In the Silks (11 page)

Chapter 9

T
HEY FELL asleep only a few minutes later. Between the alcohol and the sex, Henry was done in. Typically, Henry had trouble sleeping when he drank more than a few drinks. But tonight was an exception because he felt relaxed enough to fall into a pleasant slumber. He was sure the same was true of Ryan. At some point in the night, they both woke up, and without a word, began kissing and grinding on each other until they both came again and then fell back asleep. The next time Henry woke up the sun was barely up. He lay there for a few minutes looking at Ryan. He was trying to process how the night before had played out. It still felt surreal.

The more he thought about it though, the more he began to panic. As quietly as he could, he crawled out of the bed and fished his clothes out of the pile they had made the night before. Then went into Ryan’s bathroom and cleaned up the best he could. Henry went back to the room to get his shoes. Stealing another glance at Ryan, he debated waking him up, but then thought better of it. Carrying his shoes, Henry silently crept out of the room and out of the apartment. Only once he called for the elevator did he put his shoes on. With those hard wood floors, he hadn’t wanted to take the chance of waking Ryan up.

In the elevator and all the way home, Henry thought about that night. It had been the best night of his life, without question. But he knew he had fucked up and he had to let it be what it was for several reasons. One amazing fucking night, that could never happen again. When he reached home, Henry went in the bathroom to shower. While he waited for the water to warm up, he stared at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t look any different; granted he had no idea what he was expecting to have looked like. But he sure as hell felt different. He bit his lip trying to contain a grin. Which only reminded him of Ryan more; the way he bit the corner of his bottom lip. The way his smile was lop-sided. The way he took control, his dirty mouth. Oh, that mouth, Henry thought stepping in to the shower. He replayed the night in his head, over and over again. He jerked off in the shower wishing Ryan was there. If he were, Henry would get on his knees in front of him and take Ryan into his mouth and suck him dry. And with that thought Henry came, he finished washing up and got out. He was exhausted. He barely dried off before putting his phone on silent and crawling into bed. He fell asleep thinking about Ryan, feeling guilty for leaving the way he did. Wondering what Ryan would say when he got up. If he would be pissed, maybe he wouldn’t care. After all, he was drunk and maybe even high. He had a boyfriend. That thought made Henry cringe. He felt like a shithead for that. He put his own self-centered needs ahead of what was the right thing to do. Once again, Henry’s selfishness came shining through and reminded him why he’d made the choices he’d made.

Henry woke up in the late afternoon. His mouth was incredibly dry, and he stumbled to the kitchen to get some water. When he saw the time, he realized the day was a loss. He kept a bottle of aspirin behind the kitchen sink. He popped two, drank another glass of water and went back to bed.

Henry slept off and on through the night. He checked his phone a few times, nothing from Ryan, a few messages from Pat. His older brother texted him often but he had Henry particularly paranoid since the computer incident. Henry was not a good liar and Pat was one who would poke and prod then wait for you to give in to him. Was that what he was doing now?

Did he know something and was just going to keep poking and prodding until Henry had a nervous breakdown and told him? It had happened before, it could happen again. He needed to be careful with Pat and Annie for that matter. Julie was oblivious to anything outside of Julieland so she wasn’t on his radar.

The only other text Henry had was from a friend who wanted to see if Henry could help him out moving some furniture the following weekend. Although he had made the decision to leave Ryan alone, he was disappointed that Ryan hadn’t tried to contact him. But he understood. Henry still felt like a jerk for doing what he did, and then for leaving without a word.

When Henry went to dinner with his family on Sunday, he was still on edge about Pat. It didn’t make much sense because he had no idea what Pat knew, if anything. He had been going over it and over it, but he wasn’t sure. He was still scared though. If Pat did know something, would he share at dinner? No, that wasn’t his style. Henry had been over-thinking the situation to the point of a headache. He was almost afraid to open any message Pat had sent him. Henry had almost turned around and gone back home when he got a group text from his siblings earlier. All it was though was asking for someone to stop at the store for a few things their mother needed. They would see something on his face, he was sure of it. Henry stood on the front steps for a few minutes before going into the house.

“Uncle Henry!” Louis cheered when Henry walked through the door.

“Hey, bud! What’s up?” Henry squatted down to high five his nephew.

“Uncle Pat is bringing ice cream for dessert!”

“He is? Well he better bring my favorite or I’m going to kick his butt.”

“Alllll the way to Pizza Hut!” Louis giggled and pointed toward the door.

No matter how many times they did that little bit, it never got old. Henry relaxed a little. Pizza Hut… pizza, pineapple and ham, Ryan. All roads seem to lead to Ryan lately. Henry frowned as he stood up, he still felt like an asshole for leaving Ryan’s the way he did. He wondered what he was doing right now.

“Hey sourpuss, what’s your problem?” Annie said giving him a nudge to the shoulder.

“Hey, sis, nothing.” Henry leaned in and gave her a kiss to the temple.

About fifteen minutes later, while Henry was in sitting with his father he heard Tara and Pat come in. It sounded like they were arguing, but it was cut off when they came through the door. The tranquil state that he had temporarily found was gone now and he could feel the tension rising up his back, to his neck and head. Sitting up straighter in the chair, he waited for them to come into the room, it didn’t take long.

“Little bro, what’s going on?” Pat said with a smile.

Henry looked past him to Tara, “Hi Tara.”

“Hi Henry,” was all he got from Tara. She was still sore about Jackie. Tara kissed Pat Sr. and turned to leave the room. There was nothing he could do but he hoped she would come around soon. Pat shook his head at his wife as she exited. Then turned back to Henry, “So, what’s been going on?”

“Nothing, why?”

“Damn, snippy, just making conversation. What crawled in your ass?”

That made Henry blush and feel nauseous at the same time. He eyed his brother suspiciously. “Sorry, nothing. Just tired I guess.” Henry said trying to look much more nonchalant than he felt.

“Why so tired, what did you get into this weekend?”

Henry practically came out of his skin with that and had to get out of that room. Now he was sure Pat knew something, although it was just a turn of phrase he was confident that his older brother was choosing his words very wisely.

“I didn’t do shit, Pat. I’m going to see if Ma needs help.” With that, he left the room as fast as he could.

They were mid-meal by the time Henry started to calm again. His mother was chattering about things happening at the salon. Henry was pretending to be engaged in the conversation but all he could think about was Ryan. What he was doing for dinner? What it would be like to have him here for dinner?

Yeah right
.

The thought was nice, but so far-fetched. Why hadn’t Ryan called him? He must hate him, he couldn’t blame Ryan. He wanted desperately to text him or call him, but if he was going to it would definitely have to wait until he was out of here. He was distracted by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He jumped and wanted to excuse himself but bringing attention to himself would trigger Pat. He tried to pull the phone from his pocket as discreetly as possible and check the message. He was momentarily thrilled at the idea that it might be Ryan but upon opening the message his hopes were dashed. It was Eli, the friend he was going to help move. Henry responded to the text, letting him know he got the information, about where to be and when. With that Henry put his phone back in his pocket. When he looked back up he saw Pat who was sitting across the table from him with Tara to his left and Annie to his right. He was whispering in Annie’s ear and she was looking at Henry.

What the hell was he telling her?

Henry squinted his eyes at Pat. His brother, totally unaffected, finished what he was saying, smiled at Henry and went back to stuffing his face.

“Henry what did you do this weekend?” His mother asked.

Henry felt sick; he hated to lie, especially to his mother. He was never good at it. He tried not to because he usually got caught, so he only sort of lied when answering her question.  He would love to tell his mother, not in great detail, of course but to just be honest about who he was, who was in his life. But that was too selfish and a lesson Henry had already learned years ago.

What they don’t know, can’t hurt them.

“Pretty uneventful, I hung out with some friends. Not much, I needed to catch up on sleep. I was home most of the time.” He couldn’t seem to stop his ramblings. Henry looked at his mother with a small smile which took a lot of effort to produce. When he was scanning the rest of his family sitting the table he did catch Annie and Pat sharing a look. He hoped Pat wouldn’t bring up the Ryan question while they were here at their parents’ house. He didn’t want him to ask, but he knew Pat would at some point. But tonight was not going to be that night.

Henry cleared his throat, “Ma, I’m sorry I really need to get home I have to be in court early tomorrow,” which was not a lie. It just wasn’t his reason for running away like a wuss. He wanted to avoid Pat at least for a little while longer.

“Henry, it’s so early,” she said, sounding disappointed.

“I know Ma, I’m sorry.” Henry said while getting up with his dish.

His mother took it from his hand, “I’ll take care of that at least let me make you a dish to take home.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m good. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“Love you!” She said patting his arm.

“Love you too, bye guys. Louis, later buddy,” Henry tousled his nephew’s hair. He barely spared a look for anyone else at the table, too worried about what he would see if he did. He went into his father’s room and gave him a quick kiss goodbye. The pang of guilt was immense, not to mention his anxiety. This dinner was probably worse than the one after he broke up with Jackie and that had been a nightmare.

Once he was home Henry checked his phone constantly hoping that Ryan would contact him. No such luck.

The next two days flew by. Henry was really busy with work, which was a good thing because when he got home he was too tired to worry about anything else but food and sleep. He hadn’t worked out in a while, he was thinking that night, lying in bed. He needed to get his ass out for a run. He wondered if Ryan worked out at all. Probably not right now, what with having an injured knee. His body was amazing regardless. That was really all it took for Henry to get worked up. If Ryan only knew how many times Henry had taken himself in hand thinking about him. Henry snorted, he was pathetic. He tried to conjure someone else’s image in his mind, just to see if it would work. Nope. Now all he could see was Ryan. All he wanted was Ryan. There was so much more he wanted to do with him, to him. So much that he wanted Ryan to do to him. He was practically a man obsessed.

Henry came with images of Ryan in his head. Remembering the way he tasted and smelled. The way he sounded when he was coming. Henry was going to make himself crazy.

That night he dreamed of Ryan, but it wasn’t a sex dream. Ryan was there, Tommy was there, and his dad was there. They were all in Fenway Park. Henry was standing on the pitcher’s mound. Someone was yelling at him from the dugout. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. But when he looked over he saw that his entire baseball team from high school was there watching. Tommy was standing on first base, laughing. Ryan was on second base, also laughing. His father was standing at home plate; he was holding a bat and looking at Henry with a scowl. Then he could make out the voice, it was saying,
“hit him it will hurt less, just hit him.”

Henry woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. When he had bad dreams, he would grind his teeth and end up feeling like this. He walked to the kitchen, squinting and holding the heel of his hand to the side of his head. After taking some aspirin and sitting for a few minutes waiting for some relief, he got up and went to get ready for work.

When Henry stopped by Annie’s that night after work to help her fix the broken drawer in Louis’s desk, she convinced him to stay for dinner. She acted very casual, but Henry could tell that if Louis had not been right there she would have something to say. As soon as they were done eating, Henry thanked her and helped her clean up as fast as he could.

“Hey sis, dinner was great. But I remembered that I told a friend I would stop by to help him move some furniture.” The words left a sour taste in Henry’s mouth. He was, in fact, going to help a friend move furniture, just not tonight.

That seemed to be happening often as of late, that bad taste. He tried to rationalize his actions by saying he just bent the truth or exaggerated, but it was all the same thing. And it made him feel like dog shit.