I grabbed his hips and pulled him closer. Cooper’s dick fattened up from my touch. “Keep your boner under control,” I ordered. I tugged at his balls, lifting them, looking at all possible places he might have a hair growing.
He couldn’t control his erection.
“Stop it, Coop.”
“I can’t help it, Mikey. It feels good when you’re touching it,” he sighed.
Cooper and I had no secrets when it came to our bodies or the types of things we thought about, but lately he’d been holding back. “You actually liked that?” I questioned, standing up and waiting for an answer. I was naked and he had his shorts and underwear down to his ankles. To me we were just bros hanging out but lately he’d become sensitive to conversations about girls and sex.
“What if I did?” he asked, looking away. He eventually turnedback to me. “I feel weird and shit, Mikey. Like when, well . . . you know . . . like when we’re naked and stuff.”
“It’s just us, buddy. We see each other naked all the time, so what’s new?”
Cooper pulled his pants up and sat back on the bed staring at my body. His eyes took all of me in and he flushed red. “I . . . well, I kinda like looking at you and it makes me feel bad,” he began. “Like I’m evil or something with my thoughts.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly wondering where my boxers were. I spotted them near the bathroom door where I’d dropped them. “I don’t mind anyway, so don’t sweat it, okay?” We were about to shower together like we often did, but now I wondered if he still wanted to. “We still showerin’?”
“You cool with what I just said?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be, Coop? I love you like a brother,” I responded. “Right? We’re brothers for life.” I added.
“For life, Mikey,” he answered.
Something about Cooper changed that day. I hadn’t recognized it back then but wished I had.
CHAPTER SEVEN: Mike
Iclosed my laptop after a long day and looked around the room for my running shorts. I hadn’t rented an apartment yet and was staying at a hotel across the street from Lake Union in downtown Seattle. I could’ve gone into our offices located nearby but I’d become protective of my work-from-home lifestyle. Since Jennifer moved to San Francisco, I’d stopped seeing people. An occasional beer with Brandt, frequent jogs around the lake, and worrying about Mom, occupied my time now.
I’d hesitated renting my own place since Mom’s health was deteriorating. No need to lock myself into anything until I handled Mom’s affairs which could end up forcing me to stay in Idaho Falls for months. Her impending death wasn’t a secret to anyone who knew her, but I hoped she’d hang on. Mom embraced her mortality and somehow managed to present a cheerful and optimistic air to her friends. She spent more time keeping me and her friends spirit’s uplifted than we deserved, but that was how my mother lived.
I called her three times a day and had hired a nurse to check in on her once a day at our family home in Idaho Falls, a home I’d be selling one of these days after she passed.“I’d love for you to keep the house,”she’d said.“It’d be easier to pop in on you after I transition when I know where you’ll be,”she’d added, not joking in the least.
“I think I’ll pass on the hauntings, Mom,”I’d replied.
Mom wasn’t well and I was heading home at the end of the week. I planned to work remotely from there and spend her final days by her side. I’d hoped my mother would make it through the summer but her healthwas declining rapidly. After speaking with her doctor, Marie, I knew it was time to return to the town and the house I grew up in.
* * *
“I’m not ready,” I admitted, looking around the small room. The therapist’s office was exactly as I imagined one would be. She sat in a chair in the center of the room with her diplomas on the wall behind her, and I was on a smallish sofa directly in front of her. “There are days when I think I am and thenBAM,I freak out like a four year old at the thought of my mother being gone.” My hands were in a battle in my lap as I poured out my heart to a shrink Brandt had recommended and hounded me to see for days.
“Imagining a world without our parents is difficult, Mike,” she said. “We wonder if we have everything we need from them.”
“My dad is dead too,” I stated, making sure she knew I was almost completely parentless.
Beverly Clinton scribbled on her notepad and hummed.
“I’m an only child and not even thirty yet,” I added for impact.
She glanced up at me. “Grandparents?” she inquired.
“One. A grandfather that no longer recognizes me. He doesn’t know that his daughter, my mother, is dying. It’s all a bit overwhelming,” I admitted.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You have many reasons to be overwhelmed. Do you feel strong enough to get through this on your own?”
Her question went right to the heart of why I’d called her in the first place. I’d had pain like none other eleven years ago when Dad died, followed by unimaginable agony after Cooper drowned a year later. Now I was recently divorced, my grandfather had Alzheimer’s, and my mother was on death’s door thanks to a brutal form of cancer.
“I’m not sure,” I whispered.
