Chapter Five
The rain pounded on the roof, the wind screamed through the trees, the crack and boom of thunder kept an even drumbeat, and I watched it all from my bedroom window in the bunkhouse, marveling at nature’s symphony and the inconsiderate rehearsal time.
Well, to be fair, it wasn’t the storm that woke me up. It was the nightmare.
The nightmare was always the same. The last few minutes with Simon, looking up at me and covered in blood, saying, “Love you…brother.” Then me screaming for help on the deserted highway, clutching Simon’s limp body, too mindless to pull my cell phone out of my pocket and make the call.
Then there was Wade standing over us, seeming eight feet tall, fury on his face as he said, “Why Simon? Why not you?”
I shuddered, thinking back to that night in May when I lost the man who was a brother to me in every way that really counted. Most of the nightmare was so tragically real, a flashback of those heartbreaking moments, but Wade wasn’t there.
No, that was just in my mind.
I hadn’t dreamed about the accident in weeks, hadn’t woken up sweating and crying and wondering “why me?” in months. I had recently, in fact, started dreaming of our childhood together, of Simon and Erin and our parents, Annie and Fred. I dreamed of the day I came to live with them when I was six, bewildered by the disappearance of my mother and this concept called death, when this Simon boy sat and held my hand all night when I was too scared to sleep. I dreamed of the time a pair of nine-year-old boys thought they could hitchhike to California instead of doing their chores, but wound up waiting at Miss Flossie’s house for our parents to pick us up while the town librarian fed us stale cookies and Lactaid. I dreamed of the time twelve-year-old Simon tried to convince Erin she was adopted and was really born at a house located at 666 Damnation Drive, of the moment when she looked at Simon and said, “If you’re trying to make me cry, it won’t work. Dylan was adopted by Mom and Dad and look how lucky we all are.”
Much better dreams than nightmares of blood and death and grief.
My attention was caught by the light flashing on in the kitchen of the ranch house, and I wondered what Wade dreamed about at night. A moment later it looked like the front door had opened, and I squinted, trying to see in the darkness if Wade was outside. Then the moonlight caught him as he stood at the top of the porch steps, his face tilted up to the rain.
I watched as he made his way down the steps, over the mud and grass, to the corral fence. Puzzled, I stared. This wasn’t a drizzle. It was a storm, and even if it were almost summer, a drenching would sap body heat pretty quickly. “Christ, what the hell is he doing? Doesn’t he care if he gets pneumonia?”
Abruptly I realized, no, he
didn’t
care. That was the point. And just like that, once again I felt the burn of anger infusing my limbs, powering through me as I dragged my Levi’s and boots on, bubbling under the surface as I stomped down the hall and out the door. I didn’t stop until I reached Wade where he was leaning against the fence, and I grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around to face me.
“What the
fuck
are you doing?” I barely recognized my own voice.
He blinked water out of his eyes and stared dumbly at me before saying, “What?”
“I said, what the
fuck
are you doing out here? I know it might seem like a nice night for a walk to you, but I thought I might inform you that it’s fucking pouring outside.”
Wade looked away, as if he was too tired to even look me in the face, and said, “Go back to bed, Dylan.” Then he turned back around to lean on the fence, dismissing me, and my anger turned to rage.
It felt like someone else moving after that. Someone else’s hand grabbing Wade’s shoulder to turn him around again, someone else’s arm that cocked back and let fly straight into Wade’s granite jaw, someone else that watched as Wade’s head snapped back from the force and he stumbled against the fence. Because surely it couldn’t have been me that touched Wade in anger.
But it was definitely me that went down, without a fence to catch me, when Wade’s fist connected to my own jaw. I was sure that would hurt later, but at the moment I couldn’t feel anything except anger and relief that Wade was still fighting.
I scrambled back up out of the mud, and then it was happening so fast, the adrenaline moving through my veins as we both grunted and swore and swung our limbs, that I wasn’t sure who was landing punches where. We were like one beast, ugly and flailing. I hadn’t brawled like this since Johnny Baron, one of the linebackers in high school, had called Simon a faggot when we were juniors.
The rain and mud were making things slippery, and then we were on the ground wrestling like a couple kids in the mud, both of us obviously no longer going for blood. Wade managed to roll me onto my back and straddle me, and I felt mud oozing around my head. I could barely see with the rain falling into my eyes.
It felt like the mud was seeping into my ears, which was just fucking nasty, and I stopped struggling for control and reached out, grabbed a handful of mud and aimed it for Wade’s face.
It landed around his left temple and I smashed it into his hair and ear as best I could. I started laughing when Wade stopped moving and just sat back, looking down at me as if I had suddenly turned into a purple dinosaur.
I laughed and laughed until I was scared I would never stop laughing, and all the while Wade looked down at me with his mouth hanging open in shock. Which just made me bellow more as he was catching mouthfuls of rainwater like that.
Just as Wade was starting to look really concerned, the laughter just dried up, and I became aware that we were out in a thunderstorm and it was pouring, and I hadn’t bothered with a shirt. I wouldn’t be surprised if my nipples were little blue pebbles, and I grinned at the weird thought.
That must have been the final straw, because Wade grabbed my chin and forced me to meet his gaze. “Are you fucking crazy?”
I considered this. “Probably. But if I’m crazy for lying here in the mud and laughing in the rain, aren’t you crazy for watching me do it?”
Wade grinned and said, “Probably.” The grin caught me off guard. It had been so long since I had seen it, making him look unexpectedly boyish despite the years carved into his face. I looked at that grin and the momentarily happy look in his eyes, and I couldn’t breathe.
As if he was deflating, the look faded from his face and he said, “Why did you hit me?”
“Because I couldn’t stand it one more minute. Not one more fucking second.”
“Stand what?”
“Watching you give up.”
“I have not.” But he said it quietly, and I knew he didn’t even believe himself.
“You
have
. What do you think Simon would say?” I winced as I said this, hating myself for it, and Wade looked like I had punched him again.
“I—”
“
Simon
died. Not you. I want you to stop acting like it was you that died on that highway.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?”
That physically hurt. “Because that’s bullshit. I watched my brother die in my arms, okay? I watched and for a while, I wish I had, too. You’re not the only one who lost something that day, and I’m sick of watching you wish you could join him when the rest of us are doing the best we can to pick up the pieces.”
Wade snarled back at me, “Why do you care now? You just left. Just packed your bags and left like I was nothing to you. Like this place was nothing to you.”
That left me momentarily speechless. “I… Wade.” I wasn’t sure what to say. I tried again. “I just… I was trying to adjust to a world without my brother in it, and every time I looked at you I kept waiting for you to get angry that I walked away from the crash and Simon didn’t. I just couldn’t stay for that.” I told myself that the burning in my eyes was from the mud and rain.
Wade looked shocked. “You thought that? I… Never.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, not that it did any good. “Christ, I thought a million times that it shouldn’t have been Simon. But I never once thought it should have been you instead.”
I hoped Wade would think it was only rain leaking around my eyes. “I… Thank you. Didn’t want to think of you hating me.”
“No.” Wade was looking down at me, and I was about to ask him to get off me because I could feel my teeth getting ready to chatter, when he let out this weird choking sound. Then he said, “What do you want from me, Dylan?”
I didn’t even have to think about the answer, even if this was the oddest time and place to have this out. “I want you to look around. I want you to start thinking about what you had with Simon instead of just what you lost. I want you to see that you’re about to lose this place if you don’t fight for it. I want you to see that old man in the bunkhouse who loves you as much as your father did, who is sick and worried about you, about keeping this ranch going. I want you to see that Erin and Mike love you and miss you, and she has two girls who cried for Uncle Wade the other night when I showed up at dinner alone. They feel like they lost all of us at one time. I want you to see that Simon would hate to see you living like this.” I paused for breath, hesitating, knowing he deserved my apology. “I want you to see me, see that I’m sorry I left and I’m back to stay. I’ll help you hold onto this place, I swear, but I can’t do it alone and neither can Mack.”
“I—” Another weird choking sound, and then Wade was sobbing, broken choking sounds. I pulled him down and held him, uncaring about the surreal quality of doing this here and now, with mud oozing into my ears. He cried as if his soul was purging itself of all the pain, and I made shushing sounds, thinking it felt different to be the strong one giving comfort this time.
When his body had stopped shaking so violently, I helped pick us both up off the ground.
I led him into the house, straight into the bathroom, and turned the water on in the shower. “Can you get undressed and get in? You need to warm up, get clean.”
He nodded, looking drained and tired of talking.
“Okay, I’m going to go try and clean up.” I turned and jumped a little, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Man, I looked like I had the Halloween Simon and I had gone as Swamp Things, covered in mud and grass sticking to my skin and hair. Looking at Wade, I realized he looked just as bad.
Wishing I had a camera handy, I smiled until I walked back into the hallway and saw the trail of mud. Well, at least I hadn’t gotten beyond cleaning the kitchen yesterday and I could take care of this tomorrow.
I mopped up the worst of the mess with towels and tossed them in the washer, shivering and starting to feel sore from the pounding of Wade’s fists. A hot shower would feel great, but I decided to check on Wade before heading back to the bunkhouse.
Pushing the bathroom door open a little, I saw him still standing there at the sink, looking dazed and not a little lost. I wondered if this was the first time he had given voice to his grief. I never saw him cry after Simon died, not the night of the accident, not at the funeral, not in the month before I left. Wade was always more stoic about things than Simon and I, more prone to giving in to his temper than any other emotion, and I figured he’d let it out in his own way.
Realizing he needed someone to direct him and put him to bed, I stepped back into the bathroom, the steam swirling as if reaching out to touch me. The warmth felt good. “Wade? You should get in the shower, get clean so you can go to bed. We have work to do tomorrow and you can’t lie in bed all day.” No smile, no reaction to that.
I started to unbutton what looked like it might have been a green shirt, but was now splotchy brown with grass accents. Kneeling, I helped him pull off his boots, and heard the wet suction sound they made. Probably beyond redemption now. Standing back up, I undid his belt buckle and felt his gaze on me. I ignored it and continued undressing him until he stood there naked and dirty and shivering.
I gently pushed him into the shower, watched him stand there under the spray without reaching for the soap, and made a decision I didn’t want to look at too closely.
Chapter Six
Hopping on one foot, I yanked off first one boot and then the other, and shucked off my jeans. I climbed into the tub next to Wade. Guiding Wade until he stood directly underneath the spray, I murmured, “Close your eyes.”
Letting the water wash the worst of the mud and grass off of his body, I reached for the shampoo. Only an inch shorter than Wade, I didn’t have to stretch like Simon would have to gently work the shampoo into Wade’s hair. Thinking of Simon, my hands stuttered, but I continued when Wade made a questioning sound. By this point, my hands were practically massaging Wade’s scalp, and I made myself stop and turn him to rinse the shampoo out.
His jaw was starting to discolor blue and purple, and I lifted my hand to trace a finger over the bruising I’d caused when he opened his eyes and looked at me. He had an odd look in his hazel eyes, and I realized that we were both standing in the shower together, naked.
I mean, I knew that we were naked, obviously, since I undressed us both, but I didn’t
know
we were naked until this moment when Wade looked at me, the knowledge dawning on him as well. And since I’m a guy and I hadn’t had sex in months and this was
Wade
, it was going to be painfully obvious to Wade any second that my body was beginning to
know
we were naked too.
Feeling myself start to harden, I turned around, ashamed. Wade caught my arm. “Don’t go,” he said.
I looked back at him, my gaze dropping for only a second down the miles of wet flesh, but long enough to know his body already
knew
we were naked too. “This is a bad idea.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t bother denying it as he pulled me back in front of him.
So there we were, both naked, hard, wet, still pretty dirty—actually I was still a lot dirty—and I didn’t really know what to say. This had moved past awkward and hurtled straight into weird. Wade didn’t move, just stood there not speaking, not looking away from me. Finally, I just grabbed the washcloth and lathered it up, motioning him to come closer.
“Did you wash behind your ears like a good boy? I seem to recall some hooligan shoving mud into one of them.” The smile that followed my lame teasing was fleeting at best, and then Wade just went back to looking at me, serious, intent.
Not knowing what else to say, I started to run the washcloth over Wade’s skin from the ear I had caked with mud, to his neck where I could see the pulse pounding a quick beat, to his chest where I could feel his heart thumping as quick as mine was, to his ribs where I could count each one since he’d lost so much weight.
When I reached his waistline I stopped, took a deep breath, and motioned for him to turn around. I massaged the soapy washcloth into the muscles of his back, from the top of his neck to the base of the spine. I stopped there, unsure if I should continue or not, and unwilling to break the silence that had descended. Wade turned around again. I met his eyes, seeing something there I didn’t expect to see despite the hard length of his cock brushing mine.
Heat.
Then Wade took the washcloth out of my hands and repeated what I had done to him, shampooing my hair, cleaning the mud out of my ears, tracing the bruising he’d caused, lathering up the muscles of my chest and back. Only he didn’t stop at my waist.
He knelt in front of me, moving the washcloth over the quivering muscles in my calves, my thighs, and he paused a moment before gently washing my prick, my balls, between my legs, and I bit back a groan.
He looked up at me, his eyes bright with so many emotions, and it was almost as if he was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. I returned his stare, and he turned me around, washing the backs of my legs, my ass, and then between my cheeks. This time I didn’t bother biting back the groan that rumbled up my throat.
Still not speaking, not breaking this odd spell, we moved as if by some unspoken agreement, switching places. I knelt at Wade’s feet and mirrored his previous actions, cleansing the most private parts of his body, his gaze burning into the top of my head as I hesitated a moment, looking at his prick. It was hard, I could see it throbbing, and yet there was no urgency in this moment, whatever it was. I resisted the urge to lean forward and swipe my tongue across the head of his cock, shiny and leaking pre-come, resisted the urge to finally find out after all these years of wondering what he would taste like.
Feeling the familiar guilt start to press in on me, I struggled to my feet, meeting Wade’s gaze when I felt him wrap his hands around my biceps and pull me against his body, our erections trapped between us.
“This is not a good idea.” I couldn’t be sure who I was trying to convince, myself or Wade.
“Probably not.” Wade didn’t sound like he really cared.
When Wade began thrusting against me, his cock rubbing against mine, the pleasure was so intense I stopped talking. When he reached a hand down to stroke both of our cocks together, I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I wanted to see what he looked like when he came.
Wade leaned in to kiss me, and I’m not sure why, but I turned my head, his kiss landing on my cheek. I felt his lips brush my neck next, and then he was sucking on the skin there. I bit my bottom lip before foolish words poured out of my mouth.
I could feel the pleasure building, my balls beginning to tighten up, and I could tell Wade was close, too, because his hand kept losing the steady rhythm. I came before he did, my gaze locked on his, an anchor while all that feeling shot right out of me. When he came, he closed his eyes and I watched his come swirl down the drain.
Listening to the harshness of our breathing, my legs feeling like jelly, my brain like mush, I had one thought: this had been a bad idea.
“Don’t go.” Surprised, I glanced back up to see him looking at me again, a lock of his wet, reddish brown hair curling into his half-shut left eye. I couldn’t think of anything else to say except for what I had been thinking about bad ideas, and he must have read that in my face because he spoke again. “Please.” His throat worked. “Stay with me tonight?”
Something in my chest cracked open at the simple request and what it must have taken for Wade to ask something like that. I nodded and we got out of the shower, toweled off, and made our way to his bedroom. He got in the king-sized bed first, and I climbed in after him, wrapping my arms around him from behind.
“Dylan—”
“Shhh. Just go to sleep.” When his breathing evened out and his chest was rising in the steady pattern of sleep, I leaned my head down, kissed his shoulder, and closed my eyes.
Waking up the next morning, dawn’s fingers reaching through the window, it took a moment to realize where I was and who was wrapped around me. Sometime in the night, Wade and I must have traded spots because he was spooned up behind me, his morning erection prodding my ass and mine ready to wave his hello.
I stayed there a moment, thinking, looking at the portrait of the mountains Simon had painted that I’d hung up the other day. Looking around the rest of the room, ignoring the fact that my right eye was practically swollen shut, my gaze snagged on something bright pink and gauzy hanging in the closet.
Hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was, I extricated myself from Wade’s hold, careful not to wake him up, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I paused when my foot landed on something and looked down to see the corner of a notebook poking out from underneath the bed.
I reached down and picked it up, realizing it was a sketchbook, not a notebook. Opening it with a pang of guilt, I saw that it wasn’t Simon’s sketchbook as I expected. It was Wade’s.
I flipped through the beginning pages, mostly of Simon, the ranch, the hands, a few good ones of Mack, a really appealing one of Rudy. Working mostly in charcoal, Wade never believed Simon and me when we told him how good his sketches were, not that he had any reason to believe me. I wasn’t the expert.
But Simon was. And I’d heard him telling Wade that he should do something with his work since after that very first art lesson Simon had taught in Big Timber, the art lesson I’d convinced Wade to go to—the start of it all. Wade had always replied that their relationship had enough “artist” in it without him adding to the load, and Simon had always sniffed and told Wade he better be happy for that “load.”
Flipping to the back of the sketchbook, I discovered the last pages were blank, so I turned pages until I got to the last sketch Wade had done and just sat there looking.
It was a drawing of me and Simon out by the corral, Mack at the edge of the page laughing. I was glaring at Simon, and Simon was wearing my hat and holding his hand out. We had played poker that lazy Sunday afternoon, and when I ran out of money and didn’t want to fold, Simon suggested he’d let me stay in if I bet my favorite hat.
He had squinted at me, his poker face firmly in place, and said, “Cash or hat.” I thought I had a sure hand and was shocked when Simon snatched his winnings right off my head. The little shit taunted me, wearing that hat around the ranch where I could see him, laughing, before giving it back to me three days later. Mack was right. Twisted sense of humor.
That was a week before Simon was killed.
I put the sketchbook back in the same place I found it and checked to make sure Wade was still sleeping before getting up and walking over to the closet. Opening the door wider, I sighed. There it was, in all its hot pink glory, the long sleeve fishnet shirt—or close enough to be called a shirt in some circles I guess—that I had given Simon as a gag gift on his last birthday. It was surrounded by all the rest of Simon’s clothes.
A thought occurred to me, and I walked over to the oak dresser and picked up Simon’s watch sitting in the change tray. Holding the watch our dad had given Simon on his eighteenth birthday, I closed my eyes.
After a few moments resting my head on the edge of the dresser and clutching that watch, I set it back down and looked over at Wade. Still sleeping. As quietly as I could, I walked out, shutting the door softly, and went downstairs.
Looking at my stiff and muddy Levi’s with distaste, I snagged a pair of Wade’s from the laundry and stuffed my feet into my boots with a wince. I made sure not to slam the front door on my way back to the bunkhouse.
I slipped inside, grateful nobody else was up yet—though they be would any minute—and made my way to the shower, hoping to clear my mind. And if that didn’t work, there was always mindless labor, like mucking stalls.
That was actually where Wade found me almost two hours later.
Well, I assumed it was Wade standing in the entrance to the stall I was working in, but I didn’t turn around to visually confirm. Billy or Joe would have said something, probably called my name to get my attention. Mack was working on his truck but wouldn’t have just stood there watching me work either, so that just left Wade. I was a regular Sherlock.
Not wanting to examine why, I decided to wait Wade out, keeping my back to him to see how long he would stand there without saying something. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to see the look on his face or anything.
“What do we do now?”
I finally turned around, looking somewhere over his left shoulder, and said, “Well, I’m going to finish these stalls. You can help if you want. Then I have some fence to fix, cattle to move, a house to scrub, a trip to town to make. And no hope of a fairy godmother to send me to the ball tonight.”
“Dylan. No jokes.” At the tone of his voice, I focused on his eyes, wincing when I saw that his left eye matched my right and the left side of his jaw was a deep navy blue.
“Okay. No jokes.” I felt naked, more naked than I had last night washing each other. I considered his question. “I was serious, though, about the work. There’s a lot to do if you want to hang onto this place. Take your pick.”
“No, I meant about…us.” He looked like saying that was as foreign as it sounded to me.
“Wade. There is no us.” I made myself hold his gaze as I said that.
“But what about last night?” Now it was Wade who wouldn’t meet my eyes as he fiddled with the buttons on his blue checked shirt.
“Last night was—” I paused to gather my thoughts so I could say this right. “Was good. Nice. For you, for me. I think we both needed…something. But I don’t want to be your solution to lonely nights. I’d much rather you stick with random fucks for that.” I saw him stiffen, and I tried to remember that honesty was what this situation called for.
“I see.” Wade was clenching his jaw even though it must have hurt like hell, and his hands had dropped to his sides and curled into fists.
“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you do at all.” I hated doing this to him, but I wasn’t willing to be anybody’s crutch, not even Wade’s. I hesitated, wishing I could leave it at that, but he needed to hear it and I needed to say it. “I’m not Simon. And I’m not a substitute for him. I need you to see that.”
Wade was silent for a while, twirling his black hat between his hands. “So, what do we do now?”
I leaned on the pitchfork and forced my lips to quirk. “Well, I have to finish cleaning these stalls. And then there’s some fence to fix. One step at a time, Wade. Not gonna be easy, but we’ll do it.”
“Well, then, I better go find Mack.” Something about the way he said it, almost as if he was forcing a light tone, made me curious.