Life on Pause

by Erin McLellan

  Niles kissed him quiet, and Rusty drew in a shaky breath.

  “Thank you,” Niles murmured and wrapped Rusty up in his long, gangly arms.

  And that night, they never showered, or cleaned the toys, or put on pajamas. They cuddled and talked about nothing in particular until first Niles, and then Rusty, fell asleep.

  Niles shuffled around the pamphlets on the display by the door of the main house at Bushyhead Homestead and daydreamed about his weekend with Rusty.

  Sharing a bed with Rusty meant awesome sex was a thing Niles got to have now, which was pretty exciting. He thought he’d be the random club hookup for his entire life, even if those hookups skewed his self-worth, whatever the fuck that meant.

  Well, okay, he knew what it meant.

  He knew that the last guy who’d fucked him, the one who had called him a come dump and pulled his hair too hard, had not valued him as anything more than a hole to lose himself in. He was aware that he’d approached awful dude bros in bars, that they had the words to hurt him, and that they’d use them. And he knew that he had only been an itch they were scratching, a second-place prize when the better option had gone home with someone else, a distraction from their warped, competitive lives. He had represented a mirror through which they had only seen themselves, their own needs, their own good looks, and their own desires—not him. Never him. In him, they had seen desire that they’d taken for granted as their natural due.

  And Niles had let them. He’d even approached them. He’d sought them out.

  He didn’t know how to reconcile that part of himself, the part he’d let get used and discarded because that was better than nothing, with the part that also let go so completely in Rusty’s arms.

  How did Niles trust that he was good enough for Rusty? How did he trust that Rusty wouldn’t get tired of him? What would happen when Rusty wanted to go to O’Donnell Ducks or a gay bar in Tulsa, and Niles balked because he was the opposite of socially competent?

  Or worse—what would happen if Rusty wanted to keep him hidden away? What would happen if Rusty was ashamed to be seen with a nerd like him?

  Now, God, now, he’d never have sex without comparing it to sex with Rusty. He’d never kiss another man without thinking of the soft warmth of Rusty’s lips against him or see a hickey without becoming completely lightheaded. He’d never, ever look at his prostate massager the same again.

  He’d never come without needing someone to hold him after.

  That hot fucking dickhead.

  “Where’s your head, Niles?” Janice asked him, and Niles dropped the stack of leaflets he’d been rearranging for the past, oh, twenty minutes or so. He hadn’t expected to see the director. Janice was a wonderful boss. She wanted to bring Bushyhead Homestead into an innovative future, and she always supported him in his initiatives to highlight the significance and history of the Native people of the area, both past and present. This was Indian Territory, after all. But she was rarely there on Monday afternoons, and he flushed at being caught daydreaming by his mentor.

  “Sorry. Distracted,” he mumbled.

  “How’s your dad doing?” she asked, concern lacing her voice, and guilt worked its way up Niles’s spine. He should be thinking about his dad rather than obsessing over his boyfriend.

  Boyfriend. Day-um, he was out of his element here.

  “The same. Mostly.”

  Janice nodded, and Niles finished gathering up his pamphlets.

  “I think we’re all set for the Bluestem Bluegrass Festival in a couple of weeks,” she said. “We have bands booked solid, and food trucks from around the state are going to line up in the parking lot. One of them specializes in Korean-inspired hotdogs and cheesesteaks. It’s one of those … what do you call it? Fusion things. Doesn’t that sound so metropolitan?”

  Niles laughed and admitted Korean-inspired hotdogs would probably blow the minds of Bison Hills citizens, in a good way. He’d arranged for an exhibit of antique stringed instruments to be on loan from the American Banjo Museum, and he was more excited for the event than usual.

  And it had nothing to do with Rusty and his choir singing on Saturday morning.

  Nothing at all.

  “Where are we at for Cricket Plague Days in the fall?” Janice asked.

  Niles had to get his head back in the game. Cricket Plague Days normally ran like clockwork but involved a lot of coordination on his part.

  “Most of last year’s vendors have already turned in their paperwork. We’ll have the normal threshing bee and buffalo chip throwing competitions. I’ve coordinated with our Living History of the Plains volunteers and storytellers to do demos throughout the day, and I’ll talk to the docents to see who wants to work the festival. And I’m still trying to schedule a couple of additional educational opportunities for children, but I’ll get back to you about them soon.”

  Long story short, Niles had a million things to do and should stop thinking about Russell Adams. His boyfriend.

  As if.

  On Wednesday evening, Niles visited his dad at Honeydew Estates. Dad was in his bed, and light filtered in through the open window, casting shadows around the room. It was a beautiful day. In the past, his dad would have spent all afternoon mowing and weed-eating the yard, taking as long as possible so he could soak up the sun. Just thinking about it made Niles’s throat thick with unshed tears.

  After about ten minutes, he couldn’t take the silence any longer. “So, remember Rusty? The one from the meet-cute? He’s now my boyfriend. Can you believe that? I wish you could meet him. He even watches college football and likes the same teams as you, or so he’s told me. He talked about the Big XII for twenty minutes last night on the phone, which was so boring. I bet you’d like him.”

  Niles sighed. “I always want to keep you updated on my life, but, man, I wish you could respond. Talking about myself constantly makes me feel totally self-absorbed. And it would be nice to hear your voice. Even if only for a second.”

  Several minutes passed, and then Niles admitted, “I’m thinking about changing up the house some. Any thoughts? Like are you fuming in there and I just can’t tell?”

  Niles sometimes had trouble not talking as if he were addressing his dad’s memory. The nurses and doctors all told him to act like Dad was in there somewhere, listening and understanding. That the familiar voice might be soothing. But, God, sometimes it was hard to look at the man wasting away on the bed and see no recognition in return.

  “I don’t want you to hate me for changing it if you come out of this. And I want you to come out of this so bad, Dad. But living in limbo hurts too, you know? I feel stuck.”

  It was like he was living in a shadow box of memories, and seeing Rusty in his living room and in his bed had only amplified how much his home was not a reflection of him but of his parents. His parents who would never live there again.

  Dad moved restlessly, and his blanket slipped off his chest. Niles tucked it back into place and grabbed his hand.

  “I don’t want to lose your influence, or Mom’s, but there has to be a balance, right? I have got to figure out how to put some of my own personality, my own heart into the place without losing your warmth.”

  Without losing you again.

  The last time they’d Skyped, Victor had asked Niles if he’d considered selling the house and moving, but the idea, the implication, was like acid that burned a hole in Niles’s stomach. He loved his home. It was his inheritance, his legacy, and if being his father’s son had taught Niles anything, it was to fight against the heritage of dispossession. To give up his family’s home went against the very fabric of his being, the blood rushing through his veins.

  “Hi, sweetie,” one of the regular nurses, Michelle, said as she bustled into the room to give Niles’s dad his meds. His dad glanced up at her, and Niles almost thought he could see recognition in the man’s eyes, but it was probably wishful thinking.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it?” she continued. “It’s really difficult for
family, especially when you don’t have any other support.”

  Niles nodded. His parents had been older when he’d been born, so his grandparents were long gone. He had some distant relatives on his mom’s side, but she’d never gotten along with her family and he’d never connected with them after her death. His dad’s older brother had passed young, and Niles hadn’t seen most of his cousins since he was in high school. They all lived out-of-state and were fully entrenched in marriage and kids and careers. He truly was alone in that sense.

  I have Rusty now. But his whole body clenched in rebellion at that thought. He couldn’t dump this on Rusty. They’d just become boyfriends.

  Niles wasn’t ready. Bringing Rusty to Honeydew Estates to meet Dad seemed wrong somehow. His dad had made it as clear as he’d been able to after the first stroke that he didn’t want visitors. He’d been embarrassed about being so helpless, so Niles had brushed off Dad’s employees from the Tire Shop and his friends until they stopped asking.

  Maybe that had been a mistake, though. Maybe Niles wouldn’t feel so alone in this now if he had other people to lean on, other people who missed his dad too.

  Later that evening, as he sat in his parents’ living room, he imagined how he’d make their home his home if he could. He’d change the decorations in the living room from country craft to modern and set up his Xbox and PlayStation. He’d paint the kitchen and purge it of the rooster motif his mom had loved so much. Maybe he’d replace the loveseat with a cozy chair-and-a-half because he’d always wanted to cuddle in one of those, and he could envision evenings of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly and maybe anime, before nights of intense and emotional sex with Rusty. He could picture sleeping in the big room, the master suite, instead of his childhood bedroom, if he wasn’t alone in there. And he could admit that though he was not quite ready to make those changes yet, he probably would be eventually.

  His phone rang, and the selfie of Rusty in his cute bowtie flashed on his screen. They’d texted and talked on the phone some over the last couple of days but hadn’t seen each other since the Big Conversation. Niles could refer to it as the Big Sex-toy Sex and Following Conversation, but that was perhaps too on the nose.

  “Hi,” he said, absurdly self-conscious. Nerves always danced through him when Rusty called, but this guy had rimmed him, for God’s sake. He shouldn’t be nervy about a phone call.

  “Hey! What are you up to?”

  “Nothing.” Should he try to flirt? Niles wasn’t sure he knew how to flirt on the phone. Or anywhere. “I’m sitting on the couch, sitting and thinking about you sitting on the couch too.”

  Yikes. That didn’t really work.

  “Well, well,” Rusty replied, his voice full of humor. “Maybe we’ll do some couch stuff later tonight. I had a long-ass day. Want to meet me at O’Donnell Ducks for a beer?”

  Niles bit his lip and traced the seam along one of the sofa cushions. “I’ve never actually gone in there. Is it … I don’t know … safe, I guess? Like I’m super gay, and it’s a biker bar in eastern Oklahoma.”

  Rusty’s deep laugh vibrated through the phone, hitting Niles right in the gut and making him squirm in pleasure.

  “Neither Todd nor I have ever been bothered in there.”

  “You’ve gone there with Todd?”

  A weird silence followed Niles’s question, so he glanced at his phone to see if it’d been disconnected.

  It hadn’t.

  “Hello?” Niles said.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’m here. I’ve been in there at the same time as Todd before.”

  Something about Rusty’s wording seemed off to Niles, but he couldn’t pinpoint it or why Rusty was being so weird all of a sudden. Normally Niles was the weird one.

  Jealousy, all hot and prickly, swept up his spine.

  “Well, do you think Todd would want to go too? You work with him every day, and we weren’t close at school. It’d be nice to get to know him,” Niles said, totally overcompensating by talking out of his ass. He didn’t want to get to know The Todd. Not when he paled in comparison to The Todd’s hotness. It would be like gazing at the sun and then a carton of eggs. One was bright. One was painfully ordinary. Rusty already spent all day in the guy’s presence. It was probably a letdown to end the night with Niles.

  Oh, God. He needed to stop thinking like that, or he’d never leave the house.

  “Uh, yeah, I’d rather not,” Rusty said. “I want to get a beer as a way to escape from work. I don’t want to bring work with me. And anyway, Todd and I don’t really hang out like that. We’re not close, you know?”

  But Niles had seen them at the dress rehearsal for the Fall Concert, and they hadn’t acted like coworkers who weren’t close. They’d acted like friends. Good friends, actually. Did Rusty not want to introduce Niles to his friends?

  “All right,” Niles said slowly, trying not to sound like a suspicious weirdo. “When do you want me to meet you?”

  “Could you be at my apartment in thirty minutes? We could walk over from there.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you want to stay at my place after?”

  Lust shot through Niles, his worry over The Todd all but forgotten. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  “Bring some toys,” Rusty rumbled, mischief making his voice delicious and dirty. Before Niles could wade through the tangle of desire that had him tongue-tied, Rusty said, “See you soon, gorgeous,” and hung up.

  Before Rusty had called Niles, it had been an awful day. Todd had been acting strange, like a defensive child who absolutely did not want to talk about why he was being a defensive child. There was definitely something weird going on with him, but he’d bitten Rusty’s head off the moment he’d asked what was wrong.

  Rusty had also made the mistake of asking his choir kids’ opinions on songs for the Holiday concert. They’d all gotten pissed when he vetoed “Carol of the Bells,” which they’d sung last year, and twelve months hadn’t been long enough to get it out of his damn head. And they had grumbled about “Personent hodie,” the one holiday song he’d already purchased, because it was hard and in Latin.

  Then, Margo had gotten sick at school—running a temperature of about 101 degrees—and Rusty had to pick her up during his planning time because Jackie had been in the middle of a cut and color. It hadn’t been the first time Rusty had picked Margo up when she was sick, and the moment he’d seen her sitting miserably in the office at the Early Childhood Education Center, it had hit him—he was Jackie’s backup. If Jackie moved to Sapulpa—and she was definitely leaning in that direction—and he stayed in Bison Hills, she would have no one. She was a single parent. He was her only backup.

  To make matters worse, Todd had perked up the moment he’d seen Margo. He’d held out his arms for her, and when they’d hugged, the sight had busted something loose inside of Rusty. She’d smiled like Todd hung the moon, and Rusty had known right then that he’d never put Margo through one of his breakups ever again. Not if he could help it.

  But Jackie had other plans. She’d picked Margo up before Rusty’s third period class, and he’d walked with them to her car. Once Margo had been buckled into the car seat, Jackie had turned on him.

  “So I hear you have a boyfriend.”

  “Who told you that?” he’d said, alarmed. He’d intentionally not told her.

  “Well, Hayden’s mom, Becky, heard it from Vanessa Smithson at church who heard it from Rick Jr. at the gym who heard it from your coworker, Mrs. Eugene, who heard it from your coworker, Todd McGower. Small towns, man. Word gets ’round.”

  “None of that happened. Todd texted you.”

  “Yep.”

  That traitor.

  “So, when are you bringing Niles to dinner?” she’d asked.

  “Uh, try never.”

  “What! Why not?”

  “I think it’s a good idea to wait until we’re a little more serious before I introduce him to Margo.”

  He was not risking it.

  Ja
ckie should have understood that. She had the same policy, which was why she’d never introduced Margo to any of the small number of men she’d gone on dates with in the last four years.

  “Margo has already been introduced to Niles. Twice,” Jackie had said, like he was an idiot.

  “Not as my boyfriend, though.”

  “Well, if semantics are your issue, call him your friend. But I want to freaking meet him. As your boyfriend. So choose a Friday in the next couple of weeks and I’ll make you both dinner. And I’ll tell Margo you’re coming so if you bail you’ll be disappointing the apple of your eye.”

  Hours later, Rusty had still been a little pissed, so he’d called Niles to see if he would get a beer with him. And then maybe they could fuck. Rusty really wanted to fuck.

  After Niles arrived at Rusty’s apartment, they walked hand-in-hand to O’Donnell Ducks. The handholding seemed to surprise Niles so much that he stumbled on the bricked sidewalk. Rusty smiled and kissed the back of Niles’s hand, and then he wanted to punch himself in the face for being such a sap.

  O’Donnell Ducks was at the end of the main drag in downtown Bison Hills, and there were no cars or motorcycles parked out front. It was empty, even for a weekday.

  “I should have known the reason you’re comfortable going to this bar is because it’s deserted. It’s like our own private bar experience,” Niles teased after the bartender got them both a beer and they settled into a booth. “It’s kind of nice.”

  Rusty liked this place too because it wasn’t fussy. They pretty much only served shitty beer, and that suited him just fine. Nothing made his eyes glaze faster than a trendy asshole waxing poetic about IPAs.

  “You said you had a long day. What happened?” Niles asked.

  “Oh.” Rusty couldn’t actually tell Niles half of it, not without admitting his fibs, which he’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince himself were miniscule. “I had some problems with my choir kids. They were being whiners today. And then Margo got sick at school and I had to pick her up. I always feel so awful and helpless when she’s sick.”