Bo is a funny guy. From Miss Tri-Counties (of course).
"Hey, Luke?"
Yeah, digging irrigation trenches is hot and dirty work. He should have figured it'd be a hey Luke type of day. That kind where Bo uses his shovel for a chin rest and wipes non-existent sweat from his forehead while throwing hypotheticals at Luke. Sometimes it seems like Bo's eyes must be exhausted, what with all the work they watch getting done.
Bo mistakes silence for encouragement.
"How come there ain't a Mr. Tri-Counties contest?" Yes, Bo is absolutely justified in ceasing to put any effort into turning over the soil in front of him, considering all the unfairness of the situation. So very pretty and no appropriate forum in which to show it all off.
"You couldn't put a carburetor together quick enough anyways," Luke informs him in between shovelfuls. "Get back over here and help me, and quit waiting for an earthquake to come along and do your job for you."
Bo elects to pout instead. Shakes his shiny hair out of his eyes and manages to look like he's the one who is put upon. Shirtless, as though he's worked up enough of a sweat to need to be half naked. Maybe it's just ritual – Luke's shirt comes off and Bo's has to follow.
"I'm taking a break," he explains, and Luke's eternally grateful. He certainly would never have figured that out on his own. "Besides, I can outdrive anyone in three states, not just three counties." It's too bad Bo doesn't have as much interest in shoveling dirt as he does in shoveling… manure.
"That leaves the bathing suit contest," Luke reminds him.
What a happy little grin the pretty one gets about that. "Yeah. I'd win." Hard working and modest both. What else could Luke ask for in a cousin?
"Nah," Luke reminds him. "You ain't got a bathing suit." The Duke boys have never really bothered to buy such things, not when bare skin is free. "And they ain't," Luke warns him seriously, before he can get any bright ideas, "gonna let you show up in your birthday suit."
Prince Charming giggles at that one while Luke goes on digging for the both of them. Should have known those royal hands would be too soft for an honest day's work.
"Of course," Luke offers, setting a good example about how it is possible to shovel and talk at the same time. "Daisy'd probably lend you her red bikini. You look so nice in red." Strictly speaking it's the truth, even if Luke has to deliver it with all the sarcasm in the world just to keep Bo's head from getting so big his body won't be able to stay upright. Nothing worse than digging ditches all afternoon, then having to drag your prone, top-heavy cousin home at the end of the night. "Except that would cover up your lovely breasts, which wouldn't help your chances none."
"Luke!" Ah, yes, sweet success. Bo's no longer peaceful and dreamy, and after the two of them spend some time rolling around in the dirt and giving each other black eyes, maybe Bo will be ready to do a little work. "I ain't got no breasts!"
"Of course you do, Bo. Right there, between your shoulders and your belly button. Them there things is called breasts." Okay; anatomy lesson first, then fistfight, and maybe there'll be ten minutes of daylight left for digging.
Bo's chin is down as close to his chest as his neck will allow. "They ain't breasts, Luke." Bo is not amused. "They're just… what every man has."
Luke shakes his head. "Too pretty for that, cousin. Nope, those are breasts." He stands up from where he's been trying to get the blade of his shovel under a rock that might just go all the way down to the core of the earth. "This is what a man looks like," and he helpfully turns to profile in demonstration. "What you got there… too many curves."
Bo's going to second base with himself now. Double-fisted groping in a way that would have any girl in the county wiggling and cooing under his fingertips. Shovel falls by the wayside to make way for this very important activity. "No way, Luke. These ain't breasts. I've felt enough of them to know, these ain't them."
"Shoot," Luke says, and he's seeing the merits in Bo's talk-don't-work method of spending the day. His back is relaxing into the stretch he's giving it right now. "It's one of them things like feeling for fever. It ain't nothing you can tell on yourself; the perspective's all wrong. Take my word for it." Luke twists his neck to the right with a rewarding pop or two, before pointing in Bo's general direction. "Breasts."
"Oh yeah?" Bo snaps, and his face is getting red now. If Jesse were here he'd think Bo had exerted more than his ire, might think he was coming down with heat stroke even. Fortunately, Luke doesn't expect to see the old-timer out here today; he made it pretty clear he'd be staying near the house with its relatively cool porch. "Then feel for yourself. They ain't breasts." And the peacock is strutting right up to Luke, totally lacking in powers of self-observation. Seems like a man that spends as much time in front of the mirror as Bo does would know that sticking out his chest like he's doing now gives him the most feminine figure he can be accused of having.
"I ain't got the feel them, Bo," Luke scoffs, before his cousin gets too far along with this bright idea. "I can see them. They're very nice." Finds himself wondering at what he was thinking, adding that last part.
Whatever he had in mind, it stumps Bo, but only for a second. "No, Luke, you can't see them, because they ain't there. Come on," he adds, still advancing. "Feel."
"Bo," Luke warns. "I ain't touching your tits." Because when they were all that way across ruts of dirt, they were breasts. Now that they're practically on top of him, there's no mistaking them for anything but what they are: tits.
"What," Bo asks him, with all the wisdom of a four-year-old. "You scared? Afraid to find out that they ain't so… curvy as you think?"
Yeah, that's exactly it, he's scared. "I ain't got to touch them to know they're as round as a girl's. Now get back over there, pick up that shovel and do some work." Just like Luke's setting about to do.
Which isn't the smartest thing he's done all day, it turns out. Turning toward the trench means presenting Bo with his bare back, something the kid has never dealt with intelligently. Usually it means a tantrum, but today it gets Luke fondled from behind. Bo's arms around him, copping a quick feel of what they could both easily agree Luke doesn't have.
"Your breasts are nice, Luke," Bo whispers, dirty, close to his ear. Tickles, both where Bo's soft, smooth, never-done-an-honest-day's-work hands are, and then the way his breath is grazing against Luke's skin. "Solid little bundles."
A solid elbow to Bo's stomach puts an end to that. The idiot's on the ground gasping for air. Should be mad, this ought to be a fistfight in a second, and Luke's about as ready as he's ever been for something like that. What he's not ready for is the smile he gets, even as Bo's catching his breath.
"They really aren't all that bad to touch, cuz. Come on, You can feel mine." Because that's the way the game works. I'll show you mine, you show me yours.
Bo's trying to disarm him with that charming little smile, the thing that's always gotten him enough sweets to rot out all of his teeth, but it won't work. "I ain't got no plans to touch you, Bo."
He gets a shrug for that. "Your loss," is Bo's assessment of the situation. Poor Luke, missing out on all the fun again. And that's just fine, if that's Bo's definition of fun, he can keep it to himself. "Come on," Bo says, sticking out a hand. "Help me up so's we can get back to work."
Oh, Luke's not falling for that. Bo has never offered to do a second's worth of work without being firmly threatened with the loss of dinner for a week.
"Help yourself up," he suggests. Doesn't turn his back again, just watches his cousin pull himself to his feet with that same smile. In fact, his eyes never leave Bo's body all the way up until he's bending down to pick up the shovel he so casually dropped in the name of feeling himself up.
"Well, come on, Luke," Bo says, actually digging his blade into some loose dirt. "Let's get to work." Oh, sure, like Luke's the one that's been slacking off all this time.
He watches while Bo actually seems to settle into a rhythm of chop-and-throw before he goes back to working at that stone he was trying to dig out a few minutes ago. It's an obstinate bugger, just as lazy and immovable as his cousin is. But like all stubborn objects, it is no match for the strength and resolve of Luke Duke. As he lifts it out in victory, he catches Bo's eye. Mr. Tri-Counties has actually managed to make a few feet of progress, even if he is looking up to favor Luke with a cheerful smile right now.
Luke can manage ten feet to Bo's three, and he sets out to prove it. Goes after the soil of the land he grew up loving with a vengeance, sending the dust flying into the air around him, then looks up to gauge his progress against Bo's. Finds the grinning idiot looking right back, and still doing a halfway believable job of working. Luke's trench is longer and deeper, but Bo's is actually respectable. Which just goes to prove the man is capable of more then he lets on.
"What are you smiling at?" Luke snarls through the grit that has settled on his shoulders, face and between his teeth.
Bo shakes his head at cousins with bad attitudes. "The sun's shining, ain't it? I ain't got no reason not to smile." And just look at all those white teeth. Seems like Luke's the dust magnet, because there's no way Bo would be grinning so pretty if he was eating as much grime as Luke has been.
But that's just fine, far be it for Luke to expect his cousin to actually get dirty. Oh, he'll swear he is – later, when they get back to the house and Bo demands the first crack at a hot shower. There's no doubt that until that time, Bo will stay upwind of any soil that gets aloft.
By the third time Luke catches Bo's sunshine smile aimed at him, he's had enough.
"What the hell," he spits out. "Are you so dang happy about?"
Bo shrugs. "You feel good."
What? "That don't even make no sense, Bo." And there's no way it's heatstroke; granted Bo's working harder than he usually does, but it's not like he's digging all the way to China or anything.
For the first time, the smile fades, but that's not what worries Luke. No, of greater concern is what follows it, that thing that looks sort of like pity.
"You don't understand, Luke." Then, like that old Junior High principal whose office Luke spent more than his share of time in, Bo shakes his head sorrowfully at smart boys who really ought to know better. (It's an uncanny imitation really, that leaves him scrambling to remember whether Bo could have been relegated to the school office as often as Luke was.) "Come here," Bo offers, reaching out a hand.
"No thanks," Luke answers, looking at the gap he's been opening in the ground. "I'm all set." Whatever Bo's offering, Luke's pretty sure he's already got.
He hears the newly dug dirt crunch and looks up to see that Bo has taken a step or two closer, hand still outstretched. "You know you want to," he offers.
"Want to what?" Luke hesitates long enough to ask, when he should have started running back at you feel good. That little pause hurts him, gives Bo time to grab onto his hand.
Fists, his hands should always been knotted up in fists when dealing with Bo. But he's late on that, too, doesn't pull back or tighten down fast enough. Gets a handful of slime for his falter when his hand is pulled into a quick graze of Bo's chest.
"Bo!"
"Well you ain't gonna get anything out of it if you go pulling away like that. You got to feel around, Luke."
He has no intention of feeling anything, all he really wants is to wipe his hand off, and not on his own jeans. Reaches forward to christen Bo's and is abruptly surrounded by an impossibly long arm.
"Bo!" he complains again, though it gets muffled and cut off by the shoulder that's suddenly in his mouth.
He can hear the smile in Bo's voice, even as he's smothered into his cousin's chest.
"Well," the grabby one says. "I wasn't going to move on quite this quick," he explains, as his hands roam down Luke's back to his belt line. "But you started it." And then all thought stops, as Mr. Tri-Counties grabs two solid handfuls of things his hands have no place touching. Half pulls, half pushes until they meet everywhere from chest to knees.
Slippery, that's mostly what he's aware of at first, no place to get a grip and push them apart.
"Relax," Bo counsels. "You'll feel good."
Yeah, that's half the problem, really. When he gets past the thinking, there's only the feeling, and this kind of good, he's maybe not ready to feel.
"Relax," Bo tells him again, getting in close to his ear just like Aunt Lavinia used to a million years ago, the kind of place no one is his family has ever dared to go since. "I won't hurt you."
Luke sighs, relaxes, and lets his arms wrap loosely around Bo's hips. Almost like a hug except for where Bo's hands are and what they are doing, and Luke has no desire to put a stop to that.
"See? You feel good." Yeah, he feels good – and so does Bo.