Shaking the Sugar Tree

Praise for

Nick Wilgus

and

Shaking the Sugar Tree

“Not just a breath, but a blast of fresh air. Totally new. Magnificent. I couldn’t put it down.”

—
Michael Murphy

Author of
Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees

 “This is a wonderful novel, tender and honest, full of genuine feeling, memorable characters, and a gorgeous romance that hits all the right buttons. Wiley and Noah were never merely characters to me, but real people, and the story of their journey from loneliness to wholeness is beautiful.”

—
J.S. Cook

Author of
A Little Night Murder
and
Come to Dust

“From a charming and significant new voice in gay romance comes a funny and poignant love story sure to make the butter melt right off your biscuits.”

—
Rick R. Reed

Award-winning author of
Hungry for Love
and
Legally Wed

“A truly delightful read; I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I found myself laughing and crying, sometimes within the same chapter. Mr. Wilgus has a hit on his hands with this portrayal of a gay father protecting his son against the world, all the while trying to search for that elusive one love.”

—
Sherrie Henry

Author of
Last of the Summer Tomatoes

Published by

Dreamspinner Press

5032 Capital Circle SW
Suite 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Shaking the Sugar Tree

© 2014 Nick Wilgus.

Cover Art

© 2014 Anne Cain.

[email protected].

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-62798-488-1

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-489-8

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

January 2014

For my son, Josef Wilgus.

I
T
WAS
a hot Friday afternoon in Tupelo, Mississippi, and like other horny gay guys on the prowl at Ballard Park in the sweltering June heat, I was pretending not to be one while unsuspecting moms and dads played with their kids and the park’s wandering ducks chased after those foolish enough to have food on hand.

I sailed the Frisbee across freshly cut grass and Noah caught it like the trooper he is, sending it back to me with a practiced flick of his wrist, which is no small feat for a nine-year-old boy who began life as a meth baby with the birth defects to prove it.

He beamed with pleasure at the way I had to jump high to catch his throw. He wasn’t the only one checking me out. Shirtless, tanned, wearing loose shorts and sandals, I was not exactly shying away from attention. My dishwater-blond hair was tied back in a ponytail and sweat trickled down my back. Would have been easier to write DO ME on my chest in hot neon pink.

I angled the Frisbee on my next throw so that it would land close to a young, lonely-looking fella sitting under a sugar tree nearby and feigning disinterest.

Noah darted away after it. His hair was a wild, untamed mess of curls and blondness, his skin brown, his limbs sticking out of his tank and shorts like joss sticks.

The Frisbee landed close to the young man, who picked it up.

“Here you go, kid,” he called, throwing the Frisbee to Noah, then glancing at me and offering a hesitant smile.

Noah glanced at me too, smiling as if to say,
What about this one, Daddy?

Just then a football came sailing from out of nowhere.

“Hey!” the guy said in warning when he saw the football heading straight at Noah. “Watch out, kid!”

Noah merely stood there, smiling at me mischievously.

Watch out!
I signed frantically.

Too late.

He turned just in time to get a face-full of the ball, which sent him sprawling.

I hurried over the grass.

“I tried to warn him,” the man said, crouching down and looking at Noah. “You all right, kid?”

You all right?
I signed.

“Oh,” he groaned in his strange voice.

“He’s deaf,” I said to the guy, helping Noah to his feet. He was a little shell-shocked, but otherwise in good condition.

Noah ignored our fussing, picked up the football, and went to meet two boys coming in our direction, the ball’s owners. He held out the ball, said, “Can play you?” in a voice that was loud and awkward and grammatically incorrect. The boys did not seem to know what to make of this, grabbed their ball, and rushed off as though Noah had cooties.

Noah turned to me, his face crestfallen.

Never mind them
, I signed.
Come say hello.

“This is my son Noah,” I said to the young man, who looked as horny as I felt, though considerably better dressed and groomed. “My name is Wiley.”

I held out my hand.

“I’m Braden,” he said. His handshake was firm and I’d swear to God a little bit of tingling electricity went up my arm, but I’m not big on swearing to God so I won’t.

“Hello,” Noah said, looking up at this handsome man. He offered a smile that brilliantly displayed his seriously messed-up dental situation, another one of the Almighty’s gifts to my only child.

“Is he your nephew?” Braden asked.

“He’s my son.”

“You’re married?”

“Not especially.”

“That’s… weird,” he said.

“A long story,” I offered.

“You have him on the weekends?”

“And the rest of the week, too. I’m a single dad.”

“Oh.”

He gave Noah a strange look as if he couldn’t quite believe that I was a father, or didn’t want to believe it.

“You guys have fun,” he offered, having decided that gay guys with kids were not on his agenda. “I’ve got to get going.”

We watched him idle off. He grabbed his phone and played with it as he walked.

Noah glanced up at me, biting his lip.

He was nice
, Noah offered.

I shrugged.

We’ll find a boyfriend for you, don’t worry,
he assured me
.

T
HE
NEXT
day I worked the express lane at FoodWorld (“Nobody beats our meats!” declared one of our unofficial mottoes), dealing with a steady stream of crazed Saturday customers who were in such a hurry to get somewhere else more interesting and fun that their manners seemed to have been abducted by aliens. I was constantly reminded that “fifteen items or less” is not a widely understood concept.

I was just about to go on break when a young man in blue scrubs plopped down two cases of Dos Equis on my counter and smiled such a heavenly smile that I thought the butter might slide right off my biscuits.

“How you doing?” I asked, my voice squeaking a little.

“Couldn’t be better,” he said in a Yankee voice. “You?”

“Still not dead,” I offered, wondering what a Yankee was doing in the heart of Dixie wearing scrubs and looking so damned fine.

“Good deal!” he exclaimed.

“Gotta card you,” I said, putting a hand on one of his cases of beer.

“No problem,” he said, offering a new Magnolia State driver’s license. I spent perhaps a bit too long staring at it, as you do when you’ve got more than cashiering on your mind. Seems “Jackson Ledbetter” was born on September 15, 1985, making him twenty-eight years old. He was 5’10”, 148 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. That hardly did justice to the Greek god standing before me, this angel who looked like he had just stepped out of a Caravaggio painting. Best of all, he lived right down the street from me. Better, my gaydar was twitching like a jackrabbit at a rodeo.

I could see him looking at the name tag on my chest:
I’m Wiley Cantrell. How may I help you?

“Wiley’s a cool name,” he observed with a slight smile.

Was he flirting with me?

I certainly hoped so.

“Will that be all?” I asked.

“I’m having a housewarming party starting at six. Why don’t you come?”

“That’s very kind, thanks.”

“Terrace View Apartments. Number twenty-two. See you there?”

Was he openly flirting with me while a string of coupon-clutching customers waited?

“Sure,” I said.

“Cool!” he exclaimed. His eyes lingered on mine rather longer than they should have before he grabbed the beer and sauntered away, looking sexy in those scrubs.

Damn, he was hot.

I could do some loving on that man. I really could. Do some loving and shake the bejesus out of his sugar tree.

I
DON
’
T
normally go to parties thrown by complete strangers, much less with my nine-year-old son in tow, which can be a real deal-killer when you’re horny and hoping to get laid, but I made an exception in this case. Probably not one of my better decisions, but horniness does that to you and it’s not like Tupelo is drowning in gay bars. The only one it ever had was closed down years ago.

It was just after seven in the evening when Noah and I went in search of apartment number twenty-two at Terrace View.

Noah is a scrap of a boy, barely forty-five pounds, about four feet tall, my little midget. For a premature meth baby who was not expected to thrive, he’s certainly had the last laugh.

He’s a beautiful boy. To me, at least. His head is a bit too large for his body. He has a darkness around his blue eyes that never goes away no matter how much he sleeps. About his face there is something imperfect, something unfinished, not quite right, off in a way quite impossible to describe. I let his hair grow in glorious abandon because he doesn’t like having it cut. In that, he takes after me, since I haven’t had my hair cut since 1998.

We were both dressed in shorts and tank tops, standard summer wear. To be frank, when stores put “No shirt, no shoes, no service” signs on their front doors, they’re thinking about the Cantrell boys. We’re nothing if not scruffy. I had tied back my hair in a ponytail in a lackluster attempt to make myself look presentable. I should have trimmed my goatee, but I only do that for weddings and funerals and sit-downs with all the fixings. At least we wore shoes.

I carried a box of cookies that I’d bought at FoodWorld with my EBT card. The cookies were a “FoodWorld Daily Deal!”

I glanced at Noah and smiled a bit of encouragement, which I needed more than he did.