CHAPTER 14 WHAT HAPPENS IN CYBERSPACE STAYS IN CYBERSPACE

CHAPTER 14 – WHAT HAPPENS IN CYBERSPACE STAYS IN CYBERSPACE

As they walked through the door of the diner, a few people waved at Javi and he waved back. There was one person in particular he did want Kurt to meet only because he would be another person to help Kurt and Adam get acclimated to the neighborhood. He turned to Kurt and asked if he’d like to meet Cam and gave him a brief explanation of why he thought they should meet. After the introductions and some small talk, Cam gave Kurt his cell number and invited him and Adam to a get-together the following week. Kurt said he’d check with Adam and look at his work schedule. They thanked him and then found a table. The waiter took their order and brought them their coffee.

“So, how was your Saturday, mi amigo?” and Javi settled in as if he really wanted a detailed account. He wasn’t just making small talk. When Kurt said, “Oh, fine! A little sleep, a little homework….” “Oh, no, no!” Javi laughed and Kurt caught that bit of Latinx accent. “You can do better than that. Really! How was your day?”

“Okay. Actually, it was great! Adam left me all alone and, honestly, it felt good. We’ve only been here a couple months and we really haven’t spent a lot of time apart yet. But….well, I sort of have a confession to make…”

“Please don’t tell me you’re not gay,” Javi said, totally deadpan, “Surely, fate would not be that cruel to me.” Then when he saw Kurt blush, he laughed again and apologized. “I can have a wicked sense of humor, Kurt. Go ahead, tell Father Javier all about it; no, forget I said that. If there’s one thing I certainly DON’T want it’s for you to think of me as a father of any kind, much less a priest!”

By now, Kurt was totally undone and couldn’t help laughing himself, even though he felt unsure of how to tell Javi what he’d done with his evening alone. He decided head-on was the only way to approach this.

“Well, this is the age of instant information, and, I looked you up on the net….I was mostly curious about your music….”

“Oh, Kurt! Is that all? What an unexciting way to spend an evening. People do that all the time. It’s natural to be curious and it doesn’t bother me a bit. So, did you do anything else?” Kurt was absolutely not going to tell him about the showers or his rehashing of the same old Kurt dilemma. Besides, he’d asked what he’d done, not what he hadn’t done.

Kurt said, “No. Honestly? I spent the night watching your videos when you were with Mateo.” Javi liked that…a lot! Kurt wasn’t defending his actions at all, just stating what he’d done, and in one sentence! That never happened! Usually, whomever would spend 5 minutes going on and on about how they shouldn’t have, but blah, blah, blah…

“Okay, so what did you think?” Kurt wanted to say that how watching their performances was mesmerizing, but mostly because he’d been completely focused on Javi himself. He wanted to say how sensual, how passionate, how hot he found his every move. He wanted to ask him to sing him to sleep every night for the rest of his natural life. He wanted to tell him…so much, but of course he wasn’t going to tell him any of that. And as he thought of what to say, his mind reluctantly, but finally, returned from the videos, and he said, “I watched some of the MTV unplugged, and some of your live performances, a few of your official song videos, and sometimes the music made me cry. I didn’t understand but a few words, and still there wasn’t a single video I didn’t like, and I’m not just saying that, it’s the truth. I loved the ballads, the rock, the rap. You were so versatile!”

Javi was speechless. He was expecting, “I loved it!” or “It was really good!” or, “It’s really not my thing, but I still liked some of it.” He hadn’t expected anything but superficial. And for once it was Javi who was a bit frightened, a bit uneasy. No one, well, no guy, had been so expressive, so sincere, so genuine with him since Tonio. He felt like crying himself. He tried to gather his thoughts, then nervously cleared his throat, but all that came out of his mouth was, “Wow…” He cleared his throat again and looked at Kurt, surprised that he had lowered his shield that much. “Thank you…just thank you. But you know Mateo wasn’t just me. We were friends before we were Mateo. And we were closer friends during Mateo. I couldn’t have done any of it without Antonio and Rodrigo. We were…what’s the word….symbiotic?” Now, he wondered why HE wasn’t being more guarded. That whole part of his life was something he rarely talked about because it was so very, very personal, and here he was opening up to a man 13 years younger than him. How could someone of 22 possibly understand what 7 years of living that kind of almost communal existence was like? Especially when he and Tonio had been lovers long before Mateo. In fact, they had known no other lovers before each other.

This time it was Kurt who tried to rescue Javi, “That’s what I meant, Javi. The singing, the lyrics, the way you all seemed to know what the other was thinking or going to do was nothing short of phenomenal, genuine stage presence is what you had. To hold that together for 7 years says so much about all of you.” He stopped there. He knew Antonio was going to be a discussion that would have to wait, just like Blaine would have to be a conversation for the right time and place.

After Javi had recovered a bit and Kurt put down his coffee cup, Javi reached for his hand, but only held his fingers and looked at him for a long moment. The only way he could think of to describe what he saw in Kurt’s eyes was clarity. As fluent as he was in English, like everyone else, sometimes words just failed him.

He placed Kurt’s hand back on the table, but didn’t let go, and neither did Kurt.