Better Than Good (20 page)

“Maybe. But it is different, right? Because we’re two guys, I feel like I need to explain. Not for Kristin’s sake, but for Aaron’s. I mean, shouldn’t I be wearing a rainbow shirt and introducing him as my boyfriend with a big fucking smile on my face? He deserves more than people assuming that we’re just friends. I really like him. If he were a girl, I wouldn’t hesitate to put my arm around him and introduce him. I mean, I’m not ashamed. I just don’t know how to go forward.” I paused and looked over at Curt, willing him to understand. “Does that even make sense?”

“Yeah, it does. And like it or not, it’s a baby step in ‘coming out’. You’ve never had a boyfriend, Matt. But seriously, is it really that different than dating a girl? I mean, sex aside, and I’m not going there.” He shivered dramatically for effect. “I’m referring to respect. You’re with someone romantically, you acknowledge them. Simple, right?”

“We haven’t exactly had the old let’s be boyfriends talk yet. We just said we’d take it slow. I think that was Aaron realizing I’d fuck up, so let’s not get too serious.”

“You’re turning into a drama queen.”

“Fuck off.”

“Seriously, talk to him. Tell him you freaked. Ask him about being ‘boyfriends’. Assure him that seeing Kristin was just weird and you aren’t wishing you were back together. Make sure he knows you want to continue being a big fat homo with him.”

I threw a pillow at him, which he neatly dodged.

“You make it sound so simple.”

“I just think it’s normal to freak. Aaron sounds like a cool guy. He must be, if you’re willing to engage in hot kinky man sex with him.”

I gave him my best dirty look.

“No details? Fine. Whatever. My point is gay relationships are the same as straight ones. Communicate. You don’t communicate and it all goes to shit.”

Curt stood up to leave.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, man. But if you throw my controllers again, I’ll have to kill you.”

I took a deep breath. Curt was right. I’d call Aaron tomorrow to talk.

11

I
SENT
Aaron a “good morning” text first thing Monday before heading off to class. I had a full day ahead of me, and I was hoping we could meet later that night. Aaron usually returned text messages immediately. His phone was practically glued to his hand. The guy was a social media enthusiast. When I didn’t receive a text from him by noon, I began to worry. Unfortunately, I was due at the law office and didn’t have a chance to do more than send a second message. By late afternoon, when neither text was returned, I had a feeling something was up. I called his cell, but it went straight to voice mail. Not good.

I got a little obnoxious and started leaving messages every hour.

“Aaron, hi. Call me when you get a chance. I was hoping we could maybe go have dinner tonight. You free?”

“Hi again. I haven’t heard back from you. Busy day? Call me when you get a minute.”

“Where are you? Did you have a good day? Call me. I want to talk to you.”

“Baby, please. You’re mad, aren’t you? Call me.”

“Aaron, please. Call me.”

I had to talk myself out of going to his apartment. A ton of messages and texts should get the message across. If he didn’t call me in the morning, though, all bets were off.

I sent him a text first thing the next morning. Again, no response. At noon, I sent a very long text.

Ok ur mad.

U must b. I’m sorry. Plz call me.

We nd to talk. R u home tonite?

I want 2come over

Please

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was getting mad. I hated the silent treatment. Really hated it. If you’re pissed off at me, be pissed off. But don’t ignore me, damn it. My anger turned to concern when I realized I hadn’t heard anything from him in forty-eight hours. I checked online to see if he’d posted anything, but it looked like he had gone radio silent there also. I called again, left yet another pathetic “please call me” message before getting in my car and heading over to his place.

His BMW was parked on the street in front of his building, so I figured he was home. Or wait, maybe he went out. I drove when we went out because he hated to lose a prime parking spot, plus he hated driving, and in my opinion was a menace on the roads. Did he have a date? Was there someone else? We hadn’t said we were exclusive. We’d never said we were committed. The word “boyfriend” never was mentioned. We were going slow. Aaron wanted it that way. Fuck! My errant head was a mess in more ways than one. Jealousy was eating a hole in my stomach with just the thought of him with someone else.

I decided not to call or text that I was out front. I was sure I would keep getting the silent treatment. A sneak attack was called for. I waited until I saw another tenant enter the main door and slipped in with her. Making my way to his floor, I said a brief prayer that he would (a) talk to me, and (b) be alone. I had worked myself into a cool sweat by the time I actually knocked on his door. There was no music blaring from inside, so I figured he heard my knock. I tried again, louder this time. I became concerned that no music was a bad thing. Desperate now, I started thinking he was hurt. Maybe he wasn’t answering because he couldn’t. I banged on the door and yelled for him to open it.

“Aaron! It’s me. Please open the door. You are freaking me out. You haven’t returned my calls or messages for two fucking d….”

The door opened abruptly and an irate-looking Aaron was impatiently waving me in.

“For fuck’s sake! Would you keep it down! Jesus, Matt. The neighbors will be calling the police. Come in already!”

I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into his apartment. He was fine. I quickly switched to anger. That meant I was being ignored. What the fuck?

“Why have you been avoiding me? You haven’t responded to my texts, calls. I went from irritated to concerned to fucking frantic over forty-eight fucking hours. Geez.” I paced while I blasted him. I had all this crazy energy now. The man was making me nuts.

He stood in his entryway with his arms folded, giving me an appraising stare. He must have just returned from work. He was wearing a pair of tight-fitting khaki dress pants with a blue-and-white striped oxford shirt. Gorgeous. I wanted to reach out, grab him, touch him, brush his hair away from his eyes, run my hands over his ass. None of that was going to happen, according to his body language. Something was up. I’d been given the silent treatment for a reason, and it seemed as though I was finally going to find out why.

“So, you’re telling me that you were banging on my door like a man possessed because you were worried about me? What were you going to do? Break the damn door down? Calm yourself, He-Man. I’m fine.”

“How the hell would I know that? You have been ignoring me for days!” I was trying not to lose my cool, but he was frustrating, to say the least.

Aaron let out a long, tired sigh, unfolded his arms, and walked into his kitchen.

“Want anything to drink?” He grabbed a water bottle and tossed one to me before I could answer.

“Thanks.” I followed him back into his living room and sat on the opposite end of the sofa. My hands were clammy. I had a sinking sensation I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. His posture was rigid and tense. He wasn’t happy.

“Matt. I can’t do this.” He held up a hand to stop me from speaking. “I had a feeling that the straight guy turned gay was a bad idea for me, and I was right.”

“Aaron, you’re being dramatic. Why is this a bad idea? Everything about this, me and you, is good.”

He shook his head. He looked tired and resigned. Neither were good signs for me.

“Look, I said we’d go slow and see how we feel. The other day, Matt… you looked so miserable being with me. And when we ran into your ex. Ugh. First of all, you never told me how beautiful she was or that she was head over heels in love with you. Did you even notice how she looked at you? No. I bet not. I’m not sure what you told her before you introduced us, but it certainly wasn’t, ‘Hey, that’s the guy I’m sleeping with.’ Not that I expected it, but fuck! You looked so unhappy, so trapped. It was everything I was afraid of.” He paused, visibly upset. “Matt, I’m gay. I’m out, I’m proud. I don’t know how to be anything or anyone else. I never have. My dad has been lamenting the fact for years now, hoping I’ll grow out of it and bring home a nice Catholic girl. It will never happen. For you, it could happen.”

“I’m not Catholic,” I said lamely.

“Matt, I’m not sure you know who you are or what you want. We are good together. We have fun. I love being with you. I won’t lie. But my problem is that I’m becoming a little too attached to someone with too much baggage. I told you I like to travel lightly.”

“You aren’t making any sense.” I stood up to pace again. I was too agitated to sit still. “I’m sorry I freaked out. You’re right. I had a moment where I realized I didn’t want to be at the fucking mall because I hate the fucking mall, but there I was. With you. Because I wanted to be with you more than I didn’t want to be there. And yeah, it scared me. It felt couple-y.” He shot me a frustrated look. “But I liked it, Aaron. I… we just hadn’t talked about any of it. And then, out of the blue, there’s Kristin! I’m sorry I didn’t tell her you were special to me. I was tongue-tied and stupid and I’m sorry. I freaked.”

Silence. I waited for him to speak. I had apologized, so I figured the ball was in his court. I sat back down.

“I can’t take a chance, Matt. I’m sorry too.”

“What do you mean? Aar, please. What do you want me to do? I… I want you, I want us. I’m in virgin territory here, babe. Do you want me to publicly announce I’m dating a man? Which opens a whole other set of questions for me. Are we dating? Just lovers? What do you want from us?”

“Nothing, Matt.”

“Aar, you can’t mean that. I’m sorry for Sunday. A million times over. Please.”

“Don’t you get it? It isn’t just about Sunday! Matt, you say you want us, but come on! You looked visibly sick when you ran into your ex. I think you need some space to figure out what you want in your future. I’m the first guy you’ve ever been with. I don’t want to think this hasn’t meant anything to you, but maybe you need something more familiar.”

“What? Kristin? I don’t want her. I don’t want a different girl, nor do I want to experiment with other guys. I’ve been with another guy before. I want you, Aaron. Only you.”

He let out a deep breath and turned to face me. There was a tear on his eyelash.

“I won’t settle anymore. I get that life doesn’t come with guarantees, but I want something that looks like it could be the real thing. I don’t want to be someone’s dirty secret. I want the man I’m with to be proud to be with me. You can’t give me what I need, Matt. I don’t think it’s because you don’t want to. I just don’t think you’re ready.”

Tears were rolling down his face in earnest now. I leapt to his side to comfort him, to tell him he was being crazy, to fight for my cause. He put his arm up to shield my advance and shot to his feet.

“Please go, Matt.” He turned, walked to the front door, and held it open for me to leave.

My heart was in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. He was breaking my heart. So I told him the truth.

“Aaron. I love you.”

His head snapped up.

“Matt….”

“I do, Aaron. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I know.”

I probably sounded a little manic. It was how I felt. Crazy. And yet somehow sure that I was absolutely telling the truth.

He didn’t look convinced. In fact, he seemed upset.

“Matt, go. You don’t know what you’re saying. Please, just go.”

The look on his face was heart wrenching, and it killed me to know I had something to do with putting it there.

“Look, I’ll go now, but Aaron… I’m serious, and somehow, some way I’ll prove it to you. You… matter. This matters.”

I kissed him quickly on the cheek and left before I could say anything else. I needed to retreat and figure out how to convince him that what I said was true. I was in love with him.

E
ASIER
said than done. Aaron wouldn’t accept my phone calls, and stalking him was just plain creepy. I decided to enlist Curt’s help. His advice hadn’t exactly worked for me yet, but it was sound nonetheless. And at this point, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

“What you need to do is wow him.”

“Huh? How?”

We were at a dive bar near our apartment. I didn’t want to go into the whole story when Dave got back from work, so I asked Curt to meet me for a beer.

“Matt, you are so dense sometimes. What does your instinct tell you to do? You know him better than me. Christ! What does he like to do? Where does he like to go? Suppose we were talking about a girl, what would you do?”

“We aren’t talking about a girl, asshole. Geez, he likes to dance, he likes to run, he loves romantic movies with happy endings, he’s a great cook, he loves his friends, his family…. How does any of this help me?”