The wind was picking up by the time JC and Donovan loaded the dresser into the moving van. A gust sent Don's baseball cap skittering across the lawn and me running after it. It was late October and cooler, wetter weather was starting to prevail along the coast. The damp chill ate at the marrow in a way it never did in the interior. It wasn't something I'd miss about Vancouver.
There were still about a dozen cardboard crates of kitchenware, tools and other knickknacks that needed loading. I was halfway across the lawn with a box of something when I felt the bottom starting to give.
"Shit—" I swore, before a hand caught and held the bottom flaps shut.
"Easy does it," said Jake Anders as we lowered it down together. JC had brought him along to help with our move and I was suddenly glad he did. I shot him a grateful look, but he was already bending over to pick up the something that had fallen out.
The heat crept into my cheeks as Jake wordlessly handed me the dildo. I didn't remember packing it. In fact, I was pretty sure it wasn't mine.
"Oh look, Don!" hooted JC, pointing. "Your brother brought out his dildo!"
The middle-aged couple walking past on the sidewalk paused only long enough to gape before hurrying past. Donovan, across the driveway, looked faintly embarrassed when I looked at him. I hadn't needed a toy since my brother's fat cock had come along.
It struck me that JC had helped with the packing earlier. Slipping a dildo into the boxes was exactly the sort of prank he'd pull. I yelled at him to shut up as he blithely went on about its size and girth. The language of imminent violence written in Don's demeanor and movements did nothing to deter him.
"Hey JC," Jake called, placing a restraining grip on Don's shoulder. How the heck had he moved so fast? He'd been standing right next to me a second ago. "You think you could get me that roll of tape you were using earlier? We got to fix this up."
JC made to protest, but one look at Jake and he thought better of it. He saluted cheekily instead, and sauntered into the house.
Jake and JC's relationship had never been well defined, though theirs was clearly more than friends. This was surprising, since Jake was a thirty-something psychiatrist with the kind of average looks you wouldn't think twice about if you passed him on the street. In group settings he could be self-effacing to the point where you forgot he was even there. But then, when you did notice him, whether because he'd asked a particularly astute question or because he was assessing you with his mild, indeterminate-coloured eyes, you'd realize all of a sudden how carefully he'd been listening. Calmly reliable and perfectly unassuming, Jake seemed to know how to rein in JC's worst excesses, something none of his past lovers had ever been able to achieve.
Kicking back with a beer on the old sofa later that evening, I made a point of asking JC about his relationship with Jake. Don was working his final shift, leaving the cleared-out house to the two of us. The sofa was pretty much the only piece of furniture we'd decided to leave behind, though even that had been a hard choice. Its busted seams were full of memories.
When I asked about Jake, JC knit his brow and put his arms behind his head. To my surprise, his reply was devoid of his usual joshing. "I told Jake from the get go that I wasn't boyfriend material, and he said he was cool with it. But I know he wants more. And seeing you two... I think we're going to have to talk about it after I get back from the Caribbean. Might be time I settled."
"Wow," I murmured. "You? Settled?"
JC grinned, "I know. Shocking, eh?"
"You love him?"
He shrugged and sighed. "All I'm sure about is that I want to make him happy, 'cause when he's happy, I'm happy. And when we're both happy, the sex is fucking amazing." JC laughed and pulled me close. "You know what this means, right?"
"No, but I bet you're going to tell me."
"You and Don might just be my last fling."
"In that case we'd better make it a good one, eh?"
"I like it this way. Don's been my biggest fantasy since before I even knew how to touch myself. And you, well... you were my first." He ran a big toe up my leg.
"That reminds me." I got up and took him by the hand. "Come on, I want to show you something."
Leading him down into the basement, I switched on the naked bulb and opened the locked closet I'd kept all the paintings of Don I couldn't sell. I'd moved them to my new studio in Kelowna, all except for one. I pulled it out.
"Oh wow," JC said in an awed tone of voice.
"You like it?"
"Hell yeah," he breathed. "Hey... This isn't our old watering hole in Lillooet, is it?"
"Yup." I was pleased he'd recognize it.
JC laughed. "That's so awesome! When was this?"
"The summer before last."
"Man. Look at that big hard cock, sticking out of the water like that." He licked his lips. "That face, that body, it's making me hard just looking at it."
"The painting's yours dude," I said with a smile.
"You fucking serious?"
"Yup. Just as long as you don't say it's mine. And if you do, I'll deny it until I die. Enrolment in Mrs. McTavish's life drawing class went through the roof as soon as Donovan started modelling, so plenty of other people have sketched him."
"My lips are sealed," he said, making the zipper motion.
I grinned. "I had to get you something for the dildo."
"Hey, I told you, it wasn't mine!"
I laughed and shook my head. "Right."
JC grinned. "Hey, maybe it's Don's."
"No way. As if he's ever bottomed. Or ever will."
He ruffled my hair. "I think he'll come around sooner than you think."
