“I can’t–” I rip myself away from Raiden, shoving him off my lap and he falls to the couch with a gentlethunk.He doesn’t snap at me, or demand what happened. He just stares at me, in that irritating way of his like he knows what’s going on in my head. And he probably does, better than I know.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes after a minute, standing up and walking to my kitchen to pour us both a glass of water. The alcohol is still buzzing in my system, so I appreciate the sentiment. He hands it to me, our fingers brushing and the sparks burn bright between us at the small connection.
“I’m still with Liam,” the words burn coming out and my hands tremble around the cup, water sloshing over the side and trailing down until it falls to my pants, creating a wet spot in the material.
“I know,” Raiden says so sadly, I feel the deep cut of my words as surely as he does. “I hope I didn’t ruin things between you two. I just thought… I’ve been holding this in for so long. If I didn’t get it out now, I didn’t know if I ever would.”
I sit in silence, staring at the wet spot in my pants as it grows in diameter. The material soaks up the water and deposits it into its crevices. The same way I’m stealing these moments with Raiden. The only difference is the moments I’m stealing would kill Liam if he knew about it.
I owe him the truth, if nothing else. But I can’t tell him. Not yet. The thought of breaking his heart after everything he’s done for me makes me physically ill.
I think about how disappointed my mom’s going to be. She loves Liam. And he and my dad have a lot in common, shared conversations over football games and craft beer. I brought him into their life, introduced them and proudly showed him off.
Now that Raiden is back, I’m throwing everything to the wayside. My mom and dad love Raiden, they always have. But they love him as their kid’s tumultuous best friend and their best friends’ son. They’ve had a connection with him since we first moved in, they never had a chance to see him anything else. And now, after my mom saw how I broke down after high school, she’s wary of him.
That was never my goal, but when I came back from mydeployment I had to forge that extra layer to protect myself from Raiden.
Now, I’m sitting with him in my living room after an intense makeout session. The hair on his head is mussed from where I’ve run my fingers through it.
“I can go,” Raiden offers, snapping my attention from my inward thoughts. I look at him, wringing his hands and looking nervous.
“Come here,” I say, opening my arms again and letting him find comfort in me. He buries his head in my neck and his tears coat my skin, and my heart aches for him. The soft spot I’ve had for him grows, encapsulating both of us in it whileThe Best of Meplays on silent in the background. I trace my fingers up and down his back over his shirt, feeling the notches of his spine and the smooth definition of his muscles.
“Where’s been your favorite stop on tour?” I ask him to break the silence, and to get our mind off of everything that happened here tonight.
“Tokyo, we spent three nights there and it was magical. I got to leave the hotel and explore. We normally don’t have time to do that, but one of our other stops had a problem with the weather so that concert was delayed.”
It was probably Raiden’s fault the weather was acting askew. He has a way of commanding the sky that he seems not to realize, but his feelings reflect the clouds in the torrential downpours they bring.
“What did you do?”
He tells me all about the Shibuya Sky Tower, how he could see far across the whole country and it still went on. Sounds terrifying to me, why would you want to be in a building over 700 feet in the air? It might not sound like much, but my feet enjoy being on the ground a little too much for that shit.
“I didn’t get to see where my mom grew up, but I did get to eat food similar to what she did. And street food over there is somuch cheaper than over here. I swear I ate my weight in egg sandwiches, too. I thought I wasn’t going to fit in my costume.” His chuckle is sweet as he details the stops along the tour, starting in North America and then going overseas. He was so busy, I’m surprised he found time to have fun with the other dancers. His days were long, filled with practice after practice. And when he wasn’t practicing, he was preparing choreography.
He traveled the world, seeing everything I could ever think of. The Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, The Statue of Liberty. He claims most of it was on his way to the arena they were performing in, but it's more than most people see in a lifetime. He’s had all these experiences, and in a pitiful moment, I realize I have nothing to offer him.
What can I show him that will combat with seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up at night? Thousands of lights twinkling, dancing around the night sky, resembling the fireflies we used to watch on my back porch while we sat outside bundled up to protect us from the cold. The experiences I could offer him would be like Walmart knock offs of the Gucci moments he’s already had.
Raiden yawns, a jaw-cracking sound and he looks over at me, his smile impish as his eyes flutter closed for a second. His eyelashes rest against his cheeks.
“Sorry, I’m so tired. I think the beer did me in.”
“Don’t apologize for being tired, you’ve had a long day. Painting kids' faces does take a lot out of a man.” I tease him, wanting to soak in the sleepy smile on his face.
“It does, but I had fun. Their smiles were worth it. I’ve never had to paint so many pink flowers in my life.” He yawns again and against my better judgement, like most of this night has been, I stand up and offer him my hand.
He looks at it like it's a snake ready to reach out and snap its fangs into an unsuspecting victim. I fold my hand in and out, in acome heregesture, waiting for him to put his palm in mine.
“It’s late, you can stay here and I’ll take you home in the morning.”
Raiden hesitates for a moment and I wait patiently, if he wants to I will take him home tonight. I will. But I would rather have this one night between us and hold on to it for as long as I can, before reality crashes down on us again.
“Okay,” his murmured agreement is all I need to hold his warm palm in mine and lead him to the bedroom.
I offer him clothes to sleep in and he leaves my bedroom to go into the bathroom to change. He comes back in, his footsteps light against my floor, the softtap tapof his ballet feet as he crosses back to my bed. In a pair of sweatpants that he has to tie up and roll over to keep them from falling off his hips. They still sag a bit, just enough for me to see a creamy patch of skin where the shirt I gave him doesn’t reach down far enough.
While he was gone, I quickly shucked off my pants and threw them in the laundry basket in the corner. I threw on an old pair of sleeping pants and a ratty t-shirt that I’ve had since my deployment. I’m always hot at night, and the extra body that will be in bed with me will make my body temperature run even hotter than usual. If it was just me, or me and Liam, I would sleep naked. That’s not an option right now though, no matter how much the temptation draws me to it. I refuse, pushing it away until it’s nothing but a miniscule blip on my radar.
