Bowl Full of Cherries (4 page)

Crowley half-listened as Tyler ranted again. It had been the same frustrated rant for the last fifteen minutes.

“It could be worse,” Crowley said quietly, because Tyler wasn’t really listening to him anyway. It
could
be worse. Instead of just forgetting to pick him up, Mrs. Lang could have told Tyler his friend wasn’t welcome in her house like his own mother had. Crowley bit his lip. Mrs. Lang
wasn’t
doing that, he assured himself. She was just late.

“The house is going to be packed when you get there,” Tyler warned him, as Crowley scraped his foot over the snow-covered concrete. Someone had tried to salt the walk and little chunks of salt had melted unsightly spots in the otherwise thick white carpet. “Mom said pretty much everyone’s coming. Aunt Megs, her friend who’s really her girlfriend but none of us are supposed to know, my sister Jes and her family, Katie, her husband and their baby, my grandparents—they always take the master bedroom and won’t let anyone share with them. Sondra, maybe, if she’s in the country. And my brother.”

“Your twin?”

“Don’t get excited,” Tyler warned over the phone. Crowley could hear the clanging of pans. Tyler was still tackling the mess in the kitchen. He wondered how long the job would take. “He’s a total weirdo loser who can’t hold down a job and is always coming up with these stupid ideas to make money when really he should go back to school and stop being an idiot.”

It really was starting to get cold and Crowley thought about going back inside the station for a little while. But he wanted to be ready when Mrs. Lang pulled up.

“What about your sisters?”

“They’re fine. Boring. Married. My nephews are cool. And my niece. The crap kids think up, you know? After they get out of that baby stage into kidlet stage? Fan-frickin-tastic.”

“Yeah,” Crowley replied quietly. He tried not to think about his sister and her daughter sitting at Mom’s kitchen table, drinking homemade cocoa. His niece would ask where Uncle Crowley was. Probably ask a million times over the next three days. He wondered what answers she would get from Mom and Alice. “Are you sure it’s okay? Me intruding on your family Christmas and everything?”

“We’ve got a giant house. It’s going to be cramped and stuff, but it’ll be fine. And… frack! Hold on, Xondee’s calling.”

Crowley pulled the phone away from his ear and rolled his neck, shivering in the cold. He should have brought gloves. And a scarf. He stood, stretched his legs, watched as people found their rides. A couple from his train talked quietly together nearby. Their ride was obviously late, too.

He had just heard Tyler’s tinny voice coming through the cell at his side when he saw an SUV take the turn to the roundabout too quickly. It slid hard to the right and hopped a low curb before scraping the undercarriage across a few feet of pavement and somehow—miraculously—righting itself
without
hitting any of the other cars in the roundabout. Horns honked and the nearby couple’s voices rose in concern. Then the SUV pulled up in front of the station and stopped hard.

“Jesus,” Crowley breathed, white fog pluming in front of him.

The man who jumped out of the driver’s side and came quickly around the idling SUV looked, well, like Tyler Lang’s twin. Except…. Crowley swallowed as the brother Lang bent over in front of the car, trying to see what sort of damage he’d done to the undercarriage. Tyler had bent over in front of Crowley a million times. Sometimes in his boxers. And the only reason he could recall those perfectly mundane moments of bending was because of how starkly different Tyler’s twin looked in the same position. He felt his face getting hot, and he forced his eyes over to the SUV.

“Crowley? Crowley? What’s going on?”

Crowley raised the phone to his ear and said, “I’ll call you right back. I think my ride is here.”

A jumble of nerves, Crowley stepped forward. “Excuse me?” he called. “Are you Averell?”

The man popped upright and turned in the snow, a grin as wide and handsome as the horizon stretching across his face. “Did you see that? It was nuts. I thought I had room and then—”

Crowley nodded, picking up his bag. “The car okay?”

“I literally have no idea.” Averell shrugged. “Maybe? Let’s go with maybe to—hmmm—possibly.”

Crowley walked out into the zagging sheets of falling snow. As he stood there, Averell Lang’s collar-length, wavy hair became white under the snowfall. Thank God it was so cold. At least Tyler’s brother wouldn’t be able to tell that Crowley was blushing.

“You’re not Mrs. Lang,” he informed Averell as the other man opened the back door for him. He put his bag down in the floorboard.

“God, I hope not,” Averell replied. He really did look a lot like Tyler: same strong features—long straight nose, piercing blue eyes, sharp cheekbones. But his dark sideburns had grown down into a trimmed beard and his hair was a little wild—waves going every which way. Where Tyler was neat, well-dressed and coifed, this twin seemed more casual. “You’re not Mrs. Lang either,” Averell accused lightly. “Crowley, right? You can sit back there if you want.”

In the backseat? Did he not want Crowley sitting next to him? Had Crowley already given himself, and his interest, away?

“Y’know, if you want to feel like you’re being chauffeured or whatever. I used to love to do that as a kid.”

Crowley grinned at the preposterous offer.

“I think the front is okay.”

“Pile in, then!” Averell said grandly. “We’ve got places to go and people to… well, we’ve got places to go at least.”

The front seat was warm and he snuggled into the cushion—so much more comfortable than the train and definitely more comfortable than sitting on his suitcase. He pulled the belt across his middle, lengthening it more than he might have liked. He tried not to notice his own girth as he buckled the belt. “Your brother thinks Mrs. Lang forgot about me,” Crowley said by way of an awkward joke as Averell climbed in the driver’s seat. “Um….” That made it sound like he was annoyed. He definitely wasn’t annoyed.

“Mom was making pies,” Averell said. “She gets a little lost when she’s baking. And by that, I mean she once told my Aunt Megs that her ‘son’ was having a birthday. I’m sure the facial features don’t tell the tale, because I’m
hella more good-looking
,” he teased, “but we’re twins, so, her son
s
were having a birthday.”

“Maybe she was trying to disown one of you that year?”

Where was this coming from? He never cracked jokes with strangers. Maybe there was something about the illusion of hanging out with Tyler. Except that wasn’t much of an illusion, was it?

Despite the stupidity of Crowley’s banter, Averell still seemed to get a charge out of it. When he laughed, it was loud and pleased. He had a great laugh.

“She’s always disowning someone. Can’t have a family get-together without Mom threatening life and limb. Tyler and I get it more than the girls, though. Probably ’cause they have all the grandkids. Do I sound bitter?”

Actually, he didn’t. Not at all. Playful and pleasant.

They pulled back into the flow of the roundabout—this time
much
slower—and Crowley extended his gloved hand. “I’m Crowley Fredericks.”

Averell Lang had a strong grip, and the firm pressure on Crowley’s hand felt good. When they broke the handshake, he could feel that his flush had grown hotter.

“I’m going to call you ‘Owl.’ You call me ‘Rell,’ okay? Is that too weird?”

“Actually… I like it,” Crowley admitted, trying to tuck away his goofy smile. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, most of the nice ones having to do with Crow, sometimes Lee, C-Man in the fifth grade, and… then there were the others. Porker, Fatty, Lard-Ass, Tons-of-Fun, Roly-Poly. “Better than ‘Big Bird,’” he said quietly.

“Yeah, and yellow doesn’t seem like it would suit you anyway,” Rell chimed in amiably.

Crowley marveled at this man. The “loser who couldn’t hold down a job” Tyler had just warned him about was actually incredibly friendly and quick-witted and… damn cute. Jeez, he was like a school kid with a crush.

“You want to listen to music?” Rell asked, fishing his iPod out of his pocket. “Fire that up, will you? Don’t know if there’s anything good on there, but….”

Crowley plugged the iPod into the aux-in port and began to scroll through the artists, several of the names he recognized from Tyler’s record collection. Dogprint Sushi, Cupcakes & Heartbreaks, Jake Switzerland, Inc., and so on. He changed the view to genre, pulled up the one labeled Classic Rock, and warmed even more to Rell Lang.

“Kirkpatrick Connection!”

“Of course,” Rell agreed. “Anyone who doesn’t have the Connection in their collection is a shifty-eyed bastard, in my opinion.”

Rell was probably aware that when Tyler wore his K.C. shirt, it was only ironically.

“Holy crap, is this their Christmas album?”

“Why yessir, it is. And I’d advise you to go to track seven for—”

Rell wasn’t even done speaking when Crowley skipped ahead to the track and the sound of
Carol of the Bells
filled the space between them. Corey Cartwright’s trademark fiddling struck his ears, and Crowley let out a noise close to orgasmic. There was no hiding the flush now, even with the heat in the car. Corey Cartwright had been his very first crush (thank you Dad for being obsessed with the Connection). Whether it was Corey’s shy smile, hidden behind blond locks of seventies hair, or his downright inspiring fiddle-playing that had made Crowley’s heart thud at the tender age of thirteen, he wasn’t sure. Corey Cartwright was the reason he’d taken up the violin. Corey Cartwright was how he’d first realized he was gay.

“All right, we’re definitely going to be good friends,” Rell said, tossing his handsome grin at Crowley. And then they were singing along with Bobby South as he slurred his way through the song. It was impossible not to sing
like
Bobby when singing
with
Bobby, so they both melted into terrible impressions of the iconic Southern rocker.

“How can you like Kirkpatrick Connection
and
that indie stuff Tyler’s into at the same time?” Crowley laughed when the song finally melted away.

“I’m eclectic.” Rell grinned. “Tyler
likes
to think he’s eclectic, but—”

At that moment, Crowley’s phone began to vibrate and sing. A really great picture of Tyler—with the Retrogasma filter (Tyler’s favorite)—filled the screen.

“When did my brother have a mustache?” Rell asked, glancing over.

“Last No-Shave November.”

“But he
only
has the ’stache.”

“Yeah….” Crowley picked up the phone. “Hi, Tyler. I’m with Rell. Averell.” Somehow, he was embarrassed that he’d used the nickname, even though Averell had told him to use it. “We’re heading to… well, do things and see people?”

“Put me on speaker,” Tyler said.

Crowley pressed the little speaker icon.

“Are you being an ass?” Tyler asked, his voice thick and echo-y in the speakerphone. Crowley blinked.

“I… uh… I don’t think I am.”

“He doesn’t mean you, Owl, he means me.”

“Jesus, Averell, are you really making up stupid nicknames already? Listen, you are with my
best friend in the world
. Do not kill him with your shitty driving. Do not bore him with your stupid, nerdy stories. Do not try to poison him against me, either, because it’s
not
going to work.”

“Wow, paranoid much?”

“I know you, Averell,” Tyler shot back.

“I’ve got him. I haven’t killed him. I don’t think I’m boring him—but I can’t promise I won’t be nerdy. And what was the last part? Tell him about Mom’s sonogram where I was literally
kicking your ass
?”

Crowley’s eyes widened. That couldn’t possibly be true….

“Yeah, we’ll see who’s kicking whose ass when I get into town.”

Rell laughed, that deep, pleasant-sounding laugh. “When is that by the way?”

“Tomorrow. Think you can behave that long?”

“Nope.”

The brothers continued to argue, but Crowley was no longer listening. The farther they got from the city, the more beautiful the view became. The train ride had taken him through miles and miles of open, snowy landscape—but the drive to Susset took him into the Adirondack Mountains. Crowley sat up, excited, and tried to get a closer look by pressing his nose to the glass like a little kid.

They didn’t have mountains in Kansas City. They had the lazy, shallow river, green hills, and roads that cut through rock. Gentle slopes and open spaces. He’d never had to crane his neck to see the top of their hills before.

“It’s beautiful….” His breath fogged the glass.

By the time he realized he’d spoken, the silence that filled the interior of the SUV was pressing. He self-consciously covered, “I mean, I’ve never seen the mountains before.”

“Are you serious?” Rell and Tyler asked (almost) together. There was a slight delay on the cell. Surprise was blatant in both of their voices.

“Yeah, they’re really cool.”

“Susset’s in the valley. There’s nothing
but
mountains. We can go for a hike or something, if you want.”

“Uh, pretty sure he doesn’t want to hike through the snow, Averell. We’re not all insane like you.”

“I—” Crowley tried to butt in.

“Just tossing out options, Tyler. He likes the mountains. We could see them up close.”

“Close enough to freeze to death.”

“Sorry.” Rell winked at Crowley. “I will refrain from offering you amazingly fun options for your stay in Susset. I’m sure Tyler has already planned the whole visit—complete with a tour of our thrift stores.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Averell.”

“Sorry for being a jerk,” Rell apologized solemnly, his deep, gut-tanglingly blue eyes on Crowley’s face. Suddenly Crowley wasn’t so sure the twins had the same eyes. He’d never noticed Tyler’s being such a deep blue.

“Would you stop?”

“What? Talking to Owl?” And another cheeky wink. “Sorry for talking to you, Owl. Tyler says I’m not allowed to—Jesus H, Tyler!” he cried as Tyler laid on the air horn he kept under his bed. The cab was filled with the obnoxious sound and Rell, his hand as quick as a frog’s tongue, hung up on his brother. “He is a child. There’s nothing else to say about it. Always been the baby of the family. Born three minutes after me, you know.”