No one talks about when it doesn’t.
Stupid, stupid, stupid to think seeing him would help anything. And even worse was for me to think that there was something in the way he looked at me. I let my fantasies take over at a fifteen-second gaze. All that has happened is that I let myself believe and now I have lost him all over again. Lost, of course, indicates I had him.
And I didn’t.
I never did, did I?
Somehow, the second go of this feeling is worse than when I realized I loved a man that was never going to be mine the first time.
When we parted, I didn’t know the love I had for him was unique and un-replaceable. Hell, I didn’t even know how in love with him I was.
I was a loner sort of kid before meeting Cas, working too hard on keeping my self safe until I was adopted by my moms for anything like relationships.
No one told me your first love could cut the deepest and fit the best.
Now, I do know. I’m older, wiser. Seasoned.Experienced.
Lonely.
I never mourned. . .reallymourned. . .the loss of our relationship. Instead, feeling so wrong footed for not seeing it for what it was to me.
I sit with his shirt pressed to my face for a long time. Mourning him now, after all these years, although he’s back. Or, maybe, I have been mourning the loss of Cas this whole time and I never knew that either.
Fuck, you could fill Bear Valley with what I don’t know about loving someone.
The afternoon passes over to evening, long past when I should meet up pre-show, although I just ignore all the messages and calls from my brothers. I haven’t been late to a single thing since I was fourteen. They can let me have a few moments more just this once.
Still on the floor of my laundry room, I watch the light play through the windows as day fades to evening.
And I mourn him until the well runs dry.
I stare at the shirt balled up in my fists for a long time. I guess I should be searching for answers or something like that, but the truth is my brain just sort of shorts out. There’s just a continual loop of feelings, but no real thoughts.
I grab my phone and scroll back to the picture fromVIP.
The shirt is a vintage Bob Dylan one I recognize because it’s the one Cas was wearing in my bed. It’s also the one in the picture. In my bed, he wore it with a pair of fleece joggers. In the picture, he wears it under a bespoke suit.
But, if it is here in my laundry room, how was it on Cas last night?
And there I go searching for loopholes and hope when the answer is obvious. Cas never felt for me the way I did for him. The way I do. We are friends and co-writers, and nothing more.
I roll my eyes at myself and throw the shirt in the laundry. And if I take another good sniff of Cas while I can, that’s no one’s business but mine and my broken heart.
I still manage to show up to Black Diamond with time to spare. I use my tardiness as an excuse to go bend the strings of the guitar instead of kicking back a beer with everyone else, though.
“You ever think of turning some of your projects over to someone else?” Jack asks, sprawled out on the couch tucked into what passes as backstage at Black Diamond. “At least until the album is done with Cas?”
I look at him for a long time, wondering if there is something more to the question.
“I’m good. I can handle it, Jack, promise.”
“It’s not about handling it. You have been handling more than your share for years, Baylor. And I have been fine with it because I know you like to keep busy. But this album is a big deal. Not only that, but you and Cas need time together. It’s been years since you two have had any real time to connect.”
“We are just writing songs, not saving the world. We have written our share of hits with plenty of distance between us.”
Jack comes closer, putting his hand on mine where I’m fidgeting with the strings in random minor chords. He looks like he wants to say more, but the door opens to the backstage area.
“Oh,” a guy says, not moving past the doorway. He’s closer to Theo’s build than mine or my brothers’ and something seems familiar about him.
