All Snug (6 page)

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [44]

while she explained their unique menu. First, you picked the

type of meat you wanted and how you wanted it cooked.

Next, you decided on one of three types of buns, then chose

one of the almost dozen kinds of cheese, and last but not

least, your fixings.

“Give me a minute?” Shawn asked her, and she nodded

and went off to get our Cokes.

“The bleu cheese is heavenly,” I suggested.

His nose crinkled, and somehow it was sweet and not

ugly. I hated it when Steve got that look on his face.

“Okay, no bleu cheese,” I chuckled.

Shawn

studied

the

menu,

and

then,

being

“adventurous,” ordered the buffalo with baby Swiss.

“I really would like to be your friend,” I suddenly

blurted.

Shawn looked up, eyes all funny, and blushed. “That

would be nice, El,” he replied. “As long as… my boyfriend is

okay with it.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” I asked.

“You and I have been spending a lot of time together,”

he remarked, not looking at me.

“Well, we’ll just play it by ear,” I said. “Now what about

the pictures?”

“Can we eat first?” he asked. “I might not want to eat if I

lose this round.”

“You won’t lose the contest; you are already one ahead

of me,” I reminded him.

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“Let’s wait anyway?”

“Sure,” I replied, and we just immediately fell into a very

natural conversation. He told me about where he worked and

how much he liked it even though it didn’t pay much. He

worked at a call center and was good at his job, and it looked

like he might get a promotion to team lead, and that would

be a dollar raise at least.

I tried to explain my job, which wasn’t the kind he’d ever

really heard of. “I find properties and such, whatever my

clients might be in the market for, and convince them to

buy. It could be anything from a business to a yacht. Even

planes. Sometimes they call me for a very specific item. Then

I get 10 percent. It makes for a sweet little life. I’ve traveled

all over the world.”

Shawn sighed. “I would love to travel,” he replied. “St.

Louis is about the farthest I’ve ever been.”

“Oh! That’s a shame,” I said. “You need to see Europe.”

“Rome is where I would love to go,” he said. “I’d die to

see the Coliseum.”

“Oh?”

“I fell in love with Rome the first time I saw Ben Hur,” he

continued. “I would love to see the Roman Forum, the

Pantheon, the catacombs, and oh, to see Pompeii! And of

course the Vatican. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel….”

“Then go!” I cried.

Shawn rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“Shawn, it is so beautiful. Romantic. You and….” I took

a big drink of water. “You could go with your boyfriend.”

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Al Snug [46]

“He makes less money than I do,” Shawn said.

I would love to share Rome with Shawn, to watch him

take in the eternal city with those big beautiful eyes of his.

He would be like Alice in Wonderland. “Maybe I can take

you?” I said stupidly and was saved by the waitress bringing

our burgers.

“Damn,” Shawn said, all wide-eyed. “You weren’t

kidding me when you said they were big. I could make a

meal out of these fries.” He picked up a fry easily the size of

a dozen from McDonald’s and bit into it. “Oh my God,” he

said, and I could just see he was in heaven. It was just a

French fry! How had he been so deprived of such simple

pleasures? But then just his meal would cost more than

both of ours together at McDonald’s.

“Try the burger,” I said, eager to see his reaction.

He nodded and opened his mouth wide to take a bite of

the monstrous hamburger. His eyes closed in pleasure, and I

wondered if he looked like that when he came.

Damn it, what was wrong with me?

I was developing feelings for this man. Me! Hadn’t I

given up on love? And I’d known him, what? Three days?

This was ridiculous. I was acting like a kid who’d just come

out of the closet. But as Shawn experienced pure ecstasy

over nothing but a big hamburger, I was reminded what it

had been like to discover such things. Sure, I’d been a lot

younger than he was now, but Shawn somehow brought

back all the childlike wonder to my life. I couldn’t help but

want to see what he’d look like when he saw the Coliseum.

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Al Snug [47]

Or making love in my bed. What expressions would

cross his face…?

Shit, I said to myself. This is bad. This is really bad.

I changed the subject and started talking about sports,

and thank God I didn’t have to fake it. Shawn knew less

than I did. I’d figured it was all a country boy had to do.

“I like to read,” he told me. “And play music.”

“You play?” I asked shocked. Why had this never come

up before?

“Violin,” he said. “Fiddle as my Grandpa would have

said.”

“You any good?” I asked, enchanted to think of this

beautiful man making music.

Shawn gave a shrug. “I can play a tune,” he said and

grinned.

“I can’t even play the kazoo,” I said. “But I can carry a

tune with my voice.”

“Big karaoke man?” he asked.

“Oh no!” I cried. “I am not standing up in front of a room

full of drunks and trying to follow the words on those little

screens.”

“Not classy enough for you?” Shawn teased. “Got to

have a piano? I can just see you in a tux, leaning against a

baby grand while somebody plays for you.” He giggled. I hate

it when grown men giggle, but like everything else, Shawn

somehow made it charming.

“Picture time,” I proclaimed.

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“Okay,” he agreed, taking one of his last bites.

I brought out my cell phone, and he brought out his

workmate’s camera.

“I bet you’ve beat me,” he said. “I went to the zoo after

work only to find out it was closed. Can you believe that they

close at four?” He handed over the camera and showed me

how to go through the pictures. Despite his attitude, he’d

done quite well. There was a picture of the statues of the

lions in Swope Park, minutes from the zoo. I hadn’t even

thought of them. I laughed to see his photograph of a

Christmas reindeer from the roof of a house.

“Does that count?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

The next was a picture of the bronze boar fountain on

the Plaza, which was a copy of a Greek marble statue at the

entrance to the straw market in Florence. That made me

think of another place I’d love to show Shawn—Florence.

Then there was a picture of a cardinal sitting on a bird

feeder.

“That one took me forever,” he said. “I was afraid it was

going to get dark.”

And another of the CowParade cows. With the picture of

one of the horses that pulled a carriage through the Plaza, it

just showed the ways we thought alike. Then there was a

whole bin of apples from some grocery store and finally

Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

“A monster!” I barked with laughter. “Where did you find

him?”

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Al Snug [49]

Shawn blushed.

“Is he yours?” I asked.

He nodded and blushed all the harder. “You are the

cutest man I’ve ever met in my life,” I said and then wished I

could take it back. Shawn looked totally shocked.

I quickly took out my cell phone and we counted. Shawn

had seven, and I had eight.

“Damn,” said Shawn. “If I had just found a mean

looking dog, I would have tied with you.”

“We are tied,” I told him. “Two for two now.”

“So we need a tiebreaker then?”

I nodded, and the waitress appeared. “Two brownies

with a scoop of ice cream,” I said.

“Oh no!” Shawn said. “I’m stuffed. I couldn’t.”

“Then make his brownie to go,” I told the waitress.

“So?” Shawn asked.

“So what?” I asked.

“The tie-breaker?”

“Hmmm,” I said, biting my lip. What could it be? Maybe

prove I wasn’t a snob once and for all? “You know a place

that has karaoke?”

Shawn turned green. “I was just shitting you!”

“Nevertheless, it would be a good challenge. Whichever

of us that gets the most applause wins?” I challenged him.

Then, as if someone else besides me were speaking, I

said, “What’s more, if you win, you don’t have to pay for the

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other half of the bed. I pay for it all. If I win, I get the bed,

and I pay you back what you put into it.”

“What?” said Shawn, his face slack in obvious shock.

Hell, I was shocked. I didn’t know what had made me make

the offer.

“El, that isn’t fair to you,” he said. “I can’t do it.”

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” I asked, trying to goad him.

“Oh fuck,” he said. “I don’t break glass. Why the hell

not? Let’s get this over with. It is Christmas Adam. We only

have another day.”

“Christmas Adam?” I asked, trying not to think about

only one more day.

“The day before Christmas Eve,” he explained.

I burst into laughter as our brownies arrived, and

Shawn gave them a look of pure lust. “Whoa,” he replied.

“One bite?” I asked.

“Sure,” he nodded and took a bite. I found myself

watching the whole journey of that forkful of brownie from

his to-go container up to his open mouth, the twitch of his

pink tongue, his full lips closing and then, oh yes, forming

into ecstasy.

I actually felt a drop of precum form at the head of my

cock. Was this just lust? That I could deal with.

“Amazing,” he said. “You get what you pay for?” The

brownie cost just about what his meal would have cost had

we gone to Mickey D’s. Why was I suddenly obsessing about

prices?

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Al Snug [51]

“You should have gotten the ice cream,” I said.

He just smiled. “I would never have been able to eat it

all.”

“A bite then?” I held out my fork with a bit of brownie

and a dollop of white ice cream with the little dark flecks of

vanilla bean.

He giggled again and opened his mouth, and when I

placed my fork on his tongue, as his eyes closed again, and

he gave a heavenly shudder, I almost cried. Weird. Cried. I

wanted to cry. Stupid.

“You guys look so sweet together,” our waitress said,

appearing without warning.

Shawn’s eyes went huge.

“Oh, we’re not together,” I said.

The waitress smirked.

“No really, we’re just friends.”

“Okay. The customer is always right. But the way you

two are googlie-eyeing each other, I would have thought you

were in love.”

“I have a boyfriend,” said Shawn indignantly. “And so

does he.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be your boyfriends,” she said

with a smile. “I’d be jealous as shit.”

I could hardly talk. All I could think about was her

words, “googlie-eyeing each other.”

I can admit I’d been caught.

B.G. Thomas

Al Snug [52]

But she thought Shawn was looking at me the same

way?

I GOT to The Male Box before Shawn that night. He had a

date, and I wished him well with that. Or tried to. His

boyfriend had to make it an early night, and Shawn and I

had agreed to meet at ten. I was there by nine.

As I sat there drinking my maybe-pretentious, ten-year-

old, twelve-dollars-a-glass Lagavulin, I wondered what I was

about to get into. I had the bar’s karaoke book open in front

of me, and I was trying to pick out what I was going to sing.

Should I go for what I was best at? Something by Michael

Bublé, like “How Sweet It Is” or “Try a Little Tenderness”? Or

should I get a little wilder? Try some Lady Gaga? I laughed

aloud. No, not that. Tom Jones’s version of “Kiss”?

I was still trying to make up my mind when Shawn laid

a hand on my shoulder. When I turned to see who it was,

sparks shot across my skin where he was touching me. Oh

goodness. I was in deep. Three days.

Why?

What about Steve?

Who is giving you hot sex but is dumb as a box of rocks,

came my inner voice. Steve is fine as long as he doesn’t

speak outside of talking dirty while you have sex. You don’t