Hoyt #3
“Here, try to drink this. It’s nice and cold, with a slice of orange just like you like it.
” Aubrey appeared in front of me, his face pale with worry, as he handed me a tall glass of iced tea.
The cottage was quiet, Jesse and Lucas having returned to the ranch after making sure I was safe and sound at home.
Home. Yeah, that was this little house with the two cats and four chickens.
Maybe home wasn’t four walls at all. Maybe it was the man sitting on my left who was hellbent on draping a blanket over my shoulders.
I mean. It was July. But he was fretting. Mothering eased his worry so I let him cluck around like one of his hens.
“Thanks.” I took a sip. Nice and sweet. “It’s perfect.”
“So that was quite the night on the town,” he whispered, tucking his feet under his backside. The ceiling fan overhead spun silently, pushing cooled air down over us. Ruggerio and Orlando sat in the front window, ever vigilant, even if no birds were at the feeder at ten after eleven at night.
“Leave it to me. Abel used to say I could fuck up a wet dream.”
“Abel was a horrid and crass man who should have never been allowed to oversee the upbringing of an armadillo let alone two young boys.”
“True.” I took another sip. “I thought I was better.”
“You are.” He wriggled closer to lay a warm hand on my bicep. “It’s just that sometimes the scary things in our past have a way of barging into the present. Traumatic things shape us; they mold us into new people. Look at how I react to being held down.”
“That fucker deserves a good beating with a new stick.” The growl was not an act. If I ever ran into Hank I would beat him into mash for forcing himself on Aubrey.
He snuggled in closer still, resting his head on my shoulder, his fingers now trailing down the arm, over the sensitive inside of my elbow to my wrist then back up. It was incredibly soothing.
“I won’t argue. But let’s not talk about him. I want to talk about you.” He swallowed. “Where do you see yourself in a year?”
I rubbed a finger down the side of my sweaty glass as I tried to envision going back to the rodeo. That was a pipe dream. I knew it now, maybe clearer than I had before I’d gotten on that stupid mechanical bull. Something had felt off.
“I thought I’d be back riding. It’s all I know.”
“Untrue. You know ranch work. You know poetry.”
“Hard to feed yourself writing poems about red ponies.”
“Posh.” His fingers danced up my arm then down.
“Oh? You know someone who wants to be my patron?”
“I know you have talent. And that if you wanted to you could go far with your poetry.”
“Hmm.” I wasn’t sure about that but he was adamant. I had come to know enough about the man I loved over the past few months to know he would never let me think poorly of myself. He was my cheerleader. He even owned pompoms.
“Hoyt, I want to say something but I don’t want you to think I’m trying to trap you or wheedle you into doing something you—”
“I would never think that, baby.” His fingers paused then resumed. That fucking Hank. I loathed the man so much. Never met him but hated him. “Can I say something first?”
“Of course.” He lifted his head.
I gazed down into beautiful brown eyes. “I think I don’t want to ride bulls anymore.
” The look of relief on his face was surprising.
He’d hidden his fears about that well. Or maybe I’d been too wrapped up in myself to notice.
“Everything I thought I knew or was…thought I was, is now not that way at all. Coming home, meeting you, getting closer to my brother. Abel dying. It’s all so new and vibrant.
I feel like Dorothy when she landed in Oz.
When she opens the door after that wild trip in a twister to see Munchkin Land in all its beautiful colors.
I’ve lived forty years in black and white but now I live in technicolor.
It’s…it’s honest. It’s me feeling strong enough to be honest. I don’t want to go back on the road. ”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Neither. Just working things out in this scrambled brain of mine. Would you want me to stay? Here, in Chance.”
“Silly goose, I love you. Of course I want you to stay but do you want to stay?”
“Yeah, I do. I…really do. I’m tired of being hurt and lonesome.
I want you and Jesse and being able to tell the world you’re mine.
I want to write poems. I want to teach you to ride Adobe.
I want to spend time with Jesse. I want to lay around here in the winter with you and the cats, dig paths in the snow for the chickens, fry you fresh eggs with toast and serve it to you in bed when the snow is piled up to the windows. ”
“Then linger for a spell.” He lifted his mouth to touch his lips to mine. “Stay. Put down roots and grow into the man you’ve always been meant to be. Live here with me. We’ll grow together like those gorgeous, braided willow trees they have in botanical gardens.”
“And you say I’m the one with the knack for words. I’d like to be braided with you.”
His lips tasted of tea. “We’ll grow tall and strong as one.”
And so I stayed.
For a winter, then another, and then another on top of that one….