AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Expressing my dislike about his newfound behavior wasn’t helping matters either. With him hiding our love from the world, I was always concerned about our future. He no longer touched the place I needed when it came to us: my heart.
The recent concern haunting my thoughts was whether I was contributing to our failure. Was he correct when he said that I was no longer fun? Had I become so obsessed with being true to my goal of marriage and my emotional needs, that I wasn’t helping plug the holes in our sinking relationship boat? All I truly wanted was a partner, a spouse, a man to stand by me as we faced the future as a united couple.
We were not united and unfortunately, after ten years, all we did was support the lie by hiding who we really were even with each other. The glue that holds a lie together isn’t all that strong and can easily be picked apart and that frightened me. But was I too scared to seek out what I really desired?
CHAPTER FIVE: Bo
Maintaining six lobster pots while simultaneously fishing for seasonal species to sell kept me busy from May into early October. Fishing in the winters on South Carolina’s coast was difficult and usually a bust so I had to make hay when given the opportunities. When Memaw was living, surviving the lean months was easier because she subsidized my small budgetary needs. But times had been lean the first year Jamie was away at college, getting more so after Memaw died because I didn’t have Jamie to help fish or his folks to feed us a few days a week.
While in high school I hadn’t managed to save any money from my part-time grocery bagging job at Piggly Wiggly, so right after Memaw passed, I scrounged for food in her freezer and pantry so I could eat that winter. I survived off of her hidden jars of quarters with the different states on them that she collected.
I had no idea how the utilities got paid on the house but figured maybe she’d set that up on autopay and no one knew she’d died at the utility companies. No one asked me to move out either so that was good news, but I hadn’t been taught how to take care of the monthly bills when looking after a home and I worried they’d eventually catch on. It wasn’t until Mr. Hunt, Memaw’s lawyer, reached out to me that I knew I’d be in a better position after six months. That coincided with the start of a new fishing season so I only had to survive that first winter on the barest of bare means.
I didn’t mind struggling. Struggling was a way of life for me and Memaw. Generations of Dawson’s struggled and it appeared I was on the same course. We’d never had much money with her being widowed and raising a grandson with no help. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a small Social Security check that she’d received after Daddy died back when I was six, but as things turned out, she’d been saving the money for me all those years even when we were destitute and barely surviving. That was the forty thousand Mr. Hunt told me I’d inherited. Looking back, I don’t know how she’d done it all on her own.
In small towns like Beaufort that were located in the south, there were two sides of the tracks and I grew up on the rougher side of those proverbial rails. The south had deep roots with established families coming from the best family trees. If born into one of those families you were destined to live the same lavish life the previous generations had enjoyed, due to inheritance and trust funds.
These fine folks with their well-connected names ran in tightly controlled circles, keeping to themselves and within their networks. Same country clubs with their perfectly manicured private golf courses, and their yacht clubs along the Carolina coast. There was only one way for people like me to rub shoulders with people like them and that was if I found employment within their upscale walls.
Most of South Carolina’s wealth was along its coastline. From Myrtle Beach to Charleston and then west along the coast to Hilton Head Island was where southern money hung its hat. Plenty of fancy communities were built on beautiful islands with guarded gates. Elegant colonial style homes with tall white columns was where the best of the best resided. Head upstate and away from the coast to witness the lower income working class toiling under the extreme heat and humidity. No cool summer breezes washing over your yacht’s deck while sipping mint juleps in those parts.
There were well-off people in Beaufort and the surrounding areas as well but not to the level of those in Charleston. I owned river property but no one would wonder whether or not I had money. An old fishing shack didn’t give off that southern wealth vibe. Having grown up in the Low Country, I had little to nothing growing up, so I didn’t dwell on missing out on the high life. I focused on what I knew, and that was hard work.
I believed that well-to-do southern folk were polite people as long as the not-well-to-do folk understood the rules and minded our ways outside their gates. And of course you wouldn’t actually see the subtle discrimination. God forbid a good southerner from an established family would let on about his or her station in life. That would be crude and uncivilized. With that said though, they knew and we knew that there were invisible lines in these parts.
I had my best mate Jamie growing up so in my mind I already had enough to last me a lifetime. We’d made big plans for our future and I cherished our love when we were teenagers. I was certain Memaw knew how I felt for Jamie and I was also certain it went against her Southern Baptist upbringing, but she never tried to squash our relationship. I imagined she knew I didn’t have a lot so why try and destroy the one good thing I did have. I respected her for her ability to love and let love.
It’d been two years without Jamie and one without Memaw. I was essentially alone now with nothing to hope for and no one to do the hoping with. Jamie would be home soon. Unfortunately, Memaw wouldn’t be so I would still be alone no matter how I looked at things.
Despite not believing in God the way Memaw had, I found myself silently praying for the loneliness to be lifted from my heart. I thought about Jamie daily because I missed what we had. He’d been my everything and I felt like I’d lost him just like every other person in my life. But this was ten times harder. He hadn’t died. Only his love for me had.
CHAPTER SIX: Hayes
“Can you please sign these, Mr. Crawford?” Gloria asked. Gloria was my executive assistant at Carolina Marketing and Advertising. I kept an office there at my father’s urging so he could help me focus on my new responsibilities. I didn’t actually work for the company where he was becoming CEO, but he insisted I be near him.
I glanced over the paperwork. “Another lease contract?” I asked, looking up at her from across my desk. “I don’t want another BMW, Gloria. The one I have is barely a year old.”
“Tell your father, sir.”
I focused on her. “Will you please stop calling me sir and Mr. Crawford?” I asked. “Mr. Crawford is two floors up in the C-suite and I’m far too young to be called sir.”
Gloria turned to check whether she’d closed the glass door behind her. She leaned forward. “I can’t do that, Hayes, and you know it.”
“But you’re my best friend, Glo. I give you permission,” I stated, staring at her as she fidgeted in the chair across from me. “Screw that,” I quickly corrected. “I order you!” I exclaimed. “That didn’t sound right either, did it?”
Gloria’s and my family went back decades. Both of us attended the same private academy through high school and played tennis and golf at the country club for as long as I could remember. However, she’d been a good southern girl and went to the only USC that mattered. After graduating, she got hired at the company by my father. Gloria, or Glo, as I called her, knew my secrets and she kept them.
“I can’t speak casually to you because of your position, Hayes. Someone would rat me out.”
“But we’ve been friends forever, Glo.” I looked around the fancy corner office. “I feel out of place here,” I confessed. I scribbled my signature on the lease contract and pushed it toward her. I knew better than to argue with my father. If he wanted me to drive a new car every year, that was his business, and I knew quite well my business had been his business since I was a child. His only child. Daddy wasn’t thrilled I was gay but I was still Hayes James Crawford II and that’s what mattered most.
“You and Orin coming tomorrow?” I asked. “I’m going stag so I’ll need someone to drink with.”
“Orin and I are over, Hayes. I told you that last month,” she stated. “But I am going to bring someone Daddy and Momma are none too happy about.”
“God, Glo. I’m sorry. How’d I miss the breakup? You must think I’m a shitty friend.”
“You were dealing with the news of your trust. I understand. As for tonight’s drinking buddy though.” She double checked the closed door. “You might want to avoid me like the plague, honey child.”
