by Eli Easton
You’ll go to Mennonite school or none at all. You don’t need to be exposed to a lot of worldly wickedness or subjects you’ll never need. I don’t know why you want to go in the first place. You can home school and help more on the farm, earn more money to put away. You don’t need all that learning to be a farmer.
But he stayed in school, at least until his father died, and he had no choice. Thank heaven his mother was on his side in that debate.
“Would you like to run with me sometime?” Christie asked. “Might be fun.”
David was startled by the question. He barked out a laugh. “Oh no. I’ll run the day you do farmwork.”
Christie cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a dare? I will if you will.”
David passed it off as a joke and changed the subject. They finished their meal without any further dangerous references to running.
But on Sunday, a rare night Christie didn’t bring a meal over, David ate leftovers in the quiet house and then found himself staring out into the night. There was a full moon, and it was fairly bright out. Before he could change his mind, he went upstairs, put on some long underwear, a pair of sweats, and some older tennis shoes. He slipped out of the house.
He jogged slowly down the driveway to the road to warm up, and then set the timer on his phone. It was a mile to the old stone bridge. Surely he could go that far. He’d be damned if he’d run with some young pup and look like a worn-out and tired old man.
He made it to the bridge in twelve minutes. He worked hard on the farm, but little of it was cardio. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and his heart pounded like an engine that needed oil or it would soon start smoking. But he made it. He hung over the side of the bridge, breathing hard and staring at the rushing water. The white foam glowed in the moonlight. That wasn’t bad, he told himself, not completely humiliating for someone who hadn’t run in twenty years. If he could practice for a few weeks and get down to a ten-minute mile for three miles, he might dare run with Christie Landon.
Why did he even want to, though? That was what he should be asking himself. In the past week, he’d shared four meals with Christie. That should be enough time spent in his company.
It still wasn’t quite enough.
Not enough for what?
The water coursing in the stream below was real—water over rocks. But nothing else felt all that real anymore.
He enjoyed Christie’s company; that was all. Looked forward to it. It was ages since he had something like… a friend? Someone to talk to. Why shouldn’t he run if he wanted to? If Christie wanted somebody to run with?
It wasn’t something to worry about, for goodness sake. It wasn’t a big deal. He turned and started back for the farm, running harder than before.
The next day David was in the barn checking on a pregnant heifer he’d confined when Christie appeared at the half door to the stall.
“Hi.” David felt his heart lift like it always did around Christie. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Hi.” Christie smiled back. “Who’s this?”
“This is a very pregnant mama-to-be.”
“Does she have a name?”
David hesitated. The truth was he named all the cows in his head because it was simply easier to keep track of them with a name rather than “the reddish one” or whatever. But some farmers would find that ridiculous.
“Buella,” he admitted. He palpitated her stomach.
“Holy cow! No pun intended.” Christie’s eyes got wide as he got a good look at her massively swollen udders. “She looks like a balloon about ready to pop. Those udders are ginormous.”
“Yeah. This is her first calf, and her body’s reacting hard to the hormones. She should still have a few weeks go to, but with her this swelled up, it’s safer to separate her ’til then.”
“What do you do if she doesn’t go into labor on her own?”
David smiled at the naive question. “Oh, she will. She’ll go when she and the calf are ready.”
Christie looked fascinated. He bit his lower lip, eyes on Buella.
“Come on in if you want.”
“Really?” Christie looked delighted. He quickly figured out the door latch, let himself in, and shut it tight behind him. He came over through the fresh straw David had put in the stall. This was a small pen he used when one or two animals had to be separated from the herd, so Christie didn’t have to walk far. He was wearing tall rubber boots, David noticed, which was good. Chances were if you walked into a cow’s stall, you’d walk out with a little bit of nature on your shoes, no matter how recently it had been cleaned.
Christie looked at Buella, and she looked at him. She was a bit irritated, probably because she felt lousy. She shook her head, but when Christie reached out a hand, she sniffed it and let him pet her nose. She relaxed under the touch.
“Best to scratch her up here.” David demonstrated behind her ears. “If you touch her face, you encourage her to head butt you the way cows greet each other. Believe me when I say a cow head butting you is not something to be desired. They don’t know you’re not as strong as they are.”
“No, that doesn’t sound like an outcome to be desired.” Christie petted her behind the ears.
“So what can I do for you?” David felt carefully around Buella’s sides, trying to determine the size of the calf.
“Actually I was wondering what can I do for you. Something that involves lifting and sweating, hopefully.” He waggled his brows.
David snorted. “You know I was joking about you doing farmwork. You’ve got enough on your plate, what with your artist job and all the cooking you do.”
Christie shrugged. “I’ve been at the gym in town for a month, so I had to decide whether or not to renew my membership. I wasn’t crazy about the place, to be honest. I don’t exactly fit in there. So I figured I might as well save the money. Is there something I can do that would require muscles for an hour or so? If I run without any weight-lifting, my upper body gets too lean.”
He spoke a little fast, like that time he proposed sharing meals and meal costs. He sounded worried David would say no. David couldn’t see a single reason why he would, though.
“I’d be happy to put you to work. I can’t guarantee you’ll get the same results as the gym.”
Christie eyed David up and down. “Your body looks good to me. I’ll take my chances.”
David blushed down to his toes. Literally he felt the soles of his feet flush hot inside his boots. He turned his back on Buella and Christie and wiped his face with the crook of his arm, trying to hide his reaction. Surely Christie was only looking at him objectively. But it was a long time since anyone looked at his body like that, and it stirred up more than just embarrassment. “There’s a, um, delivery of feed bags that could be binned. They’re fifty-pound bags.”
“Perfect. Just show me where.”
David led Christie out of Buella’s stall to the back of the barn where the feed guy had dropped off a hundred large bags of a grain mix. “These get moved downstairs, opened up, and dumped into that large green bin next to the cow stall.”
“You got it.” Christie squatted down, picked up a bag, stood, and put it on one shoulder. “You realize this means you’ll have to run with me, though.”
David rubbed the back of his neck. He’d never admit in a million years he’d been practicing for just that. “Maybe I will. Soon.”
“This weekend?” Christie pushed in that persistent way of his.
David sighed. He could easily put Christie off, but the truth was, he had a hard time saying no to any opportunity to spend time with Christie. Besides, his run to the bridge was already down to ten and a half minutes.
“Yeah, all right. I’m gonna ruin your pace. You know that.”
“I’ll survive. It’s just one run.” Christie looked quite pleased with himself as he carried the bag off into the barn.
David wondered if one of anything would ever be enough for Christie Landon.
The first
time David came over to run with Christie, it was early November. They did an easy-paced five miles at eight in the morning, which was early for Christie, but apparently David had already done a bunch of chores by then.
Christie took David along his usual route. It went around some neighborhoods and along the backside of the town’s quaint main street. Christie wore compression tights and an Old Navy thermal half-zip, but David’s sweats were the old-fashioned kind—like something Sylvester Stallone wore in Rocky. He looked good in them, though. Manly. He had sexy narrow hips with a small belly. The sweatpants hung just right off those hip bones and over his round ass. Not that Christie was staring. Much.
They didn’t talk a whole lot. Christie got the feeling David was focusing on his gait and breathing, so he didn’t want to distract him. He was a good runner, not fast, but steady and solid. The few times he started to breathe too hard, Christie slowed down.
They got back to Christie’s place in just over an hour.
David was wearing at least two layers under his sweatshirt, but his front and back both had a deep V of sweat, and he panted, head hanging over his knees, in Christie’s front yard.
“This is… I should….”
Christie bent one leg up behind his back to stretch it. “What’s wrong? You okay?”
David nodded, nostrils flaring as he tried to catch his breath. “Cut your grass. Needs it.”
Christie laughed. “Stop judging my pathetically long grass. You’ll make me self-conscious.”
David gave him a disbelieving look, as if to say, You made me dress like this and run with you, and you feel self-conscious?
Christie rolled his eyes. “You did good, old man. Ran like a pro. Come in while I make a pot of coffee.” Christie led the way inside and headed right for the sink. He poured them both a glass of cold water and handed one to David before he went to the coffee machine. Water after a run was necessary, but coffee was what he craved. “I haven’t been able to get Aunt Ruth’s mower to run. It’s ancient, and apparently they no longer make the arrowheads or stone gears or whatever that it needs.”
David drank his water down in one long, mesmerizing draught. He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “I’ll come over with my rider mower and do it. It’ll take no more than a half hour.”
“You don’t have to do that. You already fixed the windows in my kitchen and my showerhead.”
“Gotta pay you back somehow for all the meals.”
“You do pay me.”
“Money. You’ve also earned the milk of human kindness.”
David’s eyes twinkled with humor. Christie smiled and turned away, trying to banish the lingering image of David’s throat as he drank the water. He fussed with the coffee pot. David was joking around more lately, and that was a good sign. He was so serious and solemn when they met, maybe even depressed.
My father was not a happy man. Maybe depression ran in the Fisher family. Only David didn’t seem depressed now.
Christie started the coffee dripping. “You just feel sorry for me because I don’t know how to do anything.”
“You know how to do lots of things, just not stuff that requires a screwdriver.”
“Mmm.” Christie turned and leaned back against the kitchen counter.
The coffee percolated with pops and hisses. David stood there in the kitchen in that gray sweatshirt, all sweaty and rosy -cheeked from the cold. His brown eyes were warm and his lips quirked in a smile. His close-clipped beard gave him a scruffy vibe, and his hair had gotten a little longer at the nape and curled against his ruddy neck, damp with sweat.
And suddenly Christie wanted him so badly it ached. He wanted to take a step forward and touch David, wanted to press up against that hot, sweaty body, feel the hungry slick of his lips. The pain of frustrated longing was sharp. His body reacted to the rush of lust in other ways as well. He turned back to the cupboard and started opening up doors randomly, as if looking for cups. Dear Lord, he so did not need an erection in these spandex tights.
Behind him he heard a chair pull out from the table. David had backed off. Thank God. Christie pulled out two mugs, his hands numb from the sudden evacuation of blood to parts south.
“Hey, mind if I grab the coffee to go? I need to get back for the dairy pickup.”
“Sure.” Christie pulled out a travel mug. By the time he’d filled it and put in a dollop of milk the way David preferred, he had his body under control. He turned and offered it, his face carefully blank.
“See you at six?” David asked. He was avoiding Christie’s eyes, though. Had he guessed?
“Sure. I was going to do shrimp and grits, New Orleans style.”
“Can’t wait.” David gave him a brief glance and a smile and was out the door.
Once he was gone, Christie banged his head against the fridge. God, he was way too young to be this horny and frustrated with no relief in sight. But he wasn’t sure he had a solution—at least nothing but a long shower and his good right hand.
“I’m glad things are going so well for you and Billy,” Christie told Kyle over the phone. And I’m not jealous at all.
“Me too. Hey, we want to go to Cancún in February. You in?”
Christie opened his fridge and scanned the contents. He needed something light for lunch—a salad would do. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be a third wheel, Ky.”
“You wouldn’t be! Come on, we’re an old married couple now. It’s not like we think of nothing but sex.”
“That’s not what you just told me.”
“I said the sex was amazing, not that we do nothing else. Come on, I miss you, and Billy would love to see you too. Maybe we can find a fourth.”
Christie grimaced. “No, that would be weird. It would be like you were setting us up, and there we are stuck on vacay staring at each other if it doesn’t work out….” Christie pulled out a bag of spring mix greens and a container of leftover Cajun red beans from the fridge and shut the door with his foot.
“What about David? Maybe your he-man farmer would like to go along.”
The idea of David in Cancún provoked a wistful pain somewhere in the region of Christie’s heart. “I wish. But I told you it’s not like that. We’re just friends.”
“So? Friends can go to Cancún together. Friends can even end up getting frisky together. In Cancún.”
“Yeah, not going to happen. Anyway, he can’t leave the farm.”
Christie heard Kyle sigh over the phone, and his voice grew serious. “Okay, so just you, then. Please think about it? I’m worried about you, babe. It would be good for you to get away with us for a week, be around your people. I worry that you’re getting attached to this straight farmer, and you’ll end up hurt—physically or otherwise. You said you don’t think he even realizes you’re gay.”
“David wouldn’t hurt me,” Christie said with conviction. “He’s not the violent type.”
“Or otherwise. He could still break your little heart.”
Christie felt his stubborn streak raise its sharp-toothed head. “He can’t hurt me if I have no illusions. And I don’t.”
“Yeah? Well, you should hear your voice when you talk about him. Oh, David!” Kyle mocked the words.
“Shut up, bitch.”
Kyle laughed. “Seriously, why don’t you check out some of the clubs around there? Or look on Grindr. I looked in your area the other day, and there were quite a few listings. Some cute ones too.”
“Why the hell are you looking on Grindr, Kyle?”
“For you, Christie. I looked for you. Jesus, I’m not going to cheat on Billy.” Kyle sounded defensive.
“You’d better not.”
“I won’t! We’re talking about you, not me.”
“Well, I’m not in the mood for a faceless fuck.”
Don’t I wish I were. He hadn’t touched another person since Kyle’s overdose in August. That was the longest he’d been celibate that he could remember. But he promised himself he was going to change his ways, a
nd the idea of hooking up with a total stranger on Grindr when what he really wanted was David…. It felt all kinds of icky. And that should set off major alarm bells right there.
“Fine.” Kyle changed the subject. “So how’s it going getting the house ready to sell?”
“Slow.” Between working, cooking, and spending way too much time over at David’s farm, Christie hadn’t made any progress toward finishing clearing his aunt’s things or getting the house ready for sale.
“Think you’ll be all done and back in the city by summer?” Kyle pushed.
“By summer? Sure.” That sounded far enough away to Christie. He did need to get on with things. And he would after the holidays. “Hey, sweets, I need to get going. I have to get back to work. I have to start on a new campaign this afternoon, and I’m cooking tonight.”
“Okay. But please promise me you’ll try to get out and meet some gay men, all right? You’re spending too much time with He-who-shall-not-be-touched.”
God, if Kyle knew how much time he was actually spending with David, he’d have a fit. “Okay. I will!”
“Bye, brat! Call me soon.”
Chapter 8
The first snow of the year arrived on Tuesday, November 19. David walked out of the farmhouse at 5:00 a.m. to find an inch already on the ground and thick, fat, fluffy wads falling heavily. The forecast was for six to eight inches, but it looked like that was going to be conservative. This was snow.
He felt inexplicably lighthearted about it. He loved snow as a kid, but as he got older, it became more of a burden than anything—plowing the drive, losing access to the back of the barn, freezing water pipes, worrying about the livestock getting mired in the stuff. But today… today he was in a good mood, and he was willing to concede it was magical.
Christie was supposed to come over to make authentic Italian pizzas tonight. David was looking forward to it. He’d start a fire in the woodstove in the kitchen later. It would feel cozy in the house with the fire inside and the snow outside. He mused about it as he went about his morning chores. He also thought about the chicken dumpling soup Christie had brought over the night before. It was so tasty. He had enough left over for another big bowl for lunch.
