Best Gay Romance 2013 (11 page)

Lyle understood a man's needs better than he gave himself credit for.

 

That afternoon, about an hour before the jarring buzzer would sound, releasing them all from what sometimes felt like modern-day slavery, Lyle spotted Mike standing alone on the loading dock, leaning against the wall, one giant foot crossed over the other. He was staring off into space, his blue eyes—bluer than even the sky—oblivious to Lyle's presence.

The knot in Lyle's stomach pulled tighter. He wanted to march over, to ask Mike how he was doing, was everything all right between them, any chance he could explain his side of what Kevin had turned into the biggest scandal to hit State Street Warehouse since the previous year's Christmas party, which was still spoken about occasionally during lunch breaks by the other knuckle draggers. But his sneakers wouldn't obey his heart, and he kept right on walking.

The next day, Mike didn't show up for work. Nor did he the
day after that. By Friday, Lyle was feeling isolated and shunned by the rest of the warehouse. The last of his kind.

 

“Hey, Kevin,” Lyle said.

The other man took a step back, coughed to clear his throat, and said, “Not so close. I don't want to get what you have. What up, homo?”

Lyle gaped, “ 'Scuse me?”

“Homes. What up,
homes
?”

Lyle let it slide. The under-the-breath comments, snickers, and stares had gotten too obvious to blame on simple paranoia. Lyle didn't eat lunch with the rest of the warehouse workers any more, and rarely spoke to any of them, except on an as-needed basis. Even approaching Kevin to ask about Mike had taken more effort than not allowing his gaze to linger too long on his hunky supervisor, before Mike had gone missing.

“Have to ask you something.”

“What about—sports? Pussy?”

Lyle ignored the snark. “Mike—where the hell is Mike?”

“Big Mike?” Kevin parroted. “He didn't tell you?” Lyle shrugged. “Hate to be the one to break the news, seeing as how much guys like you love another man's balls. Mike had to have one of his lopped off. Cancer, dude. Bet that ruins your day almost as much as his.”

Kevin walked away, leaving Lyle frozen where he stood. From the corner of his eye, Lyle saw the other man yank the leg of his loose-fit shorts up. He turned in time to see Kevin's balls spill into the open. Kevin wagged his hairy sac at him, chuckled, and continued on his way.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Lyle felt numb, going through the motions, only partially aware of time and space. The few times he tried to press his coworkers for more
information, he was met with apathy and condescension. Mike's boss told Lyle he couldn't discuss the situation due to medical privacy laws.

With no other option, Lyle consulted a reliable fallback: the telephone book in the junk drawer in his kitchen.

 

Heart galloping, he approached the apartment block's front door. The building was an ugly, square, brick throwback to the 1970s with zero personality. The kind of place that unleashed a feeling of despair in Lyle whenever he saw one, a place where hopelessness was a tenant. Not fitting for the caliber of a man like Mike.

For days, Lyle had picked up the phone only to hang it up again before dialing past the first few numbers. Driving to the place, parking his truck with its bear-paw bumper sticker in the spot right next to Mike's rugged SUV, Lyle felt like a stalker. He almost backed out and drove away, but killed the ignition and pocketed the keys before he chickened out.

There was no denying the fact that Lyle was attracted to Mike. That mysterious chemical spark had flared the moment they'd first shaken hands in the warehouse. Hell, he hadn't pumped his cock thinking about anyone else for months, hadn't slept with another warm body for much longer than that, was sustained only by his fantasies because contrary to what Kevin and the others thought, Lyle wasn't the kind of guy who slept with a different dude every night. He was a romantic at heart—and his heart had been captured by one man and one man only, Mike Logan.

Sometimes, Lyle would do a crazy trick he'd performed when he was younger: lay in bed with his spine braced against the headboard and his legs over his head, jerking his dick until he shot into his open and hungry mouth. In those moments, he pretended the juice was Mike's as he devoured it, jealous and
envious of every mouth that had tasted the legit thing in the real world.

But as much as he lusted after Mike's body, he also really liked Mike, the human being. And being a good friend meant helping a person out when he was down, even if he hadn't asked for it.

Lyle grabbed the bag containing a six-pack and a package of cookies off the passenger seat and tromped up the brick stairs to the door, his heart pounding in his chest. He found the right apartment and buzzed, then waited. After several interminably long seconds, the squawk box squawked.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Mike,” Lyle said, his already-dry mouth draining of the last of its spit. “It's Lyle. From work.”

He added the last part in haste—quantifying his identity spared him from how he knew it would feel if Mike asked
Who?
Then he thought,
How many Lyles can the man know?

The intercom died. The squeak of a door's hinges from somewhere deep in the apartment building's dark interior sounded, alerting Lyle to a flash of motion from beyond the security door's glass. Mike. He appeared and opened the door.

“Hey, man,” Lyle said, smiling widely.

“Dude,” Mike greeted him, indifferent.

It took the greatest effort not to stare at Mike's clean white T-shirt, blue jeans, and bare feet. Lyle did, however, notice that Mike's puppy-dog eyes looked even more wounded than usual.

“Hope you don't mind me dropping in like this.”

“Why are you here?” Mike growled.

Lyle shrugged. “Thought you could use a friendly face. The baseball game's coming on, and I brought beer.”

Mike smiled, but the gesture contained little humor. “You know?”

Lyle nodded.

“I'm off the beer for a while.”

“I also brought cookies.”

Mike drew in a deep breath, his annoyance—hell, his anger—obvious, barely contained. But just when Lyle figured he'd made a mistake in coming here, Mike's furry mouth curled into a smile that was more convincing than its predecessor. “What kind of cookies?”

“Chocolate chip. The soft, squishy kind, from the bakery,” Lyle said. “Only the best for you, man.”

 

The apartment was a typical bachelor's cave, with mismatched furniture. A soft and overstuffed chair in front of a widescreen TV hooked up to the usual gadgets and games, a baseball poster tacked to one wall beside it. Mike's familiar work boots sat just inside the door, a discarded pair of sweat socks bunched inside them. Several pill bottles littered the top of the kitchen table, along with stacks of unopened mail and a stroke magazine.

“So how are you doing, big Mike?” Lyle said, drawing in a deep breath of the Mike-scented air.

“How do you think?”

Lyle shrugged. “Probably not too good.”

“No, probably not,” Mike said.

Lyle set the bag down on the counter and pulled out the cookies. “I wanted to bring you something, but I didn't peg you as the flower or fruit basket type.”

Mike snorted, slumped into his big chair, and thumbed the remote. Lyle tossed the beer into the fridge, which was populated by a threadbare collection of protein shakes, yogurt, and bottles of sports drinks. He picked up the cookies but wasn't in the mood to eat them any more than Mike seemed to be.

“So when are you coming back to work?”

“Don't know. Depends on how I feel. Next week, maybe.”

“Good, because it isn't the same there without you.”

Mike sighed, flipped through channels to the pregame show, then continued on through the dial. The air in the apartment, except for the hollow cadence of channels flying past on the TV screen, fell oppressively silent. At the periphery of Lyle's line of sight, he glimpsed thick black leg hair poking out of the cuffs of denim, right above Mike's ankles, and the undeniable sexiness of the other man's enormous bare feet. If he forced his eyes to roam higher, he'd easily be able to track his way up to Mike's crotch. Lyle desperately wanted to look but couldn't make himself do it. It grew harder by the second to breathe.

“Kevin Collins still being a dickhead to you?” Mike asked, bringing Lyle out of his trance.

“Huh?”

“I warned him, last day I was on the job. Told him to cut the shit or I'd show him some serious harassment.”

Lyle waved a hand to dismiss it. “He is, as you've said, a dickhead. But don't worry about it. You've got bigger things on your plate.”

“He
has
been harassing you? Fuckin' asshole,” Mike sighed. “I know about you. About what, you know, you're into.”

Lyle choked down a heavy swallow. The words he planned to offer in his defense died somewhere in his throat.

“You got a guy?”

Lyle shook his head. “You got a girl?”

“Naw,” Mike said. “I haven't gotten laid since…shit, like a hundred years before the surgery. Don't even know if I can still perform.”

“Course you can,” Lyle said. “Can't you?”

“Not exactly been in the mood. Haven't felt much like trying, being as I'm half the man I used to be.”

“Are you kidding? Look at that dude Lance Armstrong. Losing a nut didn't stop him from being a stud. That handsome fucker was screwing the hottest chick in rock and roll for a while.”

Mike shrugged. “I appreciate you saying that, but I'm not much of a stud anymore.”

“Oh, man,” Lyle chuckled. “Lance ain't got nothing on you….”

Eyes narrowed, Mike said, “Shut the fuck up.”

“Seriously, you're the whole package.”

“Bad choice of words,” Mike said, pointing at his crotch.

“Heart, soul—and with a super-sized dose of handsome thrown in.”

Mike's face went red as he broke their gaze, but his smile persisted. “But with half the balls.”

“There's more to a man's being sexy than whether he has two balls or one,” Lyle said. “Case in point, Kevin thought he was being funny the other day when he wagged his raisin-nuts at me in the warehouse.”

Anger flashed across Mike's face. “He did
what
?”

“Trust me when I tell you, the joke was on him. Kevin may have both his balls, but he's nowhere the man you are,” Lyle continued. He realized that he'd started to ramble, but now that it was all out on the table, he couldn't stop himself, and probably wouldn't have if given the choice. “If you're asking, I'll tell you. Tell you why. For starters, those puppy-dog eyes of yours. How you don't shave for a couple of days, and you get all that scruff. It's so sexy.”

“It's
lazy
.”

“It makes you look like a pirate, a palooka,” Lyle said. “And when it's a hundred fuckin' degrees in that warehouse and your arms are dripping with sweat, you still look like a million bucks. Those hairy legs of yours…fuck, even your big feet.”

“My feet?” Mike snorted again.

“Yeah, in those old work boots. It drives me crazy to see you strutting around in them, especially when you wear your camouflage cutoffs. Makes your butt insanely hot. And, of course, your bulge. So you got one nut less now, big deal. I bet your one is still fatter than most other dudes' two.”

The knowledge that he was blathering and had crossed the line finally struck Lyle.

“Shit, I'm sorry, man. I shouldn't have said all that.”

Lyle stood. He started for the door, but Mike's voice stopped him from retreating.

“Wait,” Mike said.

Lyle hit the brakes and revolved.

“Since this happened, you're the only guy from work who's made the effort to ask how I'm doing. Thanks for saying it, for making me feel good about myself.”

“Any time,” Lyle said. “I think you're a hell of a guy.”

“My feet,” Mike repeated, lifting up one of his giants and examining it. “You think they're sexy?”

“Oh, very much so,” Lyle said. “Most men don't know it, but their feet are their most underrated sex organs.”

Lyle couldn't believe what happened next, any more than Mike seemed able to comprehend just how incredible the unthinkable idea could feel. With the baseball game droning on low in the background, Lyle sat Indian-style between Mike's legs. Mike reclined in his big chair, offering his feet, one at a time, into Lyle's hands.

“
Dude
…” Mike moaned.

Lyle applied gentle but firm pressure and massaged Mike's naked foot from ankle to instep, sole to topside, eventually reaching toes. Starting with the small one, Lyle rubbed them in order, all the way to the big toe.

Mike shifted in his seat and groaned, signs that Lyle at first assumed were due to the other man's discomfort.

“Want me to stop?”

“Hell, no,” Mike sighed, closing his eyes. His hairy throat knotted with a difficult swallow, something not lost on Lyle. As aware of Mike as he was, Lyle didn't realize his cock had gotten stiff until he shifted to accommodate the man's other foot.

“You're sure?”

“Feels great, pal,” Mike said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Lyle drew in a deep breath. “I can make it feel even better… if you want.”

Eyes still closed, Mike nodded.