Out of Nowhere (12 page)

“Uh, like the rifle?” I say.

“
Supernatural
,” DeShawn says when no one else answers me, too caught up in talking about… whatever the hell they’re talking about.

“Huh?”

“It’s a TV show about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, who drive all around the country fighting supernatural forces.”

“Oh. Well, one of my brothers is named Sam,” I offer.

Mikal and Mischa look like they might die of excitement.

“Oh. My. God,” Mischa whispers. “This is the best thing.”

“Hey,” says Carlos, nudging Mischa. “Tell him the car.”

“It’s a 1967 Chevy Impala.”

“You know cars?” I ask Mischa. She rolls her eyes.

“No, duh. On the show.”

“The car Sam and Dean drive is a Chevy Impala,” DeShawn explains, bless him.

“Oh yeah. Cool car,” I say, picturing it. “Triple tail lights. Sixty-seven, you said? Nice. The X-frame gets replaced by a full perimeter frame, angled windshield, full-coil suspension, Coke-bottle styling….”

Ricky, who hasn’t said anything during this conversation about
Twilight
and whatever the hell show they’re talking about, perks up when I start describing the ’67 Impala, but everyone else looks dazed and I trail off.

“So, um, you think I look like this dude who drives an Impala and fights supernatural forces? That’s pretty cool, I guess. Way better than some sparkly vampire.”

Mikal fits himself to my side and holds up his phone for me to see. On the cracked screen is the guy they’ve been looking at. He’s wearing jeans, black work boots, and a black T-shirt, and is standing in front of a sweet four-door hardtop Impala. He has my coloring, though his hair’s darker than mine. And I guess I can see the resemblance. Honestly, though, this guy is way better-looking than me. I give the phone back to Mikal. They’re all looking at me expectantly, except Ricky, who’s staring off into space.

“Uh, okay?” I say. Mischa grins and Mikal winks at me. Even Dorothy’s smile looks satisfied, and Carlos is nodding like order has been restored.

“Okay,” he says. “Twilight’s out and Winchester’s in.”

Rafe mumbles something I can’t make out.

“What’s that, Conan?” Carlos says.

“I said his nickname’s better than mine.” Rafe looks like one of the kids, slouching with his hands in his pockets.

“Aw, Conan, don’t pout,” Carlos teases, and Rafe straightens up, back in control.

“So,” I say, “we gonna actually look at the car or just talk about them?”

Ricky starts walking toward the car before I’m even done with the question, and we follow her.

We’re talking through how to do an oil change when Rafe puts a hand on my upper arm, causing me to break out in goose bumps despite the warm weather.

“Hey, I need to go deal with something,” he says, low, nodding to the doorway where someone is looking toward us expectantly. “Will you be okay by yourself for a bit?”

“Yeah, course.” I try to focus on the car instead of the line of Rafe’s back as he walks away, but before I can get back to what I was saying, the kids clump in around me. At first I think it’s to see better, but only Ricky is still focused on what’s going on under the hood.

“Okay, Winchester,” Carlos says. “Spill.”

“Huh?” I look down to the oil pan to see if I spilled, but I haven’t started to drain it yet.

“Are you dating Rafe or what?”

“What?” I say, my heart starting to pound and a coil of sick fear unfurling in my gut. “No!” DeShawn is shaking his head at the group, but the rest of them are still waiting like I haven’t said anything. I start to cross my arms and catch myself just before I get oil from my hands all over myself. “Why do you think that? Why do you even think I’m…? I mean, I thought you had plenty of straight volunteers.”

“We have a few,” Mikal says, looking confused as to why I’d bring this up.

“So, why do you think, like… um.”

“Why do we think you’re gay?” Carlos chimes in.

The word hits like a fist.

“Not cool, man,” DeShawn says softly, shaking his head again.

“What—I’m just asking,” Carlos says. “Winchester ain’t gotta answer if he doesn’t want. Right, Winchester?”

I don’t know what to say. The kids are looking at me and now it’s like what they need from me has nothing to do with cars and everything to do with me. With something that I don’t know how to give them. Anders, who hasn’t said anything all day, is looking at me expectantly. Dorothy, arms crossed over her chest, has her eyes narrowed at me like I’m disappointing her. Like I’m pathetic and a liar. And I guess she’s right. These kids are all here to be honest about who they are. And they’re
kids
. I’m a grown man and I can’t even say it out loud to a bunch of teenagers. Pathetic.

“Hey, man,” Carlos says, and his voice is gentle, like he’s sensed that he upset me. “It’s cool. You don’t have to talk about it either way.” Nice kid, giving me an out. “It’s not like I’d think you were gay if I saw you walking down the street or anything,”

“Definitely not,” Dorothy scoffs after looking me up and down, somehow managing to make it sound like a bad thing.

“Yeah, but, I mean, you wouldn’t think that about Rafe either, right?” adds Mikal.

He’s certainly right about that.

“So, then, why…?” I start again, but stop, unsure if I want to know the answer.

“It’s how Rafe looks at you,” Carlos says, sounding serious now. “How, like, in tune you guys are.” The rest of the kids all nod, even DeShawn, who stops himself the moment he notices he’s doing it.

I can feel my chest heat up and hope that it doesn’t show above my collar. I want to know how exactly Rafe looks at me, but I can’t ask.

“Totally,” says Mischa. “It’s like he’s completely focused on you. Protective.”

“Possessive,” says Mikal, and he mock swoons against Mischa’s shoulder.

“And Rafe would
never
go for a straight guy,” Carlos says.

“How do you know?” I could kick myself the second the words are out of my mouth. I can’t believe I’m pumping a bunch of kids for information about Rafe’s love life. Ugh. My stomach tightens at just the thought of Rafe loving someone else. Like Javier—perfect, revered Javier: the ghost I could never hope to compete with. I shake my head in disgust.

“Because he’s not self-loathing,” Dorothy mutters, and DeShawn elbows her.

“He just wouldn’t,” says Carlos, like it’s obvious. “Besides, DeShawn’s uncle is, like, the hottest guy you’ve
ever
seen, and Rafe doesn’t look at him the way he looks at you.” DeShawn looks embarrassed but everyone else nods their assent.

“Wow,
seriously
,” says Mikal, staring off into the distance dreamily. He shakes his head.

“Well, he never really dates anyone,” Carlos starts to say, but Mischa cuts him off.

“Okay,” she says, “but how do you know he just wasn’t attracted to DeShawn’s uncle? That doesn’t mean he’d never go for a straight guy.”

“Um, no offense,” says Mikal, “but you’ve never seen DeShawn’s uncle so you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mischa looks confused.

“He’s fine,” Dorothy says. “Like, for real, undeniably.”

“I still don’t get how—”

“Rafael touches us if we touch him first,” Ricky says, her voice flat, her gaze distant, and I know she means the other kids, since she doesn’t touch anyone. “Only for two seconds. Then he stops. He shakes hands with grown-ups but never touches them even if they touch him first. You have never touched Rafael. But Rafael touches you at least five times every workshop. And you’re a grown-up.”

Everyone stares at her in silence, including me.

“What did I miss?” Rafe’s voice cuts through the crowd as he walks back over to us and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“The viscosity of oil changes based on temperature so you have to use a multigrade oil to account for heat fluctuation.” Ricky doesn’t miss a beat, and her eyes stay glued to the engine block the entire time. There’s general throat-clearing and knuckle-cracking and then Mikal starts to laugh.

“What?” says Rafe, and everyone just shakes their heads.

“SEE YA
next week, Winchester,” Carlos calls as the group fractures and everyone goes their separate ways. Okay, I guess Winchester is kind of a badass nickname.

The kids all basically told me that they know I’m—that Rafe and I—whatever—and nothing happened.

Nothing happened at all.

“So, um,” I say to Rafe once everyone’s gone. “Do you want to run?” I brought my running clothes in case he did, so we wouldn’t have to go back to my neighborhood. It seems only fair.

Rafe looks conflicted.

“I can’t today,” he says.

I didn’t realize how much I was counting on him saying yes. The idea that now we’re going to go our separate ways makes me feel twitchy and wrong. But why would he want to hang out with me? I didn’t call him and tell him what he needed to hear. I came and did the workshop and never mentioned it. Even fourteen-year-olds have more balls than me. And Rafe deserves that. Um, not a fourteen-year-old, I mean. Someone who isn’t a coward and a fucking phony.

“No problem,” I say. “I get it. Um, see you next week?”

Something flashes in Rafe’s eyes. Gone is the even-tempered guy who was here during the workshop and in his place is the intense one that the kids were talking about. Rafe steps up to me and slides one hand around the back of my neck, shaking me lightly.

“This has nothing to do with that,” he says.

I just shrug.

“I’m serious, Colin. I meant what I said. You let me know when you’re ready. Everything’s fine.”

Hunh. That’s not actually what he said.

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“What? Oh, nah.” Jesus, the last thing I want is to tag along because Rafe feels sorry for me. Of course he has shit to do and real friends.

“Look,” Rafe says, putting a little bit more pressure on my neck. “I’d like to spend time with you, but there’s somewhere I need to be. If you come with me, I get the best of both worlds. What do you say?”

It must be nice to have somewhere you need to be. Besides work, I mean. And I don’t really want to go sit at home the rest of the day, so I find myself nodding.

“Okay.”

He smiles and leans a little closer and says, “You don’t even know what you just signed on for,” his tone managing to make his words seem filthy.

Jesus. Rafe glances down at the front of my jeans and his smile turns predatory.

“Careful, Colin.” His hold on me turns to a caress, fingers stroking the nape of my neck. His eyes may be teasing, but the heat there is real. What would he do if I leaned up and kissed him? If I wrapped my arms around him? God, have I ever hugged a man before? When Mom died, Pop hugged me, I think. Luther did at the funeral, too. But not since then. A few girls have hugged me at bars. Flirtatious pressings together that I think were mostly about rubbing their tits against my chest. The idea of Rafe hugging me—shit, even the word sounds childish—pressing against me, holding me, our whole bodies in contact—makes my heart beat faster.

“What?” Rafe asks, studying my face. “What were you just thinking about?”

I drop my eyes to the ground. “What? Uh, nothing,” I say, and I pull away from him. “So, that Mischa is pretty chatty.”

Rafe nods and runs a hand through his hair, releasing the scent of something spicy.

“She just moved here from Georgia. She knew Mikal from some Facebook thing.”

“Does she play soccer?”

“I don’t know,” Rafe says, cocking his head. “Why?”

I shake my head. “No, I just—doesn’t she look like she should play soccer?”

Rafe smiles. “I guess I can see it.”

“Anyway.”

“Did you drive or train?”

“Drove.”

“You want to follow me or leave your car?”

“I’ll follow you. Where are we going?”

“West Philly. Books Through Bars packing session.”

“Uh. What?”

“You’ll see.”

Rafe winds through Saturday traffic: up past the art museum and over the river, then through University City into a neighborhood I haven’t been in. We park in a lot between a community garden with a huge mural on the wall, a bar with outdoor seating strung with lanterns, and a Vietnamese restaurant with its windows open wide enough for the smells to make my stomach growl.

“You need a snack?” Rafe teases. “There’s usually bagels and stuff inside.”

I shake my head. It’s only a working theory, but my stupid breathing thing seems to be better when I’m hungry.

“There’s only an hour and a half or so left,” Rafe’s saying. I nod, still not sure where we’re going. Outside the entrance, card tables are filled with haphazardly stacked books, with signs that say
Free
and
Help yourself
.

The second the door clangs shut behind us, several voices call out, “Rafe!”

He picks his way between long tables crowded with chairs on either side, at which people are busily writing, stacking books, and wrapping them in brown paper. Almost everyone seems to know him, half of them shaking his hand, hugging him, or patting him on the back. At least three seem to have urgent things to talk to him about, but the scratch of packing tape being torn and the ripping of paper grocery bags makes it hard to hear the conversations.

“Hey, bud,” says a man in shredded jeans, a worn T-shirt, and purple hiking boots. He claps a hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen you for a few weeks. How’ve you been doing?” The guy says this like there’s a special meaning to it, and I feel my neck muscles tense up.

Rafe glances at me sheepishly but just says, “Not bad. Stuff at the YA’s been a little crazy lately.” The guy’s expression turns even more sympathetic and he pats Rafe on the arm. He’s probably in his midforties, but his expression is as sincere as a little kid’s.

“Colin, this is Tony,” Rafe says, cutting the guy off before he can say anything. I stick out my hand automatically, tensing since the cut is still a bit sore, but Tony’s handshake is gentle, if overlong. “It’s Colin’s first time,” Rafe says, “so I thought I’d just get him situated and take him through a few packages. Then I’ll make those calls.”