Bowl Full of Cherries (15 page)

“Are you okay? Can I get you something? You look like you’re going to puke.”

“I… should… lay down.”

“Owly, you are laying down.” Jesus Christ. What had happened?

Crowley blinked at him and then tears welled in his eyes. “I-I’m sorry. I screwed it up. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Do you need me to get Mom? Or a bucket? Or a blanket? Or…?”

“Rell?” Crowley said, his eyes starting to clear. Color was coming back into his cheeks. Whatever strange, horrible hiccup had just happened was passing. He still looked pale, though.

“Yeah?”

“I know you’re not a bully.”

What?

“Of course not.”

“I just… we just… can we take it slower?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.”

“S
ORRY
IF
you’ve been bored.”

“What?” Crowley startled and looked up at his best friend and roommate. He’d poured himself a bowl of cereal and been poking at it for the last fifteen minutes. He’d picked at his food at the Nook that morning, and then skipped lunch, and before that? How many meals had he bypassed? He knew he needed to eat something, knew he’d have handled everything a lot better with a full stomach, but he just couldn’t make himself eat. He was past hungry, now into the queasy territory.

Tyler took the seat across from him. For the first time since he’d arrived he didn’t have a nephew or niece in tow, nor his cell phone. He was wearing his pajamas
—
Grinch pants and an
I Mustache You a Question
T-shirt. He’d lain down for a nap after helping with the garage and now his hair stood up on one side.

“I’m not bored,” Crowley said.

“Well, I mean the Livery was fun, but cleaning out the garage? It’s so like Rell to make everyone do his work.”

Crowley smiled weakly, stirring his spoon in the flakes that were quickly becoming mush.

“I actually like it. I like your house. I like your family. I like—”

“God, don’t say Averell.”

Crowley flushed and shrugged. If only Tyler had been in Rell’s room an hour ago. “He’s not what you said he was.”

Tyler didn’t even attempt to hide his eye roll. “He had a scholarship, you know? He had a full ride and he just pissed it away.”

“College isn’t for everyone,” Crowley said quietly. His stomach rumbled and guilt at his freak-out twisted inside of him. Rell had gotten dressed, and Crowley slipped down from the top mattress to the lower one, and tried to think. He knew. He
knew
Rell wasn’t Peter Yeats; it was just the way he’d said it:
Not even just your shirt?

So horrifically familiar.

“He’s smart, you know? He acts like a moron, but he’s really smart. It pisses me off to see him fritter his life away.”

“You love him.”

Tyler wasn’t listening as his rant picked up steam. “It’s like, goddamn sir, get a job and
keep
it! Do you know how many friends he’s lost because he’s moved in with them and just
stayed
? He’s been kicked off of more couches than I’ve ever seen. Katie won’t let him in her house because he asked to spend the night and then wouldn’t leave. It’s just….”

“You
love
him,” Crowley repeated, finally giving up on the cereal and sipping the sugary milk instead. It hit his stomach like a cool rush and made him feel sick. “You just want him to be happy.”

“I just want him to be
something
.” Tyler adjusted his glasses mindlessly and huffed. “Sell all his toys, get his own place, get a
job
, and like, I don’t know, be a human being.”

There was this moment—this half of a half of a second—where Crowley became subconsciously aware that Rell was standing in the doorway. He looked up but couldn’t smile, so embarrassed about what had taken place between them on the bed. Crowley should have explained. Not just explained better, he should have explained
at all
.

“Tyler Lang, why can’t you just accept me?” Rell asked, his voice lacking its normal humor.

Tyler’s eyes widened behind his glasses and his brows came together. But as Rell took a seat at the table, Tyler said, “Because you make me look bad.”

“How could I possibly make
you
look bad? We don’t even live in the same state.”

“You’ve got
my
face. My face doing idiotic things. Saying idiotic things.”

“Thank God you have
my
face,” Rell said a little darkly. “Walking around, spreading elitism and snobbishness. What would I do without you?”

“You know what, Rell—?”

“Crowley.” It wasn’t lost on Crowley that Rell had suddenly dropped the nickname. They definitely needed to talk. “I just came in here to tell you that we’re going to candlelight service tonight if you want to come.”

“Thank you, Averell,” Tyler said. “I’m perfectly capable of laying out the itinerary.”

Dark blue gaze, so concerned. He should explain….

“Well, maybe we can go look at the lights afterwards or—”

“The kids are going to want to open a gift after church.”

“And by kids, you mean you, right? Break into some of that cheese Sondra brought?” Rell harangued his brother, smirking. “You think Mom’s ready to let the pie go?”

“The reserve pie? Jes and the kids ate it last night.”

For a moment, the smile lingered on Rell’s face until slowly, inch by inch, it melted off, and all that was left was deep displeasure.

“What?”

“What what? The pie is gone.”

“It’s only Christmas Eve.”

“Mom said it would go bad. She put it out on the table and they had at it. Licked the tin. What do you want from me?”

“We’ve been eating bad pie
for years
. That’s the whole point. It goes a little south and then
I eat the pie
.”

“Well, Iron Stomach, I think Mom wanted to avoid post-Christmas food poisoning this year.”

“So she let the kids eat
my
pie?”

For the first time since Crowley had met him, Rell looked
angry.
And it had come on so suddenly, swelling and consuming him, turning his handsome, affable face into a stormy mask.

“I… I know how to make pie,” Crowley offered quickly. It wasn’t true about making a pie, but he’d
seen
it done, and there was always the Internet. He just wanted to somehow undo the hurt and upset. He knew Rell wasn’t just frustrated about the pie, but about Crowley’s freak-out and, more so, his refusal to talk about it. “If we can make a quick run to the store—”

Even Tyler seemed a little disturbed at his brother’s transformation.

“Closed at noon.”

Rell shook his head, turned, and left the room.

“Shit.”

“What?” Crowley asked.

“He’s pissed.”

Well, Crowley could see that. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Rell was upset.

“It’s my fault….” Crowley mumbled.

“You didn’t eat the pie.”

“N-no, it’s not about the pie….” Slowly he turned the spoon through the goop that was left in the bottom of his milkless bowl. “He’s not upset about the pie.”

“Of course he is. He harps about that damned thing for days and then when Mom gives the all clear he steals it and eats it all by himself. Every year. It always makes him puke.”

Crowley opened his mouth, and he felt the words coming out. He thought he could sense the vibrations in his throat, but through the rushing in his ears, he couldn’t hear the sounds his vocal chords made. He slowly raised his eyes. Tyler was staring at him, eyes large behind his glasses, mouth agape. He’d definitely said it.

“
What
?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Wait,
what
?”

Crowley stood up, but his knees felt weak underneath him. The room began to sway and when he took a step forward, he stumbled.

“Crowley?”

Maybe he’d waited too long to eat.

H
E
HEARD
their voices above him. Arguing.

“—fuck is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? Really? Don’t you have your long list? Written down in your tablet? ‘All the Things That Are Wrong With Averell.’”

“You
and Crowley
.”

“What about it?”

“You
and Crowley
. I’m going to repeat: What? The fuck? Is wrong? With
you?
He’s gay you know.”

“My God, I hope you have a point.”

“My point is that you’re doing what you always do. Just floating through life. Oh, hey, Tyler’s friend is standing in front of me in a club and he’s gay and I guess I want to experiment and—”

“It’s
not
like that, Tyler. Screw you.”

“Screw
you
, Rell. What? You think you’re going to strike up this ‘thing’ with him for fifteen minutes over Christmas and then send him on his way? You can’t do that to Crowley, you jerk. You can’t treat him like that.”

“I didn’t ask for this, okay.” Rell’s voice was hot with anger. “It wasn’t like I said to myself, ‘Let’s see what a guy’s lips taste like today.’ It just
happened
.”

“You better not be fucking with him, Rell.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m serious. I’m so serious.”

“Are you ‘totally for cereal, sir’? Fucking hipster.”

There was a long moment of silence where Crowley felt like he could drift back off to sleep if he let himself.

“How far has it gone?”

“Why is that your business, Tyler?”

“Oh my
God
. What did you do? Did you have sex with him?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“Don’t? Really? You’re going to dictate my sex life now?”

“I’m
asking
you to refrain.”

“Honestly, sounds like you’re
telling
me. But even if you were
asking
, what right do you have to do that, huh? I don’t
ask you
not to sleep with every freak-show girl who stumbles into your life. You make your own bad decisions.”

“Crowley is special. Crowley’s… he’s… not
like
you, Averell. Just dancing through life. He has a future. And you know what? Too many people have screwed him over already. I’m not going to stand by and let my brother be another one in a long line of assholes!”

“You don’t really have any say in it.”

“You know why he passed out? He hasn’t been eating. Have you noticed
that
?”

Rell’s answer was silence.

“Even after I told you about his body issues. Even after all of that. You pursued him. Did you push him? Did you pressure him? Do you even know anything about him at all? You’re going to switch to the other team for fifteen whole seconds—long enough to bang him—and then what? You’re just gonna scar him. You’re just gonna be like that fucking douche Peter Yeats, who—”

“Who’s Peter?” Rell’s voice was dark, sharp. “He said he hadn’t been with anyone.”

“He
wasn’t
. Peter is the devil. He’s cancer. He’s gone now. The point is, Rell:
think
. Okay? Think about this before you do something stupid.
Think
before you screw everything up.
Again
.”

“Hey, Tyler?” Rell’s voice still carried that deep, harsh, angry tone. “Who’s David?”

I
T
WAS
difficult to hide in a house crammed full of people. There was someone in every room—sometimes two or three. Crowley hadn’t thought it was possible to be any more embarrassed, and then he’d passed out.
Fainted
. Because he hadn’t been eating right.

At that very moment, he was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, wondering how much longer he could stay in the bathroom before he had to come out and face one, or both, of the Lang brothers. Everyone was upset, and it was his fault.

If he’d just stayed at the apartment….

No, better than that. If he’d taken that Kansas City flight.

But his mother had made it perfectly clear. If he insisted on being a…. No, he wouldn’t repeat the word, not even in his head. But if he insisted on being
that
, then he shouldn’t expect a ride home from the airport. So what would it have solved to take the flight? Even with Alice in town, his sister was still under their overbearing mother’s thumb. Even if she was all right with his being gay, Crowley couldn’t expect her to be his protector when she still didn’t know herself.

So he’d come to the Lang household and ruined their Christmas instead.

Shaking a little, Crowley ran his hands over his face.

There was a very gentle knock at the door.

“Sorry to bother you.” It was Sondra, her voice gentle and coming in waves. “I just really need to use the commode. Think I could—”

He pulled open the door, ready to give up the space, but she stepped inside and quickly shut the door, locking it.

“What are you—?”

“Sorry,” she said brightly. “I lied. I actually wanted to get in here and talk to you. Aunt Margaret is worried sick. She thinks you’re anorexic.”