Page 32 of Shades of Henry
He didn’t sound disappointed at all that Lance hadn’t spent all day having sex with someone else. Go figure.
Lance allowed himself to squeeze Henry’s shoulder before he sat down kitty-corner and looked over Henry’s shoulder.
“Looking for work?”
“I should be, but I’m looking through community college courses. I filled out the apps, and I’ve been planning on computers, but nothing’s appealing to me.” He shrugged. “It does help to have residency.”
“Yeah, it does. So, uh, I haven’t eaten in two days. You wanna take me out for a burger or something?” Oh God, he was so nervous. A burger was actually thelastthing he wanted.
Henry grinned, though. “Absofuckin’lutely.”
Well. Awesome. Lance bit his lip and thought that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to keep food down for once.
LANCE DROVE,and they found a bistro in midtown. He parked near McKinley Park, and they took their food to go to eat in the shade. McKinley wasn’t the best of areas, but nobody bothered them as they sat on a park bench in the shade of the palm trees, looked out over the duck pond, and told random stories from their youth.
Lance had been an honors student—Henry wasn’t surprised.
Henry had been a football star—Lance was unshocked.
But underneath their stories, a picture started to emerge of Henry as a boy denied.
“Oh my God,” Henry said, laughing. “No you had to be there. Because cow-tipping—it’s the dumbest fucking thing. And I was, like, ‘Mal, you crazy stupid asshole, there’s nothing funny about how sad they are when they fall and how much they can get hurt. This is my family’s livelihood!’, right?”
“Yes, and I find it a little bit sexy that you don’t approve of random cruelty,” Lance said, wrapping half his burger up and putting it carefully in the brown takeout bag.
Henry gave him a quick grin and a sideways look that punched Lance in the stomachwayharder than Dex’s, and continued with his story.
“So Mal, he decides he’s going to push the cow anyway, and the poor old thing goes down—on me. She wakes up and goes ‘Moo!’ and wiggles her bony spine all over my leg, which snaps like a twig. We’re, like, in the eighth grade, and thank God it was after Pop Warner or my life would have been over. Anyway, I’m pinned. Mal took one look at me and ran off. I’m just lying there, yelling my damned head off, and Davy and Travis come out of the house because I guess they’re the only ones who were still awake and heard me. They pull me out—I so puked all over myself too, because God, I cannot take pain like that, it’s embarrassing—and they set me up on my side. Davy gives me his jacket to keep me warm—it’s Montana in November, you people here don’t even fucking know what cold is—and Trav runs to go get Dad. And there I am, whimpering like a weenie, and Davy says, ‘Look, Henry, you got two choices here. You either tell Dad who pushed the fucking cow on top of you, or you keep silent and suck it up.’”
Lance let out a strained chuckle. “Your brother’s not stupid.”
Henry shook his head. “No, but Dad was. ’Cause I picked option B, and Dad bought it. I was not only laid up with the broken leg, I had no TV and no video games and Mal couldn’t come over for two months.”
“Good,” Lance said viciously. “Fucker should have stayed away. But your dad actually bought it? That you tipped the cow on top of yourself?”
“Yeah.” Henry chuckled a little. “Dad’s got lots of convictions, but Travis doesn’t think much of his smarts.”
Lance grunted. “I don’t either.”
Henry stood. “Time to get back,” he said, not meeting Lance’s eyes. “I told Davy I’d go in afterhours tonight and fix some cabinets in the back.” He wrinkled his nose, completely naturally, and completely Henry. “God, you think the apartment smells like jizz. I would really like to live someplace that potpourri doesn’t smell like cedar shavings on a spunk-puddle, you know what I mean?”
Lance laughed. “Yeah, yeah I do.” They headed back to the car, the shade adding a layer of oppressiveness to the early June heat. Tomorrow was going to be a scorcher.
“Why do you stay?” Henry asked, and Lance swallowed.
“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” he said, voice remote.
Henry let out a sigh. “That’s going around.”
Lance let out a sigh, and it was time to go.
They took off back toward the apartment, and while the conversation was quiet, Lance felt hope. He hadn’t understood why he’d walked off that porn set that morning, but he was starting to see why it was a fair move.
That night, he and Henry and the guys stayed up playing board games that Henry had borrowed from Dex. It was a fun night, really, but not particularly intimate.
That was okay. Lance had gotten a lunch and a frank conversation. There was hope for more—there must have been. Because Lance couldn’t help lingering, sitting on the arm of the couch after the others had gone to bed.
“What?” Henry asked, sitting on the corner of the couch and hugging his knees. “Was there not enough soul baring at lunch?”
