Page 85 of Sean's Sunshine
Billy gigglesnorted, and Dex squeezed his eyes shut.
“Let me rephrase,” he said, trying to do damage control. “My best friend here platonically enjoys his amphibians.”
“So does yourhusband,” Tommy retorted. “Let’s not forget, we’re both the assholes with the giant turtles intent on breaking our houses.”
Dex shrugged. “And a snake who loves my balls—”
“That’s all you and Kane,” Tommy said affectionately. “Keep me out of your kinky shit.”
“God, seriously.” Dex shuddered. “Anyway, we started by buying a pet franchise. Cashiers, stock personnel, animal health technicians, groomers, adoption centers—we’re working on placing as many people who want to be there in that business. We’ve got our eye on a café—”
“I would love to quit my job waiting tables,” Billy said. Two four-hour shifts a week had been all he could handle. Boy, was he not a fan of people drinking too much coffee.
“Good,” Dex said. “Because that’ll give you more hours and, well, we need managers. Of course we’ll work around your school schedule, and we’ll pay you a living wage. Tommy here is the GM of the store. He’ll show you the ropes, let you work the stocking and cashiering jobs so you know what their life is like, and show you how to write the schedules and manage the staff. Now….” Dex looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have to say this, and I gotta work on my schtick, but this ain’t porn, kid. All clothes stay on. Anybody caught having sex at workwillbe fired. This is a way to have a legit job out of porn, with people who won’t judge you, doing a thing you hopefully like. It’s a way to keep your health and dental, and maybe keep contact with your Johnnies brothers and sisters too.”
Billy had never gotten to know any of the girls—but then, he’d really only tried with a girl in a relationship, not in porn. But the guys. Oh, he reallywouldlike to keep tabs on Curtis, Cotton, and Randy, and even Lance and Henry, although he had a feeling that last one was not going to be a problem.
“I’d like that,” he said softly, and the sudden relief was so powerful, it left him feeling weak. “I… I wouldreallylike that.”
“Awesome. Now you said you had somewhere to go after this?”
Billy glanced at the clock on the wall, a silly cartoon animal clock with big-gloved hands pointing to the numbers. “Yeah, I gotta go pick Sean up from the doctor’s in an hour. They’re running stress tests and shit to see if he can fucking breathe well enough to go get shot or stabbed again. I should leave in about forty minutes.”
Dex let out a snort. “Well, I can’t fix stupid, and I can’t fix cop, but hopefully after you fill out some paperwork, we can fix your job sitch, since you’re all monogamous and shit. You ready?” He pulled out a file that appeared to be the standard hiring file in any business ever, and Billy peered around the office again.
“You and John aren’t doing porn anymore?”
Dex shrugged. “We both made a commitment to go visit the sets once a day and meet all the new hires, like we did before. But we hired some guys we could trust who, like you, were ready to get out of doing scenes but didn’t mind the business so much.”
Billy blinked. “So why’d you ask me to be a pet store manager and those guys to film porn?”
Dex cocked his head. “I don’t know, Guillermo. I think because you have always been, in your heart, such an upright guy. I mean, don’t get me wrong—you shot beautiful porn. But you’ve always been a fan of order, of rightness. I’m surprised you haven’t quit before now.”
“Were you going to offer this to Cotton?” Billy asked.
Dex nodded. “Yeah, but we needed Cotton to get a little stronger. I’m just so excited he got strong enough to take that opportunity down south. That kid needed a break, you know?” He grinned at Billy. “Had the feeling you always sort of made your own breaks.”
Like volunteering for nurse duty and falling in love with his prickly, irritating patient.
“Maybe we both got lucky,” Billy said, but he took a pen from the desk and started writing, noticing the picture of Dex’s husband and their niece on the corner of the desk. “So,” he said as he wrote, “kids. How in the fuck do you make that work?”
And as he filled out his paperwork, Dex and Tommy took turns regaling him with kid stories, and by the time he was done, he realized he’d been able to remember a few of his own from his days of helping his mother.
It was the first time he’d really told those stories since he’d started porn, and as he stood and shook Dex and Tommy’s hands before taking the JonDex exit out to the parking lot, he realized that he’d locked that part of him away. Porn had been all about being the star, being seen, being selfish about his looks, his body, his sex, and his paycheck. Kids were all about giving to make sure someone else was happy.
As he hopped in the car to go get Sean, he realized that he had that part of himself back now, and he’d missed it.
And he never wanted to give it away again.
SEAN WASnot nearly as happy after his meeting with the doctor.
“Two more weeks,” he’d growled, getting into the passenger side of the Charger.
“You had that setback,” Billy reminded him, wondering if this was what he had to deal with for the rest of the night. He’d been sort of happy himself.
“I’m going to get on your nerves,” Sean warned.
“There were wildfires for two weeks,” Billy recalled. “Lance told you that was going to cause problems.”