Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“ Y
ou want to what?”
West chuckled, the beer bottle making the softest zhuzh noise as it lifted off the coffee table. It was altogether too cold to sit outside, and Trey looked forward to their daily post-supper visits enough that he wasn’t giving them up. So they were ensconced in the big den, sitting side by side on the sofa. “We want to raise service dogs. Nate’s been looking into it, and I’ve got numbers here for you. We can get him certified, and then we start raising dogs.”
“I mean, can he do that? What kinds of dogs?” Trey asked.
“There’s all sorts of dogs that we can breed, and once they needed specialty training, the pups would go to different schools. You know, for like, say for a seeing eye dog, that sort of thing, but we get them, we breed them, we raise them up as puppies. We do the basic training. I swear to you, Nate’s been researching, and some of the dogs that are not so specialized that are for people that need help with mobility or balance, those we can train up ourselves. We’ve caught a whole thing. Honest to God, you should see how these dogs do.”
Trey stared at West. Well, stared was a strong word. He kind of stared at a dot that used to be West. Now, it wasn’t totally black, but it was sort of a shape where West probably was. And so he stared at it. He didn’t have a problem with any of this. Why would he? Dogs were cool. Trey liked dogs. They were way more friendly than cows as a rule. So, why not?
Still, he was going to make West work for it a little bit.
“Where are you going to put them?” he asked. “I mean, that sounds like a lot of animals.”
“Well, we’ve already got the kennel. I think it would be just a matter of improving and building out on that. But I do think that we’ve already got a nice pack of dogs. Right now. I think if we bring in another breeding pair of border collies and maybe a couple of labs… I think Nate was saying he would like to start breeding labs or retrievers. Also, he was thinking about seeing if you wouldn’t want Valentine to come live over here.”
Trey frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. “The little Sheltie? Is there something wrong with him? Is he okay?” He liked that little one best out of all of them, really. Possibly because he was so different and that made it easier to tell him apart from all the others.
The Sheltie was pretty gentle but smart. Trey wouldn’t want to take him away from his friends, though.
“No, no, I just thought that puppy needs a family, not just to be part of a pack. He’s so smart, and Nate already has his heart dog in Quinn. And you know, you’re a family…”
“That is the rumor, yes.” Trey smiled at West, finally giving up on the tease. “Honey, you know I don’t care if you want to do dogs, if you think that this is the smartest thing to do. I like dogs. Let’s do it.”
“You mean it? It’ll mean a ton to that kid. Keep a good cowboy on the ranch working, and—” West leaned forward. “This is a good idea.”
“I don’t have a problem with it. I mean, if you think that I should be like more of a boss, and make Nate write up a proposal, we can totally do it that way too, so that he knows how to do that. But I honestly don’t care. If you think it’s a good idea, I trust you.”
“Cool. Thanks, honey. I really like the idea. I thought… I mean, you know folks in the tech community. Maybe you could look for a grant.”
Trey tilted his head. “Well, I can try. I mean, Mal knows a goodly bit about that since she got that grant for that little goat yoga gal.”
West slapped a hand on his thigh, making Trey jump. “There you go. See? I knew you’d know.”
He tried not to preen over that, because clearly West was playing into him, but it didn’t matter. It worked.
“So now we’re going to become a dog farm.” He smiled so West knew was joking. He wanted West to feel comfortable being here with him. God knew Trey was so used to his presence already. It was as if he’d put on his favorite robe again. He knew he couldn’t wear it in public, but it was still perfect. “Are you going to get sheep?”
“What?”
“Sheep. For herding. I mean, that’s something the dogs can do, right? Herd sheep?” He didn’t know a single thing about sheep. He knew a lot about goats, weirdly, because he’d done that in 4-H one summer when he was home. He’d had to go back to school, so he didn’t get to show them at any fairs or anything, but he’d loved on the goats a lot. That was where he’d found out goats carried lice. That part had been great.
West didn’t answer about the sheep, so Trey figured he’d stunned the cowboy into a stupor. It was a great weapon to have in his arsenal—wand of cowboy-stunning.
“I promised Noah we’d take him into town to do the trunk or treat. I mean, I’ll take him. Well, I did say we, so if you don’t want to go, he’s going to be disappointed.” He rolled his eyes. “But, you know, I?—”
“Don’t be a dipshit, Trey. Of course. I’ll take you all to go trick or trunk or treating.” West shifted on the sofa to face him now, the beer bottle set aside. “Did they decide on costumes?”
“Uh-huh.” West smelled so good. The mixture of leather, soap, sandalwood, orange, and sage made him a little dizzy. It had always been good, but now? That scent was heady. “Zoe is going to be a baby shark, and Noah is going to be Spider-Man. There was a lot of hollering about having to wear a coat over his Spider-Man costume, so I also got him a Spider-Man coat just in case. Zoe’s coat fits underneath her baby shark costume.”
“I didn’t even know there was a baby shark costume,” West admitted, and their knees touched.
“Oh, yeah. There totally is. It’s actually kind of cute, and it’s warm and easy to move around in so she should be fine.” Trey noticed that West wasn’t moving away, and that little point of contact was going to light on fire, right through their jeans. “Mal got them Halloween light-up pumpkin bags, which they’re both very excited about.”
“Does Mal want to take them trick or treating instead?”
She did, but he wanted his car time with West. “Oh, she’s coming. She and her man. They’re both going to come out, and they’re taking pictures of a bunch of people. That reminds me, I’m supposed to talk to you about Thanksgiving.” Did you want to spend it with me? “Whether or not we’re going to need a ranch Thanksgiving. Or if you would prefer that I provide some kind of a feast the week before Thanksgiving, and then have everyone do Thanksgiving elsewhere. You just need to tell me what you want me to do so that I can get it catered.”
“Oh, honey, I?—”
Fuck. That sounded like a no. “And also the Christmas parade. Apparently we have people who are supposed to do that here, and it’s expected. I have to figure out a way to get the kids involved, because Ben says that’s important. So if you could, like, do the thing.”
He wasn’t exactly sure what the thing was. Once upon a time the cowboys had ridden horses in the parade. He vaguely remembered some kind of a sleigh or carriage situation. He knew they couldn’t have a sleigh because there wouldn’t be snow on the roads, but if a horse could pull a sleigh, it could pull a carriage. Maybe that would be the good thing to do, but he didn’t know because to be honest, he hadn’t paid attention.
He’d been gone a long time, and then when he came home, he hadn’t been as involved as he was now. That was fucking sad because he was pretty not involved at this very moment, was he?
“Okay, let’s break this down. Right now, we have one day laborer starting this week, and one hand starting next week. But he’ll be in the bunkhouse. The day laborer and his wife might like to go off to see family, but I think the guys would rather stay here. You want to have a thing with them, or just have Mark cook up a big meal and take the lion’s share down to the bunkhouse?”
“You want to eat here? With us?”
“If you’ll let me, then yes I do.” West put a hand on his leg. “I got a lot to be thankful for, and I want to share it with you and the kids.”
“I’d like that.” Relief whooshed through him, and he grinned. “A lot. Okay, I’ll talk to Mark. If nothing else, he can cook Wednesday and then take Thursday off and we can reheat or cook the stuff.”
“That sounds great, honey. Now, about the parade.”
“Yeah. Horses. Sleighs. Something.”
West snorted. “Okay. I’ll make a note to talk to Ben.”
“Perfect.” He chuckled. “I mean, I know it’s a big deal, but it never was to me…”
“No, I reckon you weren’t here for a lot of them.” West didn’t sound mad or anything. More thoughtful. “But I’ll get the lay of the land, and then see if you want to add anything to it.”
“Sure.” Trey eased back in his chair, not breaking contact so much as letting go of tension. “I feel out of the loop all the damn time, but you’re right. Even as a kid, it was when I was in school still, so I couldn’t come to the parade, you know?”
“I can see that.” West sat back too, chair creaking. “But we can do it up right this year so you get to be there if you want.”
“We’ll see, huh?” He had no idea what he wanted. The idea of Christmas just seemed nuts to him this year. He wanted to simply call it and go to the Bahamas or something.
But he had kids. So he couldn’t do that.
“Trunk or treat first,” Trey said.
“Do I need to take Mark in to get candy and all?”
“Oh, we should let the kids come. They’d love to get the candy and decorations for the car.”
“Works for me,” West murmured.
“You sure?”
“Heck yeah.” There was another suck of the beer. “I love taking the kids to Walmart.”
He knew West wasn’t lying. He got a weird happiness out of running those kids around the big box stores. It was truly bizarre.
Trey let himself daydream for a moment on what it would be like if he and West were really back together, and not this weird, pseudo-together with the boss and employee thing and no sex.
He had a feeling it would be pretty damn amazing. Until it wasn’t. And eventually, Humpty-Dumpty would fall.
“What’s the matter, honey? You’re frowning something fierce.”
“Am I?” He had no idea what his face was doing half the time. “Sorry. I was just thinking logistics.” A total lie, but it worked.
“Well, don’t worry too much about it. I got this.”
“Cool. Thanks.”
He had to get his shit together. He told himself that about forty-seven times a day. He couldn’t face the fact that when he’d said to West he wanted to be the sexiest thing ever to somebody that West hadn’t said, “You’re the hottest thing to me”.
That was what was supposed to happen, right?
He’d dropped that little turd in the punch bowl, telling himself he hadn’t dropped it, knowing full well he had.
And then he was supposed to pick it up.
Except he hadn’t.
And now? Here he was with the turd in the punch bowl. It had been so many days now he couldn’t even bring up that he dropped it.
That would be crass.
“All right, honey, I’m gonna go. Thanks for the beer.” West stood and brushed off the legs of his jeans, sighing so soft he barely heard it.
He wanted to reach up, tug the man down for a hard kiss, just to see what he’d do.
“If you decide that you want to go out for candy and stuff tomorrow, let me know.”
“Sounds good, maybe we can go after Noah gets out of school. I mean, since we’re going to be in town anyway.”
“Works for me. Good night, babe.”
He nodded, and then he listened to West go out the door, shutting it carefully, the lock thunking into place and leaving him alone with his thoughts, which felt so damn heavy these days.
Trey blew out a single, hard breath. This whole being a grown-up thing was damn hard. And no matter how much he kept doing it, he kept just having to do it again.
God help him, he was pretty sure he wasn’t qualified for this job.