Page 135 of Out of the Storm

“Bored?! How could I be bored? I mean, with you poking my prostate every couple of nights and everything.”

Jeff started laughing, and then Gary was laughing too.

“See?!” Gary said. “Doesn’t that sound weird?”

“Yeah, okay, it’s weird."

“Jeffrey, I could never be bored with you.”

Jeff’s face brightened, his eyes twinkling with happiness while his smile stretched across his cheeks. God, he was beautiful. Jeff was always beautiful. Even when he was sad. But, wow, when he was happy, he wasbreathtaking.

Gary leaned forward, and the two shared a soft kiss.

When they parted, Jeff nuzzled his nose. “Thanks, radio man.”

“Speaking of radio . . .”

Jeff looked up at the clock. “Five minutes ’til showtime.”

So, the two went to the studio. Over the next couple of hours, Gary hosted the show, but Jeff took a couple of calls himself, too. And when Jeff became lost in a conversation with one of the listeners about 1930s musician Buddy Clark, Gary stared in awe. Jeff looked so happy, so excited. He had really opened up ever since the two of them had met back in the Eastwood Mall food court. Seeing Jeff happy would never not make Gary happy too.

When Jeff finished the conversation and disconnected the line, he looked over at Gary and raised a curious eyebrow, probably having noticed Gary staring with a silly look on his face. Gary simply shrugged and mouthed“I love you,”and Jeff, still looking a little perplexed, mouthed it back.

Running the station together was so incredibly fun too. Before ten o’clock, when the show was supposed to end, Jeff and Gary became entrenched in a very enthusiastic but very fake disagreement about the best vegetables to put in vegetable burgers. Listeners in Niles were probably confused, but Gary hoped that maybe they were being sufficiently entertained by their nonsense.

After they signed off for the evening, Jeff stood up to stretch, and Gary practically tackled him with a hug. Lucky, Jeff never seemed bothered by Gary’s sudden and often-intense bouts of clinginess.

“God, I love you,” Gary said, squeezing him. “I love working together.”

“Me too.”

“I know we’re supposed to pick up my new specs tomorrow, but maybe we can put it off a little longer?”

“Orwe could pick them up and keep working together anyway.”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

Jeff started to wriggle about like he was trying to escape Gary’s hug, which was really stinking cute to watch.

“Gare, come on, you’re purposefully making it hard for me to look at you.”

Laughing, Gary relaxed his arms enough so that Jeff could face him properly.

“Let’s keep working together,” Jeff said, looking up at him.

“I mean, yeah, I’d love that, but I think we might need abitmore money. It’d be nice to have an emergency fund. For, you know, tornadoes.”

“Or other more common household emergencies.”

“Or those.”

“Don’t you start teaching in August?”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Would you be able to pick up one more class?”

“Well, sure, in the future. Spring, maybe. But, then, who would run the station? Who would solicit money from our lovely community business owners?”

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