Page 21 of Bone to Pick
“Okay. I guess that’s plenty of time for me to make a convincing argument, then, huh?” Porter said brightly.
“You think it’s going to take you three days?” I deadpanned.
“I suppose it depends on how stubborn you are,” he said.
The teasing light in his eyes as he gestured for me to take my seat at the table again should have been my first clue that I was in trouble. Then he began to speak.
“My first kiss was with a girl named Rochelle.”
I blinked and opened my mouth to protest—what possible subject could he be arguing that began with an admission like that? I was afraid I knew—but then I shut it again.
He was twenty-six years old. An adult man who knew his mind. I was an adult, too, and capable of listening without being swayed. Wasn’t I the one who’d told him to make his argument personal?
“Go on,” I said roughly.
“I was sixteen at the time—we both were—but I’d been attracted to guys andonlyguys for several years by then. I hadn’t officially come out, but I was pretty confident I was gay. My family low-key knew it. Rochelle knew it. Heck, the wholetownknew it, and no one was very surprised since I already had two gay brothers and a gay uncle, and the Sundays were developing a bit of a reputation for being pretty gay. But Rochelle’s father was the minister at a very fundamentalist church in Two Rivers, the next town over from Little Pippin Hollow. And Rochelle was a bit of a rebel. So she kissed me, out of the blue, right in the stands at the Averill Union Beavers football game one Friday night, just to prove a point. And it was…”
Curiosity drew me forward, almost against my will. “Yes?”
“It waselectric,” Porter whispered, his gaze holding mine. “Her fruity lip gloss, the baby powder scent of her, the way her mouth felt on mine… Christ, it did things to me. By halftime, I was having a full-blown sexuality crisis. Did this mean I liked girls? That I liked Rochelle? Was that possible? What would my family say if I came out asstraight?” His lips turned up at the memory. “It took me a while—and a couple more kisses—to realize that it wasn’therI wanted. I’d been seduced by the forbidden. By the idea of doing something a little rebellious and a little wrong. Ultimately, I figured out it was way more fun to do that with guys.” He glanced down at his fingers playing with the handle of his empty mug and laughed softly before meeting my eyes again. “Likewaymore fun.”
I’ll just bet it was.I swallowed hard and sat back in my chair, remembering my own first kiss. It hadn’t been nearly that exciting… or maybe it was just the way Porter told the story.
Figured the man would be a natural now that he understood the assignment.
“After high school, when I started hooking up with guys more often, I chased that high,” Porter went on. “Didn’t take me long to learn that while it might be enticing to, say, kiss a straight guy who might not acknowledge me the next day or to hook up with someone in the stacks at the library on campus, the lure of the forbidden fizzled out really, really fast. There had to be more substance there for me to want more than a single kiss.”
He paused for a moment, and I found myself fiddling with my glasses before taking them off and leaning in again. I wanted to hear more. Imagining him kissing other men—in the Hannabury library, for fuck’s sake—gave me a strange, toxic combination of excitement and jealousy. A sick, elated feeling deep in my gut, like the sweet pain that came from touching a bruise.
Porter looked up and met my eyes. “A couple of years ago, I was walking past your classroom, and you were reading sonnets aloud to your class. It was the first time I heard your voice. And just like that—” He snapped his fingers. “I was attracted to you. Instant, holy-fuck, stop-me-in-my-tracks attraction. The kind of attraction that makes a person want to do foolish things, like declare an English major…”
“Porter…” I choked out. Every nerve in my body was standing at attention, dying to hear the rest of the story—Oh, shit. He was attracted to me, even then? He’d declared an English major because of me?But the few remaining shreds of sanity in my brain trembled like overused muscles under the onslaught of words and needed him to shut up immediately before they caved.
My attraction to him was already a stack of tinder soaked in high-octane fuel… and Porter held a fistful of matches.
He continued his story as if I hadn’t spoken. “Of course, at the time, I didn’t know who you were. No clue what you looked like. The only thing I knew about you was the sound of your voice reading poetry, and… it went straight to my balls. I just knew I could listen to you recite iambic pentameter for hours on end and never get tired of it.” His cheeks flushed with the admission, but he didn’t look away. “It wasn’t until later that I figured out who you were. Dr. Theo Hancock—akaDoctor Hot-Cock, the most gorgeous professor on campus…” he said hoarsely. “And a total jackass.”
I sucked in a shivery breath, and in my mind’s eye, one match scratched down the striker in slow motion.
The world was tilting, sliding. I couldn’t right it, and I wasn’t sure if I should.
“Porter,” I breathed again.
He shook his head at me, paying no more attention to me now than before. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s the lure of the forbidden, right? That’s what made me so hot for you? Maybe so. All last semester, I fantasized about you. Couldn’t stop. You’d be talking, and I’d wonder what it would be like if I shut you up with my mouth on yours. With my mouth on… well…otherplaces of yours.” He exhaled. “I was so full of these thoughts I avoided you like the plague. I didn’t dare come to your office hours for fear I’d do or say something inappropriate. Hell, half my fantasies took place in your fucking office, and I figured if I ever spent any time there, I’d spontaneously combust.”
I couldn’t force myself out of the chair to walk away from the conversation, even though I knew it needed to be done. Instead, I sat there, silently begging for more.
“But I’d learned my lesson long before then, you know?” he went on softly. “I wasn’t gonna act on this attraction because I knew better than to want something simply because it was forbidden.”
“Oh,” I said on an exhale. “Good. Right.”
His green eyes met mine.Held. “Then class ended. And I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. God, I was so angry at you, Theo. At times, I thought I hated you. But even so, I still craved your kiss. So now, I can’t help wondering… what does that mean? Is it really the forbidden that makes me want you as much as I do? Or is there something more there, a true attraction that could lead to something incendiary? I need to know…”
Time sat heavily between us while the match caught fire with a dangerous flare of heat.
Porter ran his tongue over his bottom lip, then finished in a whisper, “…and I figure there’s one surefire way to find out.”
I wanted to punish him for stirring me up this way. To prove him wrong. To show him once and for all he was only after it for the thrill of the thing. He couldn’t possibly want me for any other reason than that. He’d already established how much he disliked me.
