Sweet (16 page)

In answer, Jules pulled off his top and threw it in the general direction of the couch. He put his hands on his hips and tilted his head, looking at Teddy incredulously.

“Oh, thank god, then,” Teddy said, and moved to press himself against Jules. “Because I really would rather be all up in your hair all day, if I can.”

Jules grabbed him by the wrists. “Don’t you ever touch the hair,” he warned. “This is perfect, perfect hair.”

Teddy wriggled his hands free and cupped them around Jules’s jaw. He held Jules’s face still, tilted his head slightly and kissed him. And then he slid both hands into Jules’s hair and he laughed and
pulled,
but Jules’s eyes went wide and he said
Oh
from his throat and the sound traveled like a shiver down into Teddy’s belly, and they moved like a waterfall, tumbling together all at once, wild and messy and full of force.

*

All day it was like this, lazy and frantic and silver-slick, dipping into and out of kissing, their bodies falling into fucking and out again, sudden shouts and sudden peace, curling into each other to nap, exhausted, on the bed, and waking again hard and full and aching. They hardly knew the hour. They hardly cared the day.

When it was over and the light had gone out of the sky, they dressed and took Andy out on his leash around the block. They held hands and smiled like idiots, while Andy, oblivious, toddled between them.

After they’d rummaged in the fridge and eaten a slim meal of olives and cheese and leftover bread, after Andy had waddled over to his pillow and put himself to bed, after Jules had pulled the gauzy curtains closed and switched on the little blue lamp, he said, “Do you want to try the pie again?”

Teddy smirked and raised an eyebrow, but Jules said, “Seriously. We have an empty crust,” so Teddy agreed and they took an empty bowl to the couch and peeled, again, a pile of slithery peaches, smiling slyly at each other when their eyes met.

They cut them into slices, and Jules mixed them (using a spoon this time) with sugar and lemon, heaped them into the crust and deftly, expertly, twisted a lattice for the top.

“You do that so quickly,” Teddy said, watching his hands.

“Lots of practice,” Jules laughed, weaving the dough and starting to pinch around the sides.

“It’s sexy,” Teddy mumbled.

“It’s what?” Jules laughed. “You have no standards.”

“You have incredibly sexy hands,” Teddy said. And Jules laughed again until Teddy held up a sliver of peach and said, “I saved one.”

Teddy pressed it into Jules’s mouth and kissed him on top of it, and Jules sucked on the fruit and let it slither down while Teddy traced Jules’s throat with the tips of his fingers, traced down his chest and his belly, down the front of his pants until Teddy was on his knees, his fingers prying at Jules’s waistband, his eyes turned up, wide and glimmering and taking him in.

“Okay,” Jules whispered and he let Teddy pull his pants loose and away, let him trace his lips over the hard swell of him, his breath burning and wet, his fingers pushing the fabric down. Teddy opened his mouth and swallowed
Jules in, let his tongue rasp and undulate against him, and it felt warm and tight and hot and Jules held the edge of the counter with whitening fingers and he breathed down
jesus christ oh jesus christ.
Teddy’s fingers dug at the backs of his thighs and played over the thin skin of his groin in little strokes, and then Teddy closed his throat around him, sucked hard, and Jules bucked slowly into his open mouth—it was so slow and so quiet, as if they were underwater, rocking in a tide. Jules swayed into him like
an anemone, dropped his hands to Teddy’s head and held, and the tightening almost-there pleasure pulled and pushed and pulled him deeper, and it wasn’t desperate this time; it was a wave building and growing in him, slow and constant and ever-tightening until he was so high above the earth he couldn’t remember it anymore, and Teddy’s hands were petting the muscles at his hips gently, desperately, wanting, wanting, and so he gave himself up entirely for him, broke suddenly open and made fists in Teddy’s hair and came in his mouth.

*

The next day Jules had, in all good faith, intended to stay at the bakery all day—Teddy had even packed him up a little parcel of bread and salad and a slice of the peach pie they’d finally managed to bake—but when he heard the familiar noise of ‘Trice slamming into the store and hollering her usual coffee call, he couldn’t make himself stay. Teddy was probably still curled up in his bed, sleeping and waiting for him, having called in sick to work again, and Jules could not muster the patience to keep himself away for so long. So he packed his bag and slung it over his shoulder, called out to ‘Trice and hurtled onto the street before she could say even one word.

When he had gone, the shop was quiet and still, dusty and beautifully golden in the morning light, and ‘Trice, for her part, was happy for the peace. She made coffee and pulled out a pencil for the crossword, tuned the stereo to public radio news and thought again about how much she loved the job that let her do these things every morning.

When she found and unwrapped
the parcel of Jules’s lunch, forgotten on the counter, she thought it would be criminal to ignore the little unexpected gift, and broke into the peach pie first. With a spoon, she took it in, the tender crust and the melting, flesh-soft fruit, and because she was alone, she closed her eyes and let her tongue turn it over—slippery, spiced, yielding—before swallowing it down.

She felt it slip down the back of her throat like a caress, felt it settle in her stomach and bloom warmly like a slow explosion. Another bite, and she crushed the fruit against the roof of her mouth and sucked it down; it lit her up from the inside out with the bright shimmer of delight, like an unfurling flower. She managed only one more bite, all cloves and sugar and summertime on her tongue, before it caught her and shook her body from the belly up, and her mouth dropped open and she gripped the counter’s edge and could only whisper hoarsely the closest name for what it was she felt:
Oh, my good god, oh, my god!

Thirteen

Most important moments are quiet
ones. The tide creeps up on the beach in little licks, a sly advance and retreat, rocking one fraction of an inch closer each time, until the sand is swallowed and everything is water, and all the landmarks have been lapped up and the ground has shifted and you don’t know, anymore, where you might have been standing.

It was, for Teddy, like this. Kissing Jules turned the ground to sand; it slid out from beneath him,
and all the things he used to locate himself in the world were suddenly gone.

Weeks passed, and the bright green spring wilted into the soldered heat of a relentless city summer. Days were spent, it seemed to them, in different climates, on opposite sides of the world: Jules in the dry heat of the bakery kitchen (the ovens churning out cakes and smearing the air into bleary waves until he could see nothing straight and sweat drew its fingertips down his spine like a bitter lover) and Teddy in the refrigerated blue silence of his office (where sometimes he pressed his cheek against the plastic skin of his computer just to feel something warm and humming and nearly alive). Nights, they crawled into Jules’s bed and lay in the clammy, fan-blown dark, too sweaty to touch but touching still, palm to hip and temple to shoulder, and sometimes slept and sometimes whispered to each other in the cottony heat.

Andy had become, somehow, Teddy’s own (
my dog,
he said often in his head and once to the receptionist at the office, just to test how it felt). The sloping couch was his, the tinny coffee press was his, and the bright umbrellas by the door and the chipped bathtub. “We should fix this floor,” he said once, after snagging his foot on an uprooted nail in the parquet for the millionth time, and Jules had looked at him and smiled widely and told him, “We should.”

He left his clothes in the pressboard dresser in Jules’s bedroom, left his razor and toothbrush on the bathroom sink, left his suits in their filmy dry
cleaner bags crowded into Jules’s closet, left pieces of himself in every drawer and corner of the apartment on Jane Street until there came a day when Teddy realized he hadn’t been back to his own cool, clean apartment in over a week. There was no longer anything there he needed.

*

“Here,” ‘Trice said, and tossed a piece of paper in Jules’s direction as she passed on her way out to the espresso machine. It fluttered softly down onto the table in front of him like a lost moth.

“What is this?” he asked, flipping it over.

“For you, since you’re being such a lesbian,” she said, and flipped her way out into the bakery storefront. It was a newspaper coupon for a U-Haul rental.

“Very funny!” he yelled after her and, when there was no response, he burst into the shop front, coupon crumpled in his fist. “Very funny!” he shouted, before noticing the two kids in the corner, hunched over a shared piece of cake. They looked at him and then giggled down at their clinking forks. “Very funny,” he hissed into ‘Trice’s back.

“It is,” ‘Trice said implacably, turning around. “Did he get you pregnant or something?”

Jules rolled his eyes and tightened the apron at his waist. “Yes,” he sighed heavily. “Yes, he has gotten me pregnant. I’m a knocked-up and shamed boy, and that is why he’s moving in with me so soon. And yes, I’m aware that it’s only been a couple months, and yes, I’m also aware that this means we are big old U-Hauling lesbians in your eyes, and yes, I understand that this means, if I’m to follow your example, that I will have to start dressing like a crazy homeless person with no taste and listening to shitty trash can-screaming music and tattooing every available piece of skin on my body that I haven’t pierced already. And I’ll probably have to become bitter and start living vicariously by commenting on other peoples’ love lives, too, if I’m really going to do it right.”

“Well, you have a great start on the bitter part, and what have
you
pierced already?” ‘Trice muttered, scribbling something onto her crossword. “And,” she said, putting down her pen with a click, “I don’t listen to
shitty trash can-screaming music
, whatever that is. And up until a minute ago when you started acting like a jackass, I was going to say I was happy for you. It’s about time.”

Jules deflated instantly, slumped against the counter and laid his head on ‘Trice’s shoulder. She took a long drink of her coffee, but didn’t shake him off. “You don’t think it’s ridiculously too soon?” he asked. “Everybody else seems to think we’re being crazy about this.” He picked up her pen and filled in a box with a little scribbled star.

“Don’t
do
that, I’ve told you!” she hollered, and grabbed the pen out of his hand. “This is
pen,
and it’s the
Times,
and you can’t mess with that! Besides, who’s ‘everyone’?”

“I don’t know. Avon.
My family. My friends. His family and friends. Everyone.”

“Everyone is stupid. I thought we’d established that.”

The kids in the corner were tittering again, glancing at ‘Trice and Jules every few seconds, whispering between glances, with huge smiles stuck to their sappy faces.

“Oh, knock it off!” ‘Trice growled in their direction. “He’s the most flaming of gaylords, in case you’re unable to detect that, and I’m a huge queerball, and never the twain shall meet. I find him incredibly irritating, and decidedly
not
sexy. He’s just my pet lesbro, so eat your cake and stop giggling at us like idiots! We’re
not on your team
!
” The kids looked stunned; they hunched back over their cake and eyeballed ‘Trice with careful, quick glances. Jules let his head roll off her tight shoulder and propped himself up with a fist under his chin.

“Nice job, scaring the straight kids. What crawled—” he started, then stopped, because ‘Trice had her head in her hands, and she was yanking at the locks near her temples. He tapped the back of her neck with a cool finger. “Kitchen,” he said simply and spun on his heel.

When ‘Trice slammed into the kitchen, Jules was a little more than scared. She was fiery and growling and she moved with such snappish, jerky precision that it sent her locks whipping around her shoulders with claps of beads. Frowning at him, she dropped her coffee onto the metal table with a slosh and folded her arms sullenly around her middle.

“Stop it,” he said. “You look like Medusa right now.”

“I’ll stone
you,
you little gay bastard,” she mumbled, but he could hear only half her heart in it.

“Okay,” he risked a hand on her arm. She didn’t move to hurt him, which, in his estimation, was the best possible response. “Why are you yelling at kids all of a sudden? You’re supposed to be the cool-headed one here.”

‘Trice leveled a dramatic eye roll in his direction, then bent to scoop up her hair, twisting and tying it into a large knot on the top of her head. A few heavy locks snaked out and flopped onto her shoulder. She sighed.

“I just hate everybody right now. Especially everybody with somebody.” She took a strangely delicate sip of her coffee. “I kind of hate you right now, too, you boring straight-gay
asshole. You put gay men to shame with this. You’re supposed to be going to circuit parties and doing it in bathroom stalls and sniffing poppers or something, not shacking up with every guy you ever sleep with.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that, except to ask if we’ve met before,” Jules said. He held out his hand to shake, at which she simply glared. “Hi. I’m Jules Burns, mild-mannered baker and romantically challenged serial monogamist. Chronically lonely soul who’s finally found a nice boy and is happy for the first time in more than a year, thanks to a big old yenta named
you.
”

When she didn’t react, when she merely sighed heavily and dipped her eyes toward her cup of coffee again, Jules felt brave enough to poke her arm and flip, with one finger, a couple of the fallen locks back over her shoulder with a soft clack.

“Who peed on your parade?” he asked. He knew, when pressed, how to speak her language. At least, he figured he did. It didn’t sound as good coming from him, but he was clearly trying.

“I’ve always felt just fine with my life,” ‘Trice said, finally looking him in the eye. “Actually, I’ve always felt kind of superior to everyone else, like I was somehow above the whole compulsory need to couple up and get married and have babies and that whole thing. But then there
you
are trying to be Mrs. Jules Grasshopper, and then my cousin breaks her leg spectacularly and my mom and my aunts are all cooing over the fact that
George
showed up at the hospital just for May-May and
George
is going to take May-May home with him while she heals and isn’t it just wonderful that May-May is special enough that she has scored
George
to take care of her when she’s sick, and poor ‘Trice doesn’t have
anybody
and aren’t lesbians supposed to mate for life and what is
wrong
with you, ‘Trice, that you have nobody and you’re going to die alone because nobody will know when you fall down the stairs and break your leg, and your forty-seven spinster cats will eat you alive because you are completely, pitifully alone.”

Knowing it was probably a very bad idea, Jules risked a laugh. He skipped backward a couple steps when ‘Trice looked up at him coldly. “
That’s
what this is about?” he said. ‘Trice was stony. She picked up a knife and began to chop mercilessly at the pile of walnuts on the table.

“Yes,” she said with a sullen whack of the knife.

“Don’t mangle those,” Jules said, and ‘Trice banged the knife onto the cutting board one more time just to show him. He sighed. “This is
not
like you. First of all, do you even
want
a George? Or a Georgia? Or a whatever?”

“Not really,” she said. “George is kind of a tool. He wears Dockers.”

“Exactly,” Jules said. “You don’t even want that. And you’re not exactly alone. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve had kind of a harem.”

‘Trice snorted and scraped at the board with the knife. “They act like I’m sitting by myself in the corner, eating beans out of a can.”

“You have better taste than that,” Jules said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re alone because you
like
it, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“And you know you’re not so much
alone
as you are
single.
You have tons of friends. And me, you have me. If you broke your leg, I would find you before your forty-seven cats ate you alive.” He crept forward. It was like soothing a feral animal. An animal w
ith a knife. “Besides, your place doesn’t even have any stairs.”

She rolled her eyes at that, but the knife stayed on the cutting board. Jules snaked one arm around her shoulders and gently pushed the knife with his other hand, so it skittered and spun on the metal countertop.

“Really?” she said with another eye roll.

“Just taking precautions,” he said, and pushed the knife a little further away.

“You’re an ass,” she grumbled, but let her head drop onto his shoulder.

“I know,” he whispered into her hair and squeezed her shoulders. “I love you, too.”

“Whatever,” she said quietly. “Coming from the Princess of the Pocket
Square-Wearing Gaylords of Homotopia, that doesn’t mean much.”

“Yes it does.” Jules squeezed again, feeling confident that she’d been sufficiently disarmed, both literally and metaphorically.

“Sigh,” she said and then did, poking at the knot of his apron with one finger.

“Sigh,” he agreed and poked her belly.

They were, in this way, perfectly suited for each other; and
this was an idea to which both of them clung fantastically, happily, fiercely.

In the outer room of the shop, the bells jangled and the front door closed with a shuddering thump, though neither of them could tell whether it was the cake-eating couple finally leaving or new people coming in.

“Besides,” he said, “I need you in good shape for moving boxes tomorrow. I need your big, overdeveloped, lesbian bean-eating arms for help.”

“Please,” she said. “How hard can it be to carry five boxes of sweater vests up one flight of stairs?”

“We need you there, ‘Trice,” Jules said quietly into her shoulder. “We do.”

*

After the boxes and bags had been carried; after the truck had been loaded and the apartment, clean, white and empty, had been swept and checked twice; after Jules had kissed him sweetly in the doorway and ‘Trice had rolled her eyes and wiped the sweat off her forearms with a red bandana; after he’d closed and locked the door on the empty echo, Teddy dropped his keys with the doorman and left the place for good.

He and Jules had talked about finding a new place, one that didn’t house the memory of Andy-the-man, but in New York City, giving up the cramped but sunny apartment on Jane Street felt like giving up a little glittering trove of gold, and both men knew it would be ridiculous to let it go. And so, instead, they hauled Jules’s sloping couch and sprawling white bed to the curb for whomever was brave enough to take them (Jules had insisted on taping signs to each item that read, in neat block letters, NO BEDBUGS, but Teddy was dubious that anyone would bite before the trash collectors came on Monday) and began the delicate process of cramming Teddy’s spare but expensive furniture alongside Jules’s shabby, shined-up treasures.