Chapter 1
River
I didn’t get frustrated easily, but I was a worrier. It wasn’t that I’d thought I’d find a new job easily here in Illinois, but I’d trusted there would be some place that wouldn’t mind a male nurse with bleach blond hair and, if I was lucky, an occasional makeup habit.
The family-owned clinic I’d gone to for an interview the previous day had been a total bust. For one, the doctor there had been an old guy with beady, judgmental eyes who had taken one look at me, clocked me as queer, and then he’d not been able to hide his sneer the rest of the interview.
I could’ve handled him, but the two other nurses and the environment itself had been the final nail in the coffin. See, the nurses were family to the doctor. One was his wife, the other his niece. Both were very…church lady-esque, which, again, not exactly my kind of people.
But then I’d realized every room, including the hallways, had crosses on the walls. You can trust whichever god you want, but I refused to mix my science and medicine with such a heavy religious undertone. Logically, I knew this was how things were here, so different from what I was used to in New York. Hell, I remembered seeing a cross here and there before. It was…a lot, at this place.
So, this morning, as I lay in bed and tried to muster the strength to get up and go find coffee, I found myself worrying. At least here in our new home, the coffee maker was amazing.
My best friend, Lake, had inherited this place, Twin Star Rescue, from his late aunt Ruth. There were caveats, of course, because apparently that was a thing with those situations where a distant relative you didn’t really know leaves you their life’s work.
It was late May now; we’d been in town a few weeks, and Lake needed to make a decision whether or not to keep the rescue by the end of July.
The first time I’d seen his eyes light up when he’d met the horses and the dogs and all the rest of the critters had told me that we were in our new home to stay. That was fine, perfect in fact, because I’d just quit my job in New York. An emergency room in NYC wasn’t good for my psyche, as much as I loved my job.
Besides, by some luck, the head nurse there had hated me, so she wasn’t much better than the church ladies.
It wasn’t only my own situation I worried about. There was also Rey to worry about. In November, Lake and I had found a kid sleeping next to some dumpsters on a night there was going to be a surprise freeze. We’d picked the popsicle boy up, and since then we’d had a roommate. Rey was seventeen and running from something, but we didn’t know any details because he’d clam up if we asked.
We also weren’t sure if Rey was his actual first name, because if we asked aboutthat, he gave us this little grin and shrugged.
From the beginning, when we still shared our two-bedroom NYC apartment, he’d insisted on being helpful. He cleaned and had cooked some, and while he didn’t have an ID and thus couldn’t study or get a job, he’d never been a freeloader.
Here, at the rescue, Rey was starting to show interest in horses, he still loved to clean, and he’d been telling us he wanted to cook more as well.
I rubbed my palm over my face and sighed. I wanted more for Rey; that was all. I had a feeling Lake would be figuring himself out while we were here, and Lake was an adult. Meanwhile, we had a literal kid here, with no plans for his future. At least not until he turned eighteen and could get his IDs and such without the fear of whomever he was so scared of—his family, most likely—finding out.
So, we’d bide our time. Wait until he felt ready. Hoped things would go well. But for a worrier like me, it wasn’t easy at all.
I grabbed my phone off my bedside table and checked the time. It was super early, but I got out of bed anyway. The rescue’s foreman, Theo, was likely up already and leaving his cabin to go feed and turn out the horses.
I glanced out my window and saw one of the dogs, then another one, walk through the misty corner of my view of the yard.
Theo lived in one of the two cabins on the property with his dog Bucky. The four other pit bulls, the Golden Girls, stayed in the stable overnight.
I used my bathroom as quietly as I could, then pulled on sweats and a long-sleeved T, before padding downstairs. The house was quiet, so I made my coffee in peace. I grabbed a blanket off the couch and went out the back door.
The concrete slab had enough room for a couple of deck chairs and a grill, and I curled up in the chair that gave me an almost spooky view of the paddocks behind the little orchard in between.
I shivered as I pulled the blanket around myself and made sure my bare toes were covered, too. Shoes, or even a pair of socks, would’ve been a good idea.
Listening to the morning sounds around me, I sighed contentedly. It was night and day compared to New York, and I couldn’t have been happier.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, in a small town that felt kind of cozy. Just big enough in some ways, too little in others. For a kid with a regular family, two parents and a sister, I’d still never quite fit in.
For one, I was on the slighter side growing up. I was the boy who didn’t fit in with most of the other boys. I ran track and liked soccer some, but my school was all about football. The jocks were the kings, the cheerleaders were the queens, and the rest of us didn’t really matter.
My sister was a cheerleader, of course. It made me feel lesser in a way, especially when our dad was a football guy, too. He never came to any of my games or track meets. Mom tried, but she worked and most of the time I was alone for my events.
I didn’t mind, really. My parents were always a couple first, parents second. They expected independence, and Laura and I had it in spades. They cared, but only to a point.
When I came out to them at thirteen, they didn’t mind. It was the usual “don’t flaunt it and don’t embarrass us” from Dad, with a side of “stay safe” and a handful of pamphlets from Mom.
I was a curious child, and—despite the state of health education—I knew what Mom meant. As embarrassing as that was, I was glad I’d gotten the pamphlets by the time I had sex for the first time with my second crush. It ended up being totally unsatisfying, it hurt, and was icky. After we’d done it, we never tried again. It took me a few years to try again, and after that it was all better.
