Chapter 7

7

Luke

I'm so wired, I can't sit still. The diner is fucking empty, the stocking is done, and everything is clean. My phone is resting on the counter, silently, and I am going out of my goddamned mind. Grabbing a rag, I spray down the counters just as Reggie comes out of the kitchen.

"Kid, that ain't going to get any cleaner. What is wrong with you tonight?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"You're bouncing off of the walls. I'd suspect drugs, except you're always a little bit," he waggles his fingers and pulls a face, clearly meant to indicate insanity. I toss the wet rag at his face.

"You're a dick."

"And you need to calm down. What's got you all worked up?"

"Nothing. Well, actually, no, it's not nothing . Dating stuff." I point a finger at him. "Shit I'm not going to talk to you about, in short."

"Whatever, kiddo. This about that boy you get all glassy-eyed about," he points toward the empty booth where Max sits, "every time he comes in?"

I stare at him. Reggie, for all his qualities that I like, has never given the impression of being particularly emotionally tuned. I scowl. "I don't get glassy-eyed, what the fuck does that mean?"

"Mm," he hums, leaning over to grab a glass from under the counter and walking over to fill it with soda. "You look at that kid like you're starving and he's your last meal."

"All right, I think that's quite enough from you, thank you."

"No need to be embarrassed, it's all right to have a crush."

"Jesus Christ," I mutter, tapping the screen of my phone to make sure I haven't missed any texts. Fuck it. "I was hoping he'd come tonight," I admit. Reggie nods, smirking. I'd already brewed a pot of decaf coffee, which now makes me feel like an idiot.

"I'm going to go clean the bathrooms," I say, because even that is better than standing around here doing nothing.

"I'd hold off on that, for now."

"Why?" I ask, but he only raises his glass in a silent salute and brushes past me to the kitchen. "Reggie, what the fuck?—."

The bell over the front door chimes and I look over. Max—lovely, tousle-haired, sleepy-eyed Max—walks in, and I swear to god I almost cry in relief. I smile at him as I walk around the end of the counter.

"Holy shit, thank god," I say, reaching out and pulling his face to me with my hands on his cheeks. He huffs a startled breath against my lips as I kiss him, and puts a hand on my waist. Leaning back, I move my hands from his face to his shoulders. "Hello, you."

"Hi. Hello," he responds, and I laugh.

"Hi, hello," I mimic, and he rolls his eyes. Turning around, I raise my voice and call to the kitchen: "I'm taking my break."

"Yeah, we know," Wendy shouts back. Interfering bastards.

"Let's go outside," I tell Max. "I need to get out of here for a bit, I've been going stir crazy. Unless you need something? I made your coffee."

I point toward the machine and his gaze follows my finger. He shakes his head, so I grab his hand and tug him gently toward the door. Once we're outside, I breathe a sigh of relief. The evening is cold and I don't have a jacket on, but Max is here and I'm just so relieved I can't bring myself to care about anything else. The words I want to say are crowding my throat, and my pulse is racing.

"Did you get my text? I texted you. I also went to your apartment this morning, but I don't know your schedule and nobody answered the door. I've sort of been freaking the fuck out all day, because I feel like I might have messed up. Like, what if you were having a heart attack and I just dropped you off at home and left you there? " I run a hand through my hair, still holding onto Max's hand. He looks alarmed. "And I know you weren't—having a heart attack, that is—but the fact remains that I was a dick for leaving and I'm sorry about that. And I'm also sorry if I freaked you out, because I'm pretty sure you had a panic attack, and so I'm sorry if I scared you."

My lungs burn and I take a moment to breathe a couple deep inhales of cold, night air. Max is gripping me so tightly he's squishing the bones of my hand together. His golden eyes skitter away from mine, down to the pavement.

"I did get your text," he says, voice low, "but you don't have anything to be sorry about. I, uhm…actually, I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry."

"What? Why?"

"I puked on your bed, Luke."

"People get sick. It happens," I shrug. "I have a washing machine; it wasn't a big deal."

"Uhm, right, no I get that, but…I'm sorry about the crying and the breathing thing, too. I just feel like I made a really bad impression and that I ruined something good between us, and I wanted to apologize because I feel terrible. I'm sorry for crying," he repeats, as though this is an unforgivable offense.

"Hey, stop it," I shake his hand, flummoxed. I don't even know where to start with everything he just said. "Crying is fine, puking is fine, all of it is fine. I cry all the time; put on a sports movie and I'll be a mess by the end."

He smiles at me, but it's weak. "You're being nice. We were having sex, Luke, not watching a movie. You should have run for the fucking door."

"No," I reply slowly, frowning, "I shouldn't have."

He gives a single solid shake of his head, like a dog trying to dislodge water from its ears. "Well…thank you. For, well, you know."

"You're welcome. Do you have panic attacks a lot?"

"Uhm, no. That was the first time, actually. Honestly, I didn't even realize that's what it was until you said it." He frowns, looking down at our linked hands. "Christ. I'm sorry for messing up your night."

"Stop saying sorry or you're going to piss me off. You didn't offend my delicate sensibilities. I'm fine; we're fine. You didn't ruin anything. Fuck, Max, have you been worried about this all day? You thought I'd be mad, or something?"

"Disgusted, I guess."

I raise my eyebrows at him, incredulously. Disgusted with him? Not on my fucking life. "Absolutely not. But Max…I feel like maybe I did something to freak you out, and I don't like… Listen, I don't want to be that guy, that's all I'm saying. So, if I did something wrong, can you please just tell me? So that next time I won't make the same mistake?"

"Next time," he repeats under his breath. I shake his hand again, bringing his gaze to mine.

"Tell me."

He's having a hard time maintaining eye contact, and he's rolling his bottom lip between his teeth in an outward expression of nerves. I'm more certain than ever that it was something I did to scare him. It feels worse than being punched in the face.

"Maybe," he starts, and here his confidence fails him and his eyes trail off until he's staring over my head, "don't hold me down. Like, my arms."

"Jesus, I'm sorry," I start, but he waves a hand and cuts me off.

"It's not a big deal. I just don't like it, that's all. I shouldn't have had such an over-the-top reaction; that's on me, not you."

Worry curls up in my chest, and I bite my lip. I want to push the subject—try and get him to tell me all the things he's not saying. But I don't, because what right do I have to that information? Two dates and a hook-up doesn't constitute a relationship. I have to do the best I can with what I have.

"You should come inside. Drink your coffee and read your book," I tell him, tugging on his hand and stepping toward the door. It's cold as fuck out here.

"I need to get home, actually. I need to try and get some sleep," he laughs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "I had an, uhm, interesting talk with my coach today and I'm pretty wiped."

"No, of course. You should sleep," I say automatically.

Letting go of his hand, I replace the hand on the back of his neck with my own, pulling him toward me and into a hug. He comes easily, wrapping both arms around my waist and burying his face into my shoulder. I copy the movement, closing my eyes and enjoying his warmth.

"Luke! You're not even listening to me," Margot says, and I look up just quickly enough to catch the shoe she throws at me.

"Tsk tsk, violence is never the answer," I admonish her, tossing the shoe onto the carpet of her bedroom.

"You're supposed to be helping me."

"Yes, well, I've already given you my opinion; what more do you want?"

"You've said every single outfit looks good. That's not helpful," she throws her hands up in exasperation and goes back to digging through her closet. "Why are you so distracted, anyway? Are you nervous about your game?"

"No." Leaning my head back against the wall, I stretch my legs out across her bed. "I just had a…weird week is all."

"Oh? Wait a second, didn't you have a date with Diner Guy?" She snaps her fingers and ceases rifling through her endless supply of clothing .

"Yeah."

"It was bad?"

"No, actually. It was really good. I like him," I tell her, shrugging. She narrows her eyes at me and I look away, staring up at the ceiling. "We went back to my place and everything was going fine, but then he had a panic attack."

She gasps and I look at her. "Oh no," she breathes, "was he okay?"

"Well, no, not really. I thought he was dying, Margot. His heart was fucking pounding and he was making these noises like somebody was choking him and he couldn't breathe. And he threw up."

She moves over to sit down in her desk chair, outfit crisis forgotten. Her blue eyes are wide with concern; this is the best thing about Margot—she may appear vapid and shallow on the outside, but she's got a heart of gold.

"Oh my gosh, that's terrible. How scary." She shakes her head. "What triggered it, do you think?"

"Oh, well, I asked him that. He…he said he doesn't like it when his arms are held down."

She narrows her eyes at me. "Luke Kelly, were you holding him down? What is the matter with you?"

Stung, I sit up and swing my legs over the bed until I'm sitting and facing her. "No, god, of course I wasn't. I was…I was on top of him, yeah, and then I like, held his hand against the bed and I guess it probably felt like I was holding him down."

"Oh my gosh," she repeats, shaking her head. "Poor Diner Guy. I hope you were fucking nice to him."

"I was nice!" I hold my arms out to the side in exasperation. "You know I'm nice. I wouldn't have done it if I knew it bothered him! Jesus, what sort of fucking asshole do you think I am?"

"I don't," she waves her hands and shakes her head. "I don't. Sorry. Who is Diner Guy, anyway? Are you going to see him again? I feel like you haven't given me any details."

"Yeah, I'm going to see him again. And it's Max Kuemper." She stares at me, her mouth open in a small o. "The hockey guy?"

"Yeah," she says slowly, "I know who he is."

I squint at her, trying and failing to place her expression. She looks wary, and it's not a look she's ever aimed my direction before. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Luke, I don't…maybe you shouldn't see him again."

I gape at her. " What? "

"No, never mind." She goes to stand up and I reach out to grab her hand. She bites her lip and looks at me; the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the expression on her face.

"Talk to me, Go." She softens at my use of her nickname, and sits back down. I let go of her hand and she runs it through her hair, stalling for time.

"Okay, listen to me. I'm going to tell you something that I'm not supposed to know, therefore you're not supposed to know, okay? I need you to sit there and shut up, so I can get through this."

I nod, miming a locking motion next to my mouth and pretending to toss the key. She smiles, weakly.

"You know my brother is a cop, right?" I nod. "He's always trying to convince me how dangerous college parties are, so he told me something he really shouldn't have. Last school year, in October, he got called out to the hospital with his partner about an SCU student that showed up in the ER. He'd been roofied, so the hospital staff had to call it in as mandatory reporters, you know? My brother…he said the guy who'd been roofied was in a really bad way; that they couldn't wake him up right away and that he was shaking so badly it looked like he was having seizures. He told me that there was just this huge block of time missing from his memory, and that he couldn't remember where he was. They had to remind him multiple times he was in the hospital, he kept forgetting."

I'm afraid I can see where this is going; please let that not have been Max, please . Margot looks down at her hands, clenched on the back of her desk chair. She looks like she wants to cry, and the longer she talks, the quieter her voice becomes.

"Uhm, and, his friend had brought him in and told the cops that he'd noticed his clothes were messed up. His shirt was on wrong, and his jeans were ripped."

"Margot," I say quietly, but she doesn't look up at me and she doesn't stop talking.

"So…so they waited for him to be coherent enough to talk to, because you can't perform any procedures without someone's consent. My brother said that they were almost certain he'd been assaulted, because why would you roofie someone unless that's what you were going to do? But they wanted to do a rape kit to get evidence, and so they got his consent to do one."

I try to interrupt her again, but she talks over me. I don't want to hear any more. I do not want to fucking hear this.

"And the exam proved that he'd either had rough sex or been raped. I guess they can't definitively say one way or the other just based on the exam, but my brother said that the presence of the Rohypnol means it was rape, no matter what, because he couldn't give consent. "

She stops, closing her eyes for a moment before looking back at me. I shake my head at her. Please, don't .

"It was Max Kuemper and the friend who brought him to the ER was Marcos Rivera."

I stand up, and immediately bend over as the blood rushes to my head and my stomach turns. Swallowing down the stomach acid that crept up my throat, I put a hand to my head and look at my friend. She's sitting and watching me, eyes glassy with sympathy and something else I can't name. I wish she was the kind of person to tell inappropriate jokes, laugh, and say she made the whole thing up.

"Oh my god, Margot. Oh my fucking god." I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to freak out. This only makes it worse, though, because now all I can see is Max, lying beneath me in bed, gasping for breath and pupils blown wide with fear. I pace a few steps away and whirl to face her. "Who did it? If your brother told you so much information; did he also tell you who fucking did it?"

"They don't know. Max can't remember. No DNA matches off of the rape kit."

"He can't remember any of it?" I ask, and she shakes her head. "But…but the other night…"

"Luke," she pleads, "just because he doesn't have solid memories of that night—it doesn't mean he doesn't remember ."

"That makes no fucking sense," I snap.

"Sit down and stop pacing around like an animal," she fires back. "Think about it like this: when I was a baby, my mom was folding towels in her bedroom and I was playing on the floor; she left the room to put the laundry away in the bathroom and I crawled into her closet and somehow managed to get the door shut. She had one of those doors…accordion doors? They close like this."

She mimes an accordion door in midair. I nod, completely lost as to the point of her telling me this story.

"Anyway, I started crying and Mom came back in the room and was freaking out because she couldn't find me. I was only in the closet for a minute, tops, before she was able to think through her panic and figure out where the screaming was coming from."

"Okay," I say slowly. "But you were a baby, right? You don't remember that happening."

"No, I don't. And that's exactly my point. I was terrified of the dark as a kid. There was a time when I had to sleep with the overhead light on, it was so bad. So, no, I don't have memories of being locked in a dark closet, but I grew up afraid of it anyway. Just because Max can't pick the guy who assaulted him out of a lineup, doesn't mean he doesn't subconsciously remember what happened. You said you were on top of him; you're big and heavy, Luke, and you had one of his hands pinned to the bed."

" Stop ," my voice cuts through the room, far louder than I'd intended. I stand, again, completely unable to sit still. I don't need to hear her say the words for me to realize the truth of them: Max had a panic attack because what I was doing reminded him of being assaulted. "This is so fucked up, Go."

"I know," she agrees, and then as if reading my mind, adds: "It's not your fault, though. You didn't know, and you stopped when he asked you to stop."

"Oh, great, it's not my fault! I feel so much better!" I say sarcastically. I have the nearly irresistible urge to hit something. "It is my fault. I scared the shit out of him—you weren't there, you have no idea how bad it was."

"Right," she says, and sits up straighter, staring at me hard. "And that's why I don't think you should see him again."

"You sound like Marcos," I mutter. "He told me to back off, too."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not surprised. How would you feel? If, while you were downstairs playing beer pong, your best friend was upstairs getting raped?"

I cover my face with my hands, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to take measured breaths. There is not enough oxygen in this room.

"Luke, I love you, you know I do. But you get bored with people faster than anyone I've ever met. This is what you do, you find a guy you like and you go all in for a week or two and then it fizzles out. I'm not trying to…slut shame you or anything, but that's not the kind of attention Max needs. He needs someone who isn't going to abandon him the moment another hot guy walks by."

"I'm a world class piece of shit, huh?"

"No, that's not what I mean," she huffs. "But maybe you need to think about what the best thing for Max is."

"Maybe I'm the best thing for Max."

"Maybe you are," she agrees, "but can you commit to that? You, who have always run in the opposite direction as soon as someone says the word relationship ?"

My phone buzzes with an Instagram alert and I pull it out, barely glancing at it before closing the app. Margot fixes me with a knowing look and I scowl at her.

"I'm not hooking up with anyone else," I tell her. "Also, don't you have a date to get ready for? "

She leaps up and grabs her phone to check the time. "Fuck! Help me—what am I going to wear?"

"Just wear what you've already got on. You look nice." She groans in frustration.

"What is the point of having a gay best friend if you don't give me fashion advice?"

I laugh weakly, glad that the mood of the room has simmered down a bit. I watch as she snatches up a few pieces of scattered clothing and goes into her bathroom to change. I wait, sitting on the bed and thinking about Max. I think about the way he turned his face away from me, trying to hide the fact that he was crying; the way he'd gasped my name before he'd lost control. How he'd leaned against me, shaking like a leaf and skin damp with sweat as we'd sat together on the floor.

"All right, I'm ready," Margot announces, coming back into the room. I look up at her, morosely. Her facial expression softens, and she comes to sit next to me on the bed. "Don't treat him any differently, okay?"

"I know. I won't."

"He's not a problem that needs fixing."

"I know."

"All right," she sighs, leaning over to give me a side hug and a kiss on the cheek. "But if you do continue dating him, I expect you to be nice."

"Yes, ma'am," I say, and she laughs.

I walk her out and wish her luck on her date, waiting until she drives off before getting in my own car and heading home. My roommates call out to me as I walk inside, but I make my excuses and go straight down to my room. I feel a little sick to my stomach. When I get downstairs, I strip down and take the hottest shower I can stand without boiling myself alive. It doesn't help; I still feel oily, as though I'm the one who hurt Max and not the one who only just found out about it.

When I lay down in bed, freshly showered and miserable, I check my phone and find a text waiting from Max. It takes me a long time to open the message; in the end, it's the thought of keeping him waiting that spurs me to do it.

Hi.

Hello, you.

How are you?

I'm all right. Kind of a shitty day. How are you?

I watch as bubbles appear that indicate typing, and watch as they disappear. I wait, and the bubbles reappear and go away again. Finally, a message comes through and I raise my eyebrows at my phone.

Do you want to come over? I'm just doing homework.

The thing is, I do want to go over. I want to stretch out on his bed and watch as he works through his homework. I want to see his SpongeBob pajamas and see if they really are as soft as he says; maybe convince him to put them on and lay beside me. But I'm confused and unsure about what Margot told me, and I'm terrified of making another mistake. She was right: getting my dick wet isn't important, especially if it puts his mental health in jeopardy.

Not tonight, but thanks for the offer.

You're away all weekend?

Yep! Road trip.

See you when you get back?

Absolutely.

I put my phone away and roll over facing the wall, before I can change my mind and tell him I'm coming over after all. I put my back to the body pillow, and try to fall asleep. Max's tearful face feels like a tangible presence in the room, and I wish I'd just said yes and gone over to his place. At least then I could look at him; look at him and confirm he's okay. Hug him and inhale his clean, minty smell. Rolling over, I grab my phone and pull up FaceTime.

"Luke? Hey." Max answers on the first ring.

"Hey. You still doing homework?" I tuck an arm under my pillow and prop my phone in front of my face so that I can see him. His copper hair looks browner in the warm light of his room, and his skin looks less sallow. I wonder if he slept well last night.

"Yeah. Just finishing up. Are you in bed?"

"Mm. Can't sleep. I was thinking about your SpongeBob pants."

"Oh?" He says coyly. "These?"

He angles his camera so that there is a sliver of his lap showing. If I didn't already known it was his leg, I wouldn't have been able to guess. I groan, overly loud and dramatically. He lifts the camera back to his face, grinning.

"You tease," I chide.

"What can I say, I know what gets you going," he says, standing up and moving to sit down on his bed. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," I settle in deeper against my body pillow, pressing my hips back against it and wishing it was Max lying there instead. "Do you mind just talking to me for a bit?"

"Sure. What should I talk about?" He slides down so he's lying the same way I am, curled into the fetal position with his cheek on the pillow.

"Just talk about you," I request, and focus on the movement of his lips as he speaks. It's nice, spending time together like this—almost as good as having him tucked in beside me, warm and safe.