“You’re gonna make yourself sick,” I told him, eating the bite myself. When I kissed him, our lips were sticky-sweet.
Finally, after several more syrupy kisses and a lot of grumbling, I got the truth out of Will. That he valued the prestige of being with a Big Five publisher, which he wouldn’t have if he and Gus started over from scratch.
“But you could make the company whatever you wanted,” I told him. “You care about the work so much. What would be better than being able to do it the way you think is best?”
He looked surprised at my words and his expression softened.
“Yeah, maybe.”
It was the first time I felt like I had been useful to Will for more than just hanging out or doing my share of the dishes. For once, I had helped him instead of the other way around.
I WOKE up in the dark to Will talking on the phone in the bedroom.
“Where did you look already? … Yeah, I can call down there…. Once or twice…. It’s okay…. Yeah, let me know….”
Will came out of his room and wandered to the window in the kitchen, staring out at the gyro place, the Mexican restaurant, and the flower shop on the corner.
I slid a hand up his back and felt that every muscle was tensed.
“You okay?”
He kept staring out the window like I wasn’t there, but he didn’t pull away. When I started to rub his shoulders, though, he shrugged me off.
“Nathan and Sarah?”
Will nodded, but it clearly wasn’t an invitation for further discussion. He moved away and I followed him into the kitchen where he started to make coffee automatically, like he did every morning. Halfway through he seemed to notice that it wasn’t even 5:00 a.m. and it was Sunday, but he continued doing it anyway.
AFTER FOURTEEN days of living with Will, three things were quite clear.
First, that we were so different I never had a prayer of predicting how he would feel about or react to things.
One morning he came in and made coffee, and I pointed to the bananas I’d gotten at the bodega, saying “There are bananas if you want any.”
Will said, “I live here. If I wanted a banana in my own apartment then obviously I would get one.”
“I was just telling you they were there,” I said.
“I can see they’re there. They are a huge bunch of yellow bananas in the middle of my counter, forty microns from where my hand is currently resting. If I couldn’t see the bananas there, I would have a major problem, given that I work in a field of visual arts.”
“Jesus, sorry, I was just being polite!”
“It’s not polite,” Will said, rounding on me. “It’s not polite to make people respond to inane comments in their own houses at seven in the morning. It’s intrusive. I need all my energy to deal with existing in a world filled with idiots and psychopaths. I can’t waste any on fucking bananas before I’ve even had coffee. Next thing I know you’ll say good morning or ask me how I am and I’ll have to kill myself.”
“How are you and good morning are not intrusive, asshole!”
“How are you is the root canal of small talk and good morning should be shot,” he said, and turned on his heel to go get dressed, taking his coffee with him.
Second, and not unrelated, was that Will mostly said whatever he wanted and considered honesty to be far more important than protecting people’s feelings.
When I suggested that sometimes a little white lie was more valuable than telling a truth for no reason other than to pat yourself on the back for being truthful, he said that he categorically refused to take other people’s feelings on as his responsibility. That if he’d let himself choose his words or his actions based on what might or might not hurt or uplift other people he’d never have made it past high school much less in New York.
It sucked when I was the one on the other end of one of his hard truths, but it was also incredibly reassuring to know where I stood. I knew that if Will paid me a compliment, then he meant it. I knew that if I asked his opinion, I’d get it. Will was aggressively, uncompromisingly himself, and it kind of made me feel like I could be that way with him too.
Third, if I wanted things to progress from the we-kiss-now phase into actual, like, sex stuff—which, uh, I really did—then I was definitely going to have to be the one to make it happen.
Despite the kissing, and the way that more and more often our television watching time turned into a cuddle-fest, Will had remained firm about me sleeping on the couch. He said he liked his privacy.
I was totally respectful of that, of course, but it was honestly torture, lying there and knowing that only about twenty feet and a thin door separated us.
So, since I couldn’t hope that maybe one night we’d just… I dunno, like, come together naturally in the middle of the night, I was taking matters into my own hands. I’d decided that tonight would be the night I made my move.
Apparently the universe had other plans, though, because things at Mug Shots went completely batshit. Gretchen, who was in town because she was doing a January term class, had come in to get a coffee and say hi, so I was distracted for a minute while it happened, but some lady drove her scooter into the window of the Starbucks across the street from us, and they had to shut down for the day to clean up the glass. This meant that all the people whose business Starbucks usually drew popped over to us when they found their usual route to caffeine cut off. It was the busiest day I’d ever worked, all of us running around at double-time just to barely keep up with the line. I fell asleep on the subway going back to Will’s and missed my stop.
Turned out Will’d had a day from hell too and was already in sweats when I got home, a sure sign he was wrung out.
“You want me to order food?” he asked. “I was thinking of sushi.”
I’d never tried sushi, but it seemed like a very New York thing to eat. Besides, if Will wanted it then I wanted to want it, so I nodded.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?”
He waved me into the bathroom absently, like he was totally used to having me here. The bone-deep contentment of being a thing that made sense in Will’s well-ordered world filled me, and I practically floated to the shower, my exhaustion evaporating in the steam.
“Oh my god,” Will said half an hour later as we sat with the sushi spread between us and I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. “You’ve never had sushi before have you?”
And, oh shit, I had to spit it out. I just had to. The texture. Oh man. I just couldn’t with the texture.
“Gah! Jesus. Sorry.”
Will silently pulled my plate toward him and moved most of the sushi onto his own, replacing it with a few things from his and a few from a container to his right, then pushed it back to me where I eyed it suspiciously.
“It’s tempura. It’s fried. You’ll be fine.”
I took a cautious bite, but it mostly tasted like sesame-y onion rings, so I munched happily as Will watched me with a mildly amused expression.
After dinner, we flopped onto the couch, and Will put on Orphan Black. I fell asleep in about ten minutes, the exhaustion of the day catching up with me, and woke up halfway on top of Will where I must’ve snuggled him in my sleep. He was asleep too, head thrown back against the couch. The naked curve of his throat in the moonlight was irresistible. I kissed his neck softly.
“Will?”
His nose scrunched at the sound. “Mmphm.”
“Do you wanna go to bed?”
He nodded sleepily, but his hand was in my hair, and he was kind of… cuddling me.
My heart started racing. Fully aware that I might be pushing my luck—that I might be gambling for a hundred with a twenty and lose both, I said, “Can I stay with you tonight?”
His eyes tracked from mine down to my mouth, then up again. Then, in a movement so slow I almost thought I was imagining it, he nodded.
I stood up and held out a hand to him, pulling him up. Will moved into my arms like it was natural and we went to his room. I
brushed my teeth thoroughly, nervous that I had sushi breath, then made my way to the bed. In the dark, all I could really make out was the light sweep of Will’s blond hair.
I’d been so sleepy a minute before, but now I was wide-awake.
And intensely nervous.
I stood there for a minute, trying to figure out how this was going to go. Should I kiss Will? Would he—
“Leo, get in the bed and go to sleep.”
“Oh, but I—um, are we—”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” I grumbled.
He snorted. “We’re not having sex, just come the hell to bed. I’m so tired.”
“What time did you leave this morning, anyway?” I slid into bed next to him.
“Like six.”
“Is everything okay at work? Why’d you go in so early? You don’t usually go that early, do you? No, you don’t. I—”
The pillow hit my face and Will pulled the covers up over it, encasing me in a cocoon of Will-smelling warmth. He held the pillow there for a minute. I mean, I could still breathe and everything, he was just making a point. When I relaxed into the bed, he took his pillow back and shoved it under his head, turning onto his stomach.
“What kind of sheets are these?” I asked. “They’re so comfy.”
Will groaned. “Leo!”
“But I’m suddenly not tired anymore,” I said.
“Yes, you are. You just forgot about it momentarily because penises don’t run on the same clock as the rest of us.”
“You mean like a dessert stomach? A cock clock?” I started giggling. Then I laughed some more. Then I turned over to tell Will something terribly important, but I couldn’t possibly because I was so very, very asleep.
I FINALLY decided on the direct approach.
“I want us to have sex,” I said as we did the dishes the next night. “Okay?”
Honestly, I’d kind of expected surprise at my boldness or… something. But Will just snorted dismissively and said, “You’re nineteen. You want to have sex with everything.”
“That’s not true!” I insisted. “Besides, I’m more mature than you. You’re a child basically, only with, like, dicks instead of toys.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that. I take mine, and I go home as soon as I’m sick of playing.” He waggled an eyebrow at me as he dried the final dish, then walked to his desk and starting preparing things for work the next day.
“Will, I’m serious.”
He sighed and his shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.”
Well that was… not encouraging.
“So then… what? Am I really that bad?”
“No, of course not,” Will said.
“Then I don’t get it. You’ll sleep with all those strangers—with guys you don’t even like—with guys you kinda hate, but not with me?”
Will cut his eyes to me sharply, though his voice was only a mild warning. “Careful, Leo.”
“Sorry, sorry, just….” My stomach turned over. “You must really not want me at all, I guess?”
Will opened his mouth and an expression I’d never seen before crossed his face. It was heavy and complicated. I got irritation and curiosity and… maybe fear? I’d never seen Will look afraid before so I couldn’t be sure.
“You’re sure that’s what you want?”
“Well, jeez, don’t sound too excited.”
Now I just felt stupid, like I was talking him into something he really didn’t want. But Will was still looking at me like he expected an answer. Which was ridiculous because I was pretty sure the fact that I wanted Will was up there with “global warming is real” on the list of stuff that is obvious.
“Yeah. Yes, of course I do.”
For just a second I imagined that what I saw in Will’s expression was… disappointment. Which didn’t make any sense, so I must have been wrong. And then whatever it was vanished, the cool mask I recognized from outside the walls of his apartment firmly in place.
“Okay, then,” he said, and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the bedroom.
“Wait, what? Really? Uh, wait, right now?”
At the bed, Will stripped with economy and gestured at me to do the same.
He was perfect, pale velvet skin over long muscles, gleaming with fine golden hairs like he was a marble statue that the sculptor had dusted with gilt. But he looked like he could have been changing in a gym locker room for all the enthusiasm he was showing.
“Umm. This wasn’t quite the way I… thought this would go.”
“What, you want me to seduce you? You were the one negotiating this like a business transaction not five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, but I just thought….”
“You thought it’d be romantic? That you’d stay here for a month and we’d fall in love and be boyfriends and soul mates and get married and artificially inseminate your lesbian BFF and have a kid called Mint? That’s not me, Leo. And the sooner you realize that you don’t actually want me like that the better.”
“But I do want you. I—”
“Look, I’m not saying this to be cute. I’m not doing some ‘Oh god, I’m awful, you don’t want me, rending my garments in the rain, tortured and riddled with feelings of unworthiness because my little brother drowned while I was supposed to be watching him and I don’t deserve love’ thing. I’m being honest. You wanna fuck? Let’s fuck. But don’t have the expectation that then we’ll be boyfriends because you’ll be disappointed. And if you do it anyway and you get your feelings hurt, I want you to think back to this moment right here, where I’m telling you it’s a bad idea, so that you don’t blame that shit on me.”
I gaped at him, something shaking loose and jangling around inside my chest, my stomach hollow. He had said all this in a tone that was completely sincere. Genuine. Like he could’ve been giving me advice about someone else.
I wasn’t sure how to tell him that, yes, I wanted him. But not the way he thought. Not in the anonymous, impersonal way that he slept with strangers. I didn’t know how to say that and not prove him right about what else I wanted from him, though. About all those things he said he didn’t want to give.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Will said before I could find the words, and started pulling his clothes back on.
Something made me say, “Wait.” Because part of me didn’t believe it could be true. After everything we’d shared, how close we’d gotten, I couldn’t quite believe that sex would mean nothing to him. How could it?
Sure, maybe this was all I could get from Will for now. But… after we’d slept together, how could Will not realize how good we could be? Realize how it could be different with me than it was with those other guys?
“I still want to,” I said. Will froze, pants half on.
“You do?”
I nodded. He looked uncertain. He had pitched a hardball, fully expecting me to walk away, and I’d taken a swing and hit it squarely. He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I heard you,” I said. “And I accept the limitations of your offer. Just sex, we’re not boyfriends. I get it. I swear.” I sounded at least marginally nonchalant, even if my heart was about to pound out of my chest.
Will crossed his arms. “Okaaaay….”
“Okay.”
“Okay. So we’re doing this?”
“Yeah, just… um, just know that I’ve never… exactly… I mean, I have done stuff—but I’ve. Yeah.”
“Duly noted,” Will said, back in control. He walked over to me and started pulling my clothes off, smirking. “I’ve got no problem whatsoever telling you exactly how I want you to fuck me.”
My knees practically buckled, because, shit, that was hot. “Oh Jesus. Okay. You want me to—right, sure, no problem.”
“Get on the bed, Leo.”
I scrambled to the bed, so distracted by what was about to happen that I almost forgot to store away the image of Will, naked and pale as ice, prowling toward me, thighs tightening and releasing,
the perfect cut of muscle at his hips almost ridiculous in its definition.
“Do you have a personal trainer or something?” He just smirked and shook his head, crawling over me in the bed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It won’t hurt too much.” Then he leered and grabbed my dick.
I already felt ridiculously exposed, and that didn’t help.
“Oh my god, can you at least pretend that you’re taking me a little bit seriously?”
“I take this”—he stroked my erection—“very seriously, Leo.”
I groaned, my head falling back. “’Kay, kiss now, please.”
Will kissed me and I forgot that he was basically doing me a favor. That this was just sex to him—maybe even pity sex. I forgot everything except that his mouth felt like heaven and his body against mine was intoxicating. I was immediately at about an eight out of ten on the imaginary arousal scale that I’d just created. What would you measure arousal in, anyway? Well, I was at eight out of ten of them, in any case.
“Okay, okay, okay,” I chanted, pulling away and praying that Will would see how close I was and ease off just a little.
He reached into the bedside table and pulled out a condom.
“You know how to do this?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, starting to rip it open with my teeth like I’d seen people do in the movies.
“Oh dear god, give me that, I’ll do it.” He snatched the condom and rolled it over my erection. I bit my lip, and he smirked at me.
“Can I, um.”
“Spit it out.”
“I want to… can we switch places?”
“Oh, you want to be on top of me?”
I nodded.
“You going to fuck me hard, Leo?” His comment was half flirtatious and half mocking, but somehow I thought he was a little excited at the idea. And my dick definitely was.
“Lie down,” I said, and he did. Spread out beneath me, Will looked different. Accessible in one way, but more remote in another. Like he was giving me a part of himself, but if I took it, another part would recede.