Chapter Four Mateo #3
"I didn't tell you about this because I don't do this—I don't let strangers into my car to drive them wherever they want to go and then promise I'd do it again and again.
I needed one more night with him first, just to make sure it was real.
" I scrub my hand over my face and shrug.
"And we're always busy at the beginning of the school year.
Other than the night a dozen of us celebrated surviving week one, and our reliably sleepy recovery brunch, you and I haven't spent time together outside our respective classrooms."
She nods. "And you keep your personal life off campus."
"And I definitely keep my personal life off campus."
I think that would be true regardless of my actual job.
My desire to keep my love life separate from my workplace doesn't feel predicated upon my position as a high school teacher and coach.
I'm reserved by nature—and by nurture, too—and giving people less to gossip about suits me just fine.
I've had a relationship with the aforementioned Gabe.
I've dated in the years since that ended.
Being gay means I capture the attention of strangers who are looking for something provocative to say, or people like Vicki Gallagher who always want to talk, but I rarely hold it for long when I don't bring anyone interesting around.
That would've changed someday, but I can't admit it tonight when someday has turned bitter on my tongue. Instead, Sophie lets go of me while I wash the taste away with the last of my third margarita.
"I can't believe you fell in love with Jameson Sinclair."
My glass misses the coaster when I attempt to set it back down, and I'm probably lucky its rough landing doesn't leave it with a crack. Or not one obvious enough to notice before I turn back toward Sophie.
"I’m not in love with him," I argue. "We spent one night together. It's more that we both wanted to spend a lot of nights together, and I never expected to lose that chance in such a spectacular way. We didn’t do anything wrong. We never had the time to."
“So, that’s it? You had one night together, and it’s got you looking like this—” She uses her free hand to gesture wildly up and down my body, as if I could be confused about where she was flinging that particular pronoun. “Are you really going to walk away from a future with Jameson Sinclair?”
“Jamie.”
“Of course. Jamie. Even better,” Sophie says, her hand falling to her lap. “God, this fucking sucks.”
I go back to staring at my empty glass. Two weeks ago, the rocks and sand beneath our feet were hardly stable, but where Jamie and I stand now has become unsteady in a way I’ve just begun to grasp.
We’d been on the verge of promises we meant to keep, but circumstances have betrayed them for us.
And it’s not just that he’s the parent of a student, which complicates everything enough for me to end this thing and break my own heart.
It’s that coming out in front of the sports world had already meant taking a chance that he’d break some of his, and doing it to date his teenage daughter’s teacher would all but guarantee it.
Tequila hasn’t made that any less true, even if I can barely swallow now. “It really does. And yeah, I have to walk away.”
She doesn't believe me, but if there's an argument she wants to make, she'll save it for later. "Did Harper realize you two knew each other?"
"Not at all. Jamie knows how to bullshit under pressure, and I'm not sure she slows down often enough for it to matter."
I hide in my hands then, my head heavy and my heart wrung out.
Sophie peels herself off the couch to take our glasses back to the kitchen, unsteady on her feet, but in no danger of falling.
We both need to be at work in the morning, no matter how much I'd love to call out and avoid one of my brightest students while I recover from whatever I feel for her father.
Forcing myself up, I shuffle into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth and splash my face with cold water that won't change my mood.
When I open the door, Sophie's there waiting to do all the same things, and I crawl into bed and leave her to it.
A few minutes later, I'm lying on my side when Sophie tucks herself into the space I've left for her. I find her hand in the dark and hold on, and then I promise myself I won't ask her to stay again tomorrow night.
"Have you heard from him since he and Harper left?"
"Shit, I left my pho—"
"It's on your nightstand. Charging," Sophie says.
Of course it is. I squeeze her hand. "He texted me right when I got home. Said he misses me and he's sorry."
"What did you say?"
"There's nothing I can say. It's over."
It's abrupt, and maybe even rude, but I roll away from Sophie then and spend the next several hours wide awake, wishing it could be that easy.
It's a wish I'm already sure I'll make too often, because by definition, one night should have ended in the morning.
It didn't.
Jamie and I didn't.
And I don't know what to do when over feels like the kind of thing reserved for hockey careers and summer breaks.
When the sun makes itself known, I start by making a greasy breakfast, the best way to apologize to our stomachs for an impromptu tequila night.
I follow that up with a morning routine requiring very little thought or small talk with a best friend who’s heard plenty, even if she had more questions after I stopped answering.
Outside my apartment, I get a hug meant to hold me together, then Sophie and I go our separate ways, and I drive to school and teach a full day of classes.
When Harper Sinclair smiles up at me from her desk, I smile right back.
When I hear her dad's name too many times in the teachers' lounge, I take my lunch outside.
Another text doesn't come until I'm home again.
Can we talk?
I despise the way my body reacts to the sight of Jamie's name, a tangle of nausea and relief, and I can't decide whether I'd feel better if I change it in my phone or whether I need to delete him entirely.
Neither will help now, and I exhale slowly when I sit on the edge of my bed and tap on the screen instead.
"Mateo."
"I don't know if you can keep calling me that," I sigh.
"But it's your—it's how you introduced yourself to me."
He could be referring to the alley or my classroom, but it doesn't matter. "It's too soft. Gentle. You say my name like you're taking care of it for me."
"Or like I'm afraid to let it go."
"We have to, though. We have to let all of it go."
He's quiet for several seconds, and I almost pull the phone away to see whether we're still connected. I don't, only because there's really no need. I know he's there, and I hate that comfortable certainty in the wake of everything else.
"Meet me at the bench," Jamie finally says, as tender with his command as he'd been just a minute ago. "Tomorrow night. Late, like before."
Like before is impossible, but I don't say so. "Is that a good idea?"
"Probably not, but I'm used to getting my way."
"Right up until the moment you don't."
Jamie chokes on a weak laugh. "Right up 'til then, yeah."
"Okay."
"Okay? You'll be there?"
"I'll be there."
The echo of hope in his voice—and probably the resignation in mine—is what keeps me moving forward the next 24 hours, and I still hear both as I approach the beach.
After I'd hung up with Jamie yesterday evening, I'd considered canceling on him a dozen times, only to scroll through our texts and steel myself for any bad idea that could get me close to him again.
The last time I read our messages was about three minutes ago, when I left my car on the street and began this short walk, but my phone is in my pocket now.
I'm close enough to the rocky shoreline to look for Jamie.
Just like that first night, it's dark and quiet this far away from the fire pits and smoother stretches of sand, but a house on the hillside has beautiful backyard lights, and they help me now.
I'm cautious with each step while I search for the path that will bring me to a hidden bench, and pause to glance around again in case Jamie's near enough to lead me there.
He's not, and I'm not sure whether I'm early or late, but I keep going.
I find the path.
I find the bench.
I find him standing just behind it and wearing my borrowed hoodie, looking at me like I'm a dream he didn't believe would come true.
"Jamie."
It's difficult to see, but I think his eyes are wet when he smiles. "You're as gentle with my name as I am with yours."
"I'm afraid to let it go."
He could tell me we have to. It's what I'd said to him.
Instead, he moves around the bench and steps close to me.
Arm's length, if it were a thing we were measuring.
We should sit or talk or search the sky for something that will save us, but both of us breathe around the reliable rumble of the waves until I speak again.
"I guess you've been here a while. I was looking for you down by the rocks, but I—" I stop talking as Jamie tilts his head, the slightest frown there and gone when I glance over his shoulder.
The houses of millionaires. One that helped light my way.
And a path from there to here, because this bench belongs to someone, and it's only now that I realize we never trespassed at all.
"I'm such an idiot. This is your—you live here. We're in your backyard."
"More or less," Jamie says.
"We can't go up there. I can't go inside."
"I'm not asking you to. This is where the rest of my life leaves me alone, remember?"
I nod. "Where the great Jameson Sinclair can pretend time doesn't count."
He ignores my tone and swallows hard. "We already made it count, Mateo. We made it count so much it hurts."
"So why did you invite me here?" I ask. "Because you're right. We made it count, and we can't pretend a damn thing. We can't keep meeting here like everything we might say and do won't spill into the rest of our lives. And if it hurts—"
"I've lived with pain for a long fucking time."
His honesty takes my breath away, and I watch as he finally sits on the bench. He's left room for me, and I don't take as long as I should to join him, my eyes on the ocean because I think I'll kiss him if I look anywhere else.
"I don't want to be the reason you're in pain," I say.
"You're not," Jamie huffs. "I can't imagine ever hurting when I'm with you."
We fall silent, careful not to touch, and I want to stay here until morning just to let another sunrise absolve us of sins we won't commit.
As it is, we sit for a long time on a bench I already consider ours.
It's unfair to consider anything ours when this feels like a prolonged goodbye, but there's something in the air that makes it okay, and I breathe it in.
"You're not going to come out," I finally say, too soft about it until I clear my throat and try again.
"It was going to be hell for you anyway—all the wrong attention—but while you might've done that for me, and while you would've done anything to help protect Harper from the worst of the fallout, you won't put her in the middle of it by dating her teacher. "
"I can't."
"You shouldn't, and I can’t.”
Jamie sighs and swallows feelings I know well. "You love your boring life. You might've given some of it up for me, but—"
"I won't put Harper in the middle of it, either. And the chance of getting fired over it—”
"Mmmm. Is this where I point out that she won't be your student forever?"
My head turns sharply at that. "You'd wait a year to be with me?"
"Four. She wants to play soccer."
"Jamie," I say, struggling past the lump in my throat.
“What if we still see each other?” he asks, hurrying on. “We could be friends, right? We could talk and get to know each other and hang out like friends do. Even if we do it quietly, so nobody asks questions. We could have something else for these four years. We don’t have to wait for everything.”
“Jamie,” I say again.
I don’t know how to explain how I’m wounded by what he’s just said, still far from recovered from seeing him walk into my classroom two nights ago.
The idea of being nothing more than friends isn’t something I can fathom yet.
And doing it quietly feels so goddamn unfair that I want to drag us both in front of a press conference for the chance to ruin it all.
"It's—no, you don't have to—it was one night, and I—" He stops and squeezes his eyes shut. "It was one fucking night."
When I turn toward him on the bench, my knee lands against the top of his thigh. It should be enough for him to look at me again, but his eyes are still closed and I can't do anything but reach for the side of his head, my thumb tracing the curve of his eyebrow.
"You and I both know we're not here because of one night."
Jamie slowly surrenders to the eye contact we need. "Nothing really happened."
"Everything happened."
"And you still want hammocks and frozen lakes."
"In four years," I say, dropping my hand from his face.
I stand a second later because I don't want to stay here for more promises we shouldn't make. He follows my lead, but closes the distance between us, and I'm fiercely relieved we'll have to turn our backs on each other if we want to make it home.
But we don't go anywhere yet.
"Do you want to take your hoodie back now?" he asks.
"No," I answer, my fingertips already digging into the fabric at his sides.
My hands cling to him there, and I think I'd scream if the ocean would care.
"I want to kiss you. I want to hear all the different ways you can say my name.
I want to tell you that you don't have to come out, and I don't have to worry about my job, and neither of us has to worry about Harper, because we can come back to this bench over and over again—to this place where real life will leave us alone.
I want so many things, but no, I don't want my hoodie back. "
Jamie hums and lets me see how much he struggles with his next exhale while he thinks of what else to say. I can’t tell whether he’s after pain or some relief from it, but then he reaches down to cover my hands with his, forcing me to let him go just as my first teardrop falls.
"Just remember, everyone loves you, Mr. Z. Or could, soon enough."
Relief. Pain.
“I know. And I could love them, too.”