Find Beauty in a Message

Chapter 19

They find Mike sulking in the spare bedroom. High degree sulking—sprawled facedown in the mattress, completely immovable and lethargic. It’s sad and pathetic, and Will feels terrible for him, but Boris just looks amused. Will has to resist the urge to jam another finger into his boyfriend’s stomach as punishment. He’s kind of confused as to how Mike can be so devastated when according to El, he’s the one with the issue when it comes to saying how he feels, but he’s trying hard not to judge.

“C’mon, Mike, let’s go do something. You can’t lay here all spring break,” Will urges.

“Like what?” Mike asks. His voice is muffled into the blanket beneath him.

“We could go to the movies?” he suggests. Mike groans.

“We could go back to Rink O’ Mania?”

Another groan.

“We could teach Boris about D&D?”

That makes Mike lift his head.

“I thought you gave all your stuff away,” he says.

“Well, I did. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember everything.”

He flops his head back down.

“That’s not as fun.”

Will sighs and rolls his eyes towards the ceiling as if asking a higher power for help. It’s rare for Mike to get like this, but it’s awful when it happens.

“Okay,” he walks to the end of the bed and grabs one bony ankle and tugs. “We’re gonna go in the living room, watch Ghostbusters, because Boris has never seen it, eat junk food, and have fun. You love Ghostbusters.”

Mike lets himself roll with the tug on his ankle and eyes Boris as he goes.

“You’ve never seen Ghostbusters?” he asks him.

Boris shakes his head, still looking far too amused for his own good.  

“That’s just wrong.”

“It is wrong,” Will agrees, “so get up, Michael.”

They have more junk food than they know what to do with. Bowls of it. Popcorn, chips, candy, cans of soda. Boris looks like he’s in heaven, already shoving handfuls of Doritos in his mouth like a man starved.

“So, this movie, what is it about?” he asks.

Mike stares at Will an abject horror.

“How is this even possible?” he whispers as Will passes him on the way to the VCR.

Will shrugs.

“He watches a lot of old movies. You know, stuff from like the 30s.”

“Why?”

“I mean, they’re pretty good. I watch them too sometimes. Usually at his house, but they’re not bad.”

They turn they’re attention back to Boris.

“It’s kind of like what the title says. They’re Ghostbusters. They hunt ghosts. It’s great.” Mike says.

“Is it scary?”

“Not really,” Will chimes in, setting up the VHS. “More funny, I think. But mostly, it’s just cool.”

Resolved not to let Mike and Boris sit next to each other, Will slides into the middle of the couch as the movie starts. Mike is already on the edge of his seat, seemingly feeling much better as he sips on a can of soda and digs his hand in a bowl of candy, eyes fixed firmly on the screen. Boris is less enamored with the ghost and the troubles of the main cast, choosing instead to trace a finger over the top of Will’s hand in a way that makes him shiver. His eyes dart over to his boyfriend’s face, only to meet a dark, impish stare return.

In a moment of daring, Will splays his hand out, allowing Boris to thread his fingers between his in a gentle handhold that has him blushing, while Boris looks endlessly pleased. He leans close, and closer still, to whisper in Will’s ear:

“Sweet boy.”

And Will feels like he’s going to combust. He holds Boris’s hand tighter, buries it in the space between them, and floats away on the feeling of holding a boy’s hand in his living room like he’s always dreamed of doing.

Sure, Mike’s here, and maybe flirting with Boris while trying to make him feel better doesn’t make him the greatest friend there is, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention anyway.

Soothingly, lovingly, as the movie continues on, Boris traces his thumb along one of his knuckles, and Will finds himself wishing that he could curl into the contact more. He wants to burrow into Boris, wants his arms thrown around him, their legs tangled together as they watch whatever movie the other boy chooses.

It’s odd, he thinks, glancing at Mike, that he used to want this with someone else. Odd that sometimes it still stings, but for the most part he feels so unfathomably full and happy. Suddenly, his heart freezes in his chest, because Mike’s dark eyes are peering back at him. They glance down quizzically at where his and Boris’s hands are intertwined, but hidden, and then back up at Will with a furrowed brow.

He fights the urge to wrestle his hand back from his boyfriend, blaming that urge on raw panic. He tries to remember, no matter how much it hurts, that Mike already knows about him.

It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!

He sucks in a deep breath, searching for bravery. It’s just Mike.

It’s just Mike.

Boris is with him. And it’s just Mike.