by Caldon Mull
“I don’t think it’s you, buddy.” I sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with you, or what you do. I think she would have done it anyway. She just doesn’t want to be here, is all. No matter who it was she was with.”
I got up off the couch and hugged him behind. He leant into the hug and I could feel his hot salty tears trickle down my fore-arms from his bowed head.
Dean looked uncomfortable, and more than a little worried. I sent a reassuring glance at him and he relaxed. Michel sobbed for a few more minutes, quietly and I held him.
“Dean, guy, could you get some more coffee?” I asked quietly when Michel’s body stopped heaving.
“Sorry, Andy, you must think me such a pussy.” Michel sniffed while Dean rattled the percolator in the kitchen.
“Nah, Buddy.” I kissed the top of his head. “Not at all. I’m sorry you’re hurting, and that’s about all there is too it. We’re friends right? Buddies?” I nudged him in the ribs. “Hey? We’re here for each other, no matter what. Remember?” Michel grinned and kissed my fore-arm.
“Thanks, Andy.” He muttered into the crook of my elbow.
I looked up and Dean was standing with a fresh pot of joe in one hand, and another bottle of Jameson’s in the other. “Nuthin’ that these two boys can’t fix…” He grinned, self-conscious.
“I’ll get a blanket and some more movies, Michel kick off your shoes and crash here. That’s an order.”
Later, after “Ladyhawk” and the first “Batman” I sat up between Michel and Dean. Dean was dozing, but Michel looked wrung out. He could never drink much, and after a third of a bottle of Irish he was dead to the world. Dean and I carried him to the spare bed room and carefully stripped him and put him to bed. I folded his clothes on the dresser chair and switched out the light.
“Hey.” I whispered to Dean. “Sorry about that. You must have felt really uncomfortable. I’m glad you stuck with it.” I kissed him gently.
“Yeah.” Dean murmured “Me, too. You’re a good friend, Andy. None of my friends would have helped out like that.”
“Oh?” I shrugged. “Surely someone you know? Mark, maybe? Bobby?”
“Meat? Nah. Just you.” Dean rubbed my neck. “So, tell me… you and he, like… real close?”
“Yeah. I guess. He would’ve done the same for me, you know. When my ex and I broke up, he helped out in his own way. I guess it’s just pay-back.”
“Like, you and me… close?” Dean’s fingers were soothing away the knots that had built up from lying in front of the TV. It felt good.
“Yeah, awhile ago.”
“Cool.” Dean’s lips smiled against my skin.
“Why you ask?” I sat on the side of my bed, Dean knelt in the middle of it, still rubbing gently. “
“Cause it looks like I met the two people in this stupid burg who would be there for someone, tonight.” Dean shrugged, his hands moved lower on my back.
“You still OK about spending the night? Michel ain’t the jealous type and he won’t say anything to no-one.”
“Bonus.” Dean’s hands caressed my ass. “Tonight just gets better and better.” His tongue ran down my spine, heading for my ass. “I gotta another emergency I want you to look at…”
I woke in the early hours of the morning. Dean was stretched out, deep in sleep. A warm, musky- smelling bundle of darkness in the room. Naked, I walked down the hall to check on Michel. He wasn’t in his room. His clothes were still there, so I followed the smell of coffee to the back porch. He was sitting, watching the rain wash over the Woods with a fresh pot next to him, naked as a jay-bird. He looked rocky.
“Hey.” He looked up as I sat down next to him. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, my friend.” I smiled at him and poured myself a cup. I sipped as the trees swayed in the rain and breathed in the grey light. I chuckled.
“What?” he turned to look at me.
“Here we are, Saturday morning. Two naked guys sitting drinking coffee, on the top of a hill on the edge of a forest.”
“Kinda funny, ain’t it?” Michel grinned weakly.
“What would the neighbours say?” I chuckled.
“Aw, fuck ‘em!” Michel said suddenly. “I got what they said I should get, and it was good while it lasted, but I ain’t gonna do this again, Andy.”
“What you mean?” I was surprised at his sudden outburst. Michel was usually so calm.
“Y’know what I mean. This is a small town, Andy. All the girls I’m not interested in, want to settle as quickly as possible and become as boring as soon as they can. I find the one that’s right for me, where I can make a go of it, and everything I got, she ain’t interested in. It’s not fucking fair.” Michel growled.
“Hey, ease up there, stallion.”
“I mean, what the fuck! I got the job at the Mill, live with the folks and the boys, and that’s all that there is to it. In thirty years, only the faces will change… and she wasn’t buying into it. She’s a smart girl. She’s got plans for an education and a career and a place in some city where she can walk to the library and the museum and all the other stuff she was so interested in. So she moves on and here I sit, with my dick in my hand waiting for the next one to come along, so it can all happen again.”
“Hey, buddy. It’s not all like that.”
“Yeah?” It was only the red spots in his cheeks that gave away how angry he was, spoiling to fight.
“Well, maybe it is.” I grimaced. That wasn’t helping out much.
“Thanks.” Michel grinned suddenly. “Look at you, you’re always on the move, you’re never still, and all I seem to do is mark time. I mean, we’re like, thirty in a few years. What can I say about myself then? Worked in the mill for twelve years? Took over the Bakery when my dad wants to retire? Fuck it, Andy!”
“What do you want to do then, Michel.” I shrugged. “It’s never too late to change.”
“Buildings.” Michel said suddenly.
“What?” I blinked, poured another cup for each of us.
“I wanna design buildings.” Michel sighed suddenly. “Architecture.”
“Oookay.” I sipped, wondering how long he had been thinking like this. It had been awhile since we did serious gym together, I seemed to have lost touch with him, a bit.
“I got a nest-egg saved up, I could do correspondence with it. Get a degree.” Michel sighed. “Hey, Buddy, whatever.” I grinned into my cup, this sounded more like the Michel I knew.
“Hey, studs.” Dean joined as in the watery sunrise “Thought I heard voices.”
“Hey, Barker.” Michel looked up. “Cool kojak style you got there.”
“You met before tonight?” I wondered how.
“High School, I work with his twin over at the mill.” Michel grinned.
“You got a twin?” I turned to Dean as he helped himself to a mug.
“Yeah, Cain’s my twin.” Dean grinned. “We chalk and cheese though, even though we look the same. Identical.” Dean shrugged “Except, he’s got more bush, now.”
“Christ. Even folks who never talk to each other got more in common.” I grumbled.
“You should get used to it by now.” Michel sighed.
Dean leaned up against the post and looked at us. “This is kinda funny, y’know?”
“What?” I asked.
“Standing out here, as if nothing is wrong.” Dean sniggered.
“Yeah,” Michel grinned. “Town Fathers would drum us out in a minute.”
“I thought that it was mostly what you got caught doing, rather than what you did in your own place.” I shrugged weakly.
“It’s more than that Andy.” Dean shrugged, goose-pimples where the morning rain caught him. “Sooner or later, someone is going to catch on to the fact that we don’t buy into all of this shit, and then there is going to be hell to pay. I could only ever dream of doing this all a few months ago, and now here I am, sin incarnate. An honest-to-God sodom-ite. Worst is, I feel good about it all, and that is what is
going to be the final straw for me and this burg.”
“Yeah,” Michel grimaced suddenly “I got what Barker is tryin’ to say. Suddenly I get the picture. It ain’t what I want to do. Fact is, I am still trying to catch a-hold of the big picture and keep winding up with a big fist full of shit. The only reason I keep trying is because somehow it’s expected of me. I’m tired of trying to please everyone when all I want to do is to please me.”
“Amen for that, brother.” Dean sighed.
“Hey, sport it’ll all work out.” I poured another cup of coffee. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Yeah, well I gotta go. Don’t want to cramp your style.” Michel smiled.
“You can stay… if it’s all-right with Andy… I don’t mind.” Dean stammered.
Michel grinned suddenly “Nah, not today. Soon though, when I have my shit together.”
“S… sure, I guess.” Dean blushed.
I smiled into my cup. I didn’t have to be a genius to see the Kid had some crush on Michel. “I think he likes you, stud.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Michel smiled sunnily at Dean, who was now furiously blushing. It didn’t help that even with the cold, his cock had started to twitch in Michel’s direction.
“‘Course, it helps that he has been trying to check out my meat since he was thirteen.” Michel grinned into his coffee cup.
“Man, you were one slippery sonuvagun.” Dean smiled sheepishly, composing himself and his disobedient cock. “Cain and I had heard you were …natural… and decided to get a peek.” Dean snorted in disgust. “Andy, I tell you this guy didn’t shower for more’n four minutes flat. In and dressed and out in six, tops. We never did get a good look. Two year of stalking and nuthin’.”
“I reckon you got your eyeful now.” I chuckled. “What you think, almost a full house here?”
“Yeah.” Dean smiled, and purposely locked his eyes on Michel’s groin. “Worth the wait, I reckon.”
“Thanks, kid.” Michel shrugged. “Guess I could use some bolstering about now.” He sighed. “I should’ve just gone with the flow all those years ago, instead of being scared shitless about what I would say to anyone who caught me flashing you guys. Truth is, I reckon I always thought you two were damn fine, and I wasn’t sure I could show you without… y’know… showin’ my appreciation. I was seventeen and you were thirteen, that ain’t good numbers in this neck o’ the woods.”
“All’s well that ends well.” I shrugged. “It might be ten years later, but I guess you can appreciate the sight as much as I do, hey kid.”
“Yeah.” Dean cleared his throat “I…uh… I gotta go to the bathroom.” He ducked towards the door.
“Heh. Well see you later, kid.” Michel swigged his coffee and stood up, goose bumps scattering over his skin as the cold rain brushed him “I’ll be gone when ya get out. Thanks, Andy for everythin’.”
“You welcome, my friend.” I shrugged “I’m here if you need anything else. Promise me?”
“I promise.” Michel rubbed his face, tired “I promise I won’t do nothin’ stupid, also.”
“Good.” I patted his shoulder as we went in to his clothes “Now that you fucked off, I can get laid.”
“Oh? What was all that noise last night, then?” He grinned impishly, pulling on his togs quickly, grabbing his keys.
“I stubbed my toe getting into bed.” I sniffed “It took a while to settle down.”
Chapter Six
I walked into the change rooms, aching everywhere at once. I might be super-fit, but today I used muscles I hadn’t used for some time, and it was hurting. Outside, the guys straggled in out of the pouring rain, mud- splattered and panting. The warm room smelled of old wintergreen and fresh sweat. Our first away game was scheduled for the coming weekend, and the practice showed us to be pretty tight-knit as a team.
It was Saturday night, and I already had a pretty long day. I was tired, but in a good way. Everything I had been doing was all falling into place, and pretty much all that was left was running itself. I had spent all of the last few days at work running on a new program that I had designed and it was working out well. They still needed me, of course, but at least most of the time I could choose my hours more flexibly, and things ran by themselves.
I took the time freed up at work to finally finish unpacking and tossing away all of the boxes that had piled up for nearly a year at my house. I was surprised at how much stuff I could throw away, since they were useless to me, or was stuff I didn’t need but had to keep only because my ex wanted it. I phoned her and told her to come and collect her stuff because I wanted to toss everything out of the garage. She told me there would be a pick-up along I could just pile it into the back, no fuss. True enough, Saturday morning there it was.
I sat on the bench and pulled off my togs. I was stiff all over. I closed my eyes and played back the morning in my head.
One of the flabby accounts department guys pulled up and got out of the van. He was cringing when I walked up to meet him, God only knows what June had been telling him about me, but I supposed it wasn’t good. His name was George and he was one of the under-managers at our firm. Likeable enough guy, I had seen him a couple of times at the Action Bar in own. Usually I saw him when I saw her. I knew him by sight at least and made nice with him.
His eyes boggled when he saw how much stuff she still had, and I made no offer to help him. By all reasoning she had moved in with him, so he was my rival. I didn’t take any of this seriously, but he seemed to have a scorecard and was eager to provide a nest for his lady. He obviously had no idea of how much of a packrat June actually was.
“All yours.” I grinned over my shoulder when the phone rang. He rolled up his sleeves and I went into the Main House to answer the phone. It was Kyle, calling from Los Angeles. They had some serious bushfires this season and had called for volunteers. He had signed up in a flash. I missed him terribly, and he called every day the last week he had been gone.
“Hey sport!” I grinned just hearing his voice “How ya doing?” I sat down and watched accounts guy dragging box after box into his pickup through the window while I chatted to Kyle.
George managed box one and box two in about five minutes, box two and box three took about ten minutes and I hadn’t seen him with box four, yet. I chuckled to myself while Kyle told me all about his day and I told him all about mine and after awhile it was “…love ya, bye…” By the time I hung up the phone, George-the-accounts-guy was already beet-red and I was sure I could hear his heart hammering from over by his pick-up. I relented and strode out to help him move the shit out of my house. I tossed the other dozen Boxes out in about an hour, George bravely trying to keep pace, but eventually I started hinting that he needed to conserve energy because he had to unload it later.
He meekly sat in the driver’s seat, getting his breath back while I packed the boxes square and tied them down. As soon as I patted the side of the truck he had gunned the engine and was driving down the gravel lane towards town. So long, dude.
I felt myself grinning stupidly and opened my eyes to the locker-room and the present. Just the thought of all the spare space at home and all the tossed baggage put me in a good mood, tired as I was.
The change rooms were almost empty, I had been dozing for about fifteen minutes. The defence side had showered and left already, and just my friends were still around. Bobby walked through, towel tucked at his waist, and moved to his locker next to mine. His locker was called ‘Captain’, mine was ‘Wide Receiver’. I wondered if we would get our names on them if we won the League this year.
“Saw you dreaming there, guy. Why you look so happy?” He grinned at me, his curly wet hair fell over his eyes as he rummaged around for some dry clothes.
“Nothing much, just got rid of some shit at my house.” I stood and stripped off, grabbing a towel. “While I’ve been dreaming, you boys getting ready to close up?” I muttered.
“Yeah, but we meeting at the Bar after, so no real rush.
I just gotta turn off the spots, ‘cause they’re expensive, is all.”
“Cool, I’ll be finished in five.” I grabbed my soap and sauntered to the Heads. “Coming with us? It’s Alex and me and Dean so far. Don’t think anyone else, yet.”
“Yeah. Yeah, why not.” I shouted as I stepped under the water. It was luke-warm, I scrubbed quickly.
“Give me a lift? Alex and Dean can set off now, then.” Bobby shouted back.
“Sure, buddy. No problem.”
I had finished and was pulling on my sneakers when Bobby came through again. We switched off everything we were supposed to, locked everything we had keys for and then rode through in companionable silence to the Bar. Outside the Subaru it was pelting with cold rain. Michael Stipes was belting out the ‘Fire’ Chorus on the radio from “The One I love” and Bobby was humming along softly.
“Worried about the trip?” Bobby piped up when the adverts started, turned down the volume.
“Some. I never played much football after, like thirteen years old.” I checked the rear-view mirror. “After my dad died. He wanted me to carry onto College with a sports scholarship. With him gone, I became a science geek. Never could throw a pigskin for years without thinking about how much I missed him.”
“Hey, man. No worries.” Bobby shifted in his seat to face me. “You might not be the fastest short sprint we got, but you got a long distance fast haul about the best I’ve seen and you’re got really safe hands. Chuck was bitchin’ how you ploughed through the four of them from that pass at practice last week without so much as stopping.” Bobby laughed “He said he got bruises like he’d run into a truck. ‘Sides, you fitter than most everyone on the team altogether, so I guess you don’t have to worry none.”
“Thanks, Bobby.” I turned my head and looked into his clear blue eyes, watching me driving. “I’m not worried about putting up a good show, it’s the waiting that’s got me twitchy.”