Mickey

Chapter 6

"So why didn't you tell me this earlier?" his brother asked after Mickey had told him about the events of the past couple weeks and how he had met a Drew Patterson, heir to one of the country's most famous and controversial conservative dynasties. And also how he was starting to have confusing feelings about the relationship.

The brothers usually had long catch-up conversation at least once a week, but Mickey had let it slide the previous round. The closeness between them, however didn't allow to Mickey hide his situation for long, and it didn't take much time for Nate to suspect that something was going on with his elder brother and forced a reckoning.

"I guess I didn't want to worry you and Mom, and..."

"She called me after you two talked a couple days ago, she sensed that something was bothering you," he interjected. "She'll give you space to figure things out, Mickey. She's our mom. But, you know, that's not my style."

Mickey chuckled. "I should have known, nothing gets by her. Don't let her worry, OK?"

"In the short term I can do that. But you're going to have to `fess up sooner or later."

"I know that, and I want to tell her. But there's just too much happening right now," Mickey pleaded.

"So what else happened today that's gotten your head so much more tangled up?" Nate asked, the voice retreating from admonishment to a much more sympathetic tone.

Mickey let out a breath of air. "Well, after I finished my run..."

*** `Home ok. tx for asking' he texted as soon as he walked into his bedroom. He hadn't taken yet taken off his shirt or shoes or even wiped the sweat from his forehead that was now almost dripping into his eyes.

After resting for a few minutes, he finally took off his half-soaked t-shirt and the rest of his clothes and made into the shower, where he just let the warm water stream down his body until he got the energy to actually start applying the shampoo and soap.

"That's who he is!" Mickey exclaimed to himself. He had just pulled a fresh t-shirt over his head after the shower and was planning on hitting the books hard for his contracts class, but the thought distracted him and he just sat down on the edge of his bed, thinking.

`Yeah, Andrew, of course, that was his name!' he thought to himself, as other memories came flooding into his mind after he made the connection. For most people, it would have been the kind of link that would help establish a friendship if the pair didn't previously know each other well. A shared high school experience, common friends, now at the same college. But the circumstances weren't so easy here.

Broaching to Drew the fact that he was gay just never came up in any of the conversations that he'd had with Drew. He wasn't closeted at all at this point in his life and in any other situation it would have been no big deal at all. But this was different.

He remembered that Andrew was in the same house as a guy he went with to the senior prom. It wasn't a big crush for Mickey, more like he was one of the few out guys at the school and they both thought it would be fun to go to the prom. The houses at their boarding school were small and Andrew couldn't help but remember that person and event, Mickey thought.

`Was Andrew really very close to Drew? If he was, he would almost certainly at least mention that we went to the same school. But would he go into the details? Would he mention that I'm gay?' Mickey asked himself.

And how would Drew react? Mickey couldn't imagine him denying their friendship. Could he? But maybe that was just his own fantasies of their good friendship projecting themselves. Or would he be upset that Mickey wasn't honest with him? He might be angry, Mickey thought, but he honestly didn't try to hide anything. It just didn't ever seem important. At least not at first.

But now it seemed like the most important thing on earth. There were a million scenarios playing through his head, but whether Andrew told him or not he figured he had better bring it up himself sooner rather than later.

He managed to pull his anxious body off of the bed and over to the small corner desk, but couldn't focus on the document that he was supposed to be studying. Every time he looked at a page he just ran through the situation again in his head.

It went on this way all afternoon. He felt like his head was in overdrive ruminating over it, but his studying efficiency was more like thirty percent. Sara was gone for the weekend, so for dinner he just finished off some leftover spaghetti and meatballs from the fridge.

Just to distract himself, or try for a reset, he looked at his phone. The confusion was so dominating that he almost ignored the message icon that he usually saw almost the moment it popped up. It was 45 minutes old.

`Busy?'

He felt frantic and struggled to keep his fingers steady as he typed in a reply. 'Sorry, just saw message. Studying. Still at picnic?'

`Heading back to campus for a study group. Desert later?'

`Yes!'

As he approached he could see Drew through the big plate glass shop window, his hands in his pockets, looking over rows of stainless steel ice cream canisters displayed in careful rows like abstract sculptures in a modern museum.

"Hey, guy!" Mickey greeted to him, smiling as stepped up the counter.

Drew immediately turned around and smiled. "Hi Mickey, thanks for coming out. I know you've got lots to do, but I thought that a study break would be good for both of us," he proclaimed.

"Glad to oblige. I really like this stuff, but try to limit it to days that I work out or run. Today is my lucky day," Mickey responded, though he didn't actually feel too lucky, at least right then. He hadn't before felt such anxiety around Drew as he felt this moment.

While the old soda shop was a historic fixture in the campus neighborhood, it had moved into the 21st century with a wide selection of Italian gelatos, which they freely fused with old-fashioned American sugar cones and fancy toppings. Not to mention the recently completed high-tech renovation that made the place feel almost like the interior of a spaceship. Mickey gazed at the huge selection, then turned to Drew.

"My treat. You've been buying for me and bringing over food all the time.

"But I asked you, so it's my job to pay. Besides, I'm going to order a humongous one, and there's no way that I'd let anyone else pay for me to indulge myself like this.

"But..."

Drew smiled, but ignored his protest and turned to the attendant. "These two are together."

Mickey would have fought him further on it, even to the point of sticking money in Drew's pocket. He did that more than once to wealthy friends at Middlefield. But he was getting so nervous about distractions that he decided to just let it go and pointed to a small, pointed waffle cone and asked for `cookies and cream'. It was his favorite flavor for a lot of sweets, but he only ordered one scoop.

"You can have more!" Drew protested.

"I know, and I appreciate it. But I'm not... I mean, I like ice cream, but I'm not real hungry right now."

"Do you feel all right? Drew asked, his eyes moving from the ice cream containers to Mickey's face.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. But I think that one scoop will be plenty for me right now," he replied as the attendant reached over the counter and handed him his cone.

"Thanks,' he said to the attendant before turning to Drew. "And thank you, too."

Drew just raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Glad to," as Mickey took his first tentative lick of the ice cream.

`Can he tell that I'm nervous?' he asked himself.

"Ok, and what would you like?" the attendant then asked, turning to Drew as he shook the scoop in a bowl of water to slicken it up again.

"I'll have the waffle cone."

"This one here," he asked, pointing to the middle sized one.

"No, above that, the big one," he said, as the guy reached to the top of the stacked cone holder and slipped off the very top one.

"Great. I'd like one scoop of chocolate velvet and one scoop of peanut butter," he said. After both had been scooped up, he continued. "With chocolate sprinkles. And M&Ms. And whipped cream. And a slice of banana."

"I hope I can get this all on there," the guy behind the counter cautioned. "This is getting pretty loaded up. You sure you don't want a cup?"

"Nope. I can't eat a paper cup and I love the cones. But no worries about making it look pretty, just do the best you can," Drew replied.

"I think that you're going to be needing a couple of these," Mickey said as the pulled a half-dozen napkins out of the gleaming metal dispenser.

"See if they have a bib, too," he asked. Mickey smiled back. He wished that he wasn't so nervous. He could enjoy Drew's humor more.

Mickey held the door, as Drew almost had to use both hands to keep his huge concoction balanced. They started strolling down the street, heading in the direction of campus but with no real plan discussed between them.

There were many others also out on the street, as it was the kind of beautiful warm evening that brought out the crowds both from the campus and the town. In spite of the heavy pedestrian traffic, Mickey found himself on what he felt was the `wrong' side of Drew and used an encounter with a slower moving couple to position himself on the other side. He got a quizzical look from him, but Mickey thought that he had not been too obvious.

Mickey felt his stomach tightening as they continued up the street. He wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject on his mind, but the more he walked the more quickly it seemed to knot up. It got to a point where there almost wasn't a choice anymore.

"Hey Drew," he started, trying to sound serious in spite of having an ice cream cone in his hand. "There's been something that I've been meaning to tell you about. I mean, about myself. Maybe I should have said something before. I don't know. But..." His ice cream was starting to melt over the edges of the cone, but he couldn't bring himself to interrupt what he had to say. Until Drew interrupted him.

"Mickey?" he asked, between licks at the top of his cone as he cleared off the whipped cream and sprinkles.

"Yeah?" he replied, a drip of ice cream landing on his thumb.

"Is it about... being gay?" Drew finally asked. It seemed like he was trying to be as nonchalant as possible, but Mickey noticed, or thought he did, that his voice seemed to crackle for a second.

"Um, yeah... I probably should have at least mentioned it sooner. But it didn't seem... important."

"You're my friend, Mickey. That's all that matters." His voice was very quiet as his mouth went back onto his cone.

Mickey was about to speak, but as they approached the corner, a skateboarder came streaking down the sidewalk forcing everyone in its path to quickly scramble off to the side.

Drew quietly cursed the carelessness of the rider as they resumed their walk.

Though Mickey was initially walking on Drew's right side, in all the commotion they ended up switching places. Trying get back to his previous position, Mickey awkwardly moved around him.

Drew stopped and looked straight at him.

"You don't need to do that. Not with me."

It was a strange moment. He didn't say much at what Mickey thought was a very dramatic disclosure about being gay, an event that usually led to heart-to-heart talks with people. But for Drew it was something else that seemed to move him.

"I'm sorry. Over the years it's just gotten to be such a routine. Most people seem to um... like it that way."

"How do you know that?" Drew asked, clearly perplexed.

"When I was in grade school, one of my friends asked me to walk this way so he wouldn't have to look at it, I mean the scars on that side of my face," he said. "I think that sometimes teachers used to put me on the right hand side of class, for the same reason. So I guess I thought that it would make people more comfortable to be able to look at my good side."

"Good side!" Drew proclaimed, suddenly excitement in his voice. The edge of his cone was practically overflowing with melted ice cream, so he took a big lick all around it before continuing.

"So you think you've got a good side?" he asked. "You know, Mickey, that's vanity, a form of pride, one of the seven deadly sins. That's serious. You could go to Hell for that," he said before going back the top to finish the last of the sprinkles.

Mickey was stunned for moment. `How could he?...' he thought. But, somehow, he sensed that Drew was smiling as he started to finish off his top scoop.

"Well, isn't gluttony one of the seven deadly sins, too?" he retorted, trying to get back to eating his own cone in the same nonchalant manner.

Stopping his tracks, Drew dropped the desert from his mouth and glared at him. "Mickey, that isn't gluttony. This is." And he proceeded to take Mickey's cone from him, held both of the cold desserts together in front of himself, and then stuffed them both into his mouth at the same time.

He stood there motionless, his posture was erect and defiant, two mismatched tan-colored waffle cones sticking out his mouth like giant bent teeth. A nearby group of teenage girls pointed and laughed, but the Drew just ignored them.

Mickey just stared at him. The cheeks bulged out with their cargo and his lips looked so stretched that Mickey wondered for a moment if he'd be able to pull the cones back out.

And suddenly – he did just that, popping them both out at once. He tried to stifle a laugh, then sucked in a deep breath. There was no way that he could have kept them in there much longer. If he didn't run out of breath then his teeth would have screamed from the cold. But in spite of that he tried to act like nothing happened as he handed Mickey's now slightly flattened waffle cone back to him.

"Here. And if you don't keep eating I'll be insulted. After all, I just had yours in my mouth."

He couldn't tell where about a third of his ice cream went. It had either dripped over the edge earlier, was in Drew's mouth, or had melded onto Drew's own ice cream. Forgetting his earlier anxiety, the thought that he could have Drew's saliva in his mouth was rather exciting. But not wanting to look too lascivious, he made sure he kept his tongue in his mouth as he took the first bite out of the now softened top edge.

"Nate, when I told him I was gay, it didn't seem to matter. He didn't seem put off by it at all, he just told me that our friendship was important. I'm not sure that he wanted to say more before we were interrupted, so we didn't really have a chance to talk about it. But his reaction to me trying to hide my scars that was a lot more intense. He was more hurt than anything else. Right then and there I was really angry with myself for not trusting him"

Nate interrupted him. "There's no reason for you to feel that way, and it sounds like he understood very well once you explained it, "he said, and continued. "Look, you can't just forget important things that have happened to you, no matter what the circumstances.

"I think he did understand. He's like that," Mickey responded. "But I still felt terrible, though. Because I felt like I hurt him."

"You really do like him?" Nate asked.

"It's crazy for me to think that. Gosh, look who he is."

"You know better than to say that, Mick. He's his own person. He's not his family."

"I know Nate, I know. I'm just trying... I mean... well, he can't help where he comes from any more than I can. But to imagine him as gay. I mean, wow, how self-delusional can I get? Someone from a family like that. But on the other hand, when I try to ignore all that... baggage... I see a chance. Maybe a possibility. Or I fantasize that there is one, which is where I feel like I'm fooling myself."

"Why do you hope?" The question hit like a brick.

But Mickey didn't hesitate to answer. "Because I want there to be a chance, some kind of chance. He's just a really good person, Nate. The best. He's smart, loyal. He thinks of other people besides himself," he responded, nothing but conviction in his voice. "It seems like we can talk for hours and it feels like just a few minutes. And you know what else? He likes kids. I love that!

"Gosh I could go on and on, but I don't...feel like I should, or could," he said, a sudden drop in his voice. "Damn, Nate. Sometimes I don't know what I feel."

Nate exhaled. "Bro... on the contrary, I think you know yourself pretty well. But you also realize that it might not matter. As much as you might like someone, and hope for them to like you, there really isn't anything that you can do about it. You can't plant emotions in someone." Mickey heard a sigh on the other end of the line.

"I don't know how you gay guys do it. In that sense, we straight people have it pretty easy. When I met Midori, the signals I got from her were unmistakable, or at least I thought so," he said, as they both chuckled.

"And you were right, Nate. You two were together really fast. It was just weeks. And now it's been two years."

"I was lucky, very lucky," Nate responded. He spoke so quietly that Mickey could hardly hear him before his voice came back up.

"But like I said, there was no question about what the flirting meant. I was really flattered that someone as great and cute as her would pay attention to me. That's the part that seemed unbelievable. My only questions were ones of, how shall I say it, approach and pace and speed. But they were not as basic as what you have to deal with."

"If I could be sure that he was like me, I would respond in a second. I'm ready." Mickey said. "That's what scares me so much. I feel like I'm over the edge. But based on nothing but what I want him to be."

The line was quiet as each of the guys hardly know what to say. Then Nate spoke.

"Mickey, I'm not going to say this to give you false hopes, or any hopes. There's just no way to draw conclusions right now," he claimed, by way of preparing his brother.

"But let's say for a moment that he is gay. The fact is that he's grown up in what could possibly be one of the most hostile environments a gay kid could have. Two stepbrothers, who besides being misogynistic are among of the biggest homophobes and gay-baiters around, a fundamentalist preacher grandfather, ultraconservative father, the list goes on. What would he think? If he's sort of self-aware and wanted to keep his head on his shoulders, he might be furtive and cunning and wily about it, or in denial, torturing himself, but in both cases unhappy and really screwed up," he said, the words coming out strong and clear.

"On the other hand, because of his upbringing, especially if he's a loyal son, he might not even be aware of his feelings and what they mean. It's not exactly denial – it's not even being cognizant of the possibility that he himself could be gay," he continued, emphasizing the words. "He could be giving affection and companionship in a completely unselfconscious way, not realizing that his actions were going way beyond the typical expressions of friendship."

Mickey's mouth was dry and he had to swallow before answering. "Nate, if there is any even remote way that he's gay, that's about the only thing it could be. He's not furtive or manipulative at all. I feel like he's right out there, just doing what feels right. But I have to tell you, "he said, his voice picking up speed, "his actions with me are nothing but kindness and affection. Everything he's done, from putting the ointment on my face, to making sure that I got home after my run. Everything.

He heard Nate sighed sympathetically, but knew there wasn't much more he could say. He had just needed to talk to someone, to let it out. And his brother seemed to sense the same thing.

"You OK, bro?

"Yeah, I'll live. I think," he said, as they both chuckled.

"By the way, it's hard for anyone who reads a newspaper or has the internet to now to be unaware of his family and all, but I'm not sure that you even know this one thing about him, since you don't follow football that much," Nate said.

"What's that?"

"He was the starting varsity quarterback his freshman year. Do you know how many guys can do that?"

"I knew he was quarterback, but I didn't realize it was varsity. But now that you mention it, you're right, it must have been his freshman year."

"Yeah, he was pretty good, and could have probably made it in Division l team if he had gone to one of those schools. It's a big deal to be a pretty highly rated nationally coming out of high school," he said. "Did he tell you why he stopped?"

"Not exactly," Mickey responded. "He said he had a couple concussions, and even his Dad wanted him to quit, so it must have been pretty serious if even that hard-ass wanted him to leave the team."

"Well, a lot of people think that guys were deliberately trying to hurt him. I guess that they had a problem with his family's politics, so `why not take it out on the son', they thought."

"He never mentioned anything like that, Nate. Do you believe it?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line before he continued. "Not at first. I thought all of that was right-wing paranoia. But I saw a YouTube clip of one of the incidents," he said, and paused. Mickey could hear him swallow. "It was a textbook late hit, and not one but two guys, like it was planned. It was so blatant that one even got ejected. And then, to top it all off, their coach came onto the field and protested the ejection, claiming that Drew's `old man' had bought off the refs.

"And these guys were big, too. It's not like they were lightweights," he continued.

"Jeeze... I didn't know that at all, "Mickey replied, quietly.

"There was an ESPN interview a few days later, but he didn't make any accusations or excuses, which surprised a lot of people. He just gave a standard answer about football being a tough sport."

"So, speaking of tough, Bro... let me ask you a tough question, OK?"

"Uh oh, I probably won't want to answer this one, whatever it is," Mickey replied with a laugh, not underestimating his brother's ability to needle him.

"Do you think he's cute?" Nate asked.

"Um..."

"Answer the question."

"He's just a good guy and all..."

"Bottom line. Answer the question!"

"Yeah, I do. I have to admit it. He's really, good looking, and... as you say `tough'. He's hot, no doubt about it, but..."

Mickey could almost see his brother smiling before Nate mercifully interrupted him.

"In the interview I saw, he had taken off his pads and shirt, so you could see how built he was. Even I could tell that he had a great body. Not one of those freaky steroid types but just a natural hunk."

"Um... I wish that you hadn't told me that," Mickey replied, chuckling. "It just feeds my fantasy."

"Sorry, bro, I wasn't trying to tease you about it."

"Bullshit!" Mickey replied, as they both laughed.

"I'll tell you, something, though, Mickey. Again, I don't want to get your hopes up. But if this works out and something... happens..." he hesitated before continuing.

"...then he'd be the luckiest guy in the world. You're the best, and I'm not just saying this because I'm your brother. Mom and I know for a fact that you'll do anything in the world for your family, and that guy would have the best partner ever."

Mickey could hardly open his mouth, and just whispered. "Thanks, Nate."

"No thanks necessary, Bro. I'm just stating the facts."