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ELI SPENT FRIDAY NIGHT staying in, focused on domestic tasks that made his life go smoother. Cleaning, dishes, two loads laundry. The mindless drudgery of scrubbing and sorting freed his mind to wander where it really wanted to go.
Bo Bartowski.
Granted, Bo was cut, stacked, buff, handsome, taller than Eli, and looked like Vulcan in his subterranean kingdom while producing useful items out of the dangerously hot pot of molten glass. Despite Eli’s previous assessment, Bo wasn’t so much a grumpy sociopath as, well, not very verbal while at work. Eli could only guess at the reason why.
Outside of work, however, Bo was a leather-clad rock god who coaxed amazing sounds out of his bass, who sang with Saltpeter Fluxx, and who was nice enough to help a stranger in distress, even though it meant not getting laid.
As Eli changed the sheets on his queen-size mattress, he came to the inevitable conclusion that seeing Bo again would be nice. Not just nice, but awesome, as long as Eli managed not to do a dance-floor porn show while drugged in Bo’s line of sight.
Or maybe never again.
Since it was also time to resupply his pantry and freezer with sustenance, Eli decided to kill the rest of his precious Friday night and go grocery shopping. A Trader Joe’s opened up further north of where he lived, and he found it was well worth the thirty minute drive. Their frozen food was more interesting than a regular supermarket’s offerings. Besides, Eli was sure he’d develop an addiction to wasabi almonds.
After his frozen food and almond heist, Eli stopped by Giant Eagle to get the more plebeian grocery items, like toothpaste, and as he pushed his cart through the aisles, his eyes fell upon a sale shelf full of Gatorade. He stopped, staring.
He didn’t drink Gatorade.
Somebody else did. A guy with blue-grey eyes. Windex-like liquid halfway gone by the hot furnace, Bo drinking up, wiping sweat off his brow with his bicep, avoiding the rough leather cuff of his work gloves.
The everyday image transfixed him.
So that’s why he was standing there like an idiot.
He put eight bottles in the cart and headed for the checkout.
As Eli drove through the cool night, carving the curves of Mt. Royal Boulevard while watching out for the almost tame, suburban deer, he thought back to Bo’s band and their schedule. Nothing was going on today, but they’d be at the RamRod tomorrow.
Eli was torn.
Seeing Bo outside of work bordered on compulsion. His opinion of the man had evolved from frustrated conviction that Bo hated him to a genuine sort of liking.
Not just because Bo had come to his aid. He had, and Eli was grateful.
Just talking with Bo had been an unexpected pleasure. Despite the difficult circumstances that had brought Eli to Bo’s house, he thought back to drinking his coffee, pretending to eat the breakfast he’d made for them as they skirted around uncomfortable topics. He pictured Bo’s engaging smile.
And his leather pants.
Eli gripped the steering wheel of his old Toyota a little harder. He probably shouldn’t be thinking of Bo’s leather pants while driving. His insurance rates might go up as a result.
As much as Eli yearned to rest his gaze on Bo’s incredible set of shoulders and bask in the open grin he never put on at work, he wasn’t thrilled about going back to the RamRod.
The scene of the crime.
As soon as those words formed in Eli’s mind, he banished them. He wasn’t some fucking victim. He had made his decisions, he went with Matt and Jeff voluntarily, and he took that little pill all by his own self. He was responsible for his part in what had occurred.
Just because he owned up to his part in last week’s fiasco, however, didn’t make the RamRod a place without negative associations. Normally, he’d love to go there on a regular basis. It bothered him that last Friday’s events would prevent him from doing that. He refused to be injured like that, refused to play the victim and get all twisted up over it.
He’d go, dammit. He’d go and see Bo play again.
Saturday rolled around. Eli called his Mom and Dad in Orange, New Jersey and waxed poetic about his current job. How interesting it was, how exciting. He was learning so much. His Glenshaw apartment was only half an hour away, which was almost around the corner by New Jersey standards. Anything to allay their fears.
“I’m just glad you have your friends there, dear,” his mother said. He could just picture her, her butt leaning into the kitchen counter, the cordless phone under her ear, something to drink in her hand. Iced green tea, probably, since it was just after lunch. This would turn to water before dinner, and wine or mixed drinks after dinner as his parents enjoyed their Saturday night. Old-fashioned and predictable.
“Friends?” Sudden confusion gripped him.
“Matt and Jeff, dear. Weren’t they a couple? So nice of them to let you stay until you found your place.”
“Uh...”
An expectant silence stretched through ether. “What?” His mother broke it with genuine concern. “Is everything all right?”
“We had a bit of a falling out,” Eli said, trying to choose his words in the most neutral way possible, and failing. Just like he’d failed to be all neutral and balanced after he’d been caught by the soccer team kissing the goalie and ended up coming home with a shiner.
“Oh.” Her single syllable solidified into long-distance resolve to make it all better. “Well tell me about it.”
Normally, he would have. A relationship gone sour – that’s happened before. Getting tested for HIV after going bare with his college roommate and being negative – she’d encouraged him all the way, holding his hand long-distance while his father maintained a supportive, stoic silence from afar.
This was too much, though. The club, the scene, and the utter humiliation of having ended up in a position like that wasn’t something he could’ve discussed with his mother quite so openly. She was a free spirit, a painter, a 6th degree black belt in aikijutsu. She’d never withheld information about the facts of life, or condoms, or about it being okay to have sex in the house (“Better stay where you’re safe than getting arrested doing it in the car!”)
“Go on.” Now she sounded concerned.
“We went to a club and things got out of hand, but I’m okay.”
“Oh.” The syllable was loaded with tones of color, just like her paintbrush before she attacked a canvas. “I’ve gotten into some hairy situations myself, Eli.” And now she used his name. This was serious. “Have you been... taken advantage of?”
Had he? The silence stretched.
“Have you been raped? If you have, you have to press charges. Your father and I will support you in anything you choose to do, but just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the same protection and support as if...”
“Mom!” His voice came out as a painful wail. “Mom, I haven’t been raped. Just the guys tried to take things a bit farther, and... well... this guy came along and helped me out. That’s all.”
“And have you talked to them?”
“Yeah. For the last time ever. They’re fucking assholes, Mom.”
“I’m sure they are.” Her voice sounded faint, wounded. How did she know about close calls like that anyway? The thought led him places he didn’t want to follow, and he banished it.
Not Mom. Mom’s tough. A martial artist.
“There’s a guy at work I like,” he said instead, offering a gambit. She was glad to switch topics as quickly as he switched his phone to the other ear. Just as he expected, his mother launched into a lecture about the dangerous shoals of workplace romances. Which was, by the way, the very height of hypocrisy. That’s how she and Dad had met all those years ago, when she’d been a starving artist working a part-time secretarial job, and he’d been her boss.
––––––––
BO WAS SITTING IN THE green room at the RamRod, tuning his bass and trying to tune out Ralph, who leered at him from behind his keyboards. Same green carpet and green-painted walls. Same mirrors by the counter that ran the walls, all lit with cheap, multi-bulb fixtures that did the job and didn’t break the bank. The band didn’t use them much, but the drag queens were known to sprawl their shit all over the place and wage turf wars over every inch of counter space.
“Do you think he’ll show up?”
Bo tightened his E-string and strummed, keeping his eyes on his phone’s tuning app.
“Who?” He tried to sound absentminded and ignorant. After all, he’d been the picture of discretion. Not a word about Eli, or his two wanna-be fuck buddies. Not to the band, not to the staff. Eli hadn’t wanted to raise a stink, so okay. Whatever.
“Your geeky twink, man! Tight jeans, mesh shirt, eye-fucking you every minute you were on that stage. It’s not like he was being subtle about it!”
“Oh, him.” Bo shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe?”
“So do you know him from somewhere?” Now Ralph was fishing, since the staff either didn’t know, or wouldn’t talk. Just as well Bo had taken Eli out the emergency exit, carrying him wrapped up in an old Army blanket as though he were a mob hit corpse hidden in a Persian carpet.
A bit of truth wouldn’t hurt. “Yeah, from work.”
“Yeah?” Ralph lit up with excitement. “He works at the glass factory?”
“He’s staff, asshole. It’s not like he’d be interested.” He felt the same old resentment well up in his chest. With no money for college and no family expectations for Bo to ever be more than a laborer, Bo had begun at Zimm Glass straight out of high school. It was a cool job, and he was grateful to be doing something interesting. It sure beat hauling garbage. Although the fact that his cousin in sanitation pulled in twenty grand a year more than Bo did smart a bit.
“Sure he’s interested. I saw him watch you.” Ralph ran a few scale finger exercises to warm up and get in the mood. “Just give it a chance. You never know.”
Jay showed up, the lifesaver that he was. His arrival cut off Ralph’s inquisition act, because Jay in the door meant Allison was on his heels with her hands full of gear.
Bo launched to his feet and set his bass in the stand. “Allison here?”
“Yeah,” Jay said, as the corners of his mouth twitched into a silly grin. “We came together.”
“Like, came together, or came together?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Ralph. I got to her first. Now go help her out, will ya?”
They all poured out, bound by camaraderie and the sort of chivalry that wasn’t welcome in most feminist circles. Allison seemed to like it well enough, though, always smiling and saying thank-you. She made Bo feel like he was floating on a cloud of approval, and he was more into guys than girls. He could only imagine the effect her sweet praise and gratitude had on Jay and Ralph.
Half an hour later, they were on stage with lights dimmed, spotlights on, with Allison launching into a fast-paced beat of one of their rock-alike originals.
ELI PUSHED his way toward the bar, got a coke, and swam with the crowd toward the dance floor. A Saturday night show was even crazier than last Friday had been.
He’d watched the bartender pour the coke straight from the faucet and hand it to him, drug-free. Their eyes met. They guy, shaved and tattooed with the obligatory gages in his ears, gave him a nod of recognition.
“On the house!” he said. “Good choice.”
Eli felt heat rise up his throat. The bartender must’ve known what happened. And, dammit, the word had probably spread by now and Eli would be a laughing stock of Pittsburgh’s gay party scene.
Maybe he could find a different club.
But Pittsburgh was so small – the word would spread.
He could move. Wasn’t there a job in Steubenville, Ohio, that he had turned down? But Steubenville looked like someone rode it hard and put it away wet. Not exactly an urban area where he’d expect to settle down and find someone to love.
Not like here. Not like Bo.
A riff of Bo’s bass rose from the beat as Eli made his way toward the pillar by the staircase that led upstairs. He parked his shoulder against it, sipping his Coke and watching the stage from afar. They played slightly different stuff than last week. Fewer covers, for once. Rocky and gritty and good. Eli found his legs and hips twitching involuntarily to the beat.
Time to dance. On his own, alone, but lots of people did that. Dancing would let him get closer to the stage and see whether Bo was wearing those wicked leather pants again.
Eli wanted black leather pants too. All he had was a pair of purple vinyl disco pants with silver bands going down his legs he’d found in a thrift store two years ago. They were hot to wear even this time of the year, and the overall effect made him look too skinny. Although the vinyl felt so smooth on his skin, and somehow, he could feel everything, intensified. The barest brush of a hand against his ass would send a jolt of want up his spine and down his balls. Last time he’d worn them commando and had adjusted himself just-so. The grinding alone, fully dressed on the dance floor yet having the other guy run his fingers up the crack of his ass, was almost better than being naked.
Fuck.
He was done with all that – but he didn’t throw his kink wardrobe out after last weekend. Not yet. Instead, he wore the same skinny jeans that showed his ass and his package to advantage, a studded belt, soft black dance sneakers and a white, long-sleeve T that glittered with rhinestones. It had been one of his most favorite dance outfits back in high school. He cropped the bottom off in hope the garment would turn into a well-behaved long-sleeved top, but the elastic knit fabric tended to roll up above his hips, exposing a narrow strip inch of skin above his studded belt. The stretch fabric was tight on him now, and even though he filled it too much to get away with wild gymnastic moves, it showed his toned torso to an advantage.
He leaned back, trying not to feel all kinds of self-conscious about flashing skin, and drank his last mouthful of cola and threw away the rest. There was something exciting about having his arms all covered up and his neckline barely showing his clavicles, yet feeling the cool air on his belly and against his sides.
The music throbbed through him, and Eli reminded himself he was here to dance. Alone if possible. If things went well, he’d get to say hi to Bo.