Page 81 of Thirsty
There was a big-box store five minutes away that was still open at one a.m., and Lorenzo and Charlie couldn’t stop giggling as they made out in the home furnishings section. There was a big display with dozens of curtain fabrics hung up side by side, and they got tangled up in them as they sampled different kinds, shoving each other around and getting entirely too carried away with their necking for a public place. The lights were screaming bright fluorescents, tinny Chappell Roan wasbeating down from the store’s speakers, and Lorenzo felt drunk on Charlie, on the way he made fluorescent light and suburban errands feel enchanting, wondrous. Magical.
When they finally made it to the cashier with their blackout curtains, Charlie couldn’t stop blushing. Every time their eyes met, all Lorenzo could think about was staying in bed with Charlie until high noon. The curtains being rung up might as well have been condoms. “You don’t have to pay for them,” Charlie said, his voice tight with giddy, delicious shame.
“Let me,” Lorenzo purred back. “Your sad apartment needs them. And besides—I am the one who will benefit.” He leaned over Charlie, hungry for a kiss.
The cashier was desperately uninterested in them. “The chip reader’s not working guys, just touch it.”
Lorenzo snatched his card and the curtains back from her and manhandled Charlie out of the store.
They drank and listened to music while putting up the curtain rods and then the curtains, and then Lorenzo tackled Charlie back onto his queen mattress; not as big as Lorenzo’s, but perfectly adequate.
They fell asleep for a while, but Lorenzo woke first. He was perfectly content to scroll on his phone as Charlie slept, but he blinked awake soon too. Charlie smiled and rolled over to snuggle him more thoroughly, and Lorenzo put his phone away. They lay in silence for a moment, and then Lorenzo said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Mmm?”
“Your father,” he said, and he felt Charlie tense. “He’s a professor at the university, isn’t he? A prominent one?”
“Yes,” he said, after a moment.
“So I assume he—makes good money?”
“Yeah?” Charlie said. “And?”
“So I’m surprised you’d rather live here than at home,” Lorenzo said.
“I’m an adult,” Charlie said petulantly.
“Yes, but Charlie, these quarters are...”
“They’re not that bad.”
“Hm,” Lorenzo said, in a tone that conveyed that Charlie was obviously wrong, but they didn’t have to discuss it more if he didn’t wish to.
After a moment, though, Charlie spoke again. “We’re not close,” he said flatly. “My dad and me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. We just...aren’t.” He paused. “He doesn’t really approve of my...my graduate degree.”
“Your thesis?” Lorenzo asked, frowning. “Why not?”
Charlie laughed hollowly. “He’s an economist. Me writing about people’s relationships and friendships and sex lives? I think he’s embarrassed by it all.”
“Well—that’s ridiculous,” Lorenzo said firmly. “You’re an academic, just like him.”
Charlie said nothing. Lorenzo thought he’d said the wrong thing somehow, and grasped to right himself. “If your father makes you feel ashamed of yourself, he’s a fool,” he said, hoping Charlie could hear how fervently he believed it. “You are smart, and capable, and kind.”
Softly, Charlie said, “Thanks, Lorenzo.”
He had another question, but this one was much more delicate, and he wondered if he should quit while he was ahead. Eventually, however, his curiosity won out, and he asked gently, “What about your mother?”
He watched the shadows creep across the room as thesilence stretched out. After a while Charlie shook his head, and Lorenzo thought that was the most he could do. He pulled Charlie’s head down into his chest more firmly, holding him tight, letting him know that it was okay.
But then he said, in a thin, bare voice, “She died when I was seventeen.”
“Oh, Charlie,” he whispered.
“Yeah. It was, um...I mean, I had time to say goodbye,” he said. “Not a lot. It was pancreatic.”
