If You Really Love Me Read online

  I think about it for a moment. “The weight’s perfect. I can handle it.”

  He seems pleased. “Great. A couple of things, though. When you do your reps, don’t bring the bar all the way down and let it rest on your chest. Spread your hands out a bit to get a better balance on the bar. Like this….”

  He takes my hands and lifts them and places them where he thinks they should be on the bar. I almost get woozy with my head just about between his legs and the touch of his hands on mine. His hands are big, very warm, and sort of callused; they feel so strong and sure. I wonder how long we can stay this way before the other guys in the gym start to think something’s weird. “Got it,” I say, and I swallow hard because my throat suddenly is so very dry.

  “We’ll do three sets of ten reps each,” Saul continues as he moves away and settles onto the bench beside me. His bar, I notice, holds two hundred pounds in weight. Two hundred pounds! That’s the weight of a full-grown man. “Follow my lead.”

  I do what he says, looking over from time to time at the way those big muscles in his arms ripple as they work. In no time at all, my whole body feels like it’s burning, but that heat comes from something other than weightlifting.

  SAUL TAKES me through routines that work my chest, shoulders, abs, upper back, lower back, butt, thighs, and calves. After about two hours, I’m dripping sweat and every muscle in my body seems to be burning for real. “Wow,” I gasp, slumping down on the floor, breathing heavily. “I think I’ve had enough.”

  Seated on one of the rowing machines, Saul pauses long enough to look at his watch. “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna do another hour. Go ahead and grab a shower and get changed. There are towels and soap in a big closet just before you go into the showers. When you’re done, you can leave your wet towel in that canvas bin in the locker room. Ask Carmine to show you where the waiting room is. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Okay,” I reply, wishing I could just sit on the floor and watch him. His body in motion is an amazing sight. But then I realize what a good idea it is for me to get cleaned up while he finishes his workout. Being in the shower with him would get very embarrassing, very fast.

  Chapter Five

  “HEY, SLEEPY.”

  The voice, soft and low, drifts over me like fat, lazy snowflakes. I open my eyes, surprised to realize that I had fallen asleep. The Y’s waiting room looks more like a lounge, with overstuffed sofas and ottomans and end tables, and a big-screen TV mounted on one of the walls.

  I’m slumped on a green sofa with my feet propped on an ottoman. Saul is standing next to the sofa, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He has that scent of polished cleanliness around him again. His curly hair is fluffed from a blow dryer that he must have stashed in his duffel, because I couldn’t find one anywhere in the locker room when I finished my shower. Saul is not smiling on the outside, but I can sense that he’s smiling on the inside. He looks happy and relaxed, even with a blank face.

  I stretch slowly and yawn with a hand covering my mouth, looking Saul over. When I pull my hand away, I say, “You look really hot.”

  Then, one second later, I’m fully awake and my mind snaps into focus, and it hits me what I’ve just said. I sit up quickly, going into panic mode. “Wait. I didn’t mean—”

  Saul raises a hand to cut me off. “I know what you meant. Thanks. You ready to get out of here?”

  He doesn’t exactly look pleased at what I said. At least he didn’t curse at me or punch me in the head or otherwise react in a way to make me feel like some sicko freak. Embarrassed, I nod and reach down for my sweaty T-shirt and sweatpants, which I’ve rolled into a tight bundle and tucked under the edge of the sofa. I’m already wearing my jacket. My hair still feels a little damp from the shower. I comb through it with my fingers to make sure the unexpected nap hasn’t left me with some weird ’do.

  I walk beside Saul as we head for the exit. He definitely does not have that smile-inside vibe anymore. He looks sort of pissed now, and I think I know why. “Hey, Saul, I’m sorry, man.” There’s no one close enough to really hear us, but I keep my voice low anyway. “About that thing I said. You know… about you being hot.”

  “What’re you apologizing for?” he replies, the volume of his voice at a normal level. “You didn’t mean what you said?”

  “No, I meant it. I just….” I shrug, unsure what to say.

  “Don’t freak out, Ellis. Shit. You think you’re the only gay dude around?”

  When we step outside, I see the gray afternoon light has begun to deepen toward evening. The air is colder now. I gasp at the bite of it and shudder, folding my arms tight around myself again.

  “You look like you could use a hot drink,” Saul says. “There’s a coffee shop around the corner that makes the best hot chocolate. Want to join me for a cup?”

  I want to, really, really bad, but it’s getting late. Mom’s probably home now. I left her a note, the way she wants me to when I take off while she’s away from the apartment. But if she comes home in a bad mood, she’ll find some reason to get upset with me anyway. “Another time, okay? I should probably be getting home.”

  He shrugs. “If you say so.”

  The drive back to my apartment complex is mostly quiet. I ask a few questions (“What kind of movies do you like?”), and Saul answers (“Anything with lots of action”). But he doesn’t really seem to be in a talking mood now, so after a while I just shut up. It’s good to be riding along in this personal little space that feels as if it was made just for us. It’s comfortable being with him. There must be some kind of chemistry between us, because it takes major mental energy to keep myself from reaching over and putting my hand on his leg. You don’t know for sure whether he likes boys or girls, I remind myself.

  When he pulls up to the front of my apartment building, he pushes the gear into park but doesn’t turn off the engine. I take that to mean he’s ready to zip on out of here as soon as I’m out of the car. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to leave him. “Home sweet home,” I say, because nothing else comes to mind for a moment like this. I grab the rolled-up T-shirt and sweatpants and reach for the door handle.

  Saul’s right hand kind of jerks on the steering wheel. It’s the slightest of motions, but I catch it. He was going to reach out, grab my arm, and stop me. I’m sure of it. I pause for a few seconds. There is no other movement from him, however, so I open the door. “Thanks for the ride and the workout.”

  “No problem. I’m glad I ran into you today. Thanks for coming with me. It was nice to have a workout partner.”

  After a smile over my shoulder to him, I’m out of the car. The wind has picked up, sending a lone Burger King wrapper skittering across the parking lot. The engine of Saul’s car hums quietly behind me as I walk to my building. The urge to turn around for one last look at him is strong enough to make my eyes water, but I don’t do it. If I look, I’ll go back and try to kiss him. I know I will, because I want a kiss from him so bad. But he’s ready to get out of here. He wouldn’t even turn off his car engine. That’s how much he wants to get away from me.

  So why isn’t he gone?

  There’s the soft whine of his window powering down. “Hey, Ellis!”

  His voice stops me. I take a deep breath and turn.

  He’s leaning out of the window just a bit, his eyes round and hopeful. “You like action flicks?” he calls to me.

  “I love action flicks,” I call back.

  “You wanna go to the movies with me tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

  For the first time since I laid eyes on him, he smiles. It lights up his entire face. “Cool. Meet me out here at noon.” His window goes up, and it seems to preserve that rare, wonderful smile the way amber preserves ancient insects. Then he waves at me and drives off.

  I’m feeling really good right now, watching his car roll away. I’m excited, knowing that we’re going to see each other again soon. I am so happy, so excited, that I wonde
r if I’m going to turn into a warm, gooey puddle right here on the walkway, or if my good feeling is going to lift me up and float me across the cold autumn sky.

  MOM IS in the living room when I enter the apartment. She’s curled under a blanket on the sofa, in her old, pink terrycloth robe, her hair tied back from her face in a ponytail. She’s watching one of Justin Timberlake’s old videos, singing along and bopping her head to the music.

  “Hi, Mom.” I unzip my jacket. The music makes me want to sing too. But Mom has a voice, and I don’t, so I keep my vocalizing to a little hum.

  “Hi, El.” She grabs the remote control, turns down the volume, and gives me the once-over. “You look happy. Your note said you were hanging out with some guy from school. What guy?”

  I sit in the chair across from the sofa, still wearing the jacket and holding my workout clothes in my hand. “He’s a new dude, sort of. Saul Brooks. We hung out downtown.”

  She smiles. “It’s been a long time since you hung around with the kids from school. You need to do more of that.”

  “I know.” She’s right. I wish I had some good, close friends at school, male or female. There are a couple of guys in my classes who were buddies of mine once, but not anymore. And making friends at school is a lost cause now, except maybe for Saul. “Actually, Mom, I hope this guy turns out to be more than a friend.”

  Mom sits up, intrigued. “You little devil, you! No wonder you came waltzing in here with that big pig-eating grin on your face. Spill it. Who is this Saul Brooks?”

  I’m glad Mom is in such a good mood. I’m practically bursting to talk about my surprising, amazing day. “He transferred to the school in the middle of the spring semester last year. He’s really hot. I’ve kinda had a thing for him from the start, but I was afraid to talk to him because I thought he was straight. I ran into him this morning at the supermarket. He just happened to stop there on his way downtown. The next thing I know, he’s inviting me to ride downtown with him.”

  “What did you guys do while you were there?”

  “He took me to the Y. We worked out together.”

  “Sounds like a perfect gay date.”

  “Well, I don’t really know for sure that he’s gay. There were a couple of times where he almost seemed to be flirting with me, but when I accidentally told him how sexy he is, he put up this wall like he was offended or something. And when he dropped me off just now, he asked me to go to the movies with him tomorrow.”

  “Could be he’s confused about who he is. You’d better take it slow with the guy. Don’t push him, or you could wind up getting more than your feelings hurt.”

  “What about you?” I ask, changing the subject because thinking about Saul is starting to make me feel anxious. “You have a good time at Tootsie’s last night?”

  Mom grins, rolling her eyes the way she does when she gets embarrassed. “As a matter of fact, I had a great time. I met someone, and we just spent a very interesting day together.”

  “Really? What’s he like?”

  “Oh no. I’m not gonna jinx this one by jumping right off the deep end like I usually do. I’m taking this slow and seeing how it develops before I let anyone else in on it.”

  “Okay. Well, I hope it works out the way you want it to.”

  “Thanks. I hope things work out with your guy too.”

  I push myself up from the chair. “I’m starving. I’m gonna broil a hotdog. You want one?”

  “No.” The grin drops from Mom’s face and suddenly she looks serious, which always makes me nervous. “I see you bought groceries. Where’d you get money?”

  Since I’m always broke and can’t get a part-time job, Mom seems to be convinced I’m going to turn into a bank robber or something sooner or later. “I went down to the Southern Market. Mr. Luigi paid me to stock the bins in his booth.”

  “Oh.” The frown drops from her face. “Well, I meant to do the shopping yesterday and forgot all about it. I’ll do it tomorrow. How much did you spend?”

  “About twenty bucks.”

  “Okay. I’ll give that back to you.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Mom. I should be pulling my own weight around here now.”

  “Don’t talk back,” she snaps. “I’ve got things covered around here, at least for the weekend. You use that twenty dollars to take your guy to the movies and have a good time.”

  I grin again at the mention of Saul. My guy. “Okay, Mom.”

  IN THE kitchen, I toss my workout clothes into the hamper beside the dryer, wash my hands, grab an iron skillet, pour a little oil in it, toss in a hot dog, put the hot dog in the oven, turn on the broiler, and sit down at the table to wait, all while wearing my winter jacket. Mom keeps the thermostat at sixty-eight degrees during fall and winter, so it’s always a little cool inside the apartment. I feel cozy, happy, and warm in this jacket, and I want to keep that feeling as long as possible.

  Mom comes into the kitchen and microwaves a cup of water to make tea. I tense up, suddenly seeing myself the way she surely will. She’ll get mad because it’s stupid for me to wear my jacket indoors. But she barely seems to notice me, lost in her own happiness, which is showing clearly in her face. She fixes her tea, walks out with her cup, and never says a word to me.

  When I finish eating, I wash the skillet and my plate very carefully so no water splashes on me or the floor. I yell out to Mom that I’m going downstairs, and then I walk down the fire escape to Cary’s first-floor apartment. Through the glass in the back door, I spot Cary. He’s at the stove cooking something, his back to me. I rap on the glass softly. He looks over his shoulder and waves me in.

  I rush through the door and close it fast to let in as little of the cold air as possible. “Hey.” I can smell what he’s making: a grilled cheese sandwich.

  “I didn’t hear from you all day,” Cary says, and from the tone of his voice, it’s obvious he’s launching right into complaint mode. He looks a little down, as if something bad has happened. “I went upstairs a little while ago and your mom said you were hanging out with some dude.”

  “Yeah. I ran into this guy from school, Saul Brooks.”

  Cary squints. “Do I know him?”

  “You dropped out before he transferred in.” I sit down at the table and tell him about the drive downtown and the workout. “I really think I like him.” And suddenly I’m very grateful Saul is a loner. It means he must not have heard the things the other kids around school say about me. It means there’s actually a chance he may like me too.

  “Is that a let’s-be-friends kind of like or a let’s-have-sex kind of like?”

  “The second one, definitely.”

  “So is he gay?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Maybe he is. He wants to go to the movies with me tomorrow. That’s like a date, right? That’s like a date to me.”

  “And to him it could just be two buddies hanging out at the movies. You need to ask him if he’s gay, and you need to do that sooner instead of later.”

  “Why? Why can’t I just wait and see how things go between us?”

  “That would be like self-torture, and you could possibly be wasting your time on top of that. Why do that to yourself? If he tells you he’s gay, then you know you got a chance. If he tells you he’s straight, then you can start looking for an actual gay guy to date.”

  I can feel the scowl that comes over my face, and I don’t respond.

  “Don’t go getting all pouty, man,” Cary says, his thick face showing both frustration and concern. “Why are you so afraid to ask for what you want? Huh, El? You’ll never have anything, never get anywhere, being afraid. Even I know that.”

  He’s turned from the stove and is staring at me. I avoid looking at him because he always thinks he’s right, and most times he is right, and that makes me mad. But the staring makes me mad too, so I turn and stare back at him. After a moment, he blinks, and I see it again, that little flash of sadness in his eyes.

  There’s the smell of
scorched bread. “Shit!” Cary turns back to the stove, turns off the burner, and scoops the sandwich out of the slightly smoking pan with a spatula. He dumps it on a plate. I watch as he grabs two sodas from the fridge and grabs his plate and comes to the table. I feel bad for getting angry with him. Things are so tough for the guy now. I worry about him.

  He sits down across from me and hands over one of the sodas. “Want half a burned sandwich?” he offers as he twists the cap off his bottle.

  “No, thanks. I just ate.” I open my soda and take a swig. “Cary, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Not to me. Mom’s at work, and I’ve been hanging around this place all day, eating myself sick.” He pauses. He even stops chewing the bite of sandwich he has in his mouth. “Talked to my grandpa for a long time this morning.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh.” Another pause. It seems as if he’s working his way up to tell me something, but then he grabs his sandwich and takes another bite. “It’s gonna be okay, El,” he says finally.

  “What’s gonna be okay?”

  “Everything. For both of us.”

  Chapter Six

  MOM AND I are not church folk, so Sundays are do-nothing days for us except for when Mom has to work. This Sunday I’m so excited that I wake up at five in the morning and can’t go back to sleep. My first thought, inspired by yesterday’s YMCA workout, is to jump out of bed and do a bunch of sit-ups and push-ups. But I don’t jump or do push-ups or sit-ups. It takes me a good five minutes just to get out of bed. Every muscle in my body is stiff and sore.

  I move around the apartment like the rusty Tin Man. It irritates Mom a little. “Go soak in some hot water, for Christ’s sake,” she snaps at me, which is about as close as she will ever come to any kind of Sunday prayer. “The heat will loosen up your muscles.”