Roommate

by Sarina Bowen

  Kieran watches me stir together the batter I left overnight on the counter. “Can’t you make pancakes a little simpler than that?” He’s leaning against the counter, sipping the coffee I made for him. As he lifts the cup, I admire the dark hair on his tanned forearms and sigh inside.

  “Sure. These are better, though. More flavor.” I whisk together the batter, and then turn on the burners under the griddle.

  Kieran drains his coffee. “What’s that noise?”

  “Hmm?”

  “That weird little chirp. From your phone.”

  I glance at the counter where my phone is charging. “You don’t know that sound, huh?” Fascinating.

  “No?”

  I grin. “That’s the sound Grindr makes when someone messages you.”

  “Oh.” He looks into his empty mug.

  “It’s another clue,” I add. Kieran doesn’t seem to date men or women, but there are times when I’m sure he’s checking me out. Then again, I’m sort of vain. And Kieran is the hardest man to read on earth.

  “To what?”

  “To you. If you don’t know the sound of Grindr, it’s a clue. I’ve been trying to figure you out.”

  When he speaks, it’s not to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business. “If you do, let me know,” he says. Then he goes upstairs until I call him back down again to eat pancakes.

  After breakfast, Kieran leaves to do chores at his parents’ farm. He reappears at suppertime, when the house smells like heaven.

  “Wow,” he says, tossing his coat onto a hook he installed this week. “That smells amazing. Did it work?”

  “It always works,” I say, swirling the wine in my half-empty glass. I splurged on a cheap pinot noir, which I’ve been sipping while I wait for him to reappear. “I pulled it out three hours ago. You check it, okay? Use the tongs.”

  In the kitchen I watch as he lifts the pot and pokes the meat. “It’s falling apart. I just want to dive in head first.”

  “You will,” I promise. “But my rolls are in the oven for another fifteen minutes, okay? Turn on the burner and we’ll heat this up. I’ll call you when it’s time.”

  “Awesome. Right back,” he says, then disappears upstairs.

  When the bread is done and steaming up the kitchen, I call up the stairs. “Kieran?”

  There is no response.

  After a second try, I climb the stairs slowly. This is Kieran’s private domain, and I don’t want to invade it. On the other hand, there’s pulled pork waiting.

  When I reach his room, I realize why he can’t hear me. He’s facing his desk, painting away on a giant, propped-up pad of watercolor paper, earbuds in his ears.

  “Kieran.”

  Nothing.

  I step closer. “Food’s ready!” I call.

  He startles violently. Then he drops his head, as if embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says, yanking out the ear buds.

  “I didn’t know you painted.” I try to see around him. “Is that…a tractor?”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders for the first time ever—their weight is way too enticing—and steers me away from his work. “It’s terrible. Let’s eat.”

  His hands fall away as we jog down the stairs. “Did you always paint?”

  “No, almost never,” he says heavily as we enter the kitchen. “Can I have some of that wine?”

  “Of course you can. I already poured your glass.” I point it out on the counter. “But you have to pull the pork first. Here.” I hand him two forks. “Easiest thing in the world. But you have to do all the steps yourself or it doesn’t count.”

  “Count as what?”

  “Something you made yourself. We’re cheating already with the barbecue sauce.” I open a bottle from the store. My cooking-school buddies would never let me live it down, but I didn’t want to overwhelm Kieran with recipes just yet.

  He gets to work tugging the meat apart, while my mouth waters.

  “So why don’t you paint more often?” I ask, because the wine has already obliterated my crappy impulse control.

  He stops working for a second, as if trying to decide whether or not to answer me. Then he puts the forks down and looks me right in the eye. “When I was twelve years old, my mother was hanging one of my thousands of drawings on the refrigerator. And my father said, ‘Don’t encourage him. We don’t want him to grow up to be a faggy artist.’”

  “Oh,” I say slowly. “And maybe that hit a little too close to the truth?”

  “At twelve, I really didn’t know…” He shakes his head instead of finishing that sentence. “I stopped drawing immediately. For, like, ten years.”

  My jaw hangs open. “Don’t you draw at work, though?”

  “I do now. A couple of years ago I said fuck it and picked up a set of colored pencils. It took me a long time to stop hearing his voice in my head.” His eyes are deep pools of pain right now, and I just want to give him a hug.

  “Shit. Don’t I know it,” I agree. “I still hear their voices in my head. It’s fucking sad that you didn’t draw anything for ten years. But maybe you’re smarter than me. I took the opposite route, rubbing it in my parents’ faces every chance I got. That’s how I found myself living under a bridge when I was eighteen.”

  His eyes widen. “You did? For how long?”

  “A few months. Then I found a program that helps homeless LGBT kids even after they’re eighteen, and I went to cooking school on grant money. People tell you to be yourself. But not everybody can afford that luxury.” I pluck his wine glass off the counter and hand it to him. “Drink some of this and paint some more. I won’t tell anyone that you have a tractor kink.”

  His eyes crinkle in the corners. “I don’t, really. But that’s what I drew to piss off Dad. Seemed like a good place to start again.”

  “I would have painted him a purple rainbow tractor with unicorns in the meadow, because I never did know when to shut up.” Like now. I don’t ever want this conversation to end, because Kieran is finally confiding in me. He’s so buttoned up with everyone that I feel like I won the fucking lottery.

  “How did you, uh, know.” He clears his throat, and his eyes are tentative.

  “Know?” I feel so swimmy and bright that it takes a moment to understand what he’s asking. “Oh, that I’m queer as fuck? I always knew. Sorry.” I can hear myself babbling. “But everybody’s different. I know some dudes who were thirty-five and married before they figured out how much they like cock.”

  I wait for it and—there it is! The telltale blush on his cheekbones. It happens whenever I mention sex. If I ever get this man into bed, I’m going to make him blush everywhere.

  “You should experiment,” the wine in my bloodstream says. “I’ll help you make a Grindr profile. Curious lumberjack with muscles seeks someone to sixty-nine. They’ll be like flies on honey.”

  Kieran looks horrified. He sets down his glass with a thunk. “No fucking way. I can’t use an app. Shit. I can’t even make barista conversation with strangers. People chat on that app, right? And if I actually saw someone interesting on there, they’d want to talk.” He shudders.

  I burst out laughing. “Oh the horrors! So you aren’t afraid to suck a dick, but the small talk might kill you?”

  “Maybe,” he grumbles.

  Giddy laughter bounces through my chest, and I feel drunk with unnamed possibilities.

  Kieran braces a hand against the counter, studying his wine glass like the secret to the universe might be written there. The man is seriously hard to read.

  “Hey.” A rush of affection makes me reach up to cup his face in my hand, so I can see his eyes. “If you ever decide to experiment with some lucky guy, just know that he’s going to feel like he’s winning at life.”

  Kieran goes absolutely still under my hand. And for a moment I think my compliment didn’t land the right way. Maybe I’ve fucked everything up by touching him.

  But then we lock eyes, and for the first time I realize that when Kieran gets qui
et, it’s not because he wants to chuck me across the room. He gets quiet when he’s thinking. And right now he’s thinking that we are standing very close together.

  He does not move away.

  And neither do I. Never one to back down, I stroke my thumb against his handsome, stubbled face. I’m rewarded by a sound of pleasure so low that it’s almost inaudible.

  His breath hitches as I move even closer. And then I bring us cheek to cheek, where I rub against him—stubble to stubble—like an affectionate cat. He smells like woodsmoke and outdoors.

  Kieran makes a shocked little sound—half inhalation, half groan. But he doesn’t pull away.

  I take that as a green light. I turn my head and kiss his neck very slowly right under the jaw. One kiss becomes two. Three. I’m dropping shameless, open-mouthed kisses everywhere I can reach. And that’s a lot of places, because Kieran lifts his chin to give me access.

  Two hands sized for farm work close around my back with a clumsy slowness. His chest bumps mine as it rises with a gasping breath.

  Standing on tiptoe so I can reach his ear, I whisper. “Kiss me. Do it.” Because I’ve taken enough liberties with this gentle creature.

  He makes another desperate noise and then turns his head, finding my neck with his eager mouth. My body flashes with goosebumps as he mimics me, measuring my neck with his lips, tracing an erotic path up to my jaw. He rubs my back slowly, as if in wonder.

  And I can’t wait any longer. I turn and catch his generous lips with mine. The first kiss tastes like red wine and the second one tastes like heat. He opens for me like he’s starving. I slip my tongue inside his mouth and sigh into the kiss. I’ve wanted him for so long. And the vise-like grip he has on my back suggests he’s been thinking about this, too.

  I lose myself in his kisses. Each one is a little feistier than the next. Kieran is like a ball rolling downhill, picking up speed as we go. I push back on him until his ass hits the counter. And then I step between his legs and push my hips against his.

  Yessss. My eager dick brushes his. Even through several layers of fabric I can feel him harden for me. My hand slips down, impulsively palming his ass through his jeans.

  Kieran groans into my mouth. And the noise seems to wake him from this fever dream we’re sharing. He jerks his head back suddenly, as if I’ve burned him. “Fuck,” he curses.

  I’m pretty sure it’s not a request. In fact, his voice is charged with alarm. Somehow that pricks through the lust fog I’m in, and I take a step backward.

  He buries his face in his hands. “Fuck,” he says again. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I gasp.

  “I don’t even know.” He groans, and not in a fun way.

  “Hey,” I whisper. I plant a hand in the center of his chest. “Dude, it’s me who’s sorry. I took advantage.”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been thinking about that a long time.”

  I light up inside. “Yeah, I have too. But it’s still not cool to jump your roommate. Not without discussing it first, anyway,” I add, because hope springs eternal.

  He lifts his face from his hands. “And I hate talkin’. So we’re totally screwed.”

  I take a deep breath, because my brain cells need oxygen, and I’m so turned on we could power next month’s electric bill with a single electrode to my aching nuts. “Look. Let’s eat pulled pork. I’m drunk, and if we stand here any longer I’m just going to stare at you while I picture you naked.”

  His laughter sounds uncomfortable. “All right. Dinner.”

  Kieran

  I make a plate of food for myself and then carry it into the living room. But I’ll be lucky if I can even taste it, because my mind is blown. I kissed him. And I liked it. A whole lot.

  We sit on the new carpet, and eat at opposite ends of the coffee table that I brought home last night. It’s another relic from my mother’s attic. Absently, I pick up the giant sandwich and take a bite. And—Jesus. It’s so good. The meat is tender and the bread is yeasty and perfect. To my embarrassment, I let out a little moan of happiness.

  Roderick grins at me from several feet away. “Honestly, I’d be more upset if you didn’t like this pulled pork than if you didn’t want to fuck me.”

  I try not to choke on my next bite, because I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve never met anyone like him. I don’t know any gay men at all. I mean—I’ve heard rumors. But I never met a guy like Roderick who calls himself “Gay AF” in a housing ad, or uses words like “cock” and “fuck me” in casual conversation. “You know, sometimes I can’t tell when you’re being serious and when you’re joking.”

  He swallows a bite of our excellent dinner. “Here’s a tip—I’m almost never being serious. Life is easier that way.”

  We chew in silence for a moment. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Roderick has things he could teach me. Besides cooking. And those are things that I desperately want to learn. I’d like to be more like him—willing to name my desires. Unafraid to know what anyone will think.

  But I don’t have the first idea how you do that.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Roderick says, breaking my reverie. “Have you ever dated men?”

  I shake my head.

  “So you date women?” he asks, looking perplexed.

  “No, not really.”

  “Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. Do you have sex with men?”

  Again I shake my head.

  “Women?”

  “Sometimes. Not for a while.”

  “How long is a while?”

  I think it over. “A couple of years. Well, four or five.”

  His eyes bug out. “And you enjoyed it? Never mind. If you liked it you wouldn’t have stopped.”

  “It was okay.”

  He seems to think this over. “Not everyone likes sex. I can’t, uh, quite understand not liking it. But asexuality is a real thing.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I say, and then take another achingly good bite of meat and fresh bread. It’s occurred to me before that I could be asexual. It’s true that I don’t spend much time thinking about sex. I don’t watch porn, and I don’t hook up.

  On the other hand, I spend a fair amount of time avoiding thinking about it. My life is complicated enough as it is. I watch my brother flirting and chasing women and making a fool of himself on a regular basis. And for what? A hookup after a night drinking at the bar.

  Sex with strangers doesn’t appeal to me. Women don’t appeal to me half as much as they did when I was a horny teenager. And experimenting with random men off an app? That’s just awkward.

  I like the idea of sex. It’s just that I’ve never worked out the details.

  “You’re thinking really hard over there,” Roderick observes.

  “Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to move off my parents’ farm is that…”

  “Your dad is an asshole?” Roderick guesses.

  “Sure, but that isn’t what I was going to say.” I have thought the word asshole many times while tangling with Dad. But my relationship with him is more complicated than that. I never asked to have a father who resents me, and he never asked to raise my mother’s biggest mistake.

  “What, then?” Roderick asks.

  “I wanted the distance so I could figure it all out.”

  “Your sexuality,” he guesses.

  “That,” I agree. “And my career, too. I need a better graphic-design job, and some more coursework. I don’t want to hear Dad’s opinions all the time. Not about that, and not about…”

  “Steamy-hot man-loving?” Roderick offers, and I almost choke on my sandwich. “Sorry,” he says with a grin. “I was born with no filter.”

  “It must be nice to say what you’re thinking all the time. I can’t really do that.”

  “And I can’t stop,” he says with a sigh.

  “You never told me why you left Nashville in a hurry.” One of the only tricks I know to get people to stop asking me questions is
to ask one back. “Zara and Audrey are curious, too.”

  “Ah,” he says, setting down the last bit of his sandwich. “It’s not a very interesting story. I was in a relationship for three years with a country music singer.”

  “A famous one?” I ask, fascinated. I don’t know of any gay country music stars.

  He shrugs. “I won’t tell you his name because I’d never out somebody. I owe this man nothing, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “We were a big fat secret, and I was okay with it for a long time.”

  “And then you weren’t anymore?” I guess.

  “Right.” He looks glum. “The weird thing is I totally understood why he had to stay in the closet. Country music is a weird scene. Lots of conservative fans. But whenever I got frustrated, he always made me feel bad about it. Everything was always my fault and never his. If he had just commiserated a little, I might never have left.”

  “Oh,” I say, hoping to sound supportive. But I’ve never been in a relationship, and I have no idea what that’s like. “So you just had enough?”

  Roderick laughs, but he’s bitter. “I stayed, even as he got meaner about everything. He said I was too clingy. That hurt because I had completely arranged my life around his. I wasn’t allowed to enter our house through the front door.” He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “I know it sounds ridiculous. But I didn’t give up until he cheated.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I know. Not only did he cheat, he set it up so that I’d catch him. It was the most cowardly thing in the world. I left Nashville right after I walked in on them. I got in my car and drove to this twenty-four-hour health clinic that performs STD tests. And then I drove home, walked through the backdoor like I always do, packed up my shit, and left.”

  “Holy crap.” I cram the last bite of heaven into my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I mumble.

  “Me too!” He smiles brightly. “I should have bailed a year ago. I knew he was kind of a head case.”

  “He, uh…” I take a gulp of wine. “I guess you know a lot of those.”

  Roderick gives me a soft look. He has the most expressive eyes that I’ve ever seen on a human. “You’re more honest about it, though. You said, ‘I don’t have my shit figured out,’ but my ex was always trying to be two different people at once—the queer guy who wanted me to fuck him and the straight guy everybody else thought he was. And I was just supposed to be waiting at home when he got around to seeing me.”