Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
T he bouncy castle was full, kids squealing and laughing and, well, bouncing.
Only one of them had puked. Next time, West thought they should maybe have cake after the bouncing. But there had been yellow cake with chocolate icing, fudge ripple ice cream, and all the Mario stuff the party section of the Safeway had carried.
There had even been a clown until Zoe had peed herself and held her breath until she passed out.
Then Noah had practically squeezed his and Trey’s hands off, whispering, “Make it go. Make it go.”
They’d paid the clown, who had simply chuckled and told them it happened that way sometimes.
And now, all was back to well.
“Da! I’m bouncing.”
The older kids from Noah’s class were being real gentle with Zoe, and she was in seventh heaven. And in clean clothes.
“Is she okay?” Trey asked from his lawn chair.
“They’re fine. They’re bouncing.” He glanced over at Trey, rolling his eyes. “I think you need more sunscreen.”
For a kid who’d grown up on a ranch, he swore Trey was the palest freckeldy looking-kid ever, and he still burned like there was nothing going.
“I know, I know. I was in the shade, and the sun moved. It’s coming to get me.” Trey grinned at him, eyes hidden by the sunglasses. “Thanks for all your help with the birthday party. Kids are having a ball.”
“Yeah, it’s amazing the difference a month makes, isn’t it?”
They’d left Noah at the school a terrified little five-year-old, and within a month this kid was a goddamn superhero. He’d made friends. He had play dates. He was blossoming. He was still madly in love with his teacher. The best thing they could have done was to get that kid in school. Trey had done a great job.
He did think it was a little odd that Trey was teaching Zoe coding while they were home together alone without Noah though.
Almost three seemed young.
But together they were building this little robot that was voice-controlled and rolled all around the house when Zoe told it where to go.
Those two needed a dog in the worst way.
Robots were fine and all, but damn.
“I think that we maybe should buy a bouncy castle.”
West stared at Trey. “What?”
He got a wicked grin. “Seriously, we put the kids in there Friday night, we let them bounce until Sunday afternoon. They sleep until Monday. It would be great. Think of all the exercise and the strong lungs and legs and stuff.”
“Uh-huh. I think maybe you’ve had too much sun. Do you need a drink?” He wondered sometimes about the weirdness that was Trey’s brain. Once upon a time, it had really scared him, the randomness and weirdness. He was older now, and he understood there was a place for randomness and weirdness, even on a ranch.
Trey shrugged, but sat up. “Actually, you know what, I am going to get me a drink. So you want something while I’m up?”
“Sure. Could you grab me a Dr Pepper?”
“Absolutely. Those are easy to pick out in the crowd.” Trey stood and headed over to the picnic tables holding all the food, and the cooler set beside it.
West saw the pile of kids’ shoes, though, about two seconds before Trey went flying over and landing hard on the ground.
“Oops.”
“Dammit, babe.” He was up and moving immediately, running over to make sure that Trey was okay and help him up off the grass.
“Da, are you okay?” Noah sounded panicked.
Trey waved one arm. “I’m good, I just tripped, no big deal.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, I should have moved those shoes.” He felt so damn guilty. He knew better. He just hadn’t thought about Trey’s difficulty.
“West, it’s cool. I fall down. I can’t see it if it’s in the right spot, you know that. Just chill, don’t scare the kids. I’m not hurt.”
“Yeah, still I don’t…” He didn’t want to see Trey fall down. He didn’t approve of any of this shit. This shit pissed him off. Trey was a good guy and he was going blind, and it made him angry because God sucked.
And he hated this and he didn’t approve, not one bit, and?—.
“West! Pay attention. We’re getting a drink, remember? A Dr Pepper, and I think I want the Sprite.”
“You got it, honey. Brush off your kit. You’re all dry grass and dirt.” West went to grab a drink, tracking Trey out of the corner of his eye.
Trey brushed himself off, then moved to the food table. “What do you want, West?”
“I’d take some potato salad and another sausage.” He wasn’t going to baby Trey if Trey didn’t want it. The growly protective part of his brain wanted to. But Trey was right.
Shit happened.
He just had to breathe.
He got the drinks, then went to set them down so he could move Trey’s chair. “I moved you into the shade, honey.”
“Thanks.” Trey handed him a plate, neatly avoiding the shoes this time. “Oh, that is better. Man, that sun is beating down today.”
“Yeah.” West ate, watching the kids again, making sure they were good. They were going to have to stop to hydrate soon.
West found himself looking back over at Trey. It was as if his eyes couldn’t stop.
Not that it mattered. Trey couldn’t tell.
But anybody else? Any grown human being could see him and know he couldn’t stop stealing glances.
He never had been able to. There was something about the little fuck that called his name, like on a kind of balls-deep level.
No one would believe that pale, little towhead would be a fucking tiger in bed either.
Trey had a vaguely insipid appearance, especially in photos. It was sort of as if he were made of milk or cheese.
It was a lie.
There was nothing, absolutely nothing about Trey that wasn’t pure lightning, a fire that threatened to burn him right to the ground. There never had been.
Their first time had been in a bathroom stall in an auction house, smack dab in the middle of the day with Trey’s goddamn grandfather at the auction with them. He’d seen Trey across the auction floor, sitting on the bleachers with a straw hat, tight jeans, and a Katy Perry T-shirt and known.
His gaydar had been primed, and he had to be honest, Trey screamed I’m as queer as a three-dollar bill.
Which kind of led him to wonder.
“Hey, babe.”
He got one of those arched eyebrows. “What?”
“Were you and the kids’ mom really not?” He kind of shrugged and waved his hands, unsure of how to ask his question at a six-year-old’s birthday party. He finally settled on waggling his eyebrows, like Trey could see that for sure. “You know…”
Trey tilted his head and twisted his lips. “Sleeping together? Bumping uglies? Making the monster with two backs?”
“Trey!” He stared over, shocked.
“What? I didn’t say the F-word. There are kids here. They can’t hear us, but there are kids here.”
“Okay!” Why had he started this? Did he have a death wish? “So yes, that’s what I want to know. Were you into each other?” God, what was wrong with him? You didn’t ask your boss this sort of thing.
Or your ex.
“Oh, my dear sweet summer child.” Trey rolled his eyes, the dark sunglasses pulled down to the end of his nose like a school marm’s or a librarian’s.
Sexy librarian was a good look for Trey.
“I am gay. Like unapologetically gold-star gay. I mean that unironically, and also I’m not bragging, it’s just that I can’t do it with a girl. Not personal, just the truth. I’m into men. Not to mention that she had cancer. Like throwing up constantly, hair falling out, sobbing, burned boobies from radiation treatment cancer . I loved her with all my heart. She was one of my dearest friends. I would have done anything for her. Sex was not on the table, because… damn.”
“Not even if she’d asked?”
“You’ve seen Fight Club one too many times. Get your mind out of the gutter.” Trey shook his head. “Seriously, man. Kait was amazing, and I was honored that she trusted me to be there in the worst hours of her life, but even if you had come in and offered me everything I ever wanted? I didn’t have enough energy for an erection. I was caring for two babies, going blind, and witnessing the end of life of a twenty-four-year-old who wanted to live.”
Trey pushed his glasses back up to hide the tears.
“I’m sorry.” West was. He should never have brought it up. Seriously. “That sounds like hell.”
“It was. I just wanted to fall over with her some days. But the kids kept me going once she was gone. And then went through two housekeepers and a dozen cowboys and three foremen.” Trey sighed, then popped the top on his drink and sucked down half of it, maybe.
“I bet.” He remembered when he was a teenager and his granny had died of colon cancer. Watching her waste down to nothing had been soul-destroying. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.
From now on, he needed to keep his goddam mouth shut when he had a question.
“You’re vibrating, West.”
“Huh?” He tried for innocent. “I’m eating potato salad.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“No, sir. I am mad at myself for stepping right in it.” A kid started to cry, and West set his plate aside to go see what was up. “Be right back.”
Everyone was hot, and they needed water.
Trey should have kept his damn mouth shut.
He’d thanked West for all the help, sent all the leftover food to the cowboys, and cleaned up with Mark.
He hadn’t been going for ugly or nothing. He was being honest, letting West see how awful it had been for a second, but that was a mistake.
They weren’t lovers.
They weren’t even friends.
They were nothing more than ranch owner and foreman, and it was time for Trey to fucking remember that.
Especially since West had avoided him for the rest of the afternoon, and had stayed down by the kids.
Which had left him kind of high and dry until Ben stopped by to sit for a minute when he came up to wish Noah happy birthday.
He’d told Ben the clown story, and the old fart had grinned. “Clowns is scary, Trey.”
Now he was sitting out on the porch, the kids in with Mark watching a movie through their eyelids. And he was… lonely.
But that was his shit to deal with.
The sound of boots scraping on the step made him jump, because the sun was setting and that made it hard to see.
“Trey?” West asked from the bottom step. “You got a minute?”
“Is something wrong with the ranch?”
“No.” West hesitated, and he could almost hear the gears whirring in his brain.
“Then it’s not business?” He was trying not to snarl, but he sure wanted to. He had no idea what West wanted, but he was pretty certain he wasn’t in the mood.
“No. Sorry. I— sorry. I just wanted to apologize for earlier today. I was out of line. You have a good night.”
“Wait.” Shit, why did he always do this? He should have let West go. “Did you eat supper?”
“Lord, no. I ate enough cake and ice cream to kill the cow who produced the milk.”
He chuckled. “Well, I might have a frozen pizza later.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Want a beer in the meantime?”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Have a beer?” Trey rolled his eyes. “What did I do that was so freaking bad, man? I wasn’t yelling at you, I was just telling you the truth. You don’t want to have a beer, don’t have a beer.”
Why the hell did Mal’s husband have to have his fucking family vacation deal this week? It was terrible timing, dammit. He could use her friendship right this second.
Or at least her clarity.
“I shouldn’t have asked about the kids’ mom.”
“Why not? I mean, it’s a fair question. She gave me her children, for fuck’s sake.” She’d needed to know they were taken care of, and she’d known how much he loved them. He’d had Zoe since she was three months old. Neither one of them remembered another father.
“Where’s their dad? Dads?”
“There’s only one dad. He was in the service. He was killed in a training accident. That’s why she was getting a job doing housekeeping for me. She’d been living in Killeen in Texas, and she just couldn’t do it anymore. This place was different. In the mountains.” She’d wanted something new.
She’d gotten cancer.
“Damn.”
Trey nodded, tired to his bones. “Indeed. Now are you going to come sit down and have a beer, or are you going to go away?”
There was a long pause, then a soft sigh. “I’m gonna come sit down and have a beer.”
“Grab me one out of the fridge too, please.” He felt like he’d just had the world’s tiniest, weirdest war.
“Will do.”
His phone rang, and he had to grin. Of course it was Mal. Why wouldn’t it be her? This was their sit-and-bullshit time.
“Hey, sweetie. What’s up?”
“I am losing my mind. These people are driving me batty. I want a beer.”
“You can’t have a beer—remember you’re pregnant, so just go with it.” He fought his chuckles. “You did marry someone from Florida. All the nuts roll downhill to Florida…”
“Shut up. How was the party?”
“It was amazing. I wish you could have been here. We had to send the clown home.”
“Good. Clowns are unnatural.” She sighed softly. “Me too. God, I wish I could be there too. The party would have been way more fun than shoe shopping with Georgia. I’m going to take Noah shopping to buy video games. That? Will be a blast.” She sighed softly. “I gotta go. I just wanted to check in, say I’m sorry that I missed everything.”
“I am too.” She was having her own life. She didn’t have the time to just be central to his life anymore. “We missed you, but there will be other birthdays. Soon it’ll be your birth day .”
“Not yet, I got a few months. Like five. Gotta run. Gonna go pretend to be able to eat that shit that she calls food. Love you, bye.”
He hung up laughing hard, and West asked. “Mal? How’s she doing?”
“Trying to eat the in-law’s food. Man, it must be love.”
“No shit on that.” West sat down with a grunt. “That girl is something else.”
“You have no idea, man. She is a firecracker.”
“I’m so sorry about earlier. I feel like shit.”
“Why? It was an honest question.”
“Made me feel dirty.”
Trey shrugged. “It was what it was. I don’t wanna be glib and say it was just life, but it was. It was just kind of the gross part of life. I didn’t learn anything. I don’t think she did either. There was no magic in all that hurting and sickness. There was desperation. She was freaking out about making sure her kids were going to be okay. That’s it. That was the whole deal. Just desperation.”
West handed him a beer and settled in next to him. “That sucks. It really does, honey. I just don’t want to upset you.”
“You’ve been gone a while.” Trey shrugged. “That means you’ve got questions.”
“I’ll just be better about how I ask them.” Wry humor had crept into West’s voice now.
“I appreciate that. You know I’ve never been one to mince words.”
“Oh, hell, honey. I do know. But you used to be a little less go for the throat when I was an idiot.”
He snorted. “I guess I’m distilled down these days. I don’t have a lot of time for diplomacy.”
Trey hadn’t been pissed, for chrissake. He’d answered a question. He had to wonder if West hadn’t liked what he had to say.
“I guess not. How’s Noah?”
“He’s six and he’s got presents, and he’s exhausted, and he’s been there watching movies. Or at least that’s what he says he’s doing. He’s probably sound asleep.” Trey snorted. “We got him into the bathtub, got him out without a meltdown. Zoe didn’t even make it as far as the first ocean scene in Moana .”
He sat there with his eyes closed to drink his beer. Every so often, he wondered if this wasn’t like some weird prison sentence.
Fifteen more years.
Fifteen and a half more years.
Fifteen years and nine months until Zoe graduated from high school.
By then, Noah would almost be out of college. Then maybe he could travel a lot again or find a boyfriend, except by then he wouldn’t be able to see it all. That would suck.
But then, the good news was he had money. He could just hire someone to pretend to like him and drag him around the world by his collar.
Wasn’t that a movie? Trey was pretty sure it was in a movie. He thought it had even won an Oscar.
He chuckled softly, rolled his eyes at himself. Ah, first world problems.
“What’s funny?”
“I was thinking about prison.”
There was a sudden, shocked silence. “‘Prison’?”
“That’s what I was thinking about. Prison.”
“And it made you laugh?”
Not as much as this conversation was going to make him laugh when he replayed it in his head. “Uh-huh.”
“You’re a weird little man, did you know that? Does anybody ever tell you that?”
“Oh, all the damn time. You were telling me that ten years ago? Fifteen even.” Sometimes it was a compliment. Sometimes it wasn’t.
“I still mean it. You’re a weird little man.”
“Yep. I am one-of-a-kind.”
“Yes. Thank God there’s not more than one of you on Earth. I’m not sure that I could handle two of you.”
He wasn’t sure if he should he insulted or amused. Trey figured he would go for amused. He was only a little bruised from falling, his son’d had a great day, and he had a beer.
Amused won.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it anyway. You’re just helping me out, not dating me.”
There was an even longer silence, and he opened his eyes, squinting to try to see West’s expression. It was kind of like he was melting, though. Damn.
“Sure, honey.” He heard West swallowing, drinking his beer.
“You okay?” he finally asked, not sure what he was standing on. This was like playing the lava floor game.
“Hell, Trey, I don’t know. I keep thinking I want to be your knight in shining armor, but I’m not sure you need one.”
He didn’t have to think about his answer. “Nope, I do not need a knight in shining armor. I need an orgasm. Which I guess would make you officially my knight in shining armor, if you gave me one, but I don’t need rescuing. I’m blind. I’m not an invalid. I need—" Trey shook his head, fed up with the world. “Wait? Why are we having this conversation? You feel sorry for me? I want somebody who thinks I’m the hottest thing since sliced bread, and I’m not going to settle for any less than that. If I do have to settle, then I’ll pay cash for the honor. That’s cool, you know what I mean? I’m totally happy to be friends.”
Of course, happy was a strong term, but he could settle for friends if he had to. He’d possibly settle for employee and boss, but he was not going to settle for pity fucks.
He deserved better than a pity fuck.
In fact, he was way hotter than pity fuck-hot, and he had enough money to where he was pretty sure he didn’t ever have to settle for a pity fuck, even if he was butt-ugly, blind, and couldn’t get it up.
He knew for a fact there were lots of people who had money and couldn’t get it up, that got more than a pity fuck.
So there.
Ha.
The silence hit him, and it occurred to Trey that he wasn’t sure how much of that he’d said out loud, but hopefully it wasn’t much.
If he was lucky he’d stopped before he started thinking about pity fucks, but there was no actual telling.
Especially given the fact that West was sitting there as if he’d been turned into a pillar of salt.
“Did it ever bother you that Job’s wife didn’t have a name?”
“What?”
“In the Bible. Job’s wife. She got turned into a pillar of salt, and the assholes didn’t even bother to give her a name of her own.”
“Trey—”
“No, seriously,” Trey went on. “If you’re going to be a cautionary tale, the least you should get is a name.”
“Mmm. Should we name her?”
“What?” Now it was his turn to not follow.
“Ethel. I bet she was an Ethel. Maybe a Blanche, like my aunt who ate an edible some twenty-year-old brought to church in brownies one Sunday and stripped off all of her clothes and did a pole dance on a column on the church porch. You reckon it’s called a porch? Or is it some kind of grand entry? It was a First Methodist, if that makes any difference.”
He sat there for a moment, letting that sink in. Then he cracked up, bending double and holding his belly he was laughing so hard.
“Oh, my God,” he wheezed. “Tell me you made that up.”
“No, sir. Aunt Blanche was always so damn stick-up-the-ass proper. But let me tell you what, she ate half that pan of brownies, and she just ran wild and free, tits a-swinging.”
He howled, slapping his thigh, trying to catch his breath, but he just couldn’t. “Oh, shit. Shit, West. You’re killing me.”
“Hell, that song about that squirrel in Mississippi got nothing on a Central Texas Church in August, Trey.”
He was gonna piss himself. He hadn’t laughed so hard in… possibly ever. Oh, fuck, that felt good. Maybe better than an orgasm. It sure worked most of the same muscles, and it left tears on his cheeks.
West’s chuckles blended with his as they wound down, and he leaned back in his chair, breathing deep. “I think Blanche is the perfect name then.”
“I agree.” West touched his knee, a tiny graze of fingers. It made a spurt of heat shoot through him, his breath catching. Dammit.
“You know you never have to pay for it, right?”
“Shut up. You know that part wasn’t supposed to be said out loud, right?” God, he was a moron.
“I just wanted to be clear. You’re something else, even after all this time. You’re still my Mr. Right.”
Trey knew better.
West’s Mr. Right was a cowboy. Like an old-time roping, riding, riding off into the sunset cowboy.
West’s Mr. Right didn’t write code. He didn’t have patents.
It just wasn’t him.
It was sweet for West to believe it, but Trey wasn’t stupid.
He did offer West a smile, though. “I might settle for being your Mister Right-Now.”
“No.”
“Wow, that was quick.” Quick did hurt less than slow, he supposed.
“Don’t misunderstand— I want you. I just don’t want to settle. I don’t want you to settle. But, just know, James Matthew Blanton, the Third. I got designs on you.”
Trey didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So he went with laughing. “It’s good to know. It’s been a long time since I’ve been wooed by a cowboy. It worked the first time. You might have a shot.”
“I might at that. I’m older and wiser now. But I ain’t gonna push. Unless you really do want that orgasm tonight.”
He had a wild thought about throwing off his clothes like dear old Aunt Blanche and riding West like a stripper pole, but that was probably unwise.
He still needed to have that frozen pizza, and the kids would need to be put to bed.
Trey did have to grin at West, though. “It’s a thought, but I can wait. After all, I don’t want to give it up too easily.”
He wasn’t giving anything he hadn’t already given up to West a hundred times anyway.