“What are you talking about? What about your job at the bookstore?”
“The man who owns the store is, like, eighty years old. I couldn’t leave him for four months without an assistant manager. Maybe for one or two, but not four. It wouldn’t’ve been fair to him or to the other employees. One of the part-timers is a recent empty-nester and she was starting to look for full-time work. So I gave her my job.” Bo shrugged like it was no big deal. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you know that I’m basically homeless and jobless.”
“Does Laura know you quit your job?” Sam knew the answer even as he asked it, so Bo’s snort followed by, “Yeah right,” didn’t come as a surprise.
Sam wanted to take everyone who’d ever made Bo feel worthless—cough, cough, his parents, cough, cough, Laura—and crush them under his boot.
Bo cupped Sam’s neck with one hand. “You’re frowning. Are you mad?” He started to pull away. “I’m sorry I—”
“I’m not mad at you, Bo.” Bo wasn’t even on the list of people Sam was mad at. Sam pressed a gentle kiss against Bo’s lips. “Thank you for telling me.” He’d asked Bo to move in with him and Bo…hadn’t exactly answered. Sam was afraid of asking again in case Bo’s story had been his way of changing the subject because he didn’t want to move in together.
“Sam?”
“Hmm?”
“I really can’t fucking wait to live with you. More than we sort-of already do, I mean.”
They did kind of live out of each other’s pockets. Living next door made it easy.
Sam laughed and brought Bo in for a hug. “Thank you.” He kissed Bo’s neck. “We’ll find you a new job. Something you’ll love.”
“Actually…” Bo pulled back. “Your sister offered me a job today.”
Huh? Sam turned to where Taylor and Robyn were bickering about whose turn it was to play with the telescope as Bo described the job offer Taylor had laid in front of him today.
“Bo!” This time when Sam’s lips landed on Bo’s, it was with a loud, wet smack that echoed across the quiet farm. “That’s great!”
“Yeah,” Bo said, laughing. “I’m really excited about it, actually. We still need to go over the details and I have about a million questions, but I think I’d like to do it. Plus, I want to talk to Taylor about her degree program, see if it’s something I’d be interested in.”
Well, shit! Somebody was finally seeing the light.
“You know,” his mom said from her spot behind him. Fuck his life, he’d forgotten his parents were right fucking there. “If you’re house hunting, Mrs. Doveny up the street is going to be putting her house up for sale later this year.”
“Have you been listening to our conversation this whole time?” Sam asked, incredulous.
“Yup,” his dad said.
Parents. Embarrassing him for twenty-seven years.
“Who’s Mrs. Doveney?” Bo asked.
Mrs. Doveny lived half a kilometre north in a two-storey house built in the seventies. The house was tiny, but it sat on a third of an acre of land that looked like a private park. It was beautiful and the house would be perfect, but…
“No offence,” Sam said to his parents, “but I don’t really want to live up the street from you.”
“No offence taken,” his dad said. “We don’t want you here anyway.”
His parents high fived as if they’d made the funniest joke of the century.
Bo leaned back against him and snorted a laugh. Sam kissed the top of his head.
Taylor and Robyn were still playing with the telescope. Sam must’ve made some kind of sound because Bo patted his knee and said, “Don’t worry. When they’re done, I’ll get the moon for you.”
On clear nights, Sam and Bo would have dinner on Bo’s deck, listening to the chickens cluck in their coop. They’d watch the sun set over the big sky and once the moon came out, Bo would bring his telescope out of the house and find the moon for Sam.
There was something about the moon that reminded Sam of Bo. It was outwardly bright and perfect, and it watched over the Earth like Bo watched over his animals. Yet when looked at closely, little craters of imperfections appeared. Small holes, tiny flaws.
But just like Bo, those chinks in the armour only made it more beautiful.
Bo was lying on the couch in Sam’s office on Sunday afternoon half an hour before they had to leave to meet the real estate agent in Welland, reading through the equine management program information on the University of Guelph’s website on his tablet. Tripaw sat on his thighs, gnawing on the string of one of his many cargo shorts’ pockets. Laura’s chickens were fed and had enough food to last for the rest of the day, which meant Bo was free as—well, as a fucking bird.
“Bo,” Sam said from his seat behind his office desk. “Give me a good curse.”
“When the clock strikes twelve,” Bo said in his shakiest, most evil-witch voice, “the demons will slip through the veil and damn you to eternity!” His voice gained volume by the end and he must’ve scared Tripaw; the cat meowed loudly and fled the room.
Sam’s laughter made Bo’s belly jump. “No, I mean… You know how you called my ex a giant fucking douche doughnut? Something like that.”
Oh. Well that was easy. Depending on… “What’s the context?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
“Who says it?”
“Can’t tell you that either.”
Bo huffed. “Can you at least tell me if it’s for Scythe and Swords?”
“It is,” Sam said, finally acquiescing on something. He seemed to come to a decision because he said, “It’s for a new character I’m working on.”
“Human, extra, demon, or other?” Extras, or extra-humans, were humans in Sam’s web comic who had some sort of power, like telekinesis or psychometry. Others were beings who didn’t fit into any of the first three categories, like angels or shapeshifters.
Sam shot him a look. “Why is that important?”
It wasn’t. Just that Sam wouldn’t share anything about the upcoming storyline with him and Bo was dying to know.
Sam raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“Who is he saying it to?” Bo tried.
“James.”
“Why would anybody want to insult James? He’s the best.”
“James is being unusually stubborn.”
Interesting. Usually it was Elliot who was the pain in everyone’s ass. Which meant that if James was being pigheaded, he was either fighting with Elliot or there was some kind of threat against Elliot, real or imagined.
Scythe and Swords was dark and gritty yet a few of its characters were hilarious, despite the shit situations they often found themselves in. Bo said the first thing that came to mind: “Witless mangled fucknugget?”
Sam’s smirk was a little evil. “Perfect.”
“Now will you share the upcoming storyline with me?”
“Nope.”
Sam wouldn’t share his work with his own boyfriend.