32. Like He’s Some Monster
LIKE HE’S SOME MONSTER
ANDERS
“Jesus, Anders, you’re taking all of the queso!” Lee snaps, slapping my hand out of the way of the massive bowl of dip in the center of the table. “Save some for the rest of us, fatty.”
My mouth drops open. “You know—there’s a couple of mean words I could call you but I woke up and decided to be nice today.”
“Since when?” Aviva snorts, stealing my frozen strawberry margarita and finishing it off. “I’m genuinely asking, babe. Two days ago you were—”
“Hey that’s my fucking marg, you fucking whore!”
Aviva rolls her eyes. “Relax, there were, like, two sips left.”
“You owe me seventeen cents,” I snark.
“So that matcha I bought you this morning means nothing?” Aviva scoffs, flipping her hair dramatically.
It’s gotten so long these past couple of months that it cascades right down her body.
Recently she’s been pinning it back to keep it out of her face, and I swear she just gets more gorgeous by the day.
“This is why we can’t hang out without Charlie,” Lee mutters, clicking their tongue and tucking a strand of hair behind their ear. “She’s our buffer.”
“Hey, I am trying very hard to be nice,” I argue. “As of today, I am in a new phase of life. No more bitchy Anders. Only when he needs to come out.”
“That’ll probably last two days,” Lee laughs. “Why the hell are you trying to be so nice all of a sudden?”
“Sign from the universe, I guess,” I smirk. “Just…feeling happier these days.”
Parker is coming home today. I haven’t seen him in a week.
“Okay, so you got fucked is why,” Aviva retorts. “I can sense it. You have the sex glow.”
“Yeah, but who the hell would fuck Anders?” Lee snarks. “Besides closeted DL frat brothers?”
“Are you calling me a twink?”
“If the shoe fits, pal. Or, in your case, the gay little necklace.”
“Oh fuck off. It’s a fucking Van Cleef!” I scoff. “Sorry I don’t like wearing your hippy-dippy macaroni bead necklace. My four year old niece could make something better than that piece of shit hanging around your neck…” Who am I kidding? I can’t be nice. Not around Lee. Aviva is an enabler.
“Gay little necklace…” She repeats to herself, laughing. She reaches across the table and steals Lee’s Paloma, finishing that one off as well.
“Wha- okay, woah. What the hell?” Lee exclaims. “Aviva, it’s your turn to be the DD. Stop swiping our shit.”
“That’s why I didn’t order a drink,” she shrugs. “Who’d you sleep with, Anders?” She turns and gives me a cocky look. “Pray, tell.”
“I dunno. Maybe I would’ve felt tipsy enough to spill the tea if I was able to finish my drink, but it looks like that’s not happening.”
“Real nice, Anders,” she mutters, reaching into her purse and pulling out a metal flask. She pours a splash of it in her soda, stirs it with her straw and slides it over to me. “All yours. Take a sip,” she orders. “Fucking alcoholic.”
“Says the one who carries a flask with fireball everywhere she goes,” I say quietly, holding the straw and chugging just about half of what’s in the glass.
“Was it Seth?” Lee presses, folding their arms across their chest and leaning back against the booth. “Oh my God. Connor and Seth? Eiffel Tower part two?”
“Seth and I don’t really hook up anymore.”
“Okay! Then just fucking tell us who!” they groan impatiently. “Don’t drag it out and act so fucking cryptic. I don’t have the patience for your riddles.”
“Wha-” I mouth. “What riddles?”
“Did you forget to take your Adderall today?” Aviva asks them. It’s only funny because she’s genuinely asking. It’s very noticeable when Lee isn’t medicated.
“Shh,” Lee chastises. “Anders. Say it.”
The look they both give me makes my stomach twist in knots. This is a terrible idea. “It’s Parker,” I say quickly, too quickly, like if I get the words out fast enough they won’t sound real. Heat crawls up my neck as I duck my head behind my drink. “I slept with Parker.”
“Actually?” Aviva beams, her eyes widening like she was just handed a puppy. “Deadass?”
I bite back an embarrassing grin and nod. “Yeah.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” she snaps. “Lee—I get. But me? Really, babe?”
I knew she’d make it about loyalty before she made it about concern. That almost makes this easier. Maybe this isn’t all that bad and I’m just overthinking it. Lee’s lack of a reaction is what makes me nervous.
“We haven’t really discussed telling people…it’s still new.”
“You’re not beating the twink allegations,” Lee tells me. “You’ve got yourself a fucking Daddy. How gayer could you possibly get?”
“There’s still a long way to go until I reach your kind of queer,” I shrug a little smugly. “But, yeah. Something like that.”
“Wait—deadass?” Aviva asks again. This time the excitement starts fading from her face. I can actually watch it happen. The realization settling in piece by piece.
Parker. Me. Together.
“You call him Daddy?”
“What? No.” I immediately look away. “Gross.”
“Mkay.” She gives me a look, then gives Lee a different look. The kind of look that says we’re coming back to that later. “And you don’t find it weird?” she asks carefully. “That you’ve known him your whole life?”
“Right,” Lee agrees. “Cause I was about to say…”
I stare down at my drink and follow a bead of condensation sliding down the glass.
The thing is, I stopped knowing where the line between weird and inevitable was a long time ago. “I mean…” I admit. “Obviously.”
Neither of them say anything.
“Sometimes it feels weird from the outside,” I continue. “But when it’s him, it doesn’t feel weird. It just feels…” Normal. Comfortable. Like coming home after being gone too long. But I don’t say any of that out loud. “Like one of those intrinsic feelings you’ve always had.”
Aviva and Lee exchange a look that makes my stomach drop. I know that look. The “are we seriously hearing this right now” look.
“He’s not a bad guy,” I say immediately—too immediately. The words come out before I’ve even thought them through. Neither of them respond, which somehow feels worse.
“Nobody said he was.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” Aviva says quietly.
“What are you thinking then?”
She hesitates. That alone makes me nervous. “I’m thinking you’re my best friend,” she says. “And if somebody told me this exact story about somebody else, I’d probably be concerned.”
The ringing starts in my ears. It’s enough to make me want to leave. “Nothing really came up for him until right before I turned twenty-one.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know they sound bad. Lee notices too. Their expression changes. “So he let you move in knowing he had feelings for you?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Okay, but Anders.” Lee leans forward. “You know how that sounds, right?”
I do. That’s the worst part. I do. I just don’t care.
“Like obviously we’re glad you’re happy,” Aviva says. “I am happy for you. I swear I am.” She reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist. “But the whole thing makes me nervous.”
“It’s not like that.” I hear myself saying it again. The same words and defense. Just over and over.
“Does your therapist know?” Lee asks.
“Yeah.”
“Everything?”
“Mostly.”
“And you’re going to tell her?”
“If it gets serious enough.” The words left my mouth before I could stop them and they sounded entirely ridiculous. Serious enough. As if the past three years haven't happened. As if the other night didn’t happen…the morning after where he told me everything I needed to feel validated and secure.
“Anders,” Aviva says softly. “You live together.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re not strangers.”
“I know.”
Lee folds their arms. “He isn’t the kind of person you should casually be sleeping with.”
I sit up straighter without meaning to, like my body physically reacts to hearing him criticized. “He’s not trying to hold me back.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“He’s never done that.”
Because all I can think about is Parker standing in the kitchen half-asleep making tea for me before class. The way he’s always kept migraine medication around the house because I always lose it. The way he touches the back of my neck when I’m overwhelmed.
That’s the man they’re talking about. That’s the man they’re reducing to a list of red flags. They don’t know him like I do. That’s the fucking problem. No one knows my Parker.
I stare at the table. My hands. At the condensation gathering beneath my glass. “I can’t do this.” My chair scrapes violently against the floor as I stand.
“Anders—”
“No.” Heat rushes through my body so fast it makes me dizzy.
“What did you want me to say?” I ask. “That you’re right?
That I’m some traumatized idiot getting groomed by the first older man who paid attention to me?
” Neither of them answer, which somehow feels like enough of an answer on its own.
“I know how it sounds.” My voice cracks slightly.
“I know.” I swallow hard. “I just need you to stop talking about him like he’s some monster. ”
“We don’t think he’s a monster,” Lee says carefully.
I nod. Even though I don’t believe them.
“Maybe this crashes and burns eventually.” The words come easier now.
Because they’re true. “Maybe it’s unhealthy.
Maybe it’s complicated and weird and every bad thing you think it is.
” I shrug. Weakly and hopelessly. “I still want him.” The honesty hangs between us, feeling ugly and exposed and rubbed completely raw.
“So I don’t really know what you want me to do with that. ”