Too Stupid to Live(Romancelandia) (32 page)

Logic wasn’t helping him—he still felt confused.

When he saw Sam, things would fall back into place inside him.

Sam never said he loved you
.

He did love Ian, though, he just needed more time, or maybe more proof of Ian’s feelings for him first. This could work. It
would
. It had to.

He just needed to get his head screwed on straight. Seeing Sam when he had all these stupid doubts . . . that seemed like a bad idea.

Something about this sudden rainstorm wasn’t right. The wrongness of it settled in Sam’s gut and filled him with anxiety. The weather in romance novels always reflected the plot point. Thunder and lightning? The Too Stupid to Live heroine was about to run out on the rocky cliff in the dark, wearing only her nightdress. Sudden rainstorm on an otherwise nice day? They were about to have a serious, possibly relationship-ending incident.

Maybe he was imagining things.

Maybe he felt that sense of impending doom because Ian was fifteen minutes late to pick him up. Sam stood at the glass doors of the student union, watching cars sweep by, looking for Ian’s pickup, but he was officially tardy enough to start worrying about things like car accidents and hospitals.

Maybe he didn’t get done with work on time, and he forgot to charge his phone. And didn’t notice until after he’d left, so he couldn’t call from the office.

Sixteen minutes. Officially, Ian was late enough that Sam could start worrying about his boyfriend having some kind of freak out about being in an honest-to-God relationship for the first time in his life.

Since Tuesday night, in the back of his mind—or maybe his heart—Sam had been waiting for the plot to go awry. For Ian to react badly to calling Sam his boyfriend, or to the level of commitment they’d reached when they decided not to use condoms. Oh, Sam hadn’t
known
he was waiting for Ian’s impending freak out, but now that it was here he realized he’d been expecting it.

God, and then this morning, when Ian had blurted out
I love you
while he came. What if he really
had
just said it without meaning to?

You should have told him you loved him too
. But Sam hadn’t wanted to do it that way. He didn’t want Ian to think he’d just said it because he felt like he had to; he wanted Ian to
know
it.

Seventeen minutes late.
He isn’t coming
.

Sam stared blindly into the traffic passing by outside, wondering how it had come to this. Really, he couldn’t blame Ian; the man had been honest with him, at least up until this morning. He’d truly believed all that stuff he’d said about wanting to have a relationship. Wanting to
try
. This heartbreak was all on Sam. He hadn’t done enough to guard his heart, had he?
Failed again
.

Time to let his heart shatter into a million tiny pieces, like it had been destined to do all along—

His phone rang in his pocket, startling him. Of course it would be Ian, and when Sam looked at the screen he found exactly what he’d expected.
My boyfriend
. He tried very, very hard to be relieved and hopeful, not dreading what he was about to hear.

“Hello?” He held his breath.

“Sam?” That was all Ian said for a few seconds, but really, it was all Sam needed to hear. His stomach felt hollow and empty. Ian took a breath before speaking again. “Listen . . . I can’t pick you up.”

Sam swallowed and blinked hard. “Why not?”

“I, um . . . my father called today.”

“Oh.” In Sam’s experience, all trauma began with family interference.

“I’m not sure I can explain, but I need some time to myself to think, kiddo.”

Don’t call me that
. Sam swallowed the lump in his throat. “Ian . . .”
You said you
loved
me
.

“I just need to get my head screwed on straight. Please don’t be mad?” He didn’t feel mad, he felt sad. Why couldn’t Ian get his head screwed on straight
with
him? Or was it gay? Get his head screwed on gay. Ian continued before Sam was ready—as if that were an actual possibility. “This isn’t about you kiddo, it’s other stuff. It’s me. I’ll call you as soon as I figure this out.”

“Okay,” Sam whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and resting his forehead against the cold glass of the door.

Ian hesitated. Like he didn’t really want to end this. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine, Ian. I’ll talk to you s—whenever you’re ready.” Weak. But Sam
had
to keep that possibility open. Even if it was only to fool himself a little bit longer.

“Sam? I swear, this isn’t about you, it’s about me,” Ian said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Maybe—”

“Ian, don’t drag this out.” Sam said. His voice was on that edge of raw where he knew he’d break down and beg if they talked any longer. He should just say goodbye and end this, but some vindictive part inside him wanted to make Ian do it. It was his idea; he could take responsibility for all of it.

There was a very long pause in which Sam heard Ian’s breathing, even over the noise of the traffic outside. Was that a gulp? “Sam, I’m—”

“Ian.”

“Sorry. Bye.” He hung up immediately, and Sam let himself think it was because Ian knew if he didn’t do it fast—if he heard Sam’s voice one more time—he wouldn’t be able to.

Bastard
.

He sort of remembered getting on the bus. He sat next to a window and stared out, watching it get wetter and darker, looking at all the miserable people trapped in the rain. His heart was in free fall, and his main parachute had failed.

Sam dredged up his backup parachute—
IthinkIloveyou
.

It failed too.

He only had one choice left. The Hail Mary pass—and yes, he was mixing metaphors, but at a time like this, did it matter? He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed up his first-string.

“Nik? It’s me.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Nik said, tipped off by something in Sam’s voice. “Just hang on, honey.”

“Bring wine,” Sam croaked.

When Nik knocked, Sam answered the door in his comfort jeans and Snoopy T-shirt. Nik looked him over, hugging four bottles of wine to his chest and clutching a paper bag in one fist. “Are you wearing the Underoos?”

Sam nodded.

Nik pushed his way in. “It’s worse than I thought. What did that dumbassed bastard do?” He headed straight for Sam’s kitchen and the corkscrew.

“He . . . he said he needed some time to himself to th-think,” Sam choked out.

Nik stopped opening the first bottle and looked at Sam in horror, one hand over his mouth. “Oh no,” he whispered.

Sam nodded and wiped at the tear that had snuck out onto his cheek. Nik reapplied himself to the wine with vigor. “I’m opening as fast as I can.”

Sam nodded dully. “He also said that—” he paused to swallow “—it’s not me, it’s
h-him
.” He swallowed the rest of the sob that had nearly escaped.

Nik stopped rooting through Sam’s cupboard for glasses, grabbed the wine, and came for him. He wrapped Sam in his arms, squeezed him tight, then handed him the bottle. “You start on this. I’ll open another one for me.”

Sam looked at the bottle blankly. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

“I have ice cream in the grocery bag,” Nik said. “Drink; it’s medicinal.”

“I don’t remember wine curing me of heartbreak before.”

“It doesn’t, it just helps you get it all out.”

What did he have to lose? He tipped the bottle up and poured some wine down his throat.

That night, he did get it all out. The way the sex with Ian had turned into lovemaking, and how Ian had said he wanted to try having a relationship. As if it were some new and foreign food he thought he might like if he only tasted it.

“Maybe sea urchin roe. What’s that stuff called again?” Sam asked Nik, lying next to him on the futon, staring up at the ceiling.

“Uni,” Nik answered, shuddering. Sam shuddered too. That stuff was repulsive. “I doubt he sees you as being remotely like the slimy, undifferentiated gonads of a sea creature.”

Sam covered his face with his hands and admitted his biggest fear. “But what if I’m just, like, relationship training wheels?” he whispered. “I thought I was the big boy bike.”

Nik rolled toward him and hugged Sam hard. “You
are
a big boy bike. If not Ian’s, then someone else’s.”

Sam sighed and patted Nik’s forearm. “I guess, but right now Ian’s the only one I want riding me.”

Nik squeezed him again, then sat up. “Do you think I should open more wine? You’re out, and I’m close.” He swished around the inch or so of wine left in his bottle, peering at it as if it would answer him.

What did he have to lose? “Yeah,” Sam sighed.

“Okay, one bottle or two?”

When Nik came back with fortifications—and ice cream, this time—he said, “Ian thinks you’re cute. He even told Jurgen that.”

Sam shrugged, trying to tip wine into his mouth without sitting up.

“Jurgen doesn’t think I’m cute,” Nik said around a mouthful of ice cream.

“What?”

Nik shrugged. “I asked after he told me about Ian and you. Jurgen says I get cute when I’m so mad I’m smiling and using my ‘pleasant’ voice right before I knife someone in the back. Figuratively speaking.”

“Oh.”

Nik sighed and said contemplatively, “I think
true
cuteness is an unattainable ideal with Jurgen. I’m okay with that.”

“He has many other wonderful qualities,” Sam rushed to point out.

Nik sighed again, but in a dreamy way. “Doesn’t he?” Then he sort of shook himself. “But we’re talking about you, so tell me more.”

Sam told Nik more—the boyfriend thing, the no condom thing, the
I missed you
and even the
IthinkIloveyou
. It took nearly another bottle of wine and a lot of ice cream to get through.

Then he threw up. Nik stood in the bathroom doorway, blinking at him and leaning against the jamb. He wrinkled his brow. “Mebbe you should ’ave more ice cream.”

Sam retched. Then he laid his cheek on the cool porcelain. “Think th’ice cream’s why I’m puking.”

“Oh. Could make you toast?” Nik closed one eye, possibly to focus on him.

“D’you think he loves me?”

Nik nodded solemnly. “I do. I thin’ he loves you. He’s just a dumbass bas’ard.”

Sam lifted his head, thinking about that. “So, you think he might ac-tu-ally call me?” he enunciated carefully.

Nik shrugged. “I dunno, Sam.”

“Possible, though, right? It’s possible.”

“Oh yeah, def.” Nik nodded so hard he almost fell over.

Sam lay down on the cool bathroom floor. The room was spinning, and he was afraid he was going to puke again.

“You jus’ rest there, Sam. I’ll get you a blanke’,” Nik said in a motherly tone—if Sam had a flaming lush for a mother.