They munched their way through the meal, getting second beers, though Austin winced as he tasted his.
“What’s wrong?” asked Clay, polishing off his beer as though it was the finest in the world.
“It’s uh—” Austin paused, wondering how much would be too much. “It’s just that—”
“Out with it, my new friend,” said Clay.
“It’s swill,” said Austin.
“Hey, that’s America’s finest.” Clay nodded to affirm this, then stole a fry from Austin’s red plastic basket. “Bud is thebest.”
Austin shook his head, glad that it seemed like Clay wasn’t at all insulted, but making a game of it.
“There are better beers,” he said. “Beers that taste of something other than—” He lowered his voice for effect. “Diluted cat’s piss.”
Clay laughed out loud, covering his mouth with his hand, swallowing the beer in his mouth, all at the same time.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever drunk.”
“Well, I will show you the difference sometime,” said Austin.
“I’ll count on it.”
When they were done eating, Austin insisted on paying for the check, folding the receipt around his credit card before slipping it into his wallet.
“You just said you only had twenty-five left on that card of yours,” he said. “Besides, the ranch will reimburse the meal, right?”
“That’s right,” said Clay. “That’s what Leland said.”
Bracing themselves, they stepped out into the weather. With the clouds scudding low, it had gotten darker and it was still raining. Luckily the motel was just up the street and around the corner, but though it was only a block and a half, they were soaked through by the time Clay pulled out the key to unlock the door and let them inside.
“Oh, man.”
Clay shuddered as he pulled off the sweatshirt Austin had loaned him and wiped his face and hair with it. Part of his t-shirt had been rucked up in the process, and now the curve of Clay’s belly and a bit of his waist were on display, like an unintentional peep show.
As to what one gay man might see in another gay man in a moment like this, Austin had never considered, but perhaps it might be just like this, a flash of vulnerable midsection, an unobstructed gaze, just for a second, of someone’s bellybutton.
Something in Austin seemed to shudder and wake up, as though pulled toward Clay for something more intense. As though Austin’s body had ideas he wasn’t even aware of.
Maybe his reaction to Clay was a lot like being attracted to a woman, but then what did he know about that, either? Mona had come at him a bit like a steamroller, not taking no for an answer and, in retrospect, had not really given him a chance to eye his future prospective mate before she yanked him down the aisle to the altar.
“I’m going to take a hot shower,” Clay said as he draped the sweatshirt over the back of one of the room’s chairs. “That’ll warm me up.”
“Do you want to borrow another t-shirt?” asked Austin. “I have sweatpants, as well.”
“Really? That’d be great ‘cause the last thing I want to do is climb back into damp clothes.” The look Clay gave him was sweet and full of a sincere appreciation for the offer.
Silently, Austin opened one suitcase, then realized his extra sweatpants were in the other one, then opened that, as well. The floor was then decorated with open suitcases and pawed-through clothes. With a low, self-deprecating mock sigh, he handed Clay the dry clothes, then puttered about while Clay went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
How strange to be here, as he was, in Ault, a pass-through, fly-over town that he’d never heard of, never been to, and would likely never visit again. How in the bathroom was another man, whom he’d only met that day, fully naked, showering.
Had this been an episode of murder TV, the voiceover would soon begin that neither of the men would be alive by morning or some such nonsense. But nothing like that happened.
Instead, Clay came out in a cloud of steam, looking strange in Austin’s gym sweats, which were a tad too tight across the hips and too long on his legs, pooling around his ankles. The white t-shirt Austin had given him was also too long.
The effect was that Clay looked frumpy but comfortable in some ways, eye-catching in others, where the t-shirt shifted on his shoulders, or the way the sweatpants clung to him, snug across his backside, like he was well on his way to being in a commercial about gym membership.
“I’m going to drape my clothes here,” said Clay, going about laying his clothes on the back of the chair closest to the radiator. “They’ll be dry by morning, and thanks again for the loan.”
