Step Two

by Cole Bates

  “What did you do to be ashamed of yourself about?”

  “Ryan wanted to talk about this guy on his team, Tom…”

  “Tom Montez?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, him. You know him?”

  “Um…no, but damn if I wouldn’t love to.” Harry was almost openly slobbering.

  “Harry! What about your secret lover?”

  “He’s hot and sweet and smart and funny…but he’s not Tom Montez.”

  “Really? You think he’s that good-looking?”

  “Look for yourself,” he said. His big hazel eyes traveled across the room and out toward the patio. I followed them and instead of Tom, the first person I saw was Ryan. He was taking a bite of a hamburger. He closed his mouth to chew but at the same time, he smiled at something Tom had said. He shouldn’t have looked so good with his mouth full of meat, but damn if he didn’t. Even with one of his cheeks bulging I could see his dimples. God, I loved those dimples. His hair was wet and I remembered he had a weight lifting class on Friday mornings. He must have just showered and suddenly I had an image of that in my mind and I felt a tug in the front of my pants. “You’re speechless, see?”

  “What?” Harry said something to me and I completely missed it.

  “Tom rendered you speechless. His lunch date is freaking hot too. I’ve never been in a ménage but for those two…”

  I stopped him before he went any further. “Harry, that’s Ryan.” Harry had never seen Ryan up close, only from across the baseball diamond when he sat with me while Ryan practiced once or twice.

  “Oh…Shit, sorry.” My eyes moved then from the most beautiful man in the world to his “lunch date.” Tom Montez was smiling at Ryan…my Ryan. He had some seriously white teeth. The two front ones were bigger than the rest and I wanted to say he looked like a beaver. But the truth was the way his thick lips wrapped around them was kind of sexy. Suddenly my appetite was gone and I felt slightly sick to my stomach. I couldn’t even pretend that Harry wasn’t right. Tom Montez looked like a priceless work of art that had been carved out of stone. His skin was a dark olive color and even from here I could see the way his dark eyes were framed by long, thick, lashes. His black t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and tattooed biceps and his face was covered in dark stubble that just topped off his sexy, masculine look. The worst part of all was that the tendrils of black hair that lay on the collar of his t-shirt were wet too and I realized that he’d probably just been naked only a mere foot or two away from Ryan in the locker room. That realization made my chest tighten up and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  “I have to get out of here,” I whispered in a breathless voice.

  “Alex wait…” Harry called out to me as I turned back down the hall toward the front doors. I didn’t stop. I was going to suffocate or be sick and I wasn’t about to let that happen where Ryan and his baseball God could see me. “Alex!” Harry kept calling me and I kept walking. At last, I pushed through the outer doors and took in a deep breath of the fresh, cool air. I gulped it in like I’d been deprived of it for weeks. My lungs felt constricted and my heart was hammering in my chest. I knew what it was but I didn’t want to admit it. I haven’t had a panic attack since freshman year in high school. “Alex, are you okay?” Harry put his hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off and started walking again. I needed to walk it off or I’d end up in a fetal position on the ground.

  “I’m fine Harry. I’m sorry. I lost my appetite. I have to go.” I wished he would go away, but he just kept following me.

  “Alex, they were just having lunch, just like you and I were about to do. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

  I stopped walking and looked at him. “Look at me, Harry. I’m five foot ten in my shoes. My hair is soft and shiny like a girl’s and my body is thin and wiry. My skin is smooth and…pretty. If you had to choose between me and a real man like Tom Montez…”

  “Stop that! You are a real man. You can’t compare yourself to other people…” I started walking again and he followed me again, so I just kept talking.

  “You’re right. There’s no comparison between me and that guy. What was I thinking, Harry? Whatever made me think I deserved someone like Ryan?”

  Harry was shaking his head at me. “Alex, Ryan loves you.”

  “He does love me. I’m not doubting that. But there are so many kinds of love aren’t there?”

  “I’m not following you, Alex. Can we stop power-walking and talk about this?”

  “No…I need to get home. I’m fine Harry, you don’t have to follow me.”

  “You’re not fine. Talk to me, Alex.” I stopped so abruptly that it took Harry a second to come to a stop himself.

  “I’ve been so wrapped up in how I feel about him and so amazed that he felt the same that I didn’t really give this enough thought. I’ve been aware of who I was and what I wanted for a long time. But Ryan not only recently came out, he only recently even admitted to himself that he was gay. He’s been surrounded by jocks his whole life. He works out with buff, sweaty, tattooed men every day. He showers next to them.” I had another image of him and Tom in the steamy locker room, smiling at each other. My stomach rolled. “Men like Tom were the boys that Ryan was exposed to for the most part when his sexual preferences were forming. He wasn’t checking out pasty white gay boys…”

  “Stop it, Alex! That’s enough, you’re being ridiculous. Ryan is with you. He lives with you not because he has to but because he wants to. He loves you. If he was attracted to someone that looked like Tom…”

  “He would have never been attracted to me in the first place?”

  “Yeah. That doesn’t sound right, but you know what I mean. If you weren’t his type Alex he wouldn’t have been with you all of this time. He wouldn’t have chosen you in the first place. You talk about how uncomfortable the idea of telling his father about the two of you makes him. Don’t you think that if he didn’t really love you he would have chosen someone else? Don’t you think he would have chosen someone that wasn’t his step-brother?” Harry was the only one that knew that. Even our other friends here at college that knew we were a couple had no idea that our parents were married. Even though it technically wasn’t, it still sounded incestuous when it was said out loud, so we just didn’t say it.

  “Maybe he chose me because I was easy for him to choose, or because he felt bonded to me already because of our relationship. I was there and he was tired of hiding who he was. I helped him come out and he’s grateful to me. He’s a lot more sensitive than most people would guess. He’s not your typical asshole jock. He stood up to those bastards in high school to protect me, but what if he’s only with me now because he doesn’t want to hurt me? What if he’s settling for me? What if he wakes up five years from now and realizes he’s wasted all that time?”

  “Alex you’re being ridiculous. You told me yourself that you’ve been tired and stressed out. I think this is just the stress talking.”

  Was I being ridiculous? Is it the stress talking? I wanted to believe that I was catastrophizing something in my head that wasn’t even real, but it felt so damned real all of a sudden. Since the first time Ryan told me that he loved me I’d never even considered the idea of not being together forever. But now all of a sudden I wondered if that was naïve of me. Just because I’d hit the jackpot with Ryan didn’t mean he felt the same about being with me. Ryan and I both knew that until we tell our parents there is no way this can be forever. Is that another reason he’s been putting it off?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RYAN

  It was almost seven-thirty before I drove into the parking lot of our apartment complex. I’d been going solid since six-thirty in the morning. My body was tired, my mind was exhausted and I was starving. All I could think about was eating myself into a coma and sleeping until the alarm went off in the morning. I had another full day and at this point, I felt like I’d need at least twelve hours of sleep to deal with it. I wasn’t even going to think
about the phone call I got from Dad today…it would put me over the top.

  I limped my aching body up to the door and it was pulled open before I even got my key in the lock. Alex was there, smiling from ear to ear and wearing an apron that said, “Kiss the Cook.” I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He’s so freaking cute. “Hi. What’s with the sexy apron?”

  He looked down like he forgot he was wearing it and stepped back to let me in. His face flushed red. I love that too. So freaking cute. “I forgot I was wearing it,” he said, pulling it off over his head. “I made dinner. I hope you’re hungry?”

  I realized at that moment that the house smelled amazing. My mouth was already watering. “Damn, that smells good. I’m starving as a matter of fact.” He closed the door and took my hand, leading me over to the little dining room table. It was set for two and each plate had a full salad bowl sitting in the center of it. There were candles burning in the center and a homemade Mason jar vase with two flowers I recognized from the rose bushes out front. So cute. “What’s all this?”

  He shrugged. “You took me out last night so I wanted to do something nice for you tonight.” I sat down at the table and he took his seat. I looked down at my salad and realized he’d but hard-boiled eggs in it just the way I liked it.

  “This looks great, thank you.”

  “We have Salmon for the main course. It’ll be done any minute.”

  I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have gone through all this trouble, but thank you.”

  “It’s no trouble. How was your day?”

  Something in his voice seemed a little strained and I could tell that the smile he had pasted on his face was maybe just a little forced. I suddenly wondered if he was worried about the same thing I was. “It was long and busy. Dad called while I was working out this morning.”

  His face actually brightened at that. Apparently, he wasn’t worried. “He did? About them coming to visit?”

  “Yeah. He wanted to find out my practice schedule. He’s going to try and make it to a few practices while they’re here and he’s excited about being here for the first home game.”

  “That’s great, right?” I took a bite of my salad instead of answering him. I’d been thinking a lot about telling Dad that I’m gay and today I think I realized that dragging my feet was more about hitting him with the double whammy of, I’m gay and in love with my step-brother. I wondered if it would be too much all at once. Alex wasn’t going to force an answer. Instead, he started on his salad and we ate in silence until I’d cleaned my bowl. I put my fork down, took a drink of the water he’d poured me and said,

  “Aren’t you nervous at all? I mean, Linda obviously already knows you’re gay, but don’t you worry about what she’ll think about us being together?”

  He put his fork down and shrugged. “Mom loves us. She’s always been supportive of me whether she agreed with my choices or not. Hell, most of the time she already knows things before I even tell her. She can probably tell by looking at my face how I feel about you. So, I’m more nervous about what Marty will say…but it has to be done, right? I mean…we have to tell them sometime, don’t we?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I could tell by his face that wasn’t the answer he was hoping for, but damn it, it wasn’t his father who was about to be disappointed in him either. He was right about Linda. I couldn’t imagine her ever being disappointed in him. He had no idea how lucky he was. My dad spent more time disappointed in me than anything the past nineteen years.

  He stood up and reached for my bowl. I handed it to him and he said, “I’ll be right back.” The smile was gone from his face and I felt bad, but our parents would be here in a matter of weeks and we had to have a plan whether we wanted to talk about this or not.

  When he came back he had two plates with Salmon, baked potato and asparagus on them. He sat mine down and then took his seat and without saying a word he started eating. I waited about five minutes and then finally said, “Are you pissed at me?”

  He put his fork down, way too hard. With a heavy sigh he said, “No, I’m not pissed. I’m just wondering how long you want to keep us a dirty little secret.”

  “Fuck Alex, stop making it sound so sordid. Everyone here knows about us, how is that a secret?”

  “Everyone here, but no one that really matters. And while we’re on the subject, does Tom know about us?”

  Now I was really confused. What the hell did Tom have to do with any of this? “What? First of all, of course, he knows and second of all…what? What the hell does Tom have to do with any of this?”

  He got up, threw his napkin on his plate and stormed out of the room. I sat there for several long minutes wondering what the hell had just happened before finally getting up myself and going to look for him. I was still starving, but I supposed that I needed to deal with his dramatics first. I found him in the bedroom laying on the bed with his back to the door. I sat down next to him and put my hand on his side. I felt him tense. “Alex, help me out here babe. I’m completely confused. I’m not sure if you’re mad about me worrying about telling Dad or something to do with Tom…please talk to me. I just don’t have the energy for drama tonight.” That was the wrong thing to say, again. He sat up and moved away so that I couldn’t reach him.

  “Drama? Really? Now I’m being a drama queen?”

  “That’s not what I said. You’re twisting things all up. This isn’t like you. What is going on?”

  “What did you do for lunch today?”

  The way he was jumping from one subject to the next was giving me a headache too. If I didn’t know better I might think he was high on something. “Lunch? Shit. I don’t remember what I did two hours ago. It was a long, fucking day.”

  “Really? So you don’t remember taking a shower with Tom right before having a cozy lunch with him at the student union?” I almost choked. What the hell was he accusing me of?

  “Taking a shower with Tom? Have you lost your mind?”

  “I saw you.”

  “You saw me shower with Tom?” I swear I thought my head was going to explode. There’s no way he saw that because it never happened.

  “I saw you two having lunch. You both had wet hair.”

  I had two choices here. I could get pissed that he was accusing me of something that never happened, or I could go with the laugh that was welling up in my chest. It was all so ridiculous that it was funny. I was tired of being unhappy so I chose the laugh. I lay back on the bed and laughed while Alex sat there and looked at me with his big, blue eyes like I had lost my mind. Finally, when tears were rolling down my face he said, “Are you high?” That made me laugh harder because it’s exactly what I’d thought about him. When I could finally talk again I said,

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. Jesus Alex, what is wrong with you?” I sat up and reached for him. He tried to move but I’m stronger and I caught hold of his waist and held onto him. “Babe, Tom is my teammate and my friend. But…that’s it. That’s all he is and all he will ever be to me. Where you got the idea that we took a shower together is beyond me. Have you ever been in our locker room?”

  “No,” he said with a little pout that made me want to suck on his bottom lip.

  “It’s not like high school. There are actual stalls and curtains. I’ve never seen Tom without at least a towel on and when I did…I wasn’t affected at all by it.” He rolled his eyes. I laughed again. “He’s hot, okay? If I denied seeing that you would know that I’m lying. But he doesn’t do it for me. Don’t you see hot guys all day long on campus?”

  “No.”

  “Stop it. You don’t see at least one really hot guy when you’re walking around that giant campus all day?”

  “Yes, fine. Sometimes I see a hot guy or two.”

  “Do you think about being with them? Do you think about fucking them, Alex?”

  “No,” he shook his head adamantly. “No, of course not. I don’t want to be with anyone but you.”

  “And I don’t
want to be with anyone but you. If anyone would have told me a year ago that the short time I’ve spent in a passionate, sexual relationship with a man would be the best year of my life I would have punched them square in the face…if anyone knows that, it’s you.” He kind of nodded and I said, “What would give you the idea that I wanted someone else, anyone?”

  His pretty eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I don’t know. The thought occurred to me earlier that you never really had a choice. I mean, I was just there when you were ready to admit that you’re gay and…”

  “And I was using you to sew some wild oats? Jesus Alex, I don’t know where all of this is coming from. Baby, I want you and only you.” I pulled him in closer and ran my tongue across that sexy bottom lip. “I see hot guys all day long. None of them turn me on the way you do. I’d never cheat on you, babe. I’d never hurt you like that. It hurts me that you would even think that I would.” He leaned his forehead into mine and said,

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I am a drama queen.”

  I chuckled. “No baby, you just feel everything a lot deeper than most people. Your boyfriend is a clueless jock and sometimes I don’t even realize how the things I do or say make you feel. This thing about Dad and Linda, I know it’s stressing us both out. Me not wanting to tell Dad, that’s not at all about being ashamed of being with you. I have issues with Dad that go back to when I was five years old. None of that is about you. I’m afraid of losing him. Do you understand that, babe?” He nodded and I stretched out my lips to meet his with a soft kiss. Once they met I heard his breath hitch and I lost control and pulled him in tighter. I kissed him hard then and passionately. Just before I ended the kiss I growled, “I’m still hungry,” into his hot mouth.

  “You are?” he whispered breathlessly.

  “Yeah, but I want dessert first if that’s okay?”

  He made me laugh again by whispering, “I didn’t make dessert…” I took his hand and put it over my hard cock that was threatened to rip through the denim of my jeans. “Oh,” he said out of the corner of that sexy mouth. I was going to laugh again, but he gripped onto it tightly and suddenly I was the one out of breath. I closed my eyes and just let myself feel the way he was massaging my cock. God, his touch is magic. He let his tongue slip into my mouth again and we kissed while he touched me. I love his touch. My body felt like it was exploding from the inside out every time his hands were on me. I wish he could feel the way he made me feel and then he’d never wonder if I wanted another man more than him again.