Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,5
being mad. Maybe you should just pretend to be dumb.”
“Hey!”
Auggie grinned.
“Go change,” Orlando said, “before I forget how generous I’m being by providing you with free content.”
Over his shoulder, Auggie flipped him the bird as he went back into his room. He changed and went next door. As soon as Ethan heard their plan, he wanted in on it. He was good looking, too, which helped—dark brown skin, huge eyes, a nervous smile that Auggie’s audience would eat up. Not as good looking as Orlando, and that was a good thing too. You had to balance that kind of thing, or it started looking like a Gap commercial.
They were on their third trip up, both of them with arms full of boxes, when a familiar voice called out, “Little bro, you’re missing the house meeting.”
Dylan was leaning against one wall, blond curls spilling over his forehead, an unreadable smirk on his mouth as he watched Auggie. He was in a blue paisley tank top that showed blond stubble on his chest. He had massive legs.
“Hey,” Auggie said, smiling—too big of a smile, he realized. Then he stumbled, and he would have fallen except Dylan caught his arm and steadied the tower of boxes. Dylan’s grip was solid. He still had that smirk that Auggie couldn’t decipher.
“Careful,” Dylan said.
Sweat beaded on Auggie’s nape.
“Augs,” Orlando said from the stairs.
“Yeah,” Auggie said. “Coming.”
“You’re a fucking killer,” Dylan said, squeezing Auggie’s bicep. “Please God tell me you’re trying out for lacrosse.”
“Augs,” Orlando said again.
“Don’t fuck my life,” Dylan said with a grin. “Come to tryouts.”
“Yeah,” Auggie said, holding back an answering smile. “Maybe.”
“Who’s that douche?” Orlando said when they were passing the second-floor landing.
“He’s actually pretty cool. His name’s Dylan.”
Orlando shook his head.
“What?”
“I just forgot that sometimes you’re kind of dumb.”
4
Theo lived in a small brick house on the western edge of Wahredua. It was barely inside the city limits, in what his husband had called the boonies—small houses on big lots, where neighbors minded their own business. Ian had needed to live in the city because he was with the Wahredua police, but in some ways, he was even more of a country boy than Theo, and he’d wanted his space. This house, which needed the tuckpointing done, which needed a new chimney, which needed a lot of patches or, better, a completely new roof, and which cooked like an oven from April to November, had been the compromise.
Saturday afternoon, Theo picked up after himself. He took the dirty clothes to the basement and started the laundry. He swept and mopped the living room and kitchen. He ran the dishwasher. He fiddled with the window unit; he had long suspected that machines only responded to bullies, and so he hammered on the A/C until he thought it was chugging slightly cooler air into the baking heat of the house. He cleaned the bathroom—not that Cart noticed things like that—and then he showered and put on a linen shirt and a pair of what Cart had taken to calling his booty shorts. They were just khaki shorts that came to mid-thigh, but Cart really got a kick out of calling them that. He ran a comb through the bro flow of strawberry-blond hair, wondering if he needed to get it cut, and he was considering his beard, patting it, trying to determine if it was really as fluffy as it looked—and, if so, how to fix that in the next thirty seconds.
Cart’s footsteps moved outside the bathroom, and liquid heat ran through Theo.
“Hey,” Theo said as he went into the kitchen.
Cart was opening a Big Wave, and he glanced over his shoulder. The bottlecap clinked into the sink, and then he took another longer, look back at Theo. He was skinny in the wiry, country-boy way that Ian had been skinny, the hair on his head perpetually buzzed at zero, a little bit jug-eared, a little goofy when he got those huge, shit-kicker grins on his face. He’d changed out of his uniform, and he was in mesh shorts and a Cardinals t-shirt. He licked his lips and wiggled his eyebrows.
“Perv,” Theo said.
“You just get me all hot and bothered.”
Theo crossed the kitchen and pretended not to notice Cart’s moment of hesitation when Theo leaned in to kiss him. Then they were kissing, one of Cart’s hands at the small of Theo’s back, his fingers cold and wet from the beer and pressing hard through the linen.