Page 10 of Up In Flames

Oren

W ill arrived looking out of sorts. It wasn’t like I knew him well, but something was obviously bothering him. His hair was messy like he’d been running his fingers through it.

I liked the way he came into my space like he’d been there a million times before.

Like it was natural for him to make a beeline for my couch and sink down into the cushions.

His head tilted back, and he closed his eyes.

I let him have a few seconds to breathe before I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer for him.

I’d bought it a couple weeks ago intending to drink it, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of touching the stuff anymore. I was fine to be around alcohol and other people who were drinking, but drinking alcohol myself made my stomach clench.

“Here. You look like you could use this.”

Will cracked an eye open and took the beer from me. “Thanks.”

“Long day?” I ignored the urge I had to sit next to him and sat in the recliner.

There was something about him that made me want to be close to him.

I chalked it up to the way we met. It wasn’t every day I was pulled from a car wreck that could have killed me.

Maybe my brain had a bit of hero worship going on where Will was concerned.

It would explain the way I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“Some days just suck.” Will opened the beer and took a long drink. He sucked in a deep breath when he was done. “God, I needed that.”

“If you need to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

“Let me preface this with the fact that I love my parents and any violence I might want to inflict on their persons is purely me blowing off steam, and I don’t actually mean any of it.”

“That bad, huh?”

He groaned. “I was at my parents' for dinner tonight, and Mom surprised me with a blind date. When I got there, some girl Mom knows from her church was there with fucking hearts in her eyes, man.”

Will took another drink, and I couldn’t help but watch his lips touch the can and the way his throat moved when he swallowed.

“Hence the weird phone call.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, but I was fucking dying. Mom and—I don’t even remember her name—were busy talking about me like I wasn’t even there.”

He closed his eyes again, and I realized how tired he looked. He should’ve gone home, crawled into bed, and gotten some sleep, but he’d come here instead seeking comfort. Friendship.

I’d never been the guy who had a million friends.

I had Liam, and before the accident I’d had Byron and Rita.

Law school had weeded a lot of people out of my life.

I wasn’t like Byron, whom everything had come easy to.

A lot of people who had been my friends had simply fallen off my radar because I was always studying.

If I wasn’t studying, I was in class, and if I wasn’t there, I was working shitty jobs to try and get by.

Things weren’t much better now. I was still scraping by, but at least the law school part of my life was behind me. I had time for friends again. Even if my current friend pool was one singular firefighter, it was better than having no one at all.

My therapist would be proud that I’d made a friend. Even if it was kind of by accident.

“Do they often try to set you up with women?” The idea of Will going out with some woman who’d already been approved of by his parents made my stomach churn.

“Every once in a while, Mom forgets that I hate it when she meddles in my shit and she’ll arrange for me to meet a nice girl from her church.

Even though I haven’t gone since I was a teenager, I think Mom hopes that a nice church girl will lure me back into the fold.

” He took another long drink of his beer.

Leaning forward, he set the empty on the coffee table.

“Another?”

“Nah, I’m good, thanks.” Will looked at me. There was a softness to his expression that made him look vulnerable. “Thanks for saving my ass today.”

“Anytime. I mean it.”

“I just wish Mom would stop dragging random women around hoping that I’ll just magically fall in love with them.”

“Are they not your type?”

His expression shuttered. “You could say that.”

“Well, if she doesn’t stop, you could always give her a set of guidelines. If she’s going to try to marry you off, the least she could do is try to match your taste a little better.”

Will scoffed in obvious defeat. “That’s not going to happen.”

His body language was suddenly different. He looked more rigid than he’d been, almost like he was bracing himself for something. But for what?

“I was mostly joking. It’s a terrible idea. No one really wants their mom to play matchmaker.”

“It wasn’t that bad of an idea, but mom will never find a girl that I’d want to settle down with.”

“Not into the religious ones?”

There was a long pause. I watched Will and the way he hunched forward.

His chest expanded with each deep breath he took.

“Not into women. Like, at all. Ever. I’m…

I’m gay.” He exhaled a shaky breath, and a half smile tried to form on his mouth, but it was like he didn’t know whether to be happy or to be sick. “I’ve never told anyone before.”

Will was gay. Will was gay and not out. To anyone but me apparently. I didn’t know what I’d done to become the one person on the planet he felt he could tell. Maybe because I wasn’t important the way his parents were, or the guys he worked with were.

Maybe he’d told me because he didn’t know me very long, and if he lost me, it wouldn’t be a big loss at all. But I chose to believe that he told me because he somehow knew that I was a safe person to tell.

“Well, I can see how that would make the blind dates with all those lovely church women extra awkward for you.” I didn’t ask why he didn’t just tell his parents or his coworkers.

People came out on their own time or not at all.

Whatever reasons he had, he’d either share them, or he wouldn’t.

The most I could do was let him know that I would be there for him.

I offered him a smile. “Just when I think you can’t get any more brave than you are, you go and surprise me.”

Will dragged his gaze up to meet mine. “Brave? How can I be brave when you’re the first person I’ve ever told that I was gay. I haven’t even said it to the guys I’ve hooked up with.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you don’t have to say you’re at least a little bit not-straight if you’re getting frisky with another dude.”

“Frisky?” Will arched an eyebrow. “Frisky? Really?”

“There’s worse slang I could’ve used. Like bumping uglies. Who says that?”

“You just did.”

“Asshole.”

Will smiled at me, bright and not completely carefree, but he looked lighter than he had when he’d shown up. Warmth spread through me when I realized it was me who had given him that safe space to let go of some of the burden he carried.

I had a million questions for him, things like when did he know and had he ever had a boyfriend?

Why he wasn’t out was obvious if his parents were the church-going, super religious type.

Not that all church people weren’t accepting, but it often made things harder.

There could be more to it than that, but I didn’t want to pry.

“If there’s anything you want or need to talk about, I’m a pretty good listener.”

“It’s weird but just saying it out loud makes me feel like I’ve said enough for one day. Does that make sense?” Will wiped a hand down his face. “It was only two words.”

I moved to the other end of the couch and put my hand on his shoulder. I wanted to wrap him up in a hug but kept from doing so. Still, I needed him to know that I was there for him.

“They were two important words. It can’t be an easy thing to keep to yourself.”

Will’s next exhale looked like it deflated him. Like he breathed out every bit of angst he’d been holding on to. I felt the tension bleed out of him.

“Sometimes it’s easy. Like I don’t even think about it.

I just get up and do my job and it’s not an issue.

But then other times, it’s like I can’t breathe.

Like I’m holding my breath waiting for someone to figure it out.

Sometimes I want them to. It would take the pressure off, you know. ” Will scoffed. “You probably don’t.”

“I don’t. But I can imagine how hard it is to keep something like that to yourself.” I pulled my hand away and folded it neatly in my lap. “I’m glad you felt like you could tell me.”

He leaned back. Resting his head against the back of the couch, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he turned his head to look at me.

“Thanks again for playing along with the phone call today. I think I’d have gone crazy if I had to sit there for another minute.”

“I know you had dinner, but if you wanted to stick around for a bit, we could order a pizza. I hooked up Byron’s Xbox the other day, but I haven’t gotten around to actually using it.”

“Byron?”

“He was…”

Will flinched. “Sorry.”

“Thanks, but it’s… it is what it is. His parents wanted me to have something of his, and we used to play Xbox when we were taking study breaks. I hooked it up the other week but haven’t been able to play it.” But if Will could be brave, then so could I.

For so long after the accident, I felt like I was living in a parallel world. One without air and sunlight. One where every step was like walking through waist-deep mud.

Since reconnecting with Will, things had started to look a little brighter.

I still had days when I couldn’t breathe.

Days when I didn’t want to get out of bed or wake up at all.

I still had days when I had to miss work because my headache came back.

I hated those days the most. They took every ounce of energy I had out of me.

Even when the headache was gone, I tended to feel shitty for a couple days after. Like it gave me a hangover.

“Are you sure?” Will asked.

I knew he wouldn’t hold it against me if I lost my shit mid-game or had a breakdown after. Or if I couldn’t do it at all. Knowing that made it easier to even think about it.

“Yeah. I think I am.”

Will grinned at me. “Great. Prepare to get your ass kicked.”

“You don’t even know what we’re playing yet.”

“Doesn’t matter because I don’t lose.”

“Oh, God, you’re one of those competitive players, aren’t you?”

He rubbed his hands together. “It’s not too late to back down.”

“In your dreams, fire boy.”

“Fire boy?” Will blinked at me. “What kind of nickname is that?”

“An appropriate one.”

“You’re going to pay for that.” He was confident that he was going to win, and he probably would.

“I haven’t played in months. Maybe you’d consider going easy on me.” I turned the console on and passed Will a controller.

“In your dreams.”

The screen came to life and for the first time in months, maybe I did too.