What About Everything? E-Book

John Goode

• Herausgeber: Dreamspinner Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 395

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Sequel to Taking Chances A Tales from Foster High Story No matter how fast you run, the past has a way of catching up with you. When an accident ruins Matt's parents' anniversary party, Tyler and Matt decide a vacation is in order, and they book a gay Disney cruise with Robbie and Sebastian. It'll be the perfect place to relax and do some much-needed soul-searching. A couple of years have passed since they met, but Tyler and Matt are no closer to getting married. They must take a long, hard look at their relationship and decide if they're happy with the way things are, or if they want more—and if they can find the courage to take the next step. A difficult choice is made even harder when two people they thought they'd left behind show up to complicate the issue and turn the whole cruise upside down.

Leseprobe

What About Everything?

By John Goode

Sequel to Taking Chances

A Tales from Foster High Story

No matter how fast you run, the past has a way of catching up with you.

When an accident ruins Matt’s parents’ anniversary party, Tyler and Matt decide a vacation is in order, and they book a gay Disney cruise with Robbie and Sebastian. It’ll be the perfect place to relax and do some much-needed soul-searching. A couple of years have passed since they met, but Tyler and Matt are no closer to getting married. They must take a long, hard look at their relationship and decide if they’re happy with the way things are, or if they want more—and if they can find the courage to take the next step. A difficult choice is made even harder when two people they thought they’d left behind show up to complicate the issue and turn the whole cruise upside down.

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Part One: Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

Part Two: Ship of Fools

Part Three: Things Fall Apart

Epilogue: And When You Find Me There, You’ll Search No More

Stuff at the End of the Book

More from John Goode

Readers love the Tales from Foster High series by John Goode

About the Author

By John Goode

Visit Dreamspinner Press

Copyright Page

To Paul, who decided he wanted to peek behind the curtain and see how stories are really made. Thanks for your patience and input.

Acknowledgments

TO GINA for once again not strangling me when I asked, “How is it?”

To Gayle for once again making it sound like I understand the English language.

And as always, for Sue, who thought more of my writing than I did. She is the real magic here.

Author’s Note

THE CHARACTERS of Sebastian and Robbie’s family come from the book A Way Back to Then by Robert Halliwell. If you are curious to their history and how Robbie and Sebastian got together, I highly suggest picking it up. It’s my favorite Foster High book not written by me.

That was a joke.

Man, tough crowd.

Part One: Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

Tyler

PERSONALLY I blame Elsbeth Roo.

She was the girl who, in the second grade, declared I was her boyfriend, so there. I tried to tell Elsbeth—not Elizabeth, by the way—that girls were icky and fatal carriers of cooties, but she would not relent. She grabbed my hand and pulled me around the schoolyard telling every single person she ran into that we were going steady and she thought they should know.

With the longing, woeful stare of a golden retriever being denied a swim, I kept looking over my shoulder at the Nerf football being tossed back and forth by the other boys….

Well, this being second grade and the long-standing conflict between boys and girls well documented, it was just a matter of time before it started. The song. That song. That fucking song.

“Lizzie and Tyler sitting in a tree.”

When twenty girls and one boy started, Elsbeth smiled. I noticed she had no problem then with people messing her name up.

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Now that was a boldfaced lie. We never K-I-S-S-E-D or S-M-O-O-C-H-E-D or even H-U-G-G-E-D. So far the extent of our relationship had been her keeping my hand in a steel-trap grip as she advised everyone of our new relationship status. See, this was before Facebook, so instead of one button click, she had to drag me person to person to let them know.

“First comes love.”

No, first comes being hijacked by an overly strong girl; that much I had figured out.

“Next comes marriage.”

And I was done.

I yanked my hand away, half expecting my flesh still to be in her grip, which would have left me with a hella cool skeletal hand that would have been the shit at Halloween….

Hold on, where was I?

Right, so I pulled my hand back and said very loudly, “No way! I am never marrying a stupid girl!”

My bold declaration—or loud shout—happened decades before my burgeoning sexuality. I like to think that seven-year-old boy had it going on and knew where he was going in life, but we both know he didn’t. Elsbeth looked at me like I had slapped her, began crying like I had slapped her twice, and then took off running like I was going to do it again.

And that began my loathing of marriage.

I mean, what’s marriage for? So what, you’re married. Who cares? What’s the difference between living with someone and being married, other than the fact if you get divorced, the other person can take half your shit? See, and that’s my point. Marriage isn’t about marriage; it’s about consequences when a marriage ends. Yeah, I know, if someone’s not married, they don’t get the cool tax break, but if that person stops being married, they lose half their stuff. Who needs that?

That being said, I will admit there is something about a perfect fall day that makes me think about marriage in a different light.

Maybe it’s the last sunshine before a long winter that makes you want to lie down with someone for the warmth of more than just the body. Maybe the falling leaves are a reminder that nothing is forever and time has no mercy, even when it comes to love. And maybe it’s the way Foster truly comes alive for the school year with bake sales and back-to-school specials that reminds you that maybe, just maybe, you should think about settling down and having a kid or two for yourself.

I mean, who knows?

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I shook myself out of my reverie and glanced over at my laptop, which contained a Skype picture of Robbie looking pretty pissed. “What? We were talking.”

Robbie glared at me. “No, you were talking, I was listening to you go on about… whatever you were babbling about and was wishing I could will myself into an aneurysm.”

“I was giving you some perspective,” I countered, scrambling to remember what we’d been saying as I took a drink of my Coke.

“On what? Are you trying to tell me you and Matt are getting married?”

“What?” I exclaimed, spitting out a mouthful of soft drink. “No! No, no, no. Not even a little. I didn’t say that! I was just talking about the marrying thing ’cause Matt’s parents are renewing their vows, and that got me thinking.” I gave a scoffing little laugh. “Me and Matt getting married? That’s insane, stupid.” I looked across the street and began to think. “I mean, who would…?” I looked back at the laptop, a thought occurring to me. “Did Matt say anything to you?”

“Oh, dear God,” he replied before taking a sip from his Wonder Woman coffee mug. “Get a grip, Parker! You’re about to start crying.”

He was right, and I took a deep breath to steady myself. “But seriously, he didn’t say anything, right?”

“One, I do not converse with your moose; that is Sebastian’s job. Two, I would like to think Matt is smart enough to talk to you, not me, about all that marriage business. Because I’m not marrying his ass.”

Sebastian and Matt had become fast friends since they met last year, talking at least once a week over Skype. I’d be jealous, but I know Matt loves me too much, and Sebastian fears Robbie like a little kid fears the thing under his bed.

“Well, ask Sebastian—”

“Nope. Not doing this,” he snapped, cutting me off. “Look, Tyler, whatever Shakespearean drama you have whipped up in your head is yours, and I refuse to buy a ticket to it. Or in other words, not my circus, not my monkeys.”

I paused. Robbie was right, and I was winding myself up over nothing.

“So, talk to Kyle lately?” Trying to change the subject.

“Here and there. He’s really thrown himself into school, so it’s full-on nerd mode on that side of the country.”

“He’s trying to hide a broken heart.”

“Oh, God! This again?” Robbie collapsed and started banging his head on his keyboard.

“How are they together? One of them is in California and the other is somewhere in the middle of the ocean… I mean, how is that a relationship?”

He pounded his head three more times and then slowly peered up at me. “It. Is. Their. Relationship.” I closed my mouth as he went on. “They made their decision, they being Brad and Kyle and no one else, and they, again Brad and Kyle, are happy with it. No one has a broken heart. Kyle flew up to Chicago to see Brad graduate from boot camp, and they are planning to meet when Brad’s first leave comes up. So, for the millionth time, they are happy, they are together, and stop projecting onto Kyle.”

I said nothing, knowing this wasn’t over.

“So we’re good on this?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Fine, subject dropped.”

“Can I ask a question not related to Brad and Kyle at all?”

“Please!”

“So there is no chance you could just drop the subject of Matt and marriage in front of Sebastian and see what he—”

The screen went blank as the words Call Ended flashed on my screen.

“Just asking,” I muttered to no one.

Matt

GROWING UP gay and closeted in Foster changes a man.

You know, it probably changes a woman too, but I’ve only seen a few lesbians out at the Bear’s Den and we never talked, so I don’t have a proper sample size to gauge how it might change a woman, but I know it changed me, a lot. It made me self-conscious, serious self-esteem issues, yadda yadda yadda. You know, the closeted gay man special. But in addition to all those well-used but very real tropes, it changed me in another way.

When I got depressed, I communicated in sighs.

Okay, hold on. Before you get all “But, Matt, everyone sighs when they’re depressed!” on me, hear me out. I don’t just sigh. I have actual sighs that mean different things, depending on how I’m feeling.

For example….

Fuck, that guy is hot! But I’m never going to have a chance with him, because look at the way he has his hand in that girl’s back pocket: Sigh #14—Small inhale with a long, drawn out exhale that would blow out birthday candles if they were nearby.

Look, Matt, I like you but I’m not in love with you: Sigh #4—Full inhale followed by a small exhale like you’re trying to keep your mouth closed so your teeth won’t rattle when you’re cold.

I have a whole language, honestly.

My brothers, who are really more caring than the average brothers toward my well-being, could figure out the general vicinity of my problem just by my sigh.

Teenage Tyler and his friends walk by in their lettermen jackets: Sigh #9—Long inhale and slow exhale that gets deeper as they walk away.

Dad makes a comment about manning up and doing chores without being asked: Sigh #6—No inhale and short burst of breath that would produce smoke if I were a dragon.

People need time to learn my sighs, something Tyler is slowly getting one by one.

Sebastian, on the other hand, has no idea about my communication challenges.

“Dude, are you just going to sit there and sigh through the whole conversation?”

I glanced up at my laptop to see him on Skype in a shirt and tie, looking back at me, annoyed. He’d been going on about how Robbie had dragged him to some Broadway flea market thing that he hated every second of, and to make it up, they went to this ice cream place where they made their own flavors right in front of you.

Hearing that another couple had actually done something that sounded fun over the weekend had produced Sigh #17—Little inhale, short exhale, and pursing of the lips like I was a puppy who was watching another dog eat its treats in front of him.

“Huh?” I asked, not even consciously aware I had been sighing that much. “Sorry. It sounds like fun, man.”

He shot me a look. “Really? Did you catch the part where we wandered around a couple of city blocks while surrounded by the cast of Who Gives a Shit? That guy from Flash, the one who played the Pied Piper….”

“Andy Mientus,” I supplied miserably.

“Yeah, him. He was the only cool person there, and Rob wouldn’t even let me go talk to him ’cause it would have been rude. I mean, why the fuck are we there if we can’t talk to someone cool?”

I said nothing and sighed again.

“Okay, seriously, sad sack, what the fuck? Why are you all weepy?”

“Nothing,” I lied. He glared at me. “Seriously, it’s nothing.” More glaring. “Fine! You know what Tyler and I did this weekend? Nothing. Fucking nothing. We went to the gym, I raked the backyard while he worked on the gutters, and then we grilled something.”

“And then had sex,” he added.

“Well, yeah, but we always have sex. I meant before that. We did nothing all weekend. Again. At least you went out and did something new.”

“Did you catch the part where I said it sucked?”

“I would have taken something sucking over doing nothing again. I mean, fuck, Sebastian, what’s the point of mowing and raking and grilling if that’s what we’re going to do forever?”

I waited for a reply, but none came. I looked up at the screen, and he was scrutinizing me something fierce. Finally he asked, “Is your birthday coming up?”

“No,” I answered, startled.

“You start talking to an ex recently?”

“What? Why?”

“Answer the question.”

“No,” I said, sighing. This time the sigh was just a sigh. “Why?”

“I’m trying to figure out why all of a sudden you’re worrying about forever when I have never heard that word come out of your mouth.”

“I’ve used the word ‘forever’ before.”

“Never in relation to Tyler. And never in an annoyed way. Now, normally I would have said it’s an age thing ’cause of a birthday, or you saw an ex on Facebook bragging about their perfect life, but if it ain’t those, then what is up your ass today?”

I hated the fact he was smarter than first impressions suggested.

On the surface Sebastian looked like a big, dopey guy who just liked to have fun and tell jokes. His smile was easy and his mannerisms were so relaxed you’d think he was just another pretty boy without a thought in his head.

And then he’d go all Yoda on your ass.

Though he had no idea of my secret language, he had deduced there was something in my life making me depressed, and damned if he hadn’t put the two of them together.

“My parents are renewing their vows for their anniversary next week.”

He blinked at me. “Okay, and?”

“And everything!” I snapped. “When my dad was my age, he was married, had three kids, a house, and a life. By my age he had already served in the military, figured out what he wanted in life, and got it. Here I am, in a nowhere job, dating a guy when I should be settled down by now. I’m too old to be a loser like this, and it’s just pissing me off.”

He raised one eyebrow and asked, “Okay, you done?” I nodded. “Cool, my turn. Fuck you.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “Just ‘fuck you’?”

“No, fuck you a lot. Man, I’m the same age as you. I have a nowhere job, I just started dating a guy, so if you call yourself a loser, you’re calling me a loser, so fuck you.”

That made me smile a little.

“Look, dude, you had a life. A miserable one, if I recall. You lived in San Francisco, dated guys you weren’t into, had a job that sounded really boring, and you were miserable. Truly miserable. So you made a choice and started over. So what? There isn’t a fucking time limit, man. You aren’t playing the Game of Life. You don’t have so many moves to win the game here. It takes as long as it takes, and it sounds like we made the right choice.”

See what I mean? Yoda shit.

“If I stayed in California, I would have ended up a drug addict, a sex addict, or on Big Brother—all fates worse than death. I made the same choice you did. I went home and started over. That doesn’t make me a loser. That makes me… someone who knows when they aren’t winning. I’m winning now, and so are you. We’ve got guys we love, jobs… that pay the bills, and we are happy. Well, you aren’t ’cause you’re a morose motherfucker, but you should be because you’re fucking Tyler Parker, and trust me, dude, having a guy like that turn his head for you is a feat. Guys like Tyler could coast for years just randomly fucking guys and staying pretty. He stopped that and settled down with you. You. So stop this sighing bullshit and get over it.”

“You’re right,” I said after a few seconds.

“I know I’m right. You don’t have to tell me that. So let’s try this again.”

I looked at him expectantly.

“So Rob dragged me to a fucking Broadway flea market thing this weekend.”

“Dude, that sounds like hell.”

“You’re telling me!” he said with a small smile.

He had helped, and I wasn’t as depressed anymore, but something was wrong, something that wasn’t going to go away that easily.

Tyler

SO THE week leading up to his parents’ anniversary, Matt was acting weird.

Well, weirder than normal, I guess. He was always moody, and I don’t mean that in a menopausal way. Matt feels things very strongly, and he is really shitty at hiding it. I was completely flabbergasted he had hidden being gay for so long, the way he broadcasts what he’s feeling like a bullhorn. I finally asked him one night, and he said his brothers helped him a lot. If he was overdoing it, one of them would nudge him or flick him on the back of his ear to change his expression.

Just the thought of that made me laugh for days.

So when I say he was acting moody, I mean he was acting emotional for no particular reason I could discern. I tried cheering him up. First with snuggles on the couch. No dice. Then with a full-blown Willy Wonka-style dessert, where I loaded the dining room table up with just about every kind of ice cream and candy known to man. Nothing but a “thank you” and him sullenly watching TV while he devoured bowl after bowl of ice cream. Finally I pulled out all the stops.

I tried sex.

Now, I’m not going to get into the details about what we normally do, because it’s none of your business. The second you’re willing to publicly describe what you and your significant other do in the bedroom, I’ll do the same. Let’s just say Matt and I have healthy sexual appetites that’re fed at least four times a week. Normally these are quick, passionate rounds of fucking before we crash because nothing can knock you out like a mind-blowing orgasm. There isn’t much need for a lot of foreplay, because we’re both tired and just want to get off before we lose consciousness.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Not the most romantic description. Sue me.

But as we headed up to the bedroom Friday night, I knew this wasn’t going to be a wham-bam-thank-you-sir kind of night. I grabbed his shoulder as he moved toward the bed and pushed him into the bathroom.

“What’s up?” he asked, confused about me pulling his clothes off.

“We’re taking a shower,” I explained, tossing his shirt over my shoulder. “Get naked already,” I added before I turned the shower on.

“Do I stink or something?” he asked, raising his arm and sniffing.

“Yeah, you’re a guy. We always stink. So get in the shower.” I was shirtless already and shucking my pants off.

“Tyler, I’m not—” he started.

I pulled his sweats down to his knees.

“Get into the shower,” I half growled.

He rolled his eyes, stepped out of his pants, and got under the water.

I slipped in behind him and pulled the shower door shut.

“Okay, so I’m in the shower,” he said listlessly. “Now what?”

I reached around him and grabbed the bodywash. “Now we get clean,” I said, pouring some into my palm and lathering up.

Starting at his chest, I rubbed around and over, getting him nice and soapy and feeling him up. Matt has a great body, and before all his moodiness, he had been really working at it. The shower was as much for me as it was for him.

Okay, maybe more for me, but whatever.

I got down to his waist and stopped just as I touched his pubes. He wasn’t hard yet, but parts of him were paying more attention to me than other parts. His shoulders were like rocks, and it took a lot of strength to start kneading the knots out of his back. From the grunts and gasps, I could tell he needed this more than the rest of the night I had planned.

But we were still having crazy monkey sex. I’d give him a back rub tomorrow night.

My hands went lower and lower until I got to his ass.

Now let me talk some about Matt’s ass. There are butts in the world. They are things people sit on and that’s about it. Nothing to see, just a butt, keep moving. Then there are asses. An ass transcends the function of a butt and causes you to pause for a moment in its perfection. A nice ass is a work of art, and I am a patron of the arts from way back. Then there are goddamn asses; these asses can make a straight guy pause. They can make a blind woman gawk, and they can make a gay man fall to his knees.

Matt has an “oh my fucking God” ass.

It has some meat ’cause he’s a big boy, but a lifetime of running has turned it into a force of nature. I mean, a category-five ass, hands down. I’ve told him this a million times, and each time he’d blush and tell me to shut up, but it’s true. Boy has all the right junk in his trunk. So… being a gay man, I did what I had to in the face of such perfection.

I knelt in front of it and gave it praise.

“Tyler, what are… oh fuck!” he exclaimed as I began my work.

His hands reached out to steady himself on the shower wall, and I tried to dispel him of the foul mood he had recently discovered.

Now, I’m not going to brag… well, yes, I am. I’m pretty good with my mouth. You can take that any way you want, but it’s all I’m going to say on the subject. Within a minute he had relaxed, and by two minutes, he was banging his head against the shower wall asking me for more.

I was more than willing to grant Matt’s wish.

Some more soap and a couple of fingers later, he was speaking in tongues as I moved up against him. “You ready to get out of the shower now?”

“Yes, please,” he replied in a weak voice.

We rinsed each other off and practically broke the sound barrier drying off and leaping into bed. He expected me to just go to work and mount him right there, but like I said, this was not going to be one of those nights. I spent the next fifteen minutes between his legs, showing him exactly how skilled a mouth I had.

Finally he grabbed the top of my head and pulled me up by my hair. “Tyler! Fuck me already!”

The very words I was waiting for.

We started around 11:00, and we weren’t completely done with each other until 2:00 a.m. That wasn’t nonstop, of course. Let’s remember things like friction and the laws of thermodynamics, please. In those three hours, we had actual sex twice, two and a half blow jobs, and a rim job that could have sucked the chrome off a tailpipe.

Why am I going into all this detail?

Because the next morning (afternoon?) when we woke up, I turned over to him with a huge grin and said, “Morning.”

He just sighed and pulled a pillow over his head, grumbling a muffled “Morning” back.

I had finally met a depression I couldn’t fuck out of someone.

I was in trouble.

Matt

“SO HE set up a romantic dinner and nothing?”

I glanced up at Gayle and remembered the rest of the night and blushed slightly. “Yeah, and I feel like an ass for it, but….”

“But you’re still depressed, and no amount of sex can change that.”

“How did…?”

“Honey, if he didn’t throw sex at you, then he wouldn’t be Tyler Parker. So then why are you depressed?”

Sigh #21—Long inhale with a long exhale as I laid my head down on whatever was close.

I mumbled, “It’s stupid.”

She got up from the seat across from me. The breakfast crowd had just cleared out, so she had time to make a brief appearance at my pity party. “Matt, that I have no question about, but just because something is stupid doesn’t make you any less depressed. Now, you spent eighteen odd years wandering around this town moping because you wouldn’t speak your mind. You really want to fall back into that trap?”

Normally I would be pissed at being read so easily, but that was exactly the reason I came into Nancy’s. Gayle was worth any five psychologists, and her therapy sessions came with bacon cheeseburgers.

“Is it wrong to want more?” Even as I asked the question, I could tell it was a stupid one.

“That’s not what you wanted to ask,” she said with a Buddha smile. I waited, knowing she would correct me. “What you meant to ask was, is it wrong of you to want more from Tyler? And that question you need to ask yourself, and then, for fun, you might ask him.”

A bell rang behind her, and Carlos called out, “Order up!”

“Matt, you can’t still be afraid of losing Tyler for just asking a question.”

“It’s not the question. It’s what it means.”

“Talk to him,” she said, walking away to grab my food at the kitchen window.

I didn’t want to talk to Tyler, because I already knew how the conversation would end.

Tyler

I PICKED up my parents at the Dallas airport that Thursday.

As they got off the plane, I was struck by how old they seemed. I mean, yeah, they were my parents; of course they were old. But looking at them, they were almost elderly. My dad had always been such a robust man, full of life and energy, and now, as they walked out of the gate, he was confused by all the commotion around him.

My mom saw me, and her face lit up.

“Tyler!” she called out as I leaned in to hug her.

Either I had been bitten by a radioactive something, or she had lost some weight.

“Mom,” I said, hugging her tight. “How was the flight?”

“Horrible,” my dad answered for her. “Whoever designed those seats should be shot. And that movie was all noise and explosions. What the hell was it even about?”

My mom slapped his arm. “The one boy with the metal arm was brainwashed, and the good-looking boy was trying to save him.” She glanced at me and winked. “It was Colonel America in winter or something.” She paused, for effect if I know her. “Though I didn’t see any snow.”

I could mentally hear Kyle screaming from California.

“Well, come on. Let’s get your luggage and head back to Foster.”

“How’s the shop?” my dad asked as we made our way through the concourse.

“It’s good. Business is steady, but you know. It’s easier and cheaper to buy stuff online, so it’s getting harder to get people to walk in.”

My dad made a dismissing motion. “Internet is going to be the end of the world. They said comic books were going to end the world back in my day, but the Bookface is going to kill the world.”

My mom shook her head. “I tried to get him to play Farmville and he got mad.”

“It’s a trap!” he called out. “They tell you to plant all this crap, but then they want money. It’s not a game. It’s a con. Trust me, I’ve seen it before.”

“So where’s Matt?” my mom asked coyly.

“He’s helping his parents set up the backyard. His brothers flew in yesterday, so they’re making sure it looks its best for this weekend.”

“So everything is still good?”

Mom was trying to be slick, but the way she studied my face for the answer gave her away.

“Yes, Mom, we’re still together and everything is great.” She kept staring. “I promise!”

“Oh, leave the boy alone. He’s old enough to handle his own love life.”

God, if only that were true.

“So I made up our room for you guys, and I’m sleeping in my old room.”

“And Matt?”

“He’s staying at his parents’ house for the weekend.”

“You do know he doesn’t have to leave because of us,” my dad said out of nowhere. “It’s not like you’re going to mount him right there in the living room. Right?” he added a second later.

I just snorted.

“Scott! Don’t say words like ‘mounted’ in regards to our son.”

“What? He’s a grown-ass man, Frances! You don’t think he has sex?”

Oh God. This was actually happening.

“If he does, I don’t want to hear about it!” she snapped back. “Do you think he wants to hear about you mounting me?”

And it got worse.

“Okay, guys, let’s—”

But my dad wasn’t letting Mom take a win.

“So what? He knows we’ve had sex at least once or he wouldn’t be here, so what’s the big deal? It’s his house, and if he wants to mount his boyfriend, he should have the right.”

I glanced around and noticed a couple of people around us who were not looking at us but holding their hands in front of their mouths as they laughed.

“Can we not talk about this?” I almost begged.

My dad looked me squarely in the eyes and said, “Tyler, do not be afraid of talking about sex. Don’t let anyone shame you into that. You want to mount Matt, you scream it from the rooftops. It’s no one’s business.”

“I agree,” I said, firmly resisting the urge to clap my hand over his mouth. “So why don’t we stop screaming about it across the airport, okay?”

My dad looked around and saw the people smirking.

“Oh, grow up!” he snapped at everyone. “It’s the twenty-first century! My son’s sex life shouldn’t be that funny to you.”

I checked my watch, wondering how many hours I had been enduring this.

Seventeen minutes down, three days to go.

I. Hate. Everything.

Matt

THE BACKYARD had been transformed into… well, a nicer backyard.

My dad had hired some of the local boys to come in, cut the grass, pull the weeds, and clear the whole place out a few weeks ago. And to mow the grass yesterday so people wouldn’t have to wade through a waist-high prairie to get to their seats. All that was left now was for the chairs and tables to be set up.

My brothers and I would do the setting up, if you were wondering. My dad could see spending money on lawn care, but damned if he was going to give someone good money to set up folding chairs. His words, not mine. So John, Billy, and I were pulling a couple dozen chairs out of the back of my dad’s truck while my mom stood on the back porch and gave vague directions about where she wanted them.

It was every bit as much fun as it sounds.

“So this is fun,” John grunted as he took another stack of chairs out of the truck. “Come home to celebrate their anniversary and get thrown onto a chain gang.”

“This ain’t a chain gang,” Billy commented, taking the chairs and passing them to me. “On a chain gang, you get regular breaks and water.”

“You do know I can hear you boys,” my mom called from the porch.

“Yes, ma’am,” we all replied simultaneously. When my mom caught us doing anything, those two words were our built-in response. We were as in sync as any barbershop quartet, even though we hadn’t practiced in a few years.

“We should be making our kids do this,” Billy muttered, more quietly. “If the Wallace State penitentiary has taught us anything, it’s that you have children for menial labor.”

“I wish, but Patty and Marie took them to the outlet mall so they could get some clothes.”

Patty and Marie were John and Billy’s wives. Between my two brothers, they had seven kids total. Seven. I don’t even have seven friends I talk to regularly, but they’re responsible for seven little life-forms living under their roofs. They have to feed them, clothe them, eventually get them cars, and find a way to pay for college as well. The most Tyler and I worried about was making room in the fridge for two twelve-packs, since we didn’t like the same beer.

God, I just made the two of us sound like frat guys.

“Hey, Bathmatt! Eyes open.”

I looked up and saw Billy standing there holding an armful of chairs. “You wanna take these, or you too busy gazing into nothing?”

“Sorry,” I said, taking them and putting them on the lawn. “And don’t call me that. I hate that fucking nickname.”

“Not my fault you spent most of your high school years jerking it in the shower.”

I heard John chuckle as he took another armful of chairs out of the truck.

“Right, because you never masturbated in your life,” I shot back. “Dude, you had so many socks under your bed that you could have opened a Foot Locker.”

“What the fuck were you doing under my bed, you little creep?”

I gave him my best little brother smile. “I wasn’t. I guessed, but thanks for confirming that for me.”

John let out a larger laugh at that, and Billy and I glared over at him.

“Laugh it up, fuzzball,” Billy taunted.

“Fuck both of you,” John said with a shit-eating grin. “Neither one of you has shit on me. I didn’t have anything under my bed. I had more than enough sex in high school to satisfy me.”

“Yeah, some even with girls,” I said under my breath, putting the next batch of chairs on the lawn.

There was a crash of metal as John dropped the chairs and came jumping off the truck at me. “Fuck you, Matt!” he screamed. “You said you weren’t going to tell anyone!” He hit me dead in the gut, and we both went down into the stack of chairs. I’ll admit, I was so stunned he jumped me that I just lay there as he began to whale on me. “Fucking told you not to tell anyone!”

Billy came up behind him and pulled him off as he screamed at me.

“What in the fuck?”

My dad’s voice came echoing from the kitchen, and we all froze as he practically kicked open the screen door. “What are you doing?” Billy let John go, and I propped myself up on the lawn, gaping at him. “You all are grown men! Act like it. Because if you three start shit this weekend, I will personally ground you idiots for a week.”

Billy laughed. “Dad, we’re adults; you can’t ground us.”

He gave us all the glare of death. “You boys just try me.”

No one said a word.

“Now get those damn chairs in place, and no more fighting.” He turned around mumbling something about stupid-ass something or other, and that he should have gotten them clipped after the army.

“You’re an asshole,” John said to me once Dad was gone.

I got up slowly, squinting in order to focus. I thought I had a black eye. “No, you’re an idiot.”

“I told you not to say anything,” he repeated.

“Yeah, and if you had like three brain cells, you’d know I didn’t. You just said way more than I did.”

He paused for a second, and then Billy’s eyes lit up. “Wait a minute.” He looked at John. “You fooled around with a guy?”

“See?” I said to John. “You’re. A fucking. Idiot.”

“Who was it?” Billy asked, way too eager. “Wait, let me guess…. Clark Thompson?”

John made a face. “What? No way. Clark was fat as a cow.”

Billy thought about it. “Yeah, but he was okay in the face. Martin Posner?”

“Dude, if I was going to fool around with a guy, he at least better have been hot. I mean, come on.”

“Just tell him already before he goes and grabs a yearbook,” I said, starting to restack the chairs.

“It was Riley Mathison.”

“Riley? Quarterback Riley?” Billy let out a low whistle. “Fuck, man, he was built. Yeah, I could see hitting that.”

“Yeah, and I’m the gay one in this family,” I said to no one. My face continued swelling.

Tyler

“SO THIS is a first for you, huh?” Linda said as we waited for our food.

“What? Eating? I’m pretty sure I’ve done a lot of that.”

“Doing a family thing with a boyfriend, you dick. You’ve usually already broken up with them by this point.”

“Please don’t remind me,” I replied, looking away. “Not only is it weird, but Matt’s been acting off all week, and I don’t know why. I keep feeling like I did something wrong, but this time I really didn’t!”

“That’s a first for you too,” she teased.

“I thought you were here to be a supporting best friend.”

She laughed. “And I thought we relished each other’s pain as sport.”

“So how are things with Steve?” I asked, trying to gain back some leverage in the conversation.

“We’re fine, thank you for asking.” The grin on her face was insufferable. “So let me guess. You tried bribing him, babying him, and offered him the full Tyler trying to cheer him up, but the one thing you haven’t done was ask him what’s wrong.”

I could feel the scowl on my face. “When he’s ready to talk, he’ll talk.”

“See! There’s the Tyler I know. If presented with a problem, don’t try to fix it. Try to see if it will go away on its own.”

“It’s not a problem! He’s just in a mood about something.”

“If it’s not a problem, then why not ask him?”

I literally had no answer to that.

“You’re falling back into old habits, and that’s not good. You have something good with Matt. Don’t let your own stupidity screw that up.”

We sat there in silence while the echo of her words danced around my head. After a minute, I went on the offensive.

“So have you tried to get Kyle to date other guys yet?”

“Oh God, this again!” Linda shook her head. “They’re fine. In fact, they’re better than fine. The only person here who has a problem with their relationship is you.”

“Because it’s weird.”

“You’re weird.”

Couldn’t argue with that.

But it didn’t change the fact that I had a problem.

Matt

“HERE,” JOHN said, handing me a bag of frozen peas.

I placed it gingerly against my face. “Why do they even have these?” I asked, wincing from the pain. “I mean, did we ever eat peas while we were living here?”

Billy handed us both a beer. “Probably for what you’re using it for right now. I mean, we used to get in a lot of fights.”

“We?” John sipped his beer. “You’re speaking French, right?”

Billy gave him a look. “What? I got in tons of fights.”

“No,” John countered in that annoying big-brother voice he always used when he was correcting us. “You started a lot of fights; I usually finished them for your lame ass.”

“I fought lots of times.” Billy pouted, pretty much admitting everything John just said was right.

“How many times did you beat the hell out of someone for talking shit about your gay little brother?” I asked.

John looked away and took a long sip.

“Man, I thought I was fooling people back then too.”

“Dude,” John began. “You refused to look at anyone in the locker room. Anyone. Period. Only two types of people do that. Guys who think they are the top dog, and fa—and gay people.”

“You almost said fag!” I said, cracking a smile.

“Whatever. You called me a fag last time we talked on the phone.”

“Yeah, but you let Riley fuck you, so that makes you a fa—” Billy never got a chance to finish that sentence.

“William Michael Wallace!” My mom’s voice was half Darth Vader, half Batman. “Did I just hear that word come out of your mouth?”

Billy looked around and found that John and I had already fled the kitchen.

“Thanks, guys!” he called after us.

We both tried not to laugh as we sneaked up the stairs. Once we got into John’s old room, we closed the door and let all the pent-up merriment fly free.

“He is so dead,” John said, holding his stomach.

“Oh, he’s going to wish he was dead. She’s going to make him cry.”

We heard the front door open and ran to the window. Sure enough, there was Billy with two full bags of trash, walking them out to the curb while my mom followed on his heels. He looked up at us, and we ducked down in a flash.

“Garbage duty,” John said, sitting down on the floor. “The worst.”

“He’ll be out there for an hour separating that shit.” I held up my beer and clinked it on his. “To another successful getaway.”

He nodded, and we sat there and finished them. “Hey, man, I’m sorry….”

I held up a hand. “Hey, what happens in the backyard stays in the backyard. You know the rule.”

“So what’s really bugging you?”

I tried my best to give him an innocent look. “Nothing except this melting bag of peas.”

“Yeah, nice try. But you forget I’ve known you since the day you came into this world. I know when you have a problem, so come on. What’s eating you?”

Sometimes having perceptive siblings can suck.

“Nothing.” He opened his mouth to argue, so I just blurted out, “It’s Tyler.”

“What did he do now?”

“Hey.” I gave him a look. “What do you mean ‘now’?”

“Oh, come on, Matt. He doesn’t seem to be the most stable of people. Are you telling me he didn’t do anything wrong?”

“He didn’t.” John just stared at me. “Seriously.” More of the staring. “It’s not that he did anything; it’s that he isn’t doing anything.”

John’s face scrunched up. “Dude, this isn’t like a gay sex thing, right?”

“What? Jesus, man, not everything is about sex.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong. I’m just curious, how do you figure out who the girl is going to be?”

“No one is a girl,” I said, getting upset.

“Well, one of you is if the other one is… I mean… you know what I mean.”

“You really want me to go into detail about how Tyler and I decide who’s going to bottom?”

“Oh God, no!”

“Then shut up. It isn’t a sex thing. It’s just….”

“Lemme guess, you guys do the same thing all the time and wonder if this is all there is.”

I looked at him open-mouthed, shocked.

“Yeah, that isn’t just a gay thing, that’s a relationship thing. Patty goes on about it all the time—that all we do is get up, feed the kids, go to work, come home, feed the kids, and sleep, and when are we going to change. Look, man, you want him to say ‘I love you’ more and to try harder, right?”

I nodded.

“Then do what Patty does—refuse to have sex with me until I pick my shit up off the bathroom floor or whatever she’s on about. You withhold sex, you’ll get what you want.”

“But then I’m not getting sex either.”

He shrugged. “What’s more important, getting the attention or getting the sex?”

I sat there thinking about it.

“See? You’re a Wallace boy! I had to think about it too. Just trust me, crack the whip some and he’ll come around. But you know what that makes you?”

I shook my head.

“That would make you the girl.”

“I fucking hate you.”

He just laughed and laughed.

Tyler

THAT WEEKEND was a mess.

My parents were constantly underfoot around the house. Not having anything to do does not look good on my dad. You could swear my mom was the one who was getting married from all the fuss she was making. And then there were the dozen or so relatives who were flying in to sit in Matt’s backyard to see his parents get married all over again.

And there was Matt.

Somehow he had collected a black eye, which he told me was collateral damage for having brothers, whatever that meant. He wasn’t distant as much as… well, not all there. I’m sure not many people knew, but Matt and I had been together for over a year, and I could tell something was up. I asked him a few times, and all I got was a smile and an “I’m fine!” followed by a peck on the cheek.

By the time Saturday rolled around, I was getting worried.

Saturday turned out to be a pleasant enough day, not too hot, a little breeze, everything you’d want if you were renewing your vows in your backyard. Most of the men were in suits and ties, myself included since I didn’t want to do anything else to upset Matt, not that I knew what I had done to begin with.

I saw his oldest brother John with a kid over by the food, and I thought maybe I should get a second opinion on the matter. After all, if anyone knew Matt, it had to be his brothers, right?

“Hey, John.” I moseyed up alongside him. He was making a plate of food for the small boy next to him. The small boy obviously did not like the selection he was getting.

“Daaaad! Put another roll on there!”

“Hey, Ty,” he said to me. Without missing a beat, he turned to the kid. “You are going to get full on bread, and then you won’t want to eat later.”

“I’m always hungry! You know that!” The small boy pouted.

“Except when you’re not, and then you just sit there and throw food at your brothers. This is it. Take it or starve.” He handed him the plate.

“Fine!” the boy said, taking the plate and tromping off.

John rolled his eyes. “If you and Matt ever think of adopting, I got a couple you can have on the cheap.”

That made me laugh. “No, thank you. Raising a child looks way too complicated to me.”

“It ain’t that hard,” he informed me, grabbing a beer from the metal bucket next to the table. He held one up for me, and I nodded. “All you do is marry a woman smarter than you and let her raise them.”

I popped the top off the bottle. “Yeah, but you’re talking about Matt and me. I think the kid would be smarter than us.”

“Very true,” he said, taking a long swig. “So, let me guess. This is a ‘What’s wrong with Matt’ talk, right?”

“That obvious?”

“Nah, I just know my little brother, and dating that ball of hormones can’t be easy. Look, man, he just wants to hear things from you, that’s all. You want to make up to him and gain yards?” I nodded. “Give my parents a toast and then throw in that you love him. I bet he’ll melt into a small puddle, and you’re home free.”

“You think?” I asked, not believing fixing things would be that easy.

“I know. Trust me on this, bro. Just go tell my dad you want to toss them a toast and say something to Matt, and you’re in like Flynn.”

“Dude,” I said, shocked. “You are a lifesaver.”

He shrugged. “Nah, I just lived with that moody bitch for eighteen years. I know how to handle him.”

“Where’s your dad?” I asked eagerly.

“In the house, probably bitching about having to wear a tux.”

“Thanks, John. I owe you one,” I said, holding my fist out for a pound.

“Hey, you make my little brother happy, we’re good. Now mind you, I don’t want to know how you make him happy….”

I made a zipping motion over my mouth. “I’ll never tell.”

He laughed as I ran into the house. Tell him I love him… yeah, this was going to be a piece of cake.

The house was crowded with kids in various states of dress and undress while two women tried to wrangle them into suits. I gave them a small smile as I jogged up the stairs.