Page 9 of Places in Time
“This isn’t my first time at this bar,” Jude answered. “It’s a gay sports bar. Trust me on this one.”
“I always trust you,” Past Me said and dropped his forehead against Jude’s chest.
Jude lifted his large hand and stroked my hair, petting me gently.
“Mmm. Feels good. I like it when you touch me, J.”
“Not nearly as much as I like doing it,” Jude said with an unfamiliar huskiness in his voice. Then he stood and reached for Past Me’s hand. “Come on, Ethan, it’s time to go home.”
Past Me shook his head in an exaggerated back-and-forth motion. “No. Don’t want to go home. It’s big and white and cold. And you aren’t there. I hate it.”
Jude picked my hat and sunglasses up off the table and placed them gently on my head and face. “No, not your new house, E. I know how much you hate that place so I bought a beach house. It has a room just for you. I haven’t closed on it yet, but the owners were using it as a vacation home and they’re letting me rent it until all the paperwork’s signed. Their furniture’s still inside, so we have a place where you can crash and sleep this off.”
That seemed to pacify Past Me, because I slid out of the booth. And promptly proceeded to sway until I almost fell on my ass.
“Whoa!” Jude wrapped his strong arm around my waist and held on to me tightly as he walked me to the door.
Ginger and I followed them out of the bar.
“Well, dear,” she said to me. “Looks like you actually were in this place in time, but you were too inebriated to remember it. I suppose that means my…what did you call it? Oh, that’s right, my ‘time-machine GPS’ is working just fine.”
“Gloating isn’t pretty, Ginger.”
“Neither are drunks, Ethan, but it doesn’t look like that stopped you, now did it?”
We watched Jude open his car door and gently settle me inside. He was bent across my body, fastening my seat belt, when I reached up, wove my fingers through his hair, and pulled his face down toward mine.
“What’re you doing, Ethan?” he asked with a shaky voice when our lips were millimeters apart.
“You said we were in a gay bar so I thought I could maybe gay kiss you. Don’t you want to gay kiss me, J?”
Jude pressed his forehead to mine and breathed heavily. There was no way to mistake his expression for anything but longing.
“Ask me that sometime when you’re sober, E, and I promise to take you up on it, okay? But right now I’m going to drive you home and put you to bed.” He straightened up and closed the car door, then adjusted his hard-on, which was noticeable even through the thick denim jeans he wore. “And, unfortunately, not in the gay way,” he muttered to himself as he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side.
