The Understatement of the Year

by Sarina Bowen

  Ugh. I couldn’t even look up at my mom. She just stood there, silent, listening to Rikker and I have this disagreement. Walking into Capri’s with Rikker at my side wasn’t something I wanted to do. But I couldn’t ask him to stay away from the we-just-clinched-the-conference party, either. I was a jackass. But I wasn’t that big of a jackass.

  “We'll both go,” I said finally.

  Rikker’s smile lit up his whole face. “Get your jacket.”

  I’m not proud of the way that I broke into the cold sweats as Rikker pushed the door open and stepped inside. Daft Punk was playing on the sound system, but the beat was drowned out by one of the Capri brothers’ voices calling “pie number thirty-seven!” over the intercom.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly. But the room did not go absolutely silent when Rikker and I walked into that place together. Nobody turned to point and stare. The ground did not drop out from under my feet and swallow me up.

  Rikker was on to me, of course. He knew me too well. So, after we passed the pizza counter, he paused in the doorway to our usual room to talk to Orson. Without a glance in my direction, he let me pass by, working my way toward the three or four tables the hockey team had commandeered.

  “Hey!” Hartley crowed. “Does anybody recognize this guy? He looks vaguely familiar.”

  “He needs a glass,” someone said.

  There was an open seat at Bridger McCaulley’s table, and so I slid in next to his eight-year-old sister, Lucy. “Hi there,” I said to her.

  “Hi Graham. I thought you were hurt.” Her freckled face tilted up toward mine, her eyes scanning me for injuries.

  “My head was injured, and it’s not done healing,” I told her. “Still hurts.”

  “Looks the same, though,” she said, setting down the crust of her pizza.

  “Good to know,” I told her, and Bridger laughed.

  Someone poured me a beer, and I relaxed a little bit. How many times had I sat here like this, listening to the evening’s latest smack talk? A hundred? Two hundred? I’d missed this. I sipped my beer, soaking up the sound of my teammates’ arguments and laughter.

  Bridger and Lucy went home, but Bella took the empty seat instead. “Hi, Sweetie,” she said, teasing a straw wrapper around her finger. “You look a little better than the last time I saw you.”

  I fiddled with my beer glass. “That’s because the last time you saw me was not so recently.”

  She popped a hand under her chin. “Your mom is here.”

  “So?”

  Her green eyes rose to meet mine. But her voice dropped so low I could barely hear her. “It’s hard for me, okay?” It was just five words. But they said a lot.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. And it was the truth. I’d basically lost my best friend, and there was nothing to be done about it. I’d spent whole years of my life wishing that I could be attracted to Bella, or any other girl. But it just wasn’t there.

  Still, I wanted to explain myself. “The reason we stopped…” I cleared my throat.

  “…Fucking,” Bella prompted.

  I sighed. “The reason we stopped, is because I was a mess.”

  Her eyes grew shiny. “And you knew I was hung up on you?”

  I gave my head such a hard shake that it actually hurt. “No. I didn’t know that at all. But I cared about you. You’re just about my favorite person at Harkness. And even though I kept hoping I could change, I didn’t want to keep dragging you through my little charade.”

  Her eyes dropped to the tabletop. “I was pretty far gone already.”

  I covered both her hands with mine, and squeezed. “Seriously, Bella. If I was into girls, you’d be the only one for me.”

  “Don’t make me cry, you dick,” she said, wrestling a hand from mine to wipe her eyes. But she gave me a shaky smile then.

  “Fine,” I told her. “But come over here and sit next to me. For old times’ sake.”

  Wearing a grudging expression, Bella maneuvered around the table to sit next to me. And then the other side of the booth was taken up by Pepé and Frenchie, who told us a story about getting locked out of their hotel room at Colgate.

  I didn’t say much all night. The music made my head hurt, and I nursed my beer like somebody’s grandmother. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I was happy just sitting there letting the game stats and the smack talk roll over me. Rikker was right that I’d been ducking this. I’d been afraid to look my teammates in the face, because I didn’t know what would look back at me.

  But I did it, and nobody died. There were a few curious glances coming my way. But it was hard to say whether those were the result of speculation about my head injury or speculation about my sex life.

  Rikker stayed away from me, which was easy enough to do when there were three-dozen people in the mix. I caught him glancing at me once, probably checking to make sure that I was doing all right. Busted, he actually winked and then turned back to the conversation he was having with Trevi.

  I watched Rikker for a while then, forgetting to care whether anyone saw. The easy set of his muscular shoulders was something I always noticed about him. He moved like a man who was comfortable in his body. And that didn’t change whether he was walking naked across the bedroom toward me, or standing in a bar with his teammates. I was attracted to it, and I envied it. All at the same time.

  Tonight it was almost possible to be all the parts of me at once. The part that loved Rikker, and the part that insisted on being the same old Michael Graham.

  I started to get really drowsy around ten, so I said my goodbyes. Then I walked outside and texted Rikker. I’m out front. Wait 4 U or go home?

  A minute later, he answered me by coming out the front door. We both said “hey,” at exactly the same time.

  Rikker grinned. “The jinx machine is out of order. Please put in another quarter.” Turning toward College Street, we headed into the night. “Was it okay?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.” Then, after verifying that we were alone, I grabbed his hand. Bringing it up to my lips, I kissed his knuckles before dropping his hand again. “Thank you,” I said, my voice rough.

  “No sweat.” I couldn’t tell from his voice, but I’d probably stunned him with even that miserly show of affection.

  When we approached the turnoff to Bank Street, and Rikker’s dorm, I went even further. “Come home with me?”

  He followed, wordlessly. Before, I’d never said it out loud. And we’d never walked into Beaumont together.

  I hoped he knew that I was trying.

  We were both awfully quiet on the way back to my room. I opened the door, and he stepped inside. Once it was closed and locked behind us, I put my arms around him. For a long minute we just stood there, holding each other.

  “You were brave tonight,” he whispered.

  “Brave is driving a tank in Afghanistan,” I argued quietly. “Brave is stealing the puck from a Red Wings defenseman.”

  He chuckled into my ear. “Kiss me, moron.”

  Pushing him back against the door, I did what he asked. Lowering my mouth onto his willing one, I kept it soft, kissing him slowly. He was eager, opening up for me, inviting me in. Our tongues tangled together, and he made a needy noise in the back of his throat.

  But I receded, gentling the kiss, slowing it down again. Whenever we had sex, I was always the desperate, greedy one. Tonight I wanted to give him something else. Something sweet. I let my hands wander his ass while we kissed. And pretty soon I had him growling into my mouth, his hips pressing into mine.

  “Let’s have you in my bed,” I demanded.

  “Now who’s bossy?” he panted. As he crossed the room, Rikker stripped off his jacket and his T-shirt.

  I watched with greedy eyes. Every since I could remember wanting anyone, I’d wanted him. I never had a choice in the matter. There was never a moment when I said, “okay, I’ve decided to choose Rikker over the entire female population.” In fact, I’d wasted a whole lot of time tr
ying not to want him. But the desire I carried for him came from someplace deep. When his hands moved down to unzip his fly, I watched the muscles flex in his back. And I wanted to run my fingers over everything I saw.

  My desire for him was there whether I wanted it or not. And if I could figure out how to just own up to it, maybe I could get some peace.

  Naked, Rikker climbed onto my bed. He propped his head on an arm and waited for me to follow.

  So I shook off my reverie and began shedding clothes. The jacket fell by the door. The t-shirt was next. He watched me with the same hungry expression that I probably wore. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve it, either.

  I dropped my jeans and boxers in one go. Rikker licked his lips, then. And man did that light me up. It was all I could do to keep calm. Instead of throwing myself at him, I slid onto the bed, gave his shoulder a nudge and pushed Rik onto his back. He reached up to put his arms around me, but I took his wrists in my hands and pinned them to the bed. “Just hold still,” I whispered.

  His hips twitched beneath me. “If you insist.”

  “I do.” Dropping my head into his neck, I kissed the path his evening whiskers had made. The scrape of his stubble against my lips was a turn-on. There was really no way I could ever go back to sleeping with women, and pretending to like it. I had a pang of remorse for the girls I’d talked into my bed these past few years. They didn’t know that they had bit parts in the melodrama of my sexual confusion.

  But my desire for Rikker was as clear as the day was long. His hard body beneath my hips was everything I wanted. Following the dark outline of his happy trail down his chest, I released his wrists. Kissing lower, I paused to lay my face on his flat belly. I just paused there, nuzzling him. With one hand, I traced the skin from his rib cage down past his hipbone. Mine, I thought. It wasn’t often that I allowed myself to think possessive thoughts about him. I didn’t deserve to. Tonight, at least, I had him all to myself.

  “Mmm,” he said, running a hand over my hair. A couple of inches from my face, his cock stood at attention. I stuck out my tongue, just grazing the tip of it, and his stomach tightened beneath me as I heard him sucking in air.

  I inched closer, just teasing him with glancing kisses. Each touch bought me another gasp or twitch of anticipation.

  After making him suffer for a minute or two, I picked my head up, opened my mouth and sucked him down.

  “Oh baby, yes,” he panted. He tried to arch off the bed, but I wasn’t having it. Just for fun, I pinned his hips down and worked him at my own speed. And my speed was slow. I took long, loving strokes, swirling my tongue around the head of him. “Ahhhh,” he moaned, and it turned into a chuckle. He rose up on his elbows for a better view.

  Holding his eyes, I sucked him down again. “You’re killing me, and you like it,” he complained.

  “Mmmmm hmmmm,” I hummed around him.

  “Arrrgh,” he panted, dropping his head backward.

  Releasing him, I let up on his hips. “So give it to me,” I ordered.

  He didn’t wait for another invitation. Rikker jacked his hips up off the bed, pumping into my mouth. Happier than I’d been in weeks, I made my boyfriend lose his mind.

  Afterward, there was a lot more kissing, and a lot of holding each other. I was feeling pleased with myself, and Rikker was pretty pleased with me. So I asked him a question that had been on my mind many times before. “Rik?”

  “Yeah?” he said, sucking on my ear lobe.

  “Would you ever let me top you?”

  “Sure,” he said, kissing my neck.

  The quick answer surprised me. I rose up to look at him. “Really?”

  His brown eyes were soft and lazy. “All you have to do is ask, G. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t give you if you asked.”

  All that generosity made me feel like a heel. “Don’t know why you should,” I muttered, dropping back onto the pillow we were sharing.

  But now it was his turn to pull back and take a look at me. “You’ve got to stop with that,” he said, his voice low and serious.

  “With what?”

  “You know what I mean. With always beating yourself up over the past. Something happened a long time ago that you regret. And you’re still dragging that around with you. Set that shit down, man.”

  I sighed. It sounded nice the way he put it. But it wasn’t just one bad decision I’d made. I had a perfect record for torturing all the people who loved me. Including him. Especially him.

  “I’m not kidding,” Rikker pressed. “You keep that up, and it won’t work out between us.”

  My heart squeezed with fear. “Why not?” I didn’t like the plaintive sound of my voice. So vulnerable.

  “Because you’ll wreck it. You have to be able to say what you need, just like I do. It doesn’t work any other way. I don’t want to always have to guess what you want from me.”

  “That shit that happened five years ago…”

  “Six,” Rikker corrected.

  “Five, six, whatever. It doesn’t matter if I let it go, because that’s not the only problem.”

  “What is, then?”

  Damn. It. See, one of the benefits of never, ever having a girlfriend was that I never had to Talk About the Relationship. Guys in the locker room always got super pissy whenever the Big Conversations happened. And now I was having one of those too, and I didn’t even have a clue how to do it.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, you’re only going to leave me, eventually. Because I can’t be like you. I can’t be out. I can’t talk to a reporter, or tell Big-D to go fuck himself. So when you finally get sick of being with a guy who won’t even make eye contact in the locker room, I’m history anyway. I know this. So how in the hell do you expect me to stop feeling bad about that shit? It’s bad, and if I pretend it isn’t, that’s a lie.”

  After a beat, Rikker put both hands over his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start with all that.”

  “You don’t have to start anywhere. I didn’t want to talk about it in the first place. But all those things are true. And I don’t have a clue why you’re still here.”

  His hands slid up to his forehead, revealing his eyes. “You don’t?”

  I shook my head, which had just begun to throb.

  With a look of utter exasperation, he sat up. “Because I love you, you stupid fuck. And I always have. It’s not always so convenient, loving you. But when you climb out of that thick blond head of yours for a few minutes, you’re a hell of a lot of fun. And you’re loyal, too, in that tortured way of yours.”

  It was a crazy ass speech. And not even a little bit romantic. But even so, my eyes welled.

  “Aw hell, G!” Rikker slid back down and put his head on my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that right.”

  “You said it fine.” I palmed my eyes, wiping the tears out and praying there wouldn’t be more.

  “I know you don’t believe me. But I think that everything is going to get easier for you.”

  “Are you giving me an It Gets Better speech?”

  He kissed my chin. “Sort of. Yes, actually. Because I know how you don’t want to change the way people look at you. And that’s not crazy. But you’ve only got one year left in the locker room, right? One year left to be the D-squad enforcer, and to beat on your chest and mow down the enemy. And then you’re moving on to grad school or a job or whatever. College is great, but there isn’t any privacy. After this, it just gets easier.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” I asked in a small voice.

  “It has to, G. You told your parents. Every time you move a person into the truth column, breathing gets a little easier, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you talk to Hartley tonight?” Rikker asked suddenly.

  “Sure.”

  “He knows.”

  I stopped breathing. “How?”

  Rik shrugged. “The hospital. He went back there into your room and tried to calm you down. But you just kept ask
ing him where I was. And… I can’t explain it. I just saw the moment he figured it out. And then when your mom showed up she made a big deal about how we played hockey together in eighth grade.”

  “Ugh.” I felt a little sick just picturing that.

  Rikker picked up his head to look at me. “No, G. Not ugh. You need to stop thinking that way, for your own sanity. I mean, Hartley is good to me. And also to you. He knows, and just doesn’t care.”

  “He is good to you. And he isn’t just phoning it in.” But I was just so conditioned to hold on to my secret, I couldn’t even conceive of a day when I didn’t care who knew.

  “That’s right. He’s a guy who doesn’t care who you get naked with. He doesn’t give a damn what people think. That’s a real man right there. And a real friend. You don’t have to wonder how he’d treat you if he knew. Because you already have the answer.”

  I closed my eyes, exhausted. “It’s just so hard for me to get there.”

  “I know,” Rikker said. “The thing is, each new person who learns the truth lets you breathe a little easier. And then the one after that is a little easier. And so on.”

  It almost sounded possible. You know. For someone who wasn’t me.

  We stopped talking for a little while. Rikker eased himself back into the bed. He rolled toward me, and I rolled away, so that he was spooning me. And it felt ridiculously good.

  “There’s one thing I wish you could do for me,” he said eventually.

  “What’s that?”

  “Say the word.”

  “What word?”

  Rikker sighed. “The big scary g-word.”

  Oh. “Why do you want me to?”

  “I’m gay, Graham. Or queer, if you like that word better. Whatever. I’m attracted to guys. You won’t say that out loud, will you? I’ll bet you didn’t even say the word to your mother when you told her. Did you?”

  “No,” I told the pillow. He was right. I’d only said that Rikker was not just my friend.

  “It’s like… you want to be able to tell people you’re straight, for some reason. Like gay isn’t good enough for you. Like it’s second class. Which makes me second class.”

  I rolled over to face him. “There’s nothing second class about you. I think more highly of you than anyone I know.”