Page 211 of Untouchable

Parker wants to lean against Harp, to bury his face in Harp’s shirt and breathe in his smell, the pine and clove and fresh air scent that makes him feel calm and safe. But his mother’s voice is in his head, burrowing through like an earwig, and he just stares dumbly down at the jacket now laying in his lap.

What could you possibly share, in the long term?

“We… talked a lot,” he says in a small voice, as though he’s confessing something. “About… you and me.”

"Hey, put the jacket on," Harp urges, putting a hand on Parker's arm. "You're freezing."

When Parker doesn't move, Harp pulls them over to an empty parking spot and drags Parker into a hug. "She was awful to you, huh?"

Parker lets himself be pulled into Harp, but it feels impossible for him to do more than simply sit there and let himself be held. He draws in a deep, shaky breath that sounds like a ragged sob.

“She—she thinks we should break up,” he says heavily. “She thinks… you’re… going to get tired of me. Because… she said I’m just, like… a trophy boyfriend or something.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. It’s almost painful to drag the words out, as if they’ve grown barbs inside him, and he hates how, behind the words is a thinly-veiled question.

It’s not true, is it?

"Jesus—a trophy for whose benefit? I don't even leave my house," Harp says with a laugh. When Parker doesn't respond, though, he turns serious.

"Of course you're not a trophy boyfriend, Parker. We're together because we care about each other—not to... show you off. I mean, did you tell her I couldn't even get my shit together enough to take you to dinner the other night? Who has a trophy boyfriend but is then too anxious to even show him off?"

“No—it’s not like—she thinks—” Parker inhales deeply again, but he feels like he can’t get enough air. “She thinks that… that… I’m going to fall—that I’m going to be more invested and eventually you’ll get sick of me because I’m young and naive and dumb.”

In spite of himself, he sags more heavily against Harp. There are two parts of him at war—one, fueled by his mother, is panicking, telling him to move away, to put distance between them, to start building up the walls he should have been putting up weeks ago for safety.

But another, deeper part of him is drawn to Harp like a magnet. It trusts Harp completely, and, in this moment, the lowest of lows, all it wants is to be as close to Harp as possible.

And that is the voice that feels like the truest part of him of all. But after talking with his mother, he’s afraid to trust himself, afraid to trust that trust. He’s tangled up and turned inside out, and he feels raw and small and scared.

"Listen, if you want to talk about our relationship, we can do that. But it shouldn't be right now," Harp says, holding Parker gently by the shoulders. "Your mother has a vested interest in making you feel approximately one inch tall. I'm sure she sat there and trotted out anything she could say to make you doubt yourself."

In that moment, Parker hates himself. He hates himself for being insecure and confused, for letting his mother cast such doubt, for not knowing who or how to trust. He hates the thing he needs most right now is reassurance. It makes him feel childish, every bit as naive as his mother said he was.

“It’s not… true, right?” he says. “You’re not just… with me because…” He gestures at himself. “The abs and stuff?”

"I wish there was a way to plug you directly into my brain, baby, because your abs are the last thing on my mind at... basically all times," Harp says, shaking his head. "I can't pretend like you're not gorgeous, but if anything that just made everything harder for me. It'd at least be easier for me to believe someone homely could want what you want from me but... No. It's never been about how you look. I was stressed about being your friend a long time before I ever thought much about what you looked like."

He threads his fingers through Parker's. “I have so much more to say,” Harp says quietly. “I’m not sure what you need right now, though.”

And finally, the dam breaks, and Parker bursts into tears. He turns into Harp, burying his face against his shoulder, and throws his arms around Harp. He lets himself go, giving himself entirely to the rising swell of emotion, the acute anguish, the fear, the anger. It feels good to stop holding himself back, to stop monitoring his emotions and simply feel.

Harp, of course, is perfect, solid and gentle, rubbing Parker’s back and squeezing him, whispering soft things to him as Parker’s chest heaves.

“I fucking hate her—” Parker says, the words ripping out of him almost like a growl. They shock him—he’s never said that before, never even thought it before, at least consciously, but he realizes it’s true. At every step of the way in his adult life, it’s felt as though she were dragging him down, making him feel small and stupid and incompetent. And the worst of it was that she’d done it all while claiming to love him, while claiming she was just doing what she could to protect Parker.

But that, Parker realizes, isn’t love.

Love is making someone feel like the center of the universe when they’re around, because they are. Love, he thinks, is cleaning up a flooded pig barn because it’s important to your boyfriend’s best friend. Love is holding hands and guiding someone through a crowded lobby, doing your best to make them safe. Love is texting someone, not because you wanted to elicit a response, but because you simply wanted to say you were thinking of them. Love—any kind of love, romantic or platonic—is making someone feel like the best version of themselves.

And that, Parker thinks, is something he’d never felt until he’d met Harp.

* * *

"The best is yetto come, and one shitty conversation with your mom can't change that, okay?" Harp says, stroking Parker's back.

Harp knew at some point they'd come up against this if they really made a go of it. It would happen if Harp tried to date anyone—let alone someone so much younger than he is.

And of course he has fears about Parker's age, and of course he knows there are probably men out there who are more age-appropriate for Parker. But there's a selfish, fearless part of himself that rears its head when Harp thinks this way, that insists no one could give Parker what Harp wants to give him, take care of him as well.

---