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That night we rolled up to Kimberly’s house. I’d brought a bottle of wine because I was pretty sure that’s how people did adult gatherings. But what did I know? I was still a relatively young single person living in the big city. I was essentially a kid with a paycheck and bills.
Kimberly greeted us with a warm smile and thanked us for the wine and then ushered us into the living room where Claire and Dakota were sitting, leaning back on the couch. They talking to a third friend who I vaguely remembered being named Hannah and everyone was holding a red solo cup.
I think I might’ve misjudged the kind of event this was going to be.
“Eli!” Claire was pulling me into an enormous hug, and after an awkwardly formal round of introductions, I was ready for a drink.
Adam followed me into the kitchen and watched me as I scooped some ice into a cup.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t know why I feel so nervous.”
“Maybe it’s because last time you spoke to these people you were a closet case,” Adam suggested.
My mouth opened into an “o” shape. The only other person who could read me like Adam had just read me was my therapist. Every interaction I’d had with people from my past felt awkward and disjointed because I was constantly trying to figure out how to navigate who I was now with who they’d always seen me as. Add to that the constant coming out over and over because I’d never done that in my hometown and everything made sense.
“You should consider a career change,” I said. “You’d make an excellent therapist.”
Adam chuckled. “I don’t care about people enough to listen to their problems.”
“You listen to mine,” I pointed out.
“Now that I don’t mind,” Adam said, and he poured a glass from the cheap vodka that was sitting on the kitchen island.
“Careful, you might make a guy fall in love,” I teased, but it was only halfway a joke.
“You mean seeing me in the shower didn’t already do that,” Adam said, stepping close to me. I looked up at him, realizing how intense his brown eyes were. He was so close to me. Why was he so close?
“Yeah, that was weird,” I said, struggling to find my breath.
Adam slid a cup into my hand. “I thought it was cute.”
And then he went to the living room, leaving me to sort out what the hell he’d meant by that. He’d thought what was cute? Me? My reaction?
Pull it together, Eli, I told myself before I spiralled too far and downed a shot to calm my nerves before joining the others.
When I got into the living room, I saw that they’d set up a game of Jenga. It wasn’t until I was closer that I recognized it as Dani’s old drinking game of dirty Jenga.
“Sit down, Eli, we’re all going to play!” Kimberly said with a giggle that told me she was a few drinks further in than I was.
“What are we in highschool?” I asked, shooting Dani a curious look. She was up to something.
“Don’t be a stick in the mud,” Dani said with a scowl. “It took me an hour to find this thing.”
“Should’ve stayed buried.”
Dani glared at me, but I was hesitant. This game was full of dares like “kiss the person on your left” or “remove an article of clothing” along with the more benign “point to someone to drink.” Any party could decline to do the dare at any time, but then they’d have to take an extra shot.
This was a hot mess waiting to happen. And I had the sneaking suspicion that I was getting too old for games like this.
“Fine,” I begrudgingly agreed. I quietly vowed to remain sober after that point.
“I’ll go first!” Kimberly said. She pulled out a wooden peg and read. “Kiss the person on your right.”
That was Dani, and Kimberly grabbed her on either side of her face and eagerly gave her the biggest kiss I’d ever seen. When she pulled away, Dani was visibly flustered. I narrowed my eyes at her. Somehow I suspected this had been her plan all along.
We played on after that. Every time it was my turn to drink, I remained tight-lipped as I put the cup to my mouth. Everyone was having too much fun chatting to notice except for Adam, who I realized was doing the same thing.
As we played, people talked. Hannah and Dakota were now married and Dakota had taken over the family hardware store in town. Claire was the general manager for a Red Lobster. Kimberly talked about how horrible kids were nowadays.
“Now days? There was that year you took out the power to half the elementary school,” I reminded her.
“How did you manage that?” Adam asked.
“Paperclip in a power outlet.”
I was lucky enough to dodge the more embarrassing game blocks (watching Dakota take a belly shot off of Claire with his wife watching was a particularly intense moment.) That is until Adam pulled a brick that read:
“Make out with the person of your choice,” Adam looked at the brick blankly.
“God, highschool-aged you was so typical,” I said to Dani. She’d been the one to write the blocks after all.
“What can I say, highschool me knew how to have a good time,” Dani said with a shrug.
“Guess I choose Eli,” Adam said with a grin that made my stomach flutter. He scooted closer to me, his face hovering inches away from mine.
“Is there like a time limit?” I asked, suddenly very nervous. Once again I was about to kiss Adam and, once again, it was in front of a crowded room.
“I’m going to let you feel that one out for yourselves,” Dani laughed. I flipped her my middle finger and then returned my attention to Adam.
Fuck it. I went for it before I could talk myself out of kissing him.
Our lips crashed together, and the rest of the room faded away. While I was still aware of everyone’s presence, I didn’t give them any mind. It was only me and Adam and our mouths pressed against each other. His lips felt better than I remembered, even though I hadn’t stopped thinking about them since it had happened. Adam grabbed me by the small of my back and pulled me into him, deepening the kiss. He bit my bottom lip playfully, earning a smile from me as I kissed him back harder. His hands bunched up the bottom of my shirt as he held onto me.
After a while, I wasn’t sure who was supposed to stop whom. All I knew is that I wanted more. I wanted to rip his clothes off his body.
And that’s when the awareness of the room came back into the forefront of my mind and I pulled away from Adam.
The room was dead quiet until Dani let out a whoop. “That’s the spirit!” She said, cackling. Everyone joined in and there was nothing I could do but smile sheepishly at Adam, who was looking at me with what I could only describe as newfound interest.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he’d wanted to continue our kiss as much as I had.
Too bad I knew better.
***
SHORTLY AFTER THAT, most of the group was too drunk to continue, so we gave our goodbye’s along with the polite promises of doing this again sometime. Promises all parties knew were flimsy. Adam drove us home with me in the passenger seat and Dani in the back. We sang along to the radio in the dark of the night and I stole glimpses of Adam smiling in the glow of the headlights of passing cars.
Once we arrived home, we all went upstairs to our respective rooms, way more worn out from the night than we had any right to be. I guess I was getting old.
I was about to climb into bed when there was a gentle knock on my door. I opened it, anticipation building in my chest, only to have it deflate when I saw Dani standing on the other side in her pajamas, her hair still wet from the shower.
“What’s up?” I asked, confused.
“Did I make a huge mistake bringing that game tonight?” Dani asked, all airs of confidence were out the window and she was standing before me strangely vulnerable. It must’ve been the alcohol.
“What? No, I think everyone had a good time. Besides,” I said with a nudge. “You got to kiss Kimberly.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t all I’d hyped it up to be,” Dani said, screwing her face up. “Too wet.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I said, only a little grossed out.
“Speaking of kisses,” Dani said slyly. “You and Adam seemed to enjoy yours. A lot.”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy kissing an attractive person,” I said, proud that I could sound so detached. “But it’s not what you think.”
“I don’t think it’s anything, dear brother,” Dani feigned innocence. “But seriously, you seem really happy with him.”
I bit the side of my cheek and looked down, fighting back the sudden wave of emotions that had tried to bubble to the surface. I was happy when I was around Adam. But we weren’t actually dating. That was the entire problem and why I had to pump the breaks every two seconds before things got out of control and I fell too hard.
Part of me worried that it was already too late for that.
“It doesn’t matter if I am,” I hated how sad I sounded in my own ears.
“I don’t know,” Dani said, refusing to cave to reality. “That kiss seemed pretty convincing to me.”
I couldn’t think of a response to that.
Dani stifled a yawn. “I’m going to bed, see you for our run bright and early.”
God, we were still doing that.
She wandered down the hallway to her room. The moment she’d closed her door behind her, I went to the guest room. Dani’s words had churned up doubt in my mind and I needed to put it to rest before I could get any. If I didn’t talk to Adam now, I’d never be able to fall asleep. And I’d maybe never have the nerve to have this conversation again.
The light was still on, shining from the other side of the door. Opening it up a crack, I saw Adam sitting in bed, reading a book from the shelf in the corner of the room. He looked up at me as I entered. I noticed he was still wearing a sweater even though he was clearly ready for bed.
“You look cozy,” I said, sitting down beside him.
“I tend to get cold in my sleep,” he said. “And your mom keeps this place feeling like the arctic circle.”
I laughed. “She always said that we could put on more clothes, but there was only so much she could take off.”
Adam grimaced at that. “Wonderful.”
“It’s a miracle I turned out so well adjusted,” I said, then paused. Try as I might, I couldn’t get myself to bring up the reason for me coming in here.
“What are you thinking about?” Adam asked.
Us making out.
“Just life,” I said lamely.
Great answer, idiot.
“‘Just life,’” Adam repeated. “And it has absolutely nothing to do with tonight.”
“I know it was a dumb game,” I said, getting flustered.
“It was,” Adam agreed.
“But it still happened,” I said.
“It did.”
There was a heavy moment of silence and then:
“I’m sorry, I’m just getting confused,” I blurted out, running my fingers through my hair in agitation. “Like I know we’re just friends. I know you don’t like me like that, or like guys for that matter. I’m just getting too into my head.”
“Eli.”
“And I know I’m being annoying about it, but I’ve never made out with a straight guy this much in my life, and I had several of them try to experiment with me in college.”
“There’s some new information in that sentence,” Adam mused, but I continued.
“So I guess I came in here to say I’m sorry,” I finished in a huff.
“Sorry for what?”
I gawked at him for a moment. I’d done something that I needed to apologize for, hadn’t I? That’s why I was feeling so crummy, right?
“I don’t know!” I exclaimed. “For bringing you out here. For getting confused about my feelings. For making out with you multiple times.”
“You literally have nothing to apologize for,” Adam said. He was calm, despite my increasingly frantic demeanor.
“None of that bothers you?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
He gave me a look that said come on, you idiot.
I blinked. “Are - are you into guys at all, Adam?” I asked.
A typical Adam smirk flitted across his lips. “Took you long enough to ask,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to do something crazy for you to get it.”
He leaned in close to me, I could feel the heat radiating off his body.
“But Sabrina,” I protested like an idiot. “I thought you really liked her.”
“I loved her, that’s true,” Adam said. “But I’ve always liked women and men. And Eli?”
“Yeah?”
“I really like you.”
Electricity shot through my body and my heart forgot how to beat properly, doing a weird spasm thing in my chest.
“Oh.”
Adam was about to kiss me, our first genuine kiss alone, away from the prying eyes of people. And just as I was about to close my own eyes and lean into it and cave to the feelings I’d been fighting for days, and let’s be honest, months now, I heard someone clear their throat pointedly behind me.
I glanced back and then jumped to my feet at the sight of my mom standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
“Eli, will you come talk to me in the hallway?” It wasn’t a question.
I wanted to scream. Instead, I shot Adam an apologetic look and sulked after her. Once in the hallway she rounded on me with an anger that I hadn’t seen from her since my teenage years.
“I don’t appreciate how you’ve been acting since you’ve been back,” her voice shook with anger. “You’ve disrespected us in our house on multiple occasions.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You kissed him in front of the entire family. He talked back to us when we tried to address it,” she listed on her fingers. “Now you’re sneaking into his room at night, even though we specifically told you to sleep in separate rooms. I don’t know what to do with you, Eli!”
“Mom, literally nothing has happened between us. We were just talking.”
“That didn’t look like ‘just talking’ Eli,” Mom said. “I thought we laid out some very fair ground rules, but you can’t even respect us enough to honor those.”
My anger caught in my throat. And then I exploded. “I didn’t even want to come back here!”
“Don’t you raise your voice at me!” Mom said, matching my tone. “I’m still your mother!”
I opened my mouth to tell her how sick I was of being treated like a criminal for my sexuality. But I instantly snapped it closed again. She’d never see it from my perspective, she’d only see me as the rebellious child and never the hurting son.
She took my silence as conceding to her point. “If I catch you in that room alone with him again, you can’t stay here anymore.”
“Would you say the same thing to Dani if she had just been sitting next to a boy in there?” I asked darkly.
I didn’t see it coming, and I’m not sure what I could’ve done to stop it if I had. Mom’s hand smacked me upside my head. It didn’t really hurt, not physically anyway, but I backed down.
“Don’t you dare,” Mom said, pointing her finger at my face. She enunciated every syllable of every word she spoke next. “I am not the villain you make me out to be.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she stormed off, leaving me standing in the hallway, feeling hurt and humiliated. Like she’d just taken an icy blade and plunged it deep into my chest. Our fight had knocked out all the wind from me.
I choked back a sob at what had just happened and slid down the wall to the floor. I ran my hands through my hair, tempted to pull it out. I couldn’t remember the last time that we’d argued like that, but now that we had, I realized that it was likely another subconscious reason I’d been so resistant to coming home.
Adam’s footsteps approached me, but stopped just short of the other side of the door.
“You okay?” His voice came, softly, through the wood.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He hesitated, but eventually I heard his footsteps leave and he crawled into bed.
I don’t know how long it was before I finally found my way to my own room. My last conscious thought was that I should be overwhelmed with happiness that Adam had confessed to feelings for me. I should be going to sleep with a smile on my face from our kiss that should’ve happened in that room.
Instead, I had an aching in my chest and a warm mark on my face. Both caused by my mother.