He doesn't like to think about what will happen when the baby comes. How if he's this worn out now, how will he be there through two A.M feedings and three A.M diaper changes. How will he hide his resentment? He's not sure he's hiding it now.
Theresa doesn't question him much, though he knows she lies awake like him. The house is quiet in those late hours, and he can sense when her breathing changes. It's a subtle thing. The pretense of calm: calculated inhalations and exhalations, then an easing into natural rhythm.
He wishes they could just talk, like they used to. She was his best friend, the person he went to when his mother was too drunk to protect him, when Trey scared him, when the asshole of the month ---. He still didn't like to think about that. Theresa never made him. She just distracted him with jokes and stories, and when they were a little older, sex. They looked after each other.
It's not just his fears for Theresa keeping him awake this time. Sandy's appearance at the construction site rocked Ryan. He'd tried so hard to keep Seth off his mind, but it hadn't worked. Seth had made no move to contact him. Hated him, probably, and Ryan couldn't blame him a bit.
The ticket to Portland sat on his bedside table and mocked him. "How can you support a baby, Ryan? You can't even keep a friend," it said. Ryan felt pulled in every direction at once. Everyone wanted something from him, and he had little left to give.
When the phone rings that night, he knows it's Marissa. She's done this before, and by now it's more annoying and sad than anything else. If he could smell her breath through the phone, he'd be reminded of his mother. He wishes it was Seth on the line, but he could no more be silent on the other end of the line than he could beat up the water polo team without help.
Oddly, it's the phone call that decides things for him. Marissa is way beyond fixing, and really it's not his job to change her, even if he could. He hopes her mother will get a clue, and send her off to rehab or something.
But he can help Seth. He can go to Portland and confront him. Tell him how stupid Seth was to leave home for no reason. His parents love him. He's the glue holding their family together. Ryan's absence is no loss.
He told Theresa he's not part of the Cohen family anymore, and he almost means it. He needs them a lot more than they need him, and he's steeled himself to do without. The very least he can do is go to Seth, and give him some closure. Let Seth berate him for leaving, but convince Seth it wasn't him he left.
Ryan is tossing some things in a bag for Portland when Theresa walks in. She looks especially lovely - he gets that whole 'glow' thing now -- but it still doesn't make him want her they way he should.
He's chagrined when he realizes he forgot her doctor's appointment, but relieved when she doesn't insist he stay. Her mother will be there for her, and he'll make it up to her when he gets home. Any guilt he feels about going is tempered by a lot more relief. Leaving Chino, even temporarily, feels like an escape.
Seth is almost used to living with Luke and his gay dad. Handing out surf boards at one job, and teaching little kids to sail at the other remind him of home, and every dirty blond guy reminds him of Ryan.
A gracious host, Luke offers him hand jobs to help him forget. He's good enough that at least for a while, Seth does. A thoughtful guest, Seth returns the favor, preferring to ignore the very real possibility they're both thinking about Ryan.
Luke's dad is cool, too, and doesn't tell Seth to get out, though he's long overstayed his welcome. When Seth's dad shows up at the door, Carson just sets another place at the table. Seth only imagines his "Thank God, please take the kid home."
He's not proud of himself for the argument with his father. He should have countered with a more mature response than what amounts to "You can't make me, nanny nanny boo boo". They both know he'd come home in a heartbeat, but it isn't home without Ryan.
Ryan is the last person Seth expects to see when Luke's dad announces the next guest. He figures it'll be his mother, or maybe even Summer, come to kick his ass. When he looks up to see the face he's most longed for, it's all he can do not to rush into Ryan's arms. His extremely buff arms.
But Ryan is only there out of duty, Seth is sure. His parents must have sent him to talk some sense into Seth. Seth doesn't want to be sensible. He just wants to be Ryan's.
They're all three playing videogames, and it's almost like normal, except nothing like it at all, when Theresa calls. When Seth looks up from the game, he can feel a change in Ryan, then Ryan tells them what happened. Theresa lost the baby. He and Luke eye each other uneasily while Ryan leaves the room, his expression stricken. A long moment passes before Seth can bring himself to follow. Luke knows better than to even try.
Ryan knows which bed is Seth's without needing to be told. Seth notices this, a frisson of happiness breaking through his concern for Ryan like a weed growing through the cracks in the sidewalk where he skates. Dangerous and inappropriate, but he doesn't care if he trips over it as long as he gets airborne.
Seth thinks about the unpleasant ramifications of Theresa's news. But that thought doesn't come until after the relief, and it's all Seth can do not to cheer a little, inside. Nobody ever said he wasn't a selfish asshole. He feels guilty almost immediately, but the thought is still there.
He touches Ryan's hand, then pats his back awkwardly. Finally he pulls Ryan close to him for the first time since their reunion. He wants to do more, but saying, "I'm sorry about the baby that probably wasn't yours. Let me blow you to make you feel better", is nowhere near appropriate in a situation like this.
Besides, Luke and his father are both nearby, and Carson has the dad thing down. He'll give them a few minutes to talk, but he's just the sort of person to come in to check on them if things get too noisy or too quiet.
Seth hopes the change with Theresa will mean Ryan offers to come home with him, where he belongs. But Ryan is just as stubborn as he is, and tells him he doesn't know what he'll do. He's got a job that 'pays pretty well,' and he'll surely find some hovel to live in. Of course he doesn't say "hovel", but this is the impression Seth gets. He laughs at Seth's suggestion they hit the open road together. Seth is glad, at least, that he seems to be laughing at the road part, not the togetherness.
He almost almost lets Ryan get into the cab for the airport, watching Ryan walk away until his foot is shaking so hard from wanting to jump off Luke's balcony that he just can't stop himself from running to stop Ryan.
It's like a scene from some dumb romantic comedy. All it needs is swelling string music. He runs into the door like a dork, and Ryan is right there waiting. They laugh, and they both talk at once. Nothing and everything is said.
Ryan sleeps most of the way on the plane home to Newport, a sure sign of his exhaustion, knowing how he feels about flying. Before he drifts off, he lets Seth twine their fingers together, and he doesn't let go 'til the crew make the landing announcement.
The look on his mother's face when he and Ryan walk in is worth everything he's gone through. Seth wonders how he ever thought he didn't miss her. And his dad beams at him like he's finally done something right. His look for Ryan is fond relief. Seth knows exactly how he feels.
Though it feels great to be making out with him in the pool house again, Ryan smells wrong, like a stranger. Faint traces of girlish soap mixed with the industrial cleanser they made him use at the construction site. Seth wants to rub himself all over Ryan, imprint on him like a cat until everything else of Theresa's disappears.Ryan must sense something is off as well. The way he pauses as he kisses Seth, tongue delving deeply, like it's a new taste. His fingers run through Seth's newly shorn hair, and he makes a disappointed noise when he pulls away to breathe.
"I missed your curls, Seth," Ryan tells him before moving down to lick the hollow of his throat. He stays there long enough to leave a mark, and Seth understands what Ryan doesn't say. "I missed you Seth, and I wish I'd never left." Ryan doesn't tell Seth what living with Theresa was like, and Seth doesn't ask.
He doesn't ask Ryan to go lower, but Ryan reads him like he always has, and moves to open Seth's jeans. He's on his knees before Seth can say "No, you don't have to," which is perfectly fine with Seth.
Ryan's hair is different too, longer under Seth's fingertips than it's ever been before when Ryan sucked him. It feels gritty, like Ryan hasn't had time to wash it after he coming home from whatever it is he does on his job.
Real work, Seth knows, not like the useless "rich boy with a hobby" job Seth had in Portland. Despite his dad comparing Seth's running away to his own leaving home at sixteen, Seth knew it wasn't the same. His dad traveled cross-country and made a new life for himself without his family's support or blessing. It's much more like Ryan than Seth.
Ryan left to support a family, like the man he is. Seth just took a bus up the coast to mooch off a guy who was barely a friend. He had a job that kept him in vintage T's and vinyl. Luke's father would have let him quit if he whined a little about being tired, and needing to rest up for when classes began next week. From the way Luke's dad refuses to take part of Seth's paycheck, Seth assumes his parents must be sending some money. He's too embarrassed to ask.
Ryan's nails are a little too long, except where they're ragged and torn. They grip Seth's hips fiercely enough to leave sharp indentations on the curve of his ass. Ryan doesn't want him to move, so he doesn't. He just thrusts a little into the heat of Ryan's mouth, letting Ryan's stubble scrape his lower belly, and knowing at least he'll still feel that part of Ryan hours later.
Seth wants physical evidence, even in the form of pain. Anything to make this memory real. He hasn't felt real since he sailed away from Newport. All the rain in Portland may well have washed his Sethness away.
He's afraid to leave the pool house. Afraid if he goes back to his room, instead of finding Summer's leavings strewn across his bed, it will be the detritus of what he had with Ryan lying there instead. Grand Theft Auto, and comics he's loaned out. Ryan's borrowed sheets and crib notes for classes. Sensing Seth's anxiety, Ryan stops him before he goes, asking. "How did you sail to Portland, anyway?"
Ryan is tired, but still listens gamely to Seth's fanciful story of his trip. After they laugh at the absurdity of it all, they move to touch each other again. Not to forget what they're missing, but to remember what they've got back. They fall asleep in a haphazard pile, just like that first weekend.
It's only when he wakes up hours later, with Ryan's arm a welcome weight across his chest, that Seth truly believes he's home.