Opposites attract - 9. Chapter 9

Officially, only Wednesday to Friday were without courses. But unofficially, the whole week was very relaxed. The courses took place, but the professors told tales, showed movies or started discussions very unrelated to the courses' topics. As a strange coincidence, the entire faculty forgot to bring along the attendance lists. They told us that they would have to fill them out by memory, which meant that they would tick off every single name on it. It felt like a blink of an eye and Thursday was there.

Kev was very excited in this charming, childlike way of his. He talked about the restaurant the whole day, the suit, what to drink, what to eat. Finally, evening came.

I had already dressed in my suit, a black one made of very fine cord, and wore a white shirt with a grey tie. I had just laced my shoes, when Kev stood before me, the light blue tie from the box in his hand, a questioning grin on his face.

“Sit down.” I snickered.

When I was finished binding his tie, he put on his shoes and the jacket. He looked at me.

“What do you think?” He turned around.

He was looking like one of the models from a fashion catalogue. It was like one of those men had stepped out of his paper prison.

“Very nice.” I understated. “Me?”

“Very nice as well.” He grinned, of course.

“Pretty overdressed for the bus.”

“Who said we would go by bus?” I asked mysteriously.

“By taxi?”

I made a noise like in one of those game shows, indicating a wrong answer.

“Try again.”

Kev shrugged.

“Then you'll have to wait and see for yourself.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Kev moved to his wardrobe and got out something that was long and thin, wrapped up in white paper. He opened it, revealing two white carnations.

“For the final touch.”

He attached one of them to a button hole of my suit, doing the same with the other one on his suit.

“Perfect.” I remarked.

“Yes, indeed.” We stood side by side at the mirror in Kev's wardrobe. And I could have sworn that he had looked at me in the mirror, when he said it.

At the dorm's entrance, the secret of our transportation was finally revealed: a black limousine was parking right in front of it. A portly driver in a uniform held open the door and greeted us

“Gentlemen.”

We climbed into the car and soon we were heading for Rosenham's.

Kev couldn't decide, whether looking accusingly at me or grinning up to his ears, his face constantly changing between these two extremes.

“That must have been very expensive.”

“My parents had a very bad conscience.” I smiled slyly. ”It was their first time to buy the love of their son, so they went for safety.”

That cracked Kev up.

“Gentleman. No one has ever called me gentleman and meant it.” He added laughing.

I joined in.

Rosenham's was really an exclusive place. We were greeted by the maître d' and he politely asked us to wait at the bar until our table would be prepared. Places like this did not ask for id and both of us were close enough to be legal. The bar consisted of a counter made of a very dark wood. On the backside, a selection of exquisite beverages had been arranged. Since neither Kev nor I were experts regarding alcohol, we followed the suggestion of the bar tender: the house's special cocktail. It was sweet and creamy, not too strong.

It didn't take long, until we were led to our table, well secluded at the very back of the restaurant. It had been arranged with white tablecloths and a simple, but elegant flower arrangement. A thin long candle was burning in the middle of the table. Kev looked uneasy at the arrangement of forks, spoons, knives and glasses.

“Just follow my example.” I winked at him.

“You've been to such places before?”

I simply nodded. Having a lawyer and a shop owner as parents meant business lunch with family attendance more often than not.

The maître d' approached our table.

“Mr. Fitzgerald, you have ordered a special five-course menu for tonight. An excellent choice, if I am allowed to comment. I would recommend our house champagne to accompany the entrée?”

“I would be honored to follow your suggestions.” I said politely.

He nodded and smiled friendly at both of us.

When he had left, Kev said in a low voice, grinning as usual

“I don't even know what an entrée is.”

He was soon to find out. All five courses were delicious. The main course consisted of turkey, roasted in a very special way using honey and mustard. Even an upper class restaurant like this couldn't ignore that it was Thanksgiving.

The meal was over much too soon. We were well fed and overall content. Both of us have had a wonderful time, chatting away and enjoying our company.

I had settled the bill, not forgetting to include a generous tip, and the driver took us back to our dorm.

Kev was looking absentmindedly out of the tinted windows of the limo, silent for most of the trip.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Kev laughed a short laugh.

“That's my line.”

“What's up?”

“You know when people say that something is ‘to die for’? I could drop dead now and wouldn't mind. That must have been the nicest evening in my life. Pretty morbid, isn't it?”

“I know, what you mean.”

We sat the rest of the ride in silence.

Back in our dorm, the gloomy mood of the trip was forgotten. We still were completely dressed in our evening wear. Only the light of my bedside lamp illuminated the room. Kev was standing right beside his bed, while I was putting my wallet back into the drawer.

“Leon. I want to thank you for this really awesome evening. Thanks for staying here with me for Thanksgiving. You are really a dear friend.” Kev sounded like he was reciting a prepared speech.

“You are welcome!”

I smiled at him.

“Oh, come here.”

That was more like Kev. He seemed to have abandoned the script and had decided to ad-lib. He crossed the room and I was bracing for another of his bear hugs. For a change, he dropped to his knees, before pulling me into his crushing embrace. For once, my face wasn't buried somewhere below his chest, but my chin was resting on his shoulder. My arms were hanging slack to my sides. Even if I could have moved them out of Kev's grip, they would have been too short to fully return the embrace.

That hug lasted longer than any of the many others before. I let the muscles in my neck relax and laid down my head on Kev's shoulder. That was the moment, when something happened with Kev. Nothing physical, but it was as if something within Kev had snapped into place. As if he finally had reached a conclusion.

“Leon… this evening… it felt like a date.” He said softly.

It wasn't a question but a statement.

It must had been that last glass of champagne or his proximity, his warmth, strength and aroma, washing over me, or all of those, but my defenses were forgotten for the fraction of a second.

“Perhaps it was.”

It took me exactly three heart beats to realize, what I had said. Then all hell broke loose inside of me. All the scenarios I had concocted around coming out to Kev welled up in me simultaneously, struggling for my attention.

Mild, but decided rejection…

Kev moving out of the room, leaving me behind alone…

Being beaten to a bloody pulp by his relentless arms…

I wasn't able to determine, which one of those was about to become true. I felt like falling. Since I wasn't able to decide, I started to blurt out.

“I'm sorry…sorry…Kev…don't leave me…don't go…don't hurt me.”

The jerky movement, which accompanied that mess of a sentence, caught Kev off guard and he let go of me. I stumbled back one step and sank down to my knees, still well within range of Kev's arms. I had started to cry, tears flowing down my cheeks.

Kev stretched out his arms and took my face gently into his hands and made me look at him.

“Leon… don't apologize… please… don't apologize for the very thing I wanted from the first moment I saw you… don't take it away from me by apologizing!” Tears welled up in his eyes as well.

“And no, Leon. I will never leave you. I will never go. And I'd rather die, than hurt you.” His tears started to flow.

My mathematically trained mind was used to process information step by step, to follow a logical reasoning up to its end. But it took time to think that way. I put my hands on Kev's, which were still holding my face. I let my head slump on one of his hands, giving my mind the time it needed to come up with its conclusion.

One step is missing, the proof is incomplete…

I raised my head again and let my hands slide along Kev's arms. With one hand I gripped his chin; with the thumb of my other hand I wiped away his tears. I took his face into my hands like he was still holding mine.

One step is missing, the proof is incomplete…

My mind requested proof where the heart had already decided a long time ago.

“Kev, say it, please.” I whispered looking into his eyes.

He had understood.

“Leon, I love you.”

Quod erat demonstrandum.

The walls made of what-ifs and could-bes crumbled down in a mighty roar, finally releasing the four words, which they had guarded so meticulously.

“I love you, Kev.”

We closed the distance till our foreheads touched, still holding each other's face.

At last, our lips found and we kissed; tender at first, but soon tongues asked for entrance and a fierce fight commenced. The entire tension that had built between us over the past months was grounded in this single kiss.

We parted.

“Whoa.” We said simultaneously, looking at each other.

That single no-word described it as well as a thousand pages full of elaborate verses. Poetry wasn't created by quantity, but by quality.

Kev looked at me.

“The invitation to this evening…”

“The oiling up and the massages…” I continued.

“You nursing me…”

“You looking at my ass…”

“When you had dressed up for me…”

“And you dressed up for me…”

“The track suit and the cinema tickets…”

“Accepting both gifts… forgiving me…”

“You looking at me in the showers…”

“Taking me with you for running...”

“Coming with me for running…”

“Playing that special song…”

“Helping me moving in…”

“Looking into your eyes for the first time.” We simultaneously concluded our list.

We had traced back together all those moments we had had; every single one almost insignificant by itself, but now absolutely necessary in the overall picture, each being a link in an inevitable chain of events. In hindsight, it was almost painful to see how obvious our love for each other had been from the first moment. I shared this conclusion with Kev.

“What a pity. We could have been lovers from the very beginning.”

“But we became friends, before we became lovers. That must be good for something.”

I nodded.

“Kev, nonetheless, let's make a promise. No more tip-toeing around each other, no beating around the bush. Truth and honesty. Boy scout's promise.” I crossed my heart like Kev had done before.

“Truth and honesty. Boy scout's promise.” Kev crossed his heart as well.

The promise was sealed with another kiss.

We ended up stripped to the underwear in Kev's bed, snuggled firmly together, kissing each other time and again. The idea of having sex didn't occur to us this evening. We were too emotionally spent for anything but resting together, being close.