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I survive the shower, despite the enticement of Avery’s naked, slick body. Truly, I deserve some sort of award for that. I can already tell the image of them in the shower is going to flood my mind the second I’m home and by myself. But at least it’s safer that way.
“You really have to go?” Avery pouts when we stand dressed at their front door. They turn pouting into an art form. It shouldn’t look so damn beautiful.
“I really have to go,” I say, softening my words with a kiss. I cup their face in my hands, thumbs stroking when I ease off their lips.
“Fine,” they say. “But we can do this again?”
I nod. “It seems like it’s going to keep happening regardless. We might as well be smart and intentional about it. It’s safer that way.”
“Safer. Yeah.” They don’t sound like they care about safety.
“It’s just for the rest of the semester,” I say. “When I’m not your TA, well, it’s still not exactly great, but it’s a lot better than if someone found out now.”
“I know, I know,” they say. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. I just…” They bite their bottom lip, and God help me, I almost break.
I kiss them to keep myself from doing anything worse.
“It is not fair that you are both the most beautiful and most handsome person I’ve ever met,” I say. “If I look at you for even one more second I’m not going to make it out of that door.”
They laugh in delight, a sound I tuck away behind my heart for when I exit this house and go back to being their TA.
“In that case,” they say, “I think I have this spot on my face. I need you to lookveryclosely for averylong time.”
They point at a random spot on their cheek. I kiss it playfully. I could so easily go on teasing and playing with them this way, but I slip from their hold before I can get carried away, summoning the final dregs of my self-control to put on my coat and set my hand on the doorknob.
“I’ll see you soon, Avery,” I say, more promise than farewell.
“Text me,” they say. “I like hearing from you.”
I promise to keep in touch, then finally get myself out the door. It isn’t easy. Again, I presume that award I’m in line for is coming in the mail any day now. Stronger men than me would crumble at the thought of leaving Avery there wanting them.
I’m less paranoid as I walk toward home this time. It’sonly a mile away, and I’ve gotten to know the town a bit better, so I can appreciate the big old oaks and cute storefronts along Main Street. The changing leaves throw splotches of garish color onto every roadway and sidewalk, a burning quilt defying October’s gray skies. It even smells different from home, more wild, more full ofstuff, more perfumed in a way. It’s probably that my nose isn’t as accustomed to the things that grow here compared to home, but I like that I can smell this place, that its newness has remained tangible in that way.
And that is when I realize I’m not as homesick as I ought to be. I’m barely homesick at all. I’m enjoying my walk through town, the strangeness, the differences. It’s not that I never want to go home. That bar of fudge sits on my counter, barely eaten, like once it’s gone I’ll lose my tether. Yet … this is nice too. Montridge, the university, the trees and leaves and drag shows and all of that.
I’m so caught up in contemplating my sudden comfort with this place that I don’t notice the people waiting outside my apartment until I’m climbing the stairs to the second story. Then I stop dead in my tracks, blinking at both of my parents standing outside my apartment door.
“There you are,” Mom says. “We thought you’d be home first thing in the morning.”
I feel my eyes widen. “You’re here,” I say stupidly.
“We wanted to surprise you,” Dad says. “Sorry, we didn’t know you might be…”
He waves vaguely to encompass the obvious truth that their son did not sleep in his own bed last night and that none of us want to discuss that in more detail than a hand wave. I certainly am not about to tell them anything about what I did last night, or who I did it with.
Instead, I launch myself at them, every ounce of homesickness bursting out of me all at once as my parents catch me in a hug. I might be twenty-six, but this is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing them and my heart is damn near ready to explode. We launch into Spanish without even noticing the switch.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“We wanted to see your big fancy job in the big fancy city,” Mom says. “And after I talked to you on the phone I couldn’t wait any longer.”
My job. Right. The one where I’m a TA fucking one of his students. That job.
My head reels. The world wavers around me. Joy and terror make for a potent mix, a mix that attempts to knock me off my feet. I keep nothing from my parents, but I absolutely, positively can’t tell them about this. I’m their baby boy. I won’t disappoint them that way.
“Come on,” Dad says. “Show us everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
