This was his first time, but he knew at once it would not be his last. He had friends who couldn’t get enough of it; they’d practically begged him to try it, and when the opportunity presented itself here in the park he figured, What the hell? It was longer than he expected, and so meaty; salty and fragrant, with a tongue-prickling tang. He tried to ease into it, with little licks and nibbles, but he found he couldn’t resist the urge to gobble at it, inch by inch, until, to his surprise and delight, he had the whole thing in his mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head as he slurped and moaned. Hard as he tried to savor every splash of sticky-sweet runoff, rivulets trickled out—he got some on his shirt, he had it all over his chin, and he was pretty sure some had splattered into his hair, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. He knew it was piggish, but as soon as it was over, he craved his next. Any dude who’d never had one of thesein his mouth was definitely doing it wrong. His friends were right:

This rib from Bone Lickers was far and away the best barbecue he’d ever eaten.

* * * *

“You know what? I hope I do go to Hell for being gay. In fact, I’d kinda like to go right now, cuz I know it ain’t this hot.”

“Are you saying you’d like a break from the grill?” Spencer asked. Carter did insist on being a drama queen.

“I need to rehydrate,” Carter said, stepping away from the smoking slab of flaming meat. He wiped his hands on the carpenter’s apron that doubled around his minute waist like an over-pocketed mini-skirt, then stuck an open palm out to Spencer, who’d been manning the cash box. “Beer money, please.”

“‘Bout time,” Claudia chimed in. She’d been standing in the puddle of shade under the umbrella that kept the sun from cooking the meat while she prepped it for the grill, but she also clocked in at two-ninety-five—she would have been hot even if she wasn’t slaving away in a barbecue pit at one-thirty in the afternoon on the Hottest Sunday in History.

“Fine,” Spencer said, fishing a twenty out of the front pocket of his own apron and slapping it into Carter’s eager mitt. “But bring big ones.”

Carter tsked. “You and that one-track mind.”

Spencer affixed a faux scowl to his face and pointed over Carter’s head, across the park to the beer booth. “Go. When you come back, I’ll take the grill for a while.”

“Thanks, Boss.” And off Carter flounced. He bopped through the crowd, his bottle-blond Mohawk rotating like a radar dish as he ogled every male of the species that crossed his path. Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer was pretty sure he saw the middle-aged bald dude at the rib joint across the path flailing his hands and twisting his hips in an unflattering impression of Carter, but he let it slide. It was Pride, for one thing; he could have been mocking any one of a hundred mincing passersby. More to the point, Spencer realized he had probably imagined the rudeness, merely one of several unseemly qualities he had attributed to the oaf since he’d started setting up his annoyingly competitive stall that morning. It’s not like Spencer thought he was the only grizzled prospector who’d ever set out to find his fortune grilling meat for money in the summertime, and he knew his secret-recipe ribs were unbeatable, but it would have been nice if the Pride planning committee could have separated the two barbecue booths by more than the length of a side of beef.

Plus Spencer thought it was kind of weird that, according to the numerous banners hanging from the booth’s white tent, Adam’s Rib seemed to be affiliated with a church. He was from here; naturally he knew that Colorado Springs was an aggressively conservative burg, and one peppered with “proudly Christian” businesses. You just didn’t see a ton of them hawking their inventory—or their ideology—at Pride.

He knew, too, that, while they were often conflated in contemporary gay-rights dialogue, “Christian” and “homophobic” weren’t synonyms. Some of my best friends are Christians, he mused with a smirk. And while the middle-aged bald dude who seemed to be the boss/dad/owner across the way gave the distinct impression of being uncomfortable in the midst of all this unharnessed gayness, Spencer suspected the hot fatty he had manning his grill was right at home among homos.

Father and son, Spencer figured. The kid outweighed Daddy Dearest by an easy buck and a half, and had a gorgeous head of sunshiny hair, but otherwise they looked exactly alike. Same sleepy eyes, same turned-up nose. Same square shoulders, but where the dad tapered in, Sonny spread out just the way Spencer liked ‘em. On the right guy, sure, the bowling-ball gut had its charms, but this guy was all gooey melted middle. His heavy spare tire overflowed his wide, wobbly hips, but the globular shelf of his ass jutted rather than slumped—it had been a while, but once upon a time he’d been a jock. Baseball, Spencer guessed, gauging the solidity of his stout thighs. His T-shirt—triple XL, Spencer’s practiced eye assumed—hugged his pendulous, pointed chest, the sleeves snug against the padded pink of his triceps; he probably didn’t even know about the thick slab of pudge slung across his lower back…

Spencer jumped when Carter, giggling, tapped his elbow with a plastic cup of cold beer. “Whatcha lookin’ at, Boss?”

“Shut up,” Spencer said. He gulped gratefully at the beer, then held the half-full cup against his forehead. “It is hot, huh?”

Carter laughed. They’d been closer than sisters for half their lives. He may not have shared Spencer’s ardent appreciation for the more malleable male physique, but he could certainly recognize his Rubenesque ideal when it waddled by. “Gee, yeah. I wonder why.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It’s not like it’s a hundred and twenty degrees and I’m standing next to a pit of fire or anything.”

Carter took a slug of his beer. “That may be what’s got you hot, but it ain’t what’s got you bothered.”

“No. What’s got me ‘bothered’ is you work-shirking that grill.”

Carter pouted with a stomp of his dainty, huarached foot. “You promised!”

Spencer exaggerated his frown. “I was kind of hoping you’d forget that.”

Claudia slid a row of ribs off a huge cookie sheet onto the grill and slathered them with a coat of Spencer’s secret vinegar sauce, setting them a-sizzle in a huge burst of smoke.