Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

to the cruise schedule, he and Trey would still be filling in next weekend. If Trey could stay. He realized he'd never asked Trey how long he could stick around.
    He stepped back inside and made his way to Trey's elbow. "Here. Coffee."
    Trey took the cup, downed a big gulp and then glared at him. "It's been so long that you forgot I take milk in it?"
    Josh grinned. "Not forgot. There is none. We need to make a shopping trip. That is, if you're staying more than a day or two." He wouldn't admit that he was holding his breath, waiting for the answer.
    "Of course. I told you I took vacation time. I have to head back next Sunday."
    The sigh of relief Josh let out was maybe a little too loud. Trey frowned at him. "Hey, we may not be best buds any more, but I wouldn't leave you in the lurch with this." He gestured around the store with the lidded cup and then took another sip. "Damn, that'll put hair on my chest." A sudden dark expression flitted across his face, but he added, "I guess caffeine is caffeine," and turned to help a customer.
    Josh put Trey's sandwich on the glass countertop well out of elbow range and retreated to a corner to eat his own. His emotions were in an unfamiliar turmoil. Trey was staying. That was the main thing. But man, that line about "not best buds any more" hurt more than he'd expected. Why was Trey pretty obviously pushing him away? The easy familiarity they'd had was missing, and without it Josh wondered if he was reading too much into every word and expression of Trey's. That crack about hair on his chest. Was there some kind of message about masculinity there? He watched Trey bantering cheerfully with a woman who was trying to decide about a ring in the glass case. Trey smiled and bent his head next to her blond one. Were they flirting? She was pretty enough, in a cheap kind of way.
    Josh gritted his teeth. It wasn't as though Josh himself hadn't dated plenty of blond bimbo types in his day. He should just shut down the bi half of his nature and play straight like Trey for a week. Admire the pretty girls. He could make some kind of joking comment about the woman later, about the way she brushed her tits not too subtly against Trey's arm.
    Trey was looking good, pretty damned fit. That arm of his had plenty of muscle. In fact Trey had grown up to be fucking hot, and even better-looking than at seventeen. No wonder that bitch in heat wanted to rub up against him and...
    Josh choked on the last bite of his sandwich and turned away. No, no, no, no. He was absolutely not going to start noticing Trey that way. He never had before and damned if he would start now. A little voice inside him reminded Josh that the last time he saw Trey, Josh didn't know he was bi. He wasn't noticing any boys that way. Now he was free to notice.
    He squashed that voice with the fact that he of all people knew why Trey would never welcome any kind of sexual advance from a guy. What happened to Felix had been awful for Josh, but for some reason it had completely devastated Trey. He remembered the day they found out about it. Josh had cried himself out, but it had been Trey who had been sheet white, Trey who, when Josh finally manned up enough to stop sobbing on his shoulder, had walked to the edge of the old slab and puked his guts up. Trey had become stiff and cold for months, rejecting anything even marginally gay with fierce finality. He'd been a different person from then on. Josh had wondered, in his darker moments, if Felix wasn't the first boy Coach had put his hands on. But he'd never dared ask Trey about it.
    Josh's eyes involuntarily tracked to the glass front of a nearby china cabinet. He could see Trey in the wavery reflection, laughing with the woman as he rung up her purchases. The blonde was working it, tossing her hair, laying a hand on Trey's arm. She had all the moves.
    It took a moment for Josh to realize Trey was calling to him.
    "Yeah? What do you need?"
    "This gorgeous lady," Trey tipped his head toward the blonde, "has just about bought out the store and she needs help carrying things out to her car. Do you want to do that, or take over the register and let me be the pack mule for her?"
    Oh no, she doesn't get Trey hanging around her. "I'll do it," he said hastily. "Even if you do look more like a mule."
    It turned out the woman was an equal opportunity flirt. She took her time pointing out her purchases to Josh, taking his elbow to guide him over to the little desk and the rocking chair.