“We established that at the airport,” Sam responds dryly, his eyes moving quickly around the room. “Spill it, Leon. You look like a girl, feel like a girl, and taste like a girl, but after seeing how well Aunt Bobbie pulls off cleavage in that dress she’s wearing, and now seeing the contents of your old bedroom, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m confused. And by I’m, I mean my dick. My dick is very, very confused. My dick is never confused, Leon.”
His words come out more rapidly with each sentence, and when I finally get my brain back down to earth instead of floating around in the clouds of the small town I like to call FuckMeAgainstTheWallville, I look around the room and finally see what he’s seeing quickly understanding where his concerns are coming from. Not only are the walls of my old bedroom still painted in the same eggshell blue from the day my mother found out she was pregnant with me and my father started decorating this extra bedroom into a nursery, the carpet is dark blue and the dresser, nightstand and two bookshelves are dark walnut, as well as the headboard of the twin bed. Which is covered in a thick comforter of different swirls of blue. In case you haven’t guessed, my parents assumed I would be a boy. My parents wanted another boy when they found out they were pregnant again two years after my older brother was born. The color of this room probably wouldn’t give anyone much pause, but the trophies, plaques and blue first-place ribbons that adorn every available surface for everything from wrestling to hockey to baseball and football might. I’m also guessing Sam is struggling right now due to all of the framed team photos that go along with each trophy, propped up next to the corresponding award, filled with nothing but the smiling faces of all boys.
“I am most definitely a girl and these are not my things,” I reassure him.
Moving into the room and over to one of the shelves against the wall closest to me, I pick up a photo from my brother’s senior year of college when his baseball team won the state conference. Turning around, I hold up the frame and point to the guy kneeling in the front row with a smirk on his face, his short hair the same dark red as mine.
“That cocky asshole in the front is my brother, Nicholas, and these are all of his things,” I explain. “When my parents ran out of room for all of his shit in his old room and their room, they decided my room should also become a shrine to the Great and Powerful Nicholas Holiday.”
Sam chuckles and I cut off his laugh with a glare.
“Yes, Noel and Nicholas Holiday. Clearly you’ve already noticed my parents love Christmas so cut that shit out,” I warn him.
He quickly wipes the amused smile from his face and walks over to me, taking the photo from my hand and gently placing it back on the shelf where I took it.
“So, he’s the golden child and you’re…”
“A screw-up who has yet to settle down and give them grandchildren, and who they like to constantly remind me shits on everything I touch,” I finish.
“Stop it,” he scolds. “You aren’t a screw-up. You’re just going through a rough patch.”
The softness in his voice makes me want to cry and that’s just not good. It’s bad enough I’ve spilled my guts to a virtual stranger, and have now brought him home and dumped my crazy life all over him. I will not be one of those crazy chicks who practically humps a guy one minute and then starts sobbing all over him the next.
“Sure. A rough patch that’s lasted thirty-four years, no big deal,” I tell him with a shrug, blinking the tears away and blowing out a frustrated breath. “It’s fine, really. I’m used to it at this point. Nicholas married his high-school-sweetheart two months after they graduated college, gave them their first grandchild three years later and their second one is due any day now.”
Walking around Sam, I flop down on my old bed and kick my feet rhythmically against the side of it as I continue word-vomiting all over the room. He knows most of my humiliations at this point, what’s a few more?
“He’s been in the same, high paying job since college as a web designer and they have a beautiful home four miles down the road where my parents can visit any time they like. Meanwhile, I live across the country with a guy they’ve never met, in an apartment they’ve never seen, with a job I hate but at least it pays the bills, and no desire to have kids in the next century. Well, I used to have all of that. At least my aversion to children still stands strong.”
Sam waltzes over, squatting down in front of me and resting his hands on my thighs as he looks up into my face. I stare at his light blue eyes and try not to think about how hot and heavy and strong his hands feel and refuse to let my mind wander and imagine how they would feel on my bare skin, sliding up my thighs and between my legs.
“And the Leon thing? What’s the deal with that?” he asks quietly.
I finally let out a small laugh, remembering his earlier panic.
“Not as nefarious as you’d like to think. What does Leon spell backward?” I ask him with a smile.
His face scrunches up in thought, and it only takes a few seconds for the light bulb to come on and he lets out a small, frustrated laugh and shakes his head.