Interborough by Santino Hassell

Author:Santino Hassell [Hassell, Santino]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626494756
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2016-10-21T21:00:00+00:00

When I was a child, I’d thought a lot about what it would feel like to be loved.

Not by a parent or a friend or a teacher—but by a person who wanted to swoop you into their arms, hug you and kiss you, and commit themselves to you forever.

I’m not sure why I’d had those thoughts so young, but I now attributed it to the fact that I’d done more reading than interacting with other kids for the first fifteen years of my life. So much of the media my parents and I had consumed together had focused on this strange, mysterious, and often elusive thing called love. And I’d wanted it for myself. I’d craved it in high school as I watched my peers date and long for each other and experience their first heartbreaks. And I’d craved it in college when all I’d received was my first taste of kinky sex and constant fucking. I’d thought I’d had it with Caleb, but . . . it had fallen apart, and I’d been traumatized to realize love could go away.

But I knew I had the real thing with Raymond. I felt it in my bones. In my pores. In every chamber of my heart.

I also knew there were key parts of us that were completely different.

Like my desire, no, my need for attention. Even if we weren’t talking, or watching the same thing, or doing the same thing, the knowledge that Raymond was in the apartment with me was a comfort I found hard to explain without feeling like a clinger. And I hated that I was ashamed of how much I loved being close to him. Most of all, I hated that sometimes he made me feel ashamed.

I also hated that his lack of outness was starting to niggle at me so often, but it hurt that he still wasn’t proud enough of our love to not keep me a secret. Not only at work, but also in public, which was completely new. Again, I wondered if our limited time together was starting to make our glaring differences harder to swallow. Not just him being closeted, but also my thoughtlessness, along with my insecure nagging about Trey.

I didn’t know. The only answer I had came in the form of frozen margaritas at the first QFindr dinner of the cruise.

“Hey, who’s that?”

I looked up from my drink to see Tonya’s intense gaze focused across the room on a willowy woman with long chestnut-colored hair. Like Tonya’s black T-shirt and skinny jeans (with metallic suspenders and combat boots) ensemble, the woman had totally bypassed the dining hall’s strict dress code. She was rocking knee-high boots, shredded skintight jeans, and a billowy tank top.

“That’s Meredith. She’s Caleb’s sister. The guy with her is Ashton Townsend.”

“She’s gorgeous.”

She also hated me, but who was I to try to ruin a perfectly good girl-on-girl ogle session. Especially when I secretly wanted to be Tonya’s friend but could not get past the look of indifference on her face whenever she happened to glance my way.

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