Chance

“The real puzzle here is why the hell a clothing store is open at ten o’clock at night,” Gerard says, looking up at the glowing ‘open’ sign above the boutique. Usually stores close around nine, but clothing stores in this city usually close about ten minutes after they open. This is for a couple reasons, they just always close at about six because they know you don’t get off work until 6:01, and they don’t make enough money to keep themselves open so they’re usually replaced by a Little Caesars after a month or two.

“Are you sure the puzzle isn’t the fact that this place is called Forever 23?”

“You’re right, it’s a peculiar number, isn’t it? No one likes you when you’re 23.”

“I mean, I don’t know if I trust 23 year olds,” Frank says. “They’re fresh out of college, and think they own the world, but they haven’t moved out of their parent’s basement yet.”

“Um, excuse you, when I was 23, I lived on my friend’s couch, so clearly I was far inferior to the youth of today.”

“I lived in my friend’s garage,” Frank shrugs. “I paid rent, the raccoon who also lived there did not because he was an inconsiderate little shit.”

Gerard squints his eyes to see through the small window they have in front of the store. He wants to know why on earth the store would be open at this time of night, but there seems to be no indication. Gerard will give them some props on their utilization of the color pink, because they certainly did it successfully. It’s smack you in the face, Pepto pink, and it is everywhere. It’s basically Forever 21 on acid.

“Oh my god this is what it must be like inside Barbie’s sex fantasies,” Frank says, and Gerard snorts.

“Let’s go somewhere that is not here,” Gerard says.

“I’d literally take hell over Umbridge’s lair.”

“Bro, I’d take Voldemort over Umbridge. I’d take fucking Satan over Umbridge.”

“Well,” Frank says, giggling a little to himself, “We have established that I am Satan. You’d take fucking Satan, is that what you said?”

“No, like I meant I’d take freaking Satan, not fucking Satan, or at least I meant it the other way.”

“Sure you did,” Frank says.

“Oh my god,” Gerard groans, “I mean, I’m not gonna deny it if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh you,” Frank says, and he pulls Gerard over to the next store that they pass with lights on, which happens to be a barbershop. For all your ten at night haircutting needs.

“Who gets their hair cut this late?” Frank asks.

“White people,” Gerard says.

“It just seems impractical,” Frank shrugs, “If I’m out on the town at this time of day, all I want is food and liquor. I don’t need anyone near my face with scissors. I bet they stay open this late because people come in so intoxicated that they think a rattail is a good idea.”

“You’d have to be on something more than just alcohol to think a rattail is a good idea,” Gerard says. “You’d probably need to be unconscious.”

Frank nods, “true.”

They come upon yet another store open way too late, and several bars and restaurants which totally should be open. They only walk by a couple of people, when you consider that this is New York, who are all either drunk off their tits or high as a bird. It’s actually quite nice, none of them are eager to get up in their business so Gerard doesn’t see any reason to be up in theirs.

Gerard doesn’t really have any issues with drunk people, or high people, it’s not really something that bothers him, he just let that life go when he started paying taxes.

“Oh man, in college, I worked at a Dominos, and I swear, every fucking night, sometimes twice a night, I’d get a call from someone who was under the influence of something, and there is nothing harder than telling a high kid that you don’t sell blueberry muffins.”

“Was it consistently blueberry muffins they asked for, or…?”

“No, there was a large variety. Some wanted normal things like cake, potato chips, McDonalds, and then you had some who were higher than others who wanted like fucking baba ghanoush, or an onion blossom. Like, I get you’ve got the munchies, but who the fuck has a craving that particular? And why the fuck are you asking me for it, like where the hell do you buy baba fucking ghanoush?”

“What is baba ghanoush?”

“Hell if I know, I think it’s got eggplants in it.”

Gerard can’t take eggplants seriously anymore, and it’s because his last boyfriend, the one who he dated for three years which was by all means three years too long, loved to use emoji’s. Specifically, he loved the eggplant emoji. Gerard doesn’t know why he let that relationship endure for so long, it might be because he was the only person Gerard’s ever known who owned a juicer, and Gerard just really likes juice.

Gerard’s phone buzzes, and he uncomfortably pulls his phone out while Frank looks at him. Gerard hates texting, and everyone he knows is aware of that, so usually people text him with grocery lists, or if someone is literally about to die. Gerard just has big thumbs and he can never muster up the energy to have a conversation with someone through text. And he doesn’t want to risk ever having to see that fucking eggplant emoji ever again.

When Gerard looks at his phone, he’s got one message from Hayley saying, “r u dead?”

Gerard texts back a simple “no” and tries to put his phone away quickly, because another reason why he doesn’t like texting is that it restricts him socializing with people face to face, but Hayley’s got some nimble fucking fingers because only a few seconds later it buzzes again.

“good. wat r u doin?”

“getting married,” Gerard texts back.

“hes that rich?”

“that perfect.”

Frank looks at him quizzically, and Gerard responds, “my friend is just making sure you haven’t murdered me. I told her we’re getting married.”

“Oh alright,” Frank says, “well it’s a good thing you told her that I didn’t, because I do plan to kill you, just not yet. Call me a hopeless romantic but I like making people fall in love with me before killing them.”

“Sounds fair,” Gerard replies. “Do I get to pick how I want to die, or is that up to you? Do you have a really specific Criminal Minds type MO?”

“I mean, not really,” Frank says, “I didn’t think about it too extravagantly. I was just thinking that I’d stab you or something, whatever becomes the most opportune weapon at the time of said murder.”

Gerard nods, “well I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything more. You don’t leave a bar with a guy unless you fully accept the possibility that you’re going to get murdered.”

“But like, we can still get married though,” Frank says, “because, everyone’s got their own favorite cop show, and in every single one of them, the husband or wife always did it. Unless there’s a butler, then he did it.”

“But according to Scooby Doo logic it’s always the one guy who laughs menacingly, and that’s usually the only person you’re actually introduced to in the entire episode.”

“To be fair though, they only had a two to three-dollar budget for each episode.”

“Hey, if you factor in inflation, they’ve got more money than that,” Gerard says.

“Yeah, so about eight bucks per episode. It’s a wonder Scooby Doo is a national treasure,” Frank responds.

“Hey, dude you better not have just fucking insulted Scooby Doo, because I will cut you,” Gerard warns.

“No, I adore it,” Frank says, and Gerard glares at him, “honestly, I do. It’s not the best animation ever, but it’s simplicity and shit artwork or half of what makes it so endearing.”

“The bad artwork and small budget are literally the best part about the show. It’s the bee’s knees, and the more years that pass, the poorer it ages but the better it gets,” Gerard says, “and honestly, you know I want to be an animator but I still think Scooby Doo is the bomb.”

“I do genuinely like it,” Frank says. “Maybe not as much as you, but I don’t dislike it and that’s what counts.”

“Alright, because for a second there we had a problem.”

“You really like it a lot though?” Frank asks, “I mean, I would assume that you, given your field of choice, would hate it. Like, Scooby Doo is really poorly drawn, and I get that it’s because of how old it is, but it’s seriously bad.”

“It’s probably a nostalgia thing. Mikey and I, we were raised on Scooby Doo, I remember only having two VHS tapes of the show, only two, so I watched those episodes more times than you could imagine, but they never got old. There were only like four episodes on each, I could probably name all of them, and honestly, sometimes I never feel more comfortable than when I rewatch those same eight episodes. It feels like everything is going to be okay, and I know they’re stupid, and I know they’re not that good, but they’re right. They’re just cozy, and warm, and I can’t honestly tell you what they mean to me. God, I’m annoying and sappy, but I don’t know how to say it, I was practically raised on that shit, Scooby Doo is like my third parent. My weird, hungry and cowardly parent, but my parent all the same.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I am going to sit you down for A Scooby Doo marathon the second I get the chance,” Frank says. This feels like the biggest insight he’s learned about Gerard yet. The things that people feel nostalgic over, and the things that make them feel comfortable are the most intimate details about them. When someone tells you something that they would never think to tell you, but defines them just as much as the things they wear on their sleeve are so important. It’s like a dissection of that person’s soul, because it’s personal, but not personal like it’s some big secret. It’s not something that’s hidden, it’s just something you would never think to say about yourself.

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” Gerard says, “so we never had too many movies. Those were just some of the ones we did have. Later on, we got Star Wars and I sort of forgot about Scooby for a while, because when you’re eight, Star Wars is all that matters, but it’s just sort of a part of me. It’s kind of like, saying that I like Scooby Doo, it’s like saying that I have feet. It’s just something that’s so true about me it’s stupid to say.”

Frank owes Gerard a similar story, so he starts before Gerard has the chance to regret having said anything, “As a kid, I really really loved Jumanji. I saw it when I was like six or seven when it was first in the theater, and I just thought it was… I thought it was the best movie that had ever been made. I went to see it five times, and I begged my mom for it when it came out, and I watched it so many times that the tape came out, and I had to get a new one. And, like, I remember when my parents split, and that really tears you apart, I watched it a shit ton that year. And I was like, always fucking sick as a kid, with this or that, my mom used to joke that if there was a virus in the state, it would find me. My mom bought me the book that Jumanji was based on when I was particularly ill, and it was like watching the movie anew again, and I worshiped it. I’ve honestly seen the movie more times than I could count, because it kind of, it’s just a movie that structured my life. Not that I really did anything inspired by the movie, nothing like that, it was just that it was always there, ya know? Like, if life sucked, it was there.”

Frank looks down, thinking, feeling a little pink, because it’s a stupid thing to admit. He feels like a little kid saying it.

“I’ve honestly never been more attracted to you,” Gerard says, looking at Frank, and he’s not kidding. He doesn’t think he’s ever been more attracted to anyone ever before.

There’s something intensely romantic about nostalgia. It’s something that Gerard wishes he shared with more people, but Gerard doesn’t really know that many people, and he knows fewer people who have been in his life long enough for that to build up. But sharing his own nostalgia with Frank, and getting it equally in return, almost feels like a shared memory. He can almost see little Frank, probably with a stupid bowl-like haircut, watching Jumanji and being careless to the world around him. Maybe he reenacted the movie with animal crackers. The thought of it sends Gerard into a gleeful state, one where his mouth hurts from the grin that feels permanently glued to his face.

Gerard has to look away for a second, because for a moment, it’s too intense. It’s Frank looking at him, and Gerard looking back, and it’s like stars colliding. It’s like years of waiting for something Gerard didn’t know he was waiting for, and this is that something. It’s like a magnetic pushing away from another magnet, the force between them being just too strong.

The sky is dark, smothering all light before it can pierce the pristine indigo. The two of them are standing directly beneath a streetlamp, a bright beacon without even the slightest of flickering.

Gerard feels hyperactive, like everything is happening all around him and he can sense all of it. He can sense the breeze, which is pleasant but doesn’t ruin your hair. He can hear the sound of people talking not too far away and cars driving on the street adjacent to this, but the sound doesn’t seem so close. He can feel the way his shoes dig into his feet which are faintly uncomfortable and strained from standing for so long, but not enough so that he needs to sit. Gerard doesn’t know what’s exactly going on between the two of them, it just feels like an understanding. It’s an understanding that this is something more.

“My brother and I couldn’t cook for shit,” Gerard says, almost in a whisper, “so when we were home alone, I’d make us both nachos, you know the ones you make as a kid, just Doritos covered in a shit ton of cheese? And it wasn’t very good, but that was all I could make. And we would watch Scooby Doo. And I just, I have this really strong memory of watching the episode with the Creeper, it was always my favorite, Scooby adopts a fucking duck and they’re being chased by this Quasimodo wannabe, and I was eating this shitty ass food I’d made myself while Mikey was just, he was just my little brother with a coloring book that he refused to color inside the lines of. It’s not exciting, but it’s just a strong memory I have.”

Frank bites his lip, eyes darting between Gerard’s eyes and his mouth and he says, “When I was really sick, I used to have to stay in hospitals overnight, and they scared the everloving shit out of me, because, hospitals are terrifying. But my mom would stay with me the whole night, in these horribly uncomfortable chairs and she would just hold my hand and read me Jumanji. I would just fall asleep to her voice.”

Frank thinks that Gerard’s eyes look an awful lot like his mother’s. Wide, and exceedingly innocent. They’re a warm brown, and give the impression that you’re always there when people need you. Gerard’s got those same eyes, the ones that Frank wishes he’d inherited. But on Gerard, they’re hypnotic. Like his eyes sing a Siren’s song.

Gerard isn’t really aware of it when it happens. He’s not really sure what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, what Frank is thinking or doing, he just knows that he’s here, and he’s alive, and that’s the most he can think.

He’s just sort of smiling at Frank and then he’s just sort of softly pressing his lips to Frank’s. It’s not really his goal, and honestly, Gerard couldn’t tell you who initiated it. It doesn’t feel like either of them did. He just knows that he’s kissing Frank, the softest kiss ever shared by any two people not in their teens, and it’s just that. It’s just sort of a kiss.

And Gerard wouldn’t say his hands scrabble, he wouldn’t say it’s anything more than an intuition when his hand finds Frank’s and they close around each other. It just feels natural.

It’s a hesitant, uncertain kiss at first, like neither is really sure what it is they’re doing. Then it starts to feel like something else. It’s like when you take a sip of water before realizing how thirsty you actually are. Now it feels like you just need more water, more and more, to satiate what you need. That’s what the kiss feels like.

It feels like nothing that Gerard could ever have guessed could be felt by anyone. Like some secret that no person should ever be worthy to know. And it’s like Gerard hasn’t kissed anyone before. Like he doesn’t know what it’s like for his heart rate to increase tenfold, and at the same time stop completely. It feels like he doesn’t know what this churning in his stomach is, the one that makes him feel as if he’s on fire, but in a good way.

It’s not like any kiss Gerard’s ever had, least of all not any first kiss. Those all felt like they were trying to accomplish a goal. Like, ‘hey we’ve sort of been dating for a little while, we should kiss to get that out of the way.’ Or ‘I’m really sexually attracted to you and want to get into your pants, but I’m a reasonable man, I’m willing to negotiate a few rushed kisses so it seems like we’ve got some sort of ulterior motive besides just fucking.’ Or even ‘I spun the fucking bottle, I’ll kiss this loser but only because I’m a chicken if I don’t.’

This is not like any of those. This is something else entirely. This is uncharted waters.

This is a fairytale kiss. This is a princess being rescued by her prince kiss. It’s a pivotal scene in a rom com meant to illustrate that the playful tension between two characters is actually love kiss. This is not something that two people who have only just met have. This is ten years of pent up emotion and love coming to a boiling point and bringing two idiots in love together at last.

This is the kind of kiss that poets right about, and it’s the kind of electricity that people who have never been in love claim could only dream about. It’s the kind of kiss that even people are in love could only dream about.

It’s a love song kiss, and a diary kiss, and a daydream kiss, and a movie kiss, and a finally kiss.

Gerard can feel everything. He can feel each individual hair on his own head, he can feel the temperature of the air on his skin, the feel of every single wrinkle in his clothing, and of every coin in his pocket against his thigh.

Frank sees everything that Gerard feels and more. Frank can see himself curled up on Gerard’s lap watching Chopped, he can see himself being convinced into buying Oreos by Gerard in a supermarket, he can see himself arguing over paint colors for a room in their house, he can see them making stir fry and throwing zucchini at each other, he can see them picking out baby clothes, he can see them crying over their kid leaving for college, and he can see himself falling asleep with Gerard’s head nudged up against his shoulder.

It’s just one kiss. Just one first kiss among thousands of other first kisses that thousands of other people have had. It’s just one moment between two people with millions of other people having millions of other moments around them.

And in just one kiss, Gerard is pretty sure he’s head over heels in love with this man.

It’s an eternity and a second when they finally break apart, barely even separating. There’s less than an inch between them, Frank’s breath on Gerard’s face, light and soft, and his hand still tangled with Gerard’s.

“Whoa,” Frank says, breathless and incredulous.

“Yeah,” Gerard says, matching Frank’s inflection to the tee.

“That was… it was,” Frank says, stumbling on his words, probably for the first time since Gerard’s known him.

“New,” Gerard finishes for him.

Frank is thinking of a million different things to say in response. Like ‘we should do that again’ or ‘I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you’ or ‘that was totally wicked’ or ‘fucking hell’ or any other number of things, but what he manages to get out is just a small sound like “mmhaujmmh” which is not quite as eloquent as he would have liked.

Gerard just nods like he knows, and he leans in again, and Frank’s weak at the knees before their lips even touch.