I never answer calls from unknown numbers. I have a compulsive habit of rushing to the nearest computer as soon as my phone vibrates with an alien request and Googling the area code to get an idea of where in the world the call is coming from. Generally, my geo-search yields solid clues as to the mystery caller.

“Who the hell is calling me from the East Bay?” I say this time waiting for a voicemail that will reveal the identity on the other line.

After his weeklong birthday celebration and our two-time rendezvous, Potential Player flew away on vacation (oh, they joys of being funemployed) leaving me alone and with the impression that he was interested in a one-on-one match upon his return.

What the Player also left was my number with his friend: the tall, hunky blond.

In the voicemail that followed the call from the East Bay number, the friend reminds me of the night we met, one of the nights I spent with the Player. He asks me about my plans for the night. He’s on the Bay Bridge, making his way to the city.

I haven’t gone out in a couple of days, and since most of my friends have full-time jobs, I rarely get to go out on weekdays, by far the most exciting nights to party in a big city. And being quite fresh to San Francisco, I can count the number of gay friends in one hand. So I’m tempted to take this boy up on what sounded like a purely platonic offer for drinks.

Twenty minutes later, and he’s rolling down in his silver Mustang, parking behind the Castro Theatre. I meet up with him and together we walk on over to Toad Hall, an unpretentious lounge with phenomenal drink specials.

He adds character to his corn-fed frame, easygoing smile and baby blue eyes with a faux haw and an eyebrow piercing. He’s like a Ken doll after breaking free from military school. An All-American reject with a tough exterior but deep down, a totally huggable kind of brat.

Our first round of drinks and our conversation is flowing. Even though we had barely spoken the first time we met, it’s easy for me to talk to All-American Reject, joke around with him even, maybe because there’s no pressure coming from either side.

I’d already filed AAR in my friend cabinet, and I make sure to lock him in there as soon as I recognize the pattern on his black shirt: Ed Hardy. That Christian Audigier bastard child of a brand, the Wal-Mart of gaudy couture, now associated with delusions of D-list celebrity status and obnoxious, beer belly, baby daddy, garage glamour.

On an acquaintance, Ed Hardy is negligible. But AAR could never rearrange himself as anything more than friend of a friend, not with that wardrobe anyway.

Getting drunk with him is still acceptable.

As the night progresses, we decide to bounce from the barely crowded Toad Hall to the smaller space of QBar. Just around the block, QBar, the closest the Castro gets to ‘hood, is full-on body heat and hip-hop.

I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that the bar is about the size of an attic and the concept of maximum capacity is meaningless, or with the fact that we’re on our fourth round of drinks, but I start to feel AAR closing in on my physical space, the drink in my hand bumping against his hard chest every time I make a move on the dance floor. There’s nothing wrong with casual flirting and grinding with a friend of a friend, so I don’t make it an issue, but AAR’s intentions are obvious.

Weary that our interactions might get too hot to handle, I suggest we take a break and go outside to catch my breath… and smoke a cigarette. As soon as we step away from the loud music blasting inside, AAR brings up a topic I did not expect to discuss.

“So are you still talking to that Potential Player?” he asks, and I can see in his baby blue eyes that he’s curious to hear my response.

“I haven’t talked to him in a while,” I say disguising my recent fascination with his friend.

“That kid is so wild. I met him at my friend’s apartment one morning. He was just wrapped in a towel. My friend told me later that they had just finished fooling around when I walked in and that he was the best sex he’s ever had.”

I don’t say a word. And it takes all my strength not to show how manipulated I feel. AAR continues telling his story, even though my silence should have been taken as an indication for him to stop.

“I met him the day before I met you. We are not really close friends or anything, but I’ve heard lots of crazy stories. He was really upset on his birthday because he was seeing this guy in Santa Cruz who totally blew him off and bailed on his party last minute.”

And just like that, my image of Potential Player shatters. If AAR met him the night before he met me, it means that in between both nights the Player and I spent together, the Player had the best sex of his life… with someone else. And his weeklong birthday sex game was just a spiteful attempt at getting back at yet another lover. Not exactly the definition of playing fair.

The Player, as it turns out, is not a gentleman but a cheat. And his charm, his boy-like innocence, is nothing more than an act so that, in the end, he can walk away with the biggest prize: an unbroken heart.

We walk back into the bar, and because I feel like I have nothing else to lose, I do what I’ve wanted to since about drink number two. I don’t worry about keeping my distance, I forget about the Ed Hardy galore. I grab on to AAR’s neck and bring him in as close as I can. We start making out amidst the crowd, and I don’t care that it’s all on display.

Because I am done being toyed around with, when I know all too well how to play.

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance.

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t care whether he likes me back or if rejection is the only thing coming my way. We are moving out. Come tomorrow we won’t be living next door to each other anymore. It’s too late for serious us. I just need to know if what I have been sensing this whole time is real.

All of these feelings flushed in right from the very beginning. The week before senior year, I was walking around my front lawn after I’d just finished unpacking. I kicked off my flimsy flip-flops and began pacing barefoot on the cool grass wearing only a loose white v-neck and faded Levi’s. I wiped the few drops of sweat from my brow and took out my pack of Parliaments. I needed a cigarette to help me relax after my grueling moving-in. But September in Chicago is notoriously windy, and my lighter, like most things I owned at the time, was cheap and unreliable. I kept flicking it, cupped my hands around the flame and tried to keep it going long enough to cause some serious damage to my unlit Parliament, much to no avail.

I was starting to get frustrated when I noticed a boy plopping down the steps of the porch next door and slowly heading towards my direction. He was wearing a pair of forest green shorts and a white t-shirt similar to mine except wrinkled and with grass stains, as if he’d been doing cartwheels or wrestling on the grass. His dark brown wavy hair swayed in the wind and from his dry pink lips dangled a lit Parliament. It took me a second to recognize him.

“Hey there, I’m Boy in Color, your neighbor apparently,” he said looking at me and then glancing at my house. I shared a front lawn with the boy who had taken my breath away the minute I had first laid eyes on him at that party not so long ago. And exactly like before, the world went grey as he glowed in multicolor. Being next to me got me in some sort of visual trance.

“Hi,” I said staring straight into his juvenile eyes as he continued to approach me cutting through the grass. “You got a lighter? Mine’s a piece of shit.”

“Here, let me show you a trick,” he said taking my lighter from my hands. “Put the cigarette in your mouth, and pull your collar over it to block it from the wind.” I was skeptical and pictured my white shirt engulfing in flames, but I followed his instructions. “And now light it from underneath,” he said and reached under my shirt, gently gracing my happy trail as he made his way upwards with my lighter in his hand. It tickled, and the sensation stretched from my belly to my back and down my spine.

He got the lighter up to my chest and lit my heart on the very first try.

And in the nine months that followed, our entire senior year, the flame between us continued to flicker in the wind, never dying down. During our late night conversations sitting on the rackety bench on his porch, our knees touching while we waited for the sun to come up, I’d lean on him slightly and feel him applying pressure back on me; while watching cheesy scary movies on rainy Sunday afternoons, he’d turn to me with and flash me a soft smile whenever I made a clever comment no one else understood; or after the brief, silly friend fights we’d get into for pretending not to care, we’d hug as a sign of peacemaking, but our hugs always lingered as a sign of something else.

During all of this, I made sure to guard our flame while he kept fanning it. Because whenever we’d undergo a cold front, it’d only take a longing look, a tender touch or a few words to bring us right back to the warm sentiment I felt we shared.

And now on the last night I'll be seeing him before we both jet off into opposite sides of the country, and I can’t believe I never got close enough to confess how I feel. I have been so afraid of getting burned, thinking that in this fire, a friend is the worse thing to lose.

But I have to know if this is real. Because I feel like I’m burning, and if Boy in Color can’t save me, he has to let me cool.

I have to tell him how I feel. And tonight is my last chance. I think again as I walk out my front door, light a Parliament under my collar and make my way to the sports bar our entire senior class will be at on our last night of college.

[To be continued…]

Peter doesn’t like to drive fast, I notice sitting in the passenger seat of his old Toyota. I don’t get it. He can just pump the gas, trust himself with the steering wheel a little more and zoom past at magnificent speeds. But Peter follows the speed limit and knows his way exactly to my house…. my parents’ house.

Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” comes on the radio right as he’s about to turn on my street. I turn it down. Peter turns to me a little unsure of what to say, so he thanks me for hanging out with him tonight. As if it were such a hassle on my part. I like hanging out with Peter. He’s bubbly but not bursting. Sweet but not syrupy. I know I should just say goodbye and call it a night. That’s what we strive to be: platonic friends who end the night with an awkward hug and a smile.

But I can’t do that with Peter. Maybe it’s the several drinks I had earlier at the bar or maybe it’s the trashy pop playing on the radio or maybe it’s that I love being in a beat up car with a gorgeous boy. It makes me never want to call it a night.

“You’re going to hate me for saying this,” and I can’t believe I’m actually saying it. “But I really want to kiss you right now.”

And here we go again.

“I’m not getting out of your car until you make out with me.”

17 Months Earlier

You could say that what Peter and I had was special. The minute we got introduced by mutual friends, we hit it off. And yes, I thought he was attractive. But I also thought he was straight.

It started the moment he discreetly placed his hand on my knee while we were watching Halloween at a friend’s movie night.

A week later he came over to my parents’ house, and I remember him telling me how hard his heart was pounding as he laid in my bed next to me. We listened to Coldplay’s XY album on repeat and made out mid-afternoon while my younger brother watched The Incredibles in the family room.

That whole summer, we continued our secret affair. It was really exciting at first, sneaking off together after hanging out at the bars and stealing kisses when we thought no one was looking.

The secrecy was arousing. We were like magnets, and the more time we spent together in public not getting on top of each other made our private attraction much more passionate. We had great chemistry under the covers and up against walls and on my living room floor.

At the end of the summer however, as I was getting ready to go back to college, something changed for Peter. I started to get the hint that he was growing more cautious about our indiscretions seeing the light. He was straight, after all. For me, all of this was an enthralling game. For him, it was top secret.

But we kept hooking up, rumbling on every flat surface whenever we got the chance (or carefully contrived a chance). Afterwards, he’d just turn to me and like a friend, confessed to me how he’d regret what had just happened. How he’d been regretting it this whole time and wished he could stop. It wasn’t what he did, who he was, he’d say.

And I, like a good friend, tried to console him every time, regardless of how degraded it’d made me feel. I knew I was better than some dirty little secret. So in order to cope, I made him the game just like he’d made me the mistake.

Seducing Peter then became (and even now continues to be) a challenging trudge up a foggy mountain. But I know that, if I want to, I will eventually get to the top.

17 Months Later

“Fine, Peter. I understand. Just look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t want to kiss me cause you don’t find me attractive…”

“You know that’s not it.”

“Tell me that I’m still not the best kisser you’ve ever had. Tell me, c’mon. And I will get out of your car.”

“I want to kiss you, but we can’t keep doing this. I don’t want to keep doing this. Why do you have to make it so hard? I just want us to be friends! Is that so hard to understand?”

“You and I will never be just friends, Peter.”

“Fine then. Let’s just get this over with.”

“No. Not if you’re going to be so cold about it.” And then I realize that I’m coming off kind of foolish. So I let it go. Game over. “This is silly of me. Let’s forget about it, ok? Goodbye.” But right as I’m about to open the passenger door of his Toyota, Peter grabs my arm, pulls me in closer and we start to make out.

I climb on top of him and pull back his seat so that he’s resting almost completely horizontal. He’s trying to mouth the words, “stop, stop” to pretend like he’s not enjoying any of this, like I’m crossing all boundaries, but I’m suffocating him with kisses. He’s kissing back.

I get off and sit back down in the passenger seat. Now I’m ready to call it a night.

“I hate myself for not having the strength just now to get you off me.”

“I hate you for not knowing what you want. Seriously, Peter? Grow up.”

Featuring "Talk" (Thin White Duke Remix) - Coldplay

From some guys, you can expect the world. They know your fondness for foreign cinema, how you take comfort in spending your Sunday afternoons at home and most importantly, they share your appreciation for the little surprises in life. So on any given Sunday afternoon they might show up at your apartment unannounced with a copy of Amores Perros and a Hershey’s Cookies and Cream chocolate bar.

From some guys, you don’t even expect a future phone call. That’s why I was so surprised to hear from Toy Soldier three weeks after our New York Pride post-party rendezvous. He’s in town just for one night and wants to meet up, perhaps for drinks, perhaps for something more. He’s vague on the phone about his game plan, leaving it ambiguous for us to figure out as the night goes on. With an appetite for spontaneity, I invite him over to my place.

“Who was that?” Sunny D asks suspiciously. The tone of my voice while talking on the phone had revealed my intrigue with the stranger on the other side.

“Just a friend,” I answer, rather vague myself. “He’s coming over and going out with us tonight.” Sunny D tries to pretend not to be bothered by the abrupt addition of a third party. “He’s chill,” I reassure him after sensing the uneasiness he’s unable to hide. “We’ll have fun.”

Moments later, Toy Soldier arrives at my place looking exactly how I’d remembered him—his defined jaw, his strong neck, his broad shoulders and brawny chest tugging on his light blue t-shirt in all the right places.

“Hey there,” he says extending his arms. I smile and go up to give him a hug. Nothing can replicate what years of military combat training can do to naturally accentuate the contour of the male body. I introduce him to Sunny D who doesn’t hesitate to ask, “So… how do you guys know each other?” He’s sure there’s some decadent back-story to account for the strapping soldier sitting in our living room and drinking our gin. And as usual, Sunny D is right.

Toy Soldier looks at me, unsure of how to respond. Here’s the real story. But I opt to tell the shorter and more discreet version. “At a club.” Again, keeping it vague for the sake of keeping the peace.

Sunny D continues his interrogation and eventually learns that the only illicit behavior in Toy Soldier’s file is that he got discharged from the Army after being caught canoodling with another man. Of course, this little insight prompts a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discussion and gives Sunny D the chance to address the personal story in terms of political standpoints. But much to his surprise, Toy Soldier doesn’t share his activist agenda. This bothers him, I can tell.

After the heavy conversation, I go into my room to put on a belt and Sunny D follows me. I stand in front of my mirror and Sunny D stands right behind me looking over me at my reflection in the mirror as I finger my black leather belt along the loops of my pants. Sunny D slides his hands around my waist and grabs on to the ends of my belt. Using it like reins, he turns me around and pulls me closer until my hips bump into his. He then rams his upper body on me, pushing me up against the mirror. We start to make out. I’m totally caught off guard by his aggressive approach, very uncharacteristic of happy-go-lucky Sunny D. It’s a total turn on.

We exit my room after a few minutes and Toy Soldier has poured himself another drink. We must’ve looked flustered because he asks, “What the hell were you two doing in there?” in the same tone of voice Sunny D had used earlier to indicate suspicion.

“I was putting on my belt,” I answer. Vague is the name of the game. “Are you ready? We should go.”

At the subway stop, Sunny D dashes through the turnstile, but Toy Soldier needs to get a MetroCard. I wait with him as Sunny D watches impatiently on the other side. After he’s done, Toy Soldier walks over to me slowly and puts his arm around my lower back.

“You’re not fucking your roommate, are you?” he asks insinuating that I shouldn’t be.

“Is there a problem if I am?”

“Big, big problem cause I really want to kiss you right now.”

“Well, I’m not.” So we kiss.   

I look over just in time to catch Sunny D roll his eyes, turn around and start walking over to the platform.

Even before we step into Eastern Bloc, our destination in the East Village, the tension between the two boys is explosively high, and I’m their Berlin Wall. In theory, it sounds awful. I should’ve been completely uncomfortable in this situation, making sure I was going out of my way to appease both sides. But in actuality, I was having a fantastic time. It was obvious that a tinge of jealously, mixed with alcohol, was running all throughout their bloodstreams, driving them to act more forceful in their pursuit over me. Toy Soldier and Sunny D seized every opportunity to catch my attention, display their affection and try to impress me so that they would be the one coming to bed with me that night.

The competition continues at the bar, where the testosterone overload encourages all of us to get as many drinks into our system as possible.

Toy Soldier and I start dancing next to each other except he’s so wasted that it looks more like just a series of abrupt hip twists. I find him adorable. Sunny D comes over to try to interrupt our primitive mating ritual. As he approaches, Toy Soldier flings his arm around knocking down Sunny D’s gin and tonic, spilling it all over the lower part of his white button-up shirt.

“Oh shit,” Toy Soldier says. “I’m so sorry!” Sunny D looks at me and all I can do is give my sympathy face. Toy Soldier can’t handle the awkward moment so he stumbles away to the restroom.

“I’m sorry,” I say once Sunny D gets closer. “He’s wasted,” is my justification for the transgression.

“Yeah, he could at least offer to buy me another drink,” Sunny D says wiping his shirt with a napkin. “If I knew we were hanging out with a gorilla tonight, I wouldn’t have worn my favorite shirt.”

“Hey! It was an accident.”

“So this is what you go for, eh? Guys like him? No wonder…” he says trying to make an issue out of Toy Soldier’s brusque ways.

“Excuse me!” I spit back. “Don’t act like, just because we’ve been living together for—what, two months?—that you’ve got me pegged and all figured out! It’s condescending!”

“He’s a dick!”

“Who’s a dick?” Toy Soldier comes back, just in time.

“Who do you think?” Sunny D is very aggravated, and yeah, it’s the liquor and the shirt, but there’s something else. Maybe the fact that I just called him out on some of his bullshit. Otherwise, I’m sure things wouldn’t have escalated to this degree.

“We should go,” I say trying to prevent the orange situation from turning bright red. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait, we’re leaving because of his fucking shirt?!” Toy Soldier shouts. “Fuck that! I was so excited to see you and we just got here. Let’s hang out.”

“You think he wants to hang out with you?!” Sunny D shouts back. “You think he wants to stay up all night listening to you? Oh yeah, because I bet you’re so interesting… to talk to! You know, on his phone you’re listed as ‘Toy Soldier.’ That’s what you are to him, something he can play with whenever you’re in town and then toss aside and forget about. And he just loves your whole Army story; he loves talking to all his friends about how he’s fucking a soldier! You don’t think he’s using you?! That’s what he does! It’s who he is!”

Before I can even fully digest this direct onslaught and with how little hesitation Sunny D brought out the firing squad, Toy Soldier loses it and lurches forward, grabbing Sunny D by his shirt and shaking him. He really shouldn’t have worn his favorite shirt. I try to intervene and separate the two parties, but I’m not sure how long my wall will last.

The bartender notices the commotion and steps from behind the bar to break it up and kick us out. After he lets go, Toy Soldier steps back a bit, looks at me and gives one final detonation, “So you’re really going home with this faggot?”

“I’m going home alone,” I respond and walk out the front door. I’m so drunk and upset, but I still manage to notice Sunny D trailing me a block away. We do live together, so our paths were bound to cross at some point. I stop, wait a few seconds for him get within hearing distance and turn around. Finally, it’s my turn to talk.

“So is that really what you think of me?” I ask as I begin to walk back towards him. “That I just use guys? They’re totally disposable to me? Is that what I thought of you?” The last question is particularly poignant because I’d recently expressed my feelings for him. He’s silent, so I continue. “What the hell was that all about? You have a boyfriend, remember?! So just… leave me alone and let me fuck whomever I want. Let me be the giant slut you think I am!” I drunkenly shout on Avenue A. For some reason, no one thinks it’s weird. “Oh… and by the way? Here,” I say getting closer to Sunny D, flipping my phone open and pulling up my contacts, “it’s Josh. He’s listed as Josh.” After making my final point in the list of things I made in my mind to bring up, I turn around and continue to power walk towards my apartment expecting silence the whole way back.

“I didn’t say you were a slut,” Sunny D says. I can barely hear his words even though he’s right behind me. I don’t stop or turn around, but I’m listening. “But don't tell me that you actually see yourself with this guy. Doesn’t it just get tiring? All these one-night stands? I don’t want to see you keep hooking-up with all these random guys.”

“It’s just sex!” This time I do stop and turn around to look him directly in the eye.

“But you’re not looking for just sex.”

“How do you know what I’m looking for?”

“You told me.”

The next day, I wake up and go out to our kitchen to grab a glass of water in an effort to get rid of my hangover. I'm just wearing my boxers. It’s Sunday afternoon. Sunny D is sitting on the couch with the television on.

“Hey, I went to Blockbuster this morning. I got Amores Perros 'cause you said it was one of your favorite movies. I’ve never seen it,” he says, and like a puppy, he’s so cute when he shows he’s sorry.

“It’s really good,” I say after taking a drink. It would take a lot more than just that to make me forgive Sunny D for all the missiles he fired last night. But there’s always a place to start.