Shiny! (5 page)

Kenny thought about moving the chatter along, changing the subject—or going back to graphic novels, because it was a favorite of his—but he paused. At first glance, the guy picking his trash up off the street had been unremarkable. Tall, stocky, with broad shoulders, Will moved awkwardly, like he was used to minimizing his size but remained fully aware he wasn’t graceful. His face was square, and if he’d been any wider for his height his features would have transcended square and broken the boundaries to round. His plain brown hair was longish, swept from a side part just like Jem Finch, and he had a straight, largish nose to match his broad face. His mouth, though… wide, mobile, and inexplicably pink, it looked somehow lush, ripe, virginal, and ready, and Kenny was prompted by his baser instincts to do something noble.

He asked why Will got fired.

Will’s face lit up, and Kenny felt bad. He couldn’t have listened for why the guy was so distracted he’d crashed into a garbage can?

And then Kenny heard the reason, and felt
really
bad.

“Harry Potter?”

Will nodded. “It was like… man, I know they’re supposed to be a church school, but getting fired over Harry Potter felt—”

“Sacrifuckinlegious!” Kenny burst out, and Will smiled at him.

“You understand!” he said, and he sounded so heartfelt, Kenny patted his shoulder. And realized how muscular he really was.

“I do!” Kenny said, squeezing his shoulder, and then his bicep. He moved to Will’s pec and thought,
Maybe just a little more conditioning there, but really, not bad
—and then he jerked his hand back. Yeah. Groping the straight guy.

Who didn’t seem to have noticed, thank fuck.

“You do understand,” Will said, leaning even closer to him and looking very earnest. “See, Denise didn’t understand. She screamed at me because now I’m not going to be making any money, but I didn’t want to go out with her anyway!”

Single!
Kenny’s inner voice chimed.
Single guy!
And then his other voice snapped,
Straight guy. Single straight guy.
“Why didn’t you want to go out with Denise?” Kenny asked desperately. “Skanky? Mean? Already picking out china?”

And then Will shot him a trusting look from supposedly average brown eyes that were suddenly large, limpid pools of vulnerability right there. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding really lost. “She just… I don’t know. Kissing her was like kissing my mom’s cat.”

“Furry?” Kenny asked, puzzled.

“No, Mom’s got a hairless, so really, it’s just, you know. Warm and sort of reptilian at the same time.”

“
Ew
!” Kenny exclaimed, looking at him in horror. “Jesus, buddy—did you hook up with a mutant or something?”

Will sighed. “She even
sounded
like Deucalion.”

“Your mom named her cat after the lord of hell?”

The sound that vibrated up from Will’s chest was positively
filthy
. “Have you ever heard a hairless cat? They
all
sound like the lords of hell! But no—it wasn’t just her.
All
girls feel like that to me. I mean, it’s why I’m not really excited about dating. I’m poor, I’m geeky, I’m sort of unattractive—it’s not like they’re going to be trying to teach me what it’s all about, you know?”

Kenny had never actually felt his eyes widen before. Ever. But… but… he’d
found one
.
Weren’t they, like, a myth or something? The famous gay guy who didn’t
really know he was gay
? Naw… no. Couldn’t possibly exist. Asexual was more likely than a sweet guy like this not knowing he was gay. But, well… he could always check. Kenny set his cosmo down and rested his chin on his palm.

“Well,” he said patiently, “have you ever thought you’re playing for the wrong team?”

“I
like
playing for the Alliance. What does
WOW
have to do with it?”

Kenny’s brain did such a quick track change that his eyes popped as he tried not to let it derail. “Never mind,” he said, patting Will’s shoulder. “But I like playing for the Alliance too.”

“Really?” Will’s smile was so winsome, Kenny believed in Santa Claus all over again. “Maybe we can play!”

Kenny sighed. “Yeah, why not? Now that Gif is gone—he thought it was bullshit, you know? But seriously, ten hours a week? What harm is there in that? It’s not like I watch sports!”

Will huffed out a sigh. “I don’t get football at
all
,” he agreed. He finished his first draft and looked at Kenny sympathetically. “So you didn’t have any warning?” he asked, and Kenny signaled the bartender for another draft. “Really? I wasn’t going to be the one who got drunk!”

Kenny laughed and squeezed his arm again because he couldn’t help it. Muscly! “Too late, precious,” he said fondly. “No worries. You’ll have to sleep on
my
couch, but it’s comfy.”

“Yeah,” Will said with a smile. “I like your house. It’s pretty. Mine has, like, a bed in one room and a couch in the other, and everything else is books and a computer desk. But you didn’t have any warning?”

And oh snap! They were back on Kenny again. Kenny was annoyed at first, and then he was sort of flattered—Will actually cared. No blowing off Kenny’s sad story for his own—the fate of the guy with the sex toys in the road was actually important to him.

Nice. Will was a genuinely nice guy. Go figure.

“Probably,” Kenny said, forced into honesty by those guileless and concerned brown eyes. “I mean, I was taking a long lunch because I knew we needed time to connect, but it was more than that.”

Will was sitting at the bar, his shoulders hunched and his hands in his lap. It was almost a hapless loser pose, and Kenny didn’t like to see him like that.

“Sit up straight and put your elbows on the bar,” he advised, and Will complied without asking. There. Just like that, he looked like a sexy bruiser and not a sci-fi geek. He looked possessive over his beer and desirable, and Kenny got to live the illusion of being out with a big, succulent bear daddy who would take care of Kenny’s twink ass and keep him safe forever and ever.

“Okay, I’m sitting all assertive-like,” Will said, smiling like he was not fooled for a minute. “Now tell me what you were going to say.”

Kenny sighed and slouched over his empty cosmo glass. “Okay, I guess I was going to say that… I mean, he was hot, and he had a job, and the sex was
great
”—Will made a suspicious noise that Kenny conveniently ignored—“but I just… I mean, I
wanted
that house to be real, you know? My parents may be Mr. and Mrs. Boring in Davis, but I sort of wanted that. And I thought I’d at least
started
on my way to that, right? To having a friend for life? A future?”

“Mm.” It was an indeterminate sound, but Will was nodding like he got it. “No, I know what you mean. You weren’t sure if he was the love of your life, but you at least thought you’d started your life, right?”

Kenny nodded, thinking that he was pretty perceptive for a drunken grade-school teacher. “Exactly!” he said, squeezing Will’s bicep again instead of slapping him on the back. God… that arm… just didn’t get squishier, did it?

“I’m sorry about that,” Will said, sounding genuinely sorry. “That must have really hurt—especially when he was using your private things with a stranger.”

Kenny’s breath caught and Will downed about a quarter of his beer. “Yeah,” he said, looking at Will like he’d suddenly shed his skin and come out on the other side looking like the love child of Tyler Hoechlin, Tyler Posey,
and
Dylan O’Brien. “That’s what hurt most, I guess. It was like, if he’d
just
been cheating on me, that would have hurt, but that would have been his problem. He
involved
me in his shitty way of treating people. Made it hurt more.”

Will nodded and rubbed a little circle in the center of Kenny’s back. “That’s a shame. You seem like a great guy—I’m so sorry your heart got broken.”

Kenny frowned and probed the sore spot of his breakup with his emotions like you’d probe an aching tooth with your tongue. “Not broken,” he said consideringly. “Battered a little, but not broken.”

Will’s grin was pure sunshine relief. “
Awesome
,
because now I can ask some
really
inappropriate questions!”

Oh shit! Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! “Oh hell no! Will, I can
not
be your gay sex advisor on this one—”

Will took another gulp of beer and shook his head. “No—no, I mean, I
think
I know what some of that stuff was for, but… but….”

No, no, no, no, no, no. Kenny should have been ready for this the whole time.

“I don’t understand where it goes!”

And now they were all caught up.

Kenny sighed and fiddled with his cosmo. “You know the answer to that,” he said resignedly, and Will grunted into the last two inches of beer.

“Okay—I do sort of,” he admitted. “I mean… okay… assuming it can fit—”

“Bartender—one of each!” Because if he was going to answer this, he was going to need more.

If he was hoping the interruption and a fresh drink was going to make Will let go of his bone (get it? A man with a bone? Yeah, Kenny really was going to have to switch to coffee!), he was sorely disappointed.

“I mean,” Will said as soon as their drinks were back, “it looked so
big
!”

Ah, hell. He really
was
going to have to give the ass-fucking-for-straight-guys lecture. If he didn’t like Will so much, he’d consider it punishment from the sex gods for throwing his toys away in the first place. He had a dishwasher! He could have set it on sanitize, right? Oh gross, no. Better to talk to Will!

“Well,” Kenny said, dropping his voice, “I want you to imagine the biggest thing you’ve ever pushed
out
of that place, and tell me if they compare.”

Will sat up straighter and actually… crap. Kenny did not even want to
think
about the cavalcade of prodigious excrement parading behind his eyes. ’Cause he checked, right?
All
guys checked!

“Okay,” Will said after a moment. “I see your point.”

Kenny closed his eyes and thanked God they hadn’t ordered food. “Well, you know how it feels going out? Well, it feels even
better
going in.”

“Oh.” Will’s eyes turned inward for a moment, and as awkward as the moment was, Kenny had to admit it—Will was taking it like a champ. (Smirk, eye roll, sputter.) “Okay,” Will said, seriously thinking about it. “Okay. You’re right.” He turned to Kenny with a brilliant, beaming smile on his face. “Wow. Okay, now I’m seriously wondering what that would be like!”

Kenny tried not to whimper. Big eyes, wide pink mouth, tasty shoulders, and this sort of sweet, genuine kindness Kenny could not ever remember coming into contact with before. Kenny leaned forward and thought,
Hey! I could be the next virgin killer! I could! Get him another beer, take him home, let him ravish me, then tell him it didn’t happen so he could pretend it wasn’t
great
!
His groin swelled and ached, and his hands
tingled
to see what kind of skin Will had under that
really
unflattering white plaid shirt.

Then Will blinked and smiled into Kenny’s eyes with an absolute lack of guile, and Kenny let out a huge breath. He looked up and caught the bartender’s eyes and said, “Two orders of bacon cheese fries, okay?” His groin gave an unhappy little jerk in his pants, but he told Little Kenny to stand the hell down. This boy was not for them.

The bartender, a wiry, ginger-haired man in his fifties, nodded enthusiastically, and Kenny wondered how much he’d heard.

“I think that’s a
very
good idea,” he said seriously, and Kenny turned to Will with resignation.

“So let’s get some bacon cheese fries, and when I’m feeling steadier, how about I take you to the place that will answer all your questions, okay?”

“Awesome!” Will agreed. “And after that, maybe we can have some ice cream!”

Kenny shrugged. And then ice cream. Why the hell not?

“O
H
G
OD
!”
Will hid his face behind his hands. “I could not
possibly
have been that naïve!”

Kenny nodded at Nina, shuddering from the memory. “Oh, believe it,” he said grimly. He dropped his voice and looked for Ashley, who was
just
getting the cake from the caterer and starting on her way back. “Worst case of blue balls I’ve had in my
life
!” Will heard him confess.

Will moaned. “I’m sorry. I’m
so
sorry!”

Nina nodded with no trace of levity—only her over-bright eyes revealed that she thought this was as funny as hell. “Look at him,” she said, a sweet smile on her face.

Kenny turned around and socked Will in the arm, and Will yelped, rubbing his bicep. “What?” he asked. He hadn’t
done
anything!

“You said you two had nothing in common!” Kenny snapped, and Will and Nina looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Baby,” Will said seriously, patting Kenny’s knee, “the only thing we have in common right now is that we are listening to you.”

Kenny sniffed delicately. “Okay. Well, in that case, it’s your turn.”

Will shrugged, and then he blushed. “Oh God. Do I
have
to….”

“Yes,” Kenny said.

Will felt like he was being punished for something and he still had no idea what he’d done wrong.

“Yes, you do!”

Will looked up at Ashley as she neared with the cake. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he said earnestly and took the chocolate one and passed it to Kenny. He took the vanilla one for himself and looked longingly across the yard at the ice chest with the water in it, needing it to balance all the sugar.

“Aunt Nina…,” Ashley whined, and Nina laughed understandingly.

“Go get him some water, sweetie, and then you can go play, how’s that!”