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It’s so much suddenly. The water feels wrong and thes soap feels wrong and every part of his body feels wrong. He has to brush his teeth. He has to wash his face. He needs to file his nails. He needs to look good. Not just good. Perfect. He needs to look perfect. But the shame is going to linger. The shame can’t wash down the drain like the scent of Peter’s fingers on his neck. The shame can’t swirl down the drain with the soap. He feels like crying. He feels like throwing up. He gets out and towels off quickly. He needs to get out, before Peter says anything. Before he overstays his welcome. Before he falls headfirst into something he can’t get out of.
“Where are you heading, pretty boy?”
It’s different now. With Peter, everything is different. Micky was always home. Micky was the pretty face and body and hands that were always home. In a place that they got to call their own, when they were both coming into themselves. So he hadn’t been scared. Fame wasn’t yet in reach and he was new and they were learning to care for themselves and each other. But once fame had knocked at their door, they’d fizzled out and away. Whatever it was. Whatever it could have been. Now Micky had a girl and Davy had girls and everybody had babies or was thinking about babies and it was all very serious.
With Peter, Davy doesn’t have to hide just how much he likes everything Peter can do to him. But despite that, he wants to. He feels like he needs to hide everything now. With Micky, it was lust and new experiences and the beginnings of falling in love. With Peter, it’s head over heels, maddening, intense, heady, romantic from a movie love. And Peter is sweet to him. Even after their fight, which Davy had spurred anyways, it’s still good. Davy doesn’t know if it’s ever been bad.
Peter’s waiting a response, staring at him through the bathroom mirror. Despite being naked, Peter’s not letting his eyes wash over him. He’s just looking at his face, patiently waiting a response. That’s the best part about him, Davy thinks. He’s patient and he’s kind and he cares for every part. He’s mostly toweled off, the towel loosely around his hips. If Peter starts up again, if Peter touches him again, if Peter kisses him again, Davy will need to wash it off. Because everybody will be able to see it. And if he goes back downstairs, somebody’s going to see him. And if he goes home, a neighbor or someone is sure to ask him questions.
“It’s late, Davy. You seem… you seem anxious. I don’t need you driving and getting in a wreck.” Peter whispers, eyes trained to him.
“I’ll be alright.” Davy says, choked up on his own words. “Seriously, Peter, I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t believe you. What’s the matter?”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask. Davy thinks, head swimming and heart pounding and palms growing clammy.
“Davy?” Peter looks worried about him. “Davy, it’s nearly three in the morning. Everybody’s gone home.”
“It’s three in the morning?” He all but yelps back, fear rising in his gut.
“Yes, and Davy, it’s okay.” Peter’s voice is so assuring. “We don’t have work tomorrow morning. You can just stay here. Nobody’s going to see you, or ask you questions, or hurt you.”
He reaches out to touch him and Davy tenses away.
“Davy?”
“Peter, I’m sorry, but I just can’t, I can’t, I… I just can’t…”
“You can’t what? You can’t go home? What’s going on, David?”
“I love you.” He whispers bitterly. Tears are building up in his eyes and he’s going to have a panic attack and he’s freaking out.
“David?”
“I love you, Peter.” He says, the pain in his guts unimaginable. Then, he starts crying. Big, wallowing tears that he hasn’t seen in decades.
“David, you wait here. I’m going to get you some clothes.” Peter leaves the bathroom, and Davy can hear him rummaging in his drawers while he’s talking to him. Davy can’t hear anything he’s saying. It’s just pounding, pounding, pounding.
“You get dressed, you hear me?” Peter says, putting the clothes on the floor next to him. “Do you hear me, David?”
It’s all barely registering, but Davy puts the sweats on and tumbles to the floor when it’s all said and done.
“Come here,” Peter says, pulling him off of the ground. “David, just… just take a deep breath, okay? You need to calm down. You need to just take a deep breath.”
“I can’t, I can’t.” Davy moans, “It’s just… I can’t. I can’t because I love you and that’s not right. That’s not right, is it?” He’s still crying. The sweater Peter’s given him has been missing from Davy’s closet for a few months. That makes it worse.
“You can’t what?”
“I love you!”
“I’m not following. I love you too. You’re my friend.”
“No, Peter,” Davy shakes his head, fear through his spine. “I love you.” He feels like throwing up. What was Peter going to say? What was anybody going to say? What if his family found out? What if Micky found out? What if Mike found out? That made him feel even sicker.
“Are you okay?”
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Davy whispers, fear in his eyes so potent it starts to freak Peter out. “I’m going to be sick.” He says, hunched over the toilet. He’s puking, loud and violent.
“David,” Peter’s voice is calm, clarity in the storm. “David, what’s the matter?”
Davy’s freaking out. Peter’s spit and scent are washed off of him, but he can still feel how his fingers feel inside of him and how his breath can hit his neck and how his lips feel against his own. He’s got nothing in his stomach as the seconds draw to minutes, but he’s still wretching despite himself.
“David,” Peter’s gentle voice comes through it all over and over. “David, what’s the matter?”
It takes a few more minutes. Painful, loud, irritating minutes, and then Davy pulls himself from the toilet. Peter’s got a glass of water in his hand, a worried look in his eyes, and an outstretched hand with a towel. “David?”
“Sorry,” Davy responds, his head swimming and his face flushed. He’s trying to clean himself up and wash his face and drink the water and use the toothbrush he keeps at Peter’s place to get rid of it. He can’t get rid of the feeling or the hope in his chest or the fear in his gut.
Finally, everything finished, he turns to Peter. He’s still got a teary eyed expression, and Peter looks worried. Of course, Davy knows why. Just twenty minutes ago, Peter was making him see a whole new solar system. Now, he’s shaking and crying all over his bathroom floor.
“You want to talk to me about something, David?”
“I did.” He says miserably, “I love you.”
Peter just stares at him. He hates him. Davy’s mind makes up a thousand excuses before Peter finishes up his sentence a moment later.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have you felt like this?”
“For awhile.” He admits, fear bubbling.
“Since when?”
“Well, I hit you. Yes?”
“And I hit you back.”
“That was the start.”
“So you hit me?”
“And when you fucked me two months before that.”
“And you love me?”
“Not as a friend, Peter.”
“I’m not understanding.”
“I’ve fallen in love with you. And it’s freaking me out, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“It’s freaking you out?”
“I’m trying to settle down. You’ve got a girlfriend. For the last twenty years of my life, I’ve only liked women. And ever since you sucked my dick in the back of your car I keep looking at men like they’re going to build me a home. So yes, Peter, it’s freaking me out.”
Peter just looks at him. Strung out and hopeless and sad. “You think I’m going to build you a home? With my own two hands? I’d at least hire out a crew.”
It makes him smile.
“Don’t apologize. I know you’re going to. You don’t have to.”
“It’s wrong though, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Me and you. It’s wrong. I know that.”
“You’re the one who wants to carry on your family name.”
“I know.”
“It hasn’t stopped us.”
“I can’t.”
“I didn’t… I’m just making observations.”
“I know it’s more… it’s more intense for me, then it is for you, and I just… I feel so…”
“I never said it wasn’t as good for you as it was for me.”
“You’ve just had so many other opportunities, and I think that I’m certainly not changing-”
“It’s always intense with you. Always.”
“Well, I feel, that, I feel,” Davy looked down at his feet, unable to face him when he spoke the next words he was going to say. “I feel that you’re making me see everything new. Like a new solar system. And I get so caught up in how I’m feeling that it makes me want to do crazy things like marry you and have your kids.”
Peter uncrosses his arms from his chest and stares at him.
“I know. I know,” Davy’s got tears welling in his eyes again. “And I just… it’s freaking me out, and I don’t know what to do, and I keep thinking that if I just take a shower it’ll wash everything off. But it’s not. And nothing’s working. I’m trying to make it stop, but I can’t.”
He looks up. Peter looks very worried.
“Come here,” He says, leading them out of the bathroom and into his bedroom where Davy had started to lose control of himself. He sits on the bed, pats the space next to him. While he’d been in the shower, Peter had changed the sheets and fluffed up all the pillows. Davy’s clothes were folded on the chair.
Davy sat tentatively, the hole in his heart gaping.
“Come here,” Peter says, reaching out to him. He holds on, hugging him tightly. He doesn’t say anything, and as much as it’s freaking Davy out, Peter’s warmth is grounding. He doesn’t feel the same way. Davy knows this; but he’s not throwing him to the curb, or beating him up, or shaking him silly.
“Has to be my name.” Peter says, when he’s pulled away. Davy’s face in his hands.
“Hm?”
“If we ever had a chance at it. Jones is so boring. They’d have to be Thorkelsons.”
They won’t. Davy knows it. Peter knows it. Peter kisses him, soft and careful. Lets his hands run from Davy’s cheeks down his body and stop at his knees.
“You better get home.”
“Yeah,” Davy nods, falling under that spell again and again. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t bother changing, and leaves in what he’s wearing. When he gets home to that empty house, he’ll curl up alone. But he feels different, suddenly. Scared, surely. But he’s awake. He’s finally awake.