Page 47 of The Mayor and the Mystery Man

13

DUSTY

Iwoke up the next morning the same way I went to bed the night before—thinking about that kiss.

That amazing

Spellbinding

Heart-thomping

Boner-inducing

Meeting of the mouths

I was still catching my breath. Hell, I needed four oxygen tanks and a year of Lamaze classes to catch my goddamn breath.

Oh, this was bad. Heavenly, amazingly bad. I was here to help my friend in need, one of the scant opportunities when I had the chance to restore the friend balance. But instead, I chose to blatantly mack on my best friend.

And to use the word mack, which should’ve been retired in 1997. Ugh.

I was jerking off to intimate pictures of him. I was using polling as an excuse to kiss him and then shoving my tongue inside his mouth. I had to play it cool because if Leo knew how much I was enjoying this, he’d freak out, and our friendship wouldn’t recover.

I mean, we’d been friends for years, and Leo had been gay that whole time, and he never showed any interest in me. He saw me strictly as a friend.

I thought I did, too.

Leo knocked on my door. “You ready to run?”

It was a cold morning. I was still in bed. Maybe he could join me?

Oh, for fucks sake, no, he will not!

“Yeah. Give me a minute,” I yelled from the comfort and safety of my bed. After a night of tossing and turning, sometime in the earliest parts of the morning, I came up with an idea to help me with this odd little crush I’d developed.

I pulled on a pair of running shorts and a fresh T-shirt. I laced up my sneakers and checked myself in the mirror. Shockingly, I looked like an athlete.

“Finally,” Leo said once I joined him downstairs for coffee. “I was about to leave without—”

I shut him up with a kiss. A quick kiss, more in-depth than a peck, but without tongue. I topped it off with a caress of his chin with my thumb.

“Morning.” I poured myself a cup of coffee then hopped onto the island. “Could you put a dash of half and half in?”

Leo, stunned into a zombified silence, went to the fridge for the half-and-half. He touched his lips when he thought I wasn’t looking.

“Uh, here.” He handed over the carton.

“Thank you, sir.”

We drank our coffees in silence. I smiled into my cup, hoping like hell I knew what I was doing. When I finished, I placed my cup in the sink, then kissed Leo again, sending him into another state of stupefied silence.

“I’ll be outside stretching.”

* * *

At first,we ran in silence, which was fine since the beauty of Sourwood was enough to admire. Each time we ran through town, I found more things to love about this hamlet. The old storefronts that belied decades of history. The bright yellows of the turning maple leaves. The glorious view at the top of the hill, where the grays and brown of town were encompassed by autumn leaves and then the bright blue of the river. I thought living by the Pacific Ocean was beautiful, but the Hudson River took the cake.

Eventually, Leo struck up a conversation about our day ahead. Keeping it business. We were set to visit a senior citizen's home for a Q and A session. Seniors were the most reliable voting block, he explained. He then went on to regale me with tales from past Applefest celebrations, all the weird questions he’d get from residents, some of whom had imbibed too much hard cider from local breweries. Apparently, the reference librarian had flashed him at the mayor booth in one particularly rowdy year.

---