by Leta Blake
He consulted his inner Ann and got nothing.
After breathing in and out twenty times, he grabbed the nearest eight-foot tall tree, dragged it toward his SUV, and shoved it in the back, heedless of broken limbs or damage. Then he headed in to pay the goth girl. Inside, he grabbed some decent-sized wreaths—one with a giant red bow.
Then he climbed back into his SUV, ready to return to his parents’ house with all his hard-won greenery. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he resolved to write the whole incident off as a mistake. Take it as a lesson. This time, he’d be done with Joel for real, and he wouldn’t ever look back.
“You utter asshole,” he muttered, as snow again flirted with his windshield.
He wasn’t sure if he was talking about Joel or himself.
Chapter Five
The prior week, Joel had decked out his trailer for the holidays. He’d draped solar-powered colored lights along the gutters and added a wreath with a hanger on the front door. But nothing really took away from the fact that it just didn’t feel like home.
No place had in a long time now.
The house in Belmont Hills hadn’t felt like home once Casey left for college. Then it’d been ripped away from him entirely after Pop’s stroke when he’d been forced to sell it to help fund his stay in the nursing home.
Joel climbed out of his faithful gray Chevy Silverado and took a good hard look at the trailer on the two-acre lot where he lived now, trying to see it through Casey’s eyes. It was a decent piece of land he’d inherited directly from his granny on his mother’s side when she passed away. In the gloom of night, illuminated only by the motion-sensor lights he’d put along the edge of his property, he noted the line where the lingering grass turned muddy down by the lake. The water shimmered in the moonlight, dancing in the light breeze. The fishing was good there in the summer, and he often caught his own dinner, which went toward cutting down the grocery bill.
Over to the right, near a thicket of overgrown bushes and shade trees, tumbled-down walls indicated the spot where Granny’s old cabin had once stood. To the left was a flat area that led to the ridge of train tracks running along the eastern side of his property.
A layman unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Knoxville real estate might have thought Joel could solve his money troubles by selling these two acres of lake property to a developer. But the close presence of the train tracks and the fact that the property was on the “wrong side” of the lake made it worth very little. Joel was proud of the land, though. It was his, and no one could take it away from him.
Admittedly, the trailer wasn’t his dream home. Once his financial tides had finally turned, he planned to build a log cabin to his own specifications—a home that would do his grandmother’s gift justice and make a nice place for him to retire into old age. He’d write his books by the window, looking out on the lake, surrounded by peace and quiet.
Maybe he’d never move out of Knoxville like he’d dreamed when he was a teenager just a few short, hard years ago, but he could make something good out of what he had here. He looked around and saw possibilities. It was one of the only areas of his life where he felt optimistic.
But if Casey saw the place as it was now, he wouldn’t see Joel’s dreams. All he’d see was Joel’s current poverty, and he’d pity him. Or, worse, he’d loathe him. Casey’s face would take on that sour look rich people always wore when confronted with the unwashed masses. That haughty sneer. Joel never wanted to see Casey’s all-American, gorgeous face twisted up like that.
And damn, if it wasn’t somehow worse that Casey’d grown up so handsome and tall. He’d lost all his old nerdy scrawniness. The boy Joel had found confusingly attractive had become the kind of man who could make Joel’s head spin. Because, yeah, Joel was gay as hell. It’d taken him a long time to fully admit it to himself, but it was the truth. And one day he was going to have to do something about it.
But not with Casey Stevens. Never with Casey Stevens.
He stalked up the stairs to the trailer and jerked open the door. The welcoming scent of spicy chili greeted him. Saliva flooded his mouth, and he groaned hungrily. He’d forgotten to eat most of the day—not that he had a lot in the tiny fridge at the store anyway.
His dog Bruno flung himself at Joel desperately. His golden, sleek, muscled body wriggled like mad and his whip-long tail whapped from side to side, catching a stack of bills on the entryway table and knocking them to the floor.
“Well, hello to you too,” Joel said with a laugh, rubbing Bruno’s silky ears and gazing into his wide-set golden eyes. He’d taken Bruno in when he found him wandering the edge of his property, skinny and starving, with twine knotted around his neck. It’d never crossed his mind to send him to an animal shelter.
He knew a pit bull mix would face a death sentence at most shelters or, worse, be “adopted” out to dog fighters. Besides, he’d been lonely, and taking in a dog seemed a far better choice than actually doing something scary like downloading one of those gay dating apps.
So, a dog it was. Unlike with some meaningless hookup, Joel had no regrets. Bruno was a great pet. He waited patiently all day for Joel to come home, never running off too far, and always using the dog door Joel had installed to do his business. Plus he greeted Joel just like this. Every day. No matter what.
To Bruno, Joel mattered—more than mattered.
Bruno didn’t care if Joel had been away for sixteen hours at Vreeland’s doing his work. He didn’t care if Joel was hungry, tired, and not sure where the next paycheck was coming from. Bruno was just happy as hell every time Joel came back, period. He didn’t know they lived on the “wrong” side of the lake in a trailer with not enough food. He just loved bounding in the woods after squirrels and splashing in the water. His nonjudgmental love, incredibly low expectations, and unconditional trust had saved Joel’s life too, if he were honest.
Which, as Joel was all too aware, he didn’t tend to be.
Not about the scary things. And not about important ones. Like how he’d really felt when he saw Casey Stevens get out of his stunning white, brand-new SUV that evening. It’d been a kick to the gut, and then to the nads, and then to the gut again. Fuck. He was still winded from it.
When Bruno calmed down from his greeting, Joel said, “Let’s get some dinner, yeah?”
Bruno agreed, enthusiastically bounding around in a circle, knocking more mail onto the floor before hurtling into the kitchen. Joel followed, cleaning up the mess Bruno left in his wake and laughing as Bruno shook himself and whined eagerly. A cloud of hair rose and fell around him, joining the clumps of dog hair already breeding big, fat dog-bunnies in the corners.
“I should vacuum later,” he said to Bruno, who stood at his feet grinning up at him with his tongue lolling out. “But, man, Bruno. I’m tired. Sixteen hours a day for three weeks straight will do that to a guy.”
Luckily, his assistant manager, Brandon, would be returning from his poorly timed vacation the next day. Then Joel could finally get a break from the endless work. Not that customers were a bad problem to have. He’d rather the store be busy and the money be coming in than to have plenty of leisure time and no way to pay his bills. Even though he loved writing, his books never sold more than a handful of copies each.
Soon enough he’d take a whole day off and leave the store in the hands of Angel and Brandon and his other three employees, and he’d spend it writing. If only he could hire a couple more part-time employees like his dad had back in the old days, then he’d be set. He might even finish more than one novella a year.
Unfortunately, once Christmas was over, he knew they’d hit a few lean months again before the spring planting rush started. Maybe by summer he’d be eating more than a crockpot of chili for a week. Maybe he’d even be able to afford to see a movie in the theater and reactivate his streaming services.
So many pipe dreams.
Maybe one of them could come true.
After filling Bruno’s dog dish, Joel prepa
red his bowl of chili, sprinkling the top with the corn chips and grated cheese he’d splurged on. Slumped on the sofa, he aimed the remote control at the TV, but navigating the paltry, free offerings of his HDTV antenna was uninspiring. Sighing, he turned it off.
As he reached for his laptop and powered it on, he knew he should open his latest manuscript and start adding more words to where he left off. But he also knew he wasn’t going to do that. He had another plan for his evening, and he almost hated himself for it. Chili spread over his tongue in spicy bursts of flavor as he logged into Facebook and typed a name into the search bar.
He allowed himself to do this every six months or so. A few times he’d even let his mouse linger over the Facebook messenger icon before he hastily closed down the screen and shoved his computer away. This time, he wasn’t even tempted by that button. No, tonight he planned to torture himself with Casey’s photos again.
There.
Casey and a tall, good-looking black guy who was obviously his boyfriend. They both wore tuxedoes and had their arms around each other. Big grins spread across their stupidly handsome faces, glittering like the New York skyline behind them.
Was it taken on top of the Empire State Building or someplace else? Joel didn’t know. He’d never gone anywhere but Sunset Beach, North Carolina, once with his mom before she’d died. He’d just been a little kid. He still remembered the feeling of the waves crashing over his toes and the sucking sand beneath his feet. Eventually, he’d stood in one spot long enough that the waves had left him in a hole, mired deep enough that his mom, laughing, had to come tug him out.
Joel clicked to the next picture. He’d seen it before, but he wanted to see it again.
It was Casey and the same guy—tagged as Theo Frasier—dancing at someone’s wedding. He didn’t think it was theirs. Surely Becca would have told him if Casey had gotten married. Because while Becca didn’t keep up with Casey per se, she did keep up with RJ, and RJ was in several pictures on Facebook with Casey, so obviously they were still in touch.
And how had that happened, anyway? How had his group—his band—fallen apart like that? And why had everyone but him seemed to go on to do just fine? Even Becca, now his closest friend, had her life together a thousand times over compared to him. Not that Casey had been part of the band, really. But he might as well have been. He was always there, every practice, staring up at them, his head moving to the beat and his eyes gleaming with fannish adoration.
God, Joel missed that. Even if he’d never deserved it, he’d lived for that look in Casey’s eyes. A huff from his feet reminded him that Bruno gazed at him adoringly now, but he was just a dog. He’d gaze at anyone who fed him with the same devotion. Casey had been…Casey. And Joel had flown high as a kite on his gaze, even if he’d always been too afraid to admit what that meant.
Speaking of what it meant…
Why hadn’t he taken the risk four years ago and kissed Casey that last night they spent together on their bench before Casey left for NYU? If nothing else, he’d have felt those lush lips pressed against his own before the punch came. And what if there hadn’t been a punch at all? What if Casey had kissed him back? After all, he looked so fucking comfortable kissing this Theo Frasier.
Joel clicked to that picture next.
In it, Casey and Theo kissed playfully in front of a small Christmas tree. Half of Casey’s mother’s body was visible at the edge of the shot, and Casey’s tiny aunt, Courtney, stood on a chair behind them giving bunny ears and grinning widely.
The picture was clearly taken in New York City in a fancy hotel room and not Casey’s parents’ new house—the gleaming, shining, ridiculously big place Joel had driven by out of curiosity at least a half dozen times. The house that was actually right across the lake from his own property. He could see their bright, back windows glowing in the darkness right now if he went to his bedroom and looked out.
Joel stared at the picture and shook his head, beating himself up for wanting so much that he couldn’t have.
Casey kissed this man—this obviously wealthy, well-connected man—in front of his parents in their super upper-class hotel room, decorated expensively for the holidays, while his accepting aunt stood behind them—literally. That was Casey’s life now. That was the kind of man Casey got to be.
And all the while, back home in Knoxville, across the wrong side of the lake, Joel was alone. He’d dealt with his father’s stroke alone. Ran Vreeland’s Home and Garden alone. And admitted his gayness alone. He’d done it all—faced his fears, dealt with his anger, and endured the endlessly looping sense of betrayal—alone.
Bruno jumped up on the sofa beside him and snuffled at Joel’s almost empty bowl of chili. Joel must have been hungrier than he realized if he’d eaten that much without noticing and despite his heartsick jealousy. Bruno’s jowls dripped with slobber.
“I know. I’m a sad sack,” Joel muttered as he let Bruno lick up the last of the chili. “Wah, wah, wah. I tell you what, Bruno. It’s better to be alone than…”
He had no idea.
Snapping the laptop shut, he closed his eyes. The truth was he didn’t want to be alone and never had, but he knew he didn’t get to be friends with Casey Stevens either. That wasn’t how the world worked.
Not today anyway.
Chapter Six
“Casey, my man, to what do I owe this honor?” RJ was clearly a touch high; his voice through the phone sounded a little spacy. Casey wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he supposed it was part of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.
“Yeah, it’s been a while. Sorry about that.”
“S’okay. How’s your boyfriend? What’s his name, Tad?”
“Theo. We broke up.”
“Because he was uptight and weird?”
“No,” Casey said, laughing and rubbing at his face. He’d parked in his parents’ driveway with the tree and wreaths he’d purchased from Joel’s store filling the SUV with needles and pine scent. The new neighbors’ houses were dressed up for the holidays—very tastefully, of course. He watched the moon reflecting on the lake beyond the house. “We ended things because we weren’t in love. We both thought we deserved more.”
“He got tired of you phoning it in?”
“I did more than phone it in!” Casey protested. He’d tried to be a good boyfriend to Theo, but love wasn’t something you could force.
“Fair enough. But I guess he’s a little right about you not opening up. Take me, for example. I knew you all through high school while you worshipped at Joel’s feet, but even then I couldn’t say for sure you were gay. Not until you showed up at Knitting Factory that night when I was playing in New York.”
“Well, I wasn’t out in high school.”
“Obviously. And maybe I just wasn’t looking closely enough. Sorry about Theo, though.”
“Thanks. It didn’t hurt as much as it should have. Which probably says it all.”
“Yeah.”
The neighbors on the right turned on their Christmas tree lights, visible through the big picture window facing Casey’s folks’ house. “Um, so I have a question.”
“Hit me.”
Casey tried to sound casual. “You keep up with Joel at all?”
“Oh, Joel. Your one true love,” RJ teased.
“I should never have told you about that.” He’d confessed it that night after the show at Knitting Factory back in RJ’s hotel room while Theo was in the bathroom.
RJ took a long sucking inhale on something. Probably a joint, since RJ had never smoked a cigarette in his life as far as Casey knew. “But you did.”
“Mistakes were made.”
“Maybe. But, no, man, I haven’t talked to him in a few years. Becca keeps up with him, though.”
“Ah.” Casey swallowed hard. “Did you tell Becca what I told you?”
“Tell ’er what?”
“About my crush on Joel?” Becca followed him on Facebook, so she knew that he was gay.
RJ chuckled
deeply. “Nah. I kind of forgot about it until just now, to be honest. I was pretty drunk that night.”
“True.”
“But, I admit, I’m surprised Joel never came out.”
“Came out?”
“Yeah. I’d always hoped he would, you know?” He sounded sad and fond all at once. “From what little I know, though, he’s as closeted as ever.”
Casey frowned. “Joel’s straight.”
“Uh no. The way he used to look at you? Are you kidding me?” RJ laughed again. “I mean, I didn’t know if you were gay, but Joel? C’mon.” He clucked his tongue.
Casey swallowed hard, hope hurting as much as hopelessness ever had. “Spell it out for me, RJ. Pretend I’m dumb.” Casey rubbed his fingers over his eyebrows, straining for patience. His breath came tight and fast.
Why was it that the acute heart-pangs he’d tried to run away from years ago started up again with every mention of Joel’s name? It’d been almost four years, for God’s sake, and Joel had basically just told him to kiss off. How could he be so pathetically in love still? It made no sense.
“Ah, I don’t know, bro. I’m high. Probably saying things I shouldn’t.” RJ sighed heavily. “But Becca and I always thought Joel’s claims about hooking up with girls in high school were all bullshit. Especially since he never got a second date with any of them. And especially since I never had any reason to believe he really had a first date in the first fucking place.”
“What are you talking about? Girls loved him,” Casey muttered, rubbing at his eyes. His mind whirred. “They were always coming onto him at school. Flirting. Following him around.” It used to drive him nuts, waiting for the day Joel did choose one of them to date for real and not just screw like he claimed.
“Yeah. True. They did chase him, you’re right.” RJ took another puff of whatever he was smoking. “What do I know? I just always thought we’d have heard something from one of those girls if he’d actually taken them out. Like, you know, drama because he used them and walked away. That sort of thing.” RJ coughed. “Becca always said it was all bullshit. Just Joel fronting. You know how he was—all bark about everything. Never any real bite.”