Take My Body (Curse Bound 2)

“You haven’t been doing this long enough. And you’re not actually seeing all the meltdowns that happen at weddings,” Lionel said and opened his eyes comically wide. “Just a week ago, this one guy got so drunk before the ceremony his best man needed to step in for him at the first dance. Makes me wonder if he became the stand-in on the wedding night too.”

Gunner whistled. “Maybe it’s one of those throuple situations. You don’t have anyone? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride?”

“Gunner. That’s offensive. How about always-the-best-man-never-the-groom, huh?”

Gunner rubbed his face in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just meant… you know.”

Lionel grinned and robbed his smoothly-shaven cheek. “Just pulling your leg. There actually is someone, but I told him it’s not gonna happen.”

When Gunner stared at him in disbelief, Lionel shrugged. “I feel this pressure to have this perfect wedding all the straights would envy, but as much as I like nice suits and food, stuff like this doesn’t speak to me,” he said, gesturing at the garlands made of fake candy and macaroons, at the pastel-hued ribbons attached to table cloths, and the rustic booths meant for food and painted in all the sweetest colors.

Lionel went on. “All my life I heard that I shouldn’t rub my sexuality in people’s faces, so I low-key want to, but I also think organizing giant parties to celebrate that uh-we’re-in-a-legal-relationship-now, is kinda tacky. And the presentation takes over what’s actually important. I’d rather have my guy stay with me because he wants to, not because there’s formalities involved in leaving.”

Gunner hadn’t expected such a thoughtful answer from a guy who usually needed to be taken with a grain of salt any time business wasn’t the topic at hand. “How did you um… find him?”

Gunner’s stomach tightened with the stress of inquiring about such private things, so he toyed with the hammer to occupy his hands. He wasn’t out to the people he worked with, and none of them were the sort to have friends at the trailer park where Gunner used to live, so they didn’t know about him.

Deep down, he knew he could come out to them and no one would bat an eye. There was Lionel, one of the women was bisexual, and last week Gunner found out their carpenter was a trans man, yet taking that step felt like crossing a canyon. Deep down he feared that everything would change if people knew. He worried they’d treat him differently or ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Or worse, try to set him up with someone when he wasn’t ready to meet another someone.

Lionel rolled his eyes. “I tell everyone I met him at a charity event, but the truth is we met on Facebook, in a group with memes about county politics. We bonded over mocking the previous sheriff, and now I’m stuck with a guy who sits on his ass all day and streams video games for a living.”

Gunner snorted, surprised that a fashionable guy like Lionel would have looked at that kind of man twice. “I always kinda imagined you with a high-powered lawyer.”

“Or a fashion designer, I know,” Lionel said and, after a moment’s hesitation, browsed through his phone before showing Gunner a picture clearly taken at a Halloween party. In the photo, Lionel wore a skin-tight bodysuit in a pearlescent white shade, fake hoofs, and a wig that incorporated horse-like ears and a spiral horn on the forehead. Next to him was a man of average size dressed in a My Little Pony T-shirt and a rubber horse head mask that could have been purchased at the dollar store.

“We were supposed to match and go as horses. Couple goals, right?” Lionel asked with a chuckle.

Gunner laughed with him, getting all warm inside. It felt like crossing a threshold in their relationship, as if Lionel no longer saw him as just a worker he spoke to solely about the job. Gunner itched to share that bit more about himself too, and since Lionel was gay, maybe even open up about his sexuality, but something inside him kept balking at the notion of others knowing his secret. As if he were trying to climb over barbed wire made of fear and inadequacy.

Admitting his sexuality in Caspian’s body had been one thing. This one? Quite another. Even telling Noah the truth had been tough.

“I mean… he seems fun. Xbox controller wedding cake?” he teased.

Lionel pressed his hand to his chest in a theatrical gesture. “You, sir, are inspiring me! Ha, I might consider it if we kept the party on the down-low. Though if I surprised him with something like this, he’d surely cry. My guy’s a big softie,” he said and put the phone back into his pocket. He hesitated, but glanced at Gunner again. “And you? Any wedding bells on the horizon?”