Wood: A True Lover's Story

“Gucci,” Edison replied easily.

Trent watched him disappear into a huge walk-in closet and come out a few minutes later in a Virginia Wesleyan sweatshirt and pair of loose-knit pants.

“Let’s get started. I don’t want you to be late.” Edison nodded toward another door, and Trent assumed it was his bathroom.

He’d expected it to be a normal master bath with a shower over the tub, sink, and a toilet. But when Edison opened the door, it was as if he’d literally stepped into a barber shop. The bathtub and separate shower were on the far side of the room and a quarter bath for the toilet. Holy shit. Edison’s home appeared so quaint and modest on the outside, but on the inside it was tailor-made to him. How did Trent not know that his friend was living like this?

“This was a normal-size bathroom. But I had a wall knocked out to make room for the counters and mirrors,” Edison said as he directed Trent to a large basin sink. “I need to wash your hair first.”

“I washed it last night.”

“Like I said.” Edison pointed at the sink. “I need to wash your hair.”

“Fine,” Trent grunted. He yanked his sweater over his head and tossed it on the floor beside him. “I hope I’m not stinking up the place. I had to come right from work.”

“Well, you are gonna shower before your date, right?” Edison laughed. He helped guide Trent’s head beneath the hot water and asked him, “So what’s your date like?”

Trent didn’t say anything until he was sitting in the soft, leather barber’s chair in front of the most masculine vanity he’d ever seen. All the drawers were dark woodgrain, and the overhead lighting was industrial-styled with mason jars over the bulbs.

“Is it Sil again? Is that why you don’t want Bishop to know?”

Trent exhaled. “No. It’s not Sil. It’s…”

“Is it Wood?”

“How’d you go from my ex to a man?” Trent gaped.

“Well. You’re kind of a creature of habit, Trent. You work and go home. For fun you hang out with your best friend or you battle Summer on the video game. And if you have a date… Bishop is always the first to know. Now all of sudden… something or someone has upended your usual routine.”

“Damn,” Trent mumbled.

“And you two are pretty funny together. The looks you give each other when you think no one’s looking are kind of hot.”

Trent sat up straight as a board. “Shit. If you figured it out, then that means that—”

“Relax. I also saw you guys’s house rules on the refrigerator when I brought the enchiladas.”

Trent frowned. “That’s typical, Edison. Every house has rules.”

“Of course they do. Like the one about Wood having to use a cup and plate at all times. Real typical.” Edison stopped combing Trent’s hair and stepped back to stare at him pointedly. “Or the all-too-common rule that Wood must wear a top and bottom at all times?”

Trent barked a startled laugh. Damn, he’d forgotten about that one. He should revise those. The no-shirt rule was kind of null and void now.

“My favorite one was ‘Wood must not rub his chest against me when I cook.’”

Trent dropped his head and stared at his lap. “Yeah, okay, maybe it’s Wood.”

“Wow,” Edison said, continuing with his job. Already, Trent’s hair smelled like the Garden of Eden, and Edison was using a comb and scissors on him that didn’t look as if they’d been purchased from Walmart.

“What kinda wow is that?”

“It’s a surprised wow,” Edison answered, then rotated him in the swivel chair so he could trim around his left ear. “That’s not bad.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

Trent thought about it for a moment. Was he really sure he wanted to discover more about this part of himself? He thought of Wood’s charming smile that greeted him when he came out of his bedroom in the morning, and the way he touched him as if he was special and the most important thing in his world. Did he want more of that? Hell yes. “I’m always sure when I’m around him. But…”

“But.”

“But tonight when we go out, I wanna be like, enough, you know what I mean?” Trent grimaced, hoping he didn’t sound insecure, but he found himself getting lost in the rhythmic strokes Edison used to comb his hair in between the steady snipping with the scissors, and he began to open up. “I can’t really explain it. From the moment he first came through the door, I knew.”

Edison smiled and turned his chair again so he was no longer facing the mirror. “Yeah, I know that feeling.”

“At first he just pushed my fuckin’ buttons and I tried to give him shit, but… he didn’t really fall for it. He acted all high-and-mighty and mature all the time, but then he’d call me names and throw paper at me like a five-year-old.” Trent smiled slowly. “Then I saw a side of him that I could relate to. I didn’t think we’d have anything in common, but me and him aren’t as different as I thought.”