Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

just like old man Jones' mule did when the cougar got to it." Tater's voice had a hush in it Peter had only ever heard him use when the travelling preacher came to hold revivals.
    Tater didn't much care for the revivals, but every time the preacher came he brought along his twin daughters and every time Tater got within a dozen yards of those two pretty songbirds he started talking all quiet and respectful like. Peter smacked out weakly with his arm. "Shut it. Y'all are family."
    Rufus's voice came from somewhere down below the end of Peter's bed. "He's right."
    Peter opened his eyes enough to look up at Tater. "Mitzy told me about a cousin like you."
    A frown crept across Tater's face. "Who's Mitzy?"
    Peter grimaced. "She's a friend with a cousin who doesn't like to look at books. He says the letters jump around on him. I reckon that's what happens to you too, doesn't it?"
    A snort sounded from where Peter judged Rufus to be cleaning up the water and ice Peter had thrown. Tater's hand came down to brush Peter's hair out of his eyes. "I know I got dyslexia, asshole. You don't gotta dance around the word. Gramps and Gram aren't here to be horrified that you said it." Tater snorted. "You suck, you know that?"
    Peter gave a tiny nod, not enough to jostle his leg again, but enough so's Tater could know he meant it. "I reckon I do at that. I'm right, ain't I?"
    Tater grunted. His lips thinned, and he appeared to be trying to gnaw a hole right through the side of his left cheek. "Miss Carey's been larning me how to pin them jumpy words down a mite." His smile was full of forgiveness, and Peter's tight insides loosened up enough for him to feel the pain in his leg again.
    Peter grabbed Tater's hand. "I don't 'spose you'd mind getting the nurse to come right now with a pain pill would you?" He willed his eyes to tell Tater every single thing he had in his heart in that very moment. He probably just looked like he needed to take a shit, but maybe Tater would recognize he needed to talk to Rufus alone.
    Tater must have had a whole pocketful of gold, because he sure enough bought a clue. He moved quickly to the door, skirting the foot of the bed cautiously on his way out. As he turned into the hallway, he cast an indecipherable glance back over his shoulder at Peter. Smiling at him, Peter flapped a hand to shoo him away. Tater neither laughed nor smiled. His brows drew together slightly, and he gave a long slow blink. Peter bit back a groan. He'd just been put on warning, just as sure as if Tate actually spoke the words. He sighed, heavily.
    "Rufus. Rufus, get up and come talk to me. If we don't get this hashed out, Tater's gonna kick my ass just as soon as they let me outta here, and you and I both know he can do it." Peter looked down toward the foot of his bed. After a moment, his watch was rewarded with the sight of his older cousin's face appearing above the footboard of his bed. Rufus's big hazel eyes were playing at being green as the grass out by the pond behind Gram and Gramps Jenkin's place, so Peter raised a hand to head off the babble that was sure to spring outta his cousin any second. "Don't even try it Rufus. So, you think Marcus has sexy hair too, huh? I swear, it's no wonder he keeps it in that mess if he pulls so many second looks with it. So… how long have you known you like boys, then?"
    Rufus blinked at him long and slow. "I don't rightly think this is what Tater meant for us to work out."
    Peter hmmpfed at the other young man. "I don't reckon Tater has a clue about this at all."
    Rufus blinked again, longer and slower. "Now, that wouldn't rightly be true. He caught me and Randy Markums behind your pa's cowshed last year."
    Peter's breath balled up in a hard, solid knot halfway down his throat. He coughed, choked, and then sucked in a whistling breath. "Holy horse-shit." His eyes grew big as dinner plates in his head. "You mean the Randy Markums I used to—"
    Rufus cut him off. "The very same."
    Peter whistled, long and low. "Well hell-fire, Rufus, then what are you doing—"
    "I was gonna ask him to come with me when y'all got settled and sent for me, but the last time we was together, he…" Rufus's gravelly voice trailed off into a thin thread of sound.
    "He what?" Peter felt the hair at the nape of his neck stand right up. He swallowed hard. Tater might be a love 'em and leave 'em kinda man, but that had never been like Rufus.
    Rufus raised stricken eyes to Peter's, a sheen of moisture covering the