Cleats in Clay

by Jackson Cordd

  “Take off those boxers. We can sleep in a minute.”

  Without argument, Tuck slid off his underwear and threw it out onto the floor. He hugged up against Bobby, their hardening pricks solid presences pressing up against each other. Bobby leaned forward and kissed Tuck with lips weary and needy. Tuck put his hand behind Bobby’s head as he kissed back gently, lending comfort with his passion. Bobby pushed his hips up against Tuck as he moved his hands to Tuck’s lower back, carefully avoiding the bruise as he pulled him closer.

  Tuck pulled back and lightly rubbed his stubbly cheek against Bobby’s. “You feel so nice,” he nearly sighed out.

  “I was going for more than just nice,” Bobby said as he pushed his hips into Tuck again, driving his hard cock against the other man’s stomach.

  “Well, that too,” Tuck said. “But we’re not gonna get any sleep if ya keep that up.”

  “Like I said, we can sleep in a minute.”

  “I’m too tired for anything very involved,” Tuck said as he stifled a yawn.

  Bobby leaned back far enough to reach the nightstand. He pulled a bottle of lube and a hand towel from the drawer before turning back to Tuck. “Doesn’t have to be any more involved than this,” Bobby said as he squirted some lube onto his cock and put another squirt on his stomach. He leaned into Tuck again, his cock now gliding smoothly against the other man.

  “Oh,” Tuck said as he pushed forward, sliding his prick along Bobby’s slickened stomach. “Goin’ for a quick slip-and-slide.” Tuck grinned before kissing Bobby deeply as they moved their hips in an asynchronous rhythm.

  The sparks of Tuck’s kiss and the firmness of his slippery stomach soon had Bobby close to orgasm. When Tuck changed the angle slightly so that the heads of their cocks bumped into each other with each stroke, the maneuver put Bobby even closer. He could feel Tuck’s cock swelling harder and firmer against him as his rhythm slowed. “That’s it,” Bobby urged as he pulled away from the kiss. “Let me feel it.” He pushed himself harder against Tuck.

  “You first,” Tuck nearly hissed as he held his breath and stopped moving.

  Bobby put his hand on Tuck’s hip, pulling at it at the same time he drove harder against Tuck. “If that’s what you want,” Bobby said as he felt Tuck’s body stiffen next to him. The head of his cock bumped into Tuck’s again, sending a shiver through his balls. “Now,” Bobby said before one final stroke drove him over the edge.

  “Thank gods,” Tuck choked out as he clutched up against Bobby, their pulsing pricks coming all over each other in the fleshy fold of their bodies.

  Bobby gazed into Tuck’s eyes as they panted and clung to each other. Bobby cleared his throat before whispering, “I do, you know.” He smirked. “It’s almost spooky how fast, but I do love you already.”

  Tuck smiled warmly. “I thought so,” he drawled slowly before leaning in and kissing him.

  Bobby rolled his hips out far enough to clean up their slickery mess with the towel. He threw the used cloth toward the nightstand, but he didn’t know if it landed there or fell to the floor, and didn’t care either way. “Now we can sleep,” he said with a lazy grin as he nestled up against Tuck again.

  Tuck let out a quick hiss. “Bruise,” he explained as he tried to shift under Bobby’s grasp.

  “Oh, sorry,” Bobby replied with a flinch, moving his hand farther down to Tuck’s hip.

  Tuck hugged him tighter and exhaled a sigh. It didn’t take long for the comforting embrace to lull Bobby into sleep.

  SOMETIME later, Bobby awakened to an empty room. With the heavy drapes closed, he couldn’t tell if it was still daylight or if the full dark of night had arrived. He rolled over to face the nightstand to look at the clock. The LED display showed 8:27 p.m. as the current time.

  Bobby continued rolling and got out of bed. He claimed a pair of workout pants from the dresser drawer and pulled them on, then grabbed a T-shirt and slipped into it as he left the room to find Tuck. Maybe he went down to the kitchen? He doubted that thought as soon as he saw the light pouring out of the master bedroom doorway at the other end of the hall. Bobby moved down the dim hallway to investigate.

  As he stepped in the doorway, Tuck looked up from the floor. Wearing only his boxer-briefs, he was sitting cross-legged, the stack of notebooks arrayed in front of him in a fairly neat semicircle as he held one of the red Big Chief writing pads in his hands. “Hope you don’t mind?” Tuck asked.

  “Of course not. Somebody should read them, I guess,” Bobby said as he walked up and sat on the floor near Tuck.

  “These first ones are really sad,” Tuck said as he held up the red child’s primer. “At five years old, Nate thought he was insane, soon to be put away in the ‘hospital with locked doors’, as he called it, just like his grandmother.”

  “Geez,” Bobby cursed. “Committed? He never told me any of that.”

  “Hurts my heart,” Tuck replied. “Not only sufferin’ those kinds of thoughts, they were compellin’ enough to drive him to write it all down. At only five years old,” he emphasized again with a frown.

  “He didn’t, did he? Go to an institution, I mean.”

  “No, looks like he learned to keep his mouth shut about his visions when he realized nobody else saw the world that way. Sounds kind of remarkable to see everybody connected together with different-colored threads.” Tuck sighed. “I’m not explainin’ it worth a shit. If you read the first one, he goes into great detail about how it all worked,” Tuck said as he motioned to the first red notebook at the far left end of the semicircle stack.

  “Not today,” Bobby answered. “Prob’ly not for a while.”

  “I can agree with that on this past stuff,” Tuck said as he leaned over and took Bobby’s hand. “But that envelope. We really should get to that soon, I think.”

  Bobby shook his head.

  “He probably have something important to tell you, with all those pages.”

  “You read it, then,” Bobby said. “And you can tell me if there is. Nate already saw you reading it, anyway.”

  Tuck gazed over at the resolve in Bobby’s eyes. “Okay, then.”

  Bobby stood. “Let’s get some dinner. I’m hungry,” he said as he left the room.

  Tuck put down the red notebook and followed Bobby downstairs to the kitchen. He was surprised to see Bobby go to the phone instead of the fridge.

  “Chinese okay?” Bobby asked as he picked up the receiver and punched in three numbers.

  Tuck nodded as he sat down at the counter. He opened the manila envelope and pulled out the pages of notes from Nathan.

  Bobby spoke with someone at the guard’s station and made arrangements for a food delivery while Tuck read through the letter.

  He hung up the phone and turned to Tuck, saying, “It’ll take about forty-five minutes.”

  Tuck nodded and kept reading. Scurrying around, Bobby got plates, silverware, and napkins and brought them to the counter as Tuck made it through two more pages.

  Bobby started to sit but jumped up again and retrieved two beers from the refrigerator, which he brought back to the counter. He opened both, saving Tuck the trouble.

  Tuck finally put down the last page without saying anything.

  “Well?” Bobby asked, surprised by how interested he actually felt.

  Taking a sip of the beer, Tuck pulled together his thoughts. “First off,” he began while looking at Bobby, “what does ‘Buzzer’ mean?”

  Bobby smiled crookedly and laughed. “His nickname for me. He tried calling me hummingbird after we got the tattoos, but it was kinda awkward and never stuck. Then I once remarked when we saw some hummingbirds at the zoo, they made a buzzing kind of sound and didn’t really sound like birds. And he started calling me his ‘Buzzer’ after that.”

  Tuck nodded in acknowledgement. “You really should read it.” Seeing the hard look in Bobby’s eyes, Tuck continued, “But I guess I’ll give you the main highlights.” He picked up the pages and scanned over them again. “
Don’t hassle Sharon or Ivette; they don’t know anything.”

  “Oh, okay,” Bobby said with a smirk. “Hadn’t planned on it. Yet, anyway.”

  “He says you probably won’t, but he wants you to at least read the Big Chief notebooks, just for background.”

  “Maybe,” Bobby considered.

  Tuck turned to the next page. “If April 3 hadn’t happened, something much worse would have. He doesn’t come right out and say, but he kinda hints that I might have ended up dead.”

  Bobby scowled. “Shit. How the hell?”

  “Carl Travie was a double agent. I guess he couldn’t get through to the brothers and warn them about the raid ahead of time, so that’s why he was inside the house, trying to warn them. Maybe them trying to shut down the cookers was what caused the explosion.”

  Bobby shook his head as he looked at the cast. “But if that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

  “Not then, no. Nate wrote down that if Travie was confronted later, it would turn into a hostage situation. And even more people would have died.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “He details it all out,” Tuck said, offering the pages to Bobby.

  “Later,” Bobby said dismissively as he waved his hand. “Anything else earth-shattering?”

  “Well, he does mention Ricky and some details I was suspicious of after hearing your story.” Tuck paused until Bobby looked him in the eye. “Gerry abused him.”

  “What? Abused how?”

  “Nate doesn’t come right out and say, but I’m suspecting from Ricky’s reaction to finding you with Nate… it was sexual abuse.”

  “What?” Bobby shook his head violently. “No fucking way. Ricky had just started college when Gerry showed up. He would have been eighteen by then. It’s not like he was some little kid who could be taken advantage of.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tuck argued. “Someone can be vulnerable to a crafty predator, no matter how old they are.”

  Bobby shook his head as he sipped at his beer. “I still can’t see that.”

  “Okay. So let me ask, did Ricky have a better relationship with your dad?”

  “Maybe, for a while.”

  Tuck nodded. “As I guessed. Then he may have had a desperate craving for that missing father figure, which Gerry, if he’s a skilled predator, could easily have exploited.”

  Bobby softened at that explanation. “Maybe. Why do you keep using the word ‘predator’?”

  “It’s the word Nate used, and he hints Gerry’s had several victims besides your brother.”

  “Fucking bastard,” Bobby spit out. “He knew about Gerry this whole fucking time and let him go on to get more victims? How could he?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Tuck tried to defend Nate. “It’s very clear from what little I’ve read, Nathan saw the world and all its intricacies in a way you and I could probably never really understand. But from what I gather, Nate trying to alter things is like pulling on the thread of a sweater. Too hard, or in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, and the whole damn sweater unravels to nothing.” Tuck frowned. “Well, that may be a bad analogy. I don’t think Nate was a threat to destroying the universe,” he said with a smirk. “But it seems trying to change things could often be a delicate matter. He did say Gerry will get caught in June, though. So we’ll have to trust Nate’s judgment.”

  “I guess,” Bobby conceded when the doorbell rang.

  He returned minutes later with bags of Chinese food. “Anything else?” Bobby asked as he pulled out the cartons and arranged them on the counter.

  “Oh, Odie’s not supposed to read the Arvin book, whatever that is,” Tuck said as he grabbed the carton of General Tso’s chicken. “The rest is more personal, that you should read yourself.”

  “Fine. I’ll read the damn thing later.”

  Tuck sampled the chicken, a little surprised by the flavor. The orangey sauce didn’t have quite the same sickly-sweet taste he was used to from the Texas chefs. With less sugar, more of the peppery bite came through. “What is the Arvin book?” Tuck asked between bites.

  “A book that was part of that first scavenger hunt. I think I told you already. Woke Up in a Strange Place, the one about the afterlife.”

  “No.” Tuck shook his head. “Don’t believe you did. You mentioned something about a scavenger hunt that first car ride but never went into any details.”

  “Oh.” Bobby chewed another bite of his wonton. “Well, it’s a good book, won some awards and shit.” Bobby picked at the rice on his plate. “After seeing all those shelves in your apartment, I’m guessing you like to read. I should just let you have it to judge for yourself. Unless Nate said I’m not supposed to.”

  “No, he just said not to let Odis see it.”

  “Wonder why?” Bobby mused aloud.

  “Maybe there’s something in it that triggers a bad memory for him? I’ll read it and see if I can figure it out.”

  Bobby nodded. They finished the rest of their meal in quiet contemplation.

  Chapter 31

  AFTER eating and cleaning up, Bobby led Tuck downstairs into the den. The book he’d retrieved from the pawnshop still sat on the coffee table where he’d left it. Tuck looked around at all the fancy sound system and video equipment to go with the gigantic TV screen.

  “Nathan liked his movies,” Bobby explained. “For some reason, he didn’t like going to theaters. He seemed so grateful when DVD came out. I think he bought one of the first ones ever built,” Bobby chuckled. “Come to think of it, it’s like he knew years ahead and was just waiting.”

  Tuck peeked into the cabinet. Inside he saw the latest in Blu-ray technology, one of the six-disc carousel models. “Impressive.”

  Bobby just shrugged and sat on the couch, enjoying the view of Tuck’s ass in nothing but his boxer-briefs.

  Tuck walked over, still glancing around the room. “So what’s the game plan? Are you gonna move all this stuff?”

  Bobby nodded. “I guess. Most of the equipment’s practically brand-new, hardly a year old. I don’t remember seeing even so much as a TV at Odie’s.”

  “Well, with mine, we’ll have at least two,” Tuck thought aloud.

  Gazing up, Bobby got a serious look on his face. “So we’re really gonna do this? You’re gonna give up your apartment?”

  Tuck shrugged. “Why? You having second thoughts?”

  “No,” Bobby admitted as Tuck sat on the couch next to him. “It’s…. I guess it’s like something Odie said. I got a gift I didn’t even know I wanted.”

  “Yeah.” Tuck nodded in agreement. “Seems like that to me too.”

  Bobby scooted closer to Tuck and rested his head on the man’s bare shoulder. “I can’t believe how quickly this is all happening, though.”

  “Too quick?”

  “No, just surprising.”

  Leaning forward, Tuck picked up the book on the coffee table. “This the book?” he asked.

  “The very one.”

  Tuck turned it over and read the back blurb. “Sounds interesting.” He set it down on the couch and nestled closer to Bobby.

  Fighting back a yawn, Bobby nodded.

  “So, what else you taking?”

  “Haven’t thought that far ahead. With the housing market the way it is, the real estate agent suggested I might get a better price if I sold the place furnished, or at least partly. No reason to drag all this furniture down to Texas, anyway.”

  “What about all those vehicles in the garage?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Sell them, I guess. Was never into the dirt bikes like Nate was. And his Mustang. Unless you want it?”

  “Not particularly. Odie might want one of the bikes; he always enjoyed the ’cycles. What’s the other car? The one under the other tarp?”

  “Oh. The GranCabrio. I actually kinda like that one, but it wouldn’t be practical in Texas, I don’t think.”

  “A what?”

  “GranCabrio. Maserati.” Bobby sat up a li
ttle so he wouldn’t fall asleep.

  “A Maserati? A real Maserati?” Tuck gaped.

  Bobby shrugged. “Don’t think Nathan would have bought a fake one for my birthday.”

  “You rich bitch,” Tuck almost squealed. “A fuckin’ birthday present?” he teased. “I’ve never even seen one.”

  “Oh. We can go look at it, if ya want?”

  Tuck nearly jumped off the couch. “Any more silly questions?”

  “Well, then,” Bobby said with a smirk as Tuck pulled him up to his feet, “to the garage, I guess.”

  Not sure if he was leading or following, Bobby made his way to the garage, Tuck in tow. The fluorescent lights echoed with a slight hum as they blinked to life and illuminated the large space. Bobby moved to the tarped vehicle by the far wall.

  “When did you get it?” Tuck asked as he helped Bobby lift the softened cotton fabric.

  “Thirty-fifth birthday,” he replied as they slid the fabric away from the car, revealing the green color. Bobby had always thought of it as a light forest green, but some other label tried to worm its way forward in Bobby’s tired brain.

  As he stepped around to the side to gather more fabric, he froze when his eyes fell on the logo emblazoned in the center of the hubcap. “Damn you, Nate,” he said. He felt the spasm of hysterical laughter seconds before the sounds escaped his throat.

  “What?” Tuck asked as he froze in place. “Don’t go all loco on me, I don’t have my Taser.”

  Bobby leaned against the car as the fits of his diaphragm brought tears to his eyes with each barking laugh. “Logo,” he finally managed to say.

  Tuck glanced over at the scooped shape of the front grill and saw the symbol. “Oh.” He looked over at Bobby. “Looks more like a trident than an algiz, but….”

  Bobby managed to get his laughing under control. “From what I’ve been learning, Nathan always went about things deliberately. This can’t just be a coincidence,” he said as he helped Tuck remove the rest of the cover.

  “Guess not,” Tuck agreed. “What do you think he meant by it?”