by Seth King
“Fuck buddies who caress each other,” he smiles after a minute. “I have to say, this is a new one for me.”
“Hey,” I laugh, “we already know we’re gonna get laid in the end, so who cares?”
He gets a little sad then. “Yeah. Right.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Hey, turn on SportsCenter, I want to see where Templeton went in the trade.”
I groan and reach for the remote. “Fine, fine…”
But something strange happens that night: we don’t let go of each other. In fact, I fall asleep in his embrace, like we’re old married people or something. Who are these people we are becoming? And more importantly, why do I love it so much? Are we already losing sight of the rules we made for each other? Because if we don’t have real, true guidelines here, things could go seriously off the rails…
Or maybe, just maybe, they already are.
Nathan Sykes
At lunch the next afternoon, we’re all greeting the groom’s family, who just touched down in a private jet from Raleigh. His mom, blonde and pale and icy, is making the rounds when she gives me a kiss and then asks me if I’ve fallen in love.
“What?” I ask, almost spitting out my wine.
“You’re positively glowing, honey. What’s her name?” she asks with surprisingly dark, shrewd eyes.
“Hey,” says Lane in that bellicose voice of his. “Listen to this. He’s been running off with Lindemann every chance he gets, maybe they’re double dating some island chicks, and they don’t wanna share the love?”
“I’m pretty single,” I say to end the conversation – but I know she doesn’t believe me.
I turn my glare to Lane. He comes off as a parody of every bad Southern stereotype rolled into one, except he’s real: he’s got a beer belly that can’t be contained by his starched suits and bow ties, his skin is constantly ruddy from his diet of liquor and golf course sunlight, and he’s almost always slapping someone on the back and saying something obnoxious (and quite possibly offensive).
Today, the server is being pulled in ten different directions by our demanding and drunken crowd as they order elaborate drinks and scream and yell and shout at each other. Of course, Lane is loudest. Ugh, what a bunch of pushy assholes. I’m halfway considering handing my server a twenty-dollar bill for the hell of it when I see Lane call her over – but he doesn’t even speak to her, he whistles at her. My blood pressure spikes as she comes over. Lane rests his hand on her arm in a weird, possessive manner that she did not invite in any way. And when she finally escapes, he calls her “sweetie” in his loud, boisterous Charleston accent, like she was a little girl asking her grandfather for a Popsicle. Is this how women are treated every day? Because if so, I’m almost glad I was born with a penis…
Beau and I head back through the lobby after lunch, both rolling our eyes at the insane behavior at the meal. He draws all kinds of looks and stares, and I roll my eyes. We’re not even dating and yet I’m sick of this already. How would anyone deal with the self-esteem hit that being around him would bring? You’re always reminded that he’s the star, and you’re not. Or maybe he just makes me inoperably insecure for some reason?
“God,” I say soon, when we’re alone.
“What?”
“After certain things Lane kept saying, I’d be afraid you’d get freaked out and call off the pact. He’s just so…hetero.”
“Duuuude,” he laughs. “At this point, you couldn’t keep your dick away from me if you locked it in a cage. That thing you did to my balls yesterday…sheesh.”
I try not to blush. “That sounds painful, actually. Dick in a cage?”
“You have no idea – that’s why you just need to give it to me whenever I want it.”
“Beau?” I ask, when we’re changing into our workout clothes. “What do you like about hanging out with me?”
“You’re…funny,” he says soon, like he’s thinking about it for the first time. “In a morbid way. And you see things differently – you have a weird insight into things.” He pauses. “Hey, um…speaking of that, what do you like about being with me?”
“Well…your body is good, for one.” He slaps me lightly on the arm. “Hey! Wasn’t done yet. You’re always so…even-keeled, and it makes me feel calmer, too. I can never freak out around you, because you keep me down low. And obviously, you know everything about me and you never ran for the hills, so that helps, too.”
His eyes twinkle for a minute, then he looks away. “Well, I’m glad. Let’s go work out and tease the women in the gym with our slutty muscle shirts!”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
The text comes well after the workout, and just after Beau falls asleep cold next to me. He always was a good sleeper, much better than me, and I was always jealous about it. There aren’t many hells quite like staring at your dark ceiling for three hours while you pray for sleep to come and for your brain to turn off and stop torturing you…
Hey, my friend Trevor says. Just thought I had an obligation to show you this…
At first I do not believe the picture he has attached. It’s a screen shot of the girl who just dumped me, messaging Trevor on some dating app. The worst app of all, too – the app everyone knows is just for quick, cheap hookups. Really? We’ve been single for what – days, and she’s already sitting here messaging my friends? And she knew Trevor was my friend, too – we’ve all three hung out together!
Then I read the actual messages, and they are even worse.
Nope, she says in one, when Trevor asks her if she’s attached. Totally single, and have been for a long time. That’s why I’m on here, looking for someone, lolol!
This makes my blood boil. Really? She won’t even give me the dignity of naming me? She’s already erased our entire history? Really?!
First it makes me shiver with something I can’t pinpoint, then it makes me angry. Very angry. Stupid liar. She dumped me days ago, and she’s already wiped us from her memory.
But then I remember…I’m doing the same thing, too. Just not on an app…
In real life.
And when I think of Beau, suddenly this doesn’t even matter anymore. He’s like human Xanax. All the emotion just fades away as I look over at Beau, my Beau, who is hotter and smarter and generally more awesome than any of the losers involved in the situation I am fretting over. Why would I lose sleep over a faucet when I have Niagara Falls right next to me?
And so I don’t lose any sleep. I snuggle up against Beau’s back, wrap an arm around him, and sink peacefully into the darkness within minutes.
~
Before I know it I am being awoken by Beau reaching for my cock, which is fat and wet at the tip. It must be ten or eleven in the morning, which I hate, because sleeping in also means wasting half of your whole day. After a minute of letting him paw around, though, I push him off.
“Hey,” I say, sitting up groggily. “New rules. Can we do something besides hook up?”
He pauses. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I almost…”
“What?”
“I almost miss our friendship, that’s all. Trust me, I love the hookups, but what happened to doing normal stuff, too? I’m starting to feel a little…used.”
He sets his jaw, insistent about something. “You know what? Sure. Wanna kayak?”
“Kayak?”
“Yeah. We have a card for a free rental, and I’m craving some sun…”
“Sure. Good idea. I’ll follow you, I guess.”
We stop by the rental shack, and soon we are drifting out into the sea in a two-seater kayak, since they didn’t have anything else due to the lingering spring break crowds. It’s a brilliant blue day, the kind of day people write books about, and after we slice through the tiny, greenish-white waves, we are pushing out into the flat calm of the wide open ocean. It all works together to relax me more than I have been in months, maybe years. When did I become so high-strung, anyway?
“Sorry. Just…my mom, actually. I always miss her when, you know, like…big things are happening, I guess.”
Well, this is unexpected. And I didn’t even know I was a big thing. “Oh. Wanna talk about it?”
Beau hesitates. We have never really spoken about the death of his mother, soon after his parents’ divorce. It’s probably the only thing we’ve never spoken about, minus the time he told me about finding her body, right after the funeral. I understood that he needed his own time to shut down and break down, too – there was nothing I could say that would make it any better, or change it. His mom was dead in the ground, and I just had to step aside and let him deal with it.
I tried in the beginning, of course, but when doors go unopened and texts go unreturned, you eventually get the picture. So we let it go. But I know the basics. His parents were always much older – when they got married, his dad was over sixty and his mom was in her thirties. So everyone assumed Beau’s dad, who was in a wheelchair by the time Beau was in high school, might go at any time. So it was a total shock when his mom, a healthy, tennis-playing, gardening-loving brunette, filed for divorce and then just died out of nowhere, of a massive hemorrhagic stroke. Turned out so she was so stressed from taking care of her husband for so many years, her body just…quit on her one day. She thought she was getting a whole new life with her divorce – that never happened. Beau was the one who found her, actually. To my knowledge, I am the only one he has ever shared the story with, and I have never repeated it to anyone. But what I remember most is the haunting detail that their cat, Little, was napping atop her chest when he found her, and refused to leave even when the paramedics showed up and tried to shoo her away.
“It was a nightmare,” Beau finally says, his eyes on the horizon. I try not to notice his golden biceps in the Florida sun, but I can’t ignore them. Even in a moment like this. “Just a fucking nightmare. There’s nothing else to say. Every moment of it sucked.”
His nostrils flare. I watch and wait.
“It’s like…there’s a piece of me that’s gone forever now, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he continues. “And the worst thing is that she was healthy, she was happy. Everyone said ‘oh, it’s such a blessing that Jesus took her without suffering,’ but she was, like, fifty years old – that is not a blessing. We spoke on the phone that very morning – we got into a fight, actually. I was in a shitty mood, and I was totally cold and dismissive. So was she. I never saw her or said a word to her again. Alive, at least.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally tell him. “Sorry wouldn’t do anything.”
“I know,” he says. “And I never forgot you. You were the only one who treated me like a normal human in the period after that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Death is like a scarlet letter on your family’s door,” he sighs. “Everyone suddenly treats you like a helpless infant, or goes out of their way to ignore you because they don’t know what to say. But you were the only person who made it known that you were there, and then stepped aside until I was ready. You treated me like I was still…me. I’ll always remember that.”
“Wow. I had…no idea.”
“You were still right, though. What you said once about how you couldn’t help. Nothing changes it. Nothing makes it better. It’s like knowing you’re locked in a bad dream, but being totally unable to wake up.”
“Is it any better now?”
“Time dulls your feelings, but the feelings themselves never change,” he says soon. “It’s just…fury, black and huge. The best you can hope for is to forget about it for a day or two. But you will always remember it again. There will always be a void, and you’ll always notice. And now, on some level…I’m afraid of everyone else leaving, too. Why wouldn’t they? If the one person who was supposed to be there for me – if she left, why wouldn’t everyone else leave, too? My life had no rules or order anymore. For many reasons. I couldn’t even go to church…”
“Yeah. I remember. Stupid hypocrites.”
He swallows. “So. Maybe that’s why I’m so distant from people. Love triggers that same fear I felt at my mom’s funeral – that fear of being left there, of being the last person on Earth…so I avoided it altogether.”
“I will always be here,” I say quietly as the water laps at the sides of the kayak. “As a friend, as a brother, as a…whatever. Even after you don’t want me. I’ll be here, annoying you. You know that.”
His eyes meet mine. I jump a little. “That’s the problem,” he almost whispers. “Sometimes I’m afraid I might never want you gone.”
My breath catches. “But that doesn’t sound like a problem at all…”
He just stares at the horizon. I am not even in the water, but I am still drowning.
“You know what’s weird?” he asks soon. “I’ve never talked about this in-depth before. With anyone. Not even my therapist.”
“Maybe you should start letting things out a little more. It’s good for you.”
“I’ll try...”
I just stare into the waves for a while.
“Hey,” I ask. “Do you ever ask yourself why you’re even living the life you’re living, in the first place?”
“In what way?”
“Like, I wonder…how much of you was born, and how much was created?”
“I see your point.”
“Yeah, I just…more and more I realize how overbearing the South can be on people, especially with guys like Lane. He comes off like a factory product – I doubt he’s ever had an original thought in his mind, and instead it’s just a constant loop of whiskey and catcalls.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Yeah. So considering all that, maybe I’m not…me. Maybe I’m not…this. Maybe I don’t even know who I am. Maybe I’m just an amalgamation of everyone I’ve ever met before. You might be grieving, but at least you know who you are. I don’t even have an idea.”
“Jesus. What’s bringing on all this?”
“Don’t you wonder sometimes? Especially…lately?”
“Fine – of course,” he says soon. “Sometimes I feel like I’m just waking up, and everything before this was a nap. But when I look around…what am I going to be, if I’m not me?”
I just let the question hang.
“I guess that’s what adulthood is supposed to be, isn’t it?” I ask eventually. “Answering that question…”
After that we spend twenty minutes talking – about our hopes, our fears, our hobbies, the things that keep us up at night, the things that broke us and rebuilt us. It’s the best chat session we’ve had in years – I feel closer to him than ever. Shit, even if the whole sex thing falls away, I’m still so thankful for our friendship.
He pauses soon. “So…I’m guessing this isn’t the first time you’ve ever been attracted to a dude?” he asks out of nowhere.
“Um. How’d you know?”
“Just a hunch.”
“I can’t believe we never talked about it.”
“I can. Just think of Genaro…”
I groan. Genaro was a member of our fraternity at the College of Charleston who quietly “came out” during freshman year – and then was promptly black-listed. He disappeared, and because he was different, nobody missed him, or even really mentioned it. Including us.
“Actually,” he says, “my dad knew.”
“What?” I ask as a long stratus cloud blocks the sun.
“Yep. Wow, I’d totally forgotten about this! He found me watching gay porn in middle school. Walked right into the room when I was about to…you know…finish off.”
“What? You said you were always totally straight!”
“Once again, I said I was curious, obviously.”
“Curious…”
“Curious,” he repeats. “After that, a switch turned off. He didn’t look at me when he spoke, he didn’t even
acknowledge me when I walked into the room. Our relationship was dead a long time before he actually died.”
“God. And you think it was because of the porn?”
“I know it was. We were fine before that. He used to be…well, my dad. And then he wasn’t anymore.”
I can’t imagine any of his pain. He didn’t even get to find closure with his own dad before he died, too, five years ago. Just like his mom.
“I would never think any less of you for that,” I say eventually.
“I know you wouldn’t. You’re getting dick out of the equation now.”
I laugh and splash him.
“I’m so glad we came down here,” I tell him. “This is exactly what I needed. And the sex isn’t bad, either.”
He laughs, too, and we just listen to the birds and the sea. Driven by something I can’t name, I put my hand closer to his. He inches his closer, too, then pulls it away again.
“We can’t do this,” he spits out.
“Why not?”
“Because people could be on the shore, watching us.
“And? We’re just touching. And we can’t live in fear of that, anyway.”
“Nate, get real. It would change everything, it would make people talk before we’re ready to answer…there are real risks here.”
A wave of fear hits me, but I try to push it away. “Stop. With those abs, people were going to talk about you, anyway. Trust me.”
I slam the paddle into the water and soak him. His mouth drops, and he does the same. Soon we’re splashing and laughing and whooping up a sea of foam, and when I get up to push him, he does the same – and we crash into the sea together in a heap of limbs. After we surface, I am struck for a second by his beauty – his hair is perfect in the salty water, his eyes are blazing and radiating heat, his skin is getting darker by the hour. They catch me totally off guard, the butterflies, and soon I start feeling like I am soaring, gliding over the sea, and that’s when I realize that my best friend has totally just made me woozy.
Well, then…
We just stare at each other for a second there, out in the blue-green ocean, against the edge of the kayak. If you’re going to be young and falling for someone, why not do it in the Keys? This is like something out of a novel.
