“No, Orly. But you do. Do you think you’re the only one who’s been falling in love over the last couple of years? I haven’t had a girlfriend in ayear. I haven’t wanted one. I got the girls in Vegas because I thought that’s whatyouwanted, and….” He swallowed, feeling vulnerable. “I got one for me to sort of ease the pain when you were with yours. But you burst out with ‘I’m gay’ and, well, I had to pay the girls for their time, but seriously, it was worth it just to have this conversation.”
Orly collapsed on the bed in a puddle of confusion, and Cort gave in to temptation and knotted his fingers in that coarse, curly, soft ponytail of orange and auburn hair.
“What are you doing to me?” Orly asked, sounding scared and confused and hopeful.
“C’mon, Orlando,” Cort whispered. “You were brave enough to tell me you loved me. Are you brave enough to have our first kiss?”
Orly bent down and touched his wide, smiling, usually happy mouth to Cort’s, and Cort closed his eyes, thinking that he tasted like sun and desert and joy, and that this was the best first kiss ever.
Then the kiss deepened, and their hands—confident after three years of knowing each other—got bold.
And their clothes disappeared.
And in that moment, in that discount hotel with the cranky air conditioning, Cort and Orly became each other’s everything.
THEY WEREmostly ready when the guy knocked on their door. This one was driving a green Subaru Forester, an old one, but it ran really well. This was a new guy, wearing a khaki work shirt and jeans, and he looked… slick. His hair had grown out of it a little, but he’d once had a rich man’s look-at-me haircut—like Cort, Orly thought—and his cheekbones and chin were like finely cut glass. And his eyes could freeze the balls off a rabbit at forty feet.
But he gave them both a polite smile and offered to carry the backpack which held their clothes from the day before. Orly tried not to think too much about what wasonthose clothes now.
He and Cort had enjoyed alotof sex since this man’s counterpart had dropped them off at this motel. (Yes,motel,Orly could admit it now.)
They’d managed to shower that morning—the shower was surprisingly big and quite clean—and even with shower sex (Orly’s ass was still tingly—Cort was a good top, but he gotaggressive,and, well, a pounding was a pounding), they’d beenready when the car was. But Orly’s knees were a little wobbly, and he had razor burn on his neck and his chest (and his abdomen and between his thighs and between his cheeks), and generally, he felt debauched and floaty and still in subspace and…
Deliriously happy.
And Cort looked smug and pretty happy himself. They’d awakened that morning, Cort’s arm around Orly’s middle, and Cort had given him a lazy smile.
“So,” he said softly.
“Yeah?” For a moment Orly had been worried. He’d had morning-afters before, and they’d often ended up… disappointing.
“We’ll have more room for your stuff in my house if you move into my bedroom. You know that, right?”
Orly had smiled slowly, and that had resulted in the sexbeforethe shower sex, and in general the happiness seemed to be spreading to the ends of his fuzzy head.
But all that meant he wasnotready for the steely-eyed glance of their chauffeur, who seemed to have taken in their entire night and morning with one sweep of arctic blue.
“Did you two eat?” the man asked, and Cort stammered back.
“Uhm…. No. I mean, we got something last night, but no breakfast. Uhm—” To their surprise, the guy swerved into a drive-thru of a place they’d never heard of before.
“This place has breakfast burritos and crispy potatoes,” the guy said. “I’m getting some for my friends. You want any?”
They both managed an order, but Orly caught Cort’s big-eyed glance and wondered if this was the guy’s way of giving them a last meal before hauling them out to the desert and killing them. He’dsaid,“I’m from Ace and Sonny’s garage,” but how were they supposed to know that was true?
But by the time he pulled back into the garage and they’d both devoured most of their burritos and potatoes, Orly almost thought it would be okay to be hauled out into the desert and killed. He’d just had “I love you too” sex for almost twenty-four hours with his best friend, and now they’d been fed an incredible last meal of some of the best eggs and potatoes he could even imagine. He’d probably die happy.
But it didn’t look like they were going to die at all.
The place looked the same—there were cars lined out on the hardpan driveway of the west side of the building, and a rather glamorous-looking Ford SHO tucked into the shade on the east side. Orly could see Cort’s Explorer in the shade of the overhang—the place had portable equipment cabinets drawn out around it, and a place for diagnostic machines. Unlike the auto bay itself, this looked like long-term care, while the auto bay, with its mechanic’s pit, looked like where you went to get your oil changed and your fluids checked—short-term care.
Their chauffeur, who hadn’t said much beyond taking their order, pulled up next to the blue Explorer and let them out, then rolled down his window and killed the engine as though waiting for instructions or to see what happened next.
The same guy they’d seen behind the Plexiglas in the cashier’s cubicle was still there, not paying them any mind, and the three guys in mechanics’ overalls were all huddled around the Explorer—the little fierce one, the giant bald one, and the mid-sized one with the sexy eyes and swagger. They were all still elbows-deep in the Explorer, though, and Orly wondered what they were supposed to drive home.
“Heya, how’s all doin’?” asked the sexy one, and Cort gave him a tentative smile.
“Great—uhm, it was nice of your guy here to buy us breakfast. Thank you.” Cort swung his head around to smile atthe guy to include him in this, and he got a little lip twist in return. Orly tried not to shiver in the shade of the overhang.
