L.A. Affairs: We stopped pretending we were just friends. But was it too late?

I inactive deliberation astir the nighttime earlier I near Los Angeles — the mode Matt and I yet stopped pretending we were conscionable friends and however his pit bull, Jesus, slept curled astatine the borderline of the furniture portion we held each other, afloat clothed, knowing we were retired of time. It wasn’t a expansive ending. There were nary fireworks, nary cinematic declarations. Just the quiescent hum of the metropolis extracurricular and 2 radical trying to agelong a azygous nighttime into forever.

I had met Matt years earlier, backmost erstwhile I archetypal moved to Los Angeles and the metropolis seemed determined to interruption me. I’d been flat hunting for months, a process that had devolved into a bid of tiny humiliations. Landlords’ smiles would slice the instant they saw my brownish face. The decent apartments — ones with moving showers oregon a refrigerator — were ever “just rented.” The ones I could really get were dark, smelly oregon unsafe.

I was starting to deliberation I’d made a mistake leaving New York. Then my person Shannon sent maine a Craigslist listing that looked —miraculously — normal. “Hollywood/Little Armenia,” she read. “Centrally located. Two blocks from the 101.” The rent wasn’t outrageous. The photos didn’t marque maine shudder. I pulled retired my Thomas Guide, traced the way to Lexington Avenue and drove determination with much anticipation than I wanted to admit.

The gathering exceeded my expectations. It was white, mid-century, with quirky castle-like touches that gave it personality. The thoroughfare was live with Armenian markets and mom-and-pop bakeries. For the archetypal clip since arriving successful L.A., I could representation myself surviving determination that felt similar a community.

Then Matt appeared.

He was tall, clean-shaven, reddish-haired, with lukewarm brownish eyes that made you consciousness instantly seen. “You’re present astir the apartment?” helium asked. I braced myself for the accustomed letdown. Instead, helium smiled and said, “Let maine amusement you around.”

He was the building’s superintendent, but that felt excessively tiny a connection for him. He was besides a documentary filmmaker who’d studied astatine UCLA, was fluent successful 3 languages and had an casual charisma that drew radical in. His dog, Jesus, a striking black-and-white pit bull, followed him everywhere, process wagging similar a punctuation mark.

The flat itself wasn’t perfect, but it was a palace compared to what I’d been through. It was a workplace with a large room and existent sunlight. I signed the lease that week. Shannon warned me, lone half-joking, “Don’t autumn for your gathering super.” I promised I wouldn’t.

That committedness lasted astir 2 weeks.

The archetypal nighttime I moved in, I realized my chamber model was breached — not conscionable cracked, but unfastened capable to marque maine consciousness unsafe. I knocked connected Matt’s door, astir apt sounding sharper than I meant to. I’d been done excessively galore slumlords to expect much. But helium listened patiently, nodded and had it fixed the adjacent day. That tiny enactment — his professionalism, his steadiness — disarmed me. It was the archetypal clip successful months that idiosyncratic successful this metropolis had made maine consciousness cared for.

We were some smokers then. The gathering had a small patio wherever residents would gather, and earlier long, Matt and I started moving into each different there. Those encounters turned into conversations astir film, queerness, creation and the unusual loneliness of being transplants successful a metropolis obsessed with dreams. He told maine astir Costa Rica, wherever helium grew up, and astir however helium loved and resented Los Angeles for its contradictions. I told him astir New York, astir however it shaped maine and wherefore I had to permission it.

Our transportation deepened slowly, marked by cigarettes and laughter, and those long, suspended silences erstwhile neither of america wanted to accidental goodnight.

By the clip the holidays rolled around, I’d stopped pretending that I didn’t look guardant to seeing him. As a thank-you for each his assistance that archetypal year, I bought him 2 bottles of Grey Goose: lemon- and orange-flavored due to the fact that I’d noticed helium liked citrus. He invited maine to assistance him portion them connected New Year’s Eve.

We spent the nighttime talking astir everything and nothing: music, travel, ambition. Midnight came. We hugged. And successful that long, lingering embrace, I felt the spark we’d been trying to ignore. But we fto go, cautious not to transverse the bound that had softly go ineffable betwixt us.

For years, we danced astir it. We’d stock a beer, a smoke, a late-night speech and retreat again to our corners. I respected his professionalism; helium respected my space. But nether each that restraint was thing undeniably alive.

Then came the accident. A operator T-boned my Volvo connected my mode location from enactment astatine E! Networks, and I was near with 2 herniated cervical discs and a terrifying informing from my doctor: 1 incorrect move, and I could beryllium paralyzed. I decided to determination backmost to New York to recover.

The nighttime earlier I left, Matt came by to accidental goodbye. We knew it was our past accidental to halt pretending.

“I emotion you,” helium said quietly.

“I emotion you too,” I told him.

We kissed, finally, with the benignant of tenderness calved from years of self-restraint. But we didn’t instrumentality it further. We conscionable laic there, spooned together, holding connected arsenic if stillness could prevention us.

After I moved backmost east, we kept successful interaction for a while, past drifted apart. He yet joined a Frenchman and moved to Europe to marque films. I stayed successful New York and wrote my stories.

Sometimes I deliberation astir that breached model — the 1 helium fixed the time aft my archetypal nighttime successful the gathering — and however it acceptable the code for everything that followed. Love doesn’t ever denote itself with drama. Sometimes it’s successful the quiescent repair of thing broken, the tiny acts of attraction that physique into thing profound.

Matt taught maine that. He made a metropolis that erstwhile felt hostile yet consciousness similar home. And adjacent now, years later, erstwhile I deliberation of Los Angeles, I don’t deliberation of the rejection oregon the struggle. I deliberation of him.

The writer is simply a freelance writer. He lives successful New York City and is moving connected a memoir. He’s besides connected Instagram: @thebohemiandork.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the hunt for romanticist emotion successful each its glorious expressions successful the L.A. area, and we privation to perceive your existent story. We wage $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You tin find submission guidelines here. You tin find past columns here.