Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JACKSON
My eyes burned as I stared at the ceiling, each blink feeling like sandpaper over a sunburn, and listened to Weston’s snores rattle the window panes with each exhale. Or at least they sounded like they should’ve been able to do that. But that wasn’t what was keeping me awake.
I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing the look on Tucker’s face three nights ago.
He’d looked devastated. Gutted and frail.
Like I’d just permanently broken him. And I hated that.
Tucker was the strongest man I knew, and the idea I’d done something to put that look on his face was eating away at me. Even if I knew it was the right move.
Something had started to nag at me in the back of my mind when he’d tried to drop to his knees right there in the barn walkway.
I was all for a little risky play, but that was beyond risky.
It was reckless, and maybe it could’ve been written off as being caught up in the moment, but that wasn’t it either.
I may not have been with Tucker more than the one time, but it had been seared into my memories.
With as often as I replayed it in my head, I could have recreated the whole thing from start to finish right down to the timing of every little sound and trickle of sweat that rolled off our bodies.
This had been different. Tucker had been up in his head, far away from where we were, but by the time I thought to pause and ask if he was okay, he was asking me to fuck him, and I could feel it. I knew something was off.
Not that I didn’t think a man like Tucker couldn’t like to be fucked, or need that sort of release, but…
I couldn’t explain it then, but I knew it was all wrong.
It was in the tension of his shoulders as he’d demanded it, in the shaky rambling as he told me to skip a condom, and in the way he flipped around and refused to look at me when we’d never taken our eyes off each other the last time.
So I tried to reassure myself with his body, find proof that even if this felt different, he was still in it with me.
The fucked-up thing was I knew before I’d ever wrapped a hand around his cock that he hadn’t been hard.
I’d racked my brain over the last few days, trying to remember if there’d even been a hint of an erection before that point, and I thought maybe in the beginning he did.
But I still wasn’t sure. What I was sure of was that Tucker hadn’t struggled with getting or maintaining an erection that time in my room.
It was just more proof something more had been going on in his head.
So I knew I had to be the one to end things. Even if I hadn’t wanted to.
And yet his face still haunted me.
I’d hurt him by trying to save him, and I knew I’d rather live with the weight of that than the guilt of ignoring the signs he wasn’t ready. But he was right, too. Who was I to decide that for him?
I wasn’t a therapist or anyone with a lick of education to qualify me to know for certain he’d been pushing himself past his own limits. Fuck, I’d barely finished high school, so really, who was I?
A man. A man who’s enamored enough with another man to know when something is wrong.
I sighed, knowing there was no point in running through all this over again.
I wouldn’t be any closer to absolution lying in my bed than I was standing in that stall.
Accepting my fate, I rolled out of bed, flipped on the bedside lamp, and began to move around the room getting ready for my day.
I’d just pulled out a clean pair of jeans and shut the dresser drawer when Weston’s snores snuffled to a stop.
“Jackson?” he mumbled as he lifted his head off his pillow slightly, his voice rough and scratchy. “Is it morning? Did I miss my alarm?”
“Naw, buddy. I just can’t sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you, go back to bed,” I assured him, a little surprised he’d woken up.
I hadn’t exactly been quiet as I was getting ready, but that had never woken him up before.
The other guys joked a bomb could go off in our room and Weston would sleep through it because it’d be quieter than his own snoring, and in a way they weren’t wrong.
Weston slowly blinked bleary, green eyes up at me. “’S my fault?”
“No,” I said truthfully, slipping my shirt over my head and stepping into my jeans for the day. “Just can’t sleep. I’m going to help Tallie with breakfast.”
I thought he’d take that at face value and roll back over to catch a few more hours of rest, but he slowly lifted onto one arm, still looking like he could fall back asleep with just a few long blinks. “I’m seeing a doc.”
“Oh yeah?” I responded distractedly, sitting on the edge of my bed to pull on my socks and boots. “Good for you. What’s she like?”
“He’s nice.” Weston yawned, a long, jaw-cracking one. “Says my tonsils are too big. They’re making me snore. Something about blocking my airway when I lay back or some shit.”
I looked up at him, realizing this wasn’t some half-awake mutterings. “Oh, you meant like… You’re going to a doctor.”
He nodded. “Figured it was time. It’s not getting better. And you can’t sleep.”
I sucked in a slow breath, knowing my restless nights hadn’t really been a product of Weston’s snoring.
At least, not entirely. But somehow, even he’d realized there was a problem.
I took a few steps over to his bed and ruffled that messy red mop on his head playfully.
“I’m happy you’re getting it looked at, but don’t do it for me.
Do it for your future wife because you’re sure as fuck not getting one sounding like a foghorn every night.
I don’t know how you sleep as good as you do with how fucking loud you are,” I teased.
Weston batted my hand away, looking more awake as he grinned up at me, but then it slid into a serious expression so unusual for him. “You doing okay? Really?”
I chewed my lower lip, unsure if I should answer him honestly.
Weston and I had become fast friends, and I’d venture as far as to say this man was becoming my best friend, but how did I explain to him the confusing mess this past month at Juniper Grove had been?
Would he freak out that I was interested in our boss?
I didn’t have any concerns he’d have an issue with Tucker being a man, he already knew I didn’t have a preference for gender, but would he care who Tucker was to me?
“I’m fine. Still adjusting a little. Juniper Grove is just a different style of operation than my last job,” I lied, then quickly redirected the conversation hoping he was still tired enough to not press for more. “What’s the doc going to do about your tonsils?”
It worked, and Weston let out an exasperated sigh as he flopped back onto his pillow. “Surgery. Says I gotta take ’em out.”
“Ouch.” I winced in sympathy, and he shrugged, giving me a wide grin.
“You’ll take good care of me while I’m recovering, right?”
I let out a short laugh. “I think I’ll leave the caretaking to someone else.”
“Damn. Some friend you are.” He chuckled, shuffling back down under his covers with another wide yawn.
“Go back to sleep. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Weston blinked up slowly at me, his smile wobbly and tired, but when he closed his eyes, I made my way to the door to get my jacket.
For a second, I hesitated, my hand hovering over Tucker’s before I grabbed my own.
I hadn’t been able to wear Tucker’s jacket for the last three days.
Maybe it was stupid, but I couldn’t be wrapped up in something that smelled like a mix of him and I after the way we’d left things.
Not that he’d have noticed. Tucker had been notably absent from breakfast and dinner since the night Goldie was born.
No one seemed concerned by it, given we’d had another birth since then, and Tucker was very hands on in the beginning with the foals.
But it felt deliberate. Like he was signaling the distance he wanted to maintain with me.
The darkness this morning was so consuming as I drove to the main farmhouse, the sky a dark color that was more than just the blanket of night. Rain was on the horizon, and while it was the season for showers, it felt poetic considering my jacket wasn’t waterproof. Tucker’s was.
I’d never been one to struggle with melancholic mood for long before, but ever since meeting Tucker and coming to Juniper Grove, I felt like I was learning all new sides to myself.
I wasn’t the same man I’d been when I first arrived, and normally I’d believe that to be a good thing.
Growth and change were a part of being human.
They weren’t always comfortable, but they meant you were still living.
Still breathing. This was the first time I could remember feeling out of control of the changes happening within me, though, and it left me feeling unmoored.
That sensation followed me as I made my way into the kitchen, Tallie looking up from where she was getting breakfast ready when I stepped through the door, giving her a small salute in greeting. She let out a heavy sigh and turned to cock her hip against the counter.
“Did’ja set your alarm wrong this mornin’?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I responded, rummaging through the cabinet for a particular coffee mug I’d grown attached to. It had two hand-painted foals on it, laying in a field of flowers, and one of them kind of looked like what I’d imagined Poe would have as a baby. Maybe it’d help me feel better.
“Nuh-uh.”
“What?” I asked, pausing my pursuit to look back at her.
“This farm’s too small for two insomniacs, and besides, whether y’all realize it or not, I do like my quiet routines. I don’t need y’all all up in my business every mornin’.” She harrumphed, crossing her arms over her wide chest.
“Two?” I turned back to pull the mug from the cabinet and step over to the already brewed coffee pot. “Who else—”