Hunks of the Month

Chapter 6

CONNOR HAD been dreading this call ever since he’d left Sterling’s the night before. He hadn’t been sure about Grant at first, but as the evening wore on, he’d warmed up and actually laughed with them. That had been great, but what had been best was the change in Sterling. When he’d first arrived, the tension in the air had been thick enough to cut. Those two had plenty of shit to work out between them—though maybe laughing together would help break down some of the barriers. What Connor found most amazing was how the tiny lines around Sterling’s eyes smoothed out as the evening went on. Connor knew that Sterling probably liked to think of himself as someone who noticed things about other people, but Connor didn’t think he had that same vision about himself. When Sterling relaxed, he became more open, and sometimes the naughty teenager still inside him came peeking out, especially in the way he teased his dad. That had been priceless, especially when Grant had teased right back. But right now, Connor had his own family issues to contend with.

He dialed Aunt Lucille and half hoped she didn’t answer. He kept hoping that they would come up with some idea that would change things and allow them to go forward. “Hi, Connor darling,” Aunt Lucille said brightly when she answered the phone. “What have you got for me?”

Connor hesitated. “I wish I had good news, but we haven’t been able to find anyone willing to do the calendar. Everyone we approach has either turned us down or said they’d think about it. But Sterling and I aren’t encouraged. People we thought would do it have hesitated, and we’re running out of people to ask.” There, he’d said what he needed to say. “I’m afraid this idea isn’t going to work.”

“I see,” Aunt Lucille answered in that way she had that always made Connor feel like an errant child who had disappointed someone important. And the thing was, he’d done just that and he felt like crap about it. “It’s a good idea, but if we can’t get anyone, then we’ll have to try to think of some other way to raise money. I mean, we can try to get together a perennial sale like we’ve done in the past, but we don’t have a place to sell the plants. The venue we had has changed hands, so it isn’t open to us any longer.” She seemed tired and lacking her usual energy, which worried him. Aunt Lucille was getting older, and it pained him that he wasn’t going to have her around forever.

“We’ve both tried and made quite a few calls, but we can’t do the calendar if no one is willing to be a part of it.” Connor hated to give her this kind of news, but he and Sterling couldn’t conjure up willing people out of thin air. “I was thinking that you might want to rethink the kind of fundraiser you wanted to have. There is still time to come up with something else, and no money has been spent.” At least that was the good news. The only expenditure had been his and Sterling’s time to try to find models.

“I understand,” Aunt Lucille said, even more defeated. Connor wanted to say something to help her feel better, but he had no words. “I’m sorry” seemed stupid and unnecessary. “Let me think about what we can try to do.”

“Okay.” He should be relieved. Connor hadn’t wanted to do the calendar in the first place, but he’d let Sterling talk him into it. But now that it seemed like it wasn’t possible, he was disappointed. “I’ll be over next week to see to the roses and help get them tied up.”

She said goodbye, and Connor found himself staring at his phone. He wanted to make it better for her. He knew his great-aunt put a lot of herself into the garden club and her civic projects. It was something she started doing when she retired, and civic pride and service were something she had instilled in him from an early age. Connor remembered going to council meetings with his great-aunt, watching her stand and speak in front of the council against a proposed casino or in favor of an ordinance to strengthen the historic district. She made sure that Connor was part of that and understood how important it was to have a voice and to use it. Aunt Lucille was listened to and respected for many reasons, in part because she always gave back. She worked with the library and the parks department. Through her garden club, she and the ladies paid for hanging baskets downtown, helped send local kids to college, and more that Connor probably wasn’t even aware of, so disappointing her hurt.

He phoned Sterling and left him a message to let him know that he’d spoken to his great-aunt. Sterling was probably with a client. Connor figured he’d try to get some work done. He sat at his computer and pulled up the paper he’d been working on along with his notes and settled in to work.

Sometimes when he was writing, the words and ideas flowed onto the page. That wasn’t the case today. He felt like he and Sterling had failed his great-aunt, and he couldn’t get that failure out of his head. It wasn’t their fault, but in the back of his mind, Connor wondered if they had done enough to try to recruit people.

The work wasn’t happening, so Connor grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone and left the house, locking the door before striding toward downtown, needing some kind of distraction and a chance to clear his head.

CONNOR WANDERED through town. He bought a soda and a cinnamon roll from the bake shop and enjoyed the snack before continuing on. He wasn’t sure how he managed it, but Connor ended up outside Sterling’s home and studio. A woman and her son were just leaving, so Connor took a chance and wandered back toward the studio. He went inside. Sterling was sitting behind his desk, working on the computer.

“What brings you here?” he asked, lifting his gaze with a smile. “What happened?”

“I told Aunt Lucille about our lack of progress.”

Sterling nodded. “I see. My guess is she wasn’t upset, but quiet. That’s the worst, because you keep wondering if you could have done more.” He sighed. “I’ve tried to come up with others to call, but….”

A knock on the door had them both turning.

“I don’t have another appointment already.” Sterling hurried over and opened the door to a pair of huge guys. Connor stood behind him for support. “Can I help you?”

“We heard you were looking for guys to appear in a calendar. They said it would benefit the community.”

“Who told you?”

“Lucille Hillyard called the station. She’s been a big supporter for years, and when she called—” The man speaking extended his hand. “I’m Lee Stockton, and this is my partner, Dirk Krausse. He and I are firemen with the Union Fire Company.”

Connor stepped forward. “And you want to do the calendar?”

Lee slid closer to Dirk. They were powerful men, but when Lee smiled and Dirk grinned back, they looked like happy teenagers in love for the first time.

“The thing is, we weren’t able to get any guys to agree to do it, so we don’t know if there’s going to be a calendar,” Sterling explained. “We have you two, and Connor has agreed to take part, but that’s it so far. It’s been difficult finding guys willing to join in.”

Lee turned to Dirk, who nodded slowly. “I bet Billy and Darryl might want to take part. Darryl is the chef and owner of Café Belgie. We’ve been friends for a while.”

“We asked them, and they said they’d think about it,” Connor explained, allowing himself the first rays of hope. “Do you want to come inside? Sterling can go over what he has in mind.”

“Okay. Then Lee and I can make a few calls. We know some people. Lucille and the garden club ladies have supported every civic organization in town at one point or another. They’re really great ladies, and when Lucille explained that they were having some troubles, we decided we could help.”

Lee nudged Dirk in the ribs. “This one wasn’t so sure. But I explained that there would definitely be compensation for helping out a good cause.” The heat smoldering between them was enough to peel the paint off the walls. Connor was tempted to fan himself. When he turned to Sterling, their gazes locked. It must have been the residual heat, but Connor had never been so happy in his life that kilts were roomy and naturally air conditioned. The temperature in the room must have risen by ten degrees in a matter of seconds. Those two put off enough heat to start fires on their own.

“We appreciate it a great deal.” Sterling handed Dirk and Lee each one of his cards. “If you find anyone who’s interested, then just have them call me.” He smiled. “Is there any particular month that you’d like?”

Lee and Dirk looked at each other and then back at Sterling. “July,” they answered together.

“Okay. We’ll put you down,” Sterling said. “Now we just have to find the guys to fill the rest of the months.”

Connor still wondered how that was going to happen, but they had one couple. That was a step forward, some progress he could report to his great-aunt.

“Connor or I will be in touch regarding the details of the photo sessions once we have enough guys to move forward.”

“Okay. Dirk and I will let you know if we find anyone else.” Lee seemed so confident that Connor actually thought they might have a chance at pulling this off. They shook hands before Lee and Dirk departed.

“How about a beer?” Sterling offered. “I think we need something to commemorate a little success.”

“Sure,” Connor agreed, following Sterling through to the house.

Sterling pulled open the refrigerator and handed Connor an IPA. They clinked bottles and drank. The beer tasted good, nice and hoppy, cold going down and warming his belly as soon as it hit. Or maybe that was Sterling. It was difficult to tell the difference. The house was cool in the air conditioning, but Connor still sweated, and when Sterling set down his beer and stepped closer, Connor stilled.

His heart raced as his imagination ran forward, wondering if Sterling intended to kiss him. Connor had been kissed before, but he had never really had time for a relationship. For years his focus had been on school, getting his degree, and then securing a tenure-track teaching position. At his age, it had been a challenge. He was always younger than everyone else and had more to prove, so he always felt like he needed to be the best at what he did. Connor studied hard, and the few guys who caught his attention… well, they didn’t stay around long once they realized they were too far down on his priority list. Connor tried to remember the last time someone had kissed him, and it must have been a few years earlier. He actually wondered if he’d remember how. What if he was a terrible kisser and after all this buildup in his head, Sterling backed away because he kissed like a dead fish or something?

Sterling was close enough that Connor could feel the heat off his body and smell the citrus of his aftershave along with the earthiness of sweat and the richness of male underneath. The concoction was intoxicating. He knew he should resist Sterling and everything he represented. His life was order and learning; Sterling’s was the exact opposite. He was chaos and impetuousness, everything Connor wasn’t—and with good reason.

Connor blinked as he stopped his mind from taking a trip down that dark alley of his past.

“Connor,” Sterling whispered, softly enough, deeply enough that it might have been a voice used in church.

Connor shivered as Sterling held his gaze, the moment drawing out longer and longer, the tension building. Connor was tempted to lean forward and close the distance between them, driven by curiosity at the taste of his full lips and to know just once what his arms felt like as they closed around him.

“Connor!” There went his name again, flowing past those lips, drawing him closer. “Connor… you’re pouring your beer on my leg.”

Connor lowered his gaze and the bottle tipped farther forward, sending a trail down Sterling’s leg like he had wet himself.

“Oh God, I’m sorry, I….” He backed into the counter, and when he bumped a vase, it tumbled off the counter and smashed on the floor, sending shards of glass, water, and irises spilling out everywhere. Connor stood stock-still, expecting the disaster to grow worse by the second. “Jesus, I’m….” He put his bottle on the counter and stepped away from the mess.

“It’s okay. Just stay where you are.” Sterling picked up the flowers and set them on the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen, then started picking up the larger pieces of green glass. “It’s okay. That vase was something my mother always had around. I used it because she used it, but I always thought it was the ugliest thing.” He looked up, flashed Connor a grin, and then tossed away the bits of glass.

“I feel like such a klutz. I….” Connor swallowed.

Sterling began wiping up the water and beer. “Don’t worry about it. The floor will clean up.” He got a broom to sweep up the remainder of the glass and threw the mess away. Connor stayed out of the way, feeling like the biggest idiot in the history of the world. Sterling turned and pressed a fresh beer into his hand. “I’ll be right back.”

Connor took his absence as a chance to catch his breath. All of that had been some weird, stupid flight of fancy. If he was going to work with Sterling and get through this project in one piece, he needed to get his head out of the clouds and down to earth where it should be. Besides, his romantic past, limited as it was, had more than demonstrated that he wasn’t cut out for someone like Sterling. Connor could see that he had major talent just from the images on the studio walls. Sterling’s art was going to take him places. He was certain a small-town college professor couldn’t compete with all the outside world had to offer. Sterling was exciting, and Connor knew that for the most part he was boring. The few guys he had dated had all told him so in specific detail.

Sterling returned in a pair of tan shorts that hugged his thighs. When he turned to get something out of the refrigerator, Connor couldn’t help staring at his backside, because those pants framed Sterling’s stellar ass in way that was almost a religious experience. Hell, with that right in front of him, Connor was certain there was a god. For a few moments, his mind made a serious detour, and he wondered if there was a Roman god of tight gay male asses. Mercury… it had to be Mercury. All his statues had that perfect bare butt that was a pleasure to gawk at, and he was always getting ready to fly off somewhere.

“I made some guacamole yesterday,” Sterling said as he straightened up and closed the door. “I also have some chips here somewhere.” He rummaged through the pantry and came out with a bag of dark purple tortilla chips. “Here they are.”

“I take it we’re celebrating,” Connor said. “Isn’t it a little early for that? We’ve only got one month covered.”

Sterling shrugged. “You celebrate while you can, because the good stuff can evaporate into the ether just as quickly and mysteriously as it appears.” He grabbed the bag and the bowl, and Connor took the beers out back into the yard. Sterling set everything on the table and brushed off the patio chairs. His phone chimed, and he grinned and showed Connor the message. “It seems we have two months now. The chef and his partner want September—their anniversary month.” He grinned as the phone chimed again. “And here are some others to contact. It seems Lee has been busy.” He messaged back and set the phone on the table. “Finally something is going our way with this project.”

Connor had to agree and messaged his great-aunt. He told her not to get her hopes up but that they had two months committed to besides the one he had been talked into. Connor still needed to find someone to pose with him, but he’d figure it out. Maybe one of the guys from work would be willing to do it. It was community-minded. His great-aunt responded with a bunch of smiley faces. At least she was happy. “How are we going to set this up? I mean, if we get the guys we need? Bring them here for the sessions?”

“Some of them. I’d like to take as many as I can out in the community, like the firemen in front of the station. The chef in his restaurant. It would make for more diversity in backgrounds, because some are going to need to be done in the studio. That way the pictures will be different enough to be interesting.” Connor could almost see Sterling planning his shots in his head.

“But in the studio, you’re going to be able to control a lot more of the process,” Connor pointed out.

Sterling nodded. “Yes, but there’s only so much I can do in the studio, and I can’t recreate some of the landmarks around town. The Union Fire Station is the oldest one in town, from the late nineteenth century, so it will make a great backdrop and identify them as firemen even without their uniforms. I’m pretty sure they won’t be able to use them. It would probably break a number of rules.”

“You’re really excited about this.” He took a seat at the table and dipped into some of the guac. It was really good. “Are there peppers in here?”

“Just a little for some variation. I like the smooth creaminess of the avocado and then the zip of heat to finish at the end. It isn’t too hot, is it?” Sterling took a bite himself. “Sometimes the heat builds up too much.”

“I like it.” Connor took another bite. “Do you really think we can get enough guys?”

Sterling shrugged again. “No idea. But we’re a lot closer now than we were, and Lee did say that he and Dirk knew a lot of people. Sometimes all it takes is for someone in the know to get the word out and things start to happen. You see that in movies all the time, but it’s the same in real life. I haven’t been back here long enough to have that kind of network.”

“I never really had one,” Connor admitted. “I’m not the most social of people.”

“You don’t say,” Sterling quipped and then chuckled. “I never would have guessed that.” His smile grew wider.

“No need to be mean.”

“I wasn’t. Not everyone is outgoing and gregarious. Some people are more comfortable working on papers or teaching others.”

“I get up in front of classes every day when I’m teaching.”

“Yeah, but that’s an environment that you control and set the rules for. The interaction is on your terms and within your schedule. You set office hours, and when you’re in class, you set the agenda and the schedule. You also control the topics of discussion. So it is interaction, but without the unpredictability of other kinds of social settings.” Sterling really seemed to have his number. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I had to learn to be outgoing, or else in the fashion world, I’d be chewed up and spit out within minutes. That happened in the end, but I had a successful career up until that point, and I’d like to think my work was good enough for the designers and that the models liked working with me. I also have to be outgoing in order to help draw the performance I need from the models. Sometimes they are super talented and know exactly what to do. Other times it requires more work to get the shots I need. The top photographers can work with the models they want. I wasn’t at that level yet, so I worked with the models the client had chosen.”

Connor leaned forward. “What happened? I know you had a great career going. I looked you up and saw a number of your images. They were impressive. And then nothing.” He wondered if he had a right to ask. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand.”

Sterling tipped his beer to his lips and drank most of it, then set the bottle on the table beside his chair. “My ex, Alexander, is a high-fashion model. He works all over the world, and the two of us were going to take the modeling and fashion world by storm. We’d been together four years, and our careers rose steadily that entire time. I took some of his most iconic images, including the ones that landed him on the billboard in Times Square. He was forty feet tall and right there for all to see. The plan was to build on that for both of us.” Sterling sat rigidly in the chair, back ramrod straight, his leg bouncing. “The offers came rolling in. Often together, though we both booked separate jobs as well. It was the way of the world. We saw each other all over the globe. If he was working in France, I’d be working in Italy, and we met in the middle in some amazing, exotic locations. It was quite a life. Until it wasn’t anymore.” Sterling sighed.

Connor nodded and held his tongue.

“I’m just going to say this and get it over with. To make a long story short, I found out that Alexander and I had different expectations about how we should behave when we weren’t together. He figured that as long as we were apart, then he could do whatever he wanted with whoever caught his eye. I knew he was bisexual, but we had agreed to be exclusive.” Sterling breathed deeply. “I got the two of us tickets to the Cannes Film Festival because both of us were going to be in France and we could attend together. Weather delayed my flight, and that evening I saw him on TV at the festival with a supermodel on his arm… and they were very chummy. The next day, I arrived, figuring he had only gone with her because I couldn’t be there. But it seemed my tickets had been given to her and she and Alexander were an item. I saw red and confronted Alexander. All of it was caught on film and played all over Europe. Alexander made it seem like I was crazy, and he went after me in a huge way. The fashion world circled around him, and I found myself out in the cold.” Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “It turned out that Alexander had been trying to figure out how to tell me that he wanted out and just used this as an excuse to make sure the cheating rat came out smelling like a rose.” Sterling leaned forward. “I thought he loved me. Lord knows I rearranged my life plenty of times so I could be with him. And here he was the one who cheated, and….” Sterling finished the rest of his beer and set the bottle aside. “I need another one.”

Connor had no idea what to say. He had been quiet because Sterling needed to say his piece, but he wanted to look up this Alexander and give him a piece of his mind.

Sterling trudged away, and while he was gone, Connor took a few seconds on Google to find out who the ex was. It didn’t take long. The guy was stunning, with cut cheekbones and the perfect amount of scruff, piercing eyes, and long hair that fell to his shoulders in glorious waves. But there was something else—under it all, a coldness, like the guy was made a marble and what you saw was all you got. At least that was how it seemed to him. Maybe that was what he wanted to see, but looking at picture after picture, that same aloofness was always there, like his soul was missing… and maybe it was never there at all. Connor closed the app and put his phone back in his pocket as Sterling returned.

“Did you find the video?” Sterling asked as he slumped down in the chair. “I’m sure it isn’t too hard to find. The internet is like an elephant. It never forgets.” He twisted the top off one of his beers and tipped it to his lips.

“No. I wasn’t looking for it.” He sat back in the chair. “I wanted to see what your ex looked like. Those pictures weren’t hard to find. Intense eyes, long, wavy, Fabio-ish blond hair.”

“Yeah. You don’t need to remind me,” Sterling growled. “He didn’t always have the hair. A designer wanted it longer, so he let it grow for six months, and damned if it didn’t come in as incredibly silky as anything. After that, he let it grow longer and he fucking built a career out of that hair.” He finished the beer and reached for another.

Connor put his hand on Sterling’s. “You don’t need that. It’s only going to make you feel awful in the morning, and Alexander is still going to be there in all his vapid glory.”

“Getting catty?” Sterling teased.

“You know what they say. If you can’t say something nice, come sit by me.” He did his best accent to mimic Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias . It wasn’t that good, but Sterling smiled. Connor counted that as a win.

“You were saying something about his vapidity?” Sterling pressed.

Connor pulled out his phone. “He has great eyes, but look. Behind them, there’s nothing there. He’s all pretty face, but kind of plastic.” He curled his upper lip. “It makes me wonder what he was like in bed.”

“Selfish,” they said together, and they both laughed.

“So in the end he was no great loss in the lover department, was he?” Connor asked, grinning at the naughty glint in Sterling’s eyes.

“Are you kidding? Alexander is the kind of guy who likes to take a very passive role. Sometimes I used to wonder if he’d fallen asleep during sex with the way he lay there. I used to think it was me. I really did. Maybe I wasn’t exciting enough for him.” Sterling shrugged. “But I loved him, and sex is only part of a relationship. I kept trying, but I guess in the end he found someone who excited him more.”

Connor snorted. “Not according to this.” He brought up the caption with one of Alexander’s pictures. “It’s from one of those awful celebrity gossip sites.”

“You read those?” Sterling asked, eyes narrowing.

“No, but Google knows everything.” He grinned. “Apparently Alexander got dumped by a leggy blond. Theresa something….”

“That’s the woman he went to Cannes with,” Sterling clarified.

“Then listen to this. ‘Alexander Marquart may look amazing in front of the camera, but between the sheets he’s as exciting as a three-day-old fish, only without the stink.’” Connor grinned as he met Sterling’s gaze. “It seems other people also found the golden-maned boy more of a lazy lion.”

That time Sterling laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. Then he buried his face in his hands. Connor thought about turning away to give Sterling his privacy, but he stood instead, then walked behind him and leaned over the chair. He slid his hands down Sterling’s chest and stayed there, letting Sterling know he wasn’t alone.

“I really loved him, and I thought that we’d have great careers and that he and I would be together, the ultimate power couple.”

Connor tightened his hold. “Maybe that was the problem.” Sterling stilled, and Connor wished he’d kept his big mouth shut.

“Excuse me?” Sterling snapped.

“Oh, relax.” He wasn’t going to raise his hackles. “I know you cared for Alexander, and he turned out to be a real schmuck. But listen to yourself. Maybe you were concentrating on your careers and the whole power couple image rather than just being Alexander and Sterling, two guys in love with each other. You could both have had amazing careers, but your lives needed to have more than that. What did you like to do together? What was it that was only for the two of you?”

Sterling stilled and then slowly turned in the chair. “Nothing. He was a model, and I was a photographer. We traveled in the same worlds and had a lot in common.”

“Yeah. So why not be best friends and see each other when you saw each other? Skype, talk on the phone… stuff like that. Tell each other catty stories about the other models and find someone with a love of art, like yours. Or….” He scanned the yard. “Someone who loves to garden or spend time on the ocean or make things. It takes more than shared careers to make a lasting relationship.”