by Jerry Cole
Elliot’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. He looked like angry, as though he couldn’t believe what Taylor had said. “That’s what you think this is?”
“That’s what it sounds like this is, Elliot,” Taylor replied, as gently as he could. “And if there was some sort of magic cure for it, I would be happy to give it to you. But a crush is a crush, everyone gets them and —”
“There you go, being all fucking wise again,” Elliot said, rolling his eyes. “This isn’t a crush, though, Taylor. As much as you may want to think that it is.”
“It isn’t?”
“No,” Elliot replied. “Of course it’s not.”
Taylor cocked his head, staring at Elliot. If this wasn’t a crush, then…
“I’m in love with you, you absolute idiot,” Elliot said. “And the fact that you’re so blind that you can’t see it, God, it makes me so angry.”
“Um,” Taylor said. This talk was supposed to prepare him to come up with a defense and a way to keep Elliot as both his roommate and his friend, even if it was a little awkward. He hadn’t expected that he would have a bomb dropped on his lap in the middle of their talk, though He wasn’t sure what to say, which meant that Elliot seemed to be getting progressively more and more upset. After a while, as Elliot stared right at him, he finally managed to find his voice again. “Thank — thank you.”
Elliot raised his eyebrows, his eyes going even bigger than before. “Really? Thank you?”
“I don’t really know what else you want me to say,” Taylor replied. “I just — I mean, I’m very flattered.”
“You don’t have to rub it in that you don’t feel the same way, you know,” Elliot said.
“I didn’t think that was what I was doing,” Taylor replied. Elliot looked like he was on the verge of tears and Taylor really didn’t want to be the one that had made him cry, but he couldn’t exactly help it. He wasn’t going to lie to him just to make him feel better.
“I just don’t understand,” Elliot said, shaking his head and sniffling. “Why did you have to choose him?”
Taylor shook his head. “I didn’t choose him,” he replied. “It wasn’t like that. I could just, I don’t know, I can just feel it. Like in my heart. You’re my friend, of course. And I love you, as a friend. But Jason, I don’t know, it’s like just knowing that he existed changed my life completely. And that’s not on you, it doesn’t mean anything about you. I just —”
“You’re just not available,” Elliot said, completing Taylor’s sentence for him.
“Exactly,” Taylor said. “You can’t occupy a space that’s already taken. And Jason has kind of taken up every part of me that felt empty before.”
“That’s rubbing it in,” Elliot said, chuckling sadly.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, looking at him. “I know I get a little bit weird when we talk about him. I just, I don’t know, I like him so much that it’s still kind of hard for me to really believe it. Or to believe that he’s interested in me.”
“Yeah,” Elliot said. “I get that. Look, Taylor?”
“What?”
“You’re my friend, too. But I can’t really talk to you about Jason right now. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to,” Elliot said. “Because if I’m going to be real with you right now, then there’s a real temptation here to sabotage this and that’s the last thing that I want to do. Because, believe it or not, I actually really do want you to be happy. But this is kind of tearing me apart, so I can’t be around it.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor replied, biting the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t mean to burden you with that.”
“It’s cool,” Elliot said. “Or, well, it isn’t. I’m gonna go hang out with Matty. I would normally invite you, but I —”
“I get it,” Taylor said. “It’s probably better if we’re not around each other for a bit.”
“Yeah,” Elliot replied, his voice breaking. “Thank you.”
“I’m not really doing anything,” Taylor said, shrugging. “And I am sorry. Both about bringing Jason up and about —”
“The not-having-feelings-for-me thing?”
“Yeah,” Taylor said. He wasn’t sure that he would put it like that, exactly, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
Elliot shrugged. “It’s not like you can help who you have feelings for, right?”
“Right,” Taylor replied. “I’ll see you later.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Class on Tuesday was okay for Jason, though he had started to have some performance anxiety issues when he had to dance in front of Taylor, who seemed to put him on a pedestal. He just hoped that this anxiety wouldn’t be something that would also affect their sex life. They had another date set for Friday, but as soon as he had seen Taylor walk through the double glass door, Jason had wanted to kiss him right then and there.
Taylor had been wearing a hoodie, which he pulled over his head before he joined the rest of the students. Jason tried his best not to look at Taylor’s muscles as he moved to the beat. As soon as class was over, Jason planned to corner Taylor and kiss him. They would have to go to the one corner of the room that Jason knew the cameras didn’t get. He wanted to cover Taylor’s face with kisses until they were both moaning and begging for more, but his face was covered in sweat and Taylor had decided to leave the room at the same time as class was ending.
He grabbed the small laptop over the audio system and tried to stuff it into his bag when the only other guy that ever showed up to class, Wayne, approached him. He was a chubby 20-something year old that had already lost a considerable amount of weight doing Salsex every week. Unfortunately, his crush on Jason hadn’t gone away at the same time as his weight had, and he often stayed behind to not quite ask Jason out, but mostly to find out if he was still single.
The problem was that, this time, Jason didn’t know what he was going to say. There was also the fact that Wayne was his student and it wasn’t as though he could be rude to him, even if Wayne decided to be a little forward.
“Hey,” Jason said. “Did you like the new song?”
“Yeah,” Wayne replied, smiling at him. “It was fun. How have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” Jason said. “Things have actually been a bit crazy lately, but pretty good, I think.”
Wayne raised his eyebrows. “You think.”
“Yes,” Jason replied. “Like I said, it’s been really weird and crazy lately. You know how that is.”
“Right,” Wayne said. “So was that why you didn’t show up the other day?”
Jason swallowed. “Just some personal issues,” he said, hoping that would put the topic to rest. He didn’t really want to talk to Wayne about everything that had been going on with him. He didn’t really want to talk to Wayne about anything. He just wanted to spend his time talking to Taylor, instead. Kissing Taylor. Talking about his next date with Taylor. He cleared his throat. “I hope I didn’t let you down when I couldn’t come in. I know you’re one of my regulars.”
“You didn’t let me down,” Wayne said. “I was just a little worried about you. You never miss any of your classes and you’re always so apologetic when you do.”
“Thank you for thinking about me,” Jason said. “I appreciate that. I do.”
He looked around the room, trying to find a way to excuse himself from the conversation that Wayne wouldn’t find too rude. He saw Taylor standing outside the doors, looking in and cocking his head. “Listen, Wayne, I —”
“You know,” Wayne said. “It would be nice if you could give me your number, just so that I could contact you if something like that happened again.”
“Trust me, I won’t ever not show up to class again,” Jason said, a little more shortly than he intended to. Then he looked at Wayne, who looked more than a little irritated, and he felt a little bad. Other students did have his phone number and there was nothing to it. Plus, it wasn’t as though he could just deal a blow to
Wayne’s confidence like that. This was something that he had obviously been working up to for months.
“Okay,” Wayne said.
“Here,” Jason said, taking his phone out of the laptop bag. “Give me your number and I’ll call you. You know, for emergencies and the like.”
“Okay, great,” Wayne replied, smiling. He rattled off his number to Jason, who called him immediately. Once they were done exchanging numbers, Jason left the room in search of Taylor.
***
Jason found Taylor leaning against his car outside, playing with his phone. He thought that he would have left the parking lot by then, but he had been lucky to catch him just in time. That’s what he thought, anyway, because Taylor barely paid any attention to him as he approached him.
“Hey,” he said, wiping his face with his gym towel. “I thought I had missed you.”
“You didn’t,” Taylor said, raising his eyebrows. “I was going to go in there and talk to you, but you were busy.”
“Busy? You could have interrupted me,” Jason said, giggling. “In fact, I wanted you to interrupt me. Wayne is a nice enough student, but he’s a bit intense and any way I can get away from him is a good way.”
“So I’m just a way to stop someone from inconveniencing you?”
“What? No!” Jason replied. “I’m just saying that you would be a wonderful distraction when anything like that is happening. Look, everyone in class kind of knows that Wayne has a crush on me. It’s pretty obvious and it’s not like he does a good job at keeping it to himself.”
“Oh, okay,” Taylor said. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better how, exactly?”
Jason tried not to smile. Was Taylor, the picture of confidence, actually jealous? And of someone like Wayne? “Look,” Jason said, trying to make his voice sound less amused than he felt. “Wayne is just a student. He has a crush on me. All of the girls in class, they say that I’m out of his league. He’s a really nice guy or whatever, but I’m not interested in him.”
“You’re not?” Taylor replied, swallowing.
“No,” Jason said. “Of course I’m not.”
“Then why —”
“Because he’s my student, Taylor, and this is my place of work,” Jason replied. “I can’t exactly be a dick to him because he’s being a little insistent. And if some of my students get my phone number, then all of my students get my phone number. Surely, you understand that.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Taylor said. “I guess. Wait.”
“What?”
“If you have students who have crushes on you, then does that mean that I’m just one of those?”
“You’re just one of those? Honey, I really hope you have a crush on me,” Jason replied, winking at him. “Otherwise, I really, really want to see what you can pull off. You know, in bed.”
Taylor looked at him for a few seconds, his mouth open, before he moved his head back and laughed. “But you’re not, like, going to replace me or anything, right? By someone better looking than me or smarter or —”
“Hey,” Jason said, taking both of Taylor’s hands, which were cold and sweaty. “First of all, I don’t think that those things exist. I don’t think there are any people in the world that are better looking or smarter than you. But even if there are, and even if they did like me, I’m never going to replace you with anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” Jason said. To him, it was the most obvious thing in the world, but it was obvious that Taylor needed to hear it. “I want you and just you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, honey,” Jason said, kissing him softly on the cheek. “I’m absolutely positive. But if you don’t mind me asking, where is all this coming from? You didn’t seem this insecure just a couple of days ago.”
Taylor rolled his eyes and sighed. “If I tell you, you’re probably going to laugh at me.”
“Too late, already laughing at you,” Jason said, poking him softly in the stomach and grinning. “I’m just going to laugh even more if you don’t tell me.”
“Fine, okay,” Taylor said. “I guess this is about my roommate.”
“Your roommate?”
“Yeah,” Taylor said. “The other day — well, just the day before yesterday actually, he kind of confessed that he was in love with me. And he told me he had been giving me advice to sabotage our relationship.”
Jason didn’t think his grin could get any bigger, but he had obviously been wrong. “You’ve been asking your roommate about us?”
“Yes,” Taylor said. “I don’t know, I kind of expected him to be able to help me out with how I was feeling about you, and then he told me he was bisexual so I thought that maybe he could help me understand.”
Jason shook his head. “Did he help you understand?”
“The only thing he helped me understand is that I’m a clueless idiot,” Taylor said. “According to him, he’s been in love with me for months and I never even noticed.”
“Oh, ouch,” Jason said. “But you’re not interested?”
“No,” Taylor replied, emphatically. “Not interested in the slightest.”
“Then, my dear, why are you afraid that I’m going to be interested in one of my Salsex students, when you’re not even interested in someone that you spend a hell of a lot of time with?”
“It’s not that,” Taylor replied in a small voice. “It’s just, if I tell you this, you’re going to think it’s so stupid.”
Jason raised his eyebrows and licked his lower lip. “Look, whatever you’re holding back, my imagination is probably worse than whatever is it that you’re actually thinking.”
“I doubt it,” Taylor said. “I’ll tell you but you have to promise not to laugh.”
“Cross my heart,” Jason replied.
“So, I guess that when — I guess that when Elliot confessed his feelings to me, I realized that I had competition. At least when it came to you. You’re so amazing and I’m, I don’t know, just me,” Taylor said. “What if you decide to go for someone else? Someone better? I don’t know, before Elliot told me how he felt, it kind of just felt like you were the only guy in the world. And then he told me how he felt and I realized that people also probably felt the same way about you and you could ditch me whenever.”
“People?”
“Yeah. You know, guys.”
Jason couldn’t hold back anymore. He was doubling down in laughter, tears in his eyes, all while he could hear only some of Taylor’s protests about his promise not to laugh.
“Sorry,” Jason said, finally straightening up and wiping away the tears in his eyes. “But you have to understand that that’s ridiculous.”
“How is it — how is it ridiculous?”
“Because you’re like, just realizing that you’re competing with guys when I have literally everyone to worry about,” Jason replied, looking right at Taylor. He was trying not to keep himself from laughing again, even as he saw the very serious look in Taylor’s eyes. This was obviously a big deal to Taylor and Jason felt a little bad about it, but mostly, it was just cute.
“No,” Taylor said, waving his hands in front of him. “You totally don’t have to worry about anyone.”
“Anyone? Not even the guy you literally live with?”
“Definitely not him,” Taylor replied, shaking his head vigorously.
“Okay,” Jason replied. “Look, I didn’t think so, but the thing is, you’re now worrying about all this stuff and you don’t have to worry about any of it. Because I’m into you.”
“I know,” Taylor said. “I mean, I guess I know that. It’s just weird because I guess, for me, it feels like there’s only you. And no one else.”
“So you’re saying —”
“That you don’t have to worry about anything,” Taylor said. “And also that I’m an idiot.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Jason quietly said. “You know, about anything. And I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you
’re adorable.”
For the first time since they had started talking, Taylor smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Taylor looked at the football team. This was one of those rare reunions where everyone on the roster was there and that included everyone’s replacements. The room was far too small for all of them and the food had gone quickly, though someone had said that more would be coming momentarily. Taylor hadn’t really eaten that much. He had spent most of his time talking to the guy who had replaced him on the team, at least for the time being.
His name was George and he was kind of small, with short black hair and huge brown eyes. Taylor had been a little concerned that George was going to end up replacing him forever, something which George clearly aspired to. But George had turned out to be surprisingly cool and he had asked Taylor how his arm was doing even though Taylor could hardly remember his name. George also knew things about him that Taylor would often mention in passing, something that Taylor found quite nice. He was enjoying talking to George instead of the rest of the team, since Taylor would be addressing the rest of the team soon. The guys on the general roster were people that he knew more than he knew George, people who he had gone to classes with for years, people whose families had invited him over for Thanksgiving and Christmas when he hadn’t been able to afford going back home. And of course, there was their coach. Their coach had been amazing. Taylor had been a little worried when he had first moved, since his relationship with his coach back home was strained at the best of times. But that was not what it had been like since he had arrived at school.
He had never felt more warmly welcomed by anyone else. That was the first indication that maybe it had been okay to move, that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad that he had gone so far away from home. That maybe he had even done the right thing.
But that had been before.
It felt as though Taylor’s life was being split into two parts, one before Jason, one after Jason. He liked the ‘after’ Jason part a lot better than he liked the ‘before’ Jason part, but that was only because it involved Jason. His father had reacted better than Taylor thought he would have, but that didn’t mean that everyone else would react the way that his father had.
