“Fuck you if you think what they’re doing is okay, you fat pig.”
Her husband takes a step forward. “You want to say that again?”
“Honey, it’s okay.”
“Bullshit, it’s okay. This asshole starts shit with these two and then has the nerve to say that shit to you?” He’s fuming, incredulous, a million other emotions all negative, passing over his face. All aimed at the asshole. “Seems he’s the one who shouldn’t be showing his face in public.”
Col and I can handle ourselves in a fight, but I wouldn’t want to mess with this guy. He looks big, tough and angry enough to put someone in the hospital, if not the ground. We kind of all stand around, holding our collective breaths, waiting to see what the asshole will do next. Which happens to be nothing. An anticlimactic ending for the situation. He spins away from us all, doing a fast-paced walk toward his car.
“Fuck all y’all,” he calls over his shoulder.
None of us make the move to leave, watching him go. Maybe waiting to see if he’ll make some other stupid decision before taking off. He doesn’t.
The giant of a man in front of me stands with one hand on his wife’s shoulder, the other he stretches out to me. He wants to shake my hand, so I do. “Sorry,” he then says, which confuses the hell out of me. Sorry for what? “Hope we didn’t embarrass you. Just, assholes like that make me so damn mad.”
“No. Thank you for stepping up. Helped defuse a situation which could’ve spiraled pretty quickly.”
“What kind of parents would we be?” The woman steps away from her husband to wrangle the children. “In our home, we try to teach acceptance.” She looks down quickly, like she thinks she might have overstepped. Not even. The woman and her family exemplify the meaning of humanity. Everyone should learn the plays from their playbook. Including me.
“We get judged all the time.” The mac truck continues for his wife, “Gone out to dinner with my family, been turned away because of my appearance. Kids snubbed at parties. Playgroups. And I know it’s different. I chose this. But intolerance is intolerance. Have a good rest of your day, though.” Then he turns to his family, and they walk together, toward a large silver pickup truck. One of those extended cabs.
Collin already sits behind the steering wheel when I climb into the seat next to his. I take his hand and turn to him. “You want to talk about it?”
“No. I want to forget it ever happened.”
“But Col—”
“No. It never happened, Kip.”
He turns on the radio, shutting me down. I cannot believe he’s really going to pretend like we weren’t just accosted. Since the beautiful, tortured soul leaves no room for argument, we spend the majority of driving time staring out the window (me) or humming along with whatever comes on the station (him).
Humming? All an act. More pretending for Collin Pratt. He hasn’t let it go. A wound sliced open in Col today. One he’ll let fester until the pain becomes too much to bear. Problem being I don’t know if it’ll happen today, tomorrow or a month from now.
“You’re still staying over?” he asks out of the blue.
“Do you want me to?”
“That was rhetorical, right?”
“Yes. I’m staying.” For as long as you want me, I don’t add, and laugh to myself. He’d wanted to stay in bed. I’d wanted our little field trip. Who should’ve listened to whom?
If a confrontation in a parking lot wasn’t enough, as clear as the roads were on the drive over, snow has started falling pretty heavily. Wind picking up, which is saying something, seeing as we were freezing our asses off from that arctic squall. Gray skies. Nasty weather slowing us from normal highway speeds to under a crawl. Maybe a creep.
“Think you’ll be hungry?” He asks, impatiently watching the other cars around us.
“You mean for food?” I run my finger down his shifting arm, my attempt to bring back some of our earlier levity.
Collin chuckles.
“That, too.” He flashes me his side smirk, the one which makes me instantly hard. Attempt officially backfired.
“Always,” I tell him, my voice sounding huskier than I mean it to. “I’m a growing boy.”
“Prove it.” Prove it? I’m not sure what he wants me to do, but I don’t have to because he knows exactly what he wants, rubbing his hand up my thigh, over my groin to flick the button on my jeans.
My heart stops. Oh yes, attempt officially backfired.
When he tugs the zipper, I close my eyes for a moment to collect myself.
He can’t really…
The feel of his hand dipping below the waistband of my briefs, fingers wrapping around the base of my cock.
Yep, really.
There he begins stroking me, stroking and stroking while I keep a death grip on each side of the seat because—Fuck, Collin. I’m two breaths away from telling him to pull into one of those rest stops to turn a hand job into a wild time for the both of us.
Cars keep passing us as he keeps stroking away. When a semi starts to pass, the driver looks down watching what Col’s doing to me, then honks his horn and winks. Forget merely hot, we passed hot with his hand down my pants. No, we’re talking the most erotic moment of my life.
“God, Col… I’m gonna—” No time to finish my thought before I erupt all over myself and the dashboard.
So that just happened.
Smooth.
Real fucking smooth.
Chapter 14
Collin
“Napkins in the glove box,” I tell him, but don’t wait for him to move.
Reaching over his lap, I open the compartment door. Kip hisses as my arm scrapes along the manliness he still hasn’t tucked back into his jeans. What the hell did I just do? The truck driver totally saw us. We could end up in jail for the stunt I pulled.
I hand him off a handful of napkins, keeping one to wipe myself down.
The roads have gotten so bad, maybe next time one of us should check the weather forecast before starting out on a trip. It’d be the smart thing to do. Though judging from our earlier escapade, no one could accuse me of doing the smart thing.
Fat snowflakes continue to hit the windshield, making visibility almost nonexistent. Like driving through fog, but snow.
By the time we make it back to Grand Rapids, not only are the roads bad, and regular visibility low, but night has fallen. What should have taken us just over two hours to get home had been so slow going, we rolled back into town at just over three.
Neither of us has talked since the napkins. I know I should say something. Like the coward I am though, I say nothing.
“Food?” he asks me, as if able to read my mind. Because Kip’s not a coward.
We stop for orange chicken before heading home.
Not like I think my home, just home. He’s fit himself so seamlessly into my life, my bed, I hardly know what to do or how to be around him. I had these parameters set in place to keep me from ever being caught off guard again. For almost three years those parameters haven’t failed me, yet Kip comes along and suddenly I’m the guy who’s holding his boyfriend’s hand and feeding him in public? Jerking him off in my car?
Let my shield down and look what happened. Caught off guard. I felt together physically sick and that I could honestly have ended the asshole’s life when I saw him touch Kip. You want to hurt me? Fine. I’ve been through it enough times. But not Kip. My angelic faced Kip is too good of a person. He’s strong, I have no doubt, he could hold his own in a fight. Someone like him shouldn’t have to. It scares me.
He deserves everything life has to offer—happiness, love, a home and family—though I’m not sure if I’m the man to give it to him.
The night Andrew died, the night his dad found out about us, the nicest words he had for me was that I’m selfish. I should have broken things off and let Andrew lead a normal life. Mr. Hayes was right. I was selfish then and should have broken things off with him. And I’m still selfish because I don’t want to let
Kip go.
How long can I keep up the act, though? Be this Collin, the one he so clearly wants me to be? One day off campus with me, and he gets attacked.
One. Fucking. Day.
“Hey baby, Col. You shutting down on me?”
The sound of his voice is enough for the time being to drag me out of my head. A voice I could listen to for the rest of my life, and it would never grow old.
We’ve stopped. Parked, in front of my apartment. The scary part is I don’t remember driving here and don’t know how long we’ve been sitting. And he’s waiting, like always, he’s waiting on me. I can’t have this conversation with him right now, the one he’s dying to have. Because answering him honestly will only lead to argument. So I do what I do best, fall back into predatory mode.
“Just thinking about what to do with you once we’re inside.”
The smile he tries to show falters. He sees through my bullshit but doesn’t call me on it, which is exactly what I need him not to do. Instead, he leans over kissing my cheek. A soft, chaste kiss. I don’t know, maybe even hurt. Can someone give a hurt kiss?
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go in.”
And I know I’ve made him sad, yet again. Since we’re back on campus now, I give him what I can of myself and grab his hand as we walk up to the apartment. I have to let go to unlock the door. That’s when I feel his kiss on the back of my neck.
He whispers, “We’re not wrong.”
Why did he have to say those words? Of all things. Throwing them back at me. Shit if I can’t even look at him. Running off to the bathroom like a coward and locking the door so he can’t force his way in.
Even splashing handfuls of water on my face does nothing to help. Tap water won’t wash away my sins. Won’t cure the evil, the selfishness staring back at me in the mirror above the sink. The reflection of a man who loves other men. The man responsible for killing Andrew. Maybe if he’d never met me, he’d still be alive studying sports medicine like he’d always wanted.
My knees buckle.
“Col.” He pounds on the door. “Col, unlock the door.”
He knows I’m not going to. I couldn’t move my feet if the place was on fire.
Kip has never taken no for an answer, though. There’s a sound of scraping, some jostling and the door pops. Of course he can pick a lock. What can’t he do?
Then he’s holding me. Those strong arms wrapped so tight around me, it’s exactly what I need because it feels like if he lets me go—no he doesn’t even have to let go, just loosen his grip—if he loosens his hold on me, I’ll evaporate into smoke and dissipate into nothingness. I think his arms are the only things keeping me sentient.
“Damn it, Col. We aren’t sick, or bad. There is nothing wrong with us.” His forehead is buried against my neck. He’s breathing, heavy and ragged.
Eventually he stands, leading me back into the bedroom where he helps me undress, not in any sexual way, just getting me comfortable and into bed, tucking the covers up around my shoulders. He leaves then, and I’m stricken. Is he coming back? I want to run out there but don’t think I could take it if he’s really left me, although it’s what I deserve.
About ten minutes passes. Seeing him come back into the bedroom with a tray of reheated orange chicken and a couple of beers from the fridge, I can hardly explain it. When I see him walk through the door it’s like I can breathe again. He didn’t leave me.
Kip sets the tray on the bed and undresses down to his boxer briefs. Then climbs in under the covers next to me.
“Eat,” he orders as he twists the cap off a beer, handing it over to me. He twists one off for himself, too.
“Kip, I—” He doesn’t let me even finish my thought, shutting me up with a powerful, hungry kiss.
“Eat,” he says again after pulling back.
We eat in relative silence, only the sounds of chewing passing between us. Gone, the light-hearted food sharing from the museum. Because of me. I brought us to the weird place we find ourselves. Kip has done nothing but try with me, and all I ever seem to give him is attitude and freak outs. He finishes before I do, watching me, watching his hands, the walls.
I’m finished. And put my chopsticks down.
“Sorry.”
“No. You sit tight, I’ll clean up.” Kip stacks our plates and empty bottles on the tray to take back to the kitchen. I hear the plates clinking. After a couple minutes he returns to the room and slides back into bed. “Remote?”
Handing him the remote from the bedside table next to me, he turns on the flat screen I have hanging on the wall to pick something from On Demand, without asking my opinion on the movie. Not like I care in the slightest, not when he tucks me under his arm so he’s holding me, resting my head against his collarbone. Once he has me where he wants me, Kip kisses my temple and shimmies to get comfortable.
Why can’t life always be as comfortable? Oh, yeah, because eventually we have to leave the apartment or campus. I turn just my eyes up at Kip to see he’s not paying any attention to me, engrossed in the movie.
How does he do it? After being physically attacked today, how does he let go enough to watch a movie?
Moreover, keep his confidence.
How is he so fine with who he is, knowing we’ll always be walking around with targets on our backs for assholes who want to hurt us for something as tame as holding hands? I honestly don’t get it, how he’s not more skittish or jaded. More like me.
“You’re staring. Watch the movie.”
“I’m not staring. I’m thinking.”
He pauses the movie and turns to face me. “So what are you thinking about looking at my face instead of the TV?”
“Just trying to figure you out.”
“Col, you don’t have to figure me, just ask. I’ll tell you anything.”
Okay. “How do you let it go? Keep all the shit from affecting you?”
“Right. Finally.” His fingers give a brief squeeze at my waist because he’s been waiting on me to talk for hours now, before he pivots us to facing so we can do it unencumbered. “Baby,” he starts, making maximum eye contact, the way he does. “Does wallowing in their shit change anything? Think if you feel bad enough you can feel the gay away?”
Trying like hell and failing to squirm away from his eyeball tractor beam, the one to pull honest answers out of me, I answer honestly. “No.”
“Ever tried guilting yourself into dating a woman?”
Again, “No.”
“Why not?” he asks, as if the answer isn’t completely obvious. To respond I cock my head and pin him with my “duh” look.
He’s right. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”
“I’m not about to waste my life apologizing for being me. Why should I want to be different? Because I really like where I am, lying next to you.”
“Fuck, man. I’m trying.”
“I know. Just while you’re trying, remember you don’t have to do it alone. I’m here—literally—right here next to you.”
Chapter 15
Kip
Col finally found rest. Tossing and kicking his legs fitfully for more than an hour before calming. With nothing for me to do but watch. The killer is I know he was dreaming about me. Calling my name, crying it out at least five times. “No, not Kip!” and “Don’t leave me, Kip.”
I’d been right here holding him while he dreamed about god knows what. Me dying? He was pretty shaken by the parking lot asshole punching me. We break up? Would I even be able to leave him?
When he rolls over wrapping his arms around my waist, leaning his head of soft, pale hair and beautiful face on my chest again, I’m one hundred percent sure of my answer. Being with Col, it has to be what Jake was talking about.
I never thought about ranking love before. But shit, I loved Jake. Could we have lasted? Maybe. And maybe we would have been happy. But with Collin, it’s exactly like Jake said. Exactly. I’d rather spend the rest of my life dealing with his issues than ever spend o
ne day without him.
For as long as he wants me is a moot point now because the man would destroy me if he ever let me go. Never thought I’d be in so deep with another person after the breakup with my first love. Funny how life works.
Huh, funny.
Lying next to my boyfriend, my phone flashes from the nightstand with a text from my sister: Call me. My two favorite people in the world. With me at his front, she has my back. And with Col calmed I’m able to take my phone and slip out from his arms into the hallway without worrying, dialing Kayna on my way to the living room.
“Hey,” she answers on the second ring. “I was hoping you’d be up.”
“Wasn’t sleeping.”
“Twin thing. Thought there was something wrong.”
“No. Not really. So what’s up, Kay?”
She pauses, releases a long breath and jumps right in, “I saw Jake again. Kip, he’s getting married.”
My sister worries too much about me. “I know.”
“You know?”
“He called me. When he got engaged.”
Silence.
I have to savor the moment. My sister stunned into silence. This is one for the calendar. She’s never silent.
“Very… big of him,” she finally says. “H-how are you really doing? Probably what I was feeling, then?”
“I told you I’m over it. Actually, I’m really happy for them. Darren makes him happy. Kay, you’ve got to let up. Quit giving him shit when you see him.”
“Don’t think I can. He drove you away. I’m miserable here without you. I miss my other half. Mom says you hardly call anymore. I feel like we’re losing you, Kip.”
“Shit. I’ll come for spring break, all right? I’ll make it happen. Promise.”
“How are you really doing with Jake?”
“I’m fine. More than fine. I was before, but Kay, I’m seeing someone. And it’s serious.”
“What? How long? Who? How could you not tell me?” She’s shouting and crying. I made my other half—no, oh my god, no—she’s not my other half. When did the changeover happen? We used to tell each other everything.
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