Page 68 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“Handsome, smart, funny, and in love with me? What more could I ask for?”
“Oh, I can think of a few things,” Joel said bitterly. He grabbed his coat from the rack, pressed another kiss to Casey’s mouth, patted Bruno’s head, and was outside before Casey could plan a new assault on his commitment not to come to the party.
“Text me,” he called out the open door.
Casey lingered with Bruno as long as he could, not eager to return home and face his mother, or possibly his father. At least Aunt Courtney would be there soon to pull some focus.
Besides, they always had to play happy family when there were witnesses around.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hey, Pop.” Joelstepped into his father’s room at the nursing home with some measure of trepidation. He’d been walking a razor’s edge of insane joy and utter terror all morning, and he knew there was no one better suited to tip him over to the terror side than his father.
“About time,” his father barked, frowning. Christmas carols played from the small speaker Joel had set up for him to use with an old iPod he’d scored for more than half off at McKay’s. “What’s wrong with your face?”
Joel touched his sore chin. He hoped whisker burn healed quickly. That was another thing porn didn’t get even close to the reality of: the pleasure-pain of prolonged kissing with a stubble-faced man.
“Get in a fight?”
“With a tree, yeah.” Joel moved his finger to the scrape on his cheek from the tree and shrugged. “Some branches got me good.”
His father narrowed his eyes, but he said nothing.
“Brought your Egg McMuffin.” Joel held out the bag.
“There’s something wrong with you today,” his father said after he’d chewed and swallowed his first bite. “You look…” He leered. “You got laid?”
Joel swallowed and shook his head. He wasn’t going to let his pop taint what he’d done with Casey. Not now. Not ever.
“Finally found a pussy willing to spread its lips for you?”
Joel wrinkled his nose. “Pop, could you be more crude?”
“Faggot,” his father hissed.
“And I’m out.” Joel backed toward the door, waving goodbye.
There was a time he’d have stayed to try to calm his father, but he’d learned over the years that the best course of action was retreat when his dad started up with the name-calling.
“Pussy!” his father yelled after him as he turned and made his way into the hallway.
He grimaced as he ran into Katie as she approached his pop’s door with a tiny plastic cup of meds. “Bad day,” he said to her, shuddering as his father screamed more obscenities from his bed.
“Aren’t they all with him?” Katie asked gently, putting her hand on his arm. “You do more than you should for him. More than he deserves.” Her eyes went wide, and she flushed bright red. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was out of line.”
Joel huffed as Pop’s endless curses still rained against his back. “It’s true.”
He walked stiffly out to his truck and sat with the heater blasting, staring up at the nursing home building, thoughts roaring through his head like a storm.
“It sounds likethings are progressing quite fast,” Ann said, though her calm voice resonated with her usual lack of judgment on Casey’s choices. “You sound confident and, dare I say it, happy?”
Casey lolled on the soft guest bed he’d claimed as his space when he’d first arrived home. The windows beside the bed looked out on the lake and, if he squinted against the morning sun on the water, he could see Joel’s mobile home on the other side.
“I know it seems fast, but I’ve known him forever. I’ve loved him since the beginning.”
“I didn’t say your feelings were fast, Casey. Just the progress of the relationship. You’re talking about returning to Knoxville now, something you were adamantly against before, and you’re discussing living with him in his home.” Ann hesitated. “I’m not against it, mind you. It’s simply, quite objectively, fast.”
Casey laughed. “It is, I guess. But I don’t want to be away from him. And Knoxville is where he needs to be. He has his family’s store and his father to take care of.”
