THE RELIEF of those words—“I’m twenty-three”—was so immense John almost moaned, but he bit it off at the last second (because how strange would that have been?).
Twenty-three? Really?
“I’m so sorry,” the waitress said and tossed her head so that her other eye was visible—for about three seconds. “But I’ll need to see ID.”
“Sure,” Blue said and then fumbled around before standing up and grimacing as he struggled to get his hand in his back pocket.
That tight. His jeans were that tight.
Then Blue pulled his hand out with a flourish, revealed several cards, and fanned them out before him. “Male Box VIP card,” he said, fingering them, “library card—”
Library card? Why did that surprise John? He smiled.
“—Disney World card—”
Blue had been to Disney World?
“—bus pass, and… ID!”
Blue held it out—the kind distributed by the department of motor vehicles—and showed it to One Eye.
She applied that eye to good use and then handed it back. “What can I get you both?”
Blue sat down, and John felt a little less like some kind of pervert. But geez, Blue was still his son’s age. What would Alistair think if he saw him sitting here with Blue? What would Vivian think?
They’re not here came an inner voice. Alistair hasn’t called you in months. Viv is in Cancún. Or Cabo San Lucas. Or reveling in the fleshpots of Bangkok. And John couldn’t help but wonder if it was the devil on his left shoulder or the angel on his right that whispered to him.
Whichever, he needed something a little strong too. He nodded at the waitress. “Gin martini, very clean, very cold, two olives. Blue?”
“Well… uh… I… I’ve never had a martini. Not one that isn’t all fruity or chocolaty. Or faggy.” He giggled, and for some reason John felt it in his balls, even though Blue had said faggy right in front of their waitress.
“You can have whatever you want.”
“Maybe I should try what you’re having?”
“They’re not for everyone,” he warned. “Not at all fruity or chocolaty.”
“Or faggy?” Blue asked, and dammit, John couldn’t help but blush.
John shrugged, not sure in this case what the answer to the question was.
“How about a screwdriver?” Blue said. “Heavy on the screw.”
He winked at John, who gulped at the open flirtatiousness.
“Double tall?” One Eye asked.
Blue nodded. “But I don’t want no steen-keen’ extra orange juice,” he said in a horrible Mexican accent, then laughed, and damned if that didn’t make John’s balls tingle again.
“So what do you eat here?” Blue asked.
John looked off to his right. “The grill,” he said and pointed. “You get a bowl and fill it with the vegetables and meat that you want and then give it to the guy behind the counter, and he cooks it up for you in just a couple of minutes.”
“Oh!” Blue’s eyes went wide. “That sounds cool!”
John found himself grinning. “It is pretty cool,” he said. Viv had hated it, but Alistair hadn’t. He’d brought his son here for his birthday for years.
You bring this guy who could be your son to the place your son likes to eat? What the hell is that about?
He felt his face heat up and hoped Blue couldn’t tell in the low lighting.
He hadn’t brought Blue here for that reason, had he? No. Of course not.
But oh, the nice memories of being here with Alistair. He couldn’t help but feel a little sigh in his heart. He and Alistair hadn’t done much “hanging out” the last few years his son was still living in Kansas City. When they did, it was for things like his birthday. They were special nights, even if they felt guarded. Like there was some wall between them. And in a way there was. There had always been. But John had never had any idea how to climb over it. How to reach Alistair. Be close to him. They were just so damned different. The thoughts made John feel sad, and he clenched his jaw and cast them away. No feeling sad. Take care of this young man. The one actually in front of you. That’s all you can do.
Their drinks arrived, and Blue all but gulped half his down, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He ducked his head. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just been a fuck of a day.”
“It’s okay,” John said and sipped what turned out to be a perfect martini. He needed it, and it had an almost immediate calming effect. He gazed at Blue, so sweet and so alive and going through so damned much.
John was struck by how human he felt at that moment. He’d felt… numb for so long. Long before Vivian had left. As if he’d been sort of sleepwalking through life. Turning old long before his time. He was only forty-five, after all. And fit. He worked out. Why had he been feeling that way?
But now? Sitting across the table from this young man—and he knew now that Blue was a man, not a boy, despite the way he looked—he was feeling… alive somehow, even though the circumstances were rather sad.
“We had a dog when I was a kid,” John said. “A beagle. I loved that dog so much.” A smile crept to his mouth. Where was this coming from? He didn’t talk a lot about himself. He didn’t feel as if anyone cared. But Blue seemed to be interested. Did he dare go on?
John threw caution to the wind. “Then one day Buddy just vanished, and I… I was devastated.” An ancient pain welled up in him. “I think my old man got rid of him. He hated that dog. I’ve hoped my whole life Dad didn’t hurt him.” Then John had to clench his jaw. What the hell had made him tell Blue that?
Blue’s eyes got huge, and he reached across the table and laid a hand on one of John’s. John tried not to flinch. He hoped that Blue didn’t notice. Their hands were right out there where anyone could see. And he’d already told the waitress that they weren’t father and son, so there wasn’t even that excuse. Anyone who saw… they’d think he and Blue were boyfriends. Or something worse because Blue was so much younger. More beautiful. So sexy. Would they think that he was some pathetic old man buying companionship?
Alistair’s face swam into his mind’s eye, and he couldn’t help but wonder what his son was doing. Painting? Sculpting? Something with clay? Was he working? Was he living in a goddamned abandoned house?
What good did it do to wonder? And once more John let himself slip into a kind of numbness regarding his son. His son who didn’t seem to want anything to do with him.
Because I’m boring? A banker instead of someone living life on the edge? Is that what Alistair thinks?
“Oh God,” said Blue, bringing John back. “I hope your dad didn’t do anything to him. What kind of person would hurt a dog?”
What kind of a person indeed? But John didn’t dwell on that for even a minute. He was too busy staring at Blue’s hand on his own. He almost trembled. It was so warm. And small as it was, it was a man’s hand. And it was right there where anyone could see. And he was getting hard again. And it was time to get up and get food!
He noticed Blue eyeing his martini. “Did you want to try it?” John asked, surprising himself again. It wasn’t something he did. The first time Vivian had suggested they share a large drink at the movies, about three thousand years ago, he’d looked at her in near shock. “What about the germs?” he’d asked.
“We’ve had our tongues in each other’s mouths,” she’d answered, rolling her eyes. “I think the germs thing is taken care of.”
He’d had to give her that. Yet sharing drinks and straws and such had continued to bother him.
Until now, apparently.
“Sure,” Blue said cautiously, and John pushed it across the table, careful of its fullness. Blue leaned in, touched his (lovely) lips to the rim of the glass, and sipped carefully, and John couldn’t help but wonder what those lips would feel like on his.
John bit the insides of his cheeks and wondered again what the fuck was going on with him. He wasn’t going to kiss Blue! He wasn’t. Not a twenty-three-year-old. He wasn’t going to kiss a man if he was forty-three (or forty-five) or a hundred and three.
Blue looked up from the rim of the martini glass and grimaced. “Yuck.” Then he laughed and covered his face and said he was sorry, but “It’s gross!”
John chuckled. “It’s not for everyone. But I really love the piney taste. It’s made from juniper berries.”
“Well, I think they need to make it from any other kind of berries,” Blue exclaimed. “Blueberries or strawberries”—he held up his glass—“or orange berries.” He smirked, and even smirking that mouth was so beautiful that John knew right then and there if Blue were to try to kiss him, he wouldn’t fight it for a second. And oh, a memory rushed in of that kiss on his cheek in his driveway the day they’d first met.
His cock throbbed, and once more he wished for those fabled jeans.
Think of something else. You don’t want to stand up and have the front of your slacks pointing the way!
Squirrel guts. Maggoty squirrel guts.
“You gonna show me how to do this?” Blue asked.
John looked at him blankly for a second. What? Do what? For one instant all he could think of was kissing, and why would Blue need John to show him how to kiss? Then Blue cocked a thumb in the direction of the buffet of raw foods. John rolled mental eyes, laughed, hoped his cock wasn’t showing, and said, “Sure. Come on.”
He stood up and glanced down at himself as surreptitiously as he could, and yes, he was showing, but just a bit. As long as Blue didn’t look, he thought in another minute or so all would be well.
Blue glanced down.
His thick brows shot up.
Then he looked up, and John thought he would die of embarrassment. But then the devil on his left shoulder said, Fuck it, John. Go eat.
So John pretended he didn’t have a clue why Blue was looking at him that way, feigned indifference as much as he could, took a plunge he’d rarely taken (plunges were to be avoided whenever possible), and motioned for Blue to follow him. On the way across the room, he realized once again that he was wearing a suit and wished deeply he’d stopped at the house and changed. Blue must think he was incredibly lame. And God, he didn’t want that. Didn’t want the beautiful young man to think of him the way Vivian did. But what could he do? He was boring, wasn’t he?
Fuck it.
So he took Blue to the buffet tables with the plastic sneeze guards, showed him the huge variety of vegetables and meats and sauces, and then couldn’t help but smile at the pure delight the young man took in creating his meal. Blue made him feel twenty years younger. Who knew anyone could get so excited about picking out veggies and which meat he wanted?
“I can’t decide!” exclaimed Blue, pointing at the cut-up pieces of chicken and pork and beef, fish, crab, shrimp, and more.
John shrugged. “Pick several. I just wouldn’t put seafood with any of the other meats. The seafood gets done much faster than everything else and then gets rubbery while the rest finishes cooking.”
Blue looked at him as if he were some wise guru, nodded, and then chose some beef, chicken, and pork.
And then watched with a delighted smile as the cook spilled his selections on the huge round solid griddle and begin to move it this way and that with long wooden sticks.
“We can get some appetizers over here while they do that,” John offered, but Blue shook his head.
“I want to watch!”
So watch they did, and when the cook handed over their food, Blue thanked the man several times, and John thought that if the big counter hadn’t separated them, Blue would have hugged him.
And somehow, that was really wonderful.
BLUE ATE his food quickly, voraciously even, speaking very little, which for him was a miracle. He couldn’t help it. He’d learned that he should eat when he had the chance, and sometimes that meant fast. You never knew when someone might try to take your food from you.
At John’s urging, he had gotten some appetizers from a counter against the wall—crab rangoon and egg rolls. But also some Mongolian ones—buuz, a type of dumpling, and khuushuur, a meat-filled pastry.
All of it was delicious. He’d had no idea how hungry he was!
It had been with some shame that Blue had first haunted the alleys behind restaurants, waiting for trash to be dumped. But he’d learned that people often left whole meals uneaten for some stupid reason, and so the employees would just throw it out. Of course, getting food from the trash was tricky. You wanted to make sure you didn’t get something that would make you sick or had already been chewed or was covered in cigarette ashes (although these days, with restaurants not allowing smoking inside, that wasn’t the problem it used to be when he was younger). It was best when he was right there, waiting for the trash to be taken out. It was freshest that way.
Anything could have happened to send the food to the trash. Why, he’d had steaks, virtually untouched baked potatoes, pork chops that were fatty or only a little bit burned, tons of fries, and enough vegetables to feed a host of vegetarians. Didn’t anyone eat their broccoli these days? And sure, asparagus made your pee stink, but it was delish going down and…
John was looking at him.
It wasn’t in a sexy way.
…maybe he should have stopped before licking his bowl.
“I’m sorry. That was weird, wasn’t it?” Was that weird? Licking his bowl? “You think I’m weird, don’t you?” Because in the end everyone did. Why else didn’t anyone stick around long enough to share some cellophane-sealed blueberry muffins? And now here was this really nice (sexy) man thinking he was a weirdo! Damn.
John shrugged. “What do I know from weird? That’s what my wife says.”
Married. Of course he was. Married. John didn’t care if he was weird. That explained it all. Aaarrgghhh! “Where is your wife?” Blue asked, trying not to clench his teeth. “Won’t she be wondering where you are?”
“She left me.” John’s eyes went dark.
Blue froze. Oh shit.
“I think she’s in Cancún,” John said quietly. “No one will tell me for sure.”
“Gosh,” Blue said, wide-eyed. He put the bowl down. “I’m so sorry.”
John pursed his lips. “I….” He shook his head. “Nothing,” he whispered.
“No,” Blue said. “What? Tell me.”
And then, just when Blue thought that maybe John wasn’t going to answer: “She says I’m boring. She says even my name is boring. She said she wanted to do something interesting with her life while she was still young enough to do it.”
Blue swallowed hard. Gosh, gosh, and gosh.
What did he say?
“I’m sorry, John.”
The big man sighed. He looked so defeated. When he’d been so strong all afternoon.
“I wish I knew what to say.”
“It’s okay,” John said. He frowned.
He didn’t look okay. “You don’t look okay,” Blue said.
John shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Blue sighed and reached out and touched John’s hand again, and this time John didn’t flinch. But still…. Blue had misjudged everything. He had no idea what was going on. It looked like John was the real thing. A man just being nice to him. On a really horrible day. And here he was embarrassing the man by touching him in public. He already knew John was self-conscious about the two of them—what people thought. Blue started to pull away, but John used his thumb to hold Blue’s hand right where it was.
“Blue? I was happy. I was never bored. I liked my life. I love my job.”
“What do ya do, John?”
“I’m a banker.”
A banker?
John sighed. “See? You think the same thing, don’t you? That I’m boring.”
Boring? How was being a banker boring? It sounded so… sophisticated. “Oh, John. I can’t balance a checkbook. You’re a banker? I mean, wow!”
John stopped. He put down a meat pastry that he was about to take a bite of.
“I mean,” Blue continued, “I hope I can get famous one day for my candles, and you’re a banker? Really? Like… like what do you do?”
John blinked.
“I’m the president of Heartland United Bank.”
“The president?” Blue exclaimed.
John visibly swallowed. “Yes.”
“Wow.”
“I mean… it’s just—”
“Just shit, man!” Blue threw his free hand up in the air. “A fripping bank president? I mean, who gets to be a bank president? You must be really smart!”
John looked down at his nearly finished martini. And golly! Was he blushing? It was hard to tell by candlelight. Then he looked back up. He had such sexy eyes, and he was smiling, even if it was only a little bit.
“I’m pretty proud of it, Blue.”
“You should be!” And he meant it. Blue would never be a bank teller, let alone a president. Imagine!
Now John’s smile grew, even if it was only a little bit more. “Thank you, Blue. It wasn’t easy.”
Blue nodded.
“Now I feel guilty, though.”
Guilty? Why would John feel guilty? He didn’t want that!
“This was supposed to be about you,” John said—and now he looked like a scolded puppy.
Blue smiled. Or tried to.
“I was trying to help,” John added.
Blue sighed, and by gosh if he didn’t feel a little of today’s weight lift from his shoulders. “You are helping, John. You are.”
“I’m glad. God, Blue. You’re so beau—”
Now Blue could see John was definitely blushing. So “beau”? Now what did that mean? What had he been about to say?
“What do you do, Blue?” John asked, and Blue knew a conversation changer when he heard one.
“Do?”
“For a living?”
Blue rolled his eyes. “Man, what don’t I do?” And he told him about walking dogs and dressing up as the Statue of Liberty (and how cold it could be on Thirty-Ninth Street in March—heh, just blocks from here!) and filling doughnuts or selling Christmas trees and… and John didn’t look bored at all. Tears threatened again. John was listening to him as if picking apples were the most interesting job in the world.
“I can’t imagine being brave enough to hitchhike west and take a job in an orchard,” John said with a faraway look in his eyes. “Just to up and do something like that. To see the country. To meet people who have no agendas, no divorces to settle or college educations to set up for their kids. Not that I don’t like doing that. I do. I like helping set up those accounts and knowing that one day some kid is going to get a college education. But to say fuck it and hit the road?” He shook his head. “You’re pretty brave, Blue. A little guy like you? What if someone had tried to take advantage of you? Hurt you?”
And they had. The latest—last summer—being one of the worst ever. But for the most part? “For the most part people are nice,” he said. “I had a backpack stolen once, but then I found it a mile down the road, and almost everything that had been in it lying on the ground along the way. They didn’t seem to want what I thought was valuable. They didn’t even want my copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.”
John’s eyes went wide. “I love that book!” He was actually grinning. “Or should I say I grok that book!”
That made Blue grin all the wider. John knew what grok meant!
“I ran an ice cream bicycle once,” Blue said with a laugh.
“A what?” John leaned in, eyes flashing in curiosity.
Blue nodded enthusiastically. “It was more like an adult tricycle, actually. But backward, with the two wheels in front. That was where this big metal box rested—with dry ice and the ice cream inside. And I wheeled it around, and they were lying when they said it was easy to go uphill. At first it was a bitch to sell so much as a Popsicle, but then I figured out where to go. There was an old folk’s place I’d take it to and sell a shitload. And I would go to places where kids were doing stuff like baseball practice. I never really made any money out of it—my percentage was stupid small. But it sure gave me good legs!” He jumped up and flexed his calf (it was easy to see because his jeans were so tight) and then blushed when he realized he was doing this right in the middle of a restaurant. But—he bit the insides of his cheeks to prevent a smile of Cheshirean proportions—John had looked. Really looked.
Blue didn’t know if John was just being nice or if he liked Blue’s legs. John was confusing the living shit out of him. He couldn’t read the man at all. So many mixed signals. But then he had just nearly lost his beloved Chewie, and that could fuck you up good!
“You’re pretty damned muscular for such a little guy,” John said. He looked away, once more studying his martini.
For some reason that pleased Blue immensely. The praise, not the staring at the now nearly empty glass. But even that was cute, wasn’t it? How nice that a big older daddy-type guy could be so cute.
“What you said about my car?” John said.
Car? Car? Blue’s mind went into overdrive. What had he said about John’s car? Something good? Something rude? God, he hoped it wasn’t rude. What with having no filter, he could never be sure.
“About it sounding like a Star Wars droid name? Damn. That was so perfect. So funny!”
Blue grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Cars used to have such cool names. I mean, who doesn’t want to drive a Javelin or a Roadmaster or a Dodge Magnum—” Blue waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “—or a Rampage or a Viper or a—”
“An Eagle Talon!” John interjected.
Yes! Someone who was actually joining the conversation instead of just staring at Blue like he had a learning disability. “Or a Hudson Hornet,” Blue added. “Or a—”
“Or an Interceptor!” John added.
Yes! Or “A Diablo!”
“A Defender,” John said, “Although in actuality that is nothing more than a jeep.”
Blue burst into giggles, and oh, he needed it. Wait! Should he be laughing like this when Chewie could have died? “A Marauder,” John cried. “Or a Raider or a Cutlass….”
Wow. Someone who knew things. Who helped fill the empty silences. Blue wanted to cry again, but it was almost—almost—good tears. “And we can’t forget the Toronado,” Blue said. “And then there’s the Prowler. Or the Phantom. Or the Cobra!”
“And we skipped the Firebird,” John said, breaking in. “How did we do that? Geez, Blue. You know a lot of cars.”
The giddy feeling was beyond belief. Blue couldn’t remember this happening with anyone since he was a little kid. Then he took the plunge, daring John to think he was really weird. Blue threw his hands in the air. “As cool as R2-D2 and C-3PO are, robot names just don’t work for a car. I have no wild desire to drive an AZ-3 or an EV-9D9 or a 2-1B or a R4-P17, and certainly not a Mouse Droid!”
John laughed in that wonderful rumbling way of his. “God yes! I will never forget when Chewbacca growled at the Mouse Droid, and it ran off like its pants were on fire.”
Blue realized something then. Something quite wonderful. He closed his mouth slowly. Talking about cars and Star Wars droids, he had almost gone into one of his nonstop surges of blahblahblahblah. But then John had joined and brought Blue to a contented stop.
“You know, John,” Blue said happily, “I don’t think you’re boring at all.”
“I….” John swallowed hard. Blue saw his Adam’s apple bob. “Really?”
“Really,” Blue said.
John sighed. “You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to get to know you.” Oops! That had popped right out. No filter. Oh well. Blue smiled.
“Me?” John’s dark eyes sparked. “Why?”
“Because you’re nice. You let a silly little faggot cry on your shoulder. You’re buying me dinner. You’re….” John was buying him dinner, wasn’t he? “I mean, you are, right?”
John gave a little laugh. “Yes, Blue. And if you’re hungry, and I’m starting to think you’re very hungry—”
“Shit, John. You don’t know, girlfriend! All I had to eat yesterday was some leftover lasagna. Well, I could have taken almost anything in her fridge, but Mom told me I could have the lasagna, and I don’t want to take advantage of her. She trusts me, you know? I don’t know why she trusts me, but she does. And once you fudge up your trust with someone, it’s done. Gone. Finito. So I didn’t take anything else. Well, except a slim little Fudgsicle. Which was better than the day a week ago when all I had was five Chicken McNuggets. I could have had ten, but I shared them with Chewie. Did you know it costs almost six bucks to get chicken nuggets at McDonald’s these days? Now if I’d had a way to get to Wendy’s….”
“You know you’re allowed to have seconds, right?” John asked, and he cocked a thumb toward the food bar and grill.
“I what?” Damn! He’d done it again. Gone into one of his blathers. But somehow John—sweet John—had deactivated it. Without making Blue feel bad or stupid. And—wait. Blue’s eyes went wide. “Seconds?”
John smiled, and Blue’s heart skipped a beat. Oh, that smile.
“And thirds and fourths if you want it.”
“Really? Do you think we could sneak something for Chewie?”
John’s right eyebrow shot up and then lowered very slowly. He shrugged. “I’ve got pockets in the suit jacket. I’ve never known what they were for. Why not?”
Blue grinned and felt his heart skip another beat. Damn, John was such a nice guy.
Then a thought bubbled up from some dark depth of Blue’s mind.
Sex.
Oh shit.
Was all this just John wanting sex? Another case of a married man—or separated or whatever he was—who liked sex with boys? And while Blue wasn’t a boy anymore, he looked like one, and that had gotten him many a meal.
Was that what this was? So confusing. He hated not being able to read John.
One minute Blue had been on top of the world, but now?
He looked around the room. The drinks. Seconds on food. Sneaking something for Chewie?
Of course that was what it was.
Sex. It was always sex, wasn’t it?
He sighed.
“Okay,” he said. And he went to get his fill.