The Cranberry Hush: A Novel (23 page)

“I guess I’ll get going,” he said. “Thanks for the food and
the solace and stuff.”

From the kitchen Griff shot me a look.

“Um—” I stood up. “You can—stay here tonight if
you want to give your parents some space. If you need more solace. You’re
welcome to stay.”

He hesitated. “I should probably go,” he said at last, doing
up the first button of his coat.

“Stay,” Griff said. “Vince buys solace in bulk. It fills his
garage, his closets, his cupboards. Do the guy a favor and take some off his
hands, huh? Have the new bed. I’m gonna go hit the sack myself.”

Zane looked at me, shrugged, nodded.

Griff switched off the kitchen light and shuffled away down
the hall like an old man. “Vin, I think the sheets for it are still in the
dryer.”

“Thanks for the company, Griffin,” Zane said after him.

Griff replied without turning around, “Don’t let the heteros
keep you down. We’re not all bad.”

He went into our bedroom and closed the door.

I smirked, as though I was just now getting a joke. For some
reason I’d expected that Griff meant for Zane to share my bed, given that he’d just
put together his own. I relaxed a little.

“You sure it’s cool for me to stay?” Zane said.

“Sure. It’s probably better to let things cool down at home before
you go back.”

“Probably.” He put his coat down on the chair.

“So are you just heading to bed, or do you want to chill for
a while?”

“I can chill,” he said. “Do you have any hot cocoa?”

I smirked. “I think I can scrounge some up, yeah.”

In the kitchen I filled the kettle, put it on the stove, got
a pair of mugs out of the cupboard. It was, in a way, what I anticipated doing
last Friday when I woke up to find all that snow. I was only getting around to
it now.

“Do you still have that Mogwai record I gave you for your
birthday?” Zane said. He was standing in the living room with his arms folded
on the half-wall.

“Of course, yeah. It’s in the bin. Put it on.”

I watched the kettle simmer, blasting it with imaginary heat
vision to speed up the process. I wanted the hot chocolate done
ASAP—something to do with my hands. Zane found the record and now was
fumbling with the turntable.

“How come it’s not playing?” he said.

“Did you turn the power on?”

“The green light is on. I don’t know. Come look.”

I spotted the problem immediately. “Dude, you need to put
the needle down!”

“Oops. I’m not going to have to rub sticks together or chant
or anything too, am I?”

“No, ass-face,” I smirked. I lowered the needle—it
sketched against the vinyl.

“Good, cheese-cock. Now how do I pick a song?”

“You don’t pick one. You’re supposed to listen straight
through.” He looked perplexed. “Here,” I told him, “this is a good one.” I
lifted the needle and moved it into the record, let it fall into one of the
middle grooves.

“You have the grooves memorized?”

I shrugged. He smiled.

The kettle began to whistle just as the first ambient notes
of music wafted from the speakers, as though the appliances in my house were
part of an orchestra. I took it off the burner, filled the mugs and mixed in
some packets of Swiss Miss.

“Wish I had some marshmallows,” I said.

“Give me a dollop of Fluff, if you have it,” he said.

“Good idea.” I plopped in a spoonful, and as it began to
melt I remembered back to when I’d worried about marshmallows making it seem
too much like a date, and felt that fear renewed. “So she said you’re not gay,
huh?” I handed him a mug and sat down in the blue chair.

“Yeah. Can you
believe
that?” He held his mug close to his lips but didn’t drink. “As if I was
mistaken or only doing this for shits and giggles. Because
wheee!
this is all so fucking fun I can barely stand it.”

There was a worn-out anger in his eyes that scared me. He
must’ve had it so much more difficult than I did. There was no life for him to
escape into; the best he could do was lie. Whenever I felt different, it was
only until the next pretty girl walked down the street. Then I was just an
average guy like everyone else.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry at someone I loved,”
he said. “Man. But I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess I just hoped that
like despite the clues to the contrary I’d be lucky, you know? That I would be
the kid whose dad comes to him and says, I love you and I’ll love anyone you
bring home, boy or girl.”

“I doubt many people have it that easy.”

“How long did it take your parents to deal?” He crossed his
legs on the ottoman. His skinny jeans ended in red socks.

“A while. Although the way I came out didn’t help.”

“Didn’t they catch you making out with a guy or something?”

“My first boyfriend, just after sophomore year of college.
In the pool.”

Andy and I had camped out in my backyard that night. It
seemed to me now slightly ridiculous that college students would camp out in a
tent in the backyard, but it was easy to forget what it was like when privacy
was hard to come by. Living in my own house spoiled me quick.

“We got the idea that it would be great to go skinny dipping
in the middle of the night,” I continued. “So we went in our underwear and then
let them sink to the bottom.” I said it with the same sort of horrified pride
with which I thought about my childhood stunts, like standing with one foot on
the seat of my bike, the other leg kicked out in the air behind me as I raced
down the street. I couldn’t help but admire my recklessness, but kids could be
so stupid. “Anyway, we got frisky. Andy was sitting on the edge with his feet
in the water, and I was in the pool with my head, you know, between his legs. My
mom had gotten up to let the dog out—”

“Wait—
that’s
how you were outed? You got caught
blowing
him?”

“Hey.” Suddenly my cheeks felt hot enough to steam.

“Why’d I think you were only making out?”

“Usually I gloss over the details. But I figure now you can
relate.”

“Why, because you caught me getting... blown?”

“I guess.”

“That doesn’t count. When
I
walk in on
you
getting
a beej, I’ll be able to relate.” He used the mug to cover his smile. “So what
happened?”

“She screamed.” It was the same choked gasp she would’ve
made if a burglar had sprung from the shadows in our own dark living room.

“No shit.” He was enjoying this. “So what did you do?”

“We ran bare-ass back to the tent. Farley was running
around, trying to catch us, thinking it was some kind of game, and somehow he
weaseled his way into the tent with us. I zipped up the door anyway as fast as
I could, trying to make like a barrier between us and my mom, who in hindsight
I’m sure just ran back into the house. So we’re in there, wet and naked, with a
huge German Shepherd.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’m trying to push him out, and of course this had to
happen in early summer—prime shedding time—and in about ten seconds
I look like a fucking
werewolf.
It
was disgusting.”

“Wow. That is one hell of a coming-out story. Your poor
mother!”

“I know, seriously.”

“But to be fair, she probably would’ve screamed the same way
if she’d walked in on you eating pussy, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Figures I’ve never gotten caught doing that.”

He smiled again. I liked that he never had any issues about
my other interests.

“Obviously it would’ve been less traumatic if I’d told them
outright. Plus, they can always pray for the fifty-fifty chance I’ll end up with
a girl.” I laughed and then felt myself instinctively pull back a little. This
was feeling too natural, too nice.

“That’s true.”

“They’re uneasy about it,” I said, adjusting my tone from
friend
to
mentor
, where it felt more comfortable and somehow appropriate, “but
they didn’t disown me, and yours won’t either.”

“That doesn’t feel like a lot of comfort.”

“No, probably not.”

We sat for a while, sipping our hot chocolates and listening
to Mogwai. The long arm of the wind-up clock on the mantle traveled slowly
around its face, and every so often the front yard lit up in the headlights of
a passing car. When the music was replaced by the soft static thump of the
finished record, Zane slid his legs off the ottoman and told me he needed to
get to sleep.

“Your sheets are still in the dryer,” I said. “I’ll go get
them.”

I went down cellar and pulled the blue plaid comforter and
yellow flannel sheets from the dryer. They were freezing. I gathered them up
into a ball that wouldn’t drag and carried them upstairs.

Zane came into the room behind me. “I borrowed some
mouthwash.”

“OK. Griff said he bought an egg-crate. Should be around
somewhere. You can check the closet.”

He slid open the closet door. “Oh hi Griff,” he said,
peeking inside. “Just kidding.”

He pulled out the rolled-up and shrink-wrapped pink foam,
pushed his fingers through the plastic—they popped through one by one. We
smoothed the egg-crate over the mattress, which smelled vaguely like the new
Jetta, and fitted the sheet over it.

“These sheets are cold,” he said.

“I know. Sorry. The dryer vents to the outside.”

“Yeah. They’ll warm up fast.”

He looked at me and smirked and I smirked and looked down.

When the fitted sheet was finally secure we shook the flat
sheet over the bed and let it settle like a parachute around the egg-crate. We
looked at each other from opposite ends of the bed. He had hat-hair and bedroom
eyes, and maybe because he looked so tired and sad, he looked mine. I found
myself leaning over and then crawling over the headboard; he was doing the same
from the other end. Our mouths met in the middle. We kissed, softly at first
and then in a frenzy. It was hard and hurt my injured lips.

In a lull that offered us the chance to say something, to
acknowledge what was happening, neither of us did and we began undressing
instead. He pulled my t-shirt over my head and I fumbled with his fly. His skin
was soft and smooth like porcelain. When we were naked we entwined, pushing
hard against each other in tangles of sheets. The egg-crate curled up off the
mattress and wrapped around us.

Laying my head on his thigh I took him in my mouth and
listened to him gasp. After a minute I came up and kissed him and held him, my
fingers tight on the small of his back, pulling him against me as though he
might come through on the other side. Against his neck I whispered a request
and wrapped my legs across the backs of his thighs.

“You want me to?” he said.

“Just be easy.”

“I can do that. Condoms?”

“Medicine cabinet.”

He jumped off the bed and sprang naked out of the room. The
bathroom door smacked the wall as he barged in. The loud bang was like a splash
of cold water, a record needle screeching across vinyl in the middle of a
romantic song, the slap of a teacher’s ruler on a daydreaming student’s desk.
It made me realize that we were being noisy, that Griff could probably hear us,
that Griff was in fact mere feet away, that Griff was in my bed.

Griff.

I sat up, my heart pounding. I couldn’t find my boxers and
instead grabbed my shirt and held it over my dick. Just as I noticed my
underwear hanging on one of Griff’s blueprint tubes, Zane jumped over the
threshold as though he’d come out of the sky. Instantly the smile disappeared
from his face.

“... What are you doing?” The hand clutching the condoms and
a little clear bottle of lube fell to his side.

“I can’t do this.” I got off the bed, still holding the
shirt against me. “I’m sorry, I want to but I can’t.” I started to reach for my
boxers.

He threw the condoms and lube down on the bed. The lube
bounced off the rumpled egg-crate and disappeared through the crack between the
bed and the wall. “What do you mean you can’t do it? You look capable enough.”
He glanced down at the erection I was trying to conceal.

“There’s so many things wrong with this. For starters, Griff’s
right there.” I pointed at the wall.

“He fucked Beth when
you
were nextdoor.” He looked at me expectantly but I didn’t know what else to say.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this, Vince. And I don’t mean
just with my dick, I mean in
here
.” He
thumped his bare chest with his hand. “It was as blissful as I always thought
it would be, you and me. I mean, until you decided to slam on the brakes so you
could go sleep happily with your straight boyfriend instead.”

“Why do you keep
doing
this?” I squeezed my underwear until my fingers cramped. “Why can’t you just
let it go?”

“Because
you
can’t
let it go, Vince. If you weren’t interested, hey, fine. If you only wanted to
date chicks because it’s easier, that’s your choice. But I don’t get why you
insist on jerking me around like this.”

“You think I don’t—” I was shouting, and I lowered my
voice. “You think I don’t want to lay with you here for hours and days and have
it be blissful? But what about after that? Things, man, things are not as
simple as some fucking dream, and things don’t end up that easy, and I’m sorry
if you can’t accept that. There are boundaries. I’m your boss. You’re not even
old enough to drink.”

He cringed. “I may be a little younger than you but you’re
the one who’s totally fucking immature.” His eyes were welling up. He gathered
his clothes off the floor and left the room, came back. “It’s him, isn’t it?
Has it always been him, even before he even came here?”

“...”

“Are you
that
hung
up on a straight guy?”

“...”

“He doesn’t love you!”

“He does.”