by Amy Lane
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
A Domestic Sparrow
Biergarten
A Pillow and a Mat
Vaulted Ceilings, Vaulted Dreams
Goodbye Hello
Waiting, Sweetheart. Waiting.
Nesting
Like Playing House
Reckoning
Faith
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Copyright
Homebird
By Amy Lane
Crispin Henry isn’t an adventurer. He learned early on that the world is a frightening place and that home is rare and precious. If his friends didn’t drag him to sports games and ill-advised trips to Vegas, he wouldn’t get out at all—and his trip to Munich for Oktoberfest is no exception. But it’s there that he meets Luka Gabriel, and he learns to take a chance.
Luka is a free-spirited world traveler, working at Oktoberfest to feed his enchantment with new places and new people. His only possessions fit in his backpack, and he depends on the kindness of strangers for a place to sleep. Crispin should know better—but he takes Luka’s hand anyway, and together they turn three nights in Munich into the relationship neither of them has been brave enough to risk—and neither can let go of.
When Luka turns up on Crispin’s doorstep before the holiday season, Crispin takes him in on hope alone. Yes, he knows the odds are good Luka will flutter out of his life again and leave him bereft, but isn’t it worth it to see if Luka is a homebird after all?
Mate, I love you so much. I couldn’t go out into the world for this one, so you brought it home to me. Kids—three out of four of you have gone on a big trip into the world. Squish, I swear, we’ll take you to Europe someday. Mary—this one was very Mary friendly. Thanks for letting that be my gauge.
Acknowledgments
KIP, MARK, Rob, Dave, Jeff, Erik—I’ve been to weddings, I’ve made baby hats, I’ve been to parties. You’re great guys—thanks for taking care of my Mate when I couldn’t.
Author’s Note
OKAY, SO Mate and his work buddies went to Germany and met a wonderful waiter named Luka. Luka was cute—they sent pictures—and friendly and happy, and he’d sold all but three boxes of his possessions so he could travel the world and learn about the people therein.
Mate and his guys loved Luka. They begged me to write a story about him. All these straight—and straitlaced—engineers wanted to be in this guy’s life, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that all of them, in their forties, with wives and mortgages and worried about layoffs, were just really turned on by this guy’s freedom, if not his razor cheekbones and charming smile and strong jaw. (I myself was looking at those other things. Folks, that picture… mmmmm….)
So when I sat down to write Homebird, I thought this was going to be all about the dreamy German waiter with the New Zealand accent. But then the mommy in me kicked in, and I wondered exactly what any guys from my neck of the woods could offer somebody like that. And my answer was…
Home.
Luka, wherever you are, may your freedom be everything you desire.
For the rest of us, we’ll read about you from the comfort of our quiet lives and dream.
A Domestic Sparrow
“SO YOU’LL fill the bird feeder every other day?” Crispin Henry asked his sister. “I know they’re migrating soon, but I want them to think this is a good place.”
“Yes, Potato Crisp. Every other day. Do you even know what kind of birds they are?”
“I keep meaning to look it up,” Crispin confessed, counting seven pairs of socks and putting them in the bottom of the suitcase. “I’m afraid to find out that they’re not really the same birds I see every year. Right now I feel like we’re bonding.”
Millie smiled cheekily and leaned against the doorframe of his bedroom, holding his cat, Steve Rogers. Steve, being the genial beast he was, rolled over in her arms so his silver-gray belly turned up and she could give him a luxurious tummy scratch while they spent time together.
“Oh, Captain,” Millie cooed. “You’re getting fat!”
“He won’t stop eating,” Crispin told her, folding the last shirt for his suitcase. “Every time I look, he’s got his face in the trough. If I try to measure out the food over the day, he waits until night when I’m asleep and bats the back of my head.” He ignored Millie’s laughter while he did a quick count. He would be gone six days, so he needed three pairs of pants—two jeans, one pair of slacks—six T-shirts, two dress shirts, seven pairs of socks, and seven pairs of underwear—
“You know, that’s a lot of clothes to haul around,” Millie said, dubious. “You can wear the pants more than once, and you only need two sweaters.”
“For just in case,” Crispin said, pulling his fingers through his dark, curly hair. “You know I don’t like to get caught—”
“Unprepared,” she finished, rolling her eyes. “It’ll be okay, Crispy. What’s the worst that can happen? You end up washing your underwear in the hotel sink? I’m sure they’ve seen worse.”
Crispin darted his eyes at her and fidgeted, wishing he had her confidence. Millie wasn’t, strictly speaking, his sister by blood. His parents had passed away when he was young, and she’d been his foster parents’ surprise baby—as in “Surprise! We just got cleared for foster parenting and we’re having a baby!”
They’d both lucked out, it seemed, because her parents, Carmen and James Henry, had been lovely people, born to be parents. They’d died in a car accident when Millie was sixteen, but Crispin had been in college then, and they’d each had a small inheritance. He’d moved back to Sacramento and finished his degree at the local state school so Millie could finish high school in the house she’d grown up in. She’d moved on and gone to college on her own, and then moved back with her husband. They rented an apartment downtown, and Crispin stayed in the little house in Fair Oaks. He’d redecorated it in the ten years since he’d returned—light paneling instead of dark, bold single colors on one wall in each room instead of fussy wallpaper, comfortable corduroy on the couches instead of tapestry—but it was still, better or worse, their home.
Millie and Todd came over for dinner twice a week, and Crispin kept their pit bull/shepherd mix for them during the week so they could come play with him over the weekend.
Home. Safety. Security. It was in every brush stroke of paint and panel of the hardwood floor.
“You know, Sherman might not be okay without me here during the nights—”
“Don’t worry—we’ll stay in the guest room. I told you that.” Millie rubbed whiskers with Captain Steve. “He’s being a big baby, isn’t he?”
“This whole thing is really very ill-advised,” Crispin muttered, closing his eyes. “I should just—”
“If you say cancel, I’m smacking you,” Millie snapped. She had a spill of blonde hair and big blue eyes and a little kewpie doll mouth—and right now she looked about as cuddly as a cactus. “Come on, Crispy—when was the last time you went on a vacation?”
Crispin sighed. “I… there was Comic-Con last year, and me and the guys went to Vegas two years ago.”
Millie raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. “I remember. Vegas.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted to see a strip show.”
Crispin’s ears got hot. “Yes.”
“And gamble.”
“So I said.”
“You hate gambling.”
Crispin carefully stacked his jeans in the pristine new suitcase, not looking at her. “It’s statistically not going to turn out in your
favor. It’s not logical. I don’t understand the urge to do it.”
“I know. I get that. But you went gambling anyway. You also saw a strip show, and you’re gay.”
Crispin’s eyes darted around the room, like suddenly their parents might pop out and remind him that they had known, before they’d been hit by a drunk driver in the rain. “Yes, but you’re the only one who knows that.”
Millie let out a sigh. “Why? Why am I the only one who knows that? I’ve met your friends—they don’t seem bad.”
“You don’t even know their names,” Crispin said suspiciously.
“Sure. There’s Tom, Dick, That Guy Over There, and Some Other Asshole—that’s not the point.”
Crispin smirked, because God love his baby sister anyway. “What’s the point?”
She sighed and set Captain Steve on the bed, where all his fur promptly stuck to Crispin’s one good dress shirt.
“Dear Lord,” he muttered, turning around and grabbing the lint roller from his dresser. “It’s like a whole other cat is going to come with me to Oktoberfest.”
“Crispin!” Millie took the lint roller out of his hand and threw the dress shirt in anyway. “Honey, I love you, but you have got to relax! Your friends in Germany know you have a cat—they’ll be fine. Strangers in Germany will know you have a cat. They too will be fine. The point is that your friends are your friends—they’re not going to turn on you because you’re gay. I don’t mean to belabor the point here, big brother, but you are the shyest man I know. If they got through your glasses and your comb in your pocket and your ‘oh my God I can’t stand out!’ wardrobe, they’re not going to dump you for being gay. And how are you ever going to meet anybody if nobody knows you’re looking?”
Crispin shrugged and inventoried his shaving kit, since Millie was determined to pack his bag for him. “I’m not looking.” This was true. “Not really. I… you know. It’s all good here. You and Todd can have babies, and I’ll just be their gay uncle. It’s a good plan.”
“It’s a horrible plan!” Millie sat down on the bed abruptly, making a hash out of his pile of neatly folded boxer briefs. “Todd’s got a good job teaching science now, but he’s been writing grants. Honey, we may need to go traveling for a couple of years so he can do fieldwork. Where’s that going to leave you?”
Crispin bit his lip, not wanting to think about Millie and Todd disappearing out of his life. “Holding down the fort with a really big dog and making sure the guest room is ready when you visit for Christmas,” he said practically. “I can also do your taxes, because you don’t let me now, but it’s harder when you’re out of state or even out of the country, and you’ll need me then.”
“I need you now!” Millie protested. “But I also need to know you’re not all alone!”
“Well I’m not going to go manhunting in Germany!” Crispin retorted. “For one thing, I don’t speak German! For another, why would I even be looking for someone so far away from home?”
“Why are you going to Germany anyway?” Millie asked, exasperated. “In addition to not gambling and not watching strippers—”
“Female strippers,” Crispin corrected, because he had a full porn library on his computer, and it was an important distinction.
Millie’s lightly penciled eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God. Crispin has a sex life.”
Crispin’s face got so hot his glasses steamed over. “Imaginary,” he mumbled, taking his glasses off and wiping them on the microfiber cloth he had in his shaving kit.
“I don’t care if you’re going to Mars and finding a rent boy,” Millie argued. “It’s a sex life. Crispin, look.” She took the shaving kit from his hand and frowned into it, then set it on top of the suitcase. “Honey, I’m not trying to get too personal, but… but you and me, we’re family. We’re it. I’ve got Todd and I’ve got you. And Todd and I are going to move around and maybe come back and have babies and maybe have them somewhere else—but the point is, we’re in our twenties and our lives are not locked in stone. But you turned thirty-one this year. And besides that guy you were dating in college, the one who came to Mom and Dad’s funeral, I haven’t seen a single guy in your life—and it’s been ten years. I worry about you. You… you went away to college, and you seemed to be doing okay, but… but Mom and Dad died, and that… that adventuresome part of you, I guess it died too. You need to take some risks, baby. I swear, if you get your heart broken, I will fly in from any corner of the earth to help you patch it together, but you’ll never learn to fix it if you don’t at least take a risk.”
“I’m going to Germany,” he said brightly, although his stomach knotted up over spending five days with his friends drinking beer.
“As I was saying,” she told him, all gentleness. “You don’t like beer. You’re going to Germany to watch your friends get drunk and pretend you’re having a good time.”
“Yes,” Crispin agreed, keeping his pride. “Yes, I am. But it will still be fun.”
Millie nodded and cupped his cheek. “Okay, then. Maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. You updated your passport, bought a ticket, made hotel reservations—you’re going on an adventure. But maybe, while you’re out and about and bonding with Tom, Dick, Asshole, and Some Other Guy, you may want to think about letting them in a little. Being a real friend and telling them you don’t like girl parts. Asking if you can drink wine instead of beer. See a rom-com instead of an action movie. You know—being you.”
“I like action movies,” Crispin said with dignity. He did. It had taken six years of going out with his friends, but he’d finally learned the exquisite primal joy of watching something CGI get beat up, blown up, or eaten.
“You also like movies with subtitles and Merchant Ivory weepers—but I bet they don’t know that, do they?”
Crispin shrugged, suddenly defeated. “What do you want me to say?”
“Say that you’ll be going to Germany with guys you can trust. Say that you’ll be having fun with guys you won’t worry about making you feel bad. Say you’ll flirt with a man and smile and feel brave while you’re there.”
Crispin pulled up a corner of his mouth. “That’s pushing things too far,” he teased.
She nodded, her eyes overbright. “Sure.” She kissed his cheek. “Here—you go finish dinner, I’ll finish packing for you, okay?”
Oh no! “Oh God—do you think the chicken is burn—”
“Go check!” she urged, and he ran out of the room without another thought.
IT WASN’T until he was in line at the TSA, Link and Cam in front of him, Nick and Ray behind, that he realized his sister had added something to his shaving kit he hadn’t been prepared for.
“Oh my God,” he muttered, unzipping the kit and double-checking that all his liquids were travel-sized.
“Oh my God, what?” Nick Andrews looked over his shoulder, his haze of superfine picked-out hair tickling Crispin’s cheek. “Oh my God.” Nick turned to Ray. “Maldo—Ray—Crispin’s got plans we don’t know about!”
“I do not!” Crispin protested, putting the kit in the bucket and adding his phone, wallet, and shoes. “I didn’t even know that was in there.”
Ray Maldonado looked from the shaving kit to Crispin’s flushed face and smiled, kind as always, his sloe eyes crinkling in the corners. “Do you have plans we don’t know about, Crisp? I mean, the rest of us left girlfriends and wives at home—you trying to find a guy while we’re in Germany?”
Crispin gaped at him. “Uh… I mean—”
“Move it, Crispin,” Nick muttered. “You’re holding up the line.”
“What’s up with you?” Cameron Soong asked as Crispin made it to the other end of the TSA line to get his shoes and retrieve his luggage. Crispin looked at him greenly, still holding his glasses because he knew he was sweating enough to make him steam. “Nick, what’d you and Maldo say to him?”
To his credit, Ray Maldonado grimaced. “Sorry, Crispin—didn’t mean to embarrass you. But, you know, we just though
t you knew we knew.”
“Knew about what?” Link asked, his deep voice rumbling out of his football player’s chest.
“About the gay,” Ray tossed off, like it was no big deal.
“Oh,” Cam said, shrugging. All casual here. “Yeah. We felt really bad about that stripper thing in Vegas once we figured it out. We won’t do that again.”
Crispin gasped, put his stuff back in his carry-on, and zipped it up, hiding the shaving kit and the healthy stash of condoms and lubricant Millie had apparently stowed in it while he’d been preparing the chicken piccata. “How did you… why do you—”
“God, he’s adorable,” Link said, bumping shoulders with him. “We just put it together. You don’t watch football for the score, Crispin. I mean, you named your cat after Captain America. My wife named hers after Iron Man so she could sleep with Tony Stark when I was on business trips. Was it supposed to be a secret?”
Crispin shook his head, still a little mortified but also hugely relieved. “No. Just… didn’t want to….” He shrugged and settled his luggage, roller bag on the ground, carry-on over his shoulder. “You know.”
“Tell us and lose us as friends?” Cameron asked, dropping his voice. “Yeah. We figured that. Until Ray said something—out loud and in public, way to go, Ray—we were just sort of waiting for you to trust us.” He bit his lip and shrugged. “Hope you, uh… trust us now, after this.”
Crispin smiled gamely, remembering Millie’s words about being brave. “Sure. If you let me drink wine instead of beer in Germany, we’re fine.”
“I knew it!” Link crowed. “I told you he was killing my plants after football games!”
“That was me,” Nick told him, grimacing. “Man, he might actually like beer if you bought something besides Miller Lite for every game, Link. A microbrew? A blonde? Something with a little citrus? We’ll make a convert out of him yet.”
