Chapter Four
When Rusty had imagined Blake’s home town, he hadn’t quite pictured what he found in Hope Springs. The scent of pine and cedar hung heavy in the cool winter air as they drove along tree-lined streets in the car Rusty had insisted they hire to get here.
The streets were wide and reasonably well-maintained, in contrast to what he was used to seeing in small towns. The place had a general air of contentment, like something out of a movie version of the 1950s, when everything was clean and neat.
It had never really been that way, but Rusty finally understood what a white picket fence community looked like.
He’d laughed at Blake when he’d complained about the four-hour drive, but he was starting to regret that now. The winding roads around the mountains here were nothing like the ones back home. He’d never been much of a cautious driver, but America was quickly turning him into one.
Getting out of the car was bliss, even if it was freezing outside.
Well, not quite freezing. There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but there was on the tops of the mountains looming over the town. They looked sharper than the ones he was used to seeing in Melbourne. Rockier, he supposed.
That was probably why they called them The Rockies.
“I grew up in the hills, you know,” Rusty said as Blake followed him out of the car, both of them leaning on the side. “Little town called Upwey.”
“Up… way?” Blake asked, raising an eyebrow. “And you thought Hope Springs wasn’t a real place?”
Blake shrugged. “Never occurred to me it was a weird name until you butchered it just now,” he teased.
“I didn’t butcher it. Have you ever heard yourself talk? You drop the first letter of every single word.”
“Not every word,” Rusty defended, though he knew that out here, he was the one with the weird accent.
Blake sighed a long-suffering sigh that made Rusty feel like he really was one half of an old married couple. He’d heard his mother make the same sound a thousand times.
“Let’s go inside. Try to be nice to my family,” Blake said, heading up the path to the front porch.
“Hey, I promised you the perfect husband, and you’ll get it,” Rusty said. He intended to make good on that promise, if only for his own amusement.
Besides, he liked Blake. If they’d met under different circumstances, they might have had a future together. And he’d convinced him to get fake-married to him only to find out later that it was completely real.
He owed him one.
The sound of the doorbell rang in Rusty’s ears, making him wince at how loud it was.
It probably only sounded that way because he was nervous. No one ever brought him home to meet the family. This was the first time he’d done that, and it was all a lie.
The door opened to reveal a small woman with the same warm brown eyes as Blake, the same delicate, elfin features. This had to be Blake’s mother.
She looked Rusty up and down, and then stepped through the door, closing the gap between them and wrapping her arms around him.
Rusty stared at Blake in alarm, not sure how to react.
“Welcome to the family,” she cooed. “We’re all so excited to meet you. Come in, come in.”
She stepped back to give him space to slip inside, but Rusty hadn’t quite recovered enough to move just yet.
“Don’t I get a hug?” Blake asked, holding his arms out.
“Of course you do, honey,” she said, brushing past Rusty to hug Blake as well. “You didn’t tell me he was so handsome.”
Blake glanced up at Rusty. “Is he?” he asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”
His mother laughed, holding the door open for them. “Don’t be mean to your poor husband.”
So she knew, then. Blake must have warned her he was coming.
That was probably just as well. Trying to explain himself could only have ended in disaster.
Rusty followed Blake inside, taking over holding the door to let his mother in. “So, can I call you mum, or…?”
Her entire face lit up. “You’re welcome to. My name is Susan, if you’re more comfortable with that.”
“Mum’s fine,” Rusty insisted. “As long as you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all.” Susan beamed at him. “Your accent is so charming.”
Rusty glanced over at Blake. “See? Charming.”
“I’m sure he thinks so as well,” Susan said. “Come through to the kitchen, we’re all in there.”
Rusty followed Susan, poking his head into a big, brightly-lit kitchen. Wooden countertops and white cabinetry made the whole space look open and welcoming.
He almost wanted to take a picture so he could use it as a reference later.
“This is my husband, John,” Susan explained. Rusty nodded to the other man, who seemed to be working his way through a stack of napkins, rolling and folding each one into a long-stemmed rose. From Rusty’s perspective, it looked like magic.
“Megan’s taking a nap,” she explained. “Chris is out back, checking for weeds. I told him it was winter, but…”
“Megan is my sister, Chris is her boyf- uh, fiancé,” Blake explained. “Wow. Not used to that at all.”
Rusty chuckled. “You don’t get weeds in the winter?” he asked.
“Nothing much grows except for mushrooms,” Susan said. “Do you garden?”
“I helped out when I was a kid. Plenty of stuff grew in the winter, most of it weeds. I guess if it’s too cold for me here, it’d be too cold for them.”
“Aww, my delicate little flower,” Blake teased, smiling broadly at Rusty.
That told him he was doing a good job with Blake’s parents.
“Well, if I stare at these any longer, I’m gonna go blind,” Blake’s father said, standing. “Rusty, is it?”
“Yes sir,” Rusty said. He would never have called anyone ‘sir’ back home, but he’d heard Americans do it often enough that he assumed it was expected.
“Don’t sir me,” John said. “Not even Blake gives me sir.”
“Noted,” Rusty responded, not sure whether he’d screwed up or not. “John, then?”
“Perfect.” John nodded. “Beer?”
Rusty grinned at him. “I think I’ll fit right in here. Please, if there’s one going.”
“Finally, a son who’ll drink with me,” John said, standing up and stretching his arms over his shoulders. “You two sit down,” he added, patting Rusty’s shoulder on the way past.
It felt like acceptance.
He wasn’t sure his own father had ever done that.
“You look like you’ve got a good set of lungs,” Susan said. Rusty looked up, confused, and then saw the bag of balloons in her hand. She tossed them across the table, leaving Rusty to catch them.
“They’re for the bridal shower tomorrow,” she explained. “Blake, your handwriting is beautiful, so you’re on place card duty.”
She shoved a basket filled with cards and pens over to Blake, who was blushing to the tips of his ears.
John returned with two bottles of beer and sat down beside Blake, across from Rusty. He passed one over, then twisted the cap off the other one.
Rusty looked down at the brightly-colored label on the bottle he’d just been handed. He didn’t recognize the name or the logo. “Is this… local?” he asked, figuring that was as good a guess as any.
“Sure is,” John said. “But we won’t run you out of town if you hate it.”
That was probably just as well, because Rusty had never been good at pretending he liked things he didn’t. Especially beer.
“So, what’s Australia like? We only ever see pristine strips of sandy beach and deserts that stretch as far as the eye can see. Oh! And kangaroos! I love kangaroos,” Susan enthused.
“We have got a lot of sandy beaches,” Rusty confirmed. “Deserts… I didn’t see one until I came out here, actually. We’ve got them, but they’re pretty far from the big cities.”
He decided not to mention that he’d been bitten by a kangaroo once, and that was really the only interaction he’d had with them. Susan would have been disappointed.
“Which city are you from?” she asked. “Or, I mean… if you’re from a city…”
“I was raised near Melbourne. Mum and dad moved to Sydney while I was at uni, so I guess I’m from both now.”
Blake’s family also didn’t need to know that Rusty wasn’t on the best of terms with his father. He was supposed to be the perfect husband, not the tragic, broken husband.
“Is it necessary to interrogate him? He just sat down,” Blake said.
Rusty looked up and smiled at him, finally opening his own beer. “You say that like you didn’t spend the entire first day we met asking questions about Australia.”
Blake smiled a tiny, sheepish smile. “Well, yeah. But you’re my husband. I’m allowed.”
Rusty chuckled at that. “You’re allowed to do a lot of things. I really don’t mind.”
“No, Blake’s right,” Susan said. “I’m just excited to meet you. How come we never heard about you before?”
“Yeah, Blake,” Rusty looked over at him again. “How come they never heard about me before?”
Rusty sipped his beer, unsure what to expect. He rolled it around his tongue while he waited for Blake to come up with a suitable excuse, slowly getting used to the taste. It wasn’t as bitter as he was used to, or as strong, but he didn’t immediately hate it.
He was in the habit of drinking beer to fit in, but he could have drunk this for the taste, maybe. It’d take him a while to get used to it, but by the second sip, it was growing on him.
“I guess it was all so sudden and then I really didn’t know how to break the news that I’d eloped in Vegas.” Blake shrugged.
So they were still going with the Vegas story. Good. Better to keep as much of the truth as possible.
“When was this?”
“Just a little after Megan announced her engagement,” Blake said. “Which I guess was the other reason. I didn’t want to make her feel like I was stealing the spotlight or something.”
Susan hummed, but not suspiciously. More as though she understood.
It was just as well he’d let Blake come up with the lie. He’d know what his parents wanted to hear better than Rusty.
Besides, Rusty had promised him the perfect husband, not the perfect partner in crime. He was going to have to do some of the heavy lifting.
Rusty set his beer down, stretching out a balloon before he attempted to blow it up. He wasn’t sure if it actually helped, but his mother had always done that.
“Well, I think you’re cute together,” Susan said. “And I’m glad Blake’s found someone. I was so worried about him.”
“Thanks, mom,” Blake said wryly between writing place cards. Rusty couldn’t remember ever seeing his handwriting, but the way he looped and flourished with his pen suggested it was nice.
He was a painter, so it made sense that he’d be good with a pen, too.
“I’m just saying. It’s nice to see you happy, and you look so happy.” She beamed.
Rusty was finally beginning to understand why he was there. Not just for Blake’s sake, but to please his mother.
He could imagine doing the same thing.
Not quite like this, but… if there was some way for him to convince his own mother that he was okay, that she didn’t need to worry about him anymore… he would have done it. She deserved that.
“I am happy,” Blake said, looking up at Rusty. It was all an act, but Blake wasn’t such a bad actor when he wanted to be.
“I promise I will finish these cards, but it’s been a long day,” he added after a moment. “I could really use a nap, and I’m guessing Rusty could, too?”
Rusty blinked at him, not sure if this was a genuine question or an unsubtle attempt to get out of the way.
Regardless, he probably could have used a nap.
“Uh, yeah. Bit on the tired side,” he said.
“Oh, of course,” Susan said. “And you poor boys probably haven’t eaten, either, have you?”
Rusty’s stomach growled at the mention of food. All he’d had since this morning was a cup of coffee at the airport. And it’d been crap.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Is there anything you can’t eat?” Susan asked, turning to Rusty.
“Uh, no, I’m… fine with whatever.”
“I’ll put something together for you boys. Food in an hour, say?”
Blake smiled a warm, kind smile at his mother. “You really don’t have to do that. We can get takeout.”
“Nonsense,” she responded. “I have a right to feed my own sons. You two go rest, I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
Sons.
Rusty was shocked by how easily, quickly accepted he’d been. If there’d ever been any tension for Blake over being gay, it was gone. His mother was happy to have Rusty around.
Excited, even.
He wasn’t sure how to handle that. He’d expected to act as a buffer between Blake and his estranged parents, not to be welcomed with open arms.
Not that he was complaining. Welcomes were a lot more fun.
He was just starting to worry about how Blake was going to break it to them that he’d gone home and wasn’t coming back.
“Come on, I’ll show you my room,” Blake said, standing.
Rusty’s eyes lit up. Blake’s childhood bedroom would be a treasure trove of information about him. And things to tease him mercilessly over.
He swallowed down the last few mouthfuls of beer, nodded to John, and then rushed to follow Blake up the stairs.