Wishing on a Blue Star (42 page)

He was the one prompted the sports teacher to notice me on the bench and put me in the team for the cup final. He was the one insisted I study harder for my Geography exam when my only experience of volcanic ash was setting fire to the text book. Encouraged me to exercise until I wasn’t just a short-arse but one with a fairly well-developed six-pack. Guided me secretly back in through the kitchen window of my house at four a.m. after a teenage party I’d been forbidden to attend, and where I’d sucked in far more than my fair share of illegal substances. And, somehow, beyond anyone’s expectation including my own, I never got caught.

Don’t ask me how Adam did all this, but I knew it was him. We didn’t share classes; he didn’t come to the boxing lessons with me; he didn’t hang around with the same gang in town on Saturday afternoons. But afterwards, he was always there beside me, laughing at the same jokes, teasing me, pushing me to listen to his own brand of sense.

* * * *

In the last couple of years of school, there were other problems. Not the work, which I coped well with by then, but, you know … being gay. Look, I didn’t have any epiphany or anything. Didn’t even really know what it all meant. Just knew I
was
, from the time my voice broke and my balls dropped. And I was fine with that. But when my prick kept filling every time I saw Billy Dean in his football shorts… well, things got tricky. I got smart at hiding it, I avoided the cruder jokes, I leered over the pin-ups my friends had.

But when Billy nudged me behind the sports shed and let me jerk him off… hey, I was a very willing participant. His dick was thick and damp with sticky trails of come. It felt everything yet nothing like my own, a wet dream come to life in my shaking hand. His breath was hot against my hair, his fingers pinched the flesh of my shoulders. Our incoherent grunts made my groin ache, I was swollen with frustration inside my own shorts, but never happier. I thought all my dreams had come true.

Until the rest of the football team roughed me up after school. That was when the word ‘faggot’ came home to me as being … well,
me
.

“Where were you?” I complained to Adam. I sat outside the school on the low kerb, dabbing my nose until it stopped bleeding. Luckily no bones had been broken. The gang had broken up pretty quickly when the school fire alarm went off.

“Making sure a short circuit set off the fire alarm,” he said severely. “What the hell were you playing at?”

“At Billy Dean,” I said, rather mournfully.

Adam laughed and sat down beside me. A stack of paper serviettes had somehow appeared on the ground beside me, to help me mop up. “He’s a dick.”

“But he could have been
my
dick.” I was the poor victim, thwarted in lust and love.

Adam snorted. “No way. Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet?”

Adam smiled but his gaze skittered away, as if he’d said something he shouldn’t. “He’s just looking for an easy right hand. And in the school grounds? Chas, you really are…”

“A prick?” I snapped.

Adam laughed. “But
my
prick.”

It was one of those stupid, but treasured moments. His company felt just … right. I blushed, far more embarrassed by the pleasure of his friendship than by the humiliation of seeing my name carved on the sports shed wall by the football team, who’d tried—unsuccessfully, of course—to find a threatening rhyme for stupid gay pervert.

So, as is the time-honoured tradition in such sensitive moments, I stuck my tongue out at him.

Adam shook his head. “Whatever. Besides, I suppose you have to take
some
risks in life.”

And so I did, but with a little more caution. Next time out—in the gay sexual experience sense of the word—I chose somewhere more private, though possibly not more salubrious. See what words I was using by then? I was horny
and
smart, an unassailable combination. And to my delight, Billy was still in the market. We kept away from his team mates, I worked on finding rhymes for homophobic arseholes (still working on that one, to this day), and our lust found plenty of places to try even more exciting things. Though never anything as heady as that first glorious time I got to put my hand down the front of his shorts.

* * * *

In my final year—accompanied by much eye-rolling shock from both my Chemistry and my Geography teachers—I got an academic place at the local University.  Never seen Dad look so pink and happy in his life as when I opened the offer letter. I was excited and proud and arrogantly sure I was on my way up in life.

I just had no idea how lonely it would be.

One Saturday midnight, Adam found me curled up in a shop doorway outside one of the seedier gay student clubs in the town.  The rain drizzled down under my open collar, the street lights reflected in the puddles on the pavement, the occasional passing car raised spray from the gutters. It had been a long, miserable night, though I’d stopped specifically counting the hours after too many shots and plenty of blow.  Adam stood there for ten silent minutes because I was initially determined not to acknowledge him and his disapproval. I stared at his shoes until my resentment and misery curdled in the pit of my stomach. “What the fuck?” I muttered.

A young woman passing the doorway on her way home started at the sound of my voice and quickly crossed the road.

“Go home,” Adam said.

“Trying,” I muttered. My legs seemed to have been reworked in putty and mis-connected to my hips.

“Pick up your wallet.”

I hadn’t realised I’d dropped it, not that there was much in it to delight anyone else. Four pounds fifty, a discount card to the sandwich bar and a condom that was not-so-rapidly-but-relentlessly going out of date. The journey back to my flat was through a blurred, occasionally psychedelic haze. Took me four attempts to get the key in the lock, then I lost my wallet again, until I saw it on the toilet seat. I grabbed hold of it before it fell in. Then grabbed hold of the seat itself and threw up into the bowl.

Several times.

“Good God.” Adam’s voice sounded strangely tired.

“At least I’m not singing,” I grunted, but wit escaped even me. The misery had become second-nature, a thick, heavy blanket over my heart and hope. I’d been here months, but no one had even tried to guess the truth behind my sharp humour.

“Give this up, Chas. You’re better than this.”

I frowned. “’m fine.  Student life, ’n all. ’njoying myself.”

There was a pause in the air as if Adam were considering a suitable response. Glancing around my modest little bathroom, taking it all in: the damp toilet seat, the chipped floor tiles glinting from the harsh fluorescent light over the shaving mirror; my inevitably flushed face and the crusty trail of another cheap takeaway dinner on the front of my shirt.  I knew beyond a doubt that he’d seen the emptiness of both my fridge and my phone book.

I leaned back over the bowl and heaved again.

Adam sighed. “I think not.”

I sighed. Bastard was right, of course.

“Find him, Chas. He’s at this University too, isn’t he? Call him up.”

I knew who he meant. Billy Dean had got a sports scholarship to the University as well, but he was the year ahead of me. After he left school, I think we’d exchanged a couple of emails and circulated some stupid jokes at Christmas. Then nothing.

“’s over now. Schoolboy crush.”

Adam’s tone sharpened. “Don’t be a fool. As if you don’t know where he lives, what days he comes on to campus. As if you haven’t
always
known.”

I glanced up at him, my eyelashes wet. “No secrets from you, eh?”

It was a joke, though feeble, but Adam didn’t smile this time. “No,” he said softly.

I called Billy the next day, the phone shaking slightly in my hand. I laughed too loudly, gabbled too much, but he sounded surprisingly pleased to hear from me. I pitched for the ‘let’s catch up on old times’ sort of tone.  Remember the school days, the teachers…?

Behind the sports shed?

I can’t remember if I said it, or he did, and I wasn’t going to ask. But we couldn’t meet fast enough, my shocking eagerness apparently matched by his. That night we fell into his small, lumpy but sweetly clean bed, bare skin sticky, hearts thumping, mouths greedy, his touches raising goose bumps of delight all over me.

We were together from then on.

* * * *

One evening near the end of Billy’s last term, I sat outside the main college building waiting for him to finish a late lecture. The air was cool. Since I’d given up (almost) all my drug vices, including ciggies of all types, I could smell it more clearly, full of early summer promise and the sharp tang of sunlight on rich, fragrant shrubs.  I blew on my hands, but it wasn’t really too cold. Besides, Billy was worth the wait.

Adam gave a gentle cough. “You’re good together. You and Billy. Well done.”

I frowned. “You’re always around. All hours of day or night.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything more.

“Look. I mean, a guy’s got to have some privacy.” I felt over-warm. “You don’t ever…you know…?”

“Snoop on you and Billy?” He laughed loudly and I was glad no one else was around to see my gaffe. “You stupid arse. Like that’d be any kind of entertainment for me.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, like we were back in school again. But I felt comforted.

When he graduated, Billy mortgaged himself to the eyeballs and took over a local sports shop—his own version of paradise—and we pooled whatever we had left to move into our own flat. I was aiming for a job in journalism and had already been offered a freelance place at the local newspaper. But Billy insisted I finished my course first.

“Why bother? I could leave now and live with you full-time. The money would be great.”

He just shook his head and pushed me back down on the bed to distract me. He was a man of action, not words, like I was. It almost always worked, too. I stayed on to finish my time though the year dragged for me. I sulked, and my degree wasn’t as good as it should have been. But it was enough to get me a job I wanted, on a travel magazine.

Adam encouraged me as well, like he always had. He just seemed to know what was best.

But he didn’t always tell me.

“What do you think I should do?” It was a common whine from me. I stood in our small back yard one evening, six months into my new job and an hour before Billy was due to finish work, watching the day sink into dusk and the midges cluster around the overhanging tree from next door. I wished I still had a smoking habit to concentrate on while I considered the option of a three month contract in the Far East.

And Adam? I was startled to see him shake his head in reply.

“Can’t help. This one’s up to you. It’s your call.”

I frowned. “It’s a great opportunity, I’m still new to this job but they think I can do it. But three months away from home…what’s Billy going to say?” Adam just looked at me. Fuck it, I knew he knew what I was really thinking.  “I’m not sure we can cope with it.”

Adam frowned. “If you’re not sure of what you have by now, Chas, you don’t deserve it.”

“Fuck you,” I said, though even my anger was confused.

He stared at me. It was one of his looks, one I’d grown to recognize over the years, the one that said I was being a dick. Which, of course, I was—but I didn’t see why he was always pointing it out.

“So okay. I’ll sort things out myself.” The harsh words spat from me, intentionally cruel. “Why the hell I think I need your advice every fucking step, I don’t know. Breathing over my shoulder, patronizing me like we were back at school, living my fucking life like you want it for your own—”

No point to my diatribe. I’d gone too far, but there was no point to an apology, either. Adam had gone.

I waited, but he didn’t come back. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so bad, even in the days before I found Billy again.

When I finally plucked up courage that night and told Billy I wanted to take the contract, the mood was even more sober than it should have been. But—like I’m sure Adam would have told me if he’d wanted to—Billy agreed I should do it, that I should be proud to be considered. That we’d weather the separation, like we had before, and he’d still be here while I was away. Also when I came back. As, of course, I would! I’d been stupid to doubt it; to doubt
us
. Shockingly grateful for his constant love, I gave him everything I had in bed that night, until he was slippery with sweat and gasping for astonished, ecstatic breath.

Then I lay awake for hours after, while he snored gently and guiltlessly beside me.

“Adam?” I felt stupid whispering into my bedroom.

“Hmmmh.” Billy stirred sleepily, then settled back into his pillows.

I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot into our kitchen. I made hot chocolate, just like Mum used to make me when I couldn’t sleep. I slumped at the kitchen table, hugging the mug with my hands, breathing in the fragrant steam.

“Adam?” He was there.
Thank God
. “Sorry. I was a dick.”

“Yeah,” he said, sliding into the seat beside me. “You were.”

I sneaked a look at him out of the corner of my eye. Wondered whether he’d take it as the usual joke if I stuck my tongue out at him. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.” He was smiling. “But you wish you hadn’t said it. That’ll do for me.”

I sat for a while in silence, smiling and sipping the too-hot drink. And that’s when I decided it was stupid to go on pretending. I turned slowly to stare at him, at the wisdom in his bright eyes, at the knowledge and friendship in his steady gaze. At the kid who came and went at will, without me ever noticing how it was done. At the face that hadn’t changed for over ten years.

“Who are you, Adam?
What
are you?”

He wasn’t embarrassed or startled. He didn’t bluster, either. “I’m what you’ve needed. I’m part of your life. Part of you.”

“The better part?” I grimaced.

He laughed, but now I knew I didn’t have to worry about Billy hearing him. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here for you. You need me. It works for us both.”

I stared into the swirling, rich brown liquid, avoiding his gaze. “Couldn’t have got here today without you.” I sounded hoarse.