Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 10

long moment before they both looked away. West sipped his coffee, remembering afternoons in the welcoming branches of the oak tree or Father Jackson's kitchen, doing homework, talking about life, drawing and making music while Riley put off going home for as long as possible.
    He remembered the night he woke to pebbles plinking against his window, and when he opened the window Riley was underneath, bleeding from his nose and his eyes enormous and desperate. "Westie," he said, and West said, "Come around to the kitchen door," without asking any more questions. His parents were still awake. They both started up at the sight of the bleeding boy in their kitchen, but they didn't ask questions either. West's mom cleaned Riley's face and gave him a package of frozen vegetables to hold to his swollen nose, while West's dad made a phone call that was angry but controlled. West's mom made the top bunk in West's bedroom and gave Riley some spare pajamas from West's older brother.
    "Riley," West had said, lying awake in his room after an hour or more of listening to Riley try not to cry. "Why do you keep going back?"
    Riley took a long time to answer. "Because he's all I have."
    In the morning West's mom and dad both talked to Riley, and Father Jackson came too, but Riley said no, no, he'd be okay. He was going home.
    When they were sixteen, West was still slim and slight, but Riley had reached his full height and had begun to grow broad. He didn't say what happened and West didn't ask, but he stopped coming to school with bruises and blood. Still, there were two or three nights a week when he slept in West's room, and his parents made sure Riley knew he was welcome on Christmas Day and Thanksgiving and any other time when being home was unbearable.
    "Where are you living now?" West said out loud as he put the coffee cup down.
    "A little dump near Washington State U.," said Riley with a shrug. "It's not much but the rent's cheap. How about you?"
    "I've got a place in Queen Anne."
    "Oo, nice," Riley remarked.
    "It's really too much for a grad student. I had a roommate until two weeks ago, but then he got married and moved out. She's an awesome girl and I'm really happy for them, but the rent is suddenly a lot steeper than it used to be."
    "Why didn't you find a new roommate before he moved out?"
    West sipped his coffee. "I didn't want to," he admitted. "Everybody who answered my ad had something wrong with them. Too fussy, too weird— yes, you can be too weird even in Seattle— or they didn't like the fact that I'm gay—"
    "I wouldn't live with somebody like that either," Riley growled, and West smiled at him.
    "Always my champion," he said. "Anyway. I haven't found the right person yet, and believe me, I've dated guys with less vetting."
    "The exchange student." Riley smirked.
    "I still don't believe that was all a big misunderstanding." They both laughed— Sven had been big and blond and West had been utterly taken with him, and Sven had seemed equally taken with West through kisses and hand-holding and dancing, until suddenly he wasn't— and West said impulsively, "Move in with me."
    "What?" said Riley, his smile lurking at the corner of his mouth like he wasn't sure how seriously he should take this.
    "Live with me." He swallowed. "I mean, we have before, more or less, and we know each other's habits and preferences, and we get along..."
    "That was years ago. We were kids."
    "Have I changed that much?" West said, and Riley looked at him through his lashes again.
    "You're all grown up now," Riley said, "but no, you're not that different." He toyed with his coffee cup. "Am I?"
    "No," said West. "You're not that different." Riley was solid, broad-shouldered, and rakish with his morning stubble still dark along his jaw. West felt waifish alongside him. "Think about it, anyway. I imagine the rent would be about the same as what you're paying now, it's a nice part of the city and you'd be about the same distance to the symphony."
    "Could I see the place?"
    West leapt on it at once. "Of course! Are you busy this afternoon?"
    "Actually," Riley said, "I need to get to rehearsal. But I'll come by soon. Maybe Saturday?"
    "Saturday's great." He watched Riley pick up the coffee cup— cardboard with a holder, not one of the white china ones from the bar or even one of the many quirky cups used by regulars— and zip up his sweatshirt. "Give me a call— oh, here." West wrote his name, phone numbers and the address of the apartment