Michael lay there wondering what morning would bring. That morning, or rather, now it was yesterday morning, he realized, he sure the hell hadn't known he'd be here like this, loving the boy for whom he'd written his first citation. He grinned into the darkness, circling the thinner man's waist with both arms. Sometimes good things
did
come if you waited long enough.
Monday morning Tristan went with two of his friends from school to Diho Bakery, a Taiwanese place close to UCI that made hot, fresh meat buns and sweet bean-curd pastries. He laughed and joked and played like always, but every so often he'd remember the previous Friday night and get caught up in it. His face flushed, and he worried his friends could read the new knowledge there. He'd eaten breakfast with Michael the previous Saturday after spending the night, straddling his lap and feeding him cereal, and being fed fruit in return. They'd shared coffee and then skin, showering and sliding together until the water turned cold. Tristan couldn't take his eyes or his hands off his new lover, and apparently, he couldn't get his mind off him, either.
“Hey, Tris,” said Jonathon for the third time. “Dude, you deaf or what?”
“No, sorry,” said Tristan, mastering his thought processes. It was midterms, and if he didn't get a grip, his test scores would be low and his social life nonexistent for the rest of the quarter. “What?”
“I asked, are you seeing Viper again, or did you find someone new? You're marked, man; it's like you're dating a Hoover.”
“Oh.” He slapped a hand to the side of his neck where it met his shoulder. He knew he should have left his hair down. His mom had noticed too and given him a hard stare that morning before he took the boys to school. “No, not Viper, I met someone.”
“As usual, you work fast. Have you forgotten geeks aren't supposed to get laid? It's like a natural law or something. We're supposed to languish undiscovered in our labs while our jock buddies get all the goodies.”
Daniel spoke up. “Our boy Tristan here is a jock and a geek. Slap a skateboard under any one of us, gentleman, and you'd have—”
“Broken bones,” interrupted Tristan, choosing a cream bun for breakfast and a pork bun for lunch. “I've got to study more, or I'm hosed. How are you doing? I'm working on a paper comparing and contrasting Heisenberg and Schrödinger, and I've got three midterms, including one in German, which I
will
fail unless I give it adequate time.”
“That hardly leaves any time for us to live vicariously through your mad ninja love skills. When are you going to see her again?” asked Jonathon as they walked to Daniel's car. “We can get together for poker afterward and dish.”
“Seriously, dude,” said Tristan. “Did you just say dish?” He got into the back seat with his pastries.
“I've got too many sisters, but you know what I mean; it's the only way I'll even get close to getting laid this year.” Jonathan looked disgusted. “Michelle's at NYU, and I won't see her until her winter break. Poker is good though, right? How about Friday?”
“I'm going out on Friday after I take my sister Lily to a party and make sure it's kosher,” said Tristan. “She's gotten invited to some big Halloween thing by a girl from work, but the kids are college age, and the only way my mom will let her go is if I take her and check it out for a while to make sure it's not going to turn into one big orgy. Afterward, I'm meeting someone at another party.”
Michael
. “Saturday's good, though.”
“How does your mom let
you
out of the house if she has standards?” asked Daniel, nodding toward Tristan's neck.
“I guess she has substantially lowered expectations where I'm concerned. I think she's just relieved I survived the whole high school skateboard thing. She trusts my judgment,” he said, privately thinking,
Not for long
. He would be seeing Michael after the party, meeting him at a dinner hosted by some of Michael's friends, and he worried, not for the first time, whether he'd fit in.
No way
. He sighed. “I don't know about that party after Lily's, though…” He imagined a room full of cops glaring at him.
“Aren't you looking forward to it?” asked Jonathon.
“Hm, what, poker?” Tristan asked. “Sure.”
“Not that. Friday. Your date.”
“Oh, yeah, but it's midterms,” he lied. “I can't help but think if I don't get back to school and start studying, I'll go down in flames…”
“You'll do fine. You always do,” said Daniel around a cream bun. “Let's go.” He started up his Honda Element, and they drove the short distance back to school. He had philosophy at nine, and he couldn't be late. He walked alone to his class, a lecture hall filled with students, only a small percentage of whom were interested in the philosophy class for more than just the fact that it fulfilled a requirement.
Tristan liked philosophy as much as he liked physics and was considering pursuing either a double major or making philosophy his minor. His brain liked to run as much as his body did, the two entities pulling him in two different directions constantly, creating an agitation that was rarely subdued for any length of time. He recognized that it was in the nature of both to be in constant motion. Thinking of Michael, of their evening together, engaged both his mind and his body to such an extent it threatened to shut all other functions down at once. He had a minute or two before class and was standing outside, wondering if he should get a water bottle, when his phone beeped.
It was a text message from Michael.
Hey, Sparky
, it read. The man loved to text.
How R U?
Good
, he texted back.
Still melted
.
My favorite
, Michael wrote. Then,
C U Friday?
Yep, around 10:30?
asked Tristan, making sure.
K TTYL
, he received.
K
, Tristan thumbed and sent. He looked around, aware that the blush that stained his face must look like a beacon on his fair skin. A couple of girls with their hands over their mouths watched him, whispering confidences and giggling at him. He smiled sheepishly, and they fled, giggling some more.
That morning on the drive in to school, Tristan's heart had practically stopped every time he saw a black-and-white, and not for the usual reasons. He was very much afraid that at any moment he'd begin rhapsodizing over the gray blue sky or the crisp autumn air. It was only a matter of time before he'd be dotting the
i's
in his lecture notes with little hearts. It wasn't that he felt particularly authentic doing any of these things; he just couldn't stop himself. He was so disgusted by lunchtime that he ate half of his barbecued pork meat bun before he realized that it was someone else's leek and mushroom.
The sunlight broke through a crack in the clouds, and his face warmed, the light and heat like an old friend after a few overcast days. Even that sent his heart skittering in his chest, reminding him of physical things, like Michael's mouth on his skin, the warmth of the Franklin stove in the bedroom, and the way Michael took him from behind. It was an act of possession that made his body feel like it was no longer his own. He burned to belong to Michael like that again and had to sit there forcing himself, over and over, to return his mind to school where it belonged.
By Wednesday, he'd fought to put enough distance on the physical sensations that he was doing pretty well in school. Michael's frequent and sometimes imaginative text messages threatened to ruin it, though, like when he received the one during his German midterm that read,
R U nekkid?
Or the one that read,
Officer Helmet says spread 'em
, he got while eating dinner at Denny's with his mom and two brothers.
At night Tristan jogged at nearby Craig Regional Park, sometimes joined by his younger brothers, sometimes alone. Only by exhausting himself was Tristan able to find sleep at the end of the day, instead of lying in his bed with his heart racing in his throat and his hand on his cock. When the physical need overwhelmed him, he took long, hot showers, bringing himself to release again and again with Michael's face in his imagination and Michael's name on his lips.
* * *
By Friday, Tristan had all his tests taken and all his homework turned in. He had no classes on Fridays, so his morning was free, although he always took his brothers to school while his mom took his sister, who had earlier classes. On his way, he caught sight of a black-and-white that might have been Michael's, but had no way to find out, short of getting a ticket. When he'd dropped the boys off and returned home, he pressed the costume he planned to wear to Lily's party.
Strictly speaking, one party was a Halloween party, and the other wasn't. Michael's friends were not having a costume party, even though it was that time of year. But it would be much worse to embarrass Lily by showing up dressed as a chaperone than to go to Michael's party dressed as a samurai. Lily was self-conscious about his presence anyway. She was young and out of sorts and was acting emotional a lot of the time, which is why his mother asked him to check the party out, deciding not to do it herself.
“I promised Mom I'd go, Lily,” he told her on the way. “It's better that it's me than Mom walking in there and checking things out, right?”
“You don't understand anything,” snapped Lily right away. “How can I show up with my
brother
, for heaven's sake? That's like tying a pork chop around my neck.”
“Thank you, I love you too,” he said, sighing.
“You know what I mean.” She glared straight ahead.
“Just tell everyone I'm your feudal era bodyguard,” he said, trying to lighten her up. “It could be worse; I could have gone as Barney or something.”
“Shut up,” she said. “And when we get there, I don't know you; you never saw me before in your life.”
“Then how am I going to explain why I'm showing everyone your naked baby pictures?” He pulled into one of the few parking spots still left on the street where the party was located. “I think you should be nice to me. I'm giving up half a date to be here so you could come, and you know I won't be as hard on this thing as Mom would.”
“Yeah”—she had the grace to blush—“I know. I just don't get—”
“When people care about you, they protect you. That's good, right?” he said, thinking of helmet hair and how much he still loathed it.
“Yes, I guess.”
“Well, then, let's get your goth-fairy ass in there and knock them dead, and I promise you, one whiff of drugs and you are so outta there, your head will spin. Are we on the same page?”