This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the
publisher.

Talking About Fungus

TOP SHELF

An imprint of Torquere Press Publishers

PO Box 2545

Round Rock, TX 78680

Copyright 2006 © by TJ Baer

Cover illustration by Atta Vazzy

Published with permission

ISBN: 978-1-60370-034-4, 1-60370-034-X

www.torquerepress.com

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S.
Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. Inc., PO Box 2545,
Round Rock, TX 78680.

First Torquere Press Printing: May 2007

Printed in the USA

Chapter One

I don't know what he expected me to do. Thank him? Shake his hand?
Congratulate him on a break-up well-executed? He just kept standing there
on the front step, staring in at me with this wounded look on his face.

"Well," Justin said finally, taking a deep breath, "I guess this is it, then."

I nodded, my hand on the door knob. "Yep, guess so."

I very pointedly did not look at his perfect chest, or his broad, muscled
shoulders, and certainly not anywhere in the vicinity of his lips, which were
dark and full and always seemed to be a little moist. Right then they were
slightly parted, enough so I could see a little glimmer of white enamel
beneath, and...

Yeah, okay, I said I wasn't looking. And I wasn't, really. It was just a glance.
Possibly two.

Oh, hell, he was gorgeous, okay? He had that crinkly kind of blond hair,
curly and trimmed close to his head, and with his smooth, tan skin and that
dusting of freckles over his nose, he looked like the kind of guy you'd see
helping old ladies across the street or doing volunteer work at church raffles
or something.

Of course, I knew better. As did his faithful patrons at the leather bar.

"Look," I said, pressing my lips into a thin line as I tried to remember that I
had just been dumped, "no offense, but I have some stuff I have to do, so..."

He blinked, like he couldn't figure out what I was driving at, then abruptly
seemed to realize that his presence was keeping me from closing the door.
"Oh," he said, sounding startled and a little let-down. He took a step
backwards so his big, muscled body was no longer blocking the doorway.
"Okay, yeah. I guess I'll just... Guess I'll see ya around. Take care, huh?"

Yeah, whatever. "Sure thing," I said, and closed the door.

I was all ready to head into the kitchen and have a blazing bonfire of Ex-
Boyfriend Photos in the sink, but I'll admit that I stood there with my back to
the door for awhile first, breathing deeply and listening to his footsteps
going down the walk.

All right, so Justin was no rocket scientist. So we didn't have a lot in
common except mutual adoration for his facial features. But he was still a
good guy who, all right, had a hell of an ass, and I was going to miss him.
And it.

God, had we really been together for two months? It sure as hell didn't feel
like it. It seemed like only yesterday that Justin was hitting on me at Kev's
party and trying to figure out underhanded ways to get my shirt off, like
spilling stuff on me or...

Oh, lord, I was getting nostalgic. Glaring at my reflection in the hallway
mirror, I straightened up and marched into the kitchen, where I decided to
skip the bonfire -- for the time being, anyway -- in favor of raiding the tea
cupboard and snagging the phone from the counter.

Let it not be said that I can't multitask. In the process of dialing the phone,
digging a clean mug out of the dishwasher, and shuffling back over to the
stove, I only dialed the wrong number once, and that crack in my tea mug
was nothing a little super glue couldn't fix right up.

Aaron picked up on the first ring. "So, he dump you or what?"

I glared at the faucet, though unfortunately this was a poor substitute for the
face of my oldest and dearest friend. "Good to know you're in my corner," I
said, hoping the water gushing into the teapot didn't drown out the sarcasm.

"Oh, c'mon, you know I am. That's why I'm asking. You really want the kind
of friend who's all, 'Hey, how's it goin?' when he knows you're probably
feeling like shit?"

"Fine," I said, deciding for the time being that getting pissed at Aaron wasn't
going to do me any good. "And yeah, he dumped me. We're through."

I guess I sounded pretty desolate, because instead of the usual 'I never liked
him / want to come over and play Game Cube?' speech, he let out a breath
and said, "Look, I'm sorry. I know you liked him a lot."

I breathed out a sigh that came out kind of shakily, and I think that was when
I first realized it: "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Well shit, no kidding. I mean, you guys were together for, like, years."

"Two months, genius."

"Nah, time's different for fags. Like dog years or something."

I arched an eyebrow. "Fag years?"

"Yeah. You guys were together forever in fag years." There was a pause.
"You want me to come over?"

I smiled a little and leaned back against the counter. "And do what? The
Game Cube's at your house."

"I could bring it over. Or we could play Monopoly or something."

"Monopoly."

"Sure. Or we could just have some fantastic sex instead. One hour with me
and you'll forget all about old Blue Eyes, guaranteed."

I thought about making a Frank Sinatra joke, but in the end decided against
it. "What, 'cause I'll be laughing too hard?"

"Go ahead and make fun. You know there's been a burning tension between
us for years. All I'm offering is a chance to finally relieve it."

I laughed. "You're an ass."

"Fine, I'll be over in a few. With the Monopoly board, and some other
supplies in case you decide to take me up on my offer."

"Like what, a paper bag to put over your head?"

"And one for you, too, so we'll match."

"Paper bag sex. Kinky."

"You betcha. See ya soon."

I hung up the phone, still grinning, left the tea on the counter to steep, and
headed into the bedroom to do some Ex Cleanup. You know, flushing his
photos, tossing his watch out the window, giving a pair of his underwear to
the cat to shred.

By the time I was through, Aaron was abusing the hell out of my doorbell,
so I sprinted out of the bedroom and hurried over to open the door before he
broke the damned thing again.

I only caught a blurred glimpse of pink before I was knocked back a step,
and suddenly felt skinny arms squeezing my ribs so hard that I could barely
breathe.

"Jamesy!" chirped a high-pitched voice, and I would've groaned if there
were any breath left in my lungs to do so. Thankfully, Lees opted to let go of
me a few seconds later, or I might've had to call Aaron back and ask him to
bring along that next door neighbor of his, who, conveniently, is a paramedic.

"What's wrong?" my hyperactive sister demanded, hands going to her hips
and blond hair flopping down over her painfully pink tanktop. "You don't
look happy."

I elected to ignore this accusation for the time being. "What are you doing
here?"

Lees began to pout, which is truly an impressive sight when someone's had
as many collagen injections as she has. "You're not excited to see me."

"I'm gay and you're my sister. It's probably best that I'm not."

Lees slapped me hard on the shoulder, but at least she was grinning again.
"You're such a perv. Anyway, you better be glad to see me, 'cause I'm here
for a visit."

"A visit."

"Yep. You're stuck with me for the rest of the week!"

"Lisa," I said warningly. I frowned at her, giving her my best folded-arms,
Obey Me For I Am Your Elder Brother expression. Which probably
would've been a little more effective if those damned platform heels of hers
hadn't shot her up a few inches over my head. "You can't just barge in here
and announce that you're staying for a week. What if I was going out of

town or something?"

She just laughed. "Oh, please, like you'd go out of town. You don't even
leave your room most of the time."

"I might," I growled. "Or what if Justin was here, and we were counting on a
week of having mad, hot sex on the kitchen table or something?"

"Ew, the table? And geez, are you guys still together?"

I avoided her eyes. "Well... we're not... I mean, at the moment, we're not
strictly..."

"No way, he dumped you?"

"Yes," I exploded, "he dumped me! Because I am too femme, all right? I am
too much like a girl for someone like Justin, though of course he only
figured this out after two fucking months together and after letting me ram
him up the ass every night! So yes," I concluded loudly, "he dumped me!
Any more questions?"

The door was still open, of course, and when I dared look out of it, I found
two elderly passersby giving me looks that were half bewildered, half
impressed.

With a growl, I slammed the door shut and stalked off into the kitchen,
where my tea was reaching toxic levels and I'd left the faucet running. Lees
didn't follow me right away, electing instead to take off her platforms and
stow them in the coat closet, so I had a few moments to settle down before
she came in.

I really wasn't sure why I was so upset. I mean, I'd been dumped by guys
like Justin a billion times before, and I'd bounced back... But then, maybe

that was it. I'd been dumped by guys like Justin a billion times. God, that
was enough to make anybody depressed.

Luckily, before Lees got more than a few steps into the kitchen, the doorbell
rang again, no less manically than it had the first time.

"Jesus, who rings a doorbell like that?" Lees demanded, but I ignored her
and stalked out of the room to answer it.

"Hey," Aaron drawled when I opened the door. After one look at my face,
though, he shoved the Monopoly board under his arm and reached up to pull
off his sunglasses. This last, of course, so he could peer at me properly.
"Man, lay off the evil eye. I was only joking about the sex."

"Not on the table!" came a shrill cry from the kitchen. Somehow, I resisted
the urge to bang my head against the nearest wall.

Aaron's eyes were huge. "Look, I know you're pretty upset about this whole
Justin thing," he stage-whispered to me, "but you really think a girl's gonna
help? No offense, but if she can't tell you're not into that just by lookin' at
you, she probably ain't the brightest crayon in the box, ya know?"

I sighed and massaged the bridge of my nose. "It's my sister, you assmonkey.
Now shut up and come inside."

"Your si-- You mean little Lisa? Little Lisa's here, in our fair city, and she
hasn't even come out here yet to say hi to me?"

A squeal erupted from the kitchen, and a second later, I was forced to bear
witness to the truly nauseating sight of my sister glomping onto my best
friend, while said friend spun her around the entryway like they weren't in
imminent danger of knocking holes in the plaster.

"Aary!" Lees squeaked. "God, it's been forever!"

"Jesus, look at you!" Aaron went on with a grin. "What are you, a C cup
now?"

"Yep, almost a D!"

"That's my girl!"

"I'll be in the kitchen," I muttered, but sadly I didn't make it very far before
Aaron latched onto my wrist and dragged me into a mushy group hug.
During this poignant embrace, his hand somehow found its way onto my ass,
where it offered what Aaron generally refers to as "a friendly groping."

"Look at us," he said with a grin, which was only partly obscured by that
ugly goatee he'd been trying to grow, "the old gang together again."

Lees giggled and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. "Yep! God, we're
gonna have so much fun while I'm in town! What do you guys want to do
first? Go bar-hopping? Check out some hot guys at a dance club?"

"How about," Aaron waggled his eyebrows. "Strip Monopoly?"

I've been told at times that the full weight of my glare has the power to strip
paint. I hope that Aaron felt this as I leveled it upon him -- and perhaps he
did, because he hastily began suggesting other, tamer options, such as
renting a movie or ordering in sushi.

Which was probably a good thing, because the only stripping I felt like
doing was in preface to a long, hot bath. Which, okay, maybe was part of
what Justin was talking about with the whole femme thing.

"Look," I said, suddenly feeling tired, "you guys go ahead and do whatever.
I think I'm just going to take a bath and get some sleep."

Aaron and Lees exchanged glances, both looking annoyingly concerned.

"I know what you need," Aaron said.

"Not on the table," Lees put in hurriedly.

"Aaron," I sighed, "I appreciate the thought, but I really don't--"

"You," Aaron went on, and he was already leading me towards the bedroom
with an arm around my shoulders, "need a massage. Not a sensual massage,"
he added, seeing me opening my mouth in protest. "Just a massage.
Seriously, I'm good at this. I took a class last summer when I was seeing that
guy from the health club. Trust me," he insisted, and somehow I found
myself sitting on the bed while Aaron tugged my shirt off over my head.
"You'll love it."

"Why do I have a feeling you've said that to guys before?"

Aaron grinned, and then leaned down to give me a quick, wet smooch on the
lips. "Don't worry, babe, I only say it to the special ones."

"Asshole," I muttered, but lay down on my stomach anyway, because the
fact was that I was tired and could think of a lot of worse things than getting
a little friendly massage. Not to mention that it wasn't too likely Aaron
would try anything with Lees standing there watching the whole thing.

Or... I hoped not, anyway. Aaron had still never really given up on that
whole threesome idea, though I think Lees and me were pretty vehement that

while we have nothing against the idea in theory, the fact that we would end
up having to see each other naked would pretty much spoil any mood that
might be established.

Plus, I'd promised myself in the tenth grade that I'd never sleep with Aaron,
and I'd meant it. No amount of Justin Rebound was going to make me risk
my best friend.

Though God, did he have good hands. I breathed out a heavy sigh when he
started massaging my back, kneading the skin with just the right amount of
pressure. I think I pretty much melted against the bed as he worked. Really
kind of embarrassing, actually, especially with Lees standing right there in
the doorway like this was some kind of spectator sport, but damn, did it feel
good.

"Like that, huh?" Aaron murmured, really close to my ear.

"Nn... mmmhmm," I managed. I wasn't exactly in the land of higher brain
functions.

This time the warmth of his breath on my ear made me shiver. "Want me to
go lower?"

My only excuse is that I was insensible with pleasure, had just been dumped
like last week's AOL Free Trial discs, and had completely forgotten that my
little sister was in the room. "Mm," I breathed. "Yes."

"Okay," Aaron said softly. There was a long, pregnant pause... And then he
said again, this time in a deep, uber-manly voice, "Like that, huh?"

I snapped out of my pleasure coma with a scowl, realizing that Aaron and
Lees were both laughing their asses off at me. "Lower," I said, hurling a
pillow in their general direction as I got the joke, "ha-ha."

Aaron grinned and stood up. "But I'll remember for when I do finally seduce
you that a massage is a good way to start. Jesus, you'd have stripped and
done the cha-cha if I asked you to."

"Not likely," I muttered as I pulled my shirt back on, though of course I
could already feel my face turning red. Asshole.

"Hang on," Aaron said with a grin, and reached out to stop me before I could
pull the shirt the rest of the way on. "I'm not finished yet."

"You're finished," I told him flatly, and tugged the shirt down. "Or I am,
anyway. I'm taking a bath. And no," I added as he opened his mouth, "I don't
need company. Or someone to wash my back, or someone to pick up the
soap if I drop it."

Aaron stared at me for a few seconds, then closed his mouth and nodded.
Without another word, I stalked off into the bathroom and closed the door,
though of course I could still hear Lees giggling even after I did.

But I was grinning as I started up the water, shaking my head and thinking
that, even though I'd eat glass before I told them, it was actually pretty
damned nice having Aaron and Lees around. Nice being with the people I
trusted most, even if one of them was a pink-a-holic with C-cups and the
other one couldn’t decide whether he wanted to sleep with me or make fun
of me.

But still. They were my family, and I was glad they were here.

Of course, I had utterly changed my mind about this a few hours later, when
we were figuring out sleeping arrangements after our wild night of sushi and
Sleepless In Seattle. Aaron decided to sleep over, probably hoping to catch
either me or Lees in the buff on our way to the bathroom or something, and
since Lees had the futon in the living room, Aaron ended up doubling up
with me.

"Let's get this straight right now," I said sternly. Aaron had already leaped
into bed and was gathering the covers cheerfully around himself -- he was in
a T-shirt and boxer shorts, thankfully; any less than that and I'd have socked
him one. "This is my side of the bed. That is yours. Cross the line that
divides this mattress, and I'll kick your ass onto the floor. Got it?"

"What about if you cross it?"

"I won't," I said, and crawled warily into the bed.

"You really think you can resist me?"

"I think I've been doing it pretty well for all these years, so I can probably
keep on doing it a little longer, yeah."

Aaron made a doubtful noise and snuggled down with his pillow, and since I
was pretty exhausted, I reached out to click off the light and lay down
without another word. We lay there in silence for a minute or two before the
sheets rustled and Aaron spoke.

"How you feeling, anyway?" he asked quietly. "About the whole Justin thing,
I mean."

I swallowed. My back was to him, and I didn't turn as I answered. "I'm
okay."

"'Cause... I know I haven't really given you a chance to... you know, get stuff
out or anything... "

I smirked. "If you're hoping I'm gonna sob into your shoulder, don’t hold
your breath."

A warm hand touched my arm and held there. "I'm serious. If you wanna
talk about stuff... well, I'm around."

I rolled onto my side, facing him, and studied his face in the dimness of the
room. The only light came from the hallway, a warm yellow sliver that cut
across the carpet, but I could still see Aaron well enough to tell that he was
serious.

Lifting the covers a little, I scooted over so I could wrap my arms around
him, our chests sliding together and my chin resting on his shoulder. I meant
it as a thank you, because suddenly I felt really stupidly grateful to have
someone like Aaron, and I was honestly going to go back to my side of the
bed after a quick squeeze of a hug. But he was warm and smelled really
good, and somehow I just kept... not letting go.

"See?" Aaron said after a few seconds, but his voice sounded weird, soft and
a little shaky. "Couldn't resist me, could you?"

I pulled back a little, not enough so my arms were dislodged from around his
back, but just enough so I could look into his face.

It was a face I'd been looking at for almost all my life, but I'd never really
looked at it, if you know what I mean. I'd never noticed that Aaron was
really kind of good-looking, even with the scraggly goatee, and his eyes
were a nice, deep brown that could actually be kind of warm and welcoming
when he wanted them to.

Would it be so bad? I found myself thinking. Just once, just for tonight... ?

My body was tingling, I needed it so much. But Aaron... I tried to fight
through the haze and look at things objectively.

Aaron. Best friend since grade school. Best friend ever. To lose Aaron
would be... impossible. Unbearable. I couldn't even imagine what it would
be like, not having him around.

And that's what I'd be risking if I slept with him. Because that's just how it
works. People you sleep with come in and out of your life, but friends -- who
you don't sleep with, not if you're thinking at all with your brain -- stay for
good. But only if you don’t fuck things up just because you're horny and on
the rebound.

"G'night," I said finally, my voice a little husky.

Aaron hadn't moved since I'd pulled back, he'd just been lying there
watching me, our faces half an inch apart while I thought stuff through. And
no matter what he always said about seducing me, he didn’t make a single
move while I was deciding, and even after that, when I slid away from him
and rolled back onto my own side of the bed, all he said was, "Night," and
that was it.

Did he know? Did he have any idea that one touch or word of
encouragement and I'd have been all to hell with it and he'd have had to pry
me off his body with a spoon?

But he didn’t say a word, and he didn't make a single move to touch me all
night even though I could practically feel that he wanted to... and I think
that's the first time I started wondering if maybe he was in love with me.

I drifted off before I could really think it through, and slept like a rock until
morning.

Chapter Two

"Oh, come on," I said, readjusting my grip on Aaron's waist, "don't be such a
baby."

Aaron turned to glare at me, which was a little difficult to coordinate since
he was hopping on one foot while Lees and I supported him, but he still
managed it. "You try breaking a toe," he growled, "and we'll see how you
feel after."

"Maybe it's not broken," Lees put in from Aaron's other side. "Maybe it's
just sprained or... dislocated or something."

"It's broken," Aaron said gloomily, "I know it is. Oh, God, why did this have
to happen?"

I grunted, readjusted my grip again, and helped Aaron hop the last few feet
to the door of the ER "It happened," I said diplomatically, "because you're
an asshole."

"Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot."

Lees grimaced as she held open the door for us to walk through. "Well, Aary,
he does kind of have a point..."

Aaron was still sulking by the time we got up to the desk and explained
ourselves -- or rather, I explained, because Aaron was giving us the silent
treatment and Lees chose that moment to examine the walls. Which were
white. And bare. And really held nothing of interest except that they were
not the expectant, drill sergeant face of the attending nurse, who was staring
at us almost accusingly as she waited for an explanation.

So I explained. I did not, however, tell her how Aaron had decided that the
drummer who lives beneath me was practicing too loudly, and had thus
chosen to enact a daring rendition of Riverdance until the guy got the hint.
Nor did I mention that during the course of this impromptu performance,
Aaron had misjudged his ability to actually dance and slammed his big toe
into the edge of the stereo speaker.

Instead I merely said, "My friend broke his toe."

To which she replied, "Fill out these forms."

Thankfully, I was able to take on this responsibility myself while Aaron and
Lees headed down the hall to get Aaron's foot looked at. Aaron insisted on
Lees accompanying him "for moral support", but I'm pretty sure it was just
because she hadn't noticed yet that the middle button on her top had come
undone. Either way, it left me alone in the quiet little waiting room, which
wasn't too packed mid-morning on a Tuesday, so I relaxed on one of the
comfy couches and set to work filling out the forms.

I was about halfway through and trying to remember Aaron's social security
number (which, believe it or not, I'd had occasion to memorize in the past),
when the couch suddenly dipped under someone's weight.

"Sorry," a voice murmured, I guess in apology for having disturbed the
cushions.

When I risked glancing over, I found a guy sitting next to me who wasn't a
Greek god or anything, but was still pretty damned nice looking. He was tan,
with fluffy brown hair that curled against his neck and dark, almond-shaped
eyes -- kind of Asian-looking, though the rest of him didn't really fit with
that. His face was long and kind of square, with nice high cheekbones and a
bit of light stubble, and his mouth...

Was something I was not going to stare at, because I'd just met the guy and
there was at least a ninety-five percent chance that he was straight and/or
thought I was a woman.

Not that I could really blame him if he did. I'd spent a couple years keeping
my hair way short and wearing tough, manly-man kind of clothes, but all
that did was make me look like a butch lesbian. So in the end, I went back to
what I like: hair on the longish side, trimmed close but hanging down to near
my shoulders, and clothes that are comfortable but also fit and look good on
me. The fact that 'good' means 'girly' a lot of the time is just too damned bad.
I stopped hiding how I like to dress around the same time I stopped hiding
that I like guys instead of girls.

Anyway, all this ran through my head in a few seconds, and pretty soon I
was back to filling out Aaron's forms while the guy whose mouth I was not
looking at rifled around in his bag for something. The fact that he came out

with a massive leather-bound book did not escape my notice, nor did the fact
that the title of that book was Shakespeare: The Collected Works.

He didn't look that much older than me, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven,
but he had this serious, studious look to him that made me wonder if he was
a college professor or something, or maybe one of those hot high school
English teachers who are so good at getting the female half of the class to
turn in all their assignments on time. Or maybe he was a post-graduate,
bravely studying for his doctorate, or...

Or maybe I was staring at his mouth again, and if I didn't cut it out, he was
going to glance up at me with those dark brown eyes and realize that I was
well on my way to rebounding right into his Shakespeare-filled lap.

But the guy must've been oblivious, or else really into his reading, 'cause he
never even glanced at me. I thought I saw his lips curling up a little at one
point, but maybe Hamlet had just said something really hilarious or
something.

After awhile, I gave up studying the nice, slow curve of his jaw and instead
went back to the forms, though I didn't get very far before he cleared his
throat and said, "Do you like Shakespeare?"

My mouth did this very attractive flapping thing like a fish, and I managed,
"Uhh... sure, yeah."

His eyes were still on the book, but when I said that, he glanced back up at
me and smiled a little. His lips were full and soft-looking, and he had the
same straight, Dental Poster Child teeth as Justin. "Here," he said, and
handed me the book, which weighed about a ton, let me tell you. "So you
won't have to read over my shoulder."

Ah-ha-ha, no, see, I was actually staring at your mouth, because it's damned
sexy and I'd kind of like to sweep all the Highlights magazines off this table
and kiss you senseless until they call security on us.

But what I said was: "Uh... thanks," and opened the book on my lap.

The print was miniscule. The pages were so thin I could see through them.
And the smell was Eau de Musty Old Library. Clearly, I had caught myself a
winner.

With a small smile, the guy reached into his bag -- Christ, he'd actually been
carrying this thing in there? -- and pulled out another book, this one a
vividly pink paperback entitled, The Princess Diaries.

I was still puzzling through this unexpected turn of events when a nurse
stepped into the room and called a name, which I of course did not pay any
attention to since it wasn't mine. But at the sound of it, the guy stood up,
grabbed his bag, and hurried off after the nurse, leaving me alone in the
waiting room with a bunch of half-finished forms and about ten tons of
classic literature.

I was still sitting there, book-sitting and finally finishing up the last of the
forms, when Lees came in, her shirt buttoned all the way up to her neck and
a murderous look on her face.

I tried to stifle my grin, but couldn't quite manage it.

"You know," she said as she flopped down beside me, "I'd completely tell
you if your fly was open or something. I wouldn't let you wait until you were
standing there with some totally hot doctor and let him tell you, 'Um, excuse
me, miss, but are you aware that your shirt seems to have come unbuttoned?'
Gah!"

I smiled at her. "Oh, was your shirt unbuttoned?"

A nasty right hook thudded into my shoulder, though of course it was
against Elder Brother Principles to let her know how much it fucking hurt.
"Whatever," she said while I was surreptitiously rubbing my shoulder.
"Anyway, Aary's almost done in there. They taped up his toe and stuff -- ew.
I've never seen so much toe hair in my life. The doctor said he wouldn't need
crutches, but Aary begged a set off of him, anyway." She snorted. "He's
probably hoping for some sympathy sex or something. Hey, what's that?
They run out of magazines or something?"

I glanced down at the book in my lap and, for some reason, covered it
hurriedly with Aaron's forms. "Just a book," I said, which I'm sure was
incredibly convincing.

Lees gave me a weird look and lifted the edge of the papers so she could
peek at the binding. "Shakespeare?"

I shrugged as if to say, Yeah, and what of it? and silently prayed that the
book's rightful owner would not choose to return at that moment. Much love
for my sister, but she isn't exactly discreet. Were the guy to return and ask
for his book back, I could say with a fair amount of certainty that she'd out
both me and my secret fixation with lips, which would no doubt give this
guy a clue that it hadn't been his book that I was staring at.

Not that it particularly mattered what some stranger I was never going to see
again thought about me, but... it was the principle of the thing. Or something.
Plus, he was hot. I don't like going around making an ass of myself in front
of hot guys if I can help it, though I generally end up doing so anyway.

"So tell me," I said, doing a very smooth subject change before Lees could
start in on the book again, "what are you really doing in town, and why don't
you want Mom and Dad to know about it?"

Lisa pressed her lips together so they looked almost normal sized, then gave
a careful smile. "Where do you get this stuff? I told you, I'm just here for a
quick visit."

"Bullshit," I said, also smiling. "Last time you were here, Mom and Dad
made you call them every night to make sure you hadn't gotten gang-raped
or turned into a lesbian."

"How do you know I didn't call them after you guys went to bed last night?"
Her smile turned evil. "Or were you and Aary too busy to notice?"

"Oh, so you called Mom and Dad at midnight? I bet they were happy to hear
from you, since they always go to bed at nine thirty."

"Maybe they're staying up later these days," Lees shot back.

"Maybe they don't even know you're here. Maybe they think you're still off
at school getting good grades and not spending your book money on lip
injections."

"Maybe," she said, getting to her feet, "you oughta mind your own
business."

"Maybe it becomes my business when you're using my house as a hideout."

"I'm not hiding out!"

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm dropping out, okay?" she shouted. "I suck at school and Mom and Dad
hate me, so I'm dropping out and moving out here instead!"

I sank back against the cushions of the couch, feeling like somebody'd
knocked the wind out of me. "You're... What?"

Lees sat down next to me, close enough so our shoulders brushed, so I
reached over and wrapped my arm around her. She seemed near tears. "I
tried, you know? I really did. But I'm not... I'm just not smart like you, and I
can never remember all that shit they want us to know in class, and... I'm just
not cut out for college."

"The hell you're not," I said quietly. "And what do you mean, Mom and Dad
hate you?"

"They do," she said, sniffling. "Just because I told them I kissed my
roommate."

I didn't say anything for a long time. Then I drew a deep breath, looked over
at her, and said, "Lisa. Whether you kissed your roommate or not... why in
the name of God would you tell Mom and Dad?"

"I don't know, it just slipped out! We were talking about you and Dad was
going off again about how he wishes you could be more like me, more
normal and stuff, and so I was like, 'Well you know what, Dad? I'm normal
and I kissed Shelley, so what do you think about that?'"

I was speechless. Not only had my sister openly told our father that she'd
kissed a girl, but she'd done so to defend me. The hell, man.

"I mean, it's not fair," she went on tearfully. "He's always talking about how
awful it is that you're gay, but it's like he doesn't even remember who you
are anymore! Like... like he forgets that you're the same Jamie you've always
been, or like this is some stupid thing you've done like that time you forgot
to close the window when you turned on the heater.”

Okay, about the heater thing? I was twelve and it happened once, but I swear
it's been immortalized in the Family Memory of Stupid Things Done. Honest
to God, it comes up all the freaking time, and I was twelve. But whatever.
"Lees," I said softly, "it's just how he is."

"Yeah, well, it's stupid. He's stupid."

"Not arguing with you there. But I really don't think Mom and Dad hate you
just because of one kiss."

Lees wince-smiled at me. "Well..."

"What?"

"It wasn't exactly..."

"Wasn't exactly what?"

But before she could answer, Aaron came hobbling in with his crutches, and
just like that, I knew the conversation was over. As close as Aaron and Lisa
had always been, there were still some things that she just wouldn't talk
about in front of him. Since Aaron is what you might call 'pan-sexual', I
figured girl-on-girl action was probably a wise topic to avoid when he was
around.

I stood up to greet him, though of course he didn't notice since he was busy
trying to look pathetic and sad, and it was about then that I realized I was
still holding the mystery guy's book. Shit, what was I going to do with it?
When was he coming back? Was he coming back?

No, of course he was. Who runs off and leaves his billion pound
Shakespeare book behind? Well, I kind of wanted to, but then I'd come by
the thing under false pretenses.

Ah, but maybe he had, too. Maybe he'd been sitting somewhere minding his
own business, and a ridiculously sexy man with great lips had sat down
beside him and started reading this very book. To cover up the fact that he'd
been ogling the guy, he'd pretended to be interested in the book, and had
come by it that way. And now the cycle was continuing. I'd have to carry it
around with me until I found some other poor soul to pretend to be interested

in it to cover up his ogling, and before long, the book would travel through
the entire gay population of the city, possibly even the world.

Or possibly I was just losing my mind. More likely it was that.

But for some reason, instead of just leaving the book there and trusting that
the guy would come back to claim it, I took it with me. I don't wish to seem
underhanded or as if I was plotting, but I couldn't help noticing that the
conscientious young man had written his full name and address on the inside
cover, ostensibly so someone happening by this massive tome could mail it
back to him for a small fee of approximately $85,000,000.

Or, if they were like me, so they could have a legitimate reason to visit his
home, be invited inside, and then proceed to forget all about Justin via
passionate snogging in front of the fireplace. He seemed like the type to
have a fireplace. And maybe to spout 15th century poetry when in
compromising positions. I kind of liked the idea, quite frankly.

"Hellooo," Aaron was saying, waving his hand in front of my face. "Still
with us, space cowboy?"

I shook my head and said, "Yep," and we headed towards the double doors,
but I stopped just short of them, sighed deeply, and said, "Hang on, I have to
do something."

Aaron and Lees looked at me like I was nuts, which, okay, probably a fair
assessment at that point.

"Do something?" Aaron echoed suspiciously.

Lisa, meanwhile, was fishing through her jeans pocket. "Get me something,
too, okay?" she said, stuffing two dollar bills into my free hand.

My mind being utterly wrapped up in Shakespeare-related guilt, I gave her a
weird look and frowned at the cash.

"From the vending machine," she clarified with an impatient exhalation of
breath. "That's where you're going, right?"

"Oh, that's just great," Aaron huffed. "I'm standing here in pain on my
crutches and you're thinking about Snickers bars."

"Baked Lays, 'kay, Jamesy? And a Diet Coke if they have any."

"Well, Jesus," Aaron said, and after a few seconds, managed to wrestle a
wad of cash from his own front pocket, "if you're taking orders, get me a
KitKat bar and some Mountain Dew, will ya? Gotta get this damned hospital
taste outta my mouth."

I sighed and took the money. "Fine, anything else?"

Aaron and Lees exchanged glances and shook their heads, and I set off in
search of vending machines, hoping I would somehow run into the
Shakespeare guy along the way. Not likely, granted, but then, I hadn't really
had much idea of how to find him even before I'd been roped into making a
snack run. If all else failed, I figured I could just leave the book with the
nurse on duty and hope that the Dragon Lady might actually release it to him
should the guy come asking around for it.

I can't really explain what caused my sudden change of heart about keeping
the book. Maybe it had something to do with the careful, trusting way he'd
lowered the book into my lap, or maybe it was just that I didn't want to carry
the damned thing the whole way home. Whatever the case, I figured I'd
better get it back to him as soon as possible -- after I made a stop for snacks,
of course. Damned vultures.

Now, you'd have thought, given Lisa's immediate assumption that I was
going to the vending machines, that the things would've been nearby. Maybe
just a little ways down the hall, or in a little nook by the elevators. But in
fact, the damned things were nowhere to be found. I knew they existed, and
in fact spotted a few people walking around with little bags of pretzels and
chips that they must have gotten somewhere, but my quest continued for at
least ten minutes with no luck whatsoever.

So hell, I figured I'd better ask someone. I ended up at a nurse's station
somewhere in the middle region of the hospital, and managed to divine from
the very foreign nurse on duty that the vending machine was somewhere to
my right, though further details apparently exceeded her English capabilities.
Whatever. I took a deep breath, readjusted my grip on the great Bard, and
trudged off in the direction she'd indicated.

I've always hated, in movies and TV shows and things, when there are
insane coincidences and things that could never happen in real life. They
always seem so contrived, you know? And like the writers were too lazy to
figure out some realistic way for things to play out, so they went with crazy
coincidence instead.

But the fact of the matter is that such things do happen in real life, because
honest to god, as I was slumping along through that hallway scanning right
and left for the vending machines, an elevator door chimed, slid open, and
there was the Shakespeare guy. Swear to god.

And okay, maybe it wasn't a massive coincidence. There were only two sets
of elevators on the ground floor, and the chance that he'd come out of one of
them and head towards the front doors while I was wandering around...
decently plausible. But this was the kind of timing that made my mouth go
dry, because I was seriously just walking past the doors when they opened --
if I'd been a few seconds faster, I'd never have seen him at all.

He didn't spot me at first, though of course I skidded to an inelegant stop at
the sight of him, probably gaping all attractively again. He stepped out of the

elevator, looking calm but with a little crease of worry between his brows,
glanced up to scan the hallway, and froze just like I'd done, an unreadable
expression on his face.

And okay, maybe it was stupid to think that he might be interested in me, or
that leaving an obese Shakespeare volume in my care meant anything at all.
But I couldn't help feeling like there was something there, and for all the
confusion and stupidity in my love life recently, I found that I was more than
ready to go all Leap of Faith with this guy -- provided, of course, that he
both knew I was a man and liked that sort of thing.

While I was sorting through all of this, he gave me a wry little smile and
closed the distance between us, at which point I discovered that he was quite
a few inches taller than me. "Hi," he said.

This seemed somewhat anti-climactic, but I still smiled and returned the
greeting with a cordial, "Hi." Then I glanced down at the book in my arms
and held it out to him, probably looking like a first grader with an art project
or something. "You, uh... you forgot this."

He looked down at it in surprise for a second, then reached out to take it
from me. I wanted our fingers to brush, but they didn't.

"Oh," he said, "thanks."

And that, I figured, was that. The guy would head off with his book and I'd
probably never see him again, and if that was the case, what did it matter if
he thought I was a freak or turned me down or some other dramatic, soap-
opera outcome?

"Hey," I said, and snagged his sleeve even though he hadn't made a move to
leave yet. "Do you... " I cleared my throat and tried very hard not to sound
like an idiot. "Do you like... movies?"

Dumb-ass.

The guy smiled a little, looking kind of puzzled, but he didn't turn and flee,
at least. "Yes, I like movies."

I opened my mouth, closed it again, and finally managed, "Yeah, me, too."

Christ. I rolled my eyes at myself and tried again. "Look," I began, "I don't
usually pick up random guys in hospitals. It's not some thing I do or
something, cruising the halls for hotties. I'm here because my friend broke
his toe, and I saw you and thought that maybe I'd like to see you again, but if
you're not into that or something, that's okay, I just... you know... thought I'd
ask."

I'll take Nonsensical Babbling for Three Hundred, please, Alex.

The guy blinked at me a few times, maybe trying to sort through what I'd
just said, then frowned at me in a way that didn't exactly give me hope for
our Happily Ever After. "Wait," he said, and I felt my heart sinking. "You...
you're trying to pick me up?"

I winced. "Look, it's completely cool. I probably shouldn't have said
anything, so I hope you're not insulted or anything, but I just wanted to--"

"No," he cut in, and now he was smiling. Just a little, but it was definitely a
smile. And not of the imminent gay-bashing variety, either. "No, it's not that.
I just... " He frowned, looking puzzled but pleased. "I think that's the first
time anyone's ever tried to pick me up."

I think my face went kind of blank for a second. Then I said, "No way.
Seriously?"

His smile turned kind of wry. "Seriously."

"Huh," I said. I took a deep breath. "You know I'm a guy, right?"

"Yes," he said, looking really amused now, "I know you're a guy." His smile
faded a little then, shifting back into a puzzled frown. "But how did you
know? That I'm..." He glanced around the corridor, and I figured he hadn't
been Out for too long. "How did you know I'd be interested?"

A little tingle went through me at the words -- interested? seriously? -- but I
tried to play it cool as I answered. "I didn't. I mean, I wasn't sure. I hoped
that you were, but the only way to find out is to ask. So I did."

He shook his head, letting out a breath as he did so. "You're a lot braver than
I am."

I made a face. "Not really. Half the guys I ask out probably think I'm a girl,
anyway, so it's not like I have to worry too much about getting some hetero's
fist in my face if I pick wrong."

He looked genuinely interested. "Do you ask out many guys?"

"No," I said, and it was both the truth and me not wanting the guy to think I
was a complete slut. "Not really, I guess. I've done it a few times, but usually
after I get to know the guy a little. You know, so I can figure out if he's
interested or not."

He nodded as if absorbing this information, then met my eyes and smiled a
little. "But not this time?"

I felt my cheeks coloring a little. "No, not this time."

We stood there for a second more, avoiding each other's eyes in a bashful
sort of way, then met each other's gazes and laughed kind of nervously.

"Well," he said, and dug into his pocket. For an idiotic second, I was sure he
was going to come out with some cash and beg some vending machine
products off me like Lees and Aaron, but instead he pulled out what looked
to be a business card and pressed it into my hand. "Give me a call. Maybe
we can do something."

I grinned like an idiot. "Yeah, I'd really like that."

"Oh, and actually," he said abruptly, "there's this special performance at the
Shakespeare theatre tomorrow night that I was thinking about going to.
Would you..." Even though I'd already made it pretty damned clear that I
was interested in him, he still looked kind of anxious as he asked me.
"Would you like to come with me?"

Shakespeare. Woo. But then, I was supposed to be an avid reader of the stuff,
wasn't I? All ten tons of it. "Sure," I said, and didn't have to fake a smile
since I was still so jazzed about actually asking out a guy who was interested.
"I'd love to."

We smiled at each other for a few seconds in goopy bliss, but before we
could get much further than that, there came a sound from behind us like
someone retching. I turned around, not particularly wanting to see this but
finding that my reflexes had other ideas -- and who should be standing just a
few steps down the hall from us but Aaron and my dear sister?

The retching, I realized, was coming from Aaron, who was miming sticking
a finger down his throat, presumably at the fluffy display Shakespeare Guy
and I were putting on.

Turning back to my potential date, I found him peering over my shoulder at
Aaron, his eyebrow raising, so I let out a polite cough. "Ah... I better go. But

we should definitely, definitely get together and... do that Shakespeare
thing."

He smiled again and nodded, and after I'd given him my phone number and
stuff, he headed off towards the hospital entrance while I went to join Aaron
and Lees. Aaron was glaring at me and looking wounded, leaning so heavily
on his crutches that I might've felt bad for him if I hadn't already known that
he didn't even really need them. Lisa, meanwhile, was grinning at me evilly.

"You didn't tell me you were going to the hot guy vending machines," she
said, pouting a little. "You should've picked one up for me, too."

Aaron scowled harder. "Where the hell's my soda?"

"Vending machines are down here somewhere," I said, and much as I
wanted to sound appropriately repentant, I was still floating too high from
actually having gotten a date.

Aaron grumbled something and hobbled along after me, and thankfully the
machines were just around the next corner. Of course, they were also out of
Baked Lays, KitKats, and Mountain Dew, so we headed back to the main
entrance with nothing but Lisa's Diet Coke to show for our journey.

Well. That and a little card with a name and phone number neatly printed on
it, which I happily stuck to the fridge the moment we got home.

Abe Fujimura, it said. 826-555-9733.

"Just so you know," came Aaron's voice from behind me, "it's totally uncool
to pick up a guy while your best friend's laid up in the hospital."

"You weren't laid up; you were there for less than an hour." But instead of
leaving it at that, I turned around and looked at him, really looked at him,
trying to figure out what was going on in his head. "Are you okay with
this?" I asked quietly.

Aaron just stared at me, balancing there on his crutches. "Okay with what?"

"This," I said, nodding at the phone number on the refrigerator. "Me going
out with this guy."

Aaron shrugged and hobbled past me so he could open the fridge, and dig
around in the vegetable crisper for a soda. "He seems okay. Kinda wimpy,
maybe, but okay."

I could have pressed Aaron to make sure he understood what I meant, but
instead I shrugged and snagged a soda for myself. "Okay," I said easily. "But,
you know, I have a pretty bad track record of picking guys, so... I mean, if
there's ever something about some guy that you don't like, or some reason
why you don't think I should go out with him, you can say it."

Aaron snorted. "The hell do you think I've been doing? What'd I say to you
when you and Justin hooked up?"

"You called him a dickwad and said he must've lost his brains in a jet skiing
accident."

"And was I right?"

"Well, I don’t think Justin’s ever been on a jet ski... "

Aaron dropped the crutches and caught me in a headlock, grinding his
knuckles into my head. “You know what I mean. I told you he was a
dickwad, and now we know that he was. Is. So don't worry. If I got a bad
feeling about a guy, I'll tell you."

Aaron stopped with the noogie, but he didn't let go of me, so I put my arms
around his waist and held on loosely. "So... you don't get a bad feeling about
Abe?"

I heard Aaron sigh, his chest moving against mine. "No," he muttered, "he
seems like a good guy. But it's not like I had time to do much more than give
him a once-over, so I can't say for sure until I see more of him. Do you think
I'm going to?"

"What, see more of him?"

"Yeah."

I pressed my face to his chest and murmured the word into the fabric of his
shirt. "Maybe."

"You really like this guy, huh?"

"I only just met him."

"Yeah, but you got all... I don't know, all goofy when you were talking to
him. You really like him."

"Maybe."

"Yeah, well." He reached down to grab his crutches, so I either had to let go
of him or fall on my ass. "Then you go out with him and have a blast at this
weird-ass Shakespeare thing, and after that, if you still like him, you bring
him over to my place and I'll let you know if he's a dickwad or not."

"What if he's not?"

"Then you'll--" He broke off, and when he spoke up again, his voice was
pretty quiet, and his eyes were fixed on the floor instead of on my face.
"Then you'll live happily ever fucking after, won't you?"

He looked up at me after a few seconds, and it was all right there in his eyes.
But before I could figure out what to say, he snapped his gaze away, took a
chug from his Pepsi, and hobbled out of the room without another word.

Suddenly I was really, really glad I hadn't given into temptation the night
before. As it was, I was pretty sure we could still be friends, still be close
like we’d always been, even if Aaron was hot for me and I didn't feel the
same way back. But if we'd slept together...

God, I didn't even want to think about it. When did my life turn into such a
damned soap opera?

I shook my head and went to make a cup of tea, since the soda I'd pulled out
of the fridge was flat.

Chapter Three

Justin was at the front door when I woke up the next morning.

Actually, it was Justin’s fault I woke up that early at all, because rather than
disturbing me via the doorbell (which I would definitely have ignored), he
decided to call me first on his cell phone to see if I was awake. So he stood
there outside my front door and gave me a ring, and since I was half-asleep
and had to spend a few seconds untangling myself from the blankets, I
picked up without even glancing at the caller ID.

“H'o?” I mumbled into the phone, this being the closest approximation to
'hello' that my tongue could manage at seven AM.

“Hey, uh... it’s Justin.”

I frowned and scrubbed some of the sleep out of my eyes, swinging my legs
over the side of the bed. “Jus’n?”

“Yeah, look... I'm outside your apartment. Do you think I could come in? I
want to see you.”

It was around this time that I really started to wake up, and thus began to
fully grasp the situation. Blinking, I hurried over to the window and peered
outside, and sure enough, there was old Blue Eyes, standing there on the
front steps in the drizzle with a cell phone pressed to his ear.

“Look, Justin,” I said, already feeling a headache coming on, “maybe you
haven’t done this whole breaking up thing before, but this isn’t really how it
works.”

“I know, I know, it’s just... I need to see you.” There was an angsty pause. “I
miss you.”

Oh, Christ.

“Look,” I started again.

“I just want to see you. I’ll leave right away if you want me to, I just...
Please, can I come in? Just for a minute?”

This is, of course, how things work in my life. I will have dry spells for
months where it seems as if no one short of my proctologist is interested in
getting my pants off, and then just when I’ve found a decent guy whom I’m
actually interested in, Justins and Aarons are suddenly lining up at my door.

“Fine,” I sighed, and trudged out of the bedroom.

Of course, it was only as I stood there at the front door with my hand on the
knob that I realized I was still in my pajamas, which in the summer months
equates to a pair of plaid boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. Oh, and let’s not
forget the patented, boring-white Hanes socks, swimming around my ankles
because they were so old the elastic had worn out.

Whatever. It wasn’t like I was trying to impress the guy, or as if he hadn’t
seen me in my glamorous sleepwear before. So I gave my hair a quick
finger-combing and tugged open the door.

Justin’s big blue eyes were all wide and hopeful as he looked in at me, and I
couldn’t help noticing that in his gray, sleeveless T-shirt and snug blue jeans,
he looked pretty damned good. And I mean really, dumb as a post or not,
there’s something to be said for a guy who looks as good in a pair of jeans as
Justin does.

Not that this in any way changed the fact that I wanted nothing more to do
with him, of course. But that didn’t mean I had to be rude. Sexy guys in tight
jeans must be treated with the proper amount of respect, after all.

“Jamie,” he breathed, as if the mere sight of me in my pjs was enough to
knock the breath from his lungs. “God, it’s... it’s so good to see you.”

Uh-huh. “Yeah, okay,” I said.

He gave me a hopeful puppy sort of look and took a tentative step forward.
“Can I come in?”

I grunted and opened the door enough so he could step inside, getting a
whiff of his cologne as he passed me and very pointedly not glancing at the
backside of his jeans.

We headed into the kitchen, keeping our progress quiet since Lees was still
passed out on the futon, and Justin sat down at the table while I went
through my morning routine, which was: 1. Acquire caffeine. 2. Ingest
caffeine. 3. Repeat until awake.

I was already pretty awake thanks to my tight-jeaned visitor, but making a
cup of tea gave me something to do that didn’t involve staying in close
proximity to Justin. I was just about to turn around and ask him if he wanted
something to eat when I heard this quick exhalation of breath from behind
me, then the sound of Justin’s chair scraping back as he stood up.

“Who,” he said quietly, “is Abe?”

Shit, Abe’s number was still on the fridge.

Well, why not? Justin and I weren’t together anymore, and hell if I was
going to hide the fact that I was so over him as to already be seeing other
people.

“Oh,” I said casually, dunking my tea bag a few times in its mug, “just some
guy I met yesterday.”

Good thing I chose that moment to set down my tea, because a second later
Justin had caught my shoulder and spun me around.

“Just some guy?” he echoed.

He was standing really close to me, practically pinning me against the
counter, and I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant sensation.
“Yeah. He seems nice.”

“Since when,” Justin practically growled, “do you go for ‘nice’ guys?” And
in a move that was completely unfair, he lanced his hand down and caught
me in a hard grip between the legs.

This was just a little bit inconvenient.

I let out a shaky breath and tilted my head back, and unfortunately it was
difficult to hold onto my ideals-- or the memory of Abe’s brown eyes --
while Justin was holding onto me like that.

“Let go,” I gasped, though I’m not sure I sounded all that convincing.

Justin did let go, but only in favor of grabbing me by the hips and lifting me
up so I was sitting on the countertop. “I missed you,” he rasped, and started
tugging at the waistband of my boxers.

“Thought... I was too femme,” I managed.

“I don’t care.” Then he licked his lips, which as I believe I’ve mentioned
before, I have a slight fetish for.

But God, Abe. Aaron. My sister in the next room.

Justin. Justin’s warm, full lips, which were currently working a wet trail of
kisses against my throat. Justin’s hands, which were sliding under my shirt,
smoothing over my stomach, my ribs, slipping down past the elastic of my
waistband and--

“Ew ew ew, oh, God, not on the counter!”

Justin snapped away from me, leaving me sitting there on the countertop
with my cheeks flushed and my breath coming fast. I elected not to glance
down and see what other signs of our activities were plainly visible to my
sister, but I had a feeling this was going to fall under the category of Things
Which Can Potentially Scar A Younger Sibling For Life.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Lisa demanded, barely clothed herself in a
pink spaghetti-strap tank top and yellow panties.

“He... just stopped by,” I managed.

“Just stopped by? I thought he dumped you!”

“He did.”

“Then why the hell was he doing... doing that?”

“Well...”

“Maybe I should go,” Justin put in.

Lees put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Maybe you should.”

“You don’t have to go,” I said.

“Naw,” Justin drawled, scratching a hand through the crisp blond curls on
his head, “I gotta meet some guys down by the lake, anyway, do some jet
skiing.”

“Jet skiing?” I said, surprised. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, so... I’ll see ya around, huh, Jamie? I'll come by tonight and we can,
you know, catch up?”

I sighed and followed him out of the room, tugging my shirt down as I
moved. “Look, Justin... It’s great that you came by and everything, and that
was sure... nice... back there, but I don’t think you should come over again.”

“What?” Justin spun around to face me with that wounded look back on his
face. “Why?”

“Well,” I went on, steering him to the door with one hand on his muscled
bicep, “I just don’t think,” I struggled with potential phrasings for a moment.
“I just don’t think that we’re right for each other.”

“Not right for each other? How can you say that? We're—” He broke off
suddenly and gave me a hard look. “It’s this Abe guy, isn’t it?”

Except it wasn’t. Not really. More it was what I’d just realized about Justin,
which was that his primary problem-solving technique was to molest me
until the problem was forgotten, and I wasn’t sure I liked that.

Well, okay, I definitely liked that, but it didn’t exactly make for a fulfilling
relationship. I mean, yeah, when I was nineteen maybe I could’ve been
satisfied being with a guy who gave me nothing but great sex and the
opportunity to stare at his hot body all I wanted. But these days, it just
wasn’t doing it for me. I’d felt like something was off in my relationship
with Justin for awhile, and now I suddenly knew what it was.

I wanted more. I wanted somebody I could talk to. Someone I felt
comfortable just being with. Someone whose knowledge of me went beyond
knowing about the mole on the inside of my right thigh, and maybe actually
extended into my actual life and interests.

And okay, for all I knew, Abe wouldn’t be able to give me any of those
things. Just because he seemed like a good guy with a brain didn’t make him
my perfect match, but who the hell knew? Maybe he was.

But I knew one thing: Justin wasn’t. And no matter how much my body
wanted to keep him around, the rest of me suddenly wasn’t too thrilled about
the idea. Plus, I’d already tossed out his rocket toothbrush, and he’d be
pretty pissed if I took him back and he found that out.

So I told him that yeah, it was ‘that Abe guy', and managed to get him out
the door again with only a little bit of blubbering. And after I closed the door
behind him, I have to say, I felt pretty good. Like maybe I was finally
getting my life back on track. Like maybe I was heading in the right
direction. Like maybe despite what everybody always says, being gay and
being a guy doesn’t mean your whole world revolves around sex. Yeah,
okay, you think about it a hell of a lot and have a shitload of trouble ordering
from underwear catalogues (the models being way too distracting, if you
know what I mean), but that doesn’t mean it has to be at the center of
everything.

It doesn’t.

So I was feeling all empowered and stuff as I headed back into the kitchen,
where of course Lees was waiting with her arms crossed.

“What,” she said sharply, “was that all about? What about that Shakespeare
guy? What about Aary?”

“Lees, don’t worry, it didn’t mean any--” I stopped. “What do you mean,
‘what about Aary?’”

She opened her mouth, then closed it just as quickly. When she spoke again,
her voice was unusually soft. “Sometimes you’re an asshole, you know that?
Aary’s had it bad for you since... forever, and now when you’re all broken
up with your stupid boyfriend, you hit on some random guy in the hospital,
and then you get all sexed up on the kitchen counter, which... okay, ew. But I

mean, Jesus, when are you going to figure out that you and Aary are perfect
for each other?”

“Lees, we’re friends. Just friends. That’s all it can be.”

“Why? ‘Cause you’re scared you’ll mess stuff up if you get together? Or
because of that ugly goatee?”

“Both. So you think he should shave it, too, huh?”

“Jamie.”

“Lees, he’s my best friend.”

“Who says you can’t sleep with your best friend?”

I looked her in the eye. “Is that what you did?”

She looked away. “Maybe.”

“Don’t tell me you told Mom and Dad about that.”

“No, but... I kind of didn’t have to.”

“Oh, Christ, Lees.”

“I thought they were in bed!”

“You did it in their house?”

“Shelley came home with me for a visit, because Mom thought it’d be good
for Dad to see that she was just a normal girl and stuff. Since I told him
about the kiss thing, he kept trying to get me to switch rooms or something.”

“So Shelley was there specifically so Dad would know she was straight, and
you guys decided to get it on with Mom and Dad in the next room?”

“We didn’t mean to!”

“Lisa,” I said doubtfully.

“I mean, we weren’t planning on doing it, it just... kind of happened. And
then Mom came in to see if we needed any fresh towels, and...”

I pressed a hand over my eyes. “Oh, God.”

“Luckily Shelley and me were going back to school the next morning, so I
didn’t have to see Dad before it was time to go, but... ” She wiped a hand
over her eyes. “Well... I mean... you know Daddy.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

Lisa sniffled and grabbed a napkin from the counter to blot at her eyes with.
“So here I am.”

I nodded, giving her a few seconds before I started in on the third degree.
“What about Shelley?”

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know, I haven’t talked to her since I left.”

“Well, do you think that maybe you should do that? Give her a call or
something?”

“No, I... I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Jamie, we did stuff. I mean... what the hell am I going to say to her?”

I let out a breath. “That depends, I guess. How do you feel about her?”

Lisa sniffled again. “She’s my best friend. And the best roommate ever.”

“That’s not what I mean. How do you feel about her?”

Lisa sighed and raked a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know.
I've never... I mean, I like guys. But Shelley... I like her, too. She’s all soft,
and she smells good, and she knows just how to...” She shook her head again
and sucked in a deep breath. “God, I don’t know. I just can’t think about this
right now, you know? I need some time.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said easily. “Well, hang out here for awhile, then, and
figure things out. But you’re going back after. Back to school, back to
Shelley, and back to Mom and Dad.”

“But--”

“No, you’re going. You’re not running away. It doesn’t fix anything, and it
doesn’t make things better.” I gave her a smile that was only a little bitter. “I
should know, right?”

Lees came over to stand beside me, and in her bare feet, she was just the
right height to rest her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her,
because that’s what you do when your little sister sleeps with her roommate,
drops out of college, and shows up on your doorstep needing a place to hide
out. We were having a nice little sibling moment, actually, until the doorbell
rang.

I gave Lees’ shoulders one last squeeze before heading out to answer it,
figuring it would be Aaron, or possibly the drummer from downstairs
complaining about how yesterday’s Riverdance had interrupted his jamming
session. But when I swung open the door, it was unfortunately neither of
these visitors.

It was my dad.

I stared at him with my best gaping fish expression, and neither of us said
anything for at least a count of ten. Then, at last, I managed a hoarse, “Dad?”
like I wasn’t sure it was him or something.

But it was, of course. I mean, yeah, it’d been about two years since I’d seen
him, but the guy hadn’t changed all that much. He was still short and thin
and kind of Yoda-ish in the facial features department, though his hair was a
little thinner and a little grayer, and he was wearing a green rain slicker and
khakis instead of the nicely pressed suits I’d always seen him in before.

He nodded at me, like we were business colleagues meeting on the street or
something. “Jamie,” he said formally. Then his eyes narrowed a little, fixing
on me with the full weight of childhood disciplinarian behind them. “Is your
sister here?”

And even though it was stupid and I should’ve known right away that Lisa
was the reason why Dad had suddenly shown up at my door, I still felt a
little flicker of disappointment when he said that. I don’t know what I’d been
hoping, but I guess I couldn’t help feeling that there was a Hallmark ending
in store for me and my dad, and that one of these days, he was going to
appear on my doorstep, proclaim the error of his homophobic ways, and
wrap me in his skinny, wrinkly arms while the music swelled...

Okay, not likely.

I sighed and opened the door the rest of the way. “She’s in the kitchen.”

Dad grunted and stepped past me, though he did pause for a moment once he
was inside. To take his shoes off, as it turned out, and not to offer his thanks
that I was being gracious enough to welcome him into my home.

Whatever. I closed the door and followed Dad into the kitchen, where Lees
was standing at the table, frozen in shock and horror. And still in her
underwear. Not that I was much better, in my ratty pjs, but I couldn't help
sparing a few grateful thoughts heavenward that Dad hadn't stopped by a
little earlier, say when Justin was molesting me on the kitchen counter.

"Lisa Rebecca," Dad said, and I flinched in sympathy -- little can strike fear
into the heart of a child, even a full-grown one, like the use of the Full Name.
"Would you care to explain to me what you're doing here instead of at
school, like you should be?"

Always one for subtlety, our father.

"Daddy, I can explain," Lisa stammered.

She was looking kind of pale and sick all of a sudden, and I realized that I'd
been standing back there in the doorway like I was nothing more than the
audience to this little scene. Before either of them could say anything more, I
brushed past Dad and went to stand in front of Lisa. Big brother instincts die
hard, I guess.

"Lees, go get dressed. Dad can wait." I leveled my gaze on my father,
ignoring the instinctive tremor that went through me at the weight of his
disapproval. "Dad, have a seat."

Nobody moved for a second, and I thought, Okay, so much for taking charge
without looking like a complete ass. But then Lisa slipped past me and out of
the room, and after a long pause, Dad pulled out one of the kitchen chairs
and sat down in it.

I almost let out a breath of relief, but managed to hold it in. Shortly
thereafter, of course, I realized that giving Lisa the opportunity to escape for
a little while left me alone with my father, and naturally this was awkward as
all hell. We hadn't spoken two words to each other in as many years, and
even before that, things between us had been pretty strained.

I cleared my throat into the new, heavy silence and watched him examining
the kitchen, which was reasonably neat except for a few dishes in the sink
and a pile of mail spread out across one of the counters. "Um... can I get you
something to drink?" I asked.

Dad didn't look at me as he shook his head.

So much for that. Not sure what else to do, I headed over to the sink and
turned on the faucet, hoping that the water would perhaps drown out some of
the ridiculous and oppressive silence my father had brought with him.

I've always gotten this bizarre enjoyment out of washing dishes. Warm,
sudsy water, scrubbing things clean, listening to the sound of the water
sloshing around... It relaxes me, and even with Dad sitting behind me
stirring up storm clouds, I still found myself feeling a lot calmer as I worked.

Lisa was taking a long time. Not that I could blame her. But still, I had time
to wash, dry, and put away all the dishes that had been stacked up in the sink,
and after that, I neatened up the pile of mail and then wiped off the counters
with a wet rag.

My father, I realized, should come over more often. I'd get a hell of a lot
more cleaning done, that was for sure.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but either go and sit down at the table
with him, or else beat it out of there and leave him alone in the room. I
would have gone for the second option in a heartbeat, but I had a strange
fear of leaving my dad alone in my house, as if he might somehow sabotage
something, or go through my address book and start calling up old

boyfriends to shout Bible passages at them, or... something. So I was
actually starting towards the table when my dad cleared his throat.

"Maybe you should go," he said in a low voice.

I stopped, feeling my eyebrows rising. Go? Had someone forgotten that this
was my house, and that if anyone should be leaving it, it should not be me?

But before I could get out anything resembling this sentiment, he went on,
gruffly, "Go check on her, I mean. Make sure she's..." He nodded, as if the
rest of the sentence wasn't worth putting into words.

Make sure she's all right?

Or, Make sure she's still there and hasn't climbed out the window and run off
to California?

"Yeah, okay," I said, and headed off to begin the search.

Lees, as it turned out, was lying on my bed with the lights off, fully clothed
now but not looking any more ready to face our father. At the sound of me
pushing open the door, she sat up straight and stared at me wildly for a sec
before relaxing.

"Jesus, you scared me. Is he gone?"

I arched an eyebrow. "Um, no, he is not gone. He's waiting out there for
you."

Lisa yelped and hurled a pillow at me. "You didn't get rid of him?"

"Just how exactly did you expect me to get rid of him?"

"I don't know! Get Aaron over here and start making out or something!
C'mon, Jamie, you know I can't talk to him!"

"You can't talk to him? Do you have any idea what it's like to be stuck alone
in the same room with him when we haven't said a word to each other in two
years?"

She gave me a weak smile. "At least it means you have lots to talk about,
right?"

"Lisa," I growled.

"Okay, fine," she said, pouting as she got up off the bed. "But come out there
with me, okay?"

Suddenly she looked scared and small, which immediately dropped me into
all sorts of childhood Little Sister In Trouble flashbacks. I put my arm
around her shoulders and gave her a good squeeze. "Right beside you," I
said, and we started for the kitchen.

Chapter Four

It wasn't unbearable, but it was still pretty bad. Dad lit into Lees the second
the both of us sat down at the kitchen table, though it seemed he was mainly
pissed about her leaving school and coming here. He didn't even mention
Shelley, which kind of made me wonder if maybe Mom hadn't even told him
about that. But then, why did he think she'd left? And how had he even
known she'd be here? Had to be Mom. She had that whole borderline-
clairvoyant 'mother's intuition' thing going for her. That, or she'd called
looking for Lees, had talked to Shelley, and found out that way.

Anyway, no need to include the gruesome details. The word 'irresponsible'

was used a whole hell of a lot, and I believe the cost of tuition was
mentioned somewhere around five times. By the end of it all, Lisa was
tearfully promising to go right back to school and get all her make-up work
done. Dad was going to be talking to her professors, he told her, to make
sure that she was coming to classes after this, and if he heard of her skipping
so much as one class, he was discontinuing the service on her cell phone and
canceling all her credit cards.

Which, okay, fair enough since he was paying for them, but whose doorstep
did he think she'd stumble onto if she lost those cards? Whose hard-earned
money would she end up relying on if that happened?

With this in mind, I spoke up about the questionable fairness of this decision,
pretty politely and reasonably, I thought, but Dad completely ignored me. I
don't mean that he let me have my say and then decided to disregard what I
had to say, I mean he completely ignored that I was even a presence in the
room. It was as if no one had spoken; he just charged on into the next league
of his lecture like I was in one of those dreams where I suddenly realize that
no one can see or hear me.

Except Dad could definitely see me, because he was looking everywhere but
at me.

Anyway, this pleasant family session lasted for awhile longer, then Dad got
up out of his chair and, with a few last words of warning to Lees, headed for
the front door. He put on his shoes, tugged the rain slicker back into place,
and opened the door, all without a single word or glance in my direction. He
just walked out. No goodbyes, just left.

I watched him go, thinking that this should be some great, significant
moment of sadness or something, but in truth I just felt tired and kind of
annoyed. Lees, meanwhile, was looking like she'd just been torn apart and
not-so-expertly put back together, and her bottom lip was still doing that
trembly thing even though she wasn't crying anymore.

I closed the door before Dad was even halfway down the walk, and slid my
arm around Lees while we walked back into the kitchen.

Back when we were kids and Lisa was sick, a lot of the time I'd been the one
to take care of her, and I still knew what she liked when she was feeling
shitty. I made her a cup of hot chocolate and got out a box of Saltine
crackers, and while she was sitting there at the table warming her hands on
the cup and nibbling on the crackers, I grabbed the phone and gave Aaron a
call.

I didn't explain, really, just told him to get his ass over here. He said "Sure"
and hung up.

"You know," I said as I went to join Lisa at the table, "you don't have to do
what he says."

And she didn't, really, but only if she wanted to try living without any sort of
income until she could get herself a job.

Lisa sighed and laid her head down on the table, pillowing it on her arms.
It'd been a long time since I'd seen her so down, but then, it'd been a long
time since I'd seen her after she'd been bawled out by our father. "You think
I could stay for one more night?" she asked softly. "I can leave for school in
the morning or something..."

"Sure, stay as long as you need."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

Her voice was pretty muffled, since she was basically talking into the table,
but I still heard her loud and clear. "I don't want to go back."

I sighed. "I know."

We didn't say anything else, and after a few minutes, someone was
hammering out an impatient rhythm on the door. It was Aaron, of course,
though I was kind of surprised to see him unshaven and with dark hair
sticking up all over his head, not to mention dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of
boxer shorts. He was out of breath, leaning pretty pitifully on his crutches.

"Hey," he said in between gasps.

I frowned and leaned forward to examine him. "Did you run here?"

He gave me a you kidding? grin, but he was still panting. "Shit, no. Just, uh...
you know, those stairs..." He made a quick gesture in the direction of the
porch stairs. All three of them. "So anyway, what's up?"

I shook my head and got back to the matter at hand. "It's Lees," I said, and
grimaced. "Dad was here."

"Your dad? You're shittin' me."

"Nope. Somehow he figured out she was here and came looking for her."

"Wait, so he didn't know she was here before...?"

"It's a long story," I said, opening the door so he could hobble inside.
"Anyway, she's pretty upset about the whole thing."

Aaron maneuvered the crutches so he could clap a hand on my shoulder.
"Say no more, my friend. I may be the walking wounded, but I'm still a man.
I'll cheer your sister right up."

I caught his arm before he could shuffle past me. "Hold it. First, let's get one
thing clear. There will be no sex. No sex with my sister. Not now, not ever.
Understand?"

"Jamie, I'm stunned. I mean, that you would even think I would try
something when she's in this fragile state." He leaned close to me and leered.
"But you and me can still do it, right?"

Aaron, it seemed, was back to his old self again, so much so that I almost
wondered if I'd imagined all the angsty subtext of the last few days.

Letting out a breath of irritation, I shoved him in the direction of the kitchen
-- gently, though, in deference to his crutches. "Just get in there. And no
massages, either."

He grinned back at me. "Never. Those are just for you." Then he was in the
kitchen and making his way over to the table, where Lees was taking a few
tentative sips of her hot chocolate.

"Hey, there, sexy," Aaron said, carefully sliding into the chair next to Lisa
and propping his crutches against the counter. "How ya doing?"

She sniffled. "I guess Jamie told you, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, he told me. And I can see why you'd be upset. I mean, it's pretty
terrible. Sure, I can understand not in my house, but never?"

Lisa frowned at him. "What?"

"Us. You and me. Didn't you hear? We're not allowed to have sex, ever. Or
so says our beloved James over there."

Lisa didn't say anything for a few seconds, still staring down into her hot
cocoa. Then she smiled a little and lifted her head, and pretty soon there was
a mischievous grin on her lips. "Oh, yeah?" she said. "Well, who says we
have to tell him if we do?"

Aaron grinned. "Now, why didn't I think of that? So, whaddya think, Jamesy?
Is it okay if we don't tell you about it?"

The conversation really just degenerated from there, so at last I opted to grab
the phone (and Abe's number) and retreat into my bedroom for awhile. Lees
was definitely feeling better by that point, and for all his talk, I was pretty
damned sure Aaron wouldn't dare try anything with her in my apartment --
not if he wanted to be off those crutches anytime soon, anyway.

Sometimes being an older brother is exhausting work.

Anyway, I'll tell you the truth; I was shaking a little as I dialed Abe's number.
That by itself was pretty strange. For all the lack of success I have with guys,
I've never been all that afraid of talking to them or calling them up,
especially if they seem interested. But Abe... Yeah, I don't know. He was
just different, somehow.

He was also the type to pick up after the second ring, and say, "Hello?" in
this low, smooth voice that made me forget all about Justin and his blue
jeans.

My first words to Abe, sadly, were completely incomprehensible, as my
voice chose that moment to be hoarse and froggish. I cleared my throat and
tried again. "Hey, uh... this is James. From the hospital?"

The eternal pessimist in me expected one of those Crap, who is this guy
again? pauses, but instead Abe said right away, in this really warm voice,
"James. Hi. It's really good to hear from you."

Which... okay, wasn't exactly high on the list of Most Romantic Lines Ever
Uttered, but the guy's voice was like silk. Silk that wanted to flutter its way
along my skin, tracing over the lines of my body until I was senseless with
pleasure.

Focusing on the phone call was kind of tough after that, but I did my best.

As it turned out, Abe was about to head out the door -- and I, of course, had
to get off my ass and do some work pretty soon -- but we had one of those
nice, comfortable chats for a few minutes, and ended with the decision to
meet for dinner later that night, after which we would go to that Shakespeare
theatre thing, which was apparently performing Romeo and Juliet.

This would've been pretty unremarkable, since of course R&J has been
performed by everyone and their hamster at least a zillion times over, but
this performance was apparently a special one. In light of some anniversary
of who-knew-what, the play was going to be performed exactly as it had
been back in Shakespeare's day -- which meant, naturally, that it would be
an all-male production, with younger, smaller men portraying the parts of
the women.

Dinner and gay Romeo and Juliet. What more could a boy ask for on the
first date?

Well, I could think of a few things, but oddly, I found myself thinking that
it'd be okay if they didn't happen for awhile. I couldn't really explain it, not
even to myself, but like I said, Abe was just different somehow. I wanted to
go all old-fashioned and take things slow, get to know each other and maybe
do nothing racier than hold hands on the first date. Maybe share a warm,

perfect kiss on the doorstep, but then each go our separate ways for the night.
Then we'd both be lying in our separate beds, grinning like idiots and
daydreaming about the next time we'd see each other, and...

"Oh, God," Aaron groaned, clomping his way into the room, "you're
thinking about that guy from the hospital, aren't you? Jesus, you have the
stupidest smile on your face..." Before I could break out of my daydreams
enough to respond, Aaron flopped onto the bed beside me and ruffled my
hair. "The hell's wrong with you, anyway? Leaving me and Lees alone like
that, you'd think you want us to do it or something."

He was grinning at me, and I couldn't help grinning back, leaning over to
nudge him in the ribs with my elbow. "Where is she, anyway?"

"Went out to get some Tampax or something, I don't know. Said she'd be
back in ten minutes." He waggled his eyebrows. "Which means that we're all
alone."

I smiled, falling into the rhythm of the old routine easily. "You sure you can
last ten minutes?"

He grinned, shrugging. "If I pace myself."

The ribbing faded out a second after that, maybe because I was still in that
happy floaty place from Abe's phone call, or maybe because Aaron was all
of a sudden looking at me with something more serious in his eyes.

"You ever think about it?" he asked me after awhile.

"Think about what?"

He just kept looking at me, staring me straight in the eyes, fearlessly. "Us.
What it'd be like."

Something trembled deep in my stomach, and I tried to swallow even though
my mouth was suddenly dry. Aaron just kept staring at me, and right about
then I realized how close we were sitting, and how I could feel the warmth
of his body against my side. And suddenly I didn't know what the hell I was
feeling, but the promise of an evening with Abe seemed hazy and distant,
and it was getting really difficult to remember why this wasn't supposed to
happen.

Aaron's arm slid around my back, smoothing over my skin through my T-
shirt, and I watched him start to lean in. My heart was going fast and I could
feel myself tingling, not to mention the warmth of his arm, the tautness of
the muscles that drew me closer.

I leaned forward. I didn't look away, and I didn't close my eyes, and after a
second, the tips of our noses brushed. Our mouths were so close, I could feel
Aaron's breath on my lips, warm and quick, but he didn't move any closer
than that. He just... stopped. We sat like that for awhile, close enough to kiss
with Aaron's hand rubbing slowly against my back.

The words just kind of slipped out of my mouth: "I'm not in love with you."

There was no twinge of hurt in Aaron's eyes, not even a flicker of surprise.
He just looked at me. "I know."

He shifted on the bed, drawing my body closer to his, and the hand that was
rubbing along my back slid up to finger the hairs at the back of my neck.

"Then why?" I managed.

"Don't you want to know?"

"Mm?"

"What it'd be like. You and me."

I shivered and slid a little closer, wrapping an arm around his back.
"'Course."

"Then why not see?"

"You're... because we're..."

"Friends?"

"Best," I breathed. "And there's also..."

"That Abe guy. And Justin. Well, who cares? They don't own you."

"Lees..."

"She won't be back for awhile." The fingers that were massaging the back of
my neck slipped up into my hair, sliding lazily through it and then trailing
back down to my neck. "It'll be good, Jamie. You know it."

I did. I was already trembling just at the thought of it, and it was tough to
think rationally about anything, particularly our friendship and my earlier
determination that my life not be all about sex.

But there was something I had to know first. I was in that hazy, aching place
where all I wanted was to be touched, but I had to know.

"Aaron," I said slowly, having to concentrate on every word to get it out,
"are you in love with me?"

I told myself that if the answer was yes, I couldn't possibly do this. That no
matter how much I wanted to, it just wouldn't be right if he was in love with
me.

But Aaron just grinned and said, "You crazy? You're way too femme for
me."

I showed him what I thought of that by grabbing him by the shoulders and
shoving him backwards, so he hit the mattress with me leaning over him.
"You're an asshole," I said.

He smirked at me. "So what."

We'd done the usual play-wrestling with each other when we were younger,
rolling around in the dirt, so it wasn't all that strange, having Aaron's body
under mine, pinning him with my weight and my hands on his shoulders.

But of course, it was a lot different in that I was so focused on every point
where our bodies touched, on the heat of him underneath me, on how little
space really separated our chests, our hips. God, I wanted this. It kind of
shocked me, how much I wanted it, and I wondered how long this had been
going on, how long my body had been lusting after my best friend without
bothering to clue me in about it. In the end, I decided it didn't really matter.

I leaned down, and it was the first time Aaron looked a little scared. Just a
flicker of anxiousness in his eyes, a twitch of his lips, but then he was lifting

his head up to meet mine. Our noses brushed again, our eyes locked, and this
time, I closed the rest of the distance and pressed our lips together.

First there was warmth, softness, a faint taste of mint. His lips were a little
dry, but as they moved against mine, gently at first, his tongue flicked out
quickly to wet them, and that small touch shivered through me until all I
could do was press forward, inward. I'd been on my knees, keeping my body
suspended above his, but at that I sank down on top of him, groaning as our
hips ground together with a taut, straining pressure.

Aaron closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath, his head tilting back so his
lips were drawn away from mine. His hands fumbled at the edges of my shirt
and finally slipped past the hem, tracing warm, shaky lines over my bare
skin. I pressed down, closer, tighter, and caught up his mouth again, this
time kissing him hard and deep, tracing the crevice of his lips until they
parted to let me inside.

He was breathing fast as my tongue traced under his lip, along his teeth, and
finally slipped deeper, into the close, damp heat of his mouth while his
tongue teased and tangled against mine. We rolled onto our sides, chests
sliding together, and I realized dimly that I should be doing something with
my hands. I reached down to slip them under his shirt, but he caught one of
them before I could, his fingers wrapping tight around my wrist, and guided
my hand jerkily downward.

I opened my eyes and stared at him, but his eyes were squeezed shut. A
second later I felt heat and hardness under my fingers, straining up into my
touch. He pushed my hand against himself, arching up into the touch,
thrusting against my hand, and my mouth went dry again, this time with the
taste of something faintly bitter.

"If we do it like this, you really won't last ten minutes," I said quietly.

He didn’t move for a second, then his eyes snapped open and it was like he
suddenly realized what he was doing and with who. My wrist was abruptly
free, and Aaron was scrambling away from me like he'd been burned. I had
time to catch his shoulder and stop him before he could go get more than one
leg over the side of the bed, and managed to get him turned around and
facing me without too much trouble.

"Aaron--"

"Fuck this," he growled, looking so pissed that I let go of his arm. "Fuck this!
We finally... and I go and... Fuck!"

I stared at him. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

He shook his head and turned away, like he couldn't take looking at me for
another second. "I'm just another fucking dickwad, that's what's the matter.
Bet that Shakespeare guy wouldn't do some shitfuck thing like that, would
he? Shit, no. He'd be too busy acting like a fucking gentleman and making
sure you were feeling good instead of being a damned asshole and trying to
make you get him off." He let out another stream of curses and tried to crawl
off the bed again.

"Aar-- Wait." This time when I caught his shoulder, I pressed him up against
the headboard of the bed so he'd sit still, maybe even look at me. "Calm the
hell down, will you? It's okay."

But it wasn't. Because I was beginning to realize that he'd been lying before,
when I'd asked him if he was in love with me.

I think he knew. That I'd figured it out, I mean. When he looked up at me, he
looked so miserable that it took any words I might've said right out of my
mouth, until all I could do was stare back at him and hate myself for letting
things get this far in the first place.

"It's okay," I said again, because I really didn't have a clue what else to say.

"The hell it is," Aaron said in a low voice.

I sat back a little, feeling a headache coming on. When had things gotten so
damned complicated? And angsty? For Chrissakes, did he think I'd never
been to bed with a guy before? Shit, we were all selfish bastards sometimes.

"Look," I said firmly, "if you feel so bad about it, you can do something for
me to make up for it."

His eyes got wide, and I realized how that sounded.

I gave him a Look. "Not that. Something else. You game?"

He nodded, looking bewildered but slightly less miserable.

"Okay." I drew a breath, feeling kind of weird to be asking this of someone
I'd just been horizontal with, but it made sense somewhere in the back of my
brain. "I want you to take Lisa out."

Which, of course, sounded like I wanted him to have her killed. I just
shouldn't bother trying to speak at all.

"Take her out to dinner," I clarified before he could give me another
confused frown. "Take her to a movie, or out dancing, or..." I thought
belatedly of his toe. "Well, maybe not dancing. But show her a good time.
She really needs it, and I know I can trust you with her."

Aaron was quiet for a long time, and since I figured he wasn't likely to try to
make a run for it again, I let go of his shoulders and sat back. "Let me get
this straight," he said finally. "You want me to take your sister out on a date?
That's what you want me to do?"

"That's what I want you to do."

He stared at me for so long that I started wondering if maybe there was
something on my face.

"That's seriously all you want?"

"Yeah."

His eyes narrowed. "You trying to set us up?"

A laugh blurted out before I could stop it. "Oh God, no. No, I just... She has
to go back to school tomorrow, and... I just want her to have one night when
she can relax and have fun before she does. I know you'll give her that. So,
what do you say?"

He still looked kind of suspicious, but he shrugged. "Sure, I'll do it."

I made to get up, then, thinking it was about time we relocated to somewhere
that wasn't my bed, but Aaron caught my arm, gently this time. The eyes that
met mine were dark and a little afraid.

"It's not gonna get weird with us now, is it?"

I opened my mouth to answer with No, of course not, but realized that Aaron
was really, seriously asking me -- that he didn't just want the easy answer, he
wanted the real one. So I stood there and thought about it for a few seconds
before curling my fingers down over his wrist and giving it a quick squeeze.

"No," I said, "it won't get weird." I smiled a little. "Can't get much weirder
than it is already, can it?"

Aaron grinned and let me help him up.

Chapter Five

I had some reservations about going out with Abe after what had happened
with Aaron, I have to say. Not only did it seem kind of shitty to head off
with some other guy right after all that, but I was still pretty confused about
what exactly was between us. Me and Aaron, I mean. I loved him, yeah. And
I was pretty damned sure I was attracted to him after what'd happened in my
room, but...

God, he was Aaron. It was just too weird. When I thought about the two of
us together, not just play-wrestling but in a serious, honest to god
relationship, it just didn't work. Waking up with Aaron beside me in the
morning, reminding him over breakfast to pick up more toilet paper or
something...

Gah! No. Just... no.

So I went. It was too late to cancel, anyway, and Aaron and Lees had already
headed out for their night on the town, so what was stopping me? Except for
the colossal burden of my guilt, of course. But whatever. I could deal.

I dressed up reasonably nice -- tailored red shirt (nice and silky, to
encourage touching), black jeans (a little snug in the ass for obvious reasons),
the usual chain around the neck and ring on my index finger. My hair
decided to be kind and behave, laying just right over my forehead and
curling a little bit by my cheeks and at my neck. I hadn't dyed it for awhile,
so it was more brown than red these days, but it looked decent enough.

All right, so I spent about a half hour in the bathroom making sure I looked
okay. And after that, I spent another twenty trying to decide which cologne
to put on, and finally decided to go au naturale in case Abe was one of those
guys who didn't like strong cologne smells. I guess I was pretty anxious
about making a good impression, so much so that I almost fucked myself
over completely by being late.

I made it, though, skidding in through the doors of the restaurant with about
two minutes to spare, and of course Abe was already there. He was sitting at
one of those cozy little tables for two by the windows, and was going over
the menu with a pleasant, studious look on his face like when he'd been
sifting through Shakespeare.

He looked good. That soft-looking brown hair was making a fluffy kind of
halo around his face on its way to his shoulders, and he was wearing a black
suit jacket and pants with a white button-down shirt. No jewelry, no frills,
just simple black and white. He looked fantastic.

My mouth went all embarrassingly dry, but I still managed to stutter out to
the waiter that I was with "that guy over there", this of course aided by an
elegant finger-point in Abe's direction. The waiter, to his credit, just nodded
and led me over to the table, like I couldn't have made it across the room
without his guidance. Then again, the way I was feeling, this was probably a
valid concern.

Abe stood up when I approached, and I half expected him to bustle around
the side of the table and pull out my chair for me to sit down. But instead he
smiled at me and took my hand, just to hold it for a second, and said how
glad he was that I'd made it.

The guy actually looked a little anxious, like he'd been afraid I'd ditch him or
something, so I gave his hand a little squeeze and chimed in with the terribly
original and articulate, "I'm glad, too."

But whatever, at least I wasn't staring at his mouth again.

We settled in after that and started examining our menus, though I had a
hard time focusing on the words with Abe sitting there across from me. The
guy had a presence. He seemed all quiet and polite and unassuming, but
there was something about him that kept drawing my eyes back over to him;
I just couldn't stop staring at him. It was kind of embarrassing, really, but I
couldn't seem to stop.

After awhile, he glanced up at just the right second to catch me staring, and
our eyes met. His were a really deep, dark brown, darker than Aaron's, but
there was a warmth to them that seemed like it might swallow me up.

Yes, I know, that's really ridiculously cheesy. But it also happens to be true.

Anyway, he smiled at me a little and said, in a really warm, soft voice, "The
crab is pretty good."

The crab is pretty good. Flutter-sigh.

"Thanks," I murmured back, also smiling, and went back to my menu.

Finally, I couldn't help laughing. He looked up at me, puzzled, but it was
awhile before I could calm down enough to get out anything resembling
speech. "This is just... crazy," I managed. "You have to be the most perfect
guy ever, and for some reason you're out here with me, and it's just..." I
laughed again, caught a bit of spittle in my throat, and choked into my water
glass for a few seconds. "It's crazy," I croaked in conclusion.

Abe tilted his head, frowning in a kind, amused sort of way, though I
couldn't help noticing that his cheeks got a little pink, too. "I'm not perfect,"
he said. "Trust me."

"Ah, but see, that's what the perfect ones always say."

He arched an eyebrow, looking amused again. "How many 'perfect ones'
have you met?"

"Well... Just you, I guess."

He smiled and took a sip from his water. "I see. Well, I'm not. Really."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, what about you?" he countered, leaning in a little to study me.

I blinked. "What about me?"

He reached across the table like he was going to take my hand again, but
instead he just drew his thumb along the tops of my fingers, slow and soft,
back and forth. He looked up at me then, and I suddenly figured out what he
was getting at.

"Me? You think I'm perfect?" I burst out laughing, choked again, and after a
few deep breaths, managed to control myself. "No."

"No?"

"Not even close. If you had any idea..."

"Tell me, then."

"Ahaha, no."

I gotta say, that thing he was doing with his thumb, drawing it across my
hand like that? Yeah. It felt really good, but not in a sex kind of way, just...
good. Warm. And the way he was smiling at me was making my brain
slowly turn to jello, which I suspected would soon begin to leak attractively
out of my ears.

"Come on," he urged, and I guess it was my Jello Brain that made me
answer. Not with white lies intended to make me look good, like in a job
interview where they ask you for your negative qualities and you say stuff
like, "Oh, I'm such a perfectionist... not to mention a workaholic..."

No. For some stupid, ridiculous reason, I told him the truth. It just kind of
spilled out in a long, embarrassing stream that I was helpless to stop.

"Well, for starters," I said, "I don't have a real job. I sit around the house like
a slob and play around on the internet instead of working on my book like
I'm supposed to. I'm also a complete failure at relationships, even when
they're just friends or family or something. I mean, I haven't talked to my
mom and dad in two years, except for a few words to my dad today, but that
was completely random and weird, and it's not like he paid any attention to
me anyway. And of course, my best friend's in love with me but I almost
slept with him anyway, even though I don't feel the same way about him.
And that's because I really can't say no to anybody, not even my asshole ex-
boyfriend who dumped me because I'm too femme."

I broke off for a breath, and it was about then that a slow, mounting kind of
horror began to creep over me, this being when I realized exactly what
madness and dysfunction I'd just dumped on the guy. "And," I concluded,
wondering if it would be bad manners to beat it out of there as fast as my
legs could carry me, "I apparently also can't keep my mouth shut about
stupid personal stuff that should not be brought up on the first date ever.
That is how not-perfect I am."

He stared at me for a few seconds after I finished talking, and I couldn't help
noticing that even though his thumb had stopped stroking my hand, he hadn't
taken his hand away, either. Finally, he let out a breath and shook his head.

"I really like you," he said, and smiled.

I absorbed this for a moment. "You're nuts," I said finally.

"Maybe."

I wrapped my hand over his, feeling suddenly shy. "I... really like you, too."

God, what was this? This wasn't how my dates went. My dates were with
people who spilled stuff on me so I'd take off my shirt, and 'I like you' was
generally substituted for 'Meet me in the men's room in five minutes.'

Okay, not really, but close enough.

Anyway, the waiter came back a little while after that, and Abe and I placed
our orders and talked about random stuff while we were waiting for the food
to come. I found out that he was twenty-seven and worked at some research
institute for a hospital. Yeah, I know, fascinating stuff -- but I was fascinated.
It was like I didn't care what he was saying, just as long as I could listen to
him talk, and watch his face and his eyes, and just soak up how it felt to be
sitting there with him. There was just something about him.

I don't know if I said much during our date as a result, and I know I didn't
absorb more than a few lines from Romeo and Juliet. This last was because
Abe reached over and took my hand a few minutes after we sat down, and I
spent most of my time sappily focused on that point of contact between us,
especially since our joined hands were balanced on top of my leg. Still, there
was nothing intrusive about it, nothing really sexual, it was just nice.

I found myself wondering about that as the evening went on, though. Here

was this gorgeous, wonderful guy, this perfect gentleman who liked me and
left me in a happy-sappy love daze, and I wasn't feeling any of that urgency
like I usually get when I'm with someone I want to sleep with. I remembered
sitting next to Aaron on the bed and feeling like my whole body was buzzing,
and how I felt when Justin grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me up
onto the counter. But with Abe... I didn't feel anything like that. Nothing.

But it felt good, and I knew that I was already completely crazy about the
guy, so did it really matter?

Well, yeah. I wasn't quite ready to take a vow of celibacy just yet.

But maybe it'd be okay. Maybe once we finally got past the holding hands
stage, it'd just fall naturally into place, and the desire would suddenly just be
there, because we liked and respected each other, or... something.

Whatever. I wasn't going to analyze it to death. There were more important
things to do, such as counting the lines on his fingers and watching the way
his thumb moved as it stroked gently across my knuckles.

Abe drove me home after Romeo and Juliet was over, and the apartment was
still all dark, so I guessed Aaron and Lees weren't back from their night out
yet. Abe's car was a little messy but in good shape, and it smelled like
leather and his aftershave. I gotta say, I wasn't exactly in a hurry to leave it
and go into my dark, empty apartment that didn't smell like anything but
potpourri and burnt popcorn.

I was still sitting there with my fingers on the door handle, trying to think up
some way of delaying the moment of getting out of the car, when Abe
reached over to touch my face. It was a really soft, gentle kind of touch, just
him brushing the tops of his fingers against my cheek. In the dimness of the
car, his eyes seemed darker than usual, almost black, but they were still
warm and deep, drawing me in. And so was his hand, which slid through my
hair and cupped around the back of my head, then drew me gently toward
him while he leaned in.

Our lips met somewhere over the gearshift, and the world went all hazy and
warm around me. It was a slow kiss, soft and perfect, and with none of that
straining urgency like I'd felt when I was kissing Aaron, or Justin, or any of
the other guys I'd been out with who I'd ended up falling into bed with
shortly thereafter. His mouth tasted a little sweet, but with a faint taste of
coffee lingering in the warmth.

While we were kissing, his fingers stroked lightly against my hair, and when
we pulled apart, the movement was warm and slow, so our lips lingered
against each other for a few seconds before separating.

"Jesus," I whispered.

Abe's eyes, which had been lightly closed, slid open as he smiled at me. He
looked kind of out of breath, though not, I couldn't help noticing, in a Let's
Hop In the Backseat sort of way. "Mm," he murmured. His voice was a little
hoarse, and yeah, okay, the thought that kissing me could make it that way
sent a little thrill of silly-happiness through me.

I am a simple creature, yes.

And then, to complete the whole Fairy Tale / Old Movie feel of the evening,
he rested a hand on my arm and said, "When can I see you again?"

I smiled in a dazed kind of way. "How's five minutes sound? Or I could just
get out of the car and get back in again..."

This made him grin, after which he leaned in to kiss me again, slowly and
deeply. It was a perfect kiss. Perfect.

But still no action down below. I was beginning to wonder if being with
Aaron earlier had short-circuited it or something.

This time when we pulled apart, I couldn't help making this silly little
disappointed sound, which made Abe grin again.

"Are you free tomorrow night?"

I nodded, having not quite regained the power of speech yet.

"Okay. I'll pick you up at seven and we'll do something."

I nodded again.

He laughed. "Do you need me to walk you to the door?"

I guess I really was looking pretty dazed. I did my best to snap out of it and
shook my head, though of course there was still a big goofy smile on my
face. "That's okay," I said, and reached for the door handle.

This time, I actually made it out of the car, and though my legs were feeling
a little wobbly, I managed to make it across the sidewalk and up the stairs
without tripping and falling on my face. So yeah, that was good.

Abe waited there the whole time, watching me and waving when I looked
back at him, and it wasn't until I closed the door and locked it behind me that
I heard the rumble of him driving off.

I let out one of those fluttery sighs and leaned my back against the door,
feeling like I was about to burst with the happy floaty feelings. And why not?
Things in my life were actually pretty good, and even if I wasn't exactly
talking to my mom and dad, I still had Lees, not to mention Aaron. My job
was one I enjoyed (when I actually stopped browsing the internet and did it),
and I'd just met the most perfect, wonderful guy in the world.

Against all odds, it had finally happened.

I was happy.

Which should have been a warning sign for me, really. I mean, they say that
when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up... but what about
when you hit the very tippy top of happiness?

The answering machine light was blinking as I walked into the kitchen. I hit
the button as I passed, thinking melty thoughts about Abe and wondering if
there were any leftovers in the fridge that Aaron hadn't eaten, but I didn't get
more than a few steps before I stopped short.

I stood there, halfway between the phone and the fridge, and listened to the
message the whole way through. Then I walked back over to the phone and
pressed the button again, and listened to it through another time.

My hand, which had been poised up over the play button, dropped back
down to my side, and I just kind of stood there for a few minutes. I guess it's
what they call 'shock', but all I felt was numb. Blank. I'm not sure I thought
much of anything as I stood there, and I was still standing in the same spot
when the front door clicked open and Aaron and Lees came tromping in. I
heard them laughing, though it seemed weirdly far away, and then Aaron
said something and went into the living room.

Lisa took a few steps into the kitchen, still giggling, then gasped and stopped
short.

"God, you scared the shit outta me! What're you doing standing around in
the dark?"

I turned to look at her, at a complete loss for what to say, and saw that she
was wearing a flowy red dress with spaghetti straps that reached about to her
knees. The dress, not the straps. I wondered if Mom had gotten it for her.
She'd always had good taste.

"Jamie?"

I wasn't really aware of it, but suddenly she was standing in front of me with
her hands on my arms, peering at me with a worried look on her face. "What
is it?" She glanced at the phone, which I was still standing beside. "Is it
Daddy? Did he call and yell at you or something?"

My throat felt like gravel, but I still managed to get the words out. "It's
Mom," I said.

"Mom called to yell at you?"

I just shook my head. I couldn't say anything more; I was still feeling numb,
though it was starting to feel more and more like somebody'd just punched
me hard in the chest.

I don't know if it was the look on my face or what, but just like that, she got
it. She let go of me real quick and took a step back, like getting away from
me would make it not true or something. I kind of wished it would.

"Mom?" she said in a small voice.

My voice was still stuck, so instead I reached up and pressed the button on
the answering machine.

"James, Lisa," came the gravelly voice of our father, though it wasn't the
stern, booming sound I was used to. It sounded weak, broken, like it could
barely get the words out. "Your mom... The doctors think she had a stroke. I
wasn't there, but one of the neighbors... Guess she was out on the porch, and
he saw her when it... he saw her. Anyway, the doctors don't think--" There
was a shaky exhalation of breath. "You should come home. As soon as you

can. Lisa, don't worry about school, just come. And--" He cleared his throat.
"James, you should come, too. She'd... she'll want you to be here."

And that was it. The machine clicked off and rewound the tape, and I stood
there feeling empty while Lisa clapped a hand over her mouth and started to
cry.

I wasn't looking forward to having to figure out how to explain it to Aaron,
or having to replay the tape again for him, but luckily I didn't have to. He
came in a second later, and from how white his face was, he'd heard the
whole thing.

"Shit," he breathed, and stood there in the doorway looking like he didn't
know what to say, either.

I couldn't blame him. Mom had always been like a second mother to him. I
mean, the guy was constantly at our house, and there'd even been a time
when she'd thought he and Lees were going to end up together. Of course,
this was before she caught me and him ogling male underwear models, but I
think she took it all in stride. I always really kind of regretted that not
speaking to Dad meant not speaking to Mom either, and it occurred to me
suddenly that I could've tried a little harder to find time to talk to her. Call
her up when Dad was at work, or send her a letter, or... something.

But now...

God.

I felt the tears first as a hot, tight sensation in my throat. I tried to hold them
back, but it didn't work too well, and next thing I knew, I was pressing my
hand up over my face and trying not to cry too loudly. Lees did a pretty good
job of drowning me out, but I guess Aaron realized what was going on
anyway, because a second later I felt his arms go around me. Lisa got
dragged into the hug a second later, and pretty soon we were all clinging to

each other and crying, and this time there was no friendly groping and no
jokes about C-cups. We just cried and held onto each other, and by the end
of it, we were sitting on the kitchen floor with our arms still around each
other, our faces and shirts damp and our eyes all red and puffy from crying.

I guess we looked pretty pathetic, really, but it was okay. It didn't matter.

We slept in my bed that night, all three of us, curled up together with me in
the middle and Lees curled up against my right side while Aaron wrapped
against my left. I didn't sleep very well, even though I was exhausted,
probably because I was too busy thinking about all the arrangements I was
going to have to make in the morning to get us on the fastest flight back
home.

Finally, I drifted off around midnight, and the next thing I knew, it was dawn.

Chapter Six

Aaron and I were sitting at the kitchen table. It was only a little after dawn,
and Lees was still fast asleep. Lucky her. I'd sat up with a start just after the
sun came up and felt so wide awake that I didn't even bother trying to get
back to sleep, and Aaron was just a light sleeper. I'd given him one of those
inspired Go Back To Sleep hand motions, but he'd just shaken his head,
disentangled himself from Lees, and followed me out into the kitchen.

We didn't say much of anything, except for me asking him if he wanted
some tea and him saying "sure"; after that, there wasn't much sound but the
water bouncing around in the pot while it heated up. There were some birds
outside, some little kids shouting a few words at each other out on the street,
but other than that, it was really weirdly quiet. Maybe I was too used to
turning on the TV or the radio when I got up in the morning, but it just
hadn't seemed right today.

I think I was still basically in shock. I mean, it's not every day you get told
something that makes everything -- your whole life -- completely different,
and I think my tactic at that point was to do my best to just not think about it.

So I got really focused on all the little things I was doing, just taking
everything one step at a time. You know, pour the water into the teapot, turn
on the stove, get out the cups, go sit down at the table to wait -- little things.
The furthest ahead I thought was to after breakfast, when I was going to get
on the computer and see what cheap fares I could track down to get us home.
After that...

Well, I'd figure out 'after that' when I got there.

"You think he'd get pissed if I came, too?"

I actually jumped, even though Aaron's voice wasn't all that loud. And even
then, it took me a second to put what he was saying into any kind of sense.
"The plane fare's gonna be pretty ridiculous," I said when I realized what he
meant. "You might be better off just to stay here. I mean, it's not like there's
anything you can--"

"I'm coming," Aaron said, so firmly that I broke off mid-sentence. "I'm
coming either way, I just wanna know whether I can do it with you and Lees
or if I gotta creep around when your dad's not there."

I think I'd have been pretty touched by that if I wasn't still feeling all numb,
but I still reached over to touch his hand. "With us, then. If Dad doesn't like
it, too bad." I swallowed and withdrew my hand, because I had a weird
feeling that it was all cold and lifeless or something, kind of like how I felt.
"He's probably not too happy about me coming, either, so you might as well
come, too."

"I really," Aaron cut in quietly, "don't think that's true."

I just looked at him, tiredly. "Don't think what's true?"

He stared back at me for a few seconds, seeming like he was looking for
something in my face, then shook his head and let out a little breath.
"Nothing. I think the water's boiling."

I looked up, and he was right; steam was hissing out of the thing like crazy,
and the teapot was rocking around like it was just about to blow. I got up and
walked over to it, flicked off the stove, and wrapped my fingers over the
handle -- but since it was one of those all-metal deals, the handle was at
boiling temperatures, too. It hurt like hell, but I think my brain was still
moving kind of slowly, still sludging along like through a bunch of mud,
because I just stood there and looked at it for a second, feeling the pain
lancing into my palm and up my arm, before I finally let go.

There was a bright red mark on my hand in the shape of the handle. The skin
looked raw and kind of shiny, and when the air hit it full on, I couldn't help
letting out a hiss of pain and grabbing onto my wrist.

Aaron was at my side in a second, swearing at me. "The hell'd you do? Ass-
wipe, use a damned potholder next time! God, come here. Over to the sink.
Get some cold water on it."

He took me by the shoulders and led me to the sink, and it was about then,
when my pain-filled hand was being held under a stream of cold water and
Aaron's chest was pressing into my back, that I realized what an ass I was
being.

I was falling to pieces. I was shutting down, closing up, and how the hell
was I supposed to be there for Lees if I did that?

"Shit, I'm sorry," I breathed, letting my head drop so all I could see was the
bottom of the sink.

Aaron's hand was still wrapped carefully over mine, holding the burn under
the spray of water; he gave my hand a quick squeeze and said in a low voice.
"Just keep it together, huh? I'm barely doing that myself, and if you lose it..."

"Sorry," I said again. My hand was still hurting but felt a little better, so I
reached out to turn off the faucet.

I'd had burns before, and I knew what I was in for. It'd keep feeling all cool
and nice for a few more seconds while the water dried, then it'd go right
back up to that sharp, throbbing pain again. The only thing to do was wait it
out. When I was a kid, I'd burned my hand on a tray of chicken nuggets once.
Once I'd figured out that water made the hurt go away, I'd tried keeping the
burn in a little bowl of cold water so it felt better, but guess what? No matter
how long I kept it in there, the second I took my hand out, the burn flared
right back up and hurt like hell again.

The only way past that kind of pain is through it.

I let out a breath and said quietly, more to myself than to Aaron, "I don't
want her to die."

Aaron didn't say anything for a minute. "I don't, either," he said finally. "But
you know, just 'cause the doctors don't think it looks too good doesn't mean
they're right."

I found that I didn't want to think about that almost as much as the opposite
outcome. It hurt too much, to have that little bit of hope punched back into
me and to know, rationally speaking, that there was no way in hell that nice
dream was going to come true.

At least... I didn't think it was. But really, who knew? Dad hadn't exactly had
a whole lot to say on the phone, and maybe... maybe he'd left something out.

Maybe he hadn't wanted us to get our hopes up, or wanted to wait until we
were there to tell us how things were, or... Something. Something.

I sank down into one of the kitchen chairs and raked a hand -- the unburned
one, of course -- through my hair. Maybe there was still hope. Or maybe we
were just going back to say goodbye. Whatever was going on, it didn't
matter. We were still going back, and we'd sort out everything else when we
got there. When we got home.

God, I was going home. It had been two years since my parents and I had
stopped speaking, and a full year before that since I'd been at the house I'd
grown up in. I wondered if it looked different, if I'd even recognize it...

If it would even matter without Mom inside it to warm the place up, make it
into a home. I guess that sounds cheesy, but Mom... God. She always made
you feel welcome, you know? She lost her temper every now and then with
me and Lees -- and Aaron -- but there was always this tone in her voice that
told us that she still loved us, even when she was bawling us out for
something.

I felt the tears starting up again and forced them back down. But it was more
than a mother I was losing -- it was a home. Without her in it, what was that
place? Just a house. Just a bunch of rooms.

So much for my dream of this stupid feud ending and me being welcomed
back there with hugs and kisses and apologies. Going home on the holidays
instead of spending them with Aaron (not that that wasn't its own kind of fun,
but still), maybe someday even taking a boyfriend there with me -- Abe. God.
My mom would love Abe. He was such a gentleman, so polite and nice, a
real respectable guy; I could practically hear her now, kidding me in an
undertone that if things didn't work out, she was going to do her best to get
him hooked up with Lisa, or maybe go for him herself -- he was too great a
catch not to get into the family somehow.

A hand touched my shoulder, gently, then handed me a tissue. Well, a torn
off piece of paper towel, but still, the thought was there.

I pressed it up against my face and tried to control myself, but it was hard.
I've never been much of a crier, but when I get going, it's hard as hell for me
to stop.

It just kept running through my head, all the never evers and never agains.
And for all that I'd felt like a perfectly grounded adult a few hours earlier,
right then I was just a kid who'd lost his mom. You grow to depend on
having that presence there, you know? Even if you don't talk to your parents
much (or at all), you still know that they're out there, that somewhere in the
world there's a place you can run back to if you need to -- a place where,
even if they disagree with you, even if they're pissed at you, they still have
to take you in. They still love you, no matter what.

No matter what. Even if they don't say more than a few words to you, maybe.
Even if they act like they can't stand to be with you for longer than they have
to. Even if they don't even say goodbye when they leave.

I was doing that attractive hiccoughing-sobbing thing by that point, and
Aaron was looking past sympathetic and now a little worried. I guessed I'd
been crying for kind of a long time; my throat was raw, my nose was all
clogged up, and the paper towel piece I was holding was completely soaked,
and so was my sleeve. I started calming down around then, taking in deep
breaths and coughing, feeling tired and soggy and completely worn out.

But better. And my hand wasn't hurting so much, even though it was still
pretty red. I felt like I'd gotten past some important hurdle, or something. I
wasn't ready to go dancing or anything, but I felt a little stronger, a little
more composed. A little more like I could keep it together and see this thing
through, whatever came of it.

Aaron got me a glass of water and I drank it down, managing not to choke

myself in the process by some minor miracle. Then we had our tea and some
leftover rice, and after that, I got up, pulled in a deep breath, and headed into
the computer room to book our tickets.

Lisa woke up a little while later, padding out of the bedroom looking sleepy
and small, and by that time, we were booked on an evening flight that would
get us home just a little after ten.

***

It wasn’t until we were on the plane that I remembered Abe.

I'd thought of him before then, yeah, more than once. But the fact that we'd
had plans for seven o'clock that very evening... that had, in fact, somehow
slipped my mind. And of course, being on the plane, I couldn't exactly whip
out my cell phone and give him a call... which would leave him waiting
there on my doorstep at seven, wondering where the hell I was and why I'd
stood him up.

"Shit!" I hissed, so loudly that Aaron jerked out of his doze, Lees blinked at
me over the top of her magazine, and at least a few people turned around to
look.

Aaron glanced over at me with one eyebrow arching. "Problem?"

"Abe," I said, giving myself a few good smacks in the middle of the
forehead as if to punish my brain for having forgotten. "Shit! We were
supposed to go out tonight, and I forgot to tell him... Dammit! You think
they're serious about that no cell phone rule? I mean, is it just so people
won't get obnoxious on the things, or will it... I don't know, mess up the
plane or something?"

Lisa was looking kind of alarmed. "Let's not find out."

"Anyway," Aaron said, catching my hand before I could bring the cell phone
out of my pocket, "don’t sweat it. I told him what was going on."

There was a long pause, during which I stared at the back of the seat in front
of me, waiting for these words to make sense. Finally, I turned to Aaron and
said, "What?"

Aaron shrugged and went back to the PC Magazine in his lap. "He called
while you were in the shower, something about getting dinner reservations. I
told him what was going on and that you wouldn't be able to make it."

My heart was pounding suddenly for some reason, and my eyes were
stupidly wide. "Wh...What did he say?"

Aaron turned a page. "He said he was sorry to hear about what happened,
and then he asked me if I thought it'd be 'too forward' if he had some flowers
delivered or something. I told him we were heading outta here tonight, so he
shouldn't bother."

"He... it... flowers... gah." I sat back in my seat, shell-shocked. But at least
he knew. At least he wouldn't be sitting there, wondering...

"Wait a sec," I said, eyes narrowing real fast. "How'd you even know who he
was? When he called, I mean."

"You were in the shower," Aaron said, giving me a look like I was stupid. "I
asked him who he was so I could tell you who called. And the rest, as they
say..." He flipped another page. I was pretty sure he wasn't actually reading
them. "Anyway, we had a nice little chat, me and the boyfriend."

"Oh, God," I said. "And he's not... We only had one date."

Aaron made a doubtful noise and lifted his eyebrows. "Well, I'll tell you one
thing, he seems to think you guys are betrothed or something. He didn’t
sound too happy when some strange guy answered your phone and said you
were in the shower. Of course I left out the part about all the wild sex we'd
had before that."

On the one hand, it was a relief to be back to talking about relationships and
sex and silly stuff, so I probably should've just been thankful and not gotten
pissed. But the thought of Aaron making his usual sex jokes to Abe, and Abe
maybe believing him...

I fought to keep my eye from twitching. "Please tell me you explained to
him that we're just friends."

Another glossy page was flipped. "Course. But I figured the guy had a right
to know that there's so much more between us than that. Years of tension,
burning desire..."

"Aaron," I growled. "I swear, if you said anything to him..."

He finally gave up the charade of reading the magazine, flipped it closed,
and looked over at me. "Relax. I let him know we're just friends, and that I
was at your place that early mainly for moral support and stuff. You think I'd
fuck this up for you?"

A minute or two earlier, I hadn't been so sure. But I found myself shaking
my head. "No," I said quietly. "No, I know you wouldn't."

He nodded, looking satisfied with that, and spent a moment digging around
in his bookbag to exchange the magazine for a Tom Clancy book.
"Anyway," he went on while he paged through the thing, "the guy seems
about as interesting as a rock, and he's way too polite. Don't you start
picking up any of that shit, you hear? You start going all 'if you please, sir'
on me and we'll have to have a little reeducation session with you strapped
to a chair and twenty-four hours of South Park."

I didn't do a very good job of holding back my smile. "I'll keep that in
mind."

Aaron grinned quickly and at last found the page he'd left off on, and our
little group of seats fell quiet for awhile.

It was really kind of a nice, cozy feeling, sitting there in the hum of the cabin
with Aaron's arm and shoulder all warm against mine, listening to Lisa
murmuring things to herself while she read her magazine, and being lulled
by the motion of the plane, which was steadier now that we'd reached
cruising altitude. Of course, it wasn't like we were headed off on vacation
somewhere, or like any of us had forgotten where we were going and why.
But it was like reality couldn’t quite reach us when we were bundled up
thousands of feet in the air, so we just kind of fell into our usual patterns and
enjoyed the ride.

Or I did, anyway. I wasn't sure how Aaron and Lisa were feeling, but they
seemed okay. Lisa, definitely, was better than she'd been; she'd hardly said
two words after we'd listened to Dad's message, and now she was actually
contributing full sentences every now and then. She'd even given Aaron's
hand a friendly slap when he tried to touch her thigh by dropping a pencil
onto her side of the seat.

At least Aaron could be counted on to stay the same.

But then, I wondered how much of that was for real. I remembered what he'd
said that morning, implying that he was barely holding it together... and I
remembered all too well how torn apart he'd looked the night before, when
the three of us were huddled up on the kitchen floor crying.

Aaron hadn't had much occasion to deal with death. Even his grandparents
were still alive, though by now they were ridiculously old. But I was pretty
sure that the only deaths he'd had to deal with were of the goldfish variety,
and that doesn't exactly prepare you for the blow of someone you know --
someone you love and depend on -- suddenly up and leaving you.

My brain made a half-hearted attempt to remind me that she was not dead,
that there was still the chance she'd pull through, but somehow, I just didn't
believe it.

So instead, I decided to focus on something else for awhile. I pulled out my
book-- Howl's Moving Castle, which I'd been intending to read for awhile --
and settled in to enjoy the rest of the flight. God knew that after we landed,
things weren't going to be nearly so pleasant.

***

Dad didn't meet us at the airport. Aunt Cheryl did, smothering us with hugs
and kisses and nearly choking me with her furs in the process. You'd think
eighty degree weather would be deterrent enough to wearing great bloody
furs around one's neck, but no. Then again, Cheryl is one of those skeletal-
skinny women who looks like she could use some extra warmth, so possibly
that had something to do with it.

I guess it was pretty shitty to be standing there dissing her in my head while
she was lavishing love and shared grief on us, but it's how I deal. Or maybe
Cheryl's just one of those people who invites mockery just by existing, in
which case it was hardly my fault for succumbing to it, was it?

Anyway, after she was through dragging our heads to her bosom (and you
know it was bad if even Aaron didn't enjoy it), she got control of herself and
looked at us properly -- starting with me, of course.

"Jamie," she said a bit sternly, "I'm glad you've finally come to your senses
and come home. This ridiculous feud between you and your father has gone
on long enough. Why it had to take something like this to knock some sense
into your head, though..."

I could've set her straight about my being here having nothing to do with
reconciling with my father (and certainly nothing with apologizing), but she
already seemed to be fighting back tears, and I couldn't help remembering

that Cheryl had been my favorite aunt back when I was a kid -- I'd spent
long summer afternoons at her apartment when Mom got a part-time job,
and until Lisa was born the next year, it was just the two of us. I
remembered playing hide-and-seek with her in their tiny apartment, and
always winning because there was nothing in the damned place big enough
for anyone larger than a five-year-old to hide behind.

I guess that's why I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, this time a
proper one with two people holding onto each other, instead of one hugging
and the other one suffocating.

"Dad didn’t tell us much," I said as I pulled back, looking away so Cheryl
would have a moment to surreptitiously wipe her eyes. "About Mom, I
mean."

Cheryl nodded and took a deep breath, then reached down and hefted my
suitcase -- which was no mean feat given that she seemed made entirely out
of bone and I hadn't exactly packed light. "Let's get moving first; we'll want
to have time to get you kids settled in before bedtime. I'll..." She cleared her
throat. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know on the way."

***

Weird didn't quite cover it. How it felt, I mean, to be back in the house I'd
grown up in, back 'home'. The place hadn't changed quite as much as I'd
thought it would have; there were a few subtle little changes in furniture and
decoration, a new TV in the living room, but other than that, it was exactly
the same, even down to the smell.

The whole thing was just strange. Kind of surreal, really, like dreaming I
was back home instead of actually being there. And the weirdest damned
thing of all was my dad.

I swear, the guy was like a different person. Maybe it was just 'cause Aunt
Cheryl was staying there, too, keeping my dad company, but from the
second we got there, he was... like... nice. It was creepy.

I wasn't really sure what to expect as we headed up the walk, dragging all
our stuff with us and still feeling kind of shaken from what Cheryl had told
us about Mom. I had kind of a picture in my head of how things would go
when we got inside, and that was that Dad would be sitting in his chair in the
living room, smoking his pipe and staring at some big band performance on
the TV. We'd come in, announce ourselves, and he'd just keep sitting there,
ignoring us completely while the smoke swirled up around his head to the
tune of 'Guys and Dolls'.

I sure as hell wasn't expecting the door to fly open before we'd even gotten
to the porch, and for Dad to be standing there waiting for us with tears in his
eyes -- tears in his eyes! The hell?

He grabbed onto Lisa first, probably because she basically flung herself at
him the moment he appeared. There was a tender father-daughter moment
for a few seconds, with him holding her tight and stroking her hair, and then
his head lifted and... he looked straight at me.

Straight at me. And not like I was some homo freak he wished he could
disown from the family, but like I was... well, his son. Lisa was still clinging
to him, her face buried in his shoulder, but he was looking at me, and even if
there wasn't exactly an abject apology in his expression, there was still
something there. Okay, and maybe it was just that Lisa was crushing his ribs
into powder with that hug, but whatever it was, it was a hell of a lot better
than being ignored.

I had a moment or two of realizing how pathetic that was, that my dad doing
something so basic as acknowledging my existence without spouting off
Bible passages could make me so happy... but the guy was my dad, you
know? I'd spent my whole childhood trying to make him proud of me, and
habits like that die hard.

Anyway, a second later his eyes shifted over to Aaron, to whom he actually
gave a polite sort of nod, then he was ushering Lees into the house with an

arm around her shoulders while the rest of us followed in a stunned sort of
silence. Or... I know Aaron and me were stunned; Cheryl was dabbing at her
eyes, presumably at the beauty of parent-child bonding, but as we were
dragging our suitcases up onto the porch, Aaron muttered, "You sure that's
really your dad?"

To which I could only shake my head in bewilderment and follow Aunt
Cheryl into the house.

As it turned out, there was a big band show on in the living room, but the
chair Dad had always sequestered himself in when he didn’t want to deal
with us was gone. Now there was a big, cozy sofa in its place, and on that
sofa was...

"A cat?" I couldn't help blurting.

Aaron and I exchanged shocked glances.

Dad gave a little grunt and busied himself picking up sections of the
newspaper and laying them in a pile on the coffee table.

"Oh, that's right!" Lees said, having already gone to kneel by the couch and
scratch the cat's belly. "You never met Whiskers, did you?"

"Whiskers?"

"Mom and Dad got her about a year ago."

"But..." My eyes went to my father, who had finished tidying the papers and
was now regarding Lees and the cat with a weird, unreadable expression on
his face. "But you hate cats. Lees and me begged you for years to let us have
one, but you always said no."

"Daddy might hate cats," Lees chimed in, which was probably a good thing
since I doubted Dad was going to answer, "but he wuvs Wittle Miss
Whiskers!"

Aaron and I exchanged glances again. I think both of us were a little
frightened.

"You boys can sleep in Jamie's room tonight," Dad said in a gruff voice,
apparently deciding to ignore Lisa's cat-related allegations for the moment.
"Your aunt's in the guest room, or one of you could sleep there."

"Okay," I said, still feeling kind of shell-shocked by the whole experience.

"Visiting hours start tomorrow morning at nine," Dad went on, now sliding a
bunch of magazines into the rack in the corner, "so you'll want to be up and
ready before that. We're leaving at 8:30 whether you're ready to go or not."

That, at least, sounded more like the father I knew.

Well, except for the bit where he was actually speaking to me.

Anyway, Lees played with the cat -- I mean, seriously, Whiskers? -- for a
little while longer while Dad cleaned up everything clean-able in the living
room. Aunt Cheryl, meanwhile, was bustling around in the kitchen heating
up food for us poor weary travelers, singing along to the radio in an operatic,
painfully off-key voice that I remembered well from my childhood.

While all this was going on, Aaron and I just kind of stood there, completely
at a loss, and ended up watching the big band stuff on TV for lack of
anything better to do. Thankfully the food was ready not long after that, and
the three of us trouped into the kitchen to eat it, since we were pretty much
starved. As we were leaving the living room, though, I glanced back over

my shoulder... and Dad had settled in on the middle couch cushion, looking
tired but comfortable, and was scratching Whiskers affectionately under the
chin while she nuzzled against him.

Seriously. Twilight Zone.

Anyway, after food and some friendly interrogation from Aunt Cheryl, who
decided to sit with us while we ate, we headed upstairs to get ready for bed,
which was fine by me. I was feeling pretty exhausted, not just from the usual
weariness of plane travel and dragging around a suitcase a few tons heavier
than my own body weight, but from all the weirdness this visit had already
entailed. I was still kind of shocked about the cat, though I could see Mom
managing to talk Dad into getting one if she really wanted one. But most of
all, I was having a hard time figuring out what the hell was going on in my
dad's head.

The father who had come barging into my apartment to bawl out my sister
and completely ignore me, that was the father I knew. The father who was
stern and immovable and could make you feel like you'd failed him
completely just with a single look... that was my dad. Not this guy who sat
on a cushy couch giving some fluffy white cat the time of her life. And
certainly not the guy who let me and Aaron -- me and Aaron, who he knew
damned well was about as straight as a slinky -- share a room for the night.
Granted, we'd done it a billion times when I was a kid, but he hadn't known
about us, then.

What the hell had happened to my father?? Was it all just stress because of
Mom?

But the cat! The cat had come before this mess, and...

I didn't know. I was confused. And tired. I'd deal with it all in the morning, I
decided as I changed my shirt and stripped down to my boxers. And if things
were still this ridiculous and bizarre in the morning... well, I'd deal with that
then.

Besides, maybe Dad was still in shock, and soon he'd come out of it and be
back to his old unpleasant self again.

Dad had already set up the cot in the corner of my room, just like when
Aaron spent the night all those years ago, and again it was kind of surreal
crawling into bed -- my old bed, which still had a Star Wars poster sticky-
tacked onto the ceiling above it -- and seeing Aaron wiggling around to get
comfortable on the cot.

He caught me looking at him, and we shared a glance for a few seconds,
both of us looking equally weirded out by the whole thing... then we both
burst out laughing.

"This is so fucking weird," Aaron said, tugging the covers up as best he
could. The cot was a little small for him, and his feet hung off the opposite
edge.

"Tell me about it," I said.

"Shit," Aaron went on, "seems like we ought to be pulling out the underwear
catalogue about now and sitting with our backs against the door so your
mom can't--"

He broke off, and we were quiet for a minute.

"You think your aunt's right?" he said finally, not quite meeting my eyes.
"About how your mom could pull outta this and be fine?"

I pressed my lips together. "I... guess anything's possible."

"I mean, yeah, the doctors said at first that they thought she wasn't gonna
make it, but she's still hanging on, right? So maybe..."

"Look," I cut in, because somehow every word was stabbing at me like a
knife in my gut, "I'm really kinda tired. You think we could talk about this
later?" Or never?

Aaron looked at me for a second, then wrestled himself off the cot and came
to sit on the bed beside me. I thought maybe we were in for a tender moment,
but instead he gave me a friendly smack on the side of the head.

"You don't want to talk about it, just say it. Don't give me this 'I'm kinda
tired' shit."

I looked him straight in the eye. "I don't want to talk about it."

Aaron nodded, looking satisfied. "Fine. Now move over. No way in hell I'm
sleepin' on that thing."

I grinned and did as he said, even though I have to say I was a little leery
about sharing a bed with him again. Yeah, these were special circumstances
and I didn't think he was going to pull a move on me or anything -- or that
I'd be able to even think about sex with my dad just a few doors away -- but
I was kind of afraid to find out that I was still... well, lusting after my best
friend.

Isn't that pathetic? My mom in the hospital, me back home for the first time
in years, and my big fear was that I might start feeling all tingly about Aaron
again.

Anyway, my worrying turned out to be for nothing, because no sooner had
we turned off the light than I was out. I slept like the dead through the night,
and it wasn't until Aaron got up around seven to use the bathroom that I
snapped out of it.

I opened my eyes to find Luke Skywalker gazing heroically down at me, and
for a second my heart started racing with the thought of, Holy shit, I'm at
home. I'm at home, and Dad's right down the hall and is speaking to me
again, and Mom is in the hospital and is probably going to die, and there's a
cat named Whiskers who lives here now.

Not surprisingly, none of these facts were any less weird upon examining
them in the light of day, and I crawled out of bed feeling about as freaked
out by all of it as I had the night before. Since Aaron was in the bathroom --
and I sure as hell wasn't going to go downstairs and risk another awkward
session with my dad -- I spent a few minutes wandering around my room,
looking at stuff and picking up random things to examine them.

I think I used the word 'surreal' a few times already, but that's really the only
term that applies. It was surreal. Like stepping back in time or something, or
suddenly remembering something I thought I'd forgotten, or... yeah. I picked
up a seashell candle from my senior prom, which still smelled like some
artist's facsimile of the ocean, fresh and blue and kind of salty. I picked up
one of the metal Star Wars figures still perched the dresser, playing out the
scene I'd carefully arranged them in when I was about fourteen.
Stormtrooper aiming at Han, Han aiming at Vader, Chewie about to bash the
Stormtrooper over the head with his crossbow, Luke facing down his father
with lightsaber held high... or, the handle held high, since the saber itself had
snapped off about a week after I got the damned things.

Of course, this led to a rather profound analogy-ish moment for me, wherein
I realized that this was very much how I felt when I faced down my own
father, as if the blade of my lightsaber had just snapped off. I knew how to
defend myself, knew damned well, but a few seconds in the presence of ole
Vader and I was left holding nothing but that pretty metal handle with the
paint starting to chip on one side.

Before I could congratulate myself much further on this expert metaphor,
Aaron came sauntering back in with his face damp and a bran muffin in one

hand. "Here," he said, and tossed it to me. "Thought you might want some
breakfast."

I caught the thing in a somewhat spastic manner and leveled a disbelieving
look on Aaron. "You actually braved the kitchen?"

Aaron shrugged. "I figured you probably wouldn't want to head down there
yourself for awhile. Your dad's sitting there reading the paper."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"He grunted a little, I think."

I raised my eyebrows, impressed. "That's as good as a 'good morning' from
anybody else. Seriously, what is up with him?"

Aaron sat down on the edge of the bed and started chewing on his own
breakfast, which turned out to be a piece of beef jerky. "You ever think that
maybe your dad's sorry he's been such a shit all these years, and wants to
make it up to you?"

I tried not to laugh, my mouth being full of bran muffin at this point, but it
was difficult. Finally, I managed a sort of muffled chuckle and swallowed
before I tried to speak. "Yeah," I said. "Right."

"I'm serious. The guy might've been acting like you're the dirt under his
shoes for the last couple of years, but you're his kid and he loves you. Don't
give me that look. I practically grew up in this house; I know what I'm
talking about. It might be that this thing that happened to your mom... well,
that it made him realize that you guys are his family, and someday he might
lose you, too. So maybe he's trying to shape up before that happens."

"Uh-huh," I said. "And what episode of Full House did you see that on?"

"Laugh all you want, asshole. You'll see."

"Sure," I said, and went back to my muffin.

Cheryl came up to check on us after awhile, right about the time Aaron and I
were sitting in the middle of my floor going through a pile of old comic
books we'd found in my closet.

"Boys," she said pleasantly, like we were twelve or something (and okay, the
comics probably didn't help our case any), "breakfast is ready."

I blinked. "Breakfast?"

She gave me a don't be silly look. "Of course. Bacon, eggs, sausages, ham
and potatoes..." Her expression went stern. "Don’t tell me you don't eat
breakfast anymore, Jamie."

I did, of course, just not the Heart Disease Special. But I could see that Aunt
Cheryl was about this close to grabbing us by the ears and dragging us
downstairs that way, so instead I got to my feet and followed her of my own
free will.

Dad was there at the table, his face buried in the newspaper while he worked
on his breakfast. Weirdest of all, Whiskers was sitting in his lap, accepting
pieces of egg or ham from his fingers every few minutes.

Before I'd quite absorbed this image -- though I was getting better at
handling these moments of The Bizarre the longer we spent in this house --

Lees was patting the chair next to her and urging me to sit down, so I
managed to convince my feet to carry me over there.

Breakfast... Yeah, it was tasty. The eggs were great, and so were the potatoes,
and I admit I had a slice or two of bacon. But sausages... I'm sorry, no. It
might seem kind of funny, a gay guy who hates sausages, but there you go.
They just gross me out. I can't help thinking, while I'm eating them, just
where they came from and what exactly I'm putting in my mouth, and... no.

So while I did my best to enjoy the rest of the meal -- and it was very good;
Cheryl had always been a great cook -- I didn't touch the sausages, and
frankly was feeling a little queasy watching everybody else wolfing them
down.

It was around this time, when I was setting my fork down in the interest of
getting a hold on my stomach, that my dad -- without moving his eyes from
his paper -- shifted a little bit and said, "So, what is it that you're doing these
days, James?"

All sound and movement at the table stopped. Even Aunt Cheryl -- who until
now had been happily pretending that nothing was at all amiss between me
and Dad -- froze mid-bite and slowly set her fork down on her plate.

I took a stupidly long time to find my voice.

"You... you mean like for a job?"

That had to be what he meant, I reasoned; no way in hell he was asking
about my personal life.

Dad grunted, the universal sign of fatherly affirmation.

"Uh... I'm working on a book."

Dad was quiet for a second, then glanced at me over the top of the paper.
"Working on a book?"

"Writing one, I mean." Inane babble began to pour out of my lips, as it
sometimes does when I'm feeling less than composed. "I got the go-ahead
from my publisher so I'm living off the advances they sent me and working
on the book at home."

This time, Dad's eyebrows definitely raised. "You have a publisher?"

Shit. Well, I was in the clear as long as nobody figured out that that meant--

"So you've been published before?" Aunt Cheryl bubbled. "That's so
exciting! Are you published under your own name, or a penname? I wonder
if our bookstore has any copies?"

Aaron, who knew damned well that I would never let anyone in my family
read my book, which was a pretty racy gay romance, coughed a bit to cover
up his laughter.

Lisa, however, had no such compunction and giggled out loud. "I don't think
you'd like it, Aunt Cheryl."

"Don't be silly. I've never had the chance to read a book written by someone
I know, let alone someone related to me. I would love to read it, Jamie."

"Um... it's really not a big deal," I said.

"Getting published," Cheryl went on rabidly, "is a very big deal. Why, do
you know that I once got it into my head to write a novel? It's true. I was just
about your age, in fact. And not only did it take me years to get it finished,
but forget trying to find someone to publish it!" She leveled a finger at me.

"I always knew you would make something of yourself. From the moment I
read that story of yours, the one your mom typed up for you when you were...
oh, about five? You remember, Jamie, the one about the haunted house and
all those children being killed in gruesome ways? Such imagination! I
always knew you'd make a writer of yourself someday!"

I was very much wishing, at this point, that I could crawl under the table and
disappear. Instead I managed a wincing smile and shoved another forkful of
food into my mouth.

Of course, I'd only chewed on the thing for a second when I realized that it
was a piece of sausage that had somehow found its way onto my plate. At
least rushing to the bathroom to spit it out gave me a good reason to get the
hell away from my aunt.

All right, so I hid out in the bathroom for awhile longer than I had to. I
meant to go right back after I was finished rinsing all traces of sausage out of
my mouth, but instead I sat down on the fuzzy peach cover on the toilet seat
lid and sighed.

The little downstairs bathroom was full of my mother's influences: paintings
of flowers on the walls, bottles of peach-colored soap and lotion lined up on
the sink, a vase of fake flowers sitting on the back of the toilet tank. The
room smelled warm and sweet, and with the softness of the rug under my
bare feet, I felt strangely... safe.

I rested my chin on my hand and studied myself in the mirror that covered
the opposite wall. I was trying pretty hard not to think about where we were
going in a little under an hour, but of course, trying not to think about it just
made it that much harder to ignore.

Up until then, I'd been able to push it out of my thoughts, or to focus on all
the weirdness so I didn't have to think about it, but the truth was that I was
pretty terrified. Was she going to be hooked up to all sorts of machines, with
tubes and beeping and that terrible antiseptic hospital smell all around? What
if she died while we were there? What if she died before we got there? What

if she didn't die but didn't wake up and we had to decide whether or not to
pull the plug?

Every gruesome medical show episode I'd ever seen came flooding back into
my memory as I sat there, and it was a long time before I felt steady again.
Or... steady enough, I guess. I was reaching the danger point where my
absence went from rude to worrying, and I didn't want to have to answer
concerned knocks and questions. So I took a deep breath, got to my feet, and
after one last speculative glance at myself in the mirror -- I looked pale and a
little sick, but not too awful -- I unlocked the door and ventured outside.

The house was quiet but for the sound of dishes being washed. There was no
rustle of newspaper, no sound of conversation, just water sloshing around
and the occasional clatter of plates being scrubbed and stacked. Feeling
oddly wary, I took a few steps into the kitchen.

Aunt Cheryl was alone, working on the dishes with steady, practiced hands.
She glanced over at me with a start when I stepped into the kitchen, and
there was a moment when I stared at the dampness on her cheeks before she
wiped it away with her sleeve.

"Jamie," she said, her voice only trembling a little. "Your dad went ahead to
the hospital."

Something cold and heavy settled in my stomach. "Why? Did something
happen?"

She blinked at me, then shut off the faucet and gave me a reassuring smile.
"No, no, nothing happened. Your father just... wanted some time alone with
her. You understand."

I wasn't sure I did, but I nodded anyway. Then, because it seemed like the
conversation was over, I turned around and headed back out the door -- but
Cheryl's voice stopped me before I could get more than a few steps.

"Do you remember when you were little, and your dad would bring you over
to my place in the summers?"

I frowned and stopped, turned back around. Cheryl still had her back to me,
her hands busy in the sudsy water. "Yeah..."

"We'd go to that old playground and you'd swing so high we thought you
were going to fall off and break your neck." She took in a slightly shaky
breath and wiped some hair out of her face with her sleeve. "While I was
worrying about having to take you to the ER, he was sitting there grinning.
He was always telling me how proud he was of you, because you were so
fearless."

The words struck something in me, something that rang and rang like a gong
going off too close to my ears.

"I think that's still true," she went on. "Even if you don't feel like it, and even
if he doesn't say it. You're still that gutsy little kid, and he's still proud of you
for it. Even if he doesn't realize it."

I stood there for another few seconds, then turned and walked away without
saying anything.

The hell kind of pep talk was that? He's proud of you, he just doesn't know it?
Please.

And me, fearless? I think not. I could hardly keep my legs moving for terror
of what we were going to face at the hospital, and if I could've gotten away
with it, I would've stayed holed up in that bathroom until it was time to catch
a flight home.

I found Aaron and Lees in the living room, Lees looking out the window and
Aaron playing with the cat. I sank down onto the couch cushions and

pressed a hand over my eyes, and none of us said anything until Cheryl came
bustling in to tell us that it was time to go.

Chapter Seven

God, enough of this gloomy, poignant, angsty stuff already. I mean, really,
who wants to read that kind of thing? Isn't it more fun to read about sappy
first dates, counter sex, and gropey best friends with comically broken toes?
Isn't it more fun trying to guess whether the femme guy's gonna end up with
the best friend he's lusting after or the prince charming guy who doesn't
quite light his fire?

Maybe it is. Maybe that's what kind of story I want to write, but life doesn't
ever quite work out that way, does it? I mean, it would be easier to pretend
that it does. That you can live in a place where nothing big ever goes wrong,
you never lose people, and everything turns out okay in the end.

Like... maybe the doctors were wrong. Maybe we'd go into the hospital and
Mom would lie there not moving for awhile, but then after an hour or
something, she'd completely confound the doctors and... move her hand or
something. And then pretty soon she'd be wiggling her fingers, and her
eyelashes would flutter, and she'd wake up and blink at us, and maybe
seeing my dad and me together, she'd make some weak little comment about
how she'd have had a stroke sooner if she'd known it would bring us together.

The doctors would come rushing in after that, while Lees and me and Aaron
and Cheryl were latched onto my mom like howler monkeys, and there'd be
talk about rehabilitation therapy and a slow recovery process, but a recovery.

Dad would be stoic but clearly relieved. Maybe he'd excuse himself and I'd
find him sniffling into a handkerchief in the hall or something, or maybe
he'd just go over to my mom, look her tenderly in the eyes, and take her

hand. I mean, he loved her like mad -- if there was nothing else I knew about
him, it was that.

So yeah, we'd leave the hospital happy and wanting to celebrate, and even
Dad would be caught up in the mood. He'd still be his usual stern self, but
there'd be something softer in there, something warm. He and I would share
a look and smile a little, and just like that, I'd know that we were on our way
to finally healing the rift between us.

Mom would make a slow but steady recovery after that. Dad would be with
her every step of the way, attentive and caring like he used to be when I was
small and sick. Me and Aaron and Lees would have to go back to our lives,
but we'd call every couple days to see how things were going, and I'd either
talk to Aunt Cheryl or to Dad himself, who would be a little gruff but still...
softer. After awhile, we'd start talking about things other than Mom, and
slowly, we would start coming back into each other's lives again.

Happily ever after, you know? Does it matter what really happened?

If it doesn't, maybe you'd better not read any further.

***

I guess I set that up kind of dramatically. I'm not saying that things turned
out like some angsty soap opera or one of those tragic Asian films where all
the main characters end up miserable or dead by the end. Things actually
turned out kind of good. But the happy-perfect-Disney places that storyline
could've gone? Not so much.

Mom didn't make it.

She did do the hand-moving thing, and she did open her eyes, so we at least
had that moment when she saw us all standing there -- saw me and Dad
standing beside each other, right by her bed. She smiled. She did. I don't
know if she was 'there' enough to know what she was seeing, or to know that
it was real, but I like to think that she did. That she knew that me and Dad

were going to be okay, and that this stupid stroke had done what all her
years of trying to mediate between us hadn't.

She closed her eyes again not long after that, and she didn't open them again.
She died a little while later, when it was just my dad and me in the room,
plus the nurse who was taking her vitals when it happened.

I won't lie to you; it hurt like hell. Maybe what hurt the most was seeing my
dad fall apart completely when he realized she was gone, his face crumpling
up and his shoulders shaking with every breath. His breathing seemed like
the only sound in the room -- the only sound in the world, maybe -- and
before I knew what I was doing, I collided into him and put my arm around
his back. His eyes opened for a second, teary and bright, and then he
grabbed onto me and hugged me hard.

It was the first time we'd touched in years, but it was like being flung back in
time. Being in those arms meant safety, protection. I'd hidden in them after a
hundred bad dreams, and on the day my hamster died, and on the day I fell
off my bike and had to get a bunch of stitches in my elbow. Those arms were
strong and sure, and even when they were trembling against me, they still
made me feel safe.

We were still holding onto each other when everybody else came back, and
yeah, there was a lot of crying and clinging and all the stuff that always
happens when somebody dies. I don't even know how long it went on; we
were all just kind of in a haze of grief, and the nurses kindly left us alone
until we were settled down a little. Then they came in and brought us cups of
water and boxes of tissues -- a little late, since Lisa's snot was already
smeared all over my shirt sleeve -- and ushered us out into the waiting room,
I guessed so they could take care of...

Well, Mom.

Everybody else was pretty much senseless with grief at that point, even Dad,
so I ended up being the one to talk to the doctor afterward, fill out some

forms and stuff. I thought briefly about Abe while I was penning in the
words, but the part of my life with Abe in it seemed too far away for the
thought to stay for very long.

It also fell to me to get everybody into the car -- cars, since had Dad had
come on his own -- and on their way home. Cheryl seemed okay to drive
hers by this point, but I was kind of worried about Dad, so without even
thinking about it, I hopped into the passenger seat with him and belted in
while he started the car.

It wasn't until we were pulling out of the parking lot, Cheryl's car's taillights
bright in front of us, that I realized I'd just purposely placed myself into an
environment where it was just me and Dad.

But it was okay. We were both exhausted and spent, and somehow, I just
didn't feel the upsurge of anger and resentment that I usually did when I was
around my father. All this time, I'd kept this vision of him in my head, this
angry, unaccepting, stern old man who disapproved of my lifestyle and
would've loved to boot me out of the family altogether.

But it wasn't true anymore, was it? Or maybe it never had been. Because no
matter how stupidly After School Special it all was, the fact was that as
much as I wanted him to be proud of me, I was beginning to get the idea that
maybe he wanted to be proud of me just as badly.

So I decided to be a little fearless.

"Dad," I said, because you always start out Serious Discussions by saying
the other person's name very seriously, "I think we should talk about
something."

Dad grunted, his hands tight around the steering wheel, his eyes never
leaving the road.

I took a breath. "I know this might seem like a weird time to talk about this,
but... I want to end this. This thing, this fight thing we've been having. It's
stupid."

Dad grunted again, and I wondered if I was ever going to get anything even
remotely verbal out of him. Before I could think of anything else to say,
though, he let out a little breath and glanced over at me.

"Okay," he said, and turned his gaze back to the road.

"Okay," I said.

And that was it. That was our Big Talk.

Except that a little while later, he reached over and clapped his hand onto my
shoulder and squeezed it a little. Just for a second, but it was enough.

I felt absurdly like crying, but thankfully had spent all my tears at the
hospital.

***

It all kind of hit me when we got home, what had just happened. Yeah, I'd
been expecting it. I hadn't thought she'd make it. But... maybe even then, I
was lying to myself. Because I had been hoping. I'd been waiting for that
miraculous recovery, or that revelation of mistaken doctors, or something
that would mean everything could be all right again.

I guess life can kind of lull you into a false sense of security sometimes, like
everything is going to turn out okay because before then, it always kind of
has. Like, I've had a couple of times when I was sure I was going to die, but
I never really believed that I would. I'd never died before then, right? Death
is one of those things that it's hard to believe in when you're going through

your life, worrying about stupid little things and taking everyone around you
for granted.

Anyway, I guess it all came crashing down on me as my dad and I got out of
the car and there was no sign of Mom opening the door to wave at us or tell
us that we were late for lunch or something. Mom wasn't there, and she
wasn't upstairs or in the kitchen or out in the garden planting roses. She was
gone, and she wasn't coming back. Not ever.

I kind of sagged, a little moan of breath slipping past my lips, and pressed a
hand against my eyes like it would block out the truth. I felt like an ass,
standing there fighting tears in the musty-smelling garage, especially with
my dad standing right there.

I mean, yeah, I was pretty much entitled after what had just happened, but
I'm not one of those people who feels free enough with other people -- even,
and maybe especially, the ones I'm related to -- that I can just break down in
front of them and not feel stupid. So I was feeling very stupid right about
then, thinking that as soon as my vision cleared a little, I was going to go
inside and hole myself up in the bathroom until I was done, but instead I just
kept crying.

For all that my dad was kind of tough with me as I was growing up,
especially when he started realizing that I didn't have any interest in girls, he
never told me to 'act like a man'. Not once. If he caught me crying into my
pillow in a fit of teen emo, he didn't tell me to 'buck up' or 'suck it up' or any
of those other stupid-ass things fathers tell their sons when they're not acting
macho enough. He didn't exactly run to comfort me during those times,
either, he just kind of gave me my space and left me alone, but he never tried
to make me feel like crying was something to be ashamed of.

But I still felt like I was letting him down somehow, standing there not being
strong. I was the eldest son, not to mention the sanest-seeming member of
the family, and it was up to me now to take control, to be there for
everybody else while they fought to get through this. Instead, though, I was
falling apart.

I couldn't even see through my tears, but I could feel my dad's presence
beside me. He hadn't moved since I'd broken down, and I got the feeling that
he wasn't looking at me, that maybe he was thinking about bolting for the
nearest door so neither of us would have to be embarrassed by my tears.

Maybe he was. But he still took a step closer to me and put an arm around
my shoulders.

He didn't say anything, but that was okay. He was there, and that was
enough.

I was getting kind of tired of bursting into tears all the time, truthfully. I
mean, Jesus, enough's enough. But I figured I needed it or something, and it
wasn't like I could stop. I really couldn't. That had never happened to me
before; I'd always been able to control myself really well, especially as far as
tears were concerned.

Anyway. Dad just stood there, being silent and holding onto me while I cried,
and finally after awhile, I started pulling in gaspy, shaking breaths and
calming down. Dad handed me his handkerchief, and I used it to wipe away
the last of the tears even though the thought of a reusable tissue kind of
grossed me out.

"Come on," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "Let's go sit out back."

I nodded, feeling soggy and still a little weepy, and instead of going in
through the door that connected to the house, followed my dad out the back
door and into the yard.

The garden was out there, lush with vegetables on one side and flowers on
the other; we headed for the big wooden swing just beyond the rows of
plants, which was looking a little dewy in the morning light.

We sat.

It was a clear morning, sunny and bright, which seemed weird considering
what had just happened. It should've been gray and overcast, drizzling a little
or something, but I guess there's no law that says the weather has to shift to
fit what's going on in my life.

Anyway, the air was still nice and cool, and breathing it in made me feel a
little calmer, a little more in control. Enough so that I was beginning to come
out of my haze and realize that my dad was sitting with me -- that he'd asked
me to come sit out here with him, when a few days earlier, I'd been sure he
didn't want anything to do with me.

I threw a careful glance in his direction, wondering what had changed his
mind about me so completely, and found him staring at the colorful nest of
flowers with a strange, soft look on his face.

"I never thought it would go this far," he said finally.

His voice was low, gravelly, stern as always, but with an unmistakable
twinge of regret. I wondered if he was talking about Mom somehow, if
there'd been some sign or something that she was going to have a stroke, but
what he said next pretty much blew that theory out of the water.

"I just wanted you to think about it. What you were doing with your life.
What it would mean for you. How hard it would make everything."

I sat there and gaped at him for a few seconds, then got control of myself
and snapped my mouth shut. "Dad," I said, mostly to give myself a moment
more to absorb it all, "you told me I was an abomination and that I should
get out of your house until I came back to God."

He actually looked sorry. Swear to God. "I was angry."

"No kidding."

"I thought you would come back."

I swallowed my anger, barely, but the words still came out pretty bitterly.
"To God?"

"No," Dad said quietly. "To us."

I felt like leaping to my feet and pointing an accusing finger at him or
something, but I was too wiped out to do anything but say tiredly, "You
threw me out. I thought you didn't want to have anything to do with me."

"I was angry," he said again. "But you were still my son. You are still my
son."

I felt the tears burning in my throat again, but angrily pushed them back.
"It's not like I chose this."

"You chose not to come back."

"You chose not to ask me to come back."

He turned and looked at me, and somehow, this time, the full weight of his
stare didn't send me gibbering back into childhood again. "When did I ever
have to ask you to do anything? When did you ever listen to what I said if
something mattered to you?" He shrugged, and I realized suddenly that he
was an old man, a small old man who'd lost his wife, and maybe his son
before that. "If it mattered, you would've come home."

"I wanted to," I managed, the tears stinging my eyes again. "I thought you
hated me."

Dad just shook his head.

I leaned my head back against the wood of the swing, swiping a hand over
my eyes to wipe away the last of the tears. This was, I promised myself, the
last time I was going to cry today. I'd used up my quota and then some.

"So..." I drew in a deep breath and straightened up again, looking over at
Dad even though I kind of wanted to hide my gaze in the flowers, too.
"You're... okay with this? With who I am?"

I didn't say 'with what I am'. Never that.

Dad shrugged again. "I wish you weren't. But you are."

"I am."

I watched him swallow, his throat working for a moment before relaxing
again. "Your mother wanted you to come home. She was always pestering
me about it. This year, I think, I was going to listen to her. I was going to ask
you to come home for Christmas, so we could all be together. A family.
But..." He let out a long breath. "But I waited too long."

I sighed. "Maybe we both did."

There was a minute or two of silence, and then Dad got to his feet and gave
me a stern look.

"You'll still come for Christmas this year. And Thanksgiving. And for visits
every now and then."

I smiled a little. "Sure."

"And if you have to, you can..." He cleared his throat and looked
uncomfortable. "You can bring... that... your... you can bring Aaron with
you."

I frowned for a second at the phrasing, and then abruptly realized what he
meant.

"Dad, Aaron and I aren't--"

He held up a hand in an I don't want to hear about it sort of way and started
heading back towards the house.

"But Dad, we're not--"

He just gave me the hand again and quickened his escaping-into-the-house
pace, so I shook my head and gave up. If Dad thought I was sleeping with
Aaron and still let us stay in the same room together... well, that was a pretty
damned good sign. It might be safe to bring Abe here with me sometime,
after all.

I realized with a pang that I hadn't talked to Abe at all since the night of our
date, and wondered if he'd given up on me altogether.

Did it really matter, though? The guy was clearly too good to be true,
anyway. I was sure that the longer I dated him, the more awful little things
would start cropping up. Probably had a Satan tattoo on his ass and an ex-
wife he didn't pay child support to, or... something.

Or maybe he was the most perfect man I'd ever met, and I was going to lose
him.

I'd gotten up from the swing to chase after my dad, but I sat back down with
that thought, glad to be focusing on something other than grief and complex
family situations.

Abe.

He was different. I'd known it from the first moment I saw him. And yeah,
maybe that was kind of a 'duh' realization since he'd been sitting there in a
hospital waiting room reading Shakespeare, but that wasn't the kind of
'different' I was talking about.

He was different for me. He wasn't the usual type of guy I went out with, the
pretty-boy or the muscle-boy who gave me great sex and little else. This was
a real person, someone intelligent and interesting, someone who acted like
he actually maybe wanted to get to know me instead of just pretending he
did for the sake of a good fuck.

But I hadn't felt anything for him. How was that fair? What the hell did it
mean, that the best friend I wasn't in love with turned me on more than the
greatest guy in the world?

But maybe...

I thought back. I remembered that night, that perfect and horrible night when
there'd been a fantastic date that I hadn't thought of much at all because of
what had happened right afterwards.

So I thought about it. I remembered sitting in his car, letting his scent and his
closeness bathe me in warmth. I remembered kissing him, being kissed,
feeling his fingers tickling through my hair...

And thinking of Aaron. I thought about Aaron when he was kissing me,
maybe only in the back of my mind, but I did.

Aaron, who was in love with me. Aaron, who'd looked so torn apart when
he'd pulled away from me a few hours earlier. Aaron, who I loved and
wished I could love like that, maybe enough so that I would give up the
greatest guy in the world just so I wouldn't hurt my best friend...?

It was crazy. Completely and entirely nuts.

Which was really kind of how my life worked, so I figured it might be true.

There was no way I could be kissed by someone like Abe and not feel
anything. No way. So if it had happened and I hadn't felt anything, that had
to mean that something had been preventing me from feeling it. Guilt,
maybe. Or some... I don't know, some subconscious need for things not to

work out so I could make myself available for Aaron. Which was nuts, again,
since I wasn't in love with Aaron.

But I was...

I was in love with Abe.

God, that was insane. We'd had one date. But maybe I'd been a little bit in
love with him from the very start, because for all that it was crazy, it still
didn't surprise me much, realizing this.

I was in love with Abe. I could, in fact, see myself quite happily settling
down with him, even though the jury was still out on that whole satanical ass
tattoo / abused ex-wife thing.

And that was why I hadn't responded to him. Not because I wasn't attracted
to him, but because I was. So much so that giving into it could leave me so
deeply committed to him that Aaron would never have a chance with me
again.

God, what a mess.

I got up from the swing, feeling a little steadier and a lot more sane.

I needed to talk to Aaron.

I needed to, but I didn't. Things were shit enough as it was without me going
all "I love you but we can never be together!" on him right that second. So
instead I went back inside and helped Cheryl get lunch together, even though
I was pretty sure most of us didn't feel much like eating.

Cheryl didn't say anything to me while were making the sandwiches and

heating up a big pot of soup, and that kind of worried me. I mean, I'd never
been a big fan of Cheryl's constant need for noise -- singing, humming,
talking to whatever person or inanimate object would listen -- but seeing her
being so quiet was kind of disconcerting.

Then again, I remembered what she'd said to us in the car, how she was sure
Mom was going to pull through even though the doctors weren't very
hopeful. I'd wondered, at the time, if she actually believed that... and now I
was pretty sure that she had. This was all a complete shock to her, but she
was still bustling away getting lunch ready, because the people depending on
her had to eat.

I never spent much time with my aunt after those first few years of my life;
she moved around a lot, and sometimes wasn't close by enough for us to
visit regularly. She also had a whole long string of boyfriends and husbands
that my mom didn't quite approve of, and certainly didn't want her kids
hanging around with. So I didn't see too much of her during my later
childhood and teenage years.

But now that I thought about it, I realized that she was a pretty tough lady.
She had two kids, both of whom were off at college now, and she'd managed
to support them and keep them sane and in school for all those years when
she was moving around, juggling boyfriends and husbands, not to mention
working, too.

And now... How was she supporting herself? She must have a job, but she
was blowing it off entirely to be here with my dad, with her family, to take
care of us as best she could even though we hadn't really seen much of each
other over the years.

But then, maybe family was like that. You were bound together, no matter
how much time passed or how angry you might seem to be with each other.
And when it really counted, when you really needed each other... you came
through.

God, what a sappy, Hallmark Card kind of thought. But I knew right then
that it was true, with that lightning-strike kind of clarity that means it's for
real.

We set the table and ladled out the soup portions, giving them a little time to
cool off before calling everybody to the table. When she passed me on her
way to the fridge, Cheryl touched my shoulder and gave me a wan, grateful
smile, and I smiled back, feeling like some connection had been forged
between us just from that look, that touch.

Or maybe it had always been there, and I just hadn't bothered to notice.

***

I never did get around to having that 'talk' with Aaron. I kept meaning to, I
kept steeling myself to go into it and not look back, but the words got stuck
in my throat every time. The time didn't feel right, somehow, and plus I still
just couldn't bring myself to give Aaron something else to feel like shit
about when we were all stuck making funeral arrangements and other
gloomy stuff like that.

But I think he had an inkling that there was something important I wanted to
talk to him about. He didn't ask me, though, so I figured that maybe he didn't
want to hear it as much as I didn't want to say it. So we both just left it alone.
I knew we'd have to deal with it eventually, but it was more important that
we get through the next couple of days. After that, we'd have all the time in
the world to figure out if we could still be friends when our feelings for each
other were so different.

Anyway, the days went by in kind of a blur. We made all the arrangements,
sent word out to relatives, and spent a lot of time inside the house just being
around each other. Aaron slept in my bed every night but it was never weird,
and there was no more talk of seducing me, not even jokingly. I kind of
missed it, truthfully, but the rest of me was glad that he wasn't going to press
the issue anymore.

Cheryl stuck around, too, cooking and cleaning and doing all the household
stuff, and for the days while we were there, I really did feel like we were a
family. I mean, we were, literally, but being joined by blood doesn't mean a
damned thing. It doesn't mean you're a unit, or that you care about each other,

and it doesn't mean that you can sit in a comfortable silence and watch TV
while the cat purrs loudly between you.

But we did, and for all that I loved the life I had back at my apartment, I
found myself really appreciating the feeling of being in a place with family
all around, a place that felt full and warm, not empty, not lonely. It was the
first time, I think, that I started fantasizing about having a family of my own
someday.

Anyway. Days passed, the funeral happened, we cried and held onto each
other again and I felt like someone was tearing a hole in my chest... but we
got through it. And then it was time to go back to our lives again.

So we did.

Chapter Eight

When I got home from the airport, I locked the door behind me, opened
some windows to get the stuffy smell out of the place, and then sat down at
one of the kitchen chairs and picked up the phone. The other line rang a few
times before Abe picked up, and I felt mounds of tension melt off my
shoulders just from the sound of his voice.

"Hello?"

"Abe, it's James."

"James! Are you all right? Are you home? How are--"

"Look," I breathed, picturing my legs pumping me higher and higher into the
air on those creaky playground swings, "I kind of have something to say, so
is it okay if we skip the 'how am I' stuff until I've said it?"

There was a small pause, then Abe said, "Sure, go ahead."

"Okay. I guess it's not so much something to say as... something to ask you."

"...okay."

"Okay." I shifted in my seat, closed my eyes, and had one of those mental
To Hell With It moments. "Are you attracted to me?"

Abe let out a startled chuckle. "Are you joking?"

"No."

"Then... yes. Definitely, yes, I'm attracted to you."

"How much?"

"How much am I attracted to you?"

"Yeah."

His voice got a little wry. "What sort of measurement are you looking for
here?"

I smiled a little, though my mouth felt dry. "Let me put it this way. If I called
you up and invited you over to my apartment, would you be attracted
enough to me to accept?"

Another small silence. "Is that what you're doing?"

"Would you accept?"

"Yes," he said again, softly. "Definitely."

I smiled, feeling warmth buzzing through my entire body. "How soon can
you come over?"

"Give me twenty minutes."

***

I felt strangely calm. I didn't rush around making myself look good, just took
a quick shower to clean off the grime of travel, dried my hair, and then sat
down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea until the doorbell rang.

Except that it didn't, because Abe knocked. Very politely. I should've
expected it, really.

I went to answer the door in my bare feet, dressed in nothing more stylish
than my most worn gray sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans.

For all that I felt like I had things under control, my hand still shook a little
as I wrapped it over the door knob, and not from fear. Not entirely, anyway.
I pulled open the door.

Abe was standing on the front porch in a simple button-down shirt and a pair
of dark blue jeans, and his hair looked so soft that I almost reached out and
slid my fingers through it. I probably could have. Hell, I probably could
have grabbed him by the collar and dragged him against me, but I wanted to
do this right.

"Hey," I said, warmly. "Come on in."

He came in and I closed the door.

We stood there for a few seconds, looking at each other, then we both
laughed a little awkwardly. I noticed for the first time that Abe's smile made
him look a lot younger, like some shy teenager or something. I reached for
his hand and led him into the kitchen.

"Do you want anything to drink?"

We passed by the counter where Justin had tried to maul me, the sink where
Aaron had stood with his arm around my shoulders while I held my burned
hand under the faucet. Abe's hand was warm in mine, his fingers large
enough to swallow mine completely in their grasp.

"No, thanks," he said.

We stopped by the kitchen table, facing each other, our hands still
intertwined. I tilted my head back, since he was inconveniently quite a bit
taller than me, and looked him in the eye.

"I guess you're wondering... why all of a sudden. This, I mean."

He shrugged a little. "I guess you must have your reasons." He hesitated,
dark eyes searching mine. "Is it... something to do with what happened?
Back home?"

"Yeah, I guess it kind of is. Do you remember what I said before, about my
best friend?"

His eyes darkened a little. "The one who's in love with you?"

"Yeah."

"I remember."

"Well..." I readjusted my grip on his hand, using it to pull him a little closer
to me, until I could feel the body heat warming the air between us. "Before I
went out with you that first time, he and I, we tried something. Together. I
wanted to see how it would work, if it would..."

His fingers tightened a little around mine, but he didn't interrupt.

"But it didn't. It could have, I think, but something happened, and I realized
that he... And so I couldn't. We couldn't. And then I went out with you, and--
" I shook my head. "It was perfect. Only, I didn't feel anything. Not like with
him, not like that."

Abe started to pull away, frowning and looking a little hurt, but I caught
hold of his wrist and tugged him back to me.

"But I don't think it was because there wasn't anything there."

He was so close now, I could hardly find the air to keep breathing. I was
tingling all over, my breath coming short and fast, and I could already feel
that familiar throb starting between my legs, anxious and hot.

"I think... it was because I couldn't let myself."

Abe licked his lips and swallowed, and seemed capable of little more than
parroting my words back to me. "Couldn't... let yourself?"

It felt weird to be explaining this to another person, especially since it was
something I was only just now sorting through myself. I'd had an inkling,
earlier, but it was only right at that moment that it was starting to coalesce
into fact. "Yeah. Because of Aaron. And because I was scared shitless that I
was going to fall for you."

He shifted a little closer to me, though we still weren't touching except for
our hands. His breath was soft against my lips. "And?"

"And..." I met his gaze, fearlessly. "I did anyway."

He stared back at me for a few seconds, then closed the distance between us
and kissed me.

It was different than the ones before, hungry and insistent, but somehow not
demanding, not dominating. Which was good, because if there was one thing
I was sick of, it was guys assuming that smaller and femmier meant that I
wanted to be dominated.

Our bodies pressed together, hips fitting snug against each other, and I let
out a breath at the contact and the realization that he wanted it just as much
as I did. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him more tightly against
me, and let myself drown in the kiss for awhile. In the warmth and wetness
and the stroking slide of his tongue against mine; the huff of his breath
against my mouth, my skin; the way his nose brushed mine when the kiss
shifted.

I wondered vaguely if he'd wanted to do this that first night, but decided that
it didn't matter.

I pulled away for long enough to catch his eye, tilt my head towards the
hallway. "Do you want to...?"

He nodded and dove in to kiss me again. We worked our way across the
kitchen and through the hall without breaking apart, which may sound very
romantic and simple, but in fact was pretty difficult to manage without
crashing into anything in the process.

Even more difficult was fighting against the temptation to grind our hips

together with every step. A little friction was good, wonderful, but too much
and the show would be over before it even really got started. And this... This,
of all things, I wanted to last.

"Do you have any pets?" I found myself murmuring as we maneuvered our
way into my bedroom.

"Hm?"

I turned our bodies so his back was to the bed and pushed forward until he
sat down. "Do you have any pets," I repeated, and straddled him so one knee
was on either side of his legs.

"A dog," he answered, looking bewildered but amused. "Named Konomi.
Why do you...?"

"What do you like better, Shakespeare or The Princess Diaries?" I leaned in
as I spoke and kissed along the edges of his lips, then along the curve of his
jaw.

He made an incoherent sound and slid his fingers through my hair. "Both are
good...in different ways."

I kept kissing, lightly, ghosting my lips over his skin until he shivered.
"What about your family? Do you have any problems with them?"

"Not--" He caught the sides of my face and lifted enough so our lips met
again. "Not really."

"Do they know you're gay?"

If he thought it was strange to be receiving an interrogation at a time like this,

he didn't give any indication. "My mom does. My dad suspects, I think, but I
haven't told him."

I paused in my assault, sitting there on his lap with our lips barely a breath
apart. "Do you think he'd be pissed if he knew?"

Abe really seemed to think about that one, then he shook his head a little. "I
think he'd understand. It might take him awhile, but I think that in the end,
he'd realize that I'm happiest this way."

"Are you?" It seemed important. "Happy this way, I mean."

His lips tilted upwards, and I got the feeling he was about to say something
that would make me feel all embarrassingly melty again. "It means I can be
here with you, doesn't it?"

That was enough for me. I pressed forward, letting our chests slide together,
letting our hips grind back into place. My hands on Abe's shoulders, I
pushed him gently backwards until his back touched the mattress; he shifted
a little to get more fully on the bed, and I lay down on top of him, loving the
heat and hardness of his body under mine.

I told myself, as I worked at the buttons on his shirt, that I shouldn't get my
hopes up, that I'd met plenty of guys who seemed great up until we got into
bed, and then they transformed into selfish bastards. Just because Abe had
been perfect up until now...

But somehow, I knew that it was going to be okay. Even before I felt his
hands sliding under my shirt, stroking and rubbing in just the right places, I
knew.

I guess maybe I'd known from the second I'd laid eyes on the guy, and it had

only gotten clearer and clearer the more time I spent with him. He was
different. Better.

Mine.

All the things I just couldn’t envision with Aaron, all the silly domestic
things and the burdens and blessings of coupledom...I could picture them
with Abe. In a heartbeat. And I knew that that was what I wanted. This man,
this person, this heat between us. I wasn't just drunk off a hard-on, and I
wasn't making up a perfect prince of a guy when I knew damned well that
everyone, no matter how perfect-seeming, has faults. I was sure I'd be
finding them as things progressed with Abe, and I'd know for damn sure that
he was just as human and imperfect as all the other guys I'd dated.

But something in me recognized something in him, or maybe it was just the
way I thought I could see myself reflected in his eyes, or maybe it was the
way our bodies fit together, or maybe I'd just completely lost my mind... but
I sank into his arms and I knew that that was where I was supposed to be. It
just felt right.

Then his lips were tracing along my neck while his arms slid against my
bare back, and all thoughts -- 'deep' and otherwise -- were chased away in
the perfect, liquid heat of his mouth against my skin. The jeans that had been
comfortably loose a little while earlier were becoming tight and constraining,
but getting them off would mean pulling away from Abe's mouth for long
enough to get at the zipper. And no way in hell was I pulling away from
Abe's mouth.

I rolled onto my back, tilting my head a little so he could get to my neck
more easily, and while his tongue worked slow, tingling circles against my
throat, I felt a hand slip down between us and tug on the zipper of my jeans.

"Oh, Jesus-God, thank you," I breathed, and Abe let out a smiling breath that
tickled against the wet skin beneath his lips. I shivered, hot and cold and

feverish in a very good way, and our eyes met as he pulled the zipper the rest
of the way down and slipped his fingers inside.

The first brush of them against me and my hips bucked up; I was so hot, so
tightly wound, that I almost cried out just from that, just from that one brief,
teasing touch of his fingers through my underwear. He smiled at my reaction,
keeping his hand just above the throb I wanted him to ease, and met my eyes
again.

"How do you want to do it?"

I blinked at him, mostly because no one had ever actually bothered to ask me
this before. It usually just... happened. But now that I was being asked...

"Together," I said, already undoing the button of his jeans. "However you
want, just... together."

I hadn't been with a ton of guys, truthfully. I don't say this shamefully or
anything, just as a fact. But the ones I had been with, I'd been with fairly
often, and never once -- never once -- had the all-famed, highly romanticized
Coming At the Same Time scenario occurred. Not once.

I told myself that I already had more than enough proof that Abe was the one
I wanted, for now and possibly for ever, but this... this would cinch it,
wouldn't it? If we were that synched that we could come at the same time, at
exactly the same time...

But Abe smiled and ducked down to kiss me, and this time his hand slid past
my underwear and teased against skin. "Are you sure?"

I fought to hold onto my perfect romantic vision of things, but God, it felt
good. "I..."

"Because I don't mind if you're first."

The pad of his thumb stroked in just the right place, and my hips bucked
again, a groan sliding from my lips before I could stop it.

"In fact," he murmured, and the stroking hand slipped away in favor of
taking hold of the waistband of my jeans, "I think I'd like it better if you
were."

Well, who was I to stand in the way of his pleasure? "Okay," I breathed.

The jeans came away from my hips with surprising ease, and next thing I
knew, I was shrugging out of them with Abe's help. It seemed weird to be
lying there with no pants and a shirt on, so I tugged the sweatshirt up over
my head and tossed it onto the floor.

He just sat there and looked at me for a second, his eyes tracing over every
inch of my body, and for the first time, I felt a little self-conscious. I was on
the skinny side, kind of bony and pale, and not everybody was into that...

But he was smiling. While he looked at me, he was smiling, and not in a,
Man, what a freakshow sort of way. He was smiling in a way that meant he
liked what he saw, wanted what he saw. Wanted me.

I was still floating on a happy cloud about this fact when I felt his hands
slide into place against my hips, and looked down to see him looking back
up at me as if for permission. Permission. I guess he found it in my eyes,
because a second later, he tilted his head down between my thighs and took
me into his mouth.

The world, the bedroom, the bed underneath me -- everything went away at
that moment except for Abe's mouth.

He knew what he was doing. Every slide and lick and stroke, every slow
suck or gentle graze, was exactly right to send me into a delirium of pleasure.
I grabbed the comforter hard with both hands and tried not to thrust into his
mouth, but God, it was hard. I'd never, never, felt anything like it, or maybe
it just felt like it, but I decided pretty quickly that it didn't matter. Nothing
mattered. Nothing in the world mattered except this man and the things his
tongue and lips were doing that made me thrash and cry out and squeeze my
eyes shut and gasp for breath. It was satisfaction and slow torture at the same
time, and I loved him like a drug the longer he did it, the longer he kept me
completely insensible without sending me over the edge.

But there's only so long you can hold onto something like that, only so long
before the pleasure gets so intense that it's almost pain, like there's
something building inside of you that's finally stretched you too far, and you
can either let it out or let it destroy you...

Abe's tongue circled the head and his lips mouthed around me, sucking hard,
and I lost it. I felt it gushing out of me -- thundering out of me, it seemed
like. My body jerked and shook even as I tried to control it, but I was too far
gone for my efforts to do much good. Finally, I just lay back and gave
myself over to it. To the feeling of release that was so complete that I
wondered if there'd be anything left inside of me when I was done. To the
feeling of being so grateful and indebted and in love with this man that I felt
like yelling it at the tops of my lungs until he understood how much I meant
it.

To the feeling that finally, after so long, my life was coming into some kind
of order. I had my family, my dad and Aunt Cheryl and Lees and Aaron; I
had work, a romance novel I was suddenly itching to work on again; and I
had something else, something more.

I lay there on my back and gasped for breath for a long time, coming slowly
down from the high, feeling like I could fly if I could only find the energy to
get up off the bed. After a few seconds, Abe lay down beside me, his arms
pulling me close to him, into a warm press of bare skin and muscle -- he'd

stripped off the rest of his clothes while I lay recovering, and I loved the feel
of our bodies against each other. Mine felt soft and pliant now that I'd come,
but his was still hard, tense, needy.

I lifted myself up and kissed him on the mouth, slow and teasing, thinking
that that Coming Together thing? Yeah, overrated.

"How do you want to do this?" I murmured, and he grinned.

But there was something serious in his eyes, and this time it was him who
closed the distance between our mouths. "I don't care," he said, "as long as
it's with you."

Damn good answer, I thought, and kissed him.

Sex is an amazing thing. I know -- yeah, right, no kidding. But really, think
about it. You get two people together in an activity whose sole purpose is
making the other person feel good -- an activity that's all about getting as
close to each other as it's humanly possible to be, and in the most clichéd
and romance novel-ish sense, becoming one person for a brief amount of
time.

Granted, sometimes sex isn't so shiny -- a hell of a lot depends on who
you're with and whether they actually give a damn if you're having a good
time or not. But in general, it's a beautiful thing, and when it happens right,
it can be the most mind-blowingly wonderful thing in the whole damned
world.

When I was lying there with Abe, the world contracted around us until it was
just him and me in a warm little cocoon of touch and rhythm and breath. I
traced my fingers over his bare back, feeling out ribs and muscle and a
featherlight dusting of hair, and noticed the way his body melted into my
touch, the way his breathing changed and his heartbeat sped up.

His eyes were closed, little beads of sweat standing out on his forehead, and
I noticed weird little things like the few unshaven prickles of hair along his
jaw, and how smooth his skin looked over those high cheekbones, and the

perfectly round little mole under his left eye. His lips were parted slightly,
making way for quick, panting breaths, and I dove in to kiss them so I could
feel those warm little breaths against my mouth.

Our lips had barely touched when he wrapped his arms around my back and
lifted us so we were sitting, me on his lap while he tilted his head back to
kiss me. There was something suddenly raw and unrestrained about the way
he kissed me, hard and fast and deep, and when I answered with an eager,
breathless kiss of my own, I felt his arms tighten around my back and pull
me impossibly closer.

He whispered my name between kisses, and I felt the need in the tautness of
his muscles, the almost desperate way his hands rubbed against my back. I
nodded and pulled away from the kiss, gently pushing him onto his back on
the bed. He grabbed onto my hands and squeezed them, smiling at me when
our eyes met, and I grinned at him before carefully pulling my hands free
and setting to work.

He was already so far along, there wasn't much to be gained by foreplay, but
I wanted to touch him, to make this last as long as I could. I traced my hands
over his chest, his stomach, the hard arches of his hip bones, the tufts of wiry
dark hair beneath his abdomen. I watched him, too -- the pleasure winces
that creased his features, the desperate way his hands clutched at the sheets,
the play of tightening muscles across his stomach as I touched him.

My name, this time, was less of a loving whisper and more of a plea, so I
finally let my wandering hands slide down farther, working a slow massage
into his thighs as I eased his legs far enough apart so I could sit between
them.

I didn't bother seeking permission like he'd done for me -- I could read what
he wanted in every shift and shiver of his body. I drew my fingers over his
hips for one last caressing stroke, then lowered my head and took him into
my mouth.

There were days, back in my naive and sexless youth, when I swore up and
down to myself that I would never do something so disgusting and germ-
ridden as oral sex. One day many years later, when it was done to me, I
realized that there is in fact a damned good reason why people put up with
the gross-factor of the whole thing -- because it feels freaking fantastic.

I wanted to give that to Abe. I wanted to make him feel good, wonderful,
amazing, and I wanted him to always remember that it was me who made
him feel that way.

I kept my hands resting loosely on his hips, because I know that sometimes
it's tough to keep from thrusting when something tight and warm and wet is
sliding over you with maddening slowness. I'm not any kind of expert on the
act, and every guy is different, but you can read a lot about what feels good
and what doesn't just by paying attention. No reaction to stroking here, but
just a light touch there and suddenly every muscle is tense and there's a low
moan building in the room that makes wonderful shivers of I did that race up
your spine.

Paying that kind of attention to Abe, feeling and listening and focusing
everything in me on the needs and pleasure of one person, made me feel
closer to him than any amount of Getting To Know You question-and-
answer sessions ever could have. It was like I was connecting with
something deeper than I'd seen before, something that couldn't ever be put
into words because it was just so essentially him that it defied definition.

His breathing got faster, his muscles more taut; I heard the sheets tearing
away from the edges of the mattress from how tightly he was gripping them.
Exhaled breaths were closer to moans now, and I heard fragments of words
that could've been profound thoughts of love and connection or might just
have been pleasure-induced gibberish. Whatever it was, I loved it, and
whether it was just the heightened emotions of love-making or something
deeper, I loved him, in that clenching, hysterically happy way that doesn't
make any sense because it's not supposed to.

Then he gave one last moaning gasp and went tight and still and trembling,
and it all came pouring out in a hot rush. Not the most pleasant part of the
whole experience for the one on the receiving end, but God, his face... I was
seeing him completely undone, without any kind of pretense or social mask
to guard his expressions. And the best thing was that I had done this. I had
made this happen, made him feel this way -- made him completely lose
control and love every minute of it.

When it was over, he laid there on his back shaking and breathing hard, eyes
closed and a big silly smile on his face. I cleaned up a little with the edge of
the bedspread -- yeah, ew, but I'd wash it later -- then crawled over to lay

down beside him. His eyes were still closed, but he moved his arm and
wrapped it around me, so I could lie there with my head on his shoulder and
one arm stretched out over his stomach.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so good.

After awhile, he opened his eyes and looked over at me, and we both started
grinning. It seemed like one of us should say something, but there was
nothing to say that I couldn't already see in the way he was looking at me, or
the way his hand drifted up my back to start threading gently through my
hair.

So I pressed my lips to the nearest part of him I could reach -- his chest, as it
happened -- and snuggled close against him, loving the casual press of our
skin and the way I could hear his heartbeat slowing to a steady pulse beneath
my ear.

***

"Can I ask you something?"

It was about an hour later, and we were still lying in my bed, naked and
intertwined. My head was resting on his arm, his hand was stroking my hair.
A very tender, disgustingly sappy kind of moment, and I was loving every
second of it.

He'd been staring at me in a warm, lovestruck sort of way before then; when
I spoke, he just smiled a little and said, "Go ahead."

"Why were you at the hospital that day?"

The smile faded a little, but he didn't stop tracing his fingers along my
hairline. "My grandmother." He looked a little apologetic for some reason as
he answered my unspoken question. "She has cancer."

"Oh," I said softly.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Can I ask you something?"

I swallowed, having a feeling I knew what he was going to ask. It scared me
for some reason, maybe because I'd felt safe from it all here, or at least
removed from it. It had been so long since I'd been home to see my mom
that I could almost pretend that nothing had changed, that she was still out
there somewhere, just a phone call or a plane ticket away.

But most of all, I think that I just didn't want to have to say the words, to say,
My mom died. There was no taking something like that back.

But Abe didn't ask about my mom. He just leaned close to me -- or closer,
since we were already doing our conjoined twins impression -- and pressed
his lips lightly to mine, licking his lips afterwards like he was tasting me.

Then he said, very softly and seriously, "Do you want to do this again
tomorrow night?"

I slid my arms around his neck. "You really expect me to wait that long?"

He grinned and rolled us so he was on top of me, sheltering my body with
his. "Not necessarily. But I wouldn't want you to get tired of me."

I shook my head, serious for once. "Impossible."

He studied me for a few seconds. "You don't even really know me."

"You don't really know me, either."

He smiled. "I know enough, I think."

"Same here."

He shook his head, still smiling but looking a little uneasy, and I realized
that he was actually afraid I was going to stop feeling the way I did once I
got to know him better. "Why," I said cautiously, "is there something about
you that you don't think I'd like?"

He shifted kind of uncomfortably, lying back down on his side, so I slid
forward and nestled back into our original position, chests pressed together
and legs intertwined.

"I'm not exactly an interesting guy," he said finally, wincing a little as he
spoke. "My life is really kind of boring." He glanced back over at me and
smiled. "With a few notable exceptions. But in general... I get up in the
morning and eat the same thing for breakfast. I go to work, I come home
from work, I read a book, and then I go to bed. I don't know if you'd... I don't
know if that's the kind of life you'd want to get involved in."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "My life isn't all that different, you know."

He looked skeptical.

"I'm serious! I always have the same kind of tea when I get up in the
morning."

"You're writing a novel," he said with a twisting smile.

"I'm sitting at the computer playing Snood most of the time, really."

"What's Snood?"

"Nothing. It's a game. You're better off not knowing, believe me. Anyway,
my life is not exciting. The most exciting thing that happens to me through
the course of the day is when my cat throws up, or Aaron comes by with
Chinese food or something."

I closed my mouth with a snap, wondering if it was bad form to mention the
guy who was in love with me while Abe and I were in bed together... but I
decided immediately afterwards that that was stupid. Aaron was my best
friend, my family, and hell if I was going to edit him out of my
conversational life just because Abe might take offense.

But instead of looking offended, Abe was looking thoughtful. "All I'm trying
to say," he said finally, "is that I'll understand if you decide, after getting to
know me better, that you'd rather be with someone a little more... exciting."

Uh-oh. That had the sound of past experience to it. "Let me put it this way,"
I said after a pause for thought. "I'm interested. When I'm with you, I'm
interested. Very. I don't think that's going to change. Unless maybe you
collect stamps or try to make me watch The History Channel with you or
something."

He frowned. "There are actually some pretty interesting shows on The
History Channel..."

I mock-sighed. "Well, clearly this relationship is doomed."

He grinned and wrapped his arms tight around me, making me feel all warm
and snug. We lay there in silence for a little while, and after a few minutes,
the steady sound of his heartbeat started lulling me off to sleep. Then his
arms tightened a little around me and I felt his lips press against the top of
my head.

"I'm sorry about what happened," he said quietly.

My eyes opened. "He told you, didn't he?"

"He called me on Tuesday." Before I could offer a few choice words about
Aaron and nosiness, he went on, "I asked him to. I left my number with him
and asked him to call me if anything... happened."

I shook my head, not sure how I felt about that. "Why?"

I half-expected him to say something sappy like, Because I wanted to know
that you were all right... But instead he winced a bit and said, "So I wouldn't
make an ass out of myself asking stupid questions when you got back."

"Oh," I said. It made sense. It was, in fact, kind of a smart thing to do, with
the exception of asking my in-love-with-me-best-friend to be his informant.
If it were anybody but Aaron, I doubted Abe would've gotten heads or tails
from him about my mom.

Still, I couldn't help feeling kind of relieved, since now I wouldn't have to
tell Abe what had happened.

I frowned, then, a half-formed suspicion building in my mind. "When I
called you and asked you to come over..."

He looked me straight in the eye. "I didn't sleep with you because your
mother died. It wasn't pity. I did it because I wanted to. Because I wanted
you."

Good answer, I found myself thinking again. I yawned and snuggled closer
to him, trying to remember the last time I'd lain in bed with someone and
just talked. No immediate memories came to mind, and I took that as a good
sign.

Abe went back to stroking my hair. "Tired?"

"Mm," I answered. It felt like there was a lot more to talk about, and I
thought I could have spent the rest of the night quite happily just lying there
with my arms around him, trading questions and smiling at each other... but I
was exhausted. My eyes were already drooping, so I gave in and let them
fall closed.

Sometimes it's weird, sleeping with another person. You start feeling self-
conscious, or not wanting to shift into a more comfortable position for fear
of disturbing them. Sometimes they breathe on you and it tickles in an
annoying way.

Abe fit against me like he was meant to be there, and I fell asleep never
wanting to do it any other way.

***

As it turned out, Abe was not perfect. I realized that the next morning when I
woke up and found that he'd gone out for breakfast supplies, since my fridge
was pretty empty -- and had come back with eggs, waffles, and sausages.
But I could forgive him for it, especially when I saw my cat, who had been
staying with one of the neighbors while I was away, pawing at his leg like
she wanted to be in his arms as much as I did. And instead of shooing her
away like some of my old boyfriends had, or giving her a little scratch on the
head but otherwise ignoring her, he picked her up and held her close against
his chest.

I could tell from the blissful way she was purring that she was just as crazy
about him as I was. And okay, feline approval was not the end-all and be-all
of boyfriend selection. But in this case, it was more than good enough for
me.

The only real moment of weirdness happened when we were about halfway

through the meal and the doorbell rang -- or shrieked, more like, from all the
abuse it was getting.

God. Aaron.

I could've ignored the bell, pretended like we weren't here, but not only
would that have been a shitty thing to do, it would've required explanation to
Abe. So I got up, went to the door, and pulled it cautiously open.

Aaron peered at me in accusation for a second. "You weren't picking up your
phone."

I frowned, glancing behind me towards the kitchen phone, then realized he
must've meant my cell -- which was still buried at the bottom of my bag in
the living room. Instead of explaining this, though, I took a small step
forward and said, in a low voice, "Sorry, I didn’t hear it. I've been, um...
busy."

He looked at me for a second like I was nuts, then his eyes widened as he
got it. "Oh," he said. "Oh. Christ, work fast much? So is he still...?"

I shushed him and pointed in the direction of the kitchen.

He nodded in understanding, then caught my eye. "Look, uh... You want me
to leave?"

He wasn't being dramatic, I realized; he really meant it.

For some reason, that really got to me, and I reached out to grab his hand.
"You know I love you, right?"

Since all that had happened at home, it had gotten to be so much more
important to me, saying these kinds of embarrassing, sappy things.

Aaron must've known that, because he didn't laugh at me or joke his way out
of it; he just held onto my hand and nodded a little. "I know." His lips
twisted into a smile that was only a little sour. "Like family, right?"

I arched an eyebrow at him. "You really think I'd let family grab my ass?"

But Aaron didn't crack a smile. "Then what am I?" he asked quietly. "Not
family, not fuck-buddy material, not boyfriend material..."

"You're my best friend, you asshole. And you are family, just... the special
kind of family that's allowed to grab my ass."

"Even when your prince charming's around?"

"If he can't deal with it, that's his problem."

"So you're pretty stuck on this guy, huh? Ready to start picking out china
patterns?"

"I think so."

"You know that's nuts. You guys have been on one date."

"Two."

"Sex doesn't count as a date."

"Fine, one date."

"You guys have been on one date. How do you know he's..."

"What?"

He let go of my hand. "What you want?"

I looked him in the eye, wondering why it was suddenly so easy to tell the
absolute truth. Maybe because it was Aaron, and I'd always wanted to tell
the truth to him, even if I couldn't always manage it. "He is. He's exactly
what I want."

Aaron absorbed this silently for a moment, then nodded. "If he hurts you..."

"You can fuck him up good."

"And he better not think I'm gonna start making myself scarce now just
'cause he's around. I'm gonna come over just as much as I always do, and if
he doesn't like it, too bad."

"Damn right."

"And things aren't gonna get weird with us. You're not going to start
blowing me off to hang out with him."

There was more than a hint of a question in those words, so much so that I
almost grabbed his hand again, needing to emphasize my answer with
something tactile. But in the end, I settled for just looking him straight in the
eye and saying the truth. "I'm not going to blow you off. And it's not going
to get weird."

He looked at me for a long time. Then he touched the side of my face,

lightly, and after a second of hesitation, ducked in to kiss me, quickly and
chastely.

"I can't just shut it off, you know," he muttered, not quite meeting my eyes.
"I mean, it'd be great if I could, but I can't. I'm stuck feeling this way no
matter if you've found your stupid prince charming or not."

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. "I know."

"And who knows, I mean... maybe I'll always feel this way. Maybe I'll
always be..."

He trailed off, then shook his head and looked back at me, a slight, crooked
smile on his lips. "Shit, forget it. I'm just being a jackass. Get back in there,
have your cozy breakfast with your boyfriend. I'll call you later on, 'kay? Oh,
and pick up your phone next time, huh? Lisa's been tryin' to call you since
last night."

He beat it out of there before I could figure out what to respond to or what to
say if I did, and I found myself dumbly watching his back as he made his
way down the porch stairs.

There was a moment, watching him walking away, when I really wished that
things could've been different. That I could've felt something more, or he
could've felt something less, but he was right: we were stuck with how
things were, and it wouldn't change just because we wanted it to.

I went back to Abe, who didn't press me for an explanation and so I didn't
offer one, and settled back in to finish my breakfast. After a little while, Abe
came around to my side of the table and drew me up out of my chair to kiss
me, and somehow that one press of lips said everything I needed to hear.

I smiled and kissed him back, wondering if he could hear my answer as
clearly.

***

He was still with me a year later, on the anniversary of my mom's death. Not
only that, but he took off work for a few days to come home with me, meet
my dad, and visit my mom's grave. Aaron and Lisa came, too, of course,
though they were pretty busy off on their own for most of the time. Don't ask
me how that happened, though Lees still likes to tease me that it all started
that night I asked Aaron to take her dancing...

But whatever, it doesn't matter. They seem happy. And Lees and Aaron, of
everybody in the world, deserve to be happy. Both of them got dealt the shit
hands of falling for their best friends, and neither of those paths gave them
much of anything but heartache. Lisa's roommate, for example, requested a
room transfer right after Lees got back and pretty much never spoke to her
again, while Aaron's friend shacked up with some crazy Shakespeare
fetishist and decided he was in love. So yeah, as far as I was concerned, if
they could find happiness in each other, even if it was weirder than all hell?
Great for them. Really.

Anyway, Dad's reaction to Abe was pretty much how I expected. He'd come
a long way as far as not yelling fire and brimstone at me every time he saw
me, but meeting my boyfriend? Not something I was looking forward to.

Still, Abe's the kind of guy you can't help being polite to, and Dad couldn't
seem to help himself, either. I could tell he'd already been prepping himself
to hate Abe, but I don't think he had too much luck with that. Especially not
when it came out that Abe's an avid gardener, and he and Dad ventured out
back to talk root fungus while Aaron, Lees, and me cleaned up the dinner
dishes.

Aaron's goatee had come in fully by that point, and I was actually starting to
get used to it -- though Lisa still complained about it to him every now and
then, and he pretended to be hurt although I was pretty sure he hated the
damned thing, too. It itched like crazy, if all the scratching he was always
doing was any indication, but it was a point of pride by then -- after all the
grief he'd taken from us about it, no way he was shaving it off. He always
was a stubborn bastard.

Anyway, Aaron and Lisa kept doing silly, madly-in-love newlywed things
like pausing over the sink to kiss, or slipping their hands into each other's
back pockets, or talking to each other in silly baby talk that made me want to
ram my head into the nearest cupboard. But I would've been smiling even as
I inflicted a serious head wound on myself, because I honestly was happy for
them.

And for me. Okay, Abe and I couldn’t exactly run down to the nearest
Justice of the Peace and get hitched ourselves, but we were married in every
other sense of the word. We were tied together, in the most metaphorical and
unkinky sort of way, and if the past year was any indication, we were going
to stay that way for a long time yet.

Abe and Dad came back inside a little while later, chuckling about some
utterly ineffective brand of weed killer, and I had a moment when I
remembered feeling all torn up about Justin breaking up with me, like losing
him was going to be The Worst Thing That Had Ever Befallen Me or
something. I remembered a ton of other breakups just like it, how shitty and
worthless I'd felt, but I hadn't known then. I hadn't had any idea that if I'd
stayed with those people, if we hadn't broken up, I would never have found
this wonderful, cozy, happily boring life with a man I was crazy about. A
man, let's not forget, who could hold his own with my dad in a conversation
about soil types, which pretty much qualified the guy for sainthood, in my
opinion.

Abe glanced over at me right then and smiled, and we had one of those
wonderful coupledom moments where we just looked at each other and
grinned, like we were sharing a secret no one else could ever know.

When I took my eyes off Abe, finally, I found my dad looking at me, and I
knew he'd seen the whole thing, Abe and me smiling at each other and
looking all hopelessly silly and in-love. I wondered how he was going to
react, if it would still be too much for him to see his son so obviously in love
with another guy, even after this whole past year of mending our relationship.

But he just smiled at me, patted Abe on the shoulder, and went back to
talking about fungus.