30. Ryan
RYAN
C alyx checked on me via text because I skipped the gym again today, but now he’s at my apartment, commiserating about how hard it is to trust people and how much they suck in general.
“Does this dude have any hobbies that don’t include hurting you?” he asks from my bed while I slump in my desk chair and pick at a rubber band ball I’ve had since I was in undergrad.
“Making me happy,” I mumble.
“Ugh. Gross. But I guess you have been happier. It’s disgusting. Is he that good in bed?”
“It’s not that—but yes—he doesn’t do anything halfway. He commits, you know? Until he doesn’t.”
“That makes no sense,” Calyx says, and I can’t disagree.
“I was ready to give him a chance. I was gonna tell him I want to find my own place here in San Francisco and clear out a space in the closet and empty a drawer for him and shit.”
“And now?”
“I guess we’re on a break. I can’t believe he just quit.”
“You or the job?” Calyx asks .
Both? “The job,” I say. “Like is he stable?”
Calyx lies down on his side and makes himself comfortable.
“I don’t want it to sound like I’m defending him, because I’m definitely not, but maybe he’s just trying to find himself.
Not all of us know what we’re meant to do the second we crack open the right book or whatever.
It’s not like he’s flailing at forty. He’s our age.
I change my mind and take breaks from shit all the time. ”
“Is that why you’ve been in town almost all summer?” I ask.
“Burnout’s no joke.”
“How long have you been modeling?”
“Since I was five.”
“Is there something else you’d rather be doing?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Dunno. But I reserve my right to do something different.”
Calyx is making a good point. There’s just the one big flaw. “How do you explain him being with the same person for ten years if he didn’t want to be with her.”
He gives me a slow blink like my ignorance stuns him. “You think being with someone for ten years automatically means you’ll want to be with them forever?”
“No, but?—”
“People grow apart. They were together in high school. I imagine a few things have changed. I know I’ve changed in the last ten years. If you want to tell me you haven’t, I might have a trophy made for you. For being really fucking boring.”
“You’re a mean little thing.”
He gives me a harsh look. “You made me skip my workout.”
“I didn’t make you do—” I shut up when I see my bedroom door open. “Hey,” I say to Deacon.
“You have a visitor.”
Calyx sits up and runs a hand through his hair. My heart thuds in anticipation of Malcolm. But Bailey slides past Deacon and comes in. She looks from Calyx to me, then at the empty beanbag. “Maybe we should send out a search party.”
“What?” I ask, trying to school my breathing rate back to normal.
“I was hoping Mal would be here, but if he’s not, and he’s not at his place?—”
“He’s not?” I ask.
She shakes her head and walks over to Calyx with her hand outstretched. “I’m Bailey.”
“I figured,” he says. “Calyx.”
“Oh, I know. Is that your given name?”
“No,” he says, and they shake hands.
“It’s not?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“What is?”
He laughs. “Like I’d ever tell.”
Bailey asks, “Is it that bad?”
“In my opinion, yes.”
“Well Calyx was a good choice,” Bailey says. “Definitely suits you.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway,” I cut in. “Malcolm. Have you talked to him at least?”
“I texted, but he didn’t text back,” Bailey says.
“He’s probably with Kaylin,” I say. The thought is a huge blow, but it’s logical.
In theory, it’s possible he’s out with his guy friends getting drunk or something, but as pathetic as he sounded on the phone earlier, I can’t picture it.
It makes more sense that he’d go to her—his safe place or whatever.
Yes. It pisses me off. I will kill the fuck out of him if they get back together—provided he was honest about them breaking up in the first place .
But Bailey dismisses my statement. “No way.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I was the one with him at lunch today while you were playing kissy face with that hottie.”
“Excuse me—I did not kiss her. Are you sure he wasn’t home? Maybe he just didn’t want to come to the door.”
“I wasn’t subtle,” she says. “One of the neighbors told me to leave or he’d call the police.”
Calyx snorts a laugh. “I like her,” he says to me.
“Already? I think of her more like an acquired taste.”
Bailey plops onto the beanbag with her phone in hand, thumbs tapping the screen. I get a ping from the group text, and I check it. She wrote: Checking in for tomorrow night. Can I get RSVPs for 6pm?
She looks at me expectantly.
“I’ll be there,” I tell her.
“Put it in writing. Do you want to make sure he’s okay or not?”
I sigh, typing out my response.
Me
I’ll be there
Miguel
All set for 6
Bailey
Mal??
Malcolm
Am I still invited?
She and I both let out simultaneous breaths. She’s the one who responds, though I wonder if it should be me to do it.
Bailey
No rules, right? We can’t do it without you.
I like her response, both on the inside and with a virtual heart in the group text. The bedroom door opens again, and this time, it is Malcolm. I stand immediately and try not to rush him. It’s only when I finally see him that I realize how much I needed to.
I take a few steps toward him as he examines the room full of people, narrowing his eyes at Calyx. “You have a lot of company,” he says.
“I texted you. And called. And went by your apartment,” Bailey says to him.
“Sorry, I was—” Mal glances at me. “At Miguel’s.”
“Why?” I ask cautiously.
“I figured someone needed to talk some sense into me.”
Bailey is still ensconced in the beanbag. “And did he?”
“I’m here ,” he says, matching her snark.
I turn to my surprise guests. To Calyx, I say, “I’ll see you at noon tomorrow.” And then Bailey. “Six. I’ll be there.”
She’s assessing Calyx. “Wanna get a drink with me?” she asks him.
He lights up. “Yeah!”
“Awesome.” She rocks herself up to standing. To me she says, “We need to get a dog.”
I glance at Mal, and he looks slightly pained at those particular words. I had a feeling he was more attached to Stephanie than he’d admit. I kind of was, too. Even Bud is currently sniffing the air for his tiny canine friend as he winds himself around Malcolm’s annoyingly bare ankles.
Calyx, as he’s leaving, drapes an arm around me, planting a kiss on my cheek. I’m pretty sure he’s meeting Malcolm’s eyes when he does it given the way Mal’s nostrils flare. “Noon, or I’ll be knocking down the door again.”
I gently push him off me, and stare at Malcolm until we’re alone in the room with the door closed.
“Is the break over already?” I ask him.
He shoves his hands into his shorts pockets and presses his lips into a line. “Poor choice of words. Didn’t realize they were a trigger.”
“Me neither. But it turns out…” I trail off. I want to hug him, but I’m afraid he’ll turn any physical contact into a reason not to talk to me, and there are still things that need sorting out. The “break” being the main thing.
“I’m ready to talk,” he says.
I nod, still frozen in place.
“What we have—no wait—I shouldn’t say that,” he stammers. “What I feel for you isn’t anything close to what I felt for Kaylin. Even in the beginning. What I want with you and me is different, too.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
He sighs. “That’s not where I wanna start. Can we sit?”
I gesture to the bed, and he sits on the end of the mattress. I stick with my desk chair but roll it closer to face him.
He continues with his gaze on his folded hands.
“I knew the job wasn’t for me by the end of the first week.
I knew I hated basketball after two practices.
I knew I wasn’t in love with Kaylin and never would be the first time she said the words to me.
I might not always know what I want, but I can tell pretty quick when something’s not for me. ”
I’m listening. I nod for him to go on.
“So that’s the timeline you asked about,” he says.
“If I hadn’t showed up when I did, would you have eventually married her?” I ask.
He counters with, “Would you have given a shit if I did? ”
Of course I would have. It wouldn’t have hurt the way his initial rejection did, but it wouldn’t have felt good. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have been surprised.”
“How’d you feel when you saw the ring?” he asks quietly.
I lean back and rub my mouth. “Scared.” It comes out as a whisper.
“But you trusted me?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I admit.
“But you did.”
“I wanna say I did a better job trusting you than you did trusting me today.”
“It’s not exactly a trust thing for me,” he says. “It’s more like insecurity. You don’t say a lot, Ryan, and when you do talk, I wonder sometimes if you’re just being nice.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Be nice to me?” he asks.
“No—just—blow smoke up your ass.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I told you—I’m insecure when it comes to you. And I know it shows, and I guess I just wonder how long you’ll want to put up with it.”
“I’ve put up with worse from you,” I remind him.
“That’s not helpful,” he says.
“There’s nothing you could ever do to me that I wouldn’t forgive you for,” I tell him. “That’s what ‘I love you’ means when I say it to you.” I pause and consider him. The totality of him. All the things I know now, and what we’ve shared. “But maybe you need to hear something different.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, sounding utterly defeated. “I need to hear that you’re not planning to leave for Seattle at the end of the summer.”
That’s what he’s afraid of? After all the kisses, all the showers? The confessions under streetlights? This man will never cease to surprise me. “Look at me, will you?” I ask .
He does, lifting his gorgeous eyes to meet mine. “I don’t think that’s what you need to hear. I think you need me to tell you I like you.”
He blinks and swallows, the truth evident on his beautiful, expressive face. “Do you?”
I nod.
“Why?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Jesus. I could ask you the same thing about me. I like hanging out with you. You’re fun.”
“Fun?”
“Entertaining,” I try again. Fuck, I’m terrible at this.
“Like…a clown?”
I laugh. “Fuck, no, not like a clown. Christ. More like a good video game.”
He gives me a watered-down grin. “What about with my clothes on?”
I nudge his knee with mine. “Jackass, I wasn’t talking about sex.”
“But the sex is good, right?” he asks.
“I don’t know how you can ask that.”
He sighs this huge, exhausted sigh. “I don’t know how you can avoid answering half the questions I do ask. It’s like I need a fucking bulldozer with you.”
“A what?”
He gestures at me vaguely. “The walls, Ryan. When the fuck are you gonna let me in?”
I stare at him in surprise. “You feel like I haven’t?” Because it feels to me like the exact opposite. Like I’ve dissected myself and shown him all my soft insides.
“Is the sex good for you?” he asks again.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Yes. The best.”
“And are you planning to stay in San Francisco once the internship is over? ”
“If we’re still together, and you want me to, then yes.”
He nods. “I guess that’s the best I can ask for.”
No. I can do better, so I keep talking. “If we keep doing the YouTube and the podcast, we’d have to be here, right?
I know Bailey doesn’t want to stop once the challenge is over, and Miguel seems pretty invested, too.
It’s been this total pain in the ass that it turns out I look forward to more than just about anything. And we’re making a ton of money.”
“It is pretty cool that we were able to do that,” he says. “I don’t want to quit that either.”
“That’s saying something,” I say, half as a joke. He pretends to glare at me. I ask him something else. “What did Miguel say that calmed you down?”
“He said a lot of things, but mostly what I took away from it was that you wouldn’t say something if you didn’t mean it, and I realized that as long as I’ve known you that’s more or less true. And I love that about you. You mean what you say.”
I nod.
He goes on. “But that’s not nearly the only thing I love about you.”
My heart thuds. I’m so used to reassuring him that when he turns the tables on me, I always feel the need to brace myself for fear of being swept away.
“You probably already know you ground me,” he says.
“You’re my history. My heartbeat. My first fucking love.
My brother, my partner. My best friend. Somehow you get me—you always have, and I think it’s because you’ve got the best heart of anyone I’ve ever met.
I want to deserve you. I want to have the only key to everything you’ve kept locked inside.
I want the chance to love all of you. Because I know I will. ”
Is this what it means to feel seen?
I’m much too far away from him. I lean forward and ease his back to the bed, climbing on top of him before putting my arms around him and positioning us on our sides.
He presses his mouth to mine, and I part my lips to let him in. Our tongues brush lightly, and I take a deep breath. “You scared me today.”
“You scared me, too.” He slots all his limbs into place, finding our familiar tangle with ease. Getting comfy .
“Not talking to you last night was stupid,” I admit.
“Agreed,” he says. “You don’t get to do that again.”
“Did you need me?” I ask.
He nods.
I slide my leg over his to lock us in place. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “Is Kaylin okay?”
“She will be, I think.”
“And you?” I ask.
He holds me tight. “You make everything better.”
“Be patient with me, okay?” I ask him. “I’m learning as I go. I’ve only ever been in love with you, so I have limited experience expressing myself.”
“I’ve only ever been in love with you, too.”
“It’s not a competition,” I tell him.
“It’s pathetic is what it is,” he says.
I laugh. “Maybe. So, what do you think? Are we on the same page?”
Mal smooths some hair off my forehead and looks into my eyes. “You tell me. Have I done enough? Have I convinced you you’re it for me?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “You finally did.”
“ Finally ,” he repeats in a whisper like he loves the sound of that.
Nudging his nose with mine, I align our mouths and kiss him again. His hand moves down my chest, and we sigh against each other. “I’m glad you’re here. ”
“Me, too,” he says.
“Don’t go, okay?” I ask.
“Really? You wanna run that by your roommate first?”
“Not particularly.”
“Because I mean, I’m clingy as fuck. I’ll totally overstay my welcome.”
I grab his ass and squeeze. “I’m counting on it.”