Cold Turkey, page 7
Tears were streaming in my eyes, and I prayed that the rain would hide them.
Suddenly, I felt all the anger and sadness that he had been feeling. For all those lost years, for all those nights I spent lonely when I didn’t have to be.
I didn’t think he should have blamed me as much as he did, but I understood it. I understood completely. In his position, I would have wanted to blame me too.
“We can still have it, Daniel,” I said quietly.
He turned around and looked at me. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all that time I didn’t spend with you. I really fucking am. But our lives aren’t over. We could still have all that… We could still have each other. Maybe we still have a future.”
He looked into my eyes. This time, there was no rage, only sadness.
“You really hurt me,” he said softly. “I thought you would come to me with anything…”
“You hurt me too,” I answered. “I thought you’d never leave. I didn’t think one day we’d become strangers. I thought you’d always be in my life.”
He nodded softly. “I always was,” he whispered. “You didn’t know it, but I always was. I always thought of you. I always wanted you. You never lost me.”
Without warning, I leaned in and did something I never ever thought I would.
I kissed him.
7
Daniel
I don’t know how long we stood there kissing. It was probably minutes, but it felt like days. I was savoring every little bit of him.
When we finally pulled away, we were both smiling.
“What does this mean for us, Ethan?” I asked.
I had to ask, as awkward and taboo as it may have been to play the ‘what are we’ game.
But if I didn’t ask him, my mind was going to get ahead of me. It already was. I was already fantasizing about a relationship with him. Even more than a relationship, a whole future. I had just kissed my soul mate—of course I was thinking about what our future might hold.
But, fuck, I just kissed my soul mate. And I hadn’t even considered the consequences of this…
How was I ever going to walk away from him now? After kissing him, everything just felt… So complete. It was like everything I’d been missing for years was finally coming back to me.
Life wasn't a fairytale though. All those years we missed were more than just time we didn’t get to spend together. Those lost years may have destroyed whatever chance we had at a future together.
Because we were both adults now. We both had lives now, had jobs, had lived in completely different states. I may have loved him, but love couldn’t transcend the reality of life. And the reality was that we were so distant now.
If he had told me years ago, if we could have started something when we were young, it would have been different. We could have built our lives around one another.
And I wasn’t going to hold that against him anymore. It wasn’t fair. Although I believed my reasons for keeping my feelings secret were a little more legitimate than his, I didn’t say anything either. We each had a part in the way our lives played out.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Ethan said. “All I know is that I want you.”
As frustrating as it was, that was a fair answer. I couldn’t expect him to figure out everything right now. I couldn’t do it, after all. If he had asked me the same question, I would have said I didn’t know too.
So there was only one thing to do. We had to enjoy this weekend as much as we possibly could. I didn’t know what was coming next, but if it was not good… Well, then I wanted to have one last beautiful weekend with the man I loved more than anything.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay? Really? You’re okay with that answer?” he questioned suspiciously.
He knew me, and he knew I wasn’t a spontaneous person. I liked to make plans, I liked answers, it was in my nature. I’d never been good at leaving things up in the air.
“Really,” I assured him. “Let’s make the most of right now.”
He still seemed hesitant; this was not mature. But I didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with him. I wanted to soak up all of him this weekend.
We called another cab, which was awkward, because when we got into it, we were both soaking wet.
But I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the rain. In fact, I really liked it.
And I really liked what it was doing to Ethan. His hair had now fallen messily in front of his forehead. His clothes were clinging to his chest. He could not have looked sexier to me right now.
I found myself wishing that we weren’t going back to his parents’ house. That we were either in his town or mine, going back to one of our apartments where we could fuck loudly and wildly. Or maybe that we were heading to some hotel room.
But even if I was bold enough to suggest that, it was pointless in this town. There was only one small hotel, and the owner knew both of our families. It would be way too fucking awkward to head there to fuck privately.
As small towns go, this place was pretty liberal. I didn’t expect to encounter any homophobia or anything, but still. It felt all too weird.
It didn’t take long to get to his parents’ house. When I had demanded to be let out of the cab like a petulant child, we were already three quarters of the way to his house.
Man, I was cringing thinking about that. I had no reason to act the way I did and, honestly, if I was sober, I don't think I would have. Alcohol always had brought out the worst, most emotional parts of me.
I felt a little more sober now. I knew that wasn’t really possible; I wouldn’t sober up this quickly. I was definitely still drunk. But something about that kiss just brought out a calmer side to me. My more rational side had definitely returned.
Sitting in the back of the cab with him, I felt calm. I had never felt more at peace with the world.
He smiled over at me softly, placing his hand on top of mine. I squeezed it with my thumb. Just this simple act of touching hands sent a shiver down my spine.
I felt so much for him.
My calm quickly disappeared as we approached his house, though. Nervousness overcame me as I realized we were going to have to walk in the house, soaking wet and wasted, and see his family.
First, I felt somehow guilty that I had just been making out with their son when they had so graciously opened up their house to me. I didn’t know why; obviously we were adults and this shouldn’t have been weird for me. But his parents were like my own parents! And I was sure they assumed that, you know, I’d never be going after their son.
And second, I was actually just really weirded out for Ethan’s mom to see me drunk. It was like coming home to my own mom drunk. No, actually, it was worse than that. She had been more of a mom figure to me, and I was more worried about her judgments of me.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled as I got out of the cab. “How am I going to see your parents like this?” I asked him.
“Like what?” he asked, completely oblivious.
“Completely wasted!”
He laughed. “It’s fine, Daniel. We’re adults. We were out at the bar, trust me, they’ll get it.” He started walking up to the house.
“Okay, well, what about the fact that I just made a move on their son?”
He laughed more. “One, they’re not going to know that. And two, I made the move on you.” He ran his hand down the small of my back.
“Oh, your mom will know,” I said seriously. “She’ll see it on my guilty face.”
“Then change your guilt! We haven’t done anything wrong.”
I know he was right, we definitely hadn’t. But still I felt like a kid with my hand caught in the candy jar.
We walked into his house and, of course, his parents were sitting in the living room watching television.
“Hey boys.” His dad nodded to us.
“Hey,” I answered, hoping to seem casual.
Instead, my wet shoe slipped on the tile and I began to fall forward. Thankfully, Ethan had enough sense to catch me, but it was still woefully embarrassing.
His father just laughed. “A little too much to drink there, Danny?” he asked.
“Uh, just a bit,” I muttered.
His mom broke eye contact with the TV for the first time and glanced over at us.
“God, you guys are soaking wet!”
This was it, this was where the guilt was going to show on my face. Because as she said that, all I could think about was locking lips with her son in the middle of an empty field. Oh, and the way his abs gleamed through his shirt when he was all wet like this. That thought made its way in there too.
“Yeah, we had to wait a minute outside the bar for the cab,” Ethan lied casually.
“I didn’t realize it was raining so hard!” she answered.
“Pouring.” Ethan shook his head in mock frustration. “We’re going to go change into some dry clothes.”
“Yeah, you go do that.” His mom nodded before turning her attention back to the TV.
We both started up the stairs. I was walking very, very carefully up them. Now the feeling of drunkenness had flooded back to me. The stairs forced me to realize how incapacitated I was; every damn step I felt like I was climbing Mount Everest.
We walked into the guest bedroom, and I immediately sank down to the floor to sit. And it was a good thing too, because I swear the room was starting to spin.
Ethan looked over at me with concern. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I am, uh, very, very drunk,” I muttered as the first wave of nausea started to come over me.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry…” he said softly. “I forgot, you really don’t drink much, do you?”
I shook my head. It was funny, Ethan definitely out drank me tonight, but he seemed perfectly fine. I mean, he was tipsy, for sure. But he could handle himself.
I was not handling myself at all. Any fantasies I had of us hooking up tonight completely went out the window for me.
Although Ethan still looked damn good, and I still really did want him, there was no way I was doing anything when I was this dizzy.
Ethan must have had the same idea because I could see disappointment wash over his face. I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
But he didn’t say anything. Of course he didn’t, he was a good guy.
“Here, let me change and then I’ll go get you some water, okay?”
I nodded. He started taking off his shirt, but I wasn’t looking. I didn't want to invade his privacy. And when I saw him naked for the first time as an adult, I wanted to be completely aware for it. I could barely see anything in my current state.
The ceiling kept doing that weird spinning thing, so I decided I’d close my eyes to avoid it.
But that didn’t work. Somehow, even with my eyes closed, staring into blackness, I felt the motion of everything moving around me.
This was so unsettling. Holy fuck, I was never going to drink again. I’d been drunk before, but I couldn’t remember the room ever moving like this. I’d even felt like I needed to lean against a wall just to keep myself up. But this was so much worse than that.
“Okay, here.” Ethan put a wastebasket right next to my head. “I’m going to go downstairs to get some water. I’ll be right back.”
I opened my eyes to nod at him. He was now in his pajamas. And instead of thinking about how good he looked, I was thinking about how nice dry clothes seemed right now.
It felt like he was gone for only seconds. I was completely losing track of time. The only thing I could focus on was how I felt like I’d puke any second.
“Here, can you sit up?” Ethan asked when he was suddenly by my side again.
“Yeah, I can,” I said, though I really wasn’t sure.
I inched myself and leaned up against the bed. This did not help with the spinning feeling, but fuck it. The room was going to spin either way. I might as well drink some water, I thought. It’d help tomorrow.
Oh, shit, tomorrow. I hoped I wasn’t completely hungover for Thanksgiving.
“Here, sip,” Ethan said, handing me the glass.
“Thank you,” I mumbled before taking the water.
As I put it down, he reached his hand out to my face and kissed my forehead softly.
“I hate to see you feeling bad,” he said quietly.
Again, I had the chills. I didn’t think I’d ever gotten the chills so many times in one day.
“I’ll be okay,” I said, somehow trying to comfort him even though I was the one who felt bad.
“I know. I just wish I could do something to help right now.”
“You are…” I said softly.
We kissed once more. This time, it wasn’t like when we were sloppily making out in that field. This was a soft, gentle, comforting peck.
And somehow, it was just as good.
I’d never had this with anyone. I’d never felt like someone cared so deeply about me being unwell. I’d never had a relationship last long enough that I felt comfortable being sick around them.
Hell, I’d never even gotten this kind of treatment from my mother when I was sick as a kid. She always took care of me, of course. She wasn’t so cruel that she forced me to fend for myself when ill.
But she never cared like this. It never seemed like it hurt her to see me in pain. She just gave me the care I needed, and there were no emotions involved.
This was so different. This felt like nurturing. It felt like love.
“Here, let’s get you out of all these wet clothes, all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He took the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head slowly. I could see him staring at my abs and chest as he did. He smiled at me softly as he pulled his suitcase toward us and began looking for a dry shirt. He found one, and I wriggled into it.
The sexual tension was so obvious, even though I still had no desire to actually do anything. I still found him extremely sexy. It made me feel bad for Ethan.
He wasn’t as drunk as me, and he wasn’t feeling shitty. He had to hold back all that sexual desire.
“This wasn’t how I wanted tonight to go,” I told him as he started searching through my suitcase for boxers and shorts.
“You had a plan for tonight?” He laughed.
“I mean, not tonight in particular. But I had a plan for if you and I ever got together, if we ever kissed like that. I had a plan for our first night together.”
“And what would that have been like?” he asked, handing me boxers and shorts.
I slid my pants off myself as he looked away politely. Even though I was sure he wanted to look. I wanted him to look.
I got my boxers on before I started talking again. “I wanted our first night together to be sexy. I wanted to have you the way I’ve always fantasized about.”
He gave a crooked smile. “Me too. But there’s time for that.”
It didn’t feel like there was time for that. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this weekend was it for us. That after this, it was going to be all over.
But I didn’t say that. I didn’t even want to think of it. I changed the subject entirely.
“Do your parents know you’re bi?” my drunk ass asked out of nowhere.
He chuckled. “Yeah, of course. You know how I am with my parents. I tell them everything.”
“So they're fine with it?” I asked.
“Definitely.”
“You’ve brought your boyfriends around them and everything?”
“Well, no…” he said softly. “But not because I’m worried about how they’d react to a boyfriend. I just haven’t been serious enough about a boyfriend to bring them home.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised.
I never thought of Ethan as a guy who would have any trouble with his relationships. He always seemed to do so well with his girlfriends in high school. And he was such a good guy, so good looking… I couldn’t understand why relationships with him wouldn’t last.
And then he told me.
“It’s only been you, Daniel. Ever since we were young, you’ve been the only one. I tried to get over you after you left. I spent years dating guys that reminded me of you. But I’ve never been able to get close to anyone. There was always a distance between us that I couldn’t bridge. Because they weren’t you… I’ve only wanted you.”
My heart was pounding. “I felt the same way, you know. I really have tried to find someone who I could settle down with. I want to share my life with another person but… I don't know. All the guys I dated just wanted to hook up. None of them wanted to share any kind of emotional intimacy. That’s something I’ve only ever had with you.”
He frowned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I thought my words would make him as happy as his made me.
“Nothing, it’s just that… I’m really sorry. You were right, I should have said something a long time ago. I knew my life was miserable about with you, but I never knew you felt the same way. I made both of us miserable for so many years. Everything could have been so different.”
“I was angry when I said that. And I had no right to be. It was not your fault.” Okay, so it kind of was, but it was mine too.
“I hope I can make it up to you,” he said softly.
I wasn’t so sure he could, but I didn’t want to get into it right now. Like I’d told him before, I just wanted to enjoy our time together now as much as possible.
Except, right now, I needed to enjoy some time with my bed. I could feel my eyes starting to close and, honestly, I was in no position to fight off sleep. I desperately wanted all this dizziness and nausea to wear off.
“You getting tired?” Ethan asked me.
“Very.”
He nodded. “Let’s get you into bed then.”
I could see he was disappointed about this too and wished we could stay up longer, but he did his best to hide it, which I appreciated.
He helped lift me off the ground, at which point my legs went completely wobbly. But I managed to fall onto the bed, where he had already pulled the sheets back for me.
I put my heavy head on the pillow and Ethan pulled the sheets back over me. He tucked me in and gave me a soft kiss on my forehead.
