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This is a part of a longer thing that I've got going on in a different category.
In this, a couple of people find that they're not as ... set into things as they'd thought that they were.
A lot of them work for a company that flies transport and also does agricultural applications (cropdusting) in the American Southwest.
There are a few relationships going on already by this point.
Characters:
Patterson is a VERY shy young man who has only had one relationship in is life and it wasn't with a girl.
Max is a young woman who, until very recently was homeless and lived as a frightened mouse on the outskirts of society.
Su-jin is a recent arrival from South Korea, now working as a bookkeeper.
Jane is the sister of the prime owner of the company.
Bobbi is that owner and she's not even in this.
Tyler is a very small boy, just adopted by Su-jin.
0_o
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Patterson Dillon had a couple of things to do before heading in to work and he was also trying to get the tape player to stop fighting him for long enough to get on-side just a little.
For a change.
He was unhappy. But then, he'd pretty much always been unhappy, so that was just the status quo anyway.
He wasn't thinking about it but ...
Back when he'd been about ten, he used to spend his summers on his grandparent's farm. Nice scenery, peaceful, boring most of the time. He used to just poke around and ride his bike a lot. He'd been looking at the dilapidated farmhouse on the next farm over and wanted to check it out and explore.
He knew that he couldn't even ask to do that because it wouldn't be allowed. And anyway, the place was supposed to be haunted.
But he kept looking over there anyway.
He went over one morning when he knew that his grandparents would be busy. There was always a time like that about midmorning after breakfast. Nobody asked him where he was headed, so ...
He'd just walked over there. He didn't take his bike because that would have caused the question of where he was going. It was a bit of a walk, but it was a sunny day so off he went.
There wasn't much to see and the farmhouse was locked anyway. Patterson was just walking around the rear corner when he felt that someone was looking at him. He spun around and saw nobody. He felt a little funny and there was a touch of fear, but he told himself it was nothing.
But the feeling came back almost instantly. He forced himself not to look and continued on, the feeling still there and unchanged. But as he was passing the spot at the end of the path to the barn where he could see inside the open doorway, he snapped his head around to look that way and ...
He saw a boy, about his own age but a little larger, standing just inside and looking out at him. They looked at each other for a minute and then Patterson said hi.
There was no response for a few seconds. Then the boy came running out toward him.
Patterson took off running. He didn't know who and most especially why, but he was frightened, especially after the haunted part came back to him. Every time that he looked back the kid had closed the gap more. What made it all worse was that Patterson was running away from his grandparent's farm, headed in the wrong direction.
It all ended in a small secluded hollow full of overgrown grass. Patterson was on his face and crying with the other boy kneeling over him.
He kept crying when he felt a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him over onto his back.
That part ended several long minutes later when the boy leaned down and whispered into Patterson's ear, "Can't talk.
I can't talk.
I don't want to hurt you. I couldn't answer when you said hi.
This is as loud as I can get."
Patterson eventually got over his fright to some degree and he turned over. The boy was smiling, trying to look friendly. Patterson looked and he saw red hair, green eyes and freckles.
Not what he'd have thought were ghostly features, exactly.
The boy kept his smile on as they looked at each other for a moment and then he began to lean in, which raised some alarm in Patterson all over again.
"P-please don't hurt me," he stammered. The boy shook his head and kept coming. Patterson never would have expected it but the boy only kissed him once.
Patterson asked why and the other boy just shrugged and whispered, "I like you."
It turned out that the boy, whose name was Pete, had been very ill two winters before and his throat had begun to close from the swelling. He's been rushed to the nearest hospital, but other than his heart almost exploding, the epinephrine that they'd given him hadn't opened the still-closing airway.
They were going to open the airway by piercing his throat so that he could at least breathe, but at the instant that the incision had been begun, Pete had gone into severe convulsions.
The airway was opened, but it had been too high, going in just under his larynx when he'd convulsed the first time at just the wrong instant and the scalpel cut a vocal chord.
The incision had been closed afterward and there was a scar.
But Pete could only whisper until he was finished growing and the final surgery could be done.
So the conversation was quiet. Patterson learned that Pete had kissed him thinking that it might show that he wanted to be friendly and that Patterson's fear was over nothing. And also because he'd just wanted to.
Pete lived on the next farm over and they became friends pretty much instantly after that. They'd both been lonely and wanted a friend and after that day, they spent every day together until Patterson had to go home at the end of the summer.
They spent every summer together and in the winter, they wrote to each other. It had been Pete's mother's idea and it helped their penmanship. Everyone who saw them knew that there was an almost Huckleberry Finn sort of friendship between them.
The summer that they'd turned eighteen was bittersweet for them, since Pete had an uncle who could help him find work on the oil platforms off the Alaskan coast. In the eight years that they'd known each other, Pete had grown into a tall and muscular young man and Patterson ... hadn't. Not so much, anyway.
They still spent every minute that they could together and by then, their relationship had matured as well. Patterson was devastated by the time that September rolled around.
He held it together outwardly, but he cried quietly in his room at home for months. He missed being in Pete's arms and he missed those kisses. He ached to feel Pete inside of him just once more, and to a small degree, he was never the same. They wrote to each other, but it faded out after a time and Patterson had no idea where in the world Pete was now.
After a year of moping and working part time in pool maintenance, his mother suggested talking to someone who'd really never been in Patterson's life at all. But he made the call.
He was gone the next day, driving for the horizon, headed west. He'd called his father and though he hadn't mentioned what had happened, he did say that he was done being a layabout and wanted to know about working with him at the aircraft engine facility.
One thing led to the next and after a bit of college, he was the representative for that company in a small branch office at the Angel Fire airport. It was a position that could go nowhere, but then, with a little work and if he obtained and kept the interest of the two operators at that field, it might very well lead to something better.
It didn't pay well to start and he'd had to live on the cheap for a time, so he rented the top floor of a used car dealership for a song and saved a ton in rent. It got hot in the summer and he never got the whole thing warm in the winter, but it was home.
That was how he'd gotten here. He was twenty-five now and he lived alone.
That was why he'd lived like the only monk in the abbey ever since.
If he asked himself out loud - in an almost-whisper in front of the mirror, Patterson would tell himself that he was gay and that he was fine with it. It felt right to him and he'd never even tried to get to know any girls. He'd always thought that to even get into a conversation with one back in school only showed him the disadvantage that he was under, not knowing what to do or say or ... think, other than feeling uncomfortable and wanting to get away.
So yeah, if he asked himself in an almost-whisper he'd admit it.
But it would have to be on a Sunday in the early morning when he knew that there was no one else in the freaking building but him. Under any other circumstances, he'd deny it.
It was quietly killing him to be lonely and one thing that he hated doing - and often did anyway - was to think that in his whole life, he'd had only one relationship with another living person.
And that person had gone away.
Patterson was unhappy.
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Max was motoring on her Harley, running a quick errand into town and back for Bobbi. It was only her second day, but she SO loved her job.
She wasn't thinking of it, but she was changing. Jane would have praised the hell out of her if it came up between them. She couldn't think of a time in the last year and some that she hadn't ridden these streets in at least a little fear, day or night.
And there was something else. Max was feeling so much better now because of Jane and Bobbi. She felt like she belonged somewhere.
Finally.
Bobbi really was like what she imagined a much older sister to be like. She could look at you as an equal, but also, it seemed to be tinged with care. More often, she looked at you like you were her younger sibling and you could have her thoughts and guidance for nothing anytime that you asked.
And if you really needed it and there wasn't anyone else around, you could have her hugs and a few soft kisses just about any time.
Jane was someone that she needed a lot and she knew it. She always heard gentle encouragement from Jane and after a lifetime of being alone, it was so good to have that body against her even if they only slept.
There comes a time as childhood begins to fade into adolescence when everybody suddenly sticks their head up to look around. Boys look for girls that they like and girls look for boys. Kids who are still confused or think they might prefer their own gender do that too, but with less chance and hope of success. But they do it anyway.
Max had never done it, not in her life. The kids that she grew up with weren't exactly friendly to her and if they were or seemed to be, it often only meant there was some hook or trap waiting for her so that they could all laugh at her expense.
Apparently, she was a lesbian now. She liked that, since it was softer to her most times - even with Jane. She didn't really take it as lightly as that, however. It was a kind of love that she could understand and take nourishment from inside of herself.
She'd had experiences with men.
