The Magic Broom

Cody slammed the door.
“Why are you here?” Cody asked. He wasn’t trying to be
rude, but he’d had what could qualify as the worst day in
history and he wanted to be alone. Kira was his best friend,
but she could be annoying as hell. She’d try to cheer him up,
and he sort of wanted to stay crabby and sulk for the rest of
the evening.
Kira frowned and threw her beanie at him. Her dark
hair tumbled down onto her shoulders.
“You have new neighbors,” Kira said. “I saw people
hauling boxes.”
Cody tossed his jacket to the chair and kicked his shoes
off, then flopped onto the couch next to her. “Big deal. We
get new neighbors all the time. This building has a revolving
door.”
“Have you seen them yet?”
“No,” he sneered. “Unlike you, I’m not a nosy neighbor.” “Jeesh, you’re a crab tonight. You really need to get
back in the game and get laid or something,” she said. “I suck at the game,” he said.
Kira put her arm around his shoulders and played with
his dark hair. He waited for her to scold him for letting it get
so shaggy. She didn’t like it when it fell over his eyes. “I know he hurt you, but it’s time to move on.” “Said the girl who wouldn’t leave her apartment for a
month after she caught Tr—”
“Don’t say his name,” she snapped and placed her hand
over Cody’s mouth. She sighed. “We are a sorry pair. Why
can’t you be straight?”
“Why can’t you be a boy?” Cody shot back.
“Touché,” Kira said. She fiddled with the TV remote and
shook her head. “Maybe we should go out tonight.” Cody frowned. He wasn’t going anywhere, except maybe
to answer the door when the pizza guy showed up with his
dinner. Kira must have read his mind, because she was
already on her phone ordering the pizza. Tonight was for
moping and complaining about their dismal love lives,
mourning loves lost, and eating lots of greasy food. “What’s going on tomorrow?” she asked as she flipped
through the channels again. “I have the next couple weeks
off work.”
“Lucky you. I have to work,” he said. “Special torture
assignment.”
“What now?”
“I told you about it last week. With the Olympics coming
up, the boss is making me do a bunch of stories about
athletes in the area who have aspirations of winning gold
medals. I get to try out some of the sports.” Cody gave a
weak cheer and shook Kira’s beanie like a pom-pom. “I thought you were kidding,” she said. “Why do they
always make you write the sports stories? You know
absolutely nothing about sports.”
Cody stuck his tongue out at her, but he was wondering
the same thing. The only thing interesting about sports was
how the athlete looked in his uniform. The swim team had
lovely uniforms. So did cyclists, and track and field guys, but
this was the winter Olympics, and everyone was going to be
wearing big puffy jackets and hats to stay warm.
He had tried to plead his case with his boss, saying he
hadn’t had time to properly research the sports. Truth was,
he hadn’t done
any
research. There were so many other
reporters drooling over the assignment that he had assumed
if he didn’t show any interest, his boss would pass the
assignment off to someone else.
Cody’s idea backfired in his face. His boss actually
thought it was a great idea to go into these interviews cold.
He thought it would bring a fresh perspective to the story.
That’s when his boss had the brilliant idea that Cody should
try
all the sports. His boss was on the phone before Cody
could shake his head. He wanted to use his pen as a javelin
to stab his boss, but he didn’t want to go to jail, and the
javelin throw wasn’t even an event in the winter Olympics.
Perhaps he could use a skate blade.
“What story are you doing tomorrow?” Kira asked. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a
crumpled list, slowly smoothing it out.
“I’m going cross-country skiing with some woman
named Charlene, and then heading over to the rink to get
killed playing hockey.”
“Do you need me to come along for support or to scrape
your body off the ground when you crash and burn?” “You can do both,” he said. “But I’m warning you, it’s an
early call and it’s outside.”
She shrugged. “Maybe there’ll be some hot crosscountry guys working out, and I’m sure the hockey boys will
be wonderful.”
Cody rolled his eyes, but he was glad for the company
and that someone would be around to call the ambulance or
carry his broken body to the car.
“Someone told me that cross-country skiing requires a
lot of calories. We better carb up.”
“Carb up?” she said, just as there was a knock on the
door. “I don’t think athletes gorge themselves on pizza when
they’re in training.”
“I’m just practicing my athlete-speak,” he said. “Isn’t the
crust a carb? I know the tomato sauce is a vegetable. Plus,
you need dairy for strong bones, and protein is good too.
Pizza is very healthy.”
“You keep telling yourself that when you’re barfing up
pepperoni in the snow.”
Cody ignored her and grabbed some cash. He opened
the door and the pizza dude scowled at him, thrusting the
pizza box into his face.
“Bad day?” Cody asked.
“Dumped by my girlfriend,” the pizza dude said,
frowning. “You?”
“Work sucks,” Cody said. “Guess you win today. Affairs
of the heart trump work.”
The pizza dude and Cody had a strange relationship.
They thrived on each other’s misery, always trying to one-up
the other.
“Great,” the pizza dude grumbled and grabbed his
money, rushing down the hall before Cody could say thank
you. The guy stopped at another door and banged on it.
Cody shut his door and sighed.
He dropped the warm box on the coffee table and tossed
a handful of napkins at Kira’s head.
“What was it tonight?” Kira asked.
“Dumped by a girl again.”
“Too bad. Hey, this isn’t what we ordered,” she said,
sounding disgusted. “It’s got green peppers and onions and
other horrible things stuck on it.”
It didn’t surprise Cody. That was just how his entire day
had gone. Mix up after mix up until he felt like his brains
had been scrambled.
“He probably gave our pizza to the people in the other
apartment. He was carrying a few more boxes, and I saw him
stop at another door.”
“Well, go get ours. I’m not eating these vile vegetables,”
she said. She held her nose and closed the lid on the pizza
box.
“You coming with me?”
“Nope. They’re your neighbors, and you know when
pizza dude is upset you should check our order. You messed
up, so you fix it,” she said and flipped through several
channels, ignoring him.
“But I’m not even sure which apartment he went to,”
Cody whined.
“So start knocking. And don’t come back until you find
my pizza.”
It was way too much work to argue with her. He
grabbed the pizza box and went out into the hallway,
counting the doors. The first person shouted at him for
interrupting his viewing of some stupid basketball game, but
he did try to buy the pizza.
The next door he pounded on was a bust. No one was
home. He was going to try one more apartment, and if no one
answered, he was going home to eat a bowl of cereal. The door opened and the broad shoulders of a guy filled
the doorway. Cody forgot what he was doing, he forgot the
day, and he probably forgot his name.
“Uh,” he stammered as the loveliest pair of dark brown
eyes stared at him.
“Hey, man,” the guy said. Cody’s gaze fell to lovely
plump lips, glistening with pizza sauce that needed to be
licked off. “We already got our pizza.”
Someone tugged on the box he was holding. It snapped
Cody out of his lip-licking dream stupor.
“Um, hello, pizza?” The guy tapped the box with his
finger, and Cody found his voice.
“Oh yeah, I think you got ours.”
“Really? We already ate most of it,” the guy said, smiling
sheepishly.
Cody groaned, because Kira had ordered him to come
back with pizza, and she wouldn’t eat pizza with green
things. Once he had tried to pick them off, but she had
known what he’d done and he got a lap full of pizza for his
trouble. His cock had not appreciated the hot tomato sauce
that soaked his pants. “Do you have one piece left? You can
have this whole pizza for one slice of pepperoni.”
The guy turned around and shouted at three other guys
sitting at a table made out of cardboard boxes. Obviously,
these were his new neighbors. Cody couldn’t help inspecting
the other guys. They were all decent-looking, but he decided
the brown-eyed guy standing in front of him won the prize
for the hottest guy in the room, the building, possibly the
city.
“Tell you what, why don’t you and your friend come
over? We’ll order more pizza. It’ll irritate the shit out of that
pizza guy. He was a fucking jerk.”
Cody laughed and handed the guy the box. “Get used to
him. This is his territory. He’s an okay guy, but his girlfriend
just dumped him today, so he’s a little pissy. It happens a
lot.”
The guy shrugged.
“I’m Cody.”
“Shane,” the guy said, holding out his hand. Cody shook
his hand and managed to let go after a socially acceptable
amount of time. “That’s Pete, Jay, and Robbie shoveling your
pizza down. Go get your friend, and we’ll order another pie or
two.”
Before the guy could change his mind, Cody bolted
down the hallway. He knew he looked like an idiot. The guy
probably thought Cody was starving to death, but he needed
to talk to Kira. He needed Kira to come with him so she
could offer up an opinion on Shane. Unlike all the rumors
that swirled around about gay men having some innate skill
that enabled them to pick out a fellow gay man, Cody didn’t
have any sort of gaydar.
Everyone who he thought might be gay always turned
out to be straight. The signals Kira talked about never made
sense to him. Cody didn’t think he gave off any signals. Kira
had laughed at him and tried to explain about things like the
lilt of his voice or the way he gestured. He figured it was all a
bunch of bullshit.
She even tried to make a list for him once, but he lost it
and struck up a conversation with the only straight person
in the entire gay bar. The guy had smiled politely and told
him he was here to support his brother, and his girlfriend
would have his balls for breakfast if he stepped out on her.
Cody had been mortified and had called Kira to come get
him. That bar had been off-limits for an entire month. “About time,” Kira said when he slammed open the
door. She carefully laid a napkin in her lap. “Hey, where’s
the pizza?”
“No time to talk. You have got to meet Shane,” Cody
said, tugging on her arm.
She fought him and frowned when her napkin fluttered
to the floor. “Who’s Shane?”
“New guy. Brown eyes, broad shoulders. Totally hot,”
Cody panted. “And there’s three more. But I can’t tell.
They’re probably all straight, so this might be your lucky
night.”
Kira abruptly jumped to her feet and dragged Cody into
the hall. He barely had time to point out the correct
apartment to her before she was banging on the door. When Shane answered, Kira squealed so loud in Cody’s
ear that all he heard was a loud ringing noise. Did that
squeal mean she thought Shane was gay, or was she just
excited to see a room full of nice-looking guys? Obviously,
Kira and Cody needed to come up with their own signals. Kira bounced into the room and pulled up a box, sitting
down between two of the guys. Cody shook his head. He
didn’t think any of these guys were gay, judging by the way
they were leering at Kira’s legs and boobs. He sighed, but it
would be good for one of them to be happy.
“Hi,” Pete said. “Nice to bump into you again.” Again? Did Kira know these guys? He was going to
strangle her for not mentioning hot guys moving into the
building. Wait, she had said something about new
neighbors, and he had blown her off.
“So, do you guys live together?” Pete asked.
She bit her lip, stifling a laugh. “We’re just friends. He
lives down the hall, and I live upstairs.”
Pete immediately shuffled his box closer to Kira. She
shot a triumphant grin at Cody who immediately glared at
her. She was supposed to be analyzing Shane, not trying to
fill her own bed with Pete. Cody couldn’t really blame her,
she always did have a weak spot for dark-haired guys with
tattoos.
They all started talking, mostly laughing about the
stupid pizza guy, until Cody told them his story.
“He doesn’t have much luck with the ladies,” Cody said.
“He’s in love for a few days, but then it all goes to hell. It’s
my fault for not checking the order. Actually, it’s Kira’s
fault.”
“Why is it my fault?” Kira asked.
“Because I would have just eaten the stupid pizza, but
you have a vegetable phobia.”
Kira sneered at him. “Vegetables do not belong on a
pizza. And you guys are as stupid as pizza guy. None of you
even noticed you got the wrong pizza.”
They all howled and toasted Kira, who managed to steal
Pete’s beer from him and down it without taking a breath.
Pete was impressed.
Cody tried to kick Kira in the shin to get her back on
track, but she was pulling out her best flirting tools. Her
concentration was on Pete, and Cody should let her have her
fun. Someone should be happy. Besides, he was content to
stare at Shane, on the sly, of course. Not that he was any
good at it, but he didn’t care. The guy was edible and so
perfect that he had to be straight, because that was how shit
worked in Cody’s world.
The pizza dude showed up again and actually apologized
for the fuckup. Never in the two years Cody had been
ordering pizza had he ever got an apology.
“Thanks,” Shane said and shook the pizza dude’s hand.
Cody had an overwhelming urge to leap across the room and
slap the guy’s hand away from Shane.
“You’re right,” Shane said to Cody. “He seems like a
good guy, just having a run of bad luck with the ladies. I
totally get that.”
What did that statement mean? Did it mean Shane was
heartbroken over a woman, or was it just a blanket
statement, meaning everyone has had a broken heart at one
time? It was shit like this that made him not want to pursue
anyone.
Shane pulled up a box and signaled for Cody to sit
down. They ended up sharing a box, and Cody’s heart
pounded in his ears every time Shane leaned into him. As long as there was pizza, he could sit and enjoy