Dear Lord, was he the biggest fool to ever walk the earth? Trevor came home to a cold house that wouldn’t get any warmer with company.
Why? Why did he have to let Antony get to him like that? Start believing the nasty labels Antony had stuck on him? Don never acted like Trevor was anything but the best thing that ever walked on two legs.
Why couldn’t Trevor just take Don’s word on how he felt?
Because Don was pretty damned sheltered from a lot of the world. Of course Trevor was the best—he was the only. Trevor’d known a lot of gay men in a lot of places; none of them treated him like Don did. It was damned nice to be wanted and appreciated and.... And maybe Don wouldn’t care so much if there was any other man for comparison.
Just like Antony said. The bastard.
Trevor’d been around enough to know—he hadn’t wanted a relationship when he fell into bed with Don, but there it was. It happened. Someone to be glad for his triumphs and commiserate with his flops, and read his writing with an increasingly knowledgeable eye. Someone to brush the snow off of and make dinner for, someone who spoke plainly and honestly. Who took care of the dogs and did dishes and helped make the bed in the morning when they’d managed to pull all the sheets sideways and off.
Award ceremonies were a distant dream, not something Don should worry about even if this movie got made. They could find him a good stylist and a manicurist before then, if it ever happened.
If Don would consent to go at all. Trevor wouldn’t push.
Damn but he was a fool—none of that mattered if Don wouldn’t talk to him. Why would he have the time of day for a lover who pretty nearly said “Go fuck other men and get your heart broken so you’ll know your own mind?” Why couldn’t Trevor be content to be Don’s one and only? Wasn’t that the stuff of movies? Old movies. One and only because there never could be anyone else.
Just like Antony said. Fucktard.
Round and round, round and round. The argument in Trevor’s head wouldn’t stop. Every time he reached for the phone, it started up again, drowning out the words Trevor should say. The “I’m sorry, I was an ass, I shouldn’t have doubted you, I shouldn’t have listened to anything that bastard said.” He should crawl. Yeah, the old, needy guy planned out how to crawl.
Damn Antony to hell! Trevor wrote him the painful death he’d envisioned and abandoned for the happier stories Don inspired. This was nothing like Lumberjacks in Love: Trevor pushed that bastard down the mineshaft and listened to him scream all the way to the sickening splash at the bottom. Hours at the keyboard made that novel grow—Trevor wrote Antony into oblivion. He’d make the world at the ending a happier one for Antony’s demise.
Hours and hours, a day. Two. Sabrina whined for his attention. Trevor let her out and went back to the keyboard, determined to finish Antony off forever. Silence that cruel voice in his head, and bring Don the evidence. Try to ignore Sabrina digging in the yard, scrabbling away in the brown grass and the mud.
Oh, shit. The mud. She’d track it everywhere. Trevor ran out the back in his stocking feet, shouting from the back porch. “Sabrina! Stop that!”
Sabrina liked her game too much to stop. She paused long enough to loll a doggy dare at him and went back to flinging lumps of mud into the air behind her. Damn, how much had she dug already? She was half hidden by the ground, which was still... grassy...around...and into...the hole.
“Sabrina! Come!” Trevor called. A depression in the ground, that couldn’t be good, oh man, no. Going to get her after he’d called her would be terrible for discipline but who cared, that depression wasn’t there before he left on his trip, he was sure of it. Trevor quickstepped on tiptoes across the yard, ready to grab his furry scoundrel and get her away.
Her feet flew. The hole deepened. Trevor reached for her, long before he was close enough to connect. Just this one time, be a bad dog and run away from Papa! “Stop, Sabrina! No digging!”
She didn’t listen—she dug faster. And stopped—she threw back her head, eyes wide.
And disappeared into the ground.
“Sabrina!” Trevor stopped short before he pitched headlong into the pit yawning at his feet. “Sabrina!”
As if she could come now. Or his voice could lift her.
A terrified yelp came out of the hole. She didn’t sound too far down, or like she was falling—it wasn’t a faraway sound, dopplering away.
Trevor flung himself flat to the ground—he’d crawl forward with his weight distributed evenly and peer into the hole.
Mud and rocks slid down into oblivion before he got to the edge. Sabrina yipped and yelped under the rain of dirt. Trevor backed away—he wouldn’t do her a bit of good if he fell in with her.
Last week or last month he would have called Don for help, but now? Until he’d made his apologies he couldn’t ask for anything. He poked his phone for the other local who had answers, and got “Deer Creek Realty, how may I help you?”
“Megan, it’s Trevor Cunningham, my back yard ate my dog! Help!”
“Whoa, back up. What happened?”
“My dog was digging in a depression. I didn’t know it was there, it wasn’t there before my trip, but she was digging and it opened up and she fell in! What do I do?” Trevor peered into the hole from what he hoped was a safe distance.
“Call Don Harper, obviously.”
“There is no ‘obviously’ here! Except ‘call Don Harper’ being your answer to everything.” Oh, why had he bothered? He should have called 9-1-1.
“Harper is the answer to a brand new hole in your back yard, Trevor. Call him.”
“I can’t call Harper.” He couldn’t explain why, but surely his despair would force her to give another answer?
“You dial the number, you say, ‘Harper, a mine shaft opened up at this address,’ and he takes care of it.”
Nearly dancing with frustration and the cold earth beneath his feet, he snarled, “You don’t understand, I said some awful things—” Damn, he hadn’t meant to say that. “But I can’t call him.”
“Look, you Greenie, I am telling you how to handle this.” Whoa, the gloves were off! “If you want your dog rescued and your back yard safe, you call the man who does shaft abatement. And if you said nasty things to my friend, I will open the can of whup-ass on you.”
Wait, what? Trevor froze.
“Never mind, you’re too panicky to do anything useful. I’ll call him. Try not to fall in with the dog, okay?” She sounded as if she wouldn’t mind if he fell into the pits of hell.
Nothing to do but wait. “Sabrina, it’s okay.” Trevor couldn’t think of anything else to do besides soothe her with his voice. The wind nipped at his face and hands. “Don’s coming, he’ll help us.”
She whined from far below his feet. Oh please, let this mine be one of the shallow ones that ran out early. Let her be sitting on nice dry dirt only a few feet down. “Don’s coming, he’ll help me get you out.” Right. He’ll do the work while I stand around wringing my hands and expecting an angry woman to kick my ass. But Don would rescue Sabrina. No matter how he felt about Trevor, he’d make every effort for his favorite designer mutt. Trevor had to hold on to that.
An aged blue Taurus pulled into the drive. Megan hopped out, dressed for the nippy early spring in a light jacket. She made a beeline for him.
“Harper will be here in about fifteen minutes.” For a woman of no obvious athletic abilities, she was fast and strong—she grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him a step forward to glare up into his face. “You have thirty seconds to tell me what you said to him, Greenie.”
What could he say to this mountain maniac without outing Don? “It was pretty personal, Megan. I can’t tell you.” He braced for a fist.
She shook him, and shook him harder when he tried to peel her fingers out of his shirt. “Did you give him shit about Jimmy Redfeather?” One false move and she’d probably deck him. Trevor stopped peeling.
She had asked a question he could answer. “No, Megan. I didn’t. I promise you on my dog’s life I did not give him shit about Jimmy Redfeather, or anything in any way connected with the guy. And I do know who he is. Sort of.”
Megan stopped shaking him but she didn’t let go. “I told you to call him because I thought you guys might be friends. He is a great guy, and if you—” She stopped short.
“If I what, Megan?” This was not a conversation he wanted to have in the back yard in a chill wind, with mud squishing between his toes and his dog whining in fear. “If I took advantage of him? If I hurt him? If I what?”
“All of that. Any of that.” She tensed, ready to shake him again. “Or anything like it.”
“I did not take advantage of him. I did not intentionally hurt him, but I did say something that I thought was in his best interests which turned out to be incredibly stupid. And the rest of it is none of your damned business.”
“Actually, it is my business. I damn near married him.” She let go, hard enough to stagger Trevor backward, or maybe that was her words weakening his knees. “Go inside and dress yourself. I’ll stay here with Sabrina.” She turned her back on him and started talking softly to the trapped animal.
Trevor all but ran into the house to wipe his feet and find boots and jacket. He returned to the back yard to find the most ferocious realtor in Montana cooing, “Yes, precious, we’ll have you out of there soon.”
“You want to explain the nearly marrying part?” They had a few minutes of the projected fifteen left. “That’s why you’re so protective of him?” Why hadn’t they ever spent time with her socially if she and Don were friends? Or had they parted as badly as he and Trevor? Oh, right, closet.
She turned to face him, chewing over her words. “You don’t know most of the town scandals, I suppose. But after that no-good prick who knocked me up took off and left me with a five-year-old, Don was about the only friend this Hester fucking Prynne had. He filled the freezer with game and kept us fed, and took care of Caleb while I studied for my real estate license. This was after his dad died and he could come into town and be—regular people again, I guess. He offered to marry me, just to keep people from talking dirt behind my back. Even though there wasn’t a single spark between us. He’s an incredible human being.”
“He is.” Trevor already knew he’d fucked up, maybe cost himself everything that Don was, so much more than Trevor had known. Had Antony ever gone out of his way to help anyone?
“I might have, then I met Roger, and Don bowed out. And I may be married to Roger, but there is a very soft spot in my heart for Don.” Her voice went quiet as she explained.
Trevor saw her nearly twenty years younger, in a short, flippy skirt and holding pompoms. “That explains the big can of whup-ass.”
“I’ve got more, so don’t be a jerk to him.” At least she grinned when she said that, but Trevor also had no trouble imagining her walking him backward until he stepped into one of the local hundred foot voids.
“So...” How to ask this? “You knew... about him?”
“Of course I did. I was there when that old bat Hamentree humiliated him and Jimmy. Hateful, just hateful, and they weren’t doing near as much as Dumbass and I did.” She sighed. “Man, did his dad go ape shit. Worse than mine did when I started showing.”
“He’s felt pretty alone all this time.” Trevor hated talking in code—what if they weren’t talking the same code?
“I know, but he never brought it up, so what could I say or do?” She brushed locks of blonde hair out of her face. “I did the next best thing. I thought. I set him up with you.”
“Taking a big chance there, girlfriend.” Trevor could have been an axe murderer in his spare time for all she knew.
“I check out my clients. My Google-fu is pretty good.” She paused to coo encouragements to Sabrina. “When your Hollywood ex’s biggest complaints about you are exactly what my friend needs, well.” She gave him another steely glare. “How big a mistake did I make with that?”
Trevor hung his head. “I’m going to try to make things right. So don’t kill me until after I talk to him, okay?” He was only partially joking—she could push him in with the dog and start shoveling.
Any further threats she could make were interrupted by the man himself—Harper drove up in a familiar one-ton pickup truck laden with metal barriers and tools, pulling the backhoe on its trailer. Its scoop looked too toothy for retrieving something as delicate as flesh and blood.