Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (21 page)

By the end of the weekend, there had been a shift so sharp that I didn’t know where we stood anymore. There had been too many half-said comments, aborted sentences, and lingering touches that had nothing to do with getting off and seeing what we could do to each other and for how long. Something was building between us, something that took my breath away from anticipation, but also created anxiety about how little I could handle the possibility of it all going wrong.

“Did you have a fucking stroke?” There was a glimmer of irritation in his eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”

After another moment of hesitation, I worked up the courage to speak.

“I just think things are getting a little intense. Maybe we should calm it down for a while.”

“Oh, holy shit.” Nunzio set his cup down with enough force for some of it to slop out of the cover. “How have things been getting
a little intense
?”

“Just cool out. Don’t start getting mad.”

“Who the fuck is mad?”

I unfolded myself from the student desk and moved to the side of the room where I was out of view of the thin slice of window in my door. After a second of silent brooding, Nunzio followed.

“Don’t take it the wrong way and start cursing at me. I’m just trying to tell you what I’ve been thinking about.”

Nunzio inclined his head in a curt nod and half turned to the door. “Whatever, Michael. I gotta go write some IEPs.”

“Nunzio, are you kidding me right now? You can’t just listen?”

He shrugged, still refusing to meet my gaze. This was going worse than I had expected. I’d anticipated disagreement about the situation potentially becoming a problem, but I’d thought he would reassure me with a coy grin and cajoling comments, not stand there with hunched shoulders while brimming with anger.

I struggled with my explanation, but there was no way I was going to let the conversation trail off. It needed to happen, and we needed to be on the same page.

“I’m just saying,” I started again, “that things have been getting way more intense than we talked about. It was supposed to be some casual once-in-a-while type of thing, something that happened when we were drunk and wanted to party without having to go out to a club, but I think it’s becoming way more than that.”

I took a step closer and put my hand on his arm, digging my fingers into the soft fabric of his sweater.

“You know it’s true, Nunzio. Thanksgiving was….”

He shoved my hand away. “Was what?”

“It was the best time I’ve had in years. I’m not trying to deny that we have crazy sexual chemistry, niño. I’m just saying I can feel it heading in a direction that might make our friendship more complicated than I can handle. ¿Oíste?”

“Yeah, okay. I feel you.” Nunzio took a step backward. “Look, I really got to go get some work done.”

I followed him. “You’re not understanding me.”

“No, I understand just fine.”

“Then why the hell are you getting so upset? I just—” I reached up to touch his face, but he evaded. “You’re the only person who makes me happy. I won’t ruin what we’ve had for twenty years because the sex is good.”

He pushed my hand away again when I tried to touch him. “Stop.”

“Why are you being like this?”

Nunzio gave me a brief once-over before turning away with a low scoff. I could feel his anger charging the space between us and had to fight the urge to crowd him, to press my chest to the taut stretch of his back, and bury my face in his hair.

I could usually calm him down with matter-of-fact explanations, logic, a hug. But now he wouldn’t look at me, and the shift in our relationship, the thing that had put this fear into me, was going in a totally different direction. One that ensured Nunzio wouldn’t even speak to me.

A scrabble of fear clawed at me, and I almost pulled him close, kissed him, and took back every word, but I gritted my teeth and refused to cave.

“I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. I just don’t want to ruin what we already have. I’m not trying to upset you.”

“I know you’re not trying to upset me, but what do you expect, Mikey? You know I want you, and you don’t want me, so what else is there to say?”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t say you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.” Nunzio’s voice rose, getting sharper, the way it came out when his temper burned short. “The only reason we’re having this conversation is because you figured out that I’ve been fiending for you for a long time now, and you don’t want to deal with it. So fine. It’s whatever. We can go back to the way shit was before, and you can go fuck David.”

“Oh my fucking God, Nunzio.” I slammed my hand against the whiteboard. “It always comes back to David.”

“The only reason you ever looked twice at me is because he was in the middle,” Nunzio shouted back. “And the only reason you looked at me after that is because he was
too drunk
, and I was a good second choice.”

The fear turned into a full-on panic, and every word caught in my throat. The urge to defend myself clashed with a need to appease him, but Nunzio continued before I could go one way or the other.

“Say I’m wrong,” he challenged.

I couldn’t. He knew I couldn’t. He was repeating my words and using them as proof of something, but I wasn’t clear about what I was being accused of. That I’d never truly wanted him? That he was reduced to a backup while I waited for David? Or maybe David was just an easy target, and Nunzio was really thinking about every other guy I’d ever chosen over him?

The accusation held no truth, but I couldn’t deny that the realization of him being sweeter on me than I’d ever imagined had me spooked. I knew he didn’t mean to let it show, but I could taste it in his kisses, and I saw it in his face every time he gazed at me after an intense round of sex. I could feel it when he pulled me close afterward, when he’d admitted he liked sleeping next to me.

And then… I’d realized I liked that he had those feelings for me. That was when worry had taken full control of my senses.

“Good answer,” he said sarcastically, and strode to the door.

“Wait—”

Nunzio was out of the room before I could protest, and I would be damned before I took the conversation out into the hall.

I was left alone with the resounding tremble of the door in its frame once he slammed it, the faint sound of Danielle teaching across the hall and wind howling outside the window.

Frustration swelled inside me. I wanted to kick over a desk, or throw the strewn supplies across the room, but I didn’t. I had a class in thirty minutes and unleashing my wrath on the room would only make my mood worse since I was the one who would have to clean it.

I picked up the cup and took a sip, but it now tasted like ash.

I
T
FELT
like the coldest day of the year when I finally stepped out of the building. I shoved my fists into the pockets of my black coat and hunched my shoulders.

I wondered if Nunzio had left yet. I’d fought the urge to track him down for over two hours before finally forcing myself to leave. Winter break was in a week, and I would have time to sort things out with him during the vacation, not when we were both stressed due to work and the looming holidays. Maybe by then I would have an explanation that would not cause him to turn away with white-knuckled fists and hurt in his eyes.

The stretch of sidewalk seemed longer and darker with the bitter cold bearing down on me from all sides. Gusts shoved me along, buffeting against me, and made the trek to the subway station feel like a journey instead of a three-minute walk. When I reached the corner, I spied a familiar form heading in the same direction.

I jogged ahead to catch up with David. “Hey, man.”

David did a double take, but grinned. “Hey. I thought you already went home.”

“Nah. My room was a mess.”

“You should make the kids clean it up.”

“Yeah. I need to get a senior intern to be on clean-up duty. I don’t have time for this shit.”

David’s head bobbed in agreement. “I can’t deal with this cold anymore,” he grumbled as we headed downstairs. “It’s making me bitchier than usual. I should have booked a flight to Qatar for Christmas.”

“Go for midwinter recess. If my money situation wasn’t so shitty, I’d go to Florida or something.”

He shook his head, wide mouth curled down. “Nope. I’m making a conscious effort to pay off my student loans. I’ll just suffer.”

I almost made a crack about first world problems but refrained. I wanted to talk to him, not antagonize him. We bypassed a Salvation Army guy ringing a bell in front of a holiday donation bucket and swiped through the turnstile.

“So lemme ask you a question,” I said once we’d settled on a bench on the Manhattan bound side of the tracks.

“I heard about Alex and Mac. They’re both jerks, but I’m worried about Mac’s behavior landing him in some serious hot water. He doesn’t see anything he does or says as a problem, and doesn’t think about the potential outcomes. Actually I’ve noticed that several of the gay kids in our school are like that.”

I looped both my arms through the straps of my backpack. “Blame our admin. We attract so many gay kids because of our connection with the LGBT center, but the rules are so fucking lax that they run wild, and the administration is too worried about coddling them to set a standard of behavior.”

David wrinkled his nose and nodded. He had come to the same conclusion within the first month of school. He was a snotty little fucker, and definitely on a mission to move up to an administrative position, but even he had deduced that our school’s policy of empowerment combined with their lack of rules led to laziness and entitlement among the kids.

“In my last school, there were no out gay kids at all. I had to talk in my man-voice so they wouldn’t catch on.”

I released a bark of laughter, and David looked up at me with a pleased smile.

“Your man-voice?”

“Yeah, like this,” he said, deepening his voice theatrically.

“Oh, Jesus. You sound like an idiot.”

“The kids didn’t know the difference. They thought I was a freak anyway.”

“They had a point.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Behind us, a couple broke into a heated argument. Their voices carried through the tunnel, rising and falling in what sounded like a typical back-and-forth.

“But anyway,” I said. “That’s not what I was going to ask you. I wanted to talk to you about Nunzio.”

David’s eyes dropped down to the track bed where a massive rat was scurrying along the side. “Why? I don’t talk to him much.”

“I know, but a couple of times he mentioned something that had me wondering what’s said when you do talk.”

“Not much.”

I thought I heard a familiar voice shouting up the platform and grimaced, hoping I wouldn’t see my students out in the real world. I looked up and down, searching, and spoke again when I didn’t see anyone.

“He seems to believe that you and I are fooling around. I know he saw us talking a couple of times and we were looking all cozy, but we both know it wasn’t the way he’s making it sound.”

David chewed his lower lip, and appeared to consider the statement. He looked a lot younger with his nose and cheeks red from the cold and a knit cap smashing his white-blond hair against his cheeks. “Are the two of you involved now?”

“No,” I said, too fast.

“That wasn’t believable at all, just so you know.”

“It’s complic—” At his triumphant smile, I stopped myself from using the phrase. “Oh God. Just let me finish.”

“Fine, fine, go ahead.”

I rubbed my hands together and blew on them. “If I confide in you, can you swear not to repeat it to anyone?”

“I swear.”

The oath wasn’t exactly a binding contract, but I had the equivalent of verbal diarrhea anyway.

“We’ve messed around a few times since the summer. You started something that I couldn’t put a lid on too easily and when I tried, he got mad and started ranting about me and you.”

“Michael, he always talks shit about me and you. He’s jealous.”

“Why?” I wished Nunzio was around so I could shake sense into him. “I could deal with him thinking I put a stop to things because I don’t feel the same way, or because I’m just an asshole that used him on the rebound—he’d get over that. He and his ego wouldn’t get over me cutting him off for another guy. Especially the guy who replaced him on the team and is, like, twelve fucking years old.”

“The age jokes are getting a little stale, don’t you think?” David leaned over to peer into the darkness of the tunnel for our train. “And I don’t know why he thinks that way, but whenever we’re alone by some off chance, he makes a comment or joke about us. It’s obvious that he’s jealous.”

“There’s no reason to be jealous.”

“Well, Michael, tell him that. I’m fully aware that you have zero interest in me.”

“That’s not true. I had interest in fucking you until I found out that you had boyfriend problems.”

“Oh brother. Can we just get off this topic? I don’t have any insight into your insane friend’s attitude problem.”

The edge in David’s tone whenever he talked about Nunzio bugged me, but I couldn’t defend my friend when I didn’t know what kind of lip he gave David when they were alone. The idea of Nunzio picking on David bugged me, and I wondered: if Nunzio was this possessive when things were casual, how would it escalate if we got serious?

My stomach bottomed out at the idea of him believing I was rejecting him for someone else. How could he even consider the possibility that I would choose anyone over him?

“Man, I screwed this all up.”

David nodded his agreement, and I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the support, colleague.”

“You are very welcome. But honestly, I’m the last person to ask about relationships. I’m clearly an epic failure at handling my own. My boyfriend dumped me after he found me jacking off in the bathroom while on the phone with a guy from Grindr.”

Yikes.

I tried not to laugh, but the strain was obvious. He sneered, and our train arrived before we could say anything more on the topic. Even so, his confession rallied me, and I resolved to clear things up with Nunzio as soon as possible.