Page 42 of Muscle Cub

“Okay.”

I watched him in the rearview mirror until he was out of sight.

As the gate rolled closed behind me, I thought, Yeah, this part sucks.

15

I sat in my truck in my driveway trying to compose the perfect text message to Austin.

With this much time and effort, I could’ve produced a fucking haiku. That had a formula. I had no prior experience with personal communication in this particular scenario. I had no template for this.

I’d rewritten the text a dozen times, stripping away anything I thought sounded pretentious, overwritten, too desperate, or too casual. I’d finally whittled it down to the polite, functional, and completely dry as fuck: Home safe. Thanks again for an amazing weekend.

A strong first sentence was important, but there was a chance Austin might never respond, and this thread would become yet another manuscript I’d started that never went anywhere.

I shook the thought away, cursing myself for being negative and for clinging to stories that no longer served me.

Attempting to give it some enthusiasm and optimism, I added a smile emoji after Home safe, changed the second period to an exclamation point, and attached the selfie he’d taken of us.

Was the pic too much?

Before I could back out or start another revision, I hit Send and shoved the phone into my pocket.

Arriving home usually felt more satisfying than this, but I was exhausted. Cumulative sleep deprivation, alcohol consumption, and sun exposure had caught up with me. I dreaded having to unload my gear, especially having spent most of my morning getting it all into the truck. I dragged my backpack with my toiletries and clothes off the front passenger seat and left the rest to deal with tomorrow.

I loved my house. It was a Craftsman built in 1929. I’d purchased it as a fixer-upper, locking myself into the professorship I’d accepted at Edgewood University.

I’d hoped there would be follow-up bestsellers to eventually secure my freedom, but in less than three months after publication, my second novel had all but disappeared. It languished on bargain tables in brick-and-mortar bookstores for months, and my publisher opted to release me from my contract.

Thanks for playing. We don’t need a third book after all.

Besides my degrees and my novels, remodeling this house had been my single greatest accomplishment. It was definitely the bigger source of satisfaction.

Ben was known in Edgewood as something of a miracle worker when it came to carpentry in old houses. I’d hired him first to help me restore the main staircase. I hadn’t wanted someone to do the work for me. I’d wanted to get my hands dirty. I’d been surprised when he said he was cool with my assisting, and we’d gotten along really well. The first few times he casually mentioned his sex life, I’d wondered if he might have been flirting with me. I’d later come to realize he’d been trying to let me know he was gay. He eventually introduced me to Eric, and for the first time, I’d had gay male friends near my own age. When Charles and I had been together, we’d socialized entirely with the university faculty he’d wanted to impress, which was mostly a lot of older, married, straight people.

Over the last several years, Ben and I had gone from one project in my house to the next, gradually restoring everything to historically accurate appearances with some well-hidden modern improvements. Last week, we’d completed our final project, the upstairs bathroom. The renovations were done.

With my sabbatical disappearing at an alarming clip, I’d joked that if I couldn’t get a manuscript written by the end of summer, Ben would have to go into business with me flipping houses. I was seriously considering buying a rental property or a vacation home just so I’d have a new project.

Why couldn’t I give up writing and focus on this other creative outlet? I loved it, and I could probably make more money at it. Unfortunately, writing was a calling. It sounded pretentious, but it felt like it was what I’d been put on this earth to do, and I couldn’t ignore that.

Even if I were successful at another career, I’d still have a serious writing hobby.

I made myself a half-ass, dry turkey sandwich—a piece of bread folded around a slice of deli meat with no condiments—and ate it standing at the island in my perfectly staged kitchen. The hum of the refrigerator and the ticking of the vintage schoolroom clock seemed ominous.

I slipped my phone out of my pocket to check the thread I’d started with Austin.

Of course, there was no reply; it had been less than ten minutes.

He didn’t have his phone on him, and he was working. Although business at the bar might be a little slower today because of the holiday, he’d be helping to set up and serve a poolside cookout for dinner.

It would probably be hours before he had a chance to check his messages.

I washed my sad lunch down with a few gulps of milk straight from the carton and headed upstairs. I looked forward to showering in my own bathroom without an audience or having to wear flip-flops.

While I waited for the water to get hot, I stripped in front of the vanity mirror. I tried to see myself the way the men from this weekend might have seen me. The way Austin might have seen me. Lance had complimented my body, and I had no doubt that Austin found me attractive too. I’d always liked older guys myself, especially when I was their age, but a dad bod was easier to appreciate on someone else.

Maybe it was that I looked different, that I’d changed from how I’d thought of myself for so long.