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He started seeing Sam everywhere.
Sam, who called him ‘beautiful,’ eyes like liquid smoke.
Sam, who stood perilously close when they poured the wine, heat emanating from their tight body.
Strong yet gentle, blond-dusted hands.
Sam, who wore the plaid shirt, frayed khaki shorts, and beat-up loafers on their bodega run.
Chestnut-brown bedhead, cheeks rosy on their porcelain face.
The one he wanted to hold him, the one he hoped to make less lonely, the one he followed home.
Sam always had brown hair.
//
Life was hard enough without a Greek chorus of Sams second-guessing his every move.
Haunted by his exes, he worried about becoming someone his loved ones couldn’t recognize.
He wanted significance.
Significance preserves and destroys, transforms and crushes.
Feels heavy, carries weight, dissolves with time.
Friends the ultimate arbiters of authenticity, antennae sensitive to anything ‘off-brand.’
Surrounded by beautiful people, musical chairs except the music never stops.
He cried into his champagne; tired of questioning, challenging, pushing back all the time.
Acceptance sounded so good, like a drug.
//
Boy was with Girl.
Kind, inquisitive eyes the color of concrete.
Brown hair (of course) slicked back, shoulders firm, torso wide.
Girl was hysterical, freaking out about some low-rate drama.
Boy’s body language was that of a boar ready to charge.
When Girl went to the bathroom, Boy’s expression softened.
Freed, granted a reprieve from performing masculinity.
Boy looked over, smiling as if understanding him with strange, otherworldly clarity.
So tantalizingly close all he had to do was reach over before Boy slipped back into character.
//
He imagined bringing Boy dinner, roast chicken and potatoes.
They ate in silence, like a stray sound would tip her off.
Bellies full, they lay side-by-side on the bed. Striped pajamas. Sheets that smelled like her.
Not moving, growing braver in the dark, bodies ablaze with feeling.
Skin, lips, tongue, there for the taking.
He raised a finger to Boy’s lips and gently pried his mouth open, inserting his finger.
Play it safe or swing for the fences?
Snatching Boy’s receipt off the table, he felt a sickening swirl of desire, like standing in the eye of a hurricane.
This little victory made him happier than he’d felt in a long time, like he’d won the lotto.
//
Throwing up in that Waffle House, acid stinging his throat.
Outside for a smoke, his socks mismatched and his hair wild.
‘Go back to China,’ someone yelled, car speeding past.
Possessed by a cultural restlessness; always searching for a way in, a way out.
Resisting strict buckets, containers.
He wondered why all the bestsellers were about missing women. Or violence against women. Your princess is in another castle.
He decided that his favorite word was ‘possibility.’
Even hope doesn’t seem as surefire a thing.
Possibility is hope plus.
Nothing out of reach.
Maybe.
//
He unfolded the receipt, admiring it.
CUSTOMER: SAM _____, it read.
He noticed the digits, written in an urgent scrawl.
Penmanship tight, compact, economical.
‘Call me,’ it admonished.
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