The Ace and the Bear Read online

  He winced at the word, but then he nodded. "Yeah. I... uh... no one else knows. Okay? Like seriously, no one knows. You can't tell anyone."

  I rolled my eyes. "I'm pretty much the one person in this town you don't have to worry about caring that you're into guys. I came out to my parents when I was thirteen. They don't care either."

  Ansel stared at me for a long time, then he briefly kissed me. It wasn't the kind of kiss like we were dating or something. At least, I didn't think it was. It was more like the kind of kiss between friends. Like the kisses I'd seen girls give each other for years that no one cared about. They said bye to each other in the hallways, kissed, and then walked off and no one called them lesbians. Or sometimes they did, but it was more joking and a whole lot less mean. Like guys would ask if they could watch girls who acted like that. They didn't threaten to beat them up or call them horrible names.

  "I've never kissed a guy before," he mumbled.

  "I haven't either." I decided not to tell him it had been my first kiss ever, since it really hadn't meant anything.

  "I don't want to date though."

  It was sad how quick he had to add that on, as if I didn't already know. "Not in this town for sure. But maybe we can be friends? We could talk about guy stuff and gay guy stuff."

  He nodded and then he tilted his head back and looked up at the stars too. "What's gay guy stuff to talk about?"

  "I have no idea."

  He smirked and I went silent as we both started up at the stars.

  *~*~*

  Having a friend I knew was also gay made living in the tiny town easier. I didn't worry so much about how everyone else saw me when I was hanging out with Ansel because everyone knew he was straight, so I automatically was too. I didn't mind hiding as much either. Not when hiding meant that if a cute guy walked by Ansel gave me a nudge so I could check him out too.

  We went to get fast food a few times a week after school as he started to give me rides home, and we always stopped in this park where we would climb into the back of his truck and stretch out and eat our burgers and milkshakes.

  It was February and I couldn't wait to graduate. My parents were apparently loving small town life, and they'd made lots of friends all over. But me, I only had Ansel, and he was just as ready to get out as I was.

  "I got accepted to Missouri State," I told him as I shoved french fries in my mouth.

  "You only applied because I'm going there." He traded me five fries for an onion ring.

  I shrugged. That had been a big part of it. I didn't mind the idea of going into college with a built in friend at all. "It's affordable too though."

  "What are you going for?"

  "I have no idea. I figured I'd probably just do my general classes and then see where I was going from there. I'm not really good at a whole lot."

  He laughed. "I'm not either." Ansel reached over and put his arm around my shoulders. It was a rare treat for him to do that in public, and he quickly stopped touching me. No one was around to be able to see us in one of the very few times that we ever let our guards down, but we were still careful. Maybe we wouldn't be so much in college, but I figured we'd both start dating people there.

  "Think we'll still hang out a lot once we're dating?" I asked. My fries were almost gone. Pretty soon he'd be done eating too. Then it would be to home and homework for me.

  "Each other or other people?"

  I elbowed him in the ribs. Sometimes we joked about dating each other, but that would never really happen. We were best friends. That was it. There was no reason to mess up a good thing by bringing dating into it.

  "You know what I meant." I stuck my tongue out at him for good measure.

  "Yeah. I knew." He took a long drink of his milkshake.

  Even though I knew I'd see him tomorrow, I didn't want to say bye to him tonight. I liked our closeness. I liked that there were no expectations or complications between us. He had his friends. I had my dog. And then, most afternoons on the way home from school, we had each other. His friendship was important to me. I guess I needed to know it was important to him as well.

  He took a while to speak again, but when he did, it was clearly well thought through, and I appreciated that. "We're still going to hang out all the time. We'll go to movies, go get coffee on the way to classes. We'll even go on double dates. We'll never date anyone the other one hates or anyone who treats one of us like crap. You're my best friend. You'll always come first."

  I offered him my pinky. It was a stupid thing that we did sometimes, but he still twisted his pinky around mine. "Pinky promise," I said, giving his pinky a tug.

  "Pinky promise," he agreed.

  *~*~*

  We graduated on a hot, humid day in May, and I couldn't wait to be done with school. I was counting down the days until we left for college. I waited patiently with my parents as Ansel high fived his friends and clapped them on the back. I was a little off to the side, away from all the noise and the fuss everyone was making. It was like the whole town had come out for our graduation and everyone wanted to congratulate everyone else.

  Finally it was my turn. Or what felt like finally anyway. We were in the middle of a big crowd, so he offered me his hand and then, when I'd taken it, he pulled me in for a pat on my back. It was awkward compared to how we normally were, and I hated the forcedness of it, but it was what we needed to do.

  "Are you free later?" he asked.

  I looked to my parents. "Am I?"

  My dad smiled at us both. "Ansel, why don't you come over once you're done with whatever your family has planned? There should be plenty of cake left."

  "Thanks. Will do." He stepped back from us. We couldn't be close for long. All I wanted to do was hug him and run off to Springfield where we'd both be going to college. I would have left that night if I could have.

  I gave him a wave. "See you later."

  He waved back and then his family took him away for whatever they were planning to do. He couldn't be open with them. It might have been unfair, but I hated that he had to hide who he was even around them. It was bad enough that he couldn't be a gay guy in town, but he didn't even have the space to be gay at home.

  "It'll be good for him to be away from them," my mom said. I hadn't been able to keep it from my parents when I found out Ansel was gay, and Ansel had trusted me to tell them when I said it would be alright. She was trying to be gentle, probably anyway, but I knew she cared about Ansel too, and she probably wanted to protect him just as much as I did.

  *~*~*

  Ansel came over around nine that night and as soon as he was in my house with the door closed, I hugged him like I'd been wanting to do all day. He hugged me back, and then he gave me one of his short kisses. Just a little peck between friends. Which led to another hug because I just wasn't ready to let him go just yet.

  My mom had chocolate cake ready and my dad had popcorn and sodas for us and we'd rented a movie for us all to watch. I had some blankets and pillows spread out on the living room floor. While I was getting comfortable and my parents were picking their seats on the couch behind us, Ansel took off his jacket and sat down next to me. The snacks were on the coffee table beside us and I handed him a soda.

  Which was when I saw the necklace in his hand. It was in a pretty little blue box and he was holding it out to me.

  "Um...It's shiny." I didn't know what else to say.

  Ansel laughed and dropped it in my lap. "Happy getting out of this town day."

  I laughed too and picked the necklace up. No one had ever given me jewelry, and I was really surprised by it. "Thanks." I took it out of the box and put it on. The silver chain was cold against my skin and I kind of liked it. He'd chosen a bigger chain, which I appreciated because I hopefully wouldn't break it then. "I'm sorry I didn't get you anything."

  Ansel just shrugged and kissed my cheek. "Things are going to be awesome when we're in Springfield. We're going to meet so many people and go to parties and—"

  "And b
e responsible with ourselves and our partners," my dad chimed in, making me go bright red.

  I cleared my throat and grabbed the TV remote. "On that note, let's watch the movie."

  Ansel laughed again and then we were diving into soda and junk food and forgetting all about the little town outside of my house that wouldn't understand two guys lying on a blanket together or how one guy was okay to give another guy a necklace. Ansel was my best friend. That was all this was. Even as I lay on him and used his butt as a pillow, we were just friends, and I really hoped we always would be.

  *~*~*

  My dad had a friend at the housing department at Missouri State, and he managed to get Ansel and me a dorm room together. It took a lot of convincing, according to my dad, but once he explained that we were both gay and it wasn't just that we wanted to be near each other to party all the time, I guess that the guy came around. Either way, whatever the story really was, I was so glad to see Ansel sitting there across the dorm room from me that night when we'd finished unpacking our stuff.

  He came over and joined me on my bed and put his arm around me. I leaned into him and smiled. "This whole thing is going to be awesome."

  "Yeah. I can't wait to be able to tell people I'm gay. I won't have to hide it anymore."

  "I'm glad you won't have to either. Neither of us will."

  *~*~*

  Within the first week of being on campus, Ansel joined a movie group. And by September the guy who ran the group, Derek, was pretty much always in our room.

  Seeing him all over Ansel was a little awkward at first, but seeing Derek kiss him that first time, and right in front of me, that was something I was trying to get more used to. We were just friends, but I still blushed and turned away as Derek pushed himself on Ansel and lay down on top of him on his bed.

  And then in November, right before Thanksgiving, I came back from my classes to find them both under the covers moaning together.

  "Shit! Sorry!" I quickly yelped before leaving the room again.

  I'd never really expected to walk in on Ansel having sex. I mean, I figured at some point he probably would. Especially with how Derek was constantly on him. It was like whenever Derek was around, he was always touching Ansel or kissing him and even when we were eating popcorn and watching movies together he had his hands under Ansel's shirt and stuff. I'd gotten used to seeing that much between them, but I hadn't extrapolated that living together might mean walking in on him having sex.

  I headed to the food court and the coffee shop there. I wasn't bothered by them having sex, but I didn't want to watch them either. I just needed some time—and so did he apparently, though I wasn't exactly sure how much I should give them. Was half an hour enough before I went back to the room? Was an hour?

  I also wasn't really sure how I was supposed to act when I saw Derek again. It had been one thing when they'd just been making out. But now that I knew they'd had sex, I was all weirded out. Somehow I kind of thought Ansel and I would have talked about this and come up with a game plan or something. But maybe it had all been too spur of the moment for that. Maybe this hadn't been planned at all.

  I got some hot chocolate and pulled out my phone. I didn't really have any games that I played to pass the time so I downloaded a random color matching ball game and figured that would kill some time.

  But as I sat there drinking my hot chocolate, I couldn't stop thinking about Ansel and Derek having sex. It was more than just that they'd done it. Ansel and I had talked about sex off and on. I thought the first person either of us had sex with would be someone one of us really cared about. But Ansel didn't talk about Derek like that. He barely talked about Derek at all actually. I wanted to be happy for him, but I couldn't help being a little worried too. This wasn't how I thought things would go for us at all.

  I was barely in the coffee shop for ten minutes when Ansel texted me. I was almost afraid to look at the text. I wasn't sure if he'd heard me come in, and I really didn't want things to be awkward between us now.

  He's gone now if you want to come back. I'm sorry.

  I didn't want Ansel to be sorry for having sex with his boyfriend. I just wanted us to go back to how we had been before. He was my best friend and we'd always said that nothing was ever going to change that between us and I needed that.

  Don't be sorry, was all I said.

  I took the rest of my hot chocolate back with me on my short walk through the campus and back to our dorm. He hadn't texted anything back to me, but it had only been a few minutes anyway. I got there, knocked because I couldn't get my keys to work with my hot chocolate in my hand. Ansel opened the door, and then he hugged me, making me spill some of my hot chocolate on him.

  "Careful!" I said, jumping back, but he just tugged me into the room with him. I sat down on my bed across from him as he sat down on his and I stared at my cup of hot chocolate in my hands. I didn't even know what to say to him now. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal that Ansel had gotten laid. I didn't know why I was making it one.

  "I didn't plan that," he mumbled.

  I got up from my bed and came over to sit down beside him on his. I hated that there was ever any space between us. I leaned against his shoulder and he put his arm around me. "I didn't think you had."

  "He sprang it on me."

  I nodded and sipped my drink. "How was it? I mean..." I shrugged. Sex was supposed to be this major thing for people, and it never really had been for me, but maybe I was still growing into the whole idea of sex and Ansel was just ahead of me.

  "It was weird. Like really, really weird. And then it wasn't. And it started being good. Derek said that next time would be better and I wouldn't choke as much."

  Ansel sounded embarrassed and I had no idea what he was talking about. "Choking? Why would you be choking?"

  "Um...'cause I went down on him and..."

  I turned bright red. "Oh."

  "Yeah." He took a really deep breath and I felt it in me as well. We were both so tense and I had no idea why we even were. "Are we okay?"

  "For sure." We'd always be okay, I realized then. He offered me his hand and I gave him mine.

  *~*~*

  After that Derek was still around all the time, but they were more careful. Or at least they tried to be. I'd come back after class when I knew Ansel should have been at his own, but his bed would be all messed up and he'd be in the shower. Or I'd be leaving to go to class and Derek would be coming in. It bothered me that Ansel was skipping class to be with Derek when he never had before. Or at least I'd never noticed him skipping class before then. I tried not to say anything. I tried to tell myself it wasn't my business. But when I saw Ansel stressing out over a final and possibly failing class because he'd barely gone, I had to say what had been on my mind for weeks.

  "Will you start going to class again and stop having sex with Derek instead of studying?" I asked. We were alone in our room, for once.

  Ansel looked embarrassed, and he nodded. "Derek's not gonna like it."

  "I think he'll live," I said, rolling my eyes. "But you need to pass your classes and seriously, not going so that you can have sex with him? C'mon." I felt like I should have said something sooner, but part of me hadn't thought it was my business. Except that he was my best friend, so shouldn't I have told him to get his head out of his butt and treat school seriously long before this?

  While I was lying there against him, Ansel took out his phone. I read the text over his shoulder. I'm failing my classes. I have to start going again. Can I see you other times?

  Of course he should have been able to see Derek when he wasn't in class. I thought that was pretty stupid to ask. In the beginning Ansel certainly hadn't cut classes to be with him. That had only really been recently. Not that they'd really been going out that long anyway.

  I was trying not to judge, but I'd always kind of thought that the first guy that I had sex with would be someone I'd known for at least a year. Like I thought it would be this big romance and he'd know everythin
g about me and I'd know everything about him and he'd know my parents and everything would be like a gay Hallmark movie before we actually ended up having sex.

  Derek texted Ansel back. You know I'm busy. You want to see me, this is my schedule. You said it was fine.

  "What an ass," I mumbled.

  "I did say I could handle skipping a few classes to see him though. I mean, boyfriends make time for each other. That's what they do. When you start dating, you'll see."

  I sat up in a hurry. "Is Derek making time for you too then? Is he giving up time with his friends? Or not going to classes to be with you?"

  Ansel blinked up at me, and I thought he was going to argue with me, but then he just tossed his phone aside. "I suck at this whole dating thing. And now I suck at college. And I apparently still suck at sucking too. At least according to him."

  "He's a dipshit. Seriously. Study, go to all your classes, and talk to your professors. Maybe some of them will give you a break. Don't tell that you were off having sex with your jerk of a boyfriend and that's why you didn't come to class. If you want to use me as an excuse and say I was having some kind of breakdown go for it. Or have a sick grandmother or something. But get it together. Don't fail out of college. Please."

  He grabbed me in a hug and I held on tightly to him. Things didn't need to be this complicated between us. We would always be good. I was sure of it.

  *~*~*

  Derek was done and out of our lives after that, and Ansel started making better grades. He barely passed the semester, but he still passed and not even his pissy parents could get upset at him for that.

  When winter break came around, I was glad to be going home to see my parents. But I could tell he wasn't.

  "You could come over and spend some of Christmas with us if you wanted. My mom got you a rainbow stocking too."

  Ansel shrugged. "Maybe. I dunno how all this is going to go. I keep thinking that I might come out to them on this trip. And then I keep thinking that I won't do that to my family over Christmas. And they do pay for college. If they cut me off, I'd have nothing."