Page 57 of Sass in the Grass

“You like me.”

“Yeah. And?”

“I…I like you. I like you a lot, and, well, you shouldn’t like me. Nobody likes me!”

Dixon’s smile was patient and sweet, and his thumb rubbed a tear away. “A lot of people like you, Jovian.”

“My real name is Kyle. I…didn’t like it, so I had it changed.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” he asked, then pushed him away, rolled over and got to his knees, then feet and started yelling, “What the hell does that mean? Okay? I’m an asshole because I changed my name. I look down on everyone and I’m mean! How the hell could you possibly like me?”

Dixon hadn’t moved except to roll over onto his back, setting an arm under his head. “Maybe I see past all that shit. Do ya think?”

“How?”

“Like I said, Jovian, Kyle, whatever you want to be called, you’re not as mysterious as you seem to think you are. All the makeup, the fancy clothes, the rudeness, it’s all the same thing. A big barrier between you and the rest of the people in the world. Most of it anyway. Some of it’s real, because you don’t seem to know better.”

“How do you see me?”

“I see a beautiful, insecure man that needs someone to care about him.”

Jovian sat back on the blanket and stared at Dixon, shock taking the words from his mind.

Dixon reached up to cup his cheek, rubbing his thumb there to chase more of the tears. “You’re a dick sometimes. But other times, I could just hold you, take care of you. You wanted a rich daddy. What you need to ask yourself, Jovian, is if you could handle having a not-so-rich one. As in, not rich at all.”

In all his dreams, he’d pictured himself sunning by a pool that was next to a gloriously big house, where he could have an entire wing just for his clothes and accessories. His vanity would be the length of the room, and he’d sit there for hours planning his daily outfits while doing skin care.

Jovian’s head turned, and he saw what he’d get if he gave up on that dream. Mountains, lakes, forests and…Dixon.

“Maybe youarerich, though. You’re just a different kind of rich.”

“So, you can tell your friends back home you have the rich daddy you always wanted.”

Again, the guy surprised him. “I’m reallynotthat mysterious! That’s unnerving.”

After barking a deep laugh, he asked, “Why is that unnerving?”

“When you go through your life thinking, you’re deep and unknowable, well, it’s unnerving having someone I barely met read me like a children’s book.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you just had to find someone that wanted to open the cover and look inside.”

Jovian eyed him suspiciously. “Are we talking about sex now?”

“God,” he said, laughing heartily. “You’re fucking funny.”

Chapter Fifteen

Theskycouldbarelybe seen in tiny slivers as they lay on the blanket, staring up through the branches and leaves. “This tree is nice.”

“Oak too. And it is not common around here. Mostly there are elm and evergreen, aspen.”

“So, someone planted it,” Jovian mused. “Maybe they planted it for their partner, and they pictured it shading a picnic like this. Of course, they’re long dead, but…”

“That was almost romantic,” Dixon said, laughing. “Besides the part about them being dead.”

“You never know, maybe they’re both buried here, together, and they will be all sorts of angry with us, using their tree to have our date. They’ll come up and start to haunt us, and we’ll be driven crazy before we drink drain cleaner to stop the voices.”

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