Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

didn't?"
    "Not till Basic. All those naked fellows. I'd figured I was just a late bloomer, and that was why I wasn't interested in girls. But then, damn, fit young men with no clothes on in the showers and in the barracks. When I wasn't exhausted and puking from all the running, or scared out of my wits from the chiefs yelling at us, I was thinking about ice-cubes and dead worms and anything I could to not spring wood every other minute. Even I couldn't deny it after that."
    "I knew. From the time I was twelve. I had a... thing for this Mexican kid who came to pick the avocados. And half a dozen other boys after him."
    "Did you ever do anything with them?"
    "With guys you mean?" Daniel glanced around again and slid a little closer, his mouth near Jacob's ear, his tone muted and private. "Not really. Jerking off with some of the boys from school a couple of times. I think most of them were normal, though. They just liked to jerk off in company."
    "No one special?"
    "There was this one guy. Stuart. Lived down the road from us. We fooled around some. Necking. Hands. Not even as much as..." Daniel barked a soft short laugh that had nothing to do with amusement, and then quieted quickly. "His dad caught us, the third time we went at it in his barn. A few weeks later he was in the Army, and I was in the Navy. The military was going to make men out of us."
    "Do you..." Do you miss him? "Do you hear from him at all?"
    "No. He wasn't that kind of friend. Anyway by the time his dad was done with us, I think Stu went running back to the normal side. He'll do his service, go home, get married and have a bunch of kids. Compared to his dad, mine was almost reasonable."
    "So your family knows."
    "In a don't-think-about-it way. My dad got mad, then he got cold, then he told me I had to get myself straight and serve my country if I wanted to be welcome back home. Of course that was before Pearl, or my mom might have had more to say about sending another son to war. My next-older brother had already joined up. My dad is hoping I'll come out of the Navy normal. My mom is pretending I never was queer in the first place. She sends me little stories about what pretty Maria Caroletti is doing."
    "She wants you to get married."
    "Of course. And give her more grandkids."
    Jacob said tentatively, "But you won't?"
    "Make some nice girl really miserable? No." Daniel shrugged. "I don't tell her that. Let her have the fantasy. After all it won't matter if I never come back."
    "Don't say that!" Jacob punched Daniel's shoulder hard with a closed fist. "Don't ever say that. You hear me?"
    Daniel stared at him for a moment and then nodded. "Okay, Trip." He paused. "You too, then. You promise me you'll make it through."
    Their eyes met, locked and then Daniel gave a soft laugh that was almost a giggle. "God, sounds stupid, right?"
    It sounded vitally necessary, but maybe yeah, stupid too. Jacob let himself relax back against Daniel's arm, leaning in a little more heavily. "What do you want to do when the war is over? Will you go back to the farm?" Daniel had talked now and then about the family business, raising fancy produce for the restaurant market. He hadn't seemed like his heart was in it, but the way he talked you could tell he loved his family.
    "I don't think about that. I stopped looking that far ahead after... after a while. This war comes first. We have to win it, and it ain't gonna be easy, Jake."
    For once Jacob didn't protest the nickname. He could hear the tightness of Daniel's tone that belied the light words. "I know that."
    "Maybe you do. But a lot of the new guys don't. They come on board thinking that just because we're in it now the war is practically won. My dad used to talk about the Great War, and how that was the same. He and his buddies went over there thinking they would wrap it up fast and come home. But the Germans were tough. Maybe tougher than us. We won 'cause there were more of us. And now we're fighting them again. And the Japs are even worse than the Krauts. We're not gonna be home for Christmas."
    "We'll win it."
    "Have to. No other choice." Daniel looked down at his hands, clasped loosely on his knees. "Gotta kill them and keep killing them until they go belly up. No other way." He began rubbing his thumbs as if they ached.
    Jacob didn't plan it. Reaching out was instinctive. He took Daniel's fingers between his own to massage them. Daniel made a soft sound of pleasure, and then abruptly drew his hands back.