by Amy Lane
He kissed more, hissed harder, until Dex’s arms grew fluid and soft around his shoulders and his spine melted a little, leaving him pliant and boneless, with his eyes closed and a sort of pained resignation on his face as Kane pulled back.
“We’ve got to go,” Dex whispered, his eyes still closed, and Kane rubbed Dex’s temple, next to that bright-blond hair, with his tingling lips.
“Yeah. Okay. Just don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
Kane closed his eyes and kissed that spot again. “Whatever you did to make the day go dark. Don’t do that again.”
Dex swallowed and nodded. “Kane, we’re going to have to talk about us soon, you know that, right?”
Kane closed his eyes. God, no. Not relationships. He’d never had one. He didn’t know how they worked. “No,” he said, because he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to hear Dex tell him it was over. “No. No talking. We’re good.”
He pulled away abruptly so he didn’t have time to say anything else that would make him feel stupid or completely lacking or unable to deal. Him and Dex. They slept together at night. They functioned in the day. He didn’t want to disturb that. It was all he dared to ask for. Hell, he was a porn star. It was more than he figured he had coming anyway.
He trotted to the hallway and got his coat and Dex’s, made sure Dex’s gloves were in Dex’s pockets along with the hat he’d bought Dex the same night he’d bought his. Dex’s hat was sky blue, because Kane liked the color on his bright hair, but that’s not what he’d said. He hadn’t said anything, in fact. He’d just bought it and stuffed it in the pocket of Dex’s fleece-lined leather coat when he hung their stuff up. He’d seen Dex wearing it, and he’d been content.
He brought the coats into the living room. Dex was wrapping the pies in foil, carefully not looking at him, when he walked in. Kane waited patiently and then walked up to him when the pies were wrapped, and held the coat out for him.
Dex let out a bitter laugh and put his arms in the sleeves. “I’m old enough to put on my own coat,” he said, and Kane cringed.
“Yeah, but I’m not old enough to know how to talk about this.”
Dex looked at him closely and held up a hand to his face to touch Kane’s cheekbones with tender fingertips. “You need to grow up soon, Kane. I’m tired of having my heart stomped on.”
Kane’s own heart gave a bloody pump in his chest. “I’ve never stomped on—”
Dex shook his head. “Not on purpose. Look. Let’s go.”
“We’re early, you know.”
Dex still couldn’t look at him. “Yeah, but I’d rather be uncomfortable in their kitchen instead of uncomfortable in ours right now. C’mon.”
So all things considered, running to Tommy and Chase’s just to get away from each other, from the painful, uncomfortable things ripping the air between them—that was like, salvation right there. Kane ditched Dex in the kitchen with the pies while he went to chase the kitten, who went beyond his expectations and chased him right back.
He played that game for an hour as the house filled with people. Not as many as for Chase’s welcome home party, but still, Kane wasn’t really ready to go talk to all those people with that conversation with Dex still aching in his chest. The kitten was simpler. Kane was stalking the little fuzz ball on all fours, coming out of Tommy and Chase’s bedroom, when he almost ran into a very fine pair of legs emerging from the bathroom. The legs had red pumps at the bottom and a short hem toward the top, with round calves that were so perfectly muscled that the owner of the legs was either a dancer or a workout fanatic.
As Kane’s vision traveled up to a diamond-cut butt, tiny waist, and flat little chest, all wrapped up in a white wool shirtwaist, his cock gave a nostalgic little throb. He sort of missed women sometimes. Yeah, sure, they all assumed that because he wasn’t that bright, he wasn’t worth much, but they had soft skin and really amazing smiles. This one had fluffy short-cut blonde hair and pretty blue eyes and a full, wide, smiling mouth. If he’d thought about it, he’d have realized she looked a lot like Dex, but thinking about Dex made his chest hurt, so he didn’t think about it.
Instead, he just looked up and waggled his eyebrows. “Hel-lo, pretty lady! Did you see my fuzzy little friend come by here? Unca Kane is gonna play with him!”
The girl’s mouth turned up at the corner almost lazily, and Kane was reminded of the look on that damned kitten’s face right before the little fucker took a piece of Kane’s hand with a tiny claw. “Yeah, Unca Kane—I think he went into the living room. But I warn you, the people in there are pretty much on his side.”
Kane stayed on the floor—the view was better from down there—and looked up at her coyly. “Well, maybe I should just stay in here and wait. Little fuzz ball’s gonna get too hyped out with all those people anyway. Eventually he’ll come back down here, and then I got him! Wanna wait with me?”
It was cheezy with a capital Z, but it worked. She looked into the hallway and then back at him, and he recognized the same feeling he had: better a quiet little corner than the big raucous room with all the noise.
“Yeah, fine, why not?” She slid down across from him, sticking those long legs out in front of her. For a tiny little woman, she really did have pretty spectacular legs, and she crossed them demurely at the ankles. “So, how do you know Chase and Tommy?”
Kane didn’t even think about blushing. If she knew Chase and Tommy together, she knew what they did. “We work together,” he said.
Her eyes widened and her mouth made one of those adorable little O shapes that girls had always been able to level him with. “Really?” She looked behind her shoulder for a second like she didn’t want anyone to hear what she said next. “So,” she asked, her eyes sparkling impishly, “how is he in the sack?”
Kane grinned at her, liking her style. “Which one?” he asked.
She looked, if anything, more avid. “Chase. I’ve thought he was beautiful since he was like, sixteen, but I’m way too old for him, right?”
Kane nodded. He got it. “He’s hella good. Him and me, we were, like, gladiator gods when we shot scenes, ’cause he’s like a total dominator and so am I. It was awesome.”
The girl’s grin widened, and her nose wrinkled, and she looked like an adorable little chipmunk woman as she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “How’s Tommy?” she asked.
Kane’s grin amped up. “I’m surprised the house hasn’t exploded,” he told her truthfully, and she burst into peals of tinkling laughter that made him smile some more. “So how do you know them?”
He caught it then—that first moment of “You really don’t know?”—and knew that when she spoke, he’d feel stupid. “I’m Donnie’s sister, Chelle,” she said. “Donnie and Chase have been best friends since they were little.”
Kane nodded then and felt stupid. Of course. He’d seen them at the welcome back party—they looked like twins. “Yeah, I should have known. You look just like him.” Kane thought about it for a second. “What was Chase like as a kid?” He had to wonder. What kind of little kid grew up into the kind of guy who would cheat on his girlfriend while doing gay porn and then try to kill himself? Because Chase as a grown-up was nice. Quiet, but nice. What made a guy like that?
Chelle looked thoughtful for a moment. “He was lonely,” she said softly. “Even as a little kid, even when Donnie and Kevin were all around, he was lonely. My mom used to try to mother him, give him things, and he always looked really… pleased, but he never got excited. It was like even with a Christmas present, he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?”
Kane thought about the young man he’d visited in the mental institution, who had looked at him the same way. “I know,” he said, and then he remembered how that same young man had smiled when he and Dex had walked through the door. “But maybe that’s what growing up gets you. You get better. You stop waiting for the bad stuff to happen and maybe enjoy the good, you know?”
Her smile at h
im was warm and fuzzy, and suddenly the pit in Kane’s stomach was warm and fuzzy too. And at that moment, the kitten came stalking back in, looking at him like he’d dropped the ball.
The conversation was getting too serious anyway, so Kane went chasing the little goombah all over the house again, except now Chelle stood in the hallway and cheered him on.
Eventually he got poor Paulie too wound up, though, and got his face scratched into the bargain. Before dinner was served, Chelle sat him down at the kitchen table. Dex raised a sardonic eyebrow at him while she dressed the scratch across his nose.
“That’s what you get,” Dex said, his voice sharp, and Kane looked at him sheepishly.
“Yeah, I know better,” he replied. Perversely, he wanted a kiss on the nose and a pat on the head, and he wasn’t sure where that need came from. His mother would have done it, yeah, but his father? No, his father would have told him to be a man about it, it was only a little blood.
“Well, I think that kitten just overreacted,” Chelle said, and she placed a playful kiss on his nose then pulled a bemused Kane to his feet. “Here, go put this back in the bathroom and I’ll get you a plate. It looks like they’re almost ready to serve.”
He ambled away and as he did, he heard Dex’s voice at its most acidic.
“Needs. A. Keeper.”
Well, maybe not needed, but he’d been sort of hoping Dex had wanted the job. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Dinner was good. They served themselves in the happy yellow kitchen, buffet style from a laden table, and ate in the living room, which was as dramatically colored as the bedroom. There was turkey and gravy and stuffing (with too much of something weird in it—Kane didn’t like the stuffing) and all sorts of stuff that most of the Johnnies models usually avoided like the plague but were eating in limited quantities today. Even so, while the food was good, the video games were better. Kane and Donnie’s friend Kevin dominated the deep-blue video couch in the living room until Dex came by and whispered, “I think Ethan needs a turn,” in his ear. Kane looked up and saw Ethan looking forlorn in the corner of the living room, and realized that he’d been sort of sad and alone for most of the evening. He looked at Dex and nodded and hollered, “Hey, Ethan! You go next!” and then tanked his player before throwing the controller at Ethan’s head.
Ethan caught it, of course, because he was an athlete and so was Kane and it was a good throw, but still, he shouted, “Kane, you psycho! You could have killed someone with this!” before he stood up and took Kane’s spot in the game without even losing any points.
Kane got up from his spot and stretched and looked at Dex to see if he’d done good.
Dex winked, and Kane thought wistfully that something as small as an expression of approval was the difference between a happy Thanksgiving and one that really blew chunks.
Kane followed Dex into the kitchen, and so did Chelle and Donnie. With Tommy’s help, Chelle and Donnie pulled Chase into the front room to soundly thrash Ethan in Halo, and Dex and Kane stayed behind to do dishes. It was a familiar thing, something they did when they were alone in their own… or in Dex’s home, and for a moment, all was right with the world.
“Chase looks good,” Dex said, and Kane had to agree.
“I’ve never seen him smile so much.”
“Yeah, well, Tommy neither. It’s a little scary.”
Kane laughed. “People can be happy,” he said, thinking that might be what Dex wanted to hear.
It wasn’t. Dex just looked at him levelly like he’d said something much more important than what that was really supposed to be, and nodded. “I’ll finish up,” he said quietly. “Your girlfriend’s waiting.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Kane answered, but even as he said it, he heard the same sound in his voice that he’d heard when he was in the sixth grade. Suddenly he had to ask it. “Is it because I’m younger than you?”
Dex looked honestly surprised, and then his narrow, pretty angel’s face hardened. “Yeah,” he said spitefully. “It’s because you’re younger than me.” And with that, he turned his back and started wiping off the golden marble counter. At that moment Tommy came in and said something about serving pie. God, it wasn’t like anybody knew about them. It wasn’t like it was a real relationship, right?
Except it felt real. It felt real, and Dex’s turned back felt like a shiv in the gut, and Chelle’s pretty face and happy, flirty smile as he walked into the living room didn’t make up for the uncertainty of maybe not having Dex where he should be when they got home.
Chelle got his number before she left, and made a big production about pushing her digits into his phone and taking a picture of herself to go with the number. Kane played along and flirted back, because he’d had fun with her while Dex had been all grown-up having the what’re-ya-gonna-do-with-yer-future talk in the kitchen, or so he assumed. Then Kane walked out with Dex after hugging Chase and Tommy and wishing them a good holiday.
Kane was glad to leave. He loved them—hell, he loved pretty much everyone in the house, after they’d had dinner and played video games, even Donnie’s snotty little standoffish boyfriend, Alejandro, who kept trying to speak Spanish to him when all Kane knew was Mexican. (Sure, his teachers in high school had kept trying to tell him it was the same fuckin’ language, but Kane wasn’t buying that any more now than he had when he’d been in high school!) So, yeah, he loved them—but for once, he didn’t want to take care of other people.
For once, he wanted to take care of his own house, and that meant Dex, and Dex wasn’t good.
Dex drove home through the fog so vicious it was like volcano smoke, looking for a break in the weather to erupt. Kane tried to make small talk—didn’t so-and-so look nice, wasn’t the stuffing gross, what did Dex think really happened with Ethan? But Dex gave one-word answers, and Kane was at a loss.
Dex parked the Navigator (which is what they’d driven, and it was weird how Dex always ended up driving even if it was Kane’s car) in the driveway and slid out, then headed straight for the door, leaving Kane to scramble behind him, grabbing his little packet of turkey and wondering what went wrong.
He got into the house and shut the door and put the turkey on the counter. Then he followed Dex down the hall, where Dex made a surprise right into the guest room and turned on the light. He bent down and grabbed the new turtle terrarium—probably the smallest of the cages—yanked the plug out of the wall, and brushed past Kane into the hallway.
Kane was at a loss. “What in the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m moving half of them into my room,” Dex said shortly, his back toward Kane, and Kane managed to pass him in the hallway and put his hands on the tank.
“Well, don’t. You’re upsetting them,” he said. He looked carefully into the terrarium at the box turtles, who were still fast asleep. “Why are you moving them at nine o’clock at night?”
Dex gave the tank, which was pretty heavy, a solid yank, but Kane held on. “’Cause if I move half of them into my room, we can put up the bed, and you can sleep in the guest room,” he said. His eyes were narrow—and red, like he was on the verge of crying—and his mouth was pushed together and pouty, and his jaw was squared and surprisingly stubborn.
Kane wasn’t any of those things. “Why in the fuck are you going to do that?” he asked, hearing the thread of panic in his voice and not caring. “Why? We’re good in the bed together. Why would you want to move the guys and fuck that up?” He kept his arms locked on the terrarium, thinking that his one saving grace was that he could bench press about 150 pounds more than Dex, so he would be able to keep this from happening, even if it was by main strength.
Dex looked up at him and spoke, and for the first time since that moment in the kitchen, Kane saw the real Dex—and the real Dex was in pain.
“I can’t do this,” Dex said.
“But we’re good—”
“Yeah! We’re good! We’re great in bed! Don’t you see? That’s all we are! You… you don’t even kno
w you’re in a relationship, Kane! You spent all night flirting with that girl because you don’t think you’re gay! Well, that’s fine! You flirt with girls. You sleep with them. That’s great! But leave my heart out of it, okay? I know I’m a guy, so I’m just a piece of ass to you, but that’s not what’s happening to me, all right? I’m getting feelings. I’m getting attached. But all that shit you’re doing that’s making me fall for you, that’s just boy-sex stuff to you, and it’s killing me. I just got out of a relationship where I was in love with the guy who used me for a booty call. I’m not doing it again! It fucking hurts!”
Oh Jesus. Oh fucking Jesus. Kane looked at him in horror. Oh Christ. He’d done this. Kane had done this. Kane had let Dex think that he was booty call.
“You’re not booty call,” Kane muttered, halfway to himself.
“I know that’s not what you’re trying to do—” Dex started patiently, and Kane’s panic snapped.
“Put the fuckin’ terrarium down!” he yelled, pulling at it. “Put it down, Dex, and let me fuckin’ talk!”
Dex let go of the terrarium and Kane stumbled backward, running into the wall (fortunately) and grunting as he took the full weight of the tank. He put it down right at his feet, ignoring the fact that it was still cold in the house because neither one of them had turned on the heater, and pulled out the phone.
“Turn on the heater, wouldja?” he asked absently, because Dex was the one next to the thermostat, and Dex did, still staring at him while he scrolled through his phone for Chelle’s number and then punched it in over Chelle’s smiling face.
She answered on the first ring.
“Hullo, Unca Kane,” she said, her voice all silky and liquid, and Kane wanted to groan. Oh fuck. He’d been having fun, dammit, and she’d been picking up a guy. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. No wonder he was better off with men. God, he just wasn’t smart enough to deal with women.