Epilogue - Hoyt
Three Years Later
Rockwell Museum
Corning, New York
“Stop fidgeting with the tie.”
I gave it another yank. Aubrey huffed in that adorable way of his. Then he playfully slapped at my hand and returned to tying my tie properly. The Tie King of Snow Creek Ranch we called him—a name he seemed pretty gleeful about.
“I’m nervous,” I confessed, glancing from my man to the men’s room we were using to get me kitted out properly. “I don’t really belong here. This is a mistake.”
“It is not a mistake. You do belong here. Oh nuggets, this tie has a stain. Drat. Okay, well, I brought a spare.”
“Of course you did.” My sight left the hand dryer to return to Aubrey’s pretty face. So pretty. So smart. So special and kind and cheerful. My exact opposite in so many ways.
“A gentleman always has a spare tie. I think Robert Frost said that.”
“I think you’re full of horse shit.”
He giggled softly while pulling the stained tie free of my collar then looping the spare around my neck.
“Someone wise once said it I’m sure. So, do you have your speech notes?
” he asked for the tenth time since we’d arrived in Corning.
I nodded, watching his lips as he spoke.
I adored his lips. They were soft, pink, and generally moving.
A quirk of his, that chattiness, that I absolutely loved.
Just one of many things I loved about this lithe, bespeckled man of mine.
His gaze lifted from knotting to my face. “Use your words, Mr. Poet.”
“Yeah, they’re in my jacket pocket. I still think Whiteman and Provost made a mistake.”
“Your publishers did not make a mistake, nor did Alicia your agent. They know your book of poems is magnificent.”
“Meh,” I mumbled, my nerves jangling over the thought of talking to people about my journey, my work, and my muse.
Well, my muses were easy to discuss. Aubrey, Adobe, Jesse, the ranch, the open plains, the call of a whippoorwill.
Those were eternal. Those had inspired writers and poets for centuries.
Maybe not my brother, my boyfriend, or my horse but surely similar people and pets in the past had—
“No, no meh. They published your collection of poems. Now you have the joy of travelling to glorious places filled with art like this museum and sharing your work with the world!”
“I’d rather be home on Adobe, you tight to my back, riding over Snow Creek Ranch lands.”
“I know.” He gave my neatly tied tie a soft pat, his gaze rising to meet mine. “And we will be in two weeks. This is a fast little book tour. We’ll be home in time for Easter. Now, let me see your hair.”
“If you spit on your hand and wipe it on my hair I will not be pleased.”
“Pshaw. I spit on your dick this morning in the hotel and you didn’t complain about that.”
“Dicks are different.” And lord, could my man suck cock. Talk about talented lips. Holy shit. Just thinking about it was making me half hard.
“You’re a goof. Okay, you look handsome.
Tidy. Ready to speak to the small group gathered here to read the newest addition to the Whiteman and Provost stable of western genre authors and poets.
That’s not nothing. They’re an old, respected name who saw great talent when your submission hit their desk. ”
The submission was all Aubrey’s doing. He kept nudging me along, cheering me on, helping me choose poems from the now four journals of poetry I had at our home.
He’d never once let me waver as I tended to do or allow me to think I couldn’t become a poet who led trail rides and cleaned stalls.
Given that I wasn’t angling to become a wealthy book wrangler now my bull riding days were over I was donating half of my forty percent royalites to Harbor 5280, the non-profit Lucas chaired.
They did good things for kids. If only they’d been around twenty years ago…
Now my book was out my time at the ranch had been curtailed greatly.
My boss didn’t seem to mind—perks of having a brother in the head honcho seat.
Me being here, at the start of a book tour, was all Aubrey.
I’d never have had the confidence to submit to any publishing house.
But Aubrey had all the confidence in the world.
So here I was, about to stand in front of forty people and a museum employee and talk about myself.
A soft rap on the men’s room door jerked my attention from my boyfriend. Assuming it was Lora Lee, the museum liaison, I nervously pulled at my shirt collar before the door opened. Jesse stuck his head in, a grin wide as the Colorado Rockies.
“Holy shit,” I gasped, charging over to give my brother a huge embrace. “I thought you couldn’t make it since Lucas has a cold.”
“He has the sniffles and literally threw me out of the house after making the flight reservations.”
“Literally? Your fiancé literally threw you out of the house?”
“Okay, not literally, but with lots of attitude.”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” I hugged him again before spotting the lovely museum lady slipping up behind him.
“Five minutes, Mr. Knox,” she said.
“Okay, oh hell. Okay. Can you take my brother to the American landscapes gallery where I’ll be reading and get him a seat?”
“Of course. Mr. Knox, if you’ll follow me?” She smiled politely as Jesse and I bumped fists.
“You’re going to do great. I am so happy you’re finally able to be you, big brother,” Jesse said before heading off with the pretty lady in the blue power suit. The door drifted closed. I turned back to Aubrey then pulled him into the hallway and then into one of sculpture galleries.
“I love you,” I whispered, taking his hands in mine so I could kiss his knuckles.
His eyes grew soft behind his smudged glasses.
“I love you so much. I love our life. I don’t know where I would be if I’d not found you when I did.
I’d probably be some drunken, washed-up closeted cowboy sleeping in a horse trailer at the outskirts of some two-bit rodeo.
” He shook his head as he always did when I ran to my morose side.
“It’s true,” I argued, gripping his small hands tightly.
“None of this,” I threw a look around the gorgeous displays, “would have happened. You’ve brought so much to my life that I…
I wish I had the words to tell you all you mean to me.
I just…I want to ask you if you’d be willing to possibly marry me someday.
” His eyes went round as dinner plates. I waited, time ticking by.
“I mean not here, or now. I guess…” I felt my resolve melting away.
“I mean maybe I should have planned this out better or planned at all. I don’t have a ring for you but…
maybe asking you to marry me beside the sculpture of a man riding a bull isn’t exactly romantic enough but I—”
“Yes. Yes. I will marry you. And this space is perfect. That statue is perfect. You’re perfect!!”
He climbed me like a jungle gym, his kiss so fierce it nearly bowled me over.
“Ahem, Mr. Knox? Your fans are waiting.”
My fans. Oh shit.
I lowered Aubrey to the floor, my cheeks warm, his lips puffy then I glanced at Lora Lee. “Sorry, we uhm…we’ll be right out.”
She nodded, her smile soft as she backed out of the gallery. “You’ll be out,” Aubrey whispered, his hands resting on my chest. “They don’t give a gherkin about me.”
“No, not just me, us. Always us. Forever. Braided. Our lives intertwined. You riding behind me, arms tight around me, into the sunset.”
“That sounds perfect to me.”
It did to me too…
The End