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The old McCoy household was situated on a long dirt road on the outskirts of the town of Walnut Grove, Georgia. Walnut Grove had a population of 1,241 residents; the McCoy residence had a population of three.
Yet for the past seven years it held a population of zero and a thick layer of dust that covered possessions that once upon a time formed the basis of a home. Great white sheets covered furniture and photos laid face down whilst carpets belched up dust with every step taken.
The home itself was beautiful; a huge, three storey, white washed farmhouse with a white, wooden railed porch outlining the whole lower level and a barn set a little away from it. You could see for miles around, right across the parched dry land that surrounded the house and at night, Leonard swore blind that you could see the swirl of the galaxy. A million, million stars littered the night’s sky; a million, million more than you could ever see in the city with a great, white moon that always seemed to look a little too close.
An old wooden rocker still sat on the porch but it’d seen far better days with the wood now tired and the paint long since peeled, and as Leonard nudged it with the tip of his toe it gave an eerie creak and some kind of cricket scuttled from beneath it and crawled off of the porch to seek refuge elsewhere.
Out front was an old and red Corvette soaking up the Georgia sun as it bounced back from the chrome finishing’s, and somewhere inside the house Jim trod carefully on the creaking floorboards as he peered into the different rooms.
The home was Leonards, left to him by his parents several years past but he’d never known what to do with it; all he knew was that he couldn’t bear to part with it so for many years it sat untouched and unloved.
That was until Jim decided that he and Leonard ought to live together. Leonard assumed that Jim would want a high tech, modernized flashy apartment in the middle of the city, but as soon as he’d mentioned the old McCoy farmhouse, Jim’s eyes seemed to light up.
He often forgot that Jim grew up in Iowa, that maybe he even grew up in a house just like Leonard’s with the big porch and the wide open spaces. Of course Jim insisted that they drove over there right away to look the place over and for Jim the drive had been amazing; long straight roads meant that Jim’s foot was flat to the floor for most of, if not the whole of the journey.
For Leonard, it was more like a white-knuckle ride. Even with Jim’s goofy grin the phrase 'look Bones, no hands!' had Leonard wanting to wring his neck.
But that didn’t matter now because they were here and the Georgia sun was setting in the distance. Jim had inspected the upper floors and as he made his way out onto the porch to join Leonard, his blue eyes met the fiery sunset skyline and his jaw almost fell to the floor.
As Jim marvelled at the sky and the sunset and watched as the first stars crept across the velvet sky, Leonard watched him with a great curiosity as he dared to settle into the old and worn rocker.
Rocking himself gently, Leonard allowed his mind to wander; this old and dusty place could be a home again, it could be their home.
Leonard’s mind wandered even further as he envisioned what the porch would look like tidied up; a swing seat, a small table, a new rocker and a few lanterns would make it comfortable and he and Jim could sit together sipping on cool, sweet iced tea as they watched the sunset and listened to the chirp of the crickets.
And as Jim turned to Leonard, Leonard knew for sure that’s what the future held. Jim had completely fallen for the farmhouse and Leonard, no matter how much he’d deny it when asked, had completely fallen for him.