Stand by Your Manny

by Amy Lane

  Sammy shrugged and looked away. “There’s no guarantee I’ll even make the audition,” he said, trying to decide if he wanted to make it or wanted to fail.

  “Oh please,” Cooper muttered, looking anywhere but at Sammy. “The only way you could have failed anything at all is if you screwed it up on purpose.”

  “I would never!”

  Tino gave half a laugh. “No, you wouldn’t, Sammerson. Because the one thing you love most in the world is music.”

  “And family,” Cooper added, pursing his lips and looking like he was trying not to cry.

  “And Cooper,” Sammy reminded him, voice throbbing with the night before.

  “Yeah.” Cooper smiled, and although his eyes were shiny, his smile was sound. “And Cooper.”

  At that moment the kids came crashing into the room, led by Felicity, who hugged Sammy good morning first and then Cooper. Letty came pattering out before insisting she sit on Sammy’s lap, and Keenan was at her heels, complaining because she’d taken her pajama bottoms off in the middle of the night and was in the kitchen in her pajama top and underwear and nothing else.

  Sammy kept her on his lap anyway and asked the kids about their Friday, and the overwhelming chatter kept him and Cooper busy for the rest of the morning. Channing ghosted in right when it was time to set the table, so Sammy and Cooper really did get a morning off.

  Between blueberry pancakes and turkey sausage and Cooper, smiling at him over the table with a secret only the two of them knew, he felt like the world lay at his feet. He only needed to grab Cooper’s hand to claim it.

  How To Plan a Future

  “WHERE’S Sammy?” Channing asked as Cooper set the last plate in the dishwasher. Blueberry pancakes had been great for breakfast, and Sammy had volunteered them for cleanup, which was fine.

  What had not been so fine were the bags under Sammy’s eyes and the hundred and twelve times he’d yawned as they’d been cleaning up.

  “He’s in my room, taking a nap,” Cooper said quietly. “Did you need him?”

  Channing shook his head. “No—that’s good, actually. I wanted to talk to you.”

  Oh hell. “Is this the part where I get fired?” Cooper asked, his heart sinking and hollow. Oh, he should have known better than to trust, but Tino seemed so nice and Sammy loved him so much and—

  “What? No!” Channing scowled. “No. I’m not going to fire you. For one thing, Tino would kill me, and for another, he’s right.”

  “Who’s right?”

  “Tino.” Channing blew out a breath. “I shouldn’t have put you in that position last night. It’s just….”

  “Sammy,” Cooper supplied, shrugging. “He’s like a superhero with kryptonite tennis shoes.”

  Channing laughed for real this time. “Very apt,” he said. “But no—I think the thing with the car is a decent idea. If you don’t mind, when you’re done there, you can follow me to the mechanic’s, and then we can talk on the drive home.”

  Cooper grimaced. God. He vaguely remembered social workers wanting to “talk” about things. They hadn’t been all that interested in him, though. They’d mostly wanted to make sure he wasn’t being beaten or pimped out for rent.

  “Sure,” he said, trying to contain his excitement in a walnut shell.

  This time Channing had to clap a hand over his own mouth to keep his laugh from booming. “Oh my God! Cooper! Try to sound less excited or you’ll hurt my feelings! You finish up, and I’ll go tell Tino. Oh—and we’re stopping at Target on the way home, so check your quarters and see if there’s anything you need.”

  COOPER tried to grab his own basket, but Channing insisted on getting a cart.

  “We have a bike on order for Felicity,” he explained as they hit the toy and bike department. “But I forgot pads and a helmet. The bike should get there, well, now, actually, but I wanted her to have stuff to ride it.”

  Cooper pulled in a tight breath. “But why? Why is she getting a bike now?”

  Channing shrugged. “Because we wanted to go biking to the park Sunday.”

  “But… but….” Cooper flailed, stuck with the enormity of the difference between what his and Felicity’s life had been and what it was now. “But how’s she going to know the difference between her birthday and Christmas and any other day?”

  “Well, she gets a party on her birthday,” Channing told him, “and believe me, you’ll notice it’s Christmas at our house.”

  Cooper shook his head. “You have to understand,” he said after a moment. “I got a bike once. They had a free giveaway at my school. We all got bikes and pads and a helmet—I have no idea. Some politician felt bad because most of us had no breakfast, so he gave us all bikes. But see, my foster family had no place for a bike, so I come home, and I’ve got a bike a week before Christmas, and next thing I know, they’re selling the bike and giving me clothes for Christmas instead. So you tell me you’re giving my girl a bike, and I’ve got to wonder what’s in it for you.”

  Channing gazed at him quietly, letting Cooper’s mouth run down. “Finish that thought,” he said calmly.

  Cooper grunted. “Okay, so I know you’re not like that. I mean, I know in my head. And I guess I know in my heart, because Sammy keeps reminding me just by being Sammy that people are decent. But… but I can’t stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Fair enough.” Channing nodded. “I understand why it would take a while to not be afraid anymore.” He gave a slight smile. “And I totally understand why Sammy makes you feel safe when the rest of us don’t.”

  Cooper’s face heated. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s the superhero thing.”

  “With kryptonite sneakers—I get it.”

  “He’s everything,” Cooper told him nakedly. “He’s… he’s the reason I didn’t get a bike when I was eleven, so I could have a Sammy now.”

  Channing’s smile was more than gentle. “I’m not worried about your intentions, Cooper. I’m not even worried about you taking care of him—you do a very good job.”

  “Then why did you just buy me underwear at Target, sir?”

  Channing looked into the cart and laughed. “Habit, for one thing. Kids need underwear. Yours and Sammy’s size was on sale. But mostly to ask about you. We like you as the manny, kid. You’re good at the job, the kids like you. But most people in this job have something to do between when school starts and school ends. We have a housekeeper to dust and do laundry, and the breakfast dishes only take so long. I wasn’t sure if anybody talked to you about, you know, other things you could do with your time.”

  Oh. Oh—if this was a test, Cooper had already studied. “Sammy and I were talking. I mean, he loves teaching—like, loves it a lot. And I… I like kids too. So I thought, you know. I could be a grade school teacher. That’s a respectable job, right?”

  “Of course it is,” Channing said with a sigh.

  “Why doesn’t it sound like a respectable job when you say it?” Cooper asked suspiciously.

  Channing grinned a little sadly. “Cooper, I’m just wondering if you and Sammy… never mind. I just want you guys to know that it’s okay if you live with us as long as you need to. I mean, living with us makes sense—it’s part and parcel with the whole nanny gig. Just, even though you and Sammy are dating….” He paused, like there was something he was worried about saying but couldn’t. Finally he finished with, “Don’t worry about moving out—the house is plenty big and the food is free. Do you need shirts? I like this one here—the Marvel one. What are you, a medium?”

  Cooper looked down at his slight frame and shrugged. “Unless I work out.”

  Suddenly Channing’s unusual distraction lifted like storm clouds. “Work out?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, three years’ construction, I’ve still got a tiny little rat body.”

  “Well, we’ve got a workout room in the pool house, with a bunch of machines and free weights. We can sign you up for school sometime next month, but in the meantime, I think tomorro
w I’ll show you the weight room and get you started on a regimen. What do you think?”

  Cooper remembered Elmo and Baby, and how their necks had been almost as wide as their shoulders. “I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone has offered to do for me, sir, uh, Channing.”

  Channing grabbed the Marvel T-shirt and threw it in the basket. Then he went for the same one in large. “For Sammy,” he mumbled.

  “Sammy will like that,” Cooper encouraged. Sammy looked good in red.

  There was a moment of silence. “Cooper?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know—Sammy’s health.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “It might—it might never get better. The type of anemia he’s got usually takes a bone marrow transplant to fix. I’m not a match, and they’ve been searching for a match in the donor databanks, but so far, no dice. He might be dependent on supplements and medication for the rest of his life.”

  Cooper swallowed. “I had no idea.”

  “Well, with the severity of the anemia—I’m just saying. We plan for our kids to grow up and grow out of the house. And we own a house, about half a mile away, that we’re hoping Sammy will rent. I know he’s planning to have a job and a career, and he has his own money, so he’s not… obliged to stay at home or anything.”

  Cooper swallowed. He’d known about the house and he’d guessed about the money, but hearing where this was going might hurt. “I’m, uh, aware of that, sir.”

  Channing blew out a breath. “It’s just, he might not be ready to be completely on his own soon. He might need his family for a really long time. I hope you’re ready for that. You were on your own for a lot of time. Just… you need to know.”

  Cooper swallowed. A superhero with kryptonite tennis shoes. Yeah. “Well, sir—whatever Sammy needs, right?”

  “Right. Jeans.”

  “I, uh, just bought two pairs—”

  “That’s not enough. We’ll buy a size up too, if you’re going to work out.”

  Cooper got it. The jeans weren’t for Cooper, really. The jeans were for Channing and Sammy and growing up and learning to change what you thought growing up was about.

  “Sure. Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  So Cooper didn’t.

  HE didn’t mention it—but he kept it in mind over the next few weeks.

  Sammy slept in Cooper’s room most nights, although he used his own desk to do homework. More than once, Cooper ventured up the stairs to see when he was coming down and found him asleep on his desk—and once, drooling on his computer. Those were the nights Cooper slept in Sammy’s room instead.

  Their lovemaking grew.

  Grew in length, grew in creativity, grew in quality. There were moments—so many of them—when Cooper would catch himself, moaning under Sammy’s hands and mouth, and wonder how he’d never known his body could be this happy.

  Thanking God his body could be so alive.

  He would wander into the music room while Sammy was practicing and just stand there, entranced, because his superhero was turning sound into feeling with just a few strokes of his fingers. Sammy would turn his head and catch Cooper watching and grin shyly every time, and Cooper would fight back tears because…

  Because Sammy loved him. And how did that happen in a few short months?

  It was a miracle.

  But even miracles have challenges. A few weeks after their first night together, Tino and Channing got home and checked the mail—and took everybody out for dinner to celebrate Sammy’s spot on the touring roster.

  Sammy sat shyly in the place of honor and beamed at Cooper reassuringly, and Cooper tried to remind himself of his brave words. Sammy had been performing every Friday night, and Cooper had found a way—with some help from Brandon and Taylor—to take him to his job at the middle school and then drive him to Dodgy’s, just to see him play.

  He was brilliant, every night.

  Two months of touring—even if it was for more than that, since Sammy had two more years before his master’s degree. Cooper could live with that, could live with sharing Sammy with the world, if it meant that every night, before they fell asleep, Sammy whispered, “Love you, right?” into the fading quiet of their afterglow.

  That was Cooper’s Sammy. Only Cooper got that part of his heart.

  Still, the night before Sammy was supposed to leave, after his going-away party with the entire extended family and a quiet, intense conversation with Tino and Channing—probably about his health, which had been extensively monitored and negotiated as Sammy prepped for the tour—Cooper’s heart beat fast and hard when he heard Sammy’s knock on the door to his apartment.

  Sammy always knocked.

  Cooper swallowed, remembering Channing’s words from that day in Target. It occurred to him, even as he was opening the door, that if he and Sammy wanted a grown-up place, a place of their own, they might have to forge it from the materials at hand. There would be no claustrophobic rattletrap apartment—and why would they need one?

  They had a perfectly good apartment right here. Felicity had her own room upstairs, and Cooper had an extra room down here that would serve as a study. In the four and a half months since he’d ended up in the Robbins-Lowell household, he hadn’t put up so much as a poster in these rooms.

  If he was going to make it his, maybe he should make it his and Sammy’s.

  But all thoughts of the room fled when he saw Sammy standing there, still-unused bottle of lubricant held shyly in his hand, a hopeful smile on his face.

  Cooper cackled, feeling like a naughty teenager for the first time since he and Sammy had taken their relationship to this level.

  “Feeling optimistic?”

  Sammy bit his lip, but his smile never dimmed. “I’m trying to bind you to me with sex, so, you know, you can’t get away when I’m gone.”

  Cooper reached out and pulled him into the room, shutting the door behind him. “I was just thinking about putting down roots here,” he confessed. “Decorating. Moving you in….”

  Sammy laughed and started kissing his neck. “Whatever you want, Cooper. I’m yours for the taking.”

  “Ooh!” Cooper tilted his neck sideways, because that nibbling thing really turned his key. “Sure,” Cooper breathed, putting away plans and plots and ideas for growing up. Sammy was kissing him, down his neck, across his collarbone, to his other ear. And his hands were… oh, everywhere. Sammy’s long fingers played Cooper’s body like the finest piano, and Cooper quivered and sang with every touch.

  Their clothes melted away, because what were clothes when Sammy was there, saying goodbye with his body, saying I love you with every kiss?

  There came a moment when they were lying on the bed and Sammy fumbled for the lubricant and held it up, eyebrow cocked.

  Cooper read the question—and he’d already decided. “You top,” he said softly. He didn’t add anything about bruising or hurting—he just knew if he had to send Sammy away black-and-blue because of something he’d done, he’d be heartsick the whole time.

  Sammy laughed wickedly. “You trust me?” he asked, but he was already kissing his way down Cooper’s body, moving between Cooper’s spread legs. His breath at the juncture of all things sexual made Cooper’s eyes roll back in his head.

  “Yeah,” Cooper rasped. “I trust you.” With his body. With his heart. His angel wouldn’t let him down.

  Sammy’s mouth on his body had become familiar—but never commonplace, never old hat. His fingers, probing, stretching—those were new, and combined with his mouth, his tongue, Cooper grabbed the sheets in his fists and let his body soar. In this place there was no leaving, no fear, there was no worry about the future or struggle to be independent, there was only Sammy and the miraculous things he was making Cooper’s body do.

  “Ah! Oh wow! Sammy!” Cooper arched off the bed and cried out, a breath away from orgasm. “Sammy, now, okay?” His body needed—needed—more than Sammy’s fingers, his tong
ue. Cooper had never imagined that, never imagined this act would be necessary to breathe.

  Sammy’s body covered his, and Cooper clung to his shoulders mindlessly, begging with sobbing breaths. But Sammy was patient. He positioned himself… just so… and pushed, just enough.

  Cooper froze as his body stretched to accommodate his lover. “Ohhh,” he breathed after a few heartbeats. “More.”

  Sammy, eyes intent on his face, pushed farther, and a little farther, and just when Cooper thought he’d be ripped in half….

  Popped in and slid down to the hilt.

  They both stared at each other, surprised.

  “Good?” Sammy asked, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Great,” Cooper whispered. “You?”

  “Yeah. Uh….” Sammy took a deep breath. “Uh, can I move? Just let me know. Would love to move. ’Cause, you know, squeezing. Would be great to—”

  “God, Sammy, move!”

  Sammy pulled back but not all the way out, then thrust back in, and Cooper melted, boneless, hopelessly aroused.

  “More,” he begged. “Sammy, do the thing… the… the back-and-forth thing… the….”

  Sammy’s laughter deepened, grew powerful, like his thrusts into Cooper’s body. “The fucking thing?” he teased.

  “Yes!”

  Oh, Sammy was good at it. He pumped hard and fast, his thighs smacking off Cooper’s backside, the sound loud in the little room.

  Cooper couldn’t contain his cries, didn’t want to contain them, and he dug his fingers into Sammy’s biceps in an effort to hold on tight.

  A surge rippled through him, a precursor to climax, and he tightened down on Sammy’s invasion, squeezing hard as he primed to explode. Sammy cried out above him, thrust harder, almost to the edge of pain, and Cooper’s body detonated, pure light, an insane crest of sensation and pleasure. He arched his back and cried out, coming without touching his cock, saturated with body joy as Sammy orgasmed too, flooding his body.