The Before Now and After Then

by Pen Name Publishing

  When I got home, I realized I had left my phone in my room all night. I had one message from Mom telling me she would be home in the morning, eleven texts from Cher wondering why I wasn’t responding to her texts and one text from Rusty.

  “I’m lying in bed right now, staring out of my window, up at our moon.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I woke up on Sunday morning with my head filled by thoughts of Rusty. Looking over at the clock I realized it was mid-afternoon; 12:13 to be exact. I was a little surprised Mom had let me sleep in so late. Standing up, I walked to the window, stretching my neck. In the yard looking over the lake, Mom and Alex were sitting on yoga mats. The distinct sound of New Age music from the outside stereo chimed with simple turns of their bodies. I laughed to myself and sat down on my bed, picking up my phone, hoping I had a good morning message from Rusty.

  Three texts from Rusty were waiting for me, all almost exactly 10 minutes apart starting at 8:11 am. The first one said, “PLEASE don’t be mad, but I think we rushed things last night.” My heart started to beat quickly. I read the second text. “Danny? You awake? Do you feel the same way? I like you so much and I don’t wanna ruin it.” I wasn’t sure what to think. I read the third text. “DELETE the first two texts. Last night was perfect.” I smiled.

  I texted back, “I’m finally awake. And don’t ever scare me like that again. Last night was perfect.” I waited five minutes and when I didn’t get a response I decided to take a shower.

  After I got ready, I walked downstairs, into the kitchen. Mom had put out a pitcher of orange juice and an assortment of fruit, but I was craving a cup of coffee. I went to the coffee maker and found she had already made a pot. After pouring myself a cup, I walked over to the couch. In my own haze, I almost didn’t see Rusty sitting on my couch, but when I did, I stepped back and half of the coffee spilled out onto the white, wooden floor.

  “Surprised much?” he asked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He stood up and walked over to me, giving me a kiss. “When you didn’t respond to my texts, I got nervous that I scared you away or something because of how fast last night went, so I had my mom drop me off so I could talk to you. I hope that’s ok.”

  “Yeah. It’s great,” I said, excitedly. “But in the future, I never get up at 8 on a Sunday.”

  He laughed, following me into the kitchen. “It’s cool. I got to hang out with your mom and Alex.”

  “What?” I said nervously, imagining my mother asking him fifty questions.

  “She’s super cool,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  My phone buzzed on the counter. I put my coffee down and let the phone continue to buzz.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Rusty asked. He looked extremely cute again, wearing grey shorts and a black t-shirt, making his skin look exceptionally dark and smooth. I wanted to touch him again, but now that it was daytime, I was scared. “Your phone?” he asked, pointing to it.

  Cher had left a voice message. I put it on speaker and played it. “Oh my God, Danny, where are you? I’m so worried because I texted you like fifteen times last night and you never responded. Anyway, you will never believe what happened. Apparently, after we left on Friday night, Henry and Maude took this long walk and realized that they’ve always been in love and so he broke up with me. Can you believe it! He broke up with me,” she laughed. “Anyway, I’m over it. They deserve each other and I have you anyway.” Rusty looked over at me with wide eyes. “Let’s get together today if you don’t have any plans or at least text me or call me so I know you’re alright. Love you, love you, love you my beautiful boy!”

  “Who is that?” Rusty asked.

  “That’s Cher. I met her this week at school. We’ve hung out a few times.”

  “Her beautiful boy?”

  “Yeah, that’s what she calls me,” I laughed. “She was really excited to have a gay friend.” I explained to him everything about meeting Cher and her mother and our going out with Maude and Henry on Friday night.

  “I hope she’s alright.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine. I don’t really think she liked him that much anyway,” I said.

  We stood there looking at each other in silence.

  “So what do you wanna do?” Rusty asked.

  “I don’t care,” I hesitated. “Do you have to go home?”

  “No. My mom just said to come home in time for dinner,” he said. “Hey I have an idea. How about we just drive around and then you can come over to my house for dinner.”

  I could feel my palms begin to sweat. “I’m not sure I’m ready to meet your family. What if you’re mom doesn’t like me?”

  Rusty laughed. “Are you serious? She’ll love you because I love you.” And then he caught himself, “I mean, because I like you.”

  I smiled.

  “Is she cool with you being gay?” I asked.

  Rusty took a deep breath, “She wasn’t at first. She’s Catholic and goes to church every Sunday and all that, so she was afraid I was going to hell. But, something changed over time.”

  “Has it been a long time?”

  “I was thirteen when I came out,” Rusty said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I think I first knew I liked boys when I was like seven or eight. By thirteen, I just didn’t want to hide it anymore, at least not from my mom. She was devastated at first, but not anymore. My dating Justin, my ex, helped too I think because she always saw us together. It forced her to have to deal with it.”

  I found myself growing a little jealous by this last statement about Justin. “I don’t understand why parents have such a hard time with it.”

  “Not everyone has parents who have gay best friends, Danny. Parents have to come out too.”

  I had never really thought of it that way.

  “Let me get my watch and keys and we can leave,” I said, starting to walk upstairs when Rusty stopped me.

  “Can I see your room? You never showed me last night.” I nodded and we walked upstairs. When we got to my room, I walked inside, but he didn’t follow me. I turned around and saw a look of complete amazement on his face. “This has to be the most depressing bedroom I have ever seen. There’s nothing personal in here at all.”

  I was embarrassed that he noticed. “I’m planning on changing it.”

  “Good. Because I’m getting sad just standing in here.” He grabbed me by the waist and pushed me onto the bed, kissing me. “Remember what you said last night about our next time together.”

  I stopped, “Right now?”

  He laughed, “No, I’m just joking with you.” But as his body shifted on top of me, I could tell he wasn’t joking, and I started to get turned on too.

  I sat up. “Can I ask you something?”

  He straightened his shirt. “Sure.”

  “Do you look at porn?” I asked, nervously.

  Rusty laughed. “Are you asking me if I jack off to porn?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Sure. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but here’s the thing,” I said, not wanting to sound stupid. “I want to do all of those things with you, but I don’t really know how because I’ve never done them before.”

  “Me neither.”

  “But can we please just let them happen instead of talking about them and how fast we’re going and all that crap. My brother used to always talk about hooking up with girls and doing stuff with his girlfriend and he never mentioned them talking about the finer details of sex or if it was happening too fast. It just happened.”

  Rusty fell back on the bed. “You’re right. Maybe it’s because my last boyfriend was so weird about it because he was so religious.”

  “And one more thing,” I paused. “I don’t want to hear about him anymore.”

  Rusty peered over at me, looping his finger into the band of my shorts, “Fair enough. Are there any more rules?”

  “No more rules. I don’t know what i
t is about you but I think about you all of the time. Even though we’ve only known each other for a total of four days, I feel like I’ve known you forever. And instead of doing things how other people do them, I want to create our own future together. I don’t want any rules. I just want it to be us,” I said.

  “Is that all?” Rusty sighed.

  “Yes,” I said. “And the moon thing you texted me was really cute.”

  Rusty pulled me on top of him and we started kissing again. I felt his hand go under my shirt and up my back, before he pulled it off over my head. He then pulled his off, and we were bare, chest to chest. His skin felt so warm under me and I felt like I couldn’t get enough of him.

  He stared at me and whispered, “I really like you, Danny Goldstein.”

  I kissed him and whispered back, “I like you too, Rusty Gonzalez.”

  “A lot.”

  “A lot.”

  He kissed me again. “No rules?”

  “No rules,” I said, staring deep into his brown eyes.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” Rusty said, his lips quivering a little.

  We were so close, our noses touched as talked.

  “Me too,” I said.

  We stayed there, kissing, for what seemed like forever, until we heard the door open downstairs. “Hello? Danny, where are you?” Mom said.

  “Oh, shit,” I exclaimed and quickly threw on a shirt before running downstairs with Rusty right behind me.

  Mom and Alex were in the kitchen, sweaty from yoga, pouring glasses of cucumber water.

  “Hey guys,” Mom said.

  “Hey Mom,” I said, nervously, out of breath.

  “I think we might have come in just in time,” Alex smiled, following Mom out onto the patio.

  Mom looked confused and then just shook her head. “Did Rusty tell you we met earlier?”

  “Yeah, I hope you didn’t grill him with a bunch of questions.”

  She walked over to Rusty and put her head on his shoulder. “I think he’s fantastic. So what are you boys going to do today?”

  I shrugged, “I don’t know. Just drive around and stuff. Oh, and Rusty asked me to his house for dinner tonight.”

  “OK. Just call me and let me know you’re safe,” Mom said.

  We walked outside and got into the car. Rusty noticed it had a tape player. “I’m so in love with this car. I’m totally going to make you a mixed tape like back in the day.”

  “What would you call it?” I asked.

  Rusty thought to himself for a minute. “For the boy with the cool hair,” he said, laughing.

  I smiled and started the car. “Where should I go?”

  “I know this cool record store. Wanna go?”

  “Sure. Just give me directions as I drive. I’ve lived in Indianapolis all of my life, but I still don’t know my way around,” I said. “But first, I need coffee.”

  At Starbucks, we each ordered Venti Cinnamon Dolce Lattes and then he pointed me in the direction of the record store.

  Along the way, Rusty told me about Venezuela and what it had been like as a kid. He talked about living in a penthouse apartment in Caracas with his family and grandmother, about summer weekends spent on Margarita Island, where they would stay in these little houses on the beach and eat grilled chicken and drink bottles of Malta. He told me he wanted to teach me to salsa and that maybe someday, we could go to Venezuela together and he could show me everything he had known as a boy.

  And in the whole story about his childhood, the one thing that stood out to me the most was that Rusty hoped we had a someday together.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We walked around the store and Rusty showed me some of his favorite records: Green Day Nimrod, The Beatles White Album, Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy and Hole Celebrity Skin. He picked up an album and showed it to me. “Do you know her?” he asked.

  I read the album cover. Celia Cruz La Negra Tiene Tumbao. “I’ve never heard of her.” “She was huge in Latin American music. My mom loves her. She saw her live a couple of times.”

  “Have you ever seen her live?” I asked.

  “No. She died when I was really little. But I’ve danced to her music all of my life,” he said, smiling. “Come on, I’m going to buy it for you.”

  “Wait. I want to buy something for you too.”

  “OK,” Rusty said. “What do you think I’d like?”

  “I want to buy you something that’s a favorite of mine.” I walked down the aisle until I came to the punk section. I found The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and showed it to him.

  “This is your favorite?” he asked.

  “Well, one of my favorites. I grew up listening to their music.”

  We bought the records and exchanged them in the car. Rusty held his up and looked at it. “Thanks,” he said, looking kind of sad.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just that no one’s ever really given me anything before, besides my family.” He put the record on the floor under his feet. “Let’s get lost.”

  “Get lost?”

  “Yeah, we’ll just drive around and turn down streets we think are interesting without having any idea where we’re going. We can just stop whenever we want.”

  I liked this idea. It sounded like an adventure. “Let’s do it.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon getting lost, driving all over Indianapolis, turning down streets lined with million dollar homes and huge yards followed by alleys behind apartment buildings. We drove way out into the county until it seemed like we weren’t even in Indianapolis anymore. “Should we get back?” I asked, noticing it was almost five o’clock.

  “Yeah, my mom will probably have dinner ready soon,” Rusty said.

  We couldn’t figure out where we were so he searched it on his phone and began giving me directions.

  When we pulled into his driveway, Rusty looked over at me. “I think she’ll be pretty cool with this, but I don’t know. Just don’t be overly affectionate or anything, OK?”

  I hadn’t been overly affectionate to Rusty all day and was surprised he mentioned it now. “OK.”

  He could tell I was confused. “Look, it’s not that I’m embarrassed or anything, I just don’t like shoving it in her face, you know?”

  I nodded. We got out of the car and as we walked up his driveway, I noticed a large platform sitting at the end. “What’s that?” I asked, knowing it had something to do with skating, but was clueless since I had never skated.

  “It’s a quarter pipe. Do you skate?”

  “Obviously not,” I laughed. “Do you?”

  “Yeah, since I was like five,” he said as he turned and walked up the front walk. Rusty opened the front door and yelled something in Spanish that I didn’t understand. I had never heard him speak Spanish before and I thought it was kind of hot.

  A woman about my mom’s age stood in the kitchen over the stove, speaking back to Rusty in Spanish while a little boy walked up and grabbed him around the waist. “Are you being good for Mom?” Rusty asked and the little boy nodded. “Carlos, this is my friend Danny.”

  The boy looked at me nervously and then back at Rusty. “We made arepas,” he said, excitedly pulling Rusty into the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stood in the entryway.

  Rusty looked back and motioned for me to follow him. “Danny, this is my mom.” Rusty’s mom turned away from the stove and wiped her hands on a towel.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Danny,” she said, with a strong Spanish accent. “Rusty was very worried about you this morning.”

  Rusty bit his lip. “Mom, please don’t embarrass me.”

  “Have you ever had arepas?” she asked, carrying a plate of what looked like small pancakes to the kitchen table.

  I shook my head having no idea what she was talking about.

  Rusty’s mom quickly set the rest of the table
as Rusty explained that arepas were a traditional food in Venezuela, made from corn meal. “You can stuff cheese, chicken, avocado or whatever in it.”

  “Rusty loves deviled ham in his,” his mother said, placing two small cans of the ham next to his plate.

  Everyone sat down at the table and his mom motioned for us to bow our heads as she began to pray. When she was done, she looked over at me and grabbed my hand. “Enjoy, Danny,” and then turned to Rusty, “will you please make a plate for Mya?”

  Rusty stood up and walked back into the kitchen. I watched him, unsure of what to do with my own food, as he prepared a plate and ran upstairs with it. When he came back down, he said, “My sister is too sick to eat at the table. I’ll take you up there and introduce you later.”

  “She is very sick. But she will get better.”

  His mom looked over at me and motioned for me to eat.

  “Uh, Rusty,” he looked up. “I’m not really sure what I’m doing,” I whispered.

  His brother Carlos laughed, and showed me how he sliced the arepa in half and filled it with cheese and butter. I did the same and bit into it, thinking it tasted just like a plain pancake.

  “You like?” his mom asked me.

  I nodded, and reached over to put some of Rusty’s deviled ham in my arepa.

  Rusty and his brother joked around while his mom talked to them in Spanish. It was like watching live Teleumundo and I had no idea what was happening. When we were all almost done, I noticed a small woman walk out of a back room and into the kitchen.

  “That’s my grandma,” Rusty gestured to the woman. She made a plate and came to the table, sitting down next to me. She said a quick prayer and then turned to me and began speaking to me in Spanish. I raised my eyebrows and looked at Rusty. He spoke back to her in Spanish and she turned to me and smiled, patting my hand as she started to eat.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She said your hair looks like an angel,” Carlos chuckled. “Abuela has a crush on you.”

  Rusty laughed. “She said you’re very good looking. She was complimenting you.”