The Day After
MAX
“ARE YOU SURE HE’S GOING TO be here?” Blake glances across the cab at me as he eases onto the tree-lined road. “I don’t know if I would go straight home to my parents if something like this happened to me.”
“When Sam’s upset, he goes into hibernation — you know, turns off his phone, hides from the world,” I explain, my nose pressed to the window. “He wants things that are familiar. His mom and dad suck, but they won’t turn him away. Oh, and stop here. This is the house.”
Blake puts the van in park in front of a powder-blue split level, the front door flanked by lush azaleas.
When I was a kid, I thought this house was a palace, so much bigger and newer than the tiny ranch I shared with Sage and Mom and Bill.
But I guess as we get older, we see much more than we did before.
I hear the lawnmower before I see him. He’s in the side yard, stripped down to a tank top and shorts, sunglasses pushed up into his hair. He’s facing away from me, but from the set of his shoulders I can picture his face, jaw clenched tight and hazel eyes flashing.
“Do you want me to wait?” Blake asks, shaking me out of my reverie.
“No, that’s okay,” I reply, reaching for the door handle. “Hopefully, we’re going to work this out and then he’ll bring me home. And if not — well, I don’t want to think about that.”
“Okay, that works for me. But hey, Max?” He reaches out and grabs my arm. “I’m not going to wish you good luck, because I don’t think you need it. But be well, okay? You guys care about each other and it’s going to be alright.”
“Thanks, dude.”
I climb out of the car, my stomach hiding somewhere in the vicinity of my knees. And I realize with a jolt that before this whole thing started, I never could have imagined being afraid of what Sam might say to me.
I walk over to the side yard, wiping my sweaty palms on the seat of my jeans. The next time Sam turns with the mower, he spots me, but he keeps going, tossing his head and biting the inside of his cheek.
Okay, guess I’m going to have to try a little harder.
“Sam!” I call. “Sammy!”
But he keeps moving, cutting long, straight lines across the grass. I do my best to keep in his line of sight while staying out of his way, but he seems determined not to talk to me.
That is, until he pushes the mower into the backyard and it shudders to a halt.
“Motherfucking piece of shit!” he explodes. And then, under his breath, he continues. “Should have fucking checked to see if the gas tank was full, I’m so fucking stupid —”
He strides across the lawn toward the shed, and I follow, close on his heels.
“Sammy, come on, please talk to me —”
In the shed, Sam grabs the gas can, and I try a different tack.
“You’re not even home for twelve hours and they already have you doing chores, huh?”
“Mom said I could either go to church with them or mow the lawn, and I chose the lawn,” Sam grumbles back, then stops, his eyes snapping fiercely towards my face. “What the fuck are you doing here, Max? Because if you’re here to tell me you got back together with Krista, I don’t want to hear it —”
He tries to push past me, but I grab his arm, blocking the doorway.
“Dude, no, of course I’m not here to tell you that. How could you think so little of me?”
Sam blinks angrily. “I don’t know, Max, maybe because you kissed her?”
“She kissed me —”
“And you sure didn’t look like you hated it!” Sam thunders back. “But hey, it’s my fault for being so fucking stupid and thinking this could ever work —”
“Sammy —”
“Let go of me, Max —”
I drop his arm abruptly, stepping back to give him space to pass. “Fine, if you don’t want to hear me out, be like that.”
Sam glares at me for a minute, his chest heaving. Then he slams the gas can back down on the ground, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. “Okay — go on.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I have to get this right. “I don’t want to get back together with Krista. I can’t fucking stand her, actually, and you would have heard me tell her that last night if you’d given me even half a chance.”
He makes an odd little noise, biting his lip as he looks away quickly.
“But more importantly, Sammy —” I step forward, taking Sam’s hand.
He’s wearing a grungy work glove, and I carefully slip it off, pressing his fingers between my palms. “You’re what I want.
These past few weeks have been incredible, and all I want is to be with you. Please — give me another chance.”
For a second, Sam wavers, and I think it’s all going to be okay. But then he pulls his hand out of my grip, gently — but with a finality that scares me.
“No,” he whispers. “It can’t work.”
“But Sammy —” I plead. “Why can’t it?”
“Because —” he bursts out. “Because I can’t keep doing this, Max. Because I can’t just stand around waiting for you to figure this shit out. It’s all fucking fun and games for you, isn’t it? But for me —”
He clams up, staring at the beams crisscrossing the ceiling, and I wait him out. When he looks at me again, his eyes are full of tears.
“I’m in love with you, Max.”
It’s like the sun has popped out from behind a cloud, like somebody has finally shined a fucking spotlight into my brain so that I can read the fine print. “Sammy, I love you too —”
“No —” He presses two fingers against my lips.
“I didn’t say I love you, like oh, I love you man, thanks for looking out for me when I was wasted.
I said I am in love with you. As in, I have fucking loved you romantically since I knew what it meant to love someone.
As in, all these years, being around you has been like being stabbed in the fucking chest over and over and over again but I keep doing it because I can’t imagine doing anything different.
As in, I can’t think of anything I want more than to tell you that this will work, that I’ll be whatever you want me to be, but I fucking can’t, because if we’re not on the same page, if it turns out that this is just fun for you while I’m fucking bleeding out inside, then I’m going to lose myself, Max, and I can’t — I can’t fucking stand it —”
He’s chopping the air with his hand as he speaks, his voice getting higher and higher, and I don’t know what to do, because my eyes are prickling and my chest feels like it’s going to explode.
So I reach out and I grab his hand, holding it still, and finally he stops, shutting his mouth and staring at me, eyes blazing.
“Sammy.”
“Yeah?”
“I am in love with you.” My face breaks into a smile, and I watch as it dawns on Sam, exactly what I said.
“What?”
“You heard me.” I step closer, taking both of his hands, and even though he’s shaking like a leaf, this time he doesn’t pull away.
“Samuel Dove, you beautiful idiot, I am so in love with you that I don’t know what to do with myself.
And I know it’s crazy that I’m saying this.
That’s why I’ve been holding back, because I didn’t think you could take me seriously after just a couple of weeks, and I wanted to wait until the time was right.
But dude — ever since we started this, it’s like my whole life suddenly makes sense.
You are my favorite person on the goddamn planet, and nothing is going to pull me away from you.
It’s like — I dunno, fate. Destiny. And I am never, never going to stop loving you. ”
“Oh, Max —”
He’s kissing me, arms flung around my neck, and I’m pressing him against the wall, drinking him down like I’ll die if I let go of him — and maybe I fucking will.
I’m pretty sure we’re both crying, and I feel like I’ve cried more in the last couple of weeks than in the three years before that, but I don’t fucking care.
Because maybe finding out that the love of your life has been standing right next to you this whole time is something worth crying about.
Because maybe we have a lifetime of feelings all bottled up that are going to have to come out somehow.
I’m never going to get enough of him. He’s sweaty from the hot sun, his skin damp under my palms, grass clippings clinging to his arms, the homey scent of summer all around us.
And I want all of it, the salt-tang of him on my tongue, the strength of his wiry limbs.
I hook my finger into the hem of his tank top, yanking it down to expose his nipple.
And when I bend my head, my tongue laving over the silver ring, Sam moans, leaning his head against the wall, his breath coming in gasps.
I have to have more. I have to show Sam how it’s going to be, that loving him means craving his pleasure, wringing every scrap of joy from every crevice of his body.
And so I continue on, dragging my mouth down the front of his shirt, bunching up the hem as I go to expose his taut belly.
And as I sink to my knees, he must realize what I’m about to do.
“Max!” Sam’s hand flies to the top of my head, grabbing my hair at the root and tilting my face upward. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m all gross —”
In response, I press my lips to the trail of hair beneath Sam’s navel, keeping my eyes locked on his because I remember him doing the same for me. And Sam fucking whimpers, caressing the side of my face.
“Okay —” he breathes.
I slip my fingers into the elastic waistband of Sam’s shorts, easing them down just enough to expose his cock. He’s bobbing in front of my face, and okay, I’ve never done this before. But I’ve had it done for me, and I know what I like. Besides, this is Sam, and I love every part of him.
And so I open my mouth and I close my eyes and I slide his cock onto my tongue.