String Boys, page 27
“Italy. Seth. This is everything your father ever wanted for you and was afraid to ask. This is everything I ever wanted for you and was afraid to dream about. And here you are, Italy on a platter, and you’re going to throw it away—”
“For you? You bet.”
“Well, I’m not gonna let you! Have you even told your father about this?”
Ugh. “No. Because it’ll be just like Bridgford all over again. And look how good that turned out!”
“Yeah, Seth.” Kelly’s voice fell flatly, reminding Seth of every blessing he’d had in the last three years. “Look.”
Seth’s lower lip wobbled. “Don’t you want to be with me?” he asked, empty again. Suddenly, viciously, he wanted Kelly’s cock back in his ass, wanted to be joined, because then it felt like this chasm between them—the chasm between Italy and California—couldn’t ever open up.
“Well, yeah.” Kelly’s broken smile reappeared. “I want to see you in Italy.”
Seth shook his head and made to get off the bed. He could go walking on the beach. Into the water. And never come back.
But Kelly grabbed his hand and tugged. “I’m not ready for you to go yet,” he said, and it sounded like it had more than one meaning.
“I’m not either.” Seth searched his eyes, waiting for the moment of sad rejection, the moment where Kelly would say they should just end it, because he wanted Seth to go away for a year and Kelly couldn’t wait that long.
“We’ll talk about it,” Kelly told him, running his knuckles gently over Seth’s cheekbones. “We’ll think. Baby, someday, I’ll be able to leave. Or you’ll be able to come home. Or we can meet in the middle of the world or something and it will all be okay. But until then, you have to—you have got to take the things your talent earns you. Don’t you get that?”
Seth shook his head. “I didn’t want it,” he whispered. Young. How was Kelly so old and he was so young? Especially right now, when Seth’s insides, his cock, all of him was still pulsing with come?
“But you must have. Because unless you were with me, your head was with your music. And you’d come down from that place to be with me, but that was because you loved me. It’s a gift.”
“That’s not fair,” Seth whispered. “It’s not fair to call it a gift when I have to choose between it and you.”
Kelly sighed. “But you have to be gone right now anyway. Because people are still talking and Matty is still… well, he’s in rehab again, and maybe it will stick. But he could come back any minute and shoot off his big mouth and Chloe will get taken away—”
Seth closed his eyes. “That can’t happen.” He knew this.
“No. No, it can’t. So if you’ve got to be gone—why not be somewhere awesome?”
Seth shook his head, not ready to concede, and helpless tears slid between his eyelids. “This was so not the conversation I thought we’d be having right now,” he confessed.
Kelly let out a chuff of air. “Well, if you want to talk about doing that again, I’m good for it. But maybe….”
He was biting his lip shyly.
“What?”
“Maybe we can walk on the beach first? I… you know. I really love the ocean too.”
Seth smiled—God, he was ready to smile. “Yeah. Okay. That’s good.”
They walked on the foggy, chilly beach, and Seth let the roar of it fill him, let the heat of Kelly’s hand in his and the beauty of the wave foam crashing near their feet, consume him.
And the loneliness of being far away from Kelly, too far to touch, was kept at bay for the rest of the afternoon.
Footsteps in the Sand
KELLY HATED running. His bare feet fell unevenly on the damp portion of the beach, his calves, his thighs, his arches working overtime to bounce back up and take the next step.
He couldn’t go fast enough.
Step, step, step, shush, shush, shush… God, he couldn’t go fast enough.
“Kelly!”
Augh! Dammit! Seth didn’t even sound winded. “Kelly! It’s not your fault! Dammit—wait!”
A wave washed up, and Kelly swerved, trying to pull up, but the dry sand sucked at his feet, and the incoming tide kept coming and coming. Brine froze his ankles, his shins, his knees, and fuck, he went down, tumbling, coming up sputtering and shaking and unable to run anywhere, anywhere at all.
“Baby….”
Seth’s arm, warm and kind, wrapped around his shoulders, and before Kelly could even chatter, “Go away,” Seth had taken off his own sweatshirt, ripped Kelly’s sodden one off, and replaced it.
It was old and soft—Seth’s first Bridgford sweatshirt—and warmed by their mad dash along the beach.
“I’m sorry,” Kelly mumbled. “God, I’m sorry.”
“All you ever have to say is stop,” Seth whispered, his lips by Kelly’s ear. “Ever. You don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to explain. I know.”
“I thought I wanted it.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t ready.” A body, hot, behind his, invading. Flesh where he didn’t want it. Friction. Burning. Pain.
They’d tried in the daylight, after the family had gone back to Sacramento, playful, intense—the way sex had always been for them—and this time… this time, oh God, Kelly had wanted it.
Seth seemed to love it so much, and he was so trusting, opening up his body like that.
And Jesus, Kelly owed him.
Kelly had told Seth’s dad about Italy on the third day of their stay—and Seth was right.
It was Bridgford all over again, without the actual fighting.
“Italy?”
“Dad, drop it.”
“But, Seth—”
“I’ve got to decide on my own.”
“But… you know. Italy.”
“Please, Dad. This might not be the last time I get to do this—”
“But it might! That’s why it’s called opportunity!”
“But I have opportunities right here.” He’d glared at Kelly and then looked helplessly at Linda, who’d shrugged, clearly on the fence about it.
And Kelly’d winced at every exchange, because Seth had been right—this was his decision. Adulthood—Seth had it.
But they’d woken up that morning, naked, laughing, hands warm on each other’s skin, and Kelly thought about how Seth hadn’t complained, not once, hadn’t blamed Kelly for sticking his little pug nose in where it didn’t belong, and Kelly’d thought, “Hey, I should give it up for this guy, ’cause he’s really awesome.”
And then his brain had exploded into that fetid room of his nightmares, and he’d rolled off the bed and barely managed to fumble into his clothes, a bewildered Seth scrambling after him.
But Seth was wrapping him tight in his sweatshirt now, murmuring soft things in his ear, and there was nothing scary about him, nothing at all, just comfort, just kindness, and Kelly wanted so badly to be everything for him that he burst into tears.
Seth just held him tighter, the two of them on the beach, the frigid tide surging around their ankles, until Kelly could hear his own teeth chattering.
They were both wearing sleep shorts still, because they’d had them on the night before, before they’d slid out of them to make love.
“You’re cold.” Seth rubbed his arms underneath the sweatshirt. “C’mon. Let’s go back to the house. We can go shopping.”
The hell? “Sh-sh-sh-o-p-p-ing?” Seth had to guide him, he was so damned cold.
“Yeah. Carmel, remember? We were gonna go look in the art galleries? And then we decided to do that other thing, which was fine, but it’s not the only thing. I thought you wanted to see art.”
Kelly cried harder. By the time they got to the house, up the stairs, and into the shower, Seth had to hold him up because he could barely breathe.
The warm water worked its way through his muscles, and then Seth—all that surprising strength, that purpose that seemed to come from nowhere—manhandled him tenderly until he was wearing sweats again, wrapped in a blanket, a cup of hot chocolate folded in his hands as Seth stood next to his bed and practiced.
Kelly couldn’t remember him saying anything about the music, but it was like that time he’d come home from school because he’d heard Kelly’s need from a hundred miles away. He’d just sung Kelly to sleep, because that’s what Kelly needed.
This was the same. Kelly was warm, the heat of the mug seeping through his hands, the softness of the comforter relaxing his body, and Seth’s music—ah. Ah, God. Seth’s beautiful music…. He liked pop music as much as anybody, but the spin the violin could put on it wrapped around Kelly’s soul like the comforter around his shoulders.
After about twenty minutes, Seth set the instrument down in its case, and the bow with it, and sat on the edge of the bed, his hand on Kelly’s thigh.
He didn’t say anything, just waited patiently, with pale green eyes that could have been looking for life on Mars or looking for the sense in Kelly’s heart.
“I….” Kelly closed his eyes. “Why would you want to stay with me when you’re in Italy and a thousand hot Italian boys are throwing themselves at you? I can let you go…. I just…. I don’t want you to walk away from me in your heart.”
Seth’s hand tightened on his thigh. “Sex is good,” he said simply. “But only because it’s you. We don’t have to do that one thing unless you want to. I’m fine the other way around.” He bit one side of his lip, and his eyes grew wicked and danced. “I’m great the other way around. I’m… when I miss you, it’s not because I miss you in bed.” He let out a breath. “Although I do get horny for you, I won’t lie. I just….” He closed his eyes and gripped Kelly’s thigh a little harder. “This. Touching. Talking. The things we don’t say in text. The things that are too small on the telephone but that we’d say if we had each other around all the time. The way your eyes look when you say something, so I know if you’re being funny or sarcastic or not.”
“You don’t know?” Kelly asked, surprised.
Seth shook his head. “I’m really bad with sarcasm, Kelly. It took me a while to figure out how much Matty despised me because I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not.”
Kelly captured his hand and brought his palm to his mouth. “My mom is sarcastic as fuck,” he said after a moment. “The girls are stunning at it. I, like, learn at their feet.”
Seth’s chuckle went a few degrees further to bringing his body back to normal. “I noticed. But see? That’s what I miss. Not… you know… what you do for me in bed.”
“I just want to be everything for you.” That was simple enough, but it left Kelly feeling naked.
“You are.” And talk about simple. Seth slid off the chair, his knees on the ground, and rested his head in Kelly’s lap. “You see?” he asked hoarsely. “You see what I mean? Italy—maybe next year. Maybe I could ask them if I can do it next year. For my senior year in college and not my junior year. Maybe I could ask them if I can do the graduate program. And for another year or two, I’m at the San Francisco Conservatory of the Arts—”
“It’s not the best music program,” Kelly said, because he’d looked it up on his phone. “What, USC too fucking lazy to bang down your door?”
“I told them no,” Seth said mildly. “And CSU Northridge too.”
Kelly wasn’t sure whether to laugh or howl. “Anybody else we should know about?”
“No.”
“Which means, of course, that yes, you’ve gotten offers from all over the country, but the only one that really twisted your nipple was the one in Italy.” Holy Jesus. While Kelly had been slogging through work/school/birth/death, the world had been prostrating itself at his lover’s feet, and Seth had been too involved in Kelly to so much as smile and wave.
“New York was fourth chair,” Seth said without conceit. “I’m… well, I’ve been learning first chair since, you know, my junior year in high school. Italy would be first chair. So, you know, New York—”
“Can kiss your skinny brown ass. I get the picture.” Kelly took a stress gulp of hot chocolate, grateful it had cooled slightly. He tilted his head back then and tried not to take out his frustration on Seth, who had been nothing but patient.
“I just like challenges.” The serenity in Seth’s voice actually got through, and Kelly managed a smile.
“Like your neurotic boyfriend.”
Seth muttered something and buried his face against Kelly’s thigh, and Kelly pulled out of his guilt spiral long enough to push gently on his forehead so he could see Seth’s expression.
His green eyes were shiny, and his cheeks were flushed, and it hit Kelly that the last hour—that had been rough on him too.
“Mijo—”
“It’s scary,” Seth whispered. “Remembering being alone, where nobody can help you. Don’t ever be ashamed of remembering that. I’m ashamed I made you.”
Kelly scraped at the dampness on his cheek with the pad of his thumb. “No shame. Please. I just went too fast, you know? I thought, ‘Hey, Seth seems to like it! I’ll just bend over. It’ll be great.’” He let out a sigh and realized he was a shitty boyfriend on a lot of levels. “Thanks for… you know. Backing off when I started to freak.”
Seth shook his head. “Don’t thank me for that. Not acting like a scumbag is, like, the least you can expect from your boyfriend, right? People don’t get a thanks from the universe for not being rapists. It’s, like, the lowest bar for being a decent person is stopping when someone says no.”
Kelly chuckled, cupping his cheek again. “God. I love you so much.” He leaned down and Seth pushed up, and they shared a chaste kiss. “I just… if I’m gonna send you out to Italy, I… I want to be whole inside. Someone to come back to.”
Seth squinted at him. “So you’re not whole inside because you won’t bottom? Jesus, you’re stupid. I mean, I still love you, but that’s really dumb.”
Kelly shook his head. “Come here. Come here and set my chocolate down and kiss me some more. I wanna make out, okay?”
Seth grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about. Then Carmel? The art galleries—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. You want me to see art. Whatever. Kiss me now, here, because we can.”
Seth’s mouth was heavenly. They stopped just before stripping down and making love again, but they did manage to pack a lunch and make it to the art galleries.
Seth got Kelly to pick a sculpture he really loved, an abstract pottery piece with a metallic shimmery glaze that reminded Kelly of infinity.
“You’re buying this for me, why?” Kelly asked, aware he was being spoiled, and that every grand gesture Seth made was another night of him working in a honky-tonk dive bar where he could possibly get his face beat in again.
“Because it made you think of forever,” Seth told him. “That’s what I want you to think of when you think of me.”
God, for someone who was only on planet Earth maybe 10 percent of the time, he sure did know what to say when he was down there.
DROPPING SETH back at Bridgford and driving home was like ripping out his soul. Seth’s eyes were bright and shiny and red-rimmed as he got out of the car and warned Kelly soberly about driving safely. His voice—surprisingly husky anyway—was deep enough to rub on the ground. Maybe it was that look on his face, the quiet devastation there, that changed Kelly’s mind, made his determination waver.
Maybe it was the way Seth didn’t tell him again when he and Guthrie got into another fight at the Stomp in February, right before Valentine’s Day, his birthday, when Seth surprised him by taking the train to Sacramento and meeting him at his job with flowers.
Maybe it was how Seth had been working another gig—a chamber music gig with three women who had come to a performance and begged Seth to help them get their quartet off the ground by being a guest player—just so he could send money home to his dad, which ended up sending Lily and Lulu on their eighth-grade trip to Fort Bragg.
It didn’t matter, really, what it was. Kelly ended up giving in.
Seth graduated from Bridgford that June with Kelly and Craig in the audience. His graduation present from Craig and Kelly’s mom was a trip to Disneyland for the two of them—three days and three nights in Disneyland. Seth had known it was coming. He’d saved enough money to spoil the shit out of Kelly’s family, which was nice, and they got busy every night after the fireworks, which was great.
But it couldn’t last, of course. After their vacation, Kelly helped him move straight to the dorms at the conservatory.
The trip to Italy was still on the table. The offer was a year of graduate school, playing with a symphony in Florence, and Kelly would be damned if Seth passed it up. But in the meantime, Seth had two years. Kelly had two years. They had two years to pray their life wouldn’t go to shit if Kelly went down to visit three weekends a month, staying in Seth’s single occupancy dorm room, learning to make love like it could happen regularly and not like it was Christmas for the body that only came along once every six months.
Maybe two years would do it. Maybe it would be enough. Maybe it would sate that hunger Kelly had inside for Seth’s touch, his smell—like bow rosin and the sweating wood of the instrument.
Maybe.
Maybe they could fill up on each other with regular visits so Seth wouldn’t be drained dry of Kelly and need somebody else by the time he was done with Italy.
Kelly would pray for that. He’d live for that. He’d hope for that. Because he wasn’t ready to walk away yet. Not in January, as he drove back from the best two weeks of his life, and not in June after Seth walked the stage.
And not that summer, when they found excuses, any excuses, to take the car or the train from the Bay and back and spend a night, or two, stretched out at Seth’s dorm, or on Seth’s bed at home, bodies touching, breath mingling, pretending they’d never have to part.
Matty got out of rehab in February.
In March, he got a job.
By the time Seth graduated from Bridgford and on to the conservatory, Matty was living in his own apartment—tiny, with a newly rehabbed Isela, and they were high on fucking religion again.
