Shiny! (23 page)

“Nap, shower, food, and sex,” Will said after him, and his voice sounded as groggy as Kenny felt. “And maybe go to your house and plan sometime in the middle. If we don’t feed your cat, we’ll find her suspended from the ceiling.”

“And pissing on my clothes,” Kenny agreed, smiling. It was like Will could read his mind. A good trait in a boyfriend—and the best thing about it was that he cared enough to do it.

“You can meet my mom on Sunday,” Will mumbled, and Kenny’s eyes brimmed a little, even as he fell asleep.

Something really horrible was going to have to happen to make up for all this good.

T
HE
DANCE
ended, and Will gazed into Kenny’s dark-blue eyes, feeling a little stupid.

“What?” Kenny asked, and Will remembered the way he’d cried at the wedding itself. Will had known, even from the beginning, that Kenny would be a crier. He liked to act like he had it all together, but his heart was tender.

Will shook his head. “I like weddings,” he said, very carefully not saying the things he was thinking. “I like you in them.”

Kenny’s whole face brightened, and then….

It fell again.

Will bit back a sigh. He couldn’t hope a little bit? After the past nine months? But that was okay. Will had a plan for that too.

Right then, the music changed from “I Will Find You” to Dar Williams’s “The Ocean.” A delicately manicured finger tapped Will’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kenny” came a warm, familiar voice from behind him. “Can a mother dance with her boy?”

Kenny rested his cheek on Will’s chest, an unconscious gesture of possession that Will sort of treasured. He wasn’t sure when he’d become Kenny’s rock, but he loved that he was.

But Kenny was also a very nice boy underneath all of the savvy he’d worn those first couple of months. “Of course, Mrs. Lafferty—”

“Anne,” she said gently. Kenny’s mom still made Will call her Mrs. Scalia, but he’d only seen her twice in the last year, so that was okay. Kenny and Will saw Will’s mom pretty much once a week. She liked dropping by in the evenings sometimes with plants from Aunt Cara for Kenny’s yard, and they’d usually feed her since she hated cooking for herself.

“Of course, Anne,” Kenny said, and Will could feel the warmth of his blush through his bright-turquoise wedding suit.

Will kissed his cheek and then turned to his mom, who said, “Save a dance for me too, okay, Kenny?”

Kenny grinned quick and brilliant, and he sauntered off, probably to get more cake before they boxed it up for the evening. It was getting close to ten o’clock, and the dancing was still in force, but the people with kids (including the much put-upon Ashley, who had gone home with her very tired-looking mother) had drifted home once the buffet was put away and the patio lights went up around the yard.

Will took his mom’s hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist, very much unlike how he’d danced with Kenny, and grinned.

“Are they happy?” he asked, remembering his mom’s surprise when Cara had come out and just sort of announced the wedding with Nina.

“They’re perfect,” his mom said, smiling guilelessly up at him. “I set the flowers up. Does he suspect?” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper, and he winced, trying not to look behind him to see if Kenny had heard.
Nothing
would make him look more suspicious than doing that in the middle of the dance floor.

“Sh!” Will hushed in spite of himself. “Mom!”

She laughed low, and it sounded burbling and happy and confident. No man in her life, but Will was starting to realize that maybe she wouldn’t be looking for one of those for a while.

“You’ll have to let me know how he reacts. I thought the—” Will’s frantic shushing made her laugh again. “I thought the shiny thing was a nice touch!” she said hurriedly and then collapsed giggling in her son’s arms, all dance rhythm forgotten. The final strains of “The Ocean” faded, and Will looked up in time to see Kenny standing by the dance floor with a little box of cake in his hands.

He kissed his mom’s cheek and said, “Thanks, Mom,” quietly before turning to Kenny. “I’ll take that and say our good-byes,” Will told them. “You two have the last dance.”

He took the box from Kenny, happy that it seemed so solid because he was looking forward to more cake—it had sort of a dreamy amaretto vanilla frosting, and, well, leftover wedding cake would make an appropriate breakfast.

He hoped.

Cara and Nina were still dancing, and Will waited until Cara saw him and opened her arms for a solid hug. She’d long since discarded her suit jacket, and her white sleeveless blouse was so close to something she’d worn when he was a kid that he felt a sudden poignancy to the moment.

This was his aunt Cara, whom his father had never really approved of but whom Will’s mother had always adored.

“Be happy,” he said as she hugged him tightly, and he knew that she was probably misting over, because that was what people did at weddings.

“I plan to. You too.”

“I’ve got the same plan,” he said, and she pulled back and winked at him.

“You’ll have to let Nina help with it,” she said, and Nina cuddled in under her arm and grinned at him, obviously deliriously happy. “I don’t think once was enough.”

“Well, it was plenty of times to do it for
me
,” Nina corrected, kissing Cara on the cheek, “but I wouldn’t mind
planning
it all over again.”

Will agreed, said his final good-byes, and then went to fetch Kenny.

Now that it was time to go home and see what Kenny had to say about all these plans, his stomach was all butterflies and gerbils on wheels. His entire life was so very different now. He just couldn’t imagine it without Kenny.

And the moment this had dawned on him had come so suddenly out of the September blue.

Choose Your Weapon

“I
SHOULD
make something else,” Kenny said, looking at the covered bowl of Thai basil curry salad in his hands. “She won’t like this.”

“Kenny, we’re
here
.
On
time
.
And my mother thinks I’m
never
on time—can we just run with this?”

From the passenger seat, Kenny glared at him with agony in his eyes. Will thought he should probably turn the car off, but it was still a hundred gazillion degrees outside, and Kenny looked like he was going to bolt.

“But I’m not dressed right. You said cargo shorts, but that can’t be right.”

“Hundred. And. Five. Kenny, it’s 105 degrees outside. Can we not quibble about cargo shorts and T-shirts?”

“You were going to wear a tank top!” Kenny accused, and Will grunted. Kenny had called it a wifebeater and refused to step foot out the door until Will changed.

“I was
going
to be comfortable visiting my mother. I do this every weekend.”

“Yes, but this is the weekend you’re moving in with your gay lover, and I need to not look skeezy.”

Will ignored the fact that they’d been too busy having sex to even start packing, and went with a laugh. “Kenny, baby, you have
never
looked skeezy. I met you in your
boxer shorts
and we were picking dildos up from the middle of the road, and you were still all class.”

Kenny glared in pure outrage, and Will thought maybe that wasn’t the best memory he could have brought up. “Please—
please—
tell me your mother doesn’t know that story.”

Will held up two sober fingers in the time-honored pledge. “As God is my witness, I did not tell my mother I met you picking up dildos in the middle of the road. Now can I turn off the car?”

Kenny’s outrage had gone shiny-eyed, and Will sighed. He put the car in park and set the brake, then palmed the back of Kenny’s head until their lips met. He’d found Kenny sort of liked it when he got all he-man, so he put some authority into this kiss, made Kenny open his mouth, thrust his tongue in, and kissed like they were at home and the bed was just down the hall.

“Nungh,” Kenny said when he pulled back, and Will grinned and tapped his cheek.

“Feel better?”

“No. Now I feel all sexed.”

“Good. You relax after sex. That’s what we need here. Mom’s going to have a basic lunch. Ham sandwiches. Thai basil salad will be awesome. Remember what she told me when I came out?”

“No. I have no idea, you never told me.”

“She said, ‘I’m glad—you didn’t seem to like women, and I don’t like to think of you lonely.’”

For a breath, the only sound was the Oldsmobile pumping toxins into the environment. Kenny smiled, still a little bright-eyed, but steadier. “You
were
pretty lonely when I found you.”

Will nodded. “Yeah. And now I’m not. See? Will’s mommy loves him, and she will love Kenny too, and we can go have salad and get out of this ozone-destroying monster vehicle.”

Kenny looked around him like he was just seeing the Oldsmobile for the first time. “You should get a smart car,” he said, nodding like that was going to happen
right now
.

“Yeah, Kenny. I’ll make it a priority. You know, though, maybe some lunch with my mom first?”

Kenny smiled gamely and unlatched his seatbelt. Will finally,
finally
turned off the car.

Will’s mom greeted them at the door. Then she promptly took the salad from Kenny, gave it to Will to set down, and hugged Kenny for all she was worth, following it up with a kiss on the cheek.

Kenny smiled weakly. “Hi, Mrs. Lafferty. It’s really nice to meet you.”

Will’s mom laughed and pinched his cheek. “Oh honey—it’s so nice of you to pretend that it is. Will told me you were scared to death.”

Kenny was so stressed he didn’t even bother to glare. “Little bit, yeah,” he admitted. He pulled self-consciously at his eyeball-zapping-green polo shirt, tucked neatly into a trim pair of bright-blue shorts. “I, uhm, I don’t know if I’ve ever met parents… erm, parent before.”

Anne Lafferty’s laughter made a soft, burbling sound, and as Will set the salad down on the table, he thought that it had always made him happy. Maybe it would have that effect on Kenny as well.

“Well, consider me honored—”

“Mom, this is an awful lot of food—who else is coming? Wait”—Will saw the fresh tomato and pepper salad and a neat assortment of cubed melons—“is Aunt Cara coming?”

Will squirmed as his mom gave him a mock glare. “You couldn’t let me finish?”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said dutifully, but he spoiled the meekness by winking at Kenny, who, blessed of blesseds, actually smiled.

“Well, I was going to say that your aunt Cara and her new
girl
friend are in the backyard.”

“Oh!” Will was excited to see Cara—she’d like Kenny, he was sure of it. Then, as what his mother said sank in: “Oh….”

Will’s mother raised her eyebrows with in an indulgent smile.

“
Ooohhhh
….” Because all of that gossip about Cara and her assistant was finally paying off.

Mom nodded. “Yeah. I think it was news to everybody except us. It was certainly news to Cara. But”—and she grinned, delighted as a schoolgirl—“they’re so happy together. And we can say we told you so!”

Will grinned back. “God, it’s good to be right!”

His mom grimaced playfully. “As we would
not
have been when we were thinking about setting the two of you up. It’s just as well you were—”

“Not enthusiastic,” Will supplied drily, and Kenny snorted. As they were talking, Kenny took the opportunity to move subtly but possessively into Will’s personal space. Will understood:
This is mine. I know he was yours, but I’ve claimed him.
Will spoke fluent Kenny by now. It was a language of many subtle nuances.

“So did you tell her I was bringing Kenny?” Will asked, thinking about how important it was, suddenly, that his family knew, saw them as a couple, felt Kenny in his life.

His mom laughed like she knew what he was thinking. “I’m sure she’s as excited about you as you are about her.”

And at that moment, Cara walked in, her curly gray-and-brown hair pulled back into an escaping ponytail, her wide, freckled face open and smiling. She was pulling a woman behind her by the hand, saying, “C’
mon
,
Nina—these are really nice people. Besides, you heard her—Will’s here with his
boyfriend
.”

And Nina rounded the corner, smiling hesitantly.

Kenny smiled at them both and stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Kenny. Will’s boyfriend. Pleased to meet you!” But Cara wasn’t having any of that.

She rushed Will and gave him a familiar hug, smelling like sweat and earth and like his second mom.

“Oh my God, kiddo! You look so damned happy!”

Will hugged her back gratefully. “You too,” he said, and he closed his eyes. It was an odd, sideways sort of blessing, but he thought he was going to be very, very happy to meet the girl he’d never been set up with.

T
HE
MEETING
with Kenny’s parents did not go quite as smoothly.

“So you’re queer too?”

Will tried not to let his mouth swing open. Kenny’s brother was an older, taller,
thicker
,
more muscular version of Kenny—he was like Kenny on steroids. For a really, really, brain-shrinkingly long time.

“Well, I am if I’m sleeping with your brother,” Will said, nodding slowly, hoping Joey would get it without getting ugly about it.

“You don’t look gay,” Joey said suspiciously.

Will blinked. Well, that was new. “Maybe I’m just really, really happy inside,” Will responded with a bright smile.

Joey’s admittedly handsome face—planes and angles and an intriguing nose and chin divot, much like Kenny’s, only supersized—managed a disgusted expression.

“You’re a smartass like Kenny,” he grunted, and Will actually laughed.

“Yeah, well, we keep each other amused.”

“I don’t even want to know about that shit. Man, that’s gross.” Joey presented his refrigerator-sized back to Will and stalked off to the other side of the yard. The heat had let off a little, and Kenny’s parents had little misters all over their porch and spacious backyard—complete with a built-in pool with its own patio in the back corner—so the grassy space in the middle with the militarily ordered flower beds along the edges stayed pretty comfortable.