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When Patrick gets the news, the first thing he does is call Tashi, and she doesn’t pick up.
Of course she doesn’t pick up – they’re not on speaking terms. But he calls again, and again and again and again until his vision is blurry and his finger keeps missing the button. Eventually, he gives up and texts her: Arts dead.
She calls back immediately.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tashi snaps when he picks up. “Don’t say shit like that just because I declined your calls, asshole.”
“He’s dead,” Patrick says.
“Fuck you. I just saw him at the library.”
“He got hit by a car. Drunk driver.”
Tashi doesn’t say anything for a second. Patrick’s vaguely aware he’s not breathing right, and it’s all he can hear as he waits for her to respond.
“Tell me you’re fucking with me,” Tashi says quietly.
“I wish I was,” Patrick says, and then he starts to cry. “The hospital called me. He died in the ambulance.”
He’s breathing too loud. Why does he sound like that?
“Fuck,” Tashi says. There’s the sound of her moving, like sheets rustling, and she makes this sort of angry sound. “Why’d they call you? Are his parents coming?”
“I’m his emergency contact,” Patrick says, and he swallows the memory of Art taking a ridiculous fall at fifteen, drunk and rambling, hurt badly enough that Patrick had called 911 instead of going for a teacher. “I told the lady to call his family. They don’t get along with me.”
“Are you coming here then?”
“I’m gonna catch the first flight out.” Patrick wipes his nose. “I don’t think I’ll be there soon enough to see him.”
“You think I wanna see him?”
“I don’t fucking know, Tashi. You’re there.”
“So what, you think you’re doing me a favor?”
“No,” Patrick says. “You know what, forget it, don’t see him. I don’t give a shit.”
He hangs up. As he’s booking his flight, her text comes in: Which hospital is it?
—
The funeral is small. There are a couple of old schoolmates from Mark Rebellato there, along with what looks like all of the tennis players from Stanford. Tashi shows up and doesn’t talk to any of them past stilted hellos, and after about ten minutes they figure out that she’s not interested in making conversation. Art’s grandmother is notably absent. Patrick hears Mark ask Art’s parents about her, and they tell him she’d passed a few months ago.
That, of all things, leaves Patrick a little shaken. It’s not like he’d been unaware that he hasn’t been speaking to Art – it’s been over two years, and some days, Patrick still misses him like a sore thumb. But most of that grief had been in wishing he knew what Art was doing every minute of every day, the way he did when they lived together. This is more than that. There must have been a million things Art hadn’t told him if he hadn’t thought his grandmother dying was significant enough to break the radio silence, and now Patrick won’t ever know any of them because Art isn’t around to tell him.
Art’s dad gives the eulogy, and it’s concise and unemotional. He says something about Art being thoughtful and well-mannered and ambitious and kind, and it makes Patrick so angry that he wants to scream. It’s such a generic and impersonal speech that everyone present can probably tell Mr. Donaldson hardly even knew Art. Art had barely spent any time at home since he was twelve because he’d been away for school all the time, and he’d spent most summers at the Zweigs’, filling the silent, oversized mansion with pouting and teasing and laughter. Maybe things had changed while he was at Stanford – maybe he’d gone home more often – because Mrs. Donaldson is crying in the front pew. Patrick wouldn’t know; he hadn’t been around for that either.
Afterward, Patrick and Tashi are among the few that follow the Donaldsons to the burial site. The others are two of Art’s friends from Stanford, so by unspoken agreement, they stick together. Tashi gets in Patrick’s car after that, and he’s not stupid enough to question it before driving her back to his hotel.
Sitting an Art-sized space away from her on the bed, Patrick asks, “What did he look like?”
The casket had been closed at the funeral, and he’s been wondering.
“Dead,” Tashi says.
“Was he all busted up?”
“What do you think?”
Patrick doesn’t have to think; he’d been told later on that Art had broken both of his legs in multiple places, and that he’d hit his head hard enough that his brain bled him out before he made it to the hospital. The other driver had been speeding down the wrong side of the highway. “I keep thinking about how he was alone,” Patrick says. “He fucking hated being alone.”
He thinks Tashi might hit him for that. It looks like she’s thinking about it, too, but she doesn’t. She says, “He was alone most of the time at school.”
“Did you talk to him?” Patrick asks.
Tashi picks at her nails. “I stopped texting him back when I stopped playing for good.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because he tried to coddle me and I needed to move on with my life. Did you talk to him?”
“I texted him, same as I texted you,” Patrick says. “He didn’t text me back either.”
Tashi doesn’t respond, and when Patrick looks at her, her eyes are wet. He looks at the ceiling, blinking hard. They go to sleep not long after that.
—
On Art’s seventeenth birthday, Patrick had snuck in some beers and hid a box of grocery store cupcakes in his underwear drawer. He’d revealed the surprise right at midnight, and Art had laughed and gone pink all the way down to his chest, obviously pleased.
“You’re ridiculous, man,” he said. “We have class in the morning.”
“Then everyone else can celebrate in the morning,” Patrick said. He shook the cupcake box enticingly. “C’mon, I got vanilla just for you.”
Patrick held a distinct smugness in the knowledge that if anyone else had presented Art with that surprise, he might have waved it off with some excuse – keeping to his meal plan, maybe, or not wanting to be hungover in the morning. But Patrick wasn’t anyone else, so they sat on their pushed-together beds and finished the packs of both the cupcakes and the beer. By two in the morning, Art was warm and giggly, leaned against Patrick’s shoulder like he couldn’t sit straight if he wanted to, even though Patrick knew he could.
“I don’t feel seventeen,” he said. “It’s so weird.”
“You’re old now,” Patrick agreed, ruffling Art’s hair. Art leaned into his hand, needier in his drunken state, and Patrick let it linger longer than usual. “Hey, look, you’re going gray.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious!”
“Yeah right.” Art leaned in and turned so that his cheek rested against Patrick’s chest. “Thanks for getting the vanilla ones.”
“‘Course. Gotta get what the birthday boy likes, even if it sucks.”
“Shut up,” Art whined. “I just meant – thanks. This is nice.”
He looked so cute like that, his blue eyes big and earnest and his face turned just so that Patrick could see the speck of brown in them. He was the absolute picture of innocence and Patrick thought, privately, that Art must be the prettiest boy in the world.
“Sure,” Patrick said, softer. Then, afraid he’d shown too much, he added, “I just figured you wanted something chill before we ran you into the ground this weekend.”
Art groaned, and the sound went straight to Patrick’s dick as Art hid his face against Patrick’s shirt. Was it Art’s shirt? All of their clothes had become communal at some point. “Go easy on me, will you? I don’t wanna go too hard.”
“You can handle it. You always let them rope you into drinking more, anyway.”
“You always encourage them!”
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s fun.” Patrick grinned and Art pouted a little harder at him. Patrick’s heart did something funny in his chest, and simultaneously, his dick twitched.
Art was just so pretty. He’d always had ridiculously perfect lips, and in that moment they were all pink the way the rest of his face was from all the beer. Patrick didn’t even realize he was staring at them until they moved as Art said, “Ugh. I met you when I was twelve, and now I’m seventeen.”
“You sap,” Patrick accused, but then Art yawned like a cute little kitten and he lost his train of thought. “Okay, let’s put you to bed, sleeping beauty.”
He got up to turn the lights out and Art curled onto his side, blinking slowly the way Patrick knew meant he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Patrick slid back into bed beside him, reaching out and flicking his nose. “Night, birthday boy,” he said.
“Night, asshole,” Art said, smiling sleepily. Patrick thought to himself that Art looked like a fucking angel, all cute and soft like this. He thought about kissing him – not for the first time – and instead watched Art fall asleep, matching his breathing until he drifted off too.
—
Patrick’s playing goes to shit after Art dies.
It doesn’t make any sense; it’s not like Patrick’s riddled with grief or something. He and Art had effectively been estranged for long enough that his day-to-day life is entirely unchanged. It’s been even longer since he’d had to unlearn the habit of turning to look for Art whenever he thought of something funny to say. But every once in a while he thinks about how he’ll never see Art again, and it feels like he’s right back in the chapel, staring at the casket.
Despite the distance, Patrick had always hoped they’d make up eventually – had always assumed they would, honestly. They’d had a handful of fights back at the academy and Art always knew how to hold a grudge. He’d never managed two goddamn years before, but Patrick knew Art and knew that even if it took a while, he would get Art back. That’s why he’d accepted that he needed to back off, because it was supposed to work out eventually. It was never supposed to be forever.
Now, Patrick can’t even remember what the last thing he’d said to Art was, and the rest of his life is crumbling around him, too. His ranking is tanking; he can’t get out of his head. He’s barely speaking to his parents, who are all passive-aggressive about his nose-diving career but tight-lipped about the money he’s blowing on travel accommodations. He knows that means they’re trying to be sensitive about his dead best friend, and he wants to laugh because this is almost more acknowledgement than they’ve ever really given Art, even when he’d tagged along on their family trips. He wonders if Art’s watching. He’d love the attention.
And then, when all hope seems lost, he gets a text: Are you trying to blow up your career or are you done being an idiot?
—
Tashi’s really good at tennis and really fucking bad at coaching. Maybe that’s unfair, but this isn’t: she’s really bad at coaching Patrick.
“Are you even trying?” she says. “What are you even doing?”
“Obviously I’m fucking trying,” Patrick snaps right back.
“Well, it doesn’t look like it.”
“Don’t talk down to me.”
“I’m talking to you like a coach, which is what you wanted. Or is that not what you said?”
Tashi hits a ball at him. Patrick hits it back. “Do you think this is motivating? You being a bitch?”
“Don’t tell me how to coach,” Tashi says. “My job is to give you pointers, not to fix your huge fucking ego. Give me a good backhand.”
Patrick does. She looks unimpressed, so he says, "Maybe if you actually knew how to coach, I'd have a decent backhand."
"It’s not my fucking fault you’re too stubborn to listen to anyone but yourself."
"You like that I’m stubborn, remember?" Patrick says. “All that shit about tapping out too early – ”
"You asked for my help!"
“Did I? Or did you just shove it at me because you didn’t have someone as receptive as Art to boss around?”
Tashi’s expression darkens, dangerous. A second later, Patrick’s own words register in his brain, and he drops his racket, looking away.
“Fuck you,” Tashi says. He can’t look at her. “If you’re a minute late tomorrow, we’re done here.”
He knows she means it, and he thinks about showing up late again just to see what she’ll do. He’s not sure if he’d ever really been optimistic about this or if he’s just grasping at straws. He thinks about saying fuck it and not showing up at all, about saying goodbye to the life he’s worked for since he was twelve, and in a fit of rage, he turns off his alarm when he goes to bed.
That night, he dreams of blonde hair and pouty lips and tennis rackets, and he wakes up crying. He looks over at the clock. He has to squint to make out the blocky, red 4:30 staring back at him, but when he does, he hears the sound of Art’s laughter loud and clear.
He shows up five minutes early.
—
Patrick starts winning again – not a lot, but more than he has been. He and Tashi continue to argue. Neither of them mention Art again despite the fact that they’re both thinking about him all the time, and if he were here, he would probably bitch about how he’s being left out again.
From the very beginning, Art had been a little sensitive about sharing Patrick’s attention. He was a possessive motherfucker but somehow managed to make it cute, and he was the clingiest person Patrick’s ever known. The day they met, Patrick had talked a little too much to some other kids at dinner, trying to make friends, and Art had still been pouting about it when they got back to their new room.
“Why’re you sulking?” Patrick asked. “Are you homesick?”
Art went red. “No. And I’m not sulking.”
“Yeah you are.” He poked Art’s cheek, and it was warm. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me!”
“Let it go!”
“C’mon, I’m your roommate! We don’t need to keep secrets from each other.” Inspiration struck. “Are you jealous?”
Art looked startled. “Jealous of what?”
“You are! You know, girls would fall all over you if you just talked to them. Look at you.”
“What – I’m not jealous of that!”
“So you are jealous,” Patrick said, triumphant. He slung an arm around Art’s neck and stayed put until Art stopped half-heartedly pushing him away. “What was it? You wanted the eighth graders to pay attention to you?”
“No!”
“I’m just asking! Seriously, you just gotta talk to them.”
“You ignored me for all of dinner,” Art blurted out. He awkwardly crossed his arms over his chest, still squished next to Patrick. “I was just sitting there, okay? I looked like an idiot.”
He looked cute. Patrick was momentarily stunned by the vulnerability, but recovered quickly, grabbing Art’s flaming cheeks and tugging him up so that they were face to face. “Aww, you like me,” he said, although he really was very pleased.
“Shut up!”
“Don’t worry, Art, you’re my favorite. Did you see how Ben was flexing earlier? Huge douche. I didn’t like him anyway.”
“Patrick.”
Patrick grinned, patting Art’s face. “I’ll pay more attention to you from now on. Promise.”
And, whether because of that promise or not, he did. Art tailed him like a lost puppy for years, and people talked, but Patrick liked it. Art was smart and talented but not as talented as Patrick, which made Patrick look better without making him look like someone who kept bad company, and Art was earnest in a way that was undeniably charming. He had his faults, of course – he’d stolen a girlfriend or two from Patrick over the years, and he hated taking accountability when he messed up – but Patrick didn’t mind all that much. Art kept things interesting, and anyway, it’s always flattering to be envied.
A month or so into Patrick’s reluctant progress with Tashi as coach, he hits a winning streak of ten matches in a row. Tashi’s got him in the lower circuits, so it’s maybe a little humiliating, but it feels good to win and she’s happy with his progress. He can tell because she lets him take her out to dinner after the tenth win, and she doesn’t even say anything when he mixes butter into his mashed potatoes.
She looks very pretty in her fancy blazer and skirt. He tells her so, and she rolls her eyes.
“I know,” she says.
Patrick grins around a mouthful of steak. “Not gonna say it back?”
“You eat like an animal.” She looks pointedly at the glob of mashed potatoes he’d dropped on the table. “Do you always make this much of a mess?”
“It’s part of my charm.”
She rolls her eyes again, but doesn’t fight him on it. “I think it’s about time for you to start playing real matches again. We should do Cincinnati.”
“Alright,” he agrees, careful not to sound too eager. Letting Tashi know he wants something might as well be handing her a machine gun.
“Alright?” she echoes.
“What do you want me to say? Obviously I want real opponents.”
“Every opponent’s a real opponent.”
“You know what I meant.”
“No, I don’t.” She sets her fork down. “You’re never going to be a real tennis player if you don’t take anyone else seriously.”
“I’m listening to you, aren’t I? I just won ten matches in a row, against real opponents. What more do you want?”
“I want you to take this seriously. But you’re a grown man and it’s your life, Patrick, so if you want to waste it, go right ahead.”
Patrick laughs. He can see immediately how that makes her angry, and he thinks, Good. Be angry. “Why’d you even text me if all you want to do is threaten to leave?”
“Maybe I thought you’d grown up,” she says. “Clearly I should’ve known better. You’re the same egotistical piece of shit who couldn’t figure out when to shut up and let someone else fix his shitty serve.”
“I’m egotistical? You’re still acting like I’m gonna roll over one day and become Mr. Tashi Duncan. I didn’t hire you to make me your robot.”
“You think I need someone to be Mr. Tashi Duncan? You think I’d want it to be you?”
“You picked me, remember?” Patrick says. “You watched my matches, you texted me. I didn’t ask you to coach me. You picked me and not someone else who wasn’t in a fucking slump.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tashi sneers. “If I didn’t text you, you wouldn’t be playing tennis right now. You would’ve bombed out. You’ve never been able to get your shit together on your own. Don’t forget your coach put you on doubles with Art because you needed someone to pick up after you.”
“Oh, are we talking about Art now? If you wanted him so bad, you’re too fucking late.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you. I’m not an extra knee and I’m not a charity case. You don’t get to try and fix me just because you feel bad for how long you brushed off the dead guy because you thought he was always gonna be around.”
Tashi crosses her arms. “You really wanna play that card? Take a look in the fucking mirror. You talked over him every time he opened his mouth. You embarrassed him in front of the girl he liked, just to prove that you were in charge of him. You said it was hot that we were hurting him. You’re the one who treated him like shit all your life, so don’t act like I’m the one who’s using you to make up for how I treated him.”
“At least I’m not the person he picked over everyone else,” Patrick says, venomous. “If I was, I wouldn’t have dropped him the second I didn’t need him. I wouldn’t have let him die alone.”
Tashi stands up and throws her water in his face. People are staring at them, but Tashi is so furious she’s almost ablaze, and it’s hard to see anything else. “It should’ve been you in that fucking car,” she says, and then she leaves.
—
The night before Art’s birthday, Patrick gets very, very drunk. His plan is to go to bed before midnight and sleep as long as he can, so he can just skip the day altogether. It seems like a foolproof plan, but it backfires almost immediately – he has too many beers and wakes up at one in the morning, and after a trip to the bathroom, he can’t fall back asleep.
Art would have been twenty-one today.
Patrick can’t stop wondering what Art would be doing if he were still around. Would he have gone out for his first legal drink with his tennis friends, or was he not very close with them? Would he have had a birthday dinner with Tashi, or would she have never answered his texts? Would he have had someone else to surprise him with beer and cupcakes? Had anyone done that the past two years? Patrick doesn’t think so – that was one of those weird things Art needed that Patrick learned over time, over six years of watching. No one else would have had anywhere near enough time to do that, so no one else knew how to take care of Art the way Patrick did.
Not that it mattered in the end. At best, Art might have thought of Patrick in his final moments. Maybe he’d remembered the good times they’d shared, or maybe he’d regretted not speaking for so long over a fucking girl. It feels doubly stupid now because the second Art was gone, Tashi had come running back. Every time she shows up, it’s a reminder that none of this was ever meant to be permanent.
Patrick texts her, Come over.
I thought you didn’t need a coach, she responds.
He’s too drunk to play nice. It’s his birthday.
She shows up twenty minutes later, and he’s downed another beer and a half when he opens the door. He grins at her, intentionally sleazy. “You look nice.”
“You look like shit,” she says.
“You love it.”
“Why did you ask me to come over?”
He can’t remember. Maybe he hadn’t known even when he texted. “Did you ever fuck him?”
“No,” she says. “And fuck you for asking.”
“I was just wondering.”
“When would I have done that? When I was in physical therapy? When I was figuring my life back out?”
“How much of that was he there for?” Patrick asks.
“Why do you care?”
“I’m just saying, he would’ve waited around for you forever.”
“So what?” she says, exasperated. “You want me to be single forever because that’s what he’d do, if I was – if it was me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Fuck you,” Tashi says.
He continues to grin at her, and he thinks she might turn around and leave. Instead, she shoves past him and steps past the dirty clothes all over the floor, and he follows her. The door swings shut. Tashi sits on the couch and starts drinking his half-finished beer, and he stays standing because it’s nice to tower over her for once. She doesn’t look intimidated, so it doesn’t matter anyway.
“I wasn’t in love with him,” she says. “Not like you were.”
“You could’ve been,” Patrick says. “That’s why you’re here. You’re still thinking about what would’ve happened if you gave him a chance.”
Tashi shrugs and finishes the rest of the beer. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“When were you gonna tell him how you felt?”
Patrick laughs. “For what? I was with you.”
“We stopped dating a long time ago.”
“Yeah, and then he was in love with you.”
“You were in love with both of us at the same time, so don’t act like he couldn’t be. Or is that just another thing you think you’re better at?”
It’s fucking annoying that she gets under his skin just as easily as he gets under hers. “You keep putting my words in my mouth. I never said that.”
“Pussy,” Tashi says. When Patrick doesn’t immediately take the bait, she stands up and gets in his space. “Why’d you really invite me over, Patrick?” she asks.
He kisses her, hard and angry and hot, and she kisses him right back. She pulls him forward until they’re falling back onto the couch, and she climbs on top of him, yanking his shirt off to run her hands over his skin.
“That’s what I thought,” she says, mean. She shoves her leg between his thighs, and he moans.
It’s been a couple months and Patrick hasn’t gotten off because every time he sticks his hand in his pants, the ghost of twelve-year-old Art makes itself known across the room, asking, Uh, what are you doing, man?, and it’s kind of hard to keep going after that. But the ghost isn’t here now – it’s just Patrick and Tashi and her fucking thigh against his dick, and he’s so horny he’s losing his fucking mind. “I missed you,” he says.
She shoves him back with a hand in his face and sticks two fingers in his mouth, saying, “Your breath tastes like shit.”
He laughs and swirls his tongue around her fingers. “I just told you I missed you.”
“Is that your only line?”
“Until you say it back, maybe.”
“In your dreams.” She leans down and kisses him around her own fingers, and with her other hand, she starts to pull off her shorts. Once he catches on, he quickly reaches to help her and they make quick work of their clothes until they’re both naked, making out and pulling each other’s hair. Patrick doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard in his life except for maybe the time she walked out on him and Art in Flushing, but he can’t think about that right now, he knows better, it always just fucking hurts –
“What are you thinking about?” Tashi says into his mouth.
“You,” he pants.
“Fucking liar.” She bites his lip hard and licks over the wound. “Is it Art?”
“Yeah, fuck.”
“Me too.”
Guilt and arousal wash over Patrick in equal measure, and he slides his hands down to her chest. “He was a good kisser,” he says.
“Yeah, he was. He was so sweet.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you do after I left?”
“I jerked off in the bathroom.”
“By yourself?”
“He heard me.”
“Fuck.”
When she sinks down on top of him, she’s so hot and tight and wet that he has to briefly banish all thoughts of Art from his mind so he doesn’t come on the spot. Tashi leans down so he can mouth at her neck the way she knows he used to like, and he still likes it, so much so that he can’t help fucking up into her. She curses and grinds down on him, moaning, grabbing his face to kiss him again.
“He would’ve done this if you asked,” Tashi says, starting to ride him. “Imagine – imagine him – on top of you. I bet he’d cry.”
“Bet you’d make him cry,” Patrick says.
“Yeah, I would. Fuck, he would’ve been so good.”
“He’s always good.” Patrick pushes up to meet her, and they both groan. “He sounds so sweet when he comes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He, fuck, he thought he was quiet in the shower. But he whines.”
“Just in the shower?”
“No,” Patrick says. “When he thought, ah, when he thought I was asleep, he always jerked off right next to me. And he bit his hand when he came but – fuck, he was so fucking loud.”
“Fuck, that’s so cute.”
“Kiss me.”
Tashi lets him kiss her again, but it feels different this time. To Patrick’s horror, he feels that telltale prickling behind his eyes, and his voice comes out choked when he says, “He was such a snake.” He doesn’t want her to see him cry, so he flips them over and buries his face in her neck, shoving hard into her.
“Oh, fuck,” she gasps.
“I fucking hate him,” he says, and now he’s definitely crying, but he fucks her as hard as he can in this position, and she twists her fingers into his hair. “He fucking – ruined everything. Why couldn’t he keep his stupid mouth shut?”
Tashi pulls hard on his hair. “He was always greedy,” she says.
“He’s so fucking stupid. I hate him. I would’ve been there if he didn’t – ” He breaks off as Tashi grabs his hand and drags it to her clit, and he starts rubbing mindlessly, making her moan. “How are we supposed to – ”
“We just are,” Tashi pants. “We don’t need him. We were always better than him.”
“Fuck.”
“We never followed him around, did we? We don’t need – he was such a two-faced piece of shit, we don’t need him.”
“Yeah. Fuck, I hope he’s having a terrible fucking birthday.”
Tashi laughs. “You think he’s watching?”
Just the thought of that sends Patrick dangerously close to the edge, and Tashi must be able to tell, because she laughs again and squeezes around him. “Let him see you come,” she says.
He does, and then he leans down and scrapes his teeth against her nipple and she’s coming too, unbelievably hot and tight around him. He kisses along her jaw as they come down, panting, until she tilts her face and kisses him sweetly. It feels so wrong coming from her mouth that he knows this kiss isn’t meant for him – he’s not the one she’s kissing in her head.
“I loved him so much,” he whispers.
She pulls back to press her forehead against his, sighing. “I know.”
“I should’ve just told him.”
“How long?”
“Forever. Probably since the first time I made him come.”
Tashi’s fingers, resting lightly in his hair, scratch soothingly against his scalp. She doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that, but she offers, “I should’ve let him take me out for dinner. He asked a couple times.”
“You should’ve. He loved dates. He always took girls out after they blew him in the library.”
Tashi smiles. She looks so gorgeous like this, all sweaty and sated and radiant. Patrick lets her shift so that they’re lying facing each other, crammed together on the couch cushions. He hopes Art’s watching – Art would’ve loved hearing them talk about him the way they did.
But they’d always done that, hadn’t they? Patrick and Tashi had never really been together without Art right there, either getting them going or trying to pull them apart, and somehow he hadn’t realized it until now. Worse, they’ve never had sex without bringing him up at least once, and they didn’t even come close to breaking that streak tonight. The entire night had been about him. Everything had always been about him, all the time, and it still is. It might always be.
They might just spend the rest of their lives missing him, the way things have been going.
“What?” Tashi asks.
It hurts to look at her, so Patrick closes his eyes. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he says. All of a sudden, he feels intensely resentful; if he and Art never met Tashi, they’d still be talking, and Art would probably still be alive. Patrick hates her a little bit for it and for never loving Art the way he did, because he knows she doesn’t quite miss Art the same way he does. He can’t breathe with it some days and she’s grieving him like he’s just some fucking guy. It’s especially unfair because Art had loved her, really loved her, and Patrick knows it was real love because he knows Art even now. He knows Art’s stupidly big heart better than anyone, because for a while, he was the only one who owned it, even if Art hadn’t figured that out himself.
“I can’t believe it either,” Tashi says quietly. “I think we would’ve been something. Me and him.”
The anger recedes, replaced by something like incredulity. “Ouch. No invite for me?”
She seems to think it over. He doesn’t care too much what she thinks, but she mutters, “Don’t be an idiot,” and admittedly, it feels nice knowing that he’s a part of this idealized fantasy she’s concocted. It doesn’t matter that he hates her a little. Art would be alive if he’d started driving ten minutes earlier, too.
“I keep thinking it’s not real,” Patrick says. “Like, he’s just not answering my texts, and he’ll come back eventually and it’ll all just be…” He gestures vaguely. “You know?”
“I don’t, actually. He always texted me back.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Tashi smiles a little. “So what now?”
Patrick reaches out and touches her face, gentle, the way Art probably would’ve. “I’m not much of a planner,” he confesses.
“Yeah, I noticed. Is there something to plan?”
“I could use a coach,” he says. She rolls her eyes, and he laughs. “I’m serious. Look, we fucked it out, didn’t we?”
“You think you can put your ego aside just because we fucked?”
“No, and I don’t think you can either. But now we can just argue like normal people instead of bringing up Art every five seconds to hurt each other.”
“We’ll probably still do that.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“It’s gonna be a disaster. You’re gonna keep saying I’m pushing you too hard, and I’m gonna keep saying you’re wasting your potential.”
“Sure. But we need each other.”
He knows she doesn’t like hearing that, and right on cue, she bristles. “What makes you think I need you?”
“You moved out here to coach me.”
“So?”
“I’m the only thing you’ve got left of Art,” he says. “Or you’ve got me and tennis, but you don’t have his tennis without me. And you’re not ready to give him up yet.”
He lets that settle, knowing he’s laid himself bare; Tashi’s smart enough to know that he’s speaking for himself too. Art had loved her so much, had fallen for her tennis and stayed after she lost it, and she still owns a piece of his heart that Patrick won’t ever get back. Patrick’s been deprived of Art’s love for years, ever since they stopped talking – and, in a way, even before that – and he’s not ready to give him up either. He doesn’t think Tashi hears all of that in his words, but he figures she gets the gist of it.
“Don’t ever get it in your head that I need you,” she says.
“Heard, coach.”
“You’re gonna have to actually listen to me if we’re gonna make this work.”
“I’ll do my best Art impression if that’s what you want.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She looks at him, searching for something, and pulls her hand back. “I’m never gonna be Art,” she says, “so don’t start expecting me to fix that hole for you. You’re not gonna miss him less by keeping me around.”
“Jesus, I’m not trying to replace him,” Patrick says. “Maybe I just want an insanely hot woman in my life.”
“You’re such a piece of shit.”
“Are you in, then?”
She rolls her eyes again, but she’s smiling. If Art’s watching, Patrick thinks he’s probably melted into a little puddle at the soft curve of her lips, still swollen from all the kissing they’d done. He hopes Art had spared some of his attention earlier to watch Patrick come to the thought of him.
“We’ll try it,” Tashi says, and it feels like a second chance.