Just Ask Him
“Tell me again why you’re sulking.”
Huxley glowered at his brother. “I am not sulking.”
Wembley snorted.
“What?”
“We have twin colts, a slew of new kids, baby ducks on the pond. Your stupid smart crow hopping around like a tiny Machiavelli. How can you not be cheerful?”
Huxley said nothing.
“Because you’re sulking, that’s how.”
“I knew this was gonna happen.”
“What was?”
“Test is done, and I haven’t heard from him, in, like a week. Just…pfft.” he snapped his fingers. “Gone again.”
Wembley set the pitchfork he’d been tossing straw with to one side and leaned on a nearby stall post. “Did you, or did you not tell him you would get in touch with him when you got your test results?”
“What?”
Wembley made air quotes. “Give you a shout when I hear from the MNR.” He dropped his arms to cross them over his chest. “I think that’s what you told him.”
“How would you know what I told him?”
“I—” Wembley blushed, pushed upright and suddenly, the straw he’d lined the stall with was fascinating. “Totally beside the point.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Fine. He told Leland. You know, the guy he works with who is his friend?”
“So?”
“And Leland may have mentioned it to Danny.”
“Again. So?” Although hearing that he and Bill had been a source of gossip wasn’t exactly awesome.
Wembley’s blush got deeper, and a penny that had nothing to do with Bill dropped.
“You and Danny?” Huxley asked.
Wembley picked up his fork and poked at the straw that did not need any more spreading.
“Seriously?”
“The point is,” Wembley said, turning back to face him, straw once more forgotten, “you told him to back off, and now you’re pouting because he did what you asked.”
“But you and Danny?—”
“Don’t evade. Did you, or did you not tell him to back off?”
“I did not.”
“But you did tell him you would call him.”
“I—” Huxley huffed out a breath. “Maybe.”
“So then call him.”
“And say what? I haven’t heard back about the test yet.”
“And from what I know of the MNR, if you failed, they’d have already sent your mark, along with a long list of things you have to do to start the whole application over again. If you passed, they’ll wait the full ten days to tell you, because they’re assholes like that. Just call him.”
“But—”
“It’s not about the test, dufus. It’s about you and him, right?”
“What is?”
“This.” Wembley waved both hands at him. “All of this.”
“So, I call him, and what?”
“Invite him to Dad’s Day.”
“That’s a good idea.” Their father agreed, entering the barn on the tail end of Wembley’s suggestion. “Lord knows he’s not going to celebrate with his own father.”
Huxley glared at Wembley before turning to their father. “Hey, Dad.”
“Morning, Son. Do as your brother says. Invite the boy over for the BBQ.”
“Not a boy,” Huxley muttered, gathering up their tools and tossing them into the wheelbarrow with a loud clang.
“When you get to my age, Son…”
“Yada-yada,” Wembley said with a grin, slapping their father on the back.
“Call Bill, Hux.”
“He’s not going to want to come here for Father’s Day.”
“He’s not going to want to go to his father’s either.”
“You don’t know that. They usually do something together. Or they did, when we were kids.”
“You mean before his father cut him off for taking the wrong major?”
Huxley sighed.
“Even if they’re back on speaking terms, who does that to their own child?”
“But he’s not a kid now. Shouldn’t they sort it out?”
“They should. But just in case.” Armand took the pitch forks and wheelbarrow. “Invite your young man. Celebrating with a family who understands family is a damn sight better than his alternative. Now the pair of you,” he pointed between Huxley and Wembley, “stop procrastinating and saddle up. Those fences are not going to check themselves.”
“We’ll take the quad,” Wembley said.
“You absolutely will not. Saddle Dasher and Lord Byron. Those nags need the exercise, and frankly, neither of you have been on a horse in too long.” He fixed a look on Huxley. “Don’t give me that knee as an excuse, right. If you can pitch hay, you can ride a horse at a walk around the property. And you.” He turned to Wembley. “Your kids are in good hands. Danny knows enough of what he’s doing at this point, he and I can handle their feeding. Go get on a horse and enjoy yourselves.”
“You do know we aren’t cowboys, right Dad?” Wembley joked. But he did head for the tack room.
“Can you even call a gelding a nag?” Huxley wondered, but he didn’t argue, because arguing about horses with their father was pointless. Plus, a ride on a sunny spring afternoon wouldn’t hurt him one bit. And he was not one to pass up an opportunity to tease his brother about hooking up with one of their B and B guests. Again.
Because it was Danny, he wasn’t going to let Wembley deflect, either. While it didn’t bother him that he and Danny hadn’t been meant for each other, he still felt a bit protective of him.
Later, after the ride—which Huxley was glad of having taken—when he texted Bill, maybe, he deflected a bit himself.
Huxley: Dad says come to Father’s Day BBQ
Bill: So you’re not dead
Huxley: ??? The hell?
Bill: I’ll come to FD BBQ
Huxley: Good
Bill: Good
Janet was positively gleeful to hear Bill would be joining them. She’d assessed the wall of the clinic he’d asked her to paint and had started sketching ideas that she wanted to pass by him.
Also, she was firmly in the Bill-and-Huxley-up-in-a-tree camp.
“You spend way too much time with a ten-year-old,” Huxley told her.
She grinned at him. “Does he like apple pie, do you think, or lemon meringue?”
“You know Dad likes apple. Tart. With cheddar cheese.”
“I wasn’t talking bout Dad.”
“This is Father’s Day. Not Bill’s day. Make what you’d normally make. He can deal.”
As he said that, his phone buzzed and he pulled it out.
Bill: Should I bring something?
Huxley: No.
Bill: Your Dad drinks Labatt’s 50, right?
“Why does he care what Dad drinks?”
“Go.” Janet waved him out of her kitchen. “You smell like horses, and I have guests checking in shortly. Go sort out your love life someplace else.” She glanced past him through the screened front door. “And take your little bird with you, please.”
Sure enough, Funk was perched on the porch railing.
“How did he even get up there?”
“Oh. He uses the flowerpots and broom handle.”
“So move the broom.”
“I did. He gave me shit until I put it back. He likes to look in the door and see what’s going on. Mostly it’s fine. The guests like him, once they see him following your goose around the yard for a bit and see that he’s a harmless showboat. I just don’t like him right up in everybody’s business at check in. You never know if someone’s going to be afraid of him, or something.”
“Makes sense.” Huxley opened the door to address the bird. “Come on, you. We’ve been kicked to the proverbial curb.”
“Come back for supper!” Janet called after him. “The new reservation is a gay couple. You can break the ice with your people.”
“My people?”
She grinned at him.
“Whatever. Can’t you make Wembley eat with them?”
“I plan to. Both of you. See you at seven.”
“Whatever!” he shouted again, waving over his shoulder. He’d be there for supper. He enjoyed meeting the guests. Anyone who chose their farm to stay at over a traditionally run B and B was probably good people. Most of the time, they were interesting and fun. Like Danny. Eating their first meal with them at the country kitchen table gave the family a good idea of what kind of entertainment they might like, and if they were more likely to want to hang around on the farm, or be directed into town, or farther, to the city for said entertainment.
Janet clattered out the door onto the porch after him. “They’re B and B owners, too, Hux.”
He turned back at the bottom of the stairs. “So?”
She twisted her hands together. If she even had nerves, they so rarely showed, even that small display was noteworthy.
“Hey.” Jogging back up, he wrapped her in a hug. “You got this, sis. They’ll love you. They’ll love the B and B. And your cooking.”
For a moment, she soaked up his comfort, but then pushed on his chest to back him off. “You ever heard of The Oaks? In Griffon’s Elbow?”
“Wait. Is that the place…Lucky D…some city…Denver? Wasn’t there some kind of scandal with him? It was all over the news a few years ago.”
She nodded. “He took some guy to court over sexual assault and won a huge settlement. It was major because the guy was some kind of millionaire or something.”
“I thought Denver ran a youth foundation after that.”
“He does that, too.”
“Okay, now I’m intimidated.”
“Right?” More of the hand twisting, and Huxley pulled himself up taller. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here. We can talk up the sanctuary. We do our part. Animals need protection, too, after all.”
She nodded and gazed up at him, like she wanted something else.
“What?”
“You could…bring a friend, if you wanted.”
He huffed. “Fine. I’ll ask him, but you owe me.”
Her grin was radiant.
“But you know I can talk up my own animal sanctuary, right? I don’t actually need Bill Wellcastle, Veterinarian Extraordinaire, to do it for me.”
“I know. But he’s pretty. And he likes to talk. You only natter on when you’re really nervous, and if you get really nervous, he’s excellent at stopping you rambling and going psheeew—” she made a running and falling off the cliff motion with her hand “—off the deep end.”
“I do not do that.” But he was remembering the MNR lobby and heat rose to his cheeks. “Fine,” he muttered.
“Thank you.”
“But you owe me,” he said again.
“Sure. Anything you want.”
“I’ll remember you said that.”
“I’m sure you will.” But she was no longer ringing her hands, so that was all that really mattered to him.
“Come on, you,” he said to Funk on his way past where the bird perched.
Huxley: Hey. What are you doing tonight?
Bill: Why?
Huxley: Jan needs dinner reinforcement
Bill: Since when?
Huxley: Since today.
Huxley: She wants people at the dinner table. I told her I’d ask.
Huxley: So I’m asking.
Bill: I’ll be there.
Bill: Two invitations in one day
Bill: Should I get my hopes up?
Huxley: I have no idea what you are talking about.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket as he reached his door, refusing to look when it buzzed again. He knew exactly what Bill was asking and it made his heart do weird things in his chest that he wasn’t ready to examine.