The Complete Veterans Affairs Romances: Gay Military Romances

by A. E. Wasp

  They walked back to her car. “Promise me you’ll talk to Benny tonight?”

  “I promise. And what is this about being single anyway?” He opened the door before she could answer. “Well?” he asked as she buckled her seatbelt.

  “Just haven’t met the right person yet, I guess.” She started the car, then looked in the mirror and backed skillfully out of the parking spot.

  Mikey mulled over his extremely short list of men he thought might be perfect for Vanessa. He should put Benny on the case. Vanessa deserved someone who could see how wonderful she was.

  chapter six - talk it out

  The atmosphere in the house was a little odd that evening, and it had Benny on edge. Far from being angry or distant, both of which Benny had expected after their abortive attempt at discussing wedding plans last night, Mikey actually seemed in a better mood than he had been lately; touching Benny more, asking Jasmine to show him what she’d been working on. They even played Candyland, and Mikey despised Candyland. Privately, Benny thought it was because he lost a lot. But there was a sadness about him that Benny hadn’t felt before.

  It was Mikey’s turn to put Jasmine to bed, a production that could take an hour or more from start to finish. Benny cleaned the kitchen and puttered around the living room, straightening already-straightened art supplies and cushions. He found himself actually a bit nervous about what might happen when Mikey came back downstairs. Poochie must have picked up on his nervousness because he followed a half a step behind Benny the whole time. After the third time he tripped over the big dog, he ordered him to his living room dog bed.

  Benny turned the television on, turning the volume down low and the captions on. They’d gotten used to watching TV that way. All the voices sounded muddled to Benny anyway. Hearing loss was just another souvenir of his time in the Marines. And sometimes simply the noise of the TV got to him. With the captions on, he could follow the story and enjoy the visuals. Mikey had started playing some of his jazz favorites as they watched. Benny had given him crap for it at the beginning, but it was starting to grow on him. He stretched out on the purple couch that had made the move from Mikey’s parents’ house in New Mexico to their house in Colorado.

  Mikey walked down the steps and into the living room. He’d changed into his sweats and a t-shirt. The soft smile on his face when he saw Benny eased the bands of worry about Benny’s heart a little.

  “Hey,” Mikey said as if they hadn’t spent the whole evening together.

  “Hey.”

  Mikey walked to the couch and leaned over Benny, kissing him gently.

  Benny reached up and put his hand on Mikey’s head, holding him close for a second.

  Mikey pulled away. “We have to talk.”

  Oh great. “Four scariest words in the English language. Probably in Spanish, too, but then it would only be two.” Benny swung his legs off the couch and made room for Mikey.

  Mikey looked around the room as if it was his first time seeing it. Benny looked with him, trying to see what he was seeing.

  “I love those photos,” Mikey said, pointing at the pictures Benny had framed and hung on the walls. They were some of Benny’s Photoshop experiments. Pictures of Jasmine, Mikey, and Benny shopped into different locations – walking by the pyramids, canoeing down the Amazon River, and with their faces superimposed on Mt. Rushmore. Poochie’s profile filled in for the fourth president.

  “Just say what you have to say,” Benny begged. “I’m dying here. And I have brain damage.” Another souvenir of the war. “Stress is bad for me.”

  Mike shook his head, laughing, and dragged Benny’s legs onto his lap. He started massaging Benny’s feet, and Benny relaxed further. No one broke up with someone while giving them a foot massage, right? “You wouldn’t break up with me while giving me a foot rub, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t break up with you at all,” Mikey said quietly.

  “Oh, thank god.”

  Mikey’s hands moved up to Benny’s shins. He wouldn’t make eye contact, but Benny was okay with that. He was down with whatever Mikey had to do in order to get out what he needed to say.

  “I’m sorry I ever gave you a reason to think I would leave you. And sorry I’ve been so difficult lately,” Mikey said. “I know I’ve been kind of a dick.”

  “No. Don’t say that.”

  “Just let me say this. I know I haven’t been behind you in planning this wedding. I know you and Jasmine have been trying to hold onto the excitement, and I’m just this black cloud bringing you down.” His hands dug in hard to Benny’s calves.

  Benny blinked back the sudden tears. It hurt to hear it, but in a way, it was a relief to know he wasn’t crazy. Crazier. He let out a huge sigh as some of the tension he’d been carrying left his body. He hadn’t realized how hard he had been working to convince himself that he was just imaging Mikey’s reluctance. But convincing himself he was paranoid was less painful than thinking that maybe Mikey really didn’t want to get married. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “That kind of sucks.”

  Mikey leaned over and kissed Benny’s knee. “I know. And I’m so sorry. But I want you to know, it was not about you or even about you and me. I love you, and I want to be married to you.”

  “Then what is it?” He grabbed Mikey’s hand, and Mikey held on tight.

  “It’s Julia.”

  Benny hadn’t expected that. Mikey didn’t talk about her all that much, and he had no friends left from that time in his life to give Benny any more insight. From the few stories Benny had heard about her, she sounded like she had been a great person. “What about Julia?”

  “I’m mad about her. Vanessa helped me see it today at lunch. I hadn’t realized I’d been so angry.”

  “At me?”

  Mikey shook his head hard, dreadlocks slapping against the back of the couch. “No. At the universe. At everything. And how unfair life is.”

  Benny leaned his head back against the arm of the couch. That he knew a lot about. Where to even start? The IED? The traumatic brain injury? The other than honorable discharge he was currently fighting to get changed? Sometimes stuff just sucked. But he still isn’t quite sure what Mikey is thinking. “So are you angry at Julia for dying?”

  “No. I didn’t tell you this, and I don’t know why, but we actually had been planning to get married. Had the place picked out and everything.” Mikey’s smile was sad.

  Now it was starting to make sense. “Oh. Let me guess. A small elegant place with a judge marrying you?” Benny wasn’t even remotely angry. That’s all he had wanted. To know what was going on.

  Mike laughed sadly. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Are you sure you want to do this? Do you want to wait? We don’t have to get married right now. I’m not going anywhere.” He scooted down the couch so that Mikey was tucked up under his knees.

  “I really do want to marry you,” Mikey smiled, his fingers trailing over Benny’s knees. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, and I want to marry you. Which is ridiculous somehow.” How had they gone from best friends in high school to strangers to this?

  “Isn’t it though?” Mikey gave his attention to Benny’s knees.

  Benny groaned. “You are so good at that. You should think of a career change. Lawyers are a dime a dozen. But massage therapists are worth their weight in gold.”

  “Maybe I switch. What’s a little poverty among friends?”

  Mikey’s hands kept up their magic, so Benny didn’t say anything, but he slate that conversation for another time. They’d both eventually have to make some hard plans about the future.

  “So,” Mikey said, interrupting Benny’s train of thought. “You said the church is available on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Yeah,” Benny said cautiously. “At least it was a few days ago.”

  Mikey nodded. “And you’re okay with chicken strips and French fries at Vincent’s for a reception?”

  Benny could feel the grin spreading
across his face, he couldn’t have held it back if he tried. “Well, they are Jasmine’s favorites.”

  Benny tugged Mikey up until they lay next to each other on the wide, old couch. He could hear the wind blowing through the pine trees outside the window. The temperature was dropping back down, and the weathermen were predicting more snow. Benny loved the feeling of being snowed in. Nothing beat a fire in his wood stove, something good smelling on the stove, and the people he loved more than anything in the world safe at home with him. If that made him old at twenty-six, then he was old. He could live with that.

  He kissed the top of Mikey’s head where it lay on his chest, and rubbed up and down his arm. Mikey didn’t enjoy the winter at all, he was always cold. Benny pulled the blanket down from the back of the couch and tucked it around Mikey. “So, not to push my luck too much. But have you given any thought to the wedding ceremony?”

  “Not as much as you have, I bet.”

  A wedding wasn’t something Benny had ever given any thought to before it became imminent in his life. But the more real it became, the more he found he cared about it. “Promise me you won’t freak out?”

  “I promise,” Mikey said, closing his eyes and snuggling against Benny.

  “I want to do it all. I’m only doing this once. I want it to be special.”

  “Aw, do you have a scrapbook under your pillow?” Mikey teased. “Copies of Brides Magazine?”

  “Shut up. Admit it, you want to wear a tux.”

  Mikey frowned thoughtfully. “I would look good in a tux.”

  “You would look amazing in a tux. You could start a riot.” Benny pushed himself up until he could look Mikey in the eyes. “Come on. Picture it. Jasmine as the flower girl. Sweetie as the ring bearer, rings tied to her collar or maybe on her back, I haven’t decided. My mom crying because she loves you. Your mom crying because she hates me. Honey D and Venus all decked out as my bridesmaids. Vanessa as your best woman. Flowers everywhere. And the view out the windows of the sanctuary? Gorgeous, snow-capped mountains.”

  Mikey stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “How do you figure out who does what with two guys? Who walks down the aisle? Who’s waiting at the front?”

  Benny slid back down, tucking Mikey back under his arm. “That’s easy. We all know you’re the girl. You got the hair and the Mommy and Me group.”

  Mikey poked him in the stomach. “You’re the one with the Pinterest page. You cried at Up.”

  “Everyone cries at Up! People in a coma would cry at that stupid thing.”

  Mikey shifted until he was laying over Benny, arms on either side of him.

  Benny smiled wide and mentally blessed Mikey’s parents for both their genetic contributions to the man on top of him and the width of the couch underneath him.

  “I’m all man, baby.”

  “Yeah?” Benny slid his hands under Mikey’s shirt.

  “Yeah.” Mikey kissed him, lightly, just a little touch of his tongue to Benny’s lips. “Want me to prove it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Want to go upstairs or stay here?”

  Benny looked at the room, full of their photos and their coats on the rack in the hallway, the shelf of art supplies and books. “Here’s good.”

  “Here is good,” Mikey agreed and kissed Benny until Benny had his legs wrapped about Mikey’s and he had to pull away to get his breathing under control.

  “Do you know how many times I imagined you doing that to me on this couch?” he asked Mikey.

  Mikey’s brow furrowed in fake concentration. “Five?”

  “At least.” Benny squeezed his legs around Mikey’s hips and thrust up against his solid weight with a groan. “Once, when your mom called you upstairs to yell at you for something, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was after one of our football games, you were fresh from the shower and just wearing some shorts, and I’d been standing behind you staring at your ass the whole game.”

  Mikey wrapped a hand around Benny’s leg and hitched his thigh higher, pressing them even closer together. “Truthfully, I’m surprised you could ever catch a ball with all those tight pants around.”

  Benny raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I caught a lot of balls when I was on the team.”

  “Tramp.” Mikey slid a hand between them and pinched one of Benny’s nipples. Benny gasped. “How come you never made a move on me?”

  Benny cupped Mikey’s face in his hands and traced his lips with his thumbs. Mikey’s voice always held a tiny thread of jealousy whenever Benny brought up his high school days, even though he hadn’t gone very far with anyone back then. “I couldn’t risk it,” Benny said seriously. “Your friendship was the best thing in my life. I wanted you more than anything, and sometimes I thought, you know, I felt something from you. But, man, what if I tried something and I was wrong, and you stopped being my friend?” He kissed Mikey gently. “Being your friend was worth all the blue balls in the world.”

  Mikey laughed, dark eyes sparkling. “You say the most romantic things.”

  “I’m an artist. We’re very sensitive,” Benny said seriously.

  “So what did you do that night? When my mother called me?” He pulled away when Benny tried to kiss him. “Details.”

  “How about I show you?” Benny asked with a wicked grin.

  Mikey’s eyes widened, and he scrambled backward off Benny. “Show me.”

  Benny smiled and pushed himself up until he sat with his back against the arm of the chair. Reaching behind him, he pulled his t-shirt off with one hand. “Well, if I remember correctly, I wasn’t wearing a shirt.” He popped the buttons of his jeans. “And just shorts.”

  “Should probably take these off of then,” Mikey suggested, tugging at Benny’s jeans.

  “Probably.” Benny unzipped them and lifted his hips for Mikey to slowly tug them down his legs.

  Mikey stared at the soft bulge in Benny’s tight boxer briefs. It grew larger as he looked at it. “How come I never noticed you getting hard around me?” He put a hand between his legs, just covering Benny’s growing erection.

  Benny moved Mikey’s hand away. “No touching. That never happened then, no matter how much I prayed it would. And you never noticed because you had all those throw pillows around. Why do you think I had one in my lap half the time?”

  “You said it felt good!”

  Benny laughed silently as he sat up, swinging his legs down to the floor. “Yeah. It felt good because I was humping your mom’s pillows, dude.”

  Mikey laughed out loud. “My mother would have killed you.”

  Benny slid his hands into his shorts, and Mikey stopped laughing. He watched, eyes growing darker with desire as Benny rubbed himself. Mikey reached for him, and Benny breathlessly slapped his hand away. “You weren’t there.”

  Mikey slid in close to Benny, pressed against his side, and whispered in his ear. “What would you have done if I came downstairs and caught you like that?”

  Benny’s breath hitched. “That’s what I was imaging then.” His chest lifted and his breathing got deeper.

  Mikey flicked Benny’s earlobe with his tongue. “Yeah?” He bit it gently. “What did you imagine? Tell me how you wanted it to go.” He pulled away, and Benny whimpered. “Show me.”

  Benny wrapped a hand around his cock, jerking himself slowly. “I keep thinking about it. Imagine you coming down the stairs, stopping dead. Looking me right in the eye from across the room.” Benny could see it clear as day. A much skinnier Mikey, hair cut close to his scalp, in nothing but small red shorts, chest gleaming in the hot night air. He closed his eyes to see the past better, hand speeding up.

  Mikey’s hand on his arm slowed him down. “Go slow. Did you keep your shorts on or pull them off when I saw you?” Mikey dragged a fingernail across the soft skin of Benny’s wrist.

  “Pulled them down. So you could see how hard you made me.”

  Mikey slipped one finger under Benny’s tight briefs and slid them down. Benny shuddered as the cool air
of the room blew across the wet head of his cock. “Then what?”

  He made Benny tell him every detail of his teenaged fantasies, never letting him stop touching himself as he did. Mikey bit right at Benny’s jaw or flicked a finger across his nipples as Benny told him how he’d imagine Mikey walking slowly towards him and falling to his knees between Benny’s legs. Benny felt the flush spreading across his chest as his hand sped up and his hips lifted off the couch.

  “Stop,” Mikey said, touching Benny’s arm.

  Benny did, every muscle trembling as he hovered on the edge.

  “Do it slow,” Mikey said, deep voice right in his ear. “Just don’t come yet.”

  Benny groaned and loosened his grip, touching himself as lightly as slowly as he dared.

  “I remember that night, you know. I remember everything.” Mikey nudged Benny’s chin up and licked and bit up his neck until Benny had to let go of his cock or it was all going to be over. And he didn’t want it to be over. Ever.

  “You don’t,” Benny said, voice trembling. “You don’t remember.”

  Mikey pulled away. “Keep that hand moving, and I’ll tell you.”

  Benny could hear the smile in his voice. The fucker. But he started again, stomach muscles tightening and thighs trembling with the effort of holding back his orgasm.

  “Good boy.”

  Benny was going to kill him. Right after he came. Or maybe an hour later, after he recovered. “Tell me,” he begged. “Prove it.”

  Mikey spread his legs, pushing against Benny and Benny could see his erection straining against the soft sleep pants. “You were wearing those cutoff sweatpants shorts, those ancient gray ones, with no underwear.”

  Oh, fuck. He did remember. Benny shuddered. “Yeah,” Benny panted. “I was.”

  “I could see right up them if you moved the right way. I kept wanting to tell you, to make a joke of it, but every time I did, something held me back.”

  “Oh. you perv,” Benny breathed out.

  “I didn’t know what I was feeling. Watching you, it got me hard. It was the first time I realized it might be you getting me hard and not just random horniess. And I kept trying to get a better look at your dick.” Mikey pulled Benny’s legs apart with one hand, being careful not to touch him. “And then you put that damn pillow on your lap.”