As it turned out, Justin’s mother’s schedule was busier than even he had expected, and while the office did have a Saturday appointment available, Justin had let her know that weeknights were probably a better match for Thom. Which meant it would be Monday, of the week following, before Dog would have to face the doc.
Thom knew all this because he’d received a long message from Justin on his cell phone. It hadn’t been odd to see the “unknown caller” message when Thom got home from work on Monday, as he never had his ringer on. Anyone not on his short contact list resulted in just another UC message with the rest of them. It was, however, a weirdly pleasant surprise when he’d finally gotten around to listening to the message and Justin’s voice came out of the phone. He barely recalled giving Justin his number, although it made sense that he had as he’d been expecting to hear back. Although, like the social reject that he was, he’d obviously failed to get Justin’s number at the same time or put it into his phone. He tended to forget that most people communicated with one another.
He told himself, as he scrolled through the ringer options and gave Justin one specific sound that would ring for him and him alone, that he was doing that because things were different with the man. They were neighbours, and there was the dog connection, and one never knew what emergency might come along with somebody living so close. When the little voice inside his head wondered why he hadn’t given his own parents such a personal touch on his phone, he shut it down. One could think too much, after all.
* * * *
On Tuesday morning, a full ten minutes before the alarm clock was set to go off, a sound startled Thom awake from a dead sleep. He was also ninety-nine percent sure he knew who was causing the jangle-rattle-clang of a metal trash can, as there was only one person on the entire block who didn’t have the standard green plastic kind. That’s what startled him more than the sound itself, because the second his brain identified, processed, and provided a mental image of Justin—even doing something as mundane as taking out trash—his heart began to race and the pace of his breathing intensified. It was a different feeling than usual, though. The breathlessness, the race of blood, none of it was panic—it was excitement.
Justin was not the first crush in Thom’s life by any means, and he knew that the only way to deal with these kinds of blossoming emotions was to starve them until they died. Still, it was good to know he hadn’t completely lost the ability to feel interested. Vanity-wise, it was also kind of nice to know that he was capable of attracting someone else’s eye, at least until they knew what they were getting themselves into. He wondered about these things as he lost the sparkle of his twenties and the glow of his thirties was starting to dim, even if he did know that there was no way to light a fire from anything that might spark.
He had no reason to doubt that Justin’s interest was genuine, albeit misplaced, and to have someone as cute as Justin find interest in his rather “bookish” and “natural” self—both adjectives being his mother’s favourites for describing him—was rousing. It wasn’t stirring enough to slough off the anxiety or change Thom’s life, though, and he knew that before anything else. He’d had decades of experience with his issues and nothing about them were as simple as “just stop.” As much as he’d love to be able to, he couldn’t just decide he wasn’t going to be anxious anymore. Something inside his DNA had fritzed or frizzled—before he was part of the chain if his parent’s issues were considered as well—and that was part of who he was and how he’d been put together. As luck would have it, he had no siblings and there would be no offspring, so unless the damage went back so far that it had irreparably spread through the family tree like Dutch elm disease, at least it would end here, with him.
Yet, as destined to die in languishing pain as this particular crush was, the futility of things didn’t stop Thom from fumbling out of bed, hurrying to the window, and cautiously pulling up the blind. One look, just a tiny glimpse, would be a nice way to start the day. He wasn’t expecting Dog to follow him, or to jump onto the dresser to peer out the window alongside him, but he could hardly blame Dog for wanting to have a look at their friendly, sexy, open-shirt-billowing-about-him, loose-pants-clinging-to-his-slim-hipped neighbour. “Well, now, that’s just…” Thom whispered, his thoughts derailing. Some things were just too hard to explain, even to one’s self and their dog.
Dog huffed his agreement, then stepped forward to perch on the windowsill, back paws still on the dresser. Before Thom could figure out what he was doing, Dog lifted his head and howled. Although the warbled cry wasn’t that loud, it was more than loud enough from out of a propped open window.
“Dog!” Thom hissed. “No!”
Justin spun in the driveway, looked up, and waved. It was too late to pull back or pretend they hadn’t been doing exactly what they were doing: acting like two desperate voyeurs. Horrified, Thom tried to pull Dog away. “Dog, hush! Stop that.”
Dog, instead, began to paw at the window, drawing squeals of outrage from the glass as his claws raked against it.
“Fucking hell, Ugly, stop!”
Immediately, Dog stilled. His tongue flopped out. And when Justin waved again, Thom had no choice but to return the gesture. A wide grin broke across Justin’s face and he put out both arms, fingers spread, like he was offering a hug. Did he gesture to the bright blue sky? The great day around him? The beautiful weather? It was impossible for Thom to tell for sure, but Justin looked so content and pleased that it was easy to tell he was gesturing at something that made him happy. The breeze seemed to respond to Justin’s open arms by rushing at him, turning the open shirt he wore into a whipping flag and ruffling his hair.
Dog coughed and Thom nodded. “Yeah, I know, right?”
He watched Justin bounce-walk back into the house and continued to look for several minutes beyond that. By the time Thom backed away from the window and coaxed Dog to the floor, he could hear the garbage truck creaking and clanging at his left-side neighbour’s and he knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of making it to the garage, getting the door open, and muscling his own bin to the sidewalk in time. Instead of using Justin’s trip to the curb as a reminder to take out his own garbage, he’d missed the opportunity altogether. “Good thing a single guy and one dog doesn’t make a lot of trash.”
Thom eyed Dog, who immediately dropped his tongue out of the side of his mouth and gave Thom a lopsided smile. “You know something, Dog?”
Dog shook his head, though whether he was arguing the name or saying he didn’t know, Thom couldn’t say.
“I think I might, um…” Thom bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t sure if he should say what he was about to say, even if was just to a dog. It was probably bad luck and might have all kinds of repercussions. Saying it out loud might even spike his anxiety and render the rest of the day useless. The excited feeling he’d woken up with hadn’t abated, though, and maybe saying it might set his mind at ease and he could carry on, without ever having to think of it again. He nodded. He unclenched his jaw and tasted blood. “I think I might want to see him again.”
He sucked air through his teeth, immediately wishing he could take it back, but surprisingly, the Earth remained on its axis. The blue sky was still blue, the warm breeze was still warm, and even his heartbeat was constant and regular. “Not like, a date-date, of course. Definitely not anything fancy.” He assessed Dog’s stare, trying to see into Dog’s doggy brain. It was so hard to tell if Dog was judging, considering, or just listening. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to get up the nerve to ask him, anyway.”
Was it wrong that he was hoping that Dog was somehow hearing and understanding, and that it might result in Dog doing something that would take the next move out of his hands? “Probably,” he said, answering his own thought. “And that’s fucking ridiculous.” Apparently, he’d gone from being mildly paranoid to outright psychotic.
He shook his head and pulled down the blind. No more silliness. “Come on, let’s get you outside and get me to work.”
* * * *
“Hey.”
Thom squealed a sound a little too close to pig-like for his comfort and spun on his heel to face Justin. “I was just coming over there,” Thom said. He swallowed and corrected. “Here. I was just coming over here.”
He was standing on Justin’s front porch, but to the far end of it, trying to appear casual and as if it wasn’t weird to find your neighbour standing ten feet away from your front door and all but cowering in the corner. He’d almost made it—almost found enough courage to push himself at the front door and knock—when he’d been caught instead. No doubt given away by his own shadow through the front window.
“You mean, you were already over here and just coming to knock? I getcha.” Justin said, seeming to completely ignore where Thom was standing. “Hi! What’s up?”
“It’s Friday.”
“It is. And I am off work early and positively excited to grab my first beer. Week. From. Hell,” he said, exaggerating the final word. “Did you come to join me?”
Thom shook his head. “No. Yes. Well, I mean, Friday afternoon, I um…I go to the market. It’s got all kinds of fresh stuff and if you go early enough in the afternoon there’s hardly anybody there. I thought, maybe, you might…”
“I would love to.”
Relief flooded through every part of Thom’s body. “You would?”
“I would,” Justin said again. “Will you drive? Would you like me to?”
“I walk.” Thom pointed in the direction of his own place. “We can bring the dog. They’re allowed if they’re leashed.”
“Done deal.” Justin grinned. “Give me five minutes to change.”
Then they walked for what felt like forever. Forever in a good way, though. It was a relatively warm day, almost too warm to be out walking and definitely too warm for the long pants he wore, but Thom didn’t believe the sweat breaking out on his back could be blamed solely on the heat. It was a stressful situation—walking, controlling the dog, and trying to respond to conversation. Lucky for Thom, Justin was content to carry most of the discussion. He managed it effortlessly, too, even while he shoved rope after rope of red liquorice between his lips. Thom was both horrified and fascinated by Justin’s lack of shame when it came to eating candy, and perhaps, even, in indulging himself in what he wanted altogether. If he wanted his neighbour to come over, well, didn’t he just make sure that his neighbour did, in fact, come over? If he wanted a dinner date, didn’t he make sure that happened, too? That couldn’t be a bad thing, Thom decided. At the very least, it seemed like a healthy way to live. After all, Justin seemed happy—truly, vocally, and appreciatively happy with most of what life had to offer. It was probably the reason his smile was so genuine, which was probably the reason his whole damn aura felt so comfortable.
There weren’t a lot of folks in the world about whom Thom would use that word, but with Justin, he felt more and more comfortable. Justin managed to get his own way more than Thom liked, and somehow Justin had a knack for getting him to go along with those ways. But maybe Justin had been right when he’d suggested that Thom might get used to him if they took things nice and slow. At the very least, they were proving to be a nice complement to each other with him as the quiet one and Justin being the chatty one, he of the nods and the mumbles and Justin of the laughter and the winding conversations. They were like the nursery rhyme about the man who ate no fat and his wife who ate no lean and how, together, they worked perfectly to clean the bone. When that was coupled with Dog running between them, inadvertently keeping people from getting too close, Thom barely felt like he was out and among people at all—not on the street, or through the market, or even standing in front of vendors.
“Oh. My. God!” Justin said, all but skidding to a halt. “What is that?”
“Um…” Thom took a second to let his gaze track around the stalls. Sweet cherries were the fruit in season now, the shiny black-red fruit making a mockery of the last few fading, pitiful strawberries. To the left of them sat baskets heaped high alongside lattice crust pies. To the right stood a table with bundles of asparagus, kale, and tiny blood-red radishes. They all looked to be good examples of bright, happy, summer produce, however, none of them really inspired an OMG reaction in Thom’s mind. “I’m not sure? What’s what?”
“That!” Justin said, enthusiastically pointing forward. His smile all but split his face. “We have to.”
“We have to wh—oh.”
Thom considered himself to be open-minded for the most part. People could believe in who or what they needed to in order to make themselves into good people and keep themselves that way. At the same time, they could use whatever medium they felt brought them closer to that belief. There was nothing wrong with a little dabble here and there into the esoteric, as long as a person was careful and stayed relatively sane with their pursuits. Thom himself wasn’t beyond a little bit of jumping at shadows, throwing salt over his shoulder, or thanking guardian angels. One thing he did know, however, was that usually a person didn’t find credibility standing behind a sign that read, “Seek your Fortune, Speak to the Dead,” in an open-air market.
The only thing he could think to say without sounding completely dismissive was, “We really don’t have to, actually.”
“Oh, come on!”
Thom side-eyed Justin. “I just don’t know if I trust something like this—”
“Well, of course not!” Justin said, laughing. “I doubt that Madam…uh…” He stepped closer to the sign and pantomimed the act of scrutinizing it. “Madam Mystic Mysts really does have, um—” he used his finger to underline the words as he read along “—deep, spiritual, old-world Gypsy training.” He tapped the second to last word. “Especially since I don’t think that people use that word anymore.” He shrugged. “But who cares? It will be fun, anyway.”
“Well, ‘fun’ is a relative term…”
Justin ignored the trailing comment and caught Thom’s arm. “Come on!”
It was just a normal stall, but “walls” had been made out of thick, brightly coloured fabrics draped across top supports that extended to the ground to block out the daylight. Inside, candles flickered, and incense burned on top of tables laid with a mishmash of items that could have seemed culturally insensitive if they weren’t so unfathomably grouped. Skulls and glass globes rested with both crucifix and iron cross. Doll heads fashioned into weird plastic versions of shrunken heads hung by what was left of their ratty hair alongside thick—possibly real, mostly likely fake—gold and silver bejeweled chains. From the corner of the “room,” a stuffed squirrel perpetually reached up in either celebration or reverence, and above it, an impassive jackalope kept watch from its mounting. In the middle of it all stood a small table draped with purple, gold, and blue velvet, and the table was surrounded by cushions so worn, it seemed kind of gross that Thom and Justin would be expected to sit on them.
“Uh, Justin?” Thom held up Dog’s leash, reminding him of their third companion.
Justin shushed him and mouthed, “We’re fine.”
At the back of the stall, the drapery swished aside, and a young woman joined them. “Gentlemen,” she said, voice exaggerated into an accent that, to Thom, sounded like nothing more than a parody of anything-not-North-American, and swooped her arm towards the table and cushion pile. “Please be seated and tell me what brings you to Madam Magical Mysts today.”
“‘Mystic’ Mysts,” Thom whispered to Justin, repeating himself when Justin looked at him, confused. “The sign said ‘mystic,’ not ‘magical.’”
Justin snorted into his hand while the woman turned her attention to Thom. “Do you seek to know the path to fortune? Fame—”
“Love,” Thom said, cutting her off. The faster they got through with this, the faster they could get back into the fresh air. He nudged a cushion with his toe, sat on it cross-legged, and patted his lap until Dog climbed on. “Dog and I would like to know if you see true love in our future.”
“With one another?” the woman deadpanned.
Justin snort-laughed again, his amusement inspiring Thom’s bravery.
He kissed Dog’s head and was rewarded with a flurry of tongue kisses. “Of course not. We are already madly in love.”
“Uh huh,” the woman said, settling onto a stool she pulled from under the table, “I meant between the two of you.”
Heat rushed into Thom’s cheeks even though that had been exactly what he’d been thinking. “Um…”
“Yes!” Justin plopped down beside him, repeating himself excitedly. “Yes, ma’am, please.”
She cleared her throat and pointed almost distractedly at the sign where her pricing was displayed, then with the skill of a well-trained magician, snatched, palmed, and pocketed the twenty that Justin slid in her direction. She patted the table and closed her eyes. “Okay. Your left hand,” she told Justin, “and your right,” she said to Thom. “On the table, and fingers intertwined, please.”
“No palm reading?” Justin asked, shooting Thom an amused grin.
“No.” She wiggled in her chair as if situating herself and threw back her hair. “I feel great emotion, hmm, how you say? Sparked into the air? Yes, sparked, from now when the two of you touched hands.”
Her accent had thickened and her skill with the English language seemed to have dwindled. Justin lifted one eyebrow and it was all Thom could do not to laugh.
She gasped dramatically and shuddered. “Quiet now,” she said, though neither of them had spoken another word. “I will ask the spirits.” She let out a sound that was part hum, part warble.
Surprised, Justin widened his eyes at Thom, who bit the inside of his lip. Though the two of them were able to hold it together, Dog did not. The sound that came out of Dog’s throat was almost an exact mimic of the medium’s.
Madam Mystic Mysts opened her eyes. “Silence, please.”
Thom nodded quickly, tightening his hold on Dog’s leash. “Dog, no. Shush!”
She closed her eyes and started to hum again, but this time Dog responded with a full-on yodel that had Justin and Thom breaking into laughter.
“If you’re not going to take this serious—”
“I’m sorry,” Thom nodded at Justin, rising. “You’re right. Justin, please, carry on for both of us. I’ll trust you to let me know how it works out.”
He dragged Dog into the sunlight, then knelt to scrub Dog’s ears. “Don’t worry, buddy. I would have done the same thing.”
Dog huffed, clearly a “what a racket” in Thom’s opinion.
They were both at the cherry stand when Justin came out ten minutes later, blinking in the sudden light and blindly trying to find the two of them.
“So, what did she say?”
Justin’s expression brightened. “Well, what do you think she said? Obviously, the spirits told her that our love was meant to be, and we should allow no obstacles to come between us.” He put up a finger for emphasis. “And that I should ignore you anytime you said otherwise.”
Thom narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Is that what she really said?”
“Mm hmm.” Justin drew an X over his heart. “Also that I was starving and you should buy me something to eat because I gave her my last twenty bucks.”
“She’s very insightful,” Thom said dryly.
“Very. Come on. I smell barbecue somewhere.”
Had the afternoon not been going as well as it was, had the hotdogs not tasted as good as they did or the wind not seemed to have the most amazing cooling effect that Thom ever remembered it having before, and maybe even if Dog hadn’t been giving them a rare show of good behaviour, then Thom might have remembered who he was and where he came from. Things were perfect, though, and Thom felt on top of the world and in complete control of himself. It was that misconception that didn’t turn him away from the long shed when Justin headed for it.
The long shed was a place that Thom avoided at all costs. It was literally a very long shed with entrances at each end and was no better off than one might expect such a structure to be. It sat not exactly soundly on a dirt floor, allowing all kinds of groundwater and seepage to get in. More than a few sideboards were rotted or missing entirely as well. The smell of mould and old boxes permeated the entire building. It was lit by string lighting, one bare bulb after the next, which caused dark shadows to rise in the spider-webbed corners and crevices created by stacks of product and mildewing display cases.
It also tended to be crawling with people. It was the hot spot of the market, regardless of the setting. As the only permanent structure, the vendors inside the building were long-termers and, by process of collection and time, they had the coolest, largest, and most diverse assortment of stuff. Like everyone else, Thom had been intrigued once. That time, the one and only time, it had been the lure of ancient canvasses that had the potential to be something as insignificant as somebody’s grandkid’s third attempt at oil painting, or something unbelievably valuable. The temptation had been impossible to ignore, but it had proved to be as dangerous to follow as the song of the Sirens. The jam-packed, way-too-thin aisles had been hard to bear, the smell even worse. When the claustrophobic setting and odour was added to all those people, hovering over tables and tossing around stories, all the while trying to negotiate deals with their voices raised to combat the echo, the place became a nightmare. He’d had to leave the moment he’d walked through the doors.
Today, it was as if that memory had lost all its steam. Justin entered, and he and Dog simply followed.
He still felt like a million bucks when he walked through the door, and that felt even better than it normally did, because it got him thinking that maybe he could kick this anxiety thing once and for all. Perhaps he’d finally tried the right combination of people and places and stimuli and it was all going to be okay. So, when daylight darkened to electric light and that first little flutter of apprehension woke in his chest, he knew he could settle it down if he tried. Because it was going to be fine this time. He simply took a breath and held onto Dog’s leash a bit tighter. When the smell of old wood and old stuff and old earth trampled by hundreds of thousands of feet hit, Thom switched to breathing through his mouth.
Then he was body-checked by a man who stepped away from a table without looking and ended up hitting his hip with a sharp crack against a table edge on the other side of the aisle. He righted himself with a couple of awkward steps while Dog huffed in agitation, not making eye contact when the man growled at Thom as if it had been Thom’s fault in the first place. From somewhere close, someone dropped what sounded like an entire box of silverware. Thom felt the crash in his back teeth.
“Hey, man,” the vendor at the table Thom had jump-bumped into said, in a voice way, way too close to Thom’s face, “no dogs in the long shed.”
“Wh—” Thom didn’t want to, but he found the eyes of the man behind the voice. “I…what?”
The man pointed, his forehead creased like an accordion. “There’s a sign at each entrance, man. You don’t read? Or do you just not care?”
Thom stepped, once back, then once forward. “I care, I didn’t—”
Dog yelped, and when Thom looked down, Dog was standing with one paw held up. “What happened, buddy?”
“Uh, that’s probably why you’re not supposed to have dogs in here, dude,” said a young man who may or may not have been the person responsible for everything that had happened a moment earlier.
Thom nodded. He swallowed. “Right.” The word came out like a squeak. He was losing it. He could feel anxiety’s fist wrapping around his heart. He had to stop it from squeezing. “Justin, I’m going to…”
He looked down the aisle, then behind him. Where the fuck was Justin? He shook his head. It didn’t matter. He’d go out the way they’d come in and Justin could find him later. Once again, Thom tightened up on Dog’s leash, the poor animal now being held too close to him to walk easily, and they headed towards the entrance.
At that moment, a crowd—perhaps a family, perhaps a bunch of teenagers, it was impossible to tell with the sunlight blaring behind them—stepped into the building. The only options were to walk through the crowd or turn and go out the other way. Thom spun on his heel, pulling Dog along. The other entrance was at the opposite end of the lengthy building, but if he hurried and his path stayed clear, they’d be okay. They would. They definitely would. Even though his breath was already hitching and even though his heart was fluttering in anticipation of that damn squeeze, he would be all right if he just made it to the door…
One of the two back doors suddenly slammed shut.
The reality of the matter was that a single door shutting would make no difference to Thom’s ability to exit the building. Both entrances had extra-wide, double doors that were big enough for all kinds of equipment and animals to enter and exit. Thom’s heart, chest, and lungs were not rational at the moment, though. He shrieked like a kid in a haunted house. Pain lanced through his chest, his free hand clutched his pectoral, and his vision swam.
Move! Go! Get out! his mind screamed at him. He took a step forward, stumbled, and when he went down on one knee, all hell broke loose.
“Oh, my God, I think he’s having a heart attack!”
“Somebody call nine-one-one!”
“Get him on the ground!”
Hands came from everywhere, trying to push him down or roll him over. Somebody tried to get Dog’s leash out of his fist. Dog whined a low, dangerous sound.
“No,” Thom said, although he was pretty sure he was the only person who heard. “Don’t touch me. Leave me be.”
“I got this!”
A set of hands grabbed his shirt, hard enough to catch skin. With his free hand, Thom grabbed back, gripping one of the fists. He wheezed a plea, looked up, and it was Justin. The look on Justin’s face was enough to spike every emotion he was already feeling to its pinnacle, drowning an amygdala that was already pulsing on high alert with a cocktail of embarrassment, shame, and self-pity.
“No,” Thom whispered. “Leave me alone.”
“Come on, I got you,” Justin whispered. Then, to the crowd, “Let us by. He’ll be okay once he gets outside.” He frowned at someone talking into their phone. “Don’t call anyone. It’s not a heart attack. He doesn’t need medical attention.” He looked back at Thom. “I hope. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
Thom shook his head, gasping.
The “walk” was more of a “drag,” and Justin didn’t stop once they were outside. He continued to urge Thom along, mumbling to Dog and directing them until they rested against the temporary fencing that served as the perimeter for the market. Then he let go, and when Thom sank to the ground, he did, too.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Thom didn’t say anything, he just shook his head.
“Was it the people? Did somebody touch you?”
Thom shook his head again.
“The smell? The dark? Did you—”
“I don’t know,” Thom snapped. “Damn it, Justin, I don’t know, okay? If I knew what caused every meltdown, I would just not do it. Like I don’t go to parties. Like I don’t talk to strangers. Like everything else I avoid in my life in an effort to stop this kind of thing from happening!” He tucked up his legs, then rested his head on his knees and breathed until his heart stopped pounding. “Leave me alone.”
“It’s okay. You’re fine. Just keep—”
“I’m not fine and it’s not okay!” Thom pushed away, fumbling to make sure he still had Dog’s leash. “I’m never okay! Don’t you get it? This is always the way it is, and this is not fine.”
Justin nodded. He reached, considered, and dropped his hand back into his lap. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Thom hissed. “I’m sorry I even tried to do this. Thank you for coming, I know this was my idea. Dog and I are going to sit here for a while, but I think you should go home.”
“I will.”
But after a moment, Thom sensed the man hadn’t moved. Thom let out a long breath and gathered enough nerve to look over. “But you’re not.”
“No, but I will. I’ll go home when you’re ready to go as well. We’ll go together.” Justin lifted a hand to stop Thom from responding. “I know you’re upset. I know you’re embarrassed. And I also know that nothing I say is going to change that. I can tell you that it doesn’t matter, and that you shouldn’t be, and that I don’t care, but it’s not going to change how you feel. I get it. But I am going to walk home with you and make sure you’re okay. I want to care about you, Thom. I want to care for you. And while I understand that I can’t keep pushing myself on you and I have to let you either decide you can do it or decide that you can’t, that doesn’t change a damn thing about this moment here and now. There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to leave you sitting here by yourself, even if it means you’ll never talk to me again.”
“You’re making this worse!” Thom said, keeping his voice so low, he choked on the words. People were walking past them, no doubt intrigued by what had happened and wanting to see how it ended. Justin waved at a few as if to say everything was under control. Thom wanted to tell him not to bother. These people didn’t care. They weren’t walking past in case Thom needed help. They just wanted to be entertained some more.
“Maybe, I am,” Justin agreed. “I hope I’m not making it worse, but I don’t really know. I’m sorry, Thom. If I am, I mean. I can’t leave you here, though.”
Thom dropped his head against the fence and looked at the sky. Still blue, still bright, still beautiful. That seemed unfair somehow. “Why are you doing this?”
He heard Justin shift, but whether it was a shrug or simply Justin moving to get comfortable, Thom couldn’t tell. It was too hard to look at Justin and see that stupid expression of pity on his face.
“You already know the answer to that. But I’ll say it again if you need to hear it. I’m doing this because I like you, Thom. I liked you the first time I saw you, and as I’ve already said, I’m pretty sure you like me, too.”
“That’s real cool and all, Justin, but it doesn’t change anything.”
“Okay, but here’s the thing.” Justin’s hand gently landed on Thom’s forearm. “I don’t need anything to change. So, you don’t like crowds. Then we don’t go into crowds. At least not together. Done deal. A bad reaction doesn’t mean I’ve given up.”
Thom looked at Justin’s hand. It didn’t feel bad there. But it would. Eventually, somewhere, somehow, it would. Things would fall apart, and Justin would get hurt. Justin’s family would tell him he was wasting his time with somebody so very broken, and that he was too good of a catch to spend his life suffering. Justin’s friends would keep trying to hook him up with people that were were a better match for him. The good times would never be enough to offset the bad times. Thom shook his head. “I’m sorry…”
He lifted his head and found Justin looking directly into his eyes. Had he noticed how dark Justin’s eyes were before? Maybe in the shadows of the backyard and the patio he hadn’t been able to see how much of a contrast they were to his skin, but they truly were so dark they were almost black—two obsidian scrying mirrors. For a minute, Thom was convinced that if he looked long enough, he’d be able to see the future.
Without breaking eye contact, Justin cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was a husky whisper. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to have to kiss you.”
“That would be a mistake,” Thom whispered.
“You think a lot of things are mistakes. I personally think you can never really tell what’s going to be a mistake until you try doing the thing.”
Justin’s smile was more disarming than his eyes. Somewhere in Thom’s consciousness, he knew that the people continued to walk past, and the market continued to exist around them. The sounds had faded into the background, though, and if there were in fact people still watching them, Thom no longer noticed.
“Okay, then,” Justin said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Thom told himself he was opening his mouth to say something. Then he called himself a liar, closed his eyes, and waited for the pressure of Justin’s lips. It was just a light, simple touch, barely more than the ghost of a breath over his mouth. Still, even as light as it was, it made Thom’s breath hitch in his throat. He reached for Justin’s arm and closed his hand over it. He pulled Justin closer, and when their lips met again, the kiss was deeper. As it intensified. Thom knew he was responding just as much as Justin was. He was moving his lips and turning his head so their mouths fit together better. He was stroking Justin’s forearm instead of merely holding on, keeping time with the slide of Justin’s hand along the length of Thom’s thigh.
When he did move away, it was only because the market was no place for his body to be responding the way it was.
“See,” Justin said. “Not so bad an idea.”
“Still a mistake,” Thom murmured. It was hard to make his lips work as the only thing they wanted to do was keep kissing.
“Well, you know what Henry Ford said about mistakes.”
Thom frowned. “Uh, Henry Ford?”
“A mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”
“Oh, really? Well, Stanley Kubrick said it’s a mistake to confuse pity with love.”
Justin grimaced. “First off, I don’t pity you. Secondly, ew. Nice role model.”
“Fair enough,” Thom agreed. “But some of us don’t have every word Henry Ford has ever said memorized. How in the hell do you know that, anyway?”
Justin grinned at Thom’s confusion. “I studied him in economics.”
“Oh! You’re in economics.” For some reason that made him weirdly happy, like they had something in common even if it was only a love of numbers.
Justin shook his head, “Nope. I have a degree in economics. I work as a Loss Prevention Analyst. One thing they never tell you in college is how rare it is to actually end up working in your field—”
“Gentlemen.”
They both jumped. Dog huffed, and Thom was sure it was Dog’s way of calling the security guard in front of them a name that was the doggy version of “Jerk” for interrupting.
“I hear there was an incident.” The security guard put so many inflections in the word “incident” it sounded like three separate words. He pursed his lips, keeping his head up and his gaze beyond the both of them; although with the man wearing dark sunglasses, it was hard to tell his line of sight. It was either an attempt to show them he was respecting their privacy, or a way to veil his disgust at having to look at them. Some folks took a hard stance on having to acknowledge two men sharing an intimate moment, even if it was something as innocent as kissing. “I was asked to check on you.”
The last word came out sounding like there were a lot more vowels in the security guard’s dialect then there were in his or Justin’s.
Justin spoke for the both of them. “He’s okay now. I’m going to get him home.”
“M’kay. Next time, no dogs in the long shed. Dogs stay outside.” He lowered his head and probably his gaze. “That dog been tagged?”
“He goes to the vet on Monday,” Thom said, rising. “He’s new.”
“Un-huh. Like I don’t hear that every time I ask about some mutt with nothing at their throat. You don’t bring untagged dogs into public. How do I know he got his shots if he ain’t got no tags? Next time, he better have a tag on that collar.”
Thom resisted the urge to remind the guy that he was, in fact, just security and not law enforcement. But he’d had enough triggers for the day, and it would probably be quite easy for the man to actually involve someone from law enforcement if he chose to. While Thom could prove he really did have an appointment for Dog, maybe there was some law on the books about having to have your dog tagged before you took it outside. He didn’t know, and a second of smug retribution wasn’t worth the risk of being wrong. Mostly he didn’t want to wait around while any resulting issue resolved itself. He could take a bit of smarmy self-importance if it helped ease the situation.
“Absolutely, sir,” he said, trying to sound suitably humble and relieved. “I’ll take him right home and make absolutely sure of his tag before I bring him out again.” He waited for Justin to stand, then immediately headed for the exit. “Thank you. Have a great day.”
He side-eyed Justin as Justin looked back, frowning, his lips pinched in an angry line. “Don’t say anything,” Thom whispered. “Just let it go.”
“He wrecked our kiss,” Justin said, feigning a pout.
Thom couldn’t help but smile. “Aw, I don’t know about that. I thought it was pretty good.” He started to walk faster so he wouldn’t have to deal with Justin’s reaction. “Let’s get back. I really need a drink.”