“So are you okay?” Skylar asked, clearly changing the subject. “From that party, I mean.” Skylar laughed. “I got an absolute earful from Charlie about drinking. Well, not earful, since he doesn't talk, but he was signing very emphatically at me until he finally got overwhelmed and barely even looked at me the rest of the day.”
“Shit. I'm sorry.”
“It's okay. He's kind of a health nut. And I have to admit, I feel a lot better when I eat the way he does. But sometimes youjust want something that's really bad for you, right? Like a big bowl of ice cream. Or a stiff fucking drink.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Adam muttered, mostly to himself, as he pictured the bottle still resting on the counter in the kitchen.
“So who was that guy who hauled you out of there?”
“You mean John?”
Skylar gasped.“Hold up. That was John? Your John? Holy shit! Dude. Tell me everything! And I mean everything. I want to know it all, from how you met until now. Wait. Hang on. I'm putting you on speaker so I can listen while I do my makeup.”
Adam laughed. Eight years ago, when he'd been staying with Skylar for those two weeks the band had been in San Francisco, Adam had been too raw to even mention John. But ever since he and John had gotten together over Christmas, Adam had mentioned John in passing through the text messages he and Skylar had swapped while they'd been playing phone tag, but they'd never had time to really sit and talk at length about him.
So Adam flopped back on the couch and told Skylar the whole story.
He talked about growing up next door to John for his entire life, but never thinking much of him since John was ten years older. Until John came home from college, of course. That was when Adam hit puberty and began to realize that the quiet, serious, carefully controlled man next door made him feel all tingly inside.
Skylar cackled at that.
Adam laughed along with him, then continued on. He told Skylar about John losing both of his parents within a week of one another, and how John stayed in his childhood home so he could clear it out, fix it up, and get it ready to sell, though he'd dragged his feet on that last part. Throughout that whole time, Adam and John discovered a shared love of music and wound up spendingmost weekends sitting in John's living room, John playing his guitar while Adam sang.
“It was just…perfect,” Adam said. “You know? I mean, except for the whole thing with me still being a girl and John never seeing me as anything other than a kid who could sing really well.”
“Something must have changed, though, right?”
“Yeah. I came out to him.” Adam breathed a laugh. “Shit. I didn't really see it at the time, but he said my coming out changed everything for him. I was so nervous to tell him,” he went on, his heart slamming against his ribs in response to the memory, “but then he took me to his bathroom and gave me my first haircut.”
“Okay, that's adorable.”
Adam grinned, squeezing his legs together. He started to rest his free hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat, then quickly snatched his hand away, not wanting to feel the sports bra there, let alone what lay beneath it. Adam shoved the hand under his head instead and stared up at the ceiling. “It was amazing. Especially because Dad said I'd have to wait until I was eighteen to start medically transitioning, but having my hair gone?”
“Dude. Preaching to the choir here,” Skylar said with a laugh. “About a week after my folks kicked me out, I blew a barber in exchange for a haircut, and pretty much told him to buzz it all off. It was an awful look for me—hell, you saw it—but it meant I could just about pass for a boy. So freeing.” Skylar let out a sigh. “Sorry. You were saying.”
Adam winced at the images Skylar had put in his head. He hated that his friend had suffered like that but he felt powerless to do anything about it. Adam twisted around, craning his neck to look towards the kitchen, but he couldn't see it past the back of the couch.
Still, he felt that damned whiskey bottle calling his name.
“Adam?”
“Sorry!” Adam gasped. He slammed himself back down on the couch and stared resolutely up at the ceiling. “What was I talking about?”
“John giving you a haircut. Damn, that's so sweet.”
“Right?” Adam replied. “He started calling meAdamalmost right away, too,” he went on, feeling a grin take over his face. “And it felt so fucking good, you know? Except it also made everything so much harder because I kept wanting him more and more but he never said or did anything that made me think he might want me, too.” Adam felt his cheeks warm as he continued. “So I finally just snuck into his bed.”
Skylar gasped, and something clattered in the background. “Oh shit.” Adam listened as Skylar grunted and moved stuff around, then came back, demanding, “You did what?”
Adam laughed. “Okay, so, John would occasionally go out at night and come back with a random hookup. Except he always forgot to close the curtains on his bedroom window. It didn't face the street, but it did face our house, and if I wedged myself up against my bathroom window just right, I could see his bed.”
“Kinky. Go on. Please tell me you saw him in action.”
“Oh, I did,” Adam said. He had to squeeze his legs together again, remembering that first sight of John's naked backside as the man knelt on his bed, brutally fucking a man on all fours in front of him. The way the two were positioned, Adam hadn't been able to see much of the other guy, but he'd seen plenty of John, the man's naked ass flexing as he thrust over and over. “And I was so fucking jealous…”
“But also completely turned on?” Skylar guessed.
“Oh yeah. Every time I saw a strange car in his driveway, I'd run up to my bathroom to see if anything was happening.” Adam paused. “But then, one night, I got an idea for a song, and I ran over to John's house without checking the driveway first.”
