Nine - All Day #2
I shove my phone in my back pocket, hands deep into the front ones. As I trudge back to the stables and Ruin’s stall, something cold settles in my chest and drops heavy into my stomach. No big deal, I’ll just tell him the news whenever I see him next. It’s…fine.
Ruin looks up from his hay as I reach for his tack, ears flicking toward me. “It’s really just us today, bud,” I tell him. “Your other human is busy.”
The tack room is empty, thankfully. Not in the mood for small talk when my throat just keeps getting tighter .
I spread Ruin’s gear out on the central work table, then gather cleaning supplies and start at it with methodical precision.
I work saddle soap into the leather, the lovely lavender and eucalyptus blend not doing anything for me today.
The leather squeaks on each stroke and seam, echoing against the silence and inside my skull.
Just gotta keep my hands busy and my mind stuck on routine, so maybe my brain will shut the fuck up for five seconds. As if I don’t know better.
What if the kiss was just...a moment? A magical beat in time that felt right in that golden meadow, among those gemstone flowers and that diamond creek. But in the clear light of day, back in the real world of demands and people watching, maybe Eli…regrets it?
No, that doesn’t make sense. He’s not avoiding me, he’s just busy. This is me catastrophizing as always.
Which is not to say he wouldn’t. Regret it, I mean. That he won’t in the future. Sooner or later.
And I know I always do this, always assume things without proof or reason to assume them, just so I take action first, walk away first, before I’m walked out on.
Still, I can’t unsee those little pecks of the past few days as courtesy kisses, now.
The cheap ones that happen after you’ve slept with someone you’re not really into but don’t want to be an absolute dick about it.
The goodbye peck that’s quick enough so they don’t get the wrong idea.
Fuck, am I getting the wrong idea?
A kiss is just… It’s just lips touching lips. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Strangers kiss. Friends can kiss after a few drinks.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m twenty-six, not sixteen. I don’t do this. I fuck and flee or pine peacefully in gay silence, not obsess over if they like like me or not.
But then my mind flashes back to the way Eli looked at me before we kissed, with tension in his jaw, with raw need in his eyes.
The way his hands shook against my wrist, like he was yelling from inside his cage, knuckles white around the iron bars, desperately yanking at them so he could kiss me, so his body would allow it and move.
That wasn’t nothing. That wasn’t casual.
Was it?
The cloth in my hands is working the same spot on the saddle over and over, probably wearing a hole through the leather. My jaw hurts, my eyes burn. This is so pathetic. I’m a professional—a champion—getting weepy over a guy not being around for one day.
I drop the cloth and my arms, then my whole body on top of the corner desk.
Been a while since I’ve been able to cry for real, the kind of cry that doesn’t just dampen the eyes while nothing actually falls.
The kind that gets messy and drenches everything with tears and snot and drool, and you don’t even care. The kind that brings relief after.
Maybe tonight I can? If I put on some sad song and think about how I wish we never kissed in the first place. Because then I couldn’t miss it.
Wouldn’t miss him . Or the hope he planted in me.
God, I hate this.
When I hear the steps, a shadow is already at the door, walking in. My eyes dart up.
It’s Eli.
He’s got a saddle slung over one shoulder, his t-shirt damp and dusty, hat tipped back like he’s been sweating all day and needed the extra breeze. The second he sees me, his shoulders drop, his face softens, and he lets out this deep, soul-emptying sigh that makes my chest ache.
The saddle gets tossed on the work table next to mine. The heavy thud makes me flinch, makes everything rattle around us. In three long strides, he squashes the distance, so fast I’m sure he’ll crash into me. And he does, knocking folders and the lamp and whatever else off the desk.
His hands fly to my face, then his breaths.
And his lips. And his want.
On mine. On me. Again.
His hands drop to my back, pulling me up as he curls down over me, our bodies just the means to this need, just something he’d shed off if it got us closer. I would too.
This little whimper escapes the back of my throat, and I’m not even embarrassed. My hands find his chest, then his neck, his pulse, hammering against my palms. Then his hair, hat toppling over so I can get a handful, and God, it’s incredible.
But then he groans when I tug it, and we both pull back, knowing exactly where groans like his and whimpers like mine invariably end up when they mix.
Not like this, though. Not here. Not rushed like a quickie in the club bathroom.
Not with him.
Our foreheads press together. Our eyes stay closed.
His hands take anchor on my hips, thumbs stroking the skin above my belt.
Mine laze behind his neck, tracing circles along his hairline.
Only when my breaths settle do my eyes finally slit open.
And then close again because he’s smiling—that small, secret smile that makes my knees weak.
“Been dying to do that all day,” he says, voice rumbling like thunder down my spine.
And just like that, I forget. Doubts and hurts and good news and my own name.
Whatever is important will come back to me. Whatever isn’t can drop dead.
Like anything else matters in his arms.