Logan’s voice is even lower when he adds, “We’ll go as slow as you want. Let me show you how good it can be. Just don’t kick me out this time, okay? We could be good together.”
For a second, I let myself wonder if we could be. There’s a part that knows he’s right. He’s patient as hell, I’ll give him that. Not many guys would stick around after my shit. The first time we kissed, I kicked him out of my apartment afterward. I’d never kissed another guy except Brandon and even though on some levels it felt right, the masculinity of him, it was wrong too. He isn’t Brand.
Things went slow after that, a few more kisses, but I always stopped him there. I was a fucking kid when I was with Brandon and we’d never really gone farther than making out. Even though everything inside me knows this is who I am, that doesn’t mean it’s easy. A little part of my brain still wonders if I can change it, or why I don’t want to. Coming out would be like being cut open all the time, everyone seeing what’s inside me. It’s showing parts of me that people will judge me for and maybe even hate me for.
And yet Logan’s still here. He’s out but he gets that I’m not. I figured making him leave after the first kiss, and then the handjob would be too much. What kind of guy loses his shit after getting jerked off?
Someone in denial about it and still hung up on someone else.
“I like you, Alec.” He almost steps closer, but doesn’t. “I also don’t know how long I’ll stick around.”
A fear I don’t expect spikes inside me. Logan’s the only person in the world who knows I’m gay besides Charlie, Nate, and Brandon. It feels good to be . . . me, and with someone who likes who that is too.
Do it. Tell him to come home with you. Stop being scared. Stop wanting Brandon.
And that’s the biggest part of this, isn’t it? Brandon. All day I’ve thought about his call last night. I’ve almost called him twenty times, but found a way to stop myself. Why the hell can’t I let him go? I need to be who I’m supposed to be. I look at Logan, at the muscles I like and his strong hands. Unlike Brandon, he wants me.
“What time?” My brain turns off, so I can’t over think this.
“Yeah?” Logan replies.
“Yeah. I—”
My cell phone rings cutting him off.
“Hold up,” I tell him, which makes him roll his eyes again. Charlie’s name pops up on the screen. I can’t get used to calling her Charlotte, which she goes by now. We grew up together, working and spending time at The Village, her family’s lake resort here in Virginia. I’ve called her Charlie since I could talk.
“What’s up?” I say into the phone, trying not to stress that it’s somehow linked to Brandon’s call.
“Alec . . .”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise at the way she drags out my name. Something’s definitely wrong and it has to do with Brandon.
“What happened?” Leaning against my truck, I try to ignore my jackhammering heart.
“He’s okay. I need to tell you that first. Brandon’s okay.”
“What happened?” A vice squeezes my chest.
“There was an accident. He was out 4x4-ing with some of his teammates. They hit a tree and Brandon’s chest hit the steering wheel.”
A sharp pain hits me between the ribs at that.
“I don’t really understand all of it, Alec, but the impact tore one of the arteries that goes to his heart. He had to have heart surgery.”
My fist tightens, my jaw clenches. “Heart surgery?” Holy shit. The world starts spinning. Logan’s hand shoots out and grabs my shoulder. “What?” My voice cracks.
“I didn’t know if I should call you or not. I know that’s wrong. I didn’t want you to hurt anymore, but I don’t know what to do. He’s having a hard time, Alec. As soon as he left the hospital, they were able to bring him home to New York, but he won’t talk to anyone. Nate can hardly get anything out of him. Three of his teammates flew over from Ohio, but he doesn’t want to see anyone.”
He called me, pops into my head and I feel like a prick for thinking it. That shouldn’t matter right now.
“I’m sure he’s scared. Worried about losing football . . .”
And I know what he does when he’s scared—he runs. Closes himself off.
Before he used to talk to me.
“He could have died,” she whispers.
“I’m coming. Don’t tell him, okay? But I’m coming.” It doesn’t matter that there’s still a month left of school or that I don’t really have the money. Nothing else matters.
She says something in the background and I hear Nate say “thank you.” Without a word, I hang up the phone.
“Logan—”
He moves back. “It’s him?”
The only reply I can give is a nod.
“I guess you better go then.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” I don’t have time for anything more than that. I fly my piece-of-shit truck back to my apartment and throw some of my stuff into a duffel. I check my bank account before I go, and then head to the airport. On the way, I call the moving company where I work, and tell them there’s a family emergency and I won’t be in for a few days.
Family? Yeah right. They have to know it’s a lie, since all I have is Mom and Dad, but they don’t call me on it.
Because of a delay, I don’t get into New York until early the next morning. If I trusted my truck more, I would have just driven in.
As I’m waiting by the curb, a white BMW pulls up and Charlie steps out of the passenger seat. Her arms wrap around me, and I squeeze her tightly.
“You shouldn’t have waited so long to tell me.” I get the reasoning, but I’m still pissed.
“I didn’t know. We wanted to see what would happen and then when he made it out of surgery . . . I didn’t know the best thing to do. You never wanted to talk about him, and it’s only been a little over a week since he got out of the hospital.”
I would have hated myself if he’d died and I didn’t even know he was hurt. “This is different, Charlie. You know I’d want to know this.” Before I pull away, I kiss her forehead so she knows it’s okay. Then I toss my duffel bag into the back and climb in.
“What’s up?” I say to Nate who’s in the driver seat. Things have never been real great between us. From the first time they summered in Lakeland Village I was jealous as hell of him. He was the first guy who Charlie ever paid attention to other than me. Even back then I knew I felt things toward guys, but no one knew. Charlie was my best friend. I loved her. Things would have been okay with her. I thought I could be happy with her one day and more importantly, I could make her happy too.
Nate changed that for her. The way Brandon changed things for me.
Even though Nate and I are technically cool now, I’m not sure we’ll ever be close.
Still, he turns around before pulling away and tells me, “Thanks for coming . . . My parents are worried. I didn’t know what else to do.”
He’s going to be pissed. If he wanted me here, I would have been here for the past year and a half. “No problem.”
We’re quiet most of the way to their house. A couple hours drive is a long time to be with my thoughts. I can’t stop wondering if it was right to come, how it will be to see him and other shit I have no business thinking about. When we’re close I need to make conversation so I ask, “How’s Joshua?” He’s their little brother. He was born premature the last summer we all spent together—the only one we spent here instead of Lakeland Village. I guess their parents had decided with both their kids going to college, they weren’t ready to be alone yet. So with two boys in college, they also have a two-year-old running around.
“He’s a monster. Healthy and growing like crazy, but a terror,” Nate answers, before killing the engine in their driveway.
“What’d you tell your parents?” I ask. They’re not even my parents and I know they’d still love Brandon if they knew. They don’t talk about “faggots” the same way my own dad does, but
I never gave Brandon hell for not being able to tell them. We each deal with being gay in our own way.
“They know you’re his friend. They know you’re Charlotte’s best friend. We said you wanted to come see him.”
I nod before getting out of the car. It doesn’t seem like their parents are home when we get inside their quiet, oversized house. My stomach hurts like hell. It feels like something’s burning its way through. I’m scared to see him. Scared he’ll tell me to go. The first time he walked away stung enough. The last thing I want to do is go through it again.
“He looks pretty bad. I mean, he’s okay, but he has the scar on his chest. He’s already lost some weight because he’s not eating the same or doing anything.” Charlie’s obviously nervous and rambling.
“It’ll be okay.” Really, I’m not sure it will be. You can do this. Be strong. He’s okay . . .
I know exactly where his room is. I snuck into it a lot, in the middle of the night, that last summer. When we reach it, we all three stop a few feet from his door.
“Mom and Dad shouldn’t be home for a while. If they get here, we’ll make sure they don’t bother you.” Nate leans on the wall, looking a little nervous. I’m sure thinking of his brother with another guy weirds him out.
Nodding, I take a deep breath before going to Brandon’s door, and knocking.
“Tired. Don’t feel like talking,” his voice croaks out. It sounds tired. It sounds broken.
Pushing it open, I say, “I don’t care.”
I actually see him tense but ignore it. Closing the door behind me, I click the lock and walk over to the bed. Brandon.
He does look smaller, but his dark brown hair is the same, kind of longish and messy. He still looks like the jock football player he is. I used to tease him about that. I’ve always played and loved ball too, but despite his hair color, Brandon always looked like the golden boy, the football player.
The lamp by his bed is on. He’s got his dark blue blanket up to his waist and he’s wearing a white button-up shirt. I see a bandage or something through it. Because they cut his chest open to fix his heart.
Turning his head to the left he looks at me, his face thinner, but his jaw still tight and strong. “What if I can’t do it?” he whispers. “It’s who I am.”
Football. It always comes back to that. I also can’t help but relax. Even after all this time, he talks to me. “No, it’s not. It never fucking has been.”
I drop my bag on the floor and kick out of my shoes. My whole body craves to touch him so I know he’s really here.
It doesn’t matter that Charlie and Nate are in the house, that his parents could come home, or that we haven’t talked in a year and a half. That he might shove me away or that he cracked open my chest the same way the doctors did to him, only no one put mine back together again.
He’s hurt. He could have died. I know him. He needs me.
I sit on the bed, turn, and lie down on my side next to him, my breath making the hairs on his arm move. Don’t push me away, don’t push me away. When he doesn’t everything inside me lets go, all the time between us disappearing and it’s that last summer again when we lay in this same bed the same way.
Neither of us talk, but Brandon leans down, rests his cheek on the top of my head . . . and exhales. “I had surgery on my heart . . .”
I wince. “I know.”
“Eighty percent of the people who have torn artery on their heart die before they make it to the hospital. They bleed so fast . . .”
I didn’t know that. But I don’t tell him, knowing he just needs to talk.
“Did they tell you it was an artery that brings blood to the heart? I was bleeding inside. It was close . . . I could have . . .”
“You’re here.” We’re here.
“I’m so fucking tired.” His voice cracks. I want nothing more than to fix it.
“Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.” I can’t stop myself from waiting for it—waiting for Brandon to say he can’t. Or ask me to get up, or do what they said he did with everyone else and tell me he doesn’t want to see me.
But he doesn’t.
Brandon’s . . . quiet, and I’m too afraid to even move. Soon, his breathing evens out and I know he did what I asked. A stupid part of me wishes I’m what he was waiting for since the injury happened. It feels good believing I can calm his storm.
And makes it even shittier that despite it all, he still walked away.
Chapter Two
Brandon
“Do you think what we do is wrong? Seriously, I mean. People say so much shit. It has to come from somewhere, right?” I sit next to Alec, in the woods. It’s one of the few times we’ve been able to sneak away this summer. All through the rest of last year I swore I wouldn’t do this when I saw him. Last summer, I was with Charlie’s sister, Sadie. That made it easier. Hell, we were just friends anyway. Fucking sixteen and fifteen years old.
But I knew he made me feel different. I knew Alec looked at me differently too.
“I don’t know,” Alec finally answers. We’re sitting so close, our legs touch. I want to reach over and grab his hand. If it was Sadie, I’d do it without thinking.
“And we’re not really doing anything yet,” Alec laughs. He’s like that. He’s good at being the center of attention and making people forget the bad shit.
“But we want to . . .” I whisper, surprised I do.
His head snaps toward me. His bright blue eyes, trying to see through me, I think.
“I mean, you said . . . when we talked. You do want to, right?” I hate that I sound like such a pussy. I’m older than him. I shouldn’t sound like I need to hear his answer so much, but then, if he feels the same, it’s not just me. If there’s something wrong with us, at least we’re wrong together.
“You know I do. And I changed my mind about my answer. No, there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”
I exhale a deep breath at his words. It’s stupid. I know it’s not really wrong. Gay people are getting married and things are changing, but seeing it and having it be me are two different things. Plus—I pick up my football—I can’t have both. Things might be changing, but not on that field.
He’s so fucking gay.
Stop being such a fag.
I couldn’t share a locker room with a queer.
Comments. Words people say without thinking. None of them directed at me, but I still hear the words. Maybe more than anyone else.
“Even if other people don’t get it, it’s not wrong. Especially since they don’t know.” Alec pushes to his feet, holding out his hand for the football. “Let’s play. One day when you’re in the NFL, I’ll be able to say I used to play ball with you.”
Standing, I smile, somehow feeling lighter. He does that to me.
“You won’t have to say it, because everyone will know . . . even if we don’t, you know . . . we’ll still be friends. Maybe you’ll be playing with me and it’ll be on ESPN—our story. Best friends who spent every summer together and then went to play in the NFL together.”
The smile slips off Alec’s lips and I wonder if I said something wrong. Without thinking, I reach up, and touch his face, then his hair, and let my hand slide down. Then I step closer, my hand at the nape of his neck. It fits perfectly there and he smiles again.
No matter what anyone thinks, it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels better. He makes me better.
I knew he would come.
When I made the call, that wasn’t my plan. Or maybe it had been, but I didn’t admit it to myself. All I knew was I had so much shit going on in my head: the accident, the statistics, that I probably should be dead, that I had surgery on my heart . . . that I’m scared to fucking death I won’t play ball again. The doctors say anything is possible. I’m already a miracle for living, but lying here, knowing my chest was open and that I have to heal and my body is weak, it doesn’t feel like it.
For someone who only knows myself as a football player, even a 5 perc
ent possibility of not being who I was, feels more like 95 percent. What if my endurance isn’t the same? Or my muscles or my breathing? What if I can’t take a fucking hit? Who am I if I’m not Brandon Chase, number forty-three?
I’m not like Nate. I didn’t do well in school because I liked it. I found a way to do good so I could play ball.
All that stuff is overloading my brain and taking me over. I want a way to let it out, but it’s all too raw. There’s no one who knows all my insides, except the person I hurt, ran away from, and then called when I felt alone.
“I have to piss,” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth when I wake up. It should have been “thank you.”
Alec gets up, without making eye contact with me. “Can you . . . are you able?”
His question hits a nerve, making me feel even more raw. “I can go to the bathroom by myself. Can you . . . can you help me up though?”
He finally meets my eyes and it feels like I’m under the knife again. Only this time, I’m not unconscious. I feel every cut and stitch. I bleed.
Chill out. You’re cracking up.
Alec reaches for me, and I let him. Wraps his arm around me. I let him do that too. He feels harder than he used to and I wonder if he’s playing ball or just working out more.
When we get into the bathroom, I wait for him to leave.
“Are you . . .?”
I shake my head. We are definitely not going there. “Wait right outside. I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
My chest aches, this stabbing pain piercing through me. My legs are so weak, I have to sit down to pee. After I wash my hands, I say Alec’s name. The door pushes open and he’s right there.
“I had to piss like a woman,” I say, not sure why I said it.
“So even more has changed than I knew about?” He grins. A small laugh falls out of my lips. Another pain hits me, and I grab on to the counter. Alec is right there, holding me again.
“Asshole.”
“But you smiled.”
Yeah . . . yeah I did. “I’m tired of lying down. I want to sit.” Alec helps until I’m sitting on my bed, before he’s down right beside me again. Our legs are touching and I can’t help but remember that time, years ago when we sat like this together. One of the many times.