I can’t promise it won’t, but being with him again, in this dark room, feels like home. I don’t want it to end. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I whisper.
He’s stiff a moment more before relaxing, his back thudding against a wall. I shift, so I’m leaning against the wall beside him and taking his hand, warm and big and slightly calloused, inmine. For the past week, I’ve felt like a piece of flimsy seaweed being tossed around a violent ocean. Now, I feel still.
I lean towards him, intending to kiss him, when he suddenly pulls back, dodging me.
I freeze. “Did I scare you?”
“No,” he says. “No. It’s just…that stuff that I was talking about before? It’s really stressing me out, and I don’t think I’m in the right headspace to...”
Mortification spreads slowly like sap from my gut to the rest of my body. “I wasn’t trying to take your clothes off or anything.”
“I know. But I can’t even kiss right now.”
“Okay,” I say. “All good. I understand.” I’m so grateful he can’t see my face. I must be bright red right now.
“It’s not you,” he rushes to say. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings because it’sreallynot you. I want to. Shit, I want to, because I’m missed you too. But it wouldn’t be fair to you, not when I’m distracted and jumpy and…”
“Hey,” I say softly. “I completely get it.” Sure, the initial rejection is embarrassing, but he sounds so frantic that all I want to do is calm him.“Is holding your hand okay?”
“Yeah.” He squeezes my hand. “It’s okay.”
And we spend the rest of lunchtime sitting side by side like that.
14
Aaron: Fitzwilliam
Jude Seymour sits beside me in maths class, like he has all year. His head is propped up on one hand, and the other hand writes answers in his notebook, each letter and number neat and slightly cursive. It’s the same handwriting he used in the letters he wrote me. The letters which he signed off withLove, F.
It makes sense, in retrospect, that Jude is F and F is Jude. Jude Fitzwilliam Seymour, with his ridiculous middle name. Jude, who wears a permanent leave-me-alone frown in front of others but in the darkness of the storage closet, admits that he’s lonely. Jude, with long legs and long fingers and pillowy lips I’ve kissed.
I’ve had his tongue in my mouth. I’ve made him gasp and whimper and moan and curse. I’ve had his cock between my lips, and I’ve sucked him off until he came, and I swallowed it.
Jude turns, eyes narrowed. “What?”
“N-nothing.” I jerk my gaze to my textbook.
Jude Seymour. I worked with him almost every day during the winter holiday, and we were nothing more than polite to each other. But at night, we emailed and called and talked, and god —
My stomach lurches.
Jude Seymour. He’s never shown any interest in me, Aaron Wynn, even if he sometimes helped me with maths and he worked at my family’s shop. Jude Seymour, whose face twisted with total disgust and said I was “absolutely not” attractive.
I can’t stop ruminating on that last point, even though I shouldn’t be surprised. We discussed it once. In the dark, it’s easy to construct the ideal stranger. To imagine gorgeous eyes and a model jaw-line on the shadowy figure of the other person.
The problem is Judeisattractive. That was an objective fact before I knew he was F, and now I know they’re one and the same, it’s making me notice the strong slope of his nose and his straight brows, and his dusk rose pink lips. His Adam’s apple, and his tapered torso and even the curve of his butt. He’s perfect.
And I’mabsolutely not.
If Jude ever found out that R was me — the idiot who sits next to him in maths — he’ll be repulsed.
When Ricky asked him if I was a looker, he didn’t hesitate to answer. Then there was the time he fell off the step ladder at work, and I caught him, and he jerked away from me like I was contagious. And what did he say that night we first had phone sex?There was this guy today who touched me…Don’t worry, I don’t like himat all.
After school that Monday, I receive an email from F — Jude.
Dear R,
We haven’t talked in a bit, not since our meeting. I know you’re in a weird headspace right now, so take all the time you need. I just wanted to say that if you ever want to talk to anyone, you can talk to me. About anything.
