Rainbow Hill (20 page)

“Okay,” Quinn nodded. “I’ve said what I needed to say.” He gripped the hoe and poked at the ground. “I hope you don’t hold what I said against me, but I needed to get it off my chest, get things out in the open so we know where we stand.”

With a faint chuckle, Ethan asked, “Do we know where that is?”

“Let’s pretend we do.” Quinn’s smile told Ethan that for now they were okay.

“Did you miss me?” Randall walked up, holding a pitchfork in one hand and a hoe in another.

Quinn grunted, and Ethan reached for a hoe, Randall handing it over. “You up for this,” Ethan said to Randall.

“Anything for you, baby.” He leaned in and laid a quick peck on Ethan’s lips. “Anything for you.”

* * * *

Yuck.

Double Yuck.

Quinn wanted to take his hoe and bash Randall upside the head, but jail time was not a high priority on his things-to-do list this year. And why did he have to keep giving those noisy fake kisses to Ethan every few minutes?

Biting the inside of his mouth to keep from screaming, Quinn started to strategize on ways to send Randall packing. If he gave him the tedious chores to do around the farm, Randall would only ask Ethan to do them as he examined his cuticles from a cozy, shaded spot under a tree, so that plan was out of the question.

He concentrated harder.

But if he got Randall to climb a ladder, then when no one was looking, Quinn could rattle it, sending Randall tumbling to the ground.

Splat
.

Quinn chuckled with the sadistic vision floating around in his head.

Standing too close for comfort, Randall’s hollow, fake laughter pulled Quinn out of his happy heartwarming vision.

“Babe, your ass looks so good,” Randall lisped. “Bend over some more so I can get a better look. I think I see some crab grass over there.” He wagged his finger at a clump of weeds he could’ve easily taken care of himself.

“Why don’t you do it?” Quinn suggested. “You’re closer.”

“Why? Do you want to see what I have to offer?”

And there was more of that molar grinding laughter that caused Quinn to see red.

“Stop teasing, Randall,” Ethan suggested. “And he’s right. You get it.”

Randall did, making a show of it by sticking out his ass, which needed the attention of a Stairmaster.

Quinn groaned while Ethan laughed uncomfortably. “Well, at least he’s pitching in,” Ethan explained to Quinn through a shrug.

Quinn snorted. “Is that what you call it?”

He couldn’t help being an asshole. He hated Randall. It was really that simple. The man was unlikable, and to Quinn, downright unattractive. Yes, he knew that attraction was subjective, but Quinn couldn’t find one handsome feature. His nose was permanently turned upward, as if he was always smelling something foul, unlike Ethan’s nose that turned ever so slightly to the left, which made him just that much more handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way. Randall’s dull eyes, which weren’t gray or blue or green and were as beady as a rat’s searching for a late night meal, couldn’t compare to the crystal clear color of Ethan’s, which made Quinn’s heart swell with pleasure when he peered into them for too long. And where Randall was soft, Ethan was hard, where he was menacing, Ethan was understanding.

But what could Quinn do about it?

He’d just finished telling Ethan that he couldn’t promise him a life together. And if he did, what kind of life would it be? Ethan craved the finer things, worked hard to obtain them, whereas Quinn couldn’t care less if he slept on polyester blend sheets that would no doubt give Ethan’s smooth, soft skin a case of hives Benadryl couldn’t remedy.

It was settled, Quinn had to sit back and shut up. Do the work he originally set out to do, skedaddle back to wherever he planned on going next, and forget about Ethan and Randall and hand-stitched quilts, locally baked artisan bread, and pottery that helped pay for children to attend school in Africa. These things were not his concern, but Frank was, and his promise to his mother to care for him when she no longer could. Ethan was a big boy who could take care of himself, and he had his own set of promises to fulfill, none that included Quinn.

So why did his newfound, hard-ass attitude fill Quinn with an overwhelming sense of sadness instead of joyous liberation?

Quinn knew the answer.

Somewhere between last night’s lovemaking and waking up nuzzled into Ethan’s arms, the warmth of his breath racing across Quinn’s neck, he'd fallen in love. Madly, deeply, and hopelessly in love.

Fuck
.

Double Fuck
.

Chapter Fifteen

“I can’t believe we’re here again,” Ethan said, taking in the local flavor of Rascals. “What is it about you and this place?”

Nikki peered over the edge of her Margarita glass. “Where do you expect to go?” She took a long sip and swallowed slowly, enjoying the strong concoction. “Look,” she began, placing her drink onto the table. “It’s not like we have a local gay bar around here, so this is as good as it gets…plus our money goes far here. One more of these and I’ll be curled up under this booth, snoring.”

“Or swinging from the rafters in your bra.”

She shrugged. “Could go either way.” Nikki brought the glass to her lips and sipped. She licked salt from her upper lip. “So let’s talk dick.” Nikki was never one to beat around the bush.

“It’s dick that got me in this trouble. Let’s talk about something else.”

“You don’t know how to talk about anything else.”

“That’s why you love me.” Ethan smiled.

“Yep,” Nikki admitted. “I also love that I know what your next move is before you do.”

“What do you mean?”

Nikki rolled her eyes. “Please, bitch, don’t play dumb. I knew you’d hook up with Quinn. And may I add it’s about freakin’ time. You’ve been after that boy since high school and finally, finally you’ve got him.”

“I do?”

She arched her left brow. “But you know what the funny thing is?”

Ethan grew worried. “What?” He chastised himself for asking.

“You’re willing to throw all of it away for a cheat.”

“That cheat happens to be my boyfriend.”

“Where was your boyfriend a week ago?”

“He apologized.”

Nikki made a snorting noise that Ethan still managed to hear over muffled conversation and the clinking of glass.

“If you have something to say, Nikki, spit it out. Don’t just sit there and stare at me with that pissy face.”

Her pissy face got pissier. Nikki leaned in close, her laser-like eyes cutting into Ethan. “You are a fool.”

“You just don’t understand him.”

“I understand you’re a fool.”

“I love Randall.”

“Where is Mister Wonderful now? Searching Craigslist for a new piece of Latin nubile flesh?”

“He’s home resting.”

“Oh, nursing a blister, the big baby.”

“He was a huge help today,” Ethan defended. “I’ve never seen him so excited about work.”

“I wonder how long that will last.” Nikki relaxed against the back of the booth. “Does he plan to stay the entire time you’re here? Wait, you are planning to stay, right?”

Ethan nodded. “I have a job to do and intend on completing it.”

“Is Quinn staying around after you two…” A smile curved Nikki’s lips.

“Yes, but we won’t be doing none of that for the rest of the time I’m here.”

“Why? Was it that forgettable?”

Ethan took a long, slow pull from his bottled beer, hoping to quench the rising heat in his loins. “It was…miraculous.”

“I knew it,” Nikki returned, her smile growing bigger. “The bulge in that man’s pants assures miraculous.”

“I have to admit it, I’ve never been well and truly worked over like that before. The man does something with his tongue that I’ve never experienced before. Can you have a double jointed tongue?”

Nikki giggled, mulling it over. “What else is double jointed?”

Ethan sighed. “You should see his body. Every inch of him is sheer perfection, those abs, that back—”

“That butt,” Nikki finished. “He’s like a sculpture by Michelangelo.”

“Better,” Ethan admitted. “But that butt is off limits.”

“Sure,” Nikki said, nodding. “You’re many things, Ethan Stokes, but a man with the will of steel you are not. You can’t even pass up peanut M&M’s when you’re on a diet.”

“How can you compare the two things?”

“Sweet and delectable,” Nikki cooed. “Damn good nuts.”

“Only you can make porn out of candy-coated goodness.”

“You’re the one who started it by sleeping with him.”

They sat in silence, drinking and looking around the bar, taking it in, or, in Ethan’s case, tuning it out.

He couldn’t get Quinn out of his head, no matter what he did. It was like the man had infiltrated every cell of his brain and body, taking up permanent residence and gripping Ethan’s brain tightly. Physically, Randall couldn’t compare to Quinn, but that wasn’t all that important to Ethan, it was a person’s heart and soul that ultimately attracted him.

Heart and soul
.

On thinking back, Ethan couldn’t remember one truly unselfish act Randall had ever done in Ethan’s presence or admitted to doing, and giving a discount to a few select members of the Greater Washington Junior Women’s League didn’t count. He didn’t even give the neighborhood homeless guy, who sat outside the local 7-Eleven day in and day out, a single dime. “He can work just like the rest of us,” he’d say when Ethan would pitch a few coins in the man’s cap on the sidewalk. Ethan sincerely doubted it since the poor guy rambled incessantly to no one in particular and was missing a leg, no prosthesis in sight. “Probably sold it for drug money,” Randall would say.

“Hellooooo,” Nikki singsonged. “Earth to Ethan. Where did you go just then?”

He tried to laugh it off, keeping his thoughts to himself. “We need to get going. I don’t want to leave Randall on his own for too long.”

“For God’s sake, he’s a grown man, not a toddler. He can change himself.”

“I’m worried more for the others than for him.”

Nikki smiled. “Oh,” she said, her cheeks coloring.

After guzzling the remaining contents of her generously-sized glass, they cut through the getting-drunker-by-the-minute crowd and exited to the parking lot.

If he was being honest with himself, Rascals bar was starting to grow on him… unlike Randall’s return.

Finding his Range Rover in the sea of Fords and Chevys, Ethan knew he had to search within himself and figure out what was important in life. Was it Randall he wanted, a potential life with Quinn, or choosing to be single for as long as it took for him to figure it all out? He’d enjoyed being single once, maybe he should try it again? He never minded going to the movies alone, or eating dinner at a restaurant by himself. Any of those things single people did because they had no choice if they didn’t want to turn into a hermit.

But sharing a tub of popcorn in the cool comfort of a darkened theater was much more fun with someone special by your side rather than eating the entire thing by yourself, feeling bloated, and most importantly, feeling alone.

* * * *

Fresh out of the shower, Quinn tightened the towel around his waist as he shut the bedroom door behind him. Earlier he'd seen Ethan drive away. Alone. So that meant that Randall was lurking around, no doubt inspecting the antiques in the dining room, seeing dollar signs in his beady, black, marble-like eyes. Hopefully Randall didn’t have enough talent to recognize the Henredon sideboard, because if he did, Quinn figured there would be a moving truck idling in the driveway at the crack of dawn tomorrow.
Rat.

Opening the bedroom window to catch a breeze that had finally started to kick up after such a long hot day, the fragrant night air cooling his still damp skin, Quinn inhaled the scent of a Magnolia tree growing only yards from the window. It was an intoxicating smell. Delicate. Gentle.

Something worth cherishing.

Funny
, he thought, smiling to himself.
Those same words described Ethan completely
. Quinn looked at his still unmade bed from that morning, missing the man he had held in his arms less than twelve hours earlier. He could’ve kicked himself for refusing to commit to Ethan. What the fuck was he so afraid of anyway? Having a happy life with an attractive and kind man who was obviously more than interested in him too?

Throwing himself onto the bed in an exhaustive huff, Quinn scrubbed his hands over his face, wishing that things had played out differently, starting with facing his fear when he should have.
But I was only a kid
.

Ever since he'd laid eyes on Ethan, Quinn knew that deep down he regretted not coming out when he was sixteen. If he had, his life would’ve been very different. Not that he and Ethan would have had their happily-ever-after after sharing
the
kiss, but it was fun to speculate and self-torture was what Quinn did best.