Brandon stood at the kitchen sink and stared with unseeing eyes at the basin of water and the frilly petals of lettuce that floated on its surface.  He hadn’t realized just how much the last two months had felt like holding his breath until now.  He was living in Anthony’s house, surrounded by Anthony’s things.  Most of his own stuff from the loft had either been sold or crammed into a storage unit.  He was a placeholder.  An ellipsis.  He was keeping Anthony’s life warm so that he could slip back into it and resume it at some point.  Resume them.  He would, after all.  Wouldn’t he?

Brandon sighed as he threw another wad of saturated greens into the salad spinner.  This was definitely a flawed plan.  He looked at Sherlock, who was perched on the counter and looking warily at Marbles.  Marbles was too blind and arthritic to care–he knew whose dominion the house was.  “What the hell did I get myself into, boys?” he asked as he pumped the top of the spinner.  It thrummed, droplets gathering on the bowl like rain on a windshield.  

The interlude in the yard with Kyle–correction, Kyle’s foot–had been the most natural thing that had happened all summer.  The first taste of excitement since Anthony had gone.  Was that wrong?  After all, it wasn’t like Brandon had a thing for Kyle.  Just his boot.  The one he had jammed his foot into this morning, having no clue that it would be like a device of torture for someone.  The one that Brandon could imagine clasping his hand around and forcing it further into the slime of the downspout gulley, the neoprene smooth against his fingers as Kyle looked down at him, puzzled…

The salad spinner wobbled to a stop.  “Fuck!” Brandon exploded, pushing away from the counter.  Startled cats scattered.  Grabbing his phone, he perched on one of the stools at the island and started composing the text.

“Hey.  I’m sure you’ve got a lot going on.  I just need to hear from you.  Anything.  Going crazy here thinking about you.”  He paused, then deleted the last line.  He hovered his finger about the send button.

Noise from the driveway drew him off the stool and to the kitchen window.  Kyle was putting the trimmer in its holder on the side of the trailer.  He stood with his boots resting on the tire of trailer as he fastened a waterproof cover over its motor.  Brandon could see the tan ring of dried mud around the left.  His cock quickly strained against his pants, as if wanting its turn to see.  As Kyle hopped down and started for the truck, he paused and looked down, unclasping a cell from a holster.  Brandon watched as he answered an unheard call and started talking toward the tree tops, sweeping the cap off of his head and brushing a hand through his wet hair.  He leaned against the pickup and rested a foot on the running board.  Brandon’s body crackled with unreleased tension.  Tension from the last half an hour, from the last two months.  

He couldn’t even be bothered to unzip his pants.  He slammed his hand into his crotch and massaged the sticky underwear around his cock as he stared out the window.  Kyle’s left pant leg was still hitched over a pull loop, a gray K logo showing by the heel.  God, he was losing it over this boot and the guy wearing it was just beyond the glass and had no idea.  “Fuck,” he hissed.  Pressure he hadn’t even realized was there suddenly couldn’t be contained.  Outside, Kyle laughed on the phone, throwing his head back and flexing his foot on the chrome step of the truck.  

The dam broke.  Brandon had cried out during plenty of orgasms before, but no sound escaped his open mouth this time.  It was like his first rollercoaster ride, when the car had crested that first hill and the drop was faster and steeper than he could have fathomed, and a scream could not be found.  Hot semen issued into his pants and rolled down his leg and he grasped the edge of the counter.  The salad spinner hit the floor, rinsed lettuce scattering across the white tiles like a premature autumn coming to the kitchen.  Brandon felt his entire body sing, a resonance welling up from his core and trilling clear to his shoulders and knees and vibrating to the crown of his head.  The last waves had not ceased crashing over him when Kyle pulled the cell from his ear and glanced up, waving at Brandon framed in the kitchen window, before he tucked the phone away and climbed into the truck.

As the truck crackled down the driveway, Brandon sank to the kitchen floor amongst the lettuce.  Still buzzing, he stared at the mixing bowls stacked under the island, the askew pile of cookbooks from which Ina Garten beamed at him.  When was the last time he had experienced anything so furiously intense?  Had it been the first time he had been completely open with Anthony, that night in his loft?  Or the time that Anthony had sunken up to his waist in mud, just for him?  No.  As he flipped through his sexual adventures like a mental rolodex, Brandon’s cheeks began to heat up with a revelation.  The last time he had felt this way was the day he had stood behind the Jeep with his cock in Anthony’s shoe…and Anthony had been unaware it was happening.

Brandon gathered the limp ribbons of lettuce and threw them back into the sink.  He plucked up his phone and eyed the unsent text on the screen.  He stared out at the empty driveway, blue under the lengthening shadow of the house. Then he deleted the text, and locking the screen, set his phone down.