Bonobo: I won’t say anything! Cross my heart. (You can’t see me, but I’m crossing my heart.)
S.P. McAuley: LOL the new SCENE (not chapter) will be posted in mid-July.
Bonobo: Ugh. Three weeks away? I hate you.
S.P. McAuley: fjkafaiofjae nnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Bonobo: Um…are you okay? I didn’t mean it, you know. I could never hate the author of my favourite web comic.
S.P. McAuley: Shit, sorry. I dropped my phone and my cat pounced on it.
Bonobo: Awww, you have a cat?
S.P. McAuley: Yup. A little three-legged thing named Tripaw. I named the cat in Scythe and Swords after him :)
Bonobo: You have a three-legged cat…named TRIPAW?
S.P. McAuley: Yes? Like tripod. Because he has three legs.
Bonobo: No, I get it. Just…my new boyfriend has a three-legged cat named Tripaw. And he gave the same explanation for the name.
Bonobo: Sam?
S.P. McAuley: …Bo?
“You must’ve thought I was such an idiot when I gave you my comics to read a couple weeks ago,” Bo said. “Going on and on about how awesome Scythe and Swords is.”
Bo was still a little bit shocked that Sam was the author of his favourite web comic, something Bo had only found out while chatting with S.P. McAuley this morning on Tumblr.
S.P. McAuley was Sam. Weird.
“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Bo.” Sam rubbed his hand up and down Bo’s arm.
Thunder boomed outside and rain lashed the windows. Bo ignored the movie playing on TV and rolled over on the couch to face Sam.
“Knowing you’re S.P. McAuley just makes you that much hotter,” he said, making Sam laugh.
They’d had plans for a hike today, but the rain had washed that idea away. Instead, after Bo had finished demanding answers from Sam, they’d headed back to Bo’s to curl up on the couch and watch movies.
After Sam’s last message had come through, Bo had marched outside, rain be damned, through the hedges dividing their driveways, into Sam’s backyard, and through his unlocked kitchen door, as had become their habit in the past couple of weeks. He’d found Sam in his office on the second floor, staring dumbly down at his cell phone.
“You have some explaining to do.”
Sam had the decency to cringe in embarrassment.
“How could you not tell me? You know I love Scythe and Swords. I’ve been going on about it for weeks. Hell, you let me talk your ear off about it last week, and then we had that debate about who was cuter, James or Elliot.”
“Um…”
Sam stood with his shoulders hunched, looking so miserable that Bo felt his ire cool.
“I wanted to tell you,” Sam said. “But I…” He leaned back against his desk and scratched his forehead. “I dated a guy last year for a few weeks. When he told me he was into Scythe and Swords I told him I was the author. That it was mine. And he accused me of bragging about it.” Sam sighed deeply. “It just stuck with me. I didn’t want you to think I was tooting my own horn or something.”
Bo’s ire came back with a fucking vengeance. “Fuck that guy!” Sam jumped at his outburst. “Scythe and Swords is fucking awesome, and you should brag about it. Anyone who tells you differently is a giant fucking douche doughnut.”
Sam snorted a laugh.
“Fuck anyone who makes you feel like dirt. Now, come on.” Bo turned and headed downstairs.
“Where are you going?” Sam asked, following behind Bo.
“We are going back to my place, where we’re going to veg on the couch all day watching movies.” Bo slipped into his damp shoes. “At some point we’ll eat too.” He eyed the rain still falling from the thunderous sky, then at his own rain splattered T-shirt and shorts. He looked at Sam: pressed jeans, blue polo shirt, styled hair. “Got an umbrella?”
Two hours later, the rain hadn’t let up, and the credits to the first movie they’d watched played on TV. Bo tucked his head in Sam’s neck, closed his eyes, and contemplated a nap.
“Is your name actually Bonobo?” Sam asked.
Bo snorted. “No. It’s a stupid nickname my family’s been calling me since I was a kid.” He hated it even as he loved it. Wasn’t that fucked up? “What’s the p in S.P. stand for?”
“Paul,” Sam said. “It’s my middle name. My dad’s name.” Sam kissed his temple. “Are you taking a nap?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Go ahead.” Sam shifted and got up from the couch. “I’m going to make myself a snack.”
Bo didn’t know how long he’d been asleep for—or if he’d even fallen asleep yet—when his cell phone rang. He rolled over on the couch and grabbed it from the coffee table. The name on the call display made him curse.
Are you even fucking kidding me, right now?
Eight weeks he’d been here and Laura still called three times a day.
He answered with a super-friendly (read: super-annoyed) “What?” in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t in the mood.
“Hey, Bonobo!” Laura said in a tone that made it clear she either didn’t care or didn’t notice (likely the former) that he wasn’t in the mood. “How’s my place?”
Bo fed Laura his standard line between gritted teeth. “Still standing.”
“Great! We’re going on a field trip today so I’ve gotta go. I was just calling to check in. Talk to you later.” She hung up.
How could a twenty-second conversation make Bo’s blood boil so badly?
Sam returned with a plate of cheese, crackers, and sliced fruit. “Laura?” he asked, taking a seat next to Bo. Sam was now well-versed on The Many Check-In Phone Calls From Laura. “Maybe don’t answer next time?”
Bo huffed an unamused laugh. “I really think she’d call the cops and report me missing if I didn’t answer.” Not out of concern for him, oh no. It’d be out of worry that nobody was around to look after Big Sky.
Sam placed a slice of cheese on a cracker with deliberate care and handed it to Bo.
“What?” Bo asked before taking a bite of his snack.
“What?”
Bo poked him in the thigh with his toe. “You have something to say, just say it.”
“I was just wondering…” Sam paused as if searching for words and placed his plate on the coffee table. “You’re doing her a huge favour by coming here and running this place while she’s away. Yet she treats you like… I just… She doesn’t appreciate you and… Is she always like this? Why do you put up with it?”
“That’s…” a complicated answer, Bo wanted to say, but it was too much of a non-answer and Sam deserved more. He deserved the part of Bo that Bo hated, the part Bo never wanted to share with him. His feelings for Sam were so deep, and he thought Sam felt the same way about him. He was afraid his shit past would make Sam look at him differently.
Bo sat up, tucking a leg underneath him so that he faced Sam, and snagged a slice of apple off Sam’s plate. “You asked me a couple of weeks ago what made my stay at the horse farm in Saskatchewan not great,” he reminded Sam. “It was not great because my parents are lazy pot-heads who never take responsibility seriously.” He bit into the apple and chewed slowly, giving him a chance to think. “They never did the work they were supposed to, so I did it for them between homework and my own responsibilities. I was so desperate to stay there, I would’ve covered for them for as long as I had to. But eventually, the owners found out and sent us packing. I cried for days.”