Bailey’s mouth snapped shut, and he shuffled to face Nate, his arm scraping against the brick wall as he turned. Nate kept looking off toward the dumpster for a bit, then, making a show of casualty, turned to look at him like it was no big deal. Trying his darndest not to let Bailey see how nervous he was about how his comment would land.

It was as if he was some kind of respectable guy and wanted Bailey to know that. Stopping himself from rolling his eyes at himself took effort a great deal of effort when he realized he was parading like a peacock. Showing Bailey, he was a nice guy—better than his ex-boyfriend. He felt a little ridiculous, heat spreading up his neck even if he meant every word.

“Tanner took it as an excuse to act like an asshole when I told him I was interested in that stuff,” Bailey decided to continue what he had been saying, waving his hand around as he spoke. “Like, oh, you like it when your boyfriend is cold and fucks you like its only for his pleasure and smacks you around and has the emotional capacity of a toothpick. I don’t mind stepping up.”

He dropped his hand to his hair and scrubbed it roughly with a sigh. Nate blinked at him while processing that whole sentence. There was a lot to unpack. Was Bailey admitting that he liked being smacked around and treated like a fuck toy? At the very least, he was admitting that Tanner treated him like that. But Bailey’s sarcastic tone made it sound like Tanner had confused Bailey’s interest in kinky sex with an invitation to be abusive.

Nate did not know much about kink, but he knew enough to understand that some people did not understand where that line was drawn. He certainly was not sure where that line was drawn.

He really did not know what to say. Of all the things—the strange new whatever this was that he and Bailey were doing—this made him feel the most out of his depth so far.

“It’s…” Bailey dropped his hand and peered at the tiny cherry glowing close to his knuckles. “I like all that stuff, but only when it’s pretend, and Tanner did not understand that.”

“He sounds like a real asshole,” Nate murmured with a frown. In the back of his mind, he saw the bloody knuckles from his dream. He paraded himself as better than Tanner, but he was not really, was he?

All he’d ever done was hurt Bailey, too. He could try to sugarcoat it by saying he was being protective, but the fact that Bailey wore band-aids to cover the wounds Nate gave him more days than he went without them during school was undeniable. And none of it had been pretend. Nate suddenly felt sick about admitting how much he liked those band-aids.

“Sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Bailey shook his head, smiling a not-very-nice smile at himself. “You probably think I am a freak.”

Nate’s knee-jerk response was to assure Bailey that he was not a freak, but he thought that might seem ingenuine. So, he forced himself to mull their conversation over and come up with something more meaningful. The silence stretched on too long for Bailey to stand it. This time, when he opened his mouth to keep rambling, Nate held up a hand to stop him.

“It takes me a second to get my thoughts in order,” he said. “Just…give me a second. I don’t think you are a freak.”

It was probably best just to put that out there.

“That’s good,” Bailey said because it was impossible for him to keep his mouth shut. Nate wondered if anyone had ever gagged him during sex. “I’m pretty comfortable with myself – I’ve put some work in, you know – but I know not everyone is open to this stuff.”

Nate wasn’t exactly open or shut, but he was certainly confused about how he felt. Thankfully, Bailey let him get his thoughts in order after that. Nate mirrored him, shifting to lean one shoulder against the wall and face him. Bailey tilted his head back and peered up expectantly, nibbling on his lip. Nate wanted to be the one to do the nibbling, but that would be rather inappropriate for a nice guy to do during a conversation like this.

At the end of his thinking, Nate still had not come up with much to say. He did not know enough about the subject, so he settled on, “I don’t know much about all this, but it’s not okay for Tanner to use it to humiliate you in front of me. And it was stupid of him anyway because I wouldn’t judge you for the kind of sex you like to have.”

That seemed pretty safe.

Bailey listened with a strange expression on his face – one of intrigue like he kept turning Nate’s words over and over in his mind. Like he was searching for some kind of clue to a puzzle.

Then he turned his back against the wall again and sighed, “We could have been fucking this whole time.”

Maybe if Nate hadn’t been such a hothead and had tried to understand why Bailey was so furious about being defended in that bathroom all those years ago instead of taking it personally, the school wouldn’t have had to replace so many lockers and desks. Maybe if he would have been less of a fuck-up and talked with something other than his fists, Bailey would have never ended up with Tanner at all.

“Dunno though,” Bailey smiled lazily, “I think I like our origin story.”

Nate shook his head and pressed his back against the wall again so he was shoulder-to-shoulder with the other boy. Before he could respond, Bailey’s phone started going off, and he dug it out of his pocket and made a long-suffering face.

“Hey,” he lifted it to his ear, “Yeah, I’m sorry…just went around back to smoke a J. I’m heading back now.”

He stooped down to stub the cherry out on the asphalt, rubbing it so all the green scattered out of the paper, then jogged over to the dumpster to toss it inside. He spun and held the phone away from his ear to mouth, see you around, before blowing a kiss and jogging back around the side of the building.

Nate had never fucked anyone in a public bathroom, so he was even less versed with navigating the exit of this situation than he was with navigating the awkward morning after when he managed to go home with someone. But Bailey just dipping like that felt a bit abrupt and left him adrift.

Probably because it was Bailey. And probably because they had discussed far more than the usual nonsensical pillow talk. He pulled out his phone and called Jared.

“Yo, man?” Jared picked up a little breathlessly, “I couldn’t find you by the pool tables.”

“Yeah, I’m…I’m just going to head out.” Nate tried not to feel too guilty about pulling him away from the crowd. Or, if Jared could find an alternate ride home, Nate would still be ditching him.

“Oh, everything okay?” Jared asked, immediately concerned.

“Fine. Just not feeling it the way I thought I would tonight.”

“Okay. Alright. Cool.” There was tense silence before Jared rushed out, “That’s actually good because I can go home with Sarah then.”

Nate rolled his eyes toward the sky. “Oh yeah? Nice job, buddy. Hope you’re still able to walk in the morning. Remember, you’ve got work.”

“Fuck off,” Jared laughed, then hung up.

Nate lowered his phone, shook his head, then dug his keys out of his pocket and wandered toward his truck. It was a good thing that he had not smoked with Bailey, or he would have had to nap in his fucking truck. As it was, the buzz from his drinks had already faded, and he could sneak back home just in time for the stroke of midnight.

When he got home, the windows were dark. The front porch light was on to welcome him, though, making it a lot easier to see the keys as he unlocked the front door. He eased it open, carefully stopping just before it squeaked on its hinges, then slipped through.

Old habits die hard. And it was respectful not to be loud and wake his parents up. The master bedroom was on the first floor to the left of the living room and kitchen, so any noise from him entering the house would carry straight to his parents. He slipped out of his shoes and padded up the stairs.

The crack beneath Karlie’s bedroom glowed a pinkish-purple color from all the lighting she put up in her junior year of high school. Nate stopped in the bathroom to take a quick shower and brush his teeth, then stepped out into the hallway with a towel wrapped around his waist and his clothes bundled in one arm. Karlie’s door creaked open the same moment he stepped into the hallway.

She pursed her lips when her eyes landed on him. “Late night?”

“You’re awake too,” Nate pointed out. She had obviously not gone to bed yet, hair still in some cute little bun style with the ends sticking up like a fan. There was make-up on her face. Big fake lashes that he imagined could not be comfortable to sleep in and a dusting of glitter across her cheeks. “Did you just get done talking to your imaginary boyfriend?”

She scoffed. This past year, she had met a boy, and from what Nate understood, they had gotten pretty serious for college freshmen—enough that their parents sat her down and talked about inviting boys over to her dorm, which made her roll her eyes and grumble that she should have never gotten excited and told them about it if they were just going to lecture her.

But she had not been seriously upset with them. She and Nate were blessed with the type of parents who gave them a code word and instructed them to call no matter the situation. They would be picked up, no questions asked. Nate, thankfully, had yet to use that perk.

Karlie had once or twice. The day after, their mom took her out to the rock-climbing gym they go to together sometimes, so Nate guessed they talked it over. Nobody ever mentioned it again.

The family had yet to meet her mysterious boyfriend, aside from a short introduction and a few glimpses of him while video-chatting with her. He lived on the other side of the country, so now that school was out for the summer, they were dealing with the challenges of a long-distance relationship. If they were still together come fall, Nate would bother to learn the guy’s name.

Karlie curled her lip at him and tried to push past to get into the bathroom, but Nate stepped to the side to block her path. When she tried to go around the other side, he moved again. She threw her hands in the air and huffed.

“Don’t take it out on me just because you didn’t get any ass tonight and had to come crawling back to mommy and daddy’s house all alone,” she whisper-shouted. Even though their parents were paying for her college and her dorm room, she liked to pretend that she had moved out before Nate did and teased him relentlessly about still living at home.

He smirked and, rather than correcting her, moved out of the way to walk to his bedroom, throwing a sarcastic “ouch” over his shoulder. She flipped him off and disappeared into the bathroom.

Nate’s bedroom was pretty plain in comparison to hers. He never had been one to decorate. Aside from the bed, desk, and TV stand, there was not much else. The medals he won while boxing in high school hung in a neat row along one wall. 

He tossed his clothes into the hamper and sat at his desk chair, tapping on the keys to bring his computer to life. Then, he stared at the screen in the otherwise dark room for several long, agonizing minutes. Finally, he lifted his hands and typed ‘BDSM’ into the search bar.

The first three results were Wikipedia, WebMD, and Merriam-Webster. He clicked on the WebMD one because he just had to know what kind of page they had on the topic. It was surprisingly informative, giving a neutral definition for the acronym and going immediately into the safety concerns of consent, safewords, and whatnot. Nate backed out, scrolled through the Wikipedia page, and proceeded to spend the entire night taking a deep delve through the internet. By the time his brain caught on to the fact that he should probably go to sleep, birds were chirping outside his window, and light was filtering through the blinds.