Chapter Thirty Seven

On my way to a winery, I spotted Saylor, in his usual nondescript attire, among the crowded roads. He stood out, but he wasn't some seven-foot tall giant like my ease of spotting him might've led one to believe. I had a knack for picking him out of a crowd. He was with Ryan and Eddie, of course. He seemed extra chummy with Ryan, despite what he'd told me in his bedroom. I decided to put my wine endeavors on hold to tail him.

The trio stopped to take photos of a group of vendors candying their apples in real time. They were laughing and having a blast doing it. I was happy for Saylor and part of me hoped he was lying and had a thing with Ryan. The selfish, much larger, part of me only wanted to share him with Faith and no one else. We both kind of expected each other to lead honest monastery lives of celibacy it seemed. Saylor hadn't made a move since that night, so he could've grown wise to how selfish that was to ask of each other.

Saylor bought one of the candied apples. His was covered in chocolate and had a layer of nuts on the outside. Eddie bought the classic caramel. I felt like that should've been the one Saylor chose. I waited to see which one Ryan would buy, so that I could judge accordingly. He didn't buy one. He was probably watching his figure. Ryan was rail thin already. He was tall, not Saylor tall, but about my match in height. He had black hair, but with blond tips in a faux hawk and he was handsome enough, but you wouldn't catch me looking.

They moved out of the streets and were headed up a wide and curved, concrete staircase that was in between two woodworking shops. I imagined the shop owners to be lifelong competitors with underhanded tactics and constant one-upmanship to steal the lion's share of the communal market, but this wasn't the time for my crazy stories.

I had to keep up with them. It was hard, I still had the foot traffic in the street to deal with. I found, in my personal experience, from my limited sampling, that communal folk were more aware of their surroundings and not as likely to be looking up at nothing, merely existing to be in my way.

I made it up the steps in one piece. I only had to shove a few people, but it was fine, I'd never see them again. The stair path led to a gorgeous hidden gem of a pond area. It was bordered by the competing woodworking shops, large halo dogwood shrubs whose leaves were frosted at the tips—they looked prettier than most flowering bushes—and white pergolas along the outer limits, snaked with vines all over.

The pond was the center piece and was bordered by mossy rocks, flanked by wood and iron benches and it had lily pads floating around in it. Cobblestone paths branched off from the pond and short, densely packed flowers were grown in patches in between. I spotted lavender and rosemary, but the rest I'd classify as wildflowers.

I was so disarmed by the Amana equivalent of the Garden of Eden that I'd forgotten my intentions. I hated when that happened. I went through the motions of retracing my steps, but that only helped by coincidence. As I was walking along the frosty shrubs, I caught view of a white gazebo with a gray roof. It was shaped exactly like the tip of a tiki torch.

There were three photography students nearby, two were sitting together inside of it. One of them was holding a candied apple partially covered in nuts that wasn't his and the other was holding him in exchange. I realized that everything I had said about wanting Saylor to find happiness was bullshit. Ops, my mistake.

I backed into the crowd. I figured standing dumbstruck in clear line of sight wasn't an effective long term strategy. As I stalked them to make sure I hadn't laid eyes on something out of context, I kept a mental count of how long Ryan stayed in Saylor's lap. I had to be able to present solid evidence when I eventually confronted him.

I wasn't sure how I felt about lap-sitting, but a google search revealed I couldn't cast it as creepy. Therefore, I could be both angry and jealous about Saylor never asking me to sit on his lap. Had it been creepy, I'd have addressed our future 'trial' from a place of concern. To be clear, there was no scenario where Saylor and Ryan were allowed to stay friends.

For not being hungry enough to buy his own, Ryan was sure doing a number on Saylor's apple. He was straight up murdering it. I sneered whenever I saw him laughing. I wasn't close enough to hear it, but I'd heard it before. Seeing him perform his routine of limped wrist, head casting body movements to summon it, was enough for my mind to boot up audio. His was a chicken screech, but with a little riffing at the end. I hated it and I hated how he bounced on my best friend's lap whenever he did it, which was probably the only reason he was laughing anyway.

Saylor wasn't funny. He was smart, he had never ending national park stories, he never talked bad about anyone even when baited to and he was indecisive about anything that didn't have a correct answer. Could he laugh you to tears, make you slap your knees off, or give you a gut-buster? Only the last one and not with his jokes.

I couldn't keep watching them. It was painful to tell the truth. I didn't like the idea of Saylor not needed me or caring that I wasn't around, but there he was, proving both to be true. There had been at least ten minutes of lap-sitting, but I was never good with numbers and time was relative, so I'd claim it'd been twice that easily.

The thunder and lightning would be for later, I was civilized. I'd say enough for Saylor to wonder if I was mad. I approached from their blindside, walking behind a few communal folk. I waited for this scenario because I thought my sudden appearance in vastly differing attire would elicit a greater reaction.

If all went well, Saylor would be given 'contrast of culture shock' on top of the reaction he'd give from me catching him with his beau he claimed to have nothing with.

I crouched down behind the communal group and kept pace to stay hidden by their thick polyester garbs in dark purples and navy blues. They didn't notice me, so I kept inching closer to the gazebo where Saylor was still sitting.

At the perfect angle, I stopped in my tracks while the group I was following kept walking. I took a few long strides over to the gazebo and perhaps Saylor would've noticed sooner, if his tongue hadn't been in Ryan's mouth. I folded my arms out in front of me, instinctively. I didn't have grounds to be upset. I'd kissed Jerome without so much as a second thought and I didn't regret it. The difference was that I was honest to Saylor. The difference was that I made sure Saylor knew where he stood with me every day, that he was my number one if he wanted me, but he didn't do the same. He hid Ryan from me, let him sneak into his chest like a thief in the night and steal his heart away from me.

I stood there, shell-shocked. Their kiss was a scoop of vanilla. Simple, yet elegant. Their necks held opposing angles as tongues stretched past parted lips and swept across one another, taste receptors traded flavors and lips showed the highest form of flattery. A pas de deux then pirouette away.

Saylor saw me as their lips glided away from each other. I had no reason to be upset was what I'd told myself. It didn't change a damned thing. Saylor's reaction was everything. His eyes grew wide and he cast Ryan aside to come over to me. It was an incredibly dumb move for such a smart guy. He couldn't claim to have done nothing wrong with a reaction like that.

"Rudy, stop. I know what you're going t—," Saylor said.

"No, it's fine. You deserve each other," I lied.

My tone was flat and I hadn't raised my voice. I'd merely been, discernible. I backed away. He didn't pursue. He stood there broken, likely having seen the same coldness in my eyes that I'd been deathly afraid of seeing in his.

I had to leave him before he left me and if he'd known anything about me, then he would've known the risk he'd taken. I was the one in our group who held grudges, no matter how dumb. Saylor knew that well. That was why he'd carried me back the night I'd ran out of my cousin's winter sleepover. I turned away and left the stupid garden. It looked so tacky to me. The lily pads didn't even have frogs on them.

For the next hour or so, I made a game of rotating through the wineries and distilleries, slamming down their one ounce, plastic shots. At the wineries, I could down three or four without so much as a second glance because there were so many different flavors, but the breweries were a one and done.

As it turned out, wine wasn't terrible, grape wine was terrible. These wineries used an assortment of fruit to make theirs. Black raspberry was my favorite, but blackberry was a close second. I stopped making the rounds when I ran into Juice.

"Boy, is you good?" he asked.

I shook my head. I was very drunk, or maybe I was dramatizing. I'd been known to do that. At the same time, I'd never been drunk before and I had at least twenty samples, which wasn't far off from having a bottle of wine to myself.

Jerome let me put my arm over his shoulder to help me walk without drawing too much attention to how toasted I was. It made me laugh because it seemed as intimate as holding hands, the thing we'd parted ways over earlier. He ignored me and led me out of the township. There couldn't have been more than an hour left before it was time for us to leave anyway. He probably figured it best I was on the bus already rather than having to talk to or walk on my own past Mr. Parker. I would've agreed, had I been coherent enough to be given a vote. As it stood, I did what was commanded of me, nothing more or less.

"How many d'you drink?" he asked.

I shrugged. We left the township together. We crossed the road to get over to the parking lot. It was completely filled. Cars were parked beyond the gravel and all across the grassy field. Our bus driver had the right idea, parking along the edge. Otherwise we'd have been trapped. The field parking didn't follow the same aisles that were coned off along the gravel. It was a nightmare that would've been manageable in a compact car, but never a bus.

Juice and I came upon the bus and I faked a limp—as he'd commanded—so the bus driver would let us on early. I doubted the grumpy, old man would've prevented us from getting on. It was in his best interest to have students arrive early. It meant less to have to round up later. Maybe the limping was to distract from my intoxication. That made more sense.

"Let's go all the way to the back," I said. He was leading the way and that was probably where he was headed already. I was extra talkative since I was drunk or dramatizing tipsiness. "Let's kiss until they get back, okay?"

Jerome turned to me and grabbed my wrists from the top. It was a show of force. "You'll stop when I tell you?" he asked. I nodded like the kid I thought he was treating me as. "The exact moment?"

"The exact."

He pulled me into the back aisle, but made me sit on the floor instead of the seat. I didn't mind kissing on the floor. I understood. He wanted to be extra cautious. He couldn't get caught. I hadn't earned more than that.

Jerome stood over me. His coat was off. I could see the bulge of his muscles through his gray, cashmere sweater. I could see another as well.

"Anything I want, just take?" he asked.

I nodded because I'd meant it. I was drunk, maybe, but that wouldn't have changed my answer. I had lost Saylor. He'd never been interested in taking me up on a similar offer. Who would've I been to deny Juice if he was? I couldn't lose the man I'd spent three years chasing, not over something I'd planned on doing some day anyway. Sure, I had wanted to hold out to use it as incentive, to get him to come out, but I guess I'd need to come up with something else.

"Can we kiss after?" I asked, my hands clasped pleadingly from where I knelt.

"Nah, never mind," he said.

I reached for him to stop. He stopped. With my consent, Jerome stripped his lower half and made me prove, with my mouth, that I was worth keeping around. My thoroughness earned me the privilege of another day, and severe cotton mouth.