The Guy Next Door

Chapter 21

21

LEIF

I ’m giddy like a kid at the prospect of spending a snow day with Zane.

We eat breakfast and brush our teeth again before I head back to my parents’. After I hop into my winter gear, I inflate two pool tubes in the garage and meet Zane in front of his place.

We head to Palamone Park.

A rarity for Wyachet, the snow is nearly as thick over the streets as it is the yards. It’s still pretty early, so there are only a few families out building snowmen and engaged in snowball warfare. As we pass the McKendrys’ house, their two middle-school-aged boys, Dirk and Cameron, approach their parents’ SUV, which their younger brother, Jordan, is hiding behind.

“Help me with this,” I say, setting my tube down and scooping up some snow. Zane follows my lead as I pat a ball in my hand, creep up behind the guys, and nail one right in Dirk’s coat collar. As he drops his snowball, Zane lands one on Cameron, who spins around and launches his own attack.

“See what happens when you try to sneak up on your brother?” I say.

Zane and I exchange snowballs with them until Jordan is confident enough to come out and join us in our surprise attack.

“This is three against two!” Dirk calls out. “No fair!”

“Now you know how it feels,” I reply, and we keep at it until Cameron finally says, “Okay, okay. We get it, Leif.”

“Yeah, and if Jordan tells me you try to gang up on him again, we’ll be back.”

“We’ll be good,” Dirk says with a guilt-ridden expression that assures me he’ll behave. “Now can you help me get this ice off my neck?”

I brush some of it out, and he adjusts his toboggan hat.

Jordan approaches me, eyeing Zane uneasily. “Are you friends with him ?” Jordan asks, and the way he leans away from Zane and says him , it’s clear he has some preconceived notions about him, just like I did before I got to know him.

Zane glances at the ground uneasily, and it makes me think of when he was a kid, after all that trauma, and his peers treating him like something was wrong with him because they didn’t understand the guy I’ve come to realize is pretty awesome.

“This is Zane,” I tell Jordan. “Zane, this is Dirk, Cameron, and Jordan. I used to babysit these little troublemakers when I was in high school.”

Zane offers a friendly wave and musters as much of a smile as I figure he can manage. I tell the guys to tell their mom hey for me before Zane and I head back to our tubes and continue toward the park.

“So you were a babysitter?” Zane asks once we’re out of earshot.

“More like a fill-in for their regular babysitter. I watched them sometimes after their mom divorced their dad. She needed some help, and it’s a pretty tight street, so a few of us helped out when we could.”

“That’s really cool. Although, it’s interesting to note that even the kids in this neighborhood think I’m weird.”

It reminds me of his reaction to Jordan’s remark. “They don’t know you like I do,” I say, though I can’t imagine that helps him much.

“You’re sweet, Leif, but it’s okay. I didn’t get this far in life without being used to people prejudging me.”

“Me included,” I confess.

“Well, you’ve more than made up for that.” He turns to me, flashing a wry smirk. “I’ve always told myself most people are shit anyway, so what does it matter? But I must admit, I’m learning that way of thinking gets awfully lonely.”

“I feel like I’m supposed to say something supportive and encouraging, but I’ve still got my own guard up from the way my so-called friends acted when I came back home.”

Zane turns to me again, his forehead creasing in that familiar way it does when he’s confused.

“Remember when you asked me why I thought anyone would send me that admirer letter as a joke?” I ask, and he nods. “I had a few friends from South Wyachet High…or at least that’s what I thought they were. Some went off to other states for college, but we kept up. After I came home, one reached out to see how I was doing. I was vulnerable and needed to talk to someone other than a therapist, so I told them what went down, asking them to keep it between us.

“Shortly after, the group got weird when I messaged. Being short with me. Like I was dead to them, which hey, we’re in college now, I figured that was natural. But then I ran into this girl from high school at the mall, outside the Build-A-Bear where she worked. And she randomly started chatting me up about her mental-health issues, which I thought was strange since we didn’t know each other that well. Come to find out, she was being so open, she said, because someone from another friend group—not the one I’d told—said I’d lost my mind at GSU.”

“That is not cool.”

“Right? I don’t know what they told her, but she mentioned she was surprised I wasn’t doing jail time. So I confronted my so-called friends, and they treated me like I was unhinged because I was pissed about their lies. One of the guys, James, went on Facebook and posted that I was spreading vicious lies about him to people. Tried to act like some kind of hero too. Said he knew I was going through shit, but it didn’t excuse bad behavior. It really did a number on me because that was the total opposite of what was going on, and none of the others in our group came to my defense. Then suddenly, I was getting nasty messages from other people from school. Started getting spam, like people were signing me up for shit, and then a few nasty messages from numbers I didn’t recognize. It was open season, I guess, since they thought I’d been a dick to their friend. So when I got the letter, I was in a weird headspace. Thought it might be someone who got wind of ‘Psycho Leif’ and was getting a laugh at my expense to avenge their cool buddy.”

As I finish, Zane’s quiet before he stops on the sidewalk.

I stop too and turn to him. “Do you believe me?”

His head tilts, his forehead tensing. “What?”

I shouldn’t have asked that. I should keep my dumb fucking mouth shut, but I can’t help myself. Not around him. “I know it’s stupid, but even after everything we’ve shared, part of me fears you heard all that and think I must’ve been in the wrong. That all those people wouldn’t have turned on me otherwise.”

He steps toward me, studying my expression. “Get that out of your pretty head. The only thing I was thinking is that maybe I made the right choice by not letting people in.” My knee-jerk response is to agree with him, when he adds, “But had I done that, I never would have met you.”

As we gaze into each other’s eyes, I feel like I can see all the hurt and torment in his soul reflecting the dark times he’s shared with me and even those he hasn’t. All those things he’s put up walls to protect and guard, the very walls he’s broken through to share with me.

He reaches out and takes my hand, stroking the back gently, reminding me of the walls I’ve broken through to share with him, including that story about my ex-friends.

He pries his hand away, glancing at the houses around us. “Guess I shouldn’t give the neighborhood gossip mill something to talk about.”

“No, I guess you shouldn’t,” I say, then lurch forward, taking a kiss.

His lips feel better than ever, offering much-needed warmth, and my tongue takes a quick sweep across his before I pull away.

He grins. “This could get back to your parents.”

“Maybe it’s about time it did,” I say, taking his hand and starting down the street.

We’ve never held hands on a walk like this before, but I like it. Hell, if I’d known it would feel this good, I would’ve done it sooner.

The park is less than half a mile from our homes, and when we arrive, Zane asks, “Where are all the people? I figured it’d be packed.”

“Most everyone around here has their own yards. And there’s a huge slope on the other side, near Graham Drive, but there’s another hill I like to come to.”

I lead him through the entrance, along a path through the trees, across a wooden bridge, to a wide field of untouched snow, carved out from the woods.

It’s like something out of another world.

“See what I mean? Come on.”

I race across the snow to a hill on the far side of the field. We take turns on our tubes, creating a path to slide down. The grass and weeds under the snow are iced over, which makes it perfect for sledding. Zane and I enjoy a few solo turns before we start getting adventurous and sharing one tube, with Zane sitting in my lap.

Definitely the date-iest thing Zane and I have done since we became boyfriends—wild to think how close we’ve gotten without ever having an actual fucking date.

On one of our descents, as I’m considering possible dates, we hit a bump in the hill, which lifts us off the ground before the tube slams back down. Something about the reckless play has us both laughing, and I can hardly detect that pain I saw in Zane’s expression earlier. It’s just a broad grin.

And as he looks back to me, his ass pressed firmly against my crotch, I find myself becoming intrigued.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

I grab his hip, pulling him tighter against me. “This position has me thinking about something we haven’t tried yet.”

“Oh really?”

“Seems like you prefer to top, so we don’t have to.”

“What? Who said that?”

I’m shocked. “I figured if you wanted to bottom for me, you would’ve mentioned it by now.”

“Leif, I would like getting off with you however we did it.”

I laugh; it’s nice to hear. “I guess I was greedy because I was adjusting to knowing what it felt like, but I’d be curious to try the other way too.”

“Just know that I’m not gonna let you make up for lost time all in one night. I think that might kill us both.”

I burst into a laugh.

“You can fuck me anytime you want,” Zane says, draping his arms around me and planting another kiss.

I wrap my arms around him, pulling him to me. My lips and face welcome his hot breath, my tongue trying to soak up as much of his heat as I can get. Of course, I know it’s not only body heat I’m interested in.

I want him.

All of him.

My fucked-up short king.

My Zane.

Here in the snow, it’s one of those moments I want to freeze in my mind, hold on to and never let go of. But my desperate wish only reminds me that moments like these are fleeting, and that most of life can’t be these magical moments.