I Love You, Johnny Darling by Jere' M. Fishback

Author:Jere' M. Fishback [Fishback, Jere' M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NineStar Press, LGBT, college, coming of age, historical, farming, family drama, infidelity
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Published: 2018-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

AT THE STONECIPHERS’, I helped Ben clean a groves barrack. I swept the concrete-slab floor with a push broom while Ben scrubbed bathroom sinks with powdered cleanser and a brush. Morning sunlight poured through the windows, and somewhere close by a mockingbird tootled. Earlier, we had stripped mattresses and pillows off all the beds, and now the linens—sheets, pillowcases, and towels—were stuffed into a pair of canvas laundry bags.

A portable radio was plugged into a wall socket and tuned to an Orlando station that played top-forty hits, and right now, the song “ABC” by the Jackson 5 had me twitching my hips while I pushed my broom and dust motes glistened in the air around me.

I thought back to the previous day when Ben had picked me up at St. Petersburg Beach. We cruised over to Tampa in the GTO with the windows rolled down, and when we crossed the Howard Frankland Bridge, the bay was so calm it looked like a mirror. Ben steered with his left hand and held my hand in his other. I chattered away about the Sebring race and Steve McQueen, and then I felt guilty when Ben described his twelve-hour workdays and the menial tasks he’d performed since I last saw him. For the twentieth time, I asked myself if I should have forgone the race and spent the past weekend helping Ben and his folks, but when I said something about it to Ben, he only shook his head.

“I’m glad you went to the race with your friends. That’s how a guy should spend his spring break instead of toiling in the groves.”

The night before at the Stoneciphers’ dinner table, Will had insisted he pay me for my help that week, whether I liked it or not, and I knew it would have been futile to argue about it, so I was doing the best job I could while I was there.

Will looked haggard. He had bags under his eyes and had lost weight since I was last there. When I asked Ben about Will’s appearance, Ben grimaced and shook his head.

“Dad’s wearing himself out and I’m worried about it—Mom is too. Even with the new assistant he hired, there aren’t enough hours in Dad’s day to get everything done.”

Once I finished sweeping, I helped Ben clean shower stalls with an ammonia solution and scrub brushes. We used mildew-cide in spray bottles to get rid of dark spots in the grout. The work was tedious, but at least the air was cool and dry so we weren’t sweating like we would have been in May or June.

And I actually liked working alongside Ben. We were a team, plus I could sneak a kiss or pat Ben on the butt whenever I felt like it. He looked so sexy in his flannel shirt, jeans, and steel-toed work boots that I wanted to grab him and drag him into a dark corner for something more than a kiss.

The migrants were all gone now, and

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