by Amy Lane
“How’re you doing?” Mason asked. “Here—sit down. I’ll get you some dinner.”
Dane dropped his backpack in the entryway and then hung up his coat and let Mason take care of him. Mason was good at it, like their parents, which was probably why Skipper wouldn’t have been a great idea anyway. Because according to Carpenter’s stories, taking care of people was Skipper’s main joy in life too.
“Tired,” Dane said briefly. Carpenter got up from the recliner and gestured for Dane to take his place, but Dane shook his head. “Let me go put on some sweats,” he said instead. “And then, seriously—a sandwich, some TV.” He swallowed and felt that terrible vulnerability come back. “Uh, we can sit on the couch.” Please, Carpenter, pretend you’re not straight. Please, please, please.
“Sure. I’ll go get you some chocolate milk. Your brother bought enough of it.”
Dane nodded and made his way up the stairs. As he changed—and took a quick shower, because he’d had lab practicals that day and he was pretty sure he smelled like cat zombies and horror movies—he had time to wonder what Carpenter and his brother were saying to each other. Did Clay tell Mason about their last conversation? Did he say anything more than “It was a rough day?”
What did Dane want him to tell Mason?
God, it would be great if his big brother could nurse his broken heart in peace without having to worry about Dane swinging from the light fixtures and then hibernating like a bear. Dane was so over being a burden.
But by the time he got downstairs, they were talking about politics, and given they were both as Marxist as the comfortably well-off could possibly get, they seemed to get along just fine.
But politics, even when he was on board, always bored Dane shitless.
“Yeah, fine, vote Democrat,” he muttered as he walked into the kitchen. “But what I want to know is why we haven’t seen Umbrella Academy yet.”
“Because there were too many hot people in The Magicians,” Clay said happily. “Have you seen the latest season?”
“Yes. Twice.” Because Hale Applebaum was one of Dane’s not-so-secret “I would hit that with my last breath” people.
“Well then, Umbrella Academy it is!” Carpenter’s smile was full amperage, and some of the gray around Dane’s vision faded.
And then he yawned—the kind of yawn where it probably looked like his mouth was going to open completely, hinge backward, and swallow his own head.
“Maybe stupid Friday night shit instead,” Carpenter amended. “C’mon, let’s get you fed, watered, and wound down. You can do nothing tomorrow but sleep.”
“Can’t you?” Dane asked plaintively.
“Are you kidding? I have to drag my carcass onto the soccer field to practice so my fat ass doesn’t get solidly creamed when the season starts up again. It’s part of joining the cult—it’s in the bylaws.”
Dane started to giggle. “Oh my God!” And it just got funnier.
“What?” Carpenter demanded, but Mason was covering his eyes, so he’d heard it too.
“You don’t say ‘ass creamed’ to a gay man!” Dane chortled, and then Clay blew his mind.
“Well, look who’s a slutty bottom!”
And Mason gasped in horror. “That’s my brother!”
Dane was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t say it. Almost. “It’s so true!”
He fell on Carpenter, so undone Carpenter needed to hold him up or Dane would just lose his shit all over the kitchen floor.
But he did. Hold him up, that is. Solid, sturdy, dependable as a granite foundation, Clay Carpenter dragged a giggling, overtired Dane to the living room while Mason brought his food and chocolate milk in and shut off the lights in the kitchen.
The next thing Dane knew, he was sitting in the V of Carpenter’s legs as he munched doggedly on a chicken-and-avocado sandwich and mindless action-TV Friday was blowing shit up onscreen.
Every now and then, Carpenter would pick up the glass of chocolate milk and set it in his hand, and by the time the first commercial came on, the sandwich was gone, and so was the chocolate milk. And his life was all about leaning on Carpenter’s solid, warm, muscular frame, his brain pleasantly fuzzed out and his body getting ready to relax.
Mason was the one who shook him gently awake. “Here—one last swallow of milk.” And also the pills from Dane’s calendar. Dane met his eyes miserably, because it was obvious he’d been missing meds, but Mason just ruffled his hair.
“Finals are the suck,” he said gently.
Dane nodded, too exhausted to even protest.
“I’ll refill the calendar. Make sure you take your breakfast dose, okay?”
“Thanks, Mace.”
And then Mason was gone, up the stairs. And Dane was alone with the fuzzy, muscular top of his dreams and his entire body was a noodle.
“Don’t go,” he begged softly. “Wait until I’m asleep.”
Carpenter yawned. “How about you go upstairs and I’ll sleep on your couch. I can get up early and change for the game.”
Dane thought about that for a minute. “If I promise not to molest you or otherwise bother you, do you just want to sleep in my bed? We’ll both fit, there’s a comforter, and you can plug your phone into the charger.”
Carpenter blinked. “Uh… sure?”
Dane had to laugh. “Mason and I grew up sharing a queen-sized bed—houses cost a fortune on the peninsula, even small two-bedroom ones with tiny backyards.”
“Gotcha,” Carpenter said softly. “Then, sure. No gropey, no nopey. It’ll be fine.”
And it was. Carpenter turned out the lights and stripped off his cargo shorts and hooded sweatshirt, revealing the solid, stocky body beneath.
Yeah, there were some bulges and overlaps. Dane could see that through the T-shirt. But he could also see the muscular calves and the broad shoulder and upper arm definition.
Carpenter’s body was a work in progress. Dane approved of works in progress—he’d hate to think his goofy smile and hipster scruff was the finished product of anybody’s imagination.
“Not much to grope,” Carpenter muttered, embarrassed. “Or, you know, too much to grope.”
“Shut up,” Dane said thickly, turning his back to the center of the bed. Fat didn’t bother him. Cruelty bothered him—because he’d dated cruelty in a pretty package before, which was how Mason had ended up doing the fireman’s carry with Dane into the psych ward. But he’d banged all shapes and sizes at the restaurant, and hadn’t regretted a single bang. “I’d be all over that shit before you could say cream of ass.”
Carpenter’s chuckle warmed his toes. “Which, frankly, is something I will never say again.”
“Aw, please,” Dane begged, still giggling. “For me?”
“No. Only boys who go to bed on time can hear me make a complete asshole of myself. It’s a rule.”
“Fine,” Dane grumbled, snuggling into his pillow. Carpenter’s weight depressed the bed, and Dane thought longingly of spooning that big warm body and rubbing his tummy to see if he had a silky happy trail or a fuzzy one. But he’d promised, and frankly, just having that body at his back reminded him of being a kid, when Mason kept the monsters at bay and wouldn’t let anything hurt him.
You don’t want him to be your brother.
Well, no. But right now, Carpenter was kindness and safety and laughter.
Dane would take what he could get.
Freedom
CARPENTER HAD tried to prepare Dane for Skipper’s small house and how truly awful the kitchen tile was. Dane was a bit of a snob, and Carpenter got it. His own mother knew the difference between off-white, eggshell, ecru, pale beige, vanilla, and cream—and even the wine in the low-fat gravy was more than fifty dollars a bottle.
But Skipper was his friend—his best friend—and for some reason it was of vital importance that his boss’s little brother see Skipper’s house and recognize it for the bastion of peace and kindness that it actually was.
Dane didn’t seem to
notice the kitchen tile.
He was starting to regain his edge and his snark after that seriously shitty day the week before Christmas. Carpenter had never heard anybody that close to losing their shit before. Pulling Dane back from that edge had given Carpenter a greater appreciation for mental health care professionals and sufferers alike.
His heart had been thudding in his chest like a basketball against wooden floorboards in an old gym.
And Mason—well, he had to give it to Dane’s older brother.
Carpenter had texted, Dane’s on his way home. He’s having a rough day, and Mason had texted back his address and asked Carpenter if he wanted to bring takeout or should Mason order in.
That simply, Carpenter had been invited into their nice little home. Four bedrooms, three baths, a pool—it was about a third the size of the house Carpenter’s parents lived in, but three times the size of Carpenter’s apartment.
Mason did okay for himself as a VP at Tesko, but he didn’t like to brag.
And Carpenter could respect a guy who would rather have a nice little house and a pool because that’s all he needed instead of a mansion and a pool boy because that’s what everybody thought he should have.
But that didn’t stop him from worrying.
Skip’s house had become sort of holy to him. He really hoped Dane would worship in the same church.
Dane didn’t seem to be shopping for churches—but he didn’t seem ready to piss on Carpenter’s either.
He smiled graciously at Skip, brought a giant tin of homemade sugar cookies that made Carpenter hate him a little because he’d brought the store-bought ones and felt inferior, and made himself comfortable on Skip’s recently repaired back deck, hanging out by the firepit and shamelessly flirting with anyone who came to talk to Carpenter.
“So,” he said, giving a grin made more endearing by his slightly crooked front teeth, “you’re the soccer-playing schoolteacher. Do they give you extra credit for that?”
Thomas shook back his curly blond hair and gave a heavy-lidded grin that suggested he was the most laid-back guy at his high school—even as an adult.
“Naw, dude. I just imagine that the ball is my current administrator; then I kick the ever-loving shit out of it. Clears away a lot of bad karma, you know?”
Carpenter chortled. On the field, Thomas was a showboat, and a ruthless midfielder who had actually scored a goal once on a blocking kick to save Carpenter from having to go after the ball as keeper.
The guy could kick a soccer ball into the next state with very little effort.
“Brother, that’s a lot of rage,” Dane said with respect. “What did that asshole ever do to you?”
Thomas snorted. “Wrote me up for calling him ‘Dude.’”
Carpenter and Dane looked at each other in disbelief and then stared at Thomas, waiting for the rest of the story.
“Do tell,” Carpenter said, edging away from Mason while keeping his ass toward the firepit for blissful warming. Jefferson was on Mason’s other side, and he kept crowding Mason, so it wasn’t really Mason’s fault that he was almost sitting on Carpenter’s lap. He wasn’t trying to be rude, but was just trying to maintain a respectful distance from the much younger, super adorable, squirrelly blond-haired, brown-eyed Terry Jefferson.
“Aw man, it was the dumbest fucking thing!” Thomas shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and slouched forward, smiling winningly at both of them, and Carpenter appreciated him for a minute. Long hair, surfer scruff, bright green eyes—Elwood Thomas was the perfect high school teacher. Laid-back, smart… and, from what Carpenter had heard him saying to Skipper, extremely organized. He taught history, econ, and American government, and when he was on a roll about how the curriculum needed to change in order to more accurately reflect American diversity, Carpenter found himself wishing for his Trapper Keeper and a pen so he could take notes and learn something.
“Clarify ‘dumbest fucking thing,’” Dane urged, his brown eyes lighting up. Carpenter swallowed a little surge of resentment. He rather liked having all of Dane’s attention on himself, as it had been for the last week or so, since the super-shitty day. But hey, even if Thomas was bi and Dane was his speed, what was Carpenter going to do? All of that pondering about kissing another man was just that. Pondering. If Dane needed someone, what was Carpenter going to do about it?
He tried to scowl at Thomas, but the guy was just so sunshiny bright that Carpenter found himself listening to the story instead, while his stomach did a bunch of confused flip-flops that could have meant anything from “I’m going to lose my anal virginity to a guy named Elwood” to “Jesus, I ate a lot of fuckin’ cookies.”
Or maybe just “Dane looks really happy tonight, and I’m glad I get to be near him.”
“So,” Thomas was saying after kicking back a swig of beer, “you ever have one of those shitty days?”
“Don’t even ask that,” Dane muttered, and Clay shoulder-bumped him gently so he’d know it was okay.
“Yeah, right?” Thomas nodded like that was an entire conversation. “Anyway, so I was having a day. Menendez and Wyatt Cooper are sort of my buddy support system, you know?”
“No, I didn’t,” Carpenter said. “But now I do, and I may forget in the future.”
“Heh-heh.” Thomas took another chug of his beer. “Anyway, so they’d just helped me move back to my parents’ after me and Sonja broke up, and it was… it was bad. It was so bad they got me toasted and I crashed on Wyatt’s couch that night and had to, like, borrow his jeans and underwear and shit, because… it was fuckin’ bad. And then, to top it off, my car wouldn’t start, so I needed him to jumpstart it, and I was really fuckin’ late. And, like, I’ve got tenure and everything, but I’d, like, left my school keys at my parents’ place, and my name badge and everything. So I get there late, and I’m out by the back gate, and my classroom is right fuckin’ there. And I know somebody has got to be in there with the kids, because that’s what they do, right? Security or administration goes in until we get our shit together! So nobody is letting me in the back gate, and I call the front office, and the front office bitch is a piece of work. Hates my ass, hates all the fuckin’ women, hates the GSA, the Spanish club—you get the idea. Bitch. And she’s like, ‘I’m sure you’ll find your way in.’ So I start throwing shit, right?”
Dane and Carpenter blinked long and slow. Carpenter wasn’t sure what was going through Dane’s mind, but he was imagining a big dandelion-headed baby tantrum right outside the school gates.
“Where?” Dane asked. “Where did you throw shit?”
Thomas burbled a laugh over his next sip of beer. “Like, at the window, man. Like, so the kids could see me and come let me in! The gate opens from their side, not mine, right?”
“Oh my God!” Carpenter sputtered. “You were pulling a Romeo and Juliet in your own goddamned classroom?”
“Right?” Thomas jumped up and down on his toes. “Right? I’m, like, so pissed. Anyway, security finally lets me in, and my door is locked, but I can hear a voice inside. The principal opens the door—motherfucker was lecturing my seniors on what dumbasses they are—”
“Wait, what?” Dane frowned. “Does he do that?”
“He stops rallies to tell the kids they’re being shitty, when they’re just being fucking kids. And this class is sweet. Lazy, but sweet, right? You give them a little rah-rah and they kick it into gear. So this motherfucker is shitting on my kids, and he doesn’t say anything to me, just finishes his lecture and turns to leave. Without a fucking word.”
“Is that when you called him ‘dude’?” Dane clarified.
“Naw, man—not yet. So I talk to the kids. They’re my kids, right? And they were like, ‘Omigod! Thomas! Man, we’re so glad to see you!’ and I was like, ‘Didn’t you hear me throwing shit at the window?’”
“Did they?” Carpenter was fascinated. After that ill-fated interview day, he’d been absolutely convinced douchebaggery was an exclusively rich guy thing.
But apparently, it existed in all levels of civilized society.
“Yeah! And the kids were like, ‘Johnstone! Johnstone! We’ve got to get our teacher, man—we like him! We’ve got a project we gotta do today, and he’s outside with our handouts!’ I’d paid for the damned photocopies myself, right?”
“Dude.” Carpenter abruptly forgave Thomas for being cute and smart and blond and about six inches taller than he was. This story was actually sort of appalling, and poor Thomas hadn’t deserved it.
“Right? Anyway, it’s exactly what I said, and the kids all nodded back, like, seriously, and I said, ‘Look, we’ve got twenty minutes left. Let’s get something done, right?’ And just as we were starting, asshole comes back in again. I was like, ‘Dude! Can I help you?’”
“What did he say?” Carpenter caught his rather sad look at his empty beer and reached into the cooler that was only a couple of feet away and handed him a new one.
“Thanks, my dude. And the motherfucker didn’t say a damned thing. Just turned around and left. And then called me into a meeting the next day. I barely had time to grab my union rep, and she’s a witness. That asshole wrote me up for calling him ‘Dude.’”
“Dude,” Carpenter and Dane both said in tandem, and they didn’t even laugh.
“Right?” Thomas gave his bottle cap a vicious twist and took a healthy swallow. “Anyway, union rep said it was bullshit and she’d fight it, but it hits me, right? I’m working for a douchebag. Me and the kids, we got our thing going, and their test scores are good, and I’m loving the job, but that Thursday at soccer, man, I was kicking the shit out of that fucking ball, and that Saturday at the game, I was all hip action, man. That game keeps me from losing my shit, ’cause I can’t. The kids need me, right?”
“Absolutely,” Carpenter consoled him. At that moment, Wyatt Cooper—brown-haired, hazel-eyed, lanky and wiry like a guy who worked for his dad’s lawn service on the weekends should be while working an office job during the week—came to lead Thomas away.
