Jeremy
I was worried about Kevin. He’d gone from conflicted and hesitant about leaving to ready to go. It seemed too fast. Was he getting used to the idea, or had it been something George said? He wasn’t Dad to me anymore, and Father didn’t seem right either. I might be biologically related to the man, but no real parent would do this to their kids.
George honestly seemed resigned to us leaving. What kind of man was he? Did Kevin finally see that, or was it something else? I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t the time. We had other stuff that had to be done before I could satisfy my curiosity.
The walk from the living room to the car was the longest minute of my life. Getting out of the house and putting the stuff in the trunk probably hadn’t even taken that long, but it felt like it had taken forever. I was making myself paranoid, but I kept looking around expecting to see the police, or worse, my mother.
I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Neither of us was. We weren’t hurting anyone else, and it wasn’t like we were going to stand on rooftops and announce what we were doing to anyone. If we couldn’t be accepted, we just wanted to be left alone.
Kevin threw me the keys and walked around to the passenger side of the car. Driving suited me fine because I was way too keyed up to sit and watch as he drove. I’d end up making us both nuts. I was super careful as we went through town. Even thinking it made me feel crazy, but I didn’t want to give a cop any reason to pull us over. I wanted to get out with as little notice as possible.
I looked over at Kevin when we pulled up to the last stoplight in town. We’d be at the edge of the city limits in about half a mile, but being able to see the Please Come Back sign that waved goodbye made me feel so much better. I could feel everything in me start to relax, and I was finally able to peel my hands away from the wheel.
Steadying the wheel with one hand, I reached over and gripped Kevin’s leg. He must have been just as worried because when he felt my touch, he jumped and a little squeak escaped. He frowned, and I knew it was because he thought the sound made him look stupid, but I just smiled.
The rest of the tension faded away as I laughed for the first time in ages. Kevin had always been able to make me happy, but there’d been too much tension for real humor. He couldn’t have been too offended because he grinned and started to giggle. He was so damned cute. I wouldn’t change anything about him.
He reached down and gripped my hand as we drove past the stupid waving sign. We should have been scared of the future, but I’d never felt better. I don’t think I’d realized how hard it was to live with the constant need to withhold things from them until I didn’t have to do it anymore.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew we’d have to conceal what we were to each other from just about everyone, but that felt different than hiding it from my parents. Living with them day after day and having to be so careful had been making me insane. We might still have to be careful in public, but at home, we could be honest with each other.
Kiss him when I wanted, touch him, hug him whenever I felt like it. And I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone finding out we were sharing a bed.…And we wouldn’t have to only share a bed anymore. It might have been the longest day in history but as long as Kevin agreed, there would be no sleeping tonight.
Kevin must have been on the same wavelength because the grip on my hand softened, and he started rubbing the backs of my fingers very gently.
“How long did you say we needed to drive before we stopped for the night?” The words were technically innocent, but the way he said them sent shivers up my spine. Damn.
“Um, well, I’d like to put as much distance as we can from…well, you know…but we can stop in an hour or so if we want.” I thought about the drive up for a minute. “The best thing might be to get all the way to school tonight. It’s going to be easier to get lost in a town with tons of hotels than one in the middle of nowhere.”
He sighed like he hated the fact that I was being practical, but he didn’t disagree with me. Kevin traced my hands again softly and gave me this look. It was like that damned towel all over again, but this time he wasn’t trying to be subtle—no, this time, he was going for smack-you-up-side-the-head obvious. It made me want to pull over and strip him naked right there.
Practical and safe…no—but it would be hot as hell.
“Don’t do that to me. I’m just trying to look out for you. Keep that shit up and we’ll end up doing something stupid on the side of the road.”
His heated look changed to something softer for a minute before he grinned. “Not trying to get ourselves arrested, unlike some people I could name.”
“Dude, not funny.”
He laughed. “Maybe not yet, but someday, this will make the best story to tell people. They’ll never believe all this shit.”
That made me stop. “Do you honestly think we’ll find people we can tell about us? Like about how we feel in love and stuff?”
“Of course.” Kevin didn’t even think before he answered. He must have seen my surprise because he gave me this stupid look before he continued. “There are like a gazillion people out there who are so much weirder than we are. We just have to find the right friends, and we’re going to look like the normal ones.”
“The normal ones, huh?”
“Duh, no weird kinks or strange fetishes…” He started counting things off on his fingers. “No crazy hobbies…we’re not ax murders or something.…We’re polite and going to get great jobs.…You’re going to run your own company.…I’m going to figure out something fabulous.…See? Perfectly normal compared to sooooo many people out there.” He grinned, and I could tell he honestly believed what he was saying.
I was more skeptical—but hell, he might be right. Loving each other aside, we were totally middle-class American normal. “I’ll take your word for it.…No kinky fetishes, huh?”
He tried for innocent but the look on his face was anything but sweet. It was sexy and fiery. “I said no weird kinks or strange fetishes—I didn’t say no to kinky fetishes.”
I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, but it didn’t matter. I’d love him no matter what. He must have found the look on my face hilarious because his grin made it clear just how funny he thought he was. He might have thought he was the king of comedy, but his words put naughty images in my head.
The ringing of his cell phone let me push away the erotic thoughts floating through my brain. We both looked at it like it was a ticking bomb. In my plans, we were supposed to have set them back to factory settings and left them in our room, but in the rush, we’d both forgotten.
“Shit.” We said it at the same time, and if it were anywhere else, I’d have found it funny.
Kevin looked over at me and then back down at the phone in the cup holder. “What do I do? Do I answer it?”
I thought for a second. “See who it is first. We’re not answering if it’s either of them. There’s nothing else to say.”
He picked up the phone like it was going to explode any second and breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s not them.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know. It’s a local number but no one I recognize. Do I answer? It’s going to go to voicemail if we don’t make a decision.”
The paranoia was starting to flare up again. “Answer it but if it’s bad, hang up and turn off the phone.” Yup, paranoid but I’d watched enough episodes of CSI to know how important turning the damned thing off would be.
As Kevin slid the button over the screen, I realized that I hadn’t followed my own advice.
“Hello?”
He was quiet while I started wiggling around in the seat trying to get my phone out of my back pocket.
“Yes, it’s Kevin.”
I had no idea who was on the phone, but Kevin didn’t look freaked, so I tried not to worry.
“I’m willing to listen, Doctor.”
The therapist? I wasn’t expecting it to be him. I probably should have. If she wasn’t going to call the cops, he was the most likely option. Kevin was quiet and just seemed to be listening so I finished fishing out my phone. Once I had it, it only took a few minutes of fumbling to get the case off. I powered it down completely, and then popped the back off to pull out the battery. Total paranoia but that was okay because it made me feel better.
Once I finished taking the phone apart, my craziness was settled enough to try and listen to what the doctor was saying. At this point, Kevin was making little agreement noises and the occasional word like “maybe” or “no.” What were they talking about?
I was completely surprised when Kevin turned to me and asked, “Do you have a pen and paper or anything?”
I pointed to the glove compartment and tried to be patient. I wasn’t very good at it. “What’s going on?”
“Just a sec, promise.” He pushed all the crap around and finally managed to find the stuff I’d remembered shoving in there at some point.
He wrote a few things down on the paper and started talking again. “Okay, I’ll think about it and let you know.” There was an awkward pause before he spoke again. “Thanks.” Then he hung up.
“Okay, first thing, take that damn thing apart so I don’t go crazy. Then, you have to tell me what he said.”
Kevin shook his head and gave me this look like my crazy was starting to show, but he began taking the battery out of the phone so I ignored everything else. “Well, that was the therapist I talked to the other day.”
I resisted the urge to say, “Duh.” “I guessed that already. What did he say?”
Laughing at me, Kevin kept talking. “He wanted to let me know Mom called, but that he understood what was going on now, so he hadn’t told her anything. Just said he disagreed with her about any kind of abuse going on.”
That made me feel better, but I still wasn’t sure what else the doctor had wanted because the conversation had taken a lot longer than that. “What else?”
“I’m getting there. Just trying to figure out how to explain it.” There was another little pause before he continued. “He said he understood our relationship, and while he didn’t get it, he agreed we were consenting adults. He also said he knew of a therapist about an hour or so from the University that might be good to talk to.”
Another therapist? “Why?”
“Well, this guy, uh,” Kevin looked down at his paper, “Dr. Sheppard, is evidently a couples counselor for the most part, and he deals with people with weird relationships. Like domination and shit, so he’s pretty open-minded. Dr. Hamilton thought it might be a good idea to keep talking to someone.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. We were fine. I mean we weren’t your average couple; I wasn’t fooling myself, but I thought we were starting to actually communicate. Kevin had to be watching me closely because he reached over and held my hand tight again.
“We’re fine. But it doesn’t hurt to keep the information just in case.” He said it confidently like he knew what he was talking about. Maybe he did; he’d been the one who’d talked to counselors for so many years.
“Okay, you’re right; it’s probably a good idea. Every couple goes through shit, and if we already have someone to talk to it beats trying to explain everything to a doctor who’s going to lose his mind over us.” I was doing my best to be a grown up.
Kevin might also need someone to talk to about what had happened with our parents. Hell, eventually I might want to. Not yet, though. Maybe not for a while. I wanted to move past this first. I was ready for it to be just us, we could finally be a real couple.
He had to have decided we needed a break from the serious because he looked up at me innocently and grinned. “Are we there yet? How much longer till we get there?”
“Oh, you’re not starting that shit.” I laughed. “I heard enough of that when you were a kid.”
His grin took on a naughty tone, and he cocked his head. “Aren’t you anxious to get to the hotel too this time?”
“Oh, yes.” Incredibly. “But not enough to listen to you ask that question a thousand times.”
“I think you’ll listen to anything I have to say because you love me.” His teasing was confident and cute.
He was right, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “I love you, but not enough to listen to that question for the next two hours.”
“I think you will as long as I promise to be very good when we get to the hotel tonight.”
And damned if he wasn’t right.