Page 64 of Rust and Stardust

The thought made my stomach churn. “And what if he still doesn't want me?”

Logan shrugged. “Then at least you'll know. You can move on without always wondering 'what if'.”

We started walking again, the crowd of New Yorkers parting around us like a river around stones. The familiar sights and sounds of the city felt hollow now, devoid of the excitement they once held for me.

“When the hell did you become such an expert on relationships?” I asked Logan after a minute or two.

“Well, when nobody wants anything to do with you, it leaves a lot of time for watching sappy shows.”

“Are you telling me you just fed me some shitty Hallmark line?”

“Lifetime, actually.”

“Fuck you,” I laughed, punching him softly in the shoulder. “But do you really believe all that? I mean… that I have a chance?”

“I don’t know, buddy,” he shrugged. “But if you don’t try, you’ll beat yourself up for the rest of your life for not giving it a shot.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“But first, we need to pack. And I need to call my mom and let her know you’ll need to use the guest room.”

“Logan… I can’t?—”

“Yes, you can, and you will,” he said, cutting me off. “I’m not gonna let my best friend be homeless. We’re in this together and even if you don’t want to stay in Sagebrush, at least it’ll give you a chance to get back on your feet until you’re ready to move on.” He glanced over at me. “I have no fucking idea where we’re gonna get jobs though.”

“Remote work?” I offered.

“Right. There’s a bunch of those floating around.”

“We could always work on a pig farm or something.”

“Rattlesnake wrestlers?” he grinned.

“Pygmy goat herders for sure.”

It felt good to laugh a little after the past few days as we made our way down onto the train. It was a twenty-minute ride to our apartment building in Sunnyside.

As we emerged from the subway station, the familiar sight of our apartment building loomed before us. It was an old-fashioned skyscraper, built in the seventies on the cheap, nothing like the sleek high-rises of Manhattan, but it had been home for the past few years. Now, it felt like just another place we were leaving behind.

We took the rickety elevator to our floor several stories up, the weight of our boxes seeming to increase with each floor we passed. Logan fumbled with his keys, finally managing to unlock his door right next to mine. He gave me a little wave before disappearing inside. Meanwhile I unlocked my own door and stepped inside.

The apartment was exactly as I'd left it that morning - dishes in the sink, takeout containers on the coffee table, clothes strewn about. It was amazing how quickly a place could go from feeling like home to feeling like a temporary stop.

“I guess I should start packing,” I said to myself, setting my box down on the counter. “Good thing there’s not much to pack.”

It was true. After all the time I’d spent in New York at my ‘big deal’ job, I had hardly anything to show for it. I still had the same covers on my bed from college, the same coffee table that leaned to one side, and all my casual clothes were getting ratty and threadbare from use. The only thing that was new was my work clothes, and those never got me into anything other than more debt. For a brief moment I entertained the idea of opening the fire escape and chucking my suits into the wide-open sky. But, like always, I packed them away carefully. Crawling out from under this newest mistake was probably going to require a suit or two and they were the only nice things I owned.

As I folded my suits into a suitcase, my mind wandered back to Sagebrush. The memory of Beau was so vivid - his strong hands, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the warmth of his body against mine. I could almost smell the leather of his boots, the hay in his hair. I would’ve done anything to be back in his bed, his strong arms wrapped around me, making me feel like the most perfect boy in the entire world.

A sharp knock at the door startled me out of my reverie.

“It's open,” I called out, knowing it was Logan.

He poked his head in, a lopsided grin on his face. “Hey, how's the packing going?”

I gestured to the half-filled suitcase on my bed. “Slowly but surely. You?”

“About the same,” he sighed, stepping fully into the room. “Listen, I just got off the phone with my mom. She's excited to have us, but...”

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