by Leta Blake
Watching as Joel grabbed a cheap, pink plastic lighter from the nightstand and lit up, Casey tried to radiate calm steadiness to combat Joel’s likely oncoming crabby freak-out. He’d seen this before when they were teenagers and the band had been written up in a local paper as promising and up-and-coming. Joel had lost his crap and nearly quit—some sort of self-sabotaging panic overwhelming his common sense until RJ and Becca had talked him down.
Joel let out a slow breath. The tobacco smoke swirled around them both, making Casey cough softly. He resolved to say nothing about Joel’s post-sex promise to quit. That would just piss him off now.
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re still here.”
“You invited me to stay,” Casey reminded him. He shivered slightly. The room was chilly, having cooled down overnight after all the heat they’d generated together.
Bruno whimpered at the bedroom door, and Joel scratched at his dark eyebrow with his thumb, the cigarette burning perilously close to his unkempt, shaggy hair.
“Fuck,” he whispered, tossing aside the bed sheets and rising. The pale morning light highlighted his light skin and the dark thatch around the soft cock between his hairy thighs. He grabbed his underwear from the floor and pulled them on, sucking another drag from his cigarette before jerking open the door.
“C’mon, buddy,” he said roughly to Bruno, who bounced excitedly around Joel’s feet. “Let’s go outside.”
Casey climbed out of bed, but he didn’t dress entirely. If he did, then Joel would no doubt kick him out before they could even talk things through. With butterflies whirling in his gut, he carefully pulled on his boxer briefs and his shirt from the night before but left his pants pooled on the beige carpet. A train went by on the tracks near the trailer, and it shook slightly with the thunderous sound.
Exiting Joel’s bedroom, Casey got a better look around than he had the night before. The mobile home wasn’t particularly neat, but Joel had never kept his bedroom in Belmont Hills really clean either. In the kitchen, there were dishes in the sink with the remnants of some tomato-based meal on them. In the living room, there was a pile of folded clothes on the sofa next to a basket of what might have been clean clothes or possibly dirty.
Bruno’s dog bed sat in the hallway midway between the kitchen and the living room doors. There were drifts of dog hair around it and scattered down the hall. Joel must have left the door open, because a burst of cold air rushed through the trailer, knocking out any semblance of warmth.
Casey saw there was a closed door that led to what must be a second bedroom, though he didn’t know if it had a bed in it. The bathroom was on the right, and he ducked in to relieve his bladder so it wouldn’t distract him while he tried to talk Joel down from whatever ledge he’d climbed up on.
After washing his hands, he walked to the open door of the mobile home and stepped out onto the small porch. Joel was off by the bushes, pissing into them, cigarette in his mouth, while Bruno tromped through the woods at the back of the property.
Smoke curled around Joel’s head, and his naked shoulders shuddered in the cold air. Fog lifted from the lake and drifted low over the property, obscuring the edge of the water.
Joel turned around, spotted Casey, and narrowed his eyes as he took a final drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out on the closest tree. Tossing the extinguished stub into the woods, Joel stomped toward Casey with tight lines drawing down his mouth.
Where was the surprisingly sweet man Casey had made love to last night? In there somewhere, he had no doubt. He was just scared, that was all, and Casey resolved not to let Joel run him off before he reached him again.
“Pretty classy, right? Pissing in the bushes and littering?” Joel snapped.
“You wake up really grouchy. Did you know?” He aimed for merry and light. “Angel’s onto something with her nickname for you. You’re definitely a Mr. Frosty Pants.”
Joel glared at him and shivered, wrapping his arms around his chest. His black-lettered tattoos stood out against his white skin, and the dark hairs of his forearms shifted in the light breeze. He kept his expression hard, the crookedness of his nose and mouth highlighted by the twist of his lips.
“Speak soon. Stay lucky,” Casey said softly, inclining his head toward Joel’s bicep where the swirling words were inked into Joel’s skin alongside shading dots to make the statement pop. “What’s that about?”
Joel arched a brow at him but stayed silent.
“What? Is that not morning-after conversation? I get to make you come, but I don’t get to know about your tats?”
“I might be grouchy—frosty even—but you’re annoying in the mornings, and that’s worse.”
Casey took a slow breath, determined not to be baited. Joel was just freaking out because he’d lost his virginity, and some guys had a hard time dealing with the vulnerability inherent in that. In his head, Ann reminded him to be gentle.
“I still respect you this morning, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Casey said lightly, half-teasing in hopes of breaking through Joel’s brittle defense.
“Respect?” Joel snorted. “Great. Whatever.”
Bruno crashed through the woods, rushing toward Joel with a dirty tennis ball in his mouth. He dropped it at Joel’s feet, wagging his hind end in excitement until Joel threw it for him.
“It’s a lyric from a song I like,” Joel said after he’d thrown the ball a few times. He touched the tattoo Casey had indicated. “Most of them are a reference to one Gaslight Anthem song or another.”
“You still like them, huh? I do too. I saw them live a few years ago.” Goosebumps rose all over as Casey shivered in the morning air.
One thing New York had taught him to appreciate were mild, Southern, so-called winters. He’d never step outside in NYC mid-December in just his underwear even if he wouldn’t be arrested for it. Still, the air was bracing, and the excitement of being with Joel—even as irritable as he was—rattled him even more. He shook lightly all over.
“Yeah?” Joel raised his brow again, less hostile than before. “I saw them in Nashville. Becca took me for my birthday a few years ago.”
“The lead singer is shorter than I expected. I don’t know why, but he sounds so much taller.”
“Yep. He’s shorter than me even.” Joel nodded and rubbed his arms, biceps and pecs bunching and releasing beneath his palms. “I’m cold. Let’s head inside.”
Casey followed him, but it wasn’t much warmer in the trailer since they’d left the door open. The cool air had funneled through and wiped out the tender warmth the small space heaters had created overnight.
Joel left Bruno outside and headed into the kitchen area. “I don’t have much. I can make coffee, but unless you want some leftover chili for breakfast, you’re out of luck.”
“I’m fine. I’ll grab something on the way home, but what about you?” Casey asked. “Don’t you need to eat something before work?”
“I keep some beef jerky in the glove compartment of the Chevy. It’ll hold me until lunch.”
“Beef jerky?” Casey wanted to take Joel to breakfast, to woo him further with eggs, bacon, and pancakes covered in syrup. But there was a stiffness to Joel’s back again, and Casey knew if he asked, he’d be shot down. And somehow he also knew that Joel would be insulted. “I’m a big fan of jalapeño-spiced beef jerky, myself,” he added to offset the idea there might be any judgment in his words.
Joel didn’t say anything, setting about brewing coffee with what looked like off-brand pre-ground beans from one of the local discount stores. Casey sat at the small wooden table he remembered from Joel’s old house, though it was missing two of the chairs now. He supposed it would have been hard to fit them all into the cramped space allotted for eating.
Joel opened the fridge and stared into it, brows drawn low. Then he finally brought out a half-pat of butter before turning to a cabinet and tossing a packet of instant oatmeal on the counter. “There’s some oatmeal. Just one packet. You
can have it.”
“No, I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry about feeding me.”
Joel leaned against the counter and dragged his hand through his hair. “Wish I hadn’t smoked that last cigarette already.”
“You don’t have another pack in the truck or something? I’ll go get it for you if you want.”
“No, I don’t keep extra packs. I only buy one every two weeks. That gives me one or two cigarettes a day. Yesterday I went over my limit.” Joel glared at him. “Like I said, I’m trying to quit.”
“If you really wanted to quit, then you wouldn’t buy any packs at all.” So much for not mentioning quitting again.
Joel snarled up his lip, but his eyes twinkled with a hint of amusement. Casey’s shoulders relaxed to see the break in the near-constant hostility he’d exhibited since waking up. “Fine. I won’t buy another pack.”
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
Casey grinned. “I always associated the smell of Winstons with you. There was a girl in my Strategic Planning class who smoked Winstons, and I used to purposely sit next to her and pretend she was you.”
“Wow,” Joel whispered, blinking slowly at him. “That’s kind of creepy, man.”
Casey shrugged, and Joel turned to pour the coffee into mugs he grabbed out of the cabinets. “It was a harmless fantasy. Didn’t hurt anyone.”
Ignoring that, Joel passed Casey a mug with a reindeer on the side of it. “It’s not the best, but it has caffeine in it.” He kept the mug with Frosty the Snowman on it for himself.
How apropos.
The coffee was hot, and that was the best thing Casey could say about it. Joel sat across from him at the small table and they sipped their steaming cups in silence for a long time. It was starting to get really uncomfortable when Joel cleared his throat and caught Casey’s eye.
“Human piss keeps skunks away,” Joel admitted quietly. “Bruno got sprayed a couple of times last year, and the vet told me if I piss along the property line, the skunks will keep off my land.”
“I see. Next time I’m here, I’ll avoid the bathroom and piss outside instead. Help out.”
Joel’s lips curved into the first genuine smile of the morning. He shook his head, saying nothing, but the contentment of that sweet flash of teeth filled Casey with more warmth than the coffee.
“So you think you’ll be back, huh?” Joel said quietly after a while.
“If you want me to come back.” Casey regretted the words as soon as he said them, fear gripping him that maybe Joel would take that out and forbid him to return.
“Last night was…” Joel cleared his throat. “I could do that again. In fact, if you’re up for it, I’d like to do it again tonight.” He smiled bashfully, leaving Casey’s heart a mess of adoration. “Only if you want.”
Casey nearly told him that he was ridiculous, that he’d wanted this forever, and he wasn’t going to walk away now. But he managed to rein himself in and simply said, “Tonight works for me.”
“Good.” Joel wiped a hand over his face, his shoulders dropping in relief. Had he really thought Casey wasn’t going to want to see him again? And again? And again forever? Did he not get what was happening here?
Probably not, knowing Joel. And if Casey told him, he’d just freak out. Now that he was being nice, Casey wasn’t going to push it. There would be time for declarations and intentions later.
“You don’t have a Christmas tree.” Casey nodded toward the square, sparse living room. He sipped the coffee again, reminded of his Grandpa Stevens’s thermos of cold coffee he always kept in his car. It’d tasted like this, watered down and cheap. “Isn’t that like the shoemaker’s children not having any shoes?”
“While Brandon, my assistant manager, was out of town I was too busy to bother. I got my outdoor stuff up in November but didn’t manage to decorate inside.” Joel shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. There’s no one here but me and Bruno.”
“Do you have decorations?”
“Yeah. I kept my dad’s old box of stuff from when I was a kid.” Joel’s dark lashes fell against his cheek, and Casey wanted to kiss his pale eyelids.
“Then let’s put one up together.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because everyone needs a tree at Christmas.”
“Jews don’t. Muslims don’t. Hindus don’t.”
“Asshole.”
Joel grinned behind his mug but finally shrugged and grew serious again. “Don’t feel obligated just because we…”
“Listen, I didn’t kiss and run, and I don’t fuck and run either.”
“We didn’t fuck.”
“We had sex. Penetration isn’t a requirement.” Casey reached out across the table, palm up, and when Joel let his fingers rest in his hand, he couldn’t resist asking, “So, how does it feel? You’re not a virgin anymore.”
Joel’s cheeks grew red. “I already told you I liked what we did and want to do it again. What else do you want me to say?”
“I guess I just want you to say you’re happy and you don’t regret it.” Casey could only credit Ann’s coaching with his inability to stop being completely honest with Joel.
But he had to credit Joel too.
Because knowing him the way he did, and had, for so very long, deep down he knew Joel wasn’t going to actually kick him to the curb. That’s partly why Casey had to run all the way to New York, wasn’t it? Because despite all of Joel’s crankiness and words to the contrary, he never actually pushed Casey away in any meaningful way, and Casey couldn’t stop going back for more.
As a teenager, Casey had thought it was just loneliness, but now he knew the real reason why: Joel was as in love with him as he’d been in love with Joel.
Probably.
God, he hoped.
“I told you already,” Joel huffed. “You’re the only one I ever wanted. I still want you. Of course I don’t regret it.”
“But are you happy?”
“No, there you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t really do happy.” Joel tugged back his hand to shove away from the table. “Sorry to kick you out, but I need to shower and go. My pop’ll be waiting for his Egg McMuffin, and I was late with it yesterday. Plus Angel is shit at opening the store. I should get there pretty early on to make sure she hasn’t screwed anything up.”
Casey stood.
“But I’m not running either,” Joel said with shaky vulnerability. “Okay? Do you get that?”
“I think so.”
He headed back toward the bedroom and Casey followed him. As Joel gathered his clothes for the day, he said, “I’d let you shower first, but I really have to get on the move.”
“I’ll wait until I’m at home.”
Joel lifted his brows skeptically. “You smell like cigarettes and come. What will your parents say?”
“My dad will be at work, and my mom will be…” He frowned. He didn’t really know his mother’s schedule anymore. She might be home, but she might be at tennis with her country club friends. Or at yoga. Or lifting weights. “It’s fine. Get ready. I’ll go ahead and get dressed.”
Joel didn’t argue more, and while he showered, Casey put on his clothes from the night before and turned on his phone. A barrage of texts from his mother came through. He gritted his teeth and didn’t read them. He opened a very old thread with RJ instead and typed with this thumbs.
I’m in love. I can’t tell Joel yet, so I’m telling you. Also, he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen in my life. Especially naked. I’m in heaven.
RJ’s reply came just as Joel turned off the water and Casey heard the shower curtain jerk back.
Well, hot damn. Def don’t tell Joel about the love thing yet. He’ll take off running for the hills. But I’m happy for you, man. You both deserve this.
Another text from his mother popped up on his screen, and he couldn’t help but see the opening lines of it:
If you’re not home by the time I’m back from tenn
is, I’ll send the police out looking for you. And I won’t hesitate to send them to Vreeland’s to bother Joel if that’s what it takes to get a response from you.
“Who are you texting with?” Joel asked, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He was fully dressed now and smelled like drugstore shampoo, all fake fruit and yummy. Casey remembered being a child and standing in the shampoo aisle, carefully taking whiffs of each of the bottles, until his mother dragged him away.
“You smell good.” He ignored the question.
“Garnier Fructis,” Joel said with a teasing lilt to his voice. The shower seemed to have freshened his mood too. “I had a coupon.”
Casey stepped closer, arms out to pull Joel close, but he found himself trying to embrace empty air.
“Sorry, you stink.” Laughter underscored Joel’s words. “Like I said, cigarettes and come.”
Casey rolled his eyes, but he followed Joel out of the room and back toward the living room. Bruno climbed through the dog door, his paws messy and a half-chewed tennis ball in his mouth.
Joel turned to Casey, a flash of vulnerability surfacing in his dark eyes. “Brandon’s got the store from noon on. I could see you again tonight.”
“I’ll bring dinner. You bring a tree.”
Joel’s mouth twitched like he wanted to dispute it. “Like I said, all I’ve got is leftover chili and more of this crap coffee. So I guess you should bring something for you to eat, if you don’t want to starve.”
“And like I said, I’ll bring the food and you bring the tree. We’ll call it even.”
“Not sure how that works out, but I’m not in a place to argue about it with you.” Joel grabbed his jacket from where he’d tossed it over the back of the sofa when they came in the night before.
Casey took his coat from the same sofa, and he and Bruno followed Joel outside. After Bruno did his business one last time, Joel shut him back into the trailer and started away toward his truck.
“Hold up.” Casey jogged after him. “Don’t I even get a goodbye kiss?”
“Goodbyes suck. Let’s just skip that part.”
