Planting His Dream

by Andrew Grey

  He went up the stairs and to his room. Javi sat at his desk reading one of Foster’s books.

  “You could have gone to bed,” Foster said.

  “I was waiting for you.” Javi closed the book and set it aside.

  Foster peered over at the copy of Clive Cussler’s Treasure. “That’s one of my favorites. My dad gave it to me years ago. He and I shared a love of Cussler’s adventure stories.”

  “I like them too. I get them at yard sales when I can,” Javi said.

  Foster picked up the book and handed it back to Javi with a smile before turning and heading out to the bathroom. He showered and brushed his teeth, grabbed his robe from the back of the door, slipped it on, and headed to his bedroom.

  Javi sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him nervously. Foster closed the door and locked it quietly, relaxing back against the closed door. He wasn’t quite sure what to do at this point. He’d waited awhile to have Javi in his bedroom once again, behind a locked door.

  Javi seemed as nervous as he was. “I don’t know. Your family….”

  Foster stepped closer. “It’s all right. We need to sleep.” He took off his robe and climbed into the bed, waiting to see how Javi would react.

  Javi didn’t move, just watched him with dark eyes, searching for something—Foster wasn’t sure what. He watched as Javi took off his shirt and slid his pants down over his hips and past his legs, his cock relaxed in its nest of black curls.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Foster whispered. When Javi came closer he reached from under the sheet, his fingertips just glancing over Javi’s smooth hip. He raised the sheet, and Javi climbed into bed. Foster lowered the sheet and rolled onto his side, pulling Javi to him.

  A few years earlier his parents had replaced the furnace. At the time Foster had lobbied heavily for them to add air-conditioning, and he was so glad they had agreed, especially with Javi’s warmth pressed up to him. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. My father is gone, and we may be stranded.” Javi rolled over to face him. “He left hours ago and should know to check for us here.”

  “In the morning, we’ll check to see if he came back, and then we’ll ask around town. Someone will have seen him.” Foster tried to be soothing, gently caressing Javi’s belly. “I’ve thought a lot about having you here with me.” He pulled Javi closer. “I think about it at night when I’m alone.” Foster lightly kissed Javi’s shoulder, his salty heat bursting on his tongue. His cock stiffened, and Foster parted Javi’s legs, drawing their hips together. Javi answered with his own excitement.

  “We can’t do this now. What if someone hears?”

  “The door is locked, and as long as we’re quiet….” Foster didn’t want to push Javi into anything, so he backed away slightly. He took a deep breath to calm his excitement, prepared to roll over and try to get some sleep.

  Javi leaned closer, wrapping his arms around him. He felt so good. Foster swallowed a moan and kissed him hard, his excitement growing by the second. They didn’t talk, but that didn’t stop Foster from saying what he wanted to with his hands. He kept them in constant contact with Javi, caressing him, letting them roam over his hips, thighs, and back, memorizing each contour, even the scars that marred his lover’s otherwise smooth back. Those marks threatened to bring the anger at Javi’s father that had simmered just under the surface for days back to the forefront.

  He pushed that aside and concentrated on Javi. Those marks were part of him now, and that was enough for Foster. He traced them with a finger, and Javi shivered in his arms.

  “I know they’re ugly,” Javi whispered.

  “No. They’re part of what makes you who you are.” Foster smoothed Javi’s hair away from his face. “I hate what he did to you, and I’m not a fan of your father, but they aren’t ugly.” He tugged Javi down into a kiss, but Javi stopped him.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have to leave,” Javi whispered.

  “I suspect things will go back to the way they were,” Foster said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. They likely would for him as well, except he didn’t want them to. His life had changed, and his heart had been opened to something he didn’t want to let go of.

  “Is that how you really feel?” Javi blinked a few times, tilting his head slightly, questioningly. “That things will just go back to the way they were?”

  Foster sighed, his excitement draining away, replaced by impending loneliness. “What other choice do I have? You’ll be gone, and I’ll go back to taking care of the farm.”

  “You do that now,” Javi said.

  “No. Now I take care of the farm and look forward to when I can be with you. It doesn’t matter if we’re hiking at the park or reroofing the shed. It all seems better with you around. Like I can get through the days because you’re there.” Foster knew that would be gone, and then he’d have nothing but the work, day in, day out, for as long as he could see.

  “And you think it will be any different for me?” Javi asked. “I’ll go back to the same life I had, living with my family in a van, or God knows where, but I’ll be thinking of you and what you showed me.” Javi crushed Foster to him. “At least I’ll have what I remember of you. That’s the only thing that no one can take away from me. But my life will never be the same.”

  Foster closed his eyes, holding Javi against him, almost feeling as lonely as he would once Javi was gone. It sort of felt like he was already gone. “Do you think this is all because we’re the first gay people we’ve gotten to know?” Foster asked.

  Javi lifted his head, eyes burning with fire. “Do you think I don’t know my own mind or what I feel?”

  “Don’t get mad. I was just asking if this could be…. I don’t know. I know what I feel, too, and I don’t think it’s because you just walked into my life. There’s something about you. The more I learn about you, the more I like you and care about you. It’s like everyone is wearing a mask, and you took yours off for me and really let me see you. And because you did that I could take off my mask too.” He hoped he was making sense to Javi, because he was barely making sense to himself.

  “Yeah. I hide part of who I am from everyone, even my parents and family. I hide that I like to read and that I’m smart from the people we work for. They don’t want a farm worker who sees their mistakes. All the people who hire us want are dumb wetbacks who will pick their crops, keep their heads down, and say nothing about how they’re treated or how much they’re paid. Some places don’t even see us. They hire people to find the workers, pay them, and then the middleman pays us. So we never actually see the person we’re working for.” Javi squirmed, acting like he was trying to get comfortable. “It’s been a long time since I’ve slept in a real bed.”

  “We all hide some things,” Foster said lamely in an effort to cover the fact that he couldn’t get his mind around what Javi had told him.

  “I know. But you can be smart and no one thinks you’re a threat. If the farmers think I’m smart, then they start to worry about a farm worker uprising or something. So I keep my head down and do what they expect.”

  Foster wished like hell he could make all that go away for Javi. But he was only one person, and he knew he couldn’t change the world. “I don’t understand why you don’t leave and look for a better life. You could have one—I know you could.”

  Javi didn’t answer, and Foster continued holding him, figuring this conversation should probably come to an end. He wasn’t going to convince Javi.

  “If I did leave my family, where would I go?” Javi finally asked.

  “You’d stay here,” Foster said. “I need help on the farm, and we could look into getting you into community college or something. You’re smart, and that would be a start for you.”

  “But here I’d be just another farm worker. I wouldn’t be moving any longer, but that’s what I’d be.”

  “You’d have a home and a chance to do what you wanted to do… and you’d be here wi
th me.” Foster finally let the words pass his lips regarding what he truly wanted. “You’d stay with me.”

  “As what?” Javi asked, sitting up. “You mean you’d tell your mom and grandmother about yourself… about the two of us?”

  “Yeah,” Foster said with false bravery. The thought scared him deep down, but he’d do it.

  “And what if they turned on you? This farm was your dad’s, so now it really belongs to your mom. What if she doesn’t like that you’re gay? What if she kicked you out and decided to sell? I’d be without a family and so would you. We’d have nothing and be nowhere.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that what you want?”

  “I’d only ask you to come here and stay with me if I were honest. I wouldn’t let you come here as a secret or something,” Foster said.

  Javi nodded. “It’s a lot to ask or expect. I only know one thing, and it’s a lot to think about giving it up. If I left, my father would never forgive me. He’d say I was abandoning my family.”

  “The father who left his family alone in a field with a storm coming up,” Foster countered more loudly than he intended. He wished he’d kept quiet when he saw Javi’s stung expression. Foster pulled back in his mind and listened to what he’d said, cringing slightly. His own father hadn’t been perfect, and they hadn’t always gotten along, but he wouldn’t allow anyone to criticize him, so why did he think it was okay to criticize Javi’s father? “Sorry.”

  “My dad is still the head of the family, and I can’t change that. To leave would mean that I was turning my back on them.”

  “And you can’t do that,” Foster said flatly. Javi had made that clear enough. It didn’t seem to matter how many times they talked about and around this, it always came back to the same thing: Javi had to leave in order to help support his family, and Foster wished he’d stay here with him so they could figure out if there was a future between them. As it was, they had no future after the next week or so.

  “Would you leave your mom?” Javi asked, and Foster had to admit that he wouldn’t. He’d put his own hopes and dreams aside because taking care of the farm and his family was important to him. How could he ask Javi to be any less to his family? Maybe he was just now getting it. He had a farm and a place to call home; Javi lived in a van. That didn’t mean his family meant any less to him or that the van was any less a home. It was small and cramped, but it housed Javi’s whole family. So that was home, and just as hard to leave as the farm would be for him.

  “I think I understand now.” As much as he hated it, because he wanted what he wanted, Foster had to accept the situation. “I can’t expect you to be any less of a man than I am, just because you live in a van and move from place to place. I want more for you, but for your mom and Ricky and Daniela, you are the provider for the family, just like I am here.”

  Javi seemed to relax. “It doesn’t have anything to do with how I feel about you. And before you ask, I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s going to feel like someone carved part of me away when I go, but it’s what I have to do.”

  “I think I get that now. I wanted you to stay because it would make me happy.”

  Javi chuckled. “It would make me happy too, I think. But there’s more than just my happiness at stake.” Javi kissed him, cutting off further discussion and short-circuiting his brain. Foster had figured tonight was going to be quiet, but Javi quickly showed him that he had very different ideas. “I’m not going to waste the time we have,” Javi mumbled, and then the time for talking was over.

  Chapter 7

  “ARE YOU ready to go?” Foster asked his mother and grandmother, grabbing his coffee. The sun had yet to make a full appearance. “I have a tub of asparagus with bundles already weighed out, and three dozen jars of preserves that we labeled. They’re in the car along with the risers Javi and I built. Use them for display.”

  “Yes, dear,” his mother said. “We also have a tablecloth, change, chairs, and a cooler with lunch and water. I think we’re set for the duration.”

  “Awesome.” He was about to do the milking. “Did I give you the receipt book?”

  “Yes,” his mother said indulgently. “Don’t forget to water the garden. The lettuce is really starting to take off, and if it gets enough water and sun, we may be able to start taking it to market in a week or two.” Greens were always some of the first things to be planted, and they were ready for market quickly.

  “I know.” He was also hoping to get the stand at the farm up and running.

  “What do we do if someone else has asparagus for a better price?” Grandma Katie asked.

  “Meet their price, but I bet at two pounds for five dollars, we’ll be the ones setting the price.” He really hoped so. “Just be yourselves and talk to people. Don’t sit there and wait for people to stop. Engage them, laugh, be the people you are every day.”

  “Huh,” his mother said. “I thought we just had to sit there and take the money.”

  Foster wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not. What shocked him was that she seemed to be. So he decided to ignore the remark. “The people who do best at any market are the ones who talk to people and tell them about what they’re buying. Let them know that the asparagus plants are original, heirloom variety, not genetically altered modern ones.” He turned to Grandma Katie. “Tell them about your preserves and how you make them.” Foster stood and opened the cupboard, then pulled out a box of Club crackers. “Open a jar and give them a taste. Keep it on ice. The cool thing is that if they like it, they’ll keep coming back.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Grandma Katie said.

  “Remember how you got the assessment squared away?” Foster asked, and she nodded. “Don’t do that.” He chuckled, and she swatted at him. “Be their grandmother. Everyone will buy something from their grandmother.” He finished his coffee. “I hope you have some fun.”

  They both seemed skeptical but got up to go. “We’ll be fine,” his mother said. Foster wondered if she was reassuring him or herself.

  “I know you will.” He hugged them both, and they put the dishes in the sink. Then they all walked out to the yard. Foster watched as they got in the truck, his mother driving, and then he headed to the barn to start the milking.

  “FOSTER,” JAVI called as Foster was just finishing up for the morning, turning out the girls. The dairy was scheduled to be there soon. They had enough tank space for two days, which meant they could make it until Monday morning.

  “I’m in here.” He closed the door and began the process of cleaning out the barn. He started with the shoveling and then began hosing everything down. “How’s your dad?” Foster asked.

  Javi shrugged. “He’s not too good. You know he was at a bar during the storm and got into a fight with another man, right? His eye is still swollen shut, and his arm and shoulder are bruised up. He was able to work yesterday, but he’s really sore still.”

  “He’s lucky. It could have been worse.” Foster reminded himself that he needed to have a final talk with Mr. Ramos about drinking. It was not allowed if he was going to stay here, on or away from the farm. He’d caused enough trouble.

  “He says he’s going to stay close and isn’t going to go to the bar anymore. There isn’t any beer or anything at the van, either. I checked.” Obviously Javi was as concerned as he was. “What are we doing today?”

  “I thought we’d open the stand. I made some signs that we can use, and I got some flags to get attention.” Foster was trying to make the most of his venture, but he was nervous that nothing would come of it.

  He got some of the asparagus bundles he’d kept back, leaving the ends in water. He also got a case of preserves, and then they carried all of it out to where he’d set up everything the day before.

  After opening the upper doors, he set up the table and attached the box for the money to the back of the table. “It looks nice.”

  “Yeah, it does. Now we’ll see if anyone stops.” He kept telling himself that if this
didn’t work he wasn’t out anything. He looked up and down the road, and of course it was completely deserted. Not a car to be seen anywhere. He sighed and walked back toward the house.

  “What else?”

  “Nothing.” He finally got a chance to relax a little. The dairy arrived, and he helped them take delivery of the milk. Then he was free for a few hours, and dang if it didn’t feel nice.

  “Can we go somewhere?” Javi asked.

  “Not really. With everyone gone, I need to stay close by in case something happens.” Or more accurately, in case someone stopped by his stand. “Do you want to play video games? I have a Wii with some fun games. Have you played before?” Javi shook his head. “Okay, then let’s go have some fun.” He led Javi inside and got some snacks and sodas. They sat in the living room, and Foster explained the rules of New Super Mario Bros.

  Of course Javi was awful to start with, but he caught on fast. “Good hand-eye coordination,” Javi quipped as he quickly got the hang of the game. Foster hadn’t played in quite a while. At least since before his father passed.

  He sat there on the living room floor, the controller in his hand, staring. “I never thought…. But everything seems divided now. It’s how I think of things—before and after my dad died.”

  “Is that how you’ll think of it when I have to go?” Javi asked, turning away just in time to die in the game. “It’s how I’ll remember things. At some time in the future, I’ll play video games again and remember this time, right here, before I had to leave you.” Javi placed the controller on the floor next to him. “Are we being stupid to let things get so serious so quickly? We’re kids. I’m twenty, and you’re a few years older. We both have our whole lives ahead of us, and this is our first love…. At least it is for me.”

  “I know what I feel, and Grandma would tell me to hold on to what I have. She told me her first love was Grandpa, and that they had amazing years together. He died when I was twelve, and she still misses him.” Foster squirmed across the floor to get closer. “I think we’re setting ourselves up to get hurt. But I wouldn’t change that for anything. I decided days ago that I’d take what we had and be happy with it. If you have to go, then I’ll deal with it when you’re gone. But not now.” He leaned closer. “I saw this movie a year ago. It’s about a boy and a girl. She has cancer that took part of her lung, and she meets a boy who lost part of his leg to cancer. They meet and fall in love.” Foster wiped his eyes. “I get emotional when I think about it. You see, they all expect her to die. She uses oxygen and has trouble breathing. They both know she could go with an infection, but they fall in love anyway. And they’re happy and content. I really like that part of the movie. They deserve happiness.” Foster smiled.