Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Grooming my ruddy ass has changed for me. 

Out of all of the shit that has changed in the last year, grooming myself should be the least of my fucking concerns. We’ve got enough shit to adjust to. I’ve got enough to work on changing to make things easier for Roan, and my own fucking face should not even be a thought that crosses my mind. Thinking of my own face is a selfish, vain, fucking terrible thing that I should not make room for. 

It’s terrible. It’s vain. 

But it’s hard for me to trim my fucking beard. 

I put it off for as long as I can. I shove it until I start to look like a fucking caveman. 

But it’s bad right now, bushy and dry, and it makes me look fucking insane, and I can tell that it’s bothering Roan when my cheek brushes his. I’ve got to clean it up. It’s got to be done. 

It’s not like I’m dense. It’s not like I don’t know how to shave. 

I just cannot fucking stand to have to stare at myself in the mirror for more than a few seconds when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning. I don’t lift my head when I pass by the mirrors in the hall, I don’t turn my eyes when a reflection of me passes in the gloss of the farm equipment in the barn out front. Shit, I brush with my fucking eyes on the sink, half the time. Even when Roan is beside me, and he’s watching my face while we have simple conversation like husbands should, in the glass doors of the cabinet over our sink, I talk to the faucet when I respond to him. I don’t dare lift my gaze and let my eyes rest on my face. 

Because my face is fucked. I look so fucked up. 

And that is nobody’s fault but my own. 

Roan’s leg was already hurting him when it was time to settle in with the herd for the night. We’d been sort of forced into wrangling again when the wolves became too aggressive for our hired ranchers to handle. We normally hire some hands in the summer when we’ve got to move the sheep and the cattle, but winter was ending, and there was only one more move for the sheep. Roan sent them home, when their arguing was just drawing more wolves in and they’d lost a sizable chunk of the flock. There was only one more fucking night to get through before we came down from the mountain. 

Only one more fucking night. I wish every fucking day that we had worked through the night and just brought the herd down. 

Roan got thrown off of his horse. He plays too damn much, and he pushed his horse to the point of exhaustion, until she bucked him out of his saddle. He was okay, but his leg was tender, and sore. He landed on it pretty hard. He was up and walking, and cracking jokes about getting too old to get thrown, and laughing with me over dirty fucking jokes. He was still walking. 

I told him to go on home at the end of the night. I told him I’d camp out with the sheep, since he was hurting. There wasn’t any point in us switching halfway through the night like we had been doing. 

Lord, bless him, my husband is a saint. Roan is a fucking saint. He didn’t care that his leg was hurt. He cared about me being up all night while he was tucked into bed at home, shivering at the top of a freezing mountain at the end of a cool summer without the same wool that the sheep had to keep them warm. He didn’t want his husband alone and cold. It was the last night before we brought the herd down. He insisted that he wanted to stay. 

In some ways, I’m glad that we had that final night together. I’m grateful for the few hours we spent together before I settled into my sleeping bag, our bare bodies entangled like practiced art, perfected over decades of touching each other. For a little while, before we redressed, our tent was filled with hot, panting breaths and tender moaning, because Roan said that his leg was hurting him, but not bad enough to keep his hands to himself. 

We laughed about it after, how fucking silly that was. I went to sleep laughing, wrapped in the warmth of Roan’s embrace, his fingers combing mindlessly through my hair when he took the first watch. 

I woke to the cold of an empty space beside me. 

I woke to the fucking agonizing sound of my husband screaming. 

His leg was hurting him. Not bad enough to keep his hands to himself, but bad enough to make moving fast, to make getting away from a wolf when he walked away from the tent to piss, an impossibility. 

The echoing slice of his screaming in the night fucking haunts me, more than the sight of a wolf mauling the only man that I have ever loved, more than the sickening tear of his flesh from his bones, more than the gush of crimson bleeding beneath the full moon’s ghostly glow. His fucking screaming is etched into my brain matter like a carving from wood, like a permanent scratch in a table. 

Like the horrendous fucking scars on my face. 

I didn’t feel any of it when it happened. I didn’t feel the sharp claws of an angry wolf digging into my face, or my arms, or my chest. I didn’t feel anything other than the desperation in my very being to put myself between Roan and that fucking animal. 

The screaming didn’t stop until my gun’s fire sent my ears ringing. Then, I couldn’t hear anything but my own heavy breathing, staring at Roan’s lips mouthing my name while his hands pressed to the numb gashes in my flesh. 

My husband is a fucking saint. His own muscle hanging from bone, tears in his eyes through intense and violent fucking pain, after being mauled by a fucking wolf when I was sleeping, Roan reached for me instead of his own fucking leg. 

It took me a minute to regain my sense and make my hands move to help him. 

It took me hours to carry him down the same mountain we needed to bring the herd down in a few hours. The wolf spooked the horses worse than that snake did. 

The doctors couldn’t save his leg. 

And nothing’s going to fix my fucking face. 

It is so fucking selfish to be unhappy with my reflection in the mirror when Roan lost his fucking leg. Not only am I a piece of shit that was asleep when my husband was being eaten alive by a fucking wild animal, I am a piece of shit that cares about the way my fucking face looks. 

I am a vain, selfish, conceited piece of shit. 

I am standing upright with my weight evenly distributed between both of my legs, attached to my body, and I have tears in my eyes trimming up my beard in the mirror. I have both of my fucking legs, and I am swallowing down sobs when cutting my beard down to my cheeks makes the deep well of new, red flesh that stripes my face so much more prominent than it was when I looked like a caveman. 

The click and snap of Roan’s prosthetic makes a slow descent from our bedroom to the bathroom. He moves with much more caution now than he does in my memories. I can’t even lift my head to watch him walking in the bathroom mirror, because my crying eyes are hard locked on the sink I’m brushing what I cut from my beard into. 

Roan’s arms coil around my waist. He presses his lips to the back of my neck before he settles his forehead on it. “Heard them clippers buzzin’ and thought about praisin’ the good lord for answerin’ my prayers. I been askin’ the big man upstairs to burn that fuckin’ beard off in your sleep.” 

“Fuck you,” I say simply, smiling at my hands at work, pleased with his breathy laughter on my shoulder. Despite how devastating that night was, despite how deeply it could have changed him, Roan has remained the same loving, humorous man that he has been since the day I met him, the same wonderful man I fell in love with ranching on this property when we were barely grown men. I keep my smile pointed at the porcelain. “I know it was gettin’ bad.” 

Roan hums like he’s got to put some thought into that. “Wasn’t bad, now. Just bushy. Miss bein’ able to see your face.” 

He’s the only fucking one. 

I gloss past that. “You should not be standin’ in here fussin’ over my beard.” 

“I’m hardly fussin’.” 

“You’re standin’, Roan. You ain’t supposed to be standin’ for a long time.” 

“Ain’t been in here very long, now have I?” he asks softly, mumbling into my skin when he moves my long hair to press his lips to my neck. 

“Roan,” I sigh, shaking my head at the water flushing my beard down the sink. “You’re stressin’ me out.” 

“Lighten up, cowboy,” he teases, laughing. “Ain’t gonna die in the bathroom. How ‘bout you stop badgerin’ me and let me hold my husband for a damn minute?” 

At that, I’m silent. I’d never fucking argue that. It’s harder to do shit like this now, shit that used to be so effortless. Even now, as Roan’s face is pressed to my neck and his fingers trace mindless patterns into the fabric over my stomach, I can feel how much weight he’s putting on his good leg. I can feel in the tension in his hips pressed against me that it hurts him to stand unmoving for this long. 

Selfishly, I shut my eyes and stop bitching, because I miss my husband's arms around me in simple moments around the house. I miss simplicity. Like a selfish piece of shit that should give more of a shit about his leg than I do about how much I miss him hugging me like this, I sink back into his arms and let him hold me. 

He hums again, his chest buzzing against my back, like he’s never known pain and can only feel how fucking much he loves me, like the way that his leg is shaking as he loses his strength to remain standing without his body aching is not something that he processes at all when his arms are around me. 

“I miss this,” he whispers, fingertips trailing from my stomach to my chest, to my throat. He cups my chin in his hand to tip my head back and settle it against his shoulder. I open my eyes to watch our reflections alongside him, to savor the way that he smiles, to soak in how happy he is just to stand here and hold me. He traces the curve of my lower lip with his thumb, like the sight of me is just something he wants to savor. “Beautiful fuckin’ man. I like to look at you like this.” 

Roan still likes to look at me like this. 

I cannot fucking stand to look at myself. 

Alongside Roan’s own magnificence, hair like a smoldering fire, the bridge of his nose and his cheeks spattered with freckles, eyes watching me like I am the only beauty he has ever marveled in his life, I am scratched through, scraped across the entirety of my face, eyebrow to opposite cheek over my nose, with a painful reminder that I was sleeping when my husband was being mauled to death. 

It is so fucking selfish to be upset about my face when Roan’s body is trembling while he struggles to support his own weight on one foot so that he can hold me the way that he used to. It is so, so fucking selfish to be upset about my face. 

But looking at it together in our bathroom mirror, both of us scanning my mangled features alongside each other, I am fucking disgusted with the sight. I am even more disgusted with the conceited tears that well up in my eyes again when I watch my own reflection for too long. When I know they’re going to spill, because beneath Roan’s gentle hand, my jaw is tight and my throat is bobbing, I dip my face from his grasp and go back to looking down at the sink. 

“Parker,” he says softly, concern laced into my name as it falls from his heavy tongue. “What’s the matter, darlin’?” 

I shake my head and clear my throat when I turn back to face him, to look away from the mirror. I take his arms into my hands by his elbows, to help him adjust his weight to let me carry some of it for him, so that his leg won’t hurt. “Will you please sit down?” I whisper to him. “You ain’t supposed to be standin’ this way.” 

Roan nods. He lets me guide him back toward our bedroom, slowly, because he limps when he moves. I hold his hands and help him lower himself back to the edge of our bed, but when I go to release him, he clutches me. He clings to my hands tightly, staring up at me and shaking his head. “Please don’t hide from me when I can’t get around to chase you.” 

I sit down beside him. I fold my hands together and face forward. I cannot bear to tell Roan that I am a selfish fucking piece of shit. I cannot stand the thought of him thinking that about me, too. The thought makes my fucking stomach turn. 

Roan is a saint. Roan is kind. 

He cradles the side of my face to turn my head toward him, so that he can look at me. He swipes stupid fucking tears from my cheeks, his eyebrows drawn together like he cannot fathom what is plaguing me, but he will find a way to cut it out of me with his bare hands. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, like a plea, like it’ll kill him not to know. 

I shake my head. “It’s stupid.” 

“Nothin’ that bugs you is stupid.” he insists, brushing tears away with his knuckles. “Please, talk to me.” 

“It’s so stupid.” I repeat, my voice hoarse. I try to swallow it back into normalcy. It doesn’t help. “And it’s vain. I don’t want you to know that I’m vain.” 

To my surprise, my greatest fucking relief, Roan laughs. 

He breathes a simple, silly laugh like that is the craziest fucking thing he’s ever heard. “You ain’t vain, baby. You’re a lot of fuckin’ things, but you ain’t vain.” 

“I feel vain.” I say, laughing with him. Laughing with Roan has never taken any effort. Laughing with Roan has never changed. Of everything that has changed for us over the last year, laughing with Roan has never been something that we’ve had to figure out. 

He brushes my hair back from my face, over the crown of my head, like all he wants is to look at me. Like I am not at all to him what I am to myself. Like he does not see what I do. Like he hasn’t even noticed how fucking mangled I am. I decide that I can make myself share my selfish truth with him, even if it’s terrible. 

“I feel ugly.” I say softly, half-heartedly. “I feel ugly, and that makes me feel vain, and selfish. I don’t wanna look at it. I don’t like it.” 

Instantly, Roan understands. Roan always understands. Roan always thinks far more of me than anyone else ever has. He takes my face into both hands and shakes his head. “You are not ugly, Parker.” 

“Well,” I sigh, exhausted. “I certainly ain’t pretty.” 

“The fuck you ain’t,” Roan says, eyes bulging like I’m insane. “You are the most beautiful man I have ever known, and I ain’t foolin’. I mean that.” 

“Roan, come on,” I mumble. “Don’t do that.” 

Roan stares hard at me. He stares until he thinks I’ll absorb what he says and believe it. He speaks softly to me in the silence of our house, empty aside from us. “You saved my life, Parker.” he says, for the hundredth fucking time. He traces over the healed gash in my face with his fingertips, his touch light, like he never wants to do anything to hurt me. “Just because your face has changed don’t mean that it’s ugly. You could never, ever be ugly. You are a beautiful fuckin’ man, and you are selfless, and you are good.” 

“And I’m blubberin’ over my fuckin’ face while you’re strugglin’ to stand behind me at the sink. And I’m mopin’ over my goddamn mug when you lost a fuckin’ leg.” 

“And don’t none of that make you vain.” Roan finalizes. “You got hurt, too, Parker. Don’t make me losin’ my leg into somethin’ that means you can never be upset about gettin’ hurt, too. I don’t want that kind of sufferin’ for neither of us.” 

I love Roan. I love Roan so fucking much. Roan is a fucking saint. Roan is so fucking kind. Roan would never make me feel like I am what my mind insists I am. 

He tips my head back so that he can kiss me, deeply, so that he can draw his love up between his lips and breathe it into my open mouth. I swallow as much of it as I can, gulping his affection from his kiss to drain it. When he pulls back from me, he dries my cheeks, and he smiles like he can only function when I am content, and he will build contentedness with his own hands so that he can give it to me, to ease the way that my chest aches when I’ve got to look at myself in the mirror. He sweeps his thumb across my welted cheek. 

“You are a beautiful fuckin’ man,” he says, effortlessly, like no other truth has ever come as easily. “And I want to spend the rest of my life lookin’ at you.” He lifts the corner of his mouth in a smirk that dribbles mischief over his chin. “And I swear, I’m gonna work out standin’ at that fuckin’ sink so I can look at you how I fuckin’ want to without shakin’.”

Laughing with Roan has never changed. In our silent house, we submit to quiet laughter. 

Chapter Text

My husband is killing himself to make up for the work I cannot do.

I’m a rancher, in my heart, in my soul, in my bones. I have spent a lifetime herding cattle and sheep, tending crops and tilling soil, feeding and caring for my horses and sleeping under the stars, nursing my stomach with tobacco and whiskey. I like working with my hands, I like working in the muck and in the dirt, in the salt of the earth beneath my boots. I have interests, I suppose. I love my husband, mostly, and I like to fish. I like to kick my feet up at the end of a long journey, inhale the smell of my home and relax into the soft embrace of my bed, and Parker’s warm, welcoming arms.

I used to love early mornings, when we woke before the sun did, to pack the rest of our belongings, tend to the animals we’re leaving behind, and trek out into the wilderness to herd our animals miles and miles up into the mountains. I loved Parker’s tired, lidded eyes, and his sleepy smile, whispering his love for me into the calloused skin of my knuckles, making sure I felt loved just as much as I made sure he did. Ranching is hard, gruesome work, but we’re hardworking men, and we did it all together. At least we endured the harsh weather, the freezing cold, the burning heat, the aching limbs, the bruises, the hunger, all of it, we endured together.

My mornings have become different. After a lifetime of kissing my husband awake, pulling him out of bed with me to start our long, gruesome day of enduring, Parker has started to rise on his own.

I don’t try today. I roll over to look at him, to plead with him, and he just smiles, shutting his pale eyes and running his big palm over my forehead, leaning forward to kiss my lips, warm and pressing, exhaling his love into my body like he always does.

But he doesn’t help me up. He gets dressed without me. He doesn’t wait for me to beg him to let me help.

When he’s pushing through our bedroom door, I stare at the ceiling.

I am a stubborn idiot. I flew off my horse, once. Parker told me to ride home and let him finish up watching the sheep, and I insisted I was fine, laughing, and joking it off like my leg didn’t hurt. He conceded to let me sleep by the sheep with him, to watch for wolves and care for me when I refused to take care of myself.

Admittedly… I do not remember the wolves.

I remember my husband’s pale eyes, white like ice in the dark, a light in the closing, shrouding black that clouded my vision. I reached for him, all my pain, all my terror was shielded from the brutal, harsh truth of reality by Parker’s kind eyes. I couldn’t feel anything other than his hands, tears in my eyes at the sight of blood on his cheek, trying to see if he was alright.

I hated myself for the pain in his eyes. He searched my body, frantically, for anything worse than my leg, and I hated myself for making him search. I hated that I scared him.

I don’t remember a lot of him carrying me back, neither. He abandoned our herd, our horses, our camp, to limp and drag my helpless body down the mountain, down to the closest thing to civilization he could find. I don’t remember anything other than the sound of his panicked breathing, the blood he wouldn’t let me wipe from his face, his pale eyes shining brighter than the sun as it rose, begging God to keep the wolves away. Begging for relief, begging for my life in his arms, heavy and bleeding out all over him.

The doctor gave me anesthetic, so I also don’t remember the hospital. I remember waking up, hearing my husband's quiet breathing, relieved that he had calmed down. I rolled over, searching for him, and the calm that washed over me, when I saw the stitches in his face and the flush in his cheeks, knowing he was alright, and he made it down the mountain safe and sound, was so great, so sweet, I didn’t cry when I saw what was left of my leg. When I pulled the blanket back, pain shooting through my body as my eyes made sense of the bandaged stump of my thigh, I didn’t feel it.

I felt only relief.

I reached for Parker, and he was hesitant with me. His pale eyes flickered, the light in them shifting somewhere far away, somewhere I didn’t recognize.

Time’s passed. I have a prosthetic leg now. I’m alright at walking on it. My coordination’s a bit shit and I have to physically pick it up to fling it over the saddle of my horse, and I don’t stand for longer than I should, but one less leg doesn’t make me any less of the man I was before. I am still a rancher. I am still me.

But Parker does not let me help anymore.

There’s a lot I cannot do, anyway.

I am disabled.

It’s little shit, like bending my knees down to start fires, or forcing my prosthetic straight enough to reach high shelves in our barn, or climb up into my truck without putting my hands on the seat and picking myself up to slide onto it. I used to be able to care for my horses better than I can now, and my leg starts to ache if I ride one for too long. But, I can’t get off either, because I struggle to climb terrain. I can’t get my leg wet from babbling rivers, I can’t bend my leg to cross treacherous paths at anything faster than a crawl, and I can’t climb on top of Parker and fuck him like I used to. 

That’s hard for me, because I like to look into his eyes. I’d do whatever he asked of me, even if it meant humiliating myself or contorting myself into a weird, embarrassing angle to make him feel good, but I’m simple. I like missionary. I like bending his knees back and looking into his eyes, watching his pale irises twist and yearn and reflect my own self back at me. I like watching him unravel. I like to see in his eyes that I’m doing it right, that I’m fucking him good, that he loves me as much as I love him.

Parker’s kind to me about it. He rides me a lot, or he lets me bend him over the side of our mattress, or our couch, or the kitchen counters, so I can stand. I would never admit how much it hurts to stand for that long, and always choke it down to keep going, because I will never let my fucking stump leg make sex bad for my husband.

But I hate that I can’t look into his eyes anymore. I miss missionary.

And I miss hardworking mornings together. I don’t like to lay here and feel useless while Parker kills himself to pick up my slack.

I roll over, in search of my prosthetic, and it’s on the floor. It must’ve fallen over last night.

I should wait, for Parker to be out of the house, so he won’t worry, but I want to help him. I want to get up on my own. I intend to roll onto the floor, to sit with my back against the bed post and slide my leg on myself, but Parker knows me, better than I know myself. He knows me down to the creak of our mattress, to the slide of my hip against our sheets. Our bedroom door is open again before my hands even make it to the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” Parker says, quietly, bending down to scoop my leg up off the floor and hoist it up for me. “Shoulda helped you up before I left.”

“I can do it,” I mumble, but he doesn’t hear me, helping me sit up and slide to the edge of the bed, so he can bend my leg at the knee and unbuckle its straps, sliding the sleeve over my stump leg like he does most mornings, when I can’t do it myself. He helps me.

“You’re not sleeping in?” He asks, curiously, like he’s just wondering. I look up at him, his icy eyes a gentler cool this morning. Like water, not snow. “I could bring you breakfast.”

“I can cook breakfast for us,” I try, and I can tell Parker is just trying to make life easier for me. He knows I feel bad laying here.

And despite how useless I feel, like I am a broken, crippled man who’s no good unless I’m laying in bed and letting my husband dote upon me, I like that he treats me so gently. He runs his hands up my bare thighs, leaning in close to me and smiling, gently, before kissing my lips, letting his pale eyes flutter shut, like he’s never been more content to slow down and kiss me when I’m feeling bad about myself, when I need him to kiss me.

And it helps me. I’m smiling, when he pulls away, feeling a little more put together than I did before.

“Can you cook soon?” He asks, playfully, showing the edges of his teeth as he smirks. “You know I’m already starvin’ somethin’ fierce.”

I laugh, and I let him pull me out of our warm bed, settling myself on one bare foot, one black plastic.

In the back of my mind, I know what he’s doing. I can’t ranch like I used to, so he lets me have little victories, he lets me control what I can control. I can make breakfast.

He even lets me get dressed on my own. It feels good to lean against the wall and pull my boots on, even if one is stuffed with socks to fit snug against my prosthetic.

I cook him breakfast, and I limp it out to him in the barn, where he’s bent on a stool beneath one of my horses, her hoof kicked up into his lap, cleaning mulch from around her horseshoe so she can go out grazing with the rest of her buddies. I stand and watch as he scarfs his food down, before passing the plate back to me with a quiet thank you, and moving on to the next foot.

I spend my entire day lingering, hovering, idly, while he does everything I can’t.

We feed our cattle. He tosses handfuls of hay and grass, because I can’t crouch the way he can, so I lean on the fence. We divide the sheep up  by size. He has to guide them into the pens himself, because I can’t twist my body to turn it fast enough, so I sit nearby and talk to him. We take a break for lunch, and I manage to make him a measly sandwich before he cleans our kitchen for me, so I can sit down and eat.

In the afternoon, I sit on our bed while he gets ready to take his truck into town to get groceries.

Parker wants to do it alone.

He’s been going alone a lot.

I decide, while I’m watching him, that I’m going to ask if I can come, too.

“I worry, baby,” I start, wringing my hands together. “About you goin’ on your own.”

“I’m not alone,” Parker says, smiling to himself. “There’s people in town.”

“So you’ve taken a lover,” I joke, and Parker turns to me.

“You know I’d never.” He says.

I smile, and try to insist I go with him. “We could go together again. Make a trip of it, see the town together.” I stand from the bed as he tries to shrug out of the conversation, leaning behind his back to slide my hands under his arms, wrapping myself around him and laying my head on his back. “Cut up in a bar somewhere, like we used to. Go dancin.’”

“You ain’t dancin’,” Parker reaches up to cradle my hands against his chest, leaning his weight against me. I can hear in his voice that he shuts his eyes. Even when he’s not looking at me, I can feel what they look like. “I don’t mind if you wanna stay here, baby.”

He’s being kind to me, I know he is. But that saddens me. I try not to let it infect my voice. “I don’t want to stay here.”

He sighs, exhaling, slow and deep from the base of his lungs. “I worry, too,” He says, quietly. “I don’t want you to-”

“I can do it.” I say, firmly. “I want to go with you.”

“Roan,” Parker’s voice calms me down a little, his warm hands grounding me where I am. “I don’t want you to push yourself too hard. I don’t mind going on my own. I like it, actually, I like surprisin’ you with good food when I come home.”

He doesn’t mean it the way I hear it, but he guts me anyway. I don’t like that he pretends to enjoy something he doesn’t so I won’t feel bad. I sink to sit in the arm chair, pushing our laundry to the side and dropping my arms in my lap, defeated. Parker turns to look at me, and I don’t have anything to say.

He continues to reassure me. That he loves working, that he loves the ranch, he loves our life together, and he is so proud of everything we’ve built together and he loves coming home to see me again, but I look at him, while he speaks. I watch the warmth in his cold eyes as it freezes over, as I look through the snow, through the hollow winds of tundra in his irises, and I know him, too. Just like he knows when I’m about to throw myself to the floor to put my leg on myself, I know when he’s tired.

He carries himself so well, I don’t doubt he can fake it, even to himself, but his eyes are everything to me. I see his life in them, and it is hard.

I swallow, before I answer him again, a smile on my lips. “Am I so useless, it’s easier to go alone?”

Parker’s lips part, as if to say something, but he stops himself. He’s not surprised.

He knows me. He knows when I feel bad about myself.

He doesn’t say anything else.

“C’mere,” I hold my arms out, and Parker’s ice melts. He floods into my lap, careful not to sit on my stump leg, dropping his head on my shoulder, wrapping his arms around my torso, and settling pleasantly in my lap, his body melting into mine like cold snow on hot asphalt, morphing himself to suit me like he’s physically a part of me.

I love him. I run my hands along his hips, like I always do. I pull him closer to me, whispering into the skin of his neck.

“You can't do everything alone, baby.”

He could argue that it’s just groceries, but he knows that’s not what I mean. Parker doesn’t shy away from me, or freeze over again. He nods, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothin’ to be sorry for,” I reassure him. “I can’t stand not helpin’ you, Parker, I want us to do this together.”

“I want to, too,” Parker whispers, his breath warm against my skin. “I don’t want to lose you.”

It’s a short sentence, but it holds a lot of meaning.

The last time I went with him to go somewhere, the wolves got me while I slept. I don’t really leave the ranch anymore.

He’s been doing everything alone since then.

There is a long list of reasons why he should go alone, but neither of us want him to. It kills Parker to see me feel bad about myself and it kills me to watch him work himself to the bone. I feel his tight muscles against my fingertips. I feel his body tremble as he breathes.

I reach up to make him look me in my eyes, cold, white snow meeting soft, dark green grass. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” He breathes, like he’s relieved. “We’re gettin’ more wranglers soon. It’s not like I’m gonna do everything myself forever, we’re gonna have help soon.”

“And then, what,” I say, quietly. “They leave after the summer and you go back to doin’ everything, and I cook your supper like a fuckin’ house wife?”

Parker looks at me for a moment, and my eyes trace the scars on his face, the healed lines of claw marks and teeth scrapes, the telling mark of the way he risked his life for me, the way he fought a fucking wolf off of me to save me, to keep me alive. I love his scars, I love that he gave so much to protect me, for a chance to keep me alive, just to have me for a little while longer.

He saved my life.

I reach for his hand. “Sorry.” He nods, like he understands. I say it anyway. “I love you. There’s no way for me to thank you for savin’ me.”

“Roan,”

“I just…” I swallow. “I love you, and I’m so grateful I get to hold you, and keep you in my arms, when I could be… God knows where right now. I don’t need any more than sittin’ around and cookin’ for ya, and waitin’ for you to come home.”

Parker watches me, somber. “But you hate it.”

“No,” I smile. “I hate that I can’t make work easier on you. I hate that you have to do everything alone. I’d sit here and play house wife every second of the life you gave me, if you wanted me to. But you’re tired, baby.” I run my fingers through his dark hair. “You’re tired.”

Quietly, Parker nods. “We both are.”

We’re quiet, for a long time.

“It would be nice,” Parker jokes, eventually, half smiling again. “To have more permanent help. Little do-boys to order around.”

“Do-boys,” I laugh. “Ranch hands.”

“Same difference,” Parker grins. “The sheep are gettin’ bigger. We’ve got new wranglers comin’ up in a few weeks, maybe we could put together somethin’, a list of extra shit we need to get done. We can hire some folks to do it.”

I smile, leaning into his warm touch. “And you’ll work less.”

“I’ll work less.” Parker beams, as the idea formulates in his brain. “Maybe, while you’re in here wallowin’ over your leg, I can wallow right beside ya.”

“I dunno,” I laugh. “Might get a little sad in here, if we’re wallowin’ together. Might have to lighten things up a bit.”

“Yeah?” Parker puts his forehead against mine. “How would we do it?”

I can tell, from the way he looks at me, he thinks I mean sex. A part of me does.

I smile for him, still. “We could retire.”

He sits up. “Retire.”

“Yeah,” I tip my head from side to side, thinking. “Not fully. But we could let our do-boys do the ranchin’, and we can stay here.” I hold a hand up, when he furrows his brow. “No, I wouldn’t hire a farrier. No one’s takin’ your horses from ya.”

He grins at that, reaching to put his hands on my shoulders. “Well… we could try that. I don’t mind doin’ all the work but, it would be nice to spend more time together. Relaxin’. Drinkin’.”

“We could travel,” I offer, and he bats my hands away.

“With your leg?”

“Alright,” I laugh, pushing him off of me. “Pushin’ your luck, baby. I was gonna take you somewhere.”

“Oh, were you?” He jokes, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep, somewhere fancy.” I grin, showing gold teeth. “France.”

“You ain’t takin’ me to France,” Parker laughs, pushing up out of my lap. “But we can look at hirin’ some more help. Then maybe we can look at pictures of France.”

“Pictures,” I grin, smiling when I push out of my seat. Standing, looking at my husband as he flops over onto our bed, waiting for me to join him, I feel better than I did this morning. “Pictures, sure.”

Chapter Text

Imogen starts staring at me like I’m plum fucking crazy around two o’clock if we don’t leave the ranch. 

She’s a good girl, that horse, but fuck if she isn’t impatient. She’s used to being out in the mountains leading sheep up to higher ground, not being confined to our fenced in property. Even when we aren’t herding, I know that she’s a horse that’s dying to get some work done, unhappy with staying cooped up on the ranch all day, so even on days like today, where we’ve got no reason to wander off the property to do anything, because there is no herd, and there is no work to get done, I try to take her out to do some kind of errand, to keep her from getting fussy. 

But I’ve had my hands full recently. I can’t just lap her around the property to check wood rot on the fencing, just to make her feel like she worked. When I’m tapping nails into the final shoe in Homer’s new set, his hoof between my knees, Imogen is not trotting around the dirt yard like Pebble is, or standing over a bin of hay for an afternoon snack like Ingy is. She’s not doing normal horseshit. 

She’s standing at the gate, that leads out of the dirt yard where they roam free during the day. She’s got her entire body turned to face me, to stare at me like she doesn’t fucking understand why I’m being so lazy today, and why we haven’t started her work. When Corpse passes in front of her at a lazy walk, Imogen even has the nerve to move her head to the side to see around her, so she can keep staring at me, like ‘hey, dumbass, are we going out or not?’

I just laugh to myself and shake my head. There are no sheep to herd. There is no ranch work for her to do. She’s just a girl that likes to keep busy, and I can’t fault her for that. I’m a man that likes to keep busy, too. 

When Homer’s got his brand new shoes tapped into place, and he’s walking with an audible clomp out to the dirt yard to scuff them up, I pack up my horseshoeing shit, I dull the forge down to die off on its own now that there’s no more metalwork that needs to be done today, and I swipe soot from my face with my bare hands, rubbing it off onto my jeans when I turn toward Imogen’s stall, where her saddle is kept. 

I click my tongue to my back teeth, just twice, and not loud at all, because I know Imogen’s impatient ass is listening. Instantly, like she’s been leaning forward on her front leg’s just waiting to gallop to the barn, she lurches forward and slows to a stop before me, positioning herself to the spot she needs to stand in to be saddled, eager to get to work. 

“We’re just goin’ to get the mail, woman.” I say with a laugh, shaking my head. “Don’t gotta be so perky about it.” 

She scuffs her front shoe in the dirt like her only want in the world is for me to ride her toward whatever errand I’ve got to chip off of the list. I don’t have the heart to be annoyed with that. Imogen’s a good horse. I can make some work for her to do. And I’m overdue for getting the mail, anyway. That’s an easy thing to kill two birds with one stone over. 

Our mailbox isn’t just sitting at the edge of our front lawn. We live on a ranch in the middle of Bum-Fuck Nowhere, Wyoming. We’ve got to ride to the post office to collect our mail.

And for Imogen’s sake, I knock out a few other things I’ve been too busy to do on the way. 

She’s a good horse. She’s good at learning commands, far better than any of my other horses. She can do a lot of shit that the others can’t. 

So, I let her show off a little, so that she’ll feel like she helped me. On the dirt road that leads off of the property, canopied by trees and shaded from the sun’s burning heat, I slow walk Imogen along the edge of the fence so that she can use her teeth to pull weeds over growing from the foot of the posts. I dismount her at the end of the road and unlock the gate so that she can push it open herself. I decide to take the long way to the post office, so that she can step over rocks and duck under low-hanging limbs. She just wants to make me proud of how good she is. I let her show off a little. 

At the post office, there’s a mountain of shit to collect. I haven’t been up here to grab the mail in about a week. 

I start to leaf through it walking back to where I’ve hitched Imogen out front, just to be a good husband. 

I feel bad sometimes that I can’t help with this shit, because I never learned to read. 

Schooling wasn’t really something we had time for. My mother’s intention was to school me and my brother at home, in our family home on the cattle ranch I grew up on. During the day, we’d go out and work with my father, and in the evenings, we’d sit with her at the supper table and learn the only things that simple, farming boys needed to know, how to read and write, to be able to make it out in the real world if we ever needed to. 

Life is funny, sometimes. It didn’t matter how well thought out and prepared my parents were to raise two boys on a ranch themselves, with no help from anyone else around needed. Even with stacks of textbooks and schooling supplies stocked and ready for us to learn with, sickness took our mother from us long before we even made it out to the dirt to help our father. When my father was left alone to raise two boys and run a ranch on his own, schooling fell to the backburner, and the textbooks and schooling supplies collected dust on the shelf in our dining room. 

My father is a good man. He did the best he could with us. He found time to teach us to read when we were getting closer to our teenaged years, and we didn’t need as much supervision working, and we could take some things off of his plate. My father is a good man that tried very hard to teach us to read. It’s not his fault I couldn’t pick it up when my brother could. 

I don’t think I’m missing too much. The only time it would be really important to me to be able to know what something says is if I was having to commit to a contract or something like that. My daddy always handled that kind of shit for me, until I came out here to ranch, to earn us some extra money. He worried someone might try to take advantage of a young man that never learned to read without his watchful eyes over my shoulder. My father was very vocal about me being mindful of who I trusted when it came to words. 

Luckily, to my father’s relief, I met Roan here, and Roan is a real good reader. I’ve never had to worry about the things that my daddy did for me. 

I do, though, try to at least be a little helpful to Roan when I bring him a stack of mail this hefty to go through. The ink scrawled and printed on the front of the envelopes I’m sifting through in my hands is just squiggling to me, but some of them look similar to others, or the scribble looks like it was made with the same pen, so I put like letters together, so that Roan won’t have to. 

I pause when I see cursive, because the letters curled together into one giant, loopy smudge in the center of the envelope's face are a few that I recognize. I know ‘MacCallum’ when I see it, because it’s plastered all over our ranch, and I know the letter ‘P’, because it doesn’t have an extra leg like the first letter of Roan’s name does. 

I abandon the sort, too excited to get home to be helpful. I can’t even bring myself to bear the long way home, for Imogen’s sake. 

I ride her straight back home, and I dismount her before walking her back to her buddies down at the barn. 

Then, I trot my ass back uphill. 

The thud of my work boots fills the quiet house with my footsteps, a clunking echo while I clobber through the front room to the hall, to get to the den. 

Roan is sitting in his arm chair, fussing over some foreman paperwork shit that I could never understand. He looks up when I walk toward him, smiling like the sight of sweaty, dirty me is the only thing that he’s ever wanted to let his eyes rest on. 

“Well, afternoon, handsome,” he drawls, Texan dripping heavily from his tongue. 

I hold the letter out toward him. “Is this for me?” 

He takes the letter from me and scans it, as if Vince’s handwriting isn’t so easily recognizable. “Yeah. This is yours.” 

I nod eagerly. “Could you read it for me?” 

Happily, like that could never inconvenience him, Roan nods. He lifts his paperwork from the book in his lap to set it on the side table, opening his arms for me to join him. “‘Course I can, darlin’. Come here.” 

There is no spot in the world more perfectly made for me than Roan’s lap when his arms spread for me this way. It’s simple, maybe, to be so pleased for my husband to hold me this way. It’s a small thing that probably isn’t truly as special as it feels to me, but, I don’t know, I almost lost Roan last year. He almost died, right in fucking front of me. He could have bled out and died in my arms. Almost losing Roan has made me more appreciative of simpler shit that I could have never known I wouldn’t ever get again. It’s a small thing, to sit in my husband’s lap and feel the rumble of his voice in his chest when he talks softly to me. I know that it’s small. But something small that I almost never had again feels pretty big now that it’s a privilege. 

I’ve had to switch the side of his body that I tuck myself into this year. That’s not something that I mind. I just let myself settle into his embrace and rest the side of my head against his so that I can watch him open a letter my brother has sent for me. 

“Let’s see here,” Roan exhales, situating my letter in one hand so that his other can smooth over my side, finding a spot to rest on my hip. He reads aloud for me what I cannot read myself. “‘Parker, I couldn’t be happier to have to put pen to paper, because I’ve got a laundry list of shit to tell you, and I know your weird-ass wants to collect the letter, so, I hope you’re comfortable, because I’ve got a lot for you to hear about.’”

I laugh softly at being so known. Just because I can’t read it for myself, doesn’t mean that I don’t want another piece of paper with my brother’s handwriting to add to the box of them that I keep beneath my side of the bed. It means a lot to me that in a world where telephones exist, and a world where I’ll never be able to know what the fuck they say, my brother doesn’t mind writing me a letter like this is the eighteen-hundreds, because I like the way his handwriting feels on paper when I run my fingers over it, and I like to look at his impressive ability to do one of the few things that I cannot. 

I shut my eyes and relax further into Roan, to listen to him as he speaks for Vince, so that I can read his letter, too. “‘That old woman that lives in the orchard down the road, she needs to be put in a fucking home. Yesterday, when I was hauling hay bales with Dad, she was standing at the fence to the cattle field and sticking her arms in at the bulls, waving at them like she wanted to come over to the fence. By the time Dad and I ran down there to get her, because those bulls will run at her if she pisses them off, she said that she just wanted to pet the ponies, and she screamed like we were trying to kill her. Dad and I drove her back home, and her son seemed like he was hoping that we would have babysat her for a little while.’” 

I laugh at that, and so does Roan, his words bouncing when he continues. 

“‘And, even worse, her son’s wife tried to make a pass at me. Asked if I would take a look at their sink in the back of the house that was leaking, and when Dad followed with me, she was disappointed, like she wanted to be alone with me or something. I didn’t much appreciate that, and neither did her husband. In one, singular day, the bulls almost trampled an old woman, and a married woman almost trampled me.’” Roan continues for Vince, and I just keep laughing, because that’s so foolish. Roan’s hand finds the back of my head, kissing my forehead and letting his lips brush against it as he finishes reading the rest. “‘Call me when you get this, and say hey to Roan if he’s not reading this for you. Hopefully, that man won’t have killed me in my sleep for being sought after by his wife, so that I’ll be alive to get your call. Vince.’”

Roan passes the letter to me so that I can run my fingers over the indent that my brother’s pen left in the paper, the whisper of his hand when he did one of the only things that I never learned to do. Maybe that’s weird, but I think it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. Vince can write, and Roan can read, and I can listen. I really fucking love to listen. 

Because I love to listen, I sink completely into Roan as he combs his finger’s through my long hair, picking up pieces and letting them drop back to my neck mindlessly, like he just wants to touch me. “Thank you,” I mumble, shutting my eyes again, savoring the contact. 

Roan hums like it isn’t a big deal to him at all. His other arm, free now that he isn’t reading for me, encircles me, to hold me close to him, like he appreciates this simple contact the same way that I do. Like he feels the same as I do, like how close we came to not having each other anymore has made him appreciate holding me as much as it’s made me appreciate being held. I could waste a week’s time sitting in Roan’s lap and listening to his voice read something my brother wrote out for me to keep, even if I cannot read it. 

“You gonna call Vince?” he asks, hot breath on my scalp, fingers in motion at the back of my head. 

“In a little bit,” I reply, tracing the buttons on his shirt. “Just wanna sit like this a little longer.” 

Roan exhales softly, like that honest truth warms his aching body, and he’s as content as I am. “Don’t gotta get up and go nowhere no time soon. Take longer than a little bit, if you fancy.” 

“I fancy,” I assure him, melting in his voice, a deep and even instrument that makes a melody of every word he speaks. I’d listen to Roan talk about anything, just to hear his voice. His voice is a simple thing, too, and I will never take it for granted. I will savor it while I have it. “Can I listen to you open the rest of the mail?”

”You can listen to whatever you like, darlin’.” Roan finalizes, kissing my temple once more before lifting his hand to take the rest of the mail from me. His arm around my waist to join his other before him, to keep me in his arms while he opens letters addressed to him, Roan’s smooth voice reads simple, boring paperwork out loud to me, so that I can enjoy sitting with him for a while more. 

Chapter Text

Parker rouses me from sleep in the early evening hours of a peaceful Sunday. I spent my morning following him around the ranch, and I had just settled in to finish some paperwork from the comfort of our couch, since we’ve been trying to hire more help to ease some of the strain on him, and the idea of sitting in my office was giving me hives. I must’ve fallen asleep a good while ago, because all my paperwork is stacked neatly for me on the coffee table, and a blanket’s pulled up to my chin.

He tucked me in. I love Parker so much my stomach hurts.

“Hi,” He says, quietly, his pale ices washing over my face, filling my warm body with the fresh, soft breeze of his loving gaze, seeping in through my pores. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Don’t gotta be sorry, sugar,” I reach for him, running my hand over the scratchy lines of his beard. I smile for him, sleepily. “Always happy to wake for you.”

I expect him to ask me to come to bed, wondering how long I slept, but he kisses my forehead, and rises to stand beside me, my hand lingering in his own. “Do you want to build a campfire with me? It’s, uh…” He looks outside. “It’s almost nighttime. I thought it might be nice to build one together.”

“A campfire,” I say, through a yawn, as my Parker flutters around our den, picking up blankets he wants to lay out and humming pleasantly to himself, some old tune I can’t name off the top of my head. There’s a part of me that feels bad, that I’ve been sleeping on the couch for so long, that Parker’s gotten lonely, or so starved for my attention he’s looking for excuses to spend time with me.

He tosses his head back to grin at me, over his shoulder. “Mhm.”

“The sun’lll probably set soon, darlin’,” I sit up from my spot on the couch, untangling myself from my own blanket and staring up at him from across the room.

“That’s the point,” Parker chirps, carrying his armful of blankets over to drop beside me, so he can extend an arm and help me up off the couch. I grunt, leaning my weight on him, instead of on my prosthetic leg, which has tightened to pinch my skin since I’ve been asleep. Parker gives me a little space so I can fix it. “You were gonna sleep through it.”

“Coulda let me,” I joke, and he scoops the blankets up again, so I reach for his hand, pulling him close to me.

He smiles, and leans down so I can kiss him, humming that same, sweet tune in the back of his throat, like he’s never been happier to waste another second with me.

My husband is the sweetest man I have ever known. He was sweet when he woke me from my nap, he’s sweet now, he’s been sweet our entire lives. I’ve lived long enough to have met plenty of people, either through grueling ranch work or sitting at a bar in town. I’ve met people who can do nothing but bitch about their marriages, about their spouses nagging them or berating them or forcing them to do shit they don’t want to do. I’ve listened to wives curse their husbands for not paying them any mind, I’ve heard husbands spew hate about their bitch wives who force them to spend time together.

I have always felt confused by that notion, because I’ve never had a single complaint about my husband at all. Even when I’m sleeping, exhausted on our couch, and Parker wakes me gently and asks me to go build a campfire with him, in the cold, quiet ranch air at the end of a long day, I can’t find a single thing to complain about.

He just wants to watch the sunset with me. How could I ever be bothered by that?

It’s nearly summertime again, but it is always chilly in Wyoming. We walk through our house together, blankets in hand, and Parker stops by the front door so he can grab my coat for me, gently tucking me into its sleeves and straightening the collar of my work shirt, rumpled after my nap. He licks the pad of his finger, and wipes drool from the corner of my mouth.

“Need me lookin’ spiffy for the fire, huh?” I joke, and he grins, showing all of his teeth.

“Can’t a man want his husband to look nice?”

“Oh, you don’t think I look nice all the time?”

“No,” Parker concedes, smiling. “ I sure do. I’m just cleanin’ you up a bit. Maybe I don’t wanna taste your spit when I kiss you.”

I grin, showing my teeth, too. “If you don’t want my spit, then I ‘spose you shouldn’t kiss me at all.”

Parker scrunches his nose, glaring at me with a smile. “Your drool, then.”

“You love my drool.”

He rolls his eyes, playfully, and snatches my hand up, to make a show of pulling me out to the front porch.

Despite his playfulness, he’s gentle with me on the stairs. Parker is always careful when he walks me around, his elbow hooked delicately with my own, his hand resting over my wrist. He holds onto me, and lets me lean my weight on him, so he can walk me down the last couple steps.

He continues to cling to me, a little ways away from our ranch house, past the pens where he’s already settled all of the animals for the night, the green grass of their enclosures bathed in the warm yellow light of early sunset. I drop my arm to hold his hand properly, entwining my fingers with his, so I can walk myself. My leg hurts, but I miss going on walks with him. I’m more than happy to tag along on whatever adventure he’s planned for us tonight.

I get an answer a good five or six minutes away, when he releases me and trots backwards a few feet, to hold his free arm out at the scenery behind him.

He’s picked a spot for us, far below the crest of the mountains, miles and miles away from our ranch. The hills dip and curve towards the center, meeting at a point where the winds are high and the weather is always freezing. And, to my delight, he’s set up a couple of chairs for us, angled towards the humble beginnings of a fire pit, where he’s lugged a couple rocks over to settle around the edge of it.

He has also pitched a fucking tent.

I turn to stare at him.

“Don’t give me that look,” He laughs, turning around to drop a blanket in each of our chairs, along with the equipment he’s gathered to make us a fire. Matches, kindling, a couple of chunks of coal from the grill. “I want to go camping with my husband. Is that such a crime?”

Jokingly, I turn to look at the horse barn, twenty or so feet away.

“Camping’s camping, Roan,” He says, pointedly, like he’s tired of my fooling. “Don’t matter none if it’s right next to our house. We’re outside, we’ve got a fire, and a tent. That’s all we need.”

Grinning, I join him, thanking him quietly when he lifts the blanket for me to sit in one of the chairs, overlooking the mountains, and he tucks it over my legs. “What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion.” Parker says, happily, dropping to his knees in the dirt to get started on the fire.

I am happy that my life is so simple.

There was a point in time, in my life, where I would work myself to the bone, drowning in paperwork for all of our ranch staff and dealing with buyers, with vendors, with small businesses that buy from us, and I was marching my ass out onto the ranch to help, picking up calves to move them between pens and shoveling shit, breaking my back working and putting in my help where it was needed. I pushed myself hard, some days nearly past my limit. And, more recently, that’s what Parker was doing. His family came up when I lost my leg to keep the ranch while Parker kept me, sitting at my bedside and caring for me through my recovery.

I felt so useless then. A year long bed rest after a lifetime of good, hard, blue collar work. It was miserable. I spent long days cooped up in my bed, laying for long hours and refusing to move, or eat, because the pain from my leg, and the shock of losing it had settled in, and I was stuck there, waiting for my body to heal enough for a doctor to give me a prosthetic. Parker did everything for me, cooked my meals, bathed my stinking body, brushed my fucking teeth for me when I didn’t want to. He helped me try my prosthetic when I got it, tucking himself under my arm and walking me around the upstairs of our home, a space I hadn’t been strong enough to leave in months. I was weak. And, when I was stronger, his family went home, leaving me to hobble around upstairs while Parker did everything on the ranch himself.

And, I mean everything. I watched my husband suffer.

It’s been easier lately, since I’ve been walking around more often. I’ve consigned to my work as the ranch foreman, and mostly, I do paperwork. I call buyers, I haggle with vendors, I sit in and listen to boring, hour long calls that could easily be letters, and I sit my ass in front of my computer and I look at bank statements and spreadsheets and shit. It’s boring, but it’s something I can take full control over, without help. It’s something Parker admires me for being able to do, and , admittedly, I take a little bit of pride in that. I need his help for so damn much, I like when he looks at me like I am a marvel just because I know how to type up a few sentences on a keyboard. I take whatever victories I can get, these days.

And that includes his family’s promise to come back up for a little while, to help Parker tend the ranch and get it ready for all our new staff while I draft their contracts and finish the hiring process. I feel happy, watching the weight lift from Parker’s shoulders, as he lets himself relax a little, and waits for his father and brother to come. He loves them dearly, and always looks forward to their visits, and so do I, but we are over the damn moon to have them up this time. I’m not wallowing in my own pain, and he’s not busy caring for me. Not only are they going to take some of the work off of him, so he can have a bit of free time, he’s going to be able to actually spend his free time with his entire family. With me out of bed, with his father and brother right beside us.

I like to see him happy. He’s smiling to himself, while he starts a fire for us, because he’s looking forward to seeing his family. He’s looking forward to enjoying the sunset with me.

We used to camp a lot. Parker and I met herding sheep up in those mountains he’s angled our chairs towards. It was twenty damn years ago, but I still remember when I saw his eyes for the first time, a cool, winter breeze over the dark heat in my stomach, soothing my aches and flooding me with his cool air. I followed him on horseback, around our sheep, and I would spend hours while we rode, ignoring the sheep and the beautiful mountains and fields of brilliant flowers, the entire world made dimmer by the brilliant, dazzling light of his pleasant smile.

I used to be quieter than I am now. I don’t even remember what I fucking said, when I first made him laugh, his pale eyes seeming inhumanly white compared to the crackling embers of the warm fire in front of us. His nose scrunched up in just a way, his teeth clicked together, once, and he threw his head back to laugh, loud, and hearty, echoing through the valley around us, and I changed.

I never knew someone could change so quickly, but I did. I spent my childhood quiet, taking orders from my daddy and keeping out of everyone’s way.

I made Parker laugh once, and I became a comedian.

I am addicted to making him laugh.

“I’ve got a good one for ya,” I say, my eyes trailing down the tight expanse of the shirt on his back. Even over layers of his clothing, I have memorized every notch of his spine, tracing its hidden path with my wide pupils.

Parker glances back at me before he pushes up off the ground, leaning forward to dust the dirt from his knees. I watch him. “Oh lord, what?”

“What do dead cowboys wear on their feet?” I ask, grinning to myself, and Parker makes a show of rolling his eyes.

He drops into the seat beside me, pleasantly warm beneath the orange glow of the setting sun. “What?”

“Booooooots,” I say, and he turns to look at me.

He does not laugh. “What are you, a ghost?”

“Yeah,” I shrug. “Ghosts say boo.”

“First of all,” Parker sighs, playfully, shaking his head. “Ghosts would not wear boots you old fool. They’re ghosts. They’re see-through. Boots’d fall right off ‘em. And second,” Parker points at me. “You said dead, not ghost cowboys. Give me a better one.”

“Okay, okay,” I chuckle, holding my palm out on the arm rest of my chair, and his hand settles perfectly against my palm, our fingers entwining. We both look out over the fire, past our ranch and up into the mountains, where the sun crests over the peaks. “Why do cowboys ride horses?”

“Is this gonna be a sex thing,” Parker almost laughs, but doesn’t, and I know he’s holding out on me. “Because, we can skip the jokes and get right to the tent, if you’re too chickenshit to ask to fuck me like a man.”

“Oh come on, ” I laugh, shaking my head. “You ain’t allowed to be funnier than me, cut that out. Let me tell my jokes.”

“Fine,” Parker sighs, smiling. “I dunno Roan, why do cowboys ride horses?”

“’Cause they’re too heavy to carry.”

Again, he doesn’t laugh. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“The horses,” I clarify. “Can’t carry ‘em. They’re big as elephants, you know.”

“Okay, now you’re pissin’ me off,” Parker snorts, shaking his head again. “No. Capital no. Horses ain’t as big as elephants, and I know you’re smart so I dunno why the hell you’re actin’ like you don’t know what a horse is. And, your joke don’t make no damn sense. If the horses are too heavy to carry, why wouldn’t you ask, why don’t cowboys carry horses? It ain’t got shit to do with ridin’.”

“Wow,” I reach up with my free hand to rub the back of my neck, pretending like I’m embarrassed. “Guess it should’ve been a sex joke, then.”

“At least then, I’d feel good.”

“Wow, ” I say, dragging out the final w sound. “I can’t believe you hate my jokes.”

“Tell me a joke worth laughin’ at, and then, maybe I wouldn’t.”

“Okay, okay,” I chuckle, squeezing his fingers. “Last one, then. Why can’t you ever take a cowboy seriously?” 

Parker just turns to stare at me, a mischievous sparkle in his icy eyes, making sure I know that no matter what I say, he’s gonna argue with me.

I grin. “‘Cause they’re always horsin’ around.”

Parker frowns.

I love him so much, I forget to look over at the setting sun.

I am happy with my life. I want to do simple paperwork, content with knowing my husband’s going to get plenty of help, so he won’t work himself to death to make up for all the things I can’t do for him. I want to take a nap and wake to my husband having tucked me in, to him quietly asking to watch the sunset together, and sleep on the dirt in a dingy little tent like the first day we met, when the cold air of the high mountain drove our bodies close together, in the cover of our tent, shivering and taking comfort from each other’s warmth.

I always say we were cold, but I don’t know anymore. Sometimes I think that it was hot outside, and we hadn’t made it too far up the mountain yet. I think we just wanted to hold each other.

We spend hours by the fire, Parker dropping his head to rest on my shoulder, shutting his eyes so he can listen to me yap about all the paperwork I did that he doesn’t understand. I tell him about the resumes I’ve been sorting through, how one of our old wranglers applied again, and we spend a good while bitching about him before the sun is fully snuffed out by the darkness shrouding the glowing moon, our fire warm enough to keep off the chill.

Much like when we met, I’m warm, in my jacket, before the fire, but I eagerly get up to take Parker into the tent when he mumbles that he’s gotten cold, because I want to hold him. I am unbelievably eager to hold him.

He set the tent up nice, which makes me smile. He lays our blankets out on top of the blankets he already put down for us, and he fluffs up his pillow real nice before laying back against it, holding his arms open for me to fall against him. I would feel bad, putting so much of my weight on him, but I’m smaller than I used to be. I lost a lot of weight, while I was recovering, and I’ve lost nearly all of my muscle. I am a whisper of the man I used to be, but Parker cradles me like I’m heavy anyway. He runs his fingers through my hair and looks up at me with wide, waiting eyes, like he’s just as eager to kiss me as he was the day we met, up in the mountains behind us.

I kiss him, soft, and slow, and pressing, and he parts his lips, inviting me in, sliding his warm tongue quietly against my own, cupping my cheeks with both hands. I drag my hands up the length of his torso, pressing my fingers into the thick flesh of his sides. I hiss, when he does the same, because my leg hurts. 

And, instantly, Parker sits up to help me take it off.

It’s hard to do, in the tent. I sit with my back to the tent wall as Parker takes my boots and my jeans off for me, so he can unstick the seal of my prosthetic leg and slide it slowly down the length of my stump thigh. A year ago, I felt ashamed of his fingers brushing over the thick, red scars over my skin, but I don’t today. In the darkness of our tent, his touch warms me up from the inside, and I grip his wrist to keep his hand on me, pressing my tongue back into his mouth.

He lays back again after a while, so I can undress him, and I should feel embarrassed of the way I have to physically sit between his legs to do it, but I don’t. I pull his jeans off, slowly, because that’s the best I can manage. He doesn’t help, or make a show of getting pissy I’m takin’ so long, or offer to do it himself.

He knows I want to do it. He’s happy to wait for me.

Parker does help me when I am between his legs. He drags his knees up, knotting his fingers in my hair as I slide my hand to his mouth, watching, trembling, as he circles his tongue around my fingers, slicking them up for me to drop between his legs. He kisses me while I press a finger into him, stretching him open while the cicadas chirp outside our tent, well into the early hours of the next morning.

My husband is an incredible, giving man, and I am a cripple who can’t get up on my knees. He hooks his legs over my shoulders to let me lay on top of him, so I can brace myself on my hands and look into the glaciers in his eyes as I slide my cock inside him. I devour the way his eyelashes flutter, the way his eyelids twitch and squeeze shut, the way his skin scrunches up, like I am the only thing he ever craves, like he sits around each day and waits for this very moment, like he needs me as much as he needs fucking water after hours in the hot sun.

I want to make him laugh. I touch a few strands of his hair behind his ear, so I can whisper into the skin of his neck, slowly rolling my hips against him. “D’ya think,” He twists beneath me, knees twitching over my shoulder blades. “D’ya think our cows know we’re fuckin’ in here?”

Parker looks up at me, pupils dilated, cheeks flushed. “What the fuck are you talking about.”

“The cows,” I say, dragging my lips over his skin. “They herd us.”

He inhales, so I stop for a second, and Parker smacks my shoulder when he laughs that his fucking leg falls off of me, and he picks his hands up to cover his face, laughing hard and loud into his palms. His laughter fills my chest, my heart, my soul. I can only grin like a fucking moron and let kiss him when he waves for me to, his breath warm against my teeth.

He’s still laughing, when I pick his leg back up for him, resettling himself against his pillow and arching his back up into me. “Herd,” He whispers, wrapping his arms around my neck as I roll my hips into him again. “Herd. You’re fucking stupid.”

I chuckle, pressing my nose against his. 

“Sorry.” I say, but I’m not. I crave his laughter more than anything else in the world. I could never fuck him again, and I’d be sated, never longing for anything ever again, so long as I could hear him laugh.

Chapter Text

Vince and I were fucked the second Roan opened the front door to let my dad into the house. 

The last time my dad and Vince were here, Roan was so fucking depressed, and in so much pain, he couldn’t even get out of bed. For a few months, when Roan was trapped in bed healing his leg and I was too fucking scared to let him out of my sight, my dad and Vince came up to help us. They looked after the ranch so that I could look after Roan, and in the time that they were here, Roan was only in bed. 

It was a miserable fucking time. That’s not a secret to anybody. There’s no sense in trying to conceal that, because it just was. Roan wasn’t just injured in the kind of way that people heal from and go back to life as it was. Roan was mauled by a fucking wolf. He lost his fucking leg. He is a man that works with his hands, and rides horses, and herds sheep up mountains on a ranch with his husband. Roan hasn’t gone a day of his life without some dirt under his nails, or mud on his boots. 

That wolf didn’t just take his leg. It took his way of life. Roan really struggled to get right with the fact that three minutes with a wolf’s teeth at his flesh means that he has to change everything he will ever do for the rest of his life. 

He had a hard time with that. Even when what remains of his leg was healed, and he had a prosthetic, and he could start to learn how to be Roan again now that a part of him was lobbed off of his body, and we all wanted to help him, Roan struggled to find the will to try. 

Roan struggled with a lot of shit. He struggled to eat, he struggled to hold conversation. He struggled to smile for what felt like a fucking lifetime. 

And he really, really fucking struggled to get out of our bed. 

The last time my dad and my brother were here, Roan was only out of bed when I helped him to the toilet or the tub, and then, after he moved, he was so fucking ashamed of needing me to help him take a piss or wash his hair that he just wanted to get back in bed. My family watched us rotting in our bedroom, either from the doorway when they brought us lunch or from the chairs I dragged into our room for them to sit in when I couldn’t stay awake any longer, so fucking afraid to fall asleep when Roan might need me again that I couldn’t shut my eyes unless someone was nearby to listen out for Roan while I slept with my head on the mattress beside him, Roan’s hand in my own. 

Things have gotten better. Roan feels better. He still has days where he feels bad about himself, and so do I, but we love each other through them. Every second I have with Roan, from those three terrible minutes with that wolf at his flesh forward, is a fucking privilege. I know that’s how Roan feels, too. Life has been better since we’ve started thinking that way, nearly in sync with each other, as we normally are. Things are almost normal again. 

Almost normal. They’re never going to be the way they used to be, but my Roan cracks jokes in the kitchen again, and reaches for me when I walk into a room, and braces himself on the wooden walls of the hallway when he makes his own way down them. My Roan is alive, and he’s trying, and he is so fucking strong. He is something to be fucking marveled at. I don’t need things to be the way they used to be. I just need Roan. 

I talk to my family pretty regularly. They knew Roan was up and around again. They knew things were getting better. 

I guess actually seeing it was something different than just hearing it over the phone. 

Roan answered the door for my dad and my brother when they arrived. Roan pulled the door open and smiled out at them. 

Every goddamn day, I am so fucking proud of Roan. 

But Jesus H Shit, Vince and I were fucked the second my dad wrapped his arms around Roan. My dad told us to get started, and said he’d catch up once he finished chitchatting with Roan. 

They haven’t stopped chitchatting for three fucking days. 

We’re supposed to be getting the house ready for our contracted company to arrive, because Roan and I want to retire, and we’re going to get to, because we’ve got more ranch hands coming than we’ve ever had at one time before. We’re supposed to be working on the house, because we’ve got rooms to build bed frames in, and otherwise furnish, and make up for people to live in for half a fucking year. Coming to help was my dad’s fucking idea. 

And he’s not even helping us. 

Roan and my father have been making breakfast for us, and finalizing contract shit while Vince and I work on the ranch and in the house. They’re making lunch for us, and smoking cigars on the front porch while Vince and I mow the lawn. They’re making dinner for us, and sharing a glass of whiskey in the recliners upstairs while Vince and I crash into sleep at the end of a long day. My father is so far up Roan’s ass, he’s not doing jack diddly shit to help me get the house ready to keep ranch hands for six months. He’s not doing a single fucking thing to help. 

And I am so goddamn good with that.  

My dad fucking loves Roan, and Roan loves my dad. What kind of a jackass complains about that? I’m just as grateful to have Roan up and moving as my dad is. I hope he doesn’t help at all, so that he can spend time with Roan, because my dad thinks the time that he has with Roan now is a privilege, too. 

My back is fucking killing me today, though. So is Vince’s. 

And actually, as Vince and I carry a bed frame from the center of the bedroom where we’ve built it to make it sit flush with the wall, both of our backs aching from getting up and down off of the floor all day to assemble four fucking bed frames, our dad laughs from the kitchen, the loud and booming way that he does when something really gets him. He laughs all squeaky, like Roan is a fucking hoot and he’s never had anything else to be tickled over in his life. 

Vince drops the bed frame. He glares at me and shakes his head. “If he ain’t gonna work, why the fuck are we workin’?”

”I mean,” I sigh, running my hands over my face and up into my hair. “It’s gotta be done.” 

“Well, my back fuckin’ hurts, and I’m sorry, Parker, but I ain’t luggin’ box springs in here while your daddy is in the other room chuckle-fuckin’ with Roan.” Vince says with some finality, throwing his hands up and letting them drop, frowning like it’s my fault our dad isn’t helping. “We’ve done ‘bout enough today. I need a drink.” 

I sigh. “That’s your daddy, and them box springs have to come in. They can’t sit out in the truck all night.” 

Our dad laughs again. Vince points hard at him through the walls between us. “That is your daddy. You’ve had more time on this earth with the son of a bitch than I have, so he’s yours.” 

“I’ve only got ten fuckin’ minutes more than you do,” I correct, shoving him by his skull when I pass him, headed to the door. “And you have more time in his presence total than I do, because you suck his ass on the farm every day, sun up to sun down.” 

“I do not suck that man’s ass,” he gripes as he follows behind me, waving off the sound of our father’s voice when we pass through the foyer to head out to the truck, where box springs are packed in and secured with my tailgate. “That is your daddy, and he is pissin’ me off. How the fuck are you gonna offer up pullin’ this fuckin’ ranch together and then plop your ass into a recliner for three fuckin’ days?” 

“Your daddy.” I repeat as I descend the porch steps, opening the tailgate. “And he ain’t just been in the recliner. He’s in the kitchen stool right now. Was in the rocker on the porch last night.”

”And the fuckin’ lounger upstairs, while you and I are sweatin’ buckets and buildin’ a house without none of his goddamn help.” Vince grumbles, taking the front end of the first box spring that I slide out toward him. “That’s Roan’s daddy, god dammit.”

”There ya go,” I offer, supporting my end of the box spring and following him back up the porch steps, into the house. 

When we pass through the foyer again, Vince smacks his shoulder into the door frame to the bedroom, because he’s walking backwards and I can’t see around the box spring to tell him where he’s going. At the gruff muttering that follows Vince’s initial loud cursing, our dad finally steps out of the open floor between the den and the kitchen to turn toward us. “What’re y’all fuckin’ up in there?” he calls out with a laugh, like he’s in a great mood and wants something else to laugh over. 

Vince drops his end of the box spring to the hard wood floor with a thud, so he can turn to face our father. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” 

I shake my head and pivot my end of the box spring toward the bedrooms, nudging Vince out of the way so that I can keep working while he bitches at my dad. I love my family, to fucking death, but this is just sort of how things are. My dad thinks Vince being pissy is funny, and Vince being pissy comes hard and fast, so they’re going to go at it for a few minutes. And my back fucking hurts. I’m not trying to stand here and listen to them fuss all night. 

“You ain’t done nothin’ to contribute to this operation since we got here.” Vince accuses in the hall while I drag the box spring between them and into the bedroom. 

“Well, now, that just ain’t true.” Dad returns, and I can hear his smile in his voice. “I put some steaks to marinatin’ earlier, and now, I’m supervisin’ Roan while he cuts potatoes. That’s contribution if I ever heard it.” 

“That’s steak and potatoes, Daddy.” Vince argues, his voice getting kind of high. “I’m talkin’ about the fuckin’ furniture Parker and I been puttin’ together all day, while you’ve had your thumb up Roan’s ass.” 

“I’d never stick my thumb up a man’s ass in his own home.” Dad counters while I line the box spring up to the bed frame. “At least, not without a drink or somethin’ first.” 

I can hear Roan snickering from the kitchen. I smile to myself at that melodic fucking sound beyond the whiny bitch that comes from Vince. “Oh fuck you, ya old fart. You know what I’m sayin’ to you. Parker and I been workin’ all goddamn day while you been cuttin’ up with Roan, and I’m fuckin’ tired. I ain’t doin’ no more work today.”

”Yeah, you are,” I sigh from the bedroom. “Three more box springs out there need bringin’ in.” 

“Yeah, ya fuckin’ titty baby,” Dad laughs, and I breathe a laugh of my own at the sound of their jostling. My dad is nearly sixty years old, and he’s never been too old to horseplay. “Come on and I’ll help with the last three, if you’ll quit your bitchin’.” 

“See?” Vince says happily as their footsteps trail out of the house. “That’s all I’m fuckin’ askin’ for.” 

When the house quiets again, I smile to myself. I dragged in one box spring basically on my own, and I think that means I’ve earned the right to call it quits sooner than they do. I leave the bedroom and walk my happy ass to the kitchen, to see what all the hooting and hollering is about. 

At the island counter in the center of the kitchen, Roan works over a cutting board, his hands hard at work cutting potatoes and adding them to a pot before him, a happy smile on his face, like being up and cooking while my family bickers in the hall is something that he savors being present for. 

Seeing him smile in our kitchen is something I savor being present for, myself. 

He pauses what he’s doing to look up at me when my work boots make my presence much louder than it needs to be, his smiling softening when his eyes fall to me, soft green like the fields of our ranch in the summer, glossed with the same morning dew our yard is in the early hours. Roan reaches for me, so that I’ll tuck myself under his arm at the kitchen counter. 

He presses his lips to the side of my head, a grin in his kiss, like the life we were blessed with after that wolf tried to take it from us is good, and sweet. “Hey, darlin’.” he says into my temple, soft and buttery, smoothing over me and making the ache in my back melt away from my body. “You gettin’ hungry?” 

“I am,” I say, shutting my eyes and leaning into him, content to be dusted with his affection in brushing kisses and trailing fingertips over my spine. “And Vince needs to be fed, like, immediately. He’s gettin’ fussy.” 

“I hear that.” Roan laughs, running his hand over my sweaty hair. “Can’t have you gettin’ fussy, too.” 

“I ain’t fussy,” I say, as if he doesn’t already know.

He does know, so he just hums, brushing stringy pieces of hair away from my face. “You’re real pretty, though.” 

“I’m sweaty.” I correct, shaking my head. 

“Yeah,” he says, smiling, swiping sweat from my brow with his thumb. “Still pretty.” 

“Hush,” I say, bumping him with my elbow. “Are you havin’ a nice time with my dad?” 

“I’m havin’ a great time with your dad.” Roan says softly, to keep it between us when my brother’s bitching wafts back into the house while they finish the work we’ve got to do for the day. And I know that they look in at the kitchen, where I’m speaking softly to my husband, because Vince sort of quiets. But their footsteps don’t pause. They don’t stop moving. They do slow, though, to give us a few more minutes to be husbands that speak softly to each other in the kitchen, because the last time they were here, we didn’t even leave our bedroom. Roan’s gentle touch ghosts my back over my sweaty shirt. “It don’t bother you none that he ain’t helpin’ y’all, does it?” 

I shake my head. Roan being up and out of bed to shoot shit with my dad could never bother me. In the kitchen over a dinner that he’s preparing, in a house filled with deep gratitude for the life we were blessed with when we almost lost it, I just look at my husband, and I smile, because I fucking love him, and I am so proud of how far he has come. “No. It don’t bother me.” 

Roan smiles, too. He leans forward to press a kiss into my hopeful lips, deep and warm, filling the little bit of air between us with the love that radiates from his tired body. He opens his eyes again, sparkling green against his pale skin, shimmering like those three terrible minutes he suffered don’t mean anything to him anymore, because life is too sweet to dwell on his hardships. “Good,” he says softly, turning back to the potatoes before him. 

Chapter Text

I don’t often get up intentionally earlier than Roan. Naturally, for some reason, I’m usually the first to wake up in the morning. Recently, though, the closer we get to not having to get up early and go out to work on the ranch, the more I savor just laying in bed with Roan when he’s still asleep. I don’t spring out of bed, usually. I roll myself back into his side and press my cheek to his shoulder, and even in sleep, even when he isn’t awake to decide for himself, Roan opens his arm and tucks me into him, like even when he’s sleeping, he only dreams of holding me. 

This morning, though, when I’m certain he’s still asleep and snoring softly, I pull myself out of bed and dress myself quietly, slipping into my boots and closing the door softly behind me. 

When I make it down to the kitchen, I’m not surprised to see that my dad is already awake and clomping around. He is stringing up a banner with letters that I can’t make out, over the cabinets, facing our dining table. He smiles when I stare at it, answering the question that I don’t need to ask for him to know. “It says Happy Birthday.” 

I smile, too. My dad takes birthdays very seriously. He used to say, when my brother and I were younger, that his only qualm with having twin sons was only getting one day to celebrate them. When I fell in love with Roan, and I started bringing Roan home to visit, my father said that he was really excited to have another son to celebrate, to give him another day of the year to make birthdays special on. 

For twenty years now, my dad has taken responsibility for all of his sons’ birthdays, including Roan. He picked this week to come out and help us get the ranch ready on purpose. He wanted to be here to celebrate Roan. 

As I stand in the kitchen, I look around at balloons, and streamers, and the beginnings of my dad’s special birthday breakfast, with pancakes and bacon, sausage and scotch eggs, country potatoes and corned beef hash that he’s crisping up in our kitchen pan. There is no greater fucking joy than waking up on my husband’s birthday, a day that I am blessed to still have him here to celebrate, to my father’s special breakfast and a decorated house, because my dad loves Roan like he made him himself, and in twenty years, nothing has changed that. 

This year, maybe, it has made it a little more special. 

We almost lost Roan last year. Sometimes I get lost in the concept of the fact that I almost lost my husband. Sometimes, I can get really caught up in how hard the wolf was for me and Roan as a couple, two husbands who were very nearly torn apart when Roan was literally torn apart. There are times that, selfishly, I only think about how devastated I would have been to lose Roan. 

But my father is just as grateful to still have three sons as I am to still have my husband. Roan’s birthday is important this year, because we almost didn’t have it again.

”Think I should make hashbrown casserole, too?” Dad asks me, his eyebrows raised. “Roan loves that shit.” 

I nod. “Yeah, he’d like that. Do we have the stuff, or do you need me to run into town?” 

He opens the fridge and hums to himself. “Need you to run into town. We need coffee creamer, too. You know Vince drinks his coffee the way he took his fucking bottles when he was a baby. Milky and white.” 

I breathe a laugh. “I can do that. I need to pop down into town anyway. Want to look for something nice for him.” 

My dad shuts the fridge and turns to stare at me. “You ain’t got him a gift yet? Are you stupid?” 

“Daddy, I ain’t had time to go into town. Y’all have been here all week.” 

“I oughtta whoop your ass right now.” he says, shaking his head like I’m plum ignorant. “Ain’t got your own husband a gift yet. You’re foolin’ me, surely.” 

“Ain’t.” I say, plucking a piece of bacon off of the plate between us, in the center of the kitchen island. “I got somethin’ in mind, though. Don’t fuss over it.” 

“Go on and git, or I am gonna fuss.” Dad says, shooing me away with his hand. I open my mouth to ask him another question, but my dad knows me too well. He answers before I ask. “I’ll help him get up if he needs it. Go on.” 

I smile at that, and I grab my hat off of the hook by the door. Putting it on top of my head, I head out the front door and down to my truck. 

I don’t ride into town very often. We do one big grocery run about every other week, and then most of the rest of what we eat, we grow here ourselves. But it’s nice to go into town. It’s nice to get a change of scenery. 

Once I go into the local market and grab the stuff that my dad needs for the casserole he wants to make, I swing into the little shop on the corner that Roan loves. We haven’t been able to swing in here for a long time, because Roan wasn’t able to ride into town with me for ages. And I didn’t want to come without him. I don’t like to do anything that Roan loves without him. I like to see him, smile over silly little errands and impromptu trips to the shops that he likes. I make a special exception today. 

When I open the door, the shopkeeper looks up at me, a grin instantly lighting his face up when he sees me. He sets his leatherwork aside, conditioner for some shoes that look freshly made, so that he can come around the counter and open his arms for me. 

“Parker!” Tyler says, laughing when we hug each other. “Oh, long time, no see.” 

“Long time, yeah.” I say, smiling with him. “Sorry we ain’t been around.” 

“Hey, now. None of that.” he says, brushing the shoulders of my shirt off like he’s wrinkled them up something fierce. He puts his hands on his hips. “How’s Roan doin’?”

”He‘a a lot better, thanks for askin’.” I say, pleased with the answer that I’m able to give him. “Up and around like he used to be, for the most part. Need a little help every now and then, but he’s a damn strong man. He don’t let that leg stop him from doin’ what he wants.” 

Tyler chuckles, wiping his hands on the rag tucked into the apron tied around his hips. “That sounds like Roan. That’s good, Parker. I’m glad to hear it.” 

Tyler and his husband, Skia, are good friends of ours. Skia is a cobbler, specializing in the leather work that their shop is well-known for, and Tyler runs his shop. The boots on my feet right now were made by Skia’s own hands, and a lot of Roan’s wardrobe was purchased right here, where their family has sold the clothing and boots and accessories that they do for almost as long as we’ve lived here, on our ranch just fifteen minutes up the road from the tiny town we all live in. 

Over the years, Tyler and Skia have become good friends of ours. When Roan and I used to run the ranch by ourselves, in the seasons where we could manage that, Skia and Tyler were always kind enough to run dinner by the ranch house, and sit in with us for a spell to make sure that we had some people to interact with. It’s been an awfully long time since Roan and I have had anyone at the house, aside from my family, so it’s really nice to see Tyler, and to smell the familiar leather of the store that Roan loves most in the world. 

“Today‘s his birthday.” I tell Tyler, happily, because I know that he’ll know exactly what I need without having to ask. 

He does. Tyler pats my back and ushers me toward the counter he’s normally perched behind, so that I can look over what he’s got in the display case. “Now, I’ll bet you have a great day planned for Roan, then. Is your dad out there with y’all?” 

I nod. “He is, yeah, fussin’ over the fact that I ain’t grabbed Roan a gift yet. I just been waitin’ for an opportunity to come out here and get him somethin’.” 

“Well, whatever you pick, it’s on the house.” Tyler says, and when I look up at him to protest, he waves the look on my face off. “Now, don’t start. I won’t hear it. Skia’s out talkin’ to vendors, otherwise he’d make Roan a new pair of boots today. He’d tell you to take whatever you want.” 

“That’s real nice of y’all, Tyler.” I say, scanning over the case.

”What did you have in mind?” 

I sigh, reaching into my shirt to untuck the necklace that my father had made for me after the wolf almost took my husband from me last year. One of the worst parts of the whole ordeal was being in the hospital. When Roan was in surgery and my face was fucked up, they separated us, and when my desperate legs just wanted to bring me to my husband, and my simple eyes couldn’t read the names on hospital room doors or the signs on the walls, I had a whole come apart, lost in the hospital trying to find my husband. My dad had necklaces made for us, that open up and hold a picture inside, Roan against my chest and me against his, so that if I’m ever lost in a place where I can’t read signs to bring me back to Roan, I can just show someone a picture of him and have them bring me back. 

In Roan’s portrait on my chest, he wears one of his favorite bolo ties, with a crow’s skull at the collar of his shirt, the kind of thing that Roan just fucking loves. I point it out for Tyler. “Got anything like this? We ain’t been able to find his since he lost his leg. Think it might have been in his bag when we were up there. Vince didn’t find it when he went back up there to get our shit.”

Tyler hums as he looks alongside me. “Oh, yeah. I remember Skia makin’ that. He made it with Roan in mind.” 

“Yeah, and Roan is back into dressin’ like himself again.” I say softly. “He’s up and around, and he’s dressin’ himself like he used to, and he don’t have his tie no more.” 

“Well, now, let me see,” he says, crouching down behind the counter with a groan. He shuffles around until he finds what he’s looking for, and he rises again. “Don’t have the same one with the crow skull, but Skia’s been making some with cattle skulls, like this.” He holds his palm out, a black bolo tie with a silver cattle head staring back at me. “If you think this’ll work for now, I’ll tell Skia to get crackin’ on a new crow for him. Nothin’ would make him happier than gettin’ something made for Roan.”

I nod, pleased with that. “I’ll take it, yeah.” I say, and smiling, Tyler starts to wrap it up for me. “Hey, you know my dad is makin’ a big dinner tonight. Y’all oughtta come by. Roan would love that.” 

Tyler smiles at me when he passes the bag across the counter to me. “We’d love that, too. We’ll be there.”

”Sounds good,” I say, holding the bag up when I go to take my leave. “Thanks for this, Tyler. We’ll see y’all later.”

”See you then!” he calls after me, bell over the shop door jingling when I pass through it. 

When I get back home, my dad says Roan hasn’t made it downstairs yet, but he said he didn’t need any help when my dad and Vince asked him. Smiling, I climb the stairs to return to my bedroom. 

At our dresser, Roan stands before the mirror and buttons the shirt he’s picked for himself. For a long time, after he lost his leg, Roan didn’t feel like himself. He was too fucking depressed to get a bath, most days, let alone get up and dress himself the way that he used to. 

There is no sweeter sight than my husband smiling at me when he looks up from the mirror, dressed in dark clothes that make his fiery hair burn brighter, and his eyes sparkle, emeralds on a black blanket, full of life that he almost didn’t get to keep living. 

“There you are,” he says, reaching for me. Instantly, I go to him, to tuck myself into his open arms, where I belong. “Can’t remember the last time I woke up without you breathin’ into my neck.”

”Sorry. Had an errand to run,” I say, settling my head against his shoulder when he wraps his arms around me. “Happy birthday.” 

“Thank you, sugar.” he mumbles, his lips in my hair, eyes shut like being able to hold me is the only thing that he wants for his birthday, and for any day, for the rest of his life. 

Staring at our reflections in the mirror over our dresser, we look a lot different than we did the last time we stood together like this on Roan’s birthday. We’ve got some more scars, and a lot more grays, but we look happy. For the first time in a long fucking time, I look at my reflection alongside my husband’s, wrapped up in each other’s arms the way that we were made to be, and we look fucking happy. We look as happy as we used to, happier even, because we almost didn’t have another birthday to celebrate Roan on. 

Sometimes I get caught up in the fact that I almost lost my husband, and I forget that my family almost lost Roan, too. Sometimes that feels selfish. Right now, I decide to be a little selfish, for a little while, so I can appreciate Roan for myself. 

I rotate to face him, away from the mirror, opening the little bag that Tyler wrapped Roan’s gift up in. I pull the tie that I’m gifting to him from its packaging and lift it to Roan’s collar, so I can put it on for him, the way that I used to. 

I like putting on my husband’s ties for him. I know Roan likes having me put them on. There’s an intimate comfort in being doted on this way, the way that I used to, before shit got bad. When my fingers tighten the new tie at his neck, practiced artwork after two decades of doing it for him, there are tears in Roan’s eyes.

He’s not sad, though. He’s as happy as I am to have this selfish moment together.

When his new tie is in place, he covers my hand with his own, holding it to his collarbone for a second before lifting my hand to his lips, so that he can press his lips to my knuckles, and cradle my hand to his cheek. He shuts his eyes and leans his face into my palm, grateful for this moment, as I am. “Thank you,” he breathes, like the last of what the wolf fucked up is leaving him, and he feels like himself again when his husband secures his tie in place. 

I nod, my own eyes teary, happy to have him in any capacity, but especially when it's clear he feels the most like himself. “I love you,” I tell him, softly. 

He opens his eyes, emerald pools shimmering the way that mine are, a happy smile on his aging face. “I love you,” he echoes, leaning forward to press his lips to mine.

Chapter Text

Roan

Our staff arrives today.

I am nervous, in some part of me, while I am washing myself in the bathroom while Parker is up already, tending to the ranch animals and brushing his horses, getting them nice and spiffy for all our new coming staff. It was kind of him to let me shower alone today. Normally, I am grateful for my husband’s presence in the shower, to help me into it when I take my leg off, so I won’t have to drag myself up off the wet ground and into the shower chair, to reach shit off the higher shelves so I don’t have to strain myself, to kiss the top of my head and sit beside me, so I won’t feel so useless when I’m too tired to lift my arms and wash my own hair.

He normally joins me, but, he knew I’d need to feel like I can do this on my own today, when he’s out working on the ranch, and the only things I can do is cook him breakfast and get some of the paperwork ready for our new employees. He knew I would need to be able to bathe myself, so I could have at least one thing to feel accomplished after this morning.

I do feel pretty good, after I cut the water off. I spend a while drying my thigh good enough to be able to move myself to the edge of the tub, to pull my prosthetic on and push myself up to stand. After a long time of having to have Parker help me up and hold my hand everywhere I went, it feels nice to get myself up out of the shower.

I trim up my beard a little. Not a lot, because I swear, Parker would fucking gut me if I ever shaved my face bald, but it feels good to clean it up a little. I clean up my sideburns too. 

When I’m dressed, pushing up off the mattress with my boots on, it takes me a minute or two to find a bolo tie I like. Then, I make my way out of our room, staring down at the horrible, terrible feat that is our ranch house’s stairs.

I remind myself that I’m fine, and grip the rail how Parker taught me to, and it takes me a damn minute, but I make it down the stairs. I heave a sigh of releif when I make it to the kitchen.

Parker won’t want nothing fancy, so I make him some eggs and toast, I pour him a cup of coffee, and I hobble outside, down to where he’s letting the horses out in their pasture, relishing the way he smiles for me when we spot each other. I swear, if I were freezing, Parker’s smile would light a fire within me, protecting me from the icy tendrils of hypothermia. I would be alright.

He leans over one of the fence posts as our horses trot about the yard behind him, and I hold the plate while he scrapes his fork against it. 

“I’m curious,” Parker says, around a mouthful of bread and egg. “How Ingy’s gonna do with all these new horses we’re gettin’. I think everyone else is gonna be just fine, but I’m worried for him.”

I look past him, at the stables, where I know tons of stalls are empty, waiting for the horses our new staff will inevitably fill the place with. “I’m sure he’ll do great. Ingydar’s a fine animal.”

“Well, yeah, but he’s workin’ so hard,” Parker turns to look out at him, where he grazes on the tall blades of grass. “I don’t know how he’ll act when he sees me workin’ on all these other horses.”

“Well,” I laugh, shaking my head, and handing up his coffee mug when he reaches for it. “You know these damn ranchers can care for their own horses, sugar, you ain’t gotta handle ‘em all.”

Parker blinks at me, raising a dark eyebrow like he’s amused. “Now, I know I ain’t a good reader, but do you not know what a farrier is? Pretty sure that’s my whole job, darlin’.”

I shake my head, still, taking the mug back and letting him take the plate so he can scoop up what’s left of his eggs. “You may be our farrier, but that ain’t mean you gotta neglect your own horses to watch after the youngin’s. You can clip their little nails and comb their hair, but they should be carin’ for their own shit.”

Parker looks at me, bemused. “Nails?” 

“Hooves, whatever.”

Parker laughs, shaking his head, like he thinks I’m being decisively difficult, and I can’t help but love our lives here today. 

We’re about to open up ranch to eight hardworking, blue collar men, to take care of the shit Parker and I need help with. Two wranglers, for herding our sheep up in our mountains, to grow their wool and plump them up for selling. Two cattlemen, for breeding our cows and handling our bulls, shoveling their shit, something Parker and I have always hated to do. Two farmers, to watch our smaller livestock, our chickens, our goats, and till soil and grow hay to feed all our animals. And two ranch hands, to do all the other shit I used to do for Parker on our own.

We used to hire a couple wranglers, and a ranch hand or two here and there, but for the most part, Parker and I used to do everything. He would look after the horses, and clean the pens and tend the gardens, and I would do the grunt work he needed done, I’d keep the lawn cut and fix shit when it broke, climb up on the stable roof and lay new slats over open holes that leaked on his horses. We used to get in bed together, at the end of a long day, stinking, sweaty, and desperate for nothing more than to hold each other.

But I can’t get around anymore, and Parker can’t do all of this on his own. So it’s going to be real nice to have a ton of help. This is the most amount of help we’ve ever hired, and the most people we’ve ever invited in to stay in our big empty ranch house. I’m curious to meet them.

Well, I have met two of them before. I give Parker a look when he hands me the plate back. “What?”

Grinning, I hand his mug back to him, so he can finish his coffee, one boot up on the fence. “You’re giddy to see your best friend.”

“Ughck,” Parker rolls his eyes. “I don’t give a rattin’ shit about Ian and Branch, Roan. You’re giddy to tell ‘em about the wolf.”

Ian and Branch, formerly, were a couple of wranglers we had a year or so ago. I wasn’t surprised, when I got their applications in the mail, but when I read their names out, Parker physically recoiled.

We sent them home, because they were arguing so damn much, and coming back up and down the mountain to bitch about each other to us, they were hardly getting any work done.

We sent them home, convinced we could finish the herding ourselves.

And then I got mauled by a damn wolf.

Parker’s been talking a big game, recently, about how, inadvertently, it’s their fault. Honestly, neither of us blame anyone but the grace of God, and my miserable luck, but, damn, it’ll be real weird to have them back here.

I’ve separated them, though, so hopefully, there’s no more fighting. And our new wranglers can handle the herd up in the mountains, and Parker and I can comfortably stay on our ranch, far away from the very mountains where I almost lost my life.

We head up to the house together, when he’s finished with his breakfast, and he lets me carry his dishes. It simple, and small, but I like being able to carry his dishes and open the front door for him. He smiles, and wipes sweat of his brow, and lingers in the kitchen while I wash up after breakfast.

I’ve got all their contracts drafted up in my office somewhere, so really, all I’ve got left to do is wait for them all to get here, cutting up with my husband and curiously wondering how nice it’s gonna feel to watch the weight of the ranch lift off of Parker’s shoulders. I just worry about him doing so much work on his own, when I am too weak to be able to help him like I used to. I would hire a hundred ranchers to make his job easier on him if he would let me. I’d staff this whole ranch so neither of us ever had to work again.

But, what I’m real excited for is the opportunity to run the ranch together. They’re our staff, our ranchers, our employees to boss around. 

It’s gonna be nice to do it together. We used to do hard work together, and my life has felt real fucking imbalanced, and not even because I’ve not got one full leg. Our workload wasn’t even, like it used to be, me doing paperwork and sorting the mail doesn’t compare to manual labor Parker does on the ranch every day. It’s been making me feel so insignificant, and so much like I would never be able to repay him for all the work he does for me.

But we are going to run this ranch together.

What I’m giddy for is the chance to enjoy doing the same job as my husband again.

He catches me staring at him, while he’s picking through fruit from a bowl on our countertop, trying to pluck an apple for himself. “What?”

I chuckle, shaking my head a little. “I can’t look at my husband?”

“Not without tellin’ me what you’re thinkin’.” Parker smiles, dropping his apple to reach for me, wrapping his arms over my shoulders. I snake my hands up the small of his back, pulling him close against my chest and looking up into his eyes, welcoming pools of ice. “Roan...”

“What?” I grin, tipping my head up to kiss him, soft, and slow, and sweet, savoring the taste of him. When he pulls away, I’m still grinning like a moron. “Nothin’. I just like to look at you. I’m excited that we’re doin’ this together.”

“Me too,” Parker concedes, dropping his head forward to rest on my shoulder. “I love you.”

My heart beats in my chest, the same rhythm as his. “I love you.”

I gave out instructions, a while ago, for the ranchers to pull up to our house at a certain time, and Parker and I watch from the front porch as they trickle in. I watch one of the men climb out of his lifted truck, and look out at the mountains behind our ranch, whistling low, under his breath, at the sight of it, and, selfishly, I turn to look out over our mountains, too.

They’re mighty beautiful, this early in the morning, the sun peaking over the white tips of mountains in the distance, miles and miles and miles away from our home. Somewhere up there, wolves are likely howling, waiting around for our new wranglers to get up there and drag the sheep along to their pasture up there.

Parker looks with me, and I glance up at him, meeting his icy gaze with my own. I can tell, from the soft, sad smile that he gives me, that he’s relieved to see our new staff pull up.

We are both astoundingly fucking grateful that we will not be going up near those wolves again anytime soon.

Parker

I take a breath and sigh it out, leaving the haunting memory of that fucking wolf where it belongs, up in the mountains with the rest of its pack, waiting for the wranglers to move the herd upwards, into the open pastures where two men left their flock to be slaughtered the last time they passed through. 

I’m going to have to take the ranchers up the mountain today, to show them around. 

I haven’t been up there since Roan’s screaming pulled me from sleep. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back up there, even to collect the tent. Vince had to do it. I couldn’t admit to anyone but my brother that I was too fucking scared to go back up there. 

I won’t have to admit it today. There will be a hoard of us migrating up the mountain to scope out the pastures, and nothing’s going to mess with a group of grown men as large as we are. 

Fuck if I don’t still shiver, though, at the thought of passing by the spot where my Roan was almost taken from me. 

Roan knows me in my bones. Roan knows me to my core. When icy cold fear rips through my body and makes me shudder, his hand traces over my spine, on top of my shirt, and that draws my attention back to him. He stares up at me, his green eyes shimmering beneath the furrow of his eyebrows, like plush grass below a burning fire, reading my soul through the flecks in my own eyes. Roan doesn’t need me to explain that I can put on a good face, and I can show the ranchers up the mountain, so that the wranglers know where they’re herding and the ranch hands know where they’re running supplies to. Roan knows that I can always put on a good face. 

But Roan knows me in my bones. He knows that the thought of going up the mountain without him is worse to me than coming down the mountain with his bloody body in my arms. 

I’m scared. Plain and simple. 

Roan’s response to my unspoken fear is plain and simple, too. “Draw ‘em a map.” he says, brushing some of my hair off of my forehead for me. “Easy as that.” 

I exhale. I nod. “Thank you,” 

“Thank you,” he says, smiling softly as truck tires over gravel reminds me that we are not alone on our ranch anymore, and the time has finally come for us to rest a little. This tour is the last real work I have to do. We’re going to retire. Truck tires on gravel makes that so fucking real for me that the mountains don’t scare me, and neither does a map. 

I press my lips into Roan’s cheek, and I leave him at the top of the steps to greet our hired help. 

One is already out of his truck and watching the mountains with us, hands on his hips like the magnificence of nature is too damn spectacular not to marvel at a little, stocky and tall, strong arms that make retiring seem more possible. I clap his shoulder when I stand beside him. “Pretty, ain’t it?” 

“Yes sir,” he says, smiling over at me. “This is a damn fine lookin’ ranch.” 

I nod with him, extending my hand for him to shake before us. “Parker MacCallum.” 

“Billy Beaufort,” he returns, wincing a little at his full name in his own mouth and shaking his head to correct himself. “Just Beau, though.” 

“Just Beau,” I repeat, disconnected our hands so that mine can settle on my hips. “You ranched before, Just Beau?” 

He nods. “Yeah, in Montana. Been a few years, though. I was lookin’ out at those mountains and hopin’ that I haven’t forgotten how to wrangle a herd.” 

“You and me, both.” I offer, patting his shoulder again and pointing him up toward Roan. “That’s the big man in charge, if you wanna introduce yourself.” 

Beau nods, and taking a deep breath, I look up at the sky and will myself the strength the good lord needs to give me to be able to deal with the only other man that’s made it out of his sputtering truck. 

Ian slams the driver’s door shut on his old rust bucket, kicking the door again for good measure, already ranting and raving before he even says hello to anyone. “Fuckin’ piece of shit!” he gripes, gripping the door by the handle and slamming it a few more times, opening and closing, opening and closing, just to be mad. “I told your fuckin’ ass the last time that I wasn’t gonna keep tunin’ up some fuckin’ ungrateful bitch that don’t wanna run right no way.” 

The strength of God is not enough for me to like Ian. He’s fucking insane, I think. I actually, wholly believe he’s nuts. 

He’s yelling at his truck, like it’s going to respond. 

“Now, quit your bitchin’.” I call over his slamming when I approach, my hand running along the rusted paint of his old horse trailer until I get to Tin Lizzie’s head, poking it in and cupping for her to sniff my palm. “Didn’t I tell you last time you were here that this trailer ain’t big enough for her?” 

Ian slaps the door shut and grins, one hand on the roof and the other on his hip when he leans forward, like that helps him look at me better. “Well, hey, Parker! I didn’t get e-damn-nough of your welcomed criticism the last time I was here, so I’m real excited to hear it again now.” 

“Her head’s nearly pressed to the roof, Gideon.” I sigh, petting over Lizzie’s overgrown bangs, pushing them out of her eyes that fall to me like she’s never been more relieved to see me. “And get your damn horse a haircut, man. Come on.” 

“You know, there is somethin’ certifiably significant about gettin’ a lecture from you the second I step out my truck.” Ian says, walking over to me. “I was thinkin’ on the way over, while I was ingestin’ fuckin’ smoke from this piece of shit vehicle that I ain’t never gonna get no money back on, how nice it’ll be to listen to Parker’s bitchin’ mouth the goddamn second I set foot on MacCallum soil.”

“Funny,” I say, swiping my hand over Lizzie’s big nose. “I was just thinkin’ to myself how nice it’ll be to fwap Gideon upside the fuckin’ head, because he’s the only one bitchin’.” 

“Well, just you wait,” he says, smiling widely, showing off a gap where a tooth has fallen out. “Because you’re gonna be real unhappy when you see her shoes.” 

Instantly horrified, staring at him and waiting for some sort of joke to end that doesn’t, I walk around to the back of the trailer to get it opened up. And the trailer is a piece of shit, too. It’s so fucking small, and so old that the latches are rusting stiffly and making it impossible to open up. 

“Here, I’ve got you.” another rancher that’s climbed out of his truck in the time I’ve been talking to Ian says when I struggle with the latch, a simple lift and twist that’s been rendered impossible to maneuver as a lone man. He grips the latch and pulls it hard toward his body to try to help, struggling the same way that I am. 

“Keep your grubby fuckin’ mitts off my trailer, compadre.” Ian says to him, swatting his hands away and waving for us to step back. “Won’t work that way no how. Mind your digits, ‘less you wanna lose ‘em.” 

With our hands raised and a step taken away, Ian gets a little bit of distance himself before lifting his leg to slam the heel of his boot into the latch, three times, before it screeches open. 

“My god,” the man beside me says, eyebrows raised like the spectacle we’ve both just witnessed was as offputting to him as it was to me. He puts a hand on his hat over his long braids, like he’s taken aback and worries he might blow away. 

“It sticks,” Ian explains, pulling the trailer door open for me to step in. He gestures to usher me inward. “Now, go on, then, Parker. Let me have it.” 

I’ve already got it locked and fucking loaded when my eyes rest of Tin Lizzie’s overgrown hooves. “You’re fuckin’ with me.” 

Ian sighs. “I already told you that you were gonna get my ass.” 

“I’m gonna get your fuckin’ neck.” I say, petting Lizzie’s face when she bumps her nose into my chin, like she knows I’m her salvation. “How fuckin’ long has it been since you got this poor girl to a farrier?” 

“First of all, she ain’t no poor girl, she’s a stupid woman that don’t fuckin’ listen to me. She don’t let me touch her feet, Parker. I can’t get her to a farrier.” Ian explains, adjusting his own hat by the brim, fishing hooks lodged in the lip of it. “Last time I tried to get down there myself, she reared her hoof back and knocked out my fuckin’ tooth.” 

“Oh, you poor thing.” I say to her, petting over her mane while I work to untie her from the trailer bearings. “My poor baby.” 

Scoffing, Ian shakes his head. “She ain’t no baby. She’s a fuckin’ bitch, and she tried to kick my teeth in.” 

“I should kick your teeth in.” I say under my breath. 

Tin Lizzie is a sweet horse, a tender little lady that spooks easy when she’s startled. It surely isn’t her fault that her daddy is the most startling person I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. She’s not the bitch Ian makes her out to be, and because of that, after I whisper softly to her for a moment and pat down the length of her leg so that she knows exactly where my hands are, she lets me lift her hoof up into my hands to inspect it, and she doesn’t fuss at all. 

And I should lift my fucking boot and knock out another one of Ian’s top teeth, because tapped into her overgrown hoof is a horseshoe with the metal, indented lettering that I recognize as the name that I share with my husband, plastered all over our fucking ranch, the only word that I can recognize on my own without any assistance, carved into the horseshoe mold that Roan had made special for me, for our ten year wedding anniversary, that I have not retired and use religiously. 

“Is she in the same fuckin’ shoes that I put on her when you were here last?” I ask, appalled. 

Ian frowns. “Now, I already told you that she don’t let me touch her fuckin’ feet, Parker.” 

I guide Lizzie out of the trailer, which she’s been loaded into backwards, onto the gravel so that I can look at her shaky, uncomfortable steps on hooves that are probably hurting her. I want to swing my arm out and pop Ian upside the face, but Lizzie spooks easily. I keep my hand on her side and glare at him instead. “You’re a dead man. I’ll tell you that much.” 

“Yup,” he says simply, like he was expecting that. He turns to the porch, where Roan and Beau are having a genuinely decent conversation. He holds his arms out. “Mister MacCallum! Where the hell’s the rest of ya?” 

Roan has thinned out since he lost his leg. He frowns at the attention to that. 

I take a deep breath and decide I need a lap to keep from taking Ian’s tongue out of his mouth. I collect Lizzie’s reins and pat her side to gently encourage her toward the barn, where I can get her fixed up before I go to bed tonight, the second I finish showing the ranchers around. When she doesn’t move, never properly trained to command and scared to be somewhere new, I decide she needs the comfort of my hands while someone else steers. 

I pass the reins off to the nice guy that tried to help me get the trailer open, eyebrows raised to ask for some assistance. “Mind terribly?” 

“No, not at all,” he says, pleasantly, refreshing. He helps me guide Lizzie toward the barn when I point to it, so I can walk beside her and pet over her long neck. “I’m Seth, by the way. Seth Selogy.” 

“Good to meet you.” I sigh, glancing back at the trailer hitched to his truck, an appropriate size with clean metal and smooth latches, containing a pretty-looking horse that looks comfortable. “That a cob?” 

“She is.” Seth says, looking back at me like he doesn’t want me to have a single ill thought of him, if he’s got any say in it. “She saw a farrier last week.” 

“Thank you,” I say, shaking my head. 

Keegs

The ranch is bigger than I expected it to be, but it don’t bother me none, patting my hand on the outside of my truck door, where my arm is hanging out of the window. I figured, when I applied, that it would be some kind of ruddy little ranch with more cattle than space, heifers squished up on top of each other, needing room to breathe. That’s my experience with cattle ranches so far, inhumane living conditions and calves dying in squalor. To say I am surprised by the sight of the ranch itself would be an understatement. I googled it, sure, but no picture could’ve prepared me for what it’s really like out here.

I was already boggled by the sight of the tall mountains, so foreign, so dry, so vast. They go on and on for miles, and, yeah, I got the general concept of what the ranch does, herding sheep up in their own private land to grow their wool and shit like that, but I was expecting something different. I don’t know what, but it certainly wasn’t miles and miles of snow topped mountains and a ranch so big I can’t even see the end of it. The ranch house itself is huge - I can barely spot the cattle barn from where I park my truck.

Some of the other ranchers are congregating out front, taking steps down out of their own vehicles to gawk at the mountains in awe. I read up that this is common for ranches like this, to hire a whole herd of help for the summers when sheep need herding, but it’s a lot different than the shit I’ve done in the past. I’m used to showing up a couple hours before a show,  spending a while testing the back of whatever bull they put me on and firming up my grip before getting into my chaps, climbing the metal fence, and riding out into the arena.

It’s kinda weird to be here, so formally, where all these other men are just as new as I am. I almost don’t know what to do with myself as I step a boot out of my truck, planting it firmly in the gravel beneath my feet.

But, naturally, the first thing I do is open my big fucking mouth.

“Woo-wee,” I whistle, at the man closest to me, climbing down out of his own truck and settling his dark leather Stetson on the crown of his skull. “Get a load a those fuckin’ mountains, huh?” He glances over at me, furrowing dark eyebrows together, and I grin.

Everyone has something about them that makes them them, and I can tell this guy’s thing is looking stern and hiking his britches up to make himself feel tall. He’s got that cowboy look to him, the kind of act men put on to act tough and big and manly, like it’s some kind of ego stroking pissing contest to be the biggest dick amongst the other dicks contracted out on this here ranch. His thing is looking every bit the cowboy he must be expected to be.

My thing is not knowing when to shut the fuck up.

“How are ya, sir?” I extend a hand to him, grinning like a moron when he accepts it, cautiously looking over his shoulder, out at the road we all drove in on. “Keegs, seventy-six thirty, seventh best PBR this side of the continent.” He stares at me, like he’s not sure what that means, and I snort and keep going, shaking his hand vigorously. “That P was a teensy bit of a joke, there, partner, you ever heard a’ one of those? See, jokes make people laugh, and that’s all I’m here to do.” He doesn’t move. “You ain’t know what a PBR is?”

He raises a dark eyebrow, and he speaks, long and drawn out and country, his accent smooth like warm butter. “Ain’t that a beer?” 

”Beer,” I laugh, releasing my hold of his hand to smack him on the shoulder. “Thank the good Lord he talks. No, sir, I ranked seventh in the Mister Country Bull Riding Tournament out in Missoula damn near five or six months ago. The P implies I am a professional, which I am not, as evidenced by my whole being on this here ranch thing.” He nods at me. “Montana ain’t got shit on these mountains, I’ll tell ya that much. Or, fuck, you know, I’m from Quitman, actually. My daddy’s got this little farm down there in the middle of nowhere, and Georgia’s nice and all, but we ain’t got mountains like these.” He turns back to his truck, to reach in and grab his coffee mug, and I keep yapping. I can’t shut up. “Hey, you spoke, you got a name, er, a place you’re from, handsome?”

His shoulders stiffen, the way all men’s do when I call them something nice. He doesn’t turn to look at me, when he answers. “Forry Fredericks. North Dakota.”

“Forry Fredericks,” I repeat, whistling. “Why, that’s a cowboy name if I ever heard one. You know much about this ranch? Mister MacCallum seemed mighty nice in his letters, but I ain’t no good at reading people, and I-“

”Out of curiosity,” Forry says, turning to glare down at me. I ain’t short but Forry is freakishly tall. “What do you do here?”

Laughing, I gesture at myself, my bull riding jacket and the state of my boots. “I’m a bull rider, Mister Fredericks.” 

“Here.” He repeats, short, simple. Commanding. He’s kinda sexy. 

“Cattleman.” I rattle off, just as bluntly, and he nods, turning to walk away from me. “Why? Worried we might get stuck together up in those mountains or somethin’?”

He ignores me, taking a sip of his coffee and walking towards the steps of the ranch house.

”Mister MacCallum is real nice,” A voice says beside me, and I nearly jump out of my skin, turning to look at the man who has suddenly appeared nearly out of thin air. Maybe I’m not that observant, or maybe he’s real quiet, but the man that extends a hand to me is pretty, long, flowing brown curls and a perfectly shaped beard. “Branch Brooks. This ain’t my first time out here, and I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation there.” 

“Oh,” I grin, shaking his hands. “Keegs, seventy-six thirty. What do you think of the folk?” 

“Oh, they’re kind as can be,” Branch grins, showing perfectly straight, white teeth. “Parker has always taken such great care of my horses, and Mister MacCallum is the best foreman I know.” He points, with a perfectly clean, visibly undirty hand, which bothers me, because I am very dirty in comparison. “I’m real grateful they wanted to have me back. I really like the work out here.” 

“Mm, I’m sure you do,” I say, looking him up and down. I glance past him, at another, a mysterious looking fellow with half his face covered with a mask, unloading his horse off of the trailer hitched to his truck. “And what do you do?”

He looks over at me, pale blue eyes piercing through my soul, and doesn’t bother saying anything back. I just follow Branch up to the ranch house.

It’s massive, and beautiful, with tall, hand carved wooden supports and big windows, like this ain’t just some ranch they tend to, but a home, a pleasant, kind, open, inviting place to be. Forry dwarfs the man standing on the front porch, and despite the rustic wood of the porch and the beauty of the ranch itself, the foreman sticks out like a sore fucking thumb: all black clothes, greying beard, slouched shoulders. He’s small, and shadowy, and instantly, as Branch climbs the stairs in front of me, I am nervous.

Branch greets him  first, and then the foreman turns to me. I take his shaky hand in my own. “Kyler Keegs. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

”And you,” Mister MacCallum smiles, kindly, behind his beard, and looks around at all three of us. “So, the trucker, Branch, and the other one looks like dust storm material. You must be the bull rider.” 

“Yes, sir.” I say, oddly unchatty, for my unable to shut the fuck up self.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Mister MacCallum nods to himself, solemn. “Cattling’s hard work, but we take care of our animals, here, and our men. I saw you quit your last few ranches.”

Instantly, I freeze. I did leave my last couple of ranches.

I don’t like how bulls get treated on their breeding farms, how they’re poked and prodded and punished for shit they don’t know well enough not to do. The last ranch I went to tied up their calves, starving, beaten, and hungry, when they couldn’t buck their dummies off, when they were too small and too new to be able to buck just right. I couldn’t stand to watch them trembling, and I quit to start riding again. At least when I’m riding, I don’t have to see the training conditions, and I can take care of the bulls my damn self. At least, when I’m riding, I can pretend I am doing something interesting.

But, other riders don’t get why I give a fuck what the bulls eat and drink or how they’re kept. I’ve lost so many arguments over this shit, my brain short circuits, now, I don’t know if he wants an explanation or what, but my mouth blurts out the first thing I can think of.

“Yes, sir. I didn’t like watching them get hurt.”

I expect him to react bigger than he does, but Mister MacCallum just pats the back of my hand with his own. “Me, either.”

He steps away from me, and I hover near him, as he limps over towards the end of the porch, leaning with great effort over the side railing. He points, shakingly, out at the ranch, and there’s a split second where I wonder if he’s sick, or something, but I follow his gesture. The cattle barn is massive, the pasture out front so big, I can barely see the end of it.

“All that’s for our cows,” He smiles up at me, kindly. “Think you can handle it?”

I nod, dumbly. “Yes, sir.”

I have a million questions I want to ask him about what I read up on when I researched this place. They freeze brand, instead of heat, they breed, sell and distribute grass fed, pasture raised cattle. They don’t sell veal neither, all heifers for milking and bulls for riding and breeding and eating. I want to get on my knees and beg him to confirm it for me, to look me in my eyes and tell me that after years of watching animals mistreated, I will finally be able to raise calves to cows and make their lives good.

But I am still intimidated by him. The respect he commands from the other ranchers and his limp reminds me too much of my father. He frightens me.

I want to be on my best behavior. I nod, and agree with him when he asks me simple questions, I follow him when he says he better go on and talk to everyone as his partner’s coming back up from the stables, and I try to make myself soak in the fact that after years of trying to find work to impress my father, desperate to be good enough for him, and a son he can be proud of, I have finally found it.

Good, honest work, with good, and honest ranchers, who don’t beat their cows or smack their sons around for being in the way.

Beau

I am a little bit dumbfounded by how nice Mister MacCallum is. 

By the firm handshakes, and the kind smiles on my new bosses’ tired faces, and by the energy that’s radiating off of this place that I’ve come to ranch at, like there ain’t a bad bone in anyone’s body. 

Dumbfounded is the only word I’ve got for it. 

When I packed my bags and climbed into the cab of my truck to come out here, I had it settled in my mind that I wasn’t ever going to get comfortable again. There ain’t enough money in the good world to convince me to let my guard down and trust that people have good intentions. I learned a hard lesson the last time I set foot on ranching soil, about letting my guard down and getting comfortable. I’m long past thinking nothing of things that should stick out like a sore thumb, about words and tones and sentences that are laced with deeper, more intentional meaning. I spent too damn long being blinded by a singular gentle man, daft to his bigoted daddy, until the barrel of his gun was pressed to my temple, demanding an answer for why I was slipping into his ranch house well after dark. 

Being blinded is a harsh way to put it. It feels unkind to even think that such a tender, gentle man would ever intentionally set himself in a spot that would block me from what his daddy really was. I think he would have lobbed his own hands off before he reached for me, if he knew that his father would drag me out into the fields that the herd I brought back for him was grazing and press a gun to my temple. 

For just a moment, when Mister MacCallum has turned his attention to another rancher that’s out here to do some cattle work, showing him the cattle barn beyond the porch, I turn back to the mountains. For just a moment, when I am certain that this place that I am so dumbfounded by is as beautiful and pure as it seems at first glance, I consider writing to James. I contemplate stopping what I’m doing, in this very moment, and stepping into this beautiful house to scrounge around for some paper, so that I can write to James and tell him that the kind of place that we dreamed of existing, without the fear of judgment from watchful eyes or the obligation of perfection in his bigoted father’s glare, is real, and I have found it, and I’m sure they’d make room for one more. 

But James is never going to come, even if I write. 

To him, the pain of being his father’s disappointment is worse than the pain of being someone he is not. Even if I tell him that there is such a thing as a place where kind foremen and tired smiles exist beneath the beating sun of a ranch’s summer, he wouldn’t write me back. He’ll stay with his father for the rest of his life, and be who his father wants him to be. 

I won’t burden him with knowing that something else is possible, so that he won’t have to stomach the guilt of picking anything but me. 

And I won’t spend the ink, because writing where I am gives his daddy incentive to load his men into the cab of his own truck and drive out to this good place, to punish me for daring to try to take his son from him. 

I swallow the thought of writing and tuck it back where it belongs, at the base of my chest, where I keep the love I’ll always have for a gentle man that won’t ever be able to love me back, to keep it safe when I progress into a new life, in a new place, without any of the same fear that I left the old place with. 

I’m watching the mountains. 

Something else is watching me. 

I turn in the direction of the eyes I feel burning into the side of my face, and I meet the stare of another rancher, leaned against the porch railing, an ankle crossed over the other and his weight supported by his elbow. He’s wrapped in layers of clothing that hide the rest of his face, but his eyes are crystal clear blue that match the unbroken, cloudless sky that’s dusting the mountains beyond us. 

Curiously, I tip my head, giving one solemn nod to greet him and acknowledge his stare, to mark myself as somebody that would never do any of the things that I admitted to doing when my old foreman held a gun to my head and a threat of violence to James’ throat. 

At the nod, he looks away, turning his blue stare back to the other side of the porch, where Mister MacCallum is gripping the railing to support his weight while he talks about cattle with our new peer. 

I let it be. 

Another stare is locked on my face, and this one, I know in my bones. I turn back to my truck, where Goose is watching me diligently from the passenger seat, tail wagging when I look back at him, like the few minutes that I’ve made him wait in the truck for me have been agony, and he’s dying to find his place at my heel again. 

I lower myself down the steps, walking across the dirt to open my driver’s door and step back for Goose to bound past me, smiling and nodding for him when he awaits the instruction he’s been trained to listen for. “Come on,” 

He springs out of the truck and trots out past me before circling back in my direction, tail just wagging like he’s never been happier to touch the same good-hearted soil that coats the bottom of my worn work boots.

“Hey!” a smaller voice than I’ve heard so far calls, not to catch my attention, but like he’s genuinely very surprised and can’t contain himself. He grins up at me when I face him, his eyes wide and a grin stretching his freckled cheeks wide enough to show teeth. “You’ve got a dog!” 

“Yeah,” I say, politely, smithing my hand over Goose’s head when he sits at my right heel, staring up at me and awaiting my word to move. “That’s Goose. He’s a cattle dog. He’s here to work, too.”

“Would ya mind me pettin’ him?” he asks, and when I shake my head for him to know that I wouldn’t mind at all, he drops to the dirt on his bare knees and scratches behind Goose’s ears, laughing quietly when Goose licks his chin and his cheeks, pleased with the attention.

”I’m Beau,” I say to him, smiling with him, happy to have someone be nice to my dog. “You workin’ out here, too?”

“Sure am,” he says, petting down Goose’s coat and whispering praise for being a good boy. He rises back to his feet to face me again, fingers scritching the top of Goose’s head. “I’m gonna be farmin’. My name’s Reuben.” 

“Pleasure to meet ya.” 

Sighing like petting a dog is the best thing that’s happened to him all year, tugging at the shoulder straps of his backpack, Reuben rocks back on his heels and smiles up at me. “Pleased to me you, too, Mister Beau. Thanks for lettin’ me pet your dog.”

That’s sort of an odd thing to thank somebody for, especially since I told him I wouldn’t mind after he asked permission to pet him, but he seems like sort of an odd character. His dirty knees exposed with the rest of his legs in shorts far too short for ranching, boots about a hundred sizes too big covering his feet, and blonde hair tousled like he climbed the mountains beyond us to get here, Reuben is undoubtedly out of place here, amongst the rest of us dressed for blue collar work in tall grass and prickly stickers. 

But like the rest of the ranch does, Reuben seems kind. I don’t mind him being a little odd. 

I just shrug. “You’re welcome to pet him whenever you want. Goose seems to like you just fine.” 

At that offer, Reuben’s smile falls and his eyes goes wide, like I’ve just offered him the skin off of my back. “No fibbin’?”

”Uh,” I laugh awkwardly, shaking my head. “Yeah. No fibbin’.”

”Well, that's about the kindest thing I’ve ever been told,” he says, hand over his heart. “I was set on makin’ one good friend for myself today, and Goose has taken the cake, and I ain’t even met the foreman yet.” 

“You’re on a roll, then.” I say simply, and his smile returns, nodding very big, just once, humming like he agrees. Beyond us, back on the porch, Mister MacCallum is making his way back to the steps, and the other ranchers are gathered up like they’re getting ready to listen to something important, so I make a clicking noise with my tongue and back teeth to command Goose to walk with me when I head up to join them. Reuben doesn’t instantly follow, so I turn back for him. “You comin’?”

He’s not watching me, or Mister MacCallum’s trek across the porch. He’s found something else to preoccupy himself, eyes locked on another rancher, taller than the rest, not far past the rest of us. A twisty little grin shapes the lower half of Reuben’s face, mischief in his eyes when he hums another ‘mhm’ to answer me, his stare never leaving the guy that doesn’t seem to even notice that Reuben exists. 

Just as I fall into line with the other ranchers, Ian’s nasally, raspy voice cracks out across the peaceful quiet, pushing past me from his truck after he slams the door shut. His pointing finger jabs in the direction of the long haired fella waiting for Mister MacCallum’s word. “No! What in the fuck is he doin’ here?” 

Mister MacCallum already looks exhausted. Gripping the stair railing to hold himself upright, shifting his weight to his other foot, he frowns down at Ian. “Now, don’t you start with that.” 

Ian continues anyway, ramming his finger into Branch’s chest. “Now, I know good and goddamn well that you didn’t mosey your fuckin’ ass back here to stalk my entire life across the country and corner me in this establishment when I’ve already signed a goddamn contract.” 

As if he doesn’t hear the malice in Ian’s voice, Branch just smiles, rubbing the spot on his chest where Ian’s stabbing finger must have hurt him. “Hey, Ian.” 

“Don’t you ‘hey, Ian’ me!” Ian barks. “Why the hell are you here?” 

“To work,” Branch says simply, smiling still. “Didn’t know you’d be here.” 

“Oh, like hell you didn’t know I’d be here.” Ian spits, anger dripping off of his every word. “You are certifiably, tee-totally, undoubtedly fuckin’ stalkin’ me.”

”You look nice,” Branch says, like he doesn’t notice Ian’s tone, and is too preoccupied with looking at him. “This is a pleasant surprise.” 

“Pleasant surprise, my fuckin’ ass.” Ian retorts. 

“Enough,” Parker calls when he returns from the stables, wiping his hands on a rag, glaring at Ian. “Don’t nobody wanna hear your bitchin’, and I already told you that once.” 

Ian scoffs. “Oh, spare me, Parker. Y’all knew that bein’ forced to share the same air as this fuckin’ wet sandwich of a man was gonna make me—” He pauses, head whipping back to face the yard and the mountains beyond us, eyes scanning like he’s heard a noise. “What was that?” 

Nobody answers. Nobody heard anything. 

Mister MacCallum clears his throat. “Alright, now, just a few things to say here before I turn y’all over to Parker.” 

That draws the attention of the group back to the porch, with the exception of Ian, who is still scanning the yard. Parker grips his chin and turns his face back to the porch to make him make eye contact with Mister MacCallum when he’s speaking, walking past him to join our foreman on the porch. 

“We’re real pleased to have y’all here,” Mister MacCallum continues, smiling down at us, eyelids heavy. “Some of y’all have been here ranchin’ with us before, but most of y’all are new, so I’ll say welcome to MacCallum Ranch, and thank you for committin’ to six months of supportin’ our life’s work and carryin’ it on for us while we transition into retirement.” 

We all nod him along. He adjusts how he’s standing again. 

“Now, I ain’t gonna get too long winded here, because Parker’s gonna show y’all around the property here in just a moment, and y’all’ll wanna hear him talkin’ more than anyone’s ever wanna listen to me flap my gums, so I’ll keep it short. Our ranch has been standin’ here for more than a hundred years. Parker and I been here for more than twenty, and we’ve owned it ourselves for ten. We’re settlin’ down to rest as we’re gettin’ older, and even if you’ve wrangled for us before, we’re doin’ things a little bit differently this year. You’ve each signed on for a job that you’ll be stickin’ to unless Parker or I say otherwise, so for the next six months, we’ll need you risin’ and gettin’ to work on your own. We’ll keep you fed, and you’ll get yourselves set up in the house, but we’re dependin’ on y’all to care for your respective sections like they’re your life’s work, too. Y’all were selected from the applications we received because I felt that y’all would treat our ranch like your own. Don’t go lettin’ me down or nothin’. I don’t like bein’ wrong.” 

He earns a few laughs when he smiles to let us know he’s only joking, and that he’s a good man with a lot of patience, and room for understanding. 

I’m still stuck on the fact that he gestured to his own house when he mentioned us getting set up to stay here for six months. 

I’ve never worked for a foreman that wanted to open his own home for his ranchers, that planned to cook meals and joke with us like we’re kin. 

I’ve never known instant, unconditional kindness from a man that owns a ranch. 

Dumbfounded is the only word I’ve got for the solace that sweeps over me, for the tension that leaves my shoulders, and for the smile that forms on my own face. 

Branch

The MacCallums are retiring. Instantly, I understand why Mister MacCallum was so friendly to me on the phone, when I reapplied.

My memory of my time on MacCallum ranch was soured by the way I left it. I spent months of my life, sharing a tent with the man I care most about in the entire world, after a lifetime of staying home, sheltered by my loving parents and encouraged to go out and meet a nice fellow to bring home to their farm to table lifestyle. I used to daydream about having a family of my own someday, meeting the right man and settling down into the comfort of our bed together, whispering soft, sweet nothings into each other’s skin, safe and warm in the comfort of our home, of each other’s embrace. I dreamed about meeting him, imagining how our eyes would meet, just a way, and instantly, we would be connected. Our souls would snap together, tethered, like a lifetime of being stretched apart had finally pulled us close together, right where we needed to be.

What I got up in those mountains, as I glance up at them, ignoring the numbness in my chest from where his finger oh so tenderly pressed hard into my ribs, was falling head over heels for a loudmouthed, bitchy, borderline psychotic son of a bitch in a rickety old tent.

Mister MacCallum told me once that the mountains have some kind of specialness to them. He and Parker used to herd the sheep up there together, years and years before I ever heard of them, just two kids with little sense of direction, up in the snow on their lonesome with nothing to keep themselves warm but the smoldering fire and the length of each other’s bare skin, pressed together in the quiet peace of their little tent. He used to joke with me about something he called the luck of my being good at pitching a tent. We would come down the mountains from time to time, or he and Parker would alternate running us food and supplies to keep ourselves warm and fed up there, and when Mister MacCallum would tag along, pleasantly watching his husband argue with Ian over a bag of canned peas, he would tip his head at me, then at my tent. He’d tell me to repitch.

I thought it was presumptuous of him, at first, but the more time I spent with Ian, the more I understood. Ian bitched about the tent flaps so much, that when I finally pitched it just right, at the bottom of a cluster of mountains, the stakes hammered perfectly into the dirt, I barely even registered Ian’s quiet, hopeful, “You comin’?”

I understood what he meant, all those weeks of him saying that shit about the tent. The better I pitched it, the less Ian had to complain about. The time he spent bitching could be spared, then, for him to spend time with me.

I am surprised he’s here. With the way we left things, I thought for sure he would never come back here. But, I’m sure he assumed the same thing of me.

Mister MacCallum turns the porch over to Parker, who claps his hands together and rounds us up to bring us out to the stables. I watch, my brow furrowed, as Mister MacCallum wobbles, unsteady on his legs, and braces his hand on the porch railing again, like he has trouble standing on his own.

I don’t understand what’s wrong with him.

He sounded the same, when we talked on the phone, and I profusely apologized for my behavior, and made sure he knew how grateful I am to be allowed back, and I am astounded to see him today. Mister MacCallum was, the last time I was here, a salt of the Earth kinda man with big, strong arms and the grit of a man who ranched his entire life. I used to watch him pick Parker up off the ground and spin him around, my heart warm at the sight of two old men who molded their lives around each other. Ian and I used to joke about how strong Mister MacCallum was, how handsome, long, red hair and a fierceness in his eyes we couldn’t help but admire, even Ian, loudmouthed and grouchy as he may be.

Roan MacCallum was someone I admired, and looked up to, and I would like to say that I still do, but he is shorter than I am now. He is a shell of himself. His clothes don’t fit him, and he’s nearly half the size he used to be, like someone hosed him down like a dog, or squished him like a little bug. His hair’s gone, his cheeks are hollow, and pale, and his eyes are still his, but something’s missing. Something’s different.

He and Parker don’t seem to be fighting. They both smile, happily, like nothing is wrong, and yet, he said they’re retiring. I never would’ve expected either of them to retire so soon.

I assume he’s sick. I pray, for Parker’s sake, that it ain’t cancer.

Parker takes us to the stables, and I try my hardest to walk near Ian.

Ian looks good, today, his brown hair uncharacteristically kempt for once, and his jeans laid over the lip of his boots. I keep glancing at him, while he walks, and I ignore the way that he glances back at me, like he might accuse me of stalking him again. Today, seeing him, makes me wish I had been stalking him, if only to keep up with his every waking move, every thought, every breath.

My mama told me, when I laid in her bed late at night, not long ago, worried I’d never see him again, and that I had fully ruined my chance of ever being reunited, that Ian was just a summer fling. He was just some guy I ranched with, one summer out of my long lasting life. She didn’t think he would matter, or that I would be bothered if I showed up back on the ranch where we met and found his absence.

But she was wrong. Ian is here, too, and he takes my breath away, still. I haven’t stopped loving him.

I yearn for the tent we used to share. It was, ironically, actually Mister MacCallum who sent us home before our contracts went out. We spent months together, laughing, and watching our sheep, and letting our hands brush up against each other’s, until Ian point blank asked me if I was stupid, since I hadn’t found the balls to kiss him yet, and I found them. We spent more months kissing each other, snuggling together in the warmth of our tent, and making love up in the mountains with no one around to hear us. Just us, the sheep, our tent, and a couple weeks worth of rations to keep us full and happy and in love. Ian bitched, sure, but I’d laugh. We laughed together.

We stopped laughing our last month up there.

I’ve had a long time to think about it. I think I am insecure about how boring and forgettable I am, and I think that being together, with only each other, for months and months and months in a tiny little tent was making us snip at each other. Ian started hurting my feelings.

It was always playful, and it was what made me fall for him in the first place. I like his witty banter and his cruel jokes, but when the threat of our contracts ending was hanging in the air, and I was too scared to ask him what our relationship meant to him, or what we would be to each other when we went back down the mountain again, I let his jokes get to me. He would call me names, like he always did, and I didn’t laugh.

Actually, I yelled at him. We fought a lot.

It was all over little shit, that didn’t matter, too. Like me making beans for dinner instead of canned corn, or Ian leaving his boots out for me to trip on them, or the sheep pissing us off. We started arguing so much, we drew so much attention to the camp where we kept our sheep, and had to call for some help protecting the herd from wolves who heard our commotion.  I tried to be on my best behavior when the MacCallums rode up to help us kill the fuckers, but Ian picked at me, and picked, and picked, until we fought again.

And the MacCallums stared at us like we were insane.

Parker got onto us a lot, and when we couldn’t stop arguing, he gave up. I think it was his irritation that made Mister MacCallum send us home. He would do anything to keep Parker happy, and if our arguing was making Parker unhappy, then, fuck, even I knew he was going to get rid of us, but it didn’t stop me from hammering the nails in my coffin.

I have spent my entire time away thinking that I not only got fired from the first ranch I ever worked on without my family’s babying, but I lost the love of my life, because of my own insecurities.

And that’s what Ian is, the love of my life, I’m sure of it. Even as we walk together, as Parker talks at length about his horses, about the way he cares for them, about the way he expects us to care for our horses, too, I can’t help but watch him, my lungs tight against the walls of my ribcage, swelling and expanding, and threatening to burst through my fucking flesh like fucking balloons every time he glances at me.

He argues, playfully, and Parker just rolls his eyes and keeps on about his horses, and I watch him so closely he is sure to notice.

He turns to me, when Parker is in the middle of showing one of the ranch hands how to check the hooves of Ian’s fucking horse, since Ian refuses to take care of her, and Ian won’t do it himself. In a conversation about him, Ian turns to me. 

“Why do you keep fuckin’ gawkin’ at me, butt ranch? I know you’re a stalker, but you need to be more fuckin’ subtle about it, before I knock your fuckin’ lights out.”

Parker throws a hand up, huffing an exhausted sort of sigh. I smile. “I’m just lookin’. Is that a crime?” 

“Yes, idiot, stalkin’ is a fuckin’ crime. You’re a fuckin’ freak and-” 

“Butt ranch?” One of the other new ranchers asks, his mouth twisted into a smirk behind his mustache. Keegs, I think he said his name was, before.

“Don’t interrupt me.” Ian says, and Keegs only laughs. 

“No, no, no, you can’t just drop butt ranch out of nowhere and not explain it. What the hell is a butt ranch?”

Ian points a finger at my chest. “Anyway, as I was saying, you piss me off, and you’re stalkin’ me, and I want you to plant your little eyes on someone else’s body, because I ain’t gonna stand here and let you gawk at me like I’m some kinda hooker. Look,” He gestures over at Parker. “You want some eye candy, look at Parker. Parker, bend over.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” Parker says, returning to the hoof. 

“Me personally,” Keegs holds his hand up. “I’m still stuck on butt ranch. What does that mean?”

Ian ignores him, back to bitching at Parker instead of me, and I turn to him, shrugging. “Branch. Butt ranch. Something about me being queer. I don’t know.” 

“Why’re you so crotchety today, Parker?” Ian tips his head to the side, grinning, showing his missing tooth. “Is it Mister MacCallum?” Parker ignores him again. “Is that why y’all’re retirin’? Is he sick?”

I elbow him in the side, and Ian yelps, turning to bitch at me again, and Parker catches my gaze to thank me.

I am happy to feel like things are normal between us. Ian’s bickering today is absolutely nothing like the way we fought before, and I feel happy knowing that the universe has granted me another shot. If the MacCallums are retiring, and they were kind enough to welcome both of us back, after showing out the way that we did, then I am not going to waste my opportunity to fix what I ruined. I will not spend hours beating myself up over not knowing what we mean to each other, when I can feel, when Ian jabs my ribs again, that he just wants an excuse to touch me, like he used to.

He does this, and I like it about him. He bitches, and he jokes, and he plays around, just so he has an excuse to look at me, and touch my chest and be close to me, like we used to be, even after almost a full year of never speaking or reaching out to me or trying to bridge the gap between us.

It is his own weird way of flirting with me, of letting me know he loves me, still, despite the way that we fought and the time we’ve spent apart.

I just smile and let him do it, only half listening to Parker’s instructions.

Seth 

This ranch is bigger than the one I was on before. 

My last ranch was much smaller, with the same number of ranch hands to divide much less work. There were days that we all sort of playfully bickered over who was going to get to do the work that was available. 

As Parker leads us out of the barn, and I’m looking over the rolling fields of cattle and flock that stretch for miles, and the overgrown grass behind the house, and the limbs that have snapped in harsh weather and hang from the giant tree beyond the stables, I don’t doubt that there will not be the same kind of shortage of work here. All of our hands will be full. 

Parker puts his hands on his hips when he slows us to a stop outside of the stables, smiling like showing us around and talking about his life here is his favorite part of his job. “So, like I said, I’m the operation’s farrier, and it’s sort of a passion of mine, so there’s no charge or nothin’ for me upkeepin’ hooves and shoein’ your horses. It’s my pleasure. I’m lookin’ forward to meetin’ all of ‘em, once we get more settled this afternoon.” 

That’s a kind offer. I nod along with the other ranchers while Parker continues.

“That’s a real good fishin’ pond, there. All of y’all are more than welcome to spend whatever free time you find usin’ whatever resources we have here for your own hobbies. We’ve got rods and reels in the garage, and y’all are welcome to ‘em.” He points to the land behind the ranch house, smile falling just a little bit. “I’ve been runnin’ our operation mostly by myself for a little while now. My family’s been up to help me get most of the shit that’ll break us if we put it off under control, but there’s a lot of maintenance that needs to be done. I’ll be glad to come out here and help y’all with the things I’ve left for y’all to clean up.” 

I, for one, don’t mind helping to get the place cleaned up. Looking around, it doesn’t seem like anybody else really minds, either. 

Actually, most everyone is looking out at the mountains beyond the hills behind the ranch house. 

Beautiful, blooming peaks of blue and gray, dusted with snow, even in the late of summer. Of all the things that I am excited for, of all of the things that being out here is going to bring me, I am the most excited, right now, to call my mother later and tell her that I am in a place where snow exists in summer. I’ll be able to hear her smile through the phone, when she asks me all of the questions she can fathom about how such a thing can be possible, snow in the summer, while she imagines what I recant for her, pillowy, soft white against a deep blue-gray in the skyline beyond us. 

Parker isn’t rushing anything. He lets us take our time and look, like he’s got the whole day to let us get acclimated, and he’s flattered that we’re all so interested in his ranch. 

I heard him say earlier that Mister MacCallum is the big man in charge, but I, myself, have spoken to Mister MacCallum at length, and I know that he would say that this beautiful ranch is made up of both himself and Parker. 

My mother recommended this place for me, when she saw that they were looking for help, for able bodied ranch hands that didn’t have a problem branching out and learning more than just what they were hired on for. I didn’t have a problem with that at all. When I spoke to Roan MacCallum on the phone about the job, I told him that I was searching for places that would let me branch out and learn more, because the last ranch I was on was smaller, and there was only so much I could learn when the labor was split between so many people. Mister MacCallum said that they didn’t have enough hands the last time they had people out to help them, and that was when he and Parker still worked like they were ranch hands themselves. 

Mister MacCallum and I talked for upwards of an hour, maybe closer to two. At the prospect of being able to learn all of the things I ever hoped to have a chance to, I became the chattiest I had ever been. 

I talked Mister MacCallum’s ear off about wanting a ranch of my own someday, with room for my father’s farm, and my mother’s shop, with enough space for me to, someday, meet somebody that my soul is tied to and bring him to my ranch to stay. I’d told him that all I wanted was to learn everything I could from ranching for him, so that when the time came for me to find my own place to run, with enough room for my family, and enough space for me to have someone for myself, always, all I would have to worry about was the finding. 

I apologized for talking so much, when I found my sense and shut up. Mister MacCallum just laughed, and said that he didn’t think I needed to apologize for spelling such a damn good dream out for him, for sharing it with him. He said that it was something we had in common, a dream of a ranch with someone for himself, always, and he had been lucky enough to find it here. 

Parker is standing watching us, with his hands on his hips, smiling like us soaking in the beauty of a ranch that’s just as much his is something to marvel over. 

And just beyond him, from the front porch of the ranch house, Mister MacCallum is watching Parker, like of all of the beauty that could be soaked up out here, even with the stunning impossibility of a summer’s snow to marvel at, the only beauty he wants to soak in is Parker. 

Roan MacCallum has not just opened his home up for me to ranch at, for me to do the kind of work I love in one of the most incredible places I have ever seen. He is also going to teach me how to do what he does, how to be a foreman, so that someday, I may be able to marvel at a beautiful man from my own front porch when there is work to be done. 

I cannot wait to tell my mother that the beauty that awaits me here is not just the scenery. 

“Alright,” Parker says, laughing a little, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “Plenty of time to look around. Let me show y’all the cattle barn.” 

He leads us back toward the ranch house. 

Mister MacCallum’s eyes follow him the entire way, arms folded over the porch railing, smiling like his life is about to begin. 

I’m smiling like mine is about to begin, too. 

“Now, watch your step here,” Parker warns over his shoulder. “Ain’t been able to get out and level yet, and some of them holes can be—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, cut off by a startled yelp, accompanied by the clobber of long limbs connecting with the dirt. The little guy with the big boots has stepped into one of the holes and collapsed forward onto his hands and knees. 

Instantly, almost everyone moves to help him up off the ground, just one man staying firmly in his place, unreaching. 

“Shoot,” the little guy says, legs wobbly when he tries to get back to his feet, like he’s startled himself falling. He looks up at Parker, eyes wide, eyebrows drawn up nervously. “I’m real sorry, Mister Parker. You just said—”

“Hey, now, none of that.” Parker says instantly, waving that kind of apology off and gripping his elbow when Branch has already taken his hand to help him up. “Shit, you’re bleedin’, Reuben. I’m so sorry.” 

Reuben looks down at his knees, skinned from where he fell in what’s left of the graveled path. He shakes his head. “Oh, I’m alright. It’s fine.” 

“Got your hands real good, too.” Branch says, brushing dirt off of Reuben’s palm, the heels of his hands bleeding, too.

Beau is brushing dirt off of the back of Reuben’s shirt, like he can’t stand not to help when Reuben is already back on his feet. “Yeah, you need to clean that out, bud.” 

Parker sighs and looks back up at the house, where Mister MacCallum has straightened from his lean to watch with more alertness, gripping the porch railing like he’s going to go back into the house to rummage around before Parker shakes his head. “And we ain’t got a first aid kit, neither. My fuckin’ brother thinks every cut and scrape needs a damn bandaid. Whole first aid kit’s drained.” 

“I’ve got one in my truck,” I offer, pointing over my shoulder toward where all of our trucks are parked, lined up in front of the house. “I’ll run and grab it.” 

“I can help you,” another guy offers, trotting to catch up to me when I’ve already moved toward the truck. I look up at him when he’s in step with me, a goofy, crooked grin plastered on his face when he opens his mouth to speak, cut off when the gravel catches beneath his own boot and sends him sliding for a moment before he catches his footing. “Lord almighty,” he huffs, holding his arms out to steady himself. “That path’s gonna take somebody out. I ‘bout ended up like that poor little fella myself just now.” 

“Yeah, be careful,” I say, minding where I step, looking around at the path. “We’ll need to tamp this out one day this week. God forbid one of the horses fall and hurt themselves or something.” 

“Well, ain’t you just a productive son of a bitch,” he praises, whistling like that’s impressive. “Ain’t even been here half an hour, and you’re already dedicated to the craft.” 

I laugh a little bit at how silly that is, because I’m just trying to be helpful, like I should be. “Well, I don’t know about all that. I think it just needs to be done.” 

“I’ll come out and help you tamp, if y’all need it.” When we’re back on the grass and out of the danger of slipping, he turns around to walk backwards, holding a hand out for me to shake, grinning again. “Keegs, seventy-six thirty.” 

“Seth Selogy.” I say when I take his hand, matching his tight squeeze with my own. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Real good to meet you, too, sir,” he beams, dropping our hands to turn around and face toward, to walk along with me again, almost to my truck. “And might I say, it is a real pleasure to fall into the ranks of someone both prepared for medical emergencies and also pleasant to look at, if you don’t mind me makin’ an observation.” 

At that, I bark a laugh out, at the forwardness and the downright silliness of the phrasing. And he laughs, too, like all he wants is to be funny, and my laughter satiates him. I shake my head and smile back at him when I reach for my truck door, scanning over his scraggly mullet, and his crooked smile, and his long limbs. “Right. Yeah. Well, if you don’t mind me making an observation, it’s as much a pleasure to be in the company of someone funny, and not too bad to look at, too.” 

At that, Keegs pauses, hand on my passenger door to hold it open for me, eyes wide and his grin falling, just a little, almost in disbelief. “Honest?” 

I breathe another laugh, sort of awkward, because that’s sweet, his disbelief. I nod while I dig through my glovebox. “Yeah. Honest.” 

When I pull the little red box out, Keegs’ grin returns, snapping my door shut for me when I’m out of the way. “Well, shit, Seth Selogy. If that ain’t about the kindest sentiment I’ve ever befallen.” 

Smiling, too, I just nod him back toward the group, where Reuben is waiting to be doctored, fussed over by almost everyone else here. Keegs is funny, and chatty. I like funny, and chatty. I’ll make time to fuss over that later. For now, we need to get back, so I just call him forward. “Come on, then.” 

Grinning wickedly, like he’s pleased with some attention, Keegs scampers to catch up to me again. 

Forry

Guilt plucks along the veins wrapped around my spine, ticking and tuning me like an instrument, frozen, dead in my tracks. I can’t do anything but stare, cold, unfeeling, and stoic, my fists balled at my sides as I fight every instinct in my body to keep myself from rushing to my sweet, sorrowful Ruby.

He looks for me, as the other men fuss over him, his big, doe eyes the only trace of familiarity here on this ranch. The others dust him off and help him to sit down, the farrier gets down to a knee to take the first aid kit that’s handed to him, so he can start cleaning dirt from the wounds on Ruby’s knees, and in the scuffle, as everyone caters to him, his eyes find mine, and I refuse to move.

He looks for me, when he hurts, and I have to force myself to look away, down at my feet, at my boots scuffing the dirt.

Instantly, there are a few ranchers who give me a cross sort of look, like they’re spending their breath fussing over him, and it’s obvious that I’m the only person who doesn’t move. The loud one, who spoke to me earlier, especially, he glances at me like he thinks I am some monster, like I am cold, and heartless for just standing here while every other man on this ranch rushes to help a stranger who got hurt. That’s what good men do. They drop what they’re doing to help strangers when they need help.

But, to me, Ruby is not a stranger.

He is the only thing I have.

I can’t bring myself to look up at him again, keeping my gaze on the tip of my boot.

I wish it hurt me more, the way that I can feel his disappointed eyes on the side of my face. I wish the sting of knowing I am hurting him, like my refusal to baby him cuts him, and he doesn’t understand why I can’t do the right thing. I doubt, the way all of these men jabber and laugh with each other, that a single one of them would even notice anything off about me if I reached for my Ruby. I doubt any of them would be able to see the sparks that catch between our fingertips, or the veins beneath our skin singing to life the second they’re near each other, or the soft, delicate flutter of Ruby’s eyelashes, every time I touch him. No one would notice that shit but me, and Ruby, and the two of us alone.

But I cannot bring myself to do it.

I don’t want to be on this ranch, admittedly. I am not looking forward to having to find a new path to sneak around, and learn new strangers to hide from. I am used to truck stops, where Ruby’s hand in my own is a forgetful sight, where other truckers are too tired to think twice about it. To a lot of folk, I think he looks like my son. We get that a lot in diners, whenever he convinces me to sit down in one, despite my protests. A waitress always asks if I need something special for my son. I wish I could say that their assumption is ridiculous, but it’s not, not really. Reuben is young enough to be my son. I am nineteen years older than him.

But, I am used to truckers who don’t care, and waitresses who think I’m his daddy. I do not want to get used to a group of caring, considerate, ranchers who glance at me in confusion when I don’t stoop to help a stranger.

Actually, as they help my Ruby to stand, and jealousy picks at the edge of my resolve, poking at my back like this farrier’s hand on my Ruby’s should be enough to send me over the edge, I try to ignore it. 

The thought of having to hide him is glaring, now, at the front of my skull. I have no idea how I’m going to live through this.

Admittedly, as my sweet, innocent, sad little Ruby looks over at me, his wide eyes watery, I have to look away from him again. I would love to reach for him, and I would love to remind myself that the strangers here see his tears as pain, like he scuffed his knees real fierce and it hurts him to stand, or he’s embarrassed for making a fool of himself on his first day here, or anything other than the truth, that the man he loves refuses to look at him when he’s hurt, but I can’t.

Even here, six hundred miles from the place I am keeping him from, I still look away from him.

I’m married.

I keep my wedding band in my pocket, rolling it nervously around in my pocket, thumbing against the engraving on the inside. I took it off when I got out of the truck, because I let my Ruby convince me that it wouldn’t matter out here, that I could take it off, and pretend with him, and we could be here together. But now, as he looks at me, my chest just swells with more and more guilt, like everything I’m doing is wrong, like everything I am is wrong.

My father is a cruel old man with a stern grip on my entire living family. Sickness took his parents, and almost all of his siblings, and my mother, and almost all of my siblings, too. What was once a booming ranch with bustling life and screaming children has become this cold, miserable place that I have to physically claw my way away from. He raised me to be just like he is, a stoic, emotionless American man with a beautiful wife and strong, sturdy children. Jolene and I have two, Pacey, and JR, who are supposed to be my pride and joy.

They are Reuben’s age. It makes sense when folks assume he is my son.

I raised my boys to be just like me, too. Good, stoic, emotionless, American men, who take care of their mama and respect their pa, and watch over the ranch while I take contracts far away from them, while I go work for weeks or months at a time.

I met my Ruby for the first time a while ago, driving a load of furniture across the border between states, stopped at a truck stop for the night. He came up to tell me he liked the color of my truck, the purple cab he claimed to have seen a few times at that very truck stop, and shamefully, I was taken with him. Ruby is astounding, to look at, a delicate flower compared to the sharpness of my thorns. He is thin, and blonde, and small, with big, innocent eyes, and a soft, quiet voice, and that’s why he does such a good job at whoring himself out.

That’s why, when he offered to keep me company in exchange for a couple bills, I helped him climb up into my truck.

We’ve seen each other for a long time now, but I still remember that first night we shared, red necked and embarrassed. I, a married, straight father with a family waiting for me back home, spent my short stint of a break sliding my cock into this perfect, innocent, gentle, beautiful man, his long eyelashes fluttering, and his lips parted, whimpering against the bed of my truck. I stand here, now, embarrassed of it, my throat bobbing as I swallow at the memory.

My wife makes me uncomfortable, she always has. I married her when my father found her for me, because that’s what I was meant to do. I impregnated her, when I needed to, but we don’t touch each other much. Sleeping with my wife is a rare occurrence, and I used to be able to chalk it up to my own insecurities, and not my inability to feel attracted to her. I thought that was normal, for married couples to grow apart, for married couples to only tolerate sleeping together, so fucking my Ruby was like a breath of fresh air, like my wife had been waterboarding me for years, my head under the faucet, and Ruby pulled me up to cradle my head and dry my eyes. 

It was the first time I have ever felt happy. I felt safe, in the cab of my truck, in the warm embrace of his little arms, and I felt good. I didn’t know sex could be enjoyable, I didn’t know I could feel attracted to anything, I didn’t know that I had been searching for Ruby my entire life, and by some grace of God, He brought us together, at the same truck stop, like He planted us there, specifically. Like it is a miracle my cab is purple, and that’s Ruby’s favorite color. Like He worked His power to bring us together. So that I could be happy after a lifetime of misery, so that Ruby could be happy after years of whoring himself out to get a place to stay.

It was hard to leave him, the first time, and it’s hard to leave him every time. I pick him up, when I take routes through South Dakota, and he rides with me, talking my ear off about pretty things he sees on the road as I drive, and keeping me warm at night, cuddled up under my arm in the bed of my truck. 

I fell in love with him, the first night we laid together, and it gets stronger every time we are together. I look at him, and my chest feels so full, like I have finally found where I am truly meant to be, like all that shit my father spews about what’s right and wrong doesn’t matter, and shouldn’t matter, and I can finally exhale, after a lifetime of holding my breath.

But I only feel that way when I am with him. The moment I start to drive home, leaving my Ruby at some random truck stop with nothing but the clothes on his back and a phone I bought him for emergencies, and the promise I’ll come back when I can, my mind shifts. I glance back at him, in my rearview, sad and small in the parking lot he’s trapped in, and I return to my reality.

I drive, slowly, heartbroken, back to the ranch where my loveless, sexless marriage is waiting for me, where my sons are waiting for me.

Where my father is waiting for me, a man who would sooner call me a faggot for my relationship with Ruby than he would make an attempt to listen to me.

I hate my home. I hate the weeks I am forced to spend there between jobs, when I lay awake at night knowing my Ruby is out there waiting for me, and I’m trapped laying next to a woman that repulses me, with a family who forces me to pretend to be something I’m not.

It was Reuben’s idea to take jobs out on this ranch, miles and miles and miles away from the people that scare me, a place where we don’t have to hide our relationship from anyone, because none of these people know us, and none of these people would ever care enough to find my family and snitch on me, not just for cheating, but for laying with a man. When he told me about it, I felt bad, because I had already snapped at him, because my fear of my father made me yell at him when he called me, because I have begged him to wait until I call him. It still eats me up inside, the way I yelled at him, and though I’ve apologized, countless times, and my sweet Ruby has forgiven me, I hate myself for it, anyway. I hate the man that being around my family turns me into. I hate being someone who yells at him.

So, when he had this idea, to come out to this ranch and be together, far away from where we have to hide, I thought it was a good idea. I applied with him, together, and I waited until I got the job to break the news to my family. I spent weeks on the phone with him, late at night, out in my barn, whispering lie after lie about how excited I was to see him here, and how happy I am that he found somewhere safe for us.

Lies, because my confidence disappeared on the drive in, when I saw his little bony frame, in the distance, on the long road leading out to the ranch house. He was walking, the boots I gave him clomping in the dirt, dwarfed by the bag on his back, and I had every opportunity to pick him up. I could’ve pulled my truck over, and yanked him up into it, and pulled him into my lap and kissed him, taking him, like I dream of.

But, I froze then, like I am frozen now.

I fucking drove past him.

I hate myself for it, and I took my wedding ring off, but, still, I hate myself for staring at the ground when he’s hurt. I hate myself for knowing that we are six hundred fucking miles away from my father, and I am still scared he will catch me.

I am almost forty years old, and I am scared he will catch me. I am a coward. I wish I didn’t feel like such a fucking coward. 

“You’re alright?” I hear the farrier ask, again and again, while my Ruby nods for him, forcing a smile on his lips, pretending like my inability to go to him doesn’t gut him like I stuck a knife in his stomach.

The farrier shows us around the rest of the ranch. He talks us through the mountains the wranglers will be camping up in, the cattle barn the cattlemen will breed calves in, the chicken coops and gardens the farmers will tend to. I don’t listen to much, because ranching is ranching. It ain’t hard work for me. Mostly, I look for hiding spots, shadowy corners of barns he walks us into, shady trees he walks us past, pieces of the house I could whisk him away to, but, God, I am repulsed by myself as I look.

I promised him, just this morning, as he called me to tell me good morning, from the safety of his bus and my isolated truck, that I loved him, and I wouldn’t hide him as much anymore. I told him things would be different, when we got here, and I want them to be, truly. I desperately want them to be different, and I know, in my heart, they could be, if I wasn’t such a fucking coward. I promised him it would be different, and I feel his eyes on me, confused, and hurt, and sad, like he doesn’t understand why I am still pretending like I don’t know him, like he doesn’t understand why, in this place where we will not be bothered, I still do not reach for him, not even when he gets hurt.

There is no way for me to ever explain it to him. I am just scared. I’m scared of my father, of word getting back to him, somehow, and I’m scared of my wife. I am scared of these strangers, and what they could possibly have to say about our relationship. I am not an idiot, I know what ranchers are like, I saw the flags flying in the tailgate of one of the trucks here, I know that our relationship is unwelcome. I’m scared of losing Ruby, because of my own cowardice, but that fear does not outweigh the majority of it.

I am scared of myself, too, of the happiness I crave so desperately, that I know is right in fucking front of me. It is a simmering stovetop I could reach out and touch, and I wish I wasn’t scared of how it will burn me. I wish I wasn’t afraid of how strongly I love him, how badly I need him, and how desperately I want him to hold onto me.

I try, because I love him, because I love him so much it guts me, just as badly as my cold shoulder guts him. I slow to walk beside him. I let my hand brush his own.

No one else would ever notice, or care, but my Ruby does. I know in my heart that I do not deserve him, because even as I left him on the side of the road, even after I looked away when he got hurt, even when he should be mad at me, and hurt, and confused, and when he should demand to know why I lied to him, and why I pretended that the ranch would be safe for us if I was just going to hide from him, anyway.

He doesn’t do any of that. He just smiles a little, his eyelashes fluttering, like the graze of my skin against his is enough for him.

I hate myself for not being able to give him more.

We tour the ranch for hours. The farrier leads us up to the house. The house is massive, and strangely decorated, every wall littered with taxidermy that admittedly, frightens me a little. I don’t look at any of the animals for long.

I convince myself that I am going to be brave, now, because I have to be, because I promised my sweet little Ruby that I would ask if we could share a room together. I told him, I promised him, my lips pressed to the receiver, that I would ask, that I would make sure we get to stay together, at least at night. I convince myself that that has to be enough for us, because I know I will be too afraid to touch him otherwise. We will spend six months on this ranch hiding, just as much as we always have to, because of my own cowardice, but at least we will have our nights together. At least we can look forward to holding each other, late into the night, in our own, private room.

To my pleasant surprise, most of the rooms have two beds.

I feel Ruby’s gaze on me, hopeful, like he wants me to ask, and I inhale, deeply, calmly, telling myself I am going to do it.

I am going to do it.

I turn my gaze to the farrier. “Parker,” I say, and he looks up at me, smiling pleasantly, completely unbothered by Ruby’s gaze on us, staring at us, wide eyed and happy, like he’s desperate for this to go well. Like, after an entire day being ignored by the man he loves, he still holds out hope to share a bed with me tonight. LIke he wants to forgive me, like he still loves me, even when I am cruel to him.

I clear my throat. 

“How’re, uh… how’re rooms set up?”

I can feel Ruby’s heartbeat, across the room, desperate, and happy, like his heart is soaring, like he can’t believe I really found the voice to ask, like I have inadvertently proven to him that I still love him, and still want him, no matter how coldly I’ve treated him today.

When Parker answers, casually, like it doesn’t matter to him, I realize my mistake. I should’ve phrased it differently. 

“Oh, well,” He says, shrugging. He points into one of the rooms. “Wranglers can go in there,” Then another. “And, uh, you and Seth can take this one, since you’re our ranch hands.” He smiles, like he hasn’t just shattered my one glimmer of hope. “The rest of y’all can set up down the hall, wherever you’re comfortable. We don’t mind none.”

I freeze, watching the man who helped bandage Ruby’s knee walks happily into the room Parker picked out for us. I gawk, down at Ruby, as he follows, numbly, behind Parker, down the hallway, to a bedroom far away from mine.

A bedroom that I will have a hard time sneaking off to.

I inch into the room, defeated, heartbroken by my own idiocy. 

“Any preference on beds?” The man asks, smiling pleasantly, like he has no idea how fucking broken I feel. “I’m Seth, by the way. Seth Selogy. I guess we’ll be working together.”

I stare at him, and, quietly, I shrug. He nods, rubbing his hands together as he picks a bed for himself. I sink to sit on the edge of the bed across from his, and I pull off my hat. I set it on the bedding. 

“Can you believe we’re staying in the house?” Seth asks, pleasantly, because he doesn’t know what I’ve done. He has no idea. He turns to me, when I don’t answer, and he straightens, like the sight of my crumpled expression is enough to tip him off. I expect him to taunt me, the way my family would, or berate me, like my father does.

He doesn’t.

He wrings his hands together, and smiles, nodding, quietly, and offering to give me the room for a moment. He goes out to his truck to get his shit. He closes the door behind himself.

I can’t do anything but stare, really, at the wall across from my new bed, a place where I will probably never be able to bring the man I love. I sit here and hate myself, because it’s my own fucking fault, again, because I am only miserable because of my own actions. I am my own worst enemy, and my only obstacle, between my happiness and the way I feel now. I could forgo everything I have ever feared so easily here, up in these beautiful mountains with no one around to judge us. I could say, fuck it, and march out the door and demand that Seth trades with my Ruby, so I can have him all to myself. I could very easily get up, and go down the hall, and shut myself in Ruby’s room and get on my knees to apologize to him, to beg him to forgive me for being such a coward, to look him in his eyes and promise that I will try my damndest to be better.

But, I can’t. I know that I won’t.

I don’t understand why this is still so hard for me. Why, when all the cards are in my favor, when Ruby has specifically chosen a place for us where we can be together, where we can be happy, I still will not allow myself to do it. I don’t know why I am still so scared. I don’t know why breaking Ruby’s heart again and again and again is a better alternative for me than just giving in to what I want. I want to drag him to my bed and kiss him, and feel his skin against mine, and hold him so tightly against my body that we meld together, like twisted metal. I want to take my time with him, after months of speeding through sex so I can get the route done, to savor as much of him as I can in the short few weeks we have together. Our contracts on this ranch are for six months. I have six, long, beautiful, wonderful months with my sweet, delicate Ruby, and I want to be gentle to him. I want to slide my hands along his little body and promise that I love him, and promise that we will stay here, and promise that we will figure this out together.

I want him so badly, I look up at the ceiling. I beg for it to be enough for me, for the thought of taking my time with my love and cherishing him the way he deserves, the way I want to, to be enough for me. For our relationship to mean more to me than my fear, than my internalized homophobia, than a lifetime of hiding who I am from everyone I have ever known. I beg for it to be enough. 

I ask God why it’s never enough.

When Seth returns, I am still sitting here.

I do not have the spine to ask him to switch. And I do not have the spine to love my Reuben, the way that I want to love him.

I do not have the spine to do anything.

I lay on the bed, facing the wall, for a while, so that Seth will not watch me weep.

Ian

I have spent my entire fucking day bitching at Branch. 

From the moment I saw him, I opened my big fucking mouth, and I have badgered him for stalking me, for following me, for obsessing over me, even though none of that is true, because truthfully, I am the type of person that can’t let shit go when it doesn’t go my way. I beat it to death in my head and muddy it with bullshit that doesn’t even fucking pertain, and I harp. 

I harp, and I harp, and I harp. 

I have harped at Branch from the moment I saw him, even though the only thing I fucking want is to unload the horrible truth on him and beg him to hold me. 

I want to beg him to hold me. I want to tell him everything, because he is the only person that has ever known the truth of me and not thought that I was fucking crazy. 

I feel crazy today. 

All day long, and this whole week, and the entire year that I’ve been away from MacCallum Ranch, before I limped my ass back licking my stitches, I have felt goddamn fucking crazy. 

I don’t want to be crazy. 

I am not crazy. 

Being loud is easier than feeling crazy, so I have decided to be loud. 

And poor, gentle, kind Branch is my victim. 

In front of the ranch house, I was yelling. 

In the barn, I was bitching. 

In the cattle barn, I was squawking. 

In the fields before the path that leads up the mountains, in the ranch house picking out our bedrooms, I was getting sort of quiet, because everyone is tired of hearing me run my fucking mouth, and shit, I’m tired of hearing my own bitching, too. 

At the supper table, I am pouting, because Branch is smiling, and making casual conversation with these other fucking fucks that want to fuck his fucking attention. 

The little fucking twink that trips over his own goddamn boots is smiling at him when fucking Branch fucking talks about fucking potatoes, and he’s looking at Branch with these fucking ‘fuck me’ eyes, like all he fucking wants is fucking Branch’s fucking friendship, and he’s a nice fucking person that deserves it. 

And the fucking bull rider, with the fucking mullet, is fucking calling Branch Butt Ranch, and Branch is fucking laughing at it, because it’s fucking funny, even though it’s my fucking joke, and I fucking made it, and fucking Branch fucking thinks it’s funny, too. 

And fucking Roan fucking MacCallum is a fucking chef now, apparently, and the fucking vegetables he fucking roasted are so fucking good that even I like them, and I fucking hate vegetables, so, of course, fucking Branch fucking loves them, and he fucking tells the fucking table how good they are, and all of the fucking fucks that want to fuck his fucking attention proceed with fucking it right in fucking front of me. 

And, I guess, I fucking deserve that. I’ve been a fucking prick to him all day. 

He should be allowed to smile and make nice with the other people here. 

Branch has a fucking great smile. It’s nice to see it. 

I feel like I haven’t seen him smile in a lifetime, because even when I dream about him, he is fucking frowning. 

Yes. I dream about Branch. 

Big fucking whoop. 

So what if he’s so fucking deeply carved into my bones that my blood is starting to taste like him when I bite my tongue?

So what if his shirt that I kept when it got mixed in with my things, when Parker sent us packing, doesn’t really smell like him anymore, and it’s making me feel starving? 

So what if when I shut my eyes to sleep at night, the only thing that plays in my mind is Branch’s lips on my bare stomach, his beard brushing my hips, the cool trail that his tongue leaves behind when when it grazes my abdomen, and instead of the fucking truth of remembering, instead of what actually happened in real life, when the tent flapped loud and constant enough to make us both laugh, to make his roaming mouth pause to laugh, to make his forehead press into my stomach, all that I’ve got in my mind now is a fucking frown? 

So fucking what if he fucking frowns at me? So fucking what? 

None of that shit fucking matters because he didn’t call. 

He didn’t call, because I’m an asshole. 

He didn’t call, because I’m mean, and nasty. 

I’m mean. 

And I’m nasty. 

And I’m dreaming about him frowning at me, which is a fucking agony that I’m not equipped to bear. 

“And you’re crazy.”

I snap my head up. I look over my shoulder, at where the voice came from, and I part my own lips to tell him to shut the fuck up, because I am not fucking crazy, and that is not fucking true. 

There is nobody there. 

I turn back to the table, to poke up another one of Roan fucking MacCallum’s perfect fucking carrots, to pretend I didn’t hear anything, again. 

In the midst of the conversation happening at the table, in the happy, carefree, lighthearted conversation, Branch is looking at me. 

Concerned. 

Worried. 

Frowning. 

Great. Fucking great. 

So, now he fucking frowns at me when I’m awake, too. 

Fucking superb. 

I shut my eyes, and when the wind rattles the tent so loudly that it’s fucking funny, I laugh, and Branch doesn’t, like he did in real life. Behind my eyes, he lifts his mouth from my bare body, and he frowns at me, eyes dark, and vacant, and soulless. 

I open my eyes, and he is still staring at me, frowning, irises full of life and sparkling with joyful content to be here, but clouded with concern for me. 

“Can you stop fuckin’ starin’ at me if you’re just gonna frown?” I blurt at him across the table. 

Everyone stares at me. 

“Everyone thinks you’re crazy.” 

“Shut the hell up, old man.” I say under my breath, stabbing up carrots with my fork, so many on the prongs that they start to split and become mush. “Tired of hearin’ you talk.” 

“What was that?” Roan fucking MacCallum asks, his own eyebrows drawn up like my mutter and mumble worries him, too. “Couldn’t hear ya, Gideon.” 

I take a deep breath and look back up at him, shrugging. “I said these carrots are tip fuckin’ top, Mister MacCallum. Truly, meal’s a fuckin’ delicacy.” 

Bless that good, patient, kind man, because even when I’m mean to him, Branch steps in to help me, even when I don’t deserve it. He turns back to Roan fucking MacCallum, and he smiles again. “Honestly, Mister MacCallum. You’ve outdone yourself with supper.” 

At that, Roan fucking MacCallum smiles again, too, and he carries on the casual, polite conversation that I have missed while I have been stewing. “Well, thank ya kindly. I’ve had nothin’ but homemakin’ time, recently, so I’ve been workin’ on expandin’ the recipes we’ve got in the rotation.” 

Parker hums like he’s itching to weigh in, covering his mouth with his fist, to talk around his food, politely. “Roan’s been makin’ a mean burger, now. Swear I ain’t never had no other burger like it.” 

“Now, don’t go fussin’ over my cookin’.” Roan fucking MacCallum chuckles, swatting his limp little wrist in Parker’s direction before cutting into his steak. “Don’t let me get my head all big. Won’t be able to get through the doorframe to go back upstairs.” 

The table laughs. 

Even Branch. 

Especially Branch. 

I chew my own carrots and pout. 

After supper, we’re all turned loose, to make ourselves at home, however we’d like to. Most everyone returns to their rooms to unpack and shit. 

Branch and I aren’t sharing this year, like we were last year, when we came up and down the mountain together. 

This year, we’re in separate rooms, across the hall from each other. Parker says he doesn’t want to hear my bitching mouth all season, and Branch laughs to be polite, but he doesn’t protest being away from me. 

He doesn’t hover nearby, or hesitate like he isn’t happy about being apart, or linger like he wants to shove the sleeping arrangements aside and hold me anyway. 

He doesn’t hover, or hesitate, or linger like he wants to hold me. 

He doesn’t want to hold me. 

He isn’t going to hold me. 

Branch goes into his own room and shuts the door, because I have snapped at him enough today to make him feel like he doesn’t want to hold me. 

I resign to just going into my own room, too.

When I sit at the edge of my bed, it is a bed I share with no one. 

That makes me so fucking lonely that my tongue feels too heavy in my mouth. 

I could just walk my ass across the hall and talk to Branch. I could just get up, and get on my feet, and walk across the hall, and knock on his door, and tell him that all I have dreamt of while we’ve been away from each other is being under his touch. All I have thought about, for a fucking year, is standing beneath his gentle smile and begging him to love me again, like he used to, before I became too big of an asshole to put up with anymore. 

I could walk across the hall. 

He could frown at me some more. 

I run my hands over my face, because the thought of laying in this lonely fucking bed and dreaming about Branch frowning at me from across a table of people that think I’m crazy makes me feel sick to my fucking stomach. 

I am not crazy. 

I am not crazy. 

“You’re crazy.” 

“God,” I groan into my palms, dragging my fingers down my face, pulling my features with them. “Shut, the fuck, up, old man. I am so fuckin’ tired of hearin’ you talk.” 

“Then why did you come see me?” 

I tap the sides of my skull with my fingertips, sharply, repititiously, in a rhythm to distract me from my father’s fucking voice. 

I shouldn’t have gone to see my father. 

I should not have gone to see my father. 

I should have never gone to see my father. 

Never, never, ever. 

Finding Branch made me feel like everything I’ve weathered was worth the suffering. 

Losing Branch made me feel so fucking lonely that my bones ached. Losing Branch made being in Wyoming more fucking unbearable than being at home was. I just didn’t want to be by myself out here. I didn’t want to be alone. 

I went home, to see my mama, and my uncle, and like a fucking idiot fool, I went to see my father, too. 

My daddy has been institutionalized for years, because he makes me do shit when his own voices tell him to. 

His own voices told him to pass me liquor bottles when I was only thirteen. 

His own voices told him that there was a world of evil lurking out past our doorstep. 

His own voices coaxed us both into a boat, when I gave him a chance to fix the things his voices had broken between us, and his voices fed me booze, again, and put a loaded gun in my hand. 

His voices convinced me that Cajun Sasquatch was real, and that it was lurking around in the waters waiting for us. 

And god fucking damn me, because the way my daddy talks when he’s listening to those fucking voices scares me. It scared me enough, then, to bring his liquor bottles back to my lips and drink with him like I used to. 

God fucking damn me, because listening to him rant and rave about the shit in the world that’s out to get him made me paranoid enough to believe him. 

God mother fucking damn me, because I am a good shot, after years of hunting gators, and being a good shot made me hit my uncle square in the fucking chest when the voices convinced me just the same as they convinced my daddy that Cajun Sasquatch was actually lurking in the swamp, and I couldn’t even goddamn hear the fucking voices that were talking to him. 

My father is a paranoid schizophrenic. He’s been locked up in the looney bin ever since his voices made him force me from my sobriety and raise a loaded gun on my own fucking uncle, the man that raised me, the man that I am named after. 

My father is a paranoid schizophrenic, and I am a fucking idiot that went to see him. 

I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have gone home at all. But I was so fucking lonely, because fucking Branch didn’t fucking call, and being by myself in Wyoming, instead of together in Oregon like we’d talked about when things were good between us, was worse than being at home in Louisiana, where my paranoia is the most awful. 

I shouldn’t have fucking done it, but I did. 

After a week at home, listening to my little family tell me how much better they heard my father was doing now that he had the medical care that he needed, I scheduled a visit, and I went alone. 

Sitting with my daddy in a guarded room, with looney toon people singing hymnals through the walls, he acted the most normal he ever has. 

We actually had a real nice conversation, for a little while, about his treatment and his life in the hospital, and about my life ranching, and meeting someone that I loved, and about how I’d been too stubborn and annoying and rude to just let him love me the way that he wanted to. 

My daddy was a great conversationalist until I mentioned that I was ranching in Wyoming. Then, his face went cold, and his eyes went dull, and he whispered out the most troublesome shit that has ever hit my eardrums. 

“Where in Wyoming? Skinwalkers out there near Wyoming, you know. Skinwalkers look just like people you already know, stalk you across the dark to find you.”

“You heard from him? You sure he ain’t already gone?”

When I couldn’t respond, and his doctor supervising the visit thought that those questions were enough to instantly terminate our visit and take him back to his room, my father went fucking berserk. He stood against his restraints, and he screamed in my face about how he knew that I was special, like him, and how when my angels came to visit me, and when they spoke to me like his did, I should listen, so that I won’t be devoured by some fucking monsters lurking in the darkness, waiting to snatch me up. 

Admittedly, that rattled me. 

Admittedly, the thought of being crazy like my daddy scared me enough to get back in my truck and just start driving back to Wyoming, far away from Louisiana, and far away from him. 

And on the ride back, by myself, my curiosity got the better of me, and I started looking up Skinwalkers. 

And looking up Skinwalkers scared me bad enough to keep me from sleeping, up for a full day and a half or two days at a time before my body just crashed in the middle of daylight, and woke me back up in the dead of night, when I couldn’t see what was beyond the headlights of my truck. 

And being that kind of sleep deprived has made me feel crazy, like my fucking father is, and has made me hear shit that isn’t real, like my fucking father does. 

I don’t have angels like he does, though. 

No, I just have my daddy talking to me, telling me I’m just as fucking nuts as he is. 

I am so fucking scared to be like my daddy, and being scared to be like my daddy is turning me into someone as fucking crazy as he is, anyway. 

I feel better when I’m sleeping. 

I struggle to sleep when in my dreams, the happiest things that I remember, being in a tent with Branch, being safe from the scary fucking world my daddy bred me with, are muddied with the thought that maybe, possibly, the next Branch I find might not actually be Branch, and instead might be some fucked up, evil thing that’s wearing his skin. 

God, I sound just like my fucking daddy when I think shit like that. 

I sound just like my fucking daddy. 

I don’t want to be like my fucking daddy, and there’s nothing I can do to shut him the fuck up when he starts squawking that I’m crazy. 

I tap my head with the heels of my hands, to quiet the loudass thinking that’s rattling the walls of my skull. 

I rise from my bed, that I’ll sleep in alone, in a room by myself, in a house surrounded by fucking open fields that might be filled with people that aren’t people at all, and I distract myself with unpacking my shit. 

I ram my folded pants into a drawer. 

I put my socks in the one above it. 

As I’m unloading shirts into the little wardrobe in the corner of my quiet room, I lift the well-loved, flowy red fabric of Branch’s favorite shirt. 

I stare at it, held out in front of me, wrinkles pressed into the chest from me folding it and unfolding it, again and again. 

Technically, I stole it from him, because I knew that it was mixed in with my things when we were packing to go home the last time we were here, and I did not pull it out of my things to pass it to him. 

But it still smelled like him. Sad, pathetic, stupid, moron me unfolded it from time to time to press it to my face, to remember how he smells. 

Tonight, when I press it to my face, it stinks like sleepless nights in my truck by myself. It smells like all the rest of my clothes. I don’t want it mixed in with my shit if it isn’t going to smell like him, because it’s fugly, and baggy, and stupid, and I would never, ever, ever wear it myself. 

I wad it in my fist and stomp across the hall. 

I let myself into his room. 

I stand before him and stare. 

He sits at the edge of his bed and stares right back at me. 

I hold his shirt out to him, his favorite fucking shirt, so that he’ll take it. “Get your shit from me, now. It don’t smell right no more. I don’t want it.” 

Slowly, Branch takes his shirt, holding it up before him to look it over, like he can see in the wrinkles how often I have clung to it while he’s been away from me, and he can feel how badly I have needed him. He looks back at me when he lowers it to his lap, his eyes wide, and confused, and concerned. “Thank you,” 

“Whatever,” I spit, clenching and unclenching my fists at my side, because he infuriates me, saying ‘thank you’ instead of all the other shit that he could say, like, ‘I missed you’, or ‘I wanted to call, but you make me feel like I shouldn’t’, or ‘there is nothing you can say that makes me stop wanting you, even when I think you might not want me’. 

Branch doesn’t say any of that. 

He just lifts the corner of his mouth in a small smile, and he holds his hand out, to reach for me, like an open invitation to place myself where I want. 

He smiles at me. 

He smiles. 

I take the two steps across the space between us to climb into his lap, to take his face into my hands and kiss him the way that I have dreamt of, before he starts frowning. 

Instantly, immediately, Branch wraps me in his arms and clutches me like he doesn’t want to fucking lose me again, either. 

The ache in my chest, the burn in my blood, the throb in my gut instantly soothes when Branch’s mouth is on mine. 

My mind quiets when his tongue sweeps over mine, and his fingers creep up the back of my shirt to touch my burning skin, and a hum rattles in his chest against mine when my hands knot in his hair and tug needily. 

Branch hums, still. He hums like he used to, when the taste of me was all he wanted, when this was a real thing, and not some shit I just looped and butchered to death in my head, some shit I muddied with my daddy’s ramblings. 

He looks like the real thing. 

He tastes like the real thing. 

He feels just like he used to, warm, and good. 

My desperate fingers begin to undo the buttons on his shirt to free him from it. 

I peel the flowy fabric from his shoulders. He pulls my shirt up over my head. 

He lays me back into his sheets, which are not as lonely as mine, because he’s in them with me. 

Around our starving kisses, smacking, and wet, and loud, Branch hums again, like he used to. 

Every fucking thing within me quiets when Branch’s body is pressed against my own. Nothing in me stirs but the rush of blood pulsating behind my eyeballs, hungry for touch and aching for the comfort of companionship. 

Being beneath Branch makes me feel so much fucking relief, like the agonizing loneliness I suffered without him was worth it. 

Thinking about suffering without him makes me remember going home. 

Remembering going home makes me feel like I’m fucking crazy. 

Branch is real, and nothing my daddy convinced me of is true, and that makes the actual truth so much fucking worse. 

I am not the kind of crazy that my daddy is, but I am still the kind of biting, snipping, mean crazy that kept Branch from calling. 

I am fucking crazy, and that’s why Branch was unhappy with me, because I’m the kind of foolish, annoying, insufferable crazy that badgers him to the point of snapping at me, and turns him into someone that yells, when he would never fucking yell at me. 

I am fucking crazy, because all I fucking want is Branch, and I pick at him until he hates me. 

I am fucking crazy, and Branch has spent this entire time away hating me, hating me too much to call.

I am too fucking crazy to call. 

Branch lifts his mouth from mine, staring down at me with his brows furrowed, frowning like he’s worried for me. He uses his gentle thumb to swipe tears from my cheek, because I am fucking crying beneath him. “Are you okay?” 

I swallow and sniffle, and I nod, and I choke on the way that I want to start sobbing, over how good it feels to have my body pressed to his again, over how fucking bad I feel for all of the stupid little nothings that made him unhappy with me. I fight to get the stupid, pathetic truth out past my stupid, pathetic lips, when all I want to stupid, pathetic do is stupid, pathetic weep. I whisper it out, because that’s all I can manage. “I was worried you weren’t gonna hold me.” 

Branch cradles the side of my face, his expression softening, shaking his head as he seeks to console me. “I’d never not hold you, baby.” 

“I’m sorry that you hated me too much to call.” I choke out. “I’m sorry that you hate me now.” 

“I don’t hate you, Ian.” he says. “I promise, I don’t hate you.” 

“Do you think you might still want me?” 

He nods. Fervently, he nods, his fingers tracing comforting patterns into my bare chest. “I do. I still want you.” 

I sob out the rest of the terrible truth, the only thing that I have wanted to say, to the only person that I feel like I can say the truth out loud to. “I saw my daddy when we left here last. I went home when I was lonely, and I went to see him.” I shake my head, my breathing stuttering, my words like coughs. “It was fucking horrible, Branch. It was so fucking bad.” 

He wraps me in his arms. He cradles me to his chest. Branch holds me like nothing we ever bickered over matters anymore, and he’ll hold me until I stop hurting. “I’m sorry, Ian. I am so, so sorry.” 

I puff one final, defeated truth into his neck, because he is the only person I can say the truth out loud to. “Seeing him makes me feel so fucking crazy.” 

“You’re not crazy,” he says into my hair, holding me tightly. “You are not crazy.” 

“I feel fuckin’ crazy.” I blabber. “Everybody here thinks I’m crazy, because I can hear my daddy talkin’ to me, even when he ain’t here.” 

Branch smooths his hand over my hair, and he breathes a simple solution into my forehead. “We’ll tell ‘em it was the wind.” 

Things are quiet for a moment. 

Then, I start fucking laughing. 

That is so goddamn stupid that I just start laughing. 

Held in Branch’s arms, in a bed we share in the ranch house that we met, Branch and I snicker, the sound bouncing off of the walls and drowning me. 

Lark 

I have never had my own room before.

My mother dropped me off as a baby, on my uncle’s  cattle ranch in Arizona, where I was an inconvenience to him. I have always felt like an inconvenience to everyone, really, to my uncle, a man who barely spoke to me, and my homeschool tutor, a neighbor who checked in on us from time to time. I was never given my own room, at his house, and instead, he allowed me to sleep in the den, where I made a makeshift bed on the floor each night out of couch cushions and blankets, and each morning, I’d pack everything away, like I had never been there.

Wrangling suits me, because I don’t have much to travel with anyway. I wrangled with my uncle since I was old enough to tack my own horse, and I’ve had little more than a change of clothes and my camping equipment for almost ten years. I didn’t pack much, when I came to this ranch, either, just a few ponchos, my equipment, and my horse trailer, hitched to the back of my truck.

But, admittedly, I was too early today, and instead of driving out to the ranch and waiting, like I’m sure a normal person would do, I decided to kill time in the nearby town, a little community called Lonestar. I went into a few different shops, familiarizing myself with the town I’ve contracted to spend my next six months in, marveling at the grocery store at all the MacCallum labeled produce and packaged meat. Mister MacCallum explained my new job to me plenty, moving sheep up through the mountains to grow their wool up in the snow, but it was interesting to see all their products in the store, too.

I was admiring MacCallum Ranch labeled eggs when I glanced to a little table of plants, and spotted a cactus in a little pot, with sprouting limbs and little flowers, small enough to carry with me. I picked it up to smile at it, before promptly buying it and bringing it out for my horse to see.

I named my horse Cholla, after the cacti I grew up around in Arizona. He did not seem as amused by the cholla in my hands, but, to be fair, he’s a horse. At the very least, he seemed to like the stables, when Parker helped me get him set up in a stall of his own.

So far, I have been very surprised by the kindness that has found me at the ranch. I put my cactus on the nightstand by my very own bed, pleasant and content, even though I am sharing a bedroom with a stranger. I know it won’t be long before we forgo the ranch to pack our tents up and ride up the mountains with the sheep, so I won’t have long to enjoy the room, anyway, before I’m back to living out under the stars again. 

But, man, am I excited to have a bed of my own. I’ve never had one before.

Even when my uncle passed, I couldn’t bring myself to lay in his bed. I’ve been sleeping on his den floor since I was a toddler.

It’s been a hard year for me. I am grateful to have found a nice, new job, far away from the desert I lost my uncle in, where Cholla and I can ride up the mountains and look after the sheep in relative peace. Somewhere where, when the sheep are ready to come home, I have a bed waiting for me.

I settle on the edge of it, smoothing my hands over the soft bedding while my roommate unpacks clothes from a duffel bag on his mattress. He has a dog. His dog seems nice. The dog’s tail wags, while he watches me, like he’s curious about the stranger in his dad’s new bedroom. I’m curious about him, too, but I don’t say anything, or ask. I am not very talkative.

Actually, before today, I can’t think of a single time anyone has been as interested in conversation with me as Mister MacCallum and Parker were at dinner. Mister MacCallum asked me about the dust storms I’ve wrangled in, and Parker was curious about Cholla. I wasn’t surprised by that, because Cholla’s a fine horse, and Parker seems to care a great deal about every horse that’s boarded here, even if they are not his own. I didn’t have much to say about him, but Parker sure did have a lot to ask. I’m not used to anyone being so interested in me.

Actually, I am used to feeling like a burden.

My uncle’s death haunts me, each and every day of my life. I miss him, of course I do, but his passing has forced me to face the brutal truth of what has always been my reality. My life has not been that different since he passed, because, honestly, he and I were not as close as I thought we might have been.

Actually, we never spoke at all.

He would get onto me, when I’d slip up, and bark orders at me around our herd of cattle, if only to be heard over the whipping, dusty wind that consumed the Earth around us. Otherwise, if it wasn’t about work, we had barely anything to talk about. Nothing in common, nothing to share. We slept in the same tent, wrapped in layers and layers of cloth to protect ourselves from the dust, and we complained about the heat, and we complained about the dust, but that was it. We never talked about anything else.

I used to joke with my old homeschool teacher, that he’d forget my name if she weren’t around to remind him I existed. She never laughed.

I guess I understand why now.

The truth is, I was always right. My uncle never saw me as anything other than another body to help him herd the cattle, so he wasn’t interested in me as a child, and he never became interested in me, no matter how hard I worked to be just like him, to do everything he could ever possibly ask me to do. I stayed by his side until he passed, and, still, I’m not sure if he would’ve minded if I was never by his side at all.

My lungs tingle, deep in my chest. I reach up to cover my mouth with both hands, and cough, loud, and wet, and constant, into my palms.

The dirt has turned my lungs to fire.

The worst part about the time I’ve spent working for my uncle, was watching the dust kill him, slowly coating the inside of his lungs, thicker, and thicker, suffocating him from the inside out. It don’t matter how many layers of masks you wear. You will breathe it in.

And now that he’s dead, I have begun to realize that my lungs are thick with it, too. 

So are Cholla’s.

I hope that this ranch is going to be good for the both of us, that we will be able to breathe easily, up here in the mountains.

I am used to coughing fits like this, tears in my eyes, open mouthed coughing into my palms.

What I am not used to, is the gentle hand that finds my shoulder, as my roommate comes over to check on me.

Instantly, I shiver, at the contact of his hand over the fabric of my clothes, yanking away from him, like he’s shocked me. He backs away, his hands up, to apologize. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” He says, through a smile. I cough again. “I didn’t mean to startle ya, we were just worried about ya. You okay?”

Through my tears, I glance down at the edge of my bed, where his dog has put his paws up on the mattress, staring at me with wide eyes, like he’s concerned for me too.

I nod, trying my best to clear my lungs, hacking wet, and phlegmy, into my palms. “Yeah. Fine.” 

“Alright,” He concedes, backing away to sit back on his own bed. “Nasty cough you got there.”

I nod, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Dust storms.” 

“Oh, yeah,” He nods at me, too, patting the bed so his dog will jump up and crawl into his lap. “I heard Mister MacCallum asking you about that. Arizona, right?”

I nod, again, and he continues to look at me. I have to gently remind myself that most people in Wyoming seem to be conversationalists. I force myself to keep talking to him, clearing my throat. “You?” 

“Oh,” Thankfully, he keeps smiling. “Montana, for a while. I used to herd cattle for auctions out there. Pretty beautiful state, but nothing quite like this one. I mean, the mountains are endless. I can’t believe we’re going to go up there ourselves.”

Agreeing with him, I tell myself I have to continue to be friendly. I’m going to be trapped with this man for months, up in the mountain, and he is the kind of man who will put his hand on my back when I’m coughing, just to check on me. I have to learn to be comfortable with that, because the skin of my shoulder still stings, from the spot where he touched me, under my clothes. My body tingles, the warmth of his touch reverberating down my spine.

I’m not used to that level of kindness from anyone. 

“I’m, uh..” I clear my throat again, trying to choke down some more of the dirty spit from my lungs. “Lark.” 

“Lark,” He repeats, long and drawn out, his accent thick. “That’s quite a name, I’ve never heard anything like that before.” He strokes his fingers down the length of his dog’s back, and my eyes trail to his hands, still tingling at the memory of his warm hand. “What’s it mean?” 

“Lark?” I ask, confused, and he nods, like he’s simply curious about me. “I… think it’s a bird, or something.” 

“Wow,” He grins, scratching his dog’s ears. “Just like Goose.”

I blink at him. “Your name is… Goose?” 

Surprisingly, he snorts, quickly shaking his head. “Oh, no, no, sir. No, Goose is my dog.”

Oh. I feel embarrassed for asking. 

“I don’t have a fancy name like that. It’s Billy. How horrible is that. Billy.”

Quietly, I shrug, because its not that bad, but he continues. 

“I just go by Beau, like my last name. That suits me better than Billy does, I think.” I agree with him. “Hey,” Beau looks around. “You don’t have much unpacked, do you need any help grabbin’ anything from your truck? I don’t mind runnin’ out there for ya.” 

“Oh,” I shrug again, shaking my head. “I’ve got it all.”

He looks around again. “You’ve… got it all? You didn’t bring anything?”

I gesture, quietly, to a bag at the end of my bed, mostly empty, missing the clothes I wear on my back, and the hat I’ve got all my hair tucked up under on the top of my head. “Packed light.” 

“I can see that,” Beau laughs, and I find myself amused by him. My shoulder still tingles. “Goose’s probably got more than you, and he’s just a little dog.”

I laugh a little, and, sadly, it kicks up my cough again. It’s not long before I am wheezing into my palms, and Beau is at my side again, patting his hand against my back, like he is determined to help clear my lungs, even if they’ll never truly be cleared at all. I shiver, at his touch, but I thank him, quietly, when it’s over. He digs around in one of his bags to find some water for me, and when he has none, he promises to return, walking out into the dark ranch house to get a glass from the kitchen.

I am dumbfounded by the kindness that has greeted me in Wyoming. I look over at the cactus, thinking of all the kind men who welcomed me today, who spoke to me, and patted my back as I coughed, to make me feel welcome and like I belong. I appreciate that about the ranch so far. 

When Beau returns, I thank him for the water, and I feel bold enough to tell him I look forward to working together.

He just smiles, and touches my shoulder again, a final, kind touch, as if to make sure that I know he’s available, if I need anything, and he returns my sentiment.

I kick off my boots, whenever he does, and climb under the soft blankets of my bed, relaxing against the pillow and shutting my eyes. It doesn’t take very long at all to do me in, as I sleep soundly in my own bed for the first time in my life.

Reuben 

I am used to men staring at me like they want to eat me. 

It’s my own fault, really, for being limby, and polite, and eager to please. I know that’s something about me that men like, that when they speak to me to ask me anything, I greet them with a smile and a nod, open to whatever it is they could be interested in taking from me. 

But, I am a little bit surprised that nobody here is staring like they want to eat me. 

A few people have looked at me like I’m odd, because I’m dressed kind of different from everyone else, and I’m little. Tallness ain’t my strong suit, after all, and it’s a skill that almost everyone else here has figured out for themselves. 

But they don’t stare at me like they want to eat me. 

Actually, this ranch is full of the nicest people I’ve ever met. 

I’ve made a real fool of myself today, tripping over holes, falling in the dirt, making a bunch of really kind men that don’t want to eat me fuss over me like I’m just a little fella that can’t even walk right. It’s comforting, in a sense, to know that these nice men will help me get back on my feet when I fall, instead of climbing on top of me to take me while I’m down. It’s comforting, but I still feel like a fool, for falling, and for being little, and limby. 

I keep making a fool of myself, because even after all we’ve done to get here, to be together, Forry won’t even look at me. He has stared at his boots instead of at me, like the sight of me is making him sick, like he’s too embarrassed of me to reach for me the way that I can feel he wants to, and that makes me feel like a real fool. 

I’m a fool for thinking that this place could be special for us. I’m the most foolish person I know. 

And I ache. Being in a room down the hall from Forry, in a place where he is still too scared to look at me, makes me ache worse than waiting for him at a truck stop ever did. 

Mister MacCallum’s leg clicks when he walks. 

I don’t know if other people can hear it, but I do, clicking when he puts weight on it, when he takes a step. He’s clicking down the hall outside of my room now, his steps slow, and patient, like he takes great care into walking, so that he won’t fall or something. 

I know it’s his knuckles that rap against my door. I open the door and stare up at him, still dressed real nice, even though the sun is barely in the sky anymore, and the world outside is getting dark. 

He smiles at me, warm, and kind. “You settlin’ in alright?” 

I nod. “Oh, yes, sir. Your house is real nice.” 

“Thank you,” he says, with some pride, like it makes him feel good to hear nice things about his home. He raises his eyebrows, his hand on the door frame, like he’s got to hold something to stand up. “Are you terribly busy, or do you have some time to talk with an old man before you turn in for the night?” 

“You ain’t old, Mister MacCallum.” I say, shaking my head at him. “You’re hardly old at all.” 

“I feel old,” he laughs, putting all of his weight on his leg that doesn’t click, to turn back to face the hall, nodding for me to follow him. “Got more aches and pains these days than I used to. And more gray in my hair.” 

I shut my door and follow after him, catching up and walking beside him, careful to make my steps as slow and patient as his are, so he won’t feel rushed. “Well, I don’t wanna lie to you sir, so, I’ll say that I do see some gray in your hair, but it don’t look bad or nothin’. It suits ya.” 

He laughs, a lot, like that really tickles him, walking over to the front door and holding it open for me, to walk ahead of him. He sighs when he follows me out, pointing to the right, down the porch. “Just ‘round the bend there. Should be somethin’ set up for us.”

I follow his instructions, and he’s right. Around the corner of the house, when I follow the wrap-around porch, two of the rocking chairs facing the mountains are pulled together, and Parker is shaking out a match he’s used to light a lantern sitting on the table between them. 

I’m just staring when Parker lifts his head to smile at us, stalking past me to take Mister MacCallum’s elbow and walk him to one of the rockers, holding his hands when he lowers into it, with a groan, like he hurts. When Parker straightens again, he holds a hand out for me, setting it on the chair that’s meant for me to take, politely, like he wants me to be comfortable, too. 

Parker lifts a glass of golden liquid with a big, round ice cube from the table, to set it in Mister MacCallum’s hand. Mister MacCallum smiles up at him, head tipped back to really see him. “Thank ya, darlin’.” 

“Mhm,” Parker hums, running his hand over Mister MacCallum’s hair, grinning like he’s happy to do whatever he needs. Parker turns to me, smiling still. “Ain’t no way I’m makin’ you a whiskey, little man. You want a pop or somethin’?” 

“Oh,” I say when they both laugh, shaking my head. “No, I’m alright, Mister Parker. Thank you, though.” 

“Sure thing,” he says, squeezing Mister MacCallum’s shoulder once before he leaves us, his boots thudding against the porch on his way back to the front door. 

Mister MacCallum exhales, smiling like his life is good, and he doesn’t have any other wants. He stares past the porch, out at the field, and I follow his gaze. 

I gasp, quietly, the scenery we’re sat before. 

The sun is setting on the field of purple flowers behind Mister MacCallum’s house. The whole sky has turned a burning hot pink, and it casts a rosy glow on everything the light touches. 

The truck stop I’ve been living at has neon lights, this same color of pink. 

Sometimes, the glow from those pink lights is my only company in the world, when the truck stop store is closed for the night, and Forry hasn’t come back for me. The pink glow from the neons holds me when nobody else will, when I wish the hardest for someone to see me. 

Mister MacCallum takes a sip of his drink, and he swallows, turning back to me and smiling, like he has seen me from the moment I arrived, and he isn’t going to let me feel alone anymore. “Parker said y’all didn’t get a chance to swing through here, to see the flowers. I wanted to make sure you got to see them.” 

I blink through the tears that well in my eyes, because the flowers are too pretty to get blurry, and I don’t want to miss any bit of them while I’ve still got the pink glow to see them through. 

I’ve been talking to Mister MacCallum a lot in the time that it’s taken me to get to the ranch. 

I talked to him a lot in my interview, and when I was making my arrangements to get to Wyoming from South Dakota, because I had a lot of trouble with them. I had to sell my car to afford the bus fare, and when everything that I owned was packed into my backpack and slung over my shoulders, because I would have nowhere to come back to without a car to sleep in, Mister MacCallum called me twice a day, every day, to make sure I had somebody to keep me company.

And to make sure that I’d eaten. 

And to tell me where to go when my bus stopped so the driver could rest, to say which diner he had already paid for a meal for me at. 

And just to hear about the ride. 

I was really happy to have someone else to talk to, because the first day of my ride, Forry was still at home, and I can’t talk to Forry when he’s at home. 

 The only reason I’m here at all is because Mister MacCallum is the nicest man at this entire ranch of nice men. He’s the nicest man that I’ve ever met in my entire life. 

He was good to me when I called him to ask silly questions about the flowers that we’re staring out at, thousands of purple flowers littering the lawn behind his house, in the field a ways out, looking out at the mountains that his life is built around. Mister MacCallum didn’t think it was annoying for a foolish, limby fella to call him just to ask him about the flowers that I saw in the advertisement he put out for ranch hands, hung up on the job board at the truck stop I’ve been staying at, waiting for Forry to come back for me. 

I used to think that Forry was the nicest man that I had ever met. I feel really, really terrible for thinking that about Mister MacCallum now. 

But Forry has not been very nice today, and my heart feels like it’s been crushed under something heavy, poked by something sharp. He won’t even look at me, even though we’re a million miles away from his family, and this ranch is full of nice people that aren’t going to care that we’re in love. 

We’re still in love. We are still in love. I love Forry very, very much. 

I just wish he would look at me. I wish he wasn’t so embarrassed of me. It hurts my feelings that, today, on what was supposed to be the first day of the best time of our lives, where we could be together without having to hide from anyone, Mister MacCallum has looked at me more than the love of my life has. 

He’s looking at me now, when I wipe my cheek with my shoulder, as discreetly as I can manage, because Mister MacCallum has been really nice to me, and I don’t want to make a mess of his evening, when he’s only trying to look out for me. 

He sets his drink down on the little table between us, concern on his brow when he speaks to me again. “What’s goin’ on with ya, Reuben?” 

Mister MacCallum has said more words to me today than Forry has. 

Mister MacCallum has touched me more than Forry has now, too, because he reaches for my hand when I get too sad to hold my tears back any longer. 

He’s patient with me, and he’s kind, and for a long time, when I can’t really speak to get the words out, he just sits with me and lets me cry over being someone the love of my life won’t even look at. 

I get a hold of myself eventually, and I wipe my face, to clean myself up, so that I won’t be a blubbering, limby baby in front of the nicest man I’ve ever met. “I’m real sorry, Mister MacCallum.” 

“You can just call me Roan,” he says, squeezing my hand, so that I’ll know that he’s here for me. 

“Okay,” I say, sniffling, nodding. “Sorry I’m out here cryin’, Mister Roan.” 

Roan sort of snickers, like that’s silly to him, but he shakes his head. “You don’t have nothin’ to be sorry for. I want to listen, if you want to talk.” 

I nod, taking a breath and sighing it out, wiping my nose with the back of my wrist. “Why does your leg click?” 

He stares at me for a moment, like he doesn’t understand the way that I’ve asked that, but he understands, and he hums. He releases my hand for a moment to bend forward, to lift the leg of his pants to show me that beneath them, there isn’t a leg at all. It’s just metal, dark and shiny, buried into his boot. 

Instantly, I feel terrible, because I’m making a fool of myself by asking this nice man about his leg when he hasn’t got a leg at all. “Oh, I’m real sorry I asked you that, Mister Roan.” 

“It don’t bother me none,” Roan chuckles, settling back into his chair and holding his hand out for me again, to take it if I want it. “I lost my leg last year, up in the mountains.” 

“How did you lose your leg up in the mountains?” 

“Wolves,” he says simply, and nothing further. “I almost died. I’m glad I didn’t.” 

I take his hand again, nodding. “I'm glad you didn’t, too.” 

“For a while,” he continues, taking another breath, holding his smile. “It was really, really hard for me to see the point in keepin’ on. Everything that I am, all that I have, is because I was a strong, independent man that worked with my hands. I had a difficult time when I lost my leg, because, suddenly, I was not strong, and I was not independent, and I couldn’t work with my hands no more. I didn’t want to get out of bed when I thought my purpose had been taken from me.” 

I nod, so that he will keep telling me things. He does. 

“But some time has passed, and I’ve gotten to realizin’ some things that…feel sort of silly to have slipped me by when I was wallowin’. My purpose ain’t ranchin’. Workin’ with my hands wasn’t what gave me a sense of purpose. No, my purpose is to be a good man, and a good husband, and to slow down a little, to savor the things I’m meant to while I have ‘em.” Roan looks over at me again, his eyelids heavy, like he’s been awake his whole life, and he’s just getting ready to settle down for a good sleep. “I didn’t lose my purpose. I just lost my leg.”

I nod, looking back out at the flowers when he does, the setting sun making the sky glow deep purple now, instead of pink. I know that it’s just because the sun is getting too low in the sky to make the world bright, but purple is my favorite color, and it’s the color of Roan’s flowers, and it makes me feel like the setting sun is for us. I keep my hand in his, and I keep talking. “Your purpose is to be a good man, and a good husband.” 

“It is.” Roan says softly, squeezing my hand again. “What do you think your purpose is?” 

My answer is easy, and effortless, and even after the day I’ve had of being unseen and untouched, of having all of the promises made to me broken, my answer will not change. I breathe it out into the purple night around us. “To be Forry’s.” 

Roan sits with that for a few minutes. He doesn’t say anything as he connects the dots I’ve left out for him, about how much older than me Forry is, or about how odd that is to know after watching him ignore me all day. He just lets the truth rest in the space between us, beneath where our hands are connected. 

“He’s scared to be who he is.” I say, quietly, just hardly more than a whisper, because even though I want to share the truth with Roan, the nicest man I’ve ever met, it feels wrong to say what Forry has asked me not to out loud. I cannot stop now that I’ve started. “It’s hard for him, because he’s scared of what his family will think, and what the world will think. I know that being seen with me, loving me the way that I know he does, is really, really hard for him to do out loud. He wishes that he could everywhere. He’s told me that. I believe him. But…we came here because I felt like…this was the kind of place we wouldn’t need to hide. I thought, for certain, when I saw the flowers, that this was the kind of place where we wouldn’t have to hide the way that we love each other, at least for a little while.” 

Roan nods. “How do you feel now that you’ve seen the flowers in person?” 

I exhale, fully, to let all of my sorrow out, and to smile. “I feel like I was right. I was right, and he don’t have to be scared to love me here, and he just doesn’t feel it yet, the way that I do.”

He nods. He squeezes my hand again, holding his own smile to keep it up with mine. “This ain’t a place where you have to hide. You were right.” 

“I was right.” I say back to him. “I was right about the flowers.” 

He lets my hand go, so that he can reach his hand down into his shirt, to pull out a gold necklace that’s been tucked to his chest. It’s a locket, and when he opens it for me to see, in the lantern’s light, there are two pictures, one of Parker, and another of him and Parker together, laying in the field of purple flowers, looking at each other like they’ve never had any purpose other than to be each other’s. 

I breathe a laugh through the way that I could cry all over again, just so relieved to have been right. “You’re married.” 

“I am,” he says, smiling the way that he is in the picture, like his purpose is to be Parker’s. “And I don’t hide the way that I love him here.” 

I stand from my chair. I take a breath and hold my hand out for Roan, so that he’ll squeeze it one more time, to wish me well ahead of telling the love of my life that it’s okay for him to love me here, that I was right. “Thank you for talkin’ to me, Mister Roan. I hope we get to talk some more soon.” 

He squeezes my hand like he knows what I need, and he’s got it ready for me, when I need it again. “Good luck, Mister Reuben.” 

That’s silly. I laugh. He does, too. “Do you need help gettin’ back into the house? Your leg clicks.” 

He smiles up at me and shakes his head, hands folded over his stomach, rocking in his chair. “No. Thank you, though. My Parker’ll come out here to get me.” 

I nod. I leave him to look at the ranch around the house, dark now that the sun is gone, and I set off to tell my purpose that I was right. 

Forry isn’t in his room. Seth says that he picked up his pack of cigarettes and went outside a little while ago, like he was going to smoke. 

I can see the little orange glow from the hay barn, across the yard, where my Forry must be waiting for me. I step out of my boots and leave them on the porch steps, so that I won’t trip and make any more of a fool of myself than I already have today. 

Barefoot, I start my walk across the lawn. 

My walk turns into a trot the closer I get, and then, into a jog. I’m running when I’m close enough that Forry can see me, running when he ashes his cigarette and opens his arms for me. 

I jump so that he’ll catch me, so that he’ll wrap me into his strong arms and hold me while we kiss. 

After the longest day of my life, spent walking beside Forry and pretending there is nothing between us, being touched by him feels so good that I could start crying all over again. 

He walks us deeper into the hay barn, where no one could find us in the dark, to a workbench that’s just barely illuminated by the moon’s light. He sets me on the surface of it and hooks his hands behind my knees, to pull me as close to him as he can manage, so that he can take me. 

I have waited all day for Forry to take me. I have been waiting for what feels like forever for him to take me. 

“I love you,” he breathes into my open mouth, his tongue brushing mine as he speaks, breathlessly, like today has been as painful for him as it has been for me. “I love you. I’m sorry.” 

“I love you,” I say back, when his mouth trails to the corner of my mouth, to my jaw, my eyes shut against his wandering hands, over my hips and my waist. “My purpose is to be yours.” 

“I love you,” he says again, fingers unbuttoning my shorts, to wriggle them from my hips. 

I tangle my fingers in his hair to try to encourage him to look at me, to really listen when I speak. He doesn’t lift his mouth from my skin, and I talk anyway. “I was right, Forry. We don’t have to hide here.” 

“I love you,” Forry mumbles again, into my neck, his hand up the front of my shirt, to touch my chest. “I love you.” 

“Mister MacCallum showed me the flowers, and I saw them, and I was right. I was right about everything, Forry. I was right.” 

“I love you,” he repeats, again, into my throat, my head tipped back to make me talk to the ceiling, when he doesn’t have the capacity to listen, because all he wants is to take me, because he’s been dying to take me. “I love you so fuckin’ much. My Ruby.” 

“I was right,” I say again, to make him listen when he can’t. “I talked to Mister MacCallum. He’s married to a man, Forry.” 

Forry’s mouth on my throat freezes. His hands on my body go rigid.

He lifts his face from my neck, lips swollen beneath his mustache, terror in his eyes when he stares down at me. “What did you say?” 

“Mister MacCallum and Parker are married,” I explain, with a laugh, clinging to his shirt, shaking him a little. “They’re men, and they’re married. They’re gay! We don’t have to hide here!” 

Forry stares at me like I’m speaking another language. He opens his mouth twice to say something before anything comes out. “Why were you talkin’ to him about that?” 

I’m still smiling. I can feel that I’m still smiling. But my eyebrows draw together, too, because I don’t understand why he isn’t relieved. “Because…he showed me his flowers. Because that’s the whole reason we’re here.” 

“Reuben,” he says, flatly, in disbelief. He calls me by my real name, and not the name he gave to me, like he can’t stand the thought of tasting it on his tongue. “Did you tell him about us?” 

I nod. “But it’s okay, Forry, because I was right. We don’t have to hide. I was right.” 

He takes a step back from me, covering his mouth with the back of his wrist, shaking his head. He doesn’t say anything for a long time. He just stares at me, like he’s fighting to find the words. 

He finds some, and they hurt.

”Why the fuck would you do that?” Forry whispers, his fingers trembling, like the sight of me is making him sick, like he’s too embarrassed of me to reach for me the way that I can feel he wants to. 

I sit up further, my clothes unbuttoned and disheveled, hurt and confused by his terror to let anyone know that he loves me, especially now that he knows that he doesn’t have to hide it here. “We said that we wouldn’t hide here. We said that we’d be together. You promised me you would try.” 

“Why the fuck would you tell him that?” he asks again, his voice hoarse, his words cracking. “Why would you tell him?” 

I shake my head, my breathing stuttered, because he isn’t going to reach for me. He isn’t going to look at me in front of anyone else, not even in front of nice men that are interested in men, not even when he shouldn’t be afraid to. “Forry, you’re makin’ me feel foolish. You promised me. You’re gonna try, right?” 

Forry doesn’t speak. He just stares. 

For a long time, he just stares. 

He moves eventually, not to reach for me, not to console me, not to bring me any kind of comfort in a hay barn where he is making a fool of me. 

He moves to leave. 

He goes back up to the house, where he doesn’t have to look at me. 

I sit alone in the moonlight, a fool. 

Chapter Text

I think I might be addicted to retirement.

Parker and I have been ranchers our whole lives, rising earlier than the animals do, both up in the mountains and here on the ranch, to take care of all the shit that needs taking care of. I am used to quiet mornings, where we bathe and brush our teeth quietly, not yet awake in the early hours of the day, and get to work before the sun rises, pushing our bodies past their limits before most of the world even blinks awake. I am used to our alarms going off at damn near four in the morning, some days.

And, I knew that retirement would mean I get to have more time with my husband, but I didn’t fully grasp the concept of having the time to be leisurely. The first few days, after our staff settled in, we were still up and ready, bright and early. I was cooking breakfast for all of them and making myself available while Parker was out in the stables checking on them and offering assistance when needed, but our staff are all so understanding of our retirement. They insisted they can handle their own breakfast, and they can get their own horses ready each morning. The wranglers have been preparing to take the herd of sheep up the mountains, the farmers are up feeding the chickens every morning, the cattlemen are already milking our cows and tending to our calves. Even the ranch hands find busy work to do, instead of asking me every five minutes for a new task. I think Seth is taking on a lot of responsibility, and Forry’s been mowing our grass. For all their worth, our ranchers are self sufficient. They don’t need Parker and I to rise with them anymore.

And though I knew I’d get more time with my husband, I didn’t realize how fucking amazing it feels to sleep in with him. We’ve been working for so long, we only ever slept in after I lost my leg, when Parker was scared of losing me, and I was too depressed to move. Since I’ve been feeling better, the concept of sleeping in made me remember how it felt to feel useless, like a hollow lump of meat compared to the man I used to be. I thought it was a bad thing.

But, Jesus, I am addicted to mornings like this one, where sunlight trickles in through the blinds of our big windows, and Parker’s head is still tucked into the crook of my neck, our legs tangled together beneath our warm, crumpled bed sheets, his steady breathing quiet and calm, while our ranch is completely fucking fine without us. A part of me worried that I’d still feel useless with all of our new help. I worried, in the back of my mind, that even with all the ranchers here to take care of things for us, I’d still feel like I wasn’t doing enough, like I would beat myself up for not being able to get up and around, like I’d feel like some helpless housewife with nothing to do but sit around and wait for the men to come home.

But all of our ranchers are good men, who don’t make me feel like I’m any kind of burden.

And it turns out that being useless ain’t so scary when Parker and I are being useless together.

I run my  hand over the stretch of his bare back, my fingertips snagging softly on the curve of his shoulder blade. I blink myself awake, smiling fondly at the top of his head, where his hair has tangled and stuck up at the back. His eyelashes are dark, in the glowing morning sun, his skin pale against his dark hair. I move my hand from his back to his face, to trace the length of his nose with my finger, admiring the sight of him, resting in the warmth of his tight embrace. I have no idea what time it is, and it is nice not to care. It’s nice to hold my husband and not worry about what fires are happening without us. Our animals are fine, our ranchers are fine, the world is fine, if we sleep in a little. That makes me so happy for us. That makes me love my life a little more, each and every morning.

Parker stirs, and my breath hitches, like it always does, when I catch my first glimpse of the chill in his eyes.

His eyes will never not astound me, but in the morning sun, the golden rays pale them, so I can see each and every fleck of silver in the soft, endless blue. They shine brighter, when the sun’s up, and I am so happy I am with him, when the sun rises, after almost twenty years of mornings in the dark of our bedroom, where the sun hadn’t risen to light them for me.

I like having our ranchers here, because I am not useless. I just have more free time, to lodge myself directly against Parker’s skin and hold him, like nothing will ever take us from each other, like holding him is the only thing I will ever have for the rest of my life.

I’m content with that. I could lay here forever, with him in my arms, and I would be content with that. I would be just as happy in fifty years as I am now.

He sits up a little, tipping his chin forward so he can kiss my lips, dragging his foot up the side of my calf. I shiver, whispering into his teeth. “Cold feet.” 

“You love ‘em,” He whispers back, making sure to press his toes into me, a bit harder. “You love me.”

I cradle the back of his head with my hands, holding him close, so he’ll keep kissing me, so this morning will keep being as warm, as perfect, and as beautiful as he is. “I do. I love you.”

He smiles, against my lips, pressing his body into mine. I savor the taste of him.

Just a couple weeks ago, Parker and I did not have the luxury of slow moving, groggy, early morning sex. I can’t remember what my mornings must’ve been like without it.

Parker’s breath is warm, inviting, when my tongue slides past his teeth, and he hooks his knee up over my hip, dragging me to my side, so our bodies press flush together. He wraps his arms around my neck, his chest arching against mine as he kisses me, as he lets me slide my knee between his thighs, his warmth begging for me. He rolls his hips against me, calling for me, veins screaming beneath his skin for me to take over for him, so he can lay back against our pillows and let me take him.

I’m getting better at getting around without my prosthetic. I press him onto his back, pushing my knee up behind his own to make his legs fall open for me, his knee sticking out to the side from under our bedsheets. I lift my hand up between us and he frees his tongue from mine, so we can both pause to spit together, on the pads of my fingertips. Parker looks up at me, again, his blue eyes shimmering in the sunlight, silver catching on the vibrant rays, and I take my time slicking my fingers with our spit and settling my hand between his open legs, so that I can see his eyelashes flutter when I press inside of him. He squeezes his eyes shut, his smile trembling, and I push myself away from him, sliding down the length of his body to curl up at his side, running my free hand over the bare skin of his stomach, pressing into his abdomen.

He sputters a little, when I move my hand from his stomach to his hips, to angle my head up so I can lick a stripe up the length of him, enjoying the way that he shivers, exposed to the sunlight of our bedroom.

As much as I love his eyes, Parker’s skin is beautiful in the golden light, too, twitching and squirming as I take him into my mouth, carefully inching my finger further, deeper inside of him. I keep my eyes open, watching him as he reaches for me, his strong hands sliding thick fingers along my scalp, twisting in my hair. He doesn’t tug on it, but I feel his fingers tighten, begging, like he needs me, like he needs the hollow of my cheeks and the warmth of my mouth, my wet tongue flexing against him. I drink in the sight of him, salivating from the taste of him, needing his pleasure as much as he needs me. I am a servant to him, an addict, trembling at the thought of how much he needs me, how much he loves me.

I readjust my hand to slide another finger into him, and he gasps out a moan, and my spine tingles, dragging my lips along his shaft slowly, methodically, inhaling him, the way I know he likes.

He does pull my hair, whining, and I know his whines well enough to take my leave of him, sliding my mouth away from his cock and freeing my fingers, to make myself available for him when he needs me, grasping at the air so I’ll come back to him, settling all of my weight against his chest so I can kiss him again. His arms find my neck, wrapping tight against me, and he helps me up onto my arms, which grow stronger the more I use them, so I have an easier time holding myself up to settle on my only knee. Parker lets me use him for the support I’m missing, my stump thigh pressed hard into the meat of his leg. He grasps at me, tightly, whimpering in my ear as I have to reach between us, to grip the head of my cock and line myself up against him, quietly pushing it into him, while he holds me tighter, closer, harder, against his chest.

It was difficult, for a while, for me to find ways to sleep with my husband without my leg, pulling him to the edge of our bed and bending him over it, so I could stay on my wobbly prosthetic.

It’s easier, each and every time, as Parker holds me open and folds himself for me, so our bodies press so tightly against each other, so I can slide into him easier, so I can stay up on my hands for longer.

We savor each other, always, no matter what, but I think I prefer sleeping in with him, when I’m awake enough to hold myself up and when the ranch is awake enough for all our staff to already be outside, working in the sun while we’re in here, the house to ourselves.

Because I savor my time with my husband a little more when I get to hear him.

He whines, as I fuck him, rolling his hips up to meet mine, his eyes shut tight like he’s tired, and needy, and whiny, like I am the only thought in his brain. Like his body is mine, and he wants me to use it, to press my hips against him, to thrust myself into him like he is mine to take.

I try to keep my eyes open, so I can watch him, the shadow of my silhouette punctuating the sunlight that washes over his face with each deep, long thrust. I love watching him, his lips twitching and flickering as his mouth falls open, as gasps tumble off his tongue like he is helpless to do anything but breathe and be mine.

I balance myself on my left knee and right arm, so I can drop my left hand to wrap my fingers around him, so I can make sure he’s done before I am. I like when he’s spent, exhausted, his stomach sticky, blinking up at me like I make him feel better than he’s ever felt in his entire life, like I am his entire world, and all he sees is me.

I cum inside of him, and when he’s full, I press my forehead to his, exhausted, dropping off my arms and letting my weight crush him into the mattress, as my cock slips out to twitch against his thigh.

“Jesus,” I curse, and he laughs, reaching up to run his fingers through my hair.

“I love you,” He pants, wheezing a little, like I’m crushing him.

“I love you,” I echo, and I feel bad enough to roll off of him, onto my back, staring up at our ceiling in the sunlight. Our room’s bright enough now to illuminate the whole space. I lift my arms up so he can see them, hands trembling in the sun. “Look at this.”

“Oh, Lord,” Parker reaches for my arms to take them in his own, squeezing them tightly, as if his touch will sooth the ache. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I laugh, letting him hold me. “I’m gettin’ stronger. Give me a couple days, my arms will be as big as yours are.”

“A couple days,” Parker laughs, the sound making my hair stand on end, my veins tingling whenever he speaks to me. “You’re plannin’ on fuckin’ me a lot, then?”

“Mhm,” I press my lips to his sweaty forehead. “Gotta build muscle. Can’t do that without you.”

Playfully, Parker answers with a joke. “You could lift weights. I’ll get you some.”

“Wow,” I reply, flatly. “So you fuckin’ hate me.”

“No,” Parker laughs. “Fuck off.”

“No, no, I get it,” I roll away from him, taking my arms away. “You’re sick of me. I know how to take a hint.”

Laughing, Parker pulls me back to him, to cage me on our mattress and keep me there, imprisoned in his warm embrace. His playful admissions of love, to keep me in bed with him, turn from silly jokes to earnest, quiet pleas.

We stay in bed for a long time.

I fall asleep again, here and there, and Parker wakes me up with his tongue, with his breath against my own, his hips grinding into mine.

Eventually we do get out of bed. He helps me to our shower, so I can sit down, and we bathe together. He helps me put my prosthetic on, and we get dressed together, brush our teeth together.

By the time we’re in the kitchen, and Parker’s giggling at my hands on his waist, I intend to make him breakfast, and a nice cup of coffee, to enjoy the rest of our morning together.

But my gaze shifts past him to the clock on our stove.

It is one in the afternoon.

“Um,” I say, smacking my lips, and Parker turns to look at it. 

He’s not a strong reader, but he’s incredible at recognizing the shape of some numbers. He looks at me. “Uh oh. What time is it?” He asks, because he knows the shape, not the time. I tell him. “Oh.”

“Whoops,” I say, carelessly, and I keep my hands on his waist, sliding my lips along his jaw. “Perfect time for a nap, though. We could head up.”

“I have to check on Ingy,” He says, laughing, letting me kiss him a little more before he pulls away from me. “Jesus, one p.m. Who are we?”

I think for a second, smiling pleasantly. “Old men.”

“Apparently,” Parker laughs, still, his smile warming my insides. “Old men that sleep the day away.”

“Yeah, sure.” I grin. “Sleep.”

“I’m hungry,” Parker says, smacking my chest. “Let me get to my horses and bring me some damn lunch.”

“Fine,” I chuckle. “I’ll bring it out to you.”

Still smiling, he leans down to kiss me, long, and slow, his closed lips against my own, so I can feel how he smiles against me, my muscles singing to life beneath my skin. “I love you.”

“I love you,” I watch him go. I take a second to stretch my arms out, rubbing my biceps in the spots where they really fucking ache before I turn to our fridge to figure out something to make.

I like this part of my days, now, too, where I know it won’t be long before I see my husband again. I settle on making us both a sandwich, and, despite the time, I make him a cup of coffee anyway, after filling a couple cups of water for myself to slug before I head down to the horse barn.

It’s not a particularly hard walk, because, thankfully, most of our property is flat, but I am used to walking it slowly by myself, bringing food down to the barn so Parker can eat, trying my hardest not to wobble on the grass as my prosthetic clicks along with me. Seth notices me, from his spot at a nearby fence post, hammering a couple nails in the wood to fix a slat that fell a couple months ago, that Parker and I haven’t had the bandwidth to fix yet ourselves. He smiles, trotting over politely to hold his hands out, to take the plates from me, before I even ask for any help. 

“Let me take those, Mister MacCallum,” he says, sweetly, smiling like it is the most meaningless gesture in the world, but I appreciate his help anyway. I cradle Parker’s coffee to my chest, so he won’t offer to hold my hand, too. “How are you?”

I smile, as he walks alongside me, following me down to the barn. “I’m alright this mornin’, thank you. Or, afternoon.”

Seth laughs, pleasantly. “Yes, sir. That’s good to hear. It’s a beautiful day.”

He’s right. In the early fall, days out on our ranch are nothing short of gorgeous, the sun shining out behind the plush, pale clouds, and miles and miles of endless fields, tall grass swaying in the breeze. “How are you gettin’ on today?” I ask, as he follows alongside me. 

“Oh, I’m doing well,” Seth nods, his eyes darkened beneath the brim of his hat. “I’ve had a very productive morning.” 

“Well, do share,” I laugh, and he tells me all that he’s gotten up to.

I think all of our new staff are kind, hard working men, but there are a few that I have, admittedly, taken a liking to. Seth is an eager young man, who opened up to me, not too long ago, about wanting a ranch of his own some day. There is very little that excites me these days other than my husband, but I feel jittery about getting to show Seth the boring parts of ranch work that I like. He’s interested in being a foreman, someday, and I like to flap my gums about paperwork. I’ve got a lot more to do now, than I normally do, payroll, on top of my normal contracts and buyer payouts. I have a plethora of boring shit I could show him, and Seth is so excited to learn, I feel honored to have the opportunity to teach someone with his spirit. 

“I’ve got some pretty exciting work to do tomorrow, if you’re up for it.” I say, eventually, as we approach the stables, close enough to hear the winnie of some of the horses inside. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Seth beams, using his foot to pull the door open for me, polite, even with his hands full. “More payroll?”

I shake my head, smiling to myself when I catch a glimpse of my husband’s head, over one of the stalls. “Some butchers out in Colorado are outsourcing their meat. They wanna buy from us.”

At that, Seth’s eyes glint with excitement. “Oh, wow, yeah, I’d love to learn about that.” 

“Alright,” I take the plates from him, and he takes his leave of me, letting me walk through the massive stables on my own.

It’s a big space, and we’ve got plenty of horses for it. My own horses have, admittedly, not gotten much use riding since I lost my leg. But, Parker has a passion for taking care of them, releasing them every day to roam out in our fields, and a fervor for rescuing horses that need a good home and helping them as best he can. There were a few times, when we first bought the ranch together, where I considered downsizing a little, because we have almost too many open stalls, but Parker loves horses more than anything else on our entire ranch.

I linger a little, to watch him run a brush through Ingydar’s rough coat, whispering softly, like the horse can understand him. Parker bought him not too long ago, from a kill auction, and it’s been a privilege to watch the love of my life treat something so broken and battered as gently as he does. I’ve gotten a backseat to Ingydar’s recovery, watching his body thicken out and his skittish nature relaxing as Parker teaches him trust, and love, and patience. I would buy Parker a second stable, if he asked me for one. I’d let him turn our ranch into a horse rescue, if wanted. I’d change our entire career for him.

He smiles at me, when I hand him his sandwich plate, leaning over the stall railing to kiss my lips. Ingydar nudges me, so I ask Parker if it’s alright if I pet him. 

I am still petting him when the stable doors open, and Ian barges in, his horse in tow behind him, yelling loud enough to startle us both. 

“When I tell you, I’ve never wanted to sell this bitch for glue until today, I mean it, Parker. I’m fuckin’ sick of her.”

Parker glares at him, stepping out of the stall to set his plate down, so he can pick up his sandwich and eat, ignoring Ian’s harping. 

“This, stupid little cunt got a fuckin’ pebble in her Goddamn shoe, and now, she’s actin’ like she don’t know how to walk no more.” Ian points a finger up at Parker, when he gets to us, dropping the lead and leaving his horse to stand there, confused, in the middle of the stables. “I blame you, and your spiffy fuckin’ tools, and your stupid fuckin’ carvin’ shit.”

Parker speaks around a mouthful of his sandwich. “Pardon?” 

“Yeah, you and your fuckin’ tools. You fucked somethin’up, and now, she’s gettin’ all these rocks stuck up in her feet, and you know she won’t let me fuckin’ touch em.” Ian huffs, waving his hand again. “And Keegs, ungrateful motherfucker, he won’t look at her feet neither, because guess what? She’s a cattle horse. I’ve had her for fuckin’ years, and I know she was shit at herdin’ sheep, too, but the bitch is scared of your bulls, Parker. She’s a cattle horse, scared of cattle. What kind of a fuckin’ crock of shit is that?”

Parker shrugs, and I find myself smiling at Ian’s horse, who has taken to eyeing my sandwich like she’s hungry. I don’t think horses eat bread, so I turn away from her a little, to pick it apart and pull the lettuce off, to quietly hold out for her to munch on while Ian bickers with my husband. 

“So,” Parker swallows, covering his mouth with his fist. “It’s my fault she’s scared of cattle?” 

“No, Parker,” Ian sighs, like Parker’s name is an insult. “It’s your fault she got a fuckin’ rock in her shoe, because it was your stupid ass that changed her shoes in the first place. You probably carved her up too deep, or somethin’ like that. Fuck if I know what kind of freaky horse shit you do in this barn.” 

“So, I cleaned her hooves too well. Get the fuck out of here with that shit, Gideon, you piss me off.” 

“Oh, I piss you off, do I? Well, excuse the fuck out of me, Parker, because-” Ian pauses, turning to point his finger at me. “Mister MacCallum.”

I smile. “Hello.”

He points, from my face to my hand. “Why are you feedin’ my horse?”

I turn away from him, to the horse, who’s playfully licking my palm. “She looked like she wanted some lettuce.”

Ian blinks at me, before snatching his lead up. “What is with you MacCallums and fuckin’ with my horse?” 

“Is she hungry?’ Parker asks, concerned. “Did you feed her?” 

“Did I feed her,” Ian mocks, laughing. “No, of course I didn’t feed her. Keegs did.” 

“Are you sure?” Parker puts his sandwich down to reach over and pat the horse, who nudges his palm with her nose. “Because I swear to fuckin’ Christ, if you ain’t feedin’ her-” 

“Keegs fed her,” Ian repeats. “I mean, Lord, you think I’m so fuckin’ incompetent I don’t know how to ask a man to feed my horse for me?”

Parker rolls his eyes, passing Ian his plate so he can stoop to his knees and have the horse lift her hoof up for him to see. “Yeah, shit, this is really lodged in there. Alright, I’ll take it out.” 

“Thank you,” Ian says, covering his mouth with one hand as he chews. “Was that so fuckin’ hard to do?”

Parker glances up at me, at the sound of Ian’s mouth full, and we both turn to stare at him, in disbelief as he takes another bite of Parker’s lunch. Parker can only blink at him, so I quietly put the top piece of bread back on my own sandwich, as we both silently agree this is not a fight we want to get into with him. 

Quietly, I hand Parker my own lunch, and excuse myself from the stables, to head back up to the house and fix myself something else to eat.

I make it about halfway up to the house before I notice Reuben, clomping around out in the grass, following after one of the chickens that must’ve wandered away from the coop. I smile to myself, pausing to watch him. Reuben is another that I have taken a great liking to, and, if I’m honest, I feel very protective of him. He called me, a few weeks ago, not to ask for a job, but to ask me if the flowers in the advertisement were real. He is the most curious little fella I know, and I did my best to make sure he got here safely, and I check in on him, often, to make sure he’s getting on okay.

Honestly, I worry for him. I was worried for him when he was honest with me about having to sell his car to buy a bus ticket, and I was worried for him when he was honest about not having enough money to get himself something to eat on the drive here. I thought I would feel better, once he got here, and this poor young man was off the streets and settling into our home here, a place where he can feel safe, and full, and busy.

But, he told me about Forry. I’m very worried about Forry.

Forry seems like a nice enough man. I am trying very hard to believe the best in him, for Reueben’s sake, but the second Reuben let slip that he believed his purpose was to be Forry’s, my heart stopped.

I am already always worried for Reuben, and he is secretly with a man who doesn’t want to be seen with him. 

A man Parker’s age.

Parker and I have not taken a liking to him yet, because we think that’s strange. Reuben insists they’re happy together, and Forry just isn’t used to being with a man, and I understand that. I came from my daddy’s side, when I first moved up here to herd sheep, before I first met Parker, and I remember the panic in my soul that would settle in my gut whenever Parker and I came down from the mountains. I was raised religiously, conservatively, I was raised by a daddy who would sooner disown me than hear the fact that his only son laid with another man. His hatred, his homophobia was so deeply ingrained in me, that I never went home. I still do not speak to him. My sister, somewhere, knows I am still in Wyoming, and I have no doubt they’ve looked me up a time or two, to read about my success for themselves, but I haven’t actually spoken to my father in over twenty years.

And, admittedly, I doubt he knows I’m married, least of all to Parker. I don’t care if he does, because my family is Parker, now, and always has been, and those people mean nothing to me comparatively. So, I want to understand Forry, and give him my patience, because I was scared once. It took me a long fucking time to admit to being queer aloud. It didn’t matter how much I loved Parker, or how much he loved me, it was hard to overcome my father’s fucking bigotry. It took me a long time to get to where I am now. I want to be patient with Forry.

But he is so much older than Reuben, that I can’t help the hitch in my throat, the stitch in my heartbeat when I think about it, logistically. Reuben isn’t even twenty-one, yet.

Forry is almost forty.

I worry about his intentions. I worry about Reuben, and his self worth, because he is such a young, innocently minded soul, that I don’t know how to protect him from something like that. I think about the two of them together, and I think about Reuben’s soft little voice, asking me if the flowers were real, and I want to pull him to my chest and shield him from everything that could ever possibly hurt him. 

From the older man who he’s convinced he belongs to.

So, I pay Reueben a little extra attention. Not even just to protect him, either, I just like Reuben’s company. I’m fond of him.

I make my way over to him, where he’s following after the chicken, curiously, like he’s just wondering where the chicken will go. I am astounded by his wonder. 

“Hello, Reuben,” I call to him, smiling when he looks up at me, blonde curls bouncing as he moves his little head. 

“Oh! Hi, Mister Roan,” Reueben beams, reaching down to scoop up the chicken into his arms. “I was just letting my chicken come out here to look around, ‘cause I saw him lookin’ out here from inside the coop, like he wanted to explore. I hope that’s alright.” 

I chuckle, nodding. “Oh, of course it is. We get to walk around out here and explore, why shouldn’t he?” 

“Exactly,” Reuben smiles, scratching the chickens head, cradling it in his arms as he turns to look out at the mountains in the distance, smiling happily to himself. 

“How are you today?” 

“I’m real good,” Reuben turns back to look at me, still scratching the chicken’s head, daringly. “Mister Branch has been showing me how the fertilizer works, and I’ve been feedin’ the chickens those mealworms you suggested I try, and they seem to really like ‘em. They’ve got big appetites for chickens.” 

Bemused, I nod, adjusting my stance to lean my weight on my right foot. He notices, and quickly moves the chicken to one arm, so he can hold out the other for me, to take my hand and walk me back towards the house. I normally feel bad, when anyone fusses over me, but it’s nice when Reuben offers. We walk pleasantly for a little bit, until he can drop the chicken off on the front step so he can help me up to the porch properly.

We almost make it, before his boot catches on the lip of the porch, and he stumbles, waving his arms out to catch himself. I stumble a little, too, because I struggle with weight on my prosthetic, but we catch each other, wide eyed for a moment, until I try to laugh it off.

Reuben tucks his head, dusting my jeans off for me. “I’m so sorry, Mister Roan, I didn’t mean to trip.” 

“It’s alright,” I reach for him, doing the same. “Are you alright?” 

“Yes, sir, I’m okay.” Reuben quiets a little, looking down at his boots, so I do the same. 

They are way too big for him, gapped around his thin calves and barely hanging onto him. 

“Reuben,” I say, cautiously. “What’s goin’ on with your boots, darlin’?”

Nervously, Reuben points his toes together, shying away from me. “They suit me just fine, they’re just a little big, that’s all.” 

“A little?” I laugh. “They’re fallin’ off of ya. I can’t have ya trippin’ around the house and gettin’ yourself hurt.” 

“I know, I’ll try to be more careful. I’m real sorry, Mister Roan.”

I reach for him again, patting his bony shoulder. “You’re alright, Reuben. Don’t gotta apologize for your boots not fittin’. Where’d you get ‘em, anyway?” 

“Forry let me borrow ‘em, cause I didn’t have any.”

That… sours me a little.

I wait for him to look up at me, so I can smile at him, when I ask, ideas formulating in my brain. “Have you seen the town yet?” 

“Oh, the one out… that way?” He points, up the road that leads from our house, where our rancher’s trucks are lined up on the dirt. I nod, and he shakes his head. “No, sir. We’ve been workin’. Should I go?”

I laugh again, still smiling for him. “Well, I was gonna ask if you’d like to go with me. I’m seein’ the cobbler today, and he might be able to fix your boots for ya.”

Reuben blinks at me. “Fix ‘em?” 

“Yeah, or, at least help you so you don’t trip so much.”

Reuben nods, excitedly, like he would love to go, but he pauses, quickly looking around for the chicken, as it mindlessly picks at the grass by our porch. “Oh, I guess I can’t, ‘cause I’m supposed to be watchin’ Mister Chicken.” 

I wave my hand, dismissing him. “Mister Chicken’ll be just fine while we’re gone. Why don’t you bring him back to his coop, and I’ll meet you back here?”

Nodding, excitedly, Reuben leaves to scoop the chicken up, and run him back towards the chicken coop. I head back in the house to grab my hat off its hook by the door, and the keys to our truck. Admittedly, I have been putting off going to town for quite some time, because one of our longtime friends has made a cane for me.

Parker has offered, plenty of times, to ride into town and pick it up for me, because he loves to ride the horses into town when he picks up our mail or grabs some groceries for us, but I keep declining. It’s silly, but it’s something I feel like I have to do for myself. I haven’t been to town on my own since I lost my leg.

But, at least I have a good excuse to get Reuben to the store, so he won’t kick up a fuss when I buy him some new boots. I’m not gonna let him trip anymore, especially not over boots he got from his questionably older lover. That makes me uncomfortable on his behalf.

Our truck’s old, the same truck I brought up with me when I drove to Wyoming for the very first time, when I left Texas and never looked back. For years, Parker and I have only really used it when we need to haul shit, because Lonestar is small enough to have cobblestone roads and hitch posts outside every shop. We used to ride our horses down there whenever we wanted to see old friends, but I can’t ride my horses much anymore.

I’m lucky, I suppose, that it was my left leg the wolves got. I haven’t driven since long before then, but I’m sure driving hasn’t changed since I’ve been off my feet. It shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t think I’ve forgotten how.

I try to make my way back to the stables, first, grateful to see Parker bringing the plates back up to the house, so I won’t have to walk that far. Ian pulls his horse by the lead again, hoisting himself up onto her saddle to ride back out to the cattle barn.

I smile, to try and soften the blow a little, when he walks up to me. “Think I’m gonna drive into town today.”

Instantly, Parker’s pleasant smile falls. “Oh, drivin’. You’re gonna drive.” 

I lower my voice a little, leaning into his shoulder, when he’s close enough. “Reuben needs new boots.” 

“Lord,” Parker sighs. “Yeah, he does. I swear, that little fella trips more than anyone I’ve ever known.” 

“They’re Forry’s.” I say, and Parker’s frown twists. 

“Oh.” He says, flatly. 

“Yeah.”

We are trying to believe the best in him, but we don’t care for Forry much. It shows on Parker’s face, especially, a deep, concerned frown. He shakes it off, quickly, to lean closer to me, softening his voice a little.

“I don’t mind drivin’,” He offers, and I shake my head. 

“I can do it.”

Parker softens, a little, and nods, as he decides to trust me. He kisses my cheek before turning to head back up into the house, to drop the plates off in the kitchen, somewhere.

Reuben’s by my side again before I’m at our truck, and he helps me climb up into it. Thankfully, my right leg’s fine, but I have to grip the door and fall back into the seat, so I can get both hands around my heavy prosthetic and lift it up to set it on the floor of the cab, thanking Reuben and letting him scurry around to the other door, so I can get settled in the driver’s seat.

I roll the windows down, before the truck starts up, and it hesitates to start. It’s old as shit, so I’m always expecting that, banging my hand on the dash a few times, to help start it up. Reuben smooths his hand over the console, smiling to himself. “You can do it, Mister Truck.” He mutters to it, and I fight the urge to gawk at him, as I manage to get the truck started, throwing it in reverse so I can start off down the road.

I settle my elbow on the back of Reueben’s seat, one hand on the wheel as I drive. It’s not so hard to do, despite my prosthetic. “So,” I ask, trying to fill the space, without sounding too much like I am meddling in something I am not supposed to be meddling in. “How’s Forry?”

Reuben looks over at me, his face calm, and still. “I think he’s alright. I haven’t seen him much.” 

“Oh, really?” 

“Yeah,” Reuben looks away from me, out of his window, wringing his hands around his seatbelt and watching the mountains as we pass, miles and miles up the road from our ranch. “I see him at supper, but we’ve been workin’. I guess he’s busy.”

I smile, trying to encourage him. “He is. Ranchin’ is a lot of work. I appreciate all that y’all are doin’ to help us out.”

Reuben turns to look back at me, his eyes wide. “Oh, Mister Roan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. Everyone’s been so kind to me, and I like bein’ here a lot.” 

“I don’t think you’re ungrateful,” I say, still trying to keep my tone pleasant. “I just really appreciate your help. I know what it’s like to be too busy to see my husband. It’s hard.” Reuben nods, turning his gaze back on the window, looking out at the mountains with his lips pursed in thought.

Eventually, he speaks again, keeping his gaze out on the scenery around us. “Mister Roan?” 

“Mhm?” 

“Do you ever want to go up in the mountains?”

No, I do not. But, I don’t want to discourage him from being curious about me. I scrunch my nose. “Why? Tryin’ to get rid of me?” 

“No, no,” Reuben laughs, and I’m glad he’s smiling again. “No, sir. I was just wonderin’. Mister Lark and Mister Beau seem so excited to go, and I know you used to go, too. Is it nice?” 

“Well,” I tip my head to the side, waving my free hand as I speak to him, my elbow still propped up on the back of his seat. “The mountains are beautiful. Campin’ up in the mountains were some of the best years of my life. I can’t get up and around like I used to, and, after losin’ my leg, I don’t know if I want to go back, anyway.”

Reuben turns to look at me again. “Really? Why not?”

I exhale, slowly, holding his gaze for a moment before looking back to the open road ahead of us. “I think I’d like to let y’all enjoy the mountains for a little while. Parker and I have spent so much time up there, it’s been nice to be back on the ground for a change.” He nods again, and I tap his shoulder, limply. “You thinkin’ about goin’ up there yourself?” 

“Hmm,” Reuben thinks. “I think so. I think I like learnin’ about everything there is to do here. I like learnin’ about the horses, and the ranch, and the crops, and the animals. I wanna learn about the mountains, too.” 

“Yeah?” He nods, and I chuckle, a bit. “Well, that’s good. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with wantin’ to learn. Did you like school?” 

“I don’t remember it much.” Reuben says.

We spend the rest of the drive talking about what wrangling is like. I tell him about our sheep, extensively, and how they have to be brought up to live in the mountains for a few weeks every time they’re ready to grow more wool. Reuben has a lot of questions about how to know when they’re ready, and what the sheeps’ lives are like when they go up there, and it’s nice to talk about. He seems ver, very eager to learn, even though I’m not sure I’ll ever let him travel up in the mountains by himself.

Or, God forbid, with Forry. Not until I figure out his intentions, at least.

I park the truck on the cobbled street of Lonestar, nearby the cobbler’s storefront. Reuben gets out to help me out, holding his hand out to let me balance against him.

By the time we make it into the store, I’m embarrassed enough to convince myself I do need the cane, and brace myself for the change.

Tyler and Skia have been friends of ours for so long, that it’s almost strange, to not come into their shop and see them anymore. They’ve come up for supper a few times since I’ve been up and walking again, but this is my first time back in the shop myself. To say they are surprised to see me would be an understatement. 

“Roan fuckin’ MacCallum,” Skia breathes, from his spot behind his work counter, little glasses low on his nose. “You’re shittin’ me.” 

“Afternoon,” I tip my hat to him, and Tyler pokes his head out from behind a curtain at the back, gawking at me with wide eyes, the way Skia does.

He comes to hug me, kindly, and Skia is quick to join him, nearly knocking me over. I’m saddened, a little, by that, because Skia and I use to be able to jostle each other around, playfully, while our husbands got on without us. I’ve lost so much weight, he’s nearly four times my size, now. I am nothing, compared to him.

He rights me, both hands on either of my shoulders, keeping me steady. “Wow, Roan MacCallum,” He doesn’t acknowledge my size, or my hobble, which I appreciate. “You know, I started to think you forgot about your cane.” 

“I didn’t forget,” I say, sighing. “Just haven’t had the time to make my way down here, yet.” I step away from them both, gesturing to Reuben, who has taken to gawking at the store around us, stocked with clothes, trinkets, and a wall full of boots, all custom made and detailed by the man before us. “This is Reuben, he’s one of our new farmers.” 

“Oh, Reuben,” Skia nods, dragging the syllables. He reaches for Reuben’s hand, giving him a firm shake. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Skia, and, uh,” He pauses, to grab Tyler’s hand and usher him towards Reuben, too. “This is my husband, Tyler.”

Reuben’s cheeks flush, looking up at Tyler with a smile, shaking his hand again and again. “Wow, it’s so nice to meet you.”

I’m hoping that Skia will notice before I have to mention it, and God bless him, he does, his gaze turning on Reuben’s boots. 

“Oh,” Reuben folds his hands together, nervous. “I’m real sorry about my boots. They don’t fit me right.” 

“Sorry,” Skia repeats, chuckling heartily. “Roan, you let this boy up and around your farm in these boots?” 

“Allow’s a strong word,” I tsk. “That’s why I brought him.”

Skia waves me off, rolling his eyes. He drops his arm over Reuben’s little shoulders. “Come on, I’ve got plenty of boots you can try out. Can’t have you trippin’ in those, now can we?” 

“Oh, okay,” Reuben smiles, and I urge him along, when he looks back to me for help, nodding and going along when Skia pulls him to the back wall.

Tyler pats my arm. “Cane’s back here.” 

“Thanks,” I say, following after him when he beckons for me, ducking behind his counter to dig around for my new cane. “Been a while.” 

“Yes it has,” Tyler smiles, before he drops down to his knees. I peer down at him. “I’m surprised Parker let you come by yourself.”

I laugh, because I’m still a little surprised myself. “I’ve got Reuben with me. And, I can drive the truck just fine on my own.” 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Tyler teases, tending upright to set the cane on the glass countertop. “Gettin’ around on your own so much is probably why you need this in the first place.” 

I stare down at it, dark, carved wood and a thick handle. “You’ve been talkin’ to Parker too much. I’m getting the hang of things.” He slides it to me, and I take it, embarrassingly testing my weight against the handle. “Do I look old?” 

“Ancient,” Tyler teases, and I roll my eyes. “No, you are still the same old Roan MacCallum. Stubborn mule who’d rather have a cane than let his husband tote him around.” 

I laugh, shaking my head. “I only have this because Parker asked you for it.” 

“You only have this,” Tyler says, ignoring me. “Because we don’t like seein’ our friend in pain.”

Conceding, I nod, and thank him, earnestly, while Skia guffaws on the other side of the room, like Reuben is the funniest person he’s ever met. That makes me smile. I want Reuben to fit in well here.

We aren’t left to chat for long, because Skia picks out a pair for Reuben quickly, and takes his measurements to alter them to fit his feet just right. We agree to come back, in a couple hours, to pick them up, and Skia refuses to let me pay for any of it.

Outside, Reuben eyes my cane, looking up at me, curiously, like he wants to ask me another question. “Are you feelin’ okay, Mister Roan?” 

“Yeah,” I assure him. “I’m alright.” I think for a second, about my stolen lunch. “Have you had lunch yet?”

When he shakes his head, I bring him to one of the diners, here, not too far from the store.

Like Skia and Tyler, a waitress beams at me, from across the restaurant, her eyes bugging out of her head. “Oh, Mister MacCallum! It’s so good to see you, have a seat, I’ll come right over.”

I thank her, and Reuben and I sit. We have lunch together. The managers come over to shake my hand, and let me know our meal’s been paid for, and they hope I’m doing well.

I take him a little bit around the town afterwards. The cane helps, when I’m standing for a long time, to take some of the weight off my prosthetic. I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would. Everywhere we go, people greet me happily, excitedly, because it’s a small town, and I haven’t been here in a year or so. We’re in a grocery store, looking at a stand of flowers when Reuben asks me about it. “Mister Roan?” 

“Mhm?” 

“Why is everyone here so nice to you?” He asks, poking at one of the pokier flowers with his finger. “I know that everyone here has been so nice to me, too, but everyone’s tryin’ really hard to make you happy, today, and not makin’ you pay for anything.”

I smile, because that’s kind of him to think that. “Well, I haven’t been down here much since I lost my leg. I think they’re happy I’m alright.” 

“That’s nice of them,” Reuben smiles up at me, too. “They’re like your family.”

I tip my head to the side, thinking, because that’s not entirely true. It’s a small town, sure, but I don’t see them much. I look past him, at one of the coolers on the back wall, and the gears in my brain turn, over and over again. “You remember when we talked about purpose?” Reuben nods, and I lead him over to the fridge, cracking one of the doors open to dig around their stock of eggs. “It’s important to me,” I say with a groan, settling on a good carton and pulling it out for him to see. “That you understand the ranch’s purpose, too.”

I hand him the carton, and he looks down at it, tracing his thumb over the logo in the corner. “MacCallum Ranch.” 

“Mhm,” I nod, poking at his chest. “You harvest eggs every mornin’. Most of ‘em are shipped out to other stores, but some of ‘em come here.”

Reuben looks up at me. “I got these?” 

“Well, not these,” I say, taking them and putting them back in the fridge. “But our ranch provides eggs to nearly twenty grocery stores in Wyoming, just like this one. You’ve been harvestin’ them, every mornin’, and the next mornin’, some kind mother picks ‘em out to make breakfast for her family. Your hard work makes sure that these people can eat breakfast.” 

“Really?” 

I nod. “People are kind to us, because we do a lot for the town. Our ranch is the town’s sole provider of a lot of goods. Parker’s the only farrier for seventy miles, and our ranch is the only ranch of our size that sells on big scales like this. Our eggs end up in their kitchens, our cattle end up in their burgers. Our logo is in almost every building we’ve been in today.”

”Wow,” Reuben nods, and he looks around at the rest of the store, and sure enough, he finds more. Our ranch on jugs of milk, our ranch on flyers in the window, our ranch on cuts of meat in the freezer. “You and Mister Parker must work so hard to do all of this for them.”

I pat my hand on his shoulder. “Not just us. You work hard for them, too. All the work you do is important, Reuben, not just to help me and Parker out. Your work is what this entire town needs to keep on. Skia’s not gonna make you do anything for those boots he’s makin’ for you, because you’re an important part of the one thing that keeps Lonestar alive. You’re important to them all, just like I am, and like Parker is.”

Smiling, he nods, like he understands, and we walk back to the cobbler’s together.

I sit, while Reuben tries on his new boots, as they slide perfectly up his little calves and settle easily on his feet. He walks around on them, testing them out for himself, laughing as Skia jokes with him, and makes a show of refusing to let us pay for them. 

“A good farmer needs good boots,” Skia assures him, and, grinning, Reuben wraps his little arms around Skia’s torso, squeezing him tightly. 

“Thank you, Mister Skia,” Reuben mumbles, and Skia laughs, patting his little head and holding him just as tightly.

Reuben carries Forry’s boots out with his arms crossed over his chest, smiling happily and bounding up to my truck to open the door for me. He’s still smiling when we’re driving back out into the mountains, kicking his feet to admire his new boots, like he’s never had anything nicer.

Chapter Text

I have become Mister MacCallum’s right hand man over the few weeks that I’ve been here. Most everything he does, all of the foreman responsibilities he has to see through, he beckons me in toward his office to pull a chair up to his desk and watch him. 

A lot of the time, that’s vendor relations. Recently, he has been letting me conduct the phone calls to outsource the ranch’s yield, so that I can get comfortable chitchatting with people that want a good deal on cattle and produce, so that, as Mister MacCallum says it, I can tell the difference between ‘dick suckin’ and mastermindin’, which is, as it would seem, one of the most important parts of his job. Sometimes, I help him with payroll, or I sit in on meetings to mark up supply orders. 

And, sometimes, shadowing Mister MacCallum’s duties mean standing at the kitchen island and learning how to make his signature, special sandwich, because I’ve been fixing most everybody’s lunch recently, and Mister MacCallum says that this is the only way a foreman should have a sandwich. 

“Now, it’s mayonnaise on both sides of the bread,” he explains, eyes lifted from his hands at work to look at me, to make sure I’m absorbing his instruction. “Then, just the tiniest bit of mustard on just one side. Just a dot, ya know? And spread it out, then salt and pepper on both sides.” 

I nod along as he demonstrates his ideal sandwich assembly as he shakes pepper onto the bread. “Okay.” 

He continues to pile ingredients, narrating his actions as he moves. “Bacon needs to be crispy on the ends, but floppy in the middle. Muenster cheese. Turkey, and I’m not talkin’ about none of that yuppy, organic grocery store shit that comes in a plastic tub. This is the good turkey from the butcher in town. Oven roasted. Pepper crusted. Sandwich sliced.” 

“Sandwich sliced. Alright.” 

“Now, this part’s important,” Mister MacCallum says pointedly, giving me a hard look before slicing into a tomato. “Parker don’t like tomato.” He holds his hands up like I may argue, even though I would never. “I know, I know. He’s odd. We just leave that off of his. Me, personally? I like a thin slice. Real thin. Then you gotta salt that, too, because I ain’t eatin’ no underwhelmin’, soggy tomato slice on my sandwich.” 

Laughing at how silly it is that he’s taking this so seriously, I keep nodding. “Okay.” 

He points the knife at me, smiling, too. “Thin sliced, Seth. Thin.” 

“Thin. I’ve got it.” 

“You’d better,” he teases, just to be funny. 

And this is my favorite part of working with Mister MacCallum like this. I’m sure that outwardly, he comes off as some intimidating foreman that runs his ranch to an impeccable standard that has rendered his business great success, more success than the people that owned it before him. But Mister MacCallum is not intimidating. He’s warm, and he’s very kind, and sometimes, he’s just plain silly. I like when he’s silly. It makes me feel like the work we’re doing is very human, and he is just a man that savors every human moment he can.

“This next part might be a little bit controversial, but I am a hell of a lot more seasoned than you are, so I don’t wanna hear no sass mouthin’ criticism when you see this bit.” he says, and when I just shrug, he points to the pantry behind me. “Fetch me them barbecue chips, would ya?” 

I walk over to the pantry, where the chips he wants are rolled up and secured with a chip clip. “Chips with a sandwich isn’t so controversial.” 

When I set them in his hand, he unravels the bag to open it up, reaches in for a handful of chips, and holds them up for me like I’d better not say anything before he starts stacking them into the sandwiches as its next layer. He peaks up at me, an eyebrow raised. “Still with me?” 

I nod. “Yeah. Good crunch.” 

“I have taught you well,” he concludes, and I can’t help but laugh, because what is he talking about? He’s too damn funny sometimes. He dusts his hands off and reaches for his last ingredient. “Chips against the mayo, to trap them in. Don’t want ‘em fallin’ everywhere.” 

“Genius.” I say, just to egg him on. 

He grins like that just pleases him so much, and he puts the tops on the sandwiches he’s made for him and Parker, smashing the bread down gently to crush the chips and lock them in. Then, he sighs, giving me a look when his fingers return to Parker’s tomato-less sandwich. “And Parker don’t like crust, neither. Gotta pull his off.” 

“Understood.” I say, wrapping his sandwich in a napkin while he peels the crust off of Parker’s sandwich and pops them into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as he slides Parker’s sandwich over to me, too. 

“Think you’ve got that all down?” Mister MacCallum asks, taking the sandwiches from me when I pass them back to him, bracing himself on the counter to put his weight back on his leg, after supporting himself with the countertops for so long. 

I nod, passing him his cane when both sandwiches are situated in one hand. “Yeah, of course. I can do that.” 

“Good deal,” he says, bumping me with his elbow as he passes, headed toward the front door. “Now, I’m gonna go feed my husband before he gets fussy.” 

“Sounds good,” I call after him. “Want me to meet you back up here this afternoon?” 

“Yeah, I reckon I’ll have some shit for us to do when you wrap up for the day out there.” 

“Yes, sir.” I conclude, smiling to myself as I take his place at the kitchen island, to make some sandwiches for myself and the cattlemen, who have been trapped in their barn since this morning and haven’t had a chance to break away for lunch. 

The front door opens before Mister MacCallum can get to it, and with a little gasp, Reuben holds the door open for him to pass through without struggling to open it, while his hands are full. “Oh! Hey, Mister Roan!” 

“Hi, Reuben.” Roan says, smiling a little wider as he passes. “You had lunch yet, darlin’?” 

“No, sir.” Reuben says, shaking his head. “Was just startin’ to get munchy.” 

“Well, go on in there and have Seth fix you some lunch, alright?” Mister MacCallum suggests, glancing back at me, because he knows he isn’t going to have to ask me to, and he knows I’ve already pulled out two more slices of bread for Reuben. 

Reuben nods happily, beaming like he loves his life here as much as I do. “Alright! I will!” When Mister MacCallum is out the door, headed toward the horse barn, I’m sure, Reuben turns to me, his boots clacking against the hardwood floors when he makes his way into the kitchen. “Hey there, Mister Seth!” 

“Hey there, Reuben!” I say back, copying his tone, which makes him laugh. “Want a sandwich?” 

“That sure would be nice,” he says, sidling up beside me at the island, hands on the counter like he’s ready to work. “What can I do to help ya?” 

I pass him the butter knife. “How about mayonnaise on all the bread?” 

“Oh! I can certainly help with that,” he says with some innocent joy, like he’s very happy to be able to help. He looks up at me when I begin thinly slicing what’s left of Mister MacCallum’s tomato. “Could we fix one for Mister Branch, too? He keeps sayin’ he’ll come up to eat, but he’s tillin’ soil, and his stomach is rumblin’.” 

“Sure, yeah. Of course.” I say, pausing my slicing to pull out two more pieces of bread. “Anybody else? I’ve already got bread out for Keegs and Ian.” 

Reuben keeps his eyes on his hands, smearing mayonnaise over a slice of bread, his little shoulders shrugging. “Has Forry eaten?” 

I shake my head. “Don’t think so.” 

He shrugs again, his voice quiet. “Maybe we could make one for him, too, if you’d bring it to him.” 

I think that’s an odd way for him to say that, because Reuben is the sweetest person here, and he is always more than willing to clomp across the ranch and grab somebody, or bring something that’s needed, but he wants me to bring Forry the lunch that he’s making sure Forry gets. Something weird is going on there. I room with Forry, and he’s quiet, and reserved, but when he looks up from what we’re working on, or looks up from his plate at the table, or looks up from his boots when he’s outside smoking, his eyes always land on Reuben, just for a moment, just before he looks away. Something very, very weird is going on there, and it seems very sad, and I haven’t quite pinned what it is yet. 

But Reuben is the sweetest person here. If he wants to make sure Forry eats without passing him a sandwich himself, I’m more than happy to do the handing for him. I nod. “Yeah, that’s perfect. I can give Forry his food, you can give Branch his, and then we can both walk down to the cattle barn to feed the cattlemen.” 

Reuben exhales like that plan is a relief, and he nods, eyebrows drawn up together like he’s so glad that he didn’t have to put me out to feel more comfortable. “Gee, yeah, that sounds real nice, Mister Seth. Thank you.” 

“Sure thing,” I say, just shrugging, like that’s an easy thing to do for him, because it is. “How’s your day been?” 

Like he’s ready to go back to normal now that the awkward stuff is out of the way, Reuben returns to smiling wide enough to burst his cheeks. “Oh, my day is swell, Mister Seth. Thanks for askin’. All my chickens were hard at work last night, because I had about a hundred eggs to get from ‘em this mornin’. Took me a long time, though, because it feels real rude to just take ‘em without sayin’ thank you, and there were a lot of eggs.” 

I laugh at that, because I don’t doubt that Reuben said thank you for each individual egg he picked up and tucked away. “Dang. I’ll bet you’re worn out then.” 

He hums like he’s thinking, then he shakes his head. “I’m still up and kickin’. Bet this sandwich’ll make me feel ready to get back out there. How’s your day?” 

“It’s been very good, thank you.” I say, smiling down at him as I add a single, Roan MacCallum commanded dot of mustard to all of the sandwiches for him to smear out, too.

Reuben and I make small talk while we assemble all of the sandwiches, and we tuck cans of soda into our pockets and under our arms when we load everything up to make our rounds outside. 

Forry isn’t really interested in the sandwich I offer him until I mention that Reuben made it, and then he takes it slowly, some sadness I don’t understand in his eyes when he thanks me softly and looks out at the yard beyond the porch, where Reuben is walking over to Branch, in the soil garden. 

When I get back down to meet them, Reuben is explaining every step that it took to put the sandwich in Branch’s hands together, and holding a cold soda to the back of Branch’s neck, to help him cool off. He turns to me with a happy smile, moving the soda to a new spot. “Mister Branch said the sandwich is exactly what he needed to keep goin’ today.” 

Branch nods, long hair pulled into a knot at the back of his head, beneath his hat. “Yeah, thank y’all. The sun was gonna do me in, I think, so this is nice of ya.” 

I point down toward the cattle barn. “We’re gonna go feed Keegs and Ian, if you want to get out of the sun for a while.” 

At that suggestion, Branch sort of straightens his back, wincing in his expression, then shaking his head. “Uh…nah, I’ll…probably stay out here. Pop a squat under that tree over there.”

Reuben rocks back and forth on the heels of his boots, pressing the soda to Branch’s forehead now, to be helpful. “The cows ain’t gonna take your sandwich, Mister Branch. They’re real nice.” 

“Oh, no, I know, Reuben. Yeah, the cows are real nice.” Branch says, taking the soda from him with a smile, gentle with his words, like he doesn’t want to hurt Reuben’s feelings. “It ain’t the cows I’m worried about bein’ snippy.” 

Reuben stops moving, frowning, eyebrows drawn together like he’s confused. “Who’s bein’ mean to ya?” 

Branch makes a squeaky little noise behind his closed lips, at the back of his throat, like he’s really considering his words before they come out. “Uh, Ian’s in a…mood today. Sometimes I think bein’ around me makes it worse for him. Just keepin’ my distance until he’s ready to come back.” 

“Uh oh,” I tease, my smile returning. “What did you do today?” 

Sighing, wiggling an index finger beneath his hat to scratch the side of his skull, Branch shakes his head. “Somethin’ about…sleepin’ with someone else in his dream. I guess I cheated on him in his head? I’ll be real honest with ya, Seth, I haven’t got a fuckin’ clue.” 

I nod. “But he’s pissed?” 

“Oh, yeah.” Branch says. “He’s pissed.” 

“Thanks for the warning.” I say, patting his shoulder as I turn to the barn. “Well, you have fun with that.” 

“Yeah, thanks, Seth.” Branch gripes, like that’s not something he’s thanking me for at all. “Appreciate that.” 

I put my hand on Reuben’s back to turn him toward the cattle barn, calling over my shoulder to Branch. “Any time!” 

Reuben looks up at me as we walk, taking some of the things I’m carrying from my arms, to be helpful now that his own hands are free. “What did that mean, Mister Seth? Sleepin’ with someone else in his dream?” 

I sigh, exhausted for Branch, because Ian is a handful. “Oh, that sounds like one of those…domestic spittles.” 

“Domestic spittles…” Reuben echoes, glancing back at the path for a few steps, then back up at me. “What’s a domestic spittle?” 

I laugh to myself, shaking my head. “Uh, maybe it could also be called a lover’s quarrel.” 

“Lover’s quarrel…” he repeats again, like he’s working really hard to understand that. 

I try to make it easier for him. “It’s one of those…silly little things that people that are in love disagree about, and even though it’s silly, and little, it turns into something big that makes things really complicated, a lot of times for no reason.” 

“Oh,” Reuben says, looking back at the garden where Branch has risen from the ground, walking past the house to a shady tree beyond the back porch. Or, maybe he’s not looking at Branch at all, and instead, he’s watching Forry eat the sandwich Reuben made sure he got for lunch, alone on the porch, looking back at us. He turns back around, to face where he’s walking, eyes on the dirt. “I think I do understand that.” 

I’ve got to pocket that for later. I won’t meddle where I don’t belong. But Reuben is my friend, and he’s the sweetest person on this ranch, so I shift everything I’m carrying to my left arm, so I can wrap my right over his shoulders and squeeze him in a side hug, to make sure he knows he’s not alone. That seems to make him feel better, and he leans into me for just a second before straightening again, his smile returning. 

I get what Branch was saying. 

We can hear Ian before we even get inside the cattle barm. His voice carries. 

When Reuben pushes the door open for us, inside the giant cattle barn, Ian’s hollering is echoing through the milking stalls at the back, where he must be working to fill a pail with milk. 

“I just think it’s awfully fuckin’ convenient that in some confound premonition, he’s got on this fuckin’ nice ass shirt that I ain’t never seen before, and, magically, when I wake up, there’s a shirt folded in a pile of his laundry in the arm chair that looks suspiciously similar to what I saw.” Ian barks, just in general, possibly to Keegs, who is walking one of the cows back out toward the pasture behind the barn, petting over its head, between its ears. Ian keeps yelling. “And when I ask him why the fuck he’s winin’, dinin’, and sixty-ninin’ other men in my dreams, he don’t say no ‘Ian, I would never fuckin’ do that to you, and you’re the only person in the world that I even notice is a sexual bein’ capable of spreadin’ his fuckin’ legs for me’. No, Branch don’t say that at all. You know what he says to me?” 

Keegs pauses his quiet mumbling for the cow to release it back into the pasture, kissing the side of its face and patting over its side before he sends her on her way. Which is one of the most precious things I’ve ever seen. I think it’s really sweet, how much Keegs cares for the cows. He turns back to the milking stalls, to rejoin Ian. “What’d he say?” 

Ian does what I assume is a Branch impression, making his voice sound really weird, and not like Branch at all. “‘If I was gonna take someone out, it wouldn’t be in that shirt’.”

”Well,” Keegs says, petting over the cow that’s being milked’s nose, to keep her calm while Ian bitches from beneath her. “At least that means it ain’t real, right? Because Butt Ranch wouldn’t never wear that shirt out on any ass banditry.” 

I laugh at that, because what does that even mean, and Keegs hears me, lifting his head from his work and pointing his crooked, smarmy grin in our direction. 

Over the time that I’ve been here, on MacCallum Ranch, Keegs has become one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

I sort of owe that to Reuben, actually. If he hadn’t fallen on our first day, and skinned his little knee, I wouldn’t have gone down to my truck to get a first aid kit, and Keegs wouldn’t have followed after me. 

We haven’t really separated since. 

Of course, we do two separate jobs, and we have to do those apart from each other. Keegs and I are both hard workers, and we don’t spend too much of the time we’re meant to be working slacking off. But all of the other time, breakfast, lunch, dinner, the few hours that we have to unwind before all of us turn in for the night, that’s all me and Keegs. We spend our afternoons cutting up with the other ranchers in the den inside the ranch house, or we go down to the pond past the stables to fish, or we ride into town to explore a little bit. We do a lot of exploring, actually, and there’s plenty for us to get into here, even when we aren’t working. 

And Keegs is the funniest person I have ever met. 

Every single thing that comes out of his mouth is actually hysterical. I laugh more with him than I have ever laughed with any other friend I have ever had. He’s the kind of man that doesn’t ever take anything too seriously, and can find some comic beauty in any situation, and for someone that has spent a lot of my life being quiet and sort of reserved, spending all of my time with Keegs has helped find more things to laugh about. 

Like now, when Keegs pats the side of the milking stall, then hops back out into the dirt aisle between rows of stalls, legs spread wide and stance a little bit crouched. He puts his hands on his knees and squints, like he’s trying very hard to see through the distinct lack of fog that’s clouding him. 

“My, oh my,” he drawls, Georgian accent making his vowels syrupy and his consonants sharp and slicing, to make everything he says very dreamy and wonder-filled, always. “Do my little eyes deceive me, or is that my sweet little Ruby Ray clompin’ up through this here cattle barn?” 

Beside me, Reuben giggles a little, holding up some sodas that he’s carrying, in the way that he can, really just sort of poking his chest out to show where he’s cradling them. “Yeah! It’s me!” 

Instantly, Keegs wails like he’s so relieved, slinking up the walkway toward us, arms held out like he’s never been happier to see Reuben. “Oh, my stars, Ruby Ray! Your daddy and I have been just worried sick about ya, out there in the dirt diggin’ up potatoes and shit with ol’ Butt Ranch.” He scoops Reuben up and walks him a few steps, spinning him around while Reuben laughs.

Behind them, Ian stands, poking his head up over the stall he’s in to point his glare in our direction. “I hope you ain’t meant to imply that I’m that little shit’s pappy, ‘cause I ain’t, and I wouldn’t be, if I were ever given a choice.” 

At that, Keegs gasps, setting Reuben down and tucking him behind his back, like he wants to protect him. “Now, Gideon, how could you? Sayin’ that about our sweet little Ruby Ray. I did not suffer eight hundred and seventy six hours of labor just to have his daddy deny him after all that work we put into makin’ him.” 

Ian shakes his head, just his eyes and his hat visible from the stall, unamused. “I didn’t lay with your gangly ass, neither. Couldn’t pay me enough.” 

Reuben is still laughing at the amount of attention he’s getting, smiling up at me when I catch up to them, like he’s not even really listening to the way that Ian is kind of insulting him, and he’s just happy to be fussed over. I decide to chime in, to help Keegs out, because that’s my duty as his friend. “I dunno, Ian. I saw the birth certificate, and your name is on it.” 

Ian slams out of the stall, door hitting the wall with such force that the cow within moos in terror. He points at me as he stalks in our direction, glare locked and loaded on me, and me alone. “Now, you listen here, you brown nosin’, lily livered, lyin’ piece of shit. I don’t need you weighin’ in on matters that don’t pertain to you, so why don’t you just go back to sniffin’ Mister MacCallum’s asshole and lickin’ his boots, and you leave me the hell alone. Think we can work that out, compadre?” 

Keegs gasps again, and he covers Reuben’s ears with his hands. “Heavens to Betsy! He’s just a boy! Mind your cussin’ mouth, Gideon!” 

Without even a response, Ian jabs his hand up to thump Keegs in the throat, which the thud of is shortly followed by Keegs’ coughing yelp. Ian continues toward me, just beyond them, where Keegs is clutching his throat. “I don’t remember askin’ you to come down here and visit with us, Seth Selogy, and in case you hadn’t noticed, down here, we stay busy. Ain’t no time to eat Mister MacCallum’s ass in the cattle barn, because we do actual work. So, why don’t you mosey your bean pole ass self back up to the house and play Barbies with the foreman, and leave us to our jobs, huh? Does that work for ya? Can ya do that?” 

Branch was very right. Ian is in a mood. 

I decide to tread lightly and not bite back, the way I have a time or two, when Ian goes too far. I just hold up his lunch. “Only came to bring you something to eat, Ian.” 

“Oh,” he says, anger dropping from his eyebrows when his eyes fall to the sandwich, then returning when he looks back at me. “Well, how about you do a lot less yuckin’ it up in my barn, and a lot more givin’ me my fuckin’ sandwich?” 

“Gladly,” I say, passing a soda and a sandwich to him, just to give him something to put in his mouth and shut him up. 

“Gladly,” he mimics, in a high pitched, nasally way that does not sound like me. He snatches them from my hands and begins walking back toward the barn doors, to leave. “I ain’t eatin’ in here. It stinks like cow shit.” 

He slips through the front door back toward the house, and the three of us turn toward each other, eyes wide at the scene that Ian has just made, for quite literally no reason.

Keegs rubs his throat, red over his adam’s apple, shaking his head. “Lord almighty, he’s possessed. We’re gonna have to have a fuckin’ exorcism over supper.” 

That gets me, and I laugh again, along with Reuben, because Keegs is too funny not to laugh at. 

The three of us have our lunch sitting in the grass just beyond the cows’ grazing pasture, and Reuben and I listen to Keegs talk about the day that he has suffered, listening to Ian yell since four this morning. It’s nice just to listen to him talk, to hear him chatter, because Keegs has a way of telling stories that makes everything sound more dramatic than things really were when they happened. His way of speaking, that syrupy Georgian accent loaded with metaphors and assimilations, and his dramatic recantation, makes for pure entertainment, and Reuben and I laugh through our entire lunch. 

Eventually, when we’ve got to get up and get back to work, and since Ian has not wandered back from his own break, Reuben and I help Keegs rotate in the last of the cows that need to be milked, so that his work for the day will be drawing to a close aside from feeding the cows their supper, and he can wander away from the cattle barn with me to help Reuben figure up the number of hay bales that are left for Branch, so that he’ll know what he needs to harvest tomorrow.

Keegs slinks along beside me, kind of sunken back in his stature, walking legs first on our way to the hay barn. He glances back at the farm, where nobody has returned to yet, shaking his head. “Suppose they worked out whatever Gideon dreamed about Branch doin’ to him.” 

Reuben and I turn, and behind the ranch house, beneath that shady tree past the back porch, Branch has his back propped up against the base of the trunk, and Ian is laying on the grass beside him, head on Branch’s thigh and hands folded over his stomach, talking much more softly than he was earlier, and possibly even smiling, like some quiet time with Branch is all he needed to calm whatever storm was brewing inside of him. 

I turn back to face the hay barn, sighing. “Well, at least he’s feeling better. That was a lot.” 

“And y’all only caught the tail end of it,” Keegs says, nudging me with his elbow. “Imagine listenin’ to that shit since before the sun came up.” 

“I don’t know how you made it to lunch,” I offer playfully. 

He puts his hand over his heart and shakes his head. “I’m a trooper, Seth. Honest to goodness. I’m a good sport.” 

“That, you are,” I say, looking down at Reuben, who is smiling as he walks on the other side of me. “Now, how many bales do there need to be in the barn stock?” 

“Fifty is as low as it can get.” Reuben says, nodding to himself, like he’s proud for knowing the answer to that. “There were sixty at the beginnin’ of the week, but Mister Parker said the horses have been real hungry, so we’re probably runnin’ low. I think that Mister Branch and I are gonna have to go out and bale some more, and I’m real interested in doin’ that, because Mister Branch is gonna let me help him, this time.” 

“Hey, that’ll be good.” I offer, to encourage him, because he seems very pleased to be included in some of the hardest labor that the farmers have. “Let me know if you need some help. Swinging those sickles will wear your arms out pretty quick.” 

“Oh, thanks, Mister Seth!” Reuben says happily when we step into the hay barn. “And thank y’all very much for helpin’ me count. I have some trouble keepin’ my numbers straight when I’m in here countin’.” 

“Ain’t no shit off my shingle, Ruby Ray,” Keegs says, scampering up ahead of us to hop up onto the rickety wooden ladder, that leads up to the barn loft. “I’ll count what’s up here and call it down to ya!”

”Thanks, Mister Keegs!” Reuben says happily, turning toward me, to ask what I’ll count. 

Before he can, Keegs lets loose a retch, like he’s going to throw up, and he turns back to look at us, halfway up the ladder and hanging off by one hand and one foot, his other two limbs dangling like he’s got to find some sort of will to go on after hearing that. “Now, Ruby Ray, you know I just love ya, but we done been over this a hundred dozen times. Mister Keegs is my father, and I am just Keegs.” 

“Oh. Yeah. That’s right.” Reuben says, waving his hands like an apology. “My bad, Mister Just Keegs. I won’t do it again.” 

I laugh. Keegs tries very hard not to laugh, too. He shakes his head. “I ain’t gonna be Mister Just Keegs, neither. Keegs, Ruby Ray. Keegs only. Keegs, seventy-six thirty. You got me?” 

Reuben nods, once, very big, though his eyebrows are furrowed like he’s still trying to figure out how to not put Mister in front of somebody’s name. “I got ya.” 

“Plum dandy,” Keegs calls down, returning to the ladder, to keep climbing up to the loft. “Just love ya, Ruby Ray.” 

Reuben giggles like the nickname is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Yeah, love ya, too, Mister…uh…Numbers.” 

That really, really tickles Keegs. Up in the barn loft, he laughs so hard at that name that he literally doubles over, and has to get down on his knees and press his forehead to the wooden floor when gripping his sides isn’t enough. And him laughing like that is funnier to me than the name, so I start cackling with him, and, bless Reuben’s innocent little heart, it’s very obvious that he doesn’t get what’s funny, but he giggles, too. 

We’re still laughing quietly to ourselves when we go back to counting, Keegs pausing every once in a while to snicker again as he counts above us, Reuben mumbling numbers out loud on the left side of the barn, and me laughing at the sound of Keegs having to start over again when his snickering makes him lose count. 

We both stop laughing, though, when Reuben gasps from the back of the barn, then cries out like something has bitten him. I instantly turn toward him. “You alright?” 

Keegs, too, immediately leans over the loft’s edge and peers down. “What’s wrong, little man?” 

“Oh my Lord,” Reuben cries, muffled by his own shuffling boots against the wooden floorboards. “Oh my goodness,” 

Keegs is already climbing down the ladder when I reach Reuben, who has gotten down on his knees to crawl behind the hay bales, getting down on his stomach to stretch his little arms out past where his body won’t fit. When Keegs jumps the last few steps down to the ground, I squat down to look in at whatever the hell Reuben is doing. “Whatcha got, bud?” 

Reuben is squealing as he wriggles himself back out from behind the bales, happy, excited, overjoyed sounds coming from his panting lungs, like nothing better has ever happened to him. “Look!” he squeaks, turning over to face us again, holding up a little orange ball of fur, paws dangling from Reuben’s trembling grasp. “I found a cat!” 

At the same time, in sync, Keegs and I both drop our heads to the side, to look at the cat. 

The cat, honestly, looks kind of fucked up. 

It’s missing chunks of fur from its back, like it’s gotten into a fight recently, and it’s got an angry sort of stare, like it hates being manhandled, hates being held, hates being looked at, even, and it wants to claw its way out of Reuben’s little hands and bite all of us just for putting our eyes on it. 

Keegs is thinking the exact same thing that I am. He drops a pointing finger toward it. “That cat looks like Ian.” 

I nod. “Mean. Vicious.” 

“Mangy.” Keegs adds, bumping me with his elbow. 

I bump him back. “Nasty.” 

Reuben gasps when he gets to his knees, cradling the cat to his chest and furrowing his brows at us. “He is not mean and nasty. He’s perfect, and he’s a kitten.” 

“Well,” Keegs drawls, an octave above where he usually speaks, tipping his head from side to side, considering. “Kitten? Maybe. Perfect?” 

“Hey,” Reuben says, standing, eyes wide, and worried. “Y’all don’t like my cat?” 

He stares up at us with his eyes wide, and watery, like us not liking his cat could break his little heart. 

Keegs and I exchange a look. 

We agree to lie. 

I turn back to him and hum, like I’m thinking, rising to stand with the rest of them. “You know, maybe it was the angle I was at, but actually, that’s a fine looking cat.” 

“Yeah, ya know,” Keegs says, lifting up his ball cap to scratch the back of his scraggly mullet. “That’s about one’a the finest lookin’ cats I ever saw. And, you know, he’s got a real nice color to him, too.” 

“The orange suits him well, yeah.” I contribute, nodding. “And he seems very sweet now that I’m really looking at him. Seems like the nicest cat ever.” 

“Yeah, a real peach.” Keegs finalizes, putting his hat back on. “Best cat I ever saw.” 

Reuben relaxes. He jumps up and down, clutching the cat to his chest. He speaks a single word with every jump, every time his boots clomp back to the floor. “Oh, my, Lord, I, just, know!” 

The cat growls as it’s jostled. Keegs and I exchange another look. 

Reuben stops jumping and presses the cat to his cheek, eyes shut to hug it tight, kissing its head over and over again, loud and smacking. “Oh my goodness, do ya think Mister Roan’ll let me keep him? Do ya think?” 

“Uhhh…” I begin, and Keegs nudges me, to keep me encouraging. I nod. “Yeah, Reuben. I’m sure he would.” 

“Oh, I’m gonna go ask him. Oh, this is the best day ever!” Reuben calls back at us as he runs toward the barn doors, then disappears out into the yard. He’s only gone for a moment before he returns, standing in the doorway and holding the cat’s paw between his fingers to make it wave. “Come on, now. Don’t be rude. Say bye to Mister Seth, and bye to Mister Numbers.” 

The cat glares while it’s forced to wave. 

Keegs and I wave back, weakly. 

Reuben dashes off again. 

Keegs and I turn to stare at each other. 

He shakes his head. “That feline is gonna claw that poor little boy’s face off.” 

I run my hand over my own face, sighing. “Yeah, it is. We need to tell Mister MacCallum, right?” 

He gives me a look, and I know what it means before he even gets the words out. “Now, you know Mister MacCallum is gonna think whatever Ruby Ray thinks.” 

He’s right. I nod. “Yeah. We should tell Parker.” 

“There ya go,” he says, patting my back once before he climbs back up to the loft to begin our count again. 

When we finish the hay bale count, we just give it right to Branch. There’s no sense in running all over the place when Reuben is very preoccupied with a cat he found. After that, Keegs and I split up again, because I’ve got to link back up with Mister MacCallum before dinner, as I said I would earlier. 

And there won’t be too much point in telling Parker that the cat Reuben found is probably evil, because Parker is already standing in the door frame by the kitchen, where Mister MacCallum is passing a bowl for Reuben to set up on the floor, and Reuben is pouring some fresh milk for the cat, and the cat is whining like it wants to be let back outside. He looks over at me and shakes his head, to tell me that he hates cats, and that cat looks like it ate a mean bug, but Mister MacCallum is happy because Reuben is happy, so Parker isn’t going to say anything about the cat, either. 

By dinner time, there’s a plate of grilled fish on the floor by Reuben’s chair, for Mister Cat to eat his supper with us, since he’s a ranch hand now, too. 

After we’ve all eaten, and there’s nothing to do with the rest of our day but relax and get ready for tomorrow, Keegs and I decide to walk down to the pond by the stables, because he’s convinced there might be a better spot to fish from on the other side, opposite to the ranch house, and we want to check it out. And there’s nothing rushed about our walk, because neither of us are particularly rushy people. We’re leisurely, chattering about dinner and the arrival of Mister Cat while Keegs picks up rocks off of the path, rolling them over between his fingers before sending them off into the pond to splash the water’s surface. 

I like being able to spend simple time with Keegs, because he makes everything funny, and we don’t ever have any of those quiet, awkward moments where neither of us know what to talk about. We never run out of things to discuss, between the two of us. There is never anything awkward or quiet between us at all. I really cherish his friendship, made up of cackling laughter and endless conversation. 

“Tell you what,” he says, throwing another stone out into the water. “Ruby Ray’s got about a week before the cat goes missing, and I’d bet you a hundred dollars that the person to hide it is ol’ truck stop.” 

I pause my steps and turn to stare at him, nodding very big, because thank God someone else said it. “Yeah, thank you. I also think that guy is weird, and it’s just about Reuben.” 

“Yeah, Forry’s gonna start thinkin’ about Reuben cuddled up with Mister Meow-Meow, and he’s gonna ‘accidentally’ leave the front door cracked for the cat to blow dodge.” 

“So, we’re gonna have to keep an eye on the cat, so that it doesn’t claw Reuben’s face off,” I begin, stooping down to pick up another rock, flatter than some of the others we’ve found, holding it out for Keegs to take. “And we’re gonna have to keep an eye on Forry, so that he doesn’t claw the cat’s face off.” 

Keegs hums as he runs his thumb over the stone’s surface. “And we’re gonna have to get a notebook or some shit to keep up with all of our extra duties here, because I might get turned around. Gonna have a lot of explainin’ to do when I put Mister Cat on the mower and drop Mister Forry off at the vet.” 

That gets me. I start losing my shit laughing at that, because what does that even mean? Keegs laughs, too, softer, like he really only wanted to make me laugh, and he’s good with the way that I’ve reacted. Instead of saying anything else, he just throws the stone I’ve given him, and it skips twice before it breaks the water’s surface. 

“Oh, man,” I say, sniffling, wiping beneath my eyes. “Good skip.” 

“Yeah, that was a good rock.” Keegs says with a smile. “Thank ya, kindly.” 

“Sure,” I say, walking along with him. I sigh as my laughter subsides, shaking my head. “We are gonna have to watch the cat, though.”

”Yeah, I reckoned,” he says, slinging his arm over my shoulders, in a friendly sort of way that I really enjoy, just to walk together. “Say, you think Mister MacCallum’ll bump our pay up? We could pitch it to him real nice, the extra duties of Seth and Keegs.” 

“I think that would be the extra duties of Mister Seth and Mister Numbers.” 

That sends Keegs laughing all over again, stomping a few steps forward when he releases me, like it’s too funny for him to even walk normally. “Oh, Lord almighty, that was one of the funniest fuckin’ things I ever heard. Ruby Ray is certifiably odd, and I just love him.” 

“Yeah, that was silly,” I agree. “He said it so earnestly, too.” 

“He’s precious, I swear. Mister Numbers is funny. And, I’ll be so real with ya, Mister Numbers is way better than Mister Keegs, and would still be even if Mister Numbers weren’t so damn funny.”

“Why’s that?” 

He looks over at me, brows drawn together like he doesn't really understand the question. “Why’s, what?” 

“Why’s Mister Numbers better than Mister Keegs?” 

“Bleh,” he retches, pretending to shiver, like the sound is that offensive. I laugh, and he continues. “I dunno. Just don’t suit me.” 

“Sounds pretty close to just Keegs. Why’s that so troubling?” 

He stuffs his hands in his pockets like that’s a tough question, but he keeps smiling, and he just shrugs. “I dunno. Just don’t like the Mister part in front of Keegs, I guess. Makes it less funny and more serious. Suppose I don’t wanna be too serious.” 

“I understand that,” I say, and he gives me a grateful look, like he appreciates me saying that. “Mister Numbers, or just Keegs.” 

“Or just Keegs,” he echoes. “Always Keegs.” 

“Is that just, like…” I ask, laughing a little bit when he does. “Your thing?” 

He dips down to grab another rock. “I reckon so. I been just Keegs for what feels like a damn lifetime.” He throws his rock, and it plops right into the water again, so he waves his hand in my general direction. “You pick ‘em better than me, now. Can you find me another?” 

I set myself on scanning over the rocks on the path until I find another flat one, and I pick it up. “Do you like that better? Being called by your last name?” 

He takes the rock when I hand it to him, slowing to a stop and running his fingers over the surface, shaking his head. “Now, it don’t make no good Christian sense for you to be this good at findin’ rocks. Everything I pick up is rough.” 

I laugh and shrug. “Guess I’m a decent scout.” 

He snorts a laugh himself, turning the rock over in his hands. “Mister Numbers and Mister Decent Scout, reportin’ for duty.” 

That’s silly. I snicker as I keep walking, waiting for him to skip his rock. It leaps three times across the pond’s surface before it slows, and Keegs sighs, like that satiates something in him. 

“Guess I just…” he says from behind me, and I slow to a stop to listen to him, because he hasn’t started walking again. He looks out at the pond and shakes his head, like he hasn’t really got the words he needs to explain himself. “I think it’s just what I’m used to, ya know? I’m always Keegs. Don’t know if there’s any likin’ it better. People just don’t ask me what my name is, and I suppose I just…ran with it. And now I’m Keegs. Always Keegs.” That must be too heavy of an admission, because he rolls his head to look at me, smiling like that’s such a drag, rolling his eyes at his own honesty. “So, yeah, Mister Numbers is funny, and other than that, I’m always Keegs. Just Keegs.” 

I look out at the water with him, from a small distance, just the five or six steps I’ve fallen ahead of him. “What is your first name?” 

It rolls off of his tongue easily, like the sound of his own name is sillier than any other joke he’s made today. “Kyler. Ain’t that somethin’?” 

“Kyler’s a good name,” I say, looking at him, now, instead of the water. “Kyler’s a great name. I like that. Kyler.” 

He turns to look at me, too, his smile slipping, not into a frown or anything. He’s not frowning. Kyler Keegs isn’t someone that frowns, because he is the kind of man that doesn’t ever take anything too seriously, and can find some comic beauty in any situation. 

There isn’t much comic beauty for this one, because I think it’s written plainly on his face that he doesn’t think there’s much point in asking anyone to call him anything, because he’s found a way to make Keegs funny for himself, and it is easier to be funny that it is to be anything else. 

Kyler Keegs is my friend. He has quickly become one of the greatest friends I have ever had, in my life, and I cherish how much he has made me laugh, how little time we’ve spent in awkward quiet. 

If Kyler can find some comic beauty in every situation, I will make the moments where we need some quiet honesty, some brilliantly wordless resolution, something that doesn’t have to be awkward. 

I don’t think he’s ever asked to be called Kyler. It’s etched into the way that he stares at me, the hopeful, tired stare he rests on my own face, that he wishes I would just call him Kyler, without having to ask, or explain. 

I don’t need him to explain. I don’t need him to make it funny. I will offer one brilliant resolution, without many words at all. I pick another flat rock up off of the side of the path, nearly covered by the grass that surrounds it, and I toss it across the space between us for him to catch. He does, and I shrug. “The extra duties of Seth and Kyler. Starting with making sure Reuben is not mauled by a cat.” 

Kyler smooths his thumb over the rock, and his crooked, smarmy smile returns, gold tooth catching in the setting sun and glimmering in his grinning mouth. He turns back to the pond, to skip the rock, twice over the water’s surface, before it breaks. 

Chapter Text

I spend my first few weeks at MacCallum Ranch preparing to head up into the mountains.

I was not expecting such kindness from Mister MacCallum. I am a wrangler with years of experience under the cold hearted tutelage of my emotionally absent uncle. He was a widower, taking care of a child he didn’t want, after my mother dropped me off on his doorstep like I meant nothing to her. I have spent a lifetime following in his footsteps, a quiet, hardened, blue collared man with no time for things like relaxing, or taking in the sights of my surroundings, or sitting to enjoy a meal. I am used to canned foods, the thick, dusty, desert winds, and the quiet, stern demeanor of my uncle, a man who refused to talk to me if it weren’t about work or the animals we looked after.

In my ignorance, I assumed that my first day at MacCallum Ranch would be like every other herding job I’ve ever done. I expected to be sent up the mountains with a complete stranger, with nothing but my horse, camping equipment, and the clothes on my back, thrust into wrangling in a state I’ve never been to, in mountains I’m ill-prepared for. I expected to be in over my head, tossed into the thick of things with no training, barely any conversation, and nothing but my own quick wit and fast thinking to get me by.

On my first day, I was met with kindness. I was shown around the property, and given a good meal, a bedroom of my own.

I was told I had plenty of time to get ready to climb the mountains on horseback, a hundred sheep in tow.

It’s actually been very nice, because the work isn’t hard. It’s a lot of sheep to watch after, sure, but I’m fine with sheep. I watch them, clean their pens, feed them, and I get to pack, crazy as that sounds, and have supper every night with the rest of my coworkers.

The most interesting part about having so much time before we go up the mountains, is that I’ve gotten some time to know Beau.

The first few days, he was quiet, but I think that’s just because I was quiet. I, like my uncle was, am not a big talker. I was not raised to make small talk with other ranchers, or laugh at their jokes, or ask about their lives. Beau lasted a day or two before he cracked a little, and admitted to me that he can’t take silence like that, and started talking to me about the sheep, and about jobs he’s worked before. I was content to just keep working and let him talk, his dog following us around, getting to know the sheep as much as we were, but then, he started asking me questions about myself.

About the ranch I was on before.

I don’t quite know how interested I am in talking about being lonely. Truthfully, my uncle’s ranch is the loneliest place I’ve ever been, and realizing it in the time I’ve been here has been tough on me. Mister MacCallum’s ranch house is warm, and beautiful, and full of loud chatter and laughter, where all the ranchers get on well with each other and talk about their days at the supper table like a family would. I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I have been missing out on a lot of social interaction, for basically my entire life, a quiet kid with parents who abandoned him, an uncle who didn’t care for him, and a neighbor who homeschooled him when she remembered to. I’m lonely. Being in the house with these people has been very strange for me, because I want to fit in with them. I want to be friends with them, and chatter like they do, and laugh at the jokes they tell, but all I’ve managed to do so far is pick at my meals and answer curious questions when they’re directed at me.

One of the farmers asks me about my horse a lot, this little guy I assume must be a different kind of sheltered than I was. I may not be a good reader, but I’m smart in the ways that matter to me, I’m smart when it comes to wrangling, in caring for animals, in taking care of my horse. I’m quick on my feet. Reuben seems to me like his sheltering was suffocating. I wonder if he was in some closed religion. The way he asks everyone everything, like a little kid experiencing the world for the first time, is a dead give away for me. He asks me about Cholla, and he asks me about the poncho I keep over my shoulders, and asks to feel it, like he’s never seen one before. I talk to him, when he seeks me out, but otherwise I am not so chatty.

And, mostly, I talk to Beau. Or, rather, Beau talks and I listen, until he asks me questions, and I answer. I try to ask him questions, too, so he’ll go back to talking, and I can go back to listening, because I don’t know what to do when someone is genuinely interested in me the way Beau is. Reuben talks to me like he’s curious about everything, the MacCallums talk to me when it’s about work.

Beau talks to me like he wants to get to know me.

And I don’t feel interested in talking about being lonely. So, mostly, we talk about Arizona.

We spend our morning getting the sheep together, our horses already packed and draped with our camping gear and rations for the few weeks we’ll be up in the mountains. On my uncle’s ranch, we primarily moved herds of cattle across state lines, delivering them for auctions and private sales. I’ve never traversed mountains like these, and the herding is a bit different. From what Beau and Parker have taught me so far, the MacCallums own the land up there, acres upon acres of open mountain ranges for their sheep to graze. Our job is to move the sheep in the colder climate, where their wool will grow thicker, faster, and bring them back down in a few weeks time. Beau and I will take shifts, one of us staying up to watch the herd while the other tends camp a couple miles away, so the smoke and light and sound of fire and dishes clanking together won’t draw predators to our sheep.

I adjust the strap of my shotgun on Cholla’s saddle, made heavier by the handheld tucked under my armpit, harness strapped tight over my shirt. 

I think the MacCallums have a history with the wolves up here. Parker has a tendency to get a little fidgety, when he warns us about them. I’m guessing, based on the claw marks covering his face, and Mister MacCallum’s gnarly limp, that must be why they’re in need of so much help. And, why Beau and I have been given two weapons, and our only stern instruction from either of them.

If wolves come after the herd, we kill them, and move the herd far to the other side of the mountain, in another pasture. Parker has been very assertive that we shoot to kill them. I can respect that.

But, it does make me a little nervous of the size of the wolves. I’m trying not to psyche myself out.

We start moving the sheep up the mountain, and Beau offers for me to lead, so he can herd behind us with Goose, trotting alongside the sheep and keeping them in close together. The mountain itself is beautiful, the higher up we go, trailing hours and hours up the twisting dirt paths, worn in by years and years of horseshoes and sheep hooves. I follow the map Parker drew for us, up through the lush greenery and higher, still, climbing the side of the mountain at a steady pace, the sheep following along between us. I actually enjoy the ride, my hair tied back in a tight, low bun at the back of my neck, my face shielded by the brim of my hat.

I can’t believe how easy it is to breathe up here. I knew that taking a job in the cold Wyoming mountains would be very vastly different than the storms in the Sonoran Desert, but I still can’t believe how easily my lungs fill with fresh air, each breath clearer than the last, the soft breeze cool against the skin of my face. I find myself watching the mountains as Cholla climbs me up them, saddle rattling beneath my legs. It’s beautiful up here.

In Arizona, I couldn’t see through the dust without squinting, and even then, I would lose sight of my uncle at the head of the herd, only able to see ten or so cows before the dust consumed them, up in the distance.

I don’t have to squint here. I look out at the mountains around us, wide eyed and breathtaken, and if I look back behind me, Beau and Goose are keeping in line with our herd.

He smiles, every time I check behind me, and waves, like he’s just as taken by the scenery as I am.

We make it to a stopping point by noon. We hop off our horses to let the sheep graze a little, on the open field of grass, and Beau drops a bowl of water for Goose, and we share a sandwich that Reuben insisted he pack for us when Beau mentioned it was our last night at the supper table. It’s alright, not much like the sandwiches I’ve fixed for myself, since I’ve been here, but food is food. I’m not picky.

Beau snickers to himself, while we’re eating, leaned against one of the trees and looking out over the range below us, so far away, we can’t see the ranch anymore. 

“Don’t seem like too much of a fan,” He says, casually, and I look over at him. 

I point to myself. “Me?” 

“Yeah,” He gestures, to his half of our sandwich. “What’d Mister Sandwich do to ya to make ya hate him?”

I blink at him, the wind bristling the fabric of my poncho. “…who?” He gestures at the sandwich again, using both hands to shake it at me. “The… sandwich..?” 

“Mister Sandwich,” He laughs. “You ever notice Reuben calls everything Mister? The chickens, the sheep, his cat. He calls me Mister, he called Keegs’ horse Mister, I bet he called this here sandwich Mister, too.” 

“Oh,” I say, forcing a laugh. “Yeah, I did notice that. That’s funny.” 

“We’re far enough away now,” Beau smiles, behind his cleanly cropped beard, looking out over the mountains below us again. “What do ya think of the folk?” 

“Oh,” I smile, looking with him, taking in the beautiful, swooping hills and lush grass. “They’re real nice. I was surprised that Mister MacCallum let us sleep in his house.”

Beau takes another bite of his sandwich, humming as he agrees with me. “Yeah, Thank you! My mind’s been boggled since I got here. I mean, we’re livin’ in the foreman’s house, and he’s nice. All my foremen before him were, uh…” He pauses, swallowing. “Not like that.” 

“Mine either,” I agree, remembering my uncle.

I feel the loneliness bubble up inside me again, clawing it’s way up my spine and threatening to strip me of my flesh. I don’t like that my memory of my uncle has been soured like this, and I feel guilty for having such trouble remembering him in a good light. He passed, a long while before I decided to sell his ranch and find something else for myself, to move on after a lifetime living in his shadow, and I wish I could remember him fondly. I wish that I could keep him in my heart, somewhere, a fond, distant string that keeps me tethered to him, that would make sure I always find my way back to his final resting spot in Arizona, but the more time I spend here, surrounded by kind men, fresh air, and endless mountains, I can feel the truth, ripping at my insides like I swallowed some kind of critter, and it’s killing me to get out.

My uncle was unkind to me, and I don’t want to go back. Each and every step we take up this mountain is pulling that string tighter, and tighter, and I can feel that it’s gonna snap. I know what my decision will be, when my contract’s up, and after only a few weeks, that’s scary to me. To be so certain that I belong up in these mountains, after a lifetime of feeling out of place, is horrifying to me. I feel scared of it. I’m scared of my own certainty.

I’m very thankful when Beau changes the subject. He doesn’t seem to want to talk about his last foreman, either. 

“So,” He tips his head, finishing the last bite of his sandwich. “What d’you think happened to Mister MacCallum?”

I look up at him, and I’m so confused by his question, that I’m shocked by how intently he holds my gaze. “What?” 

“Well,” Beau chuckles, shaking his head. “Apparently, Ian’s been goin’ around tellin’ folks he’s got cancer. I don’t think that’s true, so, I’m just wonderin’ what your theories are. I always watch Parker helpin’ him get around.”

Oh. I smile nervously, at the thought of Ian, a man who intimidates me, that I’ve been sure to steer clear of. “He’s missin’ a leg.”

Beau raises his eyebrows, and I finish my sandwich, too. “You’ve seen it?”

I lift my hand to cover my mouth as I chew. “No, no, he, uh… His leg clicks, when he walks. It’s fake. That’s why he limps.” 

“Shit,” Beau mumbles, looking out at the mountains again. “Maybe Ian’s right.”

Chuckling, I shake my head. “No, I don’t think it’s that, he’s not sick.” I don’t want to scare Beau, the way I feel a little intimidated by the size of the shotgun Parker handed me, still tucked neatly into the side of my saddle, as Cholla grazes up with Beau’s horse, Charlie, up in the grass. “I think he got mauled by a wolf up here.”

Beau stares at me, his eyes boring into mine, his lips drawn thin, concerned. “You think… Mister MacCallum… got mauled… by a wolf..?” 

“Yes,” I say, nodding. “Parker’s been kind to us about everything but the wolves. He handed us those weapons yesterday mornin’, and he told us to kill ‘em.”

Beau nods, like he’s shocked, like he had genuinely never considered that, in the entire time he’s been here. “Oh… And he’s got those scars. Wow, I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been.” 

I nod, dusting my hands on my jeans. “Yeah. We should be alright, with our weapons and all.” 

“Yeah…” Beau follows me back up to our horses, his eyes on me, as I grip my reins, patting Cholla’s head to see if he’s ready to keep going. “Poor Parker.” Instantly, I turn to look over at him again, and he looks back out at the mountains. “I can’t imagine watchin’ someone I loved get that hurt.”

Somber, he mounts his horse before I do, and I can’t do anything but stare at him, as he kicks his stirrups so Charlie can head back to the back of the herd. Goose follows him, rounding up the sheep, and I mount up to keep following Parker’s map.

We don’t make it to the pasture until later in the day, when the sun’s starting to set. It seems to be enclosed, thankfully, acres and acres of untouched grass that the sheep spread out around to graze again. Beau asks me if I prefer to set up camp, or watch the sheep first, and I figure, watching the sheep’s probably the harder job, and I probably won’t sleep much tonight anyway, so I offer to watch ‘em.

To my surprise, Beau leaves me with Goose.

I watch him, as he heads back down the mountain without us, to set up our camp before nightfall.

I toss my leg off the side of my horse, looking out over the sheep, and sighing, as I reach for my shotgun. I find a spot under a tree, up on the upper hill of the land, where I can sit beneath it and keep an eye on all the sheep as they lay down to sleep. I feel confident about staying up here, enjoying the nightly chirp of nearby birds, and owls, and looking out over the mountains with a smile on my face, alert, my shotgun over my shoulder, on the lookout for anything strange. Goose laps around the sheep, every so often, like he’s doing the same, before he settles in beside me, laying his head on his paws.

I reach for him, to scratch behind his ears, because I’m honestly grateful for his company. I know he’s just a dog, but I’m kind of glad I haven’t been left alone up here to sit by myself and feel bad about how lonely I am again. At least with Goose here, I can stroke his fur, and keep my mind on staying alert, and watching the sheep, refusing to let my mind wander to anything else.

What shocks me about sitting up in the mountains, watching the sheep alone, isn’t my own loneliness.

It’s the cold.

I come from heat, from dust storms so thick, the dirt clogged up my lungs, my uncle’s lungs, so badly it took him from this Earth and convinced me to sell our humble ranch and get as far away from the dirt as I could. The dirt is caked, so badly against the walls of my lungs, that I still feel it, settled within me, hundreds of miles away from where the dirt could ever get to me again. My lungs ache and burn from the memory of it, and the heat was even worse. In the storms, we were forced to layer our clothing, wrapping every inch of my skin, and of Cholla’s skin, in thick wool wraps and heavy blankets. I am used to ranching in layers and layers of thick, impenetrable clothing, drenched in my own sweat under the blistering Arizona sun. Cholla and I used to get pelted by dust, assaulted by heat, and I found comfort in knowing I would get cold up in the snowy mountains here. I’m dressed warm, layers of clothing under my poncho, wrapped up as much as I would be in Arizona.

But, the cold here chills my bones like no cold I’ve ever been before. It freezes the blood in my veins, and as I spend hours, through the night, awake, alert, and watching over the sheep, my teeth chatter. I wrap my hands over my arms and shiver like a child, shaking and whimpering like a wet dog, left out for the night. Goose handles the cold better than I do, curling up against my leg for warmth, like he’s used to long nights out here, watching over the sheep, and I don’t doubt it. Beau’s told me before, about all of his experience wrangling out in Montana, so I’m sure he’s used to it, too, safe and warm somewhere down where he’s pitched our camp.

In the morning, I leave Goose with the sheep, like Beau has instructed me to, and I use the map to ride my horse down to our camp, almost two hours away from the pasture where I’ve left our sheep.

Beau’s cooking breakfast, over a tiny fire in the center of the clearing, poking at the kindling and smiling up at me when he spots my horse, waving, invitingly, awake, and chipper, and smiling like he always does. I like Beau plenty. He’s a nice man, and he knows what he’s doing, so he’s easy to work with. I don’t mind sharing our room at the ranch house, and I don’t mind when he pats my back, to help me clear my throat when I fall victim to coughing fits. I don’t mind making idle conversation with him, and I don’t mind watching after his dog, or sitting with him at supper, or hiking up, hundreds of miles into the mountains with him, because he’s a nice guy. He’s a nice man, and he’s nice to look at, and pleasant to be around. I don’t mind Beau.

But when he waves at me, awake, and smiling, and happy, like’s he’s just spent his night camping and leisuring while I’ve been freezing to death up God knows where, he pisses me off. I get off my horse mad. 

“Mornin’,” Beau calls to me, chipper and smiling as I stomp over to the camp, angrily tripping on a rock and scuffing my boot behind myself, stopping in my tracks to ball my fists at my sides. “I’m makin’ eggs, and I’ve got some bacon ready if you’re starvin’.” He pauses, looking up at me again, once I’ve stopped. “You alright?”

I glare at him for a second, before I raise my voice louder than I have the entire time I have been in Wyoming. “I am fuckin’ freezing.”

Beau blinks at me, startled, as I make my way over to him, stomping my feet as I walk. 

“It’s so fuckin’ cold outside, I can’t feel my fuckin’ balls,” I sit, angrily, beside him, on a log he’s pulled up to use as a bench, in front of the fire. I hold my hands out towards the flames, trying desperately to warm myself up. “I’m so fuckin’ mad, I’m up there all fuckin’ night with hypothermia, and you get to be down here with the fuckin’ fire, warm, and cozy, and makin’ bacon. Fuck you. I can’t fuckin’ believe this shit, I am so fuckin’ freezing, I am so cold.” 

“I see that,” Beau chuckles, like my anger amuses him. That would piss me off more, if he didn’t hold up a metal cup of hot coffee, which I take between my greedy, cold little fingers. When I’m drinking from it, ignoring the burn on my tongue in favor of the warmth it brings, Beau drapes an arm over me, warming me up with the heat from his body, and his layers of warm clothing.

I freeze again, turning to look up at him, and he smiles at me, again, like it’s a simple gesture, that doesn’t mean anything in the world to him. Like helping me warm myself up doesn’t deserve a second thought, like he doesn’t mind me, the way I normally don’t mind him.

I want that to piss me off, too. I want to be mad at him, for smiling, when I’m shivering, and laughing at me like I’m stupid for not dressing warm enough, and underestimating how cold the cold really is. I want to be pissy, and whiny, and irritated that he’s touching me, but, admittedly, I am not.

His warmth seeps in through my shoulders, permeating my frozen veins and calming me down more than any fire could.

He smells nice, like bacon grease, and warm, spiced pine, and that relaxes me. I lean into his warmth, I let him infect me.

And when I’m warm, I apologize for yelling.

I make him promise to take his turn with the sheep tonight.

We spend days together, rotating shifts, taking turns cooking for each other while the other is trapped up there, miles away, with nothing but the sheep, Goose, and the cold open air.

Beau is really nice to me, and he’s funny. I feel comfortable around him. I’ve spent most of my life quiet, reserved, and keeping to myself, and when we came up the mountain together, I was convinced I would let Beau talk and talk and talk to fill the air, but I find myself talking more. I ask him about Montana, and about work. I bitch about the cold, even though he sends me up with more of his own blankets to keep me warm.

He tells me that the cold’ll squeeze the Arizona right out of me. That always makes me smile.

I prefer my nights at the campsite, though they make me feel lonely. I get to be warm, but I’m left by myself, while Beau stays awake with Goose up with the sheep, freezing so I don’t have to, but I don’t really sleep much. Actually, I can barely manage a few hours before the sun comes up, every night I’m in the tent alone. I realize very quickly, that not only have I gotten used to watching the sheep with Beau’s dog, but I’ve also gotten used to sleeping in my bed in the ranch house, lulled to sleep by the sound of Beau’s steady, heavy breathing.

It’s hard to sleep by myself, with nothing but the dying fire and the quiet tent. All I really do is lay awake and wait for Beau to come back down, so I can bitch at him for taking too long when I’m hungry, or for leaving me for so long, alone.

Beau always laughs at me, because he’s surprised I’m such a ranter.

I’m surprised by myself, too. 

“Stupid rain,” I mutter, freezing, as the sun is starting to set, somewhere, on a night where I am supposed to watch the sheep. I am already soaked through my clothes and shivering, while Beau lingers under the trees, nearby, a hand up by his hat to try and shield himself from the rain, too. 

“It ain’t so bad,” Beau tries to reassure me, looking up the path that takes us back up to our sheep. “I don’t mind takin’ another night, if you wanna stay down here.” 

“No,” I shake my head, still shivering. “I’m not gonna make you do that. I can do it, I’m just cold.” 

“Let me get you some more blankets to take with you,” Beau walks me to the tent, where the rain isn’t so bad, under the cover of the trees around us, to dig around for more blankets. “You can set up under the tent I made for Goose.” 

“I ain’t laying with your dog,” I say, and Beau laughs. 

“He’ll keep you warm, Lark.” 

“He will lick my face and make me colder. He can have his tent, and I’ll sit out in the rain.” Playfully, he shoves the blankets into my hands. I take them, begrudgingly, frowning up at him, mischievously. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Beau says, dragging his words out to make me laugh, and I do.

I like Beau more and more the more time we spend together. I dread going up and down the mountain, not because I’m cold, or because of the rain, but because I will miss his company. I am getting increasingly used to his company, and I don’t like to leave it.

Beau parts his lips, to say something, and suddenly, the world illuminates, lightning striking the mountains away from us, quickly followed by a clap of loud, rolling thunder, shaking the earth and rattling our teeth together. The sky opens, and the rain starts harder, pelting our hats with thick, wet globs of rainwater, and we exchange a look, before we both retreat into our tent.

It’s very small, made for just one or two people. We’ve got a nice set up, a bunch of blankets piled up to make the hard dirt comfortable, and a battery powered lantern hanging from the tentpoles. We keep most of our clothes in here, too, so it’s cramped when we’re both inside of it, our shoulders brushing as we get inside, to shelter ourselves from the pelting rain. It thwaps against the tent, loud, and hard, and a little scary, as more thunder shakes the ground around us. 

Quietly, Beau settles on his knees. “We should stay here.”

The sheep will be fine. I would agree with him, if not for Goose. “And leave Goose up there alone? What if he’s scared?”

Beau smiles at me, like that amuses him, like my concern for his dog makes him happy. “Goose is alright, he knows to stay put when it’s rainin’, and we can check on him when it lets up,” He reaches past me, to open the tent flaps, as the wind whips some of the rain in behind us. “But, it ain’t lettin’ up anytime soon.”

I clench my jaw. “Okay.”

I stay by the door when he closes it, to take his hat off and fall back against the blankets, folding his arms over his chest.

It…. occurs to me, suddenly, that we’ll sleep in here together.

I spend a good while staring at him, as he gets comfortable, looking at me like I’m crazy for staying up on my knees while he’s already planning to turn in early, like I should take advantage of this night away from the sheep to enjoy myself, and catch up on the sleep I’m sure he knows I’ve been missing.

But, admittedly, I’m nervous to lay beside him.

I spend so long staring, that my lungs burn, and I lift my palms to cough into them, hard, and rough, and painful. Beau sits up to reach for me, patting his hand on my back like he always does, to help me through it. My coughing fits come and go, fairly often, and they make my hands tremble. I stare at my palms, when I’m done, checking my skin, and when they’re clean, I fall back into the blankets, too, reaching behind myself to untie my hair and quietly thank him for helping me.

Beau stares at me while I do it, unknotting my long hair from its low bun and letting it fall over my shoulders, still damp from the rain, untangling it with my fingers. I like when he looks at me, normally, smiling at me like he just likes to look at me, but tonight, it confuses me. It feels like he’s gawking at me, like my coughing scared him. 

“What?” I ask, kind of rudely, I’ll admit. I don’t mean for it to come out the way it does.

He startles, like I surprised him, like maybe, he was looking at me just to watch me untangle my hair. He clears his throat, like he’s thinking of an excuse, and I feel bad for startling him. “Are you… okay?” He settles on, eventually. “I just… I worry about you coughin’ so much.”

“Oh,” I sigh, breathing out through my lips, puffing them up to let the air out, tired. “It’s just from dust storms. I used to move cattle like this, for days and weeks at a time, camping through these huge storms, and the dirt clogged up my lungs. Happens a lot, to ranchers out there.”

“Oh, yeah,” Beau echoes, nodding, as he moves to join me, sitting so closely his shoulder brushes my own. I shiver, every time he touches me. “Is that why you took a job out here in the cold? To get away from the dirt?”

And the memory of my absent uncle, and the lonely place I called home. “Yeah.”

Beau’s quiet for a second, before he looks up at me again. “Is that why you check your hands?” I blink at him, and he elaborates. “Whenever you’re coughin’ like that, you check your hands.”

Quietly, I look down at them, weighing how honest I want to be with him. Beau and I have become friendlier, but I haven’t told him everything yet, to preserve some of my own self esteem. But, the warmth of his shoulder against mine grounds me, convincing me that he’s just asking because he wants to get to know me, and I shouldn’t be afraid of that. I shouldn’t be afraid to get to know him, too.

“My uncle died,” I say, quietly. “Because the dust got him. I was so used to him coughin’ that I didn’t notice he was sick, until I was washin’ our clothes, back home, and all his masks were filled with bloodstains.” I pause, looking from my hands to his face, unsurprised when his features are laced with concern. “My cough ain’t nearly as bad as his, but it scares me, a little. I check to see if I’m bleeding, too.”

Nodding, Beau watches me, solemn. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

This is the first time anyone’s said that to me, other than the undertaker that buried him. I know it’s because I haven’t told anyone about my uncle, not even our employers, so no one knows to offer their condolences to me, and I don’t mind that, usually.

But it feels very nice for Beau to say that to me.

It feels very nice to be beside him.

We lay next to each other, while the storm whips around our tent, forcing us to take shelter together, our shoulders brushing, still.

I don’t think Beau has any idea what his kind words mean to me, or how much I appreciate his welcoming warmth, and the kindness in his eyes when he looks at me. I don’t think I could ever possibly explain how grateful I am for his company in these mountains, after I have spent a lifetime being ignored, and forgotten, and left to fend for myself in big dust storms, like I was expected to grit my teeth and work, like my uncle did, until it killed me, too.

I don’t think even I understand how truly grateful I am for Beau. There’s a part of me that’s confused by it.

I am not a loving person, or a kind one. I have spent weeks on the ranch, surrounded by queer men that seem to love each other, and cherish each other, and I realize now, as Beau lays beside me, his warmth healing my broken soul, that I’ve never thought about that at all. I’ve never considered a relationship for myself at all, because I have never been seen by anyone other than my horse and the cattle I used to herd. I have never been seen by anything other than the dust that swarmed me, and I have never seen anything in anyone when the dust settled.

In the mountains, my mind is clearer, my breathing easier. I’m cold, yes, but Beau has been keeping me warm.

I’m not sure how much of his warmth is real, and how much is my own stomach, fire igniting within me anytime he looks at me or touches me, or smiles at me, like I amuse him, like he’s grateful for my company, too.

But, his breathing is real. He feels real against me.

And when he falls asleep, his breathing steady, just like our room in the ranch house, I am not far behind him. The soft sound of his breath is what lulls me to sleep, warm, and comforted, for the first night since we’ve climbed up the mountains at all, our shoulders pressed against each other’s as the storm carries on without us.

Chapter Text

Mister MacCallum has been letting me draft his vendor contracts for yield output, which sounds very boring, but it’s one of the things that I was most determined and vocal about learning when he asked what I wanted to be taught. And, I guess it is sort of boring compared to other ranch work, because it really is just writing a contract, but it’s the one of the biggest pieces of being a successful foreman, so I’m glad to have so much opportunity to practice writing them. 

When he returns to come look my work over, I rise from the chair at his desk, and take his arm to help him settle himself into it, with a groan. 

Mister MacCallum puts on his little glasses that he keeps by the computer, so he can see what’s on the screen more clearly, while I hover over his shoulder, as I always do. 

“Now, let’s see here,” he drawls in his thick accent, scrolling through the contract, quickly reading over what I’ve drafted for him. “Stating all your terms first. That’s real good,” 

“Thank you,” I say, nodding as I follow along where he’s reading. 

“And this is good, this verbiage here,” he adds, pointing out a line I typed into the pages. “Keeps the control in your hands as the supplier. Gives ya an out if the buyer starts actin’ squirrelly.”

”Thank you,” 

“Yeah, this is a fine lookin’ contract, Seth. Nice work.” Mister MacCallum finalizes, saving my work and tucking it into a folder on his desktop. “Now, how about we review some offers, and I’ll show you how to weed out the bullshit.” 

“Yes! Yeah, that sounds great. Should I pull a seat up?” 

“I reckon,” he says, waving his hand half-heartedly in the direction of the stool to the left of the desk. “Have at it.” 

For about an hour, I take notes on the paperwork Mister MacCallum lets me review with him, so that I’ll have something to look back on, because the advice that he gives me about offers is pretty astounding. I’m grateful to have this kind of time with Mister MacCallum, because he’s been very successful in his own business, and I’m eager to follow in his footsteps on a ranch of my own someday, putting the advice he gives me to work, about considering offer prices and breaking them down into simpler terms to find where the deception is hidden, like a big number looking great on the surface, but not amounting to much at all when it’s broken down by dollars per cow, or dollars per bale. He has a way of explaining things in a way that makes them very simple to grasp, and easy to remember. 

After a while, though, I can tell he’s getting bored of his own work, because he starts to twist in his swivel chair, even though it’s got to be a hassle for him, because he only has one leg, and he’s using it to keep himself from getting bored. 

He transitions our conversation into something a little bit more personal, like he’s dying to talk about literally anything else. “So…day off tomorrow, right?” 

Smiling, I nod. “Yeah, my first one. Thank you for that, by the way. My last ranch never let us take personal days. I’m excited to go out and explore.” 

As I speak, the front door opens, and Parker walks through the living room towards the stairs. And when he passes the foreman’s office, he’s got sweat stains on his shirt, because he’s been out in the stables all day shoeing horses. He glances in at us when he passes, and Mister MacCallum’s attention on me is lost, following Parker with his eyes, and his head, and his neck, all the way across the hall in front of the foreman’s office. He raises his eyebrows and grins. “Hello, Parker.” 

Snorting a laugh like the long and drawn out way Mister MacCallum spun that out is goofy, Parker pauses and nods upwards once in our direction. “Hey, Roan. Nice readers.” 

Mister MacCallum adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Do they make me look real prestigious and shit?” 

“They make your head look real big, actually.” Parker offers, teasingly.

Not missing a beat, Mister MacCallum leans forward a little, making his expression very hopeful. “Do they make me look sexy, though?” 

Parker laughs. “Sure, Roan. Yeah.” He wipes his hands on a rag he’s brought in with him, turning to me. “Hey, Seth. He keepin’ ya entertained?” 

“Yes, sir. Always.” I say.

Mister MacCallum ignores our pleasantries. “You don’t like my glasses, darlin’?”

”I like ‘em fine.” Parker finalizes, continuing his walk down the hall, toward whatever he came inside for. 

Mister MacCallum hums to himself like just exchanging a few funny words with Parker is enough to keep his glass full for the rest of the day. He turns his attention back to me. “So, day off. What’ve you got planned?” 

“Oh, well, Kyler is off, too. We’re gonna go exploring, I think. Find something to keep us busy.” 

At that, Mister MacCallum’s grin twists into something kind of devious, in a way that I haven’t seen before. He lifts an eyebrow. “Kyler, huh?” 

I shrug. “Yeah.” 

“Kyler.” 

“Keegs. Yeah.” 

“I see,” he says simply, like that’s supposed to mean something. He leans back in his chair, twisted to face me more fully, like he’s settling in to just talk for a while. “And what are you gonna get up to with Kyler Keegs?” 

I shrug again, laughing a little bit to myself, because the way that he’s talking is comical, like he knows something that I don’t. “Uh, yeah, I’m not sure. We talked about just riding around until we found something that caught our attention. Oh, and the diner. Kyler said he wants greasy breakfast.” 

“Now, the diner is a fine idea.” Mister MacCallum drawls. “Have ya been yet?” When I shake my head, he pats his hand on the table between us, then points at me, like I need to heed his instruction. “Now, when you get down there, you ask for Trudy to be your waitress, ya hear me? That’s my little friend, and she’s the best server they got up there. Her in-laws own the place, her husband Waylon’s folks, and she’s a fuckin’ gem. Ask her to crisp your hashbrowns up the way Roan MacCallum likes ‘em. She’ll take care of ya.” 

I nod. “Trudy. Okay.” 

“And then, in the spirit of takin’ my advice and puttin’ it into action,” he continues, some mischief glimmering in his eyes, locked with mine. “Take Kyler Keegs campin’.” 

“Camping?” 

“Yeah. Campin’,” he repeats, with more emphasis. And if I’m supposed to understand that, I just don’t, and he seems to pick that up. He straightens, leaning in toward me, coaxing me to join him in the space between us with one scrunching and unscrunching finger. “C’mere. Get in close here, so I can learn ya somethin’.” 

I lean in toward him as he instructs. I listen when he whispers, as if we aren’t the only people in the office. 

“Take him campin’, Seth. Pitch a tent, enjoy the scenery, have a meal on an open fire, like good ranchin’ men do in their time off,” he says, smiling kind of smugly, which I don’t really understand, because it’s just camping.

Still, though, that sounds really fun, so I nod. “Yeah, actually, that’s a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion, Mister MacCallum. I think we’ll do just that. Any…particular place, or…?”

”Oh, I got just the place for ya,” he says as Parker’s heavy boots come back down the hallway, heading back out of the house. “Parker, could ya come in here, sugar?” 

Sighing, Parker detours into the office, eyebrows drawn up like he’s tired, but smiling happily, like he’s as pleased to have a second of Mister MacCallum’s time as Mister MacCallum is to have a second of his. “Hey,” 

“Would ya do me a favor?” Mister MacCallum asks, fishing around in his drawer until he produces a worn map of this region of Wyoming, sliding it across the table toward Parker, setting a pen on top of it. “Would you be a peach, there, darlin’, and draw up how to get out to that spot we like?”

Parker looks at the map, then looks at me, like he needs more of an explanation than that. I shrug. “I’m gonna take Kyler camping tomorrow.” 

Instantly, Parker’s smile twists into the same smirk that Mister MacCallum is wearing. “Oh, Kyler, huh?” He drops to sit in the seats across the desk from his husband, lifting the pen to begin scribbling out a route from the ranch house to whatever spot they’re both thinking of. “I know exactly which spot you’re talkin’ about, Roan.” 

“Yeah, I know ya do,” Mister MacCallum chirps, turning back to me. He pats my arm. “Now, y’all have some fun, and make a good trip of it. Take my tent, from the garage. Up on the shelf over the meat freezer. You pitch it facin’ the water, now, ya hear?” 

“Pitch it facing the water,” I say, nodding along, very excitedly, because whatever special camping spot they’re talking about sounds kind of magical, and I’m suddenly dying to see it. My favorite part of ranching, my favorite part of the kind of work I’ve created a career of for myself, is being deeply woven into nature and reconnecting with the earth, so spending my first day off since I’ve been here with my best friend, exploring some sacred camping spot that faces some body of water, is like a dream that’s calling to me from beyond the mountains, and making my fingers rattle with excitement. “We can do that.” 

“No. Now, not we. I did not say y’all.” Mister MacCallum says, sort of firmly, which draws me back to the present, where I am being lectured about a tent. “I said you pitch it. You. Got that?” 

Parker sighs from where he looms over the map he’s drawing. “Here he goes, with the fuckin’ tent.” 

I shake my head. “I mean…I’m sure Kyler can help me pitch the tent. It’ll probably be faster if—”

“Now, how about you listen to what I’m tellin’ ya and do as I say, huh?” Mister MacCallum asks, and Parker laughs to himself. “You pitch the tent. MacCallum law, and I’m preachin’ it. You pitch that tent.” 

I blink at him. “Can…Kyler help, or…?” 

“Son, am I sayin’ ‘you and Kyler fuckin’ Keegs pitch the tent’, or am I tellin’ you to pitch the fuckin’ tent?”

”You’re telling…me…to pitch the tent.” 

“Damn skippy,” he says, holding his hand out for the map when Parker finishes it. He passes it to me. “You pitch the tent, and y’all have a damn good time.” 

Smiling, because even if he’s being kind of weird, Mister MacCallum is so fucking nice that I don’t even care about it. It’s otherworldly kind for him to help me situate some solid plans for me and Kyler to fill our day off with. I don’t fuss over the oddity. I just rise from my seat and shake his hand when he holds it out. “Thank you, Mister MacCallum. I appreciate it.” 

“Yeah, I bet you will,” he says pointedly, ignoring Parker when he starts snickering again, waving me toward the door. “Now, you go on and tell your friend about your plans, and I’ll see y’all at supper.” 

“Alright,” I say, holding the map up for Parker when I pass. “Thanks for the map.” 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Parker offers simply, and nothing more, turning back toward Mister MacCallum when I leave them. 

Outside, past the soil farm and out toward the vacant sheep pasture, Kyler is standing at the base of a ladder, holding a heavy painter’s bucket for Reuben, who is plucking apples from the branches hanging above them. 

I smile to myself, and I bound down the steps toward them, my two very favorite people to hang out with in one spot. 

When I approach them, I catch the tail end of whatever conversation they’re carrying on, where Reuben is giggling over something Kyler has cracked a joke about, dropping apples into the bucket that he’s holding up. Kyler sees me before I’m even close enough to make out what they’re saying, grinning in my direction and raising his voice to summon me over. “Is that Seth Selogy I see?” 

“Sure is,” I say, closing the last little bit of distance between myself and them, waving up at Reuben when he stops what he’s doing to wave down at me. I turn back to Kyler. “What are you doing all the way out here?” 

“Well, now, I couldn’t very well let my little Ruby Ray try to pick all these apples by himself. He’s got little arms.” Kyler says, making his voice all sad, like he worries. 

Reuben looks down at us again from the top of the ladder, dropping more apples into the bucket Kyler is holding up for him, nodding like it’s terrible news. “It’s true. They’re little.” 

“They are little.” I say, just to agree with both of them. 

Kyler sighs like he’s done a great deed, then looks down toward the cattle barn. “Plus, ya know, today is one’a them days where Branch and Ian love each other or some shit, and I’m sick of listenin’ to ‘em mack on each other.” 

“Oh,” I laugh, looking back at the barn with him. “That bad, huh?” 

“Pretty terrible, yeah.” Kyler says, nodding. “Tell you right now, I ain’t never been more ready for a day off in my life. I gotta get the hell away from Ian. He’s my buddy and all, and he’s good with the cattle, well, sometimes, but I would rather hear him bitch all day than listen to him talkin’ all sweet to Branch.” 

“He’s capable of being sweet?” I ask, kind of surprised. “Didn’t know he possessed anything other than venom.” 

“Boy, does he, and man, if I ain’t sick to goddamn death of hearin’ them giggle and smooch.” Kyler finalizes, shaking his head. “I keep prayin’ Ian’ll let the voices tell him that Branch has been rubbin’ one out thinkin’ of the moon or some shit, so they’ll go back to fightin’, and life can go back to normal. ‘Til then, though, we gotta get the fuck outta here.” 

“Yeah, actually,” I say, passing him the map and taking over holding the bucket for him. “Mister MacCallum gave me that and said to take his camping equipment. Apparently, that’s some really great camping spot.” 

“Oh, no shit!” Kyler says, just as excited about the idea of scoping out some incredible camping spot on MacCallum property as I am. “No, that’s top tier finessin’, if I’ve ever seen it. How’d you manage to squeeze this outta him?” 

I shrug. “No squeeze required, actually. He suggested it.” 

“Well, goddamn,” he finalizes, whistling. 

“Hey,” Reuben whines above us, drawing both of our eyes up toward him, where he is staring back down with a little bit of a pout. “I’m real happy for y’all to have a fun day, but y’all ain’t gonna run off and have fun and forget about me, are ya?” 

Kyler gasps and puts his hand over his chest, with a smack, like he’s wildly offended. “Ruby Ray, I would never forget about ya. Why, I’m gonna miss ya the entire time I’m away!”

”Alright, just checkin’!” Reuben says, giggling in the little way that he does, like he loves having friends and hasn’t ever had much of an opportunity to joke around. And I understand that. Until the last few years, I haven’t ever had this kind of opportunity to just stand around with friends and laugh about simple things, and until now, I haven’t made friends so effortlessly. I don’t have to ask to know that this is the same for Reuben and Kyler. We all became friends so instantly, and I’m grateful for that every single day. Reuben drops another apple into the bucket. “Maybe we’ll get lucky some time, and Mister Roan will give us all a day off together, and I’ll be able to come with y’all. If ya wouldn’t mind havin’ me along too much, that is.” 

I shake my head at the exact same time that Kyler does, holding my hand out to help Reuben down from the ladder when he begins to descend. “No, we wouldn’t mind at all. We’d love to have you along next time.” 

“Yeah, that’d be fuckin’ swell, little man.” Kyler says, grinning down at Reuben, gold tooth showing. “Sure we won’t have nearly as much fun without ya as we would have if you’d been able to come with us.” 

I can tell from the look on Reuben’s face that he feels comforted by that. “Well, y’all go have a good time, and come back for me, okay? Don’t get lost up in the woods or nothin’, so I don’t have to go lookin’ for ya.” 

“We won’t worry ya,” Kyler finalizes.

Reuben sighs like he’s happy with that, then puts his little hands on his hips, looking at the buckets of apples that he’s picked, not including the one I’m still holding for him, which is heavy. He hums like he’s got to think for a second, then looks up at us, eyebrows turned out, like he’s embarrassed. “Y’all think you could help me bring these back up to the house? Don’t think I’m strong enough.” 

Instantly, Kyler and I nod, and we collect his apples for him, following behind him as we make our way back to the house. 

After supper, Kyler and I load the bed of his truck up with Mister MacCallum’s camping equipment, and get some rations together to pack in a cooler, to roast over a fire for dinner tomorrow. And Reuben, bless him, helpful as he is, makes sure that we both have an apple that he picked today, so that it’ll be like a part of him came camping with us, too. 

In the morning, Kyler and I sleep in past when we would normally rise, and when we get ready to head out the door, Mister MacCallum holds it open for us. And he gives me a very pointed, very serious, very confusing stare, where he mouths instruction for me to pitch the tent myself, and when I just nod, because what else can I do, he waggles his eyebrows, and tells us to have a fun time. 

Then, we ride into Lonestar, because Kyler says that if he doesn’t get some grease in his body, he might just die. 

We pull up to the diner and let ourselves in, the bell jingling above the door to let the staff know that we’ve come in, and we follow the instructions of the sign that says to seat ourselves, sliding into a booth by a window, across from each other, and picking up the menus to scan them over, a piece of printer paper sandwiched between yellowing lamination. 

“Now, this,” Kyler says, shaking the menu so that it will make an ear-splitting wiggling sound. “Is the telltale sign of homecooked, God-fearing, American cuisine. They printed this menu off their Grandpappy’s printer in eighteen sixty-three and have let the sun bleach it in the windowsill.”

I laugh, scanning over the breakfast menu, to weigh my options between blueberry pancakes and a skillet. “This all sounds so good. I’m not complaining about my daily toast and black coffee set up right now, but God, I am so excited to eat something different.” 

“I’m excited to do somethin’ different,” he adds. “And, Lord willin’, I’m gonna eat so much food off of a greasy, crusty griddle here that I get sick and barf.” 

There’s no way he means that, so I just laugh, and he smiles like that’s all he really wanted. 

A young guy approaches our booth wearing a shirt with the diner’s logo on it, notepad lifted to take our order. “Welcome in. I’m Truitt. What can I get y’all to drink?” 

I smile at him, even though he doesn’t actually seem very pleased to be here. “Actually, is Trudy here?” 

“Nope,” he says, lifting only his eyes from his notebook to look at me. 

“Now, let me just say,” Kyler begins, patting his hand on the tabletop. “You have got yourself one fine-ass mullet there, young man. Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, what with on account of my overpowerin’ good looks outweighin’ the sight of it,” He pauses, to lift his ball cap, and ruffle out his own mullet. “But my situation is gettin’ a little bit on the long side, so if you wouldn’t mind terribly, where the hell are you gettin’ that mullet trimmed up at?” 

Truitt slowly blinks, his eyes shifting from me to Kyler in the moment that they’re shut. He keeps frowning. “My dad does it.” 

Kyler keeps smiling. “Well, now, ya reckon your daddy might be willin’ to take a look at mine?” 

Shaking his head, upper lip curled, Truitt answers with one simple word. “Nope.” 

Patting the table again, lifting his menu, Kyler moves on. “Well, alrighty then. Could I get a sweet tea, please.” 

Truitt blinks again. “An iced tea…with sugar?” 

Kyler gags like the thought of that might kill him. “No! Hell no. This state is a goddamn prison, havin’ no sweet tea when I’m just a thirsty little country mouse.” He sighs and tsks his tongue to his back teeth, like he’s disappointed. “I guess I’ll just have a Coke, then.” 

“We have Pepsi.” Truitt say, flatly, unamused. 

“Heavens to Betsy,” Kyler says, staring at me and shaking his head while I laugh. “Then I guess I’ll have what you’re havin’.” 

I turn to Truitt. “Could I have a chai latte?” 

“Oh, Christ alive,” Kyler gasps, waving his hand over Truitt’s notepad. “Scratch the double on that. Just bring me a Pepsi, I suppose. I don’t even know what the hell that is.” 

”Shocker,” Truitt sighs. “Y’all know what you want to eat, or need a minute?” 

“No minute needed, sir.” Kyler beams, despite how rude the waiter is being, like it doesn’t even phase him. “I’ve had my order ready since this time yesterday, and I’ve just been countin’ down the minutes to be able to place it.” 

“Oh, well, then, please,” Truitt says, lowering his notepad, like he’s getting exhausted. “By all means…” 

Kyler darts his eyes to me, and I just keep laughing, because he handles stuff like this so well. Kyler is just the kind of person that never seems to mind when people are unkind to him, like no matter what people say, it could always be worse, and he’s appreciative that it wasn’t. I have heard, a few times, Forry being really short with him, and Kyler never matches his tone or says anything to him about it. He just keeps on being Kyler, and that’s one of the things that I like the most about him. 

He keeps on being Kyler now, too, even when the waiter is rude. He spells his exact order out like practiced art, like he’s been rehearsing it since yesterday. “I would like a Giddyup Grand Slam, eggs over medium, white toast, bacon and sausage, grits with extra butter, and extra crispy hashbrowns. Extra crispy, now. I want ‘em basically burnt by the time y’all pull ‘em off the griddle.” 

Truitt scribbles that down. “You want ‘em the way Mister MacCallum likes them?” 

Kyler looks to me like I am the Mister MacCallum whisperer. I nod to him to signal that he probably does, in fact, want them the way Mister MacCallum gets them. He turns back to Truitt, each word drawn out in a silly way that gets his point across. “Yes, sir, I, do.” 

“Super,” Truitt says, turning to me. “And you?” 

“I’d like the blueberry pancake breakfast, and I’d also like my hashbrowns the way Mister MacCallum likes them.” 

Truitt snaps his notebook shut. “Great. Be back.” 

He stalks away. Kyler and I exchange a look, and then we laugh. 

It’s nice to share a brain with Kyler. 

There are a lot of things that we don’t need to have a conversation about at all, a hundred different opinions that we share that we don’t even need to express, because we just know that they’re the same. From agreeing that the waiter is rude, to thinking that something Ian said at the dinner table went a little too far, to agreeing to be patient with Reuben when he’s just curious about something that should be common sense, sometimes, Kyler and I start thinking with the same brain, and we connect what we’re both thinking through just a shared look. There have been a dozen times over the weeks that we’ve been working together that we have turned to look at each other, and Kyler has made that same face he always does, where his smile is drawn into a tight, unmatchable line, and his eyebrows are raised high, and his face is angled a bit downward, where I know that we’re thinking the same thing, and we don’t even need to waste our breath saying it out loud. 

And because we haven’t been wasting our breath saying a lot of the things that we’re thinking at the same time out loud, because we don’t have to take the time to catch up to each other, because we’re already thinking in sync, Kyler and I have a lot of time to talk about literally everything else. 

Kyler can hold a conversation about literally anything, and the way that he weaves words into sentences makes them sound like bold, extravagant stories of dire peril, and my favorite pastime has become listening to him talk about the things that other people miss when their eyes start to gloss over when he’s telling a story. 

He tries a sip of my latte, and he forces himself to swallow it, because he says it tastes like fancy dirt, and I laugh while he talks about a time that some little boy put actual dirt in the coffee filter before church service one time when he was little, and about how the entire congregation drank literal hot dirt after service had ended, and about how much trouble he was in when the pastor said that it just had to have been little Kyler Keegs, even though he was a perfect angel that never got up from his spot next to his mother until it was time for Sunday school. 

Over breakfast, Kyler tells me about a gas station that he used to go to all the time back home in Georgia, where the cash register had a hot bar next to it, and old ladies came in at the crack of dawn to cook the best breakfast sandwiches he’s ever eaten, with melty cheese and floppy bacon, and warm, buttered biscuits that fell apart when he bit into them. He talks about spending his early mornings when he had some time to himself driving out of the town he grew up in to go to that gas station, and about eating them with his feet kicked up on the dashboard of his truck, watching freight trains rattle past where be parked near the train tracks and trying to imagine what the hell they were hauling that made them rattle so loudly. 

When we’ve finished our meals and gotten back to his truck, it rumbles to life while he explains all of the many ways he considered hopping a freight train and just riding it until it stopped somewhere, then starting a new life wherever it dropped him off. I’m laughing my ass off when he shares a time that he actually mustered the courage to do it, but the train ride wasn’t that long, because the literal next town over from where he grew up is where the connecting junction is, and all he got out of being dropped off there was the conductor grabbing him by the back of his shirt and holding onto him until his father drove over to pick him up. 

Then, when his truck is climbing the unpaved path up the mountain that Parker mapped out for us, we come up with a dozen different ways that could have gone for him, the funniest being a scenario he picks out, where the train drives him clear across the sea to Europe, which he says is very artistic and not at all for him, but when the train stops, it’s because the whole time, the train was filled with very nice carnies that are putting on a circus that he has accidentally stolen away with, and he becomes some bumpkin that’s got to get on stage and twirl a ribbon for a bunch of British people that can’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. And I laugh so hard at that, tears literally start to well past my eyes and spill over my cheeks, because Kyler is the funniest person that I have ever met, and I have no idea how he comes up with a way to make everything, real or not, into something that makes my ribs ache from laughing so hard at. 

I’ve already had a great day off of the ranch before we even arrive at Mister MacCallum’s camping spot. I’ve spent an hour or so being jostled around in Kyler’s old truck as we traverse dirt roads that slowly climb the mountains that the MacCallums own, laughing at everything Kyler says and imagining ways he could run away with a circus that doesn’t exist. And, beyond us, past Kyler’s head every time I look over at him from the passenger seat, the afternoon sun is shining down on the mountain tops that ripple across the skyline, watching us have the best day off before the day off has even started, because we think with one brain, and everything is funny. 

Eventually, we approach the spot that Parker has mapped out for us. When Kyler’s truck crests the final incline to the spot that has been chosen for us to spend our day off at, there isn’t a whisper of conversation in the car at all anymore, because we are far too preoccupied with taking in the sight to remember to speak, my sentence trailing off while I’m in the middle of it, stricken too dumb to keep talking. 

I see why Mister MacCallum said to have the tent face the water. The water isn’t a creek, or a pond. 

It’s a cliff, a grassy cliff with overgrown wildflowers, overlooking a waterfall with a break in the middle, two loud streams of heavy water flowing down to a river below us, crashing against the rocks at the bottom with a thunderous roar that deafens us to the rest of the world going on around us. 

Kyler parks and climbs up to stand on the step on the driver’s side of his truck, to stare over the roof at the scenery Mister MacCallum selected for us, and I’ve already stepped out, one hand on the open passenger door as I stare along with him, because this kind of beauty needs to be savored, marveled at, because it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. 

Water trickles from the stream above the waterfall's curtain and babbles into the crashing cry of its descent. Birds soar across the clear sky and their flight dips, like the sight of the waterfall is too much for them, too, and they can’t keep their wings flapping. Mountains behind waterfalls, cloudless blue skies behind mountains, and a world that is consumed by nothing but the bellow of water on rock, a sharp cry in a quiet afternoon, beckoning us toward it.

I shut my door and walk out a few yards before Kyler climbs down from the truck to catch up with me. When we reach the cliff's edge, we both stare down at the shimmering gloss of the sun’s rays grazing the surface of crystal clear, blue water, bluer than anything else I’ve ever seen. 

And the water is deep. I can see that it’s deep from here. 

I can feel Kyler staring at the side of my face before I even turn my head to meet his gaze. He looks at me the way that he always does when we don’t need to speak to have a conversation, lips drawn together in a tight smile, eyebrows raised high, head tilted forward. 

We don’t have to speak to have a conversation, because we think with one brain. We don’t have to say anything at all to agree on what we’re going to spend our afternoon doing. 

We just start shedding our clothes. 

Peeling ourselves out of our shirts while we step out of our boots, heel to toe to free ourselves from them, and then stepping out of our jeans at a tripping walk, because we are too eager to feel the water’s embrace to pause and undress like we have some sense, Kyler shoves my shoulder when he is free from his clothing before me, sprinting ahead to the cliff’s edge and launching himself off of it just seconds before I follow after him. 

The waterfall’s crash and wind’s cry whistles so loudly in my ears that I don’t even think the world hears our screaming laughter on the way down. 

We break the water’s surface with a splash, and when we rise back to breathe again, legs kicking to tread the deep water we’ve plummeted ourselves into, we are wrapped in the warm joy of being two men blessed enough to have been given an opportunity to live this kind of beautifully, and blessed enough to live it together. 

After a moment of speechless staring at the waterfall’s curtain, Kyler cups his hand to splash water into my face. Cackling with laughter, he turns around to swim away from me, toward the waterfall’s crash, grinning in the crooked, smarmy way he does. 

I don’t need to speak to him to know he expects me to follow. I don’t need to speak to tell him that I would follow him anywhere. 

For hours, we don’t have much conversation at all. We swim into the waterfall’s arms and bathe in the pooling lake that catches it, circling each other and getting close enough to horseplay, to shove each other and dunk each other beneath the surface, laughing around our heaving lungs, screaming for us to slow down when our joyous limbs won’t stop moving. 

Far and away, without any shadow of a doubt, my first day off from work on the ranch is the best day of my life, and I spend it with the best friend that I’ve ever had. 

The sun is beginning to lower itself in the sky by the time we’re too exhausted to keep swimming around the massive lake. Breathless, we concede to floating side by side, our bodies tipped back to face God, hair idling in the water below us when the lower halves of our heads remain below the surface, staring at the sky together as it turns pink to bring in the evening. 

I exhale all of the air in my body to try to catch my breath, my body whining for me to stay still, something I am beginning to listen to as my limbs dangle in the water. I suck in another breath to satiate the burn I’ve created, and the air I take in tastes sweet. I fill my body with as much of the best day of my life as I can, so that a piece of it will remain inside of me, always. 

I look over at Kyler, who is panting the way that I am, exhausted from hours of swimming, and deciding that we have time now to fill our silence with laughter, I ask him one question, that I already know the answer to. “Still think running away with a circus sounds good?” 

He snorts a laugh and answers me facing the sky. “Are you kiddin’ me? Circus sounds like shit compared to the life I’ve lived today. I’ll never look at a fuckin’ train again.” He glances over at me briefly, lips twisted into the mischievous grin I’ve come to expect from him. “Besides, they’d torture me over there, ya know? Little country mouse like me? They’d try to feed my ass a crumpet or somethin’ and make me meet the fuckin’ queen.” 

At that, I laugh so hard that I wheeze all of the air in my body out, and my body dips below the water’s surface, because Kyler is so funny it could drown me. 

I break the surface again and cough water back out, and that’s funny enough to drown both of us. 

Sighing when I can breathe right again, treading water instead of floating when Kyler’s humor could drown me, I watch him float past me, arms moving gently, to keep him afloat. “Yeah, a circus doesn’t have anything on this, right?” 

“Not a damn thing,” he says softly, to the sky. “We need to let Mister MacCallum tell us what to do with our days off more often. Always, actually. This has been, kinda…” 

“Life altering.” I finish for him, because we think with one brain, and I know how he feels before he even feels it out loud. “I’ve never done anything like this.” 

“Me, neither.” 

I breathe another laugh, smiling to myself. “Country mice don’t cliff dive?” 

He laughs, too. “No, they most certainly do not. Country mice eat biscuits, and wait for trains that never come, and do what their daddies tell ’em. They sure don’t jump off fuckin’ cliffs.” 

“Some country mice do.” 

He lifts his head from the water to look at me, his smile softer now, less funny, more genuine. “I reckon some do.” 

We have nothing but time to talk, and water to tread, so I strike up some conversation to fill the rest of our day off with. “You ever miss it?” 

“Miss what?” 

“Home,” I say. “Biscuits and trains.” 

Kyler’s smile doesn’t leave his face, but it does dampen. It smolders into something with no flames beneath it all, like a light he flicks on when he hasn’t got the strength to stoke the fire within him. “Who wouldn’t miss a biscuit?” 

He lets his body sink below the surface. I remain patiently above the water, treading, where I know he’ll return when he’s ready to answer a question that I think is hard for him. 

He surfaces, and takes a breath, pushing his hair back from his forehead and opening his eyes to look at me again. And, admittedly, I’m sort of awestricken. Kyler drowns in his hair, sometimes, a scraggly mullet that claims the first attention of anyone that looks at him, but with the water slicking it back from his face, I can see clearly that Kyler is beautiful. He is not the type of beautiful that some people strive to be. He is something far more effortless, and raw, his skin paler in the water, lips parted slightly beneath his mustache, between cheeks dusted with stubble. His eyebrows are animated, and his eyes are like the forest that frames the mountains behind us, a deep green and haunted by ghosts that no one will ever know, because no one was ever around to see them. He carries himself like he doesn’t really exist, like he’d never dare to step where he isn’t wanted, and treading water across from me, staring at me like I am the only person that has ever tried to know him in a way he has hoped to be known, Kyler Keegs is also beautiful, effortlessly, hauntingly beautiful, and the sight of him clouds the perfect world beyond him from my sight. 

“I want to think that I do,” he begins, his eyebrows drawing together, like this is a hard one for him to put into words. “I reckon some part of me does, honest to goodness. I don’t want to sit here and talk like I’m some hoity-toity, silver-spoon-lickin’ yuppy that’s gotten too big for his britches, and wouldn’t ever go back home. I just…don’t know that I’d be invited, if I’m bein’ honest. I don’t think it matters if I miss home. I don’t think home misses me.” 

That is, far and away, one of the most difficult things that I have ever heard articulated. I know that it must be apparent on my face. 

He continues, even though he must see it, like it doesn’t bother him. “And I used to get sorta torn up about that, ya know? It usually makes me ache, knowin’ that nothin’ I do is big enough or special enough to make me someone my family might miss. It used to fuckin’ gut me.” He looks away from me, back at the waterfall. “But, I don’t know, they ain’t really missed me when I was just lookin’ at trains, so I suppose it don’t bother me too much worse now that I’m sure they ain’t missin’ me while I’ve actually been gone. I don’t wanna be someone that suffers that, ya know? I wanna be a little country mouse that jumps off of cliffs and lives the kind of life that’s worth fussin’ over, whether someone cares to ask me about it or not.” 

That’s profound. That is so profound that I just have to sit with it for a minute, let it marinate the way that it deserves to. 

Kyler turns back to me, his flames returning, smolder lifting. “Thank you. For askin’.” 

“Thank you for telling.” I offer, a morsel compared to the mountain he’s just built himself. 

Grinning, he backstrokes to make himself move again, to launch himself back into the lake’s embrace, his haunted eyes saying a hundred things that I don’t need to hear out loud. I share a brain with a little country mouse that expects me to follow, and I do, because I would follow him anywhere.

Chapter Text

I get used to the cold, after the storm passes. Beau makes sure that I am always well equipped to sit with the sheep by myself, stocking me with blankets to sit under. I’ve gotten better at sitting up there, my shotgun propped against my lap, and my back against one of the tallest trees, Beau’s blankets wrapped around my legs. I’ve taken to covering my face, too, my scarves pulled up over my mouth like the masks I used to wear wrangling cattle in the dust. It’s not so bad as it was that first night, though I keep bitching at Beau like it might as well be.

I’m still surprised by how easy it is to find myself talking to him, whining about the weather and about missing him when I’m alone in the tent the way I have been, just to make him laugh. He always smiles at me, like my complaints amuse him, like he could spend every day up here listening to me bitch and moan about shit that doesn’t actually bother me as much as I act like it does. I’ve taken to leaving my hair untied, so the layers of my thick hair will help protect me from the chill, so I can watch over the sheep in relative warmth.

Beau’s taken to making me coffee, too, every evening before I head back up to watch the sheep, so I have something to sip on and warm me up when the blankets aren’t working. I would say I’m pretty comfortable up here.

The sheep are well behaved. I think they’ve been doing this for so long, that they know the drill by now, like this is a pleasant vacation for them, and I get why. The pasture up here in the mountain is so much bigger than the one down on the ranch, and I’m sure they like sleeping under the stars a lot more than the confines of the barn, miles and miles away. I understand that, because I like it up here, too. I’ll be happy to go back down the mountain when we do, I’m sure, but there’s really nothing like camping out in these mountains, taking in the fresh air, where the sky’s so damn clear I can see each and every constellation in the sky. I trace them with my eyes, every so often, before I go back to watching the sheep.

They’re so quiet, and Goose is so good at watching them, that it makes me wonder, sometimes, if I need to be up here at all. I’m warm, sure, but I can’t help my mind from wandering to the thought of Beau, on his own, down in our tent, laying awake and thinking of me, up here, just the same as I do when he’s on sheep duty.

It’s almost funny how much we miss each other, when we’re separated. I think the sheep would be fine if I got up and rode down there in the middle of the night, and crawled into the tent beside him, to lay next to him, our shoulders brushing. We haven’t slept beside each other since the storm, but I miss his warmth. The blankets he’s given me, the coffee he made for me, none of it will ever warm me up like he does.

I wonder what would happen, if I abandoned the sheep to see Beau.

Not to the sheep, either.

I wonder what Beau would do with me.

I can see him, in my head, jostling awake when he hears me sneaking in. I can see him smiling, when he sees me, confused that it’s so early, but happy I’m there, nonetheless, like he missed me, like he fell asleep waiting up for me anyway. He’d make room for me, beside him, pulling the blankets back so I can get cozy next to him, so our shoulders brush, close, pressing hard against each other.

I wonder if he would open his arms up for me, and pull me close against his chest. I wonder if he’ll hold me while I’m sleeping.

For a couple of hours, I fantasize about what he would do, in the cold, quiet night, and I am tempted to get up and go down there.

The sheep would be okay. I am certain the sheep will be okay.

But Goose stirs, after a while, and I reach down to pet him, sliding my hand over his soft fur. I would feel bad leaving Goose up here alone, again, and I know I am supposed to stay. The storm was a good excuse for Beau and I to sleep beside each other, because the weather was too bad for me to climb the mountain again. But, now, I can’t think of any good excuses, other than the way that I miss him. I am supposed to be doing my job, and I will, but, God, do I wonder.

I am so consumed by the thought of Beau’s warmth that Goose’s growl shocks me, and I jump a little, turning to look down at him. I can feel his hackles raise, fur standing on end, as he pushes out of my grasp to stand, staring dead ahead of me, out at the woods on the other side of the herd.

I am glad I didn’t get up to leave. Quietly, I cock my shotgun, reaching up to push my hat up, away from my eyes, so I can see, squinting out into the dark the way Goose does. His hearing is unbelievably better than mine, so for this dog to react so much to something I cannot hear myself, means I should be ready.

Slowly, I push my blankets off, exposing myself to the chill.

I stand, my gun tight in my hands.

Goose growls again, as the animal approaches us, and I suddenly understand why Parker was so stern with us about our weapons.

The wolves up here are fucking scary.

It’s huge, pawing through the grass at a slow crawl, eyeing our sheep like it wants to pounce in and slaughter them. Its maw drips with spit, teeth barred, grey and black fur standing thick and tall, camouflaging it in the dark forest behind it. Its eyes flicker, orange, in the light of the stars above us, and my heart seems to freeze in my chest, watching the thing crawl at my sheep like it intends to eat them. Goose lowers his head, like he might chase it, and I point to my foot, the way Beau has taught me to, so Goose knows he shouldn't move. He stays put, but I feel, in his growl, that he will chase the beast away, if I command him to.

But I believe Parker. I know that he warned us so intensely for a reason, and if this fucking thing is the same kind of monster that took Mister MacCallum’s leg, I know that chasing it away will not be enough.

I don’t see any others, and Goose doesn’t take his attention away from it, so I assume it’s alone.

Slow as I can, I lift my shotgun, taking a quiet, practiced step forward.

Parker didn’t give me any handling or training for it, but I’ve shot rifles before. My uncle would, cruelly, make me take care of our cattle when they fell sick with disease, when the dust affected the animals as badly as it affected us. I used to bring cows out back, behind the barn, far enough away so I wouldn’t spook the rest of them, to put it down before the disease spread. I don’t think my uncle was trying to teach me some kind of lesson, or train me to use a gun. I think he didn’t want to deal with it himself. That kinda grunt work he left to me, shoveling shit and killing the runts.

I know the shotgun has a shorter range than I’m used to, which means, unfortunately, I have to get closer to it. I can’t chance missing, because this thing will pounce on one of our sheep, or, worse, it’ll get me. I’m fast on my feet, and I’m sure Goose is, too, but I am not confident that I can outrun this thing. It is a monster.

My lungs burn, as I clamp my teeth, trying hard not to bark a cough in the cold weather, so the wolf won’t alert to me where I’m at. It looks away from the sheep, only when it catches my scent, the wind tousling my long hair, billowing out to the side of me.

Pointedly, I pull the trigger, and the sound of my gun resonates throughout the entire forest, loud, and shaking, in the dead silence of night. The sheep rouse, looking around, startled, and I can feel Goose’s stare, hard on me as the wolf thuds to the grass.

Carefully, I trod over to it, my boots kicking up grass behind me.

It’s not as clean as I would care for it to be, but the bullet pierced its skull. I watch the blood seep from the open wound, as the wolf twitches, dying quietly on the ground before me.

Slowly, I inhale, steadying my shotgun in my hands before turning to gather the rest of my shit, draping blankets over Cholla’s packs and hooking my shit where it needs to go. I wave for Goose, and he gets the sheep up for me, running in circles around them, chasing them awake, because I will follow Parker’s instructions, just like he told me.

If I see a wolf, I will kill it, and move the sheep to the other pasture. It don’t matter that it’s as late as it is, the stars shining brightly in the night sky. I have to move the herd. And, unfortunately, I have to do it alone.

I think Beau will be worried, if I don’t come back to camp when I normally do, and based on the map Parker made us, I think we have to move our camp anyway, a couple miles east, far away from the wolf I saw. I don’t mind moving, because one wolf means there could be more. I know the stench of its blood will attract others, if the sound of my shotgun didn’t. I have to move the sheep now.

I push up the path, a ways, before I wave my hand at Goose again, so he’ll heel behind my horse as I ride behind the sheep. “Go get your daddy,” I wave at him, down towards camp, and Goose takes off running to get Beau, leaving me alone with the herd.

Moving them on my own is fucking difficult, because the sheep don’t know where they’re going, and it is dark.

I keep out of the woods, following the path on Parker’s map, only chancing to cut my flashlight on every so often to make sure I’m going the right way. It takes hours, and I have to keep riding along side them, and swerving my horse behind them, all the way to the next pasture.

The sun is rising, when I see the fence posts Parker told me would mark my path. I see the MacCallum logo carved into the fence posts. I exhale, sliding my shotgun in its holster for the first time all night, hopping off to open the fence up,letting the sheep run on in behind me. I have to wrangle in a few stragglers, hopping back up on my horse and ushering them into the fence. By the time I’m getting the fence closed up again, our hundreds of sheep spread out and grazing their new grass, I hear hoofbeats down the path.

I walk Cholla to tie her up to the fence, turning to watch as Beau’s horse canters up the crest of the last hill, the sun shining brightly behind him.

I smile, because I’m happy to see him, and surprised that he made it up in the time it took me to get the sheep here, but his chest is heaving, and Goose slows to a stop before he does, dropping at my feet like he followed my command, and I stoop down to pat his head.

Beau swings a long leg off of his horse, and jogs over to me.

“Now,” I grin, expecting to bitch at him, like I’ve been bitching for days. “Where the Hell have you-”

Beau grabs me by the shoulders, pulling me to him, so fast, it knocks the air from my lungs. He squeezes me to his chest, his big, strong arms wrapped around my body, crushing me into him, like he’s scared.

Like he ran his horse all the way up this mountain to get to me.

Shakily, he runs his fingers through my hair, and I realize, horribly, this is the first time anyone has ever hugged me.

My uncle was an unkind man, who stopped caring for me the second I was old enough to walk and bathe myself and stay out of his way. I realized, a year ago, now, when he passed, laying beside me, in our shared tent in the middle of a dust storm, hacking and heaving like he couldn’t take the pain of living anymore, that he had never hugged me, or touched me, or held me. I knew, in my heart, that if I had died in our tent, he would’ve left me there, to keep moving our cattle, and not come back for me. And I knew that I would not allow myself to become the man he is, and I picked him up to put him on the back of his horse, sobbing around my dirt filled mouth and trembling, because his cold corpse against my skin was the only time I had ever touched anyone. His weight against mine was all I had ever felt of him, and all anyone ever felt of me.

Since I’ve been up here, Beau’s been touching me a lot, patting my back when I cough and draping his arm over me when I’m cold. I always find myself leaning into him, when he does, because his touch comforts me, I want him to do it. I want to lay beside him in our tent and feel his warm arm against my own.

But I am not prepared for how fucking releived I feel to have all of Beau’s weight against me, holding me tightly, sheltering me from the woods around us like he would’ve torn that fucking wolf to shreds, had he saw it looking at me. He holds me, petting my hair, breathing me in like he thought he would lose me. It guts me, to feel so missed, and so needed.

I used to hold out hope that the string in me, somewhere, tethering me to Arizona, and the memory of my uncle would pull me back there, because the certainty of knowing I love these mountains scared me. Just a few days ago, I wondered what he would think of me, and what I would do if there wasn’t some string tethering me to my memory of him, and the life he forced me into.

But here, in Beau’s arms, warmed by the soft, yellow rays of the shining sun, surrounded by miles and miles and miles of endless, beautiful mountains and lush, green grass, and cool, fresh air, the string snaps.

I melt.

I lift my arms to cradle him back, squeezing myself tightly against him, shutting my eyes and tucking myself against his chest, like he could protect me from anything. Like I want him to shield me from everything bad I have ever known, like I want to stay glued to him, our bodies pressed against each other’s, safe from the rest of the world and alone up here, just us, our sheep, his dog, and the endless, gorgeous mountains, the peace and quiet of a soft Wyoming breeze.

Beau moves his hands from my hair, to the back of my head, holding me, firm, comfortable, against him, like we fit nicely against one another. Like we were made to fit together.

He pulls away first, and I ache for him. I reach for his hands, keeping him nearby, as his green eyes find the ground, like he’s ashamed, like he’s sorry for worrying as much as he must’ve.

“You were gone,” He whispers, his breath warm against my face. “I got to the pasture, and you were gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Spills out of me, faster than I can think to stop it. “Parker told us to move the sheep, and- and I couldn’t wait for you, and-”

“I couldn’t find you,” Beau breathes, teary eyed. “I saw that wolf, and I just… it was so big. I can’t believe how big it was.”

“I know.” I squeeze his hands, watching as it softens him. I pull him back to me, so he’ll hold me again, like an addict. I need him to hold me again. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” Beau holds my head again, cradling my skull against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “No, you’re right, we had to move them. I just couldn’t find you. I got so worried about you, Lark, I ran straight here.”

I love when he says my name, soft, and delicate on his tongue, like he savors the taste of each letter. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

“You’re okay,” He repeats, like he still doesn’t fully believe it, and has to convince himself that I’m still real. Then, he puts his hands on my shoulders again, holding me out, at arm’s length. “You’re a good fuckin’ shot.”

Surprised, I can only snort, crinkling my nose and looking up at him, confused. “What?”

“I mean, Jesus, I saw that thing,” Beau shakes his head, in disbelief. “And you got it right in its eyes. I dunno what I’m even worried for, you can handle yourself just fine.”

I smile, because that’s nice of him to say, but I don’t want him to stop holding me, just because I know how to use a gun. “You can still be worried about me.”

Quietly, Beau raises his eyebrows, hopeful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I nod, my cheeks warm. “That’s kind of you. Thank you.”

I feel selfish when he holds me again, but not enough to feel guilty. I want him to hold me for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, we do have to move our campsite closer, so he has to release me, so we can go back for our equipment. It’s a couple hours out, and takes most of the morning to get out there, moving slow to give Charlie a break from the sprint Beau put him at to get to me. But, we ride beside each other, our horses close, Goose up in the mountains without us, watching our sheep.

We stop when we get to camp, to eat, and make sure our horses are fed and alright before we dismantle the tent I fantasized about Beau holding me in. I find myself hoping for another storm, if only so we can take shelter together, without the barrier of nervousness to separate us, like it did the other night.

Packed up, again, we ride horseback for hours, back up the mountains, to our new campsite.

I am breathless when we spot it, a clearing of lush grass and a fire pit, surrounded by thick trees and a sputtering, rumbling river bank, flowing clear, clean water through the rocks and cresting over the twisting stream. It is beautiful here, and Beau slows his horse up to stall beside me, staring down at our new campsite in awe, like we should’ve brought the sheep east, first, if only to enjoy this breathtaking view.

Beau’s jaw moves, like he’s trying to find the right words to kick up conversation with me again, after hours of riding in silence, each of us numb from the feeling of our embrace, still lingering on our skin.

I try to soften him up a little, bitching, like I’ve been bitching for days. “Now, why the Hell did Parker send us out that way, when this fuckin’ river was right here?”

Smiling, Beau exhales, long and slow, jutting his bearded jaw down at the river bank. “It’s like he wanted us to stink.”

”God,” I groan, dragging a hand down my face. “You’re right. I am dying to wash this shit off me.”

He nods, and we ride the rest of the twisting path together.

The worst part about camping up here, is that we haven’t changed.

We haven’t needed much in the way of clothing, because honestly, Beau and I spend every day in the same thing we wore before. We’ve had enough food and water to last us the entire time, but we sleep in our jeans, in our boots, in our clothes. We haven’t had time to undress and change, or bathe, and I’m certain I stink. I’m certain Beau does, too, because I spent so long holding him earlier, and I know he’s just as desperate to wash himself of the stink as I am.

We hitch our horses on the posts that Parker must’ve built for the wranglers up here, and we get to setting up the campsite together. Beau insists that he can pitch the tent himself, so I drop logs in the fire pit and lock up our food, to protect from critters. By the time we’re done, I’m sweating in my poncho, in this part of the woods where our camp is sun-kissed in warm, bright rays of orange and yellow.

Beau drops to a squat, his hat hanging high on the tent poles behind us, to run his fingers in the running stream. Instantly, he whistles, low, through his teeth, straightening to shake the water from his fingers and look down at me with an apologetic sort of grimace. “It’s cold,” He warns, which makes me smile, like he’s prepared for me to complain, but I don’t have any complaining left in me. I feel too excited to be clean for him, so he won’t have to suffer my stench any longer.

I pull my hat off, setting it gently on a rock nearby. “I don’t care. I feel disgusting.”

Chuckling, Beau watches me, and I can feel his gaze on me, as I kick my boots off, before reaching up to pull the poncho off, up over my head.

He gawks at me, for a moment, and I just unbuckle the strap of my gun holster, pulling it off my shoulder and settling my pistol on the rock, beneath my hat. Beau watches me, examining each move, not bothering to make an attempt to undress himself yet.

Beneath my poncho, I am still clothed, in layers of warm shirts and thick, restrictive riding jeans. I wonder if Beau is going to say something about giving me some privacy, but he doesn’t. He hovers, nervously, like he wants to watch me, and, shamelessly, I want him to watch me, too.

I strip. My shirt goes first, and then my layers of undershirts, long sleeved thermals to fight the cold. Then, I unbuckle my belt, and rid myself of my jeans, my socks, my underwear. Beau just watches me, his green eyes trailing over every inch of my bare body, beside him, the shape of my hips, the curve of my spine, the length of my legs.

I let him look. I want him to look at me. I wish he would reach for me, and hold me again, and press his body into mine, like he did before. I want him so badly my body shivers, so I am grateful that the water is cold, so he won’t notice how strongly I ache for him.

I dip my body in the water, and, yes, it is freezing.

It feels amazing to scrub the dirt and sweat from my skin, my tiny bar of soap scratching at my pores and ridding me of the past week or so, all muddied together in my head. I scrub my skin so hard, it reddens, and it feels nice to see it, after so long with my body covered. I have spent ages wrapped in thick wool and cloth, to shield myself from dust storms, then, later, the cold of the top of the mountains, and it feels freeing to clean myself now. I feel free.

Beau joins me, after a while. I get to watch him, too, my eyes hungrily watching every flex of his strong muscles, outlining the hard curves of his toned abdomen. I knew he was strong, obviously, I held him today. I felt the weight of his body engulfed around me. But, God, Beau’s muscles sing to me, lighting my nerves on fire, keeping me warm in the bone chilling cold of the river. He’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another man naked before. I like his body. I hope he likes mine.

We scrub our clothes, too, scratching at our jeans with bars of soap and leaving our shirts out to dry, before retreating naked back to our campsite, to find fresh clothes from our packs, dressing quietly by our horses and glancing at each other over our saddles. He smiles, every time I catch his gaze. Beau makes me smile, too.

We settle in for supper later in the evening, and I sit, wrapped in a blanket on a nearby stump as Beau grills a fish he caught in the river, something that astounds me. I watch him cook, starry eyed, that this man caught a fish with his bare hands, just to feed me. I don’t know what to do besides staring at him.

We eat together, staring out at the mountain range below us, past the flowing river, miles and miles of woods and green brush, warm in our blankets, and full of good food.

Beau turns to look at me, a smile on his lips. “Are you goin’ back to Arizona?”

I turn, catching his gaze, watching the gears turn, behind his eyes. “Sick of me?”

“No,” Beau laughs, shaking his head. I love his laugh. “No, I’m just wonderin’ what you’re gonna do, when our contract’s up.” He turns, looking back out over the world beyond us. “I don’t know if I could go back, after seeing all this.”

I don’t lie to him. I poke at the remains of my dinner. “I’m not gonna go back.”

He peers at me, curiously, like he’s just asking, like all he wants, out of everything he could ever want for himself, is to know me.

I continue. “There’s nothing for me, there.”

“You don’t have family?” He prods a little, playfully. “Other than your uncle?”

I shake my head. “Nope. My mama dropped me off with him when I was a baby. He died, and I couldn’t stay there, anymore. I sold his ranch.”

“Really?” Beau raises his eyebrows. ”Hell of a way to grieve.”

Chuckling, I shrug. “He wouldn’t want me to run it into the ground, anyway. I found some cattleman who was trying to escape own family, and I warned him about the dust, and hauled my ass out of there. I couldn’t wait to leave.” I turn away from him, out at the forest again, the rolling hills below us, a painting, frozen in time ahead of us. Our own personal oasis, shielding us from civilization. “Since I’ve been out here, I miss it less and less.”

Beau nods, solemn. “Me, too.”

I smile at him again, curious about him, the same way he is with me. “Well, what about you? When our contract’s up. Are you leavin’?”

Beau thinks for a moment, like he hasn’t considered that much, since we’ve been up here. He sighs, when he speaks again. “I’ll wanna visit my family, of course, but, I don’t think I’d wanna work anywhere else.” He shakes his head. “You know what’s so special about these mountains?”

“What?” I ask, reaching for his plate to set it on the ground, along with my own, settling back to listen to him talk.

Beau pokes at the fire in front of us with a stick, the golden setting sun illuminating the side of his face, painting his brown beard in a soft, shimmering orange. “It gives you a lot of time to think back on what’s waitin’ for you out there. And a lot of time to realize none of it’s so great, anyway.”

That resonates with me. I nod. “I know what you mean.”

Beau turns to look at me again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I lean back, looking up at the orange sky. “I’ve been thinkin’ a lot. I think I feel comfortable out here, and I like the scenery, I like workin’ with you. It’s been makin’ me… understand that… I don’t… really miss my uncle as much as I thought I would. I thought ranching out here would make me lonelier, but all I’ve done is laugh with you, and think about how much I don’t wanna go back.”

“Yeah,” Beau nods, agreeing with me, turning to watch the sky, too. “I have a hard time trustin’ people. I used to think… I used to be with someone who I thought loved me. I thought he was… I thought that what we had was… it.” I glance at him, and he shakes his head. “My mind feels so clear out here. I’ve had so much time to think about how hard it was, sneakin’ around with him, because he didn’t want no one to find out about us. It makes me wonder how much he actually liked me at all. It makes me realize… how lonely I was.” He pauses, turning to look at me. “I guess that’s the hard part about bein’ happy, ain’t it? Realizin’ all the shit you used to put up with is just… shit.”

God, I swear, Beau must read my mind. I don’t know who to thank for bringing Beau to me, a man who shares my same thoughts, who bares my same struggles, who yearns for me, the way I yearn for him. God, for making us, and letting us look at each other, or Mister MacCallum, for hiring us in the same few months we’ll be here.

Or whatever wolf fucked him up so badly he needed more wranglers in the first place.

“I know the feelin’.” I say, and Beau laughs, like he doesn’t believe me.

“You gotta promise you’re not just sayin’ that to make me feel better,” He laughs, his green eyes pleading with mine. “You’re gonna make me think I’m hallucinatin’, and your body’s up there with that wolf.”

I laugh, too, because that’s such a silly sentiment to have. I reassure him the only way I know how to, with honesty. “I’ve never hugged anyone, before you.”

Instantly, Beau’s expression changes. Concern laces his brow. “What?”

I shake my head, smiling, sadly. “I’ve never touched anyone, really. My uncle was a widower, so, he didn’t pay me no mind. I slept on couch cushions because he didn’t buy me a bed, I worked my ass off to do the grunt work he didn’t want to do, and I let my lungs fall sick, in all those fuckin’ storms, because I didn’t know there was anything different. I didn’t know men could be nice, and friendly, and I didn’t know what gentle touch felt like, until that first night you put your hand on my shoulder.”

Beau stares at me. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” I nod, still sad. “My uncle died in bed beside me, and the whole way I carried him home, I knew that he would’ve left me behind to finish wrangling the herd on his own. He didn’t see me my whole life. He wouldn’t have seen me then.” Sighing, I look down at my hands. “So, no, I’m not goin’ back to Arizona, ever, and, yes, I understand what you mean. I’ve been up here in awe, because for the first time in my life, I don’t feel lonely. I don’t feel lonely when I’m with you. I didn’t know I could feel like this at all.”

He’s quiet, for a long time.

I worry, briefly, that I’ve just unloaded too much on him, that my loneliness must be greater than his, and I’ve made him uncomfortable.

But, quietly, wordless, he holds his hand out.

I place my palm in his.

He laces our fingers together, holding my hand like he wants to hold me. Like he wants to make sure I am never lonely again.

“I’m not lonely with you, either.” He says, quietly, and my body warms, from the inside out. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about how lonely I was, too.” He swallows, slowly. “I used to work for another ranch, and I made the mistake of fallin’ for the foreman’s son.”

I gasp, to be funny. “How could you?”

“I know,” He groans, shaking his head. “Biggest mistake of my life. He used to hide me,” Beau swallows again, staring down at my hand, in his. “From his daddy. He’d make me sneak around to see him, and I thought it was a fun little game… until it wasn’t.”

I see him, in my mind. Younger, maybe. The foreman catching him.

“I was really surprised when I got here, and Mister MacCallum’s so nice. He lets us live in his house, and he’s married.”

I nod, leaning into him. “And Parker’s so nice.”

“So nice,” Beau agrees. “I used to think I would write to James, and tell him I worked for two men who loved each other, openly. I thought I would tell him that I found a place where we could be together.” I soften, a little, at that, because I worry, maybe I am not as important to him as James is, but Beau shakes his head. “But, the more I think about it, the more I realize… he wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t answer. I don’t think he would ever love me out loud like that. I don’t think he ever could.”

Beau whistles, long and slow.

“And, oooh, his daddy. I don’t think he’d ever want anything his daddy didn’t pick for him. He certainly would never want me.”

I try, so very hard, not to let my jealousy show on my face. I try to be nice to him, because he’s been so nice to me. “Maybe he still would. It doesn’t have to be too late.”

Beau shakes his head, firmly, like he’s certain. “No. Bein’ out here, and bein’ with you, makes me realize, I don’t want him, neither. I don’t wanna be someone’s secret, or something they’re ashamed of. I don’t want to be something someone’s daddy beats to Hell and threatens to kill, just for bein’ who I am. I don’t wanna be that lonely little secret anymore.”

I nod with him. I understand him. He looks up at me, meeting my gaze.

”And I don’t fuckin’ wanna leave you here to be lonely tonight, either.”

Instantly, I laugh. “Beau..”

I expect him to argue with me, or laugh with me, or something, but he just stares at me, like he’s taken, by the sound of his name in my voice.

“It….” He sighs. “It kills me knowin’ you’re lonely, up there with the sheep. I laid up all night, worryin’ about you, wonderin’ when you’d come back.”

I nod, quietly. “I have a hard time sleepin’ in the tent without you.”

“God,” Beau curses, and reaches for my face, putting his hand on me, to make sure I’m real. “Stop readin’ my mind.”

“I’m not,” I say, quietly, leaning into his touch. “I promise, I’m not.”

We fall quiet again, until the sun starts to set, and the thought of the wolf I killed last night is enough to make us separate.

Beau has to go up and watch them.

I ache, shivering, in the tent by myself, knowing that miles from here, that kind, loving, beautiful, perfect man is worrying for me. I am lying here, lonely, like he knows I am, and he’s dying to come back to me, to make sure neither of us ever has to feel lonely again, and it’s awful. My body trembles, despite the warm fire outside and my soft blankets. I shake, because I miss him, because I ache for him, unlike anything I have ever ached for before.

I feel so lucky to know him, and to have met him here. I feel so grateful for his company, for his honesty, for his charming smile and our connection. I am grateful for the way we suit each other, for the way our bodies melted together when he hugged me goodbye.

I have no idea how long passes, before I hear hoofbeats on the dirt outside, and, curiously, I peek my head out, watching as Beau returns, Charlie’s hooves clomping beneath him as he pulls him in to stop, quietly hitching him next to Cholla. I can’t do anything but stare at him, confused, as he tucks his weapons back in the saddle, as he turns to look at me, peaking out of our tent, waiting for him to explain why he’s back so early.

I fear for wolves, I fear for our safety.

But Beau smiles at me, sheepishly, his boots clomping on the dirt to get back to our tent.

“Those sheep won’t miss us,” He says, like he has spent his hours up there, watching over them, aching for me, the same way I’ve been laying here, waiting for him to come back. He says it like he’s rehearsed it for hours, riding back down on his horse, hyping himself up to say each word to me. He says it with a smile, like he knows it’s ridiculous, and he knows it’s stupid for him to come back down here as soon as he did, like he knows we could get in a lot of fucking trouble for leaving the sheep alone for two nights, instead of one explainable storm.

He says it like he’s comfortable leaving Goose to watch the sheep, and I can’t find it in me to argue with him.

I move out of the way, to my side of our makeshift bed, where I expect him to fall beside me and shut his eyes, so we can sleep, soundly as we did the other night, our shoulders brushing together.

But, Beau reaches for me, grabbing the sides of my face so I’ll sit up with him, as he kicks the tent flaps shut behind him. I stare up at him, my lips parted, confused by the suddenness, by the urgency in his movements, like if he doesn’t look down at me like this, hungrily, then he might explode. Like, if we go to sleep, he won’t be able to contain himself any longer.

And, to my surprise, he kisses me.

Softly, he slides his lips against mine, squeezing his eyes shut and savoring me, like he’s dreamed of kissing me since the moment he laid eyes on me, and he intends to enjoy every second. I am startled, my eyes wide, staring at him, because I have never been kissed by anyone before. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone kiss anything. It feels good,warmth burning me from the inside out, flames licking at the tail of my spine, shooting up through me, inside of me, burning my skin and getting hotter, as Beau moves his hands from my face, to my waist.

I lift my arms, cautiously, to wrap around his neck, delicate, careful, and confused as Beau’s tongue presses at my lower lip. I am helpless to him, melting at his touch, at the sparks that singe me, and I part my lips for him, gasping as he slides his tongue inside of my mouth, tasting me, taking me for himself, like he’s never felt more certain, like he’s never needed anything as badly as he needs to taste my tongue.

He pulls away from me, briefly, to look at me, like he doesn’t understand why I’m not kissing him back the same way, and I panic, my eyes wide, my cheeks flushing, and he smiles, suddenly, like he understands.

“You’ve never hugged anyone,” He mumbles. “You’ve never done this before.” I shake my head, embarrassed. “Is this okay?”

Fervently, I nod, again, and again, and again, so that when he kisses me again, I am ready for it, opening my mouth and trying to devour him, sliding my lips against the hair on his chin, licking at his tongue like I need him, too.

I am aching for him, my limbs trembling, and I think that’s what fuels Beau to touch me, big, warm hands roaming my body, sliding bare skinned up my undershirt and dancing along the waistband of my jeans. He kisses me like he’s been thinking of my body since we bathed together earlier, trembling in the cold water of the river, bare and vulnerable in front of him. And he undresses me like he’s hungry, peeling my shirt away and tossing it to the side, to squeeze his warm hands over my hips, and test me, like I am fragile enough, that he thinks he might break me.

I don’t care if he does. I want him to. I want to be broken.

I press my body to his, because I want him to hold me, rolling my hips against him, and he practically growls, pushing me back against our blankets to climb on top of me, my back arching beneath him, nerves alight with flame. I sweat, as he kisses me again, nervous as his hands find the buckle of my belt. It jingles, as he unclasps it, and quickly works on my jeans, too, and the brush of his fingers against the front of my underwear makes me shiver, whimpering beneath him, quaking like the touch starved virgin I am.

He pauses, stilling his motion, and I whine without his tongue in my mouth, reaching for him, begging for him to touch me.

It doesn’t seem to be enough for him, letting his hands hover over me, paused, like he needs my verbal consent, like he wants me to tell him what I want. Like he wants to know that I want him.

I hold his gaze, my arms still tight over his shoulders.

Quietly, I whisper. “Please.”

Smirking, Beau obliges, kissing me again, soft, and sweet. I whine. “Please, what?”

Lower lip trembling, I shut my eyes, embarrassed, and miserable, and shameless, and wonderful all at the same time. “Please.” It’s not enough for him. I whimper. “Please, touch me.”

Grinning, Beau continues, sliding his fingers under my waistband, sliding my jeans and underwear down my hips, and I wriggle out of them. I kick them away. I beg for Beau’s hands on my body like I am worthless, and pathetic, and I need him more than I need air.

That part might not be entirely true, because Beau wraps his hand around me, squeezing me, firmly, and I cough, hard, loud, into his face.

I apologize, and he laughs at me. He pokes at my weak lungs beneath my skin, dragging his finger along my ribcage, like I am a meal he intends to savor.

And, he does, sinking to kiss me again, taking his time stroking me, muttering soft, gentle praises to me, like I am beautiful, and he wants me to feel as good as I make him. It makes me happy, to know I can be that for him, so I beg whenever he tells me to. I pant, and whine, and cough, and plead for him to keep touching me, when he asks.

When he looks me in my eyes and asks if he should keep going, I beg him to. I beg.

Beau takes his time with me. I help him unbuckle his belt, I watch, trembling, as he spits in his hand, as he slicks his fingers over himself, touching himself before me, like he wants me trembling, and begging, like he wants to make sure I want him as badly as I do.

He turns me over, so I am bare and vulnerable before him, so he can admire me like I’ve watched him admire the mountains.

He asks, gently, quietly, his breath hot on my ear, if I want him to fuck me.

I shiver, trembling beneath him, and my nod is not good enough. It is not good enough, until I tell him, until he knows for sure, he can trust me, until I prove to him I want him, and I need him, and I like him, like I’m sure he likes me.

My voice is so quiet, I’m not sure if he hears me. “Please,” I whimper. “Please.”

Again, Beau leans over me, pressing his lips to the side of my cheek, sweetly, like he knows I need him, but he’s making sure, anyway. I don’t think he’s taunting me, or intentionally making me ache for him the way that I do.

I think he genuinely likes my voice. I think he likes when I talk, I think he likes when I speak to him, when I say his name, when I tell him what I want, and who I am.

“Please, what?” He murmurs, sweetly, like he’ll wait a million years for me to find my voice and ask him.

Broken, I whisper. “Please, fuck me.”

I am not worried about our sheep, as Beau presses into me, and I’m not worried about my own loneliness, or the wolves in the woods around us, or the people waiting for us down on the ranch, or my uncle. I am not worried about anything, my fists clenching tight around the closest blankets I can grasp at, my body shuddering, my mouth falling open to pant soft, quiet whimpers as Beau stretches me open, sliding into me with a soft, desperate groan. I am here, real with him, and I try my hardest to be good for him. I want him to like my body, I want him to like how I feel around him, I want him to like how his name sounds as I whimper it, begging him to keep going, to press into me harder, faster, rougher.

By the time the pain subsides, Beau fucks me rough,making my eyes screw shut, and my fucking toes curl beneath him, taking him like we fit together as perfectly as I thought we did this morning, as I held the only person I will ever want to hold me again.

I feel pathetic, because I have never thought to touch myself, or kiss anyone, or think about anyone before Beau. I have spent a lifetime alone, with nothing and no one, and I’m embarrassed that I’m as inexperienced as I am, but Beau is patient with me. He gives me gentle instructions, where to put my hands, what to say to him, how to touch myself. I feel so cared for, when he tells me what to do, because I don’t want to think. I want to follow his orders, an obedient servant, an eager, chipper little puppy that wants to make him happy.

Beau lasts a lot longer than I do. I savor each shudder of his orgasm the way I pray he savors mine.

We lay together, when he slips out of me, and I lay my head on his chest, his arm over my bare back shielding me from the world around us, from every sad, bitter, broken thought that has ever crossed my mind.

Awkwardly, we dress together in the morning. We mount our horses to check on the sheep together.

I glance over at Beau as often as I can, admiring how he looks this morning, baggy eyed and messy haired, like fucking me was a feat for him, a marathon he intended to see through to the end. I wonder what he sees in me, when he smiles at me, like I am the only person he ever wants to smile at again. Like I am all he wants, and checking on the sheep is just some silly obligation we have, a stop sign, in the mountains, where we will have endless time to hold each other, and kiss, and explore each other’s vulnerabilities like he’s ravenous for us to explore together.

We crest the top of the highest hill, and I think about how fucking awful I will feel if we are about to lay our eyes on hundreds of dead fucking sheep corpses, torn to ribbons and grotesquely bloody.

Beau does the same, stopping our horses so we can hold each other’s hands, and finish the walk together, approaching the MacCallum labeled fence posts with our hearts heavy, anticipating the worst repercussions for our decision to lay together, in lieu of doing what we’re paid to be up here doing.

To both of our surprise, the sheep are okay.

We count.

One hundred sheep, fine and accounted for, and one happy dog, bounding over to see us, and welcome us back to work.

Beau and exchange a glance.

I feel, when he looks at me, that this is a sign. We laid together, and the world did not end. I don’t think our relationship is something we will ever have to hide, and as much as I want to tell Beau exactly that, I know he feels it, too. He will never have to wonder, or hide, or feel like someone’s dirty little secret, and neither of us will ever be lonely again.

We fit together perfectly, and, surprisingly, the universe thinks so, too.

Chapter Text

“You’re missin’ it, Pa. Every year, this festival comes in, and it’s the only time any of us get a break from all this damn work, and you’re the only one missin’ it. This is the second year in a row, and I’m startin’ to worry, your papa’s startin’ to worry, too. I know your work’s important, but it shouldn’t take my beggin’ to get you to take a day off and make it back here for the festival. You know how important it is for you to be here.”

I tune her out, staring, exhausted, out of the window of my bedroom, at the purple flowers, far away from the ranch house, bristling in the soft breeze.

“Pa?” Jolene’s voice grates on my nerves. “Are ya listenin’? Pa?”

It’s an old habit we cannot break. Our children are adults now, but we still call each other the same names we did when they were learning to speak themselves. “I’m here, Mama. I’m busy.”

She quiets, like she understands. “You’re missin’ it, Forry.”

I’m missing a lot of shit to be here on this ranch I do not like, where the one person I want to speak to is out there, somewhere, goofing around with his friends while I hide in my bedroom, longing for him so badly, I consider what my wife is actually saying to me. Normally, it’s easier to dismiss her.

I struggle to, today.

“How’re the boys?” I change the subject. She huffs at me, like I’m a stupid man, and she hates that I’m absent.

“JR’s taken with some girl out in the boonies, which,” Jolene chuckles. “He refuses to let me meet her, by the way. Says he’s waitin’ for his pa’s approval before he lets his mama fuss over him. And Pacey, Lord only knows what’s runnin’ through that boy’s head these days. I find him out in the mud more than I’d like to, but he’s a good kid. He’s talkin’ about the army again, so, you know we’re tryin’ to steer him back to ranchin’. I can’t lose my baby like I lost my brother out there.”

She quiets, and I know what’s next.

“They miss you.”

I nod, quietly. “I miss y’all, too.”

“Well, what’s the ranch like?” She sighs, and I can hear the long, spiraling cord of our landline, as she flicks it over her shoulder, flitting around our kitchen like she always does, cooking lunch for all the men in our home. “I barely hear from ya, I’d love to see pictures, or somethin’.”

I grit my teeth. “It’s fine. Work’s fine.”

“Work’s fine, he says,” To herself, like I am some girlfriend she gossips to.

It emasculates me. I hate when she speaks to me like I am not the father of her children, the man of her household. I hate when she treats me like we’re friends.

I suppose, in a sense, we are. We don’t lay together much, and I take jobs hundreds of miles away to pretend like she doesn’t exist, so I can lay with a man instead. We’re more friends than anything else. We catch up whenever she calls me. I never call her.

The thought of Reuben sours me. I get up to pace.

“Well, if work’s so fine, you’d think those MacCallum’s would let you take a day to see your family, Pa. It’s been nearly a month, and you barely even call your boys.”

I know. I’m digging my grave. Deeper, and deeper each day.

“I’m just…” She pauses, like she doesn’t want to argue with me. “I just worry about you. I know the money’s good, but if you’re not happy out there, well… I won’t let your papa shame you for comin’ home early. I don’t give a fuck what he has to say about you, if you don’t like it out there, don’t force yourself to stay. Come home.”

I am not happy here. It’s my own fault.

I lie to her, through my teeth. “I’m fine, Mama. Just busy.”

“Busy.” She repeats, slow, like she doesn’t believe me. “Fine, Well, I miss you. I won’t bother askin’ you to think of your wife, while you’re out there, but I want you to know that anyway. I miss you.”

I nod, but don’t answer. She hangs up.

I go back to work.

I don’t like my job, because not only am I miserable out here, but my bosses know about my relationship with Reuben, and the other ranch hand is so far up Roan MacCallum’s ass that he takes all of the work he wants to do, and leaves me to do everything else. Don’t get me wrong, I like riding mowers and hard, grunt work that keeps me busy, so my mind won’t wander back to my Ruby, but it’s irritating to watch Seth run around and horseplay with his buddies, and take days off, while I break my fucking back working a job I do not want.

I pass him, while I’m walking out of the front of the house, chattering with Roan MacCallum like he’s got the easiest job in the world.

I ignore my boss’s eyes on my back, following me as I walk.

I feel gawked at, here. I know it’s because he knows about me, and about Reuben. I know he and Reuben are close, and they talk to each other, when Reuben doesn’t talk to me, but he stares at me like he knows me, and that makes me so uncomfortable. I feel so exposed, so vulnerable here, in this place where Reuben promised me we would be safe. All everyone does is stare at me, and eye me, like they don’t trust me, like they know something’s wrong with me, and all I’ve had time to do lately is work and feel like something’s wrong with me.

I don’t like to give in to the homophobic shit my father used to preach at me, and the stupid, ignorant thoughts that race through my head everytime someone so much as glances at me for a second longer than I’d like them to. I don’t like to walk around this place and feel like I am a freak, like I was made wrong and I am wrong, just like everything I’ve ever been taught suggests that I am. I promised my Ruby that I would try for him, that I would try to ignore all the bad thoughts and all the fear that claws itself into the tendrils of my brain, and I really want to. I wake up every morning convincing myself that I am going to try, but I freeze.

I feel so guilty for the way I reacted, when Reuben told me about the MacCallums. I know, in my heart, that Mister MacCallum watches me the way that he does because he cares for Reuben, and I am a piece of shit that yelled at him, when he was excited to share something with me, and I have done nothing to make things right. I know he’s watching me because he wants to make sure I am not hurting Reuben. I understand that. I do not want to hurt Reuben.

But Reuben took away my opportunity to decide when I tell these people what I am. I didn’t get one full day to let myself adjust, and now, when Mister MacCallum gawks at me, the only thing running through my head is the fact that he knows I’m queer. He knows something’s wrong with me. He knows I am wrong.

And logically, it makes no sense. But I wonder if this would’ve been easier if I had talked to him myself, or if I had some time to get comfortable, before Reuben went around telling everyone about us. I wish I had more time.

And the worst part is, we’ve had time, now. I have spent the last several weeks ignoring him, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to fix things between us, and I don’t know how to do anything other than focus on work, answer my wife when she calls, and keep my sobs quiet, so I won’t bother my fucking goody-two-shoes roommate, who probably also thinks I’m some kind of queer freak.

I wish I could trust these people. I wish I could look out at Reuben, where he works, today, tossing feed to the chickens and cooing at them like he’s never felt happier to feed anything in his life, and I could feel anything other than guilt, and anger, and hurt.

I’m mad at myself, mostly, for feeling like he hurt my feelings. I am a grown man. Admitting that my feelings are hurt makes me feel like a crybaby. All I’ve been able to do is stare at him.

And I’m staring at him when Mister MacCallum calls for me, from the porch where I have stalled a few feet away from.

“Forry,” He calls out to me, and I startle, turning back to look at him. Seth, brown noser that he is, scampers away. Mister MacCallum beckons for me with his finger, before pushing up out of his rocking chair. “Come here, a minute.”

Sighing, I shut my eyes, trying to steady my breathing as he leads me back into the house. The house is big, and I don’t get around it much. I spend every second either in my room, at the supper table, or out in the yard, working. I’ve never been in his office before, so I follow him, towering over his greying red hair and glancing around at all of his taxidermy. I think he might be some kind of collector.

He gestures for me to sit, across from his desk. My knees bump the wooden table, so I have to push the chair back a little. He groans, when he sits on the other side, like moving around hurts him.

He stares at me for a long time, just the two of us, his office door shut and the blinds closed. I wonder if something’s wrong with my contract, or if he’s sending me home. I rack my brain for what I could’ve done wrong.

When he speaks, he confuses me. “I get a feelin’ you don’t like me much.”

I blink at him. “Pardon?”

He smiles, showing a few gold teeth, waving his hand like he doesn't believe my surprise. “We ain’t gotta pretend like we’re friends, Mister Fredericks, I don’t mind all that. I appreciate the work you do for us here, and I want to make sure you know that.”

I nod, because I don’t know what else to say to him.

He eyes me. “Reuben didn’t ask me to do this, so don’t go takin’ it out on him.” I blink again, keeping my face still. “But I wanted to talk to you, too.”

I swallow. “About what?”

“About what,” He repeats, amused, the way my wife does when I frustrate her. “I’m curious, what ya think I’m gonna do to ya, knowin’ you’re with him. You think I’m gonna tell everyone? Fire ya? Tell your wife?”

My eyes meet his, instantly. I don’t know what to say to him.

“Reuben didn’t say nothin’ about her, don’t worry. I’ve just been curious about you. Made a couple calls. She’s nice, by the way. Says she misses you.”

He called my wife.

Why the fuck didn’t she tell me she talked to my boss.

I feel my stomach churning, bile rising in the back of my throat.

“I know you’re not gonna speak to me, much, so I’ll try to make this quick.” He exhales, slowly, through his nose, holding my gaze. “When I met my husband, I was scared, too. It took me a long time to feel comfortable callin’ myself gay, and it took even longer to stop answerin’ when my family called. I stopped openin’ their letters. My daddy passed, a little while ago, and he died thinkin’ I’ve built some life for myself out here, not a fuckin’ clue that I built all of this for Parker. He was the kinda man who made me feel like I could never tell him the truth about me, and he died fifteen years after the last time we spoke. I don’t know if he missed me, I don’t care if he missed me, because he never knew me, and wouldn’t care to.”

I don’t understand why he’s telling me this. I just stare at him, a coward.

“I don’t like knowin’ that y’all are hurtin’. Reuben would never ask me to talk to you for him, but I see you out there, stalkin’ around outside, like you’re bein’ tortured.” He shakes his head, his brow laced with concern. “So, I just wanted to let you know that I understand what it’s like to leave my life behind for the man I love. And I know it’s hard. But if you need a friend out here, you’ve got one.”

Quietly, I turn my gaze on the floor, on the fur of the rug beneath my boots.

“There ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, not out here.” He smiles, leaning back in his chair. “What can I do to help y’all? You want a day off together, or somethin’? The house to yourself? I can’t get around like I used to, but I can sit up on the porch, and I won’t bother y’all none, or let anyone in.”

I… am in awe of my own cowardice. I have been running from this man for weeks because Ruby told him the truth about me, and he is kinder than I expected him to be. I wish I could believe him, and agree with him, and open myself up to him, like he wants me to, the way Reuben does, but I feel… guilty talking to Mister MacCallum about Reuben at all.

Actually, I feel like a piece of shit for talking to Mister MacCallum when I could be spending my time with my Ruby, making it up to him. I could be trying, like I promised him I would, like I’ve been dying to try for him.

“I have to…” I swallow, because I have never talked about Reuben out loud to anyone before. “I have to talk to him first. I have to talk to him. But, thank you, anyway.”

Mister MacCallum nods, like he understands, and his smile fills me with confidence.

I leave his office with my heart heavy, pounding against my lungs.

I talked about Reuben.

It was very brief, and I did not say his name, or admit to anything Mister MacCallum already knows.

But I talked about him.

That’s the most I have tried in the entire time we’ve been together.

When I find him, he’s with his friends, and though I talked about him, I don’t have the courage to interrupt him.

I spend hours working, planning out everything I want to say to him, to explain to him why he hurt me, and how I want to fix things between us. I want to promise him that I’ll try, and hold him again, and feel him in my arms again, but he doesn’t look at me, throughout the day, like he normally does.

At supper, he giggles with his friends, passing a plate of potatoes around, and jabbering happily about his day, like he had the best day of his life out there working, without me.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do after that.

Bravely, I saunter outside, when everyone’s settling in for bed, and I pick some of the flowers he likes, the purple ones, stooping to smell their petals and bundling them up in my hands, walking them back up to the ranch house confidently, like no matter how hard this is, I can talk to Reuben, finally, because I managed to talk about him to someone else today. I made a gigantic fucking stride in getting over my fear, and trying, and I want to tell him that. I want to promise him that I’m trying, and beg him to be patient with me, and wait for me, like I know he’ll want to.

I feel so guilty begging him to wait, but I know that he will. I pray to God that he will, because I’m making progress. I’m talking about him to strangers. I’m trusting people. I’m trusting him.

I make it halfway down the hall, towards his bedroom, before something catches my eye, as Seth trips over something just outside our bedroom door, giggling with his cattleman friend and picking himself back up, both of them stepping over whatever he tripped on and laughing like it means nothing to them.

They shoulder past me, and I gawk, flowers in hand, at my own boots, sitting right outside the door.

I gave Reuben those boots, almost a year ago, when he didn’t have any shoes of his own, and I felt bad seeing his bare feet covered in blisters. It was a good day, the middle of a week we were spending together in the cab of my truck, laughing and loving each other like we used to do, while he batted his eyelashes and playfully refused, like he couldn’t possibly take my shoes from me.

When I went home, barefoot, I told my wife I tore holes through them and chucked them out on the highway. He’s been clomping around in my boots for so long, shoving socks down in the toes so they fit him better, since his little feet are so much smaller than my own.

I noticed, a little while ago, that he got new boots. He gushed, at the supper table one night, about his new friends in Lonestar, about his new boots, about how Mister MacCallum got him his own pair, so he won’t have to trip anymore.

I already knew he had new boots.

But… I didn’t think he would give mine back to me.

I thought, all this time, he’s been keeping them, like maybe he’s been holding out hope that I could use them as an excuse to see him, like all I wanted were my boots back, so I wouldn’t be so nervous finding him, and holding him, and apologizing for all the things I’ve said, and kissing him like I’m dying to, like we used to.

I don't know why, but this hurts my feelings, too.

I feel like such a freak, when my feelings are hurt. I shut myself in my room, throwing the boots hard, angrily at the wall. And the flowers quickly with it.

I drop, to sit on the floor amongst the petals, hugging my knees to my chest and hating myself for being such a coward, for not taking Mister MacCallum’s help when offered it.

For digging my grave, deeper than it already is.

Chapter Text

Beau keeps calling me a clinger. I think he’s right.

I have masterminded a way for us to be able to watch the sheep the way we’re supposed to, without leaving each other’s side, because it has become impossible for me to take my hands off of Beau. I spend every second we are together, with my hands on him, raking my fingers up his arms or wrapping myself around his torso, so he’ll hold me. We spend so much time touching each other, that the only time we separate is when we’re on horseback, or whenever one of us has to piss.

But, to be honest, we are so comfortable around each other, Beau doesn’t even ask if I mind anymore. He’ll just step to the side and whip it out to piss. It doesn’t bother me.

Our routine shifts, from alternating who keeps the camp and who watches the sheep, to both of us doing it together. No, we do not leave the sheep alone at night. But, we pack our camp up every evening, and ride up the mountain together, to sit in silence and keep a lookout, my head tucked into the crook of his shoulder. And every morning, we ride back together, set up camp, again, and sleep during the day. It’s strange, to be as nocturnal as we are, but forfeiting our middays means we get to spend every second together. And we both sleep better anyway, when we’re holding onto each other, even if we have to cover our eyes to block out the afternoon sun.

I love seeing the sun rise and set as we ride up and down the mountain, too. I like the routine we have. I like that Beau calls me a clinger.

Because he’s right, I am addicted to touching him. I do not leave his side, ever.

I blink awake, as the alarm on my watch sounds in our tent, Beau’s arms caging me tightly to his chest. We let ourselves sleep a little later today, well into the late afternoon, because we will bring the sheep back to the ranch tomorrow. Their wool is grown in, thick and fluffy and ready to be shorn. We’ll bring the sheep down, spend a few days shearing them and packaging up the wool for the ranch to use and sell as they see fit, and in about a week or so, we’ll come back, with freshly naked sheep and another month of camping in the mountains awaiting us.

Beau tells me he’s looking forward to the privacy of our bedroom, where he can have me in the comfort of a real bed, where he can lay me down and make love to me, like he says I deserve. I don’t mind the dirt and grime of our sweaty, sheep stinking bodies. I don’t mind the hard floor of the earth. I don’t mind our tent.

But Beau wants to fuck me in a bed, and I’m excited to let him. I’m dying to let him.

He stirs, when I do, running his hand along my bare back, our skin sticking together, greeted by the cool mountain breeze shifting through our tent flaps. He presses his lips to the top of my dirty hair, inhaling the stench of me, like he loves how I smell, and how my body feels tucked against his.

“Mmm,” He sighs, under his breath. “Do we have to get up?”

I nod, sadly, burying my nose against his chest. “Gotta pack everything up.”

“Yeah,” Beau slides his hand down my back. “Guess we don’t got a lot of time, then.”

I shake my head, and he squeezes at my hip, pulling me closer to him, so I’ll get up, so I’ll roll my body on top of his and perch myself in his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.

He smiles up at me, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion. “You’re so beautiful,” He mumbles, dragging his hands up the length of my torso, the rough pads of his fingertips sliding smoothly against my skin. “Promise me you’ll keep clingin’, when we’re back down there.”

“I promise,” I say, instantly, sliding my hands over his chest, splaying my fingers out, staring down at him with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m stuck to you.”

Chuckling, Beau’s hands slide further over my back, from my spine, and lower, to the curve of my hips. “Good. Think I’d lose my mind without you.”

I let myself lean forward, to kiss him, exhaling through my nose as he runs his hands over my body, taking his time to savor the taste of my mouth, before we rush to do anything else. I could spend the rest of my life kissing him, his tongue sliding, hot and wet against my own, feeling the scratch of his mustache against my upper lip, and his hands on my body, and I would be content. I could die this way, our bodies pressed together, clinging to each other like animals, and I would be happy.

I whine when he releases me, so I’ll sit up, so he can hold his palm out flat, in front of my face.

He quirks an eyebrow, a silent command, and I pull my hair back, away from my face, to spit in his palm, letting my tongue drip both of our saliva onto his expectant fingers.

Beau doesn’t bother much with stretching me open, slicking his cock with our spit and grabbing my hips so I’ll sit back against him, so he can feel the tight squeeze of my body around him. I shut my eyes, because it’s easier, the more we sleep together, frequent enough for it not to be too painful for me, but it does still hurt. Beau lets me take my time, but I think it’s because he likes to feel me. He likes to feel my body opening up for him.

When I’m adjusted, panting heavily, my chest heaving, Beau guides my hips for me, his grip tight on my hip bones, dragging me forward, softly, so I’ll grind down on him. I think I’m getting better, the more we sleep together. I think it’s getting easier.

My knees hurt, so I lean forward to kiss him, whining into his mouth when he slips out of me, and Beau whispers softly, onto my tongue. “Poor baby,” I kiss him. “You want me to do it for you?”

I nod, but I know it won’t be enough for him.

He likes when I beg. So, I do.

Beau rolls me onto my back, using his hand to spread my legs open for him, stretching my body further than I think it’s supposed to bend so he can grip the base of his cock and press it into me again, making my eyelids flutter shut. I squirm beneath him, and he holds me still, pressing his tongue into my mouth again while he presses his hips against me, the force of each thrust making my fucking teeth click together, mind numbing and incredible.

I’m sore, when we’re packing our camp up, uncomfortably lacing up my boots as best as I can standing up, while Beau packs our tent away, so I won’t have to. We say goodbye to the beautiful river, and I complain the entire ride up to the pasture, because my fucking ass hurts, and Beau just smiles at me, amused, like he’s happy to give me something to bitch at him for. I’m happy he smiles at me.

I collapse, when we’re in the pasture, the sun setting faster, now, the orange sky darkening as Beau drops to sit beside me, groaning, like he’s exhausted. “You okay?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know any better, and I sit up, ignoring the pain to yank my shotgun away from him, and fall on my back again, staring angrily up at the sky.

Beau makes a point, when I’m pouting, not to touch me, but I cannot stand not touching him. I reach for his arm, pawing at him, pleading for him to lay with me, and he does. He sets his shotgun beside him, so I can lay my head on his shoulder, and we can watch the sky together.

I want to tell Beau that I am in love with him.

I know that it’s silly to want something so unimportant, after this beautiful, astounding, most wonderful month that we’ve spent together up here. This has easily been the most incredible experience of my entire life, completely removed from all civilization, laughing and smiling and working alongside such an amazing man. I can feel Beau watching me, his green eyes tracing the lines of my face, looking at me, when we’re supposed to be attentive to our sheep. We have a lot of responsibility up here, and he chooses to look at me, instead of the beautiful mountains around us.

The entire time we’ve been here, since we first started climbing the mountain together, two relative strangers with very different backgrounds, I would watch the mountains, and Beau would watch me. He’s been watching me since the moment we met. And, sadly, I think his past relationship was very hard on him.

That man’s cruel father held him at gunpoint, and forced him to admit to shit he didn’t do, because it was easier to convince himself that Beau was some kind of thief, breaking into his house, than fathom the idea of his son having a lover. I can’t imagine how hard it was to sneak around like that, or to be punished for trying to love someone the way that you want to be loved, too. To be punished for wanting to be someone that doesn’t have to be hidden.

I don’t want Beau to think that our relationship will stay in the privacy of our mountains. I don’t want Beau to ever wonder about how I feel about him, or ever feel like he has to hide, or fear that he will ever be punished for loving me, the way he does. Because I know he does. I feel in my soul, in my heart, in my blood that we love each other.

I want to make sure he knows that I feel it.

I look up at him, and he’s still staring at me, a smile on his lips.

“What’re you thinkin’ about?” I ask him, pathetically, like a child, because I’m curious.

I expect him to talk about us, about how our relationship might change, when we go down the mountain tomorrow, but he doesn’t. He smiles at me, reaching out to brush the bridge of my nose with his thumb. “You’re always beautiful,” He whispers, quiet, where we have to be, with the sheep. “But I think I like lookin’ at you the most in the moonlight. I think you’re perfect, here.”

I smile, because that’s very nice of him. I let him caress my face. “When we go back,” He nods, listening. “Will you still think I’m beautiful there?”

His smile doesn’t falter, brushing his fingers over my jaw. “I’m pretty sure our room has a window, Lark. The moon can reach us there.”

Warm, I reach for his face, too, rolling onto my side, so I can look at him. “I think you’re beautiful, always. Moonlight or not.”

He softens. “Really?”

“Yes.” I nod, quickly, fervently. “Yes.”

Beau holds my gaze for a long time, smiling at me, like he wants to remember me, how I am now. Like he wants to brand his memory with me, with all of me.

He kisses me, like he trusts me, like he can feel it, too.

We sit up to watch the sheep.

I think I’m excited to go back, tomorrow. I want to be able to spend a night with him without the responsibility of the sheep to occupy my mind, where they’ll all be tucked comfortably into their barn, where Beau and I can sleep soundly, and enjoy a day to rest, after a month of camping out here under the stars. I want to take a shower, and wear something other than my dirty jeans and layers of work shirts. I want to lay in bed beside the man I love and experience him without the responsibility of work.

But, fuck, I will die to come back here. I will break my back getting the sheep shorn, so we can ride up the mountains again, so we can come back to our new lives out here, secluded from the rest of the world, like we are the only two people to exist. I don’t want to hide him, I want to be selfish. I want him all to myself.

Of course, our last night on the mountain is not uneventful. Goose sits up beside us, and we do not take a second to guess what he has spotted before us.

In total, in the time we’ve been here, I’ve killed three wolves. Each time, Beau and I have moved the sheep between pastures, and, unfortunately, we will have to move them again, once more before we take them down. I get up before he does, angling the barrel of my weapon towards the darkness, where Goose angles his head.

It is second nature to me, now. My shot rouses the sheep, and the wolf drops to bleed out on the ground, just outside of our pasture. When it’s dead, we move quickly, letting Goose wrangle the sheep together so I get behind them on my horse, as Beau opens the gate for me to push them through.

He smiles up at me, as I pass him. “Nice shootin’, Moonlight.”

I jut my boot out to tap his arm, rolling my eyes, and he laughs, shutting the gate to swing his leg up onto Charlie’s saddle, to ride up in front of me and lead the way back to the other pasture.

By the time the sun rises, the sheep have only been laying down for a couple of hours. We take them down the mountain, anyway.

Beau has made kind of a show of making coffee for us in the mornings, when our lack of sleep is sure to make me cranky before our midday nap. I anticipate being cranky the entire way down, but, honestly, it’s an easier ride than any of the others we’ve done. The sheep are ready to go home, so are the horses, and so are we. We’re tired.

We have to break, to eat, about halfway down. Beau tells me he can see the finish line, and I cling to his arm, savoring the few minutes we get to hold each other before mounting our horses again.

When we are on flat land, the sheep run faster. So do our horses. Beau leads us the few miles up the path, and, slowly, I can see the open fields of MacCallum Ranch in the distance.

Our first trip of many, is over. I remind myself that, again and again, because we will have to go back. I already want to go back.

The ranch hands are waiting for us, at the edge of the sheep pasture, pulling open the gate for Beau to ride his horse in, hooves clomping hard on the dirt as the sheep rush into their home, shaking from the weight of their wool and happy to be back, just as much as we are.

I slow Cholla up, by the fence, tightening my grip on his reigns and smiling as he rears his head towards Seth, still leaning on the open fence for us.

“Wow,” He breathes, looking out over the sheep. The other ranch hand, Forry, I think I remember his name was, takes the gate from him to swing it shut. “I’ve been asking around about how big the sheep get, but wow, those are big sheep. I can’t believe how fast their wool grows.”

“It’s the cold,” I say, swinging my leg off to hop down into the grass beside him, reaching up to yank my poncho off, up over my head. “Makes it grow in thick.”

“How cold is it up there?” He asks, as I shed layers of my clothes in front of him, the heat from the sun making me sweat. “Wow, pretty cold, huh?”

“Freezing,” I say, dusting the front of my jacket. “I swear to God, it’s like your fuckin’ sack will fall off, the first couple of nights. It’s freezing.”

Seth blinks at me, like he wasn’t expecting me to speak as much as I am. I guess I don’t blame him, I was very quiet before I went up the mountain. But, I’ve learned to bitch. I can hear Beau chuckling somewhere, helping Forry count out our sheep. I look past Seth, where I can see that some of the other ranchers have made their way over to watch us, like they’re just as mesmerized by the size of the sheep as Seth is. I want to take Cholla to the stables, so Parker can clean up his feet, like I’m sure he needs, so I reach out for Beau to bring Charlie back for me to take him, too.

He reaches for me, leaving Forry to count our sheep for us, riding Charlie up to the fence so he can pull him out of it, dropping to land on the grass beside me so he can drop his arm over my shoulder, and we can walk our horses towards the stables together. Seth smiles at us, and he asks me about the mountains as we walk.

“Do you get lost up there?” He asks, waving as we walk, for his friends to come over and join us. I stay tucked into Beau’s side, clinging to him, like I always am. “I know Parker drew you a map, but, up in the snow, it’s gotta be different, right?”

“Not a lot of snow, yet,” I say, pulling on Cholla’s lead as the horses clomp behind us. “We thought it would, but the pastures are just below the skyline. It’s freezing, but all grass, and woods, and trees. When it rained, it rained. No snow. And, the maps are easy,” I smile. “Once you move the sheep back and forth a few times, you remember the trails. I don’t think we used either of the maps on our way down.”

Beau nods, and some of the other ranchers sidle up to stop us. Reuben, who eyes me, curiously, and Keegs, one of the cattlemen. He gawks at me, especially, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, like he’s not seeing me right. “Well, good golly me,” He says, chuckling. “Is that Lark?” I nod, confused, and he looks me up and down, while Seth does the same. “Well, Good Lord, Mister, I barely recognized you without your big ass poncho. Jesus, don’t he look different, Ruby Ray?”

Reuben looks up at me, and he smiles, softly, glancing between me and Beau. “It’s good to see you again, Mister Lark. How were the mountains?”

“Incredible,” I breathe, looking up at Beau, leaning my weight against his shoulder. He smiles down at me, savoring the sound of my voice, like I amuse him. “Just amazing,” I continue, still looking up at him.

“We’re, uh,” Beau turns to look back down at Reuben. “We’re happy to be back, but it’s perfect up there. Nothin’ but us, and the mountains. Miles and miles of mountains.”

I look back to Reuben, and his smile has fallen, like watching us together has soured him, a little. He looks at his boots. “That sounds nice.”

Keegs reaches out to put his hands on either side of Reuben’s shoulders, and he and Seth offer to take our horses for us, so we can settle back into the house. I decline, only because I want to see Parker, taking Charlie’s reins and walking both horses out to the stables myself, moving away from them as Keegs keeps asking Beau about the mountains.

Parker’s already got their stalls cleaned and set up for us, and he smiles when he sees me, trotting over to take Charlie and walk him for me, so I can bring Cholla to his stall. “Well, well, well,” He drawls, looking me up and down, the way Keegs did. “You survived the mountains.”

“And did,” I say, the way I’ve heard him say a few times now, and he laughs, pulling Charlie into the stall beside Cholla.

Parker rounds the wall between them, hooking Charlie’s bridle into the wall so he can come over and inspect Cholla for me, clicking his tongue to make Cholla pick his foot up, so he can inspect his hooves. “So, how was it?”

“Awesome,” I say, climbing up to sit on his stool. “Cold as shit.”

Parker tosses his head back to laugh, before clicking to make Cholla lift his next hoof. “Yeah, I told you, Arizona, those mountains are chilly. I bet you were miserable out there.”

I laugh, too, shaking my head. “Not miserable. Anything but miserable.” I watch him inspect my horse, as he rounds the side of Cholla’ mane to run his hand along Cholla’s fur, to lift his saddle off and free him from the weight of my camping equipment. “You and Mister MacCallum started as wranglers, didn’t you?”

Parker nods, pleasantly. “Yep, nearly a decade before we bought the ranch ourselves. There ain’t nothin’ like campin’ up there, is there?”

I smile to myself. “Yeah. Nothin’ like it.” I glance at the scars on his face, while he works. “I can see why you bought a ranch with him.”

Parker straightens, raising an eyebrow at me, and I grin, watching as the recognition glosses his eyes over, his pleasant smile cracking into an audible laugh. “I bet you can, huh? Damn.”

I think I understand him, more than I have since I’ve been here. He met Roan herding sheep up there, and fell in love with him in the same pastures I fell in love with Beau. I think we understand each other, now. I want to be friends with him, more than anything.

“Well, God, don’t tell my husband that,” Parker laughs, again, shaking his head and stooping down to Cholla’s last hoof. “He will not shut up about some fuckin’ stupid move he put on me, and, I have no doubt he’s gonna torture y’all at supper tonight. I keep tellin’ that man he needs to stay out of y’all’s business, and he won’t never listen.”

I think I know what he means. “Somethin’ about a tent? Beau told me about that.”

Parker groans. “Yeah, him and that fuckin’ tent. He’s the foulest man I know.” He pauses, at my shotgun, tucked into the holster on Cholla’s saddle pads. “Wolves give ya any trouble?”

“Four of ‘em,” I say. “They’re dead. Shot ‘em before they saw us.”

Quietly, Parker shuts his eyes, exhaling, like he’s relieved. “Good man. Help me get your horse settled in.”

I hop off the stool to help him, peeling away the layers of Cholla’s equipment and making sure he’s got supper before we move on to Charlie, taking away the bulk of Beau’s saddle and weapons and closing the gates for them to get some hard-earned rest.

Parker and I carry the guns back up to the house when the sun’s setting, as the other ranchers are making their way up to the house for supper. My stomach rumbles, after a month of eating canned food and whatever fish Beau managed to catch, I am starving for a full meal. I’m hungrier than I thought I would be.

And my mouth waters when I’m in the house, when I can smell the warm, hearty aroma of beef, and stock, and vegetables, like some kind of stew. I’m starving.

Parker takes my shotgun, and the handheld from around my shoulder, and dismisses me to shower. He tells me I stink like sheep shit, and I believe him.

Beau’s in our room already, in a towel, wrapped low around his hips as he digs around in the drawers at the foot of his bed. I linger in the doorway, to admire the strong muscles of his back, watching the flex and curve of his shoulder blades as he finds a tank top to pull over his head and settle over his torso.

Like he senses me, he turns, and I can’t believe how clean he looks. We bathed in the river, best we could, but Beau really scrubbed himself clean here, and trimmed up his beard, sharp along his jaw and framing his face beautifully, unlike the long, scraggly beard I’ve grown used to. His skin is perfect, free of any dirt, and he smells like fresh pine again. I missed his pine smell.

He grins at me, with clean teeth, and fuck, I wanna brush my fucking teeth, too.

Beau picks out clothes for me, and shoves a clean towel into my arms, because, again, I fucking stink like sheep shit. He refuses to touch me until I’m clean, too, so I scamper to the bathroom, locking myself inside of it and taking the most relieving shower of my life. I’ve had good showers after moving cattle through Arizona dust storms, sure, but they were nothing compared to the scalding hot water here, washing away a month of dirt and grime and soothing my aching body.

Becuase my body fucking aches, from riding horseback for a month, from sleeping on the ground for a month, from barely eating for a month, and, mostly, from sleeping with Beau, my limbs trembling as the pain settles within me.

God, I want to lay down. I am so tired.

I scrub my teeth with my toothbrush in the sink, when I’m done, and my gums bleed when I spit. I run my tongue over them to feel how clean they are, the salt of the blood grotesque enough to make me spit as much of it as I can. I wipe away the fog of the mirror to comb through my hair with a brush, actually really brushing my hair, for the first time since we left. It falls over my shoulders in long, straight, wet strands, and relieving myself of the knots and dirt in my hair makes me feel better than I’ve felt all day. I am relieved.

Ian, one of the other cattlemen, gawks at me, as I walk back down the hallway in a towel, I move past him. I get dressed, quickly, so I can join Beau at the supper table, where I hear him in there, telling Mister MacCallum all about the mountains.

Dinner is a fucking pot roast, made with fresh beef and vegetables that Reuben and Branch picked today. I scarf an entire fucking bowl before Parker offers to make me another.

“I can’t believe it,” Mister MacCallum sits back in his chair, his hands folded pleasantly over the table. “A hundred sheep, all fine and accounted for. Y’all should be damn proud of that. Ian and Branch lost eight, their first trip up.”

Ian sours, shaking his head. “No, fuck no, it was seven. Don’t insult me if you ain't got your math right.”

“In any case,” Mister MacCallum talks over him. “We’ve lost a lot of damn sheep over the last couple of years. Y’all handled yourselves well.”

Beside me, Beau beams, setting his spoon back in his empty bowl. “That’s all Lark, Mister MacCallum. He’s a good shot.”

Keegs looks over at us, his eyes widening. “So, it’s wolves? You had to fight the wolves off?”

The table looks to me, and I shrug. “It was only a couple. Nothin’ to fuss over.”

“Four,” Beau continues, and my cheeks flush. “Four huge, monster lookin’ wolves, and Lark got ‘em all, clean between the eyes.” He beams, like he’s proud of me, and I turn my gaze on the table, my cheeks flushing when he reaches for my hand.

Quietly, I entwine our fingers.

Mister MacCallum raps his knuckles on the table. “So,” He grins, mischievously, green eyes glinting. I watch Parker roll his eyes beside me, dropping his spoon in his bowl. “Who pitched your tent?”

”Here we go,” Parker sighs. “This damn tent.”

“Now,” Mister MacCallum waves his hand. “Let the men speak, Parker. Don’t interrupt ‘em.”

I wait for Beau to answer, and when he doesn’t, embarrassed, I speak for him. “Beau did. Wouldn’t let me touch it the whole time we were up there.”

“Mhm.” Mister MacCallum nods, grinning. “And, how was campin’? The sheep aside, how’d you like the mountains?”

“Loved ‘em,” I smile, turning to look up at Beau. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to work anywhere else.”

“Me neither,” Beau breathes, quietly, holding my gaze. He runs his thumb over thebes back of my hand. “Somethin’ about those mountains are just… real special, up there.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “The mountains.”

Across from us, Ian groans. “There ain’t nothin’ so fuckin’ special about no damn mountain. Last I checked, y’all are paid to go up there and work, not make fuckin’ googoo eyes at each other like some fuckin’ freaks. If you don’t mind,” He gestures, over his food. “Some of us are tryin’ to enjoy our supper, and you’d take kindly to stop eye fuckin’ each other while we are tryin’ to eat.”

Beau stiffens, a little, but I look over at him. “Didn’t you used to wrangle?”

Ian raises an eyebrow. “Who the fuck are you to ask me some dumb shit like that? What do you fuckin’ think?”

“Hmm,” I shrug, glancing over at Branch. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no,” Ian holds his hand up, shaking his head at me. “No, sir, you do not get to look at my Branch like that. You keep your little fuck me eyes to your damn self.”

I blink at him, before looking back up at Beau. “Do I have fuck me eyes?”

Beau snickers, nodding, and Ian continues. “And don’t play dumb neither. You don’t get to come down that mountain lookin’ all leggy and scrawny and blonde and flaunt yourself in front of my man without answerin’ to me.”

I glance at him, then at Branch, and make a show of turning to look back at Beau again. “I think I’m good, thanks.”

Branch mumbles for Ian to just eat his food, and Ian growls, shaking his head again. “No, listen,” He points at Branch. “What the fuck do you mean by that, Arizona?” He uses Parker’s nickname for me, hissing it like a curse. “You think you’re too good for him or somethin’? Because I’ll tell you right here at this table, in front of all these ranchers, and in front of the Big Man Himself-”

“Christ,” Branch mumbles, sinking down in his chair.

“-that Branch would rock your fuckin’ world, and you better keep your eyes off of him, or I will march across this room and-”

“Do you hear yourself?” I ask, poking at my roast again. “I am not interested in you, or the poor man that’s had the misfortune of gettin’ stuck with you. Leave me alone.”

Ian blinks at me, incredulous, and the rest of the table snickers, while he gawks at me, thinking of what to say.

Before he can, Reuben shifts in his seat next to Mister MacCallum. “Can you tell us about the mountains, though? I wanna hear about the mountains.”

Smiling, Beau nudges my shoulder, so that I will, like he wants to hear me talk some more.

Mostly, I bitch about the cold.

The mountains are cold, and the next time I go up, I will dress warmer. I intend on going to town, while we’re here, to get thicker jackets, and gloves, to shield my hands from the hard leather of Cholla’s reins. I tell them about the ride up and down to our campsite each day, and the pastures, and how beautiful it is up there. I tell them about how much time I had to think up there, my head clear, my mind free of all my worries and insecurities, how nice it was to be just the two of us, alone, in the mountains, like we were the only two people left in the entire world. Like we were all that existed, for an entire month. It’s still so surreal to me.

Beau tells them about Goose, because Reuben is veryinterested to hear about a dog working like people do. He asks us a lot of questions, but he quiets, after he asks Beau what his favorite part was, and Beau starts talking about the moonlight.

“Imagine,” He breathes, holding his hands out as he speaks. “The most beautiful song you’ve ever heard, whisperin’ over your skin, and holdin’ you, like you’re right where you’re supposed to be. It’s like, realizin’ that none of the other shit you’ve been through matters, because you’ve got the moonlight to remind you who you are, and keep you company, and make you feel so…” He pauses, smiling at his bowl. “Warm.”

I know he’s talking about me.

Reuben must, too, because he looks down at the table, quiet, lost in thought.

“When do you go back?” Seth asks, turning his gaze away from Keegs, beside him.

“About a week,” Beau says, smiling. “We gotta shear the sheep, and get ready to go back up there. It’ll take a little while.”

“I can help,” Seth offers, and Keegs nods, like he’s willing, too. “You should rest, tomorrow.”

“Oh, we will,” Beau chuckles, looking over at Mister MacCallum. “Right?”

Mister MacCallum grins, nodding. “Yeah, of course. Take the day. Thank y’all for workin’ as hard as you did. It’s good to have you back.”

“Thank you,” I mumble, and Beau does the same.

In our room, Beau shuts the door behind us, and for a second, we just stare at it.

Our beds are pushed up against either wall, in the corners of the room, far away from each other. They’re both freshly made, like someone came in today and changed the sheets for us.

Without asking, I walk between them, grabbing my nightstand, my cactus still right where I left it, and pull it away from the wall, picking it up to set by the door. I do the same with Beau’s and he follows, pulling the dressers out of the way, so we can move our bedframes, pushing them together at the center of the room, headboards lined up against the open window. I put the nightstands back, on either side of our new, bigger bed, and Beau pulls the curtains back, fiddling with the blinds until he gets them out of the way, so the setting sunlight washes over the bed sheets.

I flip the pillows, to the foot of it, so we can lay together, facing the window, letting the light pool in over us as we settle in.

My body screams as I hit the mattress, restless and tired, flattening out against the bed as Beau climbs in beside me, the wooden posts of each bed clacking together, like they aren’t meant to be so close together. We laugh, at the sound of it, and despite the ache in my bones, I open my arms up, pleading for Beau to hold me, whining as his lips brush mine, warm, in the comfort of a real bed, for the first time in a month.

I am excited to return to the mountains, when we can, but for now, I like the comfort of the mattress beneath me, and the taste of warm roast on Beau’s breath, and the weight of him on top of me. I savor the smell of him, clean, and warm, before he takes his leave of me, to trail his way down my body beneath our bedsheets and slide his hands on me, so he can touch me, like he’s promised he would. He peels my clothes away to slide his tongue along the inside of my thighs, to taste my skin, clean, and warm, and aching for him, muscles singing as he touches me, as he tastes me.

I thread my fingers in his hair, as the setting sun makes way for the moonlight, flooding in through our open window and rippling over the muscles of his back, over the curl of my toes as he presses into me with his tongue.

I gasp, rolling my head back against my soft, warm, clean pillows, and relax, letting Beau use me as he wants to, pleading for him, quietly, under my breath, until he looks up at me, like he’s disappointed he can’t hear me.

Shakily, I whisper that I love him, and he devours me, in the comfort of our bedroom, like even without the endless mountains engulfing us, I am still the only person in his world.

Like we are still all that exists.

Chapter Text

I have never lived somewhere that I don’t have to think about everything that I do, every move I make. 

For a long, long time, I had to think about everything that I did, how long I could make my money last before I needed to start worrying about being hungry, how stepping out of my car in what I was wearing would make the heads of hungry men turn in my direction, how walking through the tiled truck stop bathroom to get a shower would invite some unwelcome attention. I had to put thought into everything that I did, because I learned lessons when I didn’t think, the kind of lessons that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget, ones that have really stuck with me and changed the way that I let my body carry me. 

It was really strange for me, at first, to be somewhere that I don’t have to think so much. 

For the first time in my life, I haven’t had a single worry in the world, about how much time I have left before I need to give myself away to a man that stinks like diesel, so that I can have a couple bucks, to last the next few weeks. 

For the first time in my life, I haven’t had to put thought into making sure my bony collarbone and limby legs are covered up unless I planned to use them, because the men that live in the rooms around me are very nice, and they don’t corner me in truckstop bathrooms and do things that they don’t intend to pay me for, even when they promise to. 

For the first time in my life, I don’t have to worry about what God will see me doing, because here, on Mister Roan’s ranch, I don’t have to be anything that I don’t want to be, and I don’t have to give myself away for a hot meal, or a ten minute shower, or a tank of gas to fill my car up so the air conditioning would run. I don’t have to do anything that God would frown at me for while I’m here, because the work that I do is honest, and the people that I’m surrounded by are kind, and nobody stares at me like they want to eat me, whether they pay for it or not. 

And because of that, because of all of that, for the first time in my life, I just get to be good. 

I have always felt like something is wrong with me. I have spent my entire life wondering what I’m supposed to do to make God happy with me, when I could feel in Sunday sermons and singing praise that He did not want me in His Holy house. For as long as I can remember, since I was just a little boy, I have always felt like there wasn’t a spot that was set for me in the Lord’s house, and that the one that I took up in my family’s home, between my older brother and my younger sister, got hot when I was sitting in it, when I was singing the same hymnals that my siblings were singing, like God didn’t think that I belonged with His people. 

My rumspringa felt like an answer, for a long time. When I stepped off of my family’s Holy soil and walked out into the world around where I grew up, I felt like that was the solution. I didn’t feel like I was supposed to burn anymore. The only heat that I felt my first night away from my family, when I was supposed to be realizing that the big world wasn’t for me and I should be giving myself back to God, was the flames of my first sip of liquor, and the warmth of a man’s hands, one around my wrists and another on the back of my neck, to hold me against the bathroom sink he bent me over in the bar’s bathroom. 

I was scared, letting God watch that. I was afraid to let God see that I let a man take me. 

But even more than that, more than I was afraid, I felt free. I felt like I finally knew why sitting in my seat during worship made me feel like I wasn’t supposed to be there. Knowing made me feel like I could take a full breath, for the first time in my life, and I took it into my lungs over a dirty bathroom sink. 

I know God isn’t happy that I’m gay, and I know that He would never take me back for forsaking my vows, and I know that He thinks poorly of me because of what I’ve let happen to my body. There is nothing Holy that I carry with me anymore, and I know that He doesn’t want me anymore because of that. 

But I used to believe that there was still a God left for me, different than the one that I grew up with, different from the one that didn’t want me anymore the second I decided not to go back home, the second a grown man pushed himself inside of me, when I was sixteen. I felt some kind of God watching over me, listening when I needed someone to. 

I used to think He lived in the truckstop lights. 

At night, when the truckstop got quiet, and I was alone in my car, crying to a God that didn’t even want me anymore about how badly my body hurt, aching with hunger and throbbing from use after a day spent giving myself to men who promised to pay me and then didn’t, nothing answered me. No God that I was raised with made me feel any sort of comfort, or sent me any reassurance that things would get better, or gifted me any kind of relief for the pain that was eating me alive. 

But when my crying was the worst, when I thought that sobbing the way that I was would take all of the air that I’d stored in my lungs to breathe with and suck it right out of me, and suffocate me before I started burning the way that I was always supposed to, the neon lights on the truckstop sign would come on, and they would turn the dark world pink, and I would be able to stop crying. 

I started to think that it was the God that was left for me, the one that looked after gay boys that weren’t allowed to go back home, that lived at truck stops and let grown men take whatever they wanted from him. 

The second the truckstop lights came on, and bled pink light onto the dashboard of my car, I felt relief. I used to park my car right under the lights, so that my God’s light would hold me while I slept. 

My God’s pink light took care of me for years. It shone on the right trucks, with drivers that would actually pay me for the sex I was selling. It shone on newspaper boxes with articles that I was meant to read. It shone on kind people that would feel bad enough for me to pay for my meals themselves, so that I wouldn’t have to work so hard to be able to eat. 

And my God’s pink light shone on Forry’s truck the first time he pulled into the lot, to get a coffee and fill his cab with diesel. I’d never seen a purple truck before, and I love purple, because it’s the best color there is, and my God put the pink light on him, so I knew that he would be okay to talk to, and I knew that he would pay me if I gave myself away to him. 

Forry touched me in a different way than anybody else ever has. When he nodded to agree to let me keep him company for a while, and when he held his door open to let me climb up into his truck, when I stripped out of my clothes for him, and when I put myself in his lap, Forry didn’t wad my hair in his fist and bend me over to fuck me like an animal, like he needed to be fast to get me out of his truck, so he could get back on the road. 

Forry stared at me like I was an angel sent to save him. He didn’t pull my hair, or bruise my skin, or squeeze my bony wrists together so painfully that I thought they might break. Forry traced his fingertips along my collarbone, and stared at me like I was something God painted Himself. 

Forry fucked me like I was to him what the truckstop lights were for me, some salvation after a lifetime of being watched by a God that didn’t want him. 

And when he was finished, and I got up to dress myself, Forry didn’t rush me out of his truck. He put his hand over mine to pause my work to redress myself, and he pulled me back to the clean mattress in the cab of his truck, and he laid me back down against it, so that he could trace over my collarbone again, so that he could look at me a little longer. 

I could hear Forry’s heart slamming hard in his chest when he lowered his mouth to my neck. I could feel the shake in his breath when he kissed his way along my collarbone, and over my chest, and down my stomach. I could taste the fear hanging thick in the air between both of us, his fear like God was watching him become something he tried hard to never be, and my fear like laying still beneath a man like that had never happened to me before, and I didn’t know what to do. 

In the pink glow of the truckstop lights, Forry put his mouth between my legs and made sure that I enjoyed the time that he was paying for, too. 

No one else had ever done something like that for me. I didn’t know that I was meant to have anything that I could enjoy. 

And when I finished the way that he did, the way that every other man that took me always did, for the first time in my entire life, Forry didn’t make me get out of his truck. 

He wanted to lay beside me and hold me for a little while. He asked me if that would be alright with me. 

He asked me. 

I said yes. 

For hours, I laid with my head on Forry’s chest and swirled patterns into the pink light that was glowing into his chest hair, and thanked the God that was left for me for showing me that something the God that raised me wanted to burn me for could feel so good. I thanked the God that was left for me for shining his light on Forry, so that I could know that nothing that felt so good could be a sin, and that I wasn’t going to burn for being gay. 

I asked Forry, while we were laying together, if he believed in God. He said that he was scared that God was going to stop believing in him. 

He liked what I said about the lights. When we held our hands up together, side by side in the pink glow that was trickling through the windshield of his truck, and we danced our fingers side by side through it, Forry said that he could feel my God, too, and that laying with me in my God’s light felt just as right for him as it did for me. 

For a long time, when Forry would pick me up to ride with him on his truck route, my God’s pink light was always shining on the purple cab of his truck when he arrived. 

In the last few weeks before we came to the ranch, when we were talking to Mister Roan about the jobs that we had worked out to take together, Forry stopped taking truck routes. 

And in the last few weeks before we came to the ranch, the truckstop lights blew out. 

The pink went away. 

It was dark without the lights. The truckstop became a much more frightening place than it ever had been before. 

I was scared that the lights leaving me meant God was leaving me, too. 

But the sky above Mister Roan’s ranch turns pink when the sun rises, and when it sets. 

Pink light still glows for me here. 

I think that the God that’s left for me knew I was leaving the truck stop, and wanted to make sure that I knew that this place was going to be safe for me, too. 

Nobody here stares at me like they want to eat me, like they would do anything to take me. 

Even Forry. 

Forry has hardly looked at me at all since we’ve been here. 

I am trying very, very hard not to let that make me ache the way that I used to. I am trying so hard not to let Forry not even lifting his eyes when I hold the door open for everyone that’s coming back into the house, to get cleaned up before supper, be something that hurts me worse than my aching, throbbing body ever did, when I was giving myself away to mean men at the truckstop. 

But I am aching. My body hurts worse now than it ever did before, because I think that Forry doesn’t love me enough to want me out loud. 

I am working very, very hard not to let that be something that destroys me. 

So, I’m focusing on other things. 

For the first time in my life, the men that I’m surrounded by aren’t going to hurt me. They aren’t going to trick me into letting them take me with no intention of ever paying me. They don’t even think about taking me at all. 

For the first time in my life, I have friends. 

When I go into my room, I take a few minutes to gather up some clean clothes, and I don’t have to think about the outfit that I’ve picked out for dinner is going to show my bony collarbone and my limby legs, because nobody in the house at all is going to look at them. When I grab a clean towel out of the stack that somebody set on top of the washer, and I walk back across the house to get back to the bathroom, I don’t have to think about how I’m going to be stared at when I walk across the bathroom tile, or about how I’m going to have to shower fast, because the bathroom is where grown men like to corner me.

I don’t have to worry about any of that, because the men that are in the bathroom are my friends, and they would never do anything at all to hurt me. 

When I walk barefoot into the bathroom, Keegs is in the shower on the right side of the room, and Seth is stepping out of the shower on the right side, a towel wrapped around his waist in this giant bathroom that was built for multiple kind men to get clean in at once, after a long day of honest work. 

Nobody stares like they want to eat me. 

Seth just smiles. 

I smile, too. “Hey, fellas.” I say, happily, because I don’t have to think about what parting my lips to speak is going to make somebody do to me. 

Keegs gasps from his shower, lifting up on his toes to look at me from where the glass isn’t glazed to keep people from seeing through. “Is that my little Ruby Ray?” he drawls, and when I nod, just once, very big for him, he settles back onto his feet and just goes back to showering. “Ruby Ray, how the hell are ya, baby?” 

I set my clean clothes on the counter by the shower that I’m taking and I peel my dirty shirt off of my head. “Why, I’m doin’ just dandy, Mister Numbers. How are you?” 

“Oh, I reckon I’ll be peachy-keen once I get this goddamn knot outta my back.” Keegs says, with a little bit of a groan when I cut the hot water on in my shower and step inside. “I swear to God, I dedicated years’a my life to gettin’ flung off’a bull and trampled in the fuckin’ dirt, and even then, my back ain’t never hurt this way.” 

“What’d you do to it?” Seth asks from the sink, where he’s probably detangling all of his long hair, like he usually does after a shower. 

I let hot water soak me in a shower that I can take my time with while they continue talking, because I don’t have to worry with rushing my shower and getting away from them, because they’re my friends, and they would never hurt me. 

Keegs lets out another whine from the other shower, louder than both of our shower heads combined. “Now, I don’t wanna hear no judgment from neither of y’all, ya hear? I won’t take too kindly to no sort of mockery, so don’t make me have to fuss about it.” 

“Nobody’s mocking you,” Seth assures him, breathing a quiet laugh after a moment. “Yet,” 

“Better not nobody mock me never,” Keegs says with some finality, like he’s about to tell us something big that we could make fun of him for. He takes a deep breath, and he sighs it back out, water splashing heavy in his shower, like he’s rinsing his hair off. “I…may have hopped the fence to take a piss in the field instead of walkin’ back up to the house, and, I may have fallen on my ass when I tried to hop it back.” 

Immediately, Seth starts laughing. “Well, how the hell did you do that?” 

“Seth, I don’t know,” Keegs says, like he’s annoyed, but I can hear him laughing, too. So am I. “My fuckin’ boot hooked the fence slat or some shit. I don’t know. But I fell on my fuckin’ ass and my back has been tweaked ever since, and it hurts to breathe normal.” 

“Might have pulled something.” Seth offers while I scrub shampoo into my hair. 

“Yeah, I reckon I did,” Keegs sighs. “I been tryin’ to stretch it back out today, twistin’ and bendin’ to make it pop back into place or what have you, but ain’t nothin’ helpin’ it.” 

Seth hums. “Well, that’s not really how that works. You’ve got to let it relax if you pulled something. Stretching and twisting is probably making it worse.” 

“Aw, shit. No foolin’?” Keegs asks, and when Seth hums again, to tell him that he really isn’t fooling, Keegs groans. “That checks, I suppose. Back’s been screamin’ every time I move.” 

“You probably need to put some menthol on it.” Seth suggests. 

Keegs cuts his water off and starts drying himself with a towel when I’m washing my body. “That somethin’ I can get in town?” 

“Oh, I’ve got some.” Seth says, like that should have been obvious. Seth always has some kind of medicine stuff, like a first aid kit or a balm that he made for burns. His voice gets quieter, like he’s leaving the bathroom. “I’ll go get it.” 

“Thank ya kindly,” Keegs calls after him, his voice closer to my shower now, like he’s coming over to talk to me. “Ruby Ray, we’re gonna have to be the judge of whatever shit Mister Seth is pullin’ outta his bag’a tricks, alright? You gonna help me give him a review?” 

“Sure am,” I say, rinsing myself off, too, clean and relaxed, because I never have to be scared to take a shower here. When he passes me my towel over the top of the shower, dropping it down for me to catch, I scrub it over my hair to dry myself off. “Hey, Mister Numbers?” 

“Hey, Ruby Ray.” 

“Could ya tell me about campin’ again?” 

Keegs whistles, walking back over to the sink. “Now, I’d be happy to tell ya ‘bout campin’, little man. What d’ya wanna hear?” 

“Can you talk about jumpin’ again?” 

He hums over the harsh scrapping sound of him combing knots out of his hair. “Now, jumpin’ was one of the coolest things I ever did in my little country life. We pulled up to the campin’ spot Mister MacCallum picked out for us, and it was overlookin’ a cliff facin’ a waterfall, with two breaks in it, like one fall was for me and one was for Seth. The water was crystal clear blue, and it was callin’ to us, ya know? Somethin’ in the wind was sayin’ to jump.” 

“And you listened?” I ask when I step out of the shower. 

“Sure damn did,” he says when I grab my clothes, not even looking at me, more focused on scruffing his fingers through his hair to make it settle back to where he wants it to. “Me and Seth jumped right off the edge.” 

“You didn’t feel scared you might die or somethin’?” 

“Now, that was part of the beauty of it,” he says when Seth comes back into the bathroom with some bag, setting it on the counter and fishing through it. “The beauty was bein’ scared you might die, but knowin’ in your heart that you wouldn’t.” 

“How did you know it in your heart?” I ask.

Keegs turns back to look at me as I’m hopping into my shorts, grinning at me with his gold tooth showing. “That’s just somethin’ that I knew.” 

“Wow,” I say, dropping my towel into the basket along with my dirty clothes, walking over to join them. “Think y’all might bring me with you next time y’all go campin’?” 

“Oh, fuck yes we will, Ruby Ray, are you kiddin’?” Keegs asks, ruffling his hand over my wet hair, smiling down at me. “We were talkin’ over supper out there that you would have had the best time swimmin’ with us.” 

I nod. “Yeah, I probably would’a.” 

“Next time we have a day off together, you go tell Mister MacCallum you want to take one with us, little man.” Keegs says, turning to face the mirror when Seth directs him to, so he can put the gooey stuff from a jar that smells minty on Keegs’ back, rubbing it into his skin where he points to. Keegs hisses. “Oh, fuck, Seth. That shit is cold!” 

“It’s supposed to be.” Seth laughs, pausing and lifting his hands when Keegs wriggles enough to make it hard to do what he’s doing. “It’s gonna tingle, too, but that’ll make the pain stop.” 

Keegs sighs and stares at me in the mirror, shaking his head like he’s being tortured. “Yeah, alright.” 

While Seth works the balm into Keegs’ back, he turns to look at me, too. “Your back hurting, Reuben? You’re welcome to some, too.” 

I don’t have anything to worry about when I think about Seth putting his hand on my bare back in the bathroom. My back doesn’t hurt, but I still nod anyway. “Yes, please.” 

I go back to my room with my skin tingling between my shoulder blades. It feels nice once it stops feeling cold. I smile over how nice it is to live somewhere where no one stares at me like they’re going to take me. 

Someone is staring at me, from across the hall. I lift my eyes to meet it, hoping that it will be Forry, but it isn’t. 

It’s just my friend Goose.

I lift my hand to wave, waggling my fingers. “Hey there, Mister Goose.” 

He pads across the wooden floor in the hallway to come say hello to me, to lick the palm of my hand and follow me back into my room, like he’s just happy to show me some attention before supper. 

I get my shirt on and slip back into my boots, and I walk with Goose to the kitchen to eat, where everyone gathers at the end of a long day. 

I make myself smile, even when Goose bumps his wet nose against my leg, because I think he can tell that I’m starting to feel kind of sad. 

Supper is the hardest part of my day. 

I think I do a good job of not letting it show too much, of focusing more on laughing with Seth and Keegs, and listening to Ian and Parker argue, and nodding along when Branch and Mister Roan talk about vegetables that we eat. I think that I carry myself pretty well for someone that starts to ache when I sit down for supper. 

But it’s getting harder for me, because in the kindest place I’ve ever been, the nice men that have been so good to me, that have made me feel so safe, are all in love with each other, and that’s starting to make me ache worse than being in the dark at the truckstop ever did. 

Mister Roan has told me before that everything he has built his life around has been for Parker, and I can see in the way that they catch each other’s eyes sometimes, across the supper table, that this is the truth. Mister Roan looks at Parker like he would climb a mountain on his clicky metal leg to get to him, even if it hurt him, and Parker looks at Mister Roan like he would never venture that far away from him anyway, because he belongs tucked in Mister Roan’s arms, the way that I have walked in on a few times in the kitchen. 

And my good friend Branch is in love with Ian, even though Ian is sort of mean to everyone. I asked him, once, when we were working on the farm together, how he even found out he could love Ian when all Ian does is yell all the time, and Branch said that when they were here before, there was some kind of magic up in the mountains where they were herding sheep. He said that the magic tied a ribbon around his soul with Ian’s name stitched into it, and even when Ian yells, or whines, or complains the way that he likes to, the ribbon wraps itself up and tugs, and makes Ian’s loud words sound like poetry to Branch. He told me that even when they were apart, even before they found their way back to each other, he thought about Ian every second of every day he was away from him, and he pulled the ribbon tight himself, so that when their paths crossed again, there would be nothing to rebuild, and only poetry to be heard. 

And that’s all fine with me. I’m happy for the kind men that love each other so openly. Mister Roan and Parker have been together for more than twenty years. Branch and Ian have loved each other for a few years, too. They loved each other long before any of the rest of us got here. 

But Lark and Beau came back home from the mountains a few days ago. They’re in love now, too. 

I listened to them talk about being together in the mountains at supper a few nights ago, but honestly, it was hard to focus on what either of them was saying. 

I couldn’t really pay attention, because I was watching the way that Lark and Beau’s shoulders rose and fell at the same time. They rise and fall together now, too, as they sit beside each other at the table, Beau’s hand in Lark’s and tucked into Lark’s lap, because Lark touches him all the time, their breathing completely in sync, like they share a set of lungs, and a row of ribs, and a beating heart. They breathe at the same time, every inhale and every exhale, and when Lark coughs, Beau’s breathing stops for a second, like whatever Lark is choking on is choking him, too. 

I’ve watched them very closely, to try to catch one single breath that they do not take in at the same time. I haven’t found one yet. 

Lark and Beau breathe in sync with each other, and a ribbon around Branch’s soul makes Ian’s yelling sound like poetry, and Mister Roan would climb a mountain to get to Parker, even without his leg. 

And Forry won’t even look at me. 

When my eyes flit from Lark cradling Beau’s arm to Forry, sat across the table from me and watching Lark the way that I am, he doesn’t turn his stare in my direction. 

Forry used to stare at me in our God’s pink glow like I was an angel sent to save him, like I was something God painted Himself. 

When I know he can feel me looking at him, when I know that I can tell he’s watching other people fall in love with the same jealous itch that I am, Forry doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even try. He lets his eyes fall back to his plate, and he eats in silence. 

Parker plays piano sometimes, after supper. When we’ve all helped to get the kitchen cleaned up, and everybody goes on about their night to spend their free time how they want, Parker settles on the piano bench and plays little songs that I know are meant for Mister Roan. 

I like to listen when he plays. When most everyone else trickles out of the house to go fishing, or settles down in their beds to rest for the night, I like to sit on the couch in the den and listen to him press keys that pull songs out of the back of the piano. Everything he plays, without any sheet music or anything in front of him, comes right out of his heart and down through his fingertips, and I can hear the way that he loves Mister Roan in the melody. It’s normally nice to listen to how much love there is between them and feel it in my own chest when the space that Forry used to take up has wind whistling through it. 

Tonight, though, it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up, and cry, and melt into a puddle and disappear between the floorboards. 

Tonight, listening to the somber little song Parker is playing and watching him steal glances with Mister Roan across the room, seeing their private, loving smiles, makes me feel like how lonely I am is going to kill me. 

I get up and walk out onto the back porch, and when I can still hear the beautiful, loving music that Parker is making with his bare hands for Mister Roan, I walk off of the porch and into the yard. 

I keep walking for a while, until I’m standing in the middle of the flowers that brought me here in the first place. 

I sink to sit in the field of purple petals that I wanted to dust the place where Forry would love me out loud. 

I lay back to stare up at the Godless sky when being unloved by him hurts me too bad to stay upright. 

I am really, really beginning to think that Forry never loved me the way that he said he did. I am starting to worry that every beautiful thing that I ever felt when I was wrapped in Forry’s arms, and cradled to his chest, or pressed beneath his lips was never true at all. 

I don’t understand how it’s possible for me to have felt like the God that’s left for me gave me Forry, when Forry doesn’t even look at me in the only place that has ever been completely safe for him to love me out loud in. 

It wasn’t something that was hard for me to understand, when Forry said that his family would never understand the way that he loves me, because being gay wasn’t something that was okay for him to be there. It wasn’t okay for me to be gay in my family, either. I spent my entire childhood feeling like I was going to burn when the God I was raised with looked at me for too long. 

But the God that was left for me gave me Forry, and Forry made the touch that I suffered before him finally feel good, and in the only place that we have ever been where it would be okay for him to touch me, he doesn’t even look at me. 

He doesn’t look at me. 

He doesn’t speak to me. 

He pretends that we have never shared anything beautiful together, and I was never an angel that was sent to save him, and I was never something God painted at all. He pretends that we are nothing, and that makes me feel like I am nothing, and that makes me hurt. 

That makes me feel so sick that I am worried that the God that’s left for me set me up to trick me all along, because what kind of mean, twisted game is that, to make me feel like I could breathe again and then suffocate me with being ignored by the only man that I have ever wanted to love me. 

That makes me feel like there was never any God left for me to begin with, and maybe the lights at the truckstop were just some shitty bulbs that eventually burned out, like every other kind of light does. 

Staring up at the sky, pink like the neons were, I think that maybe the sun is just setting. 

Mister Roan’s leg clicks when he walks. I can hear him coming long before he actually stands above me, staring down at the tears running down my stupid face and into my ears with his kind eyebrows drawn together, like he doesn’t want me to hurt the way that I do. 

I wish that Forry didn’t want me to hurt the way that I do. 

It takes a lot of work for him to get himself down on the ground, and he grunts and groans the whole way, because I know that it hurts him to move like that. I’m so bad and selfish that I can’t even open my mouth to tell him that he doesn’t have to do that, and that I don’t want him to hurt just because he’s worried about me, and I can go back into the house and go to bed, so that he doesn’t have to fuss over me. 

Mister Roan lays back in the flowers beside me, a hand over his stomach, breathing labored like the effort that it took to lay down is making his hair turn grayer. 

I just stare up at the pink sky and curse myself for being dumb enough to believe that God was looking out for me. 

Across the space between us, Mister Roan takes my hand into his own. He squeezes it like even if there isn’t a God that’s looking out for me, he is. 

That makes the way that I ache lessen, just a little bit. 

“Sky’s real pretty tonight,” he says, exhaling the last little bit of strain in him, like he’s getting comfortable laying like this. “Ain’t been out this far in the yard in a long time. Forgot how pretty it is when the sun is settin’.” 

“Yeah,” I say, sniffling, because even if it isn’t God, he’s right, and it is pretty. 

He turns his head to watch the side of my face when I reach my free hand up to swipe tears away. He whispers across the little space between us. “What’s the matter with ya, darlin’?” 

I take a bouncy breath, and it burns on the way down, before I speak. “Do you believe in God, Mister Roan?” 

He hums like that’s not at all what he thought I would ask. “That’s a real big question for such a little fella.” When I don’t say anything, he takes a breath, too, and his is steady. “I do believe in God, yes.” 

“Have ya ever wondered if He’s real?” 

Mister Roan’s answer is instant. “No. Never.” 

I wipe my face again. “How do you know?” 

“I have felt God’s guidance my entire life. He guided me here, to find my purpose, and He has kept me here, even when I could have lost my life. God looks after me and my family, and He always has.” 

“Do you think you deserve Him?” 

He runs his thumb over my knuckles, like that kind of question makes him worry. “Why are you askin’ me somethin’ like that, Reuben?” 

The truth burns me the whole way out. “I don’t think Forry loves me no more. I’m not sure he ever really loved me the way he said he did. It makes me hurt. I don’t know what kind of God would let that happen to me.” 

I know Mister Roan understands me. He holds my hand tight and looks back up at the sky. “I don’t know if that’s God’s doin’, Reuben. I think that Forry might be a deeply troubled man that don’t let his joy mean more than his fear. I think he’s scared. I don’t think that’s God’s doin’. I think Forry might be doin’ that to himself.” 

“Then I don’t understand why God led me to someone that wasn’t gonna love me the way I need to be loved.” 

“Well,” he drawls, his thick accent making the word much longer than it is when other people say it. “Sometimes God teaches us lessons in ways we don’t understand.” 

I shut my eyes, because that hurts me, so much deeper than anything else does. “I’m so tired of God teachin’ me lessons, Mister Roan. I’m so, so tired of learnin’ ‘em.” 

“What other lessons did he teach you?” 

I open my eyes again, and I take a stuttering breath, because my truth hurts just as much coming up as it did going down. “You know what rumspringa is, Mister Roan?” 

I can feel in the way that his hand tightens around mine that he does. “Oh, Reuben. I’m so sorry, darlin’.” 

“I know that the God I was raised with don’t want me no more. I know that He watches the kind of life that I live layin’ with men and He hopes I burn, just like the way my family would hope for me to, if they saw the man that I chose to be instead of takin’ my vows.” I tell him, shaking my head. “But I thought there was some kinda God that was left for me, and I thought He brought me to Forry. I thought He gave me Forry so that the way that I hurt wouldn’t feel so bad anymore. And I thought that the God that was left for me brought me here, so that Forry and I could be together in a way that we can’t be when we’re out there, but Forry don’t even look at me no more, Mister Roan. I’m startin’ to think that there was never any good pink God, and even if there was, He don’t want me no more, neither.” 

“People end up where they’re supposed to. Everything happens for a reason.” Mister Roan says, his head lifted to look at me, to make me know that what he’s saying to me is true. “And even if the God you were raised with don’t want you, Reuben, my God does. The God that’s here does. I can promise you that.” 

I roll my head to look at him, finally, to nod for him. “Thank you for sayin’ that to me, Mister Roan. I’m sorry that knowin’ that don’t make me hurt no less.”

“I don’t want what I say to change the way you feel,” he says, smiling at me like seeing me this upset breaks his heart. “I just want you to hear me, so that you can decide what to feel yourself.” 

I nod again, fighting to get my words out around how scratchy breathing feels. “I thought Forry was gonna save me. I thought God gave me Forry to save me. You been savin’ me more than Forry has, Mister Roan. Why don’t he try?” 

“I don’t know, darlin’. I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer for that one.” 

“That’s real nice of you to say, Mister Roan.” I say softly, “I’m sorry I’m cryin’ like a baby and ruinin’ your night.” 

“You ain’t ruinin’ nothin’.” Mister Roan promises me, and his is a promise that I believe. “Tell me what’s hurtin’ you. Tell me why you’re wonderin’ if God is real.” 

I take a breath and sigh it out, swallowing, to collect myself. “I don’t know what to think now that the pink lights weren’t God.” 

He nods, like he wants to understand. “What pink lights did ya see?” 

“At the truckstop,” I tell him, breathing a sad laugh, because I am sad, it sounds real silly now. “I used to think that the lights at the truckstop were where the God that was left for me lived. The lights looked out for me when I was waitin’ for Forry to come back. They made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It makes me hurt worse knowin’ that the lights weren’t God, worse than anything them mean men ever did.” 

Mister Roan is quiet, like he’s thinking about my lights, and about my God. 

“I thought that maybe, when the lights went out, and God left the truckstop, maybe God was leavin’ me, too, but the sky is pink here.” I say, looking back up at the sky, dark now, not pink. “I thought maybe the pink in the sky was God, but I think the sun is just settin’, Mister Roan. I’m scared that there ain’t a God that wants me to have anything good. I’m scared that God wants to punish me for bein’ what I am and doin’ what I’ve done, and that my punishment is that Forry never loved me the way he said he did. I don’t wanna learn that lesson, Mister Roan. I don’t think I’m strong enough to learn that kind of lesson.” 

“Reuben,” he breathes, drawing my attention back to him. “What truckstop?” 

I can feel my eyebrows draw together, because I guess I didn’t make myself clear enough, and I’ve got a bad habit of doing that sometimes, and I feel bad for doing that to him when he’s been so nice to me. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mister Roan. The truckstop I was livin’ at.” 

“Livin’ at?” 

“Yes, sir.” I say, nodding. “That’s where they hung up your flier.” 

There are tears in Mister Roan’s eyes when he props himself up on his elbow, to look down at me like I am some broken, battered thing that’s been kicked into a ditch. “He left you there?” 

Slowly, I nod. “He couldn’t talk to me when he was at home.” 

He looks like he’s going to cry. He looks like the way that holding himself up on his elbow hurts bad enough to make him cry. He smooths his hand over my hair to push it back from my face. “What did the mean men do, Reuben?” 

I feel real bad that he’s hurting so much trying to talk to me. I shake my head and sit up, to move to get back on my feet and go get Parker, so that Parker can help him, but Mister Roan shakes his head, and tells me he’s okay, and asks me his question again. I answer it quietly, at a whisper, because I don’t want talking to me to be something that hurts him. “I needed the money, Mister Roan.” 

“Oh,” he breathes, crying with his exhale, his chin trembling under his beard, reaching for me, to pull me into his arms and hug me against him. 

I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. I don’t know why he’s so upset. 

But nobody has hugged me this tightly since the last time Forry held me. I press my cheek to his shoulder and let him cradle me, like I am something small, something that breaks. 

“There is a God, Reuben,” he whispers to me, sniffling. “I promise you, there is a God, and He wants what’s good for you. It’s okay to be scared about what’s goin’ to happen, and it’s okay to be upset that Forry ain’t keepin’ the promises he made you. But there is a God, darlin’, and He’s watchin’ us right now, and He ain’t gonna let you keep hurtin’ like this now that He knows.” 

I breathe out. I shut my eyes and lift my arms to Mister Roan’s neck, to hug him back, because nothing that has ever been said to me has ever felt that kind of good. I tell him a little more, because I feel like I can. “I don’t want things to go back to the way that they used to be before I came here.” 

“Don’t nothin’ have to go back to the way that they used to be. Even if things with you and Forry don’t work out, Reuben, you’ve got a place of your own here. You don’t never have to be alone at a truckstop again.” 

The sun is setting behind the mountains, and the sky isn’t pink anymore. It’s a dark purple, dusted with stars that watch me in the field of flowers, with the only man that I think has ever been completely honest with me. The sun is going to bed, but the moon is out, and tonight, it’s big. It’s full, and it’s bright, and in the purple tint that the sky has to it, the moon’s light looks sort of pink, like strawberries when they get mashed up and mixed into the muffins that Roan has been fixing for us. 

Beneath the strawberry moon, I think Mister Roan is right. I think there is a God. It isn’t the God that I was raised with, and it isn’t the God that was left for me when I was a gay boy that wasn’t able to go back home. 

This is Mister Roan’s God, and he’s right. The God that’s here wants me. 

Even if Forry doesn’t want me, and my God doesn’t want me, Mister Roan’s God does, and so does Mister Roan. I don’t have to feel unwanted, or unloved. 

I don’t have to, because I am not. 

The ranch beneath the strawberry moon is filled with the kindest men that I have ever met, and even if Forry doesn’t want to be here with me, even if he never loved me the way he said he did, even if he doesn’t want to try, I am not unloved here, and Mister Roan is going to try every day to make me remember that, even when I start to forget. 

In my ear, he sniffles, and he suggests one simple, beautiful something for me to think on. 

“Maybe God did bring you to Forry, so that Forry could lead you to me.” 

Beneath the moon, in his arms, I shut my eyes. I take in a breath, and this one isn’t over a dirty bathroom sink. 

The air is sweet, like strawberries. 

Chapter Text

I do not see Reuben with the chickens this morning.

I still have not found the courage to walk over and speak to him, even to say a simple good morning, but I have watched him, every day, since we have been here. He starts each day letting the chickens out of the coop, tossing seed to them for breakfast before he heads inside the coop with a big basket, to collect the eggs laid the night before. I watch his happy trot, back up towards the garden, likely to tell the other farmer that he finished gathering all the eggs, and ask for another task.

That is one thing I admire the most about him, his ability to skip around this ranch and talk to people, nonchalantly, casually, like talking to people is second nature to him.

I have struggled to speak to anyone since I have been here. I have not made friends. I have not gotten along with my coworkers, or my bosses, really. Other than that singular brief moment I had with my Ruby, before I went and ruined it, storming off like the coward I am, and a tough, one-sided conversation with Mister MacCallum, I barely speak to anyone.

All I have, every day, is watching Reuben across the field.

He doesn’t feed the chickens this morning.

Actually, I watch from my spot on the front porch, as one of the wranglers feeds the chickens.

I can’t do anything but stare at him, digging around in a bucket of feed and tossing handfuls onto the ground, stone faced, and tired, not a damn thing like Reuben’s happy, early morning smile.

I have no idea where Reuben is. That throws my morning routine off, a little.

Actually, by the time I am rummaging around the equipment shed, looking for the drill bit, wherever Seth has likely misplaced it, so I can start on a fence I’ve been building out in one of the far pastures, it makes me nervous, that I haven’t seen him yet. I worry if maybe he’s overslept, or, maybe he’s hurt, somewhere.

I am too much of a coward to go looking for him, but I think about it. I think about calling the phone I gave him, months ago, for emergencies.

I doubt he ever has it on him, here on this ranch, where I have not spoken to him for a full month. I doubt he even knows where it is anymore. But, still, I consider calling it.

My chest aches, through most of the morning, because I feel like a coward. I can’t find the right fucking drill bit, and I am a coward. I wish I could have more time with him, than just watching him feed the chickens each morning, but, it’s my own fault. I know my Ruby would be patient with me, and want to talk to me the second I am ready to, but I keep avoiding him, like a coward. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.

I’m alone in the shed for a while before I startle, the door swinging open as Parker pushes into it. I turn to face him, straightening, and he leans on the doorframe.

“Mister MacCallum’s lookin’ for you.” He says, sort of flatly. I haven’t spoken to Parker much, but Reuben told me, plain as day, that Parker and Mister MacCallum are married. I’ve seen them together, here and there, in the time I’ve been here. And I stare now, at the wedding band on his ring finger, crossed over his chest as he waits for me.

I don’t know why he said Mister MacCallum, instead of his husband’s first name.

It bothers me.

I do not have a good feeling as I walk through the farm again, back up towards the house, watching as the wranglers help the other farmer with bales of hay, the way I have watched Reuben do for a month now.

It really bothers me that I don’t know where he is.

The house is empty.

I am used to the quiet house, because it is huge, but there are normally telltale signs of life. Laughter, in another room, or the shuffle of chairs, water running in the bathroom. There is normally something, anything to let me know other people are in here, but this morning, it is empty. The silence sends a horrible chill down my spine.

I find Mister MacCallum in his office, sitting tall, at his desk. He nods for me to shut the door.

Instantly, I remember our conversation from the other day.

I assume Reuben's absence, and the empty house, means that he has made the decision to help me, whether I want his help or not.

And I am relieved.

He has given us the day together, the house to ourselves, so I can finally talk to him in absolute privacy, to admit to my wrongs and beg for his forgiveness, to promise that I love him, and that I am going to try, no matter how scary it feels, because Mister MacCallum has made the decision for me. Mister MacCallum has given me the opportunity to fix my relationship, and I am so fucking relieved, I float to the chair before his desk. I sink to sit down, and I am elated, my heart, pounding, loudly, fast, up in the base of my throat, my veins singing beneath my skin.

Because I will get a chance to hold my Ruby again, as if the last month has not even happened. We will pick up, right where we left each other, and everything will be okay.

I, selfishly, allow myself to believe that everything will be okay.

Mister MacCallum doesn’t look good.

I don’t pay very much attention to anyone here, but I’ve heard enough from the other ranchers, and from the MacCallums themselves at dinner, to know that he is missing a leg. I would never dare stick my nose in another man’s private business, so I have never paid any of the talk any mind. But, I do know he’s missing a leg, and I’ve seen him, around, every day. I know what he looks like. He is a tired looking old man, but he’s put together. Mister MacCallum is the kind of man that values dressing up every day, with jewelry, and polished boots.

Today, he looks exhausted, in nothing but jeans and a button down, the collar undone, and his hair askew. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without a hat on.

There are bags under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept. He looks sick.

I don’t know what’s wrong, but he doesn’t speak to me. He stares, dead ahead at me, and though I still feel relieved, like I may have the chance to finally have my Ruby back, he stares at me like he hates me.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt anyone look so cross with me, outside of my small little family before. I don’t think a stranger has ever been so angry with me.

I… don’t know what’s wrong.

I part my lips, to ask if he’s alright, because maybe, I am overthinking, and maybe, he’s just sick, maybe it isn’t me.

But he slides a piece of paper across the table, along with a pen.

Frightened, I read the top line.

Contract Termination Agreement.

Slowly, I raise my eyes to his, and he stares at me, soul boring into mine.

He has not cleared the house to give me time with my Ruby.

He is firing me.

I hold his gaze. “Mister-”

He holds a hand up, to stop me, before I say anything.

“I am terminatin’ your contract, effective immediately. I will give you one hour to collect your personal belongings.” Mister MacCallum swallows, like he is struggling to contain his anger. Like he wants to leap across the table and rip me to shreds. “Then, you will leave my property, and never return.”

I gawk at him. I feel helpless. “I don’t-”

“It is in the clauses of your original contract,” He speaks over me. “As a privately owned company, contracts can be terminated at will. You will sign this agreement and leave, within the hour.”

Heart racing, I shake my head. “Why?”

He glares at me, still, like it infuriates him, that I do not know. But I have not done anything to him. I have completed every single job that has been given to me, I break my back keeping his fields, and mowing his lawn, and building fences, and extra stable stalls, and hauling shit back and forth that he cannot haul himself because he is a feeble, crippled old man. I cannot understand how he could fire me, or what reason he could possibly have to hate me as much as he does.

I ask him again. He parts his lips, sucking in air through his teeth. “You are…” He pauses, swallowing, like it pains him to speak to me. “Fortunate, that I care about Reuben as much as I do. I don’t want to hurt him, and that is the only reason I am allowin’ you to sign this. I could very easily, reach into my gun cabinet and kill you, but I don’t want to do that to him. My husband has already hitched your trailer, and loaded your horse onto your truck. You will pack, and you will leave. Now.”

“For what?” I ask, angry, now. “What did I-”

“You have some fuckin’ nerve,” He says, losing a bit of his composure. “Lookin’ in my fuckin’ eyes and playin’ dumb like that. You are a fuckin’ coward, and I want you off my property, now.”

“Why?” I shake my head. “I don’t understand, what did Reuben-”

“Do you have any fuckin’ idea what kind of a piece of shit you are?” He shakes his head, too, in disbelief. “You… you spend an entire month ignorin’ him, convincin’ him you’re some kinda pussy, who’s too afraid of a couple of kind, old queers to let yourself be seen with him, like you’re ashamed of him, and then you have the audacity to look me in my eyes and play fuckin’ dumb.” He waves at the room around us, angry. “And, I come to find out, you fuckin’ left him. You… you’re…” He stops himself, clutching a hand over his chest, trying to calm his own anger.

I swallow. “Left him?”

I don’t understand what he’s talking about.

Mister MacCallum stands, staring down at me with his lips parted, his anger so palpable, the air sticks to my skin. “You left him. You took advantage of that… that tormented, miserable, homeless little Amish boy, and you knew what those men were doin’ to him, and you left him there. You forced him to stay there, where men fuckin’... Fuckin’...” He pauses again, his breath hitching. “Where monsters would hurt him, and you’re just,” He waves his hand at me. “Sittin’ there. Sittin’ there like you don’t even fuckin’ remember that. Did you even have any idea? Are you… are you so fuckin’ selfish that you didn’t even notice?”

I did leave Reuben at the truck stop.

My gaze falls on my lap, as he yells at me.

“He called me, to ask me about the fuckin’ flowers in a picture he saw. I spent so much time, and money, gettin’ him here, because he was so innocent, and so kind, and so small, and I wanted to make sure he got here okay. I wanted to make sure he was alright. Me, a fuckin’ stranger, I got him here, and I find out, he thought, my fuckin’ flowers could be a safe place for him, and for you, a grown fuckin’ man, almost twenty years older than him. Twenty years older than him, and I try, so fuckin’ hard to give you the benefit of the doubt. And you spend a month, not speakin’ to him, not lookin’ at him, torturin’ him, like he did all that for fuckin’ nothin’, and I come to find out, that that sweet, poor little boy is in… agony, and that when he called me, to ask me about those fuckin’ flowers, he was sittin’ alone, scared out of his mind, homeless, and miserable, and lonely, because you fuckin’ left him there.”

I nod.

“You left him there. You left him in this awful, horrible place, where monsters would corner him, and use him, and rape him, and all he wanted to do was ask me about those flowers.”

Mister MacCallum points down at the paper.

“I am not gonna let him be miserable here, in the only place he has ever felt safe, because you’re a piece of shit who won’t talk to him. You will sign that paper. You will pack the rest of your shit, and get the fuck out of my house, now.”

I have not spoken to anyone since I have been here.

He’s right. I am a piece of shit, and a coward. I am no better than any of the men that have hurt Reuben, because I haven’t done anything at all. I don’t even speak to him.

He’s right about me.

And I could let him be right, and I could sign this, and leave, like he wants me to. Quiet, and cowardly.

I open my mouth to agree with him, to tell him I am a piece of shit who does not deserve his help, or his sympathy, or a chance to fix things with Reuben at all.

What comes out, comes out as a sob. My voice cracks.

“I don’t fuckin’ know what’s wrong with me.”

Mister MacCallum clenches his jaw, and the truth pours out of me.

“I love him. I love him so much, and I left him there, I have… I’m so fuckin’ scared, all the time, I can’t even fuckin’ look at him, and I just… I can’t.” I exhale, my breath shaky. “I hate myself, for the shit I put him through. I fuckin’ hate how badly I hurt him, I know I am no better than all the horrible shit that’s been done to him, I know I have had every chance to make things right, and I haven’t, and I am such a fuckin’ coward, I don’t even know what to say to him. He found this place for us, and you’ve been nothin’ but welcomin’, and kind, and understandin’, and I still can’t…” I shake my head, dropping my face into my hands.

Mister MacCallum lets me cry.

I have never cried in front of another man before.

I cry, often, in the dead of night, when everyone is asleep, because I am too ashamed of letting anyone see, and, for the first time that I can remember, I cry in front of him. I bawl, into my palms.

I can’t look at him.

“I can’t even begin to… say how hard it was. It killed me to leave him there. It killed me.” I can’t stop the words as they come out. I haven’t spoken so much in so long, not to anyone. Not even to Reuben. “My daddy controls all of my money.” I have not called my father that in years. My voice shakes. “He sees everything I do, he controls everything, I couldn’t get Ruby a motel, or a place to stay, or anything, I could barely see him, without my daddy lookin’ at my location, and askin’ me where I was, and I couldn’t give him anything, and all I could think of, was, my son, one of his old, fuckin’ flip phones, he kept in his room, I could change the number on, and give to him, so he could call me, if somethin’ happened, or if he was in trouble, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t think of anything to do other than to tell him to stay where I could find him. So I could get to him, if he needed me, so I could try.”

I blink, down at my hands.

“My daddy takes everything from me. He counts every route I pick up, he cashes every check I bring home, he watches everything I do, and knows everything I do, and I couldn’t give my Ruby anything to keep him safe without my daddy finding out. I laid awake, every fuckin’ night, worryin’ about him, I couldn’t sleep without all these fuckin’ nightmares about those monsters, and what they’d do to him, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do for him. I couldn’t do anything else for him.” I swallow, trying to control my sobs. “He found this place for us, so we could be together, but I… he told me, he told you, about us, and I just… I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about how, my daddy would tell, somehow, like… like you knowin’ would somehow get back to him, and I can’t… I can’t think about him without my hands.. Shakin’.”

I stare down at them, fingers trembling in my lap. I open my palms, flexing my fingers, open and closed, a few times.

“I shouldn’t be so scared of him. I am a grown man. My boys are grown. I am… certain, that my wife knows I’m gay, and she knows where I am, but I had to lie to him, to let me leave. He thinks I’m travelin’. He has no idea where I am, and I am still so fuckin’ afraid of him, I can’t look my Ruby in the eyes anymore. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know why I feel so… wrong. Why I let myself be so awful, why I stop myself from bein’ the man my Ruby needs me to be. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

Mister MacCallum sits.

“I don’t know what to do.” I repeat, my hands shaking.

I don’t think about my daddy often.

I try my hardest to expel him from my mind, always. I don’t like thinking about my childhood, or remembering all of the ways he used to hurt me. I don’t like remembering the feeling of his breath on my skin, the thick, disgusting scent of liquor on his tongue, his fingers pressing hard into the skin of my cheeks, hissing at me about my own tears, about my own emotions, like I should know better than to cry. I don’t like remembering the sound of his voice, screeching at me, over the loud shatter of glass against our wooden floors, the anger in his soul as he would shout at me, like I was old enough to know better than to get in his way when he drank.

I don’t like remembering my brothers, who thought it was funny to dress me up in my mama’s clothes and shove me in front of him, so they could watch him whoop my ass, and spit on me, like I made him sick.

I don’t like remembering the illness that took my mama from me, and almost all of my brothers, or watching my daddy struggle to run the farm on his own, forced to sell most of it and emasculate himself to manage to keep our family afloat. I don’t like remembering the family he sold it to, Jolene’s folks, and her sisters, or the way my father quietly despised them. I don’t like remembering how angry he was with me, when I tried, for the first time in my life, to be braver than the fear tingling at the base of my spine, when I admitted I didn’t feel attracted to her.

It is hard, now, to try to force myself to remember how he hurt me, but I can picture flashes of it. Jolene and I don’t speak about it, but I married her on my eighteenth birthday, missing half my teeth and bleeding out in my ribs. 

He stood in the corner of my bedroom, on our wedding night, to make sure I fucked her, to make sure his son wasn’t the faggot he thought I was.

“I have…” I swallow. I look up at Mister MacCallum, as he stares at me, his eyes soft, like he wants to understand. “I have a hard time doing anything, because this is the only place I have ever been where he isn’t watching me. Reuben is… the only person I have ever loved, and I am so afraid of what will happen when he finds out. I don’t know… what I’m supposed to do to fix it. I don’t know how to be braver, and I don’t know how to… exist, here, where everything is okay. Where people don’t stare at me to make sure I’m man enough, and straight enough, and good enough. Nobody watches me, here. Nobody cares. I don’t know how to be… myself.”

Mister MacCallum stares at me, the man I am, dentures in my mouth.

“I don’t know who I am.”

I admit, painfully, because I don’t. I have never had a second to be myself. My father forced me to be the man he wanted me to be, from my first son, to my second, and even, after, my wife, my kind, loving, forgiving, and wonderful wife faked a few miscarriages, so he would never have any reason to force us into having another child again, he has always watched me. He controls my paychecks, my family, my life.

This is the only place I have ever been able to be… me.

And I am terrified, because I get nervous around strangers.

Mister MacCallum nods, reaching up to wipe at his eyes. He told me, the other day, that he left his family behind. I think he understands what it feels like to be scared of his father, too.

I expect him to ask me to leave the ranch, anyway. I haven’t done anything to prove to him that I deserve to be here, or that I deserve to be around Reuben. I can’t put into words, that being with Reuben is the only time I have ever felt like I am truly me, that laying with him, laughing with him, watching him across the lawn as he feeds his chickens, are the only few, fleeting moments where I am not afraid.

He is the only thing I have.

Instead, Mister MacCallum sighs, eventually shutting his eyes, like he is exhausted. “Forry.” He says, and I nod.

He exhales, again, opening his eyes to hold my gaze, like he should not have the responsibility of telling me this.

“You need to tell Reuben that, not me.” He shakes his head. “He thinks you don’t love him.”

“I do,” I say, firmly. “I love him, more than I have ever loved anything, or anyone.”

He nods, like he understands. “Then you need to treat him like you love him.”

I understand.

I thank him for listening, and, bravely, I ask him where Reuben is.

He points at the ceiling, and tells me that Reuben has moved upstairs. The ranch house is big, the entire downstairs left for the business, ranch hand bedrooms, communal showers, equipment. Upstairs, as far as I know, are the MacCallum’s private living quarters. I’ve never gone up there, and I don’t think the others have, either.

Oddly, it reassures me, that I know what will happen, for Reuben, when our contracts are up. Even if I am wrought with uncertainty, and fear, even if our relationship never works out, Reuben will have a home here, a life with Mister MacCallum, where he will  never have to be alone at a truck stop again. That warms me. It encourages me to climb the stairs, my boots clicking on the wooden steps as I walk.

The landing on the second floor is more open than I expected it to be, an entryway with plush furniture, and more mounted taxidermy than I’ve seen downstairs. I let my gaze fall on one of the does before I walk towards where he pointed, to a bedroom, at the end of a small hallway, on the right. I do not knock, quietly turning the knob and letting myself in.

Reuben is sitting in the window, on a seat, lined with cushions, like it was set up for him today. He’s in pajamas that are too  big for him, blue, instead of Mister MacCallum’s black, so I assume they must be Parker’s. He drowns in them, smaller, sadder, purer than I’ve ever seen him before.

He looks up at me as I walk in, his eyes bloodshot and teary from the undoubtedly long month he has had, clutching his cat to his chest, tightly, like he’s been holding it for some time. I stare at him, savoring him. This is the first time I’ve gotten a good look at him up close in a while, admiring the soft, fluffy curls of his hair, and the freckles on his nose, still showing, even through the flush in his cheeks.

He holds my gaze when he speaks to me, his voice quiet, and soft, and sad.

“The funny thing about bein’ up here,” He sets the cat in his lap, running his fingers over its fur. “Is that I can hear everything in the whole house.”

I thought he might. I don’t shut the door, because I know I haven’t earned the right to be truly alone with him, yet.

“I am so sorry, Ruby,” Are the first words that leave my mouth, after a month of giving him nothing. He watches me, holding the cat still. “I haven’t treated you right, and it kills me, that I’m  hurtin’ you. I don’t want to hurt you. I have never wanted to hurt you. I am in love with you, and I have been, this entire time. I haven’t been showin’ you right, because I am stupid, and selfish, and I was too caught up in my own shit to make an attempt to talk to you, even when I knew you would understand. Even when I know you hadn’t done nothin’ wrong, nothin’ to deserve that. I am deeply, so, so fuckin’ sorry, Reuben. I don’t have any excuse.”

Quietly, he nods at me, his blue eyes wide. I used to dream about his eyes, every night, when I was away from him, long before we came here. I would see his eyes, horrified, scared out of his mind, while something got to him, where I couldn’t help him, where I couldn’t save him, or protect him.

It breaks my heart to see his eyes as they are now, broken, and helpless, and sad. I hate myself for hurting him.

He releases the cat, and it scampers off. He looks back at me. “You can come in.”

Nodding, I close the door. I take my boots off to walk over to him, defeated, sitting on the bench beside him. He doesn’t make a move to reach for me, and I don’t expect him to. I don’t reach, either.

“You do not have to forgive me.” I say. “You have every right not to trust me, or believe me, if I promise you I’ll try. You can say no to me, and I will not be mad. I’ll go, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

Sadly, he frowns, and I yearn for his happy smile. I ache for his smile.

“I don’t want you to go.” He mumbles, looking down at his hands. “I love you, too.” He looks up at me again, his eyes warbling. “Why didn’t you tell me about your daddy?”

I swallow, and, in however long it takes, I tell Reuben about my father.

I don’t spare any details, because I don’t want to spare him from me. I think he deserves to know the deep, honest, ugly truth. All of me, that there is to know. Everything I know.

I tell him about the ways my daddy used to hurt me, and what I remember of it. There are chunks of it missing, like when I met Jolene, where I don’t remember the actual beating, just the pain and repercussions of it afterwards. I don’t remember the things he said, or the ways he hurt me, but I remember my bruises, and my scars, my broken limbs. I remember the welts on my back, from the metal buckle of his belt, and the taste of my bloody gums.

I tell him about my wedding night, and another night, nine months later, before my wife even recovered from delivering my first child.

I tell him about every time after.

I tell him about my children. They’re around his age. I don’t think I’ve ever told Reuben their names before today.

I tell him that my daddy has control over everything. He believes I am traveling, somewhere in Utah.

I apologize for leaving him at the truck stop, as often as I did. In truth, my daddy monitored my routes, on a sensor he installed in the back of my truck. I know Reuben has always been confused why I could only pick him up and leave him there, taking him with me on my routes before dropping him off and begging him to stay where I could find him again, so I explain that I kept to my daddy’s schedule. I laid with Reuben when he believed I had stopped to rest. I brought Reuben with me, so my daddy would see that I was working. He wouldn’t suspect I had anyone with me.

And, I apologize for lying to him, for leading him on the way that I did. I apologize for ignoring him, in the only place that we have ever been allowed to be ourselves. I try my best to explain that the freedom intimidates me. I tell him I don’t really know who I am.

Reuben listens. He nods, and asks questions, here and there.

He tells me that Mister MacCallum has been helping him understand that what happened to him was wrong.

He’s having a hard time sitting with it. He was raised in a closed, Amish community, and my heart breaks as he explains the extent of everything that has happened since he left for his rumspringa, an event where he was meant to go out and discover the world, and return to his community to vow himself into their religion, and baptize himself into the arms of Christ.

He was taken advantage of, by a man my age, the night he left.

His first day alone.

He spent years, hooking, the way I knew he did, but it’s worse than I thought. It scares me to hear it.

Reuben spent years letting other men use his body for enough money to feed himself.

Reuben spent four years homeless, scared, and battered, before he met me.

I am the only man that ever asked him to stay, afterwards.

And my part in it is not innocent. I paid for Reuben’s company, and continued to pay him, so he wouldn’t have to force himself to sleep with other men anymore, but I didn’t know how bad it was, and he didn’t either. 

He didn’t know sex was supposed to feel good until he met me.

I tell him that I didn’t know that, either, until I met him.

He spent years believing it wasn’t something he was allowed to enjoy, and I spent years scared of trying, my daddy’s eyes boring into my own to make sure I enjoyed it, when I didn’t. I always had to pretend. Reuben was pretending, too.

It’s nice to talk to him. I’ve spent so long pouting, and hating myself, and convincing myself that I am wrong, that I forgot how much I love to hear him talk. He has a soft kind of voice, the kind that used to lull me to sleep in the safety of my truck cab. I suppose, after talking about it, neither of us was very safe at that truck stop at all. He could be eaten alive, and my daddy watched my every move. I hate knowing how much danger we were in.

I will never be able to make it up to him, for leaving him there, and I should’ve done more to help him. My father be damned, I should’ve given him more money. I should’ve bought him somewhere to stay, regardless of whatever Hell that man had planned for me for lying to him.

But Reuben tells me that he understands.

He reaches for my hand, after we have talked for hours, learning things about each other that we have never thought to explain. I’ve spent so long believing we loved each other, and so has he, and we do love each other.

But, until today, I didn’t know Reuben was Amish. He didn’t know my daddy beat me.

It feels good to know him. To hold his hand, and feel like I know him, and feel like he knows me, too.

He asks me, quietly, if I still want to try, and I promise that I do.

He smiles, finally, for the first time all night. “I want to try, too. I love you.”

“I love you.” I echo, running my thumb over the back of his hand.

“But,” Reuben says, quietly, and I expect him to ask me to leave. “But, I don’t think I can go back to how things were. I don’t want to be your secret. I want to be together, honestly.”

I nod, swallowing. “I promise, baby, I will never hide you again.”

He nods, too. “I want to feel like my purpose is to be a good man, and not like I belong to you. I want to feel like I am important to you. I am important, too.”

“I know you are.” I say, quietly. “I am so sorry for convincin’ you that you weren’t.”

“And I want you to get divorced.” He says, firmly. I nod. “Mister Roan told me that he wasn’t gonna tell you what to do, and he wasn’t gonna kick you out if you proved to him that you will try, and that you needed to figure it out for yourself that you want to try.” He pauses, looking me in my eyes, his brow furrowed. “But I don’t want to be with someone who’s married. I want us to be together, just us. I want to get to know each other, and love each other without hidin’ no more.”

He keeps staring at me, and I nod. “I will. I promise, I will. Soon.”

“Good,” He says, smiling again. “Good. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I say, smiling, too. “I’m going to make things right.”

“Good.” He says again, childlike. “Good.”

I am thankful, that on my most vulnerable day, Reuben is vulnerable with me, too. I feel like we are children, scared, and helpless, and in constant disbelief of all that has been done to us, mentally trapped at the age we were when it began. Reuben has such a childlike wonder about him, like he is experiencing the world for the first time, because he is. He stopped aging when he left home, when that first man put his hands on him.

I feel like I stopped aging when my father put his hands on me.

I feel like, for the first time in my life, I am maturing. Reuben is helping me mature.

We agree to figure our relationship out, slowly, together. I will not rush to kiss him, or touch him, or take him like I used to. I will savor our time together, and let him decide when he’s ready. I will let him help guide me along. I will let him know me, the way I hope he lets me know him.

But, I do exhale, when he wants me to hold him, when he wants to lean against his window and stare out over the field below us, where the ranch moves on without us, his friends running through the crops and tormenting the other farmer, tossing sticks around and laughing like they don’t have a care in the world. I want that to be us, someday. I want to hold my Ruby, and laugh with him, and feel like ourselves, without a care in the world.

I want him to consume me, safe, in the Heaven he found for us here.

Chapter Text

The ranch house is a lot louder now than it used to be. 

The last time I was here, when Branch and I wrangled together, Roan and Parker did all of the shit left to do on the ranch property while Branch and I took the sheep up the mountain. We all chitchatted when we brought them back down, when we were here for the week it took to sheer and prepare to go back, but it was still only four of us. 

Roan hired an ever living shit ton of ranchers this season. 

The house is so goddamn loud that it seems like ranch is a fucking shopping mall or some shit. 

And that’s not a bad thing all the time. Tonight, it really ain’t a bad thing at all. 

Waiting for Parker to come back from the airport in the city about an hour from here, most of us are gathered around in the kitchen, listening to Roan yipyap about how giddy he is to see his in-laws. 

“They normally come up every year ‘round this time,” he drones on, using a fork to poke at potatoes in a pot. “Parker’s daddy owns a cattle ranch of his own. They don’t hold cattle all year round, though. They calve in the spring, raise for livestock auction over the summer, then sell all their cattle in the fall to get their land clear. They usually spend the winter gettin’ around to ranch work that built up over the summer, but they normally come out here to stay for a while after they auction. Nothin’ for them to do out there but shovel shit ‘til spring, so they come to keep their hands dirty, but this’ll be the first year that they ain’t gotta do so much to help us out.”

“What’s the ranch called?” Seth asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket and pulling up his searcher to look it up. 

Roan smiles like he’s happy to chatter and have so many people interested. “MacFarland Cattle, and that is in Dacoma, Oklahoma. You tell me what you think of the site, now, because I been tryin’ to convince Jameson to let me take his over.” 

I lean over Seth’s right shoulder when Keegs has already claimed his left, watching him tap around until he pulls up the site, which is admittedly pretty plain, with just some information and a couple of pictures. 

“Big barn,” Keegs says from the other side of Seth, looking up at Roman again. “Ain’t as big as ours, but, ya know. Still big.” 

Roan sets his fork down to stop fussing over the potatoes, hobbling across the kitchen to get back to the island, where most of us have piled up. “Yeah, well, for Dacoma, it’s massive. Dacoma ain’t got but about a hundred people in it, and they’re the only cattle ranch for about a hundred miles in all directions.” 

“The site doesn’t look too bad,” Seth says, shrugging and holding his phone out for Roan to take from him, to look for himself. “Just sort of simple. Nothing wrong with that.” 

“Nah, not at all,” Roan adds, swiping around for himself, holding the phone out for Forry and Reuben, who are chopping up some carrots on the other side of the island, to be helpful. Which is different, because Forry was a fucking creep a week ago, and now he chops carrots, so I don’t know what’s fucking going on with that. But Branch says he’s nice, so, I guess whatever. They smile and nod after they’ve looked, so that Roan can give Seth his phone back. “I just want to give it a little bit of…somethin’ to make it stand out.” 

“Some pizzazz?” Seth asks, and Keegs starts snickering at his side. 

Roan laughs, too. “Yeah. Some pizzazz. That’s Parker’s brother’s thing, though, so I ain’t gonna meddle.”

”Oh, yeah,” I say, eyebrows raised, face indifferent. “Vince still particular?” 

Keegs leans around Seth to look at me. “You met ‘em before?”

”Mhm,” I hum, propping my chin up on my fist, elbow to the countertop, legs swinging from my barstool. “He’s a real piece of work.” 

“Now, I don’t know why you don’t get on with him better,” Roan says to me, taking carrots from Reuben when he brings a bowl over. “Y’all bitch just about the same amount. You’d think that’d give y’all somethin’ to bond over.” 

I scoff. “My sincerest apologies, Mister MacCallum. I’ll do better to make nicey-nice with Vince, if it’d please you, boss.” 

Roan tosses a carrot at me, and it thuds against my chest, smiling playfully in my direction before returning his stare to his work before him. “Yeah, that’d please me, Gideon.” 

I can’t help it. I pick up the carrot and pop it into my mouth to crunch on loudly, and I smile, too. Privately. To myself. Staring at the countertop, so that no one else will fuss over it. 

I’m enjoying being back on the ranch. 

Roan has been cool. Parker, eh, I don’t think I’ll ever impress him much, but Roan has been much more enjoyable to be around. Thank the Lord, because I was of the impression that he hated my fucking guts the last time I was here, and, you know, whatever, because every hates my fucking guts, but Roan has been nice. Parker lectures me, and scolds. Roan teases, and smiles. I much prefer Roan to Parker, and I don’t think that hurts Parker’s feelings. I’m sure he much prefers Roan, too. 

But I’m not as outcast as I thought I would be. I’m hardly outcast at all. 

The fucking fucks I’ve been shacked up with actually are not so intolerable. 

Keegs? Cool as shit. 

I love working with that guy. He’s the perfect person for me to have been paired up with in the cattle barn, because he loves cows, and he enjoys being helpful, so the shit that I just straight up do not want to do, he is down to take care of without a single complaint. 

Seth? Also cool as shit. 

Now, is he a brown-noser? Yeah. Does he lick Roan MacCallum’s boots? Also yeah. But Roan has been cool and I guess that can mean his boots get a little bit licked, and since Seth is doing that, I don’t have to, so he’s alright by me. 

Reuben? Short and weird, but, sufferable. Asks a lot of questions that normal folks don’t ask, but he isn’t annoying, or rude, and Branch likes him a lot, so, by default, out of the kindness of my heart, I am not mean to him, because I am burdened by the obligation of loyalty, and Branch asked me to be nice to him. Whatever. 

Now, things start to get a little colder with Forry. He was weird a week ago, and now he chops carrots and smiles, so I don’t know what’s going on with that. 

And that’s where the rank of people I am interested in ends. Roan, Keegs, Seth, Reuben, and Forry is a beautiful third party outsider that I have no personal stock in at the moment, but he chops carrots, so, yippee. 

Lark? Can kiss my ass. I fucking hate that guy. 

He thinks that being blonde and skinny means that he can talk down to people, and he walks around the ranch house like his shit doesn’t stink because Beau puts it in his ass. I hate him, and he’s got about one more slick ass remark out of his mouth before I will be forced against my will to tell him about himself, and he’s got about zero more times to flip his stupid fucking hair over his shoulder in front of Branch before I just close my fist and swing. 

And Beau needs to get a fucking hobby, because I swear to God, all he does is fuck Lark, and I can hear it from down the hall at night, and it’s annoying the fuck out of me, because, I’m sorry, there’s no way it’s that good. Lark just moans and moans and moans like Beau’s shaft is personally draining the life from his body, and I am truly sorry, but ain’t no dick that kind of life changing that the whole house has to be kept up at night. Beau needs to take up fishing, or knitting, or Chutes and Ladders, before I spider-monkey my way up his tall ass body and wring his fucking thick ass neck. 

And Parker is on my fucking list, too, but he’s my boss’ husband, and he is technically also my boss, so I can’t say anything too bad about him, because that would be tasteless, and moralless, and annoying, and I’ve got to save up all of the times that I can be tasteless and moralless and annoying for Lark fucking Lawson, so as far as Parker goes, he’s safe for now. 

And, I suppose his family is safe, too. Roan has been cool, and he smiles and teases me instead of turning his nose up at my particular brand of conversating, so if he wants me to make nicey-nice with Vincey-Vince, I will. 

Seth smiles at me and joins in on the conversation, just to include me, which means he’s alright in my book. “What’s Parker’s family like? Since you’ve met them before.” 

“Can I be quite frank with the room?” I ask, and when most everyone nods, accompanied by Roan’s very tired, very hesitant eyebrow raise, I get pretty fucking frank. “Unnecessarily hot.” 

At that, Roan snorts a laugh, drizzling oil over his carrots so the seasoning he adds will stick. “Alright, now, I’ll give ya that one.”

”They’re all fine as hell, and for what?” I ask, continuing, since he didn’t protest. “It don’t make no good sense for all of them to look the way that they do. Makes the rest of us look like fuckin’ cartoon characters.” 

Branch’s nice boots are clicking against the floorboards behind me. I don’t have to look to know the sound, so I just leave my face on my fist and hold the hard stare that Keegs gives me from around Seth, his eyebrows drawn up and his eyes wide, smiling wide enough to show teeth. “Mind your tongue, now, Gideon. Your old lady’s gonna hear ya and feel some type’a way ‘bout that.” 

“‘Bout what?” Branch asks, the thunk of his boots halting beside me, his hand smoothing up my skin, to greet me privately, before he greets anyone else. 

I sit up and look up at him, expressionless, nonchalant, casual. “Parker’s family.” 

“Oh,” Branch says, looking over at Keegs, nodding. “Unreasonably good looking.” 

That’s cracking Roan up, and so naturally, Seth and Keegs are focused on that. And that’s good with me, because Branch slips his arm around my waist and presses his lips to my cheek, beard freshly trimmed after his shower and dressed up nicely, smiling down at me like there is nobody else he’d rather look at, even when unreasonably hot men will soon occupy the same space as plain, boring me. 

He keeps his lips at my ear, to whisper one sweet question that makes my spine tingle. “Are you playin’ nice tonight, handsome?” 

Which is sweet, and kind, and makes my guts feel like fucking snakes slithering around, restlessly squirming to find a place to sit that better faces him. It’s the kind of sweet that makes me smile, too, because Branch is all-consuming, and he makes a point to praise me when I behave myself and socialize with our peers, and he loves me in a way that nobody else ever has, and I would do fucking anything to remain the only fucking thing he seems to fucking want. 

But I would never tell him that, because it would go straight to his head, and he needs to be kept humble, so I glare up at him and shake my head, real slow-like, so that he’ll feel my contempt burning straight through his body. “Not in your wildest fuckin’ dreams, mongrel.” 

Branch just hums the way that I like, and presses his lips to the top of my head before tucking me into his side, smiling like he thinks my venom tastes sweet, and he could drink it in place of water. He doesn’t say anything else. He just turns back toward the kitchen, like having his hands on me is enough for him, and he doesn’t mind my bite. 

I fight the twitch of my lips when they want to smile, so that the rest of the room won’t know I have a soul, or that it belongs to him. 

“Now, I will say,” Roan continues, tossing the carrots in oil and seasoning, like he’s a fucking chef or some shit. “Parker’s family is very musical. The house is gonna be loud, so, fair warnin’ for all of y’all.” 

“Oh!” Reuben calls out, grinning from where he’s watching Roan cook, staring up at Roan like he’s God or something. “Do they all play the piano like Mister Parker does? Because he’s real good at it. He plays it real pretty.” 

“Uh, Jameson plays piano like Parker does. He taught Parker to play when Parker was, maybe…three? Four?” Roan answers, dumping carrots out on a pan. He passes it to Forry when he’s got them spread out, so that Forry will put them in the oven. “But he did that so Parker would play with him when he’s got his banjo out.”

”Oh, shit,” Keegs drawls, slapping his hand on the tabletop. “They got a bluegrass band thing goin’ on?” 

“Oh yeah,” Roan says, wiping the counter down before he starts on something else for dinner. “They’re real good, too.” 

“Yeah, Parker’s brother plays the fiddle, too, don’t he?” Branch asks, thumb in motion on my lower back, to make sure I know that I’ve got the most of his attention, even when he’s speaking to the room.

”Mhm, yeah.” Roan says, leaning against the counter for a moment, like being up on his feet for this long is starting to hurt him. “Jameson takes two things very seriously, cattle breedin’ and his little family band, in that order. Everything else is just fun and games.” 

Forry makes his way back around the island to set a stool he’s fetched down for Roan, with no question, or conversation, or fuss, like he just knows Roan needs to sit. He sets the stool behind Roan so that he can continue the chatter facing us, sitting down, his deep voice carving one question into the kitchen. “Want me to drain them taters?” 

Roan lowers himself to the stool, because that one question means something much bigger, that Forry will do what he needs done so that he can get up off of his shitty leg. Roan smiles. “If you’d be so kind.” 

Forry nods and follows his instruction. I exchange a glance with my peers beside me, and a shrug, because that’s different, but nice. 

Forry and Reuben finish the rest of the dinner prep while Roan talks to us at length about what Parker’s family is like, pausing occasionally to give them some instruction, but mostly, he just smiles and yipyaps about what he’s giddy to do while Parker’s family is visiting. 

Eventually, there’s enough work to do for the giant dinner that Roan started that Branch leaves me to help, and Seth gets up, too, so mostly, Keegs and I just ask Roan jackass questions about nothing in particular, just for fun, to kill time. Because Roan is, actually, a certifiable yapster, and he will just spill some beans that we didn’t know needed spilling until they’re already out. 

Just as Branch is pulling pork chops out of the deep fryer outside, the front door opens and carries in loud conversation, that sounds more like bickering than talking. I bump Keegs’ arm to make him turn and look, as if he wasn’t already going to, so that he can see Jameson MacFarland for himself. 

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Keegs whispers, high pitched, in disbelief, like he’s of the impression that Parker’s dad is just as hot as I said he was, and he gets it now. 

“Told ya so.” I mutter back to him, lifting my hand and waggling my fingers, to play nice, like Roan has asked. “Howdy, fellas.” 

Jameson thuds his heavy steps through the kitchen, holding his arms out like he needs all of our attention, grinning like he’s hilarious. “Now, I ain’t never seen this many people in the kitchen at once before.” 

Roan pushes himself up from his stool with great effort, and a groan, holding onto the countertop to keep himself steady when he begins to walk himself around like he’s going to meet Jameson half way. “Now, I told ya we were hirin’ an army.” 

“And you sure meant it, didn’t ya, boss?” Jameson says, reaching down to hug Roan tightly after quickening his steps to beat Roan around the kitchen’s corner, to stop him before he walks too far. He talks just as loudly when they’re hugging each other as he did when he was across the room. “If you don’t sit your ass back down.” 

“Well, fuckin’ sue me for wantin’ to be polite and say hello to ya and shit,” Roan shoots back, though he complies, taking Jameson’s hand when he offers it to sink back to his seat. He points back over toward the table. “That’s our Reuben, over there.” 

When everyone turns, Reuben smiles, pausing with setting plates out for everyone to lift a hand and wave. “Oh. Hey!” 

“Well, hey there, tiny!” Jameson calls, stalking back around the kitchen to scoop Reuben into a hug, too. Lord willing, he’ll stop at that. He squeezes him tightly, hunched over, to reach him. “Welcome to the family, darlin’!”

Yeah, so, that’s another weird thing that’s happening? Reuben lives upstairs now, and he’s going to live here permanently, I think because he was homeless or some shit. Forry cuts carrots, and Reuben is getting adopted as a tiny grown man. Weird fucking contract. 

When he lets Reuben go, he squeezes his shoulder, turning back to the kitchen to face the rest of us. “Now, I’m old, and I ain’t good with names. I already gotta remember four, and one of ‘em’s my own, and now, I gotta keep Reuben in the bank, too, so I’m gonna have to get to know y’all a little, and we’ll see what sticks.” 

“Daddy,” Parker sighs from the doorway as he and his twin brother watch on, shaking their heads. “Now, don’t start with that shit.” 

“With what shit?” Jameson whines, like nobody lets him have fun. “I am simply being cordial, and that is all.” 

Vince folds his arms and leans against the doorframe, identical in the face but opposite in the everything else to Parker, tattoos and piercings and mean-mugging frowns to Parker’s ass-sucking glass-half-fullness. “Cordial,” he says, flatly. “Right.”

”Oh, merciful Lord,” Keegs mumbles under his breath, jabbing me with his elbow. “You did not say twins.” 

“Mhm,” I hum, long, drawn out, because I’m right, and they are unnecessarily hot, and it makes no fucking sense, and Keegs sees it, too.

”Well, let’s see here,” Roan says from behind us, like he’s measuring up how to go about introductions. “You know two from last season, Branch Brooks back here, and Gideon Ingram.” 

I assume he’s pointing at me, but I don’t turn. I just waggle my fingers again, to be polite, as I’ve been asked to be. Jameson points at me. “Aw, now, Gator Bait! I remember you. Sure!”

Vince huffs from his place in the door frame. “Didn’t you pitch such a damn fit last time you were here that Roan sent you home and got attacked by a fuckin’ wolf? Why did y’all rehire him?” 

I roll my head in his direction and lift my eyebrows. “I hope you ain’t meant to imply that I chewed that man’s fuckass leg off.” 

“No, now, none of that,” Roan sighs behind me, and I can hear the way he waves that notion off with his limp fucking wrist. “Ain’t no fussin’ about that. What’s in the past is in the past.”

”Yeah, you leave my good friend Gator Bait alone, ya hear?” Jameson adds, letting his arm drop, looking at me expectantly. “I’m sure you’re behavin’ this season, huh, Gator Bait?” 

“As I have been commanded by my superior,” I say, rolling my head back in Jameson’s direction, from glaring hard at Vince. “Yes, I am.” 

“There ya go. Good man,” he finalizes, clapping his hands and turning back toward the kitchen. “And Butt Ranch! How ya doin’, bud?” 

Admittedly, that gets me, and that really gets Keegs, erupting into smarmy little snickers beside me. Branch looks at me when he passes, shaking his head and smiling like having a shitty nickname from me that stuck to him and only keeps on sticking just makes him love me more. “Hey, sir. Good to see ya,” he says simply, not bothering to correct a nickname he doesn’t even like, shaking Jameson’s hand before returning to the table with silverware. 

“And, let’s see,” Roan continues around us, pointing out the wranglers when they appear in the doorway by Parker and Vince, finally deciding to emerge from their lair of doom and grace us with their presence. “Got Lark Lawson and Billy Beaufort there. They’re handlin’ our herd, and doin’ a damn good job of it. Both seasoned wranglers on other ranches before here, and we’re lucky to have ‘em. Headin’ back up soon,” 

“And thank God for that,” I mutter under my breath, and Keegs jabs me again. 

Jameson whistles. “Now, I already said I ain’t good with names, so,” He points at both of them, separately, Beau first, and then Lark. “Tattoos, Blondie, nice to meet ya.” 

Roan moves on before they can protest, turning back toward the kitchen behind him. “Got Forry Fredricks, here. Ranch hand. Farmer and trucker, from North Dakota.” 

“Truck Stop,” Jameson concludes, without a thought. “Good to meet ya. Tall.” 

“And that’s Seth Selogy. Another ranch hand.” Roan continues as Seth waves, pulling pitchers of tea from the fridge. “Damn good ranch hand, too. Wants to be a foreman someday.” 

Seth nods happily while Jameson hums, arms folded over his chest. “Alright. It’s Braids or Foreman Boy. Take your pick.”

Seth just kind of stares, brows drawing together like he doesn’t particularly care for either of those nicknames, reaching up to touch one of the plaits of his long hair, hanging over his shoulders and down his chest. And he doesn't need too much time to think, because Keegs starts furiously whispering for him to pick Braids, over and over again. Seth clears his throat. “Uh, Braids, I guess.” 

“Oh, thank the Lord, because I wasn’t gon’ remember Foreman Boy, I’ll be honest with ya,” Jameson says, like he’s relieved, and that only sends Keegs laughing again. 

Roan smiles and shakes his own head, like this all very silly, and exactly what he was all giddy for. “And last but not least, we got Kyler Keegs over there gigglin’. One of our cattleman, and a bull rider before he found his way here.” 

“Bull rider?” Jameson asks, drawn out like that’s impressive. “Now, that’s somethin’ I ain’t heard before. You rode bulls?” 

Keegs spins around on his barstool to face him again. “Yessir. Ranked seventh in the Mister Country Bull Riding Tournament ‘bout seven months ago.”

”Seventh?” James spits, like that’s even more impressive. He holds an arm out and waves Keegs over toward him. “That’s damn impressive. Now, where ya from, Bull Rider?” 

“Georgia,” Keegs says as he rises, smiling, like he’s pleased with a little bit of attention. 

“Georgia,” Jameson repeats. “Now, you sit next to me at the supper table, because I gotta hear about bull ridin’, and about how the fuck you found your way out here from Georgia.” 

From the table, Branch looks up, to exchange a look with me, to smile, because Jameson has picked a new favorite. He did that last season, too, when we were here, asked me to sit beside him at the supper table his first night so he could hear about hunting alligators back home, like it was something impressive. Branch gives me this look, like he knows I’m relieved to be left alone, and let Keegs take the spotlight, because I don’t want to yipyap with that old fart when I should be eating a fried pork chop. 

And he’s goddamn skippy, because when Keegs is running his mouth about getting paid to get bucked off of a fucking bull and trampled in the goddamn dirt, I take his pork chop off his plate, because it’s getting cold, and he missed his chance. 

After supper, the unreasonably hot MacFarlands do collect at Parker’s piano to play music, because I guess listening to Keegs talk about Georgia for half an hour made Jameson feel the need to play some fast and horrible folk music, so we all suffer that for a while before we all get turned loose for the night. 

I guess I’ve done a good job of playing nice, because before we can get to the bedrooms, Seth tugs on the sleeve of my shirt to stop me, smiling like I’m his friend, and we’re buddies, and we’re chums. 

“We’re gonna watch a movie before bed,” he says happily, pointing over his shoulder, where Reuben is in the den jabbering excitedly and setting up coasters for drinks, Forry on the cushion beside him, legs crossed, like he’s participating in movie night in addition to his newly found carrot-chopping. Seth keeps smiling. “If you guys want to join.” 

I shrug. “What movie?” 

Keegs holds the wall and hangs from it, free arm swinging, legs tilted to help him swing better. “House of 1000 Corpses. These fuckin’ hicks lure in some college kids and hack ‘em to bits. Real funny.” 

I purse my lips. 

It’s cool to be invited to hang out with them. I haven’t had the privilege until recently. I want, really badly, to say yes.

But scary movies are not a great idea for me. My paranoia is bad enough as it stands, but it gets sort of overwhelming if I watch scary television. Gives me shit dreams, then wakes me up and makes me think shit thoughts, then puts me in a shit mood and makes me treat people like shit, because I let my mind wander, and get afraid of shit that isn’t real, and start to lose faith in my own hands. 

I want to say yes. I know that I can’t. I really don’t want to explain to these nice people that are trying to be my friend that I’m too much of a fucking screwball to be able to suffer a scary movie. 

Thankfully, Branch has lingered in the hallway, too, and my soul belongs to him, so he knows it well enough to lie on my behalf. He sucks a breath in through his teeth like he’s pained, and shakes his head. “Ooh, I don’t do well with blood, fellas. Really don’t do well with scary. Gonna have to pass on that one.” 

Keegs and Seth whine quietly, half-heartedly, and my stiff shoulders relax. “It ain’t actually scary, bud.” Keegs says, pulling himself back upright and then dropping himself to hang again, over and over. “It’s pretty funny, honestly. Goofy, but with blood.” 

Branch shakes his head and pretends that he doesn’t love scary movies, like he doesn’t watch them all the time at home, and like that isn’t one of his favorites. “Not my thing, man, but really appreciate the invite.” He smooths his knuckles over my spine, like he can hear the notches decompressing, like he knows his lie is a comfort. “Y’all come knockin’ if you decide to watch a rom-com or somethin’, ya hear?” 

Keegs snickers like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Seth smiles and nods. “Okay! Yeah, we will. Good night.” 

“‘Night,” I say, taking Branch’s hand when he holds his out, and letting him pull me down the hall to his room, leaving them to their fun.

When I shut his door behind us, he releases me, moving for his closet to change, like nothing he’s done for me is a big deal, and he would never even acknowledge the kindness he’s done for me, because it isn’t anything to fuss about. He just begins unbuttoning his shirt to hang it back in the closet, eyes on his hands, to give me the time I need to process. 

I take my time. I mull over how fucking grateful I am to be looked after by him, in a quiet, private way that protects me from having to explain the kind of crazy I think I am and how much worse it gets when my mind wanders to things that are unnecessarily gory, or spooky, or frightening. Branch takes care of me when he knows that watching a scary movie just to participate in what I’ve been invited to will make my mind wander back to swamp water in Louisiana swirling with blood, coughing on gunsmoke from the rifle in my hands, and the looney ramblings of my urban legend fearing daddy. 

Branch knows me deeper than just my bones. He knows me in my fucking dreams, in my thoughts, and he doesn’t even want any credit for being so goddamn good. 

I’m tempted to get on my knees and thank God for sending me some relief, in the form of a beautiful man that wants to revere me. 

But I don’t want that to go to his head. I need to keep him humble. And anyway, humblings aside, I don’t have the fucking balls to tell him out loud how badly I need him looking after me and my fucking looney ego. 

So, I just lean back against the door, pressing the back of my skull to the wood, watching him peel his shirt off of his shoulders and free his back, toned with muscle from a life of hard work, shoulder blades and triceps, long hair falling over both. 

“I don’t need you stickin’ your fuckin’ neck out for me,” I lie, like a song, words smooth and singsongy, just for him. “And you’d do kindly to let me answer questions for myself when I’m asked them. I ain’t your fuckin’ wife.” 

Branch just nods when I push off of the door and walk toward him, smiling down at his dresser drawers, like he can hear the truth buried deep in every lie out of my mouth. “I’m sorry.” 

I curl my arms around his stomach and press my forehead to his back, breathing in the scent of his fancy fucking shampoo and his gentle, kind-mannered being. I talk into his back, softer in my volume, sharper in my tone. “I cannot fuckin’ stand your ass, sometimes.” 

“I know,” he says quietly, leaning back into my touch, like he loves me just as much as I will never say I love him. “I’m sorry.” 

I hold him tighter, because being so known brings relief to things inside of me that ache, things I’m too afraid to try to soothe myself. “You piss me the hell off.” 

He turns to face me, taking my face into his hands, smiling like he hears my truth as clearly through my lies as I hear the truth through his. He breathes the same thing he keeps breathing, the same shit he always says when I harp. “I know.” 

I shut my eyes when he lowers his mouth to mine, and I melt beneath his kiss. 

Branch talks to his mom on the phone at night. He lies and tells her I’m not here when I lay on his chest and listen, because she’s not my biggest fan and tends to censor herself if I’m around to hear her talking. But Branch knows me deeper than my bones, he knows me in my brain, so he knows that a night of socializing with Roan and Parker’s family makes me wish I had a better time with my own family, that things were easier, and I could call my own mother, so he lies for me again. While he talks to his mom in fabricated privacy, I lay on his chest and listen while his fingers trace mindless patterns into my back over my shirt, and I pretend that sometime in the future, she might ask if I’m around listening with a little bit more hopefulness to her tone, so that I might get a shot with a family again. 

After he gets off the phone, I don’t thank him for letting me participate. I tell him he must have been bitten by a fucking lying bug tonight, because everything that’s coming out of his mouth is certifiable bullshit, and he says he knows before he kisses me again, deeply, much deeper than I have ever been kissed before him. 

We can kind of hear the television in the den from here. Branch puts on some white noise before I even ask, to drown it out, and I fall asleep on his shoulder to the sound of an artificial rainstorm, just one more lie to round out the rest, one more that he doesn’t ask for credit for. 

I wake a lot in the night. I haven’t slept a full, uninterrupted night one goddamn time since I was in baby diapers. 

Normally, if I wake up just because I’m sleeping too light, or because there’s some kind of noise, Branch’s touch usually puts me back to sleep. When my blurry eyes meet the ceiling fan spinning above the bed, the white noise has faded into silence, and so has the rest of the house, filled with nothing but snores as everyone else around us sleeps as soundly as we are. I roll into Branch’s side, draping my arm over his stomach and nestling my head on his shoulder, shutting my eyes to let the sound of his heavy breathing put me back to sleep. 

It takes me a few minutes of trying to realize that snoring is not the only sound in the house. 

Down the hall, wafting through the house and slipping beneath the door, into the room where I am sleeping, Lark is fucking moaning like Beau is fucking him to death. 

I try very, very hard to behave, the way that I have been asked to, and I try very, very hard to ignore it. 

But I don’t fucking know. I think my hearing is better than most. Maybe that’s just a lie I tell myself to write off every creak and mumble that my own mind makes up, or, maybe it’s God’s honest truth, and I am more susceptible to hearing things that other people do not. Maybe that’s a total crock, and I’m just fucking crazy. 

But, I’m sorry, there is no goddamn fucking way the dick is that good. 

Lark is moaning, and whimpering, and pleading, like he’s going to die if Beau doesn’t keep thrusting. Every few minutes, Beau’s deep voice mumbles something back to him, low enough for me to not be able to make out, and Lark whines out another ‘please’, like he’s going to die without it. 

Please, please, please, please, please. 

How about please shut the fuck up? 

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling when I cannot drown it out. 

I cut the white noise thing back on, and Lark whines over the sound of rainfall. 

Lark whines over the different settings I try switching it to, the chirping crickets, and the babbling brook, and the whatever fucking weird ass ribbeting setting is left after I’ve expended all the good ones. 

Lark whines over the pillow I put over my head. 

Lark whines over Branch’s heavy breathing. 

Lark whines over the sound of my own fucking knuckles tapping against the post in Branch’s bedframe, when I’m wide a-fucking-wake and trying to make a sound loud enough to drown it out. 

Nothing is loud enough. Lark is a fucking Olympic moaner, and he’d take the fucking gold for keeping the entire house up taking cock in his ass. 

I poke Branch’s side, and he stirs, just barely, humming out a sound that’s like a question. I turn toward him and watch the side of his face, his eyes shut, his jaw sculpted by his beard. “That fuckin’ sheep twink is moanin’ again.”

”Mhm,” Branch hums, yawning, scratching his chest. “Yeah. That’s nice, baby.” 

I lift my head up, scowling down at him. “Don’t fuckin’ talk to me if you ain’t really awake.” 

“Alright, honey,” he mumbles, nodding, half-asleep. “Sounds good.” 

“Branch,” I say, poking him again, until he hums, the way that he does when he’s awake. “Are you talkin’ to me or are you not talkin’ to me?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Branch,” I hiss, with more venom, because that does not answer my question. “If you ain’t talkin’ to me, then stop talkin’ to me.” He fucking hums again. I poke him harder. “Wake the fuck up if you’re talkin’.” 

My poking does nothing. Branch is a heavy sleeper. He drifts back into sleep, whether I poke him or not. 

Which, admittedly, throws me for a second. 

It takes me way more moments than it should to sort through how he can be talking when he isn’t talking, and how he can be speaking when he’s sleeping, and how he can hum like he’s awake if he isn’t really awake, and then I start to spiral on whether or not we had a conversation at all, or if I’m dreaming, and he isn’t actually here at all, and I never came back to the ranch, and I’m in my truck, sleeping on my way home from Louisiana after seeing my daddy. 

I do not want to think about my daddy. 

I want to go to sleep. 

I roll back onto my back and shut my eyes, tapping my knuckles against the bed frame in a constant, unbroken pattern, to make myself count enough times over that I’ll get tired and fall asleep again. 

I lose my count, because Lark keeps pleading for dick, and whimpering like it’s tough to take, and moaning like he’s never been fucking touched before. 

I open my eyes and scowl at the ceiling. 

There is no fucking way the dick is that good. 

I am just going to lay in my bed and spiral if I don’t occupy my mind somehow. I decide drinking something warm will make me feel sleepy. 

I get up and go to the kitchen. 

I pour some of the milk that I put in this fridge today into a mug while Lark whimpers even louder. I pop it into the microwave and mash my fingers into the buttons while Lark moans even louder. I drizzle chocolate syrup into the mug and stir so fucking obnoxiously that my clanking could wake the whole town up, and Lark begs even louder. 

Please, please please, please, please. 

“God,” I whine, full fucking volume, because there’s no way I am the only person hearing this. “How about please, please, please shut the fuck up?” 

For just a moment, the moaning stops. 

For one single, triumphant moment, I smile to myself and raise my mug to my lips, sipping hot chocolate at quarter-to-midnight, in my underwear, because I have embarrassed Lark enough to shut him up, and that feels better than hot chocolate going down my throat. 

As I swallow, the moaning picks back up, louder, more dramatic. 

Appalled, I lower my mug, hot chocolate dripping from my upper lip back into it. “Are we fuckin’ kiddin’?” 

I’m not really asking anyone in particular, but I cannot be the only person in the house hearing this kind of tomfoolery. 

No one answers, but on the tail end of a moan, I can hear, just barely, Lark laughs. 

Like this shit is funny. 

Like knowing that somebody hears him moaning and begging like a fucking simpleton is funny. 

That. 

Is offensive.

That. 

Is more than just some ignorant fucking leggy idiot moaning like a moron because he thinks the rest of the house is asleep. 

That is intentional griefing. 

His moaning is echoing through the whole house.

And through my fucking skull. 

And into my fucking mug of hot chocolate, so it’s like I’m drinking up the please, please, please that’s wafting through the house. 

I set my mug of poisoned sex juice on the counter with a thud. 

And I march my ass upstairs. 

I have never been upstairs. I don’t have to creep around to know which room is Roan and Parker’s. They have fucking double doors, at the top of the stairs, and a fucking cattleskull over the door.