think he meant it. He was just being kind.
“I used to have an awesome body,” I tell him.
“You still do. Great pecs, great arms…”
“No, no, I used to be really in great shape. What’s weird is that for most of my life I was just this scrawny kid…”
I stop. I don’t want him to think I mean like him. He’s nothing like I used to be. He’s beautiful. Tight. Lean. I was—well—I was scrawny. No other word for it.
“I didn’t have the ease with my body that you do,” I tell him. “I didn’t carry myself the same way. You’re hot. I was just—scrawny.”
He’s not buying it, I can tell. Doesn’t matter. I know it’s true.
“Anyway,” I say, “then I started working out and suddenly I had this body that guys were willing to pay to have sex with. It was—well, a really heady time.”
“I imagine,” he says, exhaling smoke.
“But nothing lasts forever. You try to keep up, you try to continue going to the gym with the same devotion. But things start happening. You get busy. You get pulled in a million directions.” I pause. “You get old. You get tired. You get fat.”
Luke barks out a laugh. “You are not using those words to describe yourself, are you, Henry?”
“I just mean that—I’m not in the shape I was five years ago. The bodyworking is finished. My other job got pretty demanding and that takes up most of my time now.”
“You mean the guesthouse?”
“Yeah, it’s really—” I stop, and look over at him closely. “I never told you I manage a guesthouse.”
Luke grins, cuddling up next to me again. “I have a confession to make. I saw you there the other day. What’s it called? Nirvana? Anyway, I was thinking of getting a room there, but you had no vacancy. But I thought you were hot, and so when I saw you today I had to make a move.”
It’s another statement for which there is no answer. At least none that I can think of at the moment. I just look at this boy, this beautiful boy, next to me. He thinks I’m hot. He smiles, reaches across the bed and stubs out his cigarette, and leans in to kiss me again. Ignoring the acrid taste of tobacco, I kiss him back.
“I gotta pee,” Luke says, breaking gently free.
He stands and heads into the bathroom. In seconds, he’s back in the doorway, tossing me a handtowel. I catch it. It’s wet. “You might want to get that peach juice off yourself,” he says.
I laugh. “Thanks.”
Wiping my torso, I can hear his loud stream of piss hitting the porcelain.
“So what made you decide on spending the winter in Provincetown?” I call into him.
“Just thought it was a good place to find myself, know what I mean?”
I just grunt in reply. People have lots of romantic notions about Provincetown off-season, but I’ve lived through some of those bleak winters, when everything closes up and most of the residents who are left are either drunks or twelve-steppers. Very few in-between. “Well,” I say, wiping up the last of the cum and the syrup, “you ought to come out to the guesthouse. Maybe I can find you a room.”
“Really? That would be awesome!”
“Sure, after Labor Day the crowds die down and then—”
My eyes catch the corner of a book sticking out from under the bed.
A book that seems familiar.
“And then what?” Luke calls.
“And then—well, maybe we can—get you something more permanent than—” I can’t resist. I reach down and pull the book out from under the bed. I look at the cover.
It’s what I thought.
The Boys of Summer.
By Jeffrey O’Brien.
I slide the book back under the bed as Luke flushes and heads back into the room to flop down beside me again.
I turn and give him a tight smile.
“That would be great,” he says. “To get a room at Nirvana…I could help out, do chores, that kind of shit.”
“Well,” I tell him, “I don’t know for sure if we’ll have any rooms…I’d have to check with the owner. I’m just the manager…”
“Mm, so handsome,” Luke says, ignoring me as he kisses me, his mouth minty fresh. He must’ve gargled with Listerine in there. “You are such a stud muffin, Henry.”
I pull back, gently. That damn book has made me even more defensive than I was before.
“So.” I’m trying to get a hold on Luke’s eyes, but he’s averting them. “Enough about me. Tell me about you. What romantic notions have you heard about living here at the end of the earth?”
He shrugs. “Nothing really. I don’t know anyone here.”
I can feel my lips hardening, tightening. “Gets pretty isolating in February and March, you know.”
“That’s what I want.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You want to be isolated from the rest of the world?”
“Well,” Luke says, finally meeting my eyes, “I’m a writer. Or I want to be one. I think living here in the winter would help me concentrate.”
His answer seems to suddenly make sense of a lot of things. I move back against the pillows, steadily inching away from him.
“A writer. Interesting.” I pull my knees up to my chest. “And what is it that you write?”
“I’m working on a novel.”
Suddenly I want to shower. I want to get away from this kid and stand under a scalding hot stream of water and wash all this stickiness off me, in a way no puny moistened hand towel could ever accomplish.
Luke, meanwhile, is busy rhapsodizing. “I’ve had this dream of coming to Provincetown and finishing my novel for over a year now,” he’s saying. “I just want to let my creativity flow. Release all the energy inside me. I just want to hunker down somewhere and write to my heart’s content.”
“You’ll need some kind of job,” I say, aware of the new hardness in my voice. “Unless you’re independently wealthy.”
He laughs. “No, I’m not. I figure I could get something. Maybe trade a room at your guesthouse for—”
“You know, I may have spoken too soon about that,” I tell him, cutting him off.
He seems not to notice my change in attitude. “Well, then, some other guesthouse. Or I’ll just get a little cheap apartment somewhere…”
I laugh. My voice has moved past hard to brittle. “Cheap little apartment? Shows how much you know about this place. You can’t just roll into Provincetown anymore and get a job and a place to live. There are very few year-round affordable rental properties.” I try to smile to tone down my obvious cynicism. “I don’t mean to discourage you, but that’s the reality.”
Luke returns my smile, and for some reason, I don’t like it. His is the arrogant smile of youth, a cocky I-can-do-anything grin. “I’ll find a way,” he tells me.
I imagine he will. All he has to do is lift that shirt up again the way he did on the dance floor and he’ll get anything he wants.
“I really want the experience of living here,” Luke is saying, filled with passion. “I’ve wanted to ever since—”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Ever since you read The Boys of Summer?”
He