Page 62 of After Hours at Dooryard Books
These will be the stories that all children hear, the stories about a time before they can remember, but in which You is still the protagonist.
There’s no way to tell any of those stories without including Nathaniel. He’ll be in every story for the first few months of Eleanor’s life, and longer, Patrick hopes. But how much longer? Why does this have to enter his thoughts now, when his hand still feels hot from where Nathaniel gripped it? He finds his sunglasses in the beach bag and puts them on. The breeze from the ocean is cool, and there isn’t enough sun.
“You don’t look great,” Nathaniel says, eyeing him carefully. “Let’s never go on a roller coaster again.”
“It’s a deal. Let’s get ice cream and walk to the beach,” Patrick suggests.
The water is freezing but Nathaniel says, “Oh, to hell with it,” and goes right in. Patrick strips off his shirt and follows.
“What the hell,” Patrick says as soon as he’s knee deep in the water. It’s freezing. He didn’t know water could be this cold in July.
“You’ll feel better if you come in past your shoulders,” Nathaniel calls. He’s already several yards out. This is a man who showers in boiling water. Patrick doesn’t know how he can stand it. “Comeon.”
Patrick sighs and goes in further. He does feel a little better once he’s in up to his neck, but he isn’t happy about it, so he splashes Nathaniel. Nathaniel retaliates immediately, then ducks underwater.
“It’s the only way to deal with cold water,” Nathaniel says. “You just have to throw yourself in.”
Or you could stay on the warm dry sand, but Patrick doesn’t say that. Instead, with his back to the beach and nothing in front of him but Nathaniel and the Atlantic Ocean, he lets his gaze drop to Nathaniel’s wet shoulders, to the hair on his chest, which he can just make out underwater. He’s seen it all before, but not in broad daylight.
Later, Susan wades in with Nathaniel—sensibly only going in up to her knees—while Patrick watches Eleanor attempt to crawl on the beach blanket but mostly attempt to eat the beach blanket. When Nathaniel and Susan come back, Patrick gets some hot dogs from a vendor and Susan produces a thermos of whiskey sours. They don’t have cups, so they pass the thermos around.
The beach is relatively empty. About twenty feet away, a couple is kissing. A few yards in the other direction two older women sunbathe on faded pink towels, the straps of their swimsuits pushed under their arms so they won’t get tan lines. Latin music is playing on somebody’s radio. Patrick is pretty sure he could close his eyes and fall asleep.
He does lie down, and he does shut his eyes. When he opens them, Nathaniel’s looking at him out of the corner of his eye, doing the same thing Patrick had done in the ocean, only more discreetly. Patrick watches Nathaniel look at him, a closed loop, something sparking through the circuit.
When they get home, they’re all tired and sandy and mildly sunburned despite all the clouds—except Eleanor, who had her strawberry sun hat. Susan walks the dog while Patrick rinses Eleanor off in the bathtub and Nathaniel unpacks. By the time they’ve all finished with their showers and Eleanor’s had a jar of mashed peas and fallen asleep in her crib, it isn’t even dark out, but they’re all ready for bed.
“Well, good night, boys,” Susan says, stretching. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
The Valdezes are at a cousin’s block party uptown, so the building is quiet as Patrick and Nathaniel go downstairs.
“Come here,” Patrick says as soon as the apartment door shuts behind them. It’s only when the small of Patrick’s back hits the wall that he realizes Nathaniel’s pushed him there. Well, steered him there. Guided him there. Patrick doesn’t know if the whiskey sours have loosened Nathaniel up or if he’s just gotten bolder. It doesn’t matter. Patrick isn’t complaining.
“Wanted this all day,” he says, his lips moving against Nathaniel’s, one of his hands in Nathaniel’s hair and the other pushing up the back of his shirt.
Nathaniel slows things down—Patrick has no illusions about who’s doing the speeding up and slowing down around here—and everything is careful and gentle again but it’s the carefulness and gentleness of two people who have already established that they’re going to push one another into things.
“Will you take this off already?” Nathaniel mutters, tugging at the hem of Patrick’s t-shirt. “Walking around shirtless for half the day and now—for God’s sake, Patrick, let go of me so I can get this thing off of you.”
Patrick pulls his own shirt off and is rewarded by both Nathaniel’s hands on his skin, forceful enough that Patrick can let himself feel pinned against the wall. He brings a hand to Nathaniel’s hip, cupping his palm around the curve of bone under cotton. When he skims his fingertips inside Nathaniel’s waistband, he feels Nathaniel suck in a breath, his mouth against the skin of Patrick’s throat.
“Can you—” Nathaniel starts.
“Anything you want,” Patrick says, too fast, not knowing what Nathaniel is going to ask for, but knowing it doesn’t matter. The answer is still yes.
“Can you make it different?”
“Sure.” Patrick’s about to ask what, exactly, Nathaniel wants him to do differently, when Nathaniel speaks again.
“I’ve never liked it before. Christ, that sounds awful. Ungrateful. Hell. What I mean is, I don’t want to think about all the times I made myself do that. I want it to feel different.”
Jesus. That asks more questions than it answers. Patrick doesn’t know what kind of tragic obligatory straight sex Nathaniel’s been enduring. Patrick doesn’t know much about straight sex to begin with, except what gets hinted at in movies, but he can put together a rough sketch: the man’s on top, the man’s in charge. He’s the subject; she’s the object. If that’s similar to Nathaniel’s experience, and he wants something different, Patrick can maybe flip that around.
“Yeah,” Patrick says, his voice rough. “Yeah, I can do that.” He turns them, pinning Nathaniel against the wall, caging him in. “Is this different?” he asks, speaking the words into Nathaniel’s ear. Nathaniel nods. “Was what we did the other day in the shop different?” Nathaniel nods again. Patrick toys with the hem of Nathaniel’s t-shirt. “Will you let me?” He can feel Nathaniel swallow.
He pushes up Nathaniel’s shirt and skims a thumb over his nipple, going slow and taking his time, kissing him all the while, feeling Nathaniel’s skin warm under his touch. With his other hand, he uses his thumb to stroke the fly of Nathaniel’s jeans. Nathaniel makes a noise that shoots through Patrick like some drug that hasn’t been invented yet.
“We can do this in bed,” Patrick suggests when he’s on the edge of getting desperate and thinks Nathaniel might be getting there too. “With as much of my clothes off as you want. Yours too, ideally.”
