Life on Pause

by Erin McLellan

  “I’m sorry,” Niles said again. He took a step back, tripped over the shredded tire, and fell against the side of his car.

  Rusty decided it was about time for him to disappear before he made Niles any more uncomfortable, but then Niles laughed—a sad, barbed little laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

  “Dude, you would not believe the day I’ve had.” Niles slumped against his car. “I thought the worst part of my day was a douche-hat coworker talking bad about me to museum patrons. I wasn’t prepared for this disaster.”

  “Hey, I think this was a pretty successful tire change, Niles. I mean, you did most of the work, and I stood around like eye candy. I call that ‘being productive.’ Now I don’t feel guilty about spending the rest of the night watching Netflix.” He smiled at Niles, and Niles returned it, all hesitant and shy. The guy’s historical getup was dusty from the road, like he’d come from a cattle drive—if it were a cattle drive of over-tall twinks—and Rusty was tempted to help him brush it all off.

  Niles gathered up his tools and the flat tire and put everything in his trunk. It was time to go, but Rusty didn’t want to waste an opportunity here. At the very least, Niles was a man who was his age, and it would be nice to actually have a friend who wasn’t one of the women Jackie worked with at the salon or a parent of Margo’s classmates. Or Todd.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around, Niles? You ever go to O’Donnell Ducks?” It was the only bar in Bison Hills and within walking distance of Rusty’s apartment.

  “Uh, no. Ducks isn’t exactly my thing. Remember? No social butterfly here.” Niles toed at the dirt around his tire for a couple of pregnant seconds. The rejection hit Rusty like a kick to his shins. He took a few steps back and opened his mouth to say goodbye, but then Niles glanced up at him, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “It was nice to meet you, Russell,” he whispered.

  And the way Niles said his full name, all soft and sweet, made Rusty wish he’d get to hear it again.

  Niles plopped down on his front porch and pulled out his cell phone. He had the worst gaydar in the history of gaydar. He wanted to call his best friend, Victor, to walk him through using Grindr again to see if he could find Rusty on there, but Victor was on a cruise right now. Well, he was constantly on a cruise because he worked on a cruise ship. Niles always thought of it as if Victor were on vacation, but he wasn’t. He was at work. Niles would try to catch him on Skype over the weekend, but that would not help with his current predicament—the mystery of Rusty’s sexuality.

  And fuck! He had been in his stupid historical clothing like a total nerd! It was worse than those nightmares where he was naked in a crowd of people.

  Rusty had been a total boner machine, too. Big and broad with chest hair peeking out from the V of his button-down. Surely his hair had been too styled for him to be straight: parted on the side and swept off his face with an undercut on the sides and back, like he was a playboy from the 1940s. But edgier.

  Plus, Rusty had been wearing really nice shoes. Which, okay, Niles shouldn’t judge someone from appearance alone, but Rusty had also been super nice. Straight guys were never that kind to him. Not that straight men weren’t capable of being nice, but they didn’t go out of their way to make him feel comfortable. Normally, he could practically see them shouting No Homo! with their eyes, and Rusty hadn’t been like that.

  Maybe Rusty had a horrible gaydar!

  Oh hell, that would be worse.

  Then there was the weird handholding thing, which had totally been Niles’s fault. He’d held on like a complete creeper. If Rusty were straight, he’d probably thought Niles was hitting on him! Nausea swept over him so quickly he had to put his head between his knees.

  It was almost full dark now, and the August air smelled like grass and leaves and dirt and petrol. Like Oklahoma. He could barely make out the junk littering his parents’ front yard: rusted car parts, a broken tire swing, empty flowerpots, and memories. He should clean the yard or entice a pack of pickers to come and haul all the scrap away, but it was his parents’ stuff, and he wasn’t prepared to part with it yet. Months ago, he’d started to sort through their belongings inside the house. He’d cleaned and imagined loading up and carrying big, bursting garbage bags to the Goodwill. But he hadn’t been able to go through with it. Hell, he could hardly enter his parents’ bedroom. It still smelled like chewing tobacco and antiseptic Bag Balm.

  But the least he could do was make the yard seem hospitable. String twinkle lights from the trees and weed his mom’s flowerbeds. Make it the type of place where a nice man might want to spend time with him. The type of place he wouldn’t be embarrassed to point out to a stranger on the side of the road.

  Oh, geez. Pathetic much? One kind, burly bear and Niles was planning their freaking wedding. He needed to get a grip.

  Or get laid.

  But holy Betsy, that sounded like too much work. Driving to Tulsa, hanging out at a bar where he felt like the country bumpkin, and pretending to know what the hell everyone was talking about, and for what? The privilege of blowing some young professional who wouldn’t even kiss him? No, thanks. Palmy Lee Jones and fancy lube—that would have to do.

  Niles pulled himself up off the porch and went inside to change out of his work outfit. The pants bore patches of road filth, and he was going to have to handwash them, which served him right for buying authentic historical clothing.

  Everything would be easier if he weren’t such a fucking nerd.

  While he was changing in his childhood bedroom—which he should admit was just his adult bedroom—he thought back to Denny the Douche-canoe. His hurt feelings seemed almost silly now. The sick drop of shame. The sting of tears in his eyes at being made the butt of yet another joke. Inconsequential—the lot of ’em.

  Because nothing, absolutely nothing, could compare to the mortification of a man as hot as Rusty seeing him in fringe.

  Niles threw his dirty clothes on the floor and fell back onto his bed in his briefs. His gaze settled on the framed picture of his parents on his bedside table.

  His mom, with her pale skin and light eyes and curly hair—Irish, through and through—and his dad, all commanding in full Cheyenne and Arapaho regalia before a Fancy Dance competition. They had been such beautiful people. Strong and sturdy and so young in the picture. Younger than him.

  Niles had been a surprise. “The best surprise,” his mom used to say. She’d been almost forty when he was born, and his dad only a couple of years younger. His parents had been told a baby wasn’t in the cards.

  He’d always worried he wasn’t the son they’d hoped for. Dreamed of. But Mom had been perfectly willing to smack that notion out of his head. When they found out he was gay—not like he’d hidden it well—neither had batted an eyelash, and his dad had given him a long lecture on the history of the Two-Spirit. So yeah, he was pretty lucky. His parents—his mom, now gone, and his dad, alive but gone in a totally different way—had been great.

  But Niles, as much as he loved them, didn’t want to see them right now. He tipped the picture over, opened his toy drawer, and grabbed the lube.

  As Niles filled up a small horse trough with ice and free bottled water, he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to work at a museum where he didn’t have to spend lots of time outside in the heat. It was a Saturday and there was less staff, so he was on heat-exhaustion duty when a thirteen-year-old emo kid in all black had fainted right in front of her parents. It might have been the end of August, but it was still a hundred degrees in the shade. He’d gotten the teenager and her family into a cool air-conditioned room, and had provided ice water and cold towels until the girl felt better. And now he was trying to prevent a repeat by putting out cold water for the rest of the guests.

  Niles usually liked working on Saturdays because he didn’t have to go full Oregon Trail. He wasn’t the storyteller on Saturdays, and seldom did scheduled reenactments or demos on the weekends, so he only needed to wear cowboy boots, trousers,
a Western-style shirt, and a hat. He liked to pretend he looked almost ordinary in this understated historical garb, like he was going two-stepping at the bingo hall.

  Ain’t no thing. Just my everyday redneck attire.

  Except nothing was normal about Niles’s clothing on him. He looked like someone had plucked a weedy millennial and put him with the Donner Party.

  Saturdays also drew a different kind of guest. Fewer school field trips and more history enthusiasts. And Niles loved Bushyhead Homestead and Bison Hills, so anytime he could wax poetic about their history, both good and bad, he felt alive, and heard, and not like a total waste of space.

  But Saturdays could blow too. Every teenage docent was present on Saturdays, and they always seemed to be mired in young love and drama—they’d all traded boyfriends and girlfriends so often it was hard to keep track. Plus, they were practically impossible to motivate. How hard was it to pass out maps in the main house? There was even air conditioning in there!

  That was probably his biggest issue with working on Saturdays—his grumpy grandpa routine constantly reared its ugly head. He was too young—only twenty-seven—to be that much of a party pooper.

  And it wasn’t only at work. All of his friends from college—really they were Victor’s friends, not his—posted pictures on Facebook of their Friday nights at the Copa in Oklahoma City or their wild trips to Dallas. Victor had informed Niles that he actually missed half of their friends’ social media updates since Niles wasn’t on Instagram or Snapchat, which led Niles to believe everyone was simply infinitely more interesting than him. They had enough excitement to fill multiple social media platforms. It was mind-boggling. And sometimes those photos of bright, beautiful men who were all put-together and fun made Niles feel like life was passing him by.

  By early afternoon, the free water was running low and most of the ice had melted, so Niles busied himself with refilling the horse trough again. Someone touched his elbow as he dumped a fourth bag of ice over the bottled water. He spun around and almost staggered back into the trough. Rusty, with his niece in his arms and a pretty young woman at his side, smiled at him.

  “Hey, Niles. How are you?”

  How was he!

  It was a hundred degrees, he had pit stains, and Rusty was there. He was a wreck and still wearing goddamn historical clothing.

  “Hey. Hi. How are you?” Niles said. Then he realized he hadn’t answered Rusty’s question, so he rushed out, “I’m doing okay!”

  God, he was a weirdo.

  “That’s great, and I’m good. Thought we’d check this place out after you talked about it. We’ve been watching a Living History of the Plains demonstration. Margo got to touch all kinds of animal hides, didn’t you, sweet pea?” Margo nodded, her head not leaving Rusty’s shoulder, and smiled shyly at Niles. “This is my sister, Jackie,” Rusty said, with a gesture to the woman beside him. She was gorgeous, all retro with tattoos and red lips. She seemed way too cool to be living in Bison Hills. So did Rusty for that matter. His beard had filled out in the days since Niles had seen him, and he was rocking the hipster thing pretty hard.

  Jackie shook his hand, which was cold and wet from the ice. He should have wiped it on his pants first. Now she probably thought he had clammy hands, and, Jesus, he kind of did, but only because Rusty was hot and watching him and smiling.

  Guh.

  “Here, Margo,” Jackie started. “Why don’t we go check out the barns and let Uncle Rusty and Niles chat?”

  Rusty put Margo down, and the little girl and Jackie wandered off toward the other end of the property.

  “So did you get the tire taken care of?” Rusty asked once they were alone.

  Niles nodded, slightly addled by having Rusty here at his place of work, looking so fine and smooth. “I took it to the Tire Shop in town the next day. They hooked me up.” Niles didn’t explain that his father technically owned the simply named Tire Shop, that it had been his life’s work until the stroke.

  The conversation stalled out, and Niles swiped his hat off of his head to wipe away the sweat trickling down his temples.

  “So, um, how are you—”

  “I was wondering—”

  They both spoke at the same time and then snapped their mouths shut to let the other finish. It was awkward as all fuck. Niles fluttered his hands at Rusty as if to say, No, you continue. Please, don’t make me be the one to continue.

  It didn’t work.

  Finally, Niles said, “Are you enjoying the Homestead? We have festivals and stuff out here too. In the spring, we have an Earth Day festival and powwow, and at the beginning of fall, there’s Cricket Plague Days. In several weeks, we’re having the Bluestem Bluegrass Festival. I could show you all of our educational pamphlets. They’re very informative.”

  “Niles, I’m not here to see pamphlets,” Rusty said gently.

  “Hey! I made those pamphlets,” Niles grumbled, and Rusty’s smile grew. It made Niles hotter and sweatier.

  “What type of clothes do you wear when you’re not at work?” Rusty mused. “Are you a hipster? I’ve pictured a hipster. But maybe you’re a T-shirt and cargo shorts kind of guy. I can’t decide.”

  Niles froze, his brain exploding. Rusty had thought about him? About his clothes? Which, to be honest, probably left a lot to be desired. He wore what was clean, and he didn’t leave his house much when he wasn’t at work. Sweatpants and cutoffs featured heavily.

  “I’d like to see you in clothes other than the historical getup, I think,” Rusty added, eyes dark and expectant and pinning Niles in place like a butterfly on display.

  Rusty pushed all of Niles’s buttons. The good buttons. He was big, for one thing. Not taller than Niles, but broad and stocky. His light brown hair was swept back from his face, and it gave him a devil-may-care sweetness. Everything about him was bright and hot, even his intriguingly red stubble. But it was his warm brown eyes that really did Niles in. They were the color of chocolate-covered cherries. The shade of caramel heating on the stove. The hue of good stout. They made Niles want to gobble him whole.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped lunch.

  But those eyes were trying to communicate something to Niles that he was not prepared to interpret. He absolutely did not see interest there. There was no way Rusty was flirting with him, right? That would be insane. Men like Rusty—men who were cool and hot and sober—did not show interest in Niles.

  So rather than responding, or choking out a purge of unrelated consonants—though, that was a close thing—Niles stared back in passive terror. The ability to speak coherently about himself was evidently not something he possessed in the face of Rusty’s hotness, so he slipped into education mode, repeating a speech he could have made in his sleep.

  “This homestead was built by the Bushyhead family in 1907. Thomas Bushyhead, the patriarch, was Cherokee. There’s a lot of information in the main house about the Native Americans who settled this land originally, as well as the ones who were forced here by the U.S. government during the Trail of Tears. Likewise, we have educational material on the allocation of Native land by the U.S. government at the turn of the twentieth century. It was a brutal, horrific time in history, and one that changed the lives of innumerable Native Americans and continues to echo through Oklahoma communities. I could show—”

  “I’d like to get to know you,” Rusty interrupted. “I want to see all of the educational material. I do. But I came here today because I’d like to get to know you. I could be seriously crossing a line, man, but I don’t know many people around here. I especially don’t know many queer people, and it would be nice to make a friend.”

  Niles gaped at him. Rusty wanted to be friends? Geez, that made so much more sense than the interest Niles had imagined in Rusty’s eyes. He was almost relieved.

  Almost.

  “I’m sorry,” Rusty said into the uncomfortable silence. “It was wrong of me to assume you might be queer … I mean, I shouldn’t have presumed.”

 
Niles stifled a laugh. “Of course I’m gay. Christ on a cracker, Rusty, you’ve talked to me! It’s not exactly a blinding secret.”

  Most people assumed. In fact, Niles couldn’t remember a time when anyone had actually asked him, or presumed he could be anything but. He didn’t know what made him stand out, but he always had. When he’d met his RA during his first day at college, for example, the man had introduced himself and then told Niles he would get him information about all the LGBTQIA campus groups. Niles literally hadn’t said anything to the man besides, “Hi, I’m Niles. No Frasier jokes, please.”

  “Are you gay?” Niles asked Rusty.

  “No, bi,” Rusty replied as if Niles hadn’t asked a completely inappropriate question.

  Though, it wasn’t like Rusty hadn’t asked the exact same thing, albeit in a roundabout way. But Rusty was self-assured and radiated calm, like he was happy with his place in the world, whereas Niles lived a life of landmines.

  “Oh, neat,” Niles said at last. Neat? Oh, God. He almost slapped himself on the forehead. He was such a tool.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you think so,” Rusty said, his voice smooth and teasing. “So, how about dinner tonight when you get off work?”

  Niles tried to think of a reason not to accept the invite, but … well … he wanted to go. It had been a long time since he’d had a friend that he saw more often than once a year or through video chat.

  Plus, Rusty was so cool. He was like the men Niles stared at longingly in the bars in Tulsa. The ones who were way too hip to glance his way. And suddenly, one wasn’t only glancing his way but was extending the gift of friendship.

  “I get off around five thirty, but I’d like to shower first. It’s hot today, and I’ve been outside a lot,” Niles finally said.

  Rusty’s eyes tracked over Niles’s chest where perspiration had soaked through his shirt. “I don’t mind the sweat. But I understand if you want clean up. How about you meet me at the Rose Rock Bakery at six thirty?”