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Throughout your short life you’ve been forced to resist a veritable treasure trove of temptation. Unlike most other children, you never struggled with waiting for a reward or denying yourself joys in the immediate future for the opportunity to have a real treat later on. Perhaps due to this proclivity, God seems to have tested you more than the rest of your peers with their poor impulse control and inability to play the long game. This unfortunate truth rings in your head like an alarm bell as you watch Sam stretch backwards while you're sitting next to him on a bench inside the mall. He has no idea you're watching, naturally, doesn't even realize there's an audience of one left speechless at the sight of him.
He leans far enough back in his stretch that his navel peeks out from under his t-shirt before disappearing again behind the fabric as he returns to his usual posture, like part of a tasting menu for the visual feast that is Sam Gordon. You've seen him in compromising positions countless times since you met early on in high school, but each unintentionally intimate moment twists the knife in a little bit more. More than ever before, as he sleepily watches you with confusion over your silence, you feel like this could be your moment. You could pull him towards you, kiss him hard and fast. Maybe you'd get punched in the face or maybe, a tad less likely than a meteor hitting the building, maybe he'd kiss you back.
"I don't think she's right for you," you instead reply to the question Sam must have asked over a minute ago now, seeking your input on something you have no actual control over as usual. He studies you for a second before nodding in agreement, confident in his (your) belief that the head cheerleader doesn't deserve his attention. You nearly blew everything just then, could've destroyed your entire life in one fell swoop for a single kiss, but instead you run a hand through your hair and bring up someone else for comparison. "What about that artsy chick, Vivica?"
"She's totally gay, dude. She checks out girls more than I do," Sam barely chuckles at his own witticism, though it's laughably false. There is no one on this planet that checks out girls more than Sam, and no one is more aware of that fact than the person always watching him: you. You know about Vivica's sexuality, too, and she knows yours. There's something about being queer in high school in the late 90s that sticks out to other queer kids, whether as friends or mere acquaintances who you share little more with than a nod in the hallway and your sexuality. Privately you share a moment of victory with yourself while noting the lack of disgust in Sam’s voice as he brings up Vivica’s blatant homosexuality. You can’t be too celebratory because you’re still engaging in a conversation and because it’s a well-known fact that straight men make exceptions in their homophobia for lesbianism. Sam hasn’t actually revealed any new information on the homophobia front, though you desperately wish he would. Reflecting now that you've calmed down a bit, you realize you almost confessed your love to the straightest guy in school and outed yourself in a public mall in the process. Alex will never believe you, though she already knows all the outlandish shit you consider doing to get Sam's full attention.
You intentionally threw Vivica under the bus knowing that she already despises Sam and everything he stands for, for just that reason. If he’d fallen for your ploy, he might have wasted weeks trying to seduce Vivica before ultimately giving it up and moving on to the next target. What you need in life is less competition, even if you admittedly have no shot in the first place.
Gorgeous, feminine cheerleaders with long hair and petite curves like Felicity Browers always mesh way too well with your buddy. You try to keep him away from a real relationship as best as you can, suggesting girls that you know won’t bite or stick around for long when he insists on getting your opinion. Sam is his own person and all, but he trusts you, for better or for worse. It's not as though Sam has to pursue women, anyway: more often than not you're stuck on the sidelines watching his multitude of female admirers take turns trying to lure him in. You envy women for their ability to do just that, catch his eye and pull him hard and fast in their direction. All you can do is spend afternoons together at the mall as he talks about one girl or another, attend his football games alone and steal every glance you can sneak without being caught.
This ‘kiss incident’ that never actually happened repeats itself many times over the years. You’re in a perpetual cycle of growing close to telling your best friend that you love him, talking yourself out of it, and shortly thereafter being grateful to your prefrontal cortex for stopping you from making a terrible mistake. Beginning before that day at the mall, you can’t possibly count the number of tribulations you’ve faced throughout your friendship with Sam. The big moments, though, can thankfully fit on a single hand and during one time period: college.
You were tempted at a frat party in freshman year, soaked in alcohol, possibly your weakest moment until you unglued your eyes from the curve of Sam’s jaw and offered to grab him another beer. Sober and suffering, you nearly broke in junior year when Sam asked you to move in with him: accepting this made life both better and harder for the next few years. There was also that time at a graduation party on the beach with everyone in swimsuits full of big ideas for the future; he found you like a lost item, anxious and hugging your knees under the empty lifeguard stand, and offered you his hand without a word. The gesture was alien, tender, alarming in its vulnerability until you noted the telltale signs of inebriation and took his hand eagerly.
Physical affection comes easily to him when drunk; despite yourself you love those times, even if he sometimes fears he's turning into his father after a few too many beers. It’s yet another temptation, getting him drunk to secure a sloppy hug or a gentle tousle of your hair that he won’t remember the next day. When that temptation comes knocking, you need only think back to the look on Sam's face in the dark when he stays up too late, positive that you’re asleep and he’s alone, silently chasing his demons away. This urge wins out less often as time goes on and you settle for whatever socially acceptable touches you can get, like a playful jab in the ribs that you carry the weight of long after the brief pain subsides. Love has made you a masochist. You’ve grown a bit older since these times, honed your self control and got your life in order more than it ever was in high school, but this most recent challenge threatens to eliminate your last reserve of restraint.
“Aren’t you gonna ask?” Candace is questioning you, addressing you in a rare show of attention that can only mean something awful is about to happen. Sam’s girlfriend has just arrived at the apartment you share with him for the third time this week. You could lie and say you don’t mind it but, aside from making out with Sam in every common space of the unit, she’s beautiful in exactly the way Sam gravitates towards and that reminder hurts . You’d like to think you’d dislike her even if she wasn’t sucking your best friend’s face at every opportunity, but it’s hard to get past that little detail. At present, she’s gesturing to her left hand with a satisfied smirk.
Resting on her ring finger, past her well-moisturized hands and before her perfectly manicured nails, you spot a small ring. Nothing flashy, maybe not even real gold, but it suits her well and fits just right. She notices your face fall; you don’t even attempt to conceal it, having no concerns about being discovered by Sam’s lover. You’re confident that several of his partners over the years have noticed your abnormal affection for him. It’s a small wonder Sam hasn’t picked up on it, frankly. Some women have mistaken it for jealousy of their oh-so-perfect relationship: clever ones, like Candace, see right through you and apparently love to rub their good fortune in your face. She’s staking her claim; some part of her must see you as a threat. This thought would tickle you, if you weren’t presently being confronted by evidence of her clear triumph over you.
“It’s a placeholder ring. We’re gonna go shopping together for the real one,” she answers the question you didn’t ask, pretending to beat around the bush to add to the surprise and/or your suffering. Sam appears in the doorway shortly after her with both hands sheepishly shoved in his pockets. He tosses you the keys to your car, which you let him drive because you’re a doormat and he’s getting married and he’s brought her around to show this fact off to you and all you will ever be to him is the weird friend who gives him everything for no apparent reason. The keys miss your hand, or rather you never attempted to grab them at all. They fall to the floor with a pleasant jingle and no one makes a move to pick them back up.
“Hey bud,” he addresses you as if you’re still down on earth and not floating above the apartment, looking down like a mournful spirit. “Guess she told you already, huh?” His happiness sounds genuine, though a small smile is the only detail you can see clearly through eyes that have traitorously begun to water. The last thing you should feel right now is dismay in the face of that smile. Be that as it may, that feeling and the guilt it brings are very real and extremely heavy.
“Sorry,” you say with the intent of continuing, but nothing comes out. You desperately want to reassure Sam and his now-fiancée that you are perfectly alright with this and perhaps congratulate them on this milestone in their relationship, but then you start thinking about how long exactly their relationship has gone on. Candace has stuck around for a while, a thorn in your side, but not long enough to get hitched like this. They’ve been dating maybe six months, tops. This speed means one of two things: either he got her pregnant or he’s truly head-over-heels for her. Both options make you sick to your stomach. “I have to go,” you manage and force your legs to high-tail your body out of there before more can be said.
To his credit, Sam chases after you for approximately ten seconds. You’re out the door and down the stairs to the lobby of your building when he catches up enough to firmly plant a hand on your shoulder. When you turn back in surprise and he looks at you up close, it feels like he knows what's really going on from the undisguised shock etched on his usually relaxed features. He sees you, sees what’s inside of you, down to the depths that wish Candace would break his heart so you could put it back together. Without hesitation, not a word spoken, he releases his grasp and frees you; it feels like being thrown away more than a dumb ring on some girl’s finger ever could.
You make your way to a nearby park and wander around aimlessly for an indeterminate amount of time until you’re roused by a text message from the last person you want to talk to. From the text, though, it looks like he’s already ready to forget anything strange ever happened.
Sam: bring pizza
You: left my wallet sry
Sam: k i got it
Minutes pass.
Sam: come back
It’s so overtly mentally healthy and masculine of your best friend to conveniently forget the meltdown you just had after finding out he’s engaged. It’s such a power play for him to text you and ask for pizza as if he didn’t see the tears in your eyes and release his grip on your shoulder like your flesh burnt him. You contemplate never going back: it’s not as though you have that much stuff, nothing that couldn’t be replaced save for a particularly cherished friendship. You suppose Sam would miss out on using your car, and maybe eating some meals that you like to cook, but he’ll have Candace for that soon. Granted, you’re not sure Candace knows how to operate a microwave much less a skillet, but that’s not your problem. Sam isn’t your problem, and you’re not sure how you deluded yourself into thinking as much. He’ll be just fine without you.
Tail between your legs, barely convinced that talking it through is the right choice, you return home. It smells like pizza from your favourite place when you enter the unlocked door and step inside. For a moment you panic thinking Candace could still be here, but her flats are missing from the entrance and her coat is absent from the hook by the door. The car keys, discarded on the floor before or perhaps during the time when everything went to shit, are neatly hung on their hook by the entrance. Your exaggerated exhale draws the attention of the apartment’s sole other occupant to you more than the muted sound of the front door closing does.
“Hey man,” Sam greets you through a mouthful of pizza, chomping down on a pepperoni seemingly without a care in the world. You nod in response, not yet ready to speak, and head past him to grab a slice for yourself. Delicious, warm food fills you up and gives your brain new energy for important things like internally debating if your best friend will kill you for coming out to him. Sam puts the TV on though he hates basically every channel, a clear sign he’s uncomfortable with the silence despite his cool act. His discomfort is more upsetting than your own, wordlessly egging you on to get it over with.
“Sam, I can’t… we can’t be friends anymore,” you tell him from afar, wiping pizza grease on your pants like some kind of animal in your distracted distress.
“Why the hell not?” Sam asks from the couch, his attention piqued. You can tell he’s not taking you seriously, and you’re not immediately sure if you want him to. He looks almost amused at your dramatic utterance, pleased that this ridiculous comment is all you have to offer after your antics over the last few hours.
Here goes nothing. “Because I’m gay.”
“Uh, ok. Can you not have straight friends if you’re gay?” Sam rises from the couch to enquire. You’re about 10 feet away, standing with your back to the wall of the kitchenette, observing his every move. Your confession perplexed him, you can tell, which is at least a far cry from disgust. Either he didn't hear you properly or a miracle is taking place right in front of you.
“It’s not just that I’m gay,” you clarify painstakingly, wondering if having teeth pulled would be more or less painful than your upcoming admission. Without any numbing agent, this would still be worse. “I’m in love with you, have been for a long time. Sorry,” you add an apology as an afterthought, deciding it would probably be mortifying to find out your friend was secretly in love with you for several years. You shared drinks, a car, even beds on a few nerve-wracking, unforgettable occasions. Looking back on those events, it would make sense if Sam felt violated by your silent affection. If anything, though, he just looks more confused when you finally look back up at him.
“Well that’s okay with me,” he says matter-of-factly. You should feel relief that you aren’t being thrown out on your ass or worse, but that feeling never comes. “So can’t we just stay like we are now?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” he literally pouts, leaning against the wall opposite you in a temporary pause of his advancement in your direction.
“It hurts seeing you with Candace!” you explain, exasperated and frankly in disbelief that it’s necessary to spell this out for him. He’s not an idiot, but he’s acting like one tonight. You just wish you knew why. In your head, there had been two potential outcomes of this confession: acceptance (highly improbable, if not impossible) or a world of physical and emotional pain. Sam asking you to keep playing at being friends is not on your bingo card for failed romantic declarations.
“I’ll break up with Candace then,” he offers casually, biting into his slice of pizza now that he must feel the pressure is off. In his mind, it really must be as simple as ‘bros before hoes’, and the problem is now as good as solved. When you shake your head in frustration, Sam’s demeanor changes from relaxed to angry so quickly that it’s disorienting.
“Can’t you just push those feelings away?” he demands, pizza abandoned on the nearby coffee table as he resumes his slow journey to you in the kitchenette. Backing yourself against a wall was not your brightest idea, but you imagined the worst part of the conversation was over many minutes ago. With Sam bearing down on you, it’s only natural that you look for and locate an escape route. Before you can make your move, though, he’s arrived and pinned you to the wall with just one hand on your shoulder. There’s weight to his grasp, but you’re frozen more by shock than his use of physical force.
“I do it every day,” he continues, looking dead in your eyes as you shrink beneath him in an attempt to squirm away. “Every fucking day, so why can’t you? Don’t you care about our friendship?” Unable to dissect what the hell he’s saying, you sigh to release some tension and force yourself to return his gaze. He’s so unbelievably handsome, even this angry, even standing over you like he’s considering decking you. His expression softens around the edges as you wrestle with what to say. You walked back into the apartment prepared to end a friendship, but never expected things to unfold in quite this way.
“I can’t do that,” you confess after what feels like an eternity of deliberation, “I can’t smother my feelings anymore.” You’ve played this game for too long, committed to the ruse of being a good friend for years without complaint. Every time you almost confessed or lost control and kissed him, you held it in only to walk away from it all today. You two had a good run, for the most part. The last traces of pizza in your mouth turn to ash as Sam releases his grip on you and turns to face the other way: defeat tastes like poison.
You move back home within a week. For his part, Sam doesn’t antagonize you or out you to all of your old friends like you partially expected. At times you wonder what he was getting at during the argument, what he meant when he said he pushes his feelings back every day. What secret was he struggling with that he didn’t see fit to let you in on? You were the ever-dependable and reliable friend, but apparently that wasn’t enough for him to trust you with everything. Another failure on the books in your relationship with him.
You hear from a friend of a friend after a few months that Sam’s gone off to fish in Alaska. He left behind a furious and newly-single Candace, his budding coaching career and his piece-of-shit dad in favour of solitude and open seas. A little while ago you would’ve been included in that list as well, but Sam never actually left you: you saw to that, fleeing at the first sign of a challenge. You never pegged him as much of a fisherman, but in these dark times you wonder if you ever knew him at all. It takes a few months for your thoughts drift to Sam only most of the time with the occasional good memory thrown in, rather than constantly and painfully.
You inherited the TV from the apartment when you left since Sam rarely used it anyway, and it now sits in the childhood bedroom that you never intended to move back into. You’re not big on TV either, but mysteriously it turns on every time there’s a big football game. Unbidden, you can almost hear his voice walking you through each play like old times. He talked through every football game, on TV or in person, narrating the plays and what must be running through the players’ minds as if you hadn’t heard it countless times before. You never complained, because you liked it, because you liked just about anything Sam did to you.
Drinking isn’t fun alone. You already cut back after graduating college, but you haven’t drank a drop in the six months it’s been since you walked out of the apartment without looking back except in dreams and haunting memories. The hiss of a can opening, the pop of a bottle cap, the smell of a shitty beer brings you back to times spent together with Sam. You can’t stand being brought back to those times, having your personal failures shoved in your face again and again, so you do everything in your power to avoid setting yourself off and getting nostalgic for the past.
All through school you managed to avoid dating under the guise of focusing on education above all else. Now that you are a gainfully employed member of society your parents have started encouraging you to find someone, possibly in the hopes of gently evicting you in the near future. You’ve been resistant to these attempts primarily because you’re still a lovesick fool and secondarily because you have no interest in the daughters of friends they casually bring up in conversation. Coming out to your parents is less intimidating than coming out to Sam was, if you’re being honest, but it’s been unnecessary thus far.
When you do start playing the field in some capacity, it’s purely by accident and not exactly the kind of relationship you’d share with your folks. Alex, who is neither gay nor a man, drags you to a gay bar after months of listening to you whine about Sam. It’s somewhere you’d never go alone or at all a year ago and it introduces you to more gay people than you’ve ever known in your life. You make an exception in your self-imposed sobriety for several shots of liquor, something Sam mostly steered clear of in favour of good old beer. If it ain’t broke , he’d say whenever you grimaced over his cheap beer obsession. It never stopped you from drinking right alongside him. The night stretches to morning and suddenly the bartender is giving your sorry ass a ride home, Alex nowhere to be found in the wee hours of the morning when the club is closing. She must’ve set you up, and it worked because for about 30 minutes this evening you weren’t thinking about Sam.
This bartender, pretty cute and a perfect gentleman just a few years your senior, gives you his number in exchange for yours before helping you out of his car and onto your front lawn. You hobble inside, undetected by your parents, and pass out on your bed. You spend the following day nursing a hangover and occasionally responding to texts from Bartender Boy. You’re so confident nothing will come of this that you don’t bother saving his number or remembering his name: not exactly a success for Matchmaker Alex. You can’t blame her for trying, with the way you’ve been endlessly carrying on about someone who left you far behind.
You meet up with Bartender Boy platonically a few more times, though he makes it clear he’d like something more. A picture of the two of you makes its way to YourSpace, a popular site that you barely spend any time on. You’d panic at the thought of being seen with another guy if the photo wasn’t so overwhelmingly innocent. Your heads are a little close, you’re sharing a plate of fries, but beyond that you could be two heterosexual dudes hanging out in completely not-gay capacity. It’s not like you’ve even kissed him, or anyone, so you can hardly be accused of anything untoward. The most you could be guilty of is stringing along a perfectly innocent bystander in your quest to forget about how badly you hurt inside.
Unbeknownst to you, though, this image has a ripple effect. Once in motion, the consequences of your actions cannot be stopped. The photo from Saturday afternoon goes up on Sunday morning and by Monday night you have a tall, muscular, irritated blonde man at your door. Your mom answers, greets your best friend with the usual niceties and calls you out of your room like you’re 13 years old again.
You’re wearing sweatpants and a white shirt with more than one stain on it: not exactly ideal reunion-wear. When you see Sam, more rugged than he left with muscles in new places and an uncharacteristically unshaven face, your palms go slick with sweat before your brain has time to make you feel consciously anxious. Without asking permission, he walks into your room and shuts the door like he owns the place. This set-up is beyond unfair: he’s had time to prepare, physically and mentally, while you flounder in the doorway of your own room trying to figure out how to react.
“You’re dating,” he informs you sternly to your surprise. You shake your head no, confused by this turn of events more than his physical transformation and pissed-off demeanor.
“You’re in Alaska,” you answer an absurd question with a demonstrably false non sequitur.
“I came back,” he eyes you up and down while stating the obvious. You feel naked before him, like a prey animal unwittingly exposing its underbelly. His gaze lingers on you and there’s a hunger about him that feels practically feral. “I saw the picture. I know you’re screwing him.”
“Jesus, Sam,” is the only appropriate reply you can give at first. “I’m not screwing anyone. If I was, though, would it be any of your business?”
Without pause or any discernible hesitation: “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You’re in love with me,” he asserts, as if he hasn’t been missing from your life for 7 months and 12 days (and like 4 hours since that last awkward wave as you peeled out of your assigned parking space for the last time and he stood in the grass outside without moving a muscle, but who’s counting? Definitely not you). “Or were you lying when you said that?” he asks, though it’s clear from his face that he doesn’t entertain any such thoughts.
“I wish I had been! I wish the whole thing was a fever dream, honestly,” you confess. “For a while I thought it was, since you fucked off a million miles away after the whole thing went down.
“I had to clear my head,” Sam explains without really explaining. “I had a lot going on.”
“Such as?” you press, growing increasingly frustrated with his reluctance to supply you with basic information whilst storming back into your life and demanding answers for himself.
"I can't be me if I'm gay," Sam states plainly, as if that makes any sense at all. Another little bit of casual devastation piled on top of this nightmarish evening.
"If that were true, you wouldn't have come back from Alaska to charge into my bedroom and question me about my sexual activities with a man I’ve met up with like four times max,” you posit with feigned confidence. There has to be another explanation for this behaviour, like narcissism, hidden homophobia or completely platonic jealousy. All three possibilities combined make more sense than Sam having a sudden gay awakening amidst some beanie babies you couldn’t get rid of when you moved out and a pile of CDs you haven’t listened to since middle school.
Sam ponders his next move after hearing this. He’s lost in thought, leaving you alone to stew in thoughts of your own. It feels an awful lot like Sam is untangling a web of complex feelings he has, potentially pertaining to you. Watching him chew his lip with furrowed brows, you can’t help but wonder if you’ve lost seven and a half months of your life thanks to his inability to come to terms with his sexuality. That assumption, however, would require you to make the logical leap that he feels any sort of romantic attraction to you. You involuntarily flashback to his intensity in the kitchenette of your shared apartment that fateful day, so long ago now, the glint in his eyes when he asked you to push down your feelings just like he allegedly did ‘every day’.
"Let me get this straight," you think aloud with only a hint of intentional irony. "You disappeared to Alaska because you didn't want to be gay?"
"Exactly! I'm clearly not gay, too, since I have no trouble pushing down any weird shit I think about you. Plus I like girls! I like touching them and kissing them and hearing their moans…"
As he describes the ways in which he loves women, the softness of their bodies and the fullness of their breasts in his hands, his attention never leaves your face. Yet again you feel exposed before his scrutiny, laid bare from a single look. How is it possible for him to make something like this sound and feel like foreplay? You should be disgusted or crestfallen but something inside of you won't let you look away. It’s the off-handed way he mentioned the weird shit he thinks about you, a throwaway line that you anchor your entire being to. You’ve craved words like these since the moment that football connected with your face years ago: if only you could pick them out of the air, frame them, save them for a rainy day.
"So you're not gay," you grant him, a sentiment that has him beaming. "But you could be bisexual."
"That’s better though, right?"
"Uh," you clear your throat to buy yourself time for a response. Internally you are screaming but Sam seems so sincere, hanging onto your every word, that you feel the need to answer his question with some of your own sincerity. "I guess so, because you can be 'normal': marry a woman and have kids without sparing men more than a second thought." This kind of thinking is a point of contention amongst the men of the gay bar you've now visited several times. Some men would never date a bi man for this very reason: he could always just choose to leave. By your reckoning, though, a gay man can just as easily choose to get up and leave any time. There are always more fish in the sea, something Sam can undoubtedly profess to now.
"I can't do that, though. That's the problem. That's why I left. I can't look at anyone the way I look at you," Sam keeps that agonizing eye contact up the entire time he delivers this message, as if he hasn't just knocked the wind out of you without even trying. Why can't he ever be direct about anything, especially something as earth-shatteringly unbelievable as this? Instead he plays it close to the chest, coolly dropping lines that set you on fire while he simply watches you burn.
"How is it that you look at me?" you manage to ask over the sound of blood rushing in your ears. The panic in your voice must be apparent: he ends his intense stare in favour of looking around your room nervously. You notice his eyes widen just before he turns to examine an old poster on your wall, obscuring his face from your view temporarily. After a few seconds he admits defeat and looks back at you, red-faced and pliant.
Silence fills the air for longer than you’d like, nearly longer than you can stomach as you look back at him imploringly. "Like you're my whole world, 'cause you are," Sam finally reveals with uncharacteristic shyness. You give him a nod of encouragement, trying not to let on how desperate you are to hear what he has to say. His words are cold water, both quenching your insurmountable thirst and taming the chaotic fire inside of you. "Even before we officially met, you caught my eye and all of the sudden I was seeing you everywhere. That football throwing stunt was entirely my idea, by the way."
"I always thought it was weird that you knew my name before I gave it to you,” you reply readily, unable to summon any ire for the incident that left you with a sore spot for weeks and began a years-long friendship. It made you breathless to think that that incident had been coordinated by the coolest guy in school, that your presence had never gone unnoticed by him.
"Yeah, I beat myself up over letting one slip for ages. But I didn't realize my feelings for you were... abnormal, I guess, until we got to college and I started drinking more. Whenever I drank it made me want to touch you so, so bad."
A dam breaks inside of you now, and you can’t stem the flow of words even if you wanted to. "I know. It felt like it was just me that you got touchy-feely with, but I always figured that was just because I spent the most time with you," you share, drunk on this moment. Sam finally bridges the gap between your bodies with a shaky hand on your cheek in reply.
"I realized it was just showing me what I really wanted, which was to make you mine. I wanted you to belong to me, to wear my clothes and sit in my lap at games and tell every girl that so much as looks at you that you’re taken. Doing that would end our friendship for sure, though, so I stopped getting wasted, started dating more girls, and tried to focus on us as friends. I did a damn good job, didn't I?" Sam sounds a little self-righteous, but it’s well-deserved.
You give an overly enthusiastic nod in response, mouth too dry to speak. He did a way better job of concealing his feelings than you did, so well that you almost disbelieve him now. The hand on your cheek moves slowly, travelling down your neck to your shoulder and all the way down to your empty hand, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. You watch the hand move, watch him take your hand in his, before shifting your gaze upwards to meet his eyes once again. His expression is impenetrable: you never felt like Sam was difficult to read until this past year, most particularly in the last 15 minutes.
There are no words exchanged past this point, not for a while at least. Movement spotted in the corner of your eye draws your attention from his increasingly frustrated handsome face and towards his hand, which is clumsily lacing his fingers through your own. You look closer at his hand, finding it to be much sweatier than you expected, and look up again just in time for his mouth to close in on yours. Sam Gordon is kissing you. It’s like a bolt of lightning strikes your exact coordinates, warming your entire body and making every hair stand on end. It’s your first kiss, so you can’t be sure if goosebumps and stomach flips are par for the course, but this meeting of lips and tongue is quite overwhelming all at once. You can barely think as his other shaky hand snakes its way from your elbow to the back of your head. Inexperienced and spellbound, you push him away to pull in some air, right hand still intertwined in his left.
He doesn’t misread the gesture, arrogant bastard, simply waits patiently for you to catch your breath before closing in again for more. He smells fresh and clean, like hotel soap and mint gum, and feels unmistakably solid to the touch. He’s let his hair grow out a bit, whether through neglect or stylistic choice, which means you can run your hands through his hair and tug a bit for some additional sensory pleasure. You figure this out while still entangled in a kiss, grasping for anything you can find purchase in, unintentionally eliciting the first moan you’ve ever heard from Sam’s mouth. Every groan you catalogued for later ‘use’ in your late teens pales in comparison to the real thing rumbling in his chest as you lightly pull his hair.
Kissing Sam feels like fulfilling a basic need, like satiating hunger or quenching an unbearable thirst. You let your hands explore the wide expanse of his chest after you’re done carding through his newly long hair. In some ways it feels like kissing a stranger, but the warmth and safety you feel in Sam’s arms contradicts that notion smoothly. Though your head spins with arousal and need, you feel grounded by his firm touch as he holds you in his arms.
Progress stalls when you realize that Sam has no idea what to do with a man past first base and he realizes you have no desire to fool around further with your mom potentially on the other side of the door. It’s only now that the earlier dialogue recommences, surprisingly starting with Sam. Amidst the flurry of activity, you both somehow ended up next to each other on your twin-sized bed: the space is bordering on downright small to share with Sam in his new buff-fisherman body. He stands after a moment of silence and turns to look at you.
“I feel like- I think that I’m- it seems like I’m in love with you,” he’s eventually able to piece together. It feels like a victory, albeit small and a tad pathetic. The Sam Gordon from last year was so incapable of putting this sentiment to words, though, that he took up an entirely new career in an entirely new part of the world without saying so much as goodbye. “Sorry I couldn’t say it before,” he apologizes sincerely, head bowed, unlacing your fingers to pull you into a tight hug.
This proclamation of love is rough and awkward, like most things with Sam when you’re involved. He's smooth with girls, always knows what to say or when to stay silent and let them bask in his greatness or whatever. It's this smoothness that you've envied all along, the careless way he reels them in and lets them go once he's done using them as trophies. When it comes to you, though, it’s another story. From the very moment you two met, Sam has always seemed to fall all over himself in your presence. You thought at the time that it meant he needed you, like he was a lost sheep looking for a best friend who would see past the football champion bullshit and nurture the carefree, protective man hiding behind it. Now, head buried in the wide chest of your former best friend, you wonder if Sam’s always felt a little differently about you than his other friends and girlfriends.
“I forgive you,” you assure him, and you do. It would’ve saved you a lot of headaches if he shared this with you at any point in the last several years. Being in Sam’s arms would have you forgiving practically any transgression, but this whole secret-agony-for-years ordeal is best left in the past anyway. For now, really, you have to stick to your chops and secure as many small victories as you can. “I forgive you, but,” you add before he can get too comfortable as he breaks the hug and pulls back, ghosting his hands on your arms. He has a thing about pinning you to walls, backing you into corners, trapping you in one way or another. “I will only do this dating thing with you if you're confident in yourself, if you work to prove to me with words and actions that you love me."
“One hundred percent, but… I can’t do any seriously gay shit,” Sam complains, too loudly, prompting you both to sit silently for a moment listening for any movement in the hallway. Having an apartment with your best friend was infinitely better than living with your parents for moments like this, until it suddenly wasn’t anymore. You’re not sure what Sam’s playing at, making a declaration like that within minutes of exploring the inside of your mouth with his tongue.
“Funny. I can only do gay shit,” you muster through gritted teeth, not prepared to concede everything for the prospect of a relationship with Sam. It’s been your dream for years to hear him say that he loves you, but you’re an adult now. Your expectations are less ‘let’s make out and everything will be okay’ and more ‘we need to be compatible for a future together or it’s not happening’, even if the latter will probably mean years of therapy for you while you once again nurse a broken heart. “If you want to date me, if you’re being sincere, then I want you to act like it.”
“Aren’t you worried about doing that sorta thing in public? Have you not heard the kinda shit they do to gay people?” he asks, real concern evident on his usually disaffected features. It clicks for you, slowly at first then crashing down like a tidal wave, that Sam is worried for your safety. Maybe the machismo garbage about not 'doing gay shit' has come less from a place of contempt and more for survival's sake. Hopefully it has, anyway.
"Things are pretty bad," you acknowledge, to his vehement nodding. "But they're getting better. And you can show you love me without making out with me in public. I'm talking about telling our friends, going out together like we used to but coming home and sleeping in the same bed," you continue. The same bed is a big sticking point: you want to get the hell out of your parents' place and spend the next forever watching Sam slip into sleep and pinching yourself to make sure it’s really happening.
"Not sure I have many friends left after the disastrous breakup with Candace and the whole Alaska thing," Sam replies sheepishly. "But that sounds good to me. It's hard to… I've been crushing this part of me for my entire life, since before I met you, but you made it so much more difficult to hide. I'll try as hard as I can, but I’ll probably still screw up sometimes."
"At least you can admit it," you sigh, revising your previous resolution to accept that you will concede a few things, at most. There’s still an electric charge to the air drawing you close to him, a feeling akin to a rubber band being pulled back while you both wait for it to snap. You want to remove every item of clothing he has on plus your own, want to mark his neck and chest and every square inch of his body with your teeth, but you settle on leaning in for another long, tight hug.
Sam opens his arms to you like he knows he’s won, because he has. You suppose you were the prize for him all along, even if you were completely unaware. The rest of the night is spent with nothing more vulgar than an unclothed cuddling session around midnight after your parents are fast asleep and you’ve inflated the air mattress for his unplanned overnight stay. A certain someone had planned it, in fact, had bet everything that you’d still want anything to do with him after months of radio silence. His bet paid off as he seemingly knew it would, and the two of you stayed up far too late detailing all of your efforts to interfere with his love life throughout high school and college. More than anything, he’s amused by your efforts as he recites his own list of girls who asked for your number and were told 'confidentially' that you had a girlfriend at another school. Sabotaging each other’s love lives before you had the courage to confess: so romantic.
The ordeal with his engagement to Candace that led to revelation upon revelation being unveiled was not the result of an unplanned pregnancy. When Sam shares this with you, there’s a feeling of defeat that washes over you anew. Conveniently pushing aside his speech about loving you and wanting to make you his , you momentarily fear that his love for Candace will someday be an easier way out than loving you. Mind reader that he is, Sam dispels your concerns with a simple explanation: his old man is dying. The wedding might have made him proud of his son in some capacity, in a way he hadn’t since his last triumphant touchdown many years ago. Those plans were dashed, his dad was stubbornly kicking along and Candace had moved on to someone who hopefully actually loved her since Sam never had. You feel bad for Candace here, a reversal of months ago when you wanted to hit her with your car just a little bit.
The sun rises on a work day and you feel energized, though you got all of three hours of sleep shoved up against Sam on the air mattress because your bed was too small for both of you. Sam stirs before you, time difference be damned, and pulls on his clothes from the day before. The bag he’s packed is quite sparse: a few outfits that are all variations on a dull theme, some toiletries, and something wrapped in an absurd amount of bubble wrap. When you inquire about the mystery item as he rifles through his suitcase for his toothbrush, he gives you a cheeky grin and says it’s a souvenir.
“I wish they made ‘My Boyfriend Moved to Alaska to Escape His Feelings For Me and All I Got Was This Stupid T-shirt’ shirts,” you lament as he returns from the bathroom minutes later. He seems caught off-guard by the mention of being your boyfriend, but his open mouth quickly closes to a thoughtful smile. You pass him on your way out of the room, having the unfortunate task of getting ready for work despite the unbelievable circumstances of the last 18 hours. When you return to your room, Sam is waiting with something behind his back.
“Ta-da,” he says quietly, cheesily, presenting a magnificent snow globe to your immense surprise. Not the kind of gift you’d expect from Sam, really, though you’re not sure what to expect at all these days. The snow globe is beautiful, hand-crafted and unique, breath-taking when you digest that he bought it with you in mind. “Not a t-shirt, but I thought it might be good to remember that I left and came back. I bought it in the first week, actually.”
“You did come back,” you grant him, approaching to pluck the snowglobe from his hands and shake it for good measure. His subtle remark, implying he planned to return from almost the moment he left, is too much to unpack this early in the morning so you divert your attention to simpler things. Mesmerized by the falling snow in the globe, you almost forget to pay attention to Sam. He’s quick to remedy this with gentle hands that guide you to place the glistening globe on your nightstand and then encircle his firm waist. When you look up at him, there’s a bit of water in one of his eyes that he quickly wipes away.
“It’s dust, dust in my eye,” he insists when you quirk a brow at the sight. “Besides, I won’t leave again, especially if guys like that are going to try and steal you from me,” he references the reason for his speedy return casually as you bury your head in his chest and squeeze him tight. It’s not worth mentioning that Bartender Boy had no chance with a lovesick loser like yourself. It’s always been Sam, since the day you met him: a cool drink of water placed precariously in the desert of your youth. Finally, you allow yourself to indulge.