by Daryl Banner
I mean, he obviously trusted me, but I didn’t want to push that boundary by poking around too much. I was a guest, after all.
I took to the front yard and dug up the dead flowerbeds with a spade and some gloves. The whole stretch of lawn was overgrown with so many weeds and bramble and shit that it took a whole hour before I made any decent progress. I sweated through my shirt in ten minutes, so I took it right off and worked in just my shorts, which were all spotted in mud and dirt and grass stains I was sure even James’s fancy washing machine wouldn’t get out.
Despite the general tedium, the routine of working on James’s yard actually comforted me, taking me back to the good ol’ days when everything was simple. Back at home, I used to be the one who took it upon myself to clean up the yard, mow the grass, and trim the hedges. It was the way I made my keep, even if my dad kept griping about wanting to hire a company instead to handle the lawn and landscape the backyard. Maybe he knew it was one of the only things that made me happy, so he let me have at it.
But things weren’t really all that simple back then, were they? Under my nose, my dad was slowly growing distant, my mom was slowly growing tired, and a thing was slowly growing in her brain that none of us would know about until it was too fucking late.
It was a lot like a particular weed I worked on that stubbornly wouldn’t pull free from the ground no matter how hard I yanked. I grunted with frustration as I pulled and pulled and pulled. Finally, my gloved hands slipped, and I flew onto my back in the grass.
“Hey, there! You! Kid!”
I climbed back to my feet and turned around. On the road by the end of James’s driveway stood an old woman dressed in a blue muumuu. Her hair, dyed cherry red, framed her face like a helmet.
“Who’re you??” she called out from across the lawn, her voice cracking slightly, the wind carrying half of it away.
I wasn’t sure what to say or not say. James didn’t give me any pointers. But obviously this lady knew him. “I’m just a friend.”
“What??” She couldn’t hear me.
I crossed the lawn. “Just a friend,” I repeated when I was close to her. “A friend of James’s. I’m staying here for a little while.”
She gave me a once-over. Her eyes glanced over my chest in detail, after which she brought a hand to her chest. “I ain’t ever seen you here before. You the new gardener?”
“No. A friend of James’s. Like I said.”
“Son, I can’t hear you so well, you’re gonna have to speak up.”
Or you can speak to my eyes instead of my chest. I gestured back at the house. “I’m staying here. With James. He is a friend of mine.”
“Okay.” Her eyes kept scanning me suspiciously.
I figured introducing myself might help. I pulled off one of my gloves, wiped my hand on my shorts, then held it out. “I’m Lucas.”
She didn’t shake my hand, choosing simply to stare at me.
Then from the distance came another shout. “Maggie?? The hell you doing all the way down there?”
She yelled back, annoyed, “I was going for a walk!”
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know!”
In the distance was an old man in a plain white t-shirt and khaki shorts. He was headed towards us. “I thought we weren’t going for a walk today on account of the dang heat, Maggie!”
“A woman can change her mind!” she shouted back.
When he reached us, he sized me up with a quick, cold look, then asked, “Who’re you?”
“Lucas,” I stated. “A friend of James.”
“Friend of James, huh?”
I nodded. “I’m just staying with him for a little while.”
“He’s a gardener,” Maggie muttered to the man, who I took to be her husband.
The man returned a slow nod of his own, then glanced behind me. “Poor yard has been an eyesore ever since Arty left the place to his grandson.” He eyed me again. “You’re makin’ a muck of that front garden over there.”
“That, I am.”
“The heck you gonna plant in its place, son?”
Everyone likes calling everyone their son out here. I didn’t have an answer for him. “I … was figuring James might have seeds or … maybe he’ll want to go out and buy some new ones. We haven’t really discussed it yet.”
The man’s stony eyes stayed on me awhile. Then he nodded. “I got some clippings you can have. Some bulbs, too.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “That so?”
“Yep. Got a whole bunch. A lot of them are Arty’s favorites. That’s James’s grandfather. You ever met Arty? Great man.”
“I look forward to meeting him eventually, sir.” I straightened my posture. Something about these two made me feel like I was being interrogated at a family gathering back at home. All of my instincts to use proper manners and speak politely kicked in.
“Yep.” He extended a hand. “Hale.”
I shook his hand. “Lucas.”
“And this is my wife Maggie. We live in the house right there,” he said, indicating with a nod toward the house across the field, the one that was visible from James’s game room. “Neighbors of Arty’s for twenty-three years. ‘Til he moved away up to the hill lands. Hardly ever visits anymore, the bastard.”
“Hale,” scolded Maggie, giving his arm a swat.
“I know, I know. Too many memories here after Shelly passed, Lord bless her. Come over,” he ordered me. “I’ll pick you out some plants you can put in this flowerbed.”
“Sounds great, sir.”
Maggie followed behind as we walked down the road to their house, the woman fanning herself along the way. The walk wasn’t as far as it seemed from James’s window. When we arrived, Maggie went inside (where I was sure she snooped on us through a back window) while Hale and I went to his garden. He showed me the best ones to plant for the season and gave me seeds, fertilizer, and an earful of gardening advice. I was an expert by the time I left.
“Oh, hey,” I remembered to say before going, “you wouldn’t happen to have an extra tank of gas on you, would you? The riding mower died on me halfway across the yard.”
Hale seemed to find that funny, but his lips didn’t smile as he let out a dry little laugh. “O’ course I do, son.”
“Thank you, sir,” I made sure to tell him before heading back to the house, lugging a bag of seeds, some bulbs, a canister of gas, and a sack of fertilizer.
In the heat. Shirtless.
And sweating my ass off.
I finished up the front, then gassed up the mower and cut the backyard. Seeing as I had the rest of the week full of days to myself while James was at the bank, I figured it’d be smart to pace out the work. After all, I didn’t want to run out of shit to do.
Keeping busy kept me sane.
The day flew by, and before I knew it, the hum of a car engine stole my attention from the TV. I had already taken a shower and was feeling fresh when James came in through the garage door. He dropped his keys on the counter, slapped his work bag onto a stool, then exclaimed, “Wow, that front flowerbed!”
“Met your neighbors Maggie and Hale,” I told him. “Hale lent me some gas for the mower. You just give me the rest of the week, you won’t even recognize the outside of your own house.”
That made James smile broadly.
That handsome smile of his was reward enough for my work.
Of course I wouldn’t dare admit that out loud. I wanted to play it cool, to temper my excitement, to not reveal what I was feeling for him too soon. I needed to continue proving myself.
I needed to be strong.
Still, that night after he went to bed, I invited myself into his room again and slipped right under his sheets. Despite all of my supposed stealth, I had a hunch he knew I was there.
Chapter 15
JAMES
The week went by like a dream.
A very horny, frustrated, agitated dream.
Lucas crept into my room every night and s
lept by my side. On Wednesday night, I almost had an instinct to “wake up” and catch him in the act, but then feared it would spook him into putting up his guard and going back to his room. And the last thing I wanted to do was experience a night without him there.
Especially since I always woke up in his arms.
My feelings are starting to become too much to bear.
It was Friday after work when I pulled into my garage and killed the engine, then sensed something different. I wasn’t sure what it was until I walked into the house to find the view through the back windows changed. I walked right up to the glass, in awe at the fact that I could see my backyard. Literally. The unkempt bushes were all trimmed up, and the grass was mowed all the way down. I could see clear across the yard from one end to the other.
It reminded me at once of how the yard used to look when my grandma was alive and she’d sit in a lawn chair out there giving me shit for my weird college day haircuts. That’s before I became Carson to her. I could even see the gazebo in the back of the yard, which overlooked a shallow creek that ran along the backsides of all the houses on this street.
“Good afternoon, banker boy.”
I turned to the sound of Lucas’s voice.
Mother-loving hell.
He was shirtless, and his whole torso gleamed with sweat.
Something about the shiny gloss of his long, sweaty torso beautifully accentuated every ripple of muscle he had. His pecs were like two wet fleshy slabs of stone. Every ridge of his abdomen was a slick, glorious hill of delight, leading the eye straight to his happy trail and beyond. He wore loose shorts that gave a peak of his underwear, the rim of which was soaking wet from all of the sweat that dripped down his body.
To his lips, he brought a glass of water, which he began to chug after greeting me. Drops of condensation dripped from the end of the glass, and I could’ve sworn to God that they were dripping in slow motion, falling like skydivers onto the vast muscly plain of his chest, then racing down his sinewy body.
I’d never been so jealous of water droplets.
After downing every single drop that lived in that poor glass of water, he crossed the living room and pointed his glass toward the backyard. “I got busy today.”
I couldn’t peel my eyes off of him to admire his work outside. I was rather having too much fun admiring the work he’d done on his own body. “Yeah, you did,” I mumbled distractedly.
“Finally trimmed the bushes down, revealing the lawn work I’ve done all week,” he pointed out. “Your sheers suck, so I had to borrow an electric saw from your handy neighbors.”
I couldn’t help but mourn the fact that if I was sitting there in my house instead of an office at the bank all week, I would have had a front row seat every day to the hottest show on Earth: Lucas mowing the backyard with his shirt off, in a pair of loose shorts that made his ass look immaculate, and dripping with sweat.
It crushed me, that I missed such an exquisite opportunity.
“I’m in shock. Th-Thank you,” I made myself tell him. “Really. It looks so good. I can actually see the gazebo now.”
“I’m not done yet, either,” he admitted. “I’m gonna clean up those ugly-ass bushes some more. Maybe trim the trees, too. I just noticed some branches growing kinda close to your roof.”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
Lucas faced me at once. Just his gaze was so powerful, like he knew exactly all the dirty things I was just a moment ago thinking. “Don’t hurt myself?”
“Y-Yeah.” I cleared my throat, then shrugged and leaned back against the breakfast bar. It’s been such a long week. “I mean, the trees branches are pretty high up. I don’t want you to, uh … fall.”
He smirked. “Aww. He cares about me.”
A bit of warmth crept onto my cheeks. “Of course I do.”
The way Lucas looked at me right then was nothing short of scorching. Something changed between us throughout the week. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I could see the change in his eyes.
Was he finally ready to admit he was as hungry for me as I was for him? Had we waited long enough?
Was he ready to chew me up for dinner and spit me out for dessert?
“Yeah,” he finally said after absently setting down his glass on the coffee table. “I could tell with the way you massaged my feet Monday. Y’know, after you lost. I could tell you cared about me.”
Was he goading me? Or trying to turn me on? Or a bit of both? “Don’t get used to it,” I teased him back, trying to sound confident despite the sudden spike in my blood pressure.
“I think you kinda enjoyed losing.” He took a few steps toward me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you loved rubbing my feet. Perfect start to your week. More reward than punishment.”
I felt my throat turning to stone; the words were stubborn to come out of it. “O-Oh yeah?” My strength was failing fast. “And what about …” I ran out of breath. I took another one. “… about every night? After I go to bed? You wanna explain that to me?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “After you go to bed?”
“Yeah. Every single night. You.” I patted my chest. “Coming to my room. Snuggling up to me. In the middle of the night.”
“I like you,” he responded at once. “That isn’t anything new.”
The words, unassuming and plain as they may have seemed, hit me right in a tender spot. I like you. They were so simple, yet touching. It wasn’t that I didn’t think he, on some level, liked me. But to hear him say it out loud was another thing entirely.
“I feel comfortable around you,” he went on. “So what?” He grinned, then started to approach me. “That’s got nothing to do with the way you were worshipping my feet.”
“I wasn’t worshipping them.”
I’m such a bad liar.
He had come so close, I slid away from the breakfast bar and began instinctively stepping backward. “Oh, I think you were,” he said, smirking knowingly as he backed me against the window.
Seriously, had I fallen asleep in my office again? Was I being visited by the cocky little shit from my fantasies who liked to spank me with his belt? Was I about to wake up with my drool smeared over my spreadsheets?
Am I about to wake up right now?
He came to a stop right in front of me. Each of his slow, steady breaths crashed over me. His face exuded strength and confidence to the point that I couldn’t even speak anymore. His rich brown eyes beamed down on me, proud and exuberant. His full, plush, kissable lips were open slightly from his last words, showing a peek of his perfect front teeth, and his nostrils were flared, giving him a look not unlike a hungry, dominant lion.
“I like you,” he repeated. “Don’t you like me?”
I blinked. “Of … Of course I do.”
How else did he expect me to answer?
“Even as gross as I am right now?” he teased, then lifted up an arm of his and gave his pit a sniff. He instantly recoiled. “Daaamn. I need a shower. I fuckin’ stink.”
I couldn’t move, and Lucas wouldn’t back down. I felt crushed under him even without a single part of his body touching a single part of mine. How can one person be so powerful?
Naturally, I had exactly zero complaints about his masculine, sweaty musk from his hard day’s work in my yard. “Y-You smell just fine to me,” I blurted out before giving my words any thought.
He seemed to find my statement plenty amusing, as was evidenced by the slight curving of his lips. “Are you serious right now?” He poked a finger at his chest. “Are you seeing the sweat I’m seeing right now? Dude, I’m literally dripping with it.”
My body shook with excitement. I genuinely wasn’t sure if he realized exactly how erotic his words were to me. His sweat was a total aphrodisiac. I would have happily buried my nose in every single part of him right then like a desperate dog. I’d even lick the damned sweat off his chest if it wasn’t so boorish to do so.
“This turns you on?” he asked, honestly surprised.
“Really?”
I was dumb enough not to answer, just standing there with my back pressed to the glass and my eyes ghoulishly glued to his wet, dripping chest. Lucas only stared me down, half baffled, as the silence and the tension swelled between our heating bodies.
Then he tilted his head. “I kinda took you for a neat freak, if I’m being frank here.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Neat freak?”
“Mister wiping-at-smudges-on-the-window.”
I didn’t remember doing that. “Uh, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Being a neat freak, I took you for a guy who’d be grossed out by my state right now. Probably wondering if I tracked any mud in the house. Or if my clothes have grass stains all over them or some shit.” Lucas chuckled. “Doesn’t that sound like you?”
I wrinkled my face. “Well, not exactly, but—”
“It sounds exactly like you.”
I straightened up, which wasn’t easy, considering I felt totally cornered against the glass by his body. “I don’t think it’s weird at all for men to find other men’s … aroma … to be sexy. I find it sexy. That’s totally normal.”
“Are you saying you find me sexy right now?”
The way Lucas asked the question, surprisingly, was not in a mocking tone of voice. It was like he was trying to follow a story I was telling him, a story of men and musk and all the lust between.
How long had it been since a person called him sexy?
How long has it been since a decent guy looked his way and didn’t think him a filthy street punk?
I cleared my throat, then answered simply: “Yes.”
He wrinkled up his face. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Any man would be out of his damned mind not to want to lick that sweat right off your body.”
The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.
My eyes went wide as dinner plates. I froze to the floor.
Oh. My. God. What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Say.
If Lucas was reacting to those words, he didn’t show a bit of it on his face, which terrified me all the worse. I wanted to take back those words. I’d crossed the line. I went too far. Undo. Undo. Undo.
