Unwrapping Hank

by Eli Easton

  So I did a dance move that put some space between us. Not only could I see him a little better, and watch his geekily adorable big-guy dance moves, but I could keep myself from giving him the all clear. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  He gave me a weird smile then. It was smug and Cheshire-cat-ish, as if to say ‘I know something you don’t know.’ Or, if I was being paranoid: ‘Resist, resist, little mouse. We both know I’ll get you in the end.’ Maybe he was just gloating over the fact that he was dancing with me instead of Micah. I shrugged it off.

  We danced to a couple of Madonna songs. A few times guys tried to dance with us, but Hank was a master at getting his back to them and pushing them out of the picture. I didn’t care. I was dancing with the hottest guy in the room. At the moment, I didn’t give a monkey’s what it meant or didn’t mean, or if it was seedless fruit. It was Christmas Eve, and I was out with friends and having fun. Occasionally, I’d catch a glimpse of Micah. He watched me and Hank for a bit until he seemed to give up and started dancing with a cute blonde girl.

  We weren’t bumping and grinding. I wasn’t having any of that with Hank, though a lot of the guys in the crowd were doing it. But then a slow song came on. I stopped dancing and looked toward the bar, thinking I’d go get a drink. But Hank—Holden—took my hand and pulled me close. He was so gentle I couldn’t refuse.

  He was warm and a little bit sweaty, and he smelled slightly of soap and Coke. I liked the smell. I also liked the feeling of being in his arms. They were as big and strong and sure as I’d imagined, and I was being held against the chest I’d snuck glances at so many times.

  I didn’t have the will to resist. And why should I? It was just a dance. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the opportunity to feel those muscles, up close and personal? Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had sex with another person since September, but as soon as I decided I was going to allow the dance, the devil sat on my shoulder and told me that I should push it. If Hank and Micah wanted to play games, I’d give Hank more than he bargained for.

  “What’s that smile for?” Hank asked, leaning close to my ear to be heard over the music.

  I shrugged. “Me. Or maybe you. I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Hmmm.”

  He put one hand on my neck, his fingers curling around my nape, his thumb on my jaw. The other hand slipped low to the middle of my back, and he pulled me in even closer.

  Damn. I’d never had anyone touch me like that, so strong and yet so careful and gentle at the same time. He touched me so softly that it made my body scream for more, the way a feather touch can drive you crazy. Effective. Hell, yes.

  I was starting to forget why I should be annoyed with Hank or that I needed to watch myself around him. It felt so good to be held like that, his hands on me. We swayed to the music. I could feel him getting closer millimeter by excruciatingly delayed millimeter. My blood was pulsing, and I had one hell of an erection. My prick was straining against my zipper, waiting for him to close that last little gap between us. Maybe he’d be embarrassed if that happened, if he felt how aroused I was. But that’s what you get when you play with fire.

  “You smell like Heaven,” Hank said. I felt his lips against my cheek, his breath in my ear. It should have been corny, but he sounded… awed. I shivered. Apparently, the pheromones worked after all. He rubbed his lips against my cheek, still annoyingly light. He was either a master of teasing or hesitant as hell. He started to raise his head. I turned to meet him instinctively. And then… we were kissing.

  I was kissing Hank Springfield.

  At first, there was a hitch, as if we were both shocked it was actually happening. But Hank’s lips were soft and as sweet as they looked, and his hand was hot on my neck, his body close to mine, and I just sank into it. I sighed and opened my mouth a little, wanting at least a small taste before it ended. But when I sucked lightly at his lips, he came alive, grasped my neck harder, and pressed his mouth on mine, his tongue sweeping past my lips hungrily.

  Phew. Gone. I was so turned on, I could only be grateful the music was loud enough to cover the moans I felt vibrating in my throat. I was swept away, as if a tsunami was washing through the club at a hundred miles an hour and I was standing in the center of it, rooted in place but shaken to my core. I wanted to wrap my arms around Hank and press tight against him. I wanted to climb him like a fucking tree.

  Hank softened the kiss and pulled away. Somehow he had both hands on my jaw now, and he dropped his forehead onto mine, his eyes closed. He was breathing hard. No, excuse me, that was my breath that echoed in my ears like a freight train.

  I could feel him shaking, though. That had been one hell of a passionate kiss for a straight guy.

  “Have you… have you ever kissed a guy before?” I asked him, having to raise my voice to be heard over the music.

  He shook his head, his eyes still closed. “A couple of girls. Didn’t get very far with them.” He stiffened then, as if he suddenly realized he’d admitted to having little experience. Maybe he was even a virgin.

  “But at the party. You were with that girl.”

  He shrugged. “Not for long. She took off with someone else.”

  Really? Maybe Lilith was right. Maybe Hank wasn’t set in stone yet.

  He straightened up and met my gaze. His eyes were dark and stormy. There was desire there but also uncertainty and something like shock.

  “Let’s just dance,” I said. I figured we both needed a little time to process after that. A decade or so ought to do it. Also, we were in the middle of a dance floor. If he kissed me like that again, I would probably humiliate myself and/or get us both arrested. Fortunately, a fast song came on, and we went back to dancing as we had before, with a good foot of space between us.

  I wanted him. Fiercely. There was no way around it. But I didn’t want him on any terms. I didn’t want to seduce him and then have him freak out and slide into silent toxicity again. If this was ever going to happen, Hank Springfield was going to have to walk into it with his eyes open.

  God, sometimes I hated being the child of two shrinks.

  ~12~

  Hank

  CHRISTMAS morning, Mom and Dad came into my room with Cutter and Samson, and all of them jumped on my bed to wake me up. It used to be the other way around when we were kids, Micah and me waking up my parents at the crack of dawn. But since turning teenagers, neither Micah nor I liked to get up early. Let’s just say it: payback is a bitch.

  I hadn’t gotten to sleep last night til after three in the morning. We’d stayed out late dancing at Tally Ho, and when we finally did get home, I’d laid awake forever thinking about what I’d done.

  I’d kissed Sloane.

  For once, I’d let myself go there. Maybe it was the talk with Jake at the bar. Maybe it was how crazy jealous I felt about Micah’s attention to Sloane. Maybe it was the argument with Stan.

  Or maybe it was just me. Maybe the fact that I’d hardly stopped thinking about Sloane since I met him in October—even if most of the time I’d been annoyed with him—was a clue. Maybe the fact that kissing him had been the most erotic experience of my life, had made me understand the word lust for the first time. Not horniness, not the simple physical reaction of the proximity of flesh-to-dick, but true lust, the full body-mind-hormone craving for a specific human being.

  What a head trip. That level of confirmation was hard to deny.

  But now it was the light of day, and I was sitting in my childhood bedroom. I had to ask myself: Is this what I really want? Is this who I’m going to be now?

  The kitchen was just below my bedroom, and my mother’s voice wafted up to me from the floorboards. “Holden Franklin Smith Springfield! Get your butt down here! We’re waiting, and breakfast is getting cold!”

  “Pancakes!” Sloane called out loudly.

  “Gluten-free!” called my dad.

  “They’re really good!” called Sloane.

  “And there’s bacon!” Micah
hollered.

  Fuck introspection. I needed to eat.

  * * *

  Sloane

  Christmas morning at the Springfields was laid-back to the extreme. With my parents, if we weren’t having guests over on Christmas, we were going to someone else’s house, and either way, it meant dressing up and spending the day being nice to my parents’ friends and their kids.

  The Springfields, on the other hand, put great stock in pajamas and in staying in them through breakfast and even through the traditional opening of the presents. I felt terribly under-dressed in my navy cotton pajama bottoms and long-sleeved T-shirt, but when in Rome….

  Besides, the three Springfield men were hot in their flannel pj bottoms.

  Besides: dog hair.

  Besides, I had scarier things to worry about.

  I was coerced into playing Santa, some excuse about me being the youngest. I passed out presents while stepping around the dogs sprawled out luxuriously on the living room floor. Grinch had his head on his paws, and he watched me carrying brightly color packages hither and yon with utter interest—or as much interest as a bulldog can show while moving nothing except his eyeballs. Hank seemed a little introspective this morning, but he gave me a smile a few times as if wanting to reassure me he wasn’t going to be a dick about that kiss last night.

  Maybe he’d change his mind after we opened our gifts.

  I’d bought presents for Karma and Lilith at the local mall, wanting to meet them first. And I was glad I did. I got Lilith an Indian print pashmina in autumn colors, and for Kar, a new field hat. For Micah, there was a CD of a band I knew he liked. I received a case of peach kombucha that Kar and Lilith brewed themselves with peaches from their own tree—fuck, I loved that stuff. Micah got me a rock-and-roll T-shirt, laughingly explaining that I needed to be ‘more American’ on campus. And from Hank, there was a hardback book, the latest from Guillaume Musso, my favorite French novelist. Inside was tucked a photograph of me tacking up one of the Dead Santa posters. It was a good picture of me, and a good memory.

  I felt my heart thump, ridiculously touched by the effort he’d made.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  He shrugged and didn’t say anything.

  The simple thoughtfulness of his gift made me even more terrified about mine. I wished now that I’d done something, anything, else. But it was too late.

  Hank and Micah got mostly clothes and practical things from their parents. The last gift to be opened was to Hank from Lilith and me.

  Hank looked at us both questioningly after I placed it in his lap. “Ganging up on me, are you?”

  Lilith and I looked at each other. I could tell Lilith was nervous too, which didn’t increase my confidence at all. Hank unwrapped the gift.

  Inside was a box I’d found at a woodworker’s stall at a local flea market. It was made of rosewood, and the top was carved with sea waves. Among the sea waves were circles that contained the symbols of various faiths—a yin yang, a cross, a Jewish star, an Islamic moon and star, and others I didn’t recognize. It reminded me of Hank, of the way he was curious about ideas of all kinds.

  He ran his hand over the top of the box.

  “I love it,” he said, raising his eyes to mine.

  “Look inside,” said Lilith.

  I was twisted up with anxiety as he opened the lid. Inside was a folded sheaf of papers. He looked at his mom and me questioningly and opened them. For a minute, he scanned the first page, then the next and the next. Finally he put them in his lap and sat there, eyes downcast.

  “It was Sloane’s idea,” said Lilith. Great, throw me to the lions. “You see—”

  “It was in my animal pathology section last semester,” I interrupted, not trusting my fate in her hands. “And I googled to make sure it was, you know, the same for humans, and it is. If a woman who had breast cancer doesn’t have a reoccurrance for ten years, her likelihood of getting cancer again falls to seven percent. That’s even less than the odds for the general population.” I tried to sound casual. “Your mom told me about her cancer, and I figured out it had been over ten years so I just thought… it was something to put in the box.”

  “I get tested every six months,” Lilith added, “and Dr. Klein had all the test results in his file. We just had to go get a copy.”

  Still Hank said nothing; he just looked down in his lap.

  Oh God, I had fucked up. This was bad.

  I realized Hank was breathing hard, his face reddening as he fought to get himself under control.

  “Oh, baby,” Lilith sighed. She got up and went over to the couch. Micah slid over so she could sit next to Hank. She took him into her arms, and he went, clutching her robe and burying his face in her shoulder, back heaving.

  “I need some more coffee,” Kar said quietly.

  Micah and I followed his cue and trailed out to the kitchen with him.

  I guess my face must have reflected my sheer terror because after he refilled my cup, Kar put the pot down and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “That was really thoughtful, Sloane.” His eyes were damp. “Really thoughtful. I knew she’d been doing well, but to have it put like that…. It’s a gift for all of us.”

  “A bit heavy for Christmas morning, me thinks.” I chewed my lip worriedly.

  “No, Sloane. It was perfect,” said Micah. There was something on Micah’s face, a little regret and a good dose of brotherly well-wishing. I knew what Micah was admitting with that look, that there was something between me and Hank, and he wasn’t going to get in the way of it.

  But whether or not it was really true—that was up to Hank.

  * * *

  Hank

  I bailed and took a nap after we’d opened our presents. I was a fucking mess. I cried, and I hadn’t done that since… well, since my mom got sick the first time. I was still tired from a virtually sleepless night, and my whole body was so heavy after I’d lost it—my mom holding me like I was a little kid again. All this shit bubbled up—anger, fear, grief. She said she was sorry, and I said I was sorry, and those weren’t even the right words.

  I never realized how much I was still carrying that around inside me. Like, if I pushed my mom away, it wouldn’t hurt so much if she died. Man, that is fucked up.

  After that, I lay down and I was out.

  I had heavy dreams, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember any of them. The whole house smelled amazingly of turkey and pumpkin. Fear that I might be missing the feast got me downstairs fast.

  Micah, Sloane, and my parents were in the kitchen, just getting ready to go for a walk.

  “The turkey has about another thirty minutes, and everything else is ready to go,” Mom said. “so we thought we’d walk down the lane.”

  “Build up an appetite.” Dad patted his stomach.

  “Forced exile so we don’t pick at the food,” said Sloane. Micah laughed.

  Getting some fresh air sounded good. Besides, Sloane and Micah were already heading out the door and Sloane… he looked better than the turkey smelled. So I put on my barn coat and gloves and went out with them.

  This was the dogs’ idea of Christmas, having all of us on a walk together, and they danced around us like they were puppies again. Grinch stayed glued to Sloane’s side. Grinch loved Sloane, which was definitely a point in his favor as far as we Springfields were concerned.

  The roads and pathways were clear of snow, but there was enough left on the fields to feel like winter. We all walked down an old dirt farm road that ran from our place into town, my mom and dad in front, my dad’s arm around my mom and her head on his shoulder. Micah was behind them, tapping away on his phone, probably sending out Christmas cheer and/or trying to line up a hot date. Sloane and I were bringing up the rear.

  “Your gift was…” I tried, feeling awkward.

  “Obtrusively personal?” he suggested.

  “Yes. But surprisingly… not bad. It was good to know that. About my mom.”

  Sloane gave
me a wary smile but said nothing. We walked in silence for a bit.

  “It’s so beautiful here,” he said, looking out over the fields. “This place has me convinced I want to be a rural vet someday. You’re really lucky to have grown up here with your folks and your brother.” He bent down to give Grinch a quick pat. “And your dogs.”

  I looked around me. The field on our right had been corn this past season, and the cut off stalks were golden and stuck out of the snow like brush bristles. The land had a gentle rounded slope, and across the field was the McCleveys' white farmhouse and big red barn and silo—admittedly picturesque. Beyond that were the rolling Pennsylvania hills dusted with snow and the bare branches of a thousand winter trees. The sky was light blue above and pink-white at the horizon, crisp and cold on a winter afternoon. I’d felt trapped here at times growing up. But right then, I believed him: I was lucky.

  “You, Sloane. You make me see things differently. You know that?”

  “I do?” He looked at me quizzically.

  “Yup. You’re kind of like my third eye.”

  Sloane blinked at me, then got a wicked grin. “I’d rather be your third leg.”

  I laughed and acted shocked. “You’re a filthy boy, Frenchie.”

  “I do try.”

  I cleared my throat, remembering that kiss and very conscious of the nearby presence of my family. “So… what’s the plan for later today? Anyone said?”

  “We’ll probably lounge around slothfully for a few hours after Christmas dinner. Then we were looking at movie listings. Maybe an early showing? Your mom wants to see Cabin Butcher From Hell, but I’m thinking a comedy.”

  I laughed. “I should have warned you—my parents love horror films. But a comedy sounds good to me too.”

  Sloane gave me a look that held the heat of longing, though I only got a glimpse of it before he looked away, self-conscious. Something hot swelled in my chest. And elsewhere.