8. Phoenix
Phoenix
“ H ey, babe, grab me another beer, will you?” Dylan shouts to Jake from his float in the lake.
Knox anchored his wake boat in our usual cove and everyone is catching up, having a drink, floating, and enjoying hanging out. Dylan’s request is answered immediately by Jake who had already hopped back on the boat anyway to reapply his sunscreen.
I watch with rapt attention as Jake takes the beer can down the boat steps and swims it to Dylan. When he gets to the float, Jake holds the beer out of Dylan’s reach, forcing his husband to kiss him as payment for the delivery service.
Something about the gesture guts me.
Dylan grabs Jake by the back of his neck and pulls him to himself, not bothering to hide the amount of tongue he’s using. At some point, Jake lowers the can of beer and places it on Dylan’s muscular chest, but Dylan continues to tongue-fuck him anyway, all thoughts of the beer cast aside.
“God, they really know how to kiss, don’t they?
” Cassie asks. She’s kicked her way over to me, forearms draped over a pool noodle as her feet dangle in the murky lake water below.
There’s no point in trying to pretend I wasn’t staring, so I stay quiet and give a noncommittal nod, even though in my head I’m vehemently agreeing.
They make kissing look like it could be the main act.
Watching Jake and Dylan always takes me back to the last time I felt a man’s hard body beneath my fingers, toyed with his pecs, felt the velvety-smooth head of his cock. It was the best moment of my life…right until it became the worst.
“I would ask if they make you want to settle down anytime soon, but Jake tells me you’re doing just fine destroying all the hearts and private parts of the town’s willing population. Seems plenty of women still want to take Phoenix Harding for a ride,” Cassie teases, bumping her shoulder into mine.
Finally, I tear my gaze away from Jake and Dylan and slide it to Cassie with an arched brow. “Why are you talking to Jake about my sex life? Jealous?” I’m teasing back, but it comes out flat.
The truth is, watching Jake and Dylan fucking hurts, but I’m hellbent on doing it anyway.
When they decided to elope because they didn’t want the drama of a big wedding after what they’d endured, I hate to admit I was relieved.
The way they look at each other is captivating and it draws me in, but I’ve lost all hope that anyone will ever look at me like that again, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to stomach the incessant hearts in their eyes for one another.
Next to me, Cassie lowers her voice so only I can hear.
“You might be fooling the rest of these blind-ass idiots, but I see the way you watch Jake and Dyl. You’re missing someone, and if I had to bet, that someone isn’t a woman.
” My eyes whip to hers, telling her she’s right, but I try to recover anyway.
“I watch Hud and Shannon too,” I admit before hearing how creepy that sounds. “I mean, I just like watching my friends be happy. And to your earlier comment, I do think about settling down sometimes.”
In fact, I think about it all the time.
“Hey, I’m not judging you, but you have to remember, my other half is a super attractive gay man. I know wanton lust when I see it.”
She’s not wrong. Dylan is smoking hot. One of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen actually. Hell, even Hudson gets a boner for Dylan…but Dylan’s taken by a very deserving man.
“If you’re insinuating that I’m lusting after Jake or Dyl?—”
“Not them, Phoe. What they have. ”
“What they have is special. I don’t think everyone’s given a shot at what they have.”
Cassie throws her head back in laughter.
“In this group? I don’t think anyone’s given anything. No, this group takes what they want.”
I laugh against my will. “I suppose you’re right about that.”
Growing serious, she keeps her eyes trained on the friends around us and not on me. I know she’s doing it so I don’t feel like I’m being interrogated as she asks, “So what’s stopping you from going after what you want?”
Despite the hot summer day, I’m suddenly freezing in the water.
I never let myself think about Walker longer than a second.
I’ve spent the last eight years perfecting the ability to ignore his name every time it flits across my mind.
But Cassie’s question opens the flood gates and I can’t hold back the image of Walker clinging to me as I wrung every ounce of pleasure I could find out of his body.
The image of him on his knees with his face to the floor and his ass in the air, trusting me as I drove into him, chasing a feeling I haven’t found since that night, threatens to send me to the bottom of this lake.
Because as much as I hate Walker for shutting me out and taking everything from me, I hate myself even more because I still fucking want him .
“Jesus, Phoe, what’s going on?” Cassie’s hand is on my biceps, squeezing like she’s trying to get my attention.
“Phoenix, you good out there?” Hudson calls from the boat, rubbing sunscreen onto Shannon’s back.
I look around at my friends to find them all staring at me.
“Um, yeah?” I answer before looking at Cassie. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?”
“Because you just let out the most anguished groan any of us have ever heard.”
I did?
Fucking Walker.
I slap on a smile and nod, “Sorry about that. I’m fine.”
But Cassie is far too intuitive to believe my bullshit.
“We’re not done talking about this,” she informs me.
“Cassie, I love you, but yes, we are. There’s nothing to talk about unless you want to finally cave and ride my face like I’ve been begging you to do.”
My joke pisses her off. “Don’t deflect. And definitely don’t deflect using sex. Not with me. We’re deeper than that.”
I smirk. “I would be deeper if you’d finally agree,” I tease again, wrapping an arm around her torso, pulling her to me, grinding her against my thigh in the water.
Thankfully Cassie has a lot of sense, whereas I have none.
She knew Jake and Dylan were endgame, and that she and I will be in each other’s lives for a long time.
Not wanting any awkwardness between us if we were to sleep together, she wrote me, Hud, and Knox off as potential love interests from the start.
“I swear to God, Phoenix, you’d better not be fucking my sister in this nasty ass lake right now!” Dylan yells from a float somewhere to my left.
Cassie flips him the bird. “Worry about your own dick!” she yells before lowering her voice as she wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my torso with the pool noodle between us keeping us afloat. “What the hell are you running from, Phoe?”
“Something I’ll be running from until the day I die,” I finally admit, letting my forehead fall against hers.
“Some thing or some one ?”
“Both,” I whisper brokenly.
“I knew it,” she declares before pressing a gentle kiss to my lips. “Admitting it is a good start.”
Start to what , she doesn’t say.
When I get home, there’s a voicemail on my business phone. It’s the arena letting me know there have been three late add-ons for the upcoming rodeo, and they want to know if I have enough animals to accommodate the riders.
Sure, no problem.
There’s a heaviness in the clouds tonight, guaranteeing rain is on the way, so I throw on my boots and make the rounds in the barn to ensure my horses aren’t freaking out and kicking holes in their stalls.
Trisha, my farmhand, came by while I was out on the lake and took care of the evening chores, which she does while I’m at the fire station as well.
I’m fortunate to have her. Good help on a farm can be difficult to find.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I can afford to pay her three times what the average farmhand makes, but it’s worth it.
The skin-safe flame retardant I patented ensured that I was set for life once my meager earnings from the rodeo ran out.
I’m fortunate to be able to keep my farm running and work at the fire station.
Neither job provides an extravagant income, but they keep me mostly fulfilled—more so than any other career I would have chosen after bronc riding, at least.
I’m headed back inside when my personal cell phone rings this time. Seeing Knox’s name, I answer right away. He’s not usually one for meaningless conversation, so what he has to say is probably important.
“Knox, what’s up?”
“Everyone’s worried about you, but they’re too chickenshit to call you and find out what’s going on.”
I scrub my hand down my face even though he can’t see it.
“Christ Almighty, you bunch of motherfucking hens. I’m fine .” Note to self: don’t answer Knox’s calls anymore. “Besides, it’s you they should be worried about. When was the last time you had a day off or I don’t know…smiled?”
He ignores my comments about him entirely, answering as if I didn’t say a thing. “I told everyone to get off your back, but Cassie has them all on her side.” In a very uncharacteristic chuckle, Knox adds, “You know how she is.”
“Irresistible?” I clarify.
“Precisely,” he confirms before adding, “And in an attempt to drag it out of you, Cassie has convinced everyone we’re going out to Tomahawk.”
“ Tonight? We were together all day on the lake. I’m fucking exhausted and I haven’t even showered yet,” I whine.
“Which one of us is in his forties?” Knox teases. “I know floating in the water must have really tired you out.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I bite back. It’s lost some of its power though because despite my best efforts not to, a grin is lifting one side of my mouth.
“Look, if you want everyone off your back, get showered, meet us at the bar, take a woman or two home with you, and deal with your demons in private,” Knox says, offering some rare, but good advice.
Spoken like a man who has experience fighting his own, I think to myself.
Knowing he’s right, I relent with a groan. “Ughhh, fine. See you in thirty, but Cassie’s buying my beer!”