by A. J. Truman
“If Gideon gives you any crap about hitting on him, I’ll come over and just hit him.”
“You’re too sweet, D. I think it will be fine.”
Gideon came home a little bit later, after they had passed out on the couch, shoes and all.
“Hi. You must be Gideon.” Delia sat up and shook his head.
Gideon dropped his backpack and beelined to the sun porch. “What’s this?”
“What?” Mac craned his neck.
“The sun porch is not a storage closet.”
“I’m working on getting more furniture, like a dresser and stuff. It’ll be gone before you even know it’s there,” Mac said.
Gideon kept staring at the pile. “I already know it’s there.”
“It’ll be gone soon.”
“It better be. I’m not living with something like this in my apartment.”
“Our apartment.”
“No. My apartment.” Gideon stood above him. For a second, Mac thought Gideon eyes shifted to check out his chest. But that had to be wishful thinking.
“I don’t like messes. I prefer to live in a clean living space. So please, keep this in mind.” Gideon removed the empty water glasses from the coffee table and brought them into the kitchen.
Delia laughed nervously, as if they were just reprimanded by a teacher. “Yeah, if you ever need someone to hit him, just let me know.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Gideon
After a week of living together, Mac still slept on Seth’s air mattress. He still didn’t have a dresser or nightstand or any other discernible furniture. And he still lived out of his bags. Not suitcases, but garbage bags.
“You know, I saw some good dressers on Craigslist,” Gideon pointed out to him a few days ago. He tried to nail his mom’s tone of casual-yet-forceful suggestion, but it didn’t work on Mac.
“Cool,” Mac said. And it was never brought up again.
Gideon stared at the piles of packed garbage bags that lined the wall of Mac’s bedroom. He hoped there was no rotting food in any of them.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Gideon wanted to relax and do some studying in the enclosed porch while the weather was still nice. He pictured himself opening the windows and reading while a cool breeze swept through his hair. But he couldn’t go in there. Half the room belonged to a pile of Mac’s stuff.
Boxes and crates and yet even more garbage bags were stacked on top of one another, a Jenga tower of junk. Mac had promised that he would unpack and clean up in a timely manner. Gideon wasn’t so sure. To him, it sounded like an alcoholic saying he was just going to have one drink.
Gideon didn’t like to call himself a neat freak. He merely believed that a clean living space was the key to a good life. How could a person achieve success in the world when where he lived was in disarray?
Mac was the one who called him a neat freak.
“You are,” Mac said as he was pouring himself a bowl of Raisin Bran for dinner. Mac ate cereal for dinner, and lunch, and breakfast. Could he not rotate in some canned soup or Chef Boyardee?
“There’s nothing freaky about wanting to have a clean apartment. You need to respect your shared living space.”
“You sound like an RA.” Mac poured milk in his cereal. Drops splattered against the flakes and onto the counter. “I’ll try harder.”
“You said that two days ago. You’re still on trial here.”
“Where’s my lawyer?” Mac smiled at his joke. “I will take care of the sun room. I just got distracted with classes starting. This weekend, though.”
Gideon didn’t believe him for a second. “How did you survive with your past roommates in the dorm?”
“I kept my mess to my half of the room, which I’m doing here.”
“But I can still see it. The sun porch looks like an episode of Hoarders. Your pile of shit is on the verge of collapsing. It’s not just there. You can’t leave the kitchen a mess. We don’t want to get ants.” Gideon pointed his head at the milk droplets.
“For real?” Mac asked.
Gideon nodded yes.
“Man, you run a tight ship.” Mac whipped off his T-shirt, exposing a smooth chest rippling with muscles. Gideon cut his eyes to the floor and focused full-throttle on the specks of dust on the tiles.
He pulled the dishrag off the oven handle. “Use this!”
“This is easier.” Mac’s arm muscles jumped around as he wiped up his mess. He left his T-shirt in a ball on the counter.
“Are you going to get a new shirt?”
“Nah. It’s a white T-shirt. The milk blends right in.” Mac gave him a knowing smirk and shoveled a mountain of cereal into his mouth.
Gideon didn’t know why that threw him off so much, why it made it so hard to breathe for a moment. It was just a shock. No warning. Then, bam! Shirtless! Perhaps he wasn’t expecting Mac to be so jacked. Pittsburgh did a body good. Gideon was regretting this two-week trial already.
“I thought gay guys were supposed to be super clean.”
“And I thought straight guys were supposed to be slobs.”
Gideon cocked an eyebrow. Touché. He checked the time on the microwave.
“I have to get ready.”
“Hot date?” Mac asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” Mac said. He seemed surprised, and maybe a touch sad, to be right.
“I’m kidding. We’re throwing a party for new students at Hillel tonight.”
“Sounds familiar. Don’t give any naïve freshmen the wrong idea.”
“I’m laughing on the inside.” Gideon entered the solace of his clean bedroom with a new bed, washed sheets, and clothes that were folded or hung up. He changed into a navy blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki shorts, and boat shoes. He went into the bathroom to get his puff of hair just right and spritz on cologne.
“Stop being awkward,” he whispered to himself.
He returned to the kitchen, where Mac was finishing up the last bits of his dinner. Still shirtless.
“I’ll be back later.” Gideon froze in place. Heat strangled his neck.
Did Mac just check me out?
He felt Mac’s eyes travel up and down his body for a split-second. It was so quick, and Mac was back to munching on his cereal, but Gideon caught it. He had given girls the onceover plenty of times. He knew what he saw. He wondered how much times that had happened over the past week. Gideon found himself puffing out his chest.
And did I like it?
“Make sure you put your spoon and bowl in the dishwasher when you’re done.”
Φ
Gideon hit on no freshmen at the event. They all looked so young. Was that really him two years ago? On his way home, he called his mom. He made sure to call her at least twice a week. He hated thinking about her all alone in their house. Talking to Gideon was the highlight of his mom’s week, and she never minded telling him that.
“How was Hillel?” She asked.
“It was a good time.”
“I still remember the spread they put out for parents weekend.” Gideon and his mom had joked about the bagels they served, how bland and chewy they were. Any bagel not produced in New York or New Jersey was instantly inferior. It wasn’t Hillel’s fault.
Gideon slapped his hand against lampposts he passed.
“How’s Beth?” She asked.
“She’s good. Happy to be back on campus.” Gideon didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t have any internal panic. He kept slapping lampposts.
“How’s it going living together?”
“So far, so good. She has so much stuff, especially in the bathroom. I have half a shelf in the medicine cabinet.”
“You never had sisters, so you don’t know. We don’t just wake up looking like this.”
“I’m sure you do.” He could feel his mom smile back.
“You need to send me a picture of the new furniture. I’m curious what her parents picked out.”
A question like tha
t would’ve tripped up an amateur. The key was to always be two steps ahead. “You know what, we decided not to do that. We realized that it was pointless to get all new furniture when at most, we’d be living in this apartment for two years.”
“What about after graduation?”
“We don’t know what kind of place we’d get in New York. The apartments there are smaller, and the set we were looking at might not have fit.”
“Good point.”
In times like these, Gideon felt like Billy Flynn in Chicago (the movie) doing his tap dance. It was only when he hung up that the usual cocktail of anger and guilt washed over him.
“Beth and I swung by thrift shops and got some pretty decent furniture.”
“Wonderful. I’m excited to have her over for the Jewish holidays.”
“I don’t know if she can make it. She may be going to family in Boston. She’s still figuring out her plans.”
“Are you going with her?”
“And miss out on some of your matzo ball soup? Are you kidding?” His fake laugh satisfied his mom but made his throat ache.
“So Noah’s still with that new girl he met at the casino. Christina,” she said. Mother and son didn’t need proper segues. “She’s eighteen years older than him!”
“Eighteen is a lucky number in Judaism.” Gideon’s joke fell flat.
“It’s only been two months, and he’s already telling me he’s in love.”
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“Noah’s always gone down his own path. But now this? Why can’t he find a nice, Jewish girl, like you did with Beth? Your brother has given me enough tsuris to last a lifetime. I’m lucky I have you, Gideon. You’ve always been so good and responsible. You always do the right thing. You keep me sane.”
Her words made Gideon feel pressure in his chest. Keeping someone sane was more work than just loving them. Sometimes it felt like too much responsibility.
They said their good-byes and hung up. Gideon’s skill for little white lies developed over years of avoiding the Judy Saperstein freak-out. One lie after another. So harmless. It made him angry how hard he worked to present a positive front for his mom while his brother had one epic screw up after another. Then he remembered that no matter how small and insignificant it was, he was still lying to his mom. That was when the guilt sunk in.
He found his way to Seth’s dorm. He needed some classic Seth neuroses to distract him.
You around? Wanna shoot some hoops? He texted.
I’m asleep, Seth texted back.
It’s 10! Wake up!
Early class tomorrow.
Gideon called him up. “You are in college. People do not go to sleep at ten. You will go to your class tired like everyone else.”
“Not tonight. I ate something at dinner that didn’t sit right with me. Sorry, Gid.” Seth sounded groggy, like he’d already been asleep for a while.
“I’m downstairs.” Gideon kept up his enthusiasm.
“Not tonight.”
“This is unbelievable.” Though Gideon could never be truly mad at Seth. This was par for the course. He just worried that Seth was going to be single forever. He never dated. Dates didn’t end at seven-thirty.
“Let’s get lunch together tomorrow. My treat.”
Gideon wasn’t going to turn down free food. “Okay. But if there’s filet mignon on the menu, I’m ordering two for myself. You’ve been warned.” He looked up at the dark rows of windows of the dorm. One of them held Seth. “Sweet dreams.”
“You too, Gid.”
Gideon meandered around downtown Duncannon on his way home. To his apartment with the heap of junk and a gay guy who checked him out and who may still be shirtless. And that might not have been a bad thing.
Do not even go there, he warned himself. This wasn’t the first time he’d had thoughts like these over the years. But he never acted on them, and that’s what mattered. The good son would never do something so irresponsible.
He climbed the steps to his apartment and rested his head on the door. Being the good son was exhausting.
Inside, Mac watched TV on the couch. His feet rested on the coffee table, but Gideon didn’t have the energy to get into that. He nodded in acknowledgement at his roommate. It was barely after ten, but he decided to go to sleep. He wouldn’t tell Seth.
Gideon shuffled into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. Shave clippings dotted the sink. Again, something to deal with tomorrow. An empty roll of toilet paper hooked on the dispenser.
“Mac, what’s this?” He charged into the living room and held up the empty roll.
“The toilet paper thing.”
“Where’s the toilet paper?”
“There’s a new roll on top of the toilet.” Mac remained glued to the TV.
“This isn’t an outhouse or a barn. Here, when the toilet paper dispenser is empty, we put on a new roll. Like civilized human beings!” Gideon crumpled the cardboard roll in his fist and slammed his bedroom door. One more week, and then he could show Mac and his broad chest the door.
Gideon lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. His eyes were closed, but his brain continued to chug along without stopping. Thoughts of Noah and his mom and the freaking toilet paper roll fluttered through his head. There was always something with Noah. Now Gideon had to worry about him running off with this Christina girl? He felt like his family was always two seconds from completely unraveling, were it not for him.
Sometimes, when things got really stressful, he would shut his eyes and imagine the kiss with Mac freshman year, before he pushed him off. It was an out-of-body experience, the most non-Gideon thing that’d ever happened to Gideon. It gave him a few seconds where his body hummed rather than screeched like rusty gears. But now the freaking guy was living with him and walking around shirtless and that was a whole new layer of stress he didn’t need.
He glanced at his phone. It was eleven-thirty, and he was no closer to falling asleep. Gideon left his bedroom to get a drink of water. Mac remained on the couch, watching TV. Gideon’s TV.
“Can’t sleep?” Mac asked him.
“I just needed to get a glass of water.” Gideon walked into the kitchen.
“I couldn’t sleep either.” He heard Mac say from the living room. “If you’re wondering, I’m not a couch potato like this. I just couldn’t sleep. I thought this would help.”
Gideon drank his water and stayed by the door. “I have aspirin if you need it.”
Mac studied him. He wasn’t being checked out. Something much more invasive. “You sure you’re okay? You seem stressed.”
“There’s a mountain of junk in my apartment. Of course, I’m stressed.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Mac was still studying.
“Good night. And turn the volume down.” Gideon glanced back at the kitchen. There were no dishes in the sink.
He opened the dishwasher. It was loaded. Not well, but loaded. Loaded! It was a sight for sore eyes.
“You did this,” Gideon said. He nearly had damn tears in his eyes.
“I told you I’d try harder.” Mac looked so comfortable on the couch. Bits of his short brown hair stuck up in the back. It was the littlest things that made his day.
“Do you want some mac ‘n cheese?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mac
Mac and Gideon sat on the couch actually eating mac n’ cheese. Not store bought. Gideon made it from scratch with spaghetti and shredded cheese. It tasted far superior to the Kraft stuff. He couldn’t get over that a guy named Mac never ate mac n’ cheese.
Gideon curled up into the corner, up against a mound of pillows, while Mac had taken the edge of the chaise. Despite sitting on the same piece of furniture, they couldn’t have been further apart. Gideon probably liked it that way.
“Eighteen years is a big age difference.” Mac drank from his beer bottle. “She could’ve given birth to Noah and voted for president on the same day.”
“It’s not just that. Noah always doe
s this. It’s like he gets some secret thrill from making my mom’s life hell. He was nearly expelled from Hebrew school. He crashed his car through a Dairy Queen, when he was on who-knows-what. And I won’t get into how he dropped out of law school to become a professional gambler.”
“He sounds cool.”
Gideon shot him a glare that warned him to get that thought out of his head. “Our mom is a widow. Can’t he go easy on her?”
“Maybe he’s not doing this to her. Maybe he’s doing this because he genuinely wants to. It’s his life. If he loves this woman, then he loves her.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“How what works?”
Gideon didn’t give him an answer and shook it off.
“Thanks for listening to me talk about this.” The warm smile on Gideon’s face sent goosebumps zipping through his body. “I needed to get it off my chest, and I think I also wanted an outside opinion.”
Mac could make out the blond stubble prickling his chin. He wanted to keep looking at it. “Yeah, thanks for the mac ‘n cheese.”
“My dad and I used to make it on late nights.” Gideon stared at his bowl, the memory clouding his face. “It would be our late night snack. Sometimes, if I was sleeping, the smell of the melting cheese and hot noodles would wake me up, and I’d join him.”
“I’m sorry. How long has he…”
“Eight years.” Gideon dipped his fork into the bottom of his bowl, getting the last bits. “How about for you?”
Mac looked up in confusion.
“Your parents,” Gideon said.
He looked on with even more confusion.
“You said you live with your aunt, and you talk about them in the past. I didn’t want to bring it up before, but since we were sharing, I just thought…”
“I’m sorry.” Mac felt himself turn red, dying of embarrassment. He didn’t talk about his parents much, even though they were the cause of his constant insomnia. But barriers had fallen tonight. He and Gideon were in the middle of one of those epic conversations where walls tumbled down and people dared to bare their true selves. “I moved out of my parents’ house four years ago, after my sophomore year of high school. I went to live with my Aunt Rita in Pittsburgh. They’re still in West Virginia. They own a hardware store.”