Speechless (3 page)

Drew swooped Travis into his arms, and partly out of celebration and partly to give the bigots a show, they kissed. Loudly and theatrically. With a few extra gropes thrown in. And then, laughing like maniacs, the two of them ran off to the car.

“Maybe we should call the cops,” Travis said as they piled inside.

But Drew shook his head and gunned the engine.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Ten thousand questions and paperwork and crap.” And Drew would have a tough time answering any of those questions, Travis knew. Better to just let it go. The skinheads were unlikely to go crying to the police, and maybe they’d even learned a lesson about the wisdom of gay bashing.

Drew stopped at a Walgreens, where the stringy-haired woman behind the counter gave them a deeply skeptical look. Travis supposed they did look pretty disreputable. But they gathered up a basketful of Band-Aids and Neosporin and ice packs and other first aid supplies—which Drew cheerfully paid for with his MasterCard—and then headed to Drew’s house.

Drew took Travis by the hand and towed him to a neat bathroom with white tile, a claw-foot tub, and an antique shelf full of fluffy towels. He gently pushed Travis down onto the closed toilet and dampened a washcloth in the sink. And then he reached for the eye patch.

Travis jerked his hands up and grabbed Drew’s arms. “You can clean around it. It’s… it’s gross.”

But Drew shook his head and twisted his arm away, then slid the strap off Travis’s head. He tossed it onto the counter and for a long minute just stood there, staring. Travis tensed, waiting for the revulsion and rejection. But instead, Drew leaned down and, light as a butterfly, brushed his lips over Travis’s empty lid. Then he stood straight again, and Travis took a deep, shuddery breath. “It doesn’t disgust you?”

Drew shook his head impatiently and then pointed to a scar that ran across the upper part of his forehead.

“Well, yeah, but yours is sexy. Sort of like a dueling scar from your student days at Heidelberg or a slash from an assassin’s blade when you were saving the Ark of the Covenant.” He paused. “Is it from the car accident?”

Nod.

“Well, it’s still sexy.” Travis lifted his hand and smoothed his forefinger across the length of the mark. “Sexy,” he repeated, aware that his voice had gone kind of gravelly.

After that, well… it sort of started out as the mutual administration of first aid for the various scrapes and bruises they’d acquired in the fight. But a thorough rendering of aid required removal of clothing, and then Drew apparently decided that kisses would do a better job of healing than would antibiotic ointments, and then…. How the hell had Drew managed to slip some K-Y and Trojans into their Walgreens basket without Travis noticing?

The bathroom floor was hard and cold, but Travis barely noticed as he was flooded with sensation. Drew was so tight and warm around him, uttering ragged sounds that weren’t quite words but didn’t need to be. His pale skin was so fine and smooth, and his nipples ripe like fruit. And afterward they stumbled to the couch and wrapped themselves in a fuzzy blanket and sort of floated for a while.

Travis was drifting toward sleep—Drew between his legs and leaning back against his chest—when he roused himself and kissed Drew’s mussed hair. “I gotta go.”

Drew sat up and stared at him. He looked hurt, tentative, almost as if he were afraid of a blow. He bit at his lip and pointed toward the open door of his bedroom.

“I can’t. I want to. God, how I want to. But I have to go home and feed Elwood.”

The pain was replaced with confusion.

“Elwood’s my cat.” Drew looked relieved, and Travis explained. “I found him a couple weeks after I arrived here. He was skulking around the trash bins outside my building, kind of half-feral. I never really wanted a cat, but… well, he’s blind in one eye. Vet says he must’ve had an infection when he was a kitten. So I figure we were sort of meant for each other. But man, he gets pissed if he misses a meal. As do I, now that I think of it.”

Drew snorted, but he stood and gave Travis a hand up. Travis was a little sore, probably more from the rolling around on the tile floor than from the fight that preceded it. He found his clothes scattered in the tub and next to the sink, and he pulled them on slowly. He slipped the eye patch on too. At the door, he and Drew shared a long, lingering kiss that made Travis wish even more that he could stay the night.

“Want to come over to my place tomorrow? We can watch some football—”

Drew made a horrible face.

“Okay. Football’s not your thing. Got it. Okay, we can watch not-football and have a pizza or something. And hey, I have Monday off. Columbus Day. Paid holiday. So you could come over and we could hang out and I wouldn’t have to leave to go feed my cat because he’s already there, and if you didn’t want to leave either, well, I can sleep in on Monday. If you wanted.”

Drew waited patiently for him to finish babbling, then smiled and tapped at the spot on his arm where a wristwatch would be if he were wearing one. In fact, he wasn’t wearing anything at all, and that was pretty damned distracting. Travis shook his head to clear it. “Um. Sixish?”

After a nod of agreement, Drew kissed him again and gave Travis’s ass a sort of proprietary pat as he walked out the door. When Travis got home, Elwood glared at him, but Travis didn’t care. He was smiling so much his cheeks ached.

“
H
EY
, you arrive
with
the pizza. Now, that’s service! And holy shit that smells good. Come on in, Drew.”

Drew did, looking around curiously.

“I’m, um, not much of an interior decorator. What kind of gay guy am I, huh? They’ll probably revoke my membership card.” Travis took the box from Drew’s hands—it was from Hot Lips, which he passionately believed had the best pizza in town—and he put it on the coffee table. “Feel free to take the self-guided tour. I even shoveled a path through the dirty clothes.” Actually, he’d spent most of the day cleaning the place, and it was more sparkling than it had been since he’d moved in.

Drew poked around a little as Travis gathered plates and opened a couple of BridgePort IPAs. They met up in the living room, and he handed one of the bottles to Drew before they both collapsed on the couch. “So how would you like to spend a fine evening of couch potatohood, my good man?”

Drew snatched the remote from Travis’s hand. Travis would have wrestled him for it, but then he would have spilled his beer. So instead, he scrunched up against the other man and resigned himself to… the History Channel. Ugh, but bearable when he had Hot Lips at his fingertips and Drew’s arm wrapped around his shoulders.

After the pair had enjoyed an indeterminate period of concentrated snuggling, Elwood stuck his head out of the bedroom. No doubt he had been hiding under the bed, terrified as he was of everyone but Travis. He crept slowly toward the couch, clearly ready to turn tail at the merest hint of danger. But Drew barely looked at him, and eventually the cat made it all the way over to them. He sniffed at Drew’s fingers, which happened to be hanging over the armrest, and then, making up his feline mind, leapt directly onto Drew’s lap. “Drew, meet Elwood,” Travis said.

Elwood gave Travis a scowl that clearly conveyed the vast superiority of this stranger’s lap to Travis’s, kneaded slightly at the denim over Drew’s thigh, then curled himself into a purring orange ball. Drew still pretended not to notice him, but he moved his hand over and began stroking right behind Elwood’s ears.

“Elwood is an ungrateful slut,” Travis observed.

Drew chuckled and rubbed gently behind Travis’s ear too.

They barely moved from the couch all night. But toward midnight the cuddling evolved into something a little more participatory, and when Elwood seemed miffed about giving up his territory on Drew’s lap, Travis dragged Drew into the bedroom and shut the door in the annoyed cat’s face. He’d probably have a hairball to contend with in the morning—or worse—but it was worth it.

They’d been keyed up and excited the previous night, and the sex had been fast and a little clumsy. Really
good
, but quick, like a bomb going off. Well, it had been a good long time for each of them. But tonight they took their time exploring, finding out exactly what touches—where and how—made the other man gasp. Travis got particular pleasure when he made his usually silent partner utter sounds: grunts and moans and growls and once even a howl. They found one another’s little kinks. Drew liked to nibble on Travis’s neck; Travis liked having his neck nibbled on, so that worked out well. It was slow and tender and deeply satisfying, but the best part of all was when Travis fell asleep with Drew in his arms.

T
RAVIS
woke up first and spent a long time simply lying in bed, watching the sunlight steal through his crappy blinds and play across Drew’s sleeping face.

Travis had never been much of a sleepover guy. He’d spent high school deeply in the closet—from his schoolmates, from his Bible-thumping parents, even from himself. Then there was his brief stint in the military, during which he’d decided that the close proximity of a lot of male bodies was a little more than his closet could handle. But even when he was out, he hadn’t managed much more than one-night stands, the kind of encounters where he and the other guy got their rocks off quickly and then went their own ways, usually without even the charade of exchanging phone numbers. Maybe he was a little commitment-shy. Maybe his parents’ insistence that he was a stupid deviant had sunk in a little too deep. Maybe he was just weird. But he hadn’t found anyone whom he really
felt
for. Not until now.

Drew blinked his eyes open and gave Travis a sleepy smile, and Travis decided that the whole sleepover thing was a pretty good idea after all. His decision was confirmed when Drew’s smile turned wicked, and he squirmed his way beneath the blankets to deliver a particularly thorough good morning kiss. Travis was still feeling a little lightheaded and melty when he swapped places with Drew and said good morning right back.

Travis’s bathroom was cramped and smelled like mildew. His towels were not very fluffy. He’d never before had the need to be embarrassed about that. But then Drew turned on the shower and dragged Travis in with him, and Travis stopped caring. He’d never bathed with anyone before, not unless you counted communal showers in the army and back in school. And this was infinitely better because he didn’t have to be sneaky about ogling the other guy’s ass or think desperately about his Great-aunt Clara’s arm jiggles to make his resulting hard-on wilt away.

In fact, when Drew caught sight of Travis’s erection, he grinned delightedly, like he’d been paid a compliment. Then he spun Travis around and soaped his back, allowing his own cock to drag teasingly up and down Travis’s butt crack.

They stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.

While Travis made coffee, Drew went digging through the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator, the scowl on his face making his feelings clear. He probably wasn’t looking for Pop-Tarts, moldy Chinese leftovers, or orange juice of questionable vintage. But he eventually found some ingredients that did satisfy him, and he fried up eggs with cheese and served lots of buttery toast on the side.

Travis half expected Drew to head home after breakfast. Instead, Drew peeked out the kitchen window to see the sun shining brightly, then made a gesture that Travis understood immediately. “You want to go for a walk? Sounds good to me.” He hid a smile and pretended not to notice when Drew snuck his last forkful of eggs into Elwood’s dish.

The two men didn’t hold hands as they strolled down the sidewalk, but they kept their bodies close enough to occasionally bump shoulders. The sky was bright blue, the air was crisp, and every tree they passed showed off its autumn finery like a drag queen on stage. A paid holiday was always a nice thing to have, but this particular day truly felt like a gift to Travis, like something wrapped in shiny paper with a great big honking bow.

There was a park just a couple of blocks from Travis’s apartment. Sometimes he jogged through it, but this was the first time he’d passed through at a leisurely pace, smiling at the little kids screaming on swings, stopping to pet a large dog with a happy tail, even sitting on a bench for a while with Drew and just sort of basking. Three old ladies sat on the bench opposite them, chatting away in Vietnamese. Travis smiled at them too. He didn’t feel restless. Didn’t feel like there was someplace else he was supposed to be.

It was Drew who moved first, elbowing Travis to get his attention and then miming eating and drinking. Travis consulted with his stomach, which informed him that it was lunchtime. “Yeah, I could go for a bite,” he said.

T
HE
staff at the café obviously knew Drew. The waitress brought him hot tea without having to ask and nodded when he pointed at his menu choices, which he made very quickly. Travis had to consider a while longer before settling on a steak sandwich with home fries. The food was delicious, and afterward nobody seemed to mind that they spent a long time sitting there, lingering over coffee and tea, reading newspapers and pointing out articles each thought the other might enjoy. The entire situation was almost absurdly domestic, and Travis was shocked at how desperately his heart clenched over it, how greedily his soul wished it would never end.

But their time at the café ultimately came to a close, and they set off to walk a while longer. They stopped once in a bookstore—which carried several of Drew’s titles—and once at a bakery, where Drew bought a loaf of bread and some bagels. Travis purchased a giant chocolate chip cookie and shared it with Drew as they wandered.

It was with considerable dismay that Travis realized they had arrived at Drew’s house. His mood changed quickly, however, as Drew dragged him inside. They sat on the couch, Drew messing around with his guitar and a couple of new songs.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Travis said when Drew paused to tighten a guitar string.