Shiny! (25 page)

“I was good at it,” he said, feeling a little empty. “I
was
good at it.”

“You’re still good at it,” Kenny said. With jerky movements he moved around the boxes and the coffee table and hovered near Will’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to quit because you’re not good at it.”

“Then—”

Kenny rested his hand on Will’s bicep and squeezed lightly. “You’re just… you have so much talent, Will—”

“But teaching used to be considered a talent,” Will protested.

Kenny sighed.

“You’re right. It should be. Teachers should be paid a living wage, and they should be given reasonable expectation of privacy, and they should be given input into what they teach. But they’re
not
.
I’ve been listening to my mom bitch about these things for years—but the district next to the one she worked in just gave their entire staff a 13 percent pay cut, retroactive, by cutting the number of days they teach.”

Will wrinkled his nose. He’d heard about that. It seemed the height of folly—the government kept threatening to pay teachers based on student achievement and then cutting the number of days they had in which to achieve
anything
.
It was enough to give him acid reflux, or an ulcer, or just a serious case of political rage—but….

“Money isn’t why I love it,” he whispered.

Kenny rubbed his back in gentle little circles. “Then maybe go back and do it when money isn’t an issue.”

Will put the last assignment in the big cardboard box and stroked a plastic dinosaur absently. “That thing we’re working on—it’s really good. I mean, teenagers are going to love it, right?”

Kenny nodded. “Middle schoolers too. It’s… you did a really good job with the plot arc, Will. The dialog is funny—”

“Your drawings are phenomenal,” Will said loyally.

Kenny shook his head. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and how you’re not… I don’t know. Giving up. Selling out. You can volunteer at a shelter or a mentor program. You can do comic-book workshops for kids—there’s a lot of different ways you can not leave this behind you, Will. I just… I….”

Kenny trailed off unhappily, and Will sighed too. Suddenly Kenny leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I love you. Does that help? I’ll love you if you go back to teaching and stay poor, and I’ll love you if you have some faith that this thing we do, it’ll be worth it. I’ll love you if your business fails and you have to start from scratch. I. Love. You. You taught me to have faith that all men aren’t just after the shiny. Maybe you should have some faith that you’re not just dependable teacher guy. You’re shiny too.”

Will smiled a little. “Good speech,” he said softly, leaning his chin against Kenny’s forehead.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been practicing it for a while in my head.”

Will laughed slightly. Wordlessly he shoved the box to the corner with all of the trash bags and turned back to sorting through the detritus on his bookshelf.

The next morning, before they took the rest of Will’s stuff to the storage facility with his old furniture, he walked into Kenny’s bedroom with his cell phone and called his new principal.

“Hey, Dr. Hanline, I was wondering—what’s your school’s policy on having a GSA?”

“Uhm, well, given the climate in our local constituency, I think that’s probably—”

Will tuned him out. It was that simple. He waited until the man who was going to be his boss petered out, and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve had a better offer. Please find someone else to fill my spot.”

He ended the call and threw himself facedown on the bed, still wondering what the hell he was doing.

Kenny had been in the middle of putting on his shorts when Will started the phone call, and now he finished putting on his belt and threw himself on the bed next to Will.

“Congratulations,” Will said, feeling lost. “Your new boyfriend is now an unemployed freeloader—your parents must be very proud.”

“Screw ’em,” Kenny told him, kissing his shoulder. “I get to live with you. I win.”

And that was what Kenny had continued to say even as they set Will up in the guest room with his desk and his office supplies and Princess, who kept sleeping on his chair whenever he got up for water.

So by this sunny, still-hot day in the beginning of September, Will had a routine. He worked for a few hours, rode his bike or worked out, came home, and worked for a few more hours. It was harder than it sounded—things like grocery shopping or cleaning the house or working on the lawn beckoned, and Will had to fight the compulsion, still live in his veins, to
do something
that wasn’t his actual job. His actual job, whether it was setting up websites for clients or setting up the site for him and Kenny, was still too much fun to consider work.

He was still a little bit in awe.

And a little sad. As he waved Kenny good-bye, he saw a familiar figure trudging along the sidewalk and getting ready to walk across the street.

“Mr. Lafferty?” the kid asked, looking at Will in disbelief. “Why weren’t you teaching at the end of the year?”

Will shrugged. “Hey, Carter. They didn’t like the things I taught,” he said kindly. “But I missed you guys!”

“Are you not teaching anymore at
all
?” Carter responded. “What are you doing
here
?”

Will gave a little half smile and decided in for a penny, in for a pound. “I live here now. I moved in with my boyfriend before the end of the summer.”

Carter’s mouth fell open and his eyes glazed over. “Can boys
have
boyfriends?” he asked.

Will fought and lost against a sigh. “God, I hope so,” he responded, “’cause mine makes me really happy.”

“Huh.” Carter turned to cross the street. “That’s really weird.”

“Have a good school year,” Will told him. “Keep an open mind.”

Carter waved absently, still chewing his bottom lip as he took advantage of an open spot to cross the street.

For a moment Will was overwhelmed, sad, and depressed, because he wasn’t going to be able to change this boy’s mind.

Then he remembered he had a project waiting for him, something he thought was worthwhile and interesting, that taught the values of tolerance just like science fiction had
always
been cutting-edge in its espousal of human rights.

New boyfriend, new job, new life.

Not bad for a guy who’d been puzzled while picking dildos off the road.

“N
ICE
WEDDING
?”
Will asked as they returned from Cara and Nina’s wedding, even though he knew the answer.

“Uh-huh,” Kenny said absently, looking out the Oldsmobile window. “Haven’t seen them since SacAnime—it was nice.”

Cara, Nina, and Will’s mom had shown up for their first convention. They’d sold half of their stock—and made their table money for the next con in San Francisco. They weren’t going to be rich overnight, but they had a good following, with plenty of money to maintain the website and enough to order another printing on their first book and start printing the second one, which they’d finished in the winter. As a side business—one they enjoyed the hell out of—it was a start.

Will thought it was maybe the most fun he’d ever had doing
anything
in his life, and the fact that the web designing business gave him enough time to invest in it made him supremely grateful.

“Yeah, well, we should have them to dinner,” Will said practically.

Kenny looked at him, surprised. “Yeah, we should. Can we invite Cam and his family too?”

Will shrugged. He’d met Cam at the Labor Day picnic and had seen him at the Halloween children’s function, the office Christmas party, and an Easter-egg hunt. (In a fit of altruism and pity for people like Cam with multiple children, Will and Kenny had volunteered to dye the eggs. Never. Again.) “I don’t see why not. We’re sort of grown-ups. Don’t grown-ups do that?”

Kenny laughed shortly. “Jesus—I’m twenty-seven years old. You’d think I’d remember, right?”

Will drove for a few more minutes in the comfortable silence, then rolled the window down in the Olds and hit the radio. A-ha’s “Take on Me” came on, and he started singing, off-key, because he didn’t know how else to sing.

A moment later Kenny was singing too, and they sustained that throughout the song. Between the pine and dust of the foothills and the warm, silken air, Will thought it was maybe one of the most beautiful moments of his life.

“So,” Kenny said when the song was over, “do you ever think about the whole wedding thing?”

“Yeah, all the time.” Will smiled smugly to himself.

“Do you think about it with
me
?” Kenny asked, his voice squeaking at the end of the sentence.

Will—who hadn’t been able to hold off for three hours before telling his mother he was gay—would be forever proud of the fact that his voice didn’t betray him, not now. “Of course with you,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I picture it all the time. You’d have to pick the tuxes, of course, and I wouldn’t want it to be too big.”

“Maybe in Tahoe,” Kenny said, sounding like he really liked the idea. “People get married by the lake.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice. Or maybe a con wedding, in cosplay!” They had met a whole bunch of
amazing
vendors as they’d visited various conventions. Those people had known one another, had traveled together, met up in different cities together. They were like the peer group Will had never known he’d wanted. He was afraid Kenny would guffaw, because it was sort of a corny idea, but Kenny was, well, Will’s
mate
,
and he wasn’t going to laugh at something they’d both loved.

“We could do that! You know, this other story we’re thinking of—”

“The one with the two guys?” It was a romance, and if they were lucky, they’d have it produced in time for Bent-Con in November.

“Yeah—we could dress up like our own characters and, you know, make it a thing? People could dress up—it could be a party!”

Will laughed, because even if they decided to host a small wedding with a couple of people at Tahoe, the idea was still appealing. Nina and Cara’s wedding had been a party, and everyone had enjoyed the food, the dancing, and the company. He’d never thought about it until tonight, but a wedding really was a gift to the community, wasn’t it? It was a celebration—that was
awesome
.

“I don’t think my parents would dress up,” Kenny said dispiritedly. They had
not
shown up at SacAnime.

Will patted his knee. “Well, they’d be missing out,” he said, thinking it was true. “And who knows—maybe Joey’s kids will.” Because if
anyone
needed a healthy dose of imagination, it was the twin GI Joes who kept visiting Kenny’s parents during the holidays.

T
HEY
TALKED
the whole way back, planning their imaginary wedding, and for once, Will’s luck seemed to hold true, because Kenny didn’t ask once who was going to propose to whom.

Will made a deal of hanging back to lock the car when they arrived home, and Kenny walked through the door still talking about
making
his parents dress up, preferably as furries, when he turned on the kitchen light like they always did.

Will got into the room just in time to hear him gasp in surprise.

“Omigod. Oh my
God.
Oh. My. God!”

Will stood behind him and took it all in—because he’d come up with the plan, but his mother had done the execution after he and Kenny had left early to help set up the chairs.

In the center of the table were the requisite dozen roses, for romance, because Will didn’t have a whole lot of experience giving flowers, so he went with the classics. In front of the roses was the same kind of bright glass bowl they’d bought for Cara and Nina, except Kenny’s was in lime green, because next to deep blue, it was his favorite color. In the bowl was a box—open—with a pair of bright brushed gold rings, the smaller one with a heart next to “William” and the bigger one with a heart next to “Kenny,” engraved on the outside of the band.

Next to the box was a giant gold vibrating dildo with a note taped to it.

Kenny clapped his hand over his mouth and looked at Will with dancing, shining eyes.

“Go ahead,” Will said, biting his lip. “Read the note.”

Kenny’s hand shook as he picked up the toy, and he didn’t even seem to notice what he was holding when he read the note—carefully written on a thick white embossed piece of paper.

Unlike this thing, my love for you will always be shiny. Marry me.

Will.

The vibrator made a clunk when Kenny dropped it on the table. That clunk was the only sound in the room.

Then Kenny launched himself into Will’s arms and just held him tight while their breath roared in Will’s ears.

“Yes.”

About the Author

A
MY
L
ANE
is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can't silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/ band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She's been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn't see any reason at all for that to change.