by A. E. Wasp
He had no idea what Mikey would do. Hopefully, his ignorance of everything military and infatuation with Benny would keep him from noticing it was Benny’s fault their friends had left.
At least Jasmine wouldn’t care, Benny thought.
He heard the hiss of escaping air and look down, startled to find the beer can open and in his hand. He had no memory of picking it up. The refrigerator door stood open a few inches, the light inching across the floor and Benny’s feet. Almost in reflex, he brought it up to his mouth and took a sip.
God, it tasted like heaven. He exhaled from the bottom of his lungs and closed his eyes. Fuck it. He’d call his sponsor in the morning.
Beer number two joined the first one in a matter of minutes. Benny rinsed out the cans and stuck them in the recycle bin with the other ones. If Mikey asked what had happened to the beers from the fridge, Benny would tell him they had been too much temptation so he’d poured them down the sink. It was only a half a lie.
He shut the fridge door harder than he meant to. As the light blinked out, the paper heart shook loose with the force of the slam. It fluttered to the ground and slipped under the bottom of the fridge, disappearing like a magic trick.
Benny let it lie. Fuck it. It was one more thing he would deal with tomorrow. The tree frogs and night birds sang outside in the trees, and the sweet evening breeze blew in through the windows. Upstairs, Mikey waited for him in their bed, his body warm and soft with sleep. Benny felt the alcohol settling warm into his veins. Filling up a glass with water for Mikey, Benny walked back upstairs to lose himself in Mikey’s arms.
chapter thirteen
Benny breathed in the dusty air of the studio and exhaled. Compared to the chaos of his home, the bright open space with its shelves of clay, piles of chicken wire, and tin cans of sculpting tools seemed like an oasis. He knew they’d get the house organized eventually, but still, three people had a lot more stuff than one person. Especially if one of those people was a four-year-old. They apparently needed a lot of specialized equipment, clothing, utensils, and toys.
Chris and Jay-Cee were deep in sketching and discussions for the new line of sculpture Jay-Cee was thinking about. Photo references hung on the walls, stuck haphazardly with tape or thumbtacks. Their hands moved rapidly over blank pieces of paper; charcoal pencils transferring ideas from their brain into reality.
Benny thought he heard them saying something about soldiers, but he was only half paying attention. His drawing skills weren’t up to snuff for this part of the process. Jay-Cee said he had a lot of potential, just needed more practice, and he encouraged Benny to practice and experiment with whatever materials he wanted when he had the time.
What Benny was working with now was the drawing tablet Chris had set up in the studio. It was quickly becoming his favorite thing. Benny pulled his metal stool closer to the table and tilted the monitor upright. Chris liked to draw with the monitor almost horizontal, like a piece of paper. Benny preferred it up like a canvas, it hurt his back less that way.
Jasmine had made him some hearts for decoration at his office, as she called it, and they were taped to the walls above Benny’s workstation. He really needed to bring her to the studio and give her a tour. She’d get a kick out of it.
Before working with Chris, Benny had known that there were small tablets people hooked up to their computers and used a stylus to draw on, but this piece of equipment was on a whole other level.
The entire twenty-four-inch monitor was a touch sensitive tablet that you drew directly on. Chris had it hooked up to a high-end computer with some amazing, according to Chris, specs. Benny was pretty good with software, but hardware wasn’t his thing. His whole technical repertoire consisted of turning things off and then on again.
He pulled up Photoshop and the drawing he’d been working on for the last week or so. He’d downloaded some new brushes that mimicked traditional media, and he was dying to try them out. That line-stabilization program someone in one of the forums had suggested also sounded like it had potential.
He pulled up a YouTube video on coloring techniques on the computer’s main screen and dove in.
“That’s looking great,” Jay-Cee said from behind Benny an indeterminate amount of time later.
Benny jumped. He hadn’t heard Jay-Cee coming over.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just practicing.”
“No,” Jay-Cee said, leaning over to look closer. “The colors are great. And I love the effects. That actually looks like acrylic paint.” He rested one hand on the desk and one hand on Benny’s shoulder. Once, just that simple action would have had Benny hiding an erection.
At forty-five, Jay-cee was a silver fox. His thick silver hair and perfectly maintained silver beard made his blue eyes brighter than seemed possible. Silver gauges glinted in his ears, and multicolored tattoos covered his wiry arms and muscular chest. He had a flat stomach and slim hips, and Benny had seriously wanted to jump him as soon as they’d met.
But Jay-Cee had made it clear that even if there hadn’t been a twenty-year age difference, he had a strict no sex with clients or assistants policy. Privately Benny wondered who that left for Jay-Cee to hook up with. The man hadn’t had a date the entire nine months Benny had worked for him.
Benny realized Jay-Cee was in mid-sentence and he had missed the beginning of it. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I said I love your use of color. I wish it were something I did more of. I was thinking of doing a line of painted sculptures. They’ve discovered that a lot of the classical sculptures we thought were plain white marble this whole time were actually painted in what to our eyes would look rather garish.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Look it up,” Jay-Cee suggested, wiping the charcoal off his hands and onto his jeans. “And give me some suggestions on how we could incorporate it.”
“I will, for sure.”
Jay-Cee switched his attention from the screen to Benny. “So how are things going with your new old friend?”
“Good. Really good. We’ve actually moved in together.”
Chris appeared as if by magic and threw himself against the table with a thump. “So soon? That’s so lesbian of you.”
Benny kicked him. “He needed a place to stay.”
Jay-Cee frowned. “If I recall correctly, you said he has a child? A young child?”
“Jasmine. She’s four. Her mother died about two years ago.”
Jay-Cee and Chris exchanged glances. Benny held back the sigh at the thought of getting another lecture.
Jay-Cee had been a saint to take him on sight unseen just on Honey Dijon’s word that Benny was worth helping. He’d been a hurting drunken idiot, but Jay-Cee had welcomed him into what Chris called Jay-Cee’s Home for Wayward Queers and had helped him find support to get clean and sober. Well, sober-ish, Benny amended, remembering those two beers from a few nights earlier.
Sainthood aside, Jay-Cee was not above playing dad to his young charges and telling them things he thought they needed to hear whether they wanted to hear them or not.
“Have you been completely honest with him? You two have a history of poor communication.” Jay-Cee’s thick silver eyebrows lowered over his baby blues.
“Yes. Dad. He knows I’m an alcoholic if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s good. That’s the very first place I would expect you to start. But it isn’t what I am asking. What I am asking is, are you being truly honest with him? Telling him what you feel, letting him know what you’ve been through? What he might expect to be dealing with over the months and hopefully years to come?”
Benny slid off the stool. “We talked. He knows what I’ve been through. And he’s been through some stuff too, with Jasmine’s mother dying and him having to drop out of law school to raise Jasmine. It’s not just about me, you know.”
Jay-Cee watched him pace around the room, kicking up small clouds of clay and charcoal dust as he did. “Does he know you were injured?”
“No. It’s not important.”
“It’s kind of important, B,” Chris chimed in. Benny glared at him, but Chris remained annoyingly uncowed. “He needs to know your medical history.” Chris sat down on one of the stools.
Benny sighed. “I will tell him everything. I promise. Just, not at once. Everything is moving so fucking fast with us, I don’t want to start dumping shit onto him all at once. Let’s get over one thing at a time. One day at a time. That’s what they say, right?” He grinned at them, showing all his teeth.
Jay-Cee laid a heavy hand on Benny’s shoulder. “It is what they say. And I understand your concerns, but, please, for all of your sakes, don’t let things go unspoken for too long. Nothing good can come of that. Trust me.”
Benny squinted at Jay-Cee. He wanted to be annoyed at him for butting in, but all he could read on Jay-Cee’s face was care and concern. That made him even more irrationally angry. Benny shrugged Jay-Cee’s arm off. “I know. I know. And I will tell him everything. I promise. Just let me unpack the boxes before I unpack my soul, okay?”
Chris rolled his eyes. “That was deep.”
“Fuck you.”
“Not with someone else’s dick.” Chris pushed away from the desk on the rolling stool, coasting across the floor. “Now come help me build some armatures, and you can tell me all about how bad your stud muffin is in bed.”
“He’s not bad in bed. Why would you say that?” Benny followed Chris across the studio floor. “What makes you think he’s bad in bed?”
Jay-Cee left the studio, his laughter hanging in the air behind him.
chapter fourteen
The sun streamed through the sheer green curtains in Mikey’s bedroom, and the birds chirped as if the continued streaming of said sun depended on how loud they sang. Freaking birds, Mikey thought uncharitably and debated shutting the window and going back to sleep. The faint smell of bacon and strains of music wafting up from downstairs made him reconsider.
One benefit of living with Benny that Mikey hadn’t considered was how well Benny’s natural early bird tendencies matched with Jasmine’s. As much as he loved Jasmine, all her energy and chirping could be a little too much to take first thing in the morning. Just like the birds.
Coming downstairs at nine on a Sunday to find Benny and Jasmine singing and making pancakes was definitely something he could get used to. He smelled fresh coffee, too. The best part of waking up.
“Morning, Daddy!” Jasmine said, breaking off her singing. She didn’t have most of the words yet, but she’d gotten the wordless chorus down pat. Benny had slid a chair over to the counter for her, and she was happily stirring something Mikey hoped weren’t the actual pancakes he was supposed to eat. She wore one of Benny’s t-shirts over her pajamas as a makeshift apron. Seeing as it was covered with flour and eggs, Mikey was grateful.
“Hey, Baby.” Mikey gave her a squeeze and a kiss on the head.
“Morning,” Benny said, voice a little deeper than normal. His eyes sparkled, and he slouched against the counter in the cloud-soft low-slung sleep pants he loved to wear and Mikey’s old shirt. Mikey balled his hands into fists, fingernails biting into his palm, to keep from touching him.
If he had to lean up against Benny and reach over him to get a coffee mug out of the cabinet, well, that was completely accidental. Mikey leaned back briefly against him.
He turned around to get the creamer out of the fridge. As he did almost every time, he spent a couple of seconds reading the messages on the door. An erotic magnetic poetry set had joined Jasmine’s collection of paper hearts at the top of the freezer door where they were hopefully out of Jasmine’s eyesight. She was right on the verge of reading and never missed an opportunity to ask someone to read the words on everything for her.
Her magnetic words were on the bottom of the door. Today they read cat cat fat rat on mat.
He and Benny took turns writing poems for each other. This morning Benny had arranged the words to read “oh your saucy bologna makes me blush.” It could have been worse. Mikey took a few seconds to rearrange some words to read “listen to the slow intoxicate -ing sounds of pliant kiss -ing.” Having the -ings on separate magnets made for some grammatically incorrect word endings, but it would do.
Taking the creamer out of the fridge, his eyes lit on Julia’s picture as they always did. Benny had insisted on putting them in the same spot on the door they had been in Mikey’s house.
Even the menus from Vincent’s and the bite me heart had made the transition.
Benny turned up the music, and the singer blasting from the small Bluetooth speaker hit a particularly impressive high note. Jasmine pretended to sing it, too, flinging her arms wide and sending batter splattering across the kitchen.
Mikey sighed and grabbed a paper towel. “What are you listening to?”
Benny turned to him, holding the spatula and put his hands on his hips. “It’s Rent. You don’t know Rent?”
Mikey wiped the batter off the cabinet doors. “I mean, obviously I’ve heard of it. But I couldn’t tell you anything about it.”
Benny shook his head sadly. “They are going to kick you out of the club. That is a class one felony.”
“What club?” Jasmine asked.
Benny bent down and rubbed their noses together in an Eskimo kiss. “The cool people club. Because cool people love show tunes, right?”
“Right!”
Mikey frowned. “I bet you a dollar she didn’t even know what show tunes were an hour ago.”
“Yeah, because of your poor parenting. Thank God I’m here now.” Benny sang along with the next song, which was, as far as Mikey could tell, a song about writing a song. Benny had a pretty good voice. Not too high, not too low. Just perfect for Benny.
“I do too know show tunes.” Jasmine stomped her foot, making the chair she stood on wobble a little bit. “Benny played me one that Elsa sang. She’s famous. I’m going to be famous one day.”
“I have no doubt about that.” Mikey peered at the frying pan, willing the food to cook faster. “Is there bacon?”
Benny pointed with the spatula to a plate on the table. “But you have to wait until we all sit down. Right, DJ Jazzy Jeff?”
“Right. It’s polite.” Jasmine made a prissy face and blinked.
“So what kind of music do you listen to now,” Mikey asked, flipping a pancake onto a plate. “Opera? Classical? Smooth jazz?”
“I mostly listen to Disney songs. I know all the words to every song in the Lion King.” Mikey grabbed some plates from the cupboard and put them on the table. “I like the hyenas.”
Jasmine looked scandalized. “Those are the bad guys!”
“Sorry.”
“I know what your dad likes.” Benny put the plate of pancakes on the table. “Wash up, and I’ll find it.”
Mikey lifted Jasmine so she could wash her hands in the sink while Mikey frowned at his phone.
“Here we go,” he said, as Mikey pulled the dirty t-shirt carefully over Jasmine’s head.
The unmistakable opening notes of Tone-Loc’s “Wild Thing” blared from the speakers. Benny bit his lower lip and started dancing, hips swiveling as he slunk around the kitchen.
Mikey burst out laughing. “Oh god, I haven’t listened to that in forever.”
Benny danced over to him. “Sing it. Come on, you know you want to.” He shimmied as close to Mikey as he could get without actually touching. Holding a cup of coffee, Benny dropped it like it was hot and pushed himself back up slowly, thigh muscles bunching.
Mikey was going to kill him.
“Sing!” Jasmine ordered.
Mikey did, praying that Jasmine wasn’t paying close attention to the lyrics. “She loved to do the wild thing,” he sang. Benny wasn’t the only one who could play. Mikey danced close behind him, hips grinding against air as he sang the whole song.
Taking a risk while Jasmine was occupied with the bacon, Mikey brushed his hand across Benny’s ass. “Please baby
, please,” he whispered into Benny’s ear.
“Fucking tease,” Benny muttered under his breath.
“Food!” Jasmine demanded from the table when the song ended.
“Did you make shapes?” she asked as Benny slid pancakes onto her plate.
“Yep. This one is the sun. And this is a ball.” He picked up the last one and studied it with a serious expression. “And this one...this one is the full moon. Eat up!”
“Benny. You’re funny,” she giggled, reaching for the syrup.
“He thinks he is,” Mikey said, whisking the syrup out of reach and pouring a father-approved quantity on her pancakes.
Benny put the frying pan back on the stove and joined them at the table, bacon and pancakes disappearing quickly between the three of them.
“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Benny asked as they cleared off the table while Jasmine watched Frozen for the hundredth time in the living room. They had managed to fit Mikey’s old purple couch in the living room perpendicular to Benny’s heavy wood one. Jasmine sat on the purple couch, blanket on her lap and stuffed animal under her arm.
Mikey scraped the plates into the garbage can. “Absolutely nothing. I don’t feel like getting dressed. I thought I would hang around, do some chores. Maybe take a nap. I need to do Jasmine’s hair a bit. Maybe catch up on some paperwork.” His list of nothing kept growing. At least he wouldn’t have to put on real clothes.
Benny nodded quickly. “Good. Good. That all sounds, ah, good.” He rubbed his hand through his hair.
Mikey stood next to him by the sink and bumped his hip into Benny’s. “Is there something you wanted to do?”
Benny took a deep breath. “I was thinking of going to a meeting today.”
“A meeting? For what?” Mikey tried to remember if Benny had mentioned joining any type of group that might have meetings.
Benny raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice. “A meeting. AA.”
“Oh. Yeah. I mean, sure of course. Do you know where? I mean, have you gone before?”
