by Amy Lane
Or, alone in cyberspace or whatever. Whatever. Just the intimacy of having Clay to himself, his sexy voice, his kindness. Dane’s parents were the sweetest people in the world, but he’d seen firsthand over Christmas that they were getting older. Dane needed his own people, his own support system.
Clay was like patient zero of Dane’s happiness virus. Dane needed to catch him.
Clay finished the level, and Jason sighed in disappointment and signed off, while Dane tried not to gloat.
Yeah, kids were fun, but you didn’t get to swear in front of them. And since he and Carpenter practiced swearing in a prolific and creative fashion, it was really best saved for after the kids played.
“Nice swath of destruction,” he said, watching Clay’s character wreak bloody havoc. “Anybody you want to kill?”
“No,” Clay muttered. “I mean yes, but I don’t want to talk about it. How was decorating your room?”
Dane thought about his newly painted abode and smiled smugly. “Not bad, really. Mason gave me carte blanche, and we both painted and decorated and even laid in hardwood and picked out rugs. It was….” His voice dropped a little, because the gift, his redecorated room, and the gesture, a thing they could do together during Dane’s down time that wouldn’t stress him out, had meant a lot to him. “You know my brother. Greatest guy in the world.”
“Starting to get that, yeah.” Clay steered his character into another balletic and bloody campaign, and Dane watched the carnage with a little bit of concern.
“Clay, what’s the matter?”
“Dumb shit. I put on weight over Christmas. Me and Skip are gonna work out some this weekend, but….” He made a sound of frustration. “It’s all just so fucking irritating. I mean, I cleaned my room two days after Christmas, and you know what? The reason I had so many goddamned clothes was that I had a zillion goddamned sizes. I’m currently two sizes down from my largest, which was right before I started at Tesko, and eight sizes up from my smallest, which was… well, one of those times I bought a suit in college. Don’t make me tell you which time; I don’t want to talk about it.”
Ouch.
There was something… wonky about Carpenter’s college degree. Dane had talked earlier about his biological chemistry class, and Clay’s questions had been specific and on point, to the level that he actually helped Dane with his homework.
But when Dane had asked him about how a comp sci major had known that shit, Carpenter had shrugged and said he watched a lot of obscure television.
As. If.
Also, a comp sci degree should have seen someone as smart as Clay Carpenter working at Intel, making a shitton of money, or at least more than he was making in the IT department at Tesko.
Dane was intrigued, but he was also not going to pry. Talking about his student loan debt made Carpenter cranky. And while other people got stabby or weepy or even drinky when they had a subject like that, Carpenter got eaty. Dane could give two shits how much he ate or how big his pants were, but when Carpenter got eaty, the bitterness and self-recriminations that followed were… painful.
Just so damned painful.
So no prying about his degree. But maybe he could find out what had made him eaty?
“How’s your room look?” Carpenter asked before Dane could settle on a topic.
“I love it. You’ll have to come by and see. It’s sky blue and cloud white and dark purple.”
“Sounds happy,” Carpenter said, surprised. “That’s probably the greatest thing about owning a house—you can do that shit.”
“Yeah. So, I’ll come help you clean your room next Friday. Then you come help me make cookies next Saturday.”
Carpenter did something complicated with his controller that made Dane totally jealous.
“How in the hell did you do that?”
“Okay, press the X button and the right front button and do the thing… you know—yeah, that.”
“Damn.” Dane did it, and something about his character made the move not nearly as cool. “Okay, so do we have a da—I mean a plan?”
“My apartment needs two days if we’re working around my work schedule. And chocolate chip cookies?”
“I figure you’ll be so motivated by me coming over to help you that you’ll diet all week, even though you don’t really need it. And then we’ll bake cookies over here so you can see my room and you will be rewarded for all your non-slackitude.”
“But when am I going to work out with Skipper?”
“Sunday? Thursday? I don’t care! When do you start soccer? Wait, wait—I know the answer to that question.”
“Really? How?”
“Because my brother’s taking Jefferson golfing Saturday, and the only reason he can do that is because you don’t start soccer until the week after that.”
Carpenter’s character stopped moving, and Carpenter himself made an exasperated sound into the microphone.
“Dammit—you made me do math.”
And boom! His character died in an explosion of blood that left Dane unfazed. “You are not bad at math, you big baby. Why’d you stop?”
“Mason and Jefferson are dating?”
“No. They’re sporting.”
“Heh, heh, heh, heh….”
Dane had to snort. Yeah, when he said it that way…. “No—yes. I have no idea. They’re off playing soccer now so Mason doesn’t feel too stupid when you guys start in two weeks. And next week—”
“When I’m coming over to make cookies.”
“Yeah. They’re playing golf. I made the tee time myself.” Dane rolled his eyes. Mason woke him up from his nap in the car to force Dane to help him with his social agenda, and appeared to show no remorse from it either.
“Okay, fine. I mean it’s their life, right? If they want to play games together, that’s their gig.”
Dane grunted. “Reboot. Yeah, okay, never mind. Let’s play Destiny instead.”
“God you’re picky. I need to log off in—”
“Two hours. You promised me until ten.” Dane had no compunction about making Carpenter play with him. He didn’t find many people he could stand for that long, or who could stand him.
Besides, he’d made a date—or a plan. That was it. He’d made a plan to stare into the eyes of the guy whose room he was going to clean.
Wait.
Reverse that.
He was going to clean the room of the guy whose eyes he’d stared into until Carpenter’s lips had parted in wonder.
Dane wasn’t sure if Carpenter knew this, but he’d licked those lips, full and pouty—and Dane had been kissed enough to know what that meant, even if Carpenter was clueless.
So even if no soul-gazing happened during the epic apartment straightening or the chocolate chip cookie feast, Dane had a little faith, some bubbles in his blood, that there would be soul-gazing in the future.
“Fine,” Carpenter sighed, but without any real reluctance. “Skip and Richie are going to look for their dog at twelve. I can take a walk and shower before I join them.”
Dane scowled. “So what you’re saying is, you’d totally come over and see my room today, but Skip and Richie are more important.”
“Yes,” Carpenter returned promptly. “Because they wouldn’t get pissy and weird over my gross fat ass if I was doing something with you instead.”
Dane scowled. “So you prefer not to be chased. This is interesting information, and I need to file it away to use later.”
“I’m fat and slow. If you chase me, you’ll catch me. I just….” Carpenter’s voice dropped, as though he was embarrassed. “Look, Dane, I like you. I’m having loads of fun playing with you, and you want to clean my room, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m intrigued. But when I started working at Tesko, I was in a really shitty place. And Skipper was… well, Skipper. It took him two years to convince me to play soccer on his team, and he just did it, one chicken sandwich at a time. You’ve got your brother, and he’s great, but part of the reason he’s great is that he�
�s a super-big dork and you get to sort of protect him from himself. My sister? She’s an oncologist. She took her children to a cancer ward for Thanksgiving so they could volunteer. She thinks I’m the devil because I give them refined sugar, and I’m starting to agree with her. My real family, the family I have to protect from themselves because that’s the job I love? That’s Skipper for me. Skipper needs friends so bad I had to drive him home from work when he was sick because he got himself stoned on cold medicine. Because besides Richie? He’s got nobody else. Nobody. So yeah. I’m pushing my way into their couple time to be the friend who was there when they got their dog. Please don’t take that away from me.”
Dane sucked in a breath. “Jesus, Carpenter. I was going to be all bitchy and jealous and you had to pull emotional honesty on me. What kind of asshole are you?”
“Apparently I’m the asshole who’s going to let you clean my room?”
“Cool. But first, let’s start this level again. Seriously, man, you’ve got to start learning how to give great speeches while your characters are kicking ass.” Dane’s heart was hammering, and his forehead dripped with sweat. God. This meant a lot to Carpenter, and Dane had almost blown it. He’d almost blown it, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d thrown a fit like that, and Jesus, shouldn’t he at least be sleeping with a guy before he let himself get that out of control?
And that brought him up short.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Clay,” he said in a small voice. “Hit Pause. I’ll be back in two minutes.”
He grabbed the pill calendar from the duffel bag in his room, then went to the cabinet in the kitchen. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Three days. He had enough extra medication for three days. Without even looking at the clock, he took his morning dose, wondering why he’d thought it would be just fine to get back from Mom and Dad’s and forget he had to medicate every fucking day.
He ran back to the couch and put on his headset and let out a breath, still shaking.
“What’s up?” Clay asked, and his voice wasn’t defensive or irritated—it was alert. Like he knew something was wrong.
“Fucking meds,” Dane snarled, hands shaking on the remote control. “Goddammit. They don’t fucking work if I don’t fucking take them. And there I am, screaming like a fucking drama queen at some poor guy who just wanted to play a game. You know what—just, I’ll log off now. Just don’t worry about it. I’ll go flush my head down a toilet until I get my meds leveled out again. Fucking—”
“Stop,” Clay said, not so firmly it put Dane’s back up, not so gently Dane could ignore him. “You forgot your meds. It happens. Look at my guy. I put a new skin on him just for you.”
Dane took a shuddery breath. “Rainbow prom dress,” he muttered, half laughing. “Nice. Where’d you find that?”
“I paid a hacker some crypto-currency for a jailbreak,” Carpenter said frankly. “That’s a highly illegal prom dress you’re looking at, and I think it’s supposed to get tattered every time I lose life points. Want one?”
Another breath, the pull of the game, the fun, Carpenter’s schoolboy illicitness pulling him from the brink of despair.
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Send me the deets.”
His phone buzzed with a series of directions, and Dane followed them. When he was done, his character sported rainbow-covered body armor, and she looked fabulous. In fifteen minutes, he was sucked into the rhythm of the game, the win, the loss, knowing Carpenter’s character always had his back.
Mason came in, sweaty and grunty from his time playing soccer with the squirrely little mall rat who had been flirting with him during the Christmas party. He wandered downstairs a few minutes later after showering, and sat, legs gathered under him, on the recliner, more pensive than Dane was used to. Dane signed off to talk to him and to make sure that kid hadn’t stolen his wallet or something, and Carpenter waved goodbye on screen and disappeared.
As Dane pulled himself into the real world, he realized it was nearly twelve thirty. Whatever plans Carpenter had with Skip and Richie, he’d canceled them or postponed them until Dane had someone there with him and he could hold his shit together.
Oh Jesus, can I maybe not be so much of a freak to this guy?
“SO,” CARPENTER said a week later, face red from either baking cookies or embarrassment. “They’re upstairs… now?”
Dane’s eyes flickered toward the entrance of the kitchen, which led into the living room, which led to the stairway, which led to Mason’s room, where he and Terry Jefferson, oh pretty mall rat of the Harlequin face and squirrel brain, were, oh my God, having… sex.
“Well, what was I supposed to do? Tell him no? It’s his house! He lives here!”
Carpenter blinked. “No—I mean, you know, roommates gotta deal. I just… we could have gone back to my place, right?”
“Sure,” Dane evaded, grabbing the flour from the cupboard. “That was a plan.”
“My apartment scared you.”
“No, not at all,” Dane lied. “But your kitchen’s smaller than a gnat’s ass.” That, at least, was the truth. He’d spent two days helping Carpenter sort the clothes he could fit in now versus the clothes he’d fit into two years ago versus the clothes he was trying to fit into.
The conundrum had been clear.
The clothes he was trying to fit into were from college, and even if Carpenter could get to his goal weight, they’d be out of style and sort of a depressing reminder of college. And Dane wasn’t sure that he could wear them even if he did reach his goal weight, because he’d seen the musculature of an animal that had lost a great deal of weight, and they were ripped because carrying around extra fat was no joke. People were the same. Once Carpenter got enough muscle mass, he would be… well, built. Not tall, but… muscular in the extreme.
So that shit had to go.
And Dane didn’t want Carpenter to feel pressured about losing weight or keeping it off. Yes, everybody knew what healthy weight was, but Dane was just so happy to have a Carpenter in his life that he didn’t want Carpenter to feel shitty about any size that might not make him happy too.
Besides. Everybody backslid and then caught up again. Not being able to fit into your skinny jeans and having no wallowing sweats to fall back on was a bad idea. That sort of thing often just led to entire XL pizzas being delivered to dorm rooms. Dane had been witness.
So, some of that had to stay.
And he didn’t have that many clothes in the size he was now.
“We,” he’d said on Friday, after Carpenter had gotten off work, “need to go shopping.”
Carpenter’s dry look in return was not promising. “Let me lose ten more pounds,” he said. “That way I’ll know it’s not a fluke. Besides….” He let out a sigh and flopped onto his bed disconsolately. “I sort of gave away everything I didn’t spend on student loans. I’m broke until February.”
“You what?” Dane stared at him.
“You know. All those Christmas charities? And I’m like, ‘My sister’s a cancer doctor, and her kids are little saint children, and my parents are lobbying for a better environment, and I’m a big fat blob of environmental suck, so I should give all my money to charity.’ It happens.”
Dane gasped at him. “The hell it does!” he managed to say. “Why would you…? How would you even…?” He flailed, the size 4X plaid shirt in his hand flapping like a sail and partially disintegrating because it was one of the old ones. Carpenter was nowhere near this big now. He must have worn this all winter long, three years ago.
“Look, whatever. I just don’t have that much money this month.”
“But Carpenter. Don’t you deserve anything of your own?”
Carpenter shrugged. “I’ve got friends. I’ve got you. It’s all good.”
Dane’s throat worked. “But Clay….” He sat down next to him, hoping Clay’s “No boundaries for Dane” rule held. “Clay, how can you not think you deserve more?”
“I’ve had so much p
rivilege,” he said, disheartened. “And I feel like I threw it all away.”
Dane swallowed, and his head drifted down to Clay’s shoulder. “You didn’t throw anything away,” he said, his throat sore. “It’s not privilege when it makes you feel awful, when it cripples your ability to do good things in the world. Come on, man. Work with me here. You’re working like a Trojan on the weight thing. I’ve only known you two months, and I can see a difference. That much effort at least deserves some clothes, you think?”
“Sure.” Carpenter brought his arm up around Dane’s shoulder, and Dane wanted to cry. He’d had so many hookups in college. So many boyfriends who’d made him feel somehow lacking. Having Carpenter’s arm around his shoulder made him feel so incredibly powerful, so happy that he could help his friend see the best in himself, and yet there was no sex forthcoming.
But that arm, though, weighty and warm and supportive—it meant everything.
That arm around his shoulder was what he was thinking of when Carpenter asked him if the apartment was scary.
Yes, it was scary. The intimacy there had been scary. The potential to fall into the warm embrace of a guy who didn’t think he was gay or bi or whatever was scary.
And the fathomless potential for damage Dane could do to their friendship by suggesting or thinking the wrong thing for Clay to do with all those sizes of clothes—that was terrifying.
Dane had never been afraid of roller coasters, but the idea of being locked in a car with a reluctant Carpenter as it hurtled through the ups and downs of both their neuroses was starting to look like the worst idea since someone had come up with those things that dangled you from your seat and whirled upside down.
But that didn’t mean that making cookies in Dane’s kitchen while his brother was having sex upstairs wasn’t a ride completely on its own.
“So, being here and knowing they’re having sex up there is less frightening than my apartment,” Clay said now, as though in clarification.
“Well, I didn’t know they would be having sex when I made the date!” Dane argued, because he hadn’t even been aware Mason and Terry were anywhere near that step in their relationship until Mason had texted him to get the fuck out of the house that morning.
