Kenny paid for the motel. Brendan offered, but Kenny said it would make more sense for him. He didn’t point out that no other people would look at his credit card statements and wonder where he had been. He didn’t point out that even though Sheridan had said it was alright, how could it be? Really? They took the key to the room, and Kenny led Brendan upstairs.
“I’ll shower,” Brendan said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he said. “It’s been a whole day I mean.”
Kenny let him, and for some reason he didn’t ask Brendan to strip outside, and when Brendan undressed in the bathroom, and then he heard the water running, though Kenny was excited by it, he never once thought of going in after him. Brendan had been with Sheridan for half a decade. It had been that long since Kenny had seen him naked, and he trembled thinking about it. When Brendan came out, wrapped in a towel, Kenny went in. When he came out, he saw Brendan sitting on the bed, towel wrapped about his waist.
“You look just like a kid. You look just like you did when we were kids,” Kenny said.
He stood there and said, “I was about to think of a specific time… but I can’t think of it.”
Kenny lay on the bed, wrapped in his towel beside Brendan, wrapped in his, and they lay shoulder to shoulder.
“I did you so wrong,” Brendan said.
“What?” Kenny turned to him.
“From beginning to end I did you wrong. The way we began, how I went back to Dena—”
“Bren, not now.”
“Let me finish,” Brendan said gently.
“How I was always, always about me. How you came back from Indianapolis after college. For me.”
“You weren’t the only reason I came back.”
“But you did come back, and I never went anywhere for you. You came to be my support in Chicago. It was Fenn and Dylan who had to bring you back here where you belonged.”
“Where I cheated with Chad. If you want to be specific.”
“But you didn’t cheat with Chad. If we’re being specific. I was so caught in myself.”
“Brendan, why are you—?”
Brendan turned to him.
“Because I’ve always been caught in myself. I have tried to be the good guy.”
“Bren, you are the good guy.”
“No,” Bren cut that off. “That’s who I want to be. I want to think of myself as good Bren who is going to have this one sin, going to bed with you. But that’s not true. I’m not good Bren. I am Bren who has done a lot of selfish things to the people I loved and been so fucking confused in my feelings.”
“Are you saying you’re confused about me? About wanting me?”
Brendan didn’t answer at first. He furrowed his brow.
“I am unconfused,” he said. “For one of the first times in my life I am unconfused about you. About loving you. About how much I missed you. Oh, shit.”
Brendan said “Oh, shit,” because tears had come to his eyes.
“You were my best friend. Sheridan has his best friends. His ex lover best friends. He’s got Chay and Logan, sees them all the time. And… Fenn is Tom’s best friend. You can see that. You can see how much they still love each other. It’s… It’s different types of loves. It’s the type of love you can have for the best friend who shared your life, and your bed, and I missed you, Ken. I missed you.”
Kenny lay on the bed, watching Brendan, and he nodded.
“I missed you too, Brendan.”
“I need you in my life,” Brendan said. “I don’t need a one night stand in a motel, I need you back in my life. I need to love you again and… I need to be committed to Sheridan. Because… we are committed.”
They were both quiet, and then Brendan said, “I love him because I committed to him, because I became a grown up with him, Ken. Not because I love him more than you. Does that make any sense? I married him, and put a ring on his finger and chose to bring up a child with him.”
“Duty,” Kenny said.
“Huh?”
“Sometimes it is about duty,” Kenny said, sitting up. “Love… without duty is bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Brendan said
“Stay with me tonight,” Kenny said. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Brendan told him.
They lay together, Brendan holding him.
“Kenny?” Brendan began.
But Kenny was snoring, and a few moments later, Brendan had fallen asleep too.
In the her first two years of college, Layla Lawden had done an admirable job of not seeing Will Klasko, but sophomore year Brendan said that enough was enough and they were all going to lunch together.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Layla disagreed.
“Are you still angry?”
“No, I’m not angry,” Layla almost snapped. It was a little while before she admitted, “The truth is I’m afraid. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, and that was in high school and I’m not even sure what he looks like or… anything. It would just be better for him to be in the past.”
It wasn’t really possible for him to be in the past forever though. Brendan was very much a part of her present, and he had adopted Sheridan, Will’s younger brother. What was more, Sheridan was friends with Dena’s stepsister and with Noah’s son, and the boy was over at Fenn’s house, playing with Dylan all the time. It was almost impossible not to see Will, sort of amazing she had gone so long without doing so.
She was dating Tony Matthews, her first Black boyfriend, and she was proud of that. All was as it should be. He had a great physique and everything. She told him Brendan was having her meet Will.
“You don’t still feel something for him, do you?”
“I don’t even know what he looks like,” she said.
“Well, then don’t worry about it.”
The main appeal of Will was everyone loved him. Milo still vaguely resented Brendan for cheating on Dena, but everyone in their circle agreed that Will was the most stand up guy in the world. Layla arrived at lunch late, and was coming to the table where she saw her friends. She bumped into a hot young thing coming out of the bathroom and wondered if she’d ever get over her craving for white boys.
“Sorry about that,” she said, picturing him with an electric guitar, or perhaps an acoustic one, making sensitive songs for his live in girlfriend. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Layla,” he placed his hand on hers.
“What?” she began.
“Layla,” he said, reproachfully.
She blinked at him.
“Will?”
“I grew a beard,” he explained.
“Sure,” she said, because he had done more than that.”
“You ready to eat?” he asked her, looking amused.
“Uh… yeah.”
I grew a beard was the understatement of the year. Will had grown a personality, which was not fair to say, she knew that. But there was a fluidity to his movements, an ease to his laughter that had not been there. And the hair which threatened to be untidy had grown into shoulder length curls. Her Will had the baby fat around the face, but this Will had grown into himself, six feet easily, lanky. She wanted to run her hand over the dark scruff on his face.
“So Aidan’s gone?”
“He’s still around,” Layla said. “We’re just not together anymore.”
“What happened?”
“How curious you are!”
“Just asking.”
“Nothing really happened,” she shrugged. “We had some good times.”
“I broke up with Annalise.”
“Yes, I know that,” Layla said. “I mean Aidan told me. Who are you seeing now?”
“No one really.”
“It doesn’t really matter.”
“Who are you seeing now?” Will asked.
“Well, now, it’s just like I said,” Layla said, “It really doesn’t matter.”
“If it doesn’t matter,” Will decided, kicking the small pile of leaves they were walking past, “then it must not be that great.”
This caught Layla up short. She did not answer right away, and then she said, “What I meant was it isn’t the most important thing we can discuss.”
“I seem to remember that when I said we should go to different schools and not make our relationship the most important thing that was why you split up with me.”
“Maybe I was really stupid. Cause I was seventeen.”
“Maybe you weren’t stupid at all, and you knew just what you were talking about, and so whoever this guy is, you’re selling yourself short if you’re not wildly, crazily in love with him.”
“That is… but you always were a romantic.”
“Of course I am, m’lady.”
“Well,” Layla said, turning her head, “I like him well enough. Romance can’t be everyday.”
“It can’t?”
“Will, you were the one who said—”
“What I said. Yes, I know,” Will said.
The carillon was ringing and Layla said, “We don’t get the same holidays you do at your fancy public school. I’ve got American Lit.”
Will started to reach for her hand, but pulled his away.
“Can I see you before I go?”
Her face changed. “Of course you can, Will. You can see me anytime. We’re friends.”
“Well… I’m leaving tomorrow. But could you come to dinner tonight? With all of us?”
Layla was about to say of course she could and why would Will think differently, but for two years she had avoided him. So she only said, “Yes.”
