The Other Side of the Street

by Nicole Thorn

  Dad shuffled his feet, looking supremely awkward. I straightened up, my heart thudding against my chest. He cleared his throat again. “You and Jay… you aren’t… are you two…”

  Oh god. He’s figured it out. My heart started to thump harder than ever, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. For some reason, my tongue felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn’t lift it.

  Dad fumbled some more, before finally blurting out, “Are you and Jay together?”

  The words seemed to fall to the floor like anvils. I shuffled my feet. “No, we’re not dating.”

  Dad watched me. “Do you want to date him?”

  I rubbed my face. “I don’t… I mean… I haven’t thought about it.”

  Dad stared at me some more. I started to feel like a hard math problem that he couldn’t quite solve. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you gay?”

  “Yes.”

  That actually surprised Dad, based on his expression. He must have thought some of his questions would be met with derision.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “Did you think that I would react badly?”

  “It’s not that,” I said, pushing off the couch and pacing the room. “I didn’t want to keep it from you, or anything like that. It just didn’t ever really come up.”

  “It didn’t come up because you didn’t bring it up,” Dad said. “If you didn’t bring it up, there must have been a reason. And the only reason that I can think of that makes sense, is that you thought that I’d be upset.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It just never seemed like a good time. Like when Mom died, or when you had your surgery. It just felt there was always something more important happening. It had nothing to do with you. I promise. And then, at some point it felt like I’d waited so long, it would be a thing when I did eventually tell you.”

  Dad eyed me like he didn’t know if he could believe this. “Well, I am okay with it. Just so you know.”

  “I know you are, Dad,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “I never doubted that you would be okay with who I am.”

  He nodded once, like he could accept that answer. “Good. Now, go wake up Jay and make him drink the rest of the Gatorade I saw on the table.”

  “Okay,” I said, moving to walk past him. I’d barely gotten a step before he grabbed me by the shoulder and gave me a bear hug like he had done when I was five. It felt weird to be getting one now. Dad set me back on my feet and ruffled my hair. I stumbled away from him, finally grabbing the bottle from the table.

  It felt like this huge weight had been lifted off my chest, and I didn’t quite know how to deal with it.

  “Wait,” Dad said as I started down the hall. I turned to look at him. “Does that mean that you and Sam…?”

  “We were together for a little while,” I said.

  Dad looked horrified. “Oh no. No. You can do so much better. Find you a man that thinks of you first, son. Oh god.”

  I smirked. “If it makes you feel better, I dumped him.”

  Dad put his hand on his chest and leaned against the couch. “That’s a load off my mind. It means I didn’t fail as a parent.”

  Still chuckling, I took the Gatorade back to my room. Jay had collapsed face first on my bed, hugging my pillow. I didn’t know which would bother him most. That, or the cat sitting on his shoulders and purring while kneading the back of his head.

  Only one way to find out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jay

  “You need to respect the situation,” I heard somewhere floating around me. Something shifted, weight leaving my back. “You can’t just go pouncing on people.”

  I heard a thud on the ground, and a cat yelling savagely. Then I grunted at sudden weight on my back again. I rolled around a little, only to get yelled at by a cat and then clawed.

  “Jesus, what’s wrong with you?” Hamilton said. “This isn’t how you get people to love you.”

  Another thud, then someone lightly shaking my shoulder. I mumbled for him to leave me alone, keeping my eyes shut. Everything felt fine as long as I stayed laying down. The world didn’t spin, and I didn’t feel like dying.

  “Jay,” Hamilton said. I supposed he didn’t need to say anything else, because I peeled my eyes open.

  Hamilton sat on the edge of his bed, leaning toward me with his hand still on my shoulder. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he looked almost scared. He couldn’t have been, because that would have meant he’d been scared over me.

  I remembered that I’d stolen a set of his pajamas and went ahead and crawled into his bed uninvited. To be fair, the bed looked comfortable. It had been. I’d just wanted to lay my head on a pillow and close my eyes. The pillows smelled like Hamilton.

  “What?” I asked, licking around my own mouth and wondering why it felt so dry.

  Hamilton handed me a bottle of that gross stuff again, insisting I drink it. I didn’t want to, outright refusing.

  “Jay,” Hammy commanded. “Drink it or I’ll make you drink it.”

  “You don’t have the guts.” My eyes narrowed, my voice sounding like I’d had it crushed between two stones.

  Hamilton sighed, hanging his head as he rubbed his eyes. “You passed out and are in desperate need of liquids. I would hate to hold you down and pour it into your mouth, but know I have backup and the means to tie you down.”

  “Oh good, so you’re into the fancy stuff. Great to know what you and Sam were up to in this bed.” This bed I really, really liked, but now realized I had to hate. Stupid naked Sam probably rolled around on it a bunch, totally ungrateful to the fact that he’d been lucky enough to have someone.

  “Huh?” Hamilton asked, forcing the bottle of garbage into my hand.

  I unscrewed the cap, glaring at Hammy. “Don’t pretend that tool-bag hasn’t sullied this soft, soft bed. It’s fine. I don’t care that you slept with him. Doesn’t matter. Sleep with whoever you want. Ruin the nice bed.” I mumbled half of what I said into the lip of a bottle as I angrily drank.

  “Sam and I didn’t sleep together,” Hamilton said. “Even if we would have… I would have cleaned the sheets since then.”

  I blinked, moving the bottle from my face. “You didn’t sleep with him?”

  “No.”

  Good. “Ah. Whatever. I don’t care.”

  I closed the bottle and set it on the nightstand, wishing I could have chucked it across the room and at the wall. I must have made a face at the taste, because Hamilton laughed at me. He looked tired, or like he’d just woken up from an especially bad nightmare.

  “How do you feel?” Hammy asked. “You went down pretty hard.”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. I would feel better if you’d let me go back to work.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I told you that Sam is running everything. You can stay here, and everything is all taken care of. You can rest.”

  I didn’t understand the concept. If I didn’t work, I didn’t make money. It took so little to let everything slip through the cracks. A couple of days without sales meant a bill didn’t get paid. Hamilton knew that as well as I did.

  “How?” I asked.

  Hamilton smiled crookedly. “Looks like you were doing fine before I came in. You helped yourself to my pajamas and bed.”

  “You told me I could use your clothes.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t mind. The point is that you tucked yourself in just fine. You can go back to sleep if you need to.”

  I might have liked to. It was wildly comfortable, wearing Hammy’s too big pajamas and being snuggled up in his bed. It was bigger than mine, and the mattress didn’t have any broken springs. The pillows felt like they hadn’t been bought a decade ago. More than that, though. I enjoyed being there.

  “What about you?” I asked. “What would you do?”

  “Uh, I have no idea. Probably go check on Sam to make sure he didn’t manage to burn anything down.”

  So, he would have left then.
I might still be there when he got back, but I didn’t want him to go away in the first place.

  “I’ll stay awake,” I decided. “Um, thanks, by the way. For not letting me die on the side of the road.”

  Hamilton almost looked offended. “Obviously I wasn’t going to leave you. Though if you’d died, I would have tried to frame Helen and Stanley for it.”

  “It’s the only option, really. No reason to waste a perfectly good corpse when you have villains to smite.”

  It got quiet again, and I stared at the cat so it would seem like I had something going on. He looked at me, unamused with the fact that I sat in a bed he probably claimed. Well, the cat could bite me. I had Hamilton’s attention and he would have to just deal with it.

  I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, taking a breath. Everything in my body felt extra heavy and I didn’t want to move. I would have to get myself home eventually, and my parents would want to know what happened. I didn’t know if I could tell them, but I didn’t trust that Sam wouldn’t spill the beans to my sister next time she showed up.

  “I don’t think you should work tomorrow,” Hamilton said. “It’s going to be just as hot and you need time to recover.”

  “There’s no time. Now more than ever I have to be there all the time. If those sandwich jerks become more popular, then I’m going to get completely booted out of my spot.”

  “Jay, you probably need to let go of the spot. It’s just a spot.”

  “It’s my spot!” I yelled. “It’s fucking mine. I found it, and I spent every single day of my life there. I skipped out on everything fun in high school for that spot. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t have hobbies, I didn’t get to go to parties, or meet guys, or date. If I lose my spot, it’s like it was all for nothing. It can’t be for nothing. I can’t have missed out on everything for nothing. I can’t be all alone for nothing…”

  Hamilton’s hand moved slightly closer to mine on the bed, but it didn’t touch me. “You could have died,” he said, calm but with tension. “If you keep pushing yourself like this, then you aren’t going to get the chance to make up for those things you missed.”

  I hadn’t exactly been making up for them anyway. I didn’t see a break for me any time soon. Other than today, which already felt like torture.

  “Are you going to let me leave the house?” I asked.

  “Not likely.”

  I sighed. “Then we need some kind of game plan for the fish freaks. Since I assume you aren’t going to let me kill them, we need something else to drive them away so we can get back to making money.”

  “I don’t think they’re going away any time soon. They’re as determined as we are.”

  I huffed, wanting a neck to break. “Fine, then we need to figure something else out. Something that works for both of us.”

  That seemed to throw Hammy off for a second or two. “Both of us?”

  “Obviously. You might be my sworn enemy, but we’re in this together now. I’m not leaving you behind.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you felt that way.”

  “Yeah, and I would feel even stronger about it if you would let me leave and get back to my honey.”

  “You aren’t going back today!” Hamilton said, raising his voice. “God, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “What do you mean, what’s it to me!” he yelled again. “I dragged your ass home and nursed you back to health. Are you seriously going to waste all my work?”

  “Oh wow, sorry that I might be wasting your hard work. Never mind that we both really need the money and I’m willing to go work for the both of us. Also never mind that I’m still willing to work with you despite your kidnapping and being a complete ass. I guess despite all that, we’re in this togeth—”

  I didn’t understand what happened at first, barely registering that I had a mouth pressed to mine. What? What the hell is happening? Lips moved against me, and while I didn’t know what to do, something instinctual took over. Hamilton parted my lips with his tongue, and it felt like another person had possessed me. I grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him back onto me.

  Hamilton went with it, and then I had a person on top of me. A person who sure as hell felt into it when he pressed against my thigh. That was new, and I felt my face going red when I realized he could feel much the same thing from me. Some part of me thought he would pull back laughing, like this had all been a joke on me. But Hammy kept on kissing me, a satisfied groan escaping him.

  I slid my hand under his shirt, wanting to feel as much of him as I could. Even lost in a kiss, I was too terrified to just go for it and pull his shirt off. That would have meant breaking said kiss and giving him time to realize the mistake he had made. Then what? Then I would have only gotten a few seconds of feeling almost happy, and it would be back to the other shit in my life.

  A meow sounded off, and then another one as Purricane yelled at us. I didn’t really care about the cat’s opinion, since I had my hands on Ham’s chest and his tongue in my mouth.

  Am I supposed to be doing something else? I had no idea what people normally did when they kissed. Everything my body wanted me to do seemed like way too much for a first kiss. Then I realized I had been overthinking it, and I tried to enjoy it instead, wishing anxiety didn’t constantly fill me to the brim.

  I felt Hamilton against me again as I shifted under him. I really, really hated his pants right about then. How much better would it have been if we were both in these pretty thin pajamas?

  Again, something took me over. I pushed Hamilton over, rolling us so I could be on top. He didn’t seem to mind it though, because his hands pushed through my hair, pulling me back down when we broke apart for a few seconds. He felt eager to be kissing me, even though I couldn’t make myself really believe it.

  The cat’s meow got much louder the next time he screamed at us. I didn’t know what the problem was, but I caught sight of him on the bed, sitting there and constantly howling. Is he pissed that I’m getting the attention? Didn’t the little jerk realize this was my only chance? He kept batting at our arms, still yelling.

  It felt like my mouth would be bruised once this ended, for how hard I kept kissing Hamilton. I hoped it didn’t feel like I had no idea what I was doing. I kept looking for signs that he didn’t like it. His hands gripped my hair when they didn’t hold onto my back or shoulders.

  “Wait!” I said, ripping myself away from him and sitting up. “Sworn enemy!”

  “What?” Hamilton stared up at me, eyes kind of foggy as he sat up on his elbows.

  “We are sworn enemies! We shouldn’t be making out.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. Then he put his hand behind my neck and pulled me down again. I got one more deep, slow kiss before my senses started trying to come back to me.

  I sat up again, waving my hands all around. “What the hell are we doing?”

  “Well,” Hamilton sighed, sitting up again, this time with us facing each other. “We’re making the best of a very stressful day, enjoying the wonderful air conditioning of my house. Though it’s still kind of warm, so I would understand if you wanted to take your shirt and-or pants off. It might actually be best.”

  It did sound best… “NO! We can’t!”

  “Why?” He sighed again. “And if you say sworn enemy one more time… I’m going to probably kiss you again. But know I’ll be slightly irritated when I do.”

  I waved my hands again, flabbergasted. “Why are you acting like this? Why are you acting like you were into what we were just doing?”

  Hammy narrowed his eyes at me. “Gosh. I wonder. I suppose I could let you have three guesses.”

  “Knock it off!”

  “Knock what off?”

  “Stop looking at me like you’re into me. It’s confusing.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Wow, I knew you were a little off, but I didn’t realize the level we were working with. I have a
n idea. How about you lay back on the bed and we find a way to work this out. I have a couple thoughts on how to get that done.”

  I smiled and it felt dopey. “Okay.”

  Hamilton moved me onto my back and his mouth pushed against mine again. It was slow and soft, and I’d never been as comfortable as I felt with his weight on me and my head on a pillow.

  “Wait!” I yelled against his mouth, pushing back at his shoulders. “Sworn! Enemies!”

  He sighed, hanging his head so his forehead rested against my shoulder. “I think we’re a little past that, since we’ve spent the majority of our relationship working together.”

  “It was tense!”

  “Sexually!”

  “Why do you think that?”

  He hovered right above me, staring like I was utterly insane. “Um,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “I think the fact that we’re in the middle of a make-out session and both of us are hard probably sends the point home.”

  I blinked. “I’ll need more proof than that.”

  He moved aside, only to gesture to my crotch.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well…”

  I wiggled out from under him, realizing I didn’t have my shoes on. I would need shoes if I planned on storming out to avoid trying to take off all of Hamilton’s clothes. He sat up on his bed, shaking his head at me.

  “Two months,” Hamilton said to me.

  “What?”

  “Shout about sworn enemies all you want, but in two months, we’ll be a thing. By Fall, I’ll have you.”

  “Insane man,” I muttered, slipping my shoes on.

  I had just turned to the door when someone knocked. Hamilton invited the guest in, and his father opened the door. I’d completely forgotten he had even come home, and utter terror that he’d figure out what we had been up to filled me.

  “Bea is down the hall,” the man said to me. “I called home and your Dad sent her along.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “You can calm down, Jay,” Hamilton said. “Dad knows I’m gay.”