Best Gay Romance 2013 (10 page)

“Dean told me, ‘Wait for Thanksgiving, little brother. I'll come home and we'll be together.'”

I twirled a lock of Cody's hair around my finger.

“Of course,” Cody said, “Dean never made it home. When he suffocated in that car trunk, I grew so depressed
I
wanted to die. Why go on living if I didn't have Dean in my life? I bought a length of rope, learned how to tie a noose from the Internet. It took me many months to work up the courage, but I finally did it. I figured death would bring me peace.”

I shuddered, thinking of Cody hanging in his garage. “My mom told me there was an argument at your house, just before—”

“We had a blowup all right, on Christmas Day, at the dinner table. My mom said it wasn't the same without Dean during the holidays, how we'd never understand the loss she ‘felt in her heart.'

“It made me want to puke. I thought of the last time I'd made love with Dean, the night before he left for Gainesville. I told my mom, ‘You didn't even
know
Dean. I was closer to him than you or Dad or anyone else. I'm the one who's suffering here.'

“My mom said something like, ‘If you loved Dean you wouldn't have disappointed him so often. You never lettered in a sport; you never dated girls, were never popular like Dean. He felt embarrassed by you and your slouchy friends.'

“When she said that, I …
exploded
. I stood up and threw a gravy boat across the room; it hit the wall and shattered. I said, ‘Dean wasn't just my brother, Mom; he was my boyfriend. Do you hear me? He was my
lover.
'”

“Holy shit, Cody.”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “Yeah: holy shit. At that point, the toothpaste was out of the tube. I'd disappointed my
parents before, of course. But now they knew about me and Dean. They'd hate me forever, I knew, 'cause I'd destroyed their vision of who Dean was.”

Cody rearranged his limbs and cleared his throat.

“I had no one left to love me, Zach. It was time to die.”

We lay there in silence for a bit, just breathing and thinking. I tried to imagine how lonely Cody must've felt Christmas Day and how badly he must've missed his brother.

Cody turned his head and looked at me.

“Any more questions?”

I shook my head.

 

Cody and I didn't have sex at the beach motel. His revelation about his brother had shocked me so badly I couldn't
think
of touching Cody. I kept seeing visions of Cody and Dean in my head, the two of them surreptitiously making love while the rest of us remained clueless. I felt foolish, like the last guy in the room who's let in on the joke.

I imagined how Cody's parents must've felt when Cody thrust reality into their faces.

During the remainder of our motel stay, Cody and I busied ourselves with walks on the beach, dining at fast-food joints, and sunning ourselves by the pool. We bought a bottle of Canadian whiskey, courtesy of the UF boys, and our last two nights we drank the stuff mixed with ginger ale until we both passed out. We didn't discuss Dean or sex or anything remotely personal again.

I wasn't ready to.

 

Spring break ended. We returned to school and our empty social life. Cody slept in his cot, I in my bed. We'd both been accepted
to University of Central Florida, but attending there wasn't an option for Cody. At the dinner table one night, he said his parents had refused to pay for his education.

“I'm on my own after high school,” he told me and my folks. “I'll find a job, attend community college part-time. It'll be okay.”

My mom looked like she would cry. She told Cody, “You'll always have a home with us.”

My dad nodded in agreement.

I signed up for fall semester at UCF. My folks sent them a deposit check. Then, during the last week of May, Cody and I walked across the school's auditorium stage, looking ridiculous in our disposable caps and gowns. We both shook hands with the principal while my folks smiled and applauded. My dad took photos with his digital camera.

Cody's parents did not attend.

 

In mid-August, Cody's mom died unexpectedly, from an “aortic aneurysm.” A blood vessel near her heart burst. In the space of ten minutes, she bled to death at the Bartons' country club, after collapsing on the putting green. Her obituary described her as a “loving wife and mother.” When Cody saw it in the newspaper, he shook his head.

“Bullshit,” was all he had to say.

I went to the funeral only because I felt I should be there for Cody. We both wore starched shirts, neckties and khaki pants. The day was overcast, with a smell of rain in the air. At the Bartons' family plot, a breeze ruffled Cody's hair while they lowered his mom's casket into the ground. Cody, I noticed, wasn't observing the goings-on. Instead, he kept his gaze on Dean's headstone.

That night, lightning flashed outside my bedroom window.
Thunder rumbled so hard the house shook. Cody's cot frame creaked.

“Zach, are you still awake?”

“Yeah, this storm's keeping me up.”

“Me too; I can't sleep.”

We decided to play cards. I flicked on my nightstand lamp and Cody joined me on my bed. We sat facing each other, legs crossed at our shins, both wearing boxer shorts. I shuffled the deck and dealt. Then we played gin rummy, arranging our tricks on the blanket and saying little.

All summer long, Cody and I had power-raked people's Bahia lawns for cash. It was hard, sweaty work but paid well. In ten weeks we'd earned more than we could have bagging groceries an entire year. We were both tanned and fit, but skinny as ever. The muscles in my back and arms ached from the day's labors and I shifted my weight on the mattress, trying to get comfortable.

In a week, we'd return the power rake to the rental place. Then my dad would drive me to Orlando with my belongings and my college days would commence.

“Promise you won't pledge a fraternity,” my mom had begged me.

I promised. What fraternity would pledge a guy with toothpick limbs and hair past his shoulders?

Now, in my room, Cody drew from the deck. “I'll miss you when you go,” he said.

I nodded. How would it feel, not waking next to Cody each morning?

I told him, “At least you won't have to sleep on the cot. You'll like this bed.”

After discarding, Cody looked up. “Will you do something for me, before you leave?”

I asked what.

He placed a hand on my knee and squeezed.

My eyebrows gathered. I looked at Cody's hand, then his face.

“Just once,” he said. “It's been a rough day and I don't want to sleep alone.”

I didn't know what to do. I thought of Dean's perfection. He'd been
way
out of my league; there was no way I could measure up to him and what he'd meant to Cody.

“I'm not your brother,” I told Cody. “I'm just a skater with zits.”

Cody reached for my cheek and stroked it with his thumb. “It doesn't matter, Zach. You're my best friend; my
only
friend.”

I hadn't touched a man sexually since my arrest. Already my cock was stiff and my pulse quickened.

 

We lay naked on my bedsheets, Cody and I, each guy gripping the other's erection. Our lips smacked and our tongues rubbed. My heart thumped while my belly did flip-flops. I kept running my fingers through Cody's hair, marveling at its thickness and texture. I kissed his eyelids, his forehead and the tip of his freckled nose. When he took my cock in his mouth and sucked the glans, I groaned so loud I'm surprised my parents didn't hear me.

Actually, I think they did.

Cody worked my cock with his tongue and lips. It felt heavenly. His mouth was warm and wet, so sensual. I shifted position so I could return the favor. Then we both slurped away. I loved the scent of Cody's crotch. How
different
this was from sex in Oleander Park. I was making love with my best friend, the guy who'd stood by me when no one else would.

What a fool I'd been, turning down Cody at the beach motel. Sure, I'd been angry because he'd hidden his sex life from me all those years, but hadn't
I
done the same to Cody? Now that he was in my bed, I couldn't get enough of him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed as hard as I could.

Okay, I wasn't Dean Barton—I didn't have his looks or his athleticism—but at least I was there for Cody. I found Cody's lanky frame sexy; I liked touching him intimately. Maybe I could offer him a small measure of what he needed. Not just tonight, but in the future, if he'd let me.

UCF's only a ninety-minute drive from Clearwater. Maybe
—

“Zach?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you fuck me?”

I greased my cock with lube from the nightstand drawer. Then I greased Cody's. He straddled me and sat on my erection. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I felt the clench of his pucker, the warmth of his gut when I entered him. Moonlight let me see the expressions on Cody's face while I thrust inside his body and he stroked himself. He looked drugged, as though he were far removed from reality.

A shiver ran through me when I came. My lungs pumped and my body jerked each time I shot. I closed my eyes while fireworks exploded in my head. Moments later, Cody cried out my name when he blew his load. His semen sprayed my chest and collarbone; it felt warm and viscous, teeming with his life force.

My cock still inside him, Cody bent at the waist and kissed my eyebrows. “That was wonderful, Zach. Is it okay if I tell you I love you?”

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. Snot crowded my nose and my lips quivered. I felt completely overwhelmed.

I've earned Cody's love by being his friend
.

My mother called to me from beyond the bedroom door.

“Zach, are you and Cody okay?”

I wiped my eyes and sniffled. Then I cleared my throat.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said.

“We're both fine.”

T. Hitman

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lyle was already feeling like a pariah when Mike leaned over him to grab another stack of corrugated boxes off the shelf. He tried his best not to gawk or react, difficult feats to pull off given the closeness of the other man's bare legs, so solid and furry; the hypnotic scent of him, a trace of fresh, masculine sweat mixed with the deodorant Mike had slapped on earlier that morning; the meaty fullness packed into the front of his camouflage cutoffs—all tempting Lyle to steal a glance.

The atmosphere in the warehouse was tense enough and growing worse with every day that passed since Kevin Collins had pointed out the bear paw-print sticker on the back bumper of Lyle's truck. It wasn't a rainbow flag, but it hadn't taken much after that to polarize the men. Even Mike had been less of a buddy in recent weeks. The handsome, late-thirtysomething go-to guy that Lyle had fallen in crush with on Day One had gotten colder and quieter since Collins spilled the news about what the sticker meant to the rest of the warehouse crew.

“Help me a sec?” Mike's deep, powerful voice shattered the spell Lyle had fallen under—but not the temptation to look, to draw in a deep breath of the Mike-flavored air, thus taking at least a part of the other man inside him. Penetration by proxy, Lyle thought.

“Sure.”

Together they lugged two more stacks of unassembled corrugated cardboard boxes onto the pallet, filling the first of the morning's orders.

Unable to resist, Lyle let his eyes wander for a few dangerous seconds, just enough time to drink in Mike's unrivaled magnificence. His dark hair, in a neat athlete's haircut, was going silver around the edges, right above his ears. An old T-shirt bearing the logo of the local pro baseball team showcased the muscles of his chest and arms to perfection, the pits damp with sweat, the collar near his throat prickly with a thatch of dark hair that trailed up into the days-old scruff coating the lower half of his handsome face.

Mike's ass was high and square, a leftover from his years in the army that he'd maintained by playing all of the Big Four sports—baseball in the summer, ice hockey in the winter, pigskin and hoops in the seasons between. His old construction boots flashed a hint of clean white sock at the top. When you factored in Mike's blue eyes, which looked wounded even when he smiled, the dimple on his right cheek, and his no-bullshit, easygoing blue-collar work ethic, the end result was almost blinding to behold.

And impossible to ignore.

Lyle picked up the work order. “Anything else I can help you with?”

“Nope,” Mike said.

Lyle forced himself to look away as the other man grabbed
the pallet jack's hydraulic handle and gave it a few firm pumps, ignoring the ache in his stomach signaling that Kevin Collins and the other straight, intolerant yahoos who toiled in the aisles of the cavernous State Street Warehouse had turned Mike against him. He was alone now. One.

Despite the endless succession of jerk-off fantasies that had sustained Lyle over the past few months, he had no illusions about the truth of the situation. He was twenty-eight, living by himself in a one-bedroom apartment a few miles and a pair of right turns up the road from State Street. Mike was straight, ten years older, a lone wolf if the snippets and sound bites Lyle had collected turned out to be true. Wasn't married, but most likely kept at least one if not a bunch of lady friends at the ready, because he was a man and men had needs.