by Anna Martin
In comparison, Henry hadn’t been able to get to a sun bed or a spray tan in months, so his body looked particularly smooth and pale. Where once this would have distressed him, for now he quite liked the au naturel look.
Casually, Ryan swung his arm around to press a flat palm to Henry’s chest, then gently stroked down to his navel and back up again. His eyes crinkled at the corners, smiling, while his mouth was otherwise occupied.
“You’ve got a real thing for my chest,” Henry said around his toothbrush.
Ryan spat and rinsed.
“Do I?”
Henry copied. “Yeah.”
When they were done, Henry washed off his brush and set it neatly aside, splashed water over his face, then leaned in to share a squeaky clean, minty kiss. He left Ryan to pee on his own and threw back the covers on the bed. It was too warm to sleep with them and his own personal hot water bottle beside him.
Ryan joined him again after a few minutes, scooping his body into a tightly curled spoon, and resumed an absent toying with Henry’s nipples.
“Maybe I do have a thing for your chest.”
“I told you you did.”
“Hmm.”
“I have a theory,” Henry said and yawned widely.
“Tell me quick, before you fall asleep.”
Henry snuggled back a bit farther, loving how the hairs on Ryan’s belly tickled his back. “It’s your way of reassuring yourself that I’m a man.”
“I’m not sure if it’s that,” Ryan said, then caught Henry’s yawn. “You’ve just got a really nice chest. It’s all hard and smooth and flat….”
“And completely unlike a woman’s.”
“That’s not why I like it.”
“Oh?”
Ryan kissed the side of Henry’s neck. “No. I like it because it’s so you.”
With the reassurance of his back to Ryan’s front and the resulting knowledge that Ryan couldn’t see, Henry allowed himself an indulgent grin. He started to drift toward sleep, lulled by Ryan’s slow, even breathing. Then, out of nowhere, a thought popped into his head and was out of his mouth before he could try and stop it.
“Do you really think I’m beautiful?”
He never fished for compliments. It was a steadfast rule in his book. Except this wasn’t meant to be fishing for a compliment; it was a genuine question.
Ryan’s lips curved into a smile—he could feel it pressed against his back.
“Henry, every moment I spend with you, you get a little bit more beautiful to me.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, knowing, and hating, how vulnerable this man made him. Then again, it was Ryan, and he wasn’t just talking about how Henry looked. For the first time, Henry was showing him everything, all the good, all the bad, and for the first time, someone had said it was beautiful.
Henry was panicking.
He kept his eyes glued to the intruder as he speed-dialled Ryan’s number and tried not to shake as it rang.
“Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up,” he chanted under his breath.
“Hello?”
“Oh, thank fuck for that,” Henry said.
“Henry?”
“Yeah. There’s a goat in my garden.”
“A what?”
“A goat, Ryan, a fucking goat.”
He could hear Ryan’s snort of laughter down the phone, and a little flare of anger ran through his veins.
“It’s not funny!” Henry exclaimed.
“What do you want me to do about it? I’m working.”
“Come and get it for me. Please, Ryan?”
The sound of the truck’s engine turning over came through the phone, and Henry felt guilty—just a tiny bit—at interrupting Ryan’s day.
“It’s probably from the gorge. There’s been goats on the hillside there for a while now. God only knows how it got down to you, though.”
“Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I’m coming. Sit tight, baby. Don’t make any sudden movements. It might attack.”
“I hate you,” Henry said and rang off.
It only took ten minutes for Ryan to arrive, telling Henry that he must have been up at the top end of the farm already, close to the road. He had, however, stopped to find suitable goat-catching equipment. Apparently, that included a hard hat, Hi Vis jacket, a mallet, and a really big net that Henry thought might have something to do with chickens.
“That’s not funny,” Henry said, standing on the front steps of Stretton House with his hands on his hips.
“It is a little bit,” Ryan said and leaned in for a kiss. Henry turned his head at the last minute, forcing the kiss to fall on his cheek instead. Ryan only chuckled—the bastard. “Okay, tell me where this goat is.”
“Out the back,” Henry said. “In my kitchen garden.”
Ryan nodded and followed Henry through the house to the kitchen, where they both stopped to look out on the neat rows of herbs and vegetables Henry had planted himself, under Ryan’s careful instruction. It was something of his pride and joy. And now there was a goat in it.
“Yup.”
“Yup what?”
“It’s definitely a goat.”
Henry snarled. Ryan held his hands up, unlocked the back gate, and pulled a handful of weeds out of the nearest patch of herb garden. He held the bunch of weeds out to the animal, calling softly, “Here, goaty, goaty, goaty,” mostly to annoy Henry. The goat gave him a baleful stare, then ambled over to munch on the treat.
After sweeping the animal into his arms, Ryan shot Henry a triumphant look, took it round the house, and secured it safely in the back of the truck.
“I’ll take it back down to the lady who owns the others,” Ryan said, turning back to Henry, who had now decided it was safe to leave the house. “If not, he can stay with Elton and Gaga until someone claims him.”
Henry nodded. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” Ryan said, smirking again now. “If you have any other goat-related catastrophes, you know my number.”
“Do you want to stay?” Henry offered. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
Ryan shot a look back to his truck, where Hulk was now warily regarding the new acquisition. “Better not,” he said. “I’ll come back around later, though? Give you a ride home.”
Henry nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”
When Ryan returned later in the afternoon, he was goatless, but had fishing equipment stacked in the back of the truck bed. Henry was ready to leave for the day. He had been hovering in the parlour since calling Ryan to let him know he was ready to leave. Now the thought of taking a walk seemed appealing.
“Hey,” Ryan called as he hopped down from the truck.
“Hi,” Henry said. “You got rid of the goat?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said with a smirk. “He’s gone forever. I promise. I picked up some of my fishing kit. I know the river runs down through back of the grounds somewhere. We used to go there when we were kids. Do you want to walk down and take a look?”
Henry nodded. “Sure.”
They divided up the kit, and Henry changed into the sturdy boots he kept at the house for when he was doing some of the dirtier jobs on site. It wasn’t too late in the afternoon. Early enough to be able to consider taking a nice walk, and a good opportunity for Henry to check out some of the grounds he hadn’t yet had a chance to explore.
“Did you come out here much when you were kids, then?” Henry asked as they walked. There was a definite path leading away from the house, down one side of the lawn that had probably, once, been immaculately manicured. Now it was overgrown with weeds, but the path was still easy to follow.
“Yeah, quite a bit,” Ryan said. “Me, Paul and Andy, and Stella, sometimes, some of the other kids from the village. Mrs. Richardson was an old lady even when we were children. I think she knew that we played on her property, but as far as I know, she didn’t mind.”
“I’m sure she didn’t. Did you ever break into the house?”
As they moved deeper into the grounds, the path became muddier and more overgrown. Henry could imagine how it must have been beautiful, but it had been many years since the house was at its best.
From the maps he’d found in the house, he knew that pockets of land had been bought and sold over the years, meaning that defining the actual boundaries of the property was difficult. He’d heard the river that flowed through the village cut through the grounds of the house somewhere, although he’d yet to have the chance to go and explore properly.
“I’ve heard that there’s a mausoleum out here somewhere,” Henry said as they walked on.
Ryan hummed. “Yeah. I’ve got a feeling it’s out over there.” He gestured to the east side of the grounds. “I’ve not really been around here for about fifteen years, though. I could probably find it if we had an afternoon to look for it.”
“It would take that long?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said and laughed. “Shit, I can remember one summer. I must have been about twelve or thirteen. Me and my mates decided we were going to explore and map the whole grounds. We built a fort and a tree house, and there’s some rope swings out over the river that we would use to throw ourselves into the water. The mausoleum used to freak us out, so we didn’t hang out there much.”
“I bet growing up here was awesome.”
“I suppose so,” Ryan said. “It didn’t feel like that when I was a teenager, though. We felt like we were out in the middle of fucking nowhere with nothing to do. The idea of growing up in New York City….” He shook his head.
“Nah, I dunno,” Henry said. “We had to be supervised 24-7. It felt that way, at least. The streets, back in the eighties, for a white Jewish gay kid? Yeah. Not fun.”
They turned off the main path, and Ryan pulled the branches of a low hanging tree back for Henry to duck under them, making sure they didn’t catch on the long fishing poles.
“Where the fuck are we?” Henry asked, laughing.
“Not far, now. This is where we used to hang out.”
Henry checked his watch. It was about a twenty-minute walk from the house, making it a good thirty minutes away from the gatekeeper’s cottage and the main road. He could imagine Ryan as a teenager hanging out here with a group of his friends. It was probably the sort of idyllic childhood he’d always dreamed of.
“Here we go,” Ryan said, leading Henry out into a small clearing at the edge of the water.
From the way the mud was trampled, it was clear that other fishers used the area. There was a small pile of rocks, which made the perfect spot to sit or to rest the poles, and the trees shaded the area from the worst of the sun.
It didn’t take long to set up the poles with bait, and Ryan wedged them expertly in among the rocks. For a moment, Henry balked at sitting in the mud and dirt in his nice jeans, then threw caution to the wind and perched on one of the rocks and leaned back on his elbows.
The smell out here—it was so fresh, so clean. Each lungful of air felt like it was clearing out years of city air from his lungs. Henry found he wasn’t worried about the idea of other people using the spot. There was part of him that wanted to put up fences and keep people out but another part that wanted to share this perfect little corner of the world with anyone who wanted a part of it.
“So, you like it out here?” Ryan asked.
“Mhmm,” Henry hummed lazily, tilting his face toward the sun.
Ryan took a seat next to him and leaned back. “I wanted to apologise.”
“What for?” Henry asked and cracked an eyelid open.
“When we first met. I treated you like shit.”
Henry closed his eye. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I do,” Ryan insisted. “I don’t… I’m not like that, normally. I was freaking out about my own feelings, because you’re a guy, because I’ve never felt like this about a guy before.”
“Really? You’ve never been attracted to another man, not ever?”
“Um… it’s not just physical attraction, though, is it?”
Henry felt a rush of something in his chest that he didn’t want to address. Not at all.
“I guess not,” Henry said quietly.
Ryan said nothing, looking out over the slowly moving water. They were right on the edge of the lake, where the river widened out and the banks were too far apart to be able to cross the water safely.
“I suppose there was this teacher, when I was in secondary school,” Ryan said eventually.
“There’s always a teacher,” Henry said wisely, glad that the conversation was moving on. “They’re safe, but you see them regularly enough to fuel the fire. The fire in your loins.”
Ryan snorted and swatted at Henry’s arm.
“This was supposed to be an apology,” he said. “You took over.”
“Sorry.”
“I just wanted you to know I don’t normally treat people like that. Not people I—people I care for. And it was out of order. So I’m sorry for that.”
“It’s okay,” Henry said. “Honestly. Believe it or not, I understand what it feels like to be confused about your sexuality. So yeah, you were a dick, but that’s okay, and you’re forgiven.”
Ryan let a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, and he leaned in, wrapped his hand around the back of Henry’s neck, and pulled him in for a gentle kiss.
“You seem to be taking it all surprisingly well,” Henry said when they moved apart.
“What, the whole going out with a guy thing, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Ryan shrugged. “Sometimes it’s fine, when it’s just the two of us. Sometimes it’s harder.”
“You can talk to me, you know,” Henry said. “I know it sounds weird, to talk to the guy you’re in a relationship with… about your relationship. But I’ve been there, I’ve gone through this before. So I kind of know what it feels like.”
Ryan nodded, so Henry knew he’d understood. Instead of responding, though, Ryan played with the end of the fishing line, adjusting it and giving it a few experimental tugs. Nothing seemed to be biting.
“I worry about what my parents will think,” Ryan said after a while, a long time after Henry had resumed his basking in the gentle sunshine. “Not that they’ll be assholes and disown me or anything, more about what they expect of me.”
“In what way?” Henry said without opening his eyes.
“Well, Stella has Jack, but he was a surprise baby, and I’m not sure if they’re planning on having any more. I know my parents adore him, and they’d love more grandchildren.”
“It’s not your responsibility to give them grandbabies, though.”
“I know. I think they were actually relieved when I said I wasn’t interested in having kids with Sarah. It wouldn’t have been the right decision for any of us. I worry about Jack; if I don’t have any children of my own and he’s the only one, then he’ll have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, he’d inherit both businesses.”
“Ryan,” Henry said firmly. “Chill. Jack is two years old, his biggest responsibility right now is packing away his crayons. If he’s the only kid between you and Stella, then so what? He can either stay here or sell the whole lot and retire to the Caymans.”
Ryan huffed a laugh.
“And being gay doesn’t mean the possibility of children is taken away from you,” Henry continued. “It means the possibility of raising a family in a one mommy, one daddy household disappears, but there are plenty of same-sex couples raising kids.”
“I know,” Ryan said, sounding frustrated. “I know all that. It’s just… I don’t know. A different vision of what I thought my future would look like. It’s not bad, just different, and I’m not great with change.”
Smiling indulgently, Henry rolled onto his side and pressed his lips to the first bit of Ryan he could get h
old of, which turned out to be the outside of his arm. Ryan’s skin tasted like suntan lotion and sweat.
“What else?” Henry asked.
“I worry—”
“You worry too much,” Henry interrupted.
“Shut up. I don’t want either of us to get hurt because of our relationship. Physically or emotionally. For a while I wondered if my business would suffer if I came out publicly, but I think I’ve got over that now. My biggest suppliers are the school and the pub, then the rest are contracts with local grocers who are tied into contracts. If they suddenly terminated them now, I’d get lawyers involved, which is messy, but Shenal said—”
“You asked Shenal?”
“Would you stop interrupting me?” Ryan said with a laugh. “Yes, I asked Shenal. I wanted to know what the situation would be, just so I know where I stand.”
“Does she handle your accounts?”
“Some of them,” Ryan said. “I like her.”
Henry let his fingertips trail through the cool water and considered taking his shirt off. There was a breeze in the air, though, and he didn’t think the weather quite warranted bare chests.
“Everything considered,” Henry said, “I think you’re coping with everything really well. Inside you, right at the core, you’re a good person. You’re a good man, Ryan,” he repeated, cracking an eye open. “I’m here for you just as much as you’re here for me.”
“Thanks.”
They didn’t catch any fish that afternoon, although that didn’t seem to matter. With the weight of a long-overdue apology lifted from his shoulders, Ryan seemed lighter, happy to joke and tell tall tales about the time he’d spent exploring the grounds of Stretton House.
Due to the long summer days, it wasn’t dark when they headed back to the farmhouse, but it was approaching dinnertime. With a fishing pole slung over one shoulder and a bag on his back, Ryan had a hand free to lace the fingers with Henry’s.
If Henry was surprised at this development, he kept it well covered, squeezing Ryan’s hand gently and swinging it as they walked. It was a warm evening, which invited all sorts of bugs. With the prospect of eating dinner at the pub, then spending a few hours getting steadily drunk on some of Stella’s finest offerings, he couldn’t find himself caring at all.
