Rough Road (16 page)

The next few weeks are almost perfect, but one thing niggles in the back of my mind. It bothers me more than I’d like to admit that he hasn’t invited me to hang out with him and his friends. It’s not that I’m just dying to spend time with a group of guys half my age, but we’ve been dating long enough that I’m starting to feel like he’s hiding me from them. Oh yeah, he
said
he didn’t care about me being all over the top, but he hasn’t exactly proven that to me. When I’m over at his apartment and I overhear him making plans—without me—for the last weekend in September, I decide to do something about it.

“Are you ashamed of me?” I ask as he hangs up the phone and picks up his Xbox controller.

“What? No. Of course not. Why would you think that?” He glances at me, then back at the TV screen.

“Please pause the game for me, lovely.”

He looks over at me again, obviously realizes I’m serious, and sets the controller down. “What’s up? Why would you think I’m ashamed of you?”

“Because for at least the third time this month, you’ve accepted an invitation to a social engagement without even asking if you could bring me along.”

“I didn’t invite you to Greg’s softball thing because you hate sports. And that work picnic was totally boring.”

“Do the other guys bring their girlfriends and wives?”

He shrugs. “I guess so. I never really thought about it. I mean, if you want to go next year, that’s cool.”

How optimistic of him. I pinch the skin at the top of my nose between two fingers and take a deep breath.

“And this weekend, you’re going where?”

“A bunch of the guys from work and I are going over to Tommy’s house to help out with some yard work he can’t do because of his leg. Then we’re having a barbecue. I didn’t think you’d want to come along.”

“I love barbecue.” I arch an eyebrow.

“But it’s work—yard work.”

“A bunch of strapping young men with their shirts off, hauling heavy things and getting dirty: I don’t know what could possibly be appealing about that.”

“You’d really want to come?”

“I really want to get to know your friends. Is that so odd? I mean, you’ve met Ben and Tina and everyone.”

“Okay, hold on.” He digs in his pocket and pulls out his phone. He dials, then, “Hey, Greg? Yeah, got another pair of hands for the landscaping thing. No, not Jordan. Eddie, my boyfriend.” He winks at me. “Yeah, okay, we’ll see you then.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly as he hangs up.

“You’re welcome.” He reaches for his controller.

“So, this game, does it have a two-player option?” I ask.

“Yard work and video games? Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?” He leans over and kisses me. “I’m sorry, from now on I won’t assume you wouldn’t want to do something. I’ll ask first.”

Okay, so I’ve never actually done yard work before. And Wish knows this, and who knows what he’s expecting? Probably for me to make some grand faux pas—is there even an etiquette to yard work? I can’t help but have a little fun.

I go to the Ace Hardware, and I buy gloves and coveralls—and some rope too, but that’s for later—and the guy at Ace Hardware tells me to go buy some steel-toe Red Wings, so I’ve got those too—they might be overkill, or they might be the only useful thing in the whole mess. When Wish picks me up at 7 a.m. on Saturday, I’m ready to go.

His reaction is priceless—absolutely horrified.

“What?” I snap, looking down at my coveralls. “They’re green—
my color
.”

“Oh, honey, you can’t wear those in September in Florida. You’ll die of heat stroke.”

I make my face as crestfallen as possible. “Well, come on in, I’ll go change.”

“Just wear whatever you have underneath them.”

I turn and give him a
look
. “I’m not wearing anything underneath them.”

I think that’s the moment he realizes he’s been played, because he howls with laughter.

“Well, they never have anything on underneath them in
porn
,” I shout, peeling the coveralls off as I go.

I change into khaki shorts and a plain white undershirt, and meet him back downstairs. He’s stopped laughing and actually appears contrite.

“I’m sorry I underestimated you.” He kisses my cheek. “We can play porno later.”

“Oh goody, I bought rope too.”

Tommy seems to have forgiven me for what had to be the most awkward phone call he’s ever received. He only blushes a little when he opens the door.

“Nice ride.” Wish takes in the chair with a glance. “Can you do wheelies in that thing?”

“Doctor says no way, but the orderlies told me it’s totally possible. You wanna try it?”

“Maybe after we finish up outside. I won’t be much good to you guys if I bust my leg and end up needing one too.”

The work is hard. Intense, sweaty, back-breaking labor. By 9 a.m. I’ve stripped off my shirt, and by lunchtime I’m wishing I had picked another weekend to get to know Wish’s friends.

But I like them.

Greg Conlon, the foreman from his road crew, is smart and organized. He has the group of volunteer landscapers moving around like the many pieces of a well-oiled machine. They’re all younger than me, but they tease me about it which makes me feel like one of them rather than an outsider. It’s not a weekend on the boat with Ben and Dave or Tina, but it’s a different type of easy camaraderie, and something about manual labor appeals to my masochist streak.

“Nice work, old man.” Greg walks past the row of pavers I’ve painstakingly aligned with the lanai, and he swats my ass as he goes by.

“You flirting with my boyfriend, Conlon?” Wish shouts from across the yard, where he’s been digging around a cactus to transplant.

“Hey, he might want to trade up.” The foreman holds his hands out and preens, showing off a hairy barrel chest dripping with sweat.

I shake my head. “Dear God in heaven, save me from open-minded straight boys.”

They all laugh, and then I go to help Wish move the cactus and chance a kiss.

At the end of the day, after the work and the barbecue, Greg looks me right in the eye and holds out a hand.

“I gotta be honest, when I heard Wish was bringing the guy from the radio who’s trying to defeat the roads bill, I thought you’d be a real asshole. But you’re all right.”

I shake the offered hand. “Thank you, I think. No hard feelings about the roads thing?”

“Only if you win.” He winks.

Fair enough, I suppose.

At home, my muscles aching from the day’s labor, I grab the rope, put on the coveralls, and go find Wish in the bedroom. His eyes light up and he drags me down to the bed and kisses me until I’m hard and breathless.

“I’m not going to say what I thought when I opened the door and saw you in these,” he says as he pulls out of the kiss. “But you got me good, and I deserved it. You are seriously amazing.”

“Mm-hmm.” I bite his ear. “Thanks for letting me tag along; it was fun.”

He reaches for the first snap at the top of the coveralls and pauses. “You didn’t buy the kind with a zipper.”

“Nope.” I laugh.

He leaves me buttoned, runs his hands down my body, hard. It feels good on my sore muscles, and I arch up into those hands.

He flips me over and starts working my shoulders through the coveralls, a nice, hard rub. I melt into it and relax under his touch. When he rolls me back over, my dick is the only part of my body that’s still stiff. He undoes the snap right over my groin, freeing my cock so it pokes up out of the coveralls.

“God, that is—” he gives it a good firm stroke “—the best kind of obscene.”

I thrust into his hand a little and bite my lip, relaxed, aroused, ready to come out of my skin—

And the phone rings. The Dead Kennedys. Only one person in my address book has an eighties punk ringtone.

“Hold that thought, lovely.” I grab the phone and his eyes go wide with disbelief.

“You’re not seriously going to answer that now.”

“I
have
to.” I swipe to answer.

“Ben, can I call you back, darling?”

Wish stands up. “Don’t bother. I’ve lost the mood.” And just like that he strides out of the room.

“And you’re seriously walking away again?” I call after him.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Ben asks.

“Apparently not.” The sudden change of plans has my dick deflating back into my coveralls like it’s trying to flee the scene.

“I need to know how to spell your dude’s name. We’re addressing wedding invitations.”

I resist the petulant urge to tell the big fucking cockblocker about Google. “A-l-o-y-s-i-u-s.”

“Awesome. Thanks, man. You coming by the shop Monday?”

Month-close books. Of course. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“See you then.”

“See ya.”

I find Wish in the living room, fully clothed and pissed off, watching something on the television with lots of explosions.

“So, want to test out the rope?” I try my most flirtatious voice.

“Really not in the mood anymore.”

“Okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

He snorts. “I really, really don’t.”

“I asked him if I could call him back. I wasn’t planning to have a conversation with him.” I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. I don’t know why I feel the need to defend myself here, but for some reason I do.

He groans and covers his face with both hands. “I am not going to fight with you.”

“I don’t want to fight either. Come to bed.”

“I think I’d like to watch this movie. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond.”

“Oooh, he’s fucking hot. Well, let’s watch, then.” I go back to the bedroom and change out of the coveralls and into my robe, then join him on the couch. At first he flinches away a little when I move in for the snuggle, but then he relaxes and lets me. I fall asleep with my head on his shoulder, and when he wakes me up as the credits are rolling, he isn’t pissed anymore.

“Let’s go get some sleep, Eddie.”

The envelope, when it arrives in the middle of October, is bigger than the usual bills and advertisements that land in my mailbox, but I don’t register why until I rip it open and pull out the wedding invitation.

It’s a simple thing: Two names, an expression of joy. A date at the end of November and the address of a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina.

I sit down heavily in the kitchen and stare at it for a while. I knew it was coming, but it’s still taken me by surprise. I trace the words with my fingers, as if feeling their texture will help me understand my own confused longings for what this paper represents.
Benjamin Warren and Davis Fox . . .

“Eddie?” Wish calls out as he opens the front door.

“Kitchen,” I shout, shoving the invitation back in the envelope and pushing it away, schooling my face.

“Hey.” He walks in, all smiles, with a grocery bag in hand. He comes to the table first and bends over to kiss me deep and slow, then sets the bag on the counter and starts rummaging through it. “I thought we could make carne asada tomorrow, but it’s got to marinate overnight. What’s that?” He gestures to the envelope.

“Ben’s wedding invitation.”

“Oh.” He stops rummaging and comes to sit at the table. He stares at me for a moment and then picks up the envelope, pulls out the invitation, and reads it over. “I’ve never been to Charleston.”