Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

by Hayden Hunt

  “Sweet! Thanks, man, thanks.” He gave me a goofy smile.

  I was really starting to like this guy.

  16

  Miles

  Aidan had gone off to the bathroom and in his silent absence, it hit me that I should probably let Chelsea know I wasn’t coming home tonight.

  I didn’t want to call; she’d hear the slurring in my voice and that’d only piss her off more. So I went for a text instead.

  “Hey, not coming home 2nite. Staying at Aidans.”

  I got a text back mere seconds later.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Y?”

  “Miles, we just had a huge fight! You’re supposed to want to come home and work this out with me.”

  “Well, can’t. Too drunk to drive.”

  “That’s just great. While I’m here, crying, focusing on our problems, you’re out drinking away yours. Very mature.”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t. I didn’t want to say something I’d regret anyway. But she texted me back again.

  “I’ll come pick you up, then. We need to figure this out.”

  “No. Don’t want to pick up my car tom. Too much hassle I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Are you fucking joking? You can’t even deal with the hassle of picking your car up for me? Not even to make sure I’m fucking okay?! I was bawling when you left.”

  “Sorry, we’ll talk tom,” I reiterated. I was too drunk for a fight of this level.

  “No, we won’t,” she sent back.

  I didn’t know what that meant but I was way too wasted to try and figure it out. I tossed my phone next to me on the couch and went to lay down, because the room was starting to spin a little bit.

  When Aidan came back, he saw me laying down on the couch, hands covering my face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

  “Not feeling so well,” I told him.

  “Ahh, starting to get nauseous?”

  “Yeah,” I answered honestly.

  “Here, come on.” He extended a hand. “Let’s go lay you down. It’s getting late anyway.”

  I nodded and tried to use his hand to stand up but as soon as I got to my feet, I was tumbling. I couldn’t hold myself up straight at all. Shit, I really didn’t mean to get this drunk.

  He wrapped one of my arms around his shoulder and half carried me over to his guest bedroom. I moaned a little as I wobbled because my nausea was intensifying with every step.

  I thought maybe if I closed my eyes, it would feel like the room was spinning less. But that only seemed to exacerbate the problem and obviously made me stumble a lot more.

  “Here we are,” Aidan said as we reached the bed.

  I nearly toppled onto it. He very sweetly took both my shoes off for me.

  “Are you comfortable wearing that? You could borrow some pajamas?” he said, referencing my jeans.

  “No, they’re fine, thanks.” They actually weren’t that comfortable but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to change in this state. I couldn’t stand back up if I wanted to. So I’d sleep in jeans, whatever.

  “You’re still feeling sick, aren’t you?” Aidan asked, looking at me sympathetically.

  I nodded.

  “Here, one second,” he said as he left the room.

  I was disappointed as soon as he walked out. Even though I knew he was going to grab something to help me. I still didn’t want to see him leave. I felt way worse when I was completely alone.

  This was probably the point when I should have been craving Chelsea’s company. She usually took care of me when I was sick, after all. If she was my best friend, why didn’t I feel like I wanted her right now? Why wasn’t I calling her, going back on my word and begging her to take me home?

  This solidified what I had already discovered. Because she may have been the closest person in my life, but even she and I weren’t that close. She didn’t bring me comfort. Fuck, my own home didn’t bring me comfort! Because it was filled with the awkward tension of being around her every day and not wanting to be.

  I should have been so uncomfortable right now, being sick in a complete stranger’s house. I should have been dying to leave. But I wasn’t. I felt more comfortable here in Aidan’s guest bedroom than I had at home in years.

  Fuck, I really needed to leave Chelsea.

  Aidan came back with a few things in hand. The first thing I noticed was a big, black, metal pot.

  “Here, I’m going to set this on the floor,” he told me. “If you’re feeling like you’re going to be sick, just lean over and grab it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I answered. I was grateful because I was pretty sure there was no way I was actually going to reach a bathroom in this state.

  “And here’s some water,” he said, putting it on my side table. “Try to drink it all before you fall asleep tonight. It’ll help with the hangover tomorrow. But don’t drink it quickly, you need to sip it.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, reaching out for it to take my first sip.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  He was so sweet. That was all I could keep thinking… that he was really sweet to me.

  I didn’t know why, though. This was all stuff Chelsea would have gladly done for me. She was always really nice when I wasn’t feeling well too. But for some reason, I never felt enthralled with her for it.

  But being taken care of by Aidan? It felt so much better. I was genuinely comforted in a way I haven’t been since I was a kid.

  When Chelsea took care of me, I allowed her to make me soup and bring me water and then prayed she would leave the room quickly and leave me to myself. But I didn’t want Aidan to leave at all. In fact, I wished he would climb in bed with me and cuddle me until I fell asleep.

  Fuck, why was I thinking like this? He was a dude. I was a dude. I shouldn’t have been craving his comfort this way.

  I guess it was just the alcohol. It was probably compounding on the fact that I felt so lonely lately. Not having any kind of romantic comfort in my life, it made sense that I’d latch onto the first person that was available.

  “Okay,” Aidan said suddenly. “I’ll go ahead and leave you alone now. But just call my name if there’s anything you need.”

  “Okay,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment.

  As he reached the door of the room, I called out. “Wait!” I said quickly.

  “Yes?” he asked, turning around fast.

  “I, uh… Could you stay with me?”

  “Stay with you?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Damnit, I knew I shouldn't have asked.

  “I’m sorry, that’s weird. I just don’t want to be alone feeling like this right now. You don’t need to stay though, if there’s other stuff you’d rather be doing.”

  “No, that’s no problem at all.” He smiled. “I’ll stay.”

  In the corner of the guest bedroom there was a large fabric armchair. He grabbed it, pulling it close to the bed. When he sat on it, he kicked his feet up on the bed to lean back.

  He was so close to me but, right now, it didn’t feel close enough. I wanted him in bed with me so bad. My drunken self almost asked him, but that would have been a huge mistake. Hell, he might kick me out of his house for thinking I was drunkenly coming onto him like that.

  Not that he’d be offended or anything. Obviously, he was gay. Hey, maybe that was why I kept thinking these things? Maybe just the knowledge that he was gay was putting ideas into my head.

  Either way, I wasn’t going to bring it up.

  “You’re a really nice guy.” I smiled at him after staring for far too long.

  I couldn’t help it; he was so nice to look at it. He had a very nice face. It was very angled, and he had a strong jaw, but his eyes were the real killer. They were piercing.

  Altogether, his outer look didn’t seem to match his personality at all. He had this rough and tumble look about him, but he was a total sweetheart.

&
nbsp; “Thanks.” He laughed. “You seem pretty nice too.”

  “You’e helped me a lot tonight, I continued.

  “What? You mean getting you water and a pot?” He laughed. “Any decent person would do that.”

  “Even more than that,” I told him. “You’ve helped me figure out shit about Chelsea. You made me think about some emotional shit I’d never considered before.”

  “I’m really glad to have helped.” He smiled, and just looking at his smile comforted me. “But is this really the first time you even considered that you might not want to be with Chelsea?” he asked.

  “Honestly, kind of,” I admitted. “I don’t know. Like I said, I avoided all of my emotions as much as I could. And I haven’t had anyone to talk to about them. Nobody who could snap me out of this hole I’ve been in.”

  “Seriously, nobody?” he asked. “You have no family? No friends?”

  I shrugged. “I have my parents but we’re not close. We pretty much just see each other on holidays. You know, maybe they’re part of the reason why I’m so closed off. They weren’t very emotionally supportive with me when I was growing up. I can probably count on one hand the amount of times they said ‘I love you’ to me.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry.” He frowned. “I’m not really close with my parents either, but they were very supportive and nurturing as I was growing up.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised. “If they were nurturing, why aren’t you close with them now?”

  He sighed. “Well, they don’t exactly approve of me being gay. I mean, they’re not awful like some parents. They never tried to disown me or gave me a lecture about how I’m going to hell. It wasn’t like that at all. They just kind of quietly disapproved. It was something we never talked about and, slowly but surely, it drove a wedge between us. They try to still be nice around the holidays, like your parents, but other than that I think they spend most of the year pretending I don’t exist.” He laughed awkwardly.

  “Seriously? That fucking sucks,” I muttered. “I think that’s worse than my situation. I mean, it’s one thing if it’s just not in your parents’ nature to be emotional, you know? But to be loving and have that change just because they found out you’re gay? That would fucking sting.”

  “Yeah… it does,” he admitted. “But that’s what I was expecting. They’re real religious, you know? Like most people in this town.”

  He was right about that. We lived in a very conservative town. Most people here were pretty openly anti-gay.

  “We’re behind on the times,” I told him.

  “Big time,” he agreed.

  “How come you don’t leave?” I asked.

  He gave a sheepish smile. “How come you don’t?”

  This confused me in my drunken state. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re asking me why I don’t leave because this place isn’t conducive to my happiness, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Well, it doesn’t seem conducive to yours. How come you haven’t left?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  He sighed. “That’s the thing about towns like this, isn’t it? You get kind of stuck here. I have the bakery, I have the way I live my life, and I can’t imagine changing it. Sure, I could sell the place and start a business elsewhere, but I don’t. Probably for similar reasons you don’t leave.”

  “It’s comfortable, I guess,” I agreed.

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “The same kind of comfortable that you get with Chelsea, right? The kind of comfort that isn’t comfort at all. You know, I think the word you mean to use is ‘familiar.’ Everything here is familiar. It’s what we know. And perhaps we’re scared to know anything different.”

  Fuck, this resonated with me. He was right. I’d stuck around with this life because it was what I knew. I’d been afraid to branch out because this felt like all I had.

  “I mean, what if we go out into the world and fail?” I ask. “That’s the real fear, right? That we might go out on a limb and the branch will break?”

  “Pretty much.” He laughed. “It’s no good, though. There isn’t much here for me anymore. Especially not with my romantic life. There is no room for me to grow.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Can’t you date around here? I don’t think you’re the only gay guy in this town.”

  “No, I’m not,” he agreed. “But I think I’m one of very few. Most of the men who are out around here, I’ve dated. And it hasn’t worked out with any of them. I think there is a considerably smaller gay population here than other places. Maybe because in a religious town like this, gay men are afraid to accept who they are and tell other people. Or maybe it’s just that nobody wants to be gay and live in a town like this, so they move. I don’t really know. All I know is, my prospects are low.”

  I stared at him awhile, wondering if I should ask my next question or leave it be.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “How did you know you were gay?” I asked.

  As soon as it came out of my mouth, I wished I could take it back. Why would I ask that? It sounded like I was trying to figure out if I was gay myself. Which, of course, I wasn’t.

  Was I?

  “I guess it’s really something I’ve always known. The things I felt for men, I’ve never felt for women. I definitely tried to date women in high school. I wanted to be ‘normal’ so bad when I was a teenager. So I did my best to be into women. But I felt nothing for them. No matter how pretty, or how great of a girl they were, there was never a spark with any of them.”

  I felt a lump in my throat.

  That was exactly what had happened with me and Chelsea, wasn’t it? She was a great girl, she really was. She was kind, she was funny, she was extroverted, and sh did her best to bring out the better part of me. She was a good partner.

  And I should have been in love with her. But I wasn’t. I loved her, I loved the person she was and everything she’d done for me but I wasn’t in love with her.

  was this why? Those high school relationships with no spark that Aidan was talking about, had I just got forever stuck in my high school relationship with no spark? Never to realize that I could feel differently with another person?

  Fuck.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Yes, I wanted to say. Everything was wrong.

  All these years, I told myself there was no spark because I was comfortable with Chelsea. All relationships reached a stage of comfort, that’s what I’d always heard. And that was probably true, though I imagined the comfort in other relationships was more genuine.

  But I had completely ignored the fact that there was never a spark between us. I never was passionate about being with her. At least in the beginning, there should have been some romance.

  I had convinced myself that the whole ‘spark’ thing was fake, too. I told myself that chemistry like that was just something that they showed in Hollywood romance movies. Nobody really felt like that for another person.

  How dumb I’d been. I knew right now, in this moment, that was simply not true. And I knew it because finally, for the first time in twenty-five years, I was feeling that spark.

  I could feel it as I stared into Aidan’s eyes.

  “I’m okay,” I lied. “Just feel sick again.”

  I didn’t want to tell him the truth, not now. It was a little much for me to take in. I had to think about things. And, like Aidan had said, it was best not to make big decisions when you were completely wasted.

  “You poor thing.” Aidan frowned. “Here, roll over.”

  “Roll over?” I asked nervously.

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “trust me.”

  “All right,” I said as I switched positions so my back was facing him.

  Without warning, I could feel his hand graze my back and he gently started rubbing it for me.

  His touch sent chills down my spine. Fuck, I wasn’t going to be able to deny this anymore. How many times had Chelsea rubbed my back like
this? And I’d never felt a thing. And now I had the chills from a complete stranger.

  This was it. This was that chemistry people were always talking about. I never knew how good it could feel. And now that I felt it, I wasn’t going to let it go. I almost said something to Aidan about this. I almost confessed to him that I was feeling a connection that I thought couldn’t exist between two people.

  But I was too drunk and getting too tired. I couldn’t put the words together. And with Aidan’s comforting touch, I could feel myself falling fast asleep.

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  17

  Gabriel

  Gabriel

  “All right, sir, this is the last of it,” the mover told me as he set a box down.

  “Fantastic, thank you so much,” I told him as I handed him a check to cover the work they did for me this morning.

  “Not a problem. Enjoy your new place.” He smiled at me.

  “I will,” I lied as I shut the door behind him.

  When I was finally alone, I looked around at what was my new condo. It was nice. It was updated and clean—besides my boxes now strewn across the floor—and in the nicest part of town. It was a decent first property. At twenty-seven years old, I was now a homeowner and should have been proud.

  But this wasn’t how I imagined life would be when I got my first place.

  I sighed as I lay myself on the couch that had just been moved in. I was exhausted. The movers came at 6 am and I was packing all night long. Now I needed to unpack, but I just didn’t have the energy.

  Thankfully, the movers who brought in my entertainment center had also thoughtfully placed my television back inside the center and hooked it up for me. The remote was in one of the boxes though, so I had to physically get up to turn it on and pick a channel before throwing my body back onto the couch.