Chapter 10
Seth
Fucking Austin once had been stupid. Incredible, glorious, but not smart.
Doing it again, several times in the next week, was the height of insanity.
Problem was, I liked him. The day after the storm, he didn’t whine once about getting up at six a.m., feeding the dogs and barn cats, and taking care of all the horses, before starting an unending day of supplying hay to the cattle out on the pastures.
We’d got eight inches of white stuff overnight, with the wind piling drifts two feet high.
Travel was slow, even with the bigger tractor, as we hauled and ripped bales, laying out trails of feed for the cows where they hunkered down.
The cattle had access to water in the ponds and usually would break the ice themselves, but with that thick snow cover, we swept and cracked some watering holes for them.
Sixteen hours of unending labor, the beginning and end lit by the blinding array of halogens above the tractor. We were too tired that night to do more than fall into bed together, Austin’s back to my chest, and sleep.
The next day provided more of the same, but we got phone service restored mid-morning, and by late afternoon, snowplows had done a first pass on the county road.
I cleared the drive from the barn to the road with the plow blade on my truck, and by nightfall, Colby and Davis came jolting home over the ruts and ice.
They let Austin and me sleep in the next morning, and Austin took me up on my offer to wake him with a blowjob.
The memory of his face going from sleeping and soft, to flushed and screwed tight, coming hard, was one I’d keep in mind a long time.
Same with the wide-eyed look he gave my dick sliding in and out of him as I fucked him on his back, propped up so he could watch.
I almost came before him that time, just from the way his wet, red lips opened as he gasped.
Tiffany and John made it back from San Francisco on Sunday night, like they planned, although they said the pass above us was still bad, leaving traffic on the highway a mess.
Boss had told them Austin was working a week, and John fit him in the schedule.
But John gave me a long look when Austin and I got up from the TV room the next night and headed out together.
I figured he’d be calling for a private conversation soon.
So I was caught by surprise when it was Davis who grabbed me by the arm Tuesday morning and hauled me up to the house, on the excuse of needing help lifting something. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. John knew I was closer to Davis. More likely to spill my guts.
“What do you need moved?” I asked as we shut the front door on the chill outside, in the vain hope I was wrong about this.
“Take your boots off and come on to the kitchen.”
I did as I was told, leaving my barn jacket on the hook.
Something really tasty was baking in the oven, chocolate and spices. I pressed my hands to the warmth of the stovetop and sniffed loudly. “Got cookies for us? I could take some down to the barn.”
“Sit your ass there.” Davis pointed to a kitchen chair.
For a moment, I debated arguing or misdirecting, but that would only put off the inevitable. I sat. “Is this an intervention?”
“Don’t be like that. We’re just worried about you.”
“No call to be,” I drawled, ignoring the queasy feeling in my gut.
“You like that boy.”
“He hates to be called a boy,” I deflected. “Bad associations, I think. He had a dad I’d like to run over with a hay baler.”
Davis snorted. “Like Miguel’s.”
“No. Well yes, okay, awful dads, but Austin’s nothing like Miguel.”
“He works harder, I’ll give him that.”
“Miguel worked,” I said, stung a little by the criticism. I wouldn’t have fallen for a slacker.
“Miguel did his job, but no more. Austin goes out of the way to find work he can help with.”
“He’s a good guy. I’d never have made it through those two storm days without him. Well, I’d have found a way, but I’d have been up forty-eight hours straight to do it.”
“He’s earned his keep this week, no lie, but what about next week?” Davis leaned his butt on the counter, his arms folded, and eyed me.
“I’m not deluded. I know the boss said just one week.”
“Tell me you’re not scheming how to keep him longer.” When I remained silent, Davis nodded. “Want me to develop a bad back for a week?”
“Huh?”
“Just bad enough to keep me from heavy chores. It’d give you a bit longer for the boss to work with Austin, see how he might be worth keeping.”
“Why would you do that?” Davis was a compassionate guy, but that was way above and beyond.
He came and sat in the chair across from mine, tapping my foot with his.
“I like the boss. Kendrick’s a good man.
But he sees the dollars and cents of the place, first and foremost. You?
You’re my friend. I haven’t seen you happy like this since before Zachary got hurt. I’d do a lot to keep that for you.”
“Thanks.” My throat went tight. “I wouldn’t ask you to lie, though. Anyhow, dating someone I work with is still a bad idea. Look what happened last time.”
“You just got done telling me Austin isn’t Miguel.”
“But I’m still me. It was me that got distracted. Me that let my dick take priority over my brain.”
“For what? One second? Five? Jesus, Seth, we’ve talked about this. You could’ve had a sneezing fit, or got distracted by a deerfly buzzing around. Shit happens. It sucks that your distraction happened right when Zachary screwed up, but it also sucks that you’re still blaming yourself.”
We had beaten the topic to death over the years. No amount of words had changed how I felt. I shrugged.
“What does Austin want?” Davis asked. “Does he have goals? Kid like that, he might go into acting if he had the talent and the drive. Gorgeous face.”
I lifted an eyebrow in Davis’s direction. “I thought you were a hundred percent straight.”
“I am. Doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes.”
“I don’t know if Austin has real goals,” I said slowly. “He was escaping his dad and his life when he washed up here. His goals were to be safe and have enough to eat. I don’t know if he thought beyond that.”
“So maybe you should ask him.”
Of course I should. Except I wasn’t sure if it’d be worse to hear him say he had other goals, out there on the coast. Or to hear that he wanted to stay on the Star & Bar, where the boss wouldn’t keep him and I’d be a better cowboy without him.
Davis fixed his gaze on mine. “If he leaves, would you go with him?”
I stared. “This is my home. I’ve known Austin a week.”
He shrugged. “I decided Erin was the one half an hour after we met.”
“She left you, though.”
“After fifteen good years, and mostly she left the ranch. I didn’t blame her. She wanted a city life and kids I couldn’t give her. Her clock was ticking. I don’t regret meeting her, and I wasn’t wrong that first day.”
“It’s not like that with Austin and me. Anyhow, you didn’t go with Erin.”
“This ranching life gets under a man’s skin. I still love it, even if my hips don’t love me some mornings.” He turned to look out the kitchen window at the snowy landscape. “But there are moments I wish I’d chosen her.” Davis forced a grin. “Just moments, mind you. And you’re not me.”
Would I follow Austin somewhere else? To another ranch, maybe, but if he said, “Come with me to San Francisco?” A shot in the dark, to a place where I’d always felt like an uncouth country boy? “No, I wouldn’t follow him.”
“Then maybe you should talk to him.”
“He doesn’t expect me to leave with him.” Does he?
“Kid doesn’t expect much of anything. He didn’t even expect enough food out of us to keep him alive.
Talk to him anyway. Before the boss gets back tomorrow.
” Davis stood and flapped a hand at me. “Now go back to work. I’ll have the cookies baked for lunchtime.
Tell everyone to come on up and eat something hot. ”
“Will do.”
I took the thoughts tumbling in my head down to the barn and pushed them away in the routine of chores. We didn’t need to move the grazing strips yet, since the cows were getting hay and not making a lot of headway pawing through the snow. Just an ordinary day.
Austin joked around with Colby as they saddled up to ride fences.
The heavy snow had taken down some trees onto the wires, and Colby had a gas chainsaw strapped to the back of his saddle.
Overprotective me wanted to warn them to be careful out there.
I managed to just tell them, “Davis is making a hot lunch and cookies. Take a break, so you don’t get chilled enough to make mistakes. ”
Colby saluted me cheekily. “Will do.”
Austin gave me a smile as simple and open as his blue eyes, and they jogged out of the barnyard, snow swirling around them in the wind. That whirl of white made their silhouettes fade, like the end scene of a movie.
What if this was the last time I saw Austin? What if he was leaving now? The gut-punch of regret was a clear answer. I needed to talk to him. Tonight.
After lunch, and excellent cookies, where Austin turned up with all his limbs attached and ate his weight in beef stew, Davis cleaned the kitchen, then came out for afternoon chores.
Whatever his hips were doing, they didn’t keep him from steering the tractor neatly through and around the drifts, hauling the bale transport.
“So, did you talk?” he asked when we’d unrolled a few bales for the hungry cows.
“Tonight,” I said. “I know better than to get personal in the middle of a workday.”
“I guess. I have lasagnas ready to go into the oven for dinner. I’ll pack one in a thermal carrier for the two of you.”
That helpful gesture was also an unsubtle nudge. “Why are you so into my business?”
“You’re my friend, Seth.” Davis pulled his hat lower over his eyes and peered up at me. “Excuse me if I don’t want to see you in the state you were when Miguel left.”