It's Like This (11 page)

“Yup. See? You’re not a complete fuck up.” He shakes my arms gently to show he’s joking.

“Fuck you!” I counter, with next to no venom.

He laughs and for a second we’re quiet, until suddenly he’s pushed me backwards and is straddling me on the bed, arms around my neck, face so close me mine we’re almost touching.

“I love you,” he says. “An unsurpassable amount.”

I blush stupidly and slide my hands over his ass and he kisses my face.

“I would do anything for you,” he continues, and there’s a weightiness to his voice that wasn’t there a second ago.

“I know…”

He shakes his head. “No, Niles, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you could. Because I mean
anything
. You’ve got your family. I know that. But me…you’re what I’ve got. Like it sounds a bit fucked up, but you’re it. So…you get the whole undiluted devotion. The anything.” His tone lightens. “So if you want me to use a condom, I most certainly will…”

“Fuck no. No condom. Worst idea I ever had.”

His arms tighten around my neck and he throws his head back and laughs. I kiss his throat and squeeze his ass and run my hands over his thighs and he waits for me, lets me be the one to close the distance, to slip his shirt over his upstretched arms, to press my lips against his chest and flip him.

He lies beneath me, calm and curious. I undress us both and we’re naked together for the first time tonight. He runs his palms along my forearms and I feel bigger, stronger, more powerful than him, and I have a weird surge of protectiveness that I’ve never really experienced. Rylan smiles like maybe he knows what I’m thinking and maybe he doesn’t but it’s actually OK either way.

I kiss his neck and jaw and chest and it seems beyond bizarre that I haven’t really done this before: been this complicit, this participatory. He rolls his hips where they lie beneath mine. Neither one of us is very hard, yet. I kiss his face once more before standing and hunting out the lube, then wet my palm with it and toss it on the bedspread. I take both our cocks together, spreading the fluid over them both and it just feels…really fucking nice. Rylan hooks his heels around my thighs and sighs happily.

“God, you feel good,” he says, and it’s not dirty talk, it is just Rylan-brand genuinity.

And he feels good, too. I rut against him, sliding my fist, now joined by his, up and down both our stalks. The soft-hard slide of his cock against mine is nothing short of fan-fucking-tastic.

“Fuck. Ry,” I mutter into his neck, just because I can, because talking is a thing we do now. He groans happily and hikes his legs higher on mine. I remove my hand, reluctantly, from our cocks and reach for the lube. “I want to fuck you,” I find myself saying. “Can I?”

“God, yes,” he replies, unravelling his legs from my body and tucking them up to his chest.

I’ve never seen him like this: pliable and mild. It’s not what I’m used to, or even what I especially like, but for now—it’s good or right or something. I stroke his balls and jack his cock for a moment before gently introducing my finger, palm up. He exhales carefully and I know he’s adjusting. I never fuck him. He fucks himself on me, sure, but this? It’s different and I don’t want to fuck it up.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” I whisper.

He laughs. “I’m not exactly some shrinking flower or wilting violet or whatever.”

“I know. I just…” I mumble, stupidly.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “Feels good. Fuck me with it for a bit.”

I am, as usual, happy and relieved to take direction and pulse my finger in and out of him, watching his asshole spread tidily around my finger like it was meant just for me. The idea makes my erection twinge in anticipation.

“It’s good. Another,” Rylan instructs. I am happy to oblige and start fucking two fingers in and out of him, scissoring them gently. As Rylan opens for me, I curl my fingers, striking his prostate and listening to him squeal with pleasure. The heady power of it is addictive and I stroke it over and over, watching him writhe and curse beneath me. I add another finger, but within a few moments he’s crying out.

“Jesus, fuck, Nigh. If you don’t fuck me right now, I swear to fucking God I’m going to come and you will so regret it!”

I really don’t need much more encouragement than that. I grip his skinny hips with my hands and tilt his pelvis upwards. He hooks a heel over my shoulder, the other knee still against his chest so that it’s not too intense too soon. I grip my dick and guide it into him and he hisses slightly at the snug fit.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I find myself sputtering. “Fuck, Ry, fuck you feel so fucking good.”

He grins. “Good. Give me a moment and then you can fuck me.”

I’m not actually sure I can’t wait a moment without coming, but I’m damn sure going to try.

“OK,” he says. “It’s good, babe. Fuck me.”

I thrust slowly back and forth inside of him and he gasps and grips my neck and kisses me. I kiss him back, and hold his ass tight, pressing his body into mine, so that even when I fuck back there’s no loss of contact between us.

And it is like this that I take him, feeling his body roll with mine. Mouth to neck, chest to back, palm to hip and, brilliantly, words to skin.

“What’s wrong with your leg?”

Rylan finishes pulling on his jeans and eyes me appraisingly. “You’re kidd—you’re serious.” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“What?”

He shakes his head at me, bewildered, before his face cracks into a grin. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my leg, darlin’,” he drawls, fake accent and everything. He does this sometimes, says it appeals to my Albertan heritage. Ha ha, funny, right? Except not.

“You’re limping,” I insist, because I’m not being derailed that easily. So I’m a little paranoid about health stuff right now, no surprises there.

“I am,” he agrees, hilarity dancing in his eyes. Too bad I’m not in on the joke. “But it’s nothing to do with my legs.”

I just look at him. Sometimes he makes no sense whatsoever.

He shakes his head, obviously amused. “Oooohhh, Nigh Uncanny. For all I’ve put you through, you’ve remained incredibly sweet and innocent.”

He stretches, shirtless, scratches his belly and heads towards the bathroom, leaning in as he passes me and whispering, “I’m limping because you fucked me so goddamn good last night.” He pats me happily on the cheek, and, smiling like a Joe Boxer trademark, strolls right on by.

Well. Obviously. Right. Or it should be, but of course it wasn’t at all. It didn’t even cross my mind—I mean, to still feel it in the morning? I didn’t go very hard…except that, well, I don’t usually, you know, go at all, unless I’m really drunk or unless he…does it himself. And then I guess he kinda…monitors progress. Shit.

I follow after him, determined, now that we’re talking, to talk about this. He’s shaving, smiles at me in the mirror when I enter.

“What’s up?” he asks casually.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I spit up.

He eyes me curiously. “You didn’t…”

“You’re limping…”

“Yeah, but that’s just a matter of disuse. I never said I didn’t like it…”

What. Does he…This one is a curve ball. I mean. I’d always just assumed that he liked to control and I liked to be controlled, and that was that. I mean, I like that, a lot. I’ve always liked that. I like routine.

“Oh…” I respond.

Rylan looks at me like he can’t quite read me and like maybe he finds that intriguing somehow. He rinses his razor and grazes over the spot in front of his ear.

“What?” he prods.

“Nothing,” I say, too quickly.

“Yeah right, Nigh, what?” He isn’t intense about it, just interested. I don’t know what he finds so interesting, other than my obvious inability to communicate even simple sentences.

“I don’t know. Just…do you like that? I mean, are you…not liking our…I mean are you unhappy…” I peter out uselessly.

He washes the remnants of shaving cream off his face. “Are you asking if I’m unsatisfied with our sex life?”

Yes. That is what I mean. Now why wasn’t I able to just put it out there? I nod, just barely, because what if I don’t want to know?

“Not even sort of. I am—incredibly, unbelievably satisfied. Are you unhappy with it?”

“No. Jesus. God. No,” I say immediately, grateful that my voice sounds certain, responsive, and not defensive.

“I just meant it was…nice,” he settles on finally. “To switch things up. But….I prefer things the way they usually are.”

“Me too.” I still have a hard time believing I’m actually talking about this, out loud, to someone who isn’t Shona.

“OK, good.” He gives me a little grin, and splashes water over his face, then wipes his chin off with a hand towel. “So we both like things the way we do things—why are you looking at me like something really awful is going to happen?”

With that, I feel all this stress or tension or uncertainty or
something
I didn’t even know I was carrying just drop out of my shoulders and neck and back. Because he’s right. I’m acting all neurotic and estranged and that is ridiculous. I let myself relax finally, shaking my head and smiling.

“I have no idea.”

“You’re such a nut, Captain,” he says affectionately, slipping his hand up to my neck and then kissing me.

And I guess now it’s like this. Now he will stay after we fuck and not only will he stay, but he’ll kiss me. His tongue prods at my lips to open and they do so quite willingly. So we’re kissing now. But it’s nice to know that when we stop, I’ll be able to say anything I want.

* * *

So it turns out something really awful was about to happen. The week after we get home, Mom calls to say that Kya’s operation is scheduled the day after her friend Cole’s funeral. So Dad, Matilda, and Rylan and I all go back to Vancouver for the week, and at Kya’s request, to attend the service. It’s without doubt the most depressing thing I’ve ever been to. Picture a good two hundred people, all connected to this poor kid in some way, standing there in teary-eyed, miserable shock. There’s flowers and soccer cleats and his famous flipbooks and those frickin’ origami paper cranes his classmates made him (fucking lot of good that did), which makes me feel bad for the kids. I mean, their hope is totally quashed. You could pick them out, the kids in his class, looking lost between their parents, miserable in formal clothing.

Kya refuses to stay home and rest the day like she’s supposed to. Instead she stands, dry-eyed, like a miniature military wife who accepted the whole fucking deal and now has to live with it. But she gets it, knew this was coming.

It doesn’t make any sense though, I keep telling myself. She’s seven. She’s always been obnoxious, but never dramatic or intense and then suddenly, it’s just…wham. Suddenly she’s forty or sixty or…it’s not even age. I mean, she’s seven. But she looks like she’s done or seen so much. I can’t explain. She is oblivious to Matilda holding her hand, or Mom dabbing her eyes every couple of minutes through the long, gut-wrenching service. They show video clips and pictures and family friends tell stories and even though I never even met the kid, he really meant something to Kya and that shreds me up a bit. The videos make it clear that Cole was a cheeky, pretentious little bugger. Sharp and cynical and…a bit like Rylan, and that freaks me out.

I don’t cry. I mean, I feel like crying, but I don’t because, well, I don’t tend to cry, but also because I feel like it’s not my grief, that I don’t have the right to cry. That anything I’m feeling, like this…jackhammer of sadness on my sternum, must be amplified a thousand times over for his family. So I can’t miss him, I can just sit there and feel really, really sorry for his family, and for Kya.

Rylan’s a bit of a mess, too. While my father drives us all back to the hotel in the minivan, Ry just sits there, shivering and scratching his elbow and staring at nothing, ignoring the fact that he’s crying and sniffing all over the place. And there’s nothing anyone can say. You can’t say, “Well, that was a nice service,” or, “Well, he lived a good life,” like you can after old people’s funerals. Nope. This whole thing is just…really shitty.

In the car I keep my hand on Rylan’s thigh, and he grabs at it almost fretfully every once in a while, squeezing. Kya gets up on her knees on the seat in front of us and turns around.

“Kya, sit back down,” my mom says tiredly.

“Don’t worry,” Kya says, ignoring our mother and peering through the space between the seat and the headrest, focusing on Rylan. “
I’m
not going to die.”

“You could if you don’t get your bum back on that seat,” my mother insists.

Rylan offers her a watery smile.

“I’m only getting an eye cut out. And did you know that afterwards, they are gonna put in like a boob implant, except for instead of for my boobie it’s going to be for my eye.”

That sets Mom off crying again, and Rylan starts laughing and Matilda wraps her arm around Kya’s shoulder.

It might seem like a bit of an adventure to Kya, but the rest of us are pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I keep thinking of all the things she’ll have trouble with, like what if she wants to take up, like, archery or something? I just want her to be able to do anything and what if she can’t?

Rylan and I wait in the hotel room with my parents until Kya falls asleep, and then we head off to our own room. There, we climb into bed and curl in on each other, wordlessly knowing that we have escaped tragedy.

* * *

“OK, before you say anything, hear me out,” Rylan is saying. We’re back at home on the island, and in a few days, Kya will have recovered enough from her surgery to come home, permanently.

“Because phrasing something like that doesn’t make me at all uneasy…” I respond. Rylan’s sitting cross-legged and sideways on the couch in my apartment, leaning in towards me earnestly.

“Well, you’re going to think I’m being an insensitive dickwad, but then you’ll think about it, and you’ll know I’m right.”

“Not helping,” I tell him.

“I know. OK, here it is: I think that when Kya gets home, we should have a pirate party.”

At first, I don’t get it. “A pirate party?” I echo.