Dreams and Plans and Happy Ever After

“DEWEY!” LENAchided. “Are you here on earth or off on a cloud again?”

“Cloud,” Dewey said through a yawn. Trey had let him sleep as long as possible before he had to shower and dress for work. Trey had dropped him off with a lingering kiss in the front seat and a promise to be at his apartment at six for their date.

“Should I pack?” Dewey asked primly.

Trey gave a shy smile. “I’ve got a game tomorrow at eleven and another one at night. The night one is at the college, but the day one is in Chico. You can come if you want….” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I mean, never mind.”

Dewey gave him a suspicious glance. “Isn’t that close to a marriage proposal where you come from? You know, heteronormative sports world?”

Trey grimaced. “Yeah. Yeah. I know. Sorry. Don’t want to freak you out. Don’t want to rush things. Just don’t want you to go home early in the morning, either.”

Dewey thought suddenly, I am falling in love with the crinkles in his eyes. With his self-deprecating smile. With the things he wants for me that are soooo grown-up, but so tender too.

“I’ll hang out for the morning game,” he said brightly. “Make plans for all those dreadful blank walls. Don’t worry.” He kissed Trey again, hungrily. “You’ve got steadiness and permanence and community leader written all over you, Trey Novak. I can wait until the time is right to be the coach’s significant other. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow.” He knew his grin was wicked and wanton and all the other good w words. “It’ll come.”

Trey snickered like a little kid. “Come!” he cackled. “You said come!”

Dewey was still laughing as he slid out of the car, his backpack over his shoulder. He had the feeling he was going to get a lot of use out of it before he got enough art on those white walls to feel like the place was his too.

He looked forward to all of it—the courtship, the anticipation, the building of the foundations, and the living in the castle. He’d never in his life felt so much promise and known it could be fulfilled.

So yeah, his head was in the clouds that day when it was supposed to be on his job, but he could do both. Oh, but first! He’d forgotten—he had something to tell Lena!

The bell to the shop rang, and Dewey glanced at the incoming customer before grinning at her. “Yeah, I’m on a cloud,” he said. “But don’t worry. There’s room on the cloud for two.”

“Hey, hey, Dewey! Good to see you, bro!”

Dewey stepped forward to do the bro shake with Pete, and then he turned to his boss. “Lena, I don’t think you two have been properly introduced. This is Pete. He’s Trey’s cousin,and he’s been having car trouble this last week. I think you two should exchange phone numbers, right? Because what I’m doing here? This is a little bit middle school, you think?”

“Car trouble?” Lena asked, shaking hands with Pete—and blushing, Dewey noticed. “Then how’d you get here today?”

Pete looked abashed. “Today, I ubered. ’Cause, uhm, Dewey said you’d missed me.”

Lena, with her punk hair and her sharp-edged features, seemed to melt. “You took an Uber for me?” she asked. Then she glanced up to where people were backing up behind the counter and made an unhappy sound.

“Don’t worry, boss,” Dewey said smartly, saluting. “I’m on it, boss.” As he jogged back behind the counter, he turned to Pete and taunted, “Who’s the bestie now!”

Pete pointed to Dewey and laughed and then turned his attention to Lena in a completely adorable, bashful smile that made the next frenetic half hour behind the counter totally worth it.

Finally Pete had to leave, and Lena came to give Dewey his break. “Wow,” she said, sounding like a schoolgirl. “He’s… he’s even better for a long conversation than he was for a quick visit. I hope he’s as good a kisser, right?”

“Well his cousin is dynamite in the sex department, so you might be a lucky girl,” Dewey said smugly, and since the lunch rush had died when Pete left, it was Lena’s turn to pump him for answers, which he happily gave.

“So,” Lena said when he was done, “all this and you haven’t even had your first date. What do you think will happen next?”

Dewey grinned at her. “Happily ever after,” he said with a smug smile. “I don’t see that we’ve got any other choice!”

THE WORDSwere prophetic.

The much-anticipated date was as comfortable and as wondrous as their first week together had been—and their second night together even better.

Dewey spent two weeks researching art before Trey pretty much gave him a blank check to order some and have it framed and installed. Piece by piece it arrived, and Dewey fell more and more in love with the little house in Carmichael with each installment.

And he and Beckham were beloved antagonists by now. On the weekends, if Trey had a game and Dewey was still at the house, Dewey would spend hours chasing the little terror around in circles until Trey would get home to find them both panting and exhausted and cuddled together watching trash TV and bonding.

The third weekend Trey went off to coach his rec-league team, Dewey was surprised by a key in the lock when Trey wasn’t supposed to be home yet, and a young, dark-haired woman with brown eyes and a shy, self-deprecating smile walked in, blinking as Dewey stopped midterror, and Beckham zoomed laps around him before teleporting to the bedroom.

“You,” said Debra, Trey’s sister, “have been sucking all the attention away from my cat.”

Dewey had laughed and told her she was welcome to chase the little hellion around herself, and she’d shaken her head.

“Nope. But we do need to order DoorDash, watch reruns of RuPaul, and bond. Trey’s told me so much about you, but he hasn’t introduced us yet, and I think we need to dish dirt and spill tea and make sure he knows we will gang up against him when Christmas comes around and there’s holiday games of Trivial Pursuit.”

Dewey stared at her, enchanted. “You think I’ll stick until Christmas?” he asked hopefully. It was getting close to Halloween.

“God yes,” Debra said, nodding. “Trey’s talking about inviting you to the rec-league soccer banquet. That’s the next best thing to a marriage proposal in sports guy world.”

Dewey couldn’t help the radiance of his smile. “Good,” he said, his chest quivering. “’Cause he makes me happy.”

Debra—who dressed as conservatively as Trey in dark slacks and a long-sleeved navy tee—clapped her hands and squealed. “DoorDash,” she said. “Now. And then dishing.” She sobered. “My brother has worked really hard to be in this place, with a house and jobs that accept him. Being gay and in sports is not a picnic, and that mishigas last month was probably the scariest thing he’s ever done. You’re awesome. I can already tell. But even if you were ridiculous and shallow and terrible, I would have sucked up to you just to make my brother happy.” She let out a relieved sigh. “You do not know how glad I am that we’re going to be besties.”

Dewey grunted. “What is it with your family and besties? Pete already claimed me but―”

“No,” she said. “No. Pete absolutely does not get you as bestie. It’s not fair.”

Dewey laughed and said, “DoorDash. We’ll discuss it.”

And they did. And what they determined was that anybody who loved Trey as much as the three of them did was bound to be a bestie. Dewey, who had grown up alone and felt like he’d missed the boat on family when he’d declined to move up to Oregon with his mother, was suddenly surrounded by “besties” who wanted to go out to dinner with him or the movies or Trey’s games, because anybody who loved Trey was somebody they would love.

And Dewey loved Trey.

Had probably loved him from that first meeting when Trey had gotten stood up in the coffee shop by some random person who had swiped right and then not shown. It didn’t matter. Trey had been there, and Dewey had seen him, seen the laugh crinkles in his eyes, seen the sweetness in his smile, and that had been it.

It had been love before the first date. It had been love before the first sex, and more and more, Dewey found himself declining drinks with Ceej and finding ways to be with Trey.

One night when Ceej asked him out just to hang, Dewey was forced to say, “No, man, I’m sorry. Me, Debra, Lena, and Pete are going to the game,” and the disappointment on CJ’s face was so acute, Dewey found himself adding, “But you can come too, since you don’t work.”

Ceej brightened like sunshine, and in the ensuing discussion of vehicles and caravans, Lena ended up getting Pete and Ceej ended up picking up Debra, and Dewey got to see Trey’s little sister and his roommate/bestie meet for the first time.

He liked to think he’d get to brag about that to their children, because while they weren’t as ridiculously extroverted as Pete and Lena, their quiet conversation seemed to make the world a quieter, more grounded place, and Dewey thought that was beautiful too.

Halloween came with the six of them at Trey’s house, watching scary movies and passing out candy. Dewey and Lena had decorated the front of the little house, and they all took turns hanging out on the front porch in a Grim Reaper costume to scare the older kids before they knocked. When it was over, Trey and Dewey said goodbye to everybody at the door, arms around each other’s waists, and then turned out the lights and went back into the house to clean up after the party.

Dewey was in the middle of vacuuming up popcorn they’d thrown at the screen during Season of the Witch when he realized Trey was watching him. Just… watching him.

“What?” he asked, grinning.

“I like my walls,” Trey said after a moment, but his eyes remained thoughtful.

“But?” Dewey glanced around, feeling some satisfaction. He’d found a series of modern paintings depicting sports. Not all soccer. There was football, rugby, basketball, even an old race-car driver, wearing a leather helmet and looking ancient and grizzled and unimpressed. The colors were bold even as the pictures were detailed, and Dewey had framed them all in bright primary colors. Two in the living room—along with a framed banner from Trey’s team and one of Trey’s jerseys from the Sac Republic, framed as well—and one in the kitchen. They were only the beginning. Dewey had gotten permission to make the guest bathroom sports themed, and he’d found a shower curtain, of all things, for the Sacramento Kings, and some bathroom rugs as well. He knew they weren’t soccer, but they were purple, and he had great plans for the trim in the bathroom too.

He wanted to do the bedroom, but he was hoping to look for art that was a little more personal. Not erotic—just personal. He’d heard stories of Trey and Debra growing up in a big farmhouse and playing games, mostly of their own devising, in the backyard. They’d even had a tire swing. While neither of them talked about their family much, those times together had meant something to them, and Dewey knew somebody who painted old farmhouses. He wanted to save some of the good. And he loved visiting his mother and traveling along the Oregon coast; he was hoping a picture of the ocean would make Trey happy because he talked frequently about making trips to the beach in the offseason. (Dewey had not yet figured out when the soccer “offseason” was, particularly for the middle-school team. To hear Trey talk, it was in the phantom month between July and August, although their banquet was in early December.)

So yes, he was happy with the walls, and Trey had bragged about them all night. Everybody had heard the stories of who the sports figures were, which had been fun for Dewey too, since he’d only picked the pictures because he’d thought they were beautiful and well done.

So yes, Dewey knew Trey “liked the walls,” but he got the feeling there was more at stake here.

“No buts,” Trey said, shaking his head, smiling softly. “I just… like my walls. I like your plans for them. I, uhm, like you in my home.”

Dewey grinned. “I like being here,” he said.

“You—you’ve made everybody’s life better, you know that? Lena and Pete’s, my sister’s—all your people fit so neatly with my people. I… I want to talk to Aunt Nan and see if we can do Thanksgiving together. Here. With my new walls. With my new boyfriend. With all the new and the good in my life.”

Dewey knew his smile was going to take over his whole body. He wanted to wriggle like a puppy. “Yeah?” he asked, leaning the vacuum against the end table and moving toward Trey. This sort of speech called for touching, he thought confidently, and Trey’s hands spanning his waist, riding up under the tight long-sleeved shirt he’d worn that night, proved him right.

“Yeah,” Trey murmured, feathering his lips along Dewey’s ear. “And I want to ask you….” He paused, biting his lip, and while Dewey loved his adorable bashfulness, he had zero patience.

“Yes, I’ll move in with you!” he announced, throwing his arms around Trey’s neck.

Trey stared at him, stunned. “Really? Uh….”

Suddenly Dewey was panicked. “That’s what you were going to ask me, right?”

Trey nodded almost manically. “Of course,” he said. “Of course that’s what I was going to ask you! Not another thing I want more!”

Dewey kissed him then, so happy he had no words. The kiss went on, grew hotter, until they were both naked, sweaty, and ultimately very sated.

They were sprawled on the couch, under the throw Dewey had so admired (and now needed to wash) when Trey’s surprised expression registered on him.

“Trey?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“You did plan to ask me to move in with you, right?”

“Sure, sure,” Trey said.

“Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?” Dewey followed up suspiciously.

“Well,” Trey said, “a couple of things. But, you know. The moving in was the most important.”

Which was when Dewey realized that moving in hadn’t been on Trey’s radar at all, but he was excited about the idea now. Well, he’d been sort of that way about Dewey’s quest to put art on his walls, so Dewey figured that was fine.

“So what was, uhm… less important?” Dewey asked.

“Well, the guys—the coaches at the college—wanted to know if you wanted to claim the tickets for the significant other’s section. There’s four tickets—you can bring anyone you want, and, you know, Aunt Nan has reserved a spot with Pete and Debra in case we make the playoffs or something exciting happens, but this way you’d get to bring people there when you came. They come with cushions and their own vendors and everything.”

Trey’s voice was excited, like having a beer vendor dedicated to Dewey’s section was the selling point of the spouse’s section.

Dewey knew what it really meant.

“Out,” he said, his voice a little shaky. “You’d be out. So on the games that are televised, they’d pan over me and Pete and someone would say, ‘That’s Dewey Saunders, Trey Novak’s boyfriend,’ right? I mean, I know it’s not pro, but they do that, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” Trey said softly. “They, uh… they do. Yes. It would be a big deal. Harry, Russ, and Casey are really excited about it. They’re like, ‘We’ll get the wives T-shirts, and the whole section will wave rainbow flags and hold up signs that say Woke to tick off the people who are always ticked off anyway.’ So, uhm, if you want to be… you know. My boyfriend. In the public eye. It’s waiting for you.”

Dewey pushed himself up on his elbow. “This… this is even bigger than moving in together,” he said, marveling. “Th-this is huge.”

Trey gave that bashful smile again. “Well, it is to me,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure you knew—”

“Yes!” Dewey crowed, not wanting to lose his spot cuddling naked but very tempted to do the chicken dance that way in the middle of the living room. “Yes, I would like to be your very controversial and totally besotted boyfriend who loves you.”

“Oh God,” Trey muttered, burying his head against his own shoulder. “I wasn’t even done yet, but yes, I should have led with that.I love you. You make my life better. You’ve made my home homier. Come live with me and be my very much in the public boyfriend and attend the middle-school team’s soccer banquet with me and Don and Don’s wife. Be… be official. Is that okay?”

At that moment, Beckham made one of his famous sorties into the living room and over the arm of the couch. Normally he’d bite Dewey’s toe, but this time he used Dewey’s ass like a trampoline for a few pounces and then scurried back into the bedroom.

Dewey was left laughing hysterically against Trey’s chest, not even able to say “Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!” because he was far too happy for words.

Trey yawned and held him close, obviously falling asleep because his life didn’t get any less hectic because the fall holidays were in progress.

“Great,” he murmured happily. “All the things asked. My favorite answer for all of them. And next week, you’re going to meet Nan.” He paused and frowned. “If I can get Caitlyn, her assistant, to remember to tell her.”

And for some reason that made Dewey laugh harder.