Shooting Matt Ch. 09

"I'd love to hear more stories about Liam's pop," he admits. "Besides," he smiles, "I like being called 'cutie pie'."

"I don't suppose we can have a couple beers, too?" Liam asks.

"Sorry, hon. You 21? Won't matter anyway, liquor license is too expensive and too much trouble for a little place like this." She lays two old school hotel keys, complete with faded plastic fobs, atop the counter. The fobs are so worn it's nearly impossible to see the number. "It'll take, oh 15 minutes or so, to get your food ready. Fourteen, is just on past the pool, up on the hillside a bit. Folks, complain it's not right on the lake but 14 is my favorite, nice and quiet, no one traipsing back and forth in front of your place." She shoos them with one hand. "Scoot, throw your stuff in the cabin and get on back here in 20 minutes."

She watches them leave. She sees Matt slip and arm around Liam's waist and kiss him on the cheek. She smiles. They're so damn cute. The smile fades. No doubt they think her an old lady but she's not. She remembers, easily enough, what it's like to be young and in love and imagine the whole world has been sitting there, all this time, just waiting for you to come along to be entertained by it. Well, that don't last for long. Soon enough you wake up and realize that drop dead gorgeous little missy you fell head over heels for farts in her sleep like everyone else. And goddamn don't she sound like your own momma at times. No, everyone, assuming they have any brains at all, tumbles to the fact that the world, heart-achingly beautiful as it is, doesn't give a happy horse shit if you're happy, sad, alive or dead. Some folks, shake their heads, whisper 'what the fuck' and get on with life. Others, maybe most in Glenna's opinion, fold in on themselves, cease to see the joy in life, unless it rears back and smacks them in the face. She mumbles a little prayer that that moment doesn't arrive anytime soon for her newest lodgers.

***

"Have a wing?"

"Cutie pie, I can't do a damn thing about getting older but I don't have to get fat on top of it. No, sir, get thee behind me, Satan."

"Pop, said pretty much the same thing at the Waffle house," Liam muses.

"Tell me about Randy. I know you're trying to eat and all but I haven't seen him in, oh my God, almost twenty-five years."

"Not a lot to tell," Liam shrugs. "He and mom split when I was little. He raised me. Mom had - issues. He worked at the Ford plant until it closed. Since then he's worked at a warehouse. He's a shift supervisor or foreman or something."

"He got a girlfriend?" Glenna laughs when Matt's eyebrows shoot up. "Cutie, I'm not looking, just curious. Lee might take exception to his wife looking up an old crush."

"No, no girlfriend."

"That's too bad," Glenna murmurs. "He was too much fun to be on his own."

"Pop?"

"Don't look all bug-eyed like that. Your father was one of the most popular regulars we had in those days. Poor momma, she didn't want me pestering him but she'd not have minded at all if he'd been interested. Randy, was the life of the party. It's a wonder he survived. He had to be the one jump off the highest point on Deacon's bluff, had to jump his skis the highest over the boat wake, you name it."

"My father water skied?"

"Oh honey, I'm not saying this because I had a crush on him, he was an awesome skier. Awesome." Glenna was staring at a distant memory only she could see. "By the end of the month, that hair of his would be almost blonde, and my Lord did he look good tanned. He'd finally get off those skis. I made sure I was on the dock to help them tie up." She smiles to herself. "He'd squat down to tie one of the ropes, or grab something out of the boat, and I'd feast on the sight of a strip of pale flesh and, if I was lucky, the top of his butt. It did things to my insides I couldn't understand."

She looks at the two men, no longer eating, simply listening. "You know why I remember Randy so well?" She answers her own question. "Because he was decent. He never made fun of me and, to him I must have seemed just a silly kid with a school girl crush. More important, not that I was smart enough to know it at the time, he never, ever, once took advantage of me. Over the years I've learned there's more than a few that would have." She shakes her head and stands. "Boys, my apologies. You're paying guests. I have no business dragging you into my nostalgia. Sorry."

"Please stay," Liam requests, touching her hand with his fingertips. "You aren't bothering us, not at all. It's just, I've never seen my dad like that. He is a decent guy, sometimes I think too decent. He works his ass off. He deals with mom and keeps me out of it as much as he can. I wish I could tell you he still water skis." Liam shakes his head. "But he doesn't."

"Well, as the lovely, too soon departed George sang - 'Isn't it a pity'." She sits back down. Puts both hands flat on the table and smiles. "Nuff old stuff. What do you fellas do? School? Work?"

"We both go to State," Matt answers. "I'm the dumb jock swimmer. Liam swam in high school. I don't actually know what Liam does at school," Matt confesses in a soft voice. "We sort of drifted apart after high school."

"Biochem," Liam answers, reaching for another slice of pizza.

"What's your race?" Glenna asks.

"I'm pretty good at all of them but not great at any. Makes me an okay medley guy."

"He got silver at the state meet this year," Liam offers, knowing his friend won't.

"Oh, Matt, that's fantastic. Really," Glenna beams at him. "What do you think you'll do after college?"

"Teach. Coach. That's what I'd like to do."

"That would be wonderful. If life had taken a different turn I might have been a teacher. What are you planning to teach?"

"English." Matt ignores Liam's stare and addresses himself to his host. "What happened? Why didn't you go to college and become a teacher?"

"Nothing. Everything. Life. My father was a troubled man. Mom says it was Vietnam. Maybe it was. He drank too much, smoked too much and died when I was in grade school. He wasn't a mean drunk. Even mom never claimed he was mean but he was in too much pain to be there for her or for me. Mom inherited the land from her folks. She and dad started the grand lakeside resort you see around you. Mom needed too much help running the place for me to go to college. I'm not complaining. Sometimes I wonder if I might not have gotten a better education, working, watching, and reading what interested me on my own terms. I met Lee, he went to State by the way, when he stopped by to try to sell mom a new deep fryer. He made excuses to stop by every few weeks, even after momma told him she didn't need a new fryer. We'd chat. We kind of grew on each other, gradual like. I'd always believed in love at first sight, fireworks, soulmates, you know like on TV or the movies. It didn't happen that way to me. I was sitting there one day, sipping on a diet Coke and it just crept up on me - I love this quiet man. Momma always said I was bold-as-brass, so I just up and asked him if we should get married.

"I was afraid I'd totally misread him. He got all quiet, almost pale. He opened his mouth half a dozen times. I was trying to sort out if somehow I could make him think I was joking. He just looked, so miserable. I felt awful.

"He asked me if we could give it a little more time. Sure, I told him. No rush. When he left, I truly didn't expect him to come back. I wasn't sure if I had totally misread his interest or what but I had certainly upset him. Well, he showed up two weeks later and asked me to go to a movie with him. How's that for a twisted up love story? I propose to him before we ever had a real date, though I'd known him for more than two years by then."

Glenna realizes the boys have stopped eating again. She throws up her hands and lowers them slowly. "What on earth is wrong with me? Here I am chattering away about stuff I never even told my own momma, Christ sakes." She stands up. "I need to get the kitchen tidied up. The door will lock behind you. The emergency number is posted in all the cabins. Lee and I live upstairs," she points with one finger at the ceiling. "Take your time, just leave the plates and stuff on the table."

"No way," Matt says with a smile. "If there's one thing I have a true talent for, it's dishes. It's my métier."

"Wow, the dumb jock persona seems to be rapidly fading," Liam tells him with a smile. "Métier?"

"Harsh, brah. Totally."

Glenna smiles at the them. "So, how did you two re-connect?"

"Now that's a funny story," Matt tells her. "I was trying to seduce Randy and somehow he ended up pushing Liam at me. Weird, huh?" He gives her an exaggerated look of bewilderment.

"Wait, are you saying Randy, is gay?" Glenna asks.

"Well, not totally. He says he's bi. Liam says 'bi' is old school, that it's more correct to say 'pansexual' or 'pan' but I'm cool with bi." He looks at her, entirely serious now. "And you're totally dead on about Randy. Straight, bi, pan or gay, he's totally fucking cool. There's not many people I trust completely but he's one."

"Well, I'll be good and goddamn," Glenna whispers to herself.

***

The water's chilly but warmer than the night air. They barely tread water, letting themselves float low, just their faces out of the water.

"Seriously, dude, why did you spill all that to her?"

"She asked, brah." Matt doesn't give Liam time to respond. "Besides, she shared, I shared. She knows, or thinks she does, that we're more than friends. I'm sure she saw me hug you. I wanted her to. I wanted to see how she reacted to us when we came back to eat. Did you notice any difference?"

"No."

"Neither did I, brah. She treated us like we were long lost cousins or nephews or something. She's cool. Totally." Matt strokes with one hand, turning and bringing himself closer to Liam. He reaches out and takes his hand. "Jeez, the dadster can really fuck up sometimes. How did he miss out on her and end up with your mom? No offense."

"Oh, none taken," Liam replies, voice drenched in sarcasm. "You realize if he hadn't 'missed out on her' and met mom, I wouldn't be here, don't you?"

Matt swivels in the water to face Liam. His hands go around his waist and he pulls him closer. Liam's legs go around his waist; he leans back so that his upper body floats. His cock floats against Matt's chest. Matt moves his hands up to Liam's sides and urges him up. Liam lets his legs slide off Matt's body. They tread water, legs scissoring past each other beneath the dark water.

Matt inclines his head toward Liam's. "I know that, brah." He offers Liam his mouth and after a moment of hesitation, the offer is accepted.

"I like kissing you," Liam whispers later.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I've never done that before. Kiss another guy."

"Shit, bitch I knew that. You suck, to be honest. You definitely need more practice."

"Really? Who would you recommend?"

"Well, fuck, I said I want to be a teacher," Matt sighs and pulls Liam close. The moon creeps past the ridgeline, aloof. Where her cold light catches the ripples, the water glows green. Some moments later, Matt breaks the kiss.

"Not bad. There's hope. But it's too freakin' cold to continue today's lesson."

Liam nods. "It is kinda cold," he agrees but makes no move to let go of Matt. Instead, he lays his head on the man's shoulder.

There's a sudden warmth between them. Liam giggles.

"Mother fucker are you pissing on me?" Mat cries in astonishment as Liam begins to laugh.

"Two can play that game," Matt tells his giggling friend. He reaches between their bodies and lifts his dick up. It's harder to let his bladder go than he thought. Liam, playing fair, waits. The sudden warmth feels good.

"Come on," Liam says at last. "All that did was remind me I'm cold."

A few lazy strokes carries them to the dock. Glenna and a stranger sit on the bench at the end of the dock.

"Now, fellas, didn't I tell you this is a family resort? That we don't go in for that kind of behavior, skinny-dipping and such?"

"Glenna, leave our guests alone," the stranger tells her. "She's just upset you beat her to the dock. Would you prefer we leave? Give you some privacy?"

"No, if you're fine, we're fine," Liam answers, unusually bold for a change. He uses the ladder to hoist himself out of the lake and into the yellow glow of the light at the end of the dock. The stranger opens his mouth and closes it. Liam barely notices, turning to offer Matt a hand that he does not need but takes anyway.

"We didn't mean to horn in on your private spot," Matt says to Glenna, as he uses one hand to strip the water from his body.

"I was just giving you a hard time, cutie. It's not private. Lee and I do take a little dip before bed fairly frequently but it's not private. If there's not a lot of folks out, or it's folks we know won't mind, we don't bother with suits either. We didn't want to disturb you fellas, though. You seem deep in thought."

She reaches down beside the bench and tosses a beach towel at Matt. "Here, I saw you two head down here, heard the splashing. I didn't see you carrying anything so I figured you'd need towels."

Liam and Matt look at each other. "Towels," they say simultaneously.

Liam shakes his head in disbelief. "Pop said he knew we'd forget something important. We forgot towels."

The stranger unfolded himself from the bench. He was tall and thin and spoke so softly you had no option except to pay attention if you wanted to hear what he had to say. His face, his entire demeanor, indicated he didn't much care if you listened or not.

"Keep them until you have time to run to town. I'm Lee." He offers each of the his hand. His grip is strong, quick, business-like."

"Nice to meetcha. I'm Matt. This is Liam."

Liam shivers.

"You boys better get on in. You got that thin city blood that doesn't hold up to the chill," Glenna offers. She points past the clubhouse. "Showers are just past the pool. Cabins don't have showers, just toilet and sinks. You knew that didn't you?"

Matt nods.

"They stay open but, this time of night, try to keep it down. Okay?"

"Sure sweetie cake," Matt tells her with a smile.

Lee gives him a look. "Son, you sure you're gay?"

"Pretty much."

Lee nods. "Okay, flirt away then." He turns and heads back down the dock. It rocks beneath them as he does. "Night, fellas."

"Night."

"That's my husband," Glenna offers, for no obvious reason. "He likes you fellas. Otherwise he'd have nodded, said good night and been on his way."

"Sorry about the skinny-dipping," Liam tells her, wrapping his towel around his waist.

"Don't be. As long as no one else is around, it's no big thing. Remember me mentioning Deacon's bluff? I'll give you directions. It's a nice canoe trip, not too far. On the far side of it is the official 'unofficial' clothing optional hang out, mostly locals. Cops leave it alone. Every lake of any size has one; the secret is finding it. Don't be posting it on the damn internet. If it gets back that it was me letting out the secret, my neighbors are liable to burn me out." She stands. "'Night boys. I'm always happy to have guests but I can't tell you how much I've already enjoyed meeting and chatting with you. Even if he didn't remember me, I'm glad Randy called."

***

They gather their clothes and carrying them and the towels, in an untidy bundle against their chests. It's hard to pull sneakers on over damp feet but before they make it to the showers they wished they'd gone to the trouble of doing so. They're not used to walking barefoot on gravel. The shower room is empty.

There are four showers, two on each side. They're open but divided by tiled partitions that are a little more than waist high. They two men look at the showers, the soap dishes specifically and then shake their heads. They'd forgotten soap as well.

"Well, we can at least rinse the lake water off," Liam sighs and sets his discombobulated bundle down on one of the wooden benches. The floor looks clean but he adds shower shoes to the list of items to pick up at Walmart. He steps to the closest shower and turns on the water, standing well back. When the water gets warm, he steps under the shower and lets it flow over his upturned face. He turns, pushes his hair back, and wipes the water from his face. He's disappointed to see Matt fiddling with the shower opposite his. He turns back into the shower, trying not to take it personal. Maybe Matt is being uncharacteristically cautious. It is a public shower. He lifts his arm and scrubs at his armpit, as if he had soap, then does the same with the other arm. He scrubs water around his crotch and then turns to rinse his crack.

Matt is staring at him. Water cascades down his chest and belly. His eyes are fixed on Liam. He's jerking off.

Liam spreads his ass cheeks with one hand and uses the other to splash water over his crack. His own dick begins to get hard. He wonders if he should take the two or three steps required to reach Matt. As he considers this, he begins to pull at his dick. He mentally chides himself; what is there to consider, he wonders. He crosses the floor.

They stand side-by-side, Liam's left shoulder brushes Matt's right. It's a matter of but a few strokes before Liam's erection rival's his friend's.

Matt reaches, slowly, questioning with his eyes. Liam nods and moves his hand away from his cock.

Matt takes a hold of Liam's cock, gingerly. He's never seen an uncut cock before, not, shall we say, up close and personal. He slides the foreskin over Liam's crown and then back, the skin beneath is as soft looking and pink as a baby's cheek. The pink stands in sharp contrast to the skin of the shaft. Liam's cock isn't all that dark; he doesn't tan in the buff but still the shaft is much darker than the skin beneath the retracted foreskin.

The foreskin slides easily over Liam's cock. Matt tugs it forward, stretching it past the crown. Liam makes a soft noise in the back of his throat.

"Brah, did I hurt you?"

Liam shakes his head. He steps closer, pressing his side to Matt's, who continues the gentle stroking of his friend's cock. Matt reaches around Liam's head, cups his cheek and turns his face towards him. He kisses him. Their lips barely touch. Liam's lips are parted ever so slightly. He's breathing hard already. It's only as he cums that Liam presses his lips firmly against Matt's.

Matt savors the heat of Liam's cum on his belly. It's warmer than the water against his back. As the tension leaves Liam's body, he stops stroking and gently squeezes his friend's cock. Their lips are still pressed together.

Matt breaks the kiss, raises his hand to his mouth and licks it clean. He uses his fingers to wipe the cum off his belly, eats it, eyes locked on Liam's. His own cock throbs.

"Do you want me to do, uh, something?" Liam whispers.

"Yeah, very much, brah." He kisses his friend and then pulls him to his chest. "But not here, later. When you're ready and don't need to ask." He steps back and smiles at his friend, now a de facto lover. "Okay, brah?"

Matt twists the faucet handle and the water tapers off. He steps over the threshold to the changing area. He towels off, stopping to steal kisses from Liam, which doesn't help his dick calm down but he doesn't care. He leans forward, letting his hair hang forward and uses the towel to squeeze the water out. How well this works in regard to drying his hair is debatable but it affords Liam an opportunity for his eyes to roam, unselfconsciously, over Matt's body.

They look at their bundles of clothes and then at each other.

"It's not far. Let's risk it," Liam suggests.

"Fine by me, brah. We walked up here bare-ass, no point in being shy now."