Foothills Pride Stories, Volume 1

by Pat Henshaw

  We walked out into the alley behind Penny’s to a Ferrari.

  “Oh my God, Guy!” I squealed. “This is your car?”

  “Yeah. Not bad, huh? Better than my Grandpa’s truck.”

  It was a deep crimson convertible that looked almost black. The top was up because it was still chilly at night so close to the foothills.

  He opened the door, and I slid into the passenger seat. With the door closed, the car wrapped around me like a cocoon. It smelled like old leather and love.

  Once he was in and the door closed, I touched his hand.

  “This is incredible,” I said. “I’ve never been in one of these before.”

  “Oh, then we have to take a drive in the mountains after dinner,” he purred. “I know a couple of back roads you’ll love.”

  We rode to the restaurant in silence. Stacy’s Steaks looked rough, like an old roadhouse, from the outside, but was a plush, exclusive restaurant inside. Guy was greeted by a redheaded man who gave him a big hug and told him it’d been too long since they’d last seen him. Then the redhead turned to me.

  “And who do we have here? Who’s this lucky fellow?” the redhead asked.

  Guy blushed but answered. “Jimmy, this is Nate. Nate, this is my good friend Jimmy.”

  “Good friend, eh?” Nate asked, shaking my hand. “Any good friend of Stone’s is a good friend of mine.”

  “Stone?” I asked Guy after we’d been seated in a cozy corner near a huge floor to ceiling window. Outside, the lights of the foothills communities twinkled on the ground just as the stars shone above.

  “For Stonewall,” he said, looking slightly amused. “A bunch of guys I know started calling me Stone when we were in school. It was my football nickname.”

  “Oh. Did you like playing football? Were you any good?”

  And he was off talking about football, then asked if I played high school sports, so I told him about cross-country. The food came, the food went, and our words, our smiles, our eyes linked us.

  What a magical evening—one of those nights fiction writers like to describe but the rest of us rarely get to enjoy.

  Guy knew a lot of people in the community, and they all seemed to come by our table to say hello. Every time he introduced me and told them about my plans for the old bank building. Each time they would get excited about my plans and add something or just say they couldn’t wait to visit the place.

  As we walked out hand in hand, the cool air nipping around us, Guy pulled me into a hug.

  “You owe me for the publicity, you know.” Then he kissed me, right there in public before God and all.

  I hugged and kissed him back. It wasn’t until we were in the car and he was starting the engine that I asked, “What publicity?”

  He slung his arm around my neck and pulled me toward him.

  “By tomorrow everyone around here who knows me, and that’s quite a few people, will know two things: Stone’s got a boyfriend, and his boyfriend is opening a coffee shop in the old bank building. That’s what publicity,” he said, then kissed me again.

  I hummed while his tongue was in my mouth and sucked just a little.

  “Stone has a boyfriend. I like that,” I said, sounding very dreamy and unlike myself.

  “They don’t know you well enough to pass the gossip that Jimmy’s got a boyfriend,” he said quietly. “But just wait. When they do get to know you, you won’t be able to do anything in public without it being talked about by everyone. Welcome to a tiny community.”

  Since we decided we didn’t need to look nice anymore, we took off our ties and put the top down, and then Guy took me zooming around the mountain roads he loved so much. We cranked the heater up all the way and pretended our noses weren’t turning to ice.

  Now I wanted a sports car as well as a bike. Hanging out with Guy was making me happier than I’d ever been in my life.

  After we got back to his place, we had marvelous sex to warm up.

  All in all, the perfect night, the best night of my life. At the roadhouse he’d even given me a keychain with a heart dangling from it. On the pendent, he’d had engraved “Stonewall & Penny’s” and the year.

  “Been meaning to ask. Who’s Penny? Not you or Felicity.”

  “My twin. She died when we were in second grade. She was Felicity’s best friend.” I shook my head, fingering the keychain. I sighed. “Mom named her after her mother. I was the surprise child. I got named for the Bible at her bedside.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Sorry.”

  My smile probably looked like a grimace. “It was all a long time ago.”

  Silence settled around us for a moment. He gave me space, then squirmed.

  “So, uh, is it okay if I give you this key to my place tonight?” he asked softly.

  “Absolutely.”

  He waited. I’m pretty sure he thought I’d give him the guess after he gave me the key.

  “You really want to do this here?” I asked.

  “Nope. We’ll do it later in bed,” he answered.

  The perfect answer.

  Now here we were. Warm, relaxed, sated.

  “Night,” he whispered.

  “Night, Rock Hudson,” I whispered back.

  He kissed the back of my neck from his position as the outer spoon.

  “Not even close, baby. How’d you come up with Rock Hudson?” He sounded sleepy.

  “Stonewall, Stone. Rock.” I yawned. Thinking was too exhausting. “It made sense at the time.”

  “Go to sleep, Jimmy. You know what the woman in the movie said.” He paused. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  6

  THE NEXT morning I woke to the sound of my generic phone music. I answered and was just hanging up when Guy walked into the room from the shower. He smelled much better than the bed and me.

  “Who was it?” he asked, drying his head with a towel.

  “Some guy named Tommy Thompson. I’m going to have lunch with him. He said he wanted to welcome me as an Old Town merchant. Know him?”

  Guy slung the towel over his shoulders and sat next to me on the edge of the bed.

  “I wondered how long it would take before they circled the wagons,” he muttered. He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a kiss. “Sorry, babe.”

  “About what? What are you talking about?” I looked at him. “He didn’t threaten me or anything.”

  “Not yet,” he said, giving me a one-armed hug. “I’m going to lunch with you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Tommy is the village thug. He and I have a long history,” Guy told me. “I wondered why everyone was so nice last night, and now I get it.”

  I turned and put my hands on his shoulders.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I asked slowly.

  He just shook his head and got up.

  “I’ll explain it to you in the car. I gotta make a bank deposit and get some stuff to my accountant this morning. You coming with?”

  “I’ve got to check in with Felicity and see if she needs me. If she doesn’t, then I’m clear this morning,” I answered, heading for the shower.

  I figured nothing too awful was happening with this Tommy character or Guy would have told me right away. Guy didn’t seem too upset, so I shuffled Tommy and his welcome to the back of my mind.

  In the car Guy told me Tommy was the person on the town council who “got things done the other members didn’t want to deal with.” When I asked him to explain, he said he would after lunch, since he didn’t know what the council wanted dealt with yet.

  TOMMY TURNED out to be the kind of bruiser Felicity and I had hidden from in school. He was tall, beefy, with a broken nose and square chin, the kind of bully-built man who charges ahead regardless of who or what is in his way. He embodied the type who believes he’s right and everyone should agree with him. He exuded malice. I disliked him on sight.

  He hauled Guy into a hug with a wicked-hard backslap, making me wince.

  “How
the hell are you, Stone?” he bellowed in Guy’s ear.

  Guy whapped him on the back even harder and yelled, “How ya been?”

  I wanted to scamper away.

  When they released each other, Tommy glared at Guy and said, “Look, I’ve got some business with Jimmy Patterson here. So how about we get together sometime later and catch up?”

  Guy’s grin spread across his teeth but not his eyes.

  “Oh, I’m coming to lunch with you and Jimmy.” His eyes became slits as he challenged Tommy. “Somebody’s gotta protect Jimmy from the welcoming committee.”

  Tommy shifted his weight from foot to foot and grimaced, as if Guy’d backhanded him. Then he shifted back into a solid stance and glared at me.

  “We don’t need you for our little talk, Stone,” Tommy said softly, his eyes now fixed on Guy.

  “Gotcha, Tommy. But, see, Jimmy isn’t used to working with the Foothills welcome committee.” His eyes grew more steely, which made me even more nervous. They were standing off, but I didn’t know why. “Jimmy just needs to know someone from one of the founding families, one of the people who owns a lot of real estate in this area, is behind him.”

  The gloves were off, and the hostess came to seat us. It was going to be a long lunch.

  Tommy stared at Guy a minute, then turned to me.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. Hi, there! I’m Tommy Thompson, and you must be Jimmy. The Watsons described you to me.” He held out a meaty hand, but I just nodded to him. I wasn’t getting a broken hand out of this deal, and it seemed like that was all he was offering.

  I glanced at Guy. He was smiling at me as if I’d done something right. I nodded to him, and he nodded back. He had my back. I got it.

  We sat at a booth, Tommy on one side, me and Guy on the other. I was next to the window, where a benign Sierra day was blooming. Predictably, Tommy ordered a slab of beef cooked rare. I ordered the soup and salad combo, and Guy had a burger with fries. The lines were drawn.

  Nobody said anything until our meals had come and were consumed. Then Tommy leaned back and sighed.

  “So you’re opening a coffee shop where the bank used to be,” he said, looking first at Guy and then at me.

  I nodded. What could I add that would help whatever he was getting at?

  “You know, some of the other business owners are a little skeptical, considering we even turned down Starbucks for the location,” he added.

  I didn’t know that, but I wasn’t surprised. Starbucks had the wrong ambiance for downtown, which was trying very hard to be upscale while still being a little Wild West. It would be like trying to relocate the mall Penny’s to Main Street. The Mall version was too plastic and hustle-bustle.

  “There’s a certain element we’re trying to keep out of the downtown area,” he said, staring at me now. Menace rolled off him in waves.

  “I understand,” I said calmly. “The Penny’s at the mall attracts mothers and children, and teens. We wouldn’t want them downtown.”

  Guy sucked in a breath, then chuckled next to me. I couldn’t look at him or I would have burst out laughing. Tommy reddened like he wanted to lift me out of the booth and beat the living hell out of me. I smiled at him.

  As I was trying to figure out what to do next, Guy pulled himself up a little straighter.

  “Didn’t know there was a problem with the people downtown at night,” Guy said quietly. “I’ll pass the word to my customers. Wouldn’t want the wrong element favoring downtown restaurants during the weeknights, now would we?”

  Tommy glared at him, then looked surprised at the idea Stonewall’s clientele might stop coming into the restaurants during the week. I wasn’t sure what difference it would make, but Tommy looked concerned.

  “No, no, Stone, not what I meant. You don’t have to do anything,” he said, backpedalling.

  “Yeah, I do, Tommy. I’d hate to see the wrong element downtown when family groups aren’t there.” Guy slid out of the booth and held a hand out to me. I took his hand, and Tommy looked shocked, his glance going from Guy to me and back again. “I think lunchtime’s over for us. C’mon, Jimmy.”

  Well, if nothing else, I couldn’t say Guy didn’t know how to take a stand.

  “What was that all about?” I asked as Guy guided me across the street and then into Stonewall’s.

  Guy huffed.

  “He as much as said he didn’t want us downtown at night, the homophobic son of a bitch,” he said, incredulity lacing his tone.

  “Yeah, I got it. Big surprise. What else did you expect? You said he was the downtown association’s enforcer.” I stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks as we reached Stonewall’s back room. “But what was all that about weekday nights?”

  “Weekdays are when gays and lesbians keep the damn eating places alive. Family groups don’t do any fine dining during the week, but we do. Or at least we used to,” he added sourly.

  “Wait. Just think about this a minute,” I soothed him. “Right now it’s a standoff. He threatened me. You threatened him. Do you want to dry up the queer trade during the week and force anyone to close? Would it really do Stonewall’s any good?”

  He glanced down at me, fire in his eyes. Then he took a deep breath.

  “Okay, you’re right, Jimmy. No one wins that way. If our guys start to feel unwanted and threatened, they’ll find somewhere else to drink too, even though we don’t side with the rest of them. I get it.”

  I smoothed my hand down his chest.

  “I like your Sunday-going-to-meeting clothes, though,” I commented. Evidently my eyes were twinkling as I looked up at him, because he growled in response.

  “Cut it out, Jimmy. You don’t have to jolly me along,” he said flatly.

  “Yeah, I do. You’re pissed. And rightly so. But let’s not make trouble and pull out the big guns until we need them, okay?” I rubbed my hand down his chest again. “Take a deep breath and think about it.”

  He walked away, so I let my hand drop.

  “You know, my family’s been here for over a hundred years,” he said. “We were here when there was nothing else. Those bastards built their cute little restaurants on Main Street because they saw people coming in and wanted to take money from my customers. And I let those bastards do it because I didn’t want to make waves.”

  He walked back to me, put his arms around me, and gave me a hug.

  “I hated all of them then, and I hate them now,” he said under his breath.

  “I know,” I answered, soothing him. “I know.”

  He hugged me closer.

  “I just want to beat up every one of them.”

  “I know.”

  We stood there a little longer, hugging each other.

  The world wasn’t nice or fair or rosy, but it was the world we lived in. We could make trouble, and there were many Stonewall customers who’d gladly join us in a fight. Some of the bikers who came in were ready to rumble when they left every night. But what would we gain?

  “We’ll just see what happens. How ’bout it?” Guy asked.

  I gave him a squeeze.

  “Good plan. Like I said, we can pull out the big guns later if we need them. Until then, let’s get through the day without hitting anyone, ’kay?”

  I felt his chuckle as he held me.

  “Yeah. Gotcha.” He kissed my forehead, then my lips. Afterward, he asked, “So dinner tonight? Obviously, not downtown.”

  “What? You’re going to turn tail and run? Of course, downtown. And we should wear the gayest clothes we own, right?”

  “God, you’re diabolical,” he laughed. “I’ll wear my leather. What you got?”

  “No, no!” I shrieked. “I was kidding. Not making waves, remember? You want to be a rebel? We won’t wear ties.”

  He grunted. “Okay, no waves. I’ll call for a reservation.”

  We parted, me to go check out the furniture warehouse Fredi said was to die for, Guy to get his bank deposits made and logged. We agreed for him t
o pick me up around six thirty to eat downtown at the restaurant Tommy co-owned with a bunch of heavy-hitters with whom Guy had gone to high school.

  We agreed it should be an interesting evening.

  I WAS talking to Felicity in the back room when Guy strolled in wearing a three-piece suit and looking debonair. I’d already described the tables and chairs I’d seen at the warehouse and was reassuring her I didn’t mind her harassing Alex to get her money back, when Felicity got this look of lustful longing on her face.

  “Are you sure he’s gay, Jimmy?” she asked.

  I nodded. I’d always thought Guy was good-looking, but here he was stunning.

  Before I could stand up to meet him, Bobby charged into the back room.

  “He says he knows you, Mr. Patterson,” Bobby gasped. “Then he just walked back here.”

  “It’s okay, Bobby,” Felicity said.

  Bobby looked from me to Guy and back again. He stared at me and seemed to deflate.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were….” Bobby looked like he was about to burst into tears.

  Felicity glanced at me and shook her head as I was getting up to go over to Bobby.

  “I’ll take care of this,” she told me softly. “You two just go on and have a good time.”

  I was confused. What was going on with Bobby? What was I missing?

  I stood and put on my jacket.

  I stopped, ready to go back to where Felicity was speaking softly to Bobby.

  Guy put his arm around my shoulders and pushed me a little to get me moving toward the door.

  “I’ll explain it in the car,” he said, his arms coming off my shoulders as we walked into the customer area of Penny’s.

  When we were both in the car with our seatbelts buckled, I turned to him.

  “What was going on in there?”

  “It was high school all over again,” he said, rubbing his face with his hands. “I came in and asked where you were. The kid, Bobby, took one look at me and asked who I was. I said I was your boyfriend.”

  He looked over at me as if asking if it was okay with me. My heart had stopped, it was so okay with me. Guy told one of my employees he was my boyfriend. Wow. Just oh my God, wow.