From the Inside Out

by Talya Andor

  "Come here, pizza breath," Lucas commanded, grabbing him by the arm, thinking to ultimately topple them off the bar stools and move to a more intimate setting. Soren might not be quite drunk, but he certainly seemed pliable. In the next breath, though, the phone began to ring in the distance again.

  Lucas cursed. "Calling twice in a minute…this can only be my dad," he muttered, and sighed. He stood and kissed Soren's forehead. "This'll just be a moment, promise."

  "Don't worry about it." Soren gave him a soft, indulgent smile, propping his chin on one hand.

  Fetching his phone and carrying it back to the area that had reception, Lucas took the call and let his eyes rest on the colored morphing cube that was bouncing its way across Brandon's desktop screen saver. "This is Lucas."

  "Finally. What's the point of keeping a cell phone you don't answer?"

  "It was in my bedroom, Dad, I didn't hear it," Lucas said, biting back on a quick, ruder response. He glanced over his shoulder at Soren, who had risen from his stool and was cleaning up the mess from their snack.

  Stephen had asked to meet his parents, his polite requests turning into angry demands as time progressed. The last had been an ultimatum. Soren, he thought, would never ask that of him, though Lucas had been to meet his parents already.

  Would it be different if he acquiesced before the question that never came? Would that be the right choice? Soren would probably tell him that it mattered only as much as it mattered to him.

  Knowing that made Lucas want to brave his father's displeasure on principle.

  "Write this down," Jonathan Daye ordered, and began giving him flight information, disgorging a string of numbers and an airline name. "Are you writing this down?"

  "Wait, let me get a pen," Lucas said, exasperated, making for one of the study stations and grabbing a sheet of paper from a printer. "Okay, I got it."

  "Good. I don't expect you to need it, but just in case something goes wrong with the rental. Who knows. It's happened before." Jonathan paused. "Did you make dinner reservations?"

  "Not yet," Lucas said, and looked at Soren again. Soren stood by the kitchen bar alone, dark hair trailing over one shoulder, looking remote and inscrutable in profile. It reminded Lucas of those days when he'd been oblivious to him. It was like trying to remember the color bled from a dream. He shifted the phone from one ear to the other and wanted to turn his back, wanted to shield a conversation from Soren that he couldn't even hear.

  "Don't wait. It might be too late already, you may need to call around town to find some decent restaurants to place reservations."

  "I'll take care of it," Lucas said, still looking at Soren. "Dad…"

  Pause. "What?"

  Tomorrow would make it three months since the day he'd first kissed Soren, and progressed so naturally from that point.

  "Nothing." Lucas's thumb hovered over the call button to end it.

  "See you next week."

  "Right. Bye." Lucas hung up. Was he being prudent, or saving his own ass at the expense of something else?

  Soren slid an arm around him as Lucas returned to the kitchen bar, slipping his phone into his back pocket. "You look so serious," he said, tapping the bridge of Lucas's nose.

  "I wish…" Lucas paused, and rested his head on Soren's shoulder. "I wish I didn't have to depend on his fucking money." He could do it. He could break that tie, but how much would it cost him as far as everything else went? Would he even be able to finish college?

  He closed his eyes as Soren's lips pressed against his temple. "Come on," Soren murmured, stroking his back. "Let's go to bed."

  Everything could change in a week. Not nearly enough had changed by the same span.

  "I'll take you there," Lucas said, managing a flirtatious smile and hooking Soren close to him with an arm around his waist. The best antidote to that call was the way that Soren gravitated into his touch.

  He planned on exploring that potential between their bodies at length.

  Fourteen

  Soren roused to fingers carding through his hair. He lazed for a moment in the soft-filtered glow of the morning that made its way through the chinks of the blinds. After a moment, he stirred against the body beside his, luxuriating in warmth and closeness. If all Saturdays could be so idyllic, then he had his formula for happiness.

  "What time is it?" he asked at length, letting out a small sigh.

  Lips traveled over his forehead and down his cheek. "Past ten."

  Soren opened his eyes. Through the soft focus of light there was Lucas, his features in seeming repose, betrayed only by the gleam of a dark eye that met his. "Not bad," Soren said. He'd never thought two bodies could stretch pleasure to such a keen point, rising and falling back from the peak so many times before tumbling. They had been up until nearly two in the morning, alternating, Lucas backing off to give him the most delicious kind of frustration, leading Soren to follow the same pattern until their tolerance gave out.

  After Lucas had hung up on his father, he'd dragged Soren into his bedroom and attacked him. More or less. It was hard for a willing victim to make claim of ravishment.

  "My jaw aches."

  Soren snorted. Not to mention, his ravisher was in worse shape. "Now whose fault is that?" He broke free of the swaddle of comforter that enclosed them together in warmth to straddle Lucas's hips, palms on his bare chest. "I want to. Sometime soon. I think." He bent over Lucas, bringing them nearly nose to nose, and trapped Lucas's surprised huff with his lips.

  There was morning breath, sour remnants of the night before, but Soren dived into his mouth with tongue and concentration, chasing away the last remnants of sleep. When he broke the kiss and lifted his head, Lucas's hand was inscribing lazy circles over his lower back.

  Lucas reached a hand up to Soren's face, fingers curving over his cheekbone. "You want to what? Want to learn how to tap dance? Want to change majors?" His lips twitched, laughter lurking at the corners there. "Want to have breakfast?"

  "That too. I want breakfast." Soren squirmed astride Lucas, lazy enjoyment taking hold of him at the look of heavy-lidded sensuality that flashed over Lucas's face. "I want to have sex. You know. All the way." He rubbed himself back against the growing bulge veiled by the sheet over Lucas's hips.

  "Ahh." Lucas shifted from side to side ever so slightly, settling their bodies together and rocking his hips against Soren with a look of concentration on his face. "Right now?"

  "Of course not right now!" Soren laughed and rolled off Lucas, flashing him, another kind of urgency weighing him down. "Right now I'm more concerned about making it to the bathroom, not making it with you."

  Lucas caught his wrist and drew him down for one more kiss, insistent, regardless of other needs.

  Later, necessities taken care of, hunger spurred them to leave the bedroom at last. As Lucas rummaged in the cupboards and set to making coffee and tea for them with the zeal of a barista, Soren left him for the dining room area, and found himself on the scene of a somber brunch. Lisa, hollow-eyed, was nibbling on toast with the enthusiasm of a zombie. Beside her, Brandon looked as if he might collapse and sleep in his breakfast cereal.

  "Lisa? You okay?" Soren asked, knowing the words were inadequate as he uttered them.

  "Huh? Oh, Soren. Morning." She gave him a wan smile. "We got in really late."

  "Early," Brandon corrected. "Too early."

  Soren perched his hip against a chair, not quite daring to sit down with them. "How's your aunt?"

  "She's gone. She passed away early this morning. The doctors were just starting to talk about hospice options when she slipped away."

  Soren fumbled for a response. "I'm sorry."

  Lisa shook her head, red curls straggling over her shoulders. "I got to say goodbye. She lived a full life. I guess none of us were ready, you know?" She sniffed and tears began to drip down her face.

  Soren, who hadn't had a close relative pass on in living memory, could only respond one way to that. "I can imagine."


  "Coffee?" A mug was held out in his field of vision, and Soren took it gratefully, pressing his fingers to the warm ceramic and holding it in both hands. Lucas slipped into the dining table chair beside him. "We're going to have to go out for breakfast, I'm flat out of food."

  "Have some cereal," Brandon offered.

  Soren made a face, laughing to see it duplicated in Lucas's expression of disgust. "We should go to the beach," he said, looking out the window. The day was clear and unusually bright through the open blinds of the window across the room.

  "It's nice outside," Brandon said. "We should know, we got in a little while ago."

  "You just got in?" Lucas asked.

  "Going to bed soon," Lisa mumbled, and dropped her toast with a look of such tragic magnitude that Soren was afraid for a moment she might begin to cry in earnest.

  "Come on," Brandon said, rising, holding out a hand. He ended up carrying her from the table like a sleepy child pushed beyond their limits.

  Lucas was turning his tea mug between his hands, peering into its depths as if they held a curious fascination. It was funny—no, sad. The point at which one had to look away from grief or other intense emotion. I think it's too late in the day to go to the beach."

  "Hmm." Soren seated himself at last, looking at the discarded remains of a meal across the table. "I guess you're right. It's about a two or three hour drive. And I'm hungry."

  "Then let's go." Lucas knocked back his tea in a few long swallows and stood.

  Soren gave him wide eyes. "Where to?"

  Lucas folded his arms. "Have you been to the Oregon Zoo?"

  "The Oregon Zoo? Why, Lucas, are you asking me out on a date?"

  "I must be," Lucas said, chin in hand, pretending thoughtfulness. "Why did I never see your charms before?"

  Soren laughed. "All right. I'll play along. No, I've never been to the zoo before, will you take me?" He thought, with a pleasant stab of excitement, back to his words of earlier, the fumbling declaration that he wanted that kind of sex from Lucas. Side by side in the bathroom, all Lucas had said to acknowledge Soren's proposition was that he needed a few things. Soren's complexion threatened to go scarlet.

  He wasn't sure he was ready yet, but like before, his body wanted to move forward.

  "Love," Lucas said, presenting his palm with a kind of flourish, "I'll take you anywhere." There was a kind of stillness to him as he waited, holding out his hand, as though he had unexpectedly said something more serious than he ought.

  Soren sized him up with a critical look before giving him a blooming smile, accepting the gesture and words at face value, letting Lucas tug him to his feet. "Good, I want to stop off at home first."

  "Oh?" One brow hiked skyward.

  "If you want me to stay the night tonight—stop me if I'm assuming things—I seem to have forgotten my book bag. Now that I think about it, it's on top of my desk…God, I was in a rush to get out of there." Soren gnawed on his lip and tried to recall his schedule for the next day.

  "I'd like you to, but…" Lucas and frowned. "Not sure how much work I have on my plate."

  "Oh, I know I have a lot on mine."

  "Let's play it by ear," Lucas said. "You can always grab your stuff and bring it home with you again, but going back to your house before I plan on keeping you out all night…" He shuddered theatrically.

  Soren elbowed him. "Come on, let's go. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can have breakfast."

  "Mm-hmm." Lucas held onto him a moment longer. He drew him close, and gave him a slow and lingering kiss.

  "What's that for?" Soren murmured, feeling drowsy all over again. He wanted to be held close. He wanted to follow the jumble of stirrings jump-started in his belly.

  Lucas released him. There was a shadow of a smile on his face as he ducked past Soren, heading for his coat. "Three months."

  *~*~*

  The brown brick front of the Wilkenson house loomed before them like a dark maw. Lucas knew he was over-dramatizing, but he also knew with it being a Saturday, it was more than likely he would come face to face with Claire once more.

  "Come on," Soren said, casting a puzzled look over his shoulder as Lucas lagged behind him.

  "Can't I stay in the car?"

  "Don't be stupid."

  "For a sweet, shy, unassuming young man you can be awfully blunt."

  "My mother's not a dragon," Soren said, fitting his key into the side door, tossing hair over his shoulder and giving him another look.

  "I think it would be safer for all parties if I acted as if she was." But Lucas followed Soren into the spacious kitchen nonetheless.

  Right off, he was faced with Claire Wilkenson. "Soren, you…oh."

  "Hi Mom, I came home to get a few things. Do you have something we can eat? I'll be right back." And Soren was gone, pushing through the swinging door off to Lucas's right without a backward glance.

  Claire still had Lucas pinned with her lapis-blue gaze. "You haven't eaten?" There was a note of reproach in her voice.

  "Uh, the cupboard was bare." Lucas stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced around. There was a girl, a younger teenager, seated in the breakfast nook with her nose stuck in a book. She placed it down and eyed him with a great deal of curiosity. She had the same features that Soren shared with his other sibling and mother, refined in her to nothing short of striking.

  "Oh…I'll see what we have…some muffins, or something," Claire mumbled, turning for the pantry.

  The girl was sizing up Lucas forthrightly. "I'm Cassie."

  "Lucas." He gave her a slight smile that she returned.

  "You're Soren's boyfriend?"

  For some reason, such a straightforward statement made Lucas feel like blushing. "Yeah, that's right."

  Claire returned to the central island and set a couple of muffins and apples on napkins, folding them up at the corners. "This should do," she said, seeming flustered, then she met his eyes squarely. "Look, you probably think I'm overreacting. Maybe I am, but I'm his mother and I can't help it. I don't want to see him hurt."

  "I have no intention of hurting Soren," Lucas said quietly.

  Claire lifted his chin. "You think I don't read the news? My son could be hurt just for being gay. It happens every day."

  "So do car accidents. I'm sorry. Please don't think I'm being flip, I just…I guess I don't see it as the problem that you do. Things are changing."

  Claire looked away.

  "Some things don't change."

  Her eyes snapped back to his, and Lucas was reminded of Soren's dragon analogy. He certainly had the impression he was some kind of prey. "Are the two of you using protection?"

  "Mom!" Cassie exclaimed.

  Claire held his eyes.

  "When it gets to that point, I have it." His voice was steady.

  Something changed in Claire's expression, a release of some form of tension transforming her expression into one less hostile. "All right," she said, and took a breath. "Lucas, you said the other night something about being raised Catholic—"

  "Hey, Lucas," Cassie said. "How many sexual partners have you had?"

  Lucas's eyes bugged.

  Now it was Claire's turn to be shocked.

  "What?" Cassie shut her book. "It's no worse than any of the questions you've asked, Mom, I mean come on…I'm his sister and I suppose I have a right to know!"

  Claire gave her daughter an angry look, transferred half its power to Lucas, then gestured to the door. "Come on, we have laundry to do."

  "Fine." Cassie tucked hair behind her ears and gave Lucas a grave look.

  It would be too obvious if he gave her an outright thumbs up.

  "Goodbye, Lucas," Claire said, steering he daughter from the kitchen. "Have a nice weekend."

  Lucas lifted a hand, stifling a sigh. "Bye." He picked up the fruit and muffins that Claire had left for them.

  A moment later, the door swung inward once more. Soren, book bag thrown over his shoulder, entered. "I'm back…ah, you chased ever
yone away?"

  Lucas shook his head. "I have a feeling your mom doesn't approve of me, love."

  "No." Soren drew even with him, looked over his shoulder at the kitchen, then indicated he should follow him out the door. "It's not you. She's having trouble with me being gay."

  For that, Lucas had no reassuring response. "Come on, let's go have some fun."

  Soren flashed him a smile.

  *~*~*

  The zoo was swarmed with people in the sudden warmth of a temperate autumn day, many likely having the same inspiration as Lucas to enjoy the last holdovers of summer before the last leaves were shaken from the trees by daily rainstorms. It had been a long time since Soren had been to a zoo, and he thought the last had been the San Diego Zoo during a visit to his aunt several years back. Lucas bought their tickets in spite of Soren's protest, then laughed at him and caught his hand once they were inside.

  "I can't believe how nice it is," Lucas said, looking up at the sky. "It doesn't seem to realize it's supposed to be raining."

  "Don't jinx it," Soren said, looking down at their joined hands with a smile.

  Lucas seemed to have no worries. He gave their tickets to the smiling attendant and they joined the stream of people winding down the path that led to the zoo proper.

  No one was pointing, or laughing. All at once, Soren relaxed when he realized it didn't seem to matter. No one around them cared, even if there were people here and there whose gazes veered off them like someone trying to avoid rubbernecking. Lucas's fingers tightened around his.

  "No need to be so tense," he said quietly.

  "I was just thinking that," Soren replied, flexing his fingers in Lucas's grip, settling into it. "I wish we could do this on campus."

  "Oh, we could," Lucas said cheerfully, pushing a stray lock of hair off his cheek. "We'd have to fight a lot more, though. It'll be a cold day in hell before the gays find welcome in the arms of the general Catholic body."

  "Hmm." Soren's father had been accepting, more so than he'd ever thought he would be, but maybe that was more a grace period of shock than anything. Claire's reaction was more indicative of what he could expect from relatives beyond his father and siblings.