Page 53 of Sam & Justin

Maybe I was being clingy, but I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. He was exactly where I needed him. Right here in King’s Bay. Justin obliged me. He washed my hair and helped suds up my body. Any other time, this might have been the start of something, but tonight? I was too tired to even think about sex. My brain was still throbbing after everything that had happened, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next day at work.

I didn’t want to see how this all played out.

Justin didn’t try to start anything in the shower either. He didn’t try to start anything when we climbed into my bed, face to face, our hands held between us. He just made small talk, and the whole time, I was just baffled. I still couldn’t believe that he was there at all.

“No one has ever shown up for me like this,” I muttered, my thoughts coming straight out of my mouth.

“Hmm?”

“You drove hours, just to sit on the couch with me and listen to me cry about my day. You showed up.”

He made another thoughtful noise, but he didn’t say anything at first. It was like he was weighing what he wanted to say. All of a sudden, my fears came back. Maybe he came to make my bad day worse. No, that wasn’t Justin’s style. I’d gotten to know him pretty well over the past few months. Maybe I hadn’t seen him much, but I knew him well enough to know that. He wasn’t going to pile on an already shitty day.

“I will always show up for you,” he finally said, confirming what I already knew. It was my turn to make one of those thoughtful hums that passed for communication between us. “That’s what you do when you’re dating someone, Sam.”

Dating.

Were we dating? We’d never really defined it.

Well fuck.

“Dating?” I questioned.

“What else would you call what we’ve been doing?” He paused. “Wait, you haven’t…”

I hadn’t what? I tried out a few possible ways to end that sentence, and I could only come up with one that made sense. Been with anyone else. Been seeing anyone else. “It’s only been you,” I told him softly. “Ever since the reunion, haven’t even thought about anyone else that way.”

“Good.” I saw the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. “Because I haven’t either. Rachel has even been calling you my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend. I liked the sound of that, even if it sounded like we were about twenty years younger than we were.

I sealed the deal with a small kiss.

I felt happy. And then I felt guilty for feeling happy when one of my clients was in a bad way. I let out a heavy sigh.

“Sam?”

“I’m happy,” I told him, but my voice didn’t sound that way. He reached out and cupped my cheek, gently stroking my five o’clock shadow with the pad of his thumb. “I am happy,” I repeated, “but then I feel guilty for being happy with everything going on.”

“What would you tell your clients? If they were feeling guilty for being happy when things were bad.”

I had to think about it for a few minutes. It would depend on the client. It would depend on what had happened, both the good and the bad. Justin’s thumb kept moving, keeping me grounded. It was a good way to keep my focus on the conversation at hand. “I’d tell them that they can’t control everything that happens,” I decided. It was good advice, but it was a lot easier to give than to take. “Then I’d tell them that it was okay to be happy, even when bad things happened around them.”

“Then maybe you should take that advice.”

“They didn’t usually cause the bad things.”

“Did you give your client the drugs?” I snorted. “Were you at the party? Could you have done anything to stop him?”

He wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t as simple as that. “I could have noticed the signs.”

“His mom could have noticed the signs too. His classmates. His friends. His teachers. You’re not the only person in his life that could have noticed that things weren’t right with him.” I wanted to believe that so bad, so that I didn’t have to take any of the blame for what happened. I wanted to believe that someone else could have noticed. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew he was right.

I was one person.

I wasn’t responsible for everything that happened with my clients. I couldn’t be with them twenty-four hours a day. I could only work with the information they gave me, and he’d never told me he was struggling with drugs. He’d told me about his other struggles—the ones with his sexuality, his mom, his church, his friends, but never drugs.

I think Justin was the only one that could’ve gotten through to me in that moment. I leaned in and gave him another soft kiss. “Thank you,” I whispered into the kiss.