It's Like This (19 page)

I haven’t smoked in over two years and for the life of me I don’t know how Ry ever convinced me to give them up. This is what I need. When things in my head get messy, these are what calm me down.

These, and him. Fuck.

* * *

“You know I hate when you do that.”

Rylan’s voice beside me makes me jump. I didn’t expect him to follow me, but now that he’s here I realize I should have known better. I needlessly complicate shit and he resolves it and that is how we work.

I take one long, last drag before stubbing the thing out and dropping it next to the previous two butts, just because he told me to, or because he was going to tell me to. I do it just because the only thing that settles me better than tobacco is his voice relieving me of the responsibility of decision-making.

The last thing I want is what I suspect is coming. He’s never given one before, but maybe I’ve never deserved it before: a lecture on my own immaturity and histrionics and if he thinks I don’t know that I’m acting like a child he’s beyond wrong. However, just because I know I’m doing it doesn’t mean I know how to stop. I’m panicked. I can’t go back into that bar, that alternate universe, where Rylan isn’t gay and doesn’t touch me and cares about shit I know nothing about.

I can feel his eyes on me but I can’t look. This isn’t like me. We both know that. I don’t run: I ignore and persevere. My fingers go searching for another cigarette.

“Niles.”

I drop the pack and flick the lighter instead, saying nothing.

“I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

He’s using his voice—the voice. The one he uses when he’s about to fuck me, the one that simultaneously increases my heart rate and soothes my nerves, makes me absolutely certain he wants me, at least for the upcoming moments.

I try to maintain some semblance of control in my voice when I say, “If I stay in there any longer, I’ll fuck it up.”

“What do you mean?” Does he have to be so goddamn patient? Could he maybe get mad? Give me some justification to ditch the entire situation?

“I can’t do it.”

“Do what? We’re not doing anything. You’re doing fine. He doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Good. Great.” I don’t even try to make it sound like I mean it.

“Do you—do you want me to come out to him? I’ll do a lot of things for you, Nigh, but that kind of crosses a line.” There’s an angry bite to his tone that I’ve rarely heard before.

“No,” I counter, immediately—and I don’t. I can tell just from meeting the guy that that would mean the end. It’s a pitiful relationship, but it’s all Rylan has. I have no right whatsoever to want him to give that up.

“Then what?” He still hasn’t touched me and I’m going mostly crazy. For fuck’s sake; for the last three years, even when I convinced myself, and half-convinced Shona, that whatever Rylan and I had was over, that I was crazy, that we were just friends, or that he didn’t even slightly love me, it just took one touch from him, one possessive arm around my shoulders or hint of teeth on my earlobe to re-install hope, or relief or certainty.

So this, this is…

“You,” I gasp it out. “You can’t condition me to need something and then just cut me off, cold turkey. No warning.”

“What? Babe, what are you talking about?” He tries to interject, but I barely hear him. The floodgates are up and I can’t stop myself.

“And since when do you care about goddamn renos? You at least could have told me. I would have listened.”

“You hate that shit,” he replies, stunned. “My dad used to work construction, he’s into that sort of thing. But whatever, that doesn’t matter. What do you mean, condition you?”

“Like…God. This is beyond insane. Something’s wrong with me. I’m going home. Tell your dad I said thanks for the beer.”

I grab the pack of smokes before standing on unreasonably wobbly legs. I try not to look at Rylan but I catch his surprised expression in the gas station window anyway. I hate it, seeing him not knowing what to do.

* * *

Of course, I only make it about two steps before his hand clutches my wrist and bungees me back towards him.

“Oh, fuck no,” he says. “You at least have to let me know things are all right with us. Christ, just what are you walking away from even?”

His fingers automatically find mine and relief plummets through me. The concern in his eyes and the confusion in his voice is disarming and painful and everything I was feeling seems shoddy and weak in comparison.

“I’m sorry,” I say, stupidly, regretfully, ashamedly. I step in closer and he doesn’t back away. I register that I’m more important than spectators. I knew that, of course. I know that, but panic is hard to reason with.

“OK,” he says. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I guess…I guess I had expectations of how this would go. And it didn’t go that way, and so that threw me off, and when I get thrown off I usually just go to you to make it better, but I couldn’t, because you were right in the middle of it and…”

“You’re not making a ton of sense here, babe,” he says, hands sympathetic on my shoulders.

“Ugh. Uh. Fuck.” I shake my head with useless frustration.

“Words? Please?” he prompts, gently.

I bite my lip but then spit it out. “Look, Ry, I don’t think I understood just how much of a charade you put on for your father’s benefit. I feel like I was totally blindsided by this and I tried to let you know but you weren’t talking to me or looking at me or touching me and, like, all my pathetic insecurities came slamming back into me and you, the you I know, wasn’t even there and Christ! Since tenth frickin’ grade, any time I have been around you, you have found excuses to, like, put your hands on me. And we didn’t talk about what was going on for so long, that I guess I kind of substituted that for verbal reassurance. So when you take that away from me, without warning, I just get crazy or something and panic. I don’t know. It’s weird and it freaked me out and I didn’t know what to do, so I had to get out of there.”

He looks kind of bewildered. “But it’s not like I’m touching you every second of every day. I mean, I go to work. You go to school. We do all right doing our own thing. I don’t know why this would be different.”

“No, no. When you’re not around, it’s not a problem because I know you’re not touching me because you’re not around. When you are around…fuck, you are always all over me. Like, before we even got together you used to fuck around in French class, kicking me and writing on my arm, and you always made a point of being near me—you always chose me and never the other guys and it just felt really good and I didn’t know I’d come to depend on it and to expect it, but I guess I know now.”

Rylan gapes kind of hopelessly at me. “I guess. I never really thought…I mean. Yeah. You’re right. And it’s not like it didn’t mean anything, but…I just like touching you. I didn’t mean it to be…”

“This big thing,” I fill in. “I know. But somehow I interpreted it as that, and it’s kind of just stuck. So I’m gonna go. Because you’re too good at pretending, and I’m a little too messed up to know better, and now I’m feeling really fucking embarrassed and more than a little stupid, so I’m…Yeah. Gonna go.”

“OK.” He doesn’t sound convinced. “You need anything? Like, should I…?” He trails off, miserably.

“No,” I resolve. “No. I’m good. Humiliated, but fine. You go.”

He gives me a quick, tight hug, one arm hooked roughly around my neck, and he kisses me on the ear. “If it makes you feel better, I really fucking
wanted
to touch you.”

“OK, yeah. It kind of does.”

“I’ll call you later, yeah?”

“That would be good. I promise not to count down the minutes or wait by the phone. I’ll…go out and be independent or something.”

“Yeah, good plan. Sounds like you might need it,” he suggests.

“Fuck you,” I reply, without venom.

He grins. “Talk to you tonight.”

* * *

On the bus ride home I decide that talking shit out isn’t quite as terrifying as I somehow convince myself it will be.

I should try to remember that more often.

Rylan doesn’t text often, so I’m a little surprised when I check my phone.

“Anything good?” Shona asks. I’ve been recounting the meeting-the-parents debacle of the previous week while we sip iced coffee.

“Just Rylan,” I shrug, and quickly fire off a text:

Shona takes a long swig of her coffee then her eyes go wide and she grips her forehead. “Fuck. Brain freeze.”

I grimace in sympathy. My phone goes off again.

My cheeks flush with heat and Shona takes a break from her self-pitying to snatch my phone out of my hand.

“Christ on a cracker,” she whistles. “Controlling much?”

“Uh…” I mumble.

Shona rolls her eyes and laughs. “Well, I can’t compete with that.” My phone buzzes in her hand and she reads: “‘dont fucking keep me waiting.’” She shakes her head. “Seriously, Nigh? Like, look me in the eye and tell me you honestly enjoy this sort of thing.”

The last thing I want to do is look anyone in the eyes. I feel hot and uncomfortable and all I want is to go over and be with him, be good for him.

I also know that I won’t be able to enjoy it if I’m feeling guilty about making Shona guilty. So I lift my chin, and I catch her eyes and I shrug. “I do. When it’s him, I do.”

Her lips twist in doubt. “You promise?” she insists.

“Yeah. I do, but if I ever don’t, you’re my go-to girl, OK?”

“I’d better be.” She gives me a half-smile. “Also, can’t your man find the apostrophe key?”

“I guess punctuation isn’t what’s on his mind right now.”

Shona rolls her eyes. “Get out of here.”

“Thanks.” I kiss her offered cheek. “Love you. Call you soon.”

“Yeah, yeah.” But she grins as she rolls her eyes again and I know I don’t have to feel bad about ditching her.

* * *

The bus ride, as predicted, is hell. I’m anxious with anticipation and horny as fuck. It takes fifteen minutes just for the fucking thing to arrive (late), and then when it finally does arrive, we’re held up by a woman who can’t seem to figure out how to steer her motorized scooter on and off the bus. But finally,
finally
, the bus lurches forward—and my stomach flutters in sympathy.

* * *

I knock and Ry doesn’t answer, so I try the door handle. It’s unlocked. Taking a deep breath, which does absolutely nothing to calm the hailstorm in my chest, I open it and enter.

From the front door I can see him, sitting on the couch in the living room. The lights are all on, and even before he says anything, I feel pathetically exposed.

His posture is lazy, but his eyes sharp.

“Strip,” he demands.

I don’t hesitate, dumbfounded by his ever-constant ability to reduce me to this flustered, wanting mass of matter. By the time my jittery fingers pull away my shirt and shorts and boxers, my dick is rock hard and prominent, begging for attention—his attention.

“Come here,” he directs.

I take a shaky step forward.

“Uh uh uh,” he scolds, voice quiet in its teasing, but dangerous. “On your knees.”

This is absurd. A main part of me knows,
knows
, that I should be feeling utterly ridiculous right about now. It’s the only rational response to this situation, but Rylan and I, we’ve never been rational. So, I don’t. Instead I feel entranced, trapped, controlled. I drop to my hands and knees without question and approach him, crawling carefully between the couch and the footstool, stopping and kneeling at his feet.

“Good boy,” he says, an unconcerned palm dropping heavily on my head, stroking my hair.

Fuck. I could bask in his attention for every second of every day of the rest of my life and never need a single other goddamn thing in the entire world.

His hand stills and I look up at him, “Now what?” written clearly on my face. He stretches one hand over the back of the couch, relaxes the other onto to the arm rest.

“What the hell do you think?” he responds, sinking back into the cushions, legs parted obviously.

My fingers, trembling with something, I’m not sure what—desire or anxiety, or more likely a mixture of both—reach for his fly, detouring over his thighs.

“That’s enough with your hands, I should think.” Rylan’s voice, infiltrated with dominant arrogance, stops my motion before I undo the top button. For a moment I miss his meaning, and glance up at his face for clarification. His tongue darts menacingly out of his mouth, then hooks a retreat, and I get it. Resting my hands on his upper thighs, I press my face into his clothed crotch, feeling his erection against my cheek and nose. He sighs appreciatively and shifts forward slightly into the pressure and I want him. I want to feel his cock against my skin, in my mouth.

I tackle the top button and discover that this is a lot fucking harder than I expected. I have to bite down on the felt-ish material at the waistband of his pants, pull that taut, and then manoeuvre the button through the slot with my tongue. Thank fuck he’s not wearing jeans or something. It takes me a while, and I keep expecting Rylan to get impatient and just do it for me, which terrifies me because I can’t disappoint him, not again, all I ever do is disappoint him when I want so much to be good. Determinedly I finally align the button in just the right way and shove it through, glancing up at him victoriously once I’ve succeeded. His expression is one of languid amusement, and that sends a streak of exhilarated shame through me. I’m a game, a pet, a dependant.

And maybe if I behave, he’ll fuck me.

I take his zipper in my teeth and draw it down. His cock springs free, almost smacking me in the face and he chuckles. I stare at it for a moment. Rylan’s cock. Truthfully, I think it’s more familiar than my own. There’s a hint of pre-cum at the tip and I’m swamped with an ecstatic sense of pride. I did that.

“Kiss it,” he orders.

I do, immediately, and without question, half ignoring and half revelling in the small strings of jizz that attach themselves to my lips, making me feel cheap and filthy and aching.