Chapter Fourteen Here Goes.
We spent the rest of the afternoon making out on the couch, because it was impossible for us to stop touching each other. I was hungry for him, and the hunger got worse the more I fed it.
After we had dinner, I got changed for my gig.
Normally, I didn’t make much effort. No one was looking at me on stage.
But tonight, I wanted to look my best. For him.
So I shaved again and put on my black pants and an aquamarine silk shirt that I’d never worn because it felt too special, even for a gig.
When I came out of the bedroom, he was on the couch watching TV. I sat on the arm of the couch.
“Hey, hot boy,” I said, then realized what an awkward nickname that was. “You want to come to my gig tonight? It’s only a couple hours.”
“Do you want me to?” he said.
“Well, it would give me a chance to introduce the band to my boyfriend.”
“Will they have a problem with you having a boyfriend?” he said.
“They better not, because I do have a boyfriend, and I’m not planning on getting rid of him.”
“Then I guess your boyfriend’s coming to your gig,” he said. “Do I have to dress up?”
“No, you’re good.” I grinned like an idiot. “Better than good, actually.” I leaned over and kissed him, and I knew that coming out to my band would be all right. Because I wasn’t alone anymore, trying to figure stuff out. He was with me.
At 8:15 p.m., Ben arrived. Ben hadn’t been to my place since Eddie had moved in, and I hadn’t told Ben or Bexley about him.
I buzzed Ben in, and when he arrived, I said casually, “This is Eddie.”
“Hi, Eddie. Have we met before?”
“No,” said Eddie.
Ben never forgot a face. He could talk to someone for five minutes on the subway, and ten years later he’d remember them. I wondered how or when he’d met Eddie, and if he knew Eddie was bi. To distract him, I had Ben help me carry the keyboards downstairs to his van. Eddie came with us.
As we were loading my keyboards into the van, Ben said, “Now I remember! You were in that honey commercial.”
Eddie said, “That was years ago.”
Years were minutes in Ben time.
“You were the kid flying the yellow kite. Craig, did you know Eddie was in a commercial?”
“He’s been in some movies too,” I said. Maybe I was feeling a little bit incredibly proud of him.
“Wow,” said Ben. “You’re a celebrity.”
“By the way,” I said. “Eddie’s my boyfriend.”
“Cool,” said Ben.
And no one said anything else until we got to the venue. We got there before everybody else and started setting up.
While Ben went to park the van, I said to Eddie, “You never told me you were in a honey commercial.”
“It’s not my best work.”
“Did you fly your own kite, or did they get a stuntkid to do it for you?”
“Seriously, fuck off, Craig. I wasn’t a kid. I was nineteen.”
“I’d love to see you as a teenager.”
“It’s probably on YouTube,” he said.
After I set up my keyboards, the rest of the band arrived.
Showtime.
I took his hand and walked off the stage to meet them. We’d never properly held hands before, and he did it differently. He didn’t lace his fingers between mine like all my girlfriends had. He caught my thumb between his first two fingers. I liked the way that felt. Anchored.
Brian was walking ahead of Bex, Alan, and Ben, and he stared at us like he was thinking, What the fuck?
“Guys?” I said. “This is my boyfriend, Eddie. He’s staying for the show.”
“He’s an actor,” said Ben.
Alan nodded at us, then went to the stage to set up. Bex stopped to talk to us. Brian walked past without saying a word.
“So, you’re bi, Craig?” said Bexley.
“Guess so.” I was still holding Eddie’s hand. I felt guilty for not telling Bex sooner. Bex was my best friend, and he was only finding out now, along with everyone else in the band.
“Cool,” said Bex. “You’ve been single a long time. I’m glad you found someone.”
I guess that meant he forgave me.
“He was the kid in that honey commercial,” said Ben. He sang the jingle, “ ‘Your days are always sunny, with Talley Valley Honey.’ ”
“That was you?” said Bex.
“He’s a movie star too,” said Ben.
“How did you guys meet?” said Bex.
There it went. “Through someone at work,” I said. “Long story.” I prayed he didn’t ask any more questions.
“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” said Bex.
“Likewise,” said Eddie.
“Got to get set up. Enjoy the show.”
Bex and Ben left, both waving to Eddie.
“That went okay,” I said. “I think.”
“Brian seems like a dick,” said Eddie.
“To be fair, he is a dick. He hates me anyway because I had sex with his ex-girlfriend after they broke up.”
Not my finest ten minutes. We did it in the back of Ben’s van—her idea. Turned out she only hooked up with me to get back at Brian for dumping her. I’d wanted to keep seeing her, but she ghosted me afterward.
“Ben and Bex are cool,” I said. “I figured they’d be cool. Alan just needs time, but I think he’ll come around. Here: VIP seating. The band has reserved seats. This one’s yours.”
I let go of his hand, put my arm around him, and shepherded him to his seat. “Not too far from the stage, not too close to the speakers. I gotta get ready now. When the show’s over, I’ll come get you.”
He sat there looking sexy. How could he look so sexy doing nothing? I looked over my shoulder at everyone setting up. Fuck it. I leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. I didn’t care if everyone saw. I had to stop, though, because I was getting excited.
I looked at him again, squeezed his shoulder, and said, “I love you.” Because I couldn’t tell him enough times.
I went back on stage to finish setting up.
It wasn’t my best show. I was too distracted by him in the crowd.
Only a couple hundred people were in the audience, but I could have spotted him in a crowd of ten thousand.
He had his hook in me, pulling me in. I couldn’t wait for the set to be done so I could go back to him.
Finally, the gig ended, and because I couldn’t wait any longer, I jumped off the stage, went up to him, and hugged him. “I gotta pack up, then we can go.”
“Sure,” he said, with that half smile.
I couldn’t wait to get him home.
Brian walked off without saying a word. Bexley and Alan were chatting about the next gig.
Ben helped me stow my keyboards in the van.
Then he went back inside to say goodbye to the rest of the band, and I kissed Eddie, leaning against the side of Ben’s van.
I guess we got a little too into it, because next thing I knew, Ben was out there with us, closing the van doors. We got in.
“Are we gonna get paparazzi following us?” said Ben. “Like, ’cause there’s a celebrity on board?”
“Can it, Ben,” I said.
“I’m looking you up on IMDb when I get home, Eddie,” said Ben.
“Stop being such a groupie,” I said.
This was typical Ben. He’d get really into a fandom for a few months and talk about it constantly. Then he’d move on to another one.
Ben dropped us off at our apartment.
“Eddie and I can take it from here,” I said.
“Have a good one,” said Ben.
Eddie and I carried my keyboards up to the apartment. After we’d stowed them, I reached for him. “C’mere you.” I pulled him into another kiss. “Can’t keep my hands off you.”
“Why would you want to?”
I’d come out to my band tonight, and it hadn’t felt like a big deal. The big deal was here with me.
We started making out, with no one to interrupt us this time.
“I wanna blow you again,” I said.
He smiled. “Okay.”
So I pushed him back onto the couch, and I knelt on the floor between his legs.
He was sprawled there, watching me with his eyes half-closed and an expression that wasn’t quite a smile.
I pulled his zipper down slowly, watching his face the whole time.
This time when I pulled him out, I took a good look.
He felt perfect in my hand. I heard him breathing, focused and steady.
Then I took him in my mouth. The first time I’d done it, I’d been in a hurry.
Now, I took my sweet time. I’d figured out a couple things he liked from our first time, and I was paying attention to how he responded now so I could make it better for him.
He stroked the back of my neck, then he stopped, and I could hear him panting, and his thighs tensed under my hands, then his hips hitched off the couch, and he was filling my mouth.
I held him until his breathing went back to normal, then I pulled off, tucked him away, and zipped his jeans. When I looked at him, he was smiling at me. He ran his fingers through my hair.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
Which was funny, because he’d just given me everything I wanted.
“I want to lie down and make out with you,” I said.
He patted the couch.
I pushed him over till we were both lying on the couch facing each other, and I stared into his gold and green eyes, the tip of my nose nudging his.
Then I kissed him, and he opened his mouth for me, and I slipped my tongue in.
I touched his face with the back of my hand, stroking it softly, feeling the stubble under his chin, tracing his eyebrow, his cheekbone.
I kissed him deeper and pressed against him, kneading him through his T-shirt, and then I started talking hot and fast.
“You want to know what your come tastes like, Eddie? It tastes like the air in July, so hot and thick, and it clings to the inside of me, like a ghost haunting my soul. I can feel you inside me, flowing through me, touching me everywhere.”
I laughed to hear myself say that, but it wasn’t funny. It hurt, but in a good way.
He put his arms around me and squeezed. “Nobody’s ever talked to me like that.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“You gave me your heart on a plate. You gave me your fucking soul.”
“Yeah. That’s it. Don’t you want it?”
“’Course I do,” he said.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found you at the bus station.
You have no idea what it was like walking around wanting you and not knowing if I’d ever see you again.
” I rubbed his shoulder. I didn’t want to spoil the mood, but...
“Wait a minute. The day after we went to Deep Ice, I asked you if you’d ever wanted someone but couldn’t have them.
You said yes—you still wanted that person. Do you still want them?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“It was you, you idiot,” he said, giving me a push. “I couldn’t tell you, because I was with Trish.”
“But...you were so chill. I couldn’t tell.”
“I was acting.”
“Well, you did a great job.”
“Maybe I should turn professional,” he said, with a straight face.
“Do you know what it would have meant to me to know that? You could have at least hinted.”
“No, I couldn’t. I was dating Trish.”
It was getting late, but I didn’t want to stop making out with him, so I pushed it, and he went along with me. But eventually, Responsible Craig put a stop to things.
“Time for bed.”
“One more kiss?” he said.
I suspected, based on things I’d noticed from living with him, that there was no Responsible Eddie. Still, one kiss wouldn’t hurt....
I went with it, maybe to prove I had some control, because I’d given him such a bad first impression of my stamina last night. And also, this morning.
Ten minutes later, it was even harder to stop, but it had been a long day, and I was wiped. I nuzzled him in the hollow above his eye, breathing him in, and I whispered in his ear, “Bedtime.”
I pulled him off the couch and along the hallway with me to bed. We took off our jeans and socks and I bundled him under the blankets and moved in behind him, pulling him against me, my chin nestling into his shoulder, arms around him. Our bodies fit together perfectly.
I squeezed him gently. “You make me happy, honey kid.”
Honey kid. I liked that. And maybe, since he didn’t elbow me in the ribs for saying it, he did too.
––––––––
On Monday at work, I could barely focus. I’d be hit with a skin memory, and I’d feel him under my hands, or I’d taste him, and I was ready to pop like a firecracker. Then I’d run a circuit of the stairwell, bouncing up the stairs. No elevator for me.
Frustrated as fuck, I texted him, When are you getting home?
A few minutes later, he texted back, 6. everything ok?
Yeah. I just really miss you. xx
I didn’t want to interrupt him at work, but I was going crazy.
To take my mind off it, I texted Bex and asked him to meet me for lunch.
I owed him an explanation. I was afraid it would be awkward.
He’d seemed okay at the gig, and I knew he was cool about this kind of thing in general.
I just wasn’t sure if he’d have a problem with me specifically.
I was afraid he might treat me differently now that I was out to him.
We shot the shit for ten minutes before Bex brought it up.
“How long have you been dating him?” said Bex.
“We made it official the day before you met him.”
“And unofficially?”
“He’s been living with me for the past five months,” I said.
“That why I haven’t been invited to your place since April, and you’ve been bailing on hangouts, apart from rehearsals and gigs?”
“I had to figure stuff out,” I said. “I’m sorry, Bex.”
I could see him doing the math. “You said you met him through work?”
Lying about it would have meant betraying him, and he was still my best friend.
“He’s Trish’s ex,” I said.
“Oh. Okay.”
I felt protective of Eddie. “They didn’t break up because of me. We didn’t get together till after they broke up. There was a gap. A big gap.”
I thought he’d cross-examine me about how it happened, but what he said was, “Five months. That’s a record for you.”
Bex had had one girlfriend his whole life. They’d gotten together when they were fourteen and split last year. He was still friends with her. He’d never commented on how many girlfriends I’d had. Most of them hadn’t lasted more than a few weeks. Sometimes, I felt sleazy with him knowing that.
I wondered how I’d have felt if Bex had come out to me. I loved Bex, but I’d never felt that way about him. Especially now, the lack of that energy between us was obvious.
Bex said, “Still figuring stuff out?” It was like he could read my mind.
“Yeah.”
“So, we’re good?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He smiled.
“Guess I’ll see you at the next gig?”
“Yeah, or maybe the three of us can grab dinner some time?”
“That’d be nice,” I said.