Roommate, Page 2

  But that was only half right. Lately it’s gotten harder to ignore the fact that I also want to be under them. Or over them. Or even side by side.

  Just as I’m having this bold thought, the guy reaches for the door to the gym. And he turns his body in a way that lets me see his face…

  That’s when everything goes a little haywire. Because I recognize that face. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, though. And I’d bet every dollar in my wallet that he doesn’t even know my name.

  Thank God.

  My face flushes hot and my body runs cold. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t look my way before disappearing into the gym, or that there would be no way that he would remember me the way I remember him. I still feel a flash of utter shame.

  “…so that’s why I’ll need your help the next few nights,” my brother is saying.

  “The next few nights,” I echo stupidly.

  “Look, I know it’s a lot. But this thing with Dad’s back is a bummer, and there’s really no way we can get through the next month without a lot of extra hassle.”

  I must still be experiencing an adrenaline rush, because I suddenly snap. “Hassle for who? You want to pull a shift at the bar, where you can earn extra money and hit on women. And tomorrow you want to go to the movies, but it’s with Dad so you think that excuses your lack of planning. And I zoned out for that last thing you said, but I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Because unless you said you’re going to save babies from a burning building, I can’t understand why you think it’s okay to bail on me three or four nights in a row.”

  There is a deep, stunned silence after I deliver this tirade. I never go off on Kyle, although maybe it’s time I did. My life is ridiculous. I work like a dog, and I never complain. I never do a thing for myself, and all I wanted tonight was a goddamn workout.

  “Well,” he says a moment later. Then he clears his throat. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  I feel like a dick, that’s how I feel. A wave of cold remorse washes over me.

  “I won’t take the bartending shift,” Kyle says. Then he hangs up on me for the first time in his life.

  Standing here in the gym parking lot, I’m breathing a little too fast and my heart is hammering. I can’t believe I snapped like that. Yes, it’s time to stop doing everything my family expects. Standing up for myself is a fine idea. But I didn’t have to be a dick about it.

  And Roderick Waites is back in town.

  My gaze travels back to the gym door. He’s still in there. Which means that I just blew up at my brother for nothing, because I’m not going into that gym.

  My thumbs are tapping out a text to Kyle before I can even think twice about it. Take that bartending shift, I say. It’s fine. I’m on my way home to move the cows.

  By the time I get into my truck and start the engine, he’s already replied.

  Dude. Are you sure? You just lost your shit at me.

  I’m sure. But tonight when you get home we have to make a plan for the rest of the week. Because I’m not doing all your chores again tomorrow just so you can go to the movies.

  Fine, he replies. Thanks. Later!

  I back out of the parking spot and turn the truck toward home. I suppose I could take my dad to the movies tomorrow. But Dad wouldn’t want my company, he wants Kyle’s. The privilege of being Dad’s favorite is lost on my goof of a brother. Kyle is incapable of imagining that life doesn’t fart rainbows on everyone the way it does on him.

  Something’s got to give, I tell myself as I put some miles between Colebury and home. This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to break out of my rut. I’m twenty-five years old and still live at home. My family is a minefield, yet they depend on me for farm labor.

  And—worst of all—I still care too much about what other people think. Case in point: I just ran away from the gym, because of a guy who won’t even remember me. That’s ridiculous.

  But at least I realize that. It’s a start.

  Back at home, I do all the chores and then some.

  First I put the cows in the north pasture. Moving cows is easy enough in good weather. It only requires me to move the portable fence and wave them through the opening. “Go on, enjoy,” I say as they file past me eagerly. Our herd is grass fed, and they don’t need to be asked twice. The long, seedy grass and corn stalks I’m offering are like a recently freshened, all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Let’s face it—the cows are easier to handle than any of my family members. They go where they’re needed, no questions asked. But my dog—Rexie—gives the cows a nice loud woof just to pretend he’s working hard.

  Rexie and Kyle have a lot in common, honestly. They’re both a little ridiculous. They both have an inflated sense of their own usefulness. And I love them both in spite of it.

  After the cow parade, I close up the fence and turn the electricity on. Since it’s October, darkness is falling fast. In another couple of weeks we’ll have to set our clocks back, and then it will be pitch dark before five. I’m already squinting as I check the hens’ nesting boxes for eggs, and topping up their water, and I have to turn on my head lamp to connect up their electric fence.

  Most of our farming income is made on grass-fed beef. We also grow some corn and organic oats as feed crops. By this time of year, all the crop work should already be done, but Kyle and I still have to bale the oat straw. It would have been done weeks ago, if it weren’t for my dad’s back pain getting worse.

  I make a mental note to remind my brother to make the baling a priority. Again. After that, I spend forty-five minutes raking cow shit out of the lower farmyard in the dark.

  It’s boring drudge work, and my mind starts to wander. And, fuck, it wanders right to Roderick Waites—the guy who climbed out of a blue Volkswagen and right back into my brain.

  I wish I could say I haven’t thought about him since high school, but that would be a lie. And if I were a more spiritual person, I’d probably interpret Roderick’s reappearance in town as a sign. A wakeup call.

  Nobody knows all the tangled things in my brain, but for a split second when I was a teenager, Roderick came close to learning one of my biggest secrets.

  The first time I saw him on his knees in front of another guy, it was an accident.

  It was autumn then, too. I’d been at a high school football game. It was chilly that night and, last second before leaving for the game, I’d grabbed my dad’s jacket from the hook by the door. After shoving my hands into the pockets while standing on the windy sidelines, I’d found a flask of whiskey. My father must have last worn the jacket when he was sitting out in the deer blind with his pals. Bonus.

  But, of course, I’d had to sneak around to find a place to take a taste.

  Leaving the crowd and the game, I ducked inside the door to the school’s gym. Under the cover of the bleachers, I drew out my dad’s flask, and unscrewed the top. Just as I raised it to my lips, I froze at the sound of whispered voices. Whoever was speaking had entered the gym at the other end of the bleachers.

  Their shadowy figures weren’t easily visible. But I guessed it was a couple looking for a little privacy for a make-out session. And since a couple sneaking off together wasn’t a threat to me, I stood my ground.

  I took a swallow of my father’s hooch. My first sip wasn’t life-changing—it burned going down and made my eyes water—it’s what happened next that changed everything.

  After screwing the lid on the flask and pocketing it, I ducked out of the gym and into the hallway. Feeling nosy, I walked toward the gym’s other entrance, noiseless in my Nikes. When I reached the door, I eased into a position that allowed me to spy on the couple I’d heard whispering to each other. They were silent now, and I wanted to know why.

  When I saw who it was, I swear my heart almost stopped. A varsity soccer player—Jared Harvey—stood beneath the bleachers, bracing his hands on a tread overhead. Roderick Waites knelt in front of him, unzipping Jared’s jeans.

  You can bet I didn’t even blin
k for the next five minutes. I was riveted by the tension in Jared’s body. The muscles in his arms bulged as he held on to the tread, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he watched Roderick tug down his underwear and free his cock.

  “Suck it, man,” Jared bit out.

  Roderick didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the base of Jared’s dick in one hand and eagerly took the tip into his mouth. Jared made a strangled sound and tipped his head back in pleasure.

  I could barely breathe as Roderick hollowed out his cheeks and sucked. And I became lightheaded when he began to bob up and down.

  “Ungh!” Jared grunted. “Goddamn. Faster.”

  Instead, Roderick slowed his pace, looking up at Jared with luminous eyes. And, damn, the sounds he made—the smack and slurp made my teenage brain melt.

  Jared’s hold on the tread got shaky and, at last, Roderick picked up the pace. Jared gasped, one of his big hands falling to land in Roderick’s hair. Roderick glanced up at him again, and the eye contact seemed to burn Jared. He yanked his hand back and looked away.

  I saw Roderick reach up and tug Jared’s balls with his free hand. No, I felt it. I was suddenly, painfully aware of my own arousal, of being so hard that my jeans were uncomfortable.

  Jared cursed and shuddered, every muscle locking. His face slackened with release, and Roderick’s throat worked as he swallowed. It was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen in my seventeen years. My heart was thumping and blood pounded in my ears.

  And other places.

  Self-preservation finally kicking in, I backed away from the doorway and ducked into the men’s room across the hall.

  In the mirror, my face had been flushed, my eyes hooded and dark. I’d looked like a man who’d seen his dirtiest fantasies brought to life. Because I had.

  For days afterward I don’t think I had a single rational thought. Both Roderick and Jared were seniors—a grade above me—and it was a good thing we didn’t share any classes. I probably would have burst into flames, if I had to speak to either of them. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I saw, and wondering if they were gay.

  The weird thing was that I had all those thoughts about them without considering why I was so obsessed. That would take a few more years.

  But the story doesn’t end there. Two weeks later there was another home football game. As I sat in the bleachers with my brother and our friends, I saw Jared get up and head toward the school. Roderick’s dark head passed by the side of the bleachers a minute later.

  I’m sure you know what I did next.

  “Taking a leak. Back in a few,” I muttered to my friends. Then I snuck into the school building and tiptoed down the dark hallway again. I have never felt so much shame as I crept toward the gym. What the hell did it mean that I wanted to watch this?

  But curiosity was burning me up inside. Would it be Jared on his knees this time? Or would they do something totally different?

  I’m sure I shivered with anticipation as I slowly peered around the gym’s door. The picture was the same. Roderick sucking off Jared. Jared gasping and writhing and desperate. I watched every second that I dared.

  And that wasn’t the last time either. It took a couple more secret trips to the gym before I learned my lesson. I’d known I needed to stop watching, but I just couldn’t stay away. Also, it was the final home game of the season, and what was one more sin among so many?

  That last time was different. From his usual spot on the floor, Roderick used one of his hands to unzip his own fly, and he stroked himself while he sucked off his friend. I was dying slowly in my hideout, my eyes glued to his hand on his cock. Jared was almost ready to blow, and so was I—hands free.

  But that didn’t happen. Because Roderick’s gaze shifted in the dark.

  He lifted those blue eyes and looked right at me. And his expression told me that he’d known I was there. He’d known it all along.

  You would’ve thought I’d turn around to run, but I froze, my shame complete. And then? He stared at me while he came all over his hand.

  God. Even now—years later—the memory gets me hard. The sheer nerve of those boys getting off on school property. They were living, and I was watching.

  But man did I like watching.

  A sharp whistle from the farmhouse breaks my reverie. It’s my mother calling me in to dinner. I hang up the rake on the side of the barn, adjust my jeans, and head toward the house.

  Eight years later I’m still thinking about Roderick Waites. And I’m still keeping secrets, still doing exactly what everyone expects of me.

  Nothing has changed, really. Nothing at all.

  Kieran

  As I kick off my boots in the mudroom, I take a deep breath and try to rearrange my thoughts. I’ve lived here my whole life, but lately the place really brings me down. “Hey, Ma,” I say, after entering the kitchen. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay,” she says from the stove. Then she drops her voice. “But your father is a bear today. And there’s something we need to talk about at dinner.”

  “Okay. Sure,” I agree. Although my father is a bear almost all the time, and we both know it. “Are we making some sandwiches?”

  “No, I cooked!” she says. “Chicken casserole.”

  “Great,” I say, mostly meaning it.

  My mom’s cooking is bland, and that dish is particularly tasteless. She’d never been a great cook, but when her doctor suggested she cut down on the sodium, the menu took a turn for the worse. Chicken casserole with no salt? Trust me, you don’t want any. Even Rexie prefers his kibble to mom’s casserole.

  I’ll eat it anyway, though, because I’m hungry, and it’s free. For a few years now, I’ve been saving up to rent a place of my own. My dream is to live in town.

  My pile of cash is pretty tall at this point, so when Dad is back to work again, I can start looking for something cheap. There’s even a chance that I’ll rent a house in Colebury from Zara, my boss at the coffee shop. She’s probably losing her next-door tenant next month. “He was offered a job in another state,” she’d said. “If they leave, I’ll rent the house to you on the cheap, if you can help me with the yard work and the snow removal this winter.” And then she’d named a price that fit my budget, especially if I got a roommate.

  Man, I would shovel acres of snow to have a place of my own.

  Meanwhile, I set the same kitchen table I’ve set my whole life. It’s square, with a joint right down the center. My mother and I always sit on one side, and my father and Kyle sit on the other. It’s a damn metaphor if I ever saw one.

  “How was the desk job today?” my father asks as he shuffles into the room and pulls out the chair on his side. He says desk job the way some people say acupuncture. Like only a crazy person would get a job at an office.

  “Fine. Busy.” I stick to one word answers with him. We have so little in common and don’t see eye to eye on anything.

  “If they’re so busy, why don’t they take you full time?” Dad sits down gingerly, accepting a plate from my mother, looking down at the beige blob of food on it with a grimace.

  Please don’t critique the food, I privately beg him. I can tolerate my dad’s ire toward me, but when he picks on my mother, I tend to lose my cool.

  “I mean, how can you learn the ad business if you’re only there four afternoons a week?” he asks, picking up his fork with a wary glance at his dinner.

  “I learn plenty,” I say mildly. The truth is that I haven’t said much about my job in Burlington. Nor have I said a word about the college course I’m hoping to take this spring. He won’t approve. And there’s no law that says I have to explain myself to him.

  I’m just going to do my own thing and give the bare minimum amount of information to anyone who asks. That’s how you keep the peace in this house.

  “You didn’t go to the gym?” my mother asks, just to keep the conversation flowing.

  A wave of discomfort rolls through me, because the question makes me think of Roderick. Aga
in. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to think of that guy and not feel embarrassed. “I almost made it to the gym. But Kyle called me and sent me home to do his chores instead.”

  “It is his night, isn’t it?” my mother asks. “Where is that boy?”

  “Tending bar for a couple hours, for extra cash.” I shovel in some more of my mother’s casserole and chew so I won’t say what I’m thinking.

  “It’s good to earn extra cash,” my father says, excusing Kyle. “We’re going to have a tough season around here.”

  “Why?” I set down my fork. “Did we lose an animal?”

  “No.” He shakes his head.

  That’s when the kitchen door opens and Kyle steps through, grinning. “Am I just in time for dinner?”

  “Yes you are!” my father says, smiling for the first time, because his eldest—his boy—is home.

  “It’s my super power.” Kyle hangs his coat on a hook.

  “Sally, get him a plate,” my dad says.

  My mom gets up and makes Kyle a plate, while my brother slides into his chair. He plops twenty bucks on the table in front of me. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Sure,” I grunt, wishing I’d never made a big deal about it in the first place. I tuck the bill into my pocket anyway. My rent fund can use it.

  Mom sets a plate in front of my brother, and then takes her seat again. “Since Kyle’s home, we might as well talk about this winter.” My father’s scowl tells me I won’t like whatever she’s about to say. “Your father is having back surgery. Soon. He’s going to be out of commission for months.”

  “Weeks,” my father corrects gruffly.

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s a spinal fusion. Major surgery, with a long recovery time.”

  Spinal fusion. Yeesh. I’ll be googling that later, but it already sounds dreadful. I feel a rare pang of sympathy for Dad. But when I look up at him, the steely look in his eyes asks for no pity.

  “Okay,” I say, draining my glass. “You know Kyle and I will pitch in.” I give my brother a sideways glance.