Trust the Focus

by Megan Erickson

  I’d found my heart.

  But the relief of seeing Landry was short-lived, because that tense coil that had sat in my gut during my search burned red hot and needed release.

  When I was five feet away, he raised his head but all I saw was red. I shoved his shoulder and his back slammed into the side of the RV. “Don’t you ever, ever, fucking ever do that to me again, you asshole. You don’t disappear at a truck stop in fucking Kansas in the middle of the night. Who knows who’s out there? Someone could have hurt you or—”

  “Oh, right, because I’m a fragile fag,” Landry spat.

  His voice peeled back the bloody film from my eyes and that’s when I saw the tears spilling out over his copper lashes. My proud Landry, who never apologized for who he was, shed tears because of me.

  The pain pierced my chest, and I reared back and bent at the waist, tearing my hands through my hair, unsure how to make this better. How to fix this. But I had a feeling that no matter what I did, we couldn’t go back anymore. This moment would determine if we slapped a Band-Aid on our relationship or overhauled the whole thing.

  “Move out of the way so I can get my things.” Landry said, body stiff against Sally.

  I straightened and stepped up to him, preventing him from moving. “What?”

  He pushed my shoulder but I held my ground, which only seemed to make him angrier. He pushed again. “Move. I need to pack and leave. I’m over this bullshit. I’m over your bullshit.”

  My brain switched into panic mode. The last couple of days I’d taken his head off at every opportunity, but now I had to do everything I could to keep him with me.

  “I’m sorry I said that—”

  “I’m sure you’re sorry, but I don’t give a shit right now,” he shot back, his strong voice carrying an undercurrent of vulnerability.

  I took a deep breath as a tear slid over his cheekbone and knew I needed to come clean, to get my blood moving in my veins and my heart beating again. It was that moment, at the top of the roller coaster all over again, but this was an indefinite pause as we teetered. Gravity pulled at my spine, trying to yank me back down the hill, but I fought and clawed to get to the crest.

  My breath came in pants. I opened my mouth but nothing came out, and Landry made a step to walk away.

  “Stop, please, I’m trying to tell you something,” I pleaded.

  But he was in flight mode, bobbing on his toes, rolling his wrists, his face and neck flushed red. He was gone, far gone, and I wondered if I still had the magic to bring him back. “Fuck off, asshole,” he snarled. “I—”

  I shot my left arm out and grabbed his hair, forcing our foreheads together and clamping my other hand on his neck, keeping him grounded and his focus on me.

  He struggled a little in my hold, his lips trembling, nostrils flaring. But those blue eyes locked on mine, flashing anger and maybe a little bit of hope.

  I licked my lips and tried again, blood pounding in my ears, sweat and fear dripping down my back, soaking into my waistband. “I’m like you.”

  His face blanked, like someone had ripped his cord out of the wall. If it wasn’t for his blinking eyes, I might have checked for a pulse. But he’d stopped rocking on his toes and his hands were still, clenched at his sides.

  “I’m like you,” I repeated.

  His chest rose and fell inches from mine. I wanted to press closer, feel his heartbeat sync with mine, and at the same time, run in the other direction so I’d never know how well we’d harmonize.

  “You’re like me how? What are you talking about?” His voice was wary, nostrils flared like a cornered animal.

  We both like guys. But the liquid fear drenching my shirt held me back from voicing the words. “No Landry, I’m . . .” My voice left me in a whoosh. Wouldn’t he just finish the sentence for me?

  He shook his head, slowly at first, then gaining speed until he chanted. “No. No, no, no.”

  “Yes.” My voice was a plea.

  But Landry, he never made anything easy on me. His breath, so hot on my face. The cords in his neck strained. “Justin, this isn’t a time to play around, I need you to spell this out for me. And if you can’t say out loud what I think you’re saying, I’m getting on a bus and going home right now.”

  Fuck. Fucking fuck. I’d never said it out loud. I’m not even sure I ever said the words in my head. But I needed to. I was a twenty-two-year-old man. Time to act like one. Own up.

  I took a deep breath, and I willed that roller coaster over the crest. “I’m gay.”

  Those two words, so simple yet so foreign, were said in another voice. They came from my body, but directly from my heart, from the very essence of me.

  Landry’s legs buckled, and I caught him with an arm around his waist and hauled him to my chest. I pressed his face against the side of mine and both his arms wrapped around my ribs, his hands curling into my upper back. I clung to him like he’d disappear in the next instant, but my legs were shaking and my arms were twitching because this was it. We’d crested that hill, but we were still falling. I didn’t know yet what waited for us at the bottom.

  There were breaths and limbs and heartbeats but I didn’t know whose was whose. My fingers threaded in his curls. Someone’s breath hitched and someone’s lips touched an ear.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, fingers curling into his scalp. There were so many reasons to apologize, I didn’t know where to start.

  “Jus.” His voice was breathless. “What . . . what’s going on?”

  My brain fuzzed but I managed to get some words out. “I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do for years.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  I pulled back and grabbed his face in my hands. “I’m gay, Landry. I’m fucking gay.”

  His eyes flickered, like my breath fanned the flames in his eyes and then the blue shone brighter. “Is this really happening?”

  I nodded.

  His eyes shuttered and a tremor ran through his body. “We need to get inside the RV. Now.”

  And then I felt his hardness, right against mine where it pressed painfully against the zipper of my shorts. Evidence that I wasn’t the only one feeling this moment, that maybe that incident back at the water park wasn’t a fluke. Landry wants me. My head spun because the feel of him, his smell and his heat, were a drug. I reached to the side with one hand, opened the RV door, and somehow stumbled with him in my arms up the two steps and pulled the door closed behind us.

  Then my feet weren’t touching the ground and I didn’t realize I was falling until I thudded on top of him on the bed and our lips collided.

  His firm muscles rippled under my palms and his stubble rasped along mine. Then his mouth opened and I didn’t know if my tongue was in his mouth or his was in mine, because it was just one big tangle of need. All of me knew I was kissing a guy, and years of ache inside me screamed this is right. This was who I was—a guy soaking up the warmth of another guy. But not just any guy—Landry.

  All those fantasies, those feelings I’d harbored deep down inside, had been 100 percent right. Kissing Landry, touching him, my fingers on his skin, was everything I should have felt like the way my teammates talked about feeling when touching a girl.

  I didn’t know how long the kiss lasted, how long I sucked on the essence of Landry until I felt him in my blood. We touched foreheads, breathing into each other’s mouths, the air charged around us. I licked my lips, tasting him. “What about Jud—”

  “We broke up.” Landry growled and palmed the back of my head, shoving my lips back onto his. And I didn’t question his words or think about it too hard. Because this kiss was testosterone and power and desire and all I could do was battle him back with my own lust.

  Landry planted a foot on the bed, rolling both of us so I lay on my back under him. He loomed over me, curls brushing his forehead and blue eyes glo
wing in the moonlight, filtering into our moment. Then he ripped his shirt off and helped me out of mine. I took in the expanse of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, his round, flat nipples as those hands that could expertly flip a pancake and sketch a bird in flight popped the button on my shorts and lowered the zipper. He was still my Landry, but this was a new version. Full of intensity and concentration, all of it focused on me.

  He stared at the triangle of red boxer brief behind my zipper, then looked in my eyes, a silent question in his pleading blues. I nodded, telling myself I was in control, but I knew I wasn’t. He hooked his finger in the elastic and pulled it down to release my straining cock. Then Landry’s shorts were open, his own cock hard and pointing at me. I’d never seen him hard. He was beautiful.

  Landry licked his lips and I grabbed him by the back of the neck so that he would collapse on top of me. I wanted a taste of him again. Landry. My Landry.

  A hand brushed down my abs, touching on the trail of hair leading south, and I tensed, every muscle screaming for that hand to keep moving, to give me what I’d envisioned in my head so many times. He disengaged from our kiss and nudged my nose with his. I felt a silent question hang in the air.

  “Yes,” I whispered in answer.

  His hand circled me, the head of my shaft bumped against his, and when he began stroking us together in his fist, I arched my neck as my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I thought a hand on my cock was just a hand on my cock, but no, not when that hand belonged to him.

  “Holy fuck, Lan.”

  “Jus.” His voice was muffled as his lips nibbled at my jaw, the cord of my neck and my cock jerked. He raised his head. “This is us.”

  His voice was breathless from my kisses. I gulped, because his hand on me, the feel of his hard heat gliding with mine, short-circuited my brain. I managed to nod and whisper, “Finally.”

  Lan let out a whimper. “Finally,” he echoed.

  The word tightened my balls and I could feel the orgasm building at the base of my spine.

  I held off as long as I could, not wanting this to end, not wanting to lose the feel of him touching me, watching me, surrounding me. But I couldn’t stop the bus, not when Landry was driving. “Fuck, I’m going to come.”

  “Me too.”

  And then I erupted with a shout and my vision blacked out as I came and came in Landry’s hand. I heard his muffled curse and I knew he’d followed me in release all over my chest.

  I couldn’t move my muscles when he slumped onto my chest, but I accepted his weight and wrapped my arms around his back.

  His weight shifted, soft fabric wiped my stomach, but my eyelids wouldn’t open. Then our chests pressed together again.

  I’m not sure how long we lay there together as the air cooled around us. I ran my fingers along his spine and felt his breaths deepen. I was half asleep before I thought about consequences.

  ***

  I opened my eyes to the morning sun streaming through the cracks in the curtain. Lan sat beside me, his arms wrapped around his legs, his cheek to his knees, his head turned away as he looked out the window.

  I didn’t like that I couldn’t see his face, his eyes, but I didn’t let him know I was awake. I wanted to sit in this moment forever, before we opened wounds and rubbed salt in them. Before I had to talk about what I said last night. What I did. What we did. The memories flashed through my mind. The feel of his skin, the taste of his mouth. All of it equaling everything I’d been missing only touching girls for twenty-two years.

  But the anxiety in my gut wasn’t about saying that I was gay or about coming out, it was about the possibility that this whole revelation could cost me my best friend. Because every second that ticked by brought us closer to the future I increasingly dreaded.

  “I know you’re awake,” he whispered.

  I didn’t say anything, focusing on the curls on the back of his head, mussed from the pillow and sleep and my fingers.

  “Your breathing changes,” he continued. “And you always jerk your left leg right when you wake. You do the same thing when you’re falling asleep.”

  His voice dropped a horrible weight on my chest. “I didn’t know,” I whispered back.

  “Well, apparently, there are some things I didn’t know either.” His breath hitched.

  I needed to make sure he stayed until I could explain. I didn’t think about the future or last night. My goal right now was to keep my best friend. “Look at me.”

  His arms gripped his knees tighter, his heels pressing closer, curling himself into a solid ball.

  “Landry—”

  He turned. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. His lips red, a dot of blood on the spot where he always nibbled when he was nervous. “You lied.”

  “I know.”

  “No, Jus, this isn’t just a little lie. This is huge. This is betrayal territory.”

  Don’t cry, Jus. Don’t cry. Stay strong and take this like a man.

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” I sat up, now aware we were both completely naked. “Can I . . . can I touch you? Hold you?”

  His eyes flashed and his eyebrows shot in.

  I didn’t give him a chance to answer, because hearing no would have killed me. So I threw my arms around his shoulders, his back to my chest, my chin on his shoulder, lips at his ear, caging him in with my legs on either side of his hips. His body tensed but he didn’t shove me away. He never tensed when I touched him. My touch relaxed him and the thought that it didn’t at this moment pained me.

  “I want to talk now. Please, just listen.”

  A pause, then a single nod.

  “Thank you, for listening and not running away. I know you probably hate me but—”

  Now a jerky shake, the curls tickling my nose. “Never hate you, Jus. Never.”

  “Okay—”

  “But I’m pissed and hurt and I really want to kick you in the balls right now.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Some of the tenseness left his shoulders. “How long have you known?”

  I paused, thinking back. “I guess high school. I’m not like you, Landry. I didn’t have the confidence about myself. When I wasn’t interested in girls, my mom told me I was just a late bloomer or something, and I believed her. I thought I’d get interested. And then when I didn’t . . . I was scared and in denial about it. I thought maybe because you were gay, that’s why I was curious. And I didn’t have the support of my parents. Well, my dad would have been fine, but not my mom. And—”

  “You had me,” he said. And the first brick of guilt lodged in my stomach.

  “I know, but—”

  His voice grew stronger. “You think it was easy for me? Justin, when you weren’t around, I heard it all. You didn’t hear the under-the-breath comments, you didn’t see the looks, the guys who wouldn’t get near me in the locker room during gym class.”

  He was stacking up those bricks of guilt one by one, and soon I wouldn’t be able to move from the weight. “I’m sorry.” I sounded like a broken record. All I could see was the side of his face, the crinkles around his eyes showing his strain, the toll this conversation was taking on him.

  “What about . . .” he began.

  “Us.”

  He sucked in a breath. “Yeah. Was there anyone else . . .”

  I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on his shoulder, the knot of bone digging into my skin. “I’ve never touched another guy. It’s . . . always been you, Landry.”

  “So, what, this is a gay-for-me thing?”

  “No, I’m definitely gay. I just . . . knew because of you. Because of how I felt about you.” I wanted to ask if he felt for me too or if last night was a fluke, a physical convenience.

  Now he shifted, turning in my arms, sitting cross-legged between my legs, his hands on my thighs as they stretched around him.
I bent my knees so my heels touched his butt.

  “How long?”

  “I already answered—”

  “No, how long have you felt this way about me?”

  He was going to kill me. “A long time. High school, probably.”

  “Jesus Christ, Justin!” He blew out a breath and tugged on his hair. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to tell me?”

  I looked out the window, unable to face his accusing blue eyes. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t planned on it. I was going to get through this summer, start working for my mom in the fall, and be the good son.”

  “You were going to marry a woman.”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, you’ve slept with one before.” His voice was bitter. “I guess you could live your life continuing to fight who you really are.”

  I flinched. “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, facing him now. “I’ve never had sex with a girl.”

  Landry exploded, jumping from the bed, pulling on a pair of jeans commando and tugging on a T-shirt. I focused on his face even though I wanted to catch another glimpse of the body he was covering up.

  I reached for him. “Landry, please—”

  He whirled on me, pointing a finger and backing up out of my reach. “I need to get away. Just . . . I need some time. Right now. To myself. I did it for you last night, so you can do it for me tonight. I’m not leaving. I’m just . . . separating myself before I say something I regret.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off. “You need to understand that I thought I had a crush on my straight best friend for a decade. Do you get that? Do you get that my head cannot comprehend what is going on right now? I need some time. I’m going to walk around this rest stop and eat my weight in chocolate and Twizzlers from the vending machines. And you’re going to wait here until I’m ready to continue this conversation.”

  He had a crush on me? I nodded as he opened the door. I didn’t want to, but I did it for him.

  “Okay,” he said. And then the door to Sally slammed shut behind him.