The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (12 page)

G
ABE’S mouth dropped open. He’d come home for lunch, bringing

sandwiches from Quiznos (terribly unhealthy prime rib sandwiches with tons of cheese and sautéed onions and peppercorn sauce), because after all, a growing boy needed to eat. Gabe had walked in the door and called out, but there hadn’t been an answer. His stomach dropped as he wondered if Todd had left. There was no smell of cooking chicken, and when he went into the kitchen, he found it thawing in the sink. Why hadn’t Todd put it in the Crock-Pot? Had Todd not been able to find it? Gabe turned to look for it, and sure enough, there it was. What the hell?

That’s when Gabe heard the singing. A young man’s voice. Todd. He was singing about being free as his hair. Lady Gaga.

Gabe walked down the hall, calling out so as not to startle Todd. He followed the singing to his work-out room and froze when he got there. He rocked back, totally taken aback by what he saw: Todd, in nothing but black underwear and one of Gabe’s own T-shirts, soaked with sweat and running hell bent for leather, voice booming like a rock star. The wet clothes clung to the young man, an erection straining the front of his briefs, leaving little to the imagination. And while there was a certain desperation pouring off Todd that was almost alarming, Gabe found himself witness to one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen.

Gabe knew he should back off—this time he really was being a voyeur—but he was paralyzed, unable to move. He felt as if he had stumbled on some animal in the wild, was witness to something one rarely got to see. Like coming across a deer in a clearing or an immense flight of butterflies, or a cougar making a kill.

Todd was sexy and scary and beautiful all at once, and Gabe felt himself grow hard at the sight.

 

Of course, that’s when Todd opened his eyes.

 

“Fuck,” Todd cried, and stopped running, which sent him flying backward and onto the floor.

“Todd!” Gabe leapt forward, reaching for the young man. “Todd, are you okay?” He fell to one knee where Todd lay in a heap. He placed a hand on Todd’s sweaty shoulder. The smell of the young man nearly boiled off of him, all musk and flesh and pits and balls. It did nothing to reduce Gabe’s erection.

Todd looked up through wet bangs, rubbing his head, face going red. “Jeez,” he said. He pulled the iPod plug from his ear and Lady Gaga’s voice boomed out in German. “You scared the shit out of me.” He glanced down at himself, then hunched tighter, putting his arms around knees. “Damn. I-I’m so embarrassed.”

“Todd, don’t be. I’m sorry. I brought us some lunch and heard you singing….”

 

“Could you give me a minute?” Todd refused to meet Gabe’s eyes.

“Sure. Of-of course.” Gabe stood, started to turn. “Do you need a hand?”
“Gabe. Please!”

“Sorry.” Gabe found he was blushing as well. “I’ll be in the living room.” He turned and left Todd alone.

T
ODDcouldn’t remember the last time he’d been so embarrassed. Not even when he’d been staring at his classmate’s dick in the high school locker room. That time he’d been able to pull off a snarky comment to throw off suspicion. But what must Gabe be thinking, catching him running in his underwear and Gabe’s own T-shirt? What had it looked like? He glanced down and saw the wet cloth that clung to his hard-on. Jeez. He might as well have been naked. How the hell did he go back down that hall and face the man?

You gotta
, he realized. There was no way out except through the front door and the kitchen.

Maybe if I stay here long enough he’ll just leave
.
Todd ran fingers through wet hair and sat up straight. (
“I brought us some lunch and heard you singing….”
)

Lunch. Gabe had brought home lunch. He wasn’t going anywhere. Shit!

Todd stood, looked at himself again, and knew he couldn’t pull his jeans on over his soaked underwear. Jeez. Even his socks were sopping. He peeked down the hall, and seeing no sign of his host, quickly scrambled out of his clothes, or lack thereof, and into his jeans and sweater. Then, barefoot, he went to face the music.

He found Gabe in the kitchen, back to him, sitting at the table. There were two plates set out and a wrapped sandwich at the empty setting. Lunch.

“There’s some sodas in the fridge. I didn’t know what you liked. A couple Cokes, Diet Cokes, some Mountain Dew. Don’t guys your age like Mountain Dew?”

Todd went to the refrigerator and pulled out a Coke. It gave him another second not to face Gabe.

He saw me running in my underwear. With a hard-on. Jeez. He heard me singing.

Todd sat down. “Did I break your eardrums?” he asked, trying to make light.
“Huh?” Gabe asked.

“My singing.”

 

“Actually,” Gabe said, eyes focused on his own sandwich. “Considering you were running at the time, you sounded pretty good.”

Yeah. Right.
(
“Hey, Todd! Don’t give up your day job, okay?”
)
“I think my stepdad would disagree.”
“Yeah,” said Gabe, then eyed him over the top of his meal. “Fuck

your stepdad.”

 

Todd gave a mock shudder. “I doubt you’d want to. He’s pretty gross.”

Gabe laughed. “At least you don’t think I’d screw just anybody.” Todd stared at the wrapped sandwich in front of him. “Go on,” Gabe said through a mouthful. “Eat.”

Todd nodded and pulled the paper open. What he saw looked good. He didn’t know if he could eat it all. He had made a big breakfast, one bigger than he’d planned. But everything had just been so damned good. “I-I’m sorry about using your treadmill.”

Now he’ll tease me about my underwear.

 

Gabe didn’t. Instead he shrugged. “Why?” He took a bite. “You’re my guest.
Mi casa es su casa
.”

“I-I…. And your shirt….” Todd played with his food. “All you had was your sweater. You couldn’t run in that. You could have gotten a clean one, though. Sorry you felt you had to use one of my dirty ones.”

“It-It’s okay,” Todd mumbled. “I didn’t want to go through your stuff.” Besides, wearing Gabe’s shirt had made him feel…. What? Kind of what it felt like to have the man hug him.

Todd reached out, picked up the sandwich, and took a bite. The flavor exploded over his tongue and it was all he could do not to moan. When was the last time he’d had something so good? Once more he had to stop himself from shoving the food down. What would Gabe think? That he had no table manners at all?

“Let me see if I have anything you can wear,” Gabe said.

“Yeah, right,” Todd said and gave a laugh. “I’ll swim in your clothes, and your pants will fall down around my feet.”
“I don’t know,” Gabe replied. “They might be a little long, but you can cuff them up. I bet our waists aren’t all that different.” He stood up. “You want the rest of my sandwich?”

Todd eyed the remains of Gabe’s lunch, looked up into his eyes and then back down. He did. But he also wanted to save room for the dinner he had planned. “Later?” he asked. “That is, if you really don’t want it.”

Gabe shook his head. “I don’t. Wrap it up.” He turned and left the room and came back a few minutes later with a couple of pairs of old jeans, a few shirts, and God, underwear. Was the man lending him underwear? “Here,” he said, handing the clothes to Todd. “Go try these on. It’ll give you something for the next few days.”

Next few days?
Todd wondered. Next few days here or on the street? Could he really stay here any longer?
Well, maybe at least one more night?

He reached for the sandwich, started to wrap it, and Gabe offered to take care of it instead. “You go change.”

Todd sighed, grabbed the clothes, and headed back down the hall to the bathroom. To his surprise, he found the jeans did indeed fit almost perfectly. A little loose maybe, and of course, the legs were too long. But after cuffing them up a few turns, they actually worked. He pulled on a shirt that said, “The Other Team” (whatever that meant), and headed back to show Gabe.
Interesting
, he thought.
A great advantage for gay couples. They could wear each other’s clothes.
Joan had worn a few of his shirts, but he’d never—of course—worn anything of hers and had no interest in doing so.

“Well, you are swimming in the shirt, but the pants aren’t bad at all.”

 

Todd noticed Gabe staring at his feet and he shrugged. “I don’t think your shoes will fit me,” he said. Gabe’s feet looked huge.

“No. Probably not. But we’ll figure that out.”
“My shoes are okay,” Todd said.
“No, they aren’t. They’re falling apart.”

The comment stung for some reason. “Why do you care?” he snapped.

 

Gabe looked him in the face. “It’s a pair of shoes, Todd. Not a Mercedes. You’ll need new shoes.”

When I’m back on the street
, Todd thought.
That’s what you’re not saying.
“There’s a thrift store near here. Or we can go to the Mall.”

Todd shook his head. No. No more trouble. With all the food and the couch and showers and not teasing him about being in his underwear, Gabe had done more than enough. “Shouldn’t you be

heading back to work?” he asked. He needed to be alone for a bit. This guy… he was just too… present. He couldn’t think with the big (beautiful) man here.

“Yeah. Yeah, I should. Look, go into my bedroom and you’ll find a dish full of change. Take some and go downstairs to the laundry room and wash your clothes, okay? And you’ll find some of my flip-flops. They’ll be big, of course, but you got to wash those shoes too.”

Todd blushed. “Stinking up the place?”
“Todd, there is
nothing
that stinks about you, okay?”

For some reason the comment brought Todd up short. He looked up at Gabe, thinking of all the times his stepdad had called him a stinking deadbeat, or a stinking idiot, or worst of all, a stinking faggot. Gabe looked at him curiously, those light-blue eyes seeming to grow darker as the man studied him.

“You all right, Todd?”

 

Todd tried to put on a brave face, but before he could answer, Gabe did.

“Of course you’re not. Stupid question. Todd, you wash those clothes and take it easy. You can use anything here you want. I see you watched a movie. Good. And the treadmill was no problem. Use whatever you want. Please. You are staying the night?”

Todd’s heart skipped a beat. “You… you don’t mind?”

Gabe smiled and Todd felt his heart miss another beat. “Not at all. It’s nice to have the company.”
Todd couldn’t help but smile back.

“There’s an extra key in that dish too, okay? So you don’t lock yourself out.”

“I can use your key?” Todd said in surprise. How did Gabe know he wouldn’t make a copy?
“Well it’s not like I think you’re going to run down to the True Value and get a copy,” Gabe said, as if reading his mind.” He turned, then stopped. “You better get that chicken in the Crock-Pot. At least it’ll cook faster now that it’s thawing.”