* * * *
The evening was one of the most companionable Smitty could remember. Max was an intelligent conversationalist. Of course that sweet French accent of his didn’t hurt.
What was even sweeter was Max falling asleep on his sofa. Smitty caught his coffee cup before it could spill over. Not that it would have mattered. The material covering the sofa was patterned, and no one would be any the wiser, as long as they didn’t sit in the wet spot.
Sit in the wet spot. He chuckled to himself.
He scooped up the little doctor and carried him into his spare bedroom. Smitty usually went for big men he could boss around, but he’d found himself increasingly drawn to Max. Maybe because in spite of how short he was, Max was feisty. And of course there was that accent.
He laid Max on the bed, removed his shoes, then eased off his shirt and trousers. Max wore boxer briefs, and it looked like he had a very nice package. He could see the shape of Max’s cock through the soft cotton of his shorts.
Not that he touched. He wore the same brand of underwear, so he knew what they felt like. Yep, that was his story, and he was sticking to it.
“Mon cher,” Max murmured in his sleep. Smitty wanted to kiss those words back into that luscious mouth. If Max had ever said them to him, he would never have let him walk out the door.
Smitty sighed. Everyone at the WBIS had the impression he was the horn dog Vince called him. Why would Max think otherwise?
The truth of the matter was Smitty was just lonely.
He got Max under the covers, took his clothes to be washed, and walked out of the room, leaving the door open a crack in case Max woke and was disoriented.
After emptying the pockets, Smitty put the clothes into his washing machine and turned it to the normal cycle. Then he went out to his car and brought up Max’s clothes.
Everything the man owned fit in two grocery bags.
Smitty was a mild-mannered medical examiner, but just then he wanted to kick Charles Browne down all eight hundred ninety-seven steps of the Washington Monument.
* * * *
The smell of coffee woke Max. It reminded him of home, before everything went bad. He stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the soft sheets and the downy pillow, and yawned. Charles usually made instant—
He remembered. Charles had finally pushed him too far, and Max determined to move out. He’d called Avery to come get him.
Avery had made dinner for him. He’d brewed coffee that was almost a dessert in itself. And then he was supposed to drive Max to the WBIS, where Max would get himself settled in the doctors’ dormitory.
To tell the truth, he hadn’t been looking forward to sleeping in the stark, white facility.
Max had stayed there a few times when it had been necessary, and he knew this wasn’t the WBIS. Where was he?
He pushed himself up in bed and looked around. Light filtered through the curtains over the windows, letting in enough natural light for him to see clearly. There was a dresser, a nightstand holding a clock radio, and a small armchair. The room was very pleasant, but it wasn’t his.
The clothes laid out on the chair weren’t the ones he had worn yesterday.
There was a tap on the door, and then Avery walked in, carrying a tray with a coffee mug and a bowl that had steam rising from it.
“Good morning, Max. I usually go out for breakfast, so I don’t have much in the pantry except oatmeal. I hope that will be okay?”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble.”
“Thank you. I like oatmeal.”
“I sweetened it with honey. Sweets for my sweet. Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes. My grand-mère used to make it for me just like that.” He smiled at Avery. “She kept bees and used to collect their honey.”
“I’d like to do that one day. Retire out to the country, have a little garden and a few hives.”
“Truly?”
“Yeah.”
“I always dreamed of that myself.”
“Maybe one day…” Avery shook his head. “I’m getting way ahead of myself. How about dinner tonight?”
“On one condition.”
“What? That I keep my hands off you?”
Max bit back a grin. Avery sounded worried about that.
“Actually, I was going to say that I cook dinner.”
“You’d cook for me?”
“I’d like to cook for you very much.”
“I’d…I’d like that. But like I said, the pantry is pretty bare.”
“Then we’ll have to go shopping, ne nous?”
“Ne what?”
Max smiled at him. This might well be the man he could take a chance on. “Won’t we?”
Avery looked almost dazzled. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
It sounded very good.
* * * *
ABOUT TINNEAN
Tinnean has been writing since the third grade. Recent novels have received honorable mention in the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Rainbow Awards. Two of the 2014 novels were actually finalists. A New Yorker at heart, she resides in SW Florida with her husband, two computers, and a Surface 3. For more information, visit angelfire.com/fl5/tinnssinns/Welcome1.html.
Go with the Flow by J. Tomas
“What do you think?” my best friend Mike asks, nodding at someone in the magazine section of the bookstore. “He, she, or it?”
I’m behind the Spill the Beans counter, wiping down the steam wand on the espresso machine I used to froth the milk in Mike’s strawberry cappuccino. It sounds disgusting, if you ask me, but he concocted the drink after looking over the bottles of syrup set up behind me, and wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain the strawberry is only used in Italian sodas, not coffees. It has to taste like shit, even with the amount of whipped cream he wanted on top.
Now I lean across the counter as far as I can and look towards the magazines, but I don’t see anyone. “Who are you talking about?”
He nods again, and makes no effort to keep his voice down. “Girl over there who looks like a guy. Or maybe it’s a dude who looks like a chick, I don’t know. Man, come around here and take a look.”
“I’m working,” I remind him.
“Your boss ain’t here,” he says. “It’ll take two seconds, come on.”
“There’s a security camera.” I run the damp rag over the counter, wiping away imaginary dust and fingerprints. I don’t want to go out there and take a look, how obvious would that be? It’s probably nothing anyway, just Mike being mean. “Sheila watches the footage every morning. She’ll be mad enough when she sees you hanging around here too long—”
“Hey! I bought a drink!” Mike points at the mug, which he sipped out of once with a grimace but since then hasn’t touched.
Yeah, cause it tastes like crap.
“Just come around here,” he says, “and…I don’t know, straighten up the candy bars, or something. You gotta see this.”
I’ve known Mike since the second grade. To be honest, we have very little in common except for the fact that he’s lived right next door to me for the past ten years. We’re complete opposites—I’m tall and slim, he’s all muscle and brawn. I’m in AP classes, he struggles with the simplest subjects, and only manages not to get held back because he’s the quarterback on the high school football team. I’m going to college in the fall and he…
Well, he isn’t.
I don’t know what he’s going to do, really, since he thought someone would offer him a scholarship by now, but he isn’t that great a player, to be honest, and his grades simply aren’t there. He shrugs it off, says it doesn’t bother him, but I know it kind of does. Maybe he’ll end up at the auto shop where his dad works, I don’t know. Mike doesn’t either, and worse, he doesn’t care.
He’s still craning his neck towards the magazines, ignoring the nasty drink on the counter in front of him. “Okay, get this,” he says. “Tight jeans, skinny legs, nice ass—”
“So fema
le?” I ask.
Mike’s an ass man, he’s told me as much. Being on the football team means he’s dating a cheerleader, of course, and baby’s got back, if you know what I mean.
His brow furrows. “I don’t know. Some guys have bubble butts. This isn’t a Kardashian thing but there’s padding there, for sure. Hair’s super short, though. Iron Man T-shirt. No boobs.”
“So male.” Now I’m curious in spite of myself. I lean over the counter on the pretense of wiping an imaginary spot in front of Mike, but I still can’t see anything. Damn it. “Maybe it’s half and half.”
Mike glares at me. “There’s no such thing.”
Sometimes I forget how much smarter I am than he is. “Hermaphrodites. Look it up.”
Grabbing my shirt, he tugs at it like he’s going to pull me over the top of the counter. “Just come over here and take a look.”
I step back and shrug my shirt down. “Fine, damn. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s probably a guy.”
“I don’t know,” Mike growls. “That’s the thing. It’s killing me!”
“You said no boobs.”
Mike shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean anything. Ever seen an A cup? That’s practically nothing.”
I give him an odd look. “Hello? I’m gay, remember?”
“You’ve seen boobs, though. Don’t act like you haven’t.” Mike reaches for his drink, then curls his fingers into a fist before they reach the mug. Probably because he doesn’t want to take another sip of that nasty thing if he can help it. “You coming out to see this or what?”
I trail the rag across the counter as I step around it, taking my time to straighten the travel mugs for sale, the candy bars, the display of bagged coffee. When I get to where Mike is, I glance over at the magazines. “I don’t see anyone. Where—”
“There.” He shoves me around him and points, points, like a stupid little kid.
I want to slap his hand down. What if the person looks over here and sees him? Lowering my voice, I cry, “Mike!”
“What?” He points again. “See? There, there!”
When I look again, I see someone around our age in front of the magazine rack. From the back, I’d say male, no question—sure, he has a round ass (quite a nice one, Mike’s right about that) and his jeans are tighter than most guys wear, but he’s tall and lanky and has no curves to speak of, no hips or softness about him, nothing feminine. Add in the comic book T-shirt and the haircut, which isn’t just a short girls’ cut but a classic taper, long on top and clipped close on the sides and back. Hell, his nape is shaved. There’s no doubt about it.
“Guy,” I announce.
Mike squints at him. “You sure? That butt, I’m telling you. I’d hit that.”
I give him a sideways look. “You’d hit just about anything. You hit on me once, remember?”
“Hey, I was drunk.” He raises his mug to his lips as if to make a point, but winces when he tastes his coffee. “Can I get something else? This is crap.”
“You’re the one who wanted strawberry.”
When I turn to head back around the counter, Mike grabs my arm. “Look, look! Still think that’s a guy?”
I glance over my shoulder. The guy by the magazines must’ve finally overheard Mike; he looks over our way at the same time. From the front, I can’t be sure—there’s nothing distinctly male or female about the face, nothing to tell me definitively whether or not it’s a guy.
What I do know is I’ve never seen anyone prettier in my entire life. Large, almond-shaped eyes the color of cloudy skies. Long lashes, heavy eyelids, a “come hither” look that makes me take a step towards the magazines before I feel Mike’s hand on my arm holding me back. Smooth skin with a smattering of freckles across both cheeks. Mouth a little too wide, lips a little too red, nose a little too pert. Short cropped hair carelessly tossed to one side of a furrowed brow.
Boy or girl, I don’t care. I’m in love.
* * * *
I spend the rest of my shift worried he thought Mike and I were talking about him, and can’t think of anything else all night long. I’ve decided he is a he, because I’m gay and I don’t like girls. That’s what I tell myself, even though the next time I see Mike, he says the guy’s a girl and uses the same reasoning to back it up.
“Boobs or not, it’s a chick,” he tells me on the way to school the following morning. “I bet you ten bucks—”
“You don’t have ten bucks.” I know better than to place a bet with him. He borrows money from me for lunch, hello? There’s no way he has more than a dollar, tops, to his name.
With a shrug, he says, “Whatever, it’s a girl. You know how I know?”
I don’t respond. I almost dread what his answer might be.
“Because I rubbed one out thinking about her last night.” Mike beams at me, like this is something to be proud of.
I shake my head. “TMI.”
“Just saying, I’m not into dudes. So it has to be a girl. Has to be.”
Mike’s so certain he’s right, I want to say something, anything, to prove him wrong. But what do I know? My own belief is based on pretty much the same logic. I couldn’t be attracted to a girl; therefore, the person we saw—the one I like—must be a guy. Right?
Right?
* * * *
I start looking for him whenever I’m at work. A week goes by, and I almost think I’ll never see him again when suddenly one day I look up and there he is, standing by the Spill the Beans counter and leaning back to look at the menu board above my head.
Wearing a skirt.
At first I tell myself it’s his sister, but who am I kidding? I’ve been seeing his face in my daydreams since the first time Mike pointed him out, and my stupid best friend isn’t the only one who’s gotten off thinking about the guy. I’d know him anywhere, even if he is clutching his books to his chest with both arms the way girls do, and wearing a long, flowing hippie skirt cut off at his knees, and a midriff-baring jean jacket I know they don’t sell in the men’s section. Light blue eyeshadow sparkles every time he blinks, and I know that’s liner drawn around his eyes. His mouth is shimmery, too, peachy pink in a way that says lip gloss and not spit.
Maybe Mike was right. Maybe he is a she.
God, please don’t tell me that makes me bi.
He approaches the counter—I can’t bring myself to think of him as her yet—and gives me a distracted smile while still looking over the menu. Then he sets the books down between us, and I glance at the one on top, thinking maybe it might offer some clue to the type of person who might read it.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Hmm, looks like a boring English lit book to me. Which tells me squat.
“Hey.” I flash him a quick smile. “Can I get you something?”
His wide mouth twists into a bow. “Oooh, I really shouldn’t. They’re so fattening.”
Such a girl-thing to say, but the high pitch of his voice sounds forced to me, like a boy playing dress up. Literally, in that skirt. So male, I think, definitely male, even if today it’s a little hard to tell…
“Caramel latte, please,” he says.
Please, another thing most guys don’t say. He’s all over the place. In my head, I almost hear Mike’s voice whisper, Girl, I’m telling you. But I can’t deny it, I still think he’s cute. So male, yes, despite the getup.
As I bend down to get the milk out of the mini-fridge, he adds, “Can you make it skinny? Is that what you call it?”
“Skim milk?” I ask. “Light syrup, fat free whip, decaf—”
With a girlish giggle, he says, “Oh no, full on caffeine but everything else, though, if you don’t mind.”
His gaze drops to the counter, then slowly he looks up at me again, a thin blush coloring his cheeks and making his freckles disappear. Here all this time I thought his eyes were blue but now that I see him up close, I can tell they’re really a bluish-gray, almost a dark periwinkle. The way he’s looking at me, a faint half-smile on his lips, m
akes me wonder if maybe I have something smudged on my face, or if my hair is standing up at an odd angle, or if—
If he’s flirting with me.
Oh Lord, is that it?
Here I am standing in front of the open fridge like a dork. A blast of cold air swirls around my ankles, bringing me to my senses. Quickly I snag the milk and close the door, then realize I got the soy milk, not the skim, so I have to duck down and swap it out for the right thing. Now my face is red, but from embarrassment. God. My name tag should read, Hi, I’m an idiot. How can I serve you today?
As I prepare his drink, I search for something to say. Something witty, something cool. Nothing comes to mind, of course, so what I settle for is, “I think I’ve seen you here before.”
Great. Now I sound like a stalker, too. I’m hitting it out of the ballpark here.
If he thinks I’m crazy for noticing him, though, he doesn’t say so. Instead I get another grin—God, he’s so cute! My hands fumble the portafilter on the espresso machine and I spill ground coffee everywhere. Quickly I grab a nearby rag and sweep the mess onto the floor. I’m an ass.
“I come in here a lot.” He watches me work, and while I like the attention, I wish I could be doing something much more interesting than making coffee. Or rather, making a mess. “Mostly during the day, though. I only see you in the afternoons. I guess after school lets out?”
I only see you…so wait, he noticed me before?
Then his question registers, and I frown. “Aren’t you in school, too? You look like you’re the same age as me.”
“Seventeen.”
I nod. “Me, too. But I’ve never seen you at Hermitage High. I mean, it’s a big school, but I think I would’ve remembered you.”
Yeah, way to play it cool.
“Oh, I’m homeschooled,” he says.
Before I can stop myself—before I can even think better of it—I joke, “Which explains the skirt.”
His whole demeanor changes in the blink of an eye. His brows draw in close together and his smile fades. “Excuse me?”
I grin to show I’m only teasing. “Guys don’t usually wear skirts, at least not out in public.”
“You think I’m a guy?”
Well, I did…”You mean you’re not?”
Love Is Proud Page 42
