by J. M. Snyder
Still, he puts up a good front, smiling as if he’s not torn up inside. “You’re in the military?” he asks, just to fill the silence around us.
With a nod, Dan confirms, “Army.”
Memories like an incoming tide surge over me, drowning me in the past. “Stephen used to want to join the military,” I offer. He gives me a shy smile and I prod his foot gently with the tip of my shoe. “Remember? You always said you wanted to sign up with the Air Force. Whatever became of that?”
“That was just dreaming out loud,” he laughs. I grin at the sound, so carefree, so sudden, so much the old Stephen that I feel the years disappear and the discomfort between us fade. “I did talk to a recruiter once. You know, those college day things they make you do in high school?” When I nod, he sighs. “He told me sure, sign up, even gave me a pen and a huge packet of stuff to read through, said he’d have his officer call me later on to schedule a physical and all that.”
“What happened?” I want to know. Maybe it’s not too late for him, I’m thinking. Get out of this dead-end town, move on without me, find someone else—
But he taps the frames of his thick glasses with one slender finger and explains, “These. He took one look at my eyes and said they have plenty of positions. You know, ground control, engineers, shit like that. I told him I wanted to fly, and he almost laughed at me. Not with those specs, he said. Pilots have to have 20/20 and I sure as hell don’t.” His smile slips, and with a rueful laugh, he adds, “So there went that.”
The silence returns, just as stifling as before. Dan takes my hand in his, squeezes my fingers reassuringly, as if to remind me that he’s still here. More people have shuffled into the hall—they speak quietly to the employees they know, asking after children or mentioning the weather, adding almost as an afterthought a comment or two about Evie’s passing. That’s what they call it here, as if death is just a graded performance one can pass or fail. With low voices and sad smiles our way, they head into the viewing room. Most of them probably don’t know my name, just that I’m one of Evie’s kids—they probably think Dan is, too, and even though Stephen is from Sugar Creek, he’s one of us by association. He belonged to Evie, too.
“All these people,” I murmur, impressed. Family’s one thing but this is the whole town we’re talking about now. The front door barely closes before it’s opened again…this place can’t possibly hold everyone. I wonder if there are any seats left inside, or if Dan and I will have to stand during the service. I’m sure my mother didn’t save us a place, she has her hands full with Penny and it’s something that would never cross her mind, holding two seats. Maybe one for me, that would be it, and afterwards she’d want to know why I didn’t sit with the family. I’m just about to suggest that we follow everyone inside—much as I don’t want to see the reality of a coffin or my dead aunt’s sad, closed face—when Stephen, in an attempt to keep me talking, says, “I ran into Ray at the store yesterday.”
“Grosso’s?” I ask, distracted. “You guys, maybe we should go on in.”
But Stephen shakes his head. “The Wawa. You saw it on your way in, didn’t you? It’s been open a few years now.” With an embarrassed grin, he looks at his shoes and tells us, “I’m sort of the manager there.”
I stop, impressed. “Hey, that’s great. You own the whole store?”
“Not really,” he says, but from the way he’s grinning, it’s obvious that he’s only being modest. “It’s a franchise, I guess you could say. I’ve been taking business courses forever, you know, and I just thought I’d put them to use. It’s just a store.”
“It’s a pretty big store,” I point out. Before I can think better of it, I clap him on the back, a gesture that pinks his cheeks. “I’m proud of you, man.”
His face flushes a deep red, the way it used to when we were younger and I’d fake a grab at his crotch or ass in front of someone else. I did it once at his house—we were in the kitchen, his mother at the sink cleaning his glasses because he fell of his bike and they landed in the mud. I was on the floor, rubbing a hot, wet washcloth over Stephen’s scraped knees as he stood beside her, hitching his breath and struggling not to cry. He was a teenager, he couldn’t cry, but his bike had jumped the curb going too damn fast and he pitched over the handlebars, hitting the ground like a runner sliding into base. His legs were a mess of thin bloody lines, his shirt torn, one of the nose pads on his glasses broken off, and I did the only thing I could think of to do to cheer him up. There in the kitchen, squatting in front of him, I looked up and stared until I had his full attention, and then I lunged forward, pretending to bite at the front of his shorts.
His mother didn’t see me—she had her back to us, trying to fix his glasses, but he thought she did, and he turned the darkest shade of purple I’ve ever seen, ever. Later, when his glasses were wobbly but useable, and the torn shirt and muddy shorts lay discarded on the floor of his bedroom, I remember kissing every single scratch, every scrape, as he lay on his bed in his underwear, staring down at me over a tenting erection. No wonder things are awkward between us now—every moment brings back another memory like that one, another time he mistook my curious friendship for true love. Why did you let me go on like that, Stephen? I want to ask, but I don’t dare. Why didn’t you tell me sooner, look Mike, this is what I feel when we’re together, I just want to make sure we’re on the same page? And what would I have said? No, but if given enough time, if I lived here instead of a thousand miles away, if I had never met Dan and never knew just what real love felt like, then maybe, just maybe, I could’ve said yes.
But it’s too late for that. I know it, Stephen must know it—it’s in the clasp of Dan’s hand in mine. Whatever friendship we had is shattered, and we step through the jagged shards, careful not to cut ourselves on what might have been and how we once were. With a lonely sigh that makes my heart ache to hear it, Stephen tells us, “Old man Grosso isn’t all that pleased with it, you can be sure.”
It takes me a second to realize that he’s still talking of the store, his life without me, his real life, where I’m just a melancholy memory. As much as it hurts to know he’s regaled me to the past, maybe that’s where I belong to him. My present is here, beside me, Dan. “Yeah,” I admit. “I’m sure he’s not too thrilled with the competition. So you saw Ray there?”
Stephen nods. “Buying milk—”
“That bastard!” I laugh, incredulous. When Dan smirks, I slap his arm but that just makes him snicker. “He drank all my damn milk and had the audacity to go buy more without sharing it. You know he drank the rest of mine this morning, right?” At my lover’s amused grin, I shake my head, amazed. “He’s such an ass.”
“He’s never been quite right,” Stephen admits. That’s putting it mildly. Then he laughs and takes a step closer, so no one passing will overhear. “He stops me, right? And goes, hey Steve, did you know Mikey’s gay?” The last word is barely audible, a hissed whisper that must be exactly the way my brother gasped it in the store. I have to laugh again. “I was like, oh wait, you didn’t know?”
“I just came out to them Saturday.” Was it really just a few days ago? It feels like months, years even. “At dinner. We rehearsed it the whole way to my parents’ house and as soon as I get up the courage to tell them, Penny calls about Evie. So there went my plan, you know? The whole script, right out the window.”
One corner of Stephen’s mouth twists in sympathy but I shrug, nonchalant. When I think about the anger I housed earlier, I’m almost surprised that I could have been so damn childish. Aunt Evie isn’t to blame for the way my mother reacted to my news, or the way my dad didn’t. And neither am I. Under different circumstances, given who they are, who I am, I realize that nothing would change. My father would still be distant and uncaring on the surface, a mask he’s hidden behind my whole life, and my mom would still try to pin the weight of her own anger and fears on me, it’s what she does best. Evie’s passing just added fuel to fires that would have burned without her de
ath, I know that now. I can’t blame her for the way things happened, no more than I can blame myself.
“It’s okay,” I tell Stephen, and it is. For the first time all weekend, I can see what everyone meant when they told me over and over again that things would work themselves out, everything would be fine, we’d get by. If nothing else, we’ll get by. This funeral will end in a few hours, we’ll be okay. Tomorrow the sun will rise, we’ll pack the car and say our goodbyes, we’ll leave Sugar Creek behind. I’m going to make it, I always have before. Someone once said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” And with a family like mine? I must be strong as hell to have survived this long. I’ll make it a little further along down this road called life.
“You’re a braver man than me,” Stephen says, that shy smile back on his face again. I used to love the way he would smile at me, slowly, like he wasn’t sure I would smile back. “My sister knows—how could she not?”
“Because you’re twins?” I ask. I never understood how that could be—Stephen’s everything his sister isn’t, two sides of one coin, everything good in him and everything spiteful and mean in her. Beauty and the beast, I said once…only once, because Stephanie was fast and she bruised my arm with her knuckles for that comment. I wonder if she still hits as hard, and to be honest, I really don’t care to find out.
But Stephen laughs. “Because she’s so damn nosy,” he replies. “Being twins has nothing to do with it. She still wants to know where I’m going and who I’m on the phone with, jeez.” Lowering his voice, he adds softly, “She didn’t know about you, though. About what we…” He sighs, looks at Dan, looks away. “What we used to do.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. Easing an arm around my lover, I give him a quick wink and say, “He knows.”
“Well, she didn’t,” Stephen says. “After I got back from Evie’s the other day, she wanted to know where I went so I told her, to see you. Somehow we got to talking and I guess I let it slip, I don’t know, but she’s pissed to all hell now.”
I rub Dan’s back and laugh. “Because she hates me,” I say. Then I lean against Dan’s arm and murmur, “Thank you for staying with me here.”
My lover’s reply is a smoldering gaze, a faint smile. “Where else would I want to be?” he asks. “And who could possibly hate you?”
“Steph hates everyone,” Stephen tells us. “But I think what really has her so upset is that she didn’t figure it out herself, you know? All those years we were friends and she never clued in. Like Ray.”
“Oh God,” I groan. “If she ever heard you comparing her to him…”
Stephen laughs. “You’d be coming to my funeral,” he teases. Then, realizing just where we are, he runs a hand through his hair to push it from his face and shakes his head. “That was bad taste, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
I hold up a hand to stop him. “It’s okay.” Unconsciously, my hand drifts to his arm. “Thanks for coming, Steve. I really appreciate it.”
That bashful smile again, and he looks up at Dan. “Can I…would a hug be okay?” he wants to know. His eyes shift to me, full of something I can no longer read. “If not, I understand. I mean, if I were you, I might not—”
I don’t let him get any farther. Extracting my hand from my lover’s, I pull Stephen into a tight embrace, hugging him hard as if to prove to myself that things are okay between us. With my lips against his ear, I whisper, “I love you, man. Maybe not the way you want me to, but it’s there all the same. We’ve been too much to each other, you know? You’re in me, no matter what. You always will be.”
He stiffens against me. “I meant what I said,” he breathes. He smells like he does in my memory, a mix of the wintergreen mints he favors and Ivory soap, which he’s used to wash his hair with for as long as I’ve known him. “It floats,” he told me once, when I asked why. “When you drop it in the tub, you don’t have to go searching for it. It just bobs right up to the surface, here I am. And it’s easy, just one bar for your whole body, your hair, everything. No farting around with a half million different bottles and tubes and shit like Stephanie has. One bar, that’s it. Life can’t get much simpler than that.”
Now that same scent fills me with a nostalgia so poignant, it brings tears to my eyes and I blink them away. I feel like I’m clinging to him as the memories wash over me. “If you ever find yourself alone,” he’s saying quietly so Dan won’t hear his words, “remember me. I’m here for you, Michael. I always will be. Promise to keep that in mind. Promise you’ll think of me.”
“I will,” I promise, pulling away.
Reluctantly he lets me go. “Thanks,” he sighs, but I’m not sure who he’s thanking or why. To Dan, he holds out a hand that my lover shakes readily enough, and he says, “You’re a lucky guy, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.”
“No, you don’t,” Dan admits. One arm finds its way around my waist almost possessively—I’ll have to thank him later for standing so stoic through that hug. “It was nice meeting you, Stephen. I’m sorry it couldn’t have been under better circumstances but…” He smiles, pinning my old friend with that look of his that dares anyone to disagree. “I don’t think any time is a good one when it comes to something like this.”
“Yeah,” Stephen sighs. “I almost didn’t want to come. I told myself you’d be the jealous type, or ugly, or mean.” Looking at me, he admits, “I was sort of hoping for that, I guess, after your sister mentioned a boyfriend. Part of me wants to rescue you, Mike. Even if you don’t want me to.”
I start to apologize but he shakes his head, cutting me off. “No, it’s alright,” he tells me. Almost pleading, he asks, “Just keep in mind what I told you? If things don’t work out?”
“Sure.” Dan’s fingers entwine through mine and I hope that Stephen doesn’t hold out much hope on that happening in this lifetime. But if it eases his mind to know that I still think of him now and then, I see nothing wrong with that. After everything we were to each other, the least I can do is promise to remember him. He’s too much a part of my past, of everything that made me who I am today, to think that somehow this is it. I’ll think of him from time to time, I’ll send him a card at Christmas, and when things get rough day in and day out, when living falls into a routine, I might close my eyes and he’ll be there, laughing on his bike or splashing into the creek, kissing me behind the shed or just lying beside me in the grass, he’ll be there. A child again, waiting to play with the child in me. Friends, nothing more.
Nothing less.
From the open doorway, my sister peeks out at the three of us. Her eyes are red-rimmed and raw from crying and when she sees Stephen, she runs a finger along her lower lashes to wipe away smudged eyeliner. “You know there’s a funeral today, right?” she asks, her voice thick with tears and just as sarcastic as ever. “Or hey, did you guys forget? Because Ray and I can give your seats up, if you’re not planning to attend.”
“And you think your sister’s bad,” I mutter. Stephen laughs, and before Caitlin can speak, I tell her, “We’re coming already. You saved us seats?”
“What,” she asks, surprised, “you think Mom did? Get in here before she gives them away and you have to stand. This thing’s going to take all day.”
She disappears into the room again and Stephen follows her. “Take care, Mike,” he says. “You too, Dan. Take care of him.”
“I’ll do my best,” my lover says.
Dan starts after them but I hold him back. “Wait a minute,” I say. The hall has emptied out now, the service about to start, but I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him to me for a sweet kiss. “Thank you,” I sigh against his mouth. When he starts to speak, I kiss him again. “Don’t ask for what. You already know. For everything.”
A third kiss and I let him lead the way, his hand strong and sure in mine.
THE END
ABOUT J.M. SNYDER
A multi-published author of gay erotic/romantic fiction, J.M. Snyder began writing boyband slash
before turning to self-publishing. She has worked with several different e-publishers, including Amber Allure Press, Aspen Mountain Press, eXcessica Publishing, and Torquere Press, and has short stories published in anthologies by Alyson Books, Aspen Mountain Press, Cleis Press, eXcessica Publishing, Lethe Press, and Ravenous Romance. For more information, including excerpts, free stories, and monthly contests, please visit jmsnyder.net.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
Founded in 2010, JMS Books LLC is owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. We publish a variety of genres, including gay erotic romance, fantasy, young adult, poetry, and nonfiction. Short stories and novellas are available as e-books and compiled into single-author print anthologies, while any story over 30k in length is available in both print and e-book formats. Visit us at jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!