Jesse
We were well over halfway through Lucas’s six months, a couple of weeks since the night Lucas had found out about the phone call, and time was slipping through my fingers.
Each night I ended up in bed with him, another day gone.
Whatever this was would end in the summer but knowing it and believing it were two different things.
Every day he was here made it harder to picture the ranch without him, harder to imagine Snow Creek going on as it always had once he was gone.
I was never going to agree to sell, but if I refused, Lucas would be left owning something he never wanted, tied to land he hadn’t chosen, and I’d be the reason he was stuck.
The longer it went on, the clearer it became how it would end—with resentment, quiet at first, then sharp, aimed straight at me.
I was usually a man who could find his way through anything with enough work and enough planning.
Give me fences to mend, numbers to run, a future I could map out, and I’d make it work.
But every plan led back to the same place—Lucas getting hurt—and I couldn’t see a future where I kept the ranch and didn’t lose him.
He wanted to sell for reasons that were important to him.
I wasn’t selling because this was my land, and yeah, it was important to me.
Complicated feelings hit me every time I saw Lucas, and none of them sat easily.
When he said he was falling for me and I couldn’t say it back, that wasn’t manipulation.
I wasn’t withholding affection; I didn’t know what to call how I felt.
Love felt like a word meant for other people, people who’d grown up with it, or at least recognized it when it showed up.
I’d never been in love, and I’d never been loved in return.
Walter had cared about me; I was sure of that.
You didn’t leave a man a share of Snow Creek without feeling something deeper than obligation.
But love? I didn’t know. I’d respected him more than I’d ever respected my dad, trusted him in ways I’d never trusted anyone else, and maybe that was the closest I’d come.
The rest of my life was built the same way—steady, contained, practical.
Jake was my best friend, but we didn’t head into town for beers or sit around talking about our lives.
We talked about work, cattle, weather, and what needed fixing next. That was as far as any of us went.
They all had my back. I had theirs. But they didn’t know all of me.
Hell, no one here even knew I was gay. I’d never told them.
I’d never hinted. I’d kept that part of myself packed away and out of sight, same as I always had.
If I hooked up, it was on trips to Denver, anonymous and contained, something that didn’t follow me home.
Back on the ranch, I passed for straight without trying, and I let that stand.
It was easier. Safer. But standing there now, wanting Lucas in a way that cut deeper than sex ever had, I had to wonder what that said about me.
If I hadn’t trusted anyone enough to tell them who I was, then what did that make me—cautious or cowardly?
And if I didn’t even know how to be honest about myself, how the hell was I supposed to know what I was feeling for him, or what to do about it?
I was washing dishes—contemplating how my world could have been turned upside down to this extent, and how I had all these complicated feelings—when the ranch phone rang, and the answering machine kicked in. I stiffened in shock at the voice echoing through the kitchen.
“Jesse! Hey. It’s Hoyt. I don’t know if this is recording it right.” There were beeps, and Lucas knew something was wrong. “Who?” he mouthed as he set a mug on the counter for me. Dark roast. I smiled at him, and he pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“My brother,” I murmured, and his eyes widened.
He made a gesture to answer the call, but I shook my head.
“… keep thinking about you when you were a baby… you were so small. You used to grab my finger, and I’d sit on the floor holding you like that for hours because you were so sweet.
Fuck, Jesse…” He sounded high, and then there was a soft sob.
What the fuck? “I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m so fucking sorry…
Jesse, shit, I had to sell my horse. Adobe.
My red roan. I didn’t want to, but I had to…
and it broke me. I cried like an idiot. Everything’s going wrong now.
One thing after another, and I can’t keep up…
” There was a pause. “… you don’t need to hear that.
Not your problem. I never wanted to be your problem; you know that, right?
I wanted you to have a good life, and I had to go.
Dad… fuck. There was so much hate in him.
He kept saying I’d hurt you. That I was bad for you.
But you have to know that wasn’t true. I would never hurt you.
Never. You were my little brother. I was supposed to protect you. ”
Lucas gripped my arm, and I reached for a towel and wiped my hands dry. I should answer, right? This was Hoyt; this was my brother who was on the edge, somewhere out there?
“… these drugs are good. Too good. My knee doesn’t even hurt right now…
which feels wrong… should I be scared it doesn’t hurt?
Life is shit. It’s hard work and shit, and I’m so tired…
” He exhaled roughly, as if he was holding back all the emotion.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I believed I was bad for too fucking long.
I know you chose Dad… Hell, I know you had no choice…
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I just needed you to know I never stopped caring. Not once. Shit… I need to delete…”
He stopped talking, then more beeps, then nothing but dead air, and the machine flicked off, the message-received light flashing.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked as soon as the message ended.
“Yeah,” I murmured. He leaned back against the counter, giving me space without stepping away.
“Yeah,” I added again, and for a second the kitchen fell away, replaced by the sound of Hoyt’s boots on the porch and his laugh carrying in after him, dust and leather and sun clinging to him as he ruffled my hair.
“His name’s Hoyt.” Saying his name out loud always did strange things to my head.
“You’re not close?”
“Nope.”
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked and god, his beautiful eyes were bright with emotion. I loved that in him, the way he could feel everything so deeply.
“I wish I knew how to feel.”
“How old is your brother?” Lucas asked, but he didn’t sound pissed or hurt; he sounded curious.
“Half-brother,” I corrected, “He’s fourteen years older than me, and he left me a long time ago.
The way Dad says it, when I was born, Hoyt was apparently already halfway out the door, but he never had a choice of staying, being queer, and with all the shit Dad spewed. ” I glanced up at Lucas. “Still spews.”
“How old were you when he left?”
“The first time? Two, maybe, I don’t know.”
“The first time?”
“He came back a couple of times, but Dad… fuck, they got into it and… it’s a long story.
” The emotional baggage and memories of that last day were too heavy right now.
“He left, and I don’t blame him. Dad used to take a whip to him, never once touched me like that, but then, he never knew my secrets, because him knowing scared the hell out of me. ”
“Jeez—”
“Hoyt started bull riding, made it big enough to stay away, and the last time he came back, I was ten.”
“You haven’t seen him in that long?”
I shook my head. “We weren’t close; there was no reason for him to come back.
” The words came out clipped, defensive.
God, what was I doing, making excuses as if it was all about why Hoyt didn’t keep in touch?
As if I’d done any better. I hadn’t written.
I found a number through the rodeo and texted once when Walter died, but I hadn’t called.
Most days, I didn’t think about Hoyt at all.
That was the lie I’d built my life around.
Easier to keep it that way. Don’t mention Hoyt, and it meant I didn’t give Dad another excuse to go off on one of his bitter tirades.
“I followed his career some, and saw pictures of him.” I stopped again, self-derision flooding me. “He was stronger than I ever was.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he actually managed to get away.”
“Fuck, Jesse, it’s sometimes braver to stay.”
“So you say.” I stared into the coffee, as if it might give me answers. “I don’t get why he called, when it just messes with things.”
“You mean it messes with you,” Lucas said.
“He sounded high!”
“He mentioned a knee. Do you think he’s injured?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care…” Liar. I met Lucas’s steady gaze, then turned away again.
I didn’t need to see his compassion or understanding, because it made things feel heavier than they had any right to be.
This wasn’t us having sex and keeping it uncomplicated.
This was… something else, and I didn’t want to poke at it.
“Why would he call me? Why now? I don’t need any more shit.
But I want to see Hoyt, I think. Fuck, why would he want to see me? ”
Lucas pressed a hand to my arm. He said quietly, “Tell me what you’re not saying.”
I swallowed—I needed to tell someone, right?
And Lucas was here, and I had complicated feelings for him, and he was leaving in a few weeks, and he’d take my awful secrets with him.
“The last time I saw Hoyt, Dad was drunk off his head.” I stared at the counter.
“He was swinging for Hoyt as if he meant to finish it. Hoyt fought back. I got between them.”
Lucas’s breath caught. “Wait, you said you were ten, why—”