by R. Cooper
“That’s sweet of you. But I doubt I’ll be able to focus on anything either.” Ronnie scraped a hand through his hair. “I’ve got nervous energy to burn but I’m so tired I can hardly stand up straight. I keep seeing—everything.”
“Me too.” Iz wrapped his arms around his chest. Ronnie must have left the blanket in the living room or the bathroom. He couldn’t sleep in his Oxford. “I should try to find you something warm.”
At best, he might have an oversized sweater and they both knew it. “I’m good.” Ronnie waved away his offer. “I was trying to get laid, remember? If Giselle sees me, at least I’ll be in my sexy underwear.”
Iz’s brain was receiving too much information tonight. “What’s your sexy underwear?” He gave a start. “Oh. I really wanted to know. This is dangerous. Once I come to terms with this, I’m probably going to be even more inappropriate. I apologize in advance.” He took a step. “I’ll sleep on the couch. But I need to brush my teeth.” He started to move past a startled Ronnie, then paused. “You should too. And we’re up anyway. Come on.” He held Ronnie’s wrist lightly in his fingers and led him back to the bathroom.
In the stronger light, Iz’s hair was a mess. His nose was red. Ronnie looked strained despite his bemused smile as he watched Iz remove his eyeshadow. He examined Iz’s cleanser while Iz scrubbed his face, and accepted the dollop of moisturizer Iz suggested he use.
He was still wearing his shoes, which he generally didn’t do inside the apartment. He was that distracted.
“I’ll get you a pair of big, comfy socks,” Iz promised him while squeezing toothpaste onto Ronnie’s finger so they could clean their teeth together. He wasn’t sure what part of that made Ronnie’s smile lighten, but he smiled in return before rinsing his mouth and putting his toothbrush away. “Oh and there’s water for you in the living room.” Hangovers, even just a dry mouth, were no fun. Iz slipped around Ronnie in search of warm footwear, pulling his hair down as he went.
The act of getting ready for bed was enough, apparently, to make his body remember the strain it had been under. He plopped down on his bed, socks in hand, to stare at the Waterhouse print his parents had given him, the one that Patricio rolled his eyes at.
“Go to sleep.” Ronnie was in the doorway again but slowly crossed over to him when Iz held out the pair of socks.
“Can’t,” Iz explained shortly.
“Sure you can.” The socks were red and green for Christmas. Ronnie stared at him for a moment. “This is the stage of the sleepover where you think you’ll never sleep. But you do.”
“Never had one.” Iz closed his eyes. “I was invited to one once. Six boys outside in a tent. I still don’t understand why we had to sleep in a tent. But it didn’t matter because I wasn’t invited back. I was the weird kid.”
“I had three older half-brothers who were all cool and popular. I was automatically the weird kid.” Ronnie sighed. “Hey, Iz,” he went on, softer, “are you sleeping?”
“Tired. Want to not think. Want to think.” Iz dropped his head to his chest. “You’re not weird to me, but I suppose that makes you weird to others. I would say exceptional.”
Ronnie’s breathing was barely audible. “Exceptional?”
“My experience is obviously limited, but it seems safe to say that not many people would react to tonight the way you have.” Iz fell onto his back.
“You—” Ronnie was strangled, quiet. “You should sleep.”
“I’ll go,” Iz murmured.
“It’s your bed,” Ronnie objected.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Though honestly, Iz did not relish the thought of getting up.
“I’m not uncomfortable. That’s the point.” Ronnie made a rough sound in his throat when Iz hummed curiously in response to that. Then he sighed. “This is fucked. This isn’t going to end well. But… I don’t want to be alone.”
Iz forced his eyes open. Ronnie was still holding the socks as though he’d forgotten them. His gaze was on Iz on the bed.
“I’m not fully sure what you mean,” Iz answered, although Ronnie had been right and this did not feel like sleeping next to Patricio. “But I trust you.”
Ronnie stared at him for another few seconds, mouthed the word ‘fuck,’ and then turned around to unbutton his shirt. He had a t-shirt on beneath it, which he left on. His sexy underwear was black boxer-briefs. He whined, said, “Iz,” in a breathless complaint when he caught Iz watching, and elected not to put on the socks. He left them on top of his folded clothes.
To calm him, Iz twisted up to the head of the bed and wriggled to get beneath the covers and take off his slippers. He swished his bare feet against the fabric.
“The light,” he reminded Ronnie, and then was wide awake at the sound of Ronnie’s breathing and Ronnie climbing into bed behind him after hitting the light switch.
Ronnie didn’t bother with the lamp in the living room that Iz had turned on when they first came in. With the bedroom door open, it was brighter than a nightlight, but neither of them got up to switch it off.
Iz had a queen-sized bed, largely because the last tenant in the apartment had left the frame behind and Iz’s parents could afford to buy the mattress. He didn’t need the extra space, most of the time.
He let himself adjust the new light levels and huddled on one side of the bed as the warmth built up beneath the covers. Ronnie had his head on a pillow. His eyes were open.
“Now that I told you about Rahim, will you do something about it?” Iz whispered, although there was no reason to. “Or Rocco? If you like him, I could try to determine his reasons for resisting the idea that someone could want him.”
“I know his reasons.” Ronnie released a long breath. “I think, Iz, if you can understand what it’s like to be the weird kid, you can understand some of what it’s like to be the ugly kid. Or least a normal-looking kid. And—stop that. You can’t apologize for breaking someone’s heart by setting them up with someone else.”
“Did I break your heart?” Iz scooted an inch closer.
“You broke something.” Ronnie screwed up his face, then sighed again. “But like I said, I didn’t know you as well then. It wasn’t real. The Izzy I know now is a much bigger threat.”
“If he’s a fortress, what are you?” Iz asked in wonder. “A meadow of daffodils? An orangery? An orchard?”
Ronnie shut his eyes tight. “It took you over two years to lo—to like me. This will probably wear off with the last of the tequila.”
Iz bit his bottom lip. “Tonight,” he said softly and waited for Ronnie to open his eyes before he continued. “With you two. I was in a house full of strangers. It was loud and I couldn’t think, and that is always terrifying for me. There is so much for me to keep track of, where everyone is, the noise, what they’re saying and doing. That’s why I don’t go out much. But with you two, it was better. I was as safe as anyone can be. I was happy to see you joking with each other, with me. And then you touched me.”
“Drinking game,” Ronnie quietly interjected.
“Reason,” Iz countered with as much gentleness as he was capable of. “You touched me, but you touched him first. He was the one you wanted. Right?”
Ronnie swallowed. “Maybe.”
“Not me.” It hurt in a way that Iz wasn’t used to. Usually, feelings followed his thoughts. They didn’t happen concurrently. “I was trembling,” he admitted, “but you weren’t.”
“You don’t know that,” Ronnie said at last.
“You didn’t kiss me.” As much as taking the wedge of lime could be called a kiss. Even Iz knew it wasn’t the same.
“After the first time, our freshman year, I didn’t think you’d want that.” Ronnie flopped onto his back, breaking eye contact.
“I left a scar?”
Ronnie huffed. It was almost a laugh.
Iz’s cheeks grew incredibly warm. “Of course,” he added, for one moment sharply and bitterly aware of how much he didn’t know. “Of cour
se, I did.”
“Shit like that tends to. Guess you were missing that data, huh?” Ronnie joked, but not unkindly. “So, if you wanted to know why Rocco won’t believe what you said, there it is.”
“It’s my fault you didn’t kiss me tonight.” Iz pulled a hand from the covers to touch his mouth. “That’s fair, I suppose. It has balance.”
“I could’ve,” Ronnie confessed to the ceiling. “I was buzzing and already horny and on edge. Fuck, I was like that just from seeing him carry you around and tasting the salt on his skin. His mouth was…. And you were watching, practically daring me, the way you pulled your scarf open. Your hand was so tight. You held your breath when I—I could’ve.”
“You could do it now,” Iz said from behind his fingers, and Ronnie snapped his head around to look at him. “I’m not drunk and I want—no. No, you’re right not to, after what I did.”
“Am I?” Ronnie wondered, faint. “Eighteen-year-old me would be pissed if I let this chance go.” He studied Iz, frowning, for several worried beats of Iz’s heart. He freed a hand from the covers and slowly wrapped his fingers around Iz’s wrist. Then he pulled Iz’s hand down. “You aren’t going to flinch?”
He shifted to bring himself closer. Iz gave a tiny shake of his head, eyes wide open, mesmerized, and then Ronnie’s thumb was at his jaw and Ronnie was kissing him.
When Iz had been younger, he had tried this once or twice, to fit in, to discover the fuss, and had mostly held still and counted the moments until he could be free again.
Ronnie didn’t kiss him once. Ronnie pressed a small, soft kiss to the bow in Iz’s upper lip and then another to the curve of the bottom. Iz held his breath, a helpless, startled reaction, and reached out to clutch Ronnie’s shirt. He found bare skin instead.
Iz was hot, as hot as Ronnie felt, and stunned silent except for the whirr of his thoughts and short whimpering sound that slipped out of him when Ronnie’s mouth was gone right as he’d started to feel things.
“Good,” Iz said incoherently, mouth minty and cold-hot.
“Yeah?” Ronnie’s breath brushed his cheek.
Iz nodded. Their feet were half-tangled together. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.
“You don’t have to like me back. But I’m glad I got that.” Iz licked his lower lip. “At least that.”
Ronnie’s frown returned. “I should tell you something.”
“If you are going to try to make me feel better, please don’t.” Iz laid a finger over Ronnie’s mouth, then noticed what he’d done and snatched his hand away. “This mess is my fault. I’ll have to figure out the answer.”
The frown did not disappear. “Nobody expects you to have the answer.”
Iz studied him in amazed confusion. “Then why else would they like me?”
“I—what?” Ronnie punched his pillow and propped his head on his hand in almost the same motion. He stared incredulously at Iz. “Uh, because you try very hard not to hurt the people you care about? Or because you give your friends as much as you’re able to give them, even when it’s a struggle for you? Or because you like finding solutions for people?”
No whirring. No thoughts. No words. For one moment, Iz was still, and then he leaned in to brush two kisses over Ronnie’s lips. His thoughts returned, along with a shaky sort of burn through his lower body.
Ronnie’s fingers slid through his hair as Iz fell back onto his own pillow. Ronnie’s eyes were closed. “That didn’t help,” he groaned.
“I’m sorry.” Iz did not feel sorry, not yet. “In the morning, whatever happens, will you be okay?”
“You’re the genius.” Ronne turned to bury his face in his pillow. He mumbled something, then something else.
“I think you will,” Iz told him encouragingly. “You shouldn’t devalue my feelings in order to convince yourself you are unwanted. Rahim wants you, in his way, even if he does nothing about it. Rocco might too. He liked it a lot when you kissed him. I see why, now.”
Ronnie’s whine was only partly muffled by the pillow. Then he jerked his head up. “I think you need to sleep, Iz.”
“I can try.” Iz stopped touching his lips and did his best to ignore how loud his pulse was in his ears. He dragged himself back to his side of the bed, tucking his feet into a pocket of blankets.
“You don’t—you don’t have to go that far.” Ronnie’s whisper followed that, and then Ronnie’s feet slid back between Iz’s ankles.
Iz shuffled toward the middle gratefully and burrowed in against Ronnie’s shoulder, his face against his throat. One of Ronnie’s hands settled at his hip.
“So fucked,” Ronnie breathed, stirring Iz’s hair.
Iz was. But he didn’t want to think about it now.
He did anyway because that’s how his brain worked.
“In the morning, neither of you will want me again,” he whispered. “But for right now, this is good.”
Ronnie’s hand left Iz’s hip, trailed up his spine, and spread out on the back of his neck, hot and heavy. “Go to sleep, Izzy,” Ronnie ordered gently, and tangled his fingers in Iz’s hair.
Chapter Six
Ronnie was gone when Iz woke up around seven. Iz didn’t blame him for leaving. In the cold light of morning, he likely regretted ever becoming friends with Iz, who had caused nothing but trouble and offered no joy.
There was no point in getting up, other than to pee. Iz didn’t have a job, or any exams to urgently study for. He had books but frowned at them, and since his phone had died in the night, he left it off and put his head back down on the pillow.
No poem for this. No code. Only too much information and a string of memories playing on a loop that wouldn’t let him fall asleep. But fighting the bad thoughts had him exhausted, too heavy to leave the bed.
Giselle wandered past the doorway on her way to work and stopped there again once she came home. She was only partly made-up. She put lipstick on in the car on her way home, after removing the nametag with her deadname on it. She always did both, first thing.
“I was wrong,” Iz explained at her worried look. “I’ve never been this wrong before. But I was right about one thing, a least. In the morning, nothing changed for me.”
Giselle pursed her gold, shiny lips, judging him, but without meanness. She was rarely mean, and that was usually toward customers and terrible professors.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, then clapped her hands briskly. “Get up. Get dressed. We’ll go for drive-thru, and I won’t even ask you anything.”
“No one thinks clearly on an empty stomach,” Iz mumbled. “Ronnie says so.”
“You won’t have to leave the car,” Giselle coaxed. “Think of what Ronnie would say to that.”
Iz briefly wondered if she had seen Ronnie leaving, but decided not to mention it. “I’m not hungry,” he insisted, although part of the hollow sensation in his chest was probably hunger.
“Up.” Giselle tutted while adjusting her nose piercing. “Or I’ll climb in there with you and make you watch my cartoons.”
“Your cartoon shows don’t make sense,” Iz whined, but threw back the covers and sat up. “Do I have to get dressed?”
“Usually, I’d say ‘fake it until you make it.’ But I guess everyone is allowed a day to wallow in their jammies.”
“I am feeling,” Iz pronounced carefully, like a drunk person trying to seem sober. “It’s terrible.” He paused. “I’m also recovering from sensory overload.”
Giselle nodded, her manner thoughtful. “You know your phone is out here, not charged?” Iz clenched his jaw. She nodded again. She was very observant, but then, she was a Psych major. “So we’ll get food, and I’ll tell you about my day. How’s that? No serious conversation, I promise.”
“I am surrounded by very good people.” Iz gave her the biggest smile he could manage. The ache in his chest lightened slightly when she smiled back.
It lightened a little more when he dutifully ate French fries and a salad. But it stayed with him
long after she’d fallen asleep during the murder documentary series she’d put on, and all through the night, and into Sunday.
Iz finally charged his phone Sunday morning. No messages from Ronnie or Rocco, not that he had truly expected any. He had several requests for help with assignments, however, and worked on those to the exclusion of his own work.
He didn’t like his own work. His courses this semester did not hold his interest. The problem sets in front of him were more challenging.
He should stick with those. Possibly even change his major—or add a major. A double major would keep him busy for the next year and a half. Too busy to get in the way or make any more monstrous mistakes. Too busy to have time to think about anything else.
That seemed like a good plan. Calming, although that may have been his meds.
He was chilled despite bundling up and turning the heater to high. His appetite had not returned. His head hurt, but that was from a lack of caffeine, which was at least fixable.
Iz noted his symptoms in the back of his mind and compared them in idle moments to pieces of poetry and passages from his favorite childhood book.
He didn’t like the idle moments. They left him tired.
He drank some coffee. It made his stomach cramp. Another mistake. He couldn’t stop making them now.
Giselle was at work, and the bad thoughts slipped in some time in the afternoon.
Maybe Iz was scary. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Iz was so miserable at recognizing regular human feelings that he’d hurt two people he cared about. Ronnie had been in pain and saved Iz from himself anyway. Rocco was convinced no one could seriously want him, and Iz hadn’t done anything to change his mind. Being drunk was no excuse. Iz was supposed to be smarter, know more.
When Patricio messaged him, Iz was staring, unseeing, at his laptop screen, wondering if Galahad had felt this way when everyone thought him inhuman and perfect. Though Sir Galahad was good to his bones. Iz let his phone buzz without answering it.
Patricio messaged again, as he had done on and off for the past day, and called as the already overcast sky began to darken with sunset.