Loving Sam Lynch - 9. Chapter 9

Max stared back. “We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

“As in…over there, in my room.” Sam nodded over to the door leading into his room.

“Fine.” Max got up and followed Sam through the hall into Sam’s room, furnished in dark wood pieces and navy blue bed sheets. Max shut the door behind himself, feeling slightly congested despite the open space.

Sam walked to the window and stared out for several minutes, as if getting his thoughts together. Max felt butterflies in his stomach, and anxiety. He ehated when people took such a long time to think before speaking. Finally, when Max had had about enough of a wait and was about to say something, Sam turned.

“Yesterday,” Sam said slowly, as if weighing each word carefully,”You were happy with Xander.”

“Yeah…I guess.” Max shrugged.

“I won’t lie and say it didn’t make me feel weird… but I went home and thought about it I decided I was happy for you.”

“You felt weird?” Max asked, frowning.

Sam flushed. “Yeah…I felt a little jealous.”

Max froze. “J-jealous?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve always been the only person you’ve ever loved in your whole life…”Sam flushed. “ I mean, no one ever really compared to the friendship we’ve had, you know? You’ve also been an important aspect of my life and I guess it made me feel jealous to see with my own eyes that there were things that you were experiencing without me.” The last few sentences came out in a rush, as if he was trying to get the words out faster than he could think. “And that you were forming deep relationships with others…”

Sam paused and sighed. “Fuck I’m being weird…I should just shut up.”

Max shook his head. “You aren’t being weird…I-I know. I understand.”

“You know?”

Max shrugged. “Well our relationship has never been quite normal, and you’re being forced to see the differences lately, that’s all.”

“It’s a little weird. I mean I felt fucked up last night, because I thought about my future, and your future. And in your future I saw you happy with Xander…and in my own…the only thing that was constant was…well, you.” Sam shrugged. “You’ve always been constant in my life, and I guess you’re right, I’ve never been forced to realize that fact. You’re important to me, and I want you to be there, always. I want you to be happy.”

Max felt tears forming. Oh God he was evolving into a girl. “I am happy.”

Sam sighed. “Well you don’t look that happy, Max, and maybe it’s because of me.” Sam frowned.

“Look I’m not that clueless. I mean I’m not so oblivious. I guess I’ve sort of conveniently erased things from my memory from when we were younger, but they’re there, and last night I couldn’t sleep because everything was just running through my mind. You, me, y-your feelings for me, our friendship… Maybe we can’t ignore it all any longer.”

Max choked, a little in shock. A part of him wanted to cover his ears so he couldn’t hear what Sam was trying to say. “Sam, why are you saying all this now of all times?” Max clutched his forehead with one hand to stop the dull throbbing pain caused by sudden shock.

“Yesterday was hard for me, okay. It was really really hard and I was a bit of a wreck. Maybe I need to deal with this.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why were you a wreck?”

“Do you think this is all easy for me? I mean, I was dying inside a little just thinking about all this. I love you so much, Max. I can’t stand that I’m putting a strain on our friendship. I want you in my life.”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” Max said.

“What do you mean, don’t?” Sam insisted. “How long are you going to hold this inside hoping it will go away? How long will you carry such unhealthy feelings in your head?”

“It’s my problem, not yours, shut the fuck up!” Max shouted.

“You are in love with me!”

“Oh my God.” Max said dazedly, staring at Sam’s incredulous face. “You did not just say those words.”

They hung between them like a barrier, those words, a double-edged sword that they’d both been trying to dance around for eons and it now had to be stabbed into both their guts.

“I did.” Sam said. “And it’s killing you. And that’s killing me. Don’t you think I noticed your pain tonight when I kissed Cam? I may fucking delude myself sometimes but my brain has had enough. I figured you were trying to at least let yourself experience things recently but you’re sabotaging this with Xander as well. And I can’t take that, Max. I really can’t.”

“Don’t be so fucking self-righteous! What makes you think this thing with Xander is about you? This is about me! Stop feeling responsible for my fucked up head!”

“And when were you going to tell me how fucked up it is, huh?” Sam demanded.

Max went cold. “The day you woke the fuck up,” He replied.

“Well, hello, I’m awake.”

“No you aren’t. When you wake up and realize you are in love with me too, I’ll fucking talk to you about my fucked up feelings.” Max said with a sneer as he reached for the doorknob, and turned it stiffly. He walked out of the room, ignoring Sam’s demands for him to return right then or else.

He ignored Miranda, Cam, his jacket and everything else, and simply got his shoes on and left the apartment.

Fuck everything.

Just fuck it all.

Fuck.

~*~

Max put his hands against the slightly grimy walls of the bathroom. The pads of his fingers wanted to itch away from the oil, but the fingers against his back, pulling at his jeans distracted him. Ah, the air against his uncovered ass felt good. He felt so fucking hot, so dirty. God he wanted to get even more dirty.

He’d spent an hour at the park, fuming, angry, at life at Sam, at himself. He’d angrily thrown stones into the river and then sat on the bench like an idiot with no place to go. His hands had been clenched the entire time as the weight of everything he had spoken about with Sam finally settled in. Why had Sam felt a need to broach this now? Max had intended to spend the rest of his life pretending nothing was off, and now it was all fucked up.

When rage settled, melancholy came, and he wanted to curl up into a ball and wallow in his misery, but he’d never allowed himself that pleasure. So, he felt the familiar stirrings. The need for some type of cathartic release.

And here he was with his ass in the air.

A hand clutched at his shoulder while the other forced his ass to arch up more. No fingers lubed him up. A fat cock lined up against his hole and he felt every little inch of it begin to push its way through into the crevice of his body that had only a day ago been filled by a loving and tender body. Tears. Ah, they flowed so freely lately. It was like a personal currency or something. Tears grow on trees. If only he could buy something with them. Maybe a new heart.

It hurt. It hurt so good. It hurt so bad. He winced and his cheek pressed against the dirt of the wall as the muscled body behind him pressed ever harder into him in a drunken haze. One hand held him in place, hips pumped a thick organ into him, while the other hand groped him in the cheap lighting of the bar bathroom.

A random protruding nail from the wall dug into his torso and he could feel a trickle of blood cascading down to pool somewhere in the fabric pooled around his knees.

The pumping body released its life-bearing bodily fluids into his ass and gave a cheek a hearty slap before muttering a thanks and zipping up. Max didn’t move as he heard the sound of water from the tap and footsteps receding long after the door had closed. He collapsed on to the ground with his pants now around his ankles and stared indifferently into his expression in the full length mirror.

He heard footsteps approaching and stood up quickly, fixing his clothes just in time as the door opened and a cute guy who looked about seventeen walked in. He took one look at him and smirked. “You like it rough, huh? You’re nicely built though…why don’t you give it to me roughly?”

Max didn’t reply. He just headed straight for the door, wanting to puke a little.

~*~

Sam tried to ignore the throbbing in his head as he poured himself coffee. Damn it, this lack of sleep thing wasn’t going to work. He felt exhausted, and terrible. Absolutely terrible. The weather outside was a delightful pouring of icing sugar on to the ginger-bread houses that made up the flimsy existence inside these four walls.

Sam wanted things to be okay today. Right now. He wanted Max to come to the realization that they would never work, not when they both wanted such different things. Their relationship was a little confusing, but it worked, and it always would—in the form it was. Sam never wanted to mess with that.

Sam sighed again though, sipping his coffee while staring out the window. It wasn’t that Max didn’t understand that. He always had, but he didn’t know it. He hadn’t experienced it firsthand. And that was the difference. He’d just have to be strong for the both of them, just be there for Max like always. His friend, his…something special.

He would give Max time to realize what he needed was space from Sam, for however long, but if Max never realized it, Sam would have to do the right thing and give Max space. That’s what you did for your loved ones sometimes, things that were good for them, not particularly what they thought they wanted.

Sam decided, after he finished his coffee, to call Cam. They’d never been particularly close, but Sam had always appreciated Cam’s company. He was an interesting guy that always made him think, and he was beginning to prefer the company of Miranda, who was a pleasant thing—bless her—,and Cam then all the other partiers and acquaintances he had. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up…you prefer the company of those who understand you.

Things were a changing, that’s for sure.

~*~

Max didn’t feel so good.

There was caked up semen on his ass and thighs but he was too exhausted to clean himself up, and so he collapsed on to his bed and wrapped himself in his blanket. Why didn’t he feel better? Instead of feeling numb again, and what he defined as “okay” as he usually did after a sexual endeavour, Max felt even worse. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck twice.

And that wasn’t so hot.

He could feel his hands trembling, and his eyes watering, and that wasn’t good. So he shut his eyes and tried to clear his head.

Sleep, it swallowed him eventually.

~*~

Max opened his eyes the next morning and groaned. So he did exist after all, and he’d had such pleasant non-existent dreams that he’d almost forgotten there was a reality.

He wanted to call Xander. He missed having a friend, since he’d grown used to relying on Xander. That was terrible. He had to fucking stop needing other people. But still…couldn’t they be friends? Just friends? Probably not. Not yet, anyway. Xander would always want more and Max had decided that it wasn’t fair of him to take advantage of that.

At three o’clock, Max finally cleaned up and changed. He grabbed an apple and waited in his room for the inevitable arrival of Sam with his cell phone—which he’d left at Sam’s apartment. But when the knock on the door came, and Max walked over to open it with butterflies in his stomach, the person he saw on the other side was not who he was expecting.

It was Cam.

“Uh, hi…” Max said.

“Hey, I brought your phone. You left it at, uh, Sam’s yesterday.”

“Okay, thanks.” Max took it.

Cam didn’t move. “Uh, can I come in?”

“Why?” Max asked.

“Aren’t you being unnecessarily rude? Look, I just feel bad about any harm I may have done last night. I want to apologize.”

“You did no harm. Why would you have done harm? Because of your quirky friendship with Sam?”

“Don’t belittle me. Or Sam.”

Max sighed. “Fine. Sorry.”

“Look, I had no idea your thing for Sam was that bad.”

“He talked to you?”

“No…but I heard snippets.”

Max groaned. “Look I have nothing to say to you. I don’t even know you and I don’t really want to.”

“Okay, well I don’t really know you and I don’t really want to…but I’m still here and behaving myself.”

Max frowned. “I’m not as boring as you.”

“I’d beg to differ. You’ve never alluded to any interests you might have besides hot guys and you never contribute much to any intelligent conversation, nor do you ever share any important details about yourself in any of the times I’ve tried to get to know you, which truthfully has only been twice. You fear letting others in. Boring. Im just being honest. ”

Max rolled his eyes. “ I thought I said to quit analyzing me.”

Cam blinked. “Oh, sorry, I don’t notice myself do it, I just do it without thinking.”

“Why didn’t Sam bring the phone himself?” Max asked, frowning.

“I don’t know. You should ask him.” Cam replied. “Anyway, since I’m clearly not welcome here, I shall go…enjoy your solitude.”

“I’m about to get shitfaced in a bit and hit some club and pick up some guy to fuck so I’ll be okay, snob.”

Cam flushed. “Well if I’m going to be accused of snobbery, I may as well advise you that the beginning of alcoholism is the tendency to drink for the wrong reasons. i.e drinking away your sorrows. Grow up.”

And then he left.

Max did something he hadn’t done in a number of years, or perhaps ever. He slammed the door.

Then he waited. Sam would call.

But Max waited and waited, and began to get frustrated. He was antsy, he felt needy.

~*~

Max dressed up in something sexy and black and was in his car when Sam finally called.

“Do not leave your place,” Sam said.

“I see Cam got to you.” Max smirked. “I’m in the car.”

“You are such a tool. Seriously. Get the fuck out and go upstairs.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Then don’t act like a child that needs to be monitored constantly. Now look out the window.”

“What?” Max said. But suddenly he heard a tapping noise to his left and turned his head to see Sam’s fingers tapping against the window to his car. Max hung up and shoved he door open. He forced himself out

Sam looked at him angrily. “We’re friends right?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Is there anything that would ever make you not speak to me again?”

“Not likely,” Max replied.

“Then don’t let this do that.”

Max rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t intending on it. What makes you think this is recent? I’ve had years to deal with all this. You haven’t.”

“I’m sorry to have to say this again, Max, but I’m really not in love with you.”

Max wished it didn’t hurt. “Yes you are,” He insisted.

“I’m not. Look, I’m really not in love with you. I know what it feels like to be in love and this isn’t it. “In love” is such a silly phrase that doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel for you. It’s not romantic, though there may be traces of that. It’s…just us.”

“You’re comparing some love you felt for some blondie to me?”

Sam grinned. “You are a blondie. And no, that’s exactly what I mean. What we have is nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“Oh, fuck off, you know what I mean. You don’t even know you’re in love with me because you’ve been doing it so long.”

“Kiss me.”

“W-what?”

“You heard me, tough guy. Now do it.”

Max felt his hands trembling. “No. I won’t fucking kiss you.”

“Why? Because you’ve built it up in your head since you were twelve? Because you’re afraid the reality might not hold up to the little fantasy world you’ve created?”

“N-no,” Max whispered, anguished because it was probably true. “I’m in love you. You don’t understand. If you told me right now that you wanted me, I’d probably drop everything and be happy just to be with you for the rest of my life! This isn’t a fucking game, Sam!”

Sam’s gaze softened. “I know you think that you’d do that. Kiss me anyway?”

“Why?”

“I want you to.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I want to see something.”

Max waited a million heartbeats, staring at the flecks of snow on Sam’s head, at the deep eyes that stared back into his own, before he reached out and stroked Sam’s cheek. He leaned in and waited just a heartbeat, letting his breath fan on to Sam’s face, before he pressed his lips gently against Sam’s slightly parted ones. He couldn’t allow himself to press any harder, to let any passion translate, because all he felt was love and adoration. He felt peace. He felt joy. He felt the universe. It was pure love. It was gorgeous. It was a fresh bouquet of flowers. Max inhaled.

He leaned back. “That wasn’t the kind of kissing I ever thought of.” It was life. His shoulders slumped, the fight dying out of him as reality hit, as the preciousness of Sam’s presence in his life hit.

Sam smiled. “It was wonderful.”

“But I’m not what you want.”

Sam sighed. It was hard for him to say, but he had to. “No, you aren’t. And I’m not what you want either. I love you, but I’m not in love with you—hear me out. Maybe our definitions of what it means to be in love are different. I’ve always loved you Max. Always. And it’s not as normal as I’d like it to be, no, it’s intimate, and maybe it’s the type of love that Cam is always on about…all about the individual. I love who you are. I can’t not love you, if you know what I mean…even if I tried. Just like I can’t not love my mother. But while I’ve always considered you a definite part of my future, you aren’t what I picture for myself romantically. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t you think I know this?”

“But you said you think I’m in love with you.”

“I said, in fact, that I know you are. And I still think you are. You always will be. You just don’t see it like I do, maybe. It’s not simple, what we have. I’m glad you spoke to me about this… I feel a little better, now that the realm of possibility floating around in my mind is gone. The what-ifs, the maybes, the hopefulness. But I’m still a little messed up inside. I feel so hopeless.”

“C’mere,” Sam held out his arms. “Maybe we should be more affectionate. I like it.”

Max stepped into his arms and let himself be held. It was like being cured of cancer a little, the feeling of those arms. “But why does it hurt so much still?” Max whispered. “Why won’t it just go away? I’m so tired of hurting.”

“Shh, It’ll be okay.” And that was all Sam could say while he held Max on a snowy day in the middle of winter as he finally cried his heart out into Sam’s jacket.

~*~