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imagine for the life him what had taken them so long, because this? This was right in all the

ways it had been so, so wrong with everyone else. It was a gentle kiss, just lips on lips, slightly

parted by Ian's thumb, but it jolted through him, something giddy, and happy, and perfect.

So perfect it ended on a laugh. A bubble of happy Ian vaguely remembered from childhood

Christmases but thought had gone forever. He giggled. Actually giggled. And before Cal could

take offense or misunderstand, Ian pressed his thumb in and followed it with his tongue. When

they had fused together, lips and tongues and breath, he broke it off with a smile he could feel

crinkling his eyes, patting Cal's knee.

"Glad we got that out of the way," he panted.

"Me, too," Cal rasped. Then, because neither of them really knew what to do with the rawness

and aching in both their voices, Cal raised the drill off the floor and grunted, "More power,"

while gunning it to life.

Ian hit him with a bag of rocks.

***

sucked -- but yeah, in retrospect, maybe he should've spent at least a little time on his own,

realizing he might have gay tendencies, before he up and decided he tended to be gay for Cal.

They lived together. It wasn't like he could take the guy's number and then angst over whether or

not to call. Things kinda sucked a little with the kiss out of the way because it seemed they were

both waiting for the other one to make the next move. The kiss wasn't planned. It just happened.

Ian had a foggy idea about what might 'just happen' next, but he'd never driven a stick before. He

seemed to keep popping the clutch, expecting Cal to step on the gas. Instead, they lurched

forward and shuddered to a halt.

Ian would've offered his hand to be drilled again if that would've moved things along.

Except his hand was otherwise occupied at the moment.

In Ian's mind, it was Cal who initiated the kiss, because hello, the whole reach-around thing, all

pressed up behind Ian? That couldn't have been just accidental. Though Ian was pretty sure that

if someone asked Cal, he'd say Ian made the first move by actually calling it a reach-around.

That first kiss, whoever initiated, had been amazing, perfect, the kind of kiss that got imprinted

somewhere and used to measure every subsequent kiss.

Go Fish - 22

Every kiss since then was made of total fail. It was like the first one was sitting at the top of a

wall between them, waggling its fingers and blowing razz berries. Their lean-ins weren't timed

right. One always leaned when the other wasn't expecting it, and they lined up wrong, or bumped

noses. There was that one time they clacked teeth, which Ian had heard was all kinds of hot, but

really wasn't. It might have prompted him to buy some of that toothpaste for sensitive teeth.

They kissed with their mouths open, neither one sure who should go for tongue first, and ended

up pecking each other on the cheek and going back to their own rooms, because nights were too

short and days were too long to fumble around like a couple of virgins.

Actually, that was the worst part. They were not virgins. They'd had sex. Lots and lots and LOTS

of ball-busting, white-out, had-stomach-cramps-the-next-day-from-the-exertion sex. They were

good at it.

Too good. Because now? Well, who wanted to go back to the fumbling, really bad, over before

it'd begun, virgin sex? They were badsexophobic, which meant, of course, they were set up to

fail. Because, like it or not, Ian was a gay virgin and way too damned macho to let Cal 'teach'

him. It was bound to be awkward.

Actually, awkward didn't have nearly enough syllables to be fitting. Or diphthongs. It needed a

diphthong. Ian wasn't entirely sure what a diphthong was, but awkward definitely needed one

just to make it... awkwarder. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a diphthong it needed.

It wasn't that they weren't trying. There hadn't been some huge meltdown where they'd both

kicked the dirt and scratched their heads, adjusted their belts, and said, "Boy, was that a

mistake." Ian, for one, would never go down that path. He'd never been surer of anything in his

life than he was about Cal and him and
them
. And if there had been any indication in the way Cal turned all red behind his ears and smiled under his eyelashes when Ian put a hand on the small of

Cal's back as Ian reached across him at the sink, then Cal wouldn't call do-over either.

They just somehow managed to pass Go only to end up in the jail at the end of the block.

Floundering. Floundering was what they were doing. And a fish, which seemed highly

appropriate .

Well, at least, there was still the fish.

They might still have been sleeping in separate rooms, but Ian still slept in, or pretended to, and

Cal still sneaked in to check on the fish. There were a lot more fish to check on now, too. Ten

goldfish. Nine different exotics and a Scrappy IV. Scrappy II and III had taught Ian that, one,

they needed a deeper net, and two, it was a bad idea to leave the strainer off the end of the filter

tube.

There was even a whole other tank with saltwater, and coral, and five clown fish. Four named

Nemo, and one named Cal. And yes, they could tell them all apart.

Go Fish - 23

It was winter, now, too, so Cal didn't run as much as he used to. He usually just worked out in

the garage, shirtless, which made for a whole lot more sweaty skin for Ian to ogle when Cal was

checking on the fish -- no mental quotes, because it was starting to feel like that's all it was -- and

as a result, a linen closet full of new sheets. Ian just couldn't seem to keep his clean.

Speaking of which, "Nnngh... oh shit." His eyes flew open, because there was no way Cal didn't hear that, and the only plausible way to deny what he was hiding under his sheets was to draw

attention above them.

He coughed. It was a bad cough. His six-year-old self had been a better actor. His six-year-old

self never had to worry about coming all over his sheets with the object of his affection standing

a few feet away. When did he stop being cooler than his six-year-old self? Probably when he

turned seven.

"Ian?" Cal turned around, his t-shirt wadded up in his fist. There was a definite note of concern in his voice.

Ian was going for surprised, amused, maybe flattered, but he could work with concerned. He

coughed again, tugging the sheet up under his chin. His right hand was a little slippery, so he

shoved it back inside the covers. "G'morning."

"You're up early. Are you okay?" Cal wiped his t-shirt over his face and down his chest, and

okay, Ian was not too old to come in his shorts.

"Nn…" He doubled over on himself, managing to fake a coughing fit to cover the moan. Holy

hell, how had they stayed friends for so long when Ian's body clearly had it bad for Cal's?

"Ian, hey." Cal sat on the edge of the bed gingerly, like he was trying not to shake it too hard. His hand hovered in the air for a few long seconds before he set it on Ian's hip and squeezed gently.

"You sound like shit, dude. And you don't look much better."

Surely he jested. Ian couldn't look that bad. He was only
pretending
to be sick.

On second thought, he did feel a little nauseated, and there was a cold sweat gluing his face to

the pillow. That couldn't have been flattering. Getting caught with a hand on his dick did that to a

guy.

His cock jumped as Cal squeezed his hip again, and Ian gasped around his bitten lips. Cal laid

the back of his hand on Ian's forehead and down his cheek, drew it back with a grimace. "You

look really sick, Ian. Hold still. You've got, like, snot or something on your chin."

Snot? On his chin? Right where his slippery right hand had bumped when he pulled up the sheet?

It was official. This whole experience had traumatized Ian for life. He went slack with shock and

let Cal wipe the sweat and 'snot' off with the dry side of his t-shirt. If he hadn't been sick before,

he was then, because Cal was sitting right here, on his bed, half-naked and sweaty, and
touching

Go Fish - 24

Ian, and Ian couldn't even look at him. Ian turned his face into his pillow to keep from cursing

out loud, shivering when Cal smoothed over his hair and cupped the back of his neck.

"It's all right," Cal whispered. "You go back to sleep. I'll call in sick for you. They'll understand."

Rubbing his hand down Ian's arm, Cal pulled the sheets up higher, rolled the edges down

(because that was part of the whole tucking in process), and leaned forward, kissing Ian's cheek.

"I'll miss you. Call me if you need anything, okay?"

Ian knew he should come clean, get his ass out of bed, and go to work, but for some reason even

he didn't understand, he nodded and said, "I'll miss you, too." Then he listened to Cal going

through their daily routine without him.

Ian spent his day staring at the fish, suddenly too tired to get out of bed. There was bound to be a

moral to this story, but all he could come up with before he fell back to sleep was, love hurt.

Like whoa.

***

day and leaving Cal to take up the slack, something he'd probably be doing until late if Ian knew

anything about it, but also because the idea of Cal tucking him in was appealing enough that Ian

actually considered lying there and hoping it'd happen again. He was a sick, sick puppy. There

was no denying it. He'd just have to figure out a way to live with it, or, you know, get laid, so he

could stop getting caught with his hand on his dick in the first place.

For now, there was only one sure-fire way to get out of this funk.

Buy more fish.

And ice cream.

Eat ice cream while buying fish.

That was the ticket.

He was halfway through the door, in that never-never land between the jingling bell and the

squawking macaw, his ass pressed against the glass because his hands were full of chocolate

milk shakes and greasy take out bags, when his phone rang.

Of course. It had a knack for doing that. Ian was convinced it was a trick phone that somehow

calculated his exertion to annoyance ratio via sensors in his jeans, wired into his zipper, 'cause he

kept a lot of anxiety in his pants, and rang when he reached critical mass.

And why, oh, why did he have it in his front pocket? Why did he have it set to vibrate? It wasn't

like he was actually on set where he was supposed to be and had to worry about ruining a shot

Go Fish - 25

with an untimely phone call. And why was he wearing those jeans with the extra deep pockets

that went all the way to his... inseam? He was hanging a little to the right that day. He never

really paid attention to that before. If he did the whole 'notes to self' thing, he'd have, Phone/Dick

= YIKES tattooed on his thigh.

Yes, he knew what the slash meant. Google was his friend.

So, the phone rang, and Ian busted his ass on the door trying to get away, get away, get away

from whatever possessed thing was molesting him, and the chocolate milkshake under his right

arm erupted over the front of his shirt. Cold, cold, cold didn't really help matters any. If he

could've stretched his face any farther with the gasp erupting from his chest, his eyebrows

would've actually left his forehead and bobbled around above his head like those teeny bopper

antenna head bands from the eighties.

This would have been the worst day of his life, except for the little angel who swooped in and

saved him.

Marcy darted in from nowhere and caught the half-empty milkshake, the full one, and the greasy

bag before they could hit the floor. Working in a pet store must've been great for developing

reflexes. Ian stood there, gasping, his stomach sucked in, arms stretched over his head like the

Wolf Man preparing to eat a baby... or the cleavage the baby was nestled in.

"Holy... Nnnngggghh!" The phone rang again, and Ian crammed his hand into his pocket. He

didn't even think about how obscene it must've look when he pulled the vibrating monster away

from the treasure chest, his eyes rolling up into his head, lips trembling in ooh, ahh, ohh, nnngh.

There might have been drool on his chin when he fumbled around and put the phone to his ear.

When it vibrated against his face and he fell into a display rack, he remembered to hit the talk

button.

"Uh, hi, Cal," he said, panting. "What? Yeah, I mean, no. I'm fine, just caught me away from my phone." His head fell back onto plastic bags full of something and he just lay there amidst the

spilled display items with his eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. "Sure, right. Bathroom... uh, bring matches. Lots."

Hand pressed to his forehead, he peeked and shrugged up at Marcy. "For you," he mouthed,

pointing his chin toward the least crumpled bag and the unspilled milkshake.

"Huh?" she mouthed back. Then, "Thanks!" Her braces were really shiny that day, and Ian thought maybe her lips actually closed all the way over them now. She even had some kind of

clogs on with wedge heels and glittery decals. They made her legs look really long, which of

course, he noticed from that angle. He pushed out his lower lip appraisingly and gave her a

thumbs up, nodding at Cal chattering away in his ear about business as usual.