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It wasn’t that Patrick didn’t like the song, okay? He liked the song just fine. He liked the words when he read them on Pete’s blog. He liked Pete’s words and his—Patrick’s—music. The two of them together. Pete always said they were magic, even before the record deal, whispered it into the curvature of Patrick’s sweat-slick neck or the contour of his ear during a show: you’re magic, Patrick, we’re magic.
Patrick couldn’t hear him over the roar of the crowd anymore, but Pete still said it in a variety of ways. When he tells an interviewer that Patrick’s voice is golden, or posts some awful-embarrassing-sickly-satisfying Q&A about how wonderful Patrick is, Patrick knows what he’s saying. They’re magic, the two of them, and they always will be.
But then there was Warped Tour, and then Pete was casting spells over the west to make Mikey Way think of him. So maybe that magic was being diverted elsewhere. Patrick didn’t know. He felt a little sick just thinking about it.
As though Pete’s “summer of like” wasn’t bad enough, the hangover lasted all through 2006, and now they were ringing in the new year with a brand-new album—Patrick’s favorite album they’ve ever made, probably; definitely the one he’s proudest of—and Pete was still pining for Bishop Stage.
Warped Tour wasn’t a “summer of like” for Patrick at all. He remembered it mostly in snapshots of Pete’s back: Pete lounging in the grass side-by-side with Mikey while the other bands played, Pete doing his eyeliner in the mirror backstage, Pete dashing off to the My Chem tour bus after shows without so much as a wave goodbye. Hey, that was a good show, nice to see you, Patrick, fuck you and goodnight.
No, Patrick didn’t like Warped Tour. But he did like Bang the Doldrums. At least, he used to, before he realized it was about Mikey, and before he had to sing it every night of tour, knowing that it was about Mikey.
Pete had felt… this about Mikey, this enormous romantic thing, and Patrick had no idea, because Pete was rarely on their tour bus that summer, and barely told Patrick anything at all about what he was getting up to in the hours between shows. Patrick had been completely sidelined, for Mikey, and then Pete had—god, Pete and Mikey had—they had been lovers, sure, but Pete had also written best friends, in the lyrics, and sure, he had followed it up with ex-friends ‘til the end, but Pete had also written that this was a love song, and happily ever after below the waist, which was probably way more than Patrick needed to know about Pete and Mikey’s relationship, but then, Pete was the one to write the lyrics and post them for everybody in the whole fucking universe to read on his Blogspot, there was no way that Mikey wasn’t going to see them, or a million Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance fans, like, people were paying attention? People were always paying attention?
Maybe it was just Patrick paying attention. Word choice, Pete, it’s all about word choice—best friends, ex-friends ‘til the end.
Wasn’t Patrick his best friend?
Okay, okay, slow down, hit rewind. In truth, Patrick wouldn’t have noticed any of this, wouldn’t have stayed awake into the night overanalyzing Pete’s lyrics, if it wasn’t for the show in New York.
Pete was high-energy that night. Bouncing off the walls, amusing Joe and Andy. Irritating Patrick. Waiting until Patrick was distracted, listening to something on his computer with his headphones on, then coming up behind him and digging his fingers into Patrick’s sides, where Pete knew he was ticklish, then darting away when Patrick jerked, his headphones sliding off the back of his head and falling behind the couch.
If Patrick was being honest—which he rarely was, with Pete, at least about this—the irritation was all—well, mostly—a front. He really didn’t like being interrupted while he was working, or being tickled, or, worst of all, being the butt of the joke, but it seemed to Patrick that all of these things were tolerable if Pete was paying attention to him. It had always been that way, ever since they first met and Patrick was wearing the argyle sweater and the knee-high socks and staring at the impossibility of Pete-Wentz-from-Arma-Angelus sitting on Patrick’s couch and listening to Patrick sing, like, there was a part of Patrick that still didn’t believe it. So he bitched at Pete, swatted him away sometimes, but Pete was Patrick’s best friend, and still his idol, just a little bit, more than Patrick was really willing to admit, so mostly he would tolerate anything. As long as it meant he got to keep Pete.
All of this to say: it seemed like a normal show at first. They got on stage and they performed, Patrick belting out song after song with Pete’s forehead on his shoulder and Pete’s mouth on his neck and his ear—no words, no magic, just hot-wet-familiar breathing—and Pete in his peripheral vision, Patrick’s constant, his true north, and he felt like a compass, magnetized toward Pete with his choppy bangs and smeared makeup, all wide smile, all shark teeth, too big for his face and too bright for Patrick to look at directly. So he watched Pete out of the corner of his eye and forced himself to face the crowd, despite a strange and persistent dread. Patrick wasn’t very intuitive, not when it came to anything except music, but this dread, this anticipation was almost unbearable, and he retreated into his hat, which he hadn’t felt the need for in several years, and found himself scanning the crowd, as though somewhere in the audience, someone held the answer to why he felt so suddenly and violently ill.
They closed with Saturday, and finally Patrick allowed himself to look at Pete—me and Pete, in the wake of Saturday—and was rewarded with a trademark Pete Wentz grin for his trouble, and a slobbery Pete Wentz kiss on his cheek, and Pete Wentz pressed up against his back with his chin hooked over Patrick’s shoulder, all of which Patrick honestly should have anticipated. It wasn’t like it was new, the constant excess affection from Pete both on and off-stage, but they hadn’t played a show since Saved Latin and if Patrick had remembered to steel himself beforehand then maybe he wouldn’t have turned so red, overwhelmed by the Peteness of it all, and maybe then he wouldn’t have been the subject of teasing from both Joe and Andy as they headed out to the buses, and maybe then he wouldn’t have forgotten his headphones in the dressing room.
“Shit,” Patrick muttered, already turning around. “Hang on, I’ll be—don’t wait up—”
“We’ll be here,” Andy called after Patrick as he hurried back down the hallway toward the stage. Were they on the couch, or the vanity? Had he taken them off before or after Pete drew the smiley face on his arm in eyeliner?
Maybe Pete grabbed them, Patrick thought, because that was the kind of thing Pete did. Always pretending he didn’t care, putting on the rock-star facade, and then going backstage to check the green room for any abandoned possessions before he headed back to the tour bus. Patrick thought of Pete onstage only a few minutes prior, practically glowing with happiness, and suppressed a smile of his own.
When he approached the dressing room, he heard voices from the other side of the door. He almost opened it automatically, expecting Pete, or maybe an employee of the theater, but when he heard Pete’s voice, it was sharp and cold, something Patrick could cut himself on. He froze with his fingers wrapped around the doorhandle.
“I’m not mad,” Pete said, “why would I be mad?”
“Disappointed, then,” said another voice. Male. “You’re disappointed I’m here.”
“You know that’s not true,” Pete said.
“Do I?” the other man asked, testy.
There was a tense silence and then Pete said: “I’m not disappointed. I don’t know what the word for it is.”
Pete Wentz, without words. An unfamiliar beast.
“I get it. If you’re disappointed.” A pause. “I heard the song.”
“Which song? We played a couple,” Pete said drily.
“I don’t know the name. You never write songs with the title in them.”
Pete barked out a laugh, short and sharp and almost bitter, and Patrick’s heart clenched. “Maybe not songs that you’ve listened to.”
“You’re dodging the question,” the other man observed.
“How does it go?”
“You had, uh, a spoken part… They knew it was over. They just didn’t know the day.”
“It’s date,” said Pete. “The tombstones were waiting, they were half-engraved, they knew it was over, they just didn’t know the date.”
“What’s it called?” asked the other man.
“Bang the Doldrums.”
“I like it.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” said Pete.
This was probably where Patrick should’ve knocked, or made some kind of noise, out there in the hallway, alerted Pete to his presence in some way. But instead Patrick stood there, sweat cooling on the back of his neck, and kept listening.
“Is it about me?” the other man asked.
A long, uncomfortable silence. Then Pete again. “Come on, man, don’t ask me that.”
“So it is about me.”
“Didn’t you just say you're getting married in two months?” Pete snapped.
Bang the Doldrums was about a man. A man with a deep voice, who was getting married in two months, who was standing on the other side of this door from Patrick. Feeling almost hysterical, Patrick thought: gay above the waist. Happily ever after below the waist.
“You knew it wouldn’t last. We both knew that. You said so in your song.”
“I thought you might call anyway.”
“You knew I wouldn’t.”
A pause. “Yeah, I knew,” Pete said. “But I still hoped you might.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Pete laughed again, quieter this time. “I guess maybe you’re right. Disappointed.”
“Why write a song about me?”
“What? What do you mean, why write a song about you? I’m a writer, I write songs about things.”
“Okay, sure,” the other man said, “but why put it on the album? Or the setlist?”
Now it was Pete’s turn to get testy. “Well, when you go to a show for an album release, generally the band plays songs from the album.”
“I didn’t know there was going to be a song about me.”
Why was that voice so familiar? Patrick furrowed his brow, racking his memory for where and when he’d heard it before…
“It’s not about you, it’s about us,” Pete argued. “Kind of.”
“There isn’t an us anymore, Pete,” the other man said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“I knew that. I know that.” The sound of something falling over, or maybe pushed. “It’s been a year and a half, you think I don’t know that?”
“You just… I just wanted to see the show. And tell you about the wedding. I didn’t plan any of this out. I didn’t know there was a song.”
“There isn’t,” said Pete. “Nobody knows it’s about you, alright? And we probably won’t perform it again after this tour. So you’re completely fine, okay, nobody knows anything about anything, and you can go get married and nobody will ever know you were sucking my dick on Warped Tour.”
Patrick’s ears were ringing. There was no way. There was absolutely no way that the person on the other side of that door right then, with Pete, while Patrick was on the other side, without Pete, was who he thought it was.
“Don’t be an asshole,” said the other man, and oh fuck, that was totally Mikey Way.
“I’m not being an asshole, you’re being an asshole,” Pete snapped. “Would you just get the fuck out already?”
Patrick didn’t have time to panic—should he run down the hallway? Pretend he just walked up?—before the door to the dressing room swung open and he was pulled halfway inside with it, still gripping the handle.
Sure enough, Mikey stood silhouetted in the doorframe, his thin, chic glasses slipping down the frame of his impossibly elegant nose, all skinny and suave and undeniably cool. Patrick reflexively cringed away from the handsome, disdainful face.
“Sorry,” said Patrick. “So sorry. I just—I forgot my headphones—”
Patrick darted around Mikey, all artsy haircut and stylish clothes, and felt just as fat and stupid and talentless as he had every day of Warped Tour. Pete was standing very still between the couch and the vanity, next to a knocked-over lamp. Patrick didn’t look at him either. He just grabbed his headphones off the vanity—he was right, he must have put them down before Pete broke out the eyeliner—and spun on his heel, dodging Mikey and taking off down the hall before Pete could get the name “Patrick” out of his mouth.
—
So. Three things.
One, Pete was bisexual, or gay, or maybe gay-above-the-belt, or… well, it didn’t really matter, the point was: Pete was into guys. Or maybe he was just into Mikey. Who was a pretty guy, Patrick was man enough to admit that. Like, if Patrick was into guys, he’d probably be into guys like Mikey, guys with big dark eyes who wore eyeliner and like, smoldered gently in Patrick’s direction? Or maybe not, because he didn’t feel comfortable around Mikey, never had, and it wasn’t a homophobia thing, God, he’s not a complete asshole, and it wasn’t like he had any idea that Pete and Mikey were… were… lovers. He just thinks that, you know, Mikey’s a bit unapproachable, all the hardness and effortless cool of Pete-Wentz-from-Arma-Angelus without the warm and fuzzy, hot-mess interior. So, uh, if Patrick was into guys—and again, this is a complete hypothetical—maybe he’d be more into guys like Pete. Guys who wore eyeliner, yes, and were occasionally known to smolder, but also guys who called Patrick and asked him to sing to them when they couldn’t sleep, guys who put their heads in Patrick’s lap when they were watching Ghostbusters for the bajillionth time, guys with big wide smiles and golden skin and eager hands…
…what was he talking about, again?
Anyway, number two: Bang the Doldrums was about Mikey. Which led to number three, which was only kind of a thing, because Patrick didn’t really know if it was true, but every time he thought about it, he kind of lost his mind a little bit. Because number three was that if Pete had written Bang the Doldrums about Mikey, then, like, what else had he written about Mikey? One night and one more time? Me and you, setting in a honeymoon? Oh, fuck, the entirety of G.I.N.A.S.F.S.?
Patrick shoved his face into his pillow and resisted the urge to scream.
He was already in bed when Pete came back to the bus, and Patrick laid in his bunk and stared at the ceiling, listening to Pete change his clothes and climb into bed. He didn’t brush his teeth. Patrick crinkled his nose. Then he thought—what if Mikey kissed Pete, what if they did other stuff—and he was even more disgusted.
Again, Patrick was not homophobic! He was not disgusted by Pete wanting to put his hands or his mouth near or on other dudes’ parts! He wasn’t disgusted by Mikey wanting to do that either! It was just, like, that was totally unhygienic, not to brush your teeth after, and also, Mikey was cheating on his fiancee, presuming he and Pete had done something, which, based on the conversation Patrick had overheard, didn’t seem like it was going to happen, so it wouldn’t really make a ton of sense if they suddenly hooked up, but still? It was the principle of the matter, okay, like, why did Mikey even show up if he didn’t want something from Pete?
If Patrick was into dudes, which he wasn’t, and if he was into Pete and he’d actually, somehow, miraculously managed to get Pete to fall in love with him as totally and completely as Mikey seemed to have, and he was trying to break things off once and for all, then he certainly wouldn’t be showing up to a Fall Out Boy show. That was like taking a starving vegan to an all-you-can-eat barbeque, okay? That was, like, the absolute peak of Pete Wentz, sweaty and sexy, almost post-coital in the aftershow glow…. not that Patrick thought Pete was sexy.
Patrick punched his pillow several times and told himself he was fluffing it.
He hadn’t slept at all that night. But he could hear Pete tossing and turning in his own bunk, and he knew that if he made any noise, Pete might poke his head out from behind his curtain and whisper-hiss Patrick! over and over until Patrick opened his own curtain and let Pete climb in and curl up against Patrick’s chest. Or, possibly even worse, Pete might not, because he was embarrassed, or angry. So instead Patrick held very still and made no noise, and listened to Pete moving around, and they both laid awake all night.
The next morning was hellish. Patrick must’ve gone to sleep at some point, because when he woke up the bus wasn’t moving anymore, and there was a headache forming in his left temple. He pressed his fingers into his bleary eyes and stumbled out of his bunk, and, because there was no mercy, immediately bumped into a shirtless Pete.
“Oh,” said Pete, eyes wide. “Hi. Sorry.”
Pete had already wriggled into his teenage-girl-jeans and was evidently in the process of putting on his t-shirt, which was in a size better suited for a child between the ages of eight and ten. Patrick didn’t even have, like, the bandwidth to deal with that right now, so he just grunted and went to step around Pete, who then tried to clothesline him with a skinny arm.
“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Patrick asked, still rubbing at one eye.
“We’re good, right?” Pete demanded. “Because, like, I don’t know, man, I can’t, I don’t know if I can handle it if we’re not good.”
Patrick looked him in the eyes, which was quite a feat considering there was a serious amount of skin on display, and he totally wanted to look at Pete’s chest—just to see if there was any, like, evidence, you know, not because he wanted to look at Pete shirtless. Pete’s eyes were very round and he was standing further away from Patrick than normal, and for the first time it occurred to Patrick that Pete was scared.
Patrick hated that he had put that look on Pete’s face. “Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t we be?”
Pete squinted at Patrick. “You’re not mad? About…”
“There’s nothing to be mad about,” Patrick said.
“You kind of seem mad,” said Pete.
“I’m not.” Patrick decided to leave out the fact that he kind of wanted to wring Mikey Way’s neck, because that didn’t make sense, even to himself.
“You’re not mad about me being… y’know…” Pete trailed off.
Patrick almost laughed. “Dude, you’ve been talking about sex with guys since, like, van days. Gay above the waist, remember?”
“Well, the point of that was that it wasn’t sex. Since it was above the waist.”
“What I’m saying,” Patrick said, “is that I already knew. And it doesn’t make a difference to me.”
That was the right thing to say, apparently, because Pete paused to process Patrick’s words, and then beamed, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and while Patrick stood blinded by his impossible brightness, Pete took advantage of his stunned state to jump up and wrap himself around Patrick’s torso like an octopus, long limbs and bony hips and way, way too much of that skin touching Patrick all of a sudden.
Patrick wrapped an arm around Pete’s waist so he wouldn’t overbalance and plodded his way out into the lounge to make a cup of coffee.
As Patrick stirred sugar into his coffee, Pete sat on the couch in the lounge—now with a shirt on, thankfully—and chattered away. But Patrick found himself struggling to pay attention to Pete’s words, lost in thoughts of Bang the Doldrums and Warped Tour and Infinity on High as a whole. Best friends, ex-friends ‘til the end, better off as lovers and not the other way around. Mikey had been a lover, sure, but was he a best friend? Had Pete thought of Mikey as his best friend? It had certainly seemed so during Warped Tour, when Patrick only ever saw Pete at shows and signings. But wasn’t Patrick Pete’s best friend? Was he as replaceable as he had always feared himself to be? Was there something he could have, should have done—
“Hey, Rickster,” said Pete from behind him, and flicked the brim of Patrick’s hat. “Wanna watch Terminator?”
“No, not really,” Patrick sighed. “But I will if you want to.”
Pete grinned. “That’s why I love you.”
He felt the words like a punch to the stomach. Patrick resisted the urge to double over, which was completely ridiculous, because Pete said “I love you” all the time. They were easy words to get from him and he never expected you to say them back, and Patrick could never tell if he really meant them at all.
Did Pete ever tell Mikey he loved him?
Patrick forced a smile and sat down on the couch with his coffee while Pete set up the DVD player. Then Pete launched himself onto Patrick, jostling the coffee mug and nearly earning himself a faceful of hot coffee, and while Patrick cursed at him Pete just curled up on the couch like a cat and settled his head on Patrick’s thigh. When Patrick didn’t immediately put his hand in Pete’s hair, Pete looked up expectantly, and held eye contact until Patrick sighed again and started carding his fingers through Pete’s tangled fringe. Only then did Pete turn his gaze to the screen, content.
Patrick tried to watch the movie, he really did, but they had seen Terminator approximately one million times and he’d barely gotten any sleep, and his mind wasn’t running in circles so much as it was running back and forth between Pete on my lap, the warm, solid weight of him, the familiar smell of his hair, and Pete and Mikey, Pete and Mikey, Pete and Mikey…
Why couldn’t Patrick stop thinking about it?
—
There were only a few stops left on tour: DC, Raleigh, Atlanta, Orlando. Then they would take a break for a couple of months, do some promotional material, maybe some interviews—but most importantly, Patrick wouldn’t have to sing the song anymore.
He was getting to the point where he couldn’t even think the name of the song without grinding his teeth together, much less perform three-and-a-half minutes of it. It was like every time he sang the words—I cast a spell over the west to make you think of me, the same way I think of you—he saw Mikey’s beautiful chiseled face in his mind. Patrick wanted to break his hand on it. That was Pete’s best friend? A subject worthy of Pete’s lyrics?
They performed Bang the Doldrums in Orlando and Patrick must have been doing something with his face, because Pete didn’t come over to him during the song, not even to bounce up and down on his toes and butcher the bassline in Patrick’s direction. It only frustrated Patrick further. Their next song was Where Is Your Boy and it, too, fell victim to Patrick’s anger.
Every lyric, somehow, could be about Pete and Mikey, even songs from years prior to Warped Tour, even lyrics that Patrick himself had written, and he found himself growling maybe he won’t find out what I know into the microphone with a hatred he’d never felt, not even when writing the song, because fuck, Mikey Way had totally found out what Patrick knew. Pete had always been the best part of—well, not just Chicago, but like, every single city and town and venue that they had ever been in, Pete had been the best part, the most important part, Patrick’s best friend. And Patrick might not have written the words about Pete, but they were about him now, in this moment, with this new realization that there was an entire side to Pete that had been closed to Patrick, that Mikey had gotten access to, and that Patrick hadn’t even realized was there. So, yeah, Mikey Way had found out what Patrick knew—that Pete was the best, the brightest—and also found out what Patrick didn’t.
Did Pete tell Mikey things that he’d never told Patrick? The thought made Patrick’s skin crawl. He performed the rest of the set in a daze, fumbling his way through XO and Dance, Dance and Saturday, and he didn’t fully unclench until they were on the plane back home—well, not home home, but Los Angeles.
Andy was asleep beside him, head pressed against the window. Across the aisle, Joe was asleep too, slumped over and drooling onto the tray table. He’d never been a pretty sleeper. But then, at least he was sleeping, unlike Pete, who was wandering up and down the aisle, tapping at his Sidekick, which Patrick knew for a fact was totally useless thirty-seven thousand feet in the air.
Patrick unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked when he got to the front of the plane.
Pete shrugged, his hood up and over his head. He looked—sick, almost, his hair sweaty and flattened to his forehead, his eyes bloodshot behind three days of built-up eyeliner.
“You look tired,” said Patrick.
“Fuck you,” Pete said, without heat. “I am tired.”
“Can I help?”
Pete shrugged again. He turned to resume his pacing and Patrick grabbed his arm.
“Let me help,” Patrick revised. “Sit down.”
He manhandled Pete into one of the open rows, forcing him to sit between Patrick and the window, then pulled Pete’s hood down. Instinctively Pete went to put it back up, but then Patrick pushed Pete’s head down onto his shoulder, and they were both still.
“This is weird,” Pete said after a moment.
Patrick almost asked why, but, like, he knew why. It was weird because Patrick was never the one initiating the physical contact. Never ever. He was the one who tolerated Pete’s antics—the arm around the shoulder, the kisses on the neck, the frankly inappropriate amount of licking.
“I’m trying something new,” said Patrick. And he was, technically. He’d thought about it. The only difference between him and Mikey—other than the fact that Mikey was super hot and effortlessly cool and completely out of Patrick’s league, much like Pete—was that Mikey didn’t just let Pete touch him, he actively participated in the touching. So, if Patrick wanted to reclaim the title of best friend and not just sing it through gritted teeth every night, then he should totally start touching Pete back, right? Because then maybe Pete would be talking about Patrick when he wrote best friends? Maybe he would write something else for Patrick, something even better than Bang the Doldrums, with a happy ending and not half-engraved tombstones?
“Hmm, okay,” mumbled Pete, nuzzling into the junction between Patrick’s neck and shoulder. It definitely didn’t send tingles up Patrick’s spine or anything.
Patrick tilted his head back and relaxed into the seat. After a few minutes of snuffling and twitching, Pete’s breathing evened out, and Patrick allowed himself to smile, a little smug, because he knew for a fact that Pete had hardly slept at all on Warped Tour. Probably because he was on the My Chem bus, and not with Patrick, his real best friend.
—
“So,” Joe said, garbled around the joint hanging off his lower lip. “You’re totally jealous.”
“What? What are you even talking about right now?” Patrick was confused.
He and Joe were sitting outside the venue in Minneapolis, hours after their show had ended. They were supposed to be loading onto the buses and heading to Milwaukee but Andy and Pete had run into some friends from their hardcore days, and now they were off doing God-knows-what with God-knew-who—in other words, Pete was out making a mess, and Andy was supervising, so Joe and Patrick were left to their own devices. Which meant that Patrick messed around on his computer for a while until Joe came in and asked him if he wanted to smoke, and Patrick didn’t, not when they had another five weeks of shows ahead of them, but he went and sat outside to keep Joe company. And thus began the interrogation.
Joe said, “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I genuinely have no idea,” said Patrick.
Joe cupped a hand around the joint and flicked the lighter. “I’m talking about Pete,” he said. “Obviously.”
“Why would I be jealous of Pete?”
“You’re not jealous of Pete. You’re jealous of Mikey. Duh.”
Patrick swallowed against the sudden, frantic laughter that threatened to burst out of his chest. “What do you mean, jealous of Mikey?”
“Dude,” Joe said. “You don’t have to play dumb. I know—me and Andy both know about Pete and Mikey, okay? And like, all of My Chem knows, and probably half the other bands who were on Warped Tour.”
“Wait, you all knew about Pete and Mikey?”
Joe looked at Patrick sideways. “You didn’t?”
Patrick shook his head.
“Well, shit,” said Joe. Smoke billowed out of his nose like a dragon. “I thought you knew. I mean, they were pretty obvious. Living in each other’s back pockets.”
Patrick was totally losing his mind.
“Kinda like you and Pete, back in the old days,” Joe mused.
“Did you know he was coming to the show in New York?” Patrick blurted out.
Thank God, Joe didn’t look surprised at all. “No, I didn’t,” he said, “but I saw him hanging around backstage right when we came off. He was staring you down. Like, total bitch face.”
“What?”
Joe held his joint between two fingers and smirked. “I mean… Pete was all over you.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Patrick.
Joe raised his eyebrows.
“Like, not any more than normal?”
“He was basically inside your hoodie when we walked off,” said Joe.
“That’s normal for us,” Patrick argued weakly.
“Sure, man, whatever. I’m just saying—we came offstage, Pete was trying to climb into your skin, you didn’t even notice Mikey was there, and then we headed off to the buses and Mikey pulled Pete aside.” Joe paused to take a hit. “And then,” he continued, “you went to grab your headphones, which took, like, half an hour, for some reason… and now all of a sudden you’re handsy with Pete, who’s usually the handsy one, and you can’t make it through Bang the Doldrums without looking like you want to snap the neck off your guitar.”
Patrick buried his face in his hands.
“Hey, don’t like… don’t cry, or whatever it is you’re doing right now? I can’t really tell?” Joe paused, and when Patrick offered no response, soldiered on. “Listen, I’m not trying to embarrass you or anything, man. But it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.”
“Please don’t say that,” Patrick said.
“No, wait, I didn’t mean—like, it’s obvious to me, because I know you, and I know Pete, and anybody with half a brain knew what was going on with Mikey—shit, sorry, no offense.”
Patrick seriously considered the merits of beating his brains out against the brick wall they were sitting on.
“But—what I’m trying to say—I’m trying to say that you should talk to Pete, man.”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
Joe looked at Patrick like he was stupid. “Because you’re in love with him?”
It wasn’t like the world stopped or anything. That was a cliche that Patrick had never understood: receive life-changing information, world stops, person struggles to understand themselves and their place in the universe before crashing back down to Earth.
“No, I’m not?” Patrick had intended it to be a statement, but his voice betrayed him, ticking upwards at the end of every sentence. “I’m not gay?”
Joe’s eyebrows were practically in his hairline. “Uh, okay. Well. That’s fine. I mean, you don’t have to be gay to be in love with Pete. Gay above the belt, remember?”
How could he forget? Patrick opened his mouth and closed it, searching for something to say. “Uh,” he tried, “I’m not gay above or below the belt. I’m just… Pete’s my best friend.”
“No, he’s not,” said Joe. “I’m your best friend. Pete’s your soulmate.”
Patrick thought about that for a moment, turning over the word in his mind. Pete had called them soulmates several times, usually musical soulmates. It’s you and me, Pattycakes. We’re magic. And, now that he was thinking about it, Patrick couldn’t remember a time that Pete had called Patrick his best friend. But… if he wasn’t jealous of Mikey for being Pete’s best friend, then…
“Oh, God,” said Patrick aloud.
Joe hummed in agreement.
“Best friends, ex-friends ‘til the end, better off as lovers, and not the other way around,” Patrick half-sang. “I’ve been thinking this whole time that I was jealous of Mikey, like, because Pete called him his best friend in the song, and I thought I was his best friend? And Mikey has access to this whole other side of Pete that I’ve never seen, and he knows things about him that I don’t, and shouldn’t I know those things, if I’m his best friend?”
“Patrick, my dude,” Joe said gravely, “there is absolutely nothing Mikey knows about Pete that I don’t that I would want to know.”
“Shit, it was the lovers part I wanted, not the best friends part, it was—I wanted this is a love song in my own way—”
“If you say you want happily-ever-after below the waist with Pete, I’m gonna punch you,” said Joe.
“Oh my God, I’m in love with Pete. I’m totally in love with Pete,” said Patrick dumbly. “I want him to write gross schmoopy lyrics about me, and hold my hand, and do whatever the fuck else he did with stupid fucking Mikey, only more, and every time I think about that guy and his stupid handsome face I want to strangle him with his own power cord.”
“Pete or Mikey?”
“Both,” Patrick wailed, and covered his face.
After a moment, Joe patted him on the back. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, man.”
“This is, like, kind of the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Patrick.
“No, it’s not,” said Joe. “Well… maybe. But you’re kind of the best thing that’s ever happened to him, so it evens out.”
Patrick groaned.
—
He needed some time to process, so he avoided Pete like the plague for three days, which was easier than expected, since Patrick was sharing a tour bus with Andy and it’s not like Pete spent all that much time outside of his bunk anyway. Their performances were mostly normal? Except that after Patrick’s stiffness on the first night, Pete barely touched him at all, and Patrick shouldn’t have been surprised by how much he missed the contact but Pete’s absence was like a physical ache.
Patrick found himself turning toward Pete, as always, searching him out—but Pete rotated away, offering only his side profile in sharp relief under the stage lights. Patrick felt restless, like there was something under his skin and he needed to scratch it out… or like he needed to reach out and touch Pete. Get Pete under his hands. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but Patrick had never recognized it for what it was before, and he was almost dizzy with it, swallowing down anxiety and trepidation and giddiness, like, he was totally giddy over Pete Wentz, resisting the urge to giggle like a teenager every time Pete smiled.
Four days after his revelation, Patrick asked to cut Bang the Doldrums from the setlist.
Neither Andy nor Joe looked surprised, but it was already soundcheck, and so: “Maybe we should’ve brought this up earlier?” Andy asked, pointed yet polite.
“Yeah, I don’t really know what we would play instead,” Joe agreed. “We haven’t rehearsed anything.”
Patrick pushed down some extremely uncharitable thoughts about Joe Trohman. “You’re probably right,” he said. “I’m just kinda sick of playing it.”
Pete set his bass down on its stand harder than was strictly necessary, nearly knocking it over. Then, ever the drama queen, he fled the stage.
Joe and Andy looked at Patrick.
“Dude,” said Joe.
“I didn’t even say anything!”
Andy frowned at Patrick. “You know how Pete gets. He’s a sensitive guy.”
Joe looked at Andy, then shuffled closer to Patrick. “Listen, man, I’m not—I’m not telling you what to do here but—you and I both know why you don’t want to sing that song. Pete doesn’t.”
Patrick scowled.
“No, seriously,” said Joe. “He just heard you say that you’re sick of this song where he’s totally pouring his heart out, and he thinks you’re straight, and he has no idea how you feel about him.” Joe paused. “So he probably thinks you’re homophobic. And he definitely thinks you’re being a dick.”
“I’m not homophobic,” Patrick protested. “And I am straight.”
“You’re in love with Pete. You can’t be straight, like, by definition,” said Joe. “Quit arguing and go get your boy.”
“He’s not my boy,” Patrick grumbled, but his traitorous stomach fluttered anyway.
Much to his surprise and against his better judgement, he went after Pete, and Patrick soon found himself standing inside Joe and Pete’s tour bus, beside Pete’s bunk, listening to the faint sound of Pete clicking around on his Sidekick.
He knocked on the wall. “Pete?”
Silence. Then the clicking resumed. “What do you want?”
“Can you come out for a second?”
“No,” Pete said petulantly.
“Okay, fine,” Patrick said. “I’ll come in.”
“What?” said Pete, but Patrick had already peeled back the curtain and climbed inside, facing Pete, who was propped up against his pillows. In the cramped space, their legs automatically slotted together, and the anxious-longing-happiness that had been bubbling in Patrick for several days reached new heights.
Pete looked as shocked as Patrick felt, his dark-rimmed eyes wide and black in the dim light of the bunk. His Sidekick had fallen into his lap and Patrick reached for it, closed it and tucked it under Pete’s thigh. This was a version of Pete that Patrick barely recognized—motionless, eyes fixed on Patrick’s face, and the boldness he had felt in climbing into Pete’s bunk uninvited was quickly dissolved by Pete’s searching gaze.
“What the hell is going on here?” Pete asked.
“I, uh, wanted to talk?”
“You wanted to talk,” Pete said flatly. “Okay, let’s talk.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“What did you want to talk about?” Pete continued. “When you said you were sick of Doldrums? The only song about me and Mikey?”
“Is it?” Patrick blurted out.
Pete’s brow furrowed.
“I mean, uh…” Patrick tried to collect himself. This was only Pete, he reminded himself, Pete-from-Arma-Angelus, yes, but also Pete-from-Fall-Out-Boy, Pete-his-soulmate. “Is Bang the Doldrums… the only song about Mikey?”
“Why?” Pete asked. “So you can ask not to play those too? You wanna just throw out the whole album?”
Patrick’s heart twinged in his chest. “The whole album is about Mikey?”
Pete scowled, then, finally, mercifully, broke eye contact. He examined the chipped polish on his fingernails with an air of nonchalance that, like, he had to know that Patrick could see right through, so why even bother?
“No,” Pete said, “that’s the only song about him.”
“Really? Not even G.I.N.A.S.F.S.?”
Pete scoffed and looked back up at Patrick. “Just because it has gay in the title doesn’t mean it’s about Mikey, alright? My life doesn’t revolve around a summer fling from two years ago. Our music,” he added pointedly, “doesn’t revolve around that.”
“Good,” Patrick breathed. “That’s good.”
Pete’s frown deepened. “What, you don’t want to sing about another dude? I thought you were fine with it. You said you were fine with… with me. Being the way I am.” His eyes slid away from Patrick and all of a sudden, Patrick realized—this wasn’t actually angry, thunderous Pete, but vulnerable Pete. Lashing out to protect his soft interior.
So Patrick decided that he would be vulnerable, too. “I want to sing about me.”
This was complete nonsense, which Patrick realized shortly after he opened his mouth. Pete’s eyebrows furrowed.
“I mean, I don’t want you to write songs about Mikey,” Patrick backtracked. “I, uh, I thought I was jealous of Mikey, because in Doldrums, you said he was your best friend? So I was like, well, what do I have to do to make Pete think of me as his best friend again, because I don’t want to be replaced by Mikey? But then I was talking to Joe— and I had been thinking all these totally crazy things, right, like how I would never date a guy like Mikey, because I would much rather date a guy like you? And I know I’m not as, uh, cool as Mikey, or as handsome, or whatever…”
Pete was shaking his head almost violently. He opened his mouth to speak, but Patrick kept going, desperate to get the words out, even if they were all in the wrong order.
“But, uh, I think that I would—I know that I would try my best? To be someone worthy of writing about?” Patrick clenched his hands in the fabric of his jeans. He wished he could stop turning his statements into questions. He wished that he could reach across the space between them and touch Pete’s face. “What I’m saying, uh… sorry, this isn’t making, uh, a ton of sense. What I’m saying is that I want to sing about me, because I want you to write lyrics about me. I want you to think of me and feel as completely crazy, like, totally out of control, as I do about you. I want to be your best friend, and your lover, and probably everything in between.” Finally, he looked up at Pete. “And I never want to play Bang the Doldrums again, because it drives me insane knowing that you wrote that song about someone else.”
Pete stared back at him, lips parted and eyes wide, stunned into silence. Patrick let his words echo for a moment, and then he realized—he had totally done this out of order, he hadn’t even asked if Pete still loved Mikey, if he ever had, and he had no reason at all to believe that Pete felt the same way about Patrick, like, what was he even doing, God, he was such a fuckup.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Patrick blurted out. “I’ll just—let me just—”
He started to scoot toward the edge of the bunk, pulling the curtain aside, when Pete sprang and grabbed Patrick’s shoulders, pinning him to the wall. Suddenly they were much closer, Pete’s nose only inches from Patrick’s own, and somehow all the oxygen in the room was gone. Patrick felt a little lightheaded, going cross-eyed to watch Pete’s lips move.
“Mikey has one song,” said Pete. “You have… God, I don’t even know how many.”
“What,” Patrick squeaked.
“Wishing to be the friction in your jeans,” Pete said. “We’re always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team. There, that’s one. Kisses on the necks of best friends. Who’d you think that was about? Two. Tell me you’d like boys like me better in the dark lying on top of you. Three. Then there’s the chorus of Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner—four—and basically the entirety of G.I.N.A.S.F.S., so that’s five.”
“I know I’m supposed to love you,” Patrick said. Their noses were brushing together. If Patrick leaned forward, only an inch or so…
“I wrote that on Warped Tour,” said Pete. “I was on the My Chem bus, and I was waking up with Mikey, but we both knew who I really wanted.”
Patrick’s eyes fluttered shut. He thought that if he looked at Pete for much longer, he would faint.
“You missed all the important parts of the song, Rickster. I couldn’t bring myself to call, except to call it quits.”
“You wanted him to call,” Patrick said. “You told him so in the dressing room.”
Pete huffed. Patrick felt Pete’s breath against his lips and nearly whimpered.
“You and your eavesdropping,” said Pete.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” Pete said. “It’s okay. It got us here.”
“I didn’t know here was an option,” Patrick admitted.
When Pete kissed him, his mouth was soft, and warm, and Patrick couldn’t really believe it was happening. It was like Pete-Wentz-from-Arma-Angelus syndrome—why the hell is this impossibly cool and talented guy kicking around with a couple of idiot kids like us?—but a thousand times worse, because Pete was kissing him, frumpy old Patrick with the trucker hats and the goofy sideburns, when he could be kissing probably anybody else in the entire world. And Patrick was melting against him, and Pete was cradling the back of Patrick’s head in one hand to keep it from hitting the wall, and he was totally letting Patrick snake a hand up his shirt, which made Patrick feel a little bit like a dorky fifteen-year-old touching boobs for the first time. Breathless and frightened by the strength of his own desire.
Pete pulled away first and Patrick stared up at him, watching him sit back on Patrick’s thighs. When had Pete climbed into his lap? When had he put his hands on Pete’s waist? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Pete’s mouth.
“Patrick?”
Patrick hummed and slid his hands down Pete’s sides until he was resting his hands on Pete’s hips. God, this was insanity, like, how was this his real life?
“Patrick.”
“Hmm?” Patrick mumbled.
“We have a show in an hour,” Pete reminded Patrick. He was smiling with all the smugness of someone who knew exactly how thoroughly he’d broken Patrick’s brain with a single kiss. Except it wasn’t really the kiss—it was all those songs that he’d been writing about Patrick the whole time, and the fact that he was perched in Patrick’s lap, looking down at him with big soft eyes like he was the one who had won something, and not the other way around.
And, okay, maybe it was a little bit the kiss.
“Mhm,” Patrick said.
Pete laughed. It was a good sound. Then he pressed his thumb against Patrick’s bottom lip and leaned back in.
“Is this what I’m gonna have to look forward to every time I kiss you?” Pete teased.
“Only one way to find out.”
—
Patrick sang Bang the Doldrums for the last time that night, Pete pressed up along the length of his back, barely even pretending to play his bass. Just breathing, hot-wet-sloppy, on the nape of Patrick’s neck.
When the song was over, he smeared his mouth along Patrick’s spine like a promise and shouted we’re magic into Patrick’s ear, over the roar of the crowd. Patrick’s grin was too wide to hide behind the microphone.
A lesser man might have hoped Mikey Way was in the audience—but Patrick didn’t want to make him jealous.