Foothills Pride Stories, Volume 1

by Pat Henshaw

  “Yeah, it was my fault. He was my old man. He was my problem, not yours.”

  “Oh hell no! He was his own problem. He would have killed you.” I sat up, shoving a pillow behind my back. Nothing like replaying shit from the past to deflate morning wood. I grabbed David and the other pillow, then pulled him next to me, not letting him go. We had to have this out if it had messed with his mind all this time.

  “I should have done something.” David wasn’t looking at me.

  “Like what?” I shook my head. “We were what? Fifteen? Sixteen? You were fucking scrawny, for God’s sake. What were you going to do?”

  “I should have left you alone. I shouldn’t have thrown myself at you.”

  I huffed. Like hell. “Look, we were both throwing ourselves at each other. Nobody was chasing anybody or throwing themselves at the other person. We were in it together. He was a homophobic moron.”

  David sighed. “He hated you calling me Pretty Boy. He said once somebody in school had named him that, and he’d hung his head in shame until he graduated. He hated being pretty. The kicker was how much I liked you calling me that at the beginning. How proud I was to be your Pretty Boy. He wanted to beat his shame into me.”

  We sat in silence. I was remembering my younger, brainless self. So much hubris wrapped up in invulnerability. I fucking couldn’t be stopped. And I took Jason with me.

  “When I was Jason, I was such a stupid shit.” His voice was heavy with memories. “I knew how dangerous my dad was. God knows I’d been beaten up by the man often enough. But Jason was a survivor. I could heal like nobody’s business.” He sighed and shook his head. “But I was such a fucking wuss. No mind, no ambition, no thinking. You know, I’m glad Jason’s dead.”

  Thunk. There it was. The hit on the head, the left hook to the gut. Jason was dead. He really was. David was nothing like Jason. Jason was gone.

  I’d kind of played along, humoring David and giving lip service to the whole idea that Pretty Boy was gone. When I looked at David, I could see remnants of Jason and figured my old love would be back any moment. All it would take would be time together for him to reappear in David.

  Now not only did I know Pretty Boy wouldn’t be back, but I also realized I loved David so much more than I ever had Jason. I had to let go of Jason and let him die. I had to forget about the night Jason’s dad had smashed his beer bottle on the coffee table and come after Jason, ready to cut up his pretty face. I had to forget about stepping between them and having his dad slash at me with the broken bottle, nearly taking out my eye.

  I had to stop dwelling on both of us becoming homeless afterward and then having old Grandpa Stone give us a room in the back of his Saloon and unofficially fostering us until we graduated. Our teen years were merely a sad short story that happened to two other people who looked a little like us. It hadn’t been the pit of hell, the doorway to a dark future. I had to bury the past, stop looking back, and take a step into today. I had to start facing forward.

  “Okay, from now on, he’s my former boyfriend, my former lover,” I agreed. “But I’ll always love him.”

  “Fair enough.” David snuggled close to me and put his hand in my lap. “He had his moments with you. Now I get to have your future.”

  I hugged him and we kissed.

  Then he pulled back.

  “So how many were there?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “In your bed? After you left?”

  “None in this bed,” I answered, and he poked me. “Okay, all right. Maybe ten, a dozen. No one of importance. Some whose names I don’t even know. The rest I can’t even remember. How about you?”

  “Three. I couldn’t wrap my mind around sex when I was getting off the horse. Sometimes I couldn’t even find my dick. Then after I was clean, I was afraid hooking up would involve more than sex, and I didn’t want to slide.” He shook his head and hugged me back.

  “Donnie Ray?” I fucking hated the guy, and David had come to Tahoe with him. Something about helping the fucker put on a celebrity wedding.

  “Jesus, no! That was a favor for Anabella White, the singer. She was afraid Donnie Ray would flake and her wedding would become the laughingstock of the cute and cuddly set.” He sighed. “She was right. Donnie found the casinos, particularly Harrah’s, where he said he’d had some luck a while back, and I never saw him again. Even after the wedding.”

  We laughed. We kissed. We did what two adult men do when they’re in bed together. We didn’t talk about it. We did it.

  We got down to breakfast around noon, and I rediscovered an omelet tastes just as good midday as it does at the crack of dawn.

  FOR THE next couple of weeks, we worked hard to get the Star ready to open. David visited the area junior colleges and recruited a waitstaff of kids who wanted to become professional chefs by promising them face time with me. He wrote up rules of conduct and, with Fredi, designed uniforms.

  “I think you’ll like these.” He was excited as he put a sketchbook in front of me. We were eating lunch, one of the times during the day we sat together and shared what we’d been doing in the morning.

  The sketches were of men and women in jeans and boots with loose-fitting striped shirts with white collars and cuffs and garters around their upper arms. A sheriff’s badge sat in the upper left corner of a black apron with the words Silver Star around it.

  “Classy. Sure. I like it.”

  He grinned at me. “You don’t give a damn, do you?”

  “Uh….” I couldn’t think fast enough. The grin grew to an out-and-out smile. “No, you’re right. I don’t. As long as they aren’t naked, I don’t give a damn.”

  He laughed and put away the sketches.

  “Okay, I’ll take that as your approval and move forward.” He started picking up crumbs from the grilled ham and cheese sandwich I’d fixed and he’d devoured. “What have you been up to?”

  “Same old, same old.” I shrugged. “Menus.”

  His eyes brightened. “Yeah? Something good for tonight?”

  Those were our days. I went over food combinations, honing a month’s worth of menus, then a couple months’ worth. I was close enough to reliable suppliers in the foothills and the valley that I didn’t have to search for them. In between, I watched David order linens, flatware, dishes, glasses, and everything else we needed as we got closer to our opening dates.

  John arrived in the mornings and left after a hard day doing everything from test cooking to stacking dinnerware. It snowed a couple of times, but for the most part, the fall had us in her embrace.

  One night as David lounged on the new sofa while we listened to some kind of soothing yoga music he was considering for the dining room, he sighed. “You know, we have to do something about Tommy.”

  One of the perks of my apartment was that we could look down at Tommy’s and see how little business he actually got. Even at four days a week, we were pretty confident we could pull in a lot more people than he did. I idly wondered if maybe I should make the Star a brunch, lunch, and dinner restaurant, open six days. I wasn’t crazy about going back to piloting a large kitchen. Still, my guess was the people of this area would probably like to eat classy food more than a few nights a week.

  “Earth to Adam. Come in, Adam.”

  “What?”

  “We should do something about Tommy.”

  I shrugged. “Sure. What do you want to do? Beat him over the head?”

  David laughed. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of asking him to lunch and reasoning with him.”

  “Oh? High goals, then?”

  “Stop it. We’re way past being rowdy teenagers. He’s a businessman. An important part of the community. Besides, we both like his wife.”

  “Such compelling reasons to talk reasonably to a bully.”

  David gave me the evil eye.

  “Okay, call him! Call him!”

  He took out his phone and glanced up at me.

  “But it won’t make an
y difference,” I muttered. “Maybe you can change, but he can’t.”

  On that ominous note, we made a lunch date with Tommy.

  11

  DAVID ARRANGED for us to have lunch at Bud and Lorraine’s Rock Bottom Cafe outside town, on neutral ground. He figured anything we had to say was better said where the Old Town crowd wouldn’t be on top of us.

  We didn’t count on the animosity between Lorraine and Tommy. When we walked in, we could feel her hackles rise.

  Lorraine slapped the menus on the table in front of each of us.

  “The special is roast beef. I’ll be back.” She sounded more like the Terminator than the Lorraine I’d known in high school.

  David looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I had no clue what was going on.

  Tommy was glancing around the Bottom’s dining room, shaking his head.

  “This dump hasn’t changed since Bud’s dad owned it,” he muttered. “It should’ve been condemned years ago.”

  I opened my mouth to say the Roadhouse should’ve been too, but David gave my foot a nudge. Okay, don’t poke the guest. I got it.

  “So what’s this all about?” Tommy demanded. “Why’d you call this meeting?”

  David signaled to Lorraine that we were ready to order.

  After we did, we settled for the summit. David took a deep breath, and I slumped. Tommy was leaning into the table, ready to take on both of us. I sighed. When was enough?

  I opened with “I heard you don’t want any other eating places in Old Town.”

  “You heard right.” Tommy beamed at us. “In fact, I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve been working with my accountant and am ready to make you an offer on the old warehouse.”

  “Old sheriff’s office.” I felt David nudge me again even though I’d only muttered my comment. I watched Tommy, ready for any attack.

  He got out a pen and small notebook, wrote something in it, then snapped the cover shut. He passed the notebook to me.

  “That’s what I’m willing to offer. It’s a little overgenerous, but, hey, what the hell. We’re old school buddies, right?”

  I didn’t open the notebook but passed it to David, who slid it back to Tommy.

  “I’m not selling.” David’s frown reined me in. “I just wanted to sit down and explain that the Silver Star is about to open, and I don’t think we need to be rivals. For one thing, the Star won’t be open every night. For another, we won’t be serving the same kinds of food.” I could have gone into how different our offerings would be, but what was the point?

  Looking down, Tommy sighed, picked up the notebook, sighed again, and tapped the edge of the notebook on the tabletop. Slowly he put the book and pen back in his jacket pocket.

  I expected him to be angry or at least a little pushy. I definitely didn’t expect him to be so resigned.

  “You know, Adam, I always admired you.” He glanced up at me and ignored David.

  David punched me, but I didn’t turn to look at him. What the fuck? Tommy admired me? First I’d heard of it, and total bullshit.

  He spoke to the table, not looking at either of us. “All through school, you didn’t give a damn what people said about you. No matter how unlucky you were, you carried on like everything was okay. You got chucked out of your house. You had the god-awful accident.” Without looking up, he swiped a hand over the side of his face.

  Neither Jason nor I had told anyone at school what really happened. When I came back bandaged, I’d told everyone brave enough to ask that I’d had an accident.

  Tommy peeked up at me, winced, and then looked down again quickly. I was wary. What was his point?

  “You were the survivor. You were the guy I wanted to be. You got outta here and made yourself your own man. You didn’t knock up some cute girl and then have to take over your dad’s restaurant. You gave this place the finger when you left and became rich and famous. Not the loser everyone always said you’d be.” He sounded sincere. But I was skeptical. There was a rat in there somewhere.

  He ran his hand over his face, then put the hand on the table, running his finger around in a little circle.

  “You were the rock star. You thumbed your nose at us. God, I wanted to be you.”

  I almost laughed, but David put his hand on mine and squeezed. I glanced at him. What did he want me to do?

  Then my suspicious nature totally took over. What did Tommy want? Why would he pull this dipshit poor-me act? I was supposed to feel sorry for him and not open the Star? Yeah, right. Not happening, buddy.

  I was about to speak when David straightened next to me and leaned in.

  “Bullshit, Tom-mee!” he drawled. “You were a bully in high school and you’re a bully now. The difference is before you were at least honest about it. Now you’re a manipulative bully.”

  I turned to David, my eyes probably mirroring Tommy’s surprised owl look. Jason had never stepped up and confronted Tommy or any of the other guys. What was going on? David had said he was different from Jason. This wasn’t just a difference. This was a complete turnaround.

  David winked at me. What game were we playing now?

  “So the bottom line is this. Are you going to give us shit about opening the Star or not? ’Cuz I gotta tell you, whining isn’t working,” David told him.

  Now my mouth, like Tommy’s, was hanging open. But once a bully, always a bully took over, and Tommy shifted his shoulders like a bull ready for battle.

  “Why you little….”

  Lorraine was standing at his side, staring down at us. “Everything all right at this table, gentlemen?”

  Tommy seemed to put a cap on his anger and looked up at her. She stared back at him as if ready to cuff him on the back of his head. He glanced at David, then took a quick peek at me before coming back to her.

  “I’m good.” David sounded perky and happy.

  I nodded a “me too.”

  We all stared at Tommy.

  “The short answer is no,” Tommy growled at David, and then he glanced up at Lorraine. “I’m done here.”

  “Don’t forget to pay,” she shot back.

  Tommy nearly knocked over his chair leaving the Bottom. Guys sitting at the tables around us huddled together. We didn’t need to guess what the topic of conversation was.

  “What happened to playing nice? Reasoning with him?” We got up to leave.

  David gave me a toothy grin and leaned in to give me a quick kiss as I bent to pay the bill.

  “Wasn’t working. Anyway, I think we got our message across.” Then, unlike any Jason I’d ever known, he looked around at the guys staring at us.

  I don’t know where he found them, but David was wearing big balls now. They hung hot and heavy and looked damn fucking good on him.

  12

  DAVID INSISTED on going with me when I made my appearance in front of the town council. They met in a small conference room at the Stone Acres Library. Chairman Bernie Phillips was flanked on each side by two other members. Tommy and real estate mogul Leroy “Slim” Easton sat on his left with banker Clyde Stevens and lawyer Russell Downs on his right. They all looked grim and determined.

  When I’d asked around before going to the meeting, Sheriff Campbell told me that these five asses had no legal power, and I could ignore them if I wanted to, but I should remember they had clout in the community. Jimmy, Stone, and Fredi told me the council members were influential and didn’t play fair, and it would save a lot of time and trouble if I could get them to agree to leave me and my place alone. Since I’d heard the horror stories of other places trying to open downtown, I understood what my friends were telling me.

  The council had invited me to come discuss my business venture. Their words, not mine.

  I thought meeting with them might be a waste of time, but after long discussions, my friends persuaded me to go. David decided I needed his help. I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to be there, but here we were.

  “Mr. de Leon, thanks for coming in.” Bernie rose and
stuck out his hand.

  I walked a couple of steps up to the tables they’d placed between us and leaned in to shake his hand. They were all wearing suits and ties, as was David, who looked fucking professional and perfect. I was in my regular clogs, jeans, and an old T-shirt with the official Thug Chef logo.

  Bernie, whose daughter had gone to school with David and me, seemed genuinely pleased to see us. The other three council members wore stone faces while Tommy smirked. What the hell was I doing here?

  Bernie laid their argument out for me quickly and succinctly. “We have a vision for this town, Adam. May I call you Adam?” Not waiting for my response, he talked on. “We see Stone Acres as one of the last California Old West towns with authentic architecture and small-town values. It’s one of the few places you can still find solid family lines and the genuine spirit that made this country great. While we appreciate what you want to do here, and God knows we could use another restaurant in town—” He paused to take a breath, ignoring Tommy’s scowl. “—we don’t think fancy gourmet cooking reflects the lifestyle of the people around here. We want to keep Stone Acres pure. I’m sure you understand.”

  He nodded cheerfully and waited for me to speak.

  I was steaming. Fuck them. I’d bought a building that was about to collapse and made part of downtown look like crap. Squatters were breaking in and living there until they were evicted or moved on. I’d taken this pile of dung and spent money having it returned to its fucking splendor—if you could call making a rat-infested old brick building look like a cleaned-up version of an ordinary old brick building splendid.

  I started to rise, ready to turn my back on them, when David put his hand on my arm.

  “Do you mind if I say something?” he asked me. His gaze shouted “Trust me!”

  What the hell? Nobody could make this fuckfest civil. They hadn’t added “or else” but it was understood. We all knew it. One look at Tommy’s face underscored it.

  “Sure. Go for it.” I shrugged. Whatever.