Read Online Billy's Bones by Jamie Fessenden - Free Book Online

that?”
    Kevin laughed. “How do you think?”
    Tom thought about it for a second and replied, “Ellen.”
    “No shit. That place is Gossip Central.”
    “Okay. So, yes, I was talking to Tracy. If you’re going to get jealous, I would remind you that I’m gay, and Lee is already sleeping with her.”
    Kevin whipped his left arm at him to give him a sharp jab in the upper thigh with his knuckle.
    “Ow!”
    “Way to be sensitive, asshole.”
    But Tom could tell Kevin wasn’t angry, and it felt good to have a friend he could poke at like this, even if it resulted in a few bruises. When Kevin didn’t pursue it, he said, “So? Don’t pretend you brought it up just to be conversational. Aren’t you going to ask me what we talked about?”
    “I guess it’s not really any of my business.”
    “No. It absolutely is not your business who I talk to or what we talk about.”
    “Okay. That’s cool. I’m sorry I asked.”
    “But you want to know anyway.”
    Kevin hit him again. “For fuck’s sake! Will you just tell me?”
    Tom hesitated, but he knew Kevin wouldn’t want him to sugarcoat it. “Well… she told me two things you probably won’t be happy about.”
    “Shoot.”
    “She thinks you and I are fucking.”
    To his surprise, Kevin just laughed at that. “I’m sure she’d love to watch.”
    “And she told me….” Tom was reluctant to say it, but he forged ahead. “She said that you… didn’t want to have sex with her, after the first few times.”
    Apparently, that was a bigger deal to Kevin than her thinking he was gay. He was silent for a very long time. Tom didn’t prompt him to say anything. He just lay there quietly, listening to Kevin’s breathing. At last Kevin said, “That’s kind of personal. She shouldn’t be spreading it around to people she barely knows.”
    “I agree.”
    Another long silence. Then Kevin took a deep breath and said, “It’s not like I couldn’t get hard when I touched her—”
    “Stop!” Tom lifted himself up on one elbow so he could look down into Kevin’s face. For the second time in a week, they were in bed together, and the desire to lean down and kiss those full, sensual lips was almost overwhelming. But Kevin was looking up at him with a pained expression, and Tom wrestled his desire into submission. Kevin didn’t need Tom to make a pass at him. He needed Tom to understand. “I’m not your therapist. And I’m not your boyfriend. You don’t need to tell me a goddamned thing about what you do or do not do when you’re having sex. Tracy was looking for some kind of validation. She wanted me to tell her that it wasn’t her fault you weren’t… responsive to her. She wanted me to confirm that you were gay so she could convince herself that she was still appealing to straight men. But I am practically a stranger, at least to her, and she had no right to talk about this with me. Sometime, if you want to talk about this as friends, I’ll be willing to listen. But you don’t need to defend yourself to me.”
    Kevin looked up at him with those sleepy hazel eyes and asked, “Will you do something for me?”
    “What?”
    “Will you tell me something about yourself that embarrasses the fuck out of you?”
    Tom had to think about that. For the most part, he didn’t have much in his past, or in his life in general, that particularly embarrassed him. He’d wet the bed until he was nine, but that was ancient history. He wasn’t particularly embarrassed by it. Still, one thing came to mind—something he’d never told anybody. “You swear you won’t tell anyone?”
    “I swear.”
    “When I was at Keene State College, about fifteen or more years ago… I used to hang around in the bathroom at the library.”
    Kevin raised one eyebrow quizzically. “The bathroom?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You mean, for sex?”
    Tom nodded.
    “Dude! You were giving guys head in the bathroom?”
    “Just a few times. I was in my early twenties,” he added, as if that