the vibes are here and nothing else

Laughter erupts, bubbling and bright, into his room from outside. The sound is familiar. It sounds like Renée. M finishes tightening the knot on his tie and gives himself a final once-over in the mirror. His blond hair is short and sticks up in an unruly way M could never quite tame. He tries to keep it short to maintain its haphazard appearance, but it’s gotten a little too long. Today he’s in a maroon suit with a striped pink tie; the pink is faint but nicely compliments the dark maroon. He has an emerald green tieclip to pull the look together. After his father’s death, he’s become the sole owner of the business and tries to sustain an air of authority and professionalism in how he dresses. But sometimes… Sometimes it feels like he’s transparent. That everyone can see he really isn’t professional. Or smart. Or fit to run a business like his father. His hair is unkempt. He should’ve gotten it cut earlier this week. He’s letting things slip already. How long will it take him to run his family’s business into the ground?

Renée’s soft voice filters in through his window, carried in by the warm summer breeze. He grabs his keys before peeking out his cracked window, expecting to see Samson—her fiancé and M’s best friend—with her, but instead he sees Renée with George. He’s M’s neighbor a couple doors down. He annoys M more than he should. A flurry of insulting words flash through M’s head at the sight of George, but, if he’s being honest with himself, none of them fit since George, really, above all else, is basic. There isn’t anything remarkable or notable about him. He likes all the same things everyone else does. He likes to laugh and flirt with every conventionally attractive woman he sees. He hasn’t really done anything to set himself apart. He’s balding. His clothes are always plain, even today. Especially today. It looks like he’s pulling his tired flirting routine with Renée now. But she’s still giggling at what he’s saying. And now she’s placing a hand lightly on his chest. That can’t be right. M knows Samson well enough to know he wouldn’t be cool with this.

George pulls something out from his khaki pants pocket and presents it to Renée. Her hands go up to her mouth in pleasant surprise before reaching for the gift. M can’t make it out. It’s too small to see from his high distance and angle behind Renée. Then she hugs George. Tightly. He hugs her back, and they hold each other for several moments too long.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Renée says.

“I know, but you know I think about you all the time.”

She tilts her head and whispers with a grin, “Yes, I do.”

M can see George’s face from this angle with how tightly and completely he’s hugging Renée, and he’s grinning like a lovesick idiot. Acid churns in M’s gut.

By the time he makes his way out the door, down the narrow staircase, outside, and around the corner, they’re both gone.

He has work, so he decides to head into the office. He has a few messages to answer, documents to sign, and projects that need his approval. He gets started and becomes lost in it. He feels as if he was made for this. His father had kept it from him. M thinks his father knew he would change the business. How it’s run. How his employees are treated. A functioning machine is only as efficient as its parts, so why not give the parts everything they need for maximum efficiency? He’s given his employees more time off, accommodations, and benefits than his father ever dared to even consider. Production has been up by 57%.

Lunchtime rolls around, and M finds himself walking towards his usual spot: the local sports bar. There are the regulars—drunken, glassy eyes glued to televisions showcasing advertisements occasionally littered with sports—and a few people like himself, dropping by for a quick lunch and nothing more. M spots Samson at their usual booth in the back corner. Samson holds up a drink. It’s M’s favorite: martini with a green olive (black will not do).

M can’t help but smile stupidly wide and heads over to Samson.

The highlight of M’s days is Samson. The highlight of his life is Samson. He met Samson serendipitously at a county fair almost six years ago where he was showcasing a few of his animals. Samson had been there in jeans, boots, a brown cowboy hat, and a demeanor sweeter than ice tea. How could M possibly stay away?

Samson is kind-hearted and genuine. He listens. He loves to read. He looks at M like he isn’t already fed up with him like so many other people who know him commonly do. It makes M feel whole again. Like he hasn’t already ruined everything; there are still new things and people to experience. Life is still worth living.

Lunch is easy and lighthearted. They both gossip about their jobs and coworkers. Samson works down at the stables, and M demands an update on all the horses and cattle he oversees, which Samson eagerly provides. They talk until they run out of food, and the conversation lapses. M recalls what he saw earlier that morning, and something inside him urges him to tell Samson, despite wanting to avoid bringing down the mood.

“Hey, um,” M hesitantly begins while fiddling with his napkin, “I saw Renée earlier today. With, uh, George.” He glances up.

Samson fixes him with an unreadable look. “George?”

“My neighbor,” M clarifies.

Samson is still staring at him with that odd look. Maybe this was nothing. Maybe this was something that wasn’t worth mentioning at all actually, and now M’s made it awkward.

M rushes, hoping to quickly get past this, “I don’t know. …It just seemed weird. I wanted to at least tell you.”

Samson downs the rest of his beer. “Thanks.” He pulls a bill out of his wallet. “Look, I gotta get back. Let me know if this doesn’t cover my half.”

“Oh. Uh—”

But Samson is already pushing out of the booth. He puts his cowboy hat on and is out the door faster than M can say, “Check, please.”

The rest of the day is uneventful. He finishes some of the work he needs to and signs more contracts than he expected. The Sun disappears too soon, and M briskly walks home in the dark, wishing he had brought a warmer coat. Once he’s home, he pours himself a bottle of red wine he got as a gift for Christmas and thinks about cooking dinner but ends up just drinking too much wine and laying on the couch.

There’s a knock at the door, heavy and unrushed. M struggles to sit up, sedated by the wine, and shuffles over to the front door and opens it.

Samson is standing there, awash in pale moonlight, eyes bloodshot and wild, and the alcohol on his breath is so strong it stings M’s eyes. M’s barely moved aside when Samson stumbles in. M closes and locks the door, and Samson is watching him when he turns around.

“It’s been going on for months.” Samson sounds removed. Distant. Like he’s telling a story he heard and not something that is directly impacting him. “I kinda suspected. Didn’t think it had been that long, though.”

Not sure what to say, M settles with a jilted, “I’m—sorry.”

Samson swallows roughly and stares unrelentingly, his eyes seemingly stuck to M. “I need to be drunker. Where’s your whiskey?” His eyes stay fixed on M.

“You know where.” But M leads him to the kitchen anyway.

He retrieves Samson’s favorite brand he had stashed in the lower cabinet. It was going to be a birthday present. He puts one of those big square ice cubes in a glass then pours him a couple fingers.

Samson downs it in two large gulps.

M pours him another.

Samson sips it this time. “Y’know,” the letters sliding together, “I felt relieved. When I found out. Like I was finally free.” Samson stares directly at M.

“Um.”

“You’re all I’ve been able to think about.” Samson finishes his drink in one painful swallow.

Dizziness flashes through M like standing up too fast. His heart pounds.

M replies, “I think you’re drunk.”

“I am. Doesn’t mean what I said isn’t true.”

“And it doesn’t mean you should sleep with the closest single person to you either.”

“Started before today.”

“What?”

“Thinking about you all the time. It started way before today.” Then he contemplates, eyes faraway. “It started way before Renée.”

There is a terrible, horrible pause, giving Samson’s words more weight than they’re worth.

“Ooookay, you’ve definitely had too much,” M says quickly, hoping to sweep this entire thing under the rug before anyone can look at it. He takes Samson’s empty glass and whisks away to the kitchen.

M rinses the glass, reminded of his stint in the food industry before his father let him—no, allowed him—to become more involved in the family business. He rinses the glass again, hands shaking.

Samson may never remember what he said after tonight, but M will. He will be haunted by it. Forever. His greatest desire, his hidden sin, come to light in a moment of drunken heartbreak that Samson probably doesn’t even mean.

What has he done to deserve such cruel punishment?

M leaves the safety of the kitchen to find Samson draped over the couch, eyes closed, lips apart, face half smooshed into the arm of the couch with his boots and belt scattered on the floor. A strangely intense wave of affection grips M’s heart at the sight.

M walks over and gently places a hand on Samson’s shoulder. He shakes him softly.

“Hey.”

Samson blinks up, bleary and bloodshot, and then grins. “Hey.”

“Let’s get you in a bed.”

His grin grows into something wicked. “Your bed?”

M feels himself blush, and his heart flips. Samson does not talk like this sober.

“Not tonight,” M replies then immediately regrets his response. Why didn’t he just say no? Samson’s clearly drunk and irrational. It’s never going to happen.

Samson lets M help him up the stairs. M puts an arm around his waist and keeps a steady hold. M can feel the muscle underneath the soft layer of fat around Samson’s middle. His mind buzzes at the novelty of feeling Samson like this. Samson is drunk and half-asleep, teetering up the stairs like a sailor caught in a storm. M guides them into the guest room and towards the bed, and Samson stumbles a couple of steps over to it before falling onto it. He flops over on his back.

“You ever think of me?” Samson asks.

M fiddles with the lamp on the bedside table. He eventually finds the knob, but his fingers keep slipping uselessly against it. He doesn’t want to lie to Samson, but he can’t be honest. So he throws out a, “Huh?” He finally twists the knob, and light spills into the room.

“I think about you allll the time. You ever think about me?”

“Yeah, of course.” It’s not a lie, but he says it quickly and meaninglessly. He rounds the bed and fights the curtains to get them to fully close.

Samson mumbles something and turns on his side.

“What?” M asks, giving the curtains a final yank. They’re mostly closed. M never comes in this room. He never has guests.

Samson says, “Doesn’t seem like it. It seems like you’re annoyed with me.”

“You’re just…dangerous…right now.”

“Dangerous??”

M finally looks. Samson is on his side staring up at M. Unshaven and hair askew. His pants are undone and most of his shirt is unbuttoned. He looks insecure. Vulnerable. Like he needs something from M that he can’t live without.

“Yeah,” M replies, voice thin and tense, and gestures vaguely at Samson as if he can somehow see how delectable he is right now. How tempting. How sinful.

Samson looks down at himself with innocent confusion, and M becomes unpinned from his gaze.

“I’m going downstairs to get you some water.” M doesn’t look at him when he leaves the room.

In the kitchen he grabs a large glass and pours some of the clean, filtered water he has delivered weekly into it. He’s returning the circular water container back into one of his larger lower cabinets and catches a glimpse of his reflection as he closes the cabinet door.

He has a floor-length mirror in his living room set against the wall. He never liked the placement of it but never had the motivation to move it. He didn’t know where else it would go. It doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. It’s resting against the wall next to the fireplace. It’s about two rooms away from his spot in the kitchen.

The man in the mirror looks small. Far away. Tense. Scared. He doesn’t know why. He does everything he can not to appear that way. He’s gripping the glass of water too tightly, and his shoulders are tense, pointing inwardly, shrinking his frame. He doesn’t look like the sum of his parts. He doesn’t look like he owns a business. He doesn’t look capable of what he did to his father.

But he doesn’t look heterosexual either. He thinks it’s the bright colors he’s drawn to and always wears. Or his hair. Or maybe his shoes. Or maybe it’s his entire body. He doesn’t know. He just knows it’s there. It’s him.

“Hey.”

M startles, and water splashes from the glass onto the wooden kitchen floor.

“M’sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Samson is leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen. He looks considerably more sober yet considerably more sleepy, causing M to second-guess how long he’s been standing here in the kitchen. “I didn’t, uh… I didn’t freak you out, um, earlier?”

“Oh, what? No. No way,” M dismisses with a careless wave of his hand.

Samson says his name that way he does when M is keeping stuff from him. And then, “Do you want me lea—”

“No,” M says too seriously.

Samson smiles so warmly and genuinely it makes M want to jump off a cliff. “Could I…” But he stops. And almost seems to turn shy. He looks down at his socked feet and crosses his arms.

“Yes?” M prompts.

“Can I hug you?”

It’s the last thing he’s expecting to hear, so he simply stares. And then he takes a step forward in Samson’s direction then realizes he’s still holding the glass of water, and his mind sort of trips for a second because he can’t hug Samson with this glass of water, but it’s still in his hand, so he quickly and stiffly sets the glass on the counter by the sink. When he looks up, Samson is smiling at him like George was when he was hugging Renée.

Way too late, M agrees, “Yeah, of course.”

He walks towards Samson, and Samson tiredly shuffles towards him, and they meet somewhere in the middle, right in the center of the kitchen. Samson pulls him close. He’s beefier than M with all his manual work in the stables. He’s super warm and unyielding. Safe. He smells like liquor, dust, and sweat. M wraps his arms around him and feels the muscles in Samson’s back move in time with his arms, encircling M, holding him securely.

It’s really nice.

M feels himself melt into the touch. Tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying loosens and fades.

“You smell really good,” Samson whispers, warm breath ghosting across M’s neck. “I must smell terrible.”

“Nah.” To prove it, M tightens his hold on Samson, and Samson squeezes him back.

Something in his peripheral moves, and it’s his reflection in the mirror two rooms away. There’s a loose smile on his face, and he and Samson are so intertwined he can’t make out where he ends and Samson begins. But he doesn’t really mind. He looks better like this anyway. Stronger too if he’s suddenly being gracious with himself.

Maybe none of this is a bad thing. Maybe there isn’t anything to panic over. Nothing terrible is happening. In fact, something very good is happening. And maybe he should just bask in it. Enjoy this fleeting, safe moment.

So he does. He lowers his head onto Samson’s shoulder, into the crook of his neck. He feels Samson press the faintest kiss onto the crown of his head. Something warm slides down his face, and M realizes he’s crying. He also realizes he’s happy.