*~*~*
We drove to the farm in separate vehicles the next morning and my mother instantly called Tom and I into the house. Once we were seated at the table, my mother shook her head and looked at each of us in turn. "Your father has decided to give Jamie another chance, since he's done so well on the farm while his father has been in the hospital. Jamie, if you can stop your disgusting ways, then you are welcome back here into this family. And get that tattoo removed. It says horrible things about me."
I snorted. I was sure that it was right then. "Oh. Wow. That's so generous. Really. So, no more gay porn or do you want me to stop being gay completely?"
She hesitated, and I waited to see just how awful of an offer she was going to give me. "No more anything. We understand that you believe you're gay, but surely you don't have to act on it."
I was getting up from the table before she'd finished speaking. "Actually, I do. Just because I don't like vaginas doesn't mean that I suddenly don't get to have sex at all if I want to be part of this family again. If denying who I am to suit you both is the price I need to pay to be welcome here again, then we're right back to where we were when I left the first time. You either accept me as I am or not at all. Giving up porn is something I could have probably done. I’ve got plenty of money anyway and I did miss being with the horses. But I'm not going to pretend to be straight to fit your idea of what I should have been for you. Clearly nothing has changed, so I'm going to be leaving."
Tom grabbed my wrist before I could get too far away from the table. "You were right," he said as I stared down at him. "When we were teenagers and you said that no one in this tiny town would accept us as we were, you were right. I should have left with you." He got up from his chair as well. "If you can't accept Jamie for who he is now, then you're losing me too. Jamie will stop doing porn. We'll make this all work. But you need to see how wrong it is to demand that he try to act straight, or that I do either. When my parents died, you became my new family and I love you for that, but this isn't right and it needs to stop."
I put my hand over his shoulder in a show of silent support. Did I suddenly want him with me? Maybe. I tried thinking of a life where Tom lived with me in Denver and did something and I'd do something else, because apparently me doing porn wasn't going to be happening anymore if we were together, which I understood. I didn’t want to see anyone having sex with him either so I got his position on the matter. But having a life with him in Colorado was too hard to picture. Tom didn't belong in Denver. He fit in right here, at Windsong. He always had.
"I want to buy the farm," I quickly said, before I could think better of my ludicrous plan.
My mother stared at me, and Tom… he just smiled. "You figure out that you belong here?" he asked me. He reached up to touch my neck. "You should look in the mirror."
I shook my head. I'd deal with my tattoo later. "No, I don't, but you do. And I don't want to drag you down to Denver and see you in a corporate office building filing paperwork eight hours a day. That kind of life would slowly kill you. I want us, but I don't want to force you to fit into my life. That would be wrong. So, I'll buy the farm and we can live here and my parents can go far, far away. I don't really care where."
"You think it would be that easy to get rid of us?" my mother asked.
I turned back to her. "Yes. I do. Maybe I'd have to cut back on some of the herd or sell off some of the extra acres to the neighboring farms, but the actual job of taking care of this many horses isn't impossible. I've done impossible. I was a homeless teenager without any money, family, or friends, and I survived that. Taking care of a horse farm is going to be a piece of cake compared to what my life was like when I left here."
Tom gave my hand a squeeze, and I leaned against his side. "I'll talk to your dad tomorrow. I'm half-owner, as is he, so only he needs to be convinced."
I frowned over at him. "When did you become half-owner of this place?"
"We gave it to him. You're just going to kick your parents out on the street?" my mother snapped.
It was what they'd done to me, so it sort of seemed fair. But they were my parents. "No. Fine. Tom and I will build a small house on the property, or we'll buy something nearby, and you two can stay in this house." I didn't want to do that, but I didn't want to be an asshole to them either. They’d always lived in this house. It didn’t seem fair to ask them to leave either just because I couldn’t stand them. I wanted Windsong, and I wanted Tom, I just didn’t want my parents anywhere near me.
"Guess we're done here for tonight then. I'll talk to my father tomorrow." I wouldn't call him Dad. He'd lost that when I'd left here. But we could be civil at least. I'd do my best.
I really did need to talk to Albert first though. That wasn’t really a conversation I was looking forward to having. I’d probably owe him a bit for breaking my contract with him early.
"I have some things to do before tomorrow, so I'll be going." I let go of Tom's hand and started heading for the door. He followed me outside and grabbed me in a hug.
"Thank you for giving up your life to be here with me," he told me quietly.
"It’s nice here. I like it," I said as I settled in against him. "Not with them around, but with the horses. I love my life as it is right now, but this part has always been missing from me. Come to the hotel later, if you want to. We'll talk about things."
"About us?"
I nodded. We would have to. He carefully, slowly, kissed me, and I let his lips linger over mine as we stood there in the front yard.
Before my mom came out of the house to start yelling at us, I pulled away and headed back to my Jeep with Tom watching me from the same spot where I'd left him. I was not looking forward to talking to Albert. I knew he wasn't going to be happy about me leaving the company one bit, but I was starting to see that I belonged at Windsong and that my home really was there. I just wished that my parents didn't have to come into that same equation.
Lucky for me, Albert was at the bar when I came into the hotel's lobby. I pulled him aside as quickly, and quietly, as I possibly could. "I need to quit," I told him plainly.
His eyes got wide as he just stared at me. "Are you seriously leaving me for another company? After all we've been through together?"
I shook my head. Maybe I should have explained things a bit before letting him jump to that conclusion. "No. I'm staying here, on my family's farm." Assuming that my father didn't have a complete fit about it. But even if he did, the more I thought about living at Windsong, the more the idea made sense to me.
Albert relaxed almost instantly. "Are you sure about this?"
I nodded. I really was. But I was also going to miss my life and him as well.
He clapped me on my shoulder. "Okay then. Let me buy you a drink and we’ll go over how to get you out of your contract."
"Sure. I'd like that."
*~*~*
I'd had three beers with Albert and went to my room shortly after. Tom came up a few minutes later. "Hey," I said, letting him in. I was a bit buzzed, but nothing too serious. He hugged me tightly, and together we moved to the bed.
I kissed him quickly and began pulling his shirt out of his pants, but he stopped me before I could go much further. "Slow down. Please. Have you looked at your neck yet?"
I didn't care about my neck at that point. "No. I haven't." I slowed down, because he'd asked me to, and forced myself to relax. He wanted me, and I wanted a life with him. This would all work itself out. I was sure of it. I didn't think about my messed-up family, or how he fit into it at all, as I undressed him.
Each patch of skin I uncovered I kissed, and for a long time we lay naked together, simply touching each other. He kissed my tattoos and traced them over my ribs. He moved on top of me, and I opened myself up for him.
When he sank into me it wasn't like it had been when we were teenagers. That was awkward and scary. This was far more on the line of perfect. He was sweet and slow, and I moved with him. This wasn't fucking as I'd always k
nown it. This was something special I'd only ever done with Tom. This was me giving myself over to someone else completely and finding pleasure with them as well.
When we moved together, there was no rush, only sweet, slow need as he kissed me and I sank into that blissful pleasure. We took our time because we had all night to enjoy each other, and when I came, I whispered his name against his neck. When he was done he might have said that he loved me, but I wasn't going to hold him to that.
*~*~*
Tom and I met with my father at the hospital at close to eight the next morning. "I want to buy your half of Windsong," I told him without bothering to say hi first. This wasn't a nice little family visit. This was me buying a farm I loved and getting it away from him so that I could enjoy it without having to deal with him or my mother around me constantly. I loved Windsong, and the horses on it and it was high time I started admitting that. But I couldn't stand the people that it would come with.
My father just stared at me. Then he moved his attention to Tom. "What do you think about all this?" he asked Tom, who shrugged.
"I think Jamie loves the farm and cares about the horses. He works hard and he'll stop doing porn. If you did this, then he'd come back home. I'm in favor of owning Windsong with him as joint partners."
"Are you really going to change your ways?" my father asked me.
I shook my head, and his expression instantly fell. "I won't be in any more porn, but I'm still gay, and I'll be starting my life with Tom. No more hiding. It'll be how it should have been if we'd been allowed to be ourselves as teenagers."
My father didn't look convinced. "I don’t like this plan one bit. You’re still being selfish, only this time you’re pulling Tom into your ways. Have you even thought about that? About what it’ll mean for him living in this small town?”
I hadn't thought of what us being together and out would do to Tom, but when I looked over at him, he didn't look worried. In fact, he seemed happier than he had since I'd come back. "The town will adjust. If they don't, then that's their problem."
I agreed with him completely.
"And," Tom continued, "if you don't allow this to happen, then I'm leaving too. I can't live this lie anymore."
"It's yours then," my father said dejectedly. He sounded like he was giving up, and being forced to at that. I was fine with that since how he felt about the deal wasn't my problem. All that mattered to me was that I was going back to Windsong, and this time with Tom beside me.
And, as we were leaving the hospital, I finally looked at my neck in a window. Beauty was all the tattoo said. "How long as that been there?" I asked Tom.
"At least a day."
Frowning, I reached up to touch the letters laying across the side of my neck. My tattoo had never stayed the same way for that long.
"Are you vain now?"
I shook my head. "This isn't about me. It couldn't be. The tattoo has always made me an outcast and a monster. I'm good at porn, but otherwise that's it as far as my social life goes. I mean, really, no one would want to be friends with the guy who can't disguise how he really feels about them."
Tom smiled at me in the mirror. "Maybe, whatever the curse was, you broke it. Maybe deciding to be selfless made the difference."
I highly doubted that was it. "More likely it was you deciding to be yourself for once, if anything. Stupid fae and their curses. I'd shoot him if I ever saw him again."
Tom laughed and slipped his hand into mine. "Whatever the reason, it'll be nice to have that changed. Your tattoo could be really mean."
"It wasn't the tattoo though. It was my thoughts. I was the one being mean."
"I know. I was trying to give you an out." Tom smiled at me.
But I didn't need him to do that for me. "I'm okay admitting that I can be a horrible person. Everyone can be sometimes. The tattoo showed me who I really was."
"And now you're going to be good and work your family's farm and continue Windsong even though you can't stand them. Sounds like you're not that horrible anymore."
Tom could believe what he wanted to, and maybe he was right. The tattoo certainly seemed to give some weight to that idea that I'd somehow changed for the better. But only time would really tell, and right then I didn't want to worry about it anymore. I was much more interested in getting him back to my hotel room and getting his clothes off.
"I love you," Tom quietly told me. I stopped and stared at him. "I always have. We were teenagers, and I should have been as strong as you when you left."
Having him there would have been nice, but I didn't blame him for staying. I took a deep breath. "And I love you too."
Tom smiled over at me and I laid my head on his shoulder. There was still a lot to work out with everything, but life was peaceful. I felt loved, and accepted, there with Tom, and I felt alive and whole while we worked together at Windsong. It wasn't the life I'd imagined, and when I'd left at eighteen I'd never thought that I'd be coming back to Windsong ever again. But there I was, feeling better than ever, and having my best friend, and the man that I loved, back at my side. All in all, life was perfect, despite still having to see my family on occasion.
FIN
About the Author
Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn’t writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening, hiking, and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their two dogs. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.
Website: www.CaitlinRicci.com
Windsong Page 4