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“Nope. They’re still waiting for Jesus to cure my soul and take away my sins.”
“Yeah, tell them Jesus has enough on his plate,” Jay said. “Want me to talk with good old Sofia for you?”
“Hell no! My mom hates you.”
“Since when?”
Anthony and I both laughed. The first time the four of us were invited to Anthony’s folks’ house for dinner, Jay had come with his bike and almost ran over the family chihuahua. To his credit, that had been one annoying chihuahua.
Jay gave Anthony a once-over. “Say, now that you’re back in shape, you must be getting some serious… ha, asshole?”
I shook my head. “Somebody forgot his tact at home.”
“It’s cool,” Anthony said. “No need to tiptoe around the gay elephant in the room. Unless you two feel uncomfortable.”
“You know I’m not,” I said. We'd had plenty of talks about his sexuality after he came out, although I never shared with him that I too had an occasional interest in men.
“Me neither,” Jay said. “But don’t dare put Lady Gaga on the jukebox.”
“Dammit,” Anthony said. “Madonna it is, then. And to answer your question—no, I am not currently sleeping around.”
Jay frowned. “Then why the hell are you back having biceps, man? Seems like a waste of energy.”
“My biceps are from work, not from attempting to score.”
Jay shrugged. “Still a waste.”
I quietly said, “If it’s about how it ended with Abigail—"
“It’s not. I just don’t want to hook up with anyone. Can we drop it?”
I nodded, feeling bad that after surviving an ugly divorce, Anthony wasn’t at least trying to have fun. Not that Anthony had ever been a true player. I met him in college, although he was only there to fix things in the dorms. We started talking when he came to help with a broken table I had in my room, and the conversation lasted for an hour until Chris got back to the room. Back then, Chris had been wary of new people. He used to keep a safe distance with minimal communication until he grew to trust them. I never understood why he acted like that, but it had luckily passed with time. Anthony had been the exception, maybe because it was impossible to picture Anthony being a threat to anyone.
Still in my dorm room, the three of us spoke for a long time, then Chris and I decided to take Anthony out drinking because the guy had never had a beer in his life. He grew up in a deeply religious family who frowned upon alcohol and, apparently, fun. We took him to the bar where Jay worked, and that had been the birth of our quartet family.
Sitting at Henry’s, we quickly slipped into catching-up mode, although none of us had a lot going on in our lives. There had been years when things were constantly moving, pulling us forward toward bigger and better adventures. Now, it felt more like standing at a train station, waiting to board the train that would take us anywhere else. Yet after the last chaotic year we all had, standing still was better than another train wreck.
An hour passed and then another. None of us had anywhere better to be or anyone waiting for us back home.
“Say,” Anthony said to me at one point. His cheeks were slightly flushed from drinking, despite his tan skin.Tan like the man I had lying on the table as I finger fucked him.I shook my head to dismiss that thought and forced myself to concentrate on Anthony, who was asking, “What happened with Chris? You gave him the present?”
I moved uneasily in my seat. “Yeah, sort of.”
“Oh, do tell,” Jay said with a smirk and leaned closer to listen.
“I’d rather not go into that.”
They both booed me.
“All right. Fine. I drove over there to wish him a happy birthday. When I got there, there was a party.”
Anthony scowled. “How many people?”
“I didn’t go inside. My guess is about twenty.”
“You didn’t go inside? Didn’t he invite you to join?” Anthony asked.
“He did, but it was clear he didn’t want me to accept. Turned out it was a party with his co-workers.”
