Page 23 of Stand By Me

Clay raised his bottle with a smile when their gazes met.

The bartender put his beer in front of him just then, and a few seconds later, Mario was sliding into the seat on the opposite side of the small table from Clay.

"Hey."

"Hey." Clay tilted his head, still looking at him intently, and Mario took a sip of his beer to hopefully stave off a blush.

"I apologize again for not texting you sooner." Clay leaned back in his seat. "I hadn't had the greatest week and I didn't want it to affect—" he gestured between them "—this."

Mario was taken aback, both by the apology and the honesty, so for a few seconds he didn't know what to say.

"Did something happen?" he finally asked. "I mean, if you want to talk about it."

Clay shook his head.

"Not really, no. A few things piled up, but it will be fine. It's already getting better," he added, giving him a lazy smile.

Mario remembered that smile from years ago, when he'd first realized he might be feeling something more than a hero worship towards Ben's older brother as he'd watched him flirt with a guy at the community pool.

"And how was your week?" Clay asked, pulling Mario back to the present.

I spent the majority of my time thinking about you.But that probably wasn't a correct response, even if it was true.

"It was good. I had a weekend off, and I spent it with my family. It was my father's sixtieth birthday, so you can imagine the de Silva clan invasion."

"Sixtieth? Wow, how the time flies." Clay took a sip of his beer and looked to the side for a second. "Tell your parents I said hi. They were always so nice to me."

For a few years back then, when Mrs. Jackson had still been working two jobs, de Silvas saw more of Clay than of her whenever they'd come pick Mario up or drop him off.

"I will. They always spoke highly of you, too, you know?" Mario gnawed on his lower lip as he stared down at his bottle. "Actually I…"

He hesitated, not sure if he really wanted to get into it—especially on the first date.

"What is it?" Clay prompted, leaning with his elbows on the table.

Mario glanced up at him briefly before lowering his gaze again.Too late to back out now.

"I think they wouldn't have handled my coming out as well as they did, if they didn't… If they didn't know about you."

The silence that fell seemed particularly jarring amongst the surrounding noise of the bar.

When Mario finally gathered enough courage to look up, Clay seemed completely astonished.

"I don't know what to say."

"Nothing to say, really." Mario shrugged, attempting nonchalance. "They always liked you, so when I came out, they didn't have that 'sexual deviant and abomination' picture of a gay guy that so many people have, especially religious folks. They'd already known a nice, hard-working, and reliable guy who happened to be gay, so it made it easier for them to see I can be like that, too."

He was pretty sure his mom used "a role model" at least once to describe Clay, but seeing as they were on a date right now, Mario wasn't going to sharethatbit of the story.

"Wow, that's—" Clay took a long sip of his beer. "Thanks. I had no idea your parents had such a high opinion of me. It means a lot."

Mario suddenly realized, way too late, that maybe it wasn't just Ben who had put Mario's parents, especially his father, on a bit of a pedestal. From what he'd remembered, Clay hadn't had many close friends back then—at least none that Mario had ever seen—so he probably hadn't had anyone else's parents to look up to.

"They were happy to hear that you're back in the States," Mario offered softly. His mom had even told Ben, who was visiting with him at the time, to give their best to Clay, but Mario would bet Ben had never relayed the message.

Clay's smile grew even more. "Do they still have their restaurant?"

"They do. Pops keeps telling everyone he's going to hang up his apron and give everything over to Monica, but I don't see it happening anytime soon."

---