by Leta Blake
“How?”
“He’s more experienced than I am. He’s a man.”
“He’s the man?”
“Don’t even go there. Not even as a joke.”
Lauren held her hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine. Sorry. We’ve been close for how long now? Since grad school, right? I just don’t want to see you make your life harder than it already is. You struggle so much dealing with your mom, and not being out at school, and all the rest. The McAllister mess just made everything worse. You have that ding against you and…Aaron, I just want you to be happy.”
“My life is good. I am happy,” Aaron said. “I’m a homeowner, my cat loves me, and I have you as my friend.” And RJ in the sack, for however long that lasts.
“And I’m just trying to watch your back. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I know. But you don’t need to worry about that.”
Lauren cocked a brow skeptically.
“RJ’s just in town for the holidays. There’s an expiration date on this affair, Lauren.” Not exactly true anymore, after what they’d agreed to the day before, but he didn’t know how to explain that. RJ would leave and it would likely end anyway. This explanation was easier.
Plus, he wasn’t sure there was an expiration date on his dissatisfaction with staying in the closet at school to soothe his mother’s sensibilities. If this weekend had proven anything, it was that by denying himself what he most wanted in life in order to keep from losing his job and his mom, he wasn’t actually saving anything. Much less himself.
“So, he’s bored and you’re just a bit of fun for him? Meaningless sex? That’s all?” Lauren asked.
Aaron blinked up at her in shock. “Is that what you think of me? That the only thing someone would want from me is meaningless sex?”
“What? No! You said—” Lauren broke off. “Aaron, you said this was going to be over after the holidays.”
“It doesn’t make it meaningless. Not to him. Or to me.”
Lauren’s head tilted. “Okay? I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s not meaningless sex.” His gut churned at the thought that what he’d done with RJ, what they shared could be considered meaningless by anyone at all. Much less RJ. God.
“Okay, I believe you. And isn’t that why this is a problem?”
“No.” Aaron wasn’t hearing anymore. He was done with this conversation. He glanced at the clock, willing his free hour to be done. “I have some grading I need to finish. We’ll discuss this more another day.”
“Aaron, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.” Lauren’s voice had gone soft and tender.
“I know.”
“It’s just that I don’t understand. You made it out like a hookup, then you said it was going to be, I don’t know, a fling? Something with an expiration date. But now…” She took hold of his hand and he met her gaze again. “Please. I know I said the wrong thing. Just explain it to me. I want to have your back when the shit hits the fan. Because, hon, if this gets out, and you know that it will, it’s going to be a zinger. With your mother if no one else.”
Aaron pulled his hand away, the dull angry panic still racing inside him at the suggestion that his hours with RJ had no meaning. “I don’t want to talk about it now. I have these papers.” He indicated the stack he was only halfway through. The sooner he finished them, the sooner he could submit the grades, and the sooner he could climb into RJ’s lap and be held again. The sooner he could prove it meant something even if it wasn’t going to last.
“Don’t see him again,” Lauren urged as she stood up to leave.
“Are you serious?” Aaron didn’t have the willpower for that.
“Get yourself a nice stranger from Grindr tonight to blot out the memories and move on from this. He’s not worth it.”
“Not worth—”
The speaker crackled. “Aaron Danvers, please report to the principal’s office. Aaron Danvers, report to Principal Shock’s office.”
“You’d think I was an actual child,” Aaron said, shoving back his chair. “Summoning me the way she would a sixth grader she wanted to humiliate.”
Lauren followed him out of the room, her mug gripped in both hands. “I know you’re mad at me right now, but I’ll be here for you. After.” Lauren squeezed his shoulder with sympathetic eyes. “Go on.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Carter Ward was in my office earlier this morning.”
Aaron blinked at his mother, his stomach knotting up at her severe and uncompromising expression. He took the seat across from her desk. It didn’t have any fresh stains as far as he could tell, but he didn’t look too closely. He’d expected her to start in on him about their “discussion” at the dance the other night, and maybe she was warming up to it by mentioning Carter’s visit to her office, but maybe not.
Swallowing hard, he asked, “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. But he had some interesting news for me.”
Aaron wiped his palms on his pant legs. “What’s that?”
“He said you’re sleeping with his brother? A former student of yours, no less.”
“Wait, what? Carter Ward’s brother…” In a flash, pieces of his conversations with Carter, Carter’s dad, and RJ all came together. “Oh, my God.” Aaron choked on his own spit.
By the time he finished coughing and sputtering, his mother had stood up, put both hands on her desk, and leaned toward him, eyes radiating fury. “What did I tell you, Aaron, when you started here?”
“Not to embarrass you.”
“And what have you done?”
Aaron stood. There was no way he was giving her the higher ground. This way, they had to look at each other face-to-face.
“What have I done, Mom? First off, what I’ve done is none of your business as the principal of this school.”
“It is! There are ethical violations at play here, and we know from the past that you are not above violating those for your pleasure!”
Aaron sucked in a breath, gut-punched by her words. “No. That’s not true. And I owe you no explanation. But since you’re my mother, not just my principal, I’ll tell you what I’ve done. I’ve started seeing a grown man who, as I’ve only just now discovered, happens to be the stepbrother of a current student, and who I knew from the start had been a student of mine five years ago. This man was a senior then, and nothing happened at the time. I barely interacted with him at all, which says more about my teaching skills than my morals.”
His mother’s eyes narrowed, and she spit out a question. “How long?”
Aaron tilted his head in confusion.
“How long have you been sleeping with this man?”
Swallowing hard, Aaron whispered, “Not long. It’s very new.”
“Then put a stop to it.”
“Why?”
“You know why, Aaron.” She pointed at him, her sharp nail coming close to his face as she leaned across her desk. “Parents will get wind of it and think you’re a pervert. And what will I say to that? It’s bad enough that you’re gay, hard enough to defend that choice to even my friends, but to parents? This will look as if you’re a child molester, a child groomer, and I won’t be able to say you aren’t. What? What are you doing?”
Aaron’s cheeks burned like he’d been slapped. He sucked in a breath, ready to say something—he didn’t even know what—but instead turned and walked out of the room. Rita and Jolene stared after him, buffing their nails and reeking of peppermint. The Christmas tree in the office corner with the art class decorations blinked in multicolor spasms.
“Aaron!” his mother called, her high heels clacking as she came to her office door. “Aaron Danvers, come back here! Now!”
But he didn’t. He didn’t go back to his classroom either. He went outside and used his phone to call an Uber because he’d left his car keys in his desk. He couldn’t breathe if he went back in that building. He only had to wait three minutes to climb inside the dar
k car.
He’d always believed his mother in the past. Believed her lies about just needing some time to accept him, about not caring that he was gay but rather how hard being gay would make his life. But in the end, the truth was she not only cared more about what people thought of her than about his happiness, but actually believed he was the kind of man who couldn’t be trusted around children. One thoughtless sentence had driven that home.
This will look as if you’re a child molester, a child groomer, and I won’t be able to say you aren’t.
The Uber took him back to his apartment, and he used the key he’d hidden beneath his neighbor’s never-used grill to get into his apartment, grateful for the waiting, comforting purrs of Constance. He’d have Lauren bring his keys, satchel, and the final papers home for him to grade. He was done for the rest of this semester. There was the entirety of the day left, sure.
But as far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to be there for it. Any substitute, even a last-minute one, could handle it as well as he could. Everyone knew the last day before break was for watching movies and eating cookies anyway.
Aaron wasn’t willing to talk to anyone right now, what with his throat still tight with unshed tears. So he texted Lauren with his requests and sent a message through the school email to Rita letting her know that he would be invoking a sick day and would not be returning until next semester.
Then he crawled into the bed where only twenty-four hours before he’d rested peacefully in RJ’s arms. He stared up at the ceiling trying to understand the extent of the bomb he’d just set off in his life. When his anger ran out, he was left tired and threadbare, so he rolled onto his stomach and fell asleep.
RJ sat down in the lounge chair across from where his mother was folding laundry, still thinking about Aaron’s request that they fuck bareback. He wanted to, desperately, and yet…fuck.
“Mom, I think I’m in trouble.”
She put aside a small swimsuit of Beau’s and pushed her blonde hair behind her ears. “RJ, what on earth have you done now?”
“I’ve fallen in love.”
His mom blinked at him from over the many, many, many pairs of underwear she’d folded and had put into carefully sorted piles on the couch. They came in all shapes and sizes for the family. “Excuse me?”
RJ ran a hand over his close-shorn hair and sighed. “I’ve fallen in love.”
“With that young man you brought by the other day? Aaron?”
“Yes.” A helpless grin spread over his face, and his mother’s skeptical expression melted into a silly grin of her own, which she promptly schooled into something much more parental.
“Oh, hon. Don’t you think it’s a little too soon? You just met him.”
“Yeah. It’s definitely too soon,” RJ said, deciding to leave aside the clarification on just when he’d met Aaron for another day. “But I also know for sure.” He lifted his hands and let them fall again. “I’m in love.”
His mother pondered him uncertainly. “That’s…that’s…well, then I’m happy for you.”
“No, Mom, it’s terrible. I’m in awful trouble.”
She cocked her head. “I don’t understand.”
RJ groaned and wiped a hand over his eyes. “Because we’ve agreed it’s just a temporary thing. Until I leave on my next tour.”
“So… Aaron doesn’t feel the same way about you?” She sounded sad and a little angry, like she might go yell at Aaron for failing to love her son. It was sweet.
RJ considered Aaron’s confession, when he’d admitted that he wanted to see where this might go, that he wasn’t willing to call it a hookup and be done. “I think he might, actually. But he won’t see it that way. He’s skittish. And even if he does admit to his feelings, it won’t change anything.”
“Now you’ve really confused me.” She crossed her legs on the couch, barefoot and comfortable. “How does loving each other not change anything?”
“I mean it will change everything,” RJ corrected. “That’s what makes it trouble. But it won’t matter. It won’t make any difference in the long run. We’ll fall apart like everyone does, and us faster than usual, because, you know…me.”
“You?”
“I’m a bad risk.” RJ shrugged. “I wouldn’t put any bets on myself, why would Aaron?”
“Hon, you’re saying that like…like…” She tossed her hands up. “What on earth are you saying? You’re speaking in riddles now. Just get it out. Tell me what you mean.”
RJ chewed on his inner cheek, considering. He almost said never mind and walked out of the room, almost made an excuse about just being tired and needing to go write music or practice just to get out of the conversation. But then he remembered Aaron that morning calling him out on his bullshit about his family, about not fitting into it. He never would if he didn’t let them into his life, now would he?
“I don’t really believe in lasting love, Mama,” he finally said. “I mean, I believe in love. I’ve fallen into it before—with Pan—and that ended with me not able to get away fast enough from the shit show we’d become together. And then there was you and Dad—”
“Oh, RJ.”
He winced. “And then you and Dad again. The second time was the real kicker, you know? That’s when I knew that love couldn’t last. And I’m not blaming you. I just know it’s true. Things fade, people get tired of each other, the bloom goes off the rose—”
“That’s not what happened between me and your father, and that’s not what happened with Pan either,” she said tightly. Pushing her hair behind her ears again, she leaned forward and caught his gaze in her own, making sure he didn’t look away. “Don’t lie to yourself about the past, because that’ll only poison the future. I spent years lying to myself about your dad, and you’re right, it did nothing good for either of us. But I had to stop eventually, and as soon as I did, Doug came along.”
RJ’s lip twitched. He didn’t do it on purpose. He’d swear to it in a court of law. Still, his face betrayed him.
“What? You don’t like Doug?”
“I like him. He’ll be a good dad to the kids even after, I mean, if…” He swallowed hard. “He does right by Carter, so I know that he’ll do right by Perri and Beau, too. That’s all I can ask.”
She blinked at him, her eyes growing bright with tears.
RJ felt sick. What had he said so wrong?
“Are you… Did you just… Randall James Blitz, are you saying you expect Doug to leave me?”
RJ threw his hands out, blocking her words. “No! Of course not. I mean, you could leave him for all I know.”
“I am not going to leave him!” She threw a pair of folded socks at RJ’s head.
“I didn’t say…!” He dodged a second pair. “Mom, I’m trying to tell you that I don’t believe—”
“That you don’t believe in love. I get it.” She wiped at her eyes before furiously piling the stack of underwear she’d folded onto another stack. RJ’d had no idea folding laundry could be so aggressive. “Because of me. And my choices. And—”
“No. That’s not it at all!” RJ exclaimed. “You’re twisting this all around and backwards.” He let out a slow breath, trying to keep this conversation from going further off the rails. “I just see the way the world works. Love doesn’t last. People divorce, or cheat, or live in bitter resignation with each other. It’s always the same. It’s human nature. It’s not about you, or Doug, or even about Dad—”
“It’s definitely about your dad,” she said bitterly.
“It’s not about Dad! It’s about love!” RJ jerked his hands over his hair. “And how I don’t believe in it. And that sucks, because I’m in it, and it won’t last! And everyone’s going to get hurt!”
His mother stared at him, utterly bewildered. Her eyes glittered with more tears. “I don’t know what you thought you said just now, RJ? But all I’m hearing is how I’m a terrible mother who failed you completely in the most important thing a mother can teach: love. And I don
’t even know what to say about that. Except that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I could go back and do it all differently I would.”
RJ covered his face, his stomach curdling. He whispered, “You should have aborted me.”
“For fuck’s sake, shut your mouth.”
“No, I’m serious,” he said, lifting his head and speaking the truth for once. “You wouldn’t have spent those first years with Dad then. You’d have gone to school and gotten a degree. Had a career. And, if not for me, later when he came back, he’d have had no way to get back in with you. No reason to ask you to let him back into your life without me as his pawn.”
“RJ, I love you,” his mom said, tears slipping over her cheeks. “Please, stop saying this… Just stop.”
“I’m only saying I wouldn’t blame you if you ever wished you’d ended it before it began.”
“Abort you? I don’t wish that,” she choked out. “I certainly don’t blame any woman for making that choice, but it is a choice. And I chose to keep you. I look at you here with me right now, and I can’t imagine my world without you in it.” She wiped at her eyes. “I know you don’t see it that way. To you, I was never home, and we never had money, and when your father came back with all those sky-high promises, I fell for it and I let him hurt you—”
“He never laid a finger on me,” RJ spit out.
“I know. He laid fingers on me. Fists.”
They stared at each other. She’d never admitted that out loud. RJ had guessed it, had thought maybe, and had sometimes seen bruises, but there were always excuses. His father had been a piece of shit in enough other ways that adding physical abuse to the list hadn’t been necessary to hate him. Not really. But now that he knew—
“I’m so sorry, Mama. I would have stopped him if I’d known.”
“And that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want him turning it on you. When he left again, it was such a huge fucking relief.” She gusted a sigh. “I only wish I had been able to get therapy for you back then.” She tilted her head. “Do you want to go now? To therapy? Doug could—”
“No, Mama. I’m fine.”