by A. E. Wasp
Twenty-Four
Bryce
“Wait,” Bryce said, hands tightening on Dakota’s arms. “You were seventeen, and he told you not to tell anybody?”
Dakota picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I know. I was stupid. I’m glad my parents never met him.”
“No.” Bryce wrapped his arms around Dakota. “Not stupid. Young and alone and scared. And he took advantage of you. I’m not letting you pay back one more cent of that money. As a matter of fact, as soon as my finance guy gets the books figured out, I’m giving back what you’ve already paid.”
“You can’t.”
“Stop telling me what I can’t do. I can and I will. End of discussion.” Bryce sounded angry for the first time. “Damn it.”
“I’m sorry.” Dakota had no idea what he was apologizing for.
“No. I’m so sorry. If I ever meet that guy, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”
Dakota rested his head back on Bryce’s broad shoulders. “Yeah? You’d beat him up for me?”
Bryce thought about. He pictured body slamming this Kyle into the side of the barn. If felt good. Creep. Who did that to a kid? “Yep. I would. Can I sic the dogs on him?”
“Sadly, they love him. I told you, Lu’s a tramp. She loves everyone.”
The silence was suddenly charged with words Bryce almost said and Dakota could almost hear. Words he wanted to say but, despite coming so close just now, Bryce couldn’t say them. How could he tell Dakota he loved him when he was too afraid to be seen in public with him? When he was going to leave?
Bryce wasn’t a fool. He knew his options were limited. He could retire, give up twelve million dollars and hope things worked out with Dakota the way he thought it could, or go back, sign the contract, out himself in public and hope he didn’t get fired and deal with the homophobia he knew he would get hit with.
He knew he’d have to come out if he wanted to be with Dakota. He’d promised he would never make Dakota his dirty little secret, as Lori had so eloquently put it. Now he knew why she was so adamant about that.
“If I can find a way to kill him without going to jail, I’ll do it,” Bryce said, breaking the awkward silence.
“You’ll have to stop Lori from killing him first.”
Bryce laughed. “Your sister is scary for such a tiny person. I could pick her up with one hand and I’m afraid of her.”
“That’s because you’re smart.”
“Nah. I’m just a dumb jock.”
“That’s not even remotely true. Well, obviously you are a jock. Now you’re all with the ‘reading’.” Dakota made air quotes with his fingers around the word reading.
Bryce cupped Dakota’s cheek with his hand. His eyes were so dark, pupils wide from the dim lighting and the waves of lust that had ebbed and flowed as they’d spoken but never fully faded. “So are you. This feels like something real. Tell me you don’t feel it.”
Dakota yanked his head away. With a groan, he threw the quilt off them. As it fluttered to the floor, he gasped, pulling it back up quickly.
Bryce sat up next to him as he ran his fingers over the individual squares making up what Bryce could tell was a homemade quilt.
“My mom,” he said, fingers tracing the name Sunshine Ryan. “That was her birth name. She said her mother told her she’d been sunny since birth.” Fittingly, her block was a multi-rayed sun in ten different yellow patterns.
“Do you see your grandparents? Any of them?”
“Not since the funeral. All that’s left is my mom’s mom anyway. The rest of them died young. Not that my father’s parents considered me their real grandkid anyway.”
He traced over his father’s name. His block was a simple pinwheel of brightly colored triangles. The name Zeke Ryan staggered in drunken embroidery across the block.
“Which one is yours?” Bryce asked quietly.
Dakota tugged the quilt around until he found the block with the bright, intricately-pieced apple tree and his name scrawled in fabric marker near the roots.
“That’s amazing,” Bryce said reaching for it. He stopped, “Can I touch it?”
“Of course. It’s meant to be used.”
“How old were you when you made this?”
“About fourteen.”
“It’s amazing. Who is this one?”
One by one, Dakota read Bryce the names, telling him a little about each person. Lori’s square was a black cat, the grandmother of the tabby barn cat currently stalking the mice.
“I miss them,” he said out loud.
“Your parents?” Bryce asked.
“Everyone.” He ran his hand over the quilt. “They were amazing after the accident. I probably would be dead myself if it hadn’t been for my these people.”
“Why don’t you see them anymore?”
Dakota shrugged looking away sheepishly.
“Let me guess. Kyle?”
“Yeah. Somehow when I was with him, I just drifted away.”
Bryce snorted.
“I know,” Dakota said. “I know now it’s a classic sign of a, a bad relationship.”
Abusive was the word he was searching for, Bryce thought. But he wasn’t going to force the issue. It would take time to root out all that damage, but he knew Dakota was worth it.
Bryce scanned the blocks as if he could see Kyle’s name.
“Don’t bother. He’s not there.”
Dakota stood up and carefully folded up the blanket, laying it over the arm of the couch. With a smile that was no less gorgeous for the sadness in his eyes, Dakota stood between Bryce’s legs and put his hands flat against Bryce’s chest.
“So, what are we going to do until you tell your mother? I guess no more sleepovers, unless you’re going to sneak out?”
Bryce let himself be pushed back against the couch.
Dakota straddled Bryce’s lap, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Are you going to climb out your bedroom window and shimmy down a tree? Sneak into my room?”
Bryce traced the waistband of Dakota’s jeans. “It sounds kind of hot when you say it like that. But I don’t even know if my bedroom window has a tree close enough for that to work.”
“It does. I’ll keep the front door open for you.”
“You always keep the door unlocked.”
Dakota pinched his nipple hard. “Now it will be symbolically open. You really want to keep talking? I didn’t think that’s what you dragged me in here for. We’re wasting your mother’s very obvious offer of privacy.”
“Are you trying to distract me with sex?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
“Yeah. It is.” It probably always would.
“Good. Then shut up and kiss me.”
As far as distraction techniques went, Dakota’s kisses were right on the top of Bryce’s list. Pulling Dakota on top of him, he shifted them until they lay down on the couch.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing Dakota’s wrist as he worked the button on Bryce’s jeans. “Did you say my mother knows about us?”
Dakota sighed and crossed his arms over Bryce’s chest. He propped his chin on his arms and looked at Bryce. “I didn’t say that. I heavily implied it.”
“What makes you think that?” Had he done anything? He’d been so careful not to touch Dakota. It was surprising how many times he’d had to stop himself from reaching out. It felt wrong after days of casual and not so casual touching.
“She gave me this look when you introduced us,” Dakota said. “And she was pretty clearly giving us some space just now.”
“Maybe I won’t have to tell her outright then?” Even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. Actually, it meant he’d have to say something sooner rather than later.
“If I were a woman, you’d tell her about us, right?”
“Yeah. I would. And I will. I promise. Thinking about it, I think she might have been clued in by the fact that I’m pretty sure I talked about you non-stop the whole drive from the airport.”
“There’s only good things to tell.”
Dakota rolled his eyes at the cheesy line, but he was smiling. “I wish I could tell my parents about you.”
Dakota sounded very young and sad. It made Bryce want to promise Dakota he’d never leave and never let anyone hurt him ever again, but it was too early for those kinds of promises. He wondered if Dakota’s parents had ever met any of his boyfriends. Had there been boys before this Kyle asshole?
Bryce pushed the flop of blond hair back from Dakota’s eyes. “I wish I could have met them. From what you’ve told me, they must have been great. Do you think they would have liked me?”
“Depends. What are your thoughts on military intervention in the Middle East, fracking, GMOs, abortion, single-payer healthcare, and gay marriage?” Dakota smiled but his eyes were still sad.
Bryce titled his head up and stared at the high ceiling. Sunlight through the tiny cupola window shifted through the dust motes dancing in the air.
He ticked off his responses on his fingers. “Complicated, don’t know what that is, don’t know enough to have an opinion, should be legal and easily accessible in conjunction with comprehensive sex education and access to birth control, don’t know what that is, and suddenly I find myself extremely in favor of it,” he answered.
He looked back down at Dakota, hand finding his favorite spot around Dakota’s hip. He rubbed his thumb over the knob of bone. “How’d I do?”
“Maybe fifty percent. Plus another, say, ten, no fifteen percent for looks.”
“Just fifteen?”
Dakota put his finger under Bryce’s chin and tilted it up. He turned Bryce’s face back and forth, frowning as he scrutinized it. When he ran his thumb over Bryce’s bottom lip, Bryce nipped at it gently.
“Maybe twenty-five percent,” he amended. “My mom did love pretty things.”
Bryce touched his chest with his fingertips and fluttered his eyelids. “He thinks I’m pretty. Be still my heart.”
Dakota laughed and smacked his hand away. “Shut up. Yeah, I think you’re pretty. Even prettier when you’re right on the edge of coming.” Reaching down, he finished unbuttoning Bryce’s jeans. “So let’s find out how long I can keep you there.”
Bryce exhaled and shuddered. Keeping him right on the edge until he thought he would lose his mind was one of Dakota’s favorite things. Before Dakota, Bryce hadn’t had any idea how hard he could beg and how desperate he could sound.
And how loud he could be. “Kota, I think my mother’s windows are open.”
Dakota flashed an evil grin at him. “I guess you’re going to have to try really hard to be quiet then, won’t you?”
Bryce preemptively covered his mouth with his hand as Dakota worked his jeans down just far enough to free his cock.
He really was going to have to talk to his mom soon.
Twenty-Five
Dakota
The next three weeks passed in a flurry of activity.
Dakota spent almost as much time at the big house as he had when Tommy had been alive. He’d even found himself sitting on the porch with Connie quite a few times. She was easy to talk to, and Dakota wished that he had been able to introduce her to his parents. They would have gotten along great.
“So, tell me about growing apples,” she had said one day, handing Dakota a cup of coffee.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Everything.” She sat down next to him at one the tables. “I know nothing about it. I grew up in the city. I can barely keep a houseplant alive.” She spread her hands. “This, the mountains, the orchard, farms, fields – it’s all new to me. I saw a whole herd of deer right in the driveway last night!”
She sounded so excited about it that Dakota didn’t bother telling her about how much money those deer would be costing her in lost crops, or how many vehicles he’d seen destroyed by the ill-timed leap of a deer. Of course, that was often harder on the deer. “Wait until you see the elk,” he said. “They’re gorgeous. In the spring, you can hear them bugling to each other.”
“Really?” She shook her head. “I can’t get over this place.”
Her love of his home moved him and made him like her even more. “When we get up into the mountains one day, maybe we’ll see a moose. And you’ll need to keep an eye out for bears in the orchard.”
“Bears?” Her eyes widened in alarm. She stared out into the yard as if there could be a bear lurking, unseen, even now. The only things moving were Lu and Beezy as they chased squirrels up the gnarled cottonwood trees. Fat and lazy with the impending winter, the squirrels stayed barely out of reach and chattered down at the dogs. Occasionally, they dropped nuts or twigs down on the dogs’ heads. It was their favorite game.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s getting near the end of foraging season. And they mostly won’t bother you. I keep a nice pile of old fruit for them outside the electric fence. It satisfies most of them.”
Connie shook her head. “My son is incredibly lucky to have met you. I can’t imagine doing this without you.”
“It’s nothing,” he shrugged. “I don’t really know that much.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve learned so much from you already,” she said. “Now tell me about apples.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Dakota started with the basics, but Connie was such an enthusiastic and intelligent listener that he found himself telling her about his idea of partnering with the university. He even ran back to his house to grab some magazines to show her.
When Bryce returned from his physical therapy appointment, he found them passing the magazines back and forth and trading ideas.
He picked up one of the magazines, looking at all the different varieties of apples. “I had no idea there were so many different types. I’ve never heard of most of these. It’s so cool.”
Dakota smiled up at him. “I know, right?”
Bryce slapped the magazine down on the table and reached for Dakota’s coffee cup. “Let’s look into it. Call the University, see what they say.”
“Awesome.”
Weekend evenings Bryce and Dakota spent working the corn maze a friend of Dakota’s ran during Halloween. Dakota was grateful when the calendar flipped over to November. Standing in the cold with a flashlight helping lost stragglers find the exit got old.
Plus he got tired of breaking up couples who thought the dark corners of the maze were perfect for some sexual experimentation. Not all of the experimenters were teens. One of the couples had to be in their sixties.
Bryce, of course, had thought it was a hoot.
He’d volunteered to be one of the people who jump out to scare visitors. With his height and size, it didn’t take much to scare even the most macho guy.
The first time he’d made a little kid cry, he had been so distraught, Dakota had to drag him into a dark corner to cheer him up. But that wasn’t experimentation; that was perfecting. Bryce was getting very good at being gay.
He sucked at hiding it, if that was even his plan. No one recognized him in costume, of course. And other than some grocery shopping, they almost never left the farm. So maybe he felt safe.
Connie worked on getting the house set up. Dakota couldn’t help but noticed the whole thing seemed more, well, masculine than he had expected. He expected more doilies and fewer leather couches.
He appreciated the way she incorporated many of Tommy’s family pictures, going so far as to frame some of Dakota and his parents and put them on the walls right next to the ones of her children and grandchildren.
His favorite section, though, was the hallway wall she had filled with photos of Bryce at all stages of his career.
He could stare all day at the tall, gangly eighteen-year-old, wild-eyed with excitement in his first NHL uniform. Bryce was so adorable, Dakota wanted to go back in time and just grab him up.
He’d been twenty-four when he was with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he was so gorgeous, it sto
le Dakota’s breath away. No wonder he had a fan club, and calendars. Privately, Dakota thought he looked better now. Age had deepened the lines around his dark eyes, widened his shoulders, and given him this solidness teenage Bryce had lacked.
Action photos by some amazing professional sports photographers shared space with magazine photo shoots, both in uniform and in suits. There was even one from a fashion spread in Vanity Fair.
And of course, Dakota couldn’t forget the photos of Bryce’s two Stanley Cup wins with two different teams.
Yeah. Dakota was definitely dating out of his weight class. He was surprised Bryce had even looked twice at him.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the rest of the Lowery family started to arrive. With each new arrival, Bryce got more cautious around Dakota.
First to show up were Bryce’s sister Julie and her husband David, their three-year-old daughter Sarah, and infant son. They flew in from Chicago and rented a car. An intimidating woman not quite two years younger than Bryce, Julie cornered Dakota the first night in the house.
She peppered him with questions about the temporary pickers that hit a little too close to things Dakota would rather not come to light. When she said something about discrepancies in payroll, he wanted to throw up. Fucking Kyle and his imaginary pickers. When the non-existent Juan Valdez got paid, the money had gone right into Kyle’s pocket.
Bryce must have seen it in his face, because he came to Dakota’s rescue.
“He wasn’t the owner or the accountant, Jules. Leave the poor kid alone.” With an arm around his shoulder, Bryce pulled Dakota away out to the porch.
Once they were out of sight, Dakota shrugged Bryce’s arm off. “I’m not a kid.” But he sure did sound like one saying that. Crap. “And I do actually have the answers she was asking for.”
“I know that. You know everything.”
“Did you know what she was asking about is exactly how Kyle stole that money?” he said in a harsh whisper.