06
RYAN
The ride home is lonely and painful.
That’s for about a hundred reasons I don’t have to name. They are all obvious, and each reason has Stefan Baker’s face all over it.
And also his glorious pectoral muscles, which were on perfect display in my torture-racked red polo.
And his cock, the outline of which was painfully visible in my jeans. Yes, I noticed. Yes, he’s packing.
And then there were his agonizingly kissable lips, which I couldn’t stop staring at every time he spoke.
It’s so sick, how into him I am. I feel like I just picked up a hot guy at a bar, didn’t have sex with him, and then he rejected me and went home because I wasn’t his type.
Well, I guess I’m not Stefan’s type. I don’t have a vagina.
The way he was teasing me in my bedroom was driving me insane. If only he knew what he was doing to me, whipping off his towel and then taunting me to look at him. Maybe he did know what he was doing. Maybe he’s known all along how much I crave him, and that’s why he gets a kick out of it.
Some guys—even straight guys—just like another dude to love them. That breed of guy likes being admired. They like attention. They like the feeling that they matter to someone.
Well, Stefan Baker, you matter like fuck to me.
I nearly miss the turn onto my street, I’m so distracted.
When I pull into my driveway, I kill the engine, sit there, and shut my eyes. Birds are tweeting in the trees. A lawnmower is buzzing somewhere in the distance. And my slow, deep breathing fills the car.
I miss him already. I miss him so badly.
I feel like there was so much more I could have said to him. We had so much to talk about, and yet it feels like we talked about nothing at all. Is he single? Is he married? I still don’t know the answer to those questions, and I even thought to ask while he was here. Is he planning on living at home for much longer, or is some second house he didn’t mention in the Florida Keys awaiting him? What exactly is he doing with his life now that he isn’t playing baseball anymore?
I’m kicking myself so hard right now. I should have set up a future date at the very least. “Let’s hang out,” I mutter at the odometer as if it was his face. “Maybe tomorrow? Or grab lunch later today if you can’t wait. I’m all yours. Let’s make this happen. I’m open all day. I’m …”
I clench shut my eyes. You are such an idiot, Ryan. Idiot, idiot, idiot! I smack the steering wheel on thinking that last “idiot”.
It honks back.
When I get inside, the whole fucking house smells like him. Of course it does. I clean up our breakfast dishes, which I had just left sitting out. I take an annoyingly long time washing off his plate in the sink since I catch myself daydreaming about what he looked like sitting at my table in nothing but a towel. He may not have played any professional baseball over the past year or so, but he obviously still hits a gym every day, if his swole, firm, sexy bod is any indication.
I go to my room and find myself struck all over again with the disarray my bed sheets are in. The blue and white fleece blanket is in a ball on the floor by the foot of the bed, and somehow that totally resembles my feelings at the moment. I guess Stefan got too warm and crowded, so he kicked it off of him in the night and didn’t give it a second thought.
My heart is that crumpled up fleece blanket I laid over him.
Stop being a pussy, some inward voice calls out. Man up, change the dirty sheets, and get over it.
“Man up,” I mumble dejectedly. “What does that even mean? Discard my very real and honest emotions, and instead appeal to some testosterone-driven aggression to suppress them? Is that what ‘manning up’ really is? Denial?”
Leave it to me—Mr. Psychology—to analyze my feelings until they fit neatly into a chapter of one of my college textbooks.
When I’ve stripped my bed and taken all of the sheets to the washing machine in my garage, I’m intoxicated all over again by his smell. And I don’t mean the beer and bar stench.
Stefan has always had a certain smell about him. It’s a clean one, and I can pick it out even after a ball game when it’s mixed with the musk, dirt, and sweat soaked into his gear. I never turned it into any sort of erotic thing, but I felt a strong sense of “home” when Stefan’s scent invaded my nostrils. I know that makes me sound like some kind of puppy or wolf-on-the-scent or something, but whenever I’m around him, I feel like I belong.
And it hasn’t changed. He smells the same.
I toss the detergent in, twist the dial, then mash a thumb into the button. The machine roars to life.
Goodbye, scent.
To battle my unexpected sense of lonesomeness, I put on the TV for background noise, open all my blinds to let in the sun, then whip out my laptop from my bag and sit at the brightly-lit kitchen counter to catch up on some work.
Not four minutes after my laptop boots up, my cell phone starts ringing on the counter next to me.
My heart jumps into my throat in an instant. It’s Stefan, I think right away. He kept my number all these years. He wants to ask me out to dinner. He forgot something and needs to drop by my house.
I don’t even check the name. I just bring the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hi!” comes a voice—Dana’s voice. “I … got your number from the staff contact sheet. Hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to check up on things after last night.”
I prop my elbows up on the counter and stare unseeing at the TV with a lazy smile. It’s thoughtful of her to call, really, despite badly wanting to hear from a certain someone else. “It’s all good.”
“Did you get him home safely?”
Even took him to my bed. I clear my throat and answer evasively. “Yep. He’s home. Everything’s fine now.”
“Can I ask a question?”
I freeze. We had just gone from getting a drink for the first time last night to her calling me on the phone to snoop. My stomach is thrown into the rinse cycle all over again, worried that she’ll ask me out again. Shouldn’t I just cut her off and say I’m gay? What’s the big deal? Couldn’t I say something about barking up the wrong tree?
If her frisky demeanor was any sign, she’ll make a move the next time we’re alone in a bar again.
“It’s been bothering me ever since last night,” she presses on. “I just have to get it out. I need to know.”
Oh. Maybe I’m wrong. She’s going to ask if I’m gay.
Or she’s about to ask if I’m attracted to her. She’ll ask if she’s my type. She’ll ask me when I’m available again.
Fuck. She’ll want to take me out tonight. Saturday night. Who doesn’t go out on a Saturday night? I don’t.
“So can I?” she prompts me, an impatient edge in her voice.
I take a deep breath. “Sure. Of course. Shoot.”
Then she asks it: “Was that Stefan Baker?”
I freeze up again. Not what I was expecting. “Uh, what do you mean?”
“The Stefan Baker? The baseball player who graduated from Morris? The one who went on to play for the ‘Riders? Put me out of my misery and just tell me it is. Please. Begging you.”
I scratch a spot on my arm. Should I say it was him? Stefan didn’t quite paint the most lovely picture of himself last night. I feel a sudden responsibility to protect his image, like I’m his unofficial, default-elected PR person in this tiny pocket of time.
“All I want to know is,” she adds quietly, “whether you, the new, meek little school counselor, are hiding a secret friendship with this town’s most famous celebrity. Please. Tell me it’s him. Lie to me, even.”
“Well …” I start, clench shut my eyes, then go on, “I wouldn’t say he’s the town’s most famous celebrity. I mean, you have that Winston guy who went off to do major movies in Hollywood. Though he went to a different high school. And then there’s—”
“So it was Stefan Baker??”
Fuck. I gave it away. “Y-Yeah.”
“I KNEW IT! Wow! Totally knew it!”
“But please don’t make a big deal out of it,” I quickly tack on. “He really wasn’t at his best last night, as you saw. He wasn’t even at his average. He was at a … a low. A very low … low.”
It’s like she doesn’t even hear me. “I mean, I almost thought it was him, but then I was like, ‘Nooo. Can’t be.’ And then when we were helping him across the parking lot …”
“Dana,” I warn.
“But his beard is all grown out and messy. He was all clean-cut on TV. I need to tell my Aunt Ashley. She would lose her mind.”
“Dana! Please don’t tell anyone.”
“No, no, I won’t say that he was trashed and tried to beat up King Kong in a bar. I just want to say that I’ve met him.”
“But you didn’t. Not really.”
“I helped walk his drunk ass across a parking lot soiled in his own beer, blood, and vomit. I’m pretty sure I can claim I’ve met him. I’m practically his best friend now.”
I roll my eyes and slap a hand to my forehead. “Dana …”
“Okay, okay. I won’t say anything.” She squeaks. “But maybe I can just say I saw him at a bar.”
I swear … “You know damned well if you say one word about meeting him, the whole gory story is going to come out with it. And for the record, he was not soiled in his own vomit. See? You’re already exaggerating the story.”
“Alright. Fine. Jeez, you’re no fun.” She chuckles. “No, but really, I did have fun. We need to do it again. Maybe you can invite Stefan along next time.”
“Or maybe not.”
“Ryan! Don’t hold out on me!”
“I’ll see you Monday, Dana. I gotta go.”
“Ryan. I swear, if you’re holding out on me with some juicy tidbit about the Stefan Baker …”
“Bye, Dana!”
I hang up, then carefully, delicately, calmly set the phone on the counter to prove to myself how so very level-headed and not-freaked-out I am right now.
I guess I should be thankful she didn’t ask if I’m gay. Though, I feel a bit like, judging from how brazen she is, the question is just lurking around the corner. Maybe after another date or two when I don’t invite her back to my place, she’ll catch on.
Then she’ll start setting me up with any gay guy she knows.
Because that’s how it works, apparently. “I know a gay guy. You’re gay. You two should go on a date!”
Please don’t let Dana become my gay matchmaking nightmare.
The sound from the TV becomes a shapeless hum of music and voices—some daytime reality show—as I tune out the world. I stare blankly at my laptop and find my mind hopelessly drawn back to thoughts of Stefan.
Surprise.
I shut my eyes and imagine him last night all over again—but just from the part where he was lying on my bed.
His wide, muscular back in that heather gray shirt. The hiss of his breath as it went in and out of him, slowly, evenly, gently.
He was so vulnerable. And I took care of him.
His ass. His socked feet. The backsides of his thighs in those dirty jeans of his.
The side of his face with his eyes closed, lips slightly parted.
Stefan Baker.
There was this party his parents threw for the Little League team. I’ll never forget it. We played so many video games and the night felt like it stretched on forever. There were so many bowls of chips and candy, anything I wanted was within arm’s reach.
Including Stefan, sitting on the couch next to me.
“Bro, you’re gonna win!” he shouted, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me as I steered my vehicle over the finish line in the video game. “WON!”
The other two guys on my team hollered out in victory while the others groaned, one of them throwing a potato chip at me and sneering—a poor sport, he was.
When it was about eleven o’clock, all the other kids had been picked up by their parents, and I was the last one left. Stefan and I barely noticed, having moved our gaming session up to his room where we lay on his bed, side by side, and played every player-versus-player game he had. He had gray sheets that had a lot of light blue circles and rings and black dots all over them. I kept noticing how our elbows would touch as we played, and for some reason, I really liked it. Whenever I beat him, I loved laughing and leaning into Stefan to give him a playful shove with my shoulder. He would get this cocky look on his face, smirk at me, and say, “Bro, I’m gonna get your ass next game. I’m gonna get it.”
He kept playing against me in all the games because I was able to keep up. He might have been superior in every way on the baseball field, but in video games, I was his match. I actually gave him a challenge.
“I wish I could just stay here,” I remember saying to him. “I don’t wanna go home.”
“You could stay if you want. Your dad’s late, anyway.”
He just invited me to stay the night. I bit my lip and turned my head to Stefan, heart racing. Our faces were so close lying there next to each other on that small bed of his. “Maybe he forgot.”
“Wanna call him?”
I stepped out into the hall and stood by the banister. I dialed my house number and stared down into the living room where Stefan’s pretty mother was busy cleaning up.
My dad answered right away. “Ah, shit, son. I forgot. I’ll be there in—”
“Actually,” I cut him off quickly, “I, um …” My heart raced. I felt like my stomach was a lonely boy caught in a blizzard, looking around the white, blinding snow and shivering.
“Ryan? Something wrong?”
“Not at all. That’s … That’s actually it. Can I … Can I s-s-stay the night?”
Even my teeth were clattering. That’s how nervous I was.
That’s how excited I was.
“Well.” It was agonizing to wait for his answer. “Well, I guess if it’s okay with—”
Thank God. “Yes, yes, yes,” I blurted quickly. “It’s fine. It’s fine with them. Stefan and I are having so much fun.”
“Alright. Just don’t get into any trouble with the other boys, alright? Don’t go sneaking out or anything.”
“The others went home.”
He was silent for a moment. “The other boys went home?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh.” He paused again. “So it’s just you and Stefan?”
I struggled not to feel defensive about him asking that specific question. It made my face flush, as if I was trying to get away with something bad, or that I should somehow be embarrassed by it. Was my dad trying to imply something? “Y-Yes,” I asserted. “It’s just us. We’re just playing his Xbox.”
There was another long moment of hesitation where I felt my insides being wrung by invisible hands. I could have shit enough bricks to build a school. He grunted, took a long breath, then said, “Alright, son. I’ll be by in the morning to pick you up.”
The bad feelings vanished at once, and my heart shot through the roof. It was instantly the greatest day of my life, the day I got to stay the night at Stefan Baker’s house.
“Thanks, Dad!” I hissed excitedly into the phone, then hung up.
Stefan’s mom must’ve heard me because she looked up right then and caught my eye over the banister. She smiled up at me and spoke in a soft voice. “Are you alright, Ryan? Is your father on the way?”
Shit. I didn’t even ask Stefan’s parents. “I … I was thinking …”
“Sleeping over?” she asked, mercifully sparing me the verbal tap dance.
“Y-Yes, please. If that’s okay.”
Her answer was immediate. “Of course, Ryan. Our house is all yours. Just try not to make too much noise, you two. Rudy’s asleep down the hall.”
Of course. Stefan’s two-year-old brother. I nodded at once. “Thank you, Mrs. Baker.” Then I gave her the world’s tiniest smile and darted excitedly away.
I found Stefan still on his bed, but having rolled onto his back with the Xbox controller resting on his stomach. His head hung off the edge of the bed as he stared at me, upside-down. “What’d he say?” he asked tiredly.
“I can stay over,” I answered, practically beaming.
“Nice,” he mumbled, sounding half-asleep. “Another round?”
“Another round,” I agreed, hopping onto the bed beside him and snatching my controller up.
We played more than just another round; we played ten more rounds. Maybe eleven. Maybe even twelve. Between two of our many rounds, we snuck down to the kitchen and snatched up an opened bag of cheese puffs. He poured the rest into a bowl, which we took back up to his room.
I reached for one and he slapped my hand away. “Nah. If you use your fingers, you’ll turn my controllers orange. Eat them like this.” Then he demonstrated by sticking his tongue out, touching one of them with it—the cheese puff stuck to it like glue—and then retracting his tongue, the little orange ball going right into his mouth where he chewed it away to nothing with that sly, cocky smirk of his. “See? You try.”
I tried. I failed. Three times in a row, the ball didn’t stick to my tongue.
He laughed at me. “Dumbass. You’re licking all of them!”
“I’m trying!” I insisted through my own laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. I ought to make you eat one I licked.”
I snorted at that. “Like hell you would.”
He lifted an eyebrow challengingly, his bright blue eyes on me fiercely. “Don’t dare me, bro. You know I’ll do it.”
My heart raced. Suddenly, I wanted him to do it. But I couldn’t say so. “You wouldn’t freakin’ dare.” My voice was low, defiant, and hardly there.
Stefan’s stare persisted for five more long, hard seconds. Then he snatched one up with his tongue, sucked on it for a second, and pulled it right out of his mouth and held it pinched between his fingers, a cocky grin spreading across his face. “Open wide, bitch.”
What ensued next was nothing short of the beautiful stuff of my fantasies. Stefan leapt on me while I laughed and fought him off for precisely five pathetic seconds. Stefan had me pinned yet again, just like in that boy’s bathroom, straddling my waist and holding down one of my wrists, his other hand still holding the cheese puff—still wet with his saliva. I laughed and tried to hit him with my free hand, but then he got smart and pinned that one down to my own chest with his own body. It brought his face so close to mine, all I smelled was cheese and all I could see were his shining blue eyes, his flaring nostrils, and his perfect teeth as he spread his mouth into a superior grin.
“Open wide, bitch,” he repeated, this time quieter.
Just when I parted my lips to throw back a teasing insult, he shoved the wet cheese puff into my mouth and slapped his hand over my lips, baring his teeth as he put all his weight on me and continued to grin.
I felt the wetness of his mouth in my own.
It was the closest I would ever get to kissing the boy of my dreams, and I didn’t even know he was the boy of my dreams yet. I couldn’t be a fag. I wasn’t a fag. I knew it. Homos were just on TV. They were celebrities, and weirdly dressed men in scarves, and silly boys who laughed shrilly and acted girly.
There was no way I was a homo. Homos didn’t look like me.
Or Stefan Baker.
What I felt in this moment, surely all other guys felt this too. That’s what I thought during that moment on the bed beneath Stefan Baker with his saliva-coated cheese puff in my mouth and his firm, strong hand still pressed against my lips. The other guys on the team would be so jealous of me right now.
I really believed that.
Denial is the most powerful force on Earth. Maybe even more powerful than love. Or anger. Or ego.
Stefan’s voice turned small and silly and taunting. “C’mon. Eat up, butter cup.”
Slowly and while never releasing my eyes from his, I started moving my teeth. It was so wet already, there was hardly anything left to chew. It melted away on my tongue like it was never there.
When he let go of my mouth, he remained lying on my chest and staring down at me with that pompous look in his eyes.
I knew I was getting stiff. I knew that the embarrassing thing was happening again, but either Stefan didn’t notice … or he didn’t care. And because he paid it no mind, I paid it no mind either.
All guys got hard-ons when they wrestled around with their buddies. It’s adrenaline, maybe. Just basic chemistry … right?
Right …?
“So gross,” I whispered to him, a mock scowl on my face.
“Told you not to dare me,” he said back quietly, sounding so cocky even speaking in a near whisper.
My heart jumped. He wouldn’t dare … “You wouldn’t dare to d-do that a … again.”
The words almost didn’t come out. I could hardly speak, my heart was racing so fast.
“You bet I would,” he warned me. “Better watch it, Caulfield.”
The two words came out like gunshots: “Dare you.”
He let go of my wrist—which I did not lift to fight him—and snatched another cheese puff from the bowl. He slipped it past his lips, and I watched his jaw work and his cheeks suck inward as he did his worst to it. I swallowed hard, eyes glued to his lips.
His perfect, plush lips that glowed from his saliva.
His cheeks, naturally flushed and adorable, sucked inward as he wetted the puff in his mouth.
Then he popped it out and held it between his fingers once again. “You just don’t listen, do you?” he murmured down to me in a taunting, singsong voice.
Oh, I was listening just perfectly that day. Stefan was either playing the same flirty game I was playing, or else he was my perfect violin across which I drew my soft-haired bow again, and again, and again.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Open wide, bitch.”
The second one was so much wetter, yet I was somehow able to chew it twice as long. This time, he laughed while I chewed, like this was amusing him to no end.
Something about the laughter drew me out of the drunken haze of Stefan’s beauty that I was lost in. I brought up my hand he forgot to pin down again and used the leverage to topple Stefan over, and the pair of us started to wrestle and laugh on his bed.
The bowl of cheese puffs went flying off the edge. Neither of us heard it land.
We were too determined to pin each other and win.
Always a game. Always a competition.
Yet whether I won or lost, it always felt like winning when my opponent was Stefan Baker.
It was almost three in the morning when we no longer had the energy to wrestle or play any more Xbox. Stefan yawned and stretched so wide that he nearly knocked me in the face. He said something about tasting cheese, hopped off the bed to clean up the spilled bowl of my new favorite orange snack, then took it all downstairs to the kitchen. I followed him, padding barefoot through his darkened house where, just four or five hours ago, the whole baseball team was crowded around the living room TV playing games and shouting at one another. It felt like a century ago. Was it possible that this night could last forever?
We went back upstairs and into the bathroom down the hall from his room where we quietly brushed our teeth at the sink, being mindful not to wake his baby brother who was in a crib just across the hall. Stefan let me have a spare, unopened toothbrush from the medicine cabinet—it had a white handle with blue and red striped bristles—and let me share his peppermint toothpaste.
“Here,” he mumbled when we were back in his room, tossing me a pair of red gym shorts and a loose gray tank. “Only if you want something clean to sleep in.”
They smelled just like him, the clothes. “Thanks.” I changed right there while he turned his back to flip through channels on the TV—despite the volume being at a nearly inaudible setting—and set the sleep timer to an hour.
His clothes fit me loosely, but they were so comfortable. Was it just psychology playing a trick on me? Or did his clothes have some kind of magic about them?
When he hopped onto his bed, I did the same, occupying the other half of it. The bed wasn’t very big to begin with—maybe a double, maybe a twin, I don’t accurately remember the size—but I remember Stefan giving me a short, questioning look. For a split second, a jolt of fear surged through me. Did he expect me to sleep in the guest room down the hall? Am I supposed to find a sleeping bag in his closet and take the floor? Was I expected to hop back down the stairs and sleep on his couch?
Then the moment was over as fast as it’d come. He scooted over a bit, nodded at me, then said, “G’night, bro.” Then he put his head on the left side of his huge pillow, turned away from me, and shut his eyes.
He was occupying only half of the bed, practically sleeping on the edge of it to make room for me. Now I really wondered if he actually intended for me to sleep elsewhere and was now having to compensate for my clear desire to sleep in here with him.
Screw it, I remember thinking. Let it happen. Just let it happen. You worry too much. You think too much.
Let it happen.
I settled on my side of the bed, put my head on the other side of his pillow, then lay down on my back to sleep.
But of course I didn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t.
Not with Stefan Baker lying there just two inches to my right.
He was wearing this form-fitting plain white t-shirt, maybe one of his baseball undershirts or something. It hugged his broad shoulders and wide backside, which seemed to be the only thing that filled my eyes whenever I barely turned my face his way.
That, and the way his breathing made his whole body inflate, then deflate. Inflate, then deflate.
Inflate, then deflate.
Was he asleep yet?
I turned my body toward him, finding lying on my backside to be too uncomfortable. Or maybe I just wanted to face him so I could fall asleep looking at the back of his head and his clean-cut neckline.
“Are you one?” I recall him asking the first time I was here.
Then Stefan began to stir. I shut my eyes quickly, pretending to be asleep. Stefan shifted on the bed, groaning slightly, and then he resettled into a new position. My eyes were closed, but I could hear his breathing had gotten significantly closer.
My heart beat so loudly, I was sure it was rocking the bed.
The excitement that danced inside of me from one end of my body to the other was making me feel ill.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally dared to open an eye.
Stefan had rolled onto his back. His eyes were still closed and breath still slowly drew in and out of him. I was convinced he was still asleep.
But with Stefan on his back, his big shoulder was now pressed against my chest. I stared at the side of his face forever. I admired him so much. His strength. His personality. His confidence.
His skill as a ballplayer.
His random fits of compassion.
Like right now. Letting me sleep in his bed with him. Letting me be this close to him.
“Are you one?” his voice kept echoing. It was as if the echoes of those words still lived in the corners of the room.
“One what?” My echoes must have still lived in the room, too.
“A fag.”
I kept watching Stefan sleep, his muscular chest in that white shirt rising and falling with his every breath. I felt, for the first time in my short little life, like I truly belonged somewhere. Stefan was the bro I never had, but he was also something else. I couldn’t put a name on it.
Not yet. Not then. Maybe not ever.
I lifted my hand up and brought it to my chest.
It grazed his shoulder.
He didn’t budge. He kept sleeping, kept breathing, kept lying there without moving a muscle.
“I don’t care, by the way,” came the echo of his soft voice from my memory that day.
“About what?”
“If you are one.”
“One what?”
And then I let my hand rest on his shoulder. It was actually, truly, fully on his shoulder. Still, Stefan Baker didn’t budge. And so then, slowly, ever slowly, I let my face settle there, too.
My new pillow: Stefan Baker’s muscular shoulder.
And he didn’t move or shrug me off of him. He let me cuddle his side. I never felt happier than I did that night of the party when, long after all the other boys had left, I got to sleep pressed against Stefan Baker’s side. I felt perfect. I felt whole.
The sleep timer expired. His TV shut off.
And there we were, nestled, sleeping in the dark together.
“One what?”
I shut my eyes and smiled.