Adam tried to sink as deep into the couch as he could. He had seen his father angry before, but never like this. His father paced back in forth in front of him, threatening to wear a line into the living room carpet as he spoke. He didn't yell, that was the frightening part, his voice was cold and stern, Adam's report card crumpled in his hand. "Failed." His father repeated again in disbelief. "You have no job, you don't do any extracurriculars. All you had to do was go to class and do your homework and apparently even that was too much for you."
Adam looked away. At eighteen, he thought he wouldn't be subject to his father's rules anymore, of course, he didn't have a way to support himself meaning he had to just sit here and take the reprimand. "I just have to.."
"Repeat the year." His father finished, turning on him. "Except I can't trust you that you're going to do that. Obviously, I've let you have too much freedom. Not to mention this hurts your chances of even getting into a college." His father was a tall man, lean, with short balck hair and a tidy beard, not the most imposing but at the moment he was a thunderhead. "You're going to spend the summer learning a little discipline. I'm sending you off to Hank's farm where you'll work for the whole summer. If he says you've proved yourself you can go back in the fall, if not.. you're out." His father pointed to the front door as he said that, and Adam gulped.
Hank was his father's oldest friend, they went to high school and college together, and sometimes Adam suspected there was more between them than even just friendship. He also owned a farm about two hours away in the middle of nowhere. So much for the beach trip he had planned with his friends, but Adam knew he didn't have a choice. No way was he going to be able to get a job that could support him, not without a high school diploma. He gulped and nodded, his father turning on his heels to no doubt call Hank.
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The next morning Adam was told curtly to pack and soon was in his father's car, headed out to Hank's farm. The strip malls and tidy homes of suburbia left behind for the sprawling farms of rural life. Adam watched another cornfield fade into the distance as he thought about what awaited him. It had been years since he saw Hank. After the time he had spent the entire trip making everyone miserable when he was 9 his father had left Adam behind with his grandparents instead of bringing him along on this twice yearly visits to the farm. He did remember Hank had a son a couple years older than Adam himself. They never got along during those visits either.
He snapped out of his memories when the car turned onto a hard-packed dirt road, heading up to a grouping of buildings in the distance. A silo, a farm house, a red barn, and a few other buildings. There was even a windmill. It was just so stereotypical, but all Adam had to do was survive the next three months.
As his father pulled his car up next to a dusty old truck that looked like Ford's Frankenstein a man stepped out of the farmhouse. His dad slipped out of the car almost as soon as the brake was in place, leaving Adam to crawl out and grab his things from the trunk. As Hank and his father engaged in a back slapping hug, Adam hoisted his suitcase and slammed the trunk shut.
Hank was much as Adam remembered him. Tall as his father, but twice as broad. He had grey in the brown at his temples and in his thick beard, but age didn't seem to be catching up to him otherwise. He was a beast of a man, almost all muscle except for a slight gut, but Adam suspected even that was mostly muscle. His jeans hugged tree-trunk legs and his plaid shirt was unbuttoned down to just below his pecs, the opening pulled apart to show off curly brown hair across mountainous pecs with a deep valley between them, the sleeves rolled up and bunching against his thick arms. Adam couldn't help but wrinkle his nose a little at all the body hair on display. He considered himself lucky to be mostly smooth, no girlfriend he ever had complained.
"Adam." Hank said in his gruff voice, looking him up and down with a steely blue gaze that made his fathers glare yesterday seem soft. "Not much to you." He let out a gruff laugh looking over to Adam's father, slapping the leaner man on the back. "Definitely takes after you, Jeff. Well, except the height." Hank held up his hand at his chin. "Me and Bruce will do what we can with him. I'm two farmhands down after the Langford brothers left to start their own farm, so I have plenty of work for him." Bruce. That was the name of Hank's son, Adam recalled. Dumb little meathead last he remembered of him, too.
"Well, your room is up the stairs, first on the right. I put some boots and work clothes out for you." Hank said sternly, asiding to Adam's father. "Had to dig out some of Bruce's old clothes." Then back to Adam, "Get changed and go find Bruce, he should be over there." Hank said with a nod to one of the out buildings. "You do what he tells you same as if I told you. Understood?"
That last word was spoken like a hammer driving a nail. Adam gulped and nodded, passing by Hank into the house, the voices of him and his father fading behind him. "Come in for a beer, we can at least catch up a little before you need to head ba.."
Adam slipped into the room that was to be his for the summer. The window was open, but the room still had a bit of a musky smell to it. He wondered if one of the Langford brothers had called this room home. He shoved his suitcase into a corner for later, not wanting to ern Hank's ire on the first day by stalling to unpack. Sure enough laying on the bed were a few folded bundles of denim, and a couple of sturdy work boots sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. Adam fingered through the bundles, realizing most of them were denim overalls in various states of faded and worn. No. All of them were overalls.
Curiously, he lifted one for a sniff and although he could tell they were clean, they still held a faint earthy smell to them. With a sigh he stripped down to his underwear and tee, then pulled on the overalls. They were too baggy, and too long, so much for Bruce's old clothes. But the other pairs spread out on the bed didn't look to be any better. So with a sigh, Adam cuffed the bottoms and slipped into the boots which were also a size or two too big, but at least he could tighten the laces on those. Standing up, he felt silly, like a kid trying on his dad's clothes, but it was just for a few months he told himself, and it's not like anyone he knew from back home would be seeing him like this.
Leaving his room he clomped downstairs and was about to head back out to find Bruce when a voice stopped him. "Boy, you like that shirt?" Hank called to him from where he sat in an armchair by an unlit fireplace, his father sitting in another chair facing him.
Adam looked down at his shirt, plucking it. It was one of his favorite bands, so he nodded at Hank, which got an eyebrow raise. "I ask you a question you answer me out loud." Hank said, leaning forward with a frown.
"Yes." Adam replied with a gulp.
"Yes, what?" Hank said, his voice getting dangerously low.
"Yes, sir." He knew that was the right answer when Hank nodded.
"Well, take it off, you can leave it there." He said pointing to a bench. Farm work will ruin it. You'll thank me later. All you need is those boots and overalls. That's all I want to see you in come work time. Understand?" Hank said with a pointed stare.
"Yes, sir." Adam replied, trying not to sound sullen. He pulled his shirt off without even having to shrug out of the shoulder straps of the overalls, they were loose enough. He folded the shirt and set it on the bench. Adam felt exposed, the too long baggy overalls only covering his stomach, leaving his lean smooth chest exposed. He'd need to dig out his sunscreen later.
With a nod of dismissal from Hank, he left the farmhouse and headed off to the building where he indicated Bruce was working.