The Nebraskan Peach Pie Incident

Two days later was Saturday and the long quiet morning gave way to the nail-bitingly long lunch hour before Fitz heard the sweet jingle of B\'s earring come into the library. The relief that flooded through him was immediately replaced by a new wave of anxiety as he wondered what he could possibly say to Brantley that would get them back to his place and shirtless again. B didn\'t talk to him, but just flashed that genuine smile he\'d unveiled in the canned fruit aisle and wandered into the stacks. The only thing that kept Fitzy from going into the back office and jacking off just from knowing that Brantley was in the same building with him was that fact that that would mean he would probably miss a glimpse of him, maybe miss that smile again, which would be tragic. So, he tried to reshelf books and ignore the hard, but the ringing was making it difficult to bend down to the low shelves. He didn\'t get much done.

At 5:50, B checked out a volume of French love poems and a pastry cookbook, which made Fitzy blush, which in turn made Brantley laugh gently at him as he said goodbye. Fitz turned back to the computer to start shutting down and B\'s information was still up on the screen, his address shining up at Fitzy, daring him to do something, anything, now- tonight! So he shut down, locked up and went home to jerk off, shower and change before he risked it all and showed up unannounced at Brantley\'s door.

He stopped off at the General on his way, bought the stuff to make another pie and some condoms. He got to his car and realized he\'d better go back in and buy lube. Mrs. Fredrick\'s behind the counter gave him a knowing smile as she rang him up, but didn\'t say anything which was good because if he\'d had to say anything at that moment, he was sure he\'d have thrown up.

Once he got in his car, it was better. He was doing something, he had a plan, and the nausea subsided a little, at least until he was parked outside of the address he\'d memorized from the computer screen. The house was huge! He\'d noticed it was in a good neighborhood, but he hadn\'t expected a place like that. Maybe Brantley didn\'t live alone. Maybe he had a perfect little wife and a couple of children stashed away in there and that was why they\'d gone to Fitzy\'s place the other day, so Brantley\'s wife wouldn\'t know about his little almost fuck buddy. Wait, Miss Mariah would have known about something like that, she would have warned him; she wouldn\'t have let him get used by some in the closet, bi asshole with four kids and a wife. So just, breathe and count ten and take the damn risk for once.

The door was huge, too, so huge it was two doors and the doorbell had a pull, not a button, which almost made him bolt in and of itself- isn\'t that weird? The door opened and Brantley was there, barefoot, one hand tangled in his hair and on the phone. He waved Fitzy inside, not missing a beat in his conversation, \"Listen, I know you\'re trying. I\'m just not ready for it all, okay. I may never be, so I really need you to give me some time.\" Pause to listen. \"Yes, you can, if you want to, just make it happen.\" Pause to listen. \"Look, I\'ve gotta go anyway. We won\'t be talking again for a while.\" Pause to listen. \"No, Jack, we won\'t. I\'ve gotta go. No. I\'m hanging up now, have a good night.\"

He hung up the phone, walked over to the wet bar in the next room and poured two drinks. \"Scotch okay?\" he asked, not pausing to wait for an answer and then walking back over to Fitz and handing him the glass. \"Not talking again? That\'s good. I like the days the cat gets your tongue.\" He gulped down his drink, took the untouched glass from Fitzy\'s shaking hand to set both glasses on a small nearby table and pushed in close, backing Fitz up against the wall next to the door, between a rock and a hard- Brantley kissed him and it was good, smokey scotch flavored mouth savoring his own, tongue and lips and teeth and then Brantley was pulling him by the hand, bending down to get the grocery bag and leading him to the kitchen.

\"So, what\'d you get?\" he asked, inspecting the contents of the bag. \"Peaches, good. Pie crust, even better. Whipped cream, very promising.\" Then he dug down to the bottom of the bag and came up with the lube. He set it silently on the counter next to the whipped cream and fished the last item from the bag. \"You serious about this?\" he asked carefully.

\"I- I\'m not sure. I-\" Fitz blushed and lost the small ability with words he\'d managed.

\"I mean, we can make another pie if you want, but I do have my girlish figure to think about . . .\"

\"Oh God,\" Fitzy laughed. This man was too perfect.

\"Relax, okay. Just because you thought to be prepared, doesn\'t mean we have to use it tonight. We could really just make pie or- hey, here\'s an idea; we could eat dinner together, get to know each other, like an actual date,\" he teased.

\"Sounds good,\" Fitzy replied, nodding.

\"Okay, Chinese or pizza?\" he asked, picking up the phone again.

\"Chinese, Tony\'s is closed for his daughter\'s Bat Mitzvah.\"

\"Oh, right, I forgot.\"

They ordered food, baked another pie and ate Chinese and then pie and coffee while they watched world cup soccer, which Brantley called football revealing his, up to then, unknown Canadian heritage. B leaned over during the halftime break and bit Fitzy just below the ear. They made out on the couch for a good half hour before Fitzy freaked out just a little and they said goodnight before B ended up on the floor again.

Fitz was halfway home before he remembered that his condoms and lube were still on Brantley\'s kitchen counter, which had to have some symbolic meaning, but he couldn\'t work that out just then, since driving took up all the brain cells that hadn\'t migrated to his pants at the thought of B noticing the lube on his counter and giving in to the temptation to use it on himself while he jacked off thinking of Fitzy. Wow, he was pretty good at that projecting stuff, wasn\'t he?

***

Fitzy was wallowing, the concept of leaving his bed on this particular Sunday morning too hard to fathom. Then, just after ten, the phone rang.

\"Hello?\" Fitz offered the caller.

\"Hey, good morning, Peaches,\" Brantley\'s voice sing-songed at him.

\"Oh God, don\'t call me that,\" he gasped back at B, sitting up.

\"What, you don\'t like it?\"

\"Like it too much. Shit did I say that?\"

\"Uh-huh. Don\'t worry, I\'ll use that ammunition sparingly. So, get out of bed already, will you?\"

\"What makes you think I\'m still in bed?\"

\"You are in my head. You\'re all rumpled and warm, with a couple of blanket lines still pressed into your cheek like Braille. I wanna run my mouth over the ridges there, taste your sleepy skin.\"

\"Uh, you better use that sparingly, too.\"

\"Lay back down,\" Brantley grunted over the line, a command.

\"I thought you wanted me to get out of bed?\"

\"Did I say that? That doesn\'t sound like me at all. Are you wearing a shirt?\"

\"Well, it was a guy who sounded just like you, then. No, I\'m not wearing a shirt, my thermostat is broken; the heat won\'t stop running.\"

\"PJs?\"

\"Nope,\" he slipped them off so as not to be lying, plus his erection was much more comfortable that way.

\"Damn, Peaches,\" he panted a little. It sounded like maybe Brantley was shifting his clothes around, too.

\"Are we really doing this?\" Fitz asked, then regretted it because, how sexy was that? No wonder he never landed himself a man, he was always sabotaging his own happiness and- shit, he needed to stop reading bits out of the self-help books as he shelved them. He sounded too girlie, even to a gay, virginal librarian from small-town Nebraska.

\"Peaches? Hey, Fitz, it\'s okay. Just take a deep breath okay,\" Brantley was telling him over the phone, being perfect again. \"You okay? You still with me?\"

\"I\'m sorry. I\'m fine, I just- well, I just don\'t do this- haven\'t done this,\" Fitz admitted.

\"\'S okay, really. You know anything about sailing?\"

\"Sailing?\"

\"Meet me at the Bell Lake launch at 11:30. I need a Gilligan. Wear red,\" he said and hung up without a goodbye.

***

He was late! He\'d never actually been to the boat launch and finding it was trickier than he\'d expected, so he drove around on the back roads by the lake and hyperventilated for ten minutes before he spotted it and managed to calm himself some. Next to the other things Brantley had forgiven him, this was nothing. B was crouching on the deck of a really large sailboat, moving ropes around and looking hotly nautical.

\"Hey!\" Fitz called to him. \"Uh, permission to come aboard, Captain?

Brantley greeted him with the real smile. \"You wore red.\" He laughed. \"You wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn? All the kids are doing it.\"

\"Funny.\" He climbed over the side and shyly stood next to Brantley wondering if he should try and kiss him or not.

Brantley looked up at him. \"You know anything about sailing?\"

\"No. You\'ll have to teach me.\"

\"That\'d be the blind leading the blind.\" He coiled the ropes around a big wheel thing.

\"Oh, but you have a boat.\"

\"Correction, Jackson Floyd has a boat. I\'m just borrowing it.\" He walked across the deck, dragging some different ropes.

\"Jackson Floyd?\" He was the wealthiest man in town. Well actually, he didn\'t really still live here, but he still had a house here. \"Oh shit, this is his boat. Then he owns the house- he\'s your-\" Fitz nearly accused.

\"My what? What do you think he is to me?\" Brantley asked suspiciously.

\"Well, he\'s handsome and rich and you\'re living in his house, borrowing his boat. You\'re his- He\'s your-\" he still couldn\'t say it. Saying it would make it real and then he\'d be the other woman, sort of.

\"Father.\" B supplied calmly.

\"Father? You mean as in sugar daddy?\"

\"No, I mean father, as in father, you know, guy who had sex with my mother resulting in my existence.\" He was less calm.

\"Oh, good.\"

\"Good?\" Brantley asked, kinda pissed, now. \"You glad I\'m not his boy-toy or maybe you\'re glad he got some twenty-eight years ago, so I was born?\"

\"Both.\"

\"But you thought I was cheating on him, using you?\" he spit out.

\"No, I-\"

\"No?\"

\"No, really. I just- uh . . .\" God, he\'d done this wrong, too.

\"You just think everyone\'s an ass and wants to hurt you,\" Brantley assessed.

\"Uh, yeah, sometimes. I\'m sorry. I\'ll go.\"

\"Why?\"

\"Why what?\"

\"Why are you going? Why do you think the world is populated by assholes? Who convinced you of that lovely idea and where can I find him to beat the living shit out of him?\" He gave a tight smile that did little to convince Fitzy that he wasn\'t serious about hurting someone, anyone who\'d hurt Fitz, which was a little scary and stupidly romantic, too. \"Don\'t go, okay? Just come below and let me suck on you a while instead.\" It was an offer he couldn\'t have refused even if B had been an ass who wanted to cheat on his sugar daddy with him and then leave him when he got boring. That he wasn\'t made it even better.

They were going at it hot and heavy, kissing and squeezing and pushing against each other, still wearing all their clothes and Fitz was getting pretty damn close when B half sat up and asked, \"Was it physical, emotional or both?\"

\"What?\" he asked, dazed to be talking instead of coming.

\"You know, the guy who hurt you, the one who made you think I\'d cheat on you.\"

\"Oh, him.\"

\"Yeah, did he- what did he do to you?\"

\"It wasn\'t that bad.\"

\"If you said no and he didn\'t listen, it was that bad, Peaches.\"

\"He listened eventually. Then he left.\"

\"So it was about him controlling you and when you wouldn\'t be controlled, he booked?\"

\"Yeah, sort of. Yes.\"

\"Okay.\" He slid back over Fitz and they kissed, pushed, pulled and came in their pants together. Then they napped in the warm, dark cabin with the lake water lapping at the hull and gently rocking them.