Chapter Zach
Zach
Homecoming.
I thought it would be different. It’s senior year. It’s the last one. I thought it would be fun but most of the game I just thought about my jersey with Chloe’s handwriting on it.
Calling me a liar.
And that’s exactly what I am. To her. To Adam. To myself. I lied for so long.
I hate it. I’m angry with myself and no matter what Adam says to me to try to make it better, I think I always will be.
It’s one thing to be gay and not tell the world, but to be gay and have sex with a girl, one who thinks you love her, it’s not okay.
We pull out the win at the game with the entire town watching, but there’s really no joy in it for me. Chloe wasn’t at the game. I’m guessing she got in trouble for her stunt at the pep rally, but I take no joy in it.
But, my best friend seems to be hellbent on making me feel better and after my second beer I’m feeling… I guess a little more pleasant. We sit around the fire and I notice not many of the older guys are there.
Jameson, Garrison, Oakley and Travis were at the game. We saw them briefly, but after giving Adam a hard time with their “little Bates” bullshit, they headed back to Hayes and we came out here for the party.
I don’t see Chloe here either and that’s a huge relief. But I’m not really paying attention to much else and I’m constantly checking my phone to make sure my sisters are still doing okay at our grandma’s house.
No messages so far.
“Let’s go.” Adam leans in to say it close to my ear and god help me my entire body shivers at his closeness. I need to get over this.
So he didn’t kick my ass for checking him out and he seems totally fine with me being gay, if he knew any of the thoughts I had stirring around in my brain, there’s no way he’d be this cool.
Or worse…God would he humor me?
What if I told him how often I think about kissing him. How I wonder what his lips would feel like against mine. What his hard body would feel like pressed up against me. His big hands all over my body.
Would he push me away?
I don’t know. Knowing Adam, he’d tell me to go for it just for the experience.
And I can’t do that.
I won’t let the pity go any further.
And tonight, I’m going to share a tent with him out in the middle of nowhere because I’m a glutton for punishment apparently. I should have told him no. That I need to get home just in case my sisters need me.
But I couldn’t do it.
He looked so damn distraught and desperate to make me feel better that I agreed. I nod my head and swallow what’s left of my beer before I stand up. He finished his a while ago and only had one. We toss our cups in a trash bag before we say goodbye and head out.
Adam drives us a little away from the party, there’s a ton of empty land out here, but I think this still belongs to the Oakleys. We hop out and he gets busy setting up the tent. I start a small fire near the tent but not too close and try not to watch Adam like the creep that I am.
I think whatever this attraction is, is getting worse and worse. I can’t help but watch the way his body moves as he sets up the tent. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, neither showing off much of his body, but he’s graceful and sure in each movement.
It’s mesmerizing.
We grab our sleeping bags—thank God we each have our own—and roll them out inside the tent. But when we snuggle down into our sleeping bags, lying down, it doesn’t matter that we are in separate sleeping bags.
His face is right by mine. I can feel his body heat through the nylon. I can smell his shampoo mixed with the smell from the fire.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” I have to ask him. It was one thing before he knew—I’m gay—that’s still so damn hard to even think. But it was one thing before I came out to him. Now that he knows for sure I’m interested in guys, this might be weird for him.
Us sleeping together out in the middle of nowhere.
No one else is around.
But he just looks at me with those big blue eyes and I can see the anger—or maybe frustration—flaring in them. “Okay with what? Sleeping on the hard ass ground when it’s freezing?”
His tone has an edge to it because he knows that’s not what I’m asking and yeah, I’m sure it’s frustrating to him that I won’t just take his word for it. But the thing is, Adam is just so damn good. He’ll protect me no matter what and I don’t want it to be at the expense of his own comfort.
“You know what I’m asking.” I say quietly, rolling to my back and looking up at the top of the tent and not at Adam.
I can hear rustling and I’m sure he’s fully rolling to his side to look at me, “I do and I don’t like it.”
I sigh softly. “I’m sorry Adam. I just can’t make it make sense to me in my head that you’re totally okay with all this.”
“Zach look at me.” I don’t want to. My eyes slide closed and I take a deep breath. I hate this. I wish I would have just kept my mouth shut, but he doesn’t sound upset. He sounds concerned and I can’t let him worry.
I open my eyes and roll to my side mirroring his position.
“I’m broken.”
That’s not at all what I expected him to say and I almost choke on my own spit when he says it, but I recover. “What are you talking about? You’re not broken.” He’s the least broken human I know.
“Haven’t you ever noticed that I never talk about sex. Or dating. Or girls. Or anything really other than like sports and the farm.”
I go over every conversation we’ve ever had—really quickly—and no I guess it’s usually about sports or farming. But that’s not that weird. “I mean, those are your priorities.”
“Yeah and how many eighteen year old guys do you know that don’t comment on how hot chicks are or how badly they need to get laid even if they never have.”
I shrug, using my hands as a pillow as I watch him. What exactly is he trying to say to me. I’ve participated in those conversations a couple of times, but it was for show. It was always a damn facade. But Adam never has. “You’re kind of a quiet guy. Everyone knows that.”
He’s lying on his big hands too, his eyes locked on mine. “I don’t join in because, I don’t feel that way.”
“You’re private.”
He sighs and gently shakes his head, “It’s more than that.”
I study him closely and suck in a deep breath. Is he saying what I think? No. He can’t be. If he were gay too he would have said something right? But I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to tell me.
My heart is pounding in my chest so damn hard. “What is it?”
“I told you…” His voice is quiet and raspy, “I’m broken.”
I frown, “What does that mean?” I mean, believe me, I thought I was broken many times over the past few years. “Are you…” I can barely bring myself to say it, but I finally accomplish it, “Gay?”
I wait for so long I swear I can hear my heartbeat in my ears but my stomach drops when he shakes his head, “No.”
Okay. “So you’re straight?”
He shakes his head again. I’m not a total moron, I know there are other ways to identify. But haven’t looked into it much. I don’t really know how it works if I google this stuff and the last thing I need is my mom or stepdad to see it. Or anyone at school.
“I don’t think I’m straight either.”
What the? I stare at him and I swear I see his cheeks turn red.
“I don’t know what I am. And I don’t know how to explain it. I think I’m just….” He sighs deeply. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I ask because he’s for sure not nothing. He’s everything. But I can feel his confusion.
“I don’t think about sex.” My eyes must widen as much as they feel because he grins and shoves my shoulder. “I mean, not all the time. Not really. I hear everyone obsessing about sex all the time. Talking about. Television. Movies. School. The locker room. But I just…”
I mean, yeah. Sex is everywhere. God knows it’s always on my mind. Well I mean like eighty percent of the time anyway. I wanted to have sex…just not with a woman. It’s my turn to blush because god damn how much time to I spend thinking about sex and sex like things with Adam.
Whether I feel guilty about it or not, the thoughts pop up.
“You just what?” I force myself to ask.
“I don’t really think about sex with anyone else. Or sex all that often.”
“So you’ve like never…” Shit what exactly am I asking? I’m an asshole I now realize because I always just assumed he’s had sex, but was just being Adam and his normal private, respectful self. Not talking about it.
“Never what?”
Okay, we can do this. We can talk like mature adults. “Had sex?” My voice squeaks when I ask and so much for adult.
He smiles, but he doesn’t give me a hard time. “No. I’ve never wanted to.”
Holy shit. I rack my brain trying to figure out if I’ve heard about this before. He’s not broken. I know that much. But a teenage guy that doesn’t want to have sex like at all? Yeah, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that.
“So…” I clear my throat, chickening out. “Have you never….” Shit. Yeah. I can’t ask this. I swear just lying here next to him, saying words like sex has my dick wanting to poke through the damn sleeping bag.
“Never what?” He says calmly. Far more maturely than I can manage.
“You can ask me anything, Zachary. You know that. The only reason I’ve never brought it up is because I don’t understand it myself.
Like not at all. I don’t know the words or how to express it.
It’s confusing as fuck. I know I’m supposed to feel a certain type of way, but I just don’t. ”
“First of all,” Yay, look at me, my tone is back to serious.
“Fuck what society says you’re supposed to feel.
They don’t get to decide that. And second of all, you can talk to me too.
This friendship isn’t one sided. If you want me to talk to you about my…
.” I struggle with the word. Gayness probably isn’t right.
“Stuff?” He grins, “Then you have to talk to me.”
“About my stuff?” He’s smiling again and damn it, his whole gorgeous face just lights up when he does that. My dick is hard and my body is thrumming with want and I actually scoot back from him a little bit in what I hope is a subtle move, but I doubt it.
This is a serious conversation. No hard-ons allowed.
I try to school my dick, but it won’t listen.
“Go ahead and ask me what you wanted to.” Adam’s deep voice pulls my focus from my dick to him.
“Okay…” I try to keep my voice totally serious and focus. “You like don’t…”
He’s near laughing now I can feel it and damn it I hope I can get through this conversation. “Just ask me.”
“Fine. So your dick doesn’t get hard?” There. Totally normal question. See. I can do this.
He finally does laugh and he shakes his head at me like I’m fucking ridiculous. Which right now, I feel like I am. “My dick works, asshole. It’s my mind that’s a mess.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“See.” He waves his hand before tucking it back under his head, “This is why I never brought it up because I don’t know.”
I bite my bottom lip, hating his frustration and feeling it myself. “We can talk about this. We can figure it out.” I say to both of us as I roll to my back again, looking head on at him is almost too much. “So your dick works. And you like,” Ah, fuck it. “You jerk off, I’m assuming?”
A startled laugh leaves him and I hear him shifting onto his back to. “This is so weird.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Because yeah, it kind of is. We’ve gone from never talking about sex to talking about sexuality and some pretty serious things over the past week or so.
“It doesn’t have to be. Look, I’m gay and totally attracted to guys.
Women just don’t do it for me. I mean, I can see beauty and I know they’re pretty, but I don’t want to fuck them.
Guys….phew. There are some hot men in this world.
And a lot of them make my dick hard as steel. ”
“Is that so?” He sounds amused. “And I’m in that hot category.”
My cheeks flame, but I try not to show it. “Of course. You’re a hot guy. But if that um…” Insecurity swamps me, “If that bothers you, I can try really hard to take you out of that category.”
“I told you I don’t mind.”
He did. And it damn near melted my brain.
“Okay. Right.” I sound like a crazy person scrambling for words, but he’s spent so much of his life trying to make me feel better, I want to make damn sure it’s equal.
I want to make him feel at ease too. “So, I jerk off daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Like I can’t fucking help it.
It’s there. And I’m not having sex with another human any time soon, might as well have sex with myself.
” I expect him to laugh at my babbling, but he doesn’t.
He just listens to me ramble on because he’s Adam and that’s what he does.
He humors me when I get like this. God help us all. “So I mean, what about you?”
He’s quiet for way too long and I’m worried I’ve crossed a line before I finally hear him speak. “I don’t do it every day. Maybe like once a week or something. I don’t know. It’s….” I hear him swallow hard and I hate that he’s struggling.
“Once a week is good. No one gets to say what’s normal.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I see beauty too. I can tell when a girl or guy is attractive, but I don’t want to have sex with them. It seems like a hassle when I can do it myself when I’m horny.”
Ugnh. Thinking about Adam jerking off is a little too much for my super horny, very attracted to him self. But I try to school my features as I turn my head so I’m looking at him. “Theres nothing wrong with that. You’re not broken.”
“Sometimes I feel like a damn robot. Because I don’t want to date. I don’t want to get laid. I’m happy hanging out with you. I’m happy playing football. I like planning to build my house out on my family’s land. I just don’t think about sex all that damn much. And I feel broken.”
I can’t resist moving my hand so it lands on his firm, solid chest, right over his heart. “I felt that way too. I knew I was supposed to want to have sex with girls, but I just didn’t. But if you don’t think I’m broken, then you’re not broken either.”
He turns to look at me, his smile so damn sweet. “Okay. We’re not broken then.”
“Nope.”
His hand covers mine and I jolt at the electricity that shoots through my entire body when he touches me, but I keep my body still.
“Thank you, Zach.”
“Nothing to thank me for.” I say and I mean it.
He’s always been there for me, I’m so damn grateful I get to be there for him. Even if I don’t understand it fully. It doesn’t matter.