From the Inside Out

by Talya Andor

  Lucas's eyes bugged. "You're kidding. No, you wouldn't be. Who were you rooming with before that?"

  "My sister Cassie. Mom had to shut down her sewing room, so she turned it into a bedroom for Cassie and Morgan."

  "Who got Morgan's room?"

  "Ricky. That was when he was around two, so it was good timing. It's great to be in the house we're in now, though. We all have our own rooms."

  Lucas shook his head. "I can't imagine sharing a room with a sister. Then again, I can't imagine having a sister, so I guess I'm good."

  They reached the sandwich shop, and Soren held the door for Lucas, giving him a pleased little grin. Lucas's eyes met his, warm and focused.

  Inside, the smell of freshly-baked bread made Soren's mouth water. He stood beside Lucas and scanned the menu boards fixed across from the entryway, though he was pretty sure he knew what he wanted.

  "What looks good?" Soren asked.

  "Uh, everything? But I'm hungry, so…" He twiddled his fingers across his upper arm for a moment, looking back and forth. At last, he nodded.

  Soren stepped up to put in their orders. He got a loaded salami sub, and Lucas ordered the roast beef with sharp cheddar.

  "That's my other favorite," Soren said as he led Lucas around the counter to the fountain drink dispenser.

  "Is it? I like it. At least it's not a French dip."

  "Yeah, you are a bit of a messy eater."

  "Hey," Lucas said, putting on a look of outrage. He moved as though he'd pinch Soren, or tickle him.

  Soren grabbed his hand and put him in a wrist lock.

  "O-ow. Ow." Lucas looked shocked. "Soren?"

  "Three sisters and a roughhousing little brother."

  "Okay, you know how to defend yourself. Let me go?"

  "What do you say?"

  "Please! Ow."

  Soren released Lucas from the wrist lock and held his hand, inspecting the back and the wrist, and gave it a brief rub. "You're fine."

  "Everything except for my pride," Lucas said with a chuckle.

  The employee at the end of the counter called their ticket number out, and they collected their order and took it to a booth at the far end of the restaurant. Taking a cue from Lucas, Soren seated himself right next to him, giving Lucas a self-conscious little smile.

  "So, how long to I get to keep you?" Lucas asked.

  Soren paused with his sandwich halfway to his lips. "Excuse me?"

  "Well, we had plans last week, but you had to make an unexpected exit." Lucas's tone was light, but he was frowning.

  Soren's mouth skewed to one side and he glanced down at his sandwich. "I couldn't help that," he said, unable to avoid sounding testy.

  "I know," Lucas said, sounding conciliatory now. He nudged Soren's elbow. "Not used to sharing, remember?"

  Soren bit his lip and nodded. "Yeah, and…not used to having a boyfriend, remember?"

  Lucas bit his lip. "Okay…?" He left the question dangling, inviting Soren to fill in the blanks.

  Soren's nerve failed. He wasn't able to voice the real issue. I'm not used to doing stuff with a guy; what seems like too slow for you is still fast for me. "I'm not always going to be able to follow through on plans. Like you said, duty calls. If I have to pick up Ricky from school, or leave to go get Morgan from a track practice, it's something I have to do."

  "All right, fair enough. I'll try not to be an asshole."

  "Just try?"

  Lucas fist bumped Soren's shoulder. "I won't. I won't be an asshole."

  "Going to hold you to that," Soren said, and turned his attention on his sandwich.

  They ate companionably, and Lucas touched his hand when Soren was taking a sip of his drink. "Got plans after our date?"

  "Absolutely none," Soren said, blissful over that fact. "I have the afternoon off, I finished all my homework yesterday—for now—so whatever we do after the Rose Gardens is up to you."

  "I like the sound of that," Lucas said, grinning. "Want to come over to my place again? We can pick up where we left off."

  There was a brief pause. "Sure…?" Soren did want to, but like the build-up toward the first kiss, he was nervous for what would happen.

  Lucas lost his smile. "You don't want to?"

  "No, I do, it's just—" Soren gestured helplessly. He couldn't say it. It was so stupid, he was convinced if he managed to put it into words, Lucas would realize what a monumental mistake he'd made in dating Soren to begin with.

  "Just…hey, are you worried about, well, doing more than making out?"

  Soren sighed. "Kind of," he admitted, some of the tension unwinding. Lucas had said it first, so he didn't have to. "I want to? But I'm nervous. And that makes me not want to. I guess you could say I want to, and I don't."

  "So we don't," Lucas said, patting Soren's knee.

  Soren pressed his lips together. It wasn't that simple. When they got to a certain point, he thought he would want to—regardless of whether he was ready or not.

  "Remember," Lucas said, "I'm going to be paying attention to more than just your mouth. Your body will tell me too, Soren. If you freeze up and get tense, I'm not just going to keep going."

  "Oh." Soren relaxed a little bit more. He'd forgotten that.

  "Okay?"

  Soren nodded a great deal more freely. "Yeah, definitely okay." He finished his sandwich in a cheerier mood. He was reassured, and mentally thumbed his nose at Sloane. They'd communicated, and Lucas had met him more than halfway.

  They drove up the hill through the twists and turns of the street that led up the back way to the gardens. Soren was surprised to see there weren't many people parked up and down the lane. He got out and shut the door, spotting one car at the far end, and a couple of people playing tennis in the last court.

  "Looks like we've got the gardens all to ourselves," Lucas said, raising his brows. He brushed his knuckles against the back of Soren's hand.

  Soren turned his hand around and laced his fingers with Lucas. "Looks like." He squinted at the nearby tree on the sidewalk. It was still green, but its leaves were dark and drooping. "Maybe there's a reason for it."

  They walked hand in hand down the sidewalk that led in between the fenced-in tennis courts. At the end, a set of steps led down to another drive with a pedestrian crossing, and beyond it was an even steeper set of steps that descended into the gardens. Everything was green as far as the eye could see.

  That was the problem.

  "Oh, shit," Soren said, crestfallen.

  Lucas laughed. "Not exactly prime blooming season, huh?"

  "I forgot to check and see if the roses were in bloom. It, uh. Didn't occur to me."

  "What, you mean the Rose Gardens don't have varieties of roses that bloom all year long?"

  "Apparently not," Soren mumbled, looking at row after row of bare vines as they walked down the stairs. "What do you want to do? Go someplace else?" He looked over his shoulder. The Japanese Garden was up the hill, at a much steeper vantage, close nearby but the admission price was equally lofty.

  "Nah, it's okay," Lucas said, tugging on his hand. "We can walk around, enjoy ourselves. Make the most of this beautiful day, right?"

  Soren smiled. "Sounds good to me."

  It was perfect, all in all. There were no passersby to make him self-conscious over Lucas's hand in his. They walked up and down the rows of denuded rose bushes, pointing out interesting names, laughing and cracking jokes. For the moment, the world consisted of warm sunlight, Lucas, the hand in his, and the barkdust trails ahead of them.

  "Oh, how did Sloane take things?" Lucas asked out of nowhere.

  Soren snickered. "Claimed I'd ignored her for weeks, then she gave me a hard time."

  "She's cool with it, though, right?" Lucas asked.

  "Sloane? You know her. Of course she is. I told my friend Liz about you too."

  "Oh?"

  "She's a good friend still, even though she's far away and goes to school down at Reed College. At least, I thought she was. She
seemed okay with my sexuality right up until I told her that I have a boyfriend. We keep in touch online. Liz…was the first person who knew about me." He chuckled at the memory. "We've been friends forever. In high school, she turned to me one day, and said, 'So, Soren…you're gay, right?'"

  "Give her time, maybe? I had a few friends who were weird about it first, but ended up okay." Lucas swung their joined hands between them. "So, Liz was the one to tell you before you outed yourself, huh? Well, when you know someone…"

  Soren wrinkled his nose. "Are you saying I act gay?" He didn't wait for an answer to a pointless question. "Anyhow, Liz and I ended up going to prom together. I thought my mom was going to burst a vein, she was so happy about that…"

  They walked for a few moments in silence. Soren glanced at the different name plates for the roses as they passed each low bush. They had all been pruned back, and leafless as they were now, there was no way to really distinguish one from the next.

  "What you said about prom reminds me of mine," Lucas said, ducking his head. Tendrils of light blond hair slid over his shoulder to partially obscure his face. "I was, uh, I was dating Stephen at the time."

  Soren tried not to tense. "So you have dated a guy seriously."

  "Yeah." Lucas wouldn't meet his eye, but his hand flexed on Soren's. "Stephen…he…I was serious about him, I thought. He was the one who helped me figure out I was bisexual, that I wasn't just gay and in denial, that it wasn't so odd to want guys and girls."

  "He's the one you said I would never meet."

  "Right." Lucas lifted his head and shook his hair back. His hazel eyes were somber. "Well, we were together senior year, but of course we couldn't go to the prom together, even in a progressive high school like ours."

  "Of course," Soren said, feeling empty. It was the most important rite of passage, according to his mother, at least. For him, it had felt like a blown eggshell of an event, substance and form with nothing inside it.

  "So there was this cute pair of girls we met through the GLBT club. Our club, by the way, held all its meetings off-campus; it was more of an unofficial club…no one was willing to do what it took to submit it as an honest-to-God extra-curricular. Including me, I guess." His tone was bitter. "Shelly and Rachel, they were both lesbians. All four of us arranged to go to prom together."

  Although Soren knew Lucas had all kinds of courage that Soren didn't possess, he figured that Lucas didn't have the sheer stubbornness it would have taken to be an organizer for the first GLBT club at his school. "What happened then?"

  Lucas glanced over at him, and the corner of his mouth quirked upward. "Nothing earthshaking. We had a good time. We swapped partners halfway through the last dance." His eyes drifted to a faraway point. "It was wonderful. Then most of the seniors started laughing and cat-calling. They thought it was a joke."

  They walked in silence for a moment, and then Soren stopped in the middle of the path, tugging Lucas into his arms. Lucas sighed and wound his free arm around Soren, his hand stroking the tail of Soren's hair.

  "You're brave," Soren said, knowing it was true no matter what had happened at the end of the night. Much braver than I am.

  "Yeah, well." Lucas's arm tightened. "Stephen and I were fighting even back then, earlier that night. What happened…it was like a farewell to how we had been, earlier."

  Soren rested his hand on Lucas's hip. "Can I ask what happened?"

  "Yeah," Lucas said. "I don't mind telling you, for some reason. It was my last serious relationship. Stephen and I began to fight near the end of the year. It was mostly over the fact that I wouldn't come out to my parents…I wasn't ready. There were other reasons…he got accepted to a lot of colleges, and wanted to go to Brown. He wanted me to move with him and do whatever, work for a bit or go to community college unless I could get into the same school as him. I didn't want to move, and he'd gotten accepted to the University of Portland so I figured we could go there together."

  Lucas fell silent.

  During the pause, Soren gazed over Lucas's shoulder and watched the sway of the trees in the breeze.

  "We argued a lot about those two things, and then it was about every little annoying thing. Stephen wanted more of a commitment too, and said I wasn't straightforward enough. So when I wasn't ready to introduce him to my parents, he said that I must not be that into him, that I wasn't ready to be with him, and if he were a girl I would have introduced him long before. Even though I'd never introduced my girlfriend to them, that was still…fair." Lucas shrugged and stepped away from Soren.

  "I don't think so. If you're not ready…that's not something you can help. You can't make someone else come out just because you might be ready for a commitment with them."

  Lucas laughed shortly. "You don't have to take my side, Soren." He pulled his hand away.

  "I'm not…"

  "Anyhow, he broke it off. He went to Brown because he saw it as a better opportunity, and I couldn't blame him. I'm sure Brown is better for him than I ever was." Lucas stepped close to him again, taking his hand. "It's over. I dated a string of girls, I asked you out online for a meet-up, you dumped me—"

  "I didn't dump you!"

  "Yes, you dumped me," Lucas said, but there was a smile on his generous mouth. "And I deserved it. But you gave me another chance, and here we are."

  "Here we are." Soren squeezed Lucas's hand. "I'm glad I gave you that chance."

  "Me too."

  They had been walking up and down the trails, wound through the amphitheater, and now reached the drive that indicated they had reached the end of the gardens. Soren began to walk up the drive and Lucas tugged him back the way they had come.

  "Not much of a photo op today, huh?" Lucas asked.

  "Not much to photograph, besides us," Soren replied. He smirked over at Lucas. "Besides, I left my camera in the car."

  "I have one," Lucas said, pulling his phone out.

  "Oh, right, the human interest in the shot." Soren stood close and pushed his face in beside Lucas after he fiddled with his phone settings and extended an arm. "I'm ready for our close-up, then."

  Lucas turned his head and pecked Soren on the cheek as he took the picture. He held the phone out for both of them to look. "Yeah, there's a wallpaper-worthy photo right there."

  "Adorable," Soren murmured, but even if it sounded faintly sarcastic, they did look cute together. "Send it to me, okay?"

  "For sure," Lucas said. He kissed Soren's cheek again, landing closer to the corner of his mouth, and fiddled with his phone again. "Ready to go back?"

  "Sure." Soren reached down and took Lucas's hand again. "Now I am."

  They were quiet for a moment as they walked up the incline back toward the stairs. Soren's phone chirped with a notification.

  "Don't tell me," Lucas said. He groaned as Soren pulled his phone out.

  "Oh, no."

  "What? You need to pick up a sister? Your brother? Some groceries?" Lucas said. He sounded anxious.

  "It's an email from you." Soren nudged Lucas in the ribs. "Relax, I'm not going anywhere. Unless it's with you."

  Lucas put an arm around him. "Well, as it happens, I have somewhere we can go. If you're up for it."

  Soren bumped his hip. "Let's go."

  *~*~*

  As afternoon yielded to night, the silence within Lucas's apartment stretched on and on, interrupted only by the single click of a lamp.

  "That's better. Now I can see you," Lucas gasped, and moved back to kiss Soren. He slid his hands beneath Soren's black polo shirt, but he had broken the momentum. They had lain on the couch trading kisses and more for the better part of an hour.

  Soren pulled away, running his tongue over his bottom lip, his eyes clearing from the dilated haze Lucas's kisses had bestowed. "What time is it?" he asked, seeking to half-lift himself, but Lucas had him securely pinned. He pulled his hand away from Lucas's lower back, checking his watch. "God…I've got to call my parents. It's nearly six."

  "Mmph." Lucas released
a disgruntled noise when he was jostled and ultimately pushed out of the way. "But you're staying, right?" A smile tugged at his lips as he watched Soren stumble for the area that had a better signal, one hand snaking down surreptitiously to adjust himself in his jeans.

  "Wait…" Soren paused, open-mouthed, phone in hand. "I don't think I can stay. I have an opening shift tomorrow before classes, and I have no car…"

  Lucas sat up straight. "I work at six. You can get a ride with me."

  Soren shook his head. "But I don't have a spare set of clothes to wear tomorrow…I didn't plan this very well…"

  "You should have a car." Lucas remarked, mildly disgruntled, but he smiled.

  "Well, it's the family car." Soren paused. "Angie drives the kids to work in the morning. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, I could stay here and drive it over in the morning if she'd drop me at work…but she's out tonight."

  "Can you stay for dinner, at least?"

  "Of course!" Soren looked up from the phone. "I want to stay, I just…can't stay overnight."

  Lucas rose from the couch and padded over to him as Soren dialed, wrapping his arms around him. He rested his head on Soren's shoulder, and whispered, "I'm going to go shower." Soren nodded, looking distracted as he held the phone to his ear. Lucas kissed the corner of Soren's mouth and released him.

  "Dad?" he heard Soren say as he entered the narrow hallway that led to the bath.

  Lucas stripped off his clothes, something that should have been accomplished long ago because they'd gotten sweaty while they walked in the hot sun. He'd put off changing due to the addictive presence of Soren in his arms. He considered, briefly, the possibility of loaning his clothes to Soren. While that was all right for wandering around the house—and he paused over the unexpectedly sexy thought of Soren wearing only his pajama top or an old over-sized shirt of his—it wouldn't do for work. Those with discerning eyes would be able to tell at a glance that the clothes weren't Soren's.

  He took a cool shower to quench his raging desires, unable to force himself to take an actual cold one. He was ready, more than ready, to take things to the next level, but Soren was still locked in the foreplay stage. Lucas swept his wet hair back with both hands and reached for the shampoo, trying not to think about it. Although he wanted more, just having Soren in his arms was enough. Sex, Lucas had determined, was only one way to get to know a person as intimately as possible. Somehow, the need to take things slower with Soren only gave an added depth to each and every thing that they did. Lucas enjoyed just watching the play of emotions across Soren's face.