Chapter Text
Ladiezman47: so i understand that my brother is coming to visit you next week
Superjeff15: yeah i have been counting down the minutes. not literally of course because that’s a lot of minutes
Ladiezman47: have you been stocking up then?
Superjeff15: stocking up? on food? we always have lots of food neway
Ladiezman47: im not talking about food. you get your lube and butt plugs and nipple clamps and whatever other kinky things you and byron are into?
Superjeff15: lol. can u really see by doing anything kinky? ever?
Ladiezman47: …
Ladiezman47: i apparently have a better visual imagination than i thought. i’m going to need to go watch a porno to get this vision out of my head
Superjeff15: ur own fault dude. im not taking responsibility for that
I can’t say my college experience so far had been everything I’d dreamed it would be. I thought I’d be at CSU, hanging out in the dorms, going to class when I felt like it, and generally having a good time. Instead, I went to class in the mornings, worked nights, and spent my weekends studying.
It wasn’t all bad. Despite the fact that we didn’t have any classes in common this semester, Thomas and I still did our homework together over lunch in the student work room, and we also had a standing date to hang out every Sunday evening. Thomas always brought Diana with him and we’d also amassed a small group of friends.
One of these was a girl I’d met the second day of the spring semester. She was one of my new study buddies, in two of the same classes I was taking this term. Kinsey was the least likely candidate to obtain a teaching degree. She was the singer with a ska band that played a little club out on the highway every Sunday. Even though none of our group was twenty-one yet, we were all on ‘the list’ and could get into every show. We usually ate dinner and then went to watch the band (for which ‘interesting’ was a good descriptor). Kinsey would join us between sets, her hair spray painted some odd color or another, wearing all black. She had a warped sense of humor and was full of completely useless knowledge. She wanted to teach high school art.
But I must admit that I wasn’t thinking about Kinsey or the band or even school that morning in March. I had two more pressing thoughts on my mind, one immediate and the other a little further out, although I’d been thinking about that more than anything else over the past few weeks. Byron was due to arrive in a little under a week’s time, and he’d been at the center of my attention ever since I’d started cleaning and prepping for his visit.
This was going to be big, you understand. Not only was it the first time I’d seen By in seven months, but he was also going to meet my family. Dad still didn’t seem to believe that I was actually attracted to men; I had the feeling he thought this was a phase I was going through—‘experimenting’ or maybe just trying to piss him off. I’d done a lot of that while I was growing up, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not, but nothing I did now seemed to convince him that this had nothing to do with him.
Carol and Gracie were more excited than confused about Byron’s visit. Gracie had chattered on about him nonstop and had drawn him no fewer than fifteen pictures over the last few days. (One featured By and me holding hands, but since she didn’t know what he looked like, she’d made him twice as tall as I was, with green hair and yellow eyes. He looked like a monster.)
Carol, despite her excitement, seemed nervous. “This is the first time you’ve brought someone home to meet us,” she said as she and Mrs. Bruen sat down at the dinner table, poring over cookbooks. “I hope he likes us.”
I sat down beside her. “Don’t you have this a little backward?” I teased. “He’s supposed to be the one worried about making a good impression on you, not the other way around.”
“It goes both ways, Jeff,” she said, smiling. “If this is someone you want in your life and are making a commitment to, we want to be part of that life, too. Your dad and I want to make this visit fun and easy for both of you.” I snorted at the idea of my dad making anything related to By and me easier. “No, honestly. I know what you’re thinking, but trust me. Once your dad sees Byron—sees the two of you together—this will become a reality for him, and he’ll stop being…”
“A pain in my butt?” I finished for her. Carol crinkled her nose. I have to admit it wasn’t really a fair assessment, because my dad wasn’t being that obnoxious. Distant, yes…stubborn, definitely…but obnoxious? “I hope you’re right,” I continued before Carol could chide me for being rude. “I’ve been really trying this year, and if I have to live here for another year while I finish up at PCC, then I want things to go smoothly.”
“You have been trying very hard,” she acknowledged. “Don’t think that's gone unnoticed.”
Remember how I said that I had an even more pressing concern than Byron that morning? Well, she entered at that moment in a halo of golden hair, looking every inch the hippie she’d been for the past so many years. Dawn had been pretty normal growing up, until she was about fifteen. That’s when she starting dressing like it was the summer of love all over again and experimenting in many different ways. What I’ve never understood about Dawn is how in Dad’s eyes she’s super angelic. She smoked as much pot in high school as I did and she used to sneak out at night to meet her friends in the park. Yet she got grounded once a year while I was lucky to go a full month without being put on restriction. These days, Dad seemed to think that Dawn could do no wrong.
“Jeff!” she cried. Before Dawn went to Peru and spent a year forgetting she had a family, she used to come home about once a semester (twice if she ran out of money.) But this year she’d come home about once a month. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “It’s a gorgeous day. Want to take a walk with me?”
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Going for walks’ was something wholesome, good kids did. I’d never considered either one of us to be particularly wholesome. “Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“I don’t usually get to spend too much time with you. I thought maybe we could talk.”
I shrugged. Grow up with a girl and you learn her quirks pretty quickly. One thing I discovered about Dawn was that if she wanted to spend time with me, there was always an ulterior motive. Sometimes, I don’t even think she realized it, and most of the motives were benign: she was bored or lonely or even scared. But something today told me to be a little more wary. “Um, okay.”
We weren’t even out of the driveway yet when she started talking. “So, Byron’s coming next weekend. Nervous?”
It was a really warm, sunny day for March (even for Southern California) and I squinted at her. I’d left my sunglasses in the house. “A little. But I think everyone else is way more nervous than I am. Dad doesn’t seem to believe that By’s actually going to show up, and Carol keeps planning and re-planning food for the week, worried that he won’t like her or the meals.”
Dawn squinted back at me for a moment, then pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her purse. I silently cursed her for being better prepared than I was. “And if Byron’s anything like he was back when he was ten, he’s probably scared out of his mind about this. I remember he was all kinds of jumpy at Mom’s house last summer, and he already knew almost everyone sitting at that table.”
She had a good point. I’d asked By about it earlier in the week. Although he claimed he was calm and collected, the pitch of his voice rose as he’d said it. He has about twenty ‘tells’ that let you know when he’s not telling the truth, but only five or so you can catch over the phone. That’s the biggest one. “Yeah, I’d say ‘scared out his mind’ about covers it.”
She smiled briefly. “Where does he go to school again?”
We turned a corner and we were in shade. I breathed a sigh of relief but I didn’t unsquint my eyes yet, because I knew it would hurt. “Duke.” Dawn gestured for me to go on. “It’s in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.”
“North Carolina. That’s a long way from home.”
I finally opened my eyes the correct way. “Byron says that each Pike who applies to college ends up going a little farther from home. Mal’s in New York, Adam’s in Ohio, By’s in NC, and Jordan’s actually in Florida.” I stopped at the end of the block and waited for Dawn to decide which way we were going. I was relieved when she turned the corner and we stayed in the shade. “Claire will probably end up in Africa.”
It was Dawn’s turn to raise her eyebrows. She started to speak and then shook her head. “What is Byron studying?”
My luck was running out as the trees ended a short distance later and we were back in the sun. “Engineering…sort of.” Dawn raised her eyebrows. “He was in the engineering program last semester. This semester he’s gone back to being ‘undeclared.’ He’s actually looking to change schools for the fall; he applied to three places. He didn’t tell me what he’s going to study, other than he’s sure it’s his real calling in life.”
Dawn’s face turned dark for a second. “Must be nice to know what your life’s calling is when you’re not even nineteen,” she commented. I nodded, sort of understanding what she meant. I mean, Dawn was graduating in two months with a BA in Spanish. What do you do with that, exactly? Work in a bilingual office? Sounds thrilling. “What do you plan to do when you get out of college, Jeff?”
“Teach middle school,” I answered certainly. “Sixth or maybe seventh grade.”
“Really?” She sounded surprised, which I found odd because she knew I was getting a teaching degree. “Middle school,” she repeated, and I understood where her head was. “The kids that age are such smart alecks. They’re rude, some of them don’t shower very often, and they’re so awkward and in between.”
“I know,” I said with a grin. “That’s exactly why I like them. They’re old enough that you’re teaching them something that really matters, but young enough that they’re not too jaded yet and still want to please you.”
Dawn shook her head. “You were a little shithead when you were in middle school,” she said. “And in some ways, you still are. I can see why you’d want to do that. You can understand and relate to them.”
I watched her closely through slitted eyes. “And what are you going to do when you get out of school?” I asked, knowing that was the real point of the conversation.
Dawn was evasive. “I don’t know,” she said, but I had a feeling it wasn’t the whole truth. “I just don’t know.”
***
The next six days flew by like they were five minutes. Before I knew it, I was impatiently—and nervously—waiting outside baggage claim for Byron. Gracie had wanted to come with me, but his flight came in after her bed time. I’d promised her that if she managed to stay awake until I left for the airport, she could go. Carol had pursed her lips unhappily when I’d made that promise, but she figured out what was going on later that evening. I put Gracie, still protesting she would make it even as she was 90 percent asleep, in her bed, and headed off.
When By arrived, I almost missed him. I had spent ten minutes watching the path from arrivals before I got distracted. I’d started to worry that maybe his plane wasn’t on time, so I was checking the electronic board of flights when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I had just located the flight from Raleigh, which had arrived on time, so I didn’t instantly look up. It wasn’t until I heard a soft, cautious, “Jeff?” that I actually turned around.
I don’t know what I was expecting. It had been more than six months, and it’s not as if time stands still for other people because I’m not there. But somehow, I didn’t think there would be quite that much of a change. Byron looked taller, although I don’t think he’d actually grown more than a smidge since last August. Instead, I think he was just standing up straighter than I was used to seeing him. The triplets have skinny, lanky frames, and even Jordan the star baseball player didn’t appear to be very muscular, but By had filled out quite a bit. He’d mentioned spending time working off his worries at the gym, but I hadn’t thought he’d meant that much time.
That wasn’t what really shocked me, though. If he hadn’t spoken my name, I might have thought he was someone else. Not a complete stranger, mind you, but one of his brothers. The way he carried himself right at that moment reminded me of Jordan, but my first instinct would have been to say Adam. “Oh, my God,” I said slowly as he took the last couple tiny steps toward me. Byron had been smiling confidently as he approached, ready for a hug, but now he stopped in his tracks. “What happened to your hair?”
By ducked his head and ran his hand across the back of his neck, and suddenly he was the same guy he’d been when I’d seen him last. I crossed the distance between us in one step and gave him the hug that he—and I—had been craving. “I was ready for a change,” he muttered into my neck.
I loosened my grip and looked at him closely. Instinctively I reached up to where hair had hung in his eyes in the past. His hair was actually longer than Adam’s still, but much shorter than it had been. The bangs that had hung in his eyes were gone, and the locks that had curled around his neck and down to his shoulder blades were now missing. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” I told him.
“It’s just hair, Jeff,” Byron said, a combination of irritated and bashful. I realized that I must not have been the first one to comment on the hair; it was obviously a sore spot for him. I pulled him back into the hug and he wrapped his arms tightly around me. When we finally stopped embracing, he pulled the backpack off his shoulder and reached into the smallest pocket in the back. “Before we get my bag, I have something I want to show you.” He pulled out a small piece of paper and handed it to me without further comment.
I took the sheet, which was crumpled from having been folded and refolded many times. It was actually a legal-sized piece of paper and as I unfolded it, the first thing I saw was a very familiar logo. I skimmed the letter, addressed to By at his North Carolina address, for a moment before I looked back up at him. “What is this?”
He watched me closely and spoke evenly. “I told you I was changing schools.”
I started folding the paper back up, then quit and just handed it back. “To the University of California Berkeley?”
I had expected him to take the paper and finish folding it back up to its former state. It’s a very typical move for him, because it means he gets to break eye contact. Instead, he accepted it without looking at it, his eyes never leaving me. “It’s a great school, Jeff. Their program is one of the best in the country. It’s almost as good as an Ivy League degree, at a fraction of the cost. Plus, San Francisco’s a little more…open minded…than North Carolina is.” By reached out the hand that didn’t include his acceptance letter and put it on my arm. “I thought you’d be happy about this. I mean, we’ll be in the same state.”
I wrinkled my brow. “I have to ask first. You didn’t decide to come out to California just because of me, did you?” As much as I liked the idea of being nearer to him—if he was in Berkeley, he was a six hour drive away instead of a six hour plane flight—I didn’t want to accept the responsibility of every element of his happiness. If he changed coasts to be near me, and things didn’t work out, then it was my fault.
He smiled fully and pulled me back toward him. “If I were going to do that, I’d have applied to UCLA, or wherever. It’s not like I’m going to be living in your backyard. It did make a difference, but if my favorite school was in Alabama or Michigan or Italy, I would have gone there instead. Berkeley is calling me, and I have to answer.”
This was a new side of him. Byron was usually indecisive; he required ‘evidence’ and a lot of analysis before he made up his mind. Haley had told me that he’d applied to something like twelve schools the first time around and took a full six weeks after he’d been accepted to all twelve to decide where he wanted to go. But it was more than the certainty behind his decision; he seemed to be going more on gut feeling and hopes and wishes than anything else. I gave him a kiss and then squeezed his hand. “Then I’m happy things worked out the way they did. You can come down to Palo City for Thanksgiving and I can go up there for spring break.”
We found his suitcase and headed back to my car. But when we exited the building, Byron stopped and looked around. He was staring, taking in the palm trees and everything else. I laughed. “You’ve never been to LA before, have you?”
He shook his head. “No. I have the feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore…not that I ever was.”
***
The ride back to Dad’s house was extremely pleasant. Byron continued staring at the scenery for the first ten minutes or so, but then he turned back to me and watched me quietly for a while. “Everything okay?” I finally asked.
He nodded. It was dark outside, but the highways are so well lit that I clearly saw the movement. “I’m just a little nervous,” he admitted. I checked for signs of evasion, but found none. “What’s your family like? Give me a little preview so that I can be prepared.”
I thought about that a moment. “Well, Carol’s enthusiastic. She tries too hard, you know?” He nodded again. “She’s really keen to impress you. Just let me know if she gets to be too much. I’ll talk to her and she’ll settle down.
“My dad’s a harder nut to crack, but I don’t think you have to worry about him. Basically, all he asks for is respect. Parents always love you, so if you talk to him the same way you talk to my mom and Richard, there won’t be a problem.”
I took a pause as I changed lanes. “And Gracie? Well, she’s seven and a motor mouth. Do you need any more details than that?”
By chuckled. “No, no. I feel like I understand kids much better than I understand parents.”
“That’s interesting,” I thought out loud. “Like I said, Mom and Richard love you. Mom’s already said you’re invited to every family dinner any time the two of us are in Stoneybrook. And Hay says that her mom thinks you hung the moon. You know what Hay calls you behind your back?”
“I’m almost afraid to hear the answer to that.”
“Eddie Haskell. You know, from Leave it to Beaver? He’s always saying, ‘Gee whiz, Mrs. Cleaver, you look swell today,’ and then turning around and going, ‘Okay muthafuckas, let’s burn this place down!’ to Wally and the Beav.”
Byron laughed. “I think I missed that episode.” I smiled; I’d been hoping that would make him relax a little. He turned to the window for a moment, but I knew the conversation wasn’t over. He was thinking over what I’d said. When he turned back around, he was serious but not as tense. “You really think they’ll like me?”
I grinned. “Of course they will. They’ll love you, because I do.” He put one hand on my shoulder in a silent thank you. “Now that we have that settled, what do you want to do during your vacation?”
***
We arrived at my house to find it quiet and mostly dark. Byron had turned quiet himself about halfway home, but I suspected he was mostly sleepy. He may have even nodded off at one point. I didn’t blame him; it was nearly 2 am his time. But when I let him know we were nearly in Palo City, I could feel him tense back up from across the front seat. He might have relaxed temporarily, but he was still nervous.
“This is it,” I said as I opened the front door and ushered him into the living room. We set his bags down and Byron looked around, as if he expected to be ambushed by my entire family any second. But unless you can call Carol padding out of the kitchen in her bare feet an ambush, he didn’t have anything to worry about. “This is my stepmother, Carol Olson.”
“You must be Byron,” she practically whispered. I thought it was a stupid comment; who else would he be? By nodded, tired and unsure how to proceed. Carol made it easy for him. “Are you hungry? We’ve got some banana bread that Mrs. Bruen made fresh this afternoon. I didn’t even tell anyone else about it, because I knew it would disappear.”
“No, thank you.” Byron had finally found his voice. He must have been more tired than I thought, because he almost never turns down food. “I appreciate the offer, though.”
“No problem, hon.” Carol had a mug of something in one hand. “Jeff’s dad went to bed already, so you’ll meet him in the morning. And Gracie is dying to talk with you, because you haven’t heard all of her jokes yet.” She laughed at her own ‘joke.’ “I bet you’d like to settle in for the night, wouldn’t you? Jeff, why don’t you show him where to go?”
I stopped in my tracks. We hadn’t made a plan about where By was going to sleep. I can’t believe that in all of Carol’s careful strategizing, that never came up. “Umm,” I said, and Carol looked up from whatever she was sipping. “Where were you planning that he’d sleep?”
She looked extremely surprised. “I thought you’d want him to stay with you in your room. I mean, he came all this way to spend time with you, I just assumed…” Carol faded out, and she was embarrassed now. “Was I wrong? I can make up the hideaway bed in Dawn’s room.”
“No, no, no, that’s okay,” I answered for both of us before Byron could even respond. He was blushing at Carol’s insinuation of sex. “C’mon, By, let me show you to my room.”
As soon as the door was shut, he sat down on my bed. “I could have stayed on the hideaway bed,” he said quickly and quietly.
I sat down beside him and leaned my head on his, barely touching him. “If my parents are okay with the two of us sharing a room, of course I’m going to take advantage of that. Think of it: this is the first time the two of us have spent the whole night together in the same bed without getting in trouble for it since we were in Maine.”
Byron snuggled in a little closer, putting his head on my shoulder. “Okay,” he said, conceding the point I don’t think he really even wanted to argue. He stood back up and opened his suitcase, finding his toiletry bag. “Show me to the bathroom.”
I did just that, and handed him a towel in case he wanted to shower now. I went back to my room to change for bed, but stopped and thought. How much clothing should I wear? Normally I sleep in pajama bottoms and nothing else, not even my boxers, but with it being so warm, I was tempted to wear less. I could sleep in my boxers alone, or completely naked…
I was overthinking things again. I decided to wait and see what Byron put on and wear the equivalent. I didn’t want him thinking I was expecting anything. The two of us had agreed earlier in the school year that when it came to sex, what happened, happened. We had no schedules or timetables. We weren’t going to worry about what his brothers were (or in Jordan’s case, weren’t) doing. I had the feeling that for By, the words were easy to say but following through would be tougher, at least on the last part. When we’d first started dating, I’d been afraid that he’d be slow as molasses in warming up to sex, but he’d come a long way in a short time. I now teased him that once he got started, he’d come along faster than either of his brothers.
He came back a few minutes later as I was still contemplating my attire, his face freshly scrubbed and his teeth polished. By bent over his suitcase, watching me out of the corner of his eye as I pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms. We both changed quickly and headed to the bed, but By paused. My bed is pushed up against the wall and you can only enter it from one side. Neither one of us was sure who was sleeping where.
After a moment’s pause, I climbed into the bed next to the wall and patted the blanket next to me. Byron lay down on the other side of the bed, his head on the pillow and his eyes already halfway closed. “Good night,” I said to him, although I was feeling too keyed up to sleep. He smiled drowsily, rolled over and pulled the blanket up over himself.
I snuggled under the blanket a short distance away, on the other pillow. After a moment’s pause, I found his waist and clasped my hands in front of his stomach. He sighed deeply and said, half mumbled, “Closer.” I obeyed quickly, shuffling under the blanket until my arms were fully wrapped around his chest and I was pressed against his back. My face was in his hair, which was more prickly than I was used to it being, but I got past that. Byron sighed again and muttered, “That’s better.”
I smiled. I had to agree with him on that one.
***
We slept in pretty late the next morning, but weekends are sort of relaxed at our house. When I finally blinked the sleep from my eyes and glanced at the clock, I couldn’t believe how late it was. It wasn’t that I was shocked that I’d slept that late, or that Dad and Carol had let me sleep that late. Mostly I was surprised that Gracie hadn’t come running in, pouncing on us in our sleep. She’d probably been up for several hours and she’s not exactly known for patience.
By was already awake when I stirred, but he was sitting up in bed with a psychology textbook in his lap. “Morning,” he said quietly, but he was smiling. I sat up and he capped his highlighter. At first I wondered if he started every Saturday morning by doing his class reading, but I quickly realized he hadn’t wanted to brave my family without me. “Sleep well?”
“The best sleep ever.” Byron grinned and put his head on my shoulder. “Have you been hiding in here all morning?”
“I’ve only been up for about half an hour. I went to the bathroom earlier, but I came right back in afterward,” he confirmed. “It sounds like Carol broke out that banana bread this morning. I hope there’s some left when we make it out among the living.”
I leaned in for a kiss and discovered he had already brushed his teeth. “Let’s get out there quickly and find out. Need to shower?”
Twenty minutes later we were all showered and dressed. I discovered how easy Byron’s morning routine was: shower, brush teeth, dry his dramatically-shortened hair, put on deodorant and he was ready to go. I was a little more high-maintenance: on days when I was feeling good, I spent more time just fixing my hair than he did in the bathroom altogether.
When we made it into the kitchen, Dad was reading the paper and Carol was leaning on a windowsill with a cup of coffee. (She wasn’t spying on the neighbors or anything like that. Sometimes, she spends a few minutes just watching the clouds or the birds or something, like she’s in a dreamland.) Dad heard us approach and stood up, putting aside his paper. “Well, hello,” he greeted Byron. Dad held out his hand and By took it, shaking it as if he did such things every day. “Jack Schafer.”
“Byron Pike. It’s very nice to meet you.” Carol had shaken herself out of her reverie and turned to watch the action going on in the room. “You have a lovely home,” By added, addressing both Dad and Carol this time.
Dad smiled; he was obviously charmed by how sincere and honest By sounded in his compliments. He obviously wasn’t Eddie Haskell, who was smarmy and fake when he spoke to Ward and June. “Any friend of Jeff’s is a friend of mine.”
I glanced over at Carol, who’d crinkled up her forehead slightly. Her eyes met mine and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. Friend? By either didn’t notice or didn’t attach the same significance to it as we did. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you all,” he said eagerly.
Carol changed the subject because she was worried that I’d run my mouth if she didn’t. “Well, you boys missed breakfast, but don’t worry—I saved you each a piece of banana bread.” She gestured vaguely to the countertop. “We’ll be eating lunch in about forty-five minutes. Will you be joining us?” I nodded. “Great! If you’d like, you can have the bread to hold you over until lunch.”
I grabbed two plates and we smeared the banana bread with cream cheese. The two of us ate standing at the counter. As we were finishing up, Dad put his paper aside again. “What are your plans for today?”
By and I had made plans for the first half of his visit. He needed to head up to Berkeley to figure out where he was going to live. We’d decided to leave Monday morning and come home Tuesday evening. But first I’d convinced him to spend the weekend being crazy tourists. “I’m going to show him the sights around town. He’s never been to LA before.”
By washed down his bread with a glass of juice Carol had offered him. “I’ve actually never been west of the Rockies.”
Carol smiled. “I’ve lived here all my life and I still haven’t seen everything there is to see. Which sights are you most interested in?”
He shrugged. “I told Jeff to show me his favorite things, so I can see the town the way he sees it.”
I grinned at him. I just loved the way it sounded when he said that. Dad looked from me to Byron, one eyebrow slightly quirked. “Anyway, don’t expect us for dinner. We’ll be back kind of late tonight.” Dad went back to his paper, but he was watching us out of the corner of his eye.
By and I finished our banana bread without any further commentary. At first I was glad that Dad hadn’t made any rude remarks, but then I realized that the whole house was just too quiet. I looked around for a moment. “Where’s Grace?” I finally asked.
Carol chuckled. “Finally noticed something was missing, huh? She went over to Mackenzie’s for the morning. She should be back soon, so you two better both be prepared for the onslaught.”
Byron waved that away. “I’ve got three little sisters. I’m sure I can handle it.”
He had just volunteered to set the table for lunch when the front door opened and a small but large voice boomed, “Is he here? Is he here?”
Gracie came running into the kitchen. She’d kicked off one of her sneakers and the other was untied, like she’d started taking them off and then suddenly realized what was waiting for her. She skidded to a stop and stared. Byron turned around from the table, where he was laying out glasses, and smiled at her. “Hi,” he said brightly.
For the first time since she learned to talk, Gracie was speechless. I watched her as she stood there, her mouth hanging open. By’s expression became serious and concerned, but only for a moment. “I’ve seen your picture,” Grace finally stammered.
Dad and Carol laughed. By smiled. “I’ve seen your picture, too. You’re Grace, right?”
“My name is Elizabeth Grace Schafer Olson,” she replied grandly. Grace only uses her full name when she’s trying to be important; the rest of the time she complains it’s too many letters. “But you can call me Gracie.”
“And you can call me By. That’s what my friends call me.”
Gracie beamed. “You should sit next to me at lunch,” she announced.
***
That’s all it took for Byron to conquer my family. He was a lot more relaxed and confident after lunch, as if a load had been lifted from his shoulders. I took him to see the traditional Hollywood sights: the Chinese theater and all the handprints. We drove around town for a while until the sun went down and then he took pictures of the Hollywood sign so he could send it to Hay and make her jealous.
Sunday I’d planned to bring out the guide books and let him pick where to go, but Gracie kind of beat me to the punch. We were sitting at the table eating breakfast when she suggested that he needed to go to Disneyland. “You two can take me,” she insisted.
“Byron doesn’t want to go to Disney,” I replied witheringly. Carol has a season pass for the family and it’s fairly cheap to add people on, so she usually takes Grace about every other weekend, usually with a friend or two. I was so sick of that place that if I never saw it again, I would be perfectly okay with that. “Right, By?” He didn’t answer, but his eyes did light up. I stifled a sigh because I knew what that meant: I was definitely outnumbered. We spent the day at Disneyland after all.
I was less worried about our daytime activities, which had By animated and smiling, than our nighttime ones. I’d imagined what our visit would be like since November when Haley and I schemed the idea up in the first placed. I’d dreamed of sneaking him into my room at night for a little (quiet) fun, but that barrier had been removed. Yet there was no fun, quiet or otherwise. We got into my bed at night, kissed a little and then fell asleep, my arms around him. I hadn’t expected him to ravish me or anything, but it was all a little underwhelming.
We left fairly early Monday morning. I drove with the radio turned down low while By snoozed in the passenger seat. He isn’t a morning person and wasn’t much for conversation until he was actually awake. Two hours later, however, he started talking and he didn’t stop for most of the trip. He made Gracie look quiet. I smiled and let him babble because I knew it meant he was excited. He had a whole folder of brochures and papers he’d printed off the internet. Some of it was about the history of the school or the town itself; others were rooms for rent or people looking for roommates. “Just trying to find housing might take all day,” he predicted as we crossed into Berkeley for the first time.
He couldn’t have been more wrong, though. The first apartment, simply listed as ‘Roomie wanted, just off campus UCB. Must be open-minded,’ turned out to be exactly what he was looking for. It was a four bedroom apartment with four other guys. Two were a couple who had been together ‘forever’, a third was a female-to-male transgender who was in mid-transition, and the fourth was covered in piercings and tattoos and preached at a ‘Jesus-loves-everyone-no-matter-what’ style church. The four of them greeted us like old friends and started talking about compatibility issues. Everyone agreed on the spot that this was going to work out, so By went down the street to sign paperwork with the landlord before we left.
I waited out by the car while he was gone with his future roommates. I marveled at the differences between the group. If I didn’t know Byron well, you might think he was ultra-conservative, based upon the way he dresses and his quiet nature—especially now that he’d cut off the long hair. He didn’t appear that he’d fit in with this group, but here he was. They hadn’t asked about his sexual preference or anything of the sort. It turns out that they were really just looking for any quiet, clean-ish roommate who wasn’t going to judge them. And that was exactly what he wanted as well.
We found a cheap place to eat lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the campus. The longer we were there, the happier Byron got. I was glad to see him so enthusiastic and upbeat, especially because he’d been so down when he’d first gone off to college. I imagined that he’d had a specific vision of what college was supposed to be like, and life had let him down, as it does so often. The difference here was that By thought that since the disappointment was based upon his own choices, it was his own fault. And he’s much harder on himself than on anyone else.
After a dinner of tamales eaten on a street corner, we checked into a motel for the night. When I’d explained to Carol why we were heading up to Berkeley, she’d been surprised but pleased. She’d handed me some money to cover expenses. I’d figured that it would cover two tanks of gas and a night at a motel, depending on the rates. The place we ended up staying at was pretty gross looking and had ‘magic fingers’ on the beds, but we resigned ourselves to it, with the knowledge it was only for one night.
It was too early to go to sleep when we got inside the hotel, but I didn’t have to worry about it. I went to use the restroom and heard the television go on. I stood in the doorway to the bathroom, viewing the screen. “Whatcha watchin’?” I asked.
By didn’t answer that. Instead, he leapt off the bed and, in two steps, met me where I stood. He kissed me before I knew what was going on, the sort of move I pull on him all the time. Believe me, I wasn’t complaining. I dragged him over to the wall and leaned against him, both of us putting our weight on the wall. He made a happy little sigh and then, hello! His hands were in my pants.
“Oh, thank God,” I murmured as I leaned over to kiss his neck. Byron stopped what he was doing and gave me a questioning glance. “I just mean that we haven’t done this since you got here. I was afraid you weren’t into me anymore.”
He chuckled. “Jeff, your parents sleep right on the other side of the wall from your bedroom. Hard to get terribly horny when you know they could be listening in.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I nodded my understanding. By wiggled his way out from between me and the wall and stood before me. Last spring and summer, he’d dressed in jeans and solid-colored t-shirts under coordinated button-down shirts, usually undone. He’d changed his attire somewhat in the past year. Now he wore wife-beaters under buttoned shirts, always with understated designs: tiny stripes or delicate plaids. It was an older, more mature version of how he’d always dressed.
He began to undo the buttons on his shirt, but I stopped him. “Let me,” I said. I took my time, slowly dragging the baby-blue and white plaid away from his skin, letting my fingers caress as I went. I tossed the shirt on the floor and pulled him onto the bed. By managed to slide my shirt off me as well, and I coaxed his undershirt off him. When we pulled close together, I realized how much more firm his body was now, how much more muscular, and I told myself that I really needed to hit the gym more often.
We continued at that pace for a while, our hands staying above the waist. I quickly realized that this wasn’t shyness or uncertainty on his part; it was more about seeing how far we could go. If we stretched things out, the eventual result would mean more.
Eventually I couldn’t help myself. I reached into his boxers, stroking him gently, just a little. He moaned into my ear and although I didn’t stop, I started wondering. I’d thought about sex for the first time when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, but I’d always pictured it with a woman. All of my firsts had been with girls: first kiss, first blow job, and so on. I’d lost my virginity to a girl (a whacked-out, crazy girl, but a girl nonetheless). It wasn’t until Byron came along that I even considered kissing a boy…and that was less than a year ago. Yet here I was, seriously considering whether tonight was the night I would make love to a man. It’s not how I ever pictured my life going….but at the same time, being with By had made me happier than just about anything in recent memory.
But By and I had decided not to make plans. I wasn’t going to get to take him to a romantic dinner and bring him back to a candlelit room like they did in the movies. He wanted it to be a natural, spontaneous thing when sex happened: a heat of the moment choice, brought about by love and happiness, not because we’d set a date and decided this was the night. It was funny if you thought about it, because he’s the one who had made the decision. Byron Pike, of the study schedules and carefully organized daily planner (I’d seen it the night before when he’d notated something in it), wanted to get swept up in the passion, while I, who reluctantly but honestly had to admit that I’d actually had sex without a condom once, was more willing to make a date because it gave all of this waiting an ending time. Maybe we’d both rubbed off on each other, in good ways.
I shook off the idea of sex. If I was questioning whether it was right or not, then By couldn’t even be close to being ready, right? I might as well just enjoy our evening together for what it was, even if it was in a roach-infested rat hole of a motel.
***
We’d perfected the art of sharing the bathroom over the past couple days. I hopped in the shower while he ate ‘breakfast’: a couple granola bars. When I was finished showering, he jumped in while I did my hair.
I was trying to see the bathroom mirror through all the steam when he called out, “Hey, Jeff? I forgot my razor. It’s in the second-smallest pouch on the front of my backpack. Can you get it for me?”
I left the steamy bathroom and ambled over to where he’d carefully set his bag a short time earlier when he’d pulled out his clothes and toiletries. There was one small pouch on the front of his bag—where he’d kept his acceptance letter to Berkeley a couple days earlier—and then two slightly larger pouches, side by side. They were exactly the same size, so I just picked one and opened it. I didn’t find a razor but I did find a small box of condoms. I picked them up and looked them over, raising my eyebrows. Maybe I’d underestimated By just a little the night before. I put the condoms back sadly. We might have missed our chance for now. And who knew what the summer would bring? I hoped we’d be able to find time to be alone, but given the rules at Richard’s house and the sheer number of Pikes, it would be difficult.
The razor was in the other pocket. When I returned to the bathroom, By’s head was peeking out from the shower curtain, all slick and shiny. “Sorry. After you left I realized I should have told you the right pocket. Have any trouble finding it?”
I kissed his wet lips. “None at all.”
After he’d finished in the shower, we took one last tour of the town by car. By had accomplished everything he’d hoped to during our trip, so he said we might as well head back to L.A. “You know what?” he said as we got back on the highway. He was looking longingly back toward Berkeley, one hand on the car window, while he addressed me. “I don’t think I’ve thought this out. I applied to this school six months ago because it was like a dream come true, but I’ve never stopped to consider logistics. Like how I’m going to haul all my stuff across the country when I don’t even have a car of my own.”
I chuckled. “You pulled a Jeff,” I said sagely. Byron pulled away from the window and threw me a questioning glance. “You followed your heart without stopping to think about all the consequences. Don’t worry. Everything will work itself out, I promise you. It always has for me.”
We ate dinner Tuesday night with Dad, Carol and Gracie. We’d only been gone about thirty-six hours, but Gracie greeted us like hadn’t seen us in years. In the short period before dinner was ready, she dragged the two of us each by one hand to look at her frogs. “Can I introduce them to you?” she asked Byron, who nodded seriously. Gracie pointed to each frog in turn and stated their highly-original names. “That’s Jeff. This one is Dawn. We call that one Froggy, this one Frogger, and Frog #1 and Frog #3.”
“What happened to Frog #2?”
He had no idea that he’d just set her up for her favorite punch line of all time. “He croaked!” she crowed. I shook my head at the horrible joke. “We had a funeral and then Mommy flushed him down the toilet.”
Byron looked at the last frog Grace had named. “I feel kinda sorry for Frog #3,” he said, his eyes fixed on the amphibian. I’m not even sure he realized that he’d spoken out loud. “It’s not just that he’s not good enough to have his own name; he has to be the third. The last. The least.”
Gracie hadn’t understood where he was coming from with his musings, but she’d caught the first part of the sentiment. “I know! Let’s give him a real name. We can call him Byron!”
By was still making eye contact with the frog, which had to be one of the world’s least sentient beings. It stared back with unseeing eyes. “It’s appropriate,” he muttered darkly.
Gracie didn’t hear that because at the same general moment, Mrs. Bruen called us for dinner. She always eats with us on Tuesdays and then she’s off on Wednesday. (Carol generally orders takeout on those days so that she doesn’t start a fire in the kitchen or something.) In any case, Grace scampered off because we were having veggie burgers and she wanted first choice on the patties. By moved to follow her but I grabbed his arm. “Hey. Is that how you see yourself? As the last and the least?”
He shook his head. “Forget it. I was just having a moment.”
I didn’t let go of his arm. “I won’t forget it. I don’t understand why your brothers—and you especially—have to go comparing yourselves to each other all the time. That can’t be all together healthy. But even if you must compare, why would you ever think you were the least? You were second in your class in high school and have a 4.0 GPA. Neither one of your brothers can say that.”
“Jordan’s creeping up on me,” he admitted. I raised my eyebrows, both at the statement and the absolute frustration that accompanied it. It was like he’d staked his whole life on this one thing—being the best student among his brothers—and Jordan was coming up to steal it away. It occurred to me that probably eighty percent of the reason he got so into academics and studying was that it was something that neither one of his brothers was really interested in, so he could be the ‘best’ at it.
“Listen, By,” I said quietly. I sat down on Gracie’s unmade bed and pulled him down with me. He didn’t give me any argument. “You know you have a lot more going for you than just good grades. You’re one of the most sensitive, thoughtful people I know. You truly care about people. Can you really picture Adam or Jordan humoring Grace enough to come in and ‘meet’ her frogs?”
He chuckled, although I wasn’t sure I’d completely wiped away his gloom. “Gracie’s easy to like and get along with,” he commented, pretty much missing the point.
“Yeah, but only because you actually cared enough to try to like and get along with her. Most of my friends find her pesty and annoying. None of the girls I ever dated would have agreed to take Gracie along anywhere we went, never mind go to Disney simply because she suggested it.” I was still holding his arm but now I let him go and just watched him.
“It’s hard for you to understand, Jeff,” Byron said, less upset now but more matter-of-fact. “People have always compared me to my brothers. I do it because it’s second nature. It’s hard for people not to compare us, after all. We’re the same age, the same gender, everything. Adam’s always been the leader, the most social. Jordan started trying so hard at Little League because he wanted his own ‘thing’ and he knew I couldn’t outshine him. I spent years just being the ‘third triplet’. One of the guys I went to high school with seriously just called me ‘Adam and Jordan’s brother’ for a couple years.”
“Yeah, but By, do your friends at Duke call you ‘the third triplet’ or ‘Adam and Jordan’s brother’?” I put my hand on his shoulder, a more gentle touch this time. “Do I call you those things?”
He shook his head. “No,” he admitted.
“Here’s the point I’m trying to make. You have a lot of ways people can identify you. Yeah, you’re Adam and Jordan’s brother, but you’re also Haley and Paul’s friend, and my personal favorite: Jeff’s boyfriend.”
Byron finally smiled. “I like that one too.”
“Great! Think about that some more, but let’s go eat.”
***
By was quieter at dinner that night that my parents were used to seeing him. He answered questions, but he didn’t start conversations or volunteer more than was asked. I saw Carol and Dad exchange looks, but neither one of them said anything about it.
When we went to bed that night, he turned to me as I was undressing. “Thanks, Jeff.”
“For what?”
“For what you said earlier. I know you think you didn’t get through, but you did.” He was wearing his boxers only by then, and he pulled them off. I was surprised because he’d slept in his boxers and a t-shirt every other night we’d been in my room. “I can’t promise that I won’t have any more moments like that, but I’ll try to remember that I’m more than just a Pike triplet whenever I feel like I’m in last place.”
I stripped off my own clothes, wanting to sleep with my skin directly against his. “You said I don’t understand, but I do. I still have moments when I compare myself to Dawn. She can do no wrong in this house, you know, and sometimes I feel like I can do no right. But if I start to feel down about it, I remember a few things. She’s never held a job for more than a couple weeks, but I managed to turn a temp job into steady work. She doesn’t have any idea what she wants to do with her life, while I do.” I pulled back the blanket and we climbed in together. We lay on our sides, facing each other. I stroked his forehead. “And she’s single, while I have the best boyfriend on earth.”
He pulled his arm around my back and wrapped his legs around mine so we were practically on top of each other. We just looked at each other for a while before I kissed him. We lay like that silently, just kissing and touching, for almost an hour before I finally told him goodnight. He rolled over and I wrapped the blanket around us both. Before he fell asleep, he said one last thing. “You don’t have the best boyfriend on earth,” he whispered drowsily. “I do.”
***
I awoke first the next morning. I sat up in bed to find By curled up in a fetal position, almost on his stomach rather than his side. He looked so young and innocent that way, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had this thumb in his mouth. (When we were kids, Adam had once told me that Byron sucked his thumb in times of great stress until he was six or seven.) I’d drawn the blanket off him when I’d sat up and he was now exposed to the world. I covered him back up and he stirred, rolling over to face me. By smiled slightly and closed his eyes again, but he spoke. “What time is it?”
I glanced at the clock. “Nine-thirty.”
Byron’s eyes were still shut, and he was speaking more into his pillow than to me. “Awful quiet out there,” he mumbled.
I chuckled. When we had gotten up Monday morning, Dad had been shouting because he couldn’t find his cell phone (Grace had been playing ‘phone call’ with it the night before). Carol was fussing at Gracie both because of the phone and because she’d forgotten to do her homework over the weekend. It had been noisy and chaotic and I think it was the first time he’d felt really at home in the house. “Well, there’s a good reason for that,” I told him. “We’re the only ones home. Even Mrs. Bruen isn’t here today.”
“Really?” His eyes popped back open. “When will someone be back?”
I leaned over him and smiled. “Why? What did you have in mind?” Before he could answer, I kissed him. Byron rolled over on his back and I straddled him, grinning devilishly. “Never mind. I think I have some ideas of my own.”
We rolled over and he had his back to the wall. I wrapped my arms tightly around him and he put one hand in my hair, stroking it gently. We weren’t even kissing, just pressed together. He looked at me with wide, innocent eyes, trusting me implicitly. I’d never loved him more than I did at that moment. “I want you,” I murmured.
He made a half, indulgent smile. “You have me,” he said, releasing one hand and gesturing to the bed as a whole.
I couldn’t decide if he was joking, shying away from the idea of what I was suggesting, or really not getting it at all. “You know what I mean.”
Byron withdrew his arms from around me and struggled to sit up. I had to back away a few feet before he managed to become upright, leaning against the wall. He had the look of a caged animal for a moment and it made me back further away. He pulled his knees up in front of him and I watched him take a few deep breaths, but he didn’t speak. I inched slowly back toward him and placed one hand tentatively on his knee, but I didn’t rush him. After a moment he turned to me, no longer quite as cornered and more in control. “I think I’m ready,” he said finally.
All I could think was, really? Just the suggestion of the act and he pulled away like a frightened creature, but he thought that he was ready? “Are you sure?” I asked. I slid over so that I was side by side with him. “I was just saying what I felt in the moment. We don’t have to if you’re not certain.”
He turned to the side so he could see me. “I’ve thought about it a lot,” he said in a voice closer to normal tone. “I find the idea of that much intimacy with anyone scary. But I’m really trying to face my fears these days, because I think it will make me a better person overall.” He paused, licking his lips, which were drier than normal, flushed red. “My parents and the school make sex out to be such a big deal that it changes you. And while I think that it’s a lot like the way they try to scare kids out of talking to strangers by telling them abduction stories, it’s got to have some element of truth to it. I mean, some kids actually do get abducted by strangers with candy, right?”
I eased my arm around his neck as I thought about what he said. His shoulders were surprisingly cool to my touch. “There’s two parts to sex. There’s the physical high of getting off, of course, and the emotional part. There’s a lot of different ways to feel, and none of them are wrong, but ultimately, sex is supposed to make you feel closer to someone else. I already feel closer to you than I ever have to anyone else, so everything else is just a bonus. We can wait until the summer, or even longer if you want.”
Byron had been watching me seriously throughout all of that, and when I finished, he took my hand, which had been on his shoulder, in his and leaned over and kissed me. I thought that might be a thank-you-for-understanding kiss and that we’d be getting dressed in a moment, but he shuffled himself until he was facing me better. “I have condoms,” he said before kissing me again.
I laid him down on the bed and sat beside him. “I know,” I acknowledged.
We didn’t talk again for a while.
***
As we’d continued on, I’d thought for a while that this morning wouldn’t be any different than any other time. We’d get to the point of no return and then change our minds. Part of me thinks that’s why By hadn’t wanted to set a timetable: so that he wasn’t locked in; he could still chicken out.
But instead, we just relaxed and took our heads out of it, following our hearts. I’d set the condoms next to the bed, figuring they’d be there if we needed them. And when he did reach for them, it was just as he’d wanted, a natural extension of where we were, just the next logical step.
When we were finished, I lay on my back, my eyes closed. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Suddenly I understood why some men fall right to sleep after sex. But despite the urge to roll over and snooze, I opened my eyes and found By lying on the other side of the bed. He was uncovered, lying on his stomach, knees bent, his lower legs up in the air, fidgeting. He kept switching which leg was on top. Byron was propped up on his elbows, his head tipped to one side. One hand covered his mouth and the other, his ear, so that all I could really see were his eyes, which were wide open, almost unblinking, and staring right at me.
I propped my head up on both pillows so I could see—and reach—him better. I brushed at his hair. It was no longer long enough to hang in his eyes, but one lock had dropped down onto his forehead, and I pushed it aside. “How are you?” I asked him.
He was quiet for a while, unmoving except those twitching legs. Finally he shifted his head slightly, removing the hand closer to me—the one covering his mouth. By put the hand briefly on his chest but then placed it on my arm. His fingers were cold, which surprised me given how sweaty he was. I clasped my spare hand around his, trying to warm it up. I repeated my question. “Are you okay?”
Byron still didn’t answer right away. After about thirty seconds, as I was starting to get concerned, he squeezed my arm and smiled. “I’ve never been better,” he said hoarsely. I sat up further, continuing to watch his expression. Last year on July 4th—the first time we’d gone down on each other—he’d been overcome with emotion enough that he’d shed a few tears. I’d understood that. He’s a very emotional person to begin with, and then he’d had so many firsts in the past year: first kiss, first boyfriend, all the way on up through this morning. I wasn’t sure if he’d need a moment to sort out the emotion.
Instead he sat up, and I realized he’d already done just that. That was why he’d been so silent. “What do you think of this level of intimacy now?” I teased gently.
The small smile that had been playing on his lips grew larger. “Still frightening, but in a good way. There are two kinds of fear, you know. The bad kind, designed to keep us from doing things that are dangerous. That’s what prevents us from walking off cliffs or electrocuting ourselves.” I nodded, not sure where this was going. “The other type of fear is what makes life rewarding. When you overcome those fears, not only do you make yourself one step better, you make your world wider.” Byron was looking out into a corner of my room. I turned my vision there as well, but I saw nothing worth looking at. I realized that he was seeing something that wasn’t actually there: his future and, probably, my role in that. “You’ve made my world wider, Jeff.”
And he’d made mine better focused. But I didn’t tell him that; instead, I just wrapped my arms around him and kissed his temple. I had plenty of time later to tell him all the reasons I loved him. We’d shared enough for now.
The two of us sat quietly for a while before we went to find something to eat.