Candy Man

by Amy Lane

  “I’m sorry about the cat,” she said softly. “I mean, I’ve got kids and pets. It’s always the most frightening thing, thinking, ‘I can take care of this creature.’ What if you can’t? Who’s going to help you? What if you fail? But really, all you can do is your best. It’s all anyone asks of you.”

  Adam grimaced. “So, uhm, you and Finn talked a lot about that, did you?”

  Mari’s grin was just as infectious as her little brother’s. “Yep. The only way I could get Finn to buckle down and finish his finals was by telling him you needed a little time and a little encouragement.”

  Adam shook his head. “Your entire family is insane.”

  She nodded maniacally while crossing her eyes, and Adam cracked up. He couldn’t help it.

  “Yeah, well, you like me,” Adam said, laughing. “Must be nuts.”

  He turned back to the Mr. and Mrs. Finn, who had been watching Mari charm him with indulgent smiles on their faces. “I’m real grateful for the Thanksgiving dinner,” he said, hoping they’d know he was sincere. “It was a real nice thing.”

  “So were the sandwiches on the trash can,” Mrs. Stewart said. “You know, we volunteer at Loaves & Fishes during the winter. Would you like to come with us someday?”

  Adam’s breath caught in his chest. “That… that would be really great,” he said, unsure of how to put it into words. “If it wasn’t for my cousin, I’d be living in my car this season. And that thing died on the way from San Diego. It’s like… I owe the world, you know?”

  Finn’s mother looked at him thoughtfully. “I think that’s extraordinary,” she said, a small smile on her face. “And it speaks really well of you. Have you given any thought to school, since you have a place to stay right now?”

  Adam shrugged. “I’ve been applying online. Still waiting for someone to get back to me. People have been paying me for my drawings. If I can do that for a second job, I might be able to afford tuition. It’s a work in progress.”

  Finn’s dad grinned at him. “As all lives should be. C’mere, Adam—pull up a chair. Mari, could you get Finn’s friend some coffee?”

  “Yeah, sure. Adam, you want a bagel? They’re fresh, and Mom bought lox. It’s good stuff.”

  “You don’t have to—” But before he could even politely refuse, she had coffee in front of him and was pointing to sugar and cream on the table. The bagel showed up—with tomato, avo, lox, and cream cheese—and he was suddenly enjoying a pleasant conversation about his options as a cartoonist and how he’d loved to draw things for Rico, who had all the best ideas.

  Finn emerged after a good twenty-five minutes, arriving just in time to watch Adam feed Clopper the last quarter of his bagel.

  “You’re going to make him fat,” he chided, and Adam looked up and smiled widely. Seeing Finn fully dressed—jeans belted, warm knit sweater hugging tightly to the V of his torso, hair combed, loafers on with matching socks—was something. He looked freshly scrubbed and radiant, and Adam wondered if he always looked like this before he left the house, and if his curls didn’t just escape and his clothes go askew as he happy-trippy walked all over the world like he belonged there.

  “We’ll do extra circles around the block,” Adam said, still smiling. Suddenly he realized that he was in his old jeans and his hooded sweatshirt. “I… I uhm, didn’t dress nice. I mean, we were just walking around the block. I… you look real good.”

  Finn grinned back, undismayed, and walked right up to where Adam was sitting. He bent and kissed the top of Adam’s head, ruffling his hair. “You look fine. It’s not an eating-out date, remember? It’s just a day.”

  Adam shrugged. “Maybe let me swing by my place—”

  “No,” Finn said adamantly. “Nope. You’re not getting away from me today. Let me go get my backpack.”

  Adam watched him go, sighing a little. He was always going to be one step behind, wasn’t he? Just a moment away from catching up, watching Finn hop around and be quick and smart and full of life.

  But then, Finn looked like he’d always come back for Adam, so maybe that was okay.

  “He really likes you,” Mari said softly, smiling.

  Adam shrugged, blushing and standing up. “Good. ’Cause, mutual.”

  Finn returned, a full backpack over his shoulder and his bright blue coat over his arm. “Bye guys! See you tomorrow, ’kay?”

  “If not, call us,” Finn’s mom said mildly, and Finn bounced around the table to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Kk. Love you.”

  And then he turned and grabbed Adam’s hand while Adam was still babbling thank you for the coffee. One step behind—there was no doubt about it—but loving the trip to catch up.

  FINN PARKED at the big lot by College Town Drive, and they walked onto the campus through the back way, over the bridge across the river. Fog drifted over the campus, and the smell of the eucalyptus trees by the river was particularly strong. Adam liked this side of Sacramento—the muffled, quiet side. It was sort of a prickly town, he thought, but he liked that. There wasn’t always a real spiritual presence here. All the conversation was done in grunts and laughter that didn’t really touch the eyes.

  Adam could identify with this city. He could see loveliness when it was dripping in fog and muted, the sound of people’s laughter seeming far away.

  He and Finn talked quietly as they walked about the campus, letting Clopper pee in every corner. Finn led the way to the engineering building—a square, blocky science building, although Finn said the other building in the department was much better-looking—and left Adam outside while he ran in to put the paper in his professor’s box.

  While Adam was standing there, a couple of kids passed him by, talking and giggling. They looked like the kids at the art school Adam had gone to, and when one of the girls turned to him in a burst of excitement and said, “Man, aren’t you glad we’re done!” he didn’t have the heart to shit on that.

  “Feels good, huh?” he asked, smiling.

  She nodded and went back to talking to her buddies, but he thought then of the applications he’d turned in. I can do this. If the state school doesn’t take me, the junior college will. I can have a future, like Finn. It’ll take a while, but I can do it.

  Finn came out and grabbed his hand, then went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You freeze to death?” he asked. Absently, like it was just a thing you did with dogs, he reached down and stroked the smooth fur of Clopper’s forehead. Clopper gave a small doggy smile and leaned into him, and Adam thought maybe the day out had been good for him too.

  “Nope,” Adam said, squeezing his hand. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to move on to the next part of our day.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Are you kidding? I just ate breakfast!”

  “Oh, yeah—okay. Kitten first. I hear you.”

  Adam patted Clopper on the head again. “We’ll get you a buddy,” he said softly. “I promise.”

  AN HOUR later Finn came out of the special cat room of the PetSmart off of Watt holding a kitten in each hand.

  “We’ve got two contenders,” he said judiciously. “We’ve got this adolescent ginger tom, who is comatose and barely awake.” He shook that cat, who bonelessly draped over his hand before closing its orange eyes and falling asleep. “And we’ve got this cat—hold still, you little bastard—who will probably slit your throat or tackle your junk as you sleep.”

  The tiger-striped kitten held firmly in Finn’s hand was twisting and turning and bitching and moaning and biting and scratching.

  Adam reached out and grabbed the tiger-stripe, which promptly ripped a chunk out of his hand and spat at him.

  And then got a good look at the dog and wriggled free, skittering on the clean tile of PetSmart.

  “Fuck, I’ll get him,” Finn muttered, shoving the comatose tom at Adam before taking off.

  Adam watched them go with big eyes but figured he and Clopper were the last elements that situation needed. Carefully, he a
djusted the ginger tom in his hand and squatted down to Clopper.

  “What do you think?” he asked quietly. “I mean, I know Gonzo was a spaz just like that other guy. But this guy—he’s gonna be nice to you. Probably just purr and knead your ass. What do you think?”

  Clopper nosed the cat with interest, and Adam balanced the leash and the cat until Ginger Tom curled up in the crook of his arm. Clopper nosed him again and then extended a tongue and licked the animal.

  Who purred. Adam held the cat up to his face and nosed his whiskers flat. The cat returned the gesture with interest, and Adam fell a little in love.

  A few minutes later, Finn returned with the half-feral tiger-stripe in his hands, and Adam was filling out paperwork for the ginger tom.

  “You’re getting that one?” Finn asked in surprise.

  Adam looked up from the cheap plastic table where he was signing his name to a zillion pages and getting ready to spend about half his check on one lousy cat.

  “Yes,” he said shortly. “Can you hold him and put him in the box while I do this? He keeps drooling on my sleeve.”

  Finn gave the tiger-striped kitten to the anxious volunteer so he could go back to his sulfur pit and mouse head collection, and took the unresisting ginger tom from Adam and cuddled it. The cat was apparently a slut and a half, because it didn’t even change the tenor of its purr.

  “He’s awesome,” Finn breathed. “But I thought you’d like a cat more like, you know, Gonzo.”

  While Adam paused and thought about it, Clopper moved from Adam’s side to Finn’s, where he nosed up Finn’s thigh, looking for the kitten.

  “No,” Adam said thoughtfully. “See, the way me and Clopper see it, it’s one thing to deal with a bad situation ’cause that’s what you got stuck with from the very beginning. But if you’re making a fresh start, maybe you don’t have to carry all that bad bullshit with you. Maybe the stuff that hurts should be the first thing to go.”

  Finn grinned down at him and then bent and kissed him on the cheek. “I think that’s really wise, Adam. And hopeful.”

  So beautiful. Adam could drown in those Finn-blue eyes. “Thanks,” he said, knowing he was just gazing dreamily at Finn. “I… I have hope.”

  They just stared at each other until the volunteer behind the table cleared his throat, and Adam got back to sacrificing a lot of his hard-earned cash to keep Rico’s dog from dying of apathy.

  THEY SPENT the rest of the afternoon talking about everything from their favorite movies (Adam’s was a cartoon, of course) to trying to determine a name for the cat. By the time they’d eaten lunch and then gone shopping for dinner, they had it narrowed down to Ralph or Jake—Ralph from The Muppets, to match Gonzo, or Jake from Adventure Time, to match Finn.

  “Jake,” Adam said as they entered the apartment in a flurry of animals and packages. “It’s definitely going to be Jake.”

  He put the groceries on the table and straightened up, turning to watch as Finn let the new kitten out of the box. The kitten wandered around the apartment, smelling the couch, smelling the freshly cleaned and filled cat box, smelling down the hall.

  “He’ll be fine,” Finn said with confidence. “So why Jake?”

  “’Cause Jake goes with Finn. That way, you know, however we turn out, I’ll always remember that you were in my life.”

  Finn gasped. “Wow.”

  Adam looked up from where he was setting the lunchmeat and the new bread on the counter.

  “What?”

  “It’s like your superpower, Adam. You say things like that, and I will give you any chance you need.”

  Adam smiled. “Will you give me a kiss as I make our sandwiches?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  His lips on Adam’s tasted like the kind of wine they talk about in church. The kind that fills the soul.

  THE BEST relationships are made of quiet times, Adam thought as the day wrapped to a close. Lunch, taking the dog out, cooking dinner, sitting to eat it in front of the television. Conversation that ebbed and flowed, the constant small touches that marked where the other person was and that they’d been absent for just a moment too long.

  At the end of the night, Adam sat with his back up against the side of the couch, and Finn sat in his lap. The kitten claimed the back of the couch, curled into a little purring ball, and Clopper ate his second bowl of food since they’d arrived home. All was peaceful in the world. Adam felt himself nodding off and shifted one more time to keep that from happening, and Finn turned in his arms.

  “Falling asleep?” he purred.

  “Feeling happy,” Adam apologized, then opened his mouth for what he thought would be a lazy kiss.

  Finn devoured him.

  Open mouth to open mouth, the subtle warming of Finn’s body on his suddenly became an uncomfortable, steamy blaze.

  Adam rucked Finn’s shirt up from his waistband and fed his palms on the smooth skin of Finn’s back, needing that feeling, the silk and the heat and the strength of the underlying muscles.

  Finn groaned and kept kissing him, shoving his hands under Adam’s T-shirt, groping his chest and petting the strands of silky hair. Adam tilted his head back and let out a whimper, and Finn showed him no mercy, kissing from the edge of his cleft chin down the stubble-roughened column of his throat.

  “Augh, Finn!”

  “Here, let’s get this off, it’ll make it easier,” Finn panted, straddling Adam’s hips and sitting up on his knees. He struggled with Adam’s hooded sweatshirt for a moment, and then with the T-shirt underneath. In moments Adam was bare from the waist up and Finn was still fully clothed, nibbling determinedly from Adam’s chin and down his throat. Oh yippee! Scruples or not, this was going someplace Adam really, really wanted.

  Finn swept his tongue down to the waistband of Adam’s jeans, and he undid the top button, looked up at Adam, and grinned.

  Adam’s breath caught in his throat. “Uhm… were you going to do anything about that?”

  Finn flicked his tongue to the spot right above the button. “You ready to, uhm, variate this far?” He cupped Adam’s cock and balls through his jeans, pushing just hard enough for Adam to grind up against him.

  “Oh damn—Finn!” It was a plea nobody could argue.

  Finn grasped his waistband in two hands while Adam arched his hips, and his jeans got shucked down to his knees.

  For a moment Adam was afraid. Bare and vulnerable, under the eyes of someone who was supposed to care for him—Adam had been here before. It hadn’t ended well.

  Finn was oblivious. He lowered his head and licked the swollen head of Adam’s cock, circling the bell, lapping softly at the top, dragging in a warm, wet line down the length. Adam let out a pained breath and shifted his hips up, needing.

  Finn laved his testicles through the dark, springy hair and then dragged his tongue back up to where Adam’s cockhead was cooling in the air. He lapped again at the slit, which was oozing precome, and Adam made a sound between a grunt and sigh.

  Finn grinned at him. “Good? Because, wow!” And with that he opened his mouth and pulled Adam all the way in.

  “Whoa,” Adam breathed, not wanting to stop him at all—just stunned at how awesome it felt.

  Finn didn’t look up—he was too busy. Sucking, stroking, licking, tasting, laving—all of the good “ing” words, that was what Finn was doing to Adam’s tender, vulnerable bits.

  Including “loving,” which Adam didn’t understand until he fisted his hand in Finn’s hair and stopped him, shuddering with need while his vision washed black because he was so close to coming.

  “Finn!” he whined. “Finn, baby, I’m going to come….”

  “Got any STDs?” Finn asked, looking up with his mouth covered in a glaze of spit and precome that did not help Adam get under control any faster.

  “No! God no. Clean bill of health when I left the Army. No action since. But—oh my God!” Because Finn didn’t wait for the rest, for any explanations about how Adam needed t
o take care of Finn first, or how he wanted time to explore Finn’s body, or even how he was usually the one getting face-fucked and swallowing. Finn just dove right on in, shoving his head down until his lips tickled Adam’s pubic hair and Adam’s cockhead was lodged in the back of his throat. He was making “nummy” noises, humming sounds that vibrated against Adam’s cock and heightened the pressure and the arousal even more.

  “Oh God! Finn, I will come and it’ll be over and—”

  Finn lifted his head again and glared. But he didn’t stop stroking Adam when he spoke. “It’ll be over? Because you came? Not bloody likely. We have got some shit to do tonight, Adam. Don’t even worry about it. Just close your eyes and trust, just once, that somebody will take care of you.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer—greedy, like a starving man, he lowered his head again, and this time, he thrust his free hand deeper between Adam’s thighs, bringing his fingers into play to tickle Adam’s perineum and then, ever so suggestively, the little puckered entrance that Adam had not had touched, tenderly or no, since he and Robbie had leave together nearly two years before.

  Adam arched off the couch, thrusting his hips, his vision washed by stars as Finn swallowed him down cleanly, and Adam’s entire body blew into oblivion, made solid only by Finn’s hard clasp on his thigh.

  He came to himself, panting, disoriented, literally blown away, and Finn crawled up his body, come dripping down his chin, and smiled like an evil little pixie, small and cute but by no means a child.

  Adam didn’t fight the compulsion to stick out his tongue and taste the drop of come about to fall from Finn’s chin to Adam’s chest.

  Finn glared at him defiantly and whispered, “Lick it all off, Adam. And then kiss me.”

  Yes! Adam sank into the moment, and the moment was good. He tasted himself running down Finn’s chin, at the corners of his mouth, and then Finn kissed him, claimed him, set his mark on Adam’s soul once and for all with a kiss that was both tender and ferocious, with a refusal to back down.