5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Bare

I finished putting away the dishes and went back to check on Hermie once more, seeing him curled up in the bed, sound asleep. That was good. That was what he needed, and I’d have to remember it going forward. What I wanted to try was getting him to take a nap in the afternoon. I wondered if it would help with his anxiety and emotional meltdowns.

After I turned off the kitchen lights, I returned to Hermie’s room and sat in the corner chair to stare at the most beautiful man I’d met in a long time. He was delicate, but I could see he was strong on the inside. The lovely gesture of making Jolly’s floating banana mold “thing” brought tears to my eyes. I could see how proud Hermie was when Jolly gave him a bear hug after seeing it.

To me, Hermie was a dream come true. He was a fantastic cook, of course, but he was sweet and kind. He seemed to be lost, and that shit his mother pulled by leaving town and not telling him—awful. She didn’t deserve someone as special as Hermie in the first place. I hoped she lost sleep every night.

“Bare… please hold me.”

I stepped closer to the bed. He was still asleep, so I imagined he was dreaming, which would be flattering if he was dreaming about me. Why would he, though? Why would Hermie dream about me?

I wanted him to let me make his world perfect, or as near perfect as could be. He deserved so much more than he’d had so far, and I wanted to be the one to give it to him.

How I could do that, I wasn’t sure. It had been my dream to find a boy who’d let me take care of him… love him… make a life with him. Was Hermie that boy?

Early Friday morning after chores were done, I went to the house to get my daily infusion of caffeine and fill a thermos to take to the tree lot with me. The previous week, I’d been cleaning up and cutting walkways for the customers between the rows at the tree lot.

I’d had Chuck and Dirk sharpening tools and oiling the tree netting machine, and I’d ordered new red and white netting and green string, so we were set for the holiday season. The hands had been nice enough to create a schedule, rotating to help at the lot, which was open Thursday evening, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until five.

In years past, I’d invited the Kingsley High School band to sell hot chocolate and baked goods when the tree lot was open. They were due to set up their stand in the afternoon on Friday.

After I shed my boots and coat, I noticed a note on the kitchen island. I walked over and picked it up, seeing it was from Hermie.

It was then I remembered I’d promised a cookout and bonfire that night for the Floras, and I was looking forward to it.

Maybe pick up stuff for s’mores and buns? I’ll pull hamburger and hotdogs out of the freezer. The high school band does refreshments at the tree lot, so I think we’re set for that. B

I went to the warmer to see an aluminum pan with foil-wrapped burritos. I picked one up to see ‘cheese, egg, sausage, jalapenos’ written on the foil with a marker, and I laughed. Hermie was damn efficient.

I filled a thermos with coffee and grabbed the pan to carry to the bunkhouse. I could see everyone heading toward the main house, so I whistled and motioned them to the bunkhouse.

I went inside, relieved the place was in relatively good order. I put the pan on the table and grabbed some paper plates from the counter. When everyone came inside, they all looked worried. “What’s wrong?”

I hoped the livestock was okay. I’d been in the machine shed loading the equipment we'd need at the tree lot and hadn't gone to the barn.

“You never come down here. Is something wrong?” Tilda brought the coffee pot to the table.

“In case you forgot, Hermie started his job at the diner this morning. He made these burritos before he left, and they’re all labeled, so dig in. You guys have the leftovers for lunch, or there’re cold cuts at the house if you want them. Tonight, we’re having burgers, hot dogs, and a bonfire if you wanna hang around, though I can’t promise it will be more fun than going out. Who’s first up to work at the tree lot?”

Brady Carlisle, a tall thin guy of about twenty-eight, raised his hand. His twin sister, Bridget, worked in the barn office, and since I needed her to manage the shipping schedule and do the books so I could keep track of costs, she didn’t rotate through the tree lot on a regular basis. She helped when she wanted, but she was busy with more important tasks.

The men and women who worked at the ranch were nice folks and hard workers. I was fortunate my dad had hired many of them and they’d stuck around after he was gone. It was a wonder that any of the hands wanted to work at Bare Ranch after they’d met my father.

Brian Barrett used to stomp around, bitching and moaning about everything in his line of sight. I knew for a fact he was a pain in the ass.

When I left to go to college, my father pitched a fit. Forget that I went on a full ride because of basketball and forget that I was picked up in the third round of the NBA draft. The only success that ever impressed my father was anything related to Bare Ranch.

After I tore my ACL, I returned to Kingsley to recover and rehabilitate with every intention of returning to the Houston Riggers. A torn ACL wasn’t that big a deal if it healed properly. Unfortunately, my parents were killed in a car accident on their way home from a cattle auction in Fort Worth, and my life drastically changed.

I thought about the folks who depended on their jobs at the ranch to take care of themselves and their families, and I couldn’t let them down. I was released from my contract with the team and relegated into obscurity as an old stat in Riggers’ history.

I couldn’t say I missed basketball. It truly is a young man’s game, and while I wasn’t ready for a walker, I wasn’t getting any younger at thirty-five. I had found contentment at the ranch, with one exception—I didn’t want to be alone running it.

Maybe I was jumping the gun, but something about Hermie warmed my insides. There was something about the guy that made me want to take care of him. He was a young adult, but it seemed as though Hermie needed someone to care about—and care for—him. I found myself wanting to be that someone.

“Ready?”

I snapped out of my thoughts and glanced at Brady. “Yeah. I’ve got the equipment loaded on the flatbed. I’ll hook it up to my truck and take it down to the lot. You bring down one of the Gators so we have it to use down there. I’m going now.”

I grabbed a burrito and headed out the door toward my truck to hook it to the flatbed and head to the tree lot. The cab of my truck filled with the smell of something delicious, so I peeled the foil away and took a bite of the most incredible thing I’d had in my mouth since the delicious Thanksgiving dinner Hermie had prepared for us.

That thought led me to something else I wanted in my mouth, but that might take a little longer to work out. The idea of having my tongue on Hermie’s skin made my mouth water… or maybe it was the breakfast burrito. Both sounded damn good to me.

We were opening the tree lot at noon, so I checked the time on my phone to see it was ten thirty. Brady and I had unloaded the equipment and placed it on the concrete slab I’d had poured the previous summer. The slab was big enough for a checkout station, snack table, and the staging area where we put nets on the trees for easier transport by the customers.

“How come you don’t put lights up here instead of using those highway lights, Boss?”

I sighed. “I thought about it, but time got away from me. Maybe when things slow down after the first of the year, I’ll get a lighting company to come out and give me a bid to string lights so we’re ready for next year.”

“I worked a few years during the holiday season putting up Christmas lights for Francine’s Florals. Let me get the rest of the crew down here on Monday. I think we can put up enough light strands by next weekend to light it up. After the holidays, we’ll come back and make it nicer and more festive. That way we don’t have to use those things.” Brady pointed to the portable lighting systems used by the highway crews who worked overnight when the summer sun was too hot. I had one unit at each side of the lot with a large one in the middle. They were ugly as hell, but they suited my purposes.

“You think you guys can get it done by next Thursday?” I wouldn’t mind something more permanent at the tree lot. I’d hired a landscaping company in the spring to plant another two hundred trees. I enjoyed working at the lot during the holidays. It kept me from feeling lonely, but I had high hopes that this year would be entirely different.

“Yeah. We’ll need to set some posts…” Brady went into detail regarding what it would take to install permanent lighting in the lot, which told me he knew what he was doing.

Unfortunately, my mind was busy planning things to do with Hermie during the holidays. I wanted to take him to Toyland, but we needed to get to know each other better first.

My heart was telling me to get in the car and go check on him at the diner. He’d only been gone a few hours, but I missed him already.

“Brady, call and see if you can get some posts, let’s say ten to twelve feet tall. See when they can be delivered. I wish I’d talked to you about this sooner.”

Brady chuckled. “Boss, you can’t do everything yourself. Maybe during breakfast, we should sort of have a team meeting, and we could offer our thoughts on things that need to be done around the place. We want to see Bare Ranch succeed, too.”

I glanced at the guy to see he was serious. “Am I too much like my dad?”

Brady smirked. “I wouldn’t go that far. Mr. Barrett was a tough nut with no mercy. You’re nothing like that, but like your dad, you feel like it’s all on your shoulders to make this place the best it can be. You can give us more responsibility, Boss. That’s what we’re here for.”

I nodded and headed back to the truck. “Go ahead and open at noon in case I’m running late. Call the barn and have Craig or Tilda to come down and help you ’til I get back.”

Brady nodded, so I got into the truck and made my way toward town. I hoped to hell that Hermie was having a good day.