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“NO, I’M GOING.”
“But wait! Paul and I took photos. Bo forced a grin. “I forgot last night.” He pulled his phone out, opened the pictures, and handed them to Eli. “Can you do this from home?”
Eli, to his credit, looked at everything. “It’s kind of dark. Good effort, and I thank you, but I really need to go have a look for myself.”
Bo saw Eli and heard Eli, but he didn’t quite recognize him. He found it hard to believe that the pliant, trusting, eager-to-please lover from just nine hours ago turned into an immovable jackass, dark trousers and a white shirt and all. Eli’s posture had stubborn written all over it and his tone of voice left no room for discussion.
“The hot floor’s no place for a man on crutches,” Bo snapped. “You’re doing fine here. You’re getting work done, and you’re finding out all kinds of shit from all the old files I brought for you!”
His words only had Eli nodding. “And that’s why I have to go in. Just for a bit. Paul can bring me back here or home over lunch, or I can take a cab.” Eli leaned against the back of the dining room chair, fixing his gaze on Bo. “You and I just never got to talk about my results since we got busy with other stuff.” His expression softened with a fond smile, but he rallied, hardened up, and forged on. “Besides, I need you to return the files for me.”
“Or you’ll try to return them yourself and tear your stitches,” Bo grumbled. Could be, last night was really great for him, but not that good for Eli. He couldn’t conceive a possible reason why Eli would be so set against doing the reasonable thing and healing up at home. Bo voiced his thoughts.
“You’re kidding, right?” Eli grinned at him and spun on one leg to reach his crutches. “What we did last night-“ He spun back to Bo. “What we did, that was special. Best time ever, no doubt, hands down, and I want to do it again and again. The me you see now?” Eli frowned. “This is the real me, Bo. This is how I am when I’m not hurt or drugged or otherwise traumatized. You’ll have to figure out if you still like me this way.”
“You’re like a cat on speed!”
Eli shrugged, then grinned. “Never seen one of those, but all I can say is, I’ve never felt better than I do right now.”
They had a quick and mostly silent breakfast. While Eli was checking a high-temperature refractory website for technical information, Bo assembled sandwich-and-apple lunches and resigned himself to taking all those boxes of files back into his truck.
Maybe Eli had a good point. He had, after all, never seen him at his best. When he was new at work, he had been navigating an unfamiliar environment. The club disaster was obviously not Eli’s most shining moment, and being laid up with glass cuts and stitches would take the starch out of anyone.
Plus, the families and their visits and dishes and not-so-subtle queries whether Eli and Bo were together. And if so, was it permanent? Bo didn’t know how they would react to a yes, a no, or a maybe. An affirmative would torpedo the incessant hope for Bo’s reform, a negative might result in another dreaded blind date, and a maybe would make the eyebrows rise and the tongues cluck.
Bo had tried to win it with his family since he came out to them as a teen, but in the last few years he just resigned himself to failure. He’d be the bad son, the stubborn problem child. He couldn’t, after all, please all of them. Question was, could he please himself? Were he and Eli compatible long-term? And was he crazy even thinking that? Bo Bartowski, the guy who did just hook-ups and never settled down, was contemplating a long-term arrangement with a white shirt.
Then again, even though Eli had come across as a typical college-educated product of privilege in the beginning, Bo knew he was nice and had seen true poverty abroad. Even if he acted like a cat on speed, and even if he had a lousy taste in boyfriends, Eli wasn’t shallow.
As he settled the last box of files into the bed of his pickup truck and jumped off the bumper, he scrutinized his dream-house remodel in a new light. The place was too big just for him. Eli loved the music room, and he had enjoyed snuggling on the porch swing. He fit right into Bo’s cozy nest, and their chemistry couldn’t be denied.
If only Eli would stay.
THE ZIMM Glass edifice looked even more imposing to Eli than it had on his first day. The sun was a little higher in the sky, but the dark windows were immune to it and the belching glass furnaces down the hill exerted a field of mystery around the place.
The place liked to keep its secrets.
Eli was grateful to Bo for driving him past the front door and to the loading door.
“Just think about it,” Bo had said. “If a trolley cart can go there, so can you. All you have to avoid are the front stairs and you should be okay.”
“I know.” Eli put on a brave smile. ‘They should have a wheelchair ramp. I can’t believe they got away without installing one.” It wasn’t the injury or the crutches that bothered him. It was what he had learned from the old and somewhat disjointed records. In an ancient place with a long history of departmental boundaries, it wasn’t all that hard to hide important information. Eli had his suspicions. He couldn’t voice them to anyone, not even to Bo, until he made sure they were true.
“Here we are, boss!” Bo’s voice yanked him out of his nervous thoughts.
“Don’t call me that, babe,” Eli said. Then he looked up. “Shit, Bo, that loading dock is a lot higher than I thought. I have no idea if I can climb up that ladder or not!”
“We’ll find a way.” Bo parked nearby. “I’ll deliver those file boxes as soon as you’re in your office, safe and sound.” He got out his side of the cab, came around to Eli, and opened his door. Wordlessly, he presented his arm. Eli handed him one crutch and slowly, gently, he used Bo to lower himself to the cracked asphalt parking lot.
“So far so good,” Eli said, mostly for Bo’s benefit.
“Hey. Look at me.”
Eli looked up. Bo leaned closer. “If you were a girl, I could kiss you and wish you a good day.”
Eli slid his eyes to the dark opening. Few guys were starting to set up by the round furnaces, chatting, some of them with coffee still in hand. “Nobody’s interested. If you don’t mind, I sure don’t.”
“Well then, let me know when you’re ready to go home. I could drive you over lunch.” Bo hesitated, then leaned in and brushed a dry, soft kiss on Eli’s lips. “Have a nice day!”
They broke apart. “You too,” Eli said, smiling. This was good. Hopefully no ill would come of it, but if anyone gave them flack, they’d face it together. “And now, how about climbing that loading dock?”
Eli made his way over and eyed the metal ladder and its flat steppers. There was one tubular metal railing to the side, its metal shined on top from frequent use, but with paint peeling underneath. He put one crutch onto the loading dock, wedged the other one under his arm, and grabbed the railing.
The third step was the hardest, because he ran out of crutch length and he didn’t dare put all his weight on his leg yet. Two attempts, and he was standing on the second step, his good leg supporting him and the crutch barely reaching the ground.
Bo stood behind him, ready to catch if anything went wrong.
“Look who’s back!” They were spotted, and one of the other gatherers sauntered over. “Hey, you okay down there? Why didn’t you take the front door?”
“Too many steps,” Eli said, panting lightly. “And Bo figured if I could make it this way, I could go everywhere the trolleys go.”
“Gimme your hand.”
Eli did, and the guy pulled. Eli gave a yelp of pain. “Oops,” the older fellow said as he let go of him.
“Sorry,” Eli gasped. “I forgot. I got stitches up there.”
More people showed up to see what was going on, and cheerleading mingled with helpful suggestions.
Bo touched the small of his back. “Eli, turn toward me.”
“Yeah?” Eli did. Bo pulled him onto his shoulder, the same way he had carried him up the stairs. Bo’s shoulder dug into his belly painfully this time around, and his ass was sticking up in the air for everyone to see. Laughter and hooting split the air.
“Get down, Eli. Easier to balance.” Bo’s sharp comment beckoned Eli to drape himself over his back once again, and hold on to the waistband of his jeans as his other crutch clattered to the ground.
They moved up in jerky, weaving steps. If Bo dropped both of them, falling would be ugly. Being hauled over Bo’s shoulder up the loading dock wasn’t how Eli had imagined his triumphant return.
Eli knew when Bo’s footing stabilized from the way his swaying stopped, and Bo tapped the back of his calf. “Okay, all done!”
Eli slid down his front, letting Bo catch him. “Thanks.” His face was burning as though he’d spent too much time by the molten glass. The whole production crew saw Bo carry him in, fully body contact and all. He wondered if they could tell how close they’ve grown. His forehead might as well have a tattoo on it saying “Bo’s squeeze, don’t touch!”
“Here ya go, kid!” One of the pressers handed him the crutches while the other guys hopped off the loading dock to unload the boxes of files for Bo, and bring them their lunches.
So much for secrecy regarding Pot 16.
“Thanks...”
Eli spent the next ten minutes getting gruff pats on the back, shaking hands, and greeting all these guys he had thought had hated him.
“Glad to have you back!”
“Looking good, Winkler! Keep it up!”
“Hey Eli, we thought we lost you, man.”
“It’s back, it lives!”
“Nice to see you ain’t bloody anymore!”
The cacophony reminded Eli of the drama that must’ve unfolded over a week ago, when he had been trying so hard to bleed to death on the hot floor. Bo was officially hailed as his savior, but he must’ve had help. “Uh, thanks, guys. I heard it was something of a team effort.”
Some of them began to shift nervously and look down, and Eli wondered whether they were the ones. “Bo didn’t say much.”
“Ha! No wonder he didn’t say much. You know better’n trying to get a story out of him. Come see us over lunch an’ we’ll tell you how you almost died. There was blood everywhere!”
Laughter, guffaws, and noises of fake puking were punctuated by the occasional “Praise Jesus” as the guys exercised their own special brand of black humor. They all used it to cope. The job was interesting, but it was also inherently dangerous and injuries did occur.
Eli figured they would razz him when he came back, but their warm welcome was an unexpected pleasure. He got off easy, the production would start soon, and then –
Guffaws and smirks were interrupted by Halloran, who stalked over to see what was holding up production. His eyes landed on Eli, cold and displeased. “If you’re done partying, there’s work to be done.” He turned to Bo. “Bartowski, in my office!”
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BO SHUT THE GLASS-PANE door to the foreman’s office. Three walls out of four had glass panes the size of storefront windows, and the ceiling kept noise and dust off the foreman’s desk and out of his paperwork. The desk sat in the middle of a space the size of a half-garage, pushed to the left to make space on the other side. The wall behind him was all filing cabinets, the wall to his right had a little walkway between the desk and a bookshelf full of various manuals, and the space between the front of the old, scarred wooden desk barely accommodated three wooden chairs.
Bo sat in the middle one and looked around at the piles of paper and the fine, smudgy dust that insinuated its way through the cracks under the door. The place looked like it hasn’t been updated since the fifties, with all the wear and tear to show for its hard work. Its relative silence was almost deafening, with clanging metallic noises of production and the screech of broken glass being shoveled into a bin rendered dim and distant in this almost civilized space. He wondered whose turn it was to wash the grimy windows that let Halloran keep an eye on the hot floor.
“So. You and the kid.” Halloran reached into the breast pocket of his light blue shirt, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and shook one out. He waved the packet at Bo.
“No, I’ve quit.”
“Okay.” He lit his fag and inhaled, making the tip glow. Then he leaned back in his padded vinyl chair, another relic of decades long gone, and propped his feet on the only clean corner of his desk.
Bo waited, stewing inside. Everyone had seen the boxed of files, and a lot of the guys would recognize what was in there. The union contract negotiations usually meant the guys solidified behind the foreman, the steward, and their union negotiators. If this looked like he was lending a hand to the company... but then again, what could they do to him?
Bo’s production crew liked him.
His knowledge and skill were respected.
Halloran released a long, thin stream of cigarette smoke out his nostrils and Bo tried real hard not to lean into it and get a second-hand hit. Quitting was a bitch, and he’d quit for the fifth time already.
“Sorry,” Halloran said, not sounding sorry at all. He leaned forward and tapped the ashes into an exquisite, red and purple ashtray that sat on a pile of OSHA compliance forms. “Made this myself,” he said.
“Yeah, I know.” Bo steeled himself for the retelling of how it used to be in the good old days.
“Yeah, you know. You know fuckin’ everythin’.” Halloran’s cigarette hung off the side of his lip as he spoke. “So what do they want?”
Bo startled. “Who?”
“The management, you idiot. Don’t tell me you think they got you stuck with that kid by sheer coincidence.” He smiled a thin, cold smile that didn’t make it up to his eyes. “Such a tragic accident. Good thing you were there to save him.”
“Yeah, me and the guys.” No sense claiming too much of the glory. Bo didn’t know what was going on, but something wasn’t right. “My crew’s setting up by Pot 11 again, right?”
Halloran leaned forward, legs still up, chair creaking under him. “You know where you’re settin’ up. You’re very dependable.” He took another puff. “And you’re smarter than you look. Those boxes. Why the fuck did you find it necessary to bring home all those production files?”
Dumb. That what Bo was, and that how he’d appear. He shrugged. “I dunno what’s in them. The lab sent some, the QC sent some... Eli was bored. He couldn’t walk, but he could read up on some old stuff, so I guess he did.”
“Yeah?” Halloran narrowed his eyes. “And what did he learn?”
Bo couldn’t give it away – he felt the wrongness of his situation it in his gut. They had talked about Pot 16 a little, and about the ceramics issue, and Eli had discovered something so important he’d insisted on coming to work even if it involved Bo carrying him up the loading dock ladder. “Not sure, actually.”
“What? How can you not be sure? You two didn’t talk about anything?”
Bo shook his head and produced a grin. “This shows how much you know about the way I live. The house was like a loony bin, with my family coming over and bringing dishes and meeting Eli. And then his parents flew in, and my band showed up for rehearsals – seriously, glass? We had no time to talk about glass. Oh, and don’t forget the nurse, in and out to do wound care.” Bo anchored his thumbs in the loops of his jeans and made a show of leaning back in his chair. “Besides, I’m hourly labor, Halloran. I got no use for all that shit he does. What, y’think it’s easy to be ordered to be his, what did they call it, “liaison,” and then not understand what the fuck he’s talking ‘bout?” That, at least, wasn’t far from the truth .
Halloran took another drag of his cigarette, put his feet down, and stood up. “Okay. Okay. Just remember your place. An’ remember who your brothers are.” When Bo didn’t move, Halloran waved him off. “Go on, you jagoff! Your team’s waitin’ and the shift’s already started!”