Page 34 of Sam & Justin
He should’ve known he looked good anyway. I was pretty sure he had a mirror at home, and while I knew his eyesight wasn’t all that great, I figured it wasn’t so bad he couldn’t see himself.
“Open seating,” Justin answered after a few moments of silence. I guess he had to get his brain to catch up with the conversation.
“Sit with me?” I didn’t know why I was so nervous asking him the question, but the idea that I might have to be alone with a bunch of people I barely liked didn’t sit well with me. But the nerves were there, like a heavy weight in my intestines. Maybe I was a bit scared he’d say no, that all he wanted was a dance and he was counting down the hours until I hit the road in the morning.
But he wasn’t smiling like that was the case. “I was hoping we’d sit together,” he told me.
“Not one of your other friends?” Like the blond guy he’d been talking to when I came in?
“I’ve already told you; I can see most of them any time.” And there was a ticking timer until I went home. Somehow, that weight in my gut just got heavier at the thought of leaving Gomillion. That was a real strange sensation. “Though, if you don’t mind, we could invite my friend, Gabe, to sit with us.”
I didn’t remember who that was, but if Justin wanted him to sit with us, then I didn’t care. Might be at least one more friendly face at our table. “Good with me.”
I didn’t know that smile of his could get brighter, but it did.
Justin and I started walking around. Every once in a while, someone called Justin over to them, and I stood off behind him like a shadow. I didn’t really add much to the conversations he was having, but the people he was talking to didn’t try to include me either. But Justin did. Every damn time, he’d turn around and ask me if I remembered whatever incident they were talking about.
Most of the time, I didn’t have a damn clue.
I was hearing a lot of juicy gossip: stuff happening in Gomillion now, stuff I missed back in high school. I tried not to get too entrapped by the gossip, because I knew the way mouths ran in Gomillion. I was successful most of the time. What did I care ifsomeone caught her husband hooking up with the neighbor or some shitty landlord was selling off his apartment buildings?
About five or six conversational pit stops in, someone said something that made me abandon post as his shadow and join the conversation. It was the catch of my dad’s church’s name. Sunday morning was about the only time my dad got sober. He went to church, and he came back spewing shit that made my skin crawl. Shit that made me feel like an outsider in my own home and led to him claiming he didn’t have a son when I finally told him I was gay.
Of course I was interested in hearing about the scandal going on there. Allegedly, one of the big guys had been stealing from the offering plate. I was hanging on every word going on around me, but I didn’t know if any of it was true. Probably wasn’t. I knew that half the stuff said about me back in the day had been lies and exaggerations. This was probably the same thing, and I shouldn’t have my hopes up that my dad was suffering.
Hell, I shouldn’t let those hopes rise up anyway.
Misery at that church wasn’t going to affect me one way or another.
Knowing that didn’t stop me from being interested though. “I thought he was just out of town,” someone in the group commented.
“If by out of town, you mean jail,” the person that seemed to be in the know countered. “It’s my family’s church, and my cousinworks in the office. She was there when the cops came and took the deacon away.”
Maybe there was a bit more truth to the rumors than I thought.
“How long has he been gone?” I asked. My voice sounded a bit rough, hesitant almost.
The main gossip either didn’t remember me or cared more about passing on the latest scandal than anything I’d been caught up in when we were younger. “Not that long,” she answered. “Carla said it’s been a few weeks. Enough that people still think he’s on vacation.”
“How long does a deacon usually go on vacation?” someone else questioned with a laugh.
“Do you think anyone knows the answer to that?” another person tossed in.
Justin reached out and grabbed my hand as the conversation swirled on around us. I wasn’t thinking of anything other than the way his hand was latched onto mine until the conversation ended, and we went off again. We finally made our way to one of the bars for cocktails, and he introduced me to his friend Gabe. It was the blond guy from earlier, and he kept giving me this knowing look that made me damn curious about what they’d been talking about when I came in.
Had Justin been talking about me?
Gabe joined us, and the three of us found an empty table together. Robbie and his wife joined us, and then one of her friends and someone else who had come alone rounded out our table. I tried to make small talk, but I wasn’t able to focus much on it. Instead, I was focused on the weight of Justin’s hand on my leg under the table. He was rubbing small circles on my thigh with his thumb, and it was taking up every bit of my attention.
Probably a good thing, because conversation was all about the basketball game we’d watched earlier that day. Considering I didn’t remember a lot of it, besides the fact that the alumni looked really old compared to the current high school students, I probably wouldn’t have had much to say. Besides, why did we need to have a play by play about something we’d all watched? I guess it mattered to them though because they all seemed pretty into the conversation.
Maybe it was just another thing that made me different from my peers, even now when we were all adults.
The circles Justin was rubbing on my thigh were getting bigger and his hand was moving further north. I didn’t even know if he noticed he was doing it, but it was starting to drive me crazy. Keeping a poker face was getting harder the higher his hand traveled. When I spoke, I noticed my voice was a little deeper than it usually was, a sure sign that his hand on my thigh was getting to me. “Food gonna be out soon?”
I kept my voice quiet, moving my head closer to his so he was the main one that would hear it. Justin looked over at me, and I saw a spark of something in his eyes. “Should be,” he said, moving his hand up in a way that had to be deliberate. It brushed overthe head of my cock, then he pulled his hand away. “Maybe I should go check on it. Come with me?”
I didn’t know why he’d want me going with him to check on the food, but the other option was staying and listening to everyone recap the weekend or trying to one up each other with stories about their lives since high school. None of it sounded all that appealing to me, but spending alone time with Justin? That sure as hell did. I stood up and subtly rearranged myself, because Justin and his damn hand had me half-hard, and no one else needed to know that.