Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Jasper climbed out of his car balancing a carrier full of hot drinks in one hand and his work bag in the other.
The nudge of his hip against the car door jostled everything enough that the drinks nearly went sideways, the latte he’d picked up for Logan coming dangerously close to toppling to the ground. Somehow, he managed to catch it.
The air at the park was slightly chillier than the air at home, still carrying that cool, damp smell that only dissipated when the sun burned off the clouds and dried things out.
In the distance, Jasper heard hammering, or maybe chopping.
He smiled, knowing those sounds, whatever they were, meant Logan was already hard at work, bringing them one step closer to the park being fully functional and the weight of its issues off his shoulders.
A coffee for his workers was the least he could do to show his thanks.
The continued banging and shouting should have offered further comfort for Jasper as he approached the worksite. But the longer it went on, the more it reminded him of the time Ryan spent several days building Jasper a chicken coop.
Jasper hadn’t even wanted chickens at first. It was all Ryan’s idea, but his excitement had been infectious.
Jasper ended up doing a week of research and fell in love with an all-white breed with bright red combs.
With Ryan’s retirement on the horizon, it was easy for Jasper to give in—who could say no to the idea of Ryan loving on a bunch of birds?
Jasper told Ryan to wait until they saw a coop being sold online by someone who’d decided they were over the whole urban chicken thing, but Ryan had bigger ideas.
He and his friend Micah went to the hardware store, then forced Jasper to stay out of the kitchen for several days since its only window overlooked that part of the yard.
By the time they were done, the anticipation had Jasper more excited for the chickens than Ryan.
It was a beautiful coop. The day Ryan finally brought Jasper out to the yard had been one of those moments he thought would be a forever memory—two middle-aged guys standing in front of their new coop, preparing to raise a bunch of chickens together, figuring out what to do with a huge number of eggs, dreaming up ways to decorate the run just because it was fun.
And it was still a beautiful coop; it had just lost some of its magic.
Jasper had been shocked to learn how much work chickens were, and how alone he would be doing it all.
They pecked him when he got their eggs, they were messy, their food brought rats to their yard.
But those reasons didn’t top the list of why he resented that structure every time he saw it out the kitchen window.
Just hours after Jasper had picked up the baby chicks they’d decided on together, Ryan announced he’d signed an extension on his contract and would be with CWA another year.
Forcing himself to stop thinking about it, Jasper looked up and found Logan leaning against a shovel and wiping his brow, despite it being cold and mostly dry.
“I brought you guys coffee!” he shouted.
Logan’s employee, a young guy named Warren, who looked barely older than Jasper’s students, was filling in—or more accurately, clogging—a French drain with dirt, rendering it completely ineffective.
“Good morning, Jasper,” Logan said. He grinned when he noticed what was in Jasper’s hands.
“Hey, guys,” Jasper said, eyeing the now nonfunctional drain as casually as he could while horror settled in his gut. “What’s the plan with the—"
“Great to see you.”
“Yeah, good morning. I, uh, brought you guys coffee. I know you’re already hard at work, but it’s still early. I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Doesn’t hurt at all,” Warren said.
“I brought you a latte, Logan. And Warren, I think I remember you like just plain black coffee.”
“Thanks, Jasper.” Warren took the coffee and gestured towards the trail. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom and then head to the fence.”
Logan nodded. “Sounds good. See you shortly.”
“How’s everything going?” Jasper asked. He took a sip of his tea and hissed. “Shit. I burned my tongue.”
“I’m sorry,” Logan said, grinning behind his coffee cup. “Things are good. We’re working on the fence in the neighborhood today. Do you want to walk over there with me, and I can show you what we’re working on today?”
The trail leading to the fence installation was a bit of a hike to the top, though it flattened out closer to the end.
The fairy tale neighborhood, a small collection of tiny houses designed after children’s tales, was built into the side of a hill.
The fence lining it had been wobbly for several years.
Not loose enough to be dangerous, but Jasper feared they were one bad winter away from the wood rotting away and a child or dog rolling down to the parking lot.
“Yeah, that sounds great.”
“I’ll follow you,” Logan said.
Ryan didn’t know why, but he thought when he left the house all those weeks ago, he and Jasper might spend time together, or that Jasper might give Ryan a chance to show him how things would be different now. But so far, it’d been weeks of casual texting and the occasional unpleasant conversation.
He’d heard from Beni that Jasper was meeting Logan at the park, so Ryan decided that was a good day for him to check on the work that had been done.
It wasn’t the big stuff. Ryan knew Jasper would never let just anyone touch the carousel.
He figured it was smaller stuff Ryan could have done himself but was asked not to, like fixing fences, updating lighting, or installing a nicer dishwasher in the biggest restaurant on site.
Every fix Ryan passed by was half-finished bullshit.
Messy, rushed, hardly better than they’d been before Logan’s grimy hands touched them.
He walked through the animatronics’ backstage and pulled the curtain aside, finding Geppetto and Pinocchio pieced together with duct tape painted the color of their clothing.
The wiring to the speaker nearby was replaced with heavy, tangled knots of cabling.
Next, he stopped in front of the recently installed log fence by the water feature and pushed on it, grumbling as two panels flopped over, crushing a patch of adorable animatronic carnivorous plants.
He’d seen enough. He pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders and retrieved a small notebook from his pocket, jotting down yet another item to his list of projects he’d need to redo, then darted into the woods when he saw Logan emerge from the restroom.
Logan was… young. Offensively young. And blond.
And built, with big hazel eyes and a sparkling smile directed at Jasper.
Ryan had spent the last twenty years surrounded by men who looked like that and never cared, because he’d been one of them.
But there was something irritating about the way Logan looked—a combination of an unnecessarily handsome face, visible strength, and youth.
It was like looking in a time traveling mirror, but one that picked a slightly worse person to show in its reflection.
Ryan could feel how unfair he was being, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe he was bitter because his own body required ten minutes of gentle stretching every morning to prevent it from falling apart, whereas Logan looked like a guy whose worst injury ever was a splinter from an unsanded board.
Or maybe it was just because fifteen years ago when Ryan walked into his sister’s Christmas party, he’d looked just like that, and Jasper’s face had lit up like he couldn’t believe he was real. Of course, fifteen years ago, Ryan was a guy who had never let Jasper down.
Things change.
“I brought you guys coffee!” Jasper called out, turning Ryan’s attention back to the person who mattered.
Logan wiped his brow with a bandana—a performative gesture, Ryan was sure—then smiled as he approached, hand extended. Ryan watched Jasper hand Logan a latte, and the second guy, a black coffee.
He stayed in the tree line, moving when Logan and Jasper moved, stopping when they stopped, keeping just enough distance that the two stayed visible through the trees.
The forest floor was mercifully soft, easing his weight as he quietly stepped along the same general path as Jasper.
He watched them carefully, Jasper leading them towards the fairy tale village, Logan trailing behind and eyeing Jasper’s body—he was wearing Ryan’s favorite pants, the ones that made his ass look like a ripe peach, and it took everything in him to keep his hands from wrapping around Logan’s throat.
A couple times, Ryan could swear Jasper slowed and looked around, eyes scanning the woods like he heard something out of place. He’d force himself to stop walking when Jasper did that—difficult, because it meant he couldn’t hear their voices.
Eventually, Logan laughed and muttered something Ryan couldn’t quite hear, and whatever it was made Jasper laugh stupidly and cause bits of color to rise to his cheeks. Ryan braved a step closer to the two of them, desperate to hear what was being said.
Jasper spoke first. “I don’t have time to walk through everything with you today, but maybe next week you can show me what work has been done? I can’t wait to see it.”
Logan rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Yeah, of course. Text me a time that will work. Maybe we can get better coffee after.”
Ryan’s pencil snapped in his hand, and he narrowed his body behind the closest tree, hoping they’d think the noise was just an animal. Neither of them noticed, lost in the conversation that had started out so boring and ended with that idiot asking Jasper out with an undeserved level of confidence.
“Coffee could be fun,” Jasper said, and with slightly less enthusiasm than Ryan imagined Logan was hoping for. “I’ll let you know.”
“Great.”