Hoyt
Ten days.
It took Abel ten days to come looking for me.
Which was about nine days later than I had thought it would take him.
Man was like a queer tracking bloodhound.
Life had settled into a decent routine here at Snow Creek despite the occasional glances from the other hands.
A few had ventured over to eat with me last night, nice guys, who wanted to talk about bull riding.
Searching for tips so they could beat a mechanical bull at the Saddle Up Saloon.
I’d passed on what I could but did remind them I was sitting there eating meatloaf and glazed carrots because a bull had pulled a Micheal Flatley on my left shoulder so maybe my advice should be taken with a grain of salt followed by a Percocet.
They’d laughed. The conversation was nice.
I’d even gone to bed early, with only half a pain pill swallowed, and finished my poem.
It was good. Maybe. Fair. Meh. Ugh. It was a poem.
I wanted to read it to Aubrey to get his thoughts but who the hell meanders into a store to demand the owner listen to a lame poem about a red horse?
So I hid it under my cot. I was real good at hiding things.
Shame I couldn’t hide any longer from my old man.
I spied him entering the barn as I worked at the old desk on some veterinary forms and bills, entering them into the old laptop as Gunner had asked. He and I got on okay. We didn’t sit around gossiping. Guess he picked up that I wasn’t the chit-chat sort of person.
My gut clenched instantly. Abel Knox was still big, still strong, still filled with simmering hatred for me. That was obvious by the gleam in his dark eye and the curl of his lip. One of the barn cats that had been chilling with me darted off. Guess he could sense evil when it entered a room.
“Figured you’d show up.” I sighed then closed the laptop right in the middle of my entries.
Hopefully it had saved. If not I had work for later.
“You’re like a bad case of herpes.” He took a few steps into the office, eyed the old creaky chair I was sitting in, and stood there staring for at least a full minute.
“Hey, you here for a reason or just to be a dick?”
His gaze moved to me, lost for a moment, before the fire returned. “You had to come back to make sure you finished the job, right?”
“Look.” I rose from my chair, reaching my full height of six-two.
Which had me taller than him, substantially younger, and even with one arm in a sling wholly capable of kicking his ass all the way to Utah.
“Why don’t you just go back home and leave me be?
I’ll stay clear of you and you stay clear—”
“You contaminated your little brother just like I knew you would.” He spit at the floor by my boot.
“Nice, classy. Always the elite gentleman. Why don’t you just go? Or better yet move the fuck out of my way and I’ll leave. This way you can retain some of your pride and all of your teeth.”
“You queers make me sick. I can’t believe I sired two of you. Your mothers had fucking defective eggs.”
“Abel, seriously, read a damned book. No one can be turned gay. Did someone turn you straight?” He drew back as if I’d slapped him.
Wished I had. Fuck I was tired of this stupid hateful bullshit that people threw at LGBTQ people every fucking day.
It wore a soul down. “Yeah, no, they didn’t.
And no one makes other people gay. Asshole.
Now get out of my way. I’ve had enough of your toxic shit to last me ten lifetimes. ”
His gaze roamed the room finally lighting on that dumb old chair. “Where is your grandfather? I told him to meet me here to fill out those bills of sale for the surplus alfalfa hay.”
I stared hard. “Abel, what the hell? My grandpa’s been dead for years. He had a heart attack.”
He rubbed at his face then turned and left, mumbling about how good the hay was for the milking cattle Rufus Young had.
I gaped at his back. Rufus Young had died when I was fourteen.
What the fuck? I followed my father out into the late spring day, curious as to where he would go.
He climbed into his truck then drove off, following the mile-long drive with his headlights on. During the day.
Yep, okay, there was shit to be discussed with my baby brother.
I’d put it off for two weeks now, meeting up with Jesse here and there on the ranch, saying hi or talking about toaster pastries or what the price of beef was but never skating near the edge of what felt like would be very thin ice.
A wise man would have left it all be. I’d be leaving here by end of summer if not sooner.
No one ever said I was very wise. If they did they didn’t know me well.
A few head butts with a few too many bulls had knocked the common sense right out of me it seemed.
Why the hell I even cared if Abel was foggy-headed or not I couldn’t say, nor did I want to examine that closely.
But here I was stalking to the main house with a gut full of emotions I couldn’t even place right now. I knocked. Hard. Fuck the doorbell. The porch was clean, tidied up for spring, there were even painted clay pots placed here and there waiting for someone to fill them with flowers.
The door swung open to reveal Lucas holding a slice of bread with butter.
“Oh, Hoyt. Hi, nice to see you again. Come on in. Jesse and I are just putting a roast in the oven for dinner. We like to have a private meal from time to time.”
“Okay.” I ducked inside, toed off my shitty boots so as not to mar the hardwood floors, and followed this stranger into a home I’d not spent much time in as a kid.
Not much had changed in terms of décor, but it had a homier feel.
There were small things I did take note of as we passed certain rooms. Candles on tables.
Throw pillows. A knitted blanket tossed over the back of a rocking chair.
Native American throw rugs here and there.
If I didn’t know better I’d think my mom had come back from the dead.
The home just had a feminine touch. Or a queer man’s touch. “Those your candles on the tables?”
“Yeah, I enjoy them at night. Right in here. Jesse, your brother finally made it for dinner.”
I lingered in the doorway, eyes catching every little thing now.
A touch of a hand to my younger brother’s lower back, the quick exchange of something deep in just a glance, the subtle way Jesse moved closer to Lucas for a moment as if trying to siphon strength from him.
No kidding. This was…well, it was something I’d not have predicted even with the world’s most powerful crystal ball.
Jesse turned to look at me, raw tater in his hand, his face blank. “You okay?” he asked as Lucas plucked the potato from his grip.
“Not really. Abel came to pay a visit to me in the barn.”
His face fell. “Christ. Did he drive here?”
“Yeah and drove off again once after he asked where Grandpa was.”
“Fuck. Okay, I have to track him down and call Olivia. Thanks for coming to me with this.”
“Oh, we’re not done. I have a lot of questions little brother.”
Jesse wiped his hands on his jeans. “Sure, fine, we can sit down. Let me make this call and find where he is first, okay? Just…Lucas, can you get Hoyt some coffee?”
“Sure, of course, babe, go find your father.”
Babe. Okay, then. Jesse gave his arm a squeeze as he pulled his cell out of his back pocket.
“We’ll talk over dinner. Just…” Jess waved his phone.
“Nah, go find Abel if that’s so important.
” I took a squat at the island, tossing my leg over the stool as if I were climbing onto the back of a bull.
Old habits died hard. Jesse wandered off for some privacy.
Lucas poured me a cup of coffee, smiling softly at me as he handed it over. “So, you and my brother seem tight.”
I didn’t add the question mark. The homey ambiance combined with the genteel lover’s moments told me all I needed to know.
“Yeah.”
“Right.” I blew over my coffee as Lucas returned to fixing their dinner. Jesse returned after a few minutes, looking harried but not manic.
“Olivia says he’s home,” Jesse said. “I guess he wanted to drive out to the dude ranch cabins across Snow Creek.”
“He do that a lot?” They both turned to look at me after shoving the roast into the oven, the pan filled with beef, onions, carrots, and taters. “Blink in and out of the present? What’s happening? What am I missing?”
“Come on, let’s get comfortable. The roast will be a bit,” Lucas chimed in, taking Jesse by the hand.
I followed the two lovers with my coffee like a well-trained pup, into the living room with the candles and throw rugs.
I sat alone on a hassock the size of a Shetland pony while they dropped into a plush sofa.
“So…” I prompted, sitting back after loosening the sling. Jesse arched a brow. “It’s annoying. So…”
“How much do you know about what happened to Barrett? Like, has anyone told you?”
“No one is saying shit to me,” I grumbled then shrugged. “I just know from the message you sent me that he had a heart attack.”
“So you got the message then?” Jesse snapped and rightfully so. I was shit when it came to replying to people. Even the people who mattered most. Maybe I should work on that.
“Yeah, but I was on the road and…” I huffed out a breath.
“I’d sent a message to the only number I had, not even knowing if it would reach you. I didn’t know if you still used that phone or not. When nothing came back, I let myself believe it meant you didn’t want it. Didn’t care.”
“No, no, that was…” I forced myself to meet my brother’s gaze. “I cared. I care.”
Jesse stared hard then lowered his sight to his hands that were wrapped around his coffee mug.