He had been hesitant, I could tell. His hand was in his hair, and he looked away- just for a second. I don’t know what he was looking at. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was just avoiding my eyes, as I stared up at him, eager, like he had hung the stars in the sky, grinning so wide my face was starting to ache. At the time I didn’t think he really noticed how ecstatic I was to be with him but this moment now plays in my head on repeat- his quick glance to the side, the way they darted back to mine and I felt a swell in my chest, a sort of inflammation in the way that it made my blood rush, warm and vital, my pulse quickening like it was the final stretch of a race that I had put my entire existence into winning. He is who I have chased this entire time I have drifted through life, through fame, success, wealth. Or maybe a better analogy would be that he is a missed connection on a journey with no destination. Ryan Rowe has not ruled my thoughts for the past ten years, not even close. But he was there. Safe and hidden in the memories of hotel rooms and bus bunks, dressing rooms and lit-up stages. And then he was in front of me, and then we were outside, and then I was in his car, and then he was sat next to me, and then there had been a silence, full of things we never said, things we didn’t think we’d ever have the opportunity to say.

So, like an idiot, I had leaned in, but not fully, not committing to this ridiculous dream, pausing a few inches away from his face, my eyes searching, giving him the chance to process what I was doing and reject me if he wanted to. The next three seconds had been the most suffocating of my life but then he mirrored me, leaning in and meeting me halfway, and- it didn’t feel right. Kissing eachother after ten years of near silence felt like pretending we still had the right to feel like this, to act this way, when we’d grown up and moved on, and it was also like kissing a stranger I’d just met at some party. We parted after a few moments and stared at eachother, and I could almost hear his pulse, glad that this made him as nervous and dizzy as it made me. “I’m sorry,” I rushed out, my voice hoarse, “I shouldn’t have done that.” Terrified I’d ruined any chance at rekindling a friendship, I looked down, swallowing. “I felt like that would fix everything.”

But what really needed fixing? Nothing ever broke, just wore away like peeling paint. No explosive argument, just troubles with the band and then the drifting that happened naturally because neither of us attempted to save our friendship. Or maybe we had just been scared to have this connection, because the excuse to our closeness before had been the band and commitments and constant proximity. I remember feeling nauseous, not daring to look at him as he moved in the corner of my eye, his arm extending as he reached his hand under my chin and gently tilted my head up towards him. It’s okay, He had said quietly, in his low voice, and it comforted me enough to lift my head and meet his eyes again. I know what you mean. I think it’s just- we barely know eachother now, it’s so...

This had not been comforting, and my throat had closed up, but he wasn’t finished. I don’t know. I wanted to kiss you. I was wondering how it would- I don’t know, whether it would be the same, or. A long silence. We never directly referenced our old behaviour. Even after ten years it felt like Ryan had committed a crime just by mentioning it out loud, even though it had just been the two of us, in his car, in the dark, watched by the moon and stars. It wasn’t the same. But not in a bad way.

After that, I had made my excuses and left, nervously, rejoining the party, leaving him in his car, but. Not before giving him both my phone number and my address. I told him come over anytime and I meant it. There is so much more we needed to talk about.

Not a week later, I get a text from him. I saved his name in my phone as ‘Ryan Rowe’ then change it to ‘Ryan’, but I know more than one ‘Ryan’ so I change it to ‘Ry’ like a fucking fool. Hi, Brendon, sorry for not texting sooner. I’ve been- well, not busy, I don’t do anything these days. But I was wondering if you wanted to maybe come over sometime. I’d love to properly catch up after you left kind of abruptly. A few minutes later another text came through. Which I completely get, by the way. Sorry, I don’t know how to do this anymore. At least he was honest. I had closed my eyes tight but replied almost right away. ‘Why don’t we just go for a drive? I owe you that, I think.’

In your Tesla, rich boy? No thanks. I’ll just pick you up tomorrow, okay? I agreed, but he didn’t ask for a time, so. Here I am. Sitting in my living room, a whiskey in hand, my muscles tense, jaw clenched, every part of my body wired and pent up like I’m waiting some kind of physical and emotional release, resting all my hopes for unwinding on the chance that Ryan might show up any second, make it all dissipate because despite the awkwardness last time, I had still felt amazingly comfortable with him. Like I could be myself and he wouldn’t judge me for it. And yet, the kiss still felt wrong. Flexing my fingers, I steal a glance at the clock on the wall even though he didn’t give me a time and it’s 5pm and I wonder if he’s just forgotten because surely he’d have texted me when by now. ‘I’m on my way’ or ‘is 8 okay’ or something along those lines, but, nothing. I stare at his name in my phone and change it back to ‘Ryan Rowe’, fearing the effect of the affectionate nickname staring me in the face. My eyes close. I’m so fucking stupid.

Tenseness in the air is something I find myself very proficient at detecting. Call it years of adaptation to a less-than-reliable home life, or the dizzying adventure of a few years in the limelight, frequent meetings with bullshit producers who want nothing but an artist's humanity - whatever the case may be, I know, usually, when to put my guard up. And in that moment, that's not quite what happened, only because I had never done that with Brendon. Not in the past, anyway. Brendon was dependable, too. Historically I'd trusted him enough not to put those walls up (or at least not as strongly as I did with others); I saw no point in doing it then. Regardless, something was amiss, and I looked away for a beat, wondering at what my intuition was telling me. The party? The environment? Was I only used to seeing him in some claustrophobic, cramped little space, those tiny tour buses and staged interview rooms and crowded backstage mazes? I looked back at him after only an inhale, and upon a silent breath of relief, I read his expression. He didn't feel the uneasiness. If we're going off of 'historically,' then, I'd always trusted Brendon's intuition more. I stick to the habit, ignoring the overwrought feeling in my chest and focusing instead on the fervent way he was looking at me, the ease he had about him. This is what I missed, the uncommon times I thought about him. The security. How ever-so opposite he is from me. My heart beats in a different kind of nervous rhythm, more intoxicated than apprehensive.

Swaying closer, with such an exploring expression that I could only understand that he was asking a silent question, Brendon looked still so ingenuous and inviting that my usually obstinate mind didn't think to object to this obvious course of action. This is what feels exactly right. I angled toward him, closing the gap, and... time slowed for a moment, some mechanism in my brain giving me space to figure out what wasn't fitting here, and from muscle memory my hand lifted just barely, grazing his jaw in an almost-cradle - only scarcely, until we both decided that it wasn't going to work. Synchronous, we pulled apart.

I’m sorry, he said, and my quickening heart hurt for him. I shouldn’t have done that. He didn't do it alone, I wanted to point out, and I tried to communicate mutual grief through my expression. He may have initiated - I certainly punctuated. I felt like that would fix everything. My hand raised again, more muscle memory, needing him to see me, know that I empathized. I tried lifting his chin, tried to level my gaze with his. "It’s okay," was all it took, and I was met with his regard. But, as much as I understood the sentiment he shared, I didn't know why... it felt like a natural course of action, and then it didn't. I spoke without preparation. "I know what you mean. I think it’s just- we barely know each other now, it’s so..." Unfamiliar? Foreign? Maybe we needed to reconnect more beforehand - but I felt like I knew him just as well, losing some minor details. I hadn't known his favored drink. Everything else, I felt I deserved credit for. "I don’t know. I wanted to kiss you. I was wondering how it would- I don’t know, whether it would be the same, or."

I wasn't chasing that feeling in particular, though, I figured. I was longing for what we had in conjunction with the physical connection - he knew me as well as I knew him, and when we kissed, we fit like puzzle pieces as a result of that. That was what I wondered, in the back of my mind; or at least, that was a fraction of the drama in my head, the part that I could somewhat rationalize. But this is not the kind of thing to communicate in the back of your Trans Am, to a person you have not known for so long, outside of a slowly multiplying party. So I just pursed my lips, losing the nerve to hold his gaze after a few moments, slumping slowly back against the car door. It felt, oddly, like I had fucked up, like if I had done something differently then this would have gone more accordingly. Alas, a selfish way to think.

Brendon was at least polite about leaving. Surprisingly, however, he had the patience to give me his phone number and address. Okay, then, maybe my shortcomings weren't so much so. Come over anytime. All right. Okay. Another thing about Brendon - he doesn't quit on you.

A day passed and, whenever I found myself sitting around absently, be it in a parking lot or in my study, I would look at the note I made on my phone with his information thinking, well, maybe he's hungover. Two days passed and I thought, well, maybe he's recovering from the hangover. Three days passed and I had too much free time and I tried scouring social media looking for any excuse that he was doing something else and therefore couldn't catch up with me, and, hey, would you look at that, two weeks ago he posted a 'thanks' for the numbers on a streaming app, maybe he's listening to music. Fuck. On the fourth day - not even a week later, shows how busy I am - I decided that there's no point in worrying about whether he won't reply, whether he will have time, whether he'll actually want to talk to me. He volunteered his number, his address. He was serious. Another thing about Brendon - he's genuine.

Brendon is about the only Brendon alive, so I texted 'Brendon,' and then pressed enter almost immediately so that I didn't overthink it: Hi, Brendon, sorry for not texting sooner. I’ve been- well, not busy, I don’t do anything these days. But I was wondering if you wanted to maybe come over sometime. I’d love to properly catch up after you left kind of abruptly.

That sounded quite direct. I backspaced on nothing at all, remembered I already sent it. So. Which I completely get, by the way. Sorry, I don’t know how to do this anymore. Embarrassing, but whatever, we both kind of embarrassed ourselves a few nights ago. I was ready to toss my phone aside and call that my human interaction of the day when it vibrated at me, a reward for my efforts. 'Why don’t we just go for a drive? I owe you that, I think.' I smiled and drew my teeth over my bottom lip slowly, feeling a little vitality come back to me, something exuberant. I hesitated for a moment before deciding, texting, In your Tesla, rich boy? No thanks. I’ll just pick you up tomorrow, okay? Open-ended. But I got a yes.

I'm wondering if there's a way to prepare for this, if there's a 'look' you're supposed to go for when you're meeting with an 'ex' who you are actually on quite good terms with and you are both pretty curious as to why, when you kissed briefly that night both of you coincidentally ended up at Gabe's party, it was way totally awkward and not like we expected. If you're supposed to style your hair. If I should be preparing at all because that would look like I really put in a lot of effort and cared or if I should put in minimal preparation so as to communicate that I'm very chill and casual and Brendon and I, we're cool.

We don't really get a handbook. I don't even know what to talk about. The 'Topics of Conversation' chapter would be interesting. Or 'How to Take Down Your Nerves When You Are About to be the Designated Driver and Therefore Cannot Drink a Whole Bottle of Boxed Wine.'

I dress in whatever looks most laidback, I suppose, some loose-fitting button-up I haven't actually worn more than twice and pants that are far too worn in that they are my most comfortable, shove my hand through my hair once or twice and decide that any product in it would be detected and therefore: not allowed. I hold it back with sunglasses instead, despite the fact that the sun is going down. This is what I wanted. Settings we are familiar with and we are both fond with: sunsets, sunrises. Everything in between gets lost. But the minutes are ticking by past 5 pm and as I look out the window, the sky is imbued with new colors, more deep oranges and purple and pink as the sun sinks low, low, lower, and it isn't dark out, but it's preparing to be in a few hours. So I think Brendon will enjoy it.

Brendon lives 45 minutes away from me. I get to the door and examine his house, a little proud on his behalf, before rapping on it. "Bren, if you're in there, give me a sign," I called theatrically, vaguely amused.

I don’t know where Ryan lives, only that he, too, is in LA, and even though everyone who is anyone lives in this city, it’s not where I expected him to put down roots. Knowing him back then, he was just as intoxicated by the band’s taste of fame as I was, it was a dream of his to be up there on stage every night. Be recognised. Have fans. But none of it came from any kind of genuine, personal desire for that kind of romanticised lifestyle- because that isn’t and never was the kind of life he could lead for very long, comfortably, as private as he was, as personal as his lyrics were. It was more of a passing fantasy, not ever truly meant to be fulfilled, something he stumbled into by accident and that was brought on stronger by the first sensual brush with stardom. It all escalated so quickly and we were so young and the lyrics he had written really were not meant for the world to hear, and yet he let me sing them, every night, just as I continued to do years after the band split. Whatever desperate obsession he had with the materialistic parts of success dissipated years ago into a more genuine ‘I want to make music’- if the very none-commercial album that he made after forming his own band was anything to go off.

I’m not sure why this all disconnects Ryan, in my head, from Los Angeles. There are plenty of places you can live in this city, plenty of small houses and private places he could hide away in, away from anyone’s eyes. It’s like part of me didn’t want him here, in this big city that can seem so impossibly small sometimes, because the idea of a piece of my past being so close made me feel cagey and trapped, the same exact feeling that reared up whenever I had seen him over the past ten years- apart from at Gabe’s party, where I’d willingly shut myself in a vehicle with him. For no good reason other than curiosity, a lingering sense of connection that turned out to be artificial because that kiss we shared was nothing like the fantastical part of my brain had imagined- it wasn’t prolonged or personal or passionate, it was just. A kiss. And yet, part of me wants to do it again; just in case we hadn’t done it right.

Maybe not a good thing to be thinking about when I’m about to get in his stupid car again.

Going home from Gabe’s party that night... despite the detachment of the kiss in the back of his car, I felt electric as soon as I stepped out of it, my nerves fired up and my skin static like I’d been truly plugged in for the first time in forever. Despite this sudden rejuvenation and desire to go back into the vehicle, I forced myself to leave him sat there, and immediately called an Uber and went home because I was not sticking around. Standing out on my balcony that evening, everything became a little more clear, even in the sticky, tacky heat that still stuck to my skin, the remainder of sunshine from the scorching LA afternoon. Clarity wasn’t a refreshing feeling, it washed over me like icy water, a cruel kick in the gut, as I came to the resigned conclusion that I was kidding myself if I said that I hadn’t ever wished things were different between he and I. I realise that I have unknowingly wished upon thousands of stars over the last decade that the unnamed and frustrated feelings I developed for him in our younger years would fade. I’ve subconsciously written his existence into too many songs and lyrics for this to be a normal breed of nostalgia for an old passion.

How was I to know this, though, how was I to explore this, with how uncommonly I thought of him? Part of me wishes I’d just not attended that stupid birthday party a week ago, because I had moved on. My life was good and I had always been capable of forming romantic relationships with all of his presence gone. We hadn’t even ever dated. Meeting him again this evening shouldn’t be making me this nervous, I shouldn’t be overthinking what I’m wearing this much- just a faded blue shirt and black trousers, the shirt I changed about three times, cycling through a red t shirt, a patterned button up, just something black, before resting on this practically unworn thing I found in the back of my wardrobe. Before I could stop myself I was styling my too-long hair, too, shaving as well. Like this is some sort of date.

It’s sundown and I haven’t heard from him and I am nervous, apprehensive, excited in some adolescent way to see him again. If he turns up, that is- I check my phone obsessively, almost twice consecutively just in case my eyes tricked me into seeing a blank screen, instead of the ‘Ryan’ I have him saved as. Anxiety makes me stand up, pace around the room, restless- unable to sit still at the best of times, my nervous energy has me wired and spring-loaded more than usual, running my hands through my hair and ruining it before I’ve even stepped outside. Turns out that trying to look good was a pointless endeavour when I will predictably ruin it all anyway.

I look outside and the sky is golden, pink, purple, streaked with clouds. Turning away from the window and considering getting some sort of alcoholic drink to calm my nerves, I’m interrupted by a message tone. My breath comes up short, cutting off abruptly as I look down. It’s not Ryan. It’s fucking Gabriel. Before I read what he has said, there’s a knock at the door that makes me jump, and then a voice- Bren, if you’re in there, give me a sign.

I almost trip over myself rushing to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open, hanging on to the hinges, my absolutely now-ruined hair hanging over my eyes as I smile at Ryan, the wind knocked out of me from my impulse bolt to the door. I run my hand through my hair to push it away from my face, let go of the doorframe I was clinging on to with my other hand and straighten up, conscious of his height in comparison to mine. “Hi.” I say, intelligently, completely ruining my intentions of playing it cool with some sort of indifferent, effortless, cool greeting. “You certainly took your time,” I say, and it hits me then that he called me ‘Bren’ and I’m still smiling, meet his eyes- “Ry.” There’s a pause and I wonder if I should go for a handshake, but don’t. Something about that would be too formal. I step out of my doorway and close it behind me, turning to fish my keys from my pocket. I feel his eyes on on the back of my head and take the time I have where he cannot read my expression to swallow nervously. “Where are we going, then?”