by Sarina Bowen
Amy rolled down her window to say goodnight, too.
It had been a mistake to pull into the driveway. Before Jared and Scotty made it inside, the kitchen door opened and my father stepped outside, a garbage bag in his hand. He thrust it at Jared. “Forgetting something? I told you hours ago to—”
“Sorry,” Jared said quickly. He grabbed the bag and hightailed it toward the garage.
His hustle made me incredibly uneasy. Jared was a stubborn teenage boy and not exactly the model of obedience. He wouldn’t be so eager to please unless the cost of pissing off Dad were really high. It made me wonder—not for the first time—if my father had become more abusive lately. He’d always been verbally abusive—that went without saying. But the whole reason I’d moved back to this town after graduation was to make sure he wasn’t also physically harming them.
I sure hoped he wasn’t. And that if he did, my brothers would tell me.
“Something the matter?” my father asked, and I realized he was staring at me through Amy’s open window.
“Not a thing,” I said quickly. And then I felt like kicking myself. My own eagerness to get out from under his attentions was still showing, even though I hadn’t lived in his house in years.
My father turned and went inside without wishing me good night, and Amy rolled up the window.
I found myself letting out a giant sigh.
“You okay?” Amy asked.
“Sure,” I lied. The truth was that my head was spinning. One look at Axel had me tied in knots.
“Who was that guy at the game?”
I put the car in reverse and backed out. “Are we headed to Bruisers?”
“We could,” she hedged. “But why don’t you come over instead? I’ll open a bottle of wine.”
“Done.” At the end of the cul-de-sac I turned left instead of right, and two minutes later we pulled up in front of her family’s mansion.
Amy and I had both graduated from high school in Henning. We’d dated during our senior year. In fact, it was in this very house that she and I had awkwardly lost our virginity to one another.
The sex had been utterly underwhelming for both of us—nobody saw fireworks. We’d tried once more in the back of my car, and that had been even worse.
That night had accomplished two things. First, it created the fodder for a million inside jokes between Amy and me. Second, it proved to me that sex with women was not my thing.
After graduation we’d gone on to different colleges, but we stayed tight. That’s how strong our friendship was. We’d failed miserably at giving each other orgasms, but we were really good at watching basketball together.
And? She’d never told a soul what she knew about my sexual orientation.
Now Amy led me by the hand through the foyer of her stately home. “Hi Dad!” she called as we passed the library.
“Hi, pumpkin.”
“Hello, Professor,” I said, feeling the latent guilt that any guy feels walking past a man whose daughter he’s deflowered.
“Evening, Cax.” His newspaper didn’t even twitch. The mood at Amy’s house was always this calm. No wonder we’d always hung out here and never at mine. I loved this place.
It was a little weird to see Amy pouring wine at the kitchen counter, something that had never happened when we were teenagers. She and I had both moved back to Henning after graduation six months ago. She had a job in the admissions office, and I was a graduate student. She lived at home to save money. I lived in graduate student housing because I couldn’t share a roof with my father. But I’d chosen to go to school here because I realized my brothers still needed me.
Push and pull. That’s how this town felt to me.
I carried the wine into the cozy TV room at the back of the house. She clicked the TV on to a crime drama but left the sound low. By silent mutual agreement, we sat close together on the sofa. “Okay, spill,” she said immediately.
Ack. I took a deep drink of wine to stall. “His name is Axel,” I said finally. “We were church diocese friends for years in Ohio. And then when we were sixteen, we fooled around.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? You never told me that.”
I never told anyone that. “It…didn’t end well. We got caught. The pastor called our parents.”
“Oh.” Amy’s stricken face was proof that I didn’t need to fill in the details. She’d met my asshat of a father.
“Yeah. I never went back to any more of those church retreats, obviously. And my father stood over me while I blocked Axel on Facebook and my phone. We left Ohio less than a year later.”
Amy sipped her wine, looking thoughtful. “So you haven’t seen this guy’s face in how many years?”
“Six and a half,” I said quickly. But who’s counting?
“And now he’s here in Henning.”
My heart thudded just to hear the words. “And working at the basketball game. Unless he was here with the other team.”
Amy grinned. “He was wearing a brown tie, Cax, and sitting on our team’s side of the table. There’s no chance he’s with the other team. Wait—I think you both play for the same team!” She cackled at her own joke.
Meanwhile, my stomach took a long tour through my midsection. The idea that Axel Armitage might live in the same town made me feel lightheaded. I could bump into him in the coffee shop. Or the gym… Visions of Axel dribbling a basketball in very little clothing flooded my brain.
Jesus Christ. This was not good.
“I think you should call him,” Amy announced.
“No way.”
“Way! Because otherwise this will all be incredibly awkward. I mean…the last time you saw him, you were both naked?”
“Not naked,” I said quickly.
“Oh, honey.” Amy sighed. “Please tell me that you’ve had a good time naked with someone in your life. At least once.”
Sadly, I shook my head.
“That’s just plain wrong. You’re twenty-two years old. You should live your life.”
It’s not that I didn’t want to. But it just wasn’t an option. My father would beat the shit out of me if he found out I was…with a guy. So if I ever wanted to date, it would have to be somewhere far away from here. If not for Scotty, Mark and Jared, I’d be out of this town faster than you can say, “So long, suckers.”
But I had three brothers who needed me. And Scotty was only eleven. That meant at least six or seven more years of solitude.
God, how depressing.
“It’s not so bad,” I lied. “And who’s to say that I’d find somebody, anyway? It’s a small town. I mean…you’re sitting here with me tonight, right?”
“Well…” Amy cleared her throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
My stomach bottomed out. Again. Because I knew what blow she was about to strike.
“I met someone.”
“Wow, that’s great,” I heard myself say. “Who is it?”
Her pretty face took on a shy smile. “He works for the I.T. department. I’ve been having, um, a lot of computer problems at work.”
I laughed for the first time in an hour. “You are adorable. And I’ve heard those I.T. nerds are awesome in the bedroom.”
“Cax!” She gave my knee a shove. “Don’t mock.”
I caught her hand in mine. “Amy, I’m happy for you. Really.” It was true, too. Even though I knew I was in trouble, because this would change things. Amy couldn’t be my “date” anymore. It wouldn’t be fair to Mr. I.T. Dude for us to let people think we were a couple.
“We’ll still have basketball games,” she said, reading my mind.
“Only if you want to,” I said quickly.
“Of course I want to. We have season tickets together. Jeez.”
“Your new guy might not like that you have season tickets with your ex.”
She swirled the last of the wine in her glass. “Well, I was thinking about that. No guy is going to love the idea of his new girlfriend hanging out wit
h her ex. But if he understood that we were really not compatible…”
I shook my head immediately, and she sighed.
“Okay. It was just a thought. Because there’s really no reason why we shouldn’t hang out as much as we want.” To prove it, she turned to stretch her legs out over mine.
I grabbed the insteps of her stocking feet and squeezed. Amy loved to have her feet rubbed. We knew each other so well. It killed me to think I was losing her company to some I.T. guy. But I wanted her to be happy.
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
I only grunted my response.
“Are you going to call Mr. Church Camp?”
“No way,” I said quickly.
Her eyes widened. “Why not? I thought you used to be friends?”
“I can’t.” It really was as simple as that. If I wanted to be with my brothers, I had to stay in Henning. And if I wanted to stay in Henning, I had to hide that part of myself from everyone. (Everyone except Amy.)
“You could just be friends again,” she said softly.
She made a good point. “I suppose. I don’t even know for sure that he’s…” The sentence died on my tongue.
“Gay.” Amy crossed her arms. “Why have I never heard you say that word?”
I shrugged, but it was a fair question. Though Amy couldn’t possibly understand how holding a core piece of yourself back from the world required incredible concentration. The word felt like a spell to me. If I said it, all my hard work would slip through my fingers.
“So are you going to call him?”
“No.”
“Omigod, Cax. You’re hopeless.”
I was saved from agreeing with her by her father. “Amy!” he called. “Derek is on the phone!”
I hadn’t even heard it ring, but it was hard to miss the look of joy on Amy’s face. “Derek, huh? That name isn’t as nerdy as I feared.” I pushed her feet off my lap. “Go talk to your guy. I’ll let myself out.”
Amy leapt up. “I love you, Cax.”
“I know.” Using my foot, I gave her a little shove on her ass. “Just go, okay?”
She hustled out of the room to take her call. I washed both of our wine glasses in the kitchen. And then I went home to the graduate dormitory alone. Like I always did.
Chapter Five
Axel
As the final buzzer sounded, my boss Arnie sat down beside me. “Hey, kid. How’s it goin’?” I hadn’t even known he was in the gym.
“Great,” I said, practically bouncing in my chair from tension. I knew I’d done well at my first game of the season. “Let me show you what I’ve done.” I swiveled the screen of my computer in his direction. “Our new basketball Twitter stream has game commentary, links to the video stream and athletic department articles.”
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing at a GIF.
“Uh, a little video snippet of a tiger crashing into a wall. I posted it when Princeton was down by ten.”
Arnie threw his head back and laughed. “That’s a little ridiculous. But I like it.”
“So did my audience,” I said. “That was my hit of the night. It was shared a hundred times.”
His eyes widened. “Really? A zoo video?”
“Really.”
Arnie chuckled. Then he stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good work, kid. I can’t wait to see what you come up with when we play the Terriers.”
It wasn’t a bad moment with my new boss, but while I’d been chatting him up, Cax Williams had apparently left the arena. I turned around and he was gone, along with the people who’d been seated beside him.
Finished for the night, I closed my laptop with shaking hands and shoved it into its case. There was too much adrenaline in my body. Seeing Cax had practically knocked me over. Then we’d stared at each other like a couple of imbeciles.
I put on my coat and backpack and walked out into the night. Tonight I didn’t mind my lack of wheels. I needed the walk home to calm down. The park was deserted, of course. I’d wondered if the path through the woods would feel creepy at night, but it didn’t, really.
When I’d told my mother about my commute through the woods, she’d promptly FedExed me a headlamp from LL Bean. I’d tucked the funny little device into a pocket of my backpack just in case. But I’ll tell you right now that a man cannot look sexy wearing a head lamp. Not even Channing Tatum could pull that off.
Either way, I didn’t need the lamp tonight. With the moonlight reflected off a dusting of snow on the ground, there was enough light for me to see my way, and soon I was home, unlocking the door to my quiet, barely furnished apartment.
I got ready for bed in silence, bringing my tablet with me when I slipped beneath the sheets. I considered watching a movie or listening to some music, but I set the tablet aside instead.
What I really wanted to do was think about Cax.
I’d met him at a wintertime church retreat when we’d both been eight. We’d made friends in that desperately fast way that kids do. Everyone needed to pick a hiking buddy, and we just looked at each other and smiled.
After twenty-four hours, it was obvious to both of us that we’d done well to end up together. A couple of the other boys were crybabies and a couple more were bullies. Cax and I were the nicest of the lot, in our own opinions, anyway.
We both had Xs in our names. It was meant to be.
Every two months or so our diocese offered a youth retreat, where kids from three or four churches in our half of the state would meet up for activities (some fun, some lame) and prayer. My single mom liked to send me on these, because it meant she could go out with her friends for a night. One of us prayed while the other drank half-price beers at a roadside bar.
Until I met Cax, I only tolerated these trips. But after we became friends, I enjoyed them.
Often the retreat took place from Saturday overnight until Sunday. They had us in sleeping bags on the floor of some church’s all-purpose room. But in the summertime there was always a four day “camp” to attend. Those were my favorite.
Over the years Cax and I did everything together—archery, swimming, horseback riding. Sledding, marshmallow roasting. Bowling. Wherever we were, I always brought my basketball in the hopes that there would be an available hoop.
Cax had never played hoops before we met, but I taught him all my grade-school moves. Whenever the church leaders planned something really boring—like gluing macaroni on paper plates in the shape of a cross—I’d give him the eye and we’d sneak outside for a little one on one.
Rinse and repeat. By the time we hit our teen years, we were the kind of friends who texted. On social media, I saw occasional pictures of Cax’s life at a fancy private school in the suburbs.
I lived an hour away and went to public school. We stayed close, though our paths never crossed except for at the regional youth gatherings.
Because of basketball, I didn’t make it to as many of the church events during my teen years. But I always made time for the summer camp retreat.
The summer I was sixteen, I had begun to admit to myself that I was gay.
When June rolled around, I was happy to see Cax, as usual. But that was the year my interest in him changed. When Cax climbed out of his family’s late model Range Rover on drop-off day, my heart practically exploded. Because…damn. He’d shot up and filled out a little. And when he turned to smile at me, his dimples did something to my stomach.
For the first time since I’d met him, I didn’t know where to put my eyes.
I’m sure I said something witty like, “Hey, man.” But a sixteen-year-old boy isn’t expected to be eloquent. And whatever he’d replied, I hadn’t heard, because my poor little brain was struggling under the weight of an uncomfortable realization.
I was very attracted to him.
We set up the tent that Cax had brought for us to share, and I tried to snap out of it. Somehow I got through dinner and the bonfire on that first night of camp. But I could feel his presence l
ike a heat inside my body, my awareness of him hot enough to roast marshmallows.
It wasn’t the first time I’d ever wanted to stare at a guy. I’d already figured out that my appreciation for the athletic photography in Sports Illustrated was different from my friends’ in a few crucial ways.
And the swimsuit issue? Not interesting to me.
But until then, I hadn’t felt so confronted by the truth, and truth was a living, breathing guy with a broad chest that I wanted to touch and pale eyes that made me stare at him. That first night, I’d barely slept. The second night I had to jerk off quietly after I was positive he’d fallen asleep.
Swimming together became a new form of torture. Watching him strip off his shirt made me dive for cover in the lake. I had to keep my towel nearby on the dock and beg and plead with my body to stay under control whenever we changed into our suits.
My teenage hormones were raging, and at night it took me forever to fall asleep. Because he was right there—two feet away. I’d never been so aware of another person’s body in my life. Each breath he took echoed through me. Each rustle of fabric reminded me of our proximity.
The third night I woke up in the pitch dark, and I wasn’t sure why. Sleeping on an air mattress in a tent meant lots of unfamiliar noises. For a few moments, I lay there silently, listening.
But it wasn’t footsteps or owl hoots that had woken me. It was Cax. His breathing was a little funny. Short and shallow. I listened, and there was a rustle, too. A repetitive one.
My heart rate leapt when I realized what I was hearing. Cax was jerking off.
The nice thing to do would have been to lie there in silence and pretend to sleep through it. But I couldn’t do that. Just the idea that he was getting himself off made me painfully hard. My hand slipped into my boxers against my will. I squeezed my aching dick and let out a sigh.
Beside me, Cax froze, so I did, too. But I was too horny to give up. So tentatively, I stroked my cock again, thinking of him. Wishing the hand on my dick was his. The pitch darkness gave me the illusion of freedom. As long as we didn’t speak or see each other properly, I could pretend it wasn’t weird. So I gave a little hum of arousal and a sigh, and I jacked myself slowly, hoping he’d continue to do the same.
