Getting Him Back

by K.A. Mitchell

  He nodded.

  “Um.” I looked at the stairs leading up into the campus center. “Here? It echoes.”

  I was doing pretty good concentrating on the non-sex parts of things, but I couldn’t help remembering the sound of our dicks together in this narrow space.

  He shook his head with a half smile. Maybe he was thinking of the same thing.

  We ended up on the loading dock, feet swinging, arms braced behind us. We still hadn’t touched, but our arms crossed as we leaned, palms inches from each other on the crumbly concrete. I hoped that meant this was more than a goodbye explanation.

  At last he said, “My dad left when I was two. I guess because he figured out by then I wasn’t going to grow out of this.” He used his far hand to gesture at his eyes and hair. “My mom never let me forget I was why he left. I guess a shrink would say it’s why I’m gay, daddy issues.”

  I glanced over at him. “Only a shrink from like 1950. My dad is nice enough—if you can get past his stupid jokes. He’s never been away longer than two nights for business, and he always takes my mom with him. And I am totally gay.”

  “I noticed that.”

  There was his dry humor, but now I heard the affection in it, and it warmed me against the wind blowing clouds through the sky.

  His voice went back to the disinterested tone he’d been using. “I didn’t talk until I was four and they thought I was handicapped.”

  I wanted to ask who they were, but I also didn’t want to derail him. I started chewing on my tongue to keep from interrupting. Damn, I’d wanted to know what it was like to grow up in Van, West Virginia, and I was getting one hell of a dose of it.

  “For some reason, once I got to high school, some of the older guys who’d picked on me for ten years suddenly decided me being quiet and freaky-looking was cool. I hung out with them. We did some stupid shit, tagging abandoned buildings, smashing the windows of one of the stores after it closed. We didn’t get caught, though they had to know it was us.” He swung his feet faster.

  I’d done some stupid shit to get the attention of older guys too, but mine had been blowing them in supply closets or in their parents’ basements at parties. I had the feeling we’d basically been doing the same thing.

  That anxious dread kicked up in my stomach.

  “Don’t.” Wyatt said, out of the blue.

  “I didn’t say—”

  “I know, but I can feel all your questions when you look at me, and if I stop, I won’t get it all out.”

  I nodded and stared at my Keds instead of the side of his face.

  He went on. He didn’t rush through it, his voice stayed even and unemotional, but the words came out in a constant stream.

  “One night they picked me up in a rusted out ‘94 Dodge Caravan I’d never seen before and said we were going to party over in Logan.” He glanced over at me and explained, “‘Bout an hour away. We pulled right into a liquor store.” His feet stopped swinging and he sat up straight. “I’m not making any excuses. I was fourteen, but I knew damned well none of them had permission to be driving that van. And I knew they weren’t going to be able to buy anything in the liquor store. They get out and Tanner tells me to get behind the wheel, to keep it running. He’s like, ‘You know how to drive, right, my man?’ and winks at me.”

  I could easily imagine how that felt. Attention from a hot older guy. When you were fourteen, it didn’t matter what common sense you had when your dick was involved.

  “They all came running out a few minutes later, ski masks over their heads. They were carrying cases of booze, yelling to me to drive. I spun out of the lot. Other than a lawn tractor, I’d never driven anything in my life. The van was big, and I was swerving all over, but it didn’t matter because they were all excited and Tanner kept telling me I was doing great.” Wyatt looked down at his right arm, like he could still see someone touching him there.

  “We got to one of the mountain roads before the cops picked us up. State troopers. Even if I wanted to pull over I couldn’t because there was a mountain on one side and a sheer drop-off on the other. The guys kept yelling at me to floor it.”

  When Wyatt stopped and swallowed, I had a whole new fear. What if this ended with them plunging down a mountainside and him being the only one left. What if he’d been in love with that Tanner guy and felt guilty for getting him killed?

  “I was so scared I was going to lose control of the car, so when we got to a valley with a side road to one of the mining sites, I swung off onto it. Tanner leaned over and cut the lights, but told me to keep driving, that he knew where we could double back. We didn’t fool the cops, though, and they pulled in behind us. I clipped a rail, then spun into a flatbed parked at the base of the access road. That cracked the engine block, and the steering wheel cracked my ribs.”

  I reached for him then. I hated the dead tone in his voice but he shook my hand off his arm.

  “The guys grabbed a case of booze and disappeared out the back while the cops were getting closer. Tanner says, ‘You’re only fourteen, you won’t get in trouble. Just keep your mouth shut and make like you’re still retarded.’ And he was gone.”

  He sounded so miserable then that I had to sit on my hands so I didn’t hug him. His world really did suck—or at least it had then.

  “They didn’t get caught. I knew I couldn’t run far with my ribs like that so I waited for the cops. There were still four cases of liquor in the van. Between the borrowed van and the liquor, it was grand larceny. I figured my choices were getting beat up as a snitch every day in Van for the rest of my life or taking my chances with the judge. My mom and the court-appointed lawyer were pissed because I wouldn’t do a plea and tell them who the guys were on the liquor store security tapes. So I got two years.”

  The sun was out again. From here, the hill blocked most of the view of the lake, but I could just make out the mist from the fountain. No reassuring rainbow, but it gave off sparks of light.

  “When you—being locked up must have been—did anything happen there?”

  “You mean like with other guys? Tanner wasn’t a complete dick. He had a cousin there. Told him to keep me safe. He looked out for me. Got me inked to show I wasn’t a snitch.” He held out his right hand with the tattoos. “Just a blanket party in, blanket party out.”

  That sounded like some orgy.

  His lip twisted. “They beat the shit out of you with a blanket over your head so you can’t see who’s doing it. Kind of an initiation.”

  “Oh.”

  He jumped down then turned to look up at me. “Why? Did you think I was lying? I didn’t put you at risk for anything. I told you they tested me, even though I wasn’t—hadn’t ever done anything.”

  “No. I didn’t think that.” I jumped down to join him. “I—I’m glad nothing happened.”

  “A lot happened. I just wasn’t raped.”

  I didn’t know how to tell him that thinking of him going through something like that had been turning my stomach into acid-washed ground beef. That I’d worried me fucking him had been a reminder of it. What could I say besides “Sorry your life was so shitty?” Would he hear me if I said that yeah, I cared about what it had been like but none of that changed how much I—how I felt about him.

  Words were overrated. Kissing might work. I put a hand on his chest, wondering which rib had been cracked.

  He didn’t pull away, but took my hand and moved it up and over to his left side. “There.”

  I put my hand over his, thumb rubbing his tattoos.

  He shook his hair away from his dark eye and watched me. I stepped closer.

  He brought his hand to my head, pushing off the stupid zombie bandanna then rubbing through the different lengths of my hair. “I knew I had a crush on Tanner. But we didn’t have a computer. The only gay guy I knew was the guy who worked with my mom at the hair salon. He was nice to me, showed me a style to have my hair cover my eye but...” Wyatt’s thumb traced my lips. Then he shrugged. “I could
n’t see me like him or with him. Then I got here and there was Blake. And then I really knew.”

  I pulled back. “Wait. What?”

  I felt sick again, but this wasn’t nerves. This was the cold emptiness of feeling like an idiot. Always last to know. Wyatt liked Blake. And I was only practice.

  Now I understood why Wyatt was good at his getaways. It sure as hell beat being made to stick around to hear the bad news. I took another step back.

  Wyatt didn’t seem to notice. “Blake isn’t that bad. You should have heard him last year. He talked about you all the time. My boyfriend, Ethan. Funny, sexy, smart. And there was that picture of you guys. I’d look at it and know I was seriously fucked.”

  “Okay, well. I’m gonna go. Thanks for explaining shit.”

  “Ethan.”

  I wanted to hate the way he said my name but I still couldn’t. I couldn’t even hate him when he gave me that head shake like he couldn’t believe what an idiot I was.

  “I was fucked because I was in love with my roommate’s boyfriend. With you.”

  Chapter 14

  “What?”

  I knew I was repeating myself but at the moment, I didn’t know any other words.

  Wyatt seemed to be going back to silent mode because all he did was stand there and nod, which was helpful as fuck.

  I worked through what he’d said again. “Wait a minute. Why does that make you fucked? I’m a lovable person. And damned good at giving head. You could totally do worse.”

  “Like I said. Pre-law.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and dragged me back to him. “One of us is definitely fucked because you and I do not go together.”

  “I don’t know. I thought we fit together pretty damn good.” I moved my lips to his right ear. “Even if it was tight as hell.”

  His body shivered and I liked that a lot.

  Then he leaned back to stare at my face, but didn’t pull away. “I’m serious though. You’re all—like that picture. I could see it then. All this niceness and life-is-good stuff comes right out of you. It’s easy for you.”

  “Okay. Now I see how you’re fucked. You fell for a picture. And pictures don’t make what-died-in-your-ass farts or tell the same joke a hundred times or not answer your text for hours.”

  He pulled his hands away. “This is exactly what I mean. You don’t get what it’s like to see life—to want shit you can’t ever have. And I have to be so careful.”

  “What can’t you have? You’re not locked up. You’re not stuck back in Van, West Virginia. And you will so get a good job with an engineering degree.”

  “Good. Because I owe a hell of a lot in loans. I can’t fuck this up. I’m only here because of my mom’s brother. I’d never met him, but he came to see me in lockup. He’s totally deaf because of Waardenburg. He offered to cosign student loans if I got my shit together and got in somewhere.”

  “I’m not seeing the problem.”

  “Because you’ve never owed anybody anything.”

  He slumped like he was hiding back under his hoodie, and though I had a grip on him, he was trying to disappear.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure the loans I had to take out would say different.”

  He smiled at me then. That smile that made me feel horny and protective and happy all at the same time. His hands slid up my back like we were going to do some more nice kissing and groping, but after they landed on my shoulders he pushed me away.

  “I wish it was that easy.”

  I’d had about enough of this bullshit. “It is. I can’t believe you spewed all that shit on me about being in my own world when you’re locked in yours. What’s the matter? You think if something good happens it’ll fuck with your tragic emo image?”

  “You can’t understand. I’m glad you didn’t grow up—”

  “Why don’t I understand? Right, because you can’t talk to sunshiny me. It’s college. Isn’t this supposed to be where we learn new—” Fuck me. I’d completely forgotten the tutoring session I was supposed to be at in ten minutes.

  I should just walk away, but I wasn’t a dick like that. “I think it’s stupid to say I love you but I can’t be with you because of baggage. Either you do or you don’t. Feel free to let me know when you figure shit out. In the meantime, I’ve got someplace I’ve got to be.”

  Of all the things in the world he could have said, the last thing I expected was “I know,” but that’s what came out of his mouth.

  “Know what?”

  “Where you have to be.”

  If he busted out something sweet and sappy like right here in my arms, I’d know I was dreaming. But he didn’t. So I guess I was awake. And very confused.

  When he didn’t say anything else, I did. “Whatever.”

  I turned and went back up the steps to the student center but the damned door was locked. He came up behind me and swiped it open with an ID card, completely ruining my exit.

  Without speaking, he followed me all the way up in the elevator and out the main doors. I started on the path toward Frayne Hall and he was right next to me.

  “For someone who thanked me for not stalking him all over campus, you’re acting pretty creepy, Wyatt.”

  “We’re just headed to the same place.”

  “And you know this because? I mean, other than because you’re a creepy stalker.”

  “Um, because I’m a creepy stalker.” He stopped.

  A skateboarder swerved around us, managing to both grab his junk and flip us off without losing his balance.

  “I’m sorry, Ethan. I—uh—I work for Academic Support as a math tutor. And...”

  It hadn’t taken him this long to get through his whole how-I-got-arrested story. A smile tickled the corners of my mouth. Not that Wyatt could see it. He was looking over my shoulder as he uhhed and ummed.

  He shoved his hands in his hoodie pouch, then pulled them back out and scratched his neck. “I told one of the coordinators if you came in I’d like to take the assignment.”

  “Was this before or after we had sex?”

  His cheeks got bright red patches on them. Like the night I’d first met him.

  “Uh. After. After the first time we fucked.”

  “You totally stalked me.”

  Staring at the ground, he muttered, “Yeah. I guess.”

  He glanced up, looking at me from under his bangs, and it made my heart stutter. Damn. I had it bad for him.

  “But,” he said, “I had—have someone ready as backup. If after you saw my record and heard the story, you didn’t want to have anything else to do with me.”

  He sounded like he didn’t care. Like he expected me to tell him to fuck off and he was just fine with that. And maybe that was the way Wyatt would always be. Expecting the worst because it’s all he knew.

  He might think he was fucked because he was in love with me, but I knew I was fucked because I was in love with him. Big-time, stupid love with a guy who was always going to need to be convinced that things didn’t have to suck.

  It didn’t matter what he said though, about us not working. Because his actions said it all. He—Wyatt Reese, the disappearing man—had come after me.

  I stared back at him. At his heterochromatic eyes, striped hair and sexy pouting lip.

  “Let me get this straight.”

  He arched his brow and smirked.

  I conceded that point. “Or not. So. You plan to collect thank-you blow jobs from your boyfriend for tutoring him in calculus and pick up a check from Academic Support for the same work? Now that’s larceny.”

  I held my breath waiting to see how he’d take it.

  He leaned toward me. “I think you might have been talking to my deaf ear, or else I tuned you out after—”

  “Blow jobs?” I suggested.

  “No.” He grinned. An honest-to-God grin on Wyatt’s face. He better not do that too often or I’d be fighting off all the snotty fine arts majors. “Boyfriend.”

  Epilogue

  The first thing Wy
att noticed about having a boyfriend was that he didn’t just have a boyfriend. There was Ethan, and then there was all that came with him. Right now that was five extra people helping him move his shit from Kilpatrick Tower into Hamilton. Getting a single would have been too much to hope for, but Ethan had found an upperclassman whose roommate had decided to move to Oregon after midterms. He’d barely said ten sentences when Wyatt met him, so they should get along.

  Blake hadn’t done anything overt, but he’d made enough snide remarks about thieves and felons that Wyatt had been glad when Ethan had said the process for a room change was just waiting for Wyatt’s signature.

  Though, he’d miss being up high enough to look out over the campus. Hamilton only had three stories.

  “Is that everything?” Ethan asked.

  Wyatt looked away from the window. His side of the room was empty, except for Ethan, standing holding Wyatt’s backpack.

  “I can take that. You didn’t have to bring all these people to help.”

  Ethan’s friend Makayla popped into the doorway. She held his desk lamp and surge strip. They could have gone in one of his two boxes.

  “That’s not the point. The point is that Ethan said he would buy us pizza and now you owe us a favor in case we have to move our own shit. I’ll know where to find you on Moving Out Day.”

  Wyatt glanced over at Ethan.

  “She’s kidding.”

  “She is not.” Makayla walked ahead of them toward the elevator. “Not that I don’t like you, Wyatt, but the struggle is real.”

  A mercenary attitude and honesty. Wyatt appreciated that in a person. He hefted the last box, the one holding all his textbooks.

  “Really, it’s not.” Ethan spoke in Wyatt’s good ear. “Her father is a dermatologist.”

  “I love her.” He liked all of Ethan’s friends, though having five show up all at once had been a little unnerving.

  Ethan slung the backpack over his shoulder. “Do you say that about everyone who helps you move?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Only if they’re cute too.”

  “Like in a picture?” Ethan suggested.