The Before Now and After Then

by Pen Name Publishing

  “I kind of have to wait for someone,” I said.

  “Can you wait outside?” he asked, tentatively.

  I nodded and we walked outside. Rusty leaned up against the brick wall and slid down, careful not to spill his coffee. I followed his lead. “It’s so nice outside. It would be great to go for a swim,” he said. “It is perfect night swimming weather.”

  “I love swimming at night, but I won’t swim alone,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I turned and looked at him. I didn’t know what it was, but something about him made me feel instantly comfortable, like I had known him all of my life.

  “I’m completely afraid of sharks,” I said. “I think it’s because when I was a kid we watched Jaws so many times that I just have this immense fear of the water at night,” I laughed. “I also think when the pool light is turned off, it looks like a giant shark eye.”

  “You do realize there are no sharks in swimming pools?” Rusty snickered.

  “Maybe, but I’m not convinced,” I said. “And I used to the think the pool sweep was a sea monster.”

  Rusty laughed, “You said we. So you must have brothers and sisters?”

  I sighed, not sure I wanted to tell the story again, two days in a row. “I had a brother, but he died.”

  “Oh wow, I’m sorry. How old were you?”

  “Six months ago today,” I said, leaning back against the wall. And then I just opened up and told him the whole story. He grabbed my leg and held onto it while I talked. I didn’t cry, but just told the details like I was repeating a story.

  When I was done he smiled. “I would have liked to have met him.” It was the coolest thing anyone had ever said to me about Sam since his death.

  “He was really cool,” I said.

  For a few minutes we just sat there looking at each other, until he broke the silence. “You’re really beautiful Danny.”

  “No I’m not,” I said, turning away from him.

  “Yes, you are. When I first met you, I went home and thought about you the whole night. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  I laughed.

  “I know, it’s totally corny,” he said.

  “No, it’s just that I felt the exact same way,” I said.

  I looked up and saw Alex standing by the door. “Can either of you dudes give me a ride home?”

  Rusty turned around, startled, immediately recognizing him. “Uh, I don’t drive, but…”

  Alex and I both laughed and Rusty looked confused.

  “Rusty, this is Alex. Alex this is Rusty,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, Rusty,” Alex said as he held out his hand.

  Rusty stood up quickly, taking his hand and shaking it confidently. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Oh, God. Please don’t call me sir,” Alex said. “It makes me feel like I’m over 40, which I am.”

  Rusty looked at both of us, confused, “Do you know each other?”

  “He’s my mom’s best friend,” I explained. “He’s living with us for an indeterminate amount of time.”

  “Wow. I didn’t realize I was such a burden. I’ll pack my bags tonight.”

  “Shut up, Alex,” I scoffed.

  Rusty just stood there between us, unsure of what to say.

  “Could you sign his book? He’s a huge fan.”

  “Sure thing,” Alex said, pulling out a black Sharpie from his pocket and quickly scribbling in the book before handing it back, but not before I noticed him winking at Rusty.

  “You ready?” Alex said to me.

  I nodded and turned back to Rusty, “See you later?”

  “I hope so,” Rusty said. “Wait. Can I get your number?”

  We exchanged numbers and he hugged me goodbye. He smelled like wet rain and cedar. “Call me later, OK?” I said.

  “Definitely,” Rusty said.

  Alex and I started walking to the car. “So who’s that?”

  “Rusty. This guy I know from school.”

  Alex laughed. “I may be over forty, but I know what I see. That is not just some guy you know from school. You like him.”

  “Yeah. I do. I think I might like him a lot.”

  Alex stopped right before we got to the car. “And you’re just going to let him walk away like that? Don’t you have any balls, kid?”

  I felt like he had just slapped me in the face. “I got his number,” I said proudly.

  Alex closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I’m about to do you a huge favor, so don’t forget it. You’re mother called me and told me she’s going to stay at your old house tonight to go through some things. I’m supposed to stay with you at home, but I have a date of my own. So go ask Rusty if he’d like to come over and then you guys can be alone for a while. I promise not to come home before at least one,” he paused, smiling. “At least I hope.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Go get him!”

  I ran back to the front of the store and found Rusty standing just inside.

  “Wanna come over and hang out?” I asked.

  Rusty smiled. “I’d love to. I was dying to ask you to do something tonight, but you seemed like you were busy.”

  We walked to the car and Alex squeezed into one of the bucket seats in back while we drove in front. “Here are the rules. No kissing. No sex. No nudity. I may be gay and very cool, but I still need to act like a role model. And if you break any of those rules, I really don’t want to know anything about it.”

  Rusty grabbed my thigh and left his hand there while I drove.

  “Are you happy you got your book signed?” I asked.

  Rusty laughed, “Yeah, I’ll never forget it.”

  I knew Alex wrote something funny or Rusty wouldn’t have laughed. “What did he write?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  I grabbed the book and turned the page to the inscription: Please Don’t Break His Heart! Alex Night. I handed the book back to Rusty and looked at him.

  “And I promise I won’t,” he said.

  I thought back to a few days before when I had questioned the sincerity of promises. Promises were just words people said to make you feel better even though they had no intention of keeping them.

  I looked in the rearview mirror at Alex and he winked at me and gave me the thumbs up sign. Even though I wanted to believe everything was going to be OK, it just felt too good to be true and too much like Sam’s last goodbye.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alex gave us some money and told us to order pizza. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back, but I will be back tonight,” he said, raising his eyebrows. I could tell he was a little skeptical about leaving the two of us by ourselves, possibly thinking maybe his plan wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  He turned and walked out. A few minutes later, we heard the engine of my car start up as he drove away.

  “Why do you call him your uncle?” Rusty asked.

  “I don’t know. We’ve just always referred to him as our uncle because he’s our mom’s best friend. I think my mom started it.”

  We walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. What had seemed so comfortable at the bookstore now seemed incredibly awkward for some unknown reason. I flipped on the TV and The Breakfast Club was on again.

  “I love this movie,” Rusty said.

  I laughed, “It was just on last night.”

  We sat there in total silence for a few minutes and I noticed he kept looking outside at the swimming pool. “Do you wanna go for a swim?”

  “Yeah, sure. I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m down for a swim.”

  He looked over at me. “Why is this so weird all of a sudden?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know why it seemed weird, but it certainly did. Maybe it was just happening too fast. Honestly, I couldn’t even explain what had made me feel the way I did about Rusty, but for some reason I was finding myself sitting ne
xt to my crush only days after meeting him. That had to mean something.

  “Come here,” he said.

  I stood up and walked over to where he was sitting on the couch. He put his hand on my thigh. For days I had wondered what this would be like and now that it was happening, I was so afraid, yet excited at the same time that I couldn’t move. It felt right and wrong at the same time.

  “Do you think it’s because we just met?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” I thought about how Sam and Jess had first met at a party, hooked up and had been together for more than a year when he died. “Do you think if we were straight it would be different? Like maybe we feel like there has to be more meaning to us getting together or falling in love or whatever? I see straight couples get together all the time but we don’t really have any gay role models for love or relationships to compare it to.”

  “Falling in love?”

  I blushed, something that was becoming a habit. “I didn’t mean that I’m falling in…” Rusty grabbed me by the back of my neck gently and started to kiss me. It was incredible. I closed my eyes and let his soft lips slide over mine, his tongue searching just inside my mouth. When he gently bit my lip I realized this was not a first real kiss for Rusty like it was for me and I pulled back.

  “What?” he said. “Should I have waited?”

  “No. It’s just…”

  “What?” he looked confused.

  “Have you been with a lot of guys?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, sounding offended.

  “You can tell me if you have. It won’t make me think any differently of you. It’s just that I haven’t, so I feel stupid. I’m not very experienced.”

  Rusty sighed, “I’ve kissed one guy other than you. And we kissed a lot because we dated. But he was very religious and it never went past that. I swear.”

  “You’re a virgin?” I asked, surprised.

  He nodded, “You?”

  I nodded back.

  “Well look at us,” he laughed. “I guess we have lots of exploring to do.”

  And I did look at us. As he leaned in and began kissing me again, I could see our reflection in the glare of the patio door; one blonde boy and one dark haired boy, together. And it looked right.

  We kissed for a long time, rolling around on the couch with him on top of me most of the time. His hands went up under the back of my shirt as he pressed harder against me. Suddenly, he rolled off of me, his hair messed up and his shirt twisted around his chest. “Should we order pizza before it gets too late?”

  I looked at him, confused, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” he panted, out of breath, “not at all.” He looked down at his pants. “I just think if we don’t stop now, it might be too late.”

  I laughed and looked down at my own pants, finding the same result, “Too late?”

  “Look, I don’t want our first time to just be some quick hook-up. I want more from you than that,” Rusty said.

  I had seen these kinds of interactions in movies and never understood them. But I agreed. “I want more from you than that too,” I said, not wanting the extent of our getting to know each other to end in a quick pornographic exploration followed by Rusty leaving for the night and my never hearing from him again. “Let’s order the pizza,” I said, standing up.

  Rusty only ate cheese pizza and didn’t like anything else on it, so we ordered a large cheese pizza with extra cheese. After it came, we ate in the living room and watched the end of The Breakfast Club.

  “The ending of this movie always makes me so sad,” Rusty said. “It’s just so real.”

  “I know. It’s like, they all get so close, but at school on Monday, you know they won’t have that same connection or even be friends anymore,” I said, thinking. “You don’t think it will be like that with us, do you?”

  He shot me a look like I was being stupid. “Wasn’t I the one who talked to you first?”

  “Yeah, I know. I just don’t want to not know you now that I do know you, if that makes sense.”

  Rusty walked into the kitchen and rinsed off his plate. “I’ve had to move around to so many schools that I’m kind of used to that by now.”

  “Why do you move so much?”

  “Because of my sister,” he explained. “She has this rare kidney disease. Kids almost never get it, but for some reason, she did. She’s been on dialysis forever.. We move around a lot because my mom is constantly trying to find the best doctors to help her. We moved to Indianapolis because of Riley Children’s Hospital,” he said, sipping his Dr. Pepper.

  “Where did you live before?” I asked.

  “Boston. They have a great children’s hospital there too, but then they sent us here because of a specialist,” he paused. “I hated Boston.”

  I could sense his mind going back to whatever made him hate Boston.

  “Where’s your Dad?” I asked.

  “In Venezuela. We moved here when I was ten because of my mom’s work. My brother and sister were two and three at the time. My parents were already divorced so it probably wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “How often do you see him?” I wanted to know everything about Rusty, but I was afraid I was asking too many questions.

  “I don’t,” he said. “He’s remarried and has another family. He doesn’t help us at all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to him that I don’t even care anymore,” he finished his soda. “How about that swim?”

  I looked at my watch and noticed it was almost eleven. Somehow the night had slipped away from us.

  “Do you want to borrow a swimsuit?”

  “Hell no!” he said as he walked outside and ran down to the pool. When he got right to the edge, he took off his shirt and shorts and jumped in wearing only his white boxer shorts.

  I walked down after him and watched as he made waves in the pool. Suddenly, he pulled himself out and walked over to the diving board. He stood at the very back of the board, looking out over the crystal clear, rippling water. His wet body glistened in the moonlight and something about him standing in his soaked boxers, with his hair slicked back away from his face, made him seem less confident and more innocent. Rusty looked over at me, smiling, and then ran down the length of the board and did a perfect flip into the pool.

  I quickly took off my clothes down to my boxer shorts and jumped in the pool after him. He came up behind me and turned me around, running his fingers through my hair. “Your hair might just be curlier than mine,” he said, pulling me toward him. He started to kiss me again and I could taste the chlorine on his lips. “I want to know everything about you.”

  “I want to know everything about you too,” I said.

  “Do you think that’s crazy?” he asked. “I mean, we just met.”

  “No. I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

  We played around in the pool until we finally settled on the shallow end, bouncing around each other, asking each other questions and telling each other things we had never told anyone before. Above us, the moon was full and had a hazy ring around it.

  “Look,” Rusty said, pointing to the moon. “Legend says that a halo moon is a sign that horrible weather is on its way.”

  There was not a cloud in the sky. “But it’s perfect outside. It doesn’t look like rain at all.”

  “That’s just what they say. I don’t know if it’s the truth.” He pressed his body against me and kissed me for a long time before pulling away. “Look. I want to mess around, but at the same time, I don’t want to mess around. Do you know what I mean?”

  I nodded slowly, unsure.

  “Everything’s been so perfect today and I don’t want to ruin it by going too fast,” he said.

  “OK,” I said, although I was disappointed.

  “Don’t just say OK, if you don’t really feel that way.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know how I felt. I just knew what my body was tel
ling me. “I do and I don’t, but I guess I never thought I’d be having a conversation before doing anything.”

  He laughed, “You’re right. I guess we should just be natural about the whole thing and not think about it.”

  “If we had done what was natural, the messing around would have happened on the couch about two hours ago,” I said.

  “I just want to make sure it feels special.”

  “This feels special to me. But I’ll wait. On one condition,” I said.

  “What?” Rusty asked, looking confused.

  “Next time, we definitely mess around.”

  He smiled, “Agreed.”

  “I don’t feel like we’ve just met. I feel like we’ve known each other forever.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Maybe we’ve already been together in some previous life.”

  Rusty kissed me again and then pulled me to the edge of the pool, holding me with my back against his chest. He pointed to the moon. “If we’re ever apart, just look up and remember that no matter the distance, we can just look up and we’re both under the same moon. That’s our moon.”

  We stayed in the pool until our fingers pruned and then we got out and put our clothes on just as Alex walked in. “Still up?” he asked, more accusatory than questioning.

  “We had to wait for you so I could take Rusty home,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said, tossing me the keys. “Thanks for letting me borrow your car. Rusty, nice to meet you. I’m beat. Off to bed for this old man.” He turned and walked inside.

  I drove Rusty home with the top down on my new car, which Rusty thought was very cool. We got to a neighborhood close to the high school and he told me which driveway to pull into.

  “Is your family still up?”

  “No,” he said. “My mom is with my sister Mya at the hospital and my grandma is watching my brother Carlos. I’d have you come in but then we would wake them up. Next time though.” He reached across the car and kissed me, letting his fingers run through my hair.

  “Don’t forget what you promised about next time,” I said.

  “Never.”

  Rusty got out of the car and walked inside, waving once before he closed the front door behind him. Upstairs, a light turned on and I could see him moving in front of the open window. I smiled.