Billy's Bones (4 page)

Kevin’s brooding continued through the entire meal and paying for it, so Tom was expecting they’d simply head back to his house rather than shop around for grills. He wasn’t even sure Kevin would stick around to finish the hot tub that afternoon. But Kevin drove him to a local hardware store, as he’d promised, and once inside, he seemed to shake the dark mood he’d slipped into.

“You don’t want any of these two- or three-hundred-dollar jobbies,” Kevin said, waving a hand at some of the low-end grills dismissively. “The igniters will die on you after the first year, and the whole mess will fall apart a year after that.”

He led Tom over to some of the more middle-range grills. These were a far cry from the simple charcoal grills Tom remembered cooking burgers and hot dogs on when he was a kid. These things were big stainless steel monsters with four long propane burners and automatic ignition switches.

“Do I really need something this big?” Tom asked.

“Well, I don’t know, Tom. I haven’t seen how big it is. But I thought we were talking about grills.”

Tom rolled his eyes at him, and Kevin flashed him a grin.

“Do you have a grill like this?” Tom tried again.

“No, I can’t afford shit. I just have a fucking hibachi on my porch. But this is what I’d get, if I could afford to get a nice grill.”

In the end, Tom bought the grill. He wasn’t sure why, but he trusted Kevin not to steer him wrong. Or maybe he was just developing a stupid crush on the guy. He’d have to watch that, before it got him into trouble.

But then again, he’d just spent almost seven-hundred dollars on a gas grill he wasn’t sure he needed. Maybe he was
already
in trouble.

B
Y
THE
time they got back to the house, it was pretty late in the afternoon. Tom had half hoped Kevin would hang around a bit longer after finishing up on the hot tub, maybe have a beer. But either Kevin was still in a bad mood after learning about Tracy’s pregnancy, or perhaps he just had a life. Once he’d finished the job and popped the side panel back into place on the hot tub, he told Tom, “That should do it. Just fill it up again, turn it on, and let the water heat up. You’ll be all set.”

Tom wrote him a check for his labor, and Kevin left. Standing alone on his back deck and listening to the truck pull out of his driveway, Tom felt ridiculously lonely, as though he hadn’t spent the last ten years of his life living alone anyway.

The grill sat in two cardboard boxes on the deck, alongside a squat little propane tank, but he didn’t feel motivated to assemble it. Instead, he took Kevin’s advice and filled the hot tub. By the time it was full and the chemicals had been added, it was beginning to get dark. He stripped naked again and brought a book out onto the deck to read by the spotlight overhanging the deck, but he couldn’t concentrate on it. All he could think about was Kevin shirtless and the fact that he clearly hadn’t been wearing underwear under those cutoffs. It wasn’t long before his dick started to demand attention, so he put the book down and turned the spotlight off. Then he stretched out in the deck chair and jerked off unhurriedly under the clear night sky.

When he was ready, he stood up and walked to the railing, so he could spew his seed out into the darkness. He couldn’t remember exactly what was below the deck on that side, but hopefully it was just grass he was squirting onto.

Then he went to check the hot tub. The water was still ice cold.

Four

T
HE
next morning, the water in the hot tub felt somewhat warmer, but only lukewarm. Was this normal? Did hot tubs always take this long to heat up? Tom was tempted to call Kevin, but it was pretty early. Tom had to get to work, anyway. Maybe it would be hot by tonight.

At lunchtime, Sue Cross offered to pick up takeout from Wang’s Garden on Main Street, and the two of them ate in her office. Sue was several years older than Tom, though he’d certainly never asked her about her age. She was a no-nonsense woman who knew how to rock a business suit, and she’d put more than one belligerent, misogynist client in his place during her long career as a therapist. But she seemed to regard Tom as an opportunity to flex long-disused motherly instincts.

“You really shouldn’t be seeing a guy you’ve treated,” she cautioned as she doled out portions of pork fried rice onto two Styrofoam plates.

“I’m not ‘seeing’ him,” Tom hedged. “He’s straight. I just hired him.”

She snorted. “How many straight men have you fallen for since I’ve met you?”

Too many, Tom knew. But that was beside the point. “I already know I have a long history of being an idiot. But I’ve never
dated
any of the straight guys I’ve had crushes on because they were—oddly enough—straight.”

“It’s not a healthy obsession.”

“I’m not obsessed, and stop psychoanalyzing me,” Tom snapped, fishing around in the paper bag the food came in to see if there were any chopsticks. There weren’t. Just the short plastic forks he hated. “I don’t fall for straight guys
because
they’re straight. I just happen to like guys who are a little rough around the edges.”

“Surely you’re not saying all gay men are effeminate,” Sue chastised, taking her seat and dragging her plate across the desk to bring it closer.

“Of course not. I’ve met a few men—a few
gay
men—I found attractive. But one was a total jerk, and I slept with the other three. It didn’t work out.”

Sue pursed her lips in an expression of mock prudishness. “You slept with all three of them?”

“Well, not at the same time.”

“In any event,” Sue said, “you shouldn’t be
friends
with somebody you’ve treated either.”

“I saw him once, three years ago. I think we’re well past him thinking of me as an authority figure.”

Sue merely raised her eyebrows skeptically since she was busy chewing.

“Besides,” Tom added, “neither one of us sought the other out. Destiny just threw us together again.”

He realized he’d unintentionally phrased it as if the situation was romantic, and he cringed. But fortunately Sue’s cell phone rang, and she was too busy answering it to notice.

W
HEN
he got home from work, Tom checked the water temperature again on the hot tub. It was definitely warm now, but still not hot. He double-checked the time and decided it was early enough to call Kevin. And this was a legitimate reason, wasn’t it? The hot tub might not be working properly.

Fortunately, Kevin didn’t seem to mind getting a call. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes they take a while to heat up, ’cause there’s so much water in there. But maybe the heating element is going. Do you want me to swing by and take a look?”

“Sure. When?”

“Right now, if you’re not busy.”

That threw Tom for a loop. He hadn’t expected an immediate response. “Um… I don’t want to put you out….”

“It’s up to you,” Kevin said cheerfully. “I’m just sitting around the house bored.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure.” Then, feeling like a total idiot, Tom asked, “Hey, have you had dinner yet?”

It was seven o’clock. Of course Kevin would have eaten. But he was surprised when Kevin answered, “No. You want to grill something?”

“Uh… yeah. We could do that.”

“All right!” Kevin said enthusiastically. “Give me a half hour.”

As soon as Tom hung up, he realized he didn’t actually have anything in the house to grill.

H
E
DROVE
to Groveton in a panic, hoping there would be something open where he could at least buy hot dogs. He drove around until he stumbled across the Groveton Village Store, which was still open, and there he managed to pick up some raw hamburger, cheese, buns, and ketchup. He also grabbed a couple six-packs of beer. Unfortunately, by the time he got back to his car, a half hour had gone by. It took another fifteen minutes to get home, and by then Kevin’s truck was already in the driveway and Kevin was sitting on the porch steps.

Shit
.

Kevin stood and grinned as Tom got out of his car and popped the trunk. “You didn’t have any food in the house, did you, you dumb shit?”

“No,” Tom confessed sheepishly, pulling several plastic grocery bags from the trunk. “And it gets worse.”

Kevin approached the car and saw the two six-packs, so he lifted them out. “How?”

“I haven’t put the grill together yet.”

Kevin shook his head and slammed the trunk closed. “Jesus.”

I
T
DIDN
’
T
take long to put the grill together with Kevin helping. It took a little longer to stop feeling like an ass, but Kevin seemed to find the whole situation amusing. So after a couple of beers, Tom relaxed and settled into the pleasant, easy feeling of hanging out with another guy. It wasn’t something he experienced often.

The burgers were delicious, but far better than that was simply sitting back in a deck chair, drinking beer, and talking about nothing much with Kevin. Tom wished the evening could go on forever.

At one point, Kevin roused himself from his chair and said, “Fuck. I haven’t even looked at the hot tub yet.”

Tom wasn’t so sure he cared about that, at the moment, but he watched as Kevin lifted the cover and stuck his hand in the water.

“It’s warm,” Kevin commented.

“I know it’s warm. It just doesn’t seem
very
warm.”

Tom dragged himself out of his stupor and joined Kevin at the tub. He stuck his hand in the water and swished it around. It did feel a bit warmer than he remembered. Not as hot as he would have liked, but certainly comfortably warm.

“It’s an old tub,” Kevin said. “Sometimes they can take a couple days to warm up completely. But I’d say it’s warm enough to take a dip in. What do you say?”

This took Tom by surprise. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Kevin would want to use the hot tub. “I don’t have a swimsuit.”

“Dude,” Kevin said with a laugh, “you don’t wear a swimsuit in a hot tub.”

If Kevin hadn’t been there, Tom would have had no problem stripping naked, but it bothered him to think about the two of them being naked in the tub together. Not so much because he couldn’t control his erection—he hadn’t had any trouble keeping things under control in gym showers since high school—but just because it felt dishonest. Kevin felt comfortable with the idea of getting naked in front of Tom because he was assuming Tom wouldn’t be looking at him with any kind of sexual interest.

“Look,” Tom said slowly, “this isn’t something I would normally tell you until we were better friends….” He balked at going further, but Kevin was looking at him curiously now, expecting him to finish what he’d started. Tom took another swig of his beer. “I’m not… straight.”

For just a moment, Kevin looked confused. Then he frowned and said, “Oh.”

He walked away from the hot tub, leaving Tom to set the cover back down onto it. Kevin opened the last of the beers and went back to his deck chair before taking a long swallow. It was clear he was disturbed, though Tom couldn’t tell if it was the kind of disturbed that would nip off their budding friendship.

“I didn’t think it would be fair to let you undress in front of me until I’d told you that,” Tom explained.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

There didn’t seem to be much to say after that. Tom went back to his chair, and they drank in silence for several minutes until Kevin stood up and announced, “I’d better go before I’m too tired to drive home.”

“Are you safe to drive?”

“I’m fine, man. I’ll see you.”

“Okay.”

Tom felt his spirits sinking as Kevin walked around to the front of the house and drove away. He hadn’t really done anything wrong, he knew. But there were probably better ways of breaking the news to a new friend. Or maybe Kevin was just a homophobic asshole, and he would have bailed no matter what Tom did.

But Tom still felt as if he’d blown it.

Five