Looking back, Ryan couldn’t help thinking that was a very Bunny thing to say. Bunny Boyle hadn’t existed back in those days, but like an unborn child her genetic material was wandering around in human form. Bunny was in Adam’s Bette Davis sneer, his long silent eye rolls and his acid tongued retorts. And she’d been there in the bedroom with them, too. Bunny was there every time Adam took off all his clothes, said ‘fuck me,’ and thought that was a substitute for foreplay.
It was long overdue – learning how to date. Ryan had been out for less than a year and it was still an exotic and unthought of luxury to him, which was why he’d ordered champagne, and why he couldn’t stop reaching across the table to hold Adam’s hand.
“I think you should know,” he said. “This has been the most romantic bidet malfunction of my entire life.”
Adam laughed. “God, I regret not dating you sooner. Who else could bring up bidet malfunctions over champagne?”
Ryan held up his glass. “Here’s to Hu and his misadventures in plumbing. We would never have got in here without him.”
They clinked. “We wouldn’t,” said Adam, glancing around. “It’s busy. I couldn’t feel more at home.”
“You’re a little cramped, huh?” said Ryan. It was a deliberate prod and Adam knew it.
“Stop it,” he said.
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t have to. I know what you’re going to say.”
“And what’s that?”
“That I should spend more time at your place,” said Adam. “And move some of my stuff…”
“There is space for you. I cleared you a shelf in the bathroom cabinet.”
“Yeah, and then you bitched because I made the place smell like Subway.”
“That’s because I wasn’t expecting you to put mayonnaise on your head,” said Ryan. “Normal people don’t do that, Adam.”
“I’m not normal. I’m a drag queen.” Adam sighed. “Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you making room for me in your life, because I do. But are you really ready for this? Are you ready for me to colonize your bathroom with Nair strips and make-up? If you thought I was high maintenance and annoying in college, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“I might get used to it,” said Ryan, undaunted. “I got used to a lot of things, after all. Like, when you joined that acapella group and you were singing Mr. Sandman right around the clock. I got used to that, even though I was sure you’d never survive the first semester.”
Adam took a sip of his wine. “I told you – I’m very annoying. You of all people should know that.”
“You’re also charming,” said Ryan. “And funny. And sexy. And I never dared to imagine that all these years later I’d be with you on my own terms.”
Adam glowed. “Neither did I,” he said. “Especially not the part where we got tipsy and spit roasted a pierced power bottom.”
“No, but I got used to that, too.”
“Well, don’t get too used to it,” said Adam, with a grin. His smile was speckled green with shreds of basil. The waiter had brought them a tray of appetizers – tiny Caprese salads threaded on skewers – and Adam had stuffed his face. “The novelty will wear off, and it won’t be as much fun any more.” He took another sip, wetting his full upper lip. “He’s getting twitchy again, by the way.”
“Who? Justin?”
“Yep. Naughty. Restless.”
“Really? In what way?”
“He stuck his tongue in my ear and begged me to fuck him,” said Adam.
“That does sound like Justin.”
“I know. He’s subtle. I always appreciated that about him.”
Ryan laughed. “You wanna do it?”
“Only if you’re down. That’s why I was sounding you out about it.”
“Sure,” said Ryan. “I’m into it.”
“Good. Cool. He could use the distraction. Lately he keeps me up at night worrying that he’s going to try to bone Tess.”
“You mean he hasn’t already?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Adam. “Probably. Justin fucks everyone. I just worry that there’s going to be workplace sexual drama. Again.”
“So we preoccupy him,” said Ryan, thinking of the tangled limbs and sweaty moans of their last distraction. “Like last time. With the paddles.”
Adam shifted in his seat. “Yeah, that was new,” he said, wrinkling his nose as the bubbles from his champagne tickled it. “You know, I had no idea I was into all that spanky-spanky stuff. I didn’t even know my ass could turn that color.”
“Pink,” said Ryan, lacing his fingers between Adam’s across the table. “It was like eating a giant sexy cupcake.”
Adam smoldered. “Dirty boy.” With his free hand he picked up the last of the Caprese skewers and fed it to Ryan, who could have died happy in that moment. These were the little things that made his toes curl whenever he looked back on them. Yes, the sex was insane, but feeding one another bites in a restaurant – that was too fucking cute for words, like Adam laughing at cat videos on a Sunday morning, while snuggled between the sheets of Ryan’s bed and wearing nothing but his oversized reading glasses. Or any time Adam casually called him baby or rested his head on Ryan’s shoulder. These were the tiny, stupid things that made Ryan just melt.
“You know how hard I used to fantasize about this?” he said. “Taking you out to dinner. Holding hands in the park.”
“Aw.”
“Didn’t count on the occasional threeway with a kink-curious bartender, but I think we make it work.”
“I think so, too,” said Adam. “We may not be as sickeningly wholesome and sweet as Hu and Helena, but we have our romantic moments.”
“Do you realize we’ve never spent Christmas together before?”
Adam frowned. “Did you miss the part where I wasn’t a Christian?”
“Okay, the holidays,” said Ryan. “I know you’re not a fan, but—”
“—I could be. Under the right circumstances. It’s not my fault some assholes decided there was a ‘War on Christmas,’ and that the decent, American thing to do was exclude people on purpose.”
“It’s stupid. Don’t let it get to you.”
Adam’s eyes shone too bright. He shook his head. “I know. It’s just that I thought we were getting somewhere. That we could be included. Then…that happened.”
Ryan squeezed Adam’s fingers. “I know.”
“And it’s hard. I was in a store and the clerk said ‘Merry Christmas’ with such a look in her eye, like spite and triumph. So petty, but those petty things matter. That constant drip-drip of ‘different’ and ‘other’ and ‘not included.’ They matter. They hurt.” He sniffed. “And sometimes they make maniacs think they have a perfect right to shoot up a synagogue.”
“Adam…”
“I know. I’ll stop. It’s not the time, I know.” He sighed. “But it’s hard, Ryan. Like, what is so wrong about making people feel included in the first place? Surely it’s just good manners? Simple kindness?” Adam paused. He looked terribly tired all of a sudden. “God, I miss feeling like we were getting somewhere. I know the world wasn’t perfect, but it was nice having those moments where you didn’t have to roll out of bed and go to war everyday, you know?”
“I know,” said Ryan. “But you gotta play the Marseillaise, Ilsa. You gotta.”
Adam’s huge brown eyes overflowed. “I love you, Victor Laszlo.”
“I love you, too. We’re gonna get through this, baby. Together.”
“Oh God,” Adam said, reaching for the napkin. “Look at me. You take me out to dinner and I act like Helena’s malfunctioning bidet.” He dried his eyes and smiled. “This is the trouble with Christmas. It’s far too sentimental. Everyone having emotions at each other.”
At that moment the waiter came and brought their starters – bruschetta for Adam and salami and mozzarella for Ryan, so that Adam couldn’t resist an urbanite snicker at Ryan’s ‘Iowa palate – meat and cheese,’ a
nd Ryan pointed out that people who lived in glass houses and ate fucking Skittles for breakfast shouldn’t throw stones. As they ate a resolution began to crystallize in Ryan’s head, and by the time they got back to his apartment it had taken on the shape of a strategy.
No matter what – he told himself, as he brushed his teeth – he was going to make this a holiday season that even his beloved Grinch in there was going to remember as one of the absolute best.
He rinsed his mouth and heard Adam say something was bullshit, then went into the bedroom, where Adam was reading, and somehow making an elderly Steelers t-shirt and a pair of glasses look hot.
“What’s bullshit?” said Ryan.
“This. The fucking prison system is crying poverty again.” Adam shook his head at the tablet in his hands. “Have you maybe considered paying the CEOs less and allocating some of that money to the inmates? Look at this prick – he’s whining because some of his middle-management do-nothings won’t get their bonuses this Christmas and have to fly coach to the Caribbean, the poor babies. Do you know what Miss Rose is getting for a holiday treat? An extra scoop of mashed potatoes. And that’s not even a treat, because I’ve had those mashed potatoes, and they’re terrible.”
Ryan, who had slipped into bed in the middle of this speech, kissed the back of Adam’s shoulder. The t-shirt was so worn it was almost as flimsy as one of Bunny’s lacy little nothings, and Ryan had been meaning to throw it out, until one day he found Adam curled up in it, and his heart had done that butter in a microwave thing all over again. “I know, Honeybunny,” he said. “It sucks. It really sucks.”
“This is one of the reasons I hate this time of year. When something sucks at Christmas it sucks so much harder, because it’s Christmas.”
Adam took off his glasses and lay back, frowning. Ryan felt his strategy crack and shudder: this was one thing he couldn’t fix. Adam had only served thirty days on a guilty plea, and nobody had expected him to survive them, but looking out for that kid – Luis – had been the thing that got him through the sentence.
“It’s one Christmas,” said Ryan. “And yeah, it’s gonna suck for him, but he won’t be there next Christmas. Next Christmas he’ll be twenty-one and we’ll all get super drunk and eat too much and you’ll bitch about sentimentality, and Justin will say something totally inappropriate or grab your dick under the mistletoe…” Adam laughed. “And you’ll play the piano and Hu and Helena will dry hump on the dance floor like a couple of kids at prom—”
“—oh my God, they so will—”
“—and who knows what Luis will do? Who knows what his thing will be? But the point is that we’ll know by then. And we’ll all be together.”
Adam gazed up at him with the kind of wonder that was somehow undimmed, over a decade after they’d first met. “You say the loveliest things,” he said.
“Yeah. I find I have a lot of inspiration these days,” said Ryan, and lowered his head to kiss him.
*
Hu was laying pipe, and not in the fun way.
For the second time in as many days he was somewhere beneath the damp floorboards of his aunt’s fire-gutted apartment, trying to locate the source of a leak.
“Can you see it?” Stephen said, on his hands and knees on the floor, trying to peer into the hole. It was making him nervous. The last time he’d tried to climb down there he’d almost got stuck on the way out, like Winnie the Pooh. Love may have been good for the complexion, but it was also good for the appetite, prompting anxieties about just how much he’d been eating lately.
“It’s hard to tell,” said Hu, from somewhere beneath him. “I think you’re going to have to run the tap.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“No, but there’s no way I’m going to find the leak otherwise. Everything is wet. Goddamn it, how do you fuck up plumbing this bad?”
Of course it had been too good to be true. At first Hu had been lucky in managing to get hold of an excellent attorney, an old college acquaintance who had shaken down the insurance company hard and fast. And he’d seemingly been lucky in finding a plumber at a good rate.
“It pays to get professionals,” he had said. “Really, how much do a drag queen and a software consultant know about plumbing?”
Apparently more than their plumber. For all Stephen was confused by the sheer number of valves involved, he was pretty sure about one principle, one that the plumber seemed to have missed: pipes should probably be watertight. In theory, Stephen said, it was the same principle as embalming, but then Hu had given him that same disturbed look that people always gave him when he got into the Six Feet Under details of his childhood.
“Is it on?” Hu said, his voice sounding further away.
“You actually want me to do this?”
“Yes. Otherwise I’m going to spend the holidays under the floorboards like some kind of mole person.”
“Okay.” Stephen got up from the floor, walked into the half-finished bathroom and turned on the tap. He listened for a moment, and was just about to call, “Anything?” when Hu let out a scream. Instinctively, Stephen ran back into the bedroom. “Hu? Honey? Are you okay?”
“Turn it off! Turn it off!”
“Oh. Sorry.” He’d left the tap running. What the hell was wrong with his brain lately?
He hurried back, turned it off and returned to the bedroom to see a bedraggled Hu crawling out of the hole in the floorboards. “I assumed you knew I meant the cold tap,” Hu said.
“Oh my God, baby. I’m so sorry. Did you get scalded?”
“Yes.” Hu peeled off his wet shirt and t-shirt and Stephen hurried to inspect the damage. “Where is your head at these days?”
“I’m sorry. I think love is making me ditzy or something.”
“Well, that’s very sweet,” said Hu, softening. “But I’m not much use to you if I’m boiled alive under the floorboards, am I?” He sighed and shivered, and Stephen hurried to wrap him up in his own jacket. “The good news is that now we definitely know which part of the pipe is leaking.”
“Can you solder it?”
“Doubtful. That water pressure is crazy. Is that a Pittsburgh thing? In my old place you’d turn on a tap and have to send the water an invitation, then wait for it to RSVP.”
“I don’t know,” said Stephen. “Sweetie, your clothes are soaked. Again. Let’s call it a day for now, huh?”
“Sure.”
They went back to Stephen’s place above the bar, or Grand Central Station as Bunny had taken to calling it in her many off moods. Sometimes Adam spent the night at Ryan’s, but most of the time they all ended up falling over each other, and today was no exception. The bathroom door was closed.
Stephen knocked. “Bunny?”
There was a faint groan from inside. “What?”
“What are you doing in there?”
“It’s a bathroom, Helena. What do you think I’m doing?”
Stephen hesitated. You never knew with Bunny. “Inappropriate things with mayonnaise?”
Adam groaned again. “So I’m guessing you need the bathroom?”
“I’m just trying to get a timescale on it. We’re cold and wet and we really need a shower.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Stephen heard the toilet roll spool being pulled. “That prune juice wasn’t doing anything anyway.”
“Have you tried eating vegetables once in a while?” said Stephen.
The toilet flushed. He heard water running and then Adam opened the door. “Do cocktail onions count?” he said.
“Nope.”
“God, we need an extra bathroom,” said Adam, wandering off to the kitchen. “And an extra bedroom. And living room. Oh, and maybe another kitchen.”
He wasn’t wrong. The two bedroom apartment had been fine for Stephen and Adam when they’d been single, but now there were two boyfriends in the mix and all four of them were being forced to pick their way through the inevitable pile-up of gowns, lingerie, dress forms, sewing machines, shoes, wigs, props and al
l the other paraphernalia of a hard working drag queen. Two hard working drag queens, and an occasional slutty bartender, who drifted in and out like a horny stray cat with a penchant for threesomes and weed.
“This is going to have to be a quick shower,” Stephen told Hu, as they undressed. “Not one of the fun ones.”
“I don’t care, as long as it’s warm,” Hu said, and caught sight of something in the sink. “Oh my…is that…?”
Stephen looked. “Yep,” he said, and stuck his head out of the bathroom door. “Bunny?”
“Yeah?” Bunny’s voice floated in from the kitchen.
“I’m probably gonna regret asking, but why is there a cockring in the sink?”
“Because you’d shit bricks if I put it in the dishwasher, dah-ling.”
And there was the regret, right on schedule. Stephen sideeyed the cockring and stepped over the side of the tub to join Hu under the spray. He kissed the back of Hu’s wet shoulder, his dick swelling to fill one of its favorite places, the warm crease of Hu’s small, silky ass. Hu sighed at his touch and turned to wrap his arms around Stephen’s neck, and they kissed – streaming wet – until the water ran into Hu’s mouth and made him cough and laugh.
As they showered, Stephen’s mind kept returning to that cockring. That was the other trouble sharing close quarters with another couple. You got to guessing as to their sexual styles whether you liked it or not, and Adam and Ryan didn’t help matters by not even trying to keep the noise down. They liked spanking and vibrators and dressing up, and Ryan – who looked the kind of wholesome that only did missionary – was actually a dirty minded versatile who wasn’t even slightly shy about telling Adam where to stick it or how to suck it. And usually called him a whore while doing so.
It wasn’t that he wanted these things, Stephen thought, when they were back in the bedroom and he was watching Hu dry himself. Okay, maybe he was curious about all that tie-me-up-tie-me-down stuff, but he definitely didn’t want to call Hu a whore, even in a sexy way. Maybe it was that he’d like to give Hu the option to get a little nasty once in a while.
Seven Deadly Queens (The FuBar Book 3) Page 3