Chapter 5

He grabs my hand and rolls on top of me. Our noses are almost touching. He says, “If you want to play a game of chicken with me, keep in mind that I never lose. The best you could hope for is a tie.” He brushes his mouth across my ear, down my neck and hovers half an inch above my lips. Our eyes lock for a few intense seconds and then he rolls off me and out of the bed. In the doorway, he pauses, turns, smiles and says, “Gotcha back.” He winks and disappears into the bathroom. I need several minutes to recover before I can get up.

He might have gotten me back but I can’t stop smiling. I made Mac…I turned Little Mac into Big Mac!

It’s 8:00am on Sunday morning and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my own car. I still don’t know where Mac is taking me. He had told me to pack workout clothes, a swimsuit, dinner clothes and my toothbrush. Mysterious Mac.

I regard my traveling companion and observe, “You’ve driven more of the miles on my new car than I have.”

His only response is an ear-to-ear grin.

Mac drives on and I get lost in my thoughts. The thing is, these days, my thoughts are mostly filled with Mac. How did this happen? I’ve been Mac’s roommate for mere days. Mac, who I hadn’t in 10 years. Yes, there was social media and the occasional text message, but still. Why am I so…I don’t even know. Taken by him? Drawn to him? What do I even want to happen? He’s my friend Mac. Do I want friendship? Do I want more?

I think I might want more. But he’s straight. He’s not shy about putting hands on my body, but some straight guys are like that. Right. And Mac has always been a hugger and a toucher. Not necessarily of every square inch of my body…but still.

And every touch from Mac gives me that jolt of electricity. I think about how he slept with me and kept me safe when I was upset. There was also the massage he gave me when I was sore, the oddly intimate stick shift lesson, the time I was teasing him about the basketball game and he grabbed my foot before assaulting my vulnerable belly… If I’m honest with myself, I felt it from the early moments of that first day when I took him out to lunch, our knees and toes kept accidentally bumping under the table — I felt the spark then.

Except I really have no idea how Mac feels about me. Maybe he wanted nothing more than to reconnect with an old friend when he invited me to stay with him. Maybe all the feelings I’m experiencing are completely one-sided. Maybe the things he says, the things he does, his commitment to everything…maybe that’s just Mac being Mac. He goes all-in. That’s who he is. He’s just so…extra.

“Are you okay?” It’s Mac, snapping me out of it and bringing me back into the present.

I realize that my right hand is gripping the armrest and my left is in a white-knuckled fist. I unclench, “I’m good.”

I never knew places like this existed. It’s a state-of-the-art fitness center, spa, hotel combination kind-of-a-thing. I peruse the brochure while Mac checks us in. What don’t they have here? They do have indoor and outdoor tracks, tennis, Peloton Spin Bikes, Ellipticals, weights, indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, hot tubs, professional masseurs, spas…

I’m still staring at the brochure when Mac hands me a keycard. “We have a full day ahead of us. Let’s get changed.”

I follow Mac to the elevator and wonder if our rooms are next to each other. Maybe there’s one of those interior adjoining doors. He presses the button for the seventh floor. That’s a good start since the number on my keycard is 711. He leads us down the hall and stops at room 711. My pulse quickens slightly as he swipes his card. The door opens to reveal a large suite with two queen size beds.

He says, “I hope you don’t mind sharing. We’ll hardly be in the room at all so it seemed like a waste to get two.”

“This is fine,” I say light and casual as I angle away from him to hide my reddening cheeks.

“Here’s the plan,” he begins as he sits on one bed and I sit on the other. “Today is all about hard work and hard play. Pain and pleasure. Yin and yang. I’m gonna work your ass off on the track, in the weight room, swimming laps, on the bikes and on the tennis court.” He slips out of his old, worn VANS and crosses his legs on his bed. “On the flip side, we’re gonna relax in the sauna, in the steam room and in the hot tub. We’re getting facials, massages, manicures and pedicures. Don’t look at me like that. Men do such things. And we’re going to eat delicious food. I’m telling you right now, there are no dietary rules today. Got it?”

It sounds like I don’t have much choice, but I gave my day to Mac. I’ve trusted him this far. I slip off my Chuck Taylors, cross my legs and mimic his position, “Got it, sir!” I salute like a well-trained cadet.

Mac laughs, takes one of the too many pillows on his bed and throws it at me. “You’re such an idiot.”

So, we do all of those things. Mac did not exaggerate. He drives me hard during the “work” part of the day. We run longer and push harder at everything.

We grab lunch in between activities, sitting at an umbrellaed table on the outdoor patio. We have light club sandwiches and side salads with glasses of water and iced tea. I usually hate iced tea, but for some reason, here in this place, it’s delicious. I suspect that the reason has a name: Sugar, but I push that out of mind. The sandwich is good too. I try not to think about the bread that I would never eat under normal circumstances. It’s not that I don’t like bread. Who doesn’t like bread? It’s just that it’s so bad for you. But I agreed to Mac’s terms, so I don’t mention it. Instead, I look inside my sandwich and ask, “Do you think they repurpose their cucumbers?”

Mac stops chewing and looks a question at me.

“Do you think these cucumbers were on other people’s faces in the spa yesterday?”

Mac laughs so hard he almost chokes. With red, watery eyes, after his coughing fit subsides, he says, “Such a fucking idiot.”

Our final activities of the day, in order, are: tennis, massages, facials and mani-pedis. On the tennis court, I say to Mac, “So your plan was to wear me out with everything else first so I couldn’t kick your ass in tennis.” I figured out the other night when we played basketball with Jonah and Joe that Mac is actually quite competitive. I personally don’t care, but it’s fun riling him up. I have to poke the bear.

Mac attempts to set the tone from the start, “Tennis isn’t a game. This is a real sport. Sports are what I do.”

“It is too a game. It’s ping pong. We just happen to standing on the table.”

He laughs again and points his racket at me, “You’re funny. But you’re about to get schooled.”

It turns out that tennis and ping pong are in fact two different things. Nevertheless, I’m good at it. Mac and I are pretty evenly matched. The difference is, Mac is working really hard for it while I easily glide across the court and effortlessly stroke the ball.

Mac grunts and strains and sweats out every point. I can tell that he really doesn’t want to lose. In the middle of our set, he asks me, “Are you hanging in there okay, Alexander?”

I just smile and say, “I’m cool as yesterday’s used cucumbers.”

It takes a thirteenth game to decide our one-set match. We’ve each won six games and now the tie-breaker game is tied six points each. Mac looks spent. I look like we just started. It takes another twelve points but I finally beat him, 13 — 11 and win the set 7 — 6. I decide to not gloat right now. I can take the high road. Besides, I like the idea of having this moment in my back pocket for future use.

As we walk to the spa center for massages and beautification, Mac hooks a sweaty arm around my shoulders and says, “I gotta hand it to you Alexander. You were pretty damn good out there. We could have gone on forever if I hadn’t decided to let you win.”

I’m about to explode my incredulity at him when I turn and notice his huge grin. Instead, I smile too and simply say, “Bullshit.”

He laughs and gives my shoulder a light squeeze.

After dinner and back in our room, I sit on my bed across from Mac and say, “Last night at the restaurant, our conversation was interrupted. We were in the middle of something before we were so rudely interrupted. I have to admit, I didn’t hear the last thing you said. I was steeling myself for the situation unfolding behind you.” I lean forward, closer to Mac, “What were you saying?”

“Oh, I don’t remember,” Mac drops his eyes. “I’m sure it wasn’t important.”

I point at him, “Wow. Good people are bad liars and you’re the worst. Come on. Spill it, Mac.” I won’t let it go, “We were talking about emotional connections. I told you that you deserve the best and not to settle. And then you said something. Or at least started to say something. What was it?”

He looks up and meets my eye, “I said, what if this person that I deserve, the one who’s ‘the best’, what if I already know who that person is?”

I think my heart misses a beat. “That’s…great? Have you told this person how you feel?”

He shakes his head, “Not yet.”

There’s a slight hitch in my voice, “Why not?”

“I never had a chance. This person did a very brave thing 10 years ago. He was vulnerable and trusted me enough to reveal his secret. His true self. And then life happened and we were separated for a decade.”

Mac has held my eye this whole time. It’s taking all of my strength to not look away. I wanted a clue as to how Mac feels about me. Here it is. Maybe this isn’t so one-sided after all. The sudden silence is deafening.

“The thing is,” Mac continues, “I’ve felt this way for way longer than this person can possibly imagine. I might not have realized or understood my feelings at the time, but it goes all the way back to middle school. I took too long to really understand myself. By the time I did, this person was gone. And now that he’s back, I don’t know how he feels or if there’s even a flicker of interest there.”

I clear my throat, “There’s much more than a flicker.”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

Mac had undressed and brushed his teeth first. By the time I exit the bathroom in my boxer-briefs and an undershirt, Mac is lying face-down on his bed, propped up on his elbows reading his book. He’s again wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. As I pass by the foot of his bed, an impulse overtakes me. I leap on his bed, straddle his legs and proclaim, “This is the payback I promised for calling my car a crisis.” I swipe up and down the soles of his feet. He should be trapped. He should be at my mercy. He isn’t.

Mac, nobody’s victim, is stronger than me. He easily flips right-side-up, hooks his arms through mine and wraps his hands together behind my head in what I imagine to be a half-nelson wrestling move. I could be wrong though. I know as much about wrestling as I do about golf or inorganic chemistry. He pulls so we both fall backwards on his mattress.

He neatly slips out from under me and uses just his left hand to clasp both of my wrists together, pinning them high over my head. This is the same position he had me in a few nights ago. I’m already starting to respond. His body is on mine and I’m trapped. There’s literally nothing I can do, so I stay still and await my punishment.

For a few seconds he does nothing. He’s probably planning his attack. His right hand finds its way under my t-shirt and his palm rests flat on my bare stomach. I quiver in anticipatory fear. His eyes are boring into mine and our faces are just inches apart. Suddenly he releases my wrists and shifts his weight off me. He’s still staring into my eyes, our noses almost touching, but I’m no longer trapped. I could get up, if I want to. I could leave his bed, if I want to. I don’t want to. He lowers his head and gently kisses me. It’s like a test kiss. A sample. He lifts his head back up, looks me in the eye and wordlessly asks. I hold his eye and wordlessly consent.

He tells me, “It’s always been you, Alexander,” and he kisses me again, deeply this time. Even more than his kiss and his touch, those words cause a warmth and a tingle to spread through my whole body. His right-hand slides further up my stomach while his left traces down my inner arm. I wrap my leg around his and entangle my fingers in his hair.

He frees me from the constraints of my t-shirt and he stares down at exposed upper body. My inclination is to fold my arms over my chest and cover myself in any way I could. I know what I look like and I’m particularly impressed. I am not my type. I’m too skinny, too soft, except for a light trail from my navel that disappears below my waistband, I have almost no body hair… If I were someone else, I would pass me right by. But Mac? He’s looking at me with a lusting and a hunger that makes my heart flutter and my face flush. But my face couldn’t possibly show too much of a flush because it feels like 90% of my body’s blood is concentrated on the most raging erection I’ve ever had in my life.

Mac says, “I could look at you all night.”

I squirm a little and become aware of the cold, sticky wet spot on my underwear. I look up at the man kneeling between my legs. He towers over me. His arms and shoulders and chest are textured and contoured by the curves of his muscles and bones. He doesn’t have a lot of body hair either, but more than me. Just the right amount, really. His caramel skin is rippled over washboard abs that surround his perfectly circular innie belly button. His underwear strains and protests over its prisoner, desperate and fighting to escape. If I were to design the physically perfect man, Mac would be my mold. He’s…flawless.