Page 19 of Out of the Storm

Afterward, while they walked toward the kitchen, Gary poked his head in the bathroom, which was probably the worst room in the house, featuring a chipped sink, light-blue floor tile, and ugly flowery wallpaper that was starting to peel. Throughout this sad tour of what Jeff thought would probably be his forever-bachelor life, Gary seemed... excited, maybe? Or was he trying to mock Jeff with that too-happy facial expression?

Whatever it was, it was cute.

Which was oh-so infuriating. Gary was too Goddamn cute.

Once they were in the kitchen, Jeff set to work on making the coffee, if only to keep himself from obsessing over Gary’s reaction to his house, while Gary continued to scrutinize the room, inspecting the kitchen appliances from the sixties, the weird farm-themed wallpaper, and the permanent stain on the off-white tile floor.

“Do you own the place?” Gary finally asked.

“Oh yeah,” Jeff said,reallyleaning into the sarcasm. “Don’t you love the style?”

“Shyeah, especially the roosters,” Gary said, clearly and thankfully catching on. “Why, your home should be in some sort of magazine.”

“Think I’d put Martha Stewart to shame?”

“Definitely. I’m sure her home looks like crud compared to this.”

With a light chuckle, Jeff leaned back to rest against the counter, and then he and Gary were smiling at each other in a weird kind of way, one that was making Jeff feel like his heart might fucking melt. Finally, the coffee maker beeped, and Jeff forced his eyes away and turned back around so he could pour them each a cup.

“Milk?” Jeff offered, opening the fridge.

“Nah, I like it black.”

“Oh.” He shut the fridge, feeling pleasantly surprised by this insignificant similarity between them for some stupid reason. “Me too.”

Something about the way Jeff said that—as though the fact that they took their coffee the same way was nothing short of miraculous—must have seemed worthy of some light teasing because Gary responded with a smirk.

“Wow, yeah, what a rarity we are,” he said in the most sarcastic voice possible before tacking on, “Black coffee. Couple of weirdos over here.”

Heat rushed to Jeff’s cheeks, and he instinctively held up his coffee cup to try to hide a little while he sampled the oh-so-rare black coffee he and Gary both seemed to enjoy.

Over the next few minutes, neither of them said much while they sipped their coffee, but Jeff knew that he should probably try to make conversation, especially if he ever wanted Gary to talk to him again.

“So...” Jeff sucked on his teeth while he tried to come up with something to say. “What’s... the hardest thing about running the radio station?”

“Hm.” Gary placed his cup on the counter and began tapping his lip with one of his fingers. “No one’s ever asked me that before. Let me think.”

Gary continued totap-tap-taphis plump, pink lips, and Jeff couldn’t help but stare. Gary was... wow. He was handsome, but in this incredibly modest way, like he clearly had no idea howinsanelycute he was, which only made everything worse. And he had this... thiswayof being, like he was both cool and dorky at the same time.

Jeff’s heart started fluttering. Stupid. Ugh, he was so into Gary Goddamn Graham.

“Is it, uh, the hours?” Jeff offered, trying to take his mind off of the slightly upsetting revelation that he liked Gary a whole hell of a lot.

“Nah, maybe... trying to keep everyone entertained. I mean, Ilivefor that, and still, it’s—phew—it’s hard. I’m constantly trying to find interesting topics for my shows, and even when I find them, I struggle to keep the facts straight in my head sometimes. I have . . .” He blew out a long, exaggerated breath. “Boy, I have alotof books.”

Interesting that Gary lived for entertaining people.

“Were you always an entertainer?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty much. See, my mom was sad a lot, especially...” Gary stopped and shook his head. It was like he was trying to catapult some horrible memory right out of it. “Well, she seemed to like when I was silly. At least... when I was little. And, uhm, well, when I was in elementary school, the other kids made fun of me a lot, probably because I was kind of eager to learn and couldn’t manage to hide the fact that I loved school. Eventually, I figuredout that when I was funny, andespeciallywhen I teased myself, the mean kids left me alone. Mostly. Kind of. Anyway, yeah, those two things combined, I think.”

Taking a sip of his coffee, Jeff let Gary’s words settle in his head. Apparently, nerdy Gary had always been nerdy. Jeff kind of liked picturing him as a kid. He’d probably been pretty cute. Glasses. Button-up shirts. Neatly styled hair. Yeah, little Gary had probably been the poster child for teacher’s pet, especially with that old-people jargon he seemed to like to throw around.“Gee, class today sure was swell!”Jeff had to bite the inside of his bottom lip for a second to keep his burgeoning smile contained. He wondered if they’d have been friends back then. Probably not. Jeff hadn’t been the nicest kid himself. Gary, on the other hand, had probably been theswellestkid around.

Jeff was still picturing little Gary when Gary’s next comment pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Now, well, I like being someone everyone can rely on. You know, for news and weather and conversation. I like that everyone knows me.”

“You like that pretty much everyone likes you, I bet. Everyone needs you, too.”

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