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“Who are we burying?” Ilya asked matter-of-factly, staring down into the hole at his husband. Who was standing in the hole. Digging out the hole. Making the hole bigger.
Shane drove the shovel into the dirt and rested his arm on it, looking up at his husband. “Why would I be burying someone?”
Ilya walked to one side of the hole and measured it with his arms, then made his way to the perpendicular side. He regarded it for a moment then laid down next to the opening. It was about the length of a human being. Sitting up, he dangled his legs over the side of the hole. “No reason.” He sniffed. “Just so you know, cadaver dogs can smell more than fifteen feet down. We will have to go much further.”
“We?” Shane asked.
“I will help. I am already an accessory. Might as well help you cover up a murder right.”
“I am not covering up a murder,” Shane said with a lack of patience.
Ilya looked the entire situation over. “Your hole is the length of me and a little wider…” He mock-gasped. “Are you going to kill me? Were you going have me help dig my own grave, then shoot me in it?”
“You watch too many movies.”
Then Ilya noticed something else. Something covered in a tarp. It was long and not very wide. “Did Wyatt finally tell you one too many things about Star Wars?”
“Ha, ha. Yes. But I didn’t kill him.”
“Brave of you.”
“If you must know, I finally killed that ref who never calls offsides,” Shane deadpaned. “There’s another shovel in the shed.”
Ilya’s head tilted back as a laugh burst out of him. “But really, what are you doing?”
“So, I did a little shopping today…”
“Where? The morgue?”
“Shut up. I ended up ordering a water feature with a fountain I thought would be nice.”
Ilya kicked his legs against the side of the hole. “This explains nothing. Why are YOU digging the hole? They have professionals with backhoes just for this.”
“It’s not that big. And I didn’t want them driving through the front lawn and ruining the flowers.”
“The ones that are hiding your other kills?”
“I am not a serial killer.”
Ilya made a yes/no gesture with his hand. “Maybe. Maybe not. Our old postman has not been seen since he dumped that package in the bushes in the rain. Then, suddenly? Rose bushes.”
“The front was looking too plain. Now let me finish before I really DO bury you.”
“How big does it need to be?” Ilya asked.
Shane measured the hole against his own height. “Another foot, maybe? Then we’ll have to dig to the water line so they can run a line out here.”
Ilya threw up his hands. “So you are going to have workers come in for that, but not the hole itself?”
Picking up the shovel, Shane drove it into the dirt. “Welllllll…”
“What is the rest of the story?”
Not responding, Shane threw out a shovelful of dirt onto the pile a few feet from his husband. “Besides the flowers, the plumbing company can come tomorrow. The other contractors can’t come in for three months. So I decided to do it myself. So it gets done before the ground freezes.”
“And you are doing it the hardest way possible? Rent some smaller equipment. What the hell?”
“I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Ahh. Yes. The impulse purchase,” Ilya said wisely.
“Maybe a little,” Shane conceded. “But this is how we ended up with the seventy-two inch television in the gym, so I think you owe me one.”
“I stand by that purchase.”
Shane almost laughed. He shook his head instead and tried to hold it back. Laughing would only encourage him. “I never turn it on.”
Ilya ran his fingers through the untouched grass beside him. “I turn it on. That is really what matters. You know, I would have been happier if we were burying a body.”
“I guess I should have checked with you before I altered the landscape.”
“Nah.” Another shovelful of dirt landed in the pile. Some of it spilled down, getting closer to Ilya.
“So why would you be happier if it were a body?”
“You need to let loose more often.”
Shane stopped shoveling. “With a little murder?”
“As a treat.” Ilya saw the look Shane was giving him and tried to explain. “You are too tightly wound. One day… poof. You will snap. Everybody thinks so.”
“Is everybody on our team?”
Ilya shrugged. “The bet is it takes you another three months.”
“So I’ve gone a whole year without snapping, but I’m going to snap before winter is over?”
“Yeah. A year is a long time to not snap. So… soon.”
Shane looked down at the tip of the shovel resting in the earth. “I’m just built this way. I’ve always been like this, and I haven’t killed anyone, or decked anyone, so it’s probably not going to happen in the next three months.”
Ilya stared down at him critically. “I see you digging a hole to let out some tension.”
“Maybe.”
“So, who did what to who?”
“Nobody did anything. I’m just frustrated with the way things are going.”
“We won twice this week.”
“Not with that.”
Ilya gestured with his hand dramatically for Shane to continue.
“My mother.”
Leaning back, Ilya kicked his legs in delight. “You are digging a hole because of your mother?”
“She’s getting in my shit again. She told one brand I’d do something I definitely don’t want to do. And when I tried to talk to her about it, she shut me down.” He sighed, resigned.
“Did you really talk to her? Or fake-talk to her?”
Shane rested his shoe on the shovel. “What is THAT supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes… you just kind of whine about it.”
“Fuck you.”
“I am serious.” Ilya put out a hand to Shane, who actually took it and let his husband pull him out of the hole. Shane ended up sitting on the edge of the pile of dirt. “It sounds like you are complaining to your mom. Not like you want something to happen about it.”
Shane thought about that for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes. You do not do it with me. You tell me to fuck off.”
“I can’t tell my mother to fuck off.”
“You should. Maybe sometimes.” Ilya put a hand on Shane’s knee. “I think… There is an argument you are needing too have.”
“I don’t fight with my mom.”
“Why not?”
“…Because?” But the answer sounded questionable to Shane’s ears. “She’s my mom? I get along with my parents.”
“So?”
Shane wanted to say something about how Ilya had a reason to fight with his dad, so he wouldn’t understand. But he knew it would be taken the wrong way. And he recognized it was a low blow. “I like getting along with my parents?”
Ilya rolled his eyes so hard his whole head went with it. “Oh my God. Just have an argument.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That is the whining thing. Right there. Argue with your mom about it.”
Shane shifted uncomfortably. “I am not going to like… plan a fight.”
Rolling his eyes again, Ilya slipped his hand off of Shane’s knee and put his arm around him. “Oh my God. You do not have to go in looking for trouble. But if it happens, it happens. And it WILL happen, if you just refuse to back down.”
“YOU know how to argue with people. I just… don’t.”
“I am trying to teach you.” Ilya squeezed his husband to his side. “Give it a try?”
“Try fighting?”
“Arguing. Fighting is with fists.”
Shane let out a long, steadying breath. “I’d rather not.”
“How much shit do you do that you do not want to just because you will not say no, and have an argument?”
“A lot?”
“A lot. Try something new.”
“You’re not going to let me out of this.”
Ilya rubbed his arm. “I am not letting you out of this.”
“Is this like when you told my mom to tell my aunt and grandmother to fuck off?”
Grinning, Ilya was unrepentant. “And it worked.”
“She HAS been happier.” His mom’s family stressed her the fuck out. Not much and just about no one got to his mother, but her family could whip her up into a frenzy like no one else could. “Alright. Fight with my mom,” he breathed.
Ilya squeezed Shane, hard. “ARGUE with your mom. She can take you in a fight.”
“Probably,” Shane said with a chuckle. “I’m not exactly known for my fisticuffs and she does kickboxing.”
“Fisti—What?”
“Fighting.”
“Oh, I watched your Scott Hunter fight. It was sad.”
“That’s not fair, they yanked me away before I could have a real go at him.”
“Excuses, excuses.” He regarded the hole for a moment. “So… you know we can definitely not let Anya in the back with this hole here. She WILL get herself in it.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“You were thinking, ‘I will dig a hole to the other side of the earth.’ Because you are mad at your mom.”
“Shut up,” Shane said, some color rising in his already-flushed cheeks. “So your solution to most interpersonal problems is to just tell people to fuck off?”
Ilya put a finger on his chin, almost thinking about it. “Yes. Pretty much. Most people can go fuck themselves.”
“MOST people?”
“At least some of the time. I love your mother. She can fuck off right now. Then she can un-fuck off later when you are not arguing and she stops doing that thing where she does stuff without you.”
“Unilateral decisions?”
Ilya pointed at Shane. “That one. Ok. So when are you going to argue with her? After dinner? You should avoid arguing hangry.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re like a reverse-therapist.”
Picking up his head with pride, Ilya sat a little taller. “My therapist says it is good to argue. Sometimes.”
“Oh. So you’ve been spending too much time in therapy, is what you’re saying. You’re picking up the lingo and you’re trying to analyze everyone.”
“No. I told everybody to fuck off before this, too.”
Shane put his head on Ilya’s shoulder. “Yeah. I know. I just don’t know when you got so smart about it.”
“Last week.”
“Liar.”
“The day I told my brother to fuck off, actually. I realized before that, I was telling people to fuck off to avoid problems. But you can also tell people to fuck off to solve them, too.”
Shane looked down into his hole. He really hadn’t needed to dig that, had he? A small excavator could have done it in minutes. “Last person you told to fuck off?”
“The head of marketing.”
The eyes bulged out of Shane’s head and he turned pale. “No.”
“I laughed when I did it. He thought it was hysterical. For a second. Then he started thinking and changed his mind about a stupid campaign you would have hated doing.”
“Love is making sure your spouse doesn’t have to do stupid shit.”
Ilya’s shoulder bumped Shane’s. “Love is making sure you do it for YOU, too.”
“Oh my God. Are you going to start. Talking about self-love?”
“No. I did that in the shower this morning. Also: fuck off. If you love your husband you will not be a whiny bitch about things and will argue with your mother.”
Shane kicked his heels against the side of his stupid hole. “Well, if that is the case, I will definitely do it.”
“So, get going.”
“I have to do it now?”
“Invite your parents for dinner. I will make something nice and you can ruin dessert.”
Shane kissed his husband’s cheek. “You’re way too into this.”
“It is very sexy when you yell about things.”
“I am not going to yell.” Shane shook his head.
“Ok. Storm away from the table.”
“Is that still sexy?”
Ilya grinned. “I like to watch you leave.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
THE END