Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Jackson
I was in a daze, floating around my grandparents’ house, aware of my body in a way I’d never been before. I ended up back in the guest room that AJ and I had recently vacated. I don’t really recall getting dressed, but by the time AJ came back in, wrapped in a too-small towel, I was in a navy-blue FDNY sweatsuit, sitting on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands, my body still thrumming with sensation. One look at my best friend had me thinking I could go again.
“I’ve got my go bag in the car.” AJ looked at me apologetically. I took one look out the window and shook my head no.
“Hang on.” I wandered into my grandparents’ room and got distracted, looking out the darkened window at the snow falling on the lake, thinking about other times AJ and I had visited in the winter. Me taking my grandparents’ bedroom, sometimes with some local woman with me, AJ with someone else in the guest room I had just vacated.
“Yeah, well there’s fucking no one else here tonight,” I told the window, putting my hand on it to feel the cold. It was enough to shock me back into action, and I rummaged through my grandparents' dressers until I found some clothes I knew my grandparents didn’t really wear.
I found a pair of gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved Dorso Electronics T-shirt. I poked around the room until I also found two pairs of fluffy socks.
He had taken my place on the edge of the bed waiting for me, his legs spread, the towel barely covering anything. It was AJ’s casual way of sitting, I knew, not meant to be salacious. Still, between the inviting stance and the evening we’d just had, I couldn’t quite look at him.
“I’m not going out there. Will these do?” I stuck the arm holding the clothes out to him, keeping my body, and my eyes, sideways. He took them from me with a chuckle.
“’Course. Thanks,” he said. I stood dumbly to the side, waiting for him to slip them on, but I sensed no movement on his part.
Eventually, he spoke. “Jax?”
“Uh-huh?” I let out, staring at a spot on the wall.
“Jackson,” he stated more emphatically. “Gonna need you to look at me, bro.”
I was his bro again, not his cari?o . Right, maybe I could … Nope.
He stood and forced himself into my line of sight, making me watch as he dropped the towel and pulled the sweats up. Getting dressed together was something we did all the time at the station, but watching him that evening was too much for my overloaded senses and emotions. I kept my eyes averted.
“Jackson, I’m really gonna need you to look at me.” I swung around and took in the sweatpants, slightly too tight and riding low on his hips. “You okay?”
I nodded.
“Okay, come on.” He swiped the shirt and pulled it on as he walked past me. It fit him snugly as well, and I worked hard to remember that it was my grandfather’s shirt with my parents’ company logo on it. Nothing sexy about that.
As he walked past, he grabbed my arm. “Time to talk,” was all he said as he marched us downstairs and practically pushed me onto the couch.
“Give me those.”
“Huh?”
“Jesus, Jax.” He laughed, pulling the four socks from my hand. Then he bent down and put two of them, two mismatched socks, on my feet. When he popped up, he leaned in and kissed my cheek. All I could do was stare at the fireplace in front of me. “Hold these for me, Jackson. I’ll be right back.”
He went and added a log to the fire, using the poker to adjust it. Then he stood and stared at it for a minute.
“AJ,” I whispered to his strong, ramrod-straight back. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Aje?”
“Yeah, yes. Here I am.” He deposited the poker back in its stand and sat so close to me our legs touched. “Hand ’em over?”
“Huh?” I said again before realizing I was holding the other pair of mismatched socks. I pulled my eyes from the fireplace to watch him slip them on.
“Tell me everything.” He implored.
“I … I still don’t understand any of this.”
“I know, and I’m not one hundred percent sure I do either. So let’s start at the beginning and figure it out.”
I sighed, and AJ turned to me on the couch. I sensed him there but remained staring at the dancing flames.
“We’ll figure this out, Jackson. I promise.”
I nodded, and we were quiet. He stayed quiet until I began.
“A guy hit on me last year, at Freeda’s New Year’s Eve party. No, that’s not exactly right. I … He wanted to hit on me, so he asked if you and I were together. Said it seemed like we were.”
“Darren’s boyfriend, Merrick. I remember.”
“I guess I’ve always thought guys could be hot. But I never … I never thought more about it than that. I mean, I enjoy sex with women, so what difference did it make if I thought a guy was hot? And I never wanted to rock the boat where my family is concerned. That’s why I got a fucking MBA before I was able to tell my parents I didn’t want to run their company. But that talk with Merrick made me … it… it was like a smack in the face. It made me think about it, made it real. I told him we were both straight, but after that conversation, I couldn’t get it off my mind.”
“And you thought you couldn’t tell me? Is that why you pulled away from me?”
“Yes. No.” I let out a frustrated, “Ugh,” and ran my fingers up and down my face. “What are you doing here, AJ? Why did we …” I waved my hand between us. Unwilling to say the words out loud, afraid the dream would evaporate if I did, and I would wake up alone in the cabin, having been stood up by some rando from Guys4Guys.
It was my turn to pause and wait for AJ to take up the conversation. I could sense him looking at me and could tell when he nodded his head.
“Okay, fair enough. My turn. I have fucking hated this past year, and it didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t because I’d lost my bro code buddy, or because I wasn’t out getting laid as much. It was because I’d lost my best friend. I don’t know how it was for you”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“but I realized, once we’d stopped spending practically every night out on the prowl, that it wasn’t the prowl I was missing or the women. It was you . It had always been about spending that time with you in the bars, talking to you the next day. Watching the game with you on Sundays even if all we were doing was babysitting Vera while we watched.
“You’ve been there for me, Jackson, since the first time I shook your hand and teased you for being a probie. It wasn’t a big leap, for me at least, to realize that the one thing that was missing in our relationship were those hours when we would split up and go home with different women. Always different women, Jax. Never one I wanted to see long-term or settle down with, because I always wanted to come back to you.
“Did I know I was attracted to men? I mean, no, I genuinely didn’t realize that. If I think about it, were there clues over the years?” He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that I was a horrible, jealous monster last night, thinking about you coming up here to be with someone else. And when I watched him leave, it wasn’t even about that. I just didn’t want to see you hurting. I don’t ever want to see you hurting. I want you, and I want to … I’ll do … I’ll be whatever you want, Jax. Whatever you need to explore this. If it’s just your sexuality. Or if it’s your sexuality and us. We take this at your pace. I just want my best friend back.” He ended on a whisper.
It took just one beat before I jumped over and straddled him again, taking his head in my hands and kissing him with a fever and a passion I’d only ever seen in movies. He gave it right back to me, but all too soon, we slowed down, kissing unhurriedly, rhythmically, our lips sharing the rest of the story. My hands found their way under the tight T-shirt I’d loaned him, and I ran them up and down his chest before I worked my way behind and pulled myself as close to him as possible. I held on tight, and we kissed and kissed. Eventually, I pulled away with another frustrated, “Ugh,” sitting back down and staring at the fire. I could sense him turning and staring at me, and he waited me out once again. Waited for me to finish our story.
Finally, I started in the same hushed tones he had ended on. “It’s because of you. I stayed away this year because of you.” My heart felt like it was about to beat directly out of my chest. “Because I didn’t just realize I was into guys. I realized I was into you , and I was so afraid of ruining our friendship. I thought … Well, Ems said, The best way to get over someone …”
He finished the phrase for me, “ is to get under someone else .”
“That’s it.” I nodded to the fire. “So I downloaded Guys4Guys. I’d stay on for a few days, then chicken out. I did that all summer, Aje. All fucking summer, chatting with guys, then finding a reason why they weren’t good enough. Why they weren’t the one.
“I broadened my search to include up here and started talking to Newbie. He’s the guy …”
“I know.”
“And he seemed like he was in the same boat as me, or at the same stage or whatever. It seemed like maybe we could get through our first time together. But the thing is, it would have been just that. Getting it over with. I don’t know if I would have gone through with it. I guess he was as apprehensive as I was.”
“I’m so sorry I invaded your privacy, Jax. Seeing those texts, it was like my brain exploded, then reset. It made everything clearer and more confusing all in the same moment. I should never have … It was just an innocent glance. Habit, really. A phone pings, and you check it out, right? I’ve been so worried about you, and today, knowing what you were doing up here, I was worried and jealous and just wanted to be here for you, whatever happened. To be with you. But I stopped myself from coming until Emily called and said she was worried too. It’s like she gave me the permission I needed.”
I scoffed. “What’s she up to? She insisted on going out with you, but instead, it’s like she’s pushing us together.”
“She’s our fairy godmother.” We were quiet for a beat before we both started to laugh.
“Oh, shit,” AJ said. “Can we say fairy? I don’t know the rules, Jax. We’re gonna have to have a training session with my brothers to learn how to be queer.”
I stiffened at his words.