Page 11 of Hearing Hank

“I’d like to come, I’ll hitch a ride with Wyatt, probably,” I tell him.

“Good, we’d all be sad if you couldn’t make it. I’m glad you’re coming,” Sam tells me. This entire conversation has thrown me for a loop.

“I’ll absolutely make it, it sounds fun,” I say.

“Awesome, see you later,” Sam smiles and heads back out of the barn.

I lean against the wall. I need to take a minute. It never occurred to me that Wyatt and Sam might think of me as family. In my experience, family was flighty and untrustworthy at best, and actively dangerous at worst. But, of course, Wyatt and Sam aren’t that way. They have a healthy, loving, supportive dynamic, and when Mark and Wyatt got together, he fit right in with that. Thinking about this brings up all sorts of uncomfortable feelings that I’m going to have to work through. I have an automatic response that says they can’t care about me because they don’t push me to talk. My mother pushed me to talk all the time. It really seemed like the only time she noticed me was to tell me what a disappointment I was for not talking and embarrassing her. And, you know, negative attention is still attention.

Once that belief floats to the top, it’s easy to squish it. Wyatt and Sam are just respecting my boundaries. They would never push me to do something that makes me anxious. It’s why they were the first people I was able to talk to. Found family is very much a real thing, and if they think of me that way, I think I’d better reassess my relationships. I shake my head at myself, push myself off the wall, and start back to work. Lots to talk about in therapy.

After a quick sandwich for lunch, I round up the goats and picket them out in the side yard again. They’re doing a pretty good job of clearing, and with just a little bit of cleanup on my part, it should be perfect for the wedding. I spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning the barn and going through and maintaining the tack for the horses. I’m keeping an eye and ear out for Lee, hoping I’ll see him when he comes back from town, but I never do see his little blue car come back. I try to tell myself several times that he’s probably just hanging out with Paul, and he’s probably not avoiding me, but I still haven’t seen him by the time I go to bed, and it leaves me with an unpleasant, hollow feeling in my chest.

14

Leroy

Afterwegetdonedishing about my date, Paul and I head to downtown Shafter Falls to see if we can get anything locally off of our décor list. We spend a frustrating couple of hours checking everywhere, including the feed store, and come to the conclusion that unless we want to go completely DIY, I’m going to have to go shopping further afield.

We step into the cool air inside Leeanne’s with relief.

“That was pretty much a waste of time,” Paul says as we find ourselves a table. He’s not quite whining, but it’s close.

“I do not know how the gay shopping gene skipped you,” I tease him. “You never were good for more than an hour.”

“That’s what you think,” Paul laughs.

Leeanne comes up with menus. “I figured I could sit with you boys while you have lunch, and we can talk about what kind of cake and main dishes you want.”

“Hey Miss Leeanne,” Paul greets her. “Sam and I don’t have any real opinions about what to serve, we like everything. We just want to have things people will enjoy.”

Leeanne smiles. “I can do two kinds of chicken and two kinds of lasagna, and everyone will be happy. It’s really easy to prep everything here and just bring it out at dinner time. Do you boys have the budget for me to hire someone to help with set up and clean up?”

Paul doesn’t even hesitate. “Of course we do! We wouldn’t ask you to do all that work yourself. I figured you’d hire a couple of people to help. What kind of deposit do you need to get started?”

“I knew you’d be the good kind of people to work with. I don’t need a deposit, honey, there are just people around here who are surprised that it costs money at all, so I like to mention it upfront and get it out of the way.”

I roll my eyes, “Those people are everywhere Miss Leeanne, I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with them.”

“Well, honey, I only deal with them once,” She says with a big grin.

The waitress comes to take our order, and Paul and Miss Leeanne go to discussing cake and frosting flavors. By the time our food arrives, they’ve settled on spice cake with cream cheese frosting, which is untraditional, but sounds like it will taste amazing. The frosting choice limits the decorating options a little, but Paul and Sam weren’t looking for twelve fancy tiers to begin with. As we eat we settle on three big tiers with a rainbow of edible wildflowers for decoration. Easy to cut and serve, and beautiful.

“I still need to figure out where to rent tables and chairs,” I tell Paul. “For everything other than those I’m going to have to go shopping someplace bigger. I’m thinking since I’ll have to drive a ways anyway I might as well run home to Denver, gather everything and come back. I’ll stay a night or two, have dinner with Mama, and bring back everything we need for a great party.”

Miss Leeanne pipes up, “Aren’t you going to use the tables and chairs from the Legion Hall? That’s what everybody else does.”

Paul and I look at each other. “I had no idea that was an option, I’m not sure Sam did either,” he says. “How do we even make that happen?”

“I’ll put you down on the schedule for that weekend,” Leeanne says. “There’s nothing else going on. If there was I’d already know about it. Whoever’s doing the setup just needs to pick it all up on Saturday and drop them back off on Monday. Just clean everything off good, and if you can make a donation to our kid’s Christmas charity, that would be much appreciated.”

I lean back in my chair and smile at her. “That’s amazing Miss Leeanne, you have taken care of most of our wedding list in fifteen minutes! We should have just talked to you first!”

“That’s what I always say,” she banters back, “if people just talked to me first the world would run a lot smoother.”

We both thank Leeanne, finish our lunch, and head outside. I hug Paul and ignore the double take from someone in a pickup driving by. He’s heading to the library to work on a school assignment, and I figure I might as well get on the road.

I was engaged in what was going on at lunch, but as soon as I’m by myself in the car and driving my mind drifts to Hank. As I’m enjoying the memory of how amazing he felt against me I get the urge to text him. Only at that point do I realize that we never swapped phone numbers. I do a literal facepalm as I’m driving. I don’t have any way to get ahold of him short of calling Paul to ask Sam to ask Wyatt for his number, and that would be very, very awkward for all of us. I briefly consider actually turning the car around and driving back through town and out to the ranch just to tell him I’m spending the next two nights in Denver, but that seems a little over the top.

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