smackenzie

"Chris was here, he had a band already, he knew some people. And his roommate was moving out, so I wouldn't even have to find a place to live. That was too coincidental to pass up."

"Did you always want to be a singer and a musician?"

"Yes and no." Matt looked at him quizzically and Jensen tried to think how to phrase what he wanted to say, and what did he want to say, anyway? "I sang in the church choir from when I seven to when I went to college, I sang in the chorus in middle and high school, I joined an acapella group in college.... I have a good voice and my grandma used to tell me when I was little that god had given me this gift, and it would be a sin not to use it." He shrugged. He'd believed in hell when he was seven, and his grandma's words were as threatening as they were encouraging. He didn't believe in hell any more, but part of him still thought he should take advantage of the fact that he'd been blessed with a good ear and a better voice.

"I met Chris my freshman year of high school," he went on, "when his family moved to Dallas. That's where I'm originally from."

"I guessed," Matt said, grinning a little.

"His sister got him to join the church choir too, because she and my mom thought we should be friends. He wanted to be a rock star - he wrote songs, he played the guitar, he kind of postured. He really liked being on a stage and singing to people. I didn't. But I found out that I liked trying to write songs, and my parents had gotten me a guitar for my thirteenth birthday, so me and Chris kind of formed our own little band. I got stage fright" - he stopped to laugh at his teenage self, who had no idea that someday he'd deliberately seek out a career that involved a lot of standing on stages singing and playing for an audience - "so he kind of replaced me, but we'd still play together and try and write stuff, and it was fun and I really liked it. And I was pretty good at it."

"And it led you here."

"Eventually, yeah. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate physical therapy - it was the track I chose in college - but after a few years I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do and it wasn't totally satisfying. My grandma would say it wasn't feeding my soul." His grandma would also say that only god could truly feed his soul, but that was a discussion for another time. "The thing is, about singing and playing the guitar or the piano or whatever, if you do it right, you can take someone away from whatever's bothering them or pissing them off and you can make them happy. Or you can get someone to remember what it was like to be in love with their spouse, so they go home and apologize for being an ass. Or, I don't know, remind someone to call their mom or just... sit still for three minutes and... be. I can get up on a stage at open-mike night at some club and play a song that I wrote, and if I'm on, it's like I'm just a conduit for the music, and it kind of works through me. It's not me on the stage - I can be someone else and tell a story for a few minutes and get a room full of people to listen to me but not really see me - they see whatever the song conjures up for them. It's like a magic trick."

He drained his glass of beer. They'd killed both bottles, and while it wasn't enough to get him drunk, especially since he was eating at the same time, he wondered how buzzed he was, to have said this much about himself. He suddenly felt weirdly exposed.

"Wow," he said, almost under his breath. "I don't usually talk like that when I'm sober. You're looking at me weird. What?"

"Nothing," Matt said. He shook his head, smiling. "I feel that way about really good art, that it can transport you to another time and place, or maybe just another viewpoint, and make you think about yourself and your life. I can't make it, though, I just study it. And write about it. And talk about it."

"It's such a pipe dream," Jensen went on, "to think I can go out there and get enough recognition to cut albums and go on tour and make a living making music. There are so many people out there who are at least as good as me, and a lot of them are better. But anything worth doing is worth doing well, right? And anything worth having is worth working for. This is what makes me happy, and if, I don't know, a hundred people listen to me sing and play my guitar - a hundred people my whole career - if I can make those people feel something they weren't feeling ten minutes earlier, or make them feel it more, that's what I want. I feel it in here" - he put his hand over his heart - "and I want to be able to make someone else feel it there too."

He stirred the remains of his soy sauce with a chopstick. "That was kind of heavy. Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure." Matt was still looking at him like - Jensen suddenly realized what it was. Affection. If he hadn't just embarrassed himself with his entirely unexpected flood of deep feeling and emotion, he might blush. "So... you're from Dallas and used to live in Houston?"

"Yep."

"I grew up in Spring."

"I used to drive through Spring!" It was just north of Houston off I-45. "Did you ever go down to Houston?"

"When I was in high school, yeah. But when I went away to college, I really went away. It was a little tough being an out gay boy in high school in Texas."

Jensen nodded a little, non-committally. He hadn't come out until college, and even then he'd realized he was bi and not just gay. His parents hadn't understood it then and still didn't understand it now, but they'd siezed on the "I still like girls" part of the explanation and clung to it even through the two fairly serious years of Jensen's relationship with Michael the ex. He thought that was the only reason they hadn't disowned him, because they thought he'd eventually settle down with a nice girl. After all, he'd told them he was attracted to women too. But they still loved him and at least they'd accepted his 180º career change, and he knew it could be a lot worse, so he really couldn't complain. It had made holidays a little difficult, though.

Jensen didn't see any point in mentioning to Matt now that he was bisexual. On a scale of straight (1) to gay (10), he was a 7.5, anyway.

And it was actually easier for him to talk about his sexuality - or anyone's sexuality - than what it meant to him to be able to sing and play music, so he'd take a discussion of growing up gay (or bi) in Texas any day.

The conversation veered away from sex and towards high school and from there to football, and by that point they'd eaten everything in sight and decided maybe they should pay the bill and go on to the bowling alley, and continue talking there. They split the check - Matt protested but not very much, since even though he'd done the date planning, really Danneel had done the date asking - and did not get lost on the way to the bowling alley. But, in what was turning out to be a running theme, they had to wait twenty minutes for a lane, so they sat at the bar and had a drink in the meantime.

Well, Jensen had a beer. Matt had a Coke, because he was driving and admitted that he'd never built up much of a tolerance for alcohol.

"It made parties in college very interesting," he said, "and by 'very interesting' I mean 'really painful'."

"Bad hangovers, huh?"

"Still drunk the next morning. More than once. And also some really bad hangovers. I learned my limits."

Bowling under blacklight and neon and a disco ball wasn't an experience Jensen was in a hurry to repeat - sometimes it was a little hard to see the ball and the pins - and it was hard to have an in-depth conversation with all the disco music, so he and Matt kept it mostly light - some commentary on the decor, the other bowlers, and the music, and they talked about music in general and various kinds of places to go and things to see in Nashville, and it turned out Matt had heard of the gallery where Joe's friend was showing his art, although he hadn't heard of the friend.

And there was one good thing Jensen hadn't thought of - when Matt was throwing his ball, Jensen got a really nice view of his really nice ass.

Jensen got a strike in the third frame and followed it up with a lot of gutter balls, much to his embarrassment and Matt's amusement, and in retaliation he told a very deadpan joke that made Matt laugh so hard he dropped his bowling ball in the process of trying to throw it.

"You ass!" he yelled, grabbing at his ball before it could roll into the next lane. Jensen just smiled innocently.

He would not have guessed that bowling could make for a good date night, but it did. The self-consciousness he felt early in the game, and the awkwardness he felt early in the night, dissipated pretty much entirely after about five frames, and he could admit to himself that he was a little disappointed when they had to give up their lane and leave.

Matt drove him home and the good time they'd both had made it easy for Jensen to ask "Do you want to come in for some coffee or something? I have decaf."

"I can't," Matt said. "I really want to, believe me, but I have so much to do tomorrow I need to get an early start, which means I can't have a late night."

Jensen was a little crestfallen - didn't Matt have a good time with him? - and a little upset - was Matt not attracted to him? - and a little understanding - he'd had very full days like that - but he tried again anyway. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Matt sounded disappointed. Then he leaned across the seat, cupped the back of Jensen's neck, pulled him close, and kissed him. It was a deep, hungry kiss, the kind of kiss that seemed to say "I really want you and I need you to understand that". Jensen felt like the seat belt was choking him, but he couldn't get it off without moving away from Matt's mouth, and there was just no way he was going to break this kiss.

When they finally pulled apart they were both breathless. Jensen licked his lips as if trying to recapture the taste of Matt's mouth.

"Another time," Matt said.

"Another time. Thanks for driving."

"Thanks for letting me take you bowling." Matt grinned, his whole face lighting up, and Jensen unbuckled the seat belt so he could lean forward and kiss the guy again. "Jensen," Matt murmured against his lips, "I really have to go. I'm really sorry, I really want to stay, but I really can't."

"I know. Ok, I'm going." He opened the door and slid out. "Drive safe. I'll see you again."

"Yes you will."

Jensen slammed the door shut, Matt drove off, and Jensen went upstairs and into the apartment. Chris wasn't home, unsurprisingly, which meant Jensen could take a lukewarm shower (he'd never been able to stand cold showers) and jerk off under the spray to thoughts of Matt's mouth and hands and ass.

It was a good night. He ate sushi, he bowled badly, he got to talk to a cute, interesting guy, he got a goodnight kiss - two - and he felt as if he'd come out of his introvert shell a little bit and had met someone he wanted to see again, who wanted to see him. He couldn't say whether or not a serious relationship would come out of it, or if he even wanted it to, but for now, Jensen was content to see where it went. And that was an improvement as far as he was concerned.

He knew he'd have to talk to Danneel in the morning, and he was pretty sure that she'd grill Matt as much as he knew she was going to grill him, so he'd get the lowdown on the cute grad student and if the kiss was anything to go by, they'd be seeing each other again.

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