Boston Boys [01] - A Life Without You (3 page)

“No you hang up first,” he says for the seventh time.

“Haven’t you guys been together too long for this?” I ask, but still stare at the article.

“Okay, sweetie, I gotta go,” he says in the phone and snaps it shut. “Yeah, we have, but she’s still does that.”

“Then why don’t you just hang up first?” I glance at him and meet his tawny eyes.

He gives me that crooked smile that always takes my breath away. “Because then she’ll think I don’t have time for her and that I’m cheating.”

I raise my eyebrow.

“I know, I know, she’s possessive. She’s always been like that.”

“And that’s okay?” My voice is still low. I guess that’s one of the few things Chirpy and I have in common; possessiveness over Jesse.

“Yeah,” he answers with a smile. “I like seeing that I’m wanted. But look, I’ve noticed that things have been a little stiff between us –”

I try to cover my chuckle with a cough.

“Okay, bad choice of words,” he says with an eye-roll. “But you know what I mean. I just want you to know that I’m okay with it. I’m not angry or anything.”

I study him for a moment. His eyes are focused as he stares at me, not wavering for a second to show me that he means it.

“So we’re good?” I ask. The knot in my stomach eases a bit.

“Yeah, I mean, you were born with a seriously messed up A Life Without You
15

sense of humor. I can’t hold that against you. It’s like a handicap.” He skillfully blocks the crumpled up paper ball I toss at him.

I’m so happy to have him back that I want to laugh, but I try to keep my face straight.

“Is the pain gone?”

“Mostly. It just hurts when I sit on those stick chairs in the library.”

“So study here,” I say, gesturing at the unmade bed he’s lying on.

He pulls up a book and rests with his chest propped up on a thick pillow.

“Yeah, well, that’s the only reason I decided to talk to you today.”

“Hey,
you
were the one avoiding
me
.”

“Well yeah, but then I figured it’s not your fault that your body reacts to mine like that. I mean, my body’s gorgeous.” Another paper ball flies across the room and hits him on the head, but I don’t dispute him because he’s absolutely right.

“Hey!” he yips and throws it back at me before he continues reading.

Although little Miss Chirpy has been temporarily silenced, my eyes still scan the same line in the article over and over again.

With a quiet sigh I push it away and grab a novel. I’m so relieved I want to pounce on Jesse and wrestle him into a hug. Of course that might send him zooming backwards out the door, so I stay still.

I’m wracking my brain to come up with something to talk about when Jesse places a succulent finger against his page and speaks. “How did we end up naked anyway?”

“Ah,” a little laugh passes my lips. “It was raining hard after we got back from the ER. I had to help you undress and since you were shivering pretty badly I had to wipe you down with a towel –”

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“Bet you enjoyed that,” he says under his breath, but I ignore it.

“Because
someone
had been too lazy to put sheets on his bed before going out that night, I put you in my bed while I made
your
bed. But you were still shivering like a rattle by the time I’d changed the sheets and pulled off my soaking clothes that I crawled in with you to keep you warm.”

“Ah, the good old body-heat trick.”

“Yes,” I say and smirk. “But really, your nose would be drooling with icky stuff from a nasty cold without me, so you should be thankful.”

“And you needed your bare cock to keep me warm as well, which is why you didn’t sleep in your boxers like you always do?” He brushes hair from his eyes, but it flumps right back.

I laugh abruptly. “Well, that
is
the warmest part – FYI – but by the time I had wiped myself dry, you looked like you were having a seizure, so I just jumped in.”

“That so?” Jesse says, not convinced at all.

I hide my grin behind my book when he turns back to his reading, but the letters in my book are a blur. He has set clear hands-off boundaries, but I can’t shake the image of how he’d stayed so dead-still while I was bent over him, brushing my lips against his slender jaw. He should have told me to stop…unless he was in some kind of a shock.

If it was curiosity, would I be fooling myself to hope that he’ll get curious again? I’m positive that the electrifying tension in the room wasn’t just coming from me. His heart, his flaming body, his rattling breath had all pointed towards deep anticipation. And then the fact that him hearing me masturbate gave him some sort of a thrill…

I glance back at Jesse. Locks of hair droop into his eyes while he reads and other locks wave around his ears. He’s an athlete both in body and spirit. He’s studying Physical Therapy and works out quite a bit alongside his basketball playing. I have little interest in sports, but oh how I love watching him run around the A Life Without You
17

court all sexy with his sweaty clothes sticking to his body. That’s when I’m not ogling his bare muscles in the gym as he pelts the treadmill or lifts some weights. He’s the reason I work out every morning.

“You’re looking at me again,” Jesse says, but doesn’t look up from his book.

“Sorry,” I mumble. I raise up whatever book I’d grabbed and plop down on my immaculately made bed. I’m not anal or anything, I just like my bed well made and my dirty clothes in my laundry hamper.

“Do you find me attractive?” he asks, his eyes still focused on the thick book.

“Yes,” I answer truthfully. There’s no use in denying it. He already knows it. I wonder if it’s going to drive another wedge between us.

“But you know I’m not gay, right?”

I punch some pillows until I’m comfortable and flip to a random page. “I know.”

I know, but the fact that he jerked off in the shower, after my nasty little joke, is all I ever think about and it’s driving me nuts.

“Mh,” he mumbles and sighs before he pushes his books away. “I’m sick of being cooped up all day. You wanna go out and shoot some hoops?”

Of course I do. I’ll do anything to be near him.

I help him stand up, and we go to the cafeteria to grab a couple of drinks before going to the park close by. The whole way over Jesse rants about how his basketball coach won’t let him play for another week because of his injury. Jesse claims that his muscles are going slack, but I’ve done enough eyeballing to know that’s not true.

“Why don’t you try for professional basketball as a career?” I ask as we set down our drinks and shrug off our sweat shirts.

There are only a handful of people around this late in the afternoon, mostly little kids running around the playground with
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their mothers or fathers watching.

“Because that would be difficult on Anne,” he answers while he dribbles the ball in a way I never could. I used to play basketball in high school, but the only reason they let me play was because I was taller than the rest. I wasn’t much good at the passing and shooting, so I was mostly used for blocking.

But my heart drops at the sound of Anne’s name. I know I’ll never have a real chance at Jesse. Knowing it, however, doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“We’d have to move around a lot and there’d be this whole uncertainty if I’d get signed or not, and then when you’re too old or get injured you get dumped like a piece of burnt bacon. It’s more practical to become a physical therapist, or even a trainer. I know I could get a job at the high school back home.” He shoots from the middle of the court and lands the ball smoothly in the center of the net. I grab for the ball and dribble with lack of rhythm.

“So, you’re gonna marry her?”

Jesse shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, we’ve been together for three years already. We’ll probably get married after I finish college.

We’re already engaged.”

I shoot for the basket. The ball bounces off the red rim and spirals through the air towards the far end of the court.

I didn’t know they were engaged.

“What’s she studying?”

Jesse lifts the hem of his t-shirt to swipe away a bead of sweat forming under his lips. The nice glimpse of his rippled stomach taunts me.

“She doesn’t know what she wants to do yet, so she’s just sort of doing nothing at the moment. I think she just wants to be a homemaker. It would suit her; she’s a great cook and likes the whole tidying up and stuff like that.”

“Yeah,” I say after a while, watching Jesse go after the ball and jog back, dribbling like a pro. “You’ll need someone to pick up A Life Without You
19

after you, I guess.”

He grins and tosses the ball at me. I barely manage to catch it before it hits my head.

“But you don’t mind being the only meal ticket?” I ask and manage to land the ball in the basket.

He shrugs with a smile before grabbing for the ball. “Nah, it’s common back home for women to be homemakers. My mom and step-dad live on a farm just outside of Silver Mountain, though, so they both work hard. We’ll start by living there and then Anne’ll probably have to help around, but she’s okay with that. She wants to live in town though, so we’ll move there when we have enough money saved up.”

“You have it all planned out, huh?” I say with a half smile that probably looks more sad than not, sauntering over to take a drink from my bottle.

“Well, I’m just a normal guy who wants a normal life,” he says with another shrug and scores a basket.

We play for a while. At first it’s just lazy shooting, but then I start blocking him and we dance around the court with boyish grins on our faces and playful taunts while he tries to get past my defenses. He gives me a run for my money with his strong body when it’s my turn to shrug him off, but even when I do manage to shoot at the basket, I only sink the ball a few times.

The orange sun streaks the horizon when he gives me one of those little basketball pats-on-the-butt that used to confuse the hell out of me in high school. With the tips of his fingers still on the back of my jeans he stops in his tracks and yanks his hands away as if burned by the denim. I cock my eyebrow at him before heading off to pull on my sweater and sit down to drink.

“Sorry,” he mutters impishly and plops down beside me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a chuckle.

The skin on Jesse’s arms is prickled with goosebumps in the chilling air out in the park. We’re both struggling to catch our breaths when he moves beside me to slip on his sweater. With a quick zip his arm brushes mine as he reaches for his drink and chugs it down.

As I watch the sun set, I think about Jesse’s plan. I can totally picture him in a normal house in his small town, living with Chirpy, three kids and a dog. That’s Jesse’s future. He was never meant to be mine, and that stings like a cutlass.

I want to be with him all the time. I can feel my whole soul light up whenever he walks into a room and my blood burns when he smiles at me. I’m not so sure I’ve been able to hide the obvious longing on my face whenever he catches me gazing.

It’s a while before I realize that Jesse’s watching me from his spot beside me, sitting quietly under a yellow glow from the street lamp. He gives me a small smile when I meet his gaze.

“May I ask you something?” he asks in a low voice.

I nod before I take another sip.

“How long have you known you were… you know?”

“Gay?” I say aloud. There are only a couple of people strolling by. Not that it really matters. I don’t flaunt it, but I also don’t care if people know.

“You’re that open about it, huh?” Jesse says with a crooked smile.

I smile back with a single-shouldered shrug. “It’s who I am, so why hide it? And I’ve always known, I think.”

“So you’ve had, you know, boyfriends?”

“A couple, but nothing serious.”

One just wanted to be fucked all day and the other was too afraid to try it. There were also a few one-night-stands, but there’s
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no need to go into details with Jesse. I’m pretty sure that the only person he’s ever been with is Chirpy.

He lowers his head along with his voice. “And what you said, you know, about liking it from behind, is that true?” I take another drink to hide a smile. His face is adorably curious with his large eyes and slack lips.

“Actually, I don’t. Some guys do, but it just hurts for me every time.”

I’d had to bite down the pain a couple of times with that second boyfriend, but mostly we just used our mouths and hands

– but again that’s something Jesse doesn’t need to hear.

His eyebrows twitch, but he doesn’t say anything back.

“Why?” I ask with a tease, nudging his shoulder with mine.

“Do you want to find out if
you
like it?”

“Um, no, that’s not what I meant,” Jesse says, waving his hands in front of him with the cutest alarm on his face and blush in his cheeks. Then he rubs the shoulder I nudged as he looks at the fading orange in the sky. “I mean, I’m just curious. You’re the first gay guy I’ve ever known.”

“That you know of,” I say with a smirk.

Jesse’s eyes meet mine again, wide with lack of understanding.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that most people hide it during high school and then you meet them at a reunion some twenty years later to find that at least a handful have come out. It could be the guy who crept along the walls and hid in the bathrooms during breaks, or the big school bully who took his frustration out on unfortunate kids, or your best friend who pretended to be straight for years out of fear of being rejected.”

Jesse’s mouth drops open.

“Seriously, Jesse,” I laugh and push his knee with mine. “It’s not uncommon. The last time I heard the odds were one out of ten. Some hide it for the time being while others are so deep in denial that they never come out. Then there are those who don’t A Life Without You
23

realize it until later in life. They know something’s not right with them, but they can’t put a finger on what exactly.”