I ripped off my scarf and discarded it violently, and kicked off my boots so they slammed into the bookcase. Books and knick-knacks clattered in the rickety piece of furniture, and I had to bite my bottom lip to keep myself from tearing it apart. The negative energy was building inside of me until my brain presented only one way to release it: complete and utter destruction.
Holding myself still, I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my hands tighter.
I could calm down.
I could escape this nightmare merry-go-round thought process that everything I touched turned to shit.
I could let go of this anger, this hatred, without taking it out on my apartment.
I could—
He probably hates you.
“Fuck,” I shouted. “Fuck.”
Hands landed on my shoulders, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t heard Luis come in behind me, or the door creak open, over the freight train of negativity powering across my brain. Fuck a freight train, it was a tornado. Shrieking wind and destruction capable of making me spin out of control until there was nothing left in my wake but dust.
I opened my mouth to croak at him to just go. To go downstairs and not bother explaining to me how badly I’d ruined his plans. Our plans. Everything. That I already understood what would happen from here on out, and he didn’t need to explain why he didn’t want to deal with me anymore.
But the words wouldn’t come.
Luis wrapped his arms around me and yanked me to his chest. He was hugging me, but the drawstrings holding me so tight wouldn’t release. I stood there tense and stiff, staring blindly at the dancing boy figuring in the bookcase, as he squeezed me tight.
“Charles…” His voice was low, gravely. “I need you right now, baby. C’mon.”
My heart cracked in two.
I did not deserve him.
But because I was incapable of denying him, I turned to pull him into my arms. It was my turn to hug him as he released shuddering sighs and buried his face against my neck. To rub his back and try to think of comforting words. It failed. I couldn’t think of anything other than a plea for him to extradite himself from a relationship that, in my mind, would go downhill from here. My ability to function normally was apparently capped at a month or two, and now it was fucked.
He sighed slowly and leaned away so he could see my face. I tried to look away, but he captured my chin with one of his large hands and held me still. It was dark, but his scrutiny burned away all my armor. He could see through me, I was willing to bet. Past my looks and talent to identify the small scared person burrowed way down deep.
“We need to talk,” Luis said after a long silence. “For real.”
A chill swept through me. I managed a nod while shivering. “Okay.”
Luis propelled me away from the door and to my bedroom, not releasing me until the door was shut and we were sitting on the bed. He sat on the edge, twisted so we were facing, but I bowed my head to stare down at the chipped black nail polish on my fingers.
“Listen, I need you to look at me.”
I flinched, shoulders rising, and didn’t do any such thing.
“Charles.” He spoke my name like a command. An order to get my fucking shit together. “Dude, this isn’t you going through something. I’m the one who got fired. Not you.”
I bit my tongue so hard I tasted iron.
“This is the thing that’s getting me,” he said, voice steady and hard in the dark room. “I feel like shit right now, papa. And I know you do too, but this isn’t about just you and your feelings right now, so I’m gonna lay it down so you hear me.”
My breath picked up. I nodded. Kept staring at my fingers.
“I’ve had this endgame way before I met you, dude. I used to want to fight, yeah, but the idea of having my own place has been a tickle in the back of my mind ever since I saw how shitty Tony ran Cadet’s. It was always this maybe that seemed impossible. But guess what?” A rich sardonic laugh left Luis’ mouth. “I’m a fucking millennial, and I told myself I’d make that shit happen. So I got the certifications, and I figured out a way to make money. I sold out at Male Revue to make even more money, to speed this all up. And then I fell in love with you, couldn’t keep my hands off you, and threw that part of the plan away.”
It was true. And even though it was true, defensiveness ran up my spine like a spear someone had shoved up my ass. “Sorry I ruined it for you,” I said flatly. “I already—”
“No one is saying you did a fucking thing,” Luis snapped. “Look at me.”
I refused long enough for his arm to dart out and grab my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. My heart fell to my shoes. His eyes were red-rimmed in the darkness, his wide mouth pressed into a slash.
“I’m sorry,” I said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Luis dropped his hand abruptly. “This. Is. Not. About. You. Yeah, I saw you looking uptight and angry about me shoving my dick in some dude’s face, but you know what? I would have had the same reaction if I hadn’t expected it. I was the one who like, needed to reassure you by getting all up on you because, in case you misheard, I’m all in love with you.”
I flicked a glance up at him.
“I know it’s really fast for me to be saying that,” he said quickly. “But, fuck man, that’s how it feels. And everyone always says love makes people do mad stupid shit, so me deciding kissing all over you and messing around in the bathroom at work was worth the risk of getting fired is sure as hell a stupid thing.” A wry smile crossed his handsome face. He raised an eyebrow. “Do you not agree?”
I didn’t know what I agreed or disagreed with. I was hung up on him saying he loved me. On bloodshot eyes. That smile.
“How can you—” I cleared my throat and shook my head. “Why are you smiling? How is any of this funny?”
“Because it’s ridiculous,” he exclaimed. “Is this entire thing not totally absurd to you? We’re having a fight, or whatever this is, because I invited you to the strip club I work at then tried to de-jealous you by making out in the bathroom knowing damn well I’d get in trouble if the wrong person walked in. The guy who’d tried to get a lap dance from me walking in and throwing his own jealous fit just makes it even more weird and stupid.”
He was right. This was absurd. It was as unlikely and ridiculous as me walking in on him with my boyfriend, wanting to murder him, then falling for him a month or so later. Our entire relationship was one burlesque act after another.
“You’re not angry at me?” I asked quietly. “For luring you into the bathroom because I was jealous?”
“Oh, I’m pissed at you, but not for that.”
I balled my hands up again. “Then why?”
“Because, you were so busy worrying about how this situation would affect you that you totally forgot I was the one who just got fired—”
“That’s not true.”
“—and stormed up here without saying two fucking words to me. You didn’t even try to console me. I had to walk up here and console you.” Luis leaned forward, invading my space so that I could smell his cologne. That irresistible scent that turned me into a walking, talking Axe commercial where the smell of a man made me want to get naked. “We talked about this before, and you did it again.”
“I know!” I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep shaky breath. “I don’t know what to do sometimes, Luis. I just don’t know how to handle things, so I run away. And you told me you understood. You told me—”
“I do understand, but there’s a difference between you asking me for a moment and you closing the door in my face when I need you! The way you shut me out when you’re feeling some type of way is really fucking cold, Charles. And if anything makes me want to walk away from you, it’s the fact that you knew I was feeling like shit and still chose to ghost on me with zero words.”
I watched him and waited for more. More justifiable descriptions about my failings as a boyfriend. About my selfishness. I waited for his
anger and disappointment. I waited for the moment where I’d either fly into a defensive rage or feel like crawling in a hole with my head in the sand to deal with the fact that I’d fucked up yet again.
Luis searched my face, anxiousness making itself evidence in his own, and frowned. It was that slight downward curve of his generous mouth that snapped me out of my slide down a shitty spiral.
He wasn’t Landon.
He wasn’t going to spend the next two hours reaming me.
He was just as freaked out as I was.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, louder this time. “I don’t know how else to explain except to say that I’m so used to a fight or a misunderstanding or a mistake turning into a disaster that my first response is to run and hide.” The roiling in my stomach calmed as he nodded and watched me, his hands reaching out to grip mine. “And I know you’re not Landon. I fucking know that. But my relationship with Landon was the only real relationship I’ve ever had, and ninety percent of that was him making me feel like shit. I got into the habit of wanting to escape at the first sign that I’ve fucked up or let someone down.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong at the club,” Luis insisted. “It was my choice to start that. I wanted you. I always want you.”
“And I always want you,” I said with a harsh laugh. “That’s why I was like livid at the thought of anyone else touching you. God, I was so angry. And I knew it was ridiculous but I couldn’t stop being angry. It was almost like… like I couldn’t talk myself out of thinking about all the ways you could hook up with someone else even though my actual brain kept trying to remind me that you would never do that.”
“So, you trust me?” Luis brought my hand up to his mouth, kissing the knuckles. “Or you trust me but don’t trust yourself about whether having faith in some dude you just met a couple months is a good idea?”
I winched, but nodded at the latter. “Is that shitty?”
“It hurts a little, but after everything, I get it. I’m not trying to tell myself that us being together is going to magically put Band-Aids on everything that’s happened to you in the past several years.” Luis raised our locked hands to press them against my chest. “Those battle scars are gonna be there for a long time.”
“They are. And I’m not always going to react the way someone else would. Or the way you would. I’m going to do things that seem irrational or rash or plain-ass fucking stupid.” I scanned his expression again, pessimistically searching for a sign that he wasn’t as understanding as this whole conversation felt, but found nothing. “I’m sorry that me being this way hurts you, but you have to know that’s the last thing I want. I…” I love you too. “I… I’m still trying to adjust to being with someone who isn’t a total nightmare.”
“I get it, Charles. I really do.”
If Luis was disappointed in my lack of a declaration, he didn’t show it. Maybe he hadn’t expected one. Maybe he hadn’t even wanted one. Maybe he didn’t need one. There was a chance he had no qualms about throwing his feelings in the air while expecting nothing in return. I wasn’t like that. Even now, with his words branding my heart, I was on guard.
“Charles, I just need you to try something for me, okay?” Luis scanned my face and seemed to choose his words carefully. “When you feel like you need to run and hide, will you give me a heads up? A simple warning. I don’t know what you’re thinking or feeling, baby. For all I know, you’re pissed at me, or scared about something, and I have no way to figure it out.”
“What if I make that promise and then I’m so far gone that I can’t?”
“I’m just asking you to try,” Luis said. “And I’ll try on my end too. To give you space when you ask for it, and to stop running from my own problems in the Bronx.”
I put a hand over my eyes. “That’s what I want or expect. You don’t have to go back there.”
“I do, though. That’s my home. My people are there.” Luis flopped back onto the bed, sighing. “And this whole conversation just reminds me of the fact that I need to handle my shit too.”
Maybe, but I wasn’t going to push him. As far as I was concerned, he could avoid that neighborhood forever. “Did this ruin everything in terms of saving for the studio?” I asked after a beat of silence.
“Heh. Maybe? I don’t know.” Luis sighed, low and shuddery. “It took me a long time to get that much stage time at Male Revue. Months and months of racking in enough tips for the club to earn a decent percentage for it to be worthwhile. If I start over somewhere else, it will take a while before I’m earning enough to save. And if I get a normal job?” Luis said normal with the same disdain as I’d always used when thinking of nine-to-five positions. “Who knows. It’s most definitely a monster of a setback. Maybe until next year.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly,” he said. “This is a mess, but at least we have burlesque, and the show next week. Things will suck for a while, and it’s a setback, but the bright side is that I at least have savings to pay my rent and bills for a minute. If this would have happened to my parents back in the day, we’d have been fucked. They had no savings.”
I let myself fall onto my back, causing the mattress to bounce beneath me, and covered my face with my hands. The unsteadiness of my anger had faded, but uncertainty remained. In some ways, not knowing was worse than being certain that things were over. At least with certainty, I could plan. Even if that plan was usually to retreat entirely.
“How can I fix this?” I asked from behind my hands, because I was incapable of his glass half full approach. “Help you find another job? Pretend to be your manager if someone calls for a reference? We were so fucking close, Luis.”
Luis snorted softly. “You let me worry about that. It’s not your job to fix it.”
“Even if it’s not my fault, I can still help you. That’s what—” My brain stuttered. I dropped my hands, and quit holding back. “We’re lovers but also business partners, right? We help each other.”
Luis grew quiet beside me. When I glanced over at him, he was gracing me with a slight smile.
“What?” I asked, frowning. “I’m not just being a sap. It’s true.”
“I know it’s true, but I like hearing you say it. And…” Luis shifted so he was stretched over my body, his knee between my thighs and his muscular torso pressing me to the bed. “I’ll expect you to act like my lover and my partner going forward instead of shutting me out when shit gets heavy. ¿Oíste?”
“I hear you,” I mumbled. “But I need you to hear me, and give me time to figure out how to relationship.”
“I can do that.” Luis kissed me softly. “We can do this, man. We can’t fucking give up.”
His we sounded like ‘you’ in my head, but there was no sound of an accusation in his voice. Only a plea. To work with him, be with him, make this fucked up patchwork of a relationship work despite all of the messiness and drama. It didn’t seem possible. Not reasonably, anyway.
But when the fuck had I ever been reasonable?
I could do this.
We could do this.
Landon hadn’t ruined me. I wouldn’t let him.
I arched up to catch Luis’ mouth in another kiss. This time, neither of us pulled away. His tongue lashed mine, demanding and forceful, as if to seal the deal on our words. A groan poured out of me from deep inside my chest because his touch was a salve on my battered body. The raw wounds I’d inflicted with my own doom and gloom scenarios healed and vanished with every handprint he left on my body.
“I’m going to fuck you.” Luis ripped my pants open while sucking on my lower lip. “Like I wanted to fuck you in that bathroom. Take these tight fucking things off.”
He rolled off the bed to shed his clothes in quick efficient movements, never taking his eyes off me the entire time. It didn’t seem like he was watching the way I had to shimmy and buck to get out of my pants. It seemed like he was afraid to look away, as if I’d disappear before his very eyes. Or run out the room the moment he
shifted his gaze.
I hated his uncertainty.
I hated that I’d planted it there when we’d been unwavering for the last few weeks.
“Fuck, you’re so gorgeous.” Still staring me down, Luis stepped around the bed to yank a string of condoms from my drawer. There was a mix of older condoms, from my time with Landon, and the Magnums I’d bought for Luis. He found one, and the sticky bottle of lube, never looking away. “Do you know what I wanted to do to you when I walked in that bathroom and saw you bending over that sink?”
I watched him slide the condom over his cock, mouth watering, and shook my head.
“I thought about that delicious ass of yours. Always wrapped up like a present for me to unwrap. To bite and eat and fuck.”
My heavy breathing filled the warm room. I hadn’t turned on the air conditioner, and the breeze drifting into the window with the beats of a distant salsa song was hot.
“I think it would have been worth it to split you open right then and there,” Luis said as he knelt on the bed between my thighs. “Imagine his face if you’d come from being pounded hard, right after he walked in?”
“Fuck, that’s so wrong and yet it’s making my dick so hard it could cut glass.” I reached down to stroke myself, unable to look away from his smoldering stare. “How are you so magical?”
Luis jerked my knees up then shoved them open. He drizzled lube in his hand then swept it over his dick, hissing at the contact. “Am I, baby?”
“Yeah.” I was transfixed by his hand sliding over his length, and began pumping my own faster in response. “You make me forget I’m a walking disaster.”
“If that’s true…” Luis angled my hips up. The blunt head of his dick bobbed against my ass. “You’re the most irresistible, talented, goddamn beautiful disaster I’ve ever seen.”
I squirmed on the bed, overheated and wanting and ready to feel nothing but every inch of him searing into me. “Sweet talker,” I whispered. “You’re so good at this. Like disgustingly good.”
Luis flashed that rakish grin of his and pushed into me with one clean deep thrust. “I know.”
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