The Bad Idea

Chapter Four

Eli

Something was happening inside of me that I wasn't liking at all, and it had everything to do with Aubrey last night.

It started with how he geeked out over Footloose, what he said about being saved by someone, and then how he cried over his grandpa. How he unexpectedly dropped every single one of his walls, and showed me everything that made him... Aubrey.

Oh my God.

My heart raced up into my throat every time I remembered last night.

He didn't make fun of me, either. Not when I spooned with him on the couch, or even when my heart nearly beat out of my chest against his back. He nestled into me to watch the movie, like he was cozy, like he enjoyed me holding him, like we were... Like we were...

Two men who didn't hate each other at all.

Aubrey and I have been in the same friends group for ten years but there was a ton I ended up not knowing about him that he shared with me last night.

I guess I wasn't paying much attention to him the last ten years.

I also didn't notice he never had anything more than temporary flings with guys. I'd mess with him a ton about his club hook-ups, I'd fucking own that, but I didn't realize...

He hadn't had a boyfriend since Todd?!

I was still hung up on that. I was still shocked.

He only dated one guy back in high school, when he was still just a kid, and only for two fucking weeks... That still blew my mind. No wonder he couldn't let it go. No wonder he was still completely obsessed with Todd.

What was he doing?!

"...Penny for your thoughts?" Mike asked me, rolling his gut out from the car he was working on.

That's when I realized I was staring at the wall above the toolbox I'd walked over to for a little too long. He probably thought I was having a stroke or something at this point.

"Uh..."

I shook my head and scrambled to remember what the hell I had walked over to the toolbox for.

"Just forgot what I came over here for, you know?"

I grabbed the hex wrench that originally called me over and went back to work on the car next to Mike's. Mike grunted in understanding and wheeled himself back under the car to keep working.

Mike was one of the few people in my life I respected the hell out of.

He was older, in his early sixties, and never married. Very quiet guy, mostly kept to himself. The car repair shop had been in his family for over fifty years.

He was huge, over six feet tall, and carried quite a bit of extra weight on him. Big, white, scruffy beard pointing in all different directions... Often had food in it. A cigarette was always in his hand, even if he was elbow-deep in an engine bay. Both of his arms were tattooed with sleeves, but the ink had slightly faded and blurred with time.

He gave me a job in this shop when I was only sixteen.

He risked everything by bending the law for me, not getting my parents involved, because I knew they either wouldn't allow it or would make me fork over my earnings.

Mike signed off on all my required school paperwork, and I lied every time I had a shift and told my parents I was doing an after school program.

They never questioned it.