Go Fish

Go Fish - 1

Games People Play: Go Fish

Copyright © 2009 by HT Murray

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without

written permission except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For

information address Torquere Press, Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78650.

ISBN: 978-1-60370-869-2, 1-60370-869-3

Printed in the United States of America.

Torquere Press electronic edition / December 2009

Torquere Press eBooks are published by Torquere Press Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78650.

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Go Fish - 2

Go Fish

By HT Murray

In hindsight, moving in with his best friend and lifelong partner in crime might not have been such a great idea -- a judgment that had nothing to do with Cal being gay. Well, maybe it had a little to do with Cal being gay. Ian wasn’t sure if bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (and hence, likely to impose upon the sleep of best friends and roommates) were card-carrying gay traits. Cal was the only gay man he'd ever lived with, but none of Ian's straight friends or roommates had ever awakened him at that time of the morning except to tell him that wasn't his bed and to get his drunken ass out. Right about then, Ian would gladly have made concession for his ex-roommate's moldy socks and half-empty beer cans if it meant he'd get to sleep in a little longer. Instead, he lived with a Tony Horton/Martha Stewart hybrid mandroid who was… God, what was he doing? "Caaalllll. Ugh." Ian peeked to see just what was so important that Cal needed to be in his room so early on their day off, and found out the hard way that it was well into mid-morning. The sun at that spot in the center of his window reminded him of the list of things he needed to get in order to officially finish his move in. Blinds were on it, solid lead if he could find them, dense enough that friggin' Superman couldn't get through, and they were so going to the top of the list just as soon as Ian dragged his ass out of bed. So, maybe tomorrow. For the moment, and likely for posterity, considering how diligent he was about following his own to-do lists, maybe he'd just stick the actual list up in the window to block out the sun. Grunting against the light saber boring a hole in his eye and out his skull, he crammed a pillow over his head, leaving just enough space over his mouth to keep whining. "What are you doing? It's our day off." "Shhhh. Oh, shit," Cal hissed, apparently realizing mid-shush that the dude he was trying not to wake was the one he was shushing. "Sorry, dude. Really. Go back to sleep. I was just doing some laundry, and I figured since you grilled the steaks last night, I'd throw some of your clothes in with mine." Ian shifted the pillow over enough to uncover one squinted eye. Cal was bent over his clothes hamper, one hip cocked, wearing nylon running shorts over black spandex leggings that went to mid-thigh. Probably chilly outside that morning. There were still sweat stains under the arms of his t-shirt, and it clung to his lower back in a way that really framed his ass. Not that Ian had ever thought about framing Cal's ass. "It's okay," Ian mumbled. "Just, you know, no mixing of the underwear. We don't want 'em comparing notes in the dryer." "I ain't touching your underwear, man; the skid marks would give me nightmares." Go Fish - 3

"Then I won't mention that I bought 'em at Wal-Mart. Last time I mentioned Wally World, I almost had to get you your Epi-Pen." Cal laughed and stood up, clothes basket under his arm. "What can I say? I'm allergic to cheap and ugly." He did a slow turn around, long brown hair falling across his forehead in sweaty stringers, his eyes on the floor. "You got any more around here?" "Um." Ian waffled for a second, having almost missed the question. Seriously, his brain seemed to have short-circuited, a transient ischemic attack due to his blood not being thinned with the proper amount of caffeine. "Check behind the dresser." Cal did, because he was way too gullible even after all those years, leaning way over to peek down the wall. "Don't see anything else," he said. Okay, so in hindsight, maybe moving in with Cal was the best idea ever. Ian hoped the pillow covered most of the smirk spreading over his face. He so wasn't checking out Cal's ass. Just seeing how gullible the dude actually was. He would've thought a guy who'd pulled as many pranks as Cal had would have been a little less oblivious. "Then, that's it, I guess. You'll make someone a good little wifey one day, sweetheart." "Fuck you." Cal laughed even as he said it, dry and exasperated, like the time Ian decided to ease his 'coming out' by taking him to IHOP and ordering him the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast. Not finding anything of substance to chuck at Ian's head, Cal hmmphed and said, "This place is bleak. Somehow, when I invited you to move in, I thought you'd bring a few more permanent fixtures than your wardrobe, stereo, and that ratty Dame poster. Hair bands have been out for over a decade." "Hey," Ian protested. "I'll have you know that's a limited edition." "Because they couldn't give the nasty things away and burned the rest. What was Scott thinking with the white leather pants? You can totally see the roll of quarters." Ian laughed. "Some chick put him up to it." He neglected to admit 'the chick' was Ian. Scott had been under the impression that Ian knew about things like wardrobe. Ian probably never should have mentioned that he'd done some modeling as a kid. (His mom's idea, not his.) He never got why people fawned over his plump lips and long eyelashes, even less why his mother knew people would pay to use his face. But there was a reason he gave it up -- one too many photo shoots in yuppy pink shirts and workout gear made entirely of spandex that required the waxing of hair he was just starting to grow. Scott never asked about the details of the great Ian Jeffries' modeling career before he asked for the wardrobe advice.

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"Figures." Cal took the basket and started heading for the hall, stopped, and turned around again. "But seriously, you should get some… stuff. You're making me feel like a slumlord, here." After he left, Ian lowered the pillow and took a look around at his bare walls and surfaces. He wasn't really sure what the big deal was with having "stuff." Just more you had to move the next time your roommate got married and left you unable to make the rent, or sold your house out from under you. But if Cal wanted stuff, maybe Ian would get some. Maybe. After a few more hours of sleep. He rolled over and shoved the pillow tighter over his head. *** "Um, is that what I think it is?" Cal was tending the dog dishes at the wash sink in the laundry room, meticulously scrubbing each one before filling them with water and setting them down beside the dry food. He didn't wash his own dishes that well, an irony Ian found all kinds of amusing. And Ian didn't have to be standing there waiting to get to the sink. The one in Ian's bathroom would work just fine. But then, Cal wouldn't be giving him that what-the-fuck look, his eyes all wide so his bangs fell into them and he had to blow them off his forehead with his mouth because his hands were too wet. Ian wouldn't miss that expression for anything. The way Cal's nose and upper lip kept twisting in an attempt to dislodge the few stringers of hair was priceless, even if it made Ian's nose itch by power of suggestion. "It's a fish bowl," Ian said, hoisting it up on the edge of the sink. He grinned with one cheek and both eyebrows, because that sounded like a punch line. He just couldn't remember the joke. "You bought a fish?" Cal smirked. He straightened up with that little flinch that reminded Ian just what a pain in the ass it must be to be so damned tall. "That's awesome. What kind?" Ian wanted to tell him he had one little stringer of hair glued to his forehead that hadn't come dislodged with the gust of breath. But what would be the point? Cal's hands were still wet, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Ian did his best to ignore it, shifting his glance and then his entire posture from side to side before caving and reaching up to brush it away himself. Of course, he cleared his throat with a manly grunt at the same time. He wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. "No fish. Just a bowl." He shrugged. "You told me to get stuff for my room. Now I have stuff." He didn't mention that he'd actually wanted to buy fish, too, but the dude at the pet store said he needed to take the bowl home, fill it, and let the water cure for a few days before it would be safe for the fish. "Um..." And then Cal did that other thing-- the one where he quirked an eyebrow up really high without changing the shape of the rest of his face. That was no small feat. Ian had tried to imitate Go Fish - 5

it, but his lips refused to be left out. They wanted to stay center stage in all his expressions, the way Cal's hair probably would if it had the same muscle tone as the rest of his body. "Why?" "Why what?" "Why get a fish bowl but no fish?" "I like the water. When the sun shines through, it makes little rainbows on the wall..." Now he was the one making the what-the-fuck face. He could not believe he'd just said that. He cleared his throat again, because, what the hell, that couldn't possibly seem dodgier than the blush already burning up his cheeks. "And, um, I get chapped in the winter. Thought it would be like a humidifier." Oh, yeah, good save. Dermal hydration issues were way manlier than little rainbows. "Sure, sure, I guess." Cal finished with the dog dishes, now with both eyebrows at the tippy-top of his forehead. "Yeah..." Ian hurriedly filled his bowl without taking the time to rinse out the store dust, and lifted it out of the sink with a hair too much oomph. Half the water sloshed back out into the sink. He just shrugged and took it back to his room. *** Next time they had a day off, Ian rolled over in his bed (the one Cal made him buy because Cal had an obsession with making Ian spend money on himself) and pulled the sheets up a little higher under his chin, intent on burrowing in for as long as the house stood. He cracked his eyes open just enough to get an idea how late it was, smacking his lips together, because, yeah, they didn't like to be left out (and, for what it was worth, they really were less chapped now that he had a fish bowl). He blinked once to clear away the film over his eyes, blinked again, because he couldn't figure out what was different, and then, "Yeesh!" He fell off the other side of the bed and hit his head on the wall. Something had totally moved over there. He was still rubbing his hand over the lump on his head and shaking the last trailing vestiges of sleep from his limbs when Cal and both dogs came barreling through his doorway. The dogs took his prone-ation as an invitation to play and pounced. Before he could sit up, he had paws in his stomach and tongues up his nose, a tail tap-tapping a little too close to the family jewels. Grant and Sherman were no lap dogs by any means, but someone had forgotten to tell them that. Then again, with those long legs and a lap the size of Cal's, it was probably never an issue. Great, now Ian was thinking about Cal's lap. And his legs. Long muscular legs, not at all neglected like a lot of gym rats tended to do. Cal was definitely proportionate, on top, on bottom, and, well, Ian had to assume, in between. "Ian?" Cal was there, somewhere on the other side of the furry flailing appendages and cloud of Go Fish - 6

doggy breath. "Dude, hey, you okay? C'mon you guys. Off. Let the man up." Ian had to hand it to Cal. His dogs were actually pretty well-mannered, if a bit on the affectionate side, and they backed right off when he told them to. Of course, not one but two paws managed to land where the tail was only threatening to go, and Ian was curled into a pathetic little ball in the corner by the time Cal leaned over him. He reached behind himself and pulled the covers down, wondering if he could just go back to sleep and wake up again like this was nothing more than a bad dream. "Ian?" Peeking out from beneath the covers, Ian noticed that Cal had been running, which would explain why the dogs' paws were all wet, and why, when he leaned over Ian, all his bangs dangled off his forehead, swinging toward Ian almost unnaturally in damp clumps, like Medusa's snakes. All except for that one piece. Ian gritted his teeth and curled his lips under, even curled his toes, but he couldn't resist. He reached up and brushed the strand loose so it dangled with the rest, and immediately got a drip of sweat right in his eye. Yeah, good morning to him. Cal took the hand Ian had raised and hoisted him to his feet while Ian blinked fiercely and rubbed his burning eye with the heel of his other hand. Cal's footsteps got quieter, and then the water in the bathroom ran for a second. He was back a moment later with a warm washcloth to press over the stinging eye. He might have had to pry away Ian's hand while Ian whimpered and keened like a little girl in order to get the cloth in place, but Ian was too traumatized, in theory if not actuality, to remember clearly. Anyway, he'd deny it ever happened, so there was no point even mentioning it. The warm water felt so good, Ian reached up to grab the cloth himself and ended up holding it and Cal's hand both. Cal didn't seem to mind. He did, however, seem to get tired of stooping down, and plopped down on the bed. When they were eye to eye, Ian suddenly felt very sheepish and released Cal's hand. He rolled his one open eye, feeling his face twitch into a smirk as it blushed hot. "Uh, good morning. Had a nice run?" Cal laughed, just a harsh exhale from his nose as the worry lines smoothed out. "Yeah, it was great. Got back just in time to hear you try to beat down the bedroom wall with your head. What the hell?" Ian was puzzled for a second. Yeah, what was up with that? Then he remembered. He dropped the cloth away from his eye and spun around on the bed, peering at the suspect fish bowl. "Something moved," he said. "Over there." He pointed, the wet rag dangling from his hand, then realized his eye was still supposed to hurt and pressed it back to his face. "I rolled over, opened my eyes, and, yeesh!" He jumped back again as the familiar little ripple distorted the rainbows on the wall. Luckily, Cal caught him before he went over backwards. Cal's arms wrapped around his shoulders before he tipped, and Cal's mouth was in Ian's hair when Cal said, "Oops."

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"Oops?" Ian, exasperated, made no move to sit up. "I bought you a fish," Cal said. "Uh... surprise!" "You...?" Ian tensed, suddenly realizing what a giant girl he must look like about then. In an attempt to remedy that, he dragged his knees up to his chest, tightened his whole body into a coil, and heaved himself back with all his might. Twisting as they both fell back into his pillows, Ian landed perched over Cal's chest and straddled his hips before Cal could get a hold of himself. Ian grinned down at him, laughing at the way Cal looked so completely surprised, his arms flung one to the side and one over his head, his jaw slightly slack, chest heaving with the adrenaline rush. "Surprise yourself, jackass! I thought a spider or something had fallen into the bowl!" Ian kept Cal pinned to the bed with one hand on his sternum and whacked him over the head with a pillow. Twice for good measure. And then three times, just because Ian could. Cal started to move underneath him, and Ian braced himself, expecting to be bucked off and slammed against the wall for the second time that morning. Instead, just Cal's belly moved, a little rumble, then a roll, and then it was a whole lot like sitting on a trampoline while someone else bounced. Only Ian wasn't sitting on the trampoline; he was straddling it, which did all sorts of things to him that were totally gay. Laughing right along, he rolled off the side and sprawled out on the pillowless side of the bed. He'd been friends with Cal all his life. He'd lived down the block from him since pre-school. Being around each other was a little like breathing vapors. Inhibitions fainted dead away. They had the same propensity for 'losing' their swim trunks in Ian's family pool. They traded jerkingoff secrets when they hit puberty. They sometimes got drunk and passed out in very close proximity to each other and in very sparse attire. Ambiguously gay was kinda part of their relationship, even after Cal came out. . When he jerked the pillow off Cal's face to cram under his neck, Cal's hair was all plastered over his forehead and knotted up. Ian dropped the wet washcloth on it with a sploosh. "You're a jerk." He laughed. "And you're a giant, screaming girl." Ian didn't have a comeback for that. Instead, they both just lay there staring at the ceiling and catching their breath until it started to get awkward. "So, you bought me a fish. Why?" "I dunno," Cal smirked. "If I tell you now, does it count as pillow talk?" Ian thought on that for a minute, realizing just how wrung out the last few minutes had left him, and said, "Yeah, I think maybe it does." "All right, then," Cal rolled over on his side, his head on one arm. Ian tried to avert his eyes, but he couldn't, and ended up turning his head to meet Cal's gaze. He hoped he was just disoriented Go Fish - 8

from the scuffle and that he wasn't so close his eyes were crossing, because Cal's face was all soft and hazy-looking from that angle, and he wanted to keep looking. Cal laughed and poked a finger between Ian's eyes, pushing him back a fraction of an inch until Ian felt his eyes uncross.. "There, that's better." "So, uh..." Ian had to clear his throat, because his voice had suddenly gotten all big and growly and wouldn't fit through it anymore. "Uh, you bought me a fish." "Actually, I got two." And then the moment was gone. Cal kicked up and levered himself off the bed. He walked over to the fish bowl, picked it up, and moved it over to the bedside table beside Ian's head. "I was in the pet store picking up those treats that Grant likes, and I remembered the water in your fish bowl was turning all green." "Was not," Ian protested. "Dude, it's still green." "That's not the water," Ian said. "It's the glass." He couldn't help making the 'like, duh!' face, even if it annoyed him to no end when someone else made it. "That's scum, Ian. They have fish that eat that." "Really? I'm actually growing food? That makes me what? A farmer, right? I'm a regular environmentalist. Maybe I could sell it. One hundred percent organic... slime." He felt pretty good about himself until Cal turned the bowl around, and he was eyeball to belly with what looked like a frog that someone stepped on, ripped the legs off of, and then stuck to the side of the glass. Grimacing, he said, "That's it? Cal, tell me you didn't pay money for that thing." "I did," Cal shrugged. "It's called a plec… plecos... pl... It's called an algae eater. I know, a face only a mother can love, but the guy in the store said it'll keep the glass nice and squeaky clean. And you know what that means?" "No. What?" Cal bounced and hitched his hip up on the side of the bed next to Ian. "Means you get to have your rainbows, unicorn boy." The way he said it, Ian was pretty sure he'd have reached around and pinched Ian's cheek if it weren't such an awkward angle. "And then, I read on the tank that it's a companion fish. So, of course, I had to buy a companion." Ian studied the second fish pretty indifferently. "It's a goldfish." Cal's jaw dropped. "Ian, that is not just a goldfish. That is a veil-tailed oranda goldfish. The fanciest one in the store." Ian took a closer look to see what the big deal was about that fish, but he didn't see it. Go Fish - 9

"It's just a baby," Cal explained. "The head cap doesn't grow until later." "Head cap?" Ian chuckled. "Fish need caps now? Why don't they just swim south for the winter?" He shifted to half sitting, his nose nearly pressed to the glass. "It's considered exotic," Cal explained. "Exotic, huh? So they're stripper fish. All they need are little G-strings." Even Ian knew it was one joke too many when Cal's face went slack. "You hate 'em. I can tell." Cal pushed the bowl to the far edge of the table. "Look, I can just take 'em back. Or, better yet, I can get my own tank and take 'em to my room." He deflated a little, his hands resting on his knees, and slouched against Ian. "No, dude, no, I do like 'em." He did. Actually, between the slow wiggle and shake of the goldfish's tail and the warm weight of Cal's back against him, Ian could totally make fish watching a hobby. "I'm just a little surprised. I mean, you're Mister Pound Puppy U.S.A., right? All 'don't buy purebreds when the shelters are full,' and here you bring home the fancy, exotic goldfish. Aren't you, like, worried you're funding goldfish mills somewhere? That there's some poor goldfish mama in a teeny tiny tank, hooked up to aerators behind a bubble screen getting her eggs squeezed out of her while some daddy fish is in the next bowl looking at centerfolds in Big Lips and Fins?" It was Cal's turn to whack Ian with a pillow, which he did until Ian could feel his hair get all staticky and crackly. "You're such a dick," Cal laughed. "I consider buying a fish from a pet store to be a rescue. Have you ever seen how many they scoop out of there when they open up in the mornings? But, point taken. Next time I come across a no-kill shelter for goldfish, I'll be sure to make a donation." Ian shoved the pillow off his face, watching his hair follow it, every strand standing on his head like caterpillar antennae. "That's what I like. A man who makes reparations." Then he poked Cal in the shoulder with his index finger. It made a bigger spark than any Wint-oGreen Lifesaver. "Ow!" "I win." "Dick." "Dick's going back to sleep." "That kinda makes you a limp Dick, then."

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"And that's how it's gonna stay, unless you plan on growing some tits and becoming selflubricating." He realized he'd said too much within a nanosecond of shutting his mouth, so he yawned to cover and shut his eyes. It was actually a lot harder to fall asleep than it would have been a few minutes prior. Mostly because Cal was still there, sitting and watching the fish, and Ian liked that arrangement way more than he should. *** After that, Cal showed up pretty regularly in Ian's room to "check on the fish." Those were Ian's mental air quotes. He was pretty sure that's exactly what Cal was doing, but it seemed like there was way more to it than that. Goldfish Fancy magazine had begun showing up in their mailbox with Ian's name on the label, but Ian was sure he'd remember if he had subscribed to a fish magazine. As far as he knew, he'd never drunk dialed a phone, let alone drunk ordered a magazine subscription. He'd be sure to blame Cal when the telemarketers started calling with special discounted rates available for a limited time only. Cal could even say Plecostomus now. And he did. Frequently. He was quite proud of the Plecostomus. They named it Squiggy. Ian wasn't sure if he should take it as an insult that Cal seemed to think he had to supervise Ian's fish keeping. He at least gave Cal credit for trying to be discreet about offering his 'help.' Ian used to sleep like the dead as far into the morning as he could get away with. Now he found himself sliding into wakefulness earlier and earlier. First it was just to catch a glimpse of Cal sneaking out of his room in the morning. Then it was in time to watch Cal stoop over the bowl and make those little cooing noises he used only to make for his dogs. Lately, it was early enough to catch Cal sneaking in, almost always sweaty and breathing hard from working out. Of course, it only took so long to feed and check up on one fish and one really ugly poo eater, which meant Ian needed more fish. Hence, this trip to the pet store. "So, what kind of fish were you looking for?" Pet stores, he'd come to realize, were a little like comic book stores in that the employees tended to be somewhat... unique in their innate geekiness. No offense intended to geeks. Everyone had a niche. Truth be told, Ian was a total geek for Cal, but only in the way that Cal was his only gay friend, and spending time with him was... educational. Honestly, though, how was it possible to have so much enthusiasm for critters that just floated in the water, blew kisses at you, made you want to put your finger in the bowl and tickle their little...? Oh, God, Ian was not becoming a fish geek. He eyed the clerk, who looked barely old enough to get a job, pimply faced with braces and a big smile that said she didn't really care about either. Even with the hardware, Ian knew a pretty smile when he saw one. Too bad she seemed to have no clue. He checked out her name tag. "Marcy?" he asked, extending his hand. She took it, and he wasn't surprised hers was sweaty and kind of cold. Clearing his throat, he stood up straight, determined not to let geek rub off on him if at all possible. "Um, Marcy, I'd like a goldfish... a manly one." Go Fish - 11

She looked downright puzzled, her lips trying to purse over her braces and only partially succeeding. "A manly goldfish?" "Yeah." He nodded. "You know, nothing fancy or exotic. No head caps or veiled anythings, just sleek, like a classic car. A man's fish." He stifled a Tim Taylor grunt, though he felt his lips pull down toward his chin in anticipation. Damned pretentious lips. "Wen..." Puzzled, he said, "Today." He wondered if there was some sort of goldfish control law that required a waiting period, like buying a gun. "No," she giggled, obviously amused with herself. Ah, geek confidence. Endearing when it wasn't pretentious. "Goldfish don't have head caps. They're called wens." Ian thought head cap was close enough, but he showed his appreciation for the bit of wisdom with a quirky smile. "Ah. Good one. Exactly why I want a plain, manly goldfish. No fans or veils or wens or whys or..." Okay, there was no way his joke was any better than hers, so he rubbed the back of his neck with a dry laugh. "Um, yeah." "Well," she stammered, "most of our individual goldfish are either fantail or veiltail. But, we do have some feeders. Those are pretty much all common golds." "Common? Like, if the pet store was a kingdom, they'd be the dudes down at the ale house eyeing the wenches? Commoners?" She raised an eyebrow, a well-practiced gesture, he could tell. She was... expressive. Not like most kids her age, all jaded and putting on airs. He liked her. "Uh, if you say so. They're long, single-tailed. They can get pretty big, I hear, but," she bit her lip, "I've never seen one fullgrown. We only buy them to... feed to the other fish." She walked over to one of the counters. On top were rows and rows of brightly lit tanks full of fancy, colorful fish. Bending over in a way that made it pretty obvious she'd never had to worry about anyone checking out her ass, she opened a cupboard underneath to reveal what looked like a steel cattle tank teeming with fish the size of Ian's little finger, all moving lightning fast. "They're ten for a dollar," she announced, her knees knocking together a little like she either had to pee or felt like she was betraying some kind of pet store confidence by offering to sell him under-the-counter fish. For shame. "Perfect," he said. "I'll take one." For the first time since he walked in, Marcy stopped smiling. "You want one?" "Yeah," he nodded. "It's kind of a small bowl."

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"I, uh..." She twisted the outer seams of her jeans between her sweaty fingers, a walking, talking fidget. Ian couldn't help but like her. "I'm not sure I can catch just one. But I'll see what I can do. You don't...?" And she went pasty. "You don't want any one in particular, do you?" Ian perked up. "I can choose? Well, then." He slid up next to Marcy and looked down into the tank, squinting as though trying to horn in on just the right one. He drew a circle in the air with his index finger and swirled it in a tightening spiral before pointing at some arbitrary spot and saying, "I want that one." She actually swayed on her feet a little. Afraid if he let the joke go on too long, she'd faint, he laughed and put an arm across her shoulder, leaning down to speak in her ear. "I'm just kidding, gorgeous. Any one you can catch is fine." He was pretty sure he could feel her flush through her store-issued smock. "And while you're doing that, I'll pick up a few more things. Tell me, you got any of those sunken treasure chests with pirate skeletons inside?" He wondered if he needed a prescription for an Epi-Pen, because Cal was going to go into anaphylaxis for sure by the time Ian finished stocking up on all the cheap and tacky fish junk he could get his hands on. Giggling, Marcy pointed him to the wall of aquarium ornaments, then went to work catching him a manly fish likely to lift a wench's skirt in the back of an ale house. He already had a name picked out. Scrappy. *** "Ian, get out of the car." "No." "Ian..." "I'm not going in there, Cal." "Fine," Cal sighed. He plopped the plastic bag, complete with floating Scrappy, down on the hood of the car, directly in Ian's line of sight. "Then we'll just stand here in the parking lot with our dead fish hanging out for everyone to see." Okay, so Scrappy hadn't exactly worked out. That didn't mean Cal could drag him back to the pet store and demand a refund on his behalf like he was some little kid crying over a hard-won carnival prize. It wasn't like Ian was attached to the thing. He paid ten cents for it, for Christ's sake. It certainly wasn't like he was at all traumatized to have Cal sneak into his room that morning and find it lying on the dresser, glued to the veneer, cloudy eyes fixed on the rainbow-colored gravel Cal had put in the bowl the week before. Go Fish - 13

It most definitely wasn't like he was a good-for-nothing, fish-murdering failure who didn't even hear it flopping around and gasping for breath while he slept soundly in his bed just a few feet away. Except, maybe it was like that. In which case, all Ian really wanted to do was sit at home and feel sorry for himself, not announce it to the world by dragging the corpse back to the store, receipt in hand, and demanding his dime back. Or worse yet, by sitting in the parking lot where new customers were coming and going with live fish in hand, waving his little receipt like a surrender flag. He came. He bought. He killed. He failed. End of story. "Ian Jeffries, stop pouting and get your ass out here." He was not pouting. "Yes, you were." He was not doing a very good job of keeping his inner thoughts inner, either. "Dude, some girls just came out of the tanning salon next door. They're totally eyeing you up. Maybe they recognize you from that commercial you did last month. They're probably getting out their camera phones as I speak. Do you really want pictures of you pouting over a dead goldfish to be spammed all over the Internet before you start shooting your pilot?" Cal leaned down, one arm draped over the roof, to talk through the window. "From where I'm sitting, all they're gonna get is a picture of your ass leaning in a car window. I doubt the fish is even in the shot," Ian snapped. He knew he was being a brat, and he didn't care, because he'd totally won this round. Cal was the one who was paranoid about his online persona. Ian, on the other hand, didn't give a rat's ass. "If I slide down like this, I bet it kinda looks like you're kissing me. Bet they'd love that shot." Cal stiffened for a second, then grinned in that big, face-splitting way that made Ian do things straight boys shouldn't do, like notice his best friend's teeth, and his lips, and his dimples. Not to mention the fact that sitting in the car while Cal leaned in gave him a pretty good view of everything below the belt. Not that he was looking. "If I do kiss you, will you get your ass out of the car?" He was kidding, right? Ian knew he was kidding. He was SO kidding that it should've been considered cruel and unusual punishment. If Ian had known he was going to be teased like that, he would've worn looser-fitting jeans. As it was, he had a whole body squirm going on before he could control the shiver that went down his spine from just the possibility that Cal might not be kidding.

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The only way he could possibly save face, short of sucking it, which might be nice, but would land them both in a lot of deep shit, was to open the door. If it sorta hit Cal on the thigh -- high up on the thigh -- as it swung out, Ian wasn't really sorry. If Ian had to be walking funny, then they were gonna be walking funny together. Okay, his logic was definitely faulty on that one, but it was too late for do-overs. He grabbed the dead fish off the hood of the car and slammed the door shut. On a whim, because he was already sorta fucked for spazzing anyway, he leaned over and said, "Ask me again when no one's watching." It wasn't like he was shaking his ass when he walked ahead of Cal into the store. His jeans were just too tight. *** Any cockiness or swagger had Ian picked up in the parking lot evaporated once he walked into the store. The little bell over the door jingled, and the macaw by the front desk said, "Hello!" And just like that, Ian wanted to take his floating fish in its plastic bag and duck into the book section. He could leave the fish on the shelf between the whelping manuals and the breed literature. No one would be the wiser. Except for the part where Cal was behind him and strolled right up to the desk. He even rang the bell for service, like the squawking parrot hadn't drawn enough attention already. "Excuse me?" Cal called out, craning his neck to see over the rows of shelves. Ian couldn't help but notice how long Cal's neck was just then. All the better to strangle him. Slowly. Ian's trepidation inched up a few more notches when the clerk came out of the back, wiping her hands on the blue store-logo smock and looking minorly perturbed. If she had a name tag, it was obscured by one of the five hundred buttons she had on her apron that all said something like, 'have you kissed your X breed of dog today.' Her 'manager' patch was frayed at the edges and barely visible. Ah, they've brought out the big guns. It wasn't Marcy. Ian didn't know why that mattered, but it did. "Excuse me," Cal said again, because maybe the nice, grumpy-looking lady didn't see his giant ass slouching against the counter in the center of the store. "Yes?" she asked, her smile obviously forced. "Can I help you?" Which was store speak for, 'what the fuck do you want? I'm on my smoke break.' Cal put a hand on Ian's shoulder, a gesture that was surprisingly effective in quelling the urge to strangle him, but most definitely did nothing for Ian's urge to put his hands on him. "My friend bought a fish here yesterday, and unfortunately, it didn't survive the night. The receipt says there's a ten-day guarantee on all live fish." She stretched out an arm, made grabby 'c'mon, c'mon' motions with her fingers, and Ian handed Go Fish - 15

her the floating fishy mausoleum. Raising it up to her face, she rolled her eyes and said, "Doesn't apply to feeder fish." Cal looked at the receipt more closely. "It doesn't say that here." She huffed and dropped the baggie on the counter with a splat. "No one's dumb enough to return feeder fish. They're supposed to die. Hence the term, feeder fish. Even dead, it's fresher than anything you'd buy at the market. What's the matter? Your other fish finicky eaters?" "Nope," Ian offered. "One only eats slime and poo." Cal elbowed him in the ribs. "Dude, you're not helping. I'm trying to get you your..." he looked at the receipt, squinted, looked closer. "Ten cents?! I came all the way down here on your behalf to get back ten cents?" "Plus tax," Ian offered. Maybe his bottom lip poked out a little. He had no control over the damned thing. "And you said 'it's the principle of the thing.'" "We spent more than ten cents in gas driving over here." Ian shrugged. "Then, yup. But only 'cause you love me." "Or," Cal turned in a slow leer to the woman behind the counter, "because it's the principle of the thing." "Are you saying we don't have strong principles here?" She grunted. "You sold him a fish with an imbalance or something. It was suicidal." "It committed fishicide," Ian agreed. Poor thing was crying out for help. How did he not see the warning signs? Just then, Marcy came out of the back, also wiping her hands. The image of store employees finger painting on their lunch breaks popped into his head. It was just one of those kind of days. "It jumped out of the tank, didn't it?" she said sadly. "That happens a lot." Ian thought maybe she was wearing makeup today. The mascara was kind of flaking, and one eye was a little red from rubbing, but he couldn't help but feel proud. His little geek was growing up. Ian nodded. "While I was sleeping. We tried everything, CPR, mouth to fish resuscitation, but when we tried to move him and some of his scales stayed stuck to the dresser, we knew he'd been gone a while." He had to look away, 'cause, whew, he thought he was ready to talk about it, but he so wasn't. A second later, Cal's big hand clamped down on the back of Ian's neck and massaged lightly. Ian wasn't usually big on the touchy-feely crap, but it helped. A lot.

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"Ya see!" Cal accused. "She knew the fish was defective! She sold him a defective fish." Marcy cringed, blinking the red eye a few times more than the other, and her shoulders slouched a little. "Cal..." "I'm sorry," Marcy apologized. "Most people don't buy them for pets. I didn't think to mention that they need a lot of room for swimming, because they go pretty fast and don't always see the edge of the tank. How big was your tank? We probably have a lid that will fit. I'm sure if you buy the lid, we can throw in a new fish for free." She raised her eyebrows in the manager's direction and got a nod of approval. Ian couldn't help but grin to himself either. You go, girl, he thought. "Um, it's a bowl," Cal said a little sheepishly. He circled his hands to about the size of the bowl. "A gallon, maybe two." Then he scratched at his collar. "Ahh, torture chamber for fish," Marcy corrected. "Scrappy thought so," Cal said with a lopsided grin. Ian was pretty sure he was the only one who saw the manager roll her eyes. He took offense before Cal got the chance. No one rolled their eyes at Cal except for Ian. He stepped between Cal and the counter, his back to the fish Nazi, and addressed Marcy, one hand going protectively to Cal's hip without even thinking about it. "Uh, what he means is, since we're here, we were thinking of upgrading to something bigger. We'd love for you to show us what you have." He cleared his throat, jerking his hand away from Cal's hip as a blush burned up his throat. "So long as the offer stands for the free fish." Marcy's face brightened enough that Ian could tell she was not only wearing mascara but lip gloss, too. Her lips were almost as shiny as her teeth for the split second before the fish Nazi stepped out from behind the counter, suddenly eager to be at their service. "That's what we're here for," the manager said, all smiles and twinkling eyes. "We have a full line of..." "I want Marcy to show us," Ian said. He bent down and turned his back on the woman behind the counter so he could address Marcy. "You get commission on this stuff?" She nodded. "Yup," he said out loud, "she's the girl for us." To the manager he added, "You gotta ring everything up by hand here, right?" He seemed to remember Marcy commenting about her fingers getting cramped up the day before. "Yeah," the woman said, confused. "Well, good," he said. "Marcy here is gonna make sure we find everything we need, and you, my dear, can ring us up. " He leaned over the counter, suddenly aware that Cal hadn't stepped back an inch even as Ian's ass bumped into him. "Just, uh, do some finger warm-ups or something. I Go Fish - 17

wouldn't want you to strain yourself." Then, because he felt himself channeling his inner Kit DeLuca, he fogged up the counter glass with his mouth. He resisted drawing a heart in it, but only because he was going to be hard enough to draw with his dick if he didn't straighten up pretty soon. Gay or not, Ian would dare any man to stand with Cal Jerome pressed against his ass and not... respond. He had no idea why he was thinking with dramatic pauses now. He just was. At any rate, the look on the old bat's face was enough to make Ian feel more than a little generous. They walked out of the store, or rather, pushed, pulled, and dragged out of the store, with a fifty-gallon tank -- more than enough for three fish according Marcy, who had the brains to back up her charming geek exterior. That was the biggest tank they could take out of the store and set up themselves. Anything bigger came with delivery and setup, for which they'd have to wait until the next weekend. They were impatient. Besides, they were two big, strong guys. They could handle setting up a fish tank. How hard could it be? So, they got the aquarium, aquarium stand, ten bags of glass marbles and gravel, air pump, external filter, filter cartridges with activated charcoal (not the kind they already had for the barbecue grill), water purifying drops, siphon hoses, and one each of every single gaudy aquarium ornament on the shelf. Just because they could. And because that made about a hundred separate items for Attila the Fish Monger to add up without the aid of a scanner. From the way she glared at him, Ian thought it might just be the push she needed to step into the twenty-first century. For good measure, he got a gift card for ten, no twenty, no fifty… seventy-five… one hundred dollars' worth of fish. And yes, he changed his mind that many times -- after it'd already been punched in. He might even have winked at Marcy when he did it. But the icing was when Attila asked if they needed help carrying everything out to the car, which she was required by store policy to do, and Cal said he was under doctor's orders not to lift anything. Oh, yeah, this was a hobby Ian could definitely get into. *** As it turned out, they probably should've gone with the set up and delivery service. They got out the stand first, because that was the logical thing to do. It came out of the box looking like a few mismatched pieces of wood, or some sort of wood substitute that was supposed to be stronger because it was laminated, a few plastic baggies full of screws, and twenty pages of instructions that read like organic synthesis reactions. Don't ask how Ian knew about organic synthesis reactions. It had something to do with a hot tutor who'd thought he had... potential. "Dude," Cal said with a huff. "These instructions are all in French." "It's okay, boy. Let me shake that brain fart loose for ya there." Ian picked up the booklet, turned Go Fish - 18

it upside down, then flipped it right to left and plopped it back down on the floor between them. "Voila!" he said, which was pretty much the only French world he actually knew, and roughed up Cal's hair like he was petting one of the dogs. Cal was entirely too passive, sitting with his eyes half-lidded in an expression of, 'I'm so glad you're amused at my expense.' And Ian? Well, he wasn't so much amused as aroused, because Cal's hair was kind of soft, and Cal's lips were all pouty right then, and Cal's eyes were fucking... Suddenly self-conscious, Ian did a half-assed job of smoothing Cal's hair back into place and cleared his throat. "So, you wanna screw?" "What?" No mistaking the classic deer-in-headlights expression. "Sorry, I meant, do you want to install the screws. With the, uh, the electric screwdriver." Cal's jaw stayed slack, his mouth formed around a silent 'oh' for longer than a standard script beat, as if they needed a reminder that real life isn't scripted. He somehow managed to swallow, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down, without closing his mouth, and that wasn't helping matters. "Oh. Yeah, sure. I've been..." He snatched the drill off the dresser and the first random screw out of the bag, then started driving the screw through a pre-drilled hole without lining it up with anything. "Been dying to try this thing out. Eighteen volts, you know? Biggest one they had in the store." "You have some sort of fixation on always getting the biggest and the best," Ian said, not really thinking since he was too preoccupied watching Cal screw the side of the aquarium stand into the hardwood floor. Cal flushed bright red, dropped the drill with a clunk, and started tugging at the board, his fingernails white as he bit his lower lip. "Well, I..." he grunted, tugged harder, "I don't like to settle." Ian reached over, hit the reverse switch on the drill, raised it up so Cal could see him flip the switch back and forth, and turned it on. He laughed as Cal's eyes went crossed, trying to focus on the bit head. "Then it's a good thing I'm here," Ian smirked. "'Cause I'm the best of the best." Cal snatched the drill and lowered it to the offending screw like he was ready to go to town on some rusty screw ass, but paused before turning it on. "Yeah, you are." It was so quiet, Ian wasn't sure he'd heard it right. That didn't stop him grinning like a loon. With all four cheeks. *** Ian tried. Really, he did. But the big, dorky smile Cal got on his face every time he put a couple pieces of wood together and they came out actually looking like the caveman sketches in the Go Fish - 19

instruction manual was downright distracting. Three separate times, Cal asked him to turn the page and ended up turning it himself, huffing at Ian in that way that made his bangs flop in front of his eyes. Ian didn't even have a good excuse. It wasn't like he could say, "Sorry, man, I was too busy looking at your dimples and wondering what they feel like on the inside. Mind if I stick my tongue in your mouth and find out for myself?" Of course, that was just a hypothetical excuse. He wasn't actually thinking that. Not with his upstairs brain, anyway. The last few steps in the assembly process required at least three arms to complete, or so said Cal, even though the instructions clearly said it was a one-man job. That was how they ended up with Ian holding two pieces of wood together, just like the C-clamp in the picture, the one they didn't have in their toolbox, because, well, they didn't have a toolbox. Cal was right behind him, his arms grappling with the slippery screw and the drill, which would have been a lot easier if the drill weren't so big and clunky. Twelve volts was probably way more than they needed for this project, but Ian was not about to interrupt Cal's Tim Taylor impersonation. Not so long as Cal kept bracing himself against Ian's back and leaning his chin on Ian's shoulder. It took Ian a second after feeling a bump against each of his elbows to realize Cal's knees were doing the bumping. All the oxygen was sucked from the room pulling Ian's skin tight over his skeleton. Holy fuck, he was between Cal's legs, actually between them, like, in the space where Cal kept his... other leg. And shit if he wasn't thinking with dramatic pauses again. It was actually a pretty well known fact, well known even to Ian himself, that when Ian got nervous or anxious in any way, he started talking out of his ass. Of course, knowing he had the problem didn't do a damned thing to help him get a handle on it. Since Cal was totally the one who had put him in that situation to begin with, he was completely to blame for what happened next. "Wow, it's our first reach-around." That's when Cal drilled him. The drill slipped off the half-threaded screw and into the heel of Ian's hand. Ian jerked back, knocking Cal off balance, and Cal tightened his knees around Ian's rib cage to compensate. Ian was strung tighter than the cat gut in a tennis racket, and the pressure against Ian's sides was like the metal barrel of a rocket launcher. Ian stiffened with a squeak, board-straight between Cal's arms, and they both toppled onto the floor. Cal must've thought Ian was having a seizure or something, because he wrapped his arms around Ian's whole chest and kicked one leg around Ian's thigh, pinning Ian to the floor. "Ian! Ian, oh, God, I'm sorry! Lemme see..."

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And the thing was, Ian's hand didn't hurt at all. But he was seriously going to bust something, or you know, die of asphyxiation --'cause that blue balls thing was totally a myth -- if Cal didn't stop being fucking everywhere all at once. That noise Ian was making? Totally a squeal. It was the love child of a dolphin and a sea monkey. And yes, Ian knew sea monkeys didn't make noise, but he couldn't figure out how a dolphin would get on land and mate with a regular monkey, and therefore, it had to have been a sea monkey. "Eeaagggaaghheee!" That was not a sound human vocal cords evolved to create. And he couldn't manage anything more coherent. Squirming like a worm on hot blacktop was the kind of base reflex that overrode all higher functions. His ass bumped into Cal's groin, and Cal groaned with a loud, extended exhale into Ian's neck. His grip on Ian's wrist tightened enough to be painful. They both froze where they were. Ian, because he was being prodded in the back, and Cal, Ian imagined, because Ian had discovered Cal l wanted to drill more than Ian's hand. Just like that, they launched in separate directions. Cal ended up pressed against the dresser, the nearest bag of aquarium rocks in his lap, and Ian leaned against the bed, cradling his hand to his chest. Catching his breath, Ian chuckled. "You drilled me." Cal slumped a little. "I'm sorry. Man, are you okay?" "Yeah, yeah." Ian waved him off. "It's just a bruise." Cal drew his knees up to his chest, avoiding Ian's eyes as the bag of rocks plunked to the floor. "I guess you're a little ticklish," he ventured, peeking out from under his bangs. "You, too," Ian said, the memory of Cal's third leg in the small of his back still fresh and... aching. When Cal blushed and ducked his eyes again, Ian couldn't stand it anymore. He scooched along the floor, dragging himself with his unbruised hand until he was leaning against Cal the way he had been leaning against the bed. He brushed the hair away from Cal's eyes with his bruised hand, held it out so Cal could see the little purple mark, and whispered, "This is where you kiss it and make it better." Cal's head jerked up, apparently expecting there to be a punch line, possibly something like a cuff to the back of the head, but he met Ian's eyes, held the gaze for a second or two, then relaxed. Ian was caught up in the moment, forgetting for a second that he was the one who'd taken the step to move things forward. He froze, nothing moving between them but breath. He didn't feel his hand change positions until he actually saw it between them, the swollen flesh Go Fish - 21

pressed to Cal's lips. Ian shivered at the soft touch and his fingers tightened, threading along Cal's jaw. When Ian's thumb drifted up over Cal's mouth, and Cal didn't draw back, Ian pulled the lower lip down and leaned forward, tipping Cal's head with the slightest pressure so they lined up as though they'd done this a hundred times before. They hadn't, but God, one touch of Cal's mouth to his and Ian wished they had. He couldn't imagine for the life him what had taken them so long, because this? This was right in all the ways it had been so, so wrong with everyone else. It was a gentle kiss, just lips on lips, slightly parted by Ian's thumb, but it jolted through him, something giddy, and happy, and perfect. So perfect it ended on a laugh. A bubble of happy Ian vaguely remembered from childhood Christmases but thought had gone forever. He giggled. Actually giggled. And before Cal could take offense or misunderstand, Ian pressed his thumb in and followed it with his tongue. When they had fused together, lips and tongues and breath, he broke it off with a smile he could feel crinkling his eyes, patting Cal's knee. "Glad we got that out of the way," he panted. "Me, too," Cal rasped. Then, because neither of them really knew what to do with the rawness and aching in both their voices, Cal raised the drill off the floor and grunted, "More power," while gunning it to life. Ian hit him with a bag of rocks. *** In retrospect -- Ian sighed, because 'in retrospect' only ever preceded something that kinda sucked -- but yeah, in retrospect, maybe he should've spent at least a little time on his own, realizing he might have gay tendencies, before he up and decided he tended to be gay for Cal. They lived together. It wasn't like he could take the guy's number and then angst over whether or not to call. Things kinda sucked a little with the kiss out of the way because it seemed they were both waiting for the other one to make the next move. The kiss wasn't planned. It just happened. Ian had a foggy idea about what might 'just happen' next, but he'd never driven a stick before. He seemed to keep popping the clutch, expecting Cal to step on the gas. Instead, they lurched forward and shuddered to a halt. Ian would've offered his hand to be drilled again if that would've moved things along. Except his hand was otherwise occupied at the moment. In Ian's mind, it was Cal who initiated the kiss, because hello, the whole reach-around thing, all pressed up behind Ian? That couldn't have been just accidental. Though Ian was pretty sure that if someone asked Cal, he'd say Ian made the first move by actually calling it a reach-around. That first kiss, whoever initiated, had been amazing, perfect, the kind of kiss that got imprinted somewhere and used to measure every subsequent kiss. Go Fish - 22

Every kiss since then was made of total fail. It was like the first one was sitting at the top of a wall between them, waggling its fingers and blowing razz berries. Their lean-ins weren't timed right. One always leaned when the other wasn't expecting it, and they lined up wrong, or bumped noses. There was that one time they clacked teeth, which Ian had heard was all kinds of hot, but really wasn't. It might have prompted him to buy some of that toothpaste for sensitive teeth. They kissed with their mouths open, neither one sure who should go for tongue first, and ended up pecking each other on the cheek and going back to their own rooms, because nights were too short and days were too long to fumble around like a couple of virgins. Actually, that was the worst part. They were not virgins. They'd had sex. Lots and lots and LOTS of ball-busting, white-out, had-stomach-cramps-the-next-day-from-the-exertion sex. They were good at it. Too good. Because now? Well, who wanted to go back to the fumbling, really bad, over before it'd begun, virgin sex? They were badsexophobic, which meant, of course, they were set up to fail. Because, like it or not, Ian was a gay virgin and way too damned macho to let Cal 'teach' him. It was bound to be awkward. Actually, awkward didn't have nearly enough syllables to be fitting. Or diphthongs. It needed a diphthong. Ian wasn't entirely sure what a diphthong was, but awkward definitely needed one just to make it... awkwarder. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a diphthong it needed. It wasn't that they weren't trying. There hadn't been some huge meltdown where they'd both kicked the dirt and scratched their heads, adjusted their belts, and said, "Boy, was that a mistake." Ian, for one, would never go down that path. He'd never been surer of anything in his life than he was about Cal and him and them. And if there had been any indication in the way Cal turned all red behind his ears and smiled under his eyelashes when Ian put a hand on the small of Cal's back as Ian reached across him at the sink, then Cal wouldn't call do-over either. They just somehow managed to pass Go only to end up in the jail at the end of the block. Floundering. Floundering was what they were doing. And a fish, which seemed highly appropriate . Well, at least, there was still the fish. They might still have been sleeping in separate rooms, but Ian still slept in, or pretended to, and Cal still sneaked in to check on the fish. There were a lot more fish to check on now, too. Ten goldfish. Nine different exotics and a Scrappy IV. Scrappy II and III had taught Ian that, one, they needed a deeper net, and two, it was a bad idea to leave the strainer off the end of the filter tube. There was even a whole other tank with saltwater, and coral, and five clown fish. Four named Nemo, and one named Cal. And yes, they could tell them all apart.

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It was winter, now, too, so Cal didn't run as much as he used to. He usually just worked out in the garage, shirtless, which made for a whole lot more sweaty skin for Ian to ogle when Cal was checking on the fish -- no mental quotes, because it was starting to feel like that's all it was -- and as a result, a linen closet full of new sheets. Ian just couldn't seem to keep his clean. Speaking of which, "Nnngh... oh shit." His eyes flew open, because there was no way Cal didn't hear that, and the only plausible way to deny what he was hiding under his sheets was to draw attention above them. He coughed. It was a bad cough. His six-year-old self had been a better actor. His six-year-old self never had to worry about coming all over his sheets with the object of his affection standing a few feet away. When did he stop being cooler than his six-year-old self? Probably when he turned seven. "Ian?" Cal turned around, his t-shirt wadded up in his fist. There was a definite note of concern in his voice. Ian was going for surprised, amused, maybe flattered, but he could work with concerned. He coughed again, tugging the sheet up under his chin. His right hand was a little slippery, so he shoved it back inside the covers. "G'morning." "You're up early. Are you okay?" Cal wiped his t-shirt over his face and down his chest, and okay, Ian was not too old to come in his shorts. "Nn…" He doubled over on himself, managing to fake a coughing fit to cover the moan. Holy hell, how had they stayed friends for so long when Ian's body clearly had it bad for Cal's? "Ian, hey." Cal sat on the edge of the bed gingerly, like he was trying not to shake it too hard. His hand hovered in the air for a few long seconds before he set it on Ian's hip and squeezed gently. "You sound like shit, dude. And you don't look much better." Surely he jested. Ian couldn't look that bad. He was only pretending to be sick. On second thought, he did feel a little nauseated, and there was a cold sweat gluing his face to the pillow. That couldn't have been flattering. Getting caught with a hand on his dick did that to a guy. His cock jumped as Cal squeezed his hip again, and Ian gasped around his bitten lips. Cal laid the back of his hand on Ian's forehead and down his cheek, drew it back with a grimace. "You look really sick, Ian. Hold still. You've got, like, snot or something on your chin." Snot? On his chin? Right where his slippery right hand had bumped when he pulled up the sheet? It was official. This whole experience had traumatized Ian for life. He went slack with shock and let Cal wipe the sweat and 'snot' off with the dry side of his t-shirt. If he hadn't been sick before, he was then, because Cal was sitting right here, on his bed, half-naked and sweaty, and touching Go Fish - 24

Ian, and Ian couldn't even look at him. Ian turned his face into his pillow to keep from cursing out loud, shivering when Cal smoothed over his hair and cupped the back of his neck. "It's all right," Cal whispered. "You go back to sleep. I'll call in sick for you. They'll understand." Rubbing his hand down Ian's arm, Cal pulled the sheets up higher, rolled the edges down (because that was part of the whole tucking in process), and leaned forward, kissing Ian's cheek. "I'll miss you. Call me if you need anything, okay?" Ian knew he should come clean, get his ass out of bed, and go to work, but for some reason even he didn't understand, he nodded and said, "I'll miss you, too." Then he listened to Cal going through their daily routine without him. Ian spent his day staring at the fish, suddenly too tired to get out of bed. There was bound to be a moral to this story, but all he could come up with before he fell back to sleep was, love hurt. Like whoa. *** By five o'clock, Ian was feeling pretty shitty. Not just for, in effect, playing hooky for an entire day and leaving Cal to take up the slack, something he'd probably be doing until late if Ian knew anything about it, but also because the idea of Cal tucking him in was appealing enough that Ian actually considered lying there and hoping it'd happen again. He was a sick, sick puppy. There was no denying it. He'd just have to figure out a way to live with it, or, you know, get laid, so he could stop getting caught with his hand on his dick in the first place. For now, there was only one sure-fire way to get out of this funk. Buy more fish. And ice cream. Eat ice cream while buying fish. That was the ticket. He was halfway through the door, in that never-never land between the jingling bell and the squawking macaw, his ass pressed against the glass because his hands were full of chocolate milk shakes and greasy take out bags, when his phone rang. Of course. It had a knack for doing that. Ian was convinced it was a trick phone that somehow calculated his exertion to annoyance ratio via sensors in his jeans, wired into his zipper, 'cause he kept a lot of anxiety in his pants, and rang when he reached critical mass. And why, oh, why did he have it in his front pocket? Why did he have it set to vibrate? It wasn't like he was actually on set where he was supposed to be and had to worry about ruining a shot Go Fish - 25

with an untimely phone call. And why was he wearing those jeans with the extra deep pockets that went all the way to his... inseam? He was hanging a little to the right that day. He never really paid attention to that before. If he did the whole 'notes to self' thing, he'd have, Phone/Dick = YIKES tattooed on his thigh. Yes, he knew what the slash meant. Google was his friend. So, the phone rang, and Ian busted his ass on the door trying to get away, get away, get away from whatever possessed thing was molesting him, and the chocolate milkshake under his right arm erupted over the front of his shirt. Cold, cold, cold didn't really help matters any. If he could've stretched his face any farther with the gasp erupting from his chest, his eyebrows would've actually left his forehead and bobbled around above his head like those teeny bopper antenna head bands from the eighties. This would have been the worst day of his life, except for the little angel who swooped in and saved him. Marcy darted in from nowhere and caught the half-empty milkshake, the full one, and the greasy bag before they could hit the floor. Working in a pet store must've been great for developing reflexes. Ian stood there, gasping, his stomach sucked in, arms stretched over his head like the Wolf Man preparing to eat a baby... or the cleavage the baby was nestled in. "Holy... Nnnngggghh!" The phone rang again, and Ian crammed his hand into his pocket. He didn't even think about how obscene it must've look when he pulled the vibrating monster away from the treasure chest, his eyes rolling up into his head, lips trembling in ooh, ahh, ohh, nnngh. There might have been drool on his chin when he fumbled around and put the phone to his ear. When it vibrated against his face and he fell into a display rack, he remembered to hit the talk button. "Uh, hi, Cal," he said, panting. "What? Yeah, I mean, no. I'm fine, just caught me away from my phone." His head fell back onto plastic bags full of something and he just lay there amidst the spilled display items with his eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. "Sure, right. Bathroom... uh, bring matches. Lots." Hand pressed to his forehead, he peeked and shrugged up at Marcy. "For you," he mouthed, pointing his chin toward the least crumpled bag and the unspilled milkshake. "Huh?" she mouthed back. Then, "Thanks!" Her braces were really shiny that day, and Ian thought maybe her lips actually closed all the way over them now. She even had some kind of clogs on with wedge heels and glittery decals. They made her legs look really long, which of course, he noticed from that angle. He pushed out his lower lip appraisingly and gave her a thumbs up, nodding at Cal chattering away in his ear about business as usual. "What?" he said into his shoulder. "No. Don't bring me anything. I'm... not really hungry." He pursed his lips and pressed a thumb and index finger into his temples, nodding. "Yeah... stomach Go Fish - 26

problems." He caught Marcy cocking a hip and putting a hand on her waist and gave her a lopsided grin. She looked like she just might kick him on Cal's behalf, and he was not liking the angle of ascent as he calculated it, spread-eagled on the floor. He scooched back away from She of the Ball Squashing Glitter Clogs, bulldozing through the pile of aquarium plants in iridescent colors and nodding, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, yup, yeah," in perfect rhythm with Cal's monologue, right up until he took out another display rack. Somehow, between the downpour of fake frogs, chew bones, and squeaky toys that were, apparently, motion-activated, he convinced Cal that everything was just fine at home and hung up. That done, he dropped the phone and sprawled flat on his back to reflect on just how fucked up his day really was. They had overhead fans with paw prints painted on them. And mirrors on the ceiling. Huh. You learned something new every day. Today, Ian had learned not to get out of bed without first making some sort of sacrifice to the Gods of Gay Love. Ian had been in awkward relationships before, but never had they spilled into the rest of his life to the extent that this had. Banged noses and sensitive teeth, chin splooge and crusty sheets were all fine and good as growing pains went, so long as they stayed part of his private life. You didn't get any less private than sprawled on the floor of a pet store with a ten-inch rawhide bone between your legs and a dozen motion-activated, vibrating balls. He really, really needed to get laid. Marcy crouched beside him, her face looming above his. More makeup and less zits. Ian had to remember to ask for a graduation picture. She reached forward tentatively and pulled a plastic aquarium plant out of his hair. "Faux seaweed," she said with a shrug. She gave him a hand up and helped him brush off the debris. Taking a long draw from the milkshake she said, "Let me guess. Girl troubles?" Ian nodded. "Faux girl." "Must suck," she said, all sympathy, with a French fry dangling between purple-painted fingernails. "I wish." Setting the drink on the counter, she twirled a stray piece of hair around and around her little finger, contemplating, before she shrugged. "Y'know, I could maybe help you with that. I might know a trick or two."

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"Uh." He was afraid to ask. Seriously, balls-drawn-up-inside-his-body afraid. But he was also wearing chocolate milkshake and a really stupid expression. "Okay, hit me." "That might work," she winked, "but I have a better idea." Ian shrugged and gave her his best hit-me-with-your-best-shot expression. Sure, she was a kid, but her geekly stash of random information hadn't let him down yet. Besides, things couldn't possibly get worse. Could they? *** The next thing Ian knew, he and Cal were sitting on his bedroom floor with a handful of mismatched playing cards each, and the 'fish pond' cards divided up and tucked in the waistbands of their pants. "Go fish." Ian smirked. Cal huffed an exasperated sigh and laid his cards down at his side, fanned out on the floor. "Should we really be doing this on the floor? You were home sick all day. You could develop pneumonia or something." Cal was so cute when he was mother-henning. "I'm fine, Cal, all good, but if it makes you feel better, I'll keep my blankie close by." Ian tugged the comforter off the bed behind him and wrapped it over his shoulders. "Now go fish, already." He grinned, tossing his arms above his head so his t-shirt slid up and exposed the cards tucked into the waistband of his sweats. Bottom lip rolled under his teeth. "Fine." Cal shrugged off his outer shirt and tossed it into the hamper before leaning forward and drawing a card from Ian's pants. He rolled his eyes when Ian did a little belly dance roll to influence his card choice. "Seriously, Ian, Strip Go Fish? Tell me this was the result of a fever dream so I can put you back to bed and never have to admit to anyone that I've played a pornedup kids' game. I feel like Feds should be breaking in here and confiscating the cards as part of a child pornography bust." That actually sounded pretty good, the putting him to bed part, that was, but no. Also, the fever dream was actually a better explanation than the truth – that he got the idea from Marcy. Why he was taking advice on sex games from a seventeen-year-old pet store geek he liked to think of as virginal was beyond him, but it was a better plan than he'd had in weeks. And, in his experience, there was very little Marcy didn't know something about. She was, at least, a well-rounded geek. Besides, he wasn't ready for bed yet. Except for his short but eventful excursion into the outside world, Ian had been in bed all day. He was not going to settle for just being tucked in again. Like so many other things, that had stopped being cool when he was six. Ian did not spend an hour discussing his 'girl troubles' while repairing store displays and picking faux seaweed out of his hair, then rush home and jump into bed before Cal got back, just to have his brilliant plan -okay, Marcy's brilliant plan -- foiled before he could put it to a proper test. Go Fish - 28

Cal looked all kinds of tired, for which Ian was all kinds of guilty, but lemons into lemonade as they say. Or in this case, cream into cream pie. Ick. What he meant was, this was a win-win situation. Win or lose, one of them was getting naked before anyone was getting put to bed. And the Queen of Hearts shoved down inside his own boxer briefs, he'd showered since that morning, thank you very much, pretty well guaranteed he was never going to find the match for the Queen of Spades in his hand. Especially since he'd dealt himself the club and the diamond right off the bat. "Hmmm," Ian pondered. "Do you have any... queens?" Of course, that wouldn't stop him from asking. Cal couldn't possibly have any queens. Ian would have to strip and go fish. Like he said; naked. Naked was a good motivator. Sure, Ian would be naked first if he kept asking for queens, but in that case, a loss was definitely a win by default. He could be persuaded to throw just about any fight if there was naked waiting at the end of it. "Go fish." Cal didn't even look this time. He hadn't had it the last three times Ian asked for it. He'd probably remember if he picked it up in the last... three seconds or so. Ian should've maybe worked on his subtlety. If he got excited when Cal went fishing on him, he was downright giddy when it was his turn to strip and fish. Laying his cards down, Ian did his best strip tease, rib cage shifting left and right as he slid his t-shirt up, up, and over his head. He was trying for a sultry 'come fuck me' expression, but as usual, his lips had a mind of their own, and he was pretty sure he looked like Donald Duck putting the moves on Daisy. He had to wipe drool off his chin before tossing the tshirt aside. That was never a good sign. He was not to be deterred, though, letting his fingers do the walking up Cal's thigh to the waistband of his jeans, and making a show of sliding over Cal's belly from one card to the next, to eeny, meeny, miney, and mo. Weren't many left. Pretty soon Cal was going to figure out there was one missing, so Ian had to move things along a little. He couldn't help the way his breath hissed in when Cal's tight stomach jumped under his teasing, and the card, when he pulled it out, was tacky with sweat despite Cal's complaints about the cold, drafty floor. Ian didn't even look at the card, though he did manage to resist the urge to give a good long sniff, because that would've just been... freaky. If Ian lied about not having the next card Cal asked for, it wasn't actually cheating, since he'd already stacked the deck against himself. It was just more... motivation. And yeah, Cal sitting Indian style, elbow to knee so his abdominals tightened, and pulled, and rippled just above his... uh, belt... was pure motivation. The belt really had to go, though. He should've made Cal take it off before they started.

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Cal was taking this way too seriously now, stupid competitive streak. He didn't even look up when he reached over for the card, entirely focused on his hand like he hadn't already memorized every card, didn't know exactly what he needed to win. He seemed completely oblivious to the way Ian's heart pounded with gradually increasing volume as Cal's hand drew nearer, didn't notice how Ian's eyelashes had suddenly gotten so heavy Ian could barely keep them open, and he definitely didn't feel the stab of loss in Ian's gut when he drew the card and leaned back, grinning because he'd made a match and starting to throw his arms in the air. He had to notice when Ian grabbed his wrist on impulse and caused the cards to flutter to the floor. Of course he noticed. How could he miss it? Ian noticed, too -- after the fact and with a distinct kicked-in-the-gut roll of his stomach. He sure as hell hadn't planned this part. That was painfully obvious when they locked gazes, nothing at all like the longing look of lovers in the moment before a kiss. They were both dazed and confused with a definite hint of 'what the fuck' ricocheting between them. Ian did the only thing he could think of. He licked the back of Cal's hand, and did his best Three Stooges eye jab, "whoop-whoop-whoopwhoop," cackling madly as he fell back against the bed. Which. Ow. Bed frame. He cracked his head. Again. Then, he got nauseous. Man, could he be any lamer? He was never getting laid. Ever. He wished he'd gotten a taller bed so he could climb under it. Cal must've heard the dull thud of Ian's head against the railing, or the hollow echo inside it, as he jumped to Ian's side instantly. "Ow, that sounded nasty," he said, pulling Ian's head against his chest so he could examine the back for cuts or bleeding. "'It's okay," Ian said with a huff, looking down between Cal's pecs at the shimmer of sweat pooling in his belly button. "Really." Ian's breath was suddenly shallow, chest tight. He slid his hands up, lacing his fingers between Cal's rib bones as a way of offering reassurance, but Cal prodded against a knot in his hair and Ian dug in, Cal's muscles tight under his fingers. Cal froze, and Ian couldn't help but notice Cal's nipples peaking under the tiny puffs of air from between his lips. With the last, waning ounce of self-control he could muster, he said, "You got any... queens?" He dragged out the sssss, watching in wonder as gooseflesh spread over the flesh stretched in front of him. Cal's hands dropped out of Ian's hair, slowly caressing down his neck and too-gentle over his shoulder blades while Cal's chest heaved. Ian felt him swallow two, maybe three times, throat working around an answer as Cal's fingers started to curl into his sides. "G-go f-fish." "Thought you'd never ask," Ian puffed, eyes closed against Cal's sternum. His hands slid through the slick channels between Cal's ribs and cut abs down to his waistband, plucking out the card right over the belt buckle. The card fell, and neither one of them looked to see what it was. Cal's Go Fish - 30

fingers flattened against Ian, arms sliding around to pull them closer together, and Ian didn't fumble the latch of the buckle at all. His eyelids were clenched tight, his stomach rolling with anticipation. He got the belt open, undid the button and then the zipper, one metallic tooth at a time. When Ian pulled the jeans open, the rest of the cards fluttering to the floor around Cal's hips, Cal jerked, his entire stomach sucking back away from Ian's fingers, a grunt vibrating through his chest and against Ian's forehead. Ian chuckled softly. Ticklish. Good to know he wasn't the only one. Ian wasn't sure if it was reflex or a defensive mechanism, but Cal's hands flew off his shoulders and settled on Ian's hips, could've pulled him closer or shoved him away in a heartbeat. Ian stilled, forcing himself to wait, and when Cal did the same, he whispered, "Uh, a little help here," canting his hips up into Cal's hands. The pants were next to come off anyway. Cal wouldn't forget a game he was about to win. That could've been it. Finally. They were just about as close as they could get except for the very last articles of clothing. And that was the thing. Ian was wearing his tightest sweats. The elastic on those babies could've been used for bungee jumping. And if Ian had just stood up and removed one leg at a time, it would've been no problem. But that would've meant stepping out of the moment it'd taken them forever to get into in the first place. Instead, Cal got a little hasty, pulling both sides at the same time. The elastic could only give so much, and it did, right up until the pants hit the fullest curve of Ian's ass, hung up, and jerked free of Cal's grasp. "Ahh!" Now Ian knew why women shaved their legs before trying to pull on panty hose. The elastic bound up in his leg hairs, and when Cal let go, it started to roll back up his leg, yanking out every unfortunate follicle in its path. Ian had heard that body builders waxed all the hair off their bodies. They were fucking morons! "Holy fucking hell!" He bucked up, sending Cal sprawling backward on the floor, and lay back against the bed again, paralyzed with the pain, his eyes squinting as tight as they could go. When the burn started to subside, he opened one eye then the other, and was accosted by the unfortunate sight of his throbbing dick pushed straight out by the constricting elastic butted up against it. No wonder the pants wouldn't come off. Road block... er, cock block. He sucked so hard. Beet red, his entire body thrumming with the heat of embarrassment, Ian curled in on himself and shimmied the pants the rest of the way off. Wearing just his boxers, he drew his knees up to his chest. He was not whimpering, just... composing himself. Again, he wished the bed were higher off the ground. Monster under the bed had nothing on the Go Fish - 31

menace of crushing humiliation. The blood was pounding so hard in his ears that he didn't even hear Cal moving up beside him, but then Cal was there, his hand on the small of Ian's back, and Ian... snapped... or something. You know what they say. You gotta hit rock bottom before things turn around. And right then, Ian thought he couldn't possibly get any lower. With nothing left to lose, he was damn sure going to gain something from this day of hell. Ian twisted around, landing himself face to teeth with Cal's gaping zipper. He sucked in a deep breath, heard Cal gasp with surprise... and went in. No way he was pussyfooting...err... tiptoeing around the subject anymore. He could do this. He could. Sure, his stomach was clenching, and he was drenched in nervous sweat. His stomach could just shut the fuck up. It took him all of two seconds to get Cal's dick out. All of that was fumbling with denim and cotton, because it took no time at all to find it. Cal was... no slouch. This would have been the part where Ian admitted to himself he'd never done this before, but he was way past the point of admitting anything. He did what any man would do when faced with a challenge. He sucked it up. And then some. And then some more. And then... he gagged a little, because there was a hell of a lot more to suck up than he'd counted on. He thought maybe the gagging spoiled the mood, but Cal's squeak and his hands clenched around Ian's ears said otherwise. Ian didn't really have any technique, but from his own personal experience, dicks weren't all that choosy. At least, his wasn't, ask anyone about his choice in girlfriends. He just minded his teeth and went to town, relishing the way Cal's fingers tightened in his hair. Ian gauged his success by the amount of pressure Cal applied and the amount of rasp in every panting breath. He figured he was doing pretty damn good, too, because, to be honest, it was starting to hurt a little. Actually, Cal was pulling his hair so hard it reminded him of his longhaired days when one of the hairdressers on the set of his latest gig had gotten too close with the dryer and got some sucked into the fan. Ian ignored it, right up until Cal began to make that strangled "Nnnngghh" sound that Ian knew too well, and came in his mouth. Um. Strangely enough, Ian hadn't really planned for that circumstance. His throat was raw from gagging, his eyes watering like whoa, and all he could think was, "It will hurt if I swallow. It will hurt if I swallow. It will hurt if I swallow." He swallowed. It hurt. But the way Cal petted his neck and caressed his shoulders made it worthwhile. For that, Ian could even ignore the rumbling in his stomach. Mostly. Though it was getting harder to ignore.

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He lay there, a little overwhelmed by the whole situation and trying to figure out how to tell Cal it was okay if he didn't want to, you know, reciprocate, when his phone rang. For once, it had perfect timing. He barely managed to lift his head, which weighed at least twenty pounds, he thought, and groped around on the nightstand for the cell. He clicked it on, squinted through his watering eyes, and pressed talk. "Hey, Marcy. What's up?" "Hey, um, Ian. I was just watching the news, and I saw where there's been an outbreak of food poisoning at that place you got takeout from this afternoon. You didn't, by chance, eat the chili dog, did you?" He hung up. No way he was letting this moment be ruined by a chili dog. Really, only half a chili dog, not even, because he scraped most of the chili off, and... "Who was that?" "Uh, no one." Ian changed the subject by licking his way up Cal's stomach and pushing him down on the floor, relishing the way he bucked and arched off the cold hardwood, barely touching with the points of his shoulder blades. Ian had never done this with a guy before, but Cal was solid, a continuous span of taut muscle, and every touch, every lick, nip, and breath rippled through him like a telegraph. It wasn't hard to figure out what he liked, not any harder than it was for his own dick to find the groove of Cal's jutting hip bone. "Ah!" Ian thought it was a gasp of pleasure until Cal reached between them and rolled his own jeans down the rest of the way, the zipper of which had scraped a channel in his flesh. "Sorry," Ian whispered, barely lifting his head as he snaked his tongue between ribs and teased along the leading edges with his lower teeth, just enough to make Cal wriggle and twist up into the contact. He was only a little self-conscious when he felt Cal's hand inside the waistband of his shorts, too busy finding out Cal's nipples were more sensitive than any girl's he'd ever been with. Lost in the sensation, Ian rutted against Cal's hip, pulling one nipple and then the other into his mouth just to hear Cal make that little grunting noise deep in his throat. God, Cal's hands were huge, grabbing Ian's ass and kneading each cheek, first simultaneously and then alternating. Sweat trickled down between them, and Ian became aware of the stashed playing card glued to the front of his stomach, just above the hairline, the corners poking and prodding with every grinding thrust he made. He was about to move up a little higher, find out what that little divot under Cal's Adam's apple Go Fish - 33

tasted like, and surreptitiously remove the card from his boxer briefs, when, "Ah!" He jerked straight up, the elastic of his underwear snapping against his flesh. He wasn't a prude. He wasn't. He just, somehow, lost track of Cal's hands for a second there, and one of them, just a finger... at least, if felt like a finger went... Well, no one had ever touched him... there before. Cal looked up at him, agape, chest still heaving, but now he had his hands splayed against the floor. "I'm sorry, I... I thought we were... I should've gone slower." "Nooo, n-n-n-nooo," Ian waffled. "We were, I mean, I think we were going... uh, there, but I guess..." His stomach rolled, and he clamped his mouth shut. Cal sat up, nearly dumping Ian off, but caught him with strong hands around his biceps before he hit the floor. "Look, Ian, we don't have to. There are other things we can do besides that. We can start with..." "Oh, hell no!" Ian's was not some woobie little schoolgirl. He was far from virginal, and he fucking liked sex. This day was not going to end up as awkwardly as it had started. They were clearing this hurdle once and for all. "We are doing this. Now!" He lunged forward, knocked Cal back to the floor, and started kissing anything he could get his mouth on, sucking and biting at collar bone, chin, and lips until Cal was back to gasping and unable to argue. Nipping up along Cal's jaw bone to his ear, he whispered, "I have everything we need. Just... how do you want to do it...?" A swirl of tongue around an ear lobe, a tender bite to Cal's pulse point. The tip of his nose nuzzled into the hair line. "Any way you want." He hoped he sounded more sure of himself than he felt. He swore he'd never been this nervous when he was a virgin the first time. He thought he was hiding it pretty well. No way Cal heard the gurgle in his stomach over the heavy breathing, and if his...um... interest was flagging a little, he had no intention of letting it continue. Bracing himself on his elbows, he sagged so his forehead rested against Cal's collarbone and huffed into the little valley between the bulging pecs, hips flexing and grinding. Ian's heart pounded. Sweat burned in his eyes when hands slid up off his ass and along the dip in his back, up, up, and up, until Cal's thumbs hooked around Ian's jaw from behind and tilted his head up. "Hey..." Cal's voice was distant, lost in the pounding of blood in Ian's ears, somewhere miles away behind his closed eyelids, until Cal thrust up once, hard and throbbing, into the soft spot below Ian's navel and twined their ankles together, spreading Ian's legs until he lost his leverage. "Hey. Look at me." Ian did, eyelids fluttering against the weight of sweat clinging to his lashes. When he did, Cal was there. Cal, the guy his mother used to give the extra cookie to when they came home from school. The kid who told him what it meant when his pants got too tight for no apparent reason, and what to do to fix it. The only one who believed he could make it as an actor and gave him a room in his own house when he wasn't so much making it as taking it. The friend who got him a Go Fish - 34

meeting with the producer on the show he was a production assistant on when the cocky lead threw a tantrum and walked off. It was crazy how much Ian owed this guy, how well he knew him, and how much more he was about to know. Something like doubt crawled up his spine, because, fuck, what if he messed it up, and he coiled, ready to lurch up and make a run for it. But Cal knew Ian as well as Ian knew Cal. He thrust up again, one hand reaching between them and tightening around Ian's cock, his eyes open and soft the whole while, searching Ian's as he smiled. "God, what you do to me." He pulled Ian down, thumb stroking along his jaw and over the shell of his ear, until they kissed, both inhaling until their stomachs bumped, trying to draw each other deeper from the inside out. One flick of Cal's wrist, and Ian came with a shout, adding some sticky to the slick of sweat between them. He collapsed into Cal's neck, breathing through the tremors and waiting for his stomach to stop its clenching roil. Only it didn't. Ian's head was just starting to clear, the high-pitched white noise waning away like the tail end of a cicada song, when something became painfully obvious. He loved Cal, which was awesome, but that wasn't it. Well, it was, but unfortunately that was not the most urgent thought. See, that thing he was thinking earlier? About having nothing left to lose? He was wrong. Ian still had something left to lose. Dinner and... dessert. He barely managed to roll to the side and jerk his underwear back up before he avoided throwing up in Cal's lap by throwing up all over their discarded clothing instead. *** As it turned out the most eventful thing that came of their trip to the local emergency room was that the nurse discovered the Queen of Hearts glued to the skin inside his boxer briefs, reminding him that he hadn't even managed to get fully naked before coming like a teenager. She almost concealed the smirk with a more professional expression when she tucked the card into his personal effects bag without a word, and then left him with an emesis basin and a call button for the entirety of the three hours they had to wait while the couple dozen or so other people who were stupid enough to eat the chili dogs got treated first. After the humiliation of that and, well, the whole puking thing, the shot of anti-emetic and prescription for a good antidiarrheal were pretty... anticlimactic. What the fuck was it with the dramatic pauses? His brother always did say he was a drama queen when he was sick. Not that Ian was anywhere near the point of giving a damn by then. He didn't even ask if he could take the shot in his arm, just rolled over and pulled down his pants, which was a whole lot easier when he wasn't hard enough to drive nails, and held onto the emesis basin for dear life. He had no pride left whatsoever. Go Fish - 35

He had really, really reached rock bottom, and he was determined to just stay there and wallow for a while. For the next two days, there were lots of buckets and trips to the bathroom and bottles and bottles of Pedialyte, because Gatorade just wouldn't cut it, and Ian liked the grape-flavored Pedialyte better. Through it all there was Cal, bathed in the halo of light from the aquarium. He left it on twenty-four hours a day to avoid turning on anything harsher while still being able to see when checking on Ian. Not that there was much checking to do, considering he never really left, no matter how rank the room got or how many buckets of puke he had to hose out. Aside from the whole being sick at both ends thing, Ian thought he could get used to the attention. It was nice to have Cal in his room without the pretense of checking on the fish, air quotes or none. He didn't feel like he got more than five or ten minutes of sleep at a time during the whole ordeal, but whether he was just falling asleep or barely awake, Cal was there, his hands on Ian, the only things soft and soothing in the midst of stabbing pain, chills, intense cramping, and bitterness. Cal's hands were huge. Ian had teased him about them at least once a day since they discovered he could palm a basketball in the seventh grade. But now they weren't big enough, two little oases in the desert of sickness. Fuck that. Ian didn't wax poetic when he was healthy. He sure the hell wasn't doing it now. He liked Cal's hands. He liked them a lot. And what he knew from the whole being sick thing was they felt good on his forehead, brushing his hair back, on his jaw, turning his head so he wouldn't soil the sheets when he started to gag. They were better than a salve, smoothing out the tightness in his back and shoulders, warmer than the sheets Cal tucked up around him when he was done convulsing and was trying to sleep before the next attack. Best yet, they were attached to those huge-assed arms and shoulders that sloped into a bulging chest. And when taking care of Ian was too much for either of them to take, Cal's hands, his arms, his shoulders, his chest, all of him, curled up around Ian so they were close enough that Cal's drool spot was on the collar of Ian's t-shirt. Ian didn't have to do or say anything to keep Cal from leaving. But he didn't want to keep Cal from living his life. Two days of catching and mopping up various bodily fluids... that was more of Cal than Ian had the right to ask for. "Cal," he whispered, barely turning his head because Cal was tucked into the crook of his neck, "I'm okay. You don't have to stay." "I want to." "Dude, no one's that desperate." He was sore and grimy, rank enough to peel paint, and not stupid enough to believe Cal was enjoying himself. Ian wriggled out of Cal's reach and all the Go Fish - 36

way to the edge of the bed, hunched in on himself like he could get small enough to disappear. For some reason, Cal didn't get that Ian was just looking out for his best interests. "Fuck you." Cal extricated himself from the bed and stalked over to the fish tank, making a show of feeding them like he could force the awkward out of the situation with a dose of normalcy. The dude had just spent the last couple of days cleaning up all the wrong bodily fluids, and Ian had basically given him a 'thank you, Jeeves,' and pointed him toward the guest quarters. Yeah, awkward. Ian bit his lip and huffed into his pillow, but when his tongue got forked like it was then, there was no keeping it in check. "Yeah, that went well." He wasn't sure what he meant by that. True, it didn't go well, 'it' being anything that equated to him and Cal being anything more than just really good friends, but he wasn't sure if the blame in his voice was meant for himself or for Cal. He didn't know how he had ever expected he could suddenly realize he was gay for his best friend, and then just go about pursuing him the way he would have any of the girls he'd ever dated, and have that work out. Because those relationships had always ended so well. Cal dropped the lid on the fish tank abruptly enough that the fish all darted to the bottom. "Look. I know things haven't exactly gone smoothly." "Your powers of deduction... they astound me," Ian sniped, curling tighter around himself to make up for the lack of Cal to keep him warm. Cal turned around, hands on his hips, his head tilted defiantly to the side. "I'm not going to do this with you." "Do what?" "You know what. Let you prod me into an argument until we're both so pissed we can't see straight and give you an opening to run away." "That's not what I was doing." He lied. He was a lying liar who lied. He knew that. But it wasn't fair that Cal knew him better than he knew himself. It was his hang-up, and he'd pout if he wanted to. "Dude, I've been in shouting distance for at least three of your breakups. I know how you work. And you can just forget it. I'm not breaking up with you." Cal uncrossed his arms and then made a face, because apparently he didn't smell much better than Ian. "But I will give you some time to yourself. It's Sunday. I've got that standing lunch date with Mom and Dad." He started grabbing dirty laundry off the floor and tossing it into a waiting basket. "You take the afternoon to get your head screwed on straight, and, hopefully, shower, and we'll have this discussion when I get home." There was something that felt suspiciously like 'don't go' on the tip of Ian's tongue, but Cal was Go Fish - 37

already out the door. By the time Ian was showered and feeling mostly human again, the house was too damned big and empty, and changing the sheets on the bed just made it too inviting to ignore. Lucky for him, Marcy had his back. He knew it was her before he even answered the phone, lunging and catching it as it vibrated off the bed stand. "So, how did it go?" "Before or after I threw up on his favorite jeans?" "Oh, that well." "Yeah, and then I think I kinda freaked out on him this morning." He smacked the bed with the flat of his hand, sprawled out in classic 'Calgon, take me away' fashion. "I suck at this." "Lucky for you, that's a useful talent where Cal's concerned." He chuckled. "Was your mind ever not in the gutter?" "Ian, the two hottest guys I know are hooking up, and I have the details hotline on speed dial. I hate to tell you this, but I'm using you for sex. So, spill it." "You're not getting details." He couldn't believe he was saying that. He'd never had any issue chronicling his exploits for anyone who cared to listen. But this was Marcy, and that was Cal, and somehow nothing was the way it used to be. "But listen. Your little idea about the card game? That was gold. You wouldn't happen to have another trick or two up your sleeve? Turns out, I suck at romance." The line was silent for a few seconds, and Ian was pretty sure he could hear a fingernail file scritch-scratching away. The phone crackled in his ear as she blew away the filings. "Is he there now?" "No. He went to his mom's. Sunday supper. It's kind of a tradition. Afterward, they watch Murder She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger on cable. He won't be back until late." "Good. I'll be right over." Ian wasn't sure what it was with people leaving him hanging without a goodbye, but it was starting to get annoying. He stared at the dead phone for second, then turned it off and chucked it to the foot of the bed. He was a little afraid to imagine what she had up her sleeve. *** He hadn't planned to fall asleep, but after spending the afternoon with Marcy, he was more than a little exhausted. Sure, some of it was the lingering effects of the food poisoning, but he was also Go Fish - 38

convinced the girl could wear the second hand off a digital clock. The end result was, even though he had every intention of waiting for Cal to come home so he could spring his little surprise, he was sound asleep five minutes after Marcy left. He woke to Cal spooned up behind him, chin resting on Ian's shoulder, lips against his neck. "Mmm," Ian grinned. "Welcome home. You smell better than I remember." Cal tightened his grip around Ian's chest, careful of the tender stomach muscles as he nuzzled in closer. "I'm just checking on the fish," he whispered, burying his nose in Ian's hair to show he also appreciated the less rancid version. "Dude, I'm offended. You're using me for my fish." "And you love me for it." Cal smirked against the side of Ian's neck, both of them stubbly and a little ticklish. "Yeah," Ian agreed, "I guess I do." He didn't mean to fall asleep again, but he did. *** The next time he awoke, it was to lips on his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, along his jaw, everywhere. Cal was standing beside the bed, bent over to Ian's eye level so those long, dark bangs tickled over Ian's forehead and into his eyes as he fluttered into wakefulness. Everything was still hazy and fuzzy at the edges. Ian wasn't sure if the haziness was confusion or just contentment, didn't really care so long as it stayed soft and quiet. He grinned and lifted his eyes as Cal's hands cupped his face, thumbs stroking over Ian's cheekbones. He'd never seen Cal's eyes quite as soft as that, all lit up from inside without the usual crinkles of laughter like there was a punch line bubbling to the surface. He looked a little like he was going to cry. Giant pussy. Except, shit if there wasn't some kind of lump in Ian's throat, too, either happiness or fear, some weird combination of everything awesome and terrible all mushed together like something he might throw up if he didn't already know he'd completely purged his system. Purged except for the one thing he couldn't ever get enough of. Cal kissed him again. On the mouth, just gently over his dry lips. Ian sighed into it, laughed weakly. "Cal, I'm not dying, for Pete's sake." Go Fish - 39

"Nope, but you're going to sleep like the dead after I'm finished with you." And he slid over Ian, spooning up behind him, which was nothing new until his hand skated down Ian's stomach and into his shorts without any preamble whatsoever. It was a little embarrassing how quickly he responded, even exhausted and dehydrated. He hissed and thrust into Cal's grip. It didn't take long. Months of awkward longing and disjointed embraces washed away in one white wave of ecstasy that quivered in long, ebbing aftershocks down his limbs until he was lax against Cal's chest, all his angles in Cal's hollows, a perfect fit. "Wow," Ian panted, teetering on the edge of his best sleep in weeks, "what brought that on? Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Not. At. All. But I thought you wanted to talk." "You," Cal whispered, as though Ian hadn't been there the whole time, wasn't the one who had faked being sick and then got himself actually sick in the process, hadn't spent the better part of the last week puking all over and sweating through the sheets. "And?" "Your fish." Cal snickered. "Oh." He grinned. "That." He threaded his fingers through Cal's, not caring if they were still sticky with come, and cracked his eyes open just enough to see the fish tank in the corner. That Marcy was one smart chick. She not only had the awesomest plans and boundless amounts of useless information and energy, but a super-secret stash of glow-in-the-dark aquarium rocks and helpful hints on how to "spell things out" if nothing else worked. Ian had already forgotten about the side trip to the Toys 'R Us store and the stupid, curious looks the clerks had given him when he bought five sets of magnetic refrigerator letters. And he'd nearly forgotten the pain in the ass it had been to empty half the water out of the fish tank, fill the letters with glow-in-the-dark stones, and wedge his message in the gravel between the fiber optic skull and the ceramic driftwood. For the message itself, he'd considered a lot of options. Fuck Me. No, too forward. Kiss Me. No. Been there, done that. Be Mine.

Go Fish - 40

There were candy hearts for that. I Love You. Um. No. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd made the right choice when he squinted through his eyes at the glow reflecting through the water and off the glass lid of the tank, shimmery and ephemeral in the otherwise pitch dark. Darkness made welcome and comforting by the weight of Cal's arms around him, their fingers laced together. BOTTOMS UP. Yeah, that was it. Maybe blunt, but he was done with oblique. Didn't want to leave anything open to interpretation. "Do you mean it?" "Yeah, I do." "Good." That might just have been a growl in Cal's voice. Ian wondered if he should be afraid. He was feeling no pain now, though, nuzzled into Cal's shoulder, lower legs wound together under the sheets, and he couldn't have been less afraid if he tried. "Sorry, I didn't wait up for you," he whispered. "Don't be." Cal's hand drifted up Ian's stomach to the space over his sternum. Soft brush of fingertips on sweat-damp skin, over the most ticklish places along his obliques and in the intercostal spaces. Ian barely twitched, still loose and heavy with sleep. "How do you feel now?" "Fine... mmm." His hips gave a little hitch as Cal's thigh slid over his, and his stomach didn't protest, no cramps or surges of nausea. It was almost like he'd never been sick. "Better than fine, actually. Must be your magic touch." He was too tired to waggle his eyebrows, but inside, they were waggling like whoa, 'cause that magic touch was... awesome. "Was hoping you'd say that." Cal hummed and slid closer until his hips met Ian's, dip and roll, dip and roll, more stroke than grind. He kissed along Ian's jaw bone to his mouth, inching along in tiny, prickling increments. His chin tipped low, each follicle of stubble like the first pinpricks of sensation in a sleep-deadened limb, would-be caresses ahead of teasing tongue and stinging teeth. He licked over Ian's lips until Ian opened to him and rocked up against the thick muscle of Cal's leg with a ragged moan. The kiss was slow and sleepy, but deep, and getting deeper. Cal slid over him, taking most of his weight on his arms, head dipped down between his shoulder blades so as not to break the connection. They ground together, a slow rhythm building. Ian slipped his hands over rippling back muscles, up over shoulders, and then down into the deep hollow where Cal arched against Go Fish - 41

him, pressing closer. Their cocks thickened in the space between slick, rolling stomachs. "Is this okay?" Cal tipped down just enough to ask, breathing heavily. His forehead grazed the bridge of Ian's nose, eyes just slow-blinking lashes, lips parted against Ian's chin. There was only a short moment when Ian wondered if it really was okay before he stopped thinking altogether and nodded, arching back and gasping into Cal's hair as their mouths joined together He was only slightly aware of Cal's underwear shimmying down lower and lower on his legs. As the kiss slipped apart, Cal lifted his hips and licked down Ian's neck until his nose bumped shoulder. A few seconds to suck and bite along the collarbone while Ian's fingers spasmed to claws, his breathing fast as he dug into Cal's hip bones. But Cal wouldn't be hurried, took a long breath in like he was testing the scent of Ian's flushed skin and his spit simmering together like a fine sauce, the way they wafted together even when he was very still, then whispered, "Turn over. I wanna see." Uh... Ian was well aware how this worked, but for some reason, he'd always imagined it happening with closed eyes, like that made it easier to pretend it was... well, something else. He never really imagined anyone wanting to see... that. But so far, his attempts to take the upper hand in this whole business had been made of fail. Maybe it was time he left it up to the one with experience. He could play blushing virgin, just this once. "I'll make it good. Don't worry." Ian's hips shifted up of their own accord, seeking Cal's, and he was half over without even trying, Cal's thigh tucking up under his ass to help him roll. He heaved over, mouth open. Cal's teeth raked over his collar bone, along the tendon in his neck, and then Cal slid and rolled, pushing Ian onto his stomach, Ian's hips pressing into the mattress as Cal traced down his backbone one vertebra at a time. Cal's arms wrapped around Ian's chest, Cal's fingers between Ian's fingers, and smoothed the folds of sheet clenched between those fingers until their palms flattened against Ian's pecs. Deft thumbs sought out Ian's nipples, circling and teasing as kisses laved the small of his back. He bent like a bow from jaw to knee feet scrambling in the sheets. "Cal..." "Shhhhhh, shh, shhh." The tingle of rapidly cooling breath over sweat and spit. Stutter of breath. Slowly, Cal dragged their hands up, up, and under the pillow. His fingers untwined, and Ian's head dropped down onto the cradle of pillow and forearms. Cal sank lower down Ian's back until his teeth teased at the waistband of Ian's boxers. Kisses and licks along the elastic coaxed Ian's hips up, with fingertips along hipbones before the underwear slid off, Cal laughing at the way Ian's feet worked against him, constantly churning the mattress in an attempt to get his hips back down. Cal tongued down into the divot over Ian's tailbone and slid his fingers up, spreading Ian apart while spit trickled along the widening gap and into the tight pucker where it all melted together. Ian felt himself clenching and unclenching, prodded and soothed from the draft of hot breath and slick of cooling spit. Go Fish - 42

Cal's head ducked lower, hands forcing Ian's hips higher, sucking one, then the other testicle into his mouth, barely-there pressure. His tongue undulated, press release, press, release, rolling and massaging Ian's balls against the ridges in his palate. God, that was... "Nngh, fuck." Ian grunted and jerked a hand free of the pillow. He tried to grasp himself, but Cal batted him away. Ian flailed and grasped into the sheet, faltered and strained, finally snaked around and knotting into Cal's hair. Cal responded by sucking harder, switching one side of the scrotum and the other in a random pattern that left Ian panting and shaking, thighs spreading apart in an attempt to get some friction. His balls came free with a slurp, and Cal moved up to his ass, alternately kneading and nipping whatever he could get hold of, then kissing away the burn. Ian didn't even know he was sensitive in the cleft of his thigh, high up where his leg tied in with his groin, but when Cal's arm hairs brushed against the soft skin there, his whole leg twitched and vibrated of its own accord. Ian pressed back, bracing with his arms to steady himself and biting into the sheets. By the time Cal licked up his perineum, Ian felt like he was yawning open, aching to be touched in the one place he hadn't been yet. Cal stabbed in, his tongue thick and wet, and Ian couldn't keep his head down on the pillow anymore, bucking up off the bed and arching back. It was nothing like the tentative finger Cal had used the last time. This was wet, and slippery, and hot. It wiggled and bent, stretching him loose from the inside out. The quaking in his legs migrated upward until he quivered behind his navel and lurched upward, nearly hitting his head on the headboard. Cal circled one arm around Ian's hips to hold him up, pinning Ian's cock against his own stomach. He whimpered with the little bit of friction, went from arched to bowed in the span of a breath as he tried to get more. He wasn't going to make it much longer, feeling something start to unwind deep in his gut, and Cal moved away, went back to nipping at the swell of Ian's ass. Every now and again hot breath ghosted over his hole, followed immediately by the cool, slide of saliva off Cal's tongue and down. Ian trembled all over, panting and gasping, when the first finger slid in. It didn't hurt, but it was foreign enough to rein in the headlong rush for the finish line. He caught his breath, relaxed into it while the finger continued where the tongue had left off. "That's it. Just relax. I got you." Cal soothed his other hand over Ian's trembling stomach muscles until they relaxed as well. A second later, the sharp pinch of Cal's teeth at the apex of one of Ian's ass cheeks distracted him from the sudden burn of a second finger pressing in beside the first. "Ungh." Ian grunted without meaning to, but didn't jerk away. Both Cal's fingers withdrew simultaneously, and Cal chuckled softly when Ian pressed back, following their retreat. A few more seconds to slick things up again, a little more tongue to soothe the way, and then the fingers pressed in again, farther this time. Ian was just getting into the slow in and out stretch of penetration when Cal bent a knuckle.

Go Fish - 43

The dolphin/sea monkey squeal had nothing on the noise Ian made then, his whole body stretching and snapping like an elastic band. "Fuck!" "Getting there," Cal whispered, crooking his fingers again while sliding in a third. And that was it. There was no possible way Ian could take any more. Fumbling with shaking fingers, he slipped the lube and condom out of the drawer and into Cal's hand. He hissed and froze when Cal clamped down on his hand, the grip just this side of painful, then slid the lube out, kissing into Ian's palm and along each finger. "Ian... God, I've... I've wanted this... you have no idea." The lube opened, snick and slurp. Cal coated himself first, so it was already warm when he worked it into Ian, one finger, then more, Cal's mouth sliding up his back the way it came, a vertebra at a time, until his tongue tickled Ian's ear lobe. Ian could tell by the way his Adam's apple was jumping against Ian's neck that he was trying to say something. Thrumming and impatient, Ian pressed back against Cal's cock, then froze when it breached the outermost ring. There was no dignified way to be that needy. He didn't even try to keep his head from falling back onto Cal's shoulder, begging. "Go ahead. Now. I wanna feel you." Everything froze but their breath and pounding blood. "Please." Ian's chest shook, a long exhale shuddering the forearm Cal had flexed around him, holding him upright, Ian's own arms pinned down against his sides so the pounding of their hearts reverberated through every limb. He and Cal were slick and wrapped up in each other, hyperaware of the static crackling between them, the only thing that could fit. Cal nodded and pressed in. Ian was sure he left bruises in Cal's thigh muscles when his hands clenched along with everything else, arching away without meaning to. Cal paused, and Ian had never felt anything like the wave after wave of pleasure-pain-ache that radiated through every nerve ending. He couldn't help biting his lip, holding his breath despite Cal's soothing whispers in his ear. "Don't..." A panting breath. "Don't stop. Please." Cal kissed him once, just a touch of lips to Ian's ear lobe, then slid in just as slowly as he'd done everything else so far, one long thrust all the way. Ian felt like Cal went on forever, but once they were flush against each other, the pain radiating upward started to slide back down, a warm, massaging flow His breath went out along with it, and on the inhale he rolled his hips, just a little. He couldn't believe how good it felt to be all wrapped up, blown away that he could feel safe and protected but wide open and vulnerable in the same instant. If there was ever any doubt... "Do it." Ian didn't know what to expect, braced for something rough, a punishing rhythm to make him grateful he'd never hung anything on the wall behind his headboard. Instead, Cal folded inward, one arm around Ian's chest, the other down across his stomach, fingers curling around Ian's cock. He set a rhythm more like the ebb of waves along a beach than sex. Long strokes, power and Go Fish - 44

intensity, achingly slow, tender without being soft, aware without being cautious. Harder, longer, deeper, higher. Cal's voice in Ian's ear, lips at his throat. The tide came in, building on the crest of every rolling wave, higher and higher until Cal's stubbled jaw pushed into the crook of Ian's neck on the leading edge of a muffled grunt. "God!" Lightning struck and both their heads snapped back, gasping together toward the ceiling. "God, nhgh, nghhh, uh, aaaaaahgh." Exhausted and loose, with every nerve in his body trying to zing out through the ends of his hair, Ian collapsed into Cal and they fell back, Cal below and Ian above, just a mess of limbs and sheets and sticky. In his head, Ian was floating, Cal's heartbeat the only thing thrumming and solid. He had to hum to himself for a second or two just to make sure he could still make words, and when he spoke he wasn't sure what would come out. "I think we traumatized the fish." "Nah, I have it on good authority that Scrappy's got a voyeur kink."

"How so?"

"Well, when I came in to check on them last night and saw your little glow-in-the-dark message,

he made kissy lips at me and then turned around and shook his tail in my face. I'm pretty sure that was fish semaphore for 'let's get it on.'" Cal nuzzled tighter against Ian's neck as he slowly pulled out, finishing with a kiss to the side of his jaw. "You know, you could've just sent me a text message." "And what would you have texted back?"

Cal's hand slipped down again through the slick, huffing a laugh. "Go fish."

"How romantic."

"Like 'bottom's up' was poetry."

"I'll have you know it took me a good hour to decide what to say. I've never seduced a guy

before."

"Then it's a good thing I have." Cal grinned.

"You're telling me," Ian yawned, already sliding into sleep. "I was starting to think I needed to

buy fish for your room so I'd have an excuse to 'go check on them.'"

"And I was thinking I'd have to accidentally walk in here naked before you'd notice."

"I wouldn't stop you."

"Like to see you try."

Go Fish - 45

Ian wasn't up to trying anything more than a happy smirk as he slid into sleep. He'd said it once, and he'd say it again. This was a hobby he could really get into. The End

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