Dean
“Precious!Just.Precious!”
Dean stood just outside his bedroom door, wobbling on the new cowboy boots that would have to be broken in before he could ever walk comfortably.
Ifhe could ever walk comfortably, that is.
Meanwhile, Sully was still golf clapping in the living room, circling him like a hawk to a field mouse as he watched Dean wobble closer toward him.The stiff heels of his new boots clattered on the rustic wood flooring of the old apartment aboveGrayson’s Ghost Tours, gleaming in its newness in the late afternoon light.
“You don’t think it’s a little much?”Dean asked as he wriggled the big, gold belt buckle into place above his crotch, long since deflated after Sully’s surprising welcome home.He’d been expecting couch sex, tearing off each other’s clothes after Dean’s long drive home from State.Or maybe wall sex.Kitchen sex?Hell, he’d settle for a handy in the bathroom after a month away from the long, cool stud.Instead Sully had greeted him with gift bags galore, fancy labels and scratchy tissue poking out like some episode ofReal House Husbands of Gravel Gulch, insisting he “try them on” first thing.
Now he stood, blue balls filling his stiff blue jeans, the ones Sully insisted on tucking in his brand new boots.“A little much?”Sully sounded offended, chin cupped in one big, velvet fist as he continued to circle his prey.“It’s perfect.You’re perfect.”He beamed, straightening the slightly too big cowboy hat atop Dean’s head.Patting the shoulder of his checkerboard cowboy shirt, the one with the big, frilled collar and predictably rhinestone buttons down the front, he winked.“My perfect little cowboy.”
“Stop,” Dean murmured, even as he blushed and withered under the rapt affection.He glanced up into Sully’s admiring eyes, warm and liquid and gooey, just like he’d remembered them.“Do I really have to wear this?”
“Have to?”Sully pretended to be offended, slinking into the kitchen on those long, fine legs of his, opening up the brand spanking new fridge door to snatch two Lucky Suds from inside.The familiar clinking of the brown bottles between Sully’s fingers was music to his ears.“You should want to, Dean,” he insisted.“I mean, as Grayson’s Ghost Tours newest summer employee?I should think you’d be honored to wear the duds of my ancestors.”
“Please,” Dean chuckled, taking the beer Sully offered him.“You only wear this stuff to impress the tourists.”
Sully nodded, winking eagerly.“And now, by my side every day this summer, you will, too!”
They clinked bottles, cheering to Dean’s new summer job.He sipped gratefully, eagerly, embracing the first day of summer break in a way he never had before.Withsomeone he never had before.The beer was good, cold, cheap and familiar, their nectar of choice during that long, sweltering spring break they’d shared together less than a month earlier.Now here he was, back in Pistol Creek.Back in his borrowed apartment over the ghost tours office, recently refurbished to within an inch of its life.
Dean ran a finger along the waist-high counter that separated the small kitchen from the small living room.“I love what you’ve done with the place,” he said emphatically.
Their eyes traveled around the recently refurbished living room, buttery leather love seats topped by comfy tasseled throw pillows.Retro teardrop coffee tables topped by dog-eared, thrift shop western novels for that lived-in touch.The walls had been freshly painted, too, a kind of tortilla shell color before being classily covered in black and white cowboy prints—ranchers and cowpokes, horses and cattle, sunsets and old, crumbling barns.Just the right touch for a fake cowpoke in his stiff cowboy boots.
“You do?”Sully wore a cringe face.“Not too much?”
“It’s perfect,” Dean insisted, vaguely recalling the stacks of file boxes and old fold-up chairs that had littered the living space while he’d stayed there, half-naked and covered in his own juices for that hedonistic spring break.“It’ll really get me in the mood while I’m having my cup of coffee before work every morning.”
“It’s supposed to,” Sully insisted, himself dressed casually in khaki cargo pants, flip-flops and a simple white V-neck t-shirt that hugged his taut, lean torso.It was as if, somehow, in the month they’d been apart, Dean and Sully had traded places, Dean now kitted out in cowboy garb and Sully looking every bit the college boy in his casual weekend fit.Not that Dean was complaining, mind you.He’d wear a suit of armor to be back in Sully’s arms again.
Dean sank into a buttery leather wing chair, gently moving the rust and cream striped throw pillow to one side as he wriggled to get comfortable in his tight blue jeans.“I barely remember what it looked like before.”
“That’s the point,” Sully harumphed, sinking down across from Dean in a matching wing chair.“I’ve been hard at work getting the place ready for you.”
Dean felt the old familiar flutter of adoration fill his chest.“I appreciate that.”
“My pleasure,” Sully teased in all his casual radiance.Dean had gotten a late start on his drive home, packing hurriedly and forgetting he had to do a walk-through with the landlord before he could get his deposit back.And, of course, she was backed up because of all her tenants escaping campus for the summer, yada-yada.Now, precious hours later, the sun was gradually sinking across the soft blue Kentucky sky, painting Sully in its usual orange and red hues.
Dean had been anxious the whole way home.Would Sully still feel the same way as he had the day Dean had left, both of them tearful and trembling in the parking space downstairs?Would he still need a summer employee for the ghost tours business, as they’d discussed in hushed whispers and dewy anticipation before he left town?Or was that just so much pillow talk designed to put Dean at ease?
“You okay?”Sully asked, beer bottle halfway to his lips.
Dean shrugged in his stiff new cowboy shirt.“I think?”
Sully smiled.“Same here,” he teased, wiping the big, broad palm of his free hand across his bare knee.“I’m nervous all over again.”
“Why?”
“Can’t explain it,” Sully mused.“It’s the darndest thing.I thought, you know, how close we felt before spring break ended, I’d feel the same the minute you were back for the summer.”
Dean’s heart fell.“You ...don’t?”
Sully merely shook his head, sexy brown curls hidden under a faded red ball cap that set off his sexy ass outfit like a cherry on top of a quietly melting sundae.“Naw, Dean.Now I feel something ...new.”
“Good new?”Dean asked with hope, inching toward the edge of his seat.
