The Coffee Shop Pt. 04

"All's fair in love and war," Andy said smiling, seeming to have read my mind. Actually, it wasn't all that difficult for him to have figured out what I was probably thinking. I'm sure the look of disbelief and disappointment on my face, when Andy removed only his right running shoe, was abundantly clear. My annoyance melted away in a few heartbeats, especially after Andy put on his best 'sad puppy dog eyes', and looked at me mournfully. I couldn't help but smile at him as I walked over to him and held him close. A few chuckles drifted up out of my throat. Andy hugged me back, and chuckled along with me, as I kissed him soundly on the lips.

Andy pulled his head back, breaking our kiss yet again. He shifted his weight to his right foot and kicked off his left running shoe. He looked down at me for a second before he planted a firm moist kiss on my lips. Before I could respond though he ended the kiss by pulling his head back. "Both," he said, and quickly kissed me again. This time though he let his lips linger on mine for a good minute or so before he pulled his head back away from me. "Boots," he said as he looked down at me and smiled at me.

"Huh?" I asked stupidly. I was enjoying Andy's kisses far too much to pay much mind to what he was saying.

"Both boots," he said and looked at me.

"What?" I asked still not understanding what he was referring to. (Hey, when I'm in Andy's arms and kissing him, conversation isn't exactly my number one priority. I much prefer to enjoy the contact of his firm skin, the velvet softness of his lips, the tenderness of his touch, and the wonderful aromas of his body. The last thing on my mind is to ask him how his day was!)

"I just gave you two kisses, Texas," Andy whispered to me. "So you have to take off both of your boots now."

"My boots?" I replied still a bit dazed. "Oh, yeah my boots, sure." I agreed as I slipped them off. These were well worn black cowboy boots and very easy to step out of. I didn't need my hands to slip them off. All I needed to do was press the heel of one boot next to the toe of the other boot and pull my leg up and out of the boot. The second boot quickly joined the first boot that was now lying on the floor. I snuggled up to Andy again and planted a firm hard kiss on his lips, pressing firmly against him. I held my lips against his for a few seconds, and then broke of the kiss. "Now your jeans, dear heart," I said to him.

Andy unbuttoned his jeans as he looked over at me. He unzipped his fly and slipped his jeans down past his hips. (Unlike me, Andy was not wearing a belt in his jeans.) Andy refrained from pushing his jeans down any further than that, though. He looked at me coyly as he wiggled his hips about for a few seconds. Gravity took over and his jeans thumped down onto the bathroom floor. So now we were even. We were both standing there in only our underwear and socks. Six more kisses, and we were both nude. (Do I really have to describe those last six kisses? They were as wonderful if not more, than the first few, and I think I'll leave it at that.)

We climbed into the Jacuzzi, and since Andy was nearest the taps he turned them on. As the hot relaxing water started to cover my legs, and lower torso I let out a long sigh of delight. This was going to feel so wonderful, especially after the long hard week I'd put in at work. Andy joined me in letting out long heartfelt signs and groans of joy as the water slow rose up covering more of our bodies. As I sat there with my eyes closed luxuriating in the feeling of the hot soothing water covering me, a question bubbled up to the surface of my mind.

"Hey dear heart, mind if I ask you something?" I said to Andy as I cracked my eyes open to look at him.

"Ask away, as long as it's not about work," Andy answered, as he slowly open his eyes and looked at me. "What's on your mind, Texas?"

"Actually that is what I wanted to ask you about," I said to him as I stretched out my arms above my head before plunging them back into the steaming hot water. The water was now just below the level of my nipples, and boy did it feel fantastic. It felt so good that it almost made me forget what it was that I wanted to ask Andy. I had to think for a moment to recover my train of thought. 'That's the second time tonight that you've called me 'Texas'," I said to him as I recalled those wandering thoughts back into my head. "What's with that, anyway? You know perfectly well I'm not from Texas. I'm as Canadian as you are, Andy."

"Do you mind me calling you 'Texas'?" He asked me, while managing to avoid answering my question. "I won't call you that if you don't want me to." Andy turned away from me as he reached over and flipped the taps off. The water level was just covering the base of my neck now. I guessed that he figured that was high enough.

"I don't mind it at all," I replied, as I let the soothing heat of the hot water soak into my skin and muscles. "I'd just like to know why."

"Well, it's my pet name for you," he said sweetly, with a half grin on his face. "You call me 'dear heart', and I want to call you 'Texas'."

"Okay," I said to him. "I think that's very sweet of you. I'd still like to know why you chose that name, though. I told you why I like to call you 'dear heart' after all."

Andy stuck out his tongue at me, took a deep breath and ducked his head under the water! I was so surprised that I wasn't sure what to do. I sat there stunned as I waited for him to come up for air. He had to eventually. I could wait, and while I waited I came up with a plan of action.

After a couple of minutes Andy surfaced. I splashed him. I slapped my hands down hard on the water and sent a small wave of it over towards his head. He blinked at me in surprise and before he could start to retaliate I splashed him again. I kept at it, splashing his as continuously as I could. Eventually though he managed to retaliate, and after about five minutes of warfare we called it a draw. It was silly and childish and we both enjoyed ourselves immensely. Sometimes, it's fun to be a kid again.

As we let the water settle back down, I looked over at Andy and chuckled softly to myself. If anyone had told me that I'd be spending part of my Victoria Day weekend in a Jacuzzi with a Mountie, both of us nude and splashing in the water like two overgrown kids, I'd have had only two questions for that person:

1. What HAVE you been smoking?

2. May I have some?

Andy reached over and pressed some type of button to turn on the water jets and the bubbles of air in the Jacuzzi. After a few seconds of that I figured that asking Andy about my pet name could wait a while longer. He and I spent the next thirty minutes or so, enjoying the water massage. It was so leisurely and relaxing that it made me wish I had one in my home. We were as wrinkled as a couple of prunes by the time we climbed out of the Jacuzzi. We were certainly relaxed though, and there wasn't a sore muscle between us. The only unpleasant part of the entire experience was having to clean up the spilled water on the bathroom floor. It took about ten minutes, even with both of us working on it. We agreed to hold any future navel battles in the swimming pool.

The house was warm so we decided to lounge about in just our bathrobes, after we had toweled each other dry. We cuddled up on the living room couch and settled in for a good long snuggle. We kissed a bit, we held each other close and we chatted about how nice this country house was. The conversation soon tapered off. I laid my head on Andy's left shoulder and my thoughts drifted back to Andy's pet name for me. "Come on, dear heart, tell me, why Texas?" I asked Andy softly. I was still curious about his choice of that pet name for me.

Andy took a deep breath and then let out a long soft sigh before he spoke. "Why indeed, Texas," he said and sighed again before he continued speaking. "Over these past few months I've come to think of you as a star shining in the heavens just for me. A lone star. Texas is known as the lone star state, so it seemed somehow right to me." He sighed slowly again. "I know, it sounds kind of silly, but that's how I think of you." He took his right hand and carefully cupped my face with it. Slowly Andy raised and turned my face towards his. He looked down at me, those soft warm doe brown eyes looking deep into the well of my soul. "Besides," he said as he slowly smiled oh so tenderly at me. "You certainly dress the part, at least when you're not at work." Andy pulled my head towards him and planted a soft and tender, yet firm kiss on my lips. I totally relaxed and let myself enjoy it.

"It isn't at all silly," I assured him. "If anything, I'm flattered that you think of me that way. I might not be a real cowboy, but if I can be a cowboy in your heart as well as my own, that's all that matters to me. Thank you, dear heart." I snuggled up close to Andy and hugged him firmly as I kissed his chest through the bathrobe. He smelled so good. He hugged me back just as firmly.

Other than that, there wasn't anything remarkable or all that interesting to tell about our Friday night together. We spent the evening talking and watching a bit of television. When we went to bed we decided to use the bedroom that Andy had picked. It was warm, wonderful a bit on the wild side, but we did not consummate our 'marriage'. We talked about it, but neither of us felt it was the 'right time' for that.

Saturday morning we slept in late, dragging ourselves out of bed for breakfast at about eleven o'clock. The only reason we got up was because we were both hungry as hell. (Hungry for food, not for each other. Well, we were always hungry for each other, but you have to eat SOMETIME don't you?) The day was uneventful. We explored the house, except for the locked rooms. We were surprised to find a recreation room in the basement with a bar, a pool table a sofa and several chairs. In addition there was a laundry room, and two more unlocked rooms that seemed to be used for storage. This seemed more like a country mansion, than the simple country house that I had been expecting. Clearly Andy's friend was well off, to say the least.

When we were done exploring the house, we headed back to the living room and we talked, a lot . We discussed everything from sports to our marriage. We discovered many differences in our opinions, and our interests. For example, I enjoyed watching professional rodeo on TNN, while Andy preferred to watch professional wrestling. We agreed to disagree. I teased him about professional wrestling being fake, and he teased me about watching rodeo only for the cowboy butts. (As if I could deny that. Any self respecting gay man would watch rodeo for the cowboy butts. You'd have to be dead three years not to!) I suppose the Saturday I described sounded rather dull and uninteresting, and to anyone other than Andy and myself it probably was. We enjoyed it though, because we had each other, and we enjoyed each other's company. To quote from a Clint Black song, "Love's not just something that we're in, it's something that we do." I think that about sums it up nicely.

Andy cooked a wonderful meal on Saturday evening. We had steaks and potatoes, with a wonderful salad. As I've said before, I'm not much in the kitchen, but I helped out where I could. At least I provided a good dessert. (Talk about a double meaning! I was, of course, referring to the chocolate cake that I'd bought the day before. That is what I was referring to, really! Okay, so don't believe me. You're just jealous, because I have Andy and you don't. So there!) The odd thing though, is that Andy insisted that we dress up for dinner. I thought that rather strange, but since I could not think of a good reason not to, I went along with his request. Actually, Andy used that 'sad puppy dog eye' look of his on me to get me to go along with his request. He insisted that I wear the older worn suit of mine.

I arrived in the dinning room wearing a double breasted two piece gray pinstriped suit of mine that was getting a bit threadbare around the crotch. (Why do suits always wear out there first?) The jacket, was double breasted with a total of six buttons across the suit in roughly the pattern of a large 'V'. The lowermost two buttons was where the suit was buttoned to close it. (As anyone who has worn a double breasted suit will tell you, there is a second button on the inside that you have do up, and this button as well was at the lowermost level.) The upper breast pocket was empty, as were the two lower flapped pockets. The jacket did not have a vent in the back, which meant that the tail of the jacket draped over my butt smoothly. The pants had four pockets, two front side slash pockets, and two back welt pockets, both of which had button through closures. The pant legs were cuffed. A light powder blue long sleeved dress shirt with a button down collar and a bright red silk tie with tiny white dots completed my outfit. Even though we were inside the house Andy requested that I wear dress shoes. So, I put on my plain black dress shoes, which matched the plain black leather belt with it's simple gold buckle that I wore in my suit pants. All in all I looked pretty good, I thought. Andy enthusiastically confirmed my opinion when he saw me. I spun around a full three hundred and sixty degrees to give Andy an eyeful of me. He responded by giving me a great big strong hug and a sexy kiss on my lips. I guess that made dressing up worth it. I had to admit, though, that I felt sort of naked without my cowboy hat or boots. I took a couple of steps back away from Andy so that I could get an eyeful of his attire. Without my even asking him, Andy spun around in a circle to allow me to look him over from every side.

Andy was a knockout. (What else would you expect with a hunk like him?) He was wearing a medium brown two piece double breasted pinstripe suit, which fit him very well. The jacket tapered down from his broad shoulders to his slim waist and then flared out just a bit to cover his pants. The jacket, which did not have a vent in the back, ended at just below the crotch of Andy's suit pants, which meant that Andy's butt was completely covered by that jacket. (Oh what I would have given for X-ray vision just then! I didn't need that though. I'd find out what Andy's suit pants and his butt looked like eventually. I just had to be a little patient.) The jacket style was a little bit different from mine. It had an upper breast pocket, and two lower flapped pockets, but the pattern of the six buttons was slightly different. Instead of being in a 'V' like mine, the buttons were arranged so that the lower four formed a square, and the uppermost two buttons were off at a sixty degree angle, to the right and to the left of the middle two buttons. This meant that there were two buttons to do up on the left side of the jacket, when the jacket was closed. Andy was wearing a light cream coloured long sleeve dress shirt with a button down collar. I know the shirt was long sleeved because the cuffs of the shirt peeked out from beneath the arms of the suit jacket. A dark chocolate brown plain silk tie completed his outfit. He too was wearing shoes. A pair of plain dark brown leather shoes. I took it for granted that he was probably wearing some type of brown belt in his pants. (Something else that I would enjoy confirming, I was sure.) Andy looked very handsome. He was unquestionably a major league suit stud, as he stood there in the dinning room waiting for me. (In my opinion, Andy looked good in anything, even his grungiest jeans and T-shirt, but I'm not exactly objective when it comes to Andy.)

So there we were sitting down in the dinning room just the two of us, enjoying a quiet evening with a home cooked meal. With the candles and the low lighting it was a romantic and touching meal. (It reminded me of our first blind date, the one that Steven and Jack had arranged at my apartment. A most pleasant memory.) Andy was right. Dressing up, even if we were just staying in to eat was most appropriate in this case. Anything else would have wrecked the mood of the evening. The meal was long and wonderful. I enjoyed myself, and there is no question in my mind that Andy did as well. At the conclusion of the meal, chocolate cake and coffee, Andy suggested a leisurely stroll through the back yard. I readily agreed. We stood up from the table, and Andy started to empty out the pockets of his clothes, carefully placing the contents on the table. I looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

"I don't want to lose anything outside," Andy said in answer to my unspoken question. "It's kind of dark outside and it would be easy to lose my keys or change. If you're smart you'll do the same. We can leave the back door unlocked."

I shrugged my shoulders in agreement as I proceeded to empty out the pockets of my clothes. It took only a minute or so. We headed outside into the cool evening air. While it was true that the snow was long since gone, the evenings were still cool even during the last week or so of May. We kept out jackets on and buttoned up. Slowly, smoothly and easily we walked aimlessly about the large backyard. I leaned against Andy, with my right arm about his waist. Andy leaned slightly on me and placed his left arm loosely about my waist. The late evening sky was clear, as the sun started to slowly sink out of sight. Soon the stars would start to appear in the twilight sky, to join the full bright moon in lighting our way. Eventually we wandered over to the in ground swimming pool. Andy, ever the gentleman, held the gate open for me, with a flourish. (I guessed that he had unlocked the gate and left it that way.) As I passed by him, he bowed before me, his face wreathed in smiles. I couldn't help but chuckle at the big production he was giving such a simple event. Still grinning, Andy followed me into the enclosed area of the swimming pool.

As Andy walked about the pool area, I wandered over to the edge of pool and squatted down to dip the fingers of my left hand into the water.

"So how's the water?" Andy asked he walked over to where I was squatting by the edge of the pool.

"It's feels nice and warm," I answered as I swirled my fingers about in the water. I looked up at Andy and grinned. "It really is too bad that we didn't bring any swimming trunks, you know," I said to him and grinned.

Andy swatted down next to me, and his grin got bigger as he spoke. "Oh, I wouldn't say that." Andy took my right hand in his and stood up. Gently he pulled me up to stand next to him. Slowly he wrapped his arms about my waist and pulled me towards him. Andy lowered his head down and moved his lips towards mine. I gladly moved my head towards his so as to bring my lips up next to his in the unspoken request for a kiss. It was long, deep and slow. A gentle kiss that belied the power and passion that flowed between the two of us as our lips pressed together. (Oh BOY, did I enjoy that!) After several minutes of keep and profound kissing we parted as easily and gently as we had started.

"God knows I don't deserve a man like you," Andy whispered against the lump in his throat. "Thank you for loving me, Texas."

"Grow old along with me, dear heart," I replied, as I quoted the engraving on our wedding bands. I was speaking against a lump of my own. These few simple lines, held much more meaning for the two of us than an entire book of love poems.

Andy smiled down at me and his eyes twinkled as he slowly unwrapped his arms from about my waist and placed them on my shoulders, one hand on each of my shoulders. He suddenly shoved me away, while crying out "Surf's up!" I suddenly found myself falling backward! A second or two later there was a very loud splash as I made a most undignified entrance into the swimming pool. I was so surprised that at first I could not believe what Andy had done. It took a few seconds for it to register on my bemused brain that Andy had unceremoniously shoved me into the swimming pool, while still fully clothed! Instinctively I had held my breath during my less than graceful entrance in to the pool. With a few swift strokes I made my way back up to the surface of the water and opened my eyes. There I was treading water in the deep end of the swimming pool, wearing a suit and tie. It was unusual to say the least! Bizarre would have been a better word. I turned my head about and quickly located Andy, still high and dry, standing a few feet away from me. My first thought was to see if I could splash him in retaliation.