Sunset Park (9 page)

“I didn’t say he was a coward,” I shot back. “I just don’t understand why he feels the need to live his life that way.”

“It’s his life to live, so why is it bothering you?”

“Because I don’t get it. He should take pride in who he is.”

Raymond had the decency to chew on his response before laying into me.

“Not everyone grew up in a nice suburb around a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals,” he said, ice in his voice. “It’s real easy for you to talk about pride and coming out and all of that great shit when you were never in danger of having your teeth kicked in by your pops. Even after our father got over the drunken violent routine, both our parents would have damned Michael to hell if they knew how things were. Maybe he didn’t see how sacrificing his family was a good trade-off for announcing to the world who he likes to get busy with.”

“But Nunzio—”

“Nunzio’s parents never wanted him.” Raymond’s dark eyes held mine and hinted at something I knew he would never go into detail about. Because it wasn’t my business. In his mind, I would never understand. “Him coming out was just another nail in the coffin, and he did it to give them a big
fuck you
. They were never a real family—that’s why he was always at my house. It was different for Michael.”

“You don’t think your mother would have understood?”

“I don’t think she would have disowned him, but she would have never accepted it.”

“But he could have tried to make her understa—”

“Stop.”

I stewed in my indignant opinions, and Raymond finished the bowl. He didn’t even look high, and yet I was tangled in a million threads of marijuana-infused pseudophilosophical thoughts relating to family, acceptance, and gay pride. I would have sacrificed my family if they hadn’t accepted me; I knew it without a doubt. Then again, I’d grown up knowing that once I reached eighteen, I’d be labeled an adult and be on my own anyway. That was just the way it was.

“So why don’t you tell Nunzio and Michael that you’re bi-curious?”

Raymond looked sick of the conversation, but he humored me. “I dunno. It just never came up, and I don’t want it to.”

“But why? They’d be so supportive.”

“Not likely.” The frustration must have been evident in my face because Raymond groaned. He held up a glass container so I could look inside. “Do you see the crystals on those buds? This is some prime weed. Don’t kill my high.”

“I’m just trying to understand,” I insisted.

“Why do you have to understand everything all the time? Just accept that people are different and your way isn’t always the best way, and stop running your goddamned mouth.”

Raymond started twisting his grinder again, and I managed to stay quiet for a grand total of two minutes before yet another question bubbled up my throat. I tried to fight it, but my need to satiate curiosity was the equivalent of another person’s need to satisfy the craving for a vice. It had to happen.

“When did you realize you were into guys?”

“When did you?”

Raymond Rodriguez, master of deflection. But I would play along. I stretched out on the couch with my feet resting in his lap. I braced them against his thighs, brushing the bare soles over the glossy fabric of his shorts. I felt his muscles flex.

“I was eight.”

“Why the hell were you even thinking about that shit when you were eight?” Raymond dropped his hands on my ankles, one of them slack, the other smoothing along the side of my foot. “When I was eight, all I cared about was playing outside.”

“I played outside too.” If I closed my eyes, I could vividly see myself at eight years old. Small for my age, delicate, hair too long because my mother liked it to brush my collar. I’d had few friends and spent most of my time reading romance novels from the archaic bookshelf in the study and being obsessed with butterflies. I’d chase them around in the yard and had once cried for days when my older cousin caught one for me, killed it, and encased it in glass to display in my room. “I wasn’t very into sports.”

“I have a feeling that’s an understatement.”

“You might be right.” I grinned wryly and pillowed my arms behind my head. “I had these two cousins—William and Noah. They’re twins, five years older, and when I was a kid, they were kind of mean-spirited. They reminded me of Leopold and Loeb.”

Raymond pressed his thumb against the arch of my foot. “Who’s that?”

“Rich, white students from Chicago who performed the first documented thrill kill at the turn of the century.”

“Rich people are crazy.”

I nodded, smiling. “Yes. I’m not rich, though. My mom is a nurse and my father is a librarian.”

“No wonder you’re such a nerd.”

“Speak for yourself, guy who sits alone in his room with video games.” The words came out far too languorously for the topic, an obvious indication that I was baked. “Anyway, they were older, and they would take turns kissing me. I don’t think they were gay so much as they wanted someone to play and experiment with, and I was easy prey. It didn’t go beyond that, but….” I could still remember the hollow feeling in my chest, the dull thud of my heart when they found something better to do. My first ever sting of rejection. “Eventually they went to high school and stopped playing that game, and I missed it. That’s how I knew it wasn’t just a game for me.” I nudged my foot against Raymond when he didn’t comment. “What? No joke about white people being weird?”

“It was too easy.” Raymond shifted his legs to prop his feet on the coffee table. “Besides, I don’t have room to judge. My curiosity was piqued from watching some dude bang my teenage brother at the park.”

“Jesus.” I couldn’t imagine doing something even half as brave. I’d been afraid to have sex as a teenager even though my parents had provided a steady supply of condoms. For my entire high school career, they’d accumulated, unused, in my bottom drawer. “I didn’t start having sex until I went to college. Late bloomer. But I made up for it in a short amount of time.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

Our eyes met, and I smiled slow and wicked. If only he knew how I’d made up for lost time.

“Why have you never been with a guy?”

“Because….” Raymond continued to absentmindedly rub my foot. “I’m lazy and it wasn’t convenient.”

I laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’ve always liked girls too, and most of the time they came to me. I didn’t have to do anything.” His fingers slid up to my calf, squeezed, and then he pulled his hand away to grab the pipe again. “Michael seemed to sniff out interested guys everywhere he went, but I’m not that observant. So I stuck to girls. I used to have a big-ass crush on Nunzio, but I always knew he and Michael would end up together.”

“How did you know?”

“You could just tell. They, like… belong together.” Raymond rolled his eyes. “It’s corny but it’s true. It took them forever, but I knew it would happen eventually.”

I nodded, staring. “You’re so…. Just… easygoing.”

“I’m just a pothead.”

“No, it’s more than that. You don’t overanalyze things like I do. You just accept them.” I watched him hit the pipe—the way his eyes slid closed when he inhaled. It was almost sexual. “Please explain why you don’t think Michael would accept you. I find it so difficult to believe.”

“I just know the way his mind works.”

“How does it work?”

Raymond returned to his slow exploration of my legs. His fingers quested over my knee, pausing at the random scar here or there. “He’s old-fashioned when it comes down to it, and he worries a lot about me. He’ll think it’s… because of him that I’m curious, and he’ll think it’s a bad thing. Like he added an extra complication to my life.”

“Because of him?” I frowned, tilting my head. “How could it be because of him? You were always this way even if you didn’t realize it.”

Raymond gave me the
look
again—the penetrating gaze that seared through me whenever he was trying to determine whether it was worth it to explain himself.

“I told you I started being curious after I saw him and another guy.”

“That just means you realized you were bi at that moment, not that it
changed
you.”

“It changed the way I thought,” Raymond said, voice sharpening again. He didn’t like it when I corrected his viewpoint on things unless it was factual. “Seeing my big bro with guys just made it normal to me. I was never afraid of it. That doesn’t mean I was born with the bisexual gene or whatever random shit people say. There’s nothing wrong with me choosing to try something out. That don’t make it less valid.”

“But that’s….”

I didn’t know what to say. We stared at each other. Me carefully neutral, him shrewd and calculating—wondering whether I was judging him for his ideas. I wasn’t, but it went against everything I’d believed growing up. Even my parents—who were indeed bleeding-heart liberals—had embraced me because they said I’d always been this way, and they loved me for who I was. Would that be different if they saw it as a choice? I had no idea. But I did know I’d had these feelings and inclinations before I was old enough to understand what they meant.

I knew there were people who became sexually free later in life, but I’d never considered that attraction to multiple genders was something that could develop over time. It would require way more time for me to digest that idea, especially when Raymond’s view of his sexuality was reminiscent of something a conservative would say to prevent gay men from adopting children. But I knew, logically, that an ignorant conservative argument shouldn’t be governing my thoughts.

“Change the subject,” Raymond said gruffly.

“Fine.” I thought for a moment, relieved to not have to debate anything. “When are you going to test-drive your bi side?”

“I dunno.”

“Have you ever done
anything
?”

A smile ghosted across Raymond’s face. “Kinda. I used to perv on Chris.”

“
Really
?”

“Yep. It started after we watched porn together for the first time. I was looking more at his dick than the damn video.”

“Wow. Did he know?”

“I dunno. I think so. I’m not really good at being sly, and he didn’t seem to care.” Raymond shrugged. “Then when we got older, we had a couple of threesomes with this chick Stephanie.” He said it as though he was talking about sharing a bag of chips with a friend. Or drinking soda from the same bottle despite the backwash. “Those were good times. She loved turning him out because he’s always been shy, and she’s mad fucking laid-back and confident about sex.”

“Did you… ever touch him during the threesomes?” It was easy to visualize, but Chris was almost too cute and youthful-looking compared to Raymond. Raymond was tall and had long limbs, shiny hair, and perfect skin—he was walking sex, whereas I primarily wanted to ruffle Chris’s hair.

“Nah, I mostly liked to watch Steph work him over. But there was this one time he wasn’t using a condom and got a little too excited. Ended up busting inside of her.” Raymond rubbed his thumb along his bottom lip, clearly thinking back to the day. “I wanted to know what he tasted like, so after he came in her, I ate her out.”

I felt his dick stiffen beneath my feet. That slight movement, more so than the erotic picture he had just painted, sent fire catapulting through my veins. I tried not to press down, especially when he shifted on the sofa, one knee bouncing up and down.

“That’s not just some abstract curiosity,” I noted. “You really want to try.”

“Yeah. I want to know if I like it and not just the idea of it. Or just watching it.”

“And laziness is holding you back?”

“Yup. I never put effort into looking for a guy who might be interested, and no one ever came on to me.”

“I used to flirt with you all the time,” I said, trying not to sound resentful. “You never seemed interested.”

“That’s because you were always joking.”

That was true enough. I’d always made sure to sandwich my flirtatious comments between heavy doses of sarcasm or jokes so as not to make him uncomfortable. I’d never considered that I had a real shot at getting in his pants, but now my thoughts were dancing in a potentially disastrous direction. Even knowing that, the words sprang off my tongue with the form of a true opportunist. “You could experiment with me. I wouldn’t mind.”

Raymond’s eyes snapped to my face. “What?”

I tried to feign nonchalance—as if I didn’t care if he laughed at me, or made one of his infamous skeptical faces, or maybe even recoiled at the idea due to my one-night stand with his brother and Nunzio. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. I tried to tell myself that it wouldn’t bother me, but even the possibility of his rejection had my chest going hollow like I was eight years old again.

“Yes,” I said, gathering my courage. “Nothing crazy. Just a kiss to see if you like it, or if you think it’s too weird with a guy. I’d normally suggest porn, but you’ve already been watching that.”

“You would let me experiment,” Raymond repeated. “With you.”

“Yeah. Why not? It’s not a big deal. Unless it would weird you out.”

“No.” He said it fast, almost too fast. “I mean, even if it was weird, I’m not going to freak out.”

“Do you promise? Because we
just
moved in together. I don’t want you to—”

“Wow, calm down. I’m not going to run from the building in a panic. It’s just kissing and whatever.”

And whatever.

I wondered what
whatever
entailed. Instead of asking, I sat up on my knees once again so that we were closer.

“Now?” he asked, eyes widening.

“Yes. When else?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” Raymond licked his lips and shifted again. “Let’s take another hit first.”

I couldn’t help laughing. He was nervous, and it was adorable. Smoke drifted between us, obscuring parts of his face until he looked like an abstract painting, and I wondered if he was jumpy because he would be kissing another man, or because it was me in particular.

I took the pipe after him, choked on a mouthful of smoke, and my eyes watered. He snorted.

“Failure.”

“Shut up! I’m not good at this.”

“Obviously.”