Crushed

Chapter 1 When his friend Tom Morgan called about the party, Nathan Gayle told him no. “Remember the last one?” he asked. Nathan’s long, pale legs stretched out across a futon that took up most of his one-room studio apartment. Despite the cool autumn weather outside, he wore a tattered tank top and a pair of boxers because the air wasn’t stirring in his place. Pink Floyd’s classic album The Wall blared from his stereo so loud that it shook the few pictures he had hanging on his walls and had almost drowned out the ringing of the phone. Now he wished it had; he wasn’t going to another one of Tom’s parties—though they worked together and Nathan considered them friends, he could never quite shake the feeling that he was only asked because the guy felt sorry for him. Raising his voice so he could be heard over the music, Tom asked, “Can’t you turn that down?” With a halfhearted gesture Tom couldn’t see, Nathan stretched an arm toward the stereo on the other side of the wall. “Can’t reach it.” Then he ran the hand through his hair, brushing back the brown wavy fringe from his forehead. When he released it, the hair swept down over his brow again, tickling his eyelashes. “Look Tom…” “I thought you had fun last time,” Tom said. Nathan laughed. “You forgot to tell me it was a couples thing!” A dinner party for just a few friends, Nathan had been the one of only two people there alone. Tom’s idea of a blind date—the other person had been one of the guys in the payroll office where they worked, so damn gay that he threatened to burst into flames before they even got through the main course. Nathan didn’t like guys like that. Overly effeminate, so obviously queer, and an accountant, for the love of God. “What the hell was up with that?” he wanted to know. “That was Cindy’s doing,” Tom told him. “She thinks you need a man—” “I think you need to keep your girlfriend’s nose out of my business,” Nathan said. Truth was? He did need a man, hadn’t had a boyfriend since high school, hadn’t met anyone at the two-year junior college he graduated from this past summer, and didn’t really know anyone at his job at the office, either. Sure, he’d gone to the clubs, used to hang out at all the right places, but that scene got old quick. Years ago, at sixteen, when he first discovered how good it felt to dance up against other boys in the dark, he’d sworn he’d be there every night once he was out on his own. Only now he had a job that ate up his days, and when he came home, he was too tired to hit the dance floor. Some nights he was lucky if he managed to pull the futon out before collapsing onto it, he was so exhausted. What had happened to the guy he’d thought he’d grow into? The jet-setting playboy, the club-hopper, the mack daddy? Times change. Was “mack daddy” even a hip term anymore? Nathan had no clue. In his ear, his friend laughed, and Nathan could hear the grin in Tom’s voice when he said, “Aww, Nate. You know she’s just looking out for you.” “An accountant?” Nathan asked. “Jesus Christ. Next thing I know, she’s gonna be hooking me up with the guy who takes our order at Burger King.” The laughter died. “You think he’s cute?” Tom asked, suddenly serious. “God!” Nathan cried. “No! Don’t even…Tom, don’t you dare tell her that. You hear me? I’m not looking for just anyone.” Tom laughed again. “I know, man. I’m kidding.” “I want Mr. Right,” Nathan continued, “not Mr. Right Now.” It was an old argument between them. Since they’d met, he and Tom had become fast friends, but things had grown a little weird when Nathan first told him he liked guys. A lean, sexy black man, with a devilish grin framed by a trim goatee, Tom stood a head taller than Nathan and had a laugh that made people grin in reply. Nathan would be lying if he said he hadn’t first approached the man because he thought him hot. But Tom liked his girls, and Nathan respected that. Still, some part of Tom didn’t get the fact that Nathan was gay. At work they’d sit in the cafeteria and he’d point at every man who walked by. “How about him?” Tom would ask. “You like him?” Nathan finally said, “You know what? It’s not like that, not at all. So I like guys—the same way you like girls. Not every chick is something you wanna f**k—” Tom glanced around to make sure no one nearby overheard their conversation. “You don’t have to be so crude.” “Not every guy is something I want to get with,” Nathan finished. “I’m not just gonna get freaky with a boy because he gives me the time of day. I’ve got standards, you know.” Standards…something Tom’s long-time girlfriend Cindy didn’t understand, either. In a way, she was even worse than him. At least the mention of anal s*x was usually enough to get Tom to lose interest real quick, but with her? She was a pretty, petite blonde with a perpetual tan and pink lips pursed in determination, on a mission to find Nathan a boy. “You’d look so cute with him,” she’d say in the parking lot after work. She had no shame, either—she’d be halfway across the lot, ponytail flopping over one shoulder, before Nathan could stop her. “Let me go get his number for you.”