Jack
I was lying on my futon/couch, every inch of my body aching after one of the more notable days in my recent history. Today had been an LGBT support group meeting. We had moved across campus a few weeks ago to lose the hecklers, but when we let out today we were greeted by something worse - some wanna-be paparazzo, no doubt thinking he could make a few bucks outing the children of the rich and famous. I had blindly chased him into the street, where, not surprisingly, I had been flattened by the front bumper of a Chevy S10 pickup. I was banged up pretty good, but nothing broken. Still, not exactly my finest hour. Sadly enough, it was a distant second on the list of stupid situations I had gotten myself into in the last few weeks.
It had only been a couple days since I had started talking to Vince again, thus escalating situation number one to an entirely new level of stupid. Whatever my heart told me, Vince was simply not an option. I should have walked away, but the truth was I couldn't stand seeing his silent suffering. I might have been pissed at Vince for expecting me to be able to just forget how I felt and be friends again, but then again the poor guy was so fucked up in the personal relationships department that I was positive he didn't really understand what he was asking of me. Besides, I was the only person who knew his secret, the only person he could talk to. My brother was right - I was a soft touch.
But what really worried me, the reason I needed some more time to sort myself out, the reason I wasn't sure any amount of time would be enough, was that I wasn't at all sure I wouldn't be able to keep my hands off him if given half a chance.
But, unlucky for me, I wasn't going to get the chance to sort it out before things came to a head.
That's where I was when I was jolted out of a semi-lucid haze by someone pounding on my door. I didn't notice it right away because it had blended in with the sound of sleet now pelting the window as the first winter storm of the year rolled in. Reflexively I tried to get up, and immediately regretted it.
"It's open," I called, easing back with my eyes squeezed closed.
I heard someone enter. I was expecting my landlord. When I was low on cash he would give me leftovers from his restaurant in exchange for doing some maintenance work. Of course the food would have gone in the trash anyway, but I didn't push it because this was the only building I could afford within five miles of campus that wasn't full of drug dealers and hookers.
"I guess it's true then." I was startled by Vince's voice.
I stared blearily at him for a moment, half-thinking this was some perverse trick of my mind. This was not a temptation I was in any state to handle right now. That's when I realized what was wrong with this picture.
"How'd you get here?" Duh. I corrected, "It's a blizzard out there, what are you doing driving?"
"Checking on you, obviously. I heard you got hit by a car."
Fantastic. Apparently the fact that I was dumb enough to step into moving traffic had become common knowledge. "Yeah. Not to sound ungrateful, but why didn't you just call? It was dangerous coming over here."
"I tried, it went straight to voicemail."
I pointed to my coat, which I had left lying in a dirty torn up heap on the floor by the door. Vince retrieved my cell phone from the pocket. Or, rather, the pieces of my cell phone. This day just kept getting better and better.
Vince handed it to me. "Are you okay?"
"I think I'll survive."
"That's not what I asked." He looked me up and down with a frown.
I slowly hauled myself into a sitting position to survey the damage to my phone. "I don't need a doctor, if that's what you mean. How'd you find out anyway?"
"Jamie called me." Jamie was a mutual acquaintance of ours (probably the only mutual acquaintance given our vastly different circles), a Log Cabin Republican active in campus politics and also one of the other mentors in the LGBT group.
Turning my attention to my phone I found that the screen was badly cracked and the back panel was in two pieces, but body damage seemed to be the extent of it. "It actually isn't as bad as it looks." I thought aloud.
"Well, that's good, because you look like shit."
"Not me, the phone. Thanks though." I hadn't looked in the mirror yet, but took his word for it.
"How did you get hit by a car anyway?"
I told Vince what had happened while I fixed my phone.
"So," he asked when I had finished, "did the guy get away?"
"Nah. He freaked out and dropped his camera in the road. It got pulverized." It had been an expensive one too, I thought with some satisfaction.
"That's lucky."
"Yeah, well, some of the damage was already done. A few of the kids got scared off, probably for good. It's a real shame too because those were the ones who needed the group."
After some tinkering I managed to fit the battery back into place. I pressed the power button and the screen flickered to life, distorted but readable. The first thing I noticed was that there were eleven missed calls and five voicemail messages, all from Vince. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"What?" he shrugged. "I told you I tried to call you."
"Yes you did."
"I was worried."
"Obviously."
He indicated my phone. "You can probably delete those."
This could be interesting. I pretended to delete them.
"As long as I'm here, you could probably use some help."
As long as he's here. Which, judging by the weather, is going to be a while. I wasn't sure I was up to this, but then again it's not like I had a choice.
I let Vince pull me to the bathroom and then help me wrestle my shirt over my head. He looked me up and down and gave a low whistle.
"It's just scrapes and bruises," I pointed out. "Weren't you ever a kid?"
"Your childhood must have been a little more intense than mine."
"Are you kidding?" I joked. "You were the one living on the edge. Polo horses, yachting, skiing in Aspen..."
Driving around in a blizzard because I didn't pick up the phone.
"It's a wonder you made it out in one piece."
"Born to be wild, that's me," he snorted. "Do you have any first aid stuff?"
"There's peroxide and some washcloths under the sink."
The worst of it was on my left side, where I had hit the concrete after being thrown from the truck's hood when the driver slammed on the breaks. Vince started at my shoulder, the sting of the peroxide doing very little to distract me from the fact that his other hand was resting unnecessarily on my chest. I shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the pain. I wiggled away, trying to disguise it as a flinch. "Sorry," he murmured, but didn't move his hand.
"Would you believe this isn't the first time I was hit by a car?"
He shook his head. "No kidding. And I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius."
"Yeah right."
"Who were you chasing that time?"
"Well, when I was about fourteen two of our neighbor's sons, Larry and Darryl..."
Vince spurted out laughing and waved me away.
"I shit you not. Larry and Darryl. Real good ol' boy types, too. Always had it in for us. So they sneak onto our wood lot at three in the morning, tear down a wall of the henhouse and steal one of the best laying hens and the rooster. Now this isn't fucking around, not to us, we depended on those birds. So me and Alan take off after them, middle of November, fifteen degrees out in nothing but long johns. We catch them just as they get back to their truck. Alan goes for the door and I get in front of the hood to stop them."
"It didn't stop them."
I shook my head. "Didn't get far though. With the chickens flapping around in the cab of the truck, the dumb sonsabitches drive off the road and hit a tree." I couldn't help but laugh at the memory. "When they tried to make a run for it Alan caught them and kicked the holy shit out of them." I was rambling and I knew it, but I desperately needed the distraction because Vince was so close to my face that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
"Were you hurt bad?"
"No bones were sticking out. But Alan kept me up all night in case I had a concussion."
"Did you?" He had moved to a cut on my scalp above my left temple, I think from where I hit the windshield. He couldn't have been more than six inches from my face, clearly too absorbed with what he was doing to realize how he was affecting me.
"Did I what?" I asked dumbly.
"Have a concussion."
"Probably."
"Do you have one now?" he asked, misinterpreting my mental slowness.
I had to think for a few seconds before I said no. Although it would explain the dulling throb in my head. And also why I told him that dumbass chicken story. That's when I noticed he was smiling. Was he making fun of me?
"What? Think I'm a redneck now?"
"No." He pulled back a little with a mischevious grin. "I already thought that. I like your accent though. I thought you were joking the other day with that overdone Bar Harbor thing. But you do have it a little. When you were arguing with Professor Frank a couple weeks ago about the health care law you kept calling Boston 'Ba-stin'."
"So, Yankee redneck."
He grinned. "That's good. Much better than the people I'm used to. I swear to God our next door neighbor growing up sounded like Thurston Howell III." He then launched into possibly the worst voice impression I had ever heard in my life.
"Ow," I grabbed my side, "Stop making me laugh."
He put his hand on my arm to steady me, and in the space of one disarmed moment his proximity went from uncomfortable to intolerable. I only prayed he thought the choppy breathing was from the pain. When I felt his warm breath on my exposed skin I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my grip on the edge of the tub, taking a couple deep breaths. But when I opened my eyes Vince was watching in concern.
"Jack, are you..."
But just then my phone trilled, and I took the opportunity to jump up and put some space between me and Vince. I checked caller ID then hit answer.
"Hey Julian."
"Hey! Jeez, am I glad to hear you."
"What's up?"
"Okay this may sound crazy, but I heard that you got hit by a car." I mouthed a curse. Was
everyone
going to find out about this?
