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Lewis swore that if someone cracked an egg over his chest, the heat of the sweltering summer day would fry it in twenty seconds flat. His sweat clung to his hairy, bare chest, salty and signaling to him that he should be drinking more water. But his eyes were intent over at the brown-haired wonder at the edge of the river.
“Joseph, you sure you don’t want me to run back and grab the fishing rods? Nothing like it on such a day like this,” Lewis called out to the other.
“Mm, we could, or,” the older one started, turning to face him with his usual smile. Lewis could have sworn that that smile could unhook every star from the sky if he so much as asked. “Or, we could take a cat nap out here, fall asleep out in the sun.”
“You know I’ll just burn,” Lewis grumbled, but took no effort to move from his position on the ground. The grass itched his back, and he thought he felt a couple ants run across his bare legs, but he was comfortable nonetheless. He didn’t know why he offered, other than he knew Joseph loved to fish. He did too, but it just felt like something to offer up.
Joseph moved in closer, his wavy brown hair not so gelled back as he usually had it. It was nice– whenever Lewis saw it, he had to bite back the urge to reach out and feel one in his hands. Joseph crouched down next to him, and Lewis was acutely aware that the man’s cotton shirt was four buttons undone. One button was business, two casual, three was pushing it, but four? Four was just asking for trouble.
“But Lew,” Joseph started with a smirk and that twinkle of mischief in his brown eyes, “I could lay on top of you, no? Protect your delicate skin from the sun that way?”
“Mm, if only, but somebody would see and we wouldn’t want them to get the wrong opinion now,” Lewis started, staring up at the man’s face that was just a foot or so away from his.
Lewis felt his heart thump at his own words. He meant it only playfully, for the possible villagers that loved to roam around Cindersap Forest, especially on such a beautiful day, and could overhear. He already knew the rumors that they sparked around Pelican Town– the way the town’s heartthrob Joseph was drunk last Spirit’s Eve and had his darling eyes on Lewis the whole time. Lewis could never tire of his affections, even if he shied away from it in public. The last thing he needed was for the town’s whispers to grow to a sizable storm of gossip and malice. Sure, people were open-minded and fairly tolerable, but him and Joseph? That would ignite a bonfire he wasn’t sure he was ready to take the heat and smoke from yet.
Joseph on the other hand couldn’t care less it would seem. He openly flirted, but his flirty demeanor meant it wasn’t reserved just for him. Lewis just had the prize of knowing that he was the only one to whom truly Joseph meant it for. Joseph, with his strong, broad shoulders and thick arms like the branches of the maple trees that dotted the town. Joseph, with his airy laugh that sounded like the swaying of sunlight across the waters. Joseph, with his awful dance moves by the jukebox that made Lewis snort from across the bar. Joseph. His Joseph.
Except for now. Behind closed doors Joseph was Lewis’ Joseph. But out in public, Joseph was for the masses– effervescent and outgoing and flirty and radiant. Lewis clung like moss to the sides of the saloon, used to sit in the furthest row back in school. But here, on the threshold of where people could accidentally walk in on the two boys having a day out by the river and where the trees shaded them from the rest of town, he could push it a little.
“If I pluck a flower from over there, would you grace me with the thoughts running through your mind?” Joseph breathed out, his voice low, eyes transfixed on Lewis.
“Nothing, just lost in thought,” Lewis said, and before you could think twice, scratched his itch and ran his hand through the front curls of Joseph’s hair.
Joseph caught his hand gently before it could escape from the tangles of his hair, cupped it, and placed a butterfly light kiss on each of his knuckles.
God it was a good thing he was already red from the day, Lewis thought, because his face could not have gotten any redder than it was now.
“Has anybody ever told you you have the cutest little blush?” Joseph teased, and Lewis let out a small smile. “Really, I think it rivals even the pinks of sunsets.”
“Oh now you’re just being all sappy and poetic,” Lewis huffed, playfully slapping the other’s arm. Truthfully he could have gotten drunk on his love’s honey sweet words, listening to them all day, almost unable to still believe after a year together that they were directed towards him.
“Oh? You think that’s poetic? Hmm, let’s see what… Your smile is as comforting as Evelyn’s homemade butterscotch cookies. Your eyes are a lighthouse to which I find my way back home from in even the largest of town parties. When I see you talk about gardening and all the theories on the best ways to attract bees, your voice is so enchanting I forget myself in your melody. How about that for poetry?”
“I think you should be an author and make me your muse,” Lewis teased, reaching out to play with the open collar of Joseph’s white shirt.
“Oh yeah? Maybe I’ll tack on being a painter or sculptor on to that,” Joseph started, leaning down to where his mouth was only an inch from Lewis’ ear. “I’ll have you draped in the finest of silks and sketch out every piece of you. But to get your form right, I might need some hands on practice–”
Lewis playfully shoved Joseph away with a roaring laugh and a half-embarrassed smile. In truth, he couldn’t promise that if Joseph finished that statement that he wouldn’t jump him.
“Okay, okay mister. I think you forget yourself,” Lewis chuckled, opening his arms out to encompass the forest.
“I’m sure people are out fishing or walking elsewhere. We’ve been here for a couple hours and haven't so much as seen another person.”
“Still, could you risk it? This place has news coming in at sunrise, and the whole town’s heard about it before the sun is in the sky,” Lewis argued.
Joseph sat quiet for a moment, looking at Lewis with a measured look, and Lewis knew he was tinkering with some thought in his mind.
“Joseph?”
“Come with me to the city, Lewis.”
Lewis looked at him for a moment before propping himself up on his elbow and staring down the older man. “What?”
“You heard me, come with me to the city. I’ve heard there’s space there for people like us, that they don’t have to live on the sidelines of parties only sharing sideways glances.”
“Come on Joseph, you can’t be serious,” Lewis said with a nervous laugh.
“I am! Besides,” Joseph started, but turned his gaze away, pretending for a moment to be interested in the bark of a nearby tree.
“Besides what?”
“Besides… I’ve been offered a job.”
Lewis felt his body break in half for a split moment, as if lightning struck him in the pause after his sentence. His brain felt fuzzy, his mouth like cotton, and he let out an accidental cough, which seemed to pull Joseph immediately back to reality.
“Lew?”
“Must’ve not had enough water today,” he grumbled, unable to look the other in his eyes.
“Come on, I’m sorry I sprung this onto you. I only got the offer two days ago and it’s just been burning a hole in my mind to tell you.”
“Joseph…” Lewis wasn’t even sure how to continue that thought. He looked over at the other man who was staring at him, waiting, clinging onto the silence that was bubbling between them. Lewis swallowed a lump in his throat and charged forth, “It’s just that I’ve lived my whole life in Pelican town. I’ve grown up here, with the people here, going to these festivals since I could walk, eating the fruit from these trees since I’ve been tall enough to reach for them. My life is here.”
“I know,’’ Joseph said, sitting up abruptly to look Lewis in the eye. “Trust me, I know. I’ve grown up here too, I’ve roamed these streets at 2am just as lost in thought as you, and have gotten too drunk at the saloon here like you, and have loved here just like you.”
Joseph reached over to tuck a piece of Lewis’ hair behind his ear, unable to look him directly in his eyes.
“What job? Where?”
“A corporate one– the kind they’ll have me wear a three-piece suit for and go to stuffy meetings. But it pays well, really well. Well enough that I could keep the farm here paid, and we could come back for vacations, no problem.”
“The farm. The farm is under your name, isn’t it? It would mean leaving it all behind,” Lewis said softly, having not even considered it.
“I guess,” Joseph said with a shrug, “But come on, what will I be doing if I stay here in Pelican Town all my life? I’ll be waking up tomorrow and then the day after I’ll be thirty years older and still doing the same job.”
“Some of us would love nothing more than to be here doing the same job for thirty damn years,” Lewis hissed out, surprising even himself with the venom that curled in his voice.
Joseph looked taken aback, scanning Lewis’ face for the signs of distress and hatred he never wished to see upon him.
“I’m not saying that it’s not honorable or desirable Lew, just that I don’t think it’s the kind of life I’m meant to live,” he said gently, trying to soothe him.
“And I’m not saying the city is a black abyss full of too many people and jobs that’ll tire out a man’s soul, but I think the people here are born here for a reason. And that doesn’t exempt you.”
“Jesus Lew, I’m not becoming a corrupt politician or becoming an investment banker who has to work eighteen hours a day. I’ll still be me, and if you come you’ll still be you, just in a different scenery. Slight change of pace.”
“Dammit, this pace is the kind of pace I want! I’m not uprooting my life because you want to earn a million bucks doing god-knows-what in a cushy job so far away from here that the only plant you see will be the five trees they have in those tiny city parks.”
“Then fucking don’t!” Joseph yelled back, and his sharp tone threw them both off. The silence that nestled between them might as well have been the silence that comes from the aftermath of a storm that sweeps over the coast.
“I promised George I would help out with building his new cabinets,” Lewis grumbled, getting up and grabbing his shirt and towel he had discarded earlier.
“Christ Lew, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap,” Joseph said, springing up to his feet, apologies pouring out of him like a broken fountain.
“Jo–”
“Lewis, I’m so sorry!’
“Joseph,” Lewis turned around with a fire in his eyes and stared the other man down. “I think you’ve made your decision. And I think you know what mine is.”
“But this doesn’t have to put a dent between us,” Joseph whispered in a broken voice, reaching out, but Lewis just pulled back, taking a couple steps back. He had never seen Joseph look so much smaller than he did now.
“I would never have brought it up if I knew it was going to just get us here,” Joseph said.
But the damage had been done. “I’ll see you tomorrow Joseph.” Lewis grumbled, and pivoted on his feet, trudging his way up through the blazing, sunny forest to make his way back to town.
“Lew! Lewis! Please, please! Love, I’m sorry. We can talk this through!”
Lewis kept walking until Joseph’s voice slipped under the canopy and was smothered by the distance he was putting between them. He made his way back to the edge of town, where the raucous noise of children filled the air, competing with his own swirling thoughts. He saw little Marnie squealing, trying to tag another kid, while her mom was preoccupied talking to someone else.
“Everything alright, Lewis?”
The voice made the young man jump as he saw by the streetlamp Evelyn there, basket of forraged goods by her hip, watching with a concerned look painted on her delicate visage.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing,” he said, tugging at his shirt absentmindedly.
She raised an eyebrow at him, and walked over, clearly not buying it. “Nothing to do with the yelling I heard by the river?”
Lewis’ heart stopped cold in his chest. She must have noticed, because sweet Evelyn grabbed his hand and gave him a look as pitiful as the rain.
“I’m sorry, Lewis. Do you want me to make you some tea and talk about it?”
“Oh, I appreciate it Ev, but um, I was actually heading over to George– I promised to help him out today.”
“I’ve only talked to him once in passing I think… Why don’t you introduce me to him then? We can talk on the way over, take the long way out to his place. Hm?”
“That sounds nice, thank you Evelyn.” Lewis said with a small smile.
Evelyn looped her arm through his and gave his arm a squeeze. “You’re going to be just fine, Lewis.”
“Yeah,” he said, mustering up as much of a returning smile as he could, “I’ll be just fine.”