Page 31 of Glitter

He took that sound as the signal I’d meant it to be and continued his irritated outpouring. “Well, surprise,” he said. “Those landlords are my parents. Yep, my parents. After I graduated high school and it became clear that I had no interest in going to college, my parents decided that it would be financially beneficial for all of us if they built this mini-house in their backyard and rented it to me at a stupidly low rate. And not just financially beneficial…it would be convenient, too,” he added. “Because we could regularly all carpool to work, too. You see, I’m not just a loser who lives in his parents’ backyard. Nope. I’m a loser who also works for his parents. Lucky fucking me.”

He studiously avoided looking at me as he crossed his arms over his chest. This caused the shirt to bunch up unevenly in the front, showing not only the very top of one thigh, but also the tantalizing crease of where his leg met his groin as well as the bony, angular knob of his hip.

I could tell he was waiting for me to say something about the information he’d just spewed out. Probably something negative, if his tense body posture was any indication. But I didn’t care about what he’d revealed. Well…I cared. It just didn’t bother me. None of it. Why would it? So, he lived and worked with his parents. So what?

“None of that makes you a loser,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as I could. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was patronizing him. Or unsubtly masking pity that I didn’t actually feel. “If working at a job that isn’t your dream job and living in something less than your dream house makes you a loser, then so am I. Heck, at least you have your own space,” I commented, adding, “I’m in an apartment I share with a roommate that I found through a flyer someone had posted up in the breakroom at work. He doesn’t even work there; I think he had a friend put it up for him. And in almost 2 years, I think we’ve only said about a dozen or so words to each other that weren’t about whose turn it was to take out the trash or buy toilet paper.”

His stance slowly relaxed, his arms uncrossing. My t-shirt that he’d borrowed fell back into place and while I did miss the extra bit of my angel that he’d unintentionally flashed, it was worth it if it meant he was less anxious.

“You’re not… Do you mean it?” he asked, his eyes flitting over briefly to judge for himself how truthful I was being. They then dropped back down to watch his fingers pinch and twiddle with the bottom hem of the shirt.

I’m glad he didn’t spell out exactly what he wanted to verify; I hated that he’d used the word loser in conjunction with anything that had to do with him and was relieved that he hadn’t uttered the word again.

“Of course,” I replied, shrugging as if to indicate that it should’ve been obvious. Then to make sure this subject got thoroughly dropped, I circled back around to some other bit of information his mom had dropped and that I couldn’t help immediately cataloguing. “So… ‘Dusti-socks’? What, uh… That is what your mom called you…right?”

As soon as he heard me say that nickname, he flushed a bright magenta that oddly clashed with the softer pink of his hair.

Spluttering, he managed to squeak out, “Oh, s-shit. You… You… Oh mygawd. No. Just…no. I will…I will… I will pay you with all the money I can rob from a bank…if you never—I meanever—say, or eventhinkof, that horrible, horrible…embarrassingname. Ever again.”

“But that is—”

He cut me off by forcefully raising one hand in the air, palm up, toward me. The other hand he used to cover as much of his, still bright pink, face as he could.

“Never again. I mean it,” he said, his voice strained and garbled with obvious embarrassment and muted by his hand. I waited patiently for him to say something else, and was rewarded when, after a long moment, he dropped his hand away from his face, stating, “Yes. You heard what you heard. It’s a long story. Stemming from when I was super little and, apparently, had the interesting habit of shucking off my clothing and running around the house in only my socks.”

His flush had been finally receding, but it resurged when my eyebrows hiked up nearly to my hairline. I felt bad about re-embarrassing him, but I couldn’t help it. The notion of a tiny version of my angel streaking through the house in only his socks was adorable.

The memory of him doing practically the same thing last night—a sexier, more adult-rated version, of course—had my dick swelling.

My morning wood had, obviously, deflated spectacularly at the unexpected company of his mother, but now it was back and contemplating whether a round 4 might be on offer.

“So, anyway… My folks’ reaction of ‘Oh, look. There goes Dusti in only his socks again’ was soon shorted by my mom to only ‘Dusti-socks.’” His short huff of laughter didn’t contain much humor in it, as he added, “More than 20 years later and she’s still calling me that. In front of everyone. Including, well…” He waved his hand my way.

I smiled at him; I was helpless to do anything else. “It’s cute,” I said. Thinking that the way he crinkled his faintly freckled nose was also cute, but that I didn’t say out loud. “So…Dusti?” I asked, wanting his confirmation. Not only that that was his name, but that he was now okay with me knowing it. Since he was the one who hadn’t wanted to swap names and he wasn’t the one who’d given out the information now.

“Yeah. Dusti. Short for Dustin, but, like, nobody calls me that.” A lazy, single shoulder shrug accompanied his words. The movement, and the quiet acceptance in his voice, indicated that denying it or fighting about the name-sharing thing wasn’t worth quibbling over. “And you’re…Benny? Ben?” His mouth pursed as though he’d tasted something sour as he spoke the shortened version of my name.

Even though I’ve been trying to get people to use that form of my name for years, after I decided that being called Benny seemed kind of juvenile for somebody who’d hit their mid-20s, it’s never really stuck. I guessed something about me just seemed more like a Benny than a Ben.

But even if it had stuck and everyone else in my life were to refer to me as Ben…I liked the way the name Benny looked and sounded on my angel’s—Dusti’s—lips.

Which was why I told him, “Benny. You can call me Benny.”

“Alright.Benny.”

His lips turned up in a small, sweet,genuinesmile. Fuck, I loved those genuine smiles. The teasing, sassy, smirky, sultry ones were nice, don’t get me wrong. But fuck. Those real smiles of his. They made me want to dance, and sing, and skip, and leap tall buildings, and…basically everything I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do, unless I wanted to risk hurting myself.

He sighed, sounding resigned, and I braced myself for what he’d say next. However, all he said was, “I guess…now that we know each other’s names, it’d be silly to pretend we didn’t or go back to not using them.”

I watched him, waiting. But again, while he didn’t seem overly happy about this evolution in our interactions, he didn’t seem upset or angry. And he wasn’t kicking me out and telling me he never wanted to see or hear from me again. So, I’d have to take his subdued acceptance as a win.

Iwas thrilled. Not that I minded thinking of him as my angel. But it was embarrassing that I’d accidentally called him that sappy nickname a couple of times, especially as, one of these times, he was probably going to notice and… Say something? Do something?

This was a man who clearly had only been looking for something casual. This was only the first time we’d had sex somewhere other than a public bathroom. And I’d only just now learned his name—and that wasn’t even his doing. I couldn’t imagine he’d be ecstatic that I’ve been thinking of him with such a schmoopy, sweet, adoring endearment.

So, I tried to tone down my happiness at getting to use his actual name as I said, “Okay. Whatever you want.Dusti.”

The wide flaring of his eyes as he side-eyed me said that I might not have been as successful as I would’ve liked at hiding my excitement.

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