Chapter 21 #2
She cut off abruptly like just thinking about her mother was frying her brain, and Clay smiled calmly, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze.
‘My mom is not going to think any of those things. For a start, she already thinks you’re fantastic but more than that, she knows, as my father does, that I am a grown man and this is none of their business. ’
‘So they’ll just be… cool with it?’
‘In a nutshell, yes. And I’ll talk with them about how we’re keeping this on the down low as well as managing their expectations.’
He didn’t think that would stop them weighing in with an opinion but he wasn’t going to tell her that when his assurances were clearly what she needed.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes. You really don’t have to worry about them.’ He kissed her lightly, smiling encouragingly. ‘Now come on, I’m going to have to work the guys extra hard today so they don’t have time to give me shit about needing my beauty sleep and fuck knows what else they’ll throw at me.’
Stevie laughed. ‘Sorry.’
Clay shook his head, his gaze locking on hers. ‘I’m not.’
And the smile she gave him stayed with him all damn day. Or at least until his father found him in the stables at the end of the day…
‘Here you are.’
Clay faltered mid brush stroke as John Calhoun leaned his arms on the top of Electra’s stall gate. He hadn’t been avoiding his dad but he’d known this was coming so they might as well get it over and done with. Glancing across, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Here I am.’
‘I get it now,’ he said after a beat or two.
Okay… Clay would bite. Continuing his brush down, he said, ‘Get what?’
‘Why you suddenly seem to have had a personality transplant.’
Clay laughed despite himself. He had been happier since Stevie had come to stay at the ranch, that couldn’t be denied. ‘Yeah,’ he said noncommittally.
More brushing, more silence. Given the two men were better with their hands than their words it was pretty much how most of their remotely emotionally sensitive conversations began.
‘You want to talk about it?’
There were things Clay wanted to say but that didn’t mean he had to make this easy for his father who he knew for sure would rather have his hand up a labouring cow than be doing this right now. Dollars to doughnuts, his mother had put him up to this little tête-à-tête.
‘No.’ Their eyes locked. ‘But you seem to want to.’
His father grimaced. ‘You need to be careful there, son. I’ve seen that ring she wears and… I don’t know but maybe you don’t want to get yourself all tangled up in something that might give her regrets when she leaves here in two weeks.’
Clay appreciated what his father was trying to say.
He’d gone over and over the same kind of things himself.
But he didn’t need to seek permission or forgiveness from his dad over what was happening between him and Stevie.
He hadn’t besmirched her virtue, she was a grown adult and she’d made her own decisions.
She’d known what she wanted and he wasn’t about to infantilise her when she used her big words and asked.
‘She’s twenty-two years old, Dad. She knows what she’s doing.’
‘But do you know what you’re doing?’
Grinding his jaw, Clay turned his attention back to his horse. ‘I do.’
‘Stephanie comes from a very different life to this. And she has a career that is just taking off and she deserves to have that. Like you had your career. But, son, I saw the way you were… looking at each other today and, well… she wouldn’t be the first’ – he cleared his throat – ‘inexperienced woman to fall for a more experienced guy in the first, er’ – he cleared his throat again – ‘flush of a… relationship.’
Clay could almost hear the wince in his father’s tone. He was clearly not comfortable with this – neither was Clay – but he had to give him chops for pushing through.
‘And trust me,’ he continued, ‘you don’t want to be someone’s obstacle to what they want even if you’re not trying to be.’
Clay sighed as his hand fell to his side. He understood what his father was getting at but he was getting way ahead of himself.
He’d read too much into the vibe this morning.
‘Dad.’ He wandered over to the stall gate, propping his elbow a couple of feet away from his father’s position.
‘We’re not in a relationship. We’re just…
having some fun together. A… fling. She knows that.
And I know it, too. I promise you we’re on the same page and you and Mom don’t need to worry about it. ’
His father looked at him for long beats, his lips twisting as he shook his head. Then he shrugged and said, ‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’ Clay nodded, relieved that his dad didn’t want to prolong the agony for either of them any longer. ‘Obviously we don’t want this to be general knowledge and I assume that you and Mom will be able to keep this—’
A quick dismissive wave of his hand cut Clay off. ‘Of course. Our lips are sealed. We don’t ever need to talk about it again. But… if you’d like to talk… you can talk to me.’
Clay blinked, surprised at the offer. Apart from this, and that chat they’d had many years ago about the sexualising of women in video games his father had stuttered through, it had always been his mom who had tackled the difficult conversations.
Puberty, wet dreams, girls, friendships, safe sex, pornography.
It had been his mom who had listened to him rant and rail about the abrupt ending of his career and the general shitty unfairness of life as he recovered from his injury and sweated his ass off during his rehab.
His father had talked ranch stuff and had shown Clay how to be a decent, honourable man through example more than words.
But, here he was, putting himself out of his comfort zone, which Clay grudgingly admired.
Not that he was going to let his father know that when the opportunity to give him shit – more their usual dynamic – had just been presented tied in a neat bow.
‘So we can have another awkward conversation about first flushes?’
His father hooted out a laugh, his hand slapping against the gate. ‘Hey, I don’t promise it’ll be eloquent.’
Clay laughed. He’d take plain spoken any day.
‘Okay.’ His father knocked on the rail twice. ‘My work here is done. See you later.’
Clay nodded and called out, ‘Thanks, Dad,’ as his father disappeared from view and he went back to brushing Electra.