Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  Drew’s eyes watered suddenly. “It just hurts, you know?”

  “That’s why they call them crushes. If they didn’t hurt, they’d call them something else,” Nick said softly.

  “Isn’t that from Sixteen Candles?” Drew said suspiciously.

  “Probably, but that doesn’t make it less true,” Nick said. “There’s nothing original anymore anyway.” He looked at his watch. “So are you good? Or at least good enough for now?”

  “Yeah, go take your hot boyfriend to the big bad city for a weekend of your tepid debauchery. I’m going to go sell houses so I can afford to reduce my hours if we get the Bayard bid.”

  “When you get the Bayard project bid. Visualizing’s half the battle,” Nick said.

  “Thanks, Coach,” Drew said, kissing Nick’s cheek before heading to his car.

  Brad parked his car outside Rico’s apartment with plans to crash there after the party. He had no intention of being in any condition to drive home.

  “You seem tense,” Rico said as they walked the handful of blocks to the frat house hosting the party.

  “Yeah, being a grown-up and working and all kind of sucks. Put it off as long as possible,” Brad said.

  “I’m on it. I just keep changing my major. It’s my fourth year, and I’m only a sophomore,” Rico laughed. “My folks’ll catch on sooner or later, but in the meantime, the beer’s cheap and the girls are free.”

  “Beats the other way around,” Brad pointed out.

  “It so does not, dude,” Rico said. “Are you mental?”

  “Yeah, what am I thinking? Free beer and cheap girls for the win!” Brad said, making himself inject it with false cheer.

  “Dude, are you okay? You’re quiet and kind of moody. It’s just not right,” Rico said.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Brad thought about how he’d feel tomorrow, but it was nothing compared how he already felt. Everything he’d thought was Brad Sundstrom had just been yanked out from under him by the realizations of the last few days. He didn’t know who he was anymore.

  “Whatever, dude, just stay pressed. I don’t want to be the one who brought Debbie Downer to the party,” Rico grunted.

  Stay pressed. Brad had no idea what that meant. Out of college for a few months, and already they’d passed him by. Now he felt worse than he already had. Oh well, there was a cure for that, and they were heading right for it.

  But he knew he had to pick up his game, or he’d have to explain why he had his head up his ass. He couldn’t stomach the thought of a long conversation about feelings with Rico. He felt like enough of a girl as it was.

  Their destination was a frat house around the next corner, and they heard and felt the party before they saw it, a heavy thudding sound cranked up so loud that the words were indistinguishable and the music nothing but ear-massacring audio sludge.

  The doors and windows were open to the mild summer night, and in Brad went, right behind his friend. The frat house was in an old mansion a few blocks from campus. It was nestled among other such houses, clustered into a sort of ghetto that made the presence of the small private school easier for the neighbors to stomach, since the damage was confined to a relatively small area.

  Large rooms, formerly the formal living and dining rooms, opened off the foyer, and a double staircase snaked up to the second floor and the private living spaces of the frat brothers, or at least as private as a space could be with the front door thrown wide.

  Rico veered right, toward the smell of marijuana, pulling a small pipe out of his cargo shorts as he walked. “Coming?”

  “No, man, I’m good. I’m gonna go find the beer,” Brad said. Smoking anything had never been his thing. Randall had a nose like a drug-sniffing dog, and besides, he’d been into sports. He knew a lot of high school and college athletes who’d used, but he hadn’t. Crew demanded too much lung capacity to piss it away with pot smoke.

  Chants of “Go-go-go!” told him where to find the beer, so Brad followed his ears, and sure enough, there was a veritable buffet of booze in the living room and a small pyramid of kegs in the kitchen.

  Beer, sweet beer. He was golden, and with any luck, soon to be buzzing all those uncomfortable thoughts right out of his head.

  Too bad it didn’t work out that way.

  Brad helped himself to one of the ubiquitous red plastic cups and filled it with beer from a keg. Thus fortified, he looked around for people he knew.

  After ten minutes, he changed his plans and started looking for people he liked. He’d seen plenty of people he knew but only one or two he really wanted to spend more than a few moments grunting at noncommittally.

  Drifting from room to room, he finally located some guys he knew, brothers of the fraternity, so technically his hosts. They and a whole lot of other people were taking their turn under a beer bong, chugging cheap beer to catch a buzz as quickly as possible.

  “Brad!”

  “Dude, where ya been?”

  “They finally get sick of your ugly face and kick you out?”

  “I graduated,” Brad said, shrugging. “No help for it. Your turn’ll come… or it would if you’d stop flunking classes.”

  Laughter rolled around the room, and someone got up and pulled Brad to the bong. Brad knew these people, and he knew their capacity. He could best them.

  “You’re done when you have to breathe!”

  Smirking, Brad knelt down while someone held the long tube with the funnel on it over his mouth, and the beer started flowing.

  While he hadn’t trained hard in months, crew had bequeathed to Brad a very useful gift, an ability made for a situation like this. He could hold his breath for a long time—a very long time.

  One beer followed another into the funnel, one, two, and three before he held up his hand and stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  “Damn, man! We shoulda got a deposit from you.”

  “Bitches,” Brad said with a snort.

  Brad took his turn holding and pouring, even as the cheap beer worked its magic. He was a big guy, but three beers was a lot in a short period of time, and it wasn’t long before he was a bit unsteady on his feet.

  Unsteady, perhaps, and buzzing, but with it enough to take stock of the evening. The beer hadn’t been the best, he’d known that going into it, but that Blue Ribbon crap? He’d allowed himself to grow spoiled since graduation, developing a taste for locally crafted microbrews that made the stuff coming down the funnel taste like horse piss. He’d had enough of that for this lifetime.

  Brad thought beer goggles were supposed to make things look better, but as he roared out a belch, he realized what a dump the frat house was and decided it might possibly qualify as a shit-hole. Yeah, the brothers were hard on their houses, but would a little paint have killed them? Something just off white, maybe in an eggshell finish for easier cleanup? Was that too much to ask?

  He stumbled and decided he’d like to sit down, but one look at the filthy armchair, its dated patterns dulled to a shitty brown, had him reconsidering that in a hurry. Did armchairs get bedbugs?

  He could only imagine what Drew would make of a place like this, and found himself agreeing with what he imagined the other man would say as he flopped down into the chair anyway.

  No, Brad thought to himself, Drew would take one look at this place and spin on his heel and march back to his car, and Brad wouldn’t blame him.

  He brooded in the armchair for a while. Then a realization fought its way through the beer’s haze, and he sat bolt upright. He had come here to escape Drew, but there he sat, imagining what Drew would think of a seedy frat house. Even in his absence, Drew was right there with him.

  He felt like Drew’d worked some kind of gay mojo or something so all the women looked cheap and all the guys hot. The girls at these parties used to be hot, but now they just seemed… sleazy. He knew not all women were like this, Emily sure wasn’t like these girls, but she only liked other women. These girls… sorority chicks with too muc
h make-up, too keen to find a husband, and who wouldn’t do anything but a hand job; future barflies and biker chicks who put out like photocopiers but who already showed signs of partying too hard; even the occasional Goth girl, and if he’d been into blood sacrifice or looking for spells, he’d be on one like stink on a monkey, even if they frightened him a little.

  But these women… these were the ones around, and given a choice—and it seemed that somehow, he suddenly had other options—he’d take the guys he’d seen, the handsome and muscular guys that he’d noticed noticing him at the gym or even there at the party, the closeted frat boys he’d made fun of when he was a student.

  Given the choice, Brad realized he’d take… Drew. That was who he wanted. He had no idea what it meant or how to go about it or how to tell Drew or even if Drew had any interest in him that way, but he wanted Drew.

  Faced with that undeniable realization, Brad did the only thing he could think of: he decided to get drunk, plowing toward the table with the hard alcohol like a cruise ship to an iceberg.

  He knew the old adage “Beer before liquor, never sicker,” but he didn’t care. He was still thinking. It had to stop, and a game of tequila pong looked like the magic ticket. It was just like beer pong but looked like it’d work far quicker.

  Brad eyed the guy currently winning. Tall, but not crew tall, built. Probably lacrosse or maybe baseball. Or just a gym rat. He didn’t know; he didn’t care. The guy’s hands looked reasonably steady, which suited Brad just fine. He figured his own coordination wasn’t what it could be, and that suited him too. It meant evicting Drew from his head that much faster.

  “I’m done!” giggled the party favor currently playing. She staggered up and fell onto Brad. “You’re a big one, aren’t you? I could just lean on you all night.”

  “That might be kinda awkward when the beer starts recycling,” Brad said, giving her a gentle push to return her to the full upright and locked position.

  “You play football?” the current champion of tequila pong asked.

  “Crew,” Brad replied. “You?”

  “Baseball,” he replied, peering at Brad from under his eyebrows in a way Brad was learning to recognize.

  Brad couldn’t hide his own appreciation, but he’d be damned before he’d respond. “Let’s play.”

  Someone handed Brad the slightly sticky ping-pong ball, and he bounced it off the table and into a shot glass, his aim and reflexes still reasonably keen despite the beer.

  “Lucky shot,” his opponent said.

  Brad shrugged and waited for him to take his turn.

  Back and forth they played, shots taken and missed, tequila pounded, and it was just what Brad had sought. He hardly thought of Drew at all because he had to focus all his effort on the task at hand.

  At some point his opponent staggered away from the game with a final glower of regret for Brad, which he ignored in favor of his new challenger.

  “I’m Brenda,” she said, her voice husky from smoke and alcohol. “I’m not very good at this.”

  “S’okay, I’m schnockered,” Brad said, slurring his words. Talking was hard with a numb tongue. “My name’sh Brad.”

  But she was right. Despite his impairment, Brad took the first three rounds, but the alcohol paradoxically sharpened Brenda’s skills.

  After that, Brad knew it was time to quit, since he couldn’t quite focus his eyes. “I’m done.”

  He met Brenda’s eyes. “Me too,” she said.

  Even through his booze goggles, he could tell she was a bottle of peroxide and a pack of cigarettes away from skank, but he didn’t care. She was throwing the right signals. She was the right sex.

  She’d do.

  As others took their places at the tequila pong table, they stumbled away, looking for a dark corner. They pulled each other upstairs and into one of the bedrooms but couldn’t quite make it to a bed without falling. Giggling, they rested against each other, and then lips sought lips.

  Brad felt no special zing when he kissed Brenda, no strange attraction like that one that had pulled him to Drew’s lips last night, but then, he’d had enough to drink that his lips were tingling anyway.

  It didn’t take long before the kisses turned sloppy and hands started to roam.

  “Yeah, baby,” she slurred as his hand found its way under her T-shirt.

  She pawed at his pants, and he groaned his encouragement.

  Then his hand made it further north, up to the bra line and above. Brenda’s chest was soft and pliable, supple give and smooth skin.

  He froze, and his body told him he wanted hard planes. He’d never wanted hard planes before, and the realization killed the mood for him. He pushed himself up, overcome by the realization he was about to be very, very ill.

  Brad stumbled and tripped his way to the bathroom, which was blessedly empty, and just in time. Kicking the door shut behind him, he fell to his knees and made the traditional obeisance to the porcelain idol of those poisoned by alcohol.

  Heave after heave brought it all up, all the beer, all the tequila, all the feelings he’d tried to bury. When he was done, he slumped back, tears trickling down his cheeks.

  “Are you in there, sugar?”

  Brad crawled to the door, blocking it with his body and fumbling to lock it. “I’m fine. Go away.”

  “Don’t be that way, baby, lemme help you,” she cooed, thumping weakly on the door with her fist.

  “Go away,” Brad muttered.

  She continued to thump at the door, but Brad ignored her. He heaved himself up and staggered to the sink. He was still drunk, but he could feel his head clearing thanks to blowing chunks.

  Turning the sink on cold, he splashed his face then cupped his hands and sucked down several noisy handfuls.

  He looked himself in the mirror, eyes red from alcohol and the tears he still shed. This wasn’t what he wanted. “You’re gay,” he whispered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The phone’s bleating from its charging cradle on his nightstand pulled Drew from a semi-futile attempt at sleeping. Those parts of Saturday not spent selling houses Drew spent fine-tuning the various applications for the renovation of the Bayard House. Little remained to be done other than corral Brad long enough for him to sign everything, but that hardly prevented Drew from picking at them. He wasn’t sure whether it helped his nerves or only further riled him up. So while the phone interrupted his sleep, it did nothing to deny him rest.

  He glared at it gimlet-eyed, squinting to make out the caller ID without his glasses. If it was one of his clients calling this late at night—he looked at the clock—this early in the morning, his real estate disasters could jolly well wait until daylight hours.

  Then he recognized Brad’s number and he grabbed the phone. “Brad?”

  “Hey,” Brad said gruffly.

  “What’s wrong? Where are you? You sound like crap,” Drew said, frowning in the darkness of his bedroom, torn between relief that Brad had contacted him and anger that it had taken the younger man this long. “What’s that noise? Are you at a party?”

  “Yeah, I was… I am. I’m in a bathroom. Drew, how did you know you were gay?”

  “I… wow. You called me from a party to ask me this? Have you been drinking?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve thrown most of it up. I’m pretty sober now,” Brad said. The moments lengthened. “So… how did you? Know, I mean. That you’re gay.”

  Drew exhaled noisily. “You don’t pick the easy ones, do you?” He thought about it for a moment. “I’ve just always known, I guess. There was no great ah-ha! moment.”

  Brad was silent for a minute while Drew waited expectantly. “Can I come over?” Brad said softly, or as softly as he could over the noise penetrating the bathroom door.

  It only took a moment for Drew to realize that this would be the worst possible time. “I’m not sure that’d be a good idea right now. You’ve been drinking, so I’m not sure you should drive.” And I want to hold you so bad right now I�
��d never be able to keep my hands off you if I picked you up.

  “I guess you’re right,” Brad sniffled. “I just… how do I get you out of my head?”

  That flummoxed Drew. “I don’t know how to answer that, Brad.”

  “Yeah, forget I said it,” Brad begged.

  The hell I will. “Why don’t you call me when you get up tomorrow… or later today, as the case may be. You can come over. I’ll make you something to eat if you’re up to it. We can talk.”

  “That’d be nice,” Brad said. He sniffled again. “Okay, I’ve got to get out of here. I’ll call you later. Bye, Drew… and thanks.”