Thirty-three-year-old gay farmer Vladimir Wozniak IV lives for his crops and the hard work that makes them profitable every year. Five miles up the road, former rodeo bull rider and rancher Thomas Sullivan is just as committed to his corn-fed beef. Once best friends until VJ kissed Tommy during freshman year in college, they stopped speaking when Tommy rejected VJ. Ten years later, after the country doctor who helped bring them into the world dies and his will names them as co-owners of property, they decide to check out their inheritance together to see which one wants to buy out the other. As they travel down memory lane through the Doc’s correspondence and visit familiar sites on the land, can they work their way back to friendship ... and possibly beyond?

The Thaw

But, you know, sometimes those closest to you can see through you like you’re made of glass.


So my dad kept up his bullshitting about immigrant farmers and their faggot sons, my mom kept giving me pitying looks, and I kept doing the macho act to the tune of five broken collar bones, three busted legs, and four broken arms. And that didn’t count the death-defying times I’d fucked more girls and women by sheer will and an active imagination than anyone could ever count. Why one of them didn’t end up pregnant and claiming I was the father is beyond me. Even then I don’t think my dad and I would have ever gotten close.


It was what it was, and I just couldn’t let it lie.


Chapter 11