by Anna Martin
Caz gestured to a display of gin bottles stacked up in front of a mirror on the back wall, where bottles of spirits usually sat. Each one was adorned with a royal-blue label with the name HENRY’S printed in white across the middle.
Henry slowly turned to Ryan with wide eyes.
“Don’t tell me….”
“Then don’t ask,” Ryan said, his cheeks flaming red.
Aware that the barmaid was watching their exchange with an expression of glee, Henry picked up two glasses and headed back to where Paul and Shenal were sitting.
“You finally found out about the gin, then,” Shenal said as she accepted her pint.
“Am I the last person in the whole fucking village to know about the fucking gin?” Henry demanded, too loudly, apparently, as a couple looked over and scowled at him for his language. He was tempted to flick them a finger, but resisted.
“No,” Ryan said as he re-joined the table. “I’m sure there are some recovering alcoholics who haven’t been here in a while.”
Henry shot him an icy look. “Not cool,” he said emphatically. “Very not cool.”
“Doing it or not telling you?” Paul said.
Henry considered this for a moment. It was actually a sweet gesture. “Not telling me,” he said eventually.
The warm presence of Ryan’s hand came to rest on Henry’s knee and squeezed it gently. “If I’d told you, you would have stopped me,” Ryan said.
Knowing that this statement was true, Henry muttered something under his breath and looked away. Ryan squeezed his knee again.
“Which one is it?” Henry asked.
“The sloe gin,” Ryan said.
“The one we got trashed on?”
Paul and Shenal exchanged knowing looks.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“I haven’t tried it yet,” Shenal said.
“You can have a bottle for Christmas,” Ryan said.
“Has Stella finally agreed to stock that poison you make, then?” Paul asked, lifting his glass of beautifully clear golden cider to his mouth.
“In principle,” Ryan said. “She gets final say on what gets sold. We’ve got a plan to maybe do a ‘gin of the month’ if it’s popular enough.”
“You’ll need more baths,” Henry said absently.
Shenal raised her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
“He makes gin in bathtubs,” Henry said, feeling the blush creep across his cheeks this time.
The night grew later and more people left, until there were only a handful of barflies remaining. A few sat on stools, propping themselves up on the bar, and others huddled in corners. Ryan and Henry had waved Shenal and Paul good-bye after they’d both refused an offer of a ride home, Paul saying he’d walk Shenal back to her house and make sure she got in okay. They were fooling no one. Nevertheless, it was nice to keep up the pretence of friendship where possible.
They stood in the doorway to the pub, contemplating leaving but not quite ready to brave the night. The pub was warm and inviting and the night cold, a light rain falling, making Henry glad he wasn’t walking Shenal home and even more pleased he’d refused an alcoholic drink so he could drive.
“Henry?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re thinking very loudly.”
Henry smiled and took a step closer to Ryan, because he wanted to and because he could. They were now standing almost too close to each other. Like Shenal and Paul, it would only take a cursory glance for anyone to conclude they were more than “just friends.” Although, after the gin, Henry doubted anyone in the village was still wondering what was going on with the two men living together at Twelve Acre Farm.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ten days later Henry found himself once again working on future plans for the sustainability of the manor house. After some Internet buzz, there had been inquiries about hiring it as a wedding venue, and now he was stuck in the position of having to work out a pricing structure. As was becoming his habit, he worked at the table in the kitchen. In the patch of light coming through the window, Hulk was spread out on his back, snoring.
“I have to go down to the school with a delivery,” Ryan said, wandering into the kitchen.
“Okay,” Henry said absently.
“Wanna come?”
Henry sat up, stretched, glanced over at the clock. It was later than he thought.
“Sure.”
“Hulk?” Ryan called. “Walkies?”
The big sheepdog cocked his head, then rolled languidly to his feet.
“Come on, you big softie,” Henry said as he slipped his sneakers on. Then, to Ryan, “We’re taking the truck, right?”
“No, I was going to go down in the tractor.”
Henry shot him a pleading look. “Please. Please don’t make me ride in that thing.”
“What’s wrong with the tractor?”
“It’s hideous. And it only goes at like, four miles an hour.”
“Fine,” Ryan acquiesced. “But you need to help me load it all onto the truck, then.”
It wasn’t that much, just boxes of fruit and vegetables that Ryan needed to drop off to the school’s kitchen, so it didn’t take too long to transfer the load from the back of the tractor to the flatbed of Ryan’s truck.
Having rained overnight, the roads were wet, but the sun was valiant in its efforts to break through the low-lying cloud, and it was warmer than it had been for a few weeks. With Hulk in the back of the truck (guarding the load), it was nice to wind the windows down and turn the radio up as they made the short journey to the school.
As they passed through the gates, the sports fields on the right of the drive were occupied.
“What are they playing?” Henry asked, pointing out the group of girls on the field. They were all dressed in the same grey polo shirts and navy pleated skirts, with knee-high grey socks and sneakers. Henry was immediately reminded of reading Malory Towers when he was younger.
“Rounders, it looks like,” Ryan said.
“Oh. It looks like baseball.”
“It’s fairly similar, as I understand it.”
It was after lunch and before dinner, meaning the cook was free to help them unload the boxes of vegetables and agree with Ryan on the next order to come through.
“See you next week!” Ryan called they climbed back into the truck.
Halfway back down the drive, Ryan suddenly pulled over and hopped out. Reluctantly, Henry followed.
“Hey!” Ryan called out.
A blonde woman, a similar age to them, looked up from where she was supervising the game. When she caught sight of Ryan, she rolled her eyes.
“Mr. Burgess,” she said, walking over to greet him. Behind her, the girls stopped their game.
Ryan pulled her into a brief hug. “What got you out of the stables?”
“Miss Collard has twisted her knee. I’m taking over the girls’ sports until she’s well enough to come back.”
“Lucky you,” Ryan said with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek. “Sorry, Henry. This is Clara Reynolds. She’s head of stables, normally. Clara, this is Henry Richardson.”
Henry reached out and shook her hand.
“You’re renovating Nell Richardson’s place,” Clara said.
“That’s right,” Henry said.
“I’d love to have a look ’round when it’s done,” she said.
“Of course. We’re very nearly there.”
“Henry was commenting on the way your game reminded him of baseball,” Ryan said.
The girls had taken their arrival as a sign they were no longer required to continue their game and instead had stared at Ryan with what Henry recognised as pure teenage longing. He was fairly sure it was a mixed gender school, but even so, Ryan was pretty to look at.
“Do you want to play, sir?” one of the girls asked.
Ryan burst into laughter.
“I’d probably emb
arrass myself,” Henry said.
“Oh, come on, you big grouch,” Ryan teased. “Play with the girls.”
Henry glared at him, rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, and strode over to take the bat. The assembled girls gave him hoots of approval. As he settled himself at the plate (or whatever the equivalent was in this bastardised game), he flipped the bat from one end to the other, knocking it backward and forward on the tips of his fingers.
He’d played baseball for long enough to be able to pull a few tricks out of the bag.
“Hey, Amy,” Clara called. “Chuck me that ball?”
After some scuffling, the girls returned to their positions around the field, some giggling, some as disaffected and disinterested as they’d been when Ryan had pulled up. Teenage girls, Henry thought.
Clara pitched the ball to him, hard and fast, as he’d always liked it. And, as he’d done countless times during his childhood, he smacked it as hard as he could with the stupid short-ass bat.
Technically, he could have just waited for it to land, because if there was such thing as a home run in this game, he would have just hit it. He wasn’t so out of practice. But Ryan was watching and laughing and cheering him on, so he dropped the bat and gently jogged around the bases, accepting slaps on the hand as he did.
“Hate to tell you this,” Clara said as he executed a little jump back to safety. “But in rounders, you’re not supposed to drop the bat. So you’re out.”
“Oh, fu—”
“Henry,” Ryan interrupted him quickly. “Not in front of the children.”
“We’ll let you off, this time,” Clara said, laughing.
“How gracious of you.”
“Wanna go, Mr. Burgess?” Amy asked, holding out the bat that Henry had so mistakenly dropped.
“No, thank you,” Ryan said quickly. Clara threw her head back and laughed.
“It’s been good seeing you, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Richardson. We should do this again soon.”
“Bye, girls,” Ryan called over his shoulder as he headed back to the truck.
Then a chorus of female voices—“Bye, Mr. Burgess….”
“What?” Ryan demanded as he turned over the engine, checking to make sure Hulk was still in the back.
“Bye, Mr. Burgess,” Henry trilled. “You’re so handsome, Mr. Burgess.” He fluttered his eyelashes. “If you ever want to date a younger girl, Mr. Burgess, I’m nearly sweet sixteen….”
“Shut up,” Ryan laughed, slapping Henry’s leg. “They’re just schoolkids.”
“Mhmm,” Henry hummed knowingly. “I know a schoolgirl crush when I see one. I had plenty myself.”
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
Henry laughed and looked over at Ryan, who smiled right back. Something flipped over in Henry’s stomach.
The impromptu game of “rounders” had further convinced Ryan that Henry needed to join the village cricket team—sooner rather than later. All of Henry’s protestations that being able to hit a ball with a bat did not mean he was going to make a good cricketer fell on deaf ears. Henry later learned the team had lost two batsmen from the previous season and were desperate to make up numbers.
It didn’t exactly fill him with excitement.
Still, Ryan seemed to be convinced it would all be fine, more than fine, that Henry would be great despite barely understanding the rules of the game. He’d borrowed Paul’s uniform, slightly bemused to discover that it was a rather prescriptive and that both teams wore white.
“Like a virgin bride,” he’d told Ryan in a singsong voice and earned himself a slap on the ass.
He’d also laughed at the fact that this was a summer game, and the uniform—cricket whites, Ryan called them—comprised more layers than the average American winter sport. There was a polo shirt and a knitted sweater vest, thick cotton pants, and Ryan informed him he should probably wear a jockstrap.
“I have plenty of my own,” Henry had said, smirking. “I don’t need to borrow one of yours.”
By some silent mutual agreement, their relationship was progressing at a pace Henry liked to think of as “slower than snails having sex.” There was definitely no sex happening at the farm house, snail or otherwise. Ryan seemed to need the time to become comfortable with each new facet of their relationship, so Henry tortured himself with long evenings on the sofa, watching TV with Ryan’s arm around his shoulders. They kissed and touched each other above the waist, or sometimes Ryan would rest his hand on the curve of Henry’s ass. It was like being back in high school.
There was no parental supervision forcing them to hold back from anything more, though, it all had to be controlled by willpower alone. And Henry was discovering that any willpower he thought he might have rapidly melted away when Ryan placed whisper light kisses on his neck.
In public, they probably looked like two unlikely but close friends. Henry was fine with that. He’d promised Ryan he wouldn’t be the one to out him, and he had every intention of keeping that promise. It meant occasionally dialling down the camp that came easily to him after years of perfecting an effeminate side that was still disaffected enough to be cool. He liked to think of it as drag queen chic.
On the drive down to the field, Henry had plagued Ryan with questions about the sport, from the uniforms (how do you tell the teams apart when everyone is wearing the same colour?) to the colour of the ball (why is it red?) and the bat (it looks heavy) and why he looked like such a dick. Ryan had laughed at that and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.
“I think you look adorable.”
When they arrived at the field, there was already a handful of people wandering around, and Henry was suddenly nervous again.
“Don’t be,” Ryan whispered into his ear, as if he could read Henry’s thoughts.
“Don’t be what?”
“Nervous. You’ll be amazing. And besides, it’s only a local game. It’s not league or anything.”
“But I still don’t know how to play!” Henry said, noting the rising hysteria in his voice.
Ryan rolled his eyes, grabbed Henry’s, wrist and dragged him across to the clubhouse.
“Hey, Andy!” he called out, and Henry was somewhat reassured to see Stella’s partner leaning against the door of the clubhouse, playing on his phone. “I’m going to go set up and show Henry around,” Ryan said.
“Okay. No worries. Nice kit, Henry.”
It seemed appropriate for Henry to flip him off, so he did, and Andy laughed.
The playing field was fairly big and, to Henry’s surprise, circular. In the middle was a long, narrow strip that was made of an almost rubbery surface, in comparison to the grass that covered the rest of the playing area. He noted the rope that ran around the very perimeter of the field, denoting the edge of the playing area. This was the boundary, as Shenal had called it, that he needed to reach to score a “four” or “six.”
But Ryan was showing him the wickets.
“We’re batting first,” Ryan said. “So listen closely. You’re going to want to practice a few times to get the angle right, because your one job, your one job, Henry, when batting, is to protect your wicket.”
“I thought I needed to score?”
“You can’t score if you get bowled out with your first ball. Protect your wickets.” He picked up one of the bales, a round piece of wood about as long as his thumb. “If these hit the floor, then you’re out.”
Henry nodded but felt decidedly unsettled. “There’s too many rules,” he complained. “I’ll forget something and end up looking like an ass.”
“You won’t look like an ass,” Ryan said, smiling at him indulgently. “You’re last on the roster, so you’ve got plenty of time to watch and learn. And practice.”
Henry elected to watch first, even though Andy was waiting to pitch him a few balls and teach him proper batting technique. He claimed it was because he wanted to get an idea of what he was aiming for, but in reality, Ryan was out there, and he looked good, all focu
sed and intent.
And he was clearly good at the whole cricket thing, despite his protestations that it was only a hobby.
There was a small crowd assembled in the stands who seemed to be more interested in the sun and their picnic baskets than the game. Nevertheless, Henry found this more endearing than annoying, and they all clapped politely whenever Ryan produced a particularly spectacular move.
He was caught out, putting the score at forty-six to one, a good score, according to Andy, who patted him on the back as he took Ryan’s place.
“Do you want to do a few practice runs?” Ryan asked after he drank a bottle of water and wiped the sweat out of his eyes.
“Sure.”
There was a batting net behind the clubhouse, and Ryan led him around there and found a bat and spare ball to train with. It only took a few minutes for them both to realise that Henry needed some rather intense coaching before he took his turn on the pitch.
“Come here,” Ryan instructed and stood behind Henry, wrapping his arms around Henry’s and correcting his grip on the bat. “You want to knock it gently in a forward motion, not swing it,” he said, moving their twined arms back and forth.
“I suck at this,” Henry complained.
“No, you don’t. You just need to adjust the way you’re standing.”
Henry thrust his hips back and wriggled his ass into Ryan’s groin.
“Not quite like that,” Ryan said, laughing. He stepped away and back up to the front of the batting area.
They played until Andy came round the back to find them and call them back to the field.
“Are we all out already?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Andy said, “but I’ve just sent James in, and it won’t take him long to get out, so we need Henry warmed up.”
“I only understood 50 percent of that,” Henry said, and Ryan smiled, laying his hand on Henry’s lower back to gently guide him back to the stands. “Warm up,” Ryan said. “You’re up next.”
Andy was right. It didn’t take long for James to be dismissed from the game, and the kid jogged back to the clubhouse, accepting slaps on the shoulder in commiseration.
