A Tale of Two Trucks (11 page)

T
HE
day his divorce was finalized, Joe called me the moment it was official. I let Rick go home an hour early so I could go home too, and make a special dinner: Creamy Linguine Alfredo with Cajun Grilled Chicken. It was my own original recipe—okay, so I found the idea on the Internet, then tweaked it my way—and the last time I’d made it, Joe had
literally
licked his plate clean. I’d marinated the chicken a bit longer this time, so he was in rapturous joy with every bite.

I topped it off with Gramma’s Creamy Pumpkin Cheesecake, which had a fragrant crust of crushed gingersnaps, chilled in the freezer and slathered with real whipped cream. We took it and the bottle of white wine out into the living room to watch reruns of
NCIS
on cable. After we’d stuffed ourselves as much as we could without bursting, laughing at the zingers the characters shot at each other, I put the dishes away and sat on Joe’s lap with his arms wrapped around me. Toward the end of one show, though, I noticed that he was getting as horny as Tony DiNozzo, and his hands were wandering inside my shirt with growing frequency and audacity.

As soon as the program ended, I tried to pull Joe upstairs to the master bedroom, where we’d just installed our new king-sized bed, but he pushed me over onto the sofa instead.

“Let’s do it here,” he suggested with a wicked grin.

“
Here
?” I responded, my voice much higher than normal.

“Yeah! Why not?”

“Well… but… what if someone
sees
us?”

“Aw, Mike! The curtains are closed, so even if anybody happened to look at the house, all they’d see is some shadows moving. C’mon, let’s get you more comfortable!”

In one smooth move he had divested me of my shirt.

“Joe, I’m feeling anything
but
comfortable,” I protested, wrapping my arms around my naked chest. “Anybody could walk up to the front door and look inside!”

“That window’s, like, four inches wide,” Joe countered. “They couldn’t see this far in, anyway; the angle’s all wrong. Besides, Mike, who could
possibly
come to your house at this hour?”

“Well… you never know….”

Then he gave me a taste of my own medicine.

“Mike. In all the years you’ve lived here, how many times has someone actually
come
this late at night?”

I realized he was giving me The Talk, but I didn’t want to give in too easily.

“It depends on what your definition of ‘come’ is,” I quipped.

He chuckled at that, but still managed to unbuckle my belt and get my trousers off.

“My definition of ‘come’ is X-rated,” he rumbled in my ear, manhandling me to make me kneel on the sofa with my elbows resting on the back. I heard him unzip his jeans behind me, which made all thought of resistance fly out the proverbial window. Mini Me was very much on the same page as Joe’s Big Daddy.

“Wait! Lube,” I pointed out frantically.

“Already got it,” he replied, whipping out a brand-new tube from under the cushions.

“
What
?”

“I hid it here when I got home. I thought we might be in the mood for some…
serious
celebrating tonight….”

Then he yanked my tighty-whities down just enough to expose my bottom and push a slick finger into my back door. I keened as he hit The Spot on the first try and gripped the sofa for dear life as he quickly inserted a second finger.

“That enough foreplay for ya?” he asked, rubbing the lubed tip of Big Daddy against my bare thigh.

“Y-yeah!” I gasped, and his digital probes were replaced by his thick, warm, ramrod-straight manhood. Involuntarily, my back arched like a bow as he pressed all the way inside. His presence there completed me.

“Mmm… Mike,” he moaned, unclamping his mouth from my shoulder, where he’d bit me just shy of breaking the skin. “You’re so… hot… and…
yummy
!”

I turned around so he could give me a proper kiss.

“And you’re so… hot… and strong… and…
manly
!” I panted.

He placed one large hand across my stomach, fingers splayed, and the other hand slid up to my chest. As he held me in place, I supported myself against the back of the couch, enabling him to pound into my bouncy backside at full throttle. I could hardly breathe as he worked himself into a frenzy, feeling the Ring of Fire burn ever hotter as our friction reached critical. Then he pressed deep inside me—so deep that I could feel his nuts slap up against my skin—and shuddered as he released his passion. I knew in the back of my mind that his man juice was going to drip out of my loosened hole in a few minutes, staining the upholstery, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was
Joe
!

Okay, and Mini Me, but he was already taking care of that. It was still trapped in my underwear, but rather than bring it out, Joe stuck his hand inside too and rubbed and fondled it. He murmured encouraging sounds in my ear, but my brain couldn’t register the words—it had sent all the blood down to the other head. I began bucking into his large hand with abandon.

“Oh… Ah! Oh, Joe…. Ah! Ah!
Ahh
!
Ahh
!
Aaahhh
!”

My underpants were a hot, sticky mess when I was done, although Joe continued to stroke Mini Me with a tenderness that made me want to cry.

“Hey,” he mumbled in between planting kisses on my neck, “I think you wet your pants.”

I started giggling, then couldn’t stop. As he nipped teasingly at my shoulder, I realized with sudden clarity that it was
okay
—I could laugh if I wanted to. I didn’t have to worry about what he might think anymore because I knew he loved me. It was a liberating thought. It was even, in a way, a
cathartic
thought. I leaned back against him, trusting him with my weight, with my everything, and sighed in utter bliss.

“At least I didn’t stain the couch” was all I said out loud. But I felt something had definitely changed.
I
had changed. And Joe had helped me.

After I’d caught my breath, he laid me down on the sofa with my bottom perched up on one armrest and my legs dangling in midair. He wiped me off with some tissues as he removed my underwear, commenting that it was just like changing a baby’s diaper. I indicated my indignation by trying to poke him with a toe, but he blocked it easily and grabbed my ankles, splaying my feet out so he could get a good view of me—naked, exposed, and completely vulnerable. But I was so relaxed that I was fine with it. When I was with Joe, I realized, I was comfortable with myself, no matter what.

Of course by this point he was ready for Round Two, in which he simply stood at the end of the sofa and pulled me up by the waist to fit him. This angle was good too—in fact, all of the positions we had tried so far were wonderfully satisfactory!—and it had the added bonus of letting me watch Joe pound into my Tunnel of Love, towering over me like my own personal Greek god, his muscles rippling with every movement. He had shucked off the rest of his clothes before starting again, so he was standing there in all his naked glory. I hardly even needed to touch myself, the sight of him was so hot and erotic!

Afterward, he bent down to kiss my slightly bruised waist and stomach, whispering sweet nothings all the while, then sat on the floor and just petted me as I lay, spent and limp like overcooked asparagus, on the sofa. The
NCIS
marathon was still playing on the TV, but—with my sincerest apologies to Leroy Jethro Gibbs—I only had eyes for my Joe.

“Mike…,” he began. His hand had been combing back my hair in a soothing motion, but it stopped and cupped the side of my face tenderly. “I think—no, I
know
, for sure now, that… I love you.”

I teared up but was determined not to cry.

“I love you too, Joe.”

It was almost midnight when we went to bed. I was still exhausted so he carried me upstairs, the same way he had on that first momentous night when he’d finally realized how I felt about him. It seemed almost too good to be true, to fall asleep in his arms with his lips pressed against my forehead in a permanent kiss.

Chapter 17

W
HEN
his Aunt Peg found out that Joe wasn’t dating Faith on a regular basis (or rather, at all), she called right away to “see how he was doing.” After letting her beat around the bush for a while, he confessed to her that he was actually “seeing someone else.”

“I’d really like to introduce you,” Joe said, shooting me a wink as he talked to her on the phone. “You’re my closest family, distance-wise, and it’d be sorta like working up to my folks, y’know…. Really? You don’t mind? Yeah, that’d be perfect! Okay, we’ll be there.”

After he hung up, he grinned at me.

“You didn’t tell her that I’m
not
a girl,” I accused.

“Oh, didn’t I? Must’ve slipped my mind,” he said blandly. I biffed him with a sofa cushion.

“You’re sending me into the lions’ den!” I groaned.

“Maybe,” he conceded, “but at least I won’t make you go by yourself.”

And so, the next Friday, we showed up on his uncle’s doorstep in time for dinner. I’d dressed Joe in a casual sport coat over black jeans and a white oxford (no tie), and I was wearing a brown suit with a matching plaid shirt. After ringing the doorbell, Joe placed an arm across my shoulders, from which I couldn’t have escaped even if I’d had the time to try. His uncle opened the door and stared at us—wordlessly and expressionlessly, as though his face had frozen—for a full minute. Then he turned toward the kitchen and hollered at his wife.

“Peg! You won’t believe this. The
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
has given your nephew a makeover!”

From the wry smile at the corner of his mouth as he said this, I knew immediately that Uncle Don was on our side. Aunt Peg was polite too, once she got over the initial shock, although I could tell she was rather disappointed that she wouldn’t be helping Joe plan a traditional wedding. I could barely sympathize with her, though, when Joe told them in no uncertain terms that he was going to spend the rest of his life with
me
. I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear!

Of course, Aunt Peg strongly recommended he give his parents a heads-up before springing me on them, to which we both agreed. She even offered to be the one to give them the warning, but Joe declined, saying he wanted to gauge their reaction for himself. Uncle Don kept shaking his head in amazement, but I saw a smirk sneak onto his face at the thought of Joe telling his parents he was gay—or bisexual, anyway. It was impossible to guess whether his folks would know the difference or not.

T
HEY
reacted about as well as could be expected, to my great relief. I was listening in on Joe’s side of the conversation when he called his mom, Mary Ellen, and broke the news to her. He’d mentioned to me beforehand that she would be the easier of the two to talk to, so it was fortuitous that she had answered the phone. Earl, his dad and a plumber of almost fifty years, was home, but he was outside pottering about in their garden when Joe called.

“So, I don’t know if Aunt Peg told you already,” Joe began, testing out the waters, “but I’ve met someone…. She hasn’t? Oh, good. I wanted to be the first to tell you…. Well, it’s… a bit complicated…. You’re probably not gonna believe this. Are you sittin’ down? Okay. First of all, it’s not a girl. It’s a guy…. Yeah, a guy. A very
nice
guy, who’s been feeding me like a king. I think you’ll really like him…. Well, he’s… smart, funny, and can dance like nobody’s business….”

I was blushing furiously, wondering if I should leave and give Joe some privacy to talk to his mom, but he had already caught my hand and was playing with it, effectively tethering me to him. He told her what I did for work, and since both my interior designing and vehicle detailing businesses were going well, I allowed myself a little swell of pride. He also described how we’d met and how I’d given him the incentive to sort things out with Cindy once and for all, as well as helped him through the rough patches.

“Mom, I know it’s the last thing you expected, but… I’m happy now,” Joe concluded. “Yeah, really
happy
. I haven’t felt this way since… since Dana died.”

My mouth sagged open a little to hear him say so. Not just because he’d managed to mention his baby girl without choking up, but also because it had never even occurred to me that he might have been
un
happy for all those years. That he might have been operating on autopilot, getting up every morning to go to work and coming home to an empty house, with no real purpose or joy in his life. It was sobering to think that he might have been as lonely and depressed as I had been before we’d met.

His dad walked into the house around then, since his mom paused to tell him that it was Joe on the phone. Once he’d washed his hands that were grubby from gardening, it was his turn to hear the news. He seemed to take it stoically (at least from what I could gather, listening to Joe) and without much comment. Mary Ellen took over again before long, and I realized she was inviting
both
of us over for Thanksgiving, which was less than a month away. Joe accepted it as a matter of course, as though he had been planning on it all along but had just been waiting for her invitation as a formality.

I started to panic. It had been a long time since I’d celebrated Thanksgiving with someone else. Most years since Gramma died, I’d simply holed up at home with a good book or a painting project. The only nod I gave to the holiday was a couple of turkey breasts to broil in the toaster oven and maybe a box of Stovetop Stuffing. Even when Brandon was living with me, he would go home to his folks’ place for the weekend, but—because he’d hinted once that their house was small and would be overcrowded with his sister’s kids—I had never joined him or even expected an invitation.

Mary Ellen insisted I didn’t need to bring anything, but to my simultaneous delight and horror, Joe told her he
wanted
me to make something so they would see (and I’m quoting him verbatim here) “what a great cook my boyfriend is and how well he’s feeding me.” She then asked if I could bring a dessert, and Joe immediately told her about Gramma’s Creamy Pumpkin Cheesecake. Thankfully, that was a foolproof recipe.