Confident, quiet, and respectful, Kyle was probably about Brandon’s age.  He had ginger hair and a tidy beard, and he was lean, muscular and tan from countless hours as a landscaper.  It didn’t require much imagination for Brandon to guess what was going on under the moisture-wicking long sleeve shirts he always wore to protect himself from debris.  He had the v-shaped torso of a man who works hard for a living and doesn’t need to be bothered with a gym membership.

Brandon shamelessly craned for a better view as Kyle worked with his back to him.  His footwear remained a mystery, as only glimpses of gray outsoles could be caught as he shuffled through the blanket of sticky fallen grass.  Brandon took in the black and green gloves that gripped the handle of the trimmer, the rakish way Kyle wore his cap turned backwards…and an all-too-familiar dull ache formed in his throat.  In a half-hearted attempt at distraction, he pulled his cell out and glanced at the smudged screen again, shielding it from the summer glare.  No red badges heralded any news from the messages or email apps.  

From the moment he had departed, Anthony had been reserved in his communications back home, to say the least.  Brandon was hardly shocked; opening up had never exactly been his forte.  At least they had had the benefit of the businesslike exchanges as landlord and tenant for the first few weeks.  Texts like “where is the water shutoff?” and “a tax bill arrived today” could hardly be ignored as they both sifted through the logistical detritus of their moves.  But even those excuses to connect were becoming fewer and far between, and Brandon knew better than to reach out with something as personal as “how are you?”  It had been complete radio silence for over a week.

“Damn it, Anthony,” he silently cursed under the monotonous buzz of the trimmer.  By now, Kyle had turned toward the house and was working his way up the slope where the grass became interspersed with weeds under the sprawl of an overgrown holly.  Brandon looked up from the phone and watched with keen interest as Kyle’s black shoes came into view.  

They seemed nondescript enough–probably just black work boots.  They had a smooth black toe cap that looked to be leather.  Brandon felt something akin to disappointment at this uninspired choice in footwear, and the ache in his throat began to unwind.  Kyle hadn’t seem him yet.  Head bent and eyes shielded behind darkened safety glasses–the kind that Brandon thought made everyone who wore them look like angry hornets–he brought the trimmer head against what had probably once been a orderly retaining wall of timbers.  Years under the untamed holly had been unkind to the structure, and it now bowed forward at an impossible angle, slick with moss and acting more as a support structure for gangly weeds than one actually holding anything back.  Clearly, this side of the house was in need of the same attention that had been recently paid all of the others, but short of anyone emerging from the cornfield, it was never taken in by anyone.  In fact, the two men standing there now probably represented the most significant visit this portion of the yard had seen in a long time, Brandon mused.

As Kyle brought the trimmer up against the house to ruthlessly slash though a rogue stand of maple seedlings that had taken hold in the bed’s neglect, he put his left foot up on the precarious timber border.  His pant leg hitched up, revealing not the switchback of laces Brandon had expected, but a ribbed collar of smooth black material that rose to just above his ankle.  Two pull loops framed the front and back of his leg like mouse ears.  There was a familiar, telltale sheen to the black material, and the ache came roiling back as Brandon recognized that these were no ordinary work boots, but some kind of neoprene slip-on.  He never understood it, but slip-ons drove him wild—ever since that fateful day he had been sitting in the Jeep and Anthony had emerged from the garage wearing those damned black Vans…

Brandon could see now that the toe cap that he had thought was leather was probably rubber, stretching over Kyle’s foot with narrow exposed window of neoprene for a vamp that reminded him of a Mary Jane strap.  It was ugly.  It was utilitarian.  And yet somehow that toyed with him the most.  As he stood and marveled at Kyle’s elevated left boot, the head of the trimmer struck the ground and obliterated it, sending a spray of dark soil against the pant leg and boot.  Brandon felt the groan he made vibrate in his chest, though thankfully the decibel level of the lawn tool was high enough to mask far louder.

It was then that Kyle finally realized he had an audience.  Brandon could see him start as he glanced in his direction, but a grin broke across his face and he cut the motor.  In the fresh wave of relative calm, Brandon could hear that the summer cicadas had apparently been desperate to keep up with the competition from the yard implement.  

“Whoa!” Kyle exclaimed.  “Didn’t see you there!”  He removed his foot from the retaining wall and bent to set down the trimmer on the sloping ground.  Brandon noticed that the leg of his brown Carhartts had remained hung up on the back pull loop, affording him a view of the rippling, shimmering neoprene that stretched around his ankle as he strode up the swale to meet him.  “You just get home?”

Brandon wrenched his eyes up off the boot to meet Kyle’s.  “Yeah.  Saw the truck, heard the trimmer….” he trailed off, not knowing where else to go.  Why did conversations with straight men always seem to go this way?  But Kyle graciously snatched up the thread as he bobbed his head enthusiastically, pulling out his ear plugs to let them hang from the band around his neck.

“Yeah–noticed that I needed to do a lot more whacking than I normally do.  Grass wasn’t too bad this time, but the weeds!”  He shook his head as if scandalized.  

Brandon found himself nodding in agreement, as though he had been thinking the same thing.  “Well, I’ve got to say, you’re really starting to get things whipped in shape around here.  I think Anthony would be thrilled if he could see it.  Obviously, this area back here could still use some work…”  as he nodded to the sloped ground of the swale, he looked down and noticed that Kyle’s boot had come to rest in a small hollow where the buried downspout pipe from the house drained into the yard.  The crevice was never dry–the pressure from countless torrential rains had eroded the ground at the mouth of the pipe until a muddy trough had formed.  With every rain, the water would accumulate in a silty pool before it began to find its way into the swale.  Even the recent stifling, cloudless weeks of August had not been enough to fully solidify the ground since the last storm.

The gray band of the outsole of Kyle’s left boot had already disappeared into the soft earth.  The thick, hearty tufts of grass flanking the crevice were pushing against a fold of his pant leg, and Brandon could see a small sliver of gray sock above the puckered neoprene rim of the boot.  Brandon couldn’t believe how quickly sensations that had been dormant for two months reemerged.  He shifted his laptop bag strategically as the ache in the throat flared into an insistent throb in his groin.

Either Kyle didn’t notice what was happening to his left boot, or he didn’t care.  “It’s coming along,” he was saying, surveying the expanse of yard that sloped up toward the outbuildings at the back of the property.  “This drainage area could use some work.”  Brandon silently disagreed as he observed the small mounds of dark mud that swelled on either side of the boot as it creeped further into the muck.  A little soft ground never hurt anyone.  “If we graded this just a little gentler,” Kyle continued, gesturing to the length of the swale, “it would be a lot easier to get a mower back in here.”  As he turned to survey the area, shifting his weight, a finger of brown water traced across the rubber toe cap.  

Brandon was transfixed.  As Kyle went on about nitrogen from the cornfield and something about the water table, he gaped at boot as the silt slowly worked to claim it, apparently completely unbeknownst to its owner.  So of course he was watching when Kyle finally lifted his left foot and was met with a surprising resistance.  A gray-socked heel popped above the neoprene collar like a hand pulling out of a glove.  Kyle paused momentarily as he glanced down and noticed his predicament for the first time.  Completely unfazed, he slid his foot back out of the crevice and rested a muddy boot on the grass.

“So what do you think?” he continued, scarcely missing a beat.  “I can bring a small earth mover out at some point.  It would be good to get this project done before fall so that we get it reseeded before the growing season is in full swing.”  As he said this, he swiveled his foot back and forth until the boot snapped back over his ankle again.  Brandon kind of liked the idea of Kyle digging up the ground in this soggy part of the yard.  Kyle looked up at him expectantly as he rested a hand on his left leg, the muddy boot resting between them on the slope.

“It doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Brandon replied, relieved to hear the steadiness in his own voice in spite of the vibrations Kyle’s foot was sending through him.  “But obviously I’ll have to run it by Anthony, and he hasn’t been the easiest guy to get a hold of lately.”

Kyle bobbed his head again.  “Makes sense.  Makes sense.  Well let me know.  I can do a work up for him if its a numbers thing.”

“Sounds good.  Will do.”  Brandon glanced over at the house to signal the end of the conversation.  He had had his fun.  But he was living at his boyfriend’s house while he tended to his ex-wife and prepared for their new baby.  Things were weird enough without him having to layer guilt on top of everything else.

Kyle took the hint.  “Alright, buddy.  I’m just going to bang away at some more of this and then pack it in.  If I don’t see you before I go, have a good one!”  

“Thanks, Kyle!”  Brandon decided not to watch him walk off toward the trimmer, but turned toward the screened in porch and headed inside.