Saturday is uneventful. Colt spends the day holed up at home. He watches some TV. He gets his violin out of its case and he plays for a long while, missing the feel of it, the sound of it, the way playing it brings out the best version of himself.
There had been a time, years ago, when Colt had found such solace in the beauty of this instrument. Music was something he was good at. While everything else in his world had sucked beyond the telling of it, this, the relationship between himself and his violin, was beautiful. It was something his father had never been able to bruise and fracture. Hearing him play was the only time his mother ever looked like she was proud of him.
It isn't too far of a stretch to say that music saved his life, that it changed his life. But then that's the power of music, isn't it? Music can move mountains.
Other stringed instruments came later for him, but the violin came first. The violin is like coming home, it's a reset.
He plays well into the evening until the sun is going down, losing track of time and not caring about anything else.
Saturday comes and goes.
Sunday morning he goes to church as he always does. He's there but he doesn't really listen today. He thinks that sometimes just showing up has to be good enough for God. It's all he has to give the Almighty right now.
He works in the front and back yards of his house the rest of Sunday, pulling weeds and mowing the lawn. It feels good to do normal things.
Alone.
It feels good to be alone.
It takes him a full week to start feeling more like himself again, to quit thinking about Marc every two seconds, to quit looking at the bottles of alcohol and wanting to taste them, to quit feeling so outside of and unlike himself that he's unrecognizable.
He almost calls or texts Marc several times that week. In the end he makes himself leave it alone.
His little league team loses the semi finals the next weekend. They go out for celebratory ice cream anyway. Colt gives them all their end of season trophies and hugs them all goodbye. He chats with their parents and tells them he hopes to see their kiddos next season.
The next Saturday, now with not much to do and his mind mostly back where it should be, Colt takes stock. He wonders where his crappy table and chairs went. He wonders where his fridge that had been on its last leg went. His old TV was fine. He didn't need a newer, bigger TV. He wonders what made Marc think it was okay to change all this stuff in his house without asking him.
A knock at the door startles him and when he answers it, a cheery woman is handing him a bouquet of black roses in an opaque red glass vase. Colt thanks her and takes them inside to set them on the new table.
Where does someone even find black roses?
The attached note reads: Busy working for a few more days. Thinking about you, Vanilla. - Marc
Everywhere Colt looks, there's a reminder of Marc. Colt decides that he needs to get out for awhile.
He goes out to his bike and heads to a bar for some nameless, faceless company. There's a live band playing tonight and while they're newer than his band, he's heard of them and is happy to listen and enjoy their music.
He's standing there, water in hand, enjoying the performance when he feels a hand on his arm. He turns to see one of the girls that's usually at Drunk Wizards performances. She's a fan. She follows them around from bar to bar and gig to gig so she's easily recognizable.
Colt puts on a big smile for her and they hug and say their hello's while he's trying to remember her name.
"It's Dana, right?" He asks.
"Close! It's Deanna."
"Ahhh almost." He gestures to the band on stage. "Not bad, huh?"
"Well they're no Drunk Wizards." Deanna says. "Wanna dance?"
"Yeah, let's dance."
It feels good to dance. Colt had never enjoyed dancing until recently when he hit that age that he quit caring whether he looks stupid or not and just allows himself to have fun. He and Deanna dance several songs together, maybe three or four, and then she leans up and kisses him.
Colt looks at her, surprised, and then he kisses her too. He's had relationships with women before and this feels natural and easy and right.
Except... not completely right.
Colt pulls back and shakes his head. "I'm sorry."
"Oh no. Was it bad?" Deanna asks. "I thought it was great."
"No, no it's... that was a great kiss and you're very attractive. It's just that..."
"You're seeing someone."
Colt pauses. Is he seeing someone? "Kind of."
"That's okay! I should have asked. And of course you're seeing someone. You're hot. She's lucky, whoever she is."
He's relieved that she seems to be handling it okay. He messed up. He shouldn't have kissed her back. Colt has never been the kind of guy to be with more than one person at a time and he has no idea if he's even really 'with' Marc. "Thanks. You're hot too. Things are just... complicated right now."
"Complicated is kind of my M.O. when it comes to men." Deanna jokes. "I totally get it as a relationship status."
Colt isn't sure that anyone could 'get' the mess that is himself and Marc Fiarri. He laughs at the joke anyway and they fall into companionable conversation and enjoy the rest of the night together.
**
Every day the following week a black rose is delivered to his house, to the library, sitting on the seat of his bike when it's parked somewhere. Every day Colt brings them inside and adds them to the bouquet, replacing wilted flowers with the new ones. He can't help but think that they look strange and beautiful and wrong at the same time.
Black roses. Who came up with that idea?
By the end of the week the black roses have grown on him. He admires them every day when he passes by the table.
It's been three weeks since Colt has seen Marc. It doesn't feel like the other man has been absent from his life though. Between the new additions to his home and the roses, Colt feels Marc's presence as surely as if he were just at work at the garage or for his uncle and would make an appearance later in the evening.
On the way home from work one day, his bike made a strange noise. He's glad to have made it home, but Colt is in his drive working on his bike when he hears the increasingly familiar roar of the engine of Marc's car slow to a stop in front of his house.
Colt pushes himself up from the concrete and stands, watching Marc exit his car and wondering what bruises he'll find on him this time. The bruises really affect him more than he cares to admit. The bruises tilt his world on its axis, putting him partly in the present and partly in the past. He wishes the past would stay in the past.
Nerves roil in his stomach at the sight of Marc. Things just recently leveled back out for him. He has a feeling that Marc will stir things back up. On the other hand, there's a part of him that's undeniably, irrefutably glad to see him. Seeing Marc stirs up memories of the library and their last and only night together in his bed.
There are no bruises this time, not that he can see right away. There's a bandage on Marc's neck that Colt's eyes are drawn to as the other man approaches.
"Aw look at you, Vanilla. Worried about me. I'm fine." Marc reaches him and puts a hand on Colt's waist, leaning in to brush their lips together.
