Isaac’s name was on the list before the promoter’s.
Rafi wrote it at 4:10 every Friday, sitting on an upturned milk crate by the Rialto’s alley door with a clipboard on his knee and a Sharpie in his teeth. Second line, right under the headliner’s plus-ones. ISAAC B. Block capitals. Same place for seven Fridays.
Isaac had shown up to five of them. He had complained about the DJ at all five.
On the seventh Friday, at 9:02, he stood in the alley in the black canvas jacket he wore like it had been issued to him at birth, and he didn’t go in.
“Why am I on there?”
Rafi didn’t look up from the clipboard. “Because you come.”
“I didn’t tell you I was coming tonight.”
“You’re here.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“The point,” Isaac said, “is you write my name down before I tell you.”
Rafi looked at the list. Second line. His own handwriting, a little neater than the rest, because he always slowed down when he wrote that name. He’d done it at 4:10, before the opener had even loaded in.
“You’re getting into a club night for free,” he said. “Most people say thank you.”
“Against my will.”
“You drove twenty-five minutes from Grove City.”
“Under protest.”
Rafi checked him off. Isaac didn’t move.
“Go inside. There’s a line.”
Isaac turned and looked at the line. Three girls in going-out tops sharing a vape, and a guy on his phone.
“Very exclusive,” Isaac said.
“Isaac.”
“Rafael.”
That was the problem with people who’d known you before the eyeliner. They used your whole name when they wanted you to stop performing.
Rafi was twenty-five and had run the Friday list at the Rialto for two years. The job was a clipboard, a headset, a stool by the alley door, and the absolute authority to tell a drunk finance bro from Dublin that he was not, in fact, on the list, no matter how many times he said the promoter’s name. Rafi did it in a cropped black bomber over a mesh top, silver hoops, a winged liner so sharp the bouncers called it a weapon. His voice stayed flat and polite. The night shift group chat called him Mom. He was a good door.
Isaac Brandt was thirty and a welder at a fab shop in Grandview that made handrails and staircases for the new apartment blocks going up all over the Short North. He had forearms full of little white burn scars and a sunburn line at his collar that never went away. He had been Rafi’s older brother Sami’s best friend since high school in Hilliard, which meant that until Rafi was about twenty-two, Isaac had been a large quiet background shape at Haddad family cookouts, eating three burgers and fixing somebody’s truck. Then, at Sami’s engagement party, Rafi had come out of the house in a sundress, and Isaac had stopped with a burger halfway to his mouth, and that was three years ago. Rafi had been writing his name on lists in one form or another ever since.
He had never done anything about it. Isaac was Sami’s friend. Isaac was straight. Isaac had had a girlfriend named Brianna for four years, and then, since February, hadn’t. Isaac came to a club night he hated five Fridays out of seven and stood at the back bar drinking Stella and glaring at the DJ, and every hour or so he’d drift over to the alley door. He’d stand next to Rafi’s stool for ten minutes without saying anything and then go back in.
Rafi had assumed he was bored.
“Why do you keep putting me on the list?” Isaac said.
The easy answers were all right there. Rafi had used every one. Because somebody has to keep the bar profitable. Because you hate the DJ and it’s funny. Because if I don’t you’ll complain. Isaac had heard all of them. He stood there under the alley’s one sodium light and waited, his hands in his jacket pockets, like he had all night.
Behind Rafi the door opened and the bass came out into the alley. Somebody inside yelled Rafi’s name. Malik, probably, the house sound guy, who liked Rafi and kept trying to buy him drinks he never had time for.
“Habit,” Rafi said.
“That’s worse.”
“How is that worse?”
“Because habits mean something,” Isaac said. “You don’t write a guy’s name down seven weeks in a row by accident. I weld for a living, Raf. I know what it looks like when somebody does the same thing over and over on purpose.”
Rafi opened his mouth, and nothing came out.
Isaac looked at him for a second longer. Then he nodded, like he’d gotten an answer anyway.
“I’ll be at the back bar,” he said. “I’m staying till close. I’m driving you home.”
“I take a Lyft.”
“Not tonight.”
He went inside. Rafi sat on his milk crate with his heart going like a kick drum and checked in forty-one people without seeing a single face.
Close was 2:00. Load-out, cash count, and sweep were done by 2:40. Rafi stood in the alley with his bag over his shoulder and his feet killing him in his boots, and Isaac’s truck was idling at the mouth of the alley. A dark green F-150 with FAB WORKS INC. on the door and a welding helmet on the dash.
Isaac leaned across and opened the passenger door from the inside.
Rafi got in.
The cab smelled like metal and coffee and the pine tree air freshener that had given up years ago. There was a hard hat on the floor. Rafi put his feet on either side of it. They pulled out onto High Street, past the closed-up tattoo shop on Fifth where Wes’s neon anchor was still buzzing in the window, and for four blocks neither of them said anything.
At a red light at King Avenue, Isaac said, “I’m not straight.”
Rafi turned his head.
“I thought I was.” Isaac’s hands were at ten and two, like a driving test. “I mean I was, for a long time, I think. And then Sami’s engagement party. The dress. And I didn’t know what to do with it, so I didn’t do anything with it for three years, which was stupid, and then Bri left in February because she said I’d been somewhere else for a long time, and she wasn’t wrong.”
The light turned green. He didn’t go. There was nobody behind them.
“I’ve never been with a guy,” Isaac said. “With anybody who isn’t. I don’t know what you call it. I don’t want to say it wrong.”
“You can call me Rafi.”
“Rafi.” He breathed out. “I’ve never done this. I don’t know if I’m going to be good at it. But I’m not bored at that door, Raf. I’m not there for the Stella. I’ve been standing there next to you for seven Fridays trying to work up to it.”
Rafi looked out the windshield at the empty green light.
“You could have just asked,” he said. “At any point. On any Friday.”
“Yeah,” said Isaac. “You could’ve written something other than my name.”
Rafi laughed. It came out wet.
“Go,” he said. “The light’s green. Take me to your place.”
Isaac went.
It was a small brick ranch in Grove City with a chain-link fence and a detached garage. Through the garage window Rafi could see a welding bench and a half-finished steel planter. Inside the house was clean in the particular way single men’s houses are clean when a woman used to live there: a throw pillow nobody would have bought, a candle nobody would ever light. Isaac turned on one lamp in the living room and stood there with his keys still in his hand.
Rafi took them out of his hand and put them on the counter.
Then he kissed him.
Isaac made a surprised sound into his mouth and then his hands came up. Big, careful, rough hands, one on Rafi’s jaw and one at the small of his back, pulling him in. He kissed like a man who’d been thinking about it for three years: too hard at first, then slower, then deep. He tasted like the spearmint gum he’d been chewing in the truck. His stubble scraped Rafi’s chin. Rafi pushed the canvas jacket off his shoulders and let it fall on the floor, and felt Isaac’s heart going under the flannel just as hard as his own.
“Bedroom,” Rafi said against his mouth.
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”
Isaac’s bedroom had a plaid comforter and a box fan in the window. Rafi sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots, then the bomber, then the mesh top. He looked up at Isaac, who was standing in the doorway staring at him with an expression that made Rafi’s chest hurt.
“Take your shirt off,” Rafi said.
Isaac did. He was broad and solid and hairy across the chest, a farmer’s tan from the neck and forearms down, a white burn scar the size of a quarter on his right shoulder. He hesitated at his belt. His hands actually stopped on the buckle.
“Hey,” Rafi said softly. “Come here.”
Isaac came and stood between his knees. Rafi put his hands over Isaac’s on the buckle and held them there.
“I’ve got you,” Rafi said. “Just tell me if you want to slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down.” Isaac’s voice was rough. “I want to not screw it up.”
“You won’t,” said Rafi, and undid the buckle himself.
He unbuttoned the work jeans. Pushed them down, and the gray boxer briefs with them, and Isaac’s cock came free right in front of his face.
Oh.
It was big. Long and thick and cut, with a heavy vein running up the left side, and fully hard, flushed dark at the head, curving up toward Isaac’s stomach. Precum was already beading at the slit and sliding down. His balls were big and hung low in a nest of dark hair. He smelled like soap and a long day, sweat and metal.
Rafi wrapped his hand around it and Isaac’s whole body shuddered. It was hot in his palm, heavy, and it jerked when he squeezed.
“Christ,” Isaac said.
“You okay?”
“Nobody’s—” He laughed, shaky. “It’s been since February.”
Rafi leaned in and licked the drop off the head, slow, and Isaac’s hand shot to Rafi’s shoulder and gripped it.
“Raf.”
“Mm?”
“Nothing. God. Nothing, keep going.”
Rafi took him in his mouth. He went slow, because he wanted to, because he’d been thinking about this for three years of Haddad family cookouts. He took the head in and sucked, tongued the slit, tasted the salt of him, then slid down as far as he could go. Isaac was thick enough that it stretched Rafi’s jaw right away and long enough that he hit the back of Rafi’s throat with plenty left over. Rafi gagged, eyes watering, pulled back. Isaac’s hand went straight to his hair.
“Sorry, sorry—”
Rafi pulled off, breathing. “Don’t be sorry. I want it. Put your hand back.”
Isaac put his hand back.
Rafi went down on him again, deeper, until his throat opened and took more, and Isaac’s fingers flexed in his hair and he made a low broken sound. His hips started moving just slightly, pushing in, then catching himself. Rafi looked up at him through his wet lashes and pulled Isaac’s hand tighter in his hair. Go on. Isaac swore and let his hips go.
He fucked Rafi’s mouth, slow and careful and then less careful, and Rafi took it with his hands on Isaac’s hairy thighs. Spit ran down his chin. His liner was going, he could feel it smearing under his eyes, and he didn’t care. His own cock was hard and aching in his jeans.
Isaac pulled him off by the hair.
“I want—” he said, and stopped.
“Tell me.”
“I want to be inside you. I want to see your face when I’m in you. Is that— can we—”
Rafi stood up. Kicked off his jeans and the little black briefs underneath. He stood there naked in front of Isaac, slim and smooth, his cock flushed and hard and curving up, and watched Isaac look.
Isaac reached out and touched Rafi’s cock with two fingers, just the tips, like he was touching hot metal. Then he wrapped his whole hand around it and stroked once, and Rafi’s knees nearly went.
“You’re so pretty,” Isaac said. Like it was a fact he’d measured. “You were always so pretty.”
“There’s lube in my bag,” Rafi said, and his voice wobbled.
It took a while. Isaac was careful the way he was probably careful at work, like getting it wrong could burn somebody. He lay beside Rafi on the plaid comforter with the box fan humming and worked slick fingers into him. First one, while he kissed Rafi’s neck, then two, slow, listening to every sound Rafi made like it was a gauge he had to read.
“Is that—”
“Yes. More. Crook them. Right—there—”
Isaac found it and Rafi arched off the bed. Isaac looked so pleased with himself that Rafi grabbed his face and kissed him.
When Rafi was loose and panting and shaking, he pushed Isaac onto his back and got the lube and slicked Isaac’s cock himself, slow, twisting his fist over the head. Then he swung a leg over him.
“I want to see your face too,” Rafi said. “Okay?”
Isaac nodded, and his hands came up to Rafi’s hips.
Rafi reached down and held him and lowered himself.
The head was so thick it stopped him. There was a moment of pressure, burning, where he didn’t think it would go, and he breathed out through his mouth and bore down. It pushed past the ring of muscle, and Rafi cried out at the stretch. Isaac froze underneath him.
“Rafi—”
“Don’t move. Don’t move. Just— give me a second.”
Isaac held completely still. His hands on Rafi’s hips didn’t push and didn’t pull. His eyes were fixed on Rafi’s face.
Rafi breathed. The burn eased. Went warm. He sank another inch, and another, slow, until the fullness was enormous. He was stretched around Isaac so completely he could feel the throb of him, feel the vein, feel every inch. He sat all the way down with his palms flat on Isaac’s chest and his mouth open.
“Oh my god,” Isaac whispered. “Oh my god, Raf.”
“Yeah.”
“You feel— you’re so tight, you’re so hot, I—”
“I know. I know. Move with me.”
Rafi rode him slow. Up, until the head almost slipped out, and down, and every time he sank all the way the head dragged over that spot inside him and his whole body shook. Isaac’s hands tightened on his hips and started helping, lifting him, pulling him down. Then Isaac’s hips started meeting him from below, and it went from slow to steady to hard.
The bed creaked. The box fan hummed. Rafi threw his head back.
“Look at me,” Isaac said. Rough. “Please. Look at me.”
Rafi looked down at him. Isaac’s face was flushed, his eyes dark and wet, his mouth open. He looked at Rafi like Rafi was the only lit thing in a dark room.
“Seven Fridays,” Isaac said. “Every Friday I stood there.”
“I know.”
“Every Friday I wanted this.”
“Say it.”
“I wanted you. I wanted you so bad I drove to a club I hate to stand in an alley. I wanted you since the fucking sundress, Rafi.”
Rafi sobbed and came down hard on him and Isaac groaned.
Then Isaac rolled them.
He did it the way he did everything, carefully and then all at once. His arm locked around Rafi’s back and flipped them so Rafi was on the plaid and Isaac was over him, still inside him, never slipping out. Isaac pushed Rafi’s knees up to his chest with one big hand and started fucking him properly. Deep, heavy strokes that drove Rafi up the mattress. Rafi grabbed his shoulders, then the headboard, then Isaac’s face, and held on.
“Good?” Isaac said, and it was the only time he asked all night.
“Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”
He didn’t stop. Rafi’s cock was trapped between their stomachs, rubbing against Isaac’s hairy belly with every thrust, and it was too much. The stretch and the pressure and the slide and Isaac’s weight on him. Isaac’s breathing was right against his ear and he was saying Rafi’s name over and over like he’d just learned it.
“I’m close,” Isaac said. “Raf. I’m—”
“In me. Stay in me. Come in me.”
Isaac made a sound like it hurt and drove in deep and held there.
Rafi felt him come. Felt the big cock swell inside him and pulse, once, twice, hot and flooding. Isaac’s whole body locked up over him, his face buried in Rafi’s neck, a deep shuddering groan that Rafi felt through his own chest. Another pulse. His hips jerked, helpless, pushing deeper, filling him up. Rafi’s hole clenched around him. Isaac got a hand between them around Rafi’s cock and stroked him, rough and clumsy and perfect, and Rafi came across both their stomachs with his heels digging into the backs of Isaac’s thighs.
Isaac didn’t move for a long time. Just lay on him, heavy, breathing.
“Sorry,” Isaac said finally, into his neck. “I’m crushing you.”
“Don’t you dare move.”
They showered in a bathroom with a pink shower curtain Brianna had definitely picked out. Isaac washed Rafi’s hair with a bottle of Head & Shoulders, extremely seriously, and then they went back to bed. Isaac fell asleep in about four minutes with his arm across Rafi’s waist.
Rafi lay awake and listened to the box fan until it got light.
When he woke up it was 10:40 and Isaac wasn’t in bed. There was a smell of eggs and burnt coffee.
In the kitchen, Isaac was standing at the stove in boxers and the black canvas jacket, of all things, flipping eggs in a cast-iron skillet. On the fridge door there was a paper towel, held up with a magnet shaped like a wrench. He’d written on it in Sharpie, in block capitals, a little shaky, like a man who’d slowed down for this one.
SATURDAY — RAFI SUNDAY — RAFI NEXT FRIDAY — DRIVING HIM HOME
Isaac saw him looking.
“Is that—” He cleared his throat. “I figured it was my turn to make the list.”
Rafi took a picture of it for the night shift chat. Then he didn’t send it, and put his phone face down on the counter, and went and stood behind Isaac at the stove with his arms around his waist, and watched him ruin the eggs.
Next Friday at 4:10 Rafi sat on the milk crate and wrote ISAAC B. on the second line.
Then, next to it, for the first time in seven weeks, he wrote something else: (with the door. he’s mine.)
Malik walked past with a coil of cable and read it upside down and said, “Finally.”
