Chapter 28 Mat #2
“I’ve thought about it,” he says when I take a little too long to answer.
He says it as if it’s no big deal. “Being with a guy. Some guys are just really pretty, you know. Sometimes I think about it and wonder what it would be like. One of those ‘for science’ scenarios, you know. I’ve always thought it was one of those things I’d probably do at some point, even if it was only to file it under the old banner of ‘I’ll try anything once.
’ Never got around to it ‘cause I’ve never met a guy that made me feel like it was something I actively, physically wanted. ”
“Until Trouble.”
“Until Trouble.”
“We should have gotten his number,” I choke out.
I think this is the thing, more than being face-to-face with questions I’ve never consciously let myself ask, let alone answer, before.
This is what’s making me feel jittery. This is the thing filling me with dread.
This is what’s making me feel like something bad happened. Like we made a mistake.
Why didn’t we get his number?
What were we thinking?
“He knows where we live.” Will gives me an easy smile. It’s a smile meant to settle me. It’s meant to stop me from getting worked up or spinning out.
It works like it always does.
Will’s right. Of course, he’s right. Trouble knows where we live.
He’ll be back.
Of course, he’ll be back.
He has to come back.
Will gets up when he’s finished his breakfast. He picks up the plate, balances his mug and mine on it, and looks around for his clothes.
His skin’s a lot darker than mine. Dark olive.
He’s not nearly as sensitive to the sun as I am.
Whenever we’re outdoors for a long time, he gives me his cap.
He doesn’t say anything, but at a certain point when we’ve been out for a while, he’ll give me this slightly disapproving look and yank his cap off his head and put it roughly on mine.
He always pulls the peak down hard so it covers my face.
It’s not particularly funny, but for whatever reason, it makes me laugh.
Will’s body is athletic. No surprise there.
We’ve been playing water polo or hitting the gym together since our school days.
He’s taller than me and not as bulky, but he has a lot of definition.
When he leans down to scoop his clothes off the floor, his lats and delts flex.
When he stands, his glutes flex, cutting hard, semicircular lines into his flesh.
He’s out of my room, halfway down the hall on his way to the kitchen, when it hits me.
Did I just check out my best friend’s ass?
Is that what just happened?
The flashbacks start in the afternoon. They’re visceral and strong. So strong it’s almost like watching a movie. I see what I saw last night. I see Trouble. I see his hair and his face.
Fuck.
His face.
So beautiful.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not just that he’s beautiful or perfect or unusual.
Trust me, I live in LA, I’ve seen plenty of beautiful people.
I’ve been with plenty too. And that’s not a humble brag, by the way.
It’s just a fact. It was the way Trouble moved that got me.
On the dance floor, he looked other worldly.
Like someone who’d spent hours in hair and makeup and been liberally photoshopped on top of that.
He looked kind of like one of those blond elves from The Lord of the Rings, but a dark version.
Black hair and black lashes. He moved like them too.
Like something mystical. Like something paranormal.
When I saw him on the dance floor, I thought he was moving like magic.
I actually remember thinking that. I remember thinking, that guy’s moving like magic.
I was spellbound. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think.
If Will hadn’t been there, I’d have stood there like a statue with my mouth open, and I wouldn’t have been able to get a word out all night.
At some point, someone would probably have called the paramedics.
I’m not kidding. It would have been that level of tragic.
I was wrong, though, thinking he was magic on the dance floor.
That was nothing compared to the way he moved between us.
Jesus, it was hot.
By evening, I’m feeling antsy. I have that can’t-sit-still-or-I’ll-lose-my-mind feeling.
Will’s trying to watch a rerun of Parks and Rec.
He loves watching reruns. Says he finds it relaxing because he knows what’s going to happen.
It drives me fucking insane. It’s hard enough paying attention the first time, but the third or the forth? Impossible.
I toss a tennis ball against the wall. I only mean to do it once or twice, but once I start, I don’t want to stop.
“Stop!” says Will after the seventh or eighth time I do it. “You’re bothering the neighbors.”
“It’s an inner wall. The neighbors won’t even hear it.”
“Fine, then stop ‘cause you’re bothering your roommate.”
I set the ball on the coffee table and kick back on the sofa.
I try to find a comfortable position, but I have no luck there.
The sofa was the first big piece of furniture we bought for the apartment, and it really shows.
We spent hours in the store. Hours. It was one of those huge places that felt like an endless maze of living rooms. We walked around and around and sat on every sofa in the whole place.
Then we did a second lap and sat on all of them again.
At a certain point, I think we both lost the will to live.
That’s when the sales assistant struck. She offered a discount and delivery in ten business days.
We snapped it up. We were so fucking pleased with ourselves.
That is until it arrived. Neither of us remembered it being so black.
Or so shiny. The backrest is low, and you can barely sit on the damn thing without sliding off, except when it’s hot.
Then you don’t slide off. You stick to it instead.
Who knows how we did it, but in the history of sofas, we somehow managed to choose the worst one.
I’m still for a few minutes, and then my right foot starts tapping the coffee table. Will sighs heavily and pauses the TV.
“Do you need to work out again?”
“Nah, it’s too late. I’m beat. I’m just wired, that’s all.
” It’s nine-thirty, it’s dark out, and it’s Sunday night.
Working out at this hour wouldn’t be completely unprecedented.
Will has definitely been known to drag me out for a late workout when I act out too much, but I don’t want to leave the house tonight.
I know it’s way too soon, and there’s almost no chance of it happening today, but I want to be here, just on the off-chance Trouble comes back.
“Think I’m gonna take a shower and get an early one. ”
“Cool.”
He looks at me for a long time. His eyes are deep set and so dark you can’t tell where pupil meets iris unless you’re standing a couple of feet or less away from him.
His face is serious, like it almost always is.
It’s not that he doesn’t have a sense of humor or like having fun.
It’s just that he takes things seriously.
He cares how people feel and how things work out.
He took school and college way seriously, and he takes his work seriously too.
He’s one of those people who always gives one hundred percent.
He takes me seriously too. He always has.
Sometimes I think he might be the only one who does.
His gaze is intense. If it was anyone else, it would make me uncomfortable, but with him, it doesn’t.
I know this look, and I know what it means.
He’s made a careful assessment of how I am, and now that he knows, he’s sending me a message.
A clear message I understand just as well as if he’d said the words aloud.
It’s all going to work out.
I fight the urge to ask him how he knows.
I don’t need to because I know what he’ll say.
He’ll say, I know how I know. Which isn’t helpful at all when you think about it.
I want to ask him if he’s sure Trouble will come back, but I don’t.
I really don’t want to have to ask him, not least because I know, rationally, there’s no way on earth he can know.
I don’t ask the other thing I want to ask either.
The thing I really, really want to know.
The thing that’s been eating at me all day and getting a fuckton worse since it started getting dark.
I feel itchy and uncomfortable just thinking about it.
I don’t just want to know if Will thinks Trouble will come back. I want a time and date.
When?
When will he come back?
I don’t say anything. Obviously, I don’t. There’s a limit to how pathetic one can voluntarily allow oneself to be.