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The Summer of Us: A Romance Anthology

Page 45

by AJ Matthews


  Settling back, and finally feeling as if the woman sitting next to me really does understand, the words sort of spill. As more of my past year tumbles from my mouth, I have to admit it feels good to get it all off my chest. I tell her about Ridley. Not who he is. At first, I tell her I’m not ready to tell her until I know where it’s leading. But then I spill about the carnival, about him being bullied. About it being Gabe who bullied. And I tell her about him being autistic.

  “It won’t be easy. Dating someone with a disability.”

  “He’s sweet and there’s just something about him. But who said anything about dating?” I counter. She, of course pins me with her, please, stare. “His mom is awful, though. Even if we decided to, I’m not sure she’d let him. It’s confusing.”

  “Sometimes parents have a hard time letting go. Especially when the child has special needs.”

  “Yeah, I get that, but Mom, she told him when he came out to her that it was just his autism.” Mom, rightly so, looks outraged. “Told him flat out autistics couldn’t be gay.”

  “Do you want me to talk with her?”

  Not only is my mom a better mom than I ever gave her credit for, she’s also been a social worker for the past twenty years.

  “No. But thanks. We’re going to try being friends, get her used to me. See how it goes.”

  “Well it’s always good to build the friendship. You’re dad and I hung out as friends for months before he asked me out on a date. We’re still happy, still in love, still best friends. And we met when we were nineteen. Just saying…”

  “I’m supposed to meet him this morning, keep him company and make sure no one says shit to him.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you to it. Bring him around any time. I promise we’ll all be cool. Bring him for dinner tonight, I’m making my homemade mac and cheese with bacon.”

  Then she stands, pulls my head to her and kisses my forehead, then she walks away. I leave the juice sitting on the table, and take the stairs up to my room two at a time. After a quick shower and shave, I opt for a pair of my skinny jeans which I’d cut off into shorts. The gray pair. And my soft Star Wars tee. Then I slide into my Vans. God, what a difference a year makes.

  As I pass through the kitchen on my way out back to my car, I notice the juice no longer sits on the table, in its place several pamphlets on autism and homosexuality.

  My mother.

  Only my mother would have these just laying around the house. More than likely she had them in a file in her office.

  I grab up the pamphlets so no one else sees them and dash out the backdoor to my car.

  Ten minutes later I parallel park along the boardwalk (free parking) and follow the trail of eager carnival goers to the front gate. Since I intend to be here as often as Rid will let me, I opt to buy a seasonal pass which comes in the form of a green wristband that I’m supposed to wear every time I come here.

  On my way back to his game, I bypass the saltwater taffy shop and choose the caramel corn stand to buy two bags instead. I have no idea if Rid even eats caramel corn, but it smells too good to pass up and I sure as hell wouldn’t show up without some for him too.

  When he comes into view, my heart speeds up. It doesn’t make any sense, my reaction to him. How could my heart get so spastic after only knowing him the equivalent of a couple of hours? I know what lust feels like. Lust you feel in your groin. Whatever this is starts in my heart region and shoots straight down to the pit of my belly. Being just friends with him is going to end up problematic if I can’t check this emotion. Though, when he sees me, his face shines with relief and happiness, like he’s been waiting for me.

  “Wasn’t sure you’d show up,” he speaks first, eyes darting away from me.

  “Rid. Look at me.” He does. Or he tries. “I promised I’d come. I wanted to.” Ridley bites his bottom lip which forces me to feel that sweet warmth of attraction once again. That one hits my groin. I close my eyes, drawing in a long breath and then hold the bag of corn out to him. “Here,” I say on the exhale.

  “Caramel corn? It’s my favorite. I love the salty sweet.”

  Oh god. “Rid, you’re killing me.”

  We have a good time talking, getting to know one another. He has a birthday coming in July. Turning twenty. He loves living by the beach. It’s just been him and his mom, like almost his whole life. He doesn’t even remember his dad. And this job at the carnival is his first job away from his mother, who had him working as a dishwasher in the restaurant she works for all last year. I tell him about my family some. About how I spent Christmas at Sugar Hill which is a ski resort.

  “I’ve never been skiing,” he tells me, his ears pinking a little.

  “You embarrassed by that?” I ask in return. He nods. “Why? Lots of people have never been skiing. It was my first time.” He seems content with that answer so I move on. “If you could do one activity, something fun and exciting, what would it be?”

  “Swim with the dolphins,” he replies right away. Definite. As if he’s given this a great deal of thought.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. When you’re ready to go swimming with those dolphins, tell me. I’ll go with you.” I could kick myself. It’s a nice thing to say, but jeez, here I am inserting myself into his life and we only just met yesterday. It’s my turn for my ears to pink.

  “You embarrassed by your answer?” he asks. When our gazes meet, I can see he very much likes my response, even chuckling a bit under his breath. “Nope,” I tell him then, honestly. “Not anymore.”

  A good day.

  None of the douche canoes from the day before show up.

  At the end of his shift, I help him close down his game and walk him to the trailer to clock out. I wait outside for him. When he walks back out and I see him with the setting sun for a backdrop, for the first time since I’d shown up that morning, my mouth goes dry. I find myself swallowing back the urge to kiss him. Kiss him. Friends. We’re trying out friends first.

  Friends invite friends home for dinner.

  “Um… my mom is making her mac and cheese with bacon for dinner. She said I should invite you. Would…um…would you like to come have dinner with my family. I have a PlayStation. We can play or whatever after we eat.”

  “Sure. Let me call my mom. She works late tonight. But she’d want to know.” I nod, waiting while he leaves his mother a voicemail.

  My mother is true to her word, only once breaking cool to shoot me a double thumbs up when Rid and I first arrived. She did it behind his back so he couldn’t see. Ridley was kind of shy around my family, but I watched him try and make the effort to converse with my family.

  Because he has to interact around strangers every day for his job, I have the feeling his shyness comes more from them being my family, though I guess I don’t know enough about autism to know for sure.

  The rest of the fam are great too. My dad and sisters ask him questions intermittently between discussing various topics including what has been going on in each of their lives. Not making him the center of attention for too long.

  Everyone works really hard at making Rid feel comfortable.

  After dinner, he insists on helping my mom clean up because she fed him, then we go up to my room where I introduce him to MLB: The Show. A baseball video game on the PlayStation. We play for several hours, talking (some of it smack and some real) until his phone rings.

  His mom.

  She yells in his ear, yells so loud I could hear her through the receiver. “Where are you?”

  “Mom,” Rid says, his one word answer sounds placating. “I left you a voice mail.”

  “I’ve never met these people. Ridley James, you’re old enough to know better than to go off with strangers.”

  “Leif isn’t a stranger.”

  “What’s the address? I’ll come get you. They’ll be lucky if I don’t press charges for kidnapping.”

  “What? Mom, they didn’t kidnap me. I’ll come home.” Then he hangs up on her. “Sorry.” H
e looks away. Hands opening and closing at his sides. Open. Close. “My mom, she worries.” Open. Close.

  “You don’t have to leave just because she orders you to. You are an adult.”

  “If I don’t, she’ll come here. I saw you, you heard. She’d bring the cops even if they couldn’t do anything. I don’t want her coming here.” Open. Close.

  Open.

  Close.

  “Will you take me home, please?” He asks, his rising panic hurts my heart. The last thing either of us needs is for him to have a meltdown.

  “Do you still want me to hang with you at work tomorrow?”

  A Ridley smile, even through the mounting attack.

  “Yeah, I’ll take you home.”

  Fifteen minutes Rid lives from me. Fifteen minutes, and his mother stands out on her front lawn, arms crossed over her chest, where she’s probably been since he hung up on her at my house, scowling at me through my windshield as park in the drive. “I’ll talk to her.” Ridley seems ashamed, rocking ever-so-slightly in the seat and chipping at his fingernails instead of talking directly to me. “You promise to show up tomorrow?”

  “Promise.”

  You would think he’s turning ten not twenty with the way she scolds him all the way inside the house. It takes everything in me not to get out, to defend him. It’s just not my place, not yet. I get the feeling it will be my place soon. Very soon.

  Chapter Three

  “Rid?” I ask. He leans against the giant rock, gazing out at the massive expanse of water. But even with this view, I couldn’t look anywhere but at him.

  Just as promised, I’d shown up that next day to hang with him at his job, spent his entire shift talking more and looking out for him. Or at least I told myself I’d been looking out for him. Gabe and his buddies did show back up. They never approached us. But the reality was after hanging with him the day before and having him over for dinner, playing video games with him, I just enjoyed his company.

  Once again, at shift led to after shift.

  Next day led to everyday.

  Weeks went by.

  Ridley hasn’t been opening and closing his fists as much as before and he looks at me when he talks more often than not. Actually looks at me. And it fills my heart with I don’t even know. Just that I never want him to look anywhere else, ever.

  “Have you ever kissed a boy before?” And I lose him. Open. Close. Open. Close. Zero eye contact. “Rid?” I ask again.

  “No.”

  “Are you interested in kissing boys?” I know what he’s told me, how he acts when we were together, but I’m also not stupid enough to think his mother’s brainwashing couldn’t have an effect on him.

  He sighs long and loud. “No.” Oh. “Not boys.” Damn it, not boys. “Boy,” he continues. Oh?

  “Do I know this boy?” I ask. Ridley smiles his smile at me.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his name?” Figuring I know, but hoping like hell he says the name I want him to say just the same.

  But Ridley doesn’t just not look at me, he turns his whole body away from me, looking down at his feet he answers, “Leif. Fraser.”

  Yes!

  “Would you kiss me, Rid?”

  Open. Close.

  Open. Close.

  Open.

  Close.

  “You want me to kiss you?”

  “Only if you want to.” I reach out to tug lightly on his shirt sleeve in an effort to ease some of his hesitance and awkwardness.

  Open.

  It doesn’t work. “I won’t be very good.” he tells me, and it sounds a little bit shy and a little bit sad.

  Close.

  “How do you know if you don’t try? My boyfriend at school said I wasn’t any good. That’s why he broke up with me last year. So maybe you won’t like kissing me.”

  Ridley’s ears light up today not a little pink, but a bright red.

  “I’ll like kissing you.” It’s an insistence. He says it with as much certainty as I’ve ever heard come from him in the time we’ve been together. Did I just think been together? I mean, known each other. The time we’ve known each other.

  “Where do you want to put your hands?”

  “Can I touch your face?” A nod to the affirmative, he places one heated hand against my cheek. “Can I touch your waist?” He asks softer, but with more confidence. I nod again. He positions his other hand fisting my shirt, just above my waist, actually.

  Oh man, I’m about to kiss Ridley. I grip the T-shirt at each of his hips because my palms are clammy and I don’t want him to know. So I don’t want to touch his skin. I’m supposed to be the experienced one. I don’t want him to know how nervous and excited he makes me. How I’ve been dreaming of this moment since that day in front of the employees only trailer at his work.

  He cocks his head to the right and begins a slow descent. I counter with a head tilt to the left. A second goes by before his soft lips press against mine. Just from that first touch I think my heart stops beating then electroshocks itself going right back again. Much to my chagrin, the kiss goes quick, he pulls back just a hair and I’m scared he’s going to end it already. Yes, scared.

  Ridley surprises me though, darting out the tip of his tongue, separating my lips. “I want to taste you,” he whispers against them, giving a little lick. And I let him. Even tasting him back.

  Rid gets bolder the harder we kiss, and drops the fist of fabric gliding his hand from just above my waist to cup my ass as we press tighter together. My hands are no longer clammy. Just eager to touch him. While he holds my ass, I kind of paw at the man, even drawing this low keening from the back of my throat because with his mouth pressed to mine, it’s almost painful, it’s so good. I’ve had my share of kisses. Never has one affected me the way his does. I may only be nineteen, but I can honestly say it’s the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.

  When he finally pulls away, we both pant heavily, flushed skin, the works. Oh, and turned right the hell on. So much, I immediately miss his lips.

  “So, does this make you my boyfriend now?”

  “Do you want me to be your boyfriend?” I ask. He bites his lip. Ears bright red again. But no eye contact.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you have to ask me then. Look me in the eyes and ask me to be your boyfriend.”

  Open. Close.

  Open. Close.

  Open.

  He does it. He looks me directly in the eyes. I watch the panic spread behind those glorious flecks of yellow, brown and green, but he does it. Ridley looks me in the eyes and asks, “Leif, be my boyfriend?”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard. Yes. Yes, Rid, I’d love to.”

  Though I thought after knowing him these few weeks, I had all his smiles figured out. And the guy smiles a lot. Seems to be his main form of communication. Once he releases his lip, the smile he levels on me, blows every other one out of the water. He smiles. I smile. Until his hands grope my butt again. His lips slam against mine a little harder than necessary. I don’t want to say anything to embarrass him. Ridley took control. This is a huge moment for him. For us.

  And by the end of our second kiss, I’m absolutely certain my worst case scenario has been realized. I’m falling in love with Ridley McAllister.

  A Ms. McAllister freak-out looms over us just an uncomfortable conversation away. Ms. McAllister, Ms. I learned because she never married Rid’s father and she’s a modern woman. Modern with the exception of believing her autistic son could be gay.

  Ms. McAllister met me on several occasions since Rid brought me to play PlayStation at his house almost every night after shift or his days off we spent hanging out because she didn’t want him at my house. And even though she could see us growing close, had neglected to upgrade me to calling her Jen.

  Deep down, in the dirtiest, most cobweb ridden recesses of her mind, she has to know what Rid and I have growing between us. There’s how friends act. There’s how more than friends act. Whether we mea
n to or not, we act the latter. Touching a little longer than necessary. Tickling. Our thighs touching when we sat playing our favorite MLB, at first butts to the floor, leaning back against the bed up in his room. Then from the sofa, knees bent and feet up on the coffee table in the living room where she insisted we move because she “doesn’t want us bringing food in Rid’s room.”

  Right.

  When I chose a college two states away, part of my decision, a big part, was so I could have this, right here. Who would’ve thought I’d find him at home for the summer?

  “Let’s sit.” Rid searches my eyes. He has something to discuss. I move from his embrace hopping up onto the flat surface of the rock facing the ocean. He hops up next to me.

  I’d found this secluded jetty years ago and had been coming here to think, or in the few times I got the chance, to make out with other boys who weren’t ready to come out either. Boys like Gabe Cera.

  “What’s up?” I ask. Putting my hand on his arm to still his restless movements after he takes up five minutes to find a comfortable spot, which really means avoiding whatever he wants to talk about. “Come on, Rid. Don’t shy up on me now. What’s on your mind?”

  “I really liked kissing you.”

  A soft “sss” sounding laugh escapes through my nose. “That’s good,” I tell him. “Because I did too. You’re a natural.”

  “I want to kiss you more often.”

  “My lips are your lips, Rid.”

  “I um…don’t know the rules,” he says then. The rules? “I’ve never dated. Mom says I have a couple more years before I’m allowed to date.”

  “A couple years? Rid, you turn twenty next month.”

  He shrugs.

  “She says I don’t understand enough of how the world works to mix myself up in a relationship.”

  “Do you agree?”

  “No. I might not always understand my surroundings, but I know how I feel. And I promised her I wouldn’t get a girl pregnant.”

  Holy shit! He said that to his mother.

  “I’m going to kiss you again, Rid.”

 

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