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"Hey, so," Holster said once the Skype call connected. "I know we're supposed to go to Niagara Falls in, like, a month, but my family's having some sort of big family reunion the week before. Do you wanna come with me?"
"A Birkholtz family reunion?" Ransom asked. The idea wasn't unappealing, but--
"No, no, it's the Johnston side of the family."
"The who?"
"My mom's side. Well, my mom's dad's side. They live in, uh . . . well, sort of the middle of nowhere."
That was less appealing. "Bro, I don't know if it would be a good idea--"
"No, I mean, maybe not, but like." Holster sighed. "I've visited them. You wouldn't be the only black dude in town. It's a small town, like five thousand people, but there are three black guys on the hockey team alone."
Ransom cocked his head to one side. "Are you shitting me? Three black guys on one hockey team? Also, what is it, WHL?"
"I don't remember. The Letterkenny Irish?"
"I haven't even heard of them. Where is it?"
"Outside of Sudbury."
"Sudbury, Ontario?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit, that's--okay, first of all, it's in Canada. Why you holding out on me, Holtzy?" Ransom was grinning at this point, and so was Holster. "You didn't tell me you're part Canadian?"
"I mean, a quarter at best," Holster said, laughing at this point.
"Still counts, asshole. So when are we going?"
"You're coming?"
"I mean, I reserve the right to make you leave if it's full of assholes, but yeah, I'll come."
"Dude!" Holster pumped his fist in the air. "Awesome! D-men roadtrip! I'll drive up and get you, and we can hit up every Timmy's on the 401."
"Bro, no part of that sentence is okay," Ransom said. "Also, you take the 400, not the 401 to get there. The 401 will take you to Windsor."
"It's been years since I've been there," Holster said, and it sounded like an admission. "They were really nice, though."
"Who am I meeting?"
"My . . ." His face screwed up comically. "Second cousins, I think? Wayne's a few years older than I am and Katy's about my age, maybe a year younger. Their parents are gone, but they've got the farm. And it's a small town, so everyone's family, you know?"
Ransom did and didn't; he'd never lived anywhere but Samwell and Toronto, and his parents had been born in a city in Nigeria with a population over a million. But when they'd taken him and his sister to visit family in Ibadan, all of a sudden cousins and aunties and uncles had started crawling out of the woodwork. "Yeah," he said.
"It's gonna be great! Hey, how's the internship going?"
"It's going great," Ransom said. "Yesterday, I got to turn the electrophoresis chamber on."
"Dude, didn't you make one of those in middle school?"
"Yeah, but this is, like, a real one."
"Ahh! How s'wawesome was that?"
Ransom smiled. "It was pretty fucking s'wawesome."
***
The end of June came sooner than Ransom had thought it would, and all of a sudden Holster was standing in the Oluransi living room, greeting Ransom’s parents and sisters. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last time, if anyone had anything to say about it--not the least of whom was Ransom's younger sister Dami. She always seemed super excited to talk to him, which made Ransom think she was either mildly in love with Holster or regarded him as a really fascinating sociological experiment.
Really, it could be both. Holster was a fascinating sociological experiment, and Ransom couldn't see a good reason why anyone wouldn't be at least mildly in love with him.
But he digressed.
They stayed up way too late watching Parks and Rec and got started somewhat after eight, which was fine, given that it was only about a four-hour drive. The first stop was a gas station, to load up with the proper road-trip snacks; the second one was at a Timmy's, because Holster insisted. Ransom wasn't necessarily going to say no to a box of Timbits, but he'd gotten coffee in a travel mug before he left home, rather than the swill from Timmy’s Holster insisted on drinking.
Road trips with Holster were the best; like, literally the best thing ever. He had playlists for everything, and the playlist for this trip was broken into two pieces. "Planned bathroom break, bro," he said in explanation. It was a mix of music that they both liked, heavy on the stuff they could sing along with, but the first time a Tragically Hip song came on, Ransom turned to him.
"Bro," he said. "Bro. What."
"It's a Canadian road trip!"
"I'm Canadian!"
"And you like the Tragically Hip!"
Ransom's parents liked the Tragically Hip. But then again . . . he couldn't in good faith say he disliked the band, so . . . "If you put any Bryan Adams on here, dude, I am pulling this car over."
"Bro! Would I do that to you?" Holster looked vaguely insulted but also vaguely shifty, and the shiftiness was explained when, two songs later, "Summer of '69" blared from the speakers.
Ransom immediately swerved off the road--well, no, he put on his blinker, got in the right lane, and then pulled onto the shoulder, but it sounded better the other way. "Adam Birkholtz."
"Sorry?" Holster offered.
"You're not sorry at all."
"I'm a little sorry," he said, holding two fingers about a centimeter apart.
Ransom rolled his eyes. "You're ridic, bro."
"Yep." But he was grinning, and that made it impossible for Ransom not to grin back, so he got back on the highway and continued driving.
They pulled into Letterkenny around one, having stopped for lunch in Sudbury. Holster was driving again, which was good because even Ransom's GPS couldn't find where they were going. "So," Holster said once they hit Letterkenny proper, a couple of cross-streets with some storefronts. "We're a day early. I did that on purpose, because I think we'll be able to figure out if I just didn't notice how fucking racist everyone is and then get the hell outta here if there are fewer people around."
"So your parents will be coming tomorrow?" Ransom said. "That's . . . yeah, I mean, that's nice of you. I hope it works." He didn't mean to sound quite as dour about the situation as he thought he did, but Holster got it. Or, at least, he got it as much as a translucently white guy like him could.
"Yeah, me too," Holster said. "I texted Katy and she said it wouldn't be a problem to be a day early, but if it is, we can get a hotel in Sudbury. If it's still a problem after that, we can just drive home and spend some time knocking around T-town."
"No one calls it that, dude," Ransom said, laughing, as they turned onto a side road--he wasn't even sure it was a road--and then pulled into a dirt driveway.
There were three people sitting in front of a produce stand, drinking beer. Ransom sort of hated to stereotype, but they looked like hicks. "Um."
"That's them," Holster said. He sounded cautiously excited. "You ready?"
"I mean, sure," Ransom said. He kept any of his other opinions to himself.
"Let's go."
They got out of the car, and Holster hollered, "Hey, Wayne!"
"Adam! How are ya now?" Wayne was the one sitting farthest away; he was wearing a plaid shirt tucked into loose-fitting work jeans, and his hair was one step away from a high 'n' tight. He stood, as did the other two, a blond man in a jumpsuit and a big guy with brown hair and an impressive beard.
"Good, and you?"
"Oh, not so bad," Wayne said. By then he was a meter or two away from Holster, and he offered a handshake. "You're early," he said.
"Oh, um, yeah," Holster said. "I texted Katy and she said it was okay."
The other two men, the blond and the bearded guy, exchanged a look behind Wayne's back, but something about Wayne's face indicated to Ransom that he hadn't missed the exchanged look. "She hasn't been home since yesterday and she didn't bother to text me," he said, "but it's no trouble."
"We can go find a hotel," Holster said.
"Hard no. Family's family, and you get first dibs on the guest room. You remember Daryl and Dan, right?"
Holster nodded. "Hey, Dary. Hey, Squirrely Dan."
"Hi, Adam," they chorused. Daryl or Dary seemed to be the blond, and Dan had the beard.
"Who's your friend?"
Ransom had heard a hundred variations on that question, but Wayne seemed simply to want to know his name. "Hi, I'm Justin," he said.
"Wayne," he said, with the same firm handshake he'd given his cousin. "Good to meet you. Glad you can come to the family reunion."
"Thanks," Ransom said, more than a little bewildered.
"Washroom's in the house," Wayne said. "You can put your stuff up and then join us out here for a bit." He indicated a cooler. "We've got beer."
"Beer sounds good," Holster said.
They dropped their bags in a guest room--queen-sized bed, handmade quilt, pine furnishings, almost exactly what Ransom expected--used the washroom, and headed back outside.
Before they got back to the vegetable stand, though, a veritable herd of German Shepherd puppies came hurtling across the lawn, and Holster dropped to his knees to greet every single one of them. Ransom stopped to laugh at him, but someone near the stand whistled and the puppies tumbled away, leaving Holster sitting on the ground alone.
Ransom held out a hand. "Cute dogs," he said.
"Yeah, they've had a bunch of litters," Holster said, taking Ransom's hand and then barely using it to stand. "They're so sweet, the dogs."
"Sorry about that," Wayne said, when they got close enough. He'd picked up one of the puppies and was giving it skritches, which, combined with the cooing noises he was making, was definitely not something Ransom had expected. He dug it, though.
"Nah, dude, they're great," Holster said.
"Well, now, someone's billet brother's a rocket."
Ransom looked up to see who had said that. There was a fourth man joining the group, coming from the far side of the stand. He had glasses and a short-sleeved white shirt on, and Ransom wasn't terribly surprised--at least with regards to the clothing--when Wayne introduced him as Pastor Glen.
"Did I use that right?" Pastor Glen asked Wayne, who ignored him pointedly.
"I don't quite knows," Dan said. "You'd haves to ask Jonesy or Reilly."
"Puppers?" Wayne said, and Ransom automatically looked at the dog in his arms.
"Yeah, I'll take one," Holster said, and to Ransom's surprise, Dary handed him a beer.
"Oh, uh, me too," Ransom said. The label had a dog on it.
"What did you want, Pastor Glen?" Dan asked him.
"Oh, well, you know, just spreading the Lord's Word," Pastor Glen said. "Who are your good-lookin' friends, Wayne?"
"My cousin, Adam," Wayne said, using the dog to indicate Holster. "His friend, Justin. Here early for tomorrow's reunion."
Before Pastor Glen could actually comment on that, a Jeep pulled into the driveway. Ransom heard Wayne sigh, even over the engine noise. The car turned off and a young woman, brown-haired and bearing a surprising resemblance to Holster's youngest sister, despite the coloring, kissed both the driver--blond, with a pretty good flow--and the person in the passenger's seat--brunet, shorter hair--before jumping out over the door. "Adam!" she said.
Ransom dimly registered Wayne putting down the puppy. It came over, untied Ransom's left shoe, and then scampered away.
The girl must be Katy, then; she ran over and jumped into Adam's arms, and he swung her around. "Hey, Katy-kat!"
The two men--boys, really; they couldn't be much older than Ransom was--jumped out of the car after exchanging a glance and came over. "Hey," the blond said.
"Hey," Ransom said, more than a little cautiously.
"Jonesy, Reilly," Katy said, not indicating which one was which, "my cousin Adam. He's here for the reunion tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah," the brunet said. "It starts at three, right?"
"Yeah," Katy said. "Adam plays hockey, too. And I don't know your name, sorry," she said to Ransom.
"Oh, I’m Justin. I'm his D partner."
"Dude, you're D-men?" the blond said.
"You should come shinny with us, bros," the brunet said.
"Dirty fuckin’ dangles."
"Sick snipes and cellys."
"What do they call you?"
"Ransom," he said, after realizing it was an actual question and not just another part of their conversation. "He's Holster."
"Dude!" the brunet said.
"That's way better than ours."
"Jonesy's what every Jones gets called."
"And Reilly's just my last name." They exchanged a sad look.
So the blond was Reilly. Probably.
"But you should still come shinny with us!" Probably-Reilly said.
"Where do you play?" Probably-Jonesy asked.
"Samwell University," Holster said.
"Wait, like, NCAA?" Reilly said.
"Yeah," Ransom said and, not willing to pass up the chance, added, "We played in the Frozen Four championship game this year."
"Sick, bro!"
"That's awesome!"
"What was it like?"
"Oh, you know," Holster said. "Fun to play with a guy who signed with the NHL a few weeks later."
"Whoa! Who?" Jonesy asked.
"Wait, you said Samwell?" Reilly asked.
Jonesy looked at him. "Isn't that where--"
They both turned to Ransom and Holster, eyes wide. "Did you get to meet his dad?" Reilly said, almost reverently.
"Forget his dad," Katy said. "Did you get to meet his mom?"
"Whose dad? Whose mom?" Pastor Glen asked.
"Jack Zimmermann," Wayne said.
"More like Snack Zimmermann," Katy said. "Is he that hot in person?"
"Yeah," Holster said. "He went jogging at like five in the morning, because if he went later, half the campus would walk into trees."
"Nah, that was just Nursey," Ransom said.
"Nursey wasn't walking into trees because of Jack's ass," Holster said. "He just walks into trees."
"True," Ransom said.
"Oh, he's a handsome one," Pastor Glen said. He appeared to be looking at Dary's phone.
"What's Bad Bob like?" Jonesy said, sounding as reverent as Reilly had earlier.
"He's a great guy," Holster said.
"Tells a lot of dad jokes," Ransom said.
"Talks about Jack's 'Uncle Mario' and 'Uncle Wayne' pretty regularly," Holster said.
Ransom had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing at the looks on the hockey guys' faces. Reilly put out a hand to grab Jonesy's shoulder, to keep himself upright.
"Gretz," Jonesy breathed. "Did you get to meet him?"
"Nah," Holster said.
"Not yet," Ransom said.
"Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude," Reilly said, with deep emotion. "Shinny later?"
"Sure," Holster said, after looking to Ransom for confirmation. "We'll have to borrow gear."
"We got you, bros."
"Don't you have practice?" Katy said.
Both Reilly and Jonesy jumped as if startled. "Oh, right. We should go.”
“Pitter patter, boys,” Wayne said.
“Bye, Katy!"
"Bye, Katy!"
The hockey boys grinned at her and, in concert, jumped back in the car and sped out.
"Well," Pastor Glen said. "They certainly put the 'homo' in homosocial."
Ransom figured that Pastor Glen was allowed to make that particular joke.
"They put the no-homo in homosocial," Wayne said.
"They put the bro in homosocial," Holster said, and Wayne nodded infinitesimally at him.
"No," Katy said, "they put the bi in homosocial."
"There's no bi in--" Dary said, but he shut his mouth before he finished.
"Or, actually," Katy said, a smug look on her face, "I put the bi in homosocial."
"Hey-o!" Holster said, holding out a fist for Katy to bump.
"No, really, what are you doing here, Pastor Glen?" Dary asked. "You need something?"
"Just wondering if you needed any help with the party tomorrow, someone to say grace, maybe bring ice cream, you know."
"You're invited," Wayne said. "We're good on grace, thanks, and we already asked you to bring the ice cream truck."
The pastor had an ice cream truck? Ransom wasn't exactly opposed, but he was confused.
"And I already told you that my mother's maiden name was Wilcox, right?"
"You sure dids, Pastor Glen," Dan said.
That didn't clear up Ransom's confusion at all.
"Well, then, I guess I'll get going." The pastor sauntered away a few steps, hesitating as if he were waiting to be invited to stay.
He was not.
"You don't have to go shinny with them later if you don't want to," Katy said. "I can distract them."
"That's why I likes you, Katy," Dan said. "You're here for your cousins."
"Is that why you like me?"
"Dial it back about twenty percent there, Squirrely Dan," Wayne said.
Ransom was kind of starting to like the guy--Wayne, that was. He was pretty much the opposite of Holster, other than being broad-shouldered and squareish in the face, but Ransom appreciated the deadpan thing. He took a swig of his beer.
It wasn't bad. Actually, compared to the Natty Lite that usually appeared at kegsters, it was pretty great. Ransom kicked at a couple of rocks and sat on the ground, somewhat to Wayne's right. Holster came to sit next to him, clinking his bottle against Ransom's.
"But seriously, what's Alicia Zimmermann like?" Katy asked.
"She's fucking amazing," Holster said. "Super nice, totally down-to-earth."
"Screams almost as loud as Bad Bob at hockey games," Ransom added.
Katy sighed and leaned back in her lounger, eyes closing. She held out one hand for a beer, and Wayne obliged her. "Ideal woman," she said.
"Doesn't bothers you that she's in her fifties?" Dan asked.
"Would it bother you?" Katy asked, not even bothering to open her eyes.
"Well, no," Dan said.
"Then why would it bother me?"
"Good points," he said.
"Is everyone invited to the family reunion?" Katy asked.
"Well," Wayne said, "family's all invited, and then you invited Jonesy and Reilly, and then we had to invite Pastor Glen to get the ice cream truck."
"And someone invited the McMurrays," Daryl said.
"Well, Mrs. McMurray's mom is a cousin on her father's side," Wayne said.
"And thens if yous invited Rosies, we hads to invites Gails," Dan said.
"And we had to invite Tanis, because we need someone else good on the grill," Daryl said.
Ransom had no idea who any of these people were, after the first batch, but it was fascinating.
"So," Wayne said, "in short, yes."
"Literally everyone?" Katy said.
"Mm," Wayne said. "No."
"I don't thinks anyones invited the Skids," Dan said.
"Are we going to?" Katy asked. "Roald's a cousin, or a cousin of a cousin or something."
"Up to you, Katy," Wayne said.
"We'll see. Another Puppers?"
***
About the time that Ransom's ass was starting to hurt from sitting on the ground, Katy offered to show them around town. "Some things have changed since you were here last, Adam," she said.
Ransom didn't want to stop Holster from hanging out with Katy, who seemed to be his favorite, but he would have agreed to go anyway, just to stretch his legs. They took Holster's car into town and parked it by the dollar store, near a group of Goth dudes dressed in black overalls and white tanks. They were aggressively dancing to electro-pop music while making uncomfortable eye contact with whoever got close enough.
"Katy," said one of them, long hair under a bowler. He seemed to be the leader of the group, and there was a weird intensity in how he said Katy's name. Ransom wasn't sure if it was something to do with Katy herself or just how the guy talked. Possibly both.
The dude--all the dudes, actually--was also twitchy around the edges. The part of Ransom that really did want to be a doctor was cataloguing a few other signs: perspiration out of proportion to the weather, pinprick pupils despite being in the shade, dry mouth. Of course, it didn't take even that much for him to figure out they were all on drugs--probably meth if he knew anything about rural communities--but his brain still noticed.
"Stewart," Katy said.
She didn't say anything else, and neither did Stewart, but they stared at each other until one of the other dudes, shorter and hairier, said, "Hi, Katy. Who are your friends?"
"Hey, Roaldy," Katy said, and it broke the moment. "You remember my cousin Adam?" She jerked a thumb at Holster. "Justin's his partner."
Roaldy perked up at that. "Partner?"
"Defensive partner, yeah," Holster said easily. Roaldy deflated a little.
Wait, hadn't Katy mentioned a Roald earlier as a cousin, or a cousin of a cousin?
"Oh, you're . . . hockey players," Stewart said, somehow a perfect mix of drama and sourness. "You do seem to like hockey players in pairs."
"Gross, Stewart, he's my cousin," Katy said, but she sounded pretty bored with the conversation. "They're up for the reunion tomorrow. Anyway," she said, gesturing around her, "here's Letterkenny."
"Yep," Holster said. "This is Letterkenny."
"Ah, yes, the reunion," Stewart said, still dramatically sour. He turned away and hit play on an oversized boombox.
"Good to meet you," Ransom said, directly to Roaldy as he seemed to be the only one still paying attention to them--or, specifically, to Holster's ass, which, same. Roaldy jumped a little and then nodded back at Ransom.
"Is that Roald, the maybe-a-cousin?" Ransom asked Katy in an undertone.
"Yeah, and those are the Skids," she said. "It's . . . complicated."
Katy took off down the main drag purposefully, pointing out places as they went--the Bavarian Hall, the church, the hockey rink, and MoDean's II, the bar. "So that's everything," she said, standing in front of the bar. "So tell me, you got any other hot teammates you might convince to visit, Adam?"
Holster laughed. "The whole fuckin' team's gorgeous, Katy-kat, you have no idea." They all started walking again, much more slowly. "Like, seriously, whatever your tastes, we got one."
"Maybe I should come visit sometime. College parties sound like fun."
"Did I tell you we met Kent Parson once?"
Ransom shot Holster a look, but he was careful not to imply anything about why Parson had even been at the Epikegster. Not, of course, that either of them actually knew why Parson had showed up at that party, or why Jack and Bitty had both been weird for a while after they got back the next semester, but both of them had their suspicions. Suspicions that made Ransom mad, to be honest. His Winter Screw Excel spreadsheets were so wrong, he couldn’t even think about them.
Holster was showing off photos of the whole team on his phone--Katy sighed extra at Nursey, which Ransom supposed was to be expected, and both Lardo and Shitty, which was less so--when Katy's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, read the message, and sighed. "That's Jonesy," she said. "You want me to tell him to fuck off?"
Ransom and Holster exchanged a look. "Nah," Holster said. "We could use a shinny. They got gear, right?"
"Can't say what condition it's in," she said, shrugging, "but sure."
"Cool," Ransom said.
"You gonna watch?" Holster said.
"Nah," she said. "They kicked me out once, a while ago, for being a distraction, and I'm just not going to go back."
"A distraction?" Holster said.
Katy rolled her eyes. "Hockey boys," she said.
"Hey, now."
"Anyway, let's go," she said, and she led them back to the rink.
It was . . . a rink. A small one, not unlike some that Ransom'd played in back in high school. The Letterkenny Irish were a Senior A Men's team, so Ransom wasn't expecting much, really. Reilly and Jonesy met them in the lobby, both acting a little like puppies. "Hey! Locker room's this way," said one of them--Ransom had forgotten which was which.
"We got you stuff."
"Holster, you've mostly got Boomtown's spare stuff, because he's the biggest guy on the team."
"Ransom, you've got Schultzy's extra kit."
"We had to borrow skates from Shoresy, though." They exchanged a look.
"You're gonna regret that," Katy said.
"Yeah, but he's the only one who wears size thirteen skates," the blond one--Reilly?--said.
"Well, have fun storming the castle, boys," Katy said.
"Bye, Katy!" Jonesy and Reilly chorused.
She leaned in long enough to let them each kiss her on the cheek, and then she turned and left.
The hockey boys watched her leave, and then shuddered all over, in concert, like a dog shaking off water. "Let's fuckin' play, boys!" probably-Jonesy said.
When they got in the locker room, the coach was there, or at least a guy Ransom had to assume was the coach, given his age. "Where were you?" he demanded of Reilly and Jonesy.
"We got some real live NCAA stars to come shinny with us," Jonesy said.
"Oh yeah?" the coach said. He was starting to get red in the face; Ransom thought he was winding up for some sort of explosion, but Holster stepped forward.
"Hey, Coach," he said. "I'm Adam Birkholtz. I played in Waterloo in juniors and now I'm at Samwell. We just went to the Frozen Four."
"And lost, right?" the coach said, but before Adam could say anything, one of the players spoke.
"Samwell, that's where Jack Zimmerman went, right?" At Holster's nod, he continued. "I'd fuckin' sell my wife to play with Jack Zimmermann. Yorkie?"
"I'd fuckin' sell my wife and my car to play with Jack Zimmermann," the next guy, presumably Yorkie, said. "Shultzy?"
"I'd fuckin' sell my wife, my car, and my brother to play with Jack Zimmermann," Shultzy said. "Fisky?"
"I'd fuckin' sell my wife, my car, and both my sisters to play with Jack Zimmermann," Fisky said. "Boomtown?"
"I'd fuckin' sell Jack Zimmermann to play with Bad Bob Zimmermann," Boomtown said.
The entire locker room went silent for a second, everyone nodding.
(Well, not Ransom or Holster, who had actually played with Jack. Bad Bob was cool and all, but shit. Jack Fucking Zimmermann.)
Then, in the background, someone who was clearly in a bathroom stall said, "Give your balls a tug, titfuckers. Bob Zimmermann's, like, fuckin' sixty years old."
"Fuck you, Shoresy," Jonesy said.
"His balls probably sag so far he has to use a second jock to keep them in place."
"Fuck you, Shoresy," Reilly said.
"He probably wears double-bladed skates these days."
"Fuck you, Shoresy!" the two said in unison.
Ransom couldn't decide if Shoresy's shit-talking--it was clearly a step beyond chirping--was hilarious or infuriating, but he knew what Reilly and Jonesy thought.
"Actually, uh," Holster said, "he's come and skated with us a couple times, and he's doing just fine."
Everyone in the room, with the exception of Shoresy who was still making rude noises in the bathroom stall, stared at Ransom and Holster, dead silent.
"You've skated with Bad Bob Zimmermann?" the coach breathed.
"Yeah?" Ransom said. "Nothing serious, just some shinny. He's a good guy, supports the team a lot."
The coach threw up his hands in the air and left, kicking a trash can near the door.
"Let's see what you can do, college boys," Jonesy said.
***
Shinny was . . . shinny. None of the players were particularly good and they only had one goalie, so Ransom took it upon himself to convince Shoresy to put on pads and stand in the other goal. He yelled chirps constantly, but the mask didn't fit very well, so most of what he said was unintelligible. It was strange, because Ransom couldn’t really see Shoresy’s face, but the glimpses he did get made Ransom think he must be another Johnston family cousin. The two D-men there on the Irish were more goons than anything else, so Ransom and Holster split themselves up--and split up Reilly and Jonesy--to try to make it more fair.
It, uh, still wasn't fair. While a few of the players could skate fairly well, including Reilly, none of them would have made his old high school team, let alone Samwell. Even in borrowed skates with sketchy blades and the wrong stick, and even being a defenseman and not a forward, Rans scored four goals before he reminded himself to quit showing off. Holster was worse, trying trick plays he'd picked up from Jack and Bitty, but eventually--six or seven goals later--he remembered to be a good dude.
But even bad shinny was still shinny, and the Irish were, in general, pretty good-natured. They seemed to think it was right and proper that Ransom and Holster should be scoring on them left and right, and no one was surprised when even Holster, six-foot-four, two-hundred-fifty-pound moose that he was, could skate rings around even the speediest guy on their team.
Honestly, sometimes Ransom forgot how good they were. He'd never actually wanted to go pro; he was really happy to use the NCAA to get free undergrad at an Ivy League school he would never have been able to afford otherwise. Holster, of course, had been on that track, but at the moment, he seemed pretty happy to plan for a future where he got a regular white-collar job. Jack had always seemed like an anomaly on their team, someone whose career in the NHL was just about a given, even though he clearly wasn't. A single person couldn't carry an entire NCAA team to the finals. Jack wouldn't have been able to do that if he hadn't had Bitty on one wing and Ollie on the other; he wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near the net if Ransom and Holster hadn't been making lanes for him. And they never would have gotten anywhere near as far as they had if Chowder hadn't been a brick wall in front of the goal.
But anyway, when they were done, the final score was like 15-13, and Reilly and Jonesy invited them all to the bar to celebrate. “Get some sandos, some appies, some brewskis!”
Most of the team begged off, citing the wives they'd said they would sell earlier. "How about we meet after dinner instead?" Holster suggested, after texting his cousins.
That worked, so they went back to the farm--Reilly and Jonesy drove, forcing Ransom and Holster to squash into the back seat of the Wrangler--and ate hamburgers off the grill.
"Fine evening for a grill," Wayne said.
"Sure is," Dary said.
"I'll drinks to that," Dan said, saluting them with a beer bottle.
"Ran into the Skids in town," Katy said.
"And?" Wayne said.
"Didn't invite them," Katy said.
"All right."
And that was the end of that conversation.
***
"Well! And who is this fine pair of studs?" the bartender said when they walked into MoDean’s II after dinner. She'd clearly been sampling her own wares, but everyone seemed to like her.
"How are you now, Gail?" Wayne asked.
"Much better now that they walked in," she said, gesturing to Ransom and Holster with an open bottle of whiskey. "And you?"
"Oh, not so bad," Wayne said. "You met my cousin Adam a few years ago. This is his friend Justin."
"Mmm," Gail said, leaning on the bar. "Adam and Justin. How good of friends are you?"
"Well, he came out to Letterkenny for a family reunion with me," Holster said.
Ransom couldn't quite make out the undertone there, but he nodded.
"So you do . . . everything . . . together?"
They got that a lot, mostly at kegsters. Once in a while they actually did something to justify it. Ransom felt his face heat up, but it was dark in there and probably only Gail would be good at spotting a blush on him.
Well. Or Holster.
"Pretty much," Holster said blithely. "Beer me?"
Wait, what the hell did that mean? But he was distracted by the appearance of a pint glass, and he took a big gulp to hide his confusion.
Puppers on tap tasted functionally identical to Puppers out of a bottle, not that Ransom was complaining. They were all enjoying their drinks when a second server, a young woman with long hair and a short sundress, came out of the back room.
"Bonnie McMurray!" everyone said.
Ransom was starting to feel like he was in the weirdest Canadian version of "Cheers."
"Wayne, how are you now?" Bonnie asked.
"Good, and you?"
"Oh, not so bad," she said, eyes only for Holster's cousin. Come to think of it, once Holster had implied that he and Ransom were together, Gail had returned to leaning against the bar in front of Wayne, her tank top dipping lower and lower. And the pastor earlier--was everyone in town in love with either Wayne or Katy? Or both?
"Bonnie, this here's Adam, my cousin, Deedee's son. You might have met him a few years ago?"
"I remember you," Holster said. "You were maybe twelve last time I was around. And Justin's my partner."
Ransom swallowed the instinctive Defensive partner and just smiled at her.
"It's good to see you again, Adam," Bonnie said. "If you need anything, just holler. And you too, Justin."
"We will," Holster said.
Dan, Dary, Katy, Jonesy, Reilly, and (he'd admit it) Ransom all watched her walk away.
"Paint could still stand to dry a little more," Wayne said.
"Looks mighty dry to me," Katy said.
Reilly and Jonesy exchanged a look, but they didn't manage to say anything before Dary asked how shinny went.
At some point the Goths, or Skids, or whoever they were, showed up, pointedly ignored Katy and Wayne and everyone else, and left without even drinking anything. Ransom figured they were mad about not being invited to the reunion, or at least Stewart was.
Pastor Glen stopped by, as well. Ransom had already lost the ability to be surprised at anything that the so-called pastor did, but what he said was still baffling. "Did I ever mention my aunt on my dad's side, she married my father's brother? Her last name was Reilly."
"No, you did not mention her," Wayne said. He’d just come back from going outside to beat someone up, for reasons that no one explained and Ransom was a little afraid to ask about, and he was holding a bag of ice on his knuckles.
Pastor Glen appeared to be waiting for a response, but when none was forthcoming, he shoved his chin in the air and said, "Well, then. I'll be seeing you around."
The rest of the evening was . . . a different kind of odd. Ransom was used to a certain amount of physical contact from Holster, and by "a certain amount" he meant "a lot." Holster was a hugger, a casual-hand-on-shoulder-er, an ass-slapper, a hair-ruffler, a bro-cuddles-on-couch-er. Ransom, being his best friend and having long ago established that he was usually up for all of those things (hair-ruffling, maybe not), had been the recipient of a lot of Holster's physical affection.
(He had seen even Jack smile at getting his hair ruffled by Holster, more than once, and Jack was the most standoffish person on the team by a long shot.)
But tonight he was doing all that--well, not the ass-slapping or couch-cuddling--and more. When he went to the washroom, he touched his fingers to Ransom's elbow and slid his other hand across Ransom's back. Instead of just saying something, he'd lean over to murmur it. He waved Bonnie over to get Ransom a refill before Ransom had even figured out that he'd need some.
Ransom had seen this Holster before. It was Holster on a date.
He wasn't completely bewildered; Holster had effectively said they were together to Gail and Ransom hadn't corrected him. (Now he felt a little bad about having told Roald, who in retrospect could really only have one reason for being so happy to find a queer couple visiting, that they were effectively work partners rather than life partners.) So apparently they were pretending that they were together.
Except . . .
Except Holster was being sincere.
Ransom had known him for three years and had pretty much lived in his pocket the entire time. Holster was really bad at lying (like, notoriously so) and surprisingly bad at pretending to feel things he didn't. Everything he felt was written on his face. So how on earth could Ransom have missed that Holster had date-feelings for him?
There were three possibilities, or at least three that he could see at this point. One, that Holster really didn't have these feelings until recently, and thus had been able to hide them. Two, that Holster had actually been really good at hiding his feelings this whole time, which meant that he was good at pretending, and either he was pretending right now or he'd been pretending for a long time. That opened up a whole can of worms that Ransom wasn't sure he wanted to think about right yet. Three, that Ransom was really much worse at reading Holster than he'd thought this whole time, and that was also something he didn't want to think about.
But one of those things had to be true, didn't it?
He chugged the rest of his beer and flagged Gail down for another one.
***
Contrary to popular notion (Holster's), Ransom was not actually that drunk. He was drunk, certainly, but not, like, shit-faced. He was sloshed, but not hammered. He was probably gonna-get-hungover drunk, but not throw-up-his-guts-all-night drunk.
Holster, on the other hand, was mostly sober. (Honestly, if Ransom could remember that Holster had only had three beers over the course of four hours, then Ransom couldn't be that drunk.) And apparently it was Holster's job to herd Ransom into the back of Wayne's truck (danger! danger! yelled Ransom's city-boy brain, but Wayne drove slowly and predictably, and it was a perfectly fine ride home), and Holster's job to chivvy Ransom up the stairs. Which he did not need, thank you very much; he was more than sober enough to walk up the--"Oof," Ransom said as he hit his elbow on the bannister.
"Just a few more steps," Holster said, an edge of laughter in his voice.
Ransom knew that. He could clearly see that there were five steps left, and then about six to the bedroom, and--well, there he was, sitting on the edge of the bed while Holster knelt in front of him . . .? "What are you doing?" he asked, voice a little strangled.
"Untying your shoes, dude," Holster said.
"I'm not that drunk," Ransom said.
"Yeah, you are," Holster said. "It's fine. Just let me help you, okay?"
Ransom flopped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a bad idea; the whole bed started spinning under him, and he shut his eyes and groaned. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because shoes in bed are a bad idea," Holster said.
"No, not that." The sensible part of Ransom's brain, the part that basically lived inside Excel spreadsheets and hockey plays and plans for the future, was yelling at him to shut up! and don't say the thing! "Why are you being so nice to me?"
"You're my best bro and you came with me up to a family reunion," Holster said. He'd finished with Ransom's shoes and was now trying to pull Ransom to a seated position. "Let's hit up the bathroom. You're gonna regret it if you don't brush your teeth."
"No," Ransom said. He let Holster tug him upright before he continued. "I mean, like, why are you treating me like your girlfriend? Boyfriend. Datefriend. Whatever."
Holster froze for less than a second--short enough that Ransom found himself doubting that it had even happened. "I didn't think you wanted Gail flirting with either of us," he said carefully.
"Your family doesn't seem to think it's weird that you're flirting with a guy," Ransom said.
"They're good people," Holster said. "They wouldn't say anything either way."
"That's not true," Ransom said. "Katy would make a crude comment."
"Sure," Holster said, "but she's known I'm bi since high school."
It was Ransom's turn to freeze. "Dude. Holster. Bro."
"What?" Holster wasn't looking at him.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know, okay?" Holster said. He was surprisingly quiet, effectively whispering at this point. "Let's just--brush your teeth and take a piss and then we can go to bed and we'll discuss this in the morning, bro."
"You're counting on me forgetting this, aren't you?"
"No," Holster said, but he was clearly lying.
"I'm definitely going to remember this," Ransom said.
"Sure, bro."
***
Ransom woke up at four in the morning. It seemed that someone else in the house was awake and doing things. After a moment, he remembered that he was on a working farm, and then the early wakeup time made sense. He felt like his mouth was made of sandpaper and like a little man with a jackhammer was going at his eyeballs, but there was a glass of water and a couple of ibuprofen next to the bed. He vaguely remembered Holster putting them there last night, and he gulped both the water and the painkillers down.
He stared at the ceiling for a couple minutes, and then Holster shifted and put an arm around his waist. "Go back to sleep, bro," Holster slurred in his ear.
"Yeah," Ransom said.
He didn't fall asleep immediately--he was going to have to wait until the drugs kicked in, which took about a half hour or so--but he tried to relax and keep his breathing even so Holster would fall back asleep. That left him with a few minutes to think, which was always a bad idea. He tried to concentrate on hockey plays, or o-chem, or anything, but his mind wouldn't stay still.
So he thought about Holster.
No part of him was surprised that Holster was currently curled around him; Holster slept like an octopus, and they'd shared a bed a hundred times in the last year, let alone the two years before that. Ransom couldn't say he necessarily slept better when Holster was in bed with him, because he slept like shit ninety percent of the time regardless, but Holster had never actually made it worse. Other people did make it worse--he'd roomed with Johnson for a roadie once, and that had gone poorly enough that Ransom suspected it had been a weird sort of set-up--but nah, not Holster.
Ransom breathed out carefully and just let himself feel for a moment.
It was nice.
But--
Ransom was perfectly aware that he was sexually attracted to men. It was the twenty-first century, and he went to Samwell. It wasn't that big a deal to him, and not particularly that big a deal in the course of his daily life.
Except--
Then why hadn't he ever bothered to tell Holster?
And why hadn't Holster ever bothered to tell him?
Ransom tried to keep his breath even, he really did, but the only reason he could think of that Holster wouldn't have told him was because somehow he'd made Holster think it wouldn't be a good idea to tell him. That it wouldn't be safe to tell him. And that was so far from the truth that he could only wonder what he'd done, what he'd said, how he'd acted that--
"Hey," Holster said. "Breathe with me, okay?"
Ransom shook his head. He couldn't--
"Yes, you can," Holster said. "Just two counts, okay? Inhale, one, two, now exhale, one, two, and hold it--yeah, just like that."
Holster took big deep breaths against Ransom's arm and Ransom tried to follow him, but it took forever, or what felt like forever, to get his body back under control. And even then, the hamster wheel in his brain was still spinning too quickly, and he couldn't really say anything yet. He was aware that Holster was still talking, quietly--quietly for real, not quietly for Holster--but he wasn't really sure what Holster was saying until his brain finally decided to follow the rest of his body's lead.
"...and then Ron comes in the next morning, wearing his Tiger Woods outfit, all singing and cheerful, right? And..."
Ransom couldn't help but chuckle when he realized that Holster had been explaining the plot of one of his favorite episodes of Parks and Rec. Of course he was.
"Ahh, you're back with me?"
"Think so," Ransom said, his voice a rasp.
"Want me to keep talking until you're ready to talk about why you're having a moment at five in the morning?"
"Yeah," Ransom said.
"No problem, bro. So he's sharing all these, like, deets with Leslie, who in no way wants to know about Ron boning his ex-wife like that..."
Holster's voice was so familiar, even as uncharacteristically quiet as he was right now, that Ransom closed his eyes and just let the faint vibrations wash over him. He obviously wasn't going to fall asleep, but he tried to relax and almost succeeded.
"And that's the last we see of Megan Mullally until the next season. Rans, can you hand me your water glass?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind, I got it." Holster leaned over him, armpit right in Ransom's face, and grabbed the glass off the nightstand. "Lotta talking, made me thirsty. You feeling better?"
"I feel better than you smell," Ransom said, batting Holster lightly enough that the water glass wasn't in danger.
"Then you must be feeling pretty good," Holster said, sniffing his own armpit, "because the deodorant's still working, bro." He set the empty glass down on his nightstand with a quiet chunk and turned back to Ransom. "So. Talk, or no?"
Ranson took in a long breath, holding it for as long as he could, and then let it out slowly. "Talk, I guess."
Holster nodded and waited.
"I remember what we talked about last night. A few hours ago, whatever. I don't understand why you never told me you like dudes sometimes, but I guess I never told you either, so." Ransom shrugged, still looking at the ceiling and not at Holster.
"I dunno either, dude," Holster said. "I just . . . didn't."
"Yeah, 'cause like, it's important, but it's not? I don't know."
"Yeah."
"But like."
"Yeah." Holster shifted until he was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, as well. "I mean, also, if I never told you, then I'd never have to hear, you know, 'thanks for trusting me with this, bro.'"
"Oh, shit," Ransom said. "Hey, thanks for trusting me with this."
Holster extended an arm to bop Ransom on the side of the head. "And thanks for trusting me, you know? But that's not really what I wanted to hear."
"What did you want to hear?"
"'Hey, s'wawesome, me too.'"
Oh. Oh. Ransom was starting to get the shape of it now. "Was that all you wanted to hear?"
Holster shook his head no.
"Maybe then something like, 'and hey, when I say I like dudes sometimes, I mean I like you all the time'?"
"Dude, that's not even--" But he was laughing and rolling over to his side again, to face Ransom. "I mean, yeah, I'd love to hear that, if it's true?"
"I--" Ransom said. He couldn't do this staring at the ceiling, as much as he wanted to. So he turned to face Holster and said, "Bro. I came to bumfuck rural Canada to go to a family reunion with you, and I didn't even really think twice."
"Doesn't mean you've got, like, pants-feelings for me. Or heart-feelings. Could just mean you're the best BFF ever to BFF." Holster's face was carefully blank, visible even in the faint dawn light.
"Yeah, it could," Ransom said, shrugging again. "And I'm definitely the best BFF ever to BFF, regardless of any other feelings."
"You totally are, bro."
"But, like--" Ransom stopped and took in another long breath, this one cleansing and contemplative, not panicky and rushed. He was nervous, sure, but not anxious right now--not any more than his usual baseline after an anxiety attack. It was Holster, his best bro, his partner, his roommate. He owed it to him to think about it while as clearheaded as he was going to get and to answer honestly. "Yeah, it's true. I didn't--didn't really figure it out until, like, I figured out it was a possibility, which means in the last eight hours. But, Holtzy--Adam--like, I want to buy you flowers and seats to An American in Paris on Broadway or something."
"Bro. Bro. How did you know that An American in Paris is on Broadway right now?" Holster said, but he was grinning. "Flowers, really?"
"You'd like it if I bought you flowers," Ransom said. "Also, you were talking about it, like, beginning of the year."
"You remember that?"
"I told you, I remember things," Ransom said. "And I remember that you were treating me like your boyfriend last night, and I really liked it."
"Yeah?" Holster's face was close.
"And, like, I don't know, but I'd probably like it if you kissed me."
"Can I kiss you and find out?"
"Yeah," Ransom breathed.
Holster leaned in, and Ransom leaned in, and then they were kissing, slow and steady and comforting. It was a lazy, early-morning kiss, the kind of kiss Ransom would have expected if they'd been together for years up to this point.
Which, in a way, they had.
The second kiss was a little more urgent, but Holster pulled away to yawn before it really got anywhere. "Shit, dude," he said, once he was done yawning. "You did like that, right?"
"Yeah, of course," Ransom said, because he knew that sometimes hearing it was important. “You?”
"Yeah, me too. S'wawesome," Holster said. "Now can we get just a little more sleep?"
Ransom snorted. "Yeah, we can."
Holster would still be there in the morning. Ransom had no doubts about that.
***
They were awakened three or so hours later by hearing Katy yell, "All right, fine! I'll invite them!"
"What I don't get," Ransom said a few seconds later, after his heart rate had started to drop, "is why Katy has to invite them herself."
"The Skids, you mean?" Holster said.
"Yeah. Why couldn't Wayne invite them?"
"I'm not sure," Holster said. "Could have something to do with the fact that Stewart's got some sort of unresolved thing for Katy, maybe?"
"Oh, you saw that, too? I swear, everyone in town is in love with Wayne or Katy or both."
"Well," Holster said. "Almost everyone." He nudged Ransom in the side.
"Yeah," Ransom said. "Although, no joke, they're both hot."
Holster snickered, then burst into full-throated laughter a moment later. Ransom joined him, because how could he resist?
Before they'd fully calmed themselves, there was a knock on the door. "If the two of you are awake and decent, you should join me. The Bavarian Hall's having an all-you-can-eat breakfast," Katy said.
"Bro," Ransom said. "Bro, she just said the magic words."
"We'll be there in a minute!" Holster yelled, probably unnecessarily loudly.
***
Wayne, seated at the breakfast table with a large mutt of some sort on his lap, made no comment when Ransom and Holster came downstairs. Dan and Dary were there, and they said nothing, as well. Katy, on the other hand, said, "Oh, thank God."
"Thank God for what?" Holster asked.
"You're finally . . ." She put her index fingers together and twisted them, probably indicating kissing.
"Hey," Ransom said, although he wasn't sure what he should say after that. He didn't know if he should be insulted or not.
"Leave them alone, Katy," Wayne said. "Just because the pining could be seen from twenty paces, it doesn't mean you get to make fun of them."
"Twenty paces? More like twenty k," Katy said.
"Well, to be fairs," Dan said.
"To be faiiiiiahhhhh," Wayne intoned in a posh British accent.
"To be faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiah." Katy and Dary joined in, as well.
"To be fairs," Dan said, apparently not only unperturbed by the interruption but expecting it, "it's mores like twenty miles."
"Five hundred miles," Dary said.
"And five hundred more," Katy said. "Look, if Dary noticed it, we could all see it."
"Hey," Dary said, but everyone ignored him.
"Anyway," Holster said, "you said something about breakfast?"
"I did," Katy said. "Let's roll."
***
The Skids lived in--met in? Stayed in? Ransom wasn't sure--what seemed to be someone's basement, albeit with a door to the outside. Ransom was a hundred percent sure he didn't want to go down there; he was getting dead-body-or-a-thousand-roaches feelings about it. Holster put a hand on his back, though, and Ransom couldn't say it made his nerves go away, but it did help to know that he was there. Katy seemed confident, though, and he followed her down the stairs.
The basement was . . . okay, it was exactly what he expected, a sort of Goth gaming den with a weird stench to it that he mostly attributed to things being smoked that weren't as wholesome as pot. (Heh.) There were two people draped over the couch and one in a ball on the floor. When Katy set off the air horn Ransom hadn't seen her bring, all three of them jumped a couple feet in the air.
Well, honestly, he and Holster jumped, too, so that made five of them.
"Rise and shine, skids!" Katy said.
"The hell--?" the one who wasn't Stewart or Roald said.
"Party starts at three and you're gonna need all the time between now and then to get presentable. See you then." Katy let off one more blast from the air horn and then turned to leave.
"Stewart," Roald said, "what did she just do?"
"You win this round, Katy," Stewart said. Yeah, Ransom was pretty sure that he just spoke that way.
***
Over ridiculous amounts of pancakes and sausage and eggs, Katy tried to explain all the weird interpersonal relationships in and around town, and Ransom and Holster tried to explain Samwell Men's Hockey. Bonnie McMurray, who was working at the pancake breakfast, stuck around long enough to have an opinion on the roaches-versus-dead-body question; the hockey boys asked for the recipe for tub juice.
"Can't, sorry," Holster said. "I'm sworn to secrecy."
"Can confirm," Ransom said.
Katy's lips quirked at his response, but her next words were directed at Reilly and Jonesy. "Sorry, boys, you'll just have to figure out your own way to get super drunk in a hurry."
As it turned out, Pastor Glen was flipping the pancakes in the back; he came out to say hi. "It's so good of you to stop by to support the Letterkenny 4-H Club, Katy. Is your brother coming out?"
"No, he gave at the office," Katy said. "Plus, he's setting up for the family reunion and collecting family members as they come by. You'll be bringing the ice cream truck over after you're done here, I'm guessing?"
"I will," Pastor Glen said. "Do you boys need more sausage?" he asked.
"Nah, thanks, though," Ransom said.
"I think they've got all the sausage they need," Katy said.
Ransom definitely did not choke on his eggs.
"You can never have enough sausage," Pastor Glen said, giving them a wink that Ransom could only describe as "saucy." "Katy, did I tell you my mom's sister's husband is named Hawthorn?"
"Good to know, Pastor Glen," Katy said.
There was a beat, as if someone had missed a cue. Ransom held his breath, but nothing happened.
"Ugh," Katy said, after the pastor had left.
"What's that all about?" Holster asked.
"He's been angling to be declared family since we asked him to bring the ice cream truck, so he’ll be invited for real, instead of just working," she said. "He's not related to us at all, but neither are half the people who will be there. So I don't know why it matters."
"It matters to him, apparently," Ransom said.
“Shit, if you even invited the Skids, maybe he just feels left out,” Holster said.
"I know," Katy said, "and I know he doesn't really talk to a lot of his birth family, but . . ." She sighed. "I don't want to, okay? I already had to invite the Skids. If anyone's gonna declare him family, it should be Wayne. It's his turn."
"And Wayne doesn't want to?" Holster said.
Katy rolled her eyes. "Hard no," she said. "Doesn't want to encourage Glen's thing for him, not that he said as much. Still."
"Still," Holster echoed. "We've all got annoying cousins we don't talk about."
"Hey, now," Katy said. "I get why you wouldn't want to tell anyone about Wayne, but me? I'm awesome."
"You are awesome," Holster said. "And Wayne's awesome, too, and everyone else in town. None of you are my annoying cousins, I promise."
"But you didn't tell Justin about us until you invited him to the reunion, did you?" Katy's glance slid sideways off both of them.
"I didn't," Holster said. "There's a lot of things I didn't tell Ransom, but this one, I promise, wasn't on purpose."
"You seriously call him Ransom, like, even to his face?" Katy said.
"You call them Jonesy and Reilly," Ransom said. He liked being called Ransom, especially by Holster. Their names fit together, like some sort of heist team.
"Yeah, but nobody's called either of them by their first names since they were five and first strapped on ice skates," Katy said. "I think if I called out, 'Andrew!' he'd be lost."
"Which one is Andrew?" Holster asked.
Katy paused, her fork in the air. "I'm not sure," she admitted.
"And yet, they're family," Holster said.
She huffed out a sigh. "Then you talk to Wayne, since you're family."
"I can try," Holster said. "But it would probably go over better coming from you."
"Fffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine," she said on a groan, dragging her fork through a puddle of syrup.
***
Instead of getting a ride back to the farm with Katy, Ransom and Holster elected to walk back. It was about a half hour's walk, and the day was still cool enough to make it pleasant. They didn't hold hands while walking, although it thrilled Ransom a little that they could have.
"So," Ransom said, after a few minutes of quiet. "Speaking of family."
"What are we going to do when my parents and sisters get here, you mean?"
"Yeah, dude."
"Tell them the truth?" Holster said. "They aren't exactly going to be mad or disappointed, you know that."
"Oh, I know," Ransom said, "but your sisters are gonna chirp the shit out of us."
Holster stopped in the middle of the lane to facepalm. "I forgot about that part."
"Hey." Ransom leaned over to knock his shoulder against Holster's. "Worth it, though."
"Totally."
"Should you text them first, get it over with?"
"Nah. It just means we'll get shit twice, and if we tell them when they get here, we can see their faces."
"True," Ransom said. "But--what are we gonna tell them?"
"That we're boyfriends?"
Ransom shivered a little, but clearly not from the cold. "Yeah, bro," he said. "Boyfriends."
Holster smiled. "Good." They started walking again, bumping shoulders every few steps.
***
"I KNEW IT!!" Hannah, Holster's youngest sister, hollered at the top of her lungs.
Ransom winced. He was used to only one Birkholtz at a time.
***
"Well," Wayne said to the assembled party guests, fingers in his belt loops.
“Is it just me, or does he stand really still when he’s not holding a puppy?” Ransom muttered to Holster, who elbowed him in response.
"If you're here, you're family. Eat up."
Pastor Glen put his hands together and said, "Praise the Lord!" It wasn't loud enough for Ransom to hear from where he was standing, a few meters away, but it wasn't difficult to read the pastor's lips.
"Was that enough?" Katy said, coming up by Holster's elbow.
"Seems like it," Holster said.
"Want a Puppers?" she asked.
"I'll take a Puppers," Holster said.
"I'll have one, too," Ransom said.
Katy came back with the beers; there was more than enough food even for the number of people assembled, so Ransom was content to wait until the line went down. Wayne came up behind them, and Holster held out his beer to clink. "Family," Holster said.
"Family," Wayne said.
"Family," Ransom said.
"Motherfuckin' family," Katy said.
(end)