RPF: Bay Boys snippet

[booksnchocolate]

It’s nothing, Daveed says, and so they don’t talk about it. Instead, silence hangs purposefully nonchalant between them as Daveed pushes himself off the bed and slides into his jeans. Rafael sits up to watch him under the guise of looking for his phone; his fingers press the screen aimlessly while his gaze lingers on the broad planes of Daveed’s back, smooth skin where Rafa had deliberately not left marks because the heaviness between them isn’t a thing so there’s nothing for him to lay claim to, even if he’d wanted it. Daveed pulls on his shirt and Rafa looks carefully away, only turning back to meet Daveed’s eyes when he’s sure of his own.

Daveed’s dark gaze is the same as always. “I’ll see you on set,” he says quietly, and then he’s gone.
 

 

Rafael sinks back into the sweaty, sex-soaked sheets. It’s nothing.
 

 

~
 

“It’s nothing,” Rafa mumbles to Kelly in the makeup trailer, hiding a yawn in his sleeve. "Long night." His regular double-shot espresso isn’t doing enough to keep him awake and he frowns into the 100% post-consumer recycled paper cup – another level of betrayal to add to this… to everything. He rubs grit from his eyes like sandpaper.

“You’re gonna have to start coming up with a better excuse, hon,” Kelly says, popping open her drawer full of beige goop. If she were anyone else, Rafa would bristle at the term of endearment, but that’s just who Kelly is; she calls everyone hon or sweetie, seems incapable of ending a sentence without using a pet name at least once. So he lets it slide and sinks further into the makeup chair.

"I'm working on it," is his mumbled promise, lost in another swallow of espresso. The bitter afterbite tangs against his teeth and he winces. Damn, he really is getting old.
 

 

 

“If you run me outta concealer, I’m coming to you for the bill,” Kelly says, swabbing gently at the honestly impressive bags under his eyes.
 

 

Rafa snorts inelegantly. “Yeah, good luck with that. We’ll all be living off our credit card debt after this movie.”
 

 

Kelly’s lips thin as she starts to dab something green across his cheekbones with little pats of her index finger. “You know that’s not true, hon.”
 

 

The steel in her voice lances cold through Rafa's belly. He swallows, cuts his eyes away. “Yeah.”
 

 

Because the thing is – Kelly’s right. The movie’s not gonna flop, no matter what his mind tries to tell him at night, when cold tendrils of insecurity creep through his lungs and the other side of the bed is a vast ocean and he’s drowning. He can feel it in his gut, in his bones. What they’re working on here is a vital conversation, a true labour of love and pain, and Rafa sees it in the eyes of every single person at the shoot: this is the start of a long-overdue conversation for America. (Rafael hates it, secretly, that it’s taken this long, that the pain has been allowed to go on for this long, that it takes a fucking white man to do this – because he’s under no illusions of how influential it is for media critics that there’s at least one white main character, how much harder the struggle would be if Diggs’ co-star were black – it’s a labour of love but it still leaves a sick and sour taste in his mouth that it needs to be said at all.)
 

 

“Aw geez, hon, did I poke you?” Kelly has noticed his rapid blinking. It’s not even nine am and he’s already nearly crying in the makeup trailer. Wow. A new low.
 

 

“It’s fine,” he says, hoping she’ll chalk his rough voice up to lack of sleep and not the endless, helpless frustration that dogs him every day, the ache of wanting more than what is. Some days, like today, it threatens to sweep him under. “It’s nothing.”
 

 

~
 

The thing is – it is nothing. They fell into this the way they’ve fallen into so many things before; full-speed ahead and damn the consequences. It’s practically their M.O. and it’s easy, by now, for Rafa to raise his head and catch the lightning-quick looks Daveed shoots him between takes, to steal a drag from his coffee, beer, spliff, to laugh loud and open and put one hand on Daveed’s shoulder and not think about it. From ninth-grade poetry slams to Broadway and Variety shows, this is who they’ve always been, the same block under their feet, the same city crawling through their veins; and they know each other so well after decades of friendship that when Daveed leans in after too much Hennessy, it’s the easiest thing in the world to chase his lips; and when he brings them both off in uneven sloppy strokes in Rafa’s cramped trailer, the edge of the cheap wooden table digging into Rafa’s hip as he comes, it’s just another facet of their friendship, of them. It’s just Casal and Diggs. Rafa and Daveed, doing what they do. Nothing to see here.
 

 

Diggs says it’s nothing, and in the beginning, Rafa believes it. The first handful of times Daveed jerks him off in rough, quick strokes and muffles his groan into his fist when Rafa spits into his own hand and returns the favour, it’s nothing but chasing a mutual high. It’s what friends do. Casual, no eye contact afterward, no pretence of intimacy, and Rafa tells himself he can do this. If he stares at Diggs’ hands for the rest of the day behind his sunglasses, that’s no one’s business but his own.
 

 

That all changes one Friday night, late September heat pressing damp and heavy against Rafa’s chest on each inhale and turning the air to soup. He chases the last drops of his vodka soda with the tiny straw, greedily sucking up the liquid like it’ll help cool the muggy air. No such luck – the place is packed and the AC can’t keep up with the writhing mass of bodies on the dance floor, dripping glitter and sweat under the strobe lights. Rafa props one elbow against the bar rail, tries to ignore the way his skin sticks to the tacky faux-wood trim. This bar is a favourite place for them, an old-school dive that takes him back to the days of their earliest shows, when it had been him and Bill and their shitty laptops, praying the ancestral speakers could handle the ambush of experimental noise and Daveed’s voice.
 

 

(Well. Rafa has yet to meet an audio system that does justice to Daveed’s voice like hearing it in person, but that’s a topic for another day.)
 

 

Last time they’d played this bar had been, what, ’11? ’12? Long enough to make Rafa feel like an old man, suddenly out of place in his khakis and navy polo. Jaz says the blue brings out his eyes but Rafa privately thinks it makes him look like a trust fund college kid, like the progeny of everything he’s spat in the face of his entire adult life. He shifts to lean back against the bar, letting the wood mark a sticky line across the back of his shirt, and tries not to think about what compelled him to wear it in the first place: the split-second Daveed’s gaze had caught on him as he fumbled with the collar, something heated flashing in his eyes like a lightning strike, making the back of Rafa’s neck feel like scorched earth. He’d kept the shirt on.
 

 

Daveed is across the room now, up on the wooden dais that’s hardly even a stage, spitting bars that Rafa can barely hear over the shitty sound system. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, if the gyrating crowd around him is any indication, the frantic undulation of bodies an echo of Daveed’s own frenetic energy. The flash and sizzle of the strobe lights dazzles the room, rays of light slicing through the air like daggers, painting Daveed’s skin in electric stripes of white and blue. Rafa can’t hear what he’s rapping but he knows the rhythm of it, how Daveed’s voice thuds and spits and growls as words unspool from his throat. It’s like a type of magic, Rafa thinks. He knows how Daveed feels about it, like he’s just packaging his raps to sound good so people listen to him (everybody listens if you make it sound pretty), but he holds sway on the energy and sound in this club with more than just words.
 

 

Rafa watches for a minute, lets his focus gravitate to Daveed because everything else is inconsequential. The music is pounding through the sweat-soaked air and the sharp bite of his vodka soda sings on his tongue, bright and a little dangerous. It’s his territory. Daveed is dancing with the crowd now, one hand on the mic as he moves through the sea of bodies, the other gesturing in broad strokes through the air, enunciating his words. The lights are catching on his hair as it bounces around his head like an unsteady halo, and the thin white tank top he’s wearing is soaked through with sweat and probably a few spilled drinks, leaving nothing to the imagination. Rafa’s eyes catch on the slope of a dark shoulder, the jut of his jaw in profile. Daveed is facing the bar now, teeth flashing white and sharp as he spits his words, the centre of a dizzying storm. His eyes are fiercely bright, whole body moving to the beat he’s dropping - and Rafael can't help it. His gaze snags on the sweat beading in the hollow of Daveed's throat and a bolt of want shoots through him so sharply he nearly doubles over, fingers spasming around the sweaty glass in his hand. He scrambles to right himself against the counter, slams the empty tumbler down none too gently on the bar. A dark, yearning heat is pooling in Rafa's belly, mingling with dread as the realization sinks in: he wants Daveed, in ways that aren't just a simple fuck. More than that, he wants Daveed to want him too.

 

Rafa flags the bartender for another drink. There’s no point in dealing with this sober.