CHAPTER TWO
SEAN
There was nothing I enjoyed more than weight-lifting while a blizzard raged outside. As fat snowflakes whipped and whirled behind the window, I was working up a healthy sweat with my new favorite gym-bro.
“Alright, are you ready?” I asked as I stood over the bench with my hands on the barbell.
Jere, Danny’s now-boyfriend, tossed me a look that asked, are you kidding?
He blew out a big breath, took a deep one, and lifted the bar from its cradle.
When I was sure he had it, I let go and watched with admiration as he pumped three-hundred pounds, his muscles bulging and veins popping.
Several other gym-goers stopped to watch, likely considering passing him their phone numbers.
He was a good looking guy in a harsh kind of way, tall, and body-builder strong that put me and most of the muscle-heads here to shame.
After five full pumps, I helped him slide the barbel into its cradle. Looking down on him, I cocked a brow. “I think you just like showing off.”
He sat up on the bench and wiped his brow with a towel. “That’s fair. Not for you, though.”
I offered him a knowing smirk. Before he’d moved to Chicago over the summer to help take care of Danny after some assholes had gay-bashed him, I’d only known Jere through Danny who had talked about his childhood best friend endlessly.
I couldn’t help being a little jealous, but the two were soulmates and I was glad he’d found his forever person.
It had happened rather unexpectedly, seeing as everyone believed him to be straight.
But things happened the way they were supposed to.
“Ten more pounds?” I asked.
Jere glanced at the metal discs piled on the floor for a moment. “I can't stay long. Promised Danny I’d be home early tonight.”
“Just as well. Tonight is my monthly get together with some friends. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to go or not, but you leaving early makes the decision for me.
” I kept it to myself that I’d purposely scheduled Jere’s day off to coincide with mine, so I had someone to hang out with.
My closest friend, Gabriel, wasn’t much of a weight-lifter.
His jaw ticked, and he did a once over on me.
Though we’d only been friends and gym-buddies for a few months, I’d discovered he wasn’t like most guys.
He was prone to speaking bluntly and sometimes his honesty came out wrong and only made sense to him.
It took me a little effort to understand what he was trying to say.
But I enjoyed hanging out with him and I knew he was organizing the words in his head before he spoke.
“I think…me and Danny had our first fight,” he said with a frown. “You know, like a couple’s fight?”
I laid my towel around my neck and bit my lip, knowing he had more to say, but needed the time. “You think?”
“He said I wasn’t a taco,” he said.
“I’m not sure if being compared to a taco is an insult or a compliment.” I sat next to him on the bench and slapped his shoulder. “Give me the context. What were you two arguing about?”
“He knocked over a drink and wouldn’t let me clean it up.
He insisted he be the one to do it,” Jere said, whipping his own towel over his shoulder.
“He doesn’t believe me when I say I like helping him.
His exact words were: You’re not a taco, you can’t please everyone.
” He laid the cloth over his head as if he needed a shield from the vulnerability he was showing me.
“Sometimes people with traumatic brain injuries have emotional outbursts, but him being upset with me is hard.”
I took a moment to turn his words over in my mind. “He wants his independence back. I’ve only known him for a few years, but he can be prideful. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a career and be on the verge of getting everything you’ve ever wanted, only to have it taken away by some cucks.”
“I know that,” Jere said in a rush of breath. “I just want to fix everything.”
I considered letting it go, but ultimately said, “But you can’t.”
He nodded in understanding. “Doesn’t stop me from trying.”
“What happened after the argument?”
“He apologized and…the rest is none of your business.”
I barked in laughter, drawing several gazes and bumped him with my elbow. “You see? It ended well. You can’t fix everything, Jere. Like he said, you’re not a taco. All you can do is be there for him. Let him complain and vent.”
He pursed his lips. “Like, being a punching bag?”
“Exactly! Be his punching bag, but in a good way, of course.”
His gray eyes narrowed on me, and he tipped his chin up. “I like that. I will be his punching bag.”
“And I’m happy I can be your and Danny’s therapist,” I teased.
I saw his mind working, the wheels and springs moving. “As long as it’s pro-bono.”
We shared a laugh, perhaps the first true laugh where what I’d said, and what he’d said had been understood. In the beginning, it had taken a little tact to get our points across because as Danny had explained, Jere was Jere, and he doesn’t think like the rest of us.
We cleaned our gear for the next patrons and took a shower.
As we washed, he told me about the special gift he was having custom made for Danny: A fancy, handmade cane carved with mulberries.
From the way he talked about baking mulberry pie with Danny’s mom when they were kids, it was obvious it was something special between them, something I wasn’t privy to.
A little stab of jealousy slipped between my ribs.
I’d had a crush on Danny, and I wasn't sure why I hadn’t asked him out after knowing him for years.
There was also the frustration and guilt of not being there when he’d been bashed.
But Danny was happy now, with Jere, and in turn, that made me happy.
Jere peaced out and I lingered in the locker room, looking for an excuse not to attend my monthly circle of friends meeting we’d dubbed the single mingle. It was almost seven and with the night off from my gig at the Adonis, I didn’t feel like sitting home.
I dressed and made my way toward a snazzy little bar on the north end of Boystown.
With the worsening weather, only a few of my friends had shown up and we shared drinks and stories, the warmth of friendly laughter beating the cold winter’s night.
I wasn’t sure how it had snuck up on me, but sometime between my third shot of Grey Goose and taking a long look at the men that had been in my life for eight years now, I realized I was lonely.
I had no one and nothing of importance beside my job.
It was almost eleven by the time I stepped out of the pub. The snowstorm had blown on through, dumping four inches that was mostly slush and salt on the pavement.
Gabriel, the group’s health-nut, and my closest friend besides Danny, slapped me on my back. “Are you sure you want to walk in this? Seems a bit far. I’m sober. Let me give you a lift home.”
“Yeah, actually. The cold air is good for clearing my mind. I like taking long walks on chilly nights.”
“You put that in your dating profile?” he teased, buttoning his wool coat that probably cost more that I made in a month.
I huffed. “Don’t tell me you still have one.”
“Nah. More trouble than they're worth, really. But we got to meet each other, so there is that,” he said and I got the impression he wasn’t being truthful about no longer having a dating profile.
Neither was I and I supposed we were both aging men hanging onto the hope we might find that one special person to spend the rest of our lives with.
“Alright, I’m going to head home. Talk to you later. And remember, stop slouching.”
“That’s become a fetish for you, my friend,” I said.
“What? Obsessing over people’s backs?” he shot back with a grin. “I don’t see you complaining when I fix that troublesome Iliocostalis Lumborum that acts up once a year.”
“Talk dirty to me, doctor,” I said, a bit tipsy. “The way you talk about human anatomy gets me hot.”
“Alright, you lush.” He laughed, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “Let me know that you made it home, okay?”
We pulled each other into a hug, and I clapped his back. We’d tried doing the dating thing once or twice, but learned quickly we were better friends than lovers. I was thankful to have him in my life, however.
I started walking south, watching my boots crunching through snow and salt. It was a hell of a shock accepting that I was lonely. I almost didn’t want to go home, because my little apartment would make me feel even more lonely.
I was twenty-four when I made a promise to myself: No more anonymous sex.
I wanted something real and deep. Fast forward thirteen years and what did I have to show for it?
The big four-oh coming up probably had something to do with the sudden mid-life crisis coming on.
I’d never obsessed over my age the way Gabriel did but I was starting to understand why he was prone to it, seeing as he was two years my senior.
As I neared my apartment above the Adonis, I turned down the alley, savoring the workout my caves were getting from treading through unshoveled snow.
I was looking forward to a peaceful night of lounging on my couch and watching Golden Girls reruns.
And if I got bored, I could always go downstairs and ensure my bouncers were doing their jobs.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to spend my days off at the club, something the bosses Glen and Patty heckled me about.
We know you practically live here, but you don’t actually need to be here twenty-four-seven, Gingersnap.
Working in a gay club was a double-edged sword.
On one hand, I had access to a rotating buffet of choice meat if I was hungry enough.
A man like me–relatively decent looking that was the cut-out of a gay bear–didn't have to go very far to find a little company. On the other hand, watching everyone banging in the bathroom when they weren’t supposed to, and smiling like they were the happiest guys in the world, deepened that loneliness.
Spending every second in the club also gave me a better chance of seeing him. My little brat who no matter how many times I’d tossed out for being under twenty-one, somehow managed to slip past security with numerous fake IDs, and an ever-changing appearance.
First, he’d come in with pink-tipped hair, colorful eye shadow over guy-liner and a pink t-shirt cut off at the shoulders and midriff. The sass he’d given me had been annoying but expected.
The second time I’d caught him, he’d sported an emo, over the face hair-do and a black-long sleeve slashed up everywhere.
Same pouty lips and cocky words and eyes that swirled with wicked thoughts.
I’d seen him around the neighborhood too, being in places he shouldn’t.
It had become a game for me to get him thrown out of bars while he no doubt enjoyed the verbal thrashing he delivered me.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him since Danny’s fund-raiser back in October and I was itching for one of our encounters.
I decided to actually take a day off and rounded the corner toward the Adonis’s back entrance that would lead me up to my apartment.
A wind blew in, making me shiver and I quickened my pace.
The alley hadn’t been plowed or salted yet, so it was easy to take a misstep and I nearly tripped over something next to a garbage can.
It moved and made a raspy, miserable sound. Under the tangle of snow-covered clothes and a torn backpack was an actual person.
“Hey buddy, are you okay?” I asked, dusting snow off the guy.
An occasional homeless person wandered the allies, but normally they sought adequate shelter in this weather.
I pushed his hood from his face and stilled.
My brat glanced at me with dull, unfocused eyes, his skin pale, his lips dry and cracked. “Brat?”
He moved his lips, but nothing came out except a rush of ragged breath and then he started coughing up a lung.
“Why are you out here in this weather?” I chided. “Are you nuts?”
He made a miserable sound and keeled over onto his side.
Crouching down, I righted him. He looked like week-old shit and the raspy sounds coming from his chest worried me.
The temperature was going to drop tonight, and the meteorologists were predicting it wouldn’t reach much over three-degrees tomorrow.
I had no time to examine the circumstances that had brought him here.
“Alright,” I said and attempted to take his backpack. He wrestled it from me in a burst of strength, his fingers digging into the cloth. “You can’t stay here.”
When he clutched it to his chest and shook his head, I grabbed into his shoulders and pulled him up by his jacket. His knees crumpled and I held onto him to keep him from falling. He started coughing again, the wet, deep-lung sounds worrisome.
“New plan,” I said and shifted my gym bag, so it was in front of my body.
I lifted him over my shoulder. He hung where he was as if he were no more than a rag.
I started walking, mindful of where I was stepping.
“I expect some ass-kissing for carrying my gym-bag and your heavy butt two blocks in this snow. Not many men are capable of that, amirite.”
When he didn’t say anything, I quickened my pace, needing to get him someplace warm as soon as possible.