: Chapter 32

Kyran Harbor is “in a relationship” with Avi Vega

Avi Vega is “in a relationship” with Twizzlers

His_Baby: What a fool…

Backwardz_Avi: My alien came back to Earth!

Color me bat-shit crazy. Because I’m mad, bonkers, foolishly in love right now.

My man is back, and I’m bouncing in excitement to show him what I’ve been working on while he was gone. I mean, other than the obsessive sketches.

Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that he loves the sketches as much as he apparently does. If you hung them all up on one wall, it would look like the kind of psycho-stalker shrine lunatics make for celebrities whose bushes they jerk off in.

Who knows, maybe I am that level of obsessed with Kyran. But he seems to think it’s endearing, so we’ll just go with that.

After we showered, which took much longer than it should have because we couldn’t seem to keep our mouths away from each other’s dicks, I packed my stepbrother boyfriend into an Uber and brought him to Davis Square in Somerville. We held hands the entire ride, making heart eyes at each other… It was sickeningly sweet, and I’m living for it.

I know things with Kyran won’t always be as perfect as they are right now. We still haven’t really talked about the issues that made him leave in the first place. But I can’t deny the fact that he seems happier than I’ve ever seen him before. I recognize the Kyran I’m with right now… From the little glimpses I would get when we were alone together, like at the drive-in or the Rose Bowl after-party, when he kissed me in front of everyone.

And I know now that this is the real Kyran. Smiling and laughing, not lashing out at me because of his own insecurities, or forcing himself to deny what makes him happy.

The real Kyran seems infinitely more centered, peaceful, and joyous. I’m not so naïve as to think he’ll always be like this. After all, he suffered something so traumatic, it makes all the sense in the world that he’d have a second personality. Like a shield up to protect him from ever having to relive his pain.

But honestly, I fell in love with all the versions of him. I just want every shade of Kyran Harbor, every day, in whatever way he happens to be feeling.

Walking around the corner, our fingers still entwined, I murmur, “Alright… Close your eyes.”

“Oh, so it’s one of those surprises?” He smirks at me.

“Yes, dear,” I hum, and he chuckles. “Close your damn eyes or I’ll be forced to cover them.”

He squints at me. “You’re being pretty bossy right now. I’d like a refund.”

“And you’ve got jokes all of a sudden,” I tease, and he laughs some more. “It almost seems like we body-swapped while you were away.”

“Mmm… I wanna be in your body,” he rumbles, yanking me to him by one of my belt loops.

“You’re being entirely too fresh right now.” My lashes flutter at the feel of his lips on my neck. “I’m trying to show you something important.”

He whines with his hands all over me. “I’m sorry… I just missed you so much. I didn’t touch you for weeks when all I wanted in the world was to do it. I have to make up for lost time.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling, superstar,” I breathe, feeling him smile on my ear.

“I love that you still call me that,” he murmurs, and I chuckle. “It reminds me of you driving me crazy using all my shampoo when we shared a bathroom.”

“Okay, first of all, that was my shampoo…”

He gasps. “You’re fucking nuts!”

“Am not! I bought it for myself!”

“Avi, no offense, but you were baked more often than not. I’ve never known you to buy your own shampoo. You just steal it from everyone else.” He stares at me pointedly.

My gaze narrows while I try to think back on any instance when I went into a store and purchased shampoo. But I’m coming up blank.

“Fine… You might be right,” I grumble, and his lips curl. “But this is all irrelevant. I’m gonna be stealing your shampoo for the foreseeable future, so you better get used to it.”

He blinks at me, biting his lip to contain an obvious grin. “Is that your way of saying you want to live with me again?”

My heart jumps against my ribs. No shit, I want to live with him. Being with him every day sounds like a sex-dream come true. But I wasn’t sure it was something he wanted yet…

“Do you… want us to live together?” My fingertip draws a figure-eight over his heart.

Kyran’s lips slope into a smile that compliments the fuck out of the shimmering excitement in his eyes. “I think living with you would be the most fun thing ever. We could wake up in bed together, do a little of the old in-and-out…” I cackle, and he beams. “Cook pancakes in our underwear, cuddle on the couch and watch movies… Argue about what takeout to order.”

I laugh again, shaking my head at his insufferable cuteness. “You mean like we were just on the cusp of being able to do in 446 before Ash Holloway showed up and ruined it?”

He chuckles. “Yea. Exactly.”

“Okay, then.” I pinch his chin between my fingers. “It’s settled. We’ll move in together. In our own place.”

Kyran is practically skipping in place, hugging me and kissing my face. Seriously, if this is what it’s like to make him happy, I think I might need to make a career out of spoiling the shit out of him.

And best of all, people are walking by us on the street while he’s showering me with affection, and he clearly doesn’t mind at all. At last, we’re in a real relationship, out in the open. I have a boyfriend!

I might have slipped through a portal into another dimension. But whatever. I’m staying.

“Kyran, seriously,” I whine, peeling him off of me. “You’re derailing my surprise…”

“Sorry,” he chirps, backing up and covering his eyes with his hands. “So sorry, angel. Lead the way.”

My grin is like a neon sign flashing love virgin as I take him by the arm, walking him a few steps and around the other corner to the side of the restaurant.

I gaze up at it for a moment, beaming with pride whilst fidgeting with nerves as I breathe, “Okay… You can look.”

Kyran’s hands slide away from his eyes. I watch him closely while his eyes widen and his jaw drops, observing the giant spray-painted mural.

“Avi… Oh my God…” His tone drips with awe. “You did this??”

“Mhm.” I chew on the inside of my cheek, hoping like hell that he likes it.

He likes it, right?? I mean, I know it’s not the best thing ever, but… he probably likes it…

“This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” he gasps, turning to face me.

My stomach flips, and I let a timid smile out. “You really like it?”

“Like it?? It’s fucking amazing!” He chuckles in disbelief, wandering closer to the wall. “Look, there’s me!”

I rumble a laugh. “Yea, that’s you, superstar.”

He peeks at me, beaming before returning to inspecting the mural. And all the little subtleties I put into it to make it ours.

The owners of Chow Down, this awesome Asian fusion place here in Davis Square, were looking for a local artist to do a mural on their wall. Frankie heard about it and gave them my number, and of course I was thrilled to do it. I haven’t done any street art or graffiti since I left New York, but it’s always been a dream of mine to do a big mural in a place where tons of people would see it every day.

And that’s exactly what I did.

The cherry on the sundae is that Bette and Tony Chow, the owners, are huge college football fans. So when I told them I wanted to do something special for Kyran, they were obsessed with the idea of incorporating the Eagles and our win into the portrait.

“And there’s you, right?” Kyran points to the eagle with hearts around his head soaring on a rainbow. “The gay eagle?”

I laugh and nod. “Excuse me. I’m bi, remember?”

“Oh, is that why you did this magenta, purple, and blue here?” He smirks, and I nod. “Aww, there’s Robin,” he croons. “She’s wearing a mask and a cape like actual Robin!” I nod along. “And there’s a bat signal, and Mr. Freeze… Ooh, Vincent Vega doing the twist on a stage made of Twizzlers!”

I’m cackling. Seriously, I might be crying a little too.

“Avi, this is so fucking sick! There’s so much detail… I feel like I’d need to look at it for hours to find everything. Like a Where’s Waldo.”

“Well… we’ll have to come back.” I wrap my arms around his waist from behind, kissing the nape of his neck. “Maybe we could even get a place around here… So we could see it all the time.”

He peeks at me over his shoulder. “I’m like… stupidly in love with you.”

“Baby… I’m fucking moronically in love with you.” I kiss his lips while he chuckles. “Are you hungry?” He nods, rubbing his ass on my crotch. “For food, Kyran.”

“Oh, yea. I’m starving,” he snickers.

“Okay… How about I take you on a date?”

He spins in my arms. “Our first official date?!”

“Fuck yea.”

He tugs on the brim of my backwards cap. “Well alright, then. Spoil me, Backwardz Avi.”

Cupping his jaw, I kiss his lips softly. “Anything for you, Only My Baby.”

Hours later, we return to Brighton from the best first date ever, hands still clasped, stomachs as full as our hearts.

We had dinner at Chow Down, and damn near closed the place we were in there for so long, talking about everything under the sun, catching each other up on all that happened while we were apart.

I can even voice how proud I am of Kyran for starting counseling and confronting his parents. And the shock of how things turned out with Tom was definitely the biggest surprise of the evening.

I love a good redemption story, and it seems like Tom is on his way to one, which makes me really happy. I’m sure there was more to the deterioration of his relationship with my mother, so it’s not like I want them to try to work it out or anything. From what Kyran was telling me, his dad has his own soul-searching to do, and I think my mother will eventually find someone more like my dad to make her happy.

I know divorce sucks, especially after only a few years. But the marriage wasn’t a waste of time, not by a long-shot. Because if they’d never gotten together, I never would’ve met Kyran…

A perfect roll in this cosmic game we call life.

“I still can’t believe you haven’t smoked at all since before the Rose Bowl,” Kyran says while we’re lying in my bed, his head resting over my heart and my fingers in his hair. “You know I never actually hated your smoking, right?”

“No, I know,” I tell him while he plays with my hand, tracing lines on my palm. “I just think I was relying too heavily on it. It’s never good to lean on substances for anything.”

“That’s very wise, angel,” he says, focusing on one line in particular.

“Which street is that?” I ask him softly.

He peeks up at me. “It’s our street. Summer Street.” He runs his fingertip over it. “This is where I met you for the first time… Where I thought I hated you, when really, I… secretly liked you.” I grin, and he bites his lip. “This is where you found me on Christmas Eve… When you brought me my coat and held me close to you.” His eyes hold mine, and I can feel everything he’s confessing through those orbs of gold and green. “That was where I realized that I was falling for you… I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time. But that night, I knew something had shifted. We weren’t doing it for the fans anymore… if we ever even were to begin with. That night, it felt like a switch flipped in me, and I wasn’t terrified of my feelings for you anymore.”

I blink at him, breathing in these words he’s speaking.

“I was still scared of my past, yes. I was scared of what I thought it might mean, me falling in love with a guy. Because of everything…” His voice trails, and I nod, stroking his hair in calming brushes. “But I wasn’t afraid of how good you made me feel anymore. I wanted so much more of it. And it reminded me of when I was a kid…”

Kyran presses a kiss on my palm. “I wanna share some things with you, Avi… Because I know you won’t be afraid of it, and it won’t make you love me any less. I know that now.”

“Nothing about you or what you’ve been through would ever make me love you any less, baby,” I whisper, and he nods.

“But when I tell you, I want you to be Avi about it,” he murmurs, and my brow furrows.

“What does that mean?”

He chuckles. “I just mean… don’t treat me any differently. Don’t ever tiptoe around me, or coddle me with words. You’re not a counselor, you’re my boyfriend, and I love you for the way you are. So when I tell you stuff, I want you to just be you. Make jokes, be sarcastic and goofy. Please… just don’t pity me.”

It hurts my heart that he even needs to say this to me, but I understand where he’s coming from. Pushing his sandy hair from where it’s flopping over his forehead, I nod in agreement.

“I promise, I would never pity you, baby. I mean, I’m not sure how much I’ll want to be joking about what you’re going to tell me, but I would never treat you any differently. You’re Kyran, my first love. The only person who’s ever been to my abandoned amusement park.”

He laughs, his body shaking on top of mine and wiggling my toes with delight.

“This amusement park doesn’t seem so creepy and run-down, by the way,” he teases. “You made it seem like it would be much scarier than it is.”

“Yea, well… this coming from the guy who watches Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a comfort movie.”

“It soothes me,” he sighs, and I chuckle. He’s quiet for a moment before he asks, “How old were you when you first realized you might be bi?”

I chew on my lower lip, remaining silent for long enough that he peeks up at me. “You’re totally gonna think I’m lying about this, but I swear to God, it’s the truth…” His eyebrow arches. “Four years ago. It was… the first time I saw you.”

He lets out a cackling laugh, shaking his head. “There’s no way that’s true!”

“I swear it is! I never looked at anyone before the way I looked at you. I didn’t want to admit it, because you were so mean and you hated me so much.” He pouts, and I brush my thumb over his lips. “But it’s true. I actually thought maybe I was gay at first.”

“But you’re still sticking to the fact that you’re bi?” He smirks.

“I liked hooking up with the girls I hooked up with.” I shrug. “But honestly, I don’t even know if I would say bi… I could be pan, or omni. I don’t want the label. I’ll just call myself queer because I don’t think gender plays a role for me when it comes to being attracted to someone. To quote the majestic David Rose, I like the wine, not the label.”

Kyran purses his lips over a loving smile, nestling up on top of me. “I love that for you, angel.”

“How about you?” I stroke his hair some more. “You’ve hooked up with your fair share of girls… Tell me about how you feel.”

He sighs. “I figured out that I was gay right before I turned twelve.”

My heart thuds in my chest at this revelation. This is something I never knew about Kyran… I always assumed he was bisexual because of all the girls he’s been with. But now he’s saying he’s fully gay, and he’s known since he was a kid.

“And to be clear… I’ve only slept with two girls.” He gives me a pointed look.

My lashes flutter. “Really??” He nods. “But you always had different girls hanging on you at parties, and on your Instagram.”

He pretends to cough to cover up the words, “Insta-stalker.” I glare at him, and he laughs. “I’ve hooked up with a few others, but no more than, like… five altogether. I think that’s why I gravitated toward clingy girls who wanted relationships, like Becca and Lexi. Because if they locked me down, I didn’t have to worry about acting as much.”

“Baby,” I breathe, caressing his jaw. “I had no idea. So clearly you are, like… very talented.” He chuckles, biting his lip. “You’re Leo in Django level!”

His face lights up. “Wow! Thank you,” he chirps while I snort.

God, I love learning about him. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of listening to him share these intimate details of his life… Even when they’re ultimately tragic. I just feel so goddamn special that he’s confiding in me.

“I noticed that I liked looking at boys, my friends, more than I liked looking at the girls. It wasn’t sexual, but I just had this feeling in my stomach that someday I wanted to date a boy. But then, after what happened… I stuffed it all down and pretended it wasn’t true. I buried it so deep that after a while, I convinced myself I liked girls. The denial was thick, and it was because of something he used to say to me. Something he said when he was… abusing me.”

The way he gulps over the words breaks my heart in two. But I won’t let it affect the way I am with him, because I know he doesn’t want that.

He’s still my Kyran, no matter what.

“He brought it up… how he saw me looking at boys,” he goes on. “Like he knew some secret about me, and that was why he was doing it. He said that because I was gay, I needed to let him… do those things to me. Like it was a penance or something.”

Kyran goes quiet for a moment, and I rumble, “Baby…”

He looks up at me with vulnerability in his eyes.

“I’ve been building this… car. It’s like a time-traveling Delorean, if you will. And I could totally go back in time and kick this dude in the nuts for you.”

A giant smile sweeps over his lips, and he chuckles, shaking his head. But I can see the appreciation in his eyes, for me joking with him. It’s what he wants… And I can’t say that I know how any of this feels, but I can understand him wanting me to make light of the heavy stuff. After all, it’s what I do.

I’m the one who shuffles and fist pumps on the sidelines when he’s freaking out… I’m the one who jokes and teases him when he’s getting all up in his head.

I’m happy to be his mascot all the time, whenever he needs me.

Avi the Angel takes care of his baby.

“Babe…” he murmurs, gazing up at me. “I want you to know that he never actually… I mean, he did things to me, but he didn’t…”

“My love,” I whisper, holding his face. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I know. But I want you to know,” he sighs, tiredly, like even talking about this stuff for a few minutes takes the wind out of his sails. “You were my first, Aviel. I promise.”

“I know that,” I tell him with absolute certainty. “You giving me your virginity was the best night of my life.”

He grins, puffing out a small laugh. “I just remember your face when Bridget said what she said in the restaurant… I didn’t want you to think I was lying to you, or hiding something.”

“I didn’t think that, gorgeous.”

He nods, chewing on his lip. “Bridget knew that I liked boys. I mean, I never actually told her outright, but she picked up on it. That was another reason she was so pissed off with our parents after everything. Because my dad made a few comments I wasn’t supposed to hear when they were fighting, about the abuse turning me gay…”

I roll my eyes. “Dumb bullshit.”

“I know, right?” he scoffs. But then his eyes soften. “He’s trying now, though. I’m proud of him. To be honest, I think part of the reason why he flipped his switch is because of you.”

“Me?”

“Yea. I told my parents that I’m in love with you, and I think maybe that got my dad. He likes you a lot, Avi. It’s clear, he’s always liked you. It was part of the reason I was so frustrated by you when they got married… Because you were this carefree art nerd, total opposite of the son he wanted me to be, but he still liked you.”

“Your dad isn’t a bad person,” I rumble. “He’s flawed just like everyone, and he’s made some terrible mistakes. But he doesn’t deserve to burn for them.”

Kyran goes quiet for a moment, like he’s deep in thought, before he says, “I just wish I hadn’t wasted so much time swallowing my truth.” He shakes his head. “I think back on the girls I dated, even flirted with… it turned into like this choreographed performance. And the pussy eating…”

He blinks hard and shakes his head.

I can’t even help myself. My head tips back in a laugh that has him grinning up at me. “You ate a lot of pussy??”

“Not a lot…” He smirks. “But I definitely did it.”

“And?”

“Not for me,” he sighs.

This is blowing my mind right now.

“Oh my God, that’s why you seemed so hesitant with Frankie!” I gape at him, and he chuckles.

“I was so hard thinking about you,” he whispers, squirming on top of me. “I kept thinking about your hand inside your pants, secretly wishing you’d pull your cock out and maybe, like… touch me with it.”

A hum rumbles in my chest while I gaze down at him, lust and love and pure astonishment in my eyes. “Come here, please…”

He scoots up on me, allowing me to hold his jaw and pull his sweet, honest mouth to mine. “What else did you think about during our stupid threesome with my best friend?”

He laughs on my lips. “Your hand touching mine… While we both fingered her. I imagined what it would be like if you took your fingers out and let me suck on them.”

“Mmm… really?”

He nods. “Yea. But not to taste her vagina, obviously. I just really wanted to suck on something of yours.”

A whine leaves my lips, and he laughs at it. “You’re killing me right now. God, baby, I would’ve done everything to you… I wanted it so bad at that point.”

“Yea?” He kisses along my jaw, sucking my earlobe between his lips.

“Yea… As soon as you gave me the green light, I was fucking salivating for it.”

He chuckles while my hands sink down to hold his ass, his lips and tongue toying with my ear. “I guess it’s a very fucking good thing that my dad’s business went under, huh?”

“Oh yea. If it wasn’t for the fans, we might never have hooked up. Or fallen in love…”

“Are you saying that everything we’re doing is still… for the fans?” he whispers in my ear, and I grin.

“It’s for us,” I tell him, my heart so full of wild, cheering love for this man… “But they got us here.”

He sighs. “Out of Friend Land…”

“And into Boyfriend Park.”

He laughs, and I kiss it while it’s happening.

Kyran and Avi, falling in love… for the fans.