Chapter Nineteen
AS SCHOOL OFFICIALLY started and campus life rolled into normal gear, it both amused and annoyed Skylar how few people believed Xander truly was his boyfriend.
People who knew Xander believed them—or rather, the people who got to know Xander through Skylar believed them. Skylar was still helping the art department out, though the way his fraternity was behaving he wasn’t sure he should be doing them any PR favors. The art students, however, he didn’t mind assisting at all, and they loved having him around. At first to those who hadn’t met him over the summer, he was “that business major who helps with our social media stuff,” but as soon as they saw him holding hands with Xander, teasing him, coaxing him into getting to know his fellow department majors—and succeeding in socializing him somewhat—he was Skylar, Xander’s boyfriend. Especially when Xander started making him cute little bento lunches every day. The girls always sighed over the adorable shapes Skylar’s boyfriend cut his vegetables into.
Skylar’s boyfriend. He decided he liked that phrase a lot.
But outside the art department, he was still Skylar Stone, Greek member and catch of the day, and no one believed he was dating, as one of the rather bitchy sisters from Tau Alpha Kappa put it, “a mousy art student who stinks like paint thinner.” Those who’d been his former dates assumed it was a massive scam of some kind, that Xander had the mother lode of all political intel and that Skylar was simply milking him for as much as he could get.
“I swear to God, I’m going to make out with him in the middle of the student union stage,” he grumbled to Zelda one day when they were having lunch together at a noodle bar off campus. Except even as he said that, he shuddered.
“It wouldn’t be worth it. They’d think it was a stunt, for one, and it would upset Xander, because he’d know it was an act. Stop caring what they think. Stop caring about them, period.” Zelda poked their chopsticks at Skylar. “Eat your food. You’ve hardly touched your ramen. Unc says you’re barely eating at the frat too.”
Skylar, who wasn’t as adept with his chopsticks as Zelda, clumsily tugged at his udon but didn’t put any in his mouth. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“When is the test again?”
His stomach lurched at the reminder. “Two weeks.”
“Can we help you study?”
It was too late. He was cramming what he could, but he had his regular homework now too. And it was as if his brain refused to ingest any information about law. He let the chopsticks clatter to the counter. “Everything is falling apart. I’m behind on my storyboards for Lucky 7. I haven’t helped Xander with his social media as much as I should. I haven’t seen Xander—”
Zelda’s hand between his shoulder blades startled him. It was a brief touch, though, and more of a simple pressure than anything.
“Sorry.” They put their hand back in their lap, but they regarded him with quiet concern. “Your shoulders were at your ears, and you were breathing funny. Xander said that helps you calm down, giving you pressure there.”
Skylar sat up slowly, blinking as he digested this information. Both that they were right, that pressure did calm him and… “Are…are you guys managing me?”
Zelda folded their hands over their chest and gave Skylar a you wanna throw down? look. “Yes. Everyone is worried about you.”
“I’m not going to do well on the test. At this point it’s not even a question of whether or not I’ll do well enough to get into Yale. I don’t think I’ll do well, period.” Skylar pushed his bowl away and leaned into his hands. “They have my whole life planned out for me—I don’t even know what they’ll do if I don’t show up for it. I honestly don’t. Will they be furious? Will they ask me what’s wrong and—?” He cut himself off and laughed bitterly. “Do you know, I used to beg for my father’s attention? I used to whore myself out to Tau Alpha Kappa to get him to notice me. Now—”
He cut himself off, panicked, as he realized he’d almost spilled the beans about charming his tutor to Zelda.
Then he shivered, acknowledging how much he ached to do just that, to come clean. To end all of this. If only it were that simple.
Zelda put a hand on his arm and gently pried his hand away from his face. “You need to forget about the test. Tell your parents whatever you need to, but—”
“I have to take the LSAT.”
“Why, though, Skylar? Because you want to be a lawyer so badly?”
Because they’ll stop me from seeing Xander. He almost told them, then, because he wanted to hear Zelda get angry and defiant, to hear them insist there was no way the two of them could be kept apart. But then the other reason he was afraid floated to the surface of his mind, and it chilled him to the bone, too terrible to speak out loud.
Because I don’t know who I am if I’m not that Skylar Stone. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do if I don’t go down the road they’ve paved for me.
Skylar drew his bowl of ramen closer to him, stabbed savagely into it with his chopsticks, and slurped at the noodles. They tasted like ash. They felt like lead in his belly.
Zelda watched him eat, looking worried. “Go stay at the Palace at least. Stay with Xander. He’ll worry less if he sees where you are. Sara can feed you, and Pamela too. You’ll sleep better. Feel better. Every little bit counts, right?”
Skylar had swallowed four noodles. He wanted to throw up. He pushed the bowl away again. “I can’t ask him to let me move in.”
“You could. But you don’t have to.”
He winced. “Zelda.”
“Tell me you don’t want to go home to your own personal grumpy artist every night, and I won’t say another word.”
“It’s not that—”
“Nope. To escape this, you have to say, exactly, ‘I don’t want to go home to my own personal grumpy artist every night.’ Otherwise I’m going in.”
Skylar understood now why Xander so carefully avoided riling up Zelda. “I’m not going to bother him with this, and I won’t let you do it either.”
Their eyebrows lifted. “You think this is bothering him?”
Skylar did his best to resurrect the old Silver Stone, to charm Zelda out of their plan, and when this failed to work, he tried distraction. He didn’t know if he failed because he’d lost his touch or they were impervious or both. He was afraid to know the answer.
He decided he would catch Xander after his afternoon classes and head him off. Of course, he didn’t, and he didn’t get the notes from his seminar either, which meant he was going to have to ask someone for them and attract more attention.
He was hugging the far wall of the lecture hall as he left, avoiding as many other students as possible and wondering how he had come to this deep of a spiral when he ran into someone.
“Oh—sorry,” he said reflexively, and then looked up.
Xander stood in front of him.
Skylar could only stare at him at first, so taken aback by his boyfriend’s appearance in the business education center. In his classroom. He opened his mouth to speak, but he was so confused, he only made an incoherent noise.
Xander smiled, but it was a careful smile, full of concern. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“What are you doing here?” It came out too harsh, but Skylar couldn’t filter anything.
Xander didn’t seem to mind. He held up his phone—still that god-awful flip dinosaur—and showed a string of texts from Zelda. Your BF needs rescuing, Moo, STAT. Also wants to move in with you but is too shy to ask. Call me.
Skylar wanted to die of embarrassment. But Xander seemed so concerned. He put his phone away, and he kept looking at Skylar as if he were hunting for clues.
“I called them the second I got that text. They told me about your lunch date. How you didn’t eat—again. How you really did say you wanted to come live with me.” Xander’s cheeks flushed. “Why didn’t you tell me that? I’d love to have you in my apartment. I had no idea you wanted to be there full-time. Or is this Zelda blowing things out of proportion?”
The apprehension in Xander’s expression undid Skylar. No. They’re only tearing down my walls. “I did admit that. But I didn’t tell you because…I don’t know why. It felt like a bother. I wasn’t asking out of joy, but desperation. I want to come stay because I feel so…lousy, and being with you makes me feel better. And that seems like such a horrible reason to move in with someone.”
Xander shook his head in disbelief. “Why?”
“Because it shouldn’t be that way.” Skylar was reaching, grasping, and he knew it. He gave up and volunteered the real answer, staring at Xander’s shoulder since he couldn’t brave meeting him in the eye. “I didn’t want you to have to rescue me. I don’t understand what’s happening to me right now, and I don’t…”
He could feel people staring at him, knew they were whispering, wondering what in the world happened to Skylar Stone? He turned his face away from them, stared at the textured gray-green surface of the wall, and focused on breathing.
Xander touched his fingers, stroked the length of them. “Let me take you home.”
Skylar kept his gaze on the wall, but he sank into the comfort of Xander’s touch. “It’s Thursday. You have class. And I do too.”
“Let me take you home anyway.” He rubbed circles in the middle of Skylar’s palm. “Let me take you home, pamper you, and paint you. Then after dinner, we’ll work on some panels.”
“And your social media.”
“And my social media. If you want to study for your test while I do that, you can, and if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But what I really want is for Unc to come and get us, drive us to Delta Sig, and help us gather up enough things for you to stay with me, for the most part, until after the test is finished. After that, you can make whatever decisions you want. If you want to move in for real—out of joy, like you said—that’s fine with me too.”
Skylar shut his eyes, drew a deep breath. Nodded. “All right.”
Xander laced their fingers together and led Skylar out of the auditorium and through the atrium of the business education building. He craned his neck at the architecture and lingered at the sculpture as they passed. “It’s nice, but it’s all a bit sterile.”
“That’s business design for you.” Skylar winced as he saw the rain pouring down outside. “When did that start? I didn’t bring an umbrella.” He hadn’t checked the forecast. Because he wasn’t on his game, wasn’t paying attention.
Xander pulled an umbrella out of his backpack, opening it as they passed through the foyer. “It’s not terribly big, though. I’m afraid you’ll have to crowd in close to me.”
The mock teasing in his tone made Skylar smile for the first time that day. “Oh no,” he teased back. “What a hardship.”
They didn’t speak much during the walk in the rain back to Xander’s place, but there was no need. Simply being close to him was a balm for Skylar, and the shield of the umbrella and the steady patter of the rain around them reinforced the truth that while the rest of the world might be chaos, Xander was his shelter and his rock. He leaned into him, drinking in the smell of him, reveling in the closeness of him. Reminding himself it was Xander who had dropped everything to come find him. To help him.
Let him save you, perhaps, just a little.
So he did. After an afternoon of drawing and storyboarding, they called Unc and got Skylar’s things, enough to allow him to stay at Xander’s for the two weeks left before the test. Ms. Mary was concerned, but she at least understood how close he was with Xander and was all for anything that got him back on his feet, and officially excused him from all house meetings and anything else she could excuse him from. He felt bad leaving Unc to wrestle with the unsavory leadership alone, but Unc wasn’t having any of it. “You’ve got enough on your plate, and I’m not an idiot. I’ve got this. You go fight your battles, and let Xander help you, all right?”
He tried. Xander bullied him into eating, studying, escaping into their manga. Skylar could tell there was more Xander wanted to say, things he was holding back. Three days before he was due to drive to Albany and take the test, those things came out, and they weren’t pretty.
Xander took him to the state park to confront him, leading him through the hiking trails to the bluff, and they stood together on the ridge, Xander holding his hands as he said, “I think you should let me come with you to the test.”
Skylar immediately got his back up. “That’s ridiculous. I’ll be there for hours. I have to get there stupidly early. It’s a waste of your time.”
“If I want to waste my time waiting for you, it’s my business. I’m worried about you. I don’t think this is going to go well. I want to be there for you.”
Skylar huffed through his nose. “I know it’s not going to go well, but thank you for reinforcing that.”
“I don’t mean the test.” Xander released Skylar’s hands and put his on his hips. “I mean you.”
Skylar drew back. “What, you think I’m going to melt down?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”
Skylar’s face was aflame. “I’m sorry I’m such a burden to you.”
“Did I say you were a burden? No, I did not. I said I thought you were in trouble and I wanted to help.” He threw his hands in the air. “Fuck this. Fine, so long as you’re pissed at me—I don’t think you should even take the damn test.”
Skylar’s chest grew tight, and the setting sun pierced his eyes. “I told you, I have to take it—”
“Why? Why, Skylar? Tell me. Tell me all about how you want to be a lawyer when you grow up. Tell me how it makes your heart sing, your soul light up.”
Skylar turned his back to the sun, staring into the darkness of the forest, but he could still feel the heat on his back. “Not everybody gets to be an artist and love what they do.”
“Sorry, but that’s a bunch of shit.”
Skylar staggered back.
Xander pressed forward. “I’ve watched you dance to your dad’s fucking tune, and it’s fucked as hell. There’s no reason to do it. None. So if you go take that goddamned test, you better do it because you want it. Otherwise I have no idea why you’re torturing yourself like this, and you don’t seem to know either. If you can tell me, if you can explain to me why it’s so important to make yourself sick over this, I’ll support you every step of the way. I will choose a grad school based on wherever you want to go, because I’m in love with you, you messed-up asshole, and I don’t want to lose you. But this? This is bullshit.”
Skylar wanted to yell at him, and he’d been puffed up to the sky on how dare you’s until… “You…love me.” He’d never said it so directly before.
Neither had Skylar.
Xander held Skylar’s face in his hands. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I want you. I need you. I’m prepared to reorganize everything about my life for you.” His thumb pressed into the corner of Skylar’s jaw. “But not if all you’re going to do is throw it away for people who don’t even know who you are.”
Skylar could barely breathe. “I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re Skylar Stone. You’re charming, kind, clever, helpful, beautiful inside and out. You don’t give up. You bring people together, not because you want to use them but because you truly want to help people be better, to build good things. You help people find themselves. Sometimes you lose your way, but at the end of the day, you have a pure heart and the best of intentions. You’re curious, you have drive…” He ran fingers down the slope of Skylar’s neck. “You’re sexy. In ways I didn’t know sexy could be. You’re romantic. You’re attentive, caring, sweet—”
Skylar stopped his words with a kiss.
It was a simple press of lips. A soft, gentle pressure, the same as it had been the time he’d kissed Xander in the hall. But this time Skylar had so many emotions pent up behind the kiss, and this time…this time…
Overwhelmed by everything inside him, Skylar took hold of Xander’s face, rode his fear, and deepened the kiss.
The impulse had swelled within him, and he’d followed it, wanting to know where it led him. He didn’t take it very far, only the barest nibble against Xander’s flesh. For most people, it wouldn’t be considered much of a deep kiss at all. For him—for both of them—it was shattering.
He parted his lips over Xander’s, deciding to take a little more.
He did shiver now, at the way Xander gasped and melted for him. He had gone from fire to a puddle of water with a mere brush of Skylar’s lips, and that—that was Skylar’s thrill. Pleasing Xander. Making him yield to him, making him respond like this.
How much would Xander melt down if he kissed him more? If he stole his tongue inside? Did he want to do that? He wasn’t sure. Maybe he wouldn’t ever want to. But maybe he would.
Either way is okay with me. It was what Xander always said, and finally, Skylar began to understand.
Either way is okay, so long as I’m with you.
Skylar pulled back, nuzzling Xander’s nose. “I love you too. Very much.”
Xander shut his eyes, gripping the shoulders of Skylar’s shirt as he nuzzled back. “Please don’t go to the test.”
“I have to. I don’t know what comes after the test, but I have to take it. I don’t know why I have to, but I know that I do.”
“Then let me come along, please.”
No. I don’t want you in that world. That sounded insane even in his head. “I’m sorry.”
Xander didn’t press him any longer, but Skylar was well aware, that night and every day until the test, that his boyfriend was unhappy with him.
The day of the test he got up early—he wasn’t surprised that Xander rose with him, but he was startled to find instead of having breakfast in the apartment he was dragged downstairs to have a full farmer’s breakfast with the entire crew. Even Unc came over. They smiled and wished him luck, laughing with him, all but Xander, who followed him to his car and tried, once again, to get Skylar to let him come along.
“I’ll sit in a coffee shop and work on my social media stuff.”
Skylar shook his head. He could barely talk, but he forced himself, smiling. “I’ll be fine,” he lied.
And then he drove away.
It was three hours to Albany, and at first he played music, but everything made him antsy, so eventually he turned off his player and listened to the silence. Except there was a rhythmic clink he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, and for half an hour that distracted him. When he stopped for gas and pulled his keys out of the cupholder, he found it.
It was the seven-gods keychain Unc had given him. He blinked at it, having forgotten all about it.
He put his keys in his pocket while he pumped gas and used the restroom, but when he was back in the car, he put the keychain on the seat beside him while he drove, and he kept closing his hand around it. The plastic cut into his hand, but he liked the feeling. It reminded him of everyone back at the Palace. Of how they’d gathered to send him off.
He wished Fudō Myōō were on the keychain.
He wished he hadn’t been so proud. He wished Xander were here.
Why had he been so insistent Xander not come? Why had he been so determined to do this on his own? He didn’t know, only that he knew he had to. Like this was his sentence he had to complete. Take this test, do terrible, and face the music. He didn’t want anyone along for it. He didn’t want to taint them with this ugliness.
Except the closer he got to the test center, the tighter he gripped that acrylic casing and the more constricted his chest became.
I don’t want it to taint me, either, is the thing.
The only sound he could hear now was his breathing, short puffs of air punctuating the seconds as they ticked by. What was he going to do after the test? It was going to be abysmal. He hadn’t studied as he should have. He was in a terrible mental state.
The keychain cut his flesh. The blood ran across his skin, and he exhaled in relief, as if it were leaching out poison.
He didn’t want to take the LSAT.
He didn’t want to go to law school.
He didn’t want to be a lawyer.
He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but it wasn’t that.
He didn’t know how he’d face his parents, what he’d say to his father, but he didn’t want this.
You think I’m going to melt down?
Yes. That’s exactly what I think.
Oh God, Xander was right. He was totally going to melt down.
Skylar gripped the wheel with his uninjured hand, squeezed the keychain tighter, letting the blood flow onto his khakis, staining them red. He could see the testing center up ahead. See the signage. He drew as deep a breath as he could, but it caught, and tears pricked his eyes. “Fudō Myōō, what do I do?”
He didn’t even know if he was talking to his boyfriend or the god anymore.
I don’t think you should even take the damn test.
Xander’s voice, ringing in his head. His words from the other day. Skylar drew in another breath, let it out. He was stopped at a light now, but his next stop was the parking lot. “So what, I turn around and leave? I drove all the way here and I just give up?”
No. After all this time, you finally let it go.
A car behind him laid on its horn. Skylar startled and crawled forward, dazed. Whose voice was that?
What was he letting go?
I’ve watched you dance to your dad’s fucking tune, and it’s fucked as hell. There’s no reason to do it.
That was Xander again. Except they were Skylar’s feelings swimming inside him. Loneliness. Emptiness. Alienation, feeling as if nothing he did was good enough. That he couldn’t connect with his mother or his father. That he didn’t belong with Ellen and her family. That everyone everywhere in the world was part of something he couldn’t be part of, and he was so afraid because he would never find a group to belong to, never find a partner, because he couldn’t feel, couldn’t join, couldn’t—
The keychain knifed pain down his arm, shutting down that lie.
You have something you’re part of. You have a group to belong to.
You have a partner who loves you, who sees you better than you see yourself and who loves you for who you are. Exactly who you are.
The world stretched, pulled, turned. Skylar saw the rooftop altar at Art Building West. The Delta Sig altar before it had been destroyed, when he’d pledged. The kitchen table at the Palace of the Sun.
Think carefully where you will spend the coin of your soil, Skylar Stone.
He cried out. Swerved from the entrance of the testing center at the last second, nearly hitting an Audi, setting off a cascade of honking cars. Sobbing, he ignored them all and drove around the corner to a side street, parked the car. Put the bloody keychain down, wrapped his hand in napkins from the glove compartment, and picked up his phone.
Xander answered before the ring had finished. “Are you all right?”
He could barely breathe, let alone speak, but he had to, had to tell him—“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t take it.”
“I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”
Skylar looked around vaguely. Houses. Cars. Jesus. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. Are you at the testing center?”
He shook his head. Drew a breath. “Next to it. On a street. Parked.”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. We’re coming. All of us. Okay? We’re coming.”
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
“You take deep breaths and you wait. Because I’m coming to take care of you.”
The fear kept coming, bigger and bigger waves crashing on the shore. “I’m going to be alone.”
“You will never be alone. Because I’ll be with you.”
Why did it hurt, sometimes, when he said that? “I’m falling apart—I’m not what I wanted to be for you, I wanted to be strong, wanted—”
“I’ve painted and drawn you all summer, made you the goddess heroine of my manga, and you still think that’s what I see in you? I guess I’m going to have to get more gritty with my portraits of you. Maybe I’ll paint directly onto you next time. Maybe I’ll make you my canvas. Then you won’t be able to do anything but look at what I see in you, because it will be painted all over you.”
Under normal circumstances Skylar would have found that captivating, and part of him did, but mostly he was so tired, so lost. “I don’t know who to be now, Xander. I don’t know what they’re going to do when they find out, and I don’t know what I want to say or even feel.”
“Be the man who was brave enough to know when he was making the wrong decision and stop before it was too late. Be the man who knew to call for help, who didn’t suffer alone. Be the man strong enough to admit his fears so he could face them, not pretend they didn’t exist.” There was shuffling in the background. “We’re in the cars now. I’m with Unc. He says he’s going to push the speed limit to get to you. The others are coming at a more leisurely pace.”
Why was everyone coming? Except Skylar didn’t care. He was just glad. And tired.
“I think I want to nap,” he said.
“Will you be okay where you are?”
He had no idea. “I think so.”
“Will we be able to find you?”
“I hope so.”
“Leave your ringer on. If we can’t find you right away, I’ll call you. Rest. Be safe. Call if you need me.”
Skylar fell asleep almost immediately after they hung up. He put his seat down, shut his eyes, and drifted into strange dreams. He walked out onto a rooftop filled with that horrible asphalt gravel, trying to get to a shrine, but his father and mother kept pouring more gravel onto his steps. Ellen tried to help him up, but the rope she tossed him was made of photos, and every time he grasped it, it shattered, the images scattering across the rooftop, melting into the rocks.
Then Xander appeared, blue-skinned and ringed with fire, wielding a golden blade. He cut through the tar and led him by the hand to a gleaming shrine where Benzaiten embraced Skylar with open arms…and they merged, music playing, lights dancing. Children dancing. Something about that caught Skylar’s heart, made him pause, and he thought, Wait, there’s something about that image…
A rap on his window startled him awake. It was the real Xander, not blue-skinned, but very worried.
“Skylar?”
Skylar sat up, opened the door.
Xander had him in his arms before the door was fully opened. Hauled him out of the car, against his body, cradling him close. “Thank God. Thank God. I’ve never been so worried in my life. I’m never letting you do anything like that again. The next time I know you’re doing something stupid, I’m going along whether you want me to or not.”
Skylar let himself fall into his embrace, into his shelter, into his peace. “All right.”
IT HADN’T BEEN Xander’s idea for everyone to come along to rescue Skylar, but he hadn’t been able to get them to stay at home. Zelda and Jacob had come with Xander and Unc, so Jacob drove Skylar’s car with Zelda while Xander and Skylar moved into Unc’s backseat. Pamela, Sara, and Cory were still en route to the scene.
The first thing they did was go to a drugstore and buy supplies to deal with Skylar’s damaged hand. Xander had worried they should go to a hospital, but Zelda and Jacob had both agreed it looked superficial and that a good cleaning out and bandage should do the trick.
“Besides,” Unc pointed out, “a hospital would trigger insurance, which would alert his parents.”
Skylar said little through all of this. He leaned on Xander, resting his head on his shoulder and nestling into his side when Xander put an arm around him. But as Unc and Zelda returned with the supplies and Jacob applied the bandage, Skylar finally spoke.
“I want to tell my parents.” He kept leaning into Xander, and his voice was quiet, but there was a confidence and a sense of peace about him now that hadn’t been there in a month. As if something in him had broken free. “I don’t know how to do it yet, but I want to confront them. I want to move past this. So I can go forward. If they disown me, they disown me. I just want it done.”
Unc frowned at him. “Do you think it will come to that?”
“I don’t know. I want to say probably not, but I can’t say for sure. This feels like leaving the map. All the variables are unknown.”
Xander stroked his fingers. “Not all of them.”
Skylar turned his hand to capture Xander’s. “I need to cut ties with things that weigh me down. I need to get quiet so I can figure out what it is I want to do. Because I don’t have a plan now. I have no steps forward.”
“We’ll figure one out together,” Xander promised.
For a moment Skylar looked pained. “There’s something I have to tell you.” He glanced at the front seat, at Zelda and Unc. “Once the two of us are alone again.”
“Okay.” Xander couldn’t look away from Skylar’s worried face. “You can tell me anything you need to.”
This didn’t seem to reassure Skylar. “I worry you’ll be angry. But I need to tell you anyway, because it’s making me feel sick, not telling you.”
Now Xander was nervous. What in the world was Skylar going to confess? “It’s okay. I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”
Skylar squeezed his hand and didn’t say anything else.
Zelda pulled out their phone. “Pamela and the others are almost here. Sara says there’s a restaurant we could meet at not far from where we are. What do you think, Skylar? Want to sit for a minute with your squad, plan your future? Or at least have a nice meal?”
Skylar tucked himself against Xander’s side. “Sure.”
The restaurant turned out to be, of all things, Japanese. And not simply a sushi-bar strip mall—it was a full-on fancy kind of place, with a koi pond and curved bridge to get to the door, and a torii-style gate. The interior was beautiful, with elegant modern furniture, but the hostess led them to a small room off to the side which had traditional Japanese seating.
“I remember this place from Japanese class. We came for a field trip,” Xander said, noting the sunken area before the rise of the room, and he held out his arm to stop Unc from going in before the hostess had to. “You need to take off your shoes for this room. And there’s a way we’re supposed to sit. I can’t quite remember. It’s like, most important person at…the head of the table, I think, and then the next important beside them facing the door, and then it goes around to the lowest ranking with their backs to the door. Except I have no idea how we assign that.”
Unc clapped one hand on Xander’s shoulder and the other on Skylar’s. “Easy. The man of the hour is Skylar, and you’re his right-hand man, Moo. The rest of us get first-come, first-served on the seats-of-honor business. And we just maybe don’t tell the rest of them that the last one in is a rotten egg.”
Their seating arrangement was Skylar at the head, Xander beside him, Unc beside him, Zelda on his right, and Jacob at the other end of the table. When the others arrived, they filled in the last side of the table. The waitstaff had already brought beer and sake, but now they brought sushi and tempura, edamame and miso soup. As they ordered their main courses, they chose things they would share, not eat individually, and Pamela gave lessons to everyone who didn’t know how to use chopsticks.
Xander checked frequently on Skylar, who seemed to be doing as well as he could be, given the circumstances. His smiles didn’t quite reach his eyes, but he did smile, sometimes. When people spoke to him, he engaged with them, and he wasn’t putting on a show. He seemed raw, but real.
But what does he need to confess to me? Xander wished he could pull Skylar into the hallway and ask him right now. Was it something with his father? The test? Something else?
Something about their relationship?
Something bad about their relationship?
A had on Xander’s knee startled him out of him out of his panic spiral. When he glanced up, Skylar was regarding him with concern. “Are you okay?”
Xander considered how to respond, then decided if Skylar was going to give him truths, he should respond in kind. He leaned in close enough, though, that it was only Skylar who heard his reply. “I’m a little freaked out about what you’re going to tell me. Did I…do something?”
Skylar looked startled, then embarrassed. He too leaned in close as he replied in a whisper. “You didn’t do anything. I did.”
Oh. Xander’s eyebrows raised, and he looked at his boyfriend, more confused than ever. What in the world had he done?
“I’ll tell you after dinner, I promise.” Skylar’s hand was still on Xander’s thigh, and he squeezed. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Xander agreed, trying not to wish the meal were already over.
Everyone else was blissfully ignorant of their angst, happily enjoying the meal. “This is the best,” Unc said, rubbing his stomach after he polished off his second plate of food. “Someday we should do this in actual Japan.”
Pamela sighed wistfully and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I’d love to do that. The next best thing to traveling with my husband would be going with this crew.”
Xander glanced at Skylar and was pleased to find him smiling softly at his food.
“The only two here who know Japanese though are Xander and Pamela,” Jacob pointed out. “Plus we’d need money.”
“We could stay in hostels.” Zelda reached for another piece of sashimi with their chopsticks. “I don’t know enough about the programs to seriously suggest it, but we could maybe work our way through. I hear they’re always looking for English teachers there.”
“It’s a little more complicated than simply showing up and saying, ‘I’d like to teach English,’” Pamela said. “But it’s definitely a route one can take. There’s the JET Programme, which is the most popular, but I know a few other, less-publicized options as well.” She looked wistful now. “Oh, I would show you such a wonderful time, if we could take a trip together. I’d take you to Kyoto, to the shrines and temples. And Nara, to see all the historical places. We’d have to go to Tokyo too so you could have your excitement—you’d want to see manga cafes for sure.”
“What are manga cafes?” Cory asked.
“Places where you can sit and read manga, for a fee. Shelves of it. There are couches and recliners, and there’s Wi-Fi—they have everything. It’s a great place to go if you miss the last train. But of course everything is in Japanese, so you’d best get learning to read.”
She regaled them with stories of places she’d like to take them in Japan and things she thought they’d like to see through the rest of the meal. While the others were lingering over tea and dessert, though, Skylar took Xander’s hand, and once they collected their shoes at the door, led him into the restaurant’s garden.
It was a beautiful traditional rock garden, complete with benches and paths and overhanging trees which might well have been cherry or some other type that bloomed, but of course it was fall and the leaves were brown and falling. They drifted silently around the two of them as they wandered alone through the space, not holding hands but standing close together, until at last Skylar spoke.
“I have to confess something to you, as I said—something that I did. At the time I convinced myself I was doing the right thing, but I admit now that it wasn’t, and I need to tell you.”
Xander couldn’t begin to guess what was coming. He braced for impact. “All right. Let’s clear all the air.”
Skylar took a deep breath, let it out. “When I was studying with my tutor—or rather, when I was failing to study with my tutor—I Silver Stoned her so she wouldn’t report to my father.” When Xander only regarded him in confusion, Skylar cast his gaze miserably into his lap. “I…flirted with her.”
Oh. Xander digested this, trying to decide if it made him angry.
Yes, it did. Though not, he suspected, for the reasons Skylar feared.
Before he could say anything, though, Skylar spoke again, full of panic. “I didn’t want her, obviously—I wanted her not to tell my father, because he was threatening to pay too much attention to me if I didn’t get my act together, and I didn’t want to get my act together. I wanted to spend my summer with you and everyone at the Palace. But I still felt I had to take the test. I can’t explain it. I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I think I’d convinced myself I could have the summer as an aberration and then go back to reality. Or maybe I was simply scared. Except none of this makes it right, what I did. It made me feel terrible too—both the flirting, which made me sick, and the fact that it was basically cheating on you, which made me feel worse—”
Xander put two fingers on Skylar’s lips to end the torrent of words. “Stop.”
Skylar spoke against the fingers, his words muffled and desperate. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” Xander shifted his hand so he stroked Skylar’s beard. “I forgive you. I’m sorry too—I’m sorry you felt those were your choices, that the only way you could have your freedom was to sell yourself yet again. I hope you feel safe enough now that those days are over. I hope, if you ever feel compelled to do something like that again, you come to me instead, so I can talk you out of it. Okay?”
Eyes shining with unshed tears, Skylar rested his face on Xander’s palm. “Okay.”
They stood there like that for a while, touching each other while the leaves rained silently around them. When they heard the voices of the others in the parking lot, the spell was broken, but Skylar wouldn’t let Xander pull away.
“Do you know what I wish?” Skylar held Xander’s hand tight as he looked up at the falling leaves. “I wish we could stand like this in Japan, under real cherry trees. Ones in bloom.”
“We have real cherry trees in the United States, you know.”
“The ones in Japan feel more real, somehow.”
Xander smiled. “Then let’s make it a vow. Someday we’ll stand under cherry blossoms in Japan.”
Skylar smiled back, and there was only weariness, no more shadows in his face now. “It’s a promise.”
SKYLAR ASKED IF he could stay at Xander’s place a little longer, which Xander immediately said was obviously fine. But he also asked Xander another question.
“It doesn’t have to happen tonight. I suspect it probably can’t. But…all through dinner, I kept thinking about it. I should say, rather, I can’t stop thinking about it. How you said on the phone that you would paint my body. Use me as your canvas. Would you please…do that?”
Xander’s breath caught, and an electric bloom of anticipation expanded through him. “Yeah,” he said, when he was able. “I’ll…need to do some research first. Get some supplies. But…yes. I would love to do that.”
Skylar turned his hand over, palm up. Spread his fingers, an invitation for Xander to lace theirs together. “I want to see how you see me. Plus, I want to feel it. The paint going on me. The brush moving on me. Your eyes on me, calculating, seeing me not only as your subject but as the art. I…I feel breathless just thinking about it.”
Xander was getting there too. “Consider it done.”
This was easy to say, but it wasn’t quite as simple as he wanted it to be. Xander’s initial thought was to use acrylic or tempera, since they were water-based and nontoxic, but research into body painting quickly taught him this was not the way to go. There were sites that helped him out, however, and after careful consideration of several mediums, he made his selections.
It cost him a pretty penny, though. He was sweating it a little, but he thought if he borrowed into his BFA allowance, he’d be okay. There wasn’t much to do but pray to the gods that things continued to go his way.
So far, the gods were on his side, pretty much everywhere. His BFA project was going great. His social media campaign was practically superfluous. His greatest social media blitz had turned out to be dating Skylar, and his second greatest one was the first edition of Lucky 7. People really loved the new storyline with the seven gods, and it became normal for total strangers to come up to him and ask him what was going to happen, was Bennie going to be okay? And almost always on the heels of that came, “Are Moo and Bennie going to get together?” Though there were the occasional Hotay/Bennie shippers too. And apparently there were people who had been shipping Hotay and Moo this whole time, so for them Bennie as a love interest was a scandal.
He was going to ask Skylar about that one day when he came home, but he got distracted because Skylar was on the couch, draped in cats and reading Xander’s copies of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Xander plunked down beside him, dislodging Hokusai. “I thought you finished. You’re rereading already?”
“It’s a wonderful series.” He ran his finger down the center of a page. “I can’t seem to leave this panel.”
Xander looked more carefully at the page Skylar was on, seeing the words this time, not the art. It was chapter two of the first volume, just after Edward and Alphonse found out the philosopher’s stone was fake. They were preparing to leave, and as they did, Rose, the naive girl who had somewhat accidentally helped them expose the false priest, cried out to them on her knees, What am I supposed to believe in now?
Edward tells her, rather grimly, that she needs to figure that out on her own.
Xander put an arm around Skylar and pressed a kiss just above his beard at his jaw. “I think he’s right, you do have to decide what to believe in yourself. But you’re not Rose. And I’ll stay here with you while you work it out.”
Skylar kept staring at the page. “I don’t even know what criteria to use to make the decision. I don’t know where to start.”
“Something that makes you happy. Something that makes you feel good.”
Skylar’s hands tightened on the manga. “It can’t be that simple, that selfish. I don’t want it to be. I want to help other people. I want to do good things for people. I want to be a part of something, Xander.”
“Then start with that—those are part of the qualifications for what will make you happy. That’s part of what you need.”
He put his finger in the book to mark his place, closed it, and leaned into Xander. “I’m still scared, though. To leave everything behind. Sometimes I know part of what I want. But it means leaving so much of who I was, who I’ve been. Even if my parents support me—which they won’t, not in the way I’d need.”
Xander glanced at the calendar on the wall, his gut knotting as he saw a week had already passed since the day Skylar had failed to take his LSAT. The results would be mailed in three weeks, he’d said, after which point Skylar’s father would begin asking to see them. Skylar had estimated they had a month before things became pointed, six weeks before they became intense.
It was going to go by so much faster than they needed it to, Xander realized. He wanted to meet Skylar’s parents, shake some sense into them. But he knew he didn’t have the balls to smack down a Wall Street lawyer, a guy who played with kings and courtiers. Possibly literally.
All he could do right now was support Skylar through his grieving and his contemplation. Create with him. Cook with him, feed him manga and secret streams of anime only Zelda and their army of online hackers knew how to find. And all the while he gathered his supplies for body painting, practiced his techniques on his arms and legs and, swearing him to secrecy, Unc.
Until two weeks after Skylar’s failed attempt to take his test, he was finally ready.