Page 50 of Loving Leo

I push myself up from the kitchen chair and get to work. When my mom gets home, she’ll have a clean floor, dusted bookshelves and folded laundry. It’s the least I can do after everything she’s done for me.

And when I leave, I set an envelope of cash on the kitchen table.

She’ll protest, but she should use it. Get her nails or hair done, something just for her.

When I leave, I feel a little bit better about stopping by. I didn’t get to visit with her, but I did help her out. In some small way.

“Leo,honestly, you don’t need to vacuum the floor again. It’s not going to look any better the third time.”

“But it looks like someone died in here!” I shout, almost frantic. Heath is going to be here in thirty minutes and I regret ever inviting him over. This place is a sty. I should walk around on all fours and snort.

“It’s really not that bad.”

“It is! When was the last time we cleaned?”

“You tell me Mr. Professional Cleaner Guy.”

I roll my eyes at that, but keep going. I’m starting to sweat and that’s not good because I want to smell nice for him once he arrives. I don’t want to look like a garbage can. I want him to see a nice, put together, sexy man!

“And that hole in the wall…it’s, oh god Jack, don’t crawl through the wall like a goblin!” I shout over the whine of the vacuum cleaner just before it starts to smoke and abruptly cuts off. Jack rights himself and brushes ahand down his black flannel shirt and points to the burning machine.

“Seems its on fire.”

“Oh fuck,” I cry and then grab the fire extinguisher from under the sink and spray it. By the time I’m done, the vacuum is kaput and our floor is now layered with white goop.

“Oh shit.”

“Looks like a circle jerk gone wrong,” Asher says very unhelpfully and the three of us all stare at it.

I swear I feel like I’m gonna cry. “I smell too. Like burned marshmallows.”

Jack must notice my watery eyes because he grabs a towel and points to the small hallway. “Go shower. I’ll clean this up.”

I could kiss him, not that I would. Asher might cut my lips off and I really need those. So I just walk to the bathroom and shower, jerking off for good measure so that my dick doesn’t leak too much while I’m sitting next to Heath on our saggy couch. Fuck, if that breaks in the middle of the movie, I’m quitting life for good.

When I finally reappear, pulling on a shirt, the floor is cleaned up and the vacuum is pleasantly gone. But the room still smells like fire and smoke.

“This is so embarrassing.”

“We could watch at my place. But my couch is really small,” Jack says and I sigh.

“We probably should. This is atrocious.”

Just as I say that, there’s a knock on the door and I nearly stumble to open it.

“Hi,” I breathe when I see Heath on the other side, looking delicious in his button-up shirt and nicely pressed pants. And he smells good too. Like a real man, not a campfire gone wrong.

He sniffs and his lips twitch, making my own fall into a frown.

“I know. It stinks in here. There was a mishap with the vacuum.”

I let him in and he takes a look around, his eyes lingering on the hole in the wall.

“I can hear you judging me in your mind.”

“No,” he says softly, his hand brushing against mine. “Not judging. Just…looking.”

I huff and to make matters worse, Jack doesn’t leave like a normal person. He just crawls back through the hole in the wall and gestures for us to come on over.

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