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When Reid opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the sleek, pale curve of Luke's back. It was the seventh time this week and it horrified him on some level to admit that he has been keeping count. In the entire time that Reid has wanted Luke, the spectre of Noah was always in the background, like a human stopwatch who wouldn't let Reid forget that he was running out of time.
At least he had the house to himself for the weekend, with Katie taking Jacob for a trip with Doogie Hughes.
Reid's mouth was sour with sleep. One of the tricks taught to him by an old fuck buddy was to keep toothpaste in his nightstand drawer for the guys that Reid felt like impressing. He fumbled for the tube and squeezed out a small pea-sized drop that he put in his mouth, rolling it around with his tongue until it was minty fresh.
"Luke," he said, saying it softly in Luke's ear. "Get up. You have some silver spoon stuff to do."
"No, I don't," Luke grumbled into the pillow. "Cancelled it."
"How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough to know that you keep toothpaste in your nightstand."
Fuck.
"Why do you keep toothpaste in your nightstand?" Luke asked.
"Turn around and see."
Luke shifted to lie on his back, and Reid licked away the staleness of Luke's morning breath with clever twists of his tongue. Reid went on top, tilting Luke's head for better angles, doing his damnedest to chase old dreams out with a kiss.
"Neat trick," Luke said, flatteringly breathless when they stopped.
"Got more of them up my sleeve," Reid said, and wondered about the flicker of doubt he saw go through Luke's eyes.
***
The glory of a good BLT sandwich all depended on balance. Lightly toasted rye bread with a thin layer of mayonnaise, crispy bacon laid out in alternating patterns for maximum bread coverage, crunchy fresh lettuce laid as a blanket over the bacon and big red slices of tomato – the perfect BLT. Reid's secret, preferred ingredient was a dash of Tabasco sauce mixed with the mayonnaise for an extra kick.
"So what step are we at with the construction of the holy BLT?" Luke asked, completely unaware of the unfairness of walking into the kitchen in just his boxers. Reid would rage at the gods if he believed in them and felt overdressed in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt.
"The bacon is in the oven and the Tabasco has been mixed with the mayonnaise."
"I'll take care of the vegetables," Luke said.
They worked side by side and almost in unison, Reid toasting the bread and checking on the bacon while Luke sloppily sliced some tomatoes.
"So," Luke said, and Reid felt a knot of tension form in his stomach.
"So?"
"Things have been good," Luke said.
"Yes," Reid said. He'd be damned if he gave Luke any rope to hamstring any delicate progress they had made so far.
"So tell me a story," Luke said.
"Huh?"
"Real eloquent, Reid."
"What kind of story?" Reid asked cautiously.
"Anything. Your first accident, your first surgery, your first kiss."
"Why?" Reid couldn't keep the bafflement out of his voice.
Luke turned to him. "We don't really know all that much about each other. And I'm interested."
"So we'll trade life stories? Can I braid your hair after?" Reid couldn't help himself.
Luke sighed. "I want to know more. Is that so bad?"
"No. I guess I just don't understand."
"You had a life before all of this. I'm curious. Maybe it will explain how you can be such as ass," Luke snapped.
"Hey," Reid said, touching Luke's shoulder. "You know I'm bad at this sort of thing."
They both occupied themselves with little tasks, trying to ignore the awkwardness ballooning in the room.
"What story do you want to hear?" Reid asked. Surrender was always awful.
"First kiss," Luke replied.
Reid hadn't thought of her for a long time. He took a deep breath and started talking.
***
Reid knew that he was gay from a very young age, but that didn't mean that he could be gay at such a young age, or that he didn't get confused once in a while. When he was thirteen, bored with school and with life in general in a way his parents told him was unbecoming for someone so young, he got a strange invitation from his classmate Sarah Zrobowski.
"I'm having a party on Friday to celebrate the end of the school year. You should come," she said, twirling a long tendril of hair over and over with her index finger. Reid regretted coming to the porch to look for bugs to dissect the minute he heard Sarah's voice call out his name, her green bicycle with its annoying bell ringing shrilly.
"I'd rather read, thanks," Reid said.
"It's not like you're going to be a brain surgeon tomorrow, Reid. You're only thirteen, you know."
"Did you see me hit my head somewhere and thought I forgot when I was born?"
"Just come to the party, okay? There will be lots of food and lots of people and it will be fun. Geez, it's just one night." And with that, Sarah left in a rush, pumping her strong legs as hard as she could as if she was being chased by monsters. Reid felt a little bit of pity -- Sarah said that she liked him, but she only admitted that when Reid saw her notebook with SZ + RO written over and over on one of the pages.
Against his better judgement and with help from his glaring parents, he put on his best clothes and walked the four blocks to Sarah's house, wondering what it would be like to kiss a girl. He knew what kind of party this was going to be and so did his parents. It was a little creepy that they wanted him to go knowing what might happen, but Reid wasn't ready to tell them why he didn't think much of this kind of party. Not yet.
The Zrobowski house was famous in the neighbourhood because it had a gigantic cactus plant that they decorated at Christmas. One year it had an angel on top, the next it had a big Santa hat. When it was summer, they put a big sombrero on top of it and hung a sign around it that said HOLA! Reid hated it because it was incorrect Spanish. It was supposed to have an inverted exclamation point before the 'H' but not everyone paid attention to the correct way of doing things like he did.
"Ohmigod, you came!" Sarah said, disbelief evident in her voice when she opened the door. Reid could hear Ace of Base playing in the background and tried not to vomit.
"What, I'm not invited anymore?" Reid asked.
"No, come in," Sarah said. "You're the first one here." She stepped aside to let him in. Reid walked in and saw a long table in the middle of what must have been the living room, the table full of chips, dip, pizza and chicken wings. At the center of the table was a pyramid of Coke and Sprite cans glittering with condensation.
"Can I help?" Reid asked.
"Sure. Can you grab the napkins out of that cupboard?" Sarah pointed at some vague direction as she stacked more cans for the pyramid. Reid rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen cupboard, which yielded no napkins whatsoever.
"Uh, no napkins here," Reid yelled out.
"I'm coming," Sarah said.
"Not blind."
"Do you ever shut up?" Sarah asked. She stared into the open cupboard as if she was willing it to give up its secrets.
Reid stared at her. "Will staring into space become a magical act that will get you some napkins?"
She turned to him with a glint in her eye. "You're lucky you're still cute somehow, even with that rotten attitude."
"It's a gift," Reid said.
Sarah was one of the few people who Reid can genuinely say caught him by surprise. She grabbed his ears and kissed him sloppily, all tongue and bubblegum Colgate, her three inches over him playing to her advantage. Reid stared at her in shock. Sarah's eyes were closed as her tongue did weird rolls in his mouth, like an earthworm being hung on a fish hook.
Reid was thirteen though. He was still willing to entertain a margin of error. And he was sick of his own thoughts, sick of the Baywatch episodes he had on video cassette that were beginning to give out on the parts where any of the male lifeguards (except Hasselhoff) were running on the beach, sick of just his right hand. It was nice to have an actual person, even if she didn't feel like the right one.
He kissed her back, and when more guests rang the doorbell, he had no doubt as to what kind of man he was going to be.
***
"And that was my first kiss," Reid said. He spread some mayonnaise on one side of the rye bread and wondered idly whether he'd ever risk destroying the sanctity of the BLT with some sort of cheese. A BLT was probably the only time that cheese was extraneous.
"What happened to Sarah?" Luke asked, rapt while sitting on one of the stools in Katie's kitchen.
"She never got over me. Last I heard, she became a strung out alcoholic and lived in a trailer with a guy called Bubba who gutted fish for a living."
"Reid." Luke was one of two people, the other being his mother -- oh God, Reid thought -- who could infuse his name with multiple layers of irritation. Luke's irritation had nuances.
"I don't know." Reid shrugged his shoulders. "We moved after that year. Are we done with this childish game?"
"It's not childish," Luke said, clearly unaware that he was pouting as he spoke.
"I don't like forced confidences, Luke. Our lives aren't trading cards and besides, you have less of them." Luke's face shut down and Reid felt like smacking his head on the granite counter.
"All that means is that I'm older. I've lived a bit more. Sarah was my first kiss, but she wasn't my last. Well, she was my last girl, but she wasn't the last."
Luke seemed to find the counter fascinating.
"Noah was my first kiss," he said quietly. "The first kiss that really counted."
"Am I just your second kiss?" Reid asked.
Luke raised his head. "No," he said, almost whispering. "But you're the one that matters now."
Reid put his half-made sandwich on the counter to stroke Luke's cheek. Things were beginning to make sense.
"Your hand smells like a deli," Luke said.
"Get used to it. Wherever I go, smoked meat follows."
Luke chuckled and leaned into Reid's hand. He hadn't shaved yet, so Reid could feel the stubbly growth on his palm.
"You'll get bored with me," Luke said, going for casual but missing by miles.
"I thought I would get bored with medicine eventually too," Reid said.
Luke's face looked pained, his fear mingling with what looked like hope. "There's so much we don't know about each other."
"Think of how much fun you're having with my first kiss story. Imagine my first crush. Or my first trigeminal neuralgia microsurgical decompression."
Luke nuzzled Reid's hand and laughed, but only a muffled sound came out. Part of Reid hated that Luke's simplest gestures affected him so profoundly, but he wasn't about to say anything to ruin this moment, as tempting as it was to let his mouth run loose as always.
"Tell me a story," Reid said instead, and felt warmed by Luke's wide, bright smile.
THE END