“Stephen, hey.” Caleb slowed. He couldn’t have been in the final stretch, because he had the power to stop. Had they just started? How long had they been at it? “Sorry. We looked for you but gave up and couldn’t wait.”
“What the fuck?”
“We promise to do it again tonight, the three of us.”
“No.”
“It’s a few hours away, but we’ll rally. Or, hey, finish with us now, and we’ll still do tonight.”
“Victor and I don’t do threesomes.”
“No?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t want to do this?”
“I do not.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“You’re not into it?”
“I’m not.”
The air-conditioning hummed. A slow ceiling fan circled. Victor spat on his hand for more lubricant.
“I want you out of my room.”
“Oh, shit. I’m really sorry.” Caleb wasn’t pumping anymore. “I think I should go.”
“Yeah.”
He pulled out of Victor and stepped away. Caleb Davis butt naked and straight-out hard in the middle of the room, a gummy condom half-off his dick. Another day, Stephen would have enjoyed the image. Not yet. Most rowers have great asses.
Caleb stepped into his khakis, shoes, and polo shirt as he made his way to the door. “Seriously, Stephen, I’m sorry. No hard feelings? You guys talk, and I could still come back tonight.” There it was again, the easy grin that in normal circumstances would have made Stephen like the guy. “See you on the boat.”
Victor had rearranged himself and was now leaning up on pillows. Still naked, still hard, still dick in hand. “I didn’t get to finish,” he said.
“That’s what you want to say right now?”
“That’s what I said. Do you wanna suck me off?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Or, my preppy boy, I could fuck you. I don’t want blue balls. We don’t have to have Caleb tonight, unless you want to. Your choice, you and me, the two of us, or the three of us, now, later. Up to you.”
“Caleb was fucking you. You haven’t let me fuck you since our first night. What’s the deal?”
“With you, it doesn’t feel right.”
“Why not?”
“Just doesn’t.”
“Victor, I don’t understand what’s going on with us.” He grabbed a jacket. “I want to be alone right now.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t get you,” said Stephen. “Fine, you want to change the rules of our relationship, but it starts with conversation. How can you not know that? Why would you do this?”
Victor just played with his dick.
“Sometimes I don’t get you.”
“You’re smart. You can deal.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Apparently.”
“See you on the sunset cruise.” Stephen left.
THE PATH away from campus to the school’s pond was always oddly peaceful. Not a natural pond, it was more of a canal marking the end of the property, brackish water that came from who knows where, but it sounded nicer as the pond. The drive was dirt, uneven, rocky puddles and weeds. Scrappy weeds at Seaboard? How many walks had Stephen taken there, at first when afraid that he was about to lose it, that everyone would figure out he was nothing but the Palm Beach’s junior high girly boy? Or, older, when the straight masquerade was under control, questioning how he or anyone could be worthy of the luck the world seemed to have given them? Look around. Who deserved this? He still wondered.
It was where he and Aaron had wandered that night before graduation. Where they had not kissed.
A pelican was propped on a pile, that post on a dock, and seemed to turn its head. “What do you think, pelican?” Stephen asked. “Why is Victor an ass?”
The bird was big, full and round, perfectly content, its massive bill resting on its paunch.
“But he’s never been this much of an ass before.” The pelican seemed to be looking at him. “Feel free to squawk in agreement.”
A dinghy puttered past. The bird didn’t react to that either.
Shut up, Stephen thought. He wasn’t crazy. Maybe the pelican didn’t want to be disturbed. Fine. Maybe it was his fault, anyway, making Victor feel bad for all the stuff he’d never had growing up. Why had he insisted on bringing Victor and rubbing his face in it? Of course he’d feel like lashing out.
Other pelicans flew over the pond, as if following the dingy.
Still… he didn’t want a threesome. Yes, Caleb was hot, but he’d been with Victor barely over a year. Wasn’t it still their time of deep appreciation of each other? He only wanted Victor. Just the two of them. Did that make him a prude?
A text pinged in from Victor. Can’t do this. Driving back to Tampa.
What? Had he left?
U gone? Stephen texted back.
Sorry.
For real, he’d been ditched? How do I get home?
Sorry.
Don’t b sorry. Don’t leave.
Already in Ft. Lauderdale.
WTF?
This isn’t working. Lease in your name. I’ll be out by the time you get home.
What?
Moving out.
U serious?
Always serious. Have fun. Caleb likes you.
What? Why couldn’t this be the coast, not the pond. The waves… constant, pounding waves always helped clear his mind.
Are you breaking up with me by text?
Yes.
A text! After a year of living together? He’d been thinking about proposing. He sat on a bench. The pelican didn’t squawk, just flew away.
Was it really over?
The water was still. The light perfect.
Was it possible to feel relief and punched in the gut at the same time?
Dumped by text? he texted.
Nothing for a few minutes, then Sorry.
Were we really that bad?
What do you think?
A squawking gull landed nearby. Why, he wondered, had he ever thought they would work? Most of what Victor did was make fun of him. Why had he accepted that as normal?
His phone gonged, not from a text, but from the alarm he set in order to get back in time for the boats.
“Hey, Stephen.” Aaron stepped out of the trees. He’d obviously followed the same path from school. “We’ve got half an hour before the sunset cruise. You coming?”
Stephen took a breath and wondered how not to appear dramatic when he announced that he was going back to Tampa. To hell with the Holiday Fête.
“Stephen, would it be strange if I were to tell you that I came back here after our night and took a stone from where we’d been sitting?”
“No,” came weakly from his mouth. “No,” he repeated, stronger.
“Don’t think I’m a stalker or something, but I kept the stone for years.” Aaron was sturdy and trim in his beige ribbed sweater. “What’s up? It looks like you’ve seen a ghost. You okay?”
“All’s good.”
“Where’s Victor?”
“Not sure. He’s doing his thing. Sometimes he needs to be alone.”
“Who doesn’t?”
Nearby gulls squawked.
“So, are you coming?” Aaron asked.
What should he say? That he had a lot to figure out? Like how to come to terms with wasting a year with Victor? What was wrong with him for putting up with a guy who never seemed to like him? Fuck it. Let Victor do his thing. He’d threatened breaking up before, but he’d be back in their apartment when Stephen returned to Tampa. Victor was having one of his negativity spins and would be back to normal halfway through the Everglades on his drive back. He’d be fine. They’d be fine.
Goddamn it. Maybe he didn’t want to be fine. What the hell was he doing? Good riddance. Good to be fucking free of Victor.
“Well?” There was Aaron. Looking cute. Not cute, handsome. Warm. Those
eyes….
Stephen remembered the warmth he’d felt for him that night before graduation. At the time he’d been embarrassed, thinking he was so desperate for connection, for a real relationship, for sex, that he mistook Aaron for someone who cared. Don’t be stupid, he’d kept repeating to himself back then. Aaron doesn’t know me. Aaron doesn’t like me. He’d freak out if I kissed him.
“Stephen, you’re still coming to the boat, right?”
Nothing seemed to want to come out of his mouth.
“Don’t take this away from me,” Aaron continued. “The reunion with you I’ve dreamt about for years.”
“The Seaboard Holiday Fête is going on, whether I’m on the Sunset Cruise or not.”
“Stephen, I’m not talking about the Fête. I’m talking about us.”
Two other gulls joined the fray.
“Us?”
“My reunion with the mythic guy I didn’t kiss when I should have. I get it that you have a boyfriend. Just come on the damn boat, and let me see how I’m better than I used to be, how I can be my full self with Stephen Williams, the intimidating perfect guy. Don’t worry. I’m not going to bust a move. I respect what you have with Victor. Hell, I want what you have with Victor. This time, I want to see what it’s like connecting with the guy I’ve dreamt about connecting with for years.” He kicked a clump of rocky sand. “I’m sorry, Stephen, I don’t mean to sound like a head case. It’s not often in life we get to go back to that moment we’ve been dreaming about for years. And, please… don’t make me think it’s coincidence that I’ve just run into you where we had our night. Since then, this has become my power place. Now I’m here. And so are you.”
His expression was settled and warm. Stephen saw the Aaron from years before with that long ponytail, rumpled shirts, and those beautiful eyes. Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him! Stephen remembered thinking back then. Don’t waste the perfect night.
“Never mind,” said Aaron. “I didn’t mean to drop all this shit on you.”
“Aaron, you’re amazing,” Stephen said. “How can one person in one instant make me so happy?”
Aaron was staring, all beautiful, comforting, inviting.
Stephen landed a kiss on his lips. “Let’s go.”
WHO WOULDN’T enjoy a sunset cruise? The crazy houses on the Intracoastal, the boats, the palm trees. The calm, even water…. It all felt perfect. Everyone was easy to talk to, Aaron the best, a circle developing around him as he explained how he and his bosses liked to transform lives through their investments.
Stephen was relieved that Caleb must have been on the other boat.
He sought out Tony and made good on his promise to ask about B-school and Atlanta.
Then there were Marissa, Elspeth, and Sena who liked hearing about Chile and his students in Tampa.
Stephen had almost forgotten about Victor until the walk back to campus with Aaron.
“Victor dumped me,” Stephen told him. “I returned to the room and found him getting fucked by Caleb. Not grounds, per se, for breaking up. I thought we’d talk about it, about us. But then I got a text that he was driving back to Tampa and moving out.”
“You okay?”
“Strangely, yes.”
They walked in silence. The light was turning thicker, goldener.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” Stephen said to Aaron at the Alumni House.
“What are you doing now?”
“Going to my room. Taking a nap, relieved that Victor won’t be there. Thinking about my life. Maybe driving back to Tampa.”
“Let’s get a drink.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you are, but it sucks, and I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Thanks, Aaron, but, honestly, I’m okay.”
“Don’t you get it that I like being with you? We don’t have to talk about Victor. We could always get drunk.”
HE WAS a good guy, Aaron. The longer they talked, the more Stephen wanted to hear. He heard about what it had been like growing up on the campus and feeling intensely a part of it, a more intimate part of Seaboard because of Aaron’s time in the buildings and the grounds and the palm trees—so perfect even when not wrapped in lights for the holidays. Yet also feeling intensely apart, worried that he was not as smart as everyone else because, as a faculty kid, he’d had automatic admission. What had he done to prove that he’d belonged at Seaboard?
“I thought you were smarter than the rest of us because you had two intimidatingly intelligent teacher parents,” Stephen told Aaron.
“I thought you had the perfect life. You were too good-looking, friendly, and too rich to be real.”
“None of that was true about me.”
Aaron skewed his eyes as if Stephen should have known better.
“My parents are lawyers, not billionaires. There are kids of billionaires at Seaboard, but not my family,” said Stephen.
“You paid full tuition. You’ve never had a scholarship, no financial aid.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means that there’s a long, long list of things you’ve never had to worry about.”
“Aaron, I worried I’d never be as smart as you.”
“Now you’re a teacher.”
“Now you’re finance guy.”
Marissa, Elespeth, and Sena approached from the bar, swirling their drinks. All three now wore Santa hats. “This has to stop. The two of you are too cute to keep it all to yourselves. The Christmas spirits have arrived. Past, Present, and Future, in honor of Mr. Charles Dickens.”
Aaron pulled out a seat for Marissa, and Stephen borrowed two chairs from a nearby table.
“We have less than twenty-four hours left on this beautiful weekend, so there’s no time for the long, natural arc of evolution.” Marissa placed what might have been a cosmopolitan on the table.
Elspeth sipped an iced tea. She was still thin. Since graduation, they’d learned that it had nothing to do with an eating disorder but was part of a health condition. No one mistook her anymore for a waif or anorexic. Her university alumni magazine had profiled her research on children who’d lived through refugee trauma. “Stephen, we think it’s for the best.”
“We do,” added Sena, looking especially Armenian sophisticated with her high cheekbones, dark eyes, and flowing hair complete with sparkling hairclips and the off-center Santa hat.
“We do.” Marissa took another sip of her cosmo.
“Victor wasn’t a good guy.” Elspeth shook her head.
“You can do better,” said Sena. “The ominous ghost of Christmas Future warns you about a dark, miserable life with him. You can’t tell, but I’m pointing my dark, scary hand into an abysmal future of woe.”
“You know you can. The ominous ghost of Christmas Future warns you about a miserable life with him.”
“How do you know Victor left? I haven’t told anyone but Aaron.” Stephen shot him a look.
“I haven’t told anyone. I’ve been with you the whole time. I’ve sent no texts.”
Elspeth leaned forward. “Caleb might have told some people about his evening.”
“His evening?”
Elspeth continued, all matter-of-fact. Stephen could picture her at a podium, conveying difficult information. “Caleb ran into Victor taking his bag to the car. One thing led to another, and they ended up in Caleb’s room.”
“No,” Stephen said. “It was earlier than that, after the cookout, and it was my room.”
“No. That would have been the first time. Victor didn’t want to finish on your bed—bless his heart, what a sweetie—so they went to Caleb’s.”
“Victor cheated twice today? Once wasn’t bad enough? What the fuck? And Caleb told you? Is he proud, or something?”
“Tony told me.”
“Tony? Why would Tony know?”
“Because when Tony was returning to the Alumni House after the boat, he ran into Caleb, who’d just said goodbye to Victor in the parking lot.”
“Did you know this?”
Aaron shook his head.
“Be wary of Tony, however. He might be hoping his time has come with you, Stephen Williams.” Elspeth sipped her drink. “Thus speaketh Christmas Present.”
“Maybe Tony wants Aaron?” Sena suggested.
“They tried that.” Elspeth’s voice cracked the way Stephen had forgotten it sometimes did. “It didn’t work.”
“Why didn’t you and Tony work?” Stephen asked. “He told me about you guys at the fifth reunion.”
“I like Tony. It was fun, but it didn’t feel right.”
“Tony still thinks about it. But Aaron doesn’t. It wasn’t right.” Elspeth adjusted on the stool. “But, Aaron and Stephen, the two of you… you both still think about each other. Tony gave us that information as well.”
“Two high school boys by the pond. So sweet, said the Ghost of Christmas Past.” Sena adjusted one of her sequin hairclips.
Stephen searched for something to say, and Aaron seemed to struggle too.
“Guys, we love you.” Elspeth’s voice was airy but forceful, authoritative without being loud. “We want you know that you both deserve the best, and we think you may have found it.”
“Thank you, but….” Had that come from Stephen or Aaron?
“Life is short,” continued Elspeth. “It’s full of trips that don’t always lead to your destination. It’s important to learn to read the signs.”
“Are you telling me that Victor leaving is a sign?”
“No, Stephen, it’s your past, present, and future. It’s your reality. Like right now being surrounded by people who love you is a reality that few people find every day.”
Stephen nodded to the waiter who filled his eggnog, and Aaron’s.
“The two of you finding each other is reality.” Elspeth grabbed a hand from each of them. “I now pronounce you potential boyfriends. You may now kiss the prospect.”
What was happening?
“Seriously, guys, please excuse my flippancy, and our Christmas Story bastardization, but I know about high stakes,” said Elspeth. “I’ve already lived ten years longer than doctors or my parents predicted. For the first time in my life, I have a normal life expectancy. Stakes are always high, or never high at all, depending how you look at it. All I know is that I look at the two of you together and I’m happy. But that’s my experience, not yours. I toast to your experience, whatever that might be.”
Boca Dreams Page 3