All That History

Chapter One

It was my own damn fault, that was the galling part. Even if I didn’t want to accept that. Even if I’d much rather have blamed Flynn, for being fucking perfect, or his parents perhaps, for making sure everyone within a half-mile radius knew exactly how fucking perfect their baby boy was.

Exclusive scholarship sort of perfect. Top university sort of perfect.

Great job, great life in the city, great prospects sort of perfect.

I’d started rolling my eyes as soon as I saw the brand new, insultingly-shiny SUV park outside, and they’d only spun faster when I then saw him pulling out beautifully wrapped gift, after gift, after gift.

Even through the closed window, I could’ve sworn I heard his mom cooing with “didn’t my genetics do well” pride.

Flynn was the golden boy, returned home in festive triumph, and it made me want to scream.

We’d been neighbor-friends growing up, which is to say not quite proper friends at all.

Companionship through convenience. Racing our bikes up and down the street, and kicking a ball around, and playing video games.

Up until high school anyway, when proximity took second place to people who were actually like you in some way.

Maybe if I’d stuck around and pretended Flynn and I had something in common, I’d have been caught in the updraft he rode so high.

Done better in classes, scored higher in exams. Been motivated to do more than half a semester at the local community college; found a better job, when I dropped out, than running the nearest thrift store.

I was store manager, officially. A fancy title for someone who spent half his time wearing disposable gloves, because people will donate any gross old thing when they drop a trash bag outside the shop.

It wasn’t like I was dissatisfied with my life, not really.

More money would’ve been great, sure, and more things to do in this frustrating midwest town.

More choice in the apps, that didn’t involve jumping in the battered old Chevy pickup that used to be my dad’s, and driving over to the nearest city.

Three hours or so, for some all-too-often disappointing sex. It was too bad you couldn’t ask for gas money along with the underwhelming dick.

Still, I couldn’t complain too much. It was only when I had my shortcomings - heck, this whole town’s shortcomings - thrust in my face by Flynn’s much-trumpeted visits, that I started to lose my patience.

He wasn’t going to stick around long, that’s what I figured.

The saving grace of his success: surely his life back in the city doing whatever important, well-paid, probably glamorous or at the very least life-saving job he had would need him.

A couple of days to shine bright like a diamond to his folks, and then off again.

Leaving us mere mortals whispering about the boy-god we’d been lucky enough to lay eyes upon.

Not so much a boy-god now though, mind. If I was twenty-six, going on twenty-seven, then Flynn must be that too.

He probably had fancy dinners in restaurants with Michelin stars to celebrate each glorious new year.

Here, the only sign of Michelin was on tires, and the handful of my friends still local had taken me to the Dairy Queen to mark my last birthday.

And still, it was fine, it was fun. It’s only when you have something so obvious to compare it to that you can’t avoid seeing the cracks.

My ire was practically palpable then, at discovering my mom had invited Flynn’s parents over for post-Christmas drinks.

Whether he came with them or not, I knew it was going to be an evening of stories about his success, not-so-humble brags about his intelligence, and pitying comments that didn’t quite come out and say “Oli must be such a disappointment,” even if we all knew that was the subtext.

I let out a small sigh of relief when it was just Flynn’s parents on the doorstep. Apparently golden-boy was still out, and would be “joining us later.”

I poured drinks, and handed round snacks, and generally tried to ignore how the conversation always, magically, came back to Flynn’s achievements. If you listened to his mom and dad, you’d think he was the only person to escape the town.

I tried not to let it get to me, but my blood pressure was rising. And then my mom said she’d like to listen to some Christmas music, and suddenly there was something Oli could actually do. Something vaguely worthwhile.

I’d pulled rank at the thrift store, when the Bluetooth speaker came in.

Usually donations were all off-limits - they had to go on the shelves, first, before staff could buy them - but around the holidays we had some extra leeway.

Nothing extreme: the bulk of what was dropped off did indeed get sold.

But, if there was something you really, truly had your eye on, the rules could be bent just a little.

My mom had always talked about the music she’d grown up listening to. When I saw that water bottle-sized speaker in one of the boxes left on the doorstep, I knew she’d appreciate it.

“Let me hook that up for you,” I told her, and got to bask in her beaming pride as I paired it to my phone and then started a music app.

I’d already made a playlist of some of her favorite tracks, and honestly, when I saw her face light up as the first notes played, I felt like the best fucking son in all the world.

We were five tracks in before my position as such was reassessed.

“Get that, won’t you, dear.” My mom waved me to the hallway as the doorbell buzzed.

I could see his silhouette through the frosted glass. Haloed by the porch light, tall and kinda bulky.

That was - of course - one of those fancy padded down jackets, I realized, when I opened the door.

Flynn grinned at me, apparently blithe to my sour expression. “Hey, Oli! Long time no see.”

I grunted a welcome, then stepped to the side so he could come in.

He kicked off his boots, adding them to the row on the long mat.

Dark, wavy hair. Big brown eyes and annoyingly strong cheekbones. Even in his socks, Flynn must’ve still been just north of six foot. As he hung his jacket up, it was impossible not to notice the sleek wool sweater that clung to his healthy physique.

“What’ve you been up to, dude?”

I made a face. “Just the usual.”

Flynn nodded, as if I’d said something insightful. “I swear, it gets colder here each winter.”

I bit back my natural inclination for sarcasm. “Guess so,” I managed instead, through clenched teeth.

His arrival prompted a replay of “Flynn’s mom recounts Flynn’s greatest hits,” a playlist so glowing, even the man himself looked sheepish when I glanced over across my beer.

He’d asked for wine - I wondered if he was silently judging us, for the five-dollar-a-bottle red that my dad enjoyed - though seemed more inclined to play with the stem of the glass than actually drink it.

“Mom, come on. They don’t want to hear this.”

It was the sort of thing you say, I thought, when the long list of your incredible achievements is just about done being read out. That way you get the benefit of the praise, but can also claim to be humble.

“What about you, Oli? What’ve you been doing?”

I fought the urge to glare at him. If - as I suspected was the case - his mom had already told him that the kid from next door was now slumming it at the local thrift store, then Flynn clearly just wanted to hear me say it out loud.

And if he didn’t know that, then he was an asshole for putting me on the spot.

It was hardly a secret that job options in our town were thin to nonexistent.

“I run the thrift,” I said, tersely. Washed the frustration down with another gulp of beer.

Flynn was saying something about that being cool, or rewarding, or whatever rich, successful people claim is admirable about jobs they wouldn’t do in a million years.

All I could see, though, was his mom’s expression as she glanced at my parents.

As if just hearing about what pittance their only son had achieved in life, so far, would have to drive them both to instant, unstoppable tears.

“Fuck you,” I wanted to tell her, when it became clear my mom and dad were just going to smile at me.

Without the sudden outpouring of dismay and disappointment, the conversation circled back to Flynn’s charitable works. At which point, I decided it was time to cut my losses before I said something sharp that I might end up regretting.

“Excuse me,” I murmured, standing and heading to the door. It seemed like only Flynn really heard; he watched me, in silence, as I stalked out.

I thumbed the lock on my bedroom door, before hurling myself down onto the bed in a way that felt decidedly teenage but also pretty satisfying.

Unable to keep in the grunt of frustration: not just at Flynn’s mom being so eager to compare her precious offspring to me, but at how clear it was that I’d fall well short.

I could claim to have different priorities, different goals to him, but seeing him sitting there in his Japanese denim jeans and no-change-from-six-hundred-bucks sweater, smiling as the praise heaped up, made me want to puke.

There wasn’t a single message on my phone to distract me. My friends all had family obligations of their own, which was fine and as it should be at the holidays, but it still left me feeling like a sad loner.

Flynn probably had a whole page of happy messages sitting unread, I found myself thinking, and then grunted again at how rapidly he’d got under my skin.

Hunting a distraction, I opened the browser. Swiped over to the private-browsing page - not like anyone else used my phone, but old habits died hard - and then pecked out the familiar keywords I knew were most likely to get me the videos I really wanted.