The following is an excerpt from ‘The Moon, The Stars and Everything In Between’, set to be released December 2022. Copyright © 2022 by Wendi B. Dennison

*********

DAVID

2008

Relationships had never been David’s strong suit. 

When they’d been younger, his sister had made a joke of it. Usually, she ended up calling him a whore in jest. David had laughed it off, had let her call him names and attempt to pry information from him about who he was seeing on the regular. It had simply been a game between them, protective sister to brother energy that she would send his way while simultaneously trying to push him to be more serious about his love life. 

What he’d never been able to say out loud, to her or anyone else, was that he had embellished upon nearly every relationship he had ever been a part of. Not that he had ever been one to kiss and tell in the first place, but he had led Amy and his friends to believe he had at least experienced something more than just company from at least one of the people he’d given the time of day to in his life. 

From Laura to Andrea to Quincy.

From Bonnie to Amanda to Tori. 

He’d lost his virginity when he was eighteen to his prom date. Her name had been Adrienne, a nice girl with a loud laugh and an affinity for ringing her eyes in black eye pencil. She’d liked David for years and he’d known that, always making a point to find him at parties or approach him when they saw each other out in town. David had liked her smile and that she almost never seemed to be in a bad mood. He’d liked her coppery hair color and her freckles, the fact that she listened to Buckcherry and always had a beer hookup. It hadn’t been terrible, the sex. She had been sweet to him; she hadn’t been a virgin herself. They were done fairly quickly, a hot and urgent sort of romp in a less than glamorous hotel room, and David hadn’t known what to make of the situation as they lay there on the bed. When they’d been done, she’d snuggled into the crook of his arm and wrapped him up around the stomach with one of her own. They talked about the dance, how lame it had been, about school being over and college on the horizon, about getting out of town. They’d talked about staying friends, and she had laughed, like she knew that they wouldn’t be anything more than what they were then and was perfectly content with it. 

The closeness had been wonderful, unique to David in a way nothing else had been. That had been what he liked most about it. 

But that feeling of closeness, David learned quickly that following year, hadn’t come entirely from the sex. It took a single one-night stand for him to know very clearly that he wasn’t the type of person to find any pleasure in such a rash decision or meaningless encounter. It was stressful, it was messy, and it left him feeling hollow and even more alone than he had before. 

For a long time, David accepted that he would never experience intimacy like other people seemed to be able to. He accepted that while everyone around him seemed to be able to experience attraction and dating and sex and anything related in a free and exciting way, for David everything was far less black and white. 

Until he met Andrew Braiden.

Then, everything became as clear as crystal and in neon technicolor. 

The first time Andrew had kissed him, it truly had been like fireworks and David could hardly believe it. He’d heard that analogy before and it had always made him roll his eyes. People exaggerated; they were overly romantic. David thought it was all quite useless. But the moment Andrew’s lips had touched his, everything inside of him had lit up like sparks of light, hot and bright, and his world hadn’t been the same after that. 

When he’d thought he’d lost Andrew that summer they’d met, when he’d pushed him away and lost him to the alluring lights of Los Angeles, David thought his heart would never recover. But he had done it to himself, so he took the heartbreak the moment it happened, endured it, and it became a piece of him. For a long time, he had been bitter. He avoided dating for over two years before finally tiring of the loneliness that came from the vicious snatching of that pure, newfound intimacy. He dated girls, he met a few men, but nothing had stuck.

Dating Becca had been the most serious he had gotten, and it had mostly been for the comfort of the routine he had found himself in with her. In a lot of ways, she reminded him of Adrienne. She had a nice laugh, she shared many of his interests, she was driven and motivated and had a kind heart. They were friends, good friends, and then they weren’t. 

Then Andrew showed up in the middle of his guest room like the ghost of Christmas past, and David found himself fighting against the ache in his heart and the sickness in his stomach, the fear in his brain and the anguish that riddled his entire body, and somehow stopped himself from pulling Andrew in close. Once that had been done, he knew he could never let him go again. Not like he had before, like he was nothing, like he wasn’t as important as he truly was to him. 

He could have broken up with Becca in a thousand kinder ways; David wasn’t proud of himself for that. But he would do it again and never regret it, because to have Andrew back in his life was a privilege, one he wouldn’t take for granted again. 

It was a warm morning at the end of August. David awoke to the dim orange light of a newly rising sun, the color just barely coating the bedroom as his eyes adjusted to life around him and his brain took a few more necessary moments to acknowledge his consciousness. He yawned, stretched his arms out in front of him as his abdominals clenched against the soft sheets beneath him. A few months prior, it would have been a normal summer morning, one that he was used to and accepted without another thought. But when he reached across his mattress and felt the other side, cool and empty, it brought him back to a reality he no longer accepted as his own. Andrew wasn’t there, and it had taken less than a week of him in his bed to become the only normal David was interested in having.

He missed his smell, the coconut scent that lingered on his pillow cases for so long after but eventually faded. He missed the warm, soft feeling of his skin when he reached across and wrapped him up, tucking Andrew into his chest like he was the most precious thing David had ever known.

Because he was, and David had finally found it in himself to be okay with a feeling that strong.

He rolled onto his back, already feeling the frown on his lips, and sighed. It would be another normal day, another day of clients and work, of stressed fueled workouts and overthinking, of dinner with Amy and pretending not to hate the reality television she put on. David wasn’t sure when routine, something he’d always clung to, had become unbearable to him, but it was. He couldn’t stand the repetitive day-to-day struggle to settle into something so unsatisfying, not anymore.

There was a knock on his bedroom door, soft but still with intent to wake him, and he sighed a deep, chest-heavy breath.

“Hmmm?” 

Amy pushed his bedroom door open, her chocolate brown head of curls atop her head in a messy, youthful bun, clad in a baggy UofM t-shirt and black leggings, a coffee mug in each hand.

“Good morning, sad sad boy,” She smirked and made her way to his bed.

She sat down on the corner and handed him a mug, steaming and light with cream. He wanted to be irritated, but David was too thankful to do so as he pushed himself up against the headboard and took the coffee in his hand.

“Thanks,” He took a sip. “Jerk.”

“How’d you sleep?”

David shrugged, took another sip of his coffee, and let his head settle gently against the headboard again.

“Fine I guess,” He looked at her, finally, after avoiding it for longer than he knew he could get away with. “What are you doing home?”

Amy arched her brow and stared at him over her mug.

“Um… it’s Saturday, dude. I never work on Saturdays.”

David felt his eyes widen.

She was right; it was Saturday. He’d completely lost track of his days, each and every one blending into the next.

“Shit…” He huffed. “I’m so out of wack…”

“You don’t say,” Amy chuckled, shaking her head as she sipped her own coffee. “Never thought I’d see you so dreamy-eyed with whimsy over a boy.”

“Please don’t say it like that,” David rolled his eyes. 

“Just saying,” Amy shifted a bit, crisscrossing both her legs like a child on the mattress to face him. “…So?”

She waited, her knees bouncing like butterfly wings as she waited for David’s response as though he knew what she was expecting out of him.

“So…”

“So, when are you going to stop this whole absence makes the heart grow fonder, desperate, longing, yearning, oh how I love thee but thou’st so far away, bullshit.”

David’s brows crinkled together at the sarcasm and prodding in her tone.

“I’m still figuring it out.”

“Dude, it’s been like three months almost,” Amy’s eye practically twitched. “You’re not figuring anything out, you’re psyching yourself out.”

David frowned and stared down into his coffee mug, finding comfort in the warmth of his hands.

“Well…” He sighed. “What do you expect?”

“What are you even afraid of?”

Everything.

Andrew’s new home…

Andrew’s new friends…

Andrew’s new life that he built without me…

“There’s a lot that goes into it.”

“So…” She swayed back and forth slightly like a pendulum, ticking down the time he took to form his responses. “Just say it.”

“He’s…” David started, saw a drop of coffee run down the side of his mug and fall to his comforter; he didn’t stop it. “It’s complicated.”

“God, I hate it when you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“This,” she motioned at him dramatically, her coffee sloshing but not spilling. “When you act like you don’t have normal, human fears. When you get it in your head that you bother people by talking about your feelings. It’s annoying, and it’s old. Come on, dude, it’s me. What’s up?”

“I just…” David tucked his knees up, sat his coffee on the nightstand. “I feel weird about going over there and randomly inserting myself into this new life that Andrew has made for himself. Like, he went there and started new, made friends he’s close with now, has a career and a thousand different things going on.”

“And what? You think you don’t fit into any of it?”

David looked at her, his stare softening as his eyes begged her to understand him. Because she always did, eventually if not right away. She was the only person who ever did.

“I want to go down there and see him, Amy,” He insisted. “More than anything. But if I go down there, it won’t be the same as him being here. I’ll be alone, just him and me and a life I know nothing about and if he decides that I don’t make sense in this life he’s built, then…”

He trailed off, and before he could finish, his sister had him wrapped in her arms. They were quiet a moment, her hand stroking over the back of his head like a baby, her chin atop his hair.

“You’re so stupid…” She muttered. “I love you, but damn I can’t believe the shit you think sometimes.”

“You’re the only person I know who can comfort someone while also insulting them at the same time.”

“It’s a gift,” She sighed as she pulled back from him and looked at him, eyes serious as her hands braced his shoulders. “David… he’s not going to think any of those things about you.”

“How can you be sure about that?”

“Because I know him,” She blinked. “I know him very, very well. I may have gotten to the party late, but after these last couple of months, if there’s one thing I know it’s that Andrew is completely head over heels for you and always has been.”

“I know… that’s what scares me,” David admitted, and he felt her hands slip from his shoulders. “I don’t want to let him down again… I broke his heart once, what if I fuck up again?”

“You need to think higher of yourself,” Amy poked a finger at his chest. “Everyone has moments where they feel like they’ve let someone down, we’re only human, it’s part of it all. But you have to do the things your afraid of doing, be your own Barbera Streisand!”

David felt his brow raise.

“Barbera Streisand?”

“Woman’s got near crippling stage fright,” Amy said. “But you think that keeps her from being one of the greatest divas we’ve ever known on this planet? No, it does not. So don’t let your fear of not living up to expectations keep you from being happy. Streisand the shit out of this relationship, David.”

He couldn’t help it, a small laugh escaped his throat. David shook his head, finally smiling at her as she pushed herself up and off of his bed.

“You make weird analogies,” he teased and she grinned, clearly proud of herself.

“Thank you,” She turned, coffee in hand once again, to leave the room. “Oh, and one other thing, you got a delivery this morning.”

David watched as she left his room, puzzled by whatever she could have been talking about. After a few more moments sipping his coffee, he got up out of bed and pulled on his softest pair of black joggers and made his way out to the kitchen. There, on the counter, was a vibrant bouquet of flowers, reds and oranges, yellows and pinks, roses and lilies and a few others David couldn’t even identify. Settled inside of it was a small, unopened card, his name written out in cursive on the outside.

He opened it, fingers fumbling a bit in hopes he wouldn’t tear whatever was inside in the process.

Hey handsome,

I know what you’re thinking.

‘Do men buy each other flowers?’

The answer is yes, because fuck the patriarchy

and all societal norms. I hope this makes you

smile, because you have the best smile there is.

I miss you, hope I get to see that smile in person

soon. Talk to you later, xoxo. 

-Andrew

David’s smile was most definitely there, ear to ear, cheeks flushed and skin hot with a bashful sort of exhilaration. He hoped Amy couldn’t see just how much he loved such a simple, sweet gesture. He’d certainly never been given flowers before, and never thought he’d enjoy it as much as he did.

But it was a wonderfully unexpected way to start his day.