Worth Waiting For

by Wendy Qualls

  He leaned in further, close enough Paul could smell the coffee and a hint of toothpaste on his breath, and ran one gentle forefinger over the vein in the back of Paul’s hand as Paul clenched his cup. “I get that you’d rather keep your private life private, but I’m not exactly a co-worker,” he murmured. “And after you were so absolutely breathtaking freshman year, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for ages. Kept wishing we’d had the chance to do more. And if you’ve decided to never do anything like that again—in that case, I’d say it was a real shame. Because I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years, too, and I’m a pretty damn good teacher.”

  Oh God. Paul berated himself for each and every time he lay awake at night, fingers tracing over the outline of his cock, remembering back to how Brandon’s confident hands had felt on him. They say you never forget your first time. Well, whoever “they” were, they seriously understated the situation. “You will obsessively replay the encounter over and over” would have been more accurate. And it would be so easy to lapse back into that memory, to give in and take Brandon up on his offer and try to recreate that one golden middle-of-the-night experience, but then where would he be? Alone again afterward, furious with himself and twice as miserable as before. A heroin junkie relapsing after staying clean for the last year and a half. (Almost a year and three-quarters, a voice inside his head pointed out.) Even if the physical sensations left him darn near rapturous, it wouldn’t be enough to counterbalance the negatives.

  He must have been quiet too long, because Brandon sat back again and made a big show of finishing his coffee. “Sorry,” Brandon finally said. “I guess I forget what it was like, before. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “It’s fine.” Paul forced a smile. “And I’m flattered, really, I just… It’s a no. I’m sorry.”

  Brandon nodded, a hint of disappointment on his face. “I understand. Come on; we should both probably get back to campus.”

  Chapter 2

  Paul took his time packing a bag and loading up his car after work. Friday afternoons were always slow—nobody bothered stopping by for office hours when the weekend was so close—but it was late enough he really had no excuse to procrastinate any longer. He owed it to Danielle to get to their parents’ house in time for supper, if only to stave off the disappointed lecture he’d receive otherwise. Danielle deserved to have her first day (well, evening) home be a no-nagging, no-grumbling zone. He couldn’t guarantee their parents would comply, but he could at least do his best to not throw fuel on the fire.

  The drive was tolerable, with not as much traffic as Paul expected. He spent most of it thinking about Brandon’s offer. A no-strings-attached affair—was that even a real thing? Or just a product of wishful thinking and too much Hollywood? Back then, he and Brandon had both been new to the whole idea of mutual attraction, suffering through a semester of occasional glances and embarrassed looks before everything finally came to a head. So to speak. And look where that had gotten the both of them. Cripes.

  * * * *

  There was no lecture. Paul shouldered his little weekend duffel bag and gamely accepted hugs from his parents, then ran upstairs to dump it off in his old bedroom while Danielle finished setting the table and their mother got dinner the rest of the way ready. It was strange, how they lapsed so quickly back into their usual roles: Danielle chatted brightly about her adventures in France, their father interrupted with occasional warnings about the dangers of having fun, and Paul sat quietly and picked at his mashed potatoes. His updates were mundane compared to Danielle’s and it wasn’t like he could share his biggest piece of news either. Gave a pop quiz to my freshmen today, have an important grant proposal due in a few weeks, and oh yeah, the guy who gave me my first sexual encounter showed back up and propositioned me and even though I turned him down, I’m really tempted. Right, like that would go over well. Paul was well lost in his mental grousing when a change in tension at the table brought him back to the present.

  “You never mentioned someone before,” his mother was saying, worry in her voice. “This seems so sudden!”

  “Not sudden at all,” Danielle countered. “His name is Étienne and we’ve been dating for about six months now. I didn’t say anything because I knew how you’d react.” She turned to look directly at Paul and shrugged, a tiny gesture of apology. “Sorry, Paul—I was going to tell you last night, but I was still jet-lagged and it seemed easier to give the whole family my news all at once.”

  “It’s fine.” She’d undoubtedly tell him more later tonight anyway. He cast about for a suitable question and finally settled on, “How did you meet?”

  Danielle’s glance slid over to their father. “Totally by chance,” she answered. “He moved into the apartment across the hall from mine about a year ago, and I kept getting his mail. Apparently his mother sent him letters once a week and had the wrong address. Or maybe she didn’t notice she was writing it wrong. Anyway, after sliding them under his door a few times, one week I knocked and it kind of went from there. My French was good enough by that point, finally, which was lucky because his English is still terrible.” Her eyes took on a bit of a dreamy look. “I mean, he’s made a lot of progress since we started spending time together, but …yeah. That’s how we met.”

  “He’s French.” The inflection their father put on the word would have been kind of funny if he hadn’t looked so disgusted. “You couldn’t find a good American boy?”

  “Not in Paris, no,” Danielle replied sweetly. “And he’s only half French—his mother is Egyptian, although he doesn’t get to visit her side of the family much anymore. I suspect they wouldn’t approve of him dating an American any more than you approve of him. Luckily for us we’re both stubborn like that.”

  It was nearly worth it, having to endure the drive and the tension and the almost-guaranteed guilt trip he’d be getting later on in the weekend, to see the look on their father’s face. Egyptian was clearly several steps down even from French. Their father was wearing the same blank, uncomprehending look that Paul would probably get if he mentioned Brandon, as a matter of fact. Paul almost expected the meal to devolve into a shouting match—it had happened once or twice over the years, and Danielle was usually the culprit—but instead everyone retreated into stony silence.

  * * * *

  “I really am sorry I didn’t tell you about him last night,” Danielle said several hours later. They were sitting together on Paul’s bed. Which finally had grown-up sheets without dinosaurs on them, a recent change, although the new less-garish matching blankets were nowhere near as comfortable to lounge on as the old ones had been. Danielle pulled her bare feet up so she could lean on her knees, the hems of her pajama pants riding up to expose a stubbly bit of her lower shin. “I had the whole plane ride here to figure out how to tell you all, but I kept trying not to think about it until I was literally on my way over from your place this morning.” She sighed. “It went about like I expected.”

  “You could have told me earlier, you know,” Paul said. “Like—oh, six months ago when you first started dating?”

  “I—” She bit her lip. “Yeah, I guess I could have. But I honestly don’t know what I would have said. ‘Hey Paul, I met this amazing guy who makes me ridiculously happy and whom I’ve fallen head over heels for. I’m absolutely giddy for him. We’re totally obsessed even though it’s way too soon to see if it’s True Love Forever but I don’t even care. So how’s the self-enforced celibacy going? Still in the closet?’ I guess it kept being easier to wait.”

  Paul couldn’t deny the pang of jealousy that ran through him at that. He could have brushed it off if there hadn’t been so much truth to her words. Danielle read him easily and made a hasty sound of apology.

  “Crap, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” she said immediately. “I respect what you’re doing. Plenty of people choose their career over their personal life, and there’s nothing wrong wit
h it. I’m not judging, honestly—I get why you have to keep quiet. I’m just…” She ducked her head a bit to hide her twitterpated smile behind her pajama-clad knees, but Paul could still see the cheerful lines around her eyes as she grinned into the fabric. “Étienne is wonderful and the sex is fantastic and I’m thinking about him all the time. I really wanted him to come back to the States with me so he could meet you and see a bit more of the US besides what’s on TV, but he’s got a lot going on at work right now and trans-Atlantic travel isn’t exactly something you do on a whim. Maybe for Christmas, though—I’m hoping I can get him to come back with me. Assuming we’re still together by then.”

  “That’s great,” Paul said, and meant it. “I’d love to meet him. My French is almost definitely worse than his English, though.”

  She laughed. “His is getting better—we can usually get through a whole conversation now without either of us having to revert to our native language to translate something. I’m not telling Mom and Dad yet, but he’s pretty much moved in with me in the last month or so. We’re probably going to stop bothering with two apartments pretty soon. He hasn’t told his parents about us either, so we’ll have to get past that first. Although he’s a few years older than we are—it’s not like he needs permission.”

  “Sometimes you don’t need it, but it’s nice to get it anyway.” Paul had never even hinted to his family that he and Christopher had been anything other than friends and apartment-mates—not that Christopher would have wanted anyone to know, in any case. Would telling the family have changed anything? Probably not, other than giving me another source of things that make me feel terrible.

  Danielle sat up straighter, legs crossed and hands folded neatly in her lap. “Paul,” she asked slowly, “is everything all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “You’ve been quiet today. Different than when I was crashing with you at your apartment last night. Should I shut up about Étienne?”

  “It’s fine.” Paul flashed a quick smile and prayed it was convincing. “We’ve got all weekend. Tell me more about him?”

  Chapter 3

  Paul spent more of his weekend daydreaming about Brandon Mercer than he really wanted to. It wasn’t intentional; it was just that Danielle was so darned happy about Étienne, and their parents were so ridiculously grumpy about Danielle and Étienne both that it seemed like everyone’s “safe subject” was Paul’s love life. Or lack thereof. Danielle at least had the tact to not say anything, but their mother was on a one-person crusade to inflict Paul on some poor woman. Nearly any woman would do, it seemed, as long as she was somehow connected with their social circle. Church on Sunday morning was a tense, awkward affair, punctuated by pointed comments about so-and-so’s niece, wonderful girl really, studying to be a pharmacist, or so-and-so’s daughter who recently finished a year teaching third-graders in an inner-city school and you know that my charming son Paul is essentially a teacher too, right?

  By the time Paul got back to his own apartment that afternoon, he was more than ready to sink into his couch and play mindless videogames for the rest of the evening before scrounging up some leftovers for a late dinner and then falling asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. No matter how much he tossed and turned, though, he couldn’t stop thinking about Brandon’s offer.

  Which had him thinking back to freshman year.

  Brandon Mercer. God, it really has been forever. It hadn’t happened entirely out of the blue—he’d noticed Brandon earlier that semester, and in retrospect it seemed that Brandon had noticed him too. The realization, though, the oh God I’m now 100 percent positive I like guys instead of girls moment, wasn’t until the weekend before finals, at three o’clock in the morning, in their hall’s shared bathroom. Even now, he could remember it all so clearly.

  Too caffeinated to sleep and too bleary-eyed to study, Paul wandered into the bathroom to brush the coffee residue from his teeth for the third time that night. The hall wasn’t entirely silent—Paul wasn’t the only one cramming in every minute of study time he could—but all the normal daytime sounds were muted. He was in his pajamas—ratty Superman boxers and a plain white undershirt he wore so he didn’t have to go half naked down the hall. Someone was showering in the bathroom when he got there. The room was warm, humid, the sound of water loud against the tiles. Paul spat his mouthful of toothpaste into the sink and looked up just in time to catch sight of a very naked Brandon cracking open the curtain and eyeing him speculatively—

  Hell. Paul groaned and buried his face in his pillow. I’m never going to be over him.

  * * * *

  He got to St. Ben’s bright and early Monday morning. There was no need to be anywhere near the psychology building yet, but Paul had snapped awake an hour before his alarm went off because his apartment felt suffocating. He’d dressed for work, not exercise, but when he got to St. Ben’s, he wrapped his jacket closer around himself and resolutely plodded along the walking trail circumnavigating the campus until the strange sense of claustrophobia started to ease. The quad was practically empty except for a few hardy joggers and a handful of students. Perky morning people, probably. The barista at the campus coffee shop when he finished his walk—a rainbow-haired girl with a lip ring and a septum piercing—was almost offensively cheerful, and Paul had to exert effort to not growl at her. He took his coffee and morning muffin to the table farthest from the shop’s built-in speaker system and spent a pleasant chunk of time fiddling with his phone and doing absolutely nothing.

  “Hey, this seat taken?”

  Paul managed to not jump, but Grace’s hand on his shoulder did catch him by surprise. She was the closest friend he had at St. Ben’s, but they didn’t often see each other outside the psychology building. “No, help yourself. How was your weekend?”

  “Quiet.” She smiled at him over the rim of her cup. “First time in ages my neighbors in the apartment next door haven’t been banging on the wall before sunrise on a Saturday morning. Still haven’t figured out whether they’re renovating something or practicing their tennis serves indoors.”

  Grace’s neighbors were a safe topic, so she and Paul chatted about nothing in particular while he finished the last of his muffin and she drank her coffee. She’d always made no secret of the fact that that she’d have liked to be something more than friends, but so far Paul had been spared the discomfort of having to tell her yes or no. He thought back: they’d known each other for—gosh, has it really been ten years now? As freshmen, they’d ended up sitting next to each other in the very intro psychology course Paul and Grace both taught now. From there they’d become study partners, then tentative friends, then co-workers, and eventually somewhere between “friends” and “potentially awkward crush” at some point along the way. Grace was friendly and sweet and even though she not-so-secretly had a thing for him, he never asked and she never pushed.

  “I take it your morning class went well today, then?” Paul asked when the topic of the noisy neighbors was exhausted.

  “As expected,” she answered with a little tilt of her head. “Half the class doesn’t show up and the other half falls asleep while I’m talking. Next time you get the stupid-early section and I’ll take the prime late-morning slot.”

  “You’ll have to get better at Rock Paper Scissors,” Paul countered.

  She rolled her eyes, then suddenly sucked in a breath. “Oh, that reminds me, Dr. Kirsner is looking for you. Something that has to be yelled about in person, presumably. He only looks pleased like that when he’s anticipating getting to annoy you.”

  “Oh Lord, shush, will you?” Paul scanned the coffee shop. There was nobody close enough to overhear, probably, but complaining about your department head still wasn’t something that ought to be done in a public place. “Not that I’m saying you’re wrong, but…”

  “You’re too paranoid.” Grace shot him a mischievous grin. “What on earth have y
ou done to make that man hate you so badly?”

  Paul had a glib answer all ready on the tip of his tongue, but he settled for the truth instead. “He doesn’t hate me; he hated Dr. Lancaster.”

  “And since he can’t exactly complain about Dr. Lancaster retiring and practically handing him his job, he’ll take it out on you. I guess that makes sense. You were practically Roy Lancaster, Junior for a while there.”

  Paul bristled at the implication. “It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Oh, I know.” She shrugged. “Face it, though—the man was a fantastic mentor for you. Your research is essentially built on his. And he’s the one who fast-tracked you for tenure in the first place. Dr. Kirsner missed his opportunity to preemptively fire you by about a year and a half and he’s never going to forgive you for it.”

  “He’s still trying,” Paul said. “Called me into his office on Friday to accuse my sister of being a prostitute.”

  Grace’s eyes grew huge. “He what?”

  “Danielle got back to the States a few days ago, and she slept off the jet lag at my place before heading out to see our parents this weekend. He saw me kiss her on the cheek Friday morning and assumed I had either a girlfriend or a prostitute spending the night with me. And then I…took her to work with me for some reason, I guess? He wasn’t really clear about that part.”

  “Wow.” She giggled behind her hand, looking more like a teenager than a colleague. “I mean—yeah. Wow. How does he expect you to ever meet a nice girl, anyway, if you can’t be seen associating with one?”