Real Life(43)

The tasteless, strained, diluted flavor of white people food, its curious texture, its ugliness. He eats his food. He grinds his teeth. His anger is cold. There’s a skin stretching across it.

Roman and Vincent share a look. Cole watches them share a look. They are all looking at each other.

Wallace thinks of Peter. Of his mother. Of his father. Of Henrik. Of Dana.

“You guys played tennis today?” Vincent asks. The commonness of the question shears the skin off Wallace’s anger.

“It was great,” Cole says.

“We had a long talk. It was good to catch up.”

“I bet, I bet,” Vincent says.

“So when you were on the app last night, Vincent, were you just looking or did you really plan to fuck someone else?” Wallace asks, smiling, his teeth gleaming.

There is a stuttering pause. Cole tenses. Roman’s eyes swing around to them. Vincent turns a sickly green color.

“What?” he asks. “What did you say?”

“I saw you on the app last night, and I was just wondering if . . . you know, you two were opening things up?” He looks between Cole and Vincent, as though he were asking about color swatches. He asks in a voice lighter than he feels, because in truth, at the moment, he wants to die. But it feels good, for once, to see someone else caught out.

Cole reaches down and grips Wallace’s knee hard and tight, so tight it almost hurts, and that pain is nearly enough to get him through this moment. Wallace’s head is pounding.

“I . . . I . . .”

“Is that true, Vincent?” Cole asks, taking up Wallace’s lie, because unlike for Wallace, this truth is one that means everything to him.

“I don’t . . . I wasn’t . . . I . . .”

“Wow,” Roman says, clapping softly. “Good for you two. It’s great.”

“Really great,” Klaus says, nodding firmly. “It’s the best decision we ever made.”

“You were on there?” Cole says, letting his anger and his hurt sweep through him. He turns in his chair. “We were only talking about it. But you did it behind my back? Why?”

Wallace watches Vincent’s face very carefully. That pinched, needful look of his has turned sharper and more pronounced. He has crumbs of food stuck to the underside of his lower lip. His mouth is shiny with grease. His thick brow, which juts over his small eyes like a protective cliff, has grown darker. There are some people whose shock flays them open and leaves them exposed, but Vincent is not one of these people. He has collected into himself, grown small and hard, and Wallace feels in some way both proud of him and cheated of a more discernible reaction. Yes, Wallace thinks, that’s it, don’t let them see you sweat, Vincent; it should be that way. But he also feels, in the baser part of himself, a snarl of anger, deprived of his reward for having turned it all back on them. It’s an ugly, petty part of Wallace that delights and shivers and wishes only that Vincent were the more combustible sort.

“Holy shit,” Lukas says. “Holy shit.”

“Oh my god.” Yngve is up from the end of the table and coming toward them, but thinks better of it, reluctant to get caught up in someone else’s mess, and sits back down.

“I was just looking, Cole. I didn’t mean to do anything. I was just looking.”

“But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say something before you did it?”

“I don’t know. I was scared you’d say no. I was scared I’d want you to say yes? I don’t know. Fuck.” Vincent’s eyes are wet. He’s on the brink of crying. Wallace feels guilty now—real guilt, gravelly and hard. He swallows. His own eyes are stinging. Cole is crying softly already, beating his leg with his hand.

“Why am I not enough?”

“It’s not about you not being enough,” Roman says.

Cole turns to him and says, “Shut up, Roman. I wasn’t talking to you.”

There is a look of surprise on Roman’s face. He leans back in his chair. “You two are out here in public. I assumed you wanted input.”

“Can we just have a fucking minute to be in our relationship without you wanting to stick your dick in it?”

“Someone is finally growing some spine, great for you,” Roman says, clapping louder this time. “Someone is finally being a man. But a tip. If you don’t want someone else fucking your boyfriend, maybe you should.”

“What is he talking about, Vincent?”

“No, no, no,” Vincent says, putting his face in his hands. “No, no, no. This isn’t happening.”

“Vincent, what is he talking about?”

“Fuck,” Vincent says. “Fuck.”

Klaus is dark red with anger, looking stormily at Roman, who has gone back to eating his dinner.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Miller says. Emma has gotten up to put her arms around Cole, who is staring at Vincent.

“Baby, baby,” Emma says. “Baby, baby. Come on.” She’s rubbing Cole’s back, pressing him to get up from the table and come with her, somewhere, anywhere else.

Wallace does not even try to look innocent of his role in the whole thing. Cole will likely never forgive him, but Wallace did in fact give him what he needed but could never ask for himself, and isn’t that why Cole asked him to come in the first place? Yes, he reacted out of pettiness, out of a desire to see someone brought low, but in the end, hadn’t something important been achieved? He looks to his left and sees Vincent sobbing into his hands, and Cole staring like an empty obelisk. Roman and Klaus speak to each other in angry French and German, words slashing at each other.