telling you and letting you make that decision. Protection or not, I wouldn’t have pretended… I wouldn’t do that to you. To Laura.”
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
57
“But you don’t know, do you?” Owen said, desperate, challenging. “You can’t ever be sure.”
“No, you’re right, but I can be pretty damn close to sure by now, since there hasn’t been anyone but you in over a decade!”
There was a silence. The look on Owen’s face brought Kerry close to breaking. Owen hadn’t seen that coming.
Well… Kerry hadn’t either.
And it was perhaps not entirely true. There had been kisses. A no-strings-attached, condom-sheathed blowjob or three…. All right, it was basically a lie, but a qualified lie with a powerful emotional truth cast within it. He could never have explained that complex truth to Owen, who was too deeply mired in black-and-white sexual morality. Kerry hadn’t given up playing the scene entirely. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be able to.
But all any of it had done was drive home that none of the others were Owen.
Owen, whom he missed. Owen, whom he wanted. Owen,
who was in every way the opposite of everything he ever thought he would desire.
Owen, who completed him.
“So, then,” Owen said, still looking stunned, “ why , Kerry? Why’d you act like I’d pulled out a gun when I tried to put a wedding ring on your finger? I want it, and you want it.
I don’t see what the problem is.”
Owen, whom he couldn’t fucking have because Owen wanted more than he could give, because Owen didn’t understand .
And this was the point where, with anyone else, he’d throw up his hands and stomp out. Hitch the next ride back Homespun | Layla M. Wier
58
to the city. There were times in the past when he’d done exactly that, when his time on the farm had ended with a screaming fight and he’d run off.
He was tired of doing that. So tired of it.
And so, he tried to explain, not knowing if Owen would listen, or would understand if he did. Laura’s naivety was excusable, in a way—she was in her twenties, a straight girl who’d never quite grasped the difference between Kerry and herself. But Owen was old enough to know better.
“Don’t you see? You get to a point that you just say screw it . Screw marriage, screw your heteronormative lifestyle, screw your nuclear family and two-point-five kids and all of that. We don’t want it. Screw passing. We don’t want to be your fucking neighbors, taking cherry pies to the PTA meeting. You won’t let us into your hetero members-only club, so we are taking our feather boas and eyeliner and we are building our own club and it’s going to be fucking fabulous .”
He stopped on the verge of hyperventilating, picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in red paint, and flung it across the room. It bounded over the concrete floor, spraying its load like hot wet blood.
“That,” he said, and pointed to it. “That’s how much they want us in their ‘normal’, nine-to-five world. That’s how much of a damn I give about weddings and rings and making nice for the neighbors.”
Now Owen just looked dumbfounded. “You think that’s what this is about? Making a—an honest man out of you, so the neighbors don’t—” His expressive face shut down.
“You’re a son of a bitch sometimes, Kerry.”
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
59
“So tell me I’m wrong. Tell me it’s about us , and not about appearances. Not about trying to recapture something you had with a woman, thirty years ago.”
“For the love of God, Kerry, I know you’re not Nancy!”
“Do you? That ring in your pocket says different.” The words were ripped out of a raw, bleeding place inside him. “I come here to get away , don’t you know that? This place has always been where I go when I have to escape, when I can’t take it anymore. You’re my pressure release valve. Instead I walked right back into a fucking pressure cooker this time.”
Owen’s anger collapsed
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
57
“But you don’t know, do you?” Owen said, desperate, challenging. “You can’t ever be sure.”
“No, you’re right, but I can be pretty damn close to sure by now, since there hasn’t been anyone but you in over a decade!”
There was a silence. The look on Owen’s face brought Kerry close to breaking. Owen hadn’t seen that coming.
Well… Kerry hadn’t either.
And it was perhaps not entirely true. There had been kisses. A no-strings-attached, condom-sheathed blowjob or three…. All right, it was basically a lie, but a qualified lie with a powerful emotional truth cast within it. He could never have explained that complex truth to Owen, who was too deeply mired in black-and-white sexual morality. Kerry hadn’t given up playing the scene entirely. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be able to.
But all any of it had done was drive home that none of the others were Owen.
Owen, whom he missed. Owen, whom he wanted. Owen,
who was in every way the opposite of everything he ever thought he would desire.
Owen, who completed him.
“So, then,” Owen said, still looking stunned, “ why , Kerry? Why’d you act like I’d pulled out a gun when I tried to put a wedding ring on your finger? I want it, and you want it.
I don’t see what the problem is.”
Owen, whom he couldn’t fucking have because Owen wanted more than he could give, because Owen didn’t understand .
And this was the point where, with anyone else, he’d throw up his hands and stomp out. Hitch the next ride back Homespun | Layla M. Wier
58
to the city. There were times in the past when he’d done exactly that, when his time on the farm had ended with a screaming fight and he’d run off.
He was tired of doing that. So tired of it.
And so, he tried to explain, not knowing if Owen would listen, or would understand if he did. Laura’s naivety was excusable, in a way—she was in her twenties, a straight girl who’d never quite grasped the difference between Kerry and herself. But Owen was old enough to know better.
“Don’t you see? You get to a point that you just say screw it . Screw marriage, screw your heteronormative lifestyle, screw your nuclear family and two-point-five kids and all of that. We don’t want it. Screw passing. We don’t want to be your fucking neighbors, taking cherry pies to the PTA meeting. You won’t let us into your hetero members-only club, so we are taking our feather boas and eyeliner and we are building our own club and it’s going to be fucking fabulous .”
He stopped on the verge of hyperventilating, picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in red paint, and flung it across the room. It bounded over the concrete floor, spraying its load like hot wet blood.
“That,” he said, and pointed to it. “That’s how much they want us in their ‘normal’, nine-to-five world. That’s how much of a damn I give about weddings and rings and making nice for the neighbors.”
Now Owen just looked dumbfounded. “You think that’s what this is about? Making a—an honest man out of you, so the neighbors don’t—” His expressive face shut down.
“You’re a son of a bitch sometimes, Kerry.”
Homespun | Layla M. Wier
59
“So tell me I’m wrong. Tell me it’s about us , and not about appearances. Not about trying to recapture something you had with a woman, thirty years ago.”
“For the love of God, Kerry, I know you’re not Nancy!”
“Do you? That ring in your pocket says different.” The words were ripped out of a raw, bleeding place inside him. “I come here to get away , don’t you know that? This place has always been where I go when I have to escape, when I can’t take it anymore. You’re my pressure release valve. Instead I walked right back into a fucking pressure cooker this time.”
Owen’s anger collapsed
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