Crash: M/M Straight to Gay First Time Romance (7 page)

Reid

             
It was the worst night of my life for all the best reasons. Liam fell asleep after a few minutes, his deep rhythmic breathing assisted by the heavy dose of painkillers prescribed by his doctor. I lay in the dark, etching the lines and contours of his face into my memory. Some part of me knows this is dangerous. Do I like him, or do I like the Liam he reminds me of? They don’t look alike or act the same, but something about his eyes constantly reminds me of my Liam. Hours passed before exhaustion forced my body to sleep.

              The braces on his legs and the cast on his arm keep me from holding onto him. I don’t want to disturb his sleep. I imagine that getting comfortable enough to fall asleep with fifteen pounds of hardware strapped to your body can’t be easy.

              When I wake up, Liam is still asleep. The soft blue light of the early morning sneaks in through the thin curtain hanging in the window, making his fair skin and red hair look like an oil painting. The ginger fuzz along his chin and cheeks looks like a heat rash and accentuates his soft lips. The urge to kiss him repels me, and I find myself scrambling out of the bed and slowly backing out of the room, watching to make sure his breathing doesn’t change. The walk down the hall to my bedroom is the longest trek of my life. By the time I slip into my room, the alarm on my phone is ringing and my heart is pounding in my ears. I quickly silence the alarm and stand perfectly still, listening to the sounds of the house, hoping that nothing has disturbed Liam’s rest.

              I look like an idiot, sneaking around my bedroom in my own damned house. I am not ready to deal with my thoughts or his feelings. Not. At. All. I slip into my running shoes and nudge Buster’s sleeping frame as I pass him on my way out of the door. He jumps up and follows me, grabbing the leash from its usual spot as we depart. He seems calmer than most mornings. Maybe he can tell I am anything but calm.

              “It’s going to be an extra-long one today,” I say, stroking his smooth coat before we take off at a jog.

              The cold morning air stings my lungs as I wake up my muscles. My whole body rebels against the exertion at first. Soon, I feel the cold tingle in my fingertips give way to a sweeping warmth and my legs become mindless pistons hurtling me down familiar roads. My thinking becomes more and more clear the farther I run.

              Am I gay?

              I am not ready to answer that question.

But who exactly am I loving here? Because one thing is for sure: what I am feeling, the way my heart and my head get all twisted around when we are together…that is love. Maybe not the forever kind. But it's more than lust. 

What am I afraid of? What scares me about this situation?

My mind goes blank as I run.

“What am I afraid of?” I chant it like a mantra as I push through the extra miles of my run. The skyline changes in front of me, the sky bursting into blue. The jangle of Buster’s chain and his soft panting let me know he is running out of steam. I direct our path back towards home, still no closer to answering my question than I had been.

What I know for sure is that when I see pain or sadness in those eyes of his, something inside my chest breaks. It makes my heart ache in a way I can’t ignore. Ignoring feelings and hiding from reality can only end in disaster.

Before I get any deeper into this mess, I need to make sure I see Liam for who he is. That’s the only way to be fair to both of us. Some part of me has always wondered what my Liam and I could have had if…

              The buzzing against my thigh brings me back to reality. I stop at an intersection to answer it.

              “Are you getting breakfast?” Liam asks, without bothering with any of the niceties.

              “Good morning to you too. Yes, I slept well,” I say cheerfully.

              “See you when you get back,” he says, ignoring my words. You can almost hear him roll his eyes as he hangs up the phone. I smile.

              “It’s going to take a whole lot more than that to get rid of me,” I say to the dark phone screen. Buster jumps around in happy circles as I take the leash off of his collar and sprint down the street. He gives chase, and my heart feels lighter than it has in years.

***

              Liam lets out a painful cry as he pushes his legs to use muscles that have been badly damaged and slightly atrophied. He is drenched in sweat and looks like he is undergoing an appendectomy without any anesthetic.

              “Good. Last one,” says celebrity trainer Eric Lassiter. Liam brought him in to help get him on his feet faster. I can’t help but watch as Liam pushes through one more rep, refusing to give up. His knuckles turn white as he strains to complete the exercise. When the weight clicks back into the start position, I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

              “Good job, Mr. McClehllan. See you next time,” Lassiter says before patting Liam on the shoulder and walking away. I grab Liam’s chair and push it over to him.

              “Why is he in a rush? Does he have another intense torture session planned for somebody richer and more sadistic than you?”

              Liam smirks and sucks down huge gulps of water.

              I help him into his chair. His face goes pale as he lifts his legs and arranges his body in the chair. Sweat begins to bead on his forehead as he sits, panting from the exertion. I feel like my chest is being crushed as I watch him choke back the pain.

              “It’s okay to admit it hurts,” I say softly.

“It won’t make it hurt any less. Besides, don’t you know that it hurts already?”

Damn him! I was trying to be sympathetic.

“Do you need any help getting changed?”

“I don’t think that will work out well. We have a bad habit of getting into compromised positions, and this is a public facility,” he says with a one-sided smile. Though his tone makes it sound like an invitation, his eyes let me know it’s a challenge.

“I’ll wait here. Call me if you need me,” I say, stopping at the locker room door.

“Fine,” he says, rolling by me without a glance.

I notice the veins bulging and my temper dies down. Why is he always so stubborn? Would it kill him to depend on me, just a little bit?

“Mr. Cummings?” A pretty middle aged nurse comes goose stepping her way to me with a clipboard and a stack of papers fluttering at her side.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I have some instruction for your husband. These are the exercises and diet restrictions for him,” the nurse begins, pointing to the pages she has in hand. I don’t listen carefully. I have always hated the way hospital staff feel obligated to read instructions out loud with you. I try to stay patient as she goes through every sheet in her hand, initialing here and there, certifying that I have read them, and had them explained to me. Each time I reach for the pen, I feel a little stab of guilt in my chest. She keeps saying “your husband” and I keep nodding as if the relationship I invented could become real if we keep saying it long enough.

When Liam comes rolling out of the locker room, he doesn’t look any better than he did when he went in.

“Oh, Mr. McClehllan, I just finished explaining all of the home care instructions to your husband,” says the cheerful nurse. For a second Liam’s brows wrinkles and his eyes dart toward my face quickly. I give him a slight nod and then he recovers.

“I’m sure he will give me all the home care I can handle,” he says with a wicked smile. The nurse giggles slightly at the implied meaning.

“You two better behave,” she says, blushing prettily.

“I can’t be held responsible for his shenanigans. He is incorrigible,” Liam says, looking charming and at ease as he smiles up at the nurse.

He shifts his body awkwardly in his chair, appearing to lean back comfortably, but I can tell by the way he is breathing that he is sore and fatigued.

“If you don’t mind, you two will have to finish making fun of me another time. I have to get the patient home so I can go to work,” I say.

Liam waves and smiles as I push his chair out into the parking lot. Once I have him securely inside the car, his mask falls completely. Every time the vehicle lurches left or right, he tenses, sucking in a sharp breath as the muscles he reflexively uses to keep himself upright react to the movement.

“Just bear with it for a little while. I will have you home and in bed in no time,” I assure him. He says nothing but continues to clutch the upholstery.

“Didn’t the nurse just say we can’t do that?”

“This is no time for jokes,” I snap.

“I don’t think so. This is a perfect time,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Okay, Hercules. We are here,” I say as I park the car and help him out.                                                                 

“There is a strange irony to rehab being painful,” he says a little later, accepting the pain medication prescribed for him.

“Not at all,” I say, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed where he is lying perfectly still. “When I went to rehab we had to detox first. The first few days were like hell on earth. There was pain and sweating and hot and cold flashes. The hallucinations were the best. They put me in a little white jacket when that started happening. It didn't keep me from screaming like a lunatic, but it did make killing myself a lot harder. And boy did I wish I was dead,” I say, recalling the pain of those first few days sober.

“Are you trying to annoy me to death?”

“Naw,” I can’t help but smile at his spiky response. “I just want you to know, I understand. I can’t do much to help you. Nothing I say is going to make it suck less. But I understand. You don’t have to smile for me like you did for the nurse.”

“Since when have I ever put on a smile for you?”

“That’s true. You aren’t the type to try and comfort me by pretending you aren’t hurting. But still…”

“Thanks,” he says, so softly that I’m not sure I hear it at all. Knowing that if I mention it, he will just waste energy hurling a fresh pile of insults my way, I decide to let it go.

“If you don’t mind, I am going to hang around here today. I remember when I was going through the worst of it, being alone in a room didn’t help much.” I’m not doing him any favors. I wouldn’t be able to focus if I went to work. I would waste the afternoon worrying about Liam.

“Do I seem like the type who needs you to keep me company?”

“No, you seem like the type that would rather suffer alone than ask anybody for help. You already paid me, so just think of this as one of the services included in the price if it makes you feel better,” I explain.

“Is it?” He turns those icy blue eyes on me and waits expectantly.

“No. I would do this for you no matter what. But you may not believe that. And even if you believe me, you might not like it in any case. So just take it in whatever way makes you feel comfortable.”

“Hmmph,” he grunts, rolls his eyes and turns his head away.

“Don’t take it the wrong way. After Liam died…”

“
Died
!” He sits straight up in bed, grimacing from the pain and obviously agitated.

“Yeah, his whole family died in a car accident.”

Liam’s hand shakes slightly as he reaches for the cup of water on his nightstand.

“You were saying?”

“Oh, now you are all ears,” I tease him. “I was saying after Liam died. My Liam. I thought about how much harder it is to be unaffected by others than it is to simply care. We don’t have to fall in love or anything, but it doesn’t hurt me to care a little bit about somebody going through a rough time. He used to do that for people. He never said anything, but he would offer a smile or listen to girls when they cried. Once, I caught him feeding stray cats. After he died, I decided I wanted to be more like that. Maybe that way the world won’t be so short on kindness.”

I watch the clouds pass by the window, remembering a face from a different place and time. Liam’s uncomfortable shifting brings my attention back to the present, and I turn to see if he needs my help. For a second, the blue eyes I am looking at aren’t the eyes of a cynical writer. For the briefest moment, they are the eyes of a quiet boy who always sat behind me and looked up at me.

“What?” Liam whines.

“Nothing. For a moment, I had a sense of déjà vu. I will let you rest for a while. Holler if you need anything,” I say, beating a hasty retreat. Again.