Robbie had finally given in and invited some of his friends to the port for the civic holiday weekend. The freedom of being out was so exhilarating that he’d been reluctant to give up some of his increasingly valuable Raj time to spend with his friends. But he was determined to—somehow—hold on to Raj long past this summer. And that meant integrating him into his circle of friends.
That circle had already evolved and changed once, after high school, as people had gone in different directions, some even out of province. New friends from college had been added, and now it was jobs and careers pulling and stretching it. And in Robbie’s case, a move to an entirely different city. And, he hoped, a relationship that lasted longer than a few months.
It wasn’t that he’d never fallen in love before or at least believed it was love, but Raj was… He struggled to sort his feelings because there were familiar ones like lust and a constant rush of endorphins that marked the beginning of every relationship he’d had, but there was something else. Something he knew instinctively would take work to hang on to, and he wanted very much to do that work even if he wasn’t sure how or what kind.
He’d invited a few of his Brantford friends and reminded himself to tell Raj about Todd. Todd was one of his oldest friends and sometime fuck buddy—mostly when they were drunk—and he didn’t want Raj to overhear something and misunderstand their relationship.
He didn’t have a feel yet for the few of his coworkers he thought might become friends, so he only told them where he was going and suggested they’d be welcome if they had a tent or two. He gave them the number of the RV Park and left it up to them, though he’d be surprised if they showed.
“Okay,” he said to Raj. “We’re exclusive, right?”
“Right.”
“Because we never actually talked about it, but—”
Raj held a finger to his lips. “I haven’t been with anyone else since meeting you.”
Robbie grinned, warmed all over to hear it. “Me neither,” he said. “But one of my friends, Todd…”
Raj’s eyes narrowed. “A friendly ex?”
“No…” He explained their friendship and how, on occasion, when they were both piss drunk, they had hooked up. “It was never a romantic relationship; we agreed it would ruin our friendship. And obviously nothing’s going to happen ever again with him. But everyone kinda knows.” He trailed off, stomach twisting.
“And he’s the only one of your friends you’ve had sex with?”
“Yeah,” Robbie said. “Jesus, Raj, I know I act the total slut with you, but that’s… just for you.”
Raj pulled him into an embrace. “Sorry, Robbie. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I just wanted to make sure…”
“I’m not your ex.” He spoke softly, right into Raj’s ear. “I’m a fuck-up sometimes, it’s true, but I’ll never cheat on you.”
Raj squeezed him and let him go. “I know. I mean, I know you’re not a cheater. I’m still trying to decide if you’re a fuck-up or not.”
“Thanks,” Robbie replied dryly.
Robbie’s parents had a big ten-person cabin tent and a matching screen tent, taking up all the spare space on their lot. Inside the cabin tent were half a dozen air mattresses for his friends. Todd, Marty, Joan, and Gary were coming in Marty’s van, while Amy and her new boyfriend were coming in their car with their own gear in case her boyfriend was “weirded out” by the idea of sleeping with a “bunch of queers”.
Robbie wondered how Amy, being bi, managed not to fall into her boyfriend’s definition of queers, but that was her problem to worry about, not his. He turned to find Raj and discovered Chelsey chatting up his boyfriend. Again.
Moving closer, he heard the tail end of their conversation. “So nice that Robbie’s friends are coming; it will give us some time alone,” she was saying.
“Alone? No, that’s not happening. I’m in a relationship,” Raj said.
“With who? Everyone says the only person you ever hang out with is Robbie.”
“That’s ’cause he’s my boyfriend.”
Robbie didn’t expect to feel such a thrill to hear Raj say it to someone else. “Hey, lover.”
Chelsey whipped her head around to stare at him. Then she started to laugh. “Oh, you two are a laugh riot.”
Raj ignored her and held out his hand to Robbie. Robbie, ever willing to take advantage, slipped past his arm and up against his chest, wrapping his own arms around Raj’s neck.
Raj smiled the special smile he saved just for Robbie and kissed him. And kissed him again until Robbie had forgotten Chelsey or that they were standing in front of Raj’s trailer.
When Raj finally lifted his mouth from Robbie’s, he brushed them against Robbie’s ear and whispered, “Porn things.”
A shiver raced down Robbie’s spine and into his dick, already hard, because Raj, and he pressed it against Raj’s hip.
Raj smiled against his cheek, stroking his jaw with his long, elegant fingers. “Later,” he promised.
When he turned round, Robbie was surprised to see Chelsey, gaping like a hooked fish. “Are your friends all gay too?”
“Come round and meet them,” he said. “They’re good peeps, even if you don’t find a hookup.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment.
By nightfall on Friday, Raj found himself enjoying the party created by Robbie’s friends more than he expected. Although they were closer to Chelsey’s age than his, a lot of them had finished college and were experiencing the same responsibilities he faced—balancing a job, bills, and social life.
He noticed Chelsey cautiously navigating a world clearly unfamiliar to her, but she was under the arm of Gary, and he looked as interested in helping her understand the people-are-people concept as he did in seeing her naked. Since Chelsey had all but said she was just here to get laid, she seemed well in hand.
His attention tracked back to Robbie as Todd yelled out, “Hey, Robbie—try this!” He passed a red cup to Robbie, and Raj frowned.
“Problem?”
He looked back at Marty. “Robbie told me he gets stupid drunk on hard liquor.”
Marty laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. He can drink like almost a case of beer and hardly wobble, but give him a couple of mixed drinks and he’s stumbling and slurring and we’re all his ‘besh frens’, and he loves us.” Marty cut his eyes to Chelsey and Gary, momentarily distracting Raj. Then he gave Raj a sweet smile and said, “Excuse me a minute. So nice to meet you, by the way.”
Todd, the friend with drunken benefits, had been the only one of Robbie’s friends to not greet him with boisterous warmth, which he’d considered natural enough. He trusted Robbie, but suddenly he didn’t trust Todd at all. He mingled and tried to keep track of Robbie, who kept moving back and forth between this almost separate party and the older people around the fire. Someone had a guitar and was playing seventies rock.
Raj watched Todd mix another couple of drinks, one almost half vodka, the other barely a splash. It looked like the sloppy inability to measure of the very inebriated. He watched as Todd shoved a cup into Robbie’s hand.
Then when Todd wandered off, Raj moved to the side of his pretty drunk boyfriend. “Hey.”
Robbie looked up at him, his smile sloppy but bright. “Tall, dark. ’n’ handsome!”
Raj smiled and ruffled Robbie’s hair. “You’re a cute drunk.”
Robbie looked dismayed. “You don’t fuck drunks.”
“I don’t.”
“I di’n’t mean to get drunk.”
“You’re allowed,” Raj said, amused. “But I thought you didn’t care for hard liquor.” He indicated the red cup in Robbie’s hand.
Robbie stared at the cup. “I don’t. S’mostly cranb’ry juice, innit?”
Raj took a sip and gasped. “I think maybe some cranberry juice dripped in. Want me to get you a beer?”
Robbie’s expression brightened. “Mebbe I c’n sob’r up ’nuff so you can fuck me.”
Raj stroked his jaw and chuckled. “I think it’s a little late for that, sweetheart. Believe me, I’m looking forward to you making that offer sober.” He kissed the tip of Robbie’s nose and took the toxic drink away from him.
“I di’n’t mean it like that!” Robbie protested loudly as Raj strode down to the water’s edge and dumped the contents. Anyone who drank that was in serious risk of alcohol poisoning and not the happy-drunk kind. He fished out a couple of beers from a big stainless-steel tub full of ice and bottles and headed back to Robbie.
Only Robbie wasn’t where he’d left him. He quickly discovered Robbie was no longer amongst the partiers. And neither was Todd. With soft and wary steps, he went to the big cabin tent where a dim light showed someone inside. It could have been anyone, but then he heard voices.
“Quit it,” he heard Robbie say, irritation evident in his voice. “Have a boyfren’.”
“’S’e really yer boyfren’?”
“Mm-hmm. Raj. He’s so gor-gee-ous. Fuck off, Todd. Neve’ be drunk ’nough to fugget my ’lishus Raj.”
Raj was building up a fury, listening to what sounded an awful lot like an assault. On his Robbie. He raised his hand to push aside the tent door and heard Todd say, “’Kay, sheesh. Din’t know it wazzat ser’ous. You saidja wanted t’show me somethin’, ‘n’ I thought… Whazzat?”
“Innit beau’ful? Raj gave it to me.”
“’Sa fish?”
“Yeah,” Robbie agreed, sounding irrationally happy. “S’like, a ’sclusive fish. Me’n’Raj. ’Sclusive.”
Robbie’s ‘friend with no more benefits’ cracked up laughing. “Yer s’ weird.”
Raj wasn’t sure what to make of the exchange. It was funny and sweet that a five-dollar lure could mean so much to Robbie. “Robbie? You in there?”
“Yeah, showin’ Todd, um…”
Raj walked into the tent. Robbie was sitting on a cot, his friend was on the floor holding his ribs and rolling. “’Sclusive fish,” he sputtered.
Robbie looked up at Raj, eyes wide as he stuffed the lure into his shirt. His cheeks were flushed, though Raj couldn’t tell if it was just an effect of the booze, embarrassment over Todd’s reaction, or what.
“Robbie, can you stand up?”
“Yeah…” He got unsteadily to his feet.
Raj pulled him into his arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
“C’we go home?”
Raj guided Robbie out of the tent and over to his trailer, smiling and waving to everyone who looked their way that everything was okay. He tugged Robbie’s clothes off and laid him on the bed. Robbie’s eyes were already closed. Raj touched the little lure.
Robbie hadn’t made a big deal of it, hadn’t even shown Raj he’d made it into a pendant initially. Raj had seen it around Robbie’s neck when they’d gone fishing, but Robbie hadn’t mentioned it until Raj’s father had asked. Even then, he’d sounded very offhand. Raj hadn’t said anything either because he had thought he was being silly and sentimental for buying the lures in the first place.
That it meant so much to Robbie surprised him.
He took off his own clothes and curled up next to Robbie, spoon fashion. Expecting Robbie to be passed out, he was surprised when Robbie rolled and banged his head on Raj’s chin, arms seeking purchase.
“I love you,” he said, his words almost perfectly clear.
Raj took a sharp breath before remembering his conversation with Marty. Robbie had probably said that to everyone tonight.
In the morning, he woke up choking on Robbie’s morning breath. He kissed his lover’s forehead and slapped his ass. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
Robbie groaned. “Wasn’t Sleeping Beauty woken by a kiss?”
“Not with breath like yours. Go brush the dead caterpillars out of your mouth, and then come back here. I’ll keep the bed warm for you.”
When Robbie came back, his expression was troubled.
“How much do you remember of last night?”
The look he gave Raj was suddenly wary. “What did I say?”
Raj grinned. “Oh, you’ll find out, I’m sure. You want some advice, sweetheart? Don’t accept drinks you don’t want.”
“Or else what?” Robbie returned the grin.
“Or I’ll tie you to my bed.”
Robbie laughed. “That’s supposed to be a deterrent?”
Robbie let Raj cut their morning sex play short when noises suggested his friends were waking up. “If we try for more,” Raj said, “they might start knocking on the door, and then I’ll have to kill them.”
He wasn’t prepared for each and every one of them to start asking to see his ‘’sclusive fish’, and his face burned red most of the day.
Raj was no help; he just winked at him, and once said in his ear, “I have a matching one. We can take them to a jeweller, if you like.” But he was sure Raj was just teasing him like everyone else.
When Todd handed him a red cup and urged him to “Try this; it’s mostly fruit juice,” he met Raj’s eyes and deliberately took the cup. As soon as Todd’s back was turned, with equal deliberation, he turned it up to empty the contents on the ground.
Someone shouted, “Alcohol abuse!”
Robbie flipped his middle finger behind him. “So,” he said, pulling Raj’s arm around him. “Exactly how are you going to tie me to the bed? There’s no headboard or footboard or…”
Raj growled and kissed him like nobody was around. “You’re a brat.”
Robbie grinned, resisting the desire to snuggle. “Brat might be better than sweetheart.”
“What would you prefer? Cupcake?”
“Well, if we’re going to go baked goods, you can call me…” Robbie thought about Raj’s ‘porn fantasies’ and knew the perfect pastry. “Cherry turnover. But only once.”
Raj nearly did a spit take. “Maybe butter tart would be more apt.”
“Oooh, yes. I’ll be your butter tart.”