Summer Sweat (Spruce Texas)

Yeah, I’m sure she’s got all sorts of ideas of what kind of “fun” we’d have. Sorry, but all of those ideas are fantasies that’ll never happen.

I take a patient breath. “Is there a place I go for the interview? Or should I just—”

“Jimmy’ll come get you himself when he’s ready. You can just hang out here and chat with me if you want.”

She smiles and tilts her head.

I smile back, lips flat and strained.

From out of the corner of my eye, I spot someone emerging from the workout area. It’s Julio in a pair of blue Nike gym shorts and a loose white tank. He stops when he sees me. The pair of us are like bulls with horns locked, staring warily at one another, as if unsure what the other will do.

He gives me a chin-lift, breaking the ice.

I return it mildly. “Hey, man.”

He flings his workout towel over his left shoulder, then slowly approaches. He gives my outfit a nod. “What’re you all dressed up for? Job interview? What position you going for? Manager?”

I shrug. “Dress to impress, right?”

“If you say so.”

Things still feel stiff and awkward between us. He looks like he’s either waiting for an apology, for an explanation, or for me to just go off on him again.

I decide to give him all three. “I’m sorry I went at you a couple nights ago. I was touchy about the whole farmer thing, sure, but you were being a dick.”

He shrugs. “I thought it was funny. Benji would’ve, too, if he’d been there. Hell, even Lee laughed, and that guy never laughs. Just can’t picture you doing farm work.”

“Well, now you don’t have to.” I give my application a smack of my hand. “Trying to get a job here now. I left the farm.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Why’d you leave?”

“Wasn’t for me.”

“Hmm.” He crosses his arms, looking me over. “This getup doesn’t look like you, either.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

He meets my eyes, a glint of defiance in them. “Maybe if you want me to know you better, you should just start … talking.”

I stare back at him, hard, jaw tensed.

He doesn’t so much as blink, matching my intensity.

Rhea, who clearly can’t handle the tension, chimes in with another of her bubbly laughs. “You know, my friends and I would bicker, like, all the time, and whenever we got like that, we’d just go and do something together that we loved. Usually it was going to the Beauty Boutique in Fairview, or taking a trip down to the beach, but sometimes—”

The words snap out of my mouth: “I’m gay.”

Julio’s face remains exactly the same.

Rhea’s does not. She looks at each of us, confused, the rest of her story hanging on her lips, unspoken.

Finally Julio lets out a sigh and shrugs. “Okay. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Not really.”

“Obviously I knew,” he goes on, “thanks to Toby. Why did you keep it from me all this time? Shit, if I’d known that was the reason you were all weirdly focused on him all these years, I’d have—”

“Wait, wait, slow down.” I let out a chuckle and lift my hands. “I only just recently realized that’s what was happening all those years with Toby, okay? It’s not all cut and dry like that. In fact, I wasn’t completely sure until after I started working on the farm, and …” I realize that maybe I shouldn’t say any more, considering he did just see me out with Harrison the other night. It isn’t really in my place to out both of us. “… and did a lot of soul searching,” I finish vaguely. “Now you know. It’s … out there. I’ve said it.”

“Yep, you said it,” agrees Julio, his expression softening. Then slowly, a smile stretches over his face. “I’m so proud of you.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Proud?”

Then he comes in for a hug so fast, it almost knocks me over. He slaps my back three times, hard and loud, then pulls away with the biggest grin on his face. “So fuckin’ proud of you,” he says yet again. Are those tears in his eyes? “Now I don’t gotta act weird in front of Benji when he asks who you’re summer-flinging it with—”

“‘Summer-flinging it’??”

“—and why you don’t return his calls—”

“I said it was bad reception!”

“I’ve been keeping this damned secret in since last fall, man. Fuck, why’d you do that to me?? Never mind. Hey, you want to tell Benji and Lee? Or should I?”

“Uh …”

“Actually, why don’t you do it yourself? Got any plans after your interview? We’re hanging out at G-Man’s tonight to game. No Stacey, just us guys.”

While Rhea continues to stare at us in complete bafflement, I nod at Julio. “That sounds great, man.”

He comes up close. “Hey, I know you were bummed out about not getting accepted into UT, and it’s shitty how competitive the whole thing is, but Benji and I were throwing around the idea of getting a place near campus together. And …” He eyes me. “… we thought it might be bad ass if you came with us.”