Chapter 21
I WANT TO FIGURE out the mathematical theory for stopping time.
There’s got to be some kind of equation.
Some arrangement of numbers that would stop the Earth’s rotation so I never have to let go of this moment.
So that night never has to turn to day, and I can stay here, in this bed, and be freer than I’ve ever been in my life.
I wake up a little before six, because my internal clock is never going to let me take an off day, even if I only finally fell asleep just over an hour ago.
But waking up to Vale asleep on top of me, his head on my chest, his arms wrapped around me, his leg propped up over one of mine, I can’t be mad about it.
My hand traces lines up and down his spine, gentle enough to make sure I don’t wake him.
And I give even gentler kisses to the top of his head.
I wish I could figure out the mathematical theory for stopping time. The formula that lets me keep Vale here with me. I try to stay up a minute longer, two even, take in this moment and hold on to it for as long as I can. Until, against my will, I lose myself to sleep again.
When I wake up a second time, the sun is fully up and out, its brightness coming through my blinds. Vale’s stretching and yawns pull me awake and, almost involuntarily, my first reaction is to hold him tighter, smiling into his hair as he lets out a tired, groany chuckle.
“You’re such a cuddler,” he says, sounding still half asleep.
“Is that okay?”
He picks his head up, his eyes tired but still as beautiful as ever. “It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
“Oh yeah? What else is on that list?”
“I’m still deciding.” He brings his head back down, his lips kissing right where my heart is and then slowly making their way over my whole chest. “There’s a lot. And as much as I’d love to stroke your ego and list them all right now, I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Pues, go,” I tell him, a quiet laugh coming out as I relax my hold on him and let him off me. “I’ll still be here when you get done.”
“Promise?” he asks, and my heart goes still and warm.
“Right now? Yeah. I can promise you that.”
He starts sitting up, just enough to lean over and kiss me.
And then kiss me again, but this time his hand also goes under the blanket we were sharing, stroking something else, smiling as I let out a breathy “Fuck.” He keeps going, a mix of hand and kisses for maybe half a minute before I finally find the strength to tell him “Ya, you’re about to make me act up.
Go pee first,” and he’s laughing against my lips.
I feel myself get impatient the second our bodies aren’t touching and his hand isn’t on me, wanting to tell him “Never mind, you’ve got to stay here with me still and finish what you started,” but then I realize watching Vale leave my bed, naked, a hickey on one of his ass cheeks, and walk to the bathroom is in the running for one of the hottest sights I could ever see.
It makes that impatience even louder. I feel almost cavemanlike, wanting to pick him up, carry him back here, and get back to where we were last night into early this morning.
And a part of my body he seems to very much enjoy getting familiar with is fully up for the cause.
Until I realize—it’s daytime. My roommates could be here right now.
I panic-rush for my phone, check the text messages waiting for me in our house group chat, and let out a relieved breath, relaxing back into the mattress and my pillow, letting the unusual silence comfort me.
Got home but leaving right now. Getting brunch and will be at the beach with the squad if you want to come, Pina and Pérez (and Kat) , from Ahmed, sent half an hour ago.
Will be with my girlfriend all day , from Nguyen, sent a couple hours ago.
Just got to Kat’s. Sleeping off the tequila at their room , from P é rez, sent at eight this morning.
Okay. We’re good. We’ve got a solid few hours before anyone’s coming back. After swiping out of my texts, I open Instagram, seeing pictures of P é rez and Kat from the party and a post from Leana underneath them and—
“Better,” Vale says softly as he walks back and crawls onto the bed and over to me, going right back to lying on top of me. “You miss anything important?”
“No, I just … you want to see something?”
He gives me a suspicious look, an eyebrow rising. “Is this going to be some weird, I have to close my eyes sort of thing? Or like when Orlando found that video of that guy—”
“ No. That—no. Promise. This is normal.”
He readjusts himself, sitting up perpendicular to me, his legs draped over my stomach.
I don’t waste a second before my hand is on the right one, rubbing and massaging him from knee to his foot, all my attention on him and his skin and how cute this boy in my bed is.
And then I remember what I wanted to get off my chest, let out an “Oh, yeah,” and give him my phone, Instagram still open to a post under Leana’s of a shirtless boy with thick black curls sitting on the sand at some Los Angeles beach, smiling straight ahead.
“?Quien es?”
“Friend from high school. His name is Jules. The guy I told you about who came out and had kind of a hard time with it. So, I … last year, at a Homecoming after-party, I kissed him.”
I wait to see if there’s any kind of immediate reaction from Vale, but all I get is calm.
Like he realizes there’s a point to me bringing this up right now, and he wants to give me that space.
“A bunch of our friends were there, and teammates.
Not enough for it to be some frat house party but, you know.
“Anyway, we started playing Spin the Bottle, and when it got to his turn, he landed on me. And the thing about it was, like, one, we were already good friends outside of football. We had the same best friend, so, you know, proximity or whatever, and our circle of friends was basically the same. I was crushing on his other best friend at the time, but he’d also come out as gay a few weeks before.
When the bottle stopped and was pointing at me, I could feel how nervous he was, and, in the moment, I was too.
But I didn’t want him to feel a type of way.
I wanted him to know it was fine. It was just a kiss. ”
“Sounds familiar,” Vale says, his smile soft, and he lets out an even softer hum at my hand still massaging his calf muscle.
“Thought it might. Plus, it was with one of my boys; I could count on us laughing about this later, and who cares if he likes guys, right? I didn’t. It was just a game.
“ It was just a game ,” I repeat. “That’s what I told myself, and it was easy enough to believe.
It was just Spin the Bottle. The prettiest girl in our whole school was my date.
We’d been making out the whole night, practically.
This one kiss didn’t have to mean anything compared to that, other than it being kind of cool that I got to be the first guy he ever kissed.
Except I … I felt something in that kiss.
I felt something that, really, wasn’t so different from kissing any girl I’ve ever liked.
I felt the butterflies. I felt myself wanting to show confidence and that I had some game, even in Spin the Bottle.
And I felt myself … wanting him. Wanting more. ”
I bring my other hand up to Vale’s face, watching as he leans his head into it.
Looking at him and seeing how, in a lot of ways, last night and even the night I met Vale really was history repeating itself.
A boy. His girl best friend who had my attention from the jump.
A kiss that woke something inside me up.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss for the rest of the night.” All those memories, so many moments I’d forgotten about until recently, are now playing like a movie I’ve got a front row seat for. “I remember typing and deleting and then typing again, trying to send a text to him all Sunday.
“He was on my mind nonstop, and I wanted to ask him if he liked the kiss too, for scientific reasons, or if maybe he’d be okay talking it out with me because his mouth had me going through it.
In a way that had me stressed but not scared.
But maybe, if he’d be down to try kissing again, just to make sure it wasn’t some one-off thing, I could unravel that stress.
Or at least have someone to help me de-stress so I wasn’t just in my head all by myself.
“But I never texted him. And, when I got to lunch on the Monday after and walked over to our table, ready to just man up and ask in person if we could talk somewhere privately, I—I saw that I was too late. At the time he was hiding it, but I accidentally saw the text messages on his phone. The hey boyfriend and can’t wait to talk to you later and I miss hearing the sound of your voice .
I think that, while I was typing and deleting texts, another guy was making his move.
So, instead, I swallowed down everything about that night. ”
There’s a heaviness in my chest. Like a little bit of that pain, the harshness that came with pretending I hadn’t basically been punched in the gut that day, the feelings I thought were completely gone were all now coming back up.
“I forced it down and decided that who cared if it happened because it didn’t matter anymore.
They weren’t going to be reciprocated. If he’s spoken for, why should I spend time thinking about how, actually, he’s really cute and maybe a part of me liked him in a lot of the same ways I’ve liked any girl?
Or, at least, maybe for different reasons, but in a way that seemed so familiar. ”
Vale takes my hand and brings it up to his mouth, kissing my palm. He looks at me, his eyes drinking me in while also looking a little sad.
“I’m really happy that you feel comfortable telling me this.”