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A Game for Two: Part 1
(Steve’s Harrington’s House, Present Day)
Billy was sitting across from Steve, his lips slightly pursed, his thumb stroking over the scar on the crest of his right cheek. His eyes were shielded by his thick black lashes as he gazed down at the Chess board between them.
Steve glanced at the board. His knight was in a nearly untouchable position, but he was well aware that Billy was most likely about to take out his bishop, but it would cost him more than a pond, so maybe he wouldn’t do it.
Steve’s boom box was playing a mixed tape that they’d made together, it had taken a couple days of negotiating to compile the perfect list of songs. Mostly it alternated between Billy’s favorites and Steve’s, but they’d wanted it to have a good flow so they’d taken their time selecting the order of the songs. The mixed tape had become the soundtrack to all of their Chess matches. As they sat in Steve’s slightly stuffy room the sound of the Talking Heads’ song ‘Once in a Lifetime’ was keeping them company.
Drawing Out Billy
(One Year Earlier)
The two of them had started playing Chess by chance.
Steve had been on his lunch break at Family Video, sitting in a sunny spot on the employee picnic table near the back entrance when Billy had sat down across from him. Steve hadn’t know if Billy would stop by or not, but of course he’d been hoping. Billy had come back from the dead looking like a wolf in winter, and something about that both broke Steve’s heart and planted a strange seed of hope. They eventually started a tentative friendship when Billy started coming around Family Video with Max to rent movies. Max had confided in Steve that Billy tended to sleep and watch movies and do little else.
Steve looked up from his lunch and greeted Billy in his usual manner which was to offer him half of whatever he was eating, on this particular day it was a turkey sandwich. Billy accepted it without so much as a word and took a bite. They ate together in silence, both of them lost in their own thoughts, both of them stealing glances when the other looked away. Billy picked up a pen that someone had left on the table and started drawing on Steve’s paper lunch bag.
“So, do you want to watch a movie tonight? I get off at six. You can pick the movie this time, I feel like I’ve picked the last three times.” Steve said watching Billy’s pen scratch into the paper, a small horse’s head was starting to appear.
“I don’t want to watch a movie, maybe we could just… I don’t know…” Billy trailed off. He didn’t want to say he couldn’t fallow films so well these days, that his focus was shot. He was just barely starting to feel normal, at least physically. His motor skills were almost as good as before, he was even working out again, but it felt like his mind just wouldn’t catch up. His damn brain couldn’t move through the wall of trauma, or maybe it was just broken.
“Are you drawing a knight?” Steve asked touching the edge of the paper-bag.
“Yeah.” Billy dropped his pen and reached over and picked up Steve’s cup and drank from it like it was his, or as if they were a couple.
“Help yourself.” Steve chuckled and then tapped the drawing, “Do you play Chess?”
“I used to. With my mom. She taught me the year I got chicken pox, I was stuck at home for a week, and that was her way of keeping me from scratching off my face.” Billy paused wondering why he was telling Steve stories about his childhood illness.
“She made you focus on something, that’s pretty smart.” Steve smiled. “Well if you ever want to play, I have board.”
“You play Chess?” Billy scoffed.
“Hey, I’m more than a pretty face and a great head of hair, Hargrove.” Steve laughed.
“Seems kinda nerdy for a jock like you.” Billy said.
“Look who’s talking.” Steve chuckled, “My grandpa Otis taught me, he didn’t want to play Life or Monopoly so he taught me Chess and Poker.” Steve smiled at the memory.
“Let’s play tonight then, I’m rusty though.” Billy wanted to kick himself for making excuses, he didn’t need to prove anything, besides, how good could Harrington be?
A Game for Two: Part 2
(Steve’s Harrington’s House, Present Day)
Billy eyed the Chess board. He hated to admit it, but over the last year that they’d been playing he was pretty sure that Steve had gotten better, and he’d been good to begin with.
Playing with Steve almost every night for a little over a year had made Billy feel more grounded in his skin, not only had he regained his ability to focus, but he’d found a friend in Steve, but not just a friend, not like the friends he’d had before but something more. Billy had never had a friend that he kissed, or a friend that he fooled around with…
“Are you cheating Harrington?” Billy asked this question at least once a game and it never failed to get Steve riled up.
“What, no? How in the hell could I be cheating?”
“I don’t know, maybe you moved my pieces when I went to take a leak.” Billy smirked.
Steve sighed and then looked at Billy’s slightly pursed full lips and the devilish glint in his eyes. “You fucker, you always say I’m cheating when you’re not sure of your next move. Every god damned time…Like, like clockwork!” Steve sputtered.
“Uh-huh.” Billy ran his tongue over his teeth and then tipped his head back with the air of a very smug feline.
“Make your move, will you?” Steve reached under the table and slapped Billy’s knee.
Steve had set up a small wobbly card table in his bedroom, their knees often bumped. At first it had made things feel awkward. Steve would apologize when he felt Billy flinch away from the contact. But somewhere between day one and now a bit beyond day 365, that had changed completely and they just sat with their legs intertwined.
“Careful Harrington, you know the rules you slap me, I slap you back.” Billy said in his husky voice.
Steve blushed and rolled his eyes, “You know you’re not as scary as you think you are.”
Billy lifted his eyes from the Chess board, “Are you telling me you want me to scare you?”
“No.” Steve said quickly and blurted a nervous laugh, he shook his head and lifted his chin at the board, “C’mon, you gotta make your move. You’ve only got like four options.”
“Four?” Billy shook his head and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, he loved it when Steve got impatient, that was one of his weaknesses when it came to Chess, and Billy refused to do timed games. Billy lit his cigarette and exhaled slowly, “I’ve got at least six moves, they’re just not all wham-bam-thank-you-mam, it’s the long con Harrington, the long con.”
“I’m not counting combination moves.” Steve rolled his eyes.
“Oh combination moves, well let’s see…” Billy leaned over the board and poked Steve’s knight and his rook and the drew a line, he titled his head till his nose was just touching the edge of the board and squinted at the pieces.
“Oh christ, Billy just go.” Steve moaned.
“You know what, we should take a break? Whatd’ya say?” Billy got up and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair, “Let’s go outside by the pool.”
Steve put his hands on his face, “Seriously dude?”
Steve got up and followed Billy downstairs, they ended up outside by the pool. It was a chilly November afternoon, the sun was already low in the sky and it wasn’t yet three o’clock. Steve bummed a cigarette from Billy. They had the house to themselves which was ideal, there was no one to see when Billy slipped his hand in Steve’s back pocket as he stood beside him.
“Are you gonna pout now?” Billy asked, his voice a low murmuring purr.
“No, I’m not pouting.” Steve took a drag on his cigarette, his mind was still on the Chess match, there was no way there were six moves without two of them being a combination moves, he thought.
“I’m moving out.” Billy announced.
“What?” Steve turned looking at Billy, “Can you afford to?”
“I can’t afford not to.” Billy said.
Steve nodded, Billy didn’t have to explain that it was his father that was driving him out of his home. For months Billy had been given time to heal and recover while his father had been working on site as project manager for his company’s Kansas City branch, but he’d been back in town for nearly a month now. Billy rarely talked about his father, but when he did it was never good and Steve could tell that Billy was holding back.
“Where are you thinking of moving?” Steve asked, he gently kicked the toe of Billy’s boot.
“There’s a couple ads in the Hawkins’ Post, for studio apartments, one on the main strip and another one is in that new apartment building, but you have to apply for their onsite manager position… I saw an add for cottage too, or at least that’s how it’s described. I don’t know, it’s on the back of someone’s property so that might be weird.” Billy shook his head.
Steve turned looking at Billy, “Well, when it’s moving day, or even before then, I can help you pack if you want.”
“Pack? What am I going to pack?” Billy laughed, “I don’t have that much shit, you know after I moved from California to here.”
“I just mean, I want to help, if you’ll let me.” Steve mumbled.
Billy reached over and placed his hand on the back of Steve’s neck and pulled him into a kiss.
Every time Billy kissed Steve, Steve could feel it through out his whole body, as if he’d just grabbed hold of a live wire and the buzz of electricity went from his lips all the way through his body lighting up his nervous system like a string of Christmas lights.
Billy stepped back from the kiss and smiled at Steve, his eyes dancing briefly at the thought of how much Steve drove him crazy. Steve made Billy feel like Dorothy in that goofy movie, as if he’d just landed in Oz, and suddenly the world is in technicolor.
“Don’t worry about it pretty boy, I’ll make it work. The only way you could help me is if you moved out with me.” Billy said.
Steve paused, his wide brown eyes darted in thought and then he nodded, “Yeah.”
“Yeah what?” Billy dropped his cigarette he’d forgotten he was holding it and it had singed his fingers.
“I’ll move in with you.” Steve smiled brightly.
“What? Why?” Billy was simultaneously delighted and terrified his heart rabbited in his chest.
“Because, I don’t want to live here anymore. I’m a man, this is ridiculous.” Steve threw up his hands and paced a bit, “I didn’t go off to college, I feel like I’m just stuck here, my life is now, like this is it man, and I don’t want to spend my life living at home. I need to live my own life on my own terms, you know?” Steve stood up straighter, “And besides, if we live together I won’t have to sneak around to be with my boyfriend.”
Billy blinked slowly. They’d been messing around for the last three months, but had never said they were boyfriends. Boyfriends?!
Stalemate
(3 Months Earlier)
“Just give up, you’re dead in the water.” Billy taunted, he was feeling pretty confident that he was two moves from announcing checkmate.
Steve had chewed his thumbnail down to the quick. “No, there’s a way…” Steve muttered leaning over the board his fingertips firmly planted on the edge fo the table.
“Harrington if you win this game I’ll blow you.” Billy cackled.
“What about a stalemate, what do I get for that?” Steve asked his eyes on the board.
“Pfft, I’ll kiss you.” Billy waved his hand in the air loftily, he and Steve had been sipping from a bottle of whiskey pilfered from Mr Harrington’s liquor cabinet. They were both a little more than buzzed and both stubbornly determined to finish a very long and poorly executed Chess match. About eight moves later it was very clear that Steve had managed to pull off a very sloppy but effective stalemate.
Billy had his fingertip on his queen, “You fucking did it, it’s a god damned stalemate.” He signed in resignation and then turned up the the whiskey bottle to take a long draught.
Steve smiled cockily. “Oh! He admits that I delivered on the stalemate, very big of you Billy…” Steve made a strange squeaking sound that was something between a laugh and a hiccup, his body listing to the right, “and I did it drunk too.” Steve bragged.
Billy set down the bottle and rested his palm on the board and swept all the pieces off the side of the table and sent them bouncing on the carpet.
“Oh no.” Steve said laughing watching the black and white combatants scatter across the carpeted floor, “You’ve murdered them all.”
Billy grabbed Steve by the collar and pulled him forward, Steve grasped the sides of the card table trying not to stumble.
Billy planted a kiss on Steve’s lips, it was a firm and chaste kiss, or at least that’s how it started. Steve rested one hand on Billy’s jaw, tipped his head and parted his lips. Billy felt a rush of heat go hurtling through his core, he hadn’t realized just how much he’d wanted to kiss Steve till their lips met. He leaned into the kiss, his tongue meeting Steve’s, his hands traveling from Steve’s collar and down the slope of his broad shoulders. Billy pulled back from the kiss, still gripping Steve’s shoulders and stared at him feeling breathless and so very alive.
“Is that all you’ve got Hargrove?” Steve licked his bottom lip staring Billy in the eyes. Billy kissed him again. Kissing evolved quickly into groping, and before Billy knew which way was up they were in Steve’s bed. After that night they were in Steve’s bed at the end of every Chess match.
They had never bothered to define their relationship, never spoken about it… it had just felt as natural as drawing breath, they fit together in a way that they never could have when they first met, they fit because their edges had been rounded, and their desire for one another had been sharpened by the strength of their friendship, all they’d ever really needed was time.
A Game for Two: Part 3
(Steve’s Harrington’s House, Present Day)
“Billy?” Steve said feeling uncertain, he ran his hands up Billy’s chest, and squeezed his shoulders. “I, maybe you…” Steve drew a breath, he could tell he’d thrown Billy off, but now that he knew Billy was looking to move out of the house on Cherry Lane he was desperate to move in with him, for things to be… more?
“You’d move out? You’ve got everything here,” Billy shook his head.
“No. I don’t. I mean, yeah there’s the pool and free food or whatever, but I don’t have everything, you’re everything.”
“I’m… everything?” Billy asked in a hushed murmur.
“To me you are.” Steve said, his dark brows knit, he moved closer to Billy, he felt like he always did, like he was caught up in the gravitational pull of Billy, locked in his orbit, forever drawn to him.
The corner of Billy’s mouth lifted a fraction, he stepped froward and touched his forehead to Steve’s. He couldn’t believe it, had he know that Steve would move in with him, he would have moved out of Cherry Lane ages ago.
“So, do you want to move in with me?” Billy asked, even knowing the answer, he felt nervous asking.
“I thought you’d never ask.” Steve smiled and kissed Billy long and slow.