I’m still looking at the picture when he says, “Oh God,” and he’s standing right next to me.

  I start; I didn’t even hear him.

  “I hate that picture,” he says as he hands me a plate. “Gran won’t let me get rid of it.”

  “It’s cute,” I say, but that’s more automatic than anything, because he’s also passing me a beer. “Baby Sam.”

  He groans as he flops down in an armchair. I can’t help making a note of it: there’s this part of me that’s calibrating everything, our positions, where we are next to each other, distances and angles and gaps. I don’t know when it started, but it is really fucking annoying when I catch myself doing it, which is pretty much always now.

  To take my mind off it, I look down at what Sam brought me. The politest word for it is goop—a heap of whitish-gray stuff that might be food, with a little melted cheese on top. Steam wafts up, and it smells like chicken and green chilies, and my stomach rumbles.

  “It’s Gran’s chicken enchilada casserole,” Sam says. “It’s one of her specialties.”

  “Right,” I say, poking the mass with my fork. I tip the beer toward Sam. “Cheers.”

  “You only get one of those, by the way.”

  I almost smile, so instead, I scoop up a forkful and—

  “You’d better blow on it because it microwaves up like hot lava.”

  It turns out it’s surprisingly hard to blow on your food when you’re grinning.

  When I finally manage to take a bite, though, I moan. And then I melt onto the couch. The enchilada or the casserole or whatever the fuck it is, it isn’t good. It’s fucking fantastic.

  Sam sounds way too cocky for his own good when he says, “Told you.”

  I don’t bother answering. I shovel food into my mouth. He’s not wrong—it is like hot lava—but I don’t even care. How long has it been since I’ve eaten real food? Something someone made at home, not something prepackaged, or fast food, or something I picked up at a “healthy” chain. Fuck, even the burrito bowls tasted processed after you ate enough of them.

  I’m scraping the fork across the plate before I realize I’ve devoured everything. The beer’s gone too. And I’m full in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

  “Want some more?” Sam asks.

  “I’d better not.”

  He takes my plate. When I hold up the beer and give it a little wiggle, he takes that too and says, “Nope,” and he sounds way too fucking satisfied with himself.

  But maybe it’s a good thing, because all of a sudden I’m tired. Sammy is splashing around in the kitchen, and I close my eyes for a minute.

  It’s like snapping off a light.

  The dreams aren’t fully formed at first. The kitchen. The blare of the radio. Someone is shouting a long way off. There were lots of nights like this, but in the dream, there’s no confusion. It’s that night. It’s the end.

  I jerk awake.

  Blurred sensations. Disorientation. The dark. The smell of old upholstery. A hand is brushing hair off my forehead, and someone is saying, “It’s just a dream.”

  Things come together. My eyes focus. A living room. Sam’s living room, although the lights are off, and there’s only a glow filtering in from somewhere farther back in the house. And then the rest of the night slots into place: walk-ins at WISP, and the boy who hadn’t given me his real name, and Sam bringing me here.

  Some part of me thinks I should leave. Some part of me still wants to find the easiest, quickest fuck. But those are old reflexes. I close my eyes again and breathe through them as Sam keeps running his hand through my hair. Every inch of me still feels like a raw nerve, stimulated to the point of oversensitivity. Like the head of your dick after you nut.

  “I know you’re awake if you’re smiling,” Sam says.

  “I’m awake.” But I don’t open my eyes yet. The dream is still too close, so I let myself breathe. He didn’t kill her. That was then. This is now. Sam is still running his fingers through my hair, and it’s almost too much. Almost.

  And because the dream feels like part of this world right now, because everything runs together, there’s this way nothing feels real, and I might be a kid in high school again, or I might be nobody at all, and I roll and press my face into his leg. He tenses, but he doesn’t pull away. The contact is grounding. His shorts smell like detergent, and under that is the scent of a clean male body, warm, and after a moment, he starts moving his hand again.

  “You sounded like you were having a nightmare,” Sam finally says.

  I nod into his thigh.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head. It’s nice here. Nice to be touched. Nice to be with Sam, which tells you how upside-down things have gotten. And there’s still that sense that none of this is real, like I might wake up from this too. Which means nothing I do matters.

  That’s a dangerous thought.

  I sit up. Sam lets his hand fall away, but he’s still sitting on the sofa, and he looks at me like he’s trying to guess what I’m going to do. A quick glance around tells me that even though it only felt like I closed my eyes for a few moments, it’s been longer—the clock reads half-past one, and the light from the hall is coming from Sammy’s bedroom. He must have gone back there when I fell asleep. Until I started—what? Screaming in my sleep?

  The embarrassment will come tomorrow. Right now, everything is still outside me.

  “I should go,” I say.

  Sam nods. But he says, “There’s a sofa sleeper in the basement.”

  “No, I should go.”

  But I don’t stand.

  And Sam says, “Maybe that’s not a good idea. Maybe you need…”

  He doesn’t say what I need. Maybe he doesn’t know. I sure as fuck don’t.

  I push myself up, and Sam follows me with his eyes. “Thanks. I was—tonight was fucked up.” I stop, but all I can say is “Thanks.”

  When I head for the door, Sam trails after me. The night has the cold taste of magnolia flowers, and goose bumps break out along my skin. I’m holding the screen door open with my arm, and I look back, and Sam’s right there. There’s something in his face, and he moves closer. Moves so close, in fact, that he’s in my space now, and he’s opening and closing his hands at his sides, and he’s barefoot, which I hadn’t noticed until now, and he’s shifting his weight in little micro-movements that I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t one big raw nerve, everything turned up to one hundred.

  I haven’t let myself think about it too much until now. How much time we spend talking. How much time we spend together. And then the other night at the Wrox-Out mixer, and all the ways, literally and figuratively, that Sammy had showed up for me. How fun it had been to cut loose, even if it was only for a few moments, even if it was with Robin, and I knew he was asking for more than I could give him. How good it had felt to stop trying so hard to be someone else. Someone better. And then what it had felt like when Sam had cut in, and his hands on my hips, and the fact that, somehow, it had been even easier with him. So easy it was like it was meant to be. And the look on his face, like now. Like he knew what he wanted. He just didn’t know how to do it.

  A red light is going off somewhere, flashing a warning. But tonight, it’s too far away.

  One thing I’ve always been good at, ever since I was old enough to throw a bone, is knowing when someone wants me. It’s like a secret language. All these signals that are clear as day. That was never hard; what’s hard—what I’m still learning—is that it’s not a great idea to make that the only thing you feel good about. When someone wants you, I mean. The other thing I’m learning is that you don’t have to fuck somebody just because they’re asking for it.

  On the other hand, nothing about tonight feels real. Like I brought the dream with me. And like tomorrow, I’ll wake up, and none of this will have happened.

  He’s not quite leaning in, but he’s so close that it doesn’t matter. I move my arm so that the screen door starts to fall shut, and I bring my hand up, cup the back of his head, draw him closer. And I kiss him. His mouth is soft. His lips are almost as dry as his breath. He kisses back, kind of. And then I let him go.

  His eyes are huge.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that,” I say. The silence swallows up the words. “You’re so sweet, Sammy, and—and I wanted to do that.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but he swallows, and his Adam’s apple moves.

  And then I say, “Oh my God.”

  Somehow, he squeaks, “It’s okay.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.” I catch the storm door’s latch with my elbow, and somehow I stumble out into the chill. “Shit, Sam. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “No, no, it’s okay.”

  “I am such a fucking idiot. I didn’t mean—oh fuck!”

  That’s partly for my own idiotic behavior, and partly because I’m not looking and I almost go ass-over-ankles down the steps. I come down wrong, and I feel it in my ankle, but I keep moving—mostly because the adrenaline of having oh-so-epically shat where I eat is keeping me moving.

  “Gray,” Sam calls.

  Somehow I make it to the sidewalk, but I can’t go very fast because my ankle is starting to throb. I’m pulling out my phone to call an Uber when Sam’s steps whisper against the concrete. And then he’s in front of me, blocking my way.

  I can’t quite meet his eyes when I say, “Look, I’m in a really weird place, and I know that was crossing a line, and I said I was sorry—”

  He leans forward and kisses me. It’s kind of like being punched, and that’s kind of the kiss and kind of the delivery, because Sammy’s moving fast when our mouths connect.

  When he pulls back, my mouth has this pleasant ache.

  He wraps his arms around himself. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but he looks like he’s lost all his color.

  “You don’t have to—” I say. I try to think my way to something—a wild laugh wants to rise up in me, because I’m thinking, something safe, sane, and consensual. I end up saying, “You don’t have to do that.”

  He makes this noise like something’s trying to get out. And then he says, “I want to.” And then, if it’s possible, he somehow looks even worse. “I just don’t know how.” Another pause. “Because I never…”

  The way he trails off leaves a lot of open ground.

  But it also feels like an opportunity to meet him halfway. Because I know I’m not wrong about what I feel between us, what I see in his face, the way he moves around me. And because he ran out here after me. And because this is Sam taking a huge chance. And because he’s Sam, because he’s kind and dorky and actually, I’m starting to realize, pretty much perfect.

  “I know,” I say. “I know.”

  “No,” he says, and he sounds like he’s about to cry, but then he laughs. “I mean, I’m a virgin.”

  15

  Gray

  I don’t laugh even though—I mean, I don’t want to laugh. But it’s there, bubbling up, because there is no way any of this is happening.

  Some other, better part of me seems to be in control, though, because I say, “Oh.” And then somehow I’m smiling, and I say, “That’s okay.”

  Sam shakes his head, and his eyes are shining. He makes a noise that isn’t words but is definitely disagreement.

  “Why don’t we go back in the house?” I ask.

  Sam shakes his head, but after a second, he starts moving toward the front door.

  I don’t try to catch up, but I do follow him inside.

  It’s strange how familiar the space feels now. Homey. That distant panel of light that spills out of Sam’s room. The lingering smell of the chicken enchilada casserole.

  Sam’s already on the other side of the room, arms folded across his chest. Not combative. Definitely defensive.

  I shut the door and give us both a moment and say, “Do you want to sit down?”

  He shakes his head and makes that not-laugh sound again. “I can’t believe I said that. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. I’m glad you told me. Thank you for telling me.”

  He looks off into the kitchen.

  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” I say. “Do you want to talk about this? Or do you want to, I don’t know, chill? We can put something on TV.”

  That brings him around. He looks at me with this simultaneous look of horror and disbelief, like I might be the stupidest person he’s ever met. He even manages an outraged, “No!” Sam only sounds slightly more in control of himself when, a few seconds later, he says, “I only told you because—I don’t know.” It takes him even longer to say, “I like you.”

  I don’t know everything about Sam, but I know that’s a few hundred miles of progress packed into three words.

  “I like you too,” I say.

  He shakes his head.

  “Yeah, dumbass, well I kissed you, remember?”

  He actually looks betrayed. Then, like he’s fighting it, he smiles.

  “Can we sit down?” I ask. “I don’t bite. Unless you’re into that.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I raise my hands. “That was reflex.”

  But Sam gives me a look confirming I’m the dumbest person he’s ever met, and he takes a seat on the couch. At the far end. Pressed up against the armrest like he’s going to flip over it and sprint away if I try anything.

  “If I sit next to you,” I say, “are you going to put me in a chokehold?”

  He looks younger when he rolls his eyes.

  I sit—close, but not right on top of him. I bump his knee with mine. “You realize about ten minutes ago, we were pretty comfortable touching each other.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you. Now it’s going to be weird. I kept thinking I wouldn’t have to say anything and—and you know.” I don’t know, but from how red he turns, I’ve got an idea. “I should have kept my trap shut.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not weird for me.”

  He does this single, contemptuous ha, and all of a sudden, I know two things: the dark side of teenage Sammy, and the fact that his gran must have gone through a lot of switches.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  There’s this part of me that thinks he might not answer, but then he says, “You think I don’t know what I’m doing.” He rubs his thighs. “And you’ve got all this experience.”

  Now, I do laugh. A short one, and it makes him snap his head toward me. I hold up my hands. “It’s just, this is the first time that not keeping my dick dry has come back to bite me in the ass. Well, in this particular way.”

  Not even a smile.

  “Okay,” I say, “so let’s be real polite and use your way of saying it: I’ve got some experience.”

  “You’ve got a lot of experience.”

  “Jesus God, Sammy, it’s not like I’ve got a For Rent sign.” Still nothing, so I continue, “I’ve got more experience than you. So what? I don’t care. Nobody who’s worth a damn is going to care.”

  He breathes out in a way that suggests he thinks I’m full of shit.

  “Everybody’s got to have a first time.” I hear how that sounds and say, “Not that I’m suggesting it has to be right now.”

  Finally, miserably, he says, “I’m twenty-four.”

  “I know this isn’t going to help, but I’m going to say it anyway: believe it or not, that’s actually a kink for some guys.”

  He screws his eyes shut.

  I laugh again, in spite of myself. “Look, you’re the only one making it a big deal. Like I said earlier: why don’t we relax? Nothing has to happen tonight. We can have another beer, watch a movie—that VHS of CHiPs looks like it’s seen some use—and enjoy being around each other. I meant what I said earlier: I like spending time with you. You’re my friend.”

  His eyes open slowly, and there’s something lazy about how he blinks them now, considering me, intent. “You said you like me.”

  Okay, I think. That was what I said. Not that bullshit about spending time together. But, in my defense, I was wigging the fuck out, and I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  “And I like you,” he says, and because he’s Sammy, I can hear him doing the math.

  “Right, well, there’s no rush—”

  “And you said everybody has to have a first time.”

  “That’s how it works in general principle, but I think the important thing I said was to take it slow, relax—”

  He’s up, swinging his body across mine to straddle me, before I can even process what’s happening. And then he kisses me again. It’s not hard to tell that Sammy hasn’t done a lot of kissing. This one is more like catching a baseball with my teeth. He parts his lips. He moves his mouth against mine.

  Still, though. It is Sammy. And now I’m smelling his mouth and his skin, and he’s sitting on my lap, and it’s so much more than a kiss.

  When he pulls back, I say, “That’s the exact opposite of relaxing.”

  He’s so serious, still considering me with that intensity that’s almost predatory. “How was that?”

  “You know, the gays have made a lot of progress, but we don’t have a scale for kissing yet.”