Before You

“It looks so…so…macho.” Joseph stared at the home gym dubiously.

“It’s just a machine. Let’s get an associate over here to show us the bells and whistles.” He caught the attention of a woman wearing the store’s identifying tan slacks and blue shirts. Motioning her over, he waited until she asked how she could help. “Tell me why I want to buy this.”

They ended up buying two treadmills so no one had to run alone. Roth picked out a freestanding pull-up bar with arm slings for ab work and an attachable bar with adjustable drop lengths for varied upper body exercises. He also bought a Pilates table after trying a floor model. If anyone thought that shit didn’t put your ass through the paces, they had never tried it.

After arranging for delivery, Roth paid. The cashier raised her brows as she used a cordless scanning gun to ring up the order. “Someone’s getting serious about working out.” Glancing at them, she said, “You two brothers?”

“Yes,” Roth answered and signed the receipt when she handed it to him.

Outside, a winter-in-Savannah wind blew. People from colder states couldn’t understand why the natives shivered in it. But, when your blood adjusted to a milder climate, that once-in-a-while cold air made you fire up the heat in your car and house.

Joseph reached for the switch before Roth even got his door shut. “That went fast.”

“How about lunch? Just the two of us?”

“Okay.”

Roth drove them to B. Mathew’s on East Bay Street. He ordered for them both, as this kind of thing remained new to Joseph. Choosing the Shrimp Po Boy and the famous Black-Eyed Pea Cake sandwich, with soup for one and salad for the other, Roth then held quiet until their server departed. “I asked Adam to marry me and he accepted.”

“Oh my God! I’m so happy for you both!”

“Bet you’ll be having this conversation with me soon.”

Joseph smiled even brighter. “He loves me. I see it in his eyes, feel it in his hands. He’s like you. Just open to giving, and it’s a miracle.”

Roth reached over and gripped one of Joseph’s elegant hands. “Nathan’s far from stupid. He knows what he has and he won’t let go.”

“I’m forever thinking I haven’t loved him back enough.” Lowering his voice, he leaned forward. “Haven’t given him enough pleasure.”

Roth chuckled, matching his dining companion’s quiet tone. “Judging by the way he has to have you on his knee or closer, and the bellows coming from the guesthouse, you’re accomplishing both with great success.”

Joseph squeezed Roth’s hand. “You opened the world to me.”

Uncomfortable with such gratitude for what he considered simple, he replied, “I just showed you the door.”

They returned to the frighteningly amateur chefs attempting a traditional Tuscan meal. Joseph had hardly opened the door between laundry room and kitchen before the smoke alarm began to screech.

The sight of two big men flailing and floundering at a domestic task made Roth belly-laugh. Rapping his fist on the doorframe, he quipped, “Fire Department.”

Joseph, so strong in this element, breezed in, averted disaster and a 911 call, soothed the would-be cooks, and even salvaged the main dish with cool-headed quick action.

Adam strode to Roth, a picture of contrition and defeat. “I wanted to cook for you.”
He embraced his fiancé. Pressing his face to Adam’s hair, he responded, “I appreciate the effort, baby.”

With Joseph’s very competent help, Roth and he managed dinner.

Afterward, Nathan rose, stacked dishes, carried them to the kitchen and returned with a fat file and a small jeweler’s box. “Joseph, I called in favors in high places with much happiness for this.” Placing the manila binder on the table before his lover, he knelt. “I’m an awkward blunt instrument of a man, but this is my offering. Your past. Your origin. We can get you a social security number, make you a functioning citizen. And, this includes your last name.” He opened the small blue velvet box to reveal a clean-lined platinum band set with an impressive row of canary diamonds. “If you’ll have me, it would honor me to give you my name.”

Adam threw up his hands in an uncustomary, animated show of disgust. “What am I supposed to fucking do, Roth? I can’t just sit here on my ass.”

“Use the new equipment. Redecorate. Whatever. Left my Black Diamond American Express on the dresser.” He stole a kiss from his man’s mouth. “Mmm. Christ, I’d love seconds this morning.”

Adam pushed him away, then grabbed his tie and hauled him back for a heated tangle of tongues. Breaking the kiss, he gazed into Roth’s eyes. “I could kick your ass over this continued house arrest.”

Smiling and then licking his fiancé’s lush lower lip, Roth invited, “Instead of kick it, fuck it.”

A few nights later, Roth woke so abruptly, it seemed like a flipped switch. Adam already sat on the bed’s edge, pulling on his pants. He made the slashing hand signal for silence. Roth eased out to don his own discarded gi pants.

Nathan opened the bedroom door. He gave the silent signal he had seen eight men, unfriendlies in the wire, so to speak. As a three man team, they emerged.

Silence.

Then, mayhem.

Roth recognized hired muscle.

They went to work. The invaders fell.

Nathan caught one, shoving the barrel of his Colt to the guy’s neck. “This is my warning. Take your wounded back this way. Next time, your boss has to sign for them at the morgue.”