He moves our hands to look. “Your kid’s name?”
“Yeah. Gina’s got it on her left wrist.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A little bit.”
He lays back down beside me. Ice pellets tap against the glass of the motel windows. The TV is still on andThe X-Filestheme song plays.
Ethan smiles faintly. “Remember Ev had a crush on Scully?”
I smile back. “You said you did too.”
“I was just trying to be like him. So he wouldn’t know that…”
Ethan’s eyes start to water and he sits up. We both sit in silence for a time, watching Mulder and Scully flash their badges at some cops so they can look for a monster. Then he says, almost too softly for me to hear him, “Remember when you drove that Bronco?”
“Yeah. It broke down a couple years ago. That’s when I got my truck. Why?”
He messes with the corner of a pillowcase “Remember when you had some flat tires?”
I think back. The Bronco was always breaking down and having issues in the later years that I drove it. Then I remember about a year or so after high school, I came out of a store in Lowville and there were three flats on it. I was pissed, had to geta tow, and Gina had to wake up Mikayla and put her in the car seat to come pick me up. I just thought the tires had rotted out.
But it sounds like I was wrong. “That was you?”
He doesn’t answer. He puts the pillow on his lap and leans over it.
There’s silence between us for a few minutes. Then I say, “I would rather you have punched me or something.”
“Oh, I would have,” Ethan says. “If I’d seen you before I saw your car.” He pauses. “But you didn’t deserve that. It was mean. And dangerous. Like if you’d had your kid with you or something. I just happened to see it, and I don’t know. You never answered me. All those emails I sent. I went to your house.” He shakes his head.
“I know, Ethan. I was an asshole. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
There’s a faint line between his eyebrows that wasn’t there five years ago. I suppose he’s spent more time frowning than smiling. The knuckles of his hands are bigger, thicker. I wonder what he does all day, back in the city. I’m guessing he goes to his classes. Maybe he parties and there’s got to be some clubs, gay clubs and bars, and maybe that’s where he’s met some guys. Guys that taught him a new way of kissing; taught him how to put on a condom.
There’s a spot of dried cum near his nipple that I missed when I cleaned us up. I rub my finger over the spot and realize how different things are now. Very different. They way they would have been had we crossed this line years ago.
I’m reminded of that one time the three of us were going to sleep outside. Kind of like a camp out. Ev, Ethan, and I were going to sleep in this big tent they had in the backyard, but it started raining and there were mosquitoes.
Ev fell asleep with the TV on, and Ethan quietly got out of his sleeping bag, stepped over Everett, and crept up the stairs. I counted to twenty and did the same. I went all the way up toEthan’s bedroom where he was standing by the door, which he closed once I slipped in.
I remember him standing there in his blue plaid pajama pants and a worn-out gray tee with “Camp Eagle” printed on the front. I was sure that between Ethan and me I was the one with the most experience, but I didn’t feel that way right then. I felt…new.
He offered to put some music on, something slow and soft.
Make out music.
He stood in front of me again, running his fingers through his hair and that one strand, that one long strand that always slipped out from behind his ear and just barely touched his lips fell out, and I finally moved away from the door and gently pushed that strand of hair out of his face.
It wasn’t long until our lips collided, and he made this noise in his throat. He moved me, walked us until we were at his bed, and he fell back, while I fell on top of him. It wasn’t smooth at all. We bumped heads, we had to scoot our bodies onto the bed so our legs weren’t dangling, and we knocked our knees together. I accidentally put my hand on the fabric of his tee, which tugged it across his neck as he tried to scoot onto the bed. We snickered over our clumsiness, even though I was starting to sweat with anxiety over what we were doing.
And being caught.
I kept my ears alert for someone in the hall as I stroked his face and ran my thumb across his plump bottom lip. My hair spilled down my forehead and brushed against his. When I tried to push it back, he told me not to do that. He liked it. Then he lifted himself up and kissed me.
It got heated. And my body reacted. I was embarrassed at first. I don’t know why. I felt his erection through those blue plaid pajama pants. He rolled his hips up against me, as if to let me know exactly what I was doing to him.
We kissed and kissed and kissed. Sloppy tongue kisses with grunts and groans as we awkwardly dry humped each other through our clothes. It felt so good. It feltincredible.
