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“Like you said, things went well over the weekend. Spencer’s going to move into the house here on the ranch with me. We went furniture shopping and everything.”
“Nolan and I would be happy to furnish the place if that’s a problem. The last thing I wanted was for moving into the house to cost you money.” Cruz and Nolan were great guys, so I wasn’t at all surprised by his concern.
“We’re good. Excited actually. It’s time for us to start building our life together, and that includes living in a house where the stuff in it belongs to both of us.”
“I hear you. Nolan’s going to be so excited when he hears Spencer will be living on the ranch. Hell, we might have to set some rules for our boys about how much time they spend nerding out over drones, robots, and video games, or we might never see them.” He chuckled and shook his head.
“Spencer wants to tell Cody he’s moving out when he gets off work this afternoon, though, so I told him I would tell you and Nolan not to tell anyone until he has a chance. The last thing he wants is for Cody to hear it from the River Gorge grapevine.”
“That makes sense. I’ll tell Nolan the good news, but I’ll make sure he knows not to share it.”
Spencer
I couldn’t tell Cody the news about moving until I finished my shift, and it just about killed me to work all day without telling Shay and Tonya. But like most small towns, the River Gorge rumor mill moved fast, and I wanted him to hear it from me.
As soon as I finished up my shift, I headed straight to his shop and told him all about it. I offered to give him thirty days’ notice like you would with any other lease, but he told me I was being ridiculous.
“Spencer, I hadn’t actually planned on renting the place out, anyway. We only agreed because Miller was struggling to find you a local place that suited you. Sounds to me like what you’re planning suits you way better.”
He hadn’t been wrong. I loved the idea of living on a ranch, but more than that, I was excited about officially sharing a home with Nash. He stayed at my apartment with me more often than not at this point, but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t ours, but this place would be.
When I got back to work Tuesday morning, the first thing I did was tell Shay and Tonya. Then, in mid-morning, I received a text from Nolan asking if I had time for lunch today.
I figured he just wanted to catch up and talk about the fact that I was going to be living on the ranch. It was so nice that everyone was so excited for us, and a celebratory lunch sounded fun to me.
We were meeting at the park, which was my favorite place to eat, and Nolan was bringing us tacos. I found a spot in front of the park and waited in my car until he pulled up next to me and got out with a bag full of tacos and two drinks. We walked over to a table and sat down.
Nolan dug into the bag and pulled out a taco, handing it to me. “So, first, I want to say I’m so excited about you moving to the ranch. We’re going to have so much fun, and it’ll be so nice to have someone to talk to who gets all my techno talk.”
“Right, I can’t wait,” I agreed.
“But that wasn’t why I wanted you to meet me for lunch. The Community Trust met last night and finalized the plans for the youth center. I wanted to tell you all about it.”
Okay, this was even better than a celebratory lunch because I was moving in with Nash. This meant things were moving forward on our plan. I’d expected it to take months for everything to get worked out.
“Wow, that was fast.”
“That’s the good thing about the Trust. We’re able to cut through all the BS since we’re independently funded.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan, then?”
“We’re thinking the best location is one of the Artist Row buildings. The Trust already owns them. We’ve had good luck so far getting people in them, but we still have a few buildings open. The one next to Ty’s shop is the one we’re planning to use. That’ll make it easier for Ty to keep an eye on it.”
“That building will be perfect. What about the rest of our plan?”
“All approved. They loved the name. The only thing they weren’t crazy about was the idea of it being all volunteers. They’re thinking they need one paid person who will be accompanied by a volunteer at all times.”
I’d had the same thought when we were making our plan, but since I wasn’t the one putting up the money and had no idea how we would fund an actually paid employee, I’d been totally on board with using all volunteers. This was so much better, though.
“Did anyone have any ideas who they could get?”
“We have someone in mind, but we haven’t talked to them yet. There’s an artist here in town. Her name’s Millie. She’s part of the queer community, and we think she would be perfect. She sells mostly charcoal and pencil sketches in her shop, but she likes to draw manga characters and has been working on a graphic novel for a while now. They think that might help her connect with the kids.”
“That would’ve worked for me when I was a teen.” I laughed. “I was obsessed. I used to spend hours drawing and creating storylines.”
“Her shop is on the Artist’s Row, and part of her pay will be the monthly fee for her shop.”
She sounded like she’d be perfect, as long as we could get plenty of people to fill that second spot so she wouldn’t have to manage it all on her own.
