Trailer Trash(22)

Good lord, he liked to talk about girls. He especially liked to talk about Jamie Simpson, the daughter of a cattle rancher who lived a few miles north of Warren. Cody mostly knew her as the girl who’d beaten Larry Lucero’s ass on the playground back in fifth grade, but she’d made more of a name for herself in the last couple of years by taking first place two years running in both bareback bronc riding and breakaway roping at the rodeo, beating all the boys from Warren in the process.

Yeah. Logan talked about her a lot.

It wasn’t that he was a gossip. It was more like he was a sponge, soaking up information all day long, and when he found himself in the back corner of the kitchen with Cody, he had to wring it all out. His mouth just started running, never really bad-mouthing anybody. Just stating the facts, as he saw them. He asked a lot of questions too, and Cody answered, hesitantly at first, but growing more confident as the weeks passed. Logan never passed judgment. He never laughed at Cody. He never seemed surprised or shocked by the things Cody said, and Cody found himself revealing more of himself than he normally did. He talked about his dad, and about not having a winter coat, and about his summer.

He talked about Nate.

He hadn’t quite realized he was doing it until one night when Logan said, “Sounds like you guys were thick as thieves before school started.”

Thick as thieves. Seemed like a damn stupid saying, but it made Cody realize how often Nate’s name had fallen off his tongue. And once he realized it, he couldn’t stop realizing it. Sometimes it felt like every third word out of his mouth was Nate’s name, and he began to hate himself a bit more with each one.

He didn’t hate Nate, though. Somehow, he couldn’t ever manage that.

“Did you hear about Jerry Smith?” Logan asked one Saturday in mid-October. The wind was howling outside, and everybody was predicting the first snow of the year, but in the back of the kitchen, it was warm and steamy and comfortable. Cody was washing while Logan put away what was already clean. Some of the shelving was pretty high, and at just over six feet tall, Logan had a lot of reach on Cody, who was closer to five seven.

“Who?”

“Jerry Smith. He used to play for the Redskins. Retired with the most touchdowns by a tight end in NFL history.”

“No. What about him?”

“He died of AIDS on Wednesday.”

Cody went cold, suddenly afraid to look at Logan, feeling uncomfortable with him for the first time in weeks. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“Nothing. Just making conversation.”

And it was true, he didn’t sound disgusted or accusatory. Still, it made Cody nervous. He tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “Seems like more and more people are dying of it every day.”

“Does it worry you?”

“Why would it?” But he knew he sounded too defensive.

Logan sighed. “Look, man. I know what they say about you.”

Cody’s heart tripped into high gear. “Who?”

Logan shrugged, putting a stack of big silver mixing bowls back on a shelf. “Everybody.”

“What exactly do they say?” Even though he already knew the answer to that question.

“That you’re gay and you have the hots for Nate Bradford.”

Well, he thought he knew, at any rate, but he’d only been half right. He stopped in the middle of scrubbing a frying pan, his heart pounding, his stomach doing strange, fluttery things. The part about him being gay wasn’t a surprise, but he hadn’t expected Nate to be dragged into it, especially since they hadn’t even spoken since the beginning of school.

Logan was sorting through the clean silverware, separating forks, knives, and spoons into separate bins, but glancing Cody’s way every few seconds, waiting for an answer. It took a couple of tries to make himself speak. “You trying to ask me if it’s true?”

“No. I’m trying to tell you, I don’t really care either way. I mean, I don’t see how you could look at a dude and actually want to see him naked, let alone kiss him. Or, you know . . . do other things with him.” He cleared his throat, and Cody ducked his head, hoping his too-long hair hid the burn of his cheeks. “But the thing is, there aren’t exactly a lot of babes in Warren, Wyoming, and I figure the less competition I have for Jamie, the better.”

“Oh.” Cody didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never imagined anybody in Warren, Wyoming, might be so blasé about his darkest secret. He’d also never fully considered his feelings for Nate. Sure, he liked him. Sure, he missed him like crazy. And yes, his heart ached a little bit every time he thought about him. He could remember the exact cadence of Nate’s laugh, and the way he tilted his head when Cody gave him a hard time, and the exact curve of his lips when he smiled. But never once in their time together had Cody seriously considered kissing Nate, or even trying to hold his hand, mostly because he figured that’d send Nate running for the hills.