by Willa Okati
“You betcha.” A face like Gavin’s demanded to be kissed. Funny how often that happened. Luckily for Ford, he found the work to be absolute pleasure. Ford bent, aiming for Gavin’s cheek.
Oops. Overbalanced. Ford caught him with one hand on either side. Lefty landed solidly, with an unfortunate rattle and clink of glasses, on the table.
Righty landed on Gavin’s shoulder. On Gavin’s startled oof! Ford somehow found the presence of mind to let go, but then he was back to the balance problem again.
Which was how he ended up with his chin mashed into Gavin’s shoulder, one foot out behind him like a crazed French aristocrat, and good old Righty firmly groping Gavin’s ass.
Gavin froze. Ford froze. Moving would have been an excellent idea, but if he tried it too fast, God knew what’d happen. He might end up pantsing Gavin.
He expected any number of reactions, but not the one he got -- the hint of a smile, another real one, even if smaller and shier. More importantly, Gavin wasn’t the one to pull away, even though there could be no possible way the pressure of Ford’s hand on his ass had escaped him. He caught his breath and his lower lip between his teeth at the same time. “Need some help?”
Ford grinned, and suddenly it was easy to find his way to his feet again. If he took his time sliding his hand off Gavin’s ass, despite Gavin’s deepening blush, he didn’t guess either of them minded, for Gavin’s tiny smile never faded.
And wasn’t that the best omen ever -- again?
* * *
“Who was cruel enough to name me Ford?” Ford laughed. “Myself, that’s who.”
Gavin frowned. “I don’t under -- Wait. Like River Phoenix chose his own name?”
“Exactly.”
Gavin cleared his throat. He took a neat bite of appetizer and asked, with his napkin over his mouth, “Who was it who didn’t stop you?”
I could have fallen for this one even without signs to lead me to him. “Let me explain.”
“Please do.”
“Nothing in my family is conventional -- zip, zero, zilch. You have to keep that in mind.”
“I never would have guessed,” Gavin murmured.
“My family tree could be a map of the world. To keep it simple, let’s say I’m two-eighths Norwegian --”
“Viking,” Gavin blurted. He coughed. “Oh God. Ignore me. Keep going.”
Ford wanted to cuddle Gavin. He really did. He played it safe instead and trod on. “Two-eighths Norwegian, half Irish, one-eighth that no one’s really sure about -- the way I heard it, she never would tell my maternal grandfather -- and one-eighth Chinese. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” Gavin echoed.
“What it boils down to is I was raised by my grandfather, Xiao O’Shea.”
Gavin’s eyebrows climbed skyward. “I see.”
“The way I figure it, I get the skills I use from the Irish half of me.” Ford tapped the side of his head and refused to be put off by Gavin’s small scoff. “I believe even if you don’t. For the purposes of this discussion, bear with me, okay?”
Gavin sighed. He didn’t say no, though.
Ford took heart and rolled along. “Grandpa taught me how to use that gift to read the world around me.”
“Dubious” would have been a good way to describe Gavin right now. That and “wary.”
They could work on that.
“Anyway, I was a small kid. I mean teeny tiny.”
Gavin wrinkled his nose.
“Believe it or not. I’ve got pictures to prove it. Total shrimp until I hit sixth grade. Anyway,” Ford went on, warming to his story, “I was four years old and already sick of being the smallest.”
“I know the feeling,” Gavin mumbled, once again behind his napkin.
“I hadn’t picked a name yet. John Doe Tremaine. Believe me, it’s true. I have the birth certificate. But okay, here I am, tiny and sick of it, and we’re watching championship hockey --”
“Wait. Hockey?”
“I grew up in Canada. I didn’t say?”
Gavin raised his eyes heavenward and said nothing.
“They break for commercials, and I see an ad for Ford trucks. ‘Built Ford tough,’ right? Huge beasts. I turned to Grandpa Xiao and said, ‘that’s my name.’”
“I see.” Gavin was hooked despite himself; Ford could tell. “An interesting coincidence that genetics bore out eventually.”
Ford chuckled. “You see it your way, I’ll see it mine. Look at it this way. Grandpa Xiao did try and change my mind. In Chinese, the words for ‘four’ -- which sounds like ‘ford’ -- and ‘death’ are almost the same.”
“Homonyms?”
“Yeah. But when I looked at the name, I saw myself. I’m built tough. I last.”
“I see.” Gavin bit at the edge of his thumbnail. Ford wasn’t exactly sure what Gavin thought he saw, but he wasn’t running or denying him three times.
It was a start.
* * *
Ford bit into the crispy edge of a mozzarella triangle sprinkled with basil and oregano and dipped in some kind of tomato sauce so good, it made him moan.
“Guess you like that?” Gavin asked as he broke off a corner of a crispy-crusted breadstick and toyed with it.
“Are you kidding? This puts ‘good’ to shame. Here.” Ford tore off an opposite corner and held it out to Gavin.
Impulse -- and okay, curiosity -- compelled him to bypass Gavin’s outstretched hand and place the morsel at Gavin’s lips. Ford held his breath. Would he…?
A startled pause and then Gavin opened his lips to let Ford slide the bite between them. He chewed thoughtfully, nothing given away by his expression, then closed his eyes and emitted the smallest of whimpers. “Oh God.”
Adjusting oneself under the table could be a tricky maneuver.
Gavin frowned at him around a bite of appetizer. “Is something wrong?”
Ford sacrificed the rest of his sinfully tasty mozzarella triangle for the cause, breaking it in half and pressing the offering on Gavin to distract him. “I’m good.”
Gavin pinched off a bite and placed it on the tip of his tongue. Deliberately so, if slowly and uncertainly, like he wasn’t sure he was doing this right.
As with mystery gifts, it was the thought that counted, and good intentions were written in transparent, vulnerable letters across the backs of Gavin’s hands, his delicate wrists, the shy glance at Ford.
“Something wonderful is going to happen,” Ford said to himself. “One hundred percent.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me, Gavin. Do you believe in love at first sight?”
The sip of wine Gavin had taken went down the wrong pipe. Ford cringed even as he patted Gavin’s back. He guessed the answer to that one was a resounding no, then.
Still no problem. They had time, and Gavin was worth waiting for.
* * *
Ford crunched a crouton. “So tell me about your job,” he asked, trying for a casual conversational gambit.
Gavin swallowed the first bite he’d taken since nearly choking and patted his lips with his napkin. “What’s to tell that you don’t already know?”
“Anything you want to tell me,” Ford said.
“You actually want to know.”
There, that look again, the one Ford knew meant Gavin thought he couldn’t be for real and was trying to figure him out.
“I mean it. I know you work in a little hidey-hole near a terrace where you can get out as often as possible and see the sky. I know you work with or near a total dick.”
Gavin smothered a laugh.
Ford beamed. Small victories; he’d take ‘em. “You don’t have to work around that jerk all day, do you?”
“Roger? God no.” Gavin shuddered.
“So the rest of the museum staff is okay? Friendly?”
“I’m not sure.” Gavin took refuge in a sip of the house red, ignored until now. “I don’t know. I never…” He sighed. “I don’t have a gift for making friends.”
“Not so. You have me.”
“You’re not -- You --” Gavin rubbed his forehead and shrugged helplessly. “You’re different. A force of nature.”
“Am I?” The signs were right, both those Ford saw around him, and more importantly, the ones he saw in Gavin.
Beneath the table, Ford’s long arm easily reached Gavin’s knee. Gavin flinched, then let his lips part on a soft, shuddery sigh when Ford skimmed his fingertips up. Only about halfway and then back down, but enough to get a reaction.
Ford liked what he saw. Brown eyes gone warm and dreamy and the best smile yet. “You say you have a gift,” Gavin said, intent in his study of his napkin.
“I thought you didn’t believe.”
“I don’t.” Now Gavin was the one to catch Ford’s hand and press their palms together. “I mean. I don’t believe in gifts. But you…” He visibly searched for words and settled on, “You get to people, and somehow it’s…”
Ford knew the word Gavin sought wasn’t a bad one. He wanted to kiss Gavin again so much right then that he found Gavin’s free hand and lifted it to his lips.
Gavin squeezed his hand. Just for a moment. But enough to keep hope alive. A good sign. Very good.
* * *
If anything, the dinner was better than the appetizers, though Ford didn’t pay great attention to what he put in his mouth. He saved all his focus for Gavin. “I keep asking you things. Turnabout’s fair play, you know.”
Gavin blinked at him.
“If there’s something you don’t know about me, either you haven’t asked or it hasn’t come up. No secrets.”
“I’ve noticed,” Gavin murmured. He bit into a slice of fresh tomato on his pasta salad. That was his thinking face, not the bad version, but the one where he was wrestling over a knotty question and didn’t know how to ask.
Ford nudged Gavin. “Hey. What’s going on in your head?”
“I’m trying to figure out what kind of animal you are,” Gavin said and immediately went redder than the tomato. “Oh God.”
Ford managed -- mostly -- to stifle his explosion of laughter this time. Gavin still looked down, hangdog. “No, no, don’t do that. It’s okay.” He stroked the back of Gavin’s hand. “Actually, it’s awesome. Most people just think ‘bear,’ and that’s it. What were you choosing between?”
An incredulous look, shading to considering, then finally brave. “A horse,” Gavin said. “Giraffe. Antelope.”
“Not moose?” Ford teased, almost not sure what to do with the tender rush in his heart. These were big animals, but graceful and beautiful, and… if Gavin saw him that way already… “Not gorilla? Ooh-ooh-ooh.”
Gavin shook his head. “Maybe a deer. A buck? Fifteen-point rack. Or something. I don’t know much about deer.” He dived into his food.
Under cover of the table, he -- Ford assumed it was Gavin, anyway -- slipped his foot out of his shoe and drew his toes up Ford’s leg, his sock silken soft and the pressure just right.
“Got you.” Ford covered Gavin’s foot with his hand.
Ford didn’t expect Gavin to bend his knee and draw his foot higher still, just to where it nudged the side of --
“Tell me something about yourself first,” Ford coaxed. He used a touch, a drop of strength. Still just playing. “Anything, little or big.”
Gavin remained still for a beat too long for Ford’s comfort. Finally, he looked up, his gaze utterly clear and direct. “You ask too many questions.”
Ford got the message: don’t push. Step-by-step. Ford had known that, but a little reminder didn’t hurt. And on the bright side, Gavin already cared enough and trusted him enough to dish a little back.
Good sign. Good, good sign. Ford lifted his wineglass to Gavin’s and clinked them together. “You’re pretty when you laugh.”
“God, not again.”
Ford would have relented. If he could have. This mattered too much to back down on. “Let me say these things. I mean every word, you know. Because to me it’s all true.”
A flash of light caught his eye. He dropped Gavin’s hand to point at the sky above them, along with the other suddenly excited epicures. “Look!”
* * *
Ford scooted his chair around to Gavin’s side of the table, comfortable in knowing he wasn’t alone. The restaurant’s patrons who’d had their backs turned to the night sky did the same. Silence and small “ohs” of delight echoed around them.
Fireworks. Seriously, could anyone ask for a better sign, ever? Ford settled in and, since it was perfectly natural and a lucky moment in time, put his arm around Gavin’s shoulders.
“You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
“I’m good, but I’m not that good.” Ford tweaked Gavin’s nose, stifling a chuckle when Gavin sneezed.
“You’d be the kind of man who would do such a thing if he could.”
“True.” Ford kissed the side of Gavin’s head, landing at the corner of his lips. Mmm. “The home team must have won a game.”
Gavin sighed. He seemed to come to some inner decision and laid his head to rest on Ford’s shoulder. Better still, he curled in to wrap his arm around Ford’s waist.
“I thought they were shooting stars,” Ford said, almost torn between watching the bursts of multicolored light overhead and solely enjoying Gavin in his arms. No contest; he chose Gavin right away. “I bet you could still make a wish.”
Gavin snorted and butted his face harder into Ford’s shoulder.
“Don’t you want to see the show?”
Gavin shrugged. Concerned, Ford laid his hand on Gavin’s back and moved it in slow circles. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” There, that sounded… well, not better, more like irritated, but at least Gavin sat upright again. Then again, that all but broke the cozy contact between them.
Win some, lose some? Ford tapped his foot under the table, mulling that one over and not liking the uneasy feeling squirming in his stomach. Not a good sign.
He tried stroking Gavin’s hair. Soft, smooth to the touch, and sleek as silk beneath his fingers. “Ever thought about growing this out even longer?”
Gavin almost smiled. “No. I look girlie enough as it is.”
“But it’d be amazing,” Ford said, enthusing as he warmed to the growing mental image. “Like a curtain of silk. Especially when…” He went against his nature by hesitating, then figured odds were good Gavin knew exactly where he’d been going with that thought anyway.
He whispered it in Gavin’s ear anyway, for him alone. “Especially when you were naked. Do you have freckles everywhere?”
Gavin licked his lips. “No. Just my face, my hands.”
“I didn’t think so. Always in the sun, but you never burn.”
“I’ve been burned before,” Gavin said, the grimness confusing Ford before Gavin -- deliberately? -- turned to press his lips to Ford’s neck.
Distraction successful. “Um,” Ford said, making Gavin’s smile return and grow. “Is this the wine acting? Just have to be sure.”
Gavin pointed to his glass, the first and only one he’d had, still a quarter full. “No,” he said simply.
Ford believed him. And he had something better to think about anyway. He enfolded Gavin in his arms and nuzzled his jaw, from the firm end to the soft point of his chin. Gavin wriggled, though Ford thought it was in pleasure and not protest. “Imagine it,” he teased, not at all done with the fantasy of Gavin with that beautiful hair grown out long enough to -- how long?
“Do I want to know what you’re thinking?”
“I was thinking about you with hair grown out so long I could sit behind you and brush it,” Ford confessed. “Okay, maybe that’s a little sappy.”
Gavin moved a little closer. “Maybe not,” he said in a small voice. Not a disapproving one.
Oh? Oh. Ford took courage. “Also thinking about it coming down over your ass.” He caressed Gavin’s hip. Mmm, sweet. He didn’t want to stop. Hoping slow and easy woul
d win the race, he kept his hand on the move. Over, and over still more, crawling but never stopping to hear the thrill of seeing Gavin’s lips part and his eyelids grow heavy with what Ford knew had to be desire. “This one is my favorite,” he murmured. “You lying on your side with the hair covering you like a veil, waiting to be brushed away.”
He could feel Gavin’s smirk against his neck. “I’d look like a tiny doll.”
Ford slid his hand over the final inch and rested it over Gavin’s groin. His groan mingled with Gavin’s hiss beneath the crash, bang, boom! of the grand finale of fireworks overhead. “Not that tiny,” Ford said and nipped at Gavin’s ear. He pressed down. “Not tiny at all.”
“Oh God,” Gavin said, not in embarrassment this time. Ford liked the rise of color in him much better this way. He could feel the effort it took Gavin not to rise and press against his hand, seeking the friction.
“How long have you been hard?” Ford asked in wonder, letting himself stroke Gavin. Small touches, meant to entice but not to be cruel, and he hoped they wouldn’t be taken as teasing. “It’s just… I have you here, and I can’t not enjoy,” he explained aloud. “God, you feel good.”
Gavin bit his lip, but that didn’t stop the whimper from emerging. He leaned back in his chair and, whether he did it on purpose or not, slid his thighs farther apart to give Ford more room to work.
Sweet mercy, did Ford ever want to take advantage of that extra space. But -- “Not here,” he said with true regret. “If I’d rented a room, we’d so already be there. But the first time with you, I’m not too crazy about sharing it with fifty-odd other people.”
Gavin giggled. Ford almost couldn’t believe his ears. Forget rubbing him off -- Ford wanted to hug him.
“I swear, you’re a hard one to keep up with. If you’re not careful, one of us is going to leave the other in the dust,” Ford said. He meant well.
It wasn’t received that way.
No time to think about it. Gavin pushed Ford away and was up and out of his chair before Ford knew what had hit him, and on his way toward the restaurant exit as quick as a deer from a hunter.
