Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

weekend is their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Uncle Ted bought them tickets for a one-week luxury cruise with all the trimmings. The shop assistant was supposed to run the place. But yesterday, not twelve hours after they sailed, the guy got in a serious car accident. He's going to be in hospital for weeks. Aunt Julie called me in a panic, begging me to go watch the place until they could arrange to get back. Uncle Ted called me ten minutes later begging me to call Aunt Julie back and offer to watch the place for the whole week, so her dream trip wouldn't have to be cut short."
    "What did you say?" As if Trey had any doubts. Josh would do anything for Aunt Julie.
    "I said yes, of course. I had vacation saved up and this isn't a busy time for us. Summer session is slow and half the profs are off for the Fourth anyway. The lab is coasting right now. I can take a week off for Aunt Julie"
    "So I still don't see where I come in." Other than living close enough for Josh to show up on his doorstep for a visit and in ten seconds wreck eight years of hard-won indifference.
    Josh leaned toward Trey and gave him the big, pleading eyes that had gotten Trey in trouble so many times. "Please, Trey, you have to help me. I can't do it by myself. There's the store, with customers and selling things that I have no clue what they even are, and it's the holiday weekend so they'll be busy. Then they have a freaking hobby farm, even bigger than the old one. They have a big vegetable garden and chickens and goats for chrissake. And a pony that has hated me for years. C'mon Trey. I need you."
    Crap. No. "I can't. I... I can't get away right now."
    "Please? Last week you told me your boss was threatening to take away your accrued vacation if you didn't take some of it. You said things were slow. It's just for a week."
    Trey cursed himself. Damn his big mouth. "Something has come up." Like my dick. "I really can't."
    Josh stared at him with hurt surprise. Trey was surprised too. When had he ever had the strength to say no to Josh when he begged for something? Not since they were about thirteen anyway. But he had to. Because Trey knew that if he spent a week with Josh now, he would tell him. He would admit to Josh Campbell that he was gay, that he'd always been gay, and that no one else had ever made him feel the way he felt looking at Josh. That would kill even their tenuous long-distance friendship dead right there. No hope in hell of getting past it with their history.
    "Look, Josh. You'll be fine. You can cope for a week, I'm sure. I have a lot to do here with work and all. I'm sorry."
    Josh looked at him, slowly drinking his beer. Trey saw his friend's eyes go dull and disappointed. "Okay, of course you're right. I'll figure something out. Maybe hire one of the locals. I just thought it would be fun, you and me. It was a dumb idea."
    "No, man, it wasn't dumb. I just... I can't right now."
    Josh gave him that familiar, crooked shrug. "Oblivious then. Assuming I could just walk into your life after eight years and expect you to drop everything for me, like we were still best friends." He sat back in his chair, picked up a cookie, and bit into it decisively. "Mm. At least these are still good," he mumbled around the crumbs. "So, I wanted to take a break between the flight and driving out there anyway. I've got some time. Tell me about your nursing home project, the one you were obsessing over. How did it go? Did you figure out how to get your peeping-Tom sensors to tell you when Grandma's shower has been too long?"
    "Hey, it's valuable stuff. If we can catch even one senior with a health crisis through our monitoring system..."
    "I know. I really am interested. It was just the image of you recording octogenarians in the bathroom." Josh kicked his ankle. "We've barely even IM'd in ages. I figured maybe you'd developed a new kink."
    "Senior citizens? Um, no." You don't want to know about my real kinks.
    They chatted casually for the next half hour, about things that hadn't made it into emails. Trey complained about the fact that the sensor manufacturers he worked with all seemed to be based in boring cities like Pittsburgh. Josh talked about how no one else in the lab seemed to clean up after their damned selves and how it was always the most expensive culture ingredients that had the shortest shelf life. They both bitched about traffic and long commutes. Trey won that one just by virtue of living in L.A., where ten miles could take an