“This explains everything,” I said. “My parents still think I’m three years old. This explains my entire life.”

  “If I’m such a terrible mother,” Mom said, “why did I go to that fancy karate class graduation a few years ago?”

  “That was the police academy!”

  “Do not take that tone, Dagobert.”

  “Dagobert,” my dad shouted. “No shouting!”

  “Elien, sweetheart,” my mom said loudly, her face about three inches from Elien’s. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  “Stay for dinner? He can hardly take a full breath.”

  “That’s no reason to be impolite.” My mom brought over a sack of beans and a wire colander. “Elien,” she bellowed into his face again. “Can you sort these beans for me?”

  “He’s not deaf,” I said, “and he—”

  But Elien gave one final sniffle and nodded. Wiping his face with one hand, he leaned forward and examined the beans.

  “Terrible mother,” my mom muttered as she moved back to the counter.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Maybe you could think a little,” Dad shouted from the front room, “before you say such horrible things about your dying parents.”

  After scrubbing my face and trying to figure out what was happening, I dropped into the chair next to Elien. We picked through the beans in silence.

  When the beans were done, Mom put Elien in charge of slicing the onion, the celery, and the bell peppers. When the vegetables were done, he was in charge of making the cornbread. When the cornbread was in the oven, he was in charge of the wine. The pressure cooker rumbled on the stovetop; hot butter sizzled in a skillet as Mom worked on the succotash. Elien’s eyes were still a little puffy, but he hadn’t cried in almost an hour, and he sipped his wine and stared off into the distance. After a moment, he glanced over at me, and a tiny smile curved his lips.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  I shrugged, and before I did something even more stupid, I made myself a Sugarfield and sat next to Elien, and we drank together.

  At dinner, I could see panic mounting in Elien’s face as each dish was announced.

  “Red beans and rice,” Mom said, setting a plate in front of him. “Succotash—those are lima beans, sweetheart. And your famous cornbread.”

  “He never said it was famous,” I said.

  “Dagobert gets a little jealous because he likes to make the cornbread,” Mom said.

  “I do not get jealous.”

  “One time,” Dad said, “he threw Mrs. Dertoneau’s cornbread out the window because he was so mad that he didn’t get to make his own.”

  “I knocked it off the counter. On accident. I didn’t throw it out the window.”

  “Mrs. Dertoneau saw the whole thing,” Mom whispered to Elien.

  “Elien doesn’t eat this kind of food,” I said, nudging his full plate toward Mom. “It’ll make him sick.”

  “Oh,” Mom said.

  That was it. Oh. But her eyes got all full and her lip got all trembly.

  And Elien fucking Martel caved faster than any man in history.

  “No, no, no,” he said, pulling the plate back. “I can eat it.”

  “No,” Mom said, tugging on his plate. “I can make something else.”

  “No,” Elien said, glancing at me in desperation, trying to get the plate back. “No, honestly. I think Dag just misunderstood. The other day I was—no, Mrs. LeBlanc, really, it looks delicious—”

  “I won’t hear of it,” Mom said. “We’ll make you something you’ll like. I know food like this isn’t fancy enough for guests.”

  “Elien did say something about how it wasn’t fancy enough,” I said.

  “Liar!” Elien somehow managed to get the plate free, and he curled his arms around it. “Mrs. LeBlanc, this looks fantastic.”

  “Well,” Mom said doubtfully. “I don’t want you to get sick. And I bought the most beautiful bread pudding for dessert.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about dessert,” Elien began.

  “Yeah, he’s being polite, Mom. This food is going to make him so sick he won’t be able to eat the dessert.”

  Elien’s eyes were huge when he glared at me. “That’s. Not. True. I’m very excited to eat this food.”

  “And dessert,” I said.

  “And. Dessert.” He managed to say the words through gritted teeth.

  “Well,” Dad said, “I don’t know what all the fuss is, but can we please say grace before I starve to death?”

  So we said grace, with Dad’s hand in my right and Elien’s in my left. We ate. And, to my shock, Elien ate every bite: all the rice and beans, all the succotash, all the cornbread, and two servings of bread pudding. He drank a lot of wine. Mom and Dad told stories, which mostly involved me when I was a child, and which further confirmed my suspicions that both of my parents had gotten mentally stuck sometime around 1999. Elien laughed quietly at first. Then he laughed a little bit louder. Then he started asking questions.

  “What about a picture of him when he was wearing your pantyhose?” Elien asked my mom through fits of giggles. “I want to see your photo album from that year.”

  “Ok,” I said, “I think Elien and I are going to hang out in my room.”

  “No, no, I want to see some pictures from when you were in that school play you told me about.”

  “Door closed, Dagobert,” my dad said.

  “We’re going to talk, Dad. That’s it. Talk.” Grabbing Elien’s collar, I yanked him out of the seat. “Come on.”

  “No,” Elien said, “we’ll do the dishes.”

  “Oh,” Mom said. “And I can tell you about Dagobert’s first date.”

  “Goodnight,” I said, still dragging Elien down the hall.

  When we were in my room with the door shut, everything suddenly switched: Elien twisted around, grabbing my arm, and he dragged me toward the bed. We fell onto the mattress together, and I grunted as pain flashed through my chest and arm. For a moment we were tangled together, and then I rolled onto my back, our shoulders touching. From the kitchen came the sound of running water and the clink of dishes. From Elien came soft, quiet breathing. I liked the way his breathing sounded. I could close my eyes and imagine it was the only sound in the universe.

  “I broke up with Richard,” Elien said.

  “I saw the backpack.”

  “I should have done it a long time ago.”

  Rolling my head to the side, I watched him. He wiped his eyes once. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Do you need a place to stay?”

  “No. I’ll get a hotel.”

  “You can stay.”

  “No.”

  “Elien, I’ll sleep on the couch. Just stay. You probably shouldn’t be on your own tonight.”

  When he turned to look at me, his eyes were bleary. “I drank too much wine.”

  “That’s ok.”

  “I’m going to say yes.”

  “Then say yes.”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “I’m going to tell my parents. They’ll probably spontaneously combust from excitement.”

  “Dag,” he asked when I was at the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you come back?”

  I laughed and said, “Yeah.”

  In the kitchen, Mom and Dad were drinking coffee. Dad was reading the paper. Mom was playing Bejeweled on her phone.

  “Elien’s going to stay the night if that’s ok.”

  “Door closed,” Dad said firmly.

  “Oh, Dagobert,” Mom said, one hand over her heart.

  “As a friend,” I said. “I’m going to sleep on the couch.”

  Dad folded the paper and stared at me. “Why?”

  “Your father is right, Dagobert. He’s a perfectly lovely young man.”

  “And he’s into you,” Dad said. “Like, really, really into you. He practically melted when you touched his shoulder at dinner.”

  “And you were so cute when he spilled wine, dabbing at his shirt. I think he had an erection.”

  I covered my face with my hands and backed down the hallway.

  “Go get him,” Dad stage whispered.

  “Rock his world,” Mom said.

  “This is why superheroes always have parents who died in a tragic accident,” I called back to them.

  Shutting the door behind me, I prepared for Elien’s smirk. But he wasn’t smirking. He was asleep, his lean legs falling off the bed, drooling a little onto my quilt. I slid my arms under him and moved him up to the pillow. Then I got my iPod, popped in my earbuds, and put on some Humpback Whales of Monterey Bay. I stretched out next to Elien, enjoying the warmth of him next to me, liking the vanilla and bourbon I could smell on his breath after his second serving of bread pudding. My eyes closed. I drifted.

  When I woke up, the room was in shadows, and Elien’s hand was soft on my cheek, turning my face toward him. The green in his hazel eyes glowed like jade. After a moment, he pulled out one of my earbuds and slid it into his own, and then his hand was back on my cheek again. The whales sang to me. I was floating deep out in the ocean. His fingers smelled like red wine.

  “I want to kiss you,” I whispered.

  He blinked and said, “God, I thought you’d never say that.”

  So I kissed him. And then I kissed him again, my hand moving to the back of his head, into that mess of blowout hair, pulling his mouth harder against mine. Rolling onto him, I tangled the earbuds, and then I pulled them free and slid the iPod to the floor. I kissed him again. His hands fiddled with my waistband, and my jeans popped open. He slid the zipper down.

  “We should go slow,” I whispered.

  “I don’t want to go slow. Do you want to go slow?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want to go slow. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

  It could have sounded cheesy anywhere else, but we were in our own universe, and it was simple and true. My heart was brass, ringing out under those words.

  He undid the zipper, and he helped me slide my jeans and boxers down to my knees, and then he took me in his hand.

  “Shit,” I whispered, shuddering as I thrust into his grip. I had to clench my teeth, and not being able to make noise made it hotter somehow. “Oh shit, Elien, shit, it’s been a long time, shit, shit, stop.”

  He pulled away; I was shaking on top of him. Elien used the cooldown to wriggle out of his shirt, and he pulled my hands to his nipples, and I flicked them and twisted and pulled and pinched. He made these little noises under his breath that were even hotter than his hand had been. I could see him going wild and not able to let it out, and it made me wild too. He rolled his hips, grinding up into me, and his pupils were huge.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered. “I need you to fuck me.”

  Nodding, I slid off him, and we both stripped, and I came back to the bed with a condom and lube. I knelt between his legs, ran my hands down his thighs, enjoying the way he shivered.

  “Dag.” He bit his lip. “I’m probably going to cry after. I might freak out. I just need you to . . . to hold me. And let me be upset, ok?”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s just—I don’t know. All these associations.”

  And I remembered: his first time, some asshole he’d picked up that night, and then staggering out into the house to find his family dead.

  “Oh Christ,” I said. “I didn’t even think.”

  “No, Dag. Please. I want this. I want you.”

  “But I don’t want—”

  “Please.”

  I slid my hands down to the vee of his legs. I ran my thumbs on the insides of his thighs. I kissed his knee. He was shaking. He was wet.

  “Please,” he whispered.

  “What if we flip?”

  “What?”

  “Is it better for you that way?”

  Those hazel eyes were blank.

  My hands stilled. “No one’s ever asked you that?”

  He gave a tiny shake of his head, and then he squeezed his eyes shut, and tears leaked out the corners. I thumbed them away, kissed him, and took him in my mouth. He was soft at first, but after a few minutes he responded, a murmur building in his throat until he seized my head with his hands, fingers scraping over the short stubble of my hair.

  When I pulled off, he was gasping. I dropped next to him, elbowed him in the ribs, and said, “Time for you to do some work.”

  Shock transmuted into a grin, and he took his place. He was slow. He was unsure. He kept asking, and he was gentle, and neither of us lasted long. I came first, untouched, biting my arm.

  “Holy God,” Elien said in a strangled whisper, and then he groaned and bucked wildly into me as he came.

  For a while we lay together, our breathing syncopated, and I ran a sticky hand down his spine.

  “Never,” he said. And then he giggled. “Never in my entire life.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, “but I feel like I should be insulted.”

  He propped his chin on my chest and stared at me. “I’ve never had anything like that in my entire life. Ever. You are amazing.”

  “You are amazing,” I said with a grin. “I just kind of hung around and enjoyed the performance.”

  He giggled into my side for a long time after that.

  Then we had to clean up, and we were like kids sneaking down the hallway past my parents’ bedroom, both of us trying not to laugh and both of us being too loud. Then he wanted more bread pudding, and we ate it in bed, sharing a spoon. And at some point, we fell asleep, and I completely forgot about the couch.

  ELIEN (3)

  When I woke up, it took me a moment to remember: the whale books, the poster of the 2008 Braxton Bragg Memorial High School basketball team, the rippling blue waves of the LED light on the wall. Dag’s arm was across my chest, and when I inched toward the edge of the mattress, he flexed, drawing me against him.

  “Morning,” I whispered.

  He kissed my neck.

  “I’ve got to pee.”

  With a groan, he released me, and I sprinted to the bathroom. When I got back, Dag immediately latched onto me and dragged me into the curve of his body.

  “Your mom and dad saw me in my underwear,” I whispered.

  He kissed my neck again.

  “They were smiling so hard I thought they were going to have matching strokes.”

  Dag’s hand skated over my chest, and his fingers slid under the elastic of my underwear.

  “Really?” I said.

  He kissed lower, where my neck joined my shoulder. His stubble rasped against the sensitive skin there, and goose bumps pebbled my chest. His fingers moved in slow, steady strokes.

  “Again?” I said.

  “Too early for talking,” he mumbled.

  It might have been too early for talking, but it wasn’t too early for other stuff. Dag rolled me onto my back and rode me like a champ, both of us struggling to be quiet, the creak of the springs getting faster and faster. This was another first for me, and it was as overwhelming as last night: somehow, Dag seemed even more vulnerable like this, his knees spread as he rocked up and down, his head thrown back. He wasn’t touching himself again, and I wondered if that was on purpose. I reached between his legs.

  “Oh shit,” he gasped, his eyes shooting open. “Not yet.”

  So I let him go, and after a moment, he guided my hands to his hips, and he let me direct him, setting the pace, his body doing all the work and me totally in control. His teeth made white crescents where he bit into his lip. In spite of his best efforts, low moans escaped him.

  “Dag,” I whispered.

  He shook his head once, violently, like a dog.

  “Dag, I’m close.”

  “Give me something,” he whispered, his eyes wide and blind. “Shit, give me a pillow or something.”

  I handed him a pillow, and he bit savagely into it, and I figured that was my cue. I grabbed his dick; after two quick pulls, he was shooting all over me, screaming around his mouthful of pillow. The sight of him like that, wrecked and still pistoning on top of me, sent me over the edge; my fingers dug into the hard muscles of his chest as I brought him down onto me hard, hard, hard and blasted off.

  After, he dropped the pillow, grinning sheepishly. He kissed me, tasting like cotton, and he nuzzled into my neck, still straddling me, and he fell asleep. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. I ran one hand along his back, following the curve of his shoulder blade, the side of his chest, the bandages on his ribs. I found blood where my nails had bitten crescents into sensitive skin. Then I dozed off too.

  When I woke, he had slid off me, one arm still across my chest, and the sheet covered both of us.

  “Morning,” Dag said.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Sorry about that.” He blushed, and his eyes fell. “I’m, uh, really attracted to you, which you probably figured out.”

  “It’s nice to hear it, though,” I said.

  “Oh.” His eyes came up. “I’m really attracted to you.”

  I smiled; something rippled in my chest like the water-light on the wall.

  “I probably seem super needy,” Dag said, “coming onto you like that. Twice.”

  “Not needy,” I said.

  “You’re this gorgeous guy, and I know you’re out of my league, and even though I’m older you’re way more experienced because I’ve had, like, one boyfriend and he stole all my money and the sex probably wasn’t even that good.”

  “Oh boy,” I said, propping myself on one elbow. “This is spiraling fast.”

  “I just, you know, wanted to tell you, um, if you want me to do something different, you can tell me, or I could work out more, and I—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Tugging down the sheet, I ran my hand over the hard lines of his chest, flattening my palm over the ridged muscles of his belly. “I’m here with you. I like you. You are hot, ok? You’ve got a body like you could fucking break me in half. And the hair is really doing something for me.” Releasing a shaky breath, I met his eyes. “But I like you, who you are, I mean, even more. Nobody’s ever cared what I wanted. Nobody’s ever . . . been vulnerable for me like that. Trusted me.”