Their Virgin Neighbor Read Free

he
took a bite. “We should go and introduce ourselves to the new
neighbor.”
    The new neighbor… Lee frowned and took
a bite of his own sandwich. He wasn’t quite sure how Sally, the
realtor, had talked them in to renting out the cottage at the edge
of their property. It was a tiny little building that Jack had
spent a summer fixing up a few years back. The plan had been to use
it for their various family members. Between them they had a slew
of sisters, brothers and cousins. They tended to head down in big
groups, and there was never enough room in the farmhouse for them
all. Not because it was small, but because early on they’d pretty
much split it in two. They had a wing each, meaning that they were
never in one another’s way more than they wanted to.
    The cottage though… Lee took another
bite of his sandwich. Sally had arrived a month or so ago and
demanded to know when they were planning to ‘get some value out of
the place’. She’d followed that by saying that she knew someone who
was ‘desperate to get away from the city’, and ‘how perfect would
this be?’.
    Thinking back, Lee wondered if they’d
agreed purely to put an end to her visits. Sally had to be in her
sixties, had a cloud of bright red hair, and was persistent as
hell. Besides, none of their family members were likely to visit
during the frigid winter and it made sense to have someone in
there. It was a quaint little cottage, but despite Jack’s best
efforts was prone to damp. In the summer when their various family
members tended to visited they had to re-paint, so this would save
them a job at least.
    “ How long has she been
there?” Lee asked once he was done chewing.
    “ About two weeks give or
take,” Jack said.
    Lee nodded slowly. “Might want to give
her a bit more time to settle in.”
    Jack snorted. “Don’t be so
cantankerous.”
    “ Cantankerous?”
    “ We’re turning into our
grandfathers,” Jack said. “You remember when they were in their
nineties and they stopped talking to anyone but each
other?”
    Lee laughed. Their grandfathers had
been friends since they were boys, had run a business together
until they were well into their sixties, and after their wives had
died had withdrawn from the world together. The two men had died
within a few weeks of one another. Lee took pleasure in the fact
that he and Jack had continued their friendship into a new
generation.
    “ We did already,” Lee said
after a moment. “Years ago. When we bought this place. Don’t our
folks say so often enough?”
    “ Maybe,” Jack agreed. “But
they’re probably still convinced we’re gay and either in denial, or
covering it up.”
    Lee laughed again. He still recalled
the time his mother had cornered him in his studio to let him know
she was perfectly fine with his and Jack’s ‘relationship’. Lee’s
mouth had dropped open and he’d shaken his head. Jack was his best
friend, very much like a brother, but there was nothing like that
between them. There never had been. He’d told his mother as much,
but Lee wasn’t entirely sure she believed him.
    Maybe it was a little odd. Two
thirty-something men living together in a platonic relationship.
But the set-up suited them. After the things they had seen abroad,
the friends they had lost…
    Lee frowned as memories, old memories,
attempted to come to the fore. He pushed them back, not without
some difficulty, and focused his attention on his sandwich instead.
Jack was doing pretty much the same, and as he looked at him Lee
couldn’t help but think, for perhaps the hundredth time since
they’d bought the farmhouse, that convention mattered for shit in
the end. Both he and Jack lived their lives the way they were
comfortable with. The things that made them happy, things like
work, time spent outdoors, they were appreciated. The things that
didn’t? They were quickly ignored. It was the only way to find any
kind of peace. To be comfortable with the fact that they were