by Kim Fielding
After a long moment of silence, Eddy cleared his throat. “That’s not true. It’s about common background, common interests.”
“So what do we have in common? We’re both rich white gay men. I think that’s it.”
“We could find commonalities. You’ve barely even given this a chance.”
“I’m sorry,” Tully had repeated. “The more time we put into this, the harder this is going to get.”
“You have commitment issues.”
Tully had sighed. “Probably. I think I have a lot of issues. I should get therapy. But look, I have to go. I’m sorry. But, um, good luck with things, okay?” Nope. Not awkward at all.
And to his credit, Eddy had given up the argument. He merely sounded disappointed. “I had high hopes for us.”
“I’m sorry.” What was that—the fourth apology in five minutes?
“All right. Whatever. You take care, Tully.”
And that had been the end of it, as neat and clean as that kind of thing could be.
“The thing with Sage is still working out?” Carrie asked, interrupting his thoughts.
An instant, intense sense memory of Saturday’s kiss hit Tully, nearly overwhelming him. Jesus.
“Tully?”
He ducked his head. “It’s fine. He made cheese the other day. Homemade cheese! He’s a brilliant cook.”
“Yeah. He used to experiment with cooking even when he was little. Did he tell you about the Filling Station?”
“He did. It’s a sad story.”
Carrie nodded before taking another sip of her shake. “It is. Other than the grange hall, it was the town’s social center. I used to do my homework there when I was in high school.” Her smile was softer than usual, her gaze faraway. “Sage was still in grade school, but he’d bring me little tastes of whatever he was experimenting on in the kitchen that day. And all he ever wanted for birthdays and Christmases were cookbooks.”
Tully pictured a young version of Sage. His hair had probably been blond then. Tully could see him, all awkward limbs and big eyes, bustling around with his pots and pans, earnestly testing his recipes on relatives. “He makes a good roommate. I hardly see him, really. He works long hours.” He looked around Dolly’s, where the lunchtime rush was still in force. “He deserves somewhere better than this.”
“Dolly’s isn’t a dump.”
“No. But… he makes cheese. From scratch! And spring rolls, and this Filipino chicken dish that’s amazing, and some kind of cheese casserole thing from Croatia that’s got phyllo pastry and cream, and….” Embarrassed, he let his voice trail off.
“Not much call for Croatian food in Hair Shaker, Tully. And here he’s just a hick who can flip a burger. At least he gets overtime at Dolly’s, and he says the management aren’t assholes.”
Scowling, Tully ate one of his cooled fries. Sage could have done something interesting with them, like truffles and chiles or something. And damn it all, Tully thought. Shouldn’t he be thinking less about Sage and worrying more about Eddy Harrington?
Chapter Six
WHEN Tully pulled up at the site, Eddy was leaning against his SUV—a Land Rover, of course—in layers of expensive outdoor clothing and a pair of yellow hiking boots that had probably set him back a thousand bucks. He looked as if he was about to take an extremely well-financed trek through inner Patagonia. A trip where he expected to be accompanied by his hairstylist and personal assistant.
“Tully!” he said as soon as Tully was out of his car. It was spoken as though Eddy was surprised to see him, which was ridiculous since Eddy had arranged this meeting.
“Hi,” Tully said as he picked his way through tall, damp weeds. He’d worn a sensible lawyer suit and sensible lawyer shoes, which had been a mistake. He gave in to Eddy’s half-handshake, half-hug maneuver.
“What do you think of the place?” Eddy spread his arms and grinned.
Tully was unimpressed. The only structures were a white farmhouse that one good wind could topple and a barn that had already given in to age and gravity, its roof collapsed and one wall mostly gone. Nearby, several acres of weeds sagged in autumn grays and browns, and then the land sloped down beneath a stand of evergreens, toward what he assumed were the wetlands.
“It’s an old farm,” Tully said. Brilliant.
“Yep. Hasn’t been worked in ages. I bought most of it for a song a few years back. I was thinking vineyards. Can you imagine? A château built in authentic French style, complete with tasting room, a Michelin-starred restaurant, an exclusive spa…. I was going to build a private airstrip too, so visitors could fly straight in.” Eddy gazed adoringly at the farmhouse, clearly envisioning something much grander.
“What happened to those plans?”
“I came up with something better.” Eddy stepped closer and stared into Tully’s eyes. “How are you doing, Tully?” he asked softly.
Eddy was handsome, with a patrician nose, sharp jawline, and sculpted cheekbones. He always managed to maintain exactly the right amount of beard scruff to look dashing and devil-may-care, and his body was that of a man who could afford the best in personal trainers and dieticians. He was wearing the same cologne as usual, a woodsy scent concocted expressly for him by a Parisian parfumier. He’d let Tully sniff the bottle once, and the liquid smelled strongly astringent. When Eddy’s personal chemistry interacted with it, however, the fragrance notes rounded and deepened and became sexy.
“Why did you bring me here?” Tully growled.
“So I could show you the building site.” Eddy smiled easily, eyes sparkling with amusement.
“I mean why me?”
“I need a good lawyer. You are one.”
“I’m a damn good lawyer.” Tully crossed his arms. “But that’s not why you insisted on me.”
“Insist is such a strong word. Come on. Let me show you around. We can talk while we tour.”
Although Tully badly wanted to get back in his car and return to Portland—possibly after planting his fist in the middle of that smug, self-assured face—he sighed and trudged alongside Eddy toward the gravel road they’d driven in on.
“My land extends from there to there,” Eddy said, pointing. “And then down past the creek and up to the ridge of the next hill. Right now, this is the easternmost boundary.” He toed the edge of the road.
“Okay,” Tully responded. It still just looked like an old farm to him. But what did he know? He’d grown up in Manhattan.
“I’m in negotiations to buy the parcel across the road. I’m probably going to end up overpaying. I mean, all they’re doing is growing sod and some nursery stock, but they’re acting like it’s Shangri-la. ‘It’s been in the family a zillion years, blah-de-blah-de-blah.’ Well, eventually I’ll throw enough cash at them and they’ll cave.”
Tully squinted at the farmland across the road. It was under cultivation and in better condition than the weedy tracts behind them, but it didn’t seem remarkable. “Why do you want that land too?”
“Space! Together it’ll give me almost two hundred acres. Plenty of room for my plant, with room left over for future expansion.” Eddy waved toward Tully’s Tesla. “Elon Musk, he built your little plug-in toy on over three hundred acres down in California. We’ll need a lot of area for test flights.”
“You’re seriously going to build Jetsons ships?”
Laughing, Eddy clapped him on the back. “You oughtta know, Tully—I’m a serious guy. When I say I’m going to do something, I mean it.”
“But… it’s crazy.”
Eddy rolled his eyes and frowned like a long-suffering man who had heard it all before. Then he dug into a pocket and pulled out his smartphone, which he held up. “Twenty years ago, if Steve Jobs said he was going to sell these and if he described all the things they would do, you would have called him crazy.”
“Maybe. But that’s still basically a little computer. You’re talking about flying cars!”
“Which are just a modified form of transportation.
Nothing new there, Tully. It’s been over one hundred and ten years since Wilbur Wright took to the air. Ford founded his company the same year. I’m simply innovating.” Eddy’s eyes shone and his expression was intense. He believed what he was saying. Believed in his plans. His intentions for including Tully remained opaque, but at least he was sincere in wanting legal help to build his dream.
Tully looked at the sky, which threatened rain, and across the road, where a bird circled lazily. Finally he met Eddy’s gaze. “But is it practical?”
“Not just practical. It’s necessary.” Eddy bounded into the middle of the empty road. “What was traffic like when you drove down here?”
“The fifth circle of hell.” He’d crawled the entire way—which Eddy had no doubt anticipated when he set their meeting time for immediately after the peak of morning rush hour. It hadn’t helped that Tully had been running late. Before leaving home, he had been distracted by one of Sage’s delicious breakfasts and the knowledge that Sage himself was right there in the apartment—in bed—undoubtedly looking sexy even as he slept.
“Uh-huh,” Eddy said happily, interrupting that string of memories. “It’s like that every damn weekday. And what can we do about it? Add another lane or two? But that’s expensive—sometimes prohibitively so when we factor in bridges and mountains and the like. And you know the saying: build it and they will come. Add more lanes and you only get more drivers. Plus, even aside from the capacity issue, there are other problems. Not everyone’s driving a zero-emission non-fossil-fuel gadget like yours. What about accidents? How many traffic fatalities are there in a year?” He paused, waiting for an answer.
“Uh… a lot?” It was like getting called on in math class.
“Over thirty thousand a year, and that’s just in the US.”
That was more than a lot, Tully had to admit. “Why not promote public transportation? High-speed trains, things like that.”
“That works well in some countries, but not here. Americans love their cars even more than their guns and their supersized soft drinks with free refills. It’s the American way. With the exception of a few urban areas, our nation is structured around the concept of personal transportation, and nothing short of a revolution is going to change that.”
He had a point. But still, Tully shook his head. “It sounds like science fiction. Why not just build transporters and beam everyone up?”
“Atomic reconstruction’s tricky. Come on.” Eddy began walking back the way they’d come, Tully trailing in his wake. They continued across more stubby weeds, skirted a blackberry bramble that looked big enough to engulf a small city, and descended the slope past the evergreens.
The creek at the bottom of the hill ran shallow today but was no doubt expansive after rains. The snakelike course of the channel created still pools at the widened bends of the curves, where lush greenery crowded the banks and a few ducks paddled contentedly. Although the weather had been dry for several days, the soil grew muddy as they neared the creek. Moisture seeped through the leather of Tully’s expensive loafers and crept up the hems of his trousers. Dammit. He was going to bill Eddy for the damage to his wardrobe.
Eddy stopped right before he reached the stream. He broke off a piece of tall grass, tossed it into the water, and watched it float away. Then he turned to Tully. He bounced on the balls of his feet as he spoke. “My partners are working on the hardware aspect. Our craft will run on electric motors, maybe even with built-in photovoltaic chargers. But we can’t let people pilot them. For one thing, the FAA would make them all get pilot’s licenses, and hardly anyone wants to hassle with that. But also, look at all the wrecks idiots cause when they’re zooming around in two dimensions. Give them a third dimension and no clearly marked roads and….” He smashed his hands together to mime a fiery crash.
“So if people can’t fly them….”
“That’s where I come in. Well, in addition to providing the biggest chunk of capital.” He smiled winningly.
Tully wanted more coffee and dry shoes. He wanted to be back in Portland with Sage’s food to look forward to. “You’re going to fly these things for everyone?” Tully asked wearily, kicking at a clump of weeds for good measure.
“In a manner of speaking. The software is my baby. End users will program in their destination, and computer chips do the rest. Imagine it, Tully! You sit comfortably in your own little pod, relaxing or catching up on work while it takes you quickly and safely anywhere you want to go.”
Okay, that was a tempting vision. But it left so many questions unanswered. Would Eddy’s pods be affordable and durable and secure? Did the pods need runways to take off and land? Would Eddy get so tangled up in government regulations he’d whimper and give up? What kind of time frame was he talking about? In the end, though, none of those things were Tully’s problem. Only two issues truly concerned him.
“Why here, and why me?” he demanded.
Eddy regarded him for a long time before answering. “This location is ideal. I already own this property, of course, which helps. The terrain’s suitable for the structures we’ll need and also for our test flights.”
“But it’s a wetland. Why not build east of the Cascades? There’s plenty of land out there.” With a pang he thought of Hair Shaker, now minus its restaurant.
“Well, the weather’s more temperate here, and if I want to spend my days at the plant, I don’t have to live in Podunk. More importantly, though, we’re close to I-5 and rail lines here, so it’ll be easier to ship things in and out. And there’s lots of skilled labor. I need engineers, not cattle ranchers.”
Or line cooks who knew how to make cheese and whose kiss could make Tully’s toes curl.
His head began to throb. Without saying another word, he turned and slogged up the hill, his toes squelching with every step. Eddy caught up near the blackberry bramble but didn’t say anything until they reached the cars.
“So? You’ll work with me, right?”
“I can probably manage this case. I’ll have a learning curve, but I can handle it. But why the hell aren’t you hiring someone who does this kind of stuff all the time?”
After a brief pause, Eddy moved closer and dropped his voice. “I trust you. This is my baby. I want to end up in the books alongside the Wrights and Ford and Jobs. I want people to stop dreaming about muscle cars or sports cars and dream instead about Harrington Sky Pods. And I don’t want some asshole windbag in a suit fucking things up. I want you.”
Eddy put his arms around Tully and initiated a kiss.
For a moment or two, Tully let the kiss proceed. A test of sorts. Eddy tasted of breath mints, yet kissing him was about as pleasant as making out with a three-days-dead sturgeon.
Tully socked him hard on the side of the head.
With a grunt Eddy staggered back several steps. He held a palm to his ear, his eyes and mouth wide with shock.
Shaking out his hand to soothe his stinging knuckles, Tully wondered whether Brenda Sharpe would be the one to fire him and whether Eddy would file a police report. What was the Clackamas County Jail like?
“You hit me!” Eddy finally exclaimed.
Tully sighed. “Yeah.”
“You hit me!”
“Already inculpated myself for the act, Eddy. You don’t need me to confess again.”
“B-but….”
It was actually fairly entertaining to see Edison Harrington at a loss for words. Tully would have enjoyed it more if unemployment and possible incarceration weren’t in his near future. Maybe when he got out of jail, he’d sell his condo and move away. A tropical island, perhaps, where he’d survive on coconuts and rum and wear nothing but swim trunks. But no, he remembered, that would leave Sage without a place to stay. Fine. Tully would move to the tropical island but keep the condo until after Sage returned to Hair Shaker.
“It’s in your front pocket. That one there.” Tully pointed.
“Wha-what?”
“Your phone. It’s 9-1-1. Or maybe you have
an app for this kind of occasion.”
Eddy removed his hand from his ear and glanced at the palm as if checking for blood, gave his jaw a quick rub, and then shook his head. “I’m not calling the cops.”
“It’s assault in the fourth degree. Class A misdemeanor. I’ll just get probation since I don’t have any priors, but I might get disbarred. That ought to cheer you up.”
“Jesus Christ, Tully! I don’t want you disbarred! I need you to do my legal work, remember?”
Tully crossed his arms. Now that he’d royally screwed up, he felt oddly free. “That wasn’t the kind of work you were expecting from me a minute ago, buddy.”
“It was only a kiss.”
“And I made it clear to you two years ago that we were done. I’ve done absolutely nothing in the intervening time to obscure that message. I didn’t want to drive in horrible traffic. I didn’t want to go traipsing through the mud. And I do not want to fucking kiss you!” He shouted the last part, startling a bird from a nearby power line. Shouting felt almost as good as hitting. Maybe he should do it more often.
Astonishment still ruled Eddy’s face. Tully was pretty sure that people never hit him. Or yelled at him. Hell, they probably never rejected him either. Why would they? He was obscenely rich and as good-looking as any model. He competed in windsurfing competitions, dressed impeccably, and would soon be building Jetsons cars.
“It was only a kiss,” Eddy repeated.
“Look. If you’re not going to call the cops, I’m out of here.” Tully would go home, throw the ruined suit and shoes into the garbage, and start researching islands. Maybe he should begin by narrowing it down to a particular ocean. Pacific?
He started to march toward his car. Eddy caught his arm but then quickly dropped it, his shoulders hunched defensively. “Will you wait a second? Just hear me out? Please?”
It was the please that did it, because Tully knew that word rarely tumbled from Eddy’s lips. Eddy looked genuinely distressed. Plus the area under his left ear was red and looked like it might be starting to swell.