Liam's story - 11. Chapter 11

It didn’t take my dad too long to come pick me up, I think I only sat out on the curb for about 45 minutes. Naturally, I used those 45 minutes to torture myself with thoughts of Toby and Mandy. She is a beautiful woman, if you’re in to that sort of thing. Which it seemed Toby was. They were obviously pretty close if she just comes over and barges into his apartment. I felt stupid. I felt like Toby was just trying to spare my feelings by going out with me. All those looks and touches, those were pity. I didn’t need pity. From anyone else at least.

I was wallowing in self-pity when my dad showed up. I really never give him enough credit, he is always there when you need him. It didn’t take him long to pick up on my mood.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” He asked after giving me a five minute grace period of silence since getting in the car.
“What makes you think something happened?” Damn.
“Liam, I know you. Something happened. When you called this morning to tell me you wouldn't be home you sounded happy, excited. Then you had me pick you up outside Toby’s apartment. Yes, I know that’s Toby’s place.” He answered seeing the question on my face when I turned to look at him. “ And now you’re sitting in the car looking like someone kicked your puppy. Something obviously happened. If you don’t want to talk to your dad about it, I understand. But I have been there, and I will never judge you.”

Dad turned the radio up and left me with my thoughts. I was going out of my mind. Round and round about Toby and Mandy. I caved. I told him all of it. How I’ve had a crush on Toby for years, how caring Toby was after Josh’s funeral. How we began spending more time together, and how it felt when he started to avoid me. I told him how crushed I was when I saw him with Mandy at the bbq, to how eventually I decided to go for it and told Toby how I felt. How amazing it was when Toby asked me out, and what a fun date we had last night. I left out the dry humping and jerking off for obvious reasons, but picked the story back up to where we were this morning when Toby left for work. I was going to stay in Branston and surprise Toby, but Mandy showing up had ruined that. He listened to me ramble on and on without interrupting, or inserting his opinion.

I had finally finished talking, when I noticed that we weren’t headed home, he had circled around and seemed to be heading back in the direction of Toby’s apartment.

“Dad? Where are we going?”
“I’m dropping you off, back at Toby’s.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he is the one you need to talk to about this. Avoiding it isn’t going to make it go away. I think you need to give him the benefit of the doubt. He told you he and Mandy weren’t dating, I’ll never understand the whole ‘friends with benefits thing’ but thats besides the point. The point is, is its Saturday today. You only just told him how you feel about him yesterday afternoon, and it was yesterday evening that you went out. Maybe he just hasn’t had a chance to talk to her.”

I knew he was right, I really should be talking to Toby rather than running away like a coward. Truthfully though, I was scared. I didn’t want to hear Toby say that I too was nothing more than a friend with benefits to him as well. I wanted to mean more to him. I wanted to be as important to him as he is to me, I was afraid he would tell me other wise.

I could only look down at my lap as I asked my dad “What if I don’t like what he has to say?”
“Thats a possibility. It will hurt, but at least you will know. And if you need a ride home after talking to him I will come and get you.”

I knew he was right. I should talk to Toby, not just assume things and run away. I was mentally preparing myself for what I would say to Toby, but as usual my dad chose this opportunity to make me uncomfortable.

“About you spending the night at Toby’s. I was 17 once too, I get it. I just want to make sure you’re being safe.”
“Oh my God, Dad really?”
“Yes really. Its important. Toby is a great guy, but you don’t know where he has been. It only takes one time to change your life forever.”
“Yeah, um thanks dad. I’m good, we didn’t have sex.” I answered uncomfortably. Just wanting this conversation to end.
“Maybe not last night, but one day you will, and I just want you to be prepared.”
“Got it.”

He seemed to sense my reluctance to talk about this and dropped it. I do know that I am pretty lucky. My dad has never been anything but accepting of me. But there are still limits. Accepting of not, my sex life isn’t something I wanted to discuss with him.

Thankfully, we arrived back at the apartment block and he had no more opportunities for awkward conversation.

Once we arrived, and my dad drove off I remembered that I had locked the door from the inside and had no way of getting into his apartment. Thankfully it was summer and the weather was nice, there was a corner store not far, so I killed some time by walking over to get a slurpee. On the walk home Toby texted. He was finished for the day, his uncle would be dropping him off in about 10 minutes.

I had been running through what I wanted to say to Toby on the walk to and from the store, but knowing he would be here soon left me feeling nervous. It’s silly, I had worked up the courage to tell him I felt in the first place, and I’m scared to talk to him about a girl. I was about to text him back when my phone rang. Toby.

Toby: Hey, we're on our way back. You near my place?
Me: Yeah. Just walking back from the store.
Toby: Awesome. (He sounded really happy I was still there. Maybe I am making more out of the whole Mandy thing than there is.) We’re gonna hit up a drive through, you want anything?
Me: Yeah, sure. Cheese burger and fries is good.
Toby: Awesome. We're just pulling up now. See you when I get home.

He ended the call. Talking to him and hearing how happy he was that I was still there made me smile. Maybe all wasn’t lost. I sat just outside his apartment and waited.

He and his uncle pulled up in the work truck, Toby jumped out and his uncle drove away. I was suddenly nervous again. It definitely helped when Toby walked right up to me, pulled me towards him and kissed me.

“What are you doing sitting out side.” He asked a little confused, but seemingly happy. “Just couldn’t wait to see me?”
“Yeah, something like that.” I replied. “You have your key? I locked it from the inside.”
“Yeah, sure.” He unlocked the door, we were barely inside before he dropped the bag of food on the table by the door, and pushed my up against the door, his lips instantly on mine. His hands roaming my body, he moved his lips off of mine, down on to my neck, kissing and nipping as we went down. I could feel his rough hands working their way up my shirt as he attacked my neck. “Mmm, I missed you. I’ve been thinking about this all day.” He said before making his way back up to my lips. Dropping his hands from my torso before reaching down. He grabbed my ass hard, pulling me towards him until there was no space between us.

“Unggh, fuck.” That was about all I was able to get out. He felt so good. His hard body against mine, his hands feeling their way up my back, his stubble against my face. I managed to come to my senses. I gently pushed him away. “Stop.”

He didn’t fully disengage his body from mine, but he did pull his face slightly away from mine. He looked confused.

“Sorry, I am really loving this, but I think we should talk before we go any further.” I spoke, still a little breathless.

“Yeah, no thats cool.” He said as he stepped back, away from me. I missed the feel of his body against mine. He grabbed the bag of food and walked towards the couch. “You want anything to drink?”

“Coke would be great.” I watched as he walked to the kitchen and came back with two cokes.

He plopped down on the couch, reached in the bag and pulled out two burgers handing one to me. “So what did you wanna talk about?”

This was it. “Mandy.” There, I said it. Can’t take it back now.
“
Okay, what do you want to know?” He replied casually. I had literally been torturing myself with this all day and he was acting like I wanted to talk about the weather.

“Whats the deal with you and her?”

“We’re friends. We met last year. She goes to BU too, we just kinda started hanging out one day.” Again spoken casually. Didn’t help with my insecurity.

“You said something before about ‘with benefits?’ Are you sleeping with her?”

“I have. Yeah.”

“Okay. Um, are you planning on continuing to sleep with her?”

“Well that depends on you.”

“Me? What do I have to do with it.”

He smiled slightly before answering. “You have everything to do with it. I like you. A lot. I would like you to keep going out with me. I’m not gonna sleep with Mandy if I’m going out with you. That’s always been our agreement. If one of us starts dating someone we stop. She dated some guy for almost two months a while ago and we stopped then. If i’m dating you I’m not going to sleep with her.”

“You want to date me?”

His mouth was full so he nodded and made an “mmm hmm” sound.

“I want that too.” We smiled at each other before going back to our food. I felt better but still had some questions.

“So, what are you going to tell Mandy?”

He shrugged his shoulder a little. “That I have a boyfriend.” He seemed so nonchalant about it.

“Will she be surprised? That you’re with another guy?”

“I doubt it, she knows I like guys too.”

“Huh.” I had so many questions but didn’t know how to voice them. For as long as I can remember I’ve only ever liked guys. Girls are nice but don’t do anything for me.

“Huh?” he looked at me sideways. “You look a little lost in thought over there?”

“Yeah, I dunno. Its just girls don’t do anything for me. Do you prefer one over the other?”

“No, not really. I like different things about girls than guys. But I would say I like both pretty equally.”

“Have you been with any other guys?”

“Uh, kind of. I don’t know if you remember, but remember Vlad? He went to school with us for a year. You would have been in grade 10. He and I had a little thing. Kind of dating, lasted like four months.”

“What happened?”

“Just didn’t work out. I always thought he had a bit of a crush on Josh.” Toby Laughed.

“Did josh know about you guys?” I asked. Josh knew I was gay but never made any mention of Toby.

“Of course he did. He’s the first one I told. Wasn’t surprised though. Said he caught me checking out guys as much as I checked out women. Told me I should stick to guys though so there would be less competition for women. Not that he needed me to bow out, he never had any problems with the ladies.” Toby smiled at the memory.

I liked hearing stories about Josh. I knew him well, but it was nice hearing about the parts of his life that I wasn’t a part of.

“So, we good?” Toby asked.

“Yeah. We’re good.” I replied smiling.