“We’ll see about that.”
“You scare me, Rem.” He pulled me back down to his chest.
I sighed in contentment, even if it was a shallow thing. I knew how fragile it was. “What do you want to do today?”
“Laze around in bed?” He sounded so hopeful.
“Windsurfing? Hiking?”
Michael groaned. “Dude, seriously?”
“Whaaat? I’m the one training for national competition. You, you’re just lazy. C’mon, we’re up here in paradise, let’s not waste it.” I started tugging on his arm. “Up, up!”
Michael sat up. “Do I get to shower first?”
“What’s the point? I promise to soap you down when we’re done.”
“Really?” Suddenly he sounded interested.
I got out of bed and stretched in the most provocative way I could. That I happened to have slept last night in a pair of assless Andrew Christians and one of my perpetually short tee shirts convinced Michael to climb the rest of the way out of bed. “We could stay in today. I’m almost positive I can give you a workout right here.”
“You want it, you earn it.” I bent over my suitcase and started pulling out clothes appropriate for active recreation.
Michael was still fussing and grumbling while I called the concierge. “Yes, that’s right. … I’m fine, thanks. How’re you? … Good. Do you have information on windsurfing? … You do? There’re places affiliated with the resort? That’s suave, very suave. We’ll be down in fifteen minutes.” I looked at Michael, hopping around with one leg in his shorts, trying to get the second leg in. “Make that twenty.”
WINDSURFING ROCKED, and despite the fact that Michael all but batter-dipped me in an SPF so high it had an exponent, I still looked a little red. The lake acted like a giant mirror for the sunlight… just like the river we both rowed on. Shocking, that. Even if we couldn’t get close enough to each other to talk while on the water, Michael and I heard each other laugh all afternoon, and we both felt the lighter for it.
We were tired by midafternoon, and the winds had died anyway, so we opted for a late lunch on the beach along with an equally late donning of UPF-50 shirts. I eyed Michael’s burrito jealously.
He laughed. “Sorry, no Mexican food for bottoms.”
“I’ll have you know that power bottoms are the backbone of our society.”
“That you may be.” Michael leaned over to kiss my nose, “but you still don’t get to eat anything that could race right through you.”
I glared at him and vengefully ate my chicken sandwich. A few minutes later, I looked up to find Michael smiling at me.
“We have to stay friends, Rem. We have to. We’re all strained and trying not to say things we don’t really mean and shit like that, but I cannot imagine my life without you in it. I can’t.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I have to have you in my life, too. I’ve known you since I was in the third grade.”
Michael frowned. “I thought we met when I was in the third grade.”
“At this point, does it really matter?” I shrugged. “I can text my brother if you want. He probably remembers.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve known each other forever. That’s what counts.” He sighed, and I leaned into him. Michael put his arm around me, and we watched the shadows crawl across the mountains as the afternoon passed.
The weird thing about the conversation Michael and I had about our future was its episodic nature. Throughout the weekend, one or the other of us spouted off with some thought or other about it, like our future was too precious and painful to confront head-on, so we sidled up to it or looked at it only out of the corners of our eyes, lest it blind us.
So the next night, as we soaked away the aches that came of horseback riding—seriously, neither of us would be able to walk right for a while—we hashed out the bare bones of our split. Even thinking those words to myself made it real in a way I didn’t want to face, but I knew I had to.
We promised to stay together through the end of summer, and we promised to be friends, no matter what. That included talking out any weirdness that cropped up.
“You realize this will include seeing other people, right?” Michael pointed out.
Well, that certainly didn’t take long, did it? “Yes, but is it okay if I can’t talk about that right now?”
“Only if you promise we discuss it before I head east for school. I think I’m heading out midsummer, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“That’s fair. It’s… I don’t share well, and it’s going to take me a bit of time to get used to the idea that you’re not mine anymore.” Ugh, so not a thought I wanted to have.
Michael stared at me until I squirmed. So that’s what it felt like. I’d done it to other people often enough. “You realize that works both ways, right? And that however much we’re together this summer, I have to reconcile myself to sharing you. That fine ass of yours is no longer mine alone to tap.”
My mind went immediately to Randy. Somehow I knew that when I was ready, he’d be first in line. Unless I was in Chicago, in which case I’d have to pepper spray Caden. If he were there. Then there was that Johnny-come-lately, Scott.
“Right then, you thought of someone, didn’t you?” Michael said sadly.
I sighed. “Three, actually.”
“I always knew if we ever split, you’d only be single if you wanted to.” Michael looked miserable.
“I didn’t want to be single.”
“I know.”
Neither of us said much after that. We settled back and looked at the Milky Way. That much, at least, seemed permanent, even if it really wasn’t. It was nothing but dead light, light that took so long to reach Earth that the stars that produced it could’ve exploded into nothingness and we wouldn’t know it for millennia.
Yeah, good times.
Michael knew I was down that night and to his credit didn’t try to cheer me up. He only held me until we both fell asleep.
The next morning we were both still subdued.
“Do you want to hang out here for the day? You don’t seem up for anything too active,” Michael said.
“I thought about trying to go for a run once it warms up. I figured the altitude would be character-building.” I handed Michael my phone that showed him how cold it was outside.
He pulled me back down under the covers. “Character-building. Right.”
It turned into a lazy day, which I needed, and that run took place much later in the afternoon.
Michael looked up from his e-reader when I staggered in and snickered. “Your character looks much improved.”
I flipped him off. Cussing him out required more air than I could’ve spared. I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and then flopped gracelessly to the floor.
“You’ll douse yourself if you drink those lying down.”
I glared up at him and did it anyway. As cooling as the water was, Michael was basically correct, so I flipped him off again.
Michael laughed. “Nice, Rem. Real nice.”
I closed my eyes to hyperventilate in peace, but when I opened them, there was Michael, grinning at me.
“You stay there, I’ll cook dinner.”
I ended up showering to get the stink off me, but I appreciated the thought.
We ate on the patio. Sure, it only overlooked the pool, but it could’ve been worse. It could’ve overlooked the motor court.
“So how’re you doing?”
I sighed. “I’m kind of angry about things right now, but I love you. I may not be in love with you anymore, but I love you.”
Michael brought his chair around by mine and rested his head on my shoulder as we watched the sun set. Of course, given Lake Tahoe’s position in a bowl in the mountains, the sun went down early, and we had plenty of time left for our evening.
“I worry that your future boyfriends won’t understand your need to dominate. And that you won’t be able to speak up for yourself. Isn’t that
weird? A toppy guy with a need to be in control who has a hard time asking for that?” I’d never worried about it, because that was Michael and I understood him, but what about other men?
Michael shrugged uncomfortably. “I was lucky you perceived that. You saw things in me no one else did.”
“We were each other’s first in so many things. I worry that you’ll end up compromising on things that might be more important than you realize.” I took a deep breath. “But I guess there are rights that boyfriends have that even superclose friends don’t. I can say that I worry about things like that now, but I have to trust you to find your own way later. Fuck.”
I turned away. This would kill me, kill us both, and possibly end our friendship.
“I’m amazed that even after I destroyed our relationship, you can still care about things like that for me, but I shouldn’t be.” Michael touched my cheek, like he still found wonder in me.
I gasped. “Michael, you didn’t destroy—”
Michael put his hand over my mouth. “I did, Rem. Jeremy. I did. I can see that now. I don’t know why, but I did. You were only ever honest. Maybe not timely, but honest. You may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll always wonder about that.”
That was it, that was fucking it, and I collapsed into his arms, sobbing for us both.
Michael kissed my forehead. “I will destroy anyone who doesn’t treat you like the prince that you are. And if he has a problem dating someone who’s poz? They will never find his body.”
Then he snorted out a laugh. “Hell, if you’re worried about me not getting what I need, you could always approve my first couple of college boyfriends. Let’s be honest, it’s not like you won’t be in Boston every year.”
“You’re terrible.” I wiped my eyes. “What if I hold you to that?”
I FINISHED my freshman year at CalPac. While my grades never returned to what they’d been before I started training for the U23 team, without the distraction of a dying relationship, I pulled them up. That is, I pulled my grades right back up, but the damage had been done. At least training was my sole stressor once school got out in May. The intensity of my training sucked, however.
“This is it, Remy. This is the final push,” Lodestone said.
I raised one eyebrow. “Unless I make the U23, in which case I compete for a spot for the Worlds.”
“There’s that. Now, you’ve got an erg test, and unless you like erging when it’s hot, let’s get going.”
I sighed and loaded up obnoxious music. It took something vile and loud to keep me pulling as fast as I needed to in order to rock a 2k erg test.
On the whole I preferred the distraction Michael had brought to my life, if only because he had brought a certain amount of happiness with him. I was more or less settling in to being friends with him, rather than boyfriends. I hadn’t told my family, yet. I knew I could avoid the issue until Michael graduated. No one accomplished anything the last month or so of his senior year, but given the Castelreighs’ objection to our relationship, his absence around Chez Babcock would not be commented on, not for a while at any rate.
Had Geoff planned to come home for very long this summer, the story might’ve been a different one. Geoff listened to our parents, however, and planned to work on unpaid internships—were there any other kind anymore?—before returning home to visit for a week or two. Then he’d head back to San Diego in time to pick up a job and some summer school credits. Without him around the house, however, I delayed fessing up as long as possible.
Given what my dad termed “our new, more mature relationship,” Mom and Dad were happy to let me row, rest, and row some more so long as I contributed around the house. I couldn’t have explained to anyone how this differed from the cooking and cleaning I’d always done, but whatevs. If it made them happy and that led them to leave me alone, it was a win for all of us.
But May turned into June all too quickly, and with June came Davis High’s graduation. Naturally I wasn’t invited, not that I’d expected to be.
“So what’re you doing to celebrate graduation?” I asked Michael over lunch, now that I’d become a man of leisure. Heh.
Michael sucked on his soda in a way that made me sigh nostalgically. “Grad Night, I guess.”
Grad Night was an all-night all-inclusive party sponsored by parents and subsidized by local businesses, and its intention was to keep new graduates from wrapping their cars around utility poles in a drunken stupor.
“Don’t sound so excited. People’ll get the wrong idea.” I thought about it for a moment. “I went to Grad Night. It wasn’t terrible.”
Michael frowned. “Davis isn’t where I’m supposed to be, and I don’t intend to stay in contact with too many people from my class, so why should I spend one last night with them?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that. “Not even some of those out guys you want to play with?”
“Remy….”
“I’m trying to signal my maturity and acceptance through humor.”
I said this while totally deadpan.
“I don’t know whether to punch you out or laugh.”
I snorted. “As if you could. Knock me out, I mean.”
“No, I couldn’t hit you.”
Michael pulled out his phone and fiddled around with it for a while. Then he looked back up at me. “Do you want to go out that night?”
I blinked. “What night?”
“The night I graduate, Remy,” Michael said patiently.
Holy mixed signals, Batman. “Won’t you have family or whatever underfoot?”
“I’ll be at Grad Night, remember?” I could’ve sworn his eyes twinkled. “Besides, your plan Bs are always way better than everyone else’s main events.”
“I see. Will it be you, or will I be entertaining others?” And everyone thought I was the sneaky one. No, I was the noisy one. Michael was far more devious when he wanted to be.
“Like I’d share you, and Remy?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m over eighteen, you know.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Really?” Michael looked so skeptical.
I blushed, stop-sign red and everything. “Okay, I totally forgot, but I promise it wasn’t anything passive-aggressive.”
“You can make it up to me the night I graduate, then.”
We’d broken up?
Chapter 28
I SPENT the evening of Michael’s high school graduation with my parents, or at least the early part of the evening. Despite my plans for later, I wasn’t particularly nervous, and not even waiting for Michael’s text changed that. Part of that came down to good planning, but I also knew nothing I did could change the fact that Michael had made his decision. Tonight was a gift for a good friend, not an attempt to win him back, even if I stood a reasonable chance of getting dicked.
Mom looked around in satisfaction at the three of us ensconced before the television. “This is nice. We never did this when you were younger, did we, Remy?”
“You and your brother were always rushing off somewhere.” Dad shook his head at the memory.
R: watching TV with the olds. Help meee.
I laughed. “I’m too tired to dash off somewhere. I’ll get back to you later this summer, okay?”
“I’d say you were too young for this, but I’ve seen those training plans Coach Lodestone sends you,” Dad said. “I’m pretty amazed you don’t fall asleep driving back and forth from the port. Who are you texting? Could you not pay attention to us, the people who’re physically present?”
“I was texting Geoff about this. It feels like he should be here.” I put the phone down. “Is this where I admit I nap in my car after practice sometimes?”
“No.” Mom sounded very emphatic about that.
Dad rolled his eyes. I came by it honestly, at least. “Which would you prefer, Dina? That he nap, or that he drive tired?”
“Why do I have to choose, Steven?”
“Did you just whine, Mom?”
“You have to choose because our son is an adult who’s maturing very nicely and who’s training for something most people never get a shot at.” Dad looked at me. “And yes, Remy, she whined.”
“On that note, I’m going to bed. As we’ve established, I get up early.” Actually, tonight I needed a disco nap because their almost nineteen-year-old son planned to sneak out after his ex-boyfriend texted him to make that ex’s graduation from high school memorable. No, there wasn’t anything weird about that, nothing at all.
I had everything ready to go in my car, even the food. I’d asked Lodestone for permission to use the boathouse, which he granted. That permission allowed me to set up a fair amount ahead of time. I think he hoped Michael and I would patch things up, and I didn’t burst his bubble. He was too involved as it was. Lodestone meant well, but I needed to set limits.
When Michael’s text set my phone off—I hadn’t bothered to change his custom tone—I felt like I’d barely drifted off. It was almost midnight.
M: Leaving Grad Night. Ready 2 make the magic happen?
R: See U @ the port.
M: The port?!
R: Plan B, baby.
M: UR 2 much.
R: U told me 2 do something. U didn’t set any parameters :-p
M: OMG
R: *grin*
BY THE time Michael arrived, I had the table ready, right down to the plates and candles. I reheated the food in a portable microwave, kept warm in insulated bags on the drive in. Beverages cooled in a small ice chest. Nothing alcoholic. I’m sure I could’ve lifted wine or something from my parents’ collection, but neither of us was legal, and I was a rules follower. That said, I’d placed candles everywhere, and they were all lit, bathing the boathouse in a soft golden glow. The old rattrap had never looked better.
I also had boats ready in slings on the dock. The full moon kissed the flat water with a wide path of silver. It was a glorious night to row, and fortunately for him I had workout gear for us both. The river looked amazing lit up like that, and none of us at Cap City or CalPac ever saw it.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air Page 28
