If We Survive The Night

Gay

Jaden

I expect to fall asleep the moment my head touches the pillow, but no such luck. I toss and turn, trying to count sheep, pizzas, and vacuum cleaners, but my brain rejects the boring stuff. It has too many interesting events to chew on. Everything just whirls around in my head—the gunshots, Hazel's frown, Casey's scared eyes, his bloodied foot, and later his sleeping face, so expressionless that he looked almost dead. Why did I touch his cheek? What was that about? I'm not into touching dudes. He is, yeah, but I'm not.

I kind of guessed that he was gay pretty early on, although I can't quite put a finger on what exactly gave him away. A gesture here, a word there, maybe a remark delivered in an effeminate tone, maybe the way he threw his hair back, and that evaluating look he gave me sometimes. Straight guys don't look at each other like that. Anyway, it didn't really bother me—dudes aren't my cup of tea, but to each his own. He could look all he wanted as long as he didn't touch, which he never tried to do.

I recall the feeling of his warm body in my arms as I carried him to the bed, and later, his smooth skin under my fingertips. My brain must be really fried from all the events of today to make me think weird shit like that. I shouldn't even be aware that his face is attractive, or that his skin feels nice. I shouldn't be noticing such things, so why do I?

Anyway, I had my suspicions about him confirmed the day when I took his sweatshirt to his room, and found him making out with that other guy, the blonde one I'd seen visit him a couple times before. They weren't too explicit at that stage, both mostly dressed, lying on the bed, with the blonde guy sort of on top of Casey, kissing him, their hands sliding over each other. Their shirts were pulled out of their pants, and Casey's skin seemed too white in contrast to the tanned torso of his boyfriend. I mean, I assumed he was a boyfriend, since I'd seen him before, so it probably was an ongoing thing and not a one-night-stand—or a one-day-stand, given that it was around midday, sunshine filling the room. They hadn't even bothered lowering the blinds or anything, so I saw everything way too clearly to allow interpretations.

Almost immediately they became aware of my presence and pushed away from each other.

"Yours?" I said, raising the sweatshirt in my hand, even though I knew the answer. Sitting on the bed, Casey gave a slow node while his boyfriend looked at me with horror. I dropped the sweatshirt to the floor, turned around and left the room.

I was half-way to the stairs when he darted outside. "Wait... wait!"

I turned around. He was coming towards me in fast, jumpy steps, pushing his shirt under his belt. "Hey... how're you doing?" He shot a quick glance one way, then another, checking that we were alone in the corridor. "Uhm..." He let out a short nervous laughter. "You saw that, didn't you?" He peered into my face, then wrinkled his nose. "You did. Oh shit."

I just stood there, waiting. I kind of felt a bit rattled myself, having had no intentions of walking in on them like that. To me it seemed like the best course of action for both of us was to just pretend that nothing happened. I hoped that was what he intended to tell me.

"Look..." He took a deep breath, as if to steady himself. His lips looked a bit swollen from the kissing, something I wished I didn't notice. I also wished the sight didn't cause my dick to twitch a bit in my pants. That was perhaps the first time when I thought that I wouldn't be, like, completely opposed to touching him. Like, if he ever tried to kiss me, I might give it a few seconds, just to see what it feels like, before pushing him away.

"Yeah?" I said, just to cut the string of weird thoughts.

"Any chance you won't tell anyone about this?" He gave me a pitiful, puppy-like look. "Especially to my father, but, really, to anyone in this house, okay? Because whoever you tell, it might reach him, eventually. I mean, it shouldn't be that much of an effort, right? You don't talk to my father at all, so just keep it that way. Okay?"

"Hm," I said.

Knowing that I finally had something over him felt kind of good. I wasn't going to tell anyone, of course, that would have been way too low, but I didn't feel like admitting it to him right away. Maybe I just wanted to feel for a little longer that I had control over him.

"I see," he said slowly, apparently interpreting my silence in his own way. "How about I pay you?" He raised his finger, backing away. "Just wait here, okay? Don't move. I'll be right back."

He darted into his room. I heard tense, muffled whispers, and the sound of the zipper of his backpack opening and closing. Finally, he reemerged, a black leather wallet in his hands. He looked inside it.

"Let's see, how much we got here?" He extracted a banknote and handed it to me. "Will a hundred be enough?"

I stared at the money. I kind of knew that I needed to say that there was no need in that, but I also felt somewhat pissed at his confidence that he could solve anything with money. There was arrogance in that, and I felt like maybe he deserved to pay for it, in cash. Also, I needed the money—I always do.

"Give me that," I said, taking the banknote, and then, before he could say anything, snatched the wallet from him. "Let's see..." Inside, there were a couple of cards, a photo of him with some middle-aged woman, and two more hundred-dollars bills. I took them out, then returned him the wallet.

"Three hundred?" he said in a small voice. "Really?"

"Do you mind?"

"No." The answer came quickly, and he shook his head for emphasis. "If that'll keep you quiet, it's fine."

"It's a deal, then," I said, folding the banknotes and pushing them into my back pocket. Then, I turned around and left.

I did feel a bit shitty about taking that money, I won't lie, and I'm still not quite sure what made me do that. Anyway, it was good to have some extra cash, and me knowing his secret guaranteed that he'd be nice and polite to me. Later, I got myself new sneakers with that money and treated myself to a steak at Buffalo House, so all in all it was a good deal—or at least that's what I've been telling myself.

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