"I'll leave you alone for a while. I'll be downstairs."

Daniel heard his father leave and he looked at Benny.

"There's that look again. What is it, Benny?"

"I," Benny paused as if searching for the right way to say what he was thinking. "I'm not sure I fit in with you.

I'm not from, I mean, I never had stuff like this, lived Take It Slow 172.

like this. I, you, I mean, you deserve better than me. I was hoping, I mean, I was thinking that maybe after you got better, over the dreams and stuff that we might be, you know, but I'm afraid I'm not--"

"Benny! The reason you're having so much trouble saying what you're thinking is because it's just so much bulls.h.i.t." Daniel had been looking at a box of shoes he'd picked up, looking at the size and wondering what size Benny wore. He put them down and put both hands on Benny's shoulders.

"Listen to me. This used to be my life. I was comfortable with all this, took it for granted, even. But now? Now, I'm more comfortable sleeping on a twin bed with you close to me. I'm happier working and trying to think of ways to help other boys just like I was. I'm more at ease with you than I am with my father. I'm more comfortable with you than with anybody else at all. Please, don't let the fact that my father has money have any effect on us. I couldn't bear it if I didn't have you in my corner... or my bed, for that matter." He realized that he was shaking as he pleaded with Benny.

"Please."

The look of relief on Benny's face told Daniel he'd hit the nail on the head. He leaned in and put his forehead to Benny's. He let his arms curl on around Benny's neck and pulled him close. Benny put his hands up, one on Daniel's waist and the other behind his neck.

"Kiss?" Benny asked, tentatively.

Daniel nodded, their noses b.u.mping, and he giggled at how awkward it was. At the sound, Benny's face lit up and his smile widened to near clown proportions.

"You giggled," Benny stated the obvious.

Slightly embarra.s.sed, Daniel said, "Yeah, goofy, huh? I just went from scared to really happy. It's kind of a new feeling for me. I'm not surprised that it was Take It Slow 173.

because of you, though. You're the reason for most of my good feelings lately."

"I'm real happy that you and your dad are doing better, but I was afraid there wouldn't be a place for me anymore. I thought you wouldn't need me around, you know?"

"Silly. You are the most necessary thing in my life, Benny. Weren't we supposed to be kissing?" Daniel's heart lightened at finding out what had been wrong with Benny and knowing it wasn't something that he couldn't fix.

Right now, fixing meant kissing. Very slowly, so Benny could pull back if he wanted to, Daniel leaned just that little bit that put their lips together. Soft lips, was Daniel's first sensation. He loved how soft Benny's lips were. Kissing hadn't been something he'd spent a lot of time thinking about before Benny, but he hadn't figured on it being so very soft. He moved his lips back and forth, just cruising over the top of Benny's, enjoying the sensation. It was nice. Benny smiled. Daniel could feel it. He thought that was kind of funny that he was close enough to feel Benny smile. He smiled, too, which opened both their lips and then he felt Benny's tongue touch his bottom lip. He sucked in a breath and felt Benny's tongue against the tip of his own.

Daniel shivered at the intensity of the feelings running through his body. His whole body felt the effect of their tongues touching. How very cool, he thought.

Benny's arms tightened around him, his hand grabbing Daniel's shirt against his back and his other one pushing up through the hair on the back of Daniel's head. Daniel moved his hips against Benny's and felt that they were both hard.

Tilting his head just a bit gave him a different angle, and he opened his mouth a little more to get better Take It Slow 174.

access for himself and for Benny. Their tongues moved in an ever-increasing frenzy, sliding against each other and moving from Daniel's mouth to Benny's. Daniel moved his tongue around Benny's mouth, searching out textures and tastes, the roughness of the tips of Benny's teeth to the smoothness of the roof of his mouth. He was sliding his tongue along the inside of Benny's lips when he heard his father yell up the stairs, "You boys want a snack?"

You'd have thought a bomb went off in the room, they jumped so far apart. Then both covered their mouths to cover the laughter that wanted to come out.

Quickly Benny nodded his head and pointed to the door.

Daniel got the message.

"Yeah, Dad. That'd be good. We'll be down in a few minutes."

From across the room, Benny just looked at him, his hand still over his mouth.

"You okay?" Daniel whispered.

"Great, you?" Benny whispered back.

Daniel nodded then let the laughter out. "Why are we whispering? We freaked out, didn't we?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, we weren't doing anything wrong. I liked it, kissing you. You?"

Benny nodded so hard his hair flopped on his forehead. Daniel liked Benny's hair. His own was still flat, and while it was still blond, it wasn't near-white like it had been. He wondered if it would ever go back to what he called healthy. But he was thinking about Benny right now. He liked Benny's eyes, too. They were the lightest brown, almost like honey or one of those lighter kinds of wood.

"You kind of checked out there for a minute. What's wrong?" Benny asked.

175.

Daniel moved his hand up to Benny's face slowly, touching down right beside his right eye. "I like your eyes. They remind me of wood." He thought about it for a second. "That sounded stupid."

"Not stupid, but wood?" Benny smiled at him and Daniel liked that even better.

"Yeah, warm wood, very pretty wood, or maybe dark honey." Daniel had no idea who had taken over his mouth. He was saying the dumbest things.

"Well, I like your eyes, too." Benny said, looking into them.

"Really?"

"Yeah, they're like storm clouds sometimes and like the biggest, sweetest, solid gray kitten sometimes."

Benny thought about that one for a second and then dropped his head to Daniel's shoulder and laughed. "You don't have the market on saying stupid things."

Daniel hugged him and laughed with him. "So it's a mutual admiration society with the eyes, huh?"

Benny pulled back to look at him and said, "I like everything about you, Daniel. Your hair is getting lighter all the time, and it looks better than when you first showed up. Mostly I like your heart. I think you're one of the nicest people I've ever met. I can't believe you like me back."

"Why would you think that? Well, both of those.

There's nothing special about my heart, and I'm not all that nice. But, come to think of it, I can't believe you've seen me literally at my worst and still like me as much as I like you. You have helped me so much, Benny, but I want you to know this, this thing that I'm feeling for you, it's not like just me being grateful or anything, okay? Don't think that. It's you. It's just you."

Benny tightened his arms around Daniel, and they stood for a few minutes holding each other, both aware Take It Slow 176.

of how hard they were and there might have even been a few nudges against each other that caused even more growth between them, but they knew they were not in a position to do anything about it.

Finally, Benny said, "We'd better go down there. I don't want him to show up here again and find us like this."

"If he doesn't like it--" Whoa! Instant anger.

"Come on, Daniel. You know better, don't you? I really think he's fine with the two of us. He includes me in things like we're boyfriends." Benny touched the side of Daniel's face, turning it so they could lock eyes.

"Don't be so quick to judge him anymore, okay? I just meant I didn't want to be caught like this, not by anyone.

This feeling is just for us."

"I'm sorry. You're right. It will take a while for my reality to change, you know?" Daniel asked for acceptance of his struggles.

"Of course. Come on, let's go see what he's got for snacks. I'm kinda hungry. Then we have to decide what to do with all this stuff." Benny glanced back at the bed, his eyes wide again.

"What size shoe do you wear?" Daniel asked as they went down the stairs.

Benny chuckled and said, "Same as you." They both were laughing as Benny followed Daniel back toward the kitchen, where they found Nick sitting at the table with his chin on his hand, gazing out the window at the back of the house.

Nick turned and smiled. "That's a good sound.

Laughter. It makes me happy." He got up and went to the refrigerator.

"I made you some sandwiches, turkey and beef.

Daniel, I think the turkey is better for your stomach. I hope beef is okay, Benny?"

177.

"Anything is okay, Mr. Webster." Benny looked eager to begin on the big sandwich that was on a plate with chips and big dill pickle spears.

"It's Nick, remember? Daniel, water is best, right?"

He handed a bottle to Daniel and turned, "For you, Benny?"

"Water's good. This is great, uh, Nick. Thanks."

"What was so funny, if you don't mind my asking?"

Nick said, sitting down with a smaller sandwich.

"Benny wears the same size shoe as me." Daniel said, looking at Benny and getting a grin again.

Nick looked between them and shook his head.

"I was thinking before you got in here." Nick said, gesturing to the garage in the back of the house. It was huge and connected to the house with a covered walkway. It would hold four vehicles. Despite being ma.s.sive, it couldn't be seen from the road, the house was so big.

Daniel and Benny waited to see what he'd been thinking. Daniel got worried when Nick seemed reluctant to go on.

"What is it?" he finally asked.

"You know how we never did anything with the upstairs of the garage? It's huge in there. The people we bought the house from, your mother and I, said they had planned on making it an apartment, so it's wired and has plumbing ready, but they never finished it. We never needed it, so it's just been empty. We didn't even need it for storage."

"Yeah," Daniel said, not knowing where his father was going with this.

"I'm not going to presume anything here, but will you just hear me out? I've got this idea and I want to know what you think about it." Daniel wasn't used to his dad being so hesitant with anything.

178.

"I've been thinking about having it made into a full apartment. It has both an outside and an inside entrance to it. I'd like your ideas, yours and Benny's. Maybe, someday, if things go well for you, you might want to use it. I know you're not going to move back into this house with me, Daniel. I won't even ask it." Nick wouldn't look at Daniel or Benny. He stood, leaving his food on the table and went to the back window, looking out as he continued.

"You're at the age where you'd be moving out anyway, probably. But, someday, when you think you've had enough of life in the dorm at Mama Sasy's, you'd like to have a place of your own. You could come and go as you please, have whomever over that you wanted.

It would be your home. Maybe you and Benny could help plan it out. There's enough room up there for a couple of bedrooms and maybe an office or study. What do you think? Have I freaked you out? Asking too much? Too soon? I was just thinking, you can't have too much privacy at the dorm." That was as far as he went with that line. Daniel was glad because he blushed and ducked his head, refusing to look over at Benny.

He hadn't really thought about privacy yet, but he was beginning to think they might need some pretty soon. They could kiss, and they still slept in the same bed, but nothing went on because they weren't alone there. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might like to explore a little more intimacy with Benny. He wondered what Benny was thinking. He snuck a look over at his friend while his dad was still turned toward the window.

Benny was waiting to meet his eyes. He grinned and raised first one eyebrow and then the next. Daniel sputtered at the goofy look. Nick turned back around and when both boys burst out laughing, he shook his head and returned to the table.

179.

"Just think about it. You don't have to decide anything now. I'm glad you're here for this little time. It means a lot to me, Daniel. I know you're making a big effort, and I promise I'll never let you down again... if you give me the chance."

Benny nudged Daniel, who was sitting there, unable to think of something to say.

"Uh, okay. I mean, I'll think about it. It's nice of you to offer to do that."

"There's one thing though, and this I won't budge on."

Nick said, looking at Daniel. "I won't take any kind of rent from either of you. I know you, Daniel, and if you do this, it will only be a temporary thing. If you decide to use this place, it's yours until you find or build a home somewhere else, no matter how long that is. Then, it could even be used by someone else from Mama Sasy's.

You know, someone who's made it a little further with a job and so on. It could serve as a halfway house-type thing between the complete dependence of living in the dorm to preparing to be on their own." Nick held his hand up when Daniel started to say something. "I owe you much more than this. I'm not trying to pay you off, or buy your love back, but you know how much money I have, and if I can spend it to help all those boys from Mama Sasy's, I can spend it on my own. Please, just think about it."

Daniel's sandwich was turning to stone in his stomach. It wasn't hurting, but it just sat there, hard and uncomfortable. He scooted his plate away and looked at his dad. "I will. I promise. It's a lot to think about now, though. Can we get some of the things from upstairs and take them back to the dorm now? We probably need to get back to work, anyway." Daniel knew that Mama Sasy would let them stay as long as they wanted to if they were making Nick happy, but he really had had all Take It Slow 180.

he could think about. He was on overload and needed some real s.p.a.ce.

Benny got up and took their plates to the sink.

"Leave those, Benny. I'll get them later. Can I help with the things up there? Have you decided what you might want to take? You can get some of it later if you want."

d.a.m.n. His dad was trying so hard it was killing Daniel. He wanted to tell Nick to just shut up and let him breathe one minute and wanted to shake his hand and accept all he was offering the next. He was torn.

Benny, of course, came to the rescue.

"We thought we'd take the laptop and see about getting it set up. We could both use it. The shoes are cool, too. We can share those, if that's okay. Maybe a few of the other things. Um, we could come back and look at the rest of it another day." Benny seemed to know that Daniel needed help dealing right now. Daniel agreed with everything he said. Anything to get out of there. He was feeling smothered and like there was something he was supposed to do or feel that he couldn't grasp yet. Not yet.

They filled the trunk of Nick's car with boxes and put the laptop and a few other things in the front seat. Daniel and Benny sat in the back. Benny leaned over and whispered in Daniel's ear, "Did your dad just offer to build us a place to have s.e.x? I don't know whether to be shocked, thrilled, or embarra.s.sed."

Daniel blushed. "Me, either. Too weird."

"He's tryin', man. You gotta admit."

"I know." Daniel closed his eyes, shutting down the thoughts and the conversation. Too much, just too much.