Everything's Fine

"Haven't changed one bit," he moans into my shoulder. "Still a little - "

I go for his zipper with both hands. I curse myself again for not making the marina lights a priority; he has a gorgeous cock that's it's too dark to see properly. His hisses as I wrap my hand around it, run my thumb over the head. He collapses onto his back and I get between his legs, resting my elbows on either side of his hips.

"You were never too good at that," he pants out. I can't see his face, but the mischief in his voice tells me what expression would be there if I could. "Hope you've had some practice."

A competitive zeal coils in my belly and brings a blush to my cheeks that I'm glad he can't see. "Shut up."

"Don't want to hurt your feelings." He runs a hand through my hair and pets my cheek. "Just saying."

I run my tongue quickly from the base of his cock to the tip, my own cock twitching dangerously in my jeans. He shudders and breathes hard through his nose as I slip him into my mouth. His cock is heavy and stiff on my tongue and I wrap my hands around the section of his shaft that's not in my mouth, squeezing.

"It's okay if you can't manage it, you know." He painting and gripping the edge of the truck bed with his right hand. "Don't want you to choke."

His hips are bucking wildly now, and feeling how close he is, the slick warmth of his cock on my tongue and the roof of my mouth - it's too much. It's all too much. I pull back a little and start to speak when he erupts onto the edge of my tongue and my lips and chin with a powerful grunt. Feeling his cock twitching in my hands and his come coating fingers and face is overwhelming and I hardly have time to get my hand into my pants before I'm coming, too, my face pressed tightly against Kurt's thigh.

He catches his breath before me, running his hands slowly through my hair.

"Should probably take those off," he says. "I know what a mess you made in there."

A moan escapes before I can stop it and my dick actually twitches again, even though I'm way past the age of the instant second round. I know my face must be beet red, but unzip and peel my pants and underwear off, throwing the latter in the corner of the truck bed. I go to put my jeans back on but Kurt snatches them from me and pulls me to him.

He presses his lips to the top of my head. "We look like a couple of Pooh bears."

The crickets are loud and everywhere. Through the tree branches above us I can see the stars that are no longer visible from Main Street. His chest rises and falls under me; the hair there is like silk against my face.

"So much for not falling into old patterns."

I expect him to laugh, but he freezes up instead, the hand that was playing in my hair falling still.

"I didn't know where to go," he says. "When I first left."

He's done this a few times in the months he's been back - tried to talk about being gone. I saw this lizard in Texas once, almost as long as my arm, he'd say, or The whole forest is on fire out there, just miles and miles! Every single fucking year! He'd look at me, hopeful, and I'd look away and change the subject in a way I prayed seemed natural and not like the frightened dodge it was. But I'm tired of hiding from everything.

"Where..." I swallow. "Where'd you end up?"

There's a pause before he starts, like he can't believe what he's hearing. Even this brief silence makes me feel ashamed of what a coward I've been. It's all I can do not to apologize.

"Nowhere." He sounds far away. "Just kept buying bus tickets. Finally ran out of money in Colorado."

"Denver?"

"Colorado Springs."

"Is that far from Denver?"

"'Bout an hour on 25, not too far. But I stayed there for a while."

I settle further into him, feeling a little like a kid during story time. I love and hate the feeling.

"Lived in a hallway house for a while, even though I wasn't addicted to nothing. Guess I looked enough like I was that they let it slide." He chuckles. "Or maybe they knew and let me stay anyway. Never asked 'em."

It's hard to imagine Kurt so down on his luck; he's always seemed to me too together to ever end up in a place like that. But if the last few years have taught me anything, it's that nothing's like I thought it was, that almost nobody is who they say they are. Or at least, they're not only who they say they are, and you usually don't find out the rest until you're in their house inspecting a fire extinguisher and they decide to unload on you.

I wonder briefly if Londra's even been in a halfway house.

"It was kinda nice at first." He shifts. "Must have been the off-season, or something. But then a bunch of guys showed up, rough guys. I...I didn't sleep so good after they got there."

"Bet not." A truck with a bad muffler speeds along the road near the marina. "How'd you get out?"

"Thought about calling home asking for money," he snorts, "but I couldn't do that. I ended up getting a bartending job, and the owner let me stay above the place for basically free." I feel him shake his head. "You should have seen everyone's faces at the halfway house when I told them where was I working."

If I was someone different, I'd have a story to tell him, too - something funny or interesting that happened to me since he'd left. But I can't think of anything - nothing that could interest somebody who's been outside of Greystone even once in their lives. All I've ever done is my job.

"So..." I swallow. "So you been bartending this whole time?"

"Some of it," he says. "But mostly I did construction. Drove, too - over-the-road, local, you name it. Saved a lot of money, got to see the country. Met a lot of people."

The stab of jealousy is irrational, I know that, but there it is, sitting between my lungs. I know we've been apart for most of our lives, and neither of us are choir boys, but it's different, hearing it straight from him. Not just about the other lovers, but the other lives he's he had, away from me, beyond me.

"I tried, you know," he says. "To forget you. Every year I'd say, this is the year I grow up and move ahead. This is the year I settle down and start making a life. But I just..."

"Yeah," I say after a beat. "Me neither."

Another truck passes, this one much larger, and eighteen-wheeler from the sound of it. I wonder where it's going, who's driving. How long they've been gone. If they have anywhere to be gone from.

"You believe in destiny?"

The question catches me off-guard. "I don't know. Don't think too much about it, I guess."

"It's just...that day. At the beach, that party. When we met."

"What about it?"

"I wasn't supposed to be there," he says. "I was supposed to be home."

"That's usually the case with teenage parties."

"I mean it." I can feel him looking down at me in the dark. "I'm being serious."

"What are you saying?"

"I could have been anywhere," he says. "I didn't even feel like partying that night. I almost drove right past. But I saw my friend's truck, and I thought I'd stop in and say hey. I never did shit like that."

"What, you think we're written in the stars or something?"

"I love you." He kisses me hungrily. "Never saying goodbye to you again."

We don't come up for air for almost half an hour, but when we do he keeps a tight grip on me, like he's afraid I'll evaporate. Until he came back I hadn't realized how much I missed this feeling, that I was wanted. That someone couldn't get by without me. It's selfish, I know, wanting someone to need me so much, but I don't even apologize for it in my own head this time. For once, I have exactly what I want when I want it.

"You should talk to him," he says. "Your father."

"I have talked to him."

"You know what I mean."

"There's no point, Kurt. This is as good as it gets."

"Sure, with that attitude."

"What do you see happening?" I'm too tired of it all to be angry. "Him suddenly changing everything about who he is? We all do a big group hug and then we're the Brady Bunch?"

He sighs.

"I'm just saying...you want to go see them all, don't you?"

"I want a lot of things."

"You're worried about him."

"I'm not."

"Come on, now."

"He's fine. Everything's fine."

He shifts uncomfortably under me. "I used to say that shit too, you know. About Andrew."

"It's not the same thing."

"I wanted to avoid the problem. Hoped it would all sort itself out."

"None of that was your fault, you - "

"He had a problem. Always did."

"What are you talking about?" The crickets to our right go quiet; some other ones start up further away. "He was a little grouchy, but - "

"That wasn't the first fire he set. Used to do it all the time. Drove our mama clear out of her mind."

"He's responsible for his own shit, Kurt. It's wasn't your problem."

"Nobody's problem now," he says bitterly. "He's dead."

The lake water still laps gently against the rocks. The nearby crickets start up again, their chirps layering over each other until they form a singular scream, loud even against the roar of nighttime insects in the surrounding trees.

"What?"

"Last year." His voice is quiet, the words mumbled. "He got ahold of some pantyhose. They don't know how."

Neither of us speaks for a while. It feels to me like Kurt is holding his breath, so I try to hold mine too.

"I'm sorry," I tell him. It's inadequate. Pathetic compared to the weight of everything. "I didn't know. I'm real sorry."

He suddenly squeezes me in his arms with a ferocity that startles me. There are no gasping sobs, no moaning; he's like a statue, gripping me with all the force he can muster. We lay there that way, my skin going numb under his fingers, until he sighs with his whole body and lets me go a little.

"He needed help." His voice is raw but not weak. "He needed help and I just left him flailing."

"You loved him - "

"Will you shut up and let me talk?"

He tilts my chin up and kisses me sweetly on the mouth, lingering over my bottom lip. It's the kind of kiss we never shared before he left, contented and free of ambivalence. I can't bear for it to end, so I move closer when he seems to pull away.

"The point is," he says against my lips, "go see your daddy."

I want to explain to him that it won't matter. That even if they get over Kurt there's a million and one things between us that can't be gotten rid of, can't be fixed. I want to tell him that I don't need any of them. That it's only with him that I feel like I matter at all.

"I'll think about it," I say instead.

*

We'd met at a fire. It hadn't seemed like fate at the time, but maybe Kurt's right, and it was.

The lake in Greystone is surrounded by houses and private docks; some guy was having a party at his parents' summer house. Mostly college kids on fall break, plus a bunch of locals. There was a bonfire on the beach and everyone sat around it, not quite drunk enough to start dancing to the music that was blasting from the speakers on the deck behind us.

"Bud Light too cheap for you?"

He was standing behind me, resting the cold bottle on my shoulder. I took it without turning around and cracked it open. Bud Light really was too cheap for me, but no way was I going to admit that to him.

I'd seen him in town and he'd seen me, though we hadn't met. He was doing construction - among other things - for a friend of my dad's for a month or two and I'd see him around, standing on poorly-constructed scaffolding, drilling things, putting up sheetrock. We'd made eye contact on more than one occasion and I guess he was tired of waiting for me to make a move.

"No," I said. "Just not my favorite, you know."

"It's nobody's fucking favorite." He dropped into a deck chair beside me. "It's just everywhere. So you drink it."

He had a cigarette in his mouth; ash dropped occasionally onto his old jeans. He wore a t-shirt with a faded logo I couldn't read.

"Right."

He took a swig, resting the cigarette on the arm of the chair.

"Your daddy's the one who runs the sports clinic place, right?"

"Not really. He's a physical therapist, so he just works there."

"Mmm. My brother went to him for a while after he broke his leg one season."

"Is he doing better now?"

He shrugged.

"I'm Caleb," I said. "But you probably already know that, I guess."

"Kurt," he said.

"Good to meet you, Kurt."

We didn't speak for a while, just watched the others. Some of them were swimming, doing laps across the lake; others were just splashing around and laying on beach towels they'd brought down from the house. I knew a few of them, and I'd wave or tip my bottle when they gestured at me from out on the water. There were a few couples, all men and women, but I knew if anyone gay had shown up, it would have been mostly alright. There were folks here who wouldn't have liked it, but they also wouldn't have said so. Things were changing in Greystone, even back then, and everyone could sense it.

"This your usual crowd?"

"Yeah? I mean, I guess. I've known Rodney" - I pointed him out on the water - "for a few years. We went to high school together. And that's Carlie, and Rosemary, her sister. They lived next door to me for a while." I take a swig. "We were kids back then, though. Haven't seen them in a long time."

"Sure ain't kids no more."

I laughed. "Nope."

"You come out here for them?"

He was peering at me over the top of his bottle; it was resting against his lip and the mouth of it fogging up in the chilly air. He held my gaze and didn't waver, didn't look away.

"I did," I say, shrugging. "But things don't always go the way you plan, you know."

"Heh," he said. A slow grin spread over his face before he took another drink. "I hear that."

Everyone came running back to the beach, responding to some call I hadn't heard. The guy who threw the party came down from the deck with a tray of hot dogs and some stronger drinks. They dropped into seats around the fire, some tossing in logs, others just grabbing hot dogs and digging in, about thirty of us in all. Their liquor had started to take effect; they were loud and full of laughter and stories. Kurt and I were hardly noticed at all - hardly anyone knew him and almost everyone knew I was quiet as a church mouse at parties.

Somebody arranged a game of King's cup; we played two rounds according to the rules and then things descended into chaos. I watched Kurt in a manner I hoped was surreptitious as he flirted with the girls. Nobody took Kurt seriously - nobody I knew ever took people from his side of town seriously unless they were selling drugs - but he wasn't kidding. I know he wasn't, because he kept looking over at me as they pawed at each other, her on his lap leaning back to kiss him on the cheek, his fingers playing with the frayed edge of what passed for a dress, and me transfixed, knowing I couldn't stand up in the condition I was in.

I wasn't surprised by my attraction to him as much as the power of it, the irrepressibility. I'd

never been baited in such a way, never faced such an open seduction. I was intoxicated.

That's when he had me, I think, when I look back on it all. That's when I knew I'd found

something worth chasing.

*

Londra's older than me, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. Her hair is as dark as mine, only she covers her grays. We're at the new coffee shop in town - under the new apartments and across from the new dog groomer. She's inherited the disdainful look on her face from our grandmother, who never saw anything she couldn't find a reason to curl her lip at. I've missed her dearly.

"You didn't tell me this place was turning into Portland," she says.

My coffee is finally cool enough to drink. "It's called development."

I haven't seen her in a few years. She's thin. Her clothes cost more, but she's wearing sunglasses and a lot of makeup. It's not that her relapse shows all that much on her body - at least not anywhere that I can see - but it's in her posture, the lag in her gestures, her ever-so-slightly delayed responses to my questions. It explains why she hadn't had anything new to say to our father when he called, why she spun that yarn about a job she'd long since lost.

"I saw an artisanal soda shop where the cleaners used to be."

"The cleaners have moved to a larger place, thanks to new business," I say pointedly, "and that soda shop also sells chew and cigarettes."

She knocks on the table. "Some stains you just can't get out of the bowl, I guess."

I can't see her eyes but I know she's staring into space, finger tapping on the table under her hand.

Main Street is busier than it was on her last visit. There are students on laptops all around us - the college a few towns over has really raised the profile of their online classes. The locals put in their appearance, too, wandering past in work uniforms and jeans distressed by wear and use rather than style. The grocery store on the corner is twice the size it used to be, and there are four gas stations now instead of one.

The town center is right on the edge of the lake. Unlike a lot of places, where the rich folks live in the hills and everyone else fits in where they can lower down, the money is right on the water. Not just in the big houses that have their own docks - even the smallest little nooks with a view are occupied by the retired doctors and lawyers and folks with businesses that are impossible to describe to anybody not in the same field. The laborers live in the hills for the most part, in trailer parks and little houses that are effectively hidden by the trees when you look from a distance. Downtown Greystone was gentrified before it was cool; only the hipsters are new.

"Your place has at least a roof, doesn't it?"

She smiles ruefully at me. I once found her strung out in a house that lacked one. It had at least been summertime.

"Yeah," she said. "Temporary setback. Nothing to worry too much about."

It's hard to know whether to believe her. There was a time when I could tell if she was lying, but those days are over. Growing up we'd shielded each other from our parents' wrath and disappointment. When Daddy was drunk and needed dragged up to bed or our mother disappeared for a few weeks and the washing needed doing, we were all we had. But I was the only one who held up my end of the deal in the end. She'd traded me in for meth not long after Kurt skipped out on me.

"You ready for this dinner?"

Just talking about it makes me tighten up. My father's been calling - he's left several timid yet adversarial voicemails - but I'm holding the line. Kurt rolls his eyes when he catches me.

"Same old Daddy, huh?"

It's a hard question to answer, so I think on it. Londra seems to understand.

"Not really," I say finally. "He's trying. Talks less about how much he wishes I..." I shrug. "Wishes I was seeing someone else."

"You seeing somebody? Tell me it's not one of these college kids."

"No," I say with a chuckle. "No, it's uh...it's Kurt."

"Kurt? Kurt Roscoe?"

"Mmm hmm."

"When did he get back?" She shakes her head. "Too many people in this town now, I tell you what. Nobody told me a damn thing."

"Few months ago. Don't know how many people know yet."

She pulls a stick of gum from her purse. "Bet Daddy loved that."

"You know, he actually asked me out loud to date some other guy, if you can believe it."

Her chuckle fades into a sigh. She pops the gum in her mouth, twiddles the wrapper between her fingers. "He could have a point, you know."

I look sharply at her but she doesn't react.

"It's been years, Caleb. He hasn't even spoken to you since he left, has he?"

"It's not that simple."

"I know that. I was here, remember?"

"You were a little preoccupied, though, weren't you?" I've had all I'm prepared to take of people questioning me about Kurt. "Surprised you even remember him."