“Gay,” Rafe supplies easily.
I nod and Rafe’s smile turns wry.
“Colin,” he says, shaking his head, “YA is a queer youth group.”
“Uh, what?”
“Did I not mention that? Huh. I guess I forgot.”
“Queer? Like…
all
of them?”
Rafe nods.
“Wait, seriously?”
“Seriously,” Rafe says calmly.
My heart starts to pound. “Wait, wait, so do they think
I’m
—” My breath starts coming faster than it should, and I note, absently, that I haven’t had any problems with my breathing all day.
Rafe puts his hand on my forearm. I jerk my arm away and look around to make sure no one saw. He sighs and leans back.
“No,” Rafe says. “We have straight volunteers. They don’t know anything. I promised you I wouldn’t expose you like that and I meant it. I wouldn’t expose you by implication either. I swear.” He’s careful not to touch me, but he’s looking at me intently, like he can will me to trust him.
“So, then, why didn’t you tell me it was a… queer”—the word sounds wrong in my mouth, like it should be an insult but it isn’t—“group? And drop that bullshit about forgetting. You seem like you never forget anything.”
“Fine. I didn’t mention it because I wanted you to go into it with an open mind. Not only for yourself, but for the kids. A lot of people bring a shitload of stereotypes to working with queer youth. I’ll bet you know exactly the stereotypes I’m talking about, because I think you might have them for yourself.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
“If you want to change your mind now that you know, I suppose that’s your prerogative.”
Wow, way to totally put me in a tight spot, dude.
Now I’ll look like a complete asshole if I don’t come back. But if someone found out about it, they’d ask all kinds of questions—questions about me. Then I think about how DeShawn shook my hand, so polite and grateful; how Ricky seemed mesmerized by the insides of the car just like I am; how kid-in-black seems to love
Harry Potter
…. He kind of reminded me of Daniel, relating real shit to books.
“No, I—I’m not changing my mind. Next Saturday?”
Relaxed Rafe is back.
“Yes, absolutely,” he says, smiling at me. “If it’s going to be a regular thing, I’ll look at our schedule and see if we want to keep it at this time or if another time is better. Do you have a preference?”
“Well, ordinarily I work Saturday mornings until two. If it was in the afternoon, I guess I could still go to work and—” I break off. It was nice this morning to wake up and know that I had something to do but have it
not
be going to work. “You know what, actually, the morning is great.”
“Hey,” Rafe says suddenly, “did you say you run?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. We should go running some time.”
“Sure, man, that sounds good.”
Rafe nods. “Thanks, Colin. For today.” His voice is warm and when we shake, his hand swallows mine up, embraces it. He holds on a second longer than most guys would, and looks right in my eyes. “I’ll see you soon,” he says. And it sounds like a promise.
ON A
good day, running is when I feel most… normal. The tension slowly drains out of me and after a few miles I’m relaxed, floating, like the buzz off a few beers. I’m weightless, suspended between each step as if I might never land, muscles, joints, blood, breath all working together like the parts of a perfectly functioning vehicle.
“How far do you like to go?” Rafe asks.
“I don’t really keep track. You?”
“About five miles, usually. But I’ll follow your lead, okay?”
I set a steady pace to get warmed up and Rafe follows me, speeding up when I do. After about ten blocks, we settle in, him on my left. His strides are longer than mine since he’s so freaking tall, but I’m faster. He’s steady, each footfall in perfect rhythm, almost like he’s running in place, whereas I know I speed up and slow down a little as the rhythm of my music changes. Since I never ran track, I never bothered with things like keeping a consistent pace or paying attention to how far or how fast I ran. Mostly I just run until I’m tired. Or, depending on the day, until I’m so exhausted that I can’t run anymore.
Today I’m taking it easy, though, because when Rafe texted to invite me to go running, I’d already gone.
It’s kind of nice to have him by my side. Every now and then, I’ll drop the slightest bit back and get a glimpse of lean calves and thickly muscled thighs, of his broad back, sweat turning his white T-shirt translucent along his spine and in the small of his back.
When my thighs start to burn and my knees begin to complain about two runs in one day with a bunch of kneeling on cement in between, I slow to a jog, looking to Rafe, who gives me a thumbs-up.
I jog us back to my house, and Rafe sinks onto the porch steps, breathing heavily.
“You’re fast,” he says, quirking that broken eyebrow at me. His thick hair is bunched into a kind of knot or something, like a ponytail that he folded in half. It should look girly—like a bun or something—but it’s just the opposite. He looks like a warrior, hair tied back for battle. When he reclines on the porch, his arms and neck shiny with sweat, his legs splayed, and closes his eyes, it takes every ounce of concentration I have left not to mold myself to him and taste the salt in the dip of his neck.
He opens his eyes suddenly and I tear mine away so he won’t see me staring, but when I look back, his gaze is steady and he’s smiling a little.
“What are you up to now?” he asks.
“Nothing. Gotta feed the cat.”
“Can I say hi?”
“To the cat?”
“Mmhmm,” he drawls.
“Sure.” The second I unlock the door, Shelby’s right there, attacking Rafe’s shoelaces and making little yipping sounds as the loops flop back and forth. When Rafe squats down to pet her, I can’t look away from the straight groove of his spine and the way his shorts ride up high on his powerful thighs, dark hair dusting golden skin and tight muscle.
“You want to watch a movie or something?” he asks as he entices Shelby to jump for his wiggling fingers.
I clear my throat. “Um, sure. Let me just shower. You can too, if you want,” I say, trying to remember to be polite, which I’m not used to. Sam and Brian just make themselves at home, and Xavier and I have known each other too long to bother with that shit.
“With you?”
“What?”
“You offering to let me shower with you?”
“Holy shit,” I say, “did you finally make a joke?” But Rafe just raises an eyebrow.
After my shower I tidy my already tidy house to keep myself from picturing Rafe naked in my bathroom. But I can’t stop thinking about what he said. About showering with me. Because Rafe doesn’t actually seem to ever be joking. Sometimes he says things lightly, but…. So, then, what would he have done if I said yes? Does that mean he wants to…?
I’m standing in the middle of my floor, so paralyzed by the implications of this that I guess I didn’t even hear the shower turn off. Rafe’s suddenly right next to me and the sight of him makes my stomach tighten. Wet, his hair is nearly black, waving wildly around his face, cheekbones flushed from the run and the hot water. His gray T-shirt is threadbare and molded to his muscular chest and stomach in damp spots. His jeans are the ones he was wearing on Saturday at the workshop, and his feet are bare. He’s so intensely, unavoidably
here
.
“You don’t have any shampoo,” he says, cocking his head confusedly. It makes him look kind of sweet.
“I don’t have any hair.”
He reaches up, ghosts a palm over my nearly dry hair.
“It’s growing out a little,” he says.
“Yeah, I need to cut it.”
We get hoagies from down the street and settle on the couch. Rafe’s so big that any way I sit, I’m closer to him than I’m used to with Brian or Sam or X.
“What do you want to watch?” I ask, flipping through the On Demand channels.
“Oh,
Runaway Jury
,” he says. “I liked that movie.” I shrug. “There’s a big trial about this tobacco company that’s hiding really shady business practices and John Cusack and Rachel… something—that pretty British lady—are trying to trick them into admitting it.”
“Um….” That sounds like the most boring movie ever.
“Or
The Bourne Ultimatum
. Did you see the other ones?”
“Is that the dude who’s really good at reading maps or something?” So. Boring. Rafe must hear it in my voice because he leans back and says, “Why don’t you pick.”
“Ooh,
Cube
. It’s awesome. All these people wake up locked inside a cube that tries to kill them in different ways….” I trail off, realizing how stupid it sounds when I describe it. Rafe looks uncertain. “Or, how about
Cabin in the Woods
? Did you see it? It’s like a horror movie about horror movies—well, I don’t want to give anything away.”
Rafe’s mouth is open, like he’s not sure what to say.
“Horror movies…,” he says slowly. “Not really my thing. Do you like fantasy? Or… action?”
“Sometimes?”
“Here,
Gladiator
. Have you seen that?”
“No. But, uh, I kind of wanted to.”
This is not true, but I’d rather watch almost anything than have an endless negotiation about it.
The movie’s… long. I kind of dig it, I guess. I really like the music, and the scenes of them actually gladiating—is that a word?—are pretty awesome. Russell Crowe is badass. But all the, like, royal intrigue and plotting is dull. Rafe seems to like that stuff, though. The scheming, talky parts. In all the slow parts, I’m mostly aware of Rafe. Leaning forward at things that catch his attention. Leaning back and relaxing into the couch. Sometimes he’ll look over at me, almost like he’s checking to make sure I’m still there. I don’t know if it’s because it’s loose or because of the no-shampoo thing, but his hair has dried wavier than usual and I have the strangest urge to touch it, to push it back from his forehead and neck.
I’ve been so relaxed all evening, but then Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, is stabbed by a coward. And even though he keeps fighting, there’s nothing he can do. I know he’s going to die, and for some reason, I hate it. Yeah, okay, Maximus was a warrior, but war is different—people
know
they might die and they do it anyway, and these warriors seem to welcome a death in battle. But Maximus didn’t want to hurt anyone in the arena. He just wanted to be left alone on his farm with his wife and kid, but they made him hurt people and then killed him because he was a threat that they created. I hate it and my stupid fucking breathing thing starts. I hadn’t even noticed it was gone until this second. I sit up very straight, trying to breathe deeply and evenly, but once I’m aware of it, it’s too late. It’s all I can think about.
The movie ends and even though they make it look happy—like Maximus is getting what he wants and being reunited with his family—everyone knows that’s bullshit. The dead are just dead and you never see them again. Hell, at least people remember Maximus. I’ve never done anything more memorable than fixing someone’s damn transmission. If I died tomorrow, no one would remember me and no one would care except Pop, Brian, and Sam.
Rafe’s not like that. I bet if he died tomorrow, tons of people would remember him. I mean, all those kids at the Youth Alliance would definitely care. They all seemed crazy about him.
The music in the closing credits is incredibly fucking depressing.
“Hey.” A tentative hand on the back of my neck startles me and I pull away. “What brought that on?”
“Brought what on?” I breathe as quietly as I can, taking shallow sips of air.
“That change in your breathing?”
“Dude,” I say, trying to play it off, “are you listening to me breathe? Sounds like you’re the one with the problem.”
“Mmhmm,” he says, like he’s humoring me.
No one’s ever noticed it before. Okay, so usually it happens when I’m alone, when I have time to think. But it’s definitely happened while I was watching TV with Sam, Brian, and Pop, and none of them ever noticed a thing.
“Um, it’s getting a little late,” I say. As if I’ll be able to sleep anyway. “And I have to work in the morning, so.”
I go to open the door, but before I can, he steps right up next to me, and then that warm hand is back on my neck and he’s so close I can smell my soap, and
damn
, why does it smell so much better on him?
He leans toward me, and for one panicky second I think… I don’t know what I think. I can feel his breath on my face and see the thick spread of his eyelashes.
“You don’t have to talk to me,” he says, voice low and calm. “But don’t think for one second that I buy your bullshit.” One side of his mouth tenses in what I’m learning is his version of a knowing smile. “And don’t think I don’t know exactly what’s going on here.”
He leans a fraction of an inch closer and strokes my throat with his thumb. I hear my gasp before I’m aware it’s happening.
“Good night, Colin. I’ll see you on Saturday.” He opens the door, then turns back to me. “Sweet dreams.”
“GOD FUCKING
—mmmf.” I cradle my right hand, looking around for a cloth and finding none. I dart into the office for some paper towel before I bleed all over the concrete.
“Colin!” Sam’s followed me into the office. “Are you okay?”
It’s not so deep that I need stitches, I don’t think, but it’s bleeding pretty good. It’s the third time in two days that I’ve hurt myself because I wasn’t paying attention. The third time since Rafe left my house the other night after his mysterious pronouncement and goddamned perfect face.
“Jesus, what’s got you so distracted, bro?” Sam asks, his brow furrowed. “You’ve been wandering around like a fucking space cadet all day.”
“Nothing, man. Just an accident.”
“Are you sure? Is it okay? Do you need me to get Pop?” He looks down at my hand. God knows Pop’s bandaged up enough of us over the years to know when it’s bad.
“Nah, I’m fine. I’m almost done anyway.”