Adam lifted a shoulder. “Kinda hard to be positive when you’re looking at losing your career and what gets you out of bed in the morning.”
“Well, you won’t, so knock it off.” Etienne let go of Adam’s hands and rolled off the bed to pick up the plates. “I’m going to clean up.”
“We still have to talk about you,” Adam pointed out, and then his mouth fell open as Etienne bolted from the room. “What the fuck? Get back here!” He could hear Etienne in the kitchen, clattering and thumping as he started hot water running in the sink. Shouting hurt Adam’s head, so he slid carefully off the mattress and made his way down the hall and into the kitchen, where Etienne was looking in the cupboards for dish soap. “You can’t run away from talking about this,” he said.
Etienne straightened with the soap in his hand, looking guilty. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“You shouldn’t have run away from me.”
“I didn’t, I’m washing dishes,” Etienne protested, but he couldn’t quite meet Adam’s eyes.
Adam slid onto a barstool before he lost his balance. “I told you mine.”
Etienne set the soap on the counter.
Adam took a deep breath and played his trump card. “If you’re not going to tell me, I don’t want you here.”
Etienne’s eyes snapped up to his, shock in them. “Cary—”
“You’ve dodged me for months,” Adam said. Anger and hurt clogged his throat. “I know we’re busy, but we’ve talked every single day for the past two months. You realize that? We haven’t gone a day without at least texting each other once, even if it’s stupid shit. But every time I’ve tried to see you, you’ve had some reason why you can’t. So why? If you can’t stand being around me, why do you talk to me on the phone? Why are we friends? Are we friends?”
“Cary—” Etienne sounded anguished. He flattened his hands on the counter between them, eyes pleading. “You’re my best friend, you have to know that.”
“Then why?”
“It’s stupid.”
“I don’t care,” Adam insisted. “We had an incredible night. Some of the best sex I’ve ever had. The best sex I’ve ever had, honestly. And you’ve been running from me ever since. Was I that bad in bed?”
Etienne laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’ve never had a better night.”
The raw honesty in his voice silenced Adam. He stared at Etienne, who rubbed his face.
“I—can I show you something?”
Adam nodded.
Etienne left the room, coming back with a laptop that he set on the counter in front of Adam. “I found your wifi password on the router while you were asleep,” he said, busy typing in a website.
Adam was distracted by how close Etienne was and how good he smelled, and it took him a minute to look at the site that was loading. He blinked and looked closer. It seemed to be comprised of pictures of—
“Hockey players? Hey, there’s Saint, I can’t wait to play him. And Butterfly, I scored on him once, did I tell you that? Wait, hang on—that’s me.” Adam finally looked at the URL. “www.hockeyhotornot.com? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He glanced back at his picture. “Oh, I’m number four. Wait, who’s ahead of me?”
“You’re not—” Etienne sounded frustrated. “Look.” He leaned across Adam and scrolled down. And further down. And kept going, through pages that loaded endlessly and familiar faces that paraded past Adam until he finally stopped. “There.”
“Hey, that’s you.” Etienne stared out at him from the screen in his draft picture, somber and closed-off. His striking eyes were hooded, their color barely visible in the picture. “You don’t look happy.” Adam twisted to look up at Etienne, beside him. “Don’t like your picture taken? I’ve noticed that, you know—how you’ll send me pictures of stuff, maybe your foot or your elbow might be in it, but never your face.”
“Would you look at the rating?” Etienne demanded. He sounded on the verge of ripping his own hair out, so Adam obediently swiveled back and looked.
“Rated #457,” he read. “Well, that’s dumb.”
“Now click on my picture,” Etienne ordered.
Adam obeyed.
“Read the comments.”
Adam recoiled. “What’s wrong with you? You never read the comments, man.”
Etienne snatched the laptop and began to read. “‘LOL he looks like a bushbaby got dropped in acid. Hope he’s got a big dick to make up for that face.’”
Adam flinched.
“‘Bet he’s only had sex with the lights off,’” Etienne continued, voice hard and uncompromising.
He’d turned the light off that night, Adam remembered, and his stomach turned over.
“‘Look at that nose,’” Etienne said. “‘Wonder if he’s got stock in paper bags to put over his head. Do they make bags big enough, you think?’”
“Stop.”
Etienne ignored him. “‘Classic butterface.’ Oh, here’s a good one. ‘He looks like a hillbilly fucked a pimple and he’s the result.’”
“Tenny.” Adam put out a hand. “Stop it. Stop it.”
“You don’t know,” Etienne flung at him, slamming the laptop shut. Spots of color burned bright in his cheeks. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“It’s a stupid website!” Adam said. “You can’t let something like this rule your life—”
“You get everything you want,” Etienne interrupted. “And you want to know the sad truth of this shitty world? It’s because you’re pretty. Because you have big, blue eyes and perfect teeth and great hair and an even better body, and what’s worse is you have a great personality.”
Adam blinked, confused. “Why is that worse?”
“Because I can’t hate you for getting everything you want,” Etienne snapped. He put the laptop down and took a step away. “You’re kind and genuine and you’ve never once that I’ve seen used your looks to get perks or privileges. But you get them anyway. And you don’t notice, do you? It’s just part of being you. People give you things, and you accept them, and you smile and thank them and make their day, because Adam Caron just smiled at them, acknowledged their presence, and made their world a little brighter for one brief moment.”
Adam opened his mouth but Etienne was on a roll.
“It’s not like that for most of us,” he said. “I’m invisible, Adam. No one sees me. No one gives me extra whipped cream on my coffee—”
“You wouldn’t drink it anyway,” Adam muttered.
“Not the point and don’t interrupt me. No one notices me. No one flirts with me. No one goes out of their way to make me smile. I go through life and I scratch and claw and bleed for what I do and that’s okay, I’m okay with that because that is life. I’m invisible.” He took a shaky breath and pointed at the website. “Until I’m not.”
Adam stared at him. “So you dodged me because… you think you’re ugly?”