Crushed

by J. M. Snyder

  Roger broke into his thoughts. “What’re you calling him for? Are you making me something to eat, too?”

  How long have you been up? Wes wondered, but he kept the words to himself. Roger was in a genial mood, why ruin it? Cracking open two more eggs, Wes added them to the pan. “Sure.”

  “Why do you want to call Tom?” Roger persisted.

  Wes sighed. Because he’s my friend? Hello? Did he really need a reason?

  Apparently he did—a glance at his boyfriend showed Roger watching him, hawk-like, waiting for an answer. “I’m just thinking,” Wes admitted. “Maybe he needs some help cleaning up after last night, I don’t know. What are you doing today?”

  “I gotta work.” Roger glanced at the watch he wore, which Wes noticed happened to be his. “Have to be there by ten. It’s just me and that new kid, or I’d try to stay here with you.” He gave Wes an expectant look.

  He knew what Roger wanted—he wanted to hear Wes say that he wished he could stay, maybe even suggest they get a quick one in right now, right here up against the stove, and if Roger was a few minutes late, so what?

  But Wes wasn’t in the mood for his boyfriend’s mind games, not today. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to stop by Tom’s later, just to see if maybe he could find out something about Nathan. A few well placed questions…he wondered how nonchalant he’d manage to sound. Would Tom think anything of it, after finding them like he had the night before? Why had Wes let his guard down? One look from Nathan and he fell for the boy all over again, all the old wounds reopened, everything came rushing back. How can I ever dam that up again?

  “Fuck the eggs,” Roger growled as he stood. He pushed past Wes, his elbow hitting him in the small of the back. Wes staggered against the hot stove, catching the pan before he could dump the frying eggs all over the floor. “I’m leaving.”

  “Why?” Wes turned off the range and followed Roger into the hall. “Breakfast is almost ready—”

  “I gotta get to work.” Roger pulled on the same heavy flannel shirt he wore the night before, covering his tattooed arms. Lighting a cigarette, he crammed his wool hat down over his curls, hiding his forehead, then pulled on his shades. “What?” he asked. “No kiss goodbye?”

  Wes kissed the corner of his mouth with a quick peck and stepped back. Pointing the cigarette at him, Roger said, “You get this shit worked out, you hear me? I’m not gonna beg for a fuck.” Wes could see himself reflected in the dark sunglasses, two mirrored men staring back at him with wide eyes and disheveled hair. “You’re my goddamn boyfriend, you know? I shouldn’t have to barter for a piece of that ass.”

  “I just don’t—” Wes started.

  But Roger opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. His footsteps echoed in the corridor as he hurried down the flight of stairs and out into the day. “I just don’t feel like it,” Wes said aloud to the empty room as he locked the door.

  Outside he heard a car start up, the engine rev in the quiet morning, and then Roger peeled away from the curb, tires squealing. I don’t want to do it with you and be thinking of him. That’s not fair.

  But how was it any different from the other times Wes had let his thoughts drift to Nathan while lying with Roger? That was just wishful thinking, but now, after last night? How close had he been to making those daydreams true?

  Who cared? Nothing’s fair. So you got a taste of something last night that you’ve always wanted, so what? Nathan’s gone out of your life again…is THAT fair?

  He didn’t think so.

  Chapter 10

  Tom’s place looked like a war zone. Bottles rolled off the overflowing kitchen table to litter the floor, clinking together when Wes pushed them aside to walk through the house. In the den, broken potato chips were ground into the carpet and a cup of dip had been dumped into one of Cindy’s potted plants. Booze stained the rug in the living room in a large wet spot that still hadn’t dried by the DJ’s booth. And the lawn looked as if it had been tilled, tire tracks cutting through chopped grass and gravel from the driveway thrown out into the street like ammunition for a rock fight. Cindy sat on the porch steps, scooping up cigarette butts and a few joints tossed into her garden bed. “This is it,” she kept saying under her breath. “Last party you have here, Tom. I hope you had a hell of a good time because, damn it, this is it.”

  Wes suspected Tom was thinking the same thing. He found his former roommate on his hands and knees in the downstairs bathroom, scrubbing the floor with something that smelled like bleach. “Anything I can do to help?” Wes asked as he leaned against the doorjamb.

  Tom looked over his shoulder, relieved. “Pick a room, any room. They all need help.” With a laugh, he added, “When you called and asked if we needed an extra hand…shit, I thought you were kidding.”

  Wes grinned. “I lived with you a year in the dorms, remember? I know how your parties go down.”

  Through the open front door, they heard Cindy yell out, “This is the last one. I hope you know that!”

  “I do now,” Tom muttered, turning back to the floor. To Wes, he asked, “Well? You gonna just stand there and gloat or you gonna help out?”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” Wes told him.

  It was the easiest room to clean. Wes swept everything on the table into one of the large trashcans from the curb; the bottles shattered as they piled up inside the plastic container. The bottles on the floor were tossed on top of the others, and then Wes started picking the empty beer cans out of the sink, holding them by the tips of his fingers as he pitched them into the trashcan as well. When Cindy came in to get a drink of water, she took one look around and nodded. “You could’ve warned me about this whole party thing before I agreed to it,” she said, nudging his hip with hers as she stepped up to the sink. “This is the last time, I swear.”

  Wes laughed and moved aside so she could wash off her hands. “I’ll remind you of that when he wants to do it again.”

  “He’s not!” she cried, adamant. “I swear to God he’s not. I’ll hurt him, Wes. You know I will.” Opening the fridge, she pulled out the water pitcher and laughed when Wes handed her two cups. “Almost a hundred people here last night. Five or six of them even stayed over and only just left, and do you know out of all of them, you’re the only one who came back to help clean up? He needs more friends like you.”

  “Did he really know all those people?” Wes wanted to know. More to the point, how does he know Nathan? “I recognized a few from State…”

  “Most were from the office.” Cindy poured water into the cups, then handed him one. “I was surprised to find out Roger knew Herbert. I’ve worked with Herb for a few weeks now and he never really mentions anything he does outside the office.”

  Wes sipped at the cold water. “Roger works at a music store.”

  “Like a record shop?” Cindy asked as she put the water pitcher back into the fridge.

  Shaking his head, Wes explained, “Like a music store. You know—they sell instruments and sheet music and…” He shrugged. “Stuff like that. Herbert does some part-time singing at this church, I don’t remember which one, but he’s always in there looking for something new.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Cindy said.

  Wes nodded. “Oh, I know. I still can’t believe you tried to set him up with Nathan—”

  She choked on her water and spat a mouthful out into the sink.

  Wes patted her back, concerned. “Cindy? You okay?” You call that nonchalant? “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m fine,” she sputtered. “God, Wes, warn me on that next time, will you?”

  Coughing, she poured the rest of her water out. He thought she’d leave now, go back outside and not talk about Nathan or what happened between them the night before, but she surprised him. “I’m assuming Roger doesn’t know.”

  Wes shook his head. “There’s nothing to know.”

  The look she gave him suggested she wasn’t as stupid as he might think. “Tom said you t
wo were…how did he put it? All over each other, Cindy, my eyes! God!”

  Wes laughed—he could just imagine his friend freaked out by something like that. Then she giggled and the tension between them evaporated. “I hear you were all about some Gayle last night,” she said, elbowing him. “He’s a cute boy.”

  “God,” Wes sighed. “You just don’t know.”

  They heard footsteps in the hall. Cindy’s smile faded as Tom stepped into the kitchen. “Well, you shouldn’t have done it,” she muttered, turning on the water in the sink. She began to scrub the dishes piled around the beer cans. “Are you trying to ruin the good thing you have with Roger? Tom, you tell him.”

  “I did,” Tom replied, glancing at Wes before easing around Cindy to wash his hands. “You still talking about that kid? Do I have to go over this again? Eight months, Wes. You’re gonna throw Roger out the damn window for some hot boy in a tight shirt and baggy jeans? Don’t get me wrong, Nathan’s a great guy, I love him to death, but what about the other guy you’re already dating? Are you just gonna dick him over because you and Nathan got a groove on when you were drunk?”

  “I wasn’t drunk.” Wes leaned back against the counter and watched Tom pick out a few more beer cans from the sink. As he tossed them into the trashcan, Wes said, “He went to my high school—”

  “Oh, you hear that, honey?” Tom asked. Wes didn’t like the sarcastic tone in his friend’s voice; neither did Cindy, because she glared at Wes. See what you’ve started? that look asked. “He’s saying if Sheila Simmons shows up I can kiss on her for a while, cause you know she went to my high school, right?” When Wes sighed, Tom prompted, “That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Wes said with a pout. What could he say to make them see how much he’d always wanted Nathan? How every guy he’d ever been with at college were only cheap imitations of the real thing? Thin guys with long brown hair that hid their faces, guys who liked Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, basketball, 70s rock? And none of those relationships had ever worked out—they’d all left him disenchanted because they weren’t Nathan, they could never be him.

  And what would his friends say if they knew last night wasn’t the first time he had hooked up with the guy? He hadn’t really dated Nathan in high school—they’d barely known each other, hadn’t shared any classes, hadn’t even had the same circle of friends. Wes had known Nathan from the halls and the basketball games, which he’d attended just to see him play. That thick hair worn back in a sweaty ponytail…Wes could close his eyes and still remember the way that hair bobbed against Nathan’s back, half-obscuring the number 23 on his basketball jersey as he dribbled the ball across the length of the gym.

  It was a crush, nothing more. The only reason they’d gotten together on prom night was because Nathan had gone with a friend of Wes’s date, that was it. They’d sat at the same table and as the evening progressed, Wes had grown more bold by the night and the music and the guy of his schoolboy dreams beside him, laughing at his jokes, looking at him, for once in his life, seeing him. He’d had Nathan’s full attention, for that brief moment in time, and had basked in the spotlight of those gray-green eyes. One thing had led to another…

  Wes watched Tom clean out the sink. If I’d only told him then. Didn’t he say that last night? If I’d only said something, told him how I felt, maybe we could’ve been more to each other. And then maybe we would be more now and Roger wouldn’t even be in the picture.

  “Well?” Tom asked.

  Wes pulled his mind out of the past to focus on the present, the here and now, a life without Nathan.

  A look of concern flickered across his friend’s face. “What are you saying?”

  “Forget it,” Wes told him.

  “Good idea,” Cindy declared. When Tom opened his mouth to say something else, she kicked his shin. “Hello? We’re dropping the subject.”

  “I’m not done…” Tom sidestepped to avoid her foot a second time.

  “Yes, you are.” Before he could argue, Cindy asked, “Did you finish cleaning up that bathroom floor yet?”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “You’re getting me in trouble here,” he muttered as he passed Wes on the way out of the kitchen. Once he was out of reach, he called back, “Did you finish cleaning up that garden yet?”

  “They’re your friends, Tom,” Cindy warned. “Bunch of slovenly pigs. Don’t make me…”

  The bathroom door slammed shut and she laughed. Lowering her voice to an intimate level, she asked Wes, “So, you were saying?”

  “About?” Wes asked, a little confused by how fast she switched back to their previous conversation.

  Cindy leaned beside him on the counter. “Nathan,” she said. Then, with a smile, she explained, “Tom’s just a little miffed right now. Don’t worry about him. He thinks Roger will find out you were sucking face with someone else and come kick his ass just because it happened at his party.” Narrowing her eyes, she added, “He’s not like that, is he?”

  “Who, Roger?” Wes asked. When Cindy nodded, he shrugged. He hoped not, at any rate.

  “Nathan needs someone,” Cindy told him. “He’s a great guy—”

  Wes gave her a shy grin. “I know.”

  “And don’t tell Tom,” she said, lowering her voice, “but part of me is glad you two got together, you know? Just because he needs someone.”

  Then she slapped his arm, hard. “But what the hell were you thinking?” she cried, hitting him again. Wes ducked out of reach. “You didn’t even tell him—”

  “I wanted to!” Wes managed to get the trashcan between them and used it to keep her at bay. “Cindy, I did, honest! I was going to tell him when he came back but Roger wanted to go and I didn’t get a chance…”

  Cindy shoved the trashcan against him. “That’s no excuse,” she told him, eyes flashing. “First time he gave you that look, you should’ve said hold up. I got a man—”

  With a laugh, Wes sang, “What’s your man got to do with me?”

  “This isn’t funny!” Cindy shrieked, but she started to giggle, too. “Wes, stop. This really isn’t funny. What about Roger?”

  What about him?

  But Wes sobered up and nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know, Cindy, okay? I know.” He sighed. “Hell, who am I kidding? I’m sure Tom told Nathan about him—”

  “He did,” Cindy said with a nod.

  “And I’m sure Nathan’s pissed to all hell,” Wes continued. Just thinking about it made him sad and lonely. “I’m sure he never wants to see me again—”

  Cindy laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

  When Wes frowned at her, she crooked her finger and leaned over the trashcan, motioning for him to do the same. As he leaned close, the bottles beneath them reeking of stale beer, she whispered, “He called this morning, right before you did. Wanted Tom to give him your number.”

  Wes felt his heart skip a beat. “You’re shitting me.” She shook her head. “What did Tom say?”

  “He hung up on him. That’s why he’s still pissed about the whole thing.” With wide eyes, she pleaded, “Please don’t mention it to Tom, okay? Don’t tell him I told you.”

  “I won’t,” Wes promised.

  But his mind whirled out in a blur of amazement. He called? For my number? Wes couldn’t stop grinning.

  Chapter 11

  But Cindy wouldn’t give him Nathan’s number. “I can’t,” she said, finishing the dishes. She handed the plates to Wes as she cleaned them, and he dried them off with a damp towel, then stacked them to one side of the counter because the dish drainer was already filled with cups and glasses. “Tom’s right, you’re with Roger…” She glanced up at him, a worried expression on her face. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of throwing that away. I mean, Nathan’s nice and all, but you don’t really know him—”

  “We went to high school together,” Wes reminded her. He set another plate aside and waited for her to hand him the next one. “I’m not saying I’m going to get with
him.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  When he shrugged, she leaned over the sink and let the running water rinse the suds from her hands. “Tom would have a fit if he knew I was even talking to you about this. You don’t go kissing on one guy when you’re supposed to be dating another.” Frowning at him, she asked, “Are things okay between you and Roger? I mean, it’s not my business, but if you’re so eager to hook up with someone else then maybe—”

  “Things are fine.” But Wes didn’t meet her gaze, and he didn’t sound very convincing, even to himself. He wiped down the counter so he wouldn’t have to see the reproach in her eyes. If things are fine, then why did you let Nathan get as far as he did last night? And why are you even thinking about calling him? You know you’re not going to. You can’t. God, what would Roger say if he ever found out about that? “I’m just…forget it, okay? Forget I even mentioned it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Cindy agreed. Turning off the water, she sighed. “If you weren’t with him, and for so long, if that wasn’t the case, you know I’d be calling Nathan up for you, right? I’d so try to get him with you.” With a wink, she added, “I don’t think I’d have to try all that hard, either.”

  Wes smiled as he picked at the fraying edges of the towel and wondered if eight months were really all that big a deal anyway. Nathan seemed willing to give him a chance; despite the fact that Tom had told him about Roger, he still called looking for a way to get in touch with Wes. With him…Wes couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that.

  When he realized Cindy was waiting for him to say something, he murmured, “I just want to tell him about Roger myself. Tell him I’m sorry for…I don’t know, for leading him on last night, I guess. I think he should at least hear it from me.”

  “Yes, he should.” Before he could say anything else, Cindy took the towel from him and dried her hands. “But I’m not giving you his number. I can’t go around on Tom like that.”

  “I know,” Wes sighed.

  Tom was right. Wes didn’t need to talk to Nathan again, or see him, or even think about the way he tasted or the way it felt to be in his arms. Who was Wes kidding? He was with Roger, had been for almost a year. He already had a guy who needed him. There should be nothing to waver over, right?