Page 31 of These Secret Years

“But you don’t want to.”

“I never said that.”

He looks at the half stuffed backpack and the closed oboe case. “Just the vibe I’m getting, I guess.”

“That’s me,” I tell him. “Not you.”

It’s obvious Knight is a genuinely good person, and one who’s been in hiding for most of his life even while living very publicly. Solely based on his manners, I’d bet he’s got good parents who love him a lot and pay him a ton of attention. I’d also bet his sexuality is the primary struggle of his life but that everything else is going fairly well.

So, like I said—nothing in common.

“Do you want to hang out?” he asks.

“Now? Or like in a few days?”

“I have food. Drinks. Cards.”

Those things don’t sound bad. Cards are generally non-threatening. And I do like to drink. I gesture at my things. “I have noise I could make.”

“I need to mop, though.”

“Did you want me to help?”

He shakes his head. “Make some noise, and I’ll take care of the floors.”

“It’s gonna be dark soon.”

Knight lifts his gaze to the light fixture above our heads. “I brought lightbulbs, too.”

“This place has power?”

“Power, water. It looks like shit, but it works.”

“Huh. In that case, I’m gonna take a piss.”

Chapter Eight

KNIGHT

The on again, off again boner I’ve had since I walked in on Sullivan playing the oboe stirs immediately to life when he starts playing the cello. He’s still in the bedroom where I left him when I came out here to start mopping.

Desperate for a visual memory of this, I leave the kitchen to mop the hallway. It’s hard not to linger in the doorway when I see him in the dining room chair with a chestnut colored cello between his long, spread legs. He’s in profile, his hair hiding his face as he bends over the large instrument. His elegant fingers vibrate on the strings as the bow coaxes out a melancholy tune.

It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen next to that one time his lips were wrapped around my dick.

It was hard not to notice the changes in his body over the last two semesters. He went from what I’d have called an average, lean build to thin and lithe. Both looks suit him fine, but there’s something about this slightly unhealthy looking, randomly tattooed and pierced version that stirs something deep in me, beyond my groin. I recognize the feeling in my chest as yearning. He’s just as impossible to talk to as he was when I met him, but I feel almost crazed with determination to get him to open up.

The music he plays might be a window to understanding him. Maybe a boarded up window, but still a way inside if I could only figure out how to use it.

I’ve never had much interest in music other than what constitutes a good beat to dance to, or which particular songs get me the most fired up to play ball or push harder in a workout. But I want to know what it means to him. Is it technical? Emotional? Casual?

To my amateur ears, he sounds like I think a professional musician should sound, but I really wouldn’t know, so I hesitate to compliment him on his playing.

His head turns, and he notices me creeping on him. His bow comes to a stop, and the house goes quiet.

“Um. I need to get this room, too,” I say.

“Let me get my stuff out of it.”