And yet, here he is, sitting at the table like a moron talking about Chad the Choad in his History of Islam lecture like Alejandro Santos gives a single, actual fuck.
“Another scotch?”
The server comes out of nowhere, making Avery jump in his seat, and he lets out a sigh of relief when Alejandro shakes his head. He’s had two, which is good for him. It means that his day wasn’t total shit, and not that it makes a difference on their date, but being in love with this man means he’s forced to care about him.
“You can bring the bill,” Alejandro says after a beat. “Also please pay my compliments to the chef. The halibut was incredibly delicious tonight.”
Avery tries not to choke on the bitter words lodged in his throat because why the fuck does this server get two full sentences when he hasn’t gotten a single word in months. Not a goddamn one. He brushes his thumb over the face of his new watch, and he stares down at the way the flame from the little candle reflects in the glass.
He can’t help but think of his own anniversary gift that’s still sitting on the table, and how pathetic it seems in return for this. The man who runs the shop at the craft market is about Alejandro’s age, but with about a hundred more years of life etched on his face. He’s mostly blind and carves by touch—or so he told Avery. He was born on Oahu but moved to the mainland when he was twenty with big dreams and no money.
“But this feels like home now,” he’d said as he was packing up the orca. “I hope the person you give this to understands the love you put with it.”
Avery said nothing to him because he knows that Alejandro won’t care, even if he did. The gift is still sitting on the edge of the table in the stupid wrapping paper with the stupid little ribbon he tied. He’s given Alejandro exactly four gifts in the year they’ve been doing this whole thing. All of them were handmade—by other people because he cannot craft—but they were cheap, and they all meant something because they made him think about Alejandro at the time.
And he thinks they’re probably sitting at the bottom of a landfill—or at the very best maybe at the bottom of some sock drawer in one of Alejandro’s many closets. Avery’s never seen his place, but he imagines it’s bigger on the inside with more storage space than one man should rightfully have, and filled from corner to corner with so many things that are nothing like the man sitting across from him.
It was why he chose the orca. It was why he chose the paperweight with the flower inside. And the hand-knitted mittens when it was cold last year, and he noticed Alejandro was wearing leather which made him sad thinking about all those baby cows. And the thought that these things just fall into some void kills him a little bit. But it’s no less than he’s used to.
Tonight, he’ll go home with his ears ringing from Alejandro’s pressing silence, a watch on his wrist, a pocket full of cash, and a scheduled date on his timetable. This is what he tacitly agreed to when he signed the damn contract, so anniversary or no, he holds his tongue because he’s not being paid to complain.
He’s being paid to show up, and to keep Alejandro company—however he feels it’s necessary.
“We should do pizza next time,” he says as he follows Alejandro through the restaurant to the valet stand. He shoves his hands into his pockets because the weather’s getting a little cold as November creeps into December. He has a flight to New York to visit his mom and dad after the New Year, but he’s not really sure he’ll make it with the weather forecasting the entire north east to be buried in like a hundred feet of snow.
He doesn’t really mind though. Now that he knows spending the holidays on his own isn’t as lonely as he thought it might be, it’s easier to relax. He misses his parents, but the movies by himself was nice, and the take-out was good. New Years wouldn’t be some big to-do in Times Square, anyway. It would be sitting in his parents’ living room watching the ball drop on TV and listening to his mother tell his father that his resolution needs to be giving up his damn cigars.
And the reality is, this thing with Alejandro isn’t going to last, so what’s one more year of sitting on his sofa and hoping his phone might buzz?
“I know you basically shit hundred-dollar bills,” he goes on, shuffling from one foot to the other because in spite of his jacket, he’s cold, “but a couple pieces of pizza won’t kill you.”
Alejandro glances at him out of his periphery then hands the ticket to the man at the valet stand.
“I mean, I know you’re allergic to fun, but…”
He’s cut off as the car pulls up, and he sighs internally as he slides into the back next to Alejandro and buckles up. He regrets falling in love with this impossible asshole, but he doesn’t entirely regret this life. It’s nice not needing to worry about surviving off the Taco Stand thirty-five cent shift meals after bills eat up his paychecks. It’s nice to have three watches worth more than his first car—because god forbid he ever needs to, he can sell them. And it’s oddly nice to feel like someone important when strangers look at him getting into an absurdly expensive car next to Alejandro—even if that’s not necessarily who he is.
“Happy anniversary,” he says, very softly into the silence. He hears the creak of leather and he knows it’s Alejandro gripping his gloved hands because he hates when Avery gets all sentimental and shit. “Don’t be mad if I regift this watch. My dad loves shit like this, and I use my phone to tell time.”
He’s saying it to be a little mean, because he can’t remember if Alejandro took the stupid fucking orca off the table before they left, and he knows the answer is probably not. It’ll end up in some filthy bus-tub pretending to be a lost and found department full of shit people will never come back for.
He’s worked in places like that restaurant. He knows all about after work shots and server auctions. That was how he got his first iPhone. Now he has the latest and best—actual gold plating, with a big fat rubber case so you can’t see any of the bells and whistles—but he knows they’re there. And it’s stupid because if he drops it, Alejandro will just send over another one like it means nothing.
Because it does.
Nothing he has means anything to him, because none of it meant a damn thing to Alejandro when he was having someone pick it out for Avery.
He saw a sign a few weeks before that said eat the rich—and he gets it. Maybe it’s money that makes Alejandro such an emotionless void shaped like a human man with abs that are just fucking unfair on a man of his age.
The car pulls up to the curb, and Alejandro glances up with the edge of his lip curled into something like a sneer. He hates the building Avery lives in, but it’s close to the university, and Avery hates parking his car on campus so it made sense. And even if the place is kind of shitty compared to what Alejandro’s used to, the inside is the nicest place he’s ever lived in, and having it makes him super popular with all his friends because all of them are stuck in the dorms or with roommates and he’s the only one with any privacy.
All thanks to Alejandro, of course, who won’t even look at him as he unbuckles his seatbelt and climbs out.
“Same time next week?” he asks.
Alejandro grunts, but just before Avery walks off, he hears the gruff rumble of his voice, and he freezes because it’s been at least twenty-five minutes of total silence. “I won’t be in town next week. I’m leaving.” It’s the first words he’s said directly to Avery in months, and Avery feels them like a punch to the sternum because they’re something like a goodbye.