Short Stories Read online

  The much-requested digital collection of Josh’s most popular short stories written between 2007 and 2013.

  Eight stories of adventure and contemporary romance. Included here are “Perfect Day”, “A Limited Engagement”, “In Sunshine or In Shadow”, “The French Have a Word for It”, “In a Dark Wood”, “Until We Meet Once More”, “Heart Trouble” and “In Plain Sight”.

  Short Stories - Volume I (2007 -- 2013)

  March 2015

  Copyright (c) 2015 by Josh Lanyon

  Cover by KB Smith

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

  Edited by Keren Reed

  ISBN: 978-1-937909-80-2

  Published in the United States of America

  JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

  3053 Rancho Vista Blvd.

  Suite 116

  Palmdale, CA 93551

  www.joshlanyon.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Perfect Day

  A Limited Engagement

  In Sunshine or In Shadow

  The French Have a Word for It

  In a Dark Wood

  Until We Meet Once More

  Heart Trouble

  In Plain Sight

  Short Stories

  Josh Lanyon

  Perfect Day

  Perfect Day

  This story simmered in the back of my mind for several years. I got the idea from an essay by Elizabeth Choi. I think the theme of commitment, of learning to let go and depend on another person, is dear to my heart — or at least recurs a lot in my work — because I, too, was kind of a slow learner in that department.

  “About last night,” I began awkwardly.

  Graham handed me the red plastic coffee cup. Steam rose from the fragrant liquid.

  “Yeah,” he said. No particular inflection, but I knew my worst fears were confirmed.

  I sipped the hot coffee and stared past the blue tent at the meadow’s edge, at the fields of goldenrod that in the early morning mist looked like a distant golden lake.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  From the beginning — practically the beginning — from the third night I’d spent in the little cloistered house on Startouch Drive, Graham had said he didn’t want anything serious. Not looking for anything serious. Not looking for a relationship.

  It didn’t get much clearer than that.

  The problem was Graham was everything I wanted.

  He was thirty-seven and a geologist. All right, geology wasn’t part of the dream-man job description. In fact, I’d always pictured my dream man more GQ than Field and Stream, but Graham with his slow grin and gray eyes — gray, not blue or green — and that little touch of silver in the dark hair at his temples, and his wide shoulders and narrow hips, and his confident straight stance like an old-time explorer surveying the vistas — with his easy laugh and his maps and compasses and soft flannel shirts.

  Short story long, I guess. I fell in love.

  Despite my best intentions. Despite his warnings.

  I fell in love.

  And last night in the tumble of sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses, I’d been stupid enough to say so.

  Not once. Which would have been bad enough. Not whispered against his broad shoulder where we both could have pretended I hadn’t said it…could have preserved the fiction a little longer.

  No, carried away on the tide of rich, rolling orgasm I’d clutched him and cried out, “I love you. I love you. I love you so much, Graham.”

  No doubt scaring park animals and Graham alike. Not to mention myself.

  Because I’d known even before the words finished spilling out, even before Graham stilled, that I’d done it. Wrecked everything.

  He’d already been dropping little clues that things were maybe getting too intense. Retreating. Slowly. Almost imperceptibly. Sand whispering through my fingers and the harder I held, the faster it slipped away.

  I knew it. Knew I had to pull back, play it cool, give him space. Yet the words had come pouring out like scalding water hitting ice, and I could practically hear the cracks.

  Graham had covered my mouth with his own, and there it had ended.

  Literally.

  Because Graham still loved Jase.

  And probably always would.

  “There’s breakfast,” Graham said now, nodding at the campfire.

  I nodded although the knots in my stomach left no room for food. There had been breakfast the first time too. I think that was the moment I fell in love.

  We’d met at the Kendall Planetarium during an OMSI After Dark event. It was only the third time I’d made it to one of the Eugene Gay Men’s Social Network outings. I’d been tired after a long day of crowd control, and I almost hadn’t bothered going.

  Beer in hand, Graham had been wandering the hands-on science exhibits. He looked handsome, uncomfortable, and, in jeans and tweed blazer, a little older than most of the “adult only” crowd. The theme that night was sex. When I’d finally cornered him, he was studying a display of condom lighting art. His expression seemed somber under the circumstances.

  “Hi, I’m Wyatt,” I’d introduced myself. And then, jokingly, “Do you come here often?”

  His eyes, cool as starlight, had lit. He smiled. No, it was a grin. He knew I was making fun of myself and the situation, and he found it funny too. My heart skipped a beat. Yep, like in the romance novels.

  “I used to,” he said.

  We made small talk, all the while exchanging those quick glances, locking gazes, looking away.

  After the museum we’d gone out for coffee and dessert. “What do you do?” he’d asked over the cheesecake.

  “I teach.”

  His eyes flickered. “What do you teach?”

  “High school. Science. Health. Health and science.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “I teach sex education to ninth graders.”

  He met my gaze and started to laugh. I laughed too.

  We’d ended up at Graham’s.

  He also lived in Eugene and maybe that wasn’t fate, but it sure was convenient. The house was in the hills, shrouded by trees. Inside it was very quiet. Very neat. The floors were wood, the appliances stainless steel, the counters granite. But the main feature was natural light. Windows. The back of the house was a wall of windows and there were skylights in several rooms. The stars glittered and glowed all around us when we walked in that night.

  Better not to let myself think about that night now. The tentativeness, the uncertainty, the awkwardness that had resolved unexpectedly in easy smiles and hugs. We were both cold sober so I’m not sure how we managed so quickly to shed that easiness, that friendliness for something hot and hungry and close to frenzied.

  We’d done it slammed up against the wall of windows that looked out over the moonlit treetops and the lights in the valley below. Naked, noisy, nasty.

  Afterward it was refreshingly easy and friendly again, and Graham had invited me to spend the night. Sometimes you just know it’s right. Sometimes everything clicks. That’s how it was for me. I’d imagined it was the same for Graham. How was I to know?

  In the morning we’d done it again — leisurely, affectionately — there in his Egyptian cotton sheets, bathed in the dappled sunlight from the skylight. Afterward we’d showered together and he’d put together breakfast for two out of the odds and ends in his fridge: a truffle, three eggs, a cold boiled potato, a piece of smoked
chicken. A meal that would do the soldier in “Stone Soup” — or a survivalist — proud.

  Today’s breakfast was instant oatmeal mixed with peaches, and the sight of it made my stomach do an unpleasant flip.

  “Pass.”

  “You better eat,” Graham told me. “It’s a long way back to the car park.”

  “Are we heading back?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded at the forbidding wall of black clouds over the distant mountains. “That’s coming straight at us.”

  “Oh. Right.” I knew that regardless of the weather we’d have been heading back this morning. I helped myself to breakfast. “Listen, Graham —”

  He wasn’t looking at me as he said, “Nah. Heat of the moment. I know.”

  He was giving me an out. Giving me a chance to save my pride and maybe even salvage something of our friendship.

  I almost took it. I wanted to take it. But I didn’t only want to be friends with Graham, and somehow to pretend that I hadn’t meant it, that I didn’t love him, seemed wrong. I couldn’t see lying about it. Anyway, he knew the truth. And we both knew that I knew he knew. So in the end it wouldn’t change anything. It would only prove I hadn’t had the guts to say it in the cold light of day.

  They’re not easy words to say at any time. Not when you know you’re on your own.

  So I put down my coffee cup and said, “No. I meant it. I mean, true, I wouldn’t have said it if it hadn’t been the heat of the moment.” I smiled. Graham did not smile back. “I know you don’t feel the same way. But I love you.”

  He looked… I’m not sure how to describe it. Stricken? Guilty maybe. Definitely unhappy.

  “Wyatt.”

  That was it. My name. It had a regretful finality to it. Stop. That’s what he meant. Stop, Wyatt. Don’t say it. It’s no use. There’s no point.

  “It doesn’t seem like something to fake.”

  “No.” Graham stared down at his own cup. He said finally, slowly, “Thank you. I-I’m… I like being with you, Wyatt. I care about you. But I don’t feel like you do. It’s too soon for me.”

  “Three years.” Three years since Jase had died. I wasn’t arguing, just…three years.

  Graham’s gray gaze held mine sternly. “I don’t know if ten years will be enough. I still miss him. Every day. Every single goddamned day I want him back.”

  You can’t start a stopwatch on grief. Or love for that matter.

  “It’s okay. I know. You told me how it was.”

  The tension left his shoulders, which had braced as though for battle. He hadn’t expected my acceptance, I guess. Had been prepared for me to try and make my case. Well, cue Sam Harris. I can’t make you love me if you won’t. I never had someone to love or love me like Graham had Jase, but that much I did know. You can’t debate someone into loving you.

  He said with excruciating and uncharacteristic awkwardness, “If it was — if I was — it would be someone like you.”

  Someone like me. But not me. Obviously not me.

  Funny that of all the things he said that morning, that hurt the most.

  “Sure.” I gave him a smile that was probably at best polite. I swallowed the final dregs of my coffee.

  What was there to say after that?

  We ate our breakfast and packed up our camp.

  I liked camping. I didn’t love it. I’d wanted to go camping that weekend because Graham was going, and I wanted to be with him. I preferred museums and art galleries and brunch at Metropol Bakery. Graham liked those things too, though not as much as he enjoyed hiking and camping and fishing. We traded off. One weekend doing what he liked. Then the next weekend it would be my turn to choose.

  It had seemed to work for a time.

  I could almost pinpoint the moment things had changed between us. We’d been seeing each other pretty regularly. Casually but regularly. And one Saturday afternoon we were barbecuing salmon steaks on his deck and I’d said, “Hey, did you want to go to Mount Pisgah Arboretum next Sunday? It’s the wildflower and music festival.”

  Innocuous, you’d think, but the implication was that we’d be seeing each other the following weekend. Not unreasonable because we had been seeing each other most weekends, but I could see it brought Graham up short. Broke whatever pleasant spell had settled over him over the past two months.

  He’d said politely, vaguely, “Maybe. I might have to work. I’ll give you a call.”

  It turned out he did have to work that weekend. I’d said that was too bad and I’d go with friends. And I did. And as much as I’d missed Graham, I’d had the brains not to call him, to leave the next move to him. To my relief he had called later in the week and we’d made plans for the following weekend.

  But it had never quite been the same. He’d begun pushing me back. In little ways. He was never unkind, but he didn’t call as often, didn’t have as much time to see me. He was busy. We both were. But I knew. The easy instant harmony we’d known from the first had faded. We still got along, still had plenty to talk about when we did get together, but it felt a little off. I could feel myself trying too hard to recapture what we’d had, and the harder I tried, the further Graham withdrew.

  And I had never really understood why. I knew it had to do with my assumption that we were going to be seeing more of each other. But how was that a wrong assumption?

  No, maybe it was more to do with making plans. Making plans together.

  I didn’t know. I would never know; that was the truth.

  It had been good for those two months. That was what made it hard. It had felt right. I had been so sure that Graham was going to be the guy I fell in love with. Well, he was. The part I got wrong was thinking Graham was going to feel the same way.

  A honey bee zoomed in for a closer look. I waved it away.

  “You know about colony collapse disorder?” Graham said.

  Preoccupied with my own troubles, it took me a second to figure out what he meant. It took me a second to figure out that we were making conversation. So this is what it had come down to? Trading SciAm articles?

  “You’re talking about the fact that billions of honey bees are disappearing from hives all across the country?”

  “Country? Try globe. And they’re not disappearing. They’re dying. There are almost no feral honey bees left. A third of the world’s bee population is already gone.”

  Yeah. Old news in my corner of the science department. Someone should have told the bees in the meadow we were hiking through. I waved away another dive bomber. “I thought one theory was parasites?”

  “It’s probably a combination of factors, but the pesticides are a major contributor to weakening the worker bees.”

  “Right. That makes sense.”

  Now that I had time to think I realized I probably wouldn’t see Graham again. Not after the night before. This would be the final straw. This would confirm what he’d already been feeling: that I was getting too attached, too involved. He’d run a mile.

  Graham must have been thinking along the same lines. He said, “Am I going to see you again?”

  That he put it in the form of a question surprised me, though I tried not to let my surprise show. “Yes. Why not?” I knew why not, but it seemed a good idea to try for casualness.

  “I thought you might figure you were wasting your time.”

  “I like being with you too. So how is that a waste of time?” Pride almost made me add something like I wasn’t in a hurry to settle down either, but the fact was I’d have moved in with Graham in a heartbeat if he’d asked. Or asked him to live with me, if I’d thought there was a chance in hell of prying him out of his glass foxhole. I had been open about the fact that I was interested in something a little more meaningful, even settled.

  I said instead, “If I’m not uncomfortable —”

  He said immediately, “I’m not uncomfortable.”

  I thought we both sounded defiant.

  “Okay. Great.” I tried to picture us getting together again after we
said our good-byes today. I couldn’t see it — as much as I wanted to.

  Did it look like I was clinging to the wreckage? That I couldn’t let go? But that was true, right? I was feeling like any part of Graham was better than none. Where was my pride? Or was it unthinking pride that had answered for me? Hey, no problem! You want to be pals. I can switch it on and off.

  Who was I kidding? Wasn’t I making it worse for myself trying to hang on?

  Of course.

  A clean break would be best.

  But the thought of not seeing him anymore… Never hearing his voice, his laugh. Never holding him again. Never being held by him again.

  I wasn’t ready to face it yet. Couldn’t.

  The goldenrod had given way and we were hiking through a meadow waist-high in black-eyed susan and jerusalem sunflowers.

  No more looking forward to Friday nights — even with the worry that he might cancel, even with the worry that every date might be the last, the sinking awareness that we weren’t growing closer.

  He had a high-powered telescope on the deck of the house and sometimes we watched for shooting stars through it.

  I loved the telescope. It reminded me of the night we’d met. Later, I realized the telescope had belonged to Jase.

  I remember once I said to Graham, “Did you know you can buy a star? Well, have one named for that special someone anyway. It’s about twenty bucks. You get your star’s name registered in the Universal Star Catalog database.”

  He’d smiled. Well, it was more of a snort than a smile, but it was tolerant, amused. I knew that if Jase had still been alive they would have looked at each other and shared a private joke.