Chapter 2
MATTY
His mouth was soft. Skilled, even. He made all the right noises at the back of his throat, rubbed his hand down my shaft, and cupped my balls.
But nothing was happening. My cock was more dead than my life during calving season.
One arm behind my head, I stared at the ceiling like it had answers, like maybe if I squinted long enough, it’d spell out what the hell was wrong with me.
Why I couldn’t focus on the wet mouth moving up and down my cock.
Why the stroke of a tongue made me feel slightly sick.
Why the intensity of his brown eyes seemed awfully wrong tonight.
Because one look at Todd in those sexy pink shorts usually had me hard as fuck. What had changed tonight? Why was my head all over the place since I found out—
Nope.
Fuck him.
He didn’t deserve my thought.
“Am I doing something wrong?” Todd raised his head, voice breathy, mouth hovering over my stomach.
“No,” I said quickly, maybe too quickly. I gave him a weak smile and brushed a hand through his long, straight hair. “You’re doing great.”
I wasn’t lying. He was great. Ten years older than me, he was beautiful, femme, all legs and pouty lips.
A couple of years ago, he’d been visiting Bristlecone Springs and fell so in love with the town that he stayed.
When he happened upon the vacancy for a nurse at the clinic, he’d applied and become one of us.
But his personality was too loud, whereas I was more private, so I knew from early on this could never be more than a quick affair. I never expected the spark to fizzle out already.
“This is doing great?” He pouted, still stroking my soft cock. “You usually walk through the front door hard for me. That is very flattering.”
My face burned. Most times I went to Todd strung out on adrenaline, fresh off another fight with Hudson, needing to fuck the anger out of me. And yeah, it usually worked. To a certain degree.
Todd was too…delicate. All long lines and careful movements, more concerned about his hair getting mussed or chipping a nail than grabbing the headboard and letting me ruin him. I’d try to take the edge off with him, but I always left with some of the tension I came with.
I brushed his hand away and sat up. “Look, I’m sorry, but this ain’t happening tonight, so I better go.”
Todd blinked at me from between my knees, confusion flickering in his eyes. He pushed back onto his heels. “Seriously? We don’t have to have sex. We can always talk. There’s a movie—”
“Not really into movies.” Not anymore. Not since he made the movie experience one that could never be replicated. Nor one that I would want to with anyone else.
Dad had said to be discreet, so I was. We used to hole up in that shitty motel on the edge of town. The one with the flickering neon sign and paper-thin walls where the bed creaked louder than the door.
Every Friday night like clockwork, we’d rent a room, carrying takeout and whatever sad-looking VHS tape the gas station still had in the bargain bin.
Usually something ridiculous. Bad westerns with too much dust and not enough plot.
Hudson would stretch out on the bed in nothing but jeans, one arm behind his head, and make snarky commentary like he’d been hired for it.
“This fella couldn’t lasso a fence post if it begged him.”
I’d laugh until I couldn’t breathe, halfway through a mouthful of greasy fries, eyes glued to him instead of the screen. And somewhere between the dying gunman and the dramatic desert stare-downs, he’d pull me in and kiss me like we had all the time in the world.
We didn’t, of course. Thirty-six hours at most. That was all we had before we had to return to the ranch, him an insignificant ranch hand and me the boss’s son.
But those weekends—God, those weekends. They were everything.
Now I couldn’t see a plastic VHS shell without remembering the feel of his fingers tangled in mine, the soft hum of the motel’s broken AC, or the way he’d kiss me slow during the closing credits like he was trying to stretch the ending out a little longer.
“Matty.”
I blinked.
“Matty.”
This time my name was said sharper, more urgent. I turned my head. Todd lay next to me, eyes wide with concern.
“You okay?” he asked, hand hovering like he wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure if he should.
Shit, I was crushing a pillow in my hands, my knuckles white. My heart was pounding way too fast for someone sitting on a bed, and my stomach churned like I’d swallowed gravel.
“Yeah,” I croaked. “Sorry. My mind drifted.”
I vaulted off the bed, grabbed my shirt off the chair, and tugged it over my head. Our show wasn’t supposed to end this way. We were supposed to fuck around for a bit, then call it quits and stay friends.
Todd stood and crossed his arms, the sheet falling from his hips like an invitation I couldn’t take. Not because I didn’t want to, but my fucking cock seemed broken. And it was all his fucking fault.
Ruining my life since four years ago.
When would it stop?
Did he not understand this was the reason I hated him?
I fucking tried.
Every fucking day, I tried not to let him affect me and failed.
“Will I see you tomorrow night?”
My hands hesitated at the buttons of my jeans. I glanced at Todd, at his bare tummy in the soft lamp light, the small silver hoop glinting in his nose. Sexy as hell.
Just… not in a way that ever stirred anything deeper than the physical. And even that wasn’t working tonight.
“We’ll, uh…” I cleared my throat. “We’ll play it by ear.”
His face tightened. “Right. Which is code for you’re never gonna call me again. This isn’t my first rodeo, cowboy.”
I sighed, zipping up. “Come on, don’t do that.”
“At least have the decency to be honest with me, Matty.” He stepped closer, jaw clenched. “Is there someone else?”
“What? No.” I frowned, thrown off by the sharpness in his tone. “Where’s this coming from? We both agreed this would be physical only. No catching feelings.”
Mostly because I’d run empty on feelings four years ago. Poured it all down the Hudson river. Not an ounce was left inside me.
His laugh was short and sad. “It’s funny how different you are when you’re not inside me. So cold and uncaring.”
I winced.
I gotta start listening to Dad more about where I got my dick wet.
“Not going to do this with you, Todd, so there’s no sense in pushing. You know the ranch is all I’m invested in.”
“Yeah, but everything was going fine. Is it a coincidence that you’re like this tonight?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Todd closed his hand around my biceps. “I’m talking about a certain someone’s wife leaving them today.”
I yanked my arm away, the skin across my face feeling like plastic. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I know, okay? More people in this town know about your affair than you think.”
“You’re asking around town about me?”
“You live in a small town, Matty. People are going to gossip.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shook my head in disbelief. “We agreed before this thing started that it was temporary.”
“But I wanted to see if it could become more.”
Without a word, I picked up my shoes, not even bothering to put them on. He’d crossed the line. For someone as private as I was, the idea that he went behind my back, digging into my secrets—four-year-old secrets I fought every day to keep in the past—left my mouth filled with sourness.
“Your silence says everything, Matty. Do you think Hudson’s available now that his wife left him?”
The name cracked through me like a whip.
I pointed at him. “Don’t. You had no right to interfere with my past.”
“Except he’s not your past, is he? Look at the way the mention of him affects you.”
“Hudson means nothing to me!” I shouted, doubling my hands into fists. “Don’t say his name again to me.”
“He fucking works at your ranch.”
“As another ranch hand. Nothing more.” I shook my head. “Why the hell am I explaining myself to you? See you around, Todd.”
I grabbed my keys off the nightstand and stormed out of the house.
“Matty!” Todd ran after me. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s my fault for having any hope you might be interested in me, and I’m sorry. I truly didn’t mean to pry so far back into your past. Matty, please.”
At the front door, I paused and let out a deep breath. “Forget it.”
“I don’t want you to see me as the enemy. It’s a small town. We’re bound to run into each other. We can at least say hello across the food aisle, can’t we?”
I unhinged my jaw, unclenched my fists, and glanced over my shoulder. Hating one person was enough. I didn’t want another conflict with someone I slept with. There was already one man before Hudson I tried to avoid like the plague, and that was hard to do in a small town like ours.
I gave him a nod. “I’ll say hello from across the aisle.”
Todd smiled, but his eyes looked glassy. “Good. I’ll see you around, then. Take care of yourself, Matty. I hope one day you’ll open yourself to being loved again.”
Christ.
I slammed the door shut behind me and walked right into the unexpected rain. Cold pinpricks bit into my skin as I shoved my feet into my sneakers without socks. I didn’t care. I needed to get the hell out of there.
I ran to my truck, water slicking my arms, shirt sticking to my back, gravel sharp beneath my soles. The cab door slammed loudly as I shut the rain out. I started the engine with a rough twist, tires spitting up muddy water as I peeled out of Todd’s driveway.
I didn’t have a destination. I just needed to get away from Todd’s question burning in my skull.
Do you think Hudson’s available now that his wife left him?
Wipers thumped. Headlights cut through sheets of rain. My jaw ached from clenching, and my fingers wouldn’t let go of the steering wheel. I took a left, then another, too focused on the road to think.
Todd’s question was asinine. I wanted nothing at all to do with Hudson Granger. He’d broken my heart in the worst way possible, and seeing him almost every day for the past year only made the feeling of hate in my gut grow.
Screw him.
He deserved this.
He chose that woman over me.
Got her pregnant, then didn’t have the decency to tell me the truth.
Had me all over campus bragging about my man when he was getting hitched.
I slowed down without realizing it, my gaze flicking out the window as the truck rolled past the bend. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then I saw the house.
Hudson’s house. A squat little bungalow that might’ve looked charming if it hadn’t been fighting so hard to stay standing.
The porch sagged slightly on one side, like it was tired.
One of the front steps had been replaced with a different kind of wood—newer, raw, and sanded smooth, like Hudson had meant to finish the job and just never gotten around to it.
The gutters were half-cleared, the siding halfway painted, patches of effort scattered like clues to a man trying—really trying—but always running out of time, energy, or maybe hope.
A new window frame on the left caught the streetlight, a clear upgrade from the older ones, like he’d tackled what he could, when he could.
It wasn’t much to look at, but it was honest. And it pissed me off how much of him I saw in it.
My chest tightened.
Jesus.
I hadn’t done this in over a year. Not since that night I drove by and saw her—his wife—out in the driveway, bracing against the hood of a car, getting spit-roasted by two guys. It was dark, yeah, but I was damn sure neither of them was Hudson.
I’d been wrecked that night.
Seething.
Why her?
Why the hell had he chosen her? Someone who had no shame in sleeping around, even right in their very yard.
He deserved this.
He chose that woman over me.
I gritted my teeth and blinked hard, but the past was already rising like fog through a crack in the windshield. That day at the ranch, so many summers ago. The beginning of everything.
He was already halfway across the field when I caught up with him. Shoulders squared, boots kicking up dust. I’d left Junebug with my dad, heart hammering out of fear that he wouldn’t allow me to explain as I ran after him.
“Hey!” I called, but the wind swallowed it. “Hudson, wait!”
He didn’t. Just kept walking like he wanted nothing more than to put distance between us. I finally caught up, breathless and hot with shame.
He turned, eyes hard. “You gonna lie to me again or just waste more of my time?”
I winced. “I wasn’t lying—”
“You didn’t tell me who you were. Let me flirt with you while you were probably laughing at the idiot shooting his shot at the owner’s son.”
“Wait, what? You were shooting your shot too?”
“You didn’t correct me when I called you Matt,” he muttered, voice low and sharp. “Stupid me should have figured you were Matty, given how Junebug took after you. So now you know, I’m a poor ranch hand who’s also none too bright. Nice to meetcha.”
“What does that got to do with anything?” I shoved my hands into my pockets to avoid reaching out for him.
“You were the first one up this morning, which tells me everything about the hard worker you are.” Shuffling closer, I looked up at him from beneath my lashes.
“Besides, you can still call me Matt. That way, only you do. Makes it special.”
He blinked, like he hadn’t expected that.
“Are you flirting with me?”
I shrugged, cheeks burning. “Only if it’s working. So is it?”
For a second, his face was unreadable. Then he let out a huff and shook his head, a grudging laugh spilling out. “You’re a goddamn mess. Used to getting your way too, I can tell.”
“But is it working?”
He rolled his eyes. “No.”
Oh.
“But I’ll let you buy me a drink tonight to make up for being a fucking ass.”
I grinned and stuck out my hand. “Deal.”
He took it.
The shake should’ve been quick. Just a friendly seal on a truce.
But neither of us let go right away. His palm was rough, warm.
Solid. My fingers curled a little tighter.
His didn’t move. We stood there like that, still clasped, still watching each other, the space between us thickening with something unspoken.
Longer than acceptable. Longer than straight.
I tilted my head. “You sure this isn’t doing it for you?”
Hudson huffed out a laugh, but he broke the contact fast and turned on his heel. “Fuck off,” he tossed over his shoulder.
But his ears were red.
A horn blared behind me, snapping me out of my daze. I hadn’t realized I’d slowed nearly to a stop in the middle of the road.
I pressed the gas again, jerking the truck forward, swallowing the lump in my throat.
What was I even doing?
I wasn’t going to stop. I wasn’t going to knock on his door, see if the porch light meant he was still awake. This wasn’t that story anymore.
And I wasn’t that kid, running breathlessly across a field for someone who would never be faithful.
I pressed harder on the gas and drove away, headlights slicing through the dark, rain hammering against the windshield like it had something to say I had no interest in hearing.