It's Like This (12 page)

“Yeah, you know, with like peg-legs and, I don’t know, kegs of orange pop, and, um, eye patches.”

And
then
I get it. “Eye patches?”

“Yeah…” He looks at me helplessly.

“Um. Nope, pretty sure that is a horrible idea and that you are, in fact, an insensitive dickwad.”

“No!” Rylan shifts restlessly onto his knees and braces an enthusiastic hand on my shoulder. “I mean, with a normal kid, it would be totally cruel, but, Nigh, this is
Kya
. She’ll love it, you know she will…”

It’s wrong, but he’s right. She will love it.

“A pirate party,” I repeat again.

Rylan slides closer and swings a knee over so he’s straddling me. He rubs his hands up my chest teasingly. “I’ll get a piñata shaped like a treasure chest…” he tempts.

“Jesus. I’ll get the piñata. You convince my family that this is somehow sane,” I resolve.

“You’re on.” He grins, and takes my lower lip teasingly between his teeth before kissing me fully.

* * *

Rylan goes all out. He borrows two huge fish tanks from his work, and fixes them with electric blue light bulbs. He hangs cardboard lanterns from the ceiling and throws ratty blankets over all the couches in my parents’ living room. He gets in touch with Kya’s teacher and arranges for invitations to be sent home with all the kids in her class. I’m worried none of them will show just because of the tactlessness of it all, but Rylan sends a black eye patch along with every single invitation anyway. He gets himself a Seinfeld-esque puffy shirt, and cuts it open down the front, manages to locate some black and white striped clam-digger pants, and a bright red sash to use as a belt. He gets both of us swords.

“Annnnnd,” he says, pulling the last of the items out of his thrift store bags, with a flourish. “For you, Captain!” He wields a brown tricorne, complete with an ostentatious ostrich feather. He knows I’m not really into dressing up, but he also knows I can’t turn down a hat. Next, he pulls out a T-shirt with a Jolly Roger on it. “That should fit,” he says, grinning. I change in the bathroom at my folks’ house. The kids will be arriving soon, once school gets out.

Matilda skips her last block, and, having caught some of Rylan’s enthusiasm, is dressed up in a peasant blouse and headscarf. Her friend Courtney stands awkwardly nearby, eye patch resting on top of her forehead.

“Til, you look fantastic!” Rylan grins, swooping her up in a hug before making easy small talk with Courtney, who seems to relax under the attention.

The doorbell rings and kids in various pirate get-ups begin to appear. I am relieved to realize that most parents decided a kid with cancer takes priority over political correctness. Rylan hands out orange crush and plastic swords, and, as battles and cardboard prisons and the sounds of what I think are supposed to be cannonballs begin to take over the room, Kya comes home.

Her eye patch is bright orange and has sequins. She looks around rather stunned for a minute, and then lets out a mighty war whoop and jumps right on in. My dad leads my mom into the kitchen, both of them looking rather bewildered.

Shona arrives a bit later, and she and I take over first aid and fish tank patrol, making sure no orange pop ends up in the fish tanks. Rylan is too busy leaping around shouting, “Arr! Matey!”—much to the delight of the second-graders—to pay attention to his beloved fish friends. After cake and sparklers and one episode involving orange vomit, Rylan eventually sends the kids on their way, carrying paper bags of gold-wrapped coins, candy cigars and plastic kazoos. Kya is passed out in a sugar coma on the couch, and my parents and I are puttering around clearing up streamers and paper cups.

Rylan flops on the couch, obviously pleased with himself, and Kya wakes up enough to crawl on top of him, announcing that this was the best non-birthday birthday party ever. Kya insists on fish-sticks for dinner, followed by a viewing of the entire
Pirates of the Caribbean
series. I’m dead to the world by halfway through the second one, but a few hours later, Rylan wakes me up to drag me to bed, and Kya is now sitting, wired, in front of the TV.

“I love those movies!” she sighs happily.

“Really?” I ask. “Because you’ve only watched them about six million times, so how can you be sure?”

“NILES!” She pounces on me and I sling her over my shoulder. We all brush our teeth for, like, eight minutes solid, until there are no remnants of orange dye to be seen anywhere. Rylan kisses me on the ear, exhausted, his arm draped over my chest. He then pads away to my old room. I walk with Kya to her room, taking responsibility for the tucking-in ritual.

“I’m never getting a glass eye,” Kya tells me as she squirms into her covers.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“No one else gets to wear an eye patch in class. They’d get told to take it off.”

Can’t argue with logic.

I cuddle back into Kya’s pillows, taking up too much room in her small bed, but she doesn’t seem to mind, just drops her head on my shoulder and whispers, “He made me promise.”

I peer down at her, thinking she’s sleep-talking gibberish, or something, but she’s not. She’s staring at me intently.

“Who made you promise what, Ky?”

“Cole. He made me promise. I just don’t want you to think that I don’t miss him. Because I do, so so so so so so so much.”

“I know you do, Kya-bear, I never thought you didn’t.” I tuck a runaway piece of hair behind her ear.

“But he made me promise that I wouldn’t be sad. He said that if I was just sad then I’d miss everything and then I’d hate him for missing everything, and he didn’t want me to hate him, ever. I’m trying so so so so so so so hard to be fun and happy, so that he knows. I need him to know that I would never ever hate him. So I can’t be sad. But,” she bites her lip fiercely, “even when I don’t want to, sometimes I can’t help it. He would’ve thought today was the serious best.”

A couple of tears sneak out even though she’s fighting it, and she bats at them angrily. I run my hand over the back of her head and I tell her that he knows, that I’m certain of it, and when she asks why, I tell her that when you love somebody that much, they will always just know. But, just in case, once Kya’s asleep, I make the few steps into my old room, and slip into my old bed and I let Rylan know, just in case he doesn’t, that I love him that much.

“So things are good, then?” Shona’s asking, frowning at her just-waxed eyebrows in the mirror in an effort to glare the redness away, “With you and the boy?”

“Yes,” I smile. “Things are good. Great, even.”

“Communication’s a beautiful thing,” she spouts obnoxiously, then, turning towards me, “See any stragglers?” She motions towards her eyebrows.

“None. They look lovely, well worth your nine dollars.”

“You’re telling me. So you and Rylan. Happy and talking and rendering me virtually obsolete?”

I shrug. “I’m sure he’ll eventually do something to piss me off and you know I’ll come ranting to you.”

“You’d better.” She watches me for a second, until I start to feel a slight blush creep up on my neck, like there’s something I should’ve noticed but just haven’t.

“What?”

“How did you do it?” she asks, finally, and her voice is muted, especially for Shona.

“How did I do what?”

“How did you manage to bring up in conversation how he pretty much drunkenly strangled you? I mean, that just seems like it could be a touchy subject.”

“He didn’t strangle me!” I protest immediately. “And we didn’t talk about that, like, explicitly.”

“Excuse me?” Shona looks personally affronted, or maybe worse; maybe just furious.

“It didn’t exactly come up. We were dealing with other shit, like Kya and stuff.”

“So when you say you’ve talked about everything, what you really mean is you’re going to keep dodging the ever-growing elephant in the room and he’s just going to continue doing whatever he likes to you, regardless of, you know, your health and continued survival.”

“Jesus, Shona, you make it sound like I’m a fucking battered wife or something!” I’m getting frustrated now. I know she loves me, that she’s just looking out for me, like she always is, but, I mean, Rylan’s and my sex life is something she’s always claimed not to understand, so why is she acting like she gets it all of the sudden?

“Well, maybe you’re acting like one! Like, do you even hear yourself? It’s always, ‘He’s not hurting me,’ and, ‘He didn’t mean it like that,’ and now, ‘We’ve talked about it,’ and then it turns out that you haven’t. He fucking choked you, Nigh. He made you actually fearful for your actual life and he doesn’t even seem bothered or remorseful enough to discuss it.”

“We talked enough, OK, Shone? We covered that we’re in a relationship, and have been for the last three years—”

“Nice of him to let you know,” she bites.

“Well, it was stupid of me not to ask,” I counter.

“I hate how he always makes you feel like you’re in the wrong.”

“He
never
makes me feel like that!” I can feel the unusual sensation of anger thrumming under my skin.

“Bullshit. You’re Niles. You’ll take whatever shit people sling at you if you think it’ll make them feel better.”

I stand staring at her, lower lip hovering and bobbing like an idiot. I…I just don’t know how to react. Shona sighs and stands up. She walks over and puts her hands on my shoulders.

“I’m sorry, babe,” she says. “I shouldn’t say stupid shit like that.” She nuzzles her forehead up against mine. “It’s just…you are so amazing, and kind and supportive that I’m constantly terrified people will try to take advantage of you. It’s stupid, I know. You’re an adult. You can take care of yourself. I’m just being stupid and protective and saying things I shouldn’t.”

I want to cry again. I want to erase this whole conversation.

“Come on,” I say, “I’ll take you out for milkshakes.”

* * *

“Hey, Nigh,” Rylan answers the door to his apartment, looking surprised, but pleased. “Whatcha doing here?” I shuffle my feet guiltily. Even though we’re supposedly doing the talking thing now, I still find myself unwilling to be the one who phones or shows up, or suggests doing something. I dunno. Even though Rylan has never made me feel like he wouldn’t want to see me, I sometimes still get this weird feeling that I would be interrupting or being annoying or something.

I shrug. “Just wanted to see you,” I offer, lamely.

“What’s wrong?” Rylan demands. He moves out of the doorway and into the hall, allowing me to enter.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” He grabs my wrists. “Come here.”

He kisses me softly. Kicks the door closed behind me. I let my eyelids fall shut. This is nice.

His lips drift over to my ear. “Do you wanna talk it out, or fuck it out?”

I laugh a little, am relieved maybe. “I dunno.”

“Hmmm?” He licks my earlobe. His hands toy with the bottom of my sweater. His palms conform to my hips and his breath is warm where it catches in the shell of my ear.

His fingers walk their way up my stomach, over my ribs, and then slide back down, meeting in the small of my back. He kisses my neck, my pulse point, the hollow of my throat.

“You know,” he whispers, tugging at the hem of my sweater, “If I pull this off, it’ll be too late for talking…”

I lift my hands above my head.

“Excellent choice,” Rylan grins.

We have all afternoon. All night, if we want. I feel guilty for taking up all of Rylan’s day off, but I try to shove that thought away, because he certainly doesn’t seem all that upset about it. He sinks his teeth into the front of my shoulder. It hurts, but that seems to be what he’s after. He slips a hand over my definitely hardening dick as if in confirmation.

“Nigh,” he says, his voice dangerous and low, “undress me.”

I hurry to obey and he watches me almost lazily as I unbutton his collared, mustard-coloured shirt, and tip it off his shoulders, revealing his torso. Seeing him there spurs on the realization that I honestly do know what I’m doing, because this is Rylan and I
know
him, I just do. I kiss his mouth first and then his collarbone, tentatively, awaiting signs of approval. He groans quietly, appreciatively, and I glow with pride, or pleasure, or both. I toy very lightly with his nipples, just running the pads of my thumbs over them with no intention of roughness. Rylan’s like a giant house cat: pleasure or nothing. That’s why I know it’s a pretty big sacrifice for him to let me top. He doesn’t really like it, doesn’t quite think it’s worth it, I guess.

I shuck off my pants and boxers and kneel before him, efficiently unbuckling his belt and pulling his boxer-briefs over his erection and down, bringing his jeans with them. He steps gracefully out of them. I wait for instruction.

“Open your mouth.” His voice is quiet, calm. He holds his full cock in one hand. “Look at me.”

I am obedient. I peer up at him almost shyly through my eyelashes and open my mouth, but just a bit.

He cups my face with one hand and steps closer so that his dick consumes almost my entire field of vision.

“Just a little wider, baby boy,” he directs. “Show me where you want it.”

I allow my jaw to relax a little wider, my lips forming a loose O. My tongue drifts forward towards my front teeth and I can hear Rylan smiling as he encourages me.

“Oh, that’s very nice,” he says, resting his cock head on the flat surface of my tongue. “You’re so beautiful with a cock in your mouth.” I can feel a little pearl of pre-cum sliding onto my tongue, but he hasn’t given me permission to do anything, so I don’t. It slips along the edge of his dick and collects on my lip. He chuckles darkly and withdraws, then uses his cock head to smear the bead of pre-cum over my lips. “Do you want me to feed you my cock, baby?” he asks and I swear he sounds almost loving.

I can feel the warmth of him, resting on my bottom lip, his hand cupping my face. His dark pubic hair comes in and out of focus in front of me, and I do. I do want him to—I do want that. I nod, very slightly, so as not to disturb his cock from its perch.

“Good,” he croons, and his thumb rubs a gentle circle just below my cheekbone. “Keep your hands on your knees.”