Page 31
CHAPTER 31
ETNA
Our first thought was to divide and conquer. That strategy seemed to work well for us quite often. Half of our friends at Keno’s house, and the other half at mine. We’d have both houses packed by the end of the day.
But then we thought about more hands making light work. So, we’re starting at my house and packing the entire fucking thing into the metal container in the driveway, then heading to Keno’s house to do the same.
My house was already half packed, and most of the furniture is staying. Even the big television in the living room. There’s something to be said about selling a house and not having to take the furniture or appliances. That’s how I moved in, and it was amazingly easy to get settled when I didn’t have to worry about purchasing furniture.
I have very few pieces I take with me from house to house. All of them are family heirlooms. Otherwise, it’s just personal belongings and aesthetics. However, as I was bringing the guys through the house and telling them which pieces needed to go, I realized I’d barely personalized my home at all.
I have a feeling we’re going to run into the same thing at Keno’s. Even though we spent most of our time there, the majority of the things we bought were practical or for outdoor play. Are there even any paintings on the walls? Any artwork or photographs at all? Something tells me there aren’t.
I’m a little nervous about our move into our new house. We’re going in with the bed we bought for Keno’s house, a dining room table, a Bombay cabinet, and a corner bookshelf. That’s it.
In hindsight, buying a bed together should probably have made us realize there was something between us a long time ago. That’s just not something friends do. Sure, maybe friends might help you pick out a bed, but not choose a bed to share and purchase it together.
The signs were there. We were being dense.
My phone rings and I stand to pull it out of my pocket. I meet Keno’s eyes and smile as I answer. “Hey, Eddy.”
“Hey. This a good time?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, I think I have the living room all set. You need a television, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that’s what you said. Okay, so I got this really badass couch that breaks down into different configurations, but not like the boxes one.”
I laugh. “The boxes one?”
“Yeah, you know. How you can put them together like they’re blocks. This one has different components that you can arrange, but they’re like… grown-up blocks.”
I laugh again. “Okay.”
She sighs. “There are three pieces that are extra wide chairs with built-in cup holders and shit. One is a chaise. There’s a wide part that pulls out into a sleeper couch, which I think is unnecessary. You said there are three guest rooms, right?”
“Right.”
“Eh. You’ll find something to use the bed for. Or not. Either way, I think you’re going to like the couch.”
I smile, nodding. Initially, we were going to ask Edna to help us with the wedding. But we’re beyond the point where we need to much help. It feels as if we got by the hurdles that were causing us stress and frustration.
However, planning a wedding and furnishing a whole house? On top of hockey, planning a honeymoon, and other commitments? It was a lot. The only thing we could give up was furnishing the new house.
Which we did gratefully. Edna’s having a blast, too. I’m not sure we see her vision, but I’m also not sure we care a whole lot. She knows we’re not entirely excited about light colors—like baby pink or mint green. We don’t want a house filled with pink or yellow or red. If she stuck to variations of our favorite colors, we’d be happy.
“That’s fine,” I say. “What else?”
“I think the living room is pretty much finished. You’re good in the kitchen, too, right? It has appliances?”
I nod. “Yep. We’re talking about changing out the built-in microwave because we hate it, but that’s not something immediately necessary and we might learn to love it.”
“Okay. I’m going to move on to your bedroom. You don’t have a frame for the bed, right?”
“Just one of those metal ones that keeps it off the floor.”
Edna sighs. “It’s like you’re in college again.”
“Don’t forget the furniture we have,” I remind her.
“Oh no. I already have ideas.”
Smiling, I nod. “Send me pictures. I need to get back to packing.”
“’Kay. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I hang up and return to the bedroom, where we’re packing the entire suite together. “Everything okay?” Keno asks as I join him at the nightstand. Seriously, how did I get so much shit when I was rarely here? Sometimes I have to remind myself I was here before Keno was traded. Which means I’ve acquired some shit in the couple of years before he became the center of my life.
Yep, definitely should have known.
“Yes. She’s finished with our living room. Apparently, we have an adult build-a-couch.” He looks at me, perplexed, and I shrug. “I don’t know. We’ll check the texts later.”
“When is your move-in date?” Julian asks.
“The ninth,” Keno answer. “There’s a very small window when our furniture and shit will arrive.”
“Eddy’s trying to convince us we need to stay in a hotel for a couple days while she sets up our house,” I say.
“That’s sweet of her,” Hilt says.
“It is. And I know she wants to make it special, so I think we might let her.” Honestly, I think she’s trying to make it a palace for us as a way of acknowledging she went off the deep end during Christmas and wants to make it up to us. Which is why we’re probably going to let her.
Besides, it means we don’t have to worry about decorating or getting settled and can focus on hockey and wedding planning.
“Can’t wait to see it,” Julian says. “Never thought you’d move away from the lake.”
“We’re still on the water,” Keno points out.
“So, what’s the first thing you’re going to do after you get married?” Horny asks.
“Party with you guys at the reception,” I answers, laughing.
“No, no,” Horny says. “I mean, when the wedding is all over.”
Keno turns to him and places a hand on his hip. “Fuck my husband all night. Is that what you want to know?”
Horny’s face gets red. “No! I mean… like… after this whole wedding and wedding night and honeymoon is over.” He bows his head and his tone quiets when he adds, “The first thing I always imagined I’d do after I get married is go redo the first date. Just for fun. All the same things. I recently saw a meme that suggested doing that but reverse the roles. Like she picks me up and gives me flowers and whatever.”
Keno turns back to what he was packing. “I don’t know. I never thought about a first thing.”
“What was the first thing you did, Hilt?” Horny asks.
Hilt shakes his head. “Dude, I have no idea. It’s been twenty years.”
“I feel like that’s something you should remember, dude.”
“I remember a lot. That’s not one of them.”
Horny nods. “Yeah. I guess.”
“How’s the honeymoon planning coming along?” Julian asks.
I shake my head. “We’re thinking about getting a travel agent. There are so many things we want to do and places we want to see that, again, we’re having a difficult time deciding.”
“Any advice?” Keno asks, tossing a pair of rolled socks at Hilt.
“Yes. Choose somewhere without kids. That was one thing we regretted not taking into account when we chose the cruise we did. The following year, we had a honeymoon redo without kids,” Hilt says. “Nothing against kids at all, but when you’re on your honeymoon, you don’t necessarily want them around. You know?”
“No, that’s a good point,” Keno says. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Where’s the one place you’ve always wanted to go?” Julian asks.
Keno laughs while I shake my head. “Believe it or not, we’ve played that game. We don’t know. My mind literally goes blank because there are so many places I want to go.”
“Would it help if I rephrased it to ask, when you close your eyes, where do you see yourself celebrating alone with Etna?”
Keno closes his eyes. I watch him. After a minute, he frowns. “Well, that started out as a beach and then it snowed. So… I have no idea.”
I laugh.
“Travel agent isn’t the worst idea,” Hilt says, chuckling. “They’ll probably think of places you’ve never imagined.”
“I like the idea of an all-inclusive resort. So, you think about nothing. There are amenities out the ass. Tips and gratuity are included. The only things that are add-ons are shopping and excursions,” Julian says.
“That’s not awful,” I admit. “We’ve talked about resorts and cruises for that reason. The only thing keeping us from moving forward with that is that with both options, there are people everywhere. We’ll never be alone.”
“Nah,” Hilt denies. “You can reserve cabanas and tents and boats and shit. Things where you’re alone and waited on. All those resorts have upgrades like that.”
“Ah,” Keno muses as he tapes a box. “I didn’t know that.”
“I think that’s the last of the closet,” Hilt says.
“Bathroom is finished, too,” Horny says.
“And we just finished the bedroom. Kitchen next. The rest of the rooms will be a breeze once we get through the kitchen,” I say, and we file out of the room.
Horny opens the fridge and frowns. “So… you’re enjoying sex stuff, huh?” he asks.
I look at Keno. He glances at me before frowning at Horny’s back. “Yes,” he answers.
Horny doesn’t turn around while he nods. “All of it?”
“Horny?” Keno asks. He waits until Horny turns to face him. “Are you curious?”
His face is already pink as he nods. “I… maybe?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being curious, you know.”
Horny sighs.
“What questions do you have?” Keno asks. His tone has changed from his earlier defensiveness to completely open. I think we all realized Horny isn’t asking for prying purposes.
Horny turns back to the fridge, chewing on his lips as he starts pulling things out. We should probably just toss everything. Chances are we already have the condiments at Keno’s and everything else has been in there a while.
“It feels good?”
I glance around the room, curious as to how Hilt and Julian are going to handle this conversation. Both are attacking a cabinet as they would any other time, I think.
“Yes. A little awkward at first. I think we laugh a lot the first time we do something new,” Keno tells him. “But like everything, you get better with practice and yeah, it feels good.”
Horny nods. “What’s it feel like?”
Keno glances at me, amused. “I’m sure you’ve had a blowie, no?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Have you had your balls sucked?” I ask.
Horny isn’t the only one who nods.
“It’s no different with a guy,” I say. “It’s probably a little better because they know what feels good from experience. But a mouth is a mouth. A hand is a hand.”
“Guys’ hands are definitely bigger and stronger,” Keno adds. “A bit more calloused.”
“That feels good?” Horny asks, glancing shyly over his shoulder.
Keno and I nod. “Very good.”
“Does… butt stuff feel good too?”
Keno bows his head and his cheeks color, too. He takes a breath. “Yes.” After a second, he stops what he’s doing and moves to Horny’s side, where he leans against the counter to face him. Horny looks up. “I was scared at first. Worried I wouldn’t like it. It made me more nervous because the only thing I could think about was ‘ how is this going to work if we don’t like butt sex? ’”
Hilt snorts, shaking his head. I grin. Keno’s eyes meet mine and we share a smile.
“We did a lot of foreplay working up to it. You know, stretching and getting ready and lube and stuff. I was still nervous, and the first time was… a strange mixture of feeling good, and some weird sensations of things being where they maybe shouldn’t be, and laughter because I’m having sex with my best friend. But it gets a lot better with every time we do it.”
“Did it hurt?”
“I think it could have hurt a lot, but like I said, we prepped a lot. We worked our way up to it. So it hurt a little, but not enough that I wanted to stop. Not enough where it didn’t also feel good.”
Horny blows out a breath, his cheeks puffing wide.
“Are you thinking about trying it, Horny?” Keno asks, gently kicking his shin.
Horny glances at us anxiously.
“Bro, we don’t care what you do or who you do it with,” Julian says. “We’re not going to treat you any differently.”
Horny nods. “Yeah, I guess maybe I am. I’ve been curious since Lo told us about him and Caulder and… But I guess I’m more curious now because of you and Etna. I thought… you know. Lo and Caulder are gay, so of course they’re going to like it, right? But you and Etna aren’t, so I was sure you wouldn’t like it. You do, so now maybe I’m a little confused.”
“I’ve learned something important over the last year and a half. So many people are concerned about labels. They need a label for everything, especially when it has nothing to do with them. They need to be able to label other people because it gives them a sense of stability. They know who to judge based on a label. They know who to criticize and who to treat differently based on a label. I’ve also learned that labels mean shit to me. I don’t care if the world wants to label me ‘ gay .’ It was far more important for other people to be right about my sexuality than it was for them to hear the truth that I was fucking drunk and didn’t even remember kissing Etna. Now, I’m going to have that label for the rest of my life, and you know what?”
Horny shakes his head.
“I don’t fucking care. It doesn’t define me. If people want to start using it as a salutation, I’m going to turn that shit around. Any question asked about my sexuality or tagging it on to my profession or identity, I can do right back. Don’t let labels put pressure on you, Horny. You don’t have to be gay or straight or bisexual. You can just be you.”
His small smile is filled with gratitude. His shoulders relax.
“And you can ask whatever questions you want. I’m sorry I was defensive earlier, that was uncalled for. I’d rather you ask questions than keep them trapped in your mind and let them stress you out.”
“Thanks,” Horny says. “I’m sorry that it felt like I was prying. I didn’t know how to ask.”
Keno hits his shoulder and moves back to my side to continue packing the box we were working on. “Cliff’s Notes is that we’ve enjoyed what we’ve done. We still have a whole bunch of things to try, but we’re not in a hurry. There’s no pressure on what we’re doing and no time frame to get it done in.”
“It’s also important to accept that you might not like everything you try, and that’s okay,” I add.
“Are there things you haven’t liked?” Horny asks, feeling more confident in his questions now.
“No, but I also haven’t tried everything that Keno has.”
Horny looks between the two of us, confused. Hilt chuckles.
“Keno’s playing bottom right now,” I supply with a laugh. “I haven’t tried it yet. I’m afraid of what he has in his pants.”
Unsurprisingly, everyone looks down at Keno’s crotch. He shoves me, muttering, “Fucker.”
I laugh.