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“Well, that’s really something,” I said.
“Good-looking feller. Just like you, Mr. Hicks,” he stated. “Real clean and nice smellin’, too.”
“Thank you for the kind words,” I said, nervously looking around for the quickest escape route.
I was in my own home but suddenly felt trapped. Hank studied me carefully, like he had something additional to say. I dreaded what that was.
“Harry would take a real shine to ya, Mr. Hicks. I don’t suppose you’re one of those gay men, are ya?”
I could have told the truth, but why do that? “Sounds like I’m missing out, but no, I’m not gay,” I lied.
“Darn shame,” he responded, removing his filthy baseball cap and running his hands through sweaty hair. “Lemme show you a picture of him just the same,” he began, scrolling through his phone. My mind was preparing for the anticipated shit-show brother. “I took this over the Christmas holiday,” he said, turning the face of the cellphone toward me.
I damn near shit myself. His brother, Harry, was a stunning man. The man in the image was tall and chiseled. Dressed immaculately with a mega-watt smile that could light up Broadway during a power outage.
“You’re correct,” I mumbled, staring at the hunk on the phone. “Quite a striking man,” I added, wondering if referring to a man as striking was sufficiently heterosexual enough.
Hank pulled the phone away and stared at his brother for a moment. “People say we look like twins,” he announced, lifting his eyes to me. “I’m a pound or two heavier, but I can see it for sure.”
“Yes. I can see how they’d say that,” I agreed, slowly moving toward the front door and thinking of something to say to change the subject. “I gave the man on the phone my credit card information for payment earlier,” I added, opening the front door and stepping to the side for him to exit. Hank still had his phone in his hand and was glancing from me to the picture and back again.
He turned the phone toward me again. “He’d like you, Mr. Hicks,” he insisted, studying my reaction. “Are ya sure? Goin’ once… twice.”
“Darn,” I said, shaking my head. “If only.”
We locked eyes as I held my composure. He studied me for any sign of weakness concerning his hard sales pitch regarding his hunky brother.
“Darn shame,” he said.
I slowly moved to close the door as he backed out. I had the distinct notion that he knew I wasn’t being truthful. Maybe it was the tastefully casual clothes I wore. Or the cologne, or the expensive haircut, or the eight-foot-tall sculpture of a naked man’s torso in the corner of the living room. There were probably a million tell-tale signs that a man with a gay sibling could detect.
I shut the door behind him and turned toward the living room, leaning back against the door Hank had just stepped out of, letting out a long-held breath.
“You are right, though,” I mumbled in agreement. “Your bother is a fucking hunk.”
I walked toward the picture windows facing east and toward the vast Atlantic beyond. “The problem is this, Hank,” I began again, having a full-on conversation with the now gone plumber. “I like my men smaller and prettier than your stud of a brother.”
Today was the sixth day since I’d arrived at my new home. The sixth day I’d thought of the smaller and prettier neighbor boy.
I needed to find a way to see him again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Chad
Staring across the deck and at the swells slamming onto the shore, I placed my surfboard against the guest house’s exterior. “Not today,” I muttered, opening the door to where I’d been living that summer and going back inside.
The guest house was where I’d lived when I resided at home full time before college and during breaks, moving into it my junior year of high school. The small studio sat below the main house’s deck, on a different level patio, and alongside the pool.
The design was basically a studio apartment with an oversized bathroom, and it fit my casual lifestyle perfectly. There was no kitchen, so I ate with my folks most nights if I wasn’t slamming fast food in between shifts at the hotel.
Since the ocean was too aggressive for surfing that day, I got bored and soon wandered into the main house to see what the folks were up to. Mom was busy carting groceries in from the driveway, so I hurried down the front steps to intercept her.
“I got them, Mom. Go unload the bags,” I insisted, grabbing her shoulders and redirecting her to the house.
“Okay, honey.”
After three trips to her Land Rover, I joined her in the kitchen. “Quite a haul,” I noted, peeling the plastic bag of grapes open to test a few for freshness.
Mom swatted at my hand. “Just a few, kiddo. We have company tonight and I need them for the charcuterie board,” she stated.
