Ruben tried to imagine fighting with his parents over money, even now. He made a sour face.
“I know, right?” Andy stared like a snake at his drink. “I got my revenge. He tried to move into Manhattan ’bout ten years ago. I killed that shit quick.”
Ruben loved his folks, but he didn’t ask their help for a reason. “He’s that bad?”
“Kicked me out of our house, treated me like a maggot till I got my MBA. Fired me from my dad’s firm right after, so he could gut it. Now he’s trying to rewrite history so I’ll let him invest with Apex. My family.” He raised the glass in a mock toast, then started to take a sip and stopped.
Ruben chuckled. “Nice. Regret can break a man. Does your mom…? What?”
“I’m a prick.” The smile slid off Andy’s face. He glanced down at the glass in his hand. “This probably doesn’t help. Me sloshing this shit in your face.”
“S’fine, Andy.”
“Dumb habit, though.”
“Just ’cause I’m a drunk doesn’t mean anyone else has to be. It’s not contagious.”
“Still.”
“I gotta live in the real world, huh? People drink. People drug. People fuck themselves up all over, anyway they can.”
Andy laughed, but his eyes were serious as he rinsed out the glass.
“No one’s got a gun at my head, not even you, Mr. Bauer.” Ruben pressed his mouth shut. He’d already overshared. Side effect of any Twelve-Step program. If Andy wanted to talk about it more, he’d ask.
“Still, it can’t be easy having it in your face alla time. My family drinks.”
“Anyone can be a monk in a monastery. I want to live in the world, man.”
“I get that.” Andy nodded. “I’m not as stupid as you think.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Naïve, then.”
Ruben had no intention of arguing on that score. “Okay.”
“Sure. God you’re a dick sometimes, Oso. Anybody ever tell you that?” Andy laughed.
Ruben laughed back. “Yeah. Plenty.”
I like him too much.
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
“Stubborn, maybe.” Ruben sat on the couch and leaned back, then crossed his arms, aware of Andy checking out his guns. “Marisa used to rag me about wanting to be special. Not holding me back, but because I spent so much time telling everyone how special I was gonna be that I forgot to actually do anything worth remembering.”
“Oh, man.”
“Right?” Ruben laughed at himself, trying to remember being young enough to think the details mattered, that anyone gave a damn. “She’s a good woman. And we tried, but we were, I dunno, young and stupid for a long time and then I just stayed stupid while old crept up on me. Same shit as everyone else.”
“You think there’s such a thing?”
“As shit?”
“As same.” Andy pulled a goofy face. “What’s the same as anything else really? Not much. I mean, people pretend for the sake of convenience, but expecting life to provide cookie cutter people, problems, whatever….”
“Mmmh.” Ruben bobbed his head in agreement, but couldn’t find the words.
“Know what I mean?”
Ruben knew exactly.
An expectant silence settled over them.
Andy looked at him and he looked back and everything changed, everything and nothing.
Ruben opened his hands in happy surrender. “Thanks for, y’know.”
“What?”
“Talking. Listening.”
“Welcome. Not that big a thing.” Andy turned, swaying a little on his feet, and sat down next to him, closer than necessary, as usual.
If Andy was a woman, Ruben would’ve called this flirting.
If Andy was a woman, he would have dropped an arm across those shoulders or slid a hand up the smooth thigh into the cotton boxers or pressed them both into the cushions, onto the rug.
If Andy was a woman, Ruben woulda used his size and strength, taking the reins of sexual tension to steer them into bed.
But Andy wasn’t anything like a woman. Whatever excuses Ruben made, he couldn’t pretend otherwise. Andy wasn’t some pretty boy, and the attraction had plenty to do with him being a strong, successful man.
The thought made Ruben gruff and panicky, but the feeling flowed easily between them. He couldn’t control it anymore, and at times he stopped wanting to. His cock was sprung, tenting the cotton.
“And listen.” Andy poked him. “Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.” He relaxed into the cushions. He only relaxed like this, the two of them together.
Because he trusts you.
Ruben sat there amazed and amused.
“So.” Andy bumped him, smelling like fresh bread. “I was thinking a dude-movie night.” He leaned forward to unload waxy cartons of Thai food onto the large chrome coffee table. “I didn’t know what you dug, so Hope ordered the one-of-everything spread.”
“Now?” Ruben looked at his watch; the little hand pointed to eleven. Did Andy expect him to go stake out a crowded theater in the middle of the night?
“Maybe
Scarface
. Or
Duplicity
? After today, I’m in the mood to see some fancy assholes taken down.”
Ruben looked down at his clothes. “I didn’t know you were planning to go—”
“Netflix IMAX, my man.” Andy tapped his phone and the digital shades activated.
“There’s no such—” The big living room windows blurred into a perfectly white wall. “Thing.”
Jesus Christ, the toys.
He ignored Andy’s hopeful, lonely smile and shook his head no. “I’m beat.”
More like I’m beaten.
Less exhaustion than a swift retreat from Andy’s full-frontal charm offensive. Next stop, Andy would break out his porn collection and things would get insane.
“You don’t have to go hole up in your room. We’re both here.”
Was Andy trying to kill him?
Instead, Ruben decided to take a shower and read before the Dolby explosions proved too tempting and short-circuited his logic. If he gave in to his grunting passive man brain, he’d end up on the couch snacking and bullshitting with his boss until 4:00 a.m. watching sequels he’d hated the first time, undirected testosterone choking the air like spermy smog. Ruben didn’t doubt for a second they’d have fun. Andy’s charm and humor would trick him into lowering his guard and spilling his messy emotions between them.
Ruben declined. “Next time.” Meaning never, but telling this truth wasn’t an option he had.
And
oh man
did Andy look handsome in his rumpled T-shirt, surrounded by gleaming luxury with a DVD menu projected thirty feet wide behind him. At his feet, the bear skull glowed in its Lucite trunk.
Maybe all Andy wanted was a friend, but Ruben needed something more. He was sober enough to see the potential disaster for both of them and steer the fuck clear.
Back in his room, behind the closed door, Ruben changed into shorts and, after a moment, the new sweatshirt. Even if it was his imagination, the apartment felt cold to him.
Liliana, the invisible maid, had made the bed for him. Worse, she had actually
ironed
his four thousand dollar sheets. He ran a dark hand over them. The pressed cotton felt like something woven out of the eyelashes of angels.
Someone had moved his things. The maid maybe, but the room felt… off. Hangers shifted. Ammo clip on the wrong shelf. The drawers subtly rearranged and his toiletries out of order.
Why?
It had to be the housekeeper. Still, the intrusion seemed too casual, too familiar.
He needed to be vigilant against that weird sleepover vibe that Andy encouraged. The man was lonely, but that didn’t make them friends. Ruben was an employee hired to do a job and that was all. They liked each other, and that just made the gig less of a hassle.
No.
Doing his job meant avoiding the illusion of intimacy and maintaining clear boundaries. Hell, staying sober was no different. The program had plenty to say about boundaries and respecting them.
And still, and still… he knew that the border between boss and buddy could get blurry in close quarters with the wrong person even if he was the right guy.
One more reason why Ruben hadn’t wanted to move into this bachelor pad, eating food he couldn’t spell with assistants wiping his ass. This penthouse was too much of a hermetically sealed playpen. Everything just jumbled together in a way that confused him. No real cost for anything. Free glitz and swapping stories from his days as a hardcore loser. Jogging in the park, ducking into the gym and taking a dip in a pool built in midair and then forgotten.
A quick flash of Andy’s wet blue shorts and the blinding strap of his jock at the top of his hamstring. The smell of warm bread.
Ruben blinked it away, but the tenacious image re-formed gradually as if he’d stared too long at the sun and Andy’s creamy lower back had burned his eyes. As he plugged in his phone, texted his brother, emptied his suit pockets, he couldn’t stop seeing Andy climb out of the hot turquoise square, water sheeting off him. Then the high, square jut of his backside under those filmy shorts that made Ruben’s eyes too heavy to raise.
Cachondo.
He brushed his teeth. Again and again, the blue pool and the blue shorts, and the glitter-spatter of diamond drips on the hot deck as Andy approached… step by step.
Gah. Uncomfortable and crazy, but Ruben knew better than to try and bottle it up and let it fester. Peach would have said that shame only puts the liquor in your hand.
Obviously Andy had started to symbolize something scary or important, something that needed attention, only he wasn’t smart enough to put the pieces together yet. The first step was acknowledging this thing existed.
Whatever the next step was, he hoped he could take it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HALOS TURN
into nooses.
The second jet of semen hit his forehead and Ruben woke up shouting.
“
Goddamnit
.” He fumbled for the lamp. Another fucking wet dream. His third in a week. He could smell the salt, and taste a bit.
Bad enough to bust sauce in your own bed, but when you’re sleeping on four-thousand dollar sheets that had to be hand ironed? He was covered in spooge and in two seconds the sheets would be too.
Worse, he remembered the dream that had tripped his trigger. And it had fuck-all to do with natural.
All week, he’d been blaming the sheets, their cotton softer than he was used to. Ever since he’d moved into Andy’s apartment, he went to sleep drilling his thick stiffy into the silky slip of them. And about every third night, popping inside his boxers. What the hell was he supposed to do, wear a condom to bed?
More like he needed to stop sleeping.
In this dream, Ruben lay stretched out on the beach right where Twelfth Street hits Ocean Drive. He knew he was dreaming because in real life, he never went there. The locals knew it as a strip for queer tourists on the make… an army of young bucks juiced and shredded, stuffed into three hundred dollar bathing suits they ditched in the dunes.
But just now, this hot slice of dream sand in front of the Palace was miraculously noon-baked and gay-free.
Ruben lay spread-eagled with oily sweat sliding off his burnished brown skin into the sand. His dick and balls made a blunt mound under blue Lycra rowers, tight enough to ride up his crack under him. Stud meat grilling in the sun.
It had to be a dream because he wouldn’t wear Lycra on a bet, and he could smell the haze of alcohol. Not beer or gin, but the clean sweet booze sweating out of him in the heat. His mouth felt too loose and sloppy to speak. His weak limbs tingled. Obviously in the dream he’d gotten plastered, and some sneaky homos had stripped him half-naked and staked him out like a sacrificial ram in the ocean glare.
With the strange certainty of dreams, Ruben knew he was late for something but couldn’t get up. Had he overslept? Was he injured? Turning his head he realized his wrists were held by muscular hands sticking up out of the sugary sand.
The fuck?
Buried hands gripped his ankles too, and even with the oil and the sweat he couldn’t wrench free or sit up. Ruben strained against the familiar hands, but they held fast. Too confused to call out.
What if someone sees?
His ass clenched, and the Lycra squeezing his privates felt a little too good. To his horror his thick foreskin slid back and his raw square knob punched past the waistband to kiss the air. The ticklish slip of the clenched fingers over his wrists and ankles gave him a funny feeling which he fought hard. His erection strained against his suit, dribbling sauce back into the sweat and oil. He needed to bust and go. He was so late already for… something.
What was I doing?
All he could see was his boner glistening in the glare.
Worse, if he didn’t get free in time, he was going to nut all over himself in burning daylight where anyone who bothered to look could watch his lust and shame. His shaft was granite and his balls an aching knot below. He’d never get loose in time.
Don’t make me.
He tugged and flexed against those slick man hands.
“Se siente cachondo.” Was Andy whispering in his ear or was he just remembering inside the dream? He could smell fresh bread and imagine lips against his neck. Andy’s hushed-gravel voice. “
Caaa-chonnnn-doh
.”
Whining with frustration, Ruben squirmed and arched with scorching grit stuck to his wet back. His slick asscheeks slid together, the sweat tickling, and his spine bowed up off that sand thrusting his dark cock like a pillar rising from his flexed muscle. His wrists and ankles pinned by pitiless hands while he fucked the air, fucked the scalding blue sky.
Don’t make me. Don’t make me. Don’t—
“
Graawgh!
” On the imaginary Florida shore, he gave a strangled roar as he came. The sound and spatter woke him for real in Manhattan, panting in the penthouse, shouting into the air with Andy right overhead.
Sleeping, pray God.
Ruben had been plenty loud.
Loser.
Globs of semen on his forehead, his chin, his left pec, and a jammy puddle at his navel trickling to the right. He remembered a dirty joke from junior high, about going to bed with a problem on his mind and waking up with the solution on his chest.
Before things got messier, Ruben grabbed tissues and mopped himself. He wadded them up and tossed them in the direction of the trash. His ragged breath and heart slowed to a jog and then a walk while he sucked in the starchy air.
Again.
He’d rinse the sheets and change them before the damn maid came.