Still Standing

Chapter 1: Boyfriends, Bus Stops, and Babies-1

Chapter 1: Boyfriends, Bus Stops, and Babies“This isn’t about me, Bryson. This is about you. And the problem with you, to be quite frank, is that you’re a train wreck when it comes to the way you deal with people. You need to be a little more…”

Bryson watched Richard—Ricky to his friends, d**k or Dicky to Bryson, at least for the last several moments—turn to look directly into Bryson’s face as if the direct stare might give his speech more impact. But instead of letting the d**k continue the obviously rehearsed rant, Bryson lifted his hand and flicked his fingertips against the intercom on the side table. Every room in his mother’s house still had one, even though Bryson hadn’t lived there for over a year now. “Dicky, you champ, you rascal, you cad, you know you’re one word away from getting tossed into the street like so much trash, right?”

Richard put one hand on his hip. “Are you making fun of my accent now?”

“Fairly so,” Bryson agreed, pouring on the extremely bad English inflection he’d started with. “Tally ho, spot of tea, spoonful of sugar, and what have you.” He dropped the accent when Richard clicked his tongue, and he gave Richard a long, disinterested stare. “I mean, train wreck, Ricky? Just because you say something with an accent doesn’t make it classy.”

“Yes. Train wreck.” Richard waved at the-gods-could-only-know-what and sat down on the Victorian settee in Bryson’s mother’s parlour, aka sitting room, aka her cozy nook. This was the room of quietly happy moments. It was a timeout spot for people who wanted to chill and relax, but in a slightly more refined environment than a game room or family room. It wasn’t a place for putting on airs, though. Richard hadn’t seemed to pick up the vibe of the place, regardless of the months he’d spent time in it. At that moment, if Richard had stretched out like Cleopatra with one hand on his forehead, calling for servants to come fan him, Bryson wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

“‘Appreciative,’ by the way. That’s the word I was looking for before you cut me off so rudely. You need to be a little more appreciative. I can’t find it in me to understand why you don’t give me a little more credit for all that I do for you.”

Bryson widened his eyes. That was a new one. He hadn’t been expecting that at all. “I’m sorry. Did you just say the things you do for me?”

Richard casually shrugged. “It’s not easy, you know. I try to carry off a certain amount of normality with respect to your—” he wiggled his fingers as if he were going to pick a word out of the air once he caught it,”—issues. I’m not saying that I’ve settled in order to—”

Bryson was already narrowing his eyes and shaking his head before he cut Richard off. “What exactly are you saying, then?”

Richard waved his hand, dismissing the question. “Look, we’re getting carried away here. This is supposed to be a civil conversation—”

“Get the f**k out, Dicky.”

Most people wouldn’t notice the oh-so-cautious, oh-so-perfectly-put-together Englishman getting riled up, but Bryson wasn’t most people. Bryson had been watching Richard’s expressions for months now—what he looked like mid-orgasm with his stupid mouth wide open and his eyes screwed shut so tight they all but disappeared into his face. What he looked like when he was pleased, with the smug, self-satisfied smile barely contained behind a slightly pursed puss. Yes, those spots of colour heating up his cheeks would become an entire flush, given time. The thinning of his paling lips would press those otherwise-plump kissers into a Muppet mouth if they got the chance. Richard was slowly and surely getting, at the very least annoyed as all f**k, and at the very worst pissed right off. Bryson held back an angry smirk. Jolly good, then.

“Look.” Richard’s voice became as cold as his gaze. “I get that you’ve been coddled a bit. And rightly so, to some extent. The ‘little baby in a basket’ story is an intense one and people have let you feed off it for a while now—”

“Last chance to get out of here without making a fool of yourself, Dick.” Bryson shifted in his seat and prepared himself to stand. He hadn’t been doing a lot of moving and he had no doubt it was one of the reasons that Richard had chosen this moment to pounce. Ricky had a knack for kicking someone when they were down, and Bryson had known before getting out of bed that morning that it was going to be a rough day. There was always pain, but low-level pain could be dealt with using one of the various Jedi mind-tricks the pain management team had taught him. Today, as he’d understood when he rolled over in bed, was one of those low-level days…unless he moved. When he moved, the pain became a solid six, maybe even an eight, existing directly in the center of his hip, right side, one of those godawful deep-in-there-and-getting-deeper kind of pains that had to be the reason people believed other folks stuck pins in voodoo dolls. And this particular pin had been set on fire before it had been used. If he sat, and stayed sitting, things were fine. If he stood, and stayed standing, all would be cool. However, getting up or down shot shrieks of agony through him that could very well have been his nerve endings screaming war cries as they revolted against his sanity.

Still, pain or no pain, one had to do what one had to do in order to get one’s self out of the face of one’s newly decided enemies.

He set his jaw and stood, fighting against the shock he knew was coming when he put weight on his right side. He locked his knee to try and stop the hitch of his leg, but that made everything worse and he almost forced himself into a stumble. So much for a dignified exit.

“There now, where are you going? Let me help—”

Bryson lifted his hand without turning back to look at Richard. “I’m fine. Get out. We’re done.”

“Bry, come on,” Richard said, his voice suddenly soft and charming.

Bryson heard him rise and then, completely ignoring Bryson’s demand, he was wrapping his arm around Bryson’s waist. “There’s no need to get upset. I’m just saying that it’s not unreasonable that I might want to spend time with some people who are capable of doing the things that you aren’t.”

Pushing away from Richard with enough force to gain any distance was worse for his hip than standing, and he had to take a minute, resting as still as he could while trying not to put any weight on the hurting side of his body. He should have brought his cane, but should-haves and would-haves didn’t change the past. Besides, he hated the stupid thing. The only person who could look cool with a cane was someone who didn’t need it.

He took one second to imagine himself collecting all the pain in his body and rolling it into a ball. Not only today’s pain, either, but all the pain. Then he transferred that spitting, roiling, burning ball directly into his chest. He looked up at Richard with what he hoped was all the spiteful fury of Satan and offered an appropriate smile. “Oh, Dicky. I don’t mind you spending time with the boys on the boats. Or the tennis courts. Or the rugby field. I mind you f*****g them.”

At that moment, he would have given almost anything to be able to glide smoothly across the room, but that wasn’t how life was. He hobbled to the window, counting the steps in his mind like a child—just three more, two more, one—but kept the acid in his voice as he did it. “I mind you talking about me to them like you’re doing the world a favour for giving me someone to hold on to. I mind you feeling like I owe you things.” He pointed over his shoulder, hopefully in Richard’s direction. “That watch. The Marmont wallet. That ridiculous belt.”

Richard threw up his hands. “It’s not my fault you like to buy me things!”

“Uh, no. I didn’t even know that I bought you that stupid wallet until I got my credit card statement. I mean, seven hundred dollars? For a wallet? And you don’t even ask me first? Who does that, Dicky?”

Richard made a sound that was something between a breath of nervousness and a disdained gasp, and Bryson held up a hand to stop him from making more. “Don’t. I get it. It’s the least I can do, right? Poor you, giving up so much to look after the little cripple boy—”

“Your words, not mine!”

“But that’s what you said, isn’t it?” Bryson peered out the living room window, more to hide his expression than to see what was happening on the perfectly landscaped street on which his parents’ house sat. “You really ought to be more careful who’s around when you start your bragging and your trash talk, Dicky boy. Did you think Amaya wasn’t going to tell me that you said something like that?”

“What are you talking ab—”

“It’s over, d**k. No more coercing expensive presents. No more tagging along on the fancy family vacations. Sucks to be you, old boy, but that’s what happens when you start telling people that I better damn well respect what you do for me. And that I should keep my mouth shut if once in a while you want to bang someone who can actually move in bed. Mm hmm. She told me that, too. But the one that really got me was when you said that I should count my lucky stars anyone is even willing to look at me—”

“I did not say th—”

“You f*****g did!”

“So, you take her word over mine, then?”

The wounded pride in Richard’s voice almost made Bryson laugh. Or it would have, if he hadn’t been trying to swallow the emotion that was doing its best to choke him. It’s not like he hadn’t known Richard was, appropriately, a d**k. Bryson had known it the first time he’d set eyes on the man. Unfortunately, he’d also been super cute, pleasingly charming, and he really was blessedly skilled with his c**k. Worse, even though Bryson wouldn’t admit it out loud, he probably should be grateful Richard would look at him naked. Let alone be willing to stick his c**k in Bryson. Bryson’s body wasn’t exactly pretty to look at.

A half a dozen of his friends and both his parents immediately began to shout at him from inside his own head, berating him for daring to think such a thing. Easy for them to say, though. They could make themselves look however they wanted to. Their lower bodies didn’t stop functioning for days after an attempted workout. Sure, his chest and his arms were in decent shape, but his midsection would never get beyond okay. And the rest of him would never even get that far. For him, it was never leg day. He knew how he looked, like someone had taken two vastly different dolls and welded them together at the waist. He was the Toy Story mutant in real life—on the top, a normal Ken doll albeit with a deep scowl and a tendency to wear his hair too long, and on the bottom, the spindly, awkwardly bent legs and feet of a spider. His friends and family would never know what it felt like to get naked in front of someone else while looking like that. They couldn’t.

“Yeah, I do take her word over yours,” Bryson finally said, responding to a comment left open for too long. “You see, she, unlike yourself, has no reason to lie.”

“You’ll regret this.” The razor-sharp, ice-cold tone was back in Richard’s voice.

“Probably no more than I regret wasting the past four months with somebody who was using me for my parents’ money. Somebody who could barely stand to look at me. Is that why you always closed your eyes, Dicky?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You don’t get to play the ‘broken baby on the doorstep’ card forever, Bry.”

Bryson snorted a laugh. He turned, fixing a calm, relaxed expression on his face. “It wasn’t a doorstep. It was the bus stop. Get your story straight if you’re going to throw it in my face.”

The flush now completely covered Richard’s whole face. His lips were so thin, they were gone. His eyes looked as dark and as sharp as chunks of black ice. “You know? I hate to be the one to point this out, Brybaby, but guys like me don’t come around much. Not for guys like you.”