21. ATLAS
Chapter twenty-one
ATLAS
WELL, THAT FUCKING BLOWS
I check behind me for Matthew and Loki. They’re coming along behind me slowly, Matthew staring off into the distance like he’s deep in thought. I pull Thor up to wait for them to catch up.
“You okay?” I ask when they reach us, and Loki snorts, pulling him out of his daze.
“What?”
“Is everything okay? You looked like you were off with the fairies for a minute there,” I say, and he nods and smiles, but it’s forced.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Good. It’s good. Loki is great, isn’t he?” he asks, and the smile turns real as he leans into Loki’s mane and gives his neck a hug.
“So far.”
“This is totally his speed. Maybe if we had the guests go ahead of him, and he could watch them, he might stay upright,” Matthew suggests, and I laugh.
“Or he could fall over with you on him, and you’d be trying to roll him off you on the shiny new horse trail.”
He laughs.
“Okay, so he’s probably not ready for that kind of thing just yet, but he’s doing better than you expected, right?”
I have to admit he really is. I’ve been working with Loki since he arrived on the ranch, and up until Matthew, and now apparently Gramps and Ryan, I was the only one he didn’t play dead around. It’s a good thing he’s starting to settle in.
I glance down, frowning at how Matthew is holding the reins.
“You’re barely holding on. If he spooks, you won’t have much time to grab them to take control of him. Do you want to end up flipped over a fence again?”
He pinches the reins between two fingers and slides them up a little along Loki’s neck, then back down.
“He doesn’t need force, he needs guidance,” Matthew says with such conviction you’d think he’d been wrangling horses his whole life.
“I agree, but you still need to be able to take control if you have to, if only to help you stay on next time.”
“I think that had more to do with my legs not gripping tight enough last time. I was holding onto Whiskey’s reins for dear life.”
“That’s probably true. You’ll have to work on tightening your thigh grip, though I seem to remember it’s pretty strong already.”
He smiles, and a soft, rosy glow rises to his cheeks.
We continue on, side by side, up to the clearing where guests will be able to have a picnic lunch, and the horses can rest for a bit before they make their way back.
Matthew climbs off first and leads Loki over to the posts I set up just yesterday to tie them to.
He’s been quiet the whole ride, and while he said he was fine earlier, I can tell something’s off. Ever since he checked his phone earlier, he’s been different.
I tie off Thor and join Matthew on one of the log benches; he’s wringing his fingers between his knees, gazing out at the valley and distant farmlands.
I sit beside him and rest my hat on the log beside me.
“So, are you going to tell me what was on your phone that has you in your head, or are we going to keep pretending that nothing’s got you twisted up?” I ask, and he turns his head my way, a pained smile on his lips and something sad in his eyes that I don’t like.
“It was a job offer,” he says, and my stomach drops like a giant black hole has just opened inside me and is pulling me down.
He stands and walks toward the edge. “I applied before I came out here. I applied for a lot of jobs in the Richmont Group. I’ve worked there for years and been turned down at every opportunity.
I came here hoping it would give me a leg up for future roles, but I applied for this one before.
I swear,” he says, turning back to me, gaze pleading.
“I swear I haven’t applied for anything since I… since we.”
He scrubs his hand through his mess of hair, and I stand and close the distance between us, taking his hands in mine and brushing my thumbs over the soft skin on top of them.
“If it’s a good opportunity, you should take it,” I say, my heart aching with every word from my lips.
I let go and turn and walk a few steps away as I try to sort through my feelings about all this.
Not that this should have anything to do with my feelings.
It’s not about what I feel right now; this is about Matthew, and what he wants.
He wanted to move up in his career. I can’t be mad he wants more than this.
He’s always wanted more. Always looking for something bigger and better.
The bitterness rises in me like a hot coal, glowing with every thought that crosses my mind.
He wasn’t made for places like this. He showed us who he was from the start.
Straight lines, suits and ties, and always looking for more.
Never happy where he is. I let myself forget that for a while.
He made me want to be close to someone, to feel them beside me, to make contact.
At least he gave me that, and I am thankful for it.
I can give him this. I can make it okay for him to leave.
“You think I want to take it?”
“Don’t you?” I ask, turning to face him, but I can’t hold his gaze for more than a second before I turn my attention to the view of the valley instead.
“I did, before. I’m not so sure anymore.”
“That you want this job or that you want to go back to the city at all?”
“Both. We’ve been doing well here. I mean, I’ve been doing good. I’ve been learning, haven’t I? And Loki and I have this bond. I think it’s a bond. I mean, I don’t really know if horses bond with people, but if they do, this is what it would look like, I’m sure of it. I can’t just leave him.”
“He’ll be okay. We were just fine here on Beaker Brothers before you rolled into town, and we’ll be just fine when you roll out again.
It’s how it is with outsiders. They come, they go.
” I hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I have zero control over them.
Inside, I’m screaming, “Don’t leave. Stay with me. Choose me.”
“Is that how you see me? As an outsider?”
“I did… at first,” I say, and the air chills. “Now you’re… different.”
He lets out a soft chuckle and sits, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his elbows to stare out at the natural beauty of the land before us.
“I guess that’s something,” he sighs. When I allow myself to glance down at him, I don’t see the suit who showed up on the ranch all those months back. I see the kind-hearted man who earned the trust of a skittish horse and an even more skittish horseman.
My hands shake, and I clasp them together tightly as I sit beside him.
“Is the job a good one at least?” I ask.
“I’d be working on the projects I helped bring in. The drones are being used to set up the first responders for the farms. It would be good. Great, even.”
“Then you have to say yes,” I say, and his shoulder slumps a little like he knows what I’m saying is true.
“But what about everything I’d be leaving here?” he asks, a painful edge to his voice.
“It’ll still be here for you to visit. Maybe this is exactly the lucky break you’ve been collecting all those pennies for.”
“You really think I should take it?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you want.
No one can tell you that, not even me. Do you have to decide right away?
” I ask, and he shifts a little closer, the warmth of his body reaching out to mine like a call to action that my cock acknowledges with a twitch.
Now is really not the time for all that.
Though maybe it is. Maybe I can dick him out so good he never wants to leave.
“I have a week to accept.”
The cold reality of his words hit me like a truck.
He said accept. Not accept or decline, or even just to let them know.
He’s leaning toward taking this job and leaving Beaker Brothers, leaving me, and then what will I do?
Go back to spending all my time naked and alone in my trailer.
I guess it worked for me for a long time.
It can work for me again. And who knows, maybe he will be able to visit, and maybe when he does, I’ll still somehow melt under his touch.
“Look, that cloud sort of makes a cow shape,” he says, and I follow his pointed finger to the white-grey blob floating across the sky.
“Yeah. It does,” I reply, and we lie back against the ground.
His fingers intertwine with mine, and we lie there like that first night under the stars together, only this time we’re not naked, and we watch the valley and the soft clouds drift along, pointing out different shapes until the sky turns purple and pink.
“I should probably get Loki back before dark,” Matthew says, and he stands, kicking the gravel with heavy footsteps on his way over to the horses.
I’m up and turn in time to watch him mount Loki in one smooth move like he’s done it a million times, and it brings a smile to my lips but a pang to my chest. Why can’t I just tell him that I want him to stay?