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The fair in the evening is Shorty's favorite place in the entire world. The sun sets around eight p.m. in September, and in the twilight hour or so before that, the lights of the carnival rides and vendors' tents glitter like planets against the darkening sky. The frantic energy of daytime fairgoers has ebbed, leaving behind a calmer, sated sort of atmosphere as families head for their cars, younger children asleep against their parents' chests while the older ones chatter excitedly about the prizes they've won and the rides they rode.
As a kid himself, Shorty always used the relative quiet of these last few hours to ride as many rides as he could while the lines were shorter, watching the emerging stars wheel across his vision from the vantage point of the Tornado or the Screamer. He'd probably be doing the same thing this year even as an almost-twenty-year-old if there wasn't something he wanted to do more.
"You're not a rides person, huh," he says, keeping his voice low enough not to disturb the spring lamb snoozing at his feet. Shorty isn't good with animals, not like Jim and Gordy are, but even he knows that the poor thing is too precious to disturb. The 4H circuit is a lot of excitement for a little lamb.
Gordy, seated cross-legged on the dirty floor of the pen, smiles softly to himself and strokes the lamb's curly head. "I wish I could be. I get really dizzy."
"That sucks."
"Eh, it's fine. I'm not really a thrill-seeker anyway." The lamb twitches in its sleep, little cloven feet kicking against Gordy's thigh, and resettles its head more comfortably atop Gordy's knee. Gordy coos down at it and smiles up at Shorty, heartbreakingly earnest. "You could go, though. It's not too late to join the guys in line."
It's entirely guileless, like Gordy always is, and Shorty one hundred percent believes that Gordy really genuinely wouldn't mind if Shorty left him at the 4H stalls and joined their friends instead, because Gordy is just that sweet. And that's exactly why Shorty doesn't want to leave.
He settles gingerly onto the hay-strewn concrete opposite Gordy, cross-legged as well so that he can hunch in on himself rather than tower over his friend and the tiny lamb, and reaches out a tentative finger to brush one of the lamb's impossibly soft ears.
"Nah. I've been to the fair every year since I can remember; I've ridden them all a hundred times. I never hang out over here."
"Not much of a 4H guy, huh?" Gordy says, echoing the question Shorty posed to him.
Shorty supposes the answer is obvious, given how gingerly he's petting the sleeping lamb. It just feels so fragile, like Shorty could crush it beneath his hand if he pushed too hard. It's a little like how he feels about talking to Gordy sometimes: like it's something precious, something that gangly, boisterous Shorty Hunt shouldn't be trusted with.
"I wanted to ride horses like my sister, but I was too tall," he says. "I'm mostly used to seeing farm animals on the other side of a fence."
"I can tell," Gordy says. His grin is kind rather than mocking like Roger's or Bobby's would be, inviting Shorty to laugh along with him. "You can pet him harder; he won't mind."
"How do you know it's a he?"
Gordy laughs and waggles his heavy brows, and Shorty realizes his naivete in asking. He flushes in embarrassment; he's not used to being the ignorant city kid. Puyallup is pretty fucking country compared to Seattle, but compared to a dairy farm outside Bellingham it's basically NYC.
"I'd lift his tail and show you, but that'd wake him up," Gordy says.
"Definitely don't do that." Shorty dares to card his hand more firmly through the soft wool between the lamb's ears. It sleeps on, oblivious to his touch or to his indecisive, racing heart. "You're really good with them."
"What, balls?"
"Animals, asshole."
Gordy laughs again, his doe-eyes crinkling and slightly buck-teeth flashing in the twilight. "It's 'cause I was raised by cows. They can sense that I have a bovine soul. We're basically cousins."
"You do look like you're part cow," Shorty says. It comes out sounding as halfhearted as it feels.
People often call Gordy sleepy-eyed, or dreamy, or sure, cow-like. Shorty finds those things beautiful. He meant to tell Gordy that today, but the time was never right with their teammates always nearby, always loud and energetic and overpowering on the one day Shorty would really have preferred to take things slower. Now their teammates are in line for some roller coaster or other and Shorty has Gordy all to himself, and he still can't find the courage to say what he wants to say.
"You don't have to be so careful with me, either," Gordy says quietly. "I'm stronger than I look."
Shorty has been caught out. He doesn't know whether to be relieved or embarrassed that Gordy started the conversation for him.
"I know that. You've got the highest pain tolerance of anyone I know," he says.
"Yeah. So you don't have to worry about hurting me if you push too hard." Gordy's eyes are soft and sincere and yeah, a little bovine, and Shorty feels like he's drowning in them as he waits for whatever Gordy might say next. "I know you chose me over the rides."
"Well, I—yeah, I did."
Gordy has broken their eye contact to look back at the lamb again, and Shorty feels bereft without it. Gordy's long, spindly fingers pet so, so gently over the short hairs of the lamb's nose a precision of touch Shorty could never hope to achieve. Gordy might be a cow at heart, but Shorty is a bull in a china shop and he doesn't know how to tread gently.
He swallows and tries anyway. "I'm not good at knowing how much is too much. So maybe you could… show me?"
Just then, the string lights above them switch off, plunging the stall into near-darkness. The petting zoo is closing.
Shorty can't see Gordy's expression anymore to know if he's smiling or not. But he can feel it perfectly when Gordy's palm settles over his, fingers interlacing atop the lamb's tiny, fragile skull. And when Gordy speaks, even in total darkness Shorty knows he would be able to hear the smile in it.
"Start like this."