Raising the Bar by Leigh Dillon

Author:Leigh Dillon [Dillon, Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-736-5
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

DESTIN SPENT the next few minutes floating in the saddle, hardly aware of the jolting and swaying underneath him as Butternut navigated the uphill trudge.

Pretty decent guy. He thinks I’m a pretty decent guy. Not a jerk. Not a bore. Maybe not wonderful, but coming from Tonio, “pretty decent” meant a lot.

Behind him, perhaps inspired by the white pines rearing here and there among the hardwoods, Tonio began singing “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.” His voice rang loud and sure among the tree trunks, and he delivered the corny old lyrics with such gusto that Destin smiled.

“You have a good voice,” Destin said, twisting around in his saddle to face Tonio.

Tonio, who had been riding with his eyes closed and his head tipped back, looked down. “That would be my classical opera training.”

“Your…? I didn’t know you went to music school.”

The woods rang again, this time with Tonio’s laughter.

“What?” Destin asked, nettled.

“That was a joke. Oh man, we’ve really gotta work on your sense of humor.”

Destin fell silent, ears burning. He had a sense of humor. Why did Tonio keep telling him he didn’t? He and Albert told jokes all the time. Well, maybe not all the time. And Albert would never be caught dead singing at the top of his lungs on the trail. Albert had better manners than that.

Albert is a stuffed shirt.

No, Albert was his friend. His oldest friend. Albert was….

No fun. Just like me.

Destin tried to shake off the rebellious thought, but it stuck. He caught himself humming the part about “hearts entwined” and cut off in midverse. How did the rest of the song go? Something about being lonesome like the pine….

Lonesome.

The word grabbed his heart and squeezed. It was just a silly old song he’d learned from a Laurel and Hardy film. How did it suddenly have the power to prickle his eyes with tears?

You find truth in weird places, his heart whispered back. So why not here?

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