Him

I pound up the steps of the building, my heart thumping, my skin wet from the rain and sweat and nerves.

“Jamie.”

Shit, I’d almost made it inside. But Pat is sitting in stealthy darkness in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch. He’s probably on stakeout, watching for teenagers sneaking out. Instead he’s caught me sneaking in. And at the sound of his voice I feel at least as much terror as an escaping kid.

Stumbling, I stop before reaching the door. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound normal. At least it’s dark. I don’t trust my face right now.

“Got a minute?”

Do I? What I need is to be alone for several hours to bang my head against a wall. To try to figure out what on God’s green earth just happened. But Pat is like a second father to me, and being rude to him isn’t something I can do.

I don’t answer, but I do take the rocking chair right next to his. My hands are shaking so I curve them around the chair’s arms. A couple of very slow breaths help me calm down.

Across the road, the lake is a dark void. Lights from the Lake Placid restaurants twinkle in the misty night air. Everything looks so calm and ordinary. The world would make more sense to me if the buildings were falling into the lake, or the fudge shops were on fire. But the only thing quaking is me.

“You okay, son?”

“Yeah,” I grind out, my voice like a chainsaw. “Got caught in the rain.”

“I can see that.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I just wanted to ask you how Wesley is holding up. Did the first week treat him okay, you think?”

Just the sound of his name makes my gut clench.

Well, Pat, I just threw myself at him. We made out like porn stars up against the side of a bar. Then he gave me the brush-off. And I don’t have any idea what any of it means.

“He’s, uh, okay,” I stammer. I don’t really even remember the question he’d asked.

“If he’s struggling out there, I hope you’ll tell me. I won’t fire him—I’ll just get him some backup.”

I pull myself together and try to focus on the conversation. “Coaching takes practice.”

Pat smiles. “That’s very diplomatic of you. Coaching takes practice, yes, but not everyone is a natural at it the way you are.”

“Thank you.” The compliment is unexpected.

“And I think the kids will get a lot out of their time with Wes—I wouldn’t have hired him if I wasn’t sure of that.” Pat’s chair squeaks as he rocks it gently. “It surprised me, though, getting that call from him. It was a few hours after the Frozen Four victory. I’d watched the game—it makes my year anytime I get to watch you boys on my television. But it’s funny—when I saw who was calling, I had this moment where I thought he was going to say, ‘I owe it all to you.’” He chuckles to himself. “That’s not Wes’s style, so I don’t know why I expected to hear that. But yeah, when he said, ‘I’m calling to take that job you offer me every year,’ I really was surprised.”

So am I. In fact, many things about this information surprise me. “You’ve been recruiting him all these years?”

“Sure. All my boys who become successful college players get a call from me. Wes never said yes, though. Then I get this call…” He pauses. “Took a lot of guts, really. He says, ‘I want to coach for you this summer. But you need to know I’m gay. Nobody knows, but if it bothers you—running a camp and all—I understand.’”

A drop of sweat runs down my back. “What did you tell him?” Even though I know Pat hired him, my breath still catches for the Wes on the other end of that phone, waiting for someone to pass judgment on him.

Maybe it takes more balls to be Wes than I’d realized.

“I said that was his business, and I didn’t give a shit as long as he showed up every morning ready to coach. Later I asked him if he wanted to room with you again after all these years. He said, ‘Sure, but I gotta come out to Jamie, too. If he has an issue, you might have to trade things around.’”

An issue. I have one all right. My issue is the giant boner he gave me tonight. God, it’s a struggle not to bury my head in my hands and scream from confusion.

Weirdest night of my life. Right here. Winner!

And Coach Pat is still waiting for me to say something. “Um, I just told him I’m from Northern California.”

Pat laughs. “I see. Didn’t think you’d have a problem. You two were inseparable all those years.”

Inseparable. A while ago my tongue was inseparable from his. And it was all my doing. I mauled my best friend. His taste is still on my lips.

I need to eject from this conversation before I lose my mind. “No problem at all,” I say gruffly. “I think I gotta hit the hay, though.”

“Good night, coach.”

“Good night.”

I climb the stairs and walk down the hall toward our room. None of the doors have light leaking from underneath, but I can hear the sound of voices and male laughter as I pass by. Wes and I had been the same at their age—talking ’til all hours.

Now? I’m not sure we’re talking at all.

I make a stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I catch my face in the mirror, it looks the same as it always does. Same square jaw. Same brown eyes. My skin is a little pale under the fluorescent bathroom lights. There’s nothing to see here, but like an idiot I stare a little while, looking for who knows what. A change. A sign.

What does a guy who’s not as straight as he thought look like, anyway?

“Like you, apparently.” My lips move with these words, and I’m no closer to understanding what happened.

But now I’m talking to myself. Awesome.

I can’t avoid it any longer, so I head into our room. Flipping the lights on only makes me squint, so I shut ’em off again. I strip down to my briefs and climb into bed. I’m sober now, which is a bummer. That’s not going to help me sleep. But at least I’m not shaking like a leaf anymore.

Wes is not here, but I feel his presence. And I’m just lying awake, waiting to hear his rough, cocky voice in the hallway. It’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve always felt a little more alive when he’s around. Life is just a little brighter, a little louder wherever Wes is.

But now it’s tempting to reexamine my impressions of him. I’m mostly sure I’ve always loved him as a friend and that tonight’s impulse was just a new craving born of beer, ordinary jealousy, horniness and some kind of friendly emotional overload. The perfect storm. My desire is a strange creature of the night, brought to life by a strike of lightning in exactly the right place.

Right?

Sigh.

I’m not a navel gazer. I don’t sit around inventing complex theories to explain my behavior. But tonight it’s impossible not to lie here and wonder… All those times I watched him fly down the rink with the puck under his command—was that simple admiration? All those times I watched his flashy skating with a warm feeling in my chest. Or when he’d smile at me from across the table. Was I hiding something from myself? Or was there nothing to suppress?

Fuck, does it even matter?

Desire is chemistry. And in a biochem class I took once, they taught us that all chemistry is just electricity. We’re all just bags of charged atoms walking around bumping into each other.

My electrons went seriously haywire for his tonight, though. Particles collided.

Pushing my hips into the mattress, I wish I could feel it again—the press of his body. The scrape of rough hands on my forearms.

I don’t know why I want it. I don’t know if the craving will disappear with tonight’s rain shower. But right this moment it’s here. And it’s real.

The night now feels endless. And tomorrow will be an awkward eternity.

Yay.

I can’t even begin to imagine what Wes is thinking right now. He wanted me—I felt it. But he stopped because it would ruin our friendship. This man who fucks strangers off an app.

I’m still lying there face down in my pillow when his key finally turns in our lock. I freeze, of course. He tiptoes in. I hear the thud of his hiking boots hitting the floor, and the soft swish of clothing coming off.

My dick hardens against the mattress. I’m actually hard, and all he’s done is walk in and undress. Interesting.

His sheets rustle as he gets into bed. And then there’s silence. A minute passes, then two. I’m not sleeping, and he can probably tell. Which means we’re like two teenage girls after a catfight at a sleepover—ignoring each other.

I roll over to face him. “If you’re trying to avoid me, you might have to do another seventeen laps around town. I’m still awake.”

Wes sighs. “How are you feeling?”

“Horny.”

He snorts. “That’s the beer talking. Did you know you go gay when you’re drunk?”

When I hear the word “gay,” I almost argue. But that’s not really the point. “I’m not drunk, Wes.”

What I am is very, very curious. Wes thinks he did me a favor tonight by heading us off at the pass, but now I have this giant question inside me, and I don’t think it will fade in the morning. But it will make things awkward. I’ll be watching him in the mirror while we both shave, wondering what it would have been like. Wondering whether it’s something I could really get into, or just a weird moment of happenstance.

“I don’t want to fuck with your head,” he whispers. “I wish I hadn’t ever done that.”

But it’s not my head that needs fucking.

“Come over here,” I say. “Please.”

“No fucking way,” he replies.

“I can make you.”

He laughs. “Did you smoke some pot while I was out, Canning?”

I laugh, too, and it’s such a relief. Because it means I haven’t wrecked everything. But then I lift my hips, peel off my briefs, and throw them at his head. He bats them away, smiling in the dark.

Kicking the sheet off, I put my hand on my dick. And he stops laughing.