A Square View to a
Clean Sweep of Sky

 

IT was like he’d told a lonely woman in a hotel room. Giving up big burdens can sometimes set us free.

Jeremy got back to his tiny room in the barn, and the mice had gotten into his ramen stores again. He ended up throwing it all away. Aiden had bought him books at every town on the way back from Pennsylvania, and Jeremy looked around and realized he’d be up to his eyeballs in bags of books if he didn’t either give them away or find a bigger place. That night, instead of sleeping off a very long trip, he sat up late and counted his little packets of cash and realized that he could afford a couch, maybe, if it wasn’t expensive, and a nice television if it wasn’t huge, and maybe some plates and dishes and things. Hell, he could even afford a toaster.

Craw shut down the mill the next day so he could have workmen install the giant carder, and Jeremy woke up early enough to ask to use the phone. It was the first time he’d made that request, ever.

Craw looked at him through his customary irritability. “What in the fuck are you planning?”

Jeremy blushed. “Was gonna look for an apartment nearby,” he confessed. “We’re only a few miles out from the town. If I get a used bike, I could ride it to work.”

“I got a used bike in my garage. You can have it. Got an old bed frame in there too.”

Jeremy knew his mouth opened a little, his face going slack with surprise and gratitude. “I’d been planning to buy a couch,” he said in wonder.

“To sleep on? Sounds like a quick way to a bad back. Get a couch. Get a mattress. Me and Ariadne, we got enough shit between us, you shouldn’t have to get much more’n that.”

Jeremy nodded. “Aiden’s number—”

“In the address book by the phone. I’m sure that’s how he wants to spend his day off.”

Jeremy couldn’t help but cringe from Craw’s customary sarcasm, but he felt like he owed the boy, since he’d been the one who’d been pushing for it.

Aiden showed up forty-five minutes later in his mom’s minivan, with two extra large caramel lattes, because although Granby didn’t have a Starbucks, they did have a local coffee place that wanted to be a Starbucks and proved it by putting extra dessert in their big latte drinks to show their sincerity. Jeremy approved.

The apartment hunting was actually a pretty short process—there were only a few complexes in all of Granby. One of them—the largest—was for the people who came during the winter to work at the ski lodges or during the summer to work the dude ranches, and they only signed three-month leases. Aiden heard that and grabbed Jeremy literally by the neck and pulled him out of the manager’s office without so much as a how-de-do.

“What?” Jeremy asked, confused. “I didn’t even get a chance to see the apartments!”

“Three months? I make you bare your soul for three months? After what we’ve done to put up with each other, it should be two years at the least.”

Jeremy grinned, unable to keep his glee inside. “Think you can put up with me that long?”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Count on it!”

The second one had two buildings that were built in the eighties, one of those square stucco affairs in which every apartment was a square cut into smaller squares. The buildings faced each other, and one of them backed up against the grocery store and the other one backed up against the lumber store. Aiden took one look at Jeremy’s face and said, “Fuck it—even I can tell this looks like prison,” and turned the car around. “Don’t worry, Jeremy. This last place is perfect. You’ll like it. It’s on the outskirts of town, but I can give you a ride in, ’cause it’s closer to my parents’ place. It’ll be good. Trust me.”

Granby was in the flat part of a bowl valley. If you followed the highway a little, you came to Grand, and both were mostly tourist towns. The residents made their living providing either for the people who lived there or for the tourists who visited there. There were a couple of ski lodges that filled in right quick (and could be accessed when the roads closed in the winter by a small airport outside of town), a largish pond/smallish lake outside of Grand, and between the two towns, maybe four restaurants total, a bar and grill, and a diner that you might be able to eat at without going broke.

The place Aiden took Jeremy was on the way out of town, toward Grand, where the houses were set on large, rolling tracts of land, before the little cluster of tourists’ chateaus on the lake began. Jeremy looked at the rolling hills dotted with houses and finally thought to ask an obvious question.

“Do you live in one of those houses?”

Aiden rolled his eyes. “Yes, you oblivious bastard, I live in one of those houses. We can see it from the apartments. I’ll show you there.”

The apartments were, in fact, a line of small cottages, each one about two feet from the other, and they were tiny, tidy spaces. Each one had a small kitchenette with cupboards, a stove, and a small dining area that walked right into the living room. There was a doorway that led to the bedroom, and an adjoining bathroom. The whole thing formed a nice little square, but the window from the kitchen overlooked those rolling hills with the great farms on them. The window in the bedroom looked up into the mountains.

Jeremy turned a slow circle in the living room, looking to the valley and then behind him to the mountains.

He ran up to the kitchen sink for a moment and said, “Show me!”

Aiden laughed and didn’t even ask him what he was supposed to show. He put his head close to Jeremy’s and pointed out the farthest house, the one that was smallest from their vantage point. It was white, and even from this distance Jeremy could tell it had a wraparound porch.

“That’s a real nice house,” he said softly, and Aiden was so close, Jeremy had to close his eyes when he nodded and their cheeks brushed together.

“Yeah. And I wouldn’t mind living about this close to it. Close enough to see my family, but far enough away that I didn’t have to share the fucking bathroom.”

Jeremy laughed. “I hear ya,” he said, but he was thinking that he and his daddy had always shared hotel rooms. It had been too close in those last years. Some nights his daddy would go out and find a woman, and there were always nights when Jeremy was expected to sweeten the pot, but in the end? They had slept in adjacent beds and talked about the con like it was going to get them something, and they hadn’t ever, ever said anything important.

Aiden pulled away and looked at him. “It’s got a two-year lease,” he said softly. “Do you think you could be happy here?”

Jeremy looked around and smiled shyly. “I think it’s better than a motel room,” he conceded.

Aiden grinned. “Is it better than the spare room in the barn?”

Jeremy considered that one seriously. “I’ll miss the critters at night,” he said honestly. “I don’t know that I’ve often slept in a room on my own.”

Aiden’s eyes had gotten big at that. “That’s twisted. I had to beat my little brother at arm wrestling to get my room to myself.” He shook his head. “That’s horrible.”

Jeremy looked around then and thought about being alone here. “Being in the same room as someone and not being alone are two different things,” he said. “I think I’ll buy some curtains and things,” he added. “Sheets and some posters and I need to find a bed and….”

He turned to Aiden and wondered at the full, gentle smile on his own face. “You want to help?”

It took a week for the couch to arrive, but they had the bed there—a nice, wood-framed queen-size with a spanking new mattress and box spring—the next day. With the couch came the television, but with the bed came the bags of books and the clothes, and in the interim there were dishes (an old set from Ariadne) and curtains (new) and sheets (also new). There were posters (Jeremy realized he liked movie posters—he couldn’t say why) and a framed picture of him, Aiden, Craw, and Ariadne that the three of them gave him as a housewarming gift.

Aiden even brought plants.

And just that quickly, he had a real life.

It was much like his life had been for the past six months. He woke up in the morning and Aiden was there to take him to work. On days Aiden didn’t work, he biked himself, and when it got too icy to do that, he took a whole lot of his little packets of cash out and bought a used car, a Toyota, with four doors and a red-primered quarter panel on a gold body. He learned how to pay bills, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as his Daddy had always told him it would be, and he already loved going to work, so that wasn’t bad either.

And then, there was the miracle thing, the thing he didn’t question for the next two years, even though he probably should have. It was a small, simple thing, something so natural and easy that most people would have missed it, but he didn’t.

Jeremy treasured it, but he didn’t question it.

There he was, sitting in his apartment in that first week, appreciating the hell out of the brand new couch. He was drinking a beer and watching Friday night TV on his new TV/DVR/VCR setup—he had a thing for Grimm. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and when he got there, Aiden was there with a quart of chocolate milk (which Jeremy already had) and a homemade pie from his mother.

And a movie.

Jeremy opened the door, bemused, and let him in.

“You mind?” Aiden asked. “I’ve got Safe House on DVD and no one in my family wants to watch it.”

So they did.

It was the beginning of a tradition of sorts.

Sometimes they watched television, sometimes a movie, and sometimes sports, but Friday nights (and sometimes Saturday and sometimes Monday or Wednesday nights) came to mean Aiden at his place, with snacks. Sometimes Ariadne and her husband joined them, and a couple of times, when Rory was out of town, she slept on his couch anyway, so she didn’t have to be alone. Craw would come, when it was sports, and generally? Jeremy came to understand that although he might live alone, he was not really alone. He had friends. He had family. For two Thanksgivings, he sat at Craw’s table with everybody, and they said a sort of mangled, uncomfortable grace. For two Christmases, he knitted his fingers to the bone, testing his creativity, stretching his abilities. He learned how to read a pattern, and how to make cables, and how to make lace. He knitted some samples for the shop on occasion, but mostly? He knitted the way he’d seen all the rest of them knit—for each other. He took a page from Craw’s book then, and poured his heart into his knitting. Aiden didn’t get a hat that first Christmas, he got a specialty-made cable sweater. Ariadne got a shawl from a colorway that Aiden helped Jeremy design, just for her. Craw got a big felted messenger bag for all the errands he had to run in the truck.

He realized that these were the only gifts he’d ever given that were honest. He kept working to make them better. And in return? He got everything. As far as gifts went, Ariadne usually knitted him a sweater, and Craw was good for a warm, fluffy blanket. And Aiden? Aiden’s gift was always the same. His birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Flag Day, Aiden gave him a pair of gloves or mittens, with fingers or without, in every color from brown to neon pink to something in between. He tested new yarn or got fancy with old, until Jeremy couldn’t keep them in his bible anymore.

He bought a floor safe instead.

Yes, the floor safe was a good idea, he thought critically. It was heavy enough to be unwieldy but could still be picked up, it fit under his bed, and it held the packets of cash he used to convert to cashier’s checks in order to pay his rent and his bills. And it fit every pair of gloves that Aiden had ever given him.

He’d stopped buying ramen because he hated it, but he still always had extra jars of peanut butter on hand. There were some parts of being a con man that he could choose to leave behind. Having the ability to pick up the important stuff and run with it was not one of them.

And he might have stayed exactly that way, celibate, happy, conning nobody but himself, except two things happened.

The second thing was that Craw decided to hire a delivery service to come get the yarn and take it places. The first thing was the reason why he had to hire the guy, and that was the arrival of Ben.

 

 

CRAW had put off repairing the fence because he didn’t like to leave Ariadne in the store, now that she was pregnant. She was only a few months along, but her spider-thin body wasn’t helping her any, so she wasn’t even allowed to walk into the barn. The men forbade it, and she humored them.

So Aiden and Jeremy were deep into their morning routine the September day that Craw came up from repairing a fence and told them that a new neighbor had moved into old Mrs. Humphries’ place. Aiden and Jeremy had been part of the neighborly brigade that had brought Mrs. Humphries food and helped her tend her animals before she passed away, and they’d been sorry she’d passed. They’d also been more than curious at the tales of a great-nephew who had been given the place over the objections of her rather awful relatives.

When Craw came in, his eyes were a little wider than usual, and his face was a little bit blotchier. His mouth had been pushed out full and a little bit soft, and Jeremy had taken one look at him and then one look at Aiden.

Was Aiden going to be crushed?

Aiden had simply asked Craw if he seemed like a nice enough guy, and Craw had nodded his head. “He seems a mite tender for the area,” Craw had confessed, and Jeremy had to admit that if Craw and Ariadne hadn’t been watching out for him with alpaca sweaters and blankets and socks, he might have gone sprinting back to the southwest just because it was warmer come winter.

“You going to make him something?” Aiden asked curiously, and then Craw had done something truly frightening.

He’d smiled, and he’d blushed.

He’d stammered his way out of the mill then, saying something about taking the guy to the hardware store and wouldn’t that be romantic, and Jeremy had looked very carefully at Aiden. Aiden didn’t look like a guy who’d had his heart crushed, so maybe his hero worship was intact.

“What do you think?” Jeremy asked him, dying of curiosity.

“I think they’re going to be our main source of entertainment here all winter,” Aiden said thoughtfully.

“I guess we’ll know when Craw asks you to do his colorway,” Jeremy said matter-of-factly. It was the game they all played—finding a person’s colors and having either Aiden or Craw design their yarn. Craw was better with texture, it was true, but Aiden? Aiden was a true genius with color. His yarns were spectacular and original, and Jeremy had been knitting long enough now—and ordered from other people’s stock, just to see—to be able to say that without bias. Between Aiden and Craw, they were well on the way to being a name—a brand people went to, every time they visited their local yarn store. Craw was even thinking of hiring a yarn rep, instead of just selling through catalogues. The business was growing, and Jeremy was proud to have been a part of that, even if it was only as muscle.

Aiden nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly, and then cast Jeremy an inscrutable look. “But then, I’m still trying to find your colors.”

Jeremy, who had gotten used to Aiden sitting on the end of his couch and fighting feet with him as they got comfy, and who had learned to sit next to him in the truck or in his living room without marking every breath he took or growing hard and aching every time he caught a nuance of young man, sweaty or clean, was suddenly very, very squirmy.

“You ought to be concentrating on someone who matters,” he said automatically, and Aiden shook his head.

“Jesus, Jeremy. I spend more time at your place than I do at my folks’. Who is going to matter more than you?”

Jeremy almost said, “Craw?” right then, to get that out in the open, but the drum carder let out a sound like a wounded goat, and they suddenly had bigger fish to fry.

But the next morning, that whole thing sort of busted itself open, and Jeremy was left in a quandary.

Craw came in, muddled and embarrassed and tongue-tied and dear, trying to pretend like taking Ben the tenderfoot out to get his hardware supplies hadn’t been a big banner moment in the life of someone who, Jeremy had often thought, could possibly be the world’s most solitary man.

It sounded promising.

“Hey, Jer!” Aiden called, and Jeremy looked up from where he was running a hand-spun end through the machine to the spool. “Craw says it wasn’t a date!”

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Did you bring him a gift?” he asked, and Craw blinked. He looked distinctly guilty, so Jeremy laughed for him and crinkled his eyes at the corners. “Oh, so there was a gift. How about food?”

“Coffee,” Craw grunted and fiddled with his machinery. The machinery was not really Craw’s strongest asset in the millwork. Jeremy and Aiden did most of the work there, so when he came in to help, well, he was competent, but Jeremy could tell he was working really hard to be that way. And that didn’t stop him from laughing at Craw’s obvious evasion.

“Well, there was food, a gift, and you spent your time shopping. I’d say it was a date!” He grinned then, because it would have been great to know that Craw was out getting some—and hell, it might soften the guy’s temper up a little too. Then he caught Aiden’s suspicious squint and blushed.

“That’s all we did last Saturday!” Aiden said, a little bit of surprise in his voice. “I thought you weren’t gay!”

Jeremy widened his eyes because he’d heard the emphasis, subtle as it was. You weren’t gay, as opposed to Aiden. Who apparently was. “Well, I didn’t know you were!”

“God, what a dumbass!” Aiden shook his head, and his casual pose didn’t stop Jeremy’s heart from thundering in his ears. “Jesus, how can you give advice on two guys dating if you don’t even know what two guys do if they’re not on a date?”

He would have just stood there, looking helplessly at Aiden while the earth reformed beneath his feet, but Craw spoke up, apparently unaware that everything had changed.

“I want four hundred hanks, four hundred twenty yards,” he said. “Make sure the roving stays consistent. It’s for socks.”

“We going to dye today?” Aiden asked, and Craw shrugged.

“Why not? You’ve got a plan?” he asked, and Aiden brought up a color scale sampler that he’d put together with pastels on a piece of nice artist’s parchment.

They talked colors for a minute, and Jeremy tried to convince himself it hadn’t happened. It had been easy—so easy—for the last two years, to pretend that perfection hadn’t been sitting on his couch three nights a week, waiting for him to make a move. He’d wanted it—oh God, sometimes the urge to rest his hand on Aiden’s calf or his knee or the back of his neck had just been overwhelming, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t. Because Aiden, there and happy, having shown up with pie and a movie, had been about the best thing to ever happen in Jeremy's life, ever. The thought of more than that… it was painful, because Jeremy would have to turn it down. “Maybe not quite so extreme on the dark end of it,” Aiden murmured to himself. “It’s sort of retro… if we keep it a little lighter here….”

But Aiden wasn’t talking to Jeremy now, and he wasn’t making eye contact. He was immersed in his dye work, in the designing that he did so well, and Jeremy took that for a good sign. Aiden wandered to his position at the spinner, staring at his color chart and murmuring to himself, and Jeremy gave him his space for a minute.

Craw issued some more orders about the stock they’d be making, and for a moment, he and Jeremy exchanged glances and then looked at Aiden. Whatever the boy (man—twenty now, he was a young man) came up with, it was going to be good.

Craw left and Jeremy decided that they could tease now, because it had been his imagination, right? He came over to Aiden’s shoulder and started to wheedle. “Oh God, what kinds of rainbow wooly madness are the two of you going to put me through today? C’mon… lemme see the magic paper… c’mon, Aiden, you know you wanna let me see it!”

Aiden cast a sorrowful glance at him then, as Craw left the barn, and Jeremy subsided under the weight of that look.

“You didn’t know about me?” he asked quietly.

“It was Craw,” Jeremy said, and he realized that he must have gotten the habit of being honest, because that had come out exactly as he’d thought it. “I didn’t know if it was hero worship or… or a crush. I never could figure it out. I figured once I did, it would be okay. I’d know.”

Aiden blinked at him, and then, for the first time since Jeremy had met the boy, standing as confident as you please in the middle of all this dangerous machinery and complicated honest work, he backed away from something.

“Well, now you know. Come on, let’s get this shit done! I’ve got class tomorrow, but I promised myself a movie at your place the day after that!”

Jeremy was happy then, like he could already taste the pies Aiden’s mother sent. Aiden was gay, but it wasn’t going to change them, and Jeremy could sit in quiet contentment, on the other side of the couch, for as long as Aiden wanted to come over for movies.

The next day, when Aiden was gone, Ben came in. Jeremy looked up from his work—he was manning dye vats since Aiden wasn’t there to help with the machinery—and saw a sweet-looking man with hipster’s stubble, curly brown hair, and blue-gray eyes. On top of his head was an even sweeter little hat with a rust-colored brim and a teal-colored crown, and if Jeremy had to guess he would have pegged it as Craw’s work, because it was sturdy and rugged and practical. The man had his hands in his pockets and was looking around the barn with interest.

“Is Craw about?” he asked, and Jeremy shrugged.

“I think he’s in the shop. You must be Ben.”

Ben smiled. “I have no idea who you are. Craw’s not great at conversation.”

Jeremy laughed, tickled. “That he ain’t. I’m Jeremy—don’t mind me. I’m a hired hand, nothing more.”

Ben nodded and wandered over to look at the hanks of wool drying on the racks. “How long have you worked here, ‘hired hand’?”

“Oh, two and a half years or so,” Jeremy said, not thinking about it because he was hefting a hank of wool out of the vat on a pole. He stopped suddenly, and it was a good thing the wool was dripping over the dye vats, because otherwise he would have made a right mess. “Wow. That’s a good long time.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “That sounds like it’s got some permanence. So you’d know then.”

“Know what?” Drip, drip, drip and swing and there went the hank on the drying rack. The first three times he’d done this, he’d dropped the hank on the ground and almost cried. Turned out, they got rinsed off in a few minutes anyway, so he shouldn’t have worried.

“If Craw’s seeing anybody,” Ben asked, the corners of his mouth quirking like that should have been obvious.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. “He’s seeing you, right?”

Ben’s chuckle was dry. “He gave me a hat.”

“Yeah, well, for Craw, that’s like a declaration of intention. You want someone who skywrites, go to another town.” Drip, drip, drip swing.

“So, how long do I have to wait for his next move?”

Jeremy all but giggled. “Well, I hope you’re around for the spring thaw. In two and a half years, the closest thing I’ve heard to Craw talking about his personal life is when he told us he was gay.”

“Yeah?” Jeremy looked up and saw that Ben was extraordinarily pretty, and his eyes were lit up with laughter. “How’d that go?”

Jeremy shook his head, remembering Aiden’s small, pretty face—rounder then, because it was more than two years ago—as he’d fastened his brown-green eyes hungrily on Craw’s face.

“Well, Aiden asked Craw why he wasn’t ogling the waitresses in the steakhouse, and Craw replied, ‘’Cause I’m fuckin’ gay, ya moron!’, and there you go. Personal enlightenment, Rance Crawford style.”

Ben giggled then, and Jeremy liked the sound. He could see how Craw had been so smitten, but, well, the guy wasn’t Aiden.

“How’d you guys take that?” he asked, and Jeremy shrugged and went back to fishing the last hank out of the vat.

“I think Aiden was pleased, really. He had a bit of a crush on Craw back then.” He laughed a little. “For about five minutes it gave the kid hope, but he might have gotten over it by now.”

“How about you?” Ben asked, and Jeremy looked up and met his eyes. He knew why the fifth degree. Ben was interested—very interested, apparently—and he wanted to make sure he wasn’t stepping on anybody’s toes.

“Craw’s a good man,” Jeremy said, liking this honesty thing more now than maybe he ever had. “But he’s not my type.”

“So, Aiden?”

Jeremy looked up sharply. “Two and a half years,” he said, a little wonder in his voice. “Two and a half years. I’ve known these people better than people I’ve known in my entire life. Why would you assume I’m gay?”

Ben shook his head. “Because you light up when you talk about them.”

“I light up when I talk about Ariadne too,” Jeremy said flatly, not liking this game anymore.

“It’s Aiden, isn’t it?”

“I’m way too old for him,” Jeremy cautioned. He pulled his con man’s smile from his toes, when what he really wanted to do was have a thoughtful conference with this stranger and confide in someone, as he hadn’t maybe his entire life. “And I’m sure he’d tell you that I irritate the holy hell out of him, so maybe you’d better match elsewhere.”

He grinned up at Ben, hoping to get the man to share in the joke, but Ben was looking thoughtfully at him instead. “I think I’ll let you do that,” he said quietly. “Now tell me what you’re doing here. I’m really frickin’ curious!”

Jeremy laughed and gave Ben a basic overview, and told him that sometimes they dyed the roving too, which is what they called “dyed in the wool,” and how sometimes they sold roving for other people to spin.

“Why would I want to spin it myself?” Ben asked, unconsciously touching some dried hanks of dyed sock yarn. “You guys do such a good job of it!”

Jeremy grinned. “Here, let me show you.” They had samples on hand, one spun by Ariadne and one spun by Craw, for when Craw opened the mill up for tours. “See here?” he asked, showing Craw’s chain-plied and Ariadne’s neat single. “This is the same roving, dyed the same way. How you spin it for use, that makes it a whole different yarn.” Ben’s eyes got really big, and Jeremy nodded appreciatively. Ariadne’s yarn blended the different colors of the dyed roving subtly, gently, in one continuous color change. Craw’s spinning made them clash more, put the sky blue with the magenta instead of having it fade into violet and then purple and then red.

Ben’s grin was infectious—but then, so was Jeremy’s, so they had a real good moment. “That’s really cool,” Ben said, impressed, and Jeremy nodded.

“I’ve always thought so myself. Did you want to see more of the mill?”

Ben’s regret was honest. “I’ve got work to do.” He sighed. “Besides—maybe Craw himself’ll give me a tour. But, uhm, would Craw’s people mind if I came back? Made myself at home a little? I do like this place, and I haven’t even seen the store!”

Jeremy nodded sincerely. “Welcome to! Speaking as one of Craw’s people, I can’t see him not wanting you around.”

Ben walked away, leaving Jeremy to work, and Jeremy thought that he couldn’t wait to share the juicy details of the conversation with Aiden. The boy had been right—the new guy would provide plenty of entertainment over the long winter.

The next day, Aiden was unusually quiet. When Craw brought Ben in for a tour, he kept darting furtive glances from Ben to Craw when they weren’t looking, so much so that he didn’t notice when Craw got the trip with the drum carder mixed up with the trip Jeremy and Craw had taken the year before to get the small knitting loom that they’d used to capitalize on the “knit-from-the-scarf” thing that had been going on lately.

But Jeremy had never been one to quibble over details. He’d tried to sweeten the pot on that trip as well, although he’d done so to Craw’s complete horror. However, it made a good story, and it made Ben laugh when he said it, and making Ben laugh helped Craw.

“Yeah, and I had to flirt with the owner’s daughter too!” he cracked, and suddenly Aiden’s furtive looking between Craw and Ben stopped, and Jeremy had the boy’s complete attention.

“I thought you said you slept with her!” he snapped, and Jeremy knew, in that moment, that they weren’t talking about the trip with Craw. They were talking about the trip two years ago, when Jeremy had let Aiden think that because it was easier than explaining about going honest.

Well, that hadn’t been particularly honest of him, had it?

“I just said that to make you jealous,” he said with a smirk, because he wanted to see Aiden laugh.

Aiden rolled his eyes, which was just as good.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” he said, and then he and Jeremy walked outside to go start rounding up the sheep.

“I did, you know,” Jeremy said mildly as they walked, and Aiden shook his head in exasperation.

“God, Jeremy, you know, it would really fucking help things if you, just once, gave a straight answer to something.”

“Yeah, fine, shoot!”

“Okay. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

Oh, that was easy. “No. Next answer.”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?”

Also easy. “No. Next answer.”

Aiden’s eyes were narrowed. “Okay, when was the last time you were with someone?”

Oh, ouch. Talk about making a guy feel old. “Nearly five years ago. The night before my daddy was killed.”

Aiden sucked in a breath, and for a moment, Jeremy thought maybe that reference alone would let him off the hook. But not with Aiden, that was for sure. The boy was tenacious.

“What happened?”

Jeremy pulled out the memory again, of Gianni’s shy smile, the hesitant kiss. It was faded now, and after spending two and a half years in the company of good people, decent people, he’d come to realize that there was so much more to love and affection than just the smile and the kiss. But there’d been loyalty there, and risk, and he wasn’t just going to throw that away.

“A blow job,” he said nostalgically, “and a kiss. And someone who saved my life just by not telling anyone I was there.”

Aiden reached out then and grabbed his hand as they were walking. Jeremy was going to startle, going to protest, but he looked to his side and in spite of the firmness of his hand in Aiden’s, Aiden was looking out to the field with the sheep.

It was like their joined hands weren’t really happening.

Oh, but they were. And Jeremy’s heart was pounding, and his breath was coming quick, and his skin was going hot and cold in the late October afternoon. Suddenly Gianni’s face faded from his mind, and all that was left were their fingers, twining together, and the knowledge that even when Aiden let go, he’d still be at Jeremy’s place that night with a movie and a snack.

That knowledge alone made the touch of their fingers delirious and golden, like the autumn sunlight on the fields. It was something Jeremy wanted to soak in, wanted to grip to his chest or put in his little vault under his bed. But he couldn’t. All he could do was hold Aiden’s hand and feel the touch of Aiden’s thumb across the back of his knuckles.

They separated when it was time, but Jeremy realized when they started yelling at the sheep to come into the barn that the whole time their hands had been touching, he hadn’t felt the need to talk, not once.