Hey, Mr. In Denial (LBGT)

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

When I return back to the living room, people are still swaying their hips to the left and right, and it's like the incident about me never happened at all. It disappeared just like a flash. My eyes search for the dirty blonde haired man, and I see him making himself comfortable on the couch. From the corner of my eyes, I see Dale talking with Lilith. He has an annoyed look across his features, and his eyes meet mine briefly before he turns away. I swear I caught a glimpse of him making a face at me, but I'm not sure at all since the pounding of the music and the dimness of the room distract me.

Ignoring the feeling inside my chest, I head to the couch and join Dustin. He looks at me, those worried look in his eyes still there, swimming freely. I smile at him, taking a seat beside him.

"If I ever found out who bumped you..." he says in pure annoyance, his eyes frantically searching for the culprit who decided to purposely knock me down on the ground. I don't really have a feud with someone at school, or to anyone for that matter. I pat his shoulder, shaking my head. Dustin looks at me with nothing but irritation. "You're too good."

"I've been told so many times," I chortle, chuckling. He shakes his head, but a small smile is playing on his lips. When I look up, Dale is looking at me intently, and he has that annoyed expression plastered across his face and I wonder what his problem is.

Dustin stands up and offers his hand at me, and I look at it dumbly, taking his hand in mine. That's when he pulls me up, grinning at me and I roll my eyes. He leads me back to the center of the dancefloor and the song is even louder in my ears, but it's definitely fun. I lean in closer to take just a sniff of his scent, and surprisingly, he doesn't have any stench of alcohol around him. In fact, his scent is intoxicating, and the scent invades my nostrils, tickling my nose and I find myself leaning closer. I hear him chuckling, looking at me with amusement in his eyes while I playfully hit him on his shoulder.

Dale is just a few meters away from us, and he still has his eyes trained on me. They might have not noticed it, but I do. I feel his eyes on me, and if he only had Cyclops' power, I would have been an ash by now from the way he looks at me. It's so intense, and I can feel the tension lingering in the air.

"Would you like to ditch this party and do something else with me?" he yells in my ear, his voice mixing with the beat of the music and the pounding of feet on the ground as the people jump to the beat of the song. Nodding and grinning at him, he immediately takes my hand and practically drags me out of this crazy party. From the corner of my eyes, I see Dale trying to squeeze past his way into us, but as I look over my shoulders, he stops moving as his eyes meet mine.

Lilith moves beside him, her arms circling around his waist. The action burns my eyes yet I can't look away. His eyes are still staring right at mine, and I can't move my eyes away from his as I'm being practically dragged by the dirty blonde haired man. The crowd eats them out, people circling around them, and that's when our staring match breaks.

Jealousy flickers inside me like a match, trying to ignite and burst out in flames. I try to contain my emotions inside me as much as possible because I don't want jealousy overruling me. It's not right. It's not going to be right. It will never be right to feel jealousy. Dale is never mine, and he will never be mine, and that's something that I should put in my thick skull that he will never ever be mine. The truth hurts, but there's this teeny tiny feeling that keeps flickering whenever Dale is around me.

When we get outside, the cool breeze of air brushes past our skin, and a shiver runs down my spine. Dustin notices that I'm cold and practically drags me to where his truck is parked. Once within sight, we both run faster. I climb into the passenger seat while he climbs into driver's seat. Reaching for the key in his pocket, he puts the key into the ignition, turning it around and the car suddenly roars to life, purring. He shots me a wink, which earn a playfully eye roll from me. Dustin reaches for the clutch, and slides it forward. The truck moves, slowly, then moves faster. In the side mirror, even though it's dark, I can still make out his features. I can see the way his brows furrowed as his chest heaves up and down rather rapidly, indicating that he has run. I'm not sure why, but the way he looks into my direction, he looks helpless. There's a voice inside my head that says: climb out of the truck, run into him, and knock him with a kiss on the lips, but I'm not about to go do that. It's better this way.

Perhaps he just needed air, the reason why he ran outside of the house. That could be it. His figure gets thinner and thinner until I can no longer see him in the side mirror, and I focus my attention on the road. Dustin is humming a song I don't recognize, but it feels good in my ears, and it's relaxing me, so I don't complain and listen to him instead. Dustin and Dale are very different from each other. I see that always, their differences and such. I want to stick up with Dustin, but in every move I make, my heart desires Dale. I know I'm sappy, but I can't have a control of my feeling. Each person in this world doesn't have that power.

I wish it could be like that, though. What would it feel like to have a control of your feelings? Would the world be very different? Would there be any conflicts at all? Would there be an issue? Those are the questions that will never have an answer yet I still want to look for one. I don't know how it came to this way; it's screwing my life.

We remain silence, but it's the comfortable silence that is looming over us. The night is clear, and the stars can be visibly seen. I wish I could stargaze with Dale, but the moment will be suitable for me and Dustin right now. Looking at him, I don't know why I did such a thing, to use him as a distraction so my attentions would be always on him and not on Dale. It's working. I'm playing with fire; I know that very well.

"We're going to my house," Dustin says as he whistles, and I freeze right in my seat. I don't know what I was expecting, but going to his house wasn't really what I expected. "We're near." I remain silent as he drives for a couple of minutes before parking on the driveway. His house is only a one story house, but from the looks of it, it still looks bigger than any average houses I see around the neighborhood.

He climbs out of the truck, and I do the same. He motions for me to follow inside his house, and I hesitantly do so. Now that we're in his house, I'm not really sure what would happen, but I should just go with the flow, right?

Dustin leads me into his house, and my heart beats faster as I take each step cautiously and slowly. I don't know what I'm expecting, but if he's going to do something with me, well, I am not ready. I could just decline, right?

The house is eerily quiet and dark. He leads me into the living room, turning on the light and the house suddenly comes to life. Dustin turns on the television, switching the channel, and American Horror Story is on.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asks me as he motions for me to take a seat on the white comfy couch. Shaking my head, he offers, "How about water? Juice? Soda?"

"Water is fine, thanks,"

He slips right into the doorway to the kitchen, and I wait for a few minutes before he comes back with a glass of water in his hand, offering it to me. I smile, thanking him once again and I take a huge gulp of the water, wanting to let my throat soak. It has dried after seeing Dale.

We haven't really done anything, but his comfort is fine with me. We watch American Horror Story, and I feel myself caught up with the show. It's scary as hell, especially when Lady Gaga shows up. She looks different and scary. I scoot closer to Dustin. Scary movies and series are never really my thing. I'd prefer Disney than horror stories.

"Where's your parents?" I ask him, my eyes trained on the show. "Only child?"

I feel him looking at me, but I don't bother about it. "They are out for business. They're not really coming until the next weekend, so I'm all by myself. And yes, I'm an only child. I don't have any brothers or sisters, but yeah, and it's somehow better but sometimes not."

"I'm an only child, too." I say, looking up at him. "I found siblings in my cousins, though. They are staying in the house for a while, until they're finishing moving just a few houses away from mine. Melody is her name, and I'm sure you have probably heard about her."

"The girl who isn't vegetarian," he says, chuckling, amusement evident in his eyes.

"So you know,"

"Yup," he pops the last letter, grinning at me. "She eats like she could eat a truck. I keep seeing her with a bag of chips in her hands, but surprisingly she never gets fat. I wonder how she does that. So you're her cousin, no wonder you guys look alike. You guys never really talk much in school."

Nodding my head, I train my attention back on the show again before shrugging. "Yes, we haven't really talked much in school, but we're really close. Do you know that it was her doing why we met each other? She saw you, and told me that you were on Grindr, because she chat you up and you showed her your picture, but she never responded. Apparently, sending picture is a requirement there, according to her."

"Why is she on Grindr?" he asks the same question I had when I found out that Melody was using the Grindr application just to hunt gay boys and drop bombs at school. The first bomb had already exploded, which resulted to me meeting this hot guy sitting beside me. I realize that he never responds to the statement that I have given that he, in fact, was actually on Grindr, probably hitting up with gay guys. He slings his arm over my shoulders, pushing me closer to him.

"To hunt gay boys attending the school," I mutter, scratching the back of my head. It is a weird hobbit of my cousin, but she's nothing but weird. I hear him chuckle beside me. "So you really were on Grindr? I don't use Grindr."

"Well, I do." He says, his chuckle turns into an awkward one. "I used to, but I deleted the application ever since I met you. I mean, it's not really worth it. Guys there only want to screw guys. It's a hookup application for gay men for Pete's sake. I only used it whenever I was bored."

"Okay," we remain silent.

We talk a lot of things about him and I, and it proves to me that Dustin is worth everything. He's really kind, patient, loving, friendly, and funny. His personality is bubbly. He never fails to amaze me. He likes to make crappy jokes, so bad that it will make you just laugh. No matter how bad the joke is, it will make you laugh because of how he delivers it in your face. And sometimes, if you don't laugh at his joke, he'll just tickle you until you succumb and tell that his joke is really funny.

Earlier I was doubting coming into his house, and I should have doubted him. Dustin will never do harm on me, which is really good. I now consider him as one of my best friends. Who knows, it might turn into love someday, right? If he's interested on me, he will ask me to date him and be together. Assumptions are not welcome anymore in my life, so I take things seriously. But with Dustin, I can just joke freely around, with having not to worry about anything.

It's time to get home, the clock says. I don't want to leave him alone, especially he's on his own when he comes back. It's saddening me that he's practically living on his own as his parents are constantly on a business trips. His house may not show how rich his family is, but that's what you call simplicity. Dustin doesn't boast about it. In fact, he kept telling me that it was his parent's fortune, not his. He's just a child of his rich parents, but they love simplicity.

Dustin looks at the clock as well, noticing how late it is and his face drops, but he immediately masks it away with fake happiness. I can see through his thick façade, and I decide that I'm going to stay here, if he lets me. "It's really late... do you mind me sleeping here?" I ask him lamely, scratching the back of my head. His eyes glisten with something – happiness, maybe? – and he nods, but then frowns. "It's okay if you don't want to. I could just –"

"No, no!" he protests, stretching his arms in front of me, stopping me from moving at all. He sighs, shaking his head. "You can stay the night here, it's definitely fine. Really. We have a guest room, I could bring you there." He offers, but I shake my head, smiling up at him. He flashes me a grin, and points out his index finger to where the guest room is. I thank him.

I just don't want him to be lonely. I mean, I know how it feels to be lonely. And seeing his face drops, I just can't afford to see him like that. He's always happy, but behind closed doors, he's sad. I can feel it. I head into the direction where he pointed his index finger, and see a couple of rooms. He doesn't really tell me which room I'm going in. The doors have no labels or whatsoever. When I first open the door, I find out that it's a bathroom. The second room, I assume that this is his room. Shutting the door, I immediately head into the room just beside him and I find the bed made up and there's nothing really much here except the bed and a cabinet that is pushed on the left side of the room. This is the guest room; I'm hundredth percent sure.

When I settle into the bed, feeling the soft mattress against my fingertips, a knock on the door disturbs me and Dustin gets inside, a folded sleeping clothes in his hand. He scratches the back of his neck, smiling awkwardly at me and I smile. "I brought you this. I realized that you might be uncomfortable with what you're wearing."

"I am, thank you." I chirp, getting the folded sleeping clothes in his hands and the skin of our fingers brush, and it sends shiver downs my spine. Dustin doesn't react, but he instead tips his imaginary hat and goes out of the room. I strip off my clothes, putting on the sleeping clothes that Dustin has lent me just for tonight. Once done, I crawl my way into the duvet and sigh in contentment as my back relaxes against the soft mattress, feeling the heavenly feeling that could only be obtained when lying down on a comfy bed.

"Good morning," he chirps in, all smiley as he amazingly gets out of the bathroom, his hair damp and beads of water trickling down his hot abs. I look at him in shock, brushing my eyes as I try to take the sleepiness off my eyes. I notice that he's staring at me, at my body, and I realize that I'm half naked. I must have taken his shirt off me. It's my hobbit. He chuckles at my expression, and I think I'm drooling at how hot he is. Those abs. I'm suddenly jealous of the beads of water trickling down across his chest down only to be soaked out by the white towel that is wrapped around his waist rather dangerously. I can see his V-Shape, and it takes my breath away. Looking away, as if I'm being a pervert man, I turn around, which makes him laugh. "If you want to take a shower, go ahead. I have clothes that will fit on you. Let's go have breakfast at Starbucks. I'm craving for a venti Japa Chip." He says, and I nod at him.

He gets inside his room, and throws his towel on me and I shriek, embarrassment floods my face. I scowl at him, still red faced. I hear him laughing out loud and I stomp my feet on the ground. God, this towel was just wrapped around his waist and I swear he's going to kill me from embarrassment.