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Resolutions (part 9)

September: Handshakes and Milkshakes

By Al Song

September 28th, 2015

The rest of my summer vacation was amazing. I had a new boyfriend, who was also an incredible best friend. He cared so much about me and the feelings I had towards him were the same. We were already pretty close but we became even tighter as we got to know each other more. I gave up my position at my mom's store so someone who really needed the job could have it and I got to spend even more time with Nathan. The times we spent together were always wonderful, and sometimes we did nothing but sit next to each other silently looking at one another and appreciating each other's company. I loved being held by him, feeling his heartbeat against my head, and kissing his handsome face. We were just a black wolf and river otter happily being together.

The only problem was that I couldn't tell anyone about our relationship, so that also meant no paw holding or kissing in public. When Arvin or Geo were around we couldn't make out and when Nathan's roommate was around we also couldn't show any affection. There were times when I felt like he was so close yet so far away. We had to stealthily make out in the dark behind my apartment building and in alley ways and places without people around us. We took a weekend trip to Portland and another one to Vancouver up in British Columbia just so we could have some guaranteed alone time together. It was nice to have some time to truly be with him exploring these other cities and not having to worry about being discovered by anyone we knew. Nathan still didn't want to kiss or hold paws when we were wandering around in public, but we had time for romance in our hotel rooms. It was a safe place for the two of us and we felt free to truly be ourselves, and I never thought a random hotel room would be a place where I could feel so loved and unrestricted by the oppressive restraints of society.

The last Monday of September was when UPNw started up again. The weather was cooling down again in Seattle. The university campus was filled with students again and the wolf and I were now seniors. I went to my first two classes, Italian four-oh-one, and Renaissance Literature, which turned out fine. I had a lot of reading to do for fall quarter just like the rest of them. I grabbed some chips from a vending machine and then I headed to French four-oh-one, which was the last class for both Nathan and me on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Madame Klein was a jolly Beaver from Montreal who also spoke German and Arabic fluently. It was great to have another instructor who was eager to teach and she had a lot of office hours so we could spend time practicing our speaking skills with her. The other two professors were ones I knew already, and they were both really nice people. This started off to be a promising year for me.

"Yes! Nothing's due tomorrow for me. How about you?" I asked as the wolf and I walked out of French four-oh-one.

"Same here," Nathan said as we gave each other a high-five.

I looked up at him lovingly and clasped my fingers through his as we brought our paws down, which was a beautiful blend of black and brown fur laced together. His smiling face faltered and then his expression showed alarm. He then put his other hand on mine and started giving me the most awkward handshake ever.

"It's great seeing you again buddy," he said as he pumped my arm like he was desperate for water to flow out of my face.

I gave him a stern look and an exasperated sigh. He looked so hurt and I felt a pang of guilt run through me. "I'm sorry," I immediately said.

"I'm sorry too," he replied.

"You don't need to apologize for anything," I said back and looked down at the ground in shame.

We had an awkward silence as we walked through and out of the building through a side entrance. We sat together on a bench in a less busy side of the building and looked at one another.

After a moment I said, "I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have been mad at you."

"It's okay," he responded and looked down.

"It's not okay. That was mean and wrong of me."

"Do you think we can talk about thing off campus?" he said as I could feel the anxiety radiate from him. I didn't see this side of him very often. He was hunched over in a fearful ball and his fingers fidgeted.

"Our apartments won't work for this I'm guessing?" I asked.

"I'd still prefer your roommates not know, and I really don't want mine to know," he said dolefully and I wanted to hug him and comfort him but I knew that would make things worse.

"You want to get a late lunch slash early dinner somewhere?"

"Sure, you have anything in mind?" he asked as he perked up at the mention of food.

"There's a new biscuit place in Capitol Hill," I suggested. "Someone was talking about it online and I wanted to try it out."

"That sounds good. I haven't had biscuits in forever," he said longingly and then we smiled at each other.

We walked to one of the bus stops with a line that ran through Capitol Hill. When the bus arrived we hopped on it and scanned our student ID cards. We picked a seat near the back and Nathan let me take the window seat.

He took his pea coat and placed it between the two of us as we held paws out of view from the rest of the world. There weren't many people on the bus and no one had direct line of sight at our arms or torsos. I gave him a grin and he gave one back. We looked out the windows of the bus as the familiar buildings of the university became covered by high-rises.

When we arrived at our stop at Capitol Hill the neighborhood greeted us with rainbow flags and gay couples walking through the streets holding paws with each other. The sight before us seemed to make Nathan more relaxed since his posture didn't look as tense, and his face held less worry.

"Did you want to hold paws now?" he asked.

I perked up at that and said, "Oh, really? I mean, only if you're comfortable with it."

The wolf scanned the area quickly and said, "I think we're... safe here."

"Alright then," I said and smiled up to my boyfriend.

He threaded his fingers between my own and I sensed a small amount of anxiety in him by how tightly he gripped my paw but after a couple seconds it eased.

I led the way to the diner as we passed by the art supply store that Arvin completely adored. It had a large paintbrush dripping rainbow paint on the front of the store with ran down to the sidewalk. The glob of paint on the ground was just a large lump of plastic but it was a cool decorative piece.

Across the street stood the 'Acronym' theater, which was a movie theater that showed indie LGBTQ films and it contained a stage where I once watched an improv show with the buck and the kangaroo.

A few blocks later we reached Biscuit Bay, which occupied the corner of a more residential intersection of Capitol Hill, and by residential I mean to say that there were mostly tall apartment buildings without businesses on their first floors.

The interior had a beach theme along with the traditional trappings of a typical diner like a juke box near the entrance along with squishy booth seats, which were a bright turquoise color.

There were black and white pictures of handsome muscular men posting together and flexing their muscles on the beach. There were also pictures of beaches from around the world including Honolulu, Marseilles, Mallorca, Sydney, and one of Alki.

Life savers and anchors decorated the walls, and a support beam was decorated to look like a palm tree.

A large rat in a tropical button-up shirt and khaki pants sat us down in a booth near a quieter corner of the restaurant and he told us that our server would be with us soon as he left us menus. We looked through the menus noting some of the witty names for the different dishes. There were things like the 'Biscuit-ball Two-Pointers' and the 'Southern Bis-curry' and the desert menu in the corner had a 'Biscuit-ty and Cappuccino' They served other breakfast and typical diner items besides biscuits, like mozzarella sticks and pancakes, but since it was our first time there we wanted to go for their signature item.

When our server arrived I ordered a mint chocolate chip milkshake and Nathan got a cherry vanilla shake. The happy sheep jotted down the order and we thanked her.

"So, how are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm doing well now. How are you?" he asked cheerfully.

"Honestly, I still feel guilty."

"It's okay now. You got upset because you were feeling frustrated that your own boyfriend is too afraid to hold your paw," he said and gave a hopeless look.

"I know that people can't force others to come out, so I shouldn't pressure you into doing something that'll make you uncomfortable."

"I wish we could live in a world where no one had a malicious judgement against our relationship, or I guess one without homophobia. I want to do couples stuff with you like holding your paw and kissing you but there's still a part of me that's afraid."

"We're in Capitol Hill so maybe this can be a place where we can 'practice' holding paws and kissing," I suggested.

"Well, I do feel more comfortable here with being affectionate with you. I can even talk openly with you in public here and say that you're my boyfriend," he said and gave me a smirk.

We spent some time in silence just glancing at the menus again and then glancing at one another. I closed my menu and placed it off to the side and Nathan then put his paw on top of mine. The rat from earlier place our shakes on the table and the wolf's fingers tensed.

"Aw, you two are adorable. My boyfriend would eat up this moment, he's a river otter like you."

"That's really nice of you to say," I said to him and then he rushed to greet two vixens at the door. Nathan's fingers then relaxed again.

"So, I did want to ask you something," I said after a quick pause to sip from the sweet, minty shake.

"What's up?" the wolf asked after he sipped his own.

"I wanted to ask why you were able to carry me on your back that day we started being boyfriends?" I asked truly unsure of why he would do something that made so many heads turn.

"I thought people would think that I was just being a weird college student doing a dare or something related to frat hazing," he replied.

"What about during Valentine's day when you said that we were a couple to the waitress?"

"At the restaurant she was accepting of Arvin and Geo so I thought it would be okay. It's not like anyone else we knew was there. I also wanted the dessert."

That got a chuckle out of me as I took another sip and felt the sweetness rush over me and ease my feelings.

"Hello boys!" our server said as she returned. "Ready to order?"

"I'm ready, are you?" I asked Nathan.

"I am too."

"I'll get the pizza biscuit," I said.

"And I'll have the mushroom biscuit," the wolf said.

"Alrighty, thank you, boys!" our server said and took the menus with her.

The mood eased further between the two of us as we sipped our milkshakes and Nathan even rubbed his boat shoes against my sneakers.

"But yeah, I think on campus I get more paranoid because of all the people that know me and the people that know both of us since they might tell someone who knows a person on a sports team that I'm on and someone there might harass me. I'm also afraid if someone at the university learns about this then somehow my family will find out."

"How would they be able to tell your parents?" I asked.

"Social media and the internet in general I guess. Gossip goes a long way these days."

"How do your parents feel about people like us?"

"I'm not quite sure. It's not like they can kick me out, but there's still a part of me that doesn't want to upset them and I don't want to be a 'disappointment,'" he said as he rolled his eyes at the last word with air quotes on his fingers.

"I need to respect your feelings and your privacy, so I will definitely be more patient with this."

"Thanks, Wes, you're the greatest."

"Well, partners are supposed to be there for each other," I said then a thought hit me. "So, you hug me a lot in public though."

"Well, I hug a lot of people in public and you hug a lot of people too," he said. "I also give straight guys a lot of hugs, actually they're side hugs but they're still hugs nonetheless.'

"You just have a lot of love in your heart."

"You're the sweetest."

A little while later our food arrived. Nathan's biscuit was sliced in half like a burger bun with a Portobello mushroom between the layers with a mushroom sauce slathered on top of it all.

The pizza biscuit I got had a large biscuit with multiple types of cheeses on it and it was an island surrounded by a tomato sauce with sliced vegetables in it. The biscuit itself was incredibly fluffy and there were bits of cheddar cheese in the biscuit too.

For dessert we got a biscuit with anko and matcha green tea ice cream. The biscuit tasted like it was a buttermilk biscuit with red bean in it. The biscuit had the scoop of ice cream on top of it and the red bean paste was spread on the side of the ice cream in a crescent moon shape. There were also mini mocha balls surrounding it.

After we paid and left the diner Nathan hugged me tightly and he kissed me in the dimming light of the afternoon sky. I felt my chest and stomach become warm with his strength surrounding me, and the aura of his loving kindness and bravery emanating from his being.

"Hey, you want to stop at my place tonight?" I asked the handsome wolf. "Geo texted me and said that he and Arvin are headed to a party in Bella View and they won't be back until tomorrow."

"Sure, I love spending time with you," he said as he hugged me again and kissed me.

We headed back to the bus stop and rode it back to the university. We held paws again underneath Nathan's pea coat.

We walked back to my apartment close together but without our paws touching. It was a little disappointing but I got hugs and kisses from him in public already. I could wait until we got back to my place.

In the apartment the two of us took off our shirts and held each other tightly on the couch. Time melted away as we kissed and cuddled. He rubbed my belly and I rubbed my paw all over his large pecs and his solid six-pack.

We went in for another kiss and then I heard the door opened.

"Wes, I need to borrow one of your hoodies and t-shirts! It's a hipster party," Arvin said as he rushed into the living room and then paused. "Wes, Nathan?"

We just looked back at the buck in shock.

-To be continued...