When Randy, who’s gay, offers his straight pal, Jake, a place to stay after his lady friend shows him the door, Randy’s sexual angst quickly rises to dangerous levels. He’s sorely tempted, but he’s not the kind of guy who’d ever make unwelcome advances. Then a late summer storm looms on the horizon and the spark that finally ignites the sensual fire that’s been smoldering for weeks comes from a totally unexpected direction.
“Hey, Randy, do you mind if I join you?” I looked up from the magazine I was reading in hopes that it would take my mind off the bologna sandwich I’d packed for my lunch. I hate bologna. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to what I was throwing into my cart at the supermarket and less to the hot dude who was putting out the produce. Yeah, right. Like I’m gonna think about lunchmeat when there’s real meat in the vicinity.
“Pull up a chair, Jake.” I tossed the magazine. Speaking of real meat, Jake was one of the best-looking dudes I’d ever laid eyes on. He had an aquiline nose, a squared chin with a little indentation that wasn’t quite a cleft and high prominent cheekbones. His angular features were softened slightly by the contours of his full, pink lips. For my money, his blue eyes were his most memorable feature. They sort of reminded me of the color of the sky on a day in the middle of July. I also got off on Jake’s bushy blond eyebrows. When he smiled, they arched up and gave his expression an impish cast. He had a very sexy smile.
Jake’s baggy, factory-issue coveralls were currently unzipped to the waist, revealing chiseled abs and pecs like a couple of smooth, river-sculpted rocks. When he straddled the chair and sat down, his left nipple peeped out, fat, pink and delectable. I thought briefly about reaching out and tweaking the tender nubbin of flesh. Not that I really would have, of course. Hell, I’m not the type of guy to jump until I’ve been given the go-ahead. Besides, Jake’s straight, so he’s off-limits.
He knows my story, though. I’d pretty much been in the closet at work until I tangled with a guy on third shift and he started talking. The way he told it, I cornered him and gave him a blow job. The way I remembered it, he was the one on his knees in the storage closet. Regardless of the details, I lost quite a few friends before it all blew over. Not Jake, though. He stuck by me. Bottom line, it taught me not to fuck around at work.
“How’s it going?” Jake leaned forward on his elbows and rested his chin in his hands.
“I’m good.” I pulled the second sandwich out of my lunchbox and eyed it dubiously. “Where’s your lunch, Jake?”
“I’m not hungry.” His shoulders slumped and his gaze dropped to the worn Formica tabletop.
“You can’t run a healthy body on air, buddy. Here, take this.” I pushed the sandwich toward him. He unwrapped it and downed it in about three bites, then started in on my potato chips. I grabbed my apple before it was too late. At least Jake didn’t appear to have an ulcer. “What’s the problem?”
“Women.”
“Big topic, Jake. What happened?”
“Nothing.” He looked up at me, his sky-blue eyes glittering with unshed tears. It took all my resolve not to reach across the table and give him a big hug. “Not a damned thing.” One tear escaped and trailed down over his flushed cheek. He wiped it away angrily with his fist. “Randy, something’s wrong with me.”
“Come on, Jake. You’re as healthy as a horse. You eat like one, anyway.” I watched him take a huge bite of the apple I thought I’d rescued. I shouldn’t have set it down. “Talk to me.”
“Sue threw me out of the house.”
“Man, that’s tough. I’m sorry to hear it.” I was sorry that Jake was so troubled. I wasn’t surprised, though. He’d been living with this woman for almost a year and I’d heard enough over the past few months to know that the relationship hadn’t been going so well. “What happened?”
“She told me that just because I had a good build, that didn’t mean I could lay there like a corpse in bed, waiting for her to make a move. I told her I couldn’t help it that I got tired because I worked all day and then hit the gym in the evening. She said I was too stuck on my own body to notice hers. She told me it wasn’t normal to work out the way I did.” He polished off the apple and tossed the core back into my lunch box. “I reminded her that lots of guys work out. I told her that there was nothing wrong with wanting to have a decent build like yours.”
I stared at him across the table. “Like mine... You brought me into this argument?” Jake nodded sheepishly. Sue and I had met just the one time, and she hated me on sight. The feeling had been mutual. “Hell, Jake, no wonder she was pissed.”
“You’re my buddy. I...I just wanted her to know why I was working so hard.”
“So what did Sue say?”
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