Chapter Three
Flynn’s SUV was gone by the time I pulled up outside the house after work, and I dared to think that I might be saved.
A reprieve, at least; only the usual demons to try to ignore, not some new, seasonal collection of them.
The rain thundered on the roof of the truck, as I grit my teeth and prepared for a dash to the front porch.
Even running, and just twenty feet to go, my back was still soaked by the time I made it to the door.
The familiar scent of green bean casserole filled the hallway. One of my dad’s favorites, and one of the easier options for my mom to put together. It felt like we had it once a week, then, though I couldn’t exactly claim that the repetition was unpleasant. There was something reassuring to it.
“Honey, you’re dripping all over the floor.” She wiped her hands on a tea towel as she chided me.
“It’s raining,” I pointed out. “Have you looked outside?”
My mom frowned, as if the weather was a personal affront to her clean linoleum. “You didn’t have an umbrella?”
I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to admit that lapse. “Then you’d complain that it was dripping, not me.”
She smiled, the little half-smile of impish amusement that was the first picture of her that always came to my mind. It made her look, not so much younger, as simply more carefree.
“Ah, but I could leave the umbrella on the porch,” she reminded me, still looking entertained. “Whereas they’d call Child Services if I left you out there.”
I laughed. “I don’t think they care when you’re my age, mom. I think you’d be in the clear.”
A wink, and then she turned back to the kitchen. “Dinner will be about an hour, honey, if you want to shower first. Just...”
“Don’t drip on the stairs, I know,” I finished for her.
It was easier, I decided, to take off my shirt and jeans first. The soggy bundle clutched to my chest as I went up to my room, skin goose-bumping in nothing but my socks and briefs.
Mom would tsk at me, if she caught me, I knew; point out that any of the neighbors could be glancing in through the window at the time, and catch me “basically in the nude.” Just why said neighbors would be looking in the first place, of course, was the bigger question.
The thought of turning, to find Flynn looking in from his childhood window that very nearly aligned with mine, suddenly burned bright in my mind. So much so, I almost couldn’t bring myself to glance across; practically over my shoulder, through the still-open curtains to the next door house.
Dark, there. His window unlit - another sign, indeed, that he’d returned to his proper life in the city - and the rain sheeting down the side of the house. Illuminated only by the occasional jags of lightning.
I wasn’t exactly self-conscious of my body, though the thought of Flynn seeing me was enough to set a shiver through the pit of my stomach.
Ignite curiosity more than anything, at how I compared to the richer pool of gay men where he lived now.
I’d grown up skinny, then filled out some through the football and baseball everyone was expected to play.
Sitting it out just meant there wasn’t enough for a full team, and then you were letting everybody down; better, on balance, to be a terrible player but at least present.
I’d not been terrible, though, and that lean muscle of my late-teens had settled into a solidity in my twenties.
Not the models or the gym rats which social media algorithms had learned to serve up to me, no, but I didn’t think I was dire on the eyes, either.
Confident enough, usually, that the idea of being so curious about Flynn’s judgment left me squirming with unhappiness.
Grunting annoyance, I dumped my wet clothes into the laundry basket and grabbed my towel.
Flynn would have so much more to compare to, I knew that.
Frustrated by the truth of it, as I scrubbed under my arms in the hot shower.
He wouldn’t have to balance convenience and availability with attraction when he considered each hookup, not in the same way that it worked out here.
Statistics said that I couldn’t be the only gay man living locally, and yet math came a distant second when up against small-town secrecy.
Or maybe Flynn had been the only other one, and the price for his escape was my being trapped here.
It was irrational, not at all how the universe worked, but I was still angry as I rubbed myself brusquely with the towel. At fate, for its machinations, but also at myself for being secretly relieved.
I wasn’t some blushing teenager, still trying to come to grips with his attraction to the same sex.
These days, I knew full well how my libido worked: understood that, regardless of how pretty or how esteemed they were to my nudging, winking parents, girls just didn’t move me the way guys did.
So I also knew myself well enough to see that having an excuse for being single all this time was no great hardship, too.
I could blame small town life for why I’d never had a proper relationship, and that reason could supersede anything so arduous as self-reflection.
My own fears around appearing vulnerable, for instance, or that shiver of doubt that - once they’d seen all you had to offer - a prospective partner might still decide that simply wasn’t enough.
Cursing Flynn, for the audacity of existing, returning, and making me think such things, I pulled on boxer-briefs, sweatpants, and a fresh t-shirt.
#
Less than three bites into the casserole, when the doorbell rang. I could hear Flynn’s mom’s voice down the hallway, her panicky tones as she talked to my dad.
Her worrying gained volume as she got closer to the kitchen.
“... and George would go, but you know what his eyes are like in the dark, much less in a storm, and he has triple-A, of course, but they’re saying it could be simply hours and hours, and...”
“Don’t worry, we understand,” my dad said, side-eyeing us at the table. It was his “this person is borderline-hysterical” look, the one usually reserved for my mom when she was panicking about something unnecessarily.
“Oh, but he’s all alone out there!” Flynn’s mom practically wailed.
My dad patted her on the arm. “He’s a grown man, whose car broke down, and it’s raining. Let’s keep things in perspective, shall we?”
From the expression on her face, Flynn’s mom wasn’t quite so convinced that it didn’t all count as the sky falling. Still, she was at least quiet again.
My stomach sank, as I saw his stare land on me. “Oli will go rescue him, won’t you, son.”
It was, I thought, as I chewed back my groan, the sort of thing which is phrased as a question, and yet you absolutely cannot treat as one.
“No, I won’t go pick up your son, whose car has broken down” being the sort of statement that requires further explanation, and “because he reminds me of everything I’m missing out on in life” being the kind of further explanation that demands, well, even further explanation.
I set down my fork, casting a forlorn look at the dinner I’d hardly made any headway into, and pushed back my chair. “Whereabouts is he?”
Flynn’s mom thrust her phone out at me, screen glowing to show a vastly-enlarged font.
Still, that made it easier to see the address of a junction about an hour’s drive away.
It was not, some small part of my brain noted, the direction you’d be going - or even the road you’d be using - if you were headed back to your exciting life in the city.
“Tell him I’m on my way,” I told her, and went to get my coat.