Bromosexual

Instead, a completely different string of words come out of my mouth. “You just can’t fucking accept me for what I am.”

That knocked the look off of his face as if I did smack him.

“You can’t,” I reiterate. “You keep trying to bend and twist me into something I’m not. What do you think I am? Your lover? Your boyfriend? When the hell did I ever agree to become that?”

“I …” Ryan’s eyes glaze over as he fights for words, his throat tight.

Ryan looks so vulnerable, standing there in just his pants, no shirt, and all his feelings out on the table. And here I am, the dutiful best buddy, shitting all over them.

“You picked me up from the bar that night a few weeks back. You took care of me. You got me on my feet. You saved me from … whatever fucking fate awaited me.”

“Because I care about you,” he mumbles miserably, his voice shaking with the threat of tears.

It should affect me. I should back down. But I don’t. “If your intention was really just to help me, then where’s this anger of yours coming from?” I ask him. “You helped me. And now you’re expecting me to pull myself inside out, to announce what I am, to admit to two random chicks I just met what’s going on in my head, to say that I’m your boyfriend or some shit …?”

“I never said that.” He grinds his teeth as he speaks. “I never called you my boyfriend.”

“Face it, Ryan. You can’t accept what I am.”

“Stefan, you don’t even know what you are,” he retorts, his voice gathering strength as he takes a step toward me. “You need some ridiculous term to cover it up. Bromo. You can’t even say it, can you? It’s like yet another stupid uniform you can wear in your life to hide what you are. Without it, you’re just an idiot with a stick swinging at balls in a field of grass.”

“There we go.” I set my jaw, feeling my heart pumping with anger. “There’s the old senior-year Ryan I was waiting for.”

“And you know it’s true.” He dares to come right up to me, all his anger radiating out of his eyes like smoke from a fire. “Why can’t you just back down and give yourself an honest look? You’ve been showing me things my whole life. Swinging bats. Throwing balls. Why can’t I do the same for you?”

“I don’t need my hand held in the bedroom.” The force of my words makes the front of his hair dance. “I’ve been just fine in that department my whole life, even before I met you.”

“Before you met me, you were just a cocky little bitch. I’m the one who made your heart race. Admit it.”

“You were my friend.”

“Admit that I made your heart race,” he persists, knowing his words are getting to me, knowing he just has to push a tiny bit more before I lose my cool. “Just like you made mine race.”

“You were nothing but my friend. Nothing.” I feel tears sting my eyes.

“Tell me those two women tonight made you feel an ounce of what you feel when I’m standing this close to you.”

“Back the fuck off, Ryan.”

“You want me. Even right now.”

My voice turns into something between a hiss and a hair. “You were just my fucking friend and teammate. That’s it.”

With his eyes locked to mine, Ryan reaches down and grips a handful of my dick through my pants. It’s swollen hard and flexes against his fingers. “Tell that to your cock,” he whispers back.

I grip his arms tight, furious in an instant, even with him still holding my cock through the prison of my pants and his five firm fingers. I don’t know whether I want to pull him into me or throw him away from me.

All of these words fire back and forth between us so quickly, I’ve lost track of what it is that I was mad about in the first place. Him being all pissy that I told those women I’m straight? The idea that Ryan looked at our weeks together as the start to a boyfriend-boyfriend relationship, where I saw it as the rekindling of the only friendship that’s ever meant anything to me?

It was just days ago that Ryan and I swore off labels. We just wanted to let this “thing” be whatever it is.

“What changed?” I hear myself say, my thoughts turning into words. “Why can’t you just let it go and let us be whatever we are? I don’t care what it actually is.”

He still doesn’t let go of my dick. “I’ve played the denial game my whole life. Pretending I’m straight. Excusing our friendship as just … a friendship like any other. I can’t keep doing it … especially not with you. I need you to be mine in the real world. Not just in this safe bubble we’ve made where no one can know.”