Anything Could Happen (2 page)

“Thank you, Austin.”

“For what?” Austin wondered aloud.

“For what you’ve shared with me. Letting me be the first. Did it feel good?”

Austin smiled slowly and realized he was feeling positively giddy. “It did.”

Uncle Boden grinned and looked away. “My God, it takes me back. I couldn’t have been too much younger than you are now,” his uncle said. “You’re around eighteen?”

“Twenty,” Austin said. “I’ll be twenty-one in a couple months.”

“You look younger. I know a young man hates to hear those words, but later in life you’ll be glad about looking younger than you are.”

Austin shrugged.

“I was sixteen,” his uncle said, with a faraway look on his face. “I’d just given a boy my first blowjob—”

Austin’s eyes popped. Had his great-uncle Boden—an old man—just said “blowjob”?

“I didn’t know that’s what it was called. But I knew I wanted to do it. The first time I heard the word ‘cocksucker,’ I knew that’s what I was.” He laughed quietly to himself. “Oh, and Jimmy had such a nice cock.” The laugh turned into a cackle, and Lucille gave a single happy bark as if agreeing. Austin felt his mouth slip open and he forced it closed with a click.

“What?” Uncle Boden said. “Did you think your generation invented the blowjob too?”

“I guess not.”

“I should say not!” He slapped Austin’s knee. “You know, I have a picture of Jimmy I can show you.” He stood up. Lucille gave a happy bark and leapt to the floor. “No, girl,” he ordered. “You stay here with Austin.” He pointed to his nephew. “He’s our company.”

Lucille hopped back on the couch and climbed into Austin’s lap as her owner left the room, then stood on her hind legs and leaned against his chest. Austin looked into her joyous, adorable little face—muzzle all white with age—and couldn’t help but giggle when she offered him a few sweet little doggie kisses.

“Lucille! Stop,” Uncle Boden said, already returning to the room. “Some people don’t like that.”

“I don’t mind,” Austin said as she continued to lick his face.

Uncle Boden plopped down next to Austin, and Lucille immediately climbed down from Austin’s lap and into his.

“Here,” said Austin’s uncle, handing over a silver frame.

Austin looked down at a black-and-white photograph, yellowed with age. Two boys, teenagers, with short hair of an indeterminate color—brown? blond?—looked back at him, smiling, happy from some day long ago.

“Jimmy on the right.” Uncle Boden pointed. “Hot, wasn’t he?”

He was certainly cute, Austin admitted. But so was the other boy. “Who is the guy on the left?” he asked with an appreciative growl.

“Why, that’s me. I was hot too, wasn’t I?”

Mortified, Austin had to fight to keep his mouth from falling open once again.

“So Austin—this ‘friend’ of yours you’ve come to find. Is he—was he—your lover?”

Lover? Austin felt his stomach clench for a moment. “No,” he said sadly. “Not really.”

“Hmmmm….” Uncle Boden touched a finger to his lower lip, scratched his chin. “Not really? Is he gay?”

“I don’t know.” Austin moaned in frustration. “I’m hoping.”

“You’re in love,” his uncle sighed happily.

“I-I think I am,” Austin replied, felt his heart quicken.

“I was so in love with Jimmy.” Uncle Boden sighed again. Then: “Have you two at least been… how shall I say it? Have you two been physical? Have you fooled around?”

“Sorta… I-I….” Austin looked into his uncle’s face. The man was elderly, and yet in that moment, Austin realized the man was ageless as well. He saw the boy in the picture. Uncle Boden wasn’t just some old man. He was the boy in that picture, wasn’t he? Of course he was. The man hadn’t been born old. Austin clearly saw that there had been someone gay before him and… there would be someone gay after he was gone.

And suddenly everything seemed better. For the first time in his life, he felt as if there might be a place for him. And maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out right. Anything could happen. And he knew he could trust this man. That they could share intimate secrets. “I gave him a blowjob,” Austin said in a rush, before he could change his mind.

Uncle Boden’s cheeks pinked and the corners of his mouth flickered upward.

“What?” asked Austin. “Don’t you think men do that anymore?”

His uncle laughed. “I dare say they do!” he crowed. “At least I hope they do. Did you like it?”

Austin clutched a hand to his chest and felt his face heat up. “Oh my.”

“I know!” Uncle Boden laughed all the more. He glanced down at the coffee table and then reached out and picked up their glasses. He held one out to Austin and then said, “To a new chapter in your life.”

“To a new chapter,” Austin said happily, returning the toast.

T
HEY
had finished their second glass of sherry, were debating a third, when Uncle Boden said, “You know, we’d better unload your vehicle. I only hope no one has snitched anything already. Let me just quick call Guy.”

“Guy?” asked Austin.

“A young man who lives on the third floor. He was gracious enough to move most of the stuff I had in the spare room down to the basement so you would have a place to sleep. Of course, we had to use Miss Hallie’s storage space, but she didn’t mind. She really wasn’t using it. She’s a thousand years old and has almost nothing. Imagine. My locker is filled to the ceiling with memories and kitsch.”

Uncle Boden left the room and was back in less than a minute. “He’s outside already. Can you believe it? Such a nice young man. I hope you two hit it off. He’s gay, you know. Peter’s aiming to get as many gay tenants as he can without seeming prejudiced.”

Guy? Hallie? Peter? Who were all these people? But Austin was sure he’d figure it all out eventually. As in any good play, it would all fall into place.

“Peter is my… boss,” Uncle Boden said. “My savior, really. He owns the building. Made me building manager—rent free—even though I can’t do much more than collect rent checks and call various handymen when a sink clogs up or a toilet stops working.”

“I’m quite handy when it comes to stuff like that,” Austin said. “I’ve got a knack for it.”

“So Wilda says. It’ll be wonderful to have your help.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Austin said. Before Austin moved to Kansas City, his uncle had insisted he not pay rent, and he agreed only on the condition he help with the building’s maintenance whenever he could.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ll meet Peter soon enough.”

By this time, they were leaving the building, and sure enough, there was someone pulling the tarp off the back of Austin’s S-10 pickup. Tall, dark-haired, and…

Good-looking
.

“Guy, I want you to meet my great-nephew Austin. Austin, this is Guy.”

The young man approached them, smiling, hand rising from his side—and then he froze. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed; his full lips parted as if he were about to say something and then forgot what it was. After a beat, he visibly shook himself and held out his hand once more. “Nice to meet you,” he replied.

“Likewise,” Austin said and took it. The hand was nice, warm, and accompanied by what felt like a tiny shock. Guy was an inch or two taller than Austin, rugged, with close-cropped dark hair and a beard that was little more than a five o’clock shadow. He looked down with milk-chocolate-colored eyes, and
damn
, thought Austin, distracted by flecks of even darker brown. Guy was very good-looking indeed. They were still holding hands, and Austin quickly pulled his away with a twinge of guilt.
I’m here an hour and I’m staring into some guy’s eyes. Todd. Todd is who I’m here for
.

“Let’s get this done with,” Guy said, nodding toward Austin’s old red truck. “It’s getting chilly.”

At least the prediction of snow hadn’t come to pass, thought Austin—the reason he’d put the tarp over everything. It might have discouraged people from trying to snitch any of his things as well.

With Guy’s capable help, it was surprising how quickly they got Austin’s entire world out of the back of the truck and into his new room. It was a tight fit. He had moved into the basement when he started high school. His great-aunt Corvella had needed his boyhood bedroom when she got “the cancer,” as his Gram called it. When she died a few months later, he’d never moved back upstairs. If he helped with the laundry, his Gram didn’t come downstairs very often. All the tools were down there, but his grandfather hardly ever used them anymore, and so it was a rare day for him to come down either. The basement had become more than a bedroom; it had turned into a clubhouse of sorts for him and his lifelong friend Todd. He’d even given Todd a key to the cellar door.

Which, of course, had led to a complete and utter disaster in the end. One that wound up motivating Austin to leave his home. Correction. His home in Buckman. This little room in Uncle Bodie’s apartment was to be his home
now
. At least until he could afford his own place.

They brought in and set up the bed first, and then while Uncle Boden made it, they carried in the drawers of Austin’s desk and dresser. They were full due to the fact that Austin had opted to move them as is, instead of packing the contents into boxes and then having to refill the drawers again. The boxes he had packed went up after the furniture—once they had the lay of the land and knew where they could be stacked for the time being. Last of all was Austin’s weight set.

“Nice,” said Guy, shrugging off his coat. He wore a big baggy Royals jersey underneath. “This isn’t cheap shit.”

“My grandparents got them for me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I wanted a good set ’cuz I’ve always hated my body. I’m so crapping skinny.”

Guy shrugged. “It looks pretty nice to me,” he said with a lopsided grin and the arch of an eyebrow.

Austin felt his cheeks heat up. Guy was flirting. Guy. A real-life gay man.

Todd
.
Think of Todd
. “Th-thanks,” he muttered.
You’re not so bad yourself
, he almost replied and bit his tongue.

“Another round of sherry?” Uncle Boden suggested when they were finished. “Guy? Join us?”

“No, Bodie, that’s just a tad too sweet for me. At least at this time of night. I’ll run up and get a beer, though. Austin?”

“Okay,” Austin said happily, not sure he wanted any more of the honey-like wine himself and happy Guy had included him in what felt like an adult ritual—even if he didn’t particularly like beer all that much. The buzz maybe. The taste he could definitely take or leave.

“I’ll be back in a flash,” Guy said. “You want one, Bodie?”

“No, that’s okay. The sweet stuff for me. Sweets for the sweet,” he said with a laugh.

“Bodie?” Austin enquired.

“That’s what my friends call me,” his uncle explained. “Them that’s left. Boden is just so butch. I asked Guy to call me Bodie. Makes me feel real. Young and queer again. I’d like you to do the same.”

“Uncle Bodie,” Austin said, trying the new name on for size.

“Just Bodie. You can drop the Uncle.”

Just Bodie?
Austin wondered. No. He couldn’t. “We’ll compromise, I’ll say ‘Bodie’ instead of ‘Boden,’ even though I’ve always thought you had a cool name. But I gotta say ‘Uncle.’”

“Fine. Fine,” his uncle Bodie yielded. “So what do you think of Guy?”

“He seems nice.” Austin swallowed a lump.

“You know, Guy is in the theater? Director. Or is it playwright? Wait, it’s both, I think.”

“Really?” Austin asked, surprised. He loved the theater. It was a part of why he’d moved to a bigger city. Since he’d graduated, he’d only gotten to do a little community theater, and Buckman Community Theater was less than stellar.

Uncle Boden… Bodie… was nodding. “I saw one of his shows just last week. A crazy version of that movie with Dolly Parton.”

“
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
?” Austin asked. He loved musicals.
God. How did I not know I was gay? What could be more gay than loving musicals?

“No-no, not that one. The one with the Flying Nun. What’s her name? ‘You like me, you really, really like me!’”

“Sally Field?” Austin offered.

“Sally Field! That’s it! And that stud muffin Tom Skerritt.”

Austin started laughing—
stud muffin?
—just as there was a knock at the front door, and Lucille took off like a miniature rocket, barking all the way.

“Lucille!” shouted Uncle Bodie. “Control. A lady needs to show control. I’m sure it’s just your Uncle Guy.”

Austin wiped his eyes, and a moment later, Guy was back—
damn, he’s good-looking
—with two beers, bottles already open. He handed one to Austin.

“Cheers,” declared Uncle Bodie, holding his fresh glass of sherry high.

“Cheers,” said Guy.

“Cheers,” Austin repeated and took a sip, expecting one step above nasty and getting a surprise instead. “Hey,” he exclaimed. “That’s nice.”

Guy nodded, grinning. “I love Boulevard. You haven’t had it before?”

Austin shook his head. “I don’t know much about beer. If they carried this in Buckman, I didn’t realize it or know what it was. The kids I know drink Milwaukee’s
Worst
and Pabst.”

Guy grimaced and Austin laughed—and took a bigger swallow. It glided down his throat, all malt and hops. “It tastes like liquid marijuana,” he said with a snicker.

“We’re drinking Double-Wide I.P.A.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Austin admitted.

“Just know it means tons of hops,” Guy explained.

“So I was telling Austin about your Dolly Parton play,” Bodie interrupted.

“‘Dolly Parton Play.’” Guy grinned. “Sounds like a good name for a show, actually.
Steel Magnolias
. You’re talking about
Steel Magnolias
.”

“I love that movie,” Austin said.

“Well, this is the original play, and all the scenes take place in Truvy’s beauty shop, and there are no men.”

“No Tom Skerritt.” Uncle Bodie pouted.

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Did you know the playwright was gay?” Guy asked.