Chapter 8
Oakley
I’ve officially been ruined.
Absolutely and utterly fucking wrecked.
Lawson is sitting at the dining table, having joined the twenty-some Darling Ranch workers and family members here for lunch, something he’s only able to do during the summertime when he’s not at the school. He’s eating. Simply eating.
But I can’t stop staring at him.
His words haven’t left my head. Not in the week-plus since he asked me to fuck him. Words. Images. Scenarios I’ve tried desperately not to entertain in the past many decades of our friendship. They’re all seeping past my defenses now because of a single conversation.
There’s always been a lack of boundaries between me and Lawson. And it’s never bothered me, nor have I ever read into it. Lawson was never interested in me in that way. Nor interested in anyone, really. Not until college when he started dating a little. Then he met Laura, and that was it.
Anything that might have been stayed in a box I knew better than to ever open. Not if I wanted to keep my friendship with Lawson intact. The box was easily forgotten, as fictitious as Neverland, a childish whimsy I never let see the light of day.
But he’s cracked it open.
And I cannot, for the life of me, get it to shut again.
Lawson brings his water glass to his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he drinks.
I imagine my lips there, pressed to soft skin and coarse stubble, his throat working as he writhes beneath me, struggling to maintain his composure.
What would it be like to push him to the brink? Would he beg? Moan? Gasp for more?
I quickly avert my gaze, looking down at my plate as my pulse rushes. I know better than to wonder about—want—things too dangerous to chase after.
Lawson doesn’t want me. He wants dick. There’s a big fucking difference.
But goddamn it all, he asked for my dick.
I’m so fucked.
I banish thoughts of Lawson to the far recesses of my mind as I finish lunch, avoiding his eye and hastening out the door as soon as I can do so.
The sun is out, although morning rain dampened the earth, and the air is still muggy with it.
I plop my hat on my head, heading toward the stables, determination lengthening my strides.
There’s only a couple hours left in my day, but I resaddle Clover and head out to the far fields with a few of the other ranchers.
We’re shifting the cattle this week, moving them to fresh, grazable land.
Calves are prevalent in the herds, most having been born during the spring calving season.
Just like their adult counterparts, the calves are a mix of black and black-and-white.
The solid black is a mark of the Angus breed kept here, whereas the white comes from the Holstein line.
The cross-bred cattle can be either coloration, identifiable if you know what to look for.
Although most folks probably just see cow.
The ground is soft underneath Clover’s hooves, but it doesn’t hamper the horse. Me and Colleen, another rancher who’s been here for years, are at the back end of a herd, guiding the lot to a new pasture, when I notice a plastic bag looped around the neck of a calf.
I give a whistle to alert Colleen. She nods, noting the situation and changing course to guide him my way.
As soon as the little bugger is close enough, I send a rope flying, lassoing him around the neck.
The calf panics for all of a second, but then he’s bound tight, and I quickly drop down off Clover to meet him.
“It’s all right,” I assure the calf in a low, soft tone. I make quick work of tearing the bag off from around his neck before letting him loose. He gets to his feet and sprints away, catching up to the rest of the herd, a couple of the others giving him a cursory sniff as he passes.
“Muddy suits you,” Colleen calls, a grin on her face.
I look down at my dampened, dirty knees as I rise to my feet. “That why you sent him my way?”
Colleen laughs, which confirms my suspicions.
Getting back in the saddle, I cant my head toward the last of the lingering herd. “C’mon. Let’s get this lot settled. My day’s about done.”
She doesn’t argue, and we herd the rest of the cattle through the open gates to the pasture next to this one.
Colleen stays out in the fields when I head in, her shift having started later than my own.
Truth be told, I don’t much mind the muck that’s a part of this lifestyle.
There’s no way around getting dirty at times, and I wouldn’t trade being outdoors through any weather for the alternative of being stuck inside with only a window to remind me of what I’m missing.
It’s one way Lawson and I have always differed. Our sexuality is another. Or so I thought.
But now Lawson is questioning. And he turned to me, his closest friend, to help him figure it out.
I stand by my decision, even if the saddened expression on Lawson’s face when I said no won’t leave my mind. Nor the image of him flat on his back, mouth parted and words falling from his lips, a possibility I never dared to imagine could be real.
It’s a bad idea. The absolute worst.
And I wish, God, I wish he’d never spoken the words in the first place. Because to Lawson, no matter our history and our inevitable future, it’d only be sex. An answer to a question. A means to an end.
I don’t think it could ever be that for me.
Some things we hide away for fear of understanding them. I hid that box away for a reason. And I never thought much about it in the years after it was buried.
To have that box unearthed in front of me, lid cracked open and possibilities spilling out…
What was it J. M. Barrie said through the voice of Peter Pan? “You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
I could have Lawson, it would seem.
If I’m willing to sacrifice my heart.
My jeans dry as I return Clover to the stables, the horse and I having found a nice groove together.
He nips at my pockets as I brush his coat, which makes me wonder who’s in the habit of feeding him treats.
Seeing no need to deny the horse, I grab a date from the tack room before I go.
Clover is more than happy to accept the small, dried fruit.
As I’m turning around, I spot Lawson standing at the door to the barn. He doesn’t say anything with others nearby, simply waits for me to meet him, the two of us walking back across the land toward the ranch house where I’m parked.
“You’ve been quiet,” he accuses.
I puff out a breath. “Had a lot to think about.”
“Because of me,” he says matter-of-factly.
I don’t bother denying it. “You threw me for a loop, Law.”
He’s quiet for a moment, eyes ahead as we walk.
My gaze drifts over him, from the broadness of his body and the seriousness of his brow to his naturally pouty lips.
I curse the direction my mind wanders down.
Wondering how those lips might feel against me.
Picturing the man naked—a sight I’ve seen before—but the image of him falling apart at my fingertips brand new and searing enough to have my mouth running dry.
This was never a problem. Not before.
“Your answer is still no?” he asks, voice even.
My throat clicks when I swallow. “It is.”
“All right.”
Fuck.
I want to go back to a week and a half ago when bedding Lawson wasn’t an option.
I want to shake him and ask why this is so fucking easy for him to even contemplate.
But I know it’s not. He’s thought about this long and hard.
The man is dealing with a complete upheaval of his identity.
That’s not an easy thing, and I know he’s been struggling with it.
But why did he have to uproot the earth at my feet, too? I was fine. I was fine being Lawson’s friend. I never needed more.
Except now the fucking box is open. And I fear wishing it buried again isn’t an option.
I come to a slow halt, my hand on Lawson’s arm stopping him as well. “Why do you want it to be me, Law? I don’t think you’re even attracted to me, are you?”
It’s never seemed like it, at least, not even in my living room when Lawson was asking me to fuck him.
Something flits over his expression. Frustration, almost. Resignation. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I… I don’t think it works like that for me.”
My gears turn swiftly. “Were you attracted to Laura?”
He winces, the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think so.”
Aw, fuck.
I work on pulling in a breath, and Lawson goes on.
“I thought I was, but… I think it was affection at most. I didn’t realize there was a difference until one of our counseling sessions.
We were supposed to think about the last time we’d looked at one another and felt lust, and I just…
I never had. It didn’t even occur to me the way I thought about her was unusual until that moment. ”
“Because you two still had sex. You were intimate.”
“Yeah.”
My chest aches fiercely, but I refrain from rubbing it. “Law… Have you ever looked at a guy and wanted to have sex?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“No, I mean…” A cow in the dairy field next to us moos, and I realize this maybe isn’t the best place to be having this conversation, out in the open as we are. “Can we head inside? There’s something I wanna ask.”
Lawson nods, curiosity in his expression, and we continue on toward the ranch house.
Instead of getting in my truck to go home as I’d planned, I follow Lawson inside, both of us taking off our boots.
He leads me up to his bedroom where we’ll have some measure of privacy, closing the door behind us before going to his dresser.
He pulls a pair of jeans out that he tosses my way. “Here.”
Catching them, I switch out my muddy pair for the clean ones. Lawson waits all the while, looking pensively out the window.
I set the dirtied jeans aside, neatly folded. “Can we sit?”
He nods, heading to a chair in the corner. Another sits angled toward it, a small bookcase nearby. Once settled, I try to think how best to approach this. Lawson waits, ever patient, the sun slanting through the window lighting him in gold.
“Law… Do you think you might be ace?”
“What?”
His tone and expression give nothing away, and I realize maybe he’s never even considered it. Being that he didn’t question his sexuality until recently, it’s a distinct possibility.
“Asexual. Like…you’re not interested in people in a sexual way.”
“I’ve had sex,” he says slowly.
“Sure. But being ace doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t enjoy sex. Like… Okay, when I look at someone I’m interested in, the littlest thing can turn me on. Their lips. The way they move their hands. Their ear.”
Lawson’s eyebrow pops up. “Their ear?”
“Yeah, like…” I swallow harshly, pulling my gaze from Lawson’s own ear.
“Thinking about what I want to whisper into it. That turns me on. Or looking at them might remind me of the last time we were naked together, which makes me want to get them naked again. Do you ever experience anything like that? An urge to have that person right then right there?”
Lawson thinks about it long and hard, which seems to me to answer the question. But I don’t interrupt his thought process. Finally, he says, “I don’t know. Do you see now why I’m probably broken?”
“You’re not broken,” I say firmly, flicking the man’s forehead. “Cut that shit out. Tell me this. What do you like about sex?”
He huffs out a breath, rubbing his temple, his gaze on some distant place in the room.
“I like…the release of it. For a while, I liked knowing I was making Laura feel good because it felt like I was being a proper husband. Like I was accomplishing what I was supposed to. But that lessened over the years.”
“Law,” I say, a catch in my throat I can’t quite disguise. “It shouldn’t ever feel like a chore.”
He swallows harshly. “No, I suppose not. But it took me a while to see that.”
God.
“But I want to have sex,” he goes on. “For me. I want to know what it could feel like after those times where it felt almost right. I don’t need lust to be sure of that much.”
I nod slowly, my chest drawn tight. “What do you see when you look at me?”
Lawson’s eyes run over my face, the same as they always have. Warm in a way that’s never changed, not in all the years we’ve known each other. “I see the person I trust most in this world.”
It’s all I can do not to make a sound.
“You think I’m asexual?” he asks.
I let out a slow breath. “I think it’s a possibility. It’s a wide spectrum, but if you’ve never felt desire for another person before, then it might fit.”
“Or maybe I just haven’t found the right person.”
I’m proud of myself for keeping my face stoic. It’s astounding how much can change in such a short period of time. How feelings long ago snuffed out can burn wildly with only the slightest air and provocation, only for the press of suffocation to bear down like a fate now worse than death.
I never loved Lawson Darling as more than a friend because I never let myself.
He’s been my person for nearly forty-three years. And I’ve been his.
But that doesn’t make me the right person. Not where he’s concerned.
And no matter what else, I have to remember that.