by Jerry Cole
Jason sighed. “It was a kiss,” he said. “Just a kiss. Not a big deal.”
Tee raised her eyebrows. “A kiss? Do I know him?”
Jason nodded. “Kind of. I think he’s been in one of your classes.”
“The man — the one that thought he was coming to your class the other week but only made it in time for mine?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, grinning. “He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”
Tee nodded. “He’s not just gorgeous, though. That’s Taylor Henshaw.”
Jason cocked his head. “Who?”
“Taylor Henshaw!”
“Is he like, famous or something?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, you’re so clueless. He’s an athlete!”
“Not surprised, but like —”
“No, he’s like, on the roster,” she said. “Of the football team?”
“He’s a — he’s a gator?”
“Yeah, not just a gator,” she replied. “He’s like in line for being Tim Ross, dude.”
“What? No —”
“Tim Ross is a quarterback,” said someone from the door. Tee and Jason both turned to look at Taylor, who had an amused smile on his face. “Though I really do appreciate the compliment.”
“Oh God,” Jason said, his eyes widening. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Only long enough to be flattered,” Taylor replied, winking at him. “But I’m not a QB. I’m never going to be as important as Ross.”
“Don’t say that,” Tee replied. Jason noticed that she was blushing, and he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. Tee was beautiful, and there was no way that Taylor hadn’t noticed her. “Big teams are after you.”
Taylor shrugged. “I guess,” he said. Then he turned away from her and smiled at Jason. “I came here a little early, and then I was standing outside, feeling like an idiot. I thought I would come in here and say hello. So… hello.”
“Hello,” Jason replied, looking at him and biting his lower lip. “You didn’t tell me you were famous.”
“I’m not,” Taylor said. “Really.”
“You’re pretty much as famous as it gets in this town,” Tee said.
Jason glared at her. Tee seemed to catch on because she laughed and then she excused herself. They both watch her close the double glass doors behind her, then Taylor looked back at Jason.
Jason looked at the floor. “I don’t normally talk about you when you’re not there.”
“Stop,” Taylor said, laughing. “You’re hurting my feelings.”
“I’m serious, Taylor,” Jason said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Taylor cocked his head, furrowing his brow and moving so that he was closer to Jason. So close that he wouldn’t have to move just to kiss him again. Jason had to stop himself from doing it, though he found it hard. The draw to Taylor’s lips was almost irresistible.
“What would I have told you?”
“I don’t know,” Jason replied. “That you were someone important.”
Taylor laughed. “Everyone’s important, Jason.”
“No, I know that,” Jason replied, his cheeks crimson red. “I just meant, like, why didn’t you tell me you were someone important in town?”
Taylor laughed again. “When would I have brought it up?”
“I don’t know. That seems important, too.”
Taylor bit his lower lip. “I’ll tell you now?”
“That sounds good,” Jason said. “You said you hurt your arm. Was that when you were playing football?”
“Yes,” he said. “I told you it was a sporting accident, right?”
“Yeah,” Jason replied. “You didn’t say it was during a pro-am event, though.”
Taylor shrugged.
“What else don’t I know about you?”
Taylor shrugged. “You’re going to have to wait to find out.”
“I am, aren’t I? I’m looking forward to it,” Jason said.
“Me too,” Taylor replied. Then he frowned and rubbed his temple. “But there’s something I want to ask you. And I don’t want you to feel like this means anything, because it doesn’t. But this is really new for me, so it’s something that I hope you’ll respect.”
“Is it a sex thing? Because I’m open-minded,” Jason replied, winking at him.
Taylor blushed at that, even before all the words came out of Jason’s mouth. He looked so adorable when he was embarrassed, Jason wanted to keep talking about sex. To embarrass Taylor. Well, mostly to embarrass Taylor. He had other things in mind, but those things would have to wait. At least until after class.
Preferably until their date. If Jason could hold off that long.
“No, it isn’t a sex thing.”
“Boo,” Jason said, quietly. The smile was still on his face. “So what is it, then? If it isn’t a sex thing?”
“It’s a — okay,” Taylor replied, dropping his voice so it was barely above a whisper. “You know how your friend said I’m a celebrity? Which I’m not, by the way.”
Jason nodded, looking right at Taylor. At his lovely mouth, the way it moved when he talked. Would it be okay for Jason to kiss him right then and there? Would Taylor kiss him back? Taylor was the one who had kissed him in the first place and it had been incredible then. Jason had no reason to think that it wouldn’t be incredible if he kissed him now. All he had to do was inch a little closer…
“Jason,” Taylor said, not making any move to kiss him back. Or to move away from him. Jason’s eyes shot open, though he wasn’t sure when he had closed them. His gaze settled on Taylor, who looked unsteady. “I’m serious about this.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” Jason said, moving back. He was suddenly feeling very self-conscious. And stupid. And guilty that he had tried to kiss Taylor when Taylor was trying to tell him something important.
“I know, but — you’re kind of all up in my face when I’m trying to talk to you.”
“Sorry,” Jason said, taking a couple of steps back.
Taylor looked at him and sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jason looked back at him, not saying anything. His heart was beating so fast in his chest that he wasn’t sure how he was going to teach class. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do anything.
“I — right, so people kind of know me in this town,” Taylor said, again. “And this is something that’s very new for me. And I don’t want word to get around about it before I, you know, process it.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed as he appraised Taylor. Maybe for what felt like the first time since he had first seen Taylor, his judgment wasn’t being clouded by lust. It wasn’t that Taylor wasn’t gorgeous — he was. Undoubtedly, incredibly, ridiculously gorgeous. But he looked upset and sad, and Jason was starting to feel it, too. Because whatever Taylor was about to tell him, he knew that it was going to come between them. That it already had.
“Uh huh,” Jason said, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to keep his voice steady.
“And because of that, I don’t want anyone to know yet,” Taylor replied. “Not before — not before I get a chance to kind of gather my thoughts about it and decide how I feel about it myself, you know? It’s nothing personal. It’s about me, not about you.”
“So, just to clarify, you would have rather I didn’t tell Tee about the kiss?”
“No, I — I mean, I didn’t tell you not to say anything to anyone about it, so of course you had every right to talk about it,” Taylor said. “You have every right to talk about your life. With anyone that you see fit. It’s just, this is about me, and I’m still figuring it out. So I would like to make sure that people don’t know or ask me about it before I know what to tell them. Does that make sense?”
“I — I guess,” Jason replied. He checked his wrist, realized he wasn’t wearing a watch, then crossed the room to look at the time on his laptop. “Class is about to start. We can talk about this some other time.”
“Jason,” T
aylor said. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I just —”
“Don’t forget to give me your ticket before you leave class,” Jason said. He didn’t want to hear anything else from Taylor’s mouth. Just the sound of his voice was putting him on edge and he had already disappointed his class enough. He didn’t want to let them down again that day. He opened the double glass door to greet a chattering group of girls, smiling at them when they smiled at him.
“Hey, ladies. Come on in,” he said.
Someone started to talking to him. He tried to concentrate on her, instead of the fact that Taylor was probably still watching him. He had a class to teach and he wouldn’t let Taylor interfere with that.
Chapter Seventeen
Taylor hadn’t realized that what he was about to say would hurt Jason’s feelings that much, but as soon as the words had come out of his mouth, he regretted saying them. He didn’t need to talk to Jason about it in the first place. This was his own problem to solve and Jason had been burdened by it for no reason. Because Taylor wasn’t mature enough to deal with his problems by himself, probably.
He hadn’t meant to scare Jason. He just needed him not to tell, not yet. Jason had been a consummate professional during class, barely turning to look at him, winking at a couple of his classmates. If there was anyone that understood the power of endorphins, it was Taylor. But he still couldn’t help but feel a little stab of pain in his chest when Jason turned to look at him, frowned and then turned back to the rest of his class. Taylor knew that he shouldn’t have said anything, but when he has overheard Jason talking to the Pilates teacher, his heart had dropped. He knew that he could trust Elliot to keep a secret, but everyone else on the team would probably not be as cool. And as progressive as the town was, word would eventually get back to his father. And not everyone back in Texas was as progressive. Definitely not his father.
He should have said that to Jason, instead of insisting that things had to be kept a secret between them. Of course Jason would be mad and disappointed. He waited until everyone had left class before he walked up to Jason. He had spent all class trying to form an apology in his head, one that both justified Taylor’s actions and made Jason see that it had never been about him.
But as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, Jason held one hand up. They were alone, Taylor had patiently waited until everyone had left, and though Jason could have made his escape at any time with one of them, he had chosen to stay and listen to Taylor. Which was encouraging, regardless of the circumstances.
“I’m so sorry,” Taylor said.
Jason shook his head, looking at his hand as though Taylor hadn’t seen it. “It’s okay,” Jason said. “But it made me realize something.”
“No,” Taylor replied, shaking his head. He had some idea of where this was going and he didn’t like it. Any of it. If only he had kept his mouth shut…
“Look,” Jason said. “I understand that for you, this is a new thing. I do. You didn’t have to spell that out for me because I would have understood it anyway. What I don’t get is why you think it’s okay to inflict that on me. I’m not ashamed of who I am, Taylor, and you would have to drag me kicking and screaming back in the closet before I went there voluntarily. And if that’s too much, if you can’t deal with that, that’s okay. You can walk away now and we can say hi to each other when we see each other on the street. I can respect that. But asking me to keep —”
“Just me,” Taylor said. He felt a lot like crying, but he couldn’t cry in front of Jason. “Only me. Not you, not your life. I mean, what if it didn’t work?”
Jason shrugged. “Maybe I was wrong,” he said, more to himself than to Jason.
“About what?”
“Maybe you didn’t feel the sparks I felt when we kissed,” Jason said. “And, again, that’s okay. You didn’t have to feel them. That’s not something you have to do or that you need to feel, too. I mean, I thought you had from the way that you acted, but the point is that it’s fine that you didn’t. It’s fine. I don’t resent you for it or anything. I just wish I would have known, because I was starting to get my hopes up and be all giddy like a little kid.”
Taylor shook his head, sighing. “It was just one thing, Jason.”
“It was just one thing to you,” Jason replied. “But do you really think I haven’t gone out with straight dudes before?”
He made air quotes around the word straight and Jason felt his heart sink into his stomach. “I didn’t mean —”
“Look,” Jason said. “You don’t have to go out with me. You don’t have to see me. You don’t have to talk to me. You can come to my class, check me out and go home. You are absolved of any responsibility you may feel about or toward me.”
Taylor chewed on the inside of his mouth. “That’s not fair.”
“Oh, it isn’t, is it? Because I know how this story goes, Taylor. First, it’s ‘don’t tell my friends, I haven’t come to terms with it yet’, which is fine. It’s not an unreasonable demand. So, I don’t tell your friends, but I also don’t tell my friends, and they keep trying to set me up with men they know. Good men, Taylor. Men that may want me. That may want to hold my hand out in public, given the chance. Men who would be happy to be by my side.”
“Jason —”
It didn’t matter that Taylor had interrupted him. Jason continued as if he had never heard him. “And then, what happens after that? How many months does it take for you to feel comfortable in your own skin? It’s a lot of fucking work, this, you know. Being queer sucks. It sucks.”
“I didn’t —”
“And you know what we have, in between all the shit we have to face every day? Do you know what that is, Taylor?”
“N - no?” Taylor replied, weakly. He was feeling a little faint, and he didn’t like it. The way that Jason was looking at him, the fire in his eyes. That wasn’t the same fire Taylor had seen before. It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t friendly, and it didn’t indicate that he wanted Taylor. Probably for good reason.
They hadn’t even been on one date, and Taylor had already managed to fuck everything up.
“Each other,” Jason said. “We have each other. We have the people we love, the people that surround us and love us. And I’m not interested in you fulfilling your curiosity with me before you have your fill and you’re like ‘well, I’m straight. Bye!’”
“That’s not — that’s not going to happen,” Taylor said, his voice shaking. “That’s not fair. I would never do that to you.”
“And what happens after that,” Jason said, ignoring Taylor’s attempt at reassuring him. “What happens after that is that you tell me you can’t introduce me to your father. You can’t introduce me to your brothers or sisters. Or worse, you do, but you bring me over and pretend I’m your friend.”
“I wouldn’t —”
“You would,” Jason said. “Because let’s face it, you’re talking to your roommate about this, so you’re not as ashamed of me around your peers. This is about your family.”
Taylor shook his head, swallowing. He didn’t like being read this well by someone that he barely knew. It made him feel vulnerable, but also dirty.
Jason’s shoulders dropped as he took a deep breath. “Look, I get it,” Jason said.
“You do?”
“Yes,” Jason replied. “I was — it was hard for me with my family, too. Really hard. But it was also something I needed to do for myself. Yes, I didn’t know how they’d react, but I didn’t drag some poor boy along with me. And guess what, Taylor? That’s what you’re doing. That’s literally what you’re doing right now. And I’m not going to be that person. I’ve been that person before and I’m never going to be that person again. Do you understand that?”
Taylor nodded, slowly, deliberately. He didn’t want to upset Jason further. He wanted to reassure him, tell him that it wasn’t what he was thinking. But it was and saying otherwise would have been a lie.
A lie he really wanted to tell, but he knew that he shou
ldn’t. And it was killing him to hold back. If he could just reassure Jason, then maybe everything would be okay. He opened his mouth to do that, but all that came out was a feeble, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be,” Jason said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t mean you’re not a good or decent person. You’re a good man, Taylor Henshaw. You’re just not boyfriend material.”
“I can prove it to you,” Taylor replied. “I can.”
“Don’t bother,” Jason said, twisting his lips. “The date is off. I can’t do this.”
“Jason —”
Jason grabbed the stuff he had been packing up, put his backpack on and made his way to the door. Taylor watched as the door closed behind him.
“Hey,” Tee said, walking in as soon as Jason had left. “Is everything okay?”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah,” he said, not looking at her. He was going to ask her to keep the kiss to herself, too, but it felt wrong then. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure? Do you want me to talk to —”
“What are you going to say? He’s really good at football?”
“No?” Tee said. “I don’t know. But you seem a little crushed.”
Taylor sighed. “Honestly, I deserve it.”
She didn’t say anything to that. She just looked out the door, where Jason had left. “He’s a good man,” she said. “Just takes things a little personally. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Taylor rubbed his temple. “Okay,” he said.
He wasn’t convinced, and he was sure that he didn’t seem convinced, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to deal with Tee. He didn’t want to deal with anyone. He wanted to crawl into bed and forget that he existed. But there was something that he needed to do first.
Chapter Eighteen
Taylor kind of hoped that his father wouldn’t pick up the phone, but he also knew that would never happen. His dad always answered the phone to him, no matter what he was doing. Taylor thought it had something to do with guilt, but he didn’t ask and his father didn’t offer to tell him his motivations.