Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
WILDER
R oddy’s was downtown, an area of Roselake Wilder hadn’t had much cause to visit since his release. It was a new building, one of many. The sidewalks had been repaved. New, ornate street lights decorated the road, and careful landscaping created pockets of green in the otherwise concrete scenery. Clyde’s truck swooped into the parking lot and found a spot facing the road, which gave Wilder a perfect view of the bar itself. The facade was reminiscent of an old-timey saloon, but bright, neon letters spelled out the name in blue cursive. The lot was already half-full, and not for the first time, Wilder worried about how the night would go. How many of Roselake’s residents would be here? How many faces would he recognize? How many would recognize him ? He’d done a pretty good job avoiding going into town, and now here he was, throwing alcohol into the mix, as well.
Before he could convince himself to make an excuse and back out for the night, Cash was there, grabbing his hands and pulling him to his feet.
“Deep breaths,” he said softly as the rest of them disembarked. “We’re here to have fun.”
“I know.” His heart pounded, and more than anything, he didn’t want to let Cash’s hand go. It was a stupid, childish thought, like expecting a blanket over the head to protect you from monsters.
“If anybody wants to mess with you in there, they’ll have to go through me first,” Cash said, like he could read Wilder’s thoughts. He was the blanket.
Wilder nodded bashfully. No one had ever taken care of him before. He’d always been the one watching his own back, stepping up when somebody needed help, donning a mask to intimidate and scare away the problem when he had to. He didn’t have to wear a mask around Cash—Cash didn’t even want him to. Cash wanted to handle it, to care for Wilder, and Wilder wanted to let him.
“Come on,” Cash said, tugging him toward the edge of the truck bed. “Let’s go. They’re leaving us behind.”
It was true, none of the others had waited on them. That was just fine with him, though. He had to let go of Cash’s hand to clamber out of the truck, but their shoulders brushed as they walked toward the main entrance, and that was almost as good. Cash’s proximity was a balm to his anxiety.
The inside of the bar looked like a typical bar-slash-restaurant. The dance floor was the centerpiece, with raised platforms on either side for tables and booths. The bar was on the far side of the room, next to a pair of wide doors that led onto a patio with string lights. Most of the guys had gone straight to the bar or near the dance floor, but Cash tugged Wilder over to a table in a quiet corner, by the wood railing that overlooked the dance floor.
Wilder sat with his back to the wall, facing the room, and to his surprise, Cash grabbed his chair and dragged it around the table so they were sitting side by side. He ducked his head to hide his smile when their legs lined up from hip to knee.
Cash leaned right into his space, holding a laminated menu, and said, “Pretzels?” Their shoulders pressed solidly together, under the guise of Cash showing him the menu, and Wilder resisted the urge to lean in and inhale his scent. Leather and musk and man.
“Yes, please.”
“Burgers?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“Drinks? I thought we could get two sample trays. The beer and the sodas.”
Wilder shot him a teasing look. “Careful. I might start to think you’re trying to spoil me.”
Cash’s honey brown eyes were heated. “If you’ll let me.”
Wilder’s stomach swooped.
“Dessert, too?” Cash offered, flipping to a different page.
Wilder laughed. “Let’s see how dinner goes. I don’t want to make myself sick.”
“Fair enough. I’ll go put our order in.”
Without Cash to act as a buffer, Wilder noticed a few curious glances pointing his way. Some of the faces were familiar, but no one dared to approach. He settled back in the chair, watching Cash’s broad back through the crowd with a relaxed air. It had served him well in prison, that faked confidence.
Cash turned around, shooting him an easy smile, and suddenly that confidence didn’t feel so fake after all. God, he was handsome, his sun-tanned body packed with functional muscle and effortless authority. He had a commanding presence, but not a domineering one. He set Wilder at ease in a way no one else ever had. He could trust that Cash would have his back, wholly and completely.
When he returned with a little plastic number that he set in the middle of the table, he leaned in and said, “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll have to take you home early.”
Wilder bit back a grin. “We rode with Clyde.”
“I know how to Uber.”
Wilder blinked. “The fuck is Uber?”
Cash laughed. “It’s kind of like a cab service. There’s an app.”
“And we have that here ? In Roselake?” He thought cab services were only for big cities.
“Yep.”
“Huh.”
The food came in increments. Their drink trays were first. Six sodas, six beers, all in miniature glass steins. There was more than enough for both of them, and Wilder didn’t know where to begin. Cash gestured for him to choose first, so he picked out a pale ale and took a careful sip, humming at the pleasantly bitter taste. There was a hint of lemon, and he found himself taking another sip right away.
“Good choice,” Cash said. “I’ve always liked that one. They call it the Summer Sun Ale.”
They traded sips of the beers. Wilder wasn’t fond of the very dark stout, so Cash took that one and let Wilder have the pale ale. When their pretzels arrived, Wilder realized how hungry he was. He tore into his, groaning as steam rose from the fluffy bread, and dipped it into the cheese sauce. His eyes rolled back in his head at the first taste, and he heard Cash snort into his beer.
“Will you be offended if I say this is better than sex?” he teased.
Cash laughed. “You’ve been deprived of good food, so I won’t take it personally.”
“That’s very big of you.”
“So tell me something about you,” Cash said, chuckling. “Something good.”
“I’m going to marry a pretzel,” Wilder said, shoving another big chunk into his mouth.
“Just wait until the burgers get here.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, right, the burgers. Skipping dessert was wise, whew. Not sure I could handle it.”
With his pretzel almost demolished, he considered a real answer. Something good about himself. Something not many people knew.
“I tried out for football once,” he said. “Dad had told me no. The ranch needed too much work. He couldn’t afford for us to do extracurriculars, and he didn’t want us getting jobs to compensate for what the ranch wasn’t making. I’d asked; he said no. I needed to be coming home after school to work the ranch. But goddammit, I wanted to play football.”
“Did you make the team?”
Wilder settled back, draining the last of the Summer Sun and leveling a proud smile at Cash. “I did. Coach was ecstatic. He said I was great. He wanted to put me in right away.”
“How’d your dad take it?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell him. And I turned the coach down. I didn’t take my spot on the team.”
Cash frowned, tilting his head. “Why not?”
“Dad would never have allowed it. Talk about putting a target on my back.” He rolled his eyes. Dad would’ve been furious to find out he’d tried out, and he knew better than to take that news home. Other dads might’ve been proud of their kids for making a sports team. But not Alan Blackwood.
“I-I’m not understanding.”
Wilder smiled down at the table. “I just wanted to prove I could do it. I wanted to prove to everyone, to myself, that I could be on the team if things were different. That I was good enough. And not only did I make the fucking team, but he wanted to make me a starter. Coach begged me to change my mind. Every time I saw him after that, he told me there was a spot for me if I wanted it. I just couldn’t take him up on it.”
Cash’s gaze was soft, like he was seeing something in Wilder he’d never noticed before. And there was something else—something Wilder had never seen directed at him. Pride. He reached out, smoothing a hand across Wilder’s upper back.
“You made the football team,” he repeated softly. “You would’ve been a star.”
Wilder’s mouth quirked. “I don’t know about that. But I made the team. I could’ve been…” He shook his head. “More, I guess.”
“You already are more, Wilder. You’re everything.”
Wilder closed his eyes, reaching out blindly and laying his hand on Cash’s leg under the table. A moment later, fingers found the spaces between his own, anchoring him.
Somebody thought he was more. That was everything.
When their burgers came, he reluctantly separated from Cash to eat, but he found the zest for it after the first bite. Every bite was dripping with melty cheese and grease. The tomato was fresh and juicy, the lettuce crisp. Cash’s foot pressed against his own as they ate, chatting about things that didn’t matter, like how each of the hands wound up working at the ranch and what Cash was most looking forward to when spring came.
Wilder was mostly done eating, picking at his fries and sipping a vanilla cream soda, when his eyes snagged on an unfamiliar sight past Cash’s shoulder. Out on the dance floor, two men were dancing together. Smiling at each other, they were doing some kind of two-step Wilder didn’t recognize, twirling under each other’s arms and moving their feet in time together.
He looked around the room, bracing himself for negative reactions. Dad always said people wouldn’t stand for this kind of thing in Roselake. That they’d root out the unnatural. But there were no snarls of disgust. Nobody approached them. In fact, a few people smiled their way. A couple of women stepped out onto the dance floor to join them, falling into the same style of dance next to the men.
“It’s okay, Wilder,” Cash murmured, and he realized Cash had been watching him.
Wilder forced himself to relax. “I just thought…”
“I don’t know what the town was like when you were a kid, but this is a good place now. People are more accepting than they used to be. They’re not in any danger.”
“Good. That’s good.” He shouldn’t be bitter about that. It was good that Roselake was a more accepting place now. But it did make him wonder… If things had been different, would that have been his life? Would he have found a community here after all? Acceptance? Maybe Dad’s opinion had skewed his expectations about how he’d be treated in Roselake if he came out.
Not that it mattered. They might not care that he was gay, but they sure as hell cared that he was a felon.
Cash’s hand on his shoulder drew him from his thoughts. “Wilder.”
He met Cash’s eyes. “Yeah?”
Cash smiled, hopeful and bright. “We could dance, if you wanted.”
Wilder froze, his heart seizing in his chest. He couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that was exhilarated by the thought. Going out there in front of everyone and letting them see how well he and Cash fit together? It sounded fantastic.
But all of these people knew Lain. The hands were here. Half of them were out on the dance floor, and the others were at the surrounding tables. Any of them could report back to Lain about the foreman getting a little too chummy with his untrustworthy brother. Hell, the fact that they were sitting so close together while apart from everyone else was already risking suspicion. But sitting together could be explained away. Dancing, not so much.
“I didn’t mean to make you short-circuit,” Cash said kindly. “We don’t have to. I was just asking, because you had this look on your face.”
“What look?” Wilder asked. There was a knot in his gut.
“Longing,” Cash answered quietly.
Cash saw right through to the heart of him, but he didn’t long to dance. He longed for the kind of life where he had the choice to. The kind of life where he had a supportive parent he could have come out to. A father he didn’t have to protect his brother from. A father he didn’t have to fight.
Wilder stood, his chair scraping loudly across the wood. “Sorry, I-I need some air, I think. I’ll be right back.”
Cash called his name, but Wilder didn’t stop, propelling himself down the short steps and out onto the patio. It was less crowded here, because the air was brisk. Only a handful of people were braving the chill for a smoke, and none of them paid him any attention as he sucked the cool air into his lungs and let his head fall back.
He didn’t expect a firm hand to snag his arm, dragging him off the patio and out into the grass. He twisted, glimpsing Cash over his shoulder, tugging him out into the darkness around the corner of the building. Cash shoved him up against the wall with a heated grin and then descended, crushing their mouths together and swallowing Wilder’s quiet gasp. The underside of his hat rubbed Wilder’s hair. The cool air couldn’t penetrate their warm little bubble.
“Cash,” he murmured when they parted, wrapping his arms around him.
“Did I make you feel bad?” Cash asked, noses and mouths brushing. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“No, no, it wasn’t you.” He sighed.
“Want to talk about it?”
Wilder took a breath to turn him down, but then he thought better of it. He trusted Cash more than anyone; maybe it was time to act like it. Let him in.
“Dad was shitty,” he said simply. “I grew up expecting people to be like him. It never occurred to me that the rest of the world could be better than him, that the example he set wasn’t really the standard.”
“So seeing those two guys dancing…”
“Made me realize things could’ve been different for me, if I’d had a different dad. If my circumstances had been different. That there are people out there who come out to their parents without fear. And it didn’t seem fair. I shouldn’t feel that way. I shouldn’t be mad about someone else’s positive experience just because mine was exceptionally shitty.”
Cash’s hand cradled the side of his face, thumb stroking his cheek softly.
Wilder leaned into it, sighing. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re human,” Cash said. “And I think you’re pretty damn amazing. After all you’ve been through, you haven’t let it turn you into a bad person. Maybe you felt bitter for a minute looking at those guys, but you didn’t get up and take it out on them. You know your feelings aren’t fair to them. Doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to feel them, though. And you know what?”
“Hm?” He clutched at the back of Cash’s shirt. Who knew existing outside of prison could be so exhausting?
“Even though you had a bad example growing up, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the fact that the rest of the world is better than you expected.”
Cash tugged one of Wilder’s hands free and raised it by their sides. He guided Wilder’s other hand to his shoulder and placed his hand on Wilder’s waist.
“What are you doing?” Wilder asked.
“Dancing with you,” Cash said.
The music filtered out through the open patio doors, distant but audible. Wilder was stiff at first, as Cash pulled him into a barely-there sway. He leaned in, tucking his face in the curve of Cash’s neck and breathing his scent as they moved together. It was maybe the most intimate thing he’d ever done with someone. The gentle press of their bodies, letting Cash lead him by touch and feel alone.
He lifted his head, their cheeks brushing. Cash turned his head. Their damp breaths mingled in the air between their mouths.
“You’re incredible,” Wilder whispered. “I don’t know why you’d ever waste your time on somebody like me.”
“Birds of a feather, I guess,” Cash breathed, smiling as he drew Wilder in for a sweet kiss. “Because I think you’re pretty incredible, too.”
They forgot to dance as their mouths moved together. Cash pushed Wilder against the wall, devouring him with lips and teeth and tongue, taking him apart by inches and resetting every broken piece like new.
They stayed there for hours, trading kisses and touches and quiet words. Wilder’s body craved more, but he resisted. This was better, the intimate yearning for more and knowing it would come when it was meant to. There was no need to rush, no need for quick fumblings and bitten-off sounds. They could bask in each other here and then take their time when they got back to the ranch, in the privacy of his room. No bars, no guards, just two people who wanted each other.
He’d learned long ago that it was dangerous to want things. A spot on the football team. A parent who cared. A cute boy he could be seen in public with. But that was the past. Maybe it was okay to want things now, with Cash, under the starlight. Maybe all he had to do was reach out and take it.
It was a scary thought. But one he was starting to admit, at least to himself, might be worth the risk.