by Pat Henshaw
Now I did laugh. I could imagine. With his looks, I was sure he did. I wasn’t attracted, but I’d be willing to bet a lot of guys were.
“So here’s the thing.” Leonard put his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “I want to make my boyfriend a special cuff for Christmas. He likes this one that I wear all the time.”
He played with the leather a second, then looked up at me. I nodded.
“Okay. So what’s the problem?”
“Do you have any special leather? Like maybe black or blue? He wears a lot of black and blue.”
I hoped the kid didn’t mean his friend was beat up or nothing. But he seemed too happy about him to be saying something like that.
“I don’t know. Tom and Wayne ordered all the supplies for the craft table. You’ll have to talk to them.” I pointed toward the paper cuff on his wrist. “So you still remember how to braid?”
“Yes.” I smiled at the pride in his one word. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Sure.” I’d started to rise, but I sank back down.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Now his face was beet red, and I’d bet mine was too, at least from the warmth I felt on it.
“Nope. Why?”
“Good.” He sighed. “Maybe Uncle Jason?”
I shook my head. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. Sorry.”
He sighed again and gave me puppy eyes.
As I showed him out of the office, I laughed. Who would have thought the little guy was a matchmaker?
I couldn’t imagine what being his uncle’s boyfriend would be like. Not with his bitch of a mother. The thought made me shiver.
The day went by fast. Leonard and his uncle stayed at the craft table until noon, then went to lunch, bringing back sandwiches for everybody. Uncle Jason blushed as he handed me mine. I wondered why. Hadn’t Leonard told him what I’d said?
The afternoon rush started right after I’d taken a couple of bites of the ham and swiss cheese, so I didn’t have time to figure out what his deal was.
That night, Hazel had her and my shop people all over to the farmhouse for dinner, where we pretty much collapsed, only talking to congratulate ourselves on a successful day. Like at my shop, Jimmy and her had sold more than they ever had before.
“Thanks for sending people my way.” He’d turned our chairs so he could rub my shoulders and back. He used to do that when we was kids and I wanted to beat some punk up for being mean to him. But not since. I’d forgotten how much I liked it. I might even have been purring.
“No problem. You got enough stuff left for the rest of the weekend?”
“Yeah, Butch. I think we do.” He gave my back a little push so he could stand and stretch.
I turned and stared at the patch of skin between the bottom of his sweater and top of his jeans. My dick puffed and rose.
We’d never talked about how we felt about each other. We’d always said we was best friends and nothing else. I’d always loved him, but I was too afraid to put our friendship to the test. Now? I sighed.
I’d pretty much decided he’d be better off with someone smarter than me. Someone he could talk to who’d understand what he was saying. I’d always love him, but I had to be fair. We was almost thirty. It was time for marriage and kids and the kind of love couples share and keep forever. I wished it was me and him, but it was time for me to get real and stop dreaming. He needed somebody like Uncle Jason, and he’d never find him if he was hanging around dumbasses like me and Jax.
Since he seemed to be spending a lot of time with both of us, maybe I was kidding myself he wasn’t falling for Jax. But I didn’t think so. He hadn’t given Jax a back rub or nothing. I took that as a good sign. I went home planning to think about how to get him and Jason together, but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
ME AND my team worked hard all weekend. By the end we’d took a lot of special orders since we’d ran out of everything but a few samples. Later, after I’d counted the cash, I wasn’t surprised we’d took in more money than the shop ever had.
On Monday, we had a few buyer’s remorse returns but not many. Not enough to cut into the profit in any big way.
Being the only one of us really cued into modern stuff, Tom asked if he could set up a better website and take more online orders. I said sure, not expecting nothing. I was surprised when we got a shit-ton a requests, all prepaid. All of them wanting delivery before Christmas.
Since Leonard’d been so crazy about making his boyfriend the special cuff, Tom added a kids’ page to the website with the cuff directions. Wayne got together the supplies and copied the directions onto paper with the shop logo and made kits to sell.
We went into the Christmas season busy enough to make all of us happy, not to mention more tired than we already was.
I hadn’t had time to get Jimmy and Uncle Jason together, but it didn’t matter. Jimmy didn’t have any extra time either.
DECEMBER FIRST, Hazel had everyone over to the farmhouse for a celebration dinner. We looked like the living dead seated around the table, but at least we was the satisfied dead.
Talk drifted to the special orders we’d all got, most of them doable but some so out there you had to wonder if our customers really came from another planet.
“She wanted a flavor tray of every edible spice from all over the globe,” Jimmy and his mother told us. “I said I’d have to charge thousands of dollars to make her one. She said when I had a firm figure to call her, and she gave me her credit card number. Turns out, she’s Madam Celestine, Seer to the Stars.”
Even I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I foresee….” Jax let the sentence hang as he put his beat-up hand to his forehead. “That she will never get her estimate before the holidays.”
“Or ever. I predict you’re right.” Jimmy turned to his mother. “Okay, here’s the table question for the night. Since we’ve all made such a killing this holiday season, what do you plan to do with your extra money? What are your hopes and dreams? What are you saving up for? I’ll let Mother go first since she’s already spent her share.”
Hazel blushed. “I bought extensions to the greenhouse and the shed. I’m going to be working on some different infusions and tinctures in the new year after the additions are built.”
We all congratulated her. As we went around the table, the plans ran from tuition for the college kids to Jax buying a new car to replace the Jeep he’d had since he was sixteen. Then all eyes landed on me.
“Well.” I cleared my throat. I wasn’t used to telling people my private business. But these was all friends. So I thought why not? The worst they could do would be laugh. “I’m going to buy a house, a real house house, a family-type house in the neighborhood next to Old Town.”
Jimmy was staring at me. His mouth hung open.
“I wanna get married one day and have some kids. I like kids.” I finished before I lost my courage.
“But you’re gay,” one of the college boys yelped.
“So?” It wasn’t just me who asked.
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Right. Nothing.” He slumped back in his chair, and everyone turned again to me.
Hazel got up and hugged me.
“Oh, El—Butch!” And she started crying.
I was glad she hadn’t used my real name, since the new guys didn’t know it. They’d find out eventually, but I didn’t need Hazel blubbering on my shoulder and them razzing me at the same time.
“So you got some, uh, guy you’re, like, dating?” one of the college kids piped up, which silenced the rest of them, who were trying to figure out why Hazel was crying.
“Uh, no. Not really. It’s just… it’s time I grow up. I’m gonna be thirty.”
Hazel perked up at my answer. Her tears magically stopped.
“What kinda guy you looking for?” Jax asked.
I knew better than to say nothing. I didn’t want bad luck to get in the way of my future. If I couldn’t have Jimmy, I was almost sure I could find someone who I
could love and who’d love me for me, couldn’t I? I wasn’t too stupid for that, was I?
So I didn’t want to poke fate by saying what kind a guy I was looking for. I mean, wasn’t that why when you made a wish on a star or when you blew out birthday candles, you weren’t supposed to tell nobody what the wish was?
Of course, they thought I was begging for them to guess. So all sorts of names popped out of their mouths, including Jax’s and Jimmy’s and Tom’s, Jason’s, and a whole bunch of other guys, some that I didn’t even know who they was.
I sat back, crossed my arms, and stared at the table until they quit and moved on to something else. I waited to see what Jimmy said about how he was gonna spend his money, but Hazel jumped up to get dessert. So he didn’t get his turn.
I got first choice of the pies, though. I chose apple crumble. With ice cream and whipped topping. I wondered why she didn’t give her son a chance to tell what he wanted.
THE NEXT day, Jimmy came by to take me out to lunch. Jax and Tom pushed me to go with him even though I was too busy working. Jimmy was acting like he was mad at me, but I didn’t know why. What had I done now? Nothing.
He took me to a place in town where I’d never been before. We’d driven in his car instead of walking, and he hadn’t said nothing on the way over, which for Jimmy was bad, real bad.
All the way there, I racked my brain trying to figure out what I’d done. He was pissed, and I was quickly getting there too.
By the time the server sat us and practically ran away from our silence, we was glaring at each other.
“Okay, what the hell, Butch? I thought I was your best friend. Who the hell is this guy you’re buying a house for?”
Guy? What guy? I felt like a toad on a log when a kid with a net creeps up behind and captures it. What the fuck?
I sat there with my mouth hanging open. The silence built between us as Jimmy steamed.
Finally I grabbed the glass of water the waitress had plopped in front of me. I took a drink to get my voice working.
“Guy? I don’t get it. What guy?”
“Exactly! That’s exactly my point. I know everybody you know, and….” He stopped and blinked. “It’s not Jax, is it? Or Tom? It’s gotta be Tom. He’s good-looking, in college, and has some great ideas for the shop.”
At least Jimmy had stopped glaring at me. Now he was fuming and looking out the window at all the people walking around in a hurry outside.
I still had no clue what was going on. Jax? Tom? What did they have to do with anything?
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I put my hand on Jimmy’s arm, but he pulled away.
After a while, he turned back to scowl at me some more. I crossed my arms and glared.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about or why you’re mad. You know me, Jimmy. I’m dense, sometimes like now, stupid dense. What the hell is going on?”
He sneered.
“First you say that you’re buying a house. A house! Then my mother and my friends are down on me to tell them who the guy is that you’re buying a house for. Only I don’t know. I’m your goddamn best friend, aren’t I? Or am I?” He flung his hands out, almost taking down his water glass and the waitress’s order pad.
“I’ll come back later,” she said as she slipped away.
“What the hell, Jimmy? You know me. We got no secrets. What the hell?” I took a breath. “We gotta eat so I can get back to the forge. I got a shitload of special orders to make before I can start working on restocking.”
I moved his water glass a little to the side and picked up the menu.
It was all farm-to-fork crap. Quinoa this and kale that. Balsamic sauce and shitake garnish. Where was a good old hamburger and fries when you needed one?
Jimmy batted down the menu and gave me a poison-eye stare.
“Who. Is. The. Guy?” he all but shouted to me.
“What guy?” I did yell. People’s heads turned toward us. I looked around, glaring at them until they turned away. When I repeated the question, I did it quiet. Well, at least quieter. “What guy? I don’t got no guy.”
“The one you’re going to marry and buy a house for and have kids with?”
He said it like I was planning to commit murder.
“I don’t got no guy yet. When I do, you’ll be the first one to know. Okay? That good with you?” I sighed and rubbed my face. “Look, you’ll be the first to know. Trust me.”
I figured saying that much wasn’t jinxing myself. I didn’t want to tell him we was getting old and had to move on or our lives would be over before they really began. If I did, I’d be blubbering. Here in the middle of this nice restaurant. I didn’t want to end up begging him to love me like I loved him. I didn’t want to embarrass him. Or me. I didn’t want to hear him come right out and say he loved me like a friend, a really good best friend, but…. I was stupid and a coward. I couldn’t hear the ugly truth when we was sitting somewhere nice. Or anywhere else. It would crush me.
“You promise you’ll tell me first?” He looked hopeful and relieved.
“Sure. You’re my best friend.” It broke my heart, but there it was.
Jimmy called the waitress over. We apologized for being a problem and ordered. While we waited for our food, I asked a question that had been bothering me since the dinner.
“What about you? We didn’t get to you around the table. What are you hoping for in the new year?”
“I shouldn’t tell you.” He didn’t say it in a mean way, but more like he was teasing. More like we was friends again.
“Yeah, but you will.” Now we was joking around like usual.
“I want the same things you do.” He sighed like he was real tired and shook his head. “I thought I had someone, but now I don’t know. Maybe I was kidding myself? Anyway, I’ll have to think it through again.”
“So no special girl?” I was teasing, but he didn’t take it that way.
“Girl?” His voice squeaked, and customers on either side of us looked over. I glared. They looked away. “You know I don’t like girls. Women. Whatever.”
His hand almost crashed into his water again. I reached to move the glass, but he shoved my hand away.
“I’m not like you with guys lining up to be with me, Butch.”
I almost laughed in his face. Who was he kidding?
Before I could say something, my phone rang.
It finally happened. Some stupid-ass kid had tried to stick her hand in the fire. Her father was going ballistic while the kid screamed bloody murder in the background. Time to get back to the shop.
I jogged on over while Jimmy paid and got to-go boxes for the lunch we hadn’t ate.
By the time I got there, the EMTs had already been and gone. One of the little girl’s hands was loosely wrapped in gauze. She held a dripping ice cream cone in the other. The dad couldn’t shut up about suing me.
We finally got everything smoothed out. The guy left pissed cuz even if he sued there was too many witnesses—and the shop security tape—that’d say it was the kid’s and father’s fault.
You’d think everything’d be good after that, but no. The day went downhill from there. Some of the Thanksgiving customers called to find out when they could expect their stuff, and the head of Old Town Merchants group stopped by to find out about “the incident.”
The memory of me and Jimmy sitting across the table talking, really talking for a change, had done a one-eighty.
I was sad but determined to find him the right guy, a smart guy who’d love the shit outta him. Dammit, I loved him that much. But I couldn’t do nothing right now, not until after Christmas. But before we both turned thirty.
6
JIMMY CAME to get me for lunch at the end of the week. I’d spent a happy morning pounding on iron, making a bunch of rings, bracelets, and trivets.
He still thought I was seeing somebody I wasn’t telling him about and was still upset I’d locked him out.
“Give it up,” I told him
as we walked to the pub.
“I know who it is.” He mumbled it so low that I almost missed what he said.
After we sat down and ordered, I asked, “Well, who is it?”
“The guy.” He hung his head and sighed. “It’s that Jason guy, right?”
“What? Who?” I was yelling like last time. But here in the pub nobody looked over at us. Unless you threw something while you was screaming, the noise level was so high, nobody knew you was fighting.
“That kid’s uncle. The handsome one with the dimples.”
“Uncle Jason has dimples? Huh.” I’d totally missed that. But how did Jimmy know? “When did you see him?”
“Oh, he came into my shop to buy a present for the kid’s grandmother. He thinks you’re more than handsome. He went on and on about you.” He sighed again. “I can see why you’re attracted to him.”
I was getting lost quick.
“Wait a minute. First, I didn’t know he has dimples. Second, I’m not attracted, for Pete’s sake. I only met him the once. And then I only talked to him for a few minutes.” I shook my head.
Jimmy was jealous of Leonard’s uncle Jason? What the hell?
Wait. Jimmy was jealous? That was good, right?
I know I was stupid, but it made me real happy. I mean, I shouldn’t be happy because Jimmy was miserable. But I was.
Hot damn. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I had a chance with him. Hard to believe. I hadn’t gotten any smarter than the last time I thought about us. Naw, it couldn’t be true. Not really. I’d already worked this out.
THEN HAZEL asked me out to lunch.
“First, I want to tell you that I understand love at first sight. That’s how James’s father and I felt when we met.”
We was sitting in the pub next to the window where tourists whizzed by. She’d started in on what she wanted to say the second after handing the waitress her menu. I’d hardly thanked the woman and gave her my menu when Hazel was off and running.