Jesse #2
“Tell me some good stuff about Hoyt,” he asked when we stopped kissing long enough to talk.
“Good stuff?” I tried hard to root through memories that weren’t good, every one of them darkened by my dad being there, but then, I brightened. “The Pop-Tart thing.”
“What about it?” Lucas glanced up at me. “They suck.”
“Nah, not the way Hoyt made ‘em. They were all about balance. Not burned. Not limp. He made me a strawberry one for my birthday, toasted just enough that the outside cracked when you bit into it, but the inside stayed soft and warm. He said a Pop-Tart should hold together, just as anything worth making does, and that now I was ten, I should know that. He showed me, and I did one, and he was so proud of me, and then… we went outside, and that was it… Dad was there…” My breath hitched. “And it all went wrong.”
“Focus on the Pop-Tart,” Lucas murmured. “I mean, when you see him, channel the Pop-Tart love.” Lucas shifted in my lap, the movement small but deliberate, and he brushed his thumb along my jaw one last time and kissed me.
“Why don’t you head out and check on Boone? Give you a minute to breathe.”
I nodded, even though a part of me wanted to keep him right there, and when he slid off my lap, the loss of his warmth was immediate.
I headed for the door, boots thudding on the boards, and a moment later, I was halfway down the porch steps when I saw the truck idling in the drive, exhaust puffing white into the cold.
A Dodge I didn’t recognize at first, hitched to a trailer that looked like it had seen better decades.
Then, the driver’s door opened.
Hoyt climbed out slowly, and I got my first real look at him. Same height. Same shoulders. Older around the edges, thinner through the face, it was all bruised purple and black as if he’d lost a fight with the world and kept going anyway. My chest tightened hard enough that it stole my breath.
He lifted a hand in a half-wave. I mirrored it before I could stop myself.
Guess we were doing this.
He stood for a beat; boots planted on land he hadn’t set foot on in years. I came down the rest of the steps, hands loose at my sides, forcing myself not to rush him, not to retreat either. Three feet apart. Close enough to see the damage.
“Hey,” he said, like it was any other day.
“You got taller,” he said, and the sound of his voice hit me harder than seeing him.
Not the words. The voice. Same gravel under it, same rough edge that used to cut through the house when he was angry or laughing too loud.
My chest locked up, breath stalling like my body didn’t know how to move past that sound.
I’d heard him in my head for years, heard him on the phone two days back, but this was real and impossible to ignore. He was here.
“You got older,” I said. My eyes went straight to the bruises before I could help it. “You look bad.”
“I know.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but it did.
I could see it in the way he held himself, the careful angle of his shoulders, the way he shifted his weight as though every movement cost him something.
I’d seen Hoyt in pain before, back when I was too young to understand.
Back when all I was trying to do was wedge myself between him and Dad, hands up, heart pounding, on that last day before Hoyt walked out and never came back.
I should say something, but the words didn’t come easily.
“The bruising will fade,” he added with a rueful look and another cautious shrug, twisting the moment into something smaller with a smirk. “The ugly’s here to stay.”
“Stupid,” I muttered. The word slipped out far too easily. His eyes widened, and he stiffened, before forcing himself to relax, nonchalant, as if he didn’t care what I said. Suddenly, he was sixteen again, all anger and sharp edges. “You were never ugly,” I said with a smile. “Just stupid.”
He laughed under his breath.
Lucas’s voice cut in from memory, low and firm.
He’s your brother. Hug him. If I had a brother, I’d hug him until he couldn’t breathe.
So, I tried. It was clumsy, all elbows and hesitation, my arms coming up too late and in the wrong place.
Hoyt hissed in pain, and I froze, horror flooding me.
My hands dropped as if I’d done something unforgivable because I had.
I should have known not to touch him, given he looked so beaten up.
“Sorry, shit,” I said, letting go. “Didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” he said, though his jaw was tight and he stared at me in what I imagined was horror, or could easily have been plain need—who the fuck knew after all this time. I’d clearly fucked up. So much for getting in touch with my feelings and being a new man like Lucas wanted.
Lucas had stepped out onto the porch behind me at some point. I felt him there without looking. Hoyt clocked him immediately, and I wondered what he saw. Lucas moved closer, a reassuring hand on the small of my back.
“This is my… this is Lucas… he’s the majority owner of the ranch now; Walter’s grandson.”
Hoyt extended a hand, and the two men shook. “Hoyt,” he said.
Lucas smiled, polite and open. “Hi, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Hoyt said, and he sounded curious.
Now, I could fill in who Lucas was to me.
I glanced right. Lucas had touched up his gloss, fluffed his hair from where I’d messed it up, and looked so damn cute and beautiful and mine.
There was curiosity in Hoyt’s easy smile, but I wasn’t ready for this whole: this is my lover; yes, I’m queer; yes, Dad knows, and he lost his shit; yes, it still fucking hurts; and yes, I understand why you stayed away more than you think.
But no, none of that came out. Instead, I took Lucas’s hand and tugged him to my side, loving that he leaned onto me. “Actually, Lucas is my boyfriend,” I blurted.
“Oh,” Hoyt said, searching for more words and finding none, but at least he didn’t act horrified, but then, I remembered the day he left, the grown-up words Dad had thrown at him, implying he was a boy-lover, all the usual shit our dad came out with, so I guess maybe he was?
“I was expecting you sooner.” I changed the subject because, like him, I didn’t know what to say.
Then, it hit me, should I have even said that?
Had I upset Lucas? Had I crossed a line introducing him as my boyfriend?
Was ‘boyfriend’ even a word that grown-up men used?
I glanced at him again, but he didn’t seem pissed—in fact, he threw me a soft, supportive smile.
“Yeah. Should’ve texted.” Hoyt said. “Phone data’s tight, and the meds knock me out, so I’ve been pulling over a lot.” Hoyt’s gaze flicked around us. “Old man know I’m coming?”
“Nah.” I didn’t sugarcoat it or explain that Abel wasn’t in our old place. It was enough for me to focus on my big brother’s arrival. “You’re welcome here,” I said quickly.
“I won’t cause trouble.”
“That’s not—”
“I’ll park the trailer by the hay barn. Out of sight, out of mind. Might run a cord for electric. Otherwise, he won’t even know I’m here.”
Tell him about Dad. Tell him that he’s not living here.
Then, tell him that Dad sometimes visits, causing shit.
Tell him that Dad’s dying a slow death filled with bitterness and hate.
It was all too much.
“We have a space for you in the house,” I said.
“I cleared a room out,” Lucas said brightly.
“New mattress and drapes, green, which I hope you like, and new sheets, which is more than I got from Jesse when I arrived.” He was teasing, but I winced at the memory of what I’d left Lucas with, before I knew him, back when he was nothing but the man sent here to destroy my life.
“Nah. Trailer’s fine. The less time the old man and me share air, the better.”
I blinked at him. “No, not in our old house,” I corrected and thumbed behind me. “In this place.”
His eyes widened. “In the big house?” He spoke to Lucas next. “Thank you, Lucas, for offering space with you, but I’m not a guest that needs fancy,” he added.
“It’s my place now,” I blurted, and Hoyt frowned. “Walter left me some of the ranch, and the rest is Lucas’s and… Jesus, that’s a story for another day.”
“You own the house?”
“Not all of it, and some of the ranch. But yeah, you can stay here easy enough.”
He hesitated. “I’m used to being alone.”
I nodded, even though I hated that sentence more than anything he’d said so far. “Dad doesn’t live on the property anymore.”
“Huh?”
“He’s not foreman anymore; he’s… in town. He’s… not like you remember.”
Hoyt tilted his chin. “I remember a lot.”
Great, how did I explain this? Maybe now wasn’t the right time, but it had to be soon. “We need to sit down and talk.”
“Yeah, we will,” Hoyt said, shoulders coming up like a shield, his mouth set in a way I knew too well. Defensive. Braced.
“There’s stuff you need to know about Dad and—”