“Where’s your car?” Lance asked his father.
“I walked, but that reminds me of something,” the tall, grey haired man said, and then he stopped as a black Fusion careened down Versailles and squealed to a halt across the street, and then, with a lurch, wrapped itself around the cul de sac and lunged before the house, coming to a stop.
After a moment, Rob Affren jumped out, shouting, followed by a dizzy Milo and Dena and frankly irritated younger sisters.
“King of the Streets!” Rob called, and then, running up the driveway he hooted, “Ey, Lance!”
“Rob!” Lance said in a voice as shaky as anyone’s would be when a seventeen year old had nearly wrecked his family’s car before his eyes.
“Going away so soon? Ey, Mr. Bishop.”
“Eya, Rob. Lance isn’t going anywhere. He just got here.”
“I’m going to my folk’s house for a second. To see Austin. Wanna come along?”
“Yeah. Would you like me to drive?”
“No!” Peter shouted, clapping a hand over his mouth while Lance wrapped an arm about Rob and said, “Dad means is he prefers to drive.”
Cara was coming up the walk with a pie and she said, “What he really means is—”
“That’s enough, Lady,” Dena said, darkly, as she and Barbara followed.
At the house, Austin shouted, “Lance!”
“I would have left Rossford a thousand years ago if I knew it would make me this popular,” he declared as his brother wrestled him to the ground.
“So, Rob, did you drive?”
“Get off my chest!” Lance groaned, pushing his brother off, “And no he didn’t drive.”
“I drove to Uncle Todd’s, though,” Rob said. “I need a little bit of practice, though.”
“And by a little—” Cara began.
“Look,” Rob told her, “I know I’m not great, but—”
“I’m being a bitch? I know,” Cara said. “I can’t help it. Mom, Maggie, Maia, the women in our family—”
“All have names that start with M?” Austin said.
“Are bitches,” Cara concluded.
“Don’t forget Aunt Meredith,” Rob said.
“She actually fulfills both terms,” Cara said, “and don’t you dare repeat that.
“Grandma’s nice,” Rob said.
“But do you remember Great-Grandma Barb?” Cara reminded him.
“Anyway,” Austin said, “everyone in our family is nice.”
“A little too nice,” Cara noted.
Austin frowned at her through his glasses. “There was something I had to tell Lance.”
“Uh, okay.”
“I’ll be right with you,” Austin told Rob.
“You better say hey to your mother first,” Peter said, and as they all went toward the dining room, Rob said, “I think Austin would make a good boyfriend for you.”
“That’s funny,” Cara returned, “I was thinking he’d make a good boyfriend for you.”
“Sara Dickerson,” Austin said.
Lance frowned.
“Didn’t you used to go out with her? Didn’t things end bad with her?”
Lance nodded, still frowning. Austin was shorter than Lance. In fact, he didn’t look much like his brother at all, blond, pale, round faced, bespectacled.
“How does that work anyway? Are you bi? Were you bi? What is that all about?”
Lance merely raised an eyebrow and Austin shut up.
“Why did she call here?”
“She said she needed to talk to you. Give you something.”
“I think she gave me enough. I haven’t seen her in almost ten years. What could she possibly have to say to me?”
Austin said, “Why did you break up?”
“Because I’m gay, Stupid.”
“Oh,” Austin blinked. “Well, yeah.”
“And cause she was pregnant.”
“She was…”
“Was pregnant.”
Austin frowned, thinking, then said, “Oh… For real?”
“She didn’t want to have it.”
“And neither did you,” Austin said.
“I couldn’t have stopped it anyway.”
Austin said nothing, and made his face blank as possible.
“No one knows,” Lance said. “Just Elias.”
“What about Dylan?”
Lance shook his head.
“Well,” Austin was quiet for a moment. He looked thoughtful, a lot like Peter, Lance thought, “what are you going to do?”
“See her, I guess.”
“When?”
Lance assumed his little brother was getting at something and he said, “When do you think I should?”
“I think, Big Brother, there’s no time like the present.”
“It’s not a school night,” Peter Bishop said, “so it doesn’t really matter when you go to bed, but,” he placed his keys on an antique bureau, “Lance take the truck and put Elias’s bike in there when you drop him off. He can’t be riding around at midnight. Even in Rossford.”
Lance nodded and grinned sideways at Elias, his eyes lighting up.
“Joy ride,” he whispered behind the palm of his hand as they went up the steps.
Elias knew that he was in love with Lance then. He’d never understood that until now. And he knew he was in love with Dylan too. The only other guy the same age as himself that he was close to was his brother, so it had taken a while for him to understand how he felt around the two of them. But he couldn’t wait to ride around in a car with Lance, and he loved being up in his room, where he had never been.
“I… eh had a girlfriend.”
“Okay.”
“You probably think that’s dumb. Cause you know what you know.”
Elias shook his head. “I don’t judge.”
“I don’t really like to be single, and guys don’t take anything seriously.”
By this Elias assumed that Lance meant Dylan didn’t take their relationship seriously.
“Anyway,” Lance said, “I… she said she was pregnant.”
“What the fuck!” Elias spat out.
Without looking at him, Lance put a hand over Elias’s mouth.
“I haven’t told my folks.”
“How?” Elias said. “Who have you told?”
“I haven’t told anyone,” Lance said.
“How…?” Elias began again, and then said, “You can’t go through this by yourself. That’s crazy. What’s going on now? Is she pregnant?”
“It’s out of my hands.”
“Does she even have a name?”
“Sara Dickerson. And like I said, it’s out of my hands.”
“How?” Elias said. Then, “I’m just going to shut up now.”
“You don’t have to,” Lance said, looking at him, tired.
“She’s not having it,” Lance said, flatly. “She and one of her friends are going to take care of it. And then they’re going out of town for the summer.”
“Then… it still hasn’t happened.”
“It might as well have happened.”
Elias was about to say, “Well, then we can stop it,” or come up with some wild plan, when suddenly he looked at his friend and said, “You don’t want it, either, do you?”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to make the decision,” Lance said. “But… I don’t want a baby.”
Neither one of them spoke for a long time, and then Lance said, “Eli? Please don’t tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Sure, Lance,” Elias said.
“Do you think I’m some type of a monster?”
“No,” Elias said. “I… just think it’s all kind of sad.”
Because it was all kind of sad, Elias was content to be Lance’s friend, and as he drifted to Dylan, that relationship began. Elias never thought he was Dylan’s boyfriend at the time, and when they were finished having sex, Dylan never felt quite right about it. So in the end, Elias broke it off, and of course, he could not get Lance out of his head. Lance, tall and sad and smelling good. There was no uneasiness between them, and Elias began to spend his Friday nights there, doing his homework on the floor or in the beanbag in Lance’s room while Lance, coming home from the grocery store, sat on his bed grasshopper like, banging a notebook with his pencil and then finally blinking and looking at Elias.
“Get on the bed. It’s more comfortable.”
The first few times Elias protested, but Lance always unwrapped his long limbs and went to the floor or nearly bodily moved Elias from the beanbag and put him on the bed, and so Elias just stopped fighting it.
They slept in the same bed, back to back. Was it three weeks or was it four weeks? Elias knew it was winter, right after Christmas, when they just couldn’t get the house warm enough. It was warm, but not warm enough, and they were under the comforter and Lance wrapped an arm about him, and then he put his head on Elias’s chest, and Elias placed his hands in his hair. They lay like that half the night until Lance turned around and wrapped his arms about Elias’s waist. Before the morning they were kissing, and then coming out of clothes, and then, the bed creaking slowly, making love, hands on flesh, mouths together and their mouths over each other, the silent shuddering, lying together, finally warm under those blankets, saying nothing, holding each other. Elias didn’t mind the semen. Lance said nothing about it as Elias’s hand, touching his hip bone, moving up his flat stomach, touched liquid and didn’t know whose it was. Tenderly they kissed. Tenderly Lance went down on him. They made love silently and came again, almost sleeping.
“You alright?” Lance said to him, tenderly.
Elias nodded, wondering why Lance would say that, thinking Lance didn’t look entirely alright, and then suddenly Lance began to shake and it took a moment for Elias to realize he was crying.
“I thought if I didn’t say anything it was the same as not doing anything. But I didn’t want it, Eli. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
At first Elias thought Lance was talking about them, and he was almost relieved to realize he was talking about the abortion.
Lance shook a couple of times and then wiped the back of his hand over his eyes.
“I’m sorry for that shit,” he said, still not looking at Elias, who wrapped his arms around Lance, who for the first time realized that morning how strong and big and handsome Lance was and how many people would love to be with him, with his Lance.
“It’s just…” Lance said, “you are the first person I’ve been with in a long time. And it brought up some stuff.”
“I love you, Lance.”
He hadn’t meant to say it. He was almost afraid to say it, his arms wrapped around him.
Lance gripped his hand and squeezed it really hard.
“I love you too, Eli. You know that, right?”
“Yes, Elias remembers saying, remembers holding Lance’s hot body, wrapping his legs with his for the first time. There is nothing between them, flesh against flesh, skin against skin
“Yes, I know that you love me. You’re nothing but love, Lance.”
“I’m not,” Lance whispered in the darkness of that room.
“I’ve done horrible things.”
“You’re nothing but love,” Elias insisted, holding him, placing his lips on soft hair. “You’re nothing but love.”
