Chapter 11

His dreams were colored in blue and gray. A campsite. A tent. Samuel and William, lovers but not lovers. Samuel and William spooning left in a warm bedroll on cold, hard ground.

Marc drifted into a hazy awareness of Benjamin’s arms still wrapped around him. Across the camp, a trumpet sounded, and the smell of woodsmoke floated through his dreams.

Benjamin’s hardness pressed against him, and Marc pushed back without thinking about it. Caught half in and half out of his dream, he moaned as Benjamin pulled him closer. For a moment, just a moment, he could almost believe that Benjamin was Samuel and he was William. He closed his eyes again as Benjamin’s hands roamed down his body.

Yes… there, right there…

Then his eyes shot open as Benjamin suddenly pulled back, dragging the blankets off of Marc completely. Cold air spilled across the bed as Benjamin sat up, rubbing his face with both hands, and Marc yelped.

“I’m sorry,” Benjamin said. He pulled the blankets back over Marc. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I’m sorry, Benjamin. I wasn’t awake yet,” Marc said. “I thought you were… I mean…” He trailed off. How could he explain that he had been dreaming? Or, for that matter, what he’d been dreaming about?

“No, no. I’m the one who should be sorry. This was not what I’d intended by inviting you to sleep over. I don’t want you to think my only goal was to cop a feel.” Benjamin moved toward his edge of the bed, away from Marc.

Marc rolled over to face Benjamin. “Hey, wait a minute. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it. I mean, I did.” He moved the blanket aside and gestured.

Benjamin’s eyes roamed the length of Marc’s body, stopping at the tent in his nightshirt, and relief spread over his face. “I’m really sorry. I… um.”

“No, I’m…” Marc cleared his throat. “Look, I’d like to see where this goes, but I’m worried it was the closeness, the warmth—or maybe the dream I was having—that made me respond the way I did. I want to make sure it’s more than that.”

Benjamin took Marc’s hand. “You’re having this effect on me, and you wonder if it’s more than that? Marc… here.” He guided Marc’s hand down to feel his own hardness. “That’s not just because it’s morning.”

Outside the tent, someone cleared their throat loudly, then hit a wooden stake with a large metal utensil. “General, breakfast is cooking. You wanted me to wake you. Did you want me to get your breakfast table set up?”

Those words snapped both men to attention as they realized the owner of the voice had probably overheard most of what they’d just said to each other. They separated, kicking bedclothes to the foot of the bed. Marc jumped out onto the cold rug, and Benjamin replied, “No, Gerald, I’m running behind. I’ll get it set up myself. Be sure to have two servings ready. I believe that Mr. Shelby will stay through breakfast, at least.”

Mr. Shelby…? Then Marc realized that Benjamin was in character again, as the Brigadier general, and he relaxed. His hard-on hadn’t been lying.

“Yes, sir.” A gruff, professional response, and Gerald walked away.

Alone once again, they got dressed. Marc couldn’t take his eyes off Benjamin’s body. Memories of being pressed against him in the bed were making it hard to focus on things like suspenders and buttons. He took the nightshirt off and sat on the bed to tug on his pants, immediately putting one foot through the suspenders. “Wow. I’m coordinated this morning.”

Benjamin came around to Marc’s side of the bed. He smiled. “Here, let me help you with that.” He guided Marc’s foot back out of the tangled suspenders and sat on the bed with his own pants. “Got it?”

“Yeah,” Marc said as he stood, yanking the pants up.

He walked over to get the red shirt and sat back down. As his head emerged from it, Benjamin leaned over and left a kiss on Marc’s neck. “I would like to spend more time with you, if you’re as interested as I am.”

Marc grinned as he threaded his arms through the suspenders. “I hope I can make it through the day without having to hold off another hard-on like that one.”

Benjamin smiled and glanced at the front of Marc’s pants. “So, do you want to spend another night? Did you want to sleep here again or in the infantry?”

“I’m still thinking it through,” Marc said as he bent to put on his shoes. “I might have to head back home, actually. Donna will kill me if I’m not helping her with the cleanup, not that we’re close to being finished with anything.”

Benjamin nodded. “That’s fair. And it’s not like we don’t have more camping events coming up soon. There’s that big one at the end of the month.” He pulled on tall boots, and they both buttoned their jackets. Marc pulled the bedclothes up over the bed while Benjamin headed to the table and moved what was on it to the chest at the foot of the bed. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, but one more thing.” Marc pulled Benjamin into a full-bodied hug. “This? Yes. This I would like to have more of. When you finish on Sunday, call me, and I can help you unpack.”

“I won’t be unpacking,” Benjamin said. “I’ll leave it in the car for the end-of-the-month battle. And you’ll have your own unpacking to do at your house, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Marc deflated. “That’ll be at least another week of work too. I don’t know how much time I can take away between now and then.”

Benjamin nodded. “But I can still call you to come over once you’re done, right? I’ll make dinner and we can watch something—or just make out.”

Marc grinned. “Making out sounds awesome.” With those words, their lips met and crushed together, almost frantically. They were panting as they broke the kiss.

Outside the tent, Gerald’s voice broke through their arousal. “General? Do you have the table?”

“Let’s get this table out there,” Benjamin said. They flipped the tent flaps back and Benjamin pulled the table through. Gerald, playing the part of a proper manservant, set two plates full of eggs and bacon on the table, walked away, and returned with a coffee pot and two wooden mugs, which he placed in the table’s center. He bowed slightly and seemed to wait for further instructions.

“Thank you, Gerald. That will be all for now.” Benjamin stepped back into the tent, grabbed the two camp stools, and handed one to Marc. When they were seated, he nodded at the food. “Eat up, Mr. Shelby.” He winked.

The twinkling brown eyes mesmerized Marc. They were eyes that caught the rising sunlight through the fog, turning to an amber gold. “Is it only you who eat this well?”

“Only the officers get served at their tents,” Benjamin said around a sip of coffee, “but the kitchen tents make extra for the infantrymen. There’s always extra rashers of bacon and a big pot of scrambled eggs. Everyone gets their fill before marching to the battlefield.”

“You’re so organized,” Marc marveled. “And it’s always like this?”

Benjamin gestured with a slice of bacon in one hand. “Usually on Saturdays we’ll have skirmishes, and the big Battle of Pea Ridge takes place on Sunday. I won’t spoil it for you, though. I’d love to have you come and see the battle.”

“I think I’ll bring Ralphie and Donna to the big day,” Marc said. “If you don’t mind… General.”

“You do that, Mr. Shelby.” Benjamin smiled. “You do that.”

* * *

When breakfast ended, Marc looked regretfully around the camp. “I wish I could stay, but Donna’s already texted me twice.” He focused on Benjamin and smiled.

“Understood,” Benjamin said. Gerald had returned to remove their breakfast setup, and the camp was full of men and women in period costumes. No T-shirts or jeans were in evidence that morning. “We’ll see you at the event at the end of the month, then?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Marc said. “Do you think anyone would have a uniform for a kid Ralphie’s size?”

“Let him watch the battle first,” Benjamin said as Marc found his backpack and packed away his stuff. “Then let him decide if he wants to participate. If he does, I’m sure one of the families that participates regularly can rustle up a uniform for him.”

“Okay,” Marc said. Then he hesitated. “Dinner? Your place? When my work’s done?”

“And making out, don’t forget that part.” Benjamin winked. “Call me when you’re ready, and it’s a date.”

“Right.” Marc felt the blush rise in his neck. “I’ll see you then.”

“I have to go see to my men. Don’t trip over anything on the way back,” Benjamin cautioned. He got up from the table and dusted his jacket down, then set his hat on his head. “I want you in one piece.”

“I’ll do my best,” Marc said as he turned to walk home.

* * *

When he got back to his Grammom’s, Donna and Ralphie were already awake and eating breakfast. “There’s eggs on the stove for you,” Donna said.

“I ate at camp,” Marc said. “Let me go change out of this uniform, and we can get moving on the cleanup.”

“How was it?” Donna asked. “Ralphie, you can have those eggs since your uncle doesn’t want them.”

Ralphie scooped eggs onto his plate as Marc answered Donna’s question. “It was interesting. Fun. Cold, though. I’ll want to get some flannel underwear before I go out there again.”

“Well, it won’t be cold today,” Donna said as she rinsed dishes in the sink. “Go on, get changed.”

Marc’s good mood persisted through the week. After a new tour of the house and a quick discussion, they agreed to move some things out before trying to clean up anything else. “Clothing’s probably easiest,” Marc said, “and it will make the most space for us, apart from getting rid of the furniture. Oh, and set that fabric aside—there are people in the reenactment group who are interested in it.”

They spent most of the first morning loading up Marc’s Jeep with boxes of clothing. The stuff from the sixties and seventies was donated to the NorthWest Arkansas Community College theater department. In one closet, Donna discovered piles of romance novels from the 1950s and 1960s. Marc did a quick online search and shook his head. “I doubt we’ll get much for these if we try to sell them, vintage or not. Let’s donate these too.” At Donna’s direction, Ralphie filled eight moving boxes with the books, and Marc dropped them off at the local senior citizens’ home.

They settled into a routine: find what would make the most space and move that first. Marc found a local antiques consignment store and took some of the furniture there to sell. He updated the website every day with things they’d decided to sell out of the house, and Donna excavated cupboards, closets, and drawers, packing up knickknacks, towels, more clothing, and old books. Occasionally they’d find something that needed to be appraised or auctioned, and Marc established an area in the living room to hold those items until he could find appraisers.

Even Ralphie got into their cleaning kick, mostly because he wanted to find out if the car in the garage worked. Every afternoon after school, he’d open the garage and hack away at the detritus within. He’d become adept at searching out the value of items online from watching Marc do it. After homework was done, he’d spend an hour adding items he’d discovered in the garage to eBay.

Marc was so busy he couldn’t even spend time with Benjamin beyond their ongoing research in the library. And at those meetings, Benjamin was all business. They had lunch a couple of times, but it wasn’t dating.

After a week of hard work, the house was cleaned out and the clutter was mostly gone. There were still a lot of things to sell, but it was possible to walk through every room now, and Donna had hired a local housekeeping service to clean the place from top to bottom. Ralphie was still working on the garage, but they could close the door and ignore that—it wasn’t critical.

On the Saturday after his camping experience with Benjamin, Marc decided it was release day for the website. He sat Donna and Ralphie at the kitchen table, opened his laptop, and presented them with “William Shelby’s Last Stand.” Marc’s photos of the pieces they were selling filled the site with pricing and historic information.

“Do you like it?” As was his custom when he was nervous, Marc paced while they looked at the site.

“I like the name,” Donna quipped.

“The pictures look great, Uncle Marc.” Ralphie pointed out the furniture pieces they’d found. “Mom, look at how great he made the bureau look.”

“Yes, Marc’s got a knack for that stuff.” She looked over at Marc. “Is it ready?”

“We need to open an account at the bank in town for us to divert the money into, but otherwise? Yes. I’ve got it optimized for search engines, and I’ve sent out announcements to all my mailing lists.”

“Oh, you can just put it into your bank, Marc. You did all the work.”

Marc shook his head. “No, we all worked together to get this far. I just took my skill set and created the online store.” He considered. “Look, let’s have it deposited into your account, and if I need money, I’ll ask. But I’m solvent, Donna. I carry my business with me.”

“No, Marc,” Donna said. “It’s not right that you don’t get anything from this. You worked hard, and you’re hosting the site.”

“Mom, just give it to him from your bank. We’ll all share in the profits.” Ralphie took his mom’s hand. “It’s not a big deal, is it?”

Donna shook her head. “I suppose not. How about this? I’ll get my bank information for you, but if we get big money, we’ll split it fifty-fifty.”

“Seventy-thirty, your way,” Marc said. “Ralphie deserves his share; he’s done a lot of work too.”

“Okay,” Donna said. “How about at the end of the month?”

“Well, let’s not put the cart before the horse,” Marc said. “We can wait to see what comes in.”

She nodded. “Okay. I can live with that.”

Marc sat down at the table and took the laptop back from Ralphie. “While we’re all here, I wanted to show you another site I’m working on.”

His fingers flew over the keys and a webpage came into focus. As he scrolled down the page, a family tree came into view. “I’ve been working on this, looking through Civil War records online and through the state government birth and death records, but I need some help from you.”

“What kind of help?” Donna asked.

“Well, I can only work with what I know. I know Mom’s and Grammom’s real names. Grampop’s the original Shelby patriarch, but I’m not sure if Aunt June is Grammom’s sister or Grampop’s. And then there’s our other aunt, but again, I don’t even know if she’s really related to us or not. So, there’s a lot more work needed.”

“You’ve got a place for Samuel Posey too?” Donna asked, pointing.

“He’s family,” Marc said. “I’m sure if William and he had survived the war, they’d have made a try at something resembling family. So if we find information, I’ll add it to the page.” Marc smiled and sat back.

“Where are the photos?” Ralphie asked.

“I’ve got to talk to Benjamin about getting them back,” Marc said. “I’ll do that when I see him tonight.”

“Oh, do you have another date?” Donna grinned.

“Now that we’re finally done with the cleaning up, yes, I do,” Marc said.

“And it’s just a date?”

“Well, I’d tell you what we really do, but R-A-L-P-H-I-E is in the room.”

“Dumbass, I know my name,” Ralphie said. “I’m sure you guys are going at it hard. I mean, there’s talk of you guys even holding hands at the library now and then. Fucking shocking, I know.”

“Ralphie, language!” Donna laughed out the threat.

“Mom, I’m fifteen,” Ralphie objected. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Wait, people are talking?” Marc said. “I don’t hold his hand. I’m not a hand-holder.”

“Well, Tilly told us her Mom saw you guys at the table in the library basement. I think she said you were practically in each other’s lap.”

Marc groaned and shook his head. “Let me guess. Does Tilly’s mom work at the library?”

Ralphie nodded. “She’s a librarian.”

“Yup, the one who hates me,” Marc said. “I think she’s not a fan of the gay. And to set the record straight”—he turned to Donna—“we haven’t been on a date yet. We’ve spent the time researching things at the library, that’s all. That’s where all this genealogy came from.”

“You haven’t had any dates?” Donna’s eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline in surprise.

“Well, we’ve had a few lunches during the afternoon,” Marc admitted. “But that’s not the same thing as a date.”

But who was he kidding? They hadn’t had a real date yet, but now that he wasn’t buried up to his nose excavating the house, those lunches could finally turn into dinners, and those could turn into sitting in the car continuing their discussions… or just sitting and looking into each other’s eyes. And once, over lunch, that had already turned into touching, which had turned into kissing—in the men’s room of the little sandwich place where they’d grabbed a bite to eat.

He sighed. “We’re not dating yet, but I guess I should let Benjamin in on the talk. I’m heading to his house for dinner tonight—and that is a date. I’ll see you guys in the morning.” Marc stood and headed for the door. “I’ll get your account information tomorrow, and then we’ll go live.”

“Sounds great,” Donna said.

“Have a great time ‘eating dinner,’ Uncle Marc.” Ralphie made quote marks in the air.

“Ralphie!” Donna smacked him on the head as Marc left. “See you later, Marc.”

“Don’t wait up,” Marc said as he went out the door.