Page 52 of Sean's Sunshine
Except… except Billy’s kisses on the temple had felt so much more important than every sex act he’d ever performed with Jesse—or most of his other exes, for that matter.
“I’m—”
Sean pressed his fingers against Billy’s lips. “You’re not sorry. You shouldn’t be. If I couldn’t deal with your job, I shouldn’t have ever kissed you, never allowed myself to want you. But I did. So now I deal with it orI’mthe douche.”
“That’s not true,” Billy whispered. “I’ll look for other jobs. Pick up other hours.”
“Only if you want to,” Sean said. “Or can afford to. For your comfort level.” He rubbed his face against Billy’s neck. “I get the feeling that sometimes porn isn’t only about the money for you guys. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it’s about more. When you’re ready to tell me about that, tell me.”
Billy sucked in a breath, like he’d been socked in the stomach. “You’re very perceptive.”
“Well, you know. Iama detective,” Sean said softly. “And yes, I know it rhymes.”
He heard Billy’s dry chuckle, but it was very soft.
“I’m going to lie down under the covers,” he murmured. “Because it’s getting chilly outside. Kick off your shoes and jeans and join me. Just for a minute. Please?”
“Yeah.”
He could only sleep on one side, which was sort of a pain in the ass, but Billy spooned behind him again, and he thought he could get used to it if Billy’s hard body was a perk.
He closed his eyes, toying with Billy’s hand as it draped across his stomach and listening to the sound of the wind in the trees outside his open window.
He thought,This is it. He’s going to let me fall asleep and then slip out of bed and start his homework, but Billy began to talk.
“It’s that,” he said softly, “I was so lonely. Sam had left, and I was desperate for money and about to lose my place to live, but it was more than that. It was that I didn’t have anybody to tell about how shitty it all was. I’m not a joiner. There’s not a club at Sac City with my name on it. I wasn’t gonna rush a fraternity or anything like that, not even if it had all the alphabet in the front. What did I know from LGBTQ? I wanted to kiss a boy—that was it. My ambition. And my family… they were gone. As far as I knew, Mommy, she just let me go. I didn’t know she was gonna make a big last stand or anything. And those two guys—Reg and another guy who’s not there now—like I said, they had the brotherhood thing. And they were gay, and it didn’t seem to matter. They were friends too. And then I found out about the flophouse, and I was like, ‘Hey, I can figure shit out. I can date a girl and see if that’s what I want. I can bang all the guys if that’s what they’re doing. I’ve got brothers.’”
“Did it work out like that?” Sean murmured.
“Yeah, a little bit,” Billy said in wonder. “I… I’m still not a joiner. There was all the damned drama going down, and I managed to sidestep that easy. But the guys were solid. I didn’t see, I guess, until Henry showed up, how they might have needed more of the Guillermo guy who would have run their lives and less of Billy, who sort of let shit slide as long as he got his.” He let out a soft snort. “Henry—he’s all about the responsibility. And I remembered that Pops—he’d been an asshole, but he’d drilled that shit into me. And for a while I blamed the military for all the bad shit too, but then you figure out that people bring what they got into a thing. I guess Pops had all the meanness, and he brought that into the house too.”
“Mmm.” Sean wanted to hear this so badly. It was the only thing keeping him awake.
“So… you know. To me, the flophouse means family. All the sex was great—and man, I did all the guys, all the ways—but that was just, I dunno, a perk. You never had to sleep alone, so I didn’t.”
“You can sleep alone here,” Sean murmured.
“But I can sleep with you and don’t have to put out.” There was some soggy humor in his voice, and Sean attempted a laugh.
“You’re almost asleep,” Billy said softly.
“Mm-hmm.”
“But you managed to calm me down.”
“Good.”
“I… I never got calmed down like this before.”
“Even better,” Sean slurred, and then he was out for the count.
WHEN HEawakened, the blowing wind had turned into a blowing autumn rain. He paused to close his windows, thinking wistfully that he wished there was some way to leave them open—he loved the smell of the rain—but that all the moist air was probably not good for his healing body. He made his way down the hall and into the kitchen and saw Billy at the table, doing homework as promised, his phone on the table next to him. As Sean entered, the phone buzzed, and the screen lit up, and Billy glanced at it and gave a patient sigh.
He picked up the phone and responded to the text and then set the phone down again, only grimacing a little as the phone lit up almost immediately.
“C’mon,” he muttered. “I already answered this.”
Sean let out a soft puff of air as a chuckle, and Billy glanced up at him, smiling sheepishly. “Suddenly everybody wants to know my business,” he said, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was pleased.