In Vino Veritas

After facing off with Kira at Huggy’s, Starsky asks Hutch a question.

Half in the bag, his eyes bleary, and head slightly buzzing, Starsky stared out the window of Venice Place. The moon was almost invisible behind a layer of clouds, an occasional star bright enough to pierce the light pollution twinkling in the night.

“Ready to hit the sack?” Hutch asked, dumping the usual pile of pillow and afghan his Danish Mormor had knit on the coffee table, nearly knocking the ugly cherubs off.

Starsky tipped his head back to gaze at the beauty of Hutch standing there in his pinstriped blue pajama bottoms. “What if I told you I wanted to kiss you?”

Eyebrows arched, Hutch looked like he’d never considered such a course of action, which they both knew was a damned lie. It had been the elephant in the room for so long, they’d each taken to keeping peanuts in their pockets to feed the pachyderm into silence most days.

“I’d beat you to the punch,” Hutch declared with a competitive flair.

“No fisticuffs.” Starsky snorted. “And no prevedicating…” That wasn’t quite the right word, but Hutch was always able to work it out.

“Prevaricating?” Hutch spread his feet, hands on his hips as if ready for any challenge. “Why now?”

Ignoring the question, Starsky posed one of his own. “What if Kira had said yes?” There at Huggy’s, her frothy blondeness soaking up the meagre light when faced with the two of them, dressed identically in black leather jackets.

The jacket Starsky still wore over his turtleneck and jeans. Beside Hutch’s gleaming bare chest, fresh and scented from the shower, Starsky felt—hidden.

“I would have said no.” Hutch pushed the pillow and blanket off the table, situating Cupid and Psyche to the middle so he could sit down, knee to knee with Starsky. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Why’d you do it, then?” Starsky regretted the way the liquor had loosened his tongue. Usually, it was Hutch who got plastered, while he could nurse a couple of beers for hours. Tonight, he’d bested Hutch by two or three bottles, not counting the tequila Huggy had poured for him before Kira arrived. “I wanted love.”

“You have it,” Hutch said softly, touching his knee, flicking some microscopic lint off his jeans the way Starsky’d done when Hutch came over and they’d talked in the middle of his kitchen. “Always.”

Starsky inhaled, feeling how the merest touch could reach into his soul. Hutch had always been able to do that, but with all their mutual flirting, they’d never moved beyond. Too afraid of social convention? Too afraid to cast off their macho masculinity and admit what was right in front of them?

Starsky anchored Hutch’s hand on his knee with one of his own. Held it and raised their joined hands to kiss Hutch’s palm.

“Not like that,” Hutch murmured, leaning in.

The kiss was one for the record books, although they practiced very hard to best their initial success.

FIN