“Good to see you too.” Eamon laughed.
“It’s always good to see you,” Scott told him. “But I cannot believe how this day has just flown by.” He went to rub his face in his hands, remembered at the last moment that he’d been touching greasy bike chains less than a minute ago and settled for making a disappointed gesture. “I’m behind like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Too behind for dinner?” Temptingly, Eamon waved the paper bag in his hand.
Scott groaned. “Maybe.”
“You’ve got to eat,” Eamon said, slipping around the counter to press the bag on Scott.
Scott lifted his hands again. “Ah, wait a sec. I’m all over grease.” The smell wafting from the bag in Eamon’s hands was awfully tempting, and Scott felt his ignored stomach begin to growl.
“I got burritos,” Eamon said cheerfully. “So you can eat one-handed and work on the bike with the other.” He waved the bag again.
“It totally doesn’t work like that,” Scott said. “But you win. I’ll eat.”
Eamon beamed at him. “Go wash off the grease then. I’ll be here.”
He sat himself down in the second chair that Scott had finally remembered to buy and started laying food out behind the counter. Scott went off to wash the worst of the grease off his hands.
“Beef or chicken?” Eamon called into the back.
“Beef,” Scott replied.
Eamon said something else after that, but Scott couldn’t hear him over the sound of the bell on the front door. Why was this grease so hard to get off his hands? He scrubbed harder, trying to hurry up.
When he burst back into the main room of the shop, Eamon was no longer at the counter. He was, instead, reaching up with those long arms to pull a helmet off the shelf to the side. “This is one of our most popular models of kids helmet,” he was saying to the customer standing next to him. “Adjustable for those growing heads. Comes in a few different colors for their entertainment, and nice and safe for your peace of mind.”
Scott opened his mouth to ask what was going on, and closed it again as the woman Eamon was talking to nodded and took the helmet box from his hands.
She turned towards the counter, and Eamon added, “Scott will ring you up,” grinning wildly at Scott over the woman’s head.
“Over here, ma’am,” Scott said, as though there was any chance at all that she might miss him in the tiny space.
“Thank you for your help,” the woman said to Eamon, and trotted over to Scott to pay. Behind her, Eamon looked incredibly pleased with himself, and Scott had to cough a few times to hide his own laugh as he rang the woman up. She didn’t seem to notice anything before she left, but by the time the bell at the front door was done ringing again, both men were in stitches.
“Our most popular helmets?” Scott asked as Eamon came back over and parked himself in his chair, smug as anything.
“I’ve been here enough to pick up a few things,” Eamon said, buffing his nails ostentatiously on his shirt.
“Oh, have you now?” Scott felt the laughter rising in his chest again. “You could have called me, you know. You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“She asked if I knew where the kids helmets were,” Eamon said. “I happened to remember. It was no big deal.”
It wasn’t a big deal really. Scott didn’t want Eamon to stop or anything, he just wanted to marvel at the cuteness of Eamon remembering about kids helmets and the little spiel Scott always did when he was trying to sell one to an anxious parent. “And your little advertising spiel?”
“I got that from you, of course.” Eamon rested his foot on the leg of Scott’s stool, their ankles brushing against each other. “Where else would I have gotten it?” He was too damn smug to be this cute, practically bouncing in place as if he was waiting for Scott to tell him that he did a good job.
“Well, you did a good job,” Scott said.
Eamon was practically glowing. “It was pretty easy, I’ve got to admit,” he said. “I think she was in a real hurry, she kept telling me all about it.”
Well, praise rescinded,” Scott told him jokingly.
“How will I survive?” Eamon replied at once. “Now eat! You’ve apparently got a ton of work to get back to.”
“I’ll eat, I’ll eat,” Scott said, unwrapping his burrito.
It wasn’t the most elegant of meals, not with how fast Scott was going, but it was nice to be here with Eamon updating him on the ducklings in the park and the heron he’d thought he’d seen through the overgrown willows at the edge of the marsh. He didn’t do much talking himself, which was probably why he was done his burrito when Eamon still had half of his left. He folded up his wrapper and put it in the trash, watching Eamon’s mouth with maybe a little too much intensity.
“Go work,” Eamon said, watching him back with knowing eyes. “It sounds like you’re busy as hell today.”
“I really am.” Scott got halfway to his feet. “I’m sorry, Eamon.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Eamon seemed to shrug it off like it was nothing. “I understand about being busy, believe me.”
“It’s just for the summer that I have to work so late,” Scott promised. “It’ll get better in the fall.”
Eamon grinned. “Looking forward to it.” Scott’s spirits rose. It was probably silly that he kept looking for every little reminder that Eamon would still be here in the future, but it was hard not to when they all felt like a warm glow in his chest. He maybe stayed a little too long looking sappy at Eamon because Eamon waved him off, the tips of his ears turning red. “Go on,” Eamon said. “You’ve got more work to do, right? I’ll just finish up and head out. We can hang another time.”
“We definitely will,” Scott said firmly. He leaned down to press a kiss to Eamon’s lips, resting his forehead against Eamon’s for a moment. “Though, uh, I swore I’d be there for my friends on Monday, and then Saturday is the Conservation Area Clean-Up, so...”
“We’ll find the time,” Eamon said easily. He never seemed to worry about Scott’s weird hours, not like some exes Scott had had. He wasn’t sure if it was that Eamon had a lot of time on his hands now, or if it was just that he’d worked similarly stupid hours back in the city. He kind of hoped it was the latter. Eamon seemed to have a project now anyway, or at least he often brought his laptop over to Scott’s place and fiddled around with something while Scott cooked or they watched TV together. That would be good for him, Scott was sure, though he admitted to some curiosity as to what the project was. Probably some coding thing he wouldn’t understand, he reminded himself, and dragged himself back to where Eamon was still talking. “–see you at the Clean-Up anyway.”
“I will definitely be there,” Scott told him fondly. “I’ll be the enthusiastic one, with the biggest bag.”
“You aiming for that grand prize?” Eamon joked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Scott said, laughing. “What couldn’t I do with a gift card to Sellis Creek Cycle Works?”
“The manager there is very generous, I hear,” Eamon said, grinning up at Scott’s face.
“I’ve heard the same!” Scott said, fake-surprised. “Handsome too, I think.”
“I don’t know if I would say handsome,” Eamon drawled. He looked Scott up and down slowly. “Well, okay, maybe I would.”
“I knew you’d see the light,” Scott told him. He kissed Eamon’s forehead. “I’ve got to run. But we’ll talk later, okay.”
“For sure,” Eamon said, and Scott left him in possession of the front counter, looking as comfortable there as if it had been his own reception desk.
29
Eamon
The Saturday of the Clean-Up, Eamon rolled over in his own bed, reached for the empty space on the other side, and finally woke up properly. He was alone, which he should have expected. He’d been alone when he went to bed after all. He’d hoped that he and Scott could go to this thing together, but once Scott had said he needed to be up at six so he could be there
at seven with the rest of the committee, Eamon had allowed that maybe he could turn up later with the rest of the town instead. He hadn’t thought at the time that this would require spending the night alone in his own bed, but he supposed that was the price he had to pay for another couple of hours sleep.
Coffee and a bagel got him upright enough to get him on his bike, and then he was off, ready to meet Scott’s committee at 9 with what Scott had optimistically referred to as ‘the rest of town’. Eamon wasn’t so sure about that, but by the time he was weaving his bike through the traffic pulling up at the conservation area, it did seem a lot more plausible.
Scott, as usual, was easy to find. It might have been only a bias, but Eamon couldn’t imagine a more striking form and face in the crowd as Scott towered over a collection of teens, handing out latex gloves and garbage bags to all and sundry.
“Eamon!” he called out over the heads of the crowd, waving wildly. Eamon waved back, pushing steadily through the mass of bodies, trying not to step on the millions of small children running around.
“I’m so sorry,” Scott said when Eamon got close enough for them to converse normally.
Eamon’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“I’m stuck here doing admin all day,” Scott said tragically. “Marietta’s sick today, so someone volunteered me.” He held up his hands, which looked a little ridiculous when he was holding two large boxes of cleaning supplies. “But don’t worry. I told the guys and you can be on their team today.”
“The guys?” Eamon said cautiously. A small part of him wanted to get up and leave, disappointed that their plan to spend the day together – even if it also contained a lot of hard manual labor – was disrupted. But one look at Scott’s pleading face put an end to those daydreams. Eamon reached for a pair of gloves and a bag. “What do you want me to do?”
“You know Lennox and Tony,” Scott told him encouragingly. “They’re over there–” he waved at a group of figures standing around under a tree, “And I think they’re planning to go pick up trash on the other side of the marsh, but I’ll let them introduce you to Max and Kieran and they can fill you in.”
“Sure thing,” Eamon told him. He almost moved away, shocked, when Scott leaned in to kiss his cheek, but he realized at the last moment what was going on and held his ground for the brief brush of Scott’s soft lips. No one around them seemed to care, he realized, taking a surreptitious look at the crowd. No one even seemed to notice.
“You’re the best,” Scott told him. “I’ll make it up to you later, okay?”
“No need,” Eamon said, instead of the dozen innuendoes that instantly rose to his lips. Scott nodded like he could see them reflected in Eamon’s eyes, his tongue coming out to touch his lip. Eamon bit his lip. “Okay, point me at your friends again.”
“Over there,” Scott said. He squeezed Eamon’s hand as he handed over the gloves and mouthed, “Sorry,” again before turning to another set of people ready for their clean-up equipment.
Eamon made his way over to the tree. He hadn’t really spent any time with Lennox or Tony since that first interrupted not-quite-a-date, but he’d heard a lot more about them since then. They’d been friends with Scott for ages, along with these other guys he’d never met, so there seemed to be a never-ending fountain of stories about the shit they’d gotten up to.
He wondered what they’d heard about him.
“Hey, Eamon!” someone called out as he approached. Eamon raised a hand in greeting.
The four men standing around chatting weren’t all taller than him, but that was the impression he got anyway as they crowded around him and rattled off names at top speed. Max and Kieran must be the two he didn’t recognize, he decided, but he couldn’t quite tell which was which and he didn’t want to ask.
Especially not when under a barrage of questions about how he’d met Scott and if he was looking forward to today’s event, depending on who was doing the asking. One of the very tall men started elbowing the other one and the two of them broke off for some impromptu scuffling. Eamon was extremely out of his depth.
“Don’t mind them,” Tony said loftily. “They’re like this all the time.” He smiled, pulling on his latex gloves with a shrug. “So, you’re stuck with us, huh?”
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you all,” Eamon said, mostly truthfully.
“But you hoped Scott would be here too?” Tony said, raising an eyebrow. He laughed when Eamon sputtered some kind of denial. “Don’t worry about it, man. We’ll bring you back to him safe and sound.”
“Don’t torment him,” Lennox said, nudging Tony playfully. “We were going to work on the other side of the marsh, far enough away from the kids to keep from being deafened.”
“It’s also what needs it most,” one of the wrestlers said, popping back into the conversation with his friend in a headlock. “‘Cause we’re good samaritans like that.”
The one in the headlock snorted. “Fuck off, Max. You know Scott asked us to head over there because the moms are all afraid their babies will fall in the water.”
“And we’re rescuing them from that fate,” apparently-Max said calmly, squeezing harder. “We’re basically heroes.”
Lennox turned to Eamon. “You ready to get wet?” Eamon’s expression must have given him away, because everyone else started to laugh almost at once. “We won’t actually get wet,” he said reassuringly, and grinned wide. “I save all my dunkings for my best friends.”
“Good to know,” Eamon said, laughing along with the group. He was getting the hang of them now, he thought to himself. He’d known guys like this before. Always one-upping each other, but they didn’t mean any harm. Admittedly, he was most used to guys like that one-upping each other about how much code they could write in a day and how late they’d stayed up working on it, but probably it was the same principle, right?
“C’mon,” Max added. “This way.”
They headed off in the direction he indicated, still talking and laughing – mostly about how Scott had convinced them all to come out on a Saturday morning to do community work.
“This thing is his baby,” Tony said confidingly to Eamon. “It used to be him and a bunch of grad students running it, and then the grad students were going to move on so he had to nag a ton of other people into doing it. Now the BIA totally acts like it was their idea, and Scotty just lets them.”
“He’s a sucker like that,” Kieran said solemnly.
Scott didn’t sound like a sucker to Eamon: more like the kind of guy who realized that the important thing was getting the job done, no matter who got the credit. He liked guys like that: they were a million times easier to work with.
Someone cackled in his face. “Oh god, you’re telling cute stories and you’ve made him go all goopy!” Lennox crowed.
Eamon scowled at him. Lennox beamed back.
“Well, at least we know we don’t have to give him the shovel speech,” Max said cheerfully. “He’s obviously super gone on our boy.”
“Just a little shovel speech?” Lennox teased.
Tony elbowed him in the ribs and watched peacefully as Lennox doubled over, clutching his side. “Remember how Scotty explained that shit was homophobic?”
Lennox made a disgusted noise. “Ugh, I guess.”
The shovel speech was annoying, sure, but homophobic? Eamon wasn’t sure if there was something he was missing here, or if Scott was just a lot smarter than these guys were giving him credit for. He suppressed a smile, watching the scuffling as though he had any idea what was going on here.
“We totally support you guys,” Lennox said after he’d caught his breath. “Like, unless you do something shitty, obviously. But we definitely support your gay love.”
This time, the laugh bubbling up in Eamon’s chest was way too strong of a force to stop. “Thanks,” he managed to croak between gulps of air and bursts of laughter, bending down to rest his hands on his knees for support.
Lennox watched him, gloved ha
nds on his hips and a perplexed expression on his face. “Was it that funny? I don’t think it was that funny.”
“It definitely was,” Tony said, patting him on the shoulder. Lennox made a face at him, but that didn’t stop him from talking incessantly all the way over to their patch of shoreline. Muddy shoreline.
“This is us!” Max announced at some point, based on something Eamon couldn’t figure out. “Just spread out, start picking up all the litter, however small, and we’ll be in business.”
Eamon took a breath of relief. That seemed easier to handle than talking to Scott’s friends all day. They seemed like good guys, and he did want to wheedle a few more cute stories about Scott out of them, but he could use a break.
He should have expected that there would be no breaks.
Not that the boys failed to work hard. Eamon was sure they were grabbing trash at twice the rate he was: they were simply combining it with a serious devotion to chatting at all times. Whether it was discussing last night’s TV, or calling one another over to yell about some particularly weird garbage – who unpacked delicate electronics in the fucking park anyway? – someone always had something to say, and was totally willing to say it at high volume if everyone else was a bit too far away to hear it.
Staying quiet, Eamon found, was a pretty good way to pick up on who these guys were. After that really weird evening, he’d kind of thought of Tony and Lennox as a unit: TonyandLennox. Filed in his head as Scott’s friends and nothing much else. Now, he could see how they worked differently: Lennox bouncing all over the place, always with the weirdest trash to show everyone; Tony, the more methodical one, picking every scrap out of a small area before moving on. They were both still pretty chatty, but Eamon didn’t mind that. It kind of masked how quiet he was being.
He’d wanted to do this with Scott, that was the trouble here. He’d expected to be compensated for his hard work by the view of Scott’s thighs as he bent over to pick trash out of the reeds, or the swelling of his biceps as he hefted the trash bag over his shoulder. Instead, he had Max’s attempts to talk to him about baseball – a sport he barely remembered existed – and Kieran shouting back over his head. But it was a beautiful summer day. A little hot, maybe, and Eamon found his shirt sticking to his back as the sun rose in the sky, but the burnished blue overhead reflected in the still waters of the marsh and the sounds of distant trash collectors echoed across the flat surface, and Eamon found himself feeling surprisingly content.
Love in Tandem Page 16
