The Complete Veterans Affairs Romances: Gay Military Romances

by A. E. Wasp

  “Thank you. That’s a very generous offer. Can I get back to you in a few days? I need to talk it over with Benny.” Oh, look. His first time using his partner as an excuse. It did come in hand. And hopefully, he could get something else lined up in the next few days.

  Vincent stood up. “Sure thing. Think about it. It would be fun.” His fingers trailed over the spines of the books on the bookshelves as he walked back to Kevin.

  Kevin looked at Mikey. “Did you want to grab some lunch? That’s actually what we stopped in to ask.”

  Mikey waved his hand over the piles of red legal files on his desk. “I spend my lunch break on the phone. I’m going to catch up on some paperwork and make some more phone calls if you don’t mind.”

  Kevin shook his head, “Nope. Go right ahead. Please let us know if we can help in any way.”

  “I will. Thank you.” After Kevin and Vincent left, Mikey straightened out the frames on his desk and went back to work.

  chapter two - home chaotic home

  Coming home was the best part of Mikey’s day. He loved the little house they were renting from Jay-Cee, Benny’s boss. Every now and then he wondered if they’d ever been able to buy it from Jay-Cee. This side of the holidays, even the blanket of snow had lost some of its charm, but the way the lights from their cabin shone through the trees as he pulled in the driveway made Mikey feel safe and warm. Smoke drifted from the chimney up into the cloudless starry night. His feet crunched over the frozen snow as he walked to the door.

  Once inside, he kicked off his shoes and pulled his planner out of his briefcase. As he passed through the living room, the warmth from the wood stove in the corner sunk into his skin and he shivered. He’d been chilled all day. Dropping his briefcase on the coffee table, he followed the sounds of laughter into the kitchen.

  Benny and Jasmine sat at the kitchen table, working intently on something that involved piles of red and white tissue paper. Mike stopped at the table to distribute kisses. First to Jasmine.

  “Hi, Daddy.” Jasmine was focused intently on folding a stack of tissue paper back and forth like she was making a fan.

  “Hey, babe,” Benny said, tilting his head for a kiss as Mikey bent over him from behind. He smelled like wood smoke and white glue. There was silver glitter in his dark hair. “How was your day?”

  Poochie, Benny’s apricot Labradoodle, whined from his dog bed in the kitchen and thumped his heavy tail against the floor. The dog had beds everywhere, he was the most spoiled service dog ever. Mikey bent down and scratched his fluffy head. Poochie smelled like dog food. “You’re stinky.”

  “Don’t insult my dog.” Swiveling around on the bench, Benny reached out and wrapped his arm around Mikey’s hips and pulled him in, holding his face up for another kiss.

  Mikey obliged happily. “Work was pretty good. I’ve got a new case to work on. Nothing traumatic, just contract stuff.” He slid off Benny’s lap on the bench next to Jasmine, and she leaned against him.

  “Any luck with venues?” Benny asked.

  “Not yet. Few places said they’d call back.” He put the planner on the table. “I’ve added a few more places to the list that might have room for a little ceremony if you want to take a look later.”

  Mikey reached for what looked like a wadded up ball of tissue paper.

  “What are you guys making?”

  “Flowers for the wedding,” Jasmine answered. She held up a multi-colored explosion of tissue paper about eight inches across.

  Mikey guessed if you looked at it from the right angle it could look like a flower. “That’s great, baby.”

  “Yeah,” Benny agreed. “I found all these great ideas on Pinterest.”

  “And you say I’m the mom.”

  “You’re the one with the Moms group,” Benny reminded him. “Jasmine and I are artists,”

  They’d started going to the Unitarian church at Christmas after Jasmine asked why Santa Claus gave other people presents on Christmas if it was his birthday. It was okay, though some people still looked at them as if they were some sort of UU poster children: gay, young, and interracial. By the end of the first Sunday Mikey had been assimilated in the groups of moms, while Benny got to hang with that dads. Benny alternated between explaining that they sense Mikey’s intrinsic maternal energy, and insisting the women liked him better because Mikey was hot and they wanted an excuse to touch him.

  Mikey would have argued with him, but the women did seem to need to touch him to get his attention a lot. He’d gotten very good at slipping away to avoid the dreaded goodbye hugs.

  Mikey twirled the flower in his fingers. Small heaps of glue and glitter covered the table, and scraps of confetti littered the floor as if a ticker-tape parade had passed through the house. “Yeah, but I was kind of thinking real roses for decoration? Something tasteful, like one white rose in a vase for each table. I know they’re expensive this time of year, but we wouldn’t need that many. We’d only have about five tables, assuming round tables that fit six.”

  Benny looked at him in horror.

  “What?” He looked behind him as if something was sneaking up behind him.

  “Five tables won’t even hold the members of my family that are still talking to me. I have at least three cousins and their families that said yes.”

  Mikey had forgotten about the extended Quintaña family. In his defense, it had been a few years since he’d been back to their home town in New Mexico. With both his parents and Benny gone from the area, there really hadn’t been a reason for him to go back. “We don’t even have a hard date yet. How could they have RSVP’d already?”

  Benny shrugged. “They’re flexible. Tia Mary said she’ll make tamales. Do you want pork or chicken? Maybe we should have some of everything, just in case.

  “Yeah.” Jasmine chimed in, reaching for more tissue paper. “We’re gonna need a big room with lots of tables and lots of flowers. And I’m gonna bring all my friends and Daddy B’s friends from California with the funny names. And everybody will be dancing.” She wiggled in her seat. “And we’ll eat a huuugge cake and clang the glasses so you can kiss. We can throw the bookay but Daddy B says no smushing the cake. Oh, and the chicken dance! Do you know how to do the chicken dance? I do!” Jasmine jumped out of her chair and demonstrated, arms flapping while she hummed the worst tune Mikey had ever heard.

  Now it was Mikey’s turn to look horrified. “No. No peanut. It’s not…it’s not that kind of a wedding.” He turned to Benny. “Where is she getting this stuff?”

  Benny concentrated on folding his tissue paper just so. “We may have watched a few episodes of Bridezilla.”

  Poochie got up and walked over the fridge, pawing it open.

  “Poochie!” Benny said firmly. “Bed.”

  The dog gave him a mournful look and stuck his nose into Jasmine’s side for a pet. She giggled and threw her arms around his neck. He might not be the best service dog, but Benny and Jasmine loved the eighty-pound Muppet.

  “I started some chili for dinner,” Benny said. “Do you mind giving it a stir?”

  “Nope, let me get changed first.” He reached for the tissue paper flower Jasmine had made. “Can I have this one for my desk?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said magnanimously.

  Mikey stood up from the table, shaking his head at the sticky mess.

  chapter three - dirty pool

  Mikey loved climbing into bed at night with Benny. Before he’d moved in with Benny, Mikey’s bedroom had been just a utilitarian place to sleep. Now, thanks to Benny, the bedroom had become a sanctuary. Before Mikey and Jasmine had even moved into the house, Benny decorated it with thick velvet curtains, strings of multicolored lanterns, and art and rugs from his years of service in Southeast Asia with the Marines.

  Carpets and incense weren’t all he had brought back with him. Two explosions had left him with a traumatic brain injury that had recently developed into full-blown epilepsy. The soft lighting and quiet hush of the roo
m helped keep the headaches to a minimum and calmed him down when the stress started to build up.

  Soft ambient music played from the speakers Benny had stashed around the room, and light from Mikey’s reading lamp fell on the pages of his book. He felt Benny’s eyes on him, and he looked over the rim of his reading glasses to meet his gaze. Benny laid on his side, head propped up on his hand.

  “Yeah?” Mikey said, smiling.

  “I just like looking at you.”

  Mikey’s cheeks warmed a little, he still wasn’t quite used to Benny’s frank appreciation of his body.

  Benny fingers the soft, worn t-shirt Mikey wore. “I think this is my favorite look of yours.”

  “Really?” His hair was wrapped up in a silk scarf to protect his dreadlocks, his t-shirt was ten years old, and he wore the wire-rimmed reading glasses he thought made him look kind of dorky. Dorky or not, he was going to have to start bringing them to work.

  “Yeah.” Benny sat up and took the book out of Mikey’s hand, setting it back on the ziggurat of reading material balanced precariously on his nightstand. “I like it because I’m the only one who gets to see it. I like that you can let your hair down — or up, technically, — around me.” He knelt up and threw a leg over Mikey so he could straddle his hips. It was his favorite position, and who was Mikey to dissuade him?

  Mikey grabbed his hips, thumbs running along the seam of the loose boxers he slept in even on the coldest nights. Jasmine had been asleep long enough that Mike would be willing to have a little grown up time with Benny. He turned his head to check on the baby monitor he still kept on the dresser. He wasn’t ready to have a locked door between him and Jasmine, but he did like a little warning if she was wandering into their room in the middle of the night. The kid moved like a ninja.

  Benny draped his arms over Mikey’s shoulders, fingers sliding under the collar of his t-shirt. “Still want to marry me?” he asked, fingertips teasing at the short hairs on the back of Mikey’s neck.

  Mikey shivered. “Of course I still want to marry you. I asked you, and you said yes. No takebacks.” Mikey reached his head forward to kiss that spot on Benny’s neck that he loved.

  “I asked you,” Benny said, bending his neck to give Mikey better access.

  “Hmm umm,” Mikey said, mouth on Benny’s skin. He pulled off. “You asked me after I already asked you. Doesn’t count.”

  Benny cupped Mikey’s chin and tilted his head down to kiss Mikey. His free hand caressed the hard muscles of Mikey’s chest and arms. When they were both breathing heavily, and Mikey’s fingers were pressing hard into the skin on Benny’s hip, Benny pulled away.

  “We really should pick a date, then,” he said with a final nip to Mikey’s lip. “The church called, they had a last minute cancellation, and they could fit us in on Valentine’s Day.”

  Mikey’s stomach tightened, his arousal seeping away. “We talked about that. Valentine’s Day is a Tuesday. A work night. We can’t get married on a Tuesday.”

  “I admit, it’s not ideal. But it’s so romantic.” Benny fluttered his eyelashes and tilted his head coyly, smiling at Mikey.

  “You’re an idiot.” Mikey kissed him anyway, then reached for his planner, which now was speckled with chili and glitter. Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he flipped it open to the calendar and sighed.

  “Oh, that was very sexy librarian of you.” Benny wiggled on Mikey’s lap, grinding against him, before leaning back a little to give Mikey some room.

  Mikey put a hand on Benny’s hip to still him. “So, none of the places I called have space on Valentine’s Day, which I told you was going to be the case.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think we should push it back a couple of weeks.”

  “Oh, wait!” Benny slid awkwardly off Mikey’s lap, almost knocking the planner out of Mikey’s hand. “I had some ideas.” He pulled his jeans off the chair and rummaged through the pockets. “Some guy came into the studio today, says he might know of a space.” Benny came back to the bed with a fistful of paper scraps and folded business cards. Frowning, he sorted through them, squinting as he tried to read his own handwriting. He shoved Mikey’s legs over and squeezed himself on the edge of the bed.

  Absently, Mikey ran his hand over Benny’s leg while he contemplated his to do list. The courthouse was looking better and better. And maybe a nice brunch somewhere. Oh, maybe they could do the whole thing up in the mountains at some bed and breakfast. No, they didn’t have the budget for that. They barely had the budget for McDonald’s. Vincent would probably let them use the place for free. Mikey laughed briefly at the thought.

  “What’s so funny?” Benny paused in the middle of straightening out a piece of paper,

  “I was just thinking that with our budget, we should just take Vincent up on his offer and have the whole thing at his place. Could you imagine?”

  Benny’s mouth dropped open. “I can totally imagine! It would be perfect!”

  Oh god. Mikey thought quickly. “I thought you wanted a ‘real’ wedding?”

  “I do.”

  Mikey took his glasses off again and put them on the nightstand. “Well. I mean. This would just be a party at a bar. And not even a fancy bar like that Speakeasy one. Vincent’s is just a pub.”

  Benny frowned. “Sure. I mean, it isn’t the most elegant. But it would be affordable and big enough to fit all our friends.”

  Mikey ran his hand up Benny’s thigh, slipping his fingers under the leg opening of his boxer shorts, and murmured non-committedly.

  Benny squirmed as Mikey’s fingers found the crease of his thigh. He glanced at the baby monitor glowing a steady green on the dresser indicating Jasmine was sound asleep. Mikey kneaded the muscles on Benny’s neck with his free hand, and Benny groaned. “Want a back rub?” Mikey asked, hand sliding ever further up Benny’s thigh.

  “No fair,” Benny whined. “That’s dirty pool.”

  “Do you not want a backrub?” Mikey started to slide his hand out of Benny’s shorts. Benny grabbed his wrist and Mikey chuckled, fingers pressing harder into the always tense muscles of Benny’s shoulders. Sure, Benny loved sex, but he was a total slut for backrubs.

  Benny whined and sagged his shoulders. Then climbed over Mikey with a sigh and lay on his stomach on the bed. “No, I want a backrub. But don’t think I’m not on to you.”

  Mikey pulled the massage oil out of the nightstand, and then straddled Benny, putting his weight on his hips.

  Benny groaned at the first deep push of Mikey’s hands. He lifted his head and twisted around to face Mikey as best as he could. “There’s going to be sex, too, right?”

  Mikey pushed him back down to the bed, laughing. “Yes. Sex, too.”

  “I love you,” Benny mumbled into his crossed arms.

  “I love you, too.” He really did, more than he had ever imagined. So why was this wedding stressing him out so much?

  chapter four - it’s not me, it’s you

  Outside the high windows of the studio, the sun shone brightly in a relentlessly blue sky, sending columns of light cutting through the dust swirling in the open space. Beautiful, yes, but it made it hard for Benny to see what he was drawing.

  Shifting the monitor away from the glare, Benny squinted and zoomed in on his design. Usually, the earthy smell of the blocks of clay and the sound of Chris cursing as he tried to wrap chicken wire around wooden dowels as he built his armatures soothed Benny. But worry tickled in his stomach and the inspiration just wouldn’t come.

  Benny’s coworker and best friend Chris pushed off from his spot further down the shared workbench and rolled his wheeled stool over to Benny. He stopped his forward motion by crashing into Benny. “What’s shaking, homeslice?”

  Benny elbowed him away. “You know you’re like the whitest boy to ever white, right? Your skin is practically translucent.”

  “You’re just jealous of my pedigree and good breeding.” Chris smoothed down the spikes of his platinum-dyed hai
r, and pulled himself hand-over-hand back to Benny, metal wheels grinding on the concrete floor.

  “Yeah, you and Poochie have excellent pedigrees, right, Poochie?” Benny rubbed his feet along Poochie’s curly fur, drawing strength from the dog’s constant presence. He liked knowing he was never alone.

  From underneath the workbench, the dog barked his agreement, then returned to his contemplation of dust motes. Benny wondered how long it would take before he started trying to eat them.

  “So what are you working on?” Chris squinted at the monitor.

  “Trying to design our wedding rings. Jay-Cee said he would have them made if I got him a design.” Benny tilted the monitor so Chris could see. “What do you think?” He pointed at one on the left with an overlapping heart design. “This is Mikey’s. I’m trying to get some kind of three symbolism. You know, past-present-future. Me, Mikey, and Jasmine.”

  Chris nudged Benny out of the way and took the stylus from his fingers. “What if you have more kids?”

  “We’re really careful, Dad. We use condoms every time. Though I am thinking of going on the pill.”

  Chris tilted the monitor down to the more horizontal position he preferred over Benny’s vertical orientation. “Don’t get saucy with me, Béarnaise. You need like five rugrats running around.”

  “That house is so small, we’d have to stack them up in the corner like firewood. Could you imagine?” Though, they did have the one extra bedroom. Benny sighed and dropped his head down as Chris frowned at the monitor. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s beautiful, just a bit busy, and the hearts are the right motif. I’ve seen your fridge. I don’t think Jazzy can fit one more heart up there.” Chris worked the keyboard with both hands, flipping between the before and after versions of Benny’s design.

  “She’s moved on to paper flowers. She’s making them for the wedding she says.” Benny’s leg jittered, clanging against the rungs of the stool.

  Chris swiveled around to face him. “I don’t have time for a Quintaña crisis of confidence. What brought it on today?”