I'm going to slow down here; I need to. Because I've been telling this at the pace it happened, which was fast, a whole season compressed into weeks compressed into one hotel room with the door closed, and now I need to get it right. Or as right as I can, ten years later, with the details worn smooth from replaying them.
Liam took off his shoes. Leaned down, pulled them off, and set them by the bed. (See? Commas help slow the pace.) Sneakers that were still damp from the pool deck – why he had been wearing them? I don't know. He looked at them for a second. Then he looked at me. Like, when he was pulling me or holding me at the water, the wet shoes now reminded him of me, and us touching.
I was standing by the door. Just mere feet away. There was one bed, no excuse. The team was gone, and the hallway was getting quieter as they left.
It was just us.
We'd chosen it.
He turned on the TV. Some channel. Then muted it. The screen flickered blue and the light moved across his face and the silence had the TV in it now, which made it less heavy. A visual distraction in case it was needed. For ... whatever reason.
"Kai," he said.
"Yeah." I think my voice choked. Maybe it just did in my head, or in my memory.
"I don't ..." He stopped. Started again.
"I've been trying not to ..." Stopped again. Ran his hand through his smooth hair.
His hand stayed on the back of his neck, like he was holding himself together from behind, and all I could hear was my heart ind my blood and my ears were aching for anything else that emitted from his soft lips.
"Whatever," he said. "I don't know what this is."
My heart sank.
And I recognized what he said. Not the words: The shape.
The way he couldn't finish a sentence. I recognized it because I'd been doing the same thing all season, just in my own neurotic way. Filing, labeling, covering, calling things by the wrong name because the right name was too heavy.
"Yeah," I said. "Me either." I was a shitty liar. I knew exactly what this was because I'd been cataloging it forever, trying to rationalize it away and failing utterly.
He was looking at his hands. The hands that had been on my shoulder, my hip, my ankle, my inner thigh, and my back in the water. They were in his lap, folded, knuckles white. His lap ...
"Come here?" It was a question, and for one of the first times I'd known him, his voice quivered. The captain wasn't in control of himself because he couldn't be. If he was in control, maybe he wouldn't do what needed to be said, or say what needed to be done. Because everything was mixed up.
I don't remember crossing to the bed. I remember being by the door, and then I remember being on the bed next to him, touching. The part in between is just gone, in a moment. My body made the decision before my brain caught up.
Same position as Jessup's room the night before except no team, no Reeves, no joke. Just us. Just the muted TV making the room blue. Standby. Like we had been. Like I was now: On standby, waiting for him.
Liam turned toward me. His knee pressed into my thigh. He was close. Closer than the truck. Closer than the pool. Closer than the shaving. Because this time I knew that it wasn't just physical.
He put his hand on my face.
I forced my eyes to stay open.
His palm on my jaw. His fingers along my cheek. His thumb near my ear. The hand that had been on my shoulder in chapter one and on my hip during exchange practice and on every part of me that the sport allowed. The hand that helped spot me when he wore no underwear.
Now the hand was on my face, and there was no sport. No relay. No coaching. Just his hand on my face because he wanted it there.
And I thought: So this is what all of that was.
Every shoulder touch. Every car ride. Every text at 11 PM. Every Thursday after practice. Every time he said my name when he didn't need to. Every time he stood too close. Every time he didn't move. All of it, the whole season, it was this. His hand on my face in a hotel room. It was always going to be this.
He leaned in. I leaned in. I don't know who closed the last breath, and it doesn't matter.
His mouth. I'm not going to describe it the way I'd describe a race. Not going to time it or split it. I'm going to tell you it was warm and soft. His hand was on my face and my hand was on his chest and I could feel his heart under my palm: fast, faster than it should've been for someone sitting still. And I was shaking, shivering in the heat. My hands were shaking, my breath was shaking, and I was kissing a guy for the first time in my life, and it was Liam, and it was terrifying and it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. And I let my eyes close for it. For the eternity and the infinity that it lasted, I wanted no sensation other than his touch.
When it ended – because all good things do – I didn't open my eyes. I kept them closed. Felt his forehead against mine. His breath on my mouth. His own shaking vibrating through me.
That was a moment. It was a good one – amazing one. Life is made of moments. And I was fortunate: That night, there were many, many moments. Shimmering, lovely, and happy.
We didn't do everything. I want to be clear about that: Not that night. Not yet. What we did was stay close. We kissed more. I knew his body with my eyes, and I learned parts of his body with my fingertips. And my tongue. He did the same.
I know what you're probably thinking: We fucked like bunnies.
We didn't.
Seriously.
I will say that we released tension that had been building the entire time, and it was so much better than being alone. So much better while kissing a guy. So much better when touching and being close.
At some point we lay down, side by side, facing each other, a wad of tissues on the floor, his arm over my waist, my hand on his arm. We existed together. That's the only word. The chase of the orgasm wasn't what this was about. Or it was, maybe a little, but there was something bigger happening and we both knew it.
He was warm. I'd known that all season, through water and pool decks and car seats. But this was different. His warmth without anything between us. His skin and mine and the sheet and the blue TV light and his breathing and mine.
We didn't talk much. At one point he said my name, quiet, close. And I said "yeah," and he said "nothing, just ..." and didn't finish. I didn't need him to.
I don't know how long. I wasn't counting anymore.
Then, his one finger twirling my black hair, propped up on one arm and looking into my eyes, his other hand just resting on my chest: "The team's gonna be back soon."
Practical. Logistics. A senior making a reasonable observation about time. And also: we have to stop. This can't be visible. Tomorrow we drive home. He's graduating, I'm a junior, and whatever this is doesn't have a container yet and we can't build one tonight.
I sat up. He sat up. I moved to the edge of the bed; I didn't want to. The distance came back. I hated every inch of it.
"So," I said. And I laughed. Half real, half the cover story reassembling. "That happened."
Liam laughed. The quiet one. Breath through his nose, corner of his mouth. The one that belonged to moments beyond filing.
"Yeah. That happened."
As Cinderella's Prince claims: "Any moment – big or small – is a moment, after all." And fuck ... "Seize the moment, skies may fall any moment."
And we had. And now, that moment was over. Because it had to be.
I turned the TV volume on. We sat on the bed and didn't talk about what we'd done. We ddin't look at each other and I felt every atom of space between us.
The team came back around eleven. Loud in the hallway. Jessup opened the door without knocking. "You missed the pizza. It was garbage."
I had just flushed the tissues and was coming out of the bathroom.
"We ordered room service," Liam said.
A lie. We hadn't ordered anything. We'd been lying on a bed with our foreheads together and his hand on my face and now he was lying about room service to Jessup like it was nothing. And the lie was almost the most intimate thing he'd done all season. More than the hand on my face. More than the kiss. Because the kiss was for us. The lie was for everyone else. It meant he thought what happened was worth protecting.
"Smart," Jessup said. "Night, guys."
"Night." They left.
I turned off my lamp. Liam turned off his. Dark.
"Night, Kai."
"Night, Liam."
I didn't sleep for a long time. But for the first time all season, it wasn't because I was confused.
Morning. We didn't talk about it.
We packed our bags, went to breakfast with the team. Liam sat across from me, and said "pass the syrup," and I passed the syrup, and that was the most we acknowledged of Room 214. My fingers didn't even touch his, I pressed against the syrup on the table and just pushed it until he could reach.
The bus left at ten. Back seats. Same as always. Liam took the window, I took the aisle. Half the team was asleep before we hit the highway. Kessler was out cold two rows up, mouth open, which someone was definately going to post to the group chat.
We talked. About the meet. Our relay split. How Kessler had dropped a full second. We talked about swimming because swimming was the language we'd built everything on and we were good at it.
We did not talk about last night. The conversation moved around it the way water moves around something heavy at the bottom of a pool. You could see the current bending. But the thing itself stayed where it was.
At some point Liam said, "You're gonna have a good senior year."
"Maybe."
"Not 'maybe.' You dropped time at conference. If you train through summer you could go sub-forty-nine."
"It'll be weird without you."
The words came out before I could edit them. "Without you." Specific. Personal. The kind of thing I would have filed two days ago and I said it flat, looking out the window, because I was tired of editing. Not brave. Just tired, and everyone nearby wasn't listening or were asleep.
Liam was quiet. Then: "I'll come back for your meets."
"You don't have to."
"Someone's gotta make sure you don't false start at regionals."
I smiled. He wasn't looking at me. Same highway, same trees. But the words landed where he meant them: "I'll come back."
"You better."
Loaded words. The joke: yeah right, like you'll drive two hours for a high school meet. The plea: please come back, please don't let this end. And the honest thing, the thing I'd been building toward all season: you better, because whatever happened in that room isn't something I can go back from, and if you disappear into college and pretend this was a conference weekend thing I will lose my mind.
I said "you better" and it carried all of it and I don't know how much he heard.
He nodded. Still looking out the window.
The bus pulled into the school lot around noon. The team scattered. Parents' cars waiting. Season over.
Liam grabbed his bag. We were the last two off. He stopped in the parking lot. Turned to me.
"Good season. Kai."
The way he said my name. The way he'd said it all season. On the deck and in the truck and in the dark and on the mat and in the pool and in the hotel room with his hand on my face. I knew what it meant now. I knew what it had always meant. I'd always known what it always meant.
He put his hand on my shoulder. Same shoulder. Same hand. Same gesture from the pool deck the day I earned the anchor spot. I was just standing in a parking lot with Liam's hand on my shoulder and knowing exactly what it meant.
"See you around," he said.
"Yeah."
He walked to his truck. Opened the door, tossed his bag. Before he got in he looked back. Quick. Over his shoulder. It might have been nothing; a guy checking behind him before getting in his truck.
It wasn't nothing.
I got in my car. Same chlorine towel in the back. I put my hands on the steering wheel and sat there. The parking lot was almost empty. Liam's truck pulled out and turned left and the taillights got smaller and he was gone.
I sat there for a while. I didn't turn on the car. I just sat in it and felt the season settle. All of it. The tryouts and the Thursdays and the weight room and the shaving and the pool and the relay and the room. Heavy and warm in my chest. I didn't file any of it. I just let it be there.
So yeah. That's conference. That's what happened. Or some version of it; you know how memory works. And if you're thinking that's the end, it wasn't. Not even close. That was barely the beginning.
The summer after, Liam was home from college for three weeks. The pool was open late and there was no team and no coach and no relay and no excuse for any of it. But that's a different story. Or the next chapter of this one. I haven't decided yet.
But for now, that's the end of this story.
Names and places may be changed. I know that some of you would really have wanted more. This is my first multi-chapter story to completion, and I wanted to tell something personal. Sometimes real life high school isn't all barely-legal orgies and raunchy sex. Sometimes it's just about two guys trying to figure things out, making a connection, and realizing that they're accepted by the other person for who they are. Sometimes, "becoming a man" – the first time – really can be special. No leprechauns, no handcuffs, no orgy, no cheesy music ... just special. And that's erotic.
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