Eventually we gave up on the food. When I came back into the room after throwing the cartons away, mom hit me with the question that I’d been avoiding for more than five years.
“What happened to Johnny back in Michigan?”
My eyes burned again just from thinking about it. “I can’t talk about that tonight.”
She looked so sad. “You blame yourself.”
“I have reasons.”
I watched her struggle with her desire to press me on it. “His parents weren’t good to him when it happened, were they?”
I shook my head.
She pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. “Please tell me that you didn’t think we’d send you away like that? Like they did to him?”
“Aw, no Mom! His parents are assholes.”
She smiled at me, but she looked pained. “Sending you to that Christian school was a mistake, wasn’t it? I can only imagine what they preached about…” she swallowed.
Shit. Now Mom was sitting here, blaming herself for my troubles. And that made no sense at all. “This isn’t the school’s fault,” I told her. Though it didn’t help.
“We only sent you there because the public school was struggling.”
“I know, Mom. It’s okay.”
“If it was okay, you wouldn’t have waited years to say anything.”
“That’s on me,” I said. “All on me.” But it was finally dawning on me that keeping secrets hurt people. I already knew that it hurt Rikker. I saw it in his eyes every day. But it hadn’t occurred to me that my parents deserved to know the important things in my heart. They were honest with me, and I hadn’t given them the benefit of the doubt.
Looking at my mom’s face right then, I saw a lot of hurt. And here’s the crazy thing — I knew without a doubt that her sadness had nothing to do with the fact that Rikker was my boyfriend. And it had everything to do with my not telling her sooner. “I wish I’d said something before.” Not that I’d ever had the urge to. But I was beginning to understand why she deserved it.
“Me too,” she said, pulling me into another hug. “But I’m glad you told me now.”
My phone buzzed with a text, and after I untangled myself from Mom, I checked it. It was Rikker saying he’d left his Spanish book next to my bed, and asking if he could come over later. I told him yes, without giving any other details. Man, he wasn’t going to believe what I’d done tonight.
For a little while, Mom read me some more Roman history. But both of us were too exhausted to take it in.
“I might go to the hotel,” my mother said on a yawn. “Unless you don’t want to be alone.”
“I’m good,” I said. And I won’t be alone. This was going to get weirder before it got easier.
She closed the book, grabbing my face in two hands. “Mikey, are you sure you’re okay right now? Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m tired, too. But I’m okay. Are you going to talk to Dad?”
She hesitated. “He’ll probably call. What am I allowed to say?”
I just shrugged. “I’m not going to call him myself right now. I’m too exhausted. You can say something or not. Whatever seems right.” I didn’t want her to have to do my work for me. But I couldn’t ask Mom to lie, either.
She squeezed my arm. “Try to get some rest.”
“I will.”
She hugged me one more time. Hard. And then she was gone.
— Rikker
I’d texted Graham earlier asking if I could come by later. He had replied immediately. Was hoping U would.
Well, shit. That made me feel like a million bucks. Awesome. I’ll txt b4 I come up.
After I did some studying my room, I threw on my hockey jacket, patting my travel toothbrush to be sure it was still in the pocket. Graham wasn’t the sort of lover with whom you could take the liberty of leaving your toothbrush in his toiletry tray. He’d develop some wild theory about what the neighbor might think if he saw two blue toothbrushes together, or some shit. So I packed mine in and out with me, the way you handle refuse on the Appalachian Trail.
Walking over to Beaumont House, another student was exiting the iron gates just as I arrived. So I had no trouble getting in. I stopped there on the flagstone path, and pulled out my phone to text Graham.
“Mister Rikker,” came a voice in the dark.
I looked up to see Graham’s mom walking toward me. Well, crap. Graham wasn’t going to be happy about the fact that I’d run into her here. “Hi, Mrs. G,” I said as casually as possible. I shoved my phone into my pocket, like the guilty man that I was.
She marched up to me and threw her arms around my neck. Then she kissed me on the cheek. “I love you. Always have. Always will. No matter what.”
Then, as I stood there, speechless, she let go. Without another word, she walked away into the night. I still hadn’t moved a minute later when I heard the iron gate open and shut again as she left the Beaumont courtyard for the street outside.
Okay…
Collecting myself, I walked to Graham’s entryway, following another student inside. Taking the stairs two at a time, I opened Graham’s door without knocking. Inside, it was dark except for the desk lamp, lonely in its corner. Graham was lying on his back on the big bed, his arms out in submission, like Christ on the cross.
“Hola, Miguel.” Kicking off my shoes, I crawled onto the bed beside him, looking down at him from hands and knees. His eyes were red and swollen. “What happened here tonight? I just got hug-mugged by your mother in the courtyard.”
He reached up to catch the back of my head in one of his big hands. Guiding me down onto his chest, he said, “I guess you don’t need to text before you come up anymore.”
“I see,” I said, snuggling up to him. Although I didn’t, really. Did Graham actually tell his mother? That seemed categorically impossible.
“She’s taking notes for three courses for me. She read four hundred pages to me this week,” he said.
“Yeah?” I whispered, hoping that he’d keep talking. Graham’s arm looped around me, his fingers swishing through my hair. I leaned in, wanting this unbidden affection from him almost as badly as I wanted to find out what had happened.
“Just couldn’t lie anymore,” he whispered. “Not to her,” he amended quickly, as if I were dumb enough to think that he could ever really go public about us.
“That’s big,” I said. Because it really, really was.
He only grunted. But he pulled me closer, too. He buried his face in my hair and took a big breath. His fingers traveled the length of my back. Skimming. Caressing. Graham wasn’t always so affectionate, and I was a slut for it. I burrowed into him. Hug me. Rub me more, my body language said. And he did. Maybe he felt he’d earned the right to hold me, somehow. I knew how hard it must have been for him to be honest with his mom.
We lay there a long time, just cuddling. I never wanted it to end. “Rub my head?” he asked eventually.
“Which one?” I joked. But I pushed myself up on the pillow, pulling my big, golden boy onto my chest. And I massaged his scalp with my fingertips, applying gentle force to the skin and muscle under my hands.
“Mmm,” he said. “Cómo fue tu mesa de Español?” How was your Spanish table?
“Muy bien,” I told him. Then I asked the question I’d been dying to ask for the past hour. “Qué dice tu madre?” What did you mother say?
He groaned into my chest. “What did she say to you?”
I had to swallow hard before repeating it. Because the words were ones that my own mother would never, ever say to me. “She said that she loves me no matter what.”
“Lo mismo para mi,” he whispered. The same for me.
I traced a few more circles into his scalp. “I know you believe her. But I know that it’s still hard.”
“The rest of my family…” his words were muffled by my shirt. “Ugh. I don’t want to be talked about.”
“I know you don’t.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t want them to look at me funny.”
“I know.”
He slid his fingers under the hem of my shirt, his rough hands finding the tender skin on my belly. “I’m a fucking coward.”
My own hands slid down his body then, fingertips breeching the waistline of his sweatpants. “Mmm… did someone say ‘fucking?’”
Chuckling, he hiked himself up, fitting his hips against mine. The weight of his body on top of me made me deliriously happy. “Pretty stupid of me to come out to my mom when I can’t even do the things I’m confessing to.”
I groaned, wriggling underneath his hard body. “Maybe the doctors are wrong about this. I’m sure we can do it without smacking your skull into anything.”
“It’s about exertion,” he said. “This, like, hundred-year-old doctor told me that orgasm would bring on a killer headache. He didn’t say anything about giving blowjobs, though.”
Just hearing the word made me hard. And when Graham’s hands began to work my fly open, I let loose a moan which told him exactly how much I liked the idea. He started by teasing me — leaning down to drop light kisses in all the best places. “I don’t think exertion is going to be a problem, here,” I panted. We hadn’t had sex in ten days. I was going to blow like a land mine if he ever got around to taking me deep.
Graham’s warm breath ghosted over me, and I held my breath.
And then his phone rang.
He tried to ignore it. He really did. He took me in hand as the ringing ceased, and I received a few happy strokes. But the damned phone rang again, and I could feel just how much it put him on edge, especially with everything that had gone down tonight.
Shit.
I put my hands on his shoulders. “I think you need to check that.”
With a sigh, Graham slid off of me, grabbing his phone off the desk. The blue light from the phone’s screen illuminated his wince. “My father.” Then he looked at me on the bed, with my throbbing dick hanging out, and he actually began to laugh.
Smiling back at him, I sat up, tucking everything back into my jeans. “You’re going to have to talk to him.”
The phone was silent again. “I know,” he said, laughing, sounding a little manic. “God, I don’t want to.”
“Just do it,” I told him. “Rip that bandage off.”
He sat down in the desk chair, looking at the phone as if it would lash out and attack him. “Shit.”
“Dial,” I ordered.
With a sigh, he tapped the screen.
“I’m going to brush my teeth,” I told him. Then I went for the door.
“Hi,” poor Graham said into the phone as I turned the knob. “I’m okay, I guess.” His voice shook.
I left him alone then, taking my time in the deserted bathroom. When I’d run out of reasons to stand around in there, I opened Graham’s door again, prepared to leave if he was still on the phone. But he wasn’t. He was just sitting on the edge of the bed now, his head in his hands. And even though I was pretty sure that both Graham’s parents were as solid as they come, the defeated slump of his shoulders gave me a shiver of uncertainty.
Tiptoeing inside, I closed the door behind me. Then I went over to Graham, gingerly, the way one approaches a potentially rabid beast. He didn’t look up. And I realized that he was crying.
That gave me a moment’s hesitation. Because sometimes a man just needs to shed a few tears in private. But Graham leaned then, until his forehead made contact with my hip. I put a hand to the back of his neck, just holding him. “Is he shaken up?” I asked. Because even if Graham’s dad didn’t manage to say the right thing, it couldn’t possibly be permanent. There’s no way that Mr. Graham would adopt the Rikker Family School of Parenting.
“Not sure,” Graham sniffed. “But I am.”
Aw, Christ. I sat down beside him then and pulled him into my arms. “Did he say the right things?”
“All of ‘em. Not sure I deserve him. Them.”
“Huh,” I said. “Then maybe you deserve your sister? Because she’s kind of a bitch.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. “My head is fucking killing me.”
“How bad?”
“A solid seven.”
“You want a couple of pills?”
“Yup.”
I got him the painkillers and a fresh glass of water. Then I removed his socks and sweats, and tucked him into bed. Stripping down to my boxers, I climbed in after him. Graham scooted backwards, fitting his back against my chest. I dropped my arm over his body, and a kiss on the back of his neck.
“I might not be worth the trouble,” he mumbled.
I stroked my hand across his belly, dragging my thumb through the fine hair of his happy trail. “I know you feel like shit right now,” I said. “But you’ve got nowhere to go but up.”
“Hope so.” He was quiet for a few minutes, and I thought he’d fallen asleep. “Rik?” he said, surprising me.
“Yeah?”
“Love you. Always have.”
I was so stunned that I couldn’t do anything for a moment except lie there and replay the sound of his words in my head. Then I laughed. “Fuck, G. You might even be worth the trouble.” I hugged him a little tighter. “You’re the second person to say that to me tonight, though. Your mom beat you to it.”
“You’ll have to let her down easy,” he said.
I grinned into my boyfriend’s neck, and then I held him while we both fell asleep.
— Graham
Saturday night, Mom and I watched the hockey game on a big screen TV in the lobby of the college conference center where she was staying.
It was trippy, watching my team on television, knowing that I ought to be there with them. The helplessness was almost unbearable. I’d never been more nervous for a game in my entire life.
The first period was non-scoring, and I almost lost my mind. But Rikker shot one between the goalie’s legs early in the second period, and Mom and I laughed and cheered like a couple of lunatics. But then Colgate followed up with a goal of their own. And I was back to being a nervous wreck for the rest of the second period and part of the third.
Finally, a freshman D-man (A freshman! A defensive player!) scored with an assist from Hartley. And the other team never got its mojo back. By the time the buzzer rang, I was hoarse from yelling at the screen.
Mom flopped back against the sofa. “That was exhausting. When is the next game? I’m going to need to prepare myself.”
“In a week,” I said. “There are two ACAA Eastern Seaboard elimination games. If we’re still standing after that, it’s off to the Frozen Four.”
How crazy was that?
After saying goodnight to Mom, I headed back to Beaumont, dialing Rikker as I walked. Since he was in a loud, joyous locker room somewhere, my call went to voicemail. I left him a message, telling him how awesome it was that he’d scored that goal, and how badly I missed him.
The last block back to Beaumont was the loneliest of my life. And Rikker must not have gotten my message until late. Or else he wasn’t alone. Because he didn’t call back.
The next day had me feeling pretty stir-crazy. After spending way too many hours trying to get me ready for the history midterm, Mom and I were annoyed with each other. We’d just come back from a bite out at the sushi place. I’m sure she would have left me alone for the evening already, except she’d left her book in my room. “And that’s what I usually do after I read to you all day,” she said. “Read some more.”
“I’m sorry, Ma,” I said. It didn’t sound like fun for her either.
She just smiled. “I know we’ve had a couple of tough weeks, and that your head still aches. But a couple of years from now I’m going to look back on this time like a gift. When your kids grow up, they don’t need you anymore. I don’t mind a bit of drudgery for one more shot at helping you.”
At that, I felt myself tearing up again. Oh, the joys of concussion. Everything made me either mad or turned me into a total pussy
.
I turned on my TV, sifting for a hockey game. Although I’d settle for basketball if necessary. Mom was gathering her things when somebody knocked.
“It’s open,” I said.
Rikker came in the door. “Hey G. Hi, Mrs. G.”
“Johnny! Congratulations!” My mom ran over to hug him.
I stayed put, of course. It’s not that I didn’t want a hug. But there wasn’t going to be any kind of PDA in front of my mom. Ever.
“You look tired, honey,” Mom said to Rikker.
He grinned. “Well, ouch. But you look fabulous.”
She ruffled his hair. “Tell your coach that he has to keep to the twenty hour rule, even during the post-season.”
“I will fire off that memo first thing,” he said, his dimple showing. “But before I do, I came to drag your son off to Capri’s for a couple of hours.”
“I don’t think so,” I said quickly.
Rikker crossed the room and took the remote out of my hand. He muted the TV and crossed his arms. “I know you feel like crap every night. But getting out of here might do you some good.”
“Maybe another time.”
He put my remote in his back pocket. “It will be quiet there tonight. Sunday night and all. Seems perfect to me.”
I lunged, but he anticipated me, weaving to the side well before I could get to him. And I wasn’t willing to tackle my boyfriend in front of my mother.
“You should go, Mikey,” she said gently. “Johnny is right.”
Great. Now the Mom-guilt was kicking in. “Naw. You go ahead, Rik.”
His face got serious, and he sat down on my desk chair. “Come on, G. I'll make a deal with you. You go to Capri's, and I’ll stay away tonight. God knows I see enough of that place.”
Way to make me feel like a total asshole. And I could feel my mother watching us, wondering why he would offer to do that. “That's not cool, Rik.” I mumbled. “It’s your celebration.”
“And yours.”
I shook my head.
“Your friends are going to wonder why you’re ducking them. I mean, they’re playing for the Eastern cup next week. Show your face.”