Dirty Little Secrets

Although I’d moved out of the dorm to keep my distance from Darcy’s bad influence, we still hung out all the time. The difference now was that we went out to eat places and went to the parks rather than frat parties to get drunk. But today she was dragging me to lunch with her so she could introduce me to Hot Carlos.

She pulled me into this hole in the wall coffee place and he was sitting at a table against the wall reading an Alternative Press magazine with Motion City Soundtrack on the cover.

“Hey Darce!” He said when he looked up, then got up to hug her. He stood there looking at me until Darcy introduced us.

“Carlos, this is my ex-roomate Danny.”

“Ex?” He questioned as we sat down across from him and the waitress placed two steaming mugs of coffee in front of us. “Did Darcy run you out or something?”

“Yeah. She made me almost fail first semester.”

“You go to Julliard too?” I nodded. “What are you there for? Music?”

“Acting. You’re there for music?”

He nodded, smiling. “Excuse me, I’m going to the bathroom,” Darcy said and stood up, obnoxiously looking at me and bumping into me. God…

Carlos and I talked about music and what he liked to play and what he listened to. He was very metal. He liked Megadeth and Judas Priest. “How do you not like Sharp Dressed Man?” He asked as Darcy came back.

I shrugged. “It just irks me, I don’t know. But any other ZZ Top song is fine.”

“Oh well I’m in a Hispanic ZZ Top cover band,” he joked as he took a sip of his coffee.

“Let me guess, is it called Ze Ze Tóp?”

After an hour of conversation, Darcy and I left to go to my apartment. “Dude, you are totally into him!” She said when she shut the door.

“I am not,” I said as I poured myself a bowl of cereal. “He’s a great guy, but I don’t know what you wanted to accomplish today.”

“I wanted to show you that there are more fish in the sea besides Johnny Boy.”

“I’m not in the sea. I’m in a little gold fish bowl.”

“Oh, who’s texting me?” She sang and showed me her phone. “Hot Carlos wants to know if we want to go out to dinner with him tomorrow night.”

“As long as you’re there, I’ll go.”

The next day I was at my apartment alone after class which was a new thing. I took a taxi to Fairway Café and saw Carlos standing outside with a leather jacket on.

“Darcy’s not here yet?” I asked him.

“She said she was coming with you.”

“She told me she was coming with you.” He smiled as I died inside. She fucking set me up on a date I didn’t even want to go on.

“Looks like we’ve been set up,” he said then nodded his head in the direction of the small restaurant. “Come on, it’s freezing out here. Let’s not let Darcy ruin our dinner.”

I smiled uncomfortably as he put his arm lightly behind me, ushering me inside. I didn’t want to be here. Yeah, I thought Carlos was a great person and I’d like to be friends with him, but he’s going to take this dinner the wrong way. I looked down at my hand. Fuuuck… I forgot my engagement ring.

“Did you say you were from New York?” Carlos asked me, breaking me out of my trance.

“I’m not. I’m from Arizona.”

“Arizona? Isn’t it like really hot there?”

“Extremely.”

This guy would not stop smiling. “So how do you like New York and the cold?”

“New York’s great, the cold, not so much.”

He laughed as he took off his jacket. “Yeah, I don’t think I could submit myself to such dry hotness that is Arizona.”

For some reason I giggled. “Well if you’re born there it doesn’t seem so extreme.”

“Same goes for here.” I found myself smiling back at him until our food was brought to us. What was I doing? What was I getting myself into? I can’t do this to John. “You okay? You look like you have something on your mind.”

“I’m fine, I just… I’m just cheesed at Darcy for setting me up.”

“Cheesed? Is that what people say in Arizona?”

“No, it’s what I say.”

“Oh.” He just stared away at me and his eyes became sultrier by the minute. It’s as if I were mesmerized. “Do you need a ride back to your apartment? I’d be happy to take you.”

“I was just going to take a taxi.”

“My way is much faster.”

As I stood in front of his motorcycle, I was thinking about how my mother would have warned me to never get on the back of someone’s bike, but I actually wanted to ride it. It excited me. He sped in between all of the stopped taxi cabs and sooner than I wanted it to be over, we arrived in front of my apartment. He got off the bike with me.

“Today was fun,” he said as I pulled off the complementary helmet. “You’re fun. And uh… I’m kind of glad Darcy decided to ditch us. Maybe we can do this again sometime?” He was inching closer to me than he already was.

“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.”

He began smiling again. “Awesome.” He kissed my cheek. “Bye, Danny.”

“Bye, Carlos.”

He sped away again as I found myself touching my cheek. What the fuck just happened?

I went inside to see Darcy sitting on my couch. I was unaware of how she got in. Then I remembered I was mad at her for doing that to me.

“Well?” She said with a wide smile on her face. “What did I tell you? He’s totally for you, Dan.”

“No, John is totally for me. I can’t believe you’d set me up like that!”

She didn’t look shaken. “You like him, don’t you?”

I sat down next to her. “Yeah. He’s great. Too great.”

****

--John--

“John!” Tim was running across the parking lot of the same little bar we’ve always played at. “John!”

“Yes Tim.” I was helping Garrett put the rack of guitars in the van. The March weather was already getting unbearable.

“I just got off the phone with Brian Evans.” He seemed excited for some reason. I looked at him and waited for him to continue. “He heard a recording of you guys playing and he wants to help produce the first record!”

“What?!” I screamed. Pat and Garrett also seemed pretty damn excited. Maybe because they were juniors and would have an album out when they’re so young. “Tim, that’s awesome!”

“Yeah, and when the album’s done, he’s going to take it to Fearless Records!”

I couldn’t have been happier. Our dreams were coming true. And it was at times like these I wish Danny were here.

I hadn’t seen her since Christmas but Eric, Jared and I were going to New York in a couple of weeks when we get off for spring break. I still didn’t talk to her as much as I’d have liked to, but we did what we could.

She told me she’d made a new friend – Carlos. The way she talked about him didn’t sit right with me. It felt like she liked him a little too much. I guess I didn’t like him was because I thought of him as a threat. But I’d never show I thought of him that way. I was a man. I was tough. When I got back to the house, I told her the good news.

“That’s so awesome!” She shrieked. “Babe, I’m so proud of you. You are going to do great things with this.”

“Thanks, Doll Face.”

She giggled and it took me back to innocent times when someone wasn’t trying to steal my girlfriend out from under me. “I love you so, so much, Dear Johnny. Can you just come here already? Bring your tux because we’re getting married.”

“Will do. And I love you too. Go buy your dress too.”

After what seemed like two years, the day the clan and I were traveling to New York finally came. Our flight would be in when she got out of class, so she instructed us to take a cab to her apartment.

--Danny--

I hastily put my key in the lock and burst through my doors, slammed my bag down and looked at the clock. They should be arriving in 10 minutes. I turned around to start straightening up the place but jumped out of my skin. Carlos was standing behind me.

“Oh my God. You scared me. What are you doing here? Did you come to help me clean up?” I chuckled as I began straightening up some magazines.

“No, I uh… I came to talk to you.”

“Oh. What did you want to talk about?” I didn’t cease to clean as I spoke.

“Us.”

I finally stopped what I was doing but didn’t face him. “Carlos…”

I admit I did have the hots for Carlos. But I never did anything about it. I could never do that to John.

“Just hear me out, Danny. I like you. Okay? A lot. I haven’t felt this way about somebody in a long time. I don’t know what it is about you, but I’m just drawn to you. I need to be near you.” He walked over to me and held my hand. “And I can tell you feel the same.”

“Carlos…” I started again. “I have a boyfriend. A fiancé, at that! I can’t throw away my love and fourteen years with him just because you like me a lot…”

He let go of my hand and looked defeated. Before he turned to walk away, he put his hands on my neck and went in for the kill. I dodged out of his way before his lips touched mine and I ended up on the other side of the room.

“I think it’s time for you to leave, Carlos.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and before I could respond in any way, Jared burst his way in. “Danny!” He yelled and ran over to me, choking me in his hug.

“I missed you too, Jared.” I hugged him back then there were extra arms around me and I saw Eric’s head resting peacefully on Jared’s shoulder.

“The clan is back together and ready to party!” Eric shouted as they piled off of me. Carlos was still standing there and John was over by the door.

“Oh, Carlos, this is Eric and Jared,” I said pointing respectively. “And this is my fiancé, John.”

He shook their hands graciously and with his unmistakable smile. “Well, I’ll see you later, Danny. It’s nice to meet all of you.”

John stared off after him with his arm protectively around my shoulder as I hugged him from the side. After his stare off, he finally looked down at me with soft eyes and his gorgeous smile and kissed me.

“Your hair is so long!” I said and played with it.

“I’m just too lazy to go get it cut. Oh,” he said and dug around in his backpack. “Megan sent these.”

I ripped the pictures out of his hands and sat on the couch next to Jared and flipped through them. “Oh my goodness my nephew is just the cutest! Well, Megan’s adorable and so is Garrett so I wouldn’t expect anything less. But oh my gosh! I can’t wait to see him in person! John, just to let you know, he’s going to be our ring bearer.”

“Of course.”

As I laid down in John’s arms that night on the blow up mattress in the kitchen, I became extremely enraged. Who the hell was Carlos to tell me how he feels like it would change anything between John and I? So now his feelings were out in the open and he just completely fucked up our friendship. And I really enjoyed being his friend. He was the comic relief to Darcy’s reckless behavior. But what really made me mad was that I couldn’t tell him how I felt.