Meet the Grouchy Gay Geese
Huxley turned back to the grill, because if he didn’t, he might crack. He wasn’t ready to crack. What if he let Bill in, and Bill left again?
Which was a paranoid thought, he knew. Where was he going to go? He had a job. A house. Pet cats, for crying out loud. He wasn’t about to leave town again.
But then, hadn’t he been in town the past two years, and he might as well have stayed in St. Kitts.
But hadn’t he committed to helping Huxley pass this stupid government test?
“You want your bun toasted?” he asked. Pathetic attempt to change the subject, but the less he thought about Bill sleeping in his bed, getting out of it looking like he’d just been fucked, the better.
“I’m sorry. What do you want to do with my buns?”
Huxley snorted out a laugh. “Your hamburger bun, you troll.”
Suddenly, he could smell Bill, clean but covered in sleep musk and overlaid with the tang of beer, and yeah. He wanted to do things to the man’s buns. And other parts of him. Bill’s hand on the small of his back did not help.
He reached past Huxley to spread a burger bun on the grill. “Yes. Please. Toast my bun.”
“Bill.” His voice was too gruff, and he cleared his throat.
“Hux.”
“You know, only people I really like get to call me that.”
“I’ve always called you that.” That hand snuck around to Huxley’s waist, and for the life of him, he could not find the ounce of self-preservation it would take to shrug Bill off.
“Why are you standing so close to me?” he asked.
“Why are you letting me?”
“Am I? Maybe I’m just…stuck.”
And instantly, Bill’s hand, and the rest of him, warmth and all, was gone.
Huxley whirled around. “I didn’t mean…”
Bill held up both hands. “Let’s just eat. And then we should probably talk.”
“God. You make me nuts.”
Bill grinned then, and it was as dazzling as Huxley remembered. “Back at ya’.”
Huxley’s heart rate skyrocketed, and he had to swallow to get his throat working.
Though Bill’s grin fell away, his expression remained vibrant and his tone light. “Don’t burn my bun.”
Huxley nodded and turned back to the grill. “Right.”
“You make a mean burger,” Bill said, a while later as he pushed his plate away.
“Credit where its due. Jan made the burgers. I just cooked them. She made the buns too.”
“She have some kind of time machine? How does she get it all done?”
“Loves her job. She gets to live rent-free, have her kid close, cook for people, and keep house without some asshole husband telling her she’s doing it all wrong.”
“Yeah, I heard the thing with Dylan tanked pretty quick after I left.”
“Just glad he fucked off before Leah was born. He doesn’t deserve a kid as great as that.”
“Hard to believe you have a ten-year-old niece.”
Huxley nodded.
Silence settled awkward and thick between them, and Huxley was about to get up when Funk hopped over to stab his foot with his beak.
“Ouch! The hell, dude?”
The bird looked up at him, head cocked to one side.
“I don’t know what that means.”
For answer, Funk waddled over to the coffee table and tugged at the folder Bill had brought over the day before, then cocked his head again, and hopped over to the door to peck at the screen.
“Still don’t know what any of that means.”
“Crows are smart.”
“Tell me. Remember him turning the tap on and off? I told you about that.”
“You did.”
“So what is he trying to do now?”
“I would guess, he wants outside.”
Which made sense. Earlier, he had watched Huxley through the screen when Huxley had been sitting at the patio table with his coffee and reading through the material Bill had brought him.
“Is that safe?” he asked, glancing out into the yard, as if to gauge the threat level.
“I think probably. He’s not going far. He still can’t fly, and if we’re out there, nothing is going to try to eat him in the broad daylight.”
“Not too cold out there for him?”
Bill looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “He’s a crow. A wild animal.”
“Yeah.”
“Who lives in the wild, not in your living room.”
“He’s hurt.”
“Yes.” Bill approached him, like he thought Huxley might spook. “But he’s been up and about, eating, drinking. Pooping, yes?”
Huxley grimaced. “Yes. Unfortunately.”
“You can probably train him. At least to poop on command, and not just anywhere. Although to be fair, the sooner we get him used to living in your yard instead of your living room, the better for both of you.”
That he could potty train a bird was news. Although Bill was right. The eventual goal was to have him live outside, at least, safeguarded by his vicious goose guardians, if he couldn’t ever be released back into the forest.
If it cut down on the number of times he had to throw a rug in the washer, it would be worth it. He’d have to look up how to house train him. Just in case.
As soon as the door was open, Funk bobbed towards it, but he stopped at the threshold and peered out.
A hundred yards or so off, the duck pond glimmered in the afternoon light. The ducks floated quietly at one end, and the geese grazed the lawn at the near end.
“You think the geese know he’s here?” Bill asked.
“They seem to know everything. Susan said they were at the barn door this morning, checking on the new arrivals.”
Even as they discussed it, and Huxley opened the door to slip out, the geese turned towards the trailer and were making their meandering way up the slight slope.
“Geese and crows don’t fight, do they?” Huxley asked nervously. He had no desire to get between a goose and the object of its ire.
“Here.” Bill tapped him on the shoulder with the handle of his broom. “Just in case. He had Huxley’s mother’s walking stick in his other hand.
“Good idea.”
The geese stopped at the edge of the yard, where their beloved clover field ended, and his shaggy meadow began. Not that his meadow wasn’t also goose-cropped in places. They made an excellent, low-cost lawn maintenance crew.
“What do you think they’re waiting for?” Bill whispered.
“Are you afraid of my geese?” He might have found that amusing if it wasn’t appropriate.
“Aren’t you?”
“A bit,” he had to admit. Not that they had ever harmed him, or even threatened to. They knew the hand that fed them, after all. But they were guard geese, and they did their job well. Gentle, they were not.
Eventually, Funk broke the stalemate, poking his beak between Huxley’s legs and cawing at the other birds.
One of the geese, Hubert, honked back at him.
The other, Hardy, unfurled his wings and stretched out his neck towards Funk.
Funk took that as an invitation, and strutted out to meet the outstretched beak, unfurling his one good wing.
The geese nudged at him a bit, as if to investigate why he seemed to only have one wing, then Hubert shrugged a goosy shrug and waddled back towards the pond.
Hardy ruffled his feathers, settled on his chest in the grass in the sunlight, and waited, watching Funk explore the yard.
“Hardy’s always been the more maternal one,” Huxley said, setting his broom handle aside once it was clear the geese had no intention of harming their new charge.
“How do you tell them apart?”
“Attitude, mostly. Hubert has more Canada Goose asshole in him, but Hardy is not so mean. He’s also a bit lighter in colour.”
“So, you have a horse that successfully twinned, goats who follow your brother around like puppies, and gay hybrid geese.”
“And a crow.”
“And a crow.”
“And don’t forget the barn cat that looks like a miniature lynx.”
“She’s still here?”
“She is.”
“Weirdest farm ever.”
Huxley grinned and turned to face him. “Isn’t it just?”
“It’ll just get weirder if you become a wildlife sanctuary.”
“The more weird, the merrier. We’ve learned to embrace it.”
“I’m going to fetch the study material.”
“I had a look at it while you were sleeping.”
“And?”
“Most of it seems straight forward. Common sense. Hopefully I can keep enough of it in my brain to get through the test.”
“I had an idea about that, actually.”
Huxley did his eyebrow thing and waited.
“What if we asked Wembley or your Dad to take the test? Or even Janet for that matter. Doesn’t matter who does it, as long as someone does.”
“No.”
“I know you have a hard time?—”
“I said no.”
“Okay. But why?”
“Because this is my thing.” Huxley turned to watch Funk as he approached Hardy, who pretended he wasn’t paying any attention to the smaller bird. “I asked Dad for the space to do it. He said yes because I’m the one who asked. I have to follow through.”
“But he’d get why.”
Huxley turned on him then. “I can do this, Bill. I’m not stupid.”
“I know that. I wasn’t meaning to imply anything like that at all. Just that I’ve seen you on exam day. Why put yourself through that stress if we can get around it?”
“Because I want this.” Huxley turned to face him. “I love this farm, but Janet has her garden and her art and the B and B aspect buttoned up. Wembley has his animals and his projects. Dad manages the horses and the fields. I want a piece of it that’s mine.”
“And you think a wildlife sanctuary will slot in with the rest?”
“I think if I can rehab a few birds, or provide them a safe space to live if we can’t release them, it won’t impact the farm much, and it might bring in some donations for you.”
“How do you figure?”
“The B and B guests love the goats and horses. If I integrate the wildlife educational aspect into the rest, it might drum up a few supporters for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do this to support the clinic.”
“You asked me to go out of my way to protect Funk. He’s going to be your ambassador. Earn his keep.” He didn’t like the frown creasing Bill’s forehead, and instinctively, he curled a hand around the back of his neck. “You didn’t ask me to support the clinic. I know that. I will, though, because while I want to do this for me?—”
Funk hopped closer to him and cawed up at him, like an unruly toddler demanding attention.
“And you, Funk-o-pop. Keep your feathers on.”
Funk chuck-chucked at him, then turned and hop-skipped back to his new goose friend.
“While I want this, I will need your help. I know about goats and horses and dogs and geese. Wild birds, not so much.” He tightened his grip. “Tell me we’re in this together.”
Bill knew Huxley had asked a question. He’d heard it. He just had no idea how to respond to it. Or how to speak. Or think.
He could only feel the pressure of Huxley’s hand at the back of his neck.
He could only stare into the clear blue of his eyes.
Okay, and he could wish that one of them had the guts to break the stalemate and kiss the other.
He just wasn’t sure that was him.
“Sorry.” Huxley blinked, breaking the spell, and he would have backed away if Bill didn’t grab his wrist.
“Wait,” he barked. “Just. Wait.”
For a split second, Huxley’s eyes went wide. Then he sputtered. “For what, Bill? What am I waiting for?”
“I don’t—” Bell let him go and stepped back himself, out of Huxley’s reach. “I don’t know. I—yeah, Hux, of course we’re in this together.”
“Oh no,” Huxley said advancing at the same time Funk croaked at Bill, as if he was backing Huxley’s next play. “I want to know what you think I should wait for.” He crossed his arms instead of reaching for Bill again. “And how long you think I should wait?”
“I don’t know what I meant by that.” Bill scrubbed at the back of his neck, trying—and failing—to scrub away the tingle Huxley’s touch had caused on his skin. He started to turn away, looking for room to pace, but Huxley stepped in front on him again.
“Don’t, Bill. You asked me to wait, and I did. For a really long time. Only you never came back to tell me exactly what I was waiting for, or how long it would take.”
“And you want to know now what I was trying to figure out when we were kids? Ten years later?”
“I guess maybe I want to know if there’s anything left to wait for? Or is it just wishful thinking?”
“Please don’t tell me you’ve been sitting on this farm for ten years waiting on me. Waiting on your life to start.”
Huxley snorted, and it might have been insulting if his eyes hadn’t been as soft as they were. “You think you’re all that?” he asked, but with the same softness undercutting his tone and taking the harshness out of it.
Bill remembered that underlying gentleness. It was so deeply embedded in Huxley’s bones it had made it impossible for Bill not to be drawn to him, even when they were kids.
“I don’t know what to think,” Bill admitted. “It’s been a decade, and you’re still here, still doing what you were doing when I left.”
“Because this is where I want to be. I like my life, Bill. Not everybody has to go off into the great big world to find what they’re going to be. I found me a long time ago. Right here.”
“But what about—how can you be so sure?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because that’s how I grew up? Mom and Dad lived in this town their whole lives and married the boy—or girl—next door. And they were always happy. They raised us to know that was enough.”
“What about your ambitions? Your life goals?”
“Don’t do that, either. I have plenty of ambition. And life goals. I want to keep this land in my family. I want to create a place where my nieces and nephews—if there are ever more of them—can make a decent living. I want Leah to grow up surrounded by things she loves and people who love her, and not some bastard who belittles her and ends up making her feel like who she is and what she has to offer aren’t enough.”
“Like my dad, you mean.”
“Like her piece of shit father, actually. But sure. Let’s go there. Like your father did to you.”
“He wasn’t that bad.”
“You think I don’t know being a vet was never supposed to be on your list of life aspirations? And for crying out Pete’s sake what father would not be proud as shit of a son who went to school like you did, became a vet like you did, then came home to make a huge difference in the place where he grew up?”
“Dad just wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”
Huxley snorted.
“His grandfather started that law firm, and he wanted me to carry it on after he retired. It’s not that he’s not proud of me being a vet. Only he’s disappointed I didn’t want to be a lawyer.”
“Disappointment a father gets over once he realizes his kid is actually happy.”
“Maybe.” Bill watched the crow and goose as the goose grazed on the thyme growing between the stones of Huxley’s cobbled walkway. The crow followed him, snatching up the beetles and ants he disturbed.
“You are happy,” Huxley said after a moment.
“Course I am.”
When Huxley didn’t say anything else, Bill looked up at him.
“What about when you find a partner you want him to meet, Bill?”
“What?”
“You heard me. When you want to bring someone home to him, to share that part of your life with him, and he asks you if that’s the degenerate who turned you against him?”
“What?”
“It didn’t matter when he said it to me. I already knew you had to leave to do what you wanted to do anyway. But don’t put the next guy through that, pretending your dad’s not so bad, giving someone you care about the impression you’d?—”
“Wait. What are you talking about?”
“Your father. I thought we were talking about your father. About choices. About deciding how long it will take you to figure out what you want.”
“I know what I want. I knew that summer we were looking after your ducks.”
“I don’t mean about being a vet, Bill.”
“Neither do I.”
Now Huxley blinked at him, as though confused as Bill was. “What…” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”
“I need to back up a bit. What did you mean about the degenerate who turned me against him?”
Huxley narrowed his eyes. “Your father, that weekend in June when you introduced me to him?—”
“Not like he didn’t know who you were, Hux. We’ve been friends since we were six.”
“No, when you told him about us. On Father’s Day. You said he’d be disappointed about you not going to law school, but he’d get over it because being a vet wasn’t like you were flipping burgers.”
“And dating you wasn’t marrying Katie May Anderson, but it wasn’t like I was sleeping my way through the drama club twinks. Yeah. Our logic was weird back then. But he got over it.”
Huxley smirked, but it twisted his mouth into an unhappy tangle. “While you were off in another room doing some acceptably Wellcastle thing, your father cornered me in your living room and asked me if it was my fault you’d turned your back on your legacy to work with filthy animals instead of following in his respectable footsteps. That if I wanted what was best for you, I’d take my degenerate ass off his property, and let you get on with your life.”
“And you sat through Father’s Day Dinner anyway?”
Huxley’s expression softened. “Because I did know what was best for you, and it wasn’t caving to that asshole.”
“He’s still my father, Hux.”
“Sorry.”
Bill sighed. “He’s also an asshole. I’m sorry. I had no idea he said that to you. He really called you a degenerate?”
“It was the least of the things he called me when you were in another room. I figured you spent so much time at the farm that summer because you were trying to avoid him.”
“I spent time here to be with you. I knew I had to leave for school. I didn’t want to miss a minute of time with you.”
Huxley only look sad at that.
“I guess—you knew I had to go. Why were you so mad at me for it? For so long?”
“I wasn’t mad at you for leaving. At first, I was mad because your father made it known you’d gone off to law school, exactly like you had promised me you weren’t doing. And when I tried to get in touch with you, you never replied. I assumed you were avoiding me.”
“I—he cut me off. I was working two jobs and doing school, and barely eating because I had no money. I couldn’t even afford a phone plan. Or to come back here on the breaks.”
“I know that now. But I didn’t. Not until Susan came back at Thanksgiving and told me everything.” He grinned, then, a shadow of his normal devastating smile. “So I kept the sweater. I was going to return it in person. Let you know I was on your side. That you still had me. Only I fucked that up royally by crashing my bike and getting hurt bad enough to keep in hospital for a month.”
“And made everyone promise not to tell me. I can’t believe the whole town kept that secret.”
“You never came back to test it. I know why,” he said holding up a hand to stop Bill explaining again how poor he’d been during his time in school, before the scholarships and bursaries and compassion of the vets he’d done his internships with allowed him to go to St. Kitts. “And that was exactly why I swore everyone to secrecy. Because I didn’t want to add that onto your stress. And I didn’t want your father to find out, because he, sure as shit, would have told you. Just to torture you.”
Bill wanted to protest that no, his father would not have been so cruel, but he wasn’t certain of that. He loved the man, because he was his father, but he didn’t much like the man for himself.
“Anyway, you never found out. It took time to get back on my feet, and by then, Mom was fading, and Dad needed us all here to run things while he looked after her. Then he needed us to look after him.” He shrugged. “Time passed. You went to St. Kitts.”
“I’m back now,” Bill said, as if that meant anything. As if he knew what it meant.
Huxley nodded. “And I never left.”
Bill didn’t know what that meant, either.