Summer Sweat (Spruce Texas)

My foot stops the door from shutting in my face. “You call slammin’ me against the side of your truck to make out with me ‘nothing happening’ …?”

The next instant, Harrison grabs a handful of my shirt, yanks me inside, and slams the door shut behind me.

Then his angry face is in front of mine. “Fine, Hoyt. You want to talk? Let’s talk. It was a mistake. We were yelling at each other. I got angry. The end.”

I lift an eyebrow. “So … you resolve your arguments by makin’ out with the person you’re angry at?”

His face is fuming—and very readable all of a sudden. “No. I—” He sputters between ten different words. “Shut the hell up, Hoyt. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

“You straight up made out with me,” I answer for him. “You threw me against the side of your truck like I was a ragdoll and attacked my mouth.”

Harrison’s eyes clamp shut. “You wouldn’t … stop going on and on about … about whatever it was you were going on about …”

“It was you having love for everyone in Spruce except me.”

“Right, that. And I couldn’t hear another second of it.”

“So you kissed me to shut me up? If this is what goes on when you get angry, buddy, you need to find yourself a better coping mechanism, ‘cause someday you’re gonna kiss the wrong dude.”

Harrison looks like he’s about to erupt lava from his ears, his every breath crashing against my face. His eyes are still shut. “Whatever that was,” he finally says, his voice impressively level, “it isn’t gonna happen again. I lost control. That’s it. It’s over.”

He looks so vulnerable right now. I never thought I’d see this side of him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really. Not gonna happen again.” With that, he turns away, marches to his desk, then grows eerily still as he stands in front of it, his back to me.

I stare at him for a while. Silence fills the space between us, a sharp, wire-tight silence. So many questions still hang in the air unanswered. He isn’t helping me here. He isn’t explaining. He isn’t telling me what I need to hear.

Why is he making this so hard for me?

“Harrison, I …” My feet shuffle as I move towards him, then I stop at once, thinking the better of getting too close. Why do I feel like my nuts are sweating? “I … I need to understand …”

“Nothing more to understand,” he says, “other than it was a mistake and won’t happen again.”

“But why did it happen at all?”

He spins around suddenly. “What exactly do you want me to say, Hoyt? That I’m confused? That I’m gay? That I’ve got feelings and no one knows and I’m freaking out? That maybe even to some degree I wasn’t sure until I kissed you? And … And now the first man I finally kiss—after thirty years of nothing—isn’t a man at all, but a … a fucking teenager …?”

It’s like an assault of darts, all of them hitting the wall around me, not a single one landing. “Wait a sec …”

He leans back against the desk, fingers to his temples, his crazed stare dropping to the floor. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“First of all, I ain’t no dang teenager …”

“I shouldn’t have done it. I can’t believe I did that.” He hides his face in his hands. “Fuck, fuck, fuck …”

“I’m eighteen adult-ass years as of last October. Second of all, I was the first dude you ever kissed?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up …”

I’m trying to process so much all at once. “Harrison, man, you have got to stop freaking out about this. If you freak out, I’m gonna freak out, alright? And I don’t want to.”

He drops his hands. His face is puffy and his eyes are glassy with fear and frustration. “I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry I did it. I … I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t have the words to talk about it. I’m just really sorry.” He shuts his eyes again, wincing. “This is … This is so fucking embarrassing …”

I try to keep my cool. “What’s the big deal? So … you like guys apparently. No one cares. Did you notice where we live?”

He pops his eyes open and gives me a look.

“That’s it,” I insist. “You like guys. Maybe you’re just figurin’ it out. And we were …” I spread my hands. “I don’t know … caught up in a moment of anger and confusion …?”

He tilts his head. “How are you acting okay about it now? The moment we got back and I parked the truck, you couldn’t get out of it quick enough. You took off like the car seat bit your tushie.”

I avert my gaze. I do remember how I felt in that passenger seat—the cold panic crawling up my throat like a scream waiting to happen. Not knowing what to say. How to react. How to feel.