by J. M. Lamp
“I really like helping people,” he says. “Going overseas years ago was the best thing I had ever done. I saw what it meant to the kids and there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. I need something like that again; something fulfilling and meaningful. I need something where I have no doubt that I’m making a difference.”
“Run an organization. With all your experience I’m sure you could find the backers and do something life changing.”
“I’ll look more into it when we get back,” he says. “That or maybe I should just not teach college in general. I could always step down to something else.
He takes a drink of water and a huge grin shines across his face from ear to ear.
“What?” I ask, smiling.
“I’m just thinking about things,” he says. “Specifically this morning before I left.”
I situate my legs as I feel my pants stiffen. The thought of Will’s mouth all over my cock makes me want to take him in the bathroom here and now. He notices me switch positions and lets out a laugh.
“I’m glad you think me being hard right now is so funny,” I say, laughing.
“I find it flattering.”
“We have had a lot of sex this weekend,” I say. “Not that I’m complaining, but I’m pretty wore out.”
“Guess the job is getting done then.”
“Done very, very well,” I say.
***
We eat our food and make our way to the airport. We drop the car off at the rental facility next door and walk the rest of the way to the entrance doors.
We sit down to wait it out until our flight leaves and my leg is anxiously moving up and down.
“Chill,” Will says, putting his hand on my knee. “It will be fine.”
“I know,” I say, swinging my head back. “But you never know.”
“What time are you guys having dinner tonight?”
“Around seven,” I say, taking out my phone and confirming the text from Ethan. “It’s going to be exhausting.”
“Why?” Will asks with a laugh.
“They’re all nosey as hell. They mean well, but they’ll badger me until I tell them everything I did.”
“All three of them seem amazing. Well, I haven’t really met Ethan yet.”
“Maybe us three can have dinner this week,” I say.
“Yes please,” he says.
Minutes go by and they finally announce our flight is boarding. Will is more quiet than usual and I’m sure it is because of last night.
“Are you OK?” I ask him as I sit down from putting my carry-on in the overhead storage.
His eyes shift from the window to me and he shifts his body toward me all together.
“I still feel weird about last night,” he says, looking down at my hands and back up to my face.
“I told you it’s fine,” I say.
“No,” he says, “it isn’t.”
I grab his hand and cup it between mine and say, “Will, we’ve only known each other a few weeks. I’m perfectly fine with getting to know you little by little, more and more each day. With that, I don’t have to know every single thing immediately. I’m patient.”
“Just tell me when you’re ready,” I say. “Once you’re comfortable enough with me and can handle saying it.”
“Okay,” he says with a smile.
***
“So, twelve inches, right?” Ethan spits out while practically deep-throating his fish sandwich.
Sam couldn’t make it because he had a last-minute meeting with a client about finalizations on a book cover that he designed so I have the pleasure of the Alexander-twins.
“I can’t believe you had sex with him already,” Hadley mumbles just loud enough for me to catch every word.
“I couldn’t help it,” I say, laughing. “The worst thing with someone is sexual-tension.”
“But you’ve only known him for a few weeks and it’s not like he is a random hook-up for you,” she says. I look from her to my food and she puts her fork down. “All I’m saying is every relationship that I have had where I had sex with the guy in less than four weeks has never worked out for me.”
“You also prefer sleeping with your gun compared to a person,” Ethan says, sitting his fork down to catch his breathe. “I think it’s awesome, El. I wouldn’t have been able to make it past week one.”
“Speaking of, how’s Paul?” Hadley says, resting her chin on her cupped hands.
“I don’t know,” Elliot says with a mouthful of fries. He leans back in his chair and folds his arms behind his head.
He swallows and says, “He’s a good lay, but he really is stupid. God wasn’t thinking when he made something that beautiful yet so dumb.” He sits straight again and focuses back on his food. “I think I want more to be honest.”
I look at Hadley and I can feel a spaghetti noodle fall right out of my mouth just as her mouth slowly widens as well.
“Like a relationship or just a smarter person?” I ask him.
“Both,” he says.
“What?” he says, as we both look from each other to him.
“Just weird to here you say is all,” Hadley says with a laugh.
Ethan looks over at me and his face is serious.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“I just think it’s time I move on from everything that happened. It’s been awhile and I need to move on from it.”
“You can’t force the healing of that, though,” Hadley says.
“But I at least need to try,” he says.
His eyes start to moisten and for the first time in years, I see Ethan drop to a new level of vulnerability that he isn’t used to being in.
“Sorry,” he says. “I just made things awkward for no reason.”
He pushes his plate to the side and crosses one leg over the other, leaning on the table. “So, back to William.”
“What about him?” I say, laughing.
“What all did you guys do?” Hadley asks me. “Besides sex.”
I take a minute to think about what I want to say because the first thought that enters my mind is Will’s breakdown at dinner. Most people don’t start relationships off with random and awkward events like the one we had and I’m not sure how they will react to it.
But it doesn’t matter what they think.
“It was great,” I say. “Last night was different, though.”
Hadley raises her eyebrows and Ethan looks over to the bar-area at a group of suited gentleman who are either playing dress-up or had a late Sunday meeting.
“I think Will has a past that he isn’t ready to tell me about yet.”
“I could do some digging on him,” Hadley says, eyes focusing in on my every word.
“No,” I say. “I mean, it’s not like he used to do drugs or was an alcoholic or killed someone kind of past. It’s about his ex.”
Ethan reverts his attention back to me and rests his head on his left hand.
“Still isn’t over him?” he asks.
“He died,” I say. I see Hadley shift in her seat and a hint of a frown grows over her face. Ethan looks down at the table and then looks back up to me. “A car accident I guess. He was getting into telling me, but the waitress there interrupted him before he could get it all out and I could see he was feeling nervous about it.”
“I mean,” Hadley starts, “this just randomly came up or what?”
“He had a panic attack while we were eating.”
Ethan laughs and I look up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, stopping himself, “really, that isn’t funny, but it’s just surprising that’s all.”
“That he has panic attacks?”
“I see people like Will who are extremely beautiful and are well-off career-wise and then you find out that they aren’t perfect and have feelings and such and it just confuses me.”
“You are beautiful and well-off career-wise and you are one of the most damaged people I have the privilege
of knowing,” I say with a smile.
“Touché,” he says.
“So you didn’t talk about it after that?” Hadley asks.
“No,” I say, “and that’s OK. I mean, we’ve only known each other a few weeks so I still have things to learn about him. A lot of things.”
Hadley looks at me and her face slowly morphs into a high-dimpled grin.
“What?” I say, twirling the spaghetti around on my fork.
“I just haven’t seen you this invested in awhile, and I like it.”
“It’s still early,” I say.
“But you like him,” she says. “You like him a lot. And I like him too, so that’s a plus.”
“He’s just different,” I say. “The comfort I feel with him is different than what I’m used to and I feel safe in his presence I guess.” I brush my fingers along the rim of my glass and feel the moisture suction into my pores. “I never felt like that with Drew. I mean, even in the early stages with him I never felt like I needed to be around him all that much. He was just a part of my life.”
“Maybe that’s why you weren’t as broken up when he left as you could’ve been,” Hadley says.
I look over at her and she pushes her plate to the side. The waitress brings over the checks and sits them down beside Hadley.
“I think you only cared so much when he left because of the way he did and not because you didn’t know how your life without him in it was going to be,” she says, handing me my bill. “I liked Drew, but I never understood it. You never looked at Drew the way I saw you look at Will that night at dinner.”
“I don’t look at Will any different,” I say, laughing.
“Yes, you do,” she says, smiling. “It’s almost child-like. You look at him in a way that I can only dream to look at someone one day.”
“Well if you would—“
“Shut up, Ethan,” Hadley says, throwing him his bill.
“When am I going to get the pleasure of properly meeting your boyfriend?” Ethan says.
“I told him maybe we could all do dinner this week sometime.”
“What about Friday and then I can drink too and really welcome him into our club?”
“Or you could not drink a lot and relax and remember meeting him the next day,” I say.
“Fine,” he says, signing his signature on his receipt. “Does he have any gay friends he can bring along?”
“I’ll ask him,” I say.
“Or a gay brother would be nice, too.”
“He doesn’t have one, bud.”
“Well, what the fuck. That’s not fair.”
“I know. The world is unfair sometimes.”
“Extremely,” he says.
***
“So, Friday?” I ask Will while washing the dishes from dinner the following night.
“What about it?”
“Are you busy?”
“Nope,” he says, grabbing my waist from behind. “Why, what’s up?”
He rests his chin on my shoulder and I can feel the tiny hairs from his beard prickling into my skin through my shirt.
“Dinner with my crew.”
“Your crew,” he says, laughing. “That sounds enticing.”
“I already basically set it up, so if you don’t go then you’ll look like a dick,” I say, rubbing the side of my head against his.
“Well then I have no choice,” he says, kissing my cheek.
Will walks back to the living room and sits down on the couch. The couch is black leather and makes a very small squeak when he sits down and I smile.
The counter tops in the kitchen are gray-marble and the cabinets are all a bright shade of white that gleam under the light.
My apartment still has the same things it had when I moved in years ago because I could care less, so being in Will’s makes me realize how little effort I’ve put in to making a home for myself where I live.
“How long have you been at this place?” I ask him, rinsing the last dish and putting it to the side.
“A little over a year,” he says.
I walk over to the couch and lay my head on his lap towards the TV.
“It’s really nice,” I say. “Way better than my place.”
“I hate renting,” he says. “I just haven’t really found a place I’d like to settle down in yet, though, as far as houses.”
“The thought of owning a house alone depresses me,” I say, moving my vision to his face.
He leans down and locks me in for a kiss, his hands on both sides of my face.
“Same,” he says.
“You’re cute.”
“I know,” he says.
“Have you seen your sister since you’ve been back?” I ask him, stealing the remote.
“Going over Thursday,” he says.
He runs his fingers through my hair and I close my eyes, imagining the two of us back by the beach, away from real life. Visions of the sun setting, Will’s head on my chest in the middle of the night and our bodies together that last night on the beach all cross my mind and I smile.
Will flips the channel and I hear shooting and a cop siren. My mind slowly goes to dinner that last night and his breakdown and the exhaustion on his face when he came out of it.
I shift off his lap and sit up rubbing my right eye.
“What’s wrong?” he says, confused.
I look at the TV and squint.
“Nothing,” I say, moving closer into him.
“Are you sure?”
I don’t want to bring it up because I told him I was patient and I am. It has bugged me ever since, though, because it affected him so much and I don’t know how to act with him about it. I turn my body towards him and bite my cheek in thought.
“What, Elliot?”
“I’m sorry,” I say with a small laugh. “I just can’t stop thinking about Saturday night.”
His face tightens and his skin starts to redden.
“I know,” he says.
He leans his head on his hand, his elbow resting in a dip on the side of the couch. He runs his fingers through his hair with his other hand and scratches his scalp.
“I’m sorry,” I say, moving in my seat. “This is rude of me.”
“No,” he says ,putting his hand on my shoulder. “It’s OK.”
He turns and faces me. I watch his chest slowly rise and fall as he, I imagine, attempts to calm his nerves.
“I was living in a house with Evan at the time. We had bought it about six months before the accident.” He locks eyes with me and then quickly looks away. “Evan was on his way back from Indiana visiting his mom. It was late and I knew he would get home after I had fallen asleep. I was tired and fell asleep on the couch with my phone by my head when I got the call from his mom.”
His eyes start to moisten and I sit my hands in his lap. He grabs them, enclosing them in his own and forces a small smile.
“He was about a half-hour outside of the city and a drunk driver had hit him head on.”
“I’m sorry, Will.” I pull him in closer and he leans his head on my shoulder.
“That isn’t the worst part of it all,” he says with a slight sob. He goes silent and his breathing slows down. I stiffen and slowly run my fingers through his hair.
“I got to the hospital just as they were bringing him in off the stretcher and I couldn’t even recognize him. He was screaming and—“
“It’s OK,” I say, lifting his face up to mine. “You don’t have to go into detail about it. You don’t have to relive it.”
He sits up, takes a deep breath, and wipes his eyes with his thumb and pointer-finger.
“It’s why I have my attacks. It’s why I used to have my attacks at least. I’d think about it before going to bed or if I saw his family. For the longest time, I couldn’t picture the real him. All I could see was the version of him after the wreck and it was like experiencing a non-stop nightmare in my mind.”
“What helped you?”
“A therapist,” he
says. “Went to a few meetings regarding loss. Not seeing his family helped, but that wasn’t fair to them. Basically I just tried to move on as best I could.”
“It might’ve been easier if you hadn’t done it alone,” I say.
“I know,” he says, turning his gaze towards me. “I saw his sister weeks ago at the store and it triggered it again. Just seeing her face made me see things I didn’t want to and I had to leave the store.”
I look from his eyes to his lips and then down to the floor.
He laughs and says, “I’m sure now I look like a relationship is the last thing I need.”
I move closer to him and lie between his legs, saddling up to his chest. I wrap his arms around me and say, “I think it may be exactly what you need.” He bends down, kisses the top of my forehead and lays his chin on my head.
I pull the throw blanket from the top of the couch and lay it over us, inhaling the scent of Will, and think about the comfort I feel in his arms. Weeks seem like months with Will and I don’t know whether to love that feeling or be afraid of it. What I do know is he opened up to me tonight and it brought us closer than we both probably realize in this moment.
Chapter Ten
Will
“I ’M JUST SURPRISED YOU told him already is all,” Lydia says, setting Abbey’s grilled cheese on the coffee table.
Abbey tears a piece off, forces it into her mouth with four fingers and then focuses her attention back to the TV where an animated cat and her dog friend are trying to find their squirrel friend.
Apparently, the dog says something funny in the mind of a two-year old and Abbey breaks out into giggles and looks over at me with a smile.
“It was bothering him not knowing.”
“And that’s a good reason to tell him? Because he was impatient?”
“No,” I say. “He was being patient and he still would’ve been. It’s better that I got it out.”
Lydia sits down in the chair opposite the couch where Abbey and I are and crosses one leg over the other.
“Well,” she says, “you seem happy today at least. Maybe relieved?”
“I just don’t know if what I need right now is another relationship.”