Platonic (12 page)

Mark goes back to his apartment two days later and stands in the hallway with his arms crossed defensively as Ben clenches his jaw, snaps a goodbye and carries his last box of things down to a cab. Ben goes home to Memphis, and Mark only hears from him one more time, an email asking Mark to mail some CDs. He has the apartment for another two weeks because they’ve already paid for the month. Ben won’t tell him the cost of breaking the lease except to say it’s more than Mark can afford.

So between working fourteen-hour days and bringing witness state-ments back to the apartment he doesn’t think he can, or should, keep, Mark searches desperately for somewhere he can afford. In the end, Rita helps; he’s not sure how much, but it’s certainly more than she needs to. She organizes appointments for four apartments in the nicer parts of Brooklyn and then accompanies him, telling him as they go how easy he’ll find the commute and how much money he’ll save. The apartments, he has to admit, are nice, all bigger and cheaper than he expected. He suspects that Rita has pulled strings somewhere along the line but won’t say no to help when he needs it. He signs a lease the next day and plans to start moving in a week later.

He receives three separate emails from Patrick. First, a two-page note that basically amounts to “I told you so” without specifying exactly what he’d told Mark in the first place. A few days later a more soothing message arrives, commiserating over the news that Ben is gone and asking why Mark hasn’t caught up with Daniel yet. The third is only a few lines and Mark gives up responding altogether.

Hey idiot,Why don’t you see if Daniel’s single? Pick up where you left off? What the hell is the risk? You’re single and pining for him and you can’t pull the “oh but we’re on opposite coasts” shit anymore. Get to know him again at least.xo Pat

***

It becomes a standing date: Mark meets Rita for dinner every Wednesday. Sometimes they cross paths on Saturdays as well, and sometimes the Wednesday meet-up doesn’t happen until it’s almost Thursday because work is work and Mark is throwing himself at this job as if it’s his entire life. Rita doesn’t mind, though, coming either dressed to the nines, directly from a gala or book event, or with her hair messy and her eyes red from attempting to write all day. They meet and talk, never about Daniel, but about everything else.

Close to Christmas she leans in to his side where they sit in a booth, rests her head on his shoulder and tells him, “I’m glad you’ve settled in.”

***

Mark is sitting, drinking his coffee and trying to keep the February cold at bay, staring out the window of the Starbucks around the corner from the courthouse when he sees him. He chokes on his coffee and feels his heart start to hammer and his skin come alive. Beside him, Emma, one of the other junior attorneys, pats him on the back and laughs at him as she asks if he’s okay.

By the time he looks back out the window Daniel is closer, walking briskly, two women trailing him with their arms full of bags and folios. He’s talking to them, but of course Mark can’t hear him. He imagines a long list of instructions for work—materials Daniel needs, new sketch-books, maybe, details for a show or a magazine spread, perhaps details about his upcoming line of… something… or whatever excitement they have planned for today. Rita has told him all about Daniel’s job at a fashion house, has shown him two of the dresses he designed and had made for her; and even though her stories were never specifically about Daniel, Mark listened and now he knows.

Mark hopes Daniel will slow down sometime this week to savor how wonderful his life has become, how much he has achieved. It’s Daniel’s birthday on Monday—Mark is sure he remembers the date. He smiles, because even if Daniel is running from task to task, too busy to enjoy, Mark can tell that he is doing exactly what he is meant to be doing and doing it damn well. It isn’t the painting and drawing and sculpting that Daniel once imagined he’d be doing, but fashion suits him even better.

Beside him, Emma is saying something and he hums in the affirmative, hoping it will suffice as he watches Daniel walk right by him, just across the street, and then around a corner and out of sight.

“You ready?” Emma interrupts wherever his thoughts were about to veer.

Mark blinks at her, and Emma smiles, her plump cheeks dimpling as she fixes her brown hair more securely in its bun. “Trial?” she reminds him, and wriggles forward to get her feet back on the ground.

Mark checks his watch and sighs. He is exhausted and it’s not even nine a.m., but this is what he loves, and he is, he thinks, just as good at it and just as happy to be doing it as Daniel is with fashion.

“Let’s go do this,” he says. They pick up their laptops from beneath their stools, down the last of their coffees and make their way back to the courthouse. Mark only spares a couple more seconds’ thought to silently wish Daniel a better birthday than Mark’s last one.

***

He brings it up with Rita the next week because he wants to and he knows not bringing it up would be strange, but mostly because he wants to. They’re sitting across from each other at a table in the back shadows of a bar, splitting a bottle of wine and a bowl of onion rings. Rita has been talking about character arcs for an hour, and Mark has been listening diligently, trying to be helpful. When the conversation reaches a lull, he aims for nonchalance and says, “So, I saw Daniel the other day.”

“Really?” Her eyes light up, just as he expected.

“Yeah, last Friday.”

“Oh my God. He hasn’t said anything to me, but of course he
wouldn’t
.”

This makes Mark pause, the idea that Daniel talks to Rita about him having crossed his mind more than once. He’s not sure how to take it. “No, I mean, I saw him from a distance.”

“Oh.” Rita starts tapping the side of her wine glass with a manicured nail and frowns. “How random.” Then she smiles.

“In a city with a million people—”

“Eight million, yes, far more than that during a workday. Who would think you’d have the luck to run into Danny twice?”

Mark blinks slowly at her before saying, “He hated being called Danny.”

She laughs loudly at him and then takes a mouthful of wine. “Yeah, he got over that about six years ago. He had a tutor at FIT who loved his designs and helped him more than was his fair share. He loved calling him ‘Danny Boy.’”

“Oh,” is all he can say, his mind once again turning over the idea that Daniel isn’t really Daniel anymore, that he has no idea who Daniel is. He wants to see what the name “Danny” tastes like on his tongue.

“I really don’t understand why you two haven’t spent some time together now that you’re in the same city. I get that it was a messy breakup, but it was ten years ago, and before it was romantic you were best friends—”

“As you just demonstrated, I don’t really know him anymore—”

“All the more reason to catch up.”

Mark watches Rita’s face when he asks, “Has he said he wants to catch up?”

Rita rolls her eyes and tries to hide it with another sip from her wine glass. “Do you want to?”

“Seeing him last week, he looks really happy.” Mark takes a mouthful from his own glass and swirls what’s left, examining its color. “I’d love to see the work he’s doing.” Rita beams at him so he’s quick to add, “But I still think it would just be too weird. And I’m so busy anyhow.”

Rita pouts at him and Mark changes the topic.

***

Mark is buzzed before he’s even had a sip of alcohol.

His office had erupted in cheers and wolf-whistles when his boss announced the successful verdict. He’d slung an arm over Mark’s shoulders as he poked him in the chest and pulled him forward to share the credit.

He deserves some credit, after all the late nights poring over paperwork until he found that crucial contradiction in the witness statements; God, is it nice getting it. He is well liked in the office, but this just made everyone like him more.

His coworkers slapped him on the back and then they’d all ended up draped across the office furniture, lax and sated from success, lazily sending off emails and handling paperwork until the workday could be considered officially over. And then it was off to the bar; at least thirty of them came, several of them people Mark hardly knew, all of them happy that one of the year’s bigger and more difficult cases was behind them. More than that: The right people had won. Justice had actually been served. It was exhilarating.

Now Mark grins and laughs and drinks every drink bought for him before Emma, arguably his closest friend in the office, pinches him on the wrist and swaps his cocktail for a glass of water. He
is
buzzed and happy and just soaking it up.

New York—doing this—really is where he is meant to be.

Someone rambles a toast he can hardly hear over the noise, a glass is raised and Emma takes his empty water glass back and slips champagne into his hand so he can join in.

“To Mark!” There are cheers and whoops and a scattering of applause, and Mark blushes bright red all the way up to the tips of his ears, gulps down a mouthful of bubbles and tries to pat his hair back into a more appropriate shape. People all around him in loose ties and rolled-up sleeves, offer to buy him another drink, their glasses of bright, colorful liquids punctuating the sea of drab brown, gray and black. They flash phones around and take photos of the celebration, and Mark has already heard a laughter-filled discussion of a photo board for this year’s Christmas party.

He’s halfway through another sip of the champagne when a flash of red in the crowd catches his eye. It takes him only a second to recognize the shape and shift of Daniel in a brightly colored blazer, a sketchbook wedged under one arm, a satchel over his shoulder, two full tumblers in his hands and hair falling across his eyes.

It takes Mark another second to realize Daniel is beelining for him.

He’s struck dumb. How many times
are
they going to run into each other?

Daniel has to elbow a little and murmur “excuse me” several times to get close enough to Mark to flash him a brilliant smile, and Mark doesn’t even have to think before letting the small happiness that’s been hovering about his lips all evening break into a full grin.

Mark jumps up from the stool he’s been sitting on and feels the telltale tilt of the room and a persistent buzz in his chest say he’s a little bit drunk. He doesn’t think about it, just launches himself at Daniel as soon as he’s close enough, wrapping him up in a hug that feels perfectly warm and weighted and smells wonderful for the half-second it lasts.

“Careful!” Daniel pulls away and twists, trying not to spill his drinks down Mark’s side and laughing as Mark sits back on his stool and stares.

Daniel looks back at him strangely, head tilted and lips parted, and Mark flushes under his gaze. Then he remembers himself, grins again and stands up properly. “Hi!” he says, knowing he sounds a little drunk and entirely elated.

“I hope you don’t mind; I spotted you celebrating and I just had to say hello.” Daniel offers one of the drinks and Mark takes it happily. “For you,” Daniel says, a small crease appearing between his eyes. “I have no idea what you drink, but you’re obviously having a party—”

Mark interrupts, holding up the glass and appraising it for the crushed ice, lime slices and mint in it, and says, “To me!” He takes a swallow to cover his second of embarrassment; that really
did
sound drunk. He’s not that drunk, he’s just so incredibly happy about everything.

Daniel grins, though. The crease between his eyes is still there, but his nose scrunches up as his lips part so he can smile more.

“To you,” Daniel agrees and sips, watching as Mark takes a second pull of his own drink and lets it sit in his mouth before he swallows. “And happy birthday! It’s next week, isn’t it?”

That makes Mark pause, tilt his head and try to think. He has not thought about that at all, but sure enough, it is October.

Daniel panics, “Oh my God? Isn’t it? You’ll be…” he thinks, counts in his head. “Twenty-six?”

“Shit,” Mark realizes. ”Twenty-seven.”

Daniel laughs under his breath and shakes his head. “So, happy birthday,” he whispers conspiratorially.

“Yes.” Mark takes another sip and says, “Yum.”

Cheryl from two desks across the office calls out to him, interrupting. Mark turns toward her with a questioning look.

“Mark, honey, give us a smile,” she says, and a flash goes off.

When Mark turns back to Daniel, still smiling, Daniel says, “I didn’t want to intrude but I couldn’t not come over. You… um… ” He trails off, this time as one of Mark’s bosses, Sachi, tall and imposing, her black hair voluminous and shining, pushes her way between them and reaches for Mark. She presses a kiss to his cheek and says, “Congratulations, we’re leaving, but we’ll see you tomorrow!” as Daniel shifts from one foot to the other and stares around him.

“It’s good to see you.” Daniel says, once she’s gone.

Mark wants to say something, anything, to drag out the moment, but his mind still feels fuzzy and he’s distracted by everything around him. But this is it: Daniel has come over and said a quick hello, he bought him a drink to celebrate something it would take days to explain the enormity of and now his gaze is slipping around the room full of lawyers, searching for a way out. Daniel smiles and hoists his satchel higher on his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Daniel hovers there, close enough to smell, for Mark to feel the heat coming through his clothes, and for a second Mark imagines Daniel might kiss him. Instead Daniel smiles and offers his hand.

Once more Mark is distracted almost to the point of growling by one of the guys from accounting calling his name, this time from the bar, offering a pretty pink drink that makes Mark pull a face and then motion it over anyway. His eyes flick back to Daniel and he stares down at the offered hand, still hanging lamely in midair.

He grasps it in his, squeezing tight and lingering a second longer than necessary, his thumb brushing in one light sweep along the curve of Daniel’s palm as he pulls away.