by Elle Keaton
“First of all, I’m sorry. I know the words probably mean nothing, but I really did not intend on hurting you.”
She stared at him, eyebrows raised.
Travis took a deep breath, willing himself to do something right for once.
“I’m bi, bisexual.” His voice shook a little, but he kept forcing the words out. “I’ve never told anyone here at home. Well, except Rod, of course. Um, anyway, I’ve—god, this is so stupid.”
“Travis, sit down. The way you’re breathing, I’m afraid you’re going to hyperventilate.”
Lisa waved him over to where a short countertop separated the eating area from the kitchen. There were two barstools tucked under the counter. Travis pulled one out and sat down while Lisa leaned on the other side, waiting for him to finish.
“You’re bisexual, so what?”
Travis picked up a coaster that was sitting on the counter and spun it between his fingers while he talked. “I’m not ashamed of being bi, not really, except here. And because I know my parents—Lenore, at least—won’t understand, I’ve never told them.”
“It’s Rod, isn’t it?” Lisa saved him from his rambling. “I should have realized sooner.”
Travis stared at her for a second. “Yes, it’s Rod. And look, he hasn’t spoken to me, not really, since Thanksgiving, so I don’t even know if he cares or if I’m imagining things. But if I can unravel this whole mess I’ve made, I’m going to find out.”
Lisa made a dismissive sound with her lips. “Jesus, Travis. I wish I smoked. You are seriously messed up.”
“I’m really sorry for hurting you.”
“Well, I’m glad I dodged a bullet. I don’t think being bi is your problem, Travis. Your problem is, you’re a coward.”
That stung.
He stood up and headed toward the door. There wasn’t much more he could say, and he’d offered his sincere apology.
“Have a great trip, Lisa. Do all the things you’ve wanted to. I’ll see you around.”
He thought he heard her mutter, “Not if I see you first” as he shut the door behind him, but he didn’t care.
Now Travis was really at loose ends. Things with Lisa were truly over, but he didn’t know what to do about Rod, Walla Walla, wheat farming—basically his entire life. He was no longer engaged, true, but there was a gaping hole where his future had once been. At least he’d known what that future was. And it wasn’t as if he could call Rod for advice.
The only person he told was Abigail, when he was able to catch her on the phone between her classes and her various study groups.
“She really tried to pepper spray you?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised Mom and Dad didn’t hear anything.”
“Now what?”
Travis acted like he didn’t know what… or who… she was referring to. “Now what, what?”
He knew she was rolling her eyes by the tone of her voice. “You broke it off—and I’m glad—but now what are you going to do? What does Rod think about the whole mess?”
Now it was Travis’s turn to roll his eyes. She had a one-track mind. “Good lord, Abs, how would I know? We’ve talked maybe three times since Thanksgiving.”
“Ah, so I was right!”
“Right about what?”
“Duh, right that Rod has feelings for you and is off licking his wounds.”
“Abs…”
“Fine, you still have your head in the sand. Or maybe somewhere darker, like up your butt.”
“Abs, I can’t talk about this, I gotta go.”
His dad seemed to understand that Travis needed to be kept busy: suddenly there was a lot more work than usual for this time of year. Michael even paid for Travis to attend a seminar on agribusiness and the global market. Travis looked forward to both the seminar and getting out of Walla Walla, even if it was only to Phoenix.
He and his dad were out driving the property, doing maintenance and generally checking that things were ready for spring. Then his dad stopped at the John Deere dealership to look at some fancy machinery and shoot the breeze with the franchise owner. One thing Travis did like about his home town was that even big business was still small.
While he waited, Travis chatted with John Briggs, a guy he’d gone to middle and high school with. In Walla Walla, unless you were Catholic or Seventh-day Adventist, everyone went to the same public high school. Tractor talk was pretty far down on the list of things Travis enjoyed, but as soon as his dad and the owner were out of earshot, John changed the subject.
“So I heard from my mom that you and Lisa Harris got engaged.” John waggled his eyebrows. One more reason Travis hated his hometown. Just once he’d like to be anonymous. The Walkers, due to the sheer amount of acreage they owned, were never anonymous. Even now that the small city was known for more than wheat, onions, and a maximum-security prison, most residents recognized his last name.
Travis thought he’d probably rather talk about tractors. “Yeah.” He couldn’t deny the statement, even if wasn’t true anymore. He kind of wished Abigail hadn’t brought up Rod again the other day, because now that was all he was thinking about. He wanted, needed, to tell Rod the wedding wasn’t happening. He needed to see Rod in person, to see his reaction to the news before he figured out what to do next. Rod was never very good at hiding his emotions.
Abigail was right, Rod had saved Travis’s ass over the years, and not just when they were doing stupid stuff like daring each other to eat the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle or seeing who could jump the farthest from the roof of the big barn with their homemade parachutes.
Now Travis was seeing Rod in a different light. Not the best friend he’d known for almost all of his life. But, as—good lord, Travis could feel his face start to heat at the thought—a lover? And the one person he should be talking to about all of these conflicting feelings was three hundred miles away instead of there like he always had been.
His inner turmoil wasn’t about his sexuality. No, it stemmed from changing lanes with Rod in mind, a possibility of Rod as his future, instead of a Lisa or Ashely or...
Travis cringed inwardly. What if this was all in his head? What if Travis was going through all this thinking and Rod was in Skagit meeting the guy who would be there for him instead of Travis? What if Rod wasn’t responding to Travis’s texts because there was some other guy in Trav’s place?
Didn’t that thought feel like a fucking bucket of ice water? He slept with guys all the time; how had he never noticed Rod? Because you didn’t “notice” your best friend that way, that’s why, he reminded himself.
Travis stared at the shiny green-and-yellow lawn tractors the dealership had on display, the thought of Rod with someone else for real pinging around in his head and making him slightly queasy. He was unable to meet John’s curious regard. Travis was afraid of what the other man would see: that he was a monumental dick who had his head so far up his own ass he had no idea he was in love with his best friend.
Travis couldn’t catch a breath and he felt sick, like he’d been sucker punched. His heart rate increased to the point where he felt more than a little off. He leaned against the display case full of toy tractors, some bright and shiny, others rusty from use and age.
He couldn’t be with Rod… could he? Travis had a duty to get married and take care of the farm; that lesson had been pounded into him since he was a little boy. Even though he didn’t want to live in Walla Walla and didn’t enjoy wheat farming, he’d always known that was what he was supposed to do. It was Travis’s duty to carry the Walker name into the future. If Travis wanted to be with Rod, it wasn’t going be here.
“Earth to Travis. Hello? Aren’t you supposed to be kind of excited about being engaged?”
Travis heard John’s question but chose to ignore it. Lisa’d been gone two weeks, and he still hadn’t faced his mother. Lisa was right, he was a coward. “Do you ever step back and wonder, like, how you got where you are?”
John furrowed his eyebrows. “Here
? My dad owns this place.”
“I mean…” What did he mean? It was usually Rod who asked too many questions about life and stuff. Travis was usually happy to let life happen. There were only so many things he actually had a say in. It occurred to Travis that John was in the same position he was. “Have you ever thought about leaving town? Doing something else?”
John stepped back around the counter and started to fuss with some paperwork. Travis couldn’t read his expression. He didn’t think his question was that out of line; a lot of people left town. Travis never saw himself leaving because of the farm, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it almost his entire life.
Finally John quit fidgeting. “What would I do, Travis? I’m a small-town hick. My dad needs me to help out here. I’m happy enough.”
Funny, Travis thought, John didn’t look happy or even “happy enough.” When Travis saw him out drinking at the Green Lantern, John was often sitting alone at the bar. But he managed to keep that thought to himself. He was spending enough time at the Lantern himself he shouldn’t throw stones.
His dad came back from looking at specs and salivating over new equipment, and the two of them headed back home. The cab of the truck was quiet as they drove along, neither feeling much like making conversation. Finally Travis couldn’t stand the noise in his head any longer.
“Dad, have you ever wanted something else?”
His dad glanced at him quickly before returning his eyes to the road. “I’m old. Tell me what you’re thinking; I’m not good at guessing.”
Great, it ran in the family. Travis wasn’t sure if that made him happy or not. He gestured out the window where, beyond the rundown fast food joints, taco trucks, gas stations, and the mall that had been built in the 1980s only to go bankrupt ten years later, the rolling hills of the Palouse were visible. Even in late winter they were sublime. He didn’t hate everything about the town he’d grown up in.
“Here, this town, wheat farming… did you ever want to do something else?”
Michael let out a chuckle before answering, “For a while in high school, I wanted to go to seminary.”
Travis side-eyed his dad. “We aren’t Catholic.”
“I didn’t really want to go, but it was fun to horrify your grandparents. What are you really trying to ask, son?”
His dad was a quiet man who generally kept out of family drama, but he wasn’t stupid. Travis opened his big mouth. “I’m not sure wheat farming is what I want. If this town is what I want.”
“Is this wedding jitters or something more?” Michael pulled to a stop at a red light, patiently waiting for Travis’s answer.
“I don’t know, Dad, it’s a lot of things. I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.”
“Well, that’s a first.”
Travis stared at his dad, who started to chuckle. “You’ve got that conference next week. Maybe that’ll help.”
The light turned green, and Michael accelerated across the intersection. Maybe the time away would help. The rest of the ride was made in comfortable silence, Travis watching the town he’d known all his life flicker past, wondering if he wanted it to be his future… and if he didn’t, what he was going to do about it.
5
Rod stared at the notification on his screen. TheoG1988 wanted to know more about him.
Great. The thought rolled around in his head, dripping with sarcasm.
Really, it was great. He was never going to meet someone if he rolled his eyes every time an email or text came through. At least TheoG1988 had sent him an actual email and not started with a dick pic. Rod liked dick as much as the next gay guy, but he really wasn’t interested in seeing some stranger’s parts before they even met.
He found it disturbing to arrange to meet a guy and know what his dick looked like, but not his face. Was he supposed to ask for proof when they met up? Grab their crotch? Compare the real thing to the picture? It was all very confusing.
Another email came in while Rod was contemplating answering TheoG1988. It was from Travis, of course. Somehow he managed to remind Rod he existed, even when they were miles apart.
Travis was at some conference in Phoenix for three days. Out of the blue, he’d sent Rod a couple bare-chested selfies with the city sprawled out behind him in the desert. It had been quiet between them since just after Thanksgiving. Rod struggled between appreciating that Travis had read and understood the note he’d left about needing space, and desperately missing his best friend. Rod stared at the image on his phone. Travis looked tired, and he’d lost his summer tan. Was his smile a little forced?
There was, according to Travis’s text, only one hill there big enough to climb, and he was headed out to climb it the next morning. He promised more pictures. Gah. Rod had no desire to go to Phoenix, not really, but it looked more appealing if Travis was there.
And… he deleted TheoG1988’s message, because clearly he wasn’t ready to date. At all. Maybe he would move to some remote mountain range and live off the land. Or something. Tossing his phone onto the couch cushion next to him, he slumped backward, resting his head against the back of the couch.
Travis aside, Rod was worried about Jasper Ransom. He didn’t think the kid had changed his clothes—or at the very least laundry hadn’t been done in his household—in weeks. Jasper also often didn’t have lunch with him, his backpack sitting far too flat against his narrow back. The lunch lady, as Karen Browning laughingly called herself, would never deny a hungry kid a meal, but even she probably had some sort of free-lunch limit she couldn’t cross.
Earlier that day, when Rod had been parked in his spot for after-school pickup, she’d stopped and talked to him before heading to her car.
“Hi, Bus Driver Rod.” She snickered.
“Lunch Lady Karen.” Funny how he’d known what she wanted to talk to him about.
“Question.” She looked around, apparently making sure there were no close ears. “Have you seen an adult with Jasper Ransom? I’m a little concerned about him. Since the holiday break he hasn’t had lunch money put in his account, and I’m pretty sure he’s wearing the same clothing. There’s been a sub in his classroom who’s barely holding it together, so he may not have noticed Jasper’s issues.”
Anxiety snaked through Rod’s stomach. He’d hoped he was imagining it. But no, it seemed that something was going on with Jasper after all.
“I haven’t. He’s never come to the stop with anyone. Have you asked him?”
“I have, kind of, but he has the attention span of a gnat, and I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. Plus, I’m only the lunch lady. I’ll say something to Principal Snow if you think there’s cause.”
Instead of setting himself up for an excruciating date with a stranger, Rod would do a little detective work. He’d drive the part of the route where he picked Jasper up and see if he could find anything out. What he might find out by merely driving down a street, he had no idea… but it was better than sitting on the couch staring into space. Wondering what Travis was doing in Phoenix.
Rod’s bus route ran circuitously around the northeast edge of Skagit. There were fourteen elementary schools in Skagit, and Yew, where Jasper went, was one with some of the most economically challenged students. The street he meandered down had a defeated feel to it, as if residents had given up the fight, or at least not many had the time or money to paint their houses and fix up their yards.
These houses had all been built post–World War II, probably to meet the demand of returning soldiers and their expanding families. Some looked like they hadn’t been painted since then. As his truck rumbled along, Rod tried to find some kind of sign of Jasper. He’d done a little research on the name Ransom before he left his apartment but hadn’t found any addresses with that name, at least not in that neighborhood.
The fact that it was already dark at six p.m. didn’t help matters, but Rod needed to be out doing something. Anything. Looking for where Jasper might live was at least less useless than sitt
ing around wondering about Travis. About how the wedding plans were going. The few times they’d talked, Rod had come up with excuses to end the call before the subject came up. He didn’t even know if Travis and Lisa had set a date yet. Rod was pretty sure Lenore Walker wouldn’t let the engagement linger too long.
And there he was, thinking about Travis again. God fucking dammit.
Stepping sharply on the brake, Rod swung his truck around and headed toward downtown. He might as well stop by the Loft and see if Cam was working. Maybe a beer or two would help him loosen up a bit and write a decent reply to TheoG1988.
Far too late for the time he had to be at work in the morning, Rod stumbled home to his apartment. He pulled TheoG1988’s message out of the trash and replied before he fell asleep on the couch with all the lights on.
Jasper made it to the bus stop the next morning. He didn’t look much better than Rod felt. His clothes were rumpled, and Rod could see where he’d spilled something, ketchup maybe, on his shirt. One shoe was untied, and his backpack was again empty of anything resembling a lunch. What was going on?
“Hey, little guy, how’s it going?”
“Okay.” Jasper didn’t say anything else before he went to sit in his seat directly behind Rod. He didn’t even ask what part of the story they were working on during the rest of the ride.
Before pulling away from the curb, Rod quickly glanced behind him. Jasper was staring out the window. Rod wanted to ask him again if everything was all right. Instead, he flicked off the “No Passing” blinkers and pulled out into Skagit morning traffic.
6
Travis rolled out of bed, his head throbbing. He’d been at the Lantern until closing the night before. No doubt his dad wasn’t going to be impressed. At least it was still winter and Travis wasn’t sixteen anymore, so his dad’s decades-old threat of making him move the woodpile (by hand) from one side of the yard to the other had no effect.