chapter 6

Three Weeks After

The cold Friday night wasn't entirely as anyone had expected it to be. The howling wind, coupled by murky air and low visibility made driving a living hell for those who had already made plans to spend it out. Vukan for one had decided to meet up with his friends at their usual spot, even while it had taken some serious persuading for him to want to go back there.

Having ridiculed himself when he was there the last time, he wasn't quite sure on how best to go about not being recognized as the mean fellow who publicly maligned a gentleman who sought nothing but his affection. It made him cautious from the moment he got out of his car, to the point he picked a quite quiet seat in the farthest corner of the room.

While it was unlike him to cower away from attention, he still couldn't get the thought of the boy from school and whatever impression he must have left on him. To make matters worse, he had continually missed him through one bizarre means of another every single time they were in school. It was becoming frustrating for Vukan, but he wasn't on the verge of allowing himself to give up regardless.

He took a brief look around the dimly lit room with hundreds of chairs spread across with individual tables centered in between a cluster of four chairs. The air fizzled with jazz music, while people trooped into the room in small numbers. Vukan waved to the server and toggled through his phone to see if he had any notification from his friends.

"What are you guys doing?' he thought to himself after seeing that nobody had reached out to him.

He dialed their respective numbers to no avail, with the terrible weather and network not doing anything to help matters. Slowly, but definitely, the realization that he might have to run solo was crawling in after half an hour with no message from his buddies.

"Fuck it then!" he exclaimed before shooting up from his seat and heading for the bar.

Carefully sidestepping couples enjoying some romantic time on the dance floor, Vukan clattered into an African-American man on the dance floor.

"I am so sorry", the fellow said with mesmerizingly white teeth and a wild smile on his face spanning from ear to ear.

Vukan shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He was the one in need of tendering an appropriate apology. "I should be the one apologizing".

He waved Vukan away and smiled as he returned to the bar.

"Do you mind if I paid for that?" Vukan asked, hoping to atone for what he had done.

He passed for a moment and stared at Vukan in a rather provocative manner, before shrugging his shoulders and responding, "Sure, why not?"

Vukan nodded, waved at the bartender and ordered for two drinks with the intent of downing one himself. Considering his friends had left him hanging, drinking himself out was the least he could do to cast away the boredom threatening to make the night into a boring one for him.

"So, what brings you here?" the guy asked while taking a sip from his drink.

Vukan looked around, noticed they were literally by themselves and decided to engage the stranger.

"My friends stood me up", he replied. "How about you?"

Vukan watched him clear his throat and slowly rest into the bar. "Something told me I'd be meeting a pretty guy at the bar and my instincts are never wrong".

Vukan stylishly looked over his shoulder as though he intended to see someone else behind him. The fellow was being flirty and no doubt about that.

"Well, you just might be wrong this time around", Vukan replied before slowly sipping from his glass.

They shared some more laughs while Vukan carefully noted everything he could about the individual. He sounded smart and witty and there was an air of cockiness to him which made Vukan both nervous and attentive. His drinking game was equally impressive and prompted Vukan to spend more time with him than he had previously envisaged.

His name was Brad… Brad Turnstone.

"So, was it a lover that stood you up?" Brad asked Vukan out of the blue.

Vukan shook his head, paused from sipping his drink and shot Brad a befuddled look.

"Well, I was wondering what a handsome stud as yourself was doing drinking alone in such a place", Brad continued.

Vukan snickered and turned his head to look at the door, before feeling his jaw drop almost immediately. His countenance changed and his entire mood swung in a rather drastic manner than he could explain.

Brad stepped closer, slowly snuck his arm around Vukan and whispered, 'What's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"

Nobody had done anything wrong, but he wasn't feeling comfortable all of a sudden. Watching the latest set of people stepping into the room had caused a swirl in his emotions and he couldn't quite handle them accordingly. He slowly nudged Brad's arm away from his waist, while Brad momentarily became distracted by his cell phone ringing endlessly.

"Do you need to take that?" Vukan asked.

Brad shook his head and silenced his phone before tucking back into his pants.

"I need to visit the loo", Vukan said, excusing himself as he raced off to the restroom.

His breath heightened desperately as he shut the stall door behind him and tried to gain some composure again.

"Why did he have to come here tonight?' Vukan asked himself.

He had seen the same boy again; the one from the bridge and the same one from his school. He had ducked out of sight before the boy could notice him, but even at that, he felt uneasy about sharing the same space as the figure slowly becoming a thing of his fantasy.

"Keep your cool and you will be fine", Vukan attempted to convince himself. "Keep your cool and you will be alright".

He couldn't mess around now. He didn't want to give a terrible impression of himself and the thought of having to conform to acting appropriately threatened to drive him nuts. Vukan could not quite understand why the fellow had such hold on him mentally. It not only infuriated Vukan, but it frustrated him as well.

He rammed his fists into the stall's door and yelled in exhaustion before finally coming to a calm. It was bad enough to have thoughts of the fellow in his head every night and even prompting him to fantasize and make drawings of him over and over and over again. Having to cast his emotions aside continued to feel hard as he finally stepped out of the rest room.

Brad waved him over and encouraged Vukan to head towards the backroom so they could talk. Reluctantly, Vukan agreed, while they remained within view of the handsome fellow who was smiling with the girl by his side. The darkness did just about enough to shield Vukan, but his thumping heart continued to remind him of his anxiety.

Brad continued to work his charm on Vukan, hoping it would work, but Vukan's mind was cast far away from where they sat. He was beginning to feel angry about thinking so much about someone else when they had never spoken. He felt enraged about the possibility of limiting himself and coming off as a fool all at the expense of someone he wasn't even sure would speak with him.

'What are you doing?" he mistakenly asked himself aloud.

Brad pulled backwards momentarily with a guilty expression. "Did I say something wrong? If I did, i… ".

Vukan shook his head and interjected, "It isn't you. It isn't you and has nothing to do with you".

His voice sounded crass and while he enjoyed Brad's company for a short period, it was beginning to eat at him as though he was doing something wrong. Vukan couldn't explain what he felt and he definitely wasn't comfortable with it either. Cringing where he sat, he closed his eyes and tried to steady his breath.

It was his wish that it would work some bit. He needed to stop thinking about the fellow. He needed his inner peace and some measure of self-respect too, but it was proving to be increasingly impossible. Regardless of what Brad said or did, all Vukan could think and fantasize about was the unknown boy seated with his friends in the distance.

Thankfully, Brad had his back to them and couldn't note who Vukan was so engrossed with.

"Are you sure you're fine?" Brad asked, looking worried.

Vukan sucked in ample air and answered as best as he could. "You know what? Let's get a room around".

He had noticed some rooms for rent on the side of the pub where they were. Vukan figured it would be the perfect way to get his mind off of the boy he kept thinking about. Brad smirked happily, nodded his head and took the remaining drink in his cup.

"That sounds far more interesting than what I had thought", LBrad confessed.

The duo headed out the back door and Brad paid for a single room for the next 24 hours. It had been a while Vukan had been with any guy, but he wasn't quite sure what it was about Brad that got him attracted to the young man. Asides his dashing smile and good fashion sense, Vukan still struggled with being able to submit to his companion completely.

Brad stole glances at Vukan before they walked into the room. The room wasn't as big as what he was used to at home, but had a comfortable bed with shitty air conditioning. Vukan stood by the door for a moment, gazed into the room and turned back around with his eyes meeting those of Brad who had been standing behind him.

"Should I order more drinks for us down here?" Brad asked.

Vukan wished the drinks would solve his problem. He wished the drinks would somehow act as remedy for whatever he had in head and for the things desperately coursing through his mind. His predicament surpassed just drinking. It had to do with his mind. His mind wasn't stable and it wasn't as easy. It had changed tune from the moment he saw "him" walk through the door.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Vukan screamed while he banged his folded fist into the wall. "What the fuck is going on with me?"

He couldn't understand why he could not get the thoughts of an unknown fellow with whom he had never spoken, out of his mind. It was disturbingly treacherous for his mind and the longer he thought about it, the angrier he got.

"Can I have a moment, please?" Vukan asked again before disappearing towards the restroom.

Barely taking a step into the hideous looking toilet, he stepped out back and shook his head at Brad.

"You don't want to stay here?' Brad asked, seemingly being able to read some of Vukan's facial expressions.

Vukan wished he could tell the guy what exactly was going on with him.

"Is there someone?" Brad inquired.

Vukan struggled to give an answer to the question. There wasn't anyone he was involved with, but his mind still wouldn't allow him the opportunity to be free. He felt guilty and could sense a feeling of shame as though he was cheating on his partner or doing something wrong.

"This isn't right", he concluded to himself. "This should not be happening".

Sadly, his mind was trapped and there felt like there was no way out of the particular situation. Vukan ground his teeth, glared at Brad endlessly and wished things had gone on differently from the onset. He wished he didn't have some profound form of infatuation with the fellow he was yet to even converse with.

He hoped he could stay in the room longer, but sadly, that wasn't about to be the case.

"I need to leave", Vukan whispered in a tensed voice. "I am sorry, but this isn't about you".

Vukan raced out of the room, taking the backdoor and veering into the empty space surrounded by cars. There, he took some time to gather his breath. His breath labored for a moment, but soon began to take a steady flow.

'What am I doing?" he felt like asking the stars above, in hopes that the heavens will give him an appropriate answer.

Even while he knew he wasn't going to get any proper answer, his heart still wanted one. He wanted to understand why and how he could be so infatuated and bothered about someone whom he wasn't even sure cared about his existence. He had never been in such a spot before and it was really disturbing for the young man.

He had been in love with people. He had loved other boys. He had found boys attractive throughout his life, but never managed to feel the way he felt in that very moment. Vukan fell to his knees and felt his eyes draw water. Confusion was beginning to settle in the corners of his eyes.

"Screw this!" he fumed, got back up and marched through the door he had previously exited.

Brad was nowhere to be found around in the room, prompting Vukan to ask for him from the lady at the front desk.

"He left not long ago", she replied.

Vukan raced back to the pub, looked around for Brad and found him standing by the bar with two glasses of alcohol in his hands.

"He probably thought of drinking himself to stupor because of me", Vukan thought, feeling guilty as he slowly approached the young man.

His gaze desperately kept off looking in the direction where the source of his mental torture sat. He wanted nothing to do with the boy and he wanted to be daring enough to forget about him completely.

"It is the only way to get him off of your mind", Vukan recited to himself as he sought strength to do what he felt he needed to get done.

He called out Brad's name and found the young man looking at him in surprise, before Vukan leaned closer and slipped his lips between Brad's. The taste wasn't as perfect as he had thought it would be, but Vukan wanted to savor it. Brad came off as stiff and in difference to the acceptance Vukan had expected, but he assumed Brad was shy about the fact they were making out publicly.

"Vukan", Brad muttered through the kiss, while Vukan didn't attempt to pull away.

Yet, through the moment, with his lips tucked in between Brad's Vukan's attention was elsewhere. He found it impossible to offload his mind and the harder he tried, the more it became evident that nothing could block his thoughts.

"Brad!? Oh my God!" a feminine cry alerted them both and prompted Brad to step away from Vukan as the latter stood and looked bewildered.

The petite looking, Afro curls lady with chastening black eyes looked horrified as she swept her gaze from Vukan to Brad and then back again. Vukan motioned to inquire what the problem was, but halted upon seeing Brad grow uncomfortable by the passing minute.

An eerie silence soon followed and the entire pub seemed to drown in it for a second.

All eyes were locked and targeted on Brad and Vukan respectively. Even while people weren't speaking, Vukan could very much assume he had gotten himself into another mess. The omen heightened when he saw the emblem of his mental torment, slowly arise from where he had previously sat and slowly begin to edge towards the bar.

"This is bad", Vukan had to acknowledge to himself.

Brad held up his hand to speak but began to stutter as he looked from Vukan to the petite lady with Afro hair. "I… it isn't what you think… he… ".

She shook her head and held out her hand as she retorted. 'You are bloody hell cheating on me with a dude? Is this why you refused to pick my calls all through the night? Is he why you took so long to come meet up with me even after we planned our night out with my brother and his friends?"

The lady was beyond devastated and there was no consoling her either. She turned to the guy behind her and planted her head into his chest as she wept profusely, while Brad struggled to render an appropriate apology.

"Sofia?" Vukan heard the distinct voice come closer. 'What is happening?"

Sofia looked up, raced over to embrace her brother, Vukan's mental torment, and reported Brad to him about how she was being cheated on with another guy.

"Oliver", one of their friends called out as he broke free from his sister, marched over to meet with Brad and shoved him hard and far enough to cause Brad to stumble into the bar.

"I knew you were a piece of shit the moment she introduced you to me!' Oliver raged. "If I see you anywhere near my sister again, I swear to God that I will end you!"

Vukan heard the name 'Oliver" resound in his head and he held unto it as firmly as possible. His legs felt stiffened and his knees felt knocked and unable to function in that period of time. Albeit not knowing the gravity of what he had done, Vukan felt guilty for creating such a mess. In addition, it was the second time he would be showing himself in such terrible light before Oliver.

"I didn't know", Vukan muttered as he tried to dissuade the situation.

Brad held up his hand from where he had fallen and replied, 'There is nothing to be sorry about".

His words startled everyone and sent them looking in his direction. Oliver looked less impressed by the passing second.

"I want you… I will do anything to have you if you decide right here and now that you want me too", Brad continued.

Vukan couldn't believe his ears and neither his eyes. Brad's action only continued to place him in an uncomfortable spot and Vukan wished he would stop already.

"This was a mistake, so please, stop", Vukan pleaded.

Brad dusted himself as he got to his feet and approached Vukan to take his hand into his. "I want you. I promise to go with you if you choose me and I mean it".

The words and declaration brought subtle and snide remarks in whispers from those around. They weren't as loud as the despicable look Oliver shot Vukan though and the latter could almost feel his insides churn just by taking note of the eyes glaring back at him disrespectfully. Vukan wished he would speak, and in that process, get the opportunity to defend himself.

Yet, Oliver simply wrapped his arm around his sister and led her out of the pub. Brad continued to grovel irresponsibly and without an ounce of dignity until Vukan shoved him aside. Vukan felt cheap and judging by the look on Oliver's face, he felt he was being termed as cheap as well. His entire world threatened to sink in that very moment.

He turned away, down and belittled, but felt Brad hold him back as the desperate boy slowly got back up to show his true colors; an unrelenting and quite shameless individual.

"Get the fuck off me!" Vukan got angry, folded his fist and swung a fast punch which connected with Brad's jaw and sent him flying across the room. "I might be interested in having a fling or two but I never tolerate infidelity!"

People cheered and clapped their hands at how well he had dealt with the nuisance, but Vukan couldn't soak in the applause. He had messed up big or at least, it was how he felt. In what was his first time meeting Oliver, he had misrepresented himself in the most shameful manner and it caused him a world of hurt.

The look in those eyes continued to stick with Vukan and regardless of how well he tried to get them off, it felt impossible. Dropping his head in shame, he leaned into the steering wheel for half an hour before finally deciding to go back home. Wishing he had not come out in the first place, Vukan blamed his friends for not showing up.

"I should never have engaged that idiot", he mumbled underneath his breath in fury as he sped off.

Oliver's eyes continued to tail him through his drive back home. There seemed to be no escaping it.