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NOTE: Told from Jonny's POV.
I turned to face him, feeling scared and fighting with myself. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to see Chris’s face when he heard the words I now spoke as bravely as I could.
“Chris… I love you.”
“W…What?” There was evident shock in his voice.
“I love you,” I repeated, more timid this time. Here came the big ending. I could feel it. Chris would laugh or be disgusted, or… well, he was certainly in no shape to bolt out of the car and slam the door, but that could be a good or bad thing depending on how you looked at it. I slowly opened one eye as my confession was greeted with stunned silence.
Chris’ sculpted lips were parted in surprise and he looked slightly bemused, but he was smiling. I tried to read the expression in his eyes, but all I could see was the bright blue of his iris. “I know that, Buckland,” he said.
I blinked. Wait… he knew? “You…?”
Chris smiled that mysterious, fond smile of his. “Of course I knew, mate…” Then he paused, his eyes warming. The sun slatted across his pale, bruised arms and glittered in his eyes. “It’s ‘cause I love you too.”
Oh.
“You do?” I asked incredulously. He better not have been kidding.
“Of course I do… How could I not?” Suddenly, he seemed to reconsider his words. “But, I mean, y’know, it’s not like I got it in for my friends all the time or anything. Especially not guys. But you’re Jonny, and I can’t help it.”
I laughed, and my whole body relaxed. My heart stopped hammering. I had told him my secret, and I had been accepted. My relief was so great that I didn’t really have control over what came out of my mouth after that.
“How about a kiss then?”
Chris looked at me, his blue eyes wide in giddy shock. Then he grinned cheekily and took my chin between his fingers. “No tongue,” he admonished. Then slowly, slowly, we leaned towards each other. The song that had been playing ended, and there was a second or two where all we heard was the sound of our breath. Then as the next song began, our lips brushed.
It was like someone struck a match. My body went warm all over, and my lips tingled as they touched his. He tasted so clean – the result of his straight edge tendencies. There was no bitter taste of cigarette smoke on his tongue or the stink of alcohol on his breath. He tasted as innocent as he looked.
My hand (of its own accord, mind you) wandered up and softly stroked Chris’s cheek. It was rough with the beginnings of a beard, but the skin underneath was silky. As my hand began to wander downwards, though, skirting gently over his neck and down the curve of his shoulder, he pulled away. Our faces were inches apart, and I wanted so badly to just kiss him again… memorize the taste of him. I gave him a quick, soft peck, gentle and fond. Chris eyed me like a nervous child.
“I’ve… ah… never kissed a guy before,” he murmured.
“Me neither,” I said. Which was a bit of a lie – once, at a party, I had kissed a boy named Brian. We were both pretty knackered. But Chris didn’t need to know that.
He smiled briefly, his eyes searching mine. He looked confused and a little scared.
“What’s wrong?” I asked gently.
Chris furrowed his fair brows, his gaze dropping into his lap where his hands were clasped. “I… just… Um…” He took a breath. “Are we… you know… an item?”
I laughed and leaned forward for another soft, careful kiss. As we parted, I could’ve sworn I felt Chris nip at my bottom lip like a kitten. I snickered to myself. “I’d like to be…” I began.
“But we’d have to keep it under wraps,” he interrupted, his face flushed but serious.
“Why?” I shook my head, raising my eyebrows.
“The media would have a bloody field day!”
“So what?” I asked impudently.
“So *what*?!” Chris said shrilly. “So what – we’ll be all over the tabloids and we’ll be under fire every sodding second!”
“I thought you didn’t care about that kind of thing,” I said, feeling bitter. I knew it was too good to be true. I finally had Chris… but he was ashamed of us.
“I don’t!” he reassured me. “It’s all bollocks, I don’t care for it. But I wanna be happy with you, Jon, not stalked down by reporters! I don’t wanna be known as that poofter twat boy band from the UK…” He made a pained face. “I don’t wanna be labeled something I’m not.”
“Something you’re not?”
“I’m not gay, Jonny!” he said heatedly. “I mean, I don’t even think I’m… you know… both ways. I think I’m just… just in love with you.”
I reached out and stroked his bottom lip with my thumb. He was warm and shaking a little, and he leaned his face into my touch. “Look, Chris, I understand what you’re saying… but sooner or later, if we kept it quiet, it would get out anyway. It would eat at us.”
Chris shook his head, his eyes slipping closed. He suddenly looked very world-weary. “Oh, Jonny… I don’t even want to think about it. We have two weeks of nothingness to ourselves up ahead. I’ve only just kissed you for the first time. Why are we talking about the future now?” He opened his eyes and looked at me pleadingly.
I sighed and nodded. “You’re right… but we can’t put it off forever.”
“We can try,” he said cheekily.
I kissed the side of his mouth quickly, then shifted and turned the key in the ignition. “Come on, Martin… Let’s get something to eat.”
- - -
Being with Chris was like a slice of heaven. We had been out to lunch or dinner before, but there was always the pretense of friendship hanging between us. But now he caught my eye every so often and he’d smile bashfully, and he even let me feed him food off my fork once or twice. Chris had the most beautiful mouth. His smile made me melt, as cliché as that may sound.
We slid into vinyl-covered seats in a small, quiet diner sort of place. The walls were covered in photographs and slips of paper across which scrawled tall, slanting signatures. Chris’ bright eyes roved the walls, squinting at each face on the photos, wondering at their meaning. One was of a high school rugby team. Another was probably the owner of the diner. He lost interest in the rest.
I can’t remember what we ordered; honestly, that was not the foremost thing on my mind at the moment. I was filled with a golden sensation, a sated pleasure that expressed itself in a giddy grin on my face. Chris gazed at me in unmasked wonderment for a moment, stirring his Coke with his straw, as I gazed back and smiled. I couldn’t think of anything to say, but I had a feeling I didn’t need to. This felt like… It felt like a dream, almost. A very pleasant dream.
I remember we laughed and talked as if nothing had changed, I remember covering his hand with my own and brushing my thumb over his knuckles – I remembered having done that to a girl before, once, a girl I had a crush on when I was something like seventeen. In the end, she had left. But I knew Chris would stay. I remember seeing it in his eyes.
I remember cracking a joke as Chris was taking a sip of his Coke and he leaned back in his seat, hand over his mouth and his eyes closed as his shoulders shook with mirth. I remember thinking: had I been a girl, Chris was just the type of boy my mum would want me to bring home.
I remember getting up and leaving, paying, Chris shrugging on his coat.
I remember helping him back into the car, his lip caught between his teeth, brow furrowed in pain, his hand gripping mine so hard that it still ached even after we pulled up in front of my apartment building.
I remember helping him back out. He slung his long arm over my shoulders and we made our painstaking way up the stairs, stopping in front of my door as I fumbled for keys. Nervously I jabbed the key in the lock and kicked the door open, and together we walked to the bedroom and he sat down, lip trembling and eyes closed as he took deep, measured breaths.
I remember I kneeled before him, resting a hand on his thigh – thrilled at my own bold move – and looked up into his face. He opened one eye and gazed at me. His breathing slowed. His face relaxed.
If perhaps beauty had a tangible definition, it would be that of the feeling of Chris’s long, slender body in my arms that night. Not the first time I had lain with him, my chin resting on his shoulder and our bodies spooned together – a fit so right and perfect it must have been fate – but the first time I had done so with his permission. The first time I had done so in the start of our time as true lovers.