Crushed

by J. M. Snyder

  But now that she had Nathan in the kitchen with her, she couldn’t seem to remember what had been so pressing that it required his immediate attention. “You want something to drink?” she asked, popping open a can of soda for him. And then, in the same breath, she added, “Are you drunk?”

  “I just had one beer,” Nathan told her. As she handed him the can, he set the soda aside. “Look, Cindy, I was sort of in the middle of something—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she announced. Opening the refrigerator, she ducked her head inside as cold air drifted out to swirl around Nathan’s ankles. “Can you chop up more broccoli for me? Do you think we need any more out there?”

  “I doubt anyone came for the broccoli,” Nathan muttered. “Cindy, really, I have to get back…”

  Closing the refrigerator, Cindy asked, “Did you talk to Herbert? He’s so nice. I think he likes you, Nathan.” When he rolled his eyes, she ignored him. “He’s into music, just like you are—”

  “Let me guess,” he said, leaning back against the sink as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Salsa? Latin rhythms? Hell, the Three Tenors?”

  Cindy didn’t look at him. Instead she busied herself with straightening the bottles of alcohol that littered the table, turning them until the labels all faced the same way. Something in her manner suggested she was just killing time, and Nathan wished she had picked someone else to waste it with—he had a hot boy he’d like to get back to sometime tonight. “Cindy, look, I found someone, okay? Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Wait for Tom,” she told him. “He’s got something to tell you.”

  “What is it?” Nathan wanted to know. Tom was at the truck, wasn’t he? With Wes. Where I want to be. “Cindy—”

  “So what did you think of Herbert?” she asked, trying to change the topic.

  Nathan sighed. “You really want to know?” She looked at him for the first time since she had climbed into the back of Tom’s pickup and saw him spread out beside Wes. When she nodded, he told her, “He’s not my type. I really hate this—”

  “But he’s so nice,” she started.

  Nathan interrupted her. “I don’t give a shit how fucking nice he is!” he cried. “I don’t like him. Is this registering at all for you?”

  Her eyes widened and the corners of her mouth twitched, telling him that maybe she was finally getting it. “I don’t like when you do this to me, Cindy,” he said. “I hate when you set me up with losers I’d never look twice at. I don’t need your goddamn help.”

  Now her lower lip trembled, her eyes filled with tears—he’d gone too far, and before he could even apologize, she buried her face in her hands. “God,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean…I was just trying—oh damn it, Nathan, you don’t have to be so, so, so mean.”

  Why me? he thought, but he took her into his arms and patted her back as she cried into his shoulder. “Cindy, I didn’t mean it like that. Jeez, don’t cry, okay? I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

  Behind them the kitchen door opened. Nathan glanced over his shoulder as Tom entered. His dark skin glistened with sweat, his usual smile replaced with a deep scowl. “So now you’re hitting on my girl, too,” he growled.

  “Oh, please,” Nathan laughed. “You know I’m not—”

  “I don’t know shit,” Tom muttered. Touching Cindy’s shoulder, his voice softened as he asked, “Cin, you okay?”

  Cindy pulled away from Nathan, wiping her eyes as she nodded, her tears already tapering off. “Fine,” she said, blinking to clear her vision. Nathan wondered how she had managed to cry so lustily without smearing her eyeliner. “Just…” She sighed. “I only wanted to help. You could’ve just said no thank you.”

  “No thank you,” Nathan told her with a slight grin, but she didn’t smile back. “Cindy—”

  “It’s fine.” She moved away, out of reach, and sighed again. Then she stared up at the ceiling and blinked away the rest of her tears as she patted the skin beneath her eyes. “God, I must look a fright. Let me go clean up.”

  Tom eased an arm around her shoulders. His voice lowered to an intimate level, excluding Nathan. “You sure you’re okay, honey?”

  She nodded. “You tell him,” she whispered, extracting herself from her boyfriend’s embrace. “I’ll be right back.”

  As she closed the kitchen door behind her, Nathan asked, “Tell me what?”

  Tom pushed past him and opened the cabinet above the fridge where he kept his harder liquor. He pulled out a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps, unscrewed the cap, and drank down a thick swallow of the liquor. Nathan waited, impatient. When Tom took a second swallow, he started, “Look, tell me what? I have to get back to Wes—”

  “He’s gone,” Tom told him.

  You’re lying.

  But why would Tom lie to him? “What?” Nathan asked, as if he might have misheard his friend. “Gone? Where? I told him I was coming right back.” He narrowed his eyes as Tom took another swig of the Schnapps. “What the hell did you say to him?”

  Tom shrugged. “I didn’t say anything. He had to go.” Pinning Nathan with a steady stare, he added, “The guy he came with wanted to leave.”

  The guy…”You mean what?” Nathan asked. “A friend? Co-worker, roommate, what?”

  At first he thought maybe Tom wouldn’t answer, just crawl up inside that damn bottle of Schnapps and hide away for the rest of the night. Then his friend laughed, a shaky sound that made Nathan’s skin prickle to hear it. “I mean his boyfriend.” Tom spat the word out like a bad taste that lingered in his mouth. “I mean the guy he’s been seeing for eight months, Nathan. Eight months. They have a good thing going and here you come just waltzing in, moving all over him like that means nothing.”

  Oh, shit.

  “I didn’t…” Nathan let the thought drift away—he couldn’t think of anything to say. He was all over me. That thing with the napkins, cleaning me up? And then the walk—his suggestion—and he let me stick his hands in my pockets, he didn’t pull away when we kissed, he said he had it bad for me, he thought he was over that but the way he was back in the truck? All over me like white on rice, you can’t tell me he didn’t mean any of it. “You’re shitting me,” he whispered.

  Tom laughed again. “I wish. God, if Roger had seen you—”

  “Roger?” Nathan asked. “Oh, Jesus.”

  His mind whirled out in a million directions at once. Don’t tell me that…that WOLF gets to lie with him tonight. Don’t tell me that scary motherfucker gets to hold him and kiss him. Jesus. Doesn’t anyone realize he belongs with me? Hello?

  He thought maybe Wes had realized it—he knew damn well their bodies realized it, he still felt Wes’s touch, his kisses, his weight on him…

  But he’s with someone else, a voice in his mind whispered. You saw that scary fucker. Does he look like someone you want to go up against? So Wes had it bad for you back in the day. He said himself he thought he was over you, right? Tonight meant nothing to him, just a trip down memory lane, reminiscing, that’s it. He’s heading home right now with someone else and where are you? Here. Alone. Again.

  Tom set the bottle of Schnapps down on the table. “Nathan?” he asked. “Don’t tell me he didn’t tell you?”

  Nathan felt an angry scowl pull at his mouth. “Not one fucking word,” he growled. “Shit, Tom, if I’d have known…”

  I still would’ve done it.

  The thought surprised him, but he didn’t say the words out loud. The way he looked in that muscle tee, and those eyes? Those hands on my crotch? When he told me he had the worst crush on me in high school? Shit, I’d do it all again. “Eight months?” he choked. That was a freaking lifetime. He had never had a relationship last that long.

  Tom nodded. “I thought maybe you knew—”

  “Fuck,” Nathan muttered—he didn’t know what else to say. So much for his evening.

  Chapter 7

  In the car, Wes stared out the window and tried to forget the way Nathan’s eye
s had shone when he’d recognized him. He tried to forget that the young boy he had been infatuated with back in high school—the one he still dreamed of from time to time, the one who could still make him hard with just a thought—he tried to forget that that boy was now a man, grown up and filled out and still just as sexy and charismatic and amazing as he used to be.

  But how could he forget those kisses, or the way it felt to be held in those strong arms, or the desire and lust he saw in Nathan’s smile? Just thinking about the past hour flushed a delicious warmth throughout his body, making him ache with all the sharp poignancy of a schoolboy crush all over again. And I didn’t tell him about Roger. Wes touched his lips, where he could still feel Nathan’s own pressed against his. I just couldn’t.

  Beside him, his boyfriend fumbled to light a cigarette while he drove. “You have fun tonight?” Roger asked, his soft voice barely audible over the quiet radio that played between them. His sunglasses were pushed up onto his forehead, making it seem as if he had another set of eyes up there that watched the road while he fiddled with the cigarette. When Wes didn’t answer at once, Roger glanced at him over the flame of his lighter. “Babe?”

  “Yeah.” Rousing himself, Wes turned to Roger and flashed him a tight grin. “Great time.” I hope you never know how great. “It’s always good to see Tom again.”

  “That guy’s a trip,” Roger laughed, concentrating on his cigarette. As it lit up, the car started to drift to one side of the road.

  “Roger,” Wes warned, reaching for the steering wheel.

  “Oh, hell.” Roger swerved back into the center of the road and dropped his lighter down onto the floorboards. “Goddamn it.”

  He bent down to reach for the lighter.

  “Just forget about it for now, okay?” Wes asked, watching the empty road ahead of them. At least it was late. At least theirs was the only car out now. “We can get it later. Roger—”

  “Got it.” Roger sat up again, the lighter held between the first two fingers of his right hand. He flashed a wolfish leer at Wes and danced the lighter over his knuckles with a showman’s ease and grace. In the passing streetlights, Wes could see his boyfriend’s battered fingernails, dirt under the ragged edges. He swerved again, playing around this time. “Lighten up, Wesley. You’re perfectly safe with me, you know that.”

  Wes toyed with the seat belt where it cut across his chest and didn’t respond. Right now I want to be with Nathan.

  The thought came out of nowhere. You’re willing to throw away eight months for someone you used to like? So he kissed you, so what? So he touched you, so he wanted you right then, but what about tomorrow? What about the next day?

  Roger needed him, didn’t he? He said it often enough. How could Wes forget that? And he was already talking about maybe finding a place together, even though Wes didn’t want to jump into that right now. Nathan was just tonight. I’ll never see him again. Same as before—a few hungry moments in the dark and he’s gone.

  But why couldn’t I have met him sooner? Like right after graduation maybe? Before Roger?

  Would that have changed anything? He didn’t know, he’d never know, so it was best to just forget about it.

  Hoping to forget the whole sordid mess of emotions swirling through his mind, he murmured, “How about you?”

  Roger glanced over at him, a slight frown on his face.

  Wes prompted, “You have fun tonight?”

  “Two drinks,” Roger said with a laugh, but he held up three fingers. “That’s it. You should be proud.”

  “I am,” Wes replied, though he thought if he added that two with the three fingers, he’d be closer to the truth. “Are you okay to drive home?”

  “I’m fine,” Roger told him. “Two drinks, that’s nothing.” When Wes leaned his head against the window, Roger placed a warm hand on his knee. “You okay? How many drinks did you have?”

  “Just one,” Wes whispered.

  Roger turned his hand over, palm up, and wiggled his fingers. He wanted Wes to take it. With a sigh, Wes eased his fingers into Roger’s, and his boyfriend’s hand closed around his like a clamp. “Maybe I don’t feel well,” Wes suggested. To be honest? He felt like shit—from seeing Nathan again, touching him, tasting him. For not telling him about Roger. For not fessing up to Roger about him.

  “You don’t know?” Roger asked.

  Wes shrugged. Up until this evening I was fine—I knew where I belonged. With you, because you need me, because you tell me that every time we have sex. You need me, you want me, you love my arms and my ass and my lips, you can’t stop saying that whenever we’re together. And I was fine with that. I thought I was over him.

  He hadn’t realized how wrong he’d been. Seeing Nathan brought it all back, everything he’d ever felt and hoped and dreamed about the boy. He blinked back bittersweet memories and sighed. Oh, God. He watched his reflection on the window waver beside him. I thought I was over him, I thought I had moved on, but who was I kidding? He’s everything I ever wanted, beautiful and funny. Fuck me for lying to myself and to Roger and, hell, even to Nathan tonight, when I didn’t tell him I already have a boyfriend. Fuck.

  From the other side of the car, Roger muttered, “Well? You sick or something? Headache, moody, what?”

  “I don’t know,” Wes mumbled. “Just…I don’t know.”

  “Christ.” Roger’s cigarette filled the air around them with a strong, cloying smoke, one Wes had grown used to but still didn’t like—it tickled his nose and burned his lungs, and he tried to take shallow breaths but his head was already buzzing. “I guess this means you just want me to drop you off at your place, then,” Roger said, his low voice hardening. “Another wasted evening.”

  Wes sighed again. “Roger, don’t start with me. I didn’t say that—”

  “You might as well have.” Roger laughed, and in that sound Wes could hear those five beers, if not more. “Shit, I never get a chance with you anymore.”

  “That’s not true.” Didn’t he just stay the night on Tuesday? Wes remembered him drinking too much wine with dinner and saying he had to sleep over, he couldn’t drive home, and Wes had said sure, he didn’t mind. He didn’t—he liked the company, the arms around him while he slept. Only tonight I’ll be wishing they were Nathan’s. He loved Roger, didn’t he? After all the time they’d been together, all the shit they’d been through…didn’t he?

  “What about last weekend?” he asked. They had driven out to the river, just the two of them, and Roger had insisted on having sex in the woods, even though Wes hadn’t wanted to. Still, they’d brought a few beers along and when Roger was half lit, Wes knew better than to argue with him. It was just sex. Something to pass the time, fill the silence, keep Roger happy. Hell, it wasn’t like Wes hadn’t done it before.

  “You bitched about it then,” Roger reminded him. “Can’t we just fuck sometimes without you making a big deal out of it?”

  “I don’t—” Wes started.

  “You do. God, you do.” Roger ground his cigarette out in the ashtray, filling the car with the smell of burnt nicotine and ash. Then he fell silent, glaring at the road through the windshield as he drove, the conversation over as far as he was concerned.

  Minutes passed, each one as long and as lonely as a funeral procession. When Roger turned off the main road and Wes recognized his own street, he felt a sudden nervous dread curl into the pit of his stomach. Why can’t I be back at Tom’s?

  Before they’d left the party, his former roommate had asked him what the hell he thought he was doing out in the back of his pickup with Nathan, and Wes could only say he didn’t know. “Are you drunk?” Tom had asked. On him, Wes should’ve said. But he just shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like an apology. When Tom told him he wouldn’t tell Roger, it wasn’t his place, relief flooded through Wes because he wasn’t going to tell Roger, either, so his boyfriend would never know. “You need to think about what you’re messing with here,” Tom told him, climbing over the tail
gate to jump to the ground. “Eight months. Doesn’t that mean shit to you?”

  Roger had appeared at that moment, seemingly out of nowhere, with his lupine grin and an unsteady hand held out to help Wes down from the truck. Nuzzling against Wes’s neck, he reeked of alcohol and smoke, his hands rough and so unlike Nathan’s on his body that Wes wanted to cry. “Nice cologne,” his boyfriend had purred. “I don’t recognize it.”

  It’s not mine.

  The hell with eight months—he should’ve eased out of his boyfriend’s arms and followed Nathan into the house. But Tom’s judgmental eyes held him in place. “It’s new,” Wes whispered when Roger nipped at his jaw, catching the skin between his teeth in a possessive gesture he thought of as playful.

  As they pulled to a stop in front of Wes’s apartment, that tiny spot on his jaw was still sore. Wes rubbed at it and opened the car door.

  “Invite me in,” Roger said.

  Wes sighed. I don’t want to. He wanted to be alone right now, to think about Nathan and remember the way they had kissed, the way they’d touched. He wanted to let his own hands roam his body, tracing the patterns Nathan’s hands had followed. He wanted to call Tom and see if maybe, just maybe, he would be willing to tell him where Nathan lived, or what his phone number was, or how he could see him again. So much for the past eight months. I can’t let this second chance slip away. “Roger—”

  “Fine,” his boyfriend muttered. He reached across Wes’s lap and opened the glove compartment. A flask of whiskey fell out into his hand. “You don’t want me to come up?” Wes watched as Roger unscrewed the cap, raised the flask to his lips. “Fine. Fuck you, then.”

  “You don’t need that,” Wes said, defeat in his voice.

  Roger let him take the flask away, pouting like a little boy as Wes screwed the cap back on and stuck the whiskey back into the glove compartment. He hadn’t known Roger had that there. He’d have to make sure he took it out in the morning. Smothering under the weight of Roger’s gaze, Wes muttered, “Come on.”