Shiny! (11 page)

And he really wanted to appreciate it even more.

Then why didn’t you kiss him, genius?

Because I didn’t want to be some random hookup, moron! He was ready to hit the bars this morning—I could have been the Boston Strangler and he still would have offered to blow me.

Oh.

Yup, even Will’s inner voice had to concede that he wanted more from this relationship. Yes, it would be
his first gay kiss and his first gay sex, but that didn’t mean he wanted it to be his
last
kiss and his
last
sex from this person.

Especially if the person happened to be Kenny, who really was starting to outrank Will’s mom for that role of best friend forever.

T
HEY
ATE
sandwiches after their run, with the kite anchored by one of Will’s shoes and flickering above them, and Will figured they’d probably get fast food on the way back. Then they sat quietly—Will brought out his book, and Kenny pulled out a battered copy of Stephen King’s
It
,
and they read, side by side, for about an hour. Every now and then Will would laugh and Kenny would say, “What?” Will would read him a passage from the undoubtedly brilliant Christopher Moore, and the oddest part of that was that Kenny would
laugh.
Usually Will had to explain Moore to people—even his mom and aunt Cara. Hell, even his fellow
teachers
hadn’t gotten the biting satire, but Kenny? Kenny laughed. It was about the best sound in the world, kind of high and dry and sarcastic—but warm too.

On the way home, Kenny surprised him and stopped in the city. They went to the wharf and had the big sourdough bowls filled with clam chowder while they walked to the end of the pier and looked out at the bay.

Will huddled in his sweatshirt, cold, and looked at Kenny, who was doing the same in a thin hoodie, but neither of them wanted to leave.

“I just want a future,” Kenny said suddenly, without preamble. But Will didn’t even have to guess what he was talking about. They were here because of his breakup, after all.

“I know you do,” Will said with feeling. “So do I.”

“You want my future?” Kenny asked, one side of his mouth quirking.

Will rolled his eyes. “It’s just… I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ll find a teaching job by the end of the summer, it’s just… it would be nice to have some control over it, right?”

“Yeah, but you do have control over your own business,” Kenny said, and Will grimaced. Of all the things he and Kenny seemed to agree on, Will got the distinct impression that going back to teaching was not one of them.

“I do—and it’s picking up. It’s just… solid. Predictable—that’s not a bad thing in a job. I know it’s not bright and shiny, but then, I’m not really a bright-and-shiny person, you know that.”

“What?” Kenny said, and he sounded a little shocked.

Will shrugged. “Well, look at me—I’m not setting the world on fire here. I just wanted a little niche, right? Me, my classroom, my kids—a chance to do something worthwhile, something that will last.”

Kenny grunted. “That’s bullshit,” he said with surprising passion. “You
are
bright and spectacular. You
can
set the world on fire. That novel we’re doing? That’s—”

“Those are your pictures, Kenny.”

“That’s
your
inspiration, idiot. Your websites? Those are amazing—they’re user-friendly, you have a great sense of graphic placement, and your prose should win you advertising awards. Seriously—you have so much more to offer than just teaching—”

“Well, thank you,” Will said, trying to find the reason for his hurt. “I just thought that teaching was important.”

Kenny sighed. “It is important—”

“Besides,” Will interrupted because he didn’t want to hear the “but” he sensed coming, “we’re talking about
your
future. And maybe before you go out and start looking for your future in another Gif, you might want to figure out why Gif wasn’t the right guy.”

“I know why Gif wasn’t the right guy,” Kenny sighed, and some of the fight went out of him. “Gif wasn’t the right guy because I was looking for the wrong things in him.”

“Yeah? What were you looking for?” Will wanted to take notes.

“I was looking for sparkly,” Kenny said, staring out over the bright bay. “I should have been looking for warm and real.”

Oh, that was encouraging. Those were two qualities Will could
do
.

“I think that’s a great start,” Will said with fervor, and Kenny was standing close enough for Will to drape an arm over his back and pretend it was all in the name of being a buddy.

“A
ND
YOU
didn’t kiss him?” Cara asked bluntly.

Nina sat by her side with an almost identical expression of disbelief. “Yeah, seriously. Nobody made a move? You were in San Francisco, for sweet Christ’s sake!”

“He wasn’t ready yet,” Will said, at the same time Kenny said, “I wasn’t ready yet.”

Will grinned at him, and Kenny looked embarrassed.

“Are we getting to the part where one of you
was
ready?” Cara asked. “Because seriously—it’s a nice story and all, but I want to dance at my wedding!”

“We’re getting there,” Will promised. “I swear.”

Almost Ready

K
ENNY
GOT
the results of his HIV test e-mailed to him, which meant he was at work when he saw the result.

His first impulse was to stand up and Safety Dance all over his little cubicle with its
Firefly
posters and Harry Potter
memorabilia. (Gif hated that shit, which was why it lived in Kenny’s cubicle.)

Kenny looked up and saw Cam, the guy on the other side of his cubicle, working steadily on the pamphlet he was designing for an in-house change of policy. Kenny got to design the packaging graphics for the new product, which was a definite improvement when it came to job assignments, and he was never sure how to act around Cam. Cam—fiftyish, jowly, and on his third wife—got there early and left early, using the flex time with interest so he could coach his kids’ sports teams and spend time with them in spite of the fucked-up family situation. Kenny’s dad had always been too busy running his own business, and his mom taught high school, so they’d never been able to do that. Kenny sort of admired the guy for his dedication, but he felt bad shooting over his head like that.

“What’s up?” Cam noticed him wiggling in his chair, and Kenny fought a brief battle for candor. No one at work even knew he was gay yet—he’d spent his first few months trying so hard to be a wunderkind that he’d sort of pretended he didn’t have a personal life.

“Got some good news,” he said vaguely.

Cam raised his eyebrows, but Kenny was
so
not spilling the whole story, not right now.

Cam sighed and then shrugged. “Well, you know. Find someone you
want
to talk to and celebrate.”

Kenny felt bad for a minute. “It’s no big deal, really,” he lied. God, the big negative—it was what every sexually active boy wanted to hear, wasn’t it? “But thanks, I’ll take your advice.”

Cam grunted. “Great. I’ll dispense it when needed.” And then he turned back to his project, leaving Kenny feeling
more
than a little guilty. Okay, now that he’d proved he was a wunderkind—and sacrificed his relationship to do it—maybe it was time to stop being a big glittery meteor in the work world and maybe start being a human being. Because God knew, with Will as his conscience, he wasn’t going to go out and bag himself a pretty new boyfriend—not anytime soon, that was for damned sure.

Will. Of course—
duh
.
Kenny reached into his pocket for his phone and noticed that Cam’s soda—the same kind Will drank—was on its last inch in the bottle. Okay, first he’d text Will and make sure he was coming over for the evening, and then he’d get Cam a soda and maybe start being a real person at work.

And
then
he’d plan dinner.

“S
O
DO
you want me to bring takeout?” Will asked over the phone, and Kenny smiled indulgently, stirring the sausage in one pot before moving to the tomato sauce in the other. It was very Will to offer to bring food when Kenny
knew
his finances had to be hurting. Will was considerate like that.

“Nope,” Kenny said proudly. “I’m making dinner tonight. Cleaned off the table, set it, everything.” He’d even bought ice cream. “Bring yourself, your laptop, and your appetite, Daddy is cooking tonight!”

Will’s laugh was that same warm, sunshiny sound Kenny had learned to appreciate during the past month.
God
,
he was good company. “What’s the occasion? I need to know what to wear.”

Anything. Cargo shorts, T-shirt, jeans, T-shirt, corduroys, no shirt, polyester plaid—I could look at your big bear body in anything.

Oh God. Kenny promptly told his baser self to stand down, Straight Boy was
not
for him. “Nothing fancy,” he said firmly into the phone. “And the occasion is, if you must know, I got my second HIV test back, and I am clean, clear, and damned near virginal. Huzzah and hip hooray, at least Gif could use a rubber.”

There was a startled pause on the other end of the line, and then Will’s sincere voice. “That’s
awesome
,” he said. “I’ll have to bring something!”

“No, no, no, no, no—you’re missing the point. The point is
I treat you
,
because baby, I got it going on. Pasta, homemade sauce, ice cream, pie, beer, Dr Pepper”—because Will drank it by the case—“salad, uhm—”

“Garlic bread?” Will prompted gently.

“
Dammit
!” Because sure enough,
that
was
what Kenny had forgotten.

“I’ll be over in half an hour. And seriously, Kenny. Congratulations. That must be sort of a load off your mind.”

Yeah, a big viral load!
But Kenny couldn’t joke about it—not with Will, who had been kind and decent and a really good friend. “Yeah. I… I mean, part of the fun of being in a committed relationship is you know where you stand there, you know? And it’s just nice to know I can move on.”

“That’s awesome. I’m really happy for you,” he said, but the pronouncement was followed by the sort of loaded pause that sounded like it was full of words in Will’s head.

“What?” Kenny asked. He didn’t always get an answer when he asked that.

“Nothing,” Will said, all of the hesitation gone. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

Will rang off and Kenny turned the heat off the sausage and onions, sneaking a bite before he added them into the sauce. He wanted it to be perfect; Will Lafferty of the shrinking white belly (he’d been working out and riding his bike since he got fired) had been a
godsend
in the past month.

Kenny’s college dating had been… well, sort of exploitative. Or exploited. It just felt like every guy had six other guys he wanted to bang besides Kenny, and every time Kenny thought they were getting to the point where the rubbers could come off, he’d find out the other guy had just been in a three-way with all of Kenny’s exes, and
bam!
Kenny was club-fucking again. Gif had been Kenny’s first move at cohabitation and his first attempt at a real relationship. Besides just the fucking
betrayal
,
there was that horrible sense of failure, of impending doom, that “I’ll never have somebody to love” that went with a failed relationship.

Will had helped Kenny get past that.

For one thing, for all that he looked like a refrigerator (and the more comfortable he got around Kenny, the more gracefully he moved), his mind was incredibly quick. Once he’d started unloading his character bible, Kenny had realized that Will had entire
worlds
of layered depth, of pathos, of creativity, lying beneath that broad-faced surface. Sitting there making preliminary sketches, listening to Will’s ideas on layout, on plot arc, on which graphic elements to stress to make the ending more impactful, Kenny became lost in their idea, their steampunk galaxy, complete with rocket-powered giant-wheeled tricycles and giant sentient house cats made of metal. The characters too, a man and a woman, were fascinating, culpable, flawed, and ultimately heroic. Kenny felt like he’d known them after the past weeks, like they were people he’d grown up with, and they’d gotten to star in this little drama because they were worthy.

He’d never drawn so well in his life.

It was
amazing
,
how well he could draw, how many sketches he could produce with his computer stylus, just
listening
to Will detail what a scene was about. He’d never been a cooperative learner, had always disdained groups in school, sprawling in his desk and listening to the planners plot while he simply produced artwork on command to save (in his opinion) their lame ideas.

But Will—Will
brought it
.
Kenny wouldn’t have been able to do
any
of the stuff he was doing now without Will’s dynamic, creative ideas.

So that was one reason to be grateful to the big guy.

The other reason was more… complex.

He was just such a
nice man.
Kenny did snarky—he
got
snarky. But Will was just so… so…
sweet
.

Kenny didn’t have a whole lot of memories of that night Will had accidentally gotten him drunk, but what he did have reflected pretty awesomely on Will. The end, he seemed to recall, was lying on Will and watching
Orphan Black
and crying all over Will’s solid, straight-boy
chest, the big ugly kind of cry, while Will just patted him gently on the back and told him it would all be okay.

Kenny didn’t know how to thank him for that.

How did you thank someone you just met for actually
being
the “I love you, man!” man? The guy who would listen to you whine and complain and then stay the night and make you toast to eat with your painkillers and giant ice water? How did that guy even exist?