Riding With Brighton(21)

“That’s a stupid question. Meth labs need all kinds of supplies. And you met the guy; he’s totally open-minded.”

“He’s not gonna let Cooper go on a date till he’s sixteen. That seems pretty by the books.”

“We gotta keep up appearances, you know, try to maintain a little normalcy so people don’t get suspicious.” I stare at him for a minute. He sounds convincing, but then the crinkles appear at the corners of his eyes, and he can’t hold back his smile.

“Shut the hell up. You’re such an asshole, I almost believed you.”

“Seriously? Man, you’re gullible. You gotta work on that.”

“I’m not gullible.”

He looks at me again. Every time he looks at me, the whole heart/jackhammer metaphor makes sense for the first time in my life. “I bet you are. I bet you’re one of those guys who believe that Bigfoot, krakens, mermaids, and werewolves are real.”

I shrug. “They could be. You don’t know they aren’t.”

He laughs. “I knew it.”

He says other words after that, but I can’t hear them because he just reached over and grabbed ahold of my leg. He shakes it for a second before squeezing, then letting go. Jesus. I’m desperate for him to touch me. I have been all day. The fact that that very brief interaction, that could definitely be interpreted as friendly, set my whole body on fire (yup, suddenly understanding that term now too) is disconcerting. And confirmation that it’s him. I want him. Mentally, I shake my head and try to refocus.

“I’m tempted to tie a blindfold over your eyes” are the next words from his deep voice that infiltrate my brain. What the hell? I can feel the shocked expression on my face as I look at him.

He looks at me with confusion that quickly turns to amusement. “Ha.” He stutters a laugh. “Jesus, Jay… so that you don’t see where I’m taking you. Get your mind out of the gutter, man.”

I’m a complete and utter tool. I’ve never been in this position before, where I’ve made it known that I want someone and I don’t know if they feel the same way. “Fuck,” I groan. “This is torture.”

He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. This time he keeps his hand on me, and it’s almost worth it—making a fool out of myself in exchange for a reassuring rub on the shoulder. I’m officially a twelve-year-old girl.

“Why is it torture?” he asks.

“You’re super smart, Brighton. I’m sure you can figure it out,” I mutter, still not looking at him.

“Because you want me.”

“Yeah, asshole, because I want you.”

He takes his hand off my shoulder. “I don’t know why I’m the asshole. You’re the one who’s got the girlfriend,” he says, his tone no longer easy.

“What the hell does that matter? Clearly, I don’t want her.”

“You already told me you have an emotionally intimate relationship with her.”

“And? You don’t have emotionally intimate relationships with people?”

“Yeah, I do. But those people don’t think I’m in a relationship with them. I’m not cool with getting in the middle of that. You’d be an asshole if you betrayed her like that.”

“So, what… you want me to call her up and end things? How would that change anything?”

“No, I don’t want you to call her up and end things. What kind of dick breaks up with someone over the phone?”

“Exactly.”

He cocks his head and looks at me with disappointment. “Maybe you need to think about it for a minute. This isn’t the first time a guy has told me he’s gay only to wig out about it and go back to his girlfriend, then look at me like I’m his dirty secret. I’m not gonna touch you, Jay. I fucking want to touch you, but I’m not gonna. Not until you have a chance to figure out if this is something you can live with or not. I’m not the gay for a day vending machine.”

“Are you serious? Do you know how difficult it was for me to tell you the shit I did? You think I would do that if I were just experimenting, just toying around with the idea of being with another guy? Who the hell does that? I think about you all the damn time. It’s not like I just woke up this morning and the possibility of being with you popped into my head, so I thought I’d test it out… see how it goes.”

“So I owe it to you?”

“God. Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is that I’m not gonna wake up tomorrow and suddenly these feelings I’ve been living with my entire life are gonna be gone. If you don’t want to touch me—fine. But don’t tell me it’s because I’m gonna be straight tomorrow.”

“Calm down, okay. Let’s take like ten steps back. Realistically, until today, all we’ve been are a couple of guys who have a class together. Until an hour ago, you couldn’t even admit to yourself that you’re gay. And now you’re arguing with me about the reasons why I’m not gonna touch you. I mean, shit, you tell me you’ve been thinking about me and the idea that this could all be real, that I could potentially start something up with that hot guy from my history class, is mind-blowing. And yeah, since the minute you showed up at that park in those goddamn baseball pants and I let myself consider that you might be there because you were interested in me, about all I can think about is putting my lips and hands all over you, but—” He pauses to suck in a breath. “—that’s not gonna do either of us any good, so let’s just chill the fuck out and carry on with our day like there’s not a wall of sexual tension between us.”