Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (5 page)

And then it hit me.

Oliver had kissed me, and I’d kissed him back.

I dropped my arms and jerked back, cracking my elbow on the side of the car. Oliver took a hurried step backward himself and gave a startled laugh, clapping his hand over his mouth.

“Oh my God, Rusty, are you okay?” His words came out muffled from behind his fingers. He was still laughing.

I rubbed my elbow and tried to breathe through that funny-bone pain that is almost as not funny as getting kissed by your best male friend when you thought you were straight.

“I’m a little confused,” I told him honestly. “And my elbow hurts.”

He ventured closer and hesitantly put his hands on my shoulders. I wanted to shrug them off and remind him that I wasn’t gay, but I didn’t. They felt good there, soothing, and I lowered my head and let him touch me.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to kiss me back or worry that I’ll do that again. Just . . . think about it, okay? Just think about it, and we’ll be friends like we always have been.”

I nodded, but I didn’t move. I must have at some point, I know, because we eventually got back into the car and drove home, but I don’t remember that moment when we stepped away from each other. In fact, for a long time, my head was still there, listening to cicadas and feeling the touch of his hands and the tender wind of his breath on my face.

I dropped him off at his house, like usual, except, well, it wasn’t usually one in the morning. He hopped out of the car and stood for a moment, in front of that wildly overgrown fence of jasmine, morning glories, and tiny roses, and looked at me, his mouth pulled down with worry.

“Call me,” he said. “Text me. Email me. IM me. Anything—just don’t think you’re down there alone.”

I smiled at him, relieved and more than relieved. He was still my friend. That hidden moment behind the gas station hadn’t changed the one important thing.

“I promise,” I said, and he nodded soberly.

“That’s something you’re good at,” he reminded me, and I smiled. That look was back in his eyes. The one that said I could do anything. Keeping a promise—that was a good thing. I could do that.

I got home and walked quietly into the house. No one was waiting up for me—I thought. But then I found my little sister asleep in my bed, wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of my basketball shorts.

I stripped to my sleep shorts while she was still out and kept on my tank top. Then I shook her carefully.

“Nic—Nic you gotta get up. I’m home.”

She looked at me groggily. “Where’dyougo?”

“Just around. Get up.”

“No. There’s room. Go on my other side.”

I was tired. I’d worked that day for half the day, and Mr. Campbell had bought me lunch as a send-off. He’d told me I was welcome to come work for him anytime, and I was grateful. Those checks had really added up in my savings account, and I’d earned that money, fair and square.

“Fine.” I scrambled over her and tucked into the covers. She was on the outside, and I reached down and grabbed an old afghan that Estrella had made me and pulled it up so she could tuck it under her chin.

“Why do you want to sleep here?” I asked, my eyes closing too.

“You’re the only one in the house who likes me,” she said, and it sounded like
she
at least was waking up.

“Estrella likes you,” I said, and it was true. Estrella always saved the best cakes in the kitchen for Nic. Of course, it probably didn’t help her waist size, but if someone offers you love, you don’t really count calories. I knew she’d been baking cookies for me all week so I could take them to Berkeley with me. I wasn’t going to argue.

“Estrella does, but she doesn’t live here.” She was wide-awake now, I could tell by the peevish little lilt in her voice.

“Are you trying to say you’ll miss me?” I asked. It had just occurred to me, like
that night
, that I would miss her
.

“Yeah, dorkfish, I’ll miss you.”

I opened my eyes and grinned at her, then made the fishhook gesture. “I’m a dorkfish!” I said it with the Bill Engvall inflection and everything, because it had been making her laugh since she was nine years old and I’d first learned how to surf YouTube.

She laughed softly, and then she looked sober. “Rusty, if I ask you something, do you promise not to get mad?”

My smile faded. I knew what she was going to ask before she said it. “Do we have to—”

“Are you gay?” Her eyes were big and brown, like Oliver’s, but not quite as dark.

That morning, I would have thought I knew the answer to that question.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, and she blinked those big brown eyes slowly.

“I know Mom and Dad would freak if you were,” she said, and her eyes got shiny. “But I wouldn’t. You’d still be my hero.”

My eyes burned, and I remembered the way that Oliver had looked at me—like I was great. Nicole was looking at me the same way. “When have I ever been your hero?” As far as I knew, I was just her way station for free shirts and a place to sleep that wasn’t alone in the big quiet house.

“Always,” she said, smiling a little. “Your girlfriends always used to try to chase me away, you remember that?”

I did remember. I’d never been as interested in being alone as they had. “Yeah. You just wanted to . . . I don’t know, be in the same room as us. Read, watch TV—it’s not like you were talking or butting in. You were great.”

She nodded. “You never let anyone pick on me. Not even your friends when they came over to swim. But until you brought Oliver home, I worried, you know?”

“About what?”

“That you’d . . . I don’t know. Turn into them. Turn into
Dad.
Just . . . suddenly wake up and assume you were captain of the universe and that I had to listen to what you said because you were a boy and my brother.”

I laughed a little. “Lucky you, Nic, you got the dumb big brother. Captain of the Universe has to be smart enough to go to Berkeley.”

She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “Email me, okay? And Oliver. And remember that if you have to come home, we’ll both be here. You’re smarter than you think you are.”

I had a sudden thought. “You’ll look after Oliver, right? He doesn’t have any brothers and sisters.” His mom had passed away when he was a little kid—he’d told me that. It was just him and his dad, and aunts and uncles that I could never keep straight.

Nicole nodded. “If you’re gay, you and Oliver could live together and make a home. What kind of home would you have?”

I was falling asleep and confused and sad, so I didn’t even ask myself the big question, the hard question. I remembered Oliver with his back to the jasmine and the morning glories and the loud pink flowers whose names I didn’t know, and thought about how bright he’d looked for a little brown person. It was like he and the flowers went together.

“Some place with flowers,” I mumbled. And that was all I remembered before I fell asleep.

My roommate was a big, beefy guy named Rex. Seriously. Rex. Who names their kid that if there’s not a tyrannosaurus in front of it? Anyway, he met me with a handshake as we both set up our room and promptly ate about half of Estrella’s cookies. During the next six hours, several things became apparent. He was taller than me, wider than me, smarter than me, would bang anything that moved, and had a smaller cock.

The first two were pretty obvious, and the third one became obvious as he was fixing up his computer and talking some foreign language about comp sci and astrophysics and how he was really starting as a sophomore because he’d nailed all his AP exams and early entrance classes, but he was going to use his freshman year to take all the humanities stuff he would miss out on as he became some sort of scientist I couldn’t even pronounce.

The last two became obvious after we were all moved in, and I had my gift poster from Oliver of Patrick Dempsey in
Crime and Punishment
put up, and my new sheets in the prerequisite navy blue. I was stripping down to my underwear only to be whirled around by a hand on my shoulder.

“Holy
fuck
!” He shoved my shorts down around my thighs. “That thing is
huge
! I mean, I thought
I
was gifted. Girls must
love
that. Can you get it hard for me?”

I smacked his hand. Seriously, like he was a little kid. “That’s
mine
!” I grabbed my shorts and yanked them up over my hips. “Seriously! I mean, I’ve been in locker rooms before, but no one’s
ever
made a grab for that thing.” I did not mention Oliver, who hadn’t grabbed for that thing at all, but who had only stood on his tiptoes, closed his eyes, and offered up a kiss.

Rex stood back, looking a little depressed. “Really?”

“You expected something else?”

Rex shrugged. “I saw you checking out my ass when I was bent over my desk. You went to half-mast. I thought, you know, since we don’t have any girls right now, you wouldn’t mind some . . .” He made the time-honored open-fist jerk-off motion, and my face heated.

So I’d been checking out his ass? I guess I had been. I remember thinking that Oliver’s was smaller, with less muscle, but Rex’s wasn’t bad. He must work out like a madman.

“I’m, uhm . . .” My face was still hot, and I shoved at his chest a little—not mad or mean, just to get some space. I came up with the word then, and was proud of it. “It’s like being a freshman,” I said with some dignity, although I’d already told him I was pre-law. “I’m undeclared.”

Rex raised his brown eyebrows over his bright green eyes. “Undeclared?”

I couldn’t look him in the face anymore. He was like . . . like the me I should have been. He was brilliant, and he was here partially on a wrestling scholarship, and he obviously loved sex and didn’t care who it was with.

“Undeclared,” I said to my toes. I used to think it would take a lot to make me feel small. Apparently it only took Rex. His hand on my shoulder was powerful, and he squeezed, making me look up.

“Well, ‘Undeclared,’ let’s see if we can’t help you find your major, okay?”

I smiled a little, not really sure what he meant. “If you’re talking academically, I already told you it’s pre-law, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to wash out by the end of the semester.”

Rex laughed and shook his head. “Well, in that case, we’ve only got a couple of months to go.”

Well, yeah, I figured. It was the only reason I’d been able to throw my shit in my car and drive away from the hills.

That night, I lay in bed and set my phone next to my pillow, where it could charge
and
wake me up. I checked for messages and saw one from Oliver.

Hey—you forgotten me yet?

No. I sort of wish you were here. My roommate has NO respect for personal space.

Yeah? He make a pass at you?

I had to think about that one for a minute. Then:

No, but he seems to want me to figure out my major.

I thought you were pre-law.

Not that major.

LOL—yeah, well, I wouldn’t mind either if you figured that one out.