Cosmo wrinkled his nose, and Micah said, “That was a joke. My canned cheese doesn’t have bacon bits.” He pointed to the fromage. “It’s delicious. Great choice.”
“You’re going to keep me on my toes with your jokes. I never know when they’re coming.”
“Would you like a warning beforehand?”
“No. Thank you.” Cosmo smiled and dunked a wedge of radish into the dip. “Are we dealing with some kind of time travel? From your perspective, you’ve been interacting with past-me. The me of three years ago. But I was interacting with future-you. A future ghost.”
“Well, we all are, aren’t we? Future worm food. Future ghosts. But I see what you mean.” He frowned and squinted at the globe light over their table. “I haven’t had much time to process any of this, but time travel hadn’t crossed my mind. I had jokingly thought earlier that maybe we’re in a simulation, but maybe it isn’t a joke.”
Cosmo was open to a lot of odd ideas, but that wasn’t one he personally believed in. “I’ve gone through too much in my life to have those experiences cheapened by the fact that none of it was real.”
“They’d still be real toyou. But I’m just tossing out ideas. And I think I like that one because it’s simple. ‘Whoops, the universe had a glitch.’ Makes my head hurt less than anything else.”
Nothing about this seemed simple. Radish spice tingled in Cosmo’s mouth, not quite tempered by the cheese, and he chased it with a swallow of wine. A dull ache settled in his chest as he thought of Déjà. It was times like these that hereally wished he could call her. She might not have an answer, but her presence alone soothed the anxiety of the unknown. And this certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had that wish. After breakups, during shopping trips, when he went to the movies. Lying alone in the dark at night, staring at the ceiling. He had other friends, and he certainly didn’t regret taking Mom on some of his stranger outings, if only for her reactions, but no one quite filled the absence that Déjà had left. “I wish you would have known more about me when we’d first started interacting in the studio. You were essentially from the future; you could have warned me that my decisions were ghastly and the consequences I wouldn’t be able to bounce back from.”
Micah scooped cheese onto a snap pea. “I was waiting tables at the Supper Club over on Highland Street three years ago. I wish a future-someone could have told me to listen to my gut when it came to who I eventually let into the studio to draw. I had a weird vibe from him, but…” His mouth pulled to one side. “He had such an interesting look. I wanted to do his portrait, so I pushed away the feeling.”
“I’m so sorry.” Micah wanting to draw a stranger was far more innocent than Cosmo deciding to take Zedd back for the umpteenth time, but whether the universe was a simulation or not, it certainly didn’t care if your decisions were harmless or self-destructive. You could still be hit with awful consequences.
“I didn’t mean to turn this conversation into a downer,” Micah said.
“You’re perfectly fine. So, you do portraits? I pinned you for a landscape painter.”
“God, I hate doing landscapes.”
“Maybe you could domyportrait some time.”
A drop of wine sloshed out of Micah’s glass as he brought it to his lips. He took a sip that seemed uncomfortably long for a wine this dry. “I’ve already drawn you. A few times.”
Cosmo tugged his earring. “I’d love to see.”
“I could bring them by the gallery sometime.”
Really? No,Why don’t you come home with me so I can show you? No,My drawings of you will outshine every installation in Identical Dog?
Even Marla, who’d wanted a relationship and not a one night stand, had flirted Cosmo into submission on their firstreal date. He’d presumed this was an opportunistic date, but maybe Micah was just lonely and wanted attention and a friend wherever he could get one, even if it was in the form of a ghost.
The waitress arrived with their lobster toast, and Cosmo cut through the soft wedges of meat adorned in béchamel and salmon roe.
“Unless you think coming to the studio might help our situation somehow?” Micah cut into his toast and his knife squealed across the plate. “I don’t want it to cause some kind of inter-dimensional rift that implodes the universe. That’s not a joke. I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
Cosmo wasn’t sure what he was dealing with either. Something within the studio had connected them both, but he didn’t know Micah’s exact intentions, which left him on unsteady ground. People normally didn’t make him guess.
He brushed his knee against Micah’s. “And if I did come over, what would you propose we do?”
“It’s a little short notice to go haunt someone together.” Micah’s fork quivered as he brought it to his mouth. A chunk of lobster fell off and hit the table. He set down his fork, tucked his hands into his lap, and gave Cosmo a tense grin. “But I could show you my portraits – I’d love to know what kind of artyoudo – and maybe write out a list of theories about our situation.”
No suggestive banter. Hmm. “I want to figure out what’s going on, and the studio seems like the best place to start. But I’d like to know a bit more about you first. Are you queer?”
Micah blinked. “I thought that was obvious. Please don’t tell me I give off hetero vibes. I’m trans, by the way. And that reminds me that I’ve forgotten to ask. Are your pronouns he/him? I saw pictures of you in dresses on your Flashbulb, and of course cis people can be gender non-conforming, but I don’t want to assume one way or the other.”
“I find that trying to put a name to who and what I am only invites people to make assumptions.”
Micah nodded. “I get that. Everyone in my family is tall with a strong jaw, and I’ve been on testosterone since I was seventeen, so I don’t fit what some people ‘expect’ trans masc to look like. Like it’s only one thing.”
Cosmo sipped his wine. This was a refreshing conversation in comparison to what he was asked at parties, and Micah deserved more than a party answer in return. “I’m not cis, and I’ve been thinking about trying different pronouns, but I’m not ready for a label yet. Perhaps that will change in the future. But I don’t care what gendered language you use for me, darling.”
Parties used to be fun.Lifeused to be fun. Working at the gallery and attending art events had been stimulating; nights were spent with Zedd or mingling with creatives; there were day dates with Déjà and parties and dancing. But then Cosmo went and killed his old life and everything had gone downhill from there. His career at the gallery was stalled, the creatives were tedious, Déjà hadn’t spoken to him since the funeral, and Zedd constantly turned up like a cancer.
