Chapter 2
The sun was bright and the only clouds in the blue sky were the fluffy kind. It was a perfect beach day. Joey was kicking sand, stomping on waves as they made their way along the beach to Grandpa's house to meet Matt.
"Matt is gonna help us clean up," Joey said like he was still trying to wrap his head around Matt being Gwen's little brother but not being little and what exactly was going to be happening at the beach house.
Bailey barely had a handle on that himself, but he knew it was going to be a lot of work, and sad too.
The beach house was just ahead and Bailey could feel his chest tightening at the sight of it, memories coming back. Grandpa sitting on the porch that faced the ocean, often fiddling with something he cheerfully claimed he was going to fix up but which was probably beyond fixing.
Grandpa always called the place his beach shack, but it wasn't really.
It looked perfectly nice from the outside, a one story house, painted white with shutters on the windows.
The inside was the problem. Bailey was about to warn Joey that there would be a lot of stuff in there and not to touch anything without asking, but he forgot to speak for a minute as he caught sight of who was waiting for them.
Bailey saw an absolutely stunning young guy standing on the porch. He was tall, blond and beautiful with a perfect, muscular body. That couldn't be Matt, but he was waving to them and he was wearing a t-shirt that said AAAron's Moving, with three A's. That must have been him.
Jumping over the porch railing, Matt bounded over to meet them halfway. After moving furniture he had that much energy? Bailey was in his late twenties, and this guy was making him feel old. He was undoubtedly fit.
"Hi, I'm Matt Hanninger," he said and he shook Bailey's hand very energetically. He shook Joey's hand too though less vigorously.
"You want to introduce us to Matt?" Bailey asked Joey.
Joey was up for it. "OK. I know how. This is my daddy, and I'm Joey." Then he added, "Your shirt has a lot of A's. I know the letter A."
"Hey, you're smart," Matt told him with a grin then he turned that grin on Bailey too.
"I'm Bailey. Thank you for making time to help us out,," he said, but otherwise Matt left him speechless. He just wanted to stand there and stare at him.
He was blindingly gorgeous up close, and his eyes were so blue. Matt asked, "Do we go in now?"
That reminded Bailey that maybe he should stop staring, and they should get inside and get started.
Joey disagreed. "We should play on the beach. We only got to walk."
Matt said, "I wouldn't mind taking a dip. I got all sweaty."
Yeah, Bailey had noticed that his t-shirt was kind of sticking to him a little bit. He made a decision and told Joey, "OK, you can play, I'll dip my feet in the waves, and Matt can go for a swim."
It turned out that Matt had swim trunks on under his khakis.
He whipped off his t-shirt and pants blindingly fast. Bailey gaped at him, but Matt saved him from embarrassing himself with the obvious ogling by running for the water.
Running through the waves, he sent water splashing all around him in a beautiful sight. Then he dived in and swam off.
"Is he too far away?" Joey asked worriedly.
"He's OK. See what a good swimmer he is," Bailey told him. Neither the father or the son could take their eyes off him as he kept swimming.
Joey combined watching Matt with jumping on the waves, running in place for maximum splatter and noise. Then Matt swam back and got out and that was another stunning sight, all wet, muscles glistening with droplets of water.
After the swimming, the splashing and the ogling was done, they all headed back to the house. Matt was wet and dripping on the porch and both Matt and Joey had wet, sand covered feet. Noticing Bailey frowning at the idea of tracking sand inside the house, Matt pointed out the hose.
"Should we see if it works?"
"Good idea," Bailey said and went to get it. It was tangled and Bailey got it even more tangled. Matt chuckled and came over to help him while Joey stomped on the porch to shake off the sand. "That's how a dinosaur does it," Matt said to him and Joey growled.
Matt was still wet from his swim and having him close wearing so little made Bailey almost dizzy with desire. He didn't even notice that Matt had the hose untangled and now he was bending over to turn on the water. Soon they had their feet all cleaned up.
Matt was still wet though. Going inside, he ducked into the bathroom to dry off and put on his clothes.
"You wait on the porch, I'll be right back," Bailey said to Joey.
Going inside the house slowly, Bailey sighed at all the mountains of useless stuff his grandfather had collected. He had put extra shelves in the living room but there were still boxes of stuff stacked against the walls.
It was jarring to be in Grandpa's place with him gone. Then Bailey saw a photo of him and his grandfather right there on that beach and he got choked up. He couldn't let his emotions get the better of him now. There was work to be done.
Bailey got some towels for him and Joey so they could dry off their feet. He saw Matt was dry and dressed now but still amazing-looking.
Joey was cautiously coming through the door. Seeing how Joey was tiptoeing inside, Matt told him, "It's not scary."
"Daddy said it was," Joey protested.
"I said scary messy, not scary scary," Bailey said.
"I guess your granddad was a bonafide packrat," Matt said as he saw the living room.
"What's that?" Joey wanted to know.
"That's someone who collects too many things they don't need," Bailey told him and pointed at the tower of old magazines then warned Joey, "Make sure not to touch anything." He could just picture that tower and lots of other things toppling over.
"Are there comics?" Joey asked eagerly.
"I don't know what there is, but don't touch anything without asking," Bailey told him again.
"Does that go for me too?" Matt asked.
Bailey could have sworn Matt looked him up and down as he said that, but he wasn't asking for permission to touch Bailey.
Matt was gesturing at the piles of stuff.
Deciding he must have imagined the suggestive look, Bailey told him, "Oh, no.
You can dive in. Most of it goes in the trash or to be donated, just keep an eye out for anything that looks personal or important.
Now let's open some windows and let the sea breeze in. It's stuffy in here."
It was lucky that Grandpa liked to collect cardboard boxes too so they had plenty. Bailey started by uncollapsing them, then labeling them for donation. Matt was already filling a trash bag with takeout containers Grandpa had meticulously washed and saved up.
"I can take these to the recycling center," Matt said. "The magazines too."
"Oh, that's great. Thank you so much. I'll pay you extra for that," Bailey said and Matt smiled. "Did you know my grandfather?"
"I'd seen him around, but I didn't really know him," Matt said.
Bailey nodded. "Grandpa wasn't really a sociable guy, especially not after my grandmother died. He was nice though."
Bailey packed up some more stuff then he looked around for Joey. He didn't like having the kid out of his sight.
"He's still reading that book you found for him," Matt said before Bailey even asked.
"Just tell me he's not in my grandfather's bedroom," Bailey said alarmed.
"No. He's sitting at the dining table," Matt said.
Bailey had found a book about the animals of the Outback, but he was worried about other reading material that he knew was around the place. He told Matt, "Grandpa has some het porn mags under his bed. I don't want Joey stumbling over them." But then he couldn't help wondering. "You, ummm...?"
Matt didn't make him put that into actual words. "I wouldn't be into that, the het part, I mean," he said. "But I'll go grab them before Joey finds them."
Bailey was sure his face was red. Why didn't he just grab the porn mags himself instead of having this uncomfortable conversation with Matt about them?
As for whether Matt would be into them, instead of bringing it up with him, he could have just waited for a chance to ask Gwen if Matt was gay.
Or maybe he just shouldn't have worried about it since Matt was here to do a job and nothing more.