Page 21 of Ctrl+Alt Submit
AARYN
I wake up with a headache, even though I didn’t have anything to drink last night. Can fucking too hard give you a hangover? My eyes and my mouth are dry, the sunlight pouring in through the window feels too bright and the drone of landscaping equipment sounds aggressively loud.
I roll over and see Errol reading, white hair tufted in all directions. “Hey,” I croak out, embarrassed at how rough my voice sounds.
Errol gives me a little smile. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after nine.”
“Really?” I never sleep this late. “Sheesh. Sorry, you should’ve woken me up.”
“Nah. I’m at the bar until closing tonight, so I was gonna try and sleep a little later.”
I frown. “So why are you on your phone, then?”
He kind of sighs. “Woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Shit . That must be my fault. “I’m sorry I yelled all that stuff at you,” I mumble.
“Don’t be,” he says quickly. “I mean, it’s not like you were insulting me . Right?” He evaluates me in silence for a minute. “Do you want to talk about it? Doesn’t have to be here. We can go downstairs and get coffee.”
I groan and pull the pillow over my head to shut out the light, but it’s too late. My brain is awake, and the promise of coffee is battling with my urge to hide from the world for just a little while longer.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, it hits me just how little I know about the person staring back at me.
Realizing that I’m OK with dick is the least crazy realization I have to come to grips with.
What’s harder to wrestle with is who the dick I’m OK —well, more than just OK — with belongs to: My best friend.
That seemed like enough earth-shattering revelations to absorb at once, but last night’s… whatever that was just leveled up my confusion immensely. Discovering what Errol’s into, and realizing just how much I like being the one to give that to him, was the biggest surprise of all.
I pad downstairs in bare feet, following the bright, comfortingly bitter smell of coffee brewing.
Errol comes to the kitchen doorway, a pair of mugs in his hands, and asks if I want to drink these in the living room.
Since there’s still a dull ache throbbing behind my eyes, the prospect of being able to slouch back against cushions sounds much better than sitting in a straight-backed chair.
I sink into the sofa with a sigh as the wheels in my head spin. “Thanks for asking me to sleep in your room last night. I think I’m done crying over Eliza, but I didn’t know I was going to last night.” I think about it for a second. “How’d you know?”
Errol shrugs as he settles in next to me.
“I didn’t, exactly. But a lot of times, something intense like that — especially if it’s something you haven’t done before — will kind of bounce around in your mind for a while afterwards.
You can think about weird shit. Shit you don’t want to think about, shit that makes you feel bad about yourself or the person you were with.
Being close and touching like we were makes it better. ”
“Well, thank you,” I say, embarrassed and grateful.
Errol’s smile looks rueful. “It was as much for me as it was for you, to be honest. I know you weren’t really directing any of what you said or did at me .
But it was a lot easier to be a hundred percent certain with your arm around me.
” His eyes search my face. “Are you OK with it now? Was it too intense? Too much?”
“I… I don’t think so, but I didn’t expect it to feel like that. I didn’t expect to act like that,” I admit. “It surprised me. And there were, um, also things I liked. And that I was surprised I liked.”
“Which things?”
“Well, for starters, I didn’t think I had this… aggressive —”
“Dominant,” Errol interjects.
“OK, fine —dominant streak. I don’t know about any of this stuff.”
“Wait. Do you mean you’re not…?” He frowns a little as his words trail off.
“Am I what?”
“Have you had relationships with a dom-sub type of dynamic in them before? With Eliza or anybody else?”
“Uh-uh.”
He looks surprised. “Really? Not ever?”
I’m a little taken aback. “No. Is that a bad thing? Am I doing it wrong?”
Suddenly, all the anxiety nerd-Aaryn had that threatened to shut down hookups before they even happened comes roaring back with a vengeance.
It’s been years since I’ve felt like this.
I thought I shook off that damp-palmed nervousness, left it behind along with my shitty metal-framed glasses and fidgety clumsiness.
But I guess it never actually went away; it was just lurking under the surface and waiting until I fucked up something with a person I really cared about.
Something like this. A person like Errol. Since I’m spiraling in my own head, it’s a minute before I realize he hasn’t responded. He’s still just looking at me strangely. I feel myself break into a sweat.
“ What , man? What’s wrong? Talk to me, dude.
” My mind is spinning. For so long — years, at this point —I’d been able to escape this.
Because the people who gave me coy looks and suggestive touches and sometimes flat-out threw themselves at me hadn’t seen nerd-Aaryn.
They’d seen smart, sarcastic, sometimes-funny tech-whiz-Aaryn.
But I can’t hide who I am from Errol. He knows the real me: the awkward, self-conscious Aaryn who was so afraid of screwing up he would let it paralyze him.