It's Not Shakespeare by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 5

Brown and White

HE SPENT Easter Sunday with Rafael’s family.

The two weeks before that, they were inseparable, and he worried a little. It wasn’t always easy, being together. There were moments when that place where two people meet seemed over their heads and far away.

He tried not to cringe every time Rafael left the Charger in front of his house. He couldn’t explain it—it was nothing he’d ever thought of before—but suddenly having that bright electric-blue paean to muscle cars seemed damned ostentatious for his bland little suburb of college-educated adults. Even the families had placid minivans or SUVs. The thing was loud, too, but every time he thought to say something, he could actually hear the uptight prig in his voice with his first half whine.

Eeen… ffff…. Yeah. Rafael, could you maybe get a car you don’t love so much so I can satisfy my need to be a stuck-up white man? Yeah. That doesn’t make me too much of an asshole, does it?

Asked and answered, right? So James made an effort then, not just to tolerate the car, but to love the car.

One day Rafael drove him to work in the morning and came back to pick him up in the afternoon. James eyed the car with an open mind, running his hand over the well-waxed paintjob and feeling the metal warmed under the spring sun. It wasn’t inherently evil, was it? No, it was just put together in a way that made it powerful and strong. That wasn’t bad, right?

“You want to drive it, baby?” Rafael asked with a smile, and James caught his breath.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really! It’s a car, not an eggshell! Come on!” And with that, the keys went up in that shiny, jingly arc, and no one was more surprised than James when he caught them. He walked around the back, crossing by Rafael to get there, and he handed off Marlowe’s lead. As their fingers brushed, he impulsively leaned forward and rubbed his lips against Rafael’s, who was so surprised his mouth opened, and James made the kiss hot, deep, and dirty. He pulled away and Rafael blushed.

“Be careful, Mr. Professor. You don’t know who might be watching.”

James grinned, trying very, very hard to be brave. “I know exactly who’s watching. My douchebag department head is right over there. Turn and wave to him, okay?”

Rafael’s eyes grew wide and bright, but still he joined James in a friendly, unselfconscious wave in the direction of Lee Cresswell, who was climbing into his ginormous urban Humvee. Lee was still dressed in his suit (when even James had gone to khakis and a polo shirt, given the eighty-degree April days) and his thinning hair was spiked heavily with gel so it didn’t look like middle age was catching up with it. About the only thing James had ever liked about Lee was his wife, who was charming and kind—and who was probably the only reason James had never confronted Lee himself about the drunken blow-job he’d gotten at the staff mixer.

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