The Powers of Love

Chapter 2

Vic drove the city bus, picking up commuters mostly, circling through inner city traffic downtown from 7:30 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Kyle drove a different route, so Vic never saw much of him outside the locker rooms at work or the gym. They weren’t even friends really, but now Vic made up excuses to talk to Kyle, waiting around at the end of his shift to see if maybe they could grab a beer before heading home, “And why not invite Matt to join us?”

“Doesn’t drink,” was Kyle’s standard reply. The clueless way he swung an arm over Vic’s shoulders said he thought Vic was hitting on him. But once he learned Matt wouldn’t be there, Vic begged off, ducking out from under Kyle’s arm to head back to his locker for something he claimed he forgot. With a chuckle, Kyle would holler after him, “Maybe next time!”

Two months passed, and one day it was Kyle waiting for Vic, sneaking a smoke outside the back gate. As Vic slowed, Kyle fell into step beside him. “How ‘bout that drink tonight, what do you say?” He suggestively raised one eyebrow. “I’m a single man again, Vic. Better get it while you can.”

Vic’s step faltered, his heart stuttering in his chest. “What do you mean?”

With a shrug, Kyle admitted, “It just wasn’t working out between us, you know? Yeah he’s hot as s**t, and the s*x was great, don’t get me wrong, but that was about it. Hey, where you going? What about that drink?”

Over his shoulder, Vic said, “Not tonight. Maybe later, eh?”

Maybe never. Vic drove to the gym like one of the drivers he silently cursed during the day, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting off cars in his haste to be there already. But Matt wasn’t in the locker room or the showers, and the pool was closed with no lifeguard on duty. What would Vic have said anyway? Heard you ditched Kyle… How bad did that sound? What if it hadn’t been a clean break-up? What if Matt was laying low for a few days, nursing a broken heart?

I can help him with that. But now that he could approach the guy, Matt wasn’t at the gym and Vic had no idea where else to look. He couldn’t ask Kyle, of all people. He was pretty sure the “man law” about not dating a friend’s ex didn’t extend to co-workers, but he didn’t want to give Kyle any hold over him, however slight. Besides, hooking up with a guy through his last boyfriend was tacky, no matter how Vic tried to turn it around in his favor.

Days shuffled into weeks; weeks stretched into a month. Vic couldn’t shake the feeling that Matt was somewhere just beyond his reach—every room he entered in the gym, he felt so sure that Matt had just exited a moment before. He hovered on the edges of Vic’s vision, forever out of sight. Maybe he’d switched gyms to avoid Kyle. Maybe he’d moved and that’s why they broke up in the first place. A sobering thought began to plague Vic—those smiles Matt used to give him from a distance, those glances and nods and waves, those hot stares in the weight room or the shower…had they meant nothing?

Was Vic the only one who’d felt the energy arc between them the first time they’d met? The surge of power that had threatened to short out the electricity when they’d shaken hands? The dreams that left Vic aching and sore in the mornings, as if the s*x had been real?

That wasn’t just him, was it?