Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The following morning, Austin sat at his parents’ kitchen table and forced himself to pay attention to the conversation instead of playing a highlight reel in his head of everything that had gone wrong last night. Dad’s homemade Hollandaise had been restaurant-grade, and Mom had made Cal’s favorite cornmeal muffins. Of course, Austin had had to fumble through an explanation for why Cal wasn’t here, settling for a lame and noncommittal “He had a thing,” after which his mom had packed up most of the muffins for Austin to deliver to Cal later.
At the end of the table was Dad’s tablet, angled so that Ben, video calling in from the UK, could see all three of them and virtually join them for brunch. Though it was approaching dinner time in Ben’s neck of the woods, so he had some kind of microwavable meal that looked sad and unappetizing compared to the homemade spread in front of Austin.
Austin had lost track of the conversation sometime during Dad’s recitation of the benefits of his birding app, and he tuned back in while Ben was detailing his plans for the week.
“Sorry, did you say you got a new job?” Austin interrupted. “I thought you were bartending.”
“I am, but it’s a nighttime gig,” Ben said. “I got a daytime job at the zoo as a seasonal grounds operative. Mostly it involves keeping my designated area clean of litter and providing directions to visitors. It’s a six-month part-time contract, but it’s pretty good money.”
“That’ll make for some long hours for you on days you have to work both jobs, won’t it?” Dad asked, a furrow appearing between his brows. “A full day at the zoo, followed by several hours bartending. That’s a long day on your feet.”
Ben shrugged, but Austin saw past the easy smile to the man beneath. If he were to take a portrait of his brother right now, he’d title it Little Boy Lost .
“I’ll be fine,” Ben said. “I like having somewhere to go and something to do. So what’s going on over there? And wait—where’s Cal?”
“He had a thing ,” Mom said, full of snark.
Austin did not appreciate her tone.
Ben stabbed his too-orange mac and cheese with a fork. “A thing that prevented him from coming to breakfast? Oh, did he have to work?”
“Sure.” Austin tore a muffin in two and slathered butter on both sides. “Work. That’s plausible. Yes, he had to work.”
They stared at him with varying degrees of confusion and concern.
Dad was the one who took the reins. “Do you not know where he is?”
“You say that like I know his every move.”
“Because you do,” Ben said slowly. His eyes widened and he slapped his hands to his cheeks like Kevin McAllister in Home Alone . “Oh my god! Did you have a falling out?”
“What? No, we didn’t have a falling out.” They’d just had an awkward as hell first date.
First and last date?
Fuck, he hoped not.
“I told you—he had a thing.”
“A work thing,” Mom said, clearly disbelieving.
“Maybe a work thing,” Austin murmured, not wanting to lie outright.
“Hey, Austin,” Ben half-shouted over-enthusiastically.
Mom and Dad jumped. Austin gave him his patented older brother what the fuck face.
“Take me into my room.”
Austin took a giant bite of his muffin and chewed slowly. “Why?”
“I need to see the poster on the wall.”
“The one of Maroon 5?”
“Sure. Yeah, that one. I want to get the same one for a friend, but I don’t remember exactly what it looks like.”
“They probably don’t even print that one anymore. Considering how long it’s been on your wall, it probably went out of circulation years ago.”
“I can still try to find it. Take me to my room.”
“Can I at least finish my muffin fir?—”
“Take me to my room.” Ben slammed both fists against his table. “Take me to my room. Take me to my room. Take me to my?—”
“Jesus, okay.” Rising, Austin grabbed the tablet, making sure Ben got a good eyeful of his nostril in the process just for being a pest. “You had to have a second child,” he grumbled to his parents.
“You needed a friend,” Mom said.
“You were so lonely,” Dad added.
“What is it with everyone ganging up on me today?” Austin said to himself as he brought his brother to his old room. He left his parents giggling in the kitchen.
Ben’s old room was exactly as he’d left it when he’d headed east for his freshman year of college in Vermont. Gray bedspread with the white sunburst pattern in the center, gray drapes permanently tied open to let in the light, bean bag chair taking up space next to a desk that held an old Windsor Ranch mug filled with pens and pencils, and two skinny bookcases standing proud on either side of the bed. There was nary a single book on them; instead they held random stuff like track and field trophies, a jar of coins, a wicker basket filled with old PlayStation games and controllers, and other knickknacks he’d collected over the years.
“Okay, which poster is it?” Austin switched the camera view so that Ben was looking at his room instead of at him. “The one between your windows or the one by the?—”
“Who cares about the poster.” If Ben’s earlier half shout had been loud, this was ear-splitting. “Tell me about you and Cal. What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Your eyes tell me otherwise.”
“You’re not even looking at me.”
“Flip the camera around again.”
Annoyed—and a little amused—Austin did as ordered.
“Spill,” Ben demanded. “Tell me why you’re sad.”
Sad. Yes, Austin was sad. And disappointed. Angry too, because honestly—could he have botched last night any more than he had?
Maybe if he’d hired a band to serenade Cal during dinner, which he thankfully hadn’t thought of before this moment.
“It’s...” Blowing out a breath, Austin gave in to the inevitable. He sank onto Ben’s bed and said, “Cal and I went on a date last night.”
“A double date? I didn’t realize either of you were seeing anyone.”
“No, Ben. Not a double date.”
It took a second, but when Ben finally got it, his jaw dropped so low that Austin couldn’t help but laugh, despite everything.
“You went on a date... with each other ? Shit.” Ben bit his lip, clearly having an internal debate, then seemed to decide to say it anyway. “I’m guessing it didn’t go well? Seeing as he’s not at brunch and you look like you haven’t slept in a week?”
Austin set the tablet on the bed and pulled his legs up, sitting cross-legged. He tried not to replay the events of last night in his head—every time he did, he somehow catastrophized it and made it worse than it was.
Or maybe it had really been that bad.
Fuck.
“It was... just...” Elbow on his knee, Austin dropped his forehead into his palm and scrubbed hard. “It was like having dinner with a stranger.”
Ben winced. “Ouch. Can I ask what you did on your date?”
“I picked him up, we had dinner at Ce Soir, and then we took a walk through the square.”
“What’s Ce Soir?”
“Fancy French restaurant in town. It opened a couple of years ago.”
Ben hummed, and there was a lot of subtext in that hum. “So you got gussied up, went somewhere fancy, and took a romantic walk. Got it. What would you have done together on any other typical Saturday night?”
“Watched a movie at my place, ordered takeout, and eaten too many Twizzlers.”
“Right. That’s what I thought.” Ben took a deep breath. “Okay, don’t hate me for saying this, but... is it possible you were trying too hard to make the date something it didn’t have to be?”
Austin pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I didn’t want our date to be the same old, same old. I wanted to do something special. Because he’s special.”
Ben’s expression went very aw at that, but he rallied quickly. “I get that. But there’s a happy medium between fancy French restaurant and watching a movie in your sweatpants. I mean, does Cal give you fancy French restaurant vibes?”
Austin hated to admit it, but... “No.”
“Try something a little simpler next time,” Ben went on.
Austin tried not to think about whether there’d actually be a next time.
“Okay,” Austin said on a sigh. Maybe Ben had a point. “What’s my happy medium, then?”
“Cook him dinner. Stick some wildflowers in a vase in the middle of the table for ambiance. Eat outside on your patio under the stars, with the fairy lights lit. Then take a walk down the street. Maybe even walk him home.” Ben paused for a second. “Assuming he’s sleeping at his own home that night.” He pumped his eyebrows.
Austin chuckled. How was it that things didn’t seem so dire when Ben laid it out like that? “I can’t believe I’m taking dating advice from a twenty-year-old.”
“Twenty- three , thank you very much.” Ben pretended to buff his nails on his shoulder.
Austin rolled his eyes. “Do you want to see that poster or not?”
Ben scoffed. “Fuck no. I don’t care about the poster. It was just an excuse. Let’s brainstorm meals you can cook for Cal. I’m thinking that one-dish chicken thing you used to make. The one with the orzo and veggies in the cream sauce. It’s easy but, like, elevated chicken. What do you think?”
“First of all, it’s called orzo chicken skillet. And second... I think it isn’t a halfway bad idea.”
* * *
Cal pushed the mower across his mom’s front lawn and squinted against the sun. The work was tedious, requiring exactly zero concentration, allowing him to root around in his thoughts like he was trying to find the solution to world peace.
Or to this conundrum with Austin, which, at this point in time, seemed about as dire a situation.
Dramatic, sure, but he’d been thinking thinky thoughts all night while he’d tossed and turned and was no closer to an answer in the bright light of day.
That whole things will look better in the morning saying was utter crap. He did not feel better this morning. In fact, the more he thought of last night’s disaster of a first date, the worse he felt. There was a hole in his gut and a stab in his heart that wouldn’t go away.
Plus, he couldn’t help thinking of Austin at his parents’ for brunch without him, and he was tempted to abandon the mower in the middle of the yard and sprint the two streets to the MacIsaacs’ so he could join them.
It wasn’t like last night had been Cal’s first date ever. He didn’t date much, but he had dated. He’d made an effort on those dates too.
That was the problem. He hadn’t made an effort with Austin. He’d been so focused on all the things that felt wrong, all the things that should’ve been easy with Austin but weren’t, that he’d clammed up and hadn’t even tried to have a good time.
When Austin had dropped him off, he’d looked... dejected. Sad. Angry.
Not angry with Cal. Austin didn’t shy away from his feelings. If he was angry with Cal, he would’ve said something.
No, he’d been angry at himself for some reason.
In Cal’s ear, his audiobook about restoration agriculture droned loudly on. Lost in his thoughts, he’d missed several minutes—hell, probably several chapters—so he pressed the side of his earbud to pause the book, then tore them out with jerky movements before shoving them in his pants pocket. Finished with the lawn, he powered down the mower next to his mother’s flower bed. Barbara Anderson was fairly useless when it came to yard work, but the flower bed was her pride and joy. Once, when he and Austin were kids, they’d been roughhousing in the front yard and had accidentally rolled into a row of petunias. His mom had been so mad that she’d withheld dinner that evening, and she’d made him replace the flowers with his own pocket money and replant them, under her narrow-eyed supervision.
He eyed the petunias with distaste now.
As if she’d been watching from the window—which she probably had—his mom stepped outside, cradling a cup of coffee in both hands.
“Do it diagonally next time,” she said, bringing one hand up and shading her eyes from the sun. “It looks better.”
Cal gritted his teeth, the stab in his heart going extra stabby for different reasons. You try to do someone one goddamn favor...
“You’re welcome,” he said pointedly.
His mom didn’t react to his sarcasm. She gestured to the row of hedges with one pink-nailed hand. “Those need to be trimmed. They look disheveled.”
Cal added forced cheer to his voice, but it was no less sarcastic when he said, “Good morning, Mom. How are you? I’m great, thank you so much for asking.”
That caught her attention and she raised one eyebrow, sweeping him up and down from his grass-stained sneakers to his sweat-stained T-shirt. She made a sound of disgust. “You even sound like him too.”
Him being Austin, who had no qualms about giving to Barbara as good as he got.
Whereas Cal could count on one hand the number of times he’d talked back to his mother. He wasn’t sure what had prompted it now, but he was suddenly not in the mood for her shit.
Not that he was ever in the mood for her shit. But after a crappy evening and a sleepless night, his tolerance for bullshit, usually higher than most people’s, was somewhere on level negative nineteen, and as a result he was less inclined than usual to put up with his mother’s attitude.
He dug his earbuds back out of his pocket and shoved one in his right ear in a clear show of don’t give a fuck . “You know where this goes?” He nodded at the lawn mower.
Mom’s brow creased. “Back in the garage where you found it.”
“Great. I’ll let you put it away then.”
“You... what? Calvin, get back here. Where do you think you’re?—”
Heading for his truck, he popped the other earbud in, pressed Play, and turned up the volume to ear-blistering levels, drowning out whatever else she had to say.
He might feel bad about it later, but in this moment? He couldn’t help but wonder why he’d ever given a fuck about a woman who didn’t give a fuck about him.
* * *
He ended up at Windsor Ranch. He’d meant to go home to think some more thoughts; instead he’d driven on autopilot, and it didn’t escape his notice that he went to the one spot where people appreciated the time and care he put into the place.
The stab in his heart dulled as he inhaled a lungful of dirt, hay, and a potent combination of horse and cow dung. The average person would wrinkle their nose at what Cal had become accustomed to years ago. For him?
It was life.
Not just his. The ranch was life. For the cows and the horses, sure, but also for the insects, birds, plants, and other wildlife found in the area. In fact, Las had spotted a black-footed ferret on the ranch once. A rare thing, according to Las—the species was so endangered that sightings of it in its natural habitat were uncommon, and this part of the state wasn’t its normal home range.
That Windsor Ranch was providing habitat for a species so rare was honestly pretty damn cool.
The Windsor-March siblings were sitting on the top rung of the corral, so Cal headed in that direction, conscious that the sweaty patches on his T-shirt had dried but left darkened rings behind and that he no doubt smelled like he hadn’t showered—which he hadn’t.
Las and Alice wouldn’t notice. Well, Las wouldn’t. Cal’s current stank was nothing compared to his stank after a twelve-hour day of ranch work.
In the corral, a dapple-gray horse was lazily nosing at the grass.
“Who’s this?” Cal asked, resting his forearms next to Las’s hip.
“This is Starshine.” Alice leaned forward to grin at him from Las’s other side, her dark hair falling forward to curtain her face. “She just arrived. She’s sweet and gentle and well-mannered. We’re adding her to our retinue of horses for the kids with no horseback riding experience.”
They got a lot of those at the guest house on the other side of the highway. Families from the big city wanting the cowboy experience, regardless of whether or not they’d ever been near a horse.
“She’s a beauty,” Cal said. The tightness in his chest eased at the sight of the horse exploring the corral as though she were judging her new digs and finding them up to snuff. “How are reservations this week?”
“Picking up,” Alice said. “Kids are out of school now, for the most part, so we’re starting to see more families and fewer corporate retreats. We even have a four-day-long bachelorette party in July.”
Cal shuddered. “Sounds... fun?”
Las grunted. “Remind me to stay away from the guest house during those four days.”
Cal snorted a laugh.
Alice made a sound of disgust. “Say the guys who prefer horses to people.”
“Horses make sense,” Cal argued. “People don’t.”
Las held out a hand for a fist bump. “Hear hear.”
Alice swiveled on the railing and hopped down. “People make sense if you know how to read them. And on that note, I’ve got to go.” She waggled her eyebrows at Cal. “Tomorrow I want to know all about the connections you’ve made on the dating app.”
“I deleted that app,” Cal told her.
“What?” Her shoulders slumped. “Ugh. Why?”
“I don’t want to date.”
“Speaking of dates.” Pushing up the brim of his cowboy hat, Las eyed her up and down. “Where are you off to?”
She wore a forest-green flowy knee-length sundress belted at the waist, a cropped jean jacket, and brown ankle boots. “I have a lunch date with Ewan and Orson.”
Cal was about to tell her to have fun when the names registered. “Wait... my ranch hands?”
Alice made a little humming sound.
“But... they don’t even like each other.”
“Okay,” she said with a very sarcastic laugh. “Maybe they didn’t but they sure do now.”
“So... this is a lunch date as in lunch with friends? Or a date date?”
Clearly intrigued by the answer, Las’s head swung from Cal to his sister.
But she didn’t answer. Just gave them a sly little smile—which was an answer in itself—and waved over her shoulder as she headed for her car. “See you guys later.”
Cal scowled after her. He’d known the Windsor-March siblings almost since they were toddlers, had always considered them the little brother and sister he’d never had, and he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Alice dating Ewan and Orson. They were... a little rough around the edges. And Alice was decidedly not.
“Do I need to have a conversation with Ewan and Orson?”
Las waved a hand, unconcerned. “Alice grew up around cowboys. She can handle herself.” He too hopped off the railing, but on the other side of the corral. He turned to face Cal and leaned his forearms next to Cal’s. “Speaking of dating... Marco told me you went out with Austin yesterday, so clearly you do want to date, just... maybe only one specific person?”
Cal fought not to squirm under Las’s gaze. “Austin tell him?”
“Mm-hmm.” Las’s eyes gleamed and his smile went as sly as his sister’s. “I told you friends make the best lovers, didn’t I? So? Tell me. How’d it go?”
Cal opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly found himself too embarrassed to tell this man—who was not only ten years his junior but also in a committed relationship—that he’d fucked up the one thing he’d wanted forever.
Las got the picture anyway. He winced when the silence between them stretched into almost a full minute. “Ouch. That good, huh?”
“It certainly didn’t go as expected.”
“Damn. I’m really sorry, Cal. I thought for sure you two were end game.”
End game? Him and Austin? Cal’s belly flopped like a fish out of water at the thought.
“Is there a chance for a first date, take two?”
Cal let out a sound that could’ve been a laugh. “Maybe. I’m just not sure I want a repeat of last night.”
“I’m sure it would be better the second time.”
“Or it could be worse.”
“Or it could be better.”
“Since when are you a glass-half-full kind of guy?”
Las chuckled. Starshine’s ears flickered at the sound, and she trotted over to stick her muzzle in Las’s face. “Hey, girl.” He rubbed her forehead.
Cal considered not asking, then bit the bullet, because why the fuck not? “You and Marco were friends before you got together, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Well, sort of,” Las amended with a half shrug. “We were more casual acquaintances than true friends. We didn’t really become friends until he started working here last summer.”
“Why’d you invite a casual acquaintance to work here?”
Las shrugged again. “He asked me out.” At Cal’s raised eyebrows, Las chuckled ruefully. “I said no. College graduation was looming, and we’d be going in separate directions. It didn’t make sense to start something that had an end date. Except, it turned out he didn’t have anything lined up for the summer, so I invited him to work here. We became friends and that somehow turned into love.”
“How did you navigate going from friends to something more?”
“I... don’t know?” Starshine nudged Las’s shoulder, and he resumed his petting. “We just did. It wasn’t like you and Austin, though. We hadn’t been friends forever. Have you talked to Austin since?”
Cal shook his head.
“That’s your first step then. It’s not like you can avoid him forever. Not in this town. Especially not living across the street from each other.”
He had a point. Plus, the longer he and Austin dragged this out, the weirder it would be between them.
Still, the prospect of having a conversation about feelings ... A knot formed in Cal’s chest, tangled and matted.
He pulled out his phone, pausing at the missed notifications. Austin had beat him to it. Cal had a missed call from him, as well as a text.
Austin
Come over tonight so we can talk? I have pizza and beer and my mom made your favorite muffins.
As if Cal needed the incentive. Being with Austin was incentive enough.
Although, Austin probably didn’t know that given their shit show of a first date. Cal quickly texted back.
Cal
Be there at 6.