6. Ford
Ford
Of course I had said too much.
Dylan didn’t want to hear about my problems. Hearing them out loud—for fuck’s sake—it sounded ridiculous. I sounded ridiculous. Complaining about people only liking me for my body. He must think I’m a complete narcissist.
“No,” Dylan answered. “Sorry, I got distracted by your belly button.”
“What?”
“Eh, I shouldn’t have said that, but I took an edible earlier and who knows what I’m saying anymore.” I was going to say that he’s always rambling so I didn’t notice much of a difference, but then he asked, “Do you always play with your belly button when you're nervous?”
“No.” Immediately, I stopped playing with my belly button. “I don’t think so anyway.”
“I think you do.”
“Well that’s neither here nor there at the moment.” I glanced over to find Dylan sitting cross-legged, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his hands.
“It’s definitely here,” he said.
I ignored him and zeroed in on his newest confession. “An edible? Really?”
“What?” He shrugged. “Don’t give me the drugs lecture. I’m an adult and it’s not like I have to pee in a cup for my job.”
“Do you still work at the bookstore?” He nodded. “Do you eat them often?”
“Bookstores?”
My eyes rolled back without a thought. “Edibles, Dylan. Edibles.” Although now I knew the reason why he was a little more infuriating today.
He smiled before answering. “Not too often. Often enough? I don’t know.”
“Can I ask why you use them?”
“You can ask.”
“Ugh.” What a fucking brat. “Why do you use them?”
“There you go,” he teased, before pausing to stare off into the distance. I almost thought he wasn’t going to answer me, then he said, “They help me relax. They lessen my anxiety. Sometimes they make me sleepy and they help me sleep.”
That all sounded very nice, but a career where drug tests were the norm meant I never had even given a second thought to trying anything like that.
“I’ve got plenty more if you want to try it.”
“I’ll stick with beer for now,” I said.
“Sure. That’s much healthier for you.” He reached out and poked my obliques. “I don’t think there’s an edible equivalent of a beer belly.”
“That might be true.” I ignored the stirring in my groin that Dylan’s touch had ignited, hoping he wouldn’t notice what I could already feel forming. “But from what you’re describing, I don’t think I’d leave my couch if I started taking them, and by default, I’d lose muscle mass.”
“Oh no!” he shrieked. “Losing muscle mass! The travesty! What will you do when two abs disappear and you’re left with just six?!” To emphasize his point—as if he needed more sarcasm—he stood up, began tearing at his hair, and stumbled around.
“Hey Dylan, I’d be careful?—”
“Ow! Fuck!”
It was too late, and I couldn’t get off the ground fast enough to catch him.
He fell.
Hard.
“Fuck me! God fucking—goddamn, mother fucker!”
I rushed over to him. He was already holding his leg up, reaching for his ankle.
“Don’t even say it!” He opened his eyes to glare at me and any words that were on the tip of my tongue immediately disappeared.
“How bad is it?” I knelt beside him, no longer worried about my dick.
“It's not bad.”
Bullshit. “Your profanity tells me otherwise.”
“It's not broken if that's what you're asking. Just a little twink—tweak, I think.”
I resisted the urge to call him a little twink and said, “We should head back and get some ice on that.”
He flopped back onto the ground. “Again.”
“Delusion. Just another amazing side effect of marijuana!”
“That's not why.”
“No, of course not. It was your inherent need to push my buttons that made you prance around like a ballerino.”
“I did not prance.” Dylan glared at me before looking away and crossing his arms.
“Okay, fine.” I knew better than to argue with him now. I could tell he was upset and imagined another few days with his ass glued to the couch wasn’t what he had planned.
“Well?”
“Well what?” I asked.
“Are you going to offer to carry me again, Captain America?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I thought I’d watch you drag yourself home.”
“Funny.” He took my offered hand and I held him steady while he stood up. “It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose.”
“I never said you were, but now that you mention it…if you wanted me to carry you around, you could’ve just asked.”
“Oh yes.” I lower myself so he can wrap his arm around my neck, like last time.
“I just couldn’t wait to be pressed up against your chest again.
” Scooping him up, he continued, “Skin on skin. Nipple to nipple.” He laid back dramatically and I had to shift my grip to not fall over.
“Your big manly hand cupping my ass. Just bend me over and take me now.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Even though I knew it was the edible talking, I could play this game too.
“Is that what you want?” I asked. “You want Captain America to plow you?”
“Wh-what?”
“You want me to bend you over and just take what I want.”
“N-no?”
“That sounded like a question.”
“I was just fucking with you, Ford. I told you, I’m high.”
Right.
It wasn’t as far and it wasn’t a wooded trail, so we made it back to the cabin faster than the last time I had to carry him.
Of course the entire way I was thinking about how I was almost—as he said—cupping his ass.
Dylan was uncharacteristically quiet for the journey, snuggled against my shoulder, half asleep.
I had already placed him on his bed before he realized we were home.
“Oh, wow. That was fast.”
“You fell asleep,” I said.
“Oh.” He yawned and closed his eyes to stretch, throwing his arms above his head.
It was hard not to look at his body—in just black swim briefs, it was fully on display. The way the skimpy fabric hugged his skinny waist, the curve of his calves. He cleared his throat and I felt the familiar flood of pink on my cheeks. I had definitely been caught.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t draw attention to my staring.
“I think I’m going to shower,” he replied, “but I guess you could get an ice pack ready. Maybe some iced tea?”
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll do that.” I turned to head to the kitchen.
What the fuck was I thinking, checking him out like that? I wasn’t thinking—not with my brain anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed.
No.
I needed this time. And even if I didn’t figure everything out the next few months, at least it was possible that Dylan and I could repair our relationship. He used to look up to me, ask me for advice. We were closer then than we were now, though the last week had been a nice change.
Just as I was cracking the ice cube tray, I heard a loud crash. I dropped everything and bolted towards his bedroom.
“Dylan?!” Everything looked normal in the bedroom but the shower was still running. “I’m coming in.”
He still hadn’t answered me—my heartbeat was pounding in my head as my adrenalin spiked. “Jesus Christ.” I tried to comprehend the damage. All I could see of Dylan was one of his feet because the rest of him was covered by the shower curtain. The rod had been ripped completely off the wall.
“I’m okay.”
I breathed a small sigh of relief, unsure of what to do. “Why didn’t you answer me?” The spray was getting me wet and drenching the floor so I reached over to shut it off.
“Embarrassment?”
“You sure you’re okay.”
“You’re gonna need to turn the water back on. I got shampoo in my eye and then fell when I tried to turn around to rinse it out. I can’t see right now; it burns.”
I withheld my chuckle and asked, “Have you always been this clumsy and I just didn’t notice?”
“Please shut up.”
I reoriented the shower head but wasn’t sure what to do next. “Do you need my help to get up since you can’t see?”
“How am I going to shower with no curtain?”
“I can hold it up while you finish,” I suggested. It took him a few seconds to answer me.
“Okay, and yeah, I’ll need help getting up. There’s no point in trying and falling all over again.”
“Is your ankle worse?”
“I have no fucking idea. I just want to rinse off, put on some pajamas, and get drunk on margaritas.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t think we had margarita mix but now seemed like a bad time.
Bending over, I grabbed the shower rod and pulled the curtain off of him.
He was covering his junk with one of his hands, and I knew better than to make a joke about the situation while he was this vulnerable. He’d already had a bad week.
"Sorry about this,” he said, rubbing his temple. “It’s just not been my day.”
"Accidents happen," I said, continuing to stare at his body completely without shame. “Give me your hand. I’ll pull you up."
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to pull myself up with just one arm,” he said.
“I can close my eyes.”
He mumbled, "Thanks.”
“Here,” I said, grabbing his free hand with mine. When I saw him start to move his other hand, I closed my eyes. My flexed arm took his weight while I balanced the curtain rod in the other. In retrospect, I should’ve put that down and just picked him up.
When his grip softened, I asked, “You good?”
“I’m standing,” he said. “For now.”
"I’ll just…hold this up then." I positioned myself close to the side of the tub, holding the rod up, but not high enough that the bottom went above the lip. "Take your time."
The silence was awkward at first, broken only by the sound of the running water. I started counting the number of tiles on the wall instead of focusing on the fact that I was a few feet away from his naked body, or wondering if his cock still looked the same.
That was easier said than done.
"Ford?" Dylan asked after a few minutes.
"Yeah?"
"You really don’t have to do this."
"It’s fine."
"Isn’t your arm tired?"
"I’ll live."
He chuckled softly, and I couldn’t help but smile. The tension I had been feeling seemed to lessen a bit. “Can you see again? You rinse out your eyes yet?”
“Oh yeah, ages ago. Now I’m just standing here to see how long before your arm gives out.”
“What?!”
As I dropped the rod, Dylan yelped and pulled it towards him to cover up. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! I’m almost done.”
After lifting the rod back up, he turned the water off less than a minute later. I grabbed his towel off the bar and held it behind the curtain for him to take. “Thanks.”
“Do you need me to stay, or can you get out of the tub on your own?” I asked.
“I think I can manage.”
“Well, without a shower curtain to break your fall, I need to be sure.”
Dylan laughed. “I’ll be fine.”
A minute later, he announced, “All done.”
I lowered the shower rod, feeling a mix of relief and…something else. It felt good to be needed.
Holding onto the wall, he gingerly stepped out of the shower with the towel wrapped around his waist. He still looked slightly dazed, and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
"Thanks again," he said, meeting my eyes for the first time since the curtain disaster. "I really appreciate it."
“My pleasure.”
Dylan looked around, taking in the damage. “Damn.”
“It’s not too bad.”
“What are you talking about? There are two giant holes and pieces of wall all over the floor.”
I shrugged and carefully placed all of the wet curtain into the tub with the rod propped in the corner. “One trip to Stony Creek and a few hours of work and it’ll be fine.”
“You’re going all the way to Stony Creek?”
“Unless you want to shower with me the rest of the summer?”
“ With you ?”
Shit. “Uhhh…I just meant in my bathroom.”
“Oh. I mean, that makes sense.” It wasn’t my imagination; he almost sounded disappointed. “That, or you’d have to hold up my rod every time I wanted to shower,” he added.
“I’ll hold your rod any day,” I said, knowing full well that my joke was a purposeful step down a path paved with red flags.
He looked up at me, and I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Was it hope? Something more? I wasn’t sure, but I knew at that moment that I would be there for him. This summer and beyond.
“You might have to help me up the stairs,” he said.
“I can do that.”
I wanted him as part of my life again.
Whatever it took.