by Amy Lane
Elaina gave him a disgusted look. “Don’t give him that crap, Tino. You two’ve been making goo-goo eyes at each other all lunch. You’d totally have his babies if God gave you the equipment. It’s really gross.”
“What?”
“The love stuff. You, Nica—I’m not falling in love until I’m thirty. Sayin’.”
Tino sniffed. “Then why aren’t you going to be famous? You’ve got nothing better to do.”
Oh, could anybody project disdain better than a thirteen-year-old? “Because famous people are messed up, Tino. I don’t even think it’s the talent, you know? It’s the being messed up that gets them attention. Twitter doesn’t lie! Hey, Sammy—you tried one of the fritter things dipped in whipped cream yet? I need to watch you eat one because I don’t have any more room on my diet.”
Channing and Tino locked eyes so they didn’t have to see it happen.
“He’s so throwing that up tonight,” Channing said, a little bit of anticipatory horror threading his voice.
“It’s my day off,” Tino said self-righteously. “You get to clean it up.”
“I thought you loved me!”
Tino sort of glowed at him. “I do!”
“I’m gonna throw up,” Elaina muttered, a study of insouciance. “Who’s going to clean that?”
“Me!” Sammy chirped. “That’ll be so gross. Uncle Channing, can I clean that up?”
Uncle Channing lost it, laughing into his hand, and Tino watched him, thinking, Whatever I do, I need to make sure all things come back to this place.
They took Elaina back home so she could practice, with the promise to make it to what was sure to be to be a highly entertaining brunch the next week, and then went back home. Sammy lazed about, playing with his toys, watching cartoons, and Channing dealt with e-mails. Tino played with his new laptop, which was, à la Channing, about a thousand times more powerful than his old one, with enough memory to fit the Library of Congress and the National Library of Every Other Country in the World.
He enjoyed the game capabilities so much that he almost forgot to check his e-mail.
“Oh,” he said, swallowing.
“Oh what?” Channing looked over his shoulder.
“My headhunter—she got back to me. I’ve got six job interviews next week—”
“Six!” Channing said, sounding excited.
Tino frowned and tapped a response. “Yeah, but I’m not going to three of them. See? They’re in downtown Sac, and we can’t do that.”
Channing nodded. “But three in Folsom—”
“Yeah—that’s exciting.” Tino felt a buzz of anticipation then, something he couldn’t quite kill. “I mean….” He bit his lip. “I need to make my portfolio spiffy—”
“Do you have a briefcase?”
Tino grinned. “Yeah—gift from my parents when I graduated.”
“Well, the interviews are on Tuesday.” Channing went to his own laptop and pulled up a schedule. “Sammy, you start second grade on Thursday, don’t you?”
Sammy looked over his shoulder. “Yep. Tino took me to orientation this week!”
Channing grimaced. “Tino didn’t mention that. Must have had babies on his brain.”
Sammy grunted. “Well, you two can have another baby when I’m ten.”
They stared at him as he went back to “guy house,” as Tino called it—a playhouse with lots of bells and whistles for his action figures.
“Why ten?” Channing was brave enough to ask.
Sammy looked up. “Because then I’ll have two numbers. Ten. It’s two numbers. And then I’ll be old enough to have a baby who’s zero.”
“Sammy,” Tino said numbly, “that makes no sense at all.”
Sammy shrugged, unfazed. “No, it totally does. Three years. You’ll be good.”
Tino and Channing both rubbed their eyes and tried really hard to focus back on the work at hand.
“So,” Tino said, looking at his schedule. “The three interviews I can make are all on Tuesday. Remind me to ask Carrie to watch Sammy and—”
“Don’t worry.” Channing tapped his cheek with a knuckle. “Me and Sammy, we’ll take care of the schedule. You brush up on your interviewing skills. Don’t worry about it, Tino. We’ve got your back.”
Tino spent the rest of the evening studying, remembering how excited he’d been at the end of school, remembering how much he’d looked forward to applying for a job, meeting a new challenge, coming up with ideas to make a business work better, or even start one from scratch. He’d squashed that excitement down over the summer, afraid that if he chose work, he’d have to turn his back on his newfound life, but that wasn’t the case at all.
They were coming with him, and suddenly his excitement over finding a job—establishing a career—wasn’t just a tiny, buzzing hope, it was something much better.
It was something to share.
Channing walked Sammy up the stairs to bed that night, and Tino watched with a full heart. He wandered around downstairs, turning off lights, locking doors, setting the alarm, and then, instead of sliding between the sheets, he jumped into the shower.
He wanted to be clean everywhere when he got to bed.
He stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and met Channing’s eyes as he sprawled in bed.
“Were we feeling… sticky?” Channing asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Eventually,” Tino said with conviction, “I’m sure that yes, sticky is on the menu for tonight.”
Channing grinned and pulled out the little plastic bottle with the clear viscous liquid inside. “It’s not supposed to be that sticky. Do I need to buy another brand?”
Tino shook his head, glad that they could kid about this and that the stupid butterflies in his stomach were busy giggling and not freaking out. “I am not doing consumer reports with you. As long as it makes the whole experience ‘Yes, dammit, yes!’ and not ‘Ouch, quit it, ouch!’, it should do the job.”
“Oh dear Lord. Tino, get your naked ass in bed. If ‘Ouch, quit it, ouch!’ is even on your list of expectations tonight, I have not done my job these last months.”
Tino grinned at him and dropped the towel in the hamper before scurrying over to where Channing held the covers up. There was a lot of rustling and snuggling and wiggling and stroking of bare skin, but finally they were warm in the air-conditioning, naked and smooth and quiet in the still of the sleeping house.
Channing whispered kisses by Tino’s temple and licked a seductive line around the curve of his ear. “You feel that?” he asked, arching sinuously so Tino could feel what arousal did to his hard, unyielding body.
“Yeah,” Tino whispered back, eyes half-closed. “That for me?”
“It’s all for you,” Channing said, and he wasn’t playing anymore, wasn’t talking dirty. Tino knew that now.
“I want it,” he said back. “I want it all.”
Tino wasn’t talking about sex either—but that was what they had now. Channing’s mouth on his was heaven, and their bodies slid together, pitching desire to the highest peak, lifting them one more notch, one more moan, one more whimper of arousal higher. Finally Tino was spread before his lover, naked and wanton, brain so clouded with passion that he could only writhe on the bed, fisting the sheets in an effort to not simply use his hands on his body to slake the terrible fire of arousal they’d ignited.
“Wait,” Channing whispered, sitting up on his knees. He palmed Tino’s inner thighs, spreading him wider, so Tino lay exposed and shameless.
Channing grasped Tino’s erection in one hand, and Tino had to bite his palm to keep from crying out loud enough to wake Sammy—or bring the security patrols down on their heads.
And then, with his other hand, he stroked Tino’s most forbidden place, penetrated him with slippery fingers, filled him with dark desire, and Tino found he was slowing his breath to long, tortuous pants so he could cope with the sharp bite of pained pleasure.
“Channing,” he begged. “Ple
ase….” He shook hard with the effort not to climax, and Channing fell forward and kissed him, reassuring him, calming him down.
“Slow,” he ordered. “You and me—we’ll go so slow….”
Tino let out a breathless cry as Channing’s body breached his, and for a moment, his vision was filled with a white ring of pain.
But just as he was about to beg to stop, his body stretched, accommodated, and… oh… oh Lord—there was Channing, inside him, and Tino gave a long, keening moan at the joyful pressure, the blissful fullness, of having his lover take his body, use it gently, claiming Tino’s flesh for his own.
“Good?” Channing whispered, and Tino nodded, bucking his hips.
“Better if you move.”
Channing’s low laughter, when they were joined together, was filthy and powerful, arousing him beyond words.
He began to rock back and forth, the rhythm slow at first, but soon it was pounding as hard as the blood rushing in Tino’s ears, and Tino was swept along with it. What had started out as intrusive, an invasion, not altogether pleasant, became necessary, life-giving ecstasy, and Tino couldn’t stop begging for more.
Channing gave him everything, and Tino took it all.
And then, as his climax roared upon him, his body contorted, clenching, giving pleasure back, and Channing’s harsh gasp triggered Tino’s own. Together their bodies stuttered, rutting mindlessly, before Channing moaned, shivering in orgasm as Tino’s spend fountained, surprising him, spattering across his chest and abdomen and leaving him drained, trembling, and thoroughly debauched.
Channing fell forward and Tino welcomed him with open arms. They held each other safely until the shudders of completion waned, and they were left men again, simple and ordinary, and not the titans that passion had rendered them.
“Wow,” Tino said when words were a thing again.
“Yeah?” Channing nuzzled him, not the commanding lover he’d been before, but Tino didn’t mind. Every man needed reassurance after he’d left himself vulnerable and bare in lovemaking. Channing was no exception.
“Yeah,” Tino said, capturing his mouth in a kiss.
They pulled apart, and Tino stroked Channing’s sweaty hair from his brow. “That was….”
“Wow?”
Tino grinned. “Yeah—that was wow.”
“I love you,” Channing said simply. “I’m… I mean, I’m stupid happy that I’m your first.”
“I’d like you to be my last, if we can manage it,” Tino said, meaning it.
“As long as I can be all the lovers in the middle too.” Channing replied, equally serious.
Tino tried to laugh, but the last of his wind deserted him, and Channing had to roll off so he could breathe.
And then they both chuckled, talking quietly in lovers’ secret language, long after Channing turned off the bedside lamp and they’d put their underwear on.
When Tino closed his eyes, all he saw in his dreams was the promise of beginning his life with a family he loved. There were still fears—all thinking men feared—but his lover’s soft breathing was Tino’s bastion, his safety, for all the frightening things that life could possibly hold.
BRUNCH with Tino’s parents wasn’t just breakfast that week—it was a family event.
Channing’s meeting with Tino’s parents was the smallest part of the affair—everybody else already knew him, and he got hugs from Elaina and Nica, and a handshake from Jacob at the outset. Tino’s mother hugged him on sight and told him how happy she was that he was part of the family, which was sort of embarrassing to Tino because even though Carrie had probably gossiped, he hadn’t even told them that he was moving in permanently.
His father apparently assumed the same thing, because Channing didn’t get the manly handshake from that quarter either, and Channing told Tino in private that Tino’s father had pounded his back so hard during the hug that he was pretty sure he had a bruise.
“Wow,” Tino said. “It’s a good thing he likes you.”
“You just keep thinking that, Tino. Eventually he’ll like me, but right now he wants to make sure I’m not taking advantage of the manny.”
“Well you are, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy.”
But that was later. At the brunch itself, after Channing’s introduction and the general mob assault on the platefuls of food at the breakfast table, Nica and Jacob stood up hand and hand in the middle of the kitchen and made their announcement.
Tino’s mother cried, and his father tried to look stern and disapproving at Jacob but failed.
After that, singing “Happy Birthday” to Elaina seemed anticlimactic, and Tino kept the rest of his news to himself.
“You didn’t tell them,” Channing said that evening as they took a walk around the neighborhood, following Sammy on his bicycle.
Tino clasped Channing’s hand a little tighter and shrugged.
Channing had taken the day off so he and Sammy could support Tino through his marathon interview Tuesday. They’d driven him from place to place, keeping him fueled with coffee and food and enthusiasm for the grueling endurance run. Tino had walked into three different thriving Folsom businesses in his new suit, with his leather briefcase, his head full of old-fashioned knowledge and the enthusiasm of youth.
He’d given his heart to each interview, but he’d walked away with only a vague buzz in his stomach about each one. He’d gone school shopping with Channing and Sammy afterward, but he’d been distracted and out of it.
Channing elbowed him while they were waiting for Sammy to come out of the changing room and show them his newest outfit.
“You know,” he said, “if my letter of rec doesn’t work, you could always come work for me.”
“Isn’t that nepotism?” he asked miserably, because he would like to work for Channing. The idea of being his support staff as he worked on a professional project sounded fun—they were such a good team on the household front, Tino thought they could truly excel.
“Yeah, sure.” Channing shrugged. “But if it makes you feel better, you can interview with my head of HR tomorrow—and do it blindly. She won’t know who you are, and you’ll know if she hires you first. And then we can figure out how to work together without banging each other silly—looking good, Sammy!”
Sammy had emerged dressed in one of a zillion favorite school outfits they’d bought for him, and Tino thought about it.
What could it hurt?
That Thursday they drove Sammy to school and dropped him off with all of the nervousness of first-time parents. Sammy, who had been around the schoolyard a few times, was as cool as a cucumber—and just fine with Carrie coming to pick him up afterward.
Which left Tino with nothing else to fret about during the forty-five-minute commute into Sacramento.
“You know,” he muttered as they charged down Highway 50 in the roadster, “this is going to put us exactly in the same place as before regarding Sammy’s childcare.”
“Not if you get the part-time job being offered,” Channing said amicably. “It’s three days a week, Tino. That gives you two days to pick Sammy up and shuttle him to after-school activities. And we’ll be dropping him off every day.”
Tino took a deep breath. “That’s not bad,” he admitted, checking the knot in his tie—a brilliant eggplant purple, at Channing’s insistence—for the fifth time.
“No.” Channing’s hand on his knee felt kind and reassuring. “That little boy is going to know he’s loved. Just like you do.”
Tino could smile then. “I do,” he said fervently. “You know I love you back too, right?”
“Not a doubt in my mind,” Channing had reaffirmed.
Tino thought that made the difference when he’d interviewed.
He’d heard from the head of HR from all four jobs on Friday. He’d gotten two offers, one of them from Lowell Enterprises.
He hadn’t kept Channing in suspense for long.
So the quiet of the late August evening was tempered with the k
nowledge that all three of them had work or school in the morning—and with Tino’s butterflies at starting a new job next to the man he loved.
But he wasn’t worried about not having told his parents—not at all.
“No,” he said, leaning a little so he could drop a kiss on the top of Channing’s shoulder. “I didn’t tell them. Too many other things going on. Bigger things, you know?”
“Bigger than a new job at Lowell Enterprises?” Channing asked, only sounding a little put out.
“My real job is at the home office,” Tino said seriously. “And they know all about that one.”
“Well not all,” Channing laughed. Tino joined him.
“No,” Tino agreed. “I think some parts of growing up, I’d best keep to myself.”
“Or share with me,” Channing prompted, and something in his voice made Tino think he wasn’t kidding even a little.
“Always,” Tino said earnestly. “I’ll always share the growing up with you.”
“And the growing older,” Channing said, sounding just as serious.
“And the growing older,” Tino reassured. “As long as you can stand me.”
“Me too.”
Channing turned then and smiled at him, the kind of smile that made his dimples pop and the fine lines by his eyes deepen.
Tino closed his eyes and accepted his kiss, thinking Amen to the prayer of the two of them together.
He was pretty sure that prayer had already been answered.
AMY LANE is a mother of two college students, two grade-schoolers, and two small dogs. She is also a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores fur-babies, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. Her award-winning writing has three flavors: twisty-purple alternative universe, angsty-orange contemporary, and sunshine-yellow happy. By necessity, she has learned to type like the wind. She’s been married for twenty-plus years to her beloved Mate and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
