by Chase Connor
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, huh?” He laughed. “Well, that’s a good thing, right?”
I nodded.
“Better than surfing?”
“Let’s not go that far.” I laughed. “But, we’ll see.”
He laughed with me. When we both settled down, we were left in silence again. But this time, as we stared at each other, it was comfortable.
“Why don’t we plan a guys’ trip? Spring Break isn’t far off.” He suggested. “Maybe go up to Maine one weekend? There’s surfing there.”
“The water has to be freezing.” I laughed.
“So? We’ll get you a new wetsuit.” He shrugged. “Maybe a new board.”
“You don’t have to overcompensate.” I chided him. “I’ll take a new suit, but I can pull my old board out of the garage.”
“Fair enough.” He held his hands up defensively, then leaned in with a grin. “Did you know there’s a beach in Maine called Gooch’s Beach?”
I laughed loudly.
“I mean, who let that one slip by the committee?”
I laughed louder.
Dad laughed with me.
“I missed this.” I felt tears in my eyes again. “I missed you being my dad.”
“I’ve never been great at it.”
“No, you haven’t.” I shrugged. “But you don’t have to be.”
“I’ll try harder, Loganb—Logan.”
“You can call me Loganberry if you want.” I glanced up at him. “As long as you promise to call me it often.”
He reached out and ruffled my hair.
“It’s like a damn briar patch.” He teased as he pulled his hand away. “I mean, seriously, son.”
“I’ll get a haircut.” I rolled my eyes.
He stared at me for a moment.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess it kind of suits you.”
“Ya’ think?”
“Sure.” He said. “Goldilocks.”
“That’s it.” I stood from the chair with a laugh.
Before I could get away, he slid down from his desk and pulled me into another hug with a laugh. I wrapped my arms around my dad. When we finally pulled away from each other again, I wasn’t crying this time. I was just happy. Maybe we had a lot of work to do. Maybe he would have to adjust a lot to having my sexuality out in the open. But at least I felt sure that he was going to try his best. And so was I. And that was more than enough. It was more than we had for a very long time.
Chapter 10
“Are we done yet?” A.J. grunted.
“Just a little more.” I laughed.
“You’re destroying me!”
“If you finish this run, I’ll show you some destruction.” I waggled my eyebrows.
A.J. picked up the pace and pushed through the pain and tiredness.
“You can do it.” I cheered him on.
Every day after school for the last two weeks, we’d been going to the track and running three miles. For two weeks before that, he’d been calling himself “chubby” as often as possible. So, I said we were going to start running. The first day I thought A.J. was going to have a heart attack and die. Or at least punch me in the mouth. The second day, he could barely walk when he got to school. I razzed him about being a lacrosse player who couldn’t run three miles without looking like death was inevitable. We were two weeks in—we even ran each day on the weekends—and he was getting better. But he still liked to bitch about it.
“This is fucking ridiculous.” He groaned as we neared the end.
“You said you didn’t want to be chubby anymore.” I replied, running alongside him. “So, either you stop calling yourself chubby or we run. Your choice.”
Then we crossed the finish line on the track and slowly came to a stop. A.J. groaned and lowered himself to the ground, coming to rest on his back. I laughed and knelt next to him, looking down at his exasperated expression.
“I’ll stop calling myself chubby.” He groaned.
“Okay.” I nodded. “Then we don’t have to run.”
He frowned up at me.
“What?”
“You don’t care if I stay chubby?”
“More cushion for the pushin’.” I whispered down to him. “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”
He smiled up at me.
“Okay. Let’s keep doing this every day.” He groaned. “But I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” I rolled my eyes, then cooed down at him. “You loooooooove me.”
We both laughed before we realized what I had just said. I blushed. We hadn’t even come close to saying those words to each other before. Sure, we’d kissed a lot—and we’d finally moved up to the “condom stage” of our relationship. And there had been a lot of deep talks and hand holding and dates…but “love” had never been uttered.
“I mean, yeah, I guess I do.” A.J. was blushing as well.
“You guess?” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“I LOVE YOU, LOGAN!” He shouted.
I slapped a hand over his mouth but couldn’t help and laugh at him. He laughed underneath me, then his tongue was licking my hand.
“Gross!” I yanked my hand away and rubbed it on the sweat-soaked chest of his t-shirt.
“Wanna get grosser?” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “The field house is empty, I bet.”
“I would love to get grosser.” My hand came to rest on his stomach. “But, I have family dinner tonight.”
“After that?” He grabbed my hand and held it. “Please?”
“Obviously.” I laughed.
“I love you, Logan.” He pulled my hand up to his mouth and kissed it.
“I love you, too, A.J.” I replied, smiling down at him.
We both laughed nervously.
“Since we can’t really kiss here.” He glanced around. “I expect two kisses later.”
“How about eleven or twelve?” I teased.
“You give me as many as you want.” He laughed. “I kind of like your kisses.”
“You better.” I held my hand out as I rose from my kneeling position.
A.J. grabbed my hand and I hoisted him up. After two weeks, he’d actually slimmed down a bit. I found myself thinking that I might have liked his body more before. But then I reminded myself that I just preferred A.J. over any other guy—so his body didn’t matter. Whether he was chubby or he lost some weight, I wanted to do things with him that I hadn’t even thought about doing with Cooper when I had thought I was in love with him.
Thinking of Cooper made my heart hurt a little. We hadn’t texted, talked on the phone, hung out, or studied in a month. I didn’t even talk to him at school unless I was forced. AP Chemistry was awkward, especially when we had to talk to get a lesson completed. At lunch, we didn’t even make eye contact. We each got our lunches from separate places and he went to sit with Alex, Caden, and Martin. A.J. and I sat somewhere else. Sometimes Caden or Martin or both of them would come sit with us, but A.J. and I preferred to spend lunch together alone anyway.
Alex didn’t so much as look at me or A.J. when we passed him in the halls or saw him in a class. I didn’t want to care, but I worried that maybe Cooper and Alex were having problems after everything that happened. But, I reminded myself, that while I had written that letter—I hadn’t done it with ill intent. And I’d apologized immediately. Everything after that was on Alex, not me. I was going to stop feeling guilty for a misunderstanding—and I wasn’t going to make excuses for Alex being a jealous asshole. I was done worrying about the whole thing.
Well, I was trying to be done with it.
Emotions and thoughts can be hard to control.
“Spring Break is coming up.” A.J. said as we walked from the track towards the parking lot. “Maybe my parents will go on a trip and you can come sex me up all day and night all week long?”
I smiled widely, filled with a longing to do exactly that.
“Dad and I are going to Maine.” I grimaced. “We’re trying
to do that whole reconnect as father and son thing?”
A.J. smiled.
“That’s really nice.” He said. “But it suuuuuucks for me.”
I laughed.
“Well, if you’re a good boy,” I leaned towards him as we walked, “I’ll come sex you up before I leave. Then again when I get back.”
“Okay.” He said. “But be ready. If I know you’re going to be gone for a while, I’m going to make you sex me up real good.”
“You know?” I turned to him when we reached the parking lot, stopping to smile at him. “I’m so happy.”
A.J. beamed at me.
“I am, too, Logan.” He replied. “I’m really fucking happy.”
I chewed at my lip.
“Do you want to come to family dinner?” I asked. “It’s my night to choose. It’s Chinese takeout.”
He smiled.
“Meet your dad?”
“Yes.”
“Will you introduce me as your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want to come to family dinner.” He nodded.
“Would you kiss me right here if I asked you to?” I breathed out.
“Yes.”
“Good.” I smiled.
I turned to step off of the curb onto the asphalt of the parking lot and then I was being spun around. And then A.J.’s hands were holding my face and he was pulling my lips down to his. Startled, I almost pulled away, but then I let my lips press against his and my hands came up to rest on his hips. He kissed me deeply, his body melting into mine for several moments. Then he finally pulled away.
“Is it always going to be fireworks?” I whispered, my eyes staring into his.
“It’s always going to be wow.” He smiled.
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!”
Both of us jumped, but our hands didn’t leave each other’s bodies as we turned our heads to look at where the shout had come from. Martin and Caden were walking out to the field house. They hooted and hollered at us. Martin had been the one that had bellowed idiotically at us. I could tell from the way he was laughing.
“You guys do you!” Caden fist pumped.
Martin laughed and did an “air high five” in our direction.
Then they both disappeared into the field house.
A.J. and I breathed out, laughing nervously as he touched his forehead to mine.
“I guess we know how they’d handle all this, huh?” I whispered.
“They’re going to tease us mercilessly now.” A.J. groaned.
“They’re just a couple of jackasses anyway.” I chuckled.
“They’re kind of my friends, though.” A.J. grimaced.
“They’re your best friends.” I smiled.
“Yeah.” He nodded, staring into my eyes.
“They’re all right.” I shrugged.
“Thank you for loving me.” A.J. whispered. “For loving me for me.”
“It’s kind of impossible not to.”
Then we were kissing again. And we didn’t care if anyone else saw. Because, whether they teased us but didn’t care like Martin and Caden, or they didn’t do anything, or they cared a lot…it didn’t matter. I loved A.J. And A.J. loved me.
Chapter 11
A.J. was a pillow hog. We were laying on my bed, our heads pressed together, my laptop on my stomach as we laid back and watched American Horror Story: Cult on Netflix. My…boyfriend…as I had introduced him to my dad, was taking up more than his share of the pillow. We fought playfully in between trying to watch the laptop screen. Finally, I gave up and let him take up as much of the pillow as he wanted. I was just happy to be laying there with him and watching the show. It was Friday night. We had all the time in the world to fight over pillow space. Of course, it was early—mom and dad were both home and Katie was still awake, so we left the bedroom door open out of respect. We weren’t doing anything salacious—maybe obnoxiously cute—but not scandalous.
When A.J. had shown up for dinner after going home to shower, he was a bundle of nerves, and so was I. Even though I had warned mom and dad that my boyfriend was coming to dinner, and it seemed like no big deal to them, I didn’t know how they’d handle it once he showed up. However, when I drug him into the kitchen by his hand to introduce him to my dad, my dad was on the phone with the Chinese takeout place.
“Do you like beef and broccoli or sesame chicken?” My dad put his hand over the mouth of the receiver to ask A.J.
“Um, sesame chicken.” A.J. replied.
My dad finished up the ordering and then he shook A.J.’s hand and told him it was nice to meet him. Then they proceeded to have a ten-minute-long conversation about lacrosse. My shock at how nothing it all turned out to be made my mom laugh. Mom and I put plates and silverware and paper towels on the dining room table—this was family dinner—we weren’t fancy. Dad and A.J. talked sports. Katie kept jumping into everything, making sure that we hadn’t forgotten that she was a part of this dinner, too. Then A.J. and Katie talked giraffes and zoos as we sat down to dinner.
The fact that my boyfriend—I’d never get tired of that word—got along with my family so well made me love him even more. After dinner, Katie went to play in her room and dad asked why we hadn’t seen Cooper in a while. A.J. and I looked at each other nervously, which, of course clued my parents into the fact that something was wrong. So, of course, I was forced to relay the fact that Alex was mad at me—though I might have left out some details—and that A.J. and Alex had gotten into a physical fight.
“You punched Alex for talking shit about Logan?” My dad frowned at A.J.
A.J. nervously nodded.
“Pound it.” My dad held out his fist.
A.J. laughed and bumped fists with my dad.
“What?” My dad frowned at my disapproving look. “The kid’s a dick sometimes.”
We all didn’t stop laughing for a very long time. After mom served us dessert—my favorite chocolate mousse cannolis from Trattoria—she told us to make ourselves scarce so she could spend time with my dad. Of course, she was just giving us an excuse to go be teenagers without them interfering, but it was nice. The whole evening had been amazing. And I never wanted it to end.
“Emma Roberts is hot.” A.J. stated blandly as we watched the laptop screen.
I turned my head to frown at him.
“What? So’s Colton Haynes.” He smiled.
“I just forget sometimes that you’re bisexual I guess.” I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Well, you’re hotter than both of them put together.” He waggled his eyebrows and before I could react he was licking the side of my face.
“AHHH!” I screamed and wiped at my face.
We started wrestling playfully and I finally got him pinned. So, of course, I licked the side of his face. A.J. laughed loudly and pulled me into him so that he could kiss me. Life was good.
“BUBBA!” Katie came running into my room.
A.J. and I disentangled ourselves and sat up, still laughing.
“What’s going on, Katie bug?” I asked.
“Mom said your friend is here!” She announced loudly. “I don’t know him!”
I turned to A.J. and he shrugged as I frowned at him.
“Okay.” I bounced to the edge of the bed and stood up. “Why don’t you hang out with A.J.?”
A.J. found something kid friendly on Netflix and patted the bed beside him. Katie squealed with delight and jumped up on the bed to sit beside him. Seeing my boyfriend be so unbothered by Katie again made my heart overflow. As I left my room, Katie was telling A.J. about giraffes again as Netflix played. I made my way down the stairs, a jaunty spring in my step. When I rounded the wall where I could see the living room below, my mom was standing there with Alex. He looked worried and she looked confused.
“What do you want?” I hissed at him.
“Be nice.” My mom chastised me.
But, she didn’t stick around. She headed back towards the kitchen. I came down the last few stairs
, glaring at him.
“Look, man, we need to talk.” Alex sighed.
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” I folded my arms over my chest.
“Well, I have a lot to say to you, so if you’d just listen, that’d be great.” He snapped back.
I glared at him, wondering if I wanted to hear anything he had to say about anything. Finally, I sighed and let my arms drop.
“Fine.” I jerked my head towards the front door. “Outside.”
“Okay.”
We exited the house together and I shut the door behind me, unsure if being alone with Alex was the best thing for either of us. I didn’t know if he was planning to start a fight—or if I wouldn’t start one myself. It might have been best if we talked under the supervision of, well, anyone. Just in case things got physical or out of hand. Alex turned to me on the porch and sighed, his eyes practically rolling into the back of his head before he looked directly at me. I just frowned at him.
“Look, I’m sorry.” He tossed his hands up. “Okay?”
I just looked at him.
“I’m sorry?” He repeated.
“Sure doesn’t sound like you’re sorry.” I snorted. “Sounds like you’re apologizing because Cooper has been giving you shit for being an unbelievably unforgivable dick.”
Alex glared at me.
“I mean, what is it?” I asked. “Cooper not giving you smooches anymore because you’ve ruined two of his friendships? That’s no reason to apologize.”
“Fuck you, Marshall.”
“Nice seeing you, Alex.” I turned towards the door.
“Oh, just wait.” Alex growled, the pain at having to put his ego in check apparent in his tone. “God.”
“Did Cooper tell you that you had to come apologize or something?” I asked as I turned to him. “Because fuck him, too.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“A little.” I nodded. “Yeah. I think I do a little.”
“He didn’t do anything to you.” Alex said.
“He’s been making excuses for you and making apologies for you instead of just kicking your sanctimonious ass.” I jabbed a finger at him. “He’s cared more about being your boyfriend than doing the right thing.”
