“Kind of,” he says. “She instilled a passion for reading in me at a young age, and studying English just kind of made sense.” I add an early love of literature to our growing folder of shared interests. He continues, “Plus I had Dr. Winston for my freshman writing seminar and I fell in love with the way he teaches. His excitement over words is infectious. It’s quiet, but it’s strong. It’s not even what he says exactly. It’s in the way he moves while he says it. Like a metaphor is a piece of candy to him, waiting to be unwrapped and savored. I had my mind made up by the end of that first term.”
I enjoy hearing about Gramps this way. My most vivid memories of him are his long-winded stories when he’s gorged out on dark meat at Thanksgiving dinner. They aren’t him poised in front of a lecture hall, teaching the next generation of thinkers. It’s such a noble profession. Underappreciated too. Even if their work isn’t for me.
“Did you come back here to see where you would’ve grown up had things been different?” I ask. I know it’s a loaded question, but we’re at that level now. At least, I hope we are.
“I think so. When I got my acceptance letter, I was worried at first that maybe this place had changed too much in the time since my parents were here, but I decided I had to find out for myself. I didn’t connect well with the people I went to school with back home. That world was sports, marching band, rowdy parties, and not much else. My brother did the sports thing. He played basketball before college and then the fire academy. My sister was in with the out-and-indie crowd. Like, full-on head of purple hair and multiple cartilage piercings, making my mom furious. I never really found a group that got me. I wasn’t a drama kid and I didn’t want to do debate, so I escaped into books,” he says. “Plus the humidity gets to you after a while. I wanted to experience a different climate. I love the snow now.”
“Snow is pretty coming down over New York City, but disgusting once it’s settled. Blackened slush is probably the saddest sight around the holidays,” I say. “Though, I do miss my January strolls through Central Park. I used to pretend I was somewhere far-off, isolated in my own world of freshly fallen crystal. It’s the closest to inner serenity I’ve ever found.”
I pick up one of the leftover light strands and start detangling it. We might need the extra glamour at some point before we’re done.
“Technically, I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, but it’s basically a city of its own accord. So this small-town change of pace is nice,” he says as I struggle with a stubborn knot. “I feel calmer here. Moreme. I like knowing people and being known. Especially by people who accept me for who I am.”
“When did you come out?” I ask as he takes a seat atop a plastic tub and joins me. His nimble hands have better luck than mine do.
“When I moved out here, I just decided I’d be open about who I was. There wouldn’t be any pretense about who I had been or who I wanted to be. I never formally came out to anyone on campus, but when I started exploring my bisexuality freshman year, going to club meetings and stuff, I would talk to my sister about it during our weekly FaceTime calls. She was working toward her beautician’s license, and not to be super stereotypical, but there were quite a few queer dudes in her program, so I knew she’d get me.”
“I’m glad you had that kind of support.”
Hector says, “My parents know now too. They’re devout, church-going Catholics, so I thought it would be an ordeal, but surprisingly it wasn’t. I think it helped that I have a cousin on my dad’s side who’s a lesbian. And that my mom loves Ricky Martin just alittle too much.”
“I don’t blame her,” I say. And then I blush because I realize Hector does share some of the talented performer’s brooding features. He catches me trying to hide it, and I decide after the other night what’s the use? He knows I crave him.
I smile a flirtatious smile, wishing he’ll pick up the baton and make mention of our steamy, pulse-spiking make-out session during the movie. Maybe start a second one to rival it.
“What about you?” he asks, killing my hopes and prolonging this conversation about everything but the kiss in question. I drop the smile, deflated a little. “I mean, you’ve been out for a while, right? What was that like, being a young poster child for the LGBTQ community?”
“Poster child? I don’t know about all that.” I swallow some of the hard, jagged feelings scratching up my windpipe, but I tell him what I can. The sentiments that won’t choke me. “It was not as glamorous as the GLAAD awards make it seem. I didn’t do it on my terms, nor was it my choice.”
He plays protector again. “Somebody outed you?” There’s anger in the way he drops his task to focus his attention on me.
“No, not like that. I was caught kissing a boy I shouldn’t have been.” I leave Lukas’s name out of it. Despite the trust building between us, it’s only half my story to share. “After confirming I was gay, my parents and our publicist kicked into high gear, deciding how and where and why to tell the story.”
“They didn’t even ask if that’s what you wanted?”
“I was just over the moon that they accepted me. That they wanted to shout their pride from the rooftops. It didn’t occur to me until I was working with my therapist that it was mostly a PR stunt.” I kick aside a stray box. “Lo and behold, I come out and queer side characters pop up in the Dark Dissension series. I should’ve seen it.”
“You were young,” he says, as if this makes it absolvable.
“But old enough to process the feelings and know how I felt about that guy. We were barred from seeing each other again.” Hector doesn’t ask who. It’s a small detail, but an important one. In New York, listeners would be hungry for names so they could regurgitate the story to the first person who will care, but Hector’s not like that. He’s more interested in my hard-held emotions than who brought about my sexual awakening. “I thought about that last kiss a lot.” The admission is freeing.
“I’ve been thinking about ourfirstkiss a lot.” Such a suave pivot. Such sweet words. I could shatter for him, right here on the cement.
“Me too.” Another equally freeing admission considering how scared I was that it would become another bunk-bed fever dream.
“Replaying it has kept me up the last couple nights.” So I haven’t been imagining that frantic tossing and turning over my head. The sound of an elastic waistband slapping back into place minutes after.
“Same for me.” It’s winded me and wound me up, making sleep impossible even though Hector’s snore strips have been working.
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Go for it,” I shoot back, realizing my guard isn’t just down. It’s not here. I lost it while dancing with him yesterday. Maybe even before that. I stand, stretching out my strand of lights, using it as an excuse to edge closer to him.
“Have you been with anyone since your exes?” he asks. His question is brazen, forward, and fills me with a million swooping bumblebees. I rumble and buzz with expectation of what he might say or do next.
“Are you asking if I’ve had sex since my breakup?” I raise my eyebrows, preen a little bit.
He lets out a pleasing, barely audible “Yes.”
