by Aislin, Amy
“Can you imagine trying to find parking so close to the start of the fireworks?” his mom piped in.
In other words, Get over yourself, kid. You’re stuck with us.
Sam gobbled down a cookie from Bo’s plate of snacks.
Lesson over with, Bo joined Sam on the stairs. Sam moved back to make room in front of him, then sat Bo between his legs, his back to Sam’s front. Sam buried his face in Bo’s hair and inhaled. His man smelled like hay and horses and summertime rain, but he could still detect a scent that was uniquely Bo underneath all that. It made Sam’s head swim.
“Thanks for doing this,” Bo said. He turned his head and kissed the underside of Sam’s jaw. Sam’s skin prickled with warmth everywhere Bo’s body touched his.
“Sorry we couldn’t enjoy it alone,” Sam said.
Bo rubbed Sam’s knee. “Not your fault. Besides, I like your family.” Sam heard the longing in his voice and squeezed him tighter in his arms. “I’m impressed you managed to put the telescope together properly.”
“Sure, I did fine until I couldn’t figure out that the last piece I was holding was actually the eyepiece and not some miscellaneous knob I couldn’t find a home for.” Sam could feel Bo’s laughter against his chest. “My mom said I should stick to gardening,” he grumbled.
“Awww.” Bo squeezed his knee in sympathy. Sam could hear the smile in his voice.
“Speaking of gardening…” Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket. “The magazine sent me the proofs of the photos they took a couple of weeks ago for next spring’s spread. Wanna see?”
He pulled up the photo app, then passed the phone to Bo. Bo oohed and ahhed over the bright colors. He pointed at a purple flower. “That’s your primrose! Or rather, my primrose now. Did you dig them up and pot them before giving them to me?”
“No. Here, see.” Sam used a thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the image. “I never planted it. The photographer arranged it in the garden so it’d look planted, but see here? They got a bit of the pot in the picture.”
“How is it that you get credit for this garden when it’s not even yours?” Bo asked.
“Because I planted it. The Harrisons said I could before they left for Vancouver.”
“Did you ever figure out the meaning of a primrose?”
Sam dropped his forehead onto Bo’s shoulder and tried to think of a way to evade the question when Bo said, “Cute. Where’s this?”
Sam looked over Bo’s shoulder and peered at his phone. “One of the houses we’re seeing tomorrow.”
“Is this the other one?”
“Yeah. They’re both in Welland.”
“I have no idea where that is,” Bo admitted.
Sometimes Sam forgot that Bo wasn’t from here. Actually, Sam suspected that if he asked Bo where he was from, Bo’d say something like “nowhere and everywhere.” So it was more accurate to say that Bo didn’t live here.
Bo didn’t live here. But he was now so entrenched in Sam’s life, it was like they’d been together longer than three weeks. Was three weeks all it took to fall in love with someone so fully that you could no longer imagine your life without them?
Sam had dated a guy last year—the douche doughnut who’d told him to quit bragging about being the author of Scythe and Swords—for three months, off and on. What he’d felt for that guy wasn’t even a fraction of what he felt for Bo.
Bo was special.
“It’s about forty minutes west, on the way to Niagara Falls,” Sam responded.
“That’s not too far.” Bo scrolled through the pictures Sam’s real estate agent had sent over. “This one’s all renovated. Looks nice.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m not getting my hopes up that we’ll find something on the first try,” Sam said, even though he did really like that house. The price was ridiculously affordable too, which meant there had to be a catch. “Who knows, we might not like either of these. Or someone might outbid us.”
Sam felt Bo go still against him. Hell, he might’ve even stopped breathing.
“We?” Bo squeaked.
Oh. Oh. Shit, this was so not how—or where—he’d wanted to do this. “Well, uh, I was wondering… I mean, I was hoping… I was gonna ask…” Fuck. He’d never been this tongue-tied.
Bo turned so he sat sideways between Sam’s legs. Those dark eyes met Sam’s and Sam lost his train of thought. Bo didn’t look apprehensive or confused or tense. He didn’t look like he thought Sam was moving way-the-fuck too fast. In fact, he looked hopeful and happy and expectant. Even in the pitch dark, with only the stars and quarter moon and the small outdoor house lights providing the only light, Sam could see Bo’s eyes shine. Bo trapped one of Sam’s legs between both of his and that little gesture calmed something in Sam.
Sam took one of Bo’s hands in his. “I know you have a life in Ottawa,” he said. “Your friends are there and your job and your apartment. But I love you and the thought of you living five hours away makes my stomach hurt. So will you move here and be with me?”
Sam would move to Ottawa to be with Bo if he had to, but he wanted Bo here. His parents loved Bo and Bo got along with Sam’s whole family. Bo needed that; he needed influences who weren’t his pot-head parents and insensitive sister.
Bo smiled and leaned into Sam. “I was always going to stay. My lease is up in October so I was going to head back at the end of the summer, pack up my stuff and move here.”
“Yeah?” Sam grinned against Bo’s hair.
“Yeah. Though I do have a confession to make.” He straightened. “You remember the day PomPom left? The first time you brought me here?”
“You were in a shit mood that day.”
“The guy who’s subletting my apartment called,” Bo said. He played with a loose thread in Sam’s jeans. “He got a notice from the landlord that everybody had to be out of the building by Thanksgiving because he’s going to renovate. He wanted to tell me ASAP so it wasn’t a surprise when I went back in September. Sorry I was such a shit that day.” Bo winced. Sam didn’t have a chance to respond before Bo went on. “Also, I don’t actually have a job in Ottawa.”
“What are you talking about? What about your job at the bookstore?”
“The man who owns the bookstore is, like, eighty years old. I couldn’t leave him for four months without an assistant manager. Maybe for one or two, but not four. It wouldn’t’ve been fair to him or to the other employees. One of the part-timers is a recent empty-nester and she was starting to look for full-time work. So I gave her my job.” Bo shrugged like it was no big deal. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you know that I’m basically homeless and jobless.”
“Does Laura know you quit your job?” Sam knew the answer even as he asked it, so Bo’s snort followed by, “Yeah right,” didn’t come as a surprise.
Sam wanted to take everyone who’d ever made Bo feel worthless—cough, cough, his parents, cough, cough, Laura—and crush them under his boot.
Bo cupped Sam’s neck with one hand. “You’re frowning. Are you mad?” He started to pull away. “I’m sorry I—”
“I’m not mad at you, Bo.” Bo wasn’t even on the list of people Sam was mad at. Sam pressed a gentle kiss against Bo’s lips. “Thank you for telling me.” He’d asked Bo to move in with him and Bo…hadn’t exactly answered. Sam was afraid of asking again in case Bo’s story had been his way of changing the subject because he didn’t want to move in together.
“Sam?”
“Hmm?”
“I really can’t fucking wait to live with you. More than we sort-of already do, I mean.”
They did kind of live out of each other’s pockets. Living next door made it easy.
Sam laughed and brought Bo in for a hug. “Thank you.” He kissed Bo’s neck. “We’ll find you a new job. Something you’ll love.”
“Actually…” Bo pulled back. “Your sister offered me a job today.”
Huh? Sam looked over Bo’s head, where Taylor and Robyn were bickering about whose turn i
t was to play with the telescope. Then he listened to Bo describe the job offer Taylor had laid in front of him today.
“Bo!” This time when Sam’s lips landed on Bo’s, it was with a loud wet smack that echoed across the quiet farm. “That’s great!”
“Yeah,” Bo said, laughing. “I’m really excited about it, actually. We still need to go over the details and I have about a million questions, but I think I’d like to do it. Plus, I want to talk to Taylor about her degree program, see if it’s something I’d be interested in.”
Well, shit! Somebody was finally seeing the light.
“You know,” his mom said from her spot behind him. Fuck his life, he’d forgotten his parents were right fucking there. “If you’re house hunting, Mrs. Doveny up the street is going to be putting her house up for sale later this year.”
“Have you been listening to our conversation this whole time?” Sam asked, incredulous.
“Yup,” his dad said.
Parents. Embarrassing him for twenty-seven years.
“Who’s Mrs. Doveney?” Bo asked.
Mrs. Doveny lived half a kilometer north in a two-storey house built in the seventies. The house was tiny, barely sixteen hundred square feet, but it sat on a third of an acre of land that looked like a private park. It was beautiful and the house would be perfect, but…
“No offence,” Sam said to his parents, “but I don’t really want to live up the street from you.”
“No offence taken,” his dad said. “We don’t want you here anyway.”
His parents high fived as if they’d made the funniest joke of the century.
Bo leaned back against him and snorted a laugh. Sam kissed the top of his head.
Taylor and Robyn were still playing with the telescope. Sam must’ve made some kind of sound because Bo patted his knee and said, “Don’t worry. When they’re done, I’ll get the moon for you.”
Ever since the first night they had dinner together, Sam loved looking at the moon. On a clear night they’d have dinner on Bo’s deck, listening to the chickens cluck in their coop. They’d watch the sun set over the big sky and once the moon came out, Bo would bring his telescope out of the house.
There was something about the moon that reminded Sam of Bo. It was outwardly bright and perfect, and it watched over the Earth like Bo watched over his animals. Yet when looked at closely, little craters of imperfections appeared. Small holes, tiny flaws.
But just like Bo, those chinks in the armor only made it more beautiful.
Chapter Nine
Bo was lying on the couch in Sam’s office on Sunday afternoon half an hour before they had to leave to meet the real estate agent in Welland, reading through the equine management program information on the University of Guelph’s website on his tablet. Tripaw sat on his thighs, gnawing on the string of one of his many cargo shorts’ pockets. Laura’s chickens were fed and had enough food to last for the rest of the day, which meant Bo was free as—well, as a fucking bird.
“Bo,” Sam said from his seat behind his office desk, “give me a good curse.”
“When the clock strikes twelve,” Bo said in his shakiest, most evil-witch voice, “the demons will slip through the veil and damn you to eternity!” His voice gained volume by the end and he must’ve scared Tripaw; the cat meowed loudly and fled the room.
Mr. I Look Even Hotter Than Usual In These Reading Glasses Bo Didn’t Know I Had laughed. “No, I mean… You know how you called my ex a giant fucking douche doughnut? Something like that.”
Oh. Well that was easy. Depending on… “What’s the context?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
“Who says it?”
“Can’t tell you that either.”
Bo huffed. “Can you at least tell me if it’s for Scythe and Swords?”
“It is,” Sam said, finally acquiescing on something. He seemed to come to a decision in his head because he said, “It’s for a new character I’m working on.”
“Human, extra, demon, or other?” Extras, or extra-humans, were humans in Sam’s web comic who had some sort of power, like telekinesis or psychometry. Others were beings who didn’t fit into any of the first three categories, like angels.
Sam shot him a look. “Why is that important?”
It wasn’t. Just that Sam wouldn’t share anything about the upcoming storyline with him and Bo was dying to know.
Sam raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“Who is he saying it to?” Bo tried.
“James.”
“Why would anybody want to insult James? He’s the best.”
“James is being unusually stubborn.”
Interesting. Usually it was Elliot who was the pain in everyone’s ass. Which meant that if James was being pigheaded, he was either fighting with Elliot or there was some kind of threat against Elliot, real or imagined.
Scythe and Swords was dark and gritty yet a few of its characters were hilarious, despite the shit situations they often found themselves in. Bo said the first thing that came to mind: “Witless mangled fucknugget?”
Sam’s smirk looked a little evil. “Perfect.”
“Now will you share the upcoming storyline with me?”
“The answer to that’s the same as before.”
Sam wouldn’t share his work with his own boyfriend.
“Rude,” Bo concluded.
Sam ignored him.
“I could be your editor,” Bo offered.
“I already have one, thank you.”
Bo pouted and went back to his reading. He loved this, just lying on the couch relaxing while Sam worked not far away. It was like they were already an old domestic couple. Sam was so engrossed in what he was doing that Bo could look his fill without Sam noticing. Not that it would matter if Sam did catch him looking; Bo caught Sam looking at him all the time.
“What?” Bo’d ask.
Sam would shrug. “Nothing. I just like looking at you.”
Bo had never thought he was much to look at. On the short side and plain-looking, he’d often considered himself ordinary. Yet the way Sam looked at him made him feel like the sexiest guy in the room. After Sam, of course. Nobody was sexier than Sam.
“Ready to go?” Sam asked a few minutes later.
They headed downstairs. Sam filled Tripaw’s food and water bowls before they left.
“What if we don’t like either of them?” Bo asked, getting into Sam’s SUV. The houses looked good on paper, but that didn’t say much.
“Then we’ll keep looking.”
Bo watched Sam’s confident hands steer the car as he navigated out of his driveway and headed for the highway.
“What if we don’t find something we like before your friends get back?” he asked.
Sam glanced at Bo out of the corner of his eye and reached over to take his hand. “We’ll cross that boat when we come to it.”
Bo traced the fine bones on the back of Sam’s hand. “It’s ‘bridge’.”
“Huh?”
“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Sam pondered that for a second, nodded once, and said, “Yeah. That makes more sense.”
“And you call yourself a writer,” Bo teased him.
“No. Graphic artist.”
“You write your own dialogue. That makes you an author to some degree.”
Sam pinched Bo’s thigh, but he was grinning.
§§§§
The houses were a bust. The first was in a sketchy neighborhood. The second was going through a bidding war. No, thank you.
“Cheer up,” Sam said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to rub Bo’s thigh. “We’ll find something.”
“I know.” Bo placed his hand over Sam’s and threaded their fingers together. He loved holding Sam’s hand. The sight of them together, Sam’s larger than his own, always made his belly flip-flop. Sam’s hands were rough from gardening and drawing, their honey color only a touch darker than Bo’s. “I just want us to have our own place,” he sai
d.
The real estate agent was showing them two more houses tomorrow: A detached in Milton (it was way over their budget but the real estate agent wouldn’t take no for an answer, even though Sam didn’t want to live there because it was developing so quickly), and a two-storey, three-bedroom, three-bath, newly renovated townhouse in Guelph that was so reasonably priced Bo was sure it would end up in a bidding war. Turned out that Sam didn’t really want to live in Guelph either, though. Bo had a feeling Sam wanted a small house with a big property far away from the nearest neighbors. In which case, they’d have to start looking more rural.
Bo didn’t care where they lived as long as his commute to his new job at the McAuley farm didn’t take too long. Not that he’d accepted the job yet, but he intended to as soon as he figured out how to work it around the equine management classes he wanted to take at the University of Guelph.
It felt really damn good to finally have a direction.
As they neared their homes, Bo saw a taxi pull out of his driveway.
“Expecting somebody?” Sam asked, pulling into his own driveway.
“No,” Bo replied. “I’m not expecting any new animals in the next few days.” Even if he was, their owners wouldn’t bring them by freakin’ taxi.
Bo had figured out weeks ago that Laura had most likely told all of her regular clients that she wouldn’t be around for the summer, which was why it’d been so quiet the past two months. (All of his clients had been first-time clients… He wasn’t stupid; he’d put two and two together.) Usually Laura complained about how busy May through August was, but Bo had yet to see any evidence of that, though May had been busier than June. If she really didn’t trust him to take care of Big Sky, why did she even bother having him take over while she was away? Why not shut down completely?
Sure it was a huge gamble, but Bo thought she’d taken one anyway by telling her clients she wouldn’t be around (and probably also referring them elsewhere). It was four months—a third of the year!—of lost business with no guarantee that her clients would come back to her when she returned.
He was simultaneously pissed and grateful that she hadn’t shut down. Pissed because he’d willingly quit a decent job to come here to look after animals, only to get stuck with a dozen evil chickens (that no longer tried to revolt. Things had been quiet ever since he’d reinforced the coop door). Grateful because had he never come, he never would’ve met Sam.