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by Jacob Z. Flores

  Even though he knew it was time to move on, to close this chapter in his life and live the next one just waiting to be written, Spencer still found it difficult to say good-bye. This house and the life he’d lived here with Justin had made up some of the happiest times of his life.

  On their first Christmas in the house, Justin had invited every single family member over for dinner, as well as all their friends. More than fifty people had crammed into the house to share the holiday with them. The house was filled beyond capacity with more than just people. It was filled with love.

  They’d celebrated Spencer’s tenure at St. Mary’s University with a bottle of Dom Pérignon at the dining room table, which was accompanied by a meal prepared by Justin’s inexperienced culinary skills. The food was awful, bone-dry chicken and rock-hard white rice, but the love and care that went into the meal meant more to Spencer than a superbly prepared gourmet supper. On that night, Justin beamed with pride regarding Spencer’s new role as a full professor, happier and prouder of him than any person had ever been in his life. Not even his parents rejoiced his accomplishments with such relish.

  A cherished holiday memory, special occasion, or romantic anniversary existed in almost every square inch of the house. It was impossible for him to simply walk away from it without a special commemorative ceremony.

  Spencer crossed over to the sole box that remained in the house. Chris and Jill had already removed the rest of the boxes and were at this moment securing everything in the van for the move. In a few minutes, they would return, and it would be time to leave this house and drive to his new house to begin his new life.

  From the box he withdrew a single champagne flute and a bottle of Dom Pérignon. He unfastened the wire that held the foil secure and then worked the cork out of the bottle with a slight pop. Expertly removed, none of the precious liquid exploded outward or fell to the floor. He poured the glass half full and turned to face the house.

  “Here’s to our house and here’s to us, Justin,” he said while taking a long sip of the champagne. “The two of us had a remarkable life here, and I’ll always treasure every single moment and memory.”

  “Who’re you talking to?” Chris asked while staring at him suspiciously. “You hearing voices again? Did your dad come back to haunt you?”

  Spencer rolled his eyes. Over the past few months, since Justin’s accident, he’d told his friends and loved ones about his internal conversations with his father. Although he understood that his father’s voice was simply a figment of his imagination, his moral conscience rising to the surface to help guide him to resolutions for his conflicts, he hoped by discussing the internal working of his minds with those he trusted they would make him feel better, less crazy.

  That wasn’t what he had gotten. Instead, they’d told him he was crazy and needed to see a psychologist. His father’s voice was now just another thing they teased him about.

  “No, you dumbass,” Spencer said. “I was saying good-bye to the house.”

  “Yeah, that’s not crazy at all,” Chris muttered while grabbing the last box.

  Spencer responded by sticking out his tongue, and Chris laughed. “Pat called me from Dutch’s house,” Chris told him. “They’re almost packed up there too. Hopefully, we can finish the move before dinner. I’m starving!” He headed out the door, but before leaving, he said, “Tell the house good-bye for me too. I’m gonna miss it here.”

  Spencer smiled at Chris as he walked out the door.

  Spencer took one final look around, devouring every single detail of the house one last time. Tomorrow, its new owners, a young newlywed couple, would take possession and begin filling it with the treasures of their life together. It would become for them what the house had been for him and Justin.

  It would become their haven from the rest of the world.

  Spencer crossed the threshold for the last time and closed the door shut behind him. It was time for him to drive across town, enter his new home, and embrace the new life that waited for him there with open, outstretched arms.

  DUTCH stood at the open front door to his house, peering inside one final time. All of his belongings now sat neatly stacked according to Spencer’s packing system in the moving van, which idled in the driveway.

  “Let’s move!” Pat called from the driver’s side window. “We’ve got lots to do, and my belly’s hungering for some food!”

  “Be right there!” Dutch yelled back at Pat, who smiled broadly from the van. Thanks to Pat and his wife Heather, Dutch’s house was now completely empty. Everything he owned now waited to take up space in their new house, the one that would contain the memories he would cherish for the rest of his life.

  Still, he found it difficult to leave this part of his life behind. Even though bad memories and some hard times haunted the halls of this residence, the good memories still lingered. Their light far outshone the bad.

  In the living room on one of the darkest days of his life, he’d first met Justin on Cyber. Their friendship and ultimately their love had carried him through some of his life’s hardest crises, such as the death of his mother. Without Justin, he doubted he would have survived. The strength Dutch had been able to draw from him allowed him not only to grieve but to move on.

  Justin’s encouraging words had helped him recover his mobility far sooner than he would have been capable of doing alone. When his body told him no, when it refused to cooperate, Justin told him yes. He had given him the affirmation he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself and pull himself up into a better, more positive state of mind.

  “Dude, you okay?” Pat asked from his left side.

  His new friend’s sudden presence startled him. Dutch hadn’t heard Pat exit the vehicle or walk over to him.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Heather asked. She took up residence on his right, the two of them preparing to be the bookends of support he might need.

  “I’m sure,” he replied. They put their arms around him, and the friendship they freely offered made saying good-bye a bit easier to bear.

  Ever since Justin’s accident, when he’d finally met the friends Justin and Spencer spoke so often about, they’d opened their arms and their hearts to him without any reservation. They looked past the problems he’d helped instigate between their two friends and saw only a man in pain, a man who needed someone to be there for him.

  Since then, that was exactly what they had all done. For each other.

  He attended dinners with Pat and Heather. He watched football games with Chris and Jill. Teresa shared his passion for scary movies, and they had weekly dates of bad horror movies and popcorn. Tyler and Jerry enjoyed home renovations as much as he did, and they often worked on household projects together. They all went to the bars, both straight and gay, and enjoyed drinks and each other’s companionship.

  For the first time in far too long, he’d found friends with whom he truly belonged. The only part that truly saddened him was that it took Justin’s accident for all of them to come together.

  Still, today wasn’t about sadness. Even though he was saying good-bye to an important part of his life, a new beginning wafted on the spring breeze. He inhaled deeply, allowing the breath of the new season into his soul, refreshing his spirit and revitalizing his heavy heart.

  “Let’s do this,” he told Pat and Heather. “Let’s get me home.”

  Dutch followed his friends to the moving van. He stopped for a second, taking one final glance at his old house, the place where it all began, and he smiled.

  He was ready, and though he was still a little nervous, he couldn’t wait to live the new life the universe helped create for him.

  EVERYWHERE he looked, his loved ones busied themselves with getting the house prepared for the rest of the vans that were already en route. Tyler and Jerry brought in the last of the boxes from the first moving truck. Sam worked on unloading the study while Teresa took charge of the kitchen boxes.

  “Justin!
” Xavier called out when he entered the front door. He held Alex’s hand tightly in his own, and his friend’s face beamed more brightly than the sun.

  “Thanks for coming to help,” Justin said. He crossed over to give both Xavier and Alex a hug. Since his accident, when everyone had feared the worst, Xavier had been living with a new lease on life. He was no longer scared of commitment, and he no longer wanted to bed every piece of man flesh he ran across. Now, he was actually in a relationship with Spencer’s friend Alex, whom he would forever call Puka Shell Boy.

  Justin immediately set Xavier and Alex to a task, unpacking the dining room boxes while he worked on opening the boxes in the living room. He hoped to have as many of the boxes unpacked as possible prior to Spencer and Dutch’s arrival.

  His stomach fluttered with excitement at the future that stretched before the three of them, a future he never expected to have when he died that morning in the hospital. Once he fell into the darkness, he was ready to let go, to leave the world behind. The only thing he hoped was that Spencer and Dutch would find happiness together.

  Instead, the fiery horse dove into the water after him and brought him back to the light. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see the doctor standing over him with the defibrillator paddles in his hand or the nurses who stood around him monitoring his newly restarted vital signs, the only faces he saw were Spencer and Dutch, standing off to the side and smiling at him without anger or resentment. Only love.

  It was their love that brought him back to life, and it was the two of them he’d seen riding on the back of the horse. He owed his continued breaths on this planet to them, and he planned to live the rest of his life proving he deserved not only a second chance but the both of them.

  After all, they’d remained by his side during his recovery. They helped him get stronger physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. And together, they also worked through the tangled mess they’d made of their lives.

  Spencer and Dutch revealed their love for him and each other, and he freely embraced his love for the two of them. After that, it was simply a matter of working out the intricacies of a relationship between three men.

  It was a new concept for them and the world. After all, love was a joining of two hearts, two pieces of the same soul that locked together seamlessly. That was how the world functioned. Two people, two hearts, one relationship. That was the paradigm the rest of the world followed.

  But they didn’t fit that model. Their hearts and their relationship were bigger than what society had preconceived notions about. After all, it was the universe’s magic, some unseen force, that brought them together. That bond pulled Justin and Spencer initially to each other, but it was that same power that brought Dutch into their lives, that somehow called both of them to Dutch, separately, just as strongly as it tugged upon him.

  How else could they explain their immediate attractions to Dutch? What other possible explanation was there to describe how drawn Dutch was to both of them?

  They weren’t meant to be a couple. They were destined to be a trio.

  So they sold the houses they owned individually and purchased a house together, where the three of them would live for the rest of their lives. The road ahead was scary. A relationship with three people was far from common but not unheard of.

  They would have to deal with the strange looks from people who didn’t understand three men in a relationship with each other. The world was still trying to handle two men living together.

  Already, they faced dissenters. Naturally, Spencer’s parents were among that group. They refused to accept Dutch in their lives, much less as a part of their relationship. Since they hadn’t embraced him over the past ten years, Justin knew their chances of willingly recognizing their trio would be next to nil for the Harrison clan. Justin’s mother even had some problems accepting the arrangement at first, but as usual, she went with the flow. As long as her son was happy and healthy, not much else mattered.

  Some people at their jobs looked down their noses at them, but after a few weeks, none of them cared what anyone thought. The people that mattered the most to them, their friends and the family members who were accepting, embraced their new relationship.

  More importantly than that, they had each other.

  “Spencer and Dutch are here,” his mother announced. She had been unpacking the master bedroom for the past hour. Now that the rest of the family was here, she was as eager to greet them just as he was.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said. Before rushing off to greet the loves of his life, he stopped to give his mother a great big hug and an even bigger kiss. “You’re the best!”

  “Yes, I know,” she agreed. “Now go get those men of yours in here. There’s lots of work to be done.”

  Justin nodded and rushed out the front door.

  Dutch climbed out of the passenger seat of the van parked in the front of their house while Spencer crossed the lawn from the van parked in the driveway. Justin walked down the sidewalk, and the three of them met in the middle.

  “You’re home,” Justin said while reaching for both Spencer and Dutch. The three of them formed a circle and placed their arms around the shoulders of the other two. It was the way they hugged each other once they were all home.

  “It’s good to be home,” Dutch said. “Especially to such sexy men as the two of you.”

  “Mr. Keller, are you attempting to seduce us?” Spencer asked, pretending to be outraged by such obvious flattery.

  “Every day of my life,” Dutch replied, first kissing Spencer and then him.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Spencer replied.

  “Me too,” said Justin. The three of them said nothing for a few moments. They simply gazed into each other’s eyes, happier than they had any right to be. Dutch combed his hands through Justin’s and Spencer’s hair. Spencer rubbed his hands up and down both of their backs, and Justin brought each of them closer to him, needing to feel both of their bodies against his.

  “How was it closing up the houses?” Justin asked.

  “It was hard,” Dutch admitted. “So many good memories there.”

  “Yeah,” Spencer said. “It was almost too much. I just couldn’t say good-bye.”

  “That’s why I didn’t do it,” Justin said. “The two of you are much stronger than I am. I think I would’ve broken down.”

  “You?” Spencer and Dutch said in unison.

  “I’m capable of emotion,” Justin said, pouting.

  “Once every ten years, perhaps,” Spencer added, to which Dutch laughed heartily.

  “Is this what I have to look forward to?” Justin asked. “The two of you ganging up on me for the rest of my life?”

  “Yes,” Spencer replied.

  “Absolutely,” said Dutch.

  They all laughed, and then they held onto each other tightly, never wanting to let the other two go for even a second.

  “Okay, break it up,” Chris commented as he passed them. “You’ve got a bedroom for that.”

  “Spencer!” Elena called from inside the house. “Someone put your boxes marked study in the living room!”

  “It was Tyler,” Jill accused from inside the house.

  “Liar!” Tyler replied. “It was Pat.”

  “How the hell did I get dragged into this?” Pat asked. “I think it was Teresa.”

  “Oh no you didn’t!” Teresa exclaimed.

  The voices of their friends erupted into a faux fight. Justin, Spencer, and Dutch looked at each other and then at their new house, quickly filling up with the items of their new life and the sounds of friends who loved them as much as the three of them loved each other.

  “Shall we?” Spencer asked.

  Dutch nodded. “If we don’t get in there quickly, they’re gonna kill each other.”

  “Let’s do it,” Justin said. “Together.”

  The three of them strolled up the sidewalk to the house. When they walked inside and closed the door, they were officially home. />
  About the Author

  JACOB Z. FLORES lives a double life. During the day, he is a respected college English professor and mid-level administrator. At night and during his summer vacation, he loosens the tie and tosses aside the trendy sports coat to write man on man fiction, where the hard-ass assessor of freshman-level composition turns his attention to the firm posteriors and other rigid appendages of the characters in his fictional world.

  Summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, provide Jacob with inspiration for his fiction. The abundance of barely clothed manflesh and daily debauchery stimulates his personal muse. When he isn’t stroking the keyboard, Jacob spends time with his husband, Bruce, their three children, and two dogs, who represent a bright blue blip in an otherwise predominantly red swath in south Texas.

  You can follow Jacob’s musings on his blog at http://jacobzflores.com or become a part of his social media network by visiting http://www. facebook.com/jacob.flores2 or http://twitter.com/#!/JacobZFlores.

  Romance from DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  Romance from DREAMSPINNER PRESS

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com