Here For You

by J. P. Oliver

  He was looking me in the eye, a sign he respected me. And his eyes were warm and brown, and I believed he was sincere. It was stupid, but I believed he was really sorry.

  I glanced down at my lap, and breathed, and then looked up at him. A sign of respect. Pretending a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m sorry, too. For yelling at you, and swearing, and…and for acting like a baby.”

  He smiled. “I accept your apology, Beck, and I appreciate it. But you have nothing to be sorry for. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I did hurt you, and you reacted—I believe this—you reacted the only way you could.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  We sat for a moment, looking at each other, and I realized that if we stopped talking he might leave. I didn’t want him to leave.

  “I should apologize for…for …you bought my lunch, and I forgot to thank you.”

  He considered a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. Okay. I will accept that. And I forgive you, as long as you forgive me for upsetting you.”

  “I forgive you.”

  “Then all is forgiven between us?”

  “Yes.”

  A big grin split Jamie’s face, showing white teeth. He’d looked this happy at lunch, when he’d told me about his family back in Denver, and it made him look not scary at all. I smiled back.

  “This is good, Beck. We have wronged each other, and we have talked it out like men. Like men who respect each other, and who care for each other’s feelings. Like men who are confident enough in their friendship that they can be honest. Thank you.”

  Ugh. I wanted to cry. Not because I was sad. Because…I didn’t know why.

  “You’re welcome,” I finally said.

  “Because we are being honest with each other, I’ll say one more thing. If I hurt you again, with my words, accidentally, you may, of course, react however you must. Sometimes when emotions hit us, it is difficult to control them. But if you can, please tell me what I’ve said or done to hurt you. So that I can do better. And if you truly believe that the hurt I cause you is accidental, please allow me to apologize to you like a man, the way we have tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling no less pressure in my chest or behind my eyes. I wanted to get out of my chair and sit on his lap and burrow against his body. But that’s not how men acted with each other. Officer Flores might let Jay pretend to flirt with him, but he wouldn’t want me acting like a queer-boy, sissy-boy pervert.

  “Tell me more than ‘okay,’ Beck. If there’s something I need to know, I have to trust you to tell me.”

  I swallowed and breathed. I looked away, and blinked, and looked back at him. Finally, I said, “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that word.” I whispered it, spitting it out. “Boy. I don’t like it. But it’s not your fault. It’s just a normal word. You didn’t know that it would make me think of—” I stopped just in time, face hot, eyes tight and tingly, mouth suddenly desert-dry. I looked down, ashamed.

  He touched me again. His hand, even gentler than before, pressed against my jawline, his thumb stroking my cheek as he raised my face to his.

  I hated being touched. At least I thought I had till right now. But now I only wanted that hand to stroke my jaw, my cheek, my throat. I wanted those fingers to find the hem of my shirt and push it up and trace along my stomach and…

  Our eyes locked. I wanted to kiss him. No. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to take my mouth, hard. To force his tongue inside of me. To wrap me in his arms and kiss me till the close-trimmed hair of his beard burned my face.

  “Made you think of…what?” He trailed off at the end, his voice thick, his eyes searching my face in a way he never quite had before.

  And then nobody talked for a long time.

  6

  Jamie

  “Made you think of—”

  And then I froze.

  It had been a long time since I’d been looked at in the way Beck looked at me. Wide-eyed, lips parted, the most adorable—no. The sexiest blush in his cheeks and along the lines of his white throat.

  Beck was a beautiful b— A beautiful man. Angelic. Innocent. But his beauty was so apparent that I’d neglected to notice how fucking sexy he could be.

  He wanted me to kiss him. Anyone who’d ever been kissed could have read that in his face. And for the first time, I forgot his innocence and the sweetness I’d observed, and I saw him as a man. Like me. Like a creature with needs and desires. I wanted to kiss him back. I wanted to do a million things to him, to his pink lips and flushed face and soft skin and the thin, tender body hidden beneath his bulky sweater.

  I leaned in.

  “…what?” I think I completed the sentence. If I did, it was an afterthought.

  It would have been so easy to take him. Maybe right there in the too-soft reading chairs. Maybe soon, in the little apartment that Eli had described. It would have been so easy to give him the things he wanted.

  But, as much as we’re all driven by animal desires, we are not animals. To take what he was offering would have violated him in ways I could not have lived with later.

  I blinked. I cleared my throat. I leaned back into my chair, just as Beck’s sweet face moved forward to meet mine.

  He blinked, too. Not to clear his head and cool his blood, as I had. He was hurt. I’d rejected him. I think he was fighting tears, and the knowledge that I’d hurt him again, again accidentally, moments after apologizing, it speared my heart.

  Take him in your arms. Take him upstairs. Let him not feel alone. Let him feel beautiful. Let him let you take him.

  I growled at the voice in my head, the one that sounded like a friend but wanted me to break something beautiful.

  “Beck…” I said, my voice thick and husky and quiet. Not fuerte. I didn’t know what else to say, not without embarrassing him. Sometimes when we explain our reasons, it only makes the rejection sharper. So instead of talking, I reached out and cupped his face, and ran my thumb along his lower lip. It was even softer than it looked, softer than I could have imagined. It would be a pleasure to kiss, to suck, to take between my teeth and pull on, just enough to make him hiss.

  And he leaned into my touch, nuzzling the palm of my hand like a kitten.

  If I had not been lost before, I was lost then. I’d never see this man as a boy again, but I also knew that to speak to him simply, calmly, as an acquaintance, as his protector, was beyond me.

  I’d avoided him for two days, not wanting to crowd him. And I’d come in tonight, hoping to get him alone, to offer my apology, perhaps to take him out for dinner as friends. To find out more about his pain, and see if I could heal it.

  Dinner was impossible now. Innocent conversation, more investigation—these were out of the question with his eyes glassy and his cheek in my hand, and every muscle in me tense, and my dick painfully tight inside my jeans.

  I removed my hand from his skin. He whimpered. I swallowed.

  “I’m glad we spoke, Beck. I want the air clear between us.” I smiled, forcing a contentment into my face that I didn’t feel. “Perhaps we can meet for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Yes, please.” There was hope in the words, and when I let my smile broaden, the hurt in his eyes faded a little.

  “Good. I would like that. At 2:30 again?”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  “Good night, Beck.”

  I sat a second longer than I might have, but standing would call attention to my attraction to him, my physical response to his look and touch.

  He didn’t move. He watched me, wide-eyed, curious, until I knew that I had to be the one to go. I found myself blushing, my smile becoming an apology, as I stood. A moment later, I forced myself to walk away.

  “Good night!” Gavin’s voice broke through my consciousness as I reached the front door, reminding me that the world was bigger than Beck and I.

  ...

  I am not proud to admit that I thought of Beck long after I left him. I thought of him as I lay in my rented room, o
n clean, cool sheets, my skin burning against them.

  I closed my eyes and thought of Beck, and the light in his half-lidded eyes and the flush in his white skin, and the sounds I could provoke from him just by touching his cheek.

  I thought of him until I knew that I couldn’t sleep without some physical release. I thought of Beck and touched myself, and even though it felt as necessary as breath, and even though I knew he’d wanted me to kiss and touch him, I felt like a bastard for imagining him spread before me, willing and wild.

  And then I dreamed of him.

  And I thought of him again when I woke. And again, I found release. I told myself I was doing it to get him out of my head, but every time I imagined touching him, I knew I was lodging him more firmly in my thoughts.

  Later in the shower as I washed my skin clean again, I wondered if I was any better of a man than whatever hijo de puta had taught him how to flinch.

  I turned the knob hard, making the water as cold as I could, letting it beat against me.

  ...

  Ientered the Sit and Sip a few moments before 2:30, thinking I’d go to the café and wait, maybe shoot the shit with Jay while Beck finished up some task. There was no need. Beck knelt on the floor before the counter in the front of the store, straightening a display of journals and fountain pens that was already excruciatingly well-organized. He’d been waiting for me. I smiled, even as my gut clenched with guilt.

  But he rose before I could skewer myself too badly, and he walked toward me with a boldness that I wasn’t used to seeing from him.

  “Hello.”

  And he’d spoken first. My chest grew warm with pleasure.

  “Hello, Beck,” I said, grinning, unable to hide my pride on his behalf. “Ready for lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bueno. Let’s go.”

  I opened the door for him, and he smiled at me, nodding in gratitude, then walking past me. The man was still quiet, still shy, but he no longer seemed frightened of me. Reserved, perhaps, but not frightened. And reservation was his default, making it hard to tell how much of the tension from last night still hung between us. I would have to clear the air as we ate.

  When he headed for the door of the diner, I touched him gently on the shoulder and shook my head.

  “I have something different in mind. Unless you had your heart set on pancakes?”

  He looked at me for a moment, thoughtful, then shook his head.

  I stood unmoving, letting him figure out what I needed.

  “I don’t know what I want for lunch yet. We can go wherever.”

  Two sentences back to back. Un milagro. I smiled my approval, then reached down to take his hand—affection, yes, and a reminder of my presence. Nothing more. Moments like last night, the kiss that hadn’t quite happened, would distract me from my task. His hand rested limply in mine for a moment, but took on a strength as we laced our fingers together.

  As we walked in silence, though, I became more aware of the small, smooth, warm hand in mine. I ached to look at him, to watch the way the cool, bright sunlight played in his hair. I wanted to release his hand and pull his body close to me, to walk feeling his waist in my hand.

  Maybe ignoring the tension between us was stupid.

  My promise was to never hurt him, and I would hold myself to that. But if I was to see him as a man, then it wasn’t fair for me to deny him a thing we both might want. I would go slow. I would be careful. I would make sure that I knew what he wanted before I acted. I would show my tenderness for him, first and foremost, by keeping him safe, both from the world and from the more animal parts of myself.

  I slowed to a stop four blocks west of the diner, in front of a grand old building, its wooden façade painted a rich, dark red, with traces of gold over the door and white trim around the windows.

  “Here?” I asked.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Carrigan’s?”

  “I want a steak.”

  Carrigan’s Grill was, according to the search I’d done on my phone that morning, the best restaurant in town, popular with both locals and tourists. I’d called ahead and made sure that it wasn’t one of those really fancy places that closes between lunch and dinner, and had been assured that we could be seated in the late afternoon.

  Beck considered for a moment, taking in the gold lettering, and then nodded. “Okay.”

  No sign boldly told us to seat ourselves, so we waited by the finely carved, highly polished hostess’s station until we were spotted and seated in a booth in a dim back room. I let Beck pick his seat, then slid in across from him. Instead of laminated placemats, we were given thick menus, bound in leather.

  “The same rules apply, Beck. Anything you like.”

  He smiled and nodded, and buried his face in the menu. It was cute enough that I didn’t make him speak out loud.

  Our waiter was a slim, efficient man with a thin gray mustache. He must have given us his name, but I didn’t recall it, conscious as I was of how different it felt to be sitting across from Beck in a darkened booth, lit only in the amber light of a single lamp, than it had been to be with him in a diner flooded with sunlight, noises from the street coming in through the open door. It was easy, again, to forget that we weren’t the only people in the world.

  Beck asked for some chicken dish with pasta. I ordered a sirloin. The waiter returned with his Coke and my beer, a small-batch ale, two salads, and a bread basket. And then we waited.

  Again, I refused to speak first. I wanted to see how long Beck could sit, wanting to speak and knowing we should speak, before allowing himself to make a sound. There was so much I wanted to say to him, and a million things to ask, but this lesson was the most important. I ate my salad, eyes on him, while he dragged his fork through his.

  Finally, a sigh.

  “How—” Barely a whisper. He took a sip of his Coke, then started again, fuertemente. “How was your morning?”

  “It was good, Beck. Thank you. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  “Our lunch?”

  “Yes. Our lunch.”

  He shook his head like he couldn’t believe me, but he smiled and flushed and looked down shyly in a way that was…distracting. I shifted in my seat.

  “I’m going to miss you. After your vacation. I like having lunch with you.”

  The words had been almost too quiet to hear, but the boldness of him actually stating a desire stiffened my spine.

  “I’ll miss you, too. But Denver isn’t too far, and I’m finding that I like Harlan a lot. And the people in it.” I smiled. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again. I’m enjoying getting to know you.”

  “I’m not very interesting.”

  “Fuerte, Beck.”

  “I’m not very interesting.”

  “I disagree. I find you fascinating already, and we’ve just met. I look forward to really getting to know you.”

  “What— What do you want to know about me?”

  I smiled and shrugged and laughed, and said, “Everything.”

  7

  Beck

  The best questions can be answered with a shake or a nod. Everything is too big.

  But Flores wanted more from me, and I wanted to give him what he wanted.

  So I talked.

  Not everything. Not the really bad parts. Not the parts I try not to think about.

  I didn’t want to lie to Flores. But I didn’t want him to know how weak I was, how scared I still was of a man who was in jail now. He couldn’t hurt me and I didn’t want Flores to think I was stupid.

  But I told him about my parents, and how I barely remember them but I think they were nice.

  (I didn’t tell him that I remember my mother smelled like hyacinths.)

  I told him I’d had a picture of my mom and dad, but that I’d lost it.

  (I didn’t tell him that my uncle had ripped it up and laughed at me when I was eleven.)

  I told him I’d moved in with my uncle, my dad’s brother, and his wife, and th
at she’d been nice but she moved away.

  (I didn’t tell him about the bruises and the screaming and the dent in the wall that my uncle had hidden by moving a bookcase in front of it after my aunt had left.)

  I did tell him, though, that my uncle was drunk a lot, and didn’t like me very much, and that I was glad when I was old enough to leave.

  (I didn’t tell him that I’d stayed with my uncle long after my eighteenth birthday, because he scared me, but the world scared me more.)

  I told him my uncle was a cop, and Flores looked sad, and reached across the table and took my hand in his and squeezed it.

  I talked for a long time, and then our food came, and I didn’t have to talk anymore. But after talking so much, the quiet felt too quiet, so I asked Flores about himself.

  He had a million more stories about his family—his enormous family. His parents and a grandmother and two sisters and a brother, and an aunt and uncle and all their kids who’d lived across the street.

  It made me remember my uncle’s house, and days that smelled like stale beer and cigarette butts and old sweat. Days when silence was the best I could hope for. Gray days and brown days. And I imagined Flores growing up in a world of noise and color and laughter, of spices and sweetness, and it made me a little sad, but mostly it made me happy for him.

  I liked it when he talked. His voice was warm and low, and it was easy to get lost in it.

  He told me about his job, and how he’d gone to college for a couple of years, and liked it fine but not loved it. He’d left when he was twenty-one—a year younger than I was now—and enrolled in the police academy. He said it like it was no big deal, but I saw him, younger, maybe smaller, maybe smooth-faced instead of bearded. He’d stopped doing what was expected, and he’d made his own choice, and he’d done well and been happy, and his family still loved him, and he saved people for a living.