Glass Tidings

by Amy Jo Cousins

  “But you wear a costume.”

  “Yeah.” Eddie nodded. “It’s required. And the travelers like it.”

  “Travelers?”

  “The turkeys. Guests. Visitors. The people who pay to come to the faire.”

  Gray’s lips twitched. “So you think pretty highly of them, huh?”

  Flinging himself back into the corner of the couch, Eddie heaved a sigh before shoving his toes under Gray’s thigh. The move didn’t even feel flirtatious anymore. It was just where Eddie’s feet belonged. Gray had probably been imagining the flirtatious thing anyway. “They’re fine. But it’s like any other customer-service job. By the end of the day, you’re damn happy to see them go. Plus, it’s, like, hotter than the devil’s balls most days and no AC, so everyone’s on the edge of homicide from noon until the sun goes down.”

  “Wow. Sounds pretty awful actually.” So much for the image he’d had in his head of lighthearted fun.

  Eddie grimaced. “Aw, man, don’t mind me. I’m not a performer. People stress me the fuck out. Most of the actors love it.”

  “But even if you’re not an actor, you have to wear a costume, right?”

  “I told you, yeah. What are you, like, some kind of Elizabethan-era horndog?”

  Maybe I am.

  “Isn’t it hot wearing all that . . . I don’t know, velvet cloak and ruffled collar stuff?” He had no idea what people wore at Renaissance faires actually.

  “Nah. My stuff’s pretty basic,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “Just a leather vest and some breeches. I do have a pretty kickass pair of boots though. They go, like, over my knees. Like a pirate.” Eddie’s hands measured his leg up to midthigh, demonstrating.

  Gray’s tongue did its level best to strangle him. After a moment, he cleared his throat enough to croak out a follow-up question. Of sorts. “Leather vest? And boots?”

  The yellow firelight flickered on the edge of Eddie’s face as he preened, pushing up his sleeves and flexing his arms. “Yeah. I look pretty good for a skinny-ass dude.”

  I bet you do.

  His arms and chest would shine with sweat under the leather vest, Gray imagined. Maybe Eddie tied his hair back with a leather thong to keep it out of the flame, but pieces would work their way loose and stick to his cheeks, his neck, damp with sweat. The long muscles of his forearms would bunch and flex as he . . . did something Gray couldn’t imagine, but that definitely involved muscles bunching and flexing.

  He licked his lips and wished for the taste of salt and musk on his tongue.

  Desperate to distract himself, he scrambled for a semi-intelligent question that wouldn’t reveal that most of his attention was locked like an X-wing fighter’s targeting system onto the picture of Eddie in a vest and boots.

  Maybe only a vest and boots . . .

  “So do you talk with an accent when you’re working?” Gray had never been to a Renaissance faire, but he was pretty sure the whole point was for everyone to be in costume and pretend they were living in the past, fake accents and all.

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I had to take, like, a class in Elizabethan English before my first job to get the sounds right. And then they made me go back and take a cursing class because I called this guy who spilled his beer on me a fuck monkey.”

  Gray’s mouth twitched. “Not exactly a sixteenth-century expression.”

  “Of course you know when it was without having to look it up.” Eddie shook his head, dark hair swinging in his face. “And no, it’s not.”

  “But there’s a whole class you can take on how to curse?”

  “Yeah. That was pretty damn satisfying too. Once you know the words, you can mix ’em up in different combos and totally tell people off to their faces, and they don’t even know it.”

  Eddie’s eyes glinted at the memory of doing just that, Gray guessed.

  “Give me an example.”

  After a moment of protest, Eddie stood up from the couch and struck a pose, his hands fisted on his hips. He cleared his throat before spilling ripe, round vowels and rolling consonants from his lips.

  “Forsooth! Thou art a roynish, ripe-reeling ruffian! May thy pockets be eternally empty and thy cup always dry.”

  The last few words were drowned out by Gray’s laughter, which kicked in as soon as Eddie opened his mouth and his accent rolled out.

  “That’s awesome. What does it mean?”

  “Um, I basically called him a mangy drunk and wished he’d be poor and sober for all eternity,” Eddie said, grinning.

  Gray’s cheeks ached with smiling. “Awesome,” he repeated.

  Dropping his pose, Eddie sank onto the floor near Gray’s feet, leaning back against the couch.

  Gray told himself that wasn’t a deliberate move to get closer to him. Sometimes people just sat down wherever without any kind of strategizing. Jesus.

  Crossing his arms over his knees and resting his cheek on them, Eddie turned his face toward Gray. “It doesn’t sound as weird when I’m dressed right.”

  “You could . . .” Gray let his voice trail away. It was stupid, this desire he had to see Eddie dressed in his costume. Embarrassing.

  “I could what?” A lifted eyebrow.

  Shaking his head, Gray sprang off the couch and snatched up the cast-iron poker hanging next to the hearth. He hooked the tip under the top log and shifted it slightly, probably doing more harm than good to the flames. “Never mind.”

  This newly discovered kink he had for Renaissance costumes was embarrassing enough. If Eddie actually ran upstairs and put on his boots and pants and vest—Jesus, Gray wanted to see the leather vest—his dick was going to go from medium interested to fuck yes.

  And no way was someone as sharp-eyed and intuitive as Eddie going to miss that one.

  Hosts do not make guests parade around in fancy dress just so the hosts can perv on them. Not cool.

  Gray pictured it. Eddie being all awkward in the way he was when he slipped and said something in his stage voice in Gray’s shop, blushing. The way Eddie would stand there in his costume, hesitating and then looking at Gray to see what he thought, halfway expecting scorn because Eddie was always braced to be treated like shit. He’d settle down when he caught the approval that would be in Gray’s face, smiling then, and maybe holding his arms out, like Ta da! The moment would be sweet. Fun. Then Eddie’s eyes would drop to the visible hard-on in Gray’s pants. His eyes would narrow. Speculation would flash in them, and then vanish, but every moment after that, Gray would wonder . . .

  The tail end of that thought was even more uncomfortable. Gray enjoyed Eddie’s company. Liked having him around the house, even as silent as he was sometimes, but when it came right down to it, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he trusted Eddie.

  Oh, he trusted Eddie not to murder him in his bed, or run off with his grandmom’s silver. But Gray had seen Eddie convince too many people, including Gray, that something he wanted was actually their idea. Gray already spent half his hours coming up with ideas for things Eddie would like. Ways to make him happy. Make him maybe want to stick around for a little while longer.

  Eddie already had enough power over Gray.

  If sex entered the mix . . .

  Gray wasn’t sure he trusted himself to remember his own name if he got to fuck Eddie. And he was damn sure Eddie with his mouth on Gray’s dick could make him do anything Eddie wanted, anything at all. Gray would think it was his own idea and thank Eddie for the privilege.

  Better not risk it.

  Gray was dumb, and easily led around by his dick, as Brady had proven. But he wasn’t dumb enough to believe his own bullshit.

  Eddie wasn’t going to stay.

  Fuck. I’m not even sure I want him to. How can I want a guy I don’t trust?

  “Bet you could sell a tarantula to an arachnophobe in those boots.” He wasn’t sure which was stronger, the admiration or the awareness of how easy he’d be to manipulate right now. How easy he was.

  “If you sell s
omeone on something they don’t want, you’re an asshole.” Eddie’s voice was knife-sharp. “I don’t do that.”

  Gray’s internal monologue screeched to a halt. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I don’t sell stuff. I . . . give ’em permission to get something they want, but they weren’t gonna let themselves get because the rent’s due or the kids need new basketball shoes or whatever.” Face red, Eddie hugged his knees tighter, as if he wanted to protect his soft parts. The razor-edge of his voice gentled. “Yes, I know it’s a stupid . . . something, distinction, to make. But I don’t sell people stuff they don’t want. I wouldn’t.”

  “And you don’t—” Gray tried to think of a way to say it that wasn’t going to reignite Eddie’s short fuse “—worry that maybe they really can’t afford it? That maybe they shouldn’t be buying whatever it is you’re giving them permission to buy?”

  “They’re fucking grown-ups, aren’t they? Not my job to balance their checkbooks for them.” Eddie let go of his knees long enough to wave his hands dismissively at the world’s population of shoppers. “Look, the thing is, they’re going to buy something. If it’s not from me, it’ll be from someone else. Because sometimes the only thing that can take the sting off a totally shit day is buying yourself a little something. Retail therapy, they call that.”

  “I’m familiar with the concept,” Gray muttered, keeping his gaze on Eddie. It is not my fault the bookstore opened up on my side of town. And keeps late hours. And has a stellar sci-fi section.

  Sometimes Gray thought the existence of that bookstore was the only thing keeping him in Clear Lake.

  Loneliness was manageable as long as there was a bookstore within walking distance.

  “But how do you know that you’re giving them permission and not selling them something?” He was getting used to this strange way of perceiving his relationship with his customers. Gray had been a shopkeeper his entire life. Selling was what he did, even if his personal reserve meant he focused more on visual presentation and his retail stock choices than he did the hard-core sales pitch. But the idea of giving permission . . .

  Yes, that was very appealing.

  “I dunno. I just do. I’ve always been able to tell what people want, I guess.”

  Which was humiliating on the face of it, given what Gray had been thinking about while picturing Eddie in his Renaissance costume.

  Gray let the silence build between them while he tried to figure out how to ask a thing that had been itching at the back of his mind since Eddie had sold those half-dozen dog ornaments. He didn’t even know if Eddie would remember that moment.

  “You told Mrs. Wasserman—the woman who bought the golden retriever and the rest for her nephew—that she’d be . . . adding a little more love to the world.”

  Holy shit. This is the dumbest fucking conversation you’ve ever had in your entire life. “Adding a little more love to the world”? Why don’t you just buy him a fucking Hallmark card with bunnies on it while you’re at it?

  He had to ask though. “Do you really think someone can do that by buying stuff?”

  And if that’s what you want people to do, why wasn’t it okay for me to pay for those safety glasses? But it’s okay that I bought you that book? What’s the difference?

  “It’s not the buying, though, is it?” Eddie flushed pink. “It’s just doing something nice for someone, without any expectations, I guess. I mean, I need to eat, so I pay attention to how people can do something nice by buying stuff, but it doesn’t have to be that. It’s just . . . taking care, you know? That’s sort of like love, right? That’s nice.”

  The fire flared as the logs shifted and settled. Gray’s throat was tight.

  “Yeah.” He cleared it. “Yes. That’s nice.”

  He didn’t know what made him more uncomfortable: The idea that they could be talking about the little things Eddie did to take care of him, or that they could be talking about the things he did for Eddie. Or the idea that maybe Eddie hadn’t let him pay for the safety glasses because he’d thought that came with some kind of expectation on Gray’s part, but now the book was okay, because Eddie trusted him enough to know it didn’t?

  “That’s sort of like love, right?”

  Gray was totally fucked.

  Maybe he did trust Eddie after all. Trust him, and wish he were sticking around for longer than the next three weeks of holiday chaos at the shop.

  And exactly how big a sucker did that make him, thinking another guy would want to stay and put up with small-town life just because Gray wanted him to?

  Before he could think better of it, Gray said, “Wish I were open year-round so I could offer you a full-time gig.”

  Eddie’s eyebrows winged up. He shook his head. “I’m not a year-round kind of guy.”

  The words stung even more than Gray had thought they would. Because he was a masochist, he asked, “Why not?”

  Gray had never heard laughter sound less fun.

  “A few weeks is about as long as it takes to get tired of me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Trust me. You’ll be happy to see the backside of me by the time I go.”

  Gray shook his head. Squashed all the sappy shit about caretaking and putting fucking love into the world. Ugh. “You work hard. Take turns cooking. Don’t dog-ear the pages of my books. Pretty much ideal roommate material.”

  “Great,” Eddie said, and Gray wondered why that sounded sarcastic.

  Whatever he’d said wrong, it was enough to send Eddie upstairs a few minutes later, after some fake yawns and a bullshit claim of sleepiness. Gray already knew Eddie well enough to know he was more likely to stay up until the wee hours and sleep in than go to bed early.

  Gray was the one who stayed up late that night, staring into the fire and reminding himself that all he’d wanted was to enjoy the sounds of someone else inhabiting this big, empty house with him.

  All he’d wanted at first.

  Snuggling on the couch with Gray, reading old-school science fiction again after finishing the kickass Arabella, became the highlight of Eddie’s day. He never got used to the taste of Scotch, although he liked the smell of it on Gray’s breath when he leaned in close because Eddie wanted to show him a passage in whatever book he was reading.

  There were plenty of outrageous passages to read—Gray had hidden under the blanket, shouting “Stop! Please!” when Eddie reminded him about the cannibalistic gang of black Communists in one book—but Eddie’s biggest frustration was the lack of hot dude sex in any of these books. He knew there was a ton of gay erotica out there. He had a shitload of it on his phone, scoping the ninety-nine cent sales like a hawk. But 1970s science fiction suffered from a serious lack of man-banging.

  Which sucked, because what Eddie wanted more than anything right now was an excuse to make Gray read a long and detailed description of sucking dick over Eddie’s shoulder, when he thought he was getting another paragraph full of raging racism or sexism.

  That would be awesome.

  All of Gray’s books were totally gay-sex-less though. Talk about postapocalyptic.

  Eddie sat up straight one night, almost kicking Gray in the crotch. After spending several nights reading with his feet planted firmly on the floor, Gray had relented and started lounging on the couch again. It took a couple more days before he stopped hugging his knees to his chest, but Gray had finally relaxed and now, when they both read, their legs were all tangled under the one blanket.

  Neither of them had ever made a move to retrieve one of the other blankets.

  Eddie was pretty sure he was in love, at least a little.

  Even if he had just figured out . . .

  “You totally think you’re Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  That’s right. Gray hadn’t read Eddie’s favorite post-alien invasion book. Didn’t matter. The metaphor would hold.

  “You’re holed up here in your mountain cave, slowly starving to death, because
you’re pretty sure there’s only monsters outside your valley. Or radiation poisoning. I can’t remember which.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You. What’s your story?” All of Eddie’s frustrations bubbled up and out of his mouth. “You live in the middle of nowhere and, I mean, it’s a cute town, but it’s gotta be murder getting laid out here. I checked on Grindr, and it’s like a ghost town around here.”

  “You’re using Grindr? Here?” Gray’s voice hit a high pitch of scandalized disbelief.

  Eddie snorted. “As if. With my luck, the only other gay dude in town is gonna be another local cop, and I’d just as soon never see any of them again. Or give them a reason to come looking for me.”

  “Hey, Christine’s one of the good guys.” Gray’s response seemed rote, until he blinked and dropped his shoulders before shaking his head. “She’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but she’s a good cop.”

  “I still don’t want to blow her. Him. You know what I mean.” He was pushing it, he knew.

  Not a flicker of interest on Gray’s face, but every muscle in the man’s thigh under Eddie’s foot tensed.

  After another moment, Gray turned back to his book, saying, “You ought to check out Samuel Delany.”

  “Who?” Eddie was feeling all kinds of grouchy at Gray not taking his very obvious bait.

  “Delany. Samuel,” Gray said as he turned another page. “Try Dhalgren. Or Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Better than Grindr in this town.”

  “You have gay, old-school sci-fi?” Eddie asked in disbelief. Where had these magical books been hiding out?

  Gray frowned. Stumbled. “Ahhh. Not . . . anymore. A . . . friend never gave my copies back. But I’m sure they can order it at the bookstore.”

  Well, now . . . that was just intriguing. And since Gray had paid him for another week’s work at the shop while Eddie waited antsily for his overdue glass order to arrive, he could blow a few bucks on an ebook. No way was he waiting to read that.

  After almost two weeks of manning the counter at the shop, Eddie felt the rhythm of Gray’s days in his bones.