Sunset Park (12 page)

“I do not use it
all
the time,” Oli protested. “I have more inventive ways of hooking up.”

“I didn’t say you use it to hook up all the time.” Karen put an arm around David. “It sounded like finding a good catch wasn’t as easy as one would assume.”

Now that the conversation had steered away from me, some of my outrage simmered. It didn’t help that David was giving me puppy-dog eyes. His anguish had way too much of an effect on me, but he deserved to suffer.

“There are idiots on Grindr, but it may be good to try things out with an anonymous hookup.” Oli nudged my leg. “Do you want to see the app? I can show you my profile. Or I can help you set up one for yourself if you don’t mind me touching your phone.”

He could touch more than that if it meant getting out of this horrible, tense room.

I stood, wanting to be away from David and his attempts to guilt-trip me. That was his MO. Doing something stupid and then making me feel bad for reacting. I jerked my head toward the corridor, and Oli got to his feet. He didn’t hesitate before following me, and I felt David’s eyes burning into my back until we turned the corner. Once inside my room, Oli stood in the exact position David had been in minutes ago. He lowered his voice.

“Hey, I don’t think he meant to upset you. He didn’t tell me anything about it, but he and Karen are very close.”

“Don’t worry about me and David.” I yanked my phone out of the dock and tossed it at him. “Here. Show me the stupid app.”

Oli caught the phone, eyeballed me like he thought I was going to soften the words with some kind of joke, and then shrugged. “Tall, dark, and dickish. My Prince Charming.”

“I guess.”

“You’re never going to meet anyone on the
stupid app
if you’re that unenthusiastic.” Oli thumbed around on my phone. “But I honestly wouldn’t care what came out of your mouth if I saw your face on my dash.”

“Lucky me.”

Oli snorted, unfazed. He must enjoy dickish guys. “Come over here and let me educate you, grasshopper. There’s nothing to be uptight about.”

Biting back another scathing comment, I hovered over his shoulder and watched him mess around on the screen. Oli didn’t seem to mind the proximity. He even dropped one of his shoulders back so it brushed against my chest.

A gold-and-black icon appeared on my screen. It looked like a mask. Oli buried it in a group with a bunch of random game icons. At least he seemed to understand my desire for privacy.

“First thing—you need to do your profile. Picture, tribe, stats, and whatever you want people to know off the bat. I’d recommend a body shot and not your face if you’re staying in the closet about being bi.”

“My tats would give me away,” I said dubiously.

Oli’s gaze roved over my body. “You could angle it so only your pecs and abs are in the frame. That’s all anyone needs to message you, to be honest. Guys on Grindr are superficial. They want to make sure you’re their type before they’ll even bother talking to you.”

“What a wonderful community. Real welcoming.”

“Whoever claims the gay community is full of wonderful, lovely people doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” Oli said. “Grindr is great, but you have to go into it knowing that people want what they want, and they won’t be shy about putting it out there.”

I jabbed my finger at the profile screen. “What’s a tribe?”

“Just a way to label yourself since we’re all about the labels. Do you identify as clean-cut, jock, discreet, twink, otter—”

“What the fuck is an otter?”

Oli burst out laughing, his voice likely booming down the hall and into the living room. “Never mind. I’d go with jock because you obviously go to the gym a lot, and discreet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Like—down low?”

“Exactly. Don’t move!” Oli backed away from me and held up my phone, angling it outward and down. He snapped a picture. “When I see discreet, I assume one of two things: closeted and married, or closeted due to culture. Discreet guys are usually down for no-strings, right-now hookups. Back of the car, in the park, or whatever. Not always, but that’s the assumption. Considering your reaction to David confiding in Karen, I’d have to say you fall into that category, baby.”

That really did not sound like a good thing.

Raymond

ALL OF
a sudden everyone had a real hard-on for college.

“Just look through the programs.” Michael slid the brochures across the counter, nudging the edges against my fingertips. He thought it would prompt me to pick them up. It only gave me a paper cut. “CUNYs are cheap, and you could even get some financial aid. I have enough in my savings to pay the difference.”

I popped my injured index finger into my mouth and didn’t glance down at the papers. I knew Michael would be expecting me to protest. He probably had arguments queued up and ready to fire—the kind of pep talks and motivational speeches he gave to his students in advisory.

“It’s not just liberal arts. There are paramedic programs, computer design, business management, communications—”

“Communications,” I repeated around my finger. “What the hell would anyone do with that?”

“You can do anything with that,” David said. “It’s the ultimate bullshit degree—you can make it work for just about any job that doesn’t require specific training.”

I gave David the side-eye. We’d avoided each other for the past couple of days, and now he was leaping into the very conversation that had caused the tension in the first place.

“Why are you talking?”

His lips pursed. “Because I have an opinion.”

“No one asked for your opinion, though.”

Michael and Nunzio exchanged looks.

“You know what, Raymond?” David’s voice came out sharp, but after looking between me and Michael, he shook his head. “Just forget it.”

“Forgotten.”

He left the living room without another word. I stared after him, swallowing the residual twinges of regret. After years of not having any need for compassion, guilt was an unwelcome, foreign emotion, but it lingered. I couldn’t even figure out why I was still giving him the cold shoulder. It was just a pattern we’d fallen into after days of awkwardness and tension.

“What the hell was that?”

“None of your business.”

Michael rocked back on his heels. “Are you having problems already?”

“No seas tan metido,” I repeated in Spanish, in case he was confused.

Unsurprised, Michael stopped shoving college literature at me. “Have it your way. I’ll be back.”

I grabbed his arm. “Where the hell are you going? I said mind your business, man.”

Michael’s eyes flicked between my hand and my face until I grudgingly pulled away.

“School starts in two weeks,” he said. “I don’t know what drama you and David are cooking up, and I’ve already lost interest. Not everything is about you.”

He had an amazing ability to make me feel like a complete moron without being rude. Maybe it was a teacher skill, cultivated in order to put kids in their place without saying anything overtly offensive. I let him go, but Nunzio slouched by my side with an unlit cigarette clasped between his fingers.

“Lover’s quarrel?”

“Shut up.” I stacked the papers together, the edges clacking on the counter. “I hope you don’t be saying that shit to my brother.”

“I don’t, but I am wondering what the hell is up with you and David.” Nunzio
tsked
when I opened my mouth to protest. “Save it, Ray. I noticed the vibe months ago, and you two rolling around on beds and floors together has only firmed up my suspicions.”

He had a point about all of the supergay cuddling, but I had no idea what vibe he was talking about.

“You don’t trust me?”

“Oh, come on, man. Don’t play that game.” I stalked out of the kitchen with him hot on my heels. “Everyone is always trying to guilt me over something, but it’s my business.”

“I know it’s your business, but you’ve never kept things from me before. I knew the first time you cut a class, smoked a blunt, and let a girl touch your dick. What’s different now?”

I was tempted to slam my bedroom door in his face, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. “Nothing’s different. You’re just hallucinating.”

“Right.” Nunzio looked around the disaster of my room. A few days of silent treatment and David’s automatic neatening had ceased, leading to clothes piled in front of my closet and under the rack in the corner. “Do you think I’ll tell Mikey?”

“I know you’d tell him, and I don’t want to hear his opinion on the matter.”

We stood a few feet away from each other, while Nunzio’s expression went heavy with disappointment. Guilt expanded inside me, piling on top of the preexisting mass. It was my kryptonite.

I flopped backward on my bed with a heavy sigh.

“I know you’re into guys, or that you at least have interest, and I haven’t told him.”

I glared at the ceiling as he stood by the foot of the bed. “How do you figure?”

One careful step forward, then another, and Nunzio sat on the edge of my bed. “I’ve seen you give guys a look here or there over the years. Not to mention the porn on your phone. And….”

“And what?”

“I know you’ve caught an eyeful of me and Mikey a few times, and I know you took a minute to check out the situation.”

Pushing myself up on my elbows, I gave him a horrified look. “Dude—”

“I didn’t say you were jerking it while watching us,” Nunzio said. “But I got the impression you were curious about what you saw, and I wasn’t surprised. It’s not like me and him try to be subtle.”

“You sure as hell don’t.”

Nunzio grinned, unabashed, and patted my leg. “So what’s going on with you and Mr. Butler?”

“Nothing. Not really.”

“Not really isn’t nothing.”

How could I simplify months of teasing and innuendo, a continuous flow of building incidents, into words simple enough to make them sound unimportant? Unloading the situation was appealing, but admitting to my building attraction to my roommate was another story. Being a directionless asshole guaranteed that people always wanted to give me their two cents, and their two cents almost always amounted to things they would do in my situation and not what was best for me.

I could catalog my relationship with David from the beginning and list every touch and every look that led up to our kiss. How easy it was to be close to him, because he didn’t need to discuss it after. He just let it happen. Let me enjoy that closeness without assumptions and complications.

I didn’t want to tell Nunzio that I’d started craving those touches. Those quiet, close moments.

“I told him I was curious about messing around with guys, and he let me kiss him to see how I’d like it.”

“That’s it?” Nunzio looked surprised. “Did you like it?”

“My dick got hard, so I guess so. And anyway, that part of it has nothing to do with why we’re pissed at each other. He opened his stupid mouth to his friends, and I had to hear about it as soon as we were introduced. If I’d known he was going to gab about it like a teenage girl at a slumber party, I’d have tried it out with someone else. Or not bothered at all.”

Nunzio didn’t respond right away, and I wondered if he was weighing my annoyance against David’s side of the story. I could usually count on Nunzio to see things from my point of view, but I was starting to doubt my own conviction about the importance of my absolute discretion.

“What’s the difference between him telling his friend and you telling me?”

I ground my teeth together and dropped to the mattress again. “You’re not a condescending piece of shit.”

“I am to David.” There was no remorse in Nunzio’s voice. “Who did he tell?”

“I dunno. Some woman named Karen.”

“Ray, I’m having a hard time thinking Karen was condescending to you. I worked with her for years—she’s a nice lady.”

Considering I’d only been in Karen’s presence for a few minutes, I had no idea if she was nice, but I had no evidence of her being an asshole either. I had no evidence of anything other than my constant annoyance with people who were the polar opposite of me and my unimpressive existence.

“It’s just a feeling I get,” I muttered, pressing my palm against my eyes.

“What feeling?”

The feeling of not measuring up. To anyone.

I didn’t measure up to my friends, but they’d known me long enough to have seen it coming years ago. I’d fallen right into the position everyone had expected. No one asked questions. No one even thought I cared. Some people even thought my lack of concern was admirable. I wasn’t conforming. I was true to my word, and no one had ever been able to mold me into anything I didn’t want to be.

But off my block and outside of my old neighborhood, things were different.

People looked at me and wondered what I’d been doing since my high school graduation. Why my work history was only a year old. How I’d paid rent. Who had supported me. Why my older brother didn’t influence me to do something with myself. What I thought I was doing with my life. And even if people didn’t say it aloud, I could see the questions in their eyes. The judgment. And that hadn’t bothered me before. Not until I’d been surrounded by people who had never even considered taking a long-term sabbatical from adulthood. People who had real goals and who had followed the beaten path. Like the drudges at work. And David’s friends.

“Forget it. Unimportant.”

“It’s not unimportant if it’s upsetting you. I’ve never seen you this stressed.”

“Because I used to be in my comfort zone. Now I’m… I don’t know where the hell I am.” I gestured vaguely. “Drifting.”

“It’s not just you who feels that way.” Nunzio was silent a moment, thinking. “Did you ever take into consideration that I gave up a secure, tenured position with good benefits and a solid union to teach in a GED program for less pay?”

I uncovered my face. “Yeah, but—”

“There’s no but,” Nunzio said. “It’s different, and we’re worlds apart in experience, but how do you think people reacted to me? Like I was an idiot. A naive, idealistic queer who was giving up a solid career to go teach in an LGBT center for half of my salary. It didn’t matter to a lot of people that the DOE made me feel like whatever I did, I wasn’t making a difference. All they knew was that I’d abandoned a career that I’d spent almost a decade putting time into.”