Bowl Full of Cherries (8 page)

“I’m handy with an itty bitty paint brush and acrylics.”

“Do you paint for other people? I mean, there are guys at the game store I go to in Avona that would pay you to do this for them.”

“Oh, I’m not
that
good.” But he was pleased with the compliment.
Really
pleased.

A
FTER
DINNER
,
they hung out in the living room for a while, watching a marathon of Christmas movies on the local network. Outside, the snow hadn’t let up at all and the gray sky continued to pour. It was definitely going to be a white Christmas. Nothing new. The one year they hadn’t had snow on Christmas, they’d had an ice storm instead.

“You having an okay time?” Rell asked.

They were sitting together on the old two-toned couch his mom bought when she was pregnant with the twins and none of her furniture was “comfortable enough.” She told Rell he could have it when he moved out and he’d taken her up on the offer the first
two
times. Carrying couches was hard work.

“I’m having a great time,” Crowley said quietly, looking at him. Sometimes when Rell looked up, he caught Crowley with an expression that made him curious. Made him want to know what was going on in that head of his. But when he asked, Crowley either changed the subject or blushed.

It shouldn’t have been as cute as it was.

Santa had just told Ralphie that he’d shoot his eye out in
A Christmas Story
when the phone rang nearby. Groping for it, Rell said, “Hello?”

“You’re not Mom,” Tyler’s grumpy voice greeted Rell. He rolled his eyes.

“Nope, I’m also not Jes or Katie or Charley or Andy or—”

“I need Mom.”

“Mom’s not here. Mom’s at her quilting thing.”

Tyler let out a long, low sigh. “Well, I’m at the frickin’ train station and we’re snowed out. Train won’t leave until tomorrow,
if
it leaves at all.”

“Okay,” Rell said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t want
you
to do anything about it, Peckerhead.”

“
Please
stop reading slang dictionaries and trying to revive words. You sound like an idiot.” And then for good measure, Rell added, “Penis-Wrinkle.”

“Would you put one of my sisters on the phone?”

“Which one? Angry crying sister? Or angry shouting sister?”

For a moment the phone went slightly muffled as Tyler cursed away from the mouthpiece. Strangely thoughtful of him. Which, in itself was decidedly un-Tyler-like. When he came back, he spoke very calmly.

“I need someone to tell Mom to call me.”

“I can tell—”

“I need
anyone else
to ask Mom to call me back, on my cell phone, ASAP.”

“What is Mom going to do?” Rell pressed. “Give the train a stern ‘talking to’? If you’re snowed out, you’re snowed out. I’ll eat your piece of pie for you.”

“Tomorrow morning, Xondee is driving out to see her parents in Hooper Bay. She’s offered to take me with her.” Every word he spoke sounded like he was forcing it through a meat grinder of pleasantness. “I need Mom to come to Hooper Bay and pick me up.”

“If the train is snowed out, what makes you think driving in is a good idea?”

“Give me Crowley.”

“He’s not mine to give, Tyler.”

“I will kill you.”

“Well, jeez, now I’m really not going to give him to you, brother. Not if you’re going to be all murderous about it.”

Rell chuckled as he tossed the phone through the air. Crowley caught it on the arc, the small sound of Tyler’s
very
angry voice audible until Crowley put the phone to his head.

“It’s Crowley,” he said. “Yes. Yes, I can.” He paused and looked over at Rell who was still smirking, satisfied with having teased his brother. “We’re having a pretty good time, actu—No… no…. Okay, thank you.”

When he hung up the phone, Rell said, “Not to intrude on your private conversation, but—”

“He wanted to know if I was okay, if you were boring me, if you had asked me for money—”

“
Really
?” Jesus, Tyler.

“And if I would be okay until he gets here tomorrow.”

“Wow.”

“For what it’s worth, I really like hanging out with you.”

C
ROWLEY
SANK
into the warmth of the covers. The trundle mattress was like heaven after the train ride, the long day, and his embarrassing spill on the concrete outside the Toys “R” Us. No scrapes—maybe some bruises eventually—mostly just sore, knotted muscles.

Mrs. Lang had served dinner buffet style that evening: a taco bar. Everyone came and got what they wanted and dispersed to their own corners. Crowley had made a little pile of lettuce and tomato. Afterward, Rell and Crowley sat in the living room with the girls, who seemed to have made up for the moment. It didn’t hurt that the kids had gone to bed, that they both nursed eggnogs, or that they’d united together in a sisterly force to tease the hell out of Rell.

“Do you remember when we put the boys in our dresses and pretended we were quadruplets?” Jes snorted.

“Yeah, you two were geniuses, seeing as you’re both a billion years older than us.”

Katie playfully stuck out her tongue. It was the first time Crowley had seen her smile.

“I thought you looked adorable in your little tights with the hearts on them.”

“Don’t listen to a thing they say, Owl.” Rell nudged him in the shoulder. “They were two of the most horrible sisters
in the world
. I’m surprised we survived.”

“Were?” Katie fished with a smile.

“I heard ‘were,’” Jes agreed. “Must mean we’re awesome now.”

“You’re not too bad,” Rell agreed. “Sort of. Sometimes.”

“Do you have any family, Crowley?”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t really a surprise, right? Someone had been bound to ask. Why was he here with Tyler’s family instead of in Kansas City with his own?

“Yes,” he said honestly. “Uh, my mom and my sister.” He remembered his few past lies, and how badly they’d gone. He opted for mostly truth instead. “My sister’s name is Alice. She’s got a daughter Charley’s age. Mom’s doing Christmas with her this year.”

“You guys trade off?” Jes’s eyes were sharp as she watched him.

“First year,” Crowley admitted. “Something new we’re trying. But yeah, my sister is older. She and I used to fight like crazy. And then one summer, she looks at me and says, ‘You want to try being friends?’ and we did.”

“Just like that?” Katie asked suspiciously.

That part was actually true. Alice had been the one who brought it up, standing in his doorway with a little frown on her face. She’d looked at him and said, “I miss Daddy. You want to be friends?”

“Yup, just like that.”

He thought again about calling Alice. But Mom said
no one
would be there to pick him up. Didn’t that mean Alice felt the same way as Mom? If only it were as easy as it was when they were kids.
I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me, Alice. Can we still be friends?

The evening melted away and Crowley rolled over on his trundle mattress, groaning as his muscles twinged. He stretched and readjusted, trying to get comfortable.

“You okay?” Rell asked, leaning over the side of the bed and looking down at Crowley. Dark hair framed his face. He really was gorgeous.

“Sore.”

“Sore?”

“Yeah, that parking lot incident.” It hadn’t really hurt until he’d sat in the living room. As his muscles settled, the pain had set in.

“Oh.” Rell sounded distressed. “Well, slide onto the floor. I’ll rub your shoulders.”

“It’s okay, really.”

“Yeah, it is okay.” Rell smiled. “Just slide onto the floor. Or you can roll over on your stomach and I can get on the floor and—”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as shit.”

Crowley slipped out from beneath the covers and onto the floor. He heard the trundle creak underneath Rell’s weight as he came down off his own mattress.

“You wanna take your shirt off?”

“I’m okay.”

Rell didn’t argue, just put firm hands on Crowley’s tense shoulders. He began to knead with his thumbs in smooth circles.

“This feels… really good.”

“And you sound really surprised,” Rell teased. “You doubting my superior massage abilities?”

“I just….”

“I was a masseuse for about three and a half minutes,” Rell explained. “That one paid pretty well. I wish I’d stuck with it.”

“You can’t go bac…? Uhn!” He groaned as Rell’s hands moved up to his neck, hitting the cricks and aches that sleeping at the airport had given him.

“I’ll give you a piece of advice, should you ever decide to become a masseuse. Don’t piss off the spa manager at the Susset Resort. Seriously. You think you’ll be fine, that you can just give massages out of your apartment or something… nope. She will squash you.”

“But, you seem relatively unsquashed.”

Rell’s fingers worked at the base of his skull, unleashing tension there that was older than the airport. Tension he didn’t understand. He leaned back, just a little bit, into Rell’s hands. Rell’s warm, large,
talented
hands. Crowley felt guilty. He was getting more out of this than Rell was meaning to give, but as Rell’s fingers worked deep, the guilt seemed to melt away.

“You want to lay down on the trundle? I can….”

Rell moved to the floor and gently guided Crowley to the mattress. He tried again to take Crowley’s shirt, but Crowley refused.

“Can you at least put it up over your head so I can get at your back?”

His back exposed, Crowley lay facedown on the mattress. Rell got up on his knees and began to massage Crowley’s back again. Deep, delicious movements, all down Crowley’s spine, working out the aching muscles of his back. He put enough pressure into the heels of his palms to reach deep without making Crowley shout in pain.

Crowley groaned as Rell worked down his lower back. Tension and pain dissipated as if Rell’s hands were some sort of magic salve. As his palms kneaded the flesh of the bit of back showing just above his belt, Crowley grew
embarrassingly
hot, and the guilt flooded back. He wanted to feel more of Rell’s hands, wanted to feel them even lower, wanted to…. Crowley murmured into his pillow, “Did Tyler tell you that I’m gay?”

He expected Rell’s hands to stop moving. They didn’t. He expected some exclamation of disgust. None came. He did not expect Rell’s voice to be perfectly level—curious even—as he asked, “Tyler and I don’t talk as much as you think we would. How long have you known you like guys?”

“Since I was a kid.”

He tried to keep his breathing steady, tried to keep talking normally, even though all the blood was rushing out of one head and into another.

“I… uh… crushed hard on a musician.”

He was still waiting for Rell to say something mean, or reel away in disgust. Instead, with the same friendliness he’d shown the entire time, Rell worked his way back up Crowley’s spine, finding all those hidden places and releasing all the stress.

“Is this making you uncomfortable?”

Uncomfortably hard
, yes.

“N-no. Are you uncomfortable?”

“Nope,” Rell said. “Doesn’t change anything for me.”

C
ROWLEY
STUMBLED
down the hall, half-asleep, the pressure in his bladder intense. He felt along the wall, trying not to knock the photos hanging there. There was a switch for the hall light somewhere nearby, but he didn’t want to wake anyone up, if he could just— Crowley’s hand found the door, and quietly he tried the knob, remembering the way the door had creaked when he flung it open earlier in the day. It didn’t turn, but it pushed in all the same, like someone had locked it but didn’t close it all the way. That should have stopped him.

He was halfway in, his eyes adjusting to the soft glow of the orange night-light plugged into the wall, when he saw a figure standing near the toilet. He started to say that he was sorry, fumbled behind him for the door, when he heard a very familiar noise. One his hand had made a million times before.

The
fap-fap-fap
of palm on sensitive skin. And then he saw the shoulders tensed and the arm moving, stroking. And he could have melted through the floor in embarrassment. Averell Lang was standing in front of him with his back turned, stroking fast and furious.

As quietly as he’d entered the bathroom, he escaped, his heart thudding in his ears. He still needed to pee, but until Rell was back in bed, his breathing quiet and steady, Crowley wasn’t going anywhere.

He practically jumped on his trundle, throwing the covers over his head and squeezing his eyes shut. Jesus. Christ. Rell was jerking off. Of course he was jerking off, that’s what guys did. Guys jerked off. But why? Just casually aroused or…? Rell couldn’t have been affected by the massage earlier, could he? He’d seemed so calm about it, continuing to rub Crowley’s back with professional hands. And it had been hours since it had happened.