Ezra jerks his head in my direction, his wavy brown hair bouncing every which way. “I want a job. I don’t care what fucking job it is; I want one. I’m not leaving you alone together.”
“Baby, it’s hot as hell in the machine shop. Even if I hired you for a desk job, you wouldn’t make it. You’re delicate. Gentle. You don’t do well in harsh climates.” I cup his cheek. “You know, for someone who claims not to give a damn whether I live or die, you seem awfully invested in my friendship with Johnny. Where is all this anger coming from?”
We both know where it’s coming from, but my boy isn’t ready to admit it yet. I know I’m playing dirty, but if we don’t get to work soon, we’ll be late, and being late going in means being late going home. Ezzy’s always cranky when I’m not home by six, and I hate to see him like that.
“Fuck you, Bubs” Ezra says, but there isn’t a whole lot of heft behind his voice.
“I’ll miss you, you know.” I kiss the corner of his mouth, because it’s right there, and because I can. “I miss you already.” I reach down and caress his soft cock. “Are you going to miss me?”
“Yes,” he says, his voice so quiet it’s barely audible.
“Little Man,” I whisper, gently stroking his chin with my thumb. “I promise, I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to be ready to name this thing between us.”
“There’s nothing to name.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Nothing at all?”
He chews on his cheek, glancing at Johnny, then back at me. “Maybe something,” he finally admits, and damn if it doesn’t send my heart swelling in my chest. “Not a whole lot of something, though. Just a little.”
“Just a little,” I agree before turning to Johnny. “What about you, bro? Why are you so angry?”
He folds his arms over his chest and looks away, pouting. “No reason.”
“You,” I say, squeezing Ezra’s shoulder. I cup Johnny’s cheek. “And you. You boys are both my fucking world. We have to figure this thing out. I don’t like when you’re at each other’s throats all the time. Not when we could be filling those throats with something other than hateful words.”
“I’m not swallowing your cock, Bubba,” Ezra says.
“Not yet,” I agree. “But we know where this is going, and we know what this is about.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ezra says, but I don’t miss the way he leans into my touch rather than away from it. “When will you be home?”
“What do your psychic senses tell you?”
He chews his cheek like he’s deep in thought. “The spirits say you’re going to kick Johnny out for me.”
God help me, I don’t know where in the world Ezzy got the idea that he’s a psychic, but he’s really been going all in lately. He holds hour-long OnlyFans psychic sessions with a gaggle of girls, gays, and theys he found on Facebook. The boy can’t remember where he left his earbuds half the time, and he expects us to think he’s psychic? Ah, hell. What does it hurt? It’s not like he’s got anything else going for him.
Before moving here, my boy was part of an acapella singing group, despite the fact that no one in the group could carry a tune. When we left Texas to move here, Ezra left all but Austin behind. He no longer has a social life outside of our found family, so I know he needs anoutlet, but his psychic awakening definitely feels like it came out of nowhere.
“The spirits are wrong,” I finally say, shaking my head, because that’s not an option.
Ezra just shrugs. “Barbara usually is. You can’t blame me for trying though.”
I lean close enough to press my lips to his forehead, giving my boy a goodbye kiss. “I would never.”
Johnny Boyd is about to learn what happens when you cross an unruly twink. Normally, I can tolerate him. Now, I want to purge the contents of my stomach directly onto his lap.
We’ve been in this fucking truck, driving to Lake Flaccid, for hours. Is Lake Flaccid the lake’s actual name? Fuck if I know, because I was given zero warning of this trip. Since we live in Bumfuck, Nowhere, I don’t even have enough signal to look it up.Stupidly, I asked Johnny to hold my unlitjoint as I buckled myself in, forgetting to ask for it back when I was all buckled up. An hour later, when I finally remembered, the son of a jerk smirked and admitted to throwing it out the window fifty miles back. Asshole!
Why are we even going to another lake? We live right on a lake already, so I have absolutely zero clue why we’ve been in the car for two hours. They’ve been belting out Garth Brooks’ alleged greatest hits the entire time, talking about friends in low places, and being too damn young to feel so old, but it all sounds like horseshit to me.
Bubs asked me if I wanted to pick the music, so I could sing along with them, but I haven’t sang a single note since my acapella band’s disastrous performance at Pretty Boy Prison a few months ago. We practiced so hard for so long, I just assumed we would sound amazing. Apparently, that wasn’t the case. The prisoners laughed at us. The moment we started singing, their judgment rang out louder than our voices through the sound system. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more humiliated in all my life. That’s when Barbara, my psychic spirit guide, came to me. She knew I was sad and scared, and so fucking embarassed, and she wanted to make things better.
She’s an odd duck, our Babs. I can’t actually see her, but I feel her presence like a warm hug during the coldest night in winter. It almost feels the way I’d imagine a mother’s hug would feel like, but I wouldn’t know, because my mom died when I was six. Dad married his secret mistress two days later, and she hated my guts, so I never got any hugs from her either.
When I woke up earlier, Bubba and Johnny were already out of our shared king-size bed, getting dressed. I asked where they were going, but Johnny, smug bastard he is, informed me they were doing straight-guy things.
I’m not one to invalidate people’s self-identified sexual orientations, but that’s a line I’m willing to cross with Johnny. Let’s call a spade a spade, the man is a raging bisexual. Or maybe he’s pan. Who knows, who cares, because he’s part of the same rainbow I’m on, which means he’s just as queer as me, but because he grew up in some hick town with no access to the outside world, he didn’t even know being gay or bi was a thing. God help me if I have to explain the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality to him, because the hillbilly himbo will have us here all week.
