“I wasn’t in prison,” I mutter, looking away.
The anger is gone from Rafe’s voice; now he just sounds sad.
“You were as much in prison as anyone I knew there, Colin. Only you created it for yourself. Your father paced out the cell and your brothers fit the bars and you turned the key in the lock and buried it somewhere only you know. And you stared at Daniel through the bars and cursed him for being able to walk out the door. But he’s not the one who did something wrong. All he did was save himself. And you can too. But you have to find that key and unlock the door.”
I’m shaking my head compulsively. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
“I made my own choices,” I say. “No one forced me to do anything.”
“Things could be different now,” Rafe says urgently. “Maybe getting shit square with Daniel is the first step. Something
has
to be different when you go back to work with your brothers, or what’s to stop everything from being exactly the same?”
I turn and look at him, eyes narrowed.
“And, then, what about us?” he says. He’s going too fast. I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore. “Where do we go from here if everything’s exactly the same? If you’re still not able to feel like yourself? If we’re hiding in your house all the time, not even able to go to a restaurant together? Does that feel good to you?”
“I don’t—what are you saying?”
Rafe catches my hands and pulls me down on the bed next to him. He kisses me fiercely on the mouth, pulling me toward him and wrapping me in his arms. He keeps kissing me; then he pulls away and regards me seriously, as if he’s made his point.
“I just…. It feels different here or something,” I mutter, wishing he’d just kiss me again and stop me from saying stupid shit.
“Yeah, because we’re far enough away from real life that it feels like there are no consequences.” His hands keep moving on me, rubbing my back, running over my shoulders. “But what if it could feel like this all the time? What if there
were
no consequences to being with me?” He sounds so hopeful. Like that’s actually possible. “What if… what if we could just… care about each other all the time and that was okay?”
His expression is still warm, but there’s an urgency to what he’s saying and his grip has tightened just a little.
“You… you want that,” I say, still trying to figure out what exactly we’re really discussing. Rafe pulls me closer.
“I already feel that, Colin. I already care about you all the time.”
“Why?” I spit out. I didn’t mean to say it, but it’s what I’ve wondered every time we were together. How someone as amazing as Rafe could ever want me.
Rafe narrows his eyes, puzzled.
“I don’t….” I look out the window, but Rafe guides my gaze back to his with a hand on my cheek. “I don’t understand why you care. I… I believe that you do. I feel it, but….” I shake my head, frustrated. “But I don’t get how you can. About me. When you’re… when you’re so much more…. When I….”
I think about Daniel and how I couldn’t protect him. About the women I’ve fucked over because I didn’t care. Because I was too scared to admit why I didn’t want anything to do with them. About how I abandoned Pop in the last few months. How I can’t even take Rafe out to dinner like he wants.
“I’m not a good person,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
Rafe pushes me backward and kisses me hard.
“I see you,” he says fiercely, cupping my face. “All the shit, that’s…. I understand why you needed it, you know?”
I shake my head. I really don’t.
Rafe rolls us so we’re lying on our sides, facing each other. He throws a leg over my hip, anchoring me to the bed, and rests a hand on the back of my neck.
“In prison, people build themselves up. They construct a… a version of themselves that they think is most likely to get them out of the situation with as little damage as possible. It’s not a lie, exactly, but they emphasize some traits, cover some up. They say certain things but keep others private. And it’s armor, just like doing push-ups and lifting weights to build up their bodies. And you just… I don’t know, if you pay attention, you learn to translate it. You see which parts are armor and which parts are weapons.”
He strokes his thumb against my neck. Our faces are so close I can feel his breath warm on my cheek, see the jagged scar that breaks his eyebrow and the frown lines on his forehead.
“Armor,” he goes on. “Armor’s not dangerous. That’s for survival. It’s weapons you have to watch out for. And you—” He strokes my lips with his thumb. “It’s mostly armor, Colin. And when you’re with me, the armor falls away. Who you are without it… it’s beautiful.”
DANIEL LOOKS
different. He was always kind of skinny, with a pointy chin and prominent wrist bones. But he looks healthier. Like he’s filled out, put on a little muscle, maybe. His clothes fit well, and his usually messy hair isn’t quite so all over the place, and longer than I’ve seen it. He’s wearing black jeans and a thin red sweater under his leather jacket. With his green eyes, it looks strangely Christmassy.
He gives me a nervous smile and shoves his fists in his pockets, ducking his head a little so his hair falls in his face.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
I open the door wider and he shuffles in, the toe of his boot catching on the doorjamb.
“Oof, sorry,” he mutters as he knocks into me. He takes a look around and gapes at me. “Um, whoa. Should I take my shoes off?”
“Sure.”
“Nice in here. Clean.” He yanks off his boots.
“Yeah, well.”
“Uh… so… how are you?” he says, shifting from one foot to the other just inside the door. His socks don’t match.
“Yeah, okay. You?”
He nods, smiling a little. “I’m good.”
We sit at opposite ends of the couch, Daniel scrunched into the corner and leaning against the arm like he wants to get as far away from me as possible. He plays with my couch cushion and looks everywhere but at me, like he’s hoping I’ll start talking. But he’s the one who wanted to come see me, so I’ll be damned if I’m going to figure it out.
“So, uh—I… um…,” he fumbles. His cheeks start to flush, and he gets that familiar pissy look. For the first time, though, I can see that he’s pissed at himself, for not finding the right words. Embarrassed, not scornful. And it makes me think of what Rafe said about armor. How Daniel kind of doesn’t have any. He thinks he does—hell, maybe strangers even think he does—but with me, with Brian and Sam, with Pop, he’s naked. He’s naked and vulnerable and so, so easy to hurt.
And I guess when it came down to hurting Daniel or hurting myself, I hurt Daniel every time.
“Um…,” he starts again, looking around wildly like someone might appear to bail him out.
Then, like she read his mind, Shelby comes sauntering into the living room, all mussed from sleep.
“You have a cat? Come here, kitty,” he coos. Shelby looks at him and sniffs delicately, then jumps up onto the back of the couch and butts her head against his fingers.
“Aw, you’re so cute.” He scratches between her ears, and she rubs her face all over him. Then she jumps into his lap and plops down there, letting him pet her.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I say.
“What?”
Daniel cups his hand around Shelby—around
my
cat—like he can protect her from me.
“My own cat hates me and loves you. That’s perfect.”
I push off the couch and go to the kitchen, putting water on to boil and grabbing Rafe’s tea from the cabinet out of habit.
Daniel leans in the doorway, arms crossed, frowning.
“Do you want some fucking tea?”
“Okay.”
I stare at the kettle as it boils. When I turn back to Daniel, he’s got his scared face on again and this time I can’t help it.
“Look, I’m not gonna hit you or anything, okay?”
“Uh, I didn’t think you were.”
“Well, then why are you fucking cringing over there like I’m about to beat the crap out of you?”
“I’m not cringing. I’m leaning. And it’s not like you
haven’t
beaten the crap out of me before.”
“Well. I mean. Okay, but we were kids. We were just messing around.”
Daniel narrows his eyes at me. I hand him a cup of tea and sit at the kitchen table. He hesitates, then sits across from me.
“Are you serious right now?” He sounds genuinely puzzled.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sitting here, drinking tea, and telling me that the times you beat the shit out of me—when I was, like, thirteen and weighed a hundred pounds, and you were nineteen and the size you are now—we were just kids messing around. That’s really what you’re going with?”
Daniel’s eyes are wide and there doesn’t seem to be a good answer to that.
“Okay, well what about when you found me and Buddy McKenzie in the alley outside the shop? That wasn’t just messing around.” He wraps his arms around himself like he’s giving himself a hug. At Buddy’s name, my ears start to buzz and I go clammy with sweat.
“That’s—that wasn’t—he—I was… just looking out for you.”
“Dude. No way.” He’s gaping at me, clutching his tea.
“Look, that was a long time ago, so, um….”
Daniel shakes his head like he can’t even think of what to say. Then he gets up and starts pacing.
“So, why does your cat hate you?” he finally says as Shelby wanders over to her food dish.
I shrug, and Daniel rolls his eyes and crouches down to pet Shelby.
“I… forgot to feed her one day,” I say finally.
Daniel looks up. “Why?”
“I was drunk. It was after Pop died.”
He nods, curling Shelby’s tail around his hand.
“She already didn’t like me very much, though,” I admit. “She loves Rafe. And you, apparently.”
Daniel’s chin jerks up and he comes back to the table. “Rafe. That’s the guy at Dad’s funeral?”
I nod, but I can already feel my throat tightening and more sweat slicks my spine. I hadn’t meant to bring Rafe up at all.
“And he’s the one I talked to. On the phone?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“And he’s… and you’re… together.”
I nod and start cleaning up the tea.
“I, um, I didn’t know you were such a neat freak,” Daniel says. I wheel around and glare at him. He holds his hands up. “Clean, I mean. That you were so clean.”
“Look,” I say, leaning back against the counter I just cleaned. It’s exhausting, tiptoeing around each other like this. “What do you want? I mean—” I correct myself when Daniel bristles. “—what are we doing here? Because this sucks.”
And there it is again: that hurt look. But then he shakes it off and squares his shoulders.
“What do I want. Okay. Well, I want to know why you treated me like shit for my entire life for being gay when you’re gay too. That’s what I want.”
My grip on the counter turns slippery. It feels like it’s a thousand degrees in here.
“I didn’t—” I start to say, and Daniel’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair. We’re like dogs with their backs up, circling each other, growling at every word. Daniel sighs and he forces himself to relax.
“Look, let me start again.” He eases a small piece of paper out of his pocket and smooths it out on his knee, hiding it under the table and glancing around the kitchen like he’s not looking at it. He clears his throat nervously, then tries to sound totally natural.
“So, you’re gay right? Or, you know, into dudes? Just to clarify….”
“Are you reading that off a piece of paper?”
“What? Oh, well… um, so, you are, right? Rafe?”
“Yeah, okay, yes, Rafe.” I grab the all-purpose cleaner and start wiping off the table. I pick up Daniel’s tea and move to wash it.
“I wasn’t actually done with that.”
I slam it back down on the table in front of him and tea sloshes over the sides. I grit my teeth and wipe it up.
“Dude,” Daniel says, shaking his head. He glances down at his knees. “Um, so, how long have you known you were interested in men?”
“Daniel, seriously. Are you reading that off a piece of paper?”
“Uh….” He laughs nervously. Then he starts laughing harder, cracking up at something. He spills the tea and jumps up before it can drip onto his lap. “Shit, sorry.”
I shake my head and wipe up the tea. Then I clean the table again. And still, Daniel’s laughing at me.
“Fucking what!?” I snap.
He laughs until he wheezes, hands on his thighs, then holds the paper out to me, incoherent with laughter. It’s crinkled and a little damp, so the ink has bled in places.
“What is this?”
“I… stayed up all night… making a list…,” he blurts out through his laughter, “of questions and… topics of conversation.” He snorts. He used to do this as a really little kid: laugh until he started snorting. Not as cute as an adult.
“Uh, why?”
“Ginger said I should write them down so I didn’t forget,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “Oh god. Sorry. Okay. I’m fine. Shit. You may as well just read it now, I guess.” He shakes his head. “Hey, listen, do you have any food? I’m starving.”
I gesture toward the fridge where Rafe put some groceries earlier while I was cleaning. “I’m not sure what’s in there. Can you cook?”
Daniel starts giggling again. “No, not really. Rex has been trying to teach me, but… I’m kind of hopeless.”
I read the paper while Daniel digs through my refrigerator.
1. Double-check he’s actually into dudes. And since when? Dated other guys? Women?
2. If so, why so freaked about me? (Self-hatred? Hates me? Closet/Fear? Dad? Just a homophobic asshole? AOTA?)
3. You made my life miserable. Why always so cruel?
4. We were kind of close once, right? What happened?
I swallow hard at the last two.
“What does ‘AOTA’ mean?”
“Huh?” Daniel says, pulling something out of the fridge. “Oh. All of the above.”
I lean against the counter, and Daniel puts out an apple and some cheese.
“Can I eat this?”
I nod, frowning.
“Um,” he says, sounding nervous again, “so… you can just go in order if you want….”
He gets out a plate and a knife and proceeds to cut the apple and the cheese into perfectly uniform slices and pile the slices on the plate, which he offers to me, looking pleased with himself for a second. But I definitely can’t eat anything.
Why always so cruel?