Milo #6
Telling Raf was made a lot easier by his suspiciously timed comment to me the other day.
I could at least be confident he wouldn’t cause too much fuss.
Not that I wasn’t going to feel guilty that I hadn’t considered him beyond the perfunctory in the past few weeks.
Even if the end result was him not being upset and I wasn’t a shitty person, I still owed him an apology.
Even if the relationship was shallow, and he agreed it was all for fun, he deserved more consideration than I had given him.
Then there were the rest of the people in our lives.
..and our family. Okay, sure, they had joked over the years about the two of us, and damn, even if they were genuinely jokes, our whole family was going to be insufferable if Eli and I actually committed to.
..being committed. But there was still the possibility that even though they acted as though they wouldn’t have a problem, even I knew there was a difference between the theoretical and the literal.
The idea of Eli and me being together might have been fine in their heads as a joke, but the reality might.
..God, how could we tolerate it if we disgusted or offended them?
That was our family.
Not to mention how the rest of the world would feel.
Our only source of income was the consistent and positive interaction with the faceless masses.
Sure, that meant our income could take a major blow or even disappear, which would require a lot of changes in our lives.
But I’d also seen how destructive and hateful people on the internet could be, and oof, when someone fell from grace on social media, they well and truly fell from grace.
Death threats and hate messages would be the least of our concerns if angry people managed to get our personal information.
“I...don’t want to think about any of this,” I admitted, cringing in my seat. “That’s a whole lot of everything.”
“It is,” he admitted with a nod. “But we don’t have to think too hard. This weekend is for us to get a feel for things, but I realize maybe this is the chance for us to have as much carefree fun as we want before we face reality.”
“And the world,” I said, fingering my phone as I considered the posts I would still put up tonight.
“That too,” he said. “So it comes down to...how do we feel about it? At least for now, for tonight and the rest of the weekend.”
“Right,” I said, trying to focus and nodding. “Does it bother you that you’re into a dude?”
“Not in the slightest, especially because it's you I’m into.”
“Okay,” I said, not caring that I was now grinning like an idiot in contrast to the ball of anxiety I had been only seconds ago. “I guess that covers the second question.”
“Does it bother either of us that people consider us brothers?”
“But we’re not, and we’ve never really seen each other like that,” I said instantly, and immediately knew it was the truth. “If anything, we saw each other as best friends before we were anything else.”
“I feel the same way,” he said, picking up his glass and smiling. “It’s funny?—”
I waited a few beats before clearing my throat. “How so? Or...what is?”
He stared into space for a second before shaking his head. “Just...life, you know? Not once did I consider that I’d ever be interested in sex with another guy, let alone a relationship and...no, that’s not true.”
I leaned back. “That’s news to me. When did you think about it before?”
“It was... a while ago. One of those blink and you’ll miss it moments.”
“Gonna continue to be vague, or are you going to explain?”
“Heh, fine, fine. It was after that jackass you dated, Donatello.”
I snorted. “His name was Michelangelo. And his parents named him after the artist, not the Ninja Turtle.”
“First off, being named after a great artist when you’re a boring piece of shit is worse. Secondly, I refuse to expend any effort to remember his name.”
“Of course, forgive me for not remembering you don’t remember his name.”
“Anyway, so Raphael?—”
“Still going with the Ninja Turtle theme, I see.”
“After he broke up with you, after he cheated on you, blamed you for it, and then left you for the guy he swore was his straight best friend?—”
“Wow, that’s uncomfortably topical.”
“And you were absolutely heartbroken because come on, you were fifteen, first boyfriend you were really interested in, and you were a mess.”
“I’m not sure mess is the word I’d use.”
“You got into Marty’s supply of booze, drank yourself to the point of puking, drank some more, puked again, and then decided to cry in the shower until I managed to lure you out with some Hot Pockets.”
Okay, I couldn’t refute that, and he damn well knew it.
I had gotten absolutely trashed and paid for it in spades the next day because my theft was obvious, and all Mom had to do was smell the booze still leaking from my pores to know who was responsible.
Eli had lied his ass off and said that he’d helped me, so he’d ended up with the same punishment, but the real punishment was not remembering how I’d behaved when shit faced, other than a vague, overwhelming sense of shame and embarrassment.
I knew the story, of course, but clearly there was more to it.
“You kept slipping between crying, eating, and talking shit about him,” Eli said with a chuckle.
“I spent the last half hour of you being awake arguing that, no, you weren’t unlovable, that you didn’t ‘make’ him cheat, and that, yes, one day you were going to find someone to do right by you.
That last bit made you really happy, and it was the first time since we’d been kids that you fell asleep in bed with me. ”
“Well,” I said with an apologetic wince. “Doing something like that got really weird when puberty kicked in. I didn’t want you finding out that cuddling you gave me boners.”
“Well, makes sense now, but not important. What was important was that as you fell asleep, feeling a little better until the epic hangover the next day, you muttered something about being glad you had me and you hoped you always would because no other guy was ever going to treat you like I do.”
I stared at him and wondered briefly how he’d had no indication, not the slightest hint back then, that I might have feelings for him that ran a little differently than he thought.
Then again, I still thought it was a miracle that I hadn’t completely spilled my guts to him.
“That’s always been true. I just didn’t think it would.
..well, I’d made up my mind to accept that what we were was all I was going to get, and while there might always be the hurt of not having more, it wouldn’t make sense to fight for what couldn’t happen and enjoy what great things I did have. ”
“Mmm, now there’s the warm and fuzzy feelings,” he said with a laugh, reaching across the table again, and I took his hand without hesitation.
Even if we decided it wasn’t for us, I would fight like hell to beat the pain and grief and remember moments like these with crystal clarity and happiness.
“But I remember lying there for the longest time after you’d passed out, watching you sleep.
I mean, I obviously spent a good chunk of time hating him for what he’d done, but I kept thinking about what you said.
And I remember thinking how stupid it was that things like sexuality existed.
Why couldn’t we just be programmed to be into whoever we’re into?
Why did people like you and me have to miss the chance at something great just because I didn’t like dick? ”
“I think Mason would agree with you.”
“Mason’s idea of a perfect partner is a man who hates him as much as he loves him, so maybe God should have toned something about Mason down, for the rest of our sakes.”
I let out a bark of laughter and then quickly covered it when I saw heads turn our way. “You’re so bitchy sometimes.”