1 Chapter 1

1

It was a normal start to a normal day at Copper Creek Elementary. Steven Hayes always arrived at seven fifteen and the first thing he did was put the date on the blackboard for his third grade class. Today he wrote March 23, 2015, with yellow chalk. He took off his raincoat and hung it up in the corner. He looked out the window. Since yesterday a light rain had been falling. There were black storm clouds gathering in the sky indicating more to come. For some reason, he shivered.

Mrs. Maddy Conway from the classroom next door popped her head in the door. “It looks like we’re going to get some thunderstorms.” Mrs. Conway was past retirement age but she was still a fantastic teacher and controlled her fifth graders with an iron hand in a velvet glove.

“Derrick and I watched the ten o’clock news from Waco last night and the forecast called for light rain to continue through the night with thunderstorms for today. I brought my raincoat.” It wasn’t until after the news that Steven started to grade compositions and Friday’s math test.

Mrs. Conway looked out the window then down at his shoes. “It’s been over a year son, time to be a Texan and get some boots.”

“Derrick took me out over the weekend to buy a pair. I wore them all weekend and wound up with blisters, so since I was going to be on my feet all day today, I decided to take a day off from breaking them in.” Steven’s face flushed.

“You’ve got to wear thicker socks. You look kind of tired this morning,” Maddy said sympathetically.

“I was up grading papers last night.” Steven blushed again.

“Put it off until the last minute, did you?” Maddy asked. “Too bad you got blisters from the boots—you’re going to need them today.” Maddy Conway’s curly grey head turned to look back out the window, frowned at the clouds again and went back through the door to her classroom, leaving Steven with his face hot and his ears red. Any time Steven was embarrassed his whole body got hot and his face turned a bright red from the tips of his ears down his neck. He was aware that he had a problem with oversharing. He never knew when to shut up. He almost told Maddy about his argument with Derrick. Immediately his mind turned to his soon-to-be husband. His eyes gazed into the distance, remembering.

* * * *

Truthfully, Steven wasn’t a boots kind of guy. He’d come out to Texas to teach elementary school from New York City sixteen months ago and originally planned to settle in Austin—which was billed as a gay friendly town—but by the end of his first week in Texas, he was unemployed. In a panic, he papered the ‘net with resumes, from Austin to Waco to Dallas-Fort Worth and down to Houston, and spent most of his days on follow-up phone calls.

He had been lucky that the school year hadn’t begun yet. He couldn’t go back to New York. He had come blazing out of the closet after getting his Master’s in Education and his religious parents and siblings thought he was the spawn of Satan. It still hurt.

It was a week after the job debacle that Steven met Derrick Trent in a small gay bar near the Residence Inn. Derrick wasn’t the type to get embarrassed. He walked right up to Steven that night and introduced himself. “Derrick Trent…I haven’t seen you in here before. It isn’t often we get new blood at Harry’s, especially someone as gorgeous as you with that fair skin, black hair and blue eyes.”

“It’s fairly common in New York, Black Irish they call us.” Steven laughed.

“You must be new to Austin.” Derrick leaned casually back on the edge of the bar, dressed in a cowboy hat, boots, a western shirt and a pair of Levi 501s that left little to the imagination in contrast to Steven’s dress pants, oxford shirt and cotton sweater.

Steven could tell that Derrick was a native. His voice held the Texas twang that Steven found so charming. “Can I buy you a drink?” Derrick asked.

Steven looked up and down the bar and saw that his usual lemon martini wouldn’t be appropriate so he ordered a Corona with lime. “Thanks, I’m Steven Hayes.”

“What’s a tenderfoot like you doing in Texas?”

“Up until a month ago. I was recruited to work in the Austin school district. However due to budget cuts they decided to close down the school I was supposed to teach in a month before school started. Teachers who already taught in the district were given preference by the Board of Education for any teaching jobs opening up in other schools and I was shut out. I have nowhere to go until I get another job. I’m lucky they decided to give me my whole contracted salary in severance pay in case I brought suit for wrongful termination but staying at the Residence Inn will eat up that money if I don’t get a job soon. Besides the hotel, I have bills to pay.”

“Would you have…brought the suit against the board of education, I mean.” Derrick examined him so closely that Steve felt like a bug under a microscope.