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Billy starts dating Goodnight. (“Call me Goody,” he says, and laughs when he reads the what is this white shit look that Manu throws Billy, explains that it’s a family name, god help him) He’s happy for Billy, of course he is, especially since this seems like an important deviation from a depressing norm. He doesn’t think Billy’s ever been in a healthy relationship before—maybe never been in a relationship period before, given the small snatches of details that Billy’s let slip about the guys he used to fuck, how shitty they treated him. He doesn’t have much relationship experience himself, but what he does have looks fundamentally different from what Billy’s described: he’s liked the guys he’s dated, the guys he hooks up with, and they’ve liked him back. Manu likes to think he’s easy to like. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s ever said the same about Billy, and when Billy shuts off sometimes, ices everyone out, Manu thinks he sees a little of what that must feel like. He listens to the stories of Billy’s exes, knowing that Billy only shares some things because he doesn’t realize how fucked up they sound, and he doesn’t know what to do with all of that anger, where to keep it.
Goody, on the other hand, openly adores Billy in a way that’s almost embarrassingly vulnerable to see.
Goody’s happy, and so is Billy, which is more important. It doesn’t really matter what Manu thinks. It’s not that he’s upset, but everything just seems to grate on him more: there are dog-eared books Manu doesn’t recognize on Billy’s kitchen table, a hand around Billy’s waist when they’re smoking outside, Goody at dinner, telling jokes that Billy laughs at silently, a soft curl to his mouth.
He’s not upset, he thinks, just a little jealous—the natural consequence of a friend coupling up, moving on. It just makes him feel particularly single, in a world made for couples, that Goody’s always at Billy’s side now, when Billy used to turn to him instead.
He picks up a guy at a club, tries to fuck this feeling out of his system. When that doesn’t work, he tries it again and again and again. It doesn’t go away.
———
It used to be just the three of them, ever since Red brought around the new gay STEM kid in the spring, when Billy was visiting schools. Red knows a lot of people from being on this organization or that panel, new faces following him around all the time. No one else had really stuck like Billy had. But now it’s either the four of them or the two of them: Goody’s everywhere, all the time, until neither of them are.
It’s the principle of the thing, he grumbles, bros before dicks. Red snorts a little from behind his laptop. “You wouldn’t understand,” Manu says, throwing his hands in the air, “he’s supposed to be my best friend.” Red looks up at that, and Manu explains: “You, you’re like a little brother, which means he has to be nice to you, nicer than he is to me. It’s a better deal for you, my friend.”
“That’s fine,” Red says, “I’m not jealous.” Red waits a little too long, lets the pause build into something that makes Manu want to squirm a little, and then continues. “But you are.”
“I just said that, culero—”
“Not as a friend.”
“What does that mean?” Red levels a stare at him, but he just glares back, sullenly.
Red rolls his eyes. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to me about it. But you’re going to have to talk to Billy about it at some point.”
Manu pretends not to know what that means and makes offended noises that Red ignores. Things go quiet again, and Manu frowns at his emails, willing his advisor to respond to him already, until Red interrupts with: “Denial is a great strategy. Very healthy.”
Manu hauls Red out of his chair and they start grappling on the carpet of Red’s apartment, Red almost twisting out of his grasp until he digs his fingers into Red’s side, laughing as Red struggles and squirms. Red ends up kicking him in the ribs before he lets him go, but that’s fine, that’s one of the benefits of hanging out with Red instead of Billy—if it had been Billy he surprised with a tackle, he would’ve been punched in the throat already, or worse. (He’d laughed, the first and only time it had happened, Billy looking down at him in apprehension. “No playing rough, then,” he’d said, “you’re too good at it, cabrón.”)
———
Everything would be easier if he disliked Goody, but he doesn’t. Goody makes an effort with him and Red, which is more than he can say for the last asshole he dated, whining about having to meet his friends. He’s charming, he’s good-natured, he takes a joke well, and if he seems a little anxious when he smiles at Manu, well, that’s as it should be. He should want to make a good impression.
Goody relaxes into things over time as he gets swept up into the fold, and it’s gratifying to have someone to joke around with, someone who’ll lean back with the full force of his laughter at Manu’s jokes, a break from the quiet, sarcastic assholes Manu surrounds himself with. One night, over dinner, with Red too busy with events and Billy too busy not caring, he ends up watching the movie he’d wanted to see with Goody. “I’ve been meaning to see Fences,” Goody insists, “I’m a huge fan of Denzel.” They end up grabbing a drink afterwards to talk about Jitney and André Holland, and the habit ends up sticking, somehow.
Goody doesn’t seem to have a lot going on outside of Billy, and he starts spending time at Manu’s place, smoking the two of them up. Billy doesn’t drink, doesn’t do anything at all besides cigarettes, but it’s not like Red, who’s never tried and prefers not to. When pressed, Billy will say it’s because of his workout regimen, because he’s interested in eating clean and keeping his body clean, but Manu’s seen some of the stuff Billy consumes when it’s 3 am and he’s hungry and trying to stay awake. So he reads between the lines, like you have to once you find yourself pulled into Billy’s orbit. Alcohol’s fine, apparently, and he figures pot might be too—he pegs Billy as having been more of an uppers guy—but they keep it away from him all the same, finding time when he’s busy.
“What do they even do at the gym for that long,” Goody complains, as he takes another hit.
“Who the fuck knows,” he says, “do I look like someone who spends two hours at the gym every other day?” They both laugh at that, but he can feel Goody’s eyes on him all the same. He pushes away at the thought, and it goes easy, high as he is.
They root around in his kitchen for food, making plans for the next movie (“The new Almodóvar’s playing downtown”), ragging on Billy’s deep disinterest in anything resembling culture all the while.
“That man lacks any sort of appreciation of artistry,” Goody says mournfully over a bag of chips. “It’s profoundly disturbing.”
“He’s your boyfriend,” Manu says, watching Goody smile.
“That he is.”
———
When he meets Billy for the first time, all he thinks about is how attractive he is. He’s crashing a mixer for incoming LGBT grad students, mostly to cruise, and he ignores the pointed looks Red is throwing in his direction in favor of looming over Billy a little bit, leaning down to smile at him. He’s been told he’s got a good smile, a good game, and it must be true, since he ends up taking Billy home that night. (He won’t realize until later how strange that is, until he sees how often Billy gets hit on and how Billy shuts things down every time. He’ll wonder what that means, but then Goody happens, and he stops wondering.)
He’s a little drunk when they get back to his place, and Billy’s sober, a little quiet. Manu cracks a joke and starts laughing at it first, despite himself, kissing Billy in between breaths. Something in Billy relaxes at that, smiling back into the kisses, and Manu says: “Don’t worry, guapo, I’ll take care of you.”
He puts Billy on his bed and stretches him out with his fingers, wrapping his mouth around his cock and feeling Billy’s hips stutter back and forth, caught between the sensations. Billy’s quiet, all the way through, just a few quick inhales to let Manu know that he's doing things right, that Billy’s into it. He focuses on those small tells, grinds into him when Billy shudders and thrusts in hard when Billy catches his breath and closes his eyes. He draws it out because Billy’s pretty, because he wants to remember this, because it’s good, and when he starts driving in, picking up the rhythm, he’s taken off guard by how hard it is to hold off, to wait for Billy to sigh into his orgasm. He lets Billy catch his breath, kisses him and calls him beautiful, and Manu comes like that, murmuring against Billy’s mouth.
Billy spends the night but leaves early in the morning to catch his flight back home. Manu gives Billy his number, tells him to call if he needs anything, if he has any questions about the university. “Look me up in a few months if you decide to come here,” Manu says.
Billy ends up accepting and moves early, spending the summer in town settling in. He comes to lunch one day with Red and doesn’t mention anything about that night, so Manu doesn’t either, and the silence ends up sticking. Billy keeps on coming around and Manu keeps on seeing other people, and somehow they become friends without ever talking about what happened.
Manu waits for some sort of sign from Billy, but it never comes, and he doesn’t press it.
———
He’s smoking on Billy’s patio, listening to the sounds of Billy and Goody making dinner. The weather’s finally warm enough for the doors to be thrown wide open, so he hears Goody sing along to whatever’s playing on Spotify, dancing around Billy in the kitchen, drawing out low sounds of amusement and annoyance in turn from Billy. He doesn’t turn around to look, he can’t, and he stares down into the street long after he’s done with his cigarette.
“Food’s ready,” Goody shouts, and he grunts out an acknowledgement. He takes a moment, just a few breaths, before heading back inside.
Somewhere along the way, it’s stopped being just Billy or Goody, turning instead into Billy and Goody, Goody and Billy: both a description of how wrapped up in each other they’ve become, and how wrapped up he’s become in both of them. He sits down to dinner with the two of them and thinks to himself: I can’t keep doing this.
Dinner’s something of a regular occurrence now, with or without Red, although increasingly without: Red still carves out time from his packed schedule to sit down with them all, still checks in with them one-on-one, but he ducks out every now and then, leaving it just the three of them. “You need,” Red says, disapprovingly, “to figure this out.”
But the problem is that he’s figured it out. It’s just that the answer’s not something he wants to hear.
———
Goody’s the first one to say something about it, which figures—as observant as Billy is, as much as Billy knows him, Billy’s not about to say anything he doesn’t have to, anything that will upset the status quo. So Goody asks him if everything’s all right, if everything’s all right with them, and Manu grimaces into his beer and says he doesn’t know what Goody’s talking about.
“All right then,” Goody says, unconvinced. Manu cuts the night short, unable to stomach the way that Goody looks at him, thoughtfully, like he’s trying to puzzle Manu out.
Goody makes himself scarce after that. After a few meals with just Billy, sitting there nonchalantly like nothing is out of the ordinary, he finds himself strangely furious at this new turn of events, mostly because it drives home the realization that it’s not just Billy that he wants, anymore. He drags Goody out for a drink, and aggressively doesn’t talk about anything until a drink becomes several drinks becomes them stumbling back to Billy’s place so he can pour Goody into Billy’s arms.
“What are you, too busy for me now, or something,” he’d accused on the phone, “I know you don’t have anything going on right now, so don’t give me that bullshit.” Goody stalls, and he continues: “I need a drink and I need to talk to someone who actually knows how to talk back.”
“Okay, okay, you’ve got me there,” Goody relents, good-naturedly, falling back on their favorite topic of conversation—Billy’s many minor shortcomings. So they drink and they don’t talk about what’s going on, and Manu feels, more and more, like he’s looking over the edge of a cliff.
Billy doesn’t try to hide how annoyed he is when they burst into his place at one am, although, as Goody points out, it’s not like he was asleep, anyways. Billy sighs and makes him fetch his own water, which Goody whines about, and in the middle of their bickering, Manu finally says out loud: “I can’t keep doing this anymore.”
The two of them turn around. Billy’s all still, but he can see something sad and resigned dawning on Goody’s face, so he scrubs at his eyes and looks down, announcing to his feet that he needs space, needs a little time to deal with his feelings for both of them before he can stand just being friends.
“Both of us,” Billy says, calmly, and Manu jerks out a nod before he makes to leave, not looking either of them in the eyes.
“Manu—” Goody starts, but he doesn’t hear the rest of it as he stalks out the front door. He’s either too drunk or not drunk enough to deal with what he just did, but there’s only one quick fix to that problem, so he cracks open a beer or three, turns his phone off, and passes out on top of his sheets.
The next morning, his hangover’s bad enough that he can’t quite feel the panic underneath all that nausea, which suits him fine. He finally turns his phone on after he’s crawled his way out of the bathroom, sometime in the early afternoon, and he deletes everything from Billy and Goody without opening any of it, skips straight to calling Red.
“I fucked up,” he says. Red agrees much too quickly for it to be anything but an insult, but he still comes over with Gatorade and takeout and watches almost an entire season of Brooklyn 99 with him on the couch. Red heroically refrains from making fun of him or saying I told you so, even once, and Manu’s pathetically grateful in that moment.
“I should listen to you more,” he says, and Red nods.
“I forgive you for your stupidity,” Red replies, but he’s smiling a little while he says it, and Manu finds that he has enough in him to smile back.
———
Red leaves him with: “You can’t just ignore Billy until your feelings go away.” Manu mutters something about space and boundaries, but Red rolls his eyes. “This is Billy. If you don’t go to him, he’s just going to hunt you down until you talk to him.” And, well, it’s not like he doesn’t believe Red—past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, and everything—but he doesn’t quiet expect Billy to so completely ignore all rules of normal human conduct.
Which is why Monday afternoon finds him peering cautiously out of his bedroom, with all the curtains drawn and the lights out, to the pounding at his front door. “Open the door, Manuel.” The doorknob rattles ominously. “I know you’re in there. I don’t want to pick the lock, but I will if I have to.” And of course Billy knows how to pick locks, just like of course Billy doesn’t know how to respect reasonable boundaries, and he’s half-furious and half-resigned, because he knew all of this and it didn’t do anything to stop him from liking Billy anyways.
He storms over to the front door and yanks it open, glares Billy down, covers himself in anger so that he can’t feel anything else. “What part of leave me alone do you not understand, huh, idiota?” Billy stares back, jaw clenched, and Manu thinks, say something, say something, until Goody pushes them all inside and shuts the door behind him.
“What Billy’s trying to say is: we talked things over,” Goody says, carefully, “and it turns out we feel the same.”
“Don’t fuck with me right now, don’t do that to me,” Manu growls. He’s shaking a little as Billy puts his hands on him, and Billy’s still frowning as he draws him down for a kiss.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Billy says, and Manu believes him.
“Breathe, breathe,” Goody says, leaning in to run a hand down Manu’s shoulder, and Manu turns to kiss him too. He’s about the same height as Billy, so Manu ducks his head down and slowly closes his eyes. Billy’s right there next to them, and when he opens his eyes, both of them are looking at him.
“What do you want?” Goody asks.
He takes in a breath that shudders more than he’d like it to, and says: “What you have, a relationship, I—I want us to be together.”
“Sounds like we’re all on the same page, then.”
“Okay,” he says, quietly, “okay.”
———
Nothing fundamental really changes—they still pile into Billy’s apartment, because it’s the nicest, Red still suffers through hanging out with all of them, sharing significant looks with Billy when they judge Goody and him to be too loud and too obnoxious. It’s like they were dating already, and it’s embarrassing realizing how badly he’s misread everything, although he argues that it’s not like he even realized this was an option.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Goody drawls. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are—“
“Cállate,” he laughs, “shut up, shut up, don’t try to justify threesomes with Shakespeare, who are you?” Goody grins back at him, too pleased with himself, and Manu can’t stop smiling.
Goody leans back over the couch, looks over to where Billy’s surrounded himself with stacks of papers and books at the kitchen table. Even though Billy’s facing away from them and is supposedly deep in thought, he’s not surprised when Billy snaps out: “Don’t touch anything.”
“I’m only looking, cher, I wouldn’t—”
Billy whirls around, pinning Goody down with a glare. “I’ve kicked you out before, and I’ll do it again.” Goody makes fake wounded noises, and Manu walks over to press a kiss to Billy’s temple as he bristles, just a bit, says he’ll make him coffee and something to eat. As always, Billy’s put in a slightly less homicidal mood at the mention of food—Manu doesn’t know what they’ll do when that trick stops working, but he’s happy to take advantage of it until then.
He starts chopping onions, watching Goody wrap himself around a grumbling Billy, and thinks: Yeah, I can do this.