I licked my lips, tasting the memory he’d left behind. “A couple times, just to try… but it was never like that.”

His eyes lit up at the compliment, and he leaned forward, whispering against my cheek. “You like me that much?”

“Maybe.” I closed my eyes again, letting myself nuzzle back and slip my hands around his waist. “Maybe you’re just the first boy I’ve kissed who wears strawberry lip gloss.”

I felt Rio dip his head, just a little, as he settled into my arms; I imagined him blushing through his smile. “I like strawberry! Most of the time it’s just for me. It’s just a little, and it’s clear!” He looked back out into the cafe to see if anyone else was near. “Well, except for the glitter.”

“It has glitter in it?”

“Uhm. Just a bit. You didn’t notice before.”

“I bet that leaves interesting smears.”

“It takes more than one date to find out.” He laughed and kissed me again, his touch just barely firmer than a breath. “I’m not sure we’ve had even that.”

Then, just like that, he was gone.

It was getting hard; the game mattered too much. At the very least I wasn’t about to let Rio beat me just by playing around. The tension started building in my muscles, winding me up tight, from my hands up to my arms, from my shoulders down my back, and I started to welcome the drain, the precious few seconds of rest before I sent another ball up the ramp.

Eventually I had no more, and I slumped over the machine, exhausted, staring at the scoreboard. The numbers continued to spin, catching up to my last bonus points. Rio laughed, delighted, as he walked up behind me. “That’s very good! You’re very intense when you want to be.”

Still trying to catch my breath, I barely managed a smile.

“Close your eyes,” I heard him whisper. “Your score isn’t going anywhere.”

I did as I was told.

He took both of my hands in his own and spun me around. Suddenly I felt the warm press of his body, catching me between himself and the machine, and then the faint press of his mouth against my lips, little more than an invitation. It was fleeting as a thought and sweet as cherry ice-cream, but it burned like fire.

One night at Pilades, he slid up beside me and took a seat on the edge of my table, smiling just a little too much. I tried to ignore it, but he tugged insistently at the top of my newspaper, like a kitten who’s done something endearingly naughty and very much wants you to know. “Hello again,” he said, practically singing with happiness. “The Times? That’s a very good paper. I approve. And I have something to show you.”

“Rio, you are a strange, strange human being.” I folded my paper back together, shaking my head. “What do you want?”

Still smiling, he stuck out his tongue at me, then nodded over to the pinball machine. “I think she likes me.” The Billionaire’s Club listings began to scroll, glowing orange in the dim corner of the room.

I ran over to look. The first score wasn’t mine anymore. Three letters laughed back at me. R. I. O.

He’d beaten me by exactly a hundred points.

“You beautiful fucking bastard.” I glared at him as he padded over, his hands clasped innocently behind his back. “I gotta fix this.”

Rio dug through his pockets and handed me a fistful of quarters. “I thought you would,” he said, smiling a little wider. “I wanted to watch you play.”

The machine loves me. Most machines do, but there’s something particularly about this one that scratches me in just the right places, something about its ramps and lights and all its moving parts that mixes with the synthesizer and pulls me into its frantic, exhilarating logic. I tried to ignore Rio as he leaned against the wall behind me, watching, waiting for me to sink into that magic place between thinking too much and not thinking enough, between playing the game and letting the game play you.

It took me a few dollars to get there. Most of the time it’s not so hard, but before Rio walked into my life, I held a hundred thousand points over anyone else on the board. Having competition makes it harder, but when it’s just right, that’s only part of the thrill. I felt the machine coming to life beneath me, brighter, louder, and more seductive with every snap of the paddles. He wasn’t going to beat me; I would make sure of that.

Over the noise of the game I heard Rio thinking aloud, half amused. “Jacqueline says you want to fuck me. Or maybe she said you want me to fuck you. I forget exactly.”

I choked, missed a beat, and hit the paddles a quarter-second late. My last ball drained, five thousand points low. “Cheater.” I glared at him.

He ran his fingers through his hair, leaning close to offer me an innocent little smile. “I was just saying, you know. It doesn’t mean anything, unless you say it does.” Those beautiful blue eyes caught the lights from the machine, gleaming in the darkness, daring me to answer.

I pushed him away without the satisfaction. “Gimme another quarter, asshole.”

This time, Rio found me.

“Are you following me?” he asked, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. I turned at the sound of his voice and found him leaning comfortably across the counter. “You know, I could have given you my number and saved you the trouble.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“No, no you don’t, actually.” he said, his eyes glittering as he straightened and looked me up and down. With a faint smile, he brushed a speck of dust from his shirt, running his slender fingertips against the tiny antiqued-gold nametag pinned there. “I’m Rio. How may I help you?” His voice dropped, just slightly, as he tilted his head, looking at me as if he meant something more than jewelry. “What do you need?”

When I think back and wonder when I began to fall for Rio, I come back to this moment, to the way he looked at me, the way I saw myself reflected back in his eyes. It was the almost-lilt in his voice that caught me, the beautiful, casual weight of that question. “What do you need?” A small, happy noise forced itself out, deep in my chest. I handed him my watch without a word.

For a moment he considered it, holding it to his ear to hear it tick. “It’s just a broken crystal,” he said. “Call it… twenty-five, probably.”

I nodded, licking my lips. The seams of his pants were sewn with soft pink thread, highlighting his long legs and the gentle sway of his hips, and my mouth went dry as I watched him walk to the workbench in the back of the store. “Twenty-five. Right. Okay.”

“I think… ow!” he cut his finger on a stray fragment of crystal. “Uff. Yeah, I don’t have this size…” he gave his fingertip a slow, thoughtful suck as he set the watch on his table. “I think I need to grind one to fit… can you come back in an hour or so?”

“Sure. Yeah, I can do that.” His tongue was very pink, bright against his lightly tanned skin. I tried not to think too much about it as I turned to leave. Behind another counter, a very small, beautiful woman, dark and elegant in her inky-blue dress, gave me a wicked, knowing smile.

The little bell over the door tinkled as I returned, and I found her sitting astride Rio’s lap, her arms around his shoulders as she watched him work. He held a tiny blowtorch between his fingers, peering at something through dark goggles as he kissed it gently with the flame. “Your friend is back,” she murmured.

“I should take care of him, then,” he said, switching off the torch. “Shoo.” He slid her gently off his lap and swatted her affectionately across the rear. “Cute little pest.”

She smoothed out her dress with cheerful indignation, turning to make a face at him over her shoulder. I tried not to stare at the enchantingly simple, trim audacity of the movement. She glanced from me, to Rio, then back again, and leaned over, whispering into his ear with an evil little smile.

Rio pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, canting his head to the side as he listened to her. “I’ll think about it, yes?” He looked up at me, accepting my payment, and fastened my watch around my wrist, gentle and secure. “Jacqueline likes to tease. You’ll have to excuse her. She’s half French, and she’s inheirited some of their…” For an instant his grip tightened, his fingers and the band reminding me of nothing so much as a soft leather cuff and the insistence of its chain. “…perfect centuries of coquetry.” He seemed to savor the phrase, almost as though he were reciting it.

I must have given him a strange look, because after a moment he shook his head sadly, as if I’d missed something important.

His voice went flat, almost formal. “I’m so sorry for the delay.”

I looked down at my watch, tracing my fingers along the crystal’s edge, feeling the perfect fit as I wondered what I’d done. “Some things are worth a wait.”

“Yes,” he said, his bright blue eyes looking through me as he paused to think about it. “The hard part is deciding which ones they are.”

“You! You’re the boy from the other night, at Hopper’s!” He walked over, taking out an earbud, letting it hang on his shoulder.

I laughed. “First time there. A friend of mine recommended it. I like it. It’s a good thinking-place.”

“Oh, where do you normally hang out? I used to go a lot back when it was called Phillies, but not so much lately. They started using this Brazilian coffee in the mix, and it’s nice and strong, but a little too harsh for me.” He bit gently at the corner of his lip, sucking on it. “Anyhow, I saw you playing pinball when you came in first. It’s really neat, because you don’t play with just your hands. You play with your hips, too.”

“It’s the only way to bump. You have to shove the frame around, but gently, so the machine won’t catch on and say Tilt.”

“I bet you’re pretty good at it.”

“I have the high score on the machine over at Pilades.”

“Really? How do I look?”

“You look… good.”

His smile widened as he ran his tongue along the edges of his teeth. “I’ve been to Pilades once or twice. I suppose it’s very nice. I like the people there, except that they all take things so… so seriously.”

We stood there in silence for a few minutes, and he seemed to slip back into his own little world again, working slowly back to his beat and his slow, happy blend of music and motion. He wasn’t very good, but he didn’t seem to care.

I took the earbud he offered me, watching him move as I listened. Clean, jazzy slacker-rock washed over the dull roar of the train, polishing its simple chords and panther snarls against themselves, again and again, breaking into pieces and coming together again until it melted into a polished little jewel of sound, wordless and almost unnaturally smooth in its careful, casual elegance. Rio mimed the snarls at me, trying to get me to play along.

The train gave me just enough time to fall under its spell, just in time to let go and snarl back, once, before Rio had to leave.

“That’s my stop. G’bye now,” he laughed, plucking the headphone from my ear. “I’ll see you around!”

And then again, he was gone.

There’s something endearing about him, though. Rio feels infectiously, wonderfully right, and every time he stops by to visit, I never have the heart to turn him away. He is a strange and beautiful person, and I adore him for it. Even though all I really have are snapshots of him, I’m going to share him anyways, in hopes that you’ll enjoy his company, too.

I think they happen by accident.

Mine was almost invisible when I met him. Rio likes to sit at the café, curled up like a little china cat in one of those big, plush chairs. He gets to watch that way, undisturbed, taking the moments between sips of chocolate to scribble his thoughts to paper. We didn’t even speak that evening. I just felt him watching me, I think. That’s all, really; I turned for a moment, all it took to catch him watching me over the edge of his notebook. It lasted for a second, maybe a very little more, just long enough to look past his long, dark bangs. He had the bluest eyes, warm, Caribbean blue, and I couldn’t help but stare. In a storybook world it would have been love at first sight, but it wasn’t, not even lust, just curiosity, just wonder at eyes so clear and pure.

He just smiled at me, brushing the hair away from those beautiful eyes. He cocked an eyebrow, amused, and ducked back behind his notebook’s marbled-black covers.

I caught him looking, one more time, his head canted just slightly to one side, but he blushed and hunched down into his book again, looking even smaller than before. When I looked back, later, he was gone.