“What the fuck do you want?”
“Can I come in?”
“Fuck no.”
“Well, then can I stand on the stoop and say what I need to say?”
“Brendan Miller you can drop dead and say what you need to say in hell.”
Kenny McGrath turned around and tried to shut the door, but Brendan pushed it back.
“You must want me to kick your ass. Really, Brendan.”
“We need to talk.”
“We tried that already. I tried that already. You said you didn’t need to be around me anymore. You said we weren’t anything. You said—”
“I was afraid.”
“You were afraid? You were an asshole.”
Brendan stood at the door waiting.
“Well, come in,” said Kenny.
Brendan nodded, and walked into the living room.
“No one’s home,” Kenny said. “So you can say your piece.”
“Dena’s gone. I mean, I told her everything.”
“Did you tell her you were sucking my dick? Did you tell her we were fucking each other for three months all that time you were telling her how busy you were, and how left out Will was feeling? Did you tell her that when you stayed over we were screwing in the same bed?”
“You make it sound like that, Ken. But… we were more than that.”
“Were we?” Kenny said. “Because, see, I thought we were in love. I… I was afraid when I thought so, but I was sure of it. I thought everything we did was because we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other, because we were so into each other. I really thought that. I was high as a kite. I thought you were too. I thought we had literally discovered sex, and love and… all of that shit. And one day we’d decide how to tell folks about it.
“And then, one day you were like, it’s over. You weren’t even gentle about it. You were just… you treated me like the plague. Like I was this disgusting thing that was turning you into something gross, and Dena Reardon was going to cure you.”
“I think that was the way I felt,” Brendan said quickly. “No, listen. I… with us I felt so out of control and so, different and so scared, so scared of the way I felt about you. The things that were happening to us when we were together. I knew I was gay, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be. But it’s who I was. It was so natural and… I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Well, Brendan, I’ve had a long time to not know, all by myself, while you treated me like shit and screwed Dena. I’ve had a long time to be miserable, to hate myself. To hate you. To… wanna die. You know what that feels like, Bren? To want to fucking die, to curl up in a fucking ball and just die? You know what that’s like?”
“Yes.”
Kenny looked at him dubiously.
“If you knew, why the fuck would you do that to someone else?”
“Ken—”
“I need you to get the fuck out.”
“Kenny—”
“Please,” Kenny said, taking a breath, and taking his hands through his hair, “I need you to go.”
Brendan nodded, and went to the front door.
“I just… wanted to let you know how sorry I was.”
Kenny nodded.
“Go, please.”
Brendan nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
A second later it opened.
“Brendan!” Kenny said, exhausted.
Brendan bit his lip.
“Kenny, I love you. I never stopped being in love with you. I… just wanted you to know that too.”
“All right,” Kenny said. “Now, get out?”
Brendan swallowed, took a breath, and then nodded.
“What?” Tom said, walking into the apartment, “is all this?”
Before Lee could say anything, Tom said, “It smells so good in here. God, I didn’t know you could cook! Lee, what is this?”
“Well, sit down,” Lee said coming out of the kitchen.
“You look ridiculous.”
“You don’t like my apron?”
“Lee,” Tom said as Lee shoved him into a chair, “What—?”
“You know how sometimes people throw going away dinners?”
Tom’s face changed.
“Oh, no, Lee.”
“Well,” Lee continued, raising a finger, “I’m throwing a ‘I’m not going anywhere anytime soon dinner.’ For us. No one else is invited.”
“What?” Tom tilted his head. “What are you saying?”
“You’re kind of slow, Tom. I just said it.”
“You’re not…” Tom began again. “You’re staying?”
“Yes. I can’t really think of a good reason not too.”
“Aw, Lee,” Tom leaped up and hugged him. “This is great. This is… the greatest news.”
“Of course I can move in with Adele until I get my own place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t really stay here.”
“Why not?”
“It would be like me becoming your instant live-in boyfriend.”
“So?”
Lee separated from him and looked down at himself, murmuring, “This is a ridiculous apron.” Then he said, “Thom, you don’t just move into someone’s place and not leave.”
“Lee,” Tom said, coming behind him and helping him untie the apron. “I have waited a long, a looooong time to share my life with someone. My space. This place basically says ‘Fill me up.’”
“It’s pretty damn empty, all right.”
“And cold. And I’m pretty damn empty, too, and these last few weeks have been… I don’t know. The whole thing about maybe you would leave, the whole thing about me just kind of risking that and taking love right now, in the moment… it’s really been something. And… if we can start a life together… I don’t mean to get heavy. I mean, if we could just try this out, together, we would be real happy.”
“Tom, I wouldn’t be staying if I didn’t agree.”
“So… you’ll stay? I mean… here?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” Tom pressed himself to Lee and murmured into his chest. “It’s hard for me, you know. To give myself to someone. To trust myself to be soft. You make it easy. I don’t mean to sound clingy and everything. But this, right now, is great. I want to just… hold you and never let you go.”
“Well, you’re going to have to let me go sooner or later.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because the sauce is about to bubble over.”
“So,” Julian said, opening the door, “you wanna talk, or you wanna fight?”
Layla nodded and said, “I don’t want to do either. I’ve been all over town.”
She entered the house and Julian said, “They’re not home. Either one of them. It’s getting toward evening, and you’ve been on that bike.”
She shook her head, “I took the bus. I put it on the rack.”
“Still,” Julian said, “I can give you a ride back home.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I’d say it is,” he disagreed. “You thirsty?”
“Not yet.”
Layla put her hands on the top of her head.
“Today, my oldest friend, who I was coming to tell about you told me that her boyfriend had, firstly, been sleeping with her for weeks. Which she never told me. And then she told me that he was gay, and he had just left her.”
“Shit.”
“Yes,” Layla agreed. “And, that he had been fooling around with another guy. Someone we all knew. Who we thought was just a friend.”
Julian nodded.
“And then,” Layla said, “I find out that my boyfriend knew all of this already, and he had never told me. None of them told me.”
“That’s a mess,” Julian sympathized. “That’s a real mess.”
“And now what you told me…
“I want to know, did my mother know my father was already married when they got together?”
“No.”
“I… I wanted to believe that my mother was… a virgin when she got married.”
“I want to believe my mother’s a virgin now.”
“But… she was pregnant with me already… Before my father proposed to her?”
“You want to grill her for having a sex life?”
“I don’t have a sex life,” Layla railed. “My slut of a best friend does. My—Brendan, who I grew up with, who won the dork of the year award in K-8: apparently he can fuck boys and girls at the same time and keep a job at Martins. So no, my mother’s sex life is a bit much to hear about right now.”
“What else do you want to know?”
Layla opened her mouth, and shook her head.
“I don’t know… I… I need to go.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Rossford’s not that big.”
“Suit yourself,” Julian said.
She nodded and went to the door.
“Layla?”
She turned around.
“See, I want to feel sorry for you. I want to be sorry for how I treated you today. I want to be your friend. You are my sister.”
She nodded.
“But it’s hard for me, cause you’re kind of a bitch.”
“Goodnight, Julian,” she said, and pulled her bicycle out through the door.
Because it was summer, the sky was golden though it was approaching nine o’clock. She didn’t want to see her mother, or any of her family right now. She didn’t want her friends. She wanted a car. A car with limitless gas that would drive her out of this world. She needed to be someplace else.
The car was approaching her. It looked like Brendan’s. As they both came to the red light it came beside her and stopped.
“Layla, get in.”
“No,” she said. It was Brendan. Goddamn him.
“Layla, it’s late. You’ve been on that damn thing all day. You’re not Greg Lamont.”
“Who?”
“You’re not Lance Armstrong,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
Her thighs hurt. Her ass hurt by now. She was funky and sweaty.
“Get in,” he said in that voice Brendan used every once in awhile that meant he was completely serious.
The light turned green. Brendan didn’t move. Layla took a breath and climbed off of the bike. Brendan got out of the car and opened his trunk. He took the bike. His arms were strong. He seemed so skinny, it was a surprise. He unhooked the wheel expertly, stuck it in the back of his car, closed the trunk lightly, and Layla got in.
They drove. They drove in silence.
The Dairy Queen, the Cadillac Lot, the Mitsubishi place, Movies 10, Wendys, a Catholic bookstore, a Greek restaurant, gold red light settling on them, glowing off their glass fronts in copper waves. Gold red light on the asphalt.
“I don’t blame you if you don’t want to talk to me.”
“Brendan. Eventually, I want you to drop me off at my uncle’s. Okay?”
Brendan nodded.
“But for now, could you just drive. Just… let’s just drive. And not say anything.”
Brendan nodded.
And so they drove.
“Oh, God! Oh… Oh!”
He touched his hair. He buried his hands in his hair and bit his lip, he moaned and wailed and held onto his back. Their thighs moved together, their groins pressed together. They came and came and sighed.
Brendan gasped with the shock of his orgasm. His toes curled, and his body went tight on itself before releasing. For a long time he lay still before he rolled over, still breathing a little heavily.
For a long time Kenny McGrath also lay, catching his breath, his fingers steepled in his hair. He massaged his brow and lay still, breathing softer and softer. Brendan reached over to put a hand on his chest, but Kenny gently pushed it away.
“You need to go, Brendan,” he said.
“Huh?”
Kenny sat up. “You need to go, Brendan. I shouldn’t have done this.”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I mean… I mean you should go. Please go.”
“But you said… I came over. You said you wanted us to—”
“Look,” Kenny said as Brendan climbed out of bed and began dressing. “I don’t know if I was just horny, or… I don’t know what. But I can’t be with you. I can’t.”
Brendan figured he didn’t have the right to protest right now. He smoothed his shirt and took his hands through his hair.
“I didn’t mind when it was just heat. I should have minded. I can’t do the affection thing. I can’t. I don’t trust you, Brendan. I’m still angry at you. I still…”
Kenny stopped talking and looked at Brendan as if he’d never seen him before.
“I still kind of hate you. I hate myself for wanting to be with you. But… I can’t give up hating you. Not after everything. Not yet. I’m not ready.”
Brendan nodded his head and went to the bedroom door.
“Can you understand that, Brendan?”
“I can understand it. But… Do you think it’s going to last?”
Kenny climbed out of bed. He pulled on his shorts and reached for his tee shirt.
“Whaddo you want from me, Brendan?”
“I…” Brendan shrugged. “I dunno.”
“If that’s all you can say, man, then it looks like you just got what you wanted. And so did I. So what’s the problem?”
“What you said,” Brendan said. “Before. The day I broke up with Dena, when I came to you, how you said we were… in love, we were going to be together. That’s what I want.”
“Well, I wanted it to.”
“Don’t you still?”
“Not with you. Not right now. Bren, I don’t even look at you the same. I don’t look at anything the same.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust myself,” Kenny said. “Clearly I can’t make a sensible decision. Or else we wouldn’t have done what we just did.”
. “We just made love,” Brendan said. “Do you really feel bad about that?”
“Bren, we fucked,” Kenny said. “And it was good cause you were horny and I was weak, and if you want to know the truth: right now I pretty much hate myself.”
Brendan nodded.
“I guess that’s my cue to go.”
“Yeah,” Kenny said, chewing on his lip.
