Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

should get some hay down from the loft for later; might as well do it while we're wearing jeans and not shorts."
    "K."
    They headed into the little barn that was actually in use for its intended purpose, rather than as a warehouse for everything American culture had come up with in the last two hundred years. There was a ladder in one corner, leading upward.
    "I'll go throw down a couple of bales," Josh said.
    "I'm gonna come take a look." Trey followed him up into the shadowed heat of the hayloft. The smell of the alfalfa was intense, and he sneezed as their feet stirred up the dust. A thin ray of light came in around the bottom of the loft doors, but otherwise it was dark up there.
    Josh stopped near the top of the ladder, presumably waiting for his eyes to adjust. "There must be a light somewhere."
    "We could open the loft door. It's damned hot anyway." Trey made his way toward that finger of sunshine, climbing over half-seen stacked bales. He reached the doors, lifted the heavy latch, and swung one side out wide. Cooler fresher air and bright sunlight streamed in and he blinked, standing in the opening and holding onto the frame as he looked out.
    "Be careful," Josh said.
    Trey glanced back. "Oh come on. How much time did we spend in the loft those couple of summers? I'm not about to fall out."
    "A lot of time." Josh's voice was soft. He sat on the lopsided castle of stacked bales near the opening and drew his feet up, staring out at the pasture beyond.
    Trey felt a rush of affection. How often had he come up to the big loft in the old barn to find Josh just like that, staring out into space? Probably about as often as Josh had found him up there. It had become a refuge for both of them when they were fifteen, their place on Aunt Julie's farm the way the concrete slab was at home. Trey dropped to sit on the dusty floor of the opening, his legs hanging out over the edge. This loft was smaller and hotter, but still... sitting in the doorway high above the ground, the heat at his back, the cooler air brushing his face... it was so familiar .
    "Do you remember that summer?" Josh said softly from behind him. "Honest to God, I don't think I would have made it without you."
    "I remember." Trey didn't look back. He remembered the pain and the self-loathing, his determination to take care of his friend and do nothing, absolutely nothing , to make Josh aware Trey wanted more than friendship. Hell, he'd spent most of that summer trying to make himself not actually want anything more, trying to lock the gay part of himself in some airtight box and lose it deep inside. It was a battle he'd fought and lost, and despised himself for losing, until the very day Josh and his father pulled out of their driveway in the U-Haul truck.
    "The smell of hay still makes me think of you sometimes," Josh said. "I'll be somewhere completely unrelated, and go past a field where they'd been cutting hay, and I remember that summer and the loft and you."
    "Me too." Trey knew Josh meant it simply of course. Those were intense but innocent memories. He couldn't know that the smell of hay could make Trey achingly, impossibly hard, without warning, without wanting it. He'd dated a guy who fancied himself a cowboy for a while, until he realized that the attraction was pure physical response to the man's scent when he'd been around the barn.
    After Felix's abuse had come to light, Josh's parents had barely been able to cope with Felix and all the demands of officialdom. They'd sent Josh away to Julie's farm without delay. And then not visited for weeks. Josh had begged to have Trey go with him, and since it was summer vacation, Trey's parents had agreed. In retrospect, they'd probably figured it was the best thing for Trey too, since he'd also spent four years of Little League under Coach Lindgrom. He remembered his mother's careful inquiry about whether Coach had ever done anything to him, anything he didn't want. And his vehement denial, with the sick undercurrent of knowing he would have said yes if Coach had asked. At least, if he'd been asked at fifteen, not when he was ten, not when he was little like Felix. Aunt Julie's farm had been a welcome refuge.
    "I remember you used to dare me to jump out the hatch." Trey mused.
    "I remember I had to grab you to keep you from doing it that one time."
    "I could never refuse a dare." I wanted you to admire me.
    "We were both idiots."
    "Isn't that one definition of fifteen-year-old boys?"
    "I guess." Josh