by Jerry Cole
“Yep, pretty sure he has a patent on those,” Jan said. “So, there you go. You may not know me, but now you know some things about me. And that’s a start, right?”
“Sure,” Morgan replied. “That’s a start. I mean, it doesn’t tell me why you lied, but it does tell me stuff about you I wouldn’t have known otherwise. An arachnophobe?”
“Hey, don’t hate,” Jan said. “Do you remember that movie with the giant spider? Yeah. So, I watched that when I was a little kid, and I was scarred for life. It had eight legs and it could stomp on buildings and stuff!”
Jan could tell Morgan was holding back a smile when he spoke. “So, you think a spider is going to crush your building? And yes, ordinarily, they have eight legs.”
“Not exactly,” Jan replied. “But, I mean, you can’t just dismiss spiders, okay? They have skills. For insects.”
“Spiders aren’t insects,” Morgan replied. “They’re arachnids.”
“See? They even have their own damn category!” They’re far too important for how small they are.”
Morgan laughed, throwing his head back. “Okay, okay. I guess it’s not the weirdest phobia ever. I mean, I have one, too, so you’re not alone.”
Jan cocked his head. “You have a phobia?”
“Yep,” Morgan said. “I actually went to a shrink for it because it was kind of hindering my life.”
“You don’t strike me as someone with phobias,” Jan mumbled.
“Yeah, because I went to a therapist,” Morgan replied, laughing. “I mean, you can avoid spiders, but you can’t really avoid small, tight spaces. Especially when your job involves air travel and going up and down elevators.”
Jan’s eyes widened. “You’re claustrophobic?”
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” Morgan replied. “Not as much anymore, but yeah, it used to be pretty bad. Now it’s only bad sometimes. Has to do with some terrifying stuff that happened when I was younger.”
Jan whistled. He wanted to put a reassuring hand on Morgan’s shoulder, but he also didn’t want to overstep his boundaries, and this seemed to be quite personal. He didn’t want to get in Morgan’s space if it was going to put him off, especially because he had said that he was more guarded than he had been on their first date. Which he had every right to be. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s really stupid,” Morgan said. “You’re going to think less of me.”
“That will just put us on even ground,” Jan replied, wrangling his hands together. “Which you absolutely don’t have to do. But it would be a kindness if you did, wouldn’t it?”
“Fine,” Morgan said, looking at him and rolling his eyes. There was a hint of a smile playing upon his lips before he spoke. “Okay, so I was going out with this guy, Mike. Gorgeous. Football player. Linebacker, so he was built. I couldn’t believe he was interested in me. He asked me to hang out with him once, and we went back to his place to watch a movie or something, and then he was all over me.”
Jan laughed, shaking his head. “Let me guess. You were the only person who was out at your school?”
“Not so much out as it was an open secret,” Morgan replied. “Everyone knew, but I didn’t talk about it; the teachers didn’t talk about it; the students didn’t talk about it. That meant that me going over to Mike’s place was kind of an ordeal, though, because Mike wasn’t out at all, and even if we had only been hanging out as friends—which I thought was going to be the case—he couldn’t be caught hanging out with me by himself. So, there was a study group, I think, that we started going to together, after we had hung out the first time and almost kissed. Because if he did it more than once, well, things might have gotten tricky for him. So, we had a meeting with the study group during some weekday. God, I think it may have been Calculus or—it was easy. I didn’t need a study group. Anyway, I can’t remember who else was there. All I can remember is what happened after that. Everyone slowly filtered out and he told me to stay over. So I did. I mean, he was gorgeous.”
Jan’s smile widened. “Yeah, you mentioned that.”
“So, we waited until everyone else had left, and by this point, he put another movie on. It was terrible. I can’t remember what it was about. All I remember thinking was that it was terrible. It was—yeah. I kept wanting to laugh because the movie was so bad, but he was sitting on the other end of the sofa, his hands on his lap and he wouldn’t stop looking at the television. I could tell he was nervous because he wouldn’t look at me, and he was sweating, and I really, really wanted to kiss him.”
“Because he was gorgeous,” Jan said.
Morgan laughed. “Shut up. But yes. Gorgeous. Of course, I couldn’t make the next move.”
Morgan stopped talking after that, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. Jan could have asked him for an explanation, but he didn’t need to do so. Guys that weren’t out of the closet were always a gamble. Guys that played sports, went to the same school, weren’t out of the closet, and were nervous weren’t just a gamble, they were dangerous.
“So, you waited,” Jan finally said, so quietly he was surprised Morgan had heard him when he answered.
“Yeah,” Morgan replied. “So, I waited until he made the first move. Something happened in the movie, I can’t remember what it was, but it made me laugh. And suddenly, Mike pounced on me and he started kissing me. His hands were all over me. Obviously, I was ecstatic.”
“Obviously,” Jan replied.
“So, we’re making out, right? And our clothes start coming off and this movie is in the background and there are a ton of explosions or whatever. It’s ridiculous and amazing all at once. And then his parents come into the house.”
“Shit.”
Morgan swallowed. “Yup.”
“So, what did you do?”
“He told me to hide,” Morgan said. “It was really surreal. He told me to hide in the closet, and I remember thinking, ‘Really?’ But there was nowhere else for me to hide, so I did it. His dad started walking downstairs to the basement and Mike sticks his hand down his pants because obviously he’s already hard, and he pretends not to know that his dad is right there…”
Jan laughed. “I have so many feelings about this story.”
“Yeah, me too,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “So, I’m standing in this closet that’s piled up to my waist with things like sports clothes, linens, whatever. It’s not a big space, so I have to squeeze in there and I’m trying my damn hardest to stay quiet. But it’s so hard because this whole time I have my hand over my mouth and I really, really want to laugh. Because this whole situation is ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Jan replied, furrowing his brow. “It really sounds like it.”
“What was weirder than that was that his dad didn’t even turn around or anything. He came in and they started arguing. He starts with saying that he has a perfectly good bedroom, but then he goes into how disappointed he is for, like, a whole lot of things. That was the day I learned that Mike was a good-for-nothing, pot-smoking loser who could have done so much better if he wasn’t so obsessed with girls. For the record, Mike wasn’t just a star athlete, he was in almost all advanced classes. I think the only class he wasn’t great at was French. And I don’t think I ever saw the poor guy even checking out a girl.”
Jan scoffed, shaking his head. “His dad sounds like such a douche.”
“He really was,” Morgan replied. “But what came after the verbal beating was so much worse. Mike is just kind of sitting there, taking it all. Obviously, as this guy keeps going on and on, I’m starting to get less and less amused. He’s such a dickhead and I’m pretty sure Mike is about to burst into tears at any point, but he doesn’t. If he had…”
“What?”
Morgan twisted his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe it would have been better. Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
Jan looked down at the maps app on his phone. “According to this, we stay on this road for another thirty minutes or so. Ugh, everything is so far away
once you get out of the city.”
“It’s not normal for things to be within walking distance of each other,” Morgan replied. “Just so you know, that’s weird. Not having to drive an hour to see a meteor shower.”
He didn’t say anything else. He wanted to hear the end of Morgan’s story, but he didn’t want to prompt him, since thinking about it obviously was not easy for him. But he didn’t have to wait long.
“Anyway,” Morgan continued. “Sorry. This is when it stops being ridiculous, and it just starts being weird and sad. At one point, Mike stands up and looks at the closet. He must have known I was looking at him, because he suddenly got really brave. He told his dad everything that was wrong with what he was saying and, you know, he was really getting in his face. Now, Mike was big, but he was a teenager. His dad was a mechanic and he was on his feet almost all day long. You know, when he wasn’t under a car. My dad would have just walked away but his…”
“How bad was it?”
“Bad,” Morgan said. “Really bad. It started with one punch, and it threw Mike back on the sofa. He immediately stood up to defend himself, but before he could do it, his dad punched him again. He didn’t actually get to stand up again once his father had knocked him down, though. He kept—ugh, he kept punching him, and I wasn’t the world’s biggest or most imposing teenager. Like, I thought, maybe if I had come out, the element of surprise would have stopped his dad because it wasn’t like I could stop him with my fists. Then again, Mike’s punishment would have been so much worse if I had actually gone out of the closet. Trust me, the irony isn’t lost on me. So, I watched this boy I had a crush on get beat by his dad until he was whimpering. The sounds he was making, honestly, I never want to hear them again.”
Jan bit his lower lip. This time, he couldn’t help himself. He put his hand on Morgan’s knee, squeezing it in a way that he hoped Morgan would find reassuring. It seemed to work, because Morgan looked at him and smiled.
“Once his dad finally left, and I was sure that he was gone, I went into the basement and spoke to Mike. He was so upset, but he was fine. I mean, he wasn’t, he probably should have gone to the hospital. But he wasn’t dead or unconscious, and at the time that seemed like it was good enough. While I was looking down at him, all I could think about was all the injuries he had had before. It was kind of horrifying to realize that all of them, I mean those injuries, which everyone thought were football injuries, were because of his father.”
“Yeah,” Jan said, his mouth and throat suddenly dry. “That does sound awful.”
“After I helped him calm down, he told me there was no way he could sneak me out of the house,” Morgan said. “And honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted him to risk it. I had never seen anyone get beat up before in front of me, and I definitely didn’t want a repeat of the experience. Honestly, what I wanted to do was call my mom and tell her to pick me up. But I couldn’t have done that without ratting him out, and I didn’t want to put him in that position again. So, he asked me to stay there for the night.”
Jan looked at him. He had a feeling he knew what Morgan was going to say next, but he didn’t want to interrupt him.
“He said he would sneak me out in the morning,” Morgan said. “Which was fine. Except he told me there was nowhere for me to sleep that his parents wouldn’t find me. So, I had to spend the night in the closet.”
Jan bit his lips. That wasn’t what he had expected. He wasn’t sure what to say. “That’s—wow.”
Morgan started to laugh. “Yeah, I know, it’s fucked up,” Morgan said. “So, voilà! I now have claustrophobia for life.”
“Well, I’m not a shrink,” Jan said. “But that makes sense to me. Also, Violà! Claustrophobia is a great name for a B movie.”
Morgan laughed, closing his eyes for a brief second. “Yeah, it is. Isn’t it just?”
Chapter Thirteen
Morgan wasn’t sure what had possessed him to tell Jan that story, especially because he had been telling the truth about his defenses being up. Again, it probably had to do with just how disarming he found his date. No matter what had happened before, he found being around Jan relaxing and Jan had been incredibly honest, even when Morgan hadn’t expected him to be. He had also asked Morgan on this date, which he was sure was more romantic than the standard second date. It was definitely more romantic than their first date. He was also quite aware that if this was going to go wrong, then it could go very wrong. They were isolated, in the middle of nowhere, and only Sam knew he was there. Of course, there was no way for Jan to know that, so how far away from civilization they were didn’t matter in the first place.
“I promise I won’t murder you,” Jan said, as if he could read Morgan’s mind.
Morgan smiled. “I was just thinking that I could probably take you in a fight.”
“Really? Because it looked like you were thinking that I was going to murder you,” Jan replied. They had arrived at the field and the car still was idling as they both took their stuff out. Jan had brought a backpack with him, which he had had at his feet for the entire drive, held in place so it wouldn’t tip over. Morgan assumed that was where he had put the food. He kind of wanted to ask what it was, especially because Jan had texted him later to remind him to bring the wine. When Morgan had asked him what kind of wine he wanted him to bring, Jan had just texted back that he only wanted the cheap one. Morgan had settled for a thirty-dollar bottle of Prosecco, which was perfectly affordable for Morgan, but he thought Jan might have thought that it was expensive. So, he had peeled the sticker with the price off with his nails before he had set off to pick him up. As Jan took his backpack out, Morgan collected his belongings from the backseat. Other than his phone, the bottle of wine and a pair of binoculars, he hadn’t brought anything else. That was why, when he closed the car door and saw Jan taking object after object out of his backpack, he couldn’t help but smile.
“You brought a blanket?”
“Hell, yeah, I brought a blanket,” Jan said. “Denim isn’t enough to block out wet grass. Even I know that, and I’m from the city. A total urbanite, you might say. It might also get cold. You brought a coat, didn’t you?”
Morgan looked away. “Pretty sure there’s a coat in the trunk.”
“You keep an emergency coat in your car?” Jan replied, shaking his head. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Hey, I like to be prepared,” Morgan said. “You never know when it might get cold.”
“Or when you might be on a date in the middle of somewhere with a guy who you barely know,” Jan said. He was busy taking plastic containers out of his bag. Except for the car headlights, which weren’t pointed at him, and were only enough to illuminate his silhouette, the field was completely dark. “Somewhere desolate. If you suddenly get the creeps…”
“You’re not making me feel any better about this,” Morgan said. He walked over to Jan and sat down on the blanket he had just laid out. It was soft and it seemed expensive for a throw blanket, but Morgan wasn’t going to ask Jan where he had got it from. He didn’t want to make assumptions about him again in case that meant Jan decided to keep other things about his life to himself. Which he had every right to do, Morgan reminded himself. “But I could still take you in a fight.”
“You want to try?” Jan said, raising his eyebrows. “Because more than anything, that sounds like an invitation. And I’m open-minded, if you like it kinky…”
“Slow down there. I’m not wrestle-fucking you,” Morgan replied, shaking his head and smiling. “If you want to get in my pants, you’re going to have to feed me first.”
“I can arrange that,” Jan said. “Come here.”
Morgan sat down next to him. He was holding the wine bottle in his hands. He undid the cap and looked around. “You didn’t bring glasses, did you?”
Jan’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Was I supposed to?”
“No, you weren’t, I just thought… you know what? It doesn’t matter. We can just drink from the bottle.”<
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“Like animals,” Jan said with a chuckle.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say that, but I could tell that was what you were thinking,” Jan replied, winking at him. Morgan watched him, smiling. He didn’t want to smile at him, but he couldn’t help himself, because everything about this situation made him feel good. If this had been anyone else, he was sure he would be worried about the fact that neither one of them had even thought to bring glasses, not even plastic cups, but to Jan, it didn’t seem to matter at all.
He seemed to like Morgan despite his mistakes, even though he had told him the story about Mike. It had taken him several months to find it in himself to tell David the Mike story, and even then, he had provided him with a lot less detail than he had given Jan. David had insisted he needed to be fixed, so Morgan had gone to a shrink. He wouldn’t have done it if David hadn’t told him to do so, but he was glad he had. Of course, when he had tried to get David to go, David had refused. He had said that there was nothing that he needed to work out, which was a lie, and that he didn’t have the money for it, which wasn’t a lie. Morgan had offered to pay for it, not that he could afford it either, but David had turned him down. That had been when Morgan had realized how close to the end they were. He might have thought it beforehand, but it was the first time he was sure of it, that he knew that they were past the point of no return.
“So,” Jan said, bringing him back to the present. “I brought us a bunch of things. There are avocado and cheese sandwiches, mini-quiches, pigs in a blanket—I got this recipe from this British chef I love—and chips and dip. I also brought grapes, and we have strawberry pie for dessert.”
Morgan smiled at him. “That sounds incredible. Tell me, what did I do to deserve this?”
“Well, for a start, you agreed to go out with me again,” Jan said. “Which I didn’t think you were going to do. Plus, you told me that you couldn’t cook, so I wanted to show you what I can do. Since you said you might want me to teach you?”
