27. Missing the Wave

It was late afternoon, and the weather had been perfect for a long, hard run. I'd made about ten miles, and I was ready to shut it down. Walking it off, I passed by the baseball field, where I saw several guys from the team playing catch and shagging balls.

I stopped, stripped off my shirt, sat down in the stands, and watched.

They could have been Abercrombie & Fitch models, or maybe it was just my mood and all the elements of the moment. The leftovers of my runner's high. The perfect temperature/perfect sun day. The collection of ripped torsos on the field, looking like God's own gift to a guy like me, a guy who was starting to feel the need for guys with an intensity that couldn't be ratcheted back.

They were all wearing shorts and t-shirts, at least at first; some short-sleeved, some sleeveless. As time went on and their body heat rose a little, most of them ended up bare-chested.

There was one guy. One guy who was doing something to me. Something more than the other guys were doing, which was already considerable.

That should have been my first clue to get up and leave. Instead, I moved down to the bottom level to get a closer look.

He had short chocolate-brown hair with a cowlick in front that was gilded with touches of blond. Dark, penetrating eyes. Haunting eyes. Lips that seemed as though they'd been set on his face so that I'd ache to kiss him.

I let my eyes scan up and down his runner's build. He was slim…but sturdy enough to be a baseball jock.

His casual, easy manner disguised the intensity of his play. Light-hearted, joking and kidding with his teammates, he still took his throws and catches utterly seriously. He never forgot he was playing, though. At one point he missed an easy catch, and I watched as he laughed.

And that's what made it happen.

A moan escaped from my vocal cords, and I banged my fist on my thigh to make me get a grip.

His laugh...

When he laughed, the world stopped and reality froze and my heart fell into my stomach.

The rest of the guys on the field faded from my awareness, and the next thing I knew, he was the only guy I could see out there.

His movements were fluid, perfect. Natural. Empty of self-consciousness; effortless. His smooth chest was tight and toned, but not even close to steroidal.

It was his face, though.

Every jock out there on the field looked good;

but oh, sweet Jesus, this boy's face...

It was a study in innocence. And sweetness. And cockiness. And passion. And mischief. And fierce intelligence. And vulnerability. And some pain, even.

And his eyes...haunting, yes, but not only that: The expressiveness was unnerving. Even out there on the field, I could see them speaking entire paragraphs about him, to anyone who took the time to notice. What those words said, I didn't know. But something deep inside me ached to find out.

He was magnificent.

Not like the rest of his teammates, although they were just fine, all of them. But this guy...

He was perfect.

To me, anyway.

He had a quality. It went beyond the picture-perfect male-model sterile beauty you saw in ads; there was a sort of heartbreaking allure to him. An indescribable something that only one guy in a hundred possesses, and thank God for that; any quantity more would tax a person's sanity.

You wanted to lose yourself in that allure.

I couldn't look away. Nothing about me was at ease. My thoughts and emotions were jet-skiing across Lake Travis; I was even struggling to keep my damn breathing steady, and my mind began to vacate as the blood went from my head to my dick.

Before I could even register it fully, his eyes locked onto mine...and he started walking directly toward me.

********

"Whassup?"

I heard his voice from far away, even though it was right in front of me, and something inside me--some small remainder of me not distracted by his proximity--vaguely suggested that I needed to look at his face and say something.

But I couldn't. My eyes had zeroed in on his chest.

His shorts rode low enough on his midsection to give me a good view of that pair of mid-torso ridges that form a "v" shape; they were a little understated on him, but I groaned to myself nevertheless as I thought about where the lines of that "v" came together.

But the weirdest part of my agonized, blissful reverie was this: From where I stood, I could see that there were some tiny moles on his torso; they were almost more like dark freckles than moles, actually...but for some reason, they kept my eyes glued to his midsection.

I counted them. One close to his left nipple. Two in the center of his chest.  A couple of others spaced widely across the rest of his torso. Something so common and ordinary I probably wouldn't have noticed them on anybody else.

I have no idea why, but those little dark spots made it impossible for me to turn away from him. It's as though the tiny marks made him all the more human, all the more real, all the more someone that maybe I could...

What?

I didn't know. All I knew was that I wanted to memorize those little dots; memorize him. It was the first time I'd ever seen him, as far as I knew...and I was lost. Lost in him.

In that one instant, I wanted everything.  Everything.

I wanted to file him away in my head and take it all back to my dorm room with me. I was jealous of everyone who'd known him before I'd laid eyes on him, everyone who'd gotten to touch him, talk to him, joke with him. I hated anyone who'd ever seen him naked. I wanted to hear his life story. I wanted to lie next to him at night and hold him as he fell asleep. I wanted to be the guy he went out drinking with. I wanted to toss around a football with him, cuddle with him as we watched a movie in the quiet of my dorm room, shoot some one-on-one hoops with him, hit the showers with him afterward. I wanted to sit quietly in the library at a table with him, studying. I wanted to wake up in my bed to his "good morning" every time the sun got ready to mount the sky. I wanted to have known him and loved him forever, and I wanted him to know it. I wanted to experience what it was like to put his dick in my mouth, to taste the explosion that would result from driving him to ecstasy as he fucked my face. I wanted to know who he loved, who'd hurt him, who'd befriended him, what he wanted out of life, how many siblings he had, what he liked and didn't like, his favorite clothes, the music he liked the best. I wanted to lick his skin. I wanted him to love me, to care about me, to need me. I wanted to see what his face looked like when he was an instant away from climax. I wanted...

"Look up, dork," I heard a voice say. "My chest ain't gonna talk to you."

Shaken out of my trance, I stood up and looked into his face.

He was grinning at me. It was a grin that clearly knew too much. It was a grin that melted away what little self-control I still had.

He stuck out a fist to bump with mine. "Jake Benson," he said. "Switch-hitter. Bat .312 one way and 1.000 the best way. Play third base. Think you can get there? You lookin' like you want to."

I winced.

He saw it. "Yeah, thass right." He was enjoying my discomfort.

What I was taking in with my ears made my heart beat faster:

There was something else mixed in, but...

South. He was from the South. More South than Texas was, that was for damn sure. The accent was utterly compelling; it drove me that much deeper into the dark forest of my own yawping, confused need.

"Who...I mean..." I stammered, sticking my hand out and meeting his in a fist-bump. "I'm..."

"Sharpe; I know," he interrupted. His eyes scanned up and down my body. "A soccer boy. And you got the legs for it." He leaned his upper torso forward to peer at my backside. "Ass too, from the look of it."

I felt my face flush. "What...what are you..."

"Small campus, knucklehead. I got ears. I got eyes, too, I'm sayin', and I play for at least one of the teams you do. Maybe more." He flashed me a three-thousand watt grin--an evil one--and reduced me to a babbling idiot for the third time in ninety seconds.

"I only play soccer here, and you..."

"Holy shit, you're dumber than they say you are," he laughed, interrupting me. "I thought you supposed to be some smart guy. Or don't you speak English? I can say it in French if you want."

I blinked. "Uhh..."

He looked deep into my eyes and bit his lip.

"Tu me fais bander, toi. Je te ramène chez moi et je vais t'enculer jusqu'à ce que tu ne te tiennes plus debout."

The words rolled out of his mouth, languid, sexy, and incomprehensible. I had no idea what he'd said, but at the same time, I'd understood him perfectly.

I felt my dick spasm in my pants.

Slowly, a smile came to my face. An embarrassed one. Maybe I was dumber than they said I was.

He laughed when he saw the recognition wash over my expression. "About time. So we got that outta the way. Good. By the way, you really oughta be less obvious when you stare. But I'll take it as a compliment."

I hunkered down and forced myself to recover my game. "Don't flatter yourself," I said, smirking.

"I know what I saw," he said, "smug" written all over his face. He rubbed his hands over his chest and added, "the question for you is, can you get yourself any of this?"

My dick throbbed again. My gut ached. Need and desire and...well, damn…love--at first sight, even--rose up in my gut. But my eyes drilled into his, my lips curled into a grin, and I replied, "Is there any doubt?"

He was ready, and he was completely unfazed. "Yeah, there is," he said.

"Why?"

"You know what you did," he said. "Gonna be hard to get me after that."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You know what you did," he repeated.

Exasperated, I said, "I was just out running. I sat down here to rest. I was watching y'all. That's all. Okay, you caught me staring, and you've heard some stuff about me. But if you think I'm gonna get all 'I gotta have you'...or if you think you know me or something about me...well, you don't know shit."

"Yeah, go ahead," he said. "Deflect. Disarm. Deny. Feels different when you're on the receiving end, don't it? But your quick mouth ain't gonna get you outta this one. You were staring at me, and say what the fuck you gonna say; you and I both know you want me. And I ain't automatic like some of them other poor bastards you enjoy victimizing,"

In rapid sequence, I flashed back, flinched, and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Chris," I mumbled, staring at the ground.

"Damn right," he said. I looked up at him; the smile had vanished from his face. "I told you."

"Told me what?"

"I told you that you know what you did."

There was nothing I could say in response. We considered each other silently for a minute; finally, he said, "Fuck, Sharpe, never mind, man; I suck at this game. Dude: I wouldn't have come over here if I was gonna hold that against you. You gotta man up, though, if you gonna play for this team as well. And it's gonna take more than showing gay porn to a bunch of straight jocks."

I winced and nodded. "Do the other baseball guys know about you?"

"A couple. Mostly not. I'll say this: You got balls, coming out like that. But that don't excuse what you did to Chris."

"Shit," I muttered. "You know about me coming out to them? And you know about the porn video?"

"Yeah," he said. "Kyle's my bud. Good job there, by the way."

"Not so much with Chris, though," I said. "I'm not proud of it. You know him?"

"Yeah. We're good friends from back in high school. Only other guy from my town at this school. He knows about me. I came out to him in high school. One of the few I came out to. He didn't have many friends until I made him mine. Then, when I did, he got socially acceptable. And I had a girlfriend, so nobody talked."

I looked at him, wondering. "You ever..."

"No," he said. "It wasn't like that with us. And I sure never did what you did to him either. That was pretty rank."

His deep, penetrating eyes searched mine.

"I know," I said, holding his gaze.  "I'm sorry."

"I know that," he said, adding, "otherwise I wouldn't be here scopin' out your body and makin' a play for you."

I looked at him, shocked by his directness; he laughed at me again.

He took a seat in the stands and motioned for me to as well.
 

********

I sat down next to him, but my words had left me. He kept looking at me, waiting for me to say something; accusation radiated from his eyes. But there was compassion and kindness behind that accusation. I could tell that behind the little bit of shit he was giving me, there was a really good guy.

Strapped for conversation, I said, "You have an accent. A little. Southern or something, but not exactly."

Again bringing me his big smile, he said, "Iowa by way of Alabama, actually. Mostly grew up in a suburb of Birmingham. Then my folks moved to Buttfuck Nowhere, Iowa. Nice little town and I made lots of friends, impressed all the grownups. They think I hung the moon. But make no mistake; I'm a southern boy, and it's a frozen Yankee hell-hole up there. I learned how to speak Midwestern, though. Still, the southern drawl gets the guys goin' down here. The girls too. I use it when it advances the cause."

I grinned. "Well, I won't hold the Yankee against you. Alabama's good and southern."

"Yeah, more southern than you, Texas boy."

"Probably," I said. "Where'd you learn to speak French, though?"

"My grandmother," he said. "My daddy's mama. She grew up in New Orleans and made it her mission in life to see that all the grandkids spoke French."

"Really? That's great," I said. "What did you say to me?"

"It's a secret," he grinned. "I ain't gonna say. But I expect you'll pick up the meaning in other ways."

I looked into his face: He was enjoying driving me crazy with this. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of begging for a translation, though.

So I changed the subject: "What you doin' down here?"

"Baseball scholarship," he said. "Academics, too. Plus, I'm Catholic. Like Chris." I nodded; the university we'd chosen was a small Catholic college.

He paused for a minute. "I had another plan to pay for college, and I wanted to go to school back home. Needed to, actually; but then I couldn't…see, they…" His voice trailed off. I watched him shake his head as he continued: "Fuck that shit. This other way worked." He looked off into the distance; I decided not to ask.

He changed the subject: "Hear you're a city boy."

"Dallas suburbs," I said.

"Got quite the gay life there, I've heard."

"Well, yeah," I said, "But I never been down to that part of town."

"Such an innocent boy," he said. Then, winking at me, he added, "Think I'm gonna do something about all that innocence."

I chuckled. And felt my face flush.

"You're blushing, Dallas boy," he said.

"I never had a guy hit on me this direct," I told him.

"You mean you're usually the one in control of the situation," he said.

"Yeah," I muttered.

"So let's just talk," he said. "Get comfortable with each other. After I get your head loosened up, then I'll get your ass loosened up."

"In your dreams, buddy," I said. "We need to get it straight who's gonna be tappin' whose ass."

"First of all," he said, grinning, "we don't need to be gettin' nothin' 'straight'...And second, I'm thinkin' part of your problem is you've been having too much control. When you get control, you fuck it up. On this thing, anyway. I think you wanna give that up if you gonna get with me. I'll treat you right, I promise. Better than you treated Chris."

"Look, dammit," I said, prepared to launch into "assault" mode.

"Just fuckin' with ya, Sharpe," he said, grinning. "Tell them missiles to stand down, boy." I tried to stay pissed, but his face ruined it for me. "Go shower off, and I'll do the same. I bet you like it sweaty, but I'd be worried the whole time if I stink. When you're finished, come up to my dorm room. Gilchrist Hall, Room 325. Put on some sexy clothes. I especially like sexy underwear."

He laughed and said, "Bring condoms," and winking, he added, "More than one."

My face was burning. "Damn," I said quietly, biting my lip and willing my dick into submission.

"What? You're fuckin' hot, Soccer Boy. I'ma wear you out tonight, sexy. And then you're gonna spend the night with me, and we're gonna sleep in each other's arms. I bet you never got to be with a guy who's totally willing to give himself to you for a night."

"I spent the night with a guy before," I protested. "Recently, in fact."

"Not like you gonna do tonight," he said. Mischief twinkled in his eyes; he stepped up to me, pulled my lips onto his, and groped my hard cock through my shorts.

As quick as it happened, it was over. He pushed me back slightly, laughing. "See you in a little bit," he said as he walked away.
 

********

Jake turned out to be quite a lover. His dick was as hot as the rest of him: Seven and a half inches and thick, with a beautiful mushroom head. I jacked him off once, letting him cum all over my chest, and he returned the favor. I sucked him off two times, and he returned the favor. I fucked him once, and he returned the favor.

When I jerked him, I discovered that he shot hard and far, and I liked it even more when he spent that force inside my mouth. His cum was thick and white, his body was a gift from the gods, and raw sex radiated off him in waves.

More than that, though, I was experiencing feelings for him that went beyond anything I'd felt for any of the other college boys I'd fucked around with.

It reminded me a little of what I felt for Matt. Somewhere deep inside, that scared the shit out of me. But I pushed back the fear so that I didn't miss a moment of being with him.

After the sex, we sat naked on the bed for a while, talking, and that's when I heard a story that guaranteed that I'd be in over my head before the sun came up.

He told me about how his best friend had hurt him badly: They'd taken an extended road trip and ended up exploring each other's bodies. Once they got home, things were fine for a time, and they'd gotten together a few times more, each time taking things farther than the time before. Then his friend freaked out and pushed him away, began avoiding him. He suffered his whole last year in high school because of it. As I listened to him talk about the details of the trip, in my head, I became the guy who'd hurt him.

It was too much. The parallels were hammering at me, pulling me toward him even more strongly.

A tear fell down his face as he told the story. It broke my heart to see this sweet, masculine jock cry. And my own guilt over having pushed Matt away burned in my gut. I was overwhelmed by an irrational desire to undo what I'd done with Matt by comforting Jake, by pulling him to me the way I should have pulled Matt to me. By loving him, and comforting him, and holding him close.

As I was getting lost in these thoughts, he got off the bed, went to his closet...

and pulled out a guitar.

He sat back down on the bed and began playing and singing softly.

I felt the blood drain from my face; my heart felt like it was going to explode with love and pain. 

He noticed.

"What's wrong? Is my singing that bad?"

"No, man," I said, trying to recover. "I...Jake...it's just that tonight...you...well, you don't have any idea how much I can relate to your life."

He looked at me. "I had a best friend, too," I told him. "The same thing happened. Only I freaked and pushed him away. And the thing is, he's even straighter than me. But he was willing to go there for me. Because he loved me. And I spit in his face. And totally fucked up our friendship."

I watched him pick the strings thoughtfully. The guitar in his arms brought the memories--the good ones, the painful ones--hard and fast. I half-whispered, "He plays the guitar too."

He looked over at me; his eyes softened, closed for a couple of seconds, and then met mine again. "Aww," he said. He reached over to me and tousled my hair. Then he put down the guitar.

"Come here."

Pulling me into his arms, he eased us both down until we were lying on our sides, with my back against his chest. He spooned up against me, kissing my back and neck as he held me close. "Only direction either of us can go is forward, Sharpe," he said, kissing me and holding me close. "What's done is done. All we can fix is what's still to come. I keep trying to tell myself that too."

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

Feeling his body against mine brought me such peace that I found myself drifting away. Being held by him felt like coming home after having been away for too long.

I lay in his arms the whole night. Sometimes I slept; sometimes I lay awake thinking, remembering. Remembering the previous hours. Remembering the school year. Remembering high school.

Remembering Matt.

And wondering: I had a number of guys in my life now who were willing to go places with me sexually and not treat me like a freak. But there was only one guy who had a large and permanent place in my heart, and he was more than likely gone for good.

Could I have something like that with Jake? Would I let myself? Would it ease the hurt I couldn't shake over losing Matt's friendship? What I was feeling with Jake wasn't just fun times with a straight friend who was curious about sex with guys. This was on a whole different level.

The level that Trey realized he couldn't bring when we fooled around.

What I'd felt with Jake felt like the beginning stages of what I'd felt with Matt.

Could I go there? And if I did, where would it go?
 

********

He answered that question the next morning. After we'd gotten up, showered, and were eating breakfast at McDonald's, he looked at me, reached across the table, put a hand on mine, and said, "We can do this again. I think you and me gonna be tight. But we gotta watch out. The whole thing made me think."

"About what?" I asked.

"I seen you around," he said. "You're hot. Always thought so. Then I heard about you. Then I heard about what you did to Chris. I wasn't sure what the hell I was thinking about you. I just wanted you. And I disliked you. Because of what you did to him. I wanted to...I wanted to maybe control you a little. Saw you lookin' at me on the field, and it was just like Chris told me he was doing to you. It made me mad. I really meant to turn the tables on you. But I couldn't bring that game after we started talking."

"I'm tryin' to get it together," I said. "It's all about Matt...in so many ways."

He looked at me for a minute. Then he said, "Yeah, mostly, I'm thinking. But you don't like being gay much."

"I'm not gay," I said firmly.

"See? That's what I'm talking about," he said. "You're so defensive. Shit, man, what you call it don't much matter. And the fact that you like women don't much matter. The fact that does matter is this: You like what gay guys like. You like what straight guys like too...but you like what gay guys like. Accept it. Deal with it. Quit trying to prove to yourself and everybody else that you're okay. You are okay. When you can be okay with yourself, I bet you'll move forward with Matt...whatever that means. And I bet you'll stop humiliating people like my friend Chris."

"I'm trying," I said.

"Yeah, I know you are," he said, smiling. "But you gotta deal, man. You gonna treat me like that? I'm gay. As gay as your bud Kyle."

"I thought you were bi," I said.

"I lied," he said. "For all I knew, if I told you I was gay, you'd have walked away. But I'm telling you now: I'm gay."

"I don't care," I told him. "And I don't treat Kyle like that. Never have."

"I know you don't. I'm just saying. You have some shit to work through."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"So you won't get any ideas about getting into a relationship with me."

It felt like I'd been slapped.

I frowned. "I never said..."

"Cut the shit, Andy," he interrupted. "You and I both felt it last night. We could be good. You're into me. More than just sex. And, if you really wanna know, I'm into you too. Tell me you didn't spend some time last night thinking what it might be if we were...if we..."

He looked around the room. Then he leaned toward me. I leaned in too; we kissed gently on the lips.

He pulled away and sat back. "I thought about it over and over last night, Sharpe. God, you felt good in my arms. But I can't, you know? My head's still fucked up, and from what you said, yours is too. You can't tell me you're not still in love with Matt. Any more than I can tell you I'm not still in love with Cody."

I sighed. "Last night. You felt it too?"

"Of course I did," he said. "But it's like you're half me and half Cody. It's like I'm half you and half Matt. That ain't no base to be starting a relationship on. It's too fucked up."

"I know," I said, my shoulders falling. "It's like you said; only direction is forward. If you and I tried to have something, it would be like pulling in ghosts of the past, man. But what can we do about it? I feel pretty fuckin' helpless."

"Well, I think somehow we gotta deal with the past to move forward, right? What I know about me is Cody's gonna be home this summer. I guess we'll see what we'll see. But I'm for damn sure gonna say to him what I have to say. It'll either make things better or make things worse. Probably you ought to do the same with Matt. He gonna be home this summer?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm scared, though. I don't know if we can get anything back. I don't think we can have that talk. It's too late for it."

"I know 'scared.' I get that."

For a while neither of us spoke. Then he said, "You got a friend, man. Right here. A friend and more.  A friend you can...Well, you're hot and you're a great guy, and I had a great night. Maybe too great. But I'd risk it again if you ever got to needing some more of what you got last night."

"You mean that incredible dick of yours?" I said, grinning from ear to ear.

"What else?" he said, laughing. "You like it, don't you?"

"Fuck, yeah," I said. "It's beautiful."

"I expect you'll see it again," he said, winking. Then, growing serious, he said. "It was more than that."

"Yeah," I said. "It wasn't just a fuck. It was..."

"Don't," he said. "Don't put a name on it. We're both too fuckin' messed up to call it anything but two guys helping each other feel better."

"Okay," I said.

"But I'd help you feel better like that any time." He punched me in the shoulder. That was our cue to leave and get on with our day.
 

********

I saw a lot of Jake for the rest of the semester. I kept up my pace with the ladies, even accelerating the weekend hunt if anything, but little by little I began to back away from hitting on my soccer teammates. The ones who'd wanted to walk on the wild side had already had their hookups with me. Several of them had come by more than once, and I wasn't sorry I'd done all that. But there wasn't any future in hooking up with straight guys.

I wasn't sure there was any future in hooking up with Jake, either. I had to hold myself back from falling in love with him. I knew that a lot of my feelings for him were driven by my feelings for Matt; it wouldn't do anybody any good for me to complicate all that by falling in love with Jake.

But Jake could give me what Trey couldn't. What Brad couldn't. What the rest of the guys who'd fucked around with me couldn't.

We could cuddle. And we could love. And we didn't have to pretend we were just checking things out, or that we were "just good buds"; we could move it beyond some straight guy's experimental mode and into something that engaged all the dimensions of our feelings for guys.

For each other.

I needed that a lot during that spring semester, because my dread over facing Matt again was amping up. The semester was moving right along: I'd see him again before I knew it, and I was still devastated and unready. I had no idea how to approach him or what to say to him. No idea what to hope for. No idea whether the end of summer would see us saying goodbye forever, or whether we had a remote chance to be some kind of friends.

Whenever those kinds of thoughts drove me crazy, I called up Jake and let him love me.

Sometimes I spent the night. Not too often, though, because I could feel myself falling, and I couldn't let that happen: I didn't want it, and he didn't want it. We were damaged goods, and to let yourself fall in love with a person in that condition...well, that wouldn't cause anything but trouble.

But it was good. For both of us. And it wasn't always about sex. Sometimes we just needed each other, needed another guy to hold onto without having to play it off as an experiment. A guy to kiss. A guy to keep warm with during the night.

And that's what we gave each other.
 

********

Matt called one Saturday morning.

After the initial pleasantries, he got to his reason for calling. "Hey," he said. "Christmas was weird, and we haven't talked since then."

"I know," I said. "Been busy, and..."

"It's okay, Andy," he said. "I been busy too, and I know what 'busy' is, but that's not it. I know we're not comfortable with each other any more."

My heart felt a twinge of sadness. "Matt," I said, "you don't have to keep doing this for my sake. I know what I've done."

I heard him sigh. "I tried to tell you I'm past that," he said. "Give me a break, Andy, I'm trying here. Trying to figure things out."

Neither of us knew how to go on for a few seconds.

Finally he said, "I'm just calling to...you know, to...just to see how stuff is going in your life. Do you think...I mean, do you think we could maybe work on just catching up with each other? There doesn't have to be any agenda beyond that. I mean, for the sake of what we...how we were...well, you know. I'm not saying 'go back.' We don't live back there anymore. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be total nothing, does it?"

"I...I don't know what you want, Matt," I said. "And I don't know what you don't want."

He didn't answer for a long time. "I don't know either," he said, finally. "I just...I can't leave it like this, okay?"

"You're looking for closure, then," I said, my gut churning with grief.

"Maybe," he said, but before my heart could absorb the blow, he added, "But...that doesn't seem like it's what it is.  I just know we can't be done yet, and I'm asking you to be...I'm asking you to let me…to not shut me out."

"I guess, Matt," I said. "I won't shut you out, but...it confuses me. I know what I did, and I know how you feel, and I don't understand..."

"How the fuck can you know how I feel?" I flinched at the anger in his voice. "I don't even know how I feel. All I know is that what it is right now, this…well, it...it isn't right. And all I know is I'm not done with you."

Yet, I thought. I felt my heart sink. If I gave him enough of me to let him clarify his feelings, he'd eventually decide he didn't need a friend who pushed him away when things got a little too scary.

But I'd never been able to turn Matt down completely.

So I said, "Okay, Matt. Maybe you're right. You wanna talk? I got nothing going on right now."

"Yeah, that would be good. Nothing heavy, I promise, Andy. I just wanna find out about your life lately."
 

********

We talked for twenty minutes or so. It wasn't bad; but it was awkward.

I was guarding my heart with such intensity that it was hard to communicate. I couldn't open up, couldn't let myself hope. I wanted to honor my buddy's request, but I didn't understand it, and I was afraid of where it would all end up.

I gave it my best shot, though.

We got reasonably up-to-speed regarding each other's semesters. We talked about studies, about sports, about campus activities...and about girls.

We didn't talk about my feelings for guys...and we didn't talk about my feelings for Matt...and we didn't talk about his feelings for me.

In other words, we didn't talk about the only things we really needed to talk about.

It was a start, though. Not a start that made me feel hopeful; not even a start that made me want to talk to him more often. But a start nonetheless.

I didn't know if I had the courage to keep the contact going from this point forward; I was afraid that it would just hasten the day when it was all over between us. But for that Saturday morning, it was okay. From time to time while we talked, when I could put my guilt and hurt and fear aside, it was even good.
 

********

The semester wound down. In late April, just before finals week, Jake called me one Friday night and asked me to spend the night with him.

He greeted me at the door. One look at his face told me I'd be hearing something that would hurt me.

I came in, followed him to his bedroom, sat on his bed, took the beer he handed me, and numbed myself as I waited for the hammer to drop.

"I haven't told you this, Sharpe," he said, "but I'm not coming back next semester."

I'd numbed down in anticipation of a blow, but my gut felt it anyway.

"Of course not," I said with undisguised bitterness. "Why would you?"

"Andy, don't." He slid in closer and put an arm over my shoulder. I pulled away, but he reached for me again, and I discovered that I didn't have the will to resist.

He pulled me tightly into him. I lay my head on his shoulder and cried.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" I said finally.

"Because of this," he said. "This right here. You think it doesn't kill me to be leaving you? You're the only thing that's kept me sane this semester."

"Why, then?"

"I got accepted into my state university back home, and finally got offered some decent money," he said. "If I finish out my biology major there, it'll be easier to get into med school there. I have to go. I can't stay here."

I looked into his eyes; he was crying too.

"Something else," he said. "I've been talking to Cody."

My eyes got wide. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "We've been talking on the phone, in emails, shit like that."

"Sounds like it's been good," I said.

"It has," he said. "He wants to try to make it work. He wants to face himself, and he wants to be with me."

I smiled. I was genuinely happy for him. "That's great, Jake," I said.

I kissed him on the neck; he took his face in my hands and kissed me on the lips. Tenderly. For a long time.

Eventually, he let me go. "It's been so good. And I love you, you know. But we never had a chance."

"I know," I said, my eyes still leaking. "It's okay. I'm happy for you. And I'll be fine."

"I know you will," he said. He looked at me tentatively and added, "Will you stay with me tonight?"

"Of course I will," I said. "We're big boys. We gonna deal, and you're not gone yet."

"Nope," he said, grinning as he reached over and wiped a tear from the lower part of my left eye. "And I wanna get with you as often as you'll let me until we leave."

We began undressing each other, and the night was good, and it was tender, and it was warm, and it felt right to be sleeping next to him after we made love.
 

********

I'd taken my last final exam of the semester, and it was time to go back to Dallas. I'd gotten my lifeguard job back and had managed to get extra money for taking on a management role. All in all, it paid well for a summer gig. I'd be doing some lifeguarding, some pool and park maintenance, and I'd be responsible for training the newly-certified lifeguards, scheduling them, and dealing with payroll. I'd also be able to set my own hours, to some degree. The pool opened the end of May; employee training was the week before.

The day before I left for home, I went around campus saying my goodbyes to everyone I needed to see, and I spent my final night with Jake. When I saw him off that morning, I knew I'd never see him again.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, because I'd shielded my heart from him, partially. From the very beginning. So in a way, as intimate as we'd become, I was still closer to Trey. Closer to Brad, even.

I didn't really understand the dynamics of all that: Things with Jake were more intense and deeper emotionally, because he was the first guy who could love me back in all the dimensions with which I was capable of loving guys; but we were destined never to be together, and we both knew that from the beginning, and when we had to leave each other, it was bearable.

It was actually harder to say goodbye to Trey and to Brad. Not that I had to worry about never seeing them again. The friendship there wasn't as three-dimensional, but it wasn't carefully held in-check. We gave each other all the friendship we had to give, and I was going to miss that over the summer.

Brad was a senior. We promised we'd stay in touch, though; he was taking a computer programming job in San Antonio, and I knew he'd be around from time to time. And having a buddy in San Antonio held out the likelihood of some great road trips the next school year.

Trey, for his part, swore he was going to bother me all summer with phone calls and emails, and I believed him. Moreover, we'd made arrangements to move into a four-bedroom house together the coming fall, along with Josh Starnes and Shane Flaherty; no, Trey wasn't going anywhere but home for the summer.

As for Matt's attempt to keep us in better contact, I hadn't held up my end. I'd been terrible about replying to his emails, and I wasn't much better about answering his phone calls. It wasn't that I didn't want to make things better; it was hard, though. I didn't know what the goal was. I didn't know where we were going. I didn't know whether seeing more of him would move us to some better place or whether it would finish us. I was pretty sure it was the latter.

So I avoided.

He was pretty insistent, though. He wouldn't let me pull away completely. And, truth be known, I didn't have the energy or will to resist him completely.

I couldn't get my hopes up about it; it seemed safer to assume that he wanted to be done with me but couldn't make himself. I was an old habit. Not one that gave him any pleasure; just one that was hard to walk away from.

So we talked, some. Emailed, some. Not often enough to suit him, I inferred from the tone he often took, but more often than before.

The most common reason we had for talking as school closed out was the summer July 4 party we'd promised to hold again. So as we each made our way home, there was already a channel of communication open and a pre-defined range of topics to discuss.

He had a job lined up at a sporting goods store and had also managed to get a paid internship doing graphic design work for a Dallas-based magazine. Both of his gigs were scheduled to start the first Monday in June; my work started the end of May.

We hung out a lot from mid-May until our jobs started, trying to figure out how to be friends again. The most natural move was to do some of the things we used to do, some of the things we'd always done. So that's what we did. We hung out in his room or in mine; we shot hoops together or tossed around a football; we spent time with my parents or his mom. We got in touch with old football buddies who'd returned for the summer, and we got caught up with their lives; we ran and lifted together; we did a little drinking together.

It was almost nice.

Almost.

It was also singularly unsatisfying. Something felt unreal about it, and as those first two weeks went on, I began to understand what it was and why things never seemed to get any better or worse for us.
 

********

Work filled up many of my waking hours as May faded into June. There were a couple of girls--Jessica Hanson and Sara Waters--that I'd gone to high school with who were working at the pool with me. From the first day, they were both hitting on me pretty hard, so I said what-the-fuck and went out with them. They were hot, and it was fun to be with them, and it didn't take too long before I was having sex with them.

It was enjoyable enough, but each of them seemed too interested in the details of my life. Sara in particular always wanted to know if I knew how Angie was, what she was doing over the summer, how I'd left things with her after high school.

I had no idea. I hadn't talked to Angie, or even seen her, in a long time. I didn't think she had come back home for the summer; she had probably lined up a job somewhere else. But she was the gold standard; I'd never been able to forget her, and of the many women I'd been with since she and I were together, none of them ever measured up.

I never complained to Sara about her excessive curiosity, but it annoyed me. At first, I wondered why she was interested, but after a while I figured out that she was trying to see if I was emotionally available for anything more than a summer fling. I should have talked to her about it, but I couldn't be troubled, and I honestly didn't care whether she was interested in more from me or not. I wasn't interested in more from her.

I was discreet enough not to flirt with Jessica while Sara was around, and vice-versa, and I'd told both of them that this was just for fun; there weren't any commitments here. I don't think either of them was happy with that, but they didn't want to rock the boat. So I had a reasonably good situation that summer: sex when the physical urge became demanding, and no ties.

As June wore on, Matt and I fell into a pattern: We'd get off work. We'd head to a seedy little bar called The Pocket, where they didn't look too closely at fake IDs and where there was always a pool table open. We'd drink, and we'd talk about the upcoming July 4 party, and we'd shoot some pool, and we'd drink a little more, and we'd stumble through conversation a little uncomfortably. More than once on any given night we'd lose our words and not know what to say next. It happened every single time we were together.

During those moments, I couldn't help but contrast the awkward, leaden silence between us with the times we used to spend with each other not speaking. That would happen sometimes during the years we were bonded so tightly to each other. Back then, the companionship didn't need words; it filled the atmosphere between us. Now, though, the silence sucked the air out of the space we inhabited, and I could tell we both sensed it, and I could tell we were both suffocating.

We tried to ignore it. We tried to pretend that what we were doing was normal, natural. And we tried to pretend that we didn't know better.

But we both knew better. And to make things worse, we both knew that we both knew better.
 

********

Late on a hot Thursday night, I'd gone for a run, quietly despairing over the wall between us. It was maddening to have Matt around, to go places we used to, to play ball like we used to, to hang out. Nothing was right with me and him anymore; I couldn't figure out how to make things different, and I figured I never would. I was with Matt more frequently than I'd been in a long time; but when I was with him, I never felt more lonely, never felt farther away from him.

I was aching with the need of him, with the want of him; aching for being with him and yet being so disconnected from him. And I knew there was no way out.

I had run about eight miles, tortured the whole time by my thoughts about Matt, and during my cooldown, when I got to the park by the pool where I worked, I sat down on a bench, put my head in my hands, and began to cry.

I heard the sound of a jogger in the distance, moving closer. I tried to get some composure; I didn't want anyone to see me bawling like a baby.

His stride slowed as he got closer. By the time he was in hailing distance, he was walking.

Great, I thought. I kept eyes to the ground so he wouldn't notice me.

"Sharpe. Is that you?"

That voice...

A chill went through my body and my heart leaped into my throat.

I looked up.

He grinned; I spoke.

"Cole."

I hadn't seen him in two years, and those two years had been damn good to him.

I stood and stuck my hand out to shake his, but he grabbed me and pulled me into a hug.

"Fuck, it's good to see you! What you been up to, boy?"

He released me quickly and took a few steps back. "Sorry, man," he said. "I forgot about the sweat. I was just surprised and happy to see you. I know I prolly smell like a damn goat."

"No, you smell...I mean, it's fine, Cole; I'm glad to see you."

"What're you doin' here on this bench?" he asked.

"Just finished a run myself," he said.

"I can see that. It's good; still keepin' the bod in shape, then."

"Have to; there's money riding on it."

He laughed and looked into my face...and frowned.

"Dude. Your eyes are all red. You...you look like you been crying. Are you okay?"

"No, man, I'm good. I just...there's just so much..."

Memories of my friendship with him came hard at me.

I'd done a pretty good job of alienating people from my past. Well, no, not people: The person who'd mattered to me the most. And here came another guy who'd been important to me, jogging by and moving into my space. I needed to hang on to this moment, this opportunity to reclaim something.

So I said, "No, man, actually I'm not okay. But fuck that for now. I know it's late, but you wanna come over and get cleaned up at my place and hang out a little bit? I'd love to catch up with you, see what you been up to."

He looked at his watch. "Why not? I'm off tomorrow. It would be fun. You got clean shit for me to wear so I don't stink up your house? I bet I can fit into your stuff."

"Sure," I said. "You can shower off and we can hang out at the pool." I thought about it for a minute, and added, "I got plenty of beer. We could swim if you wanna. You can borrow some swim trunks, or hell, I don't care, everybody else gonna be asleep, you can skinny-dip for all I care."

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. "You wanna see if I still got what you liked back in the day?"

I grimaced. I'd been that obvious to him?

He laughed my facial expression and said, "Shit, boy, I'm just fuckin' with ya. I mean, I do know you liked what you saw, but I don't care."

I took a deep breath and said, "Yeah. I did. And I wouldn't mind seeing it again. But mainly I just wanna hear how you been."

"Way to man up, bud. Let's go, then," he said.
 

********

We talked as we walked. It was almost as if we'd never spent any time away from each other. The conversation flowed smooth as glass, completely natural. My angst over Matt began to melt away for a while in the warmth of my friendship with Cole.

When we got up to my room, I brought him a towel and told him where the shower was. He stripped naked, deliberately putting himself on display. He smiled as my stare caught his eye. "Go ahead and look. I'm gonna ask you something I think I already know, just to make it official. You're bisexual, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am," I said. "Problem?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'll show you how much."

He walked over to me naked, pulled me into a hug, and kissed me on the cheek.

I pulled away and looked at him, stunned. "Are you..."

"No," he said. "Straight as an arrow. Sorry. But it don't bother me that you're not. I'm good with it."

"How did you know?" I said. "In high school I never..."

"I saw you look at me. More than once. And, c'mon, you were my Little Bro in football. We were around each other a lot. I saw other stuff too. Like, it wasn't hard for me to figure out that you were in love with your buddy. The love in your eyes wasn't something a person could mistake."

I looked away, stricken.

"Whatever happened to him, anyway?"

"He's here this summer," I said, ignoring the fifty-pound weight that had just dropped onto my heart. "We're doing a party down on the beach over July 4. Why don't you come?"

"Well, yeah, I'd like that," he said. "Can I bring a date?"

"Sure," I said.

He studied my face. "So you guys still good friends?"

My voice caught in my throat. I tried to throw out some bullshit, non-committal answer, but my vocal cords were intent on keeping me from lying.

"Later," I said. "That conversation needs a few beers."

"Okay," he said. "I'll meet you down at the pool after I get cleaned up."

"Perfect," I said. As he turned to leave, I said, "Just how good are you with it?"

He smiled. "With you?"

"Yeah."

"About liking guys?"

"Yeah."

"Perfectly fine. What, you don't believe me?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Fine enough to let me touch it once?"

He chuckled. "Damn. You do have a set on you. Awright, get over here. Just this once."

He threw the towel over his shoulder as I walked up to him.

Looking into my eyes, he smiled and said, "Do it."

I reached down and took his cock in my hand. I squeezed lightly and rolled it between my fingers.

I let go and grabbed his balls, caressing them gently.

I moved my hands up to his pubes and ran my fingers through his lightly trimmed bush.

Then I reached one more time for his dick and began stroking.

He moaned for a second, then pulled back. "I said touch it, not give it a hand-job. Gotta draw the line there, Sharpe."

I stuck my tongue out at him and laughed.

"Maybe someday when I'm drunk," he said. "Anyway, you know it would just cause trouble. And we're just gettin' caught up with each other. Don't be complicatin' shit."

"Oh, all right. Go take ya damn shower," I said, pushing him out my door.
 

********

He swam naked. I did too. It was fun. Nobody got sexual, and nobody got hurt. I could tell he actually enjoyed having me appreciate his body.

After we swam, we grabbed several bottles of beer and climbed naked into the hot tub. We talked for a long time. He told me about his college life. He dated a lot, had sex a lot, was currently in a committed relationship, was majoring in business, and had a paid internship in the field here in Dallas this summer. He was staying with his parents for the summer.

I told him about my life in college, even talking a little about owning up to being bi. He congratulated me for my courage.

After a pause, he said, "Okay, we've had a few beers. Wanna tell me about Matt?"

Why the hell not, I thought.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. For starters, that's why I was crying on the bench."

I told him about our senior year in high school. I told him about how scared I was that I'd killed Matt's feelings for me. I told him about Thanksgiving, about Christmas. About the stumbling emails and phone calls. About how we'd been hanging out this summer at Matt's insistence and about how we just weren't connecting. About how I was just waiting for him to decide he was done with me.

He listened quietly. When I ran out of story, he said, "Well, I don't know, Andy, and I haven't been around to see all this..."

He drained the last swallow of beer from his bottle. "But I'll tell you this. Back when I knew y'all...you know how I said I saw love in your eyes when you looked at him? I saw the exact same thing when he looked at you. I don't know if y'all have had enough time together since all this shit happened for that love to just go away, right? You know what I mean?"

I frowned and said, "No, I don't."

"Well, what I mean is that people fall apart from spending too much time with each other. You come to realize there's something about the other person that isn't gonna work for you. But you and Matt never had that experience, right?"

"Fuck, no," I said. "There's nothing about him I don't like. I just...I just hurt him too bad."

"Right," he said. "But think about this: You can only hurt someone too bad when they love you."

He put a hand on my shoulder. "And what kind of time have you had around each other since then to give either of you a reason to think there's something about the other guy that isn't gonna work?"

I didn't know how to answer the question; it was another puzzle to turn over in my head. But I was talked out and felt out on that subject, so we moved on.

A couple of hours later, it was time for Cole to get home. We went up to my room, and I let him have a pair of boxers, some jeans, and a t-shirt to wear.

"I'm glad I ran into you, Sharpe," he said on the way out the door. "You're as cool a guy as you were back in the day."

"You are too, Cole," I said.

He smiled. "We should hang out some this summer, if it's okay with you."

"Okay? I'd fuckin' love it."

"That settles it, then," he said. "I'll call you soon, Little Bro."

"You need a ride?" I asked. "I'll drive you home."

"Nah, you know it's just a couple of blocks down."

He pulled me into a hug, kissed me on the cheek again, and said, "Later." Then he walked out the door.
 

********

Matt and I continued to stumble along. We stumbled right into the July 4 party.

Many of the guests from the first one were also present at the second one. It was good to see so many of my old high school friends. Everyone felt that way, it seemed: Old friendships took up where they'd left off, much to everyone's delight.

I'd also invited a couple of Texas guys from my college soccer team: Kyle and Brad. Both of them brought dates, and all four of them mixed well with our other friends. There wasn't one disparaging word said to Kyle--not one mean-spirited remark behind his back--about having brought a guy for a date.

Cole came with his old girlfriend from high school, though, which raised a few eyebrows.

On the night of the Fourth, Trey called me, as he'd told me he would. He was back home partying with friends and wanted to say hi to me at my party. He'd been regular with calls and emails all summer; it had helped make the summer less painful.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the weekend; everybody but me. I had a chance to be alone with Matt a couple of times, in the condo and on the beach, but it didn't tear down the wall that had come between us. Sometimes it felt as though we'd be getting close, and then one or the other of us would pull back into a shell of reserve. Neither of us knew how to start the talk that we really needed to have. I wasn't sure exactly what that talk was, for one thing. For another, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear his end of the conversation.

The weekend was filled with beach volleyball and football, plenty to eat and drink, lots of late-night conversation, cooking out on the beach, and music. There was even a fireworks display that we all sat and watched. Matt sang and played by the campfire; as usual, he blew everyone away with his music.

But I went to bed sad on the night of the Fourth. My friendship with Matt was hiding somewhere in the brick and mortar of that wall we'd put up between us. I didn't know how I'd ever get it out of there.

As I lay in bed that night, thinking and waiting for sleep to take me, a song came on the radio:

I didn't hear you leave;
I wonder: How am I still here?
And I don't want to move a thing:
It might change my memory.

Oh, I am what I am; I'll do what I want,
But I can't hide,
And I won't go, I won't sleep,
I can't breathe, until you're resting here with me,

And I won't leave,
I can't hide,
I cannot be…
Until you're resting here with me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, let the sobs heave my body, and cried myself to sleep.

********

It was late July, and I had to get away.

I'd made enough money for the next school year, and I didn't need the two more weeks that I'd planned to stay in the Metroplex.

Every empty encounter with Matt was becoming more and more excruciating. I couldn't stand all the "fun" we were having.

The Sunday afternoons shooting hoops, the beers and billiards after work: His presence was oppressing me with absence. Having him in my life that summer only made me lonely for him. Feeling him next to me only made me feel how far away he was. And the stumbling, awkward silences that would come between us and sit beside us were unbearable.

Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I gave my notice, told my parents I was leaving, and began saying my goodbyes. Back at school, the dorms had opened for returning athletes. The new freshman soccer players had already reported, a week earlier than we'd had to last year, and those of us who were returning would be able to move in. I was more than ready.

Somehow this summer had been even worse than the previous one.
 

********

I stopped by his house on the way out of town.

He invited me in, and we talked a while. It was pleasant enough. But all those words said nothing, as they'd said nothing all summer.

After a half hour or so, I stood up and said, "Well, I need to go."

"Okay," he said. He looked into my eyes and said, "We can talk more this coming year than we did last year, I guess. At least we got to do some things together."

I looked into his beautiful eyes and decided that on this last day, I'd say something worth saying instead of more of the same worthless nonsense.

"But it didn't work very well this summer, did it?"

He sighed. "Andy, what do you want me to say?"

I told him, "I just wanted you to own up to it."

"No need to own up; it was pretty obvious."

We said a few barely-comprehended words to each other with our eyes, and then he spoke.

"Look, I don't know about you. But I been telling you…I'm not done. I'm not gonna ask this time, and I'm not gonna wait for you to volunteer. I'm gonna say it right out: Sharpe, I expect you to stay in touch with me this year."

I bristled. "Phone calls go both ways," I said.

"If I let you have that, it'll only go one way," he answered, "and both of us know which way that will be."

I shrugged. "Why do you want it, anyway, Matt? For more of this? More of...of this summer? More time to give you a chance to..."

"To what?" I winced at the anger I heard in his voice and turned away, unable to face the glare he was sending me.

"Nothing," I said quietly.

"We had things to say to each other," he said. "You felt it. Don't fuckin' tell me you didn't."

"But we couldn't say 'em, could we?" I responded icily.

Our eyes met; something savage and desperate danced in the space between us.

I shook my head and began walking to my car. He followed me. "This is not fuckin' over," he snarled.

"I didn't say it was over," I answered. "Whatever 'it' is."

Shifting on a dime, he pleaded, "Let's not do this, okay?"

I closed my eyes. Whatever we had or didn't, I didn't want us to be angry with each other.

"Okay. I'm sorry. You're right."

He crossed his arms. "I'm going to say something, and I don't want you to answer, okay? I just want you to hear it, and I want you to think about it as you drive back to school."

I slapped down the defensiveness that rose up. "What is it?"

"It's this: The ball's in your court, Andy. What happens next is up to you."

I stared at him. I was angry again. And I was hurt. And I was confused.

But I did what he wanted: I kept my mouth shut.

"Bye, Matt," I said. I reached for him, and he held his arms out. We hugged for a long time.

After untold moments, he let go of me. He reached out a hand to shake mine. As our hands met, he said, "Bye, Andy. I expect to hear from you soon."

We'll see, I said to myself as I got in my car and drove away from The Awful Summer.