I did the math in my head. First he got dumped, and then he got tossed off the hockey team. “You had quite a year last year.”
“Yep.”
“What’s this place they want to go to tonight?”
Rikker grinned. “Burlington isn’t big enough to have a gay bar. So once a month they have a guerrilla night, where some bar becomes a gay bar for the evening. They put the word out on a Facebook page, and everybody knows where to go. It’s pretty clever. I’ve been to dozens of them.”
“Huh,” that sounded cool, except for one obvious problem. “What does everyone else in the bar think?”
“There are always a few people who get up and leave. There are plenty of bars in Burlington, though, so it’s not the end of the world. And bar owners like guerrilla night, because it’s always held on a weeknight. So they’re, like, full to the gills on a Wednesday.”
Up to this point, I had never had a discussion with anyone about gay bars. “Cool.”
“We don’t have to go, though. I’m good either way.”
“You don’t mind hanging out with your ex?”
Rikker shrugged. “I ducked him once already this week, which was kind of rude. And I’d rather see him at the bar than hang out at their apartment.”
“So let’s go,” I said.
He gave me a sideways glance, and then returned his eyes to the road. “Okay.” Clearly he wasn’t expecting me to get behind this idea. But again, he didn’t know about my loopholes. This might be the only chance I’d ever had to go into a gay bar, even a makeshift one.
Bring it on.
The ride to Rikker’s place was twenty minutes, and it was dark by the time we pulled up in front of an old farmhouse. He couldn’t know it, but I’d tried a thousand times to picture Rikker in Vermont. “It sure got country fast,” I said, looking around as I got out of the truck. You couldn’t even see the nearest neighbor.
“You drive fifteen minutes from any place in Vermont, and you get basically this,” he said, climbing the granite stoop. His hand was on the doorknob. “You ready?”
“For what?”
He grinned and opened the door. “Grans, we’re home!”
As I entered the house, I heard the tip-tap of heels on the wooden floors. “Hiiiiii!” A little woman came skittering into the room. She grabbed Rikker around the midsection and squeezed him. “Sorry,” she said, patting his chest afterward. “I have to get those in before you go away again tomorrow.” Then she turned to me, stood up on tiptoe and grabbed my face in both hands. “Hello! You’ve gotten so tall I can hardly reach you! And what a handsome man!” She rubbed my cheeks until she’d probably removed a layer of skin before finally letting me go.
“Good to see you again, Mrs. Rikker.” I’d only met her once before, some Christmas when she’d visited Rikker’s family in Michigan.
“Come in, come in! Dinner is ready. Sit down, because Gertie is going to pick me up for poker night in a few minutes.” She flew toward the back of the house, her heels tapping out a rhythm.
Rikker toed off his boots, smiling as effortlessly as a Labrador retriever. “Hope you’re hungry,” he said. “Seems like she’s on a tear.”
We walked past some ancient-looking furniture into an old kitchen, where the table was set for three. “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” Rikker’s grandmother said over her shoulder.
Rikker went over to the sink first, giving me a wink as he went. “We ran into Skippy at the airport,” he told his Gran as he scrubbed up. “He invited us out tonight.”
“I’m leaving you the truck,” she said, putting a casserole dish on the table. “So go if you wish. Did I tell you that Skippy and his new man turned up to snow-blow my walk when we got that early storm over Thanksgiving?”
“What a kiss-ass,” Rikker said.
She turned to slap him on the backside. “Language!” But she was grinning. This was obviously a shtick they had going. “They dug an old lady out of the snow. It’salmostenough to make me forgive him.”
Rikker grunted, tossing me a dishtowel. I washed my hands, feeling certain that I’d landed in a parallel universe, where a guy could talk about his ex-boyfriend with his Gran.
We all sat down at the table, which was set with glasses of milk for Rikker and I, the same way it would have been when we were twelve.
Not for nothing was I raised in the most conservative corner of the heartland. I sat back in my chair and waited for her to say grace. Rikker’s Gran folded her hands and spoke. “Dear Lord, thank you for these blessings we are about to receive, and for the safe delivery of our guest, who is kind enough to visit an old friend and an old lady. And please bless clueless Edna, whose granddaughter landed in jail again last night, the poor misguided girl.”
I raised my eyes to catch Rikker’s, and he bit back a smile.
