Outside Looking In: A Browerton University Book

by Truman, A. J.

  “Well, now my ten-year-old son can’t stop saying fucking arsehole prick.”

  The brothers shared a laugh, one that relieved some of the tension swirling in Liam’s chest.

  “Are you sure you’re all good with keeping the farm?” Liam asked. “If you want to move, if you need that money, I will do it. I would do anything for you.”

  Liam didn’t know where Mark found the strength to hold it together. Maybe it was instinctual as the oldest brother and as a father. It was in his blood to take care of those he loved. Just like their dad.

  Mark hooked him into a hug.

  “Every time I see you out here, working with the sheep, it’s like a piece of Mum and Dad are still alive. And besides, Wellington sucks.”

  * * *

  At family dinner, the table was quiet. Liam couldn’t imagine what his brother was going through, finding out that Mariel had a child on the side, or his niece and nephew who now had a new brother.

  “Franny, would you like to say the prayer tonight?” Mark asked.

  Franny bowed her head. “Dear Lord, we thank you for this bounty and your blessings. If you do have time, could you please help my Uncle Liam stop being a Mopey Martha? Thank you.”

  “What?” Liam whipped his head up.

  “Uncle Liam, you need to get out of this funk,” she said, as if he were merely upset about spilled milk or a rainy day.

  “It’s more than a funk. It’s not a funk!” Liam said.

  “It’s a funk,” Mark said as he cut slices of meatloaf.

  “How are you all not in a funk? Twenty-four hours ago, you found out that you have a brother and that your mother…you were walloped with new information.”

  “It’s like when I get new shoes,” Walt said.

  Liam clanged his fork onto his plate. “This whole situation is like getting a new pair of shoes? Please elaborate.”

  “New shoes give me blisters at first, and they feel weird and uncomfortable, but then they feel good.”

  “We’re very surprised, but you’re the only one who’s upset.” Franny pointed an accusatory spoonful of mashed potatoes at him.

  He looked to his brother for backup. “She’s right,” Mark said.

  Et tu, brother?

  “Nathan lied to us! Pathologically. Nothing he told us about himself was the truth. He came here under false pretenses and weaseled his way into our hearts.”

  His family gave him all double-takes. The kids laughed.

  “I didn’t mean hearts. You know what I mean!” He slapped a heap of mashed potatoes onto his plate. For show, only. “He lied.”

  Walt pointed his fork at him. “Javert!”

  Liam cocked his head at him.

  “What would you have had Nathan do?” Franny asked. “Come here and say ‘Hello, I’m your mum’s secret child that she kept from you for twenty-two years. May I come in?’”

  Liam missed when his niece and nephew worshipped him and never questioned anything he did or said. Why did kids have to grow up?

  “Aren’t you mad at your mum? Your wife?” He looked straight at Mark.

  The table got quiet. Liam had an upper hand he didn’t want.

  “It’s hard to hold a grudge with someone who isn’t…” Mark cleared his throat. “I know that despite her secrets and despite what happened, she loved me. She loved us.” Mark leaned over the table, closer to his brother. “People are gray, Liam.”

  “It’s not the same as Kelly,” Franny said. He would forever think her too young to talk about this. “Kelly lied to trick you. Nathan lied to get closer to us.”

  And to me.

  “And Kelly smelled,” Walt said.

  “Walt!” Mark said.

  “What? She did.”

  Liam put down his fork and pushed away from the table. He didn’t need to be ridiculed or chastised by his family. Maybe they were fine with everything, but not him.

  “He asked about you,” Mark said.

  Liam’s heart paused. “He did?”

  “He misses you.”

  “He said that?”

  Mark shrugged. “He didn’t have to.”

  “Interesting,” Liam said.

  “He’s leaving to go back to London tonight.”

  “All good.” Liam pushed himself back to the table. “That makes sense. That’s his home.”

  “No, it’s not. This is his home,” Mark said.

  Franny sighed and clanged her fork onto her plate. “Uncle Liam! Are you really going to let him go?”

  Liam looked to Mark for backup, but he seemed to be siding with his daughter. “There’s more to it than that.”

  “Is there? The only person lying here is you,” Mark said.

  “Javert!” Walt said while pretending to sneeze.

  Liam shot him a glare. “It’s too late. He’s already on his plane.”

  “He’s taking a night flight,” Mark said. “That’s what he told me.”

  In a flash, Franny and Walt were on their phones, typing and scrolling with dogged determination.

  “There’s a flight that takes off at ten o’clock. It’s the final flight out,” Franny said. “It’s flying to Los Angeles, then onto to London.”

  “And it will take thirty-eight minutes to drive to his hotel,” Walt said, showing his dad the Google Maps preferred route.

  “He might not have left for the airport yet,” Franny said.

  “We don’t know that’s his flight! And he…” Liam thought about waking up with Nathan in his arms. He pictured Nathan’s face when he delivered Tilly’s lambs, the shock and joy and tinge of sadness glowing in his eyes and brightening his cheeks. It was pure. It was real.

  Liam looked over at his brother, and after a whole life together, they didn’t need words.

  “I can get us there in thirty-one,” Mark said.

  Chapter 32

  Nathan

  Nathan waited at the foot of his hotel bed, watching the weather report on the TV, silently hoping for a freak blizzard. His father was filling his toiletry bag with free bathroom soaps. Someone knocked at the door. Nathan’s breath caught in his chest. He raced to the door.

  “Evening, sir.” A member of guest services handed him a bag of his laundry. He had bought a new outfit in the hotel shop and sent for his old outfit to be washed thoroughly.

  “We washed it twice,” the employee said. “The clothes had a very strong smell on them.”

  “It’s sheep manure,” Nathan said wistfully.

  He opened the bag and inhaled the fresh scent. He missed the old smell. He had gotten used to it, and it had become a part of him. If he ever came across another sheep, he would think of the farm and Liam when he smelled it.

  Nathan threw the clothes into his suitcase, also purchased at the hotel shop.

  “Are you ready to go?” his father asked. He crammed his bulging toiletry bag into his suitcase.

  “Ready.” He thought about calling Liam, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew how Liam felt, and that was enough for him.

  “The cab will be here in two minutes.”

  Nathan sat on his bed and closed his eyes. He pictured all the memories he made over these past two months. He thought about Franny and him going dress shopping, laughing over family dinners, the way Liam pulled him close when they spooned. And of course, he thought of the sheep meandering around the farm, living their best lives. He could hear them now, baaa’ing in the background. It was almost peaceful, a sound he got used to as he drifted off to sleep.

  “Do you hear that?” his dad asked.

  Baaaa.

  Was Nathan still daydreaming? His dad charged to the window.

  Baaaa.

  “Do they let sheep run wild in the streets here?” his dad asked.

  The baaaa’ing got louder. It filled up the empty space of the room. It was accompanied by the honking of horns.

  More horns and more bleating. They wafted through the hotel window. It was madness outside. And a suspicious, hopeful feeling tin
gled up Nathan’s spine.

  He ran to the window and pulled back the curtains.

  Sheep. Everywhere.

  They filled the circular driveway entrance to the hotel. They meandered onto the carefully landscaped lawn. Tilly and her lambs chewed on the grass. Cabs and valet drivers trying to drop off visitors honked at the stampede of livestock. He couldn’t see asphalt. Just wool. A sea of wool.

  With one Liam sticking up in the center of the madness. As soon as Liam found Nathan’s window, a huge smile creased his bearded face.

  “Nathan!”

  “Liam? What the hell are you doing?”

  “They wanted to do some shopping in the city.” Liam wore the blazer from their date with a rumpled flannel shirt underneath. “And they wanted to tell you not to go, that you were the best thing that’s ever happened to them.”

  “They wanted to tell me that?”

  “And me. Me, especially.”

  Even though three stories and a flock of sheep separated him and Liam, Nathan felt like there was nothing in this world right now except for them.

  “But I lied to you,” Nathan said. “Repeatedly.”

  “You told me some untrue things about yourself, but was everything you felt also untrue?”

  Nathan shook his head no.

  “That’s what I thought.” The sheep bleated around him. “Pipe down. I was getting to that part.” He turned back to Nathan. “Can you take a flight tomorrow? I was hoping we could talk.”

  “We can talk.”

  “Maybe even pash a little bit.”

  Nathan laughed. He remembered looking up that slang word during a restless night fantasizing about his boss, Farmer Tight-ass.

  “We’ll see.”

  A manager from the hotel bobbed and weaved between the sheep, nearly tripping over one of them. He came up to Liam, and Nathan couldn’t hear what was being said, but he got the idea.

  Nathan ran downstairs and into the front driveway, where it was sheep central. One sheep had climbed onto the luggage cart. Two others were grazing at the flowerpots. The line of cars backed up into the street. And in the middle of the chaos was Liam, Liam who was currently being chewed out by management, Liam with his burly shoulders and bushy beard and eyes that twinkled in the light and ears that reddened when challenged by a posh Brit.

  “If you don’t get these sheep out of here, I’m going to call the police,” the manager said to Liam.

  “I can help,” Nathan said. “I have experience working with sheep.”

  Liam’s face lit up with a pure warmth that melted Nathan. There was no way he could leave that face behind.

  “He’s great with sheep,” Liam told the manager.

  Nathan helped Liam shoo his flock of sheep into his truck parked on the street. He knew to handle them delicately so as not to scare them and start a stampede. Mark stopped traffic so the sheep could cross. This couldn’t have been the first sheep crossing in New Zealand. Waiting by the truck were Franny and Walt. Nathan had never been so happy to see them.

  “We couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye,” Franny said.

  “Yeah. You’re family,” Walt said.

  Nathan looked past them at Liam, who was herding the last sheep to the truck.

  “Actually,” Nathan said. He glanced back at his hotel room. His dad watched from the window and gave him a loving head nod, full of the fatherly support Nathan had always craved.

  “I think I’m going to stay a little bit longer,” Nathan said.

  “Really?” Franny asked.

  “Really,” Nathan said definitively.

  He walked over to Liam, who shut the back door of his truck. “Can I talk to you a second?”

  He had Liam walk a few steps away from the family so they could have alone time. The moon hung low over the ocean and its light sparkled on the water.

  “Liam, I’m sorry—”

  Liam grazed his fingers over Nathan’s mouth, then he replaced them with his mouth. That familiar beard brushed against his face. The kiss sent Nathan into the stratosphere. He doubted he would ever tire of those lips on his, or anywhere on his body.

  “No more lies,” Nathan said.

  “No more lies.” Liam kissed him again. “Wait. Was that a lie?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Epilogue

  Liam

  Baaaa.

  Liam peeked out his face from under his pillow and opened one eye. Through the window, he could see it was still dark.

  Baaaa.

  Yeah, yeah. I heard you.

  Sleep maintained its grip on Liam. He couldn’t move from the mattress. He would fall back into slumber, then awake at another bleat. He opened his one eye again, but he couldn’t see the window. A sexy guy was blocking his view.

  “Let’s go. It’s already four-fifteen. The day is half bloody over.” Nathan’s body had gained muscle and heft ever since he began working on the farm full-time. Liam had noticed his pecs getting bigger, his abs tighter and more washboardy, and his arms, presently crossed against his chest, were turning into the ropes he used to climb in gym class. Add those to Nathan’s already withering stare and husky accent, and it was officially too much sexiness.

  “Stop checking me out and get out of bed.” Nathan adjusted his hat and wiped a stray piece of hay off his half-buttoned flannel shirt.

  “Is that my shirt?”

  “I look better in it anyway.” Nathan clapped twice, the sound ringing in Liam’s half-asleep ears. “Come on. Up you get. You have to refill the feeders.”

  “You haven’t done that yet?”

  “Ringo kicked a hole in his pen overnight. I’ve been patching it up so he doesn’t sneak out.” A hammer hung from one of Nathan’s belt loops. “Up. Or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  Nathan fixed his stare on Liam and unleashed a smirk that was up to no good. He walked the few steps into the kitchen.

  “Don’t,” Liam said.

  His cry went ignored. Nathan removed a glass from the cabinet.

  “Nathan,” he growled. His body was under the control of the bed.

  Liam watched him turn the tap all the way to the right and fill the glass with the coldest water possible. Then, to add insult to imminent injury, he plopped a handful of ice cubes in and stirred.

  “I mean it,” Liam said. He pulled the cover up to his neck in preparation. He couldn’t stop what was coming. Nor could he stop his cock from sprouting wood at the sight of his sexy boyfriend sauntering over, ready to punish him.

  “I learned this from you.” Nathan held up the glass.

  “I was cruel back then.”

  “And now I usually get up before you, so perhaps your cruel methods work.”

  “Please, don’t,” Liam pleaded. Wisps of drafty morning air hit his exposed skin. He was cold enough.

  “Why?”

  “Because you love me.”

  Nathan considered this. “I suppose I do.”

  He drank the water himself in one long chug. Liam breathed a sigh of relief.

  “See, wasn’t that—”

  Liam tumbled off the bed as the mattress flipped in the air. He leapt up and kicked the blankets now tangled at his feet.

  “What the hell, Nathan?”

  “You seemed to enjoy it.” Nathan nudged his chin at the tent pitched in his boxers.

  “It must be the bleating.” Or that my boyfriend is hotter than fuck.

  “Must be.”

  Liam’s cock led the way to Nathan. He admired the beautiful guy who’d stolen his heart. When they kissed, Liam saw stars. He brushed his fingers against the patchy beard Nathan was sporting, the hair like different pieces of land slowly joining together. His hands wandered into Nathan’s shirt to feel up his broad chest. They had to be careful about how handsy they were on the farm since Mark and the kids could make an appearance at any time.

  “Two can play this game,” Nathan said, finding his way into Liam’s boxers and stroking his thr
obbing cock. Just as Liam moaned, Nathan pulled his hands back. “Feeding first.”

  Liam stared horny daggers at him. “You country fuck.”

  “You posh prick.”

  Their mouths collided with more energy than a fresh pot of coffee. Liam pulled Nathan against him. They had time for a quickie. Liam wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the farm with a massive hard-on. And judging by the bulge in Nathan’s jeans, neither would he.

  It was one of those many times when Liam had to have Nathan, when he successfully channeled his frustration into sexual dominance. He grabbed Nathan’s hands and shoved them into his boxers.

  “Are you going to operate my hands like second-rate puppets, or will you let a master go to work?” Nathan asked in that fuck-you voice that made Liam want to tear off all his clothes.

  Nathan pulled back from his grip, yanked Liam’s pants down, and stopped his mouth just before his aching, engorged cock.

  “You know what, I think I need to check on the sheep.”

  “Suck,” he commanded.

  And suck Nathan did, until Liam’s knees were about to give. He took his thick rod to the base.

  “You’re not so bad at this,” Liam said. He grabbed a fistful of hair and balanced himself against the fridge. Nathan’s tongue was like a wizard. He loved watching his cock disappear into that sarcastic mouth.

  The sheep bleated outside, and Liam knew they didn’t have enough time to drag this out. He signaled for Nathan to stand up. They kissed again, allowing Liam to taste the remnants of his sweaty cock on his lips.

  “I want you to fuck me hard. And fast.” Nathan nodded at the windows where the bleating came from. Time was of the essence.

  “No fucking problem.” He bent Nathan onto the overturned mattress, which stuck up on its side. He ripped down his jeans and boxer-briefs. Nathan ran out of his fancy designer clothes after three months. They were not meant for the outdoors. They went shopping together, and Nathan pretended to like the selection. He and Franny made excursions to the city for fancier outfits on special occasions.

  His eyes watered at the sight of that pink, puckered hole. He massaged his opening with his thumb and pushed his way inside. He gave Nathan’s ass a speedy spit shine, along with a few hard spanks that left handprints. Damn, he tasted so fucking good.