Authors: Jamie Fessenden

Billy's Bones (32 page)

T
HE
next evening, as they sat in the hot tub with Shadow curled up on the deck nearby, looking up at a clear, star-filled sky, Kevin asked Tom, “Just how many days are supposed to go by before I’m allowed to ask you to marry me?”

Kevin laughed. “I suppose it’s been enough.”

“Do you want me to get a ring first?”

“No.”

Kevin stood up, swaying a bit in the swirling water. Not for the first time, Tom marveled at the way water trickled down his thin, muscular back and abdomen. Kevin Derocher was the most beautiful man he’d ever met. And he was dead sexy. At the moment, though, he was more amusing as he crouched down in the water, struggling to kneel without being knocked over by the jets.

Tom laughed again. “You’re not getting down on one knee!”

“Fuck you. That’s the way it’s done.” Kevin extended his right hand. “Give me your hand.”

Tom suspected he needed it as much for balance as tradition, but he put his hand in Kevin’s. That’s when he noticed how much Kevin’s hand was trembling. “Are you all right? You’re shaking.”

Kevin rolled his eyes at him. “I’m not having a panic attack, counselor. I’m nervous because I’m about to ask my boyfriend to marry me.”

“Oh. That’s perfectly understandable.”

“Thanks for the free analysis,” Kevin said wryly. “Do you mind if I get on with it?”

“Not at all.”

“Will you marry me, Tom?” Kevin asked.

Tom looked into those soft hazel eyes and smiled. “Yes, Kevin. Of course.”

Kevin moved forward and slid his hot, wet body up the front of Tom’s, making the latter groan in pleasure. “So… who do we invite?”

Tom kissed his neck before answering, “I don’t know. My family, I guess. Though I don’t know if they’ll make it. Sue. That’s about it for my side. I have no friends. What about you?”

“Tracy and Lee. Probably the gang at the diner. And my mom.”

Tom pulled his head back in surprise so he could look up at Kevin’s face. “What happened to ‘We’re definitely not inviting her to our wedding’?”

Kevin sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I sort of realized yesterday that she’s the only family I have left. And she’s seventy. Maybe I should at least make an effort to patch things up with her. I mean, she hasn’t actually taken out a restraining order… yet.”

Tom wasn’t sure he’d be as willing to forgive and forget, if he were in Kevin’s place. After all, his mother had called him ‘depraved’ and implied he might be a murderer, all while defending the man who’d committed unspeakable horrors against him. But if this was what Kevin wanted, Tom would support him.

“Well, that’s all fine,” he said, “but perhaps you should send her a polite letter first, explaining that you’d like to patch things up and that you’re in love with that nice man you brought to the home with you, before inviting her to your Big Gay Wedding.”

Kevin chuckled. “Maybe.”

“And now I’d like to get back to what we were doing before we started talking about your mother,” Tom said, ducking under Kevin’s chin to nibble his neck again.

Kevin pressed his crotch into Tom’s and made a low growling noise. “Whatever you say, counselor.”

About the Author

J
AMIE
F
ESSENDEN
set out to be a writer in junior high school. He published a couple short pieces in his high school's literary magazine and had another story place in the top 100 in a national contest, but it wasn't until he met his partner, Erich, almost twenty years later, that he began writing again in earnest. With Erich alternately inspiring and goading him, Jamie wrote several screenplays and directed a few of them as micro-budget independent films. His latest completed work premiered at the Indie Fest 2009 in Los Angeles and also played at the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival two weeks later.

After nine years together, Jamie and Erich have married and purchased a house together in the wilds of Raymond, New Hampshire, where there are no streetlights, turkeys and deer wander through their yard, and coyotes serenade them on a nightly basis. Jamie currently works as technical support for a computer company in Portsmouth, NH, but fantasizes about someday quitting his day job to be a full-time writer.

Visit Jamie at http://jamiefessenden.wordpress.com/.

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ESSENDEN