It was dark by the time Brandon had wrenched all of the hated ceiling tiles from the original plaster in his bedroom.  Lamp light reflected off of the window overlooking the backyard like a wavy mirror in which he could see himself, standing amongst the shambles of a DIY project that had ballooned out of proportion.  The grayish, battered floorboards of the room were strewn with chunks of the ancient pressboard and dusted with the filth of an old house disturbed.  It almost seemed transformed into a bleak moonscape, only overhead was not a dazzling infinite sea of stars but rather the clumsy rows of exposed furring strips, stretching across the impossibly cracked expanse of original plaster and dotted regularly with the petrified glue that had held the tiles affixed for so many decades.  It was hardly the improvement Brandon had been looking for.

He set about the daunting task of attempting to make the room habitable again, hauling bulky contractor bags of tiles out to the driveway and vacuuming their crumbled remains from the tops of the furniture and the gaps between the floorboards.  The angry red digits of his bedside clock screamed that it was after midnight when he finally collapsed to the floor beside his bed having just emptied the vacuum tank for a second time.  

He surveyed the raw ceiling.  He raised his phone overhead and snapped a picture, dashing it off to Anthony.  “Now both bedrooms are destroyed,” was his accompanying caption.  It was as good an excuse as any to attempt to break the ice after so many days of nothing between them.

Brandon eyed the Asics wrestling shoes next to him on the floor.  They, too had been dusted with ceiling debris, and now that they were vacuumed off were actually cleaner than they had been in the garage.  The residue of his semen stood out in sharper relief against the fuzzy matte black backdrop.  He kicked off his own shoes and slipped his ankle-socked feet inside.  His cock instantly responded to their roomy interior, cool from being uninhabited.  The soft lining of their tall sides hugged his bare legs.  How long had it been since he had put on a pair of Anthony’s shoes?  He stretched out his legs before him so that he could take in the sight of them wrapped around his feet.  It made him feel closer to him.

Brandon hadn’t expected that they would share any more intimate moments after Anthony had received the phone call.  Especially after Anthony had resolved that going to South Carolina was the only thing to be done, Brandon could immediately feel a resistance build between them, like two north poles of a magnet. 

Brandon had driven to the house after work one evening with a carload of clothing and toiletries.  Anthony was out back and throwing collapsed cardboard boxes into the fire pit when he pulled up the driveway.  The ground was still damp from a recent thundershower, and Brandon noted immediately that Anthony hadn’t even changed from his work clothes–he slipped on a pair of Barbour wellies seemingly the moment he had arrived home, his russet colored slacks bunching around his knees.

“Hey,” Brandon called out to him from the driveway.  Anthony turned from the smoldering pile of cardboard.  A delicate flake of ash fluttered between them, a butterfly of embers.

“Yo,” he returned.  It wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t with his usual note of enthusiasm.  He moved across the wet grass toward him, the toes of his boots glassy with rainwater.  Brandon watched as the Barbours, their straps hanging loose, wobbled around Anthony’s legs.

“I just brought some more stuff from the loft.”  He tilted his head to indicate the RAV 4 over his shoulder.  Anthony drew up and nodded.

“I’m just clearing out some more of the boxes from the garage.  Should be able to get the Jeep in by the weekend.  Anything you bring in you’re welcome to stack on the screened in porch or the back bedroom.  Whatever is easiest for you.”

Brandon tried not to feel rattled by the businesslike tone in Anthony’s voice.  It was a far cry from the passionate way they had spoken on the evening on his birthday.  “I don’t want anything to get in your way.”

“It won’t,” Anthony stated simply as he started back to the fire.  “This is going to be your home in a few days.  Do what’s easiest.  We’ll make it work,” he called over his shoulder, the straps of his boots waving a farewell as the distance between them grew.

Brandon had just finished piling clothes onto the wicker settee on the back porch when Anthony came up the steps.  

“Well, I think that just about does it for this trip,” he announced as admired the carefully folded mountain of clothes.  The screen door hinges issued their familiar screech as it slammed behind Anthony, who impassively took in the scene.

“Okay,” he said simply.  “Be back at all tonight?”

Brandon began to bristle.  “I don’t think so,” he said softly, resisting the urge to snap.  “Maybe it would be better if I just save the rest of this until after you’re cleared out.”

Anthony sank into a teak armchair.  It was the one Brandon had argued for in favor of not buying a full matching wicker set.  ‘Intentional eclecticism,’ he called it.  Anthony extended the damp rubber boots before him.  Leaves of grass were threaded through their wet treads.

“What makes you say that?” he asked, his tone remaining bland.

“It’s obvious you don’t want me here,” Brandon murmured, running the toe of his boat shoe along the edge of the porch’s kilim rug.  Anthony frowned–his first non-neutral expression since Brandon had arrived.

“That’s not true…” he started.

“Then you’re upset with me,” Brandon insisted.  “Or–what?  I don’t know.”  He looked at Anthony with raised eyebrows and subtly shook his head, expectant of some revelation.    Anthony studied his boot.

“I’m sorry,” he practically whispered.  “You shouldn’t be feeling that way.”  He looked up at Brandon.  “It’s exactly the opposite–I’m trying not be angry at myself.  And I figure you have every right to be pissed at me.  I’m the one doing the leaving.”

Brandon blinked, words failing him.

“You know this is killing me, right?” Anthony leaned forward in the chair.  “That this is happening now, of all times?  And that I don’t even know what’s going to happen after I leave.  I don’t know…” his voice trailed off, as though he couldn’t bring himself to utter is biggest fear–he didn’t know when he would be back.  If he would be back.  “I don’t know anything,” he finished plainly.

Brandon knelt on the rug at his feet and rested his hands on Anthony’s knees.  “Then don’t go,” he pleaded softly.  It was the first time since the call had come that he had voiced it.  “Stay with me.”  Anthony smiled down at him sadly.

“You know I can’t do that, Brandon.  I have to do this.  It’s my responsibility.”

Brandon gazed at him for a moment, biting his lower lip.  “What about your other responsibilities?” he finally managed.  Anthony’s jaw muscles worked.

“I have to move forward.  I don’t know what’s ahead, but I know that I can’t get caught up in thinking about what’s done.”

Done.  The word dropped to the floor like a stone.  Brandon practically recoiled.

“That’s what we are?  Done?”  he felt his cheeks flush and his throat close.  To his surprise, Anthony seemed to consider this.

“I guess…not just yet,” he fumbled.  “And you’re right.  I suppose I do still have some other responsibilities.”  They locked eyes, and Brandon felt the damp foot of a Hunter slide between his thighs.  

Brandon stared into Anthony’s face in disbelief.  “You want to do this now?”  

“I think we better.”  It came as a whisper, which made it feel all the more urgent.  Brandon heaved a shaky sigh and slid up onto the boot, bringing his crotch against the shaft as he wrapped his arms around Anthony’s leg.  

With Anthony’s large Asics now encircling his feet, the previous day’s encounter with Kyle still purring through him, and this final moment with Anthony replaying in his mind, Brandon became desperate for release.  He eyed the Shop Vac in the corner for a moment, then stood up and let his stiff cock lead him across the room to switch its hose from one port to the other.  When he flipped the switch, it heaved a cloud of fine dust into the room.  Brandon coughed and spluttered as the fog settled, the roaring shop vac rippling his comforter and rifling through the magazine on his bedside table.  

He turned the hose on himself, feeling the powerful jet press into his shorts.  His damp cock shivered with excitement.  But he wanted more.  Yanking his waistband down, he sat on the floor with his back to the bed and directed the hose toward his groin again.  The sensation was thrilling.  His penis fluttered frantically in the air current, his balls pressed firmly into his body.  It was a sensation akin to a pool jet.  Brandon stared at his feet, flexing in soft green lining of the wrestling shoes, and thought about the man who had worn these.  The man who had ground the shaft of his Barbour boot against him just to see him pleasured one last time before he left–possibly for good.  

Brandon’s climax answered the power of the shop vac.  His cream whipped into a frothy spray, plastering to his t-shirt as it left him in short, violent bursts.  For just a second–he was transported back to that day on the screened in porch, where he had cum with his head against Anthony’s knee, Anthony’s fingers twining through his hair.

Brandon cut the vacuum’s power and let the hose drop to the floor.  The ringing in his ears was slowly replaced with the dull growl of the air conditioner.  He took in his semen splattered shirt and his dusty arms and legs.  He looked at the destroyed ceiling, and the fine dust that had once again settled over the room from the shop vac’s initial eruption.  And for the first time in weeks, he laughed.

When he returned to the room from a shower, he saw that Anthony had responded to his text.  It was a thumbs up.