Dance With Me (16 page)

“So what did we do?” He wasn't whispering, but he was speaking very quietly. “What happened?” When Laurie said nothing, Ed stroked his hand again, pleading now. “Please. Tell me.”

He'd expected to have to beg more, to cajole. He'd expected, at best, that Laurie would either stammer out the minimal details or throw them at Ed like knives. He was ready for either one. He was not, in any way, prepared for what actually happened, for Laurie to pull his hand back and lie there, still staring up at the ceiling as he gave Ed, in exquisite, erotic, and naked detail, the truth.

“You'd been touching me all night,” Laurie began. “If you weren't hanging on me, you were pressing against me or touching my shoulder or my neck or my hand. When I tried to leave without you, you looked at me with such a betrayal that I couldn't bring myself to go without bringing you along. In the car you didn't touch me, not much, but you talked to me, asking me about myself. About my past. And because I was feeling foolish, I told you, and you seemed to understand. Probably because you were so drunk. But I wasn't thinking about that, not then. I was just feeling heard and a little vulnerable, but I felt safe with you. And it was because of that, I suppose, that when we were both standing inside my apartment, alone, you looking at me with longing again, that I kissed you.

“I kissed you against the wall. You kissed me back. And then you dragged your mouth across my cheek, dug your hands into my hair, and you started to whisper. You told me you thought I was beautiful. ‘So beautiful,’ you kept saying. ‘So, so beautiful.’ I tried to kiss you again, to shut you up, but you wouldn't stop talking.”

Ed wanted Laurie to stop talking now. He did think Laurie was beautiful. He thought that all the time. But he'd never meant to say it. He sure as hell never meant to say it and not remember.

Laurie kept going, but the words were coming out stilted and halting, like he didn't want to say them any more than Ed wanted to hear them.

“You told me I was beautiful when I danced. You told me that when you watched me move, it made you ache inside. You told me you wanted to move with me. You told me you wanted to move inside me. And there in the hall, you pressed me down to my knees, talking to me all the time, telling me beautiful, drunken, slurred things, and after I helped you unbutton your pants, you put your fingers in my hair and drew me close, and then, yes, you did indeed move inside me.”

Ed, full of arousal and despair, shut his eyes, unable to take any more of this. But Laurie went on, merciless.

“At some point we moved to the bedroom, where we kissed some more, and then you said more pretty, silly things. About how you thought about dancing with me all the time. About how alive it made you feel. And then you slid down my body, kissing and whispering, and then you took me in your mouth this time. You pushed my legs back, and you made love to me with your mouth and your hands, sucking me, stroking me, and I gave in and let go to you. I didn't think about anything, just what you were doing to me, and I let go. Like I don't think I have for a long, long time.”

Stop
, Ed tried to whisper, but his throat was too dry to work.

“And then,” Laurie went on, rueful, “you got sick.”

Ed winced and shut his eyes tighter.

“You made it to the bathroom but not the toilet. You apologized. A lot. I told you not to worry, and we cleaned you up. Got your teeth brushed, your body cleaned off, and your stomach calmed down. I got you back in bed, finished cleaning, then stood in the hall, trying to decide if I should sleep beside you or take the couch. And then you called out to me, so I went in, and you talked me back out of the pajamas I'd put on and into bed beside you. You pressed kisses against my forehead and whispered tender gibberish, and then you went to sleep.”

He paused, and Ed, thinking he was done, dared to open his eyes. It was a mistake, because he got to watch Laurie's face harden, going from soft and moved to hard and angry as he added, “And then you woke up and looked at me with horror, and I realized it had all just been drunken lunacy. Which serves me right.”

The story had disarmed Ed, but this last was a cleat right in the center of his gut. He tried to speak again, but his throat wasn't just dry, it was swollen shut. So Ed tried to reach for Laurie, but his hand wouldn't move. Nothing about him worked. Even his bladder had given up vying for attention. He just lay there, stunned. Completely, utterly stunned.

And then the chorus of “Piece of Me” began to chirp happily from across the room, which meant that Ed's phone was ringing and that it was work.

Work
. Ed rolled back over, saw the clock on the nightstand, and swore under his breath as he staggered out of bed and toward his pants. They were lying neatly folded over some kind of rack until Ed retrieved them to fumble in the pocket for his phone.

“'Lo?” he ground out.

“Ed?” his supervisor, Tracy, asked. She sounded harried. “Ed, where the hell are you?”

Ed dropped the pants and rubbed the side of his face. Oh God in heaven, he had to piss. He wandered toward the door on autopilot and across the hall to the bathroom. “Sick,” he said, then flipped up the toilet lid, leaned against the sink so he could stay upright, and gave his bladder its longed-for release.

“Why didn't you call in?”

“Sick,” Ed said again. He shivered at the pleasure of a bladder no longer full to the point of pain. “Threw up.”

“Ed, we have the presentation to senior management today. I need you here.” She paused, then added, “Ed, are you—are you urinating?”

“When's the meeting?” Ed gave himself a shake before flushing.

“Two,” Tracy said, “but—”

“I can be in by twelve thirty,” Ed said. “But you're gonna want to put me in the back.”

He could feel Tracy's tension through the phone, and he empathized but only distantly. “I gotta go.” Ed's throat felt thick again. “See you later.”

“Ed!” Tracy called out, but Ed just pushed End, and he didn't hear her anymore.

After staring at the phone for a few seconds, Ed lifted his gaze to the door. Laurie. He was there, waiting in the other room, lying there pissed as hell. Laurie, who had wanted him. Laurie, who had blown him. Laurie, who had kissed him. Laurie, whom
he
had blown, who had cleaned Ed up when he'd been sick after—

Laurie.
Laurie.

What am I supposed to do now?

Ed stood there, silent, waiting for the answer, but it never came.

Eventually he put the phone down on the edge of the counter, wiped his face with his hand, and climbed into the shower.

Ed was tempted to stay there all day, to hide under the warm water and hope it wore him down enough to send him into the drain. But eventually he made himself move. He washed his hair. He soaped off his body, trying not to think about Laurie's mouth moving across it as Ed pushed his fingers into that soft blond hair. He rinsed out his mouth and used one finger as a toothbrush, then all of them as a comb for his hair. Finally, he tucked his towel around his waist and left the sanctuary of the bathroom.

Laurie was in the kitchen, fully dressed, reading something on the counter. He didn't look up when Ed came in.

“I don't have much for food just now,” he said, not sounding too apologetic about it. “But I could probably produce some toast and coffee.”

“Can I take you out for breakfast?” Ed asked. He fully expected Laurie to tell him no.

But Laurie only shrugged, still focused on the magazine he was flipping through. “I suppose.”

Not wanting to push his luck further, Ed gave a curt nod. “Let me get dressed quick.”

And quick was the word. Ed moved as fast as his unsteady body would allow him, climbing into his pants and shirt and socks and shoes, all of which were arranged on the tidy little rack. He didn't see his coat, but it had been warm the day before. He had probably left it in his car. And, he realized, he didn't know where his car was.

But his car turned out to be parked in Laurie's parking garage, because Laurie drove them right past it as they headed out to the street.

And there was the Walker Art Center. He could see the entrance to the sculpture garden from here. “Wow,” Ed said. “Good location.”

Laurie nodded curtly. “Where are we going for breakfast?”

“Keys Cafe?” Ed suggested carefully. “There's one close to here, right?”

Laurie nodded again.

They drove the rest of the way in silence. They didn't say much as they waited for the hostess to seat them either, and when they were sitting across from one another in their booth, the silence began to get heavy.

Ed tried to take comfort in the homey atmosphere, to bask in the smell of pancakes and eggs, to revel in the acid bite the pungent coffee warming his hands through the mug, but he was, in addition to being hungover, too aware of Laurie for any of this to bring him any meaningful ease. He watched Laurie's long fingers tightly gripping the handle of his own mug, watched him look everywhere but at Ed, watched him, Ed realized, retreating back into the stony wall he was accustomed to seeing the dancing instructor hide behind. It made Ed ache, and it made him hurt. But then he thought about everything Laurie had said, everything that he, Ed, had allegedly said and done, and all Ed could do was stare down into his mug. So they just sat there, not saying anything, all the way until their food arrived.

That, finally, freed Ed a little.

“I love their pancakes here,” Ed confessed, slathering the pat of butter across his stack before reaching for the syrup. As usual, his stomach got over its nervousness about food post-alcohol as soon as he got a bit of it in him. “There isn't anything better.”

That got a smile out of Laurie, who had a forkful of his omelet halfway to his mouth. “I haven't had them. I always get eggs.”

Ed gaped at him. “Are you serious?” When Laurie shook his head, Ed grunted in disbelief, then quickly cut a generous, syrup-laden bite and aimed it across the table. “Eat,” he demanded, and when Laurie tried to protest, Ed shoved it into his open mouth.

Then he watched, his blood humming as Laurie's lips closed around the fork, the pink flesh sliding slowly down the tines. He withdrew the utensil but kept it suspended in the space between them as he watched Laurie's mouth, watched his lips press together as he chewed, watched his tongue dart out to catch the last hint of syrup that coated his lips.

“
And then you dragged your mouth across my cheek, dug your hands into my hair, and you started to whisper. You told me you thought I was beautiful
.”

“It's good.” Laurie cleared his throat, set down his fork, and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Quite good.”

“
You told me I was beautiful when I danced. You told me that when you watched me move it made you ache inside. You told me you wanted to move with me
.”

Ed cleared his throat too, and he didn't say anything else. He just ate. And it wasn't long before the meal was over, and he was paying at the cash register, and then they were heading back to Laurie's car.

This wasn't what Ed had planned. He didn't know what he'd meant to happen, but it hadn't been this...this complete fucking silence. He felt angry. He felt helpless and frustrated.

Fucking hell, he felt
cheated.

How was this his fault, he wanted to know? How had he fucked this up? And what exactly
was
this, while they were on the subject? Ed understood that he'd gotten drunk of his own free will and that all this was the result of that. All this awkwardness and misunderstanding. Except that was the problem, wasn't it. It
wasn't
a misunderstanding. He did feel that way about Laurie. He hadn't quite articulated it to himself, but yeah, everything Laurie said he'd said—yeah.

Every beautiful thing. Every word. Every longed-for touch. That he still, not even after Laurie had told him, could not remember.

And it was too much. Too fucking much.

They were at the stoplight at Dunwoody and Lyndale on the back side of the art center; looking out the window, Ed could see the grass browning and dying in the November cold. But it was space, open and inviting, and he wanted it.

On impulse, he opened the car door, jumped out, and ran.

He could hear Laurie shouting at him as he ran, first worried, then angry, but Ed just kept going. At this point he was well past being able to stop. He felt dizzy. He felt sick. Stupid too. Really fucking stupid.

And sad.

And really, really scared.

His head was still pounding, and his pancake was bouncing unhelpfully in his gut, but Ed just kept running deeper and deeper into the sculpture garden. He'd come here a thousand times with his mom, who loved the place, but he took the art in now in a blur, identifying it in a weird subconscious tour as he ran past. He heard the tree chimes and felt their surreal song cut into him, opening him up. He ran past
Spoonbridge and Cherry
, its sprinkler turned off for the winter. He ran past
Knife Edge
and
Standing Frame
, running until his lungs were burning and the soles of his feet were sending needles up through his legs with every step.

He didn't even know where he was going. My car, he realized. My car is at his place, just through this hedge. Yes. He could get his car and get out of here and end this. No good-bye, no more Laurie looking at him with daggers. Just be done with it. The thought made him ache, but the thought of being awkward with Laurie any longer when he felt like such shit made him feel even worse.

Except he'd screwed up, and instead of hitting the path that would have taken him out to the street, he ended up at the
Two-Way Mirror Labyrinth
—dead end. Wheezing, he bent over, braced his hands against his knees, and he looked up into the distorted, smoke-colored reflection of himself that the sculpture gave him.

Ed looked into that fucked-up vision of himself, blurred and morphed and darkened, and he knew, despite everything he'd told himself before, all the cheerfulness he had pretended, all his plans, that this was the way he felt inside, that all that happiness had been faked, and that this was real. It wasn't just Laurie, though that was part of it. Everything was wrong. Everything about him was fake and wrong and disjointed. He was charming up a man who would never really want him, and when he managed to get anywhere at all, he was too drunk to remember. He was holding on to a job by the skin of his teeth, but it was a job he hated. He was teaching weight-lifting classes and dancing and hanging out with the guys, but it was all fake, all empty, all for nothing. Because he was nothing. All he'd ever really had was football, but even that had been a joke. Just a hobby, just a parking space for high school and college dreams. He could fake it all he wanted, but this fucked-up reflection was more real than he had ever been.