Too Stupid to Live(Romancelandia) (21 page)

By the time they were done buying all of Ian’s fruits and vegetables (how many could he eat in a week?), Sam was abuzz. Drunk on Ian and on being with Ian in public—a straight-people-abound public—and on being touched by Ian. His skin was fairly humming with the possibility of being touched more—their little gay sex secret, surrounded by all those ignorant straight people.

It was possibly pathetic, but he’d never been on this kind of date. He and his first boyfriend Bryce had dated much like prey animals on the African savannah must—amidst a vast herd of their kind, hoping the cheetahs would find someone weaker to pick on. They’d never ventured out to the waterhole alone.

Marley had never taken him on a date, or vice versa. Unless visiting Marley’s pot dealer counted as a date. That guy was straight, and as far as Sam could figure, 90 percent of his clientele was equally hetero. Not that he’d gone there with Marley much, just a couple of times in the beginning. Marley had called him a “drag” because he wouldn’t smoke up with them, and he never wanted to hang out. Sam hadn’t understood why they needed to hang out and offer to smoke some of the marijuana with the dealer from whom Marley had just bought it.

That question had earned him a lecture on the etiquette of buying drugs. That had been Sam’s last trip to the dealer’s house.

An errant Frisbee hit Sam in the chest, bringing him back to the present with Ian. It dropped onto the path at his feet, and Ian laughed.

“Still thinking about nothing?” he teased, bending to pick up the Frisbee. Sam watched his shirt ride up just enough to show a brief slice of skin.
Yummy
.

Focus
. “That thing just hit me,” Sam said, tuning in to what was going on outside of Ian’s pants.

Ian stood up, smiling. “Yeah, it did, kiddo. I better figure out who this belongs to. You want to keep heading back to the truck, and I’ll catch up?”

They were standing in the middle of the walking path, a large sloping stretch of grass to their right and the river to their left. It was a nice day, so people were around, but not too many. “I’ll wait,” Sam said.

Ian nodded, looking uphill at a guy jogging toward them. “That must be the owner of the Frisbee, anyway.” The dude had on sandals and shorts, and a dog with a bandana around its neck trotted in front of him. Your standard Frisbee-playing neo-hippie.

“Hey, you wanna play, man?” he yelled at Ian.

Did people just do that? Ask strange men to play Frisbee? No one had ever asked Sam. He turned back to Ian and realized why—Ian looked like the kind of guy who might toss things around for fun in a park on a nice day. Sam probably looked like the kind of guy who couldn’t catch. He sighed.

“You care?” Ian asked, looking like a hopeful little boy.

That little boy look would get Ian far. Sam shrugged and smiled. “It’s fine with me.” He found a bench to sit on and watched while Ian jogged over to the guy. Then he had the entirely novel experience of watching his completely hot . . . well, the completely hot guy who was doing him play catch in the park.

It was surreal and quickly got Sam to the point where he was fantasizing about chasing Ian down like a Frisbee and tackling him, ripping open his fly and reaching into his bulging briefs to wrap fingers around—

“Well, if it isn’t Sam, sitting in the park watching all the sexy boys who’ll never give him a second look.”

Sam closed his eyes.
Un-fucking-real
. He knew that voice coming from the path behind him very well. Maybe if he pretended to be deaf, Marley would just go away.

“Hey, Sam, I know ya can hear me, you skinny little fuck,” Marley slurred.

Sam dug his phone out of his pocket and checked it, carefully ignoring Marley. Just after one in the afternoon, and Marley was drunk. Some things never changed. Had he ever sobered up in the past two years?

Marley snuffled closer, blowing foul breath over Sam’s shoulder.
Ugh
. How could he have forgotten that Marley was a dedicated mouth-breather? And sheesh, his hygiene had gone downhill precipitously. Sam held his breath; it helped with both the stench and the not-speaking thing.

“You ’noring me, Sammy-boy?” Marley asked, his tone edging into menace. “Can’t have that.” He came around the end of the bench and sat too damn close to Sam, right up against his thigh. Sam’s skin tried to crawl away, even with the layer of denim between them.

He checked Marley out in his peripheral vision. Oh God, he was even fatter and sloppier. Sam could see a slice of skin where Marley’s shirt rode up over his expanded beer gut, and it was so completely the opposite of the skin he’d spied on Ian.

Marley hadn’t been anywhere near this repulsive when Sam had been seeing him. In the beginning, he’d even showered regularly. Not even
Sam’s
self-esteem was low enough to date a guy like the current Marley.

Marley dropped a fleshy hand on Sam’s knee, breathing loudly too damn close to his ear.

That’s it
. Sam grabbed the shopping bag and stood up, shaking Marley’s hand off. Ian could find him at the truck. Sam took one last glance at him, just leaping to catch the Frisbee, joyously playing some simple game, making the disc sail into the air with a negligent flick. Sam’s heart sank.

He’s not my kind
. He faced Marley, who was struggling to get his bulk off the bench.
But I’d rather be alone if
he’s
my kind
.

Sam turned and headed toward the truck.

Ian didn’t know what the hell had happened. One minute he was having mindless fun at the park, and the next he was seeing Sam walk off with what looked like some obese, homeless guy harassing him. The guy had dreads, a holey T-shirt, and a ratty pair of shorts in danger of slipping off his ass. He was right behind Sam, practically tripping on his heels, not quite up to Sam’s shoulder, but menacing just the same. Ian’s instincts were screaming at him, and he trusted his instincts.

“Gotta go, man!” he shouted at the Frisbee kid, then hurried to catch Sam and the malingering asshole.

When he was a couple feet behind them, he heard the bum say, “Have you had yer watertight boy-pussy reamed lately, Sammy? You used to love it when I did you, dintchoo? C’mon, Sammy-boy, you wanna g—”

Ian grabbed the guy’s shoulder and spun him around, barely stopping himself from raising his fist and smashing the prick’s face in. “Sam,” he said between his teeth. “Who the fuck is this?”

Sam was a good ten feet up the path by then, walking fast, but he stopped cold and slowly turned around. “He’s my ex, Marley,” he said shakily.

Ian almost punched the guy on principle. Not the principle of him being an asshole, although that was reason enough, but the fact that he’d dated Sam and treated him like shit. He took a deep breath and leaned down, right in the guy’s face, despite the fumes wafting off him and Ian’s watering eyes. “Get. The fuck. Out of here. I never want to see you near Sam again.”

Marley the Ex stumbled off with gratifying speed, nearly going down when he turned to scurry away. Ian should have punched him—he’d claim the guy fell on his fist and the cops would go for it, he was sure.

You aren’t that kind of guy
.
Anymore
.

When he turned and got a look at Sam’s pale face and his trembling hands, he wished he was. “Let’s go home,” he said softly.

When they finally made it back to his pickup, Ian’s adrenaline rush was leaving him. He felt as if his frown had set in concrete. Sam wasn’t in any better a mood—he hadn’t said a word to Ian the whole way back, which had the effect of pissing Ian off even more. When they reached the passenger side, he unlocked Sam’s door and yanked it open impatiently, then stalked around to the driver’s side to do the same.

Once they were settled in the cab, he put the key in the ignition but didn’t start it. He could feel Sam’s mood drifting into his space like a dark cloud. Not an angry dark cloud, a depressed one, and Ian had a pretty good idea why. “I can’t believe you went out with a loser like that,” he spat out. Damn, he sounded angry. He needed to tone it down for Sam’s sake. “You
lived
with him?”

Hell, that wasn’t any better.

Sam turned his face away. Ian could almost see the cloud settling heavier on his head, his body slumping down with it. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

Ian waited for more, but Sam stayed still and silent, his shoulders hunched forward as if for protection. That annoyed Ian too. “Want to tell me why the fuck you’d move in with a prick like that?”

Sam cleared his throat, but didn’t look at him. “He wasn’t as bad when we first met. He wasn’t so overweight, and he took better care of himself.”

Ian closed his eyes a second and, with supreme effort, softened his voice. “That’s not what I mean. I want to know if he treated you like that back then.”

Sam slid further down in the seat, hunching even more, but at least now Ian could see his profile.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Ian’s voice filled the cab. He struggled to rein it in again.

Sam took a deep breath and straightened up in his seat. It looked like it took a lot of effort. His back straight as a ruler, now, and his shoulders almost back where they belonged, he clasped his hands in his lap tightly. “I don’t know.”

Ian stared. That was it? He didn’t know? But now he looked angry, at least, which was better than depressed—half the reason for Ian’s annoyance, if he was honest. A depressed Sam twisted something under his sternum, giving him a violent need to get rid of the feeling.

Except now Sam was staring out the front windshield like he could melt the glass with his laser-beam eyes. Ian inspected the side of his face, trying to get a clue on how badly he’d fucked up. Because he obviously had.

Hell
.

Fine, they’d head back to his place. They could both cool off on the drive, and he’d get some answers there.

Sighing, Ian turned the key and backed out.

Sam should have just let loose and told Ian what a bastard he was, but he didn’t have the energy. Or the balls. Maybe both.

They rode silently back to Ian’s place. Sam got out as soon as Ian had parked, before he even shut off the engine, just wanting to get away from him. He stalked over and waited at Ian’s door. Yeah, he had a key, but he wasn’t going to use it now.

When Ian let him in, Sam went straight for his backpack on one of the living room chairs. He clutched the straps of his bag tightly in his fist and walked into the bedroom, finding scattered clothes and shoving them in without folding them first.

Not that he would have folded them even if he weren’t so mad he was shaking.

“What are you doing?” Ian asked quietly from behind him.

Ha! As if he didn’t know. Sam snatched up a sock and said, as calmly as possible, “I’m going back to my place.” He marched into the bathroom, catching sight of Ian’s confused expression out of the corner of his eye.

Ian followed him to the door and stood there. Sam swore he heard him swallow. “Do you have to go?”

“Yes.”

“Because you have to work tonight?”

“That too,” Sam snapped.

“I thought maybe I could pick you up after work . . .”