They found the Walmart and bought the phone, then drove around looking for a place to eat. Rory spotted a Dairy Queen which had an additional name under the Dairy Queen sign: the Grill and Chill. He pulled into the parking lot.
They sat in a booth inside. Rory told them it would be easier to use his laptop for their research than their cellphones; that way they could look at things on the screen together.
They ate while doing their research. Even though they were entirely immersed in checking
what there was to see and do on the way home, both boys made sure to get dessert: both wanted
Blizzards.
« »
“We’ve decided,” Cary said when they were back in the car.
“What did you pick, the middle or southern route?”
“Neither,” Cary said. “We want to go back the way we came. Trace hasn’t seen it, and there are things to do on the way.”
“Well—boooorrrring! But it’s your choice. I’m just the chauffeur. So, what’s our first destination that has something to see or do?”
“Wisconsin Dells.”
“Okay, let me go online and find a route and distance.” He did that, then turned to the boys. “From here to Wisconsin Dells is something like six and a half hours without stops, like for dinner, which I think is something you two wouldn’t want to skip. Another option would be to stop along the way. Rockford, Illinois, is something less than five hours. We could spend the night there, then have a much shorter drive tomorrow. What tickles your fancy?”
“Huh?”
Rory laughed. “Where? Rockford or Wisconsin Dells?”
Cary looked at Trace, who simply looked back. So, Cary turned back to Rory. “Rockford,” he said. “When we get there, we can decide whether to keep going or not. It’s on the way, I suppose.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, good plan.”
They drove mostly on interstate highways to Rockford, the largest city in Illinois outside of Chicago, even larger than the capital. It was at the top of the state, very close to the state line dividing Illinois from Wisconsin. The route was typical of Midwestern highways as it took them through numerous small towns and not many larger cities. As a result of that, the boys got to see a lot of farming country and nothing very exciting. They were happy to arrive in Rockford and quickly agreed that was enough driving for the day.
“We have to find a hotel that takes pets. I knew it would be easy in a small town to talk someone into it. In a larger city, it’s not that easy. Cary, see if you can find a good hotel that takes pets. A good place to eat, too.”
Cary went to work and quickly found a place. “It looks like if you don’t mind paying an extra seventy-five dollars, the Embassy Suites on the Rockford Riverfront would do. They have a rooftop bar, too.”
“That sounds good. Get directions. Do they have patio dining?”
Cary looked again, then said, “Yes.”
“Well, that’s a good backup possibility. I always prefer not eating where I’m sleeping, though. I know, I know, I’m weird. But somehow it seems claustrophobic. Too insular. See if there’s a good restaurant with al fresco dining. There has to be in a city the size of Rockford.”
Another pause, then, “Yeah, the Stone Eagle Tavern, not far from the hotel, looks good.”
“Okay, make a reservation for three on the patio and tell them we have a very well-mannered dog. You should be able to do it online, or you can call them if that doesn’t work. When do you guys want to eat?”
They stopped at the hotel first and got a room. It seemed there were no single rooms, only two-room suites with two queen-sized beds. They dropped their suitcases off, all three took showers, and then they dressed to go out. Trace looked embarrassed when he saw the other two wearing long pants and buttoned shirts. He sat on one of the beds and dropped his head.
Rory quickly noticed and went to the bed and sat down next to him. “Trace, look at me,” he said in a kindly voice.
Trace looked up, an entirely blank and unreadable expression on his face.
“You’re with us, Trace. Cary might be the nicest kid your age you’ll ever meet, and I’m your cousin who’s in the process of making your life much better than it was. We never want to embarrass or hurt you.”
He paused to let that sink in, then said, “You have to tell us what you’re feeling. Something’s bothered you now, and we’ll do all we can to fix it, but you have to tell us what it is. Hey, if you tell us you crapped your pants, you know what? We won’t tease you or make much of it, certainly not put you down. No, we’ll help you solve the problem. That’s who we are. You have to learn to trust us and talk to us. Once you do that, your life will get much simpler.
“Cary knows all about embarrassment and being timid. That’s who he is. That’s one reason he likes hanging with me. I make sure he’s treated well, no matter what. No one else does that for him. He’s used to being ordered around and told what to do a lot. I let him make up his own mind, be himself. I’m going to do that for you, too.
“But I can’t read your mind. You have to talk. I know you won’t be able to change a lifetime of behavior overnight. I don’t expect you to. But you need to know we’re here for you and that we both want you to trust us.
“Now, tell me. What’s upsetting you right now?” He briefly laid a soft hand on Trace’s shoulder, then took it off.
Trace hung his head again; Rory waited him out. Finally, Trace looked up again. “I don’t have any long pants. Or anything but tee shirts. Why don’t you two go without me?”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen!” Cary’s sarcasm sounded angry, and he took quick steps . “We’re not leaving you; forget about that!” Then his attitude softened. “Look, I have extra clothes, and we’re the same size. Come on, I’ll show you the shirt and pants I think would look good on you. You know you have gorgeous eyes, don’t you? We want something to bring them out, and I have just the thing.”
Trace looked at him and couldn’t help it. His eyes moistened.
“Don’t sweat that,” Cary said. “You’re going to learn that if you’re with Rory, good things happen.”
The Stone Eagle Tavern had a beautiful patio. They were seated immediately, and a dish of water was set down for Morris. “We have an appetizer just for him if you’re interested,” the waiter said. “Lots of people don’t finish all their steaks. We serve pretty big ones. We chop up the leftover meat they couldn’t finish and didn’t want to take with them and save it for any dogs that show up. We used to give this away, but it became so popular that we ran out early every night and the people who came because of that free treat were disappointed. So, we began charging six-fifty for the chopped-meat appetizer for the dogs, and now we seldom run out. It’s early enough that we still have several servings.”
“Ah,” Rory said. Well, we’ll take two orders, then, one for the dog and
one for Cary here.”
The waiter laughed along with Cary. “Sorry, one to a customer. You’re not the first one who thought he could get a cheap meal here. Our prices are a bit high. If you serve top-quality meat, you have to charge more for it.”
“Damn! You have any idea how much it costs to feed two teenagers? And they always insist on steak!”
“I sympathize,” the waiter, a middle-aged man, replied. “I have two at home. Good thing I work in a restaurant and can bring them home a doggy bag of diners’ leftovers. Mostly bones, though. Mostly bones. They’re thin as rails.” He laughed.
“Ah, a man after my own heart. How about we start tonight with a very dry martini and two cokes for the urchins?”
“Coming right up!”
They checked the menu, and Rory sighed contentedly. “My kind of place. Everything I like. Have you tried oysters on the half shell, Trace?” He grinned, knowing that would never have happened in Briston.
Trace was looking at the menu, and his eyes were wide. “You can’t afford this place. Let’s go to a McDonalds.”
“Trace, I can afford it. And you can order anything you like. Even the forty-four-ounce steak if you think you can eat it. Though I’d suggest you get an appetizer, maybe split a seafood salad with Cary, and then a smaller steak or anything you like. But don’t even look at the prices. Look at the items and choose what you like.”
He turned to Cary. “Have you had raw oysters?”
“Yeah, my dad made me try them once. I barfed on the plate. That was the last time he tried that! I loved it, though—not the snot-textured, awful-tasting shellfish, but how embarrassed he was.”
Rory grinned. “I guess it’s an acquired taste.”
When Rory could see Trace fidgeting while they were still eating their appetizers—the boys had ordered the mile-high onion strings, Rory the crab cakes—he asked him if he wanted to use the restroom. Trace nodded and blushed. Rory told him it was near the front door and, seeing how uncomfortable Trace looked, asked him if he’d like one of them to come with him. Trace said no and, after a glance at the onion strings, left the table with a request for Cary: “Leave some for me, please?”
Cary laughed and said, “Way to go, Trace!” proud of him for actually standing up for himself for once.
When he was gone, Rory said, “I didn’t know I’d have the chance to talk to you alone. But I need to know something. How much did you do with him in the pool? I’m asking because we only have two beds. I’ll have one; he’ll have the other. Who will you sleep with? If you’ve done nothing at all with him, you should probably sleep in my bed. He’d be too nervous otherwise. But you spent some time alone with him, which is why I’m asking.”
Cary nodded. “Yeah, this is when we should figure this out. I swam naked last night and invited him to. We’d talked about it. He wanted to. He was excited. And when I stripped by the pool, he sure looked at me, and he got hard. But in the end, he was too bashful to take his suit off, even though it was very dark out there. He’s going to take a lot of work.”
“It’s up to you more than me to bring him out of himself. Get him to talk! He’s said almost nothing so far. If you get him to talk and he sees nothing bad comes from that, that’ll be a huge first step. Get him to talk! But it’s good for me to know how far he’s gone with you so far. Nowhere, in other words. So, you don’t mind sharing a bed with me, do you? I don’t think he’d sleep at all if you were in bed with him.”
“I don’t know. Depends on how you’ll react when I see my chance and climb all over you.”
“Cary!”
“Hah! Gotcha!”
« »
They had breakfast on the hotel’s patio. Trace kept looking around at the waiters wearing tuxes and bowties without the jackets, at the patrons wearing upscale clothing, and at the menus with unknown and often unpronounceable dishes and outrageous prices. His face showed a combination of scared and out-of-place concern, nervousness and embarrassment.
Rory put a hand on his shoulder again. “Trace, you’re fine. Get used to this. This is your life now. Your old life is a memory—some good, a lot bad, a lot that scared you at the time—but that was the way things were, not the way they are now and they’re going to be. You’ve escaped that world. This—” Rory swept his hand indicating the scope of the patio “—is how you’ll be living now. Start seeing what’s lying in front of you and finding your place in it. I know, I know. This change in perspective will happen little by little, and I shouldn’t expect too much, but I want so much for you to be happy. I’m uncomfortable seeing you when you’re not. So, that’s that. The question right now is: What do you want for breakfast?”
Trace forced himself to reply, to get over some of the awe and uncertainty he was feeling.
“I always have cereal. With milk if he’d given Ma enough money for
milk.”
Rory nodded. “If that’s what you want, you can have that here. Or you can expand your horizons and have a bacon and sausage omelet. Do you like mushrooms? They can add those, too, if you want. Or you can order waffles with real maple syrup. French toast. Whatever. Even if it’s not on the menu, they can probably make it. You’re no longer in Podunk, Indiana. You’ve moved on physically. All that’s left is to accept and embrace it mentally.”
“I don’t know what to order.” He tried hard to keep the frustration out of his voice.
“Well, a good suggestion would be to follow Cary’s lead. In almost everything, but certainly in eating. He knows what kids your age like.”
Rory had bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. The boys both had beignets and hot chocolate. Both ordered a second helping. Trace looked scared when Rory made a fuss about them bleeding his bank account dry, and Cary laughed and told Trace that Rory was play-acting, that he loved it when they were happy, and that it would take six armored trucks to carry all Rory’s money out of the bank. Trace just shook his head. “So much to get used to,” he murmured.
“We could drive to the Wisconsin Dells right now,” Rory said, “but I think there’s something else we need to do first. I was reminded last night. I checked my laptop and found a large mall not far from here. We’ll stop there. Trace, you need more clothes, and we have an astute, knowledgeable shopper with us. Let’s go.”
He paid the check and drove to the CherryVale Mall. In the parking lot, he turned to the kids. “You guys go shop. I’d just get in your way, and Cary knows what you should have, Trace. Cary, get him outfitted for the drive and for L.A.” He handed his credit card to Cary. “I’ll be in the food court. When you’re done, come get me.”
Cary grinned at Trace. “This’ll be fun. I need a lot of new stuff. Let’s go.”
“Hey!” Rory roared.
Cary waved at him and the two boys ran for the doors. Rory got out and took his laptop with him to the food court where he grabbed an empty table. It was mid-morning and the place was almost empty. He opened his laptop and pulled up the pages where he’d already started outlining his story about a boy and a horse and notes he’d made of things to be added. He’d had several ideas and no time to jot them down till now. This was his second reason for wanting to stop at the mall.
Wisconsin Dells was a two-hour drive up Interstate 90. The I-90 was a transcontinental, East Coast to West Coast highway but differed from its brothers. There were two other coast-to-coast interstates, I-10 and I-80, and they traced fairly straight lines across the country in comparison to I-90. That interstate had some significant north to south sections, and one of those was from Rockport, Illinois to Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin; that section ran almost true north.
One thing that Rory found interesting about having Trace with them was that most of the time Morris now rode in the front seat with him. The boys didn’t talk that much, but they still seemed comfortable riding together.
They rode sitting next to each other, but Trace didn’t talk much; Cary initiated and monopolized what conversations they had. Cary also spoke to Rory often. Trace only spoke to either of them when spoken to.
On the ride to Wisconsin Dells, Trace was a bit more vocal than he had been, but perhaps it was because Cary was going on and on about what they’d bought at the mall; he was enthusing about the clothes and shoes he’d got for Trace.
At one point, he told Rory, “Wait till you see the Speedo I got for Trace! He wasn’t going to get it, which would have been a shame as it looked super on him. I could only get him to agree to buy it by getting one myself. That was the only reason I bought mine. I just had to.”
“Wait a minute.” Rory took a quick glance into the back seat. Cary was grinning at him. “You got him to put it on, I’m sure. Can’t buy a bathing suit without putting it on. Otherwise, how’d you know if it’d fit? I’m trying to picture this. You say he looked stunning in it—well, I’m interpreting—and that means he modeled it for you. Is that right?”
Another glance showed him Trace with a face as red as a fire truck.
“And then you bought a suit and had to do the same for him?”
“Well, yeah!” A sarcastic ‘yeah’. “I had to see that mine fit, too, and then show him that there was nothing wrong with being seen wearing it. He wasn’t sure about that. Were you, Trace?”
Silence.
“Come on, Trace. Talk about this.” Cary was using his encouraging voice, the one Rory could never resist. “Tell us how you felt. Actually it’s fun and easy discussing this, and makes you feel really good. Look, I’ll go first.”
He stopped to take a breath, then said, “I’ve never had a Speedo before. The one I liked had white front and back panels and dark blue sides. It was snug, but they’re supposed to be. I put it on and looked in the mirror, and, God, you could see, well, my shape. I could just make out what I was looking at, but that meant others would be able to, also. I’m sure I blushed, but, you know, I was doing this for you, Trace? So, even if it was showing more than I wanted to show, I called you into the dressing room. You looked at me, I did a pirouette, and you blushed, too.”
Cary shivered a bit, remembering, then continued. “Then, it was your turn. To me, you looked like you wanted and didn’t want to put yours on. I know that feeling! To encourage you, I said . . . well, I can’t remember word for word what I said—it was a whole speech. But it came down to this: I had my suit on and wasn’t going to go out where people could see me while you put your suit on. I’d be alone and on display. But if you‘re weren’t going to put yours on, meaning you’d be naked with me, I said I’d change back into what I had on before, and you could stay with me. That’d show you I wasn’t uncomfortable with you seeing me naked. And if I could do that, shy as I am, you should be able to let me see you in your Speedo.”
He stopped, and Trace looked a little shocked. “You just said all that and Rory’s right here listening?”
Cary laughed. “I don’t keep any secrets from him. I’m gay and so is he. He knows what it’s like to be a gay teenager. We talk about things very openly. I go to him for advice. I’d really like you to be that comfortable with us, too. You putting on that Speedo and me looking, you relating how that felt, that’s just part of this. It’s all about trust and closeness. Plus, we had a deal, remember?”
Trace shook his head adamantly. “No, I never agreed. You just acted like I did. But . . .”
Trace stopped to take a breath, braced himself, and then said, “Okay, here goes. First, though, you tell me how you felt, letting me see you naked. You turned around when you were taking the Speedo off, but you knew I could still see you in the mirror. So how did that feel? You think it’s easy, talking about this? Huh? Well, go ahead then. Show me how easy it is.”
“You rat!” laughed Cary.
“Hoisted on your own petard,” Rory said from the front seat.
“Whatever that means,” Cary scoffed. “But, okay, you got me good, Trace. I’ll tell you. And then you’ll answer the question? The deal’s in place? Huh? Huh?”
“I guess if you can, I can,” Trace said, not meeting Cary’s eyes. “I’ll at least try.”
Cary took a breath. “Okay. I felt, well, a couple of things. Trace, I’m shy, probably as shy as you are with people I don’t know. I’m not so shy with you because I like you and because I don’t feel threatened by you. But I am shy, and so for me to undress like that in front of you, it was difficult, but I did it because I was trying to prove a point.
“I wanted you to know we could be naked together and it didn’t mean all that much. I was disappointed you wouldn’t skinny-dip with me. It’s loads of fun, and exciting, and no one would have seen you but me. But you didn’t want me to see you naked. Probably just shyness and modesty, but I wanted you to do it so you’d see that you don’t need either of those things with me.”
He stopped, giving Trace a chance to talk, and when he simply looked back at Cary without speaking, Cary continued.
“And what I felt, taking off the Speedo with you there watching? Well, the shyness I feel a lot, sure. And modesty, more than usual, actually. I’m modest like most boys our age. But it was exciting, too. I knew you were looking, and that gave me some of the tingling feelings you must have, too. I’m gay, and if another boy is interested in looking at me naked? Yeah, it was exciting. Well, I keep being euphemistic. It was arousing. There, I said it.
“There wasn’t enough time when I was naked for it to show much, but if I’d lingered putting my underwear and shorts back on, it probably would have been obvious I was getting hard. So I felt that, too. Embarrassment and arousal. I guess those were what I mostly felt.”
Trace gulped. “This is so strange to me. I mean, well, you guys are still practically strangers to me. And I’m shyer than you’ve ever been, Cary. You say you’re shy, but I sure haven’t seen it. But I have seen how nice you are. I have seen that. And after you got dressed, you didn’t stay while I put the suit on. You didn’t even ask if you could. You just smiled at me and left the dressing room.
“I undressed like you did, and so was entirely naked in that dressing room except for my socks. I felt what you’d felt, standing naked in front of the mirror like that. I mean, well, I started getting hard, too. Wow! I didn’t think I could say that! You must be a bad influence on me!”
He smiled after saying that and blushed again.
Cary reached over and offered a high five. “That was so brave, Trace! You’re going to be fine. I know it. Go ahead. There’s more. I’m not in the room looking at you yet. So, go on.”
Trace did. “Well, I saw what you saw when you looked in the mirror—I was a little exposed in that suit. Just a little. But a little is way too much for me. So I was dithering about letting you come back in when you knocked on the door. I remembered then that you’d let me see you naked. I think that was the only reason I let you come in.”
“And what did you feel? I’ll tell you what I saw.” Cary’s eyes were bright. “I saw a gorgeous boy, slim and handsome, wearing only a tiny piece of cloth with the same suggestion in it that I’d shown. And you want to hear brave? Okay, I got hard. You were looking at the mirror, so I’m sure you didn’t notice, and my shorts are baggy enough that it wasn’t all that apparent, but I did. Hard. So, what did you feel?”
“I felt scared and proud. Proud of myself for being able to let you see the little you could see. Scared of how you might react. Like you might tease me for being too scrawny and not having more in my Speedo. You didn’t criticize me at all, which was really nice of you. I’m used to being teased. I sort of expect it.”
“No, no teasing. Why would I? You looked like a boy model.”
“And you got hard?” There was a teasing quality in Trace’s voice, slim, under the surface, but Cary could hear it.
“Shut up!” He laughed. “I get hard all the time. Well, not as much as when I was 13. But more than I like. I’ll bet you do, too.”
Trace hadn’t become bold enough to respond to that. Instead, he opened his mouth, then closed it and turned to look out the window.