Raphael /BoyxBoy/

||Twenty-Two||

Tom's fingers worked quickly over his phone screen, his face only inches away from its bright surface.

"Is he okay?" I asked Nate, as we both disregarded the TV in order to watch Tom gnaw at his lips until they turned a concerning shade of baby pink.

"He's probably texting Jesse."

We continued watching him for a while, and I personally tried my best to decipher the small texts that flashed on his screen.

Nate eventually heaved a long sigh. "This is ridiculous."

"I disagree."

"What?" Tom finally peeled his eyes towards us.

"We need to get out of this apartment," Nate stated. "Jake, you can't continue hiding in here. I don't know who you're avoiding but it's driving me nuts staying in one confined space. Tom, you need to turn off your phone or demand that Jesse provides you with a straightforward response."

"Or you could just leave," Tom suggested, standing up from his slouched position on his couch. "I need coffee."

Nate watched him leave. Then he turned to me. "Okay, we really need to get him out."

"How?"

Nate became more accustomed to the city after realizing how that could be more of help than secluding himself in an apartment. He dragged us in between damp alleys and bumpy streets, stopping to grab snacks at random stops.

"That's where they sell the best ice-cream," he would point out. Or, "Ian hates that place, so I always buy stuff from there."

Tom would occasionally glance back at his phone, but never for too long, and always when he made sure Nate was distracted or busy talking to me.

He  asked me about my job, or my friends (Scarlet, mainly. He was fascinated by the fact that I could get along with a woman. I had to pretend that was normal), or even Raphael.

"No, I don't mean the real one," he said at the expression on my face. "I mean the fake one. How similar are they?"

"I don't know." I watched as the clouds laced between the top of sky scrapers, craning my neck back just to get the full view. "I never gave it much thought. I always pictured Raphael with dark hair and tan skin in my head. But the real Raphael is almost the exact opposite of that."

"Do you have a picture?"

"No," and I was almost sorry of it.

I was reminded, suddenly, of all the times his hair caught in the light, shined like a golden crown that circled the top of his head. And the smiles that melted the harsh lines of his face, and accentuated his youth.

I didn't know a dime about his past, given how secretive and closed off he made it out to be, yet it ceased to matter when he kissed me, or when he smiled up at me like that. Or when his eyes caught that mischievous glint that sent my heart into a complete mess of irregular heartbeats until I desperately needed him to touch me again. Until he stopped touching me, and that glint softened into a shine and he was looking at me softly.

How could I give that up? That look in his eyes that said his past needn't be mentioned, because that look meant he had forgotten all about it.

I knew what Scarlet thought of our relationship. That it was one that strictly catered to our strains for short lived pleasure. That it couldn't be more than that even if we wanted it to be, because neither of us truly wanted it to be. Because neither of us wanted to invest in the other. To show the other what it would really be like if we followed the normal cookie-cutter method of being with someone you adored a shade darker than others.