by Dakota Flint
A thought occurred to me, and I walked over to the oak dresser and picked up Simon’s watch sitting in the change tray. Holding the watch our dad had given Simon on his eighteenth birthday, I closed my eyes.
After a few moments resting my head on the edge of the dresser and clutching that watch, I set it back down and looked over at Wade. Still sleeping. As quietly as I could, I walked out, shutting the door softly, and went downstairs.
Looking at my stiff and muddy Levi’s with distaste, I snagged a pair of Wade’s from the laundry and stuffed my feet into my boots with a wince. I made sure not to slam the front door on my way back to the bunkhouse.
I slipped inside, grateful nobody else was up yet—though they be would any minute—and made my way to the shower, hoping to clear my mind. And if that didn’t work, there was always mindless labor, like mucking stalls.
That was actually where Wade found me almost two hours later.
Well, I assumed it was Wade standing in the entrance to the stall I was working in, but I didn’t turn around to visually confirm. Billy or Joe would have said something, probably called my name to get my attention. Mack was working on his truck but wouldn’t have just stood there watching me work either, so that just left Wade. I was a regular Sherlock.
Not wanting to examine why, I decided to wait Wade out, keeping my back to him to see how long he would stand there without saying something. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see the look on his face or anything.
“What do we do now?”
I finally turned around, looking somewhere over his left shoulder, and said, “Well, I’m going to finish these stalls. You can help if you want. Then I have some fence to fix, cattle to move, a house to scrub, a trip to town to make. And no hope of a fairy godmother to send me to the ball tonight.”
“Dylan. No jokes.” At the tone of his voice, I focused on his eyes, wincing when I saw that his left eye matched my right and the left side of his jaw was a deep navy blue.
“Okay. No jokes.” I felt naked, more naked than I had last night washing each other. I considered his question. “I was serious, though, about the work. There’s a lot to do if you want to hang onto this place. Take your pick.”
“No, I meant about…us.” He looked like saying that was as foreign as it sounded to me.
“Wade. There is no us.” I made myself hold his gaze as I said that.
“But what about last night?” Now it was Wade who wouldn’t meet my eyes as he fiddled with the buttons on his blue checked shirt.
“Last night was—” I paused to gather my thoughts so I could say this right. “Was good. Nice. For you, for me. I think we both needed…something. But I don’t want to be your solution to lonely nights. I’d much rather you stick with random fucks for that.” I saw him stiffen, and I tried to remember that honesty was what this situation called for.
“I see.” Wade was clenching his jaw even though it must have hurt like hell, and his hands had dropped to his sides and curled into fists.
“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you do at all.” I hated doing this to him, but I wasn’t willing to be anybody’s crutch, not even Wade’s. I hesitated, wishing I could leave it at that, but he needed to hear it and I needed to say it. “I’m not Simon. And I’m not a substitute for him. I need you to see that.”
Wade was silent for a while, twirling his black hat between his hands. “So, what do we do now?”
I leaned on the pitchfork and forced my lips to quirk. “Well, I have to finish cleaning these stalls. And then there’s some fence to fix. One step at a time, Wade. Not gonna be easy, but we’ll do it.”
“Well, then, I better go find Mack.” Something about the way he said it, almost as if he was forcing a light tone, made me curious.
“Why?” I asked, suspicious and fighting down a real smile.
“To see if he’ll be your fairy godmother. Gotta get you ready for the ball tonight.”
I heard him chuckling on his way outside, and I laughed, feeling warm inside for the first time in a long time.
Chapter Seven
A week later, I woke up feeling optimistic. The ranch wasn’t so far gone that it couldn’t be saved with hard work, sweat, and love.
The same could probably be said of Wade.
A week of hard work was already doing him good, giving him color, removing the dark shadows from under his eyes. A few more weeks of good eating and ranch work, and Wade would be looking much better.
Wade’s body might start looking better, but his smiles still didn’t quite shine through to his eyes they way they used to. The night we fought in the rain had done Wade some good, but I had a feeling he might still need to talk. Being the stubborn cuss that Wade was, I figured he also wouldn’t do it voluntarily, or at least initiate it, so I saddled Rudy and Blitzen and went to go kidnap Wade for a ride.
I finally tracked him down in his office, and I stood leaning against the door jamb, one hand hooked in my front pocket, and stared at him. He was a good-looking man. Tall, strong, with lines carved into his face that said he had lived a hard life. But the lines at his eyes also suggested that Wade might be used to laughing. Or had been, anyways.
I cleared my throat and he glanced up. “Hey. Didn’t hear you come in.”
“Well, I thought about bringing the trumpeter with me, but he was busy with his one o’clock.” I walked toward the desk to see what he was working on. “How the books lookin’?”
Wade winced. “Lean. Very lean.”
I nodded. I had thought as much from the work I had done in here, but I hadn’t been absolutely sure. Math was never my strong point. “Fixable?”
“Yeah. Sure. Barring any major catastrophes, and as long as we all keep working hard, things should turn around. Be ready to start expanding the stock again in a few months and we might even be able to hire a couple more hands soon. We need the help.”
Wade kept saying “we” and I had to admit it sounded nice.
“Speaking of help, I convinced Mack to see his doctor again. He’s been suffering from dizzy spells, shortness of breath, and I’m wondering if maybe they can tweak his current medication. I’m taking him in for the appointment next week.”
“I should have noticed. I’m sorry.” Wade looked ashamed, and I hated the way his shoulders sagged.
“None of that now. Come on. Put that on hold for a couple hours, we’re goin’ for a ride.”
“Now? I should really finish this.” But he had perked up, as if he was already mentally out on the trails.
I said, “Come on. We’ve been working hard. We can spare a couple hours. I’ve already saddled Rudy for you.”
“Sure of yourself.” Wade didn’t sound like he minded.
“Always. Until I’m not.” I winked and walked out, confident Wade would follow.
At first we didn’t talk, just content to ride side by side toward the mountain peaks looming in front of us, the immediate world blanketed in green and dotted with wildflowers, mostly yellow and red blanket flowers. I hadn’t realized how far from relaxed Wade had been until I saw him sitting atop Rudy and breathing in the fresh mountain air. No wonder he had found solace in hours spent riding beneath the endless blue sky.
I wasn’t sure how to get the ball rolling, how to get Wade talking if he needed to. A few teasing lines came to mind, but I didn’t think that was the best way to get Wade to open up. In the end it was Wade who opened the starting gate.
“So, where’d you go?” Wade didn’t look at me, instead studied the mountain peaks.
I was tempted to ask when he was talking about, but I didn’t. “Made my way east. Worked odd jobs until they ran out and then I moved on. Stayed at motels mostly.”
“Did it work?”
Again I was tempted to play dumb. The hard part about forcing someone else to talk was that you’d have to talk too, in the process. But I wanted to help Wade, so I tried not to squirm in the saddle. “Yeah, some. At first it was just nice and mindless, looking around a
nd seeing only strangers made it so I didn’t freak out when I didn’t see Simon. The work was usually hard, for little pay, and I was glad. Anything that left me exhausted enough to sleep was a bonus.” I didn’t tell him about the nightmares. I looked over and could see him gripping tight to the reins. Yeah, he probably already knew about dreaming. “Mostly, it’s just time, Wade. It mutes it. Won’t ever go away, but time helps. Important to remember the good times too, and not just the end.”
We came to a clearing next to the creek, rife with thimbleberry and the pungent scent of sagebrush in the air. Dismounting to water the horses, Wade and I both walked to the edge of the stream, watching as our reflections rippled and swayed on the surface.
Finally Wade turned to me and said, “How do you move on and still remember? How do you keep from forgetting?” I barely caught the last part, almost lost amongst the trickles and gurgles of the water as it moved over and around rocks, fallen branches or any other obstacles in its way.
I pulled my hat off my head and thrust a hand through my hair as I searched my mind for the right answer. “Wade, moving on with your life doesn’t mean you’ll automatically forget all the good times. You lived with Simon for seven years. That’s seven birthdays, seven Christmases, seven years worth of nights going to bed next to him, and seven years worth of mornings waking up with him. Do you really think there is anything you can do to forget that?”
Wade seemed to think about this, his head bowed and his eyes hidden by the brim of his hat. So I continued. “The important part is to face forward. You can glance back all you want. In fact, it’s important to hold onto the times that you laughed with him, that you smiled with him, that you loved him. At least it’s been important for me. But you’ve got to face forward.” I felt like a fraud preaching advice I wasn’t even sure I could take myself. But I wanted to believe. “What do you want, Wade?”
“Huh?” Wade glanced at me, looking confused.
“What do you want? You must want something out of life.”
He seemed to think about that, and I kept quiet, content to wait for as long as he needed. “I… I want to smile. Want to laugh again and really mean it.” He paused, turned toward me until he was looking straight into my eyes. “Not sure how, but I want to be happy again.”
So simple. Two years ago this conversation would have been laughable. Now it was just life. It was so unfair. “We’ll figure it out. One day at a time. Simon loved you. He would want the same thing.”
Feeling drained all of a sudden, I turned and swung up onto Blitzen’s back. I only knew that Wade followed when he spoke again. “So, why’d you stay away?”
Surprised, I looked back at him. “I told you that the other night.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” Didn’t I? I went over what I remembered of the conversation we had while rolling around in the mud.
“No, I don’t think you did, actually. You told me why you left. Not why you stayed gone so long.”
“Oh.” And this was the tough part, trying to answer truthfully without revealing how I felt about him. “Well, it’s partly the same reason.” I knew he deserved more than that. “But it was also… Simon wasn’t here, but neither were you. Not really. I lost my brother that night. I was scared to come home and find my best friend still gone, too.”
That was all true, as much as I didn’t like talking about it. It was almost the whole truth even. In the way that winning a silver medal is almost like winning a gold, I guess.
The silence seemed to stretch between us, screaming, and I wondered if Wade heard the things I didn’t say. I could say it, just admit out loud that in addition to all the pain and heartbreak, I left because of guilt too. Guilt that after all the years I’d spent loving a man who wasn’t mine to love, loving a man that was my brother’s, I walked away from that crash and Simon hadn’t. I wasn’t sure of the logic, but I guess somewhere in there was the thought that it should have been me instead. Penance for my sin.
But I couldn’t say that to Wade and add another burden to the ones he already carried. I told Wade to look forward, to remember the love and take that with him into the future. Maybe it’s time I tried that too.
Finally, Wade said, “I’m glad you’re home now, though.”
I nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
After that, we didn’t talk the whole way back to the ranch house, and I let Blitzen’s plodding pace and the warmth of the late spring breeze moving against my skin lull me.
Chapter Eight
“Hey, I got that new action thug movie with Kevin Bacon. You haven’t seen it, have you?” I juggled the pizza, beer and movies I’d brought back from my trek into town. Wade was bent over peering into the fridge when I walked into the kitchen. I tried not to stare.
Wade helped me set things down, saving the pizza box from a near miss. “Nope. Sounds good. Let me warm up the pizza and put the beer in the freezer and I’ll meet you in the family room if you want to shower.” In that respect, living almost forty miles from town sucked. Pizza was never warm by the time you got home. I ran back to the bunkhouse to shower, oddly unwilling to use the one in Wade’s house.
We eventually got settled on the couch, pizza hot and beer cold just as God intended. The movie was pretty good, although not enough to distract me from Wade, sitting only a couple feet away. I could smell him, a hint of the pine-scented soap he used in the shower and something that was pure Wade.
Over the last three months, we had settled into a pattern of sorts. Working hard sunup to sundown had paid off, the ranch gaining enough ground back to support hiring two new hands and to start expanding the stock again. It was slow going, but it was steady.
Wade worked tirelessly beside me, and he smiled and laughed, and somewhere in the last month or so the look deep in his hazel eyes started to change. So very different from when I first got back to the Lazy G.
He still didn’t go to town much, only to run errands occasionally, and never for fun. So he and I stayed here on the weekends when the hands went to tear up the town. I usually rented a movie, or we watched TV, or we went for rides. It was nice. Peaceful.
And it was always the same at the end. We’d sit here in this moment of expectation, and I would wonder how he would look at me, if it would be with warmth as he usually did, or with the heat I was starting to see in his eyes more and more. There were times that I would sit next to him, scared to move, scared not move, not wanting to screw anything up, not wanting to miss out. And there were times when I was scared that we’d be stuck like this forever, poised on the brink of action.
I blinked and noticed the credits were already rolling. The silence seemed pronounced and I realized I missed something Wade had said. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, why don’t you move into the house, Dylan?”
Whoa. And what exactly did he mean by that? “Why? I always lived in the bunkhouse, even when Simon tried to cajole me into moving in here.” But it hadn’t felt right, not with the way I felt about Wade, so I always said no. And maybe Simon had known why, because he stopped pushing it after the first couple times.
“Well, with Simon gone…it just feels lonely here. There’s plenty of space, and you spend a lot of time here in the evenings,” Wade said.
I didn’t know how to answer that. I was tempted. Very tempted. But that didn’t mean I thought it was a good idea. I said, “I…well, that’s probably not a good idea, Wade. The guys might think…” I trailed off, oddly reluctant to verbalize what Mack and the hands might think. I wasn’t even sure if they knew I was gay, though they obviously never had a problem with Simon or Wade.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, they might…” Wade stopped and uttered what sounded like an uncomfortable laugh. Hesitating, he continued, “I was thinking I’d pack up Simon’s clothes this week. Maybe drop ’em off in town at the Goodwill. Thinkin’ about donating his art supplies to the high school.” Wade paused and met my eyes.
Surprised, I waited to see how much this would hurt. Even more
surprised, I realized that instead of the sharp pang I was used to, missing Simon had turned into more of a dull throb. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“I think so.” Wade cleared his throat. “I wondered if you’d help me.” He looked away, staring at the TV, which was replaying the DVD menu loop over and over.
I thought about it, about what it would mean. Waited for the dread to rush over me at the idea of getting rid of Simon’s things, more tangible proof that he was gone. But it wasn’t a tidal wave, not now, more like a gentle lapping against the shore. I looked at Wade still studiously avoiding my gaze and wondered what it felt like for him. Wondered why he asked me. I said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll help.”
Wade looked at me again, and I couldn’t miss the relief on his face. “Thanks. I’m not sure how… easy it will be. But it’s kinda nice, the idea of making somebody happy with stuff that was just sittin’ around.”
“Simon would have liked that idea.” He really would have, his heart had been so big.
Wade nodded and then was quiet. I debated getting up and heading back to the bunkhouse, but it was calm and restful sitting here so I decided to enjoy it before it turned into one of those awkward moments of expectation.
“Dylan, how come you’ve never gotten serious about anyone, never brought anyone to meet your family, never really dated the whole time I’ve known you?”
From calm and restful to panicking and hyperventilating in five seconds. I didn’t want to answer this question, couldn’t answer it. I’d been afraid for years that everyone would see, that Wade would see. I tried to stop, tried to tell myself it was wrong, he was my brother’s partner. But no matter how hard I tried, I never could stop loving Wade. And the only reason he hadn’t seen it, most likely, was because when Simon was alive, he was all Wade could see. As it should have been.
