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By the time the train stops and Andre gets off, he’s nauseated and he feels dirty. He can’t imagine how people actually ride trains places - he’s never felt so motion sick in his life.
He wheels two massive suitcases off the train, along with his backpack. His father told him he overpacked, but he doesn’t know how long he’s going to be at the farm, and he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to wear on the farm.
Nicke is waiting for him, driving a pickup truck that’s splattered with mud. Andre briefly wonders where he’s supposed to put his bags, until Nicke gets out and helps him heave them into the back. There’s hay in the back of the truck. His suitcases are riding with hay bales. And Nicke - well, he’s wearing boots, and not nice Chelsea boots like Andre wears most of the winter when it’s too wet for designer sneakers, but brown and battered boots like he expects - he doesn’t know, a ranch hand to wear.
Or a farmer. Nicke is a farmer and Andre is going to live on a farm for an indeterminate period of time.
All Andre wants is to turn around, get back on the train, and go back to the city. Instead, he climbs into the cab of the truck next to Nicke, who drives them away from the train station.
“Are you hungry?” Nicke asks him after a while. It’s been years since Andre’s spent any real time with any of his cousins - brief visits to the farm, a nice getaway for a weekend, or a few times that Nicke’s been into the city. “We have stuff for sandwiches at the house, but if you want anything else, let me know before we leave town.”
It’s a town, too. Cute and quaint, like something out of the Lifetime movies his mom and sisters watch at Christmas. It probably gets covered in snow and looks positively fucking idyllic. Andre did not pack for it to snow. All this mess with his father’s finances - surely that will be cleared up by Thanksgiving, and definitely by Christmas. No way is he going to have anything to do with snow.
“Should I?” Andre asks. “I mean, I guess sandwiches would be okay.”
“Okay,” Nicke says. He doesn’t say anything else, and they drive in silence for a while. He’s got the radio tuned to some sports talk radio, and it just chatters in the background, talk about the games that were on the night before.
Andre remembers when they were kids, and his family would go up to the farm for the weeknd, and he’d play hockey on the backyard rink Nicke’s dad would make. Andre hasn’t been to the farm in the winter in ages. He doesn’t know if Nicke has kept up the tradition.
The house is clean and Nicke doesn’t offer to help Andre with his suitcases at all. He struggles into the house with them, and Nicke leads him up the stairs to his bedroom. Andre’s pretty sure that his closet back home is bigger than the bedroom that Nicke puts him in. It’s taken up by a full-sized bed that has a quilt spread over it, a small dresser that’s doing double duty as a nightstand, and nothing else.
“So you can unpack, take a nap, whatever you want to do,” Nicke tells him. “Me and Alex are downstairs. Christian’s down the hall.”
“Who’s Christian?” Andre asks.
“He works on the farm,” Nicke says. “He’s probably working at the farmstand right now. You can meet him at dinner, or after lunch I can take you up to the farmstand.”
“The farmstand?” Andre asks.
“Where we sell the produce,” Nicke says, like this is going to mean anything to Andre. Produce comes from the store, or from the delivery service. Usually the delivery service. Sometimes a farmer’s market.
“Like a farmer’s market?” he asks.
“Well, yeah, but we do go to a farmer’s market on Saturdays,” Nicke tells him.
The bread that Nicke has in his kitchen is the type Andre has to slice himself, and there’s only goat cheese in the fridge. Which is kind of weird, but at least it tastes good when Andre tries it.
“Why do you only have goat cheese?” Andre asks. “Like, it’s good, but most people have regular cheese in their houses.”
“Uh,” Nicke says. “Because our friends make goat cheese, not cow cheese.”
Andre stuffs his mouth full of sandwich because he doesn’t know what else to say.
They get back in the truck once they finish their sandwiches, and Nicke drives Andre down to the farmstand.
There aren’t a lot of people there, but there are quite a few families with small children who are running through the rows of pumpkins. There are hay bales stacked with gourds, barrels with apples overflowing. Andre had no idea that the farmstand was… like this. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he’s pretty sure that it wasn’t something so idyllic.
Nicke leads them toward a tall, skinny guy around Andre’s age, who is carrying a fairly massive pumpkin on his shoulder out to someone’s car. He’s got light brown hair that falls across his forehead, and when the woman he’s carrying the pumpkin for thanks him, he ducks his head slightly and smiles. Andre thinks he’s blushing.
“That’s Christian,” Nicke says. Andre didn’t expect Christian to be cute, or to blush when some mom with a squirming toddler thanked him. Once the woman is in her car, Christian walks over to them, tugging off the work gloves he’s wearing. There’s a streak of dirt across his cheek, and Andre shoves his hands in his jacket pockets to keep himself from reaching out.
“Hey,” Christian says.
“This is my cousin Andre,” Nicke tells him, and Christian extends his hand. It takes Andre a second to realize that he’s supposed to be shaking Christian’s hand. Things get awkward before he’s able to get his hand up.
“Nice to uh.” Andre says. “Meet you.”
“Andre’s going to hang out here. I’m going to go help Alex bring up the gourds from the south field,” Nicke explains.
“Sounds good,” Christian says. “You want me to put him to work?”
Nicke laughs. Andre’s pretty sure he should be offended by that. At least, he feels offended by that. “No, don’t worry about it, at least not today,” Nicke says. “I gotta get to the field before Alex overdoes it and fucks up his back.”
“Or his knee,” Christian says. He’s smiling. He has a dimple on one side, and he’s cute, and Andre is in so much trouble.
“Well, to be fair, his knee was the time he tripped over the goat,” Nicke says.
“You have goats?” Andre asks.
“No, it was Kuzy’s goat,” Nicke says. “Have fun. Don’t let him get into any trouble, Christian.”
Christian snorts a laugh, and Nicke climbs back into the truck.
Hanging around the farmstand isn’t so bad. It gets busier in the afternoon, Andre guesses after school lets out and more parents are able to bring their kids in. The couple of hours between dinnertime and close are the most busy, parents crowding in with kids. Christian and a couple of other guys that Andre hasn’t been introduced to help families pick pumpkins of all sizes.
The sun has set by the time they’re closing up - it’s almost eight pm, and all the families have gone home to put their kids to bed. Andre is starving.
“Come on,” Christian says to him. He’s almost dozed off on an old stool set back against the wall, his phone long dead. “Everything’s locked up, and it’s time for dinner.”
Andre follows him as he turns the lights off, locks the front doors. Andre half-expects him to drive a pickup the same as Nicke, but instead Christian leads him to a dusty Honda with a dent in the door. If Christian drove an Uber, Andre would not ride with him.
However, Andre suspects he can either get in the car now, or walk back to the house, and he feels like that’s probably a very long way. He waits in the car while Christian closes the gate and locks it, then drives them to the house.
The drive is short, and Christian has the radio on. He parks to the side of Nicke’s truck, and there’s another truck in the driveway - a bigger one with big flashy rims. There’s music playing when they get into the house, and Christian sits down just inside the door to unlace his boots.
“Nicke and Alex are probably in the kitchen,” is all he says to Andre.
It’s faster for Andre to kick his sneakers off and line them up next to all the other shoes sitting there. Andre’s the only one who wears clean sneakers, he can see. He wanders in his socks into the kitchen, where Nicke is finishing up dinner. Andre assumes the man helping him is Alex, Nicke’s husband, but Andre’s never met him.
He’s big, tall and broad, dressed in a t-shirt and basketball shorts as he putters around the kitchen. Nicke is standing at the stove, stirring something. Alex is the one who notices Andre first, and breaks into a grin. He’s missing a front tooth, and Andre can’t help but smile back at him.
“You must be Andre,” Alex says, and he has a heavy Russian accent. “Nice to meet you.”
Andre expects Alex just to shake his hand, but instead Alex wraps his arms around Andre and hugs him tightly. Andre feels his back crack.
“Tell Christian he’s got time for a shower, if he wants,” Nicke says.
“Christian,” Alex yells, right in Andre’s ear. “You hear this? You have time for shower still!”
“Thanks!” Christian yells back, and Andre hears him going up the stairs.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” Nicke tells Andre.
Andre’s the only one wearing real clothes when they help themselves to dinner. Nicke’s dressed the same as Alex, changed into shorts and a t-shirt after his shower. Christian joins them after his own in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his feet bare on the tile and his hair slicked back away from his face.
“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Alex asks as they’re sitting there.
“Christian can take Andre out with him to feed the chickens and gather the eggs,” Nicke says. “And then he can help in the farmstand.” Nicke looks up at Andre. “Unless he wants to come out in the field with us.”
“Isn’t there something else I can do?” Andre asks.
“Make sure you feed the sheep, too, she tells me you forget and then she’s upset,” Alex says.
“I have never once forgotten to feed the sheep,” Christian says. “Do you want me to milk her too?”
“What do you know about milking sheep?” Nicke asks.
“Probably not that different from milking goats,” Christian says with a shrug.
“What if I don’t want to do any of this?” Andre asks.
“Then where are you going to stay?” Nicke asks him, leveling Andre with a stare that makes him want to curl into himself. “Because you don’t stay here if you don’t work. So where are you gonna go and who’s gonna feed you?”
“That’s really mean,” Andre says. “Someone would let me stay with them.”
“Or you could collect eggs and go work in the farmstand and not be a freeloader,” Nicke says.
Andre gets up from the table then and goes upstairs. He considers packing and walking straight out the door, but he doesn’t have anywhere he can go, and no way to get there. Instead, he sits down on the edge of the bed and stares at his phone. He hasn’t charged it yet, and it’s dead, and he doesn’t know who he’d call anyway.
There’s a soft knock on the door after a while. The door opens when Andre doesn’t move or say anything, revealing Christian standing there. Andre raises his head just long enough to see him standing there before looking back down at his hands, at his dead phone.
“It’s not that bad, you know,” Christian says. “Getting the eggs. I do it every morning.”
Andre doesn’t say anything. After a while, Christian comes over and sits down next to him, and Andre finally looks up. His hair has dried out a bit and is starting to fall around his face, and he’s pulled a sweatshirt on at some point. Andre wants to touch Christian’s hair.
“It’ll be faster with two people,” Christian says.
“I’m not gonna milk a goat,” Andre says, sulky.
“Well, that’s fine, because we don’t even have goats,” Christian says. “And I was joking about milking the sheep.”
Andre doesn’t say anything, and they both sit in silence. It grows more and more awkward, until Christian sighs and gets up off Andre’s bed.
“I get up at 6:30,” he says. “I’m usually out the door by 6:45. We can feed the chickens and get the eggs, feed the sheep, and then come back here for breakfast before heading to the farmstand.”
He closes Andre’s door behind him when he leaves.
Andre finally plugs in his phone, but doesn’t read any of his missed messages when it finally turns on. He doesn’t fall asleep, either.
When morning rolls around, Andre is not interested in getting out of bed. He didn’t even set an alarm, but there’s someone knocking on his door. He rolls up in the bed and pulls the blanket over his head. The sun is barely even up. He can tell.
“Dude,” he hears an irritated voice say. He thinks it’s Christian. He’s not that awake. The sound of footsteps fades away from his room, and he pulls the blanket down from his face and curls up on his side, warm and comfortable.
The footsteps come back, rapid, and all of a sudden Andre is cold and wet.
“Get up,” Christian says, while Andre sputters. “I don’t have time in my day for this shit.”
“That’s so mean,” Andre says. “What the fuck?”
“I told you I get up at 6:30. And I told you I’m out the door by 6:45,” Christian says. “I get that you don’t want to be here, and you want to be back wherever you’re from doing whatever it is you do, but this is what I do and Nicke says you have to work to stay here.”
“I don’t want to,” Andre says.
“I don’t give a fuck,” Christian says, and reaches out and grabs the blankets and pulls.
For as skinny as Christian looks, he’s surprisingly strong. Andre remembers him carrying the huge pumpkin for the woman with the kid the day before, and realizes he shouldn’t be that surprised. He is, however, now lying on the floor.
“Get dressed,” Christian says. “If you’re not downstairs by seven, I’m going without you and I’m telling Nicke.”
He turns and leaves and Andre sits on the floor, listening to his boots stomp down the hallway. “Tattletale,” Andre says sulkily to no one, before getting up and getting dressed.
Christian is in the kitchen when Andre finally comes downstairs. He has a cup of coffee and he looks pissed off. As soon as he sees Andre, he puts it down on the counter and walks out the door without a word.
Andre follows him outside and across the back yard. It’s a long way out to where they keep the chickens, it seems like, and Christian stops at a shed and fills a bucket with food for the chickens. He hands it to Andre.
“Come on, when we get into their pen you can scatter it all over the ground and they’ll eat it. Then after you’re done you can come in the henhouse and help me collect eggs,” Christian tells him.
Christian has a different bucket in one hand an an empty basket in the other. He stops next to a different pen and puts the basket down. Andre watches as he uses his fingers to whistle, then he dumps the bucket into a trough.
“Rosya,” he yells. Andre’s not sure what’s going on, until he realizes that there’s a sheep in the pen, and she wanders over to where Christian is standing to get her breakfast.
“That’s a sheep,” Andre says.
“You can pet her if you want,” Christian says. “She’s nice. Nicer than the chickens. Anyway, Kuzy got her for Ovi as a joke for his birthday a few years back, ‘cause his name means something about sheep.”
“Ovi?” Andre asks.
“Alex,” Christian says. “Literally no one calls him that but Nicke.”
“Are you still mad at me?” Andre blurts out. He’s standing in what he’s pretty sure is a field and there’s mud on his sneakers, which he paid a lot of money for, and he’s wearing a denim jacket that isn’t warm enough for what they’re doing.
“Look,” Christian says. “I’m sorry. But If you just cooperate this is going to be so much less horrible for all of us.”
“Sorry,” Andre says, ducking his head. He walks over, closer to Christian, and reaches out to pet the sheep on the head. She’s not as soft as he’d expected, somehow. He guesses it makes sense. Wool is scratchy.
“It’s fine,” Christian says. He picks up his basket and keeps walking out toward the other pen.
There are a bunch of chickens - Andre has no idea how many - and they flood out of the shed when Christian opens the door.
“Scatter the feed,” he says. “Or they’re gonna get you.”
“What?” Andre asks. The chickens are coming right for him. He upends the bucket and flees to the relative safety of the fence. Christian is slumped against the shed fucking laughing at him.
“Okay,” Christian says, coughing and trying to get himself under control. “Okay first of all, you kind of have to spread it out a little bit more. They weren’t really going to get you.”
“They were,” Andre says. “They were coming for me.”
“They knew you had breakfast,” Christian says. “I mean, I usually scatter the feed before I open the shed.”
“So you’re just fucking with me?” Andre all but yells.
Christian just smiles at him, his one damn dimple on full display. “Come help me get the eggs,” he says.
Eggs are actually disgusting, is what Andre learns that morning, and he decides that he’s never going to eat eggs again. So of course, when they get back to the house, Alex has made a full breakfast and eggs and toast with bacon.
Andre must make some kind of face, because Christian ends up spitting a mouthful of coffee into the sink as he starts laughing.
“What?” Nicke asks around a mouthful of eggs.
“Andre hates eggs now,” Christian says.
“Oh,” Alex says. “Eggs are gross but these are cooked and delicious.”
“I just think today is not the day,” Andre says. Instead, he piles his plate up with toast and bacon and makes half-assed sandwiches out of it as breakfast while Christian snickers at him.
“We need to make sure those stupid lumpy gourds are restocked,” Nicke says.
“People love those things,” Christian says.
“They’re ugly,” Nicke says.
“So are you, and Alex loves you anyway,” Christian says.
Nicke gives him the finger. “I let you live under my roof - “
“Not for free,” Christian says, his voice deadpan.
“- I let you eat my food - “
“That I help pay for,” Christian continues.
“I pay your salary,” Nicke finishes.
“Okay, I’ll quit,” Christian says, and leans back in his chair, arms crossed.
“This is my favorite part of the morning,” Alex says, and shoves a piece of toast in his mouth.
“We’ll bring a bunch up from the field and you can make sure they’re stocked in,” Nicke continues, like Christian didn’t just threaten to quit. “And pumpkins, too.”
“Always need more pumpkins,” Christian says. “Especially the really big ones.”
“So you can show off how strong you are for the moms?” Nicke asks.
“Yeah, totally,” Christian says. “You know my type is moms.” Andre doesn’t see him roll his eyes, but he hears it.
“Don’t forget Kuzya is coming today to restock the fridge case, too,” Alex says.
“Is he gonna bring baby goats?” Christian asks.
“Do you want him to bring baby goats?” Alex asks.
“The kids love when he brings baby goats,” Christian says. Andre sort of gets the sense that Christian is the one who loves when Kuzya, whoever he is, brings baby goats.
“So we’ll bring the gourds up and some of the bigger pumpkins,” Nicke says. “Did you call about the apples?”
“They’ll bring us a delivery tomorrow morning,” Christian says.
“And we need to start shifting the fall stuff so we can make room for the Christmas trees when they start coming in at the beginning of November,” Alex points out.
“At the beginning of November?” Andre asks.
“You’d be surprised what people are into,” Alex says. He makes it sound like he’s seen some things. Christian snorts into his coffee.
“Come on,” Nicke says, getting up from the table. “Let’s get moving.”
Andre is 90% sure that the cash register is possessed. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before - he’s pretty sure it’s older than him, older than Christian, hell, maybe even older than Nicke or Alex - and it’s completely impossible. No matter how many times Christian tells him what buttons to push, he can’t get it to work, and has to yell for help.
Eventually, Christian puts him to stacking gourds, because, he tells Andre, “having to help you every thirty seconds is making me crazy and I’m not getting anything done.”
Andre guesses that’s fair.
The gourds are just as ugly as Christian made them sound over breakfast. They’re lumpy and remind Andre of the witches in the cartoons he watched as a kid. He gets distracted, stacking pumpkins up until they make a blobby witch, then he sticks one of the gourds on the front of it like a nose.
“This is not productive,” Christian tells him, but Christian is smiling.
Andre wants to kiss him on the dimple.
He maybe stares too long at Christian, because Christian frowns at him before turning to go help someone with something in the shop.
The day is kind of boring until the goats show up. Andre doesn’t love working - well, he’s never really held a job before, so this is probably the first time he’s put in a full day’s work. They’ve had sandwiches for lunch, and he wants to take a nap, but a truck pulls up near the unloading doors and Christian goes speeding out to meet it.
The next time Andre sees Christian, he’s cradling a black and white baby goat to his chest and talking to a guy with a red-blonde beard who is holding a second goat and laughing. A third man is climbed into the back of the truck and is moving coolers to the back of the truck bed.
“This is not helping me,” the guy in the back of the truck says, looking down at Christian and the other guy holding the baby goats.
“It’s helping, we’re holding the goats so you can get things out of the truck,” the guy on the ground says. “So they’re not in their crates in the back in the way.”
The guy in the back of the truck whips off his toque and throws it in the guy on the ground’s face. He has good aim, and he hits where he’s aiming. The guy holding the goat splutters and almost drops his goat. Christian cackles.
Andre thinks he might be in love.
The guy in the back of the truck steps around the coolers and jumps down, picking his toque up off the ground and dusting it off against his leg before pulling it back over his hair. He reaches out and takes the goat from the other guy. “You can carry all the product in today,” he says. “Is Nicke gonna come up from the field while we’re here?”
“I can text him,” Christian says. “You know he pretends to not think the goats are cute but he does.”
“He can have one,” the guy with the beard says, going over to the truck and tugging on one of the coolers.
“No, you know what he really needs?” Christian says. “Another sheep to keep Rosya company.”
All of them laugh, and then Christian realizes Andre is standing there, and waves him over.
“Andre,” he says. “This is Kuzy and Marcus, they own the goats,” Christian says. Kuzy is the one with the red-blond beard, and Marcus is the one who threw his toque. “This is Andre, Nicke’s cousin.”
“Nice to meet you,” Andre says.
“Want a goat?” Marcus asks immediately, and what’s Andre going to say to that? No? The goat is really fucking cute.
“Oh hey, that means that you can help me unload this stuff,” Kuzy says.
“Yeah,” Marcus says, and sighs dramatically.
“You love me,” Kuzy says.
“Unfortunately,” Marcus says, and walks over, grabbing one of the coolers. “Tell Nicke to bring his ass up here.”
Andre ends up sitting on the dirt with a bunch of little kids crowded around him and minding both goats while Christian runs the cash register. He wasn’t wrong about little kids loving the goats, either, because they crowd around Andre, even when they’re too scared to reach out and touch the goats themselves.
The days that Marcus or Kuzy come to the farmstand turn out to be Andre’s favorites. He starts getting used to getting up at 6:30 in the morning, even though he hates it. But getting up that early means it’s easy to fall into bed and sleep by 10pm.
He learns to scatter the feed before Christian opens the henhouse in the mornings, and a couple of days he even goes out to the fields and helps Alex and Nicke. But most of the time he works in the farmstand with Christian.
Who he’s pretty sure he’s falling in love with.
Christmas trees are taking up half the farmstand lot. Most of the pumpkins are gone, and everyone is gearing up for Thanksgiving. It snows two weeks into November, a light dusting that covers the ground and ensures that Andre can’t feel his feet inside his sneakers.
“Maybe I’ll get you boots for Christmas,” Christian tells him. They’re sitting inside at the farmstand, huddled together behind the counter where the propane space heater is turned towards them. “Wool socks.”
“You’re getting me a present for Christmas?” Andre asks, surprised.
“... yes?” Christian says. Andre can’t believe the feeling of warmth that spreads through him. It almost makes up for how cold his ass is, facing away from the heater. He turns around to warm his other side, but also partly so Christian can’t see him blushing.
It shouldn’t even be a big deal. It’s not like Christian is offering to get him something that’s a big deal for Christmas. He’s literally saying he’s going to get Andre boots or wool socks because Andre’s feet are cold in the farmstand. It’s so practical and so Christian and kind of perfect.
It’s a good thing Andre is facing away, because he’s sure that he’d be looking at Christian with the absolute dopiest look on his face.
Nicke and Alex come in just before close.
“Braden is playing at open mic tonight,” Nicke says. “Do either of you want to go?”
“Do I still have to get up and feed at 6:30?” Christian asks.
“I mean, I might let it slip until 7, but you still have to make sure the farmstand is open on time,” Nicke says.
“Then no thanks,” Christian says.
“Andre?” Nicke asks.
“Uhh,” Andre says. “No, I don’t think - I mean, I still have to get up and open the farmstand, too.”
“Suit yourself,” Nicke says. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bye,” they chorus after Nicke as he leaves. Alex waves at them from outside.
One of the things that Andre misses about living in the city is having pizza delivery. Sure, he and Christian make three frozen pizzas in the oven that they demolish between the two of them, but they’re not the same. They’re soggy in the middle no matter what they do, and there’s never enough cheese.
They don’t have cable but they do have Netflix, which Andre thinks he’s watched maybe twice in the time he’s lived here. There’s just always something happening, or they’re working, so they hardly ever watch anything. There’s a movie on but Andre can’t pay any attention to it, because he and Christian are cuddled up next to each other under the blanket that lives on the couch.
Suddenly Andre finds himself tucked under Christian’s arm, his head rested against Christian’s chest.
“You know I like you, right?”
“What?” Christian asks, and then Andre realizes he actually said it out loud. It’s for the best.
Andre lifts himself up slightly, and Christian lets him go. “I like you,” Andre says. “Ever since I saw you carrying the pumpkin the first day at the farmstand, even when I was pissed at you for siccing the chickens on me, I liked you.”
“I wouldn’t have teased you if I didn’t like you,” Christian says. The bluish light from the TV makes the angles of his face seem sharper.
“But I mean I - “ Andre says. “When you smile. You smile at me when you’re being an asshole and I want to - I want to put my - I want to kiss you on the dimple.”
“What?” Christian asks, and Andre thinks if the lights are on he’d be able to see Christian blushing.
“It’s only on one side,” Andre says. “And I noticed it the first day, and some days all I can think about is how badly I want to kiss it. Then you were talking about how you were going to get me boots for Christmas, and it felt like. I don’t know, you cared. About me.”
“Because I do,” Christian says. “Because you need boots so your toes don’t freeze off or you’ll never make it through winter.”
“Christian I’m telling you I’m like, falling in love with you,” Andre says.
“I know,” Christian says. “I know what you’re saying, Andre. I’m just wondering if you’re going to keep talking instead of doing anything.”
Andre’s mouth falls open slightly. Christian sighs and rolls his eyes, then leans forward and presses his mouth to Andre’s.
Maybe kissing Christian isn’t everything he dreamed it would be. The position is awkward and Christian’s lips are chapped, but they’re kissing. It’s everything, even if it isn’t perfect. Andre threads his fingers into Christian’s hair and tugs gently.
“You know,” Christian says after a moment, pulling back from Andre and licking his lips. “This would be more comfortable if we went upstairs.”
Andre’s heart jumps up into his throat. It’s not that he thinks they’re going to have sex or fool around - they might, they could, and Andre would be into it - but more than that he doesn’t want Christian to let go of him.
They end up curled up in bed together in their sweats. Christian’s bedroom is cold, but their bodies together under the blanket are warm. Andre’s never felt so content to just have someone kissing him, endlessly kissing him, until he dozes off to sleep.
Tom shows up on a Saturday just before Christmas, white sneakers and designer jacket out of place in the farmstand. And still, Andre all but screams and runs to him, throwing himself into Tom’s arms.
“I didn’t think you were actually coming!” Andre yells right into Tom’s face. Tom is grinning.
“I told you I would,” Tom says. “I wasn’t going to let you rot here with just the … I can’t believe you’re selling Christmas trees.”
“You should be here some time when there’s goats,” Andre says, smiling. “They’re super cute.”
“Goats? Really?” Tom asks.
“Oh yeah,” Andre says. “There’s all kinds of goat’s milk and cheese and I think yogurt too but I don’t like yogurt.”
Tom laughs. “So show me around,” he says. “You really work here?”
“Well, it was either work here or spend the day out in the field, so I figured this was better,” Andre explains. “And warmer. And drier, some days.”
Andre leads Tom through the lot, past the Christmas trees and into the farmstand building. Since it’s Saturday, Nicke and Alex are helping out on the lot, and Christian is in the building helping customers. Christian looks up from the customer he’s helping when Andre comes back in, and he smiles when he sees Andre.
“He’s cute,” Tom whispers as they head toward the counter. “And he likes you. I can tell. He lit up when he saw you.”
Andre detours them over to the cold case, where all the goat products are. “Tom,” he says, a little breathless, his eyes wide. “You have to be nice to him.”
“I wasn’t planning on not being nice to him?” Tom says. “When are you coming back to the city?”
“I don’t know,” Andre says. “That’s not - I think he’s my boyfriend.”
“You think?” Tom asks.
“We haven’t talked about it,” Andre says. “I mean, there’s no point, it’s not like either of us have other prospects here, everyone we know is couples. But I really like him, and - well, you just have to be nice.”
“Okay,” Tom says, and he sounds skeptical.
“He’s - he has a dimple on one side of his mouth and he’s sarcastic and he told me he was going to get me boots and wool socks for Christmas because he wanted me to be warm,” Andre blurts out.
“I get it,” Tom says. “You really like him. But how does he feel about you?”
“Boots and wool socks,” Andre says, eyes wide. Tom laughs.
“So introduce me?” Tom says.
Andre takes a deep breath and leads Tom around the bins of root vegetables to where Christian is finishing up with a customer. He looks up at Andre and Andre watches the little frown crease his forehead while his customer service smile never waivers. It’s a little creepy.
“Christian,” Andre says. “This is Tom. He’s one of my friends from back - back in the city.” Not back home, Andre realizes with a start. He doesn’t know if he’s ever going back to the city, but he thinks if he doesn’t, he’ll be okay here.
Christian extends his hand, and Tom takes it to shake it briefly.
“And this is Christian,” Andre says. “My.” Andre looks up at Christian, like he’s not really sure that he can make the words come out of his mouth.
“Boyfriend,” Christian says. He looks at Andre, and their eyes meet. Andre smiles at him then. “I’m Andre’s boyfriend.”
There’s a brief moment where Tom is elbowing Andre, and Andre is blushing, and Andre is grinning, and Christian may be blushing, too.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Tom finally says.
Andre goes to dinner with Tom that night, even though he’d much rather change into his pajamas after his shower and not leave the house again. But he showers and re-dresses and goes out with Tom.
There aren’t a lot of places to eat in town and Andre’s actually met their waiter because he’s friends with Christian. Andre’s tired and by the time they order he’s ready to go home and crawl into bed next to Christian and curl up and be warm and go to sleep, and - God, he’s boring now.
“So he’s really cute,” Tom says, once they’ve ordered and he’s got a beer in front of him. “And you really like him. And -”
“I don’t think I’m going back to the city,” Andre blurts out.
“Oh,” Tom says. “I mean. I was going to say you seemed super happy, so. I guess that makes sense.”
“I realized earlier that this is like. Home. Now,” Andre says.
“No, I get that,” Tom says. “And you have a cute boyfriend.”
“And I have a cute boyfriend,” Andre says, and rubs his hand over the back of his neck, blushing.
Andre takes Tom back to his hotel after dinner and then heads home. The only light left on at the house is the porch light, which isn’t really that surprising. He lets himself in, and finds Nicke and Alex both asleep on the couch, sounding like they’re having a competition to out-snore each other.
He goes upstairs to his room and changes out of his clothes, then knocks softly on Christian’s bedroom door. Christian doesn’t answer, so Andre opens the door and lets himself in to find Christian curled up on his side of the bed, asleep, the book he’s been reading face-down on the pillow next to him and the lamp still on.
Andre picks up the book and places the marker in and puts it down on the nightstand and clicks the light off before going around to the other side of the bed and climbing into the bed. He tugs the blanket over himself and spoons up against Christian, who wakes slightly and stretches, then rolls over in Andre’s arms.
“You know,” he says sleepily. “I got a very panicked text from Madison earlier tonight that you were out on a date with another guy.”
“I would never go on a date with Tom,” Andre says. “Mostly because I know too much.”
“Mm,” Christian says. “I told him you were cheating on me obviously and he should dump soup on Tom’s head but he wouldn’t do it.”
“Madison is too nice for that,” Andre says.
“I know,” Christian says. “He wouldn’t do it. He did offer to kick your ass.”
“Did you tell him not to,” Andre asks.
“Yeah,” Christian says.
Andre threads his fingers into Christian’s hair and Christian tips his face, pressing his lips softly against Andre’s. He shifts his body until their thighs slot together, until his feet are tangled with Andre’s, and he sighs.
“You’re warm,” Andre tells him. Christian laughs, and kisses him again.
“Shut up and go to sleep,” Christian says.
“You don’t want to - “ Andre asks, shifting his hips a little bit.
“I’m too tired for sex, next time don’t go on dates with other guys,” Christian says, and nuzzles his face in against Andre’s neck. His hair tickles Andre’s chin.
“Of course not,” Andre says.
Between Christmas and New Year’s, Nicke and Alex flood the pumpkin patch by the farmstand and turn it into a skating rink. And it’s everything.
Andre borrows a pair of skates from Alex and they get out on the ice before they open the rink to the rest of the town. Nicke’s taken apple cider and spiked it, and he and Alex are standing at the edge of the ice, sipping steaming cups.
Christian skates backward ahead of Andre, his toque pulled down low over his ears. “I’ll tell you the secret,” he says, dragging his hockey stick on the ice. “It’s if you see Ovi coming, you get the fuck out of his way.”
“Sure,” Andre says.
“And don’t block his shots, you’ll die,” Christian tells him.
“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” Andre says.
“No, that’s true,” Kuzy says, skating past him. “I got in the way one time and spent the next week in bed. Marcus was really mad.”
“At you or at Ovi,” Christian asks.
“Both,” Kuzy says, and grins. He’s still grinning when Marcus skates full speed at them and grabs Kuzy around the waist, spinning him away.
“Gross,” Andre says. Christian shoves him.
Madison and Jakub are the last to arrive, and Madison skates over to Andre as soon as he has his skates on.
“When’s your friend Tom coming back?” he asks.
“Why?” Andre asks.
“Because I feel bad that I didn’t give my best service because I thought you were on a date with him,” Madison says, and shrugs. Andre laughs.
“You’re an idiot. You were fine,” Andre says. “I went straight home and got in bed with Christian anyway.”
“Don’t scare me like that,” Madison says. “I thought I was going to have to kick your ass. Or Tom’s ass, and that seemed like… a lot.”
Andre laughs, throwing his head back. “He was gonna have to have help,” Jakub says, slipping his hands into the pockets of Madison’s sweatshirt. “Or I was gonna do it. He’s a lover, not a fighter.”
“I can fight,” Madison says.
“Yeah, okay,” Jakub says, and laughs. Madison, already wearing his hockey gloves, reaches up and face washes Jakub, who splutters.
“Okay,” Nicke yells over all of them, and Andre turns to see him putting his mug down and stepping out on the ice. “Rules are - no contact, you can’t play on a team with your boyfriend - “ Kuzy makes a protest noise - “shut up, Kuz, that’s always been the rule. Don’t be an asshole and slash people, we all have to work tomorrow.”
“And don’t block Ovi’s shots,” Marcus yells.
“You know that’s why my team always wins, right?” Alex asks.
“Your team doesn’t always win,” Nicke says.
They play until they’re all out of breath, sweaty, and exhausted. Nicke’s team, made up of Marcus, Christian, and Jakub, ends up winning over Alex playing with Kuzy, Andre, and Madison. They shed layers as they crowd into the farmstand with sweat starting to freeze on their skin, Nicke passing around mugs of hot cider.
Andre realizes quickly it’s mostly whiskey. Suddenly he’s warm from the inside, even if his skin is clammy from getting sweaty playing hockey. As they’re cleaning up to leave, Nicke sidles up to Andre.
“This ended up not being so bad, I guess,” Nicke says.
“I hated it at first,” Andre says. “But it ended up not being terrible.”
Nicke laughs, and hugs him.
“Come on,” Nicke says. “Let’s go home.”