The Lover (It's Just Us Here Book 4) Read online

  “So what’s your other roommate like?”

  “You don’t want to know.” Actually, let’s get out of here before that happens. “Let’s go talk with Suhail, and you better promise there won’t be any drama.”

  “Me? Drama? I seem to remember you being full of drama for the past few months.”

  “Not anymore,” I promised. “I’m yours. No more drama.”

  “Okay.” Mark agreed to our No Drama Pact with a handshake—he being the King of Drama and the Purveyor of Snootiness. “No more drama.”

  We left my new bedroom and chatted with Suhail. Suhail was a computer scientist and was paid very well. He stayed in a place like this because he was good friends with Nick and because he was saving money in an attempt to pay off his student loans. Thankfully, Mark didn’t ask what a student loan was... you could never guess what stupid thing might pop out of Mark’s mouth at the most embarrassing moments.

  “So tell me about this Nick,” Mark prompted.

  Sunhail laughed, which was a welcoming sound. “He’s crazy. Nick works in an apparel store instead of focusing on back end development like he went to school for. He smokes his bong every night. The list goes on.”

  Mark was initially excited when he heard about the apparel store, but when he heard about the rest of it, he snarled at me like he was about to say something dramatic.

  “No. Drama.”

  Mark shut his mouth, winced. “You aren’t going to last here very long,” he finally said. Mark never was any good at predictions.

  “I have my own place near you. I have a southern exposure. What more do I need?”

  “Where’s your desk going?”

  I looked around the living room. There wasn’t a desk area. I could take my mobile typing station anywhere, but my desktop might have to stay with my parents.

  “You could always move your computer to my place,” he taunted with a singsong voice.

  “No.” I was firm and kept my back stiff as I returned to inspect the bedroom. “I’ll just have to get a full bed. Then I’ll fit my desk by the closet.”

  “What the hell is a ‘full bed’?” Mark asked.

  “It’s the size below a queen,” Suhail offered.

  “I am not sleeping on a full bed.”

  Oh yeah? “You will if I do...”

  Mark didn’t have a comeback for that—seeing as it was a fact. After that, I shook Suhail’s hand and Mark was friendly with him as we left. It was clear that Mark didn’t have a problem with Suhail, but he did have a huge problem with the apartment Suhail was subletting.

  We got in Mark’s fancy car. “Thank God my hubcaps are still here.”

  “Don’t be dramatic,” I quipped.

  “I’m not going to park on that street ever again. Do you even know where you’re going to park? Oh wait, your shitty car will fit right in.”

  “Suhail said he would take care of it.”

  “Suhail this and Suhail that. Why don’t you marry Suhail?”

  “Don’t be a jerk. He’s a nice guy.” Why are we still fighting? Mark drove the five minutes (two stop signs and one stop light) between our apartments through lite traffic. “Why are we going back to your place? We’re meeting Lynn in half an hour.”

  Lynn was my cousin who lived in Texas. She had come up to Chicago for the weekend to make sure Mark was a good guy (and probably to threaten his life if he broke my heart).

  “You look like you just rolled out of bed,” Mark said critically. He normally wasn’t so mean to me. During the first month I knew him, Mark was very belittling of my wardrobe, but ever since I started wearing the clothes he selected for me, he hadn’t said a negative word about my appearance.

  “I’m wearing what you picked out.”

  “I don’t want you in that hoodie.”

  “You fucking picked out this hoodie!” We hopped in the elevator and swept up to his ninth floor palatial apartment. “Okay, so you have an elevator. Big deal.” We walked into his apartment and he made sure to pose melodramatically in front of the big southeast facing windows.

  “You can always put your plants here,” he suggested.

  “What are we doing here! I bet Lynn is already waiting for us. She loves to get places early, unlike someone I know.”

  “We’ll make it on time.”

  “Fash-un-ably late,” I sneered. Then I stopped and stared at him. My heart thudded. “Are you as nervous as I am?”

  “No.” He wasn’t convincing. “I don’t worry about everything like you do. Now get out of that damn hoodie.”

  “You’ve made me change twice already!”

  “Third time’s the charm!” He lunged at me and forced the hoodie over my shoulders. “That isn’t you at all,” he muttered.

  “I liked that outfit.”

  “Take off your pants,” he commanded.

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “I know what you’re going to wear.” He walked to my dresser in the guest room. I followed him... and was curious. What mysterious thing would Mark force me into this time?

  He pulled out my orange pair of pants, the pants that looked like splotchy copper. He unrolled them down the length of his body. “It’s copper time,” Mark said, like he was saying hammer time.

  I placed my hands on my hips, ready to fight to the death. “You can’t be serious.” He was serious so I stepped out of my shoes as commanded. “You’re just going to make me change again.” I complained, but he didn’t listen and forced me out of my pants. I shook my hips at him. “You just wanted to see me in my underwear again.”

  Mark grabbed me by the waist as I reached for the pants, then he tickled me and tried to get my tee shirt over my shoulders. “Take it off,” he said as I giggled.

  “We don’t have time for that.” I swatted his chest. He didn’t give up attacking me until my arms were pinned against my body. After subduing me and removing my shirt, he walked to the dresser and pulled out a lightweight, long-sleeve shirt. It was grey, my favorite color. Then he walked into my closet and took out a pair of grey cloth shoes.

  “Okay.” I relented. “But I’m not changing again.”

  He smiled and ran his hands over my abs. “You’re going to look so fucking hot.”

  “Honestly, I think you’d do just about anything to get me naked.” I sat on the bed and contorted the skinny jeans until they slid in place, plastered onto my legs. “These are really tight.”

  “It’s all those squats I’ve had you doing.”

  “Whatever. Toss me the shirt.” I put on the shoes and the shirt and we went into his master bedroom to stand before the full-length mirror. “Spiffy,” I said. “I don’t want you calling me ‘sexy’ anymore. I don’t like that word. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Spiffy sounds gay as fuck.”

  “Oh well. I’d rather say that I ‘dress well’ or ‘look nice’, but spiffy has a similar ring to the word I want to replace. Anytime you want to say ‘sexy’, say ‘spiffy’ instead.”

  “You look spiffy as fuck,” Mark declared proudly, which made him sound like a pure dunce... which suited him perfectly.

  Mark wrapped his big arms around me and kissed me on the side of the neck. “Let’s go meet your cousin.” He knew how important Lynn was to me. She was my replacement big sister. This was going to be a really important introduction.

  I was stressed—and when I was stressed, I got bossy.

  “And don’t say ‘cock’ anymore, either.”

  “What? Can I say dick?”

  “No. I don’t like when you say you love my cock. It feels weird. You should replace it with something nice, like ‘heart’.”

  “Heart?”

  “That’s what I said. In the future, if you replace penis-words with ‘heart’, then I will be a happy man.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Too bad. I like it. It sounds sweet.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Aren’t you a sweet man?”

  “No. I’m tough, and gay. And I li
ke big... hearts.”

  ...and I cannot lie.

  “Aw...” I laughed and stroked his arms.

  “You can’t tell anyone about this,” he threatened.

  “Only you, spiffy. Only you.” We sealed the deal with a kiss and left for our lunch. I was very proud of Mark for not bringing up my crappy new apartment on the drive there. There was nothing to be gained by arguing about it before lunch—it was a done deal. I had made my decision.

  I would be moving in with Suhail and Nick, the red-headed, dreadlocked stoner.

  How could I have been so naïve?

  Of course the battle wasn’t over... but I had no idea that Mark would sink so low as to manipulate Lynn into ganging up on me. That lunch was one of the few times I ever underestimated Mark... and after the testy lunch with Lynn, I vowed that I would never underestimate him again.

  Lunch with Lynn

  The week leading up to the introduction of Mark to Lynn had been a blur of activity. The previous Sunday night, after Mark and I declared that we were partners—I had called Lynn to tell her that she didn’t need to fly up to Chicago after all because, as it turned out, I had not permanently scared away my best friend, but we had actually become lovers. So there was no depressive funk and no need for her to comfort me.

  That’s what I said: “Mark and I are lovers.” And it was the truth. We loved each other as well as any couple that had sex.

  Lynn said she had already booked plane tickets back to Chicago for the upcoming weekend and she would not cancel them even though I told her about the twenty-four hour cancellation window. She already had a sitter booked and her husband was ready for a small vacation.

  So Lynn outflanked me, which was a rarity. Truthfully, I wanted her to come and didn’t put up a huge fight. I wanted her to be the first person in my family to meet Mark and see us together. These were two of the most important people in my life.

  I couldn’t wait to introduce them.

  Life sped up after that frantic Sunday. There was the unusual Monday run with the slutty clothes and the exhibitionism. Then Mark and I went apartment hunting. He wanted me in a nice place; I wanted something economical because I would be spending most nights in his bedroom anyway.

  The shower in that apartment was a freestanding tub with a curtain that went all the way around and needed to be tucked inside the tub. Walking in that bathroom was like stepping into a horror movie. But somehow that was the apartment I had settled on. I paid a little over $500 for everything—water, heat, electric... everything. I brought my own bed. My mom said I could use the full bed that was in the guest room, but I said I wanted to take the queen.

  My request for the larger bed might have been the first hint that there was someone sleeping with me.

  I don’t know which thing tipped off my mom that I was seeing someone and that we were serious, but there must have been dozens of little signs that I wasn’t even conscious of. I thought I had done a good job of disguising my motivation for moving out and hiding what I had been doing on those nights ‘out with friends’. But my mother was far cleverer than I gave her credit for.

  I should have come out to my mother right away in the first week of my new romance. It would have prevented a whole lot of future drama. I was so euphoric during that first week that it probably wouldn’t have fazed me if my parents had a negative reaction towards me for being with a man.

  I mean, I would have been mad if they rejected him, but then I would have found my way into Mark’s arms and everything would have been alright.

  I’ll never know if I would have been incensed or depressed... because I didn’t come clean about my relationship.

  The subterfuge didn’t bother me one bit—my feet didn’t touch the ground for a week. I felt buoyant. Everything seemed to go my way. The shitty apartment felt more like an exciting adventure than a second-rate convenience. Hiding Mark from my parents felt invigorating instead of shady.

  I tried to stay as close to my normal schedule as possible so that my parents wouldn’t think something strange was happening. I didn’t want to sleep with Mark every night before I moved out... but... it kind of happened that way.

  I slept at his place on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday—which had been my usual routine for the last month (but we had been in separate beds at the time). He snuck over to my parents’ house on Wednesday and scared me shitless by knocking on my second floor window. I called him a dunce for climbing up the garage roof, but he was very proud of himself and we kissed a lot that night.

  I felt so naughty for having him in my bed without telling my parents... even though I was almost thirty years old.

  On Thursday morning we waited in my room until both my parents were gone (Mark slept through the entire nail-biting affair). Then we left for our Thursday run (after we masturbated together).

  Then, on Saturday morning after I slept over at his place I had to wake him up—as usual. We definitely weren’t going to miss lunch with my cousin and we had other errands as well. I rolled him over in bed and he was as grumpy as I had ever seen him.

  “Now that we’re together, we need some ground rules in this apartment,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. No getting up before nine o’clock.”

  “It’s nine thirty.”

  “Fuck me,” he groaned. “You better not be lying.”

  He stopped grumbling at me after that because he knew we were going to be late to see my cousin. We visited my new apartment first and had our quick fight, then he drove back to his apartment so I could change outfits again. Mark also took that extra bathroom time to re-style his hair.

  I had told Mark that we needed to be at the restaurant fifteen minutes before we actually did (because I assumed we were going to be late—we were always late). Therefore, Mark was fashionably late (as usual) and we showed up right on time.

  We found a parking spot on the street and Mark apologized, “Sorry for being late. Thank you for not jumping all over me about it. I know how important this is to you.”

  “We’re right on time,” I said evenly.

  “I thought you said 12 o’clock.”

  “That is what I said. I told Lynn twelve fifteen.”

  “Ah, fuck you.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you do your hair for that long if we were really running late.”

  “You’re a little shit. Here I thought I was going to have to grovel for the rest of the weekend. But now that I know you don’t trust me to get anywhere on time... I’m deeply hurt.”

  Boo hoo.

  “Mark. You never get anywhere on time. You are always—”

  “—fashionably late,” we said together.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Mark stated.

  “Lynn flew up from Texas to meet you. We’re not going to make her wait.”

  We walked up to the restaurant. My cousin was seated at a table on the patio. I waved and walked around the exit gate to give her a hug. Then I introduced her to Mark. “This is Katelynn,” I said formally. Mark gave her a hug and said how he had heard a lot about her. She said the same. “And Mark, this is Jacob.”

  “Jake,” my cousin-in-law said. (Is a cousin-in-law even a thing?)

  Mark turned on the charm and didn’t quit until well after he and I were back in his apartment.

  “So,” Mark said at one point. “Am I better looking in person or on my Instagram?” I slapped his thigh, but Mark just grinned at me.

  “Definitely better in person,” Lynn replied smoothly.

  Mark turned to Jake. “In person,” Jake agreed.

  Mark beamed.

  “So, how does it feel being gay?” Jake asked me.

  “It’s great,” Mark said. “Got myself a fucking hot boyfriend.” He touched my arm.

  “He was talking to me, dunce.” I kept my head held high. “I like being with him. I don’t think I’d be with another guy.”

  “Better not,” Mark said into his coffee.


  The conversation flowed easily and with very little massaging on my part. Mark was on top of his game. I didn’t spend much time watching him, but sometimes I did. And when I finally looked away from him, either Lynn or Jake would be watching me and smiling.

  My cousins held hands on the table. Mark set his hand on the table in my personal space, mimicking them.

  “And Mark is left handed,” I said, looking at his hand. They didn’t understand what I meant. “So when we sit together, he sits on my left and we don’t have any problems with elbows. How nice is that?”

  Mark nudged me with his shoulder and flexed his fingers so they danced on the table.

  I glanced around the patio. No one was looking at us.

  I raised my hand out of my lap and set it in his hand.

  What a thrill! Shivering up my spine from touching him in public! I never liked public displays of affection, even with girls. Mark wanted to kiss me all the time, but he knew I didn’t like to do it as much as him.

  In the beginning of our relationship, I didn’t even want to hold hands or touch him in public. The most we did was sit side by side and sometimes touch under the table. Even to this day, we generally sit on the same side of the table and hold hands out of sight, whether with company or if it’s just the two of us.

  OUR WAITER APPEARED and we ordered lunch. It was a busy place. The street was loud. We probably should have chosen indoor seats, but Lynn was thankful for the ‘cool’ weather.

  I had taken my hand out of Mark’s while we ordered. Our hands flirted under the table and found their way into my lap. Mark’s shoulder brushed against mine. Our bodies leaned slightly inwards and anytime one of us said something funny, our heads bobbed close together. I tried not to stare at his eyes, but sometimes we looked at each other and it couldn’t be helped. They were so blue... and all for me! I felt goofy. Like I had swallowed a beam of sunshine.

  “It looks like you two are doing well,” my cousin said pointedly

  I smiled. The pleasantries were over and she was ready to get down to business. “He’s very understanding,” I said proudly.

  “I’m very good to him,” Mark boasted, to which I nodded in agreement. Our fingers touched and he squeezed my hand. He took a sip from his iced tea.