The walls of the small shed are lined with gardening tools. Not the professional farming kind, but the backyard, hobby gardener type. Plastic and terracotta pots, both empty and full with plants like tomatoes and strawberries and others I can’t discern. Bags of potting soil, plant food, and watering cans are peppered about too. He’s blocking the plants he’s working on. I can’t see them, but I can smell them. Marijuana.
“Are these the plants that produced the stuff we smoked together the night of the show?” I ask, stepping closer to him and tipping my head to peek around his shoulder. “That stuff gave me the best sleep of my life, by the way. I don’t think I told you that.”
“That was because it was Bert, not Ernie,” Bowen mutters, like he’s annoyed he has to explain it to me. Only he doesn’t have to. He could tell me to get out, or just ignore me until I leave, but he doesn’t. I take that teeny irrelevant fact as hope, because it’s all I’ve got. “Bert is dried different than Ernie and with more CBD and less THC.”
“Interesting.”
“You shouldn’t be coming to my farm in the middle of the night,” Bowen warns me. “Not if you want to stay in the closet. Because my family knows I’m gay and the only boys that show up here this late aren’t here to learn about cannabis.”
I don’t like to think about other boys showing up on his doorstep late at night. It makes my guts feel like I drank a gallon of ice water too fast. I swallow. “Tell them it was a band emergency. Please.”
He sighs and turns to face me. Tugging off his gardening gloves and running a hand through his hair. He’s changed out of his super cute suit from earlier and into a pair of very thin gray sweats and nothing else. I really want to admire his naked chest, but I have to focus. He didn’t appreciate the impromptu mauling I gave him at the party. “Fine. I’ll tell them that. Now can you tell me whatever you have to say that can’t wait until practice? Because I want to be your friend, Chase. I do. But I can’t have you blurring the lines. That’s not fair.”
“I agree.” I shove my hands in my pants pockets. “But I wanted you to know the whole truth, about my reasoning for not being out, like you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it doesn’t.” I shrug. “But I want you to know, it’s not by choice. I did tell my parents.”
“That you were bisexual, even though you’re gay. I remember.”
I pace a little bit in the tiny space. I have never fully revealed the depths of my parents’ reaction to my drunken announcement that I was bisexual to anyone before. “I mean, they said that’s fine. Because they have to say that. But my dad also said he doesn’t want that for his son. And, politically, which matters more, he didn’t want that for his family. He decided it was a phase, and the general public doesn’t need to know about my ‘phases’ so I am not to discuss it in public. Ever.”
“That’s fucked.”
“Yep, but that’s only the beginning.” I keep pacing in the tiny space between the table that his plants are on and the shelves with piles of unused pots. “While my mother and father try to pretend they aren’t bigots, my grandfather didn’t care who knew it. And he put a morality clause in his will, which is governed by my father. So, I won’t get my inheritance if I do anything that is deemed immoral or unbefitting the family name. My cousin Amy had a premature baby and he spent almost a year trying to block her inheritance.”
“Are you kidding me?” Bowen looks appalled. It’s hard to see him like that, knowing it’s about my family. Yeah, they’re horrible but I still hate seeing that reflected on someone else’s face. Especially his.
“I wish I was. And she even married the guy. She’d always planned on marrying the guy,” I explain, and my voice is as angry as his expression. “But it suddenly had to happen immediately, and no one admitted why. Anyway, the baby was born at seven months, but was over six pounds and healthy as a horse so… we all knew. And he would have denied her the money except my aunt got some doctor’s note or something official that made him relent.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, my parents had Woody before they got married. It’s not exactly uncommon now.” Bowen rolls his eyes and then sighs. He looks at me, studying me as I pace. “And he would do that to you for being gay?”
“Yeah. In a heartbeat,” I reply with absolute certainty. I stop pacing and stare at him. He’s so fucking gorgeous even in this harsh glaring light, and with a look of judgment twisting his rugged features. “And I want that money. Ideservethat money. I’m a good person and I have good plans for that money. I want to go back to college and get the degree I wanted that he wouldn’t let me have, which is music. I want to open up a music camp for LGBTQ youth when I graduate. I want to help people and this community and just be… happy. I deserve that and I’m not going to let him take it away because of my sexuality. It’s not something I should be punished for.”
“That’s a lot of plans,” Bowen says, his voice softer, less judgey. “How much is the inheritance?”
“Three and a half million.”
“Dollars?” Bowen’s amber eyes bulge out of his head.
“Yep.” I nod and he blinks. “It’s life changing. Not just my life either.”
“Yeah. It definitely is.” Bowen swallows. His eyes lock on mine. “And you get it when you’re twenty-eight?”
I nod.
“And you’re…?”
“Twenty-seven. With only six months and twenty-four days,” I reply and pull my phone out of my pocket and punch a button and smile. “And nine hours until twenty-eight. I may have a countdown app set.”
He smiles too. Finally. I step toward him again but make sure to shove my hands back in my pockets to avoid the temptation to touch him. “So anyway, that’s why I’m not as out as you. It’s not that I care, because I don’t. Hell, if I had my way, I’d make out with you on stage in the middle of Burlington Town Square. In a rainbow flag shirt. Or in nothing at all. But I’m holding out for the money. And maybe that makes me a selfish jerk, or stupid, or whatever. But just so you know, Idowant to be your friend. I don’t expect you to wait around or anything but the day that check clears, I intend to hit on you relentlessly, in public, all the time. Unless, of course, you’ve moved on. I’ll respect that. But if you haven’t… I’ll come knocking.”
He’s just staring at me, his face soft and relaxed. I think he’s processing all of this, but I’m not sure what he’s thinking at all. So I keep talking. “You know what’s crazy? I named my firm Dauntless because it’s my favorite word. It means fearless and determined, which I crave. How I want to feel, always, in every situation. But you… you make me feel the polar opposite. You’re daunting. To me.”
He quirks an eyebrow and tips his head a little to the left. “You’re kidding, right? You’re the smart, confident, fearless one. You always have a solution for shit and you can be calm and comfortable with anything, and I’m daunting? I’m an orphaned, college drop out with a pot habit.”
“You’re authentic,” I reply. “The one thing I can’t be. And I don’t always have a solution. I don’t have a way to be with you, which is all I want.”
