Page 30 of Our Own Light

Floyd startled from the knock at the door.

“Go ahead,” Effie said with a playful chuckle.

Floyd tried to ignore the strange new fear he was feeling, but with every step toward the door, his heart was hammering a tiny bit faster, his worriment becoming so intense that he had to pause and take a few breaths to calm himself before turning the knob.

Thankfully, as soon as Floyd opened the door, Ollie’s silly smile and even sillier outfit tempered some of his nervousness, calming his racing heart and releasing some of the tension in his muscles.

“What in the tarnation?” Floyd laughed. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“What do you mean?” Ollie asked, looking down at his own outfit. “I look nice, right?”

Of course, Ollie looked nice. He looked so nice, in fact, that if Floyd let himself think about it too hard, he’d have to steal some private time in Effie’s little sewing room (which was more like an oversized closet) later, probably in the middle of the night, but nice wasn’t what Floyd was reacting to. Ollie was wearing a slightly off-white suit, paired with a brown vest and a blue-and-yellow striped tie. And, typical for Ollie, he was wearing a hat, too—a straw boater, one with a silky brown ribbon encircling the base, the color an exact match for the shade of his vest.

“I thought I was learning you how to shoot,” Floyd said. “You look like you’re heading to the pictures.”

“We could?” Ollie suggested, which made Floyd roll his eyes.

“We could what? See a picture? In Charleston?!”

“Yeah, maybe we’d have had to plan that better. Oh well. I’m sure I can shoot in these, though. I mean, you’re wearing a nice shirt yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the colors.”

Ollie smiled in a flirtatious way, tipping his head slightly, one side of his mouth twisted up higher than the other. It was playful and sweet and knowing—like he knew exactly why Floyd had chosen that shirt; like he knew exactly why Floyd had left the top buttons unfastened; like he knew everything.

Floyd swallowed against the rising fear of being seen.

Did Ollie know of Floyd’s feelings for him?

“Leave your suit jacket here,” Floyd said, purposefully ignoring Ollie’s comment or compliment or whatever it was. “Your hat, too.”

Even though Ollie started to shrug off his suit jacket, he said, “But I like my hat. It’ll protect my head from the sun.”

“Fine. Bring your hat.”

“What about your hat?” Ollie asked, handing Floyd the jacket, which Floyd then tossed over the back of the rocking chair.

“Why would I wear my hat?”

“I’ll look less silly if you wear yours, too.”

“No, if I wear mine, I’d only look more silly.” Floyd pointed outside. “Get.”

“Sheesh,” Ollie said, turning around.

Floyd looked back to wave to Effie. “Be back for supper.”

“Have fun,” Effie called in a sing-song voice that made Floyd’s cheeks flush.

Out on the porch, Floyd picked up the poke he had packed earlier with a whole mess of empty Coke bottles. Then, he went around back to fetch his rifle from the shed. Afterward, he and Oliver started into the woods.

While they walked, Ollie kept tripping on various rocks and tree roots. To keep himself from laughing too much about Ollie’s plight, Floyd focused on telling the story of when he had first learned to shoot. Floyd’s father had taught him when he was twelve. At that time, Floyd had been working as a breaker boy for the coal company, and as such, he and his father hadn’t been spending as much time together, not like back when Floyd had been helping out on their farm every single morning. And so, his father had taught him to shoot so that they could have something to share on the weekends when there wasn’t too much farm work. Floyd had taken to it immediately.

While Floyd was telling the story, Ollie kept looking over at him, which was probably making his tripping even worse, and the way Ollie was continuously looking at Floyd—like he wanted to keep his eyes on him even at the expense of his own safety—was making Floyd’s body buzz with energy, each of Ollie’s smiles sending little blips of electrical current through his body.

When they were nearing the area Floyd wanted to use for Ollie’s lesson, Floyd breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing a bit. Finally, something else for them to both focus on.

Oliver tripped over another tree root.

“Why’d you dress so fancy?” Floyd asked, looking at Ollie’s brown leather shoes. “Did you really want us to see a picture?”