By the Numbers (5 page)

Trey seemed to make an effort to hold the card up and away from Deuce, but not too far. "Come over for dinner before you move in. Check the place out; make sure you like it. I'll keep your card till you do."

"Jeez, you better mean soon -- I only have one more book to go before I'm due for a trip there." Deuce made a play for the card and neatly fell across Trey's legs. Very smooth, one of his better loser moves. "Damn it." He hadn't even gotten near the card.

To his credit, Trey didn't pull away. "I mean tomorrow. I don't work until Saturday."

"Sweet." Deuce righted himself. "That'll be perfect timing, then." He gave Trey his very best 'I totally meant to do that move that made me look dumb' smile. "I'll bring wine."

"Damn, you're fancy." Trey laughed and didn't look in the least concerned that Deuce had been sprawled across his lower body. "I drink wine when I go to my parents'. Or when Holly used to order it for me. Do you know the wine thing, too?"

"What wine thing?"

"Like what wine goes with what food. The ones that have an oaky flavor with undertones of sweet cherry or white grape." Trey made a face. "I never tasted anything but wine. My palate is clearly untrained."

"I'm better at telling you what beer has more hops than the next, honestly, but I do have a favorite white and a favorite red. I'll bring both and we'll figure out from there which one goes best with the food." Deuce wasn't above a little social lubrication. In fact, he was a big fan of lubrication.

Trey appeared to be considering it. "All right," he consented. "As long as you don't make fun of me if I choose the wrong one to go with whatever I make. Oh, any allergies or anything?"

"No allergies and I like just about everything. I'm not very fussy when it comes to food." He was fussy about time, the state of the bathroom, and his laundry, but not food.

"That's a good thing," Trey laughed. "I'm not the world's fanciest cook. Firehouse food is probably what you'll get."

"Chili, pasta, or pizza?"

"Heh. On nights when I don't want to make an effort. But hey, we eat better than that at work. Some of our guys know their way around the kitchen. When you move in, I'll call you if we're having something good and you can come down for dinner."

Deuce raised his eyebrows. "You can do that? Just have company for supper?"

"Yeah, all the time. It's a busy station, though. You run the risk of having to sit there with guys you don't know if my engine gets a call."

"Let me think. Sitting at a table with a bunch of firefighters in uniform. I think I'm good." Deuce grinned and winked. "I know guys who would be heaven, trust me."

Trey cocked his head and looked, for a moment, like one of the puppies. "Really? You've got gay friends?" It sounded like a foreign concept to Trey.

Deuce checked to make sure Trey wasn't kidding -- he didn't seem to be. "Of course. Not all of my friends are gay, but most are, I'd say. At least, almost all of my acquaintances. Guys I've met at parties or events, guys I've hung out with, couples that have been 'couple friends' when I've been dating someone."

"I haven't dated." Trey said it matter-of-factly and without a trace of sadness or regret. "I was married for eight years. We had couple friends, but they were straight. And most of my buddies are firemen.
Really
straight."

"And you're only... sort of straight?" A little confirmation in direct words was always a good thing. Deuce could read signals, could play games, and could figure things out, but he'd found that clear statements were usually the best way to go about the important things.

Trey gave Deuce a rueful-looking smile. "Nah, I figured out the hard way that there was no 'straight' in the equation, sort of or otherwise. I won't go as far as saying it fucked up my marriage, because Holly and I did that all by ourselves. But I probably should have realized earlier that 'bisexual' wasn't really bisexual. I did get a kid out of it, though."

"That's more than a lot of us can say. I myself just got a huge complex about where to put my hands when slow dancing. It's amazing how the early agony can stay with you." One mislaid hand on a girl's butt and Deuce still couldn't stop a shudder when power ballads were played at wedding dances. "It's good you got it figured out, though. And you still don't date?"

"I didn't say I don't date. I said I haven't dated." Trey grinned, all straight white teeth and the hint of a small dimple in his left cheek. "At least, not the kind of date you mean. Get someone's number, call and ask them out kind of date."

"But you have interest in dating?" Deuce wasn't going to let that sort of thing go by without making sure.

"I guess so. What do the kids do on dates these days?" Trey sounded as if he really wanted to know.

"Mostly eat and dance." Deuce grinned. "A lot of wine bars, a lot of night clubs. I prefer the dinner and a movie kind of date, but going dancing is okay. I've gotten past the all night rave type events, though." He was far too old for dancing half the night and then staying up the rest of it trying to get his body back in balance.

Trey shook his head. "I've been to raves. Not as a partier, though. When I worked at Station Four on the water, we were always getting calls for the old SeaCliff warehouse. Some poor kid would OD, or get roofied, or drink enough to drown his internal organs."

"Uh-huh. I've seen it. And really, aside from the nearly naked guys, there was never enough to hold me there. I didn't like the music that much, and they never started until after my bedtime." Deuce gave Q a pet. "Like I said, I prefer the dinner and something type dates, generally. Or afternoon things like ballgames or hikes. Cup of coffee and talking, wandering around places; that sort of thing."

Trey spoke quietly. "I, uh. I kind of like museums and stuff. My mom took me to a lot of them when I was little. My brothers always ran around and made lots of noise, but I liked how peaceful they were. She ended up leaving my brothers at home and just taking me. We could maybe do that sometime." He paused for a moment as if reviewing what he'd just said. "I mean, if I was ever going to go on a date. That's where I'd like to go."

Deuce gave him another smile, letting this one grow hot. "Yeah. We can do that. I'll ask you, once I figure out this schedule of yours. Or you can ask me. I'll say yes, if that makes it easier."

"I guess it doesn't matter." Trey looked up and smiled back, a cross between shy and interested. "Long as I know you'd like to go. And that reminds me." He reached around to tug something out of his back pocket. "Here's a pocket shift calendar. I'm the green numbers."

Deuce leaned forward to take the card and brushed his fingers along Trey's. "Thanks. This'll be a real help, 'specially after I move in. I'll know what nights not to worry when you don't get home."

Trey didn't let go immediately, looking as if he enjoyed the contact. "I don't go out that much. If I'm not home, I'm at work. And there's the little matter of Lacey. She'll be with me for a few days at a time."

"Cool. I look forward to meeting her. Do you want me to clear out while she's with you?"

"Nah. She's a good kid. Reads, mostly. We go out to dinner, and I'll take her to a movie now and then, but she never asks for stuff and is totally fine with staying home, too. I hope it lasts, because I hear really bad shit about teenage girls from the older guys at work." Trey looked uncomfortable just thinking about it.

"I'm sure you'll handle it just fine when the time comes." Deuce thought for a moment. "If she's into it, we can get her into training the dogs. Doing things like agility or fly ball, when she's older. For now just learning how to teach them commands might keep her interested."

"Oh, she'll love it. She's been asking for a pet since she was five. I'm sure she'll go home and ask her mother if she can live with me full time. That'll be another reason for Holly to call me up and yell."

"She can yell at me -- I'm a real prick when women start getting shrill at me. But not when Lacey's around, promise." He'd have to remember to watch himself when the child was over for the weekend -- not so much his language but his subject matter. Deuce glanced around at the puppies. "Are we missing one?"

"There's one here." Trey picked the sleeping one out of his lap. "And there are two over there, disguised as one big lump. Come on, I'll help you collect them and bring them inside." He cradled Six in one muscular forearm and reached for another puppy.

"Thanks." Deuce watched him with the dogs and nodded to himself. Things were going to work out just fine, he thought. It was getting more promising by the minute, really. Dinner, a room to stay, and possible dates... things were fine, indeed.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck.
Trey muttered profanity and nonsense words to himself as he checked the stuffed artichokes in the oven.

It had sounded like such a good idea at the time. Invite Deuce to stay, bring the dogs, sure you can meet Lacey, come on over for dinner, oh by the way, if we ever go out on a date, I love museums. And hey, here's a shift calendar so you know exactly when I'll be at work and when I'm home.

When the hell did Trey get so desperate?

He'd been doing fine since the divorce. That was two years ago already, and life had gone on. There were guys he'd met and liked, a couple he'd fucked more than once, and one he'd even seen a few times after that. He'd been truthful with Deuce, though. No dates. It was kind of weird, with Lacey and everything. Trey knew the day was coming when he would need to sit down with his daughter and explain to her why Daddy preferred men to women. Holly had already -- without Trey’s permission, mind -- told Lacey that Trey liked boys better than girls. However, it was Trey’s job to explain the
why
part of that, if possible. Someday.

But then Deuce and his dogs had appeared, and now Trey thought that day might come sooner than he'd expected.

The doorbell rang and a quick look through the window allowed Trey to see Deuce at the door, holding two bottles of wine and looking back at the front yard, his eyes hidden by sun glasses. He was dressed in jeans and short-sleeved blue shirt, open over a white T.

His anxiety dissipated almost instantly. Trey paused just a moment longer to take in the man standing on his doorstep. The blue was nice on him, although Trey thought that Deuce could be wearing pajamas and a robe and still meet with approval. He was really one of the cutest guys Trey had seen in a long time.

Trey opened the door before he realized he was still wearing an oven mitt on his left hand. A black one with red flames on it, to be exact. He hid that hand behind his back and smiled. "Hi. Find it okay?"

"No problem at all." Deuce held up his phone. "GPS navigator and bus schedule," he added with a grin. "And, as promised, my favorite white and my favorite red. Thus the bus -- I didn't want to wind up leaving my car here, so I'm walking the quarter mile back to the bus later." He patted his flat stomach. "I'm pretending that counts as working out."

"Cool." Trey stood back to let him in. "Can I see one of the wines?" He reached forward with the hand that was black and red flame-covered before he remembered.

Deuce grinned and held tight to both bottles. "Nice glove. Way better than any I've ever had."

Trey could feel his cheeks grow hot, and he rolled his eyes. "I'll get you one. They sold them at the department's picnic last summer. Come on in; can I get you something to drink?"

"Depends on how long until we eat. If it's soon, I'll open the wine. If it'll be a while, I'll take a beer. Nice place."

"Thanks. I was lucky to find it when Holly and I separated. At the time I thought it would be too much space, but I like having three bedrooms." Trey led the way into the kitchen and handed Deuce a cold beer from the refrigerator. "Fifteen minutes to chow. Want a tour?"

Deuce opened the bottle and nodded. "Yeah, show all the important parts -- the bathroom and my room. Now that I know where the kitchen is, that's all I need."

Trey almost,
almost
replied "And my bedroom," but luckily his brain kicked in in time to restrain his tongue. Deuce wasn't moving in to be Trey's new playmate, although Trey had to be honest with himself and admit that the idea had merit.

"Down the hall." Trey gestured with his chin and then headed that way, but not before remembering to drop the oven mitt on the kitchen counter. He opened the first door on the left. "Here's the guest bedroom. It's smaller than Lacey's -- she's next to me -- but you have the attached bath."

"Oh, I like that." Deuce went and looked around. "Is this the east side?" He went to look out the window.

"Uh-huh." Trey leaned against the door jamb and watch Deuce explore the room. "Make sure the blinds are drawn in the morning, trust me."

"Cool. I like it. I like the color." He went to the bathroom and looked in. "Oh, sweet. Storage, even." He grinned at Trey and said, "It's a good thing you already invited me to move in. Show me the rest? Well, aside from Lacey's space, of course."

"You can see her room; neither of us care," Trey laughed. He pushed off the doorway and turned to the room across the hall. He opened Lacey's door to reveal the periwinkle-colored room with puffy white clouds painted across the ceiling and small blue flowers drawn in one corner. "See? It belongs to a seven-year-old." He indicated the full bookshelves next to the bed. "Told you she likes to read."

"That's awesome. I do, too. As you know, library card kidnapper." He looked around and then peered at the bookshelves again. "I think she has more books than me, though. I got her beat on the DVD count, and I bet I can interest you more in those than the princess books. Maybe."

Trey closed her door again and sighed. "Yeah, those princess books are too hard for her, so guess who gets to read them to her at night? And she's always got a new one each time she comes over. But you're right, when I'm home, I watch movies." He moved farther down the hallway and into his own bedroom. "Here's me. My slider leads to the back patio, but you can get there from the kitchen too." Trey glanced around his bedroom, glad that he'd cleaned it up but self-conscious about how simple it really was.

"I'll do my very best not to spy in at you." Deuce smiled, and Trey wasn't sure if he was serious or not. "You might want to make sure your blinds are closed, too. Or not."

Trey could feel his eyebrows go up despite himself. He wasn't the best at knowing when he was being hit on, unless things were rather obvious. Deuce was making them obvious. "I'll see how I feel on a given day," Trey chuckled. "You could be surprised."

"That sounds promising." Deuce lifted his bottle and drank. "So, you're serious? I can move in?"

"Yeah." There, it was done, and Trey felt a sense of relief that he couldn't back out. He actually wanted Deuce to move in, and that realization was something to be explored at a later time. "You can move in. The only condition is that you have three dogs or less when you do, and that includes Q." His carpeting and wood floors were four months old and a man had to draw the line somewhere.

"For sure -- including yours." Deuce nodded. "I think I found homes for two more, by the way. Oh, and can I put a doghouse or a small kennel or a crate or something in the backyard? Somewhere they can play that's all theirs?"

The oven timer went off. Trey nodded and turned back toward the kitchen. "Definitely. Where do you want them to sleep?"

"Q is used to sleeping with me and likes her bed on the floor. The puppies should probably be in a crate for a long time -- it doesn't matter to me where, though if we have two they might want to be together." Deuce followed him and leaned on the counter. "Can I help with anything?"

"Wherever you want to put their crate is fine with me. Lacey will want the puppy to sleep with her, so if you keep another one, they can both go in her room." Trey pulled the stuffed artichokes out of the oven and nodded at the salad dressing ingredients on the counter. "Can you put all of that stuff into the bottle and shake it up? I hope you don't mind homemade dressing. I have regular ranch in the fridge, too."

Deuce did as he was told, pouring carefully. "The added bonus to having them in her room is that once they can hold their pee all night, we can close the door and not have to listen to the middle-of-the-night wrestling matches. You're brilliant."

The baked chicken was bubbling at him, so Trey took that from the oven as well and inserted the meat thermometer. "They wrestle at night? Why don't they sleep? Sleep is important." He should know, after all the sleepless nights at work.

"After sharing a room with them for a couple of months, I can promise you that there is wrestling at night. They sleep all day. It's frantic for an hour, then a three hour nap. Repeat." Deuce shook up the bottle of dressing. "Q is ready to have her own space back, I think."

"Poor dog. I should have told you to bring her tonight." Trey got the artichokes on two plates and added a chicken breast, then spooned a bit of creamy dill sauce over the meat. "Chow call. Hungry?"

"Starving. This looks amazing and not at all what I'd expect at a fire station. Corkscrew? This calls for the white, I think."

"Well, we're not at a fire station. But you'll get plenty of that kind of food too, trust me." He got the plates on the table and then opened his junk drawer. A moment or two of digging revealed the corkscrew, which Trey presented to Deuce. "Go ahead. Screw away." Oh, for God's sake. Now that was lame.

"Heh. I see what you did there." Deuce took the corkscrew and put the tip to the top of the cork. "First you stick it in..."

"Then you pull it out." Trey watched as Deuce deftly removed the cork from the bottle. "And then... you sniff the cork or something, right? That's what they do in the movies." He sat and pulled a leaf off his artichoke, proud of himself for engaging in sexual banter. Even if it was a little lame.

"I think that if I sniffed the cork, it would smell like cork." Deuce poured the wine into two glasses and sat. "Really, this is amazing." He started in on the chicken. "I can do a couple of really wow Indian dishes, if you're into that. Spicy or mild, I can do both."

"Never had it, I don't think. Is it like Greek? Holly's family is Greek, and they made amazing food. Almost thought twice about the divorce, just because of her mom's souvlaki." Trey took a sip of wine and tried to find a flavor in it. "This is good."

"Thanks. I like it mostly because it's not too sweet and it doesn't give me headaches after half a glass." Deuce looked like maybe he knew wine wasn't really Trey's thing. "Indian isn't really that much like Greek, but you might like it. It's more like Pakistani. We'll give it a go, anyway. How did you learn how to cook artichokes? I thought they were kind of a fake food, actually."

"I pick up stuff from guys at work. Some of them suck in the kitchen, but some are good. When we have a good meal, I watch whoever's cooking and try to remember it. I like for Lacey to have real food when she's here, not just a kid's meal from the burger place. Can I taste the red one?"

"Absolutely." Deuce got up and grabbed the bottle, uncorking it deftly. "Want a new glass? This one is okay to sit open for a while, too. It likes to breathe, though honestly I usually just drink it."

Trey finished pulling leaves off his artichoke and moved the neat pile of them to the side of his plate. "I guess a new glass, sure. What if I like the red one better? Can I drink it with my dinner anyway? What are the wine laws?"

"Don't know, but there's no wine police." Deuce got another two wine glasses and poured, then brought them and the wine to the table. "If you like it, you drink it. Between the two of us we can sort out what we like, I'm sure."

It sounded like another come-on, and when Trey glanced up to see if he was right, he found Deuce giving him that little smile with a twinkle in his eye. Yup, definitely a come-on.

They both finished their dinner while chatting about nothing of great importance. Trey liked that. Small talk was underrated, especially when you were trying to get to know someone. Deuce was smart and amusing and didn't seem to mind that he and Trey were definitely on two different levels when it came to things like choosing wine.

Trey left the dishes to soak in the sink. "So there's dessert," he offered. "Now or later?"

"Later, I think. Did you like the red or the white?" Deuce still had half a glass of the white, and there wasn't a lot left in either bottle.

"The red. Maybe. The white was good too, and we drank a lot of both." His head was a little fuzzy. Two or three beers could go down no problem, but wine was a different experience.

Deuce nodded, smiling at him. "We did, indeed. It's all part of my cunning plan, though. Luckily, you're following along very well."

"Your plan is to get me to agree to more than three dogs here at a time, I can tell. That's why you brought two bottles." Trey left his flip-flops by the sink and gestured toward the living room. "Come on, we can sit for a while. Then I'll get dessert, which will make you change your mind about my cooking skills."

"You have mad, mad skills, and I in no way want more than three dogs here, trust me." He followed Trey, laughing as they went to the living room. "But I'll make sure to get a couple of bottles of the white every month or so."

Trey flopped onto his couch and reached for the stereo remote. "And a red. For comparison. What music do you like?"

"Any and all, really." Deuce sat down next to him and stretched his legs out. "I went through a stage of being all dance music, then all classic rock. I have Mozart for Sunday afternoons, and African drums for when I want African drums. I like it all."

"I don't have African drums." Trey grinned and turned the stereo to the classic rock station. "Do you dance around to them?"

"Not that any living human will ever see."

Trey chuckled. "I'll have to ask Q, then. Hey, one of our guys plays in a band that hits the local bars and stuff around here. If you ever want to go, it's pretty cool."