by A. E. Wasp
A solid half of the three-tiered wedding cake was left. Chris had a feeling they’d all be eating leftover cake until they were sick of it.
Honey Dijon had been playing DJ all night, but she’d switched the karaoke machine to shuffle, and now random songs played over the speakers while the lyrics scrolled across a screen behind the stage.
From behind the bar, Chris munched on a leftover carrot stick and surveyed the group of people that had become his family in the last six months.
He found it hard to take his eyes off Jay-Cee. The blue velvet tuxedo jacket with black lapels Jay-Cee wore could have looked ridiculous, but it made Jay-Cee’s eyes look electric blue and went perfectly with his silver hair. His black trousers made his ass look amazing, and Chris had already molested him in the bathroom a few times during the party. Nothing serious, just enough kissing and rubbing to keep them both on edge half the night. Just the way they both liked it.
They weren’t the only ones affected by how gorgeous everyone looked.
On a search for more beer, he’d walked in on Mikey pressing Benny into the wall of the storeroom and going to town on his mouth and neck. From the sounds Benny had been making, Benny was a happy man. When Mikey dropped to his knees, Benny saw Chris watching and smiled. When Benny put his hands gently on Mikey’s head, Chris was half-tempted to stay but decided against it.
Angel sat slumped on one of the couches, high heeled shoes off and a crumpled bouquet of paper roses wedged between her hip and the arm of the couch. Mikey’s sister, Vanessa, sat on the other end of the couch. Between them, Mikey’s daughter Jasmine slept curled up with Benny’s Labradoodle service dog, Poochie.
Angel and Vanessa had spent a lot of time together during the party and they seemed awfully chummy. Chris caught Angel’s eyes from across the room. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head meaningfully in Vanessa’s direction.
Angel shrugged, but her face lit up, and she smiled. Chris gave her a thumbs up and silently wished her luck. Crushes on straight girls often ended in crying and late nice ice cream runs, but he’d been wondering how straight Vanessa actually was.
She was a hottie with a body like her brother, but was still single at 28 and hadn’t dated anybody as long as Chris had known her. Mikey was bisexual. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Vanessa was, too.
Dmitri and Mikey had claimed the other couch. Mikey had taken off his tux jacket a while ago and rolled up the sleeves on his white shirt. He’d left the tie and vest on. The white flowers Jasmine had tucked into his dreadlocks were a little worse for the wear.
Danny, Vincent’s cute blonde barback, came behind the bar with a handful of dirty glasses and lowered them gently into the sink.
“Danny, take a break,” Chris said. “Vincent said he’s got people coming in tomorrow to clean up.”
Danny sighed, head hung down and long strands of hair hiding his eyes. Uh-oh. Chris knew that look. He scanned the crowd for the cute Indian guy Danny had been hanging around all night. No luck. “Boy troubles?” he asked.
Danny nodded and leaned on the bar next to Chris. “Ravi dumped me.”
Chris laid a hand on his back. “Ouch. At a wedding. That sucks.”
“What sucks?” Benny called from what Chris had dubbed the War Table.
“Danny got dumped,” Chris said. Danny dropped his face into his hands.
“Chris!” Angel admonished him.
“What? That’s what he said.”
“You don’t have to be so blunt about it.”
Benny raised his class to Danny. “Embrace the suck that is love, my man.”
Danny’s epic eye roll reminded Chris that the kid was still in his teens. “Whatever. This is, like, your actual wedding, dude. That’s the total opposite of being dumped.”
“Aw, honey, it will be okay,” Aunt Sissy said from where she sat holding court. “You’re young and adorable. Some wonderful guy will come and sweep you off your feet, trust me,”
Chris knew Jay-Cee was thrilled that Aunt Sissy was there.
When Chris and Jay-Cee had gone back to New York over Christmas to spend time with both their families, they had ended up spending a lot of time with Aunt Sissy. After hearing stories of their friends, she insisted they Skype everyone to say Merry Christmas. She’d charmed them all, exchanged phone numbers with them, and become the unofficial Aunt of the group.
Born in 1942, she’d had a crazy life and never ran out of stories to tell. She was a mad texter, and they could count on getting encouraging messages, bad memes, and dad jokes a couple of times a week.
There was no way she would have missed the wedding.
Once Vincent found out Aunt Sissy had been in Vietnam with the WACs the same years he had been over there, he had claimed her as a big sister and told her all her food and drink from now on was on the house.
Chris had loved getting to know Benny’s friends from San Diego, Venus Di MileHiLo and Honey Dijon, the gorgeous drag queens that had rescued Benny off the streets and sent him to Jay-Cee. Out of drag Honey’s was Raul, and they were Jay-Cee’s old army buddy.
All of the veterans had pushed two tables together and had been telling war stories for the last half-hour.
“So what’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you in the army, Troy?” Benny asked.
Troy looked at the ceiling, hand resting on the head of his yellow lab service dog. Unlike Poochie, Sweetie was still on the clock.
There had been a lot of people at the wedding, and crowds were sometimes hard for Troy. Chris had watched Sweetie insert herself between Troy and strangers who stood too close, or gently lean against Troy’s legs when he started to get a trapped look is his eyes.
Poochie was useless for stuff like that. He was highly intelligent, but over-enthusiastic and kind of goofy, much like Benny. He also adored Jay-Cee as much as he loved Benny, and could often be found lying with his head on Jay-Cee’s feet. But the dog had an uncanny ability to sense seizures minutes before Benny felt them. When he alerted Benny, he wouldn’t relax until Benny was lying down somewhere safe, and then Poochie would lie next to him, head on Benny’s chest until the seizure had passed.
It had only happened once at work, and that was enough for Chris. He would buy that dog fresh ground Kobe steak to eat if he kept Benny safe.
“Funniest thing that I can remember right now,” Troy said smiling lazily, his West Virginia accent strong after a few drinks and hours of talking. “I was at basic, trainin’ combatives. I’m rolling around with this other private. Good guy from Mississippi. Strapping young farm boy. I didn’t really know him that well. Yet.”
Dmitri laughed and got up from the couch. He headed to the bar and reached over it to grab a cold beer from the cooler. “This is my favorite story,” he said to Chris, then ambled over to stand next to Troy.
Troy wrapped an arm around Dmitri’s hip. “So, we’re grapplin’, then a series of unfortunate events occurs. The guy gets me down on my back.”
Dmitri interrupted. “You mean you let him pin you.”
“Yes, of course.” Troy grabbed the bottle from Dmitri’s hand and took a long sip.
“Hey!” He reached for his beer, but Troy blocked him.
“You gonna stop interrupting?”
“Yes.” Dmitri crossed his heart.
“Then here.” Troy handed Dmitri his beer back and pulled him onto his lap. “So, as I was saying, I let this fella pin me, and he comes up onto a front mount, straddling my chest with his knees, right?”
His listeners nod appropriately.
Troy leaned forward, Dmitri braced himself with an arm around Troy’s neck. “Now, I don’t know how it was for y’all, but that regulation underwear is not the most comfortable thing. So many a recruit has been known to skip that part of the uniform.”
“Do they call that going commando if you’re actually in the military?” Chris asked.
“They do indeed,” Benny answered.
“So this guy is straddling me, and his ACUs must
have had a hard life because as soon as he stretches over me, those things just split—” Troy makes a ripping sound and knifes his hand in the air “—right up the crotch. Bam, this guy’s junk just comes falling out, right onto my chest. Practically on my chin! The poor guy was horrified. I never saw someone’s eyes open so wide.”
“What did you do?” Mikey asked.
“I froze. He froze. We stared at each other. I may have snuck a peek.”
Everyone laughed.
“How was it?” Honey asked, leaning forward and batting her false eyelashes.
Troy raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Pretty impressive, I gotta say. And he was a natural blond, too. I like the blond ones,” Troy said, ruffling Dmitri’s hair.
Dmitri smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me while you’re talking about ogling another man’s goods.”
“So what happened then?” Honey asked. “Because I think I saw this video on Pornhub.”
“I told him a guy usually buys me a drink first before they dump their balls on my face. He turned about eight different shades of red.”
Chris laughed out loud. Troy was usually so quiet and polite. It was fun to see him with a few drinks in him and feeling relaxed.
“He caught up with me after and apologized about ten times, and asked how he could make it up to me.” Troy took another sip of Dmitri’s beer. “So, I told him if he wanted to practice that move again sometime, I would help him out. He was mighty grateful.”
Dmitri hit him on the back of the head. “I bet you helped him out.”
“What can I say? I’m a giver.”
“Oh my God,” Kevin said loudly as the song switched. “Is that what I think it is?”
Chris listened, trying to make out the song.
“It is,” Vincent said, laughing. He jumped up and held out his hand for Kevin. “It’s fun to stay at the YMCA,” he sang.
They were up on the dance floor in a flash, marching in place, and singing. The words scrolled across the song and Sissy and Jay-Cee joined in.
“You know this song?” Chris asked Jay-Cee incredulously.
Jay-Cee just pointed his arm straight out at him and sang louder.
“Oh my God,” Chris laughed.
Benny whistled loudly at Kevin and Vincent shaking their groove things on the dance floor. At almost seventy-five, Kevin was gray-haired and slender but not frail. Ten years younger than his husband, Vincent was short and stocky, with broad shoulders and thick dark hair; an Italian-American transplant from New York. They laughed and sang as they danced.
Honey and Venus joined in, pulling Jay-Cee along with them. Chris couldn’t believe his eyes as Jay-Cee joined the line on the dance floor clapping his hands and spelling out Y-M-C-A with his arms.
The cheering and hooting from the sidelines woke Jasmine and Poochie. Poochie barked wildly, and Jasmine begged to dance, too.
“Wait, wait,” Angel said, struggling to her feet. Frowning at the laptop powering the karaoke, she pecked away at the keyboard until a video with the original Village People in full costume played on the screen.
“Oh, yes!” Benny yelled, and the song started again. Troy jumped up and grabbed his camera. Laughing almost too hard to walk, Chris joined Benny at the table.
“Shake it, baby!” Chris yelled to Jay-Cee.
Jay-Cee smiled as wide as Chris had ever seen him, and he looked years younger as he danced. His eyes never left Chris, and Chris started to get less amused and more turned on. He wolf-whistled at the crowd.
“Good dancing, Honey!” Vanessa cheered Jasmine on.
Troy snapped picture after picture.
Benny laughed so hard he choked on his soda and Mikey thumped him hard on the back. “We are totally doing that for Halloween,” Benny said, pointing at the screen.
“Dibs on the leather guy for Jay-Cee,” Chris called out.
“Only if he does the mustache, too,” Aunt Sissy said, bopping in her chair and clapping along with the music.
Chris couldn’t look away from Jay-Cee. He was happy and having fun and staring at Chris like he wanted to drag him off to the bathroom and have his way with him. Sounded like a plan to Chris. It was time for them to leave anyway.
The song faded away, and Benny, Mikey, and Chris jumped to their feet clapping and cheering.
“Encore, encore!” Benny cried.
Kevin shook his head, breathing hard. “No way. I’ll leave that for you youngsters.”
“Hey, Jay-Cee, you stud,” Chris yelled, hoping Jay-Cee remembered watching Top Gun with Benny and Mikey a few nights ago for their monthly gayest-straight movies marathon night.
“That’s me, Honey,” Jay-Cee yelled back with a huge grin. Oh, yeah, he remembered.
“Don’t say it,” Benny cautioned, shoving Chris.
Chris shoved him back. “Take me to bed or lose me forever!”
Benny smacked him upside the back of his head. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Jay-Cee does have the moves,” Mikey admitted, blatantly ogling Jay-Cee.
Jay-Cee walked over to Chris. “Show me the way home, Honey.”
Chris jumped into Jay-Cee’s arms, while Benny and Troy hooted and hollered.
“You heard the man,” Jay-Cee said, holding Chris up easily. “I can’t disobey a direct order.”
“On that note,” Vanessa said. “I think it’s time to take little girls home.”
“And big girls,” Angel agreed. “I’m beat.”
It took a couple of minutes to divvy up the leftover food and cake. As Chris had predicted, everyone had several Styrofoam boxes of cake to take home.
“Troy, I’m going to need those pictures of Jay-Cee dancing as soon as possible,” Chris said.
“That reminds me,” Jay-Cee said to Benny. “When you get back from the honeymoon we can start working on that photo project with the group.”
“Sounds good to me. That work for you?” Benny asked Troy.
“Yep.”
The photo project was going to be the first program of the Arts Therapy for Veterans Foundation Jay-Cee and Chris had set up. Working with the University Student Veterans group and the Arts Department, they had come up with some ideas. They had added onto Jay-Cee’s studio and now had some group art space and a painting studio for Chris.
The photo project had come about when Benny mentioned how many photos and videos he and his buddies had, and how few official photos there were. He told them about Mikey finding the video of Benny’s MRAP getting blown up and how it had made everything Benny was talking about real.
Troy said his mom had been traumatized when she accidentally saw some of his photos from the field. He’d forgotten his phone was still on a family plan, and the photos automatically saved themselves to the cloud.
It had taken six months, but Jay-Cee, Chris, and Benny had created a new collection of sculptures and paintings. The first showing would be when they officially opened the Art Center doors.
Vincent flicked the lights off, and they made their way into the cold February night. Hugs and kisses were made in many different combinations until Chris was laughing at the confusion.
Chris grabbed Benny before he could get into the car. “I love you, man. I’m so happy for you.”
Benny hugged him back tightly. “I’m so happy for you, too. Can you believe this last year?”
“Not really.” Tears of happiness pricked at Chris’s eyelids. “It’s like I have this whole family now, you know? I didn’t realize how alone I was. And I owe this all to you. I wouldn’t have met any of these people without you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have made it through this first year sober without you,” Benny said, ending the hug, but keeping his arm around Chris. He nodded towards Jay-Cee’s car. “I think your man is looking for you.”
Chris reached out and hugged Mikey hard. “Take care of my boy,” he said, voice rough.
“You know I always do.” Mikey thumped him on the back.
Benny pushed Chris towards
Jay-Cee. “Go. It’s freezing, and we have to get Jasmine to bed.” He called to Jay-Cee as Chris made his way to the car. “Hey, Major. Take care of Chris while I’m away. I expect him in tip-top shape when I get back.”
Jay-Cee pulled Chris against him, and Chris relaxed into his warmth. “I make no promises, but I’ll do my best.”
Benny saluted, then got into the car.
“I’ll take care of you when we get home,” Jay-Cee whispered into Chris’s ear. He slid his arms under Chris’s overcoat and grabbed his ass with both hands. “How does that sound?”
In reply, Chris pulled Jay-Cee’s face towards him for a long, deep kiss.
The blare of the car horn two inches from their heads made them jump apart. Aunt Sissy leaned over the front seat, her hand on the steering wheel. “Get a room,” she called through the closed window. “I’m old. Take me to my hotel. I need my sleep.”
Jay-Cee laughed and swatted Chris on the butt. “You heard the lady. Get in the car.”
Later that night, they were finally showered, naked, and tucked up in Chris’s big canopy bed. It had been a bitch to get the bed into Jay-Cee’s apartment, but it had been totally worth it.
Jay-Cee tucked Chris under his chin with a sigh. It was Chris’s favorite place to be. He rubbed his hand across Jay-Cee’s chest, his fingers lingering on his newest tattoo. A line of text in French script circling a beautiful red rose, the tattoo was only a few days old, and Chris had a matching one on his inner arm.
“Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé,” Chris read. “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. Pour toujours. That’s a long time.”
“Yes, it is,” Jay-Cee agreed. He pulled Chris’s arm up to his mouth and kissed along the still-tender skin. “Having second thoughts?”
“Never,” Chris said. He pushed himself on top of Jay-Cee, straddling his hips, and bracing his hands against Jay-Cee’s chest. “Are you?”
Jay-Cee wrapped his hands around Chris’s hips, his thumbs caressing the bone there and sliding into the crease of his thighs. “Never.”
“Good.” And it was. Everything with Jay-Cee was so good, Chris sometimes got frightened with the enormity of what he had to lose. He slid down, stretching out along Jay-Cee’s body, and resting his mouth against Jay-Cee’s lips. “Love me?”
