Chapter Twenty-Four

Rye

Once Rye had resolved to turn the Crow Lane house into a cat shelter, the pieces began to fall into place almost faster than he could keep up with them. Now when he and Charlie walked through the house, he could see his vision perfectly. Though he hadn’t been able to picture himself living there, he could imagine in great detail everything the building should have to best care for the cats he imagined helping there.

The cabinets they’d originally sourced for the kitchen were recommissioned into storage in what could now be turned into a sterile place for the cats to be spayed, neutered, and chipped.

The area inside the front door where Rye had once stomped through his own floor would be converted into a front desk area and where Rye had slept curled up in his sleeping bag would be walled off and turned into a space for the cats to stay, as would the room that opened onto the back porch.

The only room left was the upstairs bedroom.

“Do you want to turn that into an office so you can work on business related to the shelter there?” Charlie asked.

“Actually, I have another idea,” Rye said. He anticipated resistance, but they’d promised they’d always keep talking. “Just hear me out, okay?”

It took about a week (and some awkwardly Big Brotherish watching) for Rye to track down River. They arrived at the Crow Lane house by themself the next Monday afternoon and were reading when Rye startled them by bursting through the front door in his excitement.

“Hey, River!”

River clutched their chest and swore.

“Jesus, you just took ten years off my life.”

“So sorry.” Rye grimaced. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” they muttered.

Rye couldn’t resist any longer.

“You still looking for a job?”

“Always.”

“I’ve got one for you.” Rye was vibrating with excitement. “I’m gonna turn this place into a cat shelter and I want you to help me.”

River’s eyes went wide but they didn’t say anything.

“You know, if you want?” Rye added, realizing he’d phrased it rather bossily.

River swallowed hard and finally nodded.

“I... Are you serious?”

Rye let his energy spill over and told River all about it. He told them about how he wanted to encourage people to get to know the cats before adopting them to minimize the chances of returns. How he planned to provide spaying and neutering on the premises so that if people found cats they wanted to keep they could bring them in for services.

“Of course that requires a vet and we don’t have a budget for one, so we’ll have to see if we can find someone to volunteer their time.”

“Maybe a retired large-animal vet in the area would be willing to help out,” River suggested.

“Large-animal vet, yes. Wyoming. Of course. See, this is why I need you!”

River made an aw-shucks face and waved Rye away.

“Okay the other thing is. You know the bedroom upstairs?”

“Course.”

“You want it?”

River’s eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“It’s already got a bathroom since I was gonna sleep up there. Now...” Rye shrugged. “I’m, uh. I’m gonna be staying with Charlie, so. It’s there. You hate staying with your parents, so I thought...” He shrugged again.

River blinked blankly for a moment.

“We’ll put a lock on the door so no one can get in there and you’ll have your privacy. And really it’d be you doing me a favor because if you’re here at night and anything goes wrong with the cats, then—”

River hugged him with a desperate relief Rye recognized down to his bones. It was the relief he’d felt when his friends let him stay on their couches; the relief he’d felt when Charlie pulled him out of his sleeping bag and gave him a home. The relief he felt now, knowing that he could provide a safe place for someone else who didn’t have one where they should have.

“Thank you. Fuck, thank you so much,” River said.

Once River was on board everything seemed more real. Rye finally let Charlie do what he’d been wanting to: tell what seemed like every person living in Garnet Run (and a few who lived outside it) about the new business that would be coming to town.

“That’s what it is,” Charlie insisted. “You’re a part of the community so the shelter is a community business. People want to know what’s going on in the community.”

Rye had his doubts, but Charlie’s big mouth began paying dividends almost immediately. Marie, it turned out, had once worked for a nonprofit arts organization in Cheyenne and offered to help Rye apply for grant money to fund the shelter.

Simon’s grandmother, Jean, volunteered to do some landscaping in the front of the shelter—”To give it that established, been-here-forever look!” she explained. She also offered to experiment with recipes for gourmet cat biscuits that Rye could sell when the shelter opened. Simon had encouraged him to take her up on it since she wanted to help in some way but was extremely allergic to animals.

Mike at the bank turned out to be invaluable in helping them do whatever legal zoning blah blah boring was required to have the space be both residential and a nonprofit, and pointed them toward his accountant uncle who helped them set up their nonprofit status and do something that Rye didn’t understand or care about but which Charlie assured him would help come tax season.

The next step was to raise the money they’d need to buy equipment, food, toys, litter, and everything else for the cats.

When Jack and Simon came for dinner that weekend, they all sat sprawled around the living room, brainstorming. Marmot took advantage of the preponderance of laps suddenly available to her and prowled from person to person, seeing whom she preferred.

The expression on Simon’s face when she finally plopped down on his lap and curled up was tender satisfaction, and the look on Jack’s face watching Simon was as mushy as Rye felt watching Charlie.

They batted ideas back and forth. A GoFundMe seemed like the most basic first step. Jack had done them before and offered to take point on it. Simon offered to design a website for the shelter so that any donor could click over to the site from the fundraiser and see what they were supporting. He also put the creation of social media accounts and graphics, and a logo for the shelter on his own list.

“The only thing I still need to make the logo and sites is the name of the shelter,” Simon said.

Jack had thus far insisted on referring to it as The Cat House when discussing it, even though Simon had pointed out to him that cathouse had another meaning.

“Uh, Paw’s Place,” Jack threw out. “Wagging Way.”

“Wagging is more dogs,” Simon said. “And Paw’s Place sounds like an apostrophe nightmare. Is it one single paw’s place? A place for all the paws?”

“The Hopping Home,” Jack said, rolling onto his back and addressing the ceiling.

“Sounds like somewhere dying bunnies go to cross into the next dimension,” Rye said.

Charlie snickered. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at naming things, bro?”

“Hey, books are different,” Jack said with a faux pout.

They batted names back and forth for a while, each one worse than the last, until Simon got bored and suggested that they do a fundraising auction. They could ask local individuals and businesses to donate something to auction off with all funds to go to the shelter.

“We can tell business owners that we’ll list them on the website if they donate something to the auction—or if they just want to make a direct donation,” Simon explained. “And it will help them gain visibility to new clients and goodwill with the community. I can donate a website redesign.”

“I’ll donate some copies of my books, if you want?”

“Thank you both. Seriously,” Rye said. “Um, this asking people for donations thing sounds like a Charlie job?” Rye said, looking at Charlie hopefully.

“Sure,” Charlie said, and squeezed his hand.

“Soooo,” Jack said, eyes on their hands. “How’s it going? You two, I mean.”

Rye scowled at Jack but Charlie just smiled.

“Going real good,” he said. “Real good.”

And it was. At least, it felt good to Rye. The last few weeks had been the happiest of his life. Being with Charlie had already felt good. Having something to work on together, though—something that Rye felt could actually make a difference—had made it so much better.

Now he was here because he was Charlie’s partner. They shared chores and expenses and dreams for the future. They shared a bed and showers and a plate sometimes, if Rye was too sleepy to get up and get his own.

They collaborated like a dream, Rye good at coming up with ideas of what they could do, and Charlie good at the practical steps of achieving them.

It was all going so well that sometimes Rye caught himself staring at his new life like his brain was trying to figure out how they had gotten here.

Rye was cooking dinner when the text from Simon came through.

There was an ellipsis that showed Simon searching for a gif, then one of a circus ringleader bowing low.

You’re a fucking star at this shit! What do I have to do? Rye asked.

I got it, Simon replied. But I need a name SOON!

Rye wasn’t sure why the name for the shelter was proving such a challenge. Nearly every shelter he looked up online was either named after the place it was located or had a cutesy, animal-punny name.

Just pick something, he told himself for the hundredth time. But nothing felt right. He’d thought of naming it after his grandfather, since it had been his house, but Granger sounded like grungy and The Granger Cat Shelter didn’t sound good. He didn’t want to use the Janssen part of his grandfather’s name because then it would seem like he was naming it after himself. Besides, he knew from a lifetime’s experience that everyone would leave out the second s.

He was still agonizing over the name when he walked into Peach’s Diner to meet Clive for breakfast. He was excited to tell his grandfather’s best friend that he was honoring Granger’s legacy. At least, he hoped Clive would see it that way.

Clive was in the booth he’d shared with Granger—the booth Rye had gravitated toward when he first met Clive—and he raised a hand in greeting.

“Hey, Clive, thanks for meeting me.”

“Morning, son. I’m glad you called.”

In fact, Rye hadn’t called. He’d texted and Clive had called him, saying he didn’t mess around with buttons.

Melba poured them coffee and Rye said hello without insulting her name, so he thought things were off to a pretty good start. Rye ordered biscuits and gravy and Clive got a fond expression in his eyes. He didn’t order, just nodded to Melba who clearly knew what he wanted.

While they waited for the food, they chatted about the bird feeders Clive had built out back of his house. Clive, it turned out, was an avid birder, and regaled Rye with the many species he’d seen from his porch. Rye knew nothing at all about birds, but when Clive invited him on a bird walk he accepted immediately.

One of the things Rye had been thinking about a lot the last couple of weeks was how little he knew himself in this new context.

It was Charlie who’d inspired the thought. After their disagreement about the risks and rewards posed by letting River and the other kids hang out at the Crow Lane house, Charlie had thought about it a lot. Charlie’d said that trying a lot of different interests felt like one more thing he had missed out on in the wild crush of responsibility foisted upon him. The more he’d thought about it, the more Charlie had discovered opinions and curiosities he hadn’t known he had.

And Rye had realized that although there were parts of himself that felt constant—his values, his ethics, his politics—there were other parts that had been formed in Seattle and weren’t relevant anymore. Things he’d hewn to because of necessity, habit, and lack of imagination, but that he didn’t have to. He’d begun to wonder what this new Rye—this Garnet Run Rye—would be like. And he was taking every opportunity to find out.

Their food came and Rye savored the first bite.

“So, um, I wanted to tell you about what I’m gonna do with my grandfather’s house. Granger’s house.”

“You aren’t going to live there?”

“Well I was, but, um.”

Rye had no idea if the well-oiled rumor mill of Garnet Run extended to Clive. Rye had watched with twinned delight and horror when a customer at Matheson’s Hardware had tried to set Charlie up with her daughter and Charlie had pulled Rye close to him and said politely. “Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I already have a boyfriend.”

The woman had goggled for a moment, then nodded, given Rye a rather thorough perusal, and raised an eyebrow at Charlie.

“Good for you,” she’d said, and although Charlie insisted she had included both of them in that “you,” Rye disagreed. But he hadn’t minded, because although the encounter had resulted in a sudden after-lunch epidemic of sudden-onset DIY fever that required a mob of people who’d never patronized Matheson’s before to purchase one nail each, it had also put a smile on Charlie’s face and made him walk around like he was even taller for the next several days.

“I’m living with Charlie now.” At Clive’s head tilt, he added, “Charlie Matheson? Who I was with when you—”

“I know who he is, son. He’s your fella, then?”

“Er. Yes?”

“You asking me?”

“No,” Rye said. Then, because he hated the idea that Clive might think he was ashamed, he clarified. “Just running fella through my dustbowl-to-contemporary-speech translator.”

Clive let out a full-bellied guffaw that turned heads in the diner. After the tension was broken Rye felt a lot more comfortable.

“So tell me about this thing you’re doing with Granger’s house.”

“I’m turning it into a cat shelter.”

Rye excitedly told Clive all about it, and about his plans for the shelter and about the catch-and-release program he wanted to start, to spay and neuter local cats who clearly enjoyed being outside cats, so they didn’t have more kittens. Clive let Rye lay out the whole plan, listening attentively and eating his bacon and spinach omelet.

When Rye ran out of steam, Clive nodded once, a soft expression on his face.

“Your granddaddy woulda liked that just fine. He had a cat. Years ago. Thing just showed up on his porch in the middle of the night, yowlin’.”

“What was its name?”

Clive snorted.

“Dirt Road. Granger called her DeeDee for short. She was a dusty little thing with a gray belly and brown paws and face and a lighter brown back. Granger said she looked like ten miles of dirt road, all crying and starving. He took her in and washed her off, fed her. Kept saying she would just stay for one more night, but she never left. Granger was a softy, really.”

An image fell into Rye’s head of his grandfather’s cat running around the house just as Marmot had. Leaping and scratching and getting into trouble. Curling up in his grandfather’s lap the way Marmot curled up in his. Granger’s shaking fingers stroking the cat’s soft back as a fire crackled merrily before them. What comfort his grandfather must have taken from her, when he had little interest in communing with others.

The ghost of a whole life suddenly unfurled itself for Rye in a way that he’d never been able to picture before. And with it came a pang of sadness that he would never know the man who lived there. The man who had given him the gift that had changed his life forever.

For a guy who’d renovated his own house into the design equivalent of khakis, Charlie was shockingly creative when it came to ideas for the kitty castle, as he’d been calling it. The cat ramps had been Rye and Charlie’s design project for the last two weeks, and they must’ve drawn them a hundred different ways—googling plans, watching videos, and dreaming wildly. to Rye’s great surprise, the biggest problem turned out to be reining Charlie in.

That was something Rye had learned since they began planning: Charlie might’ve been ruthlessly practical by default, but when Rye gave him an opportunity to do something impractical, he leapt in with both feet and gloried in doing it.

He’d proposed an elevator that sank when a cat stepped into it, depositing them on the floor and then rising again when empty. He’d proposed steps that swung out from one platform and reconnected to another when a cat pushed a lever. He’d proposed a machine that projected holographic cats for the real cats to chase.

Tonight, after Rye told Charlie about his breakfast with Clive, Charlie pulled out yet another iteration of the kitty castle. He pushed the notebook toward Rye proudly.

“It’s a windmill, like at a mini golf place, and the blades cover the tunnel entrance until the cat spins it out of the way! Also they can just spin it to play.”

It was honestly one of the more adorable things Rye had ever witnessed—the design and Charlie’s enthusiasm for the project. But he had to get it back under control.

He put his hands on Charlie’s shoulders and moved his face in front of Charlie’s. Charlie, thinking he was going in for a kiss, closed his eyes in happy satisfaction.

“Why,” Rye said, touching the tip of his nose to Charlie’s, “are you trying to kill me?”

Charlie’s eyes opened.

“Huh?”

“Baby, these plans are amazing. They’ve all been amazing. But I’m not letting you spend a ton of your own money on this build. Everything you’re drawing is way out of budget.”

Rye took a moment to marvel at how responsible and business savvy he sounded, talking about budgets.

“But, but,” Charlie spluttered. “But it’s my money.”

And that was a full-on whine.

Already, the ramps had become a labor of love for Charlie, beginning as a seed that Rye had planted and growing into a project that found him in his woodshop at all hours of the day and night, testing things, trying things.

Rye kissed Charlie. He’d intended it to be a quelling kiss, but he found himself hauled onto Charlie’s lap and kissed quite thoroughly.

“It’s so sweet that you wanna do that,” Rye said between kisses. “But I know you can find a way to do it without spending a lot of—mmf. Okay, you’ve distracted me and I’m dropping it but don’t think I’m gonna forget!”

Satisfied that he’d made his point, Rye pressed closer to Charlie so they could grind together. Slowly, Charlie had begun to relax when they tried to get off at the same time. Rye didn’t need it—he was happy with Charlie every way he could get him—but one night Charlie had confessed that whenever he fantasized about being with Rye what he saw was them locked together in passion. He wanted it, he’d said. He just wasn’t sure how to shut his mind off enough to get it.

Rye had been ever so happy to help him practice.

Rye felt the bulge of Charlie’s erection and rubbed against it, drinking in Charlie’s rumbling groan.

They moved together, hips grinding, breaths shared, until liquid heat coursed through Rye’s veins.

“Charlie,” he gasped, latching onto Charlie’s neck to suck hard at the hot skin of his throat. His teeth scraped gently and Charlie gasped. Then Charlie’s fingers found his hair and pulled.

Rye let his head fall back and lust shot through him.

“That good?” Charlie murmured.

“Yeah, fuck, so good.”

Their mouths met again and this was mutually assured destruction. Charlie pulled his hair and Rye fed on Charlie’s mouth and their hips fucked and strained. Rye’s cock ached with the need for relief and he could feel Charlie’s erection throbbing against him.

With his mouth on Charlie’s, Rye snaked a hand between them and freed their cocks. Charlie’s moan was almost pained as their hot flesh came into contact, and Rye could feel his shiver of pleasure.

“Okay, baby?” Rye asked.

Charlie’s answer was to growl and pull him even closer, fist tightening around his hair. Rye whimpered and went to work.

He jerked them together, their flesh burning with the heat between them. Charlie’s hand came down over his own to help, and he squeezed them tighter, jerked them harder.

Rye opened his eyes to find Charlie’s on him as well. They burned green in his passion and Rye drank in every flutter of his eyelashes and every tremble of his lips as they pleasured each other. Charlie’s beautiful mouth fell open and Rye rested their lips together—not kissing, just breathing in each other’s every breath.

Rye felt the moment that Charlie’s pleasure crested in the tightening of his lips before he felt it in his hand. His flesh shook and his mouth drew into a grimace of pleasure too extreme to be contained. He threw his head back and roared as he came, his come a scalding brand across Rye’s hand.

Rye loved it when Charlie came first because of what always happened next.

For the space of two breaths, or maybe three, Charlie was lost in his own pleasure. But then, his eyes fluttered open and with a groan he claimed Rye’s mouth in a brutal, loving kiss. He used his hands on Rye like he was playing a delicate but necessary instrument and he intended to pull out every note.

Rye let himself be played by Charlie, because the music was always shattering and sublime.

Tonight was no different. Charlie’s kiss was pure passion and he used his come to ease the slide of his hand on Rye’s aching flesh. Rye’s hips strained and his ass clenched with the need for release.

Charlie wrapped his other arm around Rye’s back, locking them together, and slid his hand back in Rye’s hair.

He tugged in counterpoint—Rye’s aching cock and Rye’s hair—until Rye was a moaning, trembling, begging mess.

“I love you,” Rye said. “Please. Please, Charlie, I love you so much.”

The words left his mouth without thought or regret. Because although it was the first time he’d said them, he’d thought them a hundred times.

“Rye.” Charlie groaned the word like his heart was being ripped from his chest. “Oh, my Rye. I love you. I love you.”

He kept saying it, over and over, and Rye said it over and over. They layered I love yous, sharing the taste and the feel of the words until they were as familiar as one another’s breath.

Then Charlie leaned his forehead against Rye’s and took Rye apart. The pressure and friction were unbearable and so Rye didn’t bear them. He leaned back and let go and orgasm tore through him like a ribbon unspooling. Pleasure clawed up from his balls to his guts and left him shaking.

Shock after shock rolled through him until he was trembling with overwhelm.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Charlie wiped his tears away.

“My Rye,” Charlie said, and carried him to bed.