Chapter Text
The sun beats down on Billy’s back as he leans over to clean the horse trough. Sweat clings to his back in a slick film, making his already dirty tank top even feel even more filthy. He wipes the beaded sweat on his forehead with his forearm, but all that manages to do is smear it around.
The first days on Jack’s farm are bright and hot yet oddly satisfying.
Jack doesn’t get in Billy’s face when Billy does something wrong. Instead, he calmly shows Billy how to do it and then leaves him alone. He’s used to directions being yelled or sneered at him -- Jack’s gentle tone feels foreign to him. After a while, he learns to stop tensing as the sound of Billy come here being called -- the first time he’d heard it, he nearly made a run for his Camaro to hightail it out of there. It turns out that the fight or flight reflex dies down when there are no flames to feed it.
He finds it peaceful here. Hot -- a whole other kind of hot than California hot with the afternoon sun suspending moisture in the air like a sauna -- but peaceful. The work is hard, the meals are good, and his room is small but comfortable. The humidity might turn his hair into a frizzy mess by the end of every work day, but it’s not like he’s strutting around and peacocking the same way he did when he first arrived in Hawkins, primping every curl to perfection.
The only person he has to impress here is Jack, and Jack doesn’t really give a fuck about Billy’s hair.
Harrington the alpaca, though, is an entirely different story.
The animal has the most glorious, fluffy tufts of brown fur that Billy’s ever seen -- coiffed to rival its own namesake. Billy feels a tad jealous when he runs his hands along the fur. “You look better than I do, Harrington.”
He thinks about actual Harrington, who also looks better than Billy right now.
At least, Billy assumes. He hasn’t seen Harrington since he came to visit Billy one time in the hospital -- and then he’d looked so good that Billy rolled over in his bed, feigning exhaustion just so his racing heart wouldn’t give him away on the monitor.
In any case, alpaca Harrington won’t get sheared until the spring, so those tufts will only become fuller and more beautiful.
Today, alpaca Harrington is being an annoying little fuck as Billy cleans out the trough. He feels a gentle tug from his hip and turns to see Harrington nibbling at the cloth Billy has dangling from his back pocket.
“Ey! Gimme that back,” Billy says. He pulls the cloth back and tucks it back in. “Irritating little shit. You’re lucky you’re so cute,” he said. He runs his hand down Harrington’s back. “You know who would probably dig you? Maxine.”
Max. He should probably call her. Someone should know his whereabouts -- hopefully Neil didn’t lay into her in an attempt to figure out where Billy had been this last week.
He finishes up the trough and makes his way up to the house.
It’s 3:45 in the afternoon -- Max should be home from school, and Neil wouldn’t be home from work yet, making it the perfect time to call. Billy wanders back to his room and picks up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Shitbird.”
Something clatters to the floor in the background. “Billy? Are you okay? Where have you been? Neil’s been having a cow over here. Holy shit I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere. Wait, are you in a ditch somewhere?”
Billy lights a cigarette, takes a drag, and sets it in the ashtray. “Jeeeezus, kid, one question at a time, alright? I’m not in a fuckin ditch. I’m alright. Okay?”
She sighs into the phone. “Good. Susan keeps trying to get Neil to call the cops, but Neil says it’s not necessary and some bullshit about how No need to get the police involved in family matters. He’ll call. He understands his responsibilities. But Lucas, Dustin, and I have all been riding around looking for you.”
Billy affects a sweet tone. “Aw. Didn’t know you cared.”
Max laughs. “Asshole. We just wanted to find you before Neil did. So, where are you, anyway?”
He weighs his options for a moment before responding. “Don’t worry about it. How’s 9th grade going? Kaminsky still have stale coffee breath?”
She laughs and tells him all the bullshit that high schoolers have to worry about, how the jocks are picking on her and her group of nerd friends, how she had to mow the lawn and take out the garbage for a month straight because she racked up the phone bill calling El long distance, and how she’s going to Homecoming with Lucas.
“Don’t let him get handsy.”
“Billy!”
“What! I’m just sayin-”
“Well fucking DON’T just say! Jesus! I never want to hear those words out of my brother’s mouth. Plus, I can take care of myself.”
Of that, he has no doubt. He feels something in his heart swell at that, which is baffling since he thought his heart had stopped working properly after Starcourt. Yet here he is getting all mushy over Max and soft over Jack. All of this seems terribly inconvenient to him. “So what’s your plan then, if he starts getting handsy?”
“Kick him in the nuts and leave him crying on the floor.”
“Good girl.”
During the next few moments of silence he smiles and can sense that she’s doing the same on the other end.
“Billy -- you swear you’re okay?”
He crosses his finger over his heart. “Swear.”
“Good. I’m glad. Steve Harrington has been worried about you.”
Billy stands up so fast that the phone base falls to the floor. “Steve … Steve Harrington?”
“He’s the one who keeps us looking for you. He keeps, like, driving around searching and asking if you’ve called and stuff. He’s got routes for us to search and everything.”
Billy’s mouth goes dry. “Okay. Uhm. Just tell him I’m fine, I guess.”
“Alright. I will. So -- when am I gonna get to see you?”
Billy’s mind reels a bit. He’s not certain he wants to leave the seclusion of the farm quite yet and make his whereabouts known. “Let me figure a couple things out first.”
“Okay. Just -- keep calling every few days so I know you’re okay?”
“Ugh, fine. You’re a worse nag than Mrs. Click.”
“Ew.”
“Hey, Max?”
“Yeah?”
Billy mulls over a couple of different things he wants to say and discards them all. “Talk to ya soon. Adios.”
“Bye.”
He hangs up the phone and feels good that one of the few people he trusts knows where he is, but then one thought highjacks his mind and keeps rolling over and over -- Steve Harrington is looking for me.
~*~
“Your boy got loose,” Jack says. He walks into the barn where Billy is mucking a stall.
Billy looks up, confused. “What?”
“Your boy Harrington. I thought those chickens took a shining to you until I saw how that alpaca tails you like you’re his mommy. You’re like goddamn Doctor Doolittle around here. Go track him down and bring him back to his pen -- he’s probably wandering down the driveway. I’ll finish up in here.” Jack takes the pitchfork from Billy’s hands.
Billy obviously is not going to say no to getting out of the unpleasant task, so he exits the barn and starts trotting up the dirt path around the house toward the driveway. It’s a long driveway, and Billy hopes that the alpaca hasn’t gotten far.
“Harrington!” he shouts.
No sign of the alpaca yet. He turns at the driveway, the corn waving on either side. A few trees form a line between the edge of the corn field and the road.
Up toward the last row of corn, he spots a furry brown rump. “Harrington! You sneaky little fucker!” Billy shouts as he approaches the alpaca.
He slows his trot and says, “Goddammit Harrington, I -”
A quick flash of short green shorts and telltale waves of brown hair appear in Billy’s peripheral vision in the line of trees behind the alpaca, then disappear behind a tree, clearly still visible behind the skinny trunk. Billy’s brows furrow.
“Harrington?” Billy shouts toward the trees.
Steve goddamn Harrington steps out from behind a tree. “Hi,” he says kind of sheepishly. He runs his hand over the back of his neck and looks down.
“What the fuck?” Billy asks. That’s about the most his mind will let him articulate right now.
“I was just, ah, yknow, going for a run past Uncle Jack’s house! Total coincidence! Not like I was looking for you or anything, I just thought it was time to work on this little belly,” he runs his hand over a small, enticing little round tummy, “too much ice cream this summer, and thought I should go for a run and -- well -- here I am! So, you, you’re -- how are you?”
“I’m -- fine?” Billy says, his voice rising in confusion.
“Yeah, you kinda disappeared and I was -- I mean the kids were, like, super worried about you. Max. And Lucas.”
Billy has a hand resting on the alpaca as it chews happily on a corn stalk.
“So you’re here at Jack’s?” Harrington steps out onto the driveway, the sun hitting him fully now. The tiny running shorts cling tightly to Harrington’s legs, crotch, and ass.
Billy feels a bit dizzy and is certain that it has nothing to do with the heat. “Ah. Yep. Jack kinda took me in and put me to work.”
Harrington reaches out to lay his hand on the alpaca’s back next to Billy’s. “Cool. This guy is awesome! And -- his name -- is also Harrington?”
Now it’s Billy’s turn to feel all sheepish. “Ah, yeah. Weird coincidence. Named him after the guitar player from Steely Dan.”
Harrington’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “You -- you like Steely Dan?”
“What can I say? There’s a lotta shit you don’t know about me.”
Harrington smirks and waves his hands. “Ooo, mysterious. So, fill me in. What don’t I know about you?”
Billy hears footsteps coming up the path behind him. “There he is, that little fucker -” Jack says, then stops when he sees Harrington. “Oh. Didn’t know you had a visitor.”
“Jack, this is Steve,” Billy says, and his stomach feels really weird for some reason. He refuses to admit that it kind of feels like embarrassment.
Jack reaches out his hand, and Harrington takes it. “Jack Sinclair. And you’re Steve-”
“Harrington.”
A smile forms on Jack’s face. “Oh, like the alpaca.” He turns to face Billy. “Did you name the alpaca after-”
“THE GUITAR PLAYER FROM STEELY DAN!” Billy says a tad too forcefully.
Jack holds up his hands. “Whoa now, didn’t realize you were that big of a fan.”
Billy grits his teeth. Honestly, he’s never cared for Steely Dan. “Yeah, well. Who doesn’t love Reelin’ in the Years?”
Jack barks a laugh. “You got a point. I’ll play my record after dinner.”
“Great. Can hardly wait,” Billy says flatly.
“Steve, nice to meet you. Gotta get back to the grind,” Jack says, then turns to walk back up the driveway toward the barn.
Once he’s out of earshot, Harrington says, “You know, you can call me Steve. If you’d like, that is. So you don’t confuse me with the alpaca.”
“Right,” Billy says. He feels only slightly less mortified than a little kid who pissed his pants.
“And, ah -- here. Got a pen in there?” He motions toward the house. ¨I’ll give you my number. You can call if you need a buddy to -- y’know, listen to Steely Dan records with.”
“Yeah,” Billy replies. He feels a little dizzy. “Yeah, okay.”
They walk into the house. Suddenly, the thought of listening to Do It Again felt a lot less horrible.
~*~
The next night, Billy hears the crunch of gravel under tires in the driveway. He checks his hair for the millionth time. The humidity that day had been a bitch, and trying to tame his curls took a Herculean effort and far too much hair product.
Jack told Billy earlier that he had plans to stay over at his brother’s house tonight -- Lucas and Erica wanted to do their monthly tradition of pizza and Trivial Pursuit, so Billy had the house to himself and was welcome to invite a friend or two over if he wanted. He’d said it with a knowing smirk on his face, too -- a smirk that made Billy feel like Jack knew about Steve. When Billy hung up the phone after making plans with Steve, he felt like a squirming middle schooler who didn’t know what to do about his crush and thought quite possibly that it was the lamest feeling in the world.
He’s used to feeling far too cool for everyone around him -- but not around Steve. Steve always had gotten under his skin and made him lose his cool.
Steve knocks on the edge of the screen door, even though he can clearly see Billy approaching. He’s smiling in at Billy.
Billy feels his cheeks flush. “Hey,” he says as he opens the door.
“Hey,” Steve says, stepping inside and handing over a six pack.
Billy takes out two beers, puts the rest in the fridge, and gives Steve on a tour of the house. He dallies in the hallway, pausing to show Steve all of the framed photos of rock bands that Jack has lining the walls and relays some of the wild stories Jack had told Billy about his time working at Chicago Stadium.
They’re standing in front of a picture of an eighteen year old Jack with his arm thrown around Paul McCartney. Steve’s eyes are as wide as saucers. “You’re joking. No fucking way!”
“Swear to god. Jack said that crazy fans were stalking the Beatles all over Chicago, so they needed someplace to stay where they could lie low. His boss remembered that he lived out in BFE and suggested that they stay out there. Jack, his brother Marvin -- Lucas and Erica’s dad -- and their little sister Annie all got to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with the fuckin Beatles.”
Steve turns. He’s standing close in the dimly lit hallway, close enough that Billy can smell the Obsession cologne and hairspray. “That’s so cool,” Steve says quietly. He leans in to say it like a conspirator, the words ghosting across the side of Billy’s neck.
Billy glances sideways at Steve’s face and sees the three little moles on Steve’s cheek. Blood rushes directly to his cock, and he has a silent conversation with this body that it needs to calm the fuck down.
“Yeah, it is,” Billy says, a little more breathily than he’d like. “Over here,” he indicates the next open door on their left. “That’s my room.”
Steve walks inside, and Billy hangs back in the doorway, watching as Steve pokes around his belongings and looks over the few posters and pictures he has displayed.
One of the pictures is a Polarod of Billy and Max leaning back against the Camaro’s passenger side, both of them wearing sunglasses and flipping the camera off.
Steve laughs. “Why is it that nothing about this picture surprises me?”
Billy comes to stand next to Steve. “Yeah, Lucas took that. Max and I might not be blood related, but that little shit has an attitude a mile long. Took me a long time to realize it, but we’re more alike than different.”
Steve nods. “She even told Kershaw to fuck off when he tried calling her out in front of the class.”
“Just like I did,” Billy says.
“Just like you did.”
“A kid after my own heart.”
Steve’s quiet for a moment. “I never had a little brother or sister. Never really wanted one, I guess.” He sits down on the edge of Billy’s bed, taking a long sip from his bottle. “But then Henderson kinda showed up one day, and I ended up with a brother whether I wanted him around or not. Turns out I kinda make a good big brother.”
“Yeah, well. I’m a shitty big brother.” He sits next to Steve on the bed.
Steve looks over at him, surprised. “How? Max adores you.”
Billy starts playing with the label on his beer bottle. “Yeah. Well. She shouldn’t.” He thinks about her crying in the driveway while he floundered around, lost and drunk. He thinks about how her chin wobbled, and Billy was the one who made that happen. “I ain’t no saint. I treated her like shit for years. She shouldn’t even like me.”
Billy feels a dip in the bed, as if Steve had moved closer -- he doesn’t dare look over to his left, though. His heart tells him that doing shit like that will only lead to disappointment.
“She does, though. So you fucked up. We’ve all fucked up. We’ve all been through fucked up shit, y’know? I think all of us have shown it, just in different ways. We’re all coping, tring to push through and getting caught in the muck sometimes. We just gotta help each other out when we see that one of us is stuck.”
Billy huffs a laugh and knocks his knee against Steve’s. “You sound like Doc Owens.”
Steve knocks his knee back against Billy’s, but he doesn’t pull it away. The pressure stays there. “Well maybe Doc Owens is right.”
Billy can’t take his eyes off of that one point of contact -- that one spot where denim touches denim. He takes a long drink from his bottle, downing the rest of the contents. “Yeah. I mean, maybe.”
The pressure against his knee grows a little stronger -- Steve’s giving a little more now, his knee very gently and very slowly rubbing against Billy’s.
Billy never, at any point, had considered that Steve might return Billy’s feelings. Not when Billy first stared him down with a look of fire at the Halloween party, not when Billy knocked him to the ground with too much body contact during basketball, and not when he saved everyone’s life at Starcourt, Steve’s face being the last one he thought of before he bled black blood out and everything faded to darkness.
But with Steve’s knee touching his the way it is, Billy thinks maybe, just maybe, he might have misjudged.
He forces himself to look to his left, and Steve is close -- closer than Billy thought he would be. He can see the stubble lining Steve’s jaw and the entire thing is intoxicating. “You were looking for me,” he says, nearly whispering.
Steve leans in, an inch from Billy’s face, and says, “Yeah, I was,” before kissing Billy’s lips. “I wanted to find you.” He kisses Billy again, his hand sliding around the back of Billy’s neck. “Because if I didn’t get to do this and you’d skipped town? I never would’ve forgiven myself.”
The kiss is forceful and strong -- Steve’s lips are demanding and hungry, his hands moving constantly over Billy, sliding from his hair, to his jaw, down to his neck for one thrilling moment, over his shoulders, chest, and arms before repeating the entire process over again.
Eventually Billy takes Steve’s hands and clasps them both, holding them still, and slows the pace of Steve’s kisses until it’s slow and sweet, just soft presses of lips. When Billy pulls back, Steve’s cheeks are flushed bright pink. “Didn’t know you felt like this, pretty boy.”
Steve leans back in to kiss Billy’s jaw, and Billy lets him. “Call me that again.”
Billy inhales sharply when he feels Steve’s teeth scrape along his jaw. “Call you what? Pretty boy?”
“Mmm, yeah,” Steve sounds fucking heated when he says it, and his hand slides up from Billy’s knee to his inner thigh.
Any thoughts of slowing this down fly right out the window the moment he knows the sensation of Steve’s hand on his thigh. “Fuck, pretty boy.”
“Billy,” Steve breathes, this time returning to kiss Billy’s mouth, his tongue teasing Billy’s lips before Billy opens his mouth, allowing Steve to lick his way inside, Steve’s tongue hot and slick against Billy’s.
Billy moans against Steve’s lips, a short sound, and that spurs Steve on, Steve’s hand now sliding up to Billy’s crotch, pressing firmly against his cock which strains against his jeans hard as a rock.
“Jesus fuckin christ, pretty boy, you’re tryin to kill me,” Billy pants as he grinds against Steve’s hand.
Steve squeezes with delicious pressure. “If this is killing, I’ll happily murder you. I wanted this the second you told me to plant my feet.”
Billy takes Steve’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply as Steve works open Billy’s fly. “Fuck, could we have already been doing this for an entire year? Christ we’re dumb as fu-”
That thought stops right in its tracks when Steve gets a hand on his cock.
He isn’t even aware he’s making noises until Steve says, “Yeah? You like that, baby?”
Then Billy realizes he’s making a high-pitched whiny sound. “Feels so good,” he says.
He doesn’t think it can get any better until Steve stands, pushes Billy back a bit, straddles Billy’s lap, licks his hand, and starts stroking again. “Pretty boy,” Billy says, his tone giving approval. He pumps his hips, fucking the circle of Steve’s hand.
Steve finds the right pace, hits the spot with his thumb just under the head of Billy’s cock that sets Billy on fire, and Billy says in a panic, “Get off, I’m gonna-”
But Steve shimmies down, gets between Billy’s knees and takes the head of Billy’s cock in his mouth.
Steve sucks and strokes and Billy sort of feels like he’s about to black out as he shudders through his orgasm, huffing out breaths while Steve keeps sucking.
Billy feels like he’s coming for about ten minutes. Really it’s probably about 45 seconds, but it seems like an eternity of heaven with Steve Harrington’s mouth on his cock, licking up every drop Billy has to give.
Maybe Max had been right -- maybe he had died in a ditch and this was his version of heaven, coming in Steve Harrington’s mouth.
He thinks about it as he eventually gets Steve lying down on his bed, jeans on the floor, his mouth finally wrapped around the cock he’d spent so many days in the school shower pretending that he wasn’t ogling. His jaw stretches wide, taking as much as he can and using his hand to help stroke Steve, and he remembers all of the times he jerked off in his bedroom on Cherry Lane thinking about this exact thing, always shedding a quiet tear afterward because he thought it was something he’d never get to actually have.
But here he is, listening to Steve praise him, tell him how good he is, tell him how much he’s wanted this, and Billy can’t believe it for a minute.
Then the thought comes along that maybe -- just maybe -- he actually deserves this.
A couple of tears spring to his eyes as he sucks Steve down as far as he can take him. Steve curses and taps Billy’s shoulder, but Billy hangs on, swallowing everything Steve has to give.
“Goddamn, Hargrove,” Steve pants as Billy crawls up to lie next to Steve’s side, and Steve wraps his arms around Billy’s shoulders. “That was fucking amazing. You’re amazing. You know that?”
Billy doesn’t know what to do or say in the face of the praise, so he just huffs and buries his face a little deeper in Steve’s chest hair, splaying his fingers through it.
“I mean it, Billy. You are.” Steve presses a kiss to Billy’s sweaty curls. “Amazing.”
Much later that night after a round of sex and Steve tracing and kissing some of Billy’s larger scars, Billy falls asleep to he moonlight slicing through the gap in the curtain and the sound of crickets and cicadas outside.
~*~
The next morning, Jack approaches the field where Billy brushes down Fernando, the shaggy brown gelding that had only decided in the last two days that Billy was worthy of touching him.
“How was Trivial Pursuit night? Who won?” Billy asks as Jack walks up and strokes along Fernando’s mane.
“Lucas won two times, Marvin once. My nephew is irritating as hell when he wins. Holds it over your head all goddamn night.”
Billy shakes his head. “Little fucker loves gloating.”
“That he does,” Jack says, giving Fernando a couple of hearty pats. Fernando huffs happily in return. “Funny thing happened as I was driving in this morning.”
“Yeah?” Billy asks as he moves to brush the horse’s flank.
“I passed Steve Harrington on his way out.”
“Yeah?” Billy affects a casual tone, but his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. “That’s funny?”
“No, not really funny. Just -- glad you had company while I was out, I guess.” Jack’s smile feels all too knowing.
“Glad you approve of my buddy,” Billy says. He reaches for sarcasm, but finds that thank empty. He just can’t seem to feign this shit with Jack.
“Nice guy,” Jack says and turns to walk back toward the stable. “Invite him over any time. I’ll set an extra plate for dinner tonight -- how bout that?”
Billy places his hands flat against Fernando for one second and doesn’t dare look up. “Yeah. Yeah -- I think I’d like that.”
He takes a break from the horses to call Steve.
When he hangs up the phone, his elation that Steve agreed to come over for dinner subsides only when he realizes he has a mere five hours to finish up his work and get his hair in order.
~*~
Dinner goes by smoothly. Steve sits next to Billy, the side of his sneaker occasionally rubbing against Billy’s shoe. Billy saves a secret smile for Steve, trying to mask it with his pleasure over Jack’s T-bone steaks -- which honestly are outstanding -- but the feeling in his chest is one hundred percent because he’s sitting next to Steve at a dinner table sharing a home cooked meal and it all feels so domestic and comfortable that his heart feels fit to bursting.
Steve seems to feel the same way, smiling at his plate like a loon. Jack must think they’re both goddamn idiots, but he just shakes his head with a little grin on his face and asks Steve how things are getting on at Family Video and asks Billy how Max likes being in the marching band. If Jack knows about the footsies happening under the table, he doesn’t let on about it.
It’s been a long time since Billy’s felt so content. Maybe since his mom took him surfing back in San Diego.
He should’ve known that that bubble would pop sooner or later, though.
The unexpected sound of tires on the gravel makes all three of them look toward the living room window at the same time.
When Billy sees the rusted-out side of Neil’s pickup truck, he’s not surprised. His heart still sinks and lands somewhere between his feet, but he’s not surprised. The sound of the truck’s door opening and closing makes him start in his chair. Every muscle in his body tenses when he hears boots clomping up to the door.
Three sharp knocks on the wooden door frame are followed by, “Time to come home, William.” Neil speaks through the screen window. “You’ve burdened this man long enough. You have responsibilities to attend to. Or have you forgotten?”
Billy stands up and panic sets in -- he’s about to do as Neil says. He doesn’t want to feel the sting of Neil’s ring on his cheek again, nor does he want to bring any trouble to Jack, so he steps toward the hall, intending to go grab his bag and start to head home.
But then Jack stands up from the table and walks around it to stand next to Billy.
He stretches out his arm and places a hand on Billy’s chest. “Hang on, son,” he says to Billy. “Billy, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
He turns his attention to Neil “All due respect, Mr. Hargrove, Billy has been invaluable to me these last two weeks. Works hard as hell and pulls his weight for his room and board. If it’s all the same to you, he’s a legal adult, and it’s up to him if he stays or goes.”
Neil's jaw twitches.
Jack takes his hand from Billy’s chest. “What would you rather do, Billy? Stay here, or go back with your daddy here?”
Billy swallows hard and focuses on a spot over Neil’s shoulder when he answers. “I’d rather stay, sir.”
Jack never takes his eyes off of Neil as Billy answers. His voice is firm. “There you go. You have your answer. Best take yourself back home now and off my property.”
Billy sees a muscle flex in Jack’s arm.
Neil opens the screen door and steps inside, looking up at Jack. “Or what?”
He’s got some balls, Billy thinks -- Jack’s got a good five inches on Neil and has the defined, muscular body of a man who works hard labor every day.
Neil glares at Jack. “That’s my son, you uppity-”
The next events happen so fast that Billy barely has time to process them. Jack’s fist connects with Neil’s face lightning fast, and then Neil hits the floor, the back of his head hitting and bouncing off of the wooden floorboards.
Neil’s knocked out cold.
Only then does Billy realize that Steve is right behind Jack’s left shoulder, a look of fury burning in his brown eyes. “Man, I've always wanted to do that,” Steve says.
Jack steps next to Neil’s unconscious form. “How about you gimme a hand, fellas?” He walks behind Neil and hoists him up under his arms.
Billy and Steve each rush to grab a leg. They place Neil -- not gently -- in the bed of his own pickup truck.
“You two enjoy yourselves,” Jack says after they get back inside. “I’m off to bed. Night fellas.”
“Night,” they say in turn.
Billy starts flipping through Jack’s record collection while Steve grabs a couple of beers from the fridge and crouches down next to Billy, handing him a beer. He pulls Steely Dan’s Aja album from the stack.
“Ya know, pretty boy, I gotta make a confession. I don’t even like Steely Dan.”
Steve leans in and presses his lips to Billy’s, giving him a slow, soft kiss full of promise of more to come. “I know.”