8. Mark
8
MARK
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jesse.
I rolled over in bed, flopping onto my back, and stared at the dark ceiling above me. I couldn’t turn my mind off, couldn’t stop running over our conversation from earlier today.
He’d said we should pretend the kiss never happened. I should have been happy with that, right? Wasn’t it the best possible solution? It meant I got to keep him as a friend and that I didn’t have to end up hurting him like I knew I would.
I should have been happy. So why wasn’t I?
Probably because deep down, I knew that I wanted Jesse to like me. That, frankly, I had thought that he did. And it hurt to hear that he didn’t. All the things I was afraid of making him feel, I now felt myself.
Just fucking great.
The whole thing was ridiculous. I hadn’t hurt Jesse, and he didn’t want to date me. That was the outcome I wanted. And now that I had it, I wished it were different.
I turned onto my side again, readjusting the pillow under my head. Maybe I should have told Jesse the truth. Well, most of it, anyway. Maybe I should have opened up. But how could I do that, now? It was too late. And it would be pointless.
Almost as pointless as lying in bed, since I clearly wasn’t going to fall asleep anytime soon. I sighed, glancing at the clock. 11:00 p.m. wasn’t that late, but I’d hoped that the long run with Jesse earlier today would have exhausted me enough that I wouldn’t have trouble sleeping. So much for that idea. I supposed I should be grateful I wasn’t having nightmares right now.
I hauled myself out of bed and threw a T-shirt on over my boxers before heading downstairs. I’d been working in the kitchen all week, ripping out the old appliances and cabinets and installing new ones. I’d just finished the plumbing earlier this afternoon and while I still needed to install some built-in shelving by the door, doing that now would make enough noise to wake Gigi up.
But there was always painting to do, and that didn’t make much noise at all. I opened the windows and the back door, laid out the drop cloth, and got to work. And as soon as I picked up the brush, I felt calmer. Something about having tools in my hands, working on a practical task, made the world seem a bit more manageable.
I lost myself in the rhythm—and possibly the paint fumes—and started daydreaming about how fun it would be to be doing this with Jesse. Or for Jesse. I wished I could see that bed and breakfast on the coast, wished there were something I could do to help. But I didn’t have money. I didn’t even have a real job.
My phone rang, shattering the spell the night had cast on me, and I jumped. I set the brush down and walked over to where I’d left it in the hall, worrying that it was one of my parents. Who else would be calling at this hour?
But it wasn’t my parents, or anyone from home. It was Jesse. Confused, I picked it up and walked back to the kitchen so I wouldn’t disturb Gigi.
“Hey Jess, what’s up?” I asked, wandering towards the back door. The night was a little cooler than the day had been, but summer in Savannah was never going to get properly cold. Hell, it hadn’t even dipped below seventy degrees the whole time I’d been here. Still, I liked the way the breeze kissed my skin.
“Mark? Did I wake you up?”
“No, not at all. I was up painting, actually. What’s going on?”
“Okay, I’m really sorry to ask you this, but I need a huge favor. You know how I live in a group house with like, sixty million frat guys?”
“Yeah?” I did know that. I’d seen a few of them one time when I’d met Jesse for a run at his house. They’d reminded me of what I thought Gabe might have been like when he was twenty-two, and I’d tried to cut them some slack. But I knew they drove Jesse crazy.
“Well, apparently they decided that last night’s party wasn’t enough and they’re throwing another one tonight. And I just—I’m going to crack if I don’t get some sleep tonight. I have to get up at four a.m. to take the early shift at the cafe and I can’t keep scraping by on such little sleep and I just—”
“Jess, Jess, it’s fine,” I said, interrupting him. “Really, it’s fine. You can crash here.”
“Really? You don’t mind? I would have called Brooklyn, but he has to get up only a few hours after me, and I didn’t want to bother him, and—”
“Really. It’s not a problem at all. Gigi’s house has enough beds to sleep an army. Not a big deal.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Jesse said.
And he was true to his word. I unlocked the front door and taped a note to it telling him to come in, then went back to the kitchen to finish the patch of wall I’d been working on. Jesse must have driven right over, because I felt like barely any time had passed before I heard his voice behind me.
“Oh my God,” he said.
I turned around to see him staring, wide-eyed, at me. I hadn’t heard him come in and I wondered how long he’d been standing there.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Mark, did you do all this yourself?” Jesse took a step into the kitchen, then stopped to gaze around the room. “I was just here a few weeks ago, and this looked completely different.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged uncomfortably. “I know it would look better if a contractor had done it.”
“No. No, it really wouldn’t.” He began walking around the kitchen, peering up at the cabinets and running his hands along the countertops. He paused by the island in the center of the room and looked over at me. “This is gorgeous. Trust me, I’ve worked in some swanky places over the years, and this is beautiful craftsmanship. Where did you learn how to do all of this?”
“I don’t know, the internet? I guess I just picked it up. I like working with my hands, you know? Making things. Putting things back together. You can count on your tools and your materials. You treat them well, they’ll treat you well. It’s easier than dealing with people sometimes, you know? Tools don’t have expectations of you.” Jesse laughed, and I flushed. I hadn't meant to ramble like that. “That sounds kind of dumb, doesn’t it?”
“No, not at all. I’m just adding it to the list. Another side of you. Multiple marathons, a gym rat, practically a motivational speaker, and now you might as well be a general contractor. You’re a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a, what, an MMA fighter’s body?”
“I’m not really that complicated. Or that interesting. I just…”
I stopped, looking at Jesse, really looking at him for the first time tonight. I was tired of trying to hide my past, tired of being afraid of what he would think. He was my friend. He wouldn’t reject me if I told him, right? Even if he didn’t like it?
“I was in the Army.” I exhaled, long and slow. It felt good to say it out loud. “ROTC in college, then two tours. Got out about a year ago. All the stuff you’re talking about, it’s just, I don’t know. Stuff I picked up along the way. I majored in engineering, and I was always tinkering with my equipment when I was deployed.”
“Oh.” Jesse’s eyes widened, and I could tell he was trying to process it all.
Did he think it was weird? Some people looked down on you for being in the military, like it made you dumb or evil or something. That was one reason I never told people.
Another was that no one ever knew how to react when I told them I’d served. They either got really uncomfortable, or gave me an awkward, ‘ Thank you for your service.’ Or, even worse, they had a million questions that I never knew how to answer. Too often, once someone knew that part of my past, it was like they put me on a pedestal or thought I was a monster, with nothing in between.
I just wanted to be normal.
Jesse smiled. “I guess I can kinda see why you wouldn’t want to talk about that. It’s probably hard to explain it to anyone who doesn’t know what you’ve been through. I bet you get some weird reactions, too.”
“I—yeah.” I looked at him, amazed. “That’s exactly it. It’s almost weird that you get that.”
“Hey, I’ve been pretty weird my whole life. I came out in fourth grade. When my parents got divorced, kids in my class told me my dad left because he didn’t want a gay son. Obviously, they didn’t know what they were talking about, but that didn’t stop them from trying to make me feel bad for being different.”
“That sucks.”
“It wasn’t great, that’s for sure. But my point is just, I haven’t shared your experiences, but I do know what it’s like for people to make assumptions.” He grinned. “And we don’t have to keep talking about it. What I do want to talk about, though, is this backsplash. It looks awesome. Did you do your own tile work?”
He walked over to the sink to inspect it, and I joined him, shaking my head. I had not expected Jesse to react so calmly. I wasn’t prepared for it at all.
And now that I was standing next to him, aware of the mere inches separating his body from mine, the urge to kiss him, to pull him against me, was almost overwhelming. Fuck, I had to get it together. He wasn’t interested. I had to accept that.
“You’re shivering,” I said, suddenly noticing that he was shaking slightly and had his arms wrapped tightly around himself. How could that be, when the night was so warm?
Jesse looked up at me, all cheekbones and dark eyelashes, and my breath caught. His nostrils flared, and I wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was experiencing the same reaction that I was just now.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” he said finally, looking down.
I took a breath, forcing myself to step away from him. “I should close the windows. I only had them open because I was painting. But I’m sure you’re exhausted anyway. Let me lock up, and I can take you to bed—I mean, show you which bedroom you can use. Like, platonically. By yourself. Shit, I’m sorry, I’m not usually this weird. I blame the paint fumes.”
Jesse just laughed.
I put him in the guest room next to mine and showed him where the bathroom was. Gigi had a bad Costco habit, so there was a ready supply of extra toothbrushes in the hall closet. He said good night, promising he’d try not to wake me up when he left.
I walked back to my bedroom to give him some privacy in the bathroom, only going back to brush my teeth once he was done. I could see his doorway from the bathroom sink and noticed he’d left the door ajar. Was that on purpose?
His back to me, he pulled off the T-shirt he’d been wearing, revealing bare skin that I ached to run my hands—and my lips—across. When he pulled off his jeans and bent over to turn down the bed, his ass was perfectly outlined in his briefs, and my breath caught. Tight and firm. I wondered what it would be like to run my hands over that, or to— fuck.
Jesse turned around while I was still mid-fantasy. I averted my gaze quickly, but he closed the door anyway. Shit.
Was there any chance he might have thought I was just lost in generic thought, instead of lost in thought about him specifically? Probably not. Probably the best I could hope for was that he hadn’t noticed the boner I’d gotten just from watching him.
I walked uncomfortably back to my room and closed the door, willing my mind to stop whirring, telling my brain to shut off for the night. I was not going to think about Jesse anymore. Not going to fantasize about him waking up in the middle of the night, coming into my room, and joining me in bed. Not going to think about tearing off his clothes, feeling his naked skin next to mine. Not going to—
Who was I kidding? Yes, I was. I couldn’t stop myself.
Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned back against the door and grabbed my cock, straining against the cotton of my boxers. I was throbbing, begging for relief. Something about Jesse just drove me crazy. Made me forget all my rationalizations, my carefully lined up reasons why crushing on him was a bad idea. When I was around him, all I could think was Yes. It just felt so right.
I pumped my shaft up and down quickly, filled with an urgent need for release. Jesse was so close, just one door down the hall. I pictured him in bed, wondering if he slept in just his briefs, or maybe even naked. What would he do if he knew I was on the other side of the wall, stroking my cock to thoughts of him?
I imagined myself walking into his room. Showing him how hard he made me. I could see the surprise on his face and then—would he smile? Would he say that he felt it too, that ceaseless need, pulling me toward him?
Fuck, I wanted him. I wanted to take him in my hands and make him mine. I wanted him to whisper my name, to say he wanted me too. To open himself up to me. I wanted my first time with a man to be with him. I wanted to give him everything, and for him to give everything to me.
I pulled down hard on my cock, tightening my grip. Everything inside me tensed, tingled, as my orgasm built up, gaining speed and force as it grew. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I bit my lip to keep from crying out as I came, surrendering to the sweet release I’d been craving.
I panted as I came down from that high, shaking my head in wonder. Jesse turned me on in a way no one else ever had. I pushed away from the door, stepping lightly over a creaky floorboard so that he wouldn’t hear. Not that he’d have any reason to be suspicious, but still. The walls in this house were so thin.
Which was when I realized I’d made a huge mistake. I sank down onto the bed, shocked at my own idiocy. Jesse was just on the other side of the wall, which meant not only could he hear creaking floorboards, he could hear anything at all that issued from my room.
I had to keep it together tonight. No panic attacks. No nightmares. No waking up screaming, convinced I was back overseas, reliving the worst day of my life. Shit.
I had no control over when the nightmares came. My therapist told me they’d likely get better with time, but I wasn’t there yet. Sometimes I could go two, three nights without one, but sometimes I woke up yelling five nights in a row. There was only one thing that I knew for certain affected them, and that was stress. Stress always made them worse.
And there was no greater stress than having my friend, who I had a huge crush on, sleeping in the room next to mine. Fuck. I couldn’t risk falling asleep now.
I sat back in bed, not lying down, and for the first time, prayed that my insomnia would be especially bad tonight. I leaned against my pillows, stared off into space, and let my restless thoughts spin through my mind. I didn’t move at all—not until I heard the faint noise of Jesse’s phone alarm go off at what must have been four a.m.
His footsteps padded through the hall and down the stairs, and finally— finally —I heard the front door open and close behind him. I heaved a sigh of relief. He was gone.
He was gone, and I already ached for him to come back.