“So where’s Tris?” he asks now.
“Inside. Why?”
“I dunno. I figured you two would be together.”
“Dev…Tris and I broke up like four weeks ago.”
“Fuck! I totally forgot. Sorry, man.”
“No problem.”
Dev looks at me for a moment, then smacks his forehead.
“Wait! There’s another girl tonight, isn’t there? I saw you, like, groping.”
“You could say that.”
“I just did!”
“What?”
“Say that. I could, and I did.”
This, for Dev, is what usually passes as genius.
Now he puts his arm around me, snuggles in. He loves to do this, and I never really mind. It’s not sexual so much as comforting.
“My poor straight-edge straightboy,” he says. “Nobody should be alone on a night like this.”
“But I have you, Dev,” I reply, trying to lighten things up.
“Ain’t that the truth. At least until Ted comes back.”
“I know.”
“You know what it’s all about, Nick?”
“What what’s all about?”
“It, Nick. What it’s all about.”
“No.”
“The Beatles.”
“What about The Beatles?”
“They nailed it.”
“Nailed what?”
“Everything.”
“What do you mean?”
Dev takes his arm and puts it right against mine, skin to skin, sweat on sweat, touch on touch. Then he glides his hand into mine and intertwines our fingers.
“This,” he says. “This is why The Beatles got it.”
“I’m afraid I’m not following…”
“Other bands, it’s about sex. Or pain. Or some fantasy. But The Beatles, they knew what they were doing. You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?”
“What?”
“‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most f**king brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can’t hide. Every single successful love song of the past fifty years can be traced back to ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding. Trust me. I’ve thought a lot about this.”
“‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand,’” I repeat.
“And so you are, my friend. So you are.”
He closes his eyes now, fingers still folded into mine. Even Dev’s breathing is rock ’n’ roll, full of kicks and sputters. I angle my head on top of his. We sit there for a second, watching traffic.
“I think I blew it,” I say.
“With Tris?”
“No. With Norah. With Tris, I didn’t have a chance. But tonight, with Norah—it might’ve been a chance.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know—sulk?”
Dev removes his hand from mine and squeezes me lightly on the shoulder.
“You’re damn pretty when you sulk,” he tells me, “but in this case, I think a more active course might be advantageous.”
“Where the hell are you getting these long words from?” I have to ask.
“You, stupid. ‘If you act courageous / it could be advantageous / to make me act outrageous / all over your blank pages’—did you think I was, like, learning these songs phonetically?”
“‘My love ain’t hypothetical / or pronounced for you phonetical / so it might just be heretical / if you don’t love me back,’” I quote in return.
Dev nods. “Exactly.”
“Where do we come up with this shit?” I ask. “I mean, where do these words all come from? I sit here on this sidewalk and they just appear to me.”
“Maybe they’re always there and you just need to live enough life to get them to make sense,” Dev says.
Someone whistles a birdcall behind us. Dev and I both turn, and there’s Ted just out of the club, shining like a diamond under a spotlight. He’s keeping a respectful distance, but I can tell he’s waiting.
“You gonna go hold his hand?” I ask Dev playfully.
“Hell, yes,” Dev says, sitting up now. “Don’t get me wrong—we’re totally going to make the beast with two backs tonight. But if we do it right, it’s going to feel like holding hands.”
There’s no way Ted could’ve heard us. But when Dev walks over to him, Ted offers his palm. I watch them walk down the street, hand in hand. I don’t think they notice, but their legs are in perfect rhythm. Before they round the corner, they both turn as one and wave a goodnight to me.
I’m on my own again. I decide to check my messages…and realize that not only have I lost my f**king jacket, but I’ve also lost my f**king phone. So many indignities and I start to feel indignant. But that’s nothing compared to trying to find a pay phone on Ludlow Street at three or so in the morning. I walk all the way back to Houston before I find one on the corner of a deli. The receiver feels like it’s covered with pond scum, and the dial tone seems to be coming from North Dakota. The first three quarters are returned to the drop slot. I am about to lose my shit entirely, but then the next two quarters stay put and the volume button amps things up enough that I can actually hear the call start.