comfortable now that she had reassured me.
“Oh, Alex!” came Angie’s voice, and then the customary hug. That’s one of her flaws: she’s a little clingy and she has to hug me every time she sees me. It’s not just me she hugs, either-she hugs all her friends like that. I’m used to it, though, so I just patted her a couple times until she broke away. “Alex, you’re going to have a lot of fun today. I’m going to stay with you guys until I have to go to work-at noon-and then you guys can do whatever without me. I get done at four, but I have plans with Mike, because, you know, it is Valentine’s Day.” I managed a smile in response.
“Well, you seem to have enough energy. So what are we going to do, exactly?”
“Come on, I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Fine. Bye, Linda!” I called as I followed Angie out to her car.
“Okay,” she said as I climbed in, “first we’re going to get a bite to eat at the Metropolitan, which is downtown. Then I’m going to drop you guys off at The Edge, that indoor paintball place I was telling you about. There’s a couple other groups you’ll be playing against, and I paid for a couple rounds of paintballs for you-you owe me three hundred dollars for that, by the way. That should keep you busy for a while. After that, you’re on your own.”
I blinked. “Three hundred dollars?”
“Kidding! Only seventy. Anyways, paintballing is pretty expensive, especially when you don’t have your own gear. You’re lucky Jake left his stuff here when he went to Dad’s.”
Most of the drive to the little restaurant was spent in companionable silence, with some classic rock filling in the background. When we arrived, it was quiet, not busy, but there were a few people scattered around the room. Apparently Angie didn’t see who she was looking for, because she led the way to an empty table off to one side.
I gave her a questioning look, but she only gestured that I look at the menu while we waited. I glanced up as a couple came in, but Ange gave no indication of seeing the person we were supposed to meet. I made a face at the menu. I’m not a breakfast person, so finding something I wanted seemed unlikely. I glanced up again as another person came in, but again, Angie gave no sign of recognition.
“Oh, Alex, hi!” I looked up and recognized an upperclassman from our school as she approached in an apron.
“Hi,” I replied without any of her enthusiasm. I silently hoped she thought that Angie and I were dating, though I’m sure almost anyone who cared knew we weren’t, because Angie was with Mike.
“Hi, Angie,” she said, slightly deflated. “Well, are you guys ready to order, or do you need a couple more minutes?”
“Oh, we’re waiting for a friend. We’ll order when they get here,” Angie replied.
“Okay, I’ll come back, then. Let me know if you need anything.” I breathed a sigh of relief as she left.
“Did you know that people from our school work here?”
”Alex, you can’t expect me to know where everybody works. You can be such a little kid sometimes,” she said, kicking me playfully. I rolled my eyes and scrutinized the menu.
I had finally decided on some fruit, a muffin, and some bacon before Angie finally showed some interest in someone walking in. How she recognized them, I have no idea, because a scarf obscured most of their face, and a hat covered the hair, but Angie smiled and waved. The person spotted us and walked over, unwinding the scarf to reveal a warm, smiling face that was punctuated by a silver lip ring. Off came the hat that had covered short, mussed reddish-orange hair and a lot of pierced ear. And finally, he shed his coat, uncovering a slender frame.
Something stirred in my belly that had nothing to do with being hungry as I took in the piercings, especially the lip ring. He spoke: “Hi Ange. So this is Alex, huh?”
“Yep. Alex, this is Seth.”
I blinked out of my reverie and gave a small wave. “Hey. Your lip ring’s cool.”
“Thanks. Your shirt’s cool, too. Did you see them in concert?”
“Huh?” I glanced down at my shirt; I hadn’t really paid attention to what I was wearing, I had just thrown it on. “Oh, yeah. Deep Purple kicks ass. I saw them last summer with my uncle.”
“Oh? Was Steve Morse still with them?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
“Damn, but that man can play the guitar.” I was liking this Seth guy a lot. Deep Purple was one of my favorite bands.
“He’s a genius. My uncle has some connections, so I got to meet him and Roger Glover backstage after the show.”
“You’re kidding! Ah, I bet that was awesome.”
“Definitely. And I’ve got to tell you, those guys are two of the nicest people I’ve met.”
“Awesome.”
“Are you guys ready to order now?” interrupted our waiter, the girl from my school. I had to refrain from glaring.
“Sure.” We each gave her our orders, and then she left us to continue. Our conversation had turned to Seth telling me that he played the drums and bass and was looking to start a band before Angie made her presence known again.
“Alex, I told you that you’d like him.” I noticed that a twinkle was back in her eyes.
“I never said I didn’t believe you. I just said that what happened last time was a fiasco.” I made a face at her.
“Oh? What happened last time?” Seth asked. So Angie and I told him about how Angie had tried to set me up with her friend Renae, and how she had annoyed me so much with her girly-girl act that I stormed off in the middle of our date and called Angie to complain. And then how the poor girl had had to face my vicious fan club with only Angie to back her up.
Our food arrived, and by the time we finished eating, we had swapped as many jokes as we could think of, we had complained about losing at Soul Caliber II, and somehow we had gotten onto the topic of Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter.
We saw our waitress a bit more than was necessary, so I was glad when she brought out our separate bills and we were allowed to leave. I had mixed feelings, though, about Angie going to work and leaving me alone with Seth. On the one hand, I didn’t want to see Angie go, because she’s my best friend, and it’s harder to have fun without her. However, without Angie, I was free to get to know Seth without her interrupting.
I looked over the seat back at Seth as Angie drove us to The Edge. “So, Seth, have you ever been paintballing?”
“A couple times. There’s a bunch of guys at my school that go all the time, and I’ve gone with them. What about you?”
“A few times, with my uncle. The same one that took me to see Deep Purple.”
“It’s a lot of fun, that’s for sure.”
“Damn straight.” Angie started giggling for no apparent reason, and I turned back around in my seat. “Ah, Angie, care to share the joke?”
”Oh, no, it’s nothing. My mind was wandering and I just thought of something funny.”
“From now on, keep your mind on the road,” I chastised as she pulled into the Edge parking lot, barely missing being hit by another car.
“Whatever Alex. Here you are. Just go in and give them your names, and they’ll take care of you. See you guys later.”
“Ciao.” Seth and I hopped out of the car and waved as Angie drove off.
It turned out that there were four other groups of two that we were going against. As a Valentine’s Day special, the team that won would get 25% off on their next visit. The winner was decided based on who had the least paint on their suit and who had gotten the most paint on everyone else.
The building was the size of a warehouse, with three levels built kind of like a trilevel house so that a person standing on the third floor could look down on the second, and a person standing on the second floor could see both the first and third levels-though Seth and I quickly learned that even though we could see more on the second level, we made easier targets there. We also learned that though two rounds of paintball sounds like a lot, it’s not; we had burned through both rounds within an hour, and we didn’t even win the 25% off.
Seth invited me over to his house, promising to teach me the guitar riff to Deep Purple’s song, “Smoke on the Water,” and I agreed. He called for a ride, and he explained the differences between a bass and a guitar while we waited.
“That’s our ride,” Seth told me when a green four-door pulled up. He opened the door to the back seat and gestured at the driver. “That’s my older brother Eric. And this is our younger brother Shawn,” he gestured at a little boy in the passenger seat. “Guys, this is Alex.”
“Hey,” I said, sliding into the back seat.
“Hey,” Eric replied.
“Hi Alex! Do you know Angel, then? That’s what Seth said.” I smiled; Shawn must’ve only been seven or eight.
“Yep. Me and Angie have been friends since we started school.”
“She’s really nice,” he said grinning, and hen he turned back around in his seat.
“Mom and Dad are on a cruise to celebrate Valentine’s Day,” Seth explained, “so Eric and I are watching Shawn. Eric is standing in as a drummer-slash-guitarist, but since he has his own band and he’s graduating this year, we’re teaching Shawn to play the drums. Hopefully I can find a real drummer, though.” Seth continued to tell me about different people he was hoping play guitar or drums for him, and who he would like to have on vocals. I learned that the whole family was musically inclined, and that Seth, Eric, and Shawn’s father had been the guitarist for a couple high school and college bands, and still played every now and then.
For about five minutes Seth told me about his hopes for a band, with Eric chipping in things here and there, and Shawn interrupting with random observations. And though I listened to every word of it, I found it a little difficult to concentrate. My eyes kept straying to Seth’s earrings, or his lip ring. I had even noticed that he was wearing mascara and eyeliner, which was why his eyes looked so deep and dark.
Then we arrived at their house, a two story, and he led me down into the basement. There was a washer and dryer to one side, and a living room set up in the rest of the space. Guitars-both acoustic and electric-hung on a wall. He took down two acoustic ones and handed one to me, before sitting on the couch and strumming a few chords. I sat down across from him.
“Okay,” he said, “the riff for ‘Smoke on the Water’ is one of the easiest riffs to play. In fact, the whole song is just a couple of chords. Now, have you ever played a guitar before?”
“No,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
“No big deal. If anything, the finger positions might be a bit awkward, but don’t worry. Now, watch the fingers of my hand for the first chord.”
I watched his fingers curl around the guitar as he strummed the chord a couple times. I tried to reproduce the finger positions and tried it, but my chord sounded a bit mangled. I winced. “Well, that’s definitely not right.”
“It’s not too bad for your first try. Here.” He set his guitar aside and sat down next to me. “Put this finger here, and curl it like this,” he said, guiding my finger until he was satisfied. “And this one’s on the wrong string; it needs to be here. This one’s okay…but this one needs to be held so that it doesn’t touch the other strings. Okay, like that. Now hold the strings down tightly and try it again.”
This time I got the sound almost perfectly; I smiled. “That sounded better.”
“Yep. Okay, now,” he took my fingers off the strings, “try and see if you can remember the finger positions on your own.”
I tried that, and we did the same thing a couple more times until I could play the chord without his help, and then we moved on to the next one. The second chord came to me much quicker than the first had, and I practiced playing them in succession before we moved on to the third chord.
The third chord, however, seemed to be more challenging than either of the first two. No matter how I put my fingers on the strings, Seth would move them. “Show me,” I demanded, finally frustrated, as I pushed the guitar into his arms.
He turned and smiled, looking me straight in the eyes. “You’re not that far off. Your hands just aren’t used to it.” I stared at him, unable to speak. Something about him was just…captivating. I couldn’t quite place it, but I was already feeling calmer. His smile faded a little as he handed the guitar back. “Here, just play the first two chords, and then work on the third one again.”
I bit my lip and obliged. One chord, two, and… “Alex.” I looked over at Seth.
“What is it?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.
“Forget the guitar,” he said finally, pulling it from my grasp.
“Wait-why?” I followed him to the wall, where he hung the guitar up with the others. “I’m sorry, I’m not the best student,” I said hastily, suddenly feeling panicked. “I’ll try harder.” I reached up for the guitar, but he caught my hand in his.
“Alex, it’s okay,” he said with a sigh. I bit my lip again as my attention focused from the guitar to his face. My eyes flicked to his hand, which I realized was still closed over mine. And suddenly, I became fully aware of our close proximity. It sent a shiver down my spine.
For some reason, I found myself leaning back against the wall. I didn’t remember doing it, but it had happened, and suddenly I smiled. “Hey, Seth, this is strange. Strange, but in a good way, you know what I mean?”
“I think I do.” He reached out and brushed his thumb along my lip. I closed my eyes as he brought his hand up and stroked back some of my hair. “You’ve never been kissed before, have you?” he murmured.
“No,” I whispered, as the distance between us slowly closed. And though I had anticipated it, the kiss came as a surprise. It was short and gentle and chaste; we parted after mere seconds. Then he leaned over again to kiss me, but I put up a hand to stop him. “We’re both guys,” I said languidly, looking up at him.
“I’m gay,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“I never said that I was,” I countered.
“Why should we let that stop us?”
I smiled. “Good point.”
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed. He kissed me again, this time fiercer than the first. His lip ring pressed into my lips, leaving a delicious sensation that made me want to melt; I sighed into the kiss.
“I think I’m ready to try learning that riff again,” I said when he broke away, and he smiled.
“Okay.”
An hour later, I could play a passable version of the riff without Seth’s help, and we were having a snowball fight against Seth’s brothers. Seth and I had managed an advantage when Shawn collapsed, laughing, on the ground, and made a snow angel. We all agreed that it was time to go back inside. After a round of hot chocolate, we all played Halo for a while, and then Seth offered to walk me home.
As it turned out, we didn’t live that far apart. Even though Seth went to the other high school, both of us were pretty close to the line that divided the two schools. Nonetheless, it was almost dark when we reached my house.
“Bye,” I murmured, reaching for the door, but Seth pulled me back.
“Hold on a second.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and grasped one of my arms, pulling up the sleeve. He wrote something on my wrist, kissed it, and then straightened the sleeve. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Alex,” he breathed into my ear, and turned around. A little way down the sidewalk, he looked back at me and waved.
I smiled and waved back before going into the house. I was positively glowing as I peeled of my coat and made my way to my room. I touched my lips suddenly in disbelief. I had been kissed by another guy, and it had made me feel indescribably good, instead of repulsed. In fact, the more I thought about it, I was repulsed more by kissing a girl than I was by kissing a guy, especially Seth.
“I guess that makes me gay,” I said to myself as I fell facedown on my bed. I propped myself up and pushed back my sleeve to see what Seth had written on my wrist. In small, almost illegible handwriting, he had written: “A dandelion is a flower that few recognize as such,” and a phone number. Rereading his mysterious message, I felt unfamiliarly warm and full. I burrowed my head under my arms and blushed.
It was a few minutes before I got back up and rummaged around for a pen and paper. I wrote his message and phone number down and put it in my wallet. I called Angie and got her voicemail, so I left a short message: “Thank you, Angel-girl.”
I watched the snow fall outside my window until I fell asleep, knowing full well that my life had changed, and that I would remember this day forever.