by Daryl Banner
“So why aren’t we moving?”
I swallow hard. “Because … I’m nervous, too. What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if he’s moved on already? What if he doesn’t want me back and I’m just being a total idiot?”
“Then he’d be a fool.” Connor slaps me on the back and gives it a rub. “Now let’s not forget all of that confidence you had in you before we left the apartment. Y’know, the same confidence that pulled me out of my bed two hours before my alarm clock and halfway across the city on a Sunday morning.”
“Don’t worry. We can go to church after this.”
“You probably could use a little bit of Jesus after last night.”
I finally make my feet work, pushing myself from my spot on the pavement in which my shoes had taken root. Each step up the short walkway is an effort.
Then I’m standing in front of the door. I take one breath in, then let it all out. I curl my fingers into a little fist and give the door three light taps.
It opens. Lena appears, a dumbfounded look on her face. “Brett …?”
“Hi!” I greet her too cheerily. Then I amend my tone to something far more honest—which is apparently somber and pained. “Hi.”
She leans a bit to the left to peer around me. Connor gives a diminutive wave from the sidewalk where he waits.
“Moral support,” I explain unnecessarily.
Lena lets out a breath, then leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms. “I could take one very unwild guess why you’re here.”
“You’d probably guess right. Heh.”
“I probably would,” she agrees flatly.
I realize I’m wringing my hands. I drop them to my sides. “I really need to talk to him. He isn’t answering his phone. He won’t return my texts.”
“And you actually came all the way here to ask me about my brother?”
“All the way here.” I’m wringing my hands yet again. I stuff them into my pockets, turning all my fingers into prisoners. “Got your addy from a form thing my DJ guy had to sign. Hope that’s okay.”
Lena puts on a tired smile. “I always liked you. I don’t know why, but I did. You’re a goof. You’re a mess. And you’re exactly what my brother needs. But I’m not the one you need to win over.”
I nod. “Can you get him to talk to me? I’m … I’m willing to do whatever it takes. I’ll get a car and drive all the way out to him … wherever he lives. I can’t let him slip away, and what we had. He’s my guy. He always has been. He’s …” I catch myself choked up, overcome with how deeply I feel right now for him—and how much I realize is at stake. “He’s the only person on Earth who makes me whole.”
Lena smirks, appearing smug.
I don’t quite follow the meaning of her peculiar expression.
Until from behind her, Skylar emerges, his hair an adorable mess, wearing a plain striped shirt and jeans, somehow looking like a dream walking right out of the frat house of my memories.
I stare at him, uncomprehending.
Lena peers around me once more. “Connor, baby, sweetie? You can come on inside for some coffee and bagels if you’d like. I think the lovebirds here are about to go for a little walk.”
20
Skylar and I stroll leisurely down the street, its pretty trees lining the curb and providing a gentle shade from the fierce morning sunlight.
But for as calmly as we may be walking, there’s a lot of wild and impatient activity in my chest.
And it’s all to do with the man at my side. “So you missed my calls and texts because you were—”
“—on a flight, yeah.” He lets out a little chuckle. “Emilio was waiting at the airport to pick me up, so I didn’t even bother turning my phone back on.”
We arrive at a park, which encompasses an entire city block. The pair of us seem to make the same decision, continuing our stroll straight into its bright greenery, the irregular shadows of trees and branches and leaves passing over us as we go.
“It’s really pretty on this side of town,” I point out. “Nothing at all like the grit of Mayville.”
“There’s some glamour over there, too. Grit … and glamour.” Skylar smiles, hands in his pockets.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I stop suddenly. “Why did you fly in, Sky? All the wedding stuff is over with.”
He stops, too. With the gentle morning breeze in his hair, he faces me. “I’m guessing it’s probably the same reason you crossed the whole city to ask my sister where the hell I was.” He lifts his face to mine, pain in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left.”
“You shouldn’t have,” I agree. “I was a fucking mess without you. You should have seen me last night, dude. I was …” I give that statement another thought. “Actually, no. It’s a good thing you didn’t see me. I took someone home, but it was only to cry about missing you, apparently. Plus I ate a sketchy street vendor hotdog. Oh, but hey, at least I saved my stripper neighbor from having his thongs stolen by an obsessed fan! So there’s that.”
Skylar isn’t sure how to respond to all of that. “Uh, wow …?”
I take hold of his hands suddenly, pulling him close to me. Skylar lifts his eyebrows in surprise. Our faces are close. The city feels miles away.
Nothing can touch us.
“After spending the week home,” he tells me, “I realized I couldn’t just … move on with my life. Not after the taste I’ve had of … us.”
I bring my hand up to his face, caressing it. “I know it’s a longshot, Skylar. I know it won’t be at all easy. We might even come to regret trying this. But I will regret saying goodbye to you even more. I will regret not giving this a chance.”
He puts his arms around me. Our foreheads touch. “Can we make this work? Living in different cities? Being so far apart, yet … together?”
“We’re about to find out,” I tell him, “because there’s no way I’m letting you go back home today without calling you my boyfriend.”
The most adorable grin breaks Skylar’s face in half. Then our lips come together in the sweetest, most meaningful kiss. Out here in the middle of the city, surrounded by gently whispering trees and the sighing grass and the dancing shadows, we share this perfect, untouchable kiss together. Not even the crisp morning air can come between us.
[ BRETT’S EPILOGUE ]
It’s the perfect day for Brett—sunny, temperate, and surrounded by friends. He and Skylar are out on a date with Connor and Alan, as well as Lena and her new husband Emilio, who were all too happy to join them. The six enjoy a fancy lunch on a deck that overlooks the river.
Brett can’t keep his hands off of Skylar—or his lips.
EPILOGUE
“Seriously? Can you spend a single second not making out in front of us?” teases Connor.
Skylar and I pull away from our kiss. My arm is slung over my boy’s back, holding him against me. “If Skylar’s sis and lovely new bro-in-law can deal with our abundant kissiness … I think you can, too. Besides, it didn’t stop you from cleaning your plate, and we just spoon-fed each other cilantro rice in front of all of you.”
“It was kind of adorable,” puts in Alan, smiling.
“Super cute,” agrees Lena. Then she eyes her husband. “You need to up your game. You’ve never spoon-fed me anything before.”
Emilio gasps in protest, then realizes she’s right. “Well, that’ll have to change. What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”
“You married me and you don’t know my favorite flavor of ice cream??” she throws back, aghast, eyes on fire. Emilio lifts his hands innocently, blank-faced.
A server comes by, and Connor quickly orders a round of mimosas, insisting we’ll obviously need them. “And go a little heavy with hers,” he insists.
Until Lena lifts her hand. “Actually, no, none for me, but thanks!”
Connor frowns at her. “Why none for you?”
Everyone at the table glances her way, curious. The server waits patiently for us to make up our mind about t
he mimosas, blinking indifferently.
It’s Skylar who leans forward, seeing the words unspoken in her eyes. “Seriously? Really?”
Lena can brush any secret under the table with the rest of us. She can’t brush anything anywhere when it comes to her brother.
“Yes,” she finally concedes. “We are.”
Connor and I share a look, still lost.
Alan, however, is a full step ahead. “Oh, wow! Guys, she’s trying to say she’s pregnant.”
It all snaps into place. “Hey! Awesome!” I turn to her enthusiastically. “Congratulations, Lena and Emilio! That’s great news! We need to toast to that,” I decide, lifting up my glass of water. “Come on, everyone, lift your glasses!”
Everyone does.
The server, who is quite suddenly invested in our business, presses his hands to his large cheeks, listening to our toast.
“To the new, wonderful life growing inside this amazing person,” I start, “and to their love, which blossoms more every day. And to the circumstance which brought them together the way it did, here in this city, my happy spot in the world, which …” My eyes drop to Skylar’s. “… which also happened to bring me and Skylar together. To happiness, to new love, to new life … and to the future.”
Everyone’s glasses clink together.
The server is in happy tears.
And Skylar’s eyes are sparkling in the sunlight as he gazes on me, looking overwhelmingly gleeful, emotional, and appreciative of my little speech.
That’s a face one can fall in love with.
I’m so fucking happy to be where I’m at, right here, right now.
In fact, some hours later when it’s just me and Skylar on the rooftop of my building, overlooking the crowded and colorful streets of Mayville under a setting sun, that’s exactly what I tell him:
“I’m so fucking happy to be where I’m at, right here, right now.” Our shoulders are pressed against each other as we stand side by side, watching the city. “With you. My friends. Whatever we’ve got to look forward to.”
Skylar smiles at me. His full cheeks are flushed with happiness. Or maybe it’s the wine we drank after our romantic dinner alone—at Dino’s, no less, where I actually had the pleasure of paying for our meal this time. And it would have been a perfect meal, if it wasn’t for our getting interrupted by an urgent call from my boss Bethany at work, who simply wanted to tell me that the adult sex toy and porn revenue has more than quadrupled over the last couple of weeks, thanks to my sprucing up the back room. And yes, it was great news, but had I known that that was what she was calling about, I might have second-guessed putting her on speaker.
As the whole restaurant was informed as well.
Of my adult sex toy success.
I only scraped up my dignity, took a sip of my wine, then smiled at everyone around me and announced, “Bailey’s Bistro & Books, right in the heart of Mayville, just around the corner from the How’s-It-Hangin’ nightclub.” Just like a commercial.
Free advertising, right?
I’m pretty sure someone’s grandmother in the back choked on her dentures. She was probably celebrating her and her husband’s sixty-seventh anniversary.
“I was giving a lot of thought to some things,” Skylar tells me.
I was about to go in for another kiss, but his words stop me. “To … what things?”
“Us. My life. What I want to do. Where I want to be.” He smiles contentedly. “I’m not taking the job with AppuCore that I was offered back home.”
My face collapses. “Skylar! That was what you wanted! Why are you giving it up?”
“No. It’s not what I want. To build software for some company to sell to other companies? To work for another corporate giant, living to serve someone else’s bidding behind the computer? It’s what my dad wanted me to do, thinking it to be the best way to put my degree to use, and I felt like I had no other options in life. But I don’t want that for myself. I want to cut my own path, be my own vision. I have vision, drive, dreams … I can do it all on my own terms, right?”
“You can do whatever you want,” I insist as I take his hand and rub it encouragingly. “It’s your life, Sky. You’re a master of math. It’s your choice.”
Whenever he smiles at me, his eyes sparkle, and I fall in love all over again. “I’m glad you think that, Brett, because … I’ve made up my mind.” He takes a breath, then lets it out proudly. “I want to move out here and start my very own software company.”
I stare at him.
That wasn’t what I was expecting.
“I mean, not right away,” he quickly amends. “I know it’s going to take a lot of work and many years. You don’t just … start a software company in a day. Maybe it’s a total pipedream. Maybe I … need to start with a smaller dream first and work my way up. I don’t know. I’m not being completely reckless here, but …” He laughs suddenly. “Or maybe I am. Maybe you’ve rubbed off on me. Maybe I need my safe little life to be shaken up.”
I take Skylar’s hands. “Are you sure?” I ask. “About moving out here? This city can be pretty daunting.”
“It’s less daunting with you in it.” He smiles. “I also have my sister and Emilio, who have already told me they have a spare room I can use, at least until I get on my feet. And while I’m building my life, I’ll be right here in the same city with you, just a short train ride and a hop over the bridge away.”
Our arms fold around our backs, and we get lost in each other’s dreamy eyes, pressed closed to one another in this moment we’re sharing. It’s like a slow dance without music.
“Who knows,” I point out. “Maybe in a matter of time, you and I might be sharing a place again, just like we were back in the day.”
He tilts his head, squinting. “But ... minus a lot of other guys?”
“Debatable.” To that, we both laugh. “Though, seriously, Skylar, you better know I’m going to support you in whatever you choose to do. Even if you’ve gotta rough it for some time while you figure yourself out. I’m your guy.”
He smiles proudly. “And I’m be yours, Brett.”
With that, he puts a kiss on my lips.
It’s the most perfect kiss I’ve ever known.
My arms wrap around him tightly, pulling my man into me. And on the rooftop of Piazza Place, in the middle of the gay heart of the city, two men find love buried in their tender, united lips.
I couldn’t be happier.
And unbeknownst to myself and Skylar—lost in our swirling world of happiness—something else is happening below our very feet, below even the first floor of the building, down in the big basement apartment … something which I would not find out until much later, when Dante finally reveals to me a little story of his own …
DANTE
Snap.
Flash!
“And that wraps up our shoot,” I tell my latest client, who is then quick to get dressed again in his regular clothes—a dress shirt, skinny black tie, slacks, and shiny dress shoes. After a little back-and-forth, he heads off, and I begin my tedious task of resetting the studio area, putting up each of my props right in their respective places on the wall or on the rack. Of course, what’s tedious to most is a total pleasure to me: the act of organizing, of things returning to their proper places where they belong, and of strict cleanliness.
“Last shoot of the day’s over,” I tell myself as I survey my pristine studio, admiring the orderliness. “And now, finally time to rest.”
After my long-ass day, I’m very much ready to slip off my clothes, take a well-needed hot shower, and put myself to bed.
But after getting completely undressed, I only make it halfway to the shower when I hear a gentle rapping on my door—which apparently my last client left a crack open.
“Hello?” comes a light, nervous voice.
If there’s anything that frustrates me more, it’s something unexpected interrupting my private time after a long-ass day of shooting. With just a towel wrapped a
round my waist, I head across the wide, open space of my apartment, circumvent each load-bearing pillar, until I’m at the front entryway.
I stop in place.
Standing at that doorway is a young man with a buzzed head, which makes his bright blue eyes shimmer with a striking, deceptive innocence. He could be a sweetheart … or the devil in disguise. His black-and-white graphic t-shirt fits his slender, long torso exquisitely, outlining two small pecs and tapering to a tiny waist, his jeans cinched by a belt with a shiny silver buckle that reads “BOY”.
My heart dances with a mixture of shock and desire. Who is this young man?
“Hi,” the young man greets me. “I … I heard you do, um … photography?” He clears his throat as his eyes drop to my chest. “A certain … type … of photography …?”
Under normal circumstances, I might answer the young man quickly, getting to the point, telling him my business hours, and dismissing him until a scheduled time we’ve both agreed on. Hell, I would not even entertain a consult with someone until I know they’ve been properly vetted and worth my time—of which I seem to have less and less lately.
But I find myself, in this particularly out-of-character moment, struck with the realization that I haven’t found anyone desirable in years.
I’ve been a lump of stone. A hardened wall.
And in the space of a second, a crack splits its way down that wall—all my defenses, shattered.
I’m stricken. I’m speechless. I’m stupefied.
And I’m very naked under this towel.
“Are you him?” the young man asks. “Are you the photographer? … Dante …?”
The sound of my own name sobers me. I look the nervous little hottie over, sizing him up. “That would be me,” I answer, stepping aside to let him in.
To Be Continued …
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE BOYS?
Did you enjoy Brett?
Here are a few exciting things that may be in store for the boys in the next installment of Boys & Toys: “Dante”