Page 36 of Sean's Sunshine

“I’m trying to tell him that he and the young man there make a nice couple.”

Jim’s eyes widened and he shot up straight. “They’regay?” he asked, horrified.

Billy grimaced. “You’re welcome for your dog,” he said. “I’ll go now.”

“No, no,” Jim backtracked. “I’m sorry. I just… you know. It didn’t occur to me. I mean, you know. Bob and I are both married to women. Not our scene.”

Bob was chuckling and rubbing his eyes, and Billy couldn’t help it. He smiled reassuringly at both of them. “I gotta make sure the cop doesn’t hurt himself,” he said firmly. “See you later.”

As he walked away, he heard Bob breaking into a hearty guffaw.

“What?” Jim asked defensively.

“Nothing.”

“What? What’d I say?”

“Nothing. I’m going to walk now. Come on.”

Billy left them to their lap around the park and made his way back to Sean, who was still sitting patiently on the red bench.

“You okay?” he asked as he sat.

“Getting tired,” Sean admitted with a yawn.

“Yeah, we can go as soon as I text these to every single person I know.” Billy chuckled again and leaned over to show the pictures to Sean, and Sean laughed like he was supposed to. Billy looked up from the phone to make sure it was a real laugh and not a fake one, and he noticed Sean’s eyes on his face.

“What?” he asked.

“You stopped taking pictures to help the dog?”

“Yeah, and then the old guy had to say something about us being a couple and the less-old guy lost his shit. I wish I could have recordedthat, but sadly, I didn’t have my phone open.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sean murmured. “You were just… nice. You were being nice.” They were really close now, the wind whipping around them, trying to pry them apart.

Billy didn’t answer to the wind.

“I’m not really nice,” he cautioned, but he couldn’t seem to move away.

“Neither am I,” Sean told him, his voice so low that if they hadn’t been almost touching, Billy wouldn’t have heard him.

The kiss, when it happened, happened so naturally it was like Billy breathed the moment into being. One moment they were static, caught in each other’s eyes, and the next their lips were touching and everything around them was warm, soft, and sweet.

A taste, and another, and enough to make Billy want more and more, and finally they pulled apart, reluctantly, and Billy leaned his forehead against Sean’s.

“That was good,” he whispered. “What do we do with that?”

Sean took one of those deep breaths that said his strength had been taxed to the limit that day. “We do it again, soon. And then a few more times. And someday, when I can run around this park more than once, we maybe take it somewhere private and keep going.”

Billy leaned back unhappily. “You’re waiting until you can run around the park?” he asked. “Because why?”

Sean’s smile was not sweet. It was not kind. It was feral and determined.

“Because I want to take everything you’ve got to give,” he said, nodding definitively. “I want to be in shape to take it.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed, something in his chest growing cold. “That sounds like something you’d say on a porn set.”

Sean shook his head. “I don’t want it to be pity,” he said. “I don’t want you to go easy on me. It’s gotta be equal.”