Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

He had considered unveiling a grand new addition to their ever-expanding cat amusement park, but they’d been working on that together and it was for both of them, so it didn’t seem like a good gift just for Rye.

Finally, though he wasn’t quite confident in his instinct, Charlie had used a number he found in Rye’s phone, and gone the sentimental route.

“Want your present?” he asked Rye softly, not wanting to interrupt his snoozy meditation of the fire or the cats that were splayed out around him.

Rye turned dreamy eyes to him.

“Present?”

He sounded like an excited kid.

“Stay there, I’ll bring it.”

He got the wrapped package from the coat closet where he’d stashed it, confident it wouldn’t be found because Rye never hung his coat in the closet, always draping it over a banister or a doorknob or simply laying it on top of the vent. (“It dries it off faster!” Rye insisted. “It blocks the vent,” Charlie said.)

He handed the gift to Rye and sat next to him in front of the fire, a hand on Jane so he didn’t startle her. Murder Cat jumped into his lap the second he created one.

“Can’t believe I’m making you make your own anniversary present and you got me one,” he muttered.

“Hush,” Charlie told him.

Rye tore the paper off and Charlie watched his face intently.

“That’s the shelter,” he said softly, tracing it on the large framed photograph. “The house I mean.”

Charlie nodded.

“Is that him?”

“Yeah.”

He put his face up close to the picture.

“Clive said we look alike but I don’t see it.”

He sounded disappointed.

“I do. The way he’s scowling at the camera, like he wants Clive to fuck off. That’s pure you.”

Rye snorted. “Okay.”

“And look at his chin. Pointy just like yours. Same high cheekbones.”

Rye scrutinized the man in the photograph, searching for traces of himself in the family he’d never known. When he looked up at Charlie his eyes were wet.

“I can see it now.” Charlie brushed a tear away with his thumb and Rye scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. “Wow, look at the house. It was nice before it...fell apart.”

It was a classic winterized Wyoming cabin but when the picture had been taken some twenty years ago (or so Clive had told him) its porch was still level and its roof didn’t sag. It had a neat woodpile next to the house and there was smoke streaming out the chimney.

Based on the trees it looked to be the end of autumn. Granger Janssen stood before the house, scowling, hands in his pockets, and a scarred brown cattleman hat over his wild gray hair. Hair the color of his eyes and Rye’s.

“Where did you get this?”

Rye stood the frame up against the wall and leaned into Charlie.

“From Mr. Wayne.”

“Whenever you call him that I picture Batman,” he said absently. Then after a while, “I hope he was okay. He was all by himself. I hope he was happy.”

“Are you happy?” Charlie asked.

Rye paused long enough that it might have made Charlie nervous had Rye not been holding on to him so tight.

“I’m so happy,” he said finally, voice choked with feeling. “Sometimes I feel this, this feeling and I don’t know what it is at first and then I’m like, oh, shit, that’s happiness. But like actual happiness. It’s like being a balloon.”

Charlie eased Rye around so he could see his face. Charlie’s heart was so full he felt at any moment that it could leap from his chest and spring like a buck out into the falling rain.

Last year at this time, Charlie had driven home from work alone after Rye’s initial visit to Matheson’s Hardware. He had put on sweats and built a fire and stared at it, just as he was staring at one now. He’d gotten out a thick wool blanket and slept in front of the fire. Jane, confused, had curled up next to him, giving him little flicks with her tail, as if to say, Just checking: You do know we’re not in bed, correct?

He’d slept in front of the fire because that day he’d met someone new, and meeting someone new had reminded him that he was alone, and because he didn’t want to be alone. He’d woken in the middle of the night. The fire had burned out and Jane was gone. Cold and dejected, Charlie had gone to his bed.

Now the fire crackled merrily, Rye’s eyes on him were luminous, and the cats lounged languorously around them.

“Actual happiness,” Charlie echoed.

Rye kissed him and Charlie tasted his tears and his love and his perfect Rye-ness.

“Can we sleep out here in front of the fire?” Rye asked, as if he’d plucked the memory from Charlie’s very head. Charlie was startled, but it felt right somehow.

“You...yeah, sure. Okay.”

Charlie went to their bedroom and got an armful of blankets. He turned out all the lights as he returned, and they made a bed in front of the fire. He piled on more logs and they watched tongues of fire consume them, wrapped together in blankets, bracketed by cats.