My Summer of Firsts

Chapter 28 - The Silver Lining

I'd never really understood the phrase "floating on air" before. I thought it was dumb and redundant. Of course if you were floating, you'd be doing so on air—unless you were doing it on water, I suppose, but that's beside the point.

Then Elian told me he loved me. After that I felt light inside, untethered to the world as I had always been before. I could simply drift away into the sky.

Conversely, I also felt more grounded to reality than I ever had. Years of my life had passed in a monotonous blur, with little to show for it. Elian had given me a reason for marking each day as important. Even on those days when we did nothing more than lay on his couch and watch movies, wrapped in each other's arms. The simple act of being together made it momentous.

It didn't really sink in as reality until after we left Derek's house, and he said it again. And again. And again.

After consuming a huge breakfast at the cafe, we took a stroll through the park. All signs of the barbecue and the fireworks extravaganza had disappeared. The lawn that had been dotted with blankets just a few days ago was empty save for two dogs chasing each other around while their owners chatted on a nearby bench. The sidewalk was still damp from the last two days of downpour.

Elian laughed when I stepped to the side to stomp my foot in a tiny puddle. "You're like a toddler."

"I love the rain. Sue me."

"I noticed." He pulled his hand out of mine to put his arm around my back. "I've never seen you sleep so peacefully as you have the last two days. Normally, you twitch a lot and you mumble."

"What do I say?" I was genuinely curious. No one had ever told me that. Not that there were many people in a position to know.

"I wish I knew. It's very frustrating to lay there and hear you going—" he made a series of incomprehensible noises. "You could at least enunciate."

I laughed and leaned against him. "I'll do my best to work on my diction before bed."

My alarm went off—the screeching of angry howler monkeys—to alert me it was almost time for my shift at the pharmacy.

As we stopped, he pulled me into the circle of his arms, pressing against me. "I hate this part of the day."

"Me, too." I gave him a quick kiss. "Are you coming into the store later?"

"I can't today." His lips tightened into an apologetic smile. "I made an appointment for the charity shop's truck to come to grandpa's house to pick up all his old clothes. And you know how those things go. They say noon, but what they really mean is sometime after that, but not within two or three hours, because God forbid you actually have a life. Of course, if you're not there at noon, that's exactly when they'll arrive."

I ignored his rambling, focused on something I'd just noticed. I'd heard him say it a hundred times probably, but it never stuck with me before like it did now. "Why do you always call it your grandpa's house? Like you don't live there."

"Because I don't live there."

"You do for the moment. You could just say my house. I'd know what you meant just as easily."

"Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?"

"It just popped into my head." I shrugged. "You never talk about him. Unless it's to complain about how messy he was. Or how much shit he has piled up in that house."

"I told you I didn't know him. He's basically a stranger who just so happens to share a fourth of my DNA."

"I know what it's like to have people—grandparents, especially—not want to know you. Even my dad doesn't want to know me."

"That sucks. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just saying, I get it."

He nodded, his hazel eyes scanning over my face. He seemed lost in his thought. I was about to say something, to end the silence, when he started speaking: "My grandpa didn't want my mom to marry my dad. He forbid it, actually. Told her if she married Dad she better not ever come back to his doorstep again as long as she was with him."

"Why did he care?" I asked, locking my arms at the small of his back. "Were your parents super young or something?"

"More like my dad was super Mexican, and my grandpa was a racist asshole."

"Shit."

"Yeah." Elian said. "That's why I came here. My mom said she wouldn't give that old bastard the satisfaction of setting foot in his house again."

"Jesus!" I shook my head. "Now, I honestly can't believe you even stayed there."

Elian laughed, his lips twisting into a wicked grin. "I like to think that he's rolling over in his grave, knowing that his half-Mexican grandson is having so much gay sex with a very sexy man all over his precious house. Because I'm sure he was probably a raging homophobe, too. The two tend to go hand-in-hand."

"Well, glad I could be of assistance." I joked, not really sure what to say.

"This is gonna sound weird, but I'm almost grateful he was such a terrible person."

"Why?"

"Because if he hadn't been, my mom never would have asked me to come here. She would've done it herself, and I'd probably still be in Chicago. I never would've met you."

"As much as I wish good things for you, and that you had a supportive, loving grandpa, I can't say I'm upset about it either."

"I do have a loving, supportive grandpa. It just wasn't him. And I'm okay with that." Elian brushed the hair back off my forehead. "I know it's super cliche, but I really believe that whole every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining thing." He stared at me in silence for a long moment, bringing heat to my cheeks. "You're the silver lining here, Steven."

That might be the sweetest thing anyone had every said to me. I reached up to hold his face between my hands, leaning in for a kiss that was probably too passionate for eleven o'clock on a Monday morning in the middle of a public park.

My second alarm blared, telling me it was definitely time to go now.

I broke the kiss and leaned my forehead against his. "I don't wanna go."

"Too bad." Elian said. "It's pumpkin time, Cinderella. Off to work you go."

I backed away, holding out my hand. "Walk me there?"

Elian took my hand, slipping his fingers through mine. "With pleasure, love."

I chewed on my lip. That singular word gave me butterflies every time he said it. Such a small word for the enormity of its meaning. And I felt like I was just scratching the surface.