Bonfires

by Amy Lane

  He wanted. He wanted so much he was sobbing for it, and when Aaron pulled away, he mewled with need.

  “Sh….” Aaron bumped Larx’s cheek with his lips. “It’ll happen, Larx. But my kid’s coming for dinner, and your kid—”

  Larx jerked back and looked outside, seeing that the lowering shadows had almost faded into an orange sky. “She’ll be here soon,” he muttered. “Oh God. Sorry. You’re right. I gotta go wash up, and then we can make dinner and—”

  “Larx!” Aaron laughed, framing his face for a quick, hard kiss. “Don’t worry about it. We’re good. You and me are good. Dinner can be a little late. Your kid can get home and direct me around the kitchen. We’ll manage, okay?”

  Larx nodded and let out a breath. “Good,” he said, chest still aching from confession time. “I’ll just go—”

  “Go pull yourself together. Remember that I’ll be back in the morning. It’ll be okay.”

  Larx managed a shaky smile and ran off to let hot water restore him to normalcy.

  It did take care of the dirt and the oily hair, and it helped restore his composure, but as he toweled off and dressed in jeans and a comfy T-shirt, he realized something.

  Aaron had kissed him. Had comforted him. Had promised not to run.

  Normal was a whole new thing now—not bad, but new, the way Christiana and Olivia felt about the world kind of new—and Larx needed to figure it out again.

  He walked back downstairs and into the kitchen with some hope and a real smile.

  Christi was there already, and she and Aaron were in the process of cutting potatoes and sautéing vegetables, talking about the best way to use what they had. There was a knock at the door as he passed it, and he let Kirby in, then led him through the living room in order to bypass the chaos in his rather small kitchen.

  “They’re busy,” he explained. “You and I get to set the table.”

  Kirby laughed, and Larx thought that while his and Alicia’s children looked more like him, Aaron’s children were a pleasing mix of their big blond father and a woman who had, by all accounts, possessed a delicate, fine-boned sort of beauty. Kirby was a positively angelic-looking boy, and his sisters were stunning as well.

  Larx was glad for Aaron. He seemed to have loved his wife with all the purity of his heart. It must have been comforting to see her growing up in their children.

  “So, uh, do I have to tell the world I ate dinner at the principal’s house?” Kirby asked, standing awkwardly by the table and waiting for Larx to give him something to do.

  Larx rummaged through the drawers of the china hutch and pulled out a stack of placemats that he handed to Kirby before moving to the silverware drawer.

  “Only if you think it will enhance your street cred. You know, ’cause Principal Larx is more badass than a motorcycle gang, right?”

  Kirby relaxed a little and took a handful of forks and butter knives. “Uh, yeah. Sure. That’s what we’re saying.”

  Larx grinned. “I knew it! Did you hear that, Aaron? I’m badass!”

  Aaron looked at him sardonically before chopping another potato into thin slices. “Sure, Larx. That’s what you are. A badass public educator. You’ll have your own film deal next.”

  “Damned straight.” Oh, he liked having people to play with. He remembered the first time Olivia had sassed him back as a kid. “Gee, Dad, I don’t know where I got my sarcasm. You got any ideas?” She’d been ten, and he’d been tickled because it meant he was raising a person he could talk with as an adult too.

  They continued to play. The badass public educator does paperwork—a madman with a computer and a pen! The badass public educator teaches student leadership! Can he fold paper carnations fast enough? The badass public educator teaches freshmen! What will give first, his temper or their idiocy? This time he may have met his match!

  They were all still laughing when Christiana said, “Ta-da! The main dish is ready, so if the table’s set, we’re good to go!”

  “What’s the main dish?” Kirby asked suspiciously. “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve eaten before.”

  “My people call it ‘fuud,’” she enunciated pertly. “And it comes in many forms. Dad, do we have any of that Panera dressing? The Asian stuff? ’Cause Aaron made a salad too, and that’s my favorite.”

  Larx rooted through the ancient fridge for a couple of bottles—because he liked the Asian stuff, but ranch was pretty universal—and walked back to the table, noting that Christiana and Kirby had sat next to each other on one side, leaving him and Aaron side by side on the other.

  He cast Christi a glance chock-full of irony, and she gave him a bland smile in return and then looked to where Kirby and his father were having their own telepathic conversation.

  “That’s it,” Larx said out loud, startling everybody. “From now on, all conversation at the dinner table has to be verbal. Nonverbal communication may be used only if we’re kidnapped by aliens and are forming an escape plan. Are we clear?”

  “But Larx,” Kirby complained, “how else am I supposed to whine about my homework?”

  “Out loud, of course,” Larx told him seriously. “That way I can gloat like all good AP teachers, knowing I have done my job.”

  They kept up the banter all through dinner, which was a delicious sautéed blend of squash, potatoes, tomatoes, hamburger, and garlic, and even through dessert.

  Only Larx had to know that Aaron kept his knee pressed solidly against Larx’s the entire time, the heat of his thigh searing straight through their jeans.

  KIRBY LEFT shortly after cleanup, and Christi went upstairs to “shower and chill,” which was often code for finishing homework she hadn’t gotten to during the weekend. Larx and Aaron were left to linger over coffee and to talk about… well, anything at all.

  “Your son looks a lot like you,” Larx said softly. “But he looks like your wife too.”

  Aaron took a sip of coffee and regarded him with sober blue eyes. “My wife. She was beautiful,” he said, shrugging. “I mean, I thought so. I mean, I wish you could have had what Caro and I did.”

  “Good?” Larx needed to know this too.

  “It was. I knew I liked men too, but it wouldn’t have been a hardship, only loving her for the rest of my life.”

  Larx nodded. “That’s good,” he said after a moment. He’d been hoping for what? More dirt? More blood? But Aaron wasn’t geared like he was, to babble and play and talk. Larx would have to be more patient if he wanted to know what was going on in Aaron George’s heart.

  “Good?” More quizzical blue eyes over a coffee cup.

  “You know what love is,” Larx said simply. “You had some happy. I’m jealous, actually. You and your wife—I’m sorry she’s gone. I am. Even if it means you wouldn’t be here in my kitchen. But you were happy with someone.” He didn’t want to state the obvious.

  He had never had that kind of happy, and he wanted it desperately.

  Aaron just nodded, and then, surprisingly, he covered Larx’s hand with his own. “You are good for me,” he said, no smile. “There’s a lot of cheerleader in you for a principal,” he said at last, biting his lip shyly.

  Larx grinned. “Go, Deputy, go!”

  They laughed quietly together and turned the talk to friends they’d had back in Sacramento a long, long time ago.

  Larx walked Aaron out to his SUV at nine, because they both had to be up early in the morning. Running stopped for neither man nor date, right?

  “So thank you, Deputy, for coming over and sharing our fall harvest,” he said formally. “But I want you to know, I still owe you a dinner after the hot dogs.”

  Aaron opened his door and then turned, grabbing the waist of Larx’s jeans and pulling him forward until their groins were touching but they had enough space to talk. “A date,” he said. “Someplace out of town.”

  Larx nodded, mesmerized. He would have said yes to a hotel hookup with an assumed name and a borrowed car.

  “But not,” Aaron clarif
ied, pulling him out of half-realized fantasies and James Bond plans of covert ops dating, “because I’m ashamed. Or I want to keep us secret forever.”

  Larx’s only response was an indrawn breath. Oh. This was actually better than Bond.

  Aaron nodded and licked his lower lip slowly. “We’re new,” he said softly. “But when I’m sure I want to grow old with you, Larx, don’t worry. I’ll tell my boss. I’ll tell my kids. We’ll make plans.”

  “Okay,” he whispered, not wanting to think about the school board, but Aaron read his mind.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re risking too,” he said softly. “So when you risk it, I want you to risk it for something you can hold up to the world and say, ‘This! This is us!’ And then we can do it together.”

  Because last time he’d done it alone. He’d done it more than alone. He’d done it alienated and reviled.

  “Thank you,” he said, so moved he couldn’t smile.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Aaron whispered. “Wait until after the kiss. It’s only polite.”

  Aaron’s lips were soft and strong on Larx’s, and Larx opened for him, pure and welcoming. This man was so real against his body, this kiss as much communication as desire. He kissed back, telling Aaron about arousal and wanting, about needing and fear. Aaron cupped the back of his head and held him still and plundered his mouth, talking about safety and kindness. Talking about tender carnality, the gentleness of a fever-pitch fuck.

  Larx moaned, plastering himself against that solid wall of muscle while Aaron leaned back against the car, opened his arms, and became a rock harbor for all of Larx’s storms. Larx bucked against him, his cock swelling, his body tingling, the memory of sex a buzz in his chest that he couldn’t seem to still. Aaron slid his hand down the back of Larx’s jeans and kneaded, locking him in place while Larx ground against him, a whine slipping out when he realized they were separated by jeans and nothing else.

  “Impatient,” Aaron whispered into the curve of Larx’s ear.

  “Augh!” Larx groaned and buried his face in Aaron’s shoulder. This bowed his back, moving his groin out of contact, and oh, blessed holy touch, Aaron slid his hand around to the front of his shorts and… oh…. “God,” he sighed as Aaron wrapped a strong fist around Larx’s erection. “Oh… please….”

  “Been a long time?” Aaron taunted, stroking. “You needed this a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Yesssss….” Larx couldn’t think—couldn’t even reciprocate. His knees were weak, and he clung to Aaron’s hips with both hands, bucking in that sure grip while his body… his body remembered what sex was about. Years. Not since Alicia, and not with someone who—“Oh….” Because Aaron skated his thumb across Larx’s cockhead. “Oh wow.” He stroked some more, slip-sliding in the precome that drizzled over the top, and Larx was nearly in tears. “You’re good,” he whispered.

  “It’s my first time with a guy,” Aaron confessed, squeezing his base hard.

  “Wha… oh God!” Larx bit him on the shoulder, confused and on the brink of climax.

  “Said I was bi—didn’t say I’d ever been with a man,” Aaron teased, and his stroking grew harder, faster, until Larx groaned, fucking his fist, shameless in his front yard as he hadn’t been since college. When his climax exploded behind his eyeballs, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and if Aaron hadn’t covered Larx’s mouth with his own, he would have disgraced himself by crying out loud enough to wake the cats.

  As it was, he half sobbed into the kiss, body shaking, eyes burning with the intensity of orgasm, with emotion, with the shock of no longer being alone.

  Eventually his breathing stilled and he collapsed against Aaron’s chest, dazed.

  “I… uh….” He pulled back and squinted at Aaron’s smug expression through the deep twilight. “I just got a man-virgin hand job in my own front yard,” he said with a sense of honest surprise.

  Aaron’s teeth glinted in the light from the rising moon. “Just wait and see what can happen if we get a bed,” he chuckled. Then, while Larx was still lost in what they’d just done, he straightened and pulled his hand from Larx’s pants, wiping it on the inside of Larx’s underwear as he did. He gave Larx a quick, hard kiss on the mouth before sliding into the SUV. “See you tomorrow, bright and early,” he said, closing the door on Larx’s stunned expression.

  And then he drove away, leaving Larx to go inside and run up for a second shower before bed.

  Tinder

  LARX TEXTED him before he left the house, and Aaron was outside waiting in the dark as he swung by.

  Aaron would recognize the thud-thud-thud of Larx’s tennis shoes on the red dirt of the forestry road in his sleep. The mornings were cold in early October, and Larx ran in a baseball hat with a hooded sweatshirt, but Aaron swore he knew the man’s knobby runner’s knees.

  As Larx drew near, Aaron could taste the aura of his heat and the clean smell of runner’s sweat.

  Every fiber of his being, every blood vessel, ever corpuscle, knew Larx, saw in him a friend, an ally, a potential mate. The last time he’d felt this hum in his chest and his groin? Had been when Caro had looked at him after a long, lazy day in bed and said, “I think we should get married, right?”

  Of course he’d thought so. She’d been, well, a lot like Larx, actually. Kind, impulsive, tart-tongued, busy.

  Beautiful.

  Watching Larx approach, his runner’s stride smooth and rhythmic, Aaron felt that same affinity. That same joy.

  I held his cock in my hand.

  And he also felt hard and aching and horny. God, when had his last hookup been? Two years ago? The kids had all gone to Six Flags in Vallejo, and he’d reserved a room for them down there so the girls didn’t have to drive back up in the dark.

  Funny—he could remember where the kids were, but he couldn’t remember much about the woman he’d been with that night. But then, she hadn’t sought him out either, afterward, and he was pretty sure she had a two-month cabin rental that year.

  Looking back on it, he could remember every community event, every parent meeting, every football game, every school event he’d ever been to during which he’d had a chance to talk to the kids’ teacher, Mr. Larkin.

  Every one.

  Aaron knew Larx. His body remembered Larx’s body like he remembered the landmarks of home.

  “Gonna just stand there?” Larx baited, hardly out of breath.

  Aaron finished his last stretch and joined him, running down the track, past the last of the residential area, and into the trees. This was the part of the run they bundled up for, because the woods stayed dark until around noon and grew dark again around four. In the chill of the morning, they could see their breath against the panoply of shadows.

  “So,” Larx asked conversationally, “did you sleep well last night?”

  “Like a baby,” Aaron lied. He’d fallen asleep aching, lost in a misery of want.

  “Yup. Me too.”

  A few hushed footfalls fell.

  “So, no men,” Larx said into the quiet.

  “Knew I wanted them,” Aaron replied equably. He’d followed his best friend slavishly through grade school, devastated when the boy had fallen in love in ninth grade. He’d dreamed about the high school quarterback sucking his cock. He’d yearned quietly for a boy he’d met during basic training. Aaron knew what gay was, and knew what bi was, and knew enough to know he wasn’t curious. He wanted.

  “So… me?”

  “I wanted you bad enough to let you know I wanted you.”

  Larx stopped dead, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at him. “I dumped my heart out to you last night, goddammit. Be square.”

  Aaron sighed. “I’ve known,” he said, panting too. “But… Larx. 1988—that’s when we graduated from high school.”

  “1990,” Larx muttered.

  “Swell. AIDS—do you remember that?”

  “I do, but—”

  “But I liked girls too. I liked them e
nough that it wasn’t a hardship.” Aaron kicked a rock in front of him and watched it disappear into the shadows. “But… but not talking to you? Not getting to know you better? That would have been a hardship, okay?”

  Larx nodded and started running again, struggling for a few steps to get his stride. Aaron kept pace, wondering how long he stayed mad.

  “I’ve never been with a virgin before,” he said, managing to chuckle evilly in spite of their exertion.

  Aaron smacked him in the arm. “Shut up.”

  “No, seriously. I’m going to have to be gentle with you.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Like, you know, if I give you a blowjob, are you going to freak out? Imagine me with breasts just to keep up your manhood?”

  “You are not that cute,” Aaron grumbled, relieved that he was okay.

  “I must be. ’Cause, you know. I’m your closet-door opener.” Larx bounded a few steps ahead and turned, his arms spread in classic Vanna pose. “Ta-da!”

  Aaron growled and turned on the gas, intent on getting to him and pummeling him or kissing him or something in the middle, and Larx turned and sprinted off, leaving Aaron to try desperately to keep up.

  Oh hell—Larx was winning. He was going to lose Aaron, abandon him to soldier on the damned lonely path by himself. And just when Aaron was going to holler and call him a weenie coward for running away, Larx spun around again, barely visible in the darkness.

  “Catch me now,” he said, and ran off the road.

  Aaron followed him, shocked, as what appeared to be a random turn actually became a small path, probably used by rangers and forestry workers. About twenty yards into the woods, a small service building loomed, most likely full of surveying equipment and emergency supplies. Aaron got there just in time to watch Larx disappear behind it.

  Aaron slowed down enough to peer into the shadows. “Larx? Where’d you—?”

  Larx’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar, hauling him against the building while Larx’s mouth crashed down on his with stunning heat.

  “How’d you know—?”