Boyfriend Material

by Jerry Cole

  He answered after two rings. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Dad,” Taylor said, quietly. He could hear the sounds of the other mechanics working behind his father, and he felt a little bad for interrupting him during the day. But this was important. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor replied, then bit his lower lip. “I think so. I just need to talk to you.”

  “Okay, hang on a second,” he said. He put the phone down as he told one of his co-workers that he was going to take lunch. It was more of a formality, really. His father had risen in the ranks enough that he didn’t have to tell anyone that he was taking a break, but he had been working at the shop for years and habits were hard to break. He could hear him walking away from the shop before he brought the phone back to his face. “I’m here.”

  “Hi,” Taylor said. He was trying not to sound worried, but he didn’t think he was being particularly successful. “I’m okay.”

  “Oh, no,” his father replied. “Did you get in an accident or something?”

  “No, no,” Taylor said. “Nothing like that. There’s just been — there’s something I need to talk to you about. Like, it’s about me, not about anything else. Nothing has happened. I mean, not exactly.”

  “Okay…”

  Taylor could tell that his father was getting more and more concerned, which was definitely something he wanted to avoid. However, whenever he tried to open his mouth, nothing coherent would come out. In fact, nothing would come out. He knew that he needed to talk to his dad if he was ever going to ask Jason to give him another chance, but he started to wonder if it would be worth it, at that point. Would Jason actually reconsider going out with him just because he had told his dad about him? Would he even believe him? He would have no reason to, but Taylor at least had to try. Especially after he had managed to put his foot in it so monumentally.

  “Do you want to call me back later or —”

  “No, sorry, Dad,” Taylor said. “I’m just trying to gather my thoughts here. And this is kind of hard for me.”

  “Are you dropping out of school?”

  “No, of course not,” Taylor replied, trying to stop himself from laughing.

  “Did you get some girl pregnant?”

  “What? No,” Taylor replied, unable to stop laughing this time.

  “Then what is it? Because those are the only things I can think of that would make you call me like this and then not actually tell me what the heck is going on,” his father said.

  Taylor smiled. He often forgot that his father never swore, that was, until they spoke again. Then he remembered it, and that the worst word he had ever said around Taylor was ‘damn’. He wondered if his confession — was it a confession? — would make him use more colorful language than usual.

  “I met someone,” Taylor finally said. He had thought about how to phrase this, exactly about how to phrase it, to minimize whichever shock his father would have felt at the words. But it didn’t seem to matter because his voice was strained and quiet, and he was struggling to hear himself.

  “You met someone?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor said, clearing his throat. Trying to sound more like an adult that he did. “And I really like them. But they’re — it’s complicated.”

  “They?”

  Taylor closed his eyes and tried to keep his breathing steady. “It’s a guy, Dad.”

  “You met — you met a guy?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor replied. He was about to pause and let his father say something, but that seemed like a terrible idea all of a sudden. “And I don’t know how serious it is because I kind of screwed things up already, but I guess one of the conditions of anything happening is that I’m open to the people I know about it, and like, I know you’re probably going to freak out, but it doesn’t mean I’m gay — at least I don’t think so, I mean, I’m into girls too, and it could be nothing, but it could be something and I just, I feel like I had to tell you because he needs to know that you know and I need you to know and — I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  His father was quiet for a few seconds. When he spoke, Taylor couldn’t read his tone. “Are you done?”

  If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that his father sounded amused. But he couldn’t think this was funny. Could he?

  “Yes, Dad,” he replied. “I’m done.”

  “Your sex life is none of my business,” his father said. “And unless you’re planning to marry this guy, I don’t care.”

  Taylor shook his head. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. “But I really like him.”

  “Okay…”

  “I’m serious,” Taylor said.

  “I know.”

  “Okay, Dad, I’m like, having a hard time here. This was a really big deal to me. Making this phone call, talking to you about this, it’s like a big thing. And you don’t really seem to care all that much.”

  “What do you want me to say? You do what you like, T. Do who you like,” his father replied. “You’re young, you still have time to figure things out for yourself. Do you want me to lecture you about staying safe? You’re a smart kid. I trust you.”

  Taylor closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief. “So, you don’t — you don’t think this is like, a bad thing?”

  “Well, it’s not what I was expecting,” his father said. “But it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing.”

  “But you’re not mad?”

  “Should I be?”

  “And you’re not disappointed or like —”

  “No,” his father said. “You’re an adult. You choose what you do. If this is what you want, umm, what you need, that’s fine.”

  “But what about God —”

  “He probably has other things to worry about,” his father said, chuckling. “Also, do you want me to be disappointed in you or something? Because it sounds like you don’t want me to approve. If this is something you’re trying to get out of, I don’t mind playing the part of the authoritarian father or whatever you need. But is that what you want?”

  “No,” Taylor said, shaking his head and sitting back on the headboard of his bed. His blinds were closed, but he could still see little bits of sunshine reflected on the blue wall. “No, I don’t know. I guess I thought that if the — I guess I just that if you reacted poorly, I would have to walk away. And that would make my life easier.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No,” Taylor said, swallowing. “Yes. I don’t know.”

  His father laughed quietly. “It sounds like you’re confused.”

  “No,” Taylor replied, shaking his head. “I mean, I’m not confused about him. I’m confused about how this affects me and I’m worried. Because —”

  “It changes things?”

  “Yeah, because it changes things,” Taylor replied.

  “That’s surprising,” his father said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve never been afraid of change,” his father said. “And you sound pretty scared right now.”

  Taylor bit the inside of his cheek, then exhaled through his nose. “I’m just not sure how to think about this.”

  “What do you mean? How are you supposed to think about it?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Taylor replied. “I’m not sure. This is confusing and —”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I’m scared,” Taylor said. “Like you said.”

  “What of?”

  “That I’m going to screw it up,” Taylor replied. “Or that, I don’t know, that I won’t.”

  “So you’re scared that it’ll work?”

  Taylor sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’m scared that it will work and it will change everything.”

  “It kind of sounds like everything has already changed for you, though,” his father replied. “Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be calling me in the first place.”
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  Taylor’s mouth was dry. His father’s assessment was spot on, but he couldn’t really bring himself to say that, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because it would make it real, and if Taylor was being honest with himself — and he was trying to be — making it real was perhaps what he had been avoiding in the first place. Both when he was talking to Jason and talking to his father about it.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “You’re right. I just wanted to call you and —”

  “Well, I appreciate the call,” his dad replied. “I do. Is everything else going okay?”

  “Everything else is fine,” Taylor said. “Everything else is good.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  “Alright, Dad. It’s getting better every day,” Taylor said. “Coach Moran is talking about putting me back on the field in a couple of weeks.”

  “That sounds good. Keep me up to date, will you? Both with football and with this fella,” his father replied.

  “Yeah, Dad. Of course,” Taylor said.

  When he hung up, he was smiling.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jason paced around his living room — which was still surprisingly clean. He didn’t like it anymore, though. After Taylor had overwhelmed his thoughts and he was all that Jason could think about, he had dropped a bomb on him. In general, Jason made it a rule not to date “straight” boys. He thought about them like that, in quotation marks. He had been burned far too many times to take on something like that again.

  But there was something about Taylor that was special. Or at least that was what he had thought, until Taylor had cornered him and asked him if he could keep them a secret. That was enough to remind Jason why he never dated “straight” guys in the first place.

  Regardless of the spark that Jason and Taylor had, he would never again go out with someone who was ashamed of him.

  He had never been kissed like that, though. There was something electric, magnetic, magical about it.

  He shook his head, laughing to himself. “You need to get laid,” he said in the empty room. Yeah, that was it. As soon as he got laid, he would forget all about Taylor. He would forget all about Blaine, and about Salsex, and about the fact that the one person he really seemed to like, and the first one he had seemed to like in ages, didn’t really want that much to do with him.

  Outside the bedroom, anyway.

  He took his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it and scrolled down to his best friend’s name and dialed the number.

  It seemed like she wasn’t going to pick up for a while. He was starting to feel discouraged when she finally answered the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. We’re going out tonight.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes, we are,” he replied. “Please?”

  He could hear Sara doing something in her room. She may have turned him down some other time, but she could probably hear the pleading tone in his voice. Which he wasn’t proud of, but it was better than staying at home and getting drunk by himself.

  Considering that he would have to go out and buy the alcohol, anyway. If he was going to out, he may as well go all out. He was about to ask Sara what she was doing when she spoke.

  “Sure,” she said. “Meet me at UC in half an hour?”

  “You’re the best,” Jason replied. “Have I mentioned you’re the best lately?”

  “Actually, you haven’t mentioned anything lately,” she said. “You kind of fell off the grid.”

  “Yeah, my bad — I just, you know. Things have been hard for me,” Jason said. “Then Blaine showed up.”

  “He showed up?”

  “Yeah, he showed up,” Jason said.

  “Is he still there? Because if he’s coming out, then —”

  Jason shook his head, smiling. Sara was always so protective. That was one of the reasons he couldn’t have told her in the first place, she would have freaked out. And the last thing Jason needed to do was deal with was an upset best friend all while he was dealing with Blaine’s brand of crazy, too. Though she would have told him to turn him away. She was always the smarter one of the two.

  “No, he’s not with me,” Jason said. “He’s not with me at all anymore. Things changed. Are you still seeing that girl? Shanna?”

  Sara snorted. “What do you think?”

  “I think she seemed really crazy,” Jason replied. “But you know, you can do as you like. I know you know how to handle yourself.”

  “Yes, thank you for the vote of confidence,” Sara said. “But no, we’re not seeing each other anymore. She was — intense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like she took me to a jewelry store and then started looking at rings as though that was a thing people did,” Sara said. “You know, she just like, sprung it on me. I was like, I’ve been seeing you for like six months, slow your roll!”

  “Oh, yikes,” Jason replied.

  “I know,” Sara said. “She didn’t seem to appreciate it, anyway. So she dumped me.”

  “Sorry, dude,” Jason said. “That sucks.”

  “Nah, not really,” Sara replied. “I’m kind of glad she dumped me, so I wouldn’t have to dump her. Anyway, let’s stop talking about me. What happened with Blaine? What the fuck’s going on with you?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you,” Jason said. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “Alright, no problem,” Sara said. “See you soon.”

  “Bye,” he said, hanging up the phone. He looked at it for a few seconds. Now that Sara was going to meet him there, he had to go out.

  Maybe that was a good thing.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Jesus,” Sara said, shaking her head. They were outside the club, next to all the smokers. Sara only smoked when she drank, but Jason liked the smoke breaks all the same. He thought they were a nice escape from all the sweaty bodies on the dance floor. “Straight people suck.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Jason replied. He had just filled Sara in with the story about Taylor, though he still had to tell her everything that happened with Blaine. Truthfully, while he loved Sara, he was there for a more immediate kind of distraction. But none of the other men, as hot as they were, had caught his attention. They had come up to him, they had spoken to him, they had bought him drinks. He never struggled at UC, though there were hotter men than him around. He was confident and he knew how to dance, so he was automatically desirable. And normally, at this point in the night, Jason would have gone home with one of them. But not tonight.

  They all seemed unappealing. Sara had obviously picked up on it. “So is that why you’re not going home with any of these beefcakes?”

  Jason laughed, throwing his head back. He took a sip out of his beer bottle. They were technically in part of the club, as long as the fence was in front of them and not behind them, so public intoxication laws didn’t apply. And Jason planned to get very, very intoxicated.

  Despite all the beers he already had, he felt stone cold sober. Talking about Taylor seemed to have sobered him up and he didn’t like that at all. He needed to not be able to feel things as intensely if he was going to get through the night without breaking down, so he was readying himself to walk back into the club when his phone rang in his pocket.

  “It’s him,” he said, staring at the screen. Sara raised her eyebrows. She was taller than Jason and by far scarier than him, so he liked having her with him whenever he went out. She was the perfect deterrent to any harassers. Not that he got many nowadays, looking the way that he did. But she had been an extremely loyal friend even many years ago, before he fell into Salsex. When he was still with Blaine. Before he was with Blaine. And he knew that she would always do anything it took to protect him.

  “Him-Blaine or him-Taylor?”

  “It’s Taylor,” Jason said, shaking his head. “He’s calling me.”

  “It’s after midnight on a school day,” Sara said. “He stayed up all night just to talk to you. That’s so cute.”

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nbsp; “Sara,” Jason said, trying to sound annoyed.

  “Are you going to pick up?”

  “Yes,” Jason replied. “But only to tell him that he can’t call me again.”

  “Hey, you do whatever you have to do,” Sara said. “I’m going back inside. Text me if you need me?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jason replied. He answered the call, but it was too late. Taylor had already hung up.

  ***

  Jason walked to the multi-story parking lot near the club, wishing that he did smoke. Taylor hadn’t called him back and he was starting to regret not answering the phone call. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he dug his phone out of his pocket again and rang Taylor back.

  He answered almost instantly.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” Jason said. “I’m just returning your call.”

  Taylor exhaled. “I’m so sorry if you were asleep,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I didn’t realize how late it was and —”

  “It’s a Friday, Taylor,” Jason said. “And it’s only eleven o’clock. Do you think I’m like old or something?”

  “No,” Taylor said, laughing quickly. “Not at all. I just needed to talk to you. I’m a bit drunk and I — I owe you an apology. But I wanted to do this in person. Are you at home?”

  “No, downtown,” Jason replied. “I was just at University Club with a friend.”

  “Oh, a friend?” Taylor asked. He sounded disappointed. Jason told himself that he shouldn’t be happy about that. At least not as happy as he was.

  “Yeah,” Jason said, deciding to cut Taylor some slack. “But she stayed behind. I needed to go for a walk, clear my head.”

  “So are you still downtown?”

  “Yup,” Jason replied. “About to call for a car.”

  Taylor was quiet for a few seconds too long, enough that Jason wondered if he was still there.

  “I owe you an apology, like I said,” Taylor finally said. “But I don’t want to do this over the phone. Can you stay there? I can meet you.”

  “You’re leaving your house at eleven o’clock at night just to meet me?”

  “Yes,” Taylor said. “If you have time. And if you, if you want to. You totally don’t have to, like, I just want time for a coffee. One coffee.”