26. MAX

Chapter twenty-six

MAX

T he next days melted one into another, and it was a wonderful time. Every morning brought the promise of another day spent at Eddie's house, if only for an hour or two. We would spend the time making love, and then idling in bed afterward, talking, learning about each other again.

We made love a lot , but then afterward, we laughed and talked, and told funny stories, and dragged up memories from our shared past.

If I had wanted to find a connection with a person, then now I found it. Time unfolded between us, in both passion and tenderness, but also in the continuation and exploration of what it meant to be us – the two of us.

Now and then, we confessed things anew: from him, how he had seen me changing once and watched me naked, fully aroused; from me, telling him how I had been jealous of his other friendships when we were young, not even understanding why.

"You had nothing to be jealous of," he said to me, and it wasn't that I needed that confirmation. It was that I wanted him to know that I had always felt something for him. I just hadn't been able to understand what it was.

We were heading into the heart of summer. The weather grew hotter, the kind of heat that shimmered on the asphalt on the roads, like a desert mirage. Temperatures started soaring into the 90s and even breaching the 100 mark now and then. The warm air was suffused with the strong scent of flowers in full bloom. All night, cicadas chirped, and all day, bees buzzed.

In the quiet sanctuary of Eddie's place, we found solace from that glare and heat, cocooned in our own little bubble. But as we lay in his bed, our limbs entangled, gazing at each other with our heads on the pillows, I found myself feeling enraptured by what was happening. There was magic in these moments, but beyond that, I realized that I was just… happy.

With him, I had always been happy, but now there was so much more.

***

Once or twice, we ventured out in the daytime to get something to eat. As we settled into a booth at a nearby diner, the buzz and chatter of a busy restaurant all around us, I realized there was only one menu. It would have been so easy just to ask for another, but instead, I told him to scooch over so we could sit on the same side.

"Aren't you worried someone might see?" he asked as I sat down beside him. I thought perhaps I should be, but I wasn't.

I sat right up against him and pressed the full length of my thigh against his.

"I'm getting hard," I said. I pulled my leg away, but he grabbed it back and held it against his.

"Are you hard now?" he asked.

"Feel under the table."

He started laughing.

"No, I'm not doing that."

"Rock hard," I growled, jokingly. And he just started laughing even harder, so that people started looking at us.

So maybe I should have been worried, but I wasn't. It felt so natural, sitting there with him, like we were a regular couple. But it felt like it was the path we had been on all along. It had just taken us a while to get here.

Maybe that was the most remarkable thing: how natural it all felt, almost inevitable. A sad thing had brought us back together, but that didn't mean that we couldn't be a happy thing, a wonderful new thing.

As we perused the menu, I couldn't resist stealing glances at him. He seemed happy, too, chattering about what he might order, what looked good.

Our hands touched briefly over the table, fingers brushing as we turned the menu to see the drinks. But then we started doing it deliberately. The waitress came over and asked for our order, and I pulled my hand from his.

As we shared our meal, conversation flowed between us, and we talked a little bit about him having to finish up at Megan's house and the schedule for whether he should take an Airbnb apartment here for a while, to get things sorted, to get Jared through this year at school. I felt a little leap of hope that perhaps he would end up staying, at least a little longer, or maybe even…

It was not so much that I wanted him to stay in the city, of course. It was more that I didn't want him to leave me again.

As Eddie and I found ourselves lost in the intimacy of our little booth, I heard a woman's voice, sharp and unexpected.

"What are you two up to?"

I looked up. It was Julianne, Eddie's cousin. As I focused on her face, I saw its suspicion. Her presence injected a sudden, stark tension into the situation. I pulled myself away from him.

"Oh, hey, Julianne," Eddie said, and I did the same time. "We met up for some lunch."

"Why are you sitting like that?" She laughed. "You look like you're on a date."

Oh, damn…

It was me who came up with an answer.

"Only one menu."

She relaxed and then asked if she could join us. She was only waiting on a sandwich order to take away. So she sat down and we engaged in small talk about Jared and the possibility of Julianne throwing a cookout sometime soon. She talked merrily, unselfconsciously, but beneath the surface, I felt such unease, exactly as if we had been caught out.

Had I been talking big about being okay with people seeing us, but as soon as they did, I had churned with terror?

As she eventually got her sandwich and bid us farewell and disappeared out the diner door, Eddie and I sat in awkward silence for a few moments.

"Do you think we were just outed?" I asked.

"No," he said with unconvincing certainty.

***

We took refuge in our desire. I paid the check quickly and said we should go. We hurried home; my mind was consumed with thoughts of what had happened, but I was sure that if I was in a bed with him, I could settle any anxieties I had.

We knew how long we had together before Jared would be home from school. Now counting out those minutes seemed very important because we didn't have to think about Julianne seeing us.

The closer we got to our destination, the more my fears were replaced with a physical yearning for him. Once inside the house, we wasted no time and made no small talk or promises that things would be okay, shedding our clothes all over the living room and the staircase up to his room.

Falling naked onto his bed, I couldn't tear my gaze away from Eddie, the slim, smooth, pale beauty of his form. With each touch, each caress, each kiss, I felt myself unraveling, giving myself up to wanting him.

We made love fast and hard, and when I ejaculated inside him. I let out a loud roar so explosively that when I fell against his body, I was totally out of breath, and I was gasping for air.

We lay in bed for a while in silence.

"Are you worried?" he asked.

I knew exactly what he meant, but I still asked, "About what?"

"About Julianne."

"No," I lied. I shouldn't have lied. The only time I had ever deceived Eddie before was when I had pretended not to see him with my underwear all those years ago, and even that wasn't a straight-up lie . "Are you?" I asked.

"Julianne has a big mouth, but I am not afraid."

I thought about his use of that word.

"Why not?"

"Because if people find out, I won't be ashamed."

He paused. Maybe he was expecting me to say the same, but I did not. Then, after thirty seconds, he sat up.

"Jeez, what time is it?"

Neither of us had our phones, which lay in discarded jeans and shorts downstairs, messages bleeping unread and unanswered. But I had always been able to guess the time, and I always had a sense of it.

"About 3:30, I'd say."

He leaped naked out of bed.

"God! Jared will be home soon."

A weird, laughing panic surged through us as we dashed around the house in a frenzy of grabbing clothes, pulling on pants, and looking for discarded shoes. The wrong socks were put on, shirts were inside out, and we giggled as we did it. The mood lifted again.

Eddie raced back upstairs to make his bed. I hurriedly straightened things up downstairs, putting a jacket on a chair, finding the one shoe Eddie could not locate.

The sound of his footsteps above my head thundered through the house as he moved with lightning speed, and then he reappeared in time for the sound of a key turning in the front door's lock.

Jared entered the house and saw me at once. His face lit up with delight.

"Max! What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Jared. Just thought I'd drop by and say hi," I replied.

Eddie tensed a little.

"And we went for lunch." He looked at me. "We bumped into Julianne, remember?"

I realized that he was covering tracks in case she said anything.

"Oh, yeah, we bumped into Julianne at the diner."

Eddie changed the subject.

"How was school?"

Jared walked out into the kitchen, telling us about something that had happened. He rummaged through the fridge in the kitchen as Eddie followed him, nodding but not totally listening.

Only at the last minute did I realize that Eddie's T-shirt was on inside out. I grabbed the label so that he would realize, and with Jared's back to us, he quickly pulled the shirt off and put it on the right way round.

Jared turned around and peered at us from the fridge door.

"Is Max staying for dinner?"

Eddie looked at me.

"If you want…" he said.

I grinned.

"I'm definitely up for it."

Jared asked if it was my motorcycle parked outside, and I said yes.

"I haven't seen that one before."

"Yeah," I said. "I've had it a while. I am doing it up to sell."

Excitedly, he said he wanted a closer look. With a chicken drumstick from the fridge hanging from his mouth, he sauntered out to the front of the house. Eddie and I were left standing in the kitchen, and I quickly pecked him on the lips as I made to leave. He smiled beautifully.

As I stepped outside, Jared was already by the motorcycle, inspecting it.

"What do you think?" I asked.

Jared looked up, his eyes wide.

"It's awesome, Max! Can I sit on it?"

He clambered on it, putting his feet on the pedals and his hands on the handlebars, as if he could just rev it and speed away. We talked a bit about the spec of the bike and what I still had left to do on it, who might buy it.

Finally, he got off, and we stood on either side of the bike, not quite looking at each other. Jared's eyes then met mine, and I saw the glimmer of vulnerability in them.

"Sometimes, I used to wish I had a dad like other kids," he admitted. "Now I guess I've got one."

"And you've always got me, right?"

The sun was still quite bright. Jared closed one eye to look at me.

"But Eddie and I might move to New York." Then, he brightened. "You could come with us."

I laughed.

"What?"

"You could come with us."

I shook my head.

"I live here, buddy. I have to make a living fixing bikes."

He chuckled.

"Do they not have motorbikes in New York?"

I realized then that he was mostly kidding. He didn't expect me to follow them to New York if that's where they were going to go.