Chapter 444: Modo XXI—Shrugged

Afterwards, Modano wanted to recline lazily against Peter’s body, he wanted to close his eyes and cling to his damp, heated skin. He wanted to sleep; he wanted to wake up with him, lazy smiles exchanged and whispered endearments and chides. No, I don’t love this man, Mike thought, but the intimacy could not be denied. He sighed and smiled and leaned his head into Peter’s chest, closed his eyes and then…

“Come on, move it,” Peter said briskly, and Modano almost rolled off the bed as Peter rolled him off his body. “I need a shower.”

“But,” Modano began helplessly, feeling his mouth, his lower jaw loose with confusion, and an inability to speak. What could he say really? “Don’t you want to sleep, I mean, can’t you in the morning?”

“I need a shower,” Peter replied with a quick smile as he disappeared into the bathroom, “Get some sleep Mikey, huh?”

Oh for the love of… Modano sat up and ran his fingers through his hair, laughing and tilting his face to the ceiling. He listened to the shower, he sat there for a spell, and he tried to imagine if he’d ever been in a relationship with someone who could be so hot and then frigid in the same moment. Even Brett, he could be distant, he could be spiteful but the heat of anger or cruelty always remained in those moments, and his passion ever quick to be aroused.

Mike looked at the pile of clothes on the floor, pants, underwear, shirts, socks, heh; Mike looked at his feet, well one sock. He reached down and pulled off the remaining sock and he tossed it in the direction of his duffel bag. Then, he slid off the bed and collected the clothing, tossing his on his duffel and rolling Peter’s into a wad at the foot of his bed. He didn’t want to seem too motherly, Brett always hated Mike’s neatness and habit of folding and filing away everything out of place.

Classic gay, Mikey, cut that out huh babe?

Sorry, Brett, and he would smile because he knew that really, Brett loved being doted on like that. Importantly, however, he knew Brett liked that because of the twinkle in his eye and the small grin, something Peter seemed to lack at his coldest moments.

Come on, move it, with no affection, with a firm, subtle violence, pushing him off as if he were a used tissue, a child that no longer mattered, a responsibility that had ceased to affect the mind. Perhaps Peter didn’t intend it, but undeniably he was one rude man, coldly rude, like a reptile would be. Mike knew he would never be able to live under treatment like that for very long at all and if Peter wanted a relationship than he would have to learn to behave in a way that benefits both….

“Okay maybe I don’t want to be in a relationship.”

Mike felt his mouth drop, and his hands froze open palmed and out, in mid-gesture to the point he had just been delivering to Peter, quite eloquently and tastefully and clearly. And then damn the red head if he’d just laid an icy little bomb on him. “What?”

Peter shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want to be in a relationship.”

Amazing! He’d said it in exactly the same tone and the same inflection as he’d done just seconds ago. Perfectly the same as if he’d a tape recorder in his throat and just replayed it. Even in the eyes, he saw in Peter a blank, smooth, mask, not emptiness but a mask. The man had been through this before, countless times, Mike could sense it and he couldn’t quite place how he felt about it.

“Peter, be serious.” Mike said in the vague hope that the man could be joking.

Peter raised his eyebrows and he shrugged again, but this time his cheeks reddened just a little and he didn’t make eye contact, now he looked a little uncomfortable, “I am serious, and maybe I don’t want to be in a relationship.”

“Peter!” Mike exclaimed and he hated himself for sounding like an offended girl but it couldn’t be helped. “How can you be…” so selfish? So unfeeling? So insensitive? “Such a….”

“Look I’m not a pig okay,” Peter said with a frown and now with completely reddened cheeks and Mike took morbid amusement that Peter had hit the nail on the head, and had probably been called that so many countless times before that he’d already seen that word coming. “I’m thinking of us both, really, I mean, maybe we’re just not meant for each other, or something, you know I’m not right for you, you deserve better. It really isn’t you it’s…”

“Jesus!” Modano interrupted, “Pete don’t tell me you’ve used all those lines at the same time before? Have you?”

Long slow grin, perfect white teeth, and Mike wanted to roll up and punch out those teeth for being so amused at a time like this. “No I don’t think so, you’ve gotta be the first, must be a special occasion.”

“Special occasion?” Mike cried and again he felt self conscious that he’d screamed like an angry girl. “Special?”’

“Well I’ve never applied anything to a, a man before, not like that,” Peter said scratching the back of his scalp and wrinkling his nose. “So I guess I just kinda threw everything in there, sorry.”

“You forgot the ‘we can still be friends’ line,” Mike said sarcastically. Yeah, now he felt dizzy with anger and confusion. Just last night the sex, it had been amazing, undeniably intimate, it had been everything that could ever be wanted, it had felt, loving and close and so damn comfortable and then in the course of a morning…. Impossible!

“Yeah!” Peter said, his face lighting up, “Yeah I mean we’re roommates, so we should be friends, I hope the past couple of days don’t make everything else all weird?” Now his smile seemed so sincere and hopeful, and he even clasped his hands together. What it translated to Mike was, please just pretend like nothing ever happened regardless of how amazing just so that I can go on living my own selfish existence now that I’ve satisfied a long itching curiosity and abused the rules of good will and friendship with a perfectly nice man.

“Peter has anyone told you that you can’t treat people like this?” Mike said, he felt exhausted, empty and drained of any reaction now.

No he hadn’t wanted a long lasting relationship with Forsberg, even in the heat of climax he hadn’t entertained any thoughts of staying with him, of being forever with him. No he hadn’t felt true undying love for Peter, but no he didn’t for once consider tossing Peter off casually without regard for his feelings and possibly fragile, vulnerable self image he might have been nursing at the moment.

“Well you didn’t actually think that we could be a real, ‘couple’. Did you?” Peter frowned, and he twiddled his pale fingers with each other, “I mean you couldn’t possibly be anything close to in love with me or anything like that. So really I’m just offering us both the best option before things got outta hand. I mean Mikey, it’s been great but, it’s just not meant for us, but that doesn’t mean I won’t always think of the time we had together and I really did enjoy it. You’ll always be special to…”

Mike covered his eyes. “YOU’RE DOING IT AGAIN!” Modano cried.

“Doing what again?” Peter asked quietly, looking a little dazed at being interrupted from his scripted thoughts.

“Shrugging me off with every stupid cliché you can think to use,” Mike sighed. “I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE!”

“Am I?” Peter whispered.

Could a man really be this shallow? Seriously, Mike didn’t even believe it when women were this shallow, he always assumed they faked to play up to an ideal a man may have in his brain. Seriously, though, it seemed somehow very possible that Peter just really, really was this shallow. “Peter you’re a flake!” Modano cried. “A FLAKE!”

“No I’m not!” Peter exclaimed. “I’m just trying to spare you from furthering into a lie cause we just really don’t….”

“Gotcha,” Modano snapped holding out his hand before Peter could dart another one liner his direction. “Gotcha, gotcha, I understand, I agree.”

The utter relief that blossomed on Pete’s face when he smiled dug into Mike gut and swirled in him the most homicidal urges he could ever think to conjure. “You do?”

Mike nodded helplessly, “Of course I understand. Sure, man, and its okay we can still be friends too, regardless of how much of a shit head you are.”

“Oh thank God!” Peter sighed, “I just…. Hey! I’m not a shit head.”

“If it keeps me from keeping our roommate friendship getting ‘weird’,” And Modano waggled his hands in the air as if he were a spooky ghost, “Then yeah you’re a shit head.” Oh my God you’re so much more than that! Modano thought, you’re so much more rancid. I really want to kill you!

Peter laughed, “Right, right. Hey you’re pretty funny Mikey, I’m glad we can still be friends. You’re a cool man, glad you can see common sense. Woo I was afraid for a second there I’d be stuck with a psycho ex girlfriend or something, sheeesh.” Peter comically loosened his collar to demonstrate the depths of his relief and he turned on the television. “Hey wanna order a movie before practice?”

Modano shook his head, “No I’m going out, I have a couple errands.”

The bright point of the day was the Vitton purse for Brandi had been finished and tailored to the specifications Mike had asked about. He didn’t even mind paying for it, although the price did raise his eyebrows. What mattered would Mrs. Blake’s happy face at least that would be something gone right.

As for Peter, Mike didn’t feel brokenhearted and that at least was a blessing. His chest didn’t hurt, his stomach and his well being, he didn’t ache. Of course, he had not been in love with Peter and perhaps Pete was right in stopping this before things went to far one way or the other. But still. What Stuck in Mike’s craw was the cold, unfeeling, manner Peter had tossed him over with, the ready made lines and attitude to throw him away not considering how he might have been hurt by it. And it made Mike think of the countless women Peter must have been doing this to over countless years, the years of emotional harm, as deadly as any psychopath on the streets.

Mike set his jaw. What Peter needed sooner or later, was a lesson, in the name of every woman he had ever taken advantage of. And then Mike smiled.