The wood screw squealed a little as it was forced into place. It was a sound that Nick had always liked. It meant one more thing was done, put into place and solidly holding. There was no way to get that sound from a screwdriver, it took power tools. Some part of him loved power tools, beyond the fact that they made life easier, he wasn’t sure why but he really liked power tools.

Another wood screw squeaked its way into place and he tested the strength of the last post he’d cut for the ramp. Instead of a flat wide hand rail he’d gone out and gotten a rounded one. It would be easier to grip onto and Nick figured that would be a better choice. He’d already attached the brackets for the rail to each post and now with all the posts in place he turned his attention to getting the rail in place.

A car rolled up the lane and Nick frowned. Epi was inside, the man had finally given up on sitting and watching him work in the chilled fall air but there was no way he’d miss hearing a car arrive. He drove the first screw into place a little more roughly than he needed to as the car parked nearby.

“Hey.” The young man that stepped from the car called out.

Nick ignored him and got another screw in place. On the porch the door opened and Epi came out.

“Hello.”

“Hi!” The new arrival smiled and came over to the porch, hand extended. “I’m Billy.”

“Hello Billy.”

“You have to be Epi, nice to meet you. Nick talks about you all the time.”

Nick put down the cordless drill and stood up. “Epi, this is Billy Arntz. You’re early.”

Billy shrugged. “I had time.”

It was the look that Billy gave him that made it clear to Epi that the new arrival wasn’t just some old friend of Nick’s. The man’s brown eyes swept across him with a bit too much of an appraisal for it really to be about the crutches and fake leg and more, the look dismissed him. Not that he could blame Billy, Epi knew he was no competition. The other man looked like he was straight out of the Marines or Army, his shoulders broad, his jaw square, his hair cut military short. The man looked like he could bench press him and if Billy was Nick’s type, there was no way Epi would be a threat.

“Would you like to sit down?” Epi finally recovered and offered with a wave of his hand to the picnic table and benches on the porch. “I was just going to get something to drink.”

“Thanks.” He smiled warmly. “Want some help?”

“Ah…” Epi glanced to where Nick was watching them both but saw no clue in the other man as to how to answer. “Sure.”

“So, you and Nick…?” Epi asked as he got glasses out of the cupboard and moved to get the half gallon of cider from the fridge.

“Friends with benefits I guess. Getting Nick to peg down to anything is like trying to herd cats.” He picked up the glasses as Epi got the cider back in the fridge. “Just getting him to agree to today was like pulling teeth.”

“What’s today?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Epi shook his head and got the door to the porch open for them. “Not a word.”

“Oh, he’s going with me to my father’s birthday party. They’re cool with my being gay but if I show up alone they start to hope I’ll date girls again.” He put two of the glasses down and handed one off the porch to Nick. “So Nick saves me by showing up to family functions.”

“Nice of him.” Epi smirked and sat down. Some perverse part of him was enjoying the look of uncomfortable awkwardness that had crept onto Nick’s face.

“You’re early, Billy. I won’t be ready for a while.”

“I know. I thought I’d swing by. You don’t mind, do you Epi?”

“Not at all. Wasn’t doing anything but getting in the way anyway.”

Nick shook his head and turned his attention back to his work. The pair of them sitting there watching him made him feel like he was on display and it wasn’t a feeling he liked.

“So Nick really hasn’t mentioned me?” Billy asked and it earned him a hard look from Nick.

“Not a word but we don’t really discuss our private lives.” He deliberately didn’t glance to Nick’s lover and tried very hard not to mentally picture the two men together. “I’m just grateful to have someone so handy around. Seems like every time I turn around, Nick’s surprising me with some new skill.”

“That’s because he’s Penn Dutch.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Billy don’t bore him.” Nick warned but kept his attention on the section of railing he was working on.

“I’m not bored.” Epi answered sweetly.

“Well, I’m a quarter Penn Dutch. Most folks about here have some but Nick is pure Dutch through and through. Germans are stubborn sorts, so when they came here they moved out to the frontiers, settled all these areas like in the 1600’s and 1700’s, cleared the land and farmed. But because they were so isolated they learned to do everything on their own, blacksmithing, carpentry, they could build a barn or a table, raised their own meat, butchered it, smoked it. I read a study that said the traditional Penn Dutch men was skilled in something like thirty professions. They scorned outsiders too, it wasn’t until the 30’s and 40’s that they even stopped talking Penn Dutch and took up English. But Nick here, Nick is a modern Dutchman, he can fix a car, skin a deer, do plumbing and electrical repair, build things, fix things, make things, track things, grow things…”

“Billy.” Nick scolded again. “It’s not like that.”

“It is. It’s damn impressive. The man is like a Swiss army knife but he’s like this because his whole family is like this. His aunt used to dry her own apples, can and jar things, she’d make her own pumpkin pies from pumpkins Nick grew out in the garden. Three years ago, Nick and his father re-shingled the roof over his apartment.”

“That is damn impressive.” Epi spoke smoothly, only half teasing because he liked how being boasted about was making Nick blush. He sipped at his cider to hide his grin.

“Billy can you come hold this rail in place? I’ll be done sooner if you help.” Nick finally asked both liking and not liking the smirk Epi wore.

“Yeah sure, hang on.”

It didn’t bother Epi to be left sitting alone on the porch. It let him watch the two men work together and let him quietly toy with his own fantasies. Billy held the railing in place with strong hands and by leaning a hip against it as Nick drilled in the screws, on his knees to the side of the railing. It was plenty to fuel his own thoughts and amuse him. Enough so that when the railing was firmly attached and Nick announced that he needed a shower he almost snickered when Billy seemed a bit to willing to wait for Nick in his apartment. The idea of them, alone in the small apartment, fucking each other silly, was enough to make Epi feel more than a little flushed himself. 

 

Nick was unusually quiet the following week and Epi let the other man keep to his own thoughts. He even resisted teasing Nick about the lack of his friends coming and going late at night. The truth was, Epi was almost as uncertain and uncomfortable learning of Nick’s sexuality as Nick seemed to be now that Epi knew the truth. They both had come to a silent agreement to simply not speak about it and Epi was quite happy to let the subject alone.

In fact he was comfortable with the easy silence that settled over them during the week. Nick seemed to want to say little and Epi was glad for the quiet. He was settling nicely into his new life but his physical rehab progress felt like it was stalled and he was wondering if he really could progress any further. Maybe the hope to go from crutches to a cane was just a hope and not a real chance. Maybe he’d always have braces and scars and never be able to walk with a somewhat normal gait. It was a painful truth he didn’t want to accept, another harsh reality that made him feel like the anti-depressants he was on were really just tic tacs and not all that useful.

“What’s it like?” Nick asked as they drove home on Friday from Epi’s weekly therapy hour.

“What’s what like?” He almost snapped back, unwilling to play games and try to guess.

“Therapy.”

“You’ve never been?”

“No.”

“Huh, everyone I know has been in therapy at one point or another. My dad bought a sports car, candy apple red, when he turned fifty. My mom made him go into therapy.” He chuckled but it was with a bitter ironic tone. “Personally? I’d rather…well I can’t say I’d give my right arm to avoid it because wouldn’t I look silly? I’d really rather do almost anything but go.” Epi sighed and set his head back against the car seat. “If I’d known Tori was going to find me and I’d have to go to therapy for another year I wouldn’t have tried to OD. Or, at the least, taken more shit and done it right.”

“Tori might not agree with that.”

That was an uncomfortable thought. When he’d come to in the hospital with Tori sitting beside him with a red nose and tear stained face and trying to act like he hadn’t been crying, all Epi had felt was shame. “Therapy…well, the room is always dimly lit to make you feel more comfortable and there is comfy chairs and such, tissue boxes for your breakdowns and blankets to snuggle under and make you feel safe. Last moron would even make me tea, like tea is going to make me feel better. You go in and sit down and they will ask about your week or some such nonsense or how you feel. God help you if you don’t feel like telling them or if nothing happened because then they’ll ask about your parents and childhood to get you talking.”

“You’ve been in therapy before this?”

“When I was seventeen I was caught at a party, drunk off my ass. My mom made me go. The result was a year’s worth of talking bullshit to find out the shocking truth that my issues stem from a parental figure absence. I could have saved them the money and myself the time. I get drunk at one party and suddenly I’m an alcoholic, my brother does blow for fifteen years and no one says a peep.”  He shook his head.

“Anyway, this fellow? He wants me to talk about my life as the man I am today. He wants me to conceptualize my future in my new reality and accept that while I’m not the same I’m as good. Fucking bullshit is what it is. Somehow he missed the memo that I’m not as good but I go and I play nice and I say the right things and count off how many more times I have to go back.”

“Why don’t you just…I don’t know, stop going?”

“Can’t, it’s medically ordered, like rehab. If I stop they can look at me funny and up the doses on my meds or consider in house treatment and I’ll be damned before that happens. I really will kill myself then.”

“I’ve always thought people got something about of therapy.”

Epi shrugged. “Maybe other people, you know like if daddy beat you or something but what’s he going to say to me? What am I going to say to him to make what’s happened alright? Shit happened, no amount of talking is going to make it all better.”

They drove on in silence because Epi felt he’d said too much and Nick wondered if he shouldn’t have asked. He’d only asked because his only experience was what he’d seen on movies and tv shows. If anyone he knew had been in therapy, beyond couples therapy to try to save a failing marriage, they didn’t admit to it.

“My mother…” Nick muttered as they got closer to home.

“Hmm?”

“My mother threatened to send me to be de-programmed or to put me in therapy when she found out I was gay.” It wasn’t something he’d ever told anyone before. “I came home from school, found her sitting on the sofa crying.”

“How’d she find out?”

“She cleaned my room and found my porn.” The magazines had been carefully bought miles from home where no one would know him and just as carefully smuggled into his bedroom. It had been the only outward admission he’d made during his teen years about his sexuality and it was that one thing that tripped him up.

“What mother snoops in her teen son’s porn collection?” He snorted. “She deserved to be shocked and horrified.”

“It was hidden well too.”

“She was looking hard to find something.”

He nodded. “It wasn’t fun.”

Epi laughed. “I imagine not. De-programming! I don’t even know her and I think she’s a twit. What did you do?”

“She sent me to wait for my father in my room. I went but I packed up. When he got home and things got worse I just grabbed my stuff and left.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They didn’t understand.”

“Obviously, I’m still sorry though. I was lucky, my father caught me with this guy when we were in Greece for the summer. He was almost more embarrassed then me and the whole safe sex talk about killed us both. He ended up giving up and taking me to the family doctor and making him talk to me.”

“That’s awful, he actually walked in during…”

“Oh yeah.” He felt his face flushing a little bit in remembered embarrassment. “It was humiliating.”

Nick laughed now. “I bet.”

“We don’t mention it now, thankfully.”

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