by Marie Sexton
Cody closed his eyes, trying to stop the little glow that blossomed in his heart. It felt like hope, but hope was a lie. Hope was dangerous. Hope would make him bleed like nothing else in the world could. “Okay.”
He started to pull the handle, but Logan spoke again before he could open the door.
“There’s more.”
And based on the tone of his voice, Cody wasn’t going to like it.
“Jimmy and Larry were there, and Larry gave him an earful, man.”
Cody closed his eyes, leaning his temple against the cold window. “Was this before or after Nate said he wanted to see me?” Because it was possible Nate had asked to see Cody, but then changed his mind after Larry flapped his fat mouth.
“Before. Larry went off. You know how he is. He’s a loudmouth asshole, and he started saying, well . . . He said—”
“I know what he said. I know what they all say.”
“But after that, Nate and I left, and he asked me if any of it was true.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him to ask you.”
Cody wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. He appreciated that Logan wouldn’t talk shit about him, and yet it almost would have been easier to let Nate get the confirmation he needed from somebody else so that Cody wouldn’t have to see the disgust on his face when he found out the rumors were true.
Some of them, at least.
“And even after all that, he asked me—no, man, he practically fucking begged me—to tell you that he wanted to see you. I think he really misses you.” Logan’s voice was quieter now. Upsettingly gentle. “But I thought you deserved fair warning, so you could decide what exactly you wanted to say.”
Cody nodded. He couldn’t deny just how far Logan had gone, not only to deliver Nate’s message, but to make it easier on Cody. “Thanks. For the ride, I mean, and—” for being my friend. But he wasn’t sappy enough to say it out loud. “Thanks for everything, man.”
He went quietly into the trailer. His mom’s car was gone, so either she was working, or she was at one of the local bars. He was glad to have the house to himself.
He wouldn’t lie to Nate. That was the one thing he knew. Whatever Nate asked, Cody would tell him the truth. It’d be a relief to finally have it out in the open.
And then?
That was the part he wasn’t sure of.
He brushed his teeth, changed into a pair of sweats, and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining all the ways their conversation could go.
Some of them ended with them as friends.
Some ended with Nate turning his back on Cody forever.
A few strayed into a place he hadn’t dared imagine before—a place where Nate took Cody’s hand. Where Nate leaned forward and kissed him while the Wyoming wind tried to blow them both away.
He wasn’t sure which possibility scared him more.
Nate spent half the night thinking about the things Larry had told him, and about Logan’s refusal to give him straight answers. He suspected Larry hadn’t lied about the Hole. As much as Nate hated to think it was true, it fit. Why else would Cody have worked so hard to hide his home from him? It bothered him that Cody hadn’t trusted him.
As for the rest of the things Larry had said?
Nate was pretty sure those would turn out to be nothing more than teenagers being assholes. He spent the next morning debating whether or not to confront Cody with Larry’s lies.
Nate arrived at the Hole just before noon. He parked his car where he always did, on the edge of the dirt lot that held the four decrepit trailers. He climbed out of his car and glanced at them, each one somehow seeming worse than the last.
Yes, he was pretty sure Cody lived in one of them.
He ducked through the barbed wire and headed into the field. He didn’t really expect Cody to be there, even if Logan had delivered his message.
He pulled his coat tighter around himself as he trudged through the field. The cows barely spared him a glance. The sun was shining. At almost seven thousand feet above sea level, the rays were intense, but the wind was bitterly cold. They’d have to find a better place to spend their time. Hanging out in a damn field obviously wasn’t going to be an option for very much longer.
With the wagon sunken into the earth facing the highway, he couldn’t tell if Cody was at their meeting spot or not. Not until he was right on top of it, at any rate. But when he finally reached the upper edge of it and looked down, he found Cody there, grinding a cigarette out against the sun-bleached planks of the wagon.
For a moment, Nate just stood there, suddenly unsure what to say. Everything that popped into his head felt ridiculous after a month and a half of barely speaking to each other. He shifted awkwardly back and forth on his feet, debating.
“You gonna sit down or what?” Cody asked without even glancing up at him.
So much for niceties. Nate stepped over the upper edge of the wagon and slid down to the side that served as their bench. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.”
Cody shrugged, hunching his shoulders and rubbing his hands together. He was only wearing his usual too-small jean jacket with a zip-front hoodie over it. Nate wondered if the shirt underneath at least had long sleeves.
“Aren’t you freezing? Why didn’t you wear a coat?”
Cody ducked his head and crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. “You’re the one who wanted to meet out here.”
Nate sighed, feeling defeated. He’d clearly said the wrong thing. Again. He wasn’t sure if he was really as clueless and clumsy was Cody made him feel, or if Cody was overly sensitive. Maybe a bit of both. But he hadn’t pictured things starting out so wrong. He’d come here to try to reclaim his friendship with Cody, and so far, Cody hadn’t even looked his way.
“Look, Cody. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about how things have gone this year. I never meant—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does though. I’d like for us to still be friends.”
“Why bother?”
That hurt, no matter how much he wished it didn’t. “You don’t want to be friends, then? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. It’s just, this was always how it was going to be. It’s not a big deal. I knew you’d get in tight with that Grove clique, and I’d—”
“But I’m not ‘in tight’ with them. That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t even like them, to tell you the truth. And I don’t know how you and I ended getting separated in the first place. I mean . . .” He floundered, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “Jesus, you’re the one who’s been avoiding me, not the other way around!”
He waited, expecting Cody to deny it, maybe even to lash out, but Cody said only, “I know.”
Nate sat back, stunned. “You do?”
Cody shrugged. “I figured it’d be easier that way.”
“Easier for who?”
“Look, I know how people in this town see me. I know the things they say, and I figured once you heard all that, you wouldn’t want to hang out with me anyway. And you wouldn’t want to have to tell me. And I wouldn’t want to be hanging around, watching you tiptoe around it. So I just split, all right?”
It was insane that Cody’s ridiculous reasoning almost made sense. “But—”
“And I was right, wasn’t I? Larry Lucero told you everything.”
Nate looked down at the toes of his sneakers, his stomach suddenly twisting into knots. “I don’t care what Larry says.”
“Maybe you should.”
Once again, Cody’s answer surprised him. He remembered the day at the secondhand store. Cody had said, “Some of what they tell you will be lies, but some will be true.” Nate’s mouth went dry. “So, Larry wasn’t lying?”
“Well, it depends. What did he tell you?”
“He told me you live in that little trailer park.”
“Is that how he worded it?”
Nate had
been trying to keep things civil, but it seemed Cody wasn’t in the mood for having things sugar-coated. Nate took a deep breath and dove in. “He said you lived in the Hole.”
“That part’s true.”
Nate had suspected as much, but having Cody admit it bothered him. It meant Cody had deliberately misled him.
“So each day last summer, you’d leave your house and walk to the gas station, and then I’d drive us right back to your house in order to walk out here? And at the end of the day, we’d walk past your house to my car, and I’d drive you to the gas station, just so you could turn around and come back to where you started?”
It was absurd, but he knew it was true. He could tell by the way Cody’s cheeks turned red, and by the way he refused to meet Nate’s eyes. But Cody didn’t duck his head. He didn’t try to hide. He kept his gaze straight ahead, locked on the distant highway.
“Why would you do that, Cody?”
“Why do you think?”
Nate scrubbed his fingers through his hair again, debating that. So Cody lived in the absolute crappiest, poorest corner of town. It didn’t matter, did it? And yet, Nate couldn’t quite deny that he might have thought worse of Cody on that first day if he’d known the truth. But that had been months ago. Certainly Cody trusted him by now?
“What else?” Cody asked.
“They said something about your mom. That she’s a lizard?”
Cody still didn’t look over, but his eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. He gripped the side of the wagon, as if anchoring himself, as if to keep himself from flying into a rage. “That’s not true. She’s a waitress. That’s it.”
That confused him. He wanted to ask Cody what exactly the term meant, but he could see how angry Cody was at the insinuation, so he kept his mouth shut.
“Is that it?” Cody asked. But Nate could tell by his voice that he knew it wasn’t.
“No.” Nate didn’t want to say the rest though. If the comment about Cody’s mom made him this angry, he didn’t want to know how Cody would respond to the slurs against him. He fiddled with his class ring, wondering whether he should tell Cody to forget it.
“Go on.” Cody’s voice was quiet. “You can say it.”
Nate blinked, stunned at his sudden realization: Cody already knew. This wasn’t about Cody finding out what they’d said. He’d faced it all before, God knew how many times. This was about making Nate face it.
“They said that you’re . . .” He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t know how to word it.
Cody did though. “A faggot?” He didn’t seem angry. If anything, he seemed detached. They might have been discussing lunch. “A homo? A queer?”
“Yes.”
Cody sighed, and for the first time, he ducked his head, looking down at the toes of his sneakers. “That part’s true too.”
It took a minute for those words to register. They were the last ones Nate expected to hear. Denial, anger, resentment, yes. Those he was ready for. But not this quiet acceptance.
“Really?” Nate asked, and immediately kicked himself mentally for asking something so utterly stupid.
Cody took a deep breath, as if gathering his nerve. “Three years ago, there was another boy here. His name was Dusty. His family only lived here for a few months. It was right at the end of the oil boom, and he never quite fit in. Tried to hang with the Grove group, but they never really took to him. The hicks didn’t want him. He thought he was too good for the burnouts, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to hang with the Mormons. And I guess I was the last option left. We had almost every class together, and he was cool to me. So one day he shows up at my place with a bottle of schnapps he’d swiped from his dad’s cabinet. My mom was working, and we sat in my room and drank that bottle.”
It was strange, listening to him. Nate’s heart was pounding. He wanted to know what Cody would say next. He wanted to hear it in a way that made his cheeks burn. It made his palms damp and his stomach flutter.
Cody’s eyes were still on the distant promise of the highway, but his focus was inward. “We finished the bottle, and then he started touching me. And kissing me.” The image was vivid in Nate’s head. He could imagine Cody in the bedroom he’d never seen. And thanks to his dream, he could imagine the look on Cody’s face. The heat in Nate’s cheeks spread, down his spine, past his anxious stomach, to settle into a deep, low hum between his legs.
“Oh?” he tried to say, trying to prompt him. God, he wanted to hear more.
“He was all over me. And fuck, Nate, I could tell you it was just being drunk that made it feel so good, but I’d be lying. I came so hard, I saw stars.”
The hum between Nate’s legs grew. He fought to keep his breathing normal, pulling his jacket tight around himself to hide the growing bulge at his groin.
“For three weeks, it was like that. He’d go try to hang with the others, but at some point, he’d be lonely, or maybe just horny as fuck; I don’t know. And he’d find me. He’d knock on my window just after sunset, and I’d let him in.”
And do what with him? Nate wanted to ask. Tell me exactly what you did. Tell me everything you did together. But his tongue was glued to the roof of his dry mouth, his voice gone.
“But then, his parents decided to split. He had to move away with his mom, even though he wanted to stay with his dad. And I don’t know if he was mad at me, or mad at them, or just mad at the world, but he went out one night with those assholes from the Grove, and he told them everything. Except, you know, not everything. Because he made it sound like it was all me. Like I’d come on to him, and he hadn’t ever wanted it. He made it sound like I showed up at his house, instead of him showing up at mine. He told them that I begged for it. Even that I paid for it. He told them all what I am.
“And then he moved away.”
That tantalizing ache in Nate’s groin seemed to waver. His desire to hear more of what Cody had done with Dusty, alone in his room, in the middle of the night, warred with the anger that swelled in his heart. He could imagine all too clearly how it had been in Cody’s room—the lights out, the frantic, desperate touches, the whispers and the stifled moans as they fought to keep from being heard. He could picture it with a clarity that made him breathless. But how could anybody do that with Cody, share that kind of intimacy with him, and then turn around and betray him? How could Dusty take those private, stolen moments and turn them into something ugly? It made Nate angry. It made him want to cry for Cody. It made him want to reach out and touch Cody and tell him he’d never do what Dusty had done.
But something stopped him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to bridge the gap. He grasped about for something to say, his mind reeling.
All the rumors were true. Cody really was gay.
“Aren’t you worried about AIDS?” He hated himself the minute the words left his mouth. Was that really the only thing he could come up with to say?
Cody laughed. It was a laugh Nate had heard many times—a laugh that told him Cody thought he was being a dumbass. “It’s an STD. You know what that stands for? Sexually. Transmitted. Disease. That means I’d have to actually have sex with somebody to catch it.”
“What about Dusty?”
“First of all, he was my first. And I was his first too. So there’s no way either of us had it when we started. And second, he and I . . .” Cody kept his face averted, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not like we did everything, you know? I mean, we fooled around, yeah. But, well, I don’t know exactly about the things we did, to tell you the truth, whether it can spread like that or not. But we never, well, you know, we never fucked, okay? And like I said, neither of us had ever done anything like that before, so there’s no reason to think either of us would have it now.”
“Right.” Nate wasn’t as embarrassed for asking as he was for having forced Cody to answer. “I guess that makes sense. I just hadn’t ever thought about—”
“Do you think it gets spread through blowjobs?” Cody suddenly asked. “I’ve ki
nd of wondered that, but I don’t know who to ask.”
“Hell, I don’t know.” The question triggered a flood of erotic images in Nate’s brain—Cody naked, Cody with an erection, Cody with a cock in his mouth, Cody on his knees, looking up at Nate with those teasing eyes of his, and suddenly Nate’s erection was back, the longing in his balls stronger than ever. Jesus, what was wrong with him?
“I figured handjobs were safe enough,” Cody said, his words gaining momentum now that the truth was out, as if he’d been dying to ask somebody this question. Maybe he had.
But all Nate could think about was Cody’s warm fingers wrapped around his cock. Or maybe his lips. He wanted to know how that would feel. Nate’s erotic dream starring Cody was bright and vivid in his mind, and he wanted desperately to kiss Cody for real, to touch him, to make him come as hard as Dusty had, but Cody was oblivious to his discomfort.
“Nobody’s ever told me if you can catch AIDS from a blowjob or not. I tried looking in the school library, but of course they don’t have anything like that there. I guess it don’t matter, ’cause I knew Dusty and I were both clean, but—”
“Stop.” Jesus, he had to get away. He would have stood up and left already if he weren’t worried about Cody seeing his erection. “Look, I need to go.”
Cody sighed. “I figured. You can’t hang out with the kid from the Hole.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Okay. So what’s the problem? Is it the lies about my mom? Or is it what I told you about Dusty?”
Nate hung his head. He was embarrassed to say it, but he couldn’t deny how aroused he was, listening to Cody talk. “Dusty,” he whispered.
“I won’t hit on you or anything, I promise.”
“That’s not the problem.” Or maybe it was.
“You afraid it’s contagious? You afraid I’ll make you a fag too?”
Nate shook his head. “No.”
But he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t possibly tell Cody the real reason he was suddenly so desperate to escape. Even now, his erection refused to wane.
Cody didn’t say anything else. Nate waited for his next accusation, but it didn’t come. The silence stretched on for ages.
