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  Adam

  4 Years Ago

  By the time I arrived at the house party the hockey team was throwing to kick off their season, something had already gone wrong. I’d heard that things got crazy at hockey parties, and not crazy in the ‘call the cops immediately’ way they did at frat parties. Crazy in the ‘stories you tell your baffled kids when they’re old enough to know your dirty secrets’ way. I’d been reluctant to come, but this guy from film studies css, Ollie Johannson, had invited me, and…

  Well, how could I say no to a pretty face like that?

  He was straight, I was sure of it. Had girls hanging off him left and right. But still… It couldn’t hurt to put some feelers out there. I wasn’t asking for a retionship because I didn’t really get to have those, but a hookup on the down-low could be nice.

  Regardless, when I got there, the party wasn’t just dead, it was undergoing rigor mortis. People were clearing out en masse, the lights were all on inside, and everyone was muttering shit under their breath.

  I made my way up the proverbial stream and found myself inside a barren brownstone bereft of occupants, but for a single familiar face sitting alone in the living room staring at an empty hearth. Ollie Johannson. He was nursing a gss of whiskey and he stank of marijuana.

  “Uh, hi?” I said as I nervously walked up with my hands in my pockets.

  “Hm,” Johannson grunted.

  “What’s, uh, what’s going on here?”

  “I told everyone to fuck off,” Johannson said in the fttest monotone I’d ever heard in my life. “Did you not hear me?”

  “I just arrived,” I said, slowly walking over to him. The living room was a mess, clothes and bottles strewn about, while the couch cushions were noticeably sprawled across the floor and a few bras hung from the rotating ceiling fan. “Is everything okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” he said, voice still ft, face twisted with irritation.

  I sat on a couch cushion at his feet, then said, “No, you don’t. Wanna tell me what happened?” Flickers of rival emotions competed for dominance on his face. God, this guy was in rough shape. And he was probably so crossed he wouldn’t remember this the next day. “Look, I know we don’t really know each other, but if it helps, I can keep a secret,” I offered.

  Johannson sighed, then tears welled up in his golden-brown eyes. “I just… I let someone see beneath my mask tonight and they didn’t like what they saw.”

  “What do you mean beneath your-”

  “I have autism,” he whispered, still not making eye contact. “And most of the time I pretend that I don’t. Because when I let people see beneath the mask they think I’m angry with them. And when people think I’m angry with them, I actually get angry with them, and it… It’s just so fucking frustrating. This girl came up to me and said her ex boyfriend was here and being a creep and asked me to protect her and I guess that made me slip up and show my real face and she thought I was pissed at her for asking and that made me get pissed off and… And… Then her ex wound up throwing hands because he thought I was being a dick to his girl and it… Fuck!”

  I blinked rapidly. This guy was… A lot more complicated than the dumb jock I’d pegged him as. I stood up and sat next to him, then asked, “Can I touch you?”

  “Sure. Why not?” he said in a sour voice.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, you know.”

  “No, it’s not. I have to be a specific way all the time, because if I don’t, people assume the worst. If I slip up, I’m the asshole. Every time.”

  “What made you slip up?”

  “I just… I get tired of having to take care of people all the time, I guess,” he sighed. “I’m an enforcer on the ice. I spent my childhood taking care of my brothers. And everyone always wants something from me. It’s exhausting. I feel like I… Like I never…”

  “Never just get to be you?” I asked.

  “Yes! Exactly!”

  “Yeah. I know a little something about that,” I said with a sad smile, remembering my most recent conversation with my older brother. “Tell you what, though. As long as I’m here, you can just… Be you. No matter who that is.”

  “Thanks, guy,” he said, and his voice was still ft, and his face was still grouchy, but I could tell he was grateful. “It’s… I really appreciate that. Do we… Do we know each other?”

  “We take film studies together,” I said. “You invited me after we worked on that group project together st week?”

  “Mmmm, yeah! Thanks. Sorry, wish I was better with names and faces. Maybe it’s a side effect of never making eye contact.”

  Yeah, he was not gonna remember this conversation tomorrow.

  That was okay, though. For now… For now I could just appreciate that I’d done a good thing. I’d reached out and helped someone, instead of running when it got hard. It was a nice change of pace.

  “Hey, wanna smoke some weed?” Johannson asked.

  “Always,” I said.

  “Heh. Knew there was something I liked about you.”

  This guy was nothing if not complicated. Autistic, frustrated, tired, maybe a little resentful of everything he had to do, but still… Still seemed like he just wanted to have a fun time. And like he wanted to do the right thing when he could. Plus, there was something… Something vulnerable about him. Something that yearned to be protected.

  I could barely protect myself, but for tonight… This was okay.

  Now

  The arm on Daisy’s phone bred, waking me up in our hotel room. Night had settled over this frigid city, and I met her opened eyes as I reluctantly tossed away the covers and exposed myself to the chilly air.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  She nodded in response. She looked scared out of her mind as she swung her legs off of the side of the mattress and raked a hand through her hair. We were both quiet as we cleaned our teeth in the bathroom, as she brushed out her golden mane and reapplied her makeup, as I forced myself into consciousness with a hot shower.

  She blushed and gulped when she saw me with a towel around my waist, turning away while I pulled on my underwear. I cringed at the realization that I was so used to being alone in these hotel rooms I was starting to forget about these things. Having Daisy with me would definitely be a boon in that regard: Lavender would be significantly less horrified when I got back if I wasn’t constantly going around in states of undress. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little rush when Daisy did a double-take to look at my tattoos. And also if I didn’t get a spike of embarrassment when I remembered I didn’t have my abs anymore.

  I pulled a bck sweater over my torso, fastened a belt around my waist, and grabbed my duffel bag. Daisy only had a purse (the rest of her stuff was still in her car), so we nodded at each other one more time and made our way out the door.

  The hallways were the kind of quiet that feels like walking over a thin sheet of unbroken gss. You just knew how easily it could all shatter, how quickly you’d find yourself in a truly terrible situation if you applied an ounce too much pressure. We tip-toed to the elevator, and made our way downstairs. My heartbeat was audible, my eyes refusing to blink as we stood in the elevator. Daisy kept running her fingertips over her long, pink-painted nails, like she was doing everything in her power to avoid picking at or biting them.

  Where did I know this girl from? Logically, we’d met at some point in college. Or I’d seen her on campus, perhaps only a fleeting gnce but still enough to get her lodged in my brain. A tall, lithe, beautiful girl with a modest rack and golden hair was something that I, and most red-blooded bisexuals, would remember. But I couldn’t pce her. I kept getting this odd image in my mind of a hockey rink for some reason, but that didn’t make sense. I’d been to exactly three hockey games at university, and they’d all been men’s games.

  Maybe she’d been a puck-bunny and we’d sat in the home seats together?

  That had to be it. Hell, maybe she’d been there on that horrifying day four years ago, when my crush had torn his anterior cruciate ligament. Maybe she’d been one of the girls to rush onto the ice to cry over him before he was carted off on a stretcher. Poor Johansson. I’d always wondered what happened to him, but had never brought myself to look him up. Mostly I was afraid I’d do something idiotic like reach out and shoot my shot.

  The elevator door opened in the lobby. The fire was still crackling in the hearth. A night-clerk stood sleepily behind the desk. And Daisy’s terrible father, a blond behemoth of a man in a suit that cost more than my car, sat on a chair with his eyes closed. He was snoring, and his head was tilted back, but he still radiated danger.

  Softly, Daisy and I made our way to the front desk and checked out and asked them to bring Daisy’s car around. Daisy kept looking back at her sleeping father, clearly attempting not to scream. She was… God, she was terrified. I didn’t know what her dad had done to her, but it must’ve been horrific to put her in this state.

  We walked towards the door.

  Rage snared around my bones. What that bastard had done- what he was going to do… He was gonna keep getting away with shit his entire life. He was another rich asshole who thought the universe revolved around him, who treated women like decorations in his life instead of people living their own.

  As we stood in front of the gss doors, I turned around and flipped off the sleeping father of my traveling companion.

  Daisy balked… And then she put her hands over her mouth as she tried not to ugh. She’d probably never done something like that in her life. This girl didn’t seem like a fighter. I didn’t mean that as a knock against her, it just wasn’t her disposition from what I’d seen in the past eight hours. Who knows, maybe she’d prove me wrong over the course of our voyage, but still… She didn’t seem overly-accustomed to asserting herself.

  I could empathize with that. Maybe that was the real reason I felt so drawn to her. Even in a short time, I could sense a kindred spirit inside her. Brought into my life through unconventional circumstances, but still someone whose soul hummed at a simir frequency to my own (or maybe I was just being a pretentious idiot getting dragged into someone else’s fight. That possibility had occurred to me as well).

  Still, I wanted to trust my gut. And if there was anything that Rose, Cris. and Violetta had taught me at this job, it was that when a feeling deep inside you sang out to do the right thing, you should fucking do it, even if you weren’t sure what path your actions would take you down.

  Evidently, the path this action led me down was Daisy’s father being awoken by the sound of her ughter. His eyes shot open and he instantly rocketed to his feet.

  Daisy squeaked with terror, and I gripped her hand and started pulling her towards the car. We were inside, Daisy behind the wheel and me riding shotgun as she smmed her foot onto the gas and immediately unched us to the street.

  Over the sound of tire against asphalt and a revved-up car engine, I did however hear something escape the mouth of the man we were fleeing from:

  “Oliver! Get back here right now, boy!”

  I gnced at Daisy, illuminated in the flickers of streetmps as we went down the road and started north towards the highway. My eyes traced her frame, up and down, up and down, as if looking for something. She was tall for a woman, at least six feet. Not impossible for a cis girl, obviously, but still not super common.

  Her voice was a bit on the low side. Not necessarily a tell either. My own mom had been a contralto singer in her college choir, and given there existed video evidence of her giving birth to me and my brother, I didn’t think she was trans either.

  Frankly, it was a ridiculous thing to consider. There was nothing remotely masculine about Daisy’s appearance or her behavior. Even if there were, that didn’t mean a damn thing. But at the same time, she was fleeing a bigoted father who called her ‘boy.’ And she was trying to get to Boston for an operation, one that said bigoted father didn’t want her to have.

  Obviously, I wasn’t gonna comment on that. Daisy looked terrified enough of… Basically everything besides me right now, and I didn’t want to be put into that category of ‘everything.’ I wanted her to trust me. Because I trusted my instincts, no matter how many times life or the universe or my asshole brother tried to beat them out of me. I trusted my instincts, and my instincts said to help this woman.

  Nothing complicated about that.

  ***

  Daisy drove until the sun began to peak through the veil of night. Two Harbors came into view, a quaint, charming little pce right on the ke where lighthouses dotted the ndscape seemingly every five feet and every road led to the water. We hadn’t spoken to each other the entire hour-long drive (Daisy had insisted on staying off the highway), and as we passed by the town limits, dawn was well underway.

  Finally, I broke the silence. “Sorry about earlier.”

  She shook, as if slightly startled, then eyed me with confusion. “For what?”

  “For waking up your dad.”

  “You didn’t wake up my dad. I did, with my loud, stupid, annoying ugh.”

  “First off, your ugh is not annoying,” I said.

  “Yes, it is. It sounds… It sounds ugly. Sounds like walrus with a sinus infection.”

  “Do you… Do you know firsthand what that sounds like?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been to Aska. Met a few walruses there. Trust me, my ugh is a dead-wringer. It’s just… It’s ugly. Sounds… Sounds…”

  “Sounds what?”

  She pursed her lips. She clearly had something she wanted to say but couldn’t bring herself to, like her mouth refused to open. I wonder if she knew she was twitching right then.

  “Never mind,” I said with a wave of my hand. Felt like there was a longer conversation here. Her ugh was not annoying or obnoxious in the slightest, nor did it sound walrus-like (not that I had firsthand experience, but still). When we’d been watching the movie st night, she’d ughed a bunch of times, and it didn’t sound like how she described it. It went a little lower and fuller than I’d expected, but honestly, it was pretty adorable. “It doesn’t really matter. We can agree to disagree.”

  “I guess,” she sighed.

  “You only ughed because I flipped him off like an idiot. I shouldn’t have done that-”

  “Adam, don’t bme yourself. If I had more self-control-”

  “Please let me apologize,” I groaned.

  She looked taken-aback. But she nodded.

  “I’m sorry. I… I have a tough time not poking the bear, so to speak,” I said. “It’s a fw.”

  “I forgive you,” Daisy whispered.

  “Just like that? Why?”

  “Honestly? Because you made me ugh,” she said, still quiet. “And because I wish I’d done it myself.”

  Huh. “Fair enough.”

  “What time is your meeting?”

  “Not for three hours,” I said, gesturing at the clock. “Looks like we’ve got some time to kill.”

  “Hm. What should we do?”

  Daisy’s stomach growled the second she finished talking. Her face went so incredibly red, and… And…

  Fucking hell, she was cute! Adorable, honestly. And quirky, and witty, and we had at least one major hobby in common… No, no, don’t get ahead of yourself. You still barely know this girl. There’s all kinds of questions about where she came from and what exactly is going on with her and her father, and it’s better not to complicate things.

  And besides, a gorgeous bombshell like her… She’ll want a man, not a boy.

  “I think I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s find somewhere to eat breakfast.”

  “I’m… I’m not hungry-”

  I scoffed. “I swear, if your stomach rumbles again while you try to say that-”

  “It’s not going to. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then say it again. See what happens,” I grinned.

  “Fine. I’m not hungry.”

  Nothing. No stomach rumbling at all. Dammit. I was hoping the universe’s innate sense of comedic timing would do me a solid here.

  “See?” Daisy said, sticking her tongue out at me.

  And then her stomach rumbled.

  “Dammit,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, I think you were just saying something absolutely hirious-”

  “Oh, shut up,” she rolled her eyes. “Come on. I’ve been here before- I know a diner we can stop at. I could definitely use some coffee.”

  “Okay, just be sure not to drink too much of it an empty stomach-”

  “Shuddduppp,” she whined. Cute. Dammit, she had a cute pouty-pace. I’d thought Crispin’s pouty-face was adorable, but this was… She was like an anime character or something!

  We pulled into a diner made out of a disused railway car, appropriately dubbed ‘The Caboose.’ It was a double decker car, with a counter lining the kitchen and booths packed against the windows. We found ourselves a booth and sat down, ragtime and bluegrass tunes pying on the speakers. The pce was sparsely poputed but for a few burly guys who looked like truckers having their twelfth cup of bck coffee and a small collection of yoga-pants cd moms protein-loading after a workout.

  Daisy looked at the tter group in awe.

  “Like what you see?” I grinned.

  “Hm? Oh. Yeah, just… Mmmm I don’t own any yoga pants, but I want to.”

  “What’s stopping you? You seem like you wear what you want when you want, considering you’re wearing a sundress in the dead of winter,” I said as I unrolled a napkin and spread it over my p. Of all the stuff my parents had taught me, proper table manners were on the list of things that actually had real-life applicability (it was not a long list).

  “First off, it is not the dead of winter.”

  “It’s March.”

  “Yes, and that’s practically Spring.”

  “In Los Angeles that’s Spring, sure-”

  “Yeah, because they don’t get an actual Winter,” Daisy said with a smug grin.

  “We do get a Winter,” I protested. “It rains for like a month straight.”

  “‘We.’ I take it you’re a California boy then?”

  “Yeah, I am. Go Dodgers,” I said halfheartedly. I hadn’t been back home in… God, over five years at this point. Going on six. I hadn’t spoken to my parents in roughly that long either.

  “How’d you wind up in Boston?” Daisy asked.

  Before I could answer, a tired, older waitress with pure white hair worn in a tight braid came up to our table. “Hello there! What can I get started for you two on this illustrious morning?”

  I gnced over her shoulder and noticed a word of the day calendar on the wall. Evidently, the word of the day was ‘illustrious.’

  “Cappucino, please,” Daisy and I said in tandem.

  I blinked.

  She blinked.

  Our eyes locked.

  Then we both started chuckling.

  The waitress, Nattie, chuckled as well. “Any fvors added to those?”

  “Nope, straight up,” Daisy and I said, also in tandem.

  “Well aren’t you two just adorable,” Nattie cooed. “I’ll be right back with those. Take a look at the menu till then, yeah?”

  “Sounds good, ma’am,” Daisy smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Guess we operate on a simir wavelength, huh?” I said. “Maybe that’s why we feel comfortable around each other.”

  “Could be, yeah,” Daisy said, brow furrowed as she looked at the menu.

  “I thought you’d been here before?”

  “I have.”

  “But you look confused-”

  “I’m just not really sure what to order.”

  “Want me to order for you?” I said jokingly. “Since apparently we have simir tastes.”

  She blushed. I’m talking tomato-red. “I, uh…”

  “I was, uh, I was joking, but if you want-”

  “Well what would you order for me?” Daisy said, looking at me with hooded eyes.

  I looked down at the menu. This girl looked like she’d want something sweet- maybe French Toast? But she also probably needed protein- we were on the run together, after all (which was super hot and which I was desperately trying not to let go to my head). And maybe something healthy, too? She looked like a healthy-eater. She was slender and a little toned, with long, lean legs that went all the way up, and up, and up until they reached her-

  Get your head out of the gutter, Kurosawa! I chastised myself. This girl needed my help, yes, but she didn’t need someone to fuss over her. She didn’t need a protector. She needed a friend. My ego wanted to be the former, but my common sense (what little of it I had) told me to shoot for the tter. And if we got through this, got to Boston in one piece, got clear of her shitty father (who seemed to think she was a boy, which… Didn’t necessarily mean anything, some people really just hated women that much)...

  Besides, the likelihood that this just happened to be Oliver Johannson and she just happened to be a trans girl and she just happened to fall out of the sky into my arms was like… Astronomically low.

  Then again, Rose’s fiance Kyle had spent nearly a year banging Rose’s oldest sister without realizing who she was. And Lavender had a whole sordid history with her future sister-in-w’s ex-girlfriend, a fact neither of them realized until less than a year ago. And Cris had found a farm being terrorized by his mortal enemy, Chuck (who Lavender also had a sordid history with… God, my roommate made terrible decisions), entirely by accident… Okay, maybe statistically improbable things happened more often than I thought. But that didn’t mean Daisy was Johannson: she was just a BU alum from Minnesota (which Johannson had been, he’d still had a bit of an accent when I’d known him) who was fleeing a shitty father, and who happened to have the same hair and eye color, and happened to be around the same height, and happened to enjoy Old Hollywood the way I could distinctly recall Johannson had from our css together… It didn’t mean anything!

  I focused up and kept scanning the menu, before I saw what would tick all the necessary boxes. “There we go,” I said. Regardless of who she was, before or now, she needed a friend. She needed someone in her corner. Someone to look out for her. If we survived this, maybe, after her operation (whatever that was), maybe asking her on a date could be a good idea. Maybe. But first… First I just wanted her to know I was on her side.

  “What would you get me?” Daisy said.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Oh? Confident, are we?”

  “I just… Feel like I’ve got this figured out.”

  “Hm. Everyone always says that, you know.”

  “Do they?” I asked.

  “Everyone always thinks they see the real me.”

  “And what do they see instead?”

  “They see what I let them see,” she said, looking out the window, chin resting on her hand.

  “Like a mask?” I said, and instantly regretted it.

  She flinched.

  “Sorry,” I said, internally berating myself. “That was probably a little-”

  “It’s fine, just… A little close to home. Not… Not inaccurate, though,” Daisy replied. “It’s necessary. People… When they see under the mask… Well, they don’t like what they see.”

  Shut up shut up shut up- “Why not?” Adam, you IDIOT.

  She considered her words very carefully, her smile looking more and more forced by the second. “I guess I think that… People look at me, and they see someone who can protect them. Everyone always wants me to take care of them. People don’t really try to take care of me instead. And they seem to get upset when they realize they might have to.”

  I blinked so rapidly I nearly conjured a wind current. That was… That wasn’t exactly what Johannson had said that night four and a half years ago, but it was damn close, and the spirit of it was identical. Even if the memory had faded for her, the sentiment had remained. Assuming, of course-

  “So, what can I get for you two cuties?” Nattie said, coming back with a pen and pad.

  I shook my head, pulling away from my internal debate about who, exactly, I’d gotten mixed up with. “Yeah, I’ll have a breakfast burrito with bacon and a buttermilk biscuit on the side.”

  “Excellent choice, young man,” Nattie said. “And for you, miss?”

  “The dy will have the chicken and waffles, with a side of mixed berries,” I said.

  Daisy’s jaw dropped, but she put it back in pce just as quickly as it had happened, and her smile wasn’t forced this time. She nodded with contentment as Nattie wrote down the order and smiled before walking away.

  “Good pick,” Daisy said, looking out the window again.

  “Yeah. Carbs, protein, fruit, fat… Little bit of everything.”

  “That’s honestly very thoughtful, thank you.”

  Don’t say it, don’t make it weird, don’t say it, don’t make it weird- “Well… I guess when you said what you said a second ago, I decided that maybe it was time someone took care of you instead.”

  I almost cringed at my own words, but then she smiled and shimmied in her seat, and I knew, I just fucking knew, that no matter who she was, who she’d been, who she was going to be, I wanted to be her friend. I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to treat her like the most beautiful, precious person on God’s earth, and I didn’t care who I was up against in doing that.