by Welch, HJ
“Robin?”
He startled as Dair squeezed his hand twice as he called out his name. “Sorry, what?”
Dair chuckled. Robin realized they’d reached the pier along the boardwalk. It offered a spectacular view over the town’s lake, which was a few football fields large. Grassy shores met the waters on the other side, with hundred-foot-tall pine trees reaching for the blue sky. Looming over them were the purply snow-topped mountains Robin had dismissed in his childhood as an ordinary, everyday sight. Now they stole his breath with their magnificence.
“You were miles away,” Dair said. “Is everything okay?”
Robin considered before he nodded. “Yeah,” he said truthfully. “Just got a bit lost down memory lane.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Robin smiled up at him. Something powerful was unfurling in his chest. “Thank you,” he said through the slight lump in his throat.
Dair cocked his head. “For what?”
“For helping me come home.” Robin swallowed the lump and blinked back tears, allowing himself to smile. “This is my town, and…well, I didn’t quite realize what I was doing by avoiding it.”
He swung their hands, trying not to let embarrassment overwhelm him while they were connected. He felt raw and vulnerable. But Dair did that double squeeze thing again, giving Robin confidence.
“You make a seriously awesome cheerguard. So, thank you.”
Dair had the leash looped around his wrist, so his hand was free to reach up and touch Robin’s chin, tilting it slightly upward to look at him. Robin blinked in surprise at the intimate gesture.
“You’re welcome,” Dair said sincerely, then released his face.
Robin laughed, attempting to ease the unexpectedly intense moment. Thankfully, Dair joined in with him and the tension eased a little from Robin’s chest. They leaned against the pier’s fence and let Smudge sniff around.
Robin cleared his throat, hoping to dispel the last of the mildly heightened atmosphere. “So, you like it here? In Pine Cove?”
“It’s gorgeous.” Dair shook his head, mildly disbelieving. “I can’t believe how relaxed I feel here. It’s like I’ve been here before, but at the same time it’s like nothing else.”
Robin was surprised with how proud that made him feel. “It’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? I kind of forgot.”
Dair’s unruly dark blond hair glinted in the beautiful sunshine as he smiled down at Robin. The sight almost took his breath away. Luckily, Dair didn’t seem to notice as Robin covered it up with a cough.
“So, you must have spent all your summers on this lake?” Dair asked.
Robin couldn’t suppress his shiver. “Oh, no. I can’t…” He took a breath and smiled. This wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. “Actually, I can’t swim.”
“Really?”
Robin tried to keep his voice light. “It’s this weird thing I’ve always had. I, um, have nightmares that I’m underwater and I can’t breathe-”
He barely finished before Dair tugged his hand and turned them around. His arm was around Robin in an instant as they walked back toward the boardwalk. “Dude, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
Robin laughed. He couldn’t think of a time he’d ever laughed in response to his little phobia. It was crazy how safe he felt with Dair next to him. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. “I’m okay looking at it. In fact, I think it’s beautiful. I’m just not eager to get in or on it.”
Dair shook his head, but at least he was grinning. “Okay, good to know.”
“Right, are we going to lunch?” Robin asked. “My treat.”
He’d noticed earlier that Dair had been frowning over his wallet, which added to Robin’s suspicion that Dair had taken unpaid leave from his job for this trip. So Robin was doing his best to cover everything and not think too hard about how warm and fuzzy it made him feel that Dair would lose several days’ work for him.
Dair raised an eyebrow. “Well, I could eat for sure, but I’m happy to split it.”
Robin shook his head. “You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my dumb situation. And you’re always cooking at home. Let me pay you back.”
After a beat, Dair gave him a grin and squeezed his hand twice. “All right, sugar daddy.”
“Eww,” Robin cried with a laugh. “Shut up and follow me.”
They didn’t have to meet Jay until later that afternoon. There was a reunion of the LGBT society happening, focused on their class, but people from the years before and since were coming too. Robin was actually sort of looking forward to it, as crazy as that felt for someone who wasn’t keen on crowds and parties. As it wasn’t until the evening, he and Dair had the day to themselves while everyone else was at work and school.
There was only one place Robin wanted to go after all these years away. He just hoped it hadn’t changed too much in his absence.
Sunny Side Up was the only greasy spoon to go to in Pine Cove. There had been a couple of other dives that had tried to set up on the roads into town, but everyone around knew that Sunny’s was the place for comfort food. Their hash browns were the stuff of legends.
Sunny Perkins had opened the place up in his twenties some thirty or forty years ago. Although he came across as a grumpy bear, the whole town knew he had a heart of gold. He spent most of his time back in the kitchen, banging pots, flipping eggs, and singing along badly to the radio.
Luckily, his husband, Tyee, was always out front ready to give customers a warm welcome along with their Great Pyrenees dog, Peri. It had always been that way, although Peri had been a pup when Robin had left town ten years ago. Now he was an enormous white cloud that lumbered up when Robin stepped into the diner with Dair.
He didn’t expect Tyee to recognize him after all this time. Robin was just a customer who used to come in with his twin brother on sporadic Saturdays. But to Robin and Jay, seeing a married gay couple running a beloved restaurant in their town was the most remarkable thing. It had made them feel less alone before they’d come out to their family at thirteen, then the world at large at fifteen.
Peri might have grown five times over since he was a puppy, but Tyee looked exactly the same. His long black hair was poker straight and flowed below his shoulders. He was still wearing that familiar old sleeveless denim jacket over a checkered shirt, just with a couple of new buttons stitched on. His skin was the same copper brown with hardly any new laughter lines, and he still wore the Shoalwater Bay yellow-and-black beaded bracelet on his wrist, always remembering his tribe. Robin sighed, feeling comforted at just the sight of him.
Robin didn’t have any LGBT relatives. But he and Jay had always thought of Sunny and Tyee as their distant gay uncles, even if they didn’t know it.
To his surprise, though, Tyee immediately rose from the servers’ station and threw his arms out, making Peri bark. The dozen or so customers already sitting down all turned to look, and Robin’s cheeks burned.
“Robin Coal! As I live and breathe! You must be in town for the reunion?”
Robin was too stunned to speak as Tyee hugged him. “Uh, y-yes,” he stammered after he’d let him go. Warmth blossomed in his chest. He couldn’t believe Tyee remembered him. It felt fantastic and somehow validating.
“It’s been too long, too long. You look very well. We see Jay all the time, of course. But I trust he’s well?” Robin nodded. “And who’s this handsome fellow?”
Robin quickly reached back and took Dair’s hand. “This is Alasdair, my boyfriend.” It got easier to say each time. “He came back with me for the reunion. And this is Smudge.” He was naturally already trying to make friends with Peri. But the enormous old dog just sort of looked at Smudge in bewilderment as he danced between his legs, yipping and growling playfully.
“Excellent.” Tyee laughed at the dogs and clasped Dair’s free hand with both of his. “Please, come and sit. A window table so you can see the town. She’s missed you!”
Robin smiled and shook his head as he foll
owed Tyee. When he and Dair took their seats, Peri forced his way in between their feet, using his body as a big hairy footstool and resting his head on Robin’s messenger bag. Smudge tried to climb onto his back like a child attempting to mount a pony, but it didn’t go very well. After he slid off the third time, poor little Smudgy huffed and settled by Dair’s feet.
Tyee chuckled as he came back with menus for them both. “See, Peri says you’re not going anywhere!”
When the diner resumed its business again, it felt like just Robin and Dair alone in their booth. It wasn’t exactly private as the sides didn’t go above their shoulders, but there was no one around in their immediate area, at least.
“Wow,” said Dair, glancing around the place rather than looking at their menu. “Folks are real friendly here, huh? It’s like everyone knows everyone.”
Robin shrugged. “Small town,” he said by way of an explanation. He told himself when he’d relocated to Seattle that he didn’t miss everybody getting into each other’s business. In fact, he’d convinced himself it was people being nosy. But today just felt like they cared. They wanted to know he was happy and well.
He was, he realized with a jolt. Happy and well. He loved his job and he had great friends, and for the first time in forever, he’d felt able to come back to the place that would always be his home. Best of all, he was getting to share the experience with his newest friend, who was starting to also become one of his closest friends. That was pretty awesome.
They ordered food and chatted easily and fussed the fluff monsters at their feet. It wasn’t until they were heading back to Robin’s parents’ place did Robin realize that he’d stopped obsessively looking everywhere in case Mac showed up.
“What?” Dair asked from behind the driver’s wheel.
Robin was grinning at him. But he couldn’t very well say thank you again. He also didn’t want to admit he’d been nervously looking for Mac in the first place. So he just shrugged.
“I’ve had a nice afternoon, is all.”
Dair grinned back.
“Me too.”
9
Dair
Dair had never been inside a gay bar before. He wasn’t one much for nightclubs, anyway. Peyton and Robin had invited him out a few times, but it had felt like he would be intruding on a space meant for them, so he’d never gone.
As he looked around Pine Cove’s premier gay bar, The Aquarium, he felt unsurprisingly lost. He was used to sports bars. Here, the walls were covered in blue glitter paper, there were disco balls reflecting in a dazzling display, and a high proportion of the dudes were half-naked and being very tactile on the dance floor. It wasn’t that it was gay that was the issue, per se. It was that it was just so much. The music was pounding, and people were spinning, and the colored lights swirled frantically.
Then he felt Robin’s hand slip into his own, and everything calmed just a little.
He looked down at his friend and smiled. But Robin’s expression was concerned. “Do you hate it?” he shouted over the music.
Dair blinked in shock. “Hate it? Of course not! It’s just…a lot.”
Robin rubbed his other hand against Dair’s arm. “Shall we go out back for a bit?”
Dair nodded gratefully. “Would you like a drink before we go?”
Robin’s face changed from worry to something happier, which made Dair happy in turn. His whole purpose here was to be Robin’s support. Dair was struggling with the riotous atmosphere, but he could still buy his buddy a beer and continue the evening somewhere quieter. At least for a little while.
When they each had a beer in hand, Robin led Dair across the dance floor toward the back of the club. Dair was surprised when he felt a couple of hands trail across his back or down his arm. But when he looked, no one was really trying it on with him. It was like these guys were just saying hello.
Huh. Like holding hands or sharing a bed with Robin, he figured he would have been more freaked by that. But it felt fine. Nice, even. Like he was being welcomed to visit a world he didn’t really belong in.
The courtyard outside was beautiful. Fairy lights were wound around all the trees and the trellis fences. Seashells, mermaids, seahorses, and starfishes were nestled subtly in the lush green foliage, and wind chimes made from shells tinkled gently overhead.
The throbbing music from the dance floor was reduced to a low pulse and the humid air from so many panting bodies was swept away by the clean night breeze. There was a slight nip to the evening, but after the clawing atmosphere inside, Dair found it welcoming.
Pine Cove High School’s LGBT society had booked a seated area of the bar for people to congregate at the start of the night, and Dair had met a dozen or so people already. But out in the courtyard, he and Robin found some familiar faces.
“Hey!” Jay cried, standing up from the picnic bench he’d been straddling.
It was funny how he was like Robin but also not. There were some shockingly similar mannerisms they shared. In particular, they both flicked their hands in exactly the same way and had a little quirk of the mouth that Dair had spied. But Jay’s hair was so dark it was almost black, and he seemed to be animated all the time, whereas Robin only allowed himself little outbursts of that kind of exuberance.
It was clear how much Jay loved his brother, however. He looked slightly tipsy as he skipped over and threw his arms around Robin, then kissed his cheek noisily.
Jay wasn’t the only Coal sibling there. Their sister Ava nodded and raised her beer bottle at them. Apparently, she was bi and quite the queer activist. From what little Dair had seen of her so far, she came across stoic and kind of scary. She’d almost made the Team USA archery team the last Olympics and was now an instructor at one of the town’s outdoor centers. Dair had a feeling the two of them would probably get along, given the chance.
Despite not being outwardly animated, she seemed perfectly at home in the sparkly, hectic Aquarium bar. Dair thought he could probably take a leaf out of her book.
They made their way to join her at the picnic table, when a squeal pierced through the air. Dair didn’t exactly jump, but he was instantly on alert as his head whipped around just in time to see a glittery blur launch itself at Robin.
“Oh em gee! You bitch! How long’s it been? It’s okay. She still loves you, even though you’re a big city ho now. Fuck me till Sunday, I love that you’re here, baby!”
Dair stepped back as a small, shimmering, Asian American guy wearing very short shorts, cowboy boots, and a cropped lace T-shirt enveloped Robin. He jumped up and down as he hugged him, lifting Robin off the ground and kissing him all over his cheeks, leaving glossy pink lip shapes.
Robin was laughing, so Dair relaxed. He was pretty sure this wasn’t Mac.
“Emery Klein,” Robin said once the human glitter hurricane released him. “I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Dair Epping.”
Emery pulled a fan from the back of his shorts and thwacked it open with a loud crack. He peered at Dair over the top of it. “Are you open to sharing?”
“No,” Robin said with a laugh.
“Mother, may I at least have him on Tuesdays and every other Saturday?”
Robin slapped his arm, transferring some of whatever was making Emery’s whole body glimmer to Robin’s palm. “Get your own.”
“Oh, she will.” Emery snapped the fan shut again, then offered his free hand out to Dair like he was a woman in a historical film waiting for her knuckles to be kissed. Dair wasn’t sure what to do, but his manners dictated he comply. So he gently took Emery’s hand and pressed his lips to the fingers.
Emery gasped, reclaimed his hand, then dropped onto the bench beside Ava. “Oh, honey! Wherever did you find this one? Keep him. Don’t ever let him go.”
Robin glanced at Dair, smiling shyly. “I don’t intend to.”
Those words did something funny to Dair. He knew they were just pretending to date, but he supposed it spoke to his need to feel like he belonged somewhere. Robin probably
meant the apartment. They’d struggled to find someone for the room before Dair came along. Yeah, that was most likely it.
“Soooo,” Emery drawled. He draped himself over Ava, who automatically stroked his dark, neatly trimmed hair. They must be friends as well. “I’m Emery. I’m a Leo – but not like a regular Leo, I’m a cool Leo. I went to school with these two delicious crumpets. I was gay before it was the in thing to do. However, I love these two very much, so I didn’t mind sharing the limelight.” He cracked his fan and lightly wafted it against his face.
“You came out of the womb with a confetti cannon singing Barbra Streisand,” Jay said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not sure anyone in history was gay before you were.”
Emery preened. “True. Now, your turn, G.I. Joe. You have twenty seconds to convince us you’re good enough for our little Robin here.”
Dair felt his eyes widen. Robin patted his arm. “He’s kidding. You’re kidding,” he informed Emery sternly.
Emery flicked his eyebrows and threw Robin a positively sinful look. “Am I?”
Ava banged her beer bottle on the table and cocked her head toward Dair and Robin. “How’s Peyton?”
“Peyton?” Dair repeated.
Ava blinked once. “You know. Your housemate.”
“We know who Peyton is,” Robin said with a laugh. “I mean, yeah, she’s great. She’s hoping to visit for the weekend. Why do you ask?”
Ava picked her beer up again and downed half of it. “No reason.”
“Robin?”
The whole table turned to face the speaker who was standing a few feet from the table, including Dair. His head jerked back a fraction in surprise.