Page 12 of Out of the Storm

“Only fair.” Rustling of pages. “Oh, wow! Shadow Ridge! Not too far from me. I wonder why we haven’t run into each other before. I bike past your house sometimes.”

Jeffhadseen him before. He just hadn’t known that the fine-looking man who liked to zoom through Niles every day on a bicycle was the same man who ran WKBR. A crystal-clear image of Gary’s ass in bike shorts flitted into Jeff’s mind, and he shook his head a couple of times like an Etch A Sketch, trying to clear it, but it was useless.God, that man was beautiful. Silky-looking brownhair, slightly wavy. Bright-green eyes. Thick black-framed specs that were the nerdiest fucking choice of eyewear on the planet.

“Hello?” Gary said.

And, of course, that low, velvety, radio-ready voice.

“Sorry.” Jesus Christ, he wasnotinebriated enough to let himself masturbate to Gary Goddamn Graham. Again. “I’m... tired.”

“Me too. I’ll see you Saturday, Billy McCoy.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

As soon as Jeff replaced the receiver, he reached up to massage his temples, trying to force the lingering Gary-related thoughts from his mind. Gary was too cute, too nerdy, toonicefor him to like. Nothing could or should happen between them. Because Gary’d end up hurt and then Jeff would feel like shit.

Nope.

No way in hell he was letting himself like Gary Goddamn Graham.

Chapter Three

Gary

Sitting on the brown suede swivel chair in Mel’s father’s home office, Gary reached out to touch the stucco-textured wall and pushed. The chair began to spin in a circle, and he pulled his knees close to his chest as he stomach lurched from the chair’s motion.

“Mel, I think I might vomit,” he warned.

“Maybe you should stop spinning, then,” Mel said from the love seat across the room as she filed her nails, her legs resting on the mustard-yellow cushions.

“But if I’m spinning, it’s much easier for me to pretend that the centripetal force is the reason I feel like I might lose my lunch.”

“Uh-oh. Did one of your students proposition you again?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, one of my studentshasbeen stalking my office hours and not because she’s concerned with limits, either. I mean, clearly she has no personal limits, so why would she be interested in the mathematical concept?” Gary let his legs fall and stopped the chair with his feet. He curled his toes in the plush carpet. “But, no, that isn’t it.”

“Okay, so, what?”

“Remember Billy from the food court?”

Mel paused and looked up at him with a curious expression. “Really handsome custodian?”

“Right. Well, his real name is Jeff, and I’m interviewing him on Saturday.” Gary proceeded to tell Mel the story of how Jeff had called into the station to correct him for spreading misinformationon weather patterns. When he was finished, he scrunched up his nose and said, “And the worst part is, I like him.”

Despite the fact that his body had stopped spinning, his mind was still turning like a top.

“Oooooo,” Mel said, raising her eyebrows a couple of times. “Fun.”

“No, not fun. I hate liking people. We’re not in New York. We’re in Ohio. In ourthirties. Chances of him being into men? Probably zilch.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m pretty sure the only other available gay man in Trumbull County evenremotelyclose to our age is Kevin Hall, and we both know how that ended.”

“He wasn’t right for you.”

“I was clingy as cling wrap. No, worse, I was flypaper,” Gary said, cringing. “God, Mel, I basically smothered him to death!”

“He’s notdead.”

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