by Jamie Lake
He tapped her name on the screen and took a deep breath that did nothing to calm his nerves. Fortunately, he’d had years of practice pretending to be something he wasn’t. At the moment, it was happy.
“Mom?”
“Casey!”
The joy in her voice made Casey feel both relieved and guilty. He hadn’t heard his mother sound that good in months. He smiled despite his nerves. “Hey, Mom. You sound good.” She laughed and the sound did more for him than anything else had in a long time.
“I got some of those fancy beans you wanted…” Hunter’s voice trailed off and he raised a hand in apology.
Well, almost anything, Casey amended. Just looking at Hunter made Casey feel better, safer. He watched the other man disappear into the kitchen while his mother filled him in on all she’d been doing since they’d last talked. This part was what he liked: the listening. He loved his mother and hearing about her life. No, the part he was dreading was coming up next, when the story stopped and the questions began. There was never any judgement or disappointment on her part, but Casey always ended these calls with a sick feeling the pit of his stomach and a cloud of depression that stayed with him for hours. He had a feeling this was going to be so much worse than usual. Not only did he have to keep up his lie about still having a job, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he also didn’t have a boyfriend or a home. She hadn’t known McDermott’s name, but he’d told her as much as he’d been able to, and she’d been happy for him. So, as much as he hated doing it, he lied to her, telling her how great everything was going, all the while, the knot in his stomach was growing.
When he heard her voice growing tired, he said his goodbye and promised to call her again soon. He ended the call and set the phone aside. He buried his face in his hands, not looking up even when he heard Hunter’s footsteps. The couch dipped as the other man sat down, but Casey couldn’t even manage a glance. It was always like this after talking to her. He hated himself for lying to her, for betraying her trust, for not being the man she thought he was, the man she deserved. His brother never would’ve treated her this way.
“I heard what you were sayin’ to your mom,” Hunter said.
Casey turned his head, not bothering to wipe away the tears that were burning in his eyes. “Please don’t lecture me about lying. I don’t think I could take it.”
“Wasn’t gonna lecture you.” Hunter didn’t seem offended by the assumption. The concern in his eyes was clear. “I was gonna ask why you felt like you had to lie in the first place. Sounds to me like she’s the type of woman who’d love you no matter what.”
“She is!” Casey snapped, then immediately felt bad. “Sorry. It’s not because I’m worried my mom wouldn’t love me if I told her about everything that’s happened.”
Hunter didn’t say anything, just looked at Casey and waited.
Casey looked down at his hands. McDermott had never wanted to hear him talk about this. The weight of a hand on his shoulder shocked his head up. Hunter’s cheek turned red under his beard, but he didn’t take his hand away, not for a few more seconds.
“You can talk to me,” he said. “I got you.”
Hunter’s words sent a sliver of heat through Casey, cracking the wall he’d erected. He opened his mouth, and everything poured out in a great rush. “I had an older brother, Stephen. He was eight years older than me and was just amazing. My dad left right after I was born, but I never missed out on anything because Stephen was always there for me. He watched out for me, and protected me as much as he could. On September eleventh, he was nineteen and a sophomore in college, studying medicine. He flew across the country as soon as the airports reopened, and spent a month in New York doing whatever he could. Two days after he came home, he enlisted in the army.” Casey swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in his throat. He turned away from Hunter, unable to continue if he kept looking at those compassionate blue eyes. “He did two tours over the next four years, and was going to re-enlist when he got back from the last one, but he never got the chance. Roadside bomb, two days before he was scheduled to fly out. He and six other soldiers were delivering medical supplies to a village. None of them made it back.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Hunter said. “But I don’t understand what that has to do with you lying to your mom.”
Casey figured he’d already gone this far. He might as well finish it. Besides, it felt better than he’d thought it would, sharing this. “I was fifteen when Stephen died, and he left some pretty big shoes to fill. Mom had always doted on us differently, Stephen being the oldest and me being the baby; but once he was gone, it was like I had to be enough for both of us. I had to be everything he was as well as everything I was supposed to be. But it wasn’t Mom who expected it of me. It was me.” He glanced at Hunter. “I can’t tell her that I’ve lost everything and the only reason I’m not sleeping on the streets is because someone took pity on me.”
“Hey.” Hunter gave Casey a little shake. “I don’t pity nobody. There’s a difference between sympathy and knowing someone needs help and pitying them. You ain’t here outta pity.”
Casey’s heart gave a funny little thump and he managed a wobbly smile.
“‘Sides,” Hunter continued, “you’ve still got two weeks before you need to get your shit together. You’ve come pretty far since you moved in. I got all the confidence in the world that you’re gonna be just fine.”
Casey’s stomach dropped and he tried not to let his sudden despair show on his face. Right. Two weeks to figure out how to contribute four hundred and fifty dollars.
He was so screwed.
_________ o _________
CHAPTER 15
Casey wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and squinted up at the bright spring sun. In the three weeks since he’d moved in, the weather had gone from shivering cold to blazing sunlight. Apparently now that all of the snow had melted and everything frozen was thawing, it was time to start repairing all of the things that had gone wrong over the winter. That was definitely something Casey had never thought about when he’d daydreamed about living in the country with McDermott. The priest could barely use a screwdriver and Casey wasn’t any better.
“You sure you want to do this?” Hunter looked down at Casey from where he was standing on the ladder.
“Yes.” Casey kept his voice firm as he tightened his grip on his hammer.
Some of the shutters had been knocked loose over the last couple months, so when Hunter had mentioned he was going out to nail them back into place, Casey had seized the opportunity. What better way to show that he was self-sufficient than to know how to do work around the house? He’d already learned how to groom Dollie and was actually quite fond of the horse. Granted, he wasn’t fond of the smell when Hunter had him helping muck out the stall last week, but there was something to be said about the physical labor. Casey had always been slender, but over the last couple weeks, he’d noticed that his body didn’t seem as soft as it had before. There was a hardness to him, and definition to his muscles. He was nowhere near as strong as Hunter, but he was secretly pleased with how his physique had changed. By the time his high school reunion rolled around, he wouldn’t look like the same skinny, scared kid who’d been the butt of everyone’s jokes.
“You’re gonna want to pay attention when you’re swinging that hammer.” Hunter sounded mildly amused.
Casey nodded. Right. Concentrate. He’d thought he’d picked something easy to start with, but it turned out that getting a nail to go straight into something wasn’t as easy as it looked. He got the first two in fine, but just as he was getting ready to swing for the third nail, he happened to see movement out of the corner of his eye. Hunter had lifted his shirt to use the bottom of it to wipe off his face, exposing thick, corded muscle and that tattoo. Casey had the sudden urge to run his tongue across…
Pain exploded through his thumb and he shrieked, dropping the hammer. He swore, shaking his hand as tears s
prung to his eyes. He didn’t realize Hunter was down off the ladder until an arm went around his shoulders. If he hadn’t been in so much pain, he would’ve taken the time to better appreciate the gesture, but as it was, he just let Hunter lead him into the house.
“I got you,” Hunter said as he opened the screen door. “It’s gonna be okay. I got you.”
Casey sank into the chair, biting his bottom lip as he struggled to keep from actually crying. He watched Hunter walk to the freezer and take out a handful of ice. A moment later, Hunter was back at the table, the ice wrapped in a towel.
“Here.” Hunter reached for Casey’s injured hand.
Casey flinched when Hunter’s rough fingers brushed his skin, but it wasn’t from pain. He forced himself to focus on the hurt rather than the pleasant heat that was traveling across his nerves from the place where Hunter touched him. Then the cold from the ice pack began to seep into his hand, bringing with it some relief.
“I doubt you broke anything,” Hunter said. He’d retracted his hand, allowing Casey to hold the pack in place. “But that nail might come off. Won’t be able to say for certain just yet.”
Casey nodded. Now that the pain was fading to a dull throbbing, embarrassment was creeping in. What had he been thinking?
“Everybody’s banged their thumb at least once,” Hunter said, the tone of his voice saying that he’d guessed what Casey was thinking. “It’s kind of a rite of passage.”
“Easy for you to say,” Casey said. “You were probably five when you did it. Not twenty-five. It’s humiliating not to be able to do something a child can do.”
Hunter gave Casey a puzzled look. “You think this stuff just came easy for me?”
Casey shrugged. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he supposed that was the way he felt. Hunter was the kind of guy who probably hadn’t spent most of middle school hoping to avoid getting shoved into his locker, or had teachers trying not to laugh when kids mimicked his voice and way of speaking.
Hunter leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face, as if he were weighing some choice. After almost two full minutes, he spoke, “I suppose I didn’t have the same problems as you growing up, but there are other things people can be just as cruel about.” He ran his fingers through his hair and scowled, although Casey knew the expression wasn’t really directed at him. “School was tough for me. Always was. Taking care of animals, farming, fixing stuff, all that I learned easy, but numbers and writing and reading? All that was hard for me. I never sounded smart, so everybody assumed I was stupid. I got put in the dumb classes. I was big enough kids didn’t try to push me around, but they’d talk about things and act like I couldn’t understand. And some of the time, I didn’t. A group of ‘em once came up and started talkin’ about this book, and I pretended I’d read it. They let me keep going, all the while laughin’ at me. I found out it wasn’t real when I told my teacher I was gonna do a book report on it. She almost laughed at me too. I could see it in her eyes.”
He fell silent and Casey waited for him to continue. When it became obvious that he was done, Casey asked, “What happened?”
“What do you mean what happened?” Hunter asked. “I took the dumb classes and graduated. Never bothered with school again. Would’ve dropped out if I hadn’t promised my mama on her deathbed that I’d finish school.”
Casey stared. He’d never imagined that big, strong Hunter would be insecure about anything. In just the short time he’d known Hunter, he’d come to think of the other man as indestructible, almost a force of nature.
“Anyway,” Hunter cleared his throat, “don’t matter now. I have my own place, work my own land, and I don’t care about what those hoity-toity pricks from high school think about me.” He gave Casey a look that somehow managed to be tough and vulnerable at the same time. “That’s what this means.” He touched the space above his heart and Casey knew he meant the tattoo. “It means believe. Reminds me to believe in myself, ‘cause that’s what matters.” He stood. “Keep that ice on your thumb 'til it melts.”
Casey watched as Hunter went back outside. The pain in his thumb had faded to the back of his mind as he processed what had just happened. Hunter had opened up to him, shared something more personal than anything McDermott had ever told him. Even when the two of them had been in high school together, stealing kisses when they knew what it would mean if they were caught, McDermott had never really shared. The night, when he’d given his virginity to the young man he loved, he had known, deep down, that there was a part of McDermott that he’d never know, no matter how hard he tried. McDermott had always said that revealing too much made you look weak in the other person’s eyes. Now, Casey realized that wasn’t true. Hunter didn’t look weak. If anything, he seemed stronger than ever, having overcome the stigma he’d been given. The vulnerability Casey had sensed hadn’t been about Hunter’s past, but about how Casey would take the story, if he would use it for further pain.
Casey shook his head. The idea that he could do anything to hurt Hunter was ludicrous. Hunter was his friend. The first real friend he’d ever had. Still, he looked where his skin was still tingling from Hunter’s fingers: what he was feeling wasn’t mere friendship. It wasn’t even plain old lust, although there was plenty of that when Casey looked at Hunter. This was something deeper and much more frightening.
Casey had a bad feeling that he was falling in love with Hunter.
_________ o _________
CHAPTER 16
His thirty days were up and none of the places where he’d put in applications had called. Casey had been doing everything he could around the house to prove to Hunter that he wasn’t freeloading, but as his deadline approached, his fear grew. If Hunter kicked him out, Casey didn’t know what he would do, or where he would go.
He hadn’t slept at all the night before, trying to think of something that he could use to convince Hunter to let him stay. Finally, just as the sun was coming up, his near-feverish brain had come up with something so crazy that it just might work. Or, at least it had seemed like a good idea an hour ago. Now that he was showered and getting ready to go downstairs, he couldn’t imagine this working. He reminded himself of what Hunter had said about the tattoo and believing in himself, but it didn’t work. He just couldn’t find enough to get rid of his self-doubt.
He sighed. He didn’t really have much of a choice about presenting his proposal to Hunter. It was all he had. Something was better than nothing. Besides, it wasn’t like Hunter would kick him out twice for proposing something stupid. He hurried down the stairs before he could lose his nerve, the paper clutched in his hand. Even though he’d been up all night, Hunter still beat him to the kitchen. Bacon and eggs were already on the stove. They were one of the few things Hunter could cook.
“Morning,” Hunter said.
Casey nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a gulp before it cooled, scalding his tongue. He sat down, gathered his courage, and started to speak. “It’s been thirty days, and I’ve been trying to find a job, but no one’s hiring. I know you said I needed to contribute, so I made a list.” He smoothed the crumpled paper out on the table. “I figured if you'd let me take over all of the responsibilities of cooking and shopping, I can save you at least fifty to a hundred dollars a week by cutting out all of the prepared and processed food. Since the food will be healthier, it could make you more productive, which would allow you to get more work done.” He knew he was reaching on that one, but Hunter didn’t stop him. In fact, Hunter didn’t do anything but keep at the bacon and eggs. Casey kept going. “If you add to that all of the cleaning responsibilities, that frees up more time for you, again allowing you to get more work done. I can also run all of the errands, and help with any extra projects as you need.” He pushed the paper towards the other side of the table. “I went online and checked all of the studies that put a monetary value to household work. What I’m offering to do actually comes out to over five
hundred dollars a month, and that isn’t counting the grocery money saved.”
Hunter carried two plates from the stove, both loaded up with bacon and eggs. He set them down, one in front of Casey, the other in front of his own seat. He sat down, then glanced at the paper as Casey waited in silence. Finally, Hunter shrugged. “Sounds fair to me.” He turned his attention to his food as Casey tried not to show just how relieved he was.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice tight.
Hunter nodded. “While you’re cooking, I wouldn’t mind a hamburger every now and then.”
Casey nodded. “Of course.” If it meant he could stay, he’d cook Hunter a hamburger every single night. Even if his food was as mediocre as McDermott had claimed, he could still manage a hamburger, and anything was better than the garbage Hunter had been eating.
Casey shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth, resisting the urge to look up when he felt Hunter’s eyes on him. He’d never been able to do that before: sense when someone was looking at him. With Hunter, though, it seemed like every passing day made Casey more aware of the other man’s presence. He knew it was dangerous to stay, but the thought of leaving tore him up. He could keep it platonic.
Hunter’s fingers brushed against his as they both reached for the salt at the same time. Casey felt a jolt travel up his arm, tightening his stomach in a very non-platonic way. His hand tightened around his fork and he told himself again that he could do this. Hunter was his friend, nothing more, and it didn’t matter how much he wanted things to be different: it wasn’t possible, and he was just going to have to live with that.
_________ o _________
CHAPTER 17
Hunter swung into the hardware store’s parking lot and zipped aggressively into a space. The tires squealed and rang throughout the air. That is totally Hunter, Casey thought. The two of them hopped out of the dingy old pickup truck and headed inside. It was actually the first time he’d ever stepped foot in a store like that. Casey wasn’t exactly the outdoorsy type, but the more he hung out with Hunter, the more he began to appreciate it.
