Page 86 of A Series of Rooms
Jonah was on drink duty, pouring gallon jugs of apple juice into Styrofoam cups at the end of the line.
“Do you have coffee?” a man asked, his head hung low and shadowed by the too-big hood thrown over his head.
“Self-serve, over there,” Jonah directed him to the far wall.
But as the man looked up to thank him, the meeting of their eyes forced Jonah’s world to a screeching halt.
The first thing Jonah noticed, bizarrely, was that most of his piercings were gone. The only one that remained was the curve of silver that hung from his septum, capped with two round bulbs. Looking at it, Jonah could still feel the way it had brushed against his skin when they kissed.
“Dominic,” he whispered.
It didn’t feel real that he could be standing there now, states away, alifetimeaway from the last time they had seen each other.
Dominic went still, his eyes widening. He stared for a few moments, a deer in headlights.
“It’s Jonah,” Jonah supplied numbly. “Prince.”
“I know.” Dominic shook his head, a rapid, jerky movement. He took a step back, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I should go,” he said, and pivoted on his heel.
“Wait,” Jonah heard himself say.
With what appeared to be some effort, Dominic turned back but didn’t respond. Jonah’s tongue was plastered to the roof of his mouth, but he forced himself to speak.
“You came here for coffee,” he said. “You should take some. Are you hungry?”
He saw the internal struggle in the expression Dominic tried to tuck away, and for a moment Jonah was sure hewould turn and disappear back into the streets. But instead, he said, “Yeah. Okay.”
Jonah watched him from his spot on the line as Dominic received a plate of spaghetti and buttered bread, then grabbed a coffee and sat at one of the tables, alone. When the crowd began to thin, Jonah stepped out from behind his station and approached.
“Do you mind if I sit?” he asked.
Dominic didn’t look up, but he paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. He gave the barest motion of a nod that Jonah decided to take as approval.
He could admit to second-guessing himself once they were seated across from each other. Jonah still couldn’t quite process that it really was Dominic in front of him, let alone begin to traverse the minefield of history that lay between them.
For his part, Dominic seemed just as clueless, which was unnerving on its own. In the short time he had known Dominic, which had felt like a small pocket of eternity in the moment, he had never seen him be anything less than one-hundred percent confident.
Right up until the last phone call Jonah had shared with him. But that was the last thing to be thinking of if he wanted this to remain civil.
“How long have you been in New York?” Jonah was the first to breach the silence.
“Couple months,” Dominic muttered between sips.
“Why here?”
He shrugged. “Wanted something new. Tried Detroit. Then Philly for a while. Hopped a bus here.” Then, after a moment, “What about you?”
“About a year and a half,” Jonah replied.
“What do you do?” There was genuine interest behind the question, which Jonah didn’t know how to take.
“I’m in school.”
Finally, Dominic looked up. The lines and dark circles around his eyes made him look older than he was. “School?”
“Yep,” he said. “I’m studying to be a teacher.”
Dominic looked at him long enough to have Jonah squirming. “You’re a good person, aren’t you?”
