Focus on Me

by Megan Erickson

“I’ve never heard you talk to your parents. That on purpose?”

  His shoulders rose up around his ears and he seemed to hunch in on himself.

  “Ri?”

  “We’re not close,” he said quietly, not turning to look at me.

  I had to turn down the radio and lean over a little. “Not close?”

  He lifted his chin slightly, while his hand gripped his thigh. “They’ve tried to change me for a long time, not accepting me as I am, and I don’t need that in my life.” Then he finally turned to look at me. “I don’t trust them.”

  I frowned. “Is this about you being gay?”

  His eyes shifted slightly to my hands on the steering wheel. He leaned back in his seat and stared out of the windshield, wiping his hands up and down his pants. “Something like that.”

  His response was cryptic and I wanted to ask more questions, but if he didn’t want to talk about it, I wasn’t going to make him. He was uncomfortable about the topic for sure.

  So I dropped it, but the conversation had only seemed to turn his sour mood bitter.

  ***

  We checked into a hotel in Dallas. After stays in motels on deserted highways, it felt pretty great to step in to a hotel with elevators and key cards and a room with a minifridge.

  Riley was on his back on top of the sheets, a forearm over his eyes. I let my gaze trail down his body, feeling awkward and voyeuristic but unable to stop myself. His leg twitched and I snapped my eyes back up to his face. He hadn’t moved his arm. I prayed he hadn’t caught me ogling him. He’d placed a boundary between us and I needed to respect that.

  I cleared my throat. “Going to head over to the grocery store across the street. You want anything?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not really hungry.”

  I was starting to hate that sentence. “Come on, you make me feel like a pig, eating all the time. I’ll get you some yogurt or something.”

  He flopped his arm back to the bed and gave me a small smile. “Okay, whatever.”

  I grabbed my wallet off the TV console and shoved it into my jeans pocket. “You’re not going anywhere, right? I don’t need to take my key?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be right here in this same position.”

  “Okay.”

  I walked out, shutting the door behind me, then took the elevator down to the lobby. I had to cross a four-lane highway, so when there was a break in the traffic, I jogged across.

  The FreshMart wasn’t big, but it looked decent enough inside to be able to find something for us to eat. I grabbed a basket off the rack and slipped my arm through the handles. At the produce section, I threw in a bunch of bananas and a couple of apples. I’d seen Riley eating baby carrots so I threw in a bag of those.

  I also grabbed some peanut butter, jelly, bread, Riley’s yogurt, and a few other odds and ends.

  There were a couple of lanes open at checkout but there was a line at each one. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I let a mom and her two kids go in front of me. She had a full cart, so I set my basket of groceries at my feet and prepared to hang out in line for a while.

  There was a rack of magazines beside me, so I grabbed one that had a buff guy on the front and advertised, “How to get washboard abs in thirty days!”

  I paged through it absentmindedly, not really reading any articles, just ogling the hot guys in the perfume ads and hello! underwear ads.

  I smiled and was about to turn the page when something about the guy in tight black briefs lounging in bed, tangled among gray sheets, made me pause. While thumbing through the pages, my eyes had gone right to his crotch and the subsequent bulge beneath the black fabric. But now that I looked closer, there was something familiar about those legs, those hips. That fucking mole on his left rib cage, the one I’d seen numerous times now. The one I imagined running my fingers over as I caressed his bare chest.

  My gaze snapped up to the model’s face and my entire body shut down. Like someone pulled my plug. I froze, unable to move as I stared into the eyes of a sultry, blond Riley.

  His eyelids were at half-mast, like he’d just woken up, and his full lips were parted in a sexy invitation. His arms were raised, fingers tangled in his golden locks. And those eyes, so dark and rich, were right on the camera. His torso was twisted in a scrap of sheet, so I could see the swell of his ass. And his leg was bent, foot firmly planted in the bed.

  My body whirred to life again, although slowly, and everything was weirdly distorted and simplistic, like I was in safe mode.

  Everything, everything about this photo was a fantasy come to life for me. And while some part of my brain recognized it was irrational to feel this way, I was a little angry. At this point, we’d been traveling together for two weeks. A fortnight, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t have told me what he did. That he was a—I checked the label of the underwear and almost fainted—fucking underwear model for Armani. I didn’t know shit about fashion but I’d heard of Armani. I didn’t live in a cave.

  And if he had this job, what the fuck was he doing traipsing across America with a hick like me?

  I’d told him so much about me, and he’d given me nothing. And while that was his right, I was tired of it. And this? This fucking magazine? This was huge goddamn news. And I wondered what else he wasn’t telling me.

  A voice startled me and I looked up, magazine still open to the stupid advertisement. The clerk at the checkout was staring at me, one eyebrow raised while the mother and her two kids headed for the exit, cart loaded with bags. I slapped the magazine shut and threw it on the conveyor belt. Then, in a fit of total immaturity, I grabbed the other four that were on the rack and threw them on the belt as well. Then I set my basket on top. The clerk started up the belt, and I watched those damn magazines head toward the scanner. He picked them up and scanned them and tossed them in a bag. I blew out a breath and fanned my shirt away from my sticky, sweat-soaked chest. What was wrong with me? Why did I care so much?

  The problem was that Riley had hooked me. And I didn’t know a damn thing about him. I prided myself on going with the flow, being easygoing, but everything about Riley raised my blood pressure. I needed to go back to New Mexico and sweat out this situation in a lodge. Too bad I didn’t have that luxury. In about five minutes, I’d be back in a hotel room with Riley, with this fucking picture of him swirling around in my brain.

  “Sir?” The clerk said, catching my attention again. I looked at him, noticing he’d already bagged all my groceries.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, handing over my credit card.

  He ran it through and handed it back to me, letting me know it was under seventy-five dollars so I didn’t have to sign. I nodded and grabbed my bags, the one holding the five magazines feeling like it weighed about fifty pounds.

  I wanted to run back to the hotel and stomp into the room, shove that magazine into Riley’s face, and demand why this was something he couldn’t tell me.

  But as I trudged across the road, not giving a shit if cars had to slow for me, I knew that wasn’t the way to treat Riley. He didn’t need anyone to yell at him. The last thing I wanted to do was be responsible for the shadows in his eyes. I thought I might have beaten them back a couple of times. And I’d hoped to keep it that way.

  I paused at the bottom of the stairway leading up to our room. I gazed upward, then spied a trash can beside me. I rotated my wrist holding the bag of magazines and they thumped against my leg in a crinkle of plastic. I could throw them away. Pretend I never saw them. Or I could walk up the stairs and show him the magazines like a mature person.

  I eyed the trash can, then the stairs. Could I really pretend I hadn’t seen him practically naked in a national advertising campaign?

  I was a lot of things, but a good liar wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t sure when this had happened, this shift in my brain from the time I respected Riley’s distance to now, when all I wanted to do was reel him in. Or actually, what I really wanted was for him to reel me in. For him to want me
to get to know him.

  And I guessed this magazine was a way to show him I was already on his hook. He had to rip it out or pull me in.

  With one last look at the trash can, I regripped the bags and ascended the stairs.

  When I reached our door, I paused, took a deep breath, and then turned the knob.

  Riley hadn’t moved from his position on the bed. He let his forearm flop down at his side and opened his eyes. “Hey.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice, then walked over to our small table and set the bags on top.

  “How was the grocery store?” The bed squeaked behind me, then the sound of soft footfalls.

  I didn’t answer as Riley stood beside me and rummaged through the bags. The one with the magazines sat off to the side, the top cover barely visible through the opaque plastic.

  “Oh, I haven’t had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a while,” he muttered, pulling out the bread.

  “You actually gonna eat it?” My voice was whip-sharp.

  Riley jolted like I’d hit him and he froze, eyes wide. “What?” He sounded wounded. Fuck me.

  I waved a hand, feeling sick to my stomach, those magazines glaring at me from the corner of my eye. I must have glanced at them, because Riley frowned and gestured toward the bag with his chin. “What’s that?”

  I wanted to mulligan this whole day. Why had I bought those damn magazines? Because Riley was standing here now, beautiful and vulnerable and I was going to crack him. I knew it as sure as I loved barbecue that this wasn’t going to go over well. I smacked my hand on top of them and slid them into the trash can beside the table. “Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”

  He held the bread with one hand and peered over my shoulder. “What do you mean, nothing? Why’d you throw that away? It sounded heavy, like a book or something.”

  “Nope, not a book.”

  Riley dropped the bread on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why are you being weird?”

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

  He held out his arm and pushed with the back of his hand on my bicep, trying to move me out of the way so he could walk between me and the table—to get that damn bag. I planted my feet, which was stupid and he knew it, because he could just walk around me. Which he did with a roll of his eyes. And what was I going to do? Block him? Tackle him to the ground?

  Nope. I’d fumbled the magazines and he was going to recover them and it was all my fault.

  I turned around as he was lifting the bag out of the trash. My last hope was that he didn’t see the ad and didn’t know he was in this magazine.

  He reached inside with a look of curiosity on his face. When he saw the cover, surprise flashed in his eyes, then a small grin. “Didn’t know you were a Muscle Man fan.”

  “Um . . .”

  And then I watched as the recognition hit. As he stared at the cover, Riley’s entire body froze, one magazine clutched in his hands, his face blank. Just . . . blank.

  I didn’t move, I didn’t talk. I didn’t even breathe. Because what was my excuse now?

  Slowly, with only a small tick of the muscles in his jaw, Riley lowered the magazine to the table in front of him. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and then he turned the first page. Then the next.

  Each crinkle of the paper felt like nails on a chalkboard. I knew right where his picture was, in the beginning where they always clustered the expensive ads, the big names, the beautiful models.

  Which was Riley. Because even as he stood in front of me with disheveled hair, dirty clothes, and bare feet, he was still beautiful.

  He turned another page. And stopped.

  I closed my eyes.

  The only sound in the room was the pinging of the air-conditioning unit. A couple of shouts from some other motel guests down the hall.

  A door slammed, and we both started. I opened my eyes and he was still staring at that damn ad, at himself. And he looked like he was going to be sick.

  He didn’t look at me. He didn’t say a word. He turned around—away from me—and walked stiffly over to his bed. He grabbed his bag and began shoving some clothes inside, his movements angry and jerky.

  “Ri—”

  He held up a hand, cutting me off, which was maybe a good thing, because I didn’t know what I was going to say anyway. He stalked off into the bathroom and I stood in the middle of the motel room, staring at those damn magazines.

  Riley slammed something in the bathroom and something else clattered to the floor. I clenched my jaw, the guilt starting to wear off and a little bit of defense kicking in. It wasn’t like I’d gone digging for dirt on him. I was at a grocery store, minding my own business, and he was in a magazine ad.

  On top of that, he’d lied to me—at least a lie of omission. So if he was going to leave, well, we were going to have it out. He wasn’t going to get away with the silent treatment and slamming a door in my face.

  When he came out of the bathroom, I was ready, feet braced shoulder-width apart, arms crossed over my chest, shoulders back.

  He stopped when he saw me, toiletry bag clutched in a white-knuckled grip.

  I took a deep breath. “I get that you might be pissed right now, but I’m pretty sure you don’t have a right to be pissed at me.”

  His eyes flashed and he opened his mouth, but I cut him off. “Look, I didn’t Google you or anything. All I did was look through a magazine at checkout. And there you were, in all your super model glory in fucking Armani. Armani! But you were just a bartender, huh? You just slung drinks?”

  His jaw clenched. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

  I threw up my hands. “You’re right, and joke’s on me that I thought I did know you. That I thought you were someone worth knowing. And another joke on me for opening up to you. Because clearly, you didn’t return that. You didn’t trust me.”

  That seemed to hurt him, based on his flinch. And I wondered which thing I said had hurt him the most. Then he raised his chin in defiance. “I never owed you anything. You were just a ride—”

  “Right, just a ride. Well, I guess the ride’s over.” I gestured toward his bag. “You packing up? Leaving me because now I know your big, bad secret, that you used to model in your underwear?”

  “Stop it, Colin.” He tugged on his shoes and threw his toiletry bag into his duffel, then zipped it up. He hoisted it over his shoulder and looked at me. “I left that life, and I’m sorry that I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. And this feels . . . violating.”

  “Violating? Riley, it’s a magazine. In a fucking grocery store.”

  He swallowed. “I know that and I don’t care about anyone else. It’s the fact that you saw it!”

  “What the hell? That makes no sense. So strangers can see it, but not me—”

  “I didn’t say it made sense! I just . . . I wished you hadn’t seen it. The way you did.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Well, maybe if you would have given me a heads-up, it wouldn’t have happened this way.”

  He looked away. “I just . . . I can’t do this now. With you.”

  Do what? What had we been doing anyway? “Whatever.”

  His lips thinned and his eyes flashed, like my dismissal fueled him. “Why’d you have to buy them? Why couldn’t you have just pretended you never saw it?”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Why? Because I don’t lie as well as you do, Riley. That’s why.”

  Another flinch; this time I thought his knees would buckle. His hand trembled where it gripped the strap of his bag. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Thank you for . . .” His voice caught. He swallowed and kept talking. “Thanks for the ride. And for everything you’ve done.”

  I stared at him, in disbelief that this fucking magazine was what would send him packing. There was so much I wanted to know about Riley. So much I wanted to do with him. Now . . . this was it. Now the miles between here and home stretched out before me in hours of loneliness. I just wante
d to be home. “You’re welcome,” I croaked out.

  “I-I wish you the best, Colin. You’re a good guy.”

  He was sad. I could see it in his eyes. Why was he so sad? And why couldn’t I have done anything about it? Another thing I fucked up. Another thing I failed at. And now I’d hurt someone else in the process. I waved a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, you too. Just go already.”

  He stood there, staring at me. I looked down at my feet, but I could feel his eyes on the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  He hadn’t moved. He was still here. I looked up. “I’m sorry, too.”

  Then he ducked his head and walked by me, his arm brushing mine. I closed my eyes as I soaked in the last feel of Riley, the last time I’d smell his skin.

  When I didn’t hear the door open, I turned around.

  His head was down, staring at the doorknob. He looked at me over his shoulder. “Just so you know, I didn’t lie about anything else. Just that. And I take back what I said. You do know me, Colin. I tried to keep you out, but you got in. You weren’t just a ride. So yeah, this wasn’t as one-sided as you think.” He paused and when he spoke again, he whispered, “Take care.”

  And then he slipped out the door.

  I stood there, staring at the door, wondering if he’d come back through it. If he’d say he made a mistake. If then he’d kiss me. If he’d let me touch him.

  But nothing. No Riley. I didn’t know how much time had passed before I looked at the clock. I’d probably stood for half an hour, staring at the door like a puppy whose owner went to work.

  Except Riley wasn’t coming back. And the thought that I had no idea where he was going or how to reach him choked me. Would he be okay? Would he be happy?

  I retreated back into the hotel room. I found a pack of matches in the drawer of the bedside table. I carried the trash can with the magazines into the bathroom and placed it in the shower. Then I struck a match and dropped it inside the can.

  The glossy cover flared up in flames quickly, the chemicals in the paper making the fire brilliant colors. I dropped in another match and watched as the rest of the magazines caught fire. When there was nothing but charred paper and ash, I turned on the shower to douse the flames.