“Finish up your coffee. We should get out there.” Liam put his mug in the sink, washed it out, and replaced it next to the coffeemaker in its rightful place. Clouds swirled in the dark blue sky as more of the sun made itself known.
“Why hello,” he heard Nathan say.
It was just then that he remembered that he’d left his laptop on the couch last night. After going on Facebook.
Fuck.
Liam darted into the living room and tried to pull the laptop out of Nathan’s hands, but Nathan realized that he’d hit on gold. Liam reached over Nathan, who held out the laptop away from him. Kelly’s face took up the screen.
“You really didn’t want me to see this,” Nathan said. “And it’s not even porn.”
“Just give it back. We need to get out in the field.”
Liam’s shoe slipped on the rug. He fell onto Nathan, and they both tumbled onto the couch. Liam was right on top of him and could feel the heat of his body. He could feel those lean muscles under that black shirt. He could smell the deodorant under Nathan’s arms. Their eyes met, and neither one of them moved for a second.
Kelly and Craig smiled at them from the screen.
Liam shut the laptop and sat up. “Time for work.”
Nathan
Nathan got to work cleaning the dirty hay off the hoof house floor. He was determined to be a better farmhand today, but the raging pain clanging inside his head was making this a challenge. Not drinking seemed to feel worse than drinking too much. He’d been through withdrawal before. He had to work through his pain with farm chores. Nathan wanted to do a good job, especially when he pictured his conversation with Liam about his parents. Here was a guy who legitimately lost his parents, and Nathan shat all over that with a fake story.Why did I have to say that lie to Mark? Because I wanted him to like me. How fucked is that?
The lie would keep him safe. He couldn’t let on that he was Mariel’s son. Not yet. Not when he’d just started connecting with Franny and Walt. Maybe if Liam and his family liked Nathan, then they wouldn’t banish him from the farm when they realized he was a bastard child. A redheaded black sheep bastard.
He worked through the morning, making sure to drink lots of water, which eased his headache. He finished by mid-morning and joined Liam back in the barn. He put a smile on his face and proudly proclaimed the farm shit-free. He’d never be able to spend more time with his new siblings and find out more details about his mother’s life if he was banished from Liam’s farm. This was the acting job of his life, and unlike his real acting career, he couldn’t fuck this up.
Nathan stumbled back when he walked in on Liam in front of a line of sheep butts.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked suggestively.
“No. You are just in time. You can help me crotch.”
“Crotch? Like…” Nathan pointed to his own crotch. “That kind of crotch?”
“Yes. It’s called crotching.” Liam used a pair of shears on the backside of one of the ewes.
“Huh. I’m surprised the gays weren’t the first to use crotch as a verb.”
Liam waved him over with the shears. Nathan kneeled beside him.
“Crotching involves cutting off the excess wool around a ewe’s udder and nether regions. If there’s dirty wool around the udders, it could pass bacteria to the lambs when they nurse. And cleaning ewes up in the vaginal area makes it easier to check on things when they’re giving birth.”
“So you’re basically giving these ewes a bikini wax?”
“I’m not sure what that is.”
“I know women in London who shave their fannies before they go into labor, although they do it because they know their husbands are filming their birth. And some of them have a really cute doctor.”
“To each their own, I suppose.” Liam shot Nathan a lazy smile that lingered in his own crotch. The ewe bleated as Liam sheared away. “Can you hold the ewe still? This will go much faster if there’s two of us.”
Nathan stood over the ewe and held her on both sides. His hands trembled slightly as his fingers disappeared into her thick wool coat. He jumped back when she let out a noise.
“You don’t have to clamp her in place. Be gentle.”
“Right.” Nathan put his hands on her body while giving her some personal space, like the time in school he had to slow dance with a girl. “So, who’s Kelly Harmon?”
The shear made asnip snipsound as it lopped off more wool. Nathan had a feeling he hit a nerve, but curiosity got the better of him. He had a bad habit of egging people on. It might’ve been another one of his addictions.
