- Hard Fall (30 page)

"Look, under their way of looking at things, I shot first."

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Hard Fall

by James Buchanan

Running my hand up the middle of his back, I savored how his muscle felt under my touch. Right good and just about perfect. "I walked away. Turned my back on everything they know to be good and holy."

"That sucks and it's bullshit." Leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, Kabe's whole body slumped. "Sandy got on me, you know?"

Guessed the hurt was spreading all 'round. "Uh-huh."

"Shit, she actually accused me of making you gay. Told me that I had to make it right." He leaned into my body a little more. Seemed like we'd been like this forever. "After I stopped laughing, I kinda laid it all out for her. Probably more information than she really wanted to know." He rolled his eyes and grimaced. "Sorry."

"About what?" I snorted and pushed at his butt with my leg. "Making me gay?"

"Yeah, right. No, I don't know, but you're not a person who is real open with any part of their personal life, I just get that feeling." After running his hands through his hair, Kabe kinda turned toward me. A real sheepish smile crept over his face.

"Although it was kinda funny seeing her face after I explained what rimming was ... that it had nothing to do with being on the lip of a canyon."

Oh Lord, save me from that boy's mouth. "If you're going to kill me, let me give you my piece." I reached up, grabbed him behind the neck and pulled him down. He struggled for all of a minute. "Lot quicker with a bullet." Then Kabe settled.

His body melded into mine. The line of his leg, lying between my own, just matched me. We breathed together. Gold-red 272

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light from the windows danced dust around us. It felt good having him near me like that. Lazy ... two dogs in a pile on the porch. Think I even dozed a little bit.

Kinda dreamy, he asked, "Know what I hated most about what happened between me and Tony?"

"You got locked up." I mumbled it, running my hand down his spine.

"Yeah, for a while." His hair tickled my cheek. I rolled my head so I could smell him. Dust, sun, a little motor oil and his sweat all mixed together and made about the most perfect combination I could imagine. "But, shit, I knew who he was and what he did when I was with him." Kabe's fingers traced the inside of my arm. "You hang with people like that, sooner or later you're going to get in trouble. No, it was while I was locked up. He abandoned me."

"And you thought it was true love..."

"No, I thought it was really hot sex and kinda love." He pinched the inside of my elbow to mess with me. "But I didn't have any delusions that we'd be growing old together. I thought of him as a really good friend with benefits. Still, there're things you do for friends." His body settled into a real heavy quiet. "For two years I was in a scary as shit place and didn't have anybody I could count on to be there." Kabe's voice crept low through my ears. "He never once visited. I mean, my grams came like clockwork, my dad came when he was in town. But they're family and you know, they have to stick with you. At least I thought that's what family did."

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I saw what he was getting at. I wouldn't be an obligation to nobody. "I don't want you sticking around because you feel sorry for me. That turns sick real fast."

"Look. I had a light at the end of the tunnel." Kabe pushed himself up and stared down into my eyes. "I knew when the end of my sentence was and that I'd probably get out earlier.

You're looking at fuck knows how long. I don't know how long I'm going to be around. I'm not going to promise forever."

The same look he got up on the wall, when he climbed, stole over Kabe. There weren't word for it 'cept determination.

"But, you know, I like Joe Peterson. You're one of the few people I've met that wasn't trying to sell me something, sell me them."

What was I to say to that? It was true though. I didn't think on people ... they were who they were. Kabe, beyond the good looking, I'd known he could climb. I'd needed him for that. And knowing what I did about taking a face ... well, dumb people didn't live long. So, I guessed I'd made some assumptions, just not the ones guys normally made with a lean piece of ass.

"And you nailed it," like he knew what drifted through my mind, he stroked the growth on my jaw, "up there, that's the one place I don't have to pretend I'm hipper, flashier or got more than other people." All earnest, "You deserve better, you got me, and I'm not going to let you down. I'll promise you a friendship. I may not know what you're going through, but I'll listen to it, and be there, 'cause that's what friends do.

If things go beyond that, it'd be sweet."

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"Best buds, huh?" I teased him. What he was saying, I didn't know if I could handle it, much less him. Go from having it all, losing it all and then gaining some back ... heck of a zipper fall I'd been on lately. "You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

The smile faded into a leer. "No, you suck my dick, I'll suck yours." Then it went back to being all Kabe ... the Kabe I liked, the Kabe from up on the wall, serious, sincere. "And I'll haul your ass up the mountain enough to remind you that none of this shit matters in the big scheme of things. I may not believe in God, but I believe in the Wow! That day you kissed me on the ledge, that was it." A light, like I'd seen in the eyes of those testifying on their faith, it lit him up. "We're tiny out there. In a million years what we do ain't going to matter worth shit and that's still going to be there. I think the Wow will make it better."

"I think getting my dick sucked right now could make me feel better." I teased him, 'cause I really couldn't handle thinking on deep things right then. It was going to take me a long time to sort things out. Right then I was living on the some days are better than others plan.

"See, that's what I'm talking about." His smile got all bright. "Dump these hicks, man. This shit ain't worth it."

"What do you want from me, Kabe?" I pushed that mop of hair back off his face. "What?"

"I don't know."

"You know, I ain't the next high or the next thrill until you can find something with more rush to conquer. I'm just Joe Peterson. Sheriff or no, I'm a country boy with maybe some 275

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big city urges ... but what you see is what you get." He needed to understand that. "I like my evenings long, I like my lemonade sweet and I don't go 'round pretending that I'm something more than that." Thumping his forehead with my finger, trying to pop a little sense in there, I added, "So when you're bored off your lazy can, 'cause there ain't no swank nekkid parties I hear about on those internet message lists, you got to remember that. This here is God's country and I respect it, and I'm part of it. So deep I hurt when I'm not here. You're stuck out here for a while, keeping your nose clean for your PO and your family. But you know, get a bit of time under you and you can pull up stakes here. Fed parole, they can monitor you anywhere. I ain't about to be used up like that."

He sighed and shook his head like it wasn't quite penetrating. "But you don't need these fucking hicks."

"
I'm
a
fucking hick
!" I ain't ever swore much. Seemed like that might get it through to him. "Don't you get it? This is where I belong! I don't fit nowhere else. Not like I fit here now, neither. The Bishop, oh man, I'm done in the church.

They're gonna pull my Temple Recommend, kick me out of the Ward. I already got the letter."

"Great," Kabe's hand snaked down between us and he grabbed my package. "You can ditch that stupid underwear of yours." The squeeze he added kinda said he wanted me to ditch all my clothes.

I grabbed his face with my hand, like you would play-fighting with a puppy. Shaking him a little, I growled, "This is my life and you're joking about the shorts I wear?"

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"It's just a church." Kabe jerked away and nipped at my fingers. I got the feeling he liked playing the puppy. That thought was all interesting in strange ways. "There's a ton of churches out there if you really feel the need. Just tell that stupid official to go fuck himself, get the hell out of your life."

"That stupid official is my neighbor." Kabe just didn't know how wove together people were out here. "He taught me high school math and science. My cousin married his daughter.

I've been called as a Sunday school teacher for the fourth and fifth grade boys under him. My dad served as the Bishop two terms before him. The only paid position in the Mormon Church is the janitor, everybody else is someone you live, work and breathe with." In the space of a week, my whole social circle had collapsed. "These are the people I go hunting with, ice-cream socials and the Fourth of July picnic. I have just lost every friend I have and probably most of my family, and you're making cracks about my drawers."

"Family wouldn't do that to you." He dropped back down on my chest, wrapped his arms around me and clung tight.

"Would they?"

"If I ... what if..." Thinking on the inevitability of the next few steps, I wound my fingers into his hair. "
When
I get excommunicated and they strike my name off the rolls, my family is gonna have to choose." Probably the hardest part of it; not what it'd do to me. I could take care of myself. But my mom, dad, brothers, sisters, all of them, this was gonna put them in some real hard places. "They won't be forced to leave, but they'll always be suspect. 'Why aren't you doing enough to bring him back? Can't you make him straight?'"

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Kabe's breath warmed my neck right where my shirt gaped open. "I'm sorry, man."

"'Bout what?"

"The situation..."

"Yeah, 'cause you held me down and made me ball your brains out." I slid my arms 'round him. Felt so right lying there like that with him. "In some ways I'm more miserable than a cat caught in the rain, but I ain't stupid. I coulda just not done nothing."

"It's okay as long as you don't act on it?"

"Being tempted is human. Acting on those temptations, I'd be in trouble if you were a gal. Not as much, a stern talking to, a few lectures and a lot of praying. I ain't gonna put my family through it."

When he jerked I held him tight. Didn't want that contact to end. How I held him caused Kabe to mumble into my chest, "You're going to give up being gay?"

"Your hat's on too tight." I laughed. First time really I'd laughed all week. "No, I can't lie to myself that way either. If I'd wanted that I'd have shacked up with the clerk over at Ruby's. Lord knows Jessie's tried hard enough." I eased down as he looked up, sliding under him and getting comfortable.

"I'll take it one day at a time from here on out. You can walk a million miles if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I just, I gave up. It hurts, damn does it hurt, but I told the Bishop they can do whatever they want. I ain't gonna fight. It ain't worth it to no one, least of all me. I've been living a lie, Kabe. Not the faith that's in me, but the version I've been buying. And I think there's good things there.

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Honestly there is. But it ain't about hate. When they say I got a choice, and you say I'm spitting in your eye because you won't let me be with who God intended me to be with, that's hate. I just want to be with someone I care about."

"Like who?"

I squeezed him till he grunted. "You, idiot."

"You care about me?" He didn't sound all that convinced.

Hard to tell, of course, when he's trying to catch a lungful of air.

"As much as I can about someone I've known about two weeks. I care enough to want to know you more. My momma always said, when you find the right gal, you'll feel it. And, I don't want to scare you off, thinking I'm going psycho or somethin', but I know I like being with you. I never even got to this stage with another guy, heck anybody. You think I'm nuts, huh?"

"Weirdly, no." Kabe quit fighting and snuggled in. "Look, everyone I've ever met saw me like, you know, this totally not serious dude. Guys my own age treated me like a stupid surfer kid. Okay, I'm a rock hound, I live to climb, don't mean I'm not a person."

"Of course you're a person," I gave him another squeeze, not as hard as the other, "what are you going on about?"

"A lot of guys look at someone like me and they think twink, which means, to many of them, stupid. You, you didn't like me, I could tell." Kabe's legs wrapped up all in mine. It was like having a warm Kabe blanket, better than one of my mom's quilts. "But you didn't not take me seriously."

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"I didn't not take you seriously?" Shifting some, I got our hips lined up, more importantly his hip bone didn't grind into my cock. The pressure there was getting a might uncomfortable. "Now that's a mouthful."

"You saw me as useful, first."

"Rightly, I saw you first as a lot of trouble." I reached down and grabbed a handful of his butt. Then I used it to push his crotch into mine. "A hot bit of trouble, but definitely trouble."

Kabe helped by squirming some. "Well, I definitely ended up being a whole lot of trouble for you."

"Naw, you weren't no trouble. Least none that I didn't want." I was done with talking for awhile. We'd said a good bit of everything we needed to. With my free hand I pulled his chin up and locked my mouth on his. Those hard kisses of his tasted so fine. I could drown in them. Fall forever and not care.

Kabe pulled back and drew down some air. "You know the other night," his hazel eyes seemed to get brighter, like a deep forest bursting with browns and golds and mostly green, when lust got on him, "that was hot." He rocked his hips against mine.

From what I could tell, that kiss warmed us both. "Hot?"

Kinda liked being trapped this way, though I was still gonna have to get used to the briefs Kabe'd thrown in my cart those few days back.