Shattered Glass(40)

After the third heart-pounding awakening, I gave up the quest for sleep at about 2:00 a.m. Padding downstairs in my boxers, I heated milk in the kitchen and added bourbon to it, then plopped on the sofa. The television illuminated the room in weird hues as I flipped through channels. I wasn’t even watching the thing. I kept picturing those animals touching Peter, hurting him, transforming those bright blue eyes into the lifeless expression that glazed over them every so often.

Across the room my cell phone lay at ease on the table. I eyed it for about two minutes before I went over, picked it up and tapped it against my thigh. I returned to the couch, shivering at least partly from the air conditioner. Lack of sleep had the same effect. Plus, I was terrified of this sudden need to protect this probably beyond-broken boy. Man. At twenty he was definitely a man.

And something else eye opening, I didn’t want a boy. To deny being gay, at this point, was pointless. That battle was done. At least for now. What that meant, I didn’t know. But I knew what I wanted; and what I didn’t. I didn’t want to be one of those men who touched him and thought about taking his innocence away. I wanted fully grown-up Peter; and he was no boy. Thank God.

I dialed and lifted the phone to my ear, stretching out on the sofa and throwing an arm over my eyes, blocking out the TV light.

Six rings later, Peter answered. “Do you know what time it is?” His voice was sexily sleepy.

I closed my eyes and breathed, just taking in his voice for a minute. “Tell me something good, Peter.”

Silence, and then I heard a sigh, coupled with a yawn. I imagined him curled up in bed, hair poking out all over, eyes closed with those long copper lashes resting against his cheeks. “Cai finished painting our living room yesterday with a mural depicting Darryl as president.” That was a disquieting and frightening image even without including Cai.

I didn’t mean tell me about your boyfriend. Lifting the phone from my ear, I glared at it silently. “Tell me something not about your boyfriend,” I growled, phone at my cheek again.

Peter laughed, a throaty sound that had all the dregs of sleep in it. I could hear, from the noises he made, that he was stretching while he yawned again. My imagination did wicked things with that information. “Cai’s my brother, Detective.” The way he said ‘detective’ made my boxers tent.

Mentally I was doing the prize fighter just-won dance. Until I realized he hadn’t said anything about Darryl not being his boyfriend. “Darryl was interesting. I could take him in a fight.”

“Huh uh.”

“He weighs like fifty pounds less than I do.”

“Darryl ’s scrappy and goes straight for the balls, Detective.”

I smiled. “I like that much better than Alex or idiot.”

“I need to get back to sleep. I have to be at the diner early.”

“You work there too much.”

“It’s just till it sells.”

“Then what?”

“Detective, can we not have this conversation at three a.m.?”

“One last question?” I took the silence as acquiescence. “Why vouch for Prisc?”

“Whatever you think you know about him, you don’t know everything. To you, he’s just a criminal. But to me he’s the guy that drove me and Cai to school every morning and picked me up every afternoon. He found Joe the diner, helped him balance the books, took shifts when people were sick, got me my first intern—”

“I get it,” I sighed.

“He got Cai a home. Everything else was just a bonus. But I’ll owe him forever for that.”

Jesus. “Tell me something good about your life,” I whispered, needing to hear that he wasn’t as broken as I thought him to be.

Peter breathed into the handset for about two minutes. I began wondering if he was about to hang up, or had fallen asleep, when he answered. “You.” It was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. He hung up before I could ask him to repeat himself.

I fell asleep, grinning, with the phone still clutched in my hand and my milk souring on the coffee table.





I Am Now Fully Embracing The Gay

You

Jesus God when he said that word I swear my whole world pinholed to one person. I considered canceling the date. Because I was a cowardly asshole who couldn’t handle the emotional turmoil. But my dick was way ahead of my brain—thank you, Jesus. It kept a stern navigation toward the right place.

You

An hour and half on the treadmill, thirty minutes on the rowing machine, another hour with free weights—and I still was anxious. One word repeating over and over in my head, creating a second layer of anxiety.

It wasn’t just that it was my first date with a guy. It was the fact that I knew nothing about being gay. How did a homosexual go twenty-six years without knowing about gay sex, or gay kissing. (Did gays kiss? Oh wait, yeah, I’d seen pictures of gay men kissing.) Or dating guys?