Light My Fire

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance.

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t care whether he likes me back or if rejection is the only thing coming my way. We are moving out. Come tomorrow we won’t be living next door to each other anymore. It’s too late for serious us. I just need to know if what I have been sensing this whole time is real.

All of these feelings flushed in right from the very beginning. The week before senior year, I was walking around my front lawn after I’d just finished unpacking. I kicked off my flimsy flip-flops and began pacing barefoot on the cool grass wearing only a loose white v-neck and faded Levi’s. I wiped the few drops of sweat from my brow and took out my pack of Parliaments. I needed a cigarette to help me relax after my grueling moving-in. But September in Chicago is notoriously windy, and my lighter, like most things I owned at the time, was cheap and unreliable. I kept flicking it, cupped my hands around the flame and tried to keep it going long enough to cause some serious damage to my unlit Parliament, much to no avail.

I was starting to get frustrated when I noticed a boy plopping down the steps of the porch next door and slowly heading towards my direction. He was wearing a pair of forest green shorts and a white t-shirt similar to mine except wrinkled and with grass stains, as if he’d been doing cartwheels or wrestling on the grass. His dark brown wavy hair swayed in the wind and from his dry pink lips dangled a lit Parliament. It took me a second to recognize him.

“Hey there, I’m Boy in Color, your neighbor apparently,” he said looking at me and then glancing at my house. I shared a front lawn with the boy who had taken my breath away the minute I had first laid eyes on him at that party not so long ago. And exactly like before, the world went grey as he glowed in multicolor. Being next to me got me in some sort of visual trance.

“Hi,” I said staring straight into his juvenile eyes as he continued to approach me cutting through the grass. “You got a lighter? Mine’s a piece of shit.”

“Here, let me show you a trick,” he said taking my lighter from my hands. “Put the cigarette in your mouth, and pull your collar over it to block it from the wind.” I was skeptical and pictured my white shirt engulfing in flames, but I followed his instructions. “And now light it from underneath,” he said and reached under my shirt, gently gracing my happy trail as he made his way upwards with my lighter in his hand. It tickled, and the sensation stretched from my belly to my back and down my spine.

He got the lighter up to my chest and lit my heart on the very first try.

And in the nine months that followed, our entire senior year, the flame between us continued to flicker in the wind, never dying down. During our late night conversations sitting on the rackety bench on his porch, our knees touching while we waited for the sun to come up, I’d lean on him slightly and feel him applying pressure back on me; while watching cheesy scary movies on rainy Sunday afternoons, he’d turn to me with and flash me a soft smile whenever I made a clever comment no one else understood; or after the brief, silly friend fights we’d get into for pretending not to care, we’d hug as a sign of peacemaking, but our hugs always lingered as a sign of something else.

During all of this, I made sure to guard our flame while he kept fanning it. Because whenever we’d undergo a cold front, it’d only take a longing look, a tender touch or a few words to bring us right back to the warm sentiment I felt we shared.

And now on the last night I’ll be seeing him before we both jet off into opposite sides of the country, and I can’t believe I never got close enough to confess how I feel. I have been so afraid of getting burned, thinking that in this fire, a friend is the worse thing to lose.

But I have to know if this is real. Because I feel like I’m burning, and if Boy in Color can’t save me, he has to let me cool.

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance. I think again as I walk out my front door, light a Parliament under my collar and make my

way to the sports bar our entire senior class will be at on our last night of college.

[To be continued…]

Love at First Color Sight

“C’mon, come with me,” my roommate implores in an almost whiny voice while leaning over me. I turn over, keep my eyes shut, mumble for her to leave me alone and pull my covers over my head. Not getting the immediate reaction she was hoping for, my little Badgerista begins shaking my shoulders. She’s always such an unrelentess force when it comes to getting what she wants. “C’mon, c’mon,” she goes on. Her voice is particularly annoying to me, while I lay caught between naptime and real time. “You know it’s gonna be fun.”

Is Badgerista trying to guilt trip me now? Actually, I know it’s going to be no fun. A bunch of pretentious college kids thinking it’s appropriate to act stupid because they’re wasted? No thanks. But she has been excited about this party for days, ever since she got the Facebook invite and noticed that her crush had RSVP’d “Maybe.” This blasé response gave Badgerista enough motivation to get all dolled up on a Friday night and drag her tired, groggy best friend with her by whatever means possible.

It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a college party. The past six months have been spent in Madrid, far, far away from fraternities, keg stands and beer pong. And ever since I’ve been back, I’ve been in this funky mood. Like Madrid was maybe too much for me to process in such a short time. And it doesn’t help that all I do with my free time is sleep.

“It would be nice to go out and have a drink,” I sit up and say, rubbing my eyes and scratching my head.

“Yes! I promise it’ll be a blast,” Badgerista says all giddy as she skips out of my room and into the restroom.

“So if I had said ‘no,’ you would have just gone without me?” I ask loud enough so she can hear me. I’m surprised at how awake I am. Her giddy must be contagious.

“Oh no! I knew I would convince you,” she says walking back into my room with a blow dryer in her hand. She is wearing a pair of navy blue skinny jeans topped with an embroided maroon blouse. It’ll be fun to be her wingman tonight and help her out in the boy department.

“And shower! There might be cute guys there tonight.” After all, she always looks out for me.

As we arrive to the front door of the apartment where much revelry is to be expected, I see a thin girl with dangling earrings standing in front of a table with a money box. Cover?

“It’s a fundraiser!” Thin girl shouts over Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” blasting inside. I look back at Badgerista and give her this look to make sure she understands that she owes me. “College feminists are putting on The Vagina Monologues,” thin girl continues as if trying to convince us of the worthy cause. I hold up my index finger indicating the need for one sec, turn around, grab Badgerista and move us out the way so that we can discuss.

“Are you sure this is the party?” I ask still holding on to her shoulders. “I think it’s a lesbian party…”

“Yeah, yeah, this is it! C’mon! Where’s your sense of adventure?” Badgerista spits a little, and I reconsider having taken those shots of vodka before stepping out of our apartment. Badgerista seems super eager to mingle with the vaginas… but at least her boy crush will be easy to spot. So on we go to the feminist, theater, lesbian party. And I think, “Didn’t really need that shower.”

The small apartment has an unused chimney adorned with blue twinkle lights and the wooden floor is sticky with spilt beer. It’s crowded and hot in the living room, even though it’s February in Chicago and the windows are wide open. The body heat is stronger than the weather.

Much to my surprise, it’s not really a feminist/theater/lesbian party. From first impression, it looks like quite the assorted crowd. Later I find out that much of the social diversity that night can be attributed to the fact that one of the most popular actresses in school had just been cast in The Vagina Monologues, and she had used all of her party prowess to make the fundraiser a huge success.

Badgerista and I walk towards the kitchen after tossing down our coats. She keeps an eye out for her crush while I keep an eye out for the free alcohol. After we pour ourselves a red cup of jungle juice each, Badgerista has to use the ladies room because her bladder doesn’t know the concept of patience. I head out the back door to the alley so I can smoke a cigarette.

The smokers’ circle in the alley is being entertained by no other than “The Drunkest Girl at the Party,” whom I, of course, have the privilege of knowing personally. We lived in the same dorm, right next to each other, freshman year. She doesn’t come off as your typical feminist per se, but she is producing the show.

“Hey! You’re here!” She shouts in my general direction.

“Yup…” I say, unwilling to match her enthusiasm. “Anyone got a light?”

“Oh here you go,” she lights my parliament. “So what have you been up to? Haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Just got back from Madrid…”

“Oh yeah! So was it everything you ever imagined and so much more? Are you going to do that whole ‘coming back from study abroad’ speech about how being in that foreign country for, like, half a year totally changed your life?” She says so mockingly that I almost take her seriously.

But all I can be when it comes to Madrid is earnest, so I say, “Yeah, actually. It did.”

“I love reading all those stupid study abroad blogs,” she ignores my genuine response and goes back to the mock show. “You think you’re the only person that’s ever gone to a different country and had culture shock? And it’s culture shock about the dumbest things, like, ‘Oh, you can order beer at McDonalds?’ Fucking get over it!” She shuts up for a minute, perhaps afraid that she might come off bitter if she keeps going. I happen to know that just earlier in the school year, her plans to study abroad in Prague had been scrapped due to a dismal GPA. “Did you start a blog while in Madrid?” She asks in a more serious tone.

“No… but I did write a lot. I started a journal. I know, it sounds cheesy… but some of the things, I just had to write down,” I notice that the circle begins to lose interest in what I have to say. So I stop. I save my best stories for an attentive audience. I stomp out my cigarette and walk back inside. I make my way through the crowd of people mingling in the kitchen, refill my jungle juice and go back to the living room looking for Badgerista. She’s probably still waiting in line to use the restroom. It’s almost midnight, and the dance party has already gotten started. The tipsy underclassmen grind and groove in the dark, moving in slow and out of order patterns as if submerged in water. The blue twinkle lights shine on.

Through all the commotion, I notice a boy swimming in his own world towards the back of the room. The boy with a face like an indie singer. A face I’ve never seen before: thin pink lips, wavy brown hair and bushy eyebrows above eyes the color of dark chocolate melting under a heat lamp. He is dancing with his girl friends completely unaware of his allure. Wearing Bermuda shorts, a sky blue thrift shop tee and tan sandals, he’s not at all concerned with concept of matching. I like his spectrum. His wrists are wrapped halfway up his forearms in a disharmony of hues. A heavy metal watch on one wrist, a thick black leather wristband on the other, mingled with orange, lime green and plum rubber bracelets and thin threads and loose bands from summer camps gone by. Around his glistening forehead, a cherry-colored bandana soaks up the light sweat caused by him bobbling and bouncing to the beat. The rest of the room suddenly turns black and white, while he is sharp in Technicolor. And I vividly remember thinking in that moment, “That’s the boy I should be with.”

“Ah, isn’t he super cute?” Badgerista asks interrupting my daydream and joining in on the adoration brigade.

“I think he might be…”

“Gay! Yeah, a girl waiting behind me in line for the restroom told me. Right before she headed out the door to try to pee in the front yard.”

“Wow, you had quite the adventure…” I say handing over my cup of jungle juice offering for her to take a sip. “So what’s this guy’s story?”

“He just transferred from some school in North Carolina,” she says after drinking from my cup and handing it back to me. “According to the girl, he’s kind of shy, doesn’t but gets really silly when he drinks. And he has all the girls here swooning over him tonight. He doesn’t have many guy friends. You should go talk to him.”

“To a complete stranger? And what am I going to say to exactly?”

“Isn’t that what you do to guys in Boystown? Figure it out!” She says implying I should have more game.

“Haha, don’t pretend like you know what I do in Boystown. Besides, this is different. Completely different.”

Right at that moment, “The Drunkest Girl at the Party” stumbles in to the living room, turns off the speakers and slurs in a loud voice, “Ok guys! Party’s over! Cops are here! Everyone out through the back. Come on. It’s over.”

Badgerista and I grab our coats from the pile that’s accumulated by the chimney and make our way out.

I didn’t get to talk to the Boy in Color that night. And after weeks of not seeing him around, I gave up. But my memory of him that night never faded.

It wasn’t until the beginning of my senior year, when I was moving in to my new student house on the off-campus party block, that I saw him again. Moving in next door.

A Real Boy

After one too many times riding the roller coaster that is dating boys who think they’re the biggest thrill you’ll ever find, I was ready to leave the amusement park. For a couple of weeks, I was on a self-imposed boycott so I could straighten out my life. Three months short of graduation, I still had yet to find a stable entry-level slave camp that would take me solely on the fact that I’d overpaid for my education.

The last thing I needed was the twists, turns and inevitable bumps of a new guy, especially since I’ve noticed recently I tend to attract men who rely on me to carry on a big chunk of their baggage. Eccentric like from another planet, if not completely psychotic, my previous paramours had the tendency to drown me in drama when all I wanted was to stay afloat.

I’ve often wondered what it is about my personality that makes me a magnet for extremity. Perhaps, I’m too accommodating to their demands, or maybe a more suitable explanation is that I’m the one drawn towards them. I do admit: I’m like a month flying mindlessly towards the flickering light in the dark until it gets burnt. I find something oddly alluring about a boy engulfed in his own flame.

So if it’s me, then it’s a behavior I can change, I thought. No more game-playing, ego boost-craving, manipulative boys. When everything is covered in starry facades, a down-to-earth attitude is what really shines. And so I made it my mission to look for that, a real boy.

It was this ongoing quest that convinced me to make one exception to my boycott and head down to the Gold Coast to meet my latest fling, a guy I had met two weeks before at a clothing boutique in Lincoln Park while looking to purchase a new pair of jeans.

“Hi, do you work here?” I asked pretty sure that he worked there.

“No, but I’m sure I can help you,” he said self-assured that he could work there.

“Ah, I don’t know about that. I’m pretty picky when it comes to jeans.”

“Everyone should be; it’s hard to find the right pair.” And with that he walked over to the wall where all the jeans were hanging and offered his advice on several styles. As it turns out, he’s somewhat of a denim connoisseur who hunts down rare denim through thrift shops and on eBay.

We exchanged numbers that afternoon and had been texting incessantly ever since. I’m weary of sparks that stem from impersonal communication like texts or online, but when I started getting all giddy whenever my phone vibrated, I knew it wasn’t forged.

I perceived this guy to be somewhat of a different breed from the self-aware, superficial fireflies I had encountered in the past. In the many conversations he initiated, he illustrated an aversion to the Boystown merry-go-round: mind fucking, disposable eye candy and all things crafted to impress. He was just comfortable staying in his apartment, cooking dinner for his friends and watching a Tim Burton flick. Which is what he had planned for me that night. A date at his place, exactly the type of real boy behavior I longed for.

I arrive at his Gold Coast apartment building, and I’m initially taken aback by the high-priced décor of the building. I wonder how a junior in college has the resources to indulge in such a lavish living arrangement. After signing in as a guest, the doorman calls him up, says my name, and after a subtle nod lets me through to the elevators.

Denim Boy opens the door to his pad and gives me a hug. He had gotten a hair cut since we had last seen each other, his curly black hair is now more rectangular in shape, but his light blue eyes had stayed just the same. He is delighted to see me carrying a brown bag with not one but two bottles of red wine to complement the penne pasta with vodka sauce he has prepared especially for the occasion.

After dinner, we sit on his black leather couch perusing though old issues of fashion magazines while Batman Returns blares on his television screen. Our favorite Batman movie, we concur. After the scene where Michelle Pfeiffer trashes her modest secretary apartment and turns it into a twisted Hello Kitty fetish bordello, I grab his attention and point out the new Louis Vuitton ad with a very naked Marc Jacobs decorated in bright neon pink lettering.

“You know I’m really good friends with his ex-boyfriend,” he says assuming I had no idea about Marc Jacobs’s personal love life.

“Jason Preston?!” I ask knowing every detail.

“Yeah, that’s who I stay with whenever I’m in New York.”

Real boys don’t associate with Marc Jacobs’s ex-boyfriends, I thought. So then I have to ask, “How do you know him?”

“Well, for a while… I was seeing this guy… who… you know… used to model for Diesel,” he says quite aware of how ridiculous that statement is on a first date. How ridiculous this whole conversation is in general.

I make a face to indicate to him my utter lack of words. Like there’s no way I’m going to compete with a Diesel model. But I’m partly just playing up to the ridiculous scenario. It doesn’t really get to me. What I do ponder is whether Denim Boy has any other secrets that propel him further out into the stratosphere, where fashion models, reality TV stars and lunatics reside.

So maybe he isn’t as ordinary and uncomplicated and real as I had hoped, but we’ve been having a great time and social circles don’t necessarily dictate the true nature underneath. Besides, if I ran away from every guy with connections to the glossy glossy lifestyle, I would be stuck somewhere between Nebraska and my own private Idaho, and I can’t even tell you where those states are on a map. My only concern now that I had learned of my predecessors is to… work it. Better than a model.

Which to me, at that time, drunk on red wine, means to start making out hard core on the couch to the very loud sounds of Danny Elfman.

Where There’s Smoke… (Part II)

I wake up next to Mr. Danger and quickly climb off his bed without making much noise. I go to the restroom, splash cold water on my face and look at the mirror as I mouth the word, “Fuck!” I keep running all the details from last night over and over in my head but yet cannot come to any form of clear conclusion.

I sit on his bed and put on my sneakers. He is still fast asleep, breathing softly and grabbing on to his large pillow by his head. I consider waking him up and letting him know I’m leaving. But, really, what am I supposed to say?

“Oh, thanks for smoking me up, I can’t believe we smoked two bowls. I really liked hanging out with you and watching Cruel Intentions, while we talked nuzzled underneath your sheets. Sarah Michelle Gellar is such a psycho princess in that movie, right? Oh and thanks for suggesting that I should spend the night, even though I was kind of thinking that I should just be heading home when it started getting late and you hinted that you were ready to go to sleep. Oh wait, you didn’t say you were ready to go to sleep, you said you were ready to do something else. What did you have in mind exactly?

Then you turned the lights off and turned your back on me, but a few seconds later began rubbing your butt up against my thigh and caressing my lower leg with your feet. And when I rolled over and started spooning you and running my cold hands up and down your torso, you didn’t flinch away. Instead, you exhaled heavily. And then I started fingering the elastic on your boxer briefs and getting so close down to your crotch. But then I stopped. You noticed I stopped. And I turned over and closed my tired, drunk, stoned, delirious, horny eyes. But then, you rolled over and got so close to me that I could feel your breath on my cheek. And you began poking my hips with your knees. And when I turned my head to look at you, you didn’t look away. So I kissed you, and you kissed me back briefly, softly, before you closed your mouth, recoiled back gently and said, ‘We shouldn’t do this.’

Right, I shouldn’t have kissed you. And you shouldn’t have lied to me about lying to my best friend, you shouldn’t have had invited me over, asked me to spend the night, put your body so close to mine, teasing me to make a move. And I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

No, I don’t say anything. I just grab my phone and put on my jacket and leave, slamming his apartment door as I exit. If I can’t sleep in, neither should he.

It’s a beautiful day in Lakeview, I ponder as I dash to catch the train back to campus. The entire morning, I expect the worse from Mr. Danger, calling Captain Spirit and telling him his side of the story. “And then he tried to kiss me!” he’d say after manipulating the facts, just like he manipulated me, just like he manipulated Captain Spirit.

And it really gets to me. My entire young adult life, when it comes to friends, the one rule I’ve declared rigid solid, unforgivable if broken, is “bros before hos.” Silly as it sounds, it can shred. And after everything I knew and stood by, to throw it all away for a 2-minute kiss? I feel like I’ve cheated myself.

The only legitimate reason I can come up with to justify Mr. Danger’s actions is that he was using me maybe to end things with his boyfriend, inconsiderate of the possibility that his actions might also ends things for me and my best friend. No, not his actions. Mine too. Fuck. But surely, there are easier ways to break off a relationship that do not involve setting up a trap. And in between all these rundowns of possible scenarios, my mind keeps lingering on what a great time I had hanging out with Mr. Danger, talking, smoking and watching the movie, before things got sticky.

I get back to my apartment and check my e-mail. And there it is. A notification from Facebook. Mr. Danger had written on my wall just mere minutes ago.

“Why the escape? Did an alarm go off?”

I’m positive that there’s some part of Mr. Danger that wants to get caught. That night at Sonotheque, I expect a hell blaze. An impending confrontation with Mr. Danger and with Captain Spirit, I’m ready to defend my loyalty, wavering as it might seem. I put on my second favorite pair of jeans, just in case drinks come flying at me during the course of the night.

Captain Spirit shows up alone. I’m relieved that I won’t have to deal with Mr. Danger just yet, but worried that his absence might suggest build up for a looming resolution even more explosive than I had planned for.

“Where is Mr. Danger? I thought you said he was coming with you tonight?” I ask even though I had told myself not to ask.

“He’s staying in tonight,” Captain Spirit answers without even a hint of suspicion. “I think we wore him out last night!”

Maybe not…

But as the night progresses, I realize that Captain Spirit is clueless as to my whereabouts the night before and not a bit curious either. He would have mentioned something, if he thought something was off. Thankfully, I regain some emotional stability to enjoy the last hours at the club. Captain Spirit and I are standing by the bar, waiting for another round when he says, “I think I’m going to try to be single for a while.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m serious. All these guys, even when I know it’s not going anywhere, I keep investing so much. It’s so draining.”

“Oh come on! You always get the most devoted, reliable puppy dogs going crazy over you! All of your past boyfriends were upfront about how they felt, never played games. What more do you want?”

“I don’t know, I feel like something has been missing. And I keep buckling down each time a decent guy comes around. I don’t even know if they’re right. Or what I want, what I’m missing.”

“You’re happiest in a committed relationship. It’s in your DNA. You’re the boyfriend type and I’m the type who…” I stop and I can’t say it. It suddenly comes pouring over me—a drunken retrospective of my dating life so drenched in disaster.

“You’re the type who never settles,” finishes Captain Spirit with an emotional tissue to wipe away my self-pity like only a best friend could. “That’s what I’m missing, the one thing you always go for: sparks.”

“Sparks tend to combust,” I reply.

“Sometimes, but it’s better than faking interest in someone out of fear of being alone.”

“Yeah, but aren’t we alone now?” I ask raising an eyebrow and looking around the crowded club.

“No way!” Captain Spirit responds immediately. He’s still a little frightened of being alone. “We are… in transition,” he says after careful deliberation.

“In transition,” I repeat with emphasis. I’m liking the term. “And all we need is sparks to launch the rocket.”

“All we need is sparks,” he repeats.

As we make for the exit right before closing time, I turn to Captain Spirit and thank him for coming out. I had never felt the need to do that before, but for some reason, tonight, it feels like I should.

“Of course,” he says a little thrown off by my formal regards. “You planned this whole thing, you know I wouldn’t miss it.”

Captain Spirit was right that night. We weren’t alone.

The thing about sparks is that sometimes they’re actually an alarm signaling for you to run in the opposite direction. And sometimes, they can be going off right in front of you without you even realizing they’re real.

[Where There's Smoke... (Part I)]

Where There’s Smoke… (Part I)

My best friend and I couldn’t be any more different. He’s from a small town in the Midwest; I grew up in San Francisco. He joined a clean-cut fraternity our freshman year of college; I was never really into institutionalized spanking. He was Captain Spirit, tailgating before every football game; I was Juvenile Delinquent, always on the verge of getting kicked out.

He really hates staying up past his bedtime, his favorite fruit is pomegranate and he lost his virginity the night of my 21st birthday party. I know pretty much everything about him. And he knows pretty much everything about me. Except that one night I slept with his boyfriend.

Captain Spirit is the type who always has a Mr. Right, a caring, cute, smart guy he can spend his nights in with while I rummage out and about, drinking Redbull and making out with dicks (sometimes literally).

Of course, I was always supportive of my best friend even when his picture perfect boyfriends turned out to be all photoshop, but deep down, I couldn’t help but resent Captain Spirit and his All-American, well-bred knack for monogamous bliss. If we are completely opposite, and he’s the relationship type, then what does that make me?

I was never jealous of the cute boys he was with. Not surprisingly, we go for different types. My best friend embraces the stable, and I like my fireworks. That’s why I was so surprised when he introduced me to his current Mr. Right. Sure, he looked like all his past Mr. Rights, but instead of cool and composed, this guy’s personality was more volatile, like he could explode at any minute. In other words, he was my type.

So upon first meeting him, my best friend alarm instantly goes off, and I keep feeling like we’re entering a danger zone.

They had only been dating a week or two, when they decide to meet up with our mutual girl friend and me for an after hours party at Evil Olive. It’s obvious that this boy, Mr. Danger, has already caused a shift in Captain Spirit’s sleeping schedule.

We are all on the dancefloor, and I’m dancing with my tipsy girl friend to Kid Cudi’s “Day N Night” while Mr. Danger and Captain Spirit linger closely behind us. Captain Spirit leaves to go to the restroom, and as soon as he’s out of sight, I catch Mr. Danger approaching. I dance with him for a couple of minutes but then feel awkward when Captain Spirit, who’s not much of a dancer, comes back. I make my way back to the girl and keep dancing with her.

A few minutes later, I feel someone coming up from behind and dancing up on me. Dancing up me real close. I turn around and see Mr. Danger right behind me and biting his lower lip. Captain Spirit is there too, watching this. I feel guilty even though I know we’re not doing anything wrong, but the last thing I want to do is cause a scene, so I just nonchalantly push Mr. Danger away and bring my best friend closer to us.

The rest of the night consists of moments like these, of moments of me pretending like Mr. Danger is just being a friendly dancer with no concept of personal space. But the way he is looking at me and dancing next to me, following me whenever I make the slightest move to try to avoid his incriminating presence on the dancefloor, he’s leading me on.

As we’re closing our tabs by the bar, Captain Spirit asks Mr. Danger to get in a cab with us and come back up to campus.

“Should I come up?” Mr. Danger asks seemingly in general but looking directly at me with his almost-menacing blue eyes.

“Do whatever you want to do,” I say instantly in a rather defiant tone, as if to say, “fuck off.” But the words come off more as posing a challenge. Do whomever you want to do. Despite how hard I try to act like he repulses me (or maybe because I try so hard), he senses that, really, I’m attracted to him. And my put-on hatred is fueling a flirtatious fire. And just like playing with fire, the game is both dangerous but extremely enticing.

I’m leading him on too. And he’s not going to let it go.

“Fine, I’ll come up,” Mr. Danger replies smiling and still looking at me and then grabs Captain Spirit’s face and gives him a big open-mouth kiss. I see his tongue going in deep right before, and I’m truly repulsed.

The next week, I’m having lunch with Captain Spirit who, after much bitching about his lost phone, confesses that things with Mr. Danger are getting kind of serious. I, for once, keep my mouth shut and just stick to using one-word, vague adjectives when he asks me what I think of him. “He seems nice.” “He seems cool.” But Captain Spirit doesn’t catch that my brevity might suggest bad news.

That night, we are all out at MiniBar for a quick round of drinks. I’m not looking to stay up too late because I’ve planned a huge party at Sonotheque the next night. All of my comrades are on the same page. Except for Mr. Danger.

As we’re leaving the bar, he turns to me, puts his two fingers up to his mouth and quietly says, “Smoke up at my apartment?”

“Sure,” I say, and although I think it’s just going to be a big, chill after party, I still have to make sure, “is Captain Spirit coming?”

“Yeah, of course, but keep it on the DL. I don’t want a whole bunch of people over,” he says.

We all get on the Red Line, and I get off at his stop like we had agreed on. The train continues on, and I notice that Mr. Danger and I are the only guys that have gotten off and standing alone on the platform. It all starts to feel way too DL for me.

“Where’s Captain Spirit?” I ask with an open arms motion signifying total confusion.

“I don’t know,” he responds, not confused at all. “I thought you had talked to him.”

“You said to keep it on the DL, it’s your apartment and your pot, and he’s your boyfriend,” I say feeling guilty and feeling guilty for feeling guilty.

“He’s your best friend.”

I pick up my phone and dial Captain Spirit’s number. The call goes straight to voicemail, and I realize that he still hasn’t replaced his lost phone. I don’t leave a message. We get off the platform and start walking towards his place in Lakeview.

[Where There's Smoke... (Part II)]