Part 17 (2/2)

I wasn't just seeing into this other timeline. It was like the two timelines were somehow converging, joining together like the two sides of a long ribbon, once pulled apart, but now meeting face to face. I was somehow living in both timelines at once.

Otto and I ended up going to college together - I'd moved down to Los Angeles at the end of my soph.o.m.ore year to be with him, to go to UCLA. We'd both discovered our vocations in the arts - his desire to be an actor, mine to be a screenwriter - and we lived in this crazy town together all through school and after, chasing our dreams, doing exactly what we were meant to do.

Our lips were so close together, just inches apart. But neither of us moved. I could feel the warm gusts of air from his nose on my cheek, smell his sweet breath.

Today had occurred almost exactly as I remembered it. Otto had filmed the third day of his web series, and I'd helped him, and now we were finis.h.i.+ng cleaning up together afterward. But I'm not about to leave, to go home to Kevin, because Kevin doesn't exist in this timeline, at least not in Los Angeles. He is back in Seattle, still living with his ex-boyfriend Colin. In this timeline, it is Otto I love, Otto I have always loved. I can see it in Otto's eyes too: that I am the one he shares his pa.s.sion with.

I could see it in Otto's eyes for real. I wasn't the only one seeing into this other timeline, experiencing these feelings.

In this new timeline, Otto and I have kissed recently, many times. And now, at the end of a hard day's work, we are about to kiss again. We are both tired, exhausted actually, but the kiss will energize us, especially as it grows more pa.s.sionate. s.e.x with Otto, I know, is like gunpowder, like a powder keg: once it starts burning, it takes on a life of its own, burning brighter, hotter, until it explodes. The Hive is our house, the place where we live together, and this is our bedroom, our bed. Midway into the kiss, Otto will take my hand, pull me toward the bed, and we will undress - not a sly seduction, or the eager fumblings of a couple that hasn't had s.e.x together since high school. Instead, it will be the casual shucking of clothes that comes after years together, a familiarity that is perhaps too easy, but also so comfortable. Our bodies, so used to each other now, will fall onto the sheets of our futon, and we will make love the way we have so many times before.

Everything froze. This was the exact moment where the two timelines met. Like the timeline itself, Otto and I were one. Could we go on being one? Could I jump from one timeline to the other? In that instant, I was certain it was possible. So what if the past of our new timeline got jumbled, if it wouldn't be exactly clear when we'd gotten together, where I'd gone to college, where I'd live these past few years. The point is, we could go on living together, sharing our lives, chasing our dreams.

We still didn't move. I realized that neither of us had moved for a long time, ten seconds or more, not even blinking.

Whatever you do, don't kiss the ex-boyfriend.

Maybe this was what the ghost of Cole Gordon had been trying to tell me that night in our apartment. Except at that point, he wouldn't have had any way of knowing about Otto. Even so, it was still good advice.

So I blinked. I said to Otto, ”Well, I should probably get going.”

”Oh, yeah!” he said, pulling back. ”Definitely.”

Just like that, the timelines were splitting apart again. The moment had broken. The connection we'd shared, our glimpse into that other timeline? It was gone now. What existed in that dimension didn't exist in this one, and now it never would.

But I was glad I'd shared that moment with Otto. He and I had loved each other once, but we were friends now, and that was a very good thing for both of us to know. In a way, it also felt like I'd finally truly moved on from the things Kevin had said after that dinner with Mr. Brander, like he and I were completely good again.

When I got home that night, Kevin was baking cookies, which meant the landlord had finally fixed the oven.

”Oh, my G.o.d, that smells so good!” I said. The first batch of cookies was already done, on a plate on the counter. ”Snickerdoodles!”

”I looked up a recipe online,” he said, smiling.

I had one. It was fantastic, warm and b.u.t.tery. (He'd overdone the cinnamon and underdone the sugar in the cinnamon-sugar coating, but I wasn't about to point that out.) ”They're great!” I said, loving the fact that he'd baked them for me, and also the fact that he baked cookies at all. We teased each other about which one of us was the butchest, but Kevin had been right when he'd said that the s.e.xiest thing of all was a guy who didn't get hung up about how butch he was.

”How'd it go with the web series? You're finally done now, right?”

”Yeah,” I said, and then I went on to tell him about the day's shoot. I didn't mention the moment I'd had with Otto in his bedroom, mostly because there really wasn't anything to mention. We hadn't kissed. We hadn't really even almost-kissed.

”I think I made a decision,” I said.

”Yeah?” Kevin said.

”I'm going to email Fiona Lang.”

”To see what she thinks of your screenplays?”

I nodded. ”It's crazy. It's been, like, six weeks. And” - here I gave Kevin an apologetic look - ”I can also ask her about the check from Mr. Brander.”

There was a knock at the door.

Daniel, of course.

”Pero que chingados?” he said. I think he meant the cookies, that he thought they smelled good, but with him, who the h.e.l.l knows?

”What do you need?” I said, not particularly amused by having this c.o.c.ky kid intrude on my moment with Kevin.

”Your shower,” he said.

”What?” I was confused.

”Our shower don't work.” He was carrying a rolled-up beach towel, but I guess I a.s.sumed he was on his way to the pool.

I looked at Kevin, in the kitchen doorway again. Before Kevin could even shrug, Daniel was sauntering across the floor toward our bathroom. Part of me wanted to stop him, ask him more questions: ”What's wrong with your shower?” And, ”Does your sister know you're here?”

I was too late. Before I could speak, he disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the shower start. (But - and this seemed important somehow - he hadn't closed the door all the way.) Steam billowed out the crack of that open door.

I stepped closer to Kevin. The door to the bathroom was open, and I didn't want Daniel overhearing us talking. But I didn't know what to say exactly. I mean, maybe Daniel really did need to use our shower.

Kevin's eyes met mine. He was thinking the same thing I was. Given the way Daniel had been acting around us, having him naked in our bathroom was not a good thing. But what could we do? He was already naked, and slick with water by now, probably soaping up his whole body.

Oy.

The point is, it's not like we could go in there and pull him out of the shower.

A minute or so later, the water stopped.

The door opened, and Daniel stepped out. He had his towel wrapped around his waist. His skin was still wet, sleek and glistening. More importantly, he was getting water all over our floor.

”Daniel!” I said. ”Stop!”

”What?” he said, clueless, or pretending to be.

”You didn't even dry off.”

”Oh. Lo siento.”

The instant before he did it, I knew what he was going to do - that he was going to pull the towel off from around his waist and start drying off right in front of us.

Yup. He was standing there completely starkers.

He flopped the towel over his head and started drying his hair. It was a total tease, of course. He was giving us the chance to look at him without him knowing, so we could stare outright. Except he did know we were looking.

I'd like to say I turned my eyes away, but I didn't.

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