Nobody's Hero

by Katey Hawthorne

  When he finished, he collapsed slightly off to the side but still halfway into his own sex sprayed across my ass. He put an arm around me and pried me from the bed, ignoring the stickiness beneath my belly and pulling my front against his. He buried his face in my neck and held me tight about the waist.

  I kissed him and toyed with his hair, head still spinning. Wondering how something so simple could be so good, so satisfying, so promising. Thinking over and over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. Shocking myself with the ease with which I articulated it in my mind, the comfort it gave me to just roll it around inside me, like it was a thought that belonged, that always had.

  I'd never had it for anyone else. And, as I now understand is common in these situations but found remarkable then, hoped desperately that I never would.

  *~*~*

  While he fed the cranky cats the next afternoon, I went out for burritos. We ate them at his dining-room table, laughing over stories from the day before, both of us in rare moods. After a brief moment of silence when we happened to be stuffing our faces at the same time, I finally said, "Weird question, because it's always, um, pretty spectacular, but this morning was—I mean, it seemed kind of…extra spectacular."

  I'd had fun at his parents', no doubt about it. But the reason I was so high that morning was that, yeah, okay, I was in love. But I also hadn't been able to stop thinking about the sex. I kept thinking I should've done something to make it more interesting. Quickies were one thing, but when you were going at it with the intent to drive someone crazy, it just seemed like it'd be better that way. But it hadn't been anything all that different, and we'd just kind of…

  Done it. And holy shit, my mind was still blown. I was at once satisfied and hornier than ever, sitting beside him at the table right then. It was like that first couple of weeks times a hundred. If I had my way, I'd push him back into bed, lock the door behind us, and keep him there till we dropped dead.

  "Definitely." He swallowed a mouthful and grinned. "I wanted to say that, but then…"

  "It's like you're saying the other times weren't good by comparison. But that's not—"

  "Yeah. No, I know. It was freaky good." Then the grin slipped off his face, and he paused. "Do you ever think I'm being childish?"

  "Um, just to be clear, are we still having the same conversation, or did it just…?"

  "Yeah. About the sex."

  "In that case, no. This, um, will sound even weirder, but I"— love it; I love you; I love you for it—"like it."

  He made a face and took another bite.

  "I'm serious. I've never believed in anything in my life, and sometimes I wish I did. I respect it. I respect you."

  "So it's tolerable. You're sure."

  "You're not listening. It's actually one of the things I really, really like about you."

  He raised his eyebrows. "You like that I won't fuck you."

  I laughed. "Call me crazy."

  His eyebrows remained aloft; he continued eating.

  I knew he'd let it drop there, but I wasn't going to repeat my earlier mistakes. This was important to him, and if I let him play it down, it'd slip through the cracks. Unacceptable. "Okay, for example: you know I'm a slut. Is that tolerable?"

  "You know goddamn well I think it's hot."

  "See what I mean?"

  "Oh. Huh. I…" His forehead creased. "It's not the same."

  I shrugged. "Close enough to make my point. I mean, what kind of douchebag dates a guy who has a policy and spends the whole time trying to get him to break the policy? That's like dating a vegetarian and trying to force-feed them meat. Who does that?"

  "You'd be surprised."

  "Actually, no, I wouldn't." I made a sympathetic face because, yeah, we've all been there. People like me, more than we're willing to admit, even to ourselves. "The last guy?"

  He shrugged one shoulder and kept eating.

  This set off an alarm in my head. "You don't want to talk about it?"

  "No. I mean, I don't care." He looked up at me and wrinkled his nose. "Just, you really want to hear about my ex?"

  "It's one thing to talk about them perpetually on the first date"—been there too, ugh—"but come on."

  He snorted. "Yeah. Dominic was kind of fucked. I mean, who isn't?"

  "How long did you date?"

  "Over a year. He got a little impatient. You start to feel…you know. Like you're the crazy one. We're adults; adults have sex. I mean, I obviously don't think dick-in-ass is the only sex, but I mean all kinds of sex. I don't know."

  I knew his body language well enough to realize that if he was uncomfortable, it wasn't with me. Seeing as this could be necessary knowledge, I pressed onward. "So you didn't really want to?"

  "I wanted to. No one had to twist my arm. But I knew I shouldn't, and I did it anyhow. Wasn't scarring or anything. Just, like, normal."

  I made a face. As if the first time could ever be called normal. "But you were sorry, is the point."

  "Yeah. And he wanted more. Beginning of the end." He leaned back in his chair, shrugging again. "Don't get me wrong—I needed to have the experience. Taught me not to do anything if I'm even slightly iffy on it."

  I smiled. "Wow, the shit you do with me, what the hell makes you iffy?" Not that we actually did anything freaky. For all my willingness to try anything once, I wasn't precisely a freak.

  Whatever the hell that means, right?

  He smiled back. "Haven't found anything yet."

  "I'm not trying hard enough."

  "By all means, James, keep trying."

  "Yes, sir." I threw my leg over his and scooted nearer—though this would make it difficult to finish our food without bumping elbows, and I was still starving. Didn't care. "Seriously, though, don't be paranoid. For one, we're having a metric ass ton of sex. I'm one demanding little fucker, but let's just say I never feel neglected. You take good care of me, baby."

  He actually flushed when he laughed that time.

  Seriously. Adorkable. How the fuck could anyone trade that away? For anything? "And yes, I want your dick. But another cool thing about your policy there is that it's extremely fucking sexy just knowing that to even be with me, you must really, really like me."

  The smile went adorably sideways. "That's some ego you got on you."

  "Baby, that's not all I got. Won't try to fuck you, though. Scout's honor."

  He snorted and returned to eating but after a few bites said, "I'd do it, though. Wouldn't think twice."

  I didn't know what to say. I watched his eyes, but he only stared at the table.

  "I think about it all the time. This morning." He took a deep breath, paused again. "I just kept thinking that I'd—I'd do anything you asked. And I don't think I'd regret it, honestly." Another pause, in which I tried to come up with something brilliant and reassuring to say but was dragged down by the weight of my own surprise, by the weight of this sweet, this trusting confession. He started to go on, "But I want it to be—"

  "I wouldn't even ask, Kelly. I get it. And I love that about you." I flushed hard, cursing myself for letting the L-word pop out like that, even in what was possibly a more acceptable application. I still managed to choke out, "I mean it."

  He leaned over and kissed me quickly. Within seconds, we were back to eating and talking like it had been nothing, just another conversation, just another morning after.

  And maybe it was, for him.

  *~*~*

  My unwillingness to tell him how I felt had nothing to do with the newness of the emotion, nothing to do with self-esteem or the fear of it being unreciprocated. I was reasonably sure that he didn't consider himself in love with me, in fact. He liked me, he wanted me, he was comfortable and happy with me, but he'd expressed on multiple occasions a certain dissatisfaction with what he knew of me. Pieces were missing, but in his usual Kellan way, he would never ask me for them. I now understood that it wasn't a function of his occasional shyness but a kind of quiet belief that anything given o
ught to be given freely.

  Which was precisely why I'd never ask him to fuck me, even knowing, as I now did, that he would.

  I'd always known he wouldn't accept less than the whole truth. Even if he suspected he'd fallen for me, his rational mind would hold it at bay. It might show when we screwed, but he'd talk it down anytime his brain was in control. There was nothing I could do, short of introducing him not only to my mother but also to the electricity that coursed through the pair of us like human power lines.

  And that, I couldn't do.

  It wasn't about me. All it took was one fuck-up, one lovesick puppy, one overzealous crusader to fuck it up for everyone. It had happened before—hell, I could remember specific occurrences—and the cleanup was always hell on the community. There were entire sleeper conspiracy societies dedicated to breaking us down, even vigilante witch-hunters who'd got a burr up their ass, usually with good reason, and taken to murdering anyone they even suspected of being able to manipulate energy. Everything from devotional cults to supervillains could spring up and mess with us, all of it painful and frightening for the quiet ones—the regular awakened, like us.

  Well, okay, so my particular circle of awakened society is not that regular in some ways. But we're not superheroes either. We just want to live, goddammit.

  I had never known anyone as trustworthy as Kellan. I could tell him someday; I'd always been sure. But a few months was not a reasonable amount of time, no matter how I looked at it.

  Until I could show him everything, Kellan would never love me. And I would never put him in the position of hearing "I love you" and being unable to honestly say it back. I'd been there enough times myself to know it was just as hard on the person biting their tongue as the person desperate to hear the reply, just in a different way. I loved him too much to do that to him for the sake of my selfish confession.

  Hell, if I did, he'd probably bawl me out for my trouble.

  But I would make it work. And the first step would be sitting my mother down and forcing her to join the real world.

  Because, yes, it was serious. It was very fucking serious.

  *~*~*

  Our usual table at Tommy's was tucked into the back, and it was busy enough no one would've been paying attention anyhow. I looked her in the eye and said, "I've been a dick lately."

  She smiled. "And your language hasn't improved."

  "I'm sorry. For all of it. But we really have to talk about this."

  "Yes, we do." No hint of reluctance, of fear, of anything but faint concern etched into lines at the corners of her eyes. "And I'm sorry for putting it off. I hope you understand. I wanted to collect my thoughts."

  Part of me didn't want to know what that meant. All of me knew it didn't matter. No more dancing around, no more faking it. Not with her. "You asked me if it was serious. And it is. I love him."

  She smiled, but sadly. "I…thought you preferred…"

  "Prefer isn't the word, Mom." I tried to sound as gentle as possible. "Actually, it's considered insulting."

  "But some young people go through a phase."

  I snorted. "You remember how you used to take me over to the Reynolds' all the time?"

  The apparent change in topic confused her, but she went along with it. "Yes. Ellen and I were just talking about it."

  "You two would be down in the kitchen with martinis, talking about your projects, and you'd send us all off to play. Except Ginger and Tommy could never find me and Anthony." I smiled at the ancient memory. "I'm sure you told yourselves we thought we were too cool for the little kids."

  She arched her eyebrows.

  "We were usually in the closet playing seven minutes in heaven—except we changed it to a half hour in heaven, at least." I laughed. "What was I, fourteen when they moved away? God, it was the end of the world."

  "Yes," she said quietly. "I remember."

  "We still laugh about it. We talk a couple times a month. He lives in Minneapolis with his partner of five years and a bull mastiff."

  "Ellen mentioned it."

  I was sure she had, probably right alongside her mentions of Tommy's spectacular marriage to another cold manipulator from a rich Canton family and their gaggle of perfect children, or Ginger's burgeoning career as a rocket scientist. But I stuck to the point. "I'm telling you this because that's a long 'phase.' I was, like, eleven or twelve the first time I kissed Anthony Reynolds. I didn't even know what sex was, really. I just liked him so much." I looked at her, looked right into her sharp, penetrating eyes, begging her to understand. "I wanted him to like me back more than anything in the world."

  She nodded, and then there was a long pause. "I wouldn't ask you to stop seeing this boy."

  "I want you to tell me you understand."

  "I do. I dated too. I even thought I was in love a few times. But, honey, he's a sleeper."

  I nodded.

  "You know that never works."

  "It does sometimes. If they're extraordinary. And he is."

  "Everyone goes into a relationship thinking it's the one, or they wouldn't do it at all. But even your father and I—we were very young."

  Um.

  But before I could ask the obvious questions, she went on with, "But you can never be close to him if he doesn't know; and if he finds out you hid that much of yourself from him for years, he'll resent you."

  My heart froze. My blood slowed.

  "It's a breach of trust, Jamie. You can't build a relationship on lies. That's why it never works."

  I gripped the edge of the table, trying to swallow the nonexistent chunk of ice that seemed lodged in my throat.

  Kellan would understand. He might be angry at first—okay, he would be—but he was smart. When I explained everything, at long last…

  He…

  Breach of trust.

  "I don't begrudge you your romances, honey. Get them out while you can." She covered my hand with her fine French-manicured one, fragile and warm. "But we don't just marry our own because we want to pass on our finest. We marry our own because they're the only ones we can ever really be with. The only ones who can ever understand. As you get older, that will come to mean more and more to you."

  I closed my eyes, still trying to swallow. Or maybe just swallowing the urge to lightning the hell out of the world right about then, seeing as my blood was starting to crackle.

  No. It was insane. It was old-fashioned. It was impossible.

  "Don't break your heart for something that can never be."

  I laughed, but it was one of those ugly, helpless ones.

  "What if you spend years with him before it ends? What if Mae's moved on?"

  I opened my eyes. "What?"

  "She's a beautiful girl—"

  I pulled my hand back. "Are you even listening?"

  "Honey, it seems silly to you now, but—"

  "I don't care how beautiful she is. I'm gay."

  The tables in closest proximity to us hushed. And I didn't give a shit. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "And I was in love with a sleeper when I married your father."

  "Lucky for you he only lasted five years, then." Even as I said it, I hated myself for it. I couldn't imagine where the hell it had come from or how it had come out. My eyes stung, all anger and shame, and I made to stand.

  She grabbed my hand again, holding me in my seat. "It was the smartest thing I ever did. We talked about it after you were born. We went into it blind, but we came out of it with you. And we loved each other for it."

  I pulled my hand back just as the server brought our food. I looked up at her and said, "Can you box mine up?" She left Mom's spinach pie and threaded back through the crowd.

  "Jamie—"

  "No. Stop." I waited, stared her down hard. To my surprise, she sat back in her seat, taking a deep breath. "I can't tell if you're genuinely confused about what gay means, or if you're doing this on purpose, but either way, let me make this clear: I can't date women. It is not something I chose, and it is not somethi
ng I have control over." I lowered my voice again. "And even if I could change it, I wouldn't. Because I. Love. Dick."

  She sighed. "Really, Jamie."

  "Really, Mom. The poor woman who got conned into being my wife would have the most unsatisfying marriage in the world. I'm sure we'd be great friends, but anytime she wanted to get laid, she'd have to accost the pool boy."

  "Jamie—"

  "No. A marriage of convenience would be out of the question even if I was straight. But being gay makes it impossible. I am not a goddamn Kentucky Derby winner you can breed to the highest bidder."

  She pressed her lips together, paling where her lipstick had worn off on the straw.

  "What if he was awakened?" I asked.

  She thought. Then, "I couldn't object. But he's not, honey. And Mae—"

  "I love you, Mom. But don't call me until you get over this."

  On my way out, I ran into the server. I accepted my box and, for the first time since I'd gotten a paying job, left my mother with the check.

  Chapter Ten

  Before I even left the parking garage, I tapped out a reply to Mae's e-mail from almost two months ago on my phone, finally:

  Mae,

  I know you're busy, but things are getting ridiculous over here. I'm sure we feel the same way and can help each other. Please give me a call.

  Monday

  I probably shouldn't have in that agitated emotional state, but I was desperate. And hey, at least I held it together enough not to come out and say, "I wouldn't marry you even if there were no more men left on earth," if only because I was pretty sure being an asshole wasn't going to get me any mercy. It was last ditch, and even as I sent it, I knew she'd never respond. She was free. She was out of it. Why the hell should she bother herself about my unraveling life?

  It would at least keep Mom from pressing this fucking exasperating Mae issue if Mae would just stand with me and say no. Mom clinging to a childish pipe dream with her crony Margaret was blinding her shit.

  But it wasn't all that was blinding her; that much was crystal, at that point. The Mae obsession was a tiny symptom of a much, much bigger sickness. And even thinking about it made me spark inside, so much that it physically hurt to keep it in.