by Jenny Wood
“Fuck, baby, get ready,” it’s my turn to growl, though I hate myself for slipping the ‘baby’. This guy isn’t Shade, I have to remember that. I don’t even remember his name.
“Hurry,” he whines, needy and ready, probably not even hearing my Freudian slip. I work myself deep inside him, slowly at first, but harder with each “yes”. I fuck him until he screams his release and splatters his hot seed down the wall. I wrap my fingers around his throat, pulling him up and roughly back into me as he lets his head fall to my shoulder, searching for my release. His noises are sexy, and although nothing like I imagine Shade’s would be now, they are enough to get me off.
I hate myself as I wrap him up in my arms and slowly slide myself in and out of him, bringing us both down from what I knew was a good time for both of us. Just because I’m an asshole that thought about someone else while I’m fucking him, didn’t mean I’d treat him like shit. I kiss his shoulder, rubbing his big body as I slowly pull out and take a step back. He smiles sweetly when I bring him a wet towel and his shyness after the fact is kind of endearing.
We spend the rest of the night just hanging out, watching a movie while I order pizza. It was friendly and only a little bit awkward in the beginning. I can see myself hanging out with him again, as friends or whatever, but that is all I could do. I’ve been asked out plenty of times over the last few years, but nothing ever seems to stick. I have this little log cabin that I made my home and a gym that I am investing in and helping to fix up. I have a junkie mom that’s in rehab right now, and I have my best friend. I tell myself that it’s all I need, but, really, it’s all I need.
Shade’s mom passed away last year from congestive heart failure. She’d had a defect that she was born with, that the doctors say that no one could’ve detected unless they had reason to look. She was otherwise healthy, but it was just one of those things. He and his dad had been so lost, and if I was honest, she was the mom I’d always wanted, so I had been a little bit, too. I spent weeks at their houses, cooking, and cleaning and keeping them put together. Then one day, they woke up and it was like both of them were ready to live again.
They still have hard days, sure, but they have each other. And I won’t ever stop being there for either of them, even if it hurts me a little bit every time to do it. I figured that if I want to keep Shade in my life forever, that this is the relationship we need. So, I kept it there.
We’re best friends. It’s all we’ll ever be, and I’m okay with that because I’d rather have him in the ways I could keep him, rather than risk having him in the way I really want him and then losing him.
So, it might suck to see him dating and it’ll hurt like hell to see him get married and start a family of his own one day… I won’t get to hug him and hold him and love on him like I want to, but I’ll get to love his kids and I’ll still be his family. I can’t love him, love him, but I can love him in silence, like I have since I was six years old. Even if I have to use replacements for him in times like these to do it.
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Present Day
May 2019
30 years old
“Stop squirming, you giant ass baby!” Kayson chides, digging the needles deeper into my ribs. Deeper than I feel he needs to.
“Fuckin’ hell, man. Are you trying to inscribe the words onto my actual bones?” It sure as fuck feels like it.
“I don’t remember you being this whiny with your other tats,” he taunts me, knowing damn well that this is a sensitive ass area.
“I can’t believe I’m paying you for this,” I grumble into my wadded up shirt that’s hiding my pained flinches. The asshole only chuckles. Anyone who tells you that getting a tattoo doesn’t hurt, are damn liars! Is it a bearable pain? Most of the time, yes, but the ribs are painful.
Thankfully, he eases up without giving me any more shit. I’m lucky that only it’s Kayson is here today, had his brother Kingsley been here, this three hours would’ve felt like a torturous nine, easy.
Kingsley is Kayson’s more mischievous, ridiculously unfiltered brother. He’s tatted from neck to feet - which I only know because of the many pool-party-slash-barbecue’s I’ve been to with them all over the last several months. If he saw me squirm, there’s no way he’d pass up a chance to record it and send it to everyone he’s ever known. He’d likely commentate every flinch and make t-shirts or some shit to commemorate. He’s such a likable asshole. They all are.
There are a slew of them in the ‘Clan O’ Kennedy and I’d kind of met them through the grapevine. They center around Kayson, Kingsley, and this shop. I met the brothers through a good friend of mine that I work with through the court system, Murphy Kinzer. Murphy is the partner of one of the sheriff’s here in town, Michael Cruz, who is an honorary member of their small tribe.
The gym does work with the at-risk youth and the juvenile probation department’s community service, which Cruz and Murphy are both apart of. Then, when Cruz’s little brother Mateo got into some trouble, Murphy sent him to me for community service. We’ve all been friends since, and I have a soft spot for Teo.
He reminds me so much of myself, though he has a pretty kickass brother in his corner. Mateo had been skipping school, hanging out with the wrong crowd and generally just fucking off because he was angry and scared and didn’t know how to handle the big changes going on in his life. I’ve been there. I couldn’t count the times I’d come in the gym with a chip on my shoulder or something bothering me, and Hyde would just hand me some gloves and tell me to work it out on the heavy bag - or later on, to spar with one of the guys.
If I really pissed him off, he’d give me a mop and bucket and make me clean the locker rooms and showers, or wipe down every inch of equipment….twice. He taught me discipline and hard work; showed me that the world doesn’t owe me anything just because I was dealt a shitty hand. He taught me to be tough, but to know my limits. He taught me respect, how to give it and how to earn it. That’s what I try to teach kids like Mateo and some of the others that filter through my place. And since having Mateo working his community service with me gained me a friendship with Murphy and Cruz, it would seem that Kayson, Kingsley and their entire brood came along with them.
After Mateo completed his community service, he stayed on to help out at the gym and is now a mentor to the community service kids when he has time away from college. It keeps him in beer and snack money, at least. He’s a good kid and I like to think I had a little bit of a hand in that.
Hyde started something amazing and I’m proud to keep it going. We’re making a difference, even if it is only just giving the kids a place to come and stay out of trouble.
Now, growing up in the small town of Madison, Georgia, wasn’t easy, especially for a gay kid with a single mom who everybody knew was dirt poor and strung out. Being gay wasn’t unheard of, I’d met maybe a handful or two of the members from the LGBTQ+ community in all my thirty years of life here. It isn’t as if Madison isn’t a progressive town, it just isn’t something that’s ever really talked about.
My buddy Nash and I would go up to Atlanta some weekends and meet new people, but it was rare to find a likeminded member in Madison. Not until the Kennedys came to town, and fuck if they didn’t pull every bi or gay man in town out of the woodwork when they did. Every one of them has a same-sex partner, and they are all best fucking friends. They’re all attractive as hell, too, so I can see why. But on top of that, they’re all just genuinely good guys. I mean, all of them are taken, but a man can appreciate. They seemed to open Madison up for a lot of folks, and I am proud to see that too – even if it isn’t benefitting me so well just yet.
“That better be your phone in your ass pocket vibrating my leg,” Kayson waits for me to grab it and answer before rubbing what feels like sandpaper over my freshly flayed side. “Almost done.”
“Hello?” I grunt, not missing Kayson’s evil smirk. The dick.
“Hey, where you at?” It�
��s Shade. He’d probably gone to the gym to look for me, but I’ve told him several times this week that I have an appointment with Kayson today. It doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t remember, the man owns his own autobody shop and it’s the only one in a fifty-five-mile radius. He stays busy as hell, even with the two other people who work the long hours with him.
“With Kayson,” I remind him.
“I forgot about that,” I hear him grumble, flinging stuff around on the other end of the line. Wonder who pissed him off today?
“Bad day?” I inquire, hearing a muted curse while metal tings off a concrete floor. So, not at the gym, still at the shop. That narrows it down.
“I need a beer,” he replies on a groan. “A couple of ‘em."
“Meet me at the house in an hour, I’ll fix ya right up," I offer on a sigh, knowing that the pork chops I planned to grill tonight and the 12-pack I picked up earlier this week will go a long way to fix a shit mood.
“I gotta go home and shower first. I’ve got grease caked in places…”
“What kinda’ shop you runnin’ over there, huh?” I tease, grateful to hear his small chuckle. As a business owner myself, I know the headache that comes along with the day-to-day and I don’t even have to listen to disgruntled customers or know-it-all internet mechanics trying to tell me how to do my job or what it should cost. Shade isn’t one to usually let the small stuff get to him, so I know if he’s pissy, it’s been an especially challenging day for him.
“You gonna cook for me?” he asks, hopefully.
“No,” I lie, smoothly. We both know damn well I’m going to cook for him. Not because of the way my stomach pitches from the sexy way he asks, or because I know he could burn water if left to his own devices. No, I’ll cook for him because when your friend has a shitty day, the least you can do is feed him and lend a listening ear. Getting to spend time with him and being able to do what I can to take care of him is just a hidden bonus, just for me. I’m such a fucking cliché.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” Shade sighs in mock disappointment and I get a good scoff in at his expense before he ends the call. I make a mental note to drop by the market and pick up potatoes to bake and a ready-made pie to lighten his mood.
With Kayson digging his way into my side, I think maybe I’ll even get ice cream to go on top.
Shade
“Fuck!” I bark a loud, very unprofessional, curse. The carburetor I’d just been holding just slipped from my grease-slicked hands and bounced off the fucking concrete.
“Whoa,” Hudson jumps from under the hood of the piece of junk we’re trying like hell to fix. The 98’ Rust-bucket Supreme, is hanging on by a wing and a prayer and if I’m not mistaken, there’s even some duct tape under that hood too. Had looking at it not been a favor for a friend, I’d have told him to just scrap the pile of shit and cut his losses. It’s going to cost more to fix it than the whole thing is worth. I huff as I bend to pick up the offending hunk of metal as Hudson asks quietly, “You alright, boss?”
I’m not. I’m distracted and pissed off, and this shit isn’t helping. I try to take a deep breath and count to ten before answering, but it still comes out a lot harsher than I’d meant for it too. I know that none of my bad mood is Hudson’s fault, he’s actually one of my most impressive, newly certified mechanics.
“I’m fine.”
“Alright,” he gives me a lingering look of uncertainty, then takes himself to another bay to check on something else - and to get away from me, no doubt.
My mind just isn’t with me today, it’s playing the conversation I had with my father this morning, on a constant loop. Had it only been this morning? It seemed like I’d been stressing about it for weeks instead of mere hours.
Brock has a parole hearing this Friday…
Overcrowding concern….
He wants you to speak on his behalf….
Your mom would want you to…
Your mom would want you to…
Your mom would want you to…
It was a low blow and he knew it because I’d have done anything for my mother, both before we lost her and most especially now.
Gweneth Mayson was an angel. She’d have to be to put up with my brother, my dad and me. She was beautiful, both inside and out and she loved her family with an unconditional fierceness that I still felt to this day. It was undeniable, how else could she have loved and supported my brother when he fucked up his life so badly. How could she still rally for him and stand in his corner, when his selfishness had a hand in taking the life of another human being? A young mother.
She never wavered though, my mom. She’d been at every hearing and was first in line on visitation day. I had no doubt that my mother would want me to be there for my brother, but getting him released from prison? I’m not so sure about that.
I might’ve felt differently, had Brock showed even the tiniest bit of remorse for what happened that tragic day. Had he called an ambulance when he noticed the young woman was unresponsive or had he even tried to save her life.
Instead, he took the same discarded needle and shoved it into his own vein, letting the young woman slip into a seizure and stop breathing. Right there on the couch in our parent’s basement, how clichéd, right? Brock had never been able to hold a job, and apparently, he thought “dealing” was a good way to keep himself in smack and cigarettes. My parents enabling him with a rent-free basement apartment, homecooked meals, and full-on laundry service didn’t help. I’d gotten out of the house the minute I could leave for college, and though I hated leaving my parents, I was glad to get away from Brock.
So, dilemma.
I knew that if my mother was here, she would absolutely speak on his behalf. Hell, she’d cried on his behalf, prayed on his behalf and even lied on his behalf before. Telling anyone who’d listen that he was a good man, that he was just, ‘troubled’. He is that, alright, but he is also, selfish, entitled, ignorant, and if you asked me, somewhat evil. Still, I am stuck between doing what I want to do, which is tell my big brother to fuck off and rot his life away in there, or doing what my mother would’ve done, which is, try and help-slash-enable my dumbass brother.
I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place; doing what I feel is morally right and disappointing my parents, or doing what they ask and feeling like shit for the injustice of a young woman I didn’t know.
Pulling out my phone, I tap the picture stored on my home screen that lets me speed-dial my best friend. If ever there is a time to day-drink in the middle of the week, it’s right now.
“Hello?” Gannon grunts in greeting. I ignore the way it hits me right in the balls and forge ahead. I’m on a mission and it isn’t lusting over my best friend.
“Hey, where you at?” I ask, dropping the screwdriver back into my tool chest.
“With Kayson,” fuck, I’d forgotten he was getting his side piece worked on today. I still don’t know what he’s getting there, but I know whatever it is, with Kayson doing it, it’ll be amazing.
“I need a beer,” I sigh, “A couple of ‘em," I listen to his loud sigh, though I can tell he is smiling.
“Meet me at the house in an hour, I’ll fix ya right up," I heave a deep breath and for the first time since this morning, it feels like I can breathe. I tell Gannon that I need to go home and shower, and like Gannon always does, he lightens the mood and removes the boulder that feels like it’s been sitting on my chest all day.
Gannon Butler. My best friend. My brother. My life-mate. My fucking kryptonite.
I’d met Gannon Butler when I was seven years old, he was six. He was the third kid I’d met in our new neighborhood, though those Porter sisters were little assholes, so they didn’t really count. My mom and dad had moved us from a little city in Indiana to an even littler city in Georgia.
The night I met Gannon, it was going on dark, and my parents were fighting. They were always yelling back and forth about something, but it always ended in kissing, and mom sitting tucked up o
n the couch at dads side. They’d act for all the world like they hadn’t just been ready to rip each other apart.
Passion, mom called it. We’d hear them screaming at each other one second and then clutched in a heated kiss the next. As children, it was disgusting to witness, but, looking back, I was glad they had that passion for each other. My parents were crazy about each other and it taught me how to fight for the things that were important. (Even the silly things that didn’t seem like much.)
I’d gone outside because they were at it again, and I’d earlier seen a black and gray cat out by the mailbox I wanted to see if it was still there. Instead, I saw a boy. His hair was shaggy and overly long, and his clothes looked well-worn and stained up. There was a hole in his left sock, right at the big toe and I noticed it because he wasn’t wearing shoes. When I saw the sidewalk chalk that I’d left out earlier, I wasn’t really thinking when I yelled at him for having it. Used to my brother taking my things, I thought the kid was going to steal it. Instead, he held it out as I walked swiftly towards him and everything hit me at once. He was scared of me. I didn’t want him to be scared of me, I wasn’t scary at all. Brock, my big brother, now he was the scary one.
“Sorry, I wasn’t taking it, I just wanted to draw," he’d said, his voice sounding shaky. He held the chalk out to me, his hand wide open in case I wanted to snatch it. I didn’t, I felt bad. So, I offered to draw with him. That was the start of Gannon and Shade. You couldn’t say one name without the other because we were always together. Like peanut butter and jelly or Thelma and Louise; it just didn’t sound right unless said together.
