by J P Barnaby
He closed the door and could only imagine the shell-shocked faces of the innocent churchgoing visitors outside. He snickered and pulled his sweats down as he came back to the couch, and to Anthony.
“They’re gone, but a guy pulled up out front. He’s taking equipment out of the truck. We don’t have a lot of time.” Without another word, Bren dropped to his knees in front of the couch and pulled Anthony’s dick into his mouth. A desperate sound escaped Anthony, and a rush of heat and lust swirled across Bren with the force of a category five hurricane. He wondered for just a second if the people outside had heard. Then he decided he didn’t care because his brain had shut down in the very best way possible.
Anthony’s moan reverberated through the room, and Bren knew it wouldn’t take much to get Anthony to come, not with the way they’d been grinding on each other when the savior sisters knocked on the door. To distract himself from the overwhelming need to explode in his own hand, Bren closed his eyes and tightened his lips.
He rubbed the inside of Anthony’s thigh with the hand not jerking his cock and then traced over his balls. After a moment, Bren wrapped his free hand around Anthony’s dick and stroked, kissing his own hand as Anthony’s cock slid in and out of his mouth.
Anthony tried to pull out when he came, but Bren didn’t relent. Each spurt into his mouth made him jerk his own cock faster to catch up, to hit the finish line right behind Anthony. Bren released Anthony and pressed his forehead against the smooth, tender skin of Anthony’s stomach, turning his face into the warmth as he moaned. Something welled inside Bren as Anthony ran his fingers over his raggedly chopped hair. He thought maybe that touch, even more than the fist around his dick, made him come into his hand.
Bren had just huffed a sigh when the doorbell rang.
“Fuck.”
They both got up this time, throwing on the clothes that had been scattered around them in the chaos of their afternoon play. Bren reached the door first, turning quietly to make sure Anthony’s clothes were in place before he opened it. A middle-aged bear of a man stood on the porch with a toolbox in hand.
“I’m here to fix the air-conditioning,” he said, as though there’d be a rush of workmen in coveralls with their names sewn into the chest coming to his door.
“What do you need?” Bren asked “Billy,” according to the name stenciled in clear black letters on his uniform.
“Nothing, really. Just show me where the furnace and AC are. I’ll let you know when I have something.” The guy looked at Anthony around his shoulder, and Bren put himself between them. He didn’t like the predatory gleam in the man’s beady little eyes.
“The furnace is in the basement, so I’ll take you down. The AC is in the backyard,” Bren groused, and Anthony got out of the way while he showed the man downstairs.
It didn’t take long for him to point out what the guy needed, something even the broken brother could do. When he came upstairs, he noticed Anthony looking over his movie collection. He’d collected a host of sci-fi and action movies, from Terminator to Alien.
“One of the things I miss most about Before.” Bren’s voice startled Anthony, and he looked up to see Bren nodding toward the movies. “Now, I can’t stand the violence.”
Anthony nodded and then continued looking at the movies, not meeting Bren’s gaze as he spoke.
“Thank you for… uhm… before. I’d never—” Red suffused the back of his neck, cutting off his admission, and he went back to studying the movies.
“You’d never had a blowjob before?” Bren asked gently.
“No. I’d given one, but never gotten.”
“You must have had shitty boyfriends.”
“I’ve never had a boyfriend.”
Bren watched him for a long moment. Then he walked into the kitchen, leaving Anthony alone in the living room for a moment. He returned with two beers and handed one to Anthony.
“To afternoon blowjobs, hopefully the first of many.”
Anthony laughed, and Bren decided he really liked that sound.
“Cheers.”
Eight
AFTER AN enormous effort of will, Anthony figured out he could get from the liquor store to Bren’s house with a combination of the bus and good old-fashioned walking. He probably should have called first, but he didn’t have a phone and wasn’t sure Bren would want the company. Though he couldn’t exactly say why, since all they’d done the day before was bicker and get off, Anthony wanted to see Bren.
The last half block seemed too short to Anthony, and before he could prepare himself for what Bren might say, he knocked on the door. It took a long time for Bren to answer, and Anthony nearly turned around and got back on the bus. After five minutes or so, he knocked again. It wasn’t as though Bren would be out. He could have been asleep. If that were the case, unless he snoozed on the couch, the knock wouldn’t wake him.
Thirty seconds later, the door flew open, and Bren’s red-rimmed eyes focused on him. The stare nearly pushed him back down the stairs, but he tightened his hand on the railing.
“What are you doing here? My brother send you for more babysitting?” Bren growled out the questions, anger spilling through each word.
“No, you said you liked movies. So I brought one without guns. I thought maybe we could grab a pizza and watch it.” Anthony didn’t back down from Bren’s glare but waited for him to weigh the pros and cons of pizza and a movie against more booze.
“What movie?”
“Harry Potter.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.” Anthony held up the backpack he’d been carrying. He’d brought precious few things with him when he left his parents’ house. Every possession he owned vied for space in his car, from books to movies to video games. In the end, he decided he couldn’t live without his Harry Potter books and movies. They gave him solace in the darkness when nothing else did.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me you have a fucking pizza in that backpack too?” Bren asked but stepped back and let Anthony come into the living room.
“No. I thought about picking it up first, but that’s a long fucking walk from the bus stop.”
“You took the bus? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Bren took a step closer to him, but Anthony stood his ground.
“I have no car. I wasn’t about to ask Patrick to bring me over here because then he’d ask why. The bus was my only option.”
“Okay, so since my brother won’t be asking, I will. Why?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. You’re angry and kind of a dick, but sometimes you’re funny and you give good head.”
“Good enough. What do you want on your pizza?”
And just like that, Anthony stepped into Bren’s life.
He dropped the backpack on one of the chairs, and Bren came back from the kitchen with the cordless phone.
“I like any kind of meat,” Anthony commented over his shoulder as he dug the movies out of his bag.
“I bet you do.”
“Whore. You know what I mean.”
“Sausage okay for you? A big one?”
“You’re making me regret hiking my way over here.”
“Fine, sausage and pepperoni? You want anything else? Wings or something?” Anthony noticed Bren’s tone had lost its sharpness.
“I’d love a Pepsi or Coke or whatever.”
“I don’t have either of those, so I’ll order it with the pizza.”
“Let me know how much it is. I have cash.” Anthony started to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.
“Nah, you brought the movies. This one’s on me.”
Anthony smiled into his shirt as he went back to dragging the DVDs out of his bag. He flipped through for the first and second movies, unsure how long Bren would be hospitable, and zipped the rest away. He had the DVD menu screen up when Bren came back into the room.
“Should be about forty-five minutes. They have pretty good pizza. I hope it’s up to your Chicago standards.”
“I didn’t live in Chicago,” Anthony admitted. “I lived in a suburb about an hour or so outside the city. I’ve never even been to Chicago. I just drove past it on my way here.”
“All those years outside the city and you never went into it?”
“After my brother got hurt, we never did anything. We definitely never went downtown to museums or the zoo or whatever. Most of the time, I just stayed in the basement unless Allen and I were playing video games.”
“That’s a hard way to grow up.”
“I didn’t have any other options.”
“Who’s Allen?” Bren asked, settling in to his place on the couch.
“My other brother.”
“So what made you pick Detroit? You said you had a friend here, right? Why aren’t you with him?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t answered any of my messages.” Anthony shrugged.
“That’s fucked-up. You came all the way out here to see him, and he just disappeared?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
They were quiet for several minutes, and Anthony could hear the clock on the bookshelf ticking away the minutes of awkwardness between them. Finally, Bren tossed a remote at him.
“Come on, boy, you promised me a movie. Are we going to do this or what?”
Anthony laughed and started the DVD. Through a lot of the scenes, Bren asked questions and Anthony explained the things that weren’t in the movie. He explained about different relationships and how the magic didn’t quite work the same as it did in the book. They’d just started to get into the moving staircases when the doorbell rang and Bren got up to grab the pizza.
They ate off paper towels. Bren had a beer while Anthony stuck with the Pepsi. A quiet sort of calm rested over the room. Just two guys hanging out. It wasn’t like their lives were so fucked up they couldn’t stand it, right?
“Can I ask you something?” Anthony asked as he wiped hot cheese and sauce from the corner of his mouth with a finger. Bren watched the finger as Anthony popped it into his mouth, and the temperature in the room jumped ten degrees.
“Sure. Not sure if I’ll answer, but you can ask whatever.” Bren grabbed another slice from the cardboard box and shoved the end into his mouth.
“How did you figure out you couldn’t go outside?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. When I open the door, I get a fuzzy feeling of anxiety. If I try to step onto the porch, I can’t breathe. It’s like a panic attack, only I don’t know what I’m fucking scared of. When I come back in the house, I’m covered in a cold sweat, but I can take a full breath. Why do you keep fucking asking?”
“My brother had problems like that for a while. Then he found a therapist he liked and slowly he was able to start to control what set him off. Have you ever thought about seeing someone?”
“And how exactly do I go to the shrink’s office, pray tell?” Bren asked, and the anger swelled in his voice like a tide. Anthony let it wash over him and continued.
“If you called someone, maybe they could stop by or do something over Skype. You can’t be the only person on earth who has an issue leaving their house.”
“I don’t want to talk to someone. I don’t want to relive the shit in my head over and over. I don’t want to see it when it’s fucking there.”
“I was just trying to—”
“Can you just start the fucking movie again?”
Anthony hit the Play button and Hogwarts came back on the screen in all its magical wonder. They sat side by side, finishing their pizza, drinking, and being resolutely quiet. Anthony didn’t know how to bridge the gap that seemed to grow on the couch between them. He switched to beer before the brave little wizards dropped through the trap door.
Halfway through his fifth beer of the day, Bren slipped sideways on the couch and put his head on Anthony’s shoulder. The warmth of Bren’s breath against Anthony’s skin gave him goose bumps, but he didn’t shiver. He didn’t want to do anything to make Bren move. That one gesture summed up everything Anthony wanted from another guy—companionship, affection, and closeness.
“I wish I could go outside. I miss the sun,” Bren whispered as the final theme came on and the credits started to roll. The words hit Anthony’s gut with real pain because he had no idea how to help.
“I wish you could too,” Anthony whispered back.
“I hate being here alone all the time.” Bren sat up just enough to capture his lips in a beer-laden, pizza-infused kiss.
“You’re not alone.” Anthony stroked his cheek once with shaking fingers.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful.”
“Guys aren’t beautiful, are they? That’s a chick thing.”
“You are.”
Anthony cleared his throat. No one had ever called him beautiful before. He couldn’t even remember his mother calling him that when he was little. It kindled a warm spot in him.
“You want to watch the next movie?”
“Yeah. I’m mellow and the shit in my head is quiet for the moment. I don’t know if it’s the beer or if it’s you. Usually it never goes away. I’ll take it, though.” Bren pulled himself up and then nestled in the corner of the couch, bringing Anthony back against his chest. He didn’t wrap his arms around Anthony’s waist, but just the feeling of Bren’s chest against his back gave Anthony a sense of being protected and cared for in a way he’d never felt before.
Even when the movie started and Hedwig came on the screen in her tiny little cage, Anthony felt free for the first time in years.
Nine
PATRICK STOOD inside his walk-in closet trying to decide which of his pitiful shirts to wear out to dinner with Danielle. The clientele at the liquor store required nothing more than a T-shirt and jeans each day. Sometimes he wore a polo shirt, but he didn’t think he even owned a button-down that fit anymore. Over the last two years, he’d shrunk out of everything but the Walmart jeans he’d bought when his designer jeans would no longer stay around his waist. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford nice ones. He just didn’t care.
He hadn’t been social in so long, he’d forgotten how. Danielle’s entire job description revolved around being social. Why his flight attendant, sort-of-girlfriend put up with a hermit sort-of-boyfriend, Patrick would never know. Patrick finally just grabbed his nicest polo shirt. It would swallow him, but if he left it untucked, it wouldn’t bunch and might look okay enough for their Saturday night dinner in a chain restaurant.
He’d just finished putting a little product in his overgrown hair when a knock on the front door interrupted him. It would have to be good enough. They’d have dinner, maybe see a movie, and end up back in his bed fucking anyway.
Patrick padded out into the living room in his socks. After checking the peephole and seeing Danielle’s pretty face, he opened the door and stood to the side. First, Patrick noticed the grim expression, and then he noticed that Danielle had on sweats and a tank top, hardly dinner attire.
“Did I have the night wrong?” Patrick asked as he closed the door behind her.
“No, but we need to talk.”
“Nothing good ever follows that statement.” Patrick led the way over to the couch and sat down. He was comforted when Danielle sat in the seat next to him rather than on the chair across the room. She didn’t look upset, but more resigned. This conversation would not end well.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it. My hub is changing. I’ve been promoted to international flights. As soon as I can find a sublet, I’m moving to New York. I’ll be flying out of JFK.” Danielle took his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have any warning. We knew it could happen, and I’d ask you to come with me, but….”
“But I can’t leave the store, or my brother,” Patrick said, chilled by the flat, cold tone of his own voice. The store tethered every part of his life. It felt like an anchor in a churning sea that buffeted him around like a toy boat on Lake Michigan. He and Danielle had been dating only about a year. He sh
ouldn’t be this upset.
“I understand. I really do. We knew it might not go the distance.” Patrick took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He’d practiced that same exercise with Bren so many times. Now he could see what Bren meant when he said it was a useless fucking gesture. “You’re going to be so amazing. The world won’t know what hit it.”
Danielle wrapped her arms tightly around Patrick, lips pressed against his throat. He could smell the subtle perfume she wore as her hair tickled his face.
“Sell the store,” she whispered. “You need to get out of there before it kills you.”
“I can’t,” Patrick whispered back. It was easier when he couldn’t see the disappointment and pity in Danielle’s face. “I’m trapped here, but I’m glad you’re getting out.”
She sighed, and for a moment, something crossed her face, but then it was gone.
“I should go.” Danielle sat up. “I don’t want to make this harder than it is.”
And that was it. In the span of less than two minutes, his life had changed yet again. Five minutes ago he’d had a girlfriend. He’d had dinner plans. He’d had a shelter from the storm of his life. He’d planned to get laid.
Now he was naked in the dark.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t involve begging Danielle to stay and be his real girlfriend or promises to sell the store and go. He couldn’t leave Bren, and Bren couldn’t leave their parents’ house. His precarious psychological stability was wrapped tightly around Patrick and around the store. If Patrick walked away, it would break his brother.
The click of virtual shackles rang louder than the pounding in his ears.
Patrick walked Danielle to the door and received one final peck on the cheek. Then he watched her walk down the stairs and out of his life. They wouldn’t keep in touch. Most exes never did. He wouldn’t laugh at Danielle’s corny puns or share a quick fuck with her ever again.
Patrick shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears, but it persisted. The hollow, trapped, panicky feeling in his chest did too. His palms sweated when he grabbed the keys to the RAV4 off the small table next to the door. The pressure on his chest didn’t let up as he pulled the driver’s-side door closed beside him.