The Punk and the Prep
Bob Rollins sighed with contentment as he planted his socked feet on the coffee table and stretched out on the couch, the tube playing an old boxing match.
With a bowl of popcorn at his side, everything was bliss.
"Bob!" the familiar voice of his lover emerged from behind him, "Get your feet off the coffee table, I just cleaned it."
Bob sighed but did what he was told, and wished that their couch came with a folding foot rest.
"Thank you." his lover added before coming up behind him and wrapped his arms around Bob's shoulders and kissed his cheek.
He then shimmied around and lifted up the popcorn bowl before sitting down and set the bowl in his lap.
"Tom," Bob said to his lover, "I though you didn't like boxing."
"I don't." Tom Sloane replied with a shrug, "But it's better than thinking about..."
Tom trailed off and Bob put an arm around him, nuzzling his neck, and letting his nose chain tickle on the soft skin.
Tom smirked at that, he always did, even when the subject of his family came up.
"So I presume that they won't be coming to our commitment ceremony?" Bob asked to get the question out of the way.
"You presume correctly." Tom answered morosely.
Bob suppressed a grimace and instead comforted Tom with a calloused hand on his cheek and caressed him.
He then pulled him into a soft, brief kiss.
Every single time that Tom called his parents it always ended with him ending up dejected at their rejection of him, the true Tom.
"They just can't accept that I'm gay," Tom had told him more than once, "Hell, it took me until college to admit it, and then until the summer of Freshman year to begin exploring it."
Now as they sat on the couch together, and Tom began to run his hands through Bob's blue spiked hair in their shared apartment, a simple place far removed from Tom's former lifestyle until they could afford a house together. Bob looked into Tom's sea green eyes and remembered meeting him in the Zon after coming back home from Lawndale State for the summer.
"He stood there in thrift store clothes and cheap shoes, but carried himself like a King." Bob thought of his first impression of Tom Sloane.
It had been coincidence that Tom had taken the only open barstool at the Zon that night, and it had been next to Bob's.
They had shared a couple beers and had started to talk, and in a way they had never stopped.
"Not even when I helped his drunk ass to his beat up Jag." Bob remembered even as Tom moved the popcorn bowl onto the coffee table and began to climb into his lap.
The lad had looked so cute as he had staggered towards the vehicle, leaning on Bob's exposed shoulder, his sleeveless shirt had been little comfort in the night's cold. However the heat from the physical contact and the cheap beer had been enough that night.
Especially when Tom had started to flirt with him, and had sobered up a bit when he noticed what he was doing, and that Bob was flirting back.
Standing outside of the Zon on Dega Street in the middle of the night under the flickering light of a street lamp they had their first kiss, which had led to a second kiss, then a third, then Bob taking the keys off of Tom and driving him to his place. Which was an apartment he had been sharing with a roommate that was thankfully passed out from a vodka bender.
Good for that bloke, since Bob doubted then and now that he would have liked hearing the sounds of two young men having drunken sex.
That had been the start of their relationship.
That summer then unfolded like a flower bud, slowly but surely and became more wonderful each and every single day.
Then when Tom had been slated to go back into the rich boy bubble, he had confessed to Bob that he had hated his first year at Bromwell, the people had sucked even worse than at his old Prep School.
So with Bob at his side in all of his punk glory, Tom had pulled a double-whammy on his parents by coming out of the closet, and adding that he didn't want to go back to Bromwell but wanted to go to Lawndale State with Bob.
He had been hoping for understanding, or at least some empathy.
Tom had been wrong on both accounts.
The only good thing was that his grades were good enough for a scholarship, everything else had been pure hell as Tom Sloane discovered what it was really like not to have money compared to when he had it without thinking about it.
Even now as he got comfortable in Bob's lap, Tom was certain that without the blue haired stud that he would have either gone nuts or gone back to his family and begged them to take him back.
The Boxing match was ignored as Bob planted more soft kisses on Tom face, lips, and neck, and began to lift up his shirt and said huskily, "I'm going to make you feel good."
Tom panted on Bob's shoulder before moving and began to suck on his neck, leaving a hickey and hissed, "Oh god yes. I don't want to think..."
He didn't need to say anymore.
With the speed and fluidity of a leopard, Bob rose from the couch and slung Tom over his shoulder like an ancient Barbarian and his 'woman'.
It was an old game between them now, but it always made his man feel good, even after his calling his parents to let them know about his life, and how much he loved them.
Even if they were going to be pigheaded for the rest of their self-centered lives.
But as Bob carried Tom from their small living room to their one and only bedroom, the drama went away at the sight of their bed.
As Bob plopped him onto the sheets, Tom began to unbutton his pants, the sad ache in his heart fading away.
There was no other place on Earth that he wanted to be then where he was right now.
With Bob, whatever the cost.
FIN