100 Days (50 page)

“Well, I’m not
that
smooth…” Aiden says, interrupting his thoughts. At Jake’s raised eyebrow, he shifts from one foot to the other and says, “I’m sort of desperate to know what this other birthday present is…”

“Oh, it’s… it’s nothing,” Jake says. “It’s just a DVD.”

“What DVD?” Aiden presses.

“Our movie,” Jake answers quietly. “I got you
The Lion King.”

“Jake…”

“Because that’s what started it all, right? That’s where we began; that’s where you changed my life, so I thought…”

“No such thing as history,” Aiden murmurs. “Who’s the smooth one now?”

Jake doesn’t have space to reply; Aiden twists his hand into the collar of Jake’s shirt and gently pulls himself closer. They meet in the middle and Jake sighs into the kiss, letting his hand move along the roughness of Aiden’s stubble. Aiden tries to tug him down onto the sand but Jake stops him. He wants to give him one last placeholder gift, the one inspired by a story he’s been thinking about ever since Santa Fe.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he says, “Dad once told me about the night he and Mom got engaged. After he asked her, she blindfolded him and walked him over to their tape deck and told him to pick out a tape. The first song that came on was going to be their song.”

“And what was it?” Aiden asks, looking down at the phone.

“Car Wash
,
” Jake says with a chuckle. “He said they did the jitterbug until they fell over laughing.”

“Is this going where I think it is?”

“I was just thinking, even with all the songs we’ve listened to and sung along to and danced to, and even with the one that you wrote… there isn’t really one that’s
ours.”

“Are you forgetting about “Anything Could Happen?” It was playing the first time you kissed me,” Aiden reminds him. Jake closes his eyes; that song is now forever tainted by harsh but deserved words and bitterest shame.

“It was also playing last night,” he says—the thought is surely still as fresh in Aiden’s mind as it is in his own, and this is one moment he knows will be perfect, however it turns out. “I want us to have one that we can dance like idiots to if we have to.”

Silently, he unwinds the earbuds he keeps wrapped around his phone, puts one into his own ear and gives the other to Aiden. The trembling is back again, everything feeling a little too full, as if he might burst out of his own skin if he doesn’t let Aiden hold not just his hand but all of him. So he wraps one arm around Aiden’s waist, closes his eyes and hits shuffle.

Whatever the song is, it begins almost too quietly for Jake to hear, a grad­ual building of strumming guitars that he barely recognizes. Aiden takes his hand, sandwiching the phone between their palms, and starts swaying. As he pulls back to look into Aiden’s eyes, Jake realizes that it couldn’t have been anywhere but here. It couldn’t have been one of many teenage runaway nights, riding bikes up to Coffin Pond or down to Thomas Point. It couldn’t have been spring break at Hampton Beach, playing cards on the floor of the pavilion until after sunset. It couldn’t even have been being squeezed into April’s lounger on July fourth, watching the fireworks with Aiden’s breath tickling the back of his neck.

Everything up until now—the flames and heat of Providence; Jake’s mis­step in Philadelphia; their first kiss at land’s end in Key West; ceilings crumbling and falling before them in Gary; a music box containing a train ticket that concealed the worst intentions and fears; the moment he saw the “I love you” in Aiden’s eyes, one starry night in New Orleans; resisting Aiden with everything, with words and snow and fire until nothing else remained but to leap and hope to be caught—has been leading to this otherworldly island.

No Z without Y, no Y without X, back and back and back. All of it has led to this moment in which the score dies out and leaves two people looking at each other in simple silence, everything suspended save for their racing hearts.

The singing begins, a story of believing in dreams and going after them, of life being on the right track, of hearts alive with the promise of tomorrow—of driving on.

Aiden sings along with a smile in his voice. His lips brush Jake’s ear as they sway on the sand. “How does that sound?” he asks.

Jake smiles into his shoulder. “Like the end of the beginning.”

18,500 miles

Closing Credits

Saturday, 14 May 2022

“Do you think that’s it? Because I think that’s it,” Brian says, pushing his shaggy brown hair off his face and leaning forward in his well-worn swivel chair. His finger pushes a button and just like that, he’s holding a hard drive in his hand—a hard drive that contains the first raw copy of
Chasing The Sky.
He holds it up, dangling it between his thumb and forefinger, and says, “Yep. That’s it, right there.”

Aiden leans on the arm of his chair and smiles, blinking at the drive and suppressing yet another yawn. It’s been over twelve hours in the cutting room; his neck aches, his contacts irritate him, and he’s about ready to get the hell out of here—but there it is. There’s his story,
his and Jake’s story,
ready to be seen. He woke up this morning to the knowledge that today would be the last day before editing wrapped for good, but now that it’s here, he can hardly believe it.

It’s been four years since Jake and Elsie, a collaborator they found through Matt’s company, finished writing the screenplay, and two years since Accent Features picked it up. It’s been months of shooting and weeks of editing, making what has seemed like millions of minuscule tweaks and changes, until Aiden thought he might scream. But it’s finished. They’re finished.

The film is complete. They’ve done all they can; the rest is up to the critics and the box office.

“We’re done,” he breathes, torn between bolting with the drive and sitting in his chair until he’s sure his feet can carry him. “That’s absolutely it.”

“Hell yeah, it is,” Brian exclaims, swiveling in his chair and high-fiving Aiden so forcefully it stings his palm. At Aiden’s visible wince, Brian claps a hand on his shoulder and gives him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, man. I’m just happy we’ve finally got it in the bag, you know? It’s the first time I’ll get to put my girls to bed in over a month.”

“I know how you feel,” Aiden says, feeling lighter than he has in weeks. “Jake and I have barely seen each other lately.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s been out in Cali this week visiting his sister and her husband. But he gets back today, so…” He gets back today, and Aiden can’t wait to show him the movie.
Their
movie.

“It’s rough,” Brian says, clearly oblivious to the worlds shifting inside Aiden’s head, the call of the past ringing out in time with the sound of his present. “But I’ve gotta say, you’re one hell of a music supervisor. That song you found for the scene on top of the RV, what was it…”

“‘This Is The New Year,’ A Great Big World,” Aiden says.

“Right. Genius! And I’m still not over that first montage with ‘Green Onions,’” Brian says, and collapses into laughter, pounding his fist on the bench. Aiden can’t help joining in.

“Just this side of cheesy, right?” he says between laughs. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Nor should you, sir!” Brian tells him in a ridiculously exaggerated British accent, complete with knee slap and the checking of an imaginary pocket watch. Over the years, Aiden has come to appreciate that editors tend not to be the most together of people, but these days it just washes off him. “So what are you working on next? Anything lined up?”

Aiden shakes his head. “Nothing definite yet, but my brother mentioned something about a gig on his next big-budget, so I’ve gotta head out west next month. What about you?”

“Moving into small screen. They’re gonna be shooting the next Marvel spin-off right here in the city, so I’m sticking around for that,” Brian says. He passes the drive back and forth between his hands before he finally hands it over. “But you, you get out of here. Get this back first thing tomorrow or they’ll have my head, but go on. Get out.”

“Understood,” Aiden says. He slips the drive into his messenger bag, shrugs his jacket on and pulls his sunglasses from his pocket. Standing, he shakes the hand that Brian holds out to him and says sincerely, “Great working with you, man.”

“You too, Calloway. Don’t be a stranger.”

“‘Course not. Say hi to the girls for me.”

“Will do,” Brian says. Halfway through swiveling to face the screens again, he stops and looks at Aiden. “Did all of that really happen? I mean, it must have been a pretty insane trip.”

Aiden smiles, his hand on the door to the editing suite. “Ask Jake. He wrote it.”

He leaves the studio with a spring in his step and excitement bubbling in his stomach. He gets on the subway at West Twenty-eighth and taps his foot all the way home to Cobble Hill, where he picks up a bunch of gerbera daisies from the vendor on the corner.

He climbs the steps to their brownstone and lets himself inside, thrilling at the sight of Jake’s suitcase standing by the end table. He drops his keys on top of the messy pile of mail he’s had neither the time nor the inclination to read while Jake has been out of town. Music is playing in the living room, something happy and bouncy that sounds like the band Jake has been obsessed with for the past month. Aiden closes the door and hangs up his jacket, then retrieves the drive from his bag and hides it behind his back along with the daisies.

Jake sits on the couch, facing away from him, and Aiden watches him for a few moments, appreciating the sight of him back here at home after what has felt like an endless week. His blond hair is lighter than usual, shot through with California sun, and the freckles on the back of his neck are barely distinguishable from his tan.

“California always did agree with you,” he says.

Jake almost jumps out of his skin but recovers quickly, dropping the shot list he’s been studying and pulling off his reading glasses. He scrambles over the back of the couch and launches himself at Aiden, throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him with all the hunger of a starving man.

“Are you—here again?” he asks between kisses.

Chuckling into his mouth, Aiden pulls away and says, “I missed you, too. How’s the fam?”

“Good, great, everyone’s fantastic,” Jake says breathlessly, his eyes sparkling. Aiden is almost taken aback; Jake wasn’t this excited when he got back from spending a month on location in Nova Scotia while Aiden composed a score with the California Philharmonic. Jake bounces on his toes and repeats his question, “Are you here again?”

By way of an answer, Aiden produces the flowers and the drive from behind his back, holding them out with a smirk. “It’s finished.”

Jake looks between both items as if unsure which to take first, but after a moment he accepts the flowers and looks at Aiden. “It’s really done?”

“It’s really done,” Aiden says, “and I’ve only got this copy until tomorrow, so we have to watch it tonight.”

“Okay, then,” Jake says, all business, “you get it set up while I put these in water—by the way, thank you, I love you, you’re the best—I’ll order in, and we’ll watch it right now.”

With that, Jake sweeps out of the room, leaving Aiden to stare after him. Something is definitely weird. Whatever it is, Aiden knows he’ll find out sooner or later, so he makes short work of getting everything connected and by the time he pauses their movie on the first frame, Jake is curling up next to him on their black and beige couch, looking deep into his eyes and smiling in that way he does when he’s got a secret he’s bursting to share.

Before Aiden can ask, however, Jake says, “I’m so proud of you. I’m proud of
us.”

Aiden smiles and kisses his cheek, says, “Me too,” and hits play.

He was expecting that they would remain utterly silent, since they’re watching this all the way through for the first time; on the contrary, they talk constantly, pointing out shots they love, Aiden praising Jake’s script, Jake gushing over the two songs that Aiden wrote specifically for the sound­track. “The Only Forever” remains theirs and theirs alone, for the rare nights when Aiden brings his guitar into the bedroom and quietly picks out the tune while Jake lies under the covers with his hair sticking up as he sings along.

Three and a half months summed up in two hours of screen time, yet the way Aiden gets lost in it, it feels like twenty minutes. And as the screen fades to black on the closing scene, Jake’s hand finds his in the dark.

And then two lines of text appear on the screen:

Screenplay by

Elsie Brett and Jake Calloway

Seeing Jake’s name on the end credits of a film is something that never fails to make Aiden grin, so at first it doesn’t occur to him that the film shouldn’t have credits, yet. Nor does it occur to him that the names of the screenwriters would not appear first, ahead of the directors and producers. It isn’t until Jake squeezes his hand and Aiden turns to him, still grinning, that he realizes what is fundamentally wrong.

Jake’s last name is Valentine.

Jaw dropping, Aiden looks at the screen and then back at Jake, who is watch­ing him, waiting. And all at once, the pieces slot together: Brian forcing him to take a fifteen-minute break right before they got to the final scene; the way Jake has been acting since Aiden got home; the strange, collar-creeping feeling he’s had all day that some prophecy from the past is about to be fulfilled.

“If the time was right, if he was the right guy… yeah, I think I’d like to get married.”

“Proposal?”

“Something simple. Quiet and intimate, just the two of us. Not on an anni­versary or a birthday or Christmas.
Definitely
not on Valentine’s.”

“You did this?” Aiden breathes, feeling as if he’s about to vibrate out of his skin.

“I called in a favor,” Jake says. His voice sounds as if he’s on the other side of a wall for all the static screaming in Aiden’s ears. Jake reaches into the pocket of the threadbare Bowdoin hoodie he’s wearing and pulls out a tiny box wrapped in deep red. He turns it over in his hands, looks at Aiden with nearly three decades of love in his eyes and asks, “I think it’s about time, don’t you? Stoke the fires?”

Aiden opens and closes his mouth a few times. That little red box has been so far from his mind for years. So many times they talked about it and agreed it wasn’t the right time, and neither of them have ever felt the need for rings or pieces of paper, and even now it probably isn’t the right time, but—

“Dan?”

His eyes meet Jake’s, and it
is
about time.

Aiden smiles. He laughs. And, his voice a trembling wreck, he answers, “Start the engines.”

The End