You Are the Reason (17 page)

I promised to show him and drove to his house to pick him up at six o’clock. Howard answered the door. “Davo. Great to see you again. Come on in and out the back. I’m barbequing steaks and things for Charlotte. Lee only this minute called out he’s not quite ready.”

I stuck my head in the kitchen on the way past and politely greeted Mrs. Brennan. Then Howard led me to “the back” and put me to work at the gas hotplate. The back of the house was an entertainer’s dream. Decking and shade sails. Outdoor chairs and lounges. A barbecue, swimming pool, spa, and sauna. Tasteful, elegant plants in pots, and decorative lights and pebbles strewn in strategic corners for decoration.

Things I could never afford, even after working for fifty years.

“Here,” said Howard, and he handed me two slabs of meat. “Get this cooking while I brush off the chairs. Now tell me, does your company do pipe shoes?”

Ten minutes later, we were still chatting when Charlotte brought out a platter of prawns on skewers that were to be cooked. I placed them on the barbecue and returned to my conversation with Howard. It was another ten minutes after that, and we were discussing the Chinese influence on the mining industry when Lee appeared with three beers.

He handed his father one and brought one over to me. “Thanks,” I said as I turned the prawns. “You look nice. You have a hot date or something?” I winked at him, then turned red. Sometimes, although people theoretically know you’re gay, they don’t want to hear about it or see it. I glanced at Howard and found him laughing with delight.

Lee looked at me with accusing eyes. “Were you talking business with my dad again?”

I tried for my most innocent look. “You weren’t ready. What was I supposed to do? Discuss the weather for twenty minutes?”

“Yes.” There was a stubborn look in Lee’s eyes that made me chuckle.

“Or perhaps we could’ve discussed what you were like as a child?” I asked teasingly.

He rolled his eyes and looked horrified. “Oh, God, no. Business is fine. Much better than the subject of me as a child.”

“Why?” I asked, intrigued. “Braces? Acne? Mohawk?”

He sighed with utter despair. “Worse.”

“Worse?”

“Yes. Much worse.”

Oh, oh.

“Yes, I was a cute little freckle-faced, redheaded boy who could sing and dance. Give me an opening, and I would launch into ‘Over the Rainbow’ or ‘Oliver.’ You couldn’t shut me up.”

I choked on my beer while Howard howled with laughter. Charlotte came through the door with more meat to cook and dipping sauces for us to partake of the prawns. “Yes,” she smiled gently. “Lee was determined to be the star of the family, until Honey came along and…. Oh, dear. Did you know about Honey?” She looked dismayed, as if she’d spoken out of turn.

“He knows,” Lee assured her. “And yes—as soon as I saw what Honey was going through with acting in
Neighbours,
I gave up all thoughts of becoming an actor or singing. Too much hard work. Too many people watching and criticizing every move.”

“We have videos of Lee if you’re interested?” Howard offered.

“Dad,” Lee cried and turned bright red.

“What?” he asked in confusion. “The man’s dating you. Doesn’t that mean he’s interested?”

I froze in surprise.
Was I dating someone? Oh, cripes. I was.

Lee was still stumbling over his words. “Of course he is. I think. Maybe. I hope…. Just…. Dad. Please back off.”

Howard was trying to smooth things over and making a hash of it. “Sure. No problem. I just thought…. And he seems interested. He does. Shall I shut up now? It’s only I like this one, Lee….”

I looked for a convenient hole in the ground.

Finally we all petered off into silence. I swallowed and tried to avoid eye contact with both of them.

“Shall we go, Lee? Dinner, I mean?” I grasped the excuse, and Lee grabbed hold of it like it was a floatation device and he was sinking fast.

“God, yes. Let’s go. And then you can forget about all words like video, interested, and singing.”

We bid Howard and Charlotte good-bye and left the house. My van was waiting in the driveway, and in the half-light, I pushed Lee up against the side before he could reach the passenger-side door. He looked up at me, and I dropped a quick kiss on his mouth.

“Just to clarify?” I told him. “I am interested in singing and videos. I guess you could say I’m interested, full stop.” I pressed another kiss to his lips and left him flabbergasted while I trotted around to the driver’s side of the car. With a small blush and a slightly bashful look, Lee climbed in his side.

I grinned and reversed out the driveway.

T
EACHING
L
EE
roulette was fun. I worked out early on that his favorite number was thirteen.

“Stop going for thirteen,” I admonished him. “You only have a one-in-thirty-six chance of winning that one.”

“Thirty-seven,” he corrected me. “You need to count the zero.”

I sighed and plonked my chip down on the bottom third betting square, then added another chip to the red square, the odd square, and the line between four and seven.

Lee’s chips were falling, whereas I was pretty much even as to what I started with, less the cost of our drinks. The dealer spun, and we held our breath as twenty-seven came up. I waited for my payout, then rolled my eyes as Lee put three chips on number thirteen again.

“Lee, do you need to play another game?” I asked. We’d started on blackjack, chucked some money on the slots, and then gone for the two-up. I was having great fun, but if Lee was going to have a shitty time, then I was happy to move on.

He stubbornly stared at the roulette table. “No. My number will come up soon.”

It didn’t.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we should get going?” I suggested after another two turns.

“No.”

He tried again. Two chips on number thirteen, but this time he hedged his bets by placing a chip on red and two on number six. The ball fell into the black zero, and all at the table groaned.

I was down to my last six chips, so I played three on the next turn and lost them all. Lee pulled out his wallet and exchanged another $50 for ten chips.

“Lee. C’mon, mate. How about we blow this place and head off?” I bumped him with my hip to get his attention. He gave me a quick glance with a hint of a smile. Then he did the most frightening thing.

He leaned against me.

Then, if that didn’t make it clear enough that we were together, he reached up and pecked me on the cheek. Right there in the middle of the casino.

“Soon. I’m feeling lucky tonight,” he promised me.

And then Davo, that macho, masculine, gay guy who’d never done PDAs, and never, ever wanted to be one of
those
gays, slung an arm around Lee’s shoulders and whispered with affection, in a definite public display, “Come home with me now, and I promise you’ll get lucky.”

Yes. Davo, that person I thought I knew, changed because it was Lee in front of him. I felt like that man was someone different. An alien had invaded my body and was making me do and think things I’d never thought possible.

When Lee’s eyes went wide and he looked at me with eagerness and astonishment, I knew why the man named Davo had changed. Because the man named Lee had shown him something different.

I saw Lee swallow and then turn back to the table.

He stacked his ten chips in a tall tower and slid them across the table until they were all lined up on the number thirteen. I grinned. It looked like we were heading home. I palmed my last three chips and placed them on top of Lee’s. Symbolic perhaps, but definitely where I wanted to be.

The croupier spun the wheel, and I slipped my arm around Lee’s waist as the ball fell into place.

The patrons gathered around the table and gasped.

“Thirteen,” the croupier called.

I closed my eyes in resignation. It looked like two people were extremely lucky. But it meant another delay in our leaving, as we had to take Lee’s $1800 worth of chips, along with my $540 worth of chips to the cashier to pay out. If it weren’t for the excitement beaming in Lee’s eyes, I would’ve been tempted to leave it.

But his happiness shone out for everyone to see. Including me. So I waited.

M
Y
HOUSE
was second in a row of attached, two-story town houses. The complex was only a few years old. I’d bought it from a couple who had purchased it brand new. But they broke up within months.

I ushered Lee inside and threw my keys on the kitchen table. “Drink?” I asked almost desperately. I couldn’t believe that we had been in my house a whole fifteen seconds, and we both still had our clothes on.

Luckily for me, Lee felt the same way. “Hell, no.”

He tackled me, making me stagger back and painfully hit my lower back against the sink. But I didn’t care about the pain. What I cared about were his two arms wrapped around me and his lips on mine. I grabbed him and hauled him up so I didn’t have to lean down so far to kiss him. The kiss was not pretty. It was not romantic. It was hot, oh-yeah-baby-I’m-on-fire-for-you-let’s-swap-spit, and goddamn good.

I hauled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers so I could touch the skin of his back. He moaned into my mouth and hooked one leg around mine. I needed more than just that small bit of skin and tried to shove my hands down the back of his pants. The waistband was too tight, and I couldn’t get my hand in. So I tried to shove his shirt up, but it was still tucked in at the front, and we were pressing so frantically against each other that the shirt wasn’t moving.

I was getting frustrated and tried to get to the fastenings of his trousers undone, but it had some sort of hidden clasp, and I couldn’t work it out. I pulled back from his mouth so I could concentrate, but without being able to see, since I was fumbling between us, I had no more success.

Lee giggled. “Hey, slugger. You want me to do it?”

“Yes,” I cried in relief, and he let me go, took one step back, and began to strip. My shirt was already on the ground and my pants halfway down my knees before I realized that I was yanking my clothes off too. I danced on one foot, trying to push my shoe, sock, and pants off in one go. Lee was more forward thinking and toed his shoes off before he attempted to do his trousers.

I was onto my second foot—
hop, hop, stupid shoe won’t come off, damn this sock
—when Lee thrust down his bright green underwear and was suddenly naked. I lost the train of my thoughts, forgot about the pants still around my ankle, and jerked forward, this time slamming him up against the bench in my effort to get skin-on-skin contact. We kissed as we explored chests, backs, shoulders, and necks with our hands, until finally my hands landed on his arse. I yanked him up and sat him on the edge of the bench. There were items on it, and they were in my way, so I brushed them aside with an extensive sweep of my left arm, barely flinching when the sound of falling items assaulted our ears. I’d shoved a jar of pens, several letters and pads of paper, as well as a frying pan to the floor. It hit with a clunk and clattered loudly on the tiles.

Lee winced. “In a hurry, are you?” He chuckled lightly.

“Yes,” I puffed and pushed him farther onto the bench. There were still things in my way, so I reached behind him with my right hand and swept them to the other side. A couple of coffee mugs and the jar of sugar went flying up the bench, crashing into the microwave at the end but not breaking.

“Do you want to move to the bedroom?” he offered.

I was pushing aside clutter when my hand fell on Mr. Magic 8 Ball.
Move? Bedroom?

The oracle was in my hand, and I focused on it briefly, then muttered, “Should Lee and I move to the bedroom?” I turned it up and waited until it said,
Ask again later.

I stopped. “What? Later?” I stared at it in consternation. Later?

Lee had stopped too and was looking at me with mild amusement. “Not getting the answer you want?”

I frowned at the ball. “It always gives me the right answer. But what does later mean?”

Lee giggled against my jaw and traced a line down my throat with his wet tongue. “It means he wants you to fuck me here in the kitchen, and we’ll see about moving to the bedroom later.”

“Oh.” Of course. I shook the ball and asked, “Do you want Lee and me to have sex in the kitchen?”

Most likely
.

I saw the words appear and my mind fogged over. Sex. Lee. Kitchen. Right.

I tossed the oracle in the sink and turned my attention back to the naked guy with his legs wrapped around me.

“Hello. Welcome back,” he joked as he thumbed my nipples. I sent him a mock glare and kissed him hard in reprisal.

“I’m going to fuck you in my kitchen,” I told him.

“Oh, goodie.”

“Any requests?”

“Other than a condom and some lube, I’m pretty much an up-for-anything type of guy.”

His erect cock was poking me in the stomach, so I gripped it tight and whispered, “I can see that.” He moaned, and his eyes rolled back in his head as I tugged on his cock. He leaned back on his elbows, dropped his head back, and gave me access to his body. It was a gourmet feast, all at consumption level. My mouth watered, and I leaned forward to capture his nipple in my mouth and suck hard. A guttural moan from Lee was my reward.