20. Arlo

When everyone leaves, I wait upstairs listening to Niki, Gordon’s new girlfriend, try to reason with him. She says something about me being an adult and it just fires me up, even more, to have this out with him because I am a fucking adult. I get that he thought he could lose me when I was hurt, but that doesn’t mean he can treat me like a little child he has to protect all the time. I want to be with Harrison. I storm out of my room and head for the stairs.

“I love him,” I yell down to them, and Gordon scrunches up his forehead.

“You’re just proving my point. It was one kiss. You have no idea—”

“It wasn’t just one kiss. I’ve been seeing Harrison for weeks, you idiot. I’m his boyfriend.”

Niki smiles and gives me a small nod, like she’s proud of me or something, and even though she hardly knows me, it settles the churn in my stomach just a little. Gordon isn’t smiling.

“You’ve both been lying to me for weeks?”

Okay, not what I wanted him to focus on.

“We wanted to tell you, but you needed to see how much he’s changed first.”

“He hasn’t. I told him to stay away from you and he didn’t. He always did whatever the fuck he wanted, not giving a second thought to the consequences.”

“And what consequences are those?” I yell back.

“He’ll break your heart and I’ll be left picking up the pieces, just like last time.”

“That”s not fair. Harrison is nothing like him.”

“Really? Matthew was with you to screw you out of money, and Harry just wants to screw you.”

“You don’t know what the fuck Harrison wants. Fuck you, I am so done here. I’m going home.” I turn away from him and run to my room, tossing my sketchbooks and laptop into a bag. My clothes can stay, I have more at my place. Right now, I just want to get out of here.

I half expect Gordon to come upstairs and try to convince me not to leave. Maybe even apologize. He’s being a total dick, and even though he’s had a couple of beers, he can’t be that drunk to not see that he’s the asshole here. But he doesn’t, and when I go downstairs, he isn’t there. Niki is gone, too.

I think about calling a cab, but I can’t wait around, so I do something I haven”t done in months. I grab the keys to the Buick and head for the garage.

As the rumble of the engine vibrates through the chair, I tell myself it’s just like riding a bike. Except I never learned to ride a bike. But I did learn to drive, and although the cast makes gripping the wheel difficult on one side, it isn’t impossible, and I reverse out and make for home.

***

I haven’t spoken to Gordon in days. He didn’t even ask about the car. He had Noah call me.

“Grandpa’s car is fine,” I tell Noah as he laughs down the line.

“I don’t care about the car, dickhead. Are you okay? I heard about Harrison. Are you two really…”

“Yeah, we are, and it’s great. Gordon claims to be his best friend, he should know how amazing he is. Why can’t he just be happy for us?”

“No idea, bro, but if you’re happy then I guess I can be happy for you. I’m not exactly one to judge when it comes to who you date.”

“How is college now you’re back?”

“Amazing. Are you sure you are okay to be at the apartment alone? I can come back and stay, really it’s no problem.”

“Look I’m fine, the cast comes off in two days.”

“Okay, but the offer is there. So is it true Gordon walked in on you two in your bedroom getting…you know, busy?”

I laugh. “We were kissing.”

“That’s not how he put it. He said you were up against a wall and—”

“Okay, this portion of the conversation is over.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I never said I was.”

Someone knocks at my door.

“Hold on, that”s probably my food,” I say and put the phone down on the table.

It’s not dinner, it’s Harrison, and the sad look on his face makes me want to wrap my arms around him and not let go. But he’s got his arms across his chest, and he’s avoiding eye contact.

“Can we talk?” he asks, and I step aside for him to come in.

“Sure, is everything okay?”

“Not really,” he says, making his way to the couch. I take a seat beside him and try to take his hand, but he stands and starts pacing the room.

“Have you spoken to Gordon since the other night?”

“No, he won’t answer my calls. Has he said anything to you at training? Is he still mad at us about lying?”

“He won’t talk to me. He threw a few close balls to my head today, but that’s about all I got out of him. The coaches sent him home early to cool down. We should have told him sooner.”

“I don’t think it would have made a difference. He still thinks of me as some little kid he has to protect.”

“It’s not you, it’s me. He’s known me for so long. He knows about everything I’ve ever done, and I thought as my best friend, he’d never judge me for it, but I guess I was wrong. But if you start to list it all, it would be a lot to look past. You don’t know what I used to be like, before you. I—”

“It doesn’t matter what you did before me. I don’t care.”

“But you should. The number of guys alone, together, shit.” He rubs his hands through his hair, and I swear the number of grays streaking through the sides had tripled in only a few days.

“I don’t care. I’ve been with other men, too. You could have been with a thousand guys, and I wouldn”t care.”

“It’s more than a thousand.”

“Whatever, ten-thousand, twenty, a million, I don’t care as long as you don’t want them and only want me, then that’s all I need.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” he says, finally stopping pacing and looking at me. “I love you.”

I stand and go to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, my fingers lace together at his back, and I pull him close. My head rests against his heart as it thumps at super speed. My chest is warm, and I fight back tears as he holds me tight. Am I dreaming? Did he just tell me he loves me?

I look up at him, hoping beyond hope that this is not a dream.

“I love you, too,” I say, and it’s like the whole world falls away.

“I asked the universe to help me find the kind of love I’d always dreamed of, and it brought me you. I can’t lose you, but Gordon is my best friend, he’s your brother. What if us being together tears all that apart?”

“It won’t. We won’t let it.”

“How do we force him to listen to us though?”

“I have an idea. My cast comes off in two days. I promised I’d show you how good I can cook, and I told him, too. So how about after the cast comes off, I invite him over, as a sort of peace offering, and then we can lock him in here and force him to listen?”

“Okay, but how do you know he’ll come?”

“Good point, ummm. Oh, it’s a bit mean, but he was a dick, so he kind of deserves it.”

“Deserves what?”

“What if we send him a message that I’ve fallen over or something?”

“That is mean.”

“I know, but do you think it would get him here?”

“In a heartbeat. He might be too mad to listen to us when he sees you’re fine though?”

Noah’s voice comes faintly through the speaker of my phone.

“Shit. I forgot I was on the phone with Noah when you knocked,” I say, grabbing the phone and tapping the screen to put him on speaker.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said I’m in. Big bro needs to get on board with this ’cause fuck man, that was the cutest thing ever.”

Harrison rubs the back of his neck with one hand as the blush rises to his cheeks and I move back to where he is standing.

“If you want to come, too, you can send him the message,” I say.

“Oh I’m totally there, and I reckon we say I popped over to see you and smell something burning but you won’t open the door. That will get him here quickly.”

“Awesome, so until then we play it cool. It’s not like he’s answering my calls anyway. You think you can keep your head for a few more days?” I ask Harrison, and he sweeps me up in his arms and spins me around.

“For you, I’ll take whatever he can throw at me.”

“Awww,” Noah says over the speaker, and I laugh.

“Bye, Noah. See you in a few days,” I say, hanging up and tossing my phone on the couch before he can reply.

“I love you,” Harrison says, lowering me down, and I push up on my toes to kiss him again.

“I love you more.”

“Hey, what’s that?” he asks, letting me go and grabbing the sketchbook off the table. It”s closed but half of one of the drawings is sticking out and you can see what he has to know is a bare ass.

“No don’t,” I start, but he’s already got it open, and my face is on fire as his eyes go wide, and the smile grows on his lips.

“You drew these?” he asks, turning the sketchbook sideways and glancing from me to the book and back. I cover my face with my hands.

“They were just for me. I mean I didn”t use them for, well, I did, once, but they’re more things I kind of I guess fantasized about us doing. They”re…”

“They’re hot as fuck is what they are,” he says, and I peek through my fingers to find him sitting and flipping through the book, making the best kind of facials. “Your imagination is amazing. Do you really fantasize about us, about me?”

“Pretty much all the time, yeah.”

“I’d love to hear all about what it is you’re imagining exactly when you draw these… Ohhh, can we try this one?” he asks, turning the book around to show me the drawing I made depicting him in his knee pads, chest plate, and cleats, crouched at the end of my bed, with my legs around his neck, cock in his mouth and his fingers buried inside my ass. I always considered myself to be strictly a top, but imagining this made me want to try things I never thought I would want.

I take the sketchbook from him, my dick twitching at the thought of doing this for real.

“Did you bring your gear?” I ask, and he jumps from the couch.

“I have stuff in the truck. Be right back.”

Before I can say anything, he’s out the door, returning a few minutes later with a gym bag in his hand and a wide grin on his lips.

“It’s game time. Let”s get you naked.”

I go to put the sketchbook down, but he shakes his head.

“Bring it with you. We have all night. Let’s see how many other fantasies we can bring to life.”