The flame in his eyes doesn’t die out either.
It’s three or four in the morning when I hear footsteps at my door. The guest bedroom they’ve put me in is downstairs. Romeo and Selby’s room is upstairs. My breathing hitches as I wait for a knock with my heart in a spasm, but the steps don’t pause. They pad past my room and head to the kitchen. I’ve been awake for hours despite the fact Romeo’s guest room is about as comfortable as your average five-star hotel room. Against my better judgment, I get out of bed and walk barefoot to the kitchen. I take care to tread lightly so if Selby is the other person awake, I can backtrack and feign a trip to the bathroom.
It’s not Selby. It’s Romeo.
The fridge door is open, and he’s leaning down, getting something out of it. I blink. The light from the fridge isoverbright in the dark room, lighting one side of Romeo’s body and casting spindly shadows around the room. He straightens slowly as if aware of my presence without looking back. He’s wearing a pair of sleep shorts that hang low on his hips and a white tank that clings to him so tightly I can see the curve of his spine through the worn fabric.
Even though he can’t dance for shit, Romeo has a dancer’s body. Lean, defined muscle in all the right places. Articulated joints that lend a gracefulness to his movements and scramble my thoughts.
He turns to face me and I watch wordlessly as nimble fingers unscrew a lid and set it on the counter. He lifts the milk carton to his mouth, resting it on his bottom lip before tilting his head back and exposing his throat. His Adam’s apple hovers and then travels effortlessly up and down the column of his neck.
I keep moving. I must because I was at the door when I saw him, but I’m close to him now. So close I can see the hair on his forearms.
I know that hair. I know what it feels like to run my hand up his arm. I know the slight roughness, the soft caress of it on my palms.
I know other hair too. The hair on his head, though, admittedly, it was long and unruly when I knew it, a tangle I used to knot my fingers in as I moved inside him.
I know the hair on the small of his back too. I know it’s blond. Fine. Barely there, but it glows when the sun hits it. I know it covers his entire body. Even the places now covered with clothes. Especially those places.
“Milk?” he offers.
I nod and reach out, not trusting my voice. There’s something different about him right now. I’m not sure what it is, but maybe it’s because Selby’s fast asleep and we’re completely alone. Maybe it’s because it’s dark. Romeo’s always been one of those people who comes alive at night. Some people slow down and curl into themselves when the sun sets. Romeo gathers force.
He tilts the carton again and takes another sip, spilling a drop, a slow-moving rivulet that runs down the box when he rights it.
Sweat on skin.
Sweat on hot skin.
Ropes of semen running down a taut belly.
Deep, uneven breathing.
No! Stop that.
Don’t think like that.
His lips quirk. His eyes find mine, reaching into my soul and gutting me as he slowly runs his tongue up the carton, licking the spill and swallowing it before handing the container to me.
I’ve always been mystified that time hasn’t dulled how I feel about Romeo. I’ve always been convinced that the way I ached for him a month ago was as bad as it was a year ago, and that ache was as bad as the ache from two years ago, and so on and so forth.
I was wrong. I must have been. Because as bad as that pain was, it has nothing on the way I ache for him now.
11
“O happy dagger, this is thy sheath”
Then
When Romeo and Iwere kids, we usually had joint birthday parties. It made sense, seeing how we were born just a little over three weeks apart, him at the end of May, me in mid-June. The year we turned eighteen was no different, though my mom suggested we wait until early July for the party. She said it was so summer could set in, so we could bank on good weather. Romeo and I didn’t say anything, not even to each other, but we both knew it was because she wanted to let the anniversary of Sal’s death come and go and for the dust it stirred up to settle, so there was a fighting chance Romeo would have a good time at the party.
It had been a long, terrible year with way more lows than highs. I’d come to understand that even though the wound caused by losing his mother had stopped bleeding, it was only because it had grown over. Time was a skin graft that covered a deep gash that hadn’t been stitched up or treated. The wound underneath was still open and hadn’tcome close to healing. Even though there were hours and even days when he seemed almost like his old self, inside, Romeo was hurt in a way I’d started to think would be part of him forever.
On bad days, he came through my window at night, and I held him as sobs wracked him. On those nights, I bargained with every deity I could think of. I begged them to take his pain from him and give it to me instead. I raged against God and life and death. I felt Romeo’s pain in my chest. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt of my own. The pain of it was so deep and terrible I still felt the murmur of it in my joints when I let myself think about Romeo without bracing first.
On bad days, I’d wait until he’d cried himself out and his breathing started to lengthen and even out, and then I’d hold him tighter and whisper furiously into his ear. “I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you again, Romeo. I won’t. As long as I live,nothingbad willeverhappen to you again. Do you hear me? I swear I won’t let it.”
I’d say it over and over.
