Page 1 of Fruit and Flash

Prologue

Hayes

Three Months Ago…

Reach,pluck,drop.Reach,pluck, drop.After years on the farm, and my childhood spent picking fruit, harvesting peaches is a mindless task. With all the hassle of running the family ranch, you’d think I would be grateful for the mental break. The problem is a certain man who showed up on my doorstep a few months ago keeps traipsing through my thoughts.

My mind wanders to him a dozen times a day. Kai was only here for a couple hours because his car broke down. I should be over him by now. Except I’m not.

Honestly, I keep getting embarrassingly hard in my jeans at the memory of his sexy smirk wrapped around my dic–

“Apricots next, Hayes?” Leon Vue, my part-time farmhand, calls out from the tree next to mine. I only have a few trees of each fruit, since I’d have too much to sell otherwise.

“Sounds good.” I glance at my watch and see it’s about midday and we’ve been picking the early summer produce since seven in the morning. “Then we can be done since it’s already over ninety degrees out.”

We’ve got enough for what I need this week. The farmstand covers most of my expenses, and I bring the rest to the Foggy Basin grocery store for them to sell. Today, Leon is taking the ones too close to overripe to the store since they can sell them faster.

“Gotta love a California summer,” Leon teases while wiping his brow with a paisley handkerchief, looking up at me from the bottom of his ladder.

His big Hmong family has a farm on the other side of the interstate, but with six siblings, he prefers to get off their property and work for others to save up for his own land with a pond he can fish on. I get needing to be your own man, even if I only got a few years of that in college before my parents passed away. Now I’m on my own without much of a choice.

“Makes for longer growing seasons,” I point out as I make my way down my own ladder. We’re not far from Napa where wine is the main crop, and I wonder if I could grow a few rows of grapes.

The farm has an old tree shaker that would make the picking go a lot faster, but it’s not always working. Like right now. I’llhave to get that fixed for the nuts and olives since we missed out on using it this season.

When we’ve got the peaches and apricots in crates on the back of my truck, we move the ladders over to the plums and my mind wanders again. It inevitably goes to Kai.

After my revelation that I like men more than just the admiration of their fit bodies, because a kiss and blow job from Kai was better than any sex I’d had with a woman in years, I accepted that I’m not straight.

One failed attempt to go to a gay bar in Sacramento reminded me why I am shit at dating in general. First, I went in June, not realizing the bars would be packed with Pride-themed activities. Kai casually mentioned the TV show with drag queens, and I’ve watched it, but it was different in person. Louder.

In college, I went to parties, got drunk, made out with women whose names I easily forgot, but I never liked the crowd and noise. A gay bar in June with a drag show was not my idea of a good time. I watched people go in and out for an hour from across the street until I saw a couple pointing at me with looks of suspicion and I realized I looked like some country hick judging them. I left and made my way home, trying to be proud I even tried.

The weeks since have felt lonelier than ever. I’m not gay and don’t feel like I fit in with the community, no matter how many slang terms or queer history lessons I learn about. Giving shade just felt mean, though it is oddly similar to the ribbing men give each other in the locker room. I read somewhere that straight men perform drag all the time without realizing it, in the costumes of sports and fandoms, and I think that’s probably true. But it’s not me.

Leon drives the truck away to unload some into his car while I finish up, but he returns with a sheepish grin. “I checked on thestand while I was over there… someone left a little something for you.”

Walking over to the truck window, since he didn’t get out, I lean on the frame to see a small, wriggling bundle of black and white fur on his lap. “A little something, huh?”

Puppies and full-grown dogs get dumped out here far too often. I usually bring them to the vet in town, because I’m too busy to take care of more animals.

“He’s super sweet,” Leon tells me and holds him up for me to take in the open window. The choice is to take the puppy or let him dangle in my face, and I am tempted to do the latter until he starts licking my face. “See, he likes you already!”

“He?” I note the obvious gender and the too-skinny belly. Taking the wriggly pup, he doesn’t look old enough to be fully weaned, so maybe six weeks old? He’s panting hard, though, and that’s worrying. “Grab me a water from the cooler.”

Leon pulls one chilled bottle out from the cooler in the middle of the bench seat and joins me as I put the puppy down. “Here’s the thermos lid, too.”

Taking the little cup I drank my coffee from, I crouch and set it down to pour the water in. The pup goes straight for the fluid and I struggle to add more around his licking. He is mostly white with black spots and looks like some sort of a spaniel, collie mix with medium hair. His black ears are big and floppy while his tail is docked. His fur is matted and full of stickers, so he’s obviously been neglected.

“It’s okay pup. We’ll make sure you get adopted,” I say, patting his back. He looks up at me with a sloppy, wet grin and launches himself into me. Falling back on my ass, I can’t help laughing. “You’re welcome, pup.”

“He sure likes you. I didn’t get jumped,” Leon tells me with mock pouting. “Good to see you laughing, boss.”

While I could remind Leon not to call meboss, since I’m only six or seven years older than him, his words make me pause. I gently push the puppy down and stand to dust myself off. Do I not laugh often?

Walking to the crates I filled while Leon was gone, I go to lift them up and turn to find the pup at my feet. Stopping myself from tripping over him, I move to the truck bed and he follows along.

“Aren’t you a little shadow?” I ask the pup and he stops to sit right beside my foot, looking up at me in an eager-to-please way.