by A. M. Riley
“Excuse me.”
He’d come in so quietly Freddie hadn’t even heard him. Joshua stood there, in light blue flannel sleep pants that ended above his ankles and a T-shirt. One could see how thin the young man was.
The dark hair really was too long in the front, and Joshua pushed it out of his eyes and held a book out toward Freddie.
“I thought you might like to read it,” said Joshua. “It’s my favorite.”
Those eyes looked swollen and tired and very serious. Feeling like he was taking a very important test, Freddie took the book from Joshua. It was a paperback of Leaves of Grass.
“This is one of my favorites too,” said Freddie. “Thank you.”
He was given a tentative smile, Joshua’s expression worried. “I like the part about ‘I and this mystery,’” said Joshua. “I marked the page.”
A sense of enchantment, subtle and slow, wound around Freddie as he opened the book and found the page with the passage.
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams/
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,/I and this mystery here we stand.
“‘Clear and sweet is my soul,’” recited Joshua, “‘and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.’”
Freddie was afraid to speak and break the spell.
“You said that about being a stranger. I…I like to read his words, sometimes, when I feel like I don’t belong anywheres…” Joshua stopped himself, looking across at Freddie as if he’d been caught out, his too-long bangs falling in his eyes, and Freddie’s heart cracked in two.
“I should go to bed now,” said Joshua. “Good night.”
Wait. Don’t leave, Freddie wanted to say as Joshua padded off. He held the book tightly in his hands as if by doing that, he could keep the entire moment from escaping.
Then he switched off the light and lay down, staring at the ceiling.
* * * *
“Good morning, Mama Bear.” A sleep-cuddly, warm, and wiggly blond young man snuggled up to Jim where he stood in the kitchen and hugged him. “Mmm, you smell good. What is that?”
“Coffee cake,” said Jim. “It’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
Brian rested his head against Jim’s chest and they stood there while the oven baked and the sun slowly rose and the household wakened. Jim sipped coffee from his old cracked blue mug, and after a while, there was the thump of feet on the floor, and Paul appeared.
“Morning, Jim.” Paul reached for his mug and coffee and then leaned on the counter, hip to hip with Jim, arm laced over his shoulder. “Something smells good.”
“Coffee cake,” said Brian from deep in Jim’s chest.
“It’ll be ready in five minutes,” said Jim.
“RrrrI’mhungry…” growled a curly golden Scott, stomping into the kitchen in nothing but boxers. “Shove over, Goldilocks,” he said, one eye still closed, the other half open. He pushed his way up under Jim’s arm, like a demanding lap dog, and burrowed in. “I smelled something good,” he said, looking dangerously close to falling asleep again, right there on his feet.
“Coffee cake,” said Paul.
“Ready any minute now,” said Jim.
“Well, I can see who the most popular man is in this family,” said Freddie, padding into the kitchen. He’d risen and put on jeans but was barefoot and shirtless.
“Only before breakfast,” said Jim, still sipping coffee despite his heavy coat of man flesh. “As soon as that oven timer dings…”
Ding!
Three men tumbled to the kitchen table, pulled out their chairs, and sat, looking expectantly up at Jim.
“Just like baby birds,” said Jim, shaking his head. He brought out the hot pan, set it on a trivet, and started up the top burners where pans of eggs, bacon, and sausage were just waiting.
“Morning,” said Joshua, coming in and going straight to the refrigerator. “Who wants orange juice?”
Everyone did.
Joshua was fully dressed. His hair wet, as if he’d recently showered, worn ropers on his feet. He seemed preoccupied, bringing glasses down from the cupboards and pouring juice and milk, his brows troubled, and those eyes cast down.
“You have to work this morning?” asked Jim.
Joshua nodded, pulling his chair up to the table. “Yes, sir.”
“Your cowboy thing?” asked Brian, reaching across the table for bacon.
“Ask, don’t reach,” said Paul automatically.
“Pleasepassthebacon,” said Brian. “Where do you work, Joshua?”
Freddie noted the quick glance up at Paul before Joshua said, “Rancher in Sylmar has twenty or so steers want moving and feeding.”
“Do you ride a horse?” said Brian.
Joshua seemed to almost smile. “I do.”
“Can I come with you? Daddy, can I go with Joshua to the ranch this morning?”
Joshua’s green eyes definitely flashed in surprise, darting quickly from Paul to Brian at the Daddy, then straight down at his plate.
“I think you might be in the way,” said Paul, regarding Joshua thoughtfully.
Paul looked up at Jim and they Had Words, in a manner of speaking.
“No, sir, he wouldn’t,” said Joshua. “He could sit up by the house the hands use and watch me. Wouldn’t take more than half an hour.” There was just the slightest pleading note to his voice. So, thought Freddie, Joshua wanted to show off for Brian a little.
“We have a guest, Brian. And you just got back.” Paul sighed, crumbling easily under the power of Brian’s pleading look. “Fine. Be back by lunch though.”
Joshua dipped his head. “Yes, sir.”
* * * *
“You really don’t have to call them sir all the time,” said Brian.
They were riding in Joshua’s truck up a two-lane highway at the base of the San Fernando Mountains.
“It’s how I was raised,” said Joshua.
“You don’t sir me and Scott,” Brian pointed out.
Joshua looked surprised, as if he hadn’t noticed this. He slowed and turned carefully on to a road that seemed mostly ruts until they reached a wide bridge over a dry wash and found themselves on a long, well-kept gravel driveway.
“That’s the herd way up there by that bit of red fencing,” he said, pointing out Brian’s side window toward an area on a foothill backing against the higher ridges. “They bunch on instinct. So it’s easy to get them to come back to the pasture down there.” He indicated a broad area in front of them. “I’ll take old Buddy up there. He’s the boss cow horse. I whoop at ’em a bit, and after a while they decide to move just to shut me up. Down there, I’ll break open some sack for them in that trough, and they’ll eat. And that’s all I have to do.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Joshua flashed a broad smile at Brian. The smiles were so rare they were startling and changed his face utterly. “Yep, I guess it’s okay. Been doing it since my legs was just long enough to reach the stirrups, you know. Not so much fun when it’s cold or raining. Or the damned stupid cattle think they’re better off freezin’ to death than doing as they’re told.” He pulled the truck up in front of a long porch, which consisted of sun-bleached wood and half a dozen varieties of plastic and wooden chairs. “This job here is nothing like real ranching, of course. There you sometimes got a whole day to get from one end t’other, and most of us use trucks and tractor bikes now as much as we do horses.”
“Still. It sounds cool. Why’d you come to Los Angeles?”
Those big green eyes looked caught out for a second, and then Joshua looked away, one shoulder lifting in a lazy shrug. “Wanted a change.”
He hopped out of the truck.
Brian sat in one of the chairs on the porch and watched Joshua lead a small brown horse from a stall, throw what seemed like massive quantities of leather gear over the horse, fasten, buckle, snap said leather, and then swing one long leg up and over the saddle with ease.
> The small brown horse and the tall dark man cantered off and were soon blobs of color up against that little bit of red fence. The steers up there eventually seemed to stir and flow downhill to the wild pasture Joshua had indicated, and just as he’d said he would, Joshua climbed on top of a trailer with troughs on either side and poured something from awkward burlap sacks into a chute at the top. The steers jostled and shoved and knocked the contrivance around, but Joshua just ran along it, like a tightrope walker, leaped over a fence, and came striding back up toward Brian, leading the horse and dusting his jeans off as he came.
Brian watched him, thinking.
Brian was adept at reading people on a gut level. It was partially instinctive and had also been honed by a half year of corporate politics, albeit at a low level. He lived in a community where quick glances and sidelong looks communicated a world of information. And he was a tightly wound, emotionally sensitive brat with radar like a bat’s.
“So,” said Brian, as Joshua strode up, “how’d you and Scott meet?”
Joshua just stopped midstride. “What?”
Brian jumped up from his chair and followed Joshua as he led the horse back to his stall and removed all of the leather he’d spent so much time putting on.
“You work for one of those companies Scott hauls for?” Brian persisted, hanging over the railings and watching him.
“No,” said Joshua. “I had an accident off the highway. He stopped and helped me out.”
He came around the fence with the tack in his hands and seemed, to Brian, to be moving as quickly as he could away from Brian.
“He helped you out, and then he just offered to drive you to California?” said Brian, following Joshua doggedly as he walked back up to the tackle shed.
“Not exactly.” Joshua concentrated like it was rocket science, on getting the halter and reins hung up on their hook just so.
“How exactly?” asked Brian. “It sounds interesting.” He folded his arms and looked at Joshua with a politely inclined head and very narrow blue eyes.
Joshua lifted his hat, shoved his hair back, and clapped his hat back on his head. “We should be gettin’ back soon,” he said. “I promised your Paul.”
Brian waited until Joshua really thought he had changed the subject successfully, and then he snapped, “Fine, don’t tell me. You don’t know who I might tell, right?”
Joshua’s gaze came back to Brian immediately, wide and shocked. “I didn’t mean…”
“Sure you did. Most people trust me, but there’s no reason for you to.” Okay, now he was laying it on a bit thick. Brian stopped himself and settled on just spinning on his heel and stomping off in high snit.
Predictably, Joshua chased him. “I’m sorry, Brian. I didn’t mean an insult. Honest to God. It just seemed best not to talk about it. It seemed like it was nobody’s business but me ’n’ Scott’s.”
“You and Scott have a secret that’s nobody’s business but yours and his? Not me? Not Jim?”
Joshua’s lips closed slowly; his eyes went wide.
“Ooooohhh,” said Brian.
“It was just a temporary fancy, really,” said Joshua. “Honest to God.”
“A crush. You followed a man all the way to Los Angeles because you had a crush on him? And nothing else?” Brian folded his arms. “How romantic.” The sarcasm whipped and rolled and coiled at Joshua’s feet.
Joshua had to know he was cornered, as he only said, “Oh my gosh, I’ve forgotten something.” And he ran off toward one of the fenced corrals.
Brian pulled out his cell phone and dialed Scott’s number.
* * * *
Scott was carrying a bundle of sheets to the washer when his cell phone rang. He stuffed them in the machine and answered, “Hello, Sweetcakes.”
“You slut,” said Brian.
“You know it, sugar,” said Scott happily.
“If I were standing there, I’d pound you into the ground,” said Brian furiously. “Goddammit, Scott, you let me suck you off last night, and you didn’t even say anything.”
“What?” said Scott.
Brian’s voice was reaching decibels that could break glass. “I talked to Joshua, you son of a bitch!”
“Joshua?” said Scott. His brain seemed to be stuck.
“Oh he didn’t tell me the details, asshole, but I can just imagine. God. And what do you know about him, Mr. Can’t-keep-it-in-his-pants?”
“Now hold on,” said Scott.
And then Brian let Scott really have it. “I’m telling Paul,” he shouted, his voice a shriek. And disconnected.
Scott looked at his phone. He turned around and walked, a little quickly, back into the house. “Jim?” he called.
Jim came round the corner in a second. Scott’s voice had had that note that mama goats, mama sheep, and Mama Bear responded to immediately.
“What’s the matter?”
* * * *
There was a quick, somber family meeting, and everything was more or less cleared up.
“Sorry I freaked,” said Brian.
“Don’t blame you,” said Scott. “I wanted to call you all the way up in Wyoming, but I didn’t know how to explain it…”
Jim sighed. “I never told Paul or Brian either. It seemed irrelevant. Stupid of me. Sorry.”
Paul was sitting with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped, looking at the floor. By the time Jim and Scott had found him and calmed him down, Brian had already called. Paul had had a few minutes of honest-to-God fear. It hadn’t been pleasant.
“We never should have stopped using protection,” he said.
“What?” said three voices. And then everyone was talking and arguing and explaining.
* * * *
Outside on the front porch, Joshua kicked the porch swing into motion with a hard thump against the side of the house with his booted foot.
“You’re leaving marks on the house,” Freddie pointed out.
Joshua looked at him, one eyebrow up, some flash in his face, and he kicked the wall on the next swing even harder.
“Joshua? I said your boots are leaving black marks on their house.”
Joshua swung back, swung forward. Extended both booted feet now. Thump.
Freddie put down the paper he’d been reading.
Thump. Thump.
The challenge on Joshua’s face was unmistakable.
“Stop that,” said Freddie.
Joshua threw his head back, his smile insolent. The swing swung back. Forward. Thump.
“That’s it,” said Freddie, and he grabbed both Joshua’s arms, swung him up and off the swing.
“Hey!” said Joshua. “Get your hands off me, freak.”
Joshua yanked at the hold on his arm, as if to walk away, but Freddie didn’t release him. “You want to tell me what’s got you all in a twist?” he asked calmly.
“Let go of me, jerk.” Joshua struggled.
“Stop name calling,” said Freddie, and he laid a smack on Joshua’s rear end.
“Ouch! Crazy asshole!” Joshua struggled, but Freddie sat on the porch railing behind him, threw the gangly young man over his lap, and right there on the front porch, in sight of God and everyone, smacked Joshua hard, several times, on the seat of his jeans.
“Any more of that mouth, young man,” said Freddie, “and I’ll pull down these jeans and spank you properly.”
“Crazy. Asshole,” said Joshua, enunciating clearly.
“That’s it.” And Freddie stood, lifting Joshua and half carrying, half dragging the protesting young man around the corner of the house and into the rec room.
Joshua did seem to start struggling in earnest at this point, but Freddie just stripped the jeans down, sat down on a bench, and leaning with his full weight across the arm on Joshua’s back, he smacked that struggling bare behind until it was bright red and Joshua’s demands had turned to pleas and finally to sobs.
Freddie let him go, dragged him up, and held him.
“I�
��m sorry,” sobbed Joshua.
“I know you are. I just wish I knew why you felt like you had to do that.”
“It’s my fault,” Joshua said into Freddie’s shoulder.
“What is?”
“They’re all fighting because of me.”
“That hardly seems likely. What did you supposedly do?”
“I…I chased Scott. I knew he was a married man, but I followed him down here anyway. I knew it was wrong…”
“Scott? But Jim and Scott like you, Joshua. They aren’t fighting about you.”
Joshua sobbed against Freddie’s shoulder. Freddie stroked the shaking back until Joshua calmed. Then Freddie helped him dress and walked him over to the overstuffed chairs in the corner.
Joshua scrubbed at his face with his shirtsleeves, obviously miserable and trying hard not to show it.
Freddie cleared the long bangs out of Joshua’s face, felt the man’s head push into his hand like a dog’s seeking a pat. “C’mere,” he said.
Joshua almost resisted being pulled into Freddie’s lap, but when he did come, it was like he’d always been there.
Freddie stroked the silky hair, felt those long arms around him, the damp face against his neck, eyelashes blinking.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ll take care of you.”
* * * *
“Where’s Joshua?” asked Scott.
“I dunno,” said Brian. “He was on the porch when we were all talking, and I went out to apologize, and he was gone.”
“Joshua’s with Freddie,” said Jim calmly from where he stood at the sink.
“Where?” said Brian, heading to the back door, but Scott knew Jim’s looks and threw out an arm to stop Brian.
“Maybe we should wait until later,” said Scott.
Jim smiled, putting a plate in the drainer. “That’s a good idea.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you sure he doesn’t know?”
“Well, if you keep looking like that, he will.”
“Looking like what?” Scott wore that cherubic expression that only masked true devilry.
Joshua and Brian exchanged looks, and Joshua said, “All you need is two little horns comin’ outta your head, Scott.”
“Listen,” said Brian. “Try to look a little guilty. Then he won’t suspect anything.”
