A Tale of Two Trucks (12 page)

That’s not to say I wasn’t nervous as we pulled into his parents’ driveway a few weeks later. In fact, I’d been a nervous wreck for the whole two hours it took Joe to drive us out there. By the time we walked up to their door, I wasn’t sure if I would throw up or pass out first. But before I could do either, Mary Ellen burst through the entrance and grabbed me in a hug to end all hugs. To my utmost surprise, she was actually
shorter
than me.

“You made it! All in one piece? Good, good. And Joe! Look at you—how
spiffy
you look! Did you pick out this shirt for him, Mike?
Great
choice! It really brings out the color of his eyes, doesn’t it? I’m so glad you could come with him! But you must be tired from the drive. Come on in, come on in—don’t be shy.
Mi casa, su casa
, and all that, you know….”

His dad lumbered over as we were unloading our things (Joe was in charge of our suitcase, while I was carrying the cooler with the cheesecake) and I could see right away where Joe had gotten his size. And, as I discovered over the course of our stay, his temperament. Earl was as laid-back and easygoing as Joe, if a bit more reticent. He seemed unsure what to make of me at first, as well as the whole situation with his son “switching teams,” so to speak, but once he was sure that Joe was happy with his choice—happy with
me
—he seemed to accept it with the same tolerance he showed toward the squirrels in their neighborhood.

“Pesky critters, them things,” he remarked one morning over breakfast, when we were all looking out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. A skinny squirrel was trying to raid the bird feeder, although it was hindered in its efforts by the big plastic baffle. “Ate half of my tomatoes this year. Didn’t even
eat
them, either—just bit into them for the water. Didn’t matter that they were still green. Left them chewed up all over the yard.”

I stifled a laugh at the squirrel, not wanting Earl to think I was laughing at the plight of his tomatoes, but it was funny how the critter would slither down the pole and stare up at the feeder, trying to figure out with its tiny brain how to get to the food, then climb back up the pole again, hoping to find a chink in the armor of the baffle. Earl got up from the table with a grunt and disappeared into the garage. When we saw him walk outside, my first thought was that he was going to shoo the squirrel away, but instead he tossed out a handful of birdseed onto the ground. Of course the squirrel pounced on the food immediately and was not even intimidated by Earl’s hulking presence.

“I thought he didn’t like the squirrels?” I asked.

“He would never admit it,” Mary Ellen grinned, “but he loves watching their antics. Just like little kids, you know? And after they ruined so many of his tomatoes, when he finally figured out that what they were after was the
water
—and no wonder, with as hot and dry as it was!—he put out a few bowls of water for them and refilled them every morning. They didn’t bother his tomatoes much after that, either.”

Yeah, that’s something Joe would do
, I thought, feeling a warmth in my heart that spread all the way down to my toes. I was glad I had come with him, after all, since it had given me a chance to see how nice his parents were. Not that I’d expected anything else, of course!

Chapter 18

O
N
a sweltering afternoon the next summer, I was in the garage painting a new client’s delivery van when Joe pulled into the driveway unexpectedly.

“You’re home early,” I managed to say before he picked me up and claimed my lips.

“I took the day off work,” he admitted once he’d set me back down, although he kept his arms around me. “I had some other stuff to do, and I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, consider yourself successful!” I said, grinning back at him.

“I do,” he replied, then pulled something out from behind him. It was a small box, all wrapped up in pretty paper, even though the bow was a bit rumpled from having been shoved into his back pocket. My heart started beating like a bongo drum at an opium-induced rain dance frenzy.

“Wha-what…?” I began, but I couldn’t finish.

“Open it,” he urged, his voice soft and tender.

With trembling fingers, I tore away the paper. I couldn’t pull apart the cardboard box—partly because my hands were shaky, partly because I was already crying so hard I could hardly see—so Joe helped me out. Then he opened the velvet-covered jewelry box to present its contents to me.

It was the pair of trillium-shaped earrings I’d found in the jewelry store when he’d taken in his wedding band. The super expensive ones made of platinum and black diamonds. Yeah,
those
! I was crying in earnest now, with no tissues in my pockets and no sleeves on my tank top to use as a substitute. I sniffed hard and pulled up the hem of my shirt to dry my eyes so I could actually see the earrings. They sparkled magnificently in the sunlight.

“I…. They’re
beautiful
,” I finally whispered, my voice hoarse with emotion. “But Joe… these were really, really
expensive
!”

“It’s all right, Mike—I always wanted you to have them,” he said, nudging the box into my hands until I grasped it. “And I wanted to surprise you, once everything was said and done: I sold the house. I can pay back Cindy everything I owe her and move on with my life! And this,” he said, cupping my hands and the precious little box in his huge ones, “is just a down payment on everything I owe
you
.”

I don’t know how exactly we got inside the house, but I’m assuming he had to carry me in, because somewhere amidst all the kissing and crying, I think I must have fainted again.

L
ATER
that year, Joe and I pooled our resources to buy a piece of property on the edge of town, near a lovely patch of forest. We both worked on designing a small cottage, which I liked to call our little Love Nest, and contracted Fred Thornton Builders to start building it for us. Once the foundation was laid and the walls and roof were up, Joe could do a lot of the work himself, and on the weekends his buddies would come over and help. We hadn’t even asked them to, but one by one they would start showing up, so I just planned on making several pizzas on Friday nights as well as hamburgers, sandwiches, and an industrial pot of soup on Saturdays. One time when I drove up with lunch, the guys were all lined up on the curb, looking as hungry and pathetic as they could, with cardboard signs reading:

WILL WERK
4
FOOD!

F
OR
Christmas we went to visit Joe’s parents again, and on Christmas Day, after we had all opened our presents and were sitting around just chatting, Joe suddenly got down on his knees on the floor in front of me.

“Mike,” he said, looking unusually serious, “I have a favor to ask you.”

Thinking he was just fooling around, I responded, “You don’t have to
beg
to get me to rub your neck, you know.”

However, when he pulled out a little box (suspiciously similar to the one that had held the earrings) I began to gasp and was in imminent danger of hyperventilating.

“Mike Stevenson,” he asked, grabbing one of my hands to try to calm me down a bit, “will you marry me?”

Naturally, the
one
time in my life that it mattered
most
what I said, I couldn’t get a single word out. I was in Silent Scream Mode, my throat clamped shut as tightly as a fresh oyster shell, and I didn’t have any means to forcibly pry it open. It was a good thing Joe understood me well enough to help me out of the situation.

“Don’t get too excited,” he said, opening the box. “I didn’t actually get you a ring yet, because I wanted you to pick what you wanted. This is just a prop.”

Inside the box—which
was
, as I found out soon afterward, the box from my earrings—was a silver-colored napkin-holder ring he’d kept from a friend’s wedding the past summer.

“When we were sittin’ there and watchin’ them, and they looked so happy together, I said to myself, ‘Why not?’ Just because my first marriage didn’t work out so good doesn’t mean it never will,” Joe explained, still stroking my hand. “That’s when I decided I wanted to tie the knot with you, Mike. If you’ll have me.”

“Yes,” I rasped at last, when I was able, if barely, to breathe. “Yes, of course! Yes, yes,
yes
!”

Mary Ellen was crying too, she was so delighted, and once I was done crying and laughing at the napkin ring and crying again, she gave us each a big hug.

“I’m so happy for you!” she declared as she passed me the tissue box.

“’Bout time,” came a low rumble from the La-Z-Boy, where Earl had observed the entire proceedings without comment up to this point. “It’s only been two years.”

I
WORKED
feverishly to finish the interior of our Love Nest so we could move into it before Valentine’s Day. I shan’t go into all the smutty details, but suffice it to say, Joe and I christened every room in the house that weekend! Then we were both busy preparing for the spring Parade of Homes, but as soon as that was over, I left Rick and Carrie (my new employee, who’d just graduated with a degree in interior design) in charge of that aspect of my business so I could focus on planning
Our Wedding
! We had picked out our matching rings, found a minister willing to perform the ceremony, and gotten permission from our neighbor who owned the empty lot next to our cottage to borrow it for the day. I was on cloud nine!

We decided to have a nontraditional wedding because we wanted everyone to have fun. Aunt Peg was rather startled to learn that we were going to have a backyard barbeque in lieu of a reception, with the actual wedding ceremony a very short and casual affair, but she helped me plan the food and drinks anyhow. Hank even offered to make his famous deep-fried catfish, which Joe and I simply
adored
. We invited everybody we could think of: Joe’s family and coworkers, my clients, and all the neighbors. It was more of a housewarming party than a wedding, but that was how we wanted it.

I
COULD
hardly sleep a wink the night before the wedding, going over all the things I needed to do in the morning, but I couldn’t leave the bed because Joe had a stranglehold on me. Eventually I must have fallen asleep because I was startled when the alarm went off. Dashing over to the window, I threw open the curtains—only to find, to my great dismay, that it was
raining
. So much for the “15 percent chance of scattered showers” our local TV meteorologist had predicted!

However, Gramma must have been looking out for us from heaven, because it dried up beautifully in time for the guests’ arrival. Everything went as planned—and yes, some of Joe’s buddies showed up wearing flannel shirts and jeans, but we had expected them to and were glad they felt comfortable enough to do so—and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Mary Ellen looked radiant in her new marine-blue dress, which I’d helped her pick out, and Earl got along famously with old Fred Thornton. We even managed to get Hank to dance with me to Gloria’s “Get on Your Feet,” even though he
still
couldn’t shake his booty worth a hoot.

It was actually quite poetic because, as Uncle Don pointed out, it was the “Joe Adams and Michael Stevenson Wedding” or “Adam and Steve”! And of course, we lived Happily Ever After in our little Love Nest, with our matching trucks parked side by side in the garage.

PS:
In case you were wondering about Brandon, he got busted for having sex with a minor—that blond kid had been using a fake ID—and he’s currently serving three-to-five in the Big House for statutory rape. Not a pleasant situation for a gay guy, I wouldn’t think!

About the Author

T
HEA
N
ISHIMORI
spent most of her childhood in Japan, which trained her to become an interpreter and translator of Japanese and English. It also instilled in her a love of anime, especially in the context of writing behind-the-scenes stories in which her favorite characters fell in love or had the happily-ever-afters they were not afforded in canon. It was not until much later in life that she discovered the same thing could be done, and was indeed being done, in English. She continues to write fan fiction to this day.

Some of her favorite authors include C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, and Dorothy Gilman. She fell in love with several anime characters in her teens, but her first human crush was on Mr. Spock of
Star Trek
, whom she loved for his intelligence and even temper. Although she has not yet met her true soulmate, she vicariously enjoys the romances of the characters—both borrowed and original—about whom she writes, and she hopes to someday be able to write full-time and own two or three dogs. She currently resides in her mother’s basement and spends more time than she ought to playing computer games.