“Algebra?Noooo! You’ve found my one weakness!” I laughed, clutching my chest and rolling on the bed. “Superman has kryptonite, I have Algebra and Geometry. How did you know I hated math?” I demanded, stopping and staring at him in mock accusation.
“Easy,” he answered smugly, his green eyes twinkling like mossygreen gems in the morning sunlight. “You’re an artist. Everyone knows artists suck at math.”
“Hey! I don’tsuckat math,” I said, my voice taking on a pouty tone. “I just hate it.”
Lee leaned in and pressed another kiss to my lips, this one slow and gentle.
“That’s okay, whether you suck at math or not, I like you just the way you are,” he said.
I paused, looking up into those gorgeous green eyes, watching the sunlight play through the strands of golden hair on his head.
“You might want to think twice before you say that. That’s… that’s taking on a lot,” I said. “I’m sorr—” he started to lean in to kiss me again, but I held my hand up and he stopped. “Please. I need to say this, Lee.”
He leaned back a little, eyes studying my face, lips pursed as if ready to kiss me at a moment’s notice.
“I’m sorry about last night. Not about… about what happened, because I couldn’t control that. I’m sorry about how I reacted to it. I should have told you what I was thinking and feeling, and what was going through my head. I’m… as clichéd as it sounds, I’m not used to anyone caring what I think or feel, especially in bed. But I shouldn’t have run.”
“No,” he said after a few minutes. “You shouldn’t have run, and youshouldhave told me what you were feeling.” He agreed. “But… I get it, Mason. I really do. You should have seen me…” His voice grew thick with old grief. “You should have seen me the first time I was with someone after Mack died. Similar issue, similar result,” he said ruefully, smiling, but a certain wryness pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Except, he was just some guy at a club. I never saw him again,” he said, his voice low.
“Sometimes I wish Icouldfind him to apologize. He had no idea what was going on in my head, or how trying to give him a blow job was just too much of a reminder of Mack, and how suddenly I felt like I was betraying our entire relationship by being there.”
Lee’s eyes stared off into the distance for a moment, then helooked back down at me. “Mack had been dead two years at that point. I’m pretty sure he was beyond caring, but I’ve always wished I could find that guy and apologize, try and explain what was going through my head.”
I sighed, looking up at him. His eyes had turned thoughtful and sad. I didn’t like seeing sad Lee. I reached my hand up and traced the skin on his face, across his upper lip, his nose, his eyebrows. I felt like I was memorizing his face with my fingers. I brushed my fingertips across his eyelashes, feeling the spindly weight of them, resilient and protective. Kind of like the man himself.
“What?” he asked, looking down at me, a suspicious look on his face.
“What, what?” I asked.
“You’re smiling,” he said, as if that was sufficient explanation.
“So? Can’t a guy smile when he’s looking at his…” I paused, unsure how to finish the sentence. What did I call him? We hadn’t really talked about this. I was going back to Seattle in a few days, and Lee would go back to his life. There was no way a long-distance relationship could work. We hadn’t known each other long enough to just say “friend”, “lover” seemed too intense.Fuck. Where was my Word Boy persona when I needed him?
I thought Lee sensed my confusion, but he decided to tease me anyway.
“…When he’s looking at his… antelope?” Lee suggested.
“No,” I laughed.
“…polar bear?” He teased, and I laughed some more.
“No, asshat. What is it with you and animals? I just… I don’t know what to call… this,” I said, gesturing between us.
“Hmmm, okay. I understand your confusion. I know we haven’t really talked about this,” Lee began, sitting up and leaning against the headboard, but pulling me up to rest against his chest.
“But I was kind of hoping that at some point you’d maybe feel comfortable calling me your… boyfriend,” he whispered. “If that’s not too, um, grade school-ish.”
I could feel the tension in him as he said the magic words I'd been wanting to hear but had been too afraid to hope for.
“You know I’m a mess, right?” I asked, looking up at him. As if the last few days hadn’t been enough to make him realize. I had to go into full disclosure mode, because I couldn’t handle him ever feeling like I hadn’t prepared him for the fuckedupedness that was me.
“Yeah, I noticed,” he whispered down at me, his hand stroking across my chest. “I’m no catch, either, when it comes to that.”
“Riiiiight. In what world was that exactly?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him. “Is this like, Bizarro World, or something? Are we suddenly sporting mustaches and goatees, so everyone can tell we’re evil?”
“I think that was Star Trek, not Bizarro World. But, no, I promise. No facial hair,” he teased, the backs of his fingers stroked over my cheek and over my top lip. “Other than morning scruff, that is,” he smiled.
“What about the fact that I live, oh, a few thousand miles away? And that you have an extended family that makes the Brady Bunch look like a traditional nuclear family?”
