The Thunder in His Head Page 4

  And there were so many questions. Why did this man have to meet my mom? Why did he have to like her so much? Why did he have to be, like, a hundred years older than me and still look so freaking good? And most of all, why did he have to be straight?

  “Hey, big guy.” Reece leaned across the seat and opened the passenger door for me. “Just toss your backpack in the backseat.”

  I did as invited, slid into the SUV, and closed the door. There was the scent of a warm, subtle cologne coming off Reece that was sexy as hell. I tried not to breathe.

  He started the engine. “So, how was school?”

  “It was okay. How was work?”

  “Taxing.” Reece was a tax attorney. The joke was stale.

  That didn’t keep me from laughing my head off. I was afraid he would think I was crazy or putting on a show or something. I sure as hell didn’t understand why I reacted that way. Sometimes my brain and my body surprised me. But Reece seemed pleased that I laughed so hard, and I was glad that he was pleased.

  We made small talk as he drove into the business district and parked in the sloping lot in front of the Y. The chitchat did nothing to ease my anxiety. I kept wondering when he would get around to the real reason he had brought me here.

  Reece stopped chattering after he shut off the engine, and I realized then that he had been running off at the mouth because he was nervous. We climbed out of the SUV. The jacket from his brown pinstriped suit was draped across the backseat. He undid his tie and tossed it next to the jacket. He still looked sharply professional in just his slacks and tan dress shirt. He grabbed a black vinyl bag from the trunk. I got out of my jacket and tie, left them on the front seat, and followed him into the building.

  We had the locker room all to ourselves. The place would probably be full in an hour or so, as people left work and stopped off to get in their exercise. Reece opened a locker and proceeded to undress. I went to the locker at the end of the row, as far from him as I could get, and started taking off my clothes. After promising Mom that I’d come here, I had gone back to my room and traded out my boxers for a pair of swim trunks.

  I somehow kept my gaze off Reece as he got out of his dress shirt, T-shirt, shoes, and socks, stashing them in his locker. But when he unbuckled his belt and opened his pants, I looked at him, my eyes shifting of their own accord. He stepped out of his pants and, like me, he had his trunks on underneath. The trunks were loose, boxer-like, coming down to midthigh. From the look of him, Reece made good use of the weight machines we’d passed on the main floor. His body was cut, every muscle pronounced. When he leaned over to hang his pants in the locker, the muscles in his arms, back, and legs rippled.

  There was a sudden, demanding pressure in my groin. The air in the place seemed to get awfully thin. I shut my eyes, but the image of all that undulating musculature had burned itself right across my brain. I went and stood under a cold shower. Several seconds passed, and I wished for ice to pour down the front of my trunks.

  “You follow the rules.” Reece stepped up to the shower nozzle next to mine and turned on the water. “That’s good. I wish Ty was more like you.”

  There was an aura about him. He seemed to shine with sheer manliness, especially as his body began to twist slowly beneath the hissing shower spray, and the closer he got to me, the higher my hormonal temperature rose. I kept my back to him, wondering what he was talking about, wishing he would back the hell up. Way up. Like to Quebec, maybe. Then I saw the sign over the lockers: Swimmers Must Shower Before Entering Pool.

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m a real rule follower. No breaking the rules for me, no way.” My swimsuit was even looser than his, but that only made it easier for a certain thing to stand out. The front of my trunks was tented like the big top at the circus. I furtively pressed my crotch against the wet, tiled wall, trying to calm that thing down. This never happened to me in the locker room at school. Why was I so out of control?

  “Come on, let’s hit the pool.” He slapped me on the back, giving my shoulder a quick, strong squeeze, and hurried out of the shower.

  Great. Wonderful. Thanks a lot, Reece.

  Jeez. Oh, man. There was something about the feel of that big, strong, wet hand on my back….

  I tried prayer. That didn’t work either.

  I CAME out about ten minutes later. The pool was inside a wide, high-ceilinged room with skylights, and the air here was humid and sharp with the scent of chlorine. Reece was sitting on the edge of the pool, his body wet, his feet dangling in the water. He smiled at me. “Well. It took you long enough.”

  “Yeah. I had to make a phone call.” Actually, I had gone back into the gym and pedaled like crazy on one of the stationary bikes to calm down. My first impulse had been to lock myself in a bathroom stall and jack off, but I would have undoubtedly indulged in some very impure thoughts about Reece while doing so, and that would have only made things worse. Glimpsing him now, hearing his voice, a little twinge pronounced itself yet again in my crotch.

  There were two other men in the pool, swimming slow laps from one end to the other. They both were well into their golden years, one of them bald and somewhat overweight, the other gray-haired and skinny. I looked at them instead of Mom’s near-naked boyfriend.

  “Your mom says you’re a great swimmer.”

  “Well….” Dad had taught me to swim back when I was six or seven. He knew how to float, backstroke, and kick through the water with his hands at his sides, so that was all he taught me.

  “Come on. Show me what you can do.”

  I loved the water. Ordinarily, I would give a big whoop and do a cannonball into the deep end. Now I walked slowly to the pool, sat on the edge, and slipped into the cool water. I tried to forget Reece was there. Turning around, I lay back, floating on the surface, staring up at the bright blue beyond the skylights. With my feet, I pushed off from the side and backstroked my way to the middle of the pool. Then I took a deep breath, turned over, and dove, kicking my way down and along the bottom. I wished I had brought goggles. The chlorine was going to be hell on my eyes. I stayed down until my chest started begging for air—about three minutes. Pushing off with my feet, I shot upward, breaking the surface in a spray.

  “Not bad, not bad.” Reece was standing waist-deep in the water about ten feet away from where I’d come up. “You’ve got good form. Ever think about trying for Pemberton’s swim team? With your height, you’d be great at the butterfly stroke.”

  I wiped water from my eyes. “What’s the butterfly stroke?”

  He squinted, as if trying to decide whether I was kidding. “Come over here.”

  The water was up to my chin. I waded forward into the shallower end of the pool, staring down through the swirling water at my feet, stopping about two feet from Reece.

  “Watch me,” he ordered.

  He lay forward, face down in the water, his arms fully extended forward, legs stretched tautly back. He kicked with his legs to get his body moving through the water. His back arched, his head coming up out of the water, his arms coming up even higher. His arms swept down and back again and again, propelling him and building momentum until he shot forward in a burst of speed. He raced across the water, head and shoulders bobbing up and down, arms sweeping. When he reached the other side, he ducked his head down, did an underwater flip, surfaced, and came racing back to me in the same flying motion.

  He came up beside me, tossing water from his eyes, wiping his hand over his face. He was out of breath. “Whew. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  I was impressed. “Man. You’re good.”

  “I competed in college. I can teach you the basic moves of the butterfly. Here, stretch out in the water.” He reached out to position my body.

  I jerked away before he could touch me, the motion so abrupt that it startled him.

  “Hey,” Reece gasped, pulling back his hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. I can catch on better if I see how it’s done. Can you show me again?” />
  “Sure.”

  I watched him make another lap across the pool and back, and I got the moves down pat in my brain. When he stood up beside me, breathing hard, I said, “I think I’ve got it.”

  Reece waved a hand invitingly over the water. “Go for it.”

  I did, sliding through the water, trying to match the flow, grace, and speed of Reece’s moves. Afraid of cracking my head, I pulled the underwater flip well shy of the pool wall and went flying back, exhilaration in every motion. I came up beside Reece, sweeping water from my face with my hands, and looked at him eagerly. “How was that?”

  “Not bad. But you’re trying too hard. Don’t push your head up so high, and make sure your arms come down and back. And it seemed to me you were holding your breath the whole time you were swimming.”

  I thought about it. “You’re right, I think I did hold my breath.”

  “Breathe when your head is up out of the water. It’ll help your stamina. Try it again.”

  I worked on the butterfly for maybe thirty minutes, getting better at it with each lap. Then I challenged Reece to a race. He won the first one, but after we took a few minutes to catch our breaths, I won the second one. Reece wasn’t as goofy or playful as my dad, but he was still a lot of fun. And it was great to learn a new swimming technique. Who knows, maybe I would try out for Pemberton’s swim team. I was having such a good time that I forgot Reece had an ulterior motive in coming here until he said, “Come on. Let’s take a break and talk.”

  Other men were there now, nine of them, all middle-aged, different sizes and shapes. The pool was a bit more crowded, and it was getting harder to swim laps back and forth with all the extra bodies floating around. Reece hauled himself out of the pool, walking over to one of the plastic chaise longues, his body slinging water with every step.

  I heaved a sigh and climbed out after him. I walked over to where he had stretched out and just stood there, staring off over the pool.

  Reece patted the seat of the chaise next to him. “Sit,” he said with a smile.

  I sat, stretched out my legs, folded my hands across my chest, and closed my eyes. “Okay. What do we talk about?”

  He started out asking me the kind of banal questions adults toss out when they get stuck with kids they don’t know. What’s your best subject in school? What sports are you lousy in? What kind of work do you want to go into after you graduate? But I didn’t mind because he told me things about himself too, and I found that I liked knowing about him. English was my favorite subject, and I hated science courses. When he was in high school, he liked history and hated Spanish I, II, and III. I stunk at baseball, which was flat out boring to me, and he stunk at soccer. I wanted a job that involved sports, maybe as a coach or sports writer. He originally wanted to be an architect, but after struggling to get through the requisite math courses, he decided to become a lawyer instead.

  The tone of our conversation changed for the worse when he said, “You and Ty have gotten to be friends.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Ty is cool.”

  “He says the same about you. That’s good.” He paused for a moment. “This is strange for you, isn’t it, Kyle? Your mom going out with me and all.”

  I saw no reason to lie. “Yeah, it is.”

  “It’s strange for us too. And for my kids. The relationship between your mom and me is not just changing our lives, it’s changing your life too. I realize this is probably not easy for you.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Well, I’m hoping we can all work through this. I want you to know, Kyle, that your mom and I… your mom is very important to me. And one day, maybe soon, we’re going to get married.”

  There was a flash of heat in my head. I didn’t realize it was anger until I bit my lip to keep from cursing.

  “Kyle?”

  I turned away from him. My teeth clenched. “She’s not divorced yet.”

  “I know that.” He paused again. I could feel him staring at me. “Is there something you want to say to me, Kyle?”

  “Just hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.” He opened his mouth to speak and I stood up quickly. “I got homework, and it’s getting late. I think I better get home.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said reluctantly.

  I walked quickly back to the locker room. When I got my locker open and reached for my pants, it dawned on me that my trunks were sopping wet and I hadn’t thought to bring either a towel to dry off with or clean underwear to change into.

  Reece, opening his own locker, must have caught the flustered look on my face. He held up the black vinyl bag. “I’ve got an extra towel in here, if you need it.” He tossed the bag onto the wooden bench in front of the lockers. Then he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trunks and peeled them down his legs to his ankles.

  Oh… my… God.

  I snatched my loafers and my clothes out of the locker.

  I ran past Reece.

  “Kyle, what—?”

  “I gotta go…,” I stammered.

  “Wait! Kyle—”

  I kept going, ignoring his shouts. I rushed up the hall, through the gym where machines whirred and weights clanked as guys worked their bodies, and into the lobby, where I finally stopped long enough to pull my pants on over my wet trunks and shove my feet into my loafers. There were people in the lobby, a clerk behind the desk, and somebody said something to me. Something had snapped or disconnected in my head, dulling my senses now to everything around me there.

  I don’t remember plunging through the door and out into the street.

  Five

  NIGHT had fully settled by the time I rounded the corner onto my street. Stars sprinkled the clear black sky. There wasn’t a soul in sight anywhere in the neighborhood, and only the occasional lighted window kept the area from feeling utterly deserted.

  I walked down the driveway and around to the back of the house, coming in through the kitchen door. The room was dark. Anxious, quick footsteps sounded the instant I got the door open. By the time I shut it and turned, the light came on and Mom was standing there with a deer-in-headlights look on her face.

  “Kyle? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… yeah, Mom.”

  “What happened? Where’d you go?”

  “Nowhere. Nothing happened. I just….” My brain started scrambling. I had known there would be questions when I got home, but I hadn’t developed a cover story on my walk from the Y. My pants were still wet where water from my trunks had soaked through, my shirt was open, and my shoes were untied. I must have looked crazy to Mom.

  “Something happened. Reece said you got angry and ran out.”

  “I wasn’t angry. Not when I left. I was angry earlier, yeah, but not when I left.”

  Mom’s frown deepened, her face puzzled and frightened, but I could also see anger building in her eyes. “Reece thinks he said something to upset you. We’ve all been worried to death, your dad and me, Reece. Why didn’t you answer your cell phone? I must have called you a dozen times. Why didn’t you call someone and tell us where you were?”

  I couldn’t remember hearing my phone ring. I looked down as I tugged the phone from my pocket. I stared at the phone for several seconds, and then looked up at Mom helplessly, as though pleading with her to supply the answers to her own questions.

  Mom was pissed now. “Stop giving me that dull-eyed expression. I’m not speaking Chinese here. These are simple questions and I expect some answers.”

  “Mom, nothing happened, okay?” My throat, I realized, was beyond dry. I went to the fridge and grabbed a can of Sprite. I popped the tab and started chugging away.

  Mom’s glare was like machine-gun fire.

  I put the can down and sighed. “Okay, Mom. Yes, I got mad at Reece when he started talking about you guys getting married. And yes, I ran out because I couldn’t stand to be around him anymore.” Not the whole truth, but no part of it was a lie.

  Her expression softened, the anger gone in an inst
ant and replaced by guilt. “Oh, Kyle. I understand how hard this is for you. But you can’t just go running off like that when something upsets you—”

  “Mom, aren’t you always telling me that I have to control my anger and not let it control me? Didn’t you say that I should just walk away instead of punching somebody in the mouth?”

  Mom’s face was getting a full workout. Now she looked horrified. “You wanted to hit Reece?”

  My head started to ache. “No, Mom. I didn’t say that. I just….” I put both hands to my head, trying to stifle the pain, trying to stifle everything. I couldn’t go into this with her. No way. “Look, I’m sorry I worried you. I’m sorry I worried Dad. I’m sorry about what I did. Now can we please not talk about this anymore?”

  She kept looking at me, and I could see how conflicted her emotions were. Finally, she said, “Your dinner’s in the oven. After you eat, wash your dishes and get upstairs and do your homework.”

  My homework. Oh, God. My books, my jacket, and my tie were in Reece’s SUV.

  “Reece came by and brought your things,” Mom said, as if she had read my mind. “They’re in the living room.”

  “Mom… tell Reece that… that I’m sorry. Okay?”

  She scowled at me, angry again. “No, you call and tell him that yourself. His number is 4 on the landline’s speed dial. And then you call your dad and apologize for worrying the life out of him.”

  She turned and left the room, and she didn’t speak to me again for the rest of the evening.

  THE next morning, there was another picture taped to Jillian’s locker. She brought it with her when she came to join me on the bench in front of the school.