Page 7 of By Any Means

“Who says I wanna ask questions?”

“I daresay I think you do⁠—”

A shoulder bumped against his, contra-rhythm of the wagon, interrupting him again. “Cherry?” Mr. Moore asked. “Like the fruit?”

He said it without a hint of mockery. Chary tensed anyway. He had heard it all.

“I suppose.”

A slight pause. “Mr. Cherry inherits a blueberry farm?”

“Oh, Lord.” Chary relaxed. “You never.”

Mr. Moore had a smile in his voice. “But I did.”

Chary moaned. “I should have been prepared.”

“Pro’ly.” Mr. Moore leaned back on elbows, knees wide beneath the blanket. He wasn’t especially tall but had long legs; more than their shoulders came into contact. “I’ve picked cherries before.”

Simple fact? Actual truth? Or innuendo?

Probably not.

“I haven’t thought of my name in that context,” Chary said. “In context of the blueberries. August—my brother,” he clarified, “he said it a bit differently than you.” Had given him the nickname, too.

“He said it Uptown, you mean,” Mr. Moore said, and tsked. He stuck out one of those hands in fresh greeting. “Laurie,” he said steadily. “Truly this time. Friends?”

Chary had never had to manage so much one-handed driving in his life. Nor had to manage such an unexpected man, and that was including August.

He shook.

“Chary. As in… extremely discreet and wary.”

Laurie laughed. “Geez. Hi, Chary.”

The drive was simultaneously over too quickly and also unbearably long. Post-trousers-fiasco, Laurie Moore proved repentant enough and very forthcoming about his own self. Chary learned he was Scotch-Irish, also a third-generation, which explained the wheaty hair and black brows. He had a staggering amount of siblings, seven brothers and three sisters. He was twenty-six, but he looked older, in the tanned, wind-roughened way workingmen often did. An itinerant laborer, he was currently in from the mink farms of Nova Scotia and had meant to go on home, to upstate New York, for sugaring season. But the trains’ lurching motion made him sick, he said, and the hills and red thatch barrens had reminded him of his mother’s paintings of purple-heather Scottish moors. He really had wanted a walk.

Chary offered some things in return, what little of himself he could spare. Nothing of August. But he spoke of the new innovations in the glassworks: heat recovery for energy-saving purposes; the jam jar designs that had, indeed, failed; the household move from Fifth Avenue to Berryfield. Baseball, too; Wright Glass was a sponsor for Hilltop Park’s Highlanders, and Laurie, of course, was a Giants man. Chary himself was unaffiliated, which was almost the worse sin.

He was too distracted to speak in depth, anyway. That touch of his hand…

Chary wasn’t the type to seek out sex, and in fact, between circumstance and lack of opportunity, had never done so in his life. Not like this. But he thought he could probably follow a lead when given one. Maybe. Had it been a lead?

But instead of having Chary drive them into Berryfield—the two whole streets of which Chary had frantically combed through his mind, thinking of potential accommodation that wasn’t the house and wouldn’t get either arrested—nothing, as the hotel had closed years before, it’d have to be the house, and then what would he do?—Laurie begged off at the little train station.

At the sight of tracks, Chary reined in slowly. There was a tight feeling in his gut, like a living thing being strangled within him. Worse than nerves.

Laurie said, “Thanks for the drive.” He swung down.

Politely, and for his own damn good, Chary should’ve said, You’re quite welcome, or Not at all, or Anytime.

He said, “Wait!”

And for the second time that day, Laurie turned his face warily up to him. He must have read and understood everything Chary had splayed over his face, everything Chary couldn’t even try to hide.

“Er… so.” He cleared his throat. “What if— What if perhaps I have changed my mind?”

“What about?” Laurie resettled his cap and glanced backward to the station, but there was no one around, and no more trains for probably half a day. He’d be waiting a while, Chary rationalized hopefully. It was an insidious, irrational plague, hope.