Moments in Time (3 page)

“What’s the point of a chicken parm sub without cheese?”

Tanner climbed over me and walked to the microwave-fridge in the corner of our room.
Still naked. Jesus. So am I. Do I put on clothes? Do I wait for him to put on clothes?
He pulled the sub out of the fridge and set it down on the desk.

“Want half?”

“No, thanks.”

The foil crinkled as he unwrapped it. He took a bite and groaned. My cock gave a nod of approval as it recognized the sound.
Jesus.

“You sure you don’t want the other half? This is fucking awesome.”

“I ate at work.”
And I can barely swallow my own spit right now, let alone consider eating something.

“You’re so fucking lucky. There’s never any food at the bookstore unless the manager brings in muffins. And she doesn’t bake very well. I should have applied at Gino’s when you did.”

“I think a few people are gonna leave soon. I’ll let you know if they’re hiring.” A flash of Tanner shoving me up against the wall at Gino’s—his tongue in my mouth, his hands undoing my pants—raced through my mind, and I shuddered from head to toe. That could never happen. Didn’t stop the image from replaying.

“Cool.” He’d already finished half the sub. “Last chance.” He held out the other half in my direction.

I shook my head.

“Your loss.”

My arm was starting to fall asleep, so I shifted. The second I moved, I felt the cold wet spot on the bed. “Uh….”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve got an extra blanket if you want it.”

“It’s okay.” I sat up, still not knowing what the fuck I was supposed to do or say. The dark spot in the center of my bed stared up at me, and heat prickled through me as I remembered how it got there. I pulled the covers down, wadded them into a ball and shoved them inside my laundry bag along with the soggy shorts at the foot of the bed. “I just need to make sure I do laundry before my mom stops by tomorrow.”

“Your mom’s coming?”

My stomach churned at the thought. What if she knows? What if she walks into the room and
knows
the second she looks at me? I sorted through my bottom drawer, looking for another pair of shorts. I didn’t feel any less naked after I had them on.

Tanner crumpled the foil and tossed it into the trash can next to the fridge. “You’re starting to freak me out again. You sure you’re okay?”

“I don’t know.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them, then there they were, hanging in the air between us.

“Okay.”

Tanner stood up, and my heart made a mad dash for my throat. He was three feet away from me. If I’d taken one step forward and reached out, I could have touched him. I wanted to touch him. He took a step back, and disappointment washed over me in a cold wave. He plucked a pair of shorts off the back of his desk chair and tugged them on, then opened the fridge again.

“You want a drink?”

“Snapple?”

He handed me an iced tea, and my hand shook as I took it from him. The
pop
of the lid made me jump. Calm down. I forced myself to take a gulp and focused on the sweet, tangy taste. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until that first swallow. The bottle was half-empty by the time I stopped drinking.

Tanner sat on the edge of his bed, picking at the plastic label on his Coke bottle. He lifted it to his lips, took a sip, and—God help me—all I could think about was his mouth. On mine. On anything. My cock shared my thoughts.
Christ
. I was getting hard again. From watching my roommate drink a fucking soda. I sat down on my bed. The sheets felt cool against my legs, and I tried to concentrate on that.

“So why’s your mom coming over?”

I could tell Tanner was trying to keep his voice as normal as possible, but it sounded different. Worried? Or maybe that was just me. Maybe he’d already forgotten what we did.

“She’s dropping off my suit. My niece’s first communion is this weekend.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“You’ve never been to a first communion before, have you?”

Tanner shook his head and took another swig of Coke. “Nope. But I kind of assume that’s the type of thing where there’s food after, right?”

“Jesus, is that all you ever think about?”

He swiped his hand through his hair, and it fell right back across his face. “No. Sometimes I think about sex.”

Laughter snorted from me, quickly giving way to full-blown cackling when I realized Tanner was laughing too. The sound filled the room, lifting all the heaviness that had been crushing me since Tanner left my bed.

Tanner fell back on his mattress, rubbing his side but still howling. “Oh, man, stitch. Ow.”

All I could think about now was his hand moving over his abs. “Sorry.”

I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for, but I was sure there should be something.

Tanner breathed out a combination groan-chuckle. “Is that why you’re freaked-out? The Catholic thing?”

“Yes.” I hadn’t actually thought about that, but now that he mentioned it, the answer was obvious. “I mean, I think that’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

I tried desperately to read his voice. It sounded just like it had when he’d asked if I’d come yet after I watched him jerk off. Not mad… curious. “It’s… I mean… I don’t know. It’s kind of all connected. My family’s like the opposite of yours.”

Tanner chuckled again. “Pretty sure that’s a good thing in most ways. My family’s pretty fucked up. Last time I checked, my dad was dating some chick who’s around my age. And my mom’s having some guru dude read her tea leaves or some sort of shit, so she can decide what her next life path should be.”

He air quoted the words “life path” and rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” I said. “Different kind of fucked up. Still, I don’t think either of them will disown you for… anything.”

Tanner propped himself on his elbow, and his eyes flashed as he studied me from across the room. “And you think yours would?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“For what?”

Sitting up felt like a monumental effort. I rested my elbows on my knees and rubbed my forehead with both hands, trying to think of a way to explain. “You know about my brothers, right?”

“I know one’s got kids and the other one’s gonna be a priest, right?”

“Right. You know why?”

“Nope. Well, actually now that you mentioned it, I think it crossed my mind that maybe the one in the priesthood might be gay.”

My mouth fell open. That thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Not once.
Is he?
I shook my head. Not what I needed to be thinking about right now. “I don’t… I can’t even…. Okay, let me start over. When I was twelve, my mom caught Quinn jerking off. He was fifteen. We’d all been out shopping and he’d… taken advantage of having the house to himself. He must not have heard us come home.”

“Yikes. So I’m guessing your mom freaked?”

“She didn’t scream or yell. She stood there, made him put his clothes on, loaded us all back into the car, and drove him over to the church for him to go to confession.”

“Wait, I’m not Catholic, but I thought you were only supposed to confess shit you were sorry for and didn’t plan to do again.”

“Yeah, well, in my mom’s eyes that wasn’t something he should ever do again.”

Tanner snorted. “That’s not realistic.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what the fuck the priest said to Quinn. He never wanted to talk about it. That night before dinner, she sat all three of us down at the kitchen table and said ‘she wouldn’t have that behavior in her house.’ The next day she changed every doorknob to every room in the house, so none of them locked.”

“Fuck.”

“Quinn must have taken what she said, or what the priest said, totally to heart. Or he was so embarrassed he couldn’t even think straight. I don’t know. Whatever happened, he was different after that. So was my mom. She wouldn’t even look at him anymore, until the day he announced he wanted to enter the seminary program. Then it was like he could do no wrong in her eyes.”

“No offense, but that’s kinda fucked up. I mean, if that’s what he really wants to do, that’s great, but if his reasons are based on that one event….”

“Right. Then it’s totally fucked up. Anyway, Sean had a slightly different reaction. He got a girlfriend a few months later and got her pregnant. Married her. Now they’ve got three kids.”

“And he’s how much older than you?”

“Only three years. He turned twenty-three last month. He was sixteen when he got married.”

Tanner plucked at a stray string on his comforter. “Shit. That’s crazy. How old’s Quinn?”

“Twenty-four. My mom had him and Sean less than a year apart. She had two miscarriages after that, then me. The doctor told her no more pregnancies, but she got pregnant again, had another miscarriage so bad she needed a hysterectomy. Otherwise I’d probably be one of fifteen kids.”

Tanner blew out a breath. “Remind me not to bitch about being an only child.”

I smiled. “I’ll remind you.”

“What about your dad? He didn’t weigh in on any of this?”

“My dad wasn’t around much when I was little. He worked a lot. He died when I was ten.”

“Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that.”

I shrugged. “I don’t talk about it. Truth is, I don’t remember a ton about him. My mom was always the more hands-on parent. Once he was gone, she called all the shots—she’s not the kind of person a lot of people argue with.”

“So it seems.” Tanner paused, and I wondered if he thought my family was completely crazy. “Okay. So one brother chose celibacy, the other one chose crazy-young marriage… what about you? You don’t seem to have done anything that dramatic.”

“I opted for a different interpretation of ‘not under my roof.’”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a big shed way at the back of our property, and I convinced my mom to let me turn it into a garage so I could fix up old cars. Said it was a great way for me to earn money for college. And it was. I bought these piece-of-shit cars and worked on them until I could sell them. By my senior year, half the teachers at the school were paying me to do their oil changes and replace their mufflers.”

“I knew you were good with cars. Yours is like the fucking Batmobile. What does this have to do with anything?”

“I didn’t jerk off in the house….”

“The shed?”

I felt heat creeping over my face. I’d never told anyone this. “The cars.”

“No shit. Other people’s cars?”

“Yeah. Until I got my own.”

Tanner’s eyes were round as he stared at me, and then he burst into laughter.

Great. I sound like the world’s biggest dork. Why did I tell him?

“Sorry.” He choked the words out. “I just can’t stop thinking that the Batmobile is really the
Bate
-mobile.”

Batemobile? Oh. Mastur-bate. Duh. Okay. I guess that
is
kinda funny.
“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to get that as a vanity plate anytime soon.”

Then we were both laughing, and it felt good.

Tanner rubbed his eyes and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ve never really been into cars. Not a lot of New Yorkers have them. But I have a whole new appreciation for the automotive industry now.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Uh, yeah. The thought of you getting off in all those cars? That’s fucking hot.”

My cheeks prickled. “You like thinking about that?”

“What’s not to like?”

I shrugged.

“I’m a little worried I’ll get a boner every time there’s a carjacking announced on the news.” Tanner grinned and drained the rest of his Coke, and my cock and I watched, envying the bottle. He set it down on his desk. “What about you?”

Something in his voice made the boulder reappear in my throat. “What about me?”

“Do you like thinking about me that way? Because if you don’t, it’s cool. If this was a one-off, I’ll get over it.”

My mouth was so dry, I wasn’t sure I could speak. “You’d get over it?”

“If that’s what you need, then, yeah. Dude, you’re my roommate. You’re my friend. I’d—”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant… it would require getting over?”

“Well, yeah. I’m bi, but I don’t just go around humping anything with a pulse.”

That seemed true enough. I knew he hooked up with Wendy for whatever their weekly arrangement involved, and I’d seen him date a few different girls the past couple of years when we lived on the same floor. I didn’t even know he’d ever been with a guy. We didn’t talk about stuff like that. Until now.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

The image of come pumping out of his cock hit me like a ton of bricks. My cock had crept down the leg of my shorts and was pressing into my thigh, leaving another very wet spot. I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to ask.

“You’ve, like, been with guys?”

“Yes.”

“Plural?”

“Two.”

The thought turned me on and made me jealous in equal measure, but I couldn’t even tell what I was jealous about—the fact that he’d done this before or the fact that it had been with someone other than me.

“Here?”

“No. No one at school. Last summer, when I worked at that restaurant on Fire Island, there was another waiter. He was a few years older than me, and I guess he saw what I’d been afraid to admit. We were closing one night, and no one else was there. One minute we were covering the salad dressings in the walk-in, and the next he was kissing me with my dick in his hand.”

The feeling returned. A pang, deep in my stomach, twisting and burning. What he was describing wasn’t much different from what I’d pictured when Tanner mentioned getting a job with me at Gino’s. Only this was him and some other dude. An older guy, who probably had way more experience.

“Obviously you liked it.”

“Yeah. And it scared the crap out of me. So I get it, you know? If you’re not sure, or you’re over there losing your shit about this, I understand.”

“Who was the second guy?”

Tanner planted his hand in his hair and scratched the back of his head. I wanted to feel his hair under my fingers again. “I went back to my mom’s place in the city, for a week between when the summer job ended and I was due to move in here. There was this guy in her building. Our age. He was home for break too, and we hooked up one night.”