Page 19 of The Embrace of Evergreen

“So, you go to support Gabriel?” The whole thing does sound interesting, if not a bit…eclectic.

He laughs again. “I mean, yes, but it really is a lot of fun, even though it sounds a bit…eclectic.”

Wait, did I say that out loud? I really don’t think I did.

His smile wavers a bit at my hesitation. Of course it does. He has no way of knowing that I’m silently panicking as I try to reassure myself he wasn’t just able to hear my thoughts when he coincidentally used the same word that had been on the tip of my tongue. A word that probably makes a lot of sense in this context, considering we both chose to use it.

“It’s fun, I swear. Consider coming to a weird little festival a local rite of passage,” he continues, clearly thinking that my hesitation means I’m not sure it’s something I’d be interested in attending.

“There are a lot of things like this around here then?”

His chuckle is deep and warm even though his smile is still a bit subdued because I haven’t answered yet.Good. Real smooth.That’s how to keep a friendship for sure, by making someone think you need convincing before you agree to spend time with them.

“Oh yeah. Tons of them. There is a lavender festival every July. There is the garlic festival, which lasts for a full week, and a giant Viking festival in May. There are actually a few different lumberjack festivalsthroughout the year, but we don’t go to those anymore.” He cringes and shudders.

“Why not?”

“The last one we attended took place right after Gabriel first struck up an interest in fire dancing. It was before he had a whole lot of training, and even though he wasn’t performing, he picked up this random pine branch that was sitting on the ground near one of the chainsaw carver’s stalls and thought it would make an excellent torch to toss around a bit as we walked through the small pop-up market. He ended up lighting this huge lumberjack’s long hair on fire and almost burning down the guy’s tent.”

It takes a moment for me to remind my vocal cords how to work. I’ve officially been stunned into silence. Even though the entire scene is completely believable, and I can vividly see Gabriel making that particular series of poor choices, the casual way Blue tells the story, not as if it’s something hilarious or extraordinary, but simply a logical reason as to why they can’t attend any more lumberjack festivals, is something I don’t really know how to process. Whose life is so exciting that a story like that is just a run-of-the-mill occurrence?

When I finally open my mouth, a laugh loud enough to startle the couple sitting at the table closest to us is what falls out.

Blue’s smile returns to full strength as his laughter melds with mine in the warm fall breeze, the vibrations curling joyfully around me.

“I know,” he snorts out. “God, I don’t know why I put up with him.”

“You love him.”

I don’t know why I say it. I’ve only known them for a couple of months, but it’s clear how much they mean to one another. I’ve never had someone like that in my life, not really. Not since Jordyn, and the older I get, the more I wonder if our relationship wasn’t a bit one-sided. I know that he loved me, even if he didn’t love me enough to pursue a romantic relationship with me, but I’m willing to bet there is nothing in the world Blue and Gabriel wouldn’t do for one another. If one asked the other to hide a body, they probably wouldn’t even question why they’d felt the need to commit a murder in the first place. If I’m honest with myself, their relationship makes me a bit jealous.

His face grows soft and thoughtful. “I do. He’s like the brother I never had, and he’s saved me in more ways than one. I’m thankful for him. Even when he gets me banned from festivals.”

I want to reach over and trace my fingertip along the back of his hand. Over the cracked knuckles and thick veins that always stand out thanks to the hours he spends lifting and twisting heavy metal pipes attached tochunks of glass next to raging open flames. Somehow, his hands always look like they don’t quite belong next to the smooth, light-tan skin and harsh black lines of his forearms. I don’t know why I want to touch them. I don’t typically like when people touch me, and I don’t ever want to touch others. Blue just looks so kind. So caring. His expression is gentle as he speaks about love and friendship, and some part of me secretly hopes that one day, he might be able to think about me like that. That he might consider me that kind of friend.

“I’d love to go with you.”

Blue looks startled for a moment, and I realize that wasn’t exactly a smooth conversational transition on my part.

“To the festival. Next weekend…”

The small wrinkles beside his eyes reappear as he grins. “Yeah? That’s awesome! You’ll love it, trust me. I’ll make sure of it.”

He winks at me, and heat rushes to my cheeks and something fluttery settles in my chest. I don’t really understand the way he makes me feel, but I’m in no hurry for it to end.

Blue

The silence that envelops us inside my car is comfortable enough that my thoughts wander. There is nothing other than the light hum of the tires on asphalt resonating up through the floorboards and the wind rushing in through the open windows as Ethan and I drive to Port Williams. We’ve both taken the day off work, and we got an early start this morning. Well, early for me anyway. We stopped at the coffee house before hitting the road, both ordering strawberry croissants and long blacks with two extra shots before catching the ten a.m. ferry over to the peninsula. We ate them in the car with the windows rolled down so the light breeze could swirl around us as we crossed the Puget Sound instead of heading up to the always-packed observation deck with the other two thousand passengers. We’ve both been quiet and calm, and it’s been…nice. Neither of us seems to feel the need to fill the peaceful, slow morning with chitchat just for the sake of exercising our voices. We talk when things come up and enjoy the crisp autumn air that’s filled with the scent of salt and pine and the warmth and beauty of the sunlight pouring through the trees and brightening sporadic stretches of tarmac without any awkwardness between us.

I don’t really know how to process Ethan. He’s been a near-constant presence in my life for a few months now, and if anything, I’m more confused than I was the first day I saw him in the coffee shop. During our time together, I’ve learned that he doesn’t really have any long-term friends as he travels so much and that he’s an only child whose mom passed when he was a teenager. I don’t know what to make of the fact that he’s spent the last fourteen years traveling around alone, focusing solely on work. Even though my art is so deeply a part of my soul that I can’t imagine myself without it, I don’t think I could make it the focus of my entire life. I need Gabriel and the coffee shop and the semi-mindless hours I spend at work. I need sex and nights at the bar with my friends. I mean, I know everyone is unique, but I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea of being truly happy with only work to keep me company and fill my time, and even though he doesn’t seem miserable or anything, I wonder if Ethan is truly happy.

Even more incomprehensible is the fact his very existence seems to have transformed me into a new person. I’m suddenly someone who goes to the coffee house every day between ten and eleven a.m., even though that is simply an ungodly time to be awake, just so that I can chat with him for a few moments before I head to the hot shop, and he settles in to work. Once in a while, he works from the gallery all day instead of splitting his time between the two, and on thosemornings, we walk together with our coffees. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s simply the logical thing to do since the gallery and hot shop are only a block apart.

I’m suddenly a person who simply enjoys laughing and dancing with my friends on Friday nights instead of spending half the evening looking for a random hot body to get off with before heading home to sleep alone. For the past month, more often than not, Ethan has come with Gabriel and me on our Friday night adventures to clubs and bars and drag karaoke, and I find myself so caught up in him, in listening to his laugh and watching him relax and enjoy himself, that at the end of the night, I don’t even realize I missed out on the opportunity to find someone to fuck. These days, in the early Saturday morning hours, I find myself returning home to curl up in bed after showering the sweat of a room packed with strangers off my skin, and all I can think about are verdant eyes and auburn hair and an almost shy, soft smile.

Our little friend group’s get-togethers are so obviously not the type of socializing he’s used to that it surprises me how easily he seems to fit in. The first time we took him to karaoke drag night, I’d kept my hand lightly on his arm until he’d finished his third drink of the night and loosened up enough that he didn’t look like he was going to bolt for the doors and lie down in front of traffic the first time an opportunity arose to escape our raucous chaos.

I find myself touching him like that even when it's not necessary. Nothing creepy, mind you. Small things like letting my shoulder bump against his as we walk side by side on the way to the studio or my fingertips on his elbow as I direct his attention to something of interest. I touch him less than Gabriel does, but that’s different. Gabriel touches everyone constantly; it’s just who he is. I don't touch people. And even though what I'm doing isn't wrong, it's starting to feel that way. Even though I don’t want to admit it to myself, I'm touching him simply because I want to, because I secretly want more. It feels somehow non-consensual, and with my unfortunate dating history, the guilt is eating me up. I know all too well what it feels like to be touched without consent.

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