A Decade of Gay Romance

By J.M. Snyder, Drew Hunt, JL Merrow and 7 more

JMS Books began in 2010 as a way for of getting a few friends into print. Ten years later, we've published more than 2,000 books celebrating LGBTQ+ romance from over 200 authors. A Decade of Gay Romance is a collection of our ten best-selling short stories, one for each year (to date).
From first love to true love, from submission to sensual, from heat to sweet and everything in between, the couples in these stories are sure to keep you turning the pages as you fall in love with them. 
With stories by J.M. Snyder, Drew Hunt, JL Merrow, Wayne Mansfield, Terry O'Reilly, Edward Kendrick, Shawn Lane, J.D. Walker, Nell Iris, and Elizabeth Noble, this head-over-heels collection goes beyond bedtime reading. Whether happily ever after or happy for now, there's an ending for everyone in here! 
Contains the stories

- My Best Friend's Dad by J.M. Snyder
- Twelve Hours I by Drew Hunt
- Dead Shot by JL Merrow
- The King's Prize by Wayne Mansfield
- My Beagle, the Yenta by Terry O'Reilly,
- Let Go of Loneliness by Edward Kendrick
- Accidentally His by Shawn Lane
- A-dork-able by J.D. Walker
- Unexpected Christmas by Nell Iris
- Home Coming by Elizabeth Noble

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jul 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646565085

J.M. Snyder

An author of gay erotic romance, J.M. Snyder began self-publishing gay erotic fiction in 2002. Since then, Snyder has worked with several e-publishers, most notably Amber Allure Press and eXcessica Publishing.Snyder’s short fiction has appeared online at Ruthie’s Club, Tit-Elation, Eros Monthly, and Amazon Shorts, as well as in anthologies released by Alyson Books, Cleis Press, and others.For more book excerpts, free fiction, and purchasing information, please visit http://jmsnyder.net.

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A Decade of Gay Romance

Edited by J.M. Snyder

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2020 JMS Books LLC

ISBN 9781646565085

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

* * * *

A Decade of Gay Romance

Edited by J.M. Snyder

* * * *

Table of Contents:

Introduction by J.M. Snyder

My Best Friend’s Dad by J.M. Snyder

Twelve Hours I by Drew Hunt

Dead Shot by JL Merrow

The King's Prize by Wayne Mansfield

My Beagle, the Yenta by Terry O’Reilly

Let Go of Loneliness by Edward Kendrick

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Accidentally His by Shawn Lane

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

A-dork-able by J.D. Walker

Unexpected Christmas by Nell Iris

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Home Coming by Elizabeth Noble

About the Authors

Introduction by J.M. Snyder

JMS Books began in 2010 as a way for of getting a few friends into print.

Ten years later, we've published more than 2,000 books celebrating LGBTQ+ romance from over 200 authors. A Decade of Gay Romance is a collection of our ten best-selling short stories, one for each year we’ve been in business.

The stories are:

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

My Best Friend’s Dad by J.M. Snyder

The first man I ever fell in love with was my best friend’s dad. Mikey didn’t know it, of course, and neither did Mr. Pierce.

The dad was nothing like the son. I’d known Mikey since kindergarten, when he pushed me off the swing set on the school playground and had to sit in time-out for the rest of recess. When the teacher made him apologize, he stared at his sneakers and mumbled, Sorry. It was only later, when we were leaving for the day, that he approached me at the coat rack and sounded a little more sincere when he added in a breathless rush, I’m sorry I pushed you off the swing. That was rude of me.

I had looked up, surprised, but someone behind Mikey caught my eye and my gaze continued to travel past the kid to the imposing man who stood behind him. Mr. Pierce wore a dingy wifebeater beneath a half-buttoned, dark blue work shirt. His belt buckle seemed to be twice the size of Mikey’s head, and the hem of his undershirt was caught in the fly of his dark pants.

I saw that little gleam of white peeking out from between the silver teeth of the zipper and fell for him, right then and there. At six years old, I was in love.

Without looking away from those stern, black eyes, I whispered, It’s okay. Thanks.

Mikey knuckle-punched me in the shoulder and laughed. Smell you later!

The next day he pulled his sleeping mat over beside mine at naptime and we were friends ever since.

Over the years, Mr. Pierce never seemed to change. Throughout elementary school and junior high, he was an imposing figure on the edge of Mikey’s life. He knew my name, of course; he had to—I was Mikey’s best friend growing up. But whenever I visited Mikey’s house, his dad always referred to us as simply, You boys. It was, You boys turn that TV down when we watched cartoons on Saturday mornings while Mr. Pierce tried to sleep in, or You boys stop running through the house when we chased each other with light sabers, or You boys get to bed up there! when I spent the night and he heard Mikey snicker at my latest dirty joke.

Mr. Pierce had a hard voice, rough, burned out from too many late evenings with his friends huddled around the dining room table, cigarette smoke stinging their throats and watering their eyes as they played hand after hand of poker. If I stayed over one of those nights, Mikey and I were confined to his room upstairs, out of the way, though not out of earshot. The men’s raucous laughter and coarse language made us envious. To be old enough to join in with the adults! How I longed to have Mr. Pierce call me a dirty bastard one second, then clap me on the back and roar with approval at something I’d said the next.

On those nights, long after Mikey fell asleep, I would lie awake in the darkness and listen to the game wind down, imagining myself among them as a friend. The dining room table was a thick slab framed on either side by weathered benches and I could see myself so clearly seated on the bench beside Mr. Pierce, sitting so close that his knee pressed into my thigh. In my mind’s eye, I thought it wouldn’t take much to get one of those large, calloused hands to drop from his cards onto my hip. I’d wiggle a bit, scoot in closer, and sooner or later, Mr. Pierce’s hand would be in my lap, doing delicious things that mirrored what my own hand did beneath the blankets in my makeshift bed on Mikey’s bedroom floor.

* * * *

Mr. Pierce was nothing like my own father, who went to work in a starched shirt and tie. My father worked in an office all day, pushing papers from one side of the desk to the other, and wouldn’t last two hours in the plant where Mr. Pierce worked as an electrician. When something broke around our house, the extent of my father’s handyman knowledge was to know who to call to fix it. Once Mikey and I became friends, he took to calling Mr. Pierce, no matter what the problem. Mikey’s dad could fix anything.

Whenever Mr. Pierce came over, he looked so out of place in my home, so incongruous with everything else in my life, that I couldn’t stop staring at him. I hovered in his shadow as he tinkered under the sink or fiddled in the fuse box down in our basement. I was the first thing he saw when he glanced back, reaching for his tools. My persistence paid off, usually with a gruff hand tousling my hair or a half-smile that only drew up one corner of his mouth. Hey, kid, he’d say…maybe he didn’t know my name, but I didn’t care. When he asked for a tool just out of reach, I scrambled to retrieve it for him, and if he wanted a glass of water, I rushed upstairs to pour one.

After he left, I’d hide in the bathroom and jerk off real quick, thinking about him getting all sweaty and dirty here, in my house, here. I thought of him with me, in my bedroom perhaps, installing a new outlet or replacing a light bulb, I didn’t care. I saw myself nude on my bed, waking to him in my room, turning as the covers fell away to expose my slim, nubile body, nude to his gaze. I would stretch, languid, like a cat, innocently pushing the covers farther down the bed, showing taut, pinked skin. Slowly I’d smile up at him, something witty on the tip of my tongue, but I never found out just what it was I’d say because I always got off imagining the look on Mr. Pierce’s face as he watched me writhe naked on the bed.

* * * *

There was no Mrs. Pierce. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true. There had to have been one at some point, or Mikey wouldn’t be in the picture. But he didn’t quite know what had happened to her—his story changed every time he told it, and each year at school when he had to introduce himself to the class, he had a different take on why he only lived with his dad.

The first time I heard it, Mrs. Pierce had died in a horrific auto accident when Mikey was just a baby. Somehow, miraculously, he’d managed to escape, a death-defying feat that left the whole first grade class breathless and the teacher close to tears. The next year, Mrs. Pierce had died in childbirth, taking with her Mikey’s unborn sister. Third grade, she’d been offed by the measles, and fourth, the plague. By the time we reached middle school, I figured out she must still be alive because I saw a Christmas card in Mikey’s locker signed Mom. But I didn’t mention it and each year he killed her off in more gruesome, horrific ways. I figured he must’ve had his own reasons for doing so and never let on that I knew otherwise.

Without her in the picture, though, I was able to fantasize about the husband left behind. I was too young, I knew, but I was growing fast and in my daydreams, Mr. Pierce noticed. As I hit puberty, my fantasies involving him grew bold. In my mind I was flirty, sexy, and fun, witty, capturing his heart with ease. In one of my favorites, he begged to touch me but I refused, standing before him gloriously naked and making him hunger as I jerked off on him. To see such a big, strong man kneeling in front of me, groveling to take me, to love me, was heady indeed. I came in such a heated rush after that dream, and I had it so frequently, that I took to washing my own bed sheets so my mother wouldn’t notice.

The only problem with my crush was I grew embarrassed to be around Mr. Pierce. Now when he came by our home to do the occasional odd job, I hid in my bedroom and snuck glances of him from out the window. When I visited Mikey, I kept my head down, my cheeks blazing hot, my words mumbled if Mr. Pierce spoke to me. It was an awkward time, made worse by the fact that just seeing Mr. Pierce gave me a raging hard-on. Being under the same roof with him, in the same room even, made me want to burst.

Mikey didn’t notice. He wouldn’t—he was too obtuse. He’d recently discovered girls and spent all his time talking about tits and ass. Because I didn’t want him to know I liked dick, I faked an interest in his porno mags and pixilated print-outs of naked chicks. More specifically, I didn’t want him to know I liked his father, of all people. So I pored over the Playboys he stole from somewhere, and if he managed to steal something a little more hard-core, I looked at the naked men who fucked the girls Mikey liked. It was win-win for both of us.

* * * *

By my senior year of high school, I began to suspect I’d never date as long as I stayed near home, where everyone knew me only in relation to Mikey. I couldn’t come out, not when we were so close, because it’d cast our friendship into a different light; everyone would nod and say they’d known all along we were queer, when Mikey was as straight as they come. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t score with the ladies—he was a big-ass bully who hung around with me all the time, who salivated whenever a pretty girl walked by, who stared at jiggling boobs and offended women without even trying. I knew I was in a different league—I’d had guys checking me out ever since my balls dropped my freshman year—but as horny as I was, I couldn’t diss Mikey like that. I just couldn’t.

Plus, none of the dudes looking my way had quite the same appeal in my eyes as Mr. Pierce.

When I began applying for college, I picked schools as far away from home as I could go without leaving the state. I needed the lower tuition, but wanted to put some distance between myself and my family. I knew Mikey would stay close to home, if he even bothered with college at all, and the thought of being on my own for the first time in my life was exciting. Thinking of college conjured up images of sunny days lounging on a grassy quad, my head in the lap of some sexy frat boy whose erection pressed hard against my cheek through his warm jeans. Or late night parties with dark rooms, groping hands, fingers easing beneath the waistband of my briefs to finally, finally wrap around my stiffening dick. Or stolen kisses in the hallways between classes, holding hands in line at the cafeteria, squeaky springs as I took a pleasant pounding on the mattress in my dorm. Yes, I looked forward to college, and I couldn’t graduate fast enough.

Perhaps the best daydream was the one I had about coming home after my first semester. It’d be December then, cold, and I’d bundle up as I headed over to Mikey’s house to check in with him. Of course, he wouldn’t be there—maybe he had to work a late shift, or his classes at the community college wouldn’t have ended yet for the year. Whatever the reason, Mr. Pierce informed me Mikey wasn’t home when I stopped by, but he remembered me and invited me in. You were always good to my son, he’d say—that was how the daydream started before descending into decadence. My clothes on the floor, Mr. Pierce leading me upstairs to the closed door of his bedroom, which was always been off limits to us boys. Or he’d take me right there in the living room, spreading my legs as he kissed me, his rough cheeks scratchy against my smooth skin, his hands strong as they lifted my knees apart, his cock thick and fat as it butted against my tight ass.

God. As much as I wanted to leave for college, I wanted to come home all the more if that awaited me.

* * * *

Though most boys our age outgrew sleepovers once they reached high school, I still stayed at Mikey’s house a few nights every month. It got me out of my own home, away from my parents and my younger sisters, who were always bickering about boys and makeup. And it gave me a chance to be close to Mr. Pierce, who probably never said two words to us on the nights I was there but any small glimpse, any gesture, fueled my teenage crush. I wasn’t too worried about the kids at school finding out I slept over at Mikey’s because we’d been friends for so long, most people assumed we were a set. Wherever Mikey went, I wasn’t far behind. Some probably thought we were like that, which we weren’t, but Mikey had grown from a small bully in kindergarten to a formidable opponent in high school, his arms and thighs and chest filling out, his neck thickening, until he grew big and bulky, just like his dad. It looked buff on Mr. Pierce, giving him a rough-hewn, rugged appearance, but on Mikey it looked awkward and silly—in my mind, he was still the pipsqueak who’d pushed me off the damn swing set during recess. But he looked tough, and he was the only undefeated wrestler on our school’s intramural team, which garnered him a wary respect among our classmates. If anyone did think he was queer, they sure as hell wouldn’t say it to his face.

The last time I spent the night was the Saturday before I left for college. My mother had begun to get weepy whenever she saw me, sniffling into a tissue and babbling about losing her baby boy. Please, I was eighteen, and the college I’d be attending was only a two hour drive away but to hear her tell it, I was practically taking classes on the moon. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d be like the day I left. So when Mikey called to see if maybe I wanted to come on over, just for pizza and a movie, I couldn’t pack an overnight bag fast enough.

When I got there, I walked my bike into the open maw of their garage and left it propped beside Mikey’s in the corner. The garage was cluttered with stuff I always associated with men like Mr. Pierce—tools littered workbenches, hammers and screwdrivers, drills, wrenches that gleamed dully in the light angled in through the open door. Glass jars full of nails and drill bits, screws and end caps, gave the place an air of mechanical alchemy that made it mystical to me. I didn’t have names for half the items lying about, but Mr. Pierce knew every one—he used them on his side jobs, handled them with blunt fingertips dingy with oil and dirt, dropped them carelessly into his toolbox when finished with them.

At home I had a small metal box I had bought with my allowance back in middle school, and whenever I found something Mr. Pierce had left behind at my home, I scooped it up before my mother could clear it away and hoarded it in my little box. Every time I came over to Mikey’s, I did the same thing—before heading inside, I always took a moment to glance over the workbenches for something small, something Mr. Pierce wouldn’t miss, something I could hold and know he, too, had held it before me. Something to remind me of him when I left for school.

Hands in my pockets, I strolled around the back of the garage, looking over the array of items spread out like a metallic smorgasbord before me. Nails—I had those, bent ones Mr. Pierce had pried out, useless and thrown away. When I pressed them to my nose, I swore the coppery smell clinging to them was the same musk that must have wafted from Mr. Pierce before he showered after a job. I had a drill bit or two, broken ones mostly, but I knew Mr. Pierce needed those and I didn’t want to steal something he’d miss. Nuts, washers, bolts…I wanted something new, something different, something to commemorate this last night…

There, among a handful of clutter and coins that looked like it had been scooped out of Mr. Pierce’s pocket and dumped unceremoniously onto the workbench, was the longest screw I’d ever seen. I had a few short screws in my collection, nubby things Mr. Pierce had worked out with his hands or a small screwdriver, but this…this was easily two inches long, and would scrape either side of my small box when I stuck it inside. It was thick, too, a good half inch in diameter, and with a large wing nut screwed all the way to the head, it looked like a fat, metal penis just sitting there among the coins and smaller screws. The metal was grimy and warm to the touch, as if it had been in Mr. Pierce’s palm moments before I picked it up. I sniffed it and caught a whiff of something so primal, so masculine, so raw that my blood rushed to fill my dick. I had to have this. I needed it.

Quickly I stuck it in the front pocket of my jeans. The blunt tip prodded my growing erection and I pressed it down, savoring the sweet ache. Mr. Pierce had touched this screw last and I could easily imagine the warm hardness was his finger exploring the thin pocket lining that separated it from my crotch. With the smallest of motions, I pushed the screw deeper into my pocket and felt it draw down the length of my dick, an exciting sensation that made me cum just a little bit right there.

Later, I promised myself, pulling my hand from my pocket so I wouldn’t be tempted to play further. I saw myself on my bed at home, door locked, clothes off, my thick length curved over the top of my thigh as I traced the faint veins in it with the screw. No hands, just that screw, gently dancing over my flesh, tickling the tip of my cock, the heaviness of the metal warmed by my skin. I didn’t think it’d take much for me to get off doing that. I couldn’t wait.

I almost wanted to go back home right then and try it out, but Mikey was waiting. He’d probably seen me bike up the driveway and already wondered why I hadn’t come in. Trying to put the screw out of my mind, I hurried for the steps that led to the back door of the house, but every step I took pushed the tip of the screw against my groin until I was hard and aching in my pants. I knocked once on the door, then let myself in like I always did. As I entered the den downstairs, my hand dropped to my pocket and tried to reposition the screw, but it only settled a little deeper and dug a little lower, into my balls this time.

Hey, kid.

Mr. Pierce’s voice was right behind me, so close I came again, just enough to dampen the front of my briefs. My heart raced in my chest. Jesus.

I should’ve brought more than just one change of underwear. My hand flew from my front pocket to dip into my back, well out of reach so he wouldn’t think I’d been playing with myself. I hoped I sounded nonchalant and not the least bit trembly when I looked around and stuttered, Um, hey.

Mr. Pierce sat on an old sofa that had seen better days. The den was a catch-all room, just as cluttered as the garage outside. The home was a split-level; the den, on the lowest floor, led up a short flight of stairs to a bathroom, then another set of stairs led to the main part of the house—the kitchen, dining room, and a more well-kept living room that was the first thing visitors saw when they entered the front door. I always used the garage entrance, feeling more like family that way. Off the living room, another set of steps led to the bedrooms where Mikey and his dad slept. When Mr. Pierce’s friends came over for cards, they played in the dining room while Mikey and I stayed upstairs.

Glancing up from the TV, Mr. Pierce gave me a rare smile that lit up his harsh features and made my heart flutter in my chest. At that small gesture I knew I loved the man. Mikey’s in the kitchen. Why don’t you head on up?

Numbly, I nodded. Each step I took chafed my cock. I was so sure Mr. Pierce could see the bulge in the front of my jeans so I turned away from him, walking at an odd angle so he wouldn’t see how hard I was for him. God. It was going to be a long night.

* * * *

Sleeping over Mikey’s meant an evening leafing through pornos, beating the crap out of each other on the Playstation, and watching horror movies on DVD. Where he got his stash of nudie mags, I never knew, but there was always one or two new titles in his collection he wanted to show me when I stopped by. Playboy, Hustler, Jugs…he had them all. I feigned interest in them to avoid suspicion, but to be honest I spent more time reading the short stories in Playboy than drooling over the models. I had a small magazine pile of my own, hidden way back under my bed where not even my mother would find it, dog-eared copies of Freshman and Unzipped I had bought off eBay and kept to myself. None of the men between the pages compared to Mr. Pierce, though. I’d jerk off to the pictures imagining his face on the models. An older man like him had to be hung.

From the sounds of the television upstairs, I knew Mikey was in his bedroom. I knocked on his door and, without waiting for an answer, pushed my way inside. For one instant I saw Mikey in all his pale, muscular glory—he lay on his bed, jeans unzipped, fly spread wide as he tugged on his stiff dick. Usually seeing Mikey in the buff did nothing for me; I’d known him for so long, and seen him naked so often when we were changing in locker rooms or in the bathroom, that he seemed almost nonsexual to me. But I was still hard myself, aching from my own thoughts in Mr. Pierce’s garage and spurred on by the thick screw in my pocket, and the sight of a bare dick—any dick—almost made me come in my jeans.

Jesus! Mikey cried, pulling a blanket over his lap to hide his erection as I backpedaled into the hallway. Can’t you fucking knock?

I half-closed the door behind me, blushing furiously. Without success, I tried to keep my hand from my pocket, where it wanted to fondle my own cock. "I did, asshole! You knew I was on my way over."

I didn’t know you’d just bust up in here.

I could hear Mikey pant—I knew he was trying to get off quickly, and my being just on the other side of the door must’ve fueled his arousal. I’d heard him jerk off before, in bed when he thought I was asleep, and he had a funny little noise he made in the back of his throat just before he was about to come, a sort of uh uh uh that always made me snicker. Right this moment, though, it made me mad. I couldn’t believe he was still trying to get off with me standing right there. Mikey! I hollered. God, you’re so disgusting.

Between pants, he gasped, "You do it too. Don’t act like a saint. You play with yourself more than I do…"

Bending down, I ignored the screw digging painfully into my dick and shucked off one sneaker. Then I flung open the bedroom door and pitched my shoe across the room, aiming for Mikey’s bed. Before it struck, I slammed the door shut, but I heard a satisfying yelp and laughed as the shoe rebounded off the back of the door. Fuckwad! Mikey yelled.

Cunt licker! It was the first thing that came to mind, and sounded so downright nasty that I doubled over in laughter. I took a deep breath, ready to yell again, something worse this time, when I glanced up and saw Mr. Pierce at the foot of the steps.

His dingy T-shirt was untucked in the back but crammed into the front of his work pants just behind his large belt buckle. Dark hair salted with gray fell across his brow; when he ran a hand through it to push it out of his face, the straight strands stood up as if shocked. His cheeks were unshaven, and I loved the rasp of skin across the stubble when he rubbed his jaw. What are you boys up to? he wanted to know.

I sank to the floor, unable to stop laughing. Mikey’s locked me out.

Mr. Pierce’s gruff voice rose sharply like a verbal slap. Mikey! Open that damn door!

No answer. If I knew my friend, he was probably desperate to come now, yanking on his dick as hard as he could before his dad made it up the few steps to pound on his bedroom door. The thought made me laugh even harder.

A note of warning crept into Mr. Pierce’s voice. Mikey! I said—

Behind me, the door flew open. I tumbled back out of Mr. Pierce’s line of sight and fell against Mikey’s legs. I was still snickering as I looked up into my friend’s face, and the glare he gave me got me laughing all over again. Dickhead, he muttered, kicking me in the side. You can go home, you know.

You’d miss me, I joked, and rolled away before he could kick me again.

Ignoring us, Mr. Pierce told his son, Don’t you pull this shit tonight. The guys are coming over for poker so I want you boys to stay up here out of sight. Got that, Mikey?

Despite his size, Mikey still cowed to his father. With a whine in his voice, he started, "Da-ad, you said we could have pizza—"

I’ll order you a pie. Mr. Pierce always called it that, a pie, which sounded foreign to my ears and always made me think of dessert. "But you stay up in your room and you stay quiet, you hear? Or he can go home right now."

By he, Mr. Pierce meant me. I sobered quickly, pulling my face into a solemn expression because the last thing I wanted was to leave. Apparently Mikey didn’t want to make good on his earlier threat, either. Scuffing his socks on a nail protruding from the door’s threshold, he muttered, I hear you.

Excuse me? Mr. Pierce snapped.

Mikey raised his voice. "I hear you, sir."

Sir. I’d have to tack that onto my next daydream about Mr. Pierce. I could see myself standing tall before him, every part of me snapping to attention beneath that dark glower of his. My dick ached in the confines of my jeans and in that instant I envied Mikey, whose zipped fly lay flush against his crotch now that he’d gotten off. I suspected I’d be holing up in the bathroom before the night was through, pulling on my own dick over the toilet just to find release.

* * * *

Mr. Pierce’s poker buddies started showing up around six. My stomach was growling—I hadn’t eaten much for lunch—but I knew better than to ask when we’d order the pizza. For a little while Mikey and I duked it out on the Playstation, playing one of his wrestling games and basically kicking the shit out of each other. Mikey knew all the moves, which buttons to press in what sequence to execute any number of grandiose acrobatics but me, I just pushed them all at once and hoped for the best. It pissed him off whenever I won. Dumb luck, he’d say, punching me in the arm. By the time he grew bored with the game, my shoulder was numb from his knuckles.

When I heard the first car slow to a stop in front of the house, I abandoned the game and pretended to stretch as I wandered over to the window. Outside I saw a battered Toyota, the engine idling so loudly I knew there was no muffler on the thing. After a moment or two, the engine cut off and three rough-looking guys climbed out from the car. Mr. Pierce’s friends. They were tough men, same as he, and so different from the type of guy my own father palled around with that I loved them instantly. Ignoring the sidewalk, the three cut across the front yard, heading for the garage and the same door I had entered earlier. I couldn’t hear their laughter from this distance, but through the floor I heard the door scrape open and Mr. Pierce’s voice boom out. You assholes stay off my grass! he cried in greeting.

So that’s where Mikey and I got it from.

Some of your dad’s friends are here, I said, in case Mikey hadn’t possibly