In Loving Memory, Frank Warren

Chapter 8: Dinner Date

Saturday arrived far too soon. Though Frank had been looking forward to spending a nice long evening without worries of needing to wake up early, dinner with John's family loomed in front of him. If he could remember John's number he would be tempted to call and break their plans.

"But I thought you liked this guy?" Dean protested when he suggested it. "You said he was your work friend, whatever the hell that means."

"We work together and we're friends. Work friends." Nervously Frank dusted off his shelf of special knick-knacks. It was horrible, coated with cobwebs and a thick layer of gray-white which resembled fine ash. It appeared to have not been touched in years. A gray cloud rose into the air when he blew off the small photo of his parents at their last anniversary party. Great. Now he needed to wipe everything down.

"Where did all this dust come from?" he griped, coughing as his rag drew more and more into the air around him.

"If I had to guess, I'd say you don't dust." Dean ran a finger over the top of the television, leaving a clean black trail in its wake. When he lifted his finger it was coated with nasty black-gray grime.

"But I do dust," he protested, "every weekend. I swear."

One of Dean's perfectly shaped eyebrows lifted in disbelief. Raking his memory Frank thought back to the last weekend before meeting Dean in the park. Kelly. The weekend before? No dusting, just sitting around in the dark drinking beer. No, the weekend before. More beer. And the weekend before? One of those weekends had been spent nursing bruised ribs but he could not recall how long ago it was. However dusting did not seem to figure into any of the weekends he could recall, mainly beer, dark and/or Kelly.

Not only had the rat-bastard Kelly ruined his social life, he had screwed with Frank's cleaning schedule. On that basis alone he should be locked away for life.

"I usually dust," he insisted defensively. "It's Saturday so it's dusting day. Grab a rag, you can help."

Punching the power button on his stereo the soundtrack to one of his favorite modern movies with a hard rock score blared from the speakers at full volume. Hastily he jabbed at the button again. Deafening silence descended across his condo.

"What kind of music do you have?" Dean asked with interest, a cleaning rag in hand as he approached the stereo.

"Mostly sound tracks." Frank revealed his extensive music collection, all on soon-to-be-outdated CDs. All of which were coated with a fine layer of dust, the CDs untouched for about as long as his knick-knack shelf.

"You can be so old-fashioned." Dean chuckled as he peered at the album titles. "CDs. Black and white movies."

"Thinking I should take my time." Frank moved behind Dean, resting his chin on his lover's shoulder. "Not be in a rush like the rest of the modern world. Really appreciate now." His fingertips lightly traced up Dean's arm causing a shiver. "Because you never know how long now will last."

"God, yes." It was a whisper and a plea.

"We can blow off dinner and I'll show you how much I appreciate you." Frank laid a trail of kisses up the side of Dean's neck. "Again."

"I-I thought you didn't, uh, break promises?" Though his words chastised Dean leaned back against Frank's chest.

'Gotcha' Frank thought gleefully. "I didn't break any last night, did I?"

Dean's head shook, short soft hair tickling Frank's cheek. After a deep breath Dean's shoulders squared and Frank had the impression he just lost this argument though he could not fathom how. Turning to face him, those deep green eyes leveled on him. "How often do you blow off your friends? Maybe this is why you don't think you have any. Maybe you keep blowing them off. How long before you start blowing me off too?"