CHAPTER 22
The mood shifted once Sebastian was in his truck.
Considering they were no longer in public, Victor had fewer reasons not to reach out and grab Sebastian.
Instead he controlled himself, asked for Sebastian’s address, and entered it into his GPS.
As he waited at the stoplight outside of the farm complex, Victor’s finger’s tapped along his steering wheel
“You okay? You look all broody,” Sebastian joked, smirking at him.
“I’m not brooding,” Victor protested.
“Not to pry into your business, but is there anything between you and your very tall redheaded friend?”
“No.”
“Really? Cuz he was acting like he didn’t like me. I don’t want to get in the middle of a whirlwind romance or anything…”
Victor reached out and took Sebastian’s hand, squeezing it. “You’re not getting in the middle of anything. Trust me.”
Sebastian wrapped their fingers more firmly together and smiled brightly with a nod. “If you say so, Mr. Cowboy.”
From then on, they chatted amicably about whatever, and to be honest, Victor couldn’t have remembered it twenty minutes later if you asked him to.
He was more focused on the cadence of Sebastian’s voice and the way his hand felt in his, as well as what might happen at the end of the drive.
So far neither of them had implied there would be sex at the end of their encounter, but it was all Victor could think about by the time he pulled into the parking lot of Sebastian’s apartment complex.
Beyond that disastrous blowjob with Johnny, Victor hadn’t had sex with someone in over two years, and he was wondering if it was affecting him emotionally.
Sebastian had seemed open to whatever Victor asked for all night.
They’d been exchanging stealthy touches all night, and Victor couldn’t help but have certain expectations.
“Welp, this is me,” Sebastian said, reaching for the door handle.
Once he got the door open, he looked over his shoulder at Victor.
After a moment of consideration, he leaned back across the truck and planted a kiss on the side of Victor’s mouth.
After a second, Victor turned into the contact, and soon their lips connected, followed moments later by their hands.
Victor grabbed Sebastian’s face with both palms and deepened the kiss, hoping to communicate just how much he wanted this to escalate.
Sebastian left the door ajar and climbed halfway over the median between them, his fingers fumbling with the top buttons of Victor’s shirt.
Only when his hands lowered to Victor’s belt did Victor realize the door was still wide open.
“We should go inside,” he panted, adjusting his hat before it fell off his head.
“Oh yeah, probably.” With a playful smile, Sebastian backed out of his seat and dropped out of the truck. Victor scrambled to extricate himself from the seatbelt and tossed his door open, throwing it shut behind him as he followed Sebastian up the staircase to the second-floor apartment.
* * *
Victor woke in just his briefs in Sebastian’s bed with Sebastian sleeping soundly next to him. When he saw the time on his watch, he jolted. Was it really nine in the morning? When was the last time he’d woken up that late?
Victor threw the blanket off his legs, then paused and looked back at Sebastian.
He was torn between needing to get to the barn to care for his horse and wanting to curl up to Sebastian and sleep until noon.
He had nothing but fond memories from last night, and half the joy of connections like these was getting to draw them out as long as possible.
What he wouldn’t give to curl his front against Sebastian’s back, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, and watch him wake up slowly and sweetly.
Sebastian might make him some breakfast, and they’d spend a few hours on the couch with their legs entwined, flirting and enjoying each other’s company without a schedule.
The problem was that this was just a temporary connection. Victor lived in Oklahoma, and Sebastian wanted more than anything to get back to New York City. There was no point in doing all of the pre-couple things if there was no hope in being a couple in the first place.
Gritting his teeth, Victor pushed himself out of bed and started collecting his clothes.
He shoved his tank top down and tucked it into his jeans.
Over it went the button-up shirt, where he noticed a barbecue stain from that pulled pork sandwich last night—his one souvenir to take home after their date.
After shoving his feet into his boots, he went to Sebastian’s side of the bed and sank onto the mattress next to him.
When he rubbed his arm, Sebastian’s eyes blinked open.
“Hmm?” Sebastian moaned as he rolled halfway onto his back. “Hey.”
“I’m going to head out,” Victor said, sadness clinging to the inside of his throat. “Just wanted to let you know.”
“What? Oh, no, I can make you breakfast or something.”
“That’s very kind of you but not necessary. I’ve already taken up enough of your time.”
“I don’t mind!” Sebastian shoved himself to a sit and reached for the sheets over his legs. “I can make something quick.”
“Sebastian, it’s fine.” Victor rested a hand on his arm, unable to keep himself from rubbing a thumb over his skin. “I really do have to get going. The horses don’t feed themselves.”
“Oh. Okay.” Sebastian’s expression fell, and Victor felt terrible even though they’d both known this was as far as their relationship could go. “Well… thank you. I had a lot of fun last night, and not just the sex parts. Everything else, too.”
“Me, too.”
Sebastian stared at him a second, then pounced forward and yanked Victor into a hug. Victor embraced him as tightly as his chest felt, tucking his face into the gap of Sebastian’s shoulder just to have a moment to cement his scent in memory.
“You’re like a real cowboy,” Sebastian whispered against Victor’s neck. “Running off into the sunset.” Sebastian sighed and released Victor, looking defeated. “Sorry. I don’t want to be weird and clingy.”
Victor stood, then took Sebastian’s face between both his hands. Maybe his breath was still funky, but he didn’t care as he placed a firm kiss on Sebastian’s mouth. When Sebastian’s big brown eyes looked up at him like a stray at his doorstep, Victor rubbed a thumb along his cheekbone.
“What did I say about apologizing?” Victor said softly.
Sebastian’s mouth flickered with a sad smile. “To not do it.”
“Thatta boy.” Victor patted Sebastian’s cheek, then headed out of the room. He paused briefly at a lit aquarium, taking another look before leaning back to view Sebastian through the crack in the door. “Hey, what’s in this aquarium thing?”
“My tarantula,” Sebastian called back.
Victor winced and made a beeline for the door. Maybe Sebastian admired his manly ways, but there was no man inside of him that wanted anything to do with spiders.
* * *
Both of his boarders and Jade were showing today, so Victor spent most of the day at the barn, making sure they had everything they needed for their classes.
In the meantime, he and Taylor sat in lawn chairs in the empty stall that served as their tack room, chatting about school and how consistently she was completing her homework.
The girl could not sit still for the life of her.
For this reason, he’d given her a toothbrush and some saddle soap and put her to work cleaning every saddle and bridle in their collection.
When he asked her what her uncle was up to, she shrugged.
Apparently he’d dropped her off with Victor and vanished for the morning.
Victor hoped he wasn’t up to something stupid.
“Victor?” Taylor asked as she scrubbed. “Last night you said that guy was your date.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. And I’ve been thinking about it. Was he really your date or were you just joking?”
Victor looked over at Taylor, who was staring at him with the plaintive look of a curious child.
Victor had never been called a slur by a child, so it wasn’t so much Taylor he was worried about as it was her parents.
If they figured out a gay man was mentoring their daughter, would they move her to a different barn?
“I was being serious,” Victor said, mouth dry.
“So… you like boys?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Do you like girls too?”
“No, just boys.”
“Do you like my uncle?”
Victor nearly dropped his phone in shock at the question but caught it right before it hit the concrete. “Your uncle and I are just friends.”
Taylor pursed her lips as if she were doubtful, and Victor felt like chiding her for being such a precocious child. His love life was none of her business. “He’s been real grumpy lately, and I was wondering if you two are fighting or something.”
“I think your uncle is grumpy because he’s not drinking.” He wondered how much Taylor knew about Johnny’s alcoholism, but she seemed so perceptive about everything else, so there was no way she missed how much he drank.
“Last night at the rodeo we sat with that girl Daisy and her friend. Every time I tried talking they acted like I didn’t say anything and ignored me. I don’t want Johnny to hang out with them. I like it when he hangs out with you instead. You’re nice to me.”
“That’s—I mean, that’s great, Taylor, I’m glad you like it when we hang out. But Johnny’s love life is his business.”
“He’d be happier with you.”
“Taylor.”
“What?” She tossed the bridle aside and threw up her hands. “I’m just saying!”
“You are ten years old. I don’t think you understand how this stuff works.”
“I know how stuff works! My friend Emma told me her aunt is a lesbian. I know what that is.”
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, because he didn’t feel like the proper person to have this conversation with her. At the same time, he couldn’t just ignore it. “So you know what gay people are?”
“Yeah.” Taylor jutted her chin out in defiance. “Sometimes my stepdad uses mean words about them and I wanna tell him he’s wrong but also I don’t want to get into trouble because I’m always in trouble.”
“What about your mom? What does she say?”
“She doesn’t say anything. She just ignores him.”
“Has Johnny told you anything?”
“No.” She paused. “Does this mean he’s gay?”
“No. It doesn’t mean anything. If you’re so curious, you should ask him yourself.”
“How cool would it be if you married Johnny? Then I could live at your house, and I could ride all your horses.”
“You want me to marry Johnny just so you can ride all my horses?”
Taylor pulled her legs into a pretzel and grasped her ankles with her best attempt at an innocent grin. “Because I like to help!”
“If you want to help so much, you can keep scrubbing that tack until it shines.”
Taylor pouted, then grabbed the bridle she’d tossed aside, mumbling something under her breath. Victor smiled and shook his head, turning back to his phone and trying to ignore the flutter in his chest.
Taylor was poking around some match-three game on Johnny’s tablet when Johnny appeared at the stall entrance, seeming a little wobbly. In one look, Victor knew he’d had been drinking. Victor immediately leapt to his feet and went to Taylor.
“Hey, why don’t you ask Jade to take you over to look at the cows?”
Taylor frowned. “I already saw the cows.”
“Go look at them again. Come on.” Victor grabbed Taylor’s arm and pushed her to a stand. “Jade! Taylor wants to go look at the cows.”
“Again?” Jade called from her horse’s stall.
“Yup! Right now.” Victor ushered Taylor out of the tack stall before grabbing Johnny’s arm and yanking him through the stall door. “It should take at least an hour or two.”
Jade seemed confused, but when she saw Victor’s expression, she nodded and held out a hand for Taylor to take. Taylor looked over her shoulder at Victor, but eventually she trotted along after Jade, leaving Victor and Johnny alone.
“Sit the fuck down,” Victor snapped, shoving Johnny back into a chair. “Jesus Christ, Johnny, have you been drinking?”
“Buddies put me up to it,” Johnny muttered as he bent over and framed his head with his hands. “They play hard.”
“At noon on a Thursday?”
“Gotta be sober in time for the rodeo, so they drink in the mornin’.”
“Christ.” Victor put his hands on his hips and looked down at Johnny with barely contained frustration. “You’re supposed to be sober.”
“You don’t gotta tell me.” Johnny rubbed his jaw, which hadn’t been shaved in a few days.
“I fuckin’ know. But you ain’t got a clue how hard it is to watch all my rodeo buddies ride while I sit here useless.
My whole dream for my life, blown up in my face.
” He made an explosion sound and threw up his hands.
“Just needed somethin’ to get through the day. ”
“Then maybe don’t show up drunk in front of your niece.”
“She’s seen me drunk plenty of times.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“I’m just sayin’, she knows I’m fucked up. Wouldn’t be the first time I disappointed her.” He sank deeper into his chair and leaned his head back until his hat tipped off. His eyes were bloodshot, his face ruddy. Victor wondered if he’d even slept at all. “Sobriety’s really kickin’ my ass.”
“Don’t you have some kind of sponsor you can call? Isn’t that how AA works?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Johnny shrugged. “I just got tired of it all. Don’t give a shit right now.”
Victor stood staring at him with arms akimbo, trying to work out something to say.
“Some ‘o this is your fault,” Johnny muttered, peering at Victor with narrowed eyes.
“Oh really? I put a beer in your hand?”
“Might as well. You never told me you were goin’ on a date.”
Victor rolled his eyes. “Grow up and get over it.”
“Fuck you.” Johnny rolled over onto his side with a groan. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Why don’t you lay down in here and sober up? Then we can have a conversation. Right now I don’t wanna look at you.”
“It’s never felt this bad before.”
“It’s because you haven’t been drunk in months.
” Victor picked up Johnny’s hat and set it on the tack trunk so he could retrieve it when he was in a state to leave the chair.
When he moved around Johnny toward the stall door, Johnny grabbed his hand and held him back.
Victor opened his mouth to complain, but Johnny’s bleary, miserable gaze stopped the protest on his lips.
“Can you put me down like Old Yeller?” he mumbled with a slow blink. “I’m tired of bein’ a fuckin’ disappointment.”
Victor sighed, grabbed a large bottle from the tack trunk, and put it into the cupholder on one of the chair’s armrests. “Drink some water and take a nap. We’ll talk later.”
Johnny squeezed his hand before dropping it and curling up into a ball in the lawn chair. Victor left the stall, sliding the door shut to keep anyone from looking inside. Maybe it was time for him to check out the cows, too.