Free Too Stupid to Live(Romancelandia) by Anne Tenino

about having laughed, even weakly, at Tierney’s stupid comment was that Ian had promised himself he wouldn’t put up with the man’s homophobic crap anymore. After they’d left the restaurant—riding in Tierney’s stupid, phallic BMW 7-series back to Ian’s work, where they’d left his truck—Tierney had asked, “So what, dude, you fuck that kid? Throw the gay boy a little bone? C’mon, man, you can tell ol’ Tierney if you sometimes get a jones for cock.”
    “Lay off Sam,” Ian had growled. Tierney had laughed at him and punched him in the shoulder, but he’d dropped it. Tierney always had that vicious edge in his voice when he joked about Ian’s sexual orientation—something he brought up a lot. It was only a matter of time before Tierney saw the obvious, had his little tantrum, and then refused to be buddies with Ian anymore.
    Why the fuck were they friends again? Maybe he should have let Tierney fall by the wayside in the last year, just like his job and his occasional half-assed attempts to find women attractive.
    But this was his new life, right? Driving a guy he was into home, hoping to, uh, further the relationship. Sometime tonight, Ian had decided he didn’t need to figure out why Sam did it for him. It obviously wasn’t going away. He’d spent the last eleven days thinking about the kid at random times, sometimes very inopportune ones. Seeing him tonight had convinced Ian the attraction wasn’t some weird figment of his imagination.
    Sam wasn’t really a kid, anyway. More like an adult. And yeah, he wasn’t the kind of guy Ian was normally into, but maybe after the accident his tastes had changed. Sometimes people became allergic to stuff as adults. Maybe his hormones had gotten re-keyed or something. Who cared? Forget about that stuff and focus on Sam .
    “Nik said you used to be a firefighter,” Sam said suddenly.
    Hell . “Yeah.”
    Sam waited a few seconds before going on. “But you aren’t anymore.”
    “Nope.”
    Sam sighed loud enough to fill the truck’s cab. “So why is that?”
    Ian gripped the steering wheel harder. “Had an accident at work.”
    Silence. They came to a stop at a red light, only the slight growl of the engine audible. Ian closed his eyes a second, steeling himself. “I had to have surgery on my back, and it took about a year to get back to normal. Sort of normal. I could have had an admin position at the department, but it seemed like a good time to move on.”
    “Oh,” Sam all but whispered, then added in a louder voice, “So, you moved here?”
    The light turned green, so Ian started moving, saying casually, “I like Jurgen.” More than the rest of my damn family .
    They drove the rest of the way in near silence, broken only by Sam giving Ian directions while he thought about the best way to talk himself into Sam’s place, then talk Sam out of his clothes. The important ones, at least.
    Yeah, he was a bastard, thinking about ways to seduce Sam again, but he was nearly certain Sam wanted it too. Ian didn’t do dubious consent, but he wasn’t feeling dubious tonight, in his dark truck, the air humming with Sam’s nerves. The kid kept clearing his throat and readjusting his legs. Ian caught him readjusting his package once.
    Yeah, Sam wanted him.
    When they pulled into the lot at Sam’s apartment complex, Ian still hadn’t come up with the best way into the kid’s pants.
    He could hear the nerves shaking in Sam’s voice as he handed Ian the opening he needed. “I thought you were going to show me how sorry you were.”
    Ian parked in a visitor spot. “You have a roommate?” he asked as he killed the engine and took the keys out of the ignition.
    Sam cleared his throat again and poked at a hole in the denim covering his knee. “No.”
    “I’ll come up to your place and show you there.”
    “That sounds like another line,” Sam muttered. Ian got out of the cab and walked around to Sam’s side, then watched him through the window as he