He Loves Him Page 9

  I glanced at his clock, it was eleven pm. “You almost finished?”

  “Umm. Another three hours? Maybe,” he replied.

  “You want any help?” I asked.

  “Nah I’m good,” he said looking up from his laptop for the first time. “It’s marketing. I don’t know if you’d understand it anyway,” he said.

  “Do you want a drink or anything?” I asked.

  He smiled minutely and shook his head. I turned to glance at my bedroom but didn’t move away.

  “Ri?” he said after I stood still a moment too long.

  “Hmm?” I turned back to him and hummed.

  “Are you planning on staying in here tonight?” he asked.

  No, I hadn’t been planning on staying in his room, I wanted to, but, “I wouldn’t want to distract you from your schoolwork”

  “Yes, ‘cause you aren’t already doing that. Look if you want to stay, stay. Just lay down and stop lurking in the doorway.”

  “I don’t lurk,” I said in a weak attempt to defend myself.

  “Of course, you don’t, just come lie down,” he said softly. I walked over and laid down on his bed, resting my head on his open pillow, and stared at the ceiling. A little while later, I turned my head and just watched Kit work on his homework. He had been working on it for hours and was stressing over it more than he had stressed over any other assignment he had all semester.

  He focused a lot on his schoolwork, which was fair given we were in college. To him, he had something to prove to the world, and his education was how he was going to do that. Personally, I looked at it as anything I was going to do that was important, I could do without an education where three fourths of the information is never used. We both knew how the other felt about it, we both thought the other was crazy, but we both admired how the other managed to pull off our chosen educational paths.

  I had seen him get happy or excited about grades and assignments. I had seen him get upset or sad about grades and assignments. I was glad that it was something he took pride in and something he gave his best to, because often he felt like there was nothing in his life he could control or rely on or that was constant. And while I didn’t feel the same way about education as he did, this gave him what he needed, and for that, I was perfectly okay with him losing himself in his work.

  I laid there for two hours just watching him work. Watching him work on something he cared about was time well spent in my book. But I was tired, and my eyes were slowly getting heavy. His hand dropped from his work and slid down the bed and into my hand. He finished writing something before turning to me. “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you too,” I said with a smile as my eyes finally fell shut and I felt Kit pull his covers up over me before I heard him start writing again, leaving his other hand in mine.

  Chapter 23 - Riker

  December 15th, 2016

  “You sure you don’t want to come with? You know my parents invited you. They don’t like the idea of you staying here alone any more than I do,” I said and slid my arms around Kit’s waist. I didn’t like it because it was sad to be alone during the holidays, but my parents were paranoid about either one of us being alone since the election.

  “I’m sure. I’ll be fine, Riker," he said.

  “Come on, come home with me for the holidays,” I tried to convince him one more time.

  “Why does this matter so much to you?” he asked with a sigh. I knew he was getting tired of this conversation, but it made no sense to me that he wanted to be by himself in the apartment for the holidays.

  “Because no one should be alone on Christmas, and because I want to kiss you on New Years. I love you, Kit. I want to spend this time with you. I don’t want to spend it thinking about how you are here by yourself. You give me a good reason why you shouldn’t spend the holidays with me, and I’ll drop it right now.”

  “Riker, I love you, and I would love to kiss you on New Years, I really would, but I can’t,” he said.

  I turned him around to face me and placed my hands on my hips. “Why?”

  “Can we talk about this later?”

  I crossed my arms and gave him a hard look.

  “Look, you have your demons, I have mine. We both know there’re things neither of us talk about. This is one of mine,” he said, minor annoyance seeping through his voice.

  I mustered a little bit of heat to my voice in response and questioned him, “So what? I’ll never get to spend Christmas or New Years with you? When we both graduate and we’re living together you’re going to just disappear on me for that span of time?”

  “Don’t be like that Ri,” Kit said.

  “Don’t ‘Ri’ me right now. I won’t force you to talk about it, because you wouldn’t force me, but it’s Christmas, Kit! You’re supposed to spend it with family, and you are my family now.”

  “That’s the problem Riker, family is the problem!” he paused and took a deep breath before continuing, “I want to be there with you, I do, but I can’t. Not this time at least. So please, let me drop the subject.”

  I just stood there for a minute. I couldn’t be mad, not at his demons and not wanting to talk about it. I couldn’t be, it wouldn’t be fair of me. In fact, it would most definitely be hypocritical of me, but I still wasn’t happy.

  I crossed my arms and said, “Fine.”

  “You’re pouting.”

  “Yeah, I’m pouting. You can’t deny me my pouting right now.”

  “No, I guess I can’t. Are we okay?” he asked softly.

  “Yeah we’re okay.” I took a deep breath. “I gotta go,” I said, but I didn’t move.

  He reached a hand up into my hair, settling at the back of my head. I looked him in the eye for a split second before I crumpled forward clutching at the back of his shirt and burying my face into the side of his neck. His other arm wrapped around me and I put every ounce of self-restraint I had into not crying. I couldn’t cry on him about this, that wouldn’t be fair to him either, but dammit I was sad.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  We stayed like that for a minute longer before I pulled away and grabbed my bag. I turned back to Kit and quickly kissed him.

  “I gotta go,” I said again and walked away.

  The whole bus ride home I couldn’t get it out of my head. I made it home just after lunch and promptly ignored my mom in favor of putting my bags in my room and heading straight out to the backyard and kicking the ball around. I didn’t plan on staying out there for the whole day, just until I had calmed down again, but somehow, I found myself out there as the sun went down, and still when dinner had come and gone. It was pitch black when I heard my dad say, “You planning on camping out here?”

  “Maybe.”

  He sighed. “What’s going on, kid? Your mom says you’ve been out here all day.”

  “I thought you were out of the country,” I said a tad more aggressively than I meant to.

  “That was last week. I’ve been at the office today. What’s going on?” he asked again.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Yeah, I don’t believe you. Come on talk to me.”

  “No,” I snapped.

  He stepped up and snatched the ball from my feet and dribbled backwards with it out of my reach. He knew I wouldn’t go for it.

  “Dad, give me the ball back.”

  “No,” he said calmly.

  “Please?” I didn’t have it in me to put up a fight for it.

  “Riker,” it was one of those moments when the way he says my name carries the weight of a thousand words behind it. The thousand words that could sneak past all my defenses and break me down while still feeling safe and loved. Mom had never mastered that technique, but Dad did.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said and crossed my arms.

  “No, you just want to be miserable,” he said.

  “Just leave me alone, please.” I turned and walked off toward the lawn furniture in the back corner of the law
n, knowing full well he was following me.

  “No can do, kiddo.”

  “Why not?” I asked, mostly to myself, as I sunk down into one of the lounge chairs. He answered anyway.

  He walked over, sat down next to me, and said “Because, you’re sulking. And every time you sulk this hard about something, you’re miserable for days and you eventually come to me about it anyway. So why don’t we just skip the extra steps and go straight to the end?”

  I sighed. He was right. I hated it, I really didn’t want to talk, but he was right. He always was.

  “Kit wants to be alone for the holidays and he won’t talk to me about why,” I admitted. “Says he has demons.”

  “Everybody has demons Rike, you can’t fault him for that,” Dad said gently.

  “I don’t fault him for it. I have demons too, that’s not the problem. The problem is he knows my demons and I don’t know his.”

  “Are you mad you don’t know, or that he won’t talk to you about it?” he asked.

  “That he won’t talk to me about it,” I muttered.

  “You know you don’t exactly talk about things, either. If it wasn’t for Jake, Kit wouldn’t have known about your demons, at least not as quickly as he did,” Dad pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know, but I would’ve told him eventually,” I said.

  Dad placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and said, “And I’m sure he’ll tell you eventually. Right now just isn’t the right time for him. He’s not ready. I know you can respect that.”

  “Yeah,” I breathed out.

  “Just give him time. I promise he’s not trying to keep you out or hurt you. He’s just trying to deal with things,” he explained to me.

  “We fought about it before I left. We made up, but he said he loved me, and I didn’t say it back,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty, “I should’ve said it.”

  “Call him tomorrow, or right now if you really need to, but call him and talk to him. Even if it’s about nothing, just talk to him. Don’t let yourself wallow, and don’t let him think you’re mad at him.”

  I nodded, knowing he was right, but unable to come up with a response.

  He ruffled my hair and stood up, “You two love each other, it’ll be alright. Make sure you get some sleep kid, it’s getting late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I sat there for a few minutes after he left before I got back up and started kicking the ball again. After that talk I had too much on my mind. I felt better now, but it didn’t mean being without him was easy still. We had gotten used to not being apart for more than a weekend at a time. Maybe we were a bit co-dependent.

  I ended up kicking the ball around for another hour before I finally decided screw it and took my dad’s advice. I sat down again and pulled out my phone to call Kit. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” he answered.

  I blurted out, “I love you.”

  He chuckled. “Miss me already?” he asked, and all my tension instantly left me.

  “You caught me. How much time do you have?”

  “As much as you want.”

  Chapter 24 - Riker

  December 25th, 2016

  I groaned when my phone started ringing, and slid my hand out from under the covers to find it. I blindly answered and pulled it back to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ri,” Kit said.

  That woke me up. I smiled and pulled my cocoon of blankets tighter around me. “Hi.”

  “Yeah, you said that already. You actually awake?” There was a hint of laughter to his voice.

  I yawned and rubbed the heel of my palm into my eye, “Am now. Why are you calling so early?”

  “Wanted to be the first one to wish you Merry Christmas.”

  “Well, Romeo, Merry Christmas to you too. You got some time?”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world, my prince.”

  We talked about everything and nothing for an hour. He had tried his hand on a few new recipes he had made up and I told him about taking Allie out for some last-minute shopping. Just talking to him was the best Christmas present I could’ve gotten. Somewhere along the lines I had pulled the present from him into my lap and was just holding it.

  “Hey, you opened your present yet?” He asked.

  I smiled at his seeming psychic ability, “No, not yet. Have you?”

  “No, I’m just sitting with it right now.”

  I laughed. “Same actually. You want to open them now, together?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “Count of three, tear into them?” I asked.

  “You count,” he said.

  I counted down and when I hit three, I heard paper tearing on his side as I started tearing open mine. I sat there completely frozen, staring at the unwrapped present in my hands. Kit started talking to me again.

  “Riker, oh my god, thank you. How did you know I wanted this?” I had gotten him an old first edition book that I couldn’t even remember at the moment.

  “Elyse,” I choked out. I had started crying lightly while he talked. It was true, Elyse and Kit had been out shopping for a project they had when Kit had come across the book and in Elyse’s words had “fallen in love with it if it’s even possible to love a book.” I went out the first chance I had to buy it for him.

  “Riker are you okay? I’m sorry I wanted to get you something so much better, but that was the best I could do. I know it’s cheesy.”

  “Kit, shut up. I love it, it’s perfect. I’m actually crying right now.” It was a picture of the two of us, one of my favorite pictures of us, in an engraved frame. Elyse had taken the picture of us the year before when we both fell asleep at her place watching a movie, me on top of him and his arms tight around me. The engraving was something he had said to me one time that I couldn’t stop smiling at him for. It was something I would never forget. He had said, “The stars could stop shining and the sun could die, but it wouldn’t matter ’cause all I need in this world is you.”

  “Really? You’re not lying to make me feel better? Those are happy tears?” Kit asked.

  “Happy tears, I promise,” I said and took a deep breath. “Kit, god, I love you, thank you.”

  I jumped as someone banged on my door.

  “Riker, downstairs, let’s go. You’re the last one not down there!” Ashley yelled.

  “Relax, I’m coming. Be there in two minutes!” I yelled back.

  “You better be.” When I heard her footsteps trail off, I laughed into the phone.

  “You’re being summoned,” Kit said.

  “Yeah, I gotta go,” I said regretfully. If it was up to me, I’d gladly spend my whole Christmas on the phone with Kit, but family obligations did have some priority to them.

  “Tell everyone I said Merry Christmas.”

  “I will. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Ri.”

  Chapter 25 - Kit

  December 31st, 2016

  Okay, so I was going a little stir-crazy. Which was a new sensation for me this time around. Usually I was perfectly capable of spending this time alone without going bored or missing human contact. It wasn’t like I was completely cut off from contact either. I was still texting Riker and my friends. But here I was, already bored of all the video games I usually longed to play, but never had the time for. There wasn’t anything good on TV and there was nothing on Netflix that I could watch, at least not without Riker—after all, it was tradition for us to watch them together. I could only work out so many times before my body started rebelling.

  Which was why I was lounging sprawled out on my back on Riker’s bed with the book he got me clutched tight to my chest, staring at one of his pictures on the nightstand as I tried to come up with something to do. The longer I sat there, the more I stopped thinking about that and started thinking more about Riker. He was the reason I was going stir-crazy. I missed him. I would’ve called him just to hear his voice again, but he was babysitting his niece while the adults were out and if I called
now, I wouldn’t get to talk to him so much as I would get to talk to Allie. I loved that little girl, but sometimes she was too much for me to handle.

  I should’ve just gone with him. I should’ve sucked it up and gone with him and just locked myself in a room if I needed to. At least I’d have Riker there, and his parents probably would’ve understood. No, not probably, they would’ve because they were understanding and loving parents unlike some people. I growled at my own train of thought and rolled over to bury my face in the pillows. They smelled like Riker, and that was comforting.

  Alright, I had to at least text him now. I pulled my phone out and texted him:

  K: How’s the babysitting?

  R: Send reinforcements, she’s beating me at Mario Kart.

  K: Can’t help, you’re better than me at that one.

  R: Oh no, death by rainbow road.

  K: Stay strong.

  R: Good news, she got bored with it. I’ve sent her to get Monopoly… plot twist, we don’t own Monopoly.

  K: That’s horrible.

  R: [picture] When did my parents buy this?!

  K: good luck. Collect $200 when you pass go.

  R: I can’t. This isn’t going to end well for anyone.

  K: When do the adults return?

  R: [shrug] idk. Before dinner? After dinner? They’re supposed to bring us dinner.

  K: Well you’ve got a couple more hours then. Have fun.

  R: ugh she’s getting mad at me now for being on my phone. Talk to you later. I love you.

  K: Love you too.

  I was laughing a little by this point. Riker hated Monopoly. He was probably already miserable before that anyway. He wasn’t looking forward to babysitting. He had said he got into an argument with his mother about it and lost after fifteen minutes. I did feel bad for him though, he probably didn’t want to spend New Year’s Eve babysitting when he could be out with the adult contingent of the family. It was only three in the afternoon and he was already playing Monopoly, so chances were his day was only going to go downhill from there.