Fall through Spring

by Amy Lane

  “Who takes that shit seriously,” Dane agreed. When he’d worked at the restaurant, he and his friends used to try to find the worst beer possible to give each other for Christmas.

  “Well, it was the only gift he got that year, and I didn’t know until recently. Because I’m an asshole.”

  Dane sucked air in through his teeth. “But everybody has somebody,” he said, not caring that he sounded like an old song.

  “No,” Clay said. “No. Everybody doesn’t have somebody. So here I am, just… just weird about my family, letting every little thing they say get to me in a big way. And Skipper’s got nobody, and he’s still beating me at life.”

  “Skipper’s got Richie,” Dane said. “And it’s not a competition,” he added fiercely. He remembered his conversation with Carpenter’s mom and got it, finally. “That’s the bullshit you’re having trouble with. There’s no beating someone at life. There’s just living your life the best you can. You can. I think you’re doing okay, man. I really do.”

  Clay let out a breath. “Thanks, Dane. Seriously. Thanks for coming and playing with the kids and charming the socks off of my mom—”

  “I sort of wish….” Oh no. He wasn’t going to say it. He couldn’t. “I sort of wish, you know, she’d seen me as… well, a viable candidate for her little boy.”

  Apparently, he could.

  “Well, she doesn’t know everything about me,” Clay said softly. “I’d have to tell her first. You know. That it was a possibility.”

  “She’d be okay with it?” And oh, this meant more to Dane than he could possibly say.

  “I hope so. I brought Skip over—they didn’t bat an eyelash.”

  “Well, it’s different when it’s your own kid,” Dane said, although his own parents had been more than supportive. Considering what Mason and his wayward mouth had put them all through, they were the patron saints for PFLAG.

  “I’m not that worried.” Clay shrugged. To Dane’s dismay, he’d already gotten off 65 and was heading toward Fair Oaks through Roseville. It was late enough at night that traffic was minimal, and Dane knew they’d be at his house in a matter of minutes.

  “Worried about what?” Dane asked. C’mon, man. Give me hope. Give me hope. Give me hope.

  “That if I came out as bi, my folks would have an issue. I’m kind of sure they’d be fine with it. I mean, I think they’d rather I be flamingly gay and successful than fat and working IT.”

  Dane grunted, happy and appalled. “Can’t they just be happy with you as you are?” he asked, a note of desperation in his voice.

  “No,” Clay said, so no-bullshit that Dane was forced to reevaluate his entire afternoon in that big elegant house with a mom who wouldn’t let you drool on the carpet when you’d had a big day and had fallen asleep.

  “You might be right,” Dane said on a sigh. “But I’m happy with who you are. Doesn’t that count?” He was so warm—and he was right there.

  Clay’s half smile did strange things to Dane’s stomach. “It’s like a Christmas present in July,” he said.

  Damn.

  All else was forgotten. “That’s impressive,” he said, glowing a little.

  “Not nearly as impressive as how much I want a hamburger right now.”

  Dane thought about it. Dinner had been delicious—vegan fare had been a big seller when he’d done restaurant work in the Bay Area. But yeah, he was hungry again.

  “I could eat,” he admitted. “How about a chicken sandwich instead? That way you won’t feel guilty.”

  “Moderation,” Clay grunted. “Compromise. That’s some tricky thinking there, Dane Hayes.”

  “I do my best, Clay Carpenter. Find the nearest fast-food drive-thru, and let’s moderately pig out.” He paused. “And don’t forget the cookies.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Anything for you.”

  And it was true too. Anything. Dane had dragged his sorry ass out of bed to be with Clay Carpenter when he’d been sure he’d never emerge again. But Clay had gotten him out of his abyss of self-doubt, into the world of perspective again.

  Dane would die for him.

  They pulled up into Dane’s driveway, and Clay killed the engine, allowing some of the foggy cold of February to seep into the car. The river sat nearby, often trickling through a tributary in the ravine behind Mason’s graceful house with the stucco arches and two-story tiled roof. For a moment, the air was filled with the inelegant rustle of fast-food wrappers and the munching of sandwiches, both of them quiet and tired and content just to be in the same space.

  Clay swallowed and wiped his mouth, then threw half of his sandwich back into the bag before he turned slightly in his seat. “Tell me about this morning,” he said softly.

  Dane set his sandwich down. “Nothing to tell. Hit a rough patch, you know….”

  Clay shook his head, his eyes bright. “I dragged my fat ass all over the soccer field in front of those kids—”

  “You’re not fat,” Dane said staunchly.

  “Every time you say that, I become convinced that you don’t really see me. That you see some idealized version of me. I’m twice the weight of Richie Scoggins—twice another human being. Don’t bullshit me, Dane. Not about any of this. What happened?”

  Dane felt his eyes burn. Oh, sneaky, sneaky Clay. Talking about his problems, making Dane forget how badly the day had started, about being curled up in a ball and moaning to Mason about how he’d never get out of bed again.

  “I… you know. Last night. I just—like any social situation, I replayed it in my head again and again, and the smallest, dumbest things just get bigger and bigger until I’m a freak who doesn’t deserve to be around normal people.”

  Clay’s look of concern—slightly bitten lip, furrowed brow, shadowed eyes—actually made Dane’s chest swell and his breath come short. For him. That look was for him.

  “School was super busy?”

  Dane looked away. It was, but that wasn’t why he’d neglected his meds. “It’s just not fair,” he complained bitterly. “I feel… indebted to a handful of chemicals. Like I couldn’t live my life without them.”

  “You can’t,” Clay said brutally.

  “But that’s not fair!”

  Clay just let his words ring there in the middle of the car. So Dane took a deep breath and went on.

  “I’m living at home at thirty. I mean, I’m living with my brother, but that’s because my parents are getting older and I’m exhausting them. If I didn’t have… have these people in my life, I’d be in a care center, or homeless—I know this, Clay. I know this. And I’m so mad. My family has been nothing but awesome. Like, fantastic and amazing. What did they do to deserve to have me hanging around their necks like a millstone? Just once… I mean, wouldn’t it be great if I could be self-sufficient? If I wasn’t just a needy whiny bitch who falls apart without a handful of pills that….” And this was the frustrating thing. “That I can’t even seem to remember to take?”

  Clay sighed and—oh God—took Dane’s bony, chilled hand into his big warm paw. The shivers that had started as Dane bared his soul eased up as that touch warmed him all over.

  “My sister never buys cookies,” Clay said out of the blue. “Doesn’t bake them either.”

  Dane refrained from saying that’s because no cookie would stay with her and any self-respecting cookie would run screaming into the night, but he thought that might be a little harsh. So instead, he settled for “So?”

  “So, when I was a kid, my best friends—their mom—baked cookies all the time. They actually had batches of cookies go stale on them. Can you imagine that?”

  “Baking cookies?” For a moment, Dane thought he must actually be crazy.

  “No. Having them go stale. Not eating every cookie that was in the house, as fast as you can, because cookies are a rare and wonderful thing and you never know when you’re going to get a chance for another one.”

  Before his diagnosis, Dane used to let entire refrigerators
full of food go to rot because eating was just the last damned thing on his mind.

  “Uh, yes? I mean… cookies. They’re great but—”

  Clay shook his head. “But I will never let a box of cookies go stale in my house. That’s why I buy them for everybody else but not myself. It’s not a right now thing. It’s a forever thing. If I want to catch that ball or follow that friend across the mall—” He’d been frequently out of breath that day. “—or not die at forty-five because my body just can’t take it anymore, I can never buy cookies. Do you understand? I am a slave to them. To potato chips. To white bread. There is no ‘I’ll just eat one cookie and save the rest for later’ for me. I will make the batch of cookies, eat a few, and give the rest away—forever.”

  Dane swallowed.

  “It’s not fair,” Carpenter said. “People all over the place can buy cookies and potato chips. They can get coffee without a truckload of cream. But I’m compelled to eat them all. There’s a thing inside me that’s broken. In my head. It tells me there are no half measures here. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Dane rasped. “So why—”

  “Sure, I could ignore it. I had to work to eat half a chicken sandwich and one cookie. I had to practice that in my head sixty thousand times in the drive-thru so it didn’t come out a double-quarter and three cookies with a shake. If I stop thinking that way, in three months, I wouldn’t be able to walk across the parking lot. I couldn’t fit in the car. This isn’t heroin, where I just don’t have it around. This is fuel—I need to eat. It’s important for my body’s function. And my other alternative is to never eat another cookie, ever. Are you hearing me?”

  And Dane couldn’t even pretend to fight it anymore. He clung to Carpenter’s hand like a lifeline. “Yeah.”

  “So you’re a slave to your body chemistry. What happens if you don’t take the meds?”

  Dane closed his eyes. “Well, when it was really bad, I did a demolition job on my dorm room, and then my boyfriend’s house. I kind of spray-painted his apartment black.” He shuddered. “Mason had to pick me up physically and haul me to the psych ward. They restrained me and shoved antipsychotics in my veins.”

  Carpenter moaned low and painfully. “And then you’re really held captive, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Dane remembered that moment. Helpless. He’d been utterly helpless. They’d given him a drip of medication until he’d balanced out enough to remember why being in control was good.

  Clay had been staring at the puzzle of their fingers for the past couple of sentences. Now he turned toward Dane as if he couldn’t help himself. “So you see? We either control it, or it destroys us. That’s how it has to work, you understand?”

  “Yeah,” Dane said, wiping under his eyes with the back of his hand. “But… but what do I get out of sanity? More work? You know, I told Mom and Dad and Mason I was going into the veterinary science program. Do you know I’m still in the prelim? I have another year of science before I even treat an animal. And then two years of the actual program. I mean, I’m volunteering in the shelters now, it’s part of the requirements, but… but this? This is why I’m taking my meds?”

  “No,” Carpenter said. He let go of Dane’s hand and reached out and cupped Dane’s chin in his fingers. For a moment, Dane wondered if he’d actually done it, had his psychotic break and gone off the deep end.

  “What—then why?” he desperately tried to stay on subject.

  Clay moved closer, searching his eyes, close enough that Dane could feel Clay’s breath against his lips. A small smile graced Clay Carpenter’s mouth, and he brushed their lips together almost too gently for Dane to feel.

  And then he did it again, a little harder this time.

  And then again, hard enough for Dane to part his mouth, welcome Clay’s questing tongue, to groan and grip Clay’s shoulders, urging him closer. Dane moaned, not from pain, and pushed forward, surprised and hurt when Clay put his hands flat on Dane’s chest and pushed back.

  “What?” he panted. “What? Why are we stopping?”

  “Because it’s our first kiss, and I’m not doing the rest of this in the front seat of my Ford!” Clay’s laugh invited Dane in on the joke, but Dane’s entire body was heated, kicked into overdrive, needing more.

  “That’s it? We can go into my house. Mason won’t care—”

  Clay shook his head and put two fingers on Dane’s mouth. “Take your meds tonight,” he whispered. “And tomorrow morning. See me for who I really am. If I know you know who you’re kissing, know me for all my flaws and fuckups and not for the wrong chemicals surging through your brain—”

  “That’s insulting.” Dane pouted.

  “That’s my line,” Clay said, his voice shaking. “Because you are special to me, and I think I’m special to you. And I don’t want you to disappear because we hook up and suddenly you’re terrified you did or said something wrong. If I’m your friend, you know anything is forgivable. Being lovers is harder. Let’s get our shit sorted first.”

  Augh! He was right! How could he be right? “Are you sure this isn’t just because I’d be your first guy?” Dane asked, not sure if he’d be disappointed or excited if this was the real reason.

  Clay pinned him with hurt brown eyes. “I am dying to see what being with my first guy is like,” he said, his voice raw. “But I’ve got friends. I’ve got you. Neither of us is going to lose the us we’ve been building because I can’t keep it in my pants while I’m still too fat to even see it.”

  Dane’s brain broke. “You can too see it,” he said, looking at Carpenter’s body and trying to figure out the line of sight.

  “I couldn’t a month ago,” Clay said irritably. “Now focus. I want to be a better man for you—”

  “Wasn’t that—”

  “Yes, it was a movie. But it’s still a good reason. And I want you to see me as the man I am.”

  Dane let out a breath and told his traitorous body to stand down. When it became clear that Clay wasn’t going to initiate another kiss, Dane grimaced. “I see you for who you are,” he muttered. “But you want me on my meds so we don’t self-destruct. I can respect that.” His lips tingled. “One more? Just… just like a sweet kiss good night? Without all of the arguing afterwards?”

  Clay’s smile, soft in the moonlight, warmed even his fingers and toes in the cold of the SUV.

  “Night, Dane,” he murmured. “Text me in the morning. Maybe we can game.”

  This kiss was the sweet rasp of skin on skin, their mingled breaths, starlight and darkness, Clay’s hand on his cheek.

  Their tongues tangled, tasting, and Clay pulled back, cupping his chin, his neck, rubbing his thumb down Dane’s jawline.

  One more hard press of lips and Dane slid out of the SUV and slammed the door.

  It was time to do the hard work, to do the baking that would get them the big cookie that wouldn’t make anybody fat.

  Hard Line to Walk

  HOW’S YOUR leg?

  Clay looked at the text and grimaced. Infected. How’s your brain?

  Full of spiders. Fuck.

  It had been a little over two weeks since the kiss in Clay’s vehicle. Two weeks of gaming and talking and being them, and the whole time, Clay’s brain had been buzzing with “I kissed a guy! It was awesome! He’s great! I want to do it again!”

  But Dane was having problems. He’d needed two phone calls to talk him down in the past two weeks, and Mason had texted Clay, frantic, asking if Dane had talked to him about whether or not he needed to shift his meds. Because he’d been staying up too late, getting up too early, laughing to himself, and missing his meds by the week, and Mason knew it shouldn’t be this hard.

  In the meantime, they’d been helping Terry Jefferson fix his mother’s house.

  If Clay had thought he’d been educated about how people who weren’t rich lived, putting on Teflon work gloves and cleaning out Jefferson’s riotous and disgusting backyard had been an eye-opener, that was for sure. But also ed
ucating had been the way Mason, who was as bourgeoisie a guy as Clay had ever seen, had simply accepted the dead cats and the piles of dog shit and the blackberry bushes without judgment. The mess had started before Terry had been born. They were just both fixing it so Terry could leave his mother’s house and not feel indebted.

  Unfortunately, the education had come with a Weedwacker through a pile of old aquarium pebbles, and Carpenter had essentially been shot with the world’s filthiest BB gun.

  Dane had helped him clean out the wound, his hands warm and efficient over Clay’s skin. They’d been surrounded by trash, by the other guys on the soccer team all swearing like sailors, and for a moment, it had just been them, Dane’s eyes shadowed with insomnia and pain but still yearning.

  Clay had wanted to kiss him then, so badly. But that hadn’t been the place, and they’d both known it.

  That had been a week ago, and one of those terrible phone calls, in which Dane was losing his shit on the other end of the line while Clay talked him down, had happened in the middle of that week.

  But Clay would keep answering his phone, his text, his game unit, just to know Dane was on the other side.

  He looked at Skipper at the desk across from him, playing with the squishy brain ball that was his favorite and deep into geek talk with some poor soul on the other end of the line who probably just wanted to turn their computer off again and on again and hope that did the trick. He could feel the tension throbbing from the other end of his phone.

  He hit the Out-of-Service light that signaled he was on break and picked up his cell phone.

  “What kind of spiders?” he asked, keeping his voice light. “The weird psychedelic ones that freak me out or your basic garden variety.”

  “They all suck,” Dane sobbed, and Clay’s heart shriveled in his chest.

  Clay kept his voice calm. “Well, what are they doing in your head?” he sallied gently. “Come on, what do we do?”