Fall through Spring

by Amy Lane

  “Oh!” He sounded genuinely thrilled. “Hit me with it!”

  And Dane did, getting more and more excited as he went along. It wouldn’t be another four years in school. It would be another year plus what he was finishing up now. He would have some leeway—very little, but some—in his grades, since he wasn’t competing for a spot in the practical program, but going into research instead.

  “And we could get a cat,” he said breathlessly before he tried to rein his enthusiasm in a little. “You know. We could get a cat. In a couple of months. Maybe August. You think August?”

  “Sure,” Clay said, and before Dane could think Clay was humoring him, he added, “Or maybe a dog. Not a monster dog, like Skip and Richie. But maybe a small dog. Something that cuddles. A cat-sized dog.”

  Dane had to think about this. “Or a dog-sized cat?” he suggested.

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind a Maine coon cat,” Clay said, thinking hard. “But I would want it to come with a dog that he could dropkick over the kitchen table.”

  Dane felt it bubbling up before he even let it loose. A laugh, as pure as spring water, untainted by sadness or bitterness or sarcasm. “How much Garfield did you read as a kid?” he burbled.

  “Obviously enough to shape my younger self irreparably,” Clay returned with dignity. And with a smile—a real one. Dane could hear it in his voice.

  “I’ve got homework Thursday night,” Dane said. “But I could come see your game on Saturday.”

  “Sure.” Clay’s voice had enthusiasm Dane had forgotten. “And then we could go catch a movie, maybe? There’s a lot out. Man, we could even catch two.”

  Dane felt it, a soaring in his heart. “Maybe watch one in the theater, one in your apartment,” he said. “My brother probably really needs his time with Terry.”

  “Yeah. They’re finishing up with Terry’s house next week. I—” Dane could almost picture him looking around. “I’ll gossip with you about this later,” he said. “Hi, Veronica, I’ll be off in a minute. An emergency came up.” He paused. “We were worried about my cat.”

  Dane snickered and bid Clay a quiet goodbye.

  Better Than Cookies

  “WHERE YOU guys going?” Skip asked as they walked out to their cars on Friday.

  “What, after the game, you mean?” Clay squinted at the overcast clouds. He didn’t mind overcast or clouds, but he could do without the humidity that was making him remember that losing sixty pounds didn’t mean you weren’t fat anymore.

  “Yeah. I asked you over afterwards, remember? To play PS4? And you said, ‘No, me and Dane are doing something,’ and you said he was doing better, so I assumed it was a date.”

  Clay stopped in the middle of the parking lot and stared at Skip. “You assumed… you assumed it was a….”

  Skipper cocked his head. “You said he was doing better.”

  Clay nodded. It had been almost three weeks since the magic “change the meds” date, and Dane was most assuredly doing better. But Clay was never going to forget those weeks, the way Dane, the sweet, goofy, snarky guy he’d been… really attached to had just… disintegrated before his eyes.

  Mason had seen it coming and had a plan. It was funny, because Mason didn’t look like a superhero to anyone but Dane—but he sure had some spectacular moves where his brother was concerned. Clay had watched his devotion—everything from getting Clay days off with pay to running out in the middle of the night to get the extra medication that the doctor had thought would help at first, but then really, really hadn’t.

  And then reversing course in the middle of everything so they could prove this wasn’t fucking working.

  He’d even produced medication journals and research to make their case, whereas Clay was just impressed that he’d been able to tie his shoes that morning.

  And puzzled as to why they’d been like his pants—loose and sloppy and a pain in the ass.

  Almost three weeks wasn’t long enough—a part of him was screaming that. Two weeks to trust that his friend would be there after watching him be replaced by an angry animal, lashing out in pain, was not enough.

  But Clay couldn’t help it. He missed Dane so bad.

  “The doc said to give it a month at least,” he said, his eyes unfocused.

  “Well, why are you going on a date, then?” Skipper asked. “You could just bring him to our house and we could game.”

  “We were going to the movies.” Clay still felt dazed. Dane was doing better. He was doing better. “I mean, once he sort of picked himself up, I’ve been staying away. I think we all needed….” He flailed. “Space.”

  “That’s understandable,” Skipper said, pausing at the door of his Toyota. “Carpenter—Clay—what’s the matter?”

  “He’s better,” Clay said, a slow smile at war with the worry lines that threatened to take over his forehead.

  “Yes.”

  “He might stay better.”

  “Yes—that’s the hope. So?”

  “So what happens to us when he’s better?”

  Skipper smirked. “Well, Clay, I assume you’re going to want to try his kisses on for size and see where that goes?”

  Clay wasn’t sure what his expression was, but Skipper put his keys back in his pocket and came forward to take Clay’s out of his hand.

  “You know what? I think you need a beer and pizza. We’ll get salad—don’t worry, we won’t revert back entirely. But I think my friend Carpenter needs some comfort food and a little bit of alcohol, then to fall asleep on our couch, watching Marvel movies with the dog. What do you think?”

  “What about your car?” Clay asked, even as he got into his own passenger’s seat.

  “We’ll get up early and come pick it up before the game,” Skip soothed. “You need to go to your apartment for your gear anyway.”

  Clay sagged back into his seat, suddenly too tired, too shorted out, to even think for himself.

  “Thanks, Skip,” he said softly. “I… I’m not sure why I freaked out there.”

  “Because you’re really in love with the guy,” Skip said with half a laugh, turning over the engine. “And now he could really fucking hurt you.” There was a pause, because Clay couldn’t answer, so Skipper blithely continued, as if he hadn’t just exposed all the big shit in Clay Carpenter’s soul. “God, I love driving this thing. Do they still make these? Do you think I could get one used?”

  “I’ll help you look for one,” Carpenter said. “You really are too big for that Toyo, you know.”

  “Yeah. And we make more now. I could afford it too.”

  Skipper should have been captain of all the things—Clay believed that. But knowing that he’d settle for a used Ford Explorer and call himself lucky was sort of one of the most marvelous things about him.

  This man would be happy.

  Clay wanted the same for himself.

  “CARPENTER, GET that!” Mason called. “C’mon, man!”

  The ball was coming in fast, toward the corner of the goal, and they were tied, three-all with maybe two minutes left in the game. If Clay missed this fucking shot, he’d have to wait until next week to find redemption, and he was tired of waiting. Besides, their next team was pretty much unbeatable, and this one was pretty much the worst team in their division. A loss here would be humiliating.

  Besides, Dane was watching.

  With a Herculean effort, one he didn’t think he could have mustered six weeks ago, much less six months earlier, Clay Alexander Carpenter threw himself at the ball as it tried to sail through the goalposts.

  He got there first.

  He pulled up, trying not to gulp air, and nailed his best dropkick ever over the midfield, straight to Terry Jefferson. For once, Jefferson didn’t dick around with the ball and show off his footwork. Instead, he passed it to Skipper, who powered it in for a point.

  The game was no longer tied, and his team hooted and shouted in excitement.

  “Nice!” Menendez said, giving him a low five before he ran into
position.

  “Well done!” Mason grinned, looking dusty and tired, his eyes on Jefferson, who, true to predictions, had been breaking dates and forgetting to call, the closer he got to moving out, which they were slated to do tomorrow morning. Apparently his only anchor in the land of adulting had been his mother, who’d been drowning him too. Mason was right—Jefferson was going to have to be out on his own before he decided if he wanted a Mason in his life.

  “Are you looking to take over permanently?” Singh asked, but he was smiling kindly. They often switched off, with one of them subbing defenders for one half and working as goalie as the other.

  “Not on your life,” Clay panted. “This job’s harder than it looks.”

  Singh cackled, and they turned toward the ball, because there was no way that fucker was getting through in the last five minutes of the game.

  They took the win, and Dane jumped up and down on the side of the field cheering, coming in for a whirlwind hug at the end.

  Clay laughed and set the dorky goober down, somehow keeping his hands on Dane’s hips. “We won,” he said, stating the obvious.

  Dane’s smile turned sober. “The rest of the day is ours. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  They participated minimally in the after-game discussion—most of it was who was doing what to move Jefferson to his new apartment, anyway. Right before they left, Dane grabbed his brother’s keys and ran to the car to get something, and Skipper dropped quietly out of the conversation and edged over.

  “So, going to the movies?” he asked casually.

  “Shut up,” Carpenter said.

  “I’m just asking.” Skip didn’t get mad because that’s not what Skip did. “Have a good time. Take things slow. And don’t you dare miss tomorrow, because….” He cut his eyes to where Jefferson was giving scattered directions to the guys who were helping with the move and Mason was trying to look supportive.

  “Yeah,” Carpenter said, and they exchanged glances. Oh, Mason. Man, this was so not looking like it would cut his way. Dane was still rummaging around in the car, so Clay took his courage in both hands. “It was worth it, right?” he asked. “Going from friends to something else?”

  Skip nodded. “It’s like your favorite blanket as a kid. It’ll give you comfort if it’s small, but if you want it to work for you as a grown-up, you’ve got to find a way for it to grow.”

  Clay patted his back. “You’re very fuckin’ wise, Skipper.”

  “You only say that because you know I’ll pick up the pieces if things go south.”

  They both watched Mason steel himself for the moment Terry ran away.

  “Yeah,” Clay said, heart aching. “I know.”

  AN HOUR later, Carpenter was standing in front of the mirror in his tiny bathroom, shaving and trying not to look at himself as he was doing it.

  “Jesus, Clay!” Dane hollered from outside his door “What the hell is taking you so long!”

  “I’m shaving!” Clay snapped back. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  The door popped open, and Clay clutched the towel around his hips tighter. “Jesus! What—”

  “Stop being a baby.” Dane tsked. “C’mon, do you have an electric shaver?”

  “Yeah, but there’s a lot of scruff here for that,” Clay muttered.

  “Well, you don’t kill it with the whole enchilada!” Dane looked around, probably for a towel, and his eyes fell on Carpenter’s hands, which were clutching the only one in the bathroom—a tatty old beach towel, because it fit easily around Clay when he was at his biggest.

  Clay tightened his hands convulsively around the thing, because, oh God, he was standing here shirtless, his hairy chest exposed, belly flopping forward, the fat under his arms in full view.

  “Uh….”

  Dane shook his head and passed his hand along Clay’s clavicle, and something tremendous happened.

  Clay’s blood surged.

  Everywhere.

  Nipples.

  Face.

  Thighs.

  Cock.

  Oh, dear God. Oh my giddy aunt—Clay Alexander Carpenter had a sex drive.

  “Dane…,” he said in a small voice. “No offense, buddy, but I really only ever wanted you to see me naked in the dark.”

  Dane rolled his eyes and put his palm square in the middle of Clay’s pectoral muscle and rubbed. Clay’s nipple was right in the middle there, and he shifted uncomfortably as his entire body changed alignment.

  “Uhm—”

  “Sh….” Dane put his finger very softly over Clay’s lips. “I know you think I’m looking at your fat, but I’m not.”

  “But, uh—”

  “And I’m not touching your fat either.”

  Clay closed his eyes and thought, Then what do you see? What are you touching? But he was too afraid to ask.

  “You keep telling me I don’t see you,” Dane whispered, stepping closer until Clay could feel his heat and the rasp of his cargo shorts along his belly, the whisper of his fine mesh T-shirt by his chest. “I know what I’m touching. Please believe me.”

  For a moment, there was just his heat, permeating the air-conditioning in Clay’s apartment. His smell—he used a super-subtle male body wash that was really turning Clay’s key right now—surrounded Clay, like the steam from the shower had worked as an atomizer, vaporizing that scent throughout the room and into Clay’s sensory input.

  Clay swallowed. “We were gonna go see a—”

  Dane’s lips stopped him. He closed his eyes, surrounded by steam, by Dane’s smell, by heat, and Dane’s mouth moved softly, making him crave.

  The rush of air on his face as Dane moved back was almost cruel.

  “Here,” he said softly. “Let me shave you. I want to see your dimple.”

  Clay blinked slowly, surprised that this was not rejection. It was, in fact, a form of foreplay. “What dimple?”

  Dane turned and found the aerosol shaving cream, sprayed some into his hand and smoothed it onto Clay’s cheeks. The intimacy of the moment, of having Dane’s hands on his skin, of their proximity was both choking and liberating. Clay struggled to breathe and prayed for the strength not to back away.

  “I know there’s one in here somewhere,” Dane said, his mouth quirking ever so slightly. “I saw one on your mother’s cheek, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got the same kind of face.”

  Dane leaned in closer, seemingly absorbed in the job.

  “That’s a little creepy, you getting all close to me because you think I look like my mother.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your mother,” Dane said, not fazed because Dane just didn’t get that way. “She has lovely bone structure, and I’m pretty sure you’re a handsome boy under all of this scruff.”

  Clay’s eyes got big, and he took a step back. “It’s a good thing you like my mother because you just turned into her!”

  Dane snickered and took a step and a half forward, right up against him.

  God, they were standing chest to chest—or, well, stomach to stomach. Clay usually didn’t let people get close enough to touch his stomach because it stuck out a little farther than his chest. Except it had gotten smaller in the past months—particularly March, which had sucked donkey farts, and Clay didn’t like to think about it. They were mostly chest to chest, and Dane didn’t seem to mind the contact with Clay’s tummy.

  “I’m not your mother,” Dane said, making sure the foam was everywhere. “I just think her baby boy is beautiful, that’s all.”

  Clay bit his lip, suddenly at a loss for words, and Dane took the opportunity to rinse off the razor sitting next to the tiny apartment basin so he could turn back and edge it smoothly down Clay’s cheek.

  Dane rinsed the razor again and looked at him. “No words?” he asked playfully.

  “No words,” Clay said, voice gruff.

  “How about ‘thank you’?”

  Clay closed his eyes as Dane swept off another swath of beard. “Sure,” he said when Dane was
finished. He was vulnerable here. His body was exposed, his skin was being exposed. And now Dane had just exposed the biggest, most tender part of his psyche.

  “You think I’m lying?” Dane asked, his tone as careful as the razor on Clay’s skin.

  “I think you’re biased,” Clay answered, mouth quirking. “You seem to like me. I think that gives you the wrong kind of glasses.”

  “I like mine rose-tinted, thank you very much,” Dane said, his demeanor mild. “And if I want to look at you with my heart, who’s going to stop me?” He paused, and Clay peeped at him through his lashes. “You?” Dane pressed, making sure they had eye contact.

  Clay swallowed. “No,” he rasped.

  Dane made another pass with the razor, and Clay waited until he was done to spread his feet and plant them again, the shift bringing Dane closer.

  “I’m losing my balance,” Clay said weakly, because it was true, on a whole lot of levels.

  “Hold on to my wrist,” Dane said, “and stop trying to back away.”

  Well, that was easy enough. Clay did, and closed his eyes, waiting for Dane to bare him to the world.

  A millennia later the planets had stilled and all the worlds had stopped to listen to the beating of Clay’s heart. It was pounding so hard he knew Dane must have felt it through his skin. Dane pulled back, his own breathing a little harsh. “Here, let me towel you off.”

  Clay kept his eyes closed for that part, and when Dane was done, he felt the surprising rasp of Dane’s lips on his cheek, near the corner of his mouth.

  “Wha—”

  “There,” Dane whispered in his ear. “Your dimple. I knew it was right there.”

  He pulled away and turned Clay toward the mirror. The steam had long since vanished, and Clay saw his perfectly average, clean-shaven face and neck, looking a lot leaner than the last time he’d seen it, his eyes just a little bit more hopeful.

  “You really want to date that?” he asked Dane with complete sincerity.

  Dane’s lips moving next to his ear this time made him shiver, made him ache. “I want to devour it,” he promised. Then he pulled back and bussed Carpenter lightly on the cheek. “But slowly. I’ve never been anyone’s first before. I sort of want you to stick around.”