Briefcase Booty by SA Welsh Page A

with a small garden in the front that went around the sides to what looked like a huge backyard. “Here we are.”
    Luka parked the car, but they didn’t make a move to get out yet. Peter guessed he wasn’t the only one nervous about all this.
    “Is this where you moved to originally, or did your parents move again?” He wanted to know whether this was Luka’s home, or just a house. And he’d never been one to stand uncomfortable silences.
    “No, this is where we came after we left Shordon. Me and my brother love this place, and Terry spends most of the summer here when he isn’t coaching ball at his college.”
    Peter’s eyes flew wide and a laugh escaped. “Oh god, I completely forgot you had a brother. I didn’t even ask about him. How is he?” In truth Peter didn’t spend much time thinking about Terry, even when he and Luka were friends as kids.
    “Hey, it’s okay. Terry’s a few years older than us, and used to be a dick, and he knows it. Apart from his hassling us for being gay when we were little, because we didn’t like football, you didn’t interact with him,” Luka said with a shrug of acceptance. “He’s mellowed a lot since I came out at fifteen.”
    That was news. “You came out at fifteen? That was brave. You hear horrible stories about kids being kicked out because of that.”
    “I thought I was in love with a boy I was dating at the time, and wanted to bring him home,” Luka explained, but before Peter could ask what happened Luka continued. “I came out, and told my boyfriend I’d come out, and his reaction was to deny anything happened—and break my nose for spreading lies about him.”
    “Wow, that’s awful.” Peter was pissed on Luka’s behalf. He wanted to go back to his fifteen-year-old self and find the little shit.
    “Yeah, I have bad taste in men.” Luka sighed—then tensed, clearly realizing what he’d just said. “I mean, present company excluded of course, light of my life,” Luka gushed pleadingly.
    Peter wasn’t insulted. “Good save,” he commented with a smirk.
    But he still wanted to know what else happened, since there seemed to be more to the story. “So what happened then?”
    Luka looked relieved he was dropping it so easily and took his hand, turning it over to wind their fingers together. “Well I came home bloody and crying because I’d just been dumped. My parents were both at work, but Terry was home from college on term break or something, and saw me come in. Turns out that he’s the only one allowed to make fun of me, and he went and broke the bastard’s nose in retaliation. It was a good punch too; he needed a nose cast. And just before yearbook photos,” Luka said with a smile.
    Wow. That was not the Terry he remembered, now that he did remember him, anyway.
    “I think we’ve been spotted,” Luka said, looking over Peter’s shoulder at the house.
    Sighing, Peter let go of Luka and put his hand on the door handle. He couldn’t put it off any longer.
    “Hey—” Luka pulled him back around gently and they shared a quick reassuring kiss that left him a little breathless. “—It will be fine. You could be wearing a yellow polka-dot dress, and they’d still love you.”
    Now there was a visual. “A yellow polka-dot dress. Is there something you want to tell me, Luka?”
    Peter dodged the swipe coming his way and jumped out of the car, laughing when Luka tried to poke him instead. He opened the back door and unfastened Loukas’s seat, picked him up, and caught the parrot before it fell to the floor.
    “Come on, baby boy. Let’s go meet our family.”
    Luka’s parents met them at the door, and no sooner had he introduced Loukas than Luka’s mom was crying and running off with his son into the house. Luka’s dad just nodded and gave him a long hug, saying, “Welcome home, son.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Christmas morning came, and Peter lay wide awake in Luka’s arms, staring at the box he’d placed on the cabinet beside the bed