Page 52 of Our Own Light

“Take care, Ollie.”

“You, too, Floyd.”

All the way home, Floyd kept looking at his still-warm hand.

Chapter Eight

Oliver

The initial thrill that Oliver had been feeling from holding Floyd’s hand had long since passed, leaving him with the sudden, terrible fear that Floyd might not really like him back enough to want to keep their agreed-upon arrangement. Not that Floyd had acted in a way to suggest that this might be the case, but...

But Oliver had never liked someone in this way before.

Oliver’s worry was resulting in some regrettably strange behavior. For hours, Oliver had been bouncing between talking way, way too much, even for him, which was certainly saying something, and clamming up entirely. Worse, he kept leaping from one work task to the next, completing each of them in a hurried sort of way, the result of which was unbearably sloppy work. By noon, Oliver had already dropped his shovel over ten times. Thank God Floyd had yet to let him handle the explosives.

Throughout it all, Floyd was so, so forgiving. Even after hours of witnessing Oliver’s blunders, Floyd still hadn’t made even one teasing remark.

One of the most torturous facts of the workday was how incredibly attractive Floyd had suddenly become. Or, well, he had always been attractive, but now Oliver couldn’t seem to watch the man bend over to lift a pickaxe without wishing he could be alone for a little while to take care of himself. Jesus Christ, how had Floyd become so... so delectable? Oliver had never, in his entire life, wanted to devour another person, but holy hell, Floyd certainly looked scrumptious enough to eat. Oliver was busy silently musing on the strangeness of this urge when Floyd caught him staring.

“Ollie, you’re making it hard for me to work today.”

God, Floyd probably hadn’t even caught the potential filthiness hidden inside that stupidly tantalizing statement.

“Yes, well, same to you.”

“I ain’t the one staring. I can’t focus with you looking at me all the time.”

“Floyd, even if you’re not the one staring, you’re the one who...” Oliver took a couple of steps toward Floyd to close the space between them and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ll put it this way: you look very nice in those pants.”

“I have no idea what to say to that,” Floyd remarked with an amused snort. “Look, we only got one more hour or so left. Let’s focus on filling up this here car. I need money to feed my family.”

“And money for more nicely tailored pants, too, I hope.”

“Whatever makes you focus on helping me shovel coal, city boy.”

So Oliver tried to concentrate on shoveling the last heaps of coal into the car. But once their playful banter ended, Oliver’s niggling fear of rejection started percolating once again, first only manifesting a small rumble, but soon, becoming as powerful as an earthquake, causing Oliver’s hands to tremble enough that he ended up dropping the shovel. Again.

“Unbelievable,” Oliver muttered under his breath.

“Something wrong?”

“I’m fine. Probably had too much coffee this morning.”

Oliver picked up his shovel and returned to the task. He still kept looking over at Floyd, though he tried not to be quite so obvious about it, and nearly every time, Oliver’s eyes inevitably wandered to find Floyd’s hands. He really liked Floyd’s hands. They were beautiful. Large and strong and calloused and a perfect fit for his own.

Still shoveling, Oliver kept on worrying about whether or not he’d ever be able to hold them again, his mind continuously circling back to the possibility that Floyd might want to cancel their unconventional arrangement. Because why wouldn’t he? Oliver wasn’t special. He was a loudmouth who made too many silly jokes and took the Lord’s name in vain. Besides, maybe Floyd wasn’t as excited about their budding relationship as he was. Floyd hadn’t been staring and tripping over lunch pails and forgetting not to shovel too many regular rocks in with the coal.

For the next while, Oliver busied himself by mentally listing out the many reasons why Floyd shouldn’t like him, and by the end of it, he was feeling incredibly lousy about everything. So lousy, in fact, that he thought he should tell Floyd that he was no longer interested in romance or sex or strangely intimate hand-holding sessions. After all, he could avoid the pain from Floyd’s eventual, inevitable rejection by rejecting Floyd first.

Pondering over this, Oliver bent to pick up his lunch pail.

And was met with a rat.

With a surprised yelp, Oliver leapt backward, crashing into Floyd, who had been shoveling the last bit of coal into the car. Floyd, being as large as a fucking house, barely even stumbled. He set his shovel on the car and turned to Oliver.

“Oh my God, oh shit, oh fuck,” Oliver kept cursing, his heart thundering in his chest. “I think there’s a rat in my lunch pail.”

Floyd chuckled softly. “Maybe it opened when you tripped on it earlier.”

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