Chapter 1-2
1608 Words
“Oh, wow,” Barry said one October afternoon, opening up an email he’d been about to consign to the trash folder.
“What?” Jimmy asked from the other side of the kitchen.
“This email.” Barry continued to read. “And don’t drink the milk out of the jug!”
“I wasn’t,” Jimmy protested.
Jake, who was sitting next to Barry at the kitchen table doing paperwork, snickered. “Liar. You have a milk mustache and you aren’t holding a glass.”
“f**k you!”
“Boys!” Barry finally looked up from the screen.
“What did you oh, wow about?” Jake asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Was his red cowboy getting a headache? If Jake read for too long it sometimes caused him to get a pain behind his eyes. Barry had told him to get his eyes checked, but Jake always insisted he was fine and didn’t need glasses. Barry tried to imagine Jake with glasses. He bet the cowboy would look really hot.
“Earth to Barry?” Jake asked.
“Oh, uh.” Barry forced his mind back to the present and pointed at the screen. “This email’s from BritBit magazine.”
Blank looks met this pronouncement.
“It’s a gaming magazine published in England. We’ve been invited to their awards ceremony. Ranch-O-Rama has been nominated for some awards.”
“All right!” Jimmy said, pumping a fist in the air.
“Congratulations,” Jake added, moving his chair closer and pulling Barry into a one-armed hug.
“They’re just nominations. The game hasn’t won.”
“Yet,” Jimmy insisted, setting down the milk and moving in to stand at Barry’s other side.
“And it’s in London, in January as part of the BritBitCon.”
“So?” Jake asked. “Not that much should be going on here then.”
“Exactly,” Jimmy added.
Barry looked up at his cowboys. “You’d go with me?” He hadn’t been sure if they’d either want or be able to.
Jake looked at him oddly. “Of course we would. I know you designed the game and everything but—”
“Like you always tell us, we’re a team,” Jimmy interrupted.
“Absolutely,” Jake said.
“Thank you.” Barry leaned over and kissed Jake and then stood to hug and kiss Jimmy. “I wouldn’t have gone on my own. I’d have missed the Double J, Rex, Shadow, and the hands too much.”
“And us?” Jake asked, a teasing smile playing at the corners of his lips.
“Well…” Barry tried not to smile. “I guess I’d have missed you two as well…Eventually.”
“Bastard.” Jimmy swatted Barry on the ass.
Barry kissed Jimmy again. “I wouldn’t have gone without my two cowboys.” He shook his head. “No, never.”
“Aw,” Jimmy said, kissing Barry back.
Barry grew serious. “The last time, heck, the only time I went to London, I hated it.” He shivered and tried not to remember the confusion and humiliation.
“What happened?” Jake asked softly, rubbing Barry’s hip.
Barry closed his eyes. He’d done his best to shut out those memories. “It was a school trip. We’d gone for a long weekend to take in the museums, a theatre, that sort of thing.”
“Uh huh,” Jimmy said, taking Barry’s hand in his.
“I was caught up in a crowd just outside Trafalgar Square. We’d just come up from the tube.” Barry swallowed. “Before I knew it, someone had stolen my wallet out of my back pocket. It had all my money in it. The teachers weren’t all that sympathetic. Meant I couldn’t go to all the places we’d planned on going because the tickets were in the wallet, too. God knows why we had the tickets rather than the teachers keeping them. Teach us responsibility I suppose.”
Jimmy’s arms immediately tightened around Barry. “Bastards!”
Jake stood and pressed himself to Barry’s back.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t have been surprised if it hadn’t been one of my so-called classmates who’d stolen it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jake said, wrapping Barry in a hug from behind.
“Thanks, guys.”
“No one’ll steal your wallet this time. Not with us there,” Jimmy said, though it came out more like a growl.
“Damn right,” Jake echoed.
Barry smiled and shook his head.
Jake asked, “Don’t you think we could protect you?”
Barry could feel Jake flexing his muscles. Jimmy followed suit almost immediately.
“Down, boys!” Barry chuckled. “I know you’d do everything you could to keep me safe.”
Although it could be trying at times because he was quite capable of taking care of himself, Barry loved when his men went all alpha cowboy on him.
“And we could finally get to meet your folks and see where you grew up,” Jimmy said, grinding his hardening d**k into Barry’s groin.
Barry’s mum and dad had really taken to Jimmy and Jake during their regular Skype conversations. Barry had feared his somewhat traditional parents wouldn’t understand their son being in a threesome relationship, and with Americans, too. But Jimmy had soon won them around with his boyish charm, and Jake had impressed Barry’s dad with his serious attitude toward business.
“The awards are in central London. My family live on the coast of North Yorkshire,” Barry explained. “And Filey in January will be cold, wet, windy and—”
“So?” Jimmy began to kiss his way up Barry’s neck.
Barry knew his cowboys’ knowledge of British geography was shaky at best. “The two places are, uh,” Barry shivered when Jimmy’s tongue made its way into his ear, “about two-hundred miles apart, and that’s a big distance in England.”
“Two-hundred miles is two-hundred miles wherever it is,” Jake added, grinding his own hardness into the small of Barry’s back and starting a trail of kisses up the other side of Barry’s neck. “And when we’re in London we’ll visit all those museums you missed out on.”
* * * *
An overhead locker banging closed had Jimmy almost jumping out of his airplane seat.
Calmly, Barry asked, “Want to sit in the middle? Might make you feel more comfortable.” He refused to say ‘safer.’ “At least until we’re in the air. Then you can have the window seat again.”
Jimmy paused, bit his lip, then nodded his agreement.
Barry undid his seatbelt and got to his feet. Jimmy started to stand but found himself held in place by his still-fastened seatbelt. Jake snickered and Barry shot him a warning look.
Not caring who was watching them, Barry pulled the now-standing Jimmy into a hug. They had plenty of room in front of their seats—Barry had chosen the emergency exit row deliberately. He knew his long-legged cowboys would have soon gotten cranky if they’d been crammed into a regular row. He’d thought about flying them business class but even though he’d be able to write it off against his taxes, one look at the cost and his Yorkshire-born sense of thriftiness nixed the idea. As it was, he was still paying a premium for the emergency exit row.
Barry was pleased to see that as soon as Jimmy was settled in the center seat, Jake whispered something in his ear that made Jimmy smile. Barry took the window seat and within a few minutes, the plane doors were closed and they pushed away from the gate.
During the safety announcements Barry took Jimmy’s left hand and watched as Jake took Jimmy’s right.
* * * *
Sure enough, once the plane leveled off and the fasten-seatbelts signs went out, Jimmy relaxed and became his fun-loving self. “What’s this I’ve heard about airplane bathrooms and the mile-high club?”
“Shh!” Barry warned softly. “Children, remember?”
Jake shook his head. “You’ll have enough trouble fitting in that bathroom by yourself. No way could anyone else get in there with you.”
And Jake should know. He’d visited the bathroom before the plane had taken off.
But Jimmy was determined to check it out for himself. A few minutes later he returned to their row. Grinning, he said, “Now I know what a sardine feels like.” He pointed at first Barry, then the vacant center seat. “You gonna move over?”
* * * *
About an hour into the flight the cabin crew came around with refreshments.
As Tina gave them their drinks, she said, “Can’t believe I got to meet you guys. Just wait ‘till I tell my daughters. They love the game probably more than me.”
Jake nodded and smiled one of his proud smiles.
“Their favorite part is Ranch Dressing.”
Barry nodded. He’d received numerous emails from young girls as well as gay boys and gay men all saying they especially loved being able to dress the cowboy characters in either a choice of pre-designed clothing available as in-app purchases, or something the user created themselves. Eager to put his men forward as equal partners in the game’s development, Barry said, “Jimmy can claim the credit for thinking up the name.”
“It’s clever,” Tina said. “We really like that you can spin the characters around and look at the clothes we design from all angles.”
“You should get your daughters to email in their designs,” Barry told her. “Jake here thought of that along with being able to post the designs on social media.”
“I will, thanks” Tina nodded.
They’d had a lot of fun and quite a few laughs looking over the submitted designs. Many were way too sparkly, skimpy, kinky, or otherwise impractical for wearing while working on a ranch.
Tina tried to mask a frown. Barry knew what was coming next.
“We love the game and everything…but my daughters, uh, wish you guys, uh, I mean your characters, could wear their designs in the actual game.”
Barry nodded. An ability to transfer the user-defined clothing into the game itself was the most requested feature. In the end he’d put a message in the Ranch Dressing section to the effect that due to hardware limitations, it wasn’t possible. It didn’t stop the requests though. “The graphics handling capabilities of most tablets and cell phones wouldn’t be up to it,” Barry explained. “The game would run slowly if we used anything other than the standard 2.5D characters.”
“Oh, okay.” Tina smiled and moved her cart forward to hand out drinks and snacks to the other passengers.
Barry remembered telling the men at dinner one night during the game’s early testing phase that their virtual selves could only wear plain jeans, boots, and a solid color shirt. This wasn’t a problem for Jimmy and Jake of course.
Rory and Wayne didn’t much care what color shirts their characters would wear. Barry suggested that as Rory’s last name was Brown his game character should take that color.
Jimmy suggested Wayne’s character could wear a pink shirt. Needless to say, Wayne didn’t agree. In the end he settled for khaki because he’d spent a few years in the army before taking up ranch work.
Liam wanted green, saying it reflected his Irish heritage. “But if you fuckers think I’m changing my wardrobe in real life to just wear green shirts then you’ve got another think coming.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not into that s**t, not like some people.” His eyes cut to Jimmy and Jake at the head of the table, who were sporting raised middle fingers.
- Writer
