If I didn’t find a way out of falling for Harrison, it was going to happen, whether I wanted it to or not.
And I just wasn’t ready to get my heart broken all over again.
“You ready to go?” Harrison asked as he reached down and pulled my hands into his own.
I hesitated. “…Yes.”
“Is something wrong?” Harrison’s tone was lined with concern. “We can always reschedule if—”
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” I cut him off. “I just, uh, need to finish my makeup.”
“Oh. Right.” Harrison smiled. “Sorry. I can never tell when people are done with their makeup. I’ll just wait for you in the car?”
“Sounds good.” I returned his smile, even though it didn’t feel genuine.
Harrison smiled at me again before he walked away from my doorway, heading back to the parking lot.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Why hadn’t I just called off the date? Harrison had given me an out, and instead of taking the chance to run, I’d decided to throw myself to the wolves. Although, in this case, the “wolves” were just a guy who seemed to always know just what to do and what to say, and brought me lunch without me asking, and made me laugh more than any guy I’d ever dated before—
Fuck.
It was already too late, wasn’t it?
I officially had a crush on a straight guy.
And all I could do now was hope that Harrison would do something, anything, during our date tonight that would help knock the rose-colored glasses right off my face.
“Llamas, Goats, Bears, and Tigers?” I read the name of the production as I turned the show’s program over in my hand. “Wait. LGBT?”
Harrison and I had filed into a fairly crowded theater just a few moments ago, taking our seats near the front of the stage. I was surprised by his choice of date, not expecting him to be the kind of guy who would’ve been too interested in live entertainment.
“Pretty cool, right? I watched a video on YouTube where the director was saying it’s supposed to reflect the whole gay community,” Harrison explained from his seat next to mine. “I just thought you might like it, because—”
“I’m gay?”
“No! No. Because…” Harrison’s words trailed off. “Because I just thought you’d like it, that’s all.”
I grinned over at him, amused by his attempt to dodge my earlier question. “Well, is it at least based on a true story or something?”
Harrison shook his head. “It’s told through metaphors, I think.”
“But… not with actual animals, right? Or people in animal costumes?” I pressed. “Please tell me that we’re not about to sit through a show where it’s just a bunch of people dressed up as animals for no reason—”
“Well, it’s not for no reason if it’s supposed to be a metaphor.” Harrison smirked. “And from what I heard about the soundtrack, the costumes provide some levity for the show’s darker moments.”
“Soundtrack?” A sudden panic rose in my chest. “Harrison, is this a… musical?”
“One of the most popular musicals of the year,” Harrison continued. “It was actually kind of hard to get seats to this thing. I lucked out and found a pair of tickets on a resale site.”
“Oh… how… lovely...” I faked a smile.
Harrison quietly hummed. “Morgan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you not like musicals?”
“No. I love musicals,” I clarified. “It’s just that when I have to sit through bad ones, I basically break out into hives.”
“But how do you know this is going to be a bad musical if you’ve never seen it before?”
I struggled to come up with a valid argument. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is going to be an amazing experience, and I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—”
Suddenly, the lights in the theater dimmed, and a hush came over the waiting crowd. When the lights came back up, there were four actors on stage, wearing nothing except for body paint, each one in the style of a different animal.
Llama. Goat. Bear. Tiger.
The actors remained silent for what seemed like longer than necessary before each one of them started to make loud animalistic noises, soon crawling across the stage, writhing their bodies against the ground.
Just then, a song began to play, and I was hopeful that the music was going to make up for the strangeness that was unfolding in front of me. However, when the song was a few notes in, I realized that its cadence sounded awfully familiar.
Donna Summer.
As the actors started to sing in unison, belting out the lyrics to one of her classic disco hits, they moved to the center of the stage. Within seconds, they were on top of each other, simulating sex with impressive attention to detail, still managing to hit every line of the song.
And with that, I realized that this was going to be one of the longest nights of my life.
“So? What did you think?” Harrison’s eyes lit up as he asked the question. “That was pretty good, right?”
Harrison and I were driving back to my place after the show. The car had been quiet for the past few minutes, the only sound coming from the hum of the car’s engine and the occasional motorcycle zooming past us on the road.
“What?” I struggled to focus on what Harrison was saying, my mind still trying to comprehend what I’d just watched. “I’m sorry? Did you say something?”
“The musical. It was pretty good?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I know anything anymore,” I murmured. “I thought I loved Donna Summer before this show. But now, all I can think about is that one scene where the bear was trying to get out of that cage in time for mating season—”
“Which was a pretty good metaphor for coming out, right?” Harrison suggested. “Or at least, I’m guessing that’s how it feels. Is that how it felt for you?”
“Are you asking me if coming out of the closet made me feel like a bear with a passable falsetto struggling to come out of a cage in time for mating season?”
“Yes?”
“Harrison, that show… I…” I looked over at him, fully ready to let him know that the musical we’d seen tonight was without question one of the worst things to have ever existed.
I wanted to tell him that, until I saw the way Harrison peeked at me out of the corner of his eye.
Shit.
He was nervous. I could tell.
Which meant that he probably cared about whether I’d had a good time tonight, which also meant that I couldn’t just tell him that he’d wasted his cash on tickets to a garbage-tier show. Besides, when it came to nights like this, it was the thought that counted. And it was clear that Harrison had put in effort to find a show that he thought I was going to like, and for that, I was willing to pretend as if I’d enjoyed myself, through and through.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I commented, keeping my response to the show just vague enough to potentially be a compliment.
“Me neither!” Harrison seemed pleased with my review. “And I saw that they were doing another show in a week or two. If you wanted to check it out, just let me know and I can get tickets in advance—”