by Totts, B. J.
“You’re never going to want to let me go,” Derek promised.
Jesse felt the lump in his throat grow. That was already the problem. He didn’t want to let him go. Despite all Derek's bluster and too slick smiles, Jesse felt as certain quiet understanding and acceptance when they were together. Dressed or not, time with Derek was just better than all the days before he’d gotten here. It had been like this before they'd ever kissed too, for years now, but to a lesser degree. Derek would drop by to see his parents, full of energy, mischief, and tales of his adventures on the road, and Jesse would be torn between his desire to look cool and an urge to follow Derek around like a puppy and just be near him.
Getting closer to Derek hadn’t slaked his thirst. He was like drinking salt water; a taste just made his crave more. The sensible part of his brain screamed that this whole mess was just as good for his as salt water, too. Derek was leaving in a few days and sucking in as much fantasy as he could before then wasn’t going to make living without him any better. If anything it would be worse because he’d know what he was missing.
Derek kissed his forehead, his eyes already heavy-lidded with impending sleep. “Night, Jess. Tomorrow’s going to be another good one.” Derek gave him a squeeze, pulling him against his broad chest and then snuggling down into the bed skin to skin. Jesse didn’t just hear the steady beat of Derek's heart, he felt it, hypnotizing him, telling him to go ahead and fall. It wasn’t like he was winning this fight with himself anyway; he was just limiting his fun.
Tomorrow he’d say yes to whatever Derek wanted to do, and the next day he’d leave. There were plenty of days left in Jesse's life for chores and denial, and with his parents soon adding a crying baby to the household mix he’d have plenty of time to be patient and dutiful. He owed himself just one more day of indulgence. He’d deal with the consequences later.
***
Jesse awoke to the feeling of stubble tracing a rough path over his chest and down across his belly.
“What are you doing?” Jesse asked.
“Having breakfast,” Derek answered.
He shouldered Jesse's thighs apart, pushing his legs wide as his tongue slid over Jesse's delicate skin. As he’d expected, Derek knew just what to do, teasing confident patterns over his tender flesh, mixing hard and soft touches, and quickly winding the tendrils of need within him until Jesse was once again pressing his pillow to his face to smother his sounds. His hips began to buck, and Derek placed an arm over his hip bones to still him and whispered, “Trust me.”
Jesse whimpered and tried to hold still as Derek repeatedly built him up into a hill of need and backed away before reaching the peak, edging closer to the climax each time. Derek's mouth continued to blaze a path over his skin. Jesse whimpered a warning as he passed the point of no return and Derek continued working him towards ecstasy. The cloud of need that had built within his released into a rainstorm of pleasure and Derek didn't shy away from the storm.
Derek made his way back up Jesse's body, again trailing kisses as he went, and when he was beside him said, “Was that what you wanted?”
Jesse managed a languid nod of agreement and Derek grinned then kissed him.
Derek said, “Any time you need something, just tell me. I’m happy when you’re happy.”
“I think you could be happier.” Jesse wrapped his hand around Derek's erect cock and felt the vibration of Derek's low, rumbling purr as the bed shifted underneath them.
“I like the way you think.”
***
They spent most of the morning in bed, emerging to shower only when they heard Mike’s truck crank and then the sounds of the engine fade as he drove away. Jesse vetoed a plan to take the horses for a ride, stating that Derek had already spent enough time in his saddle to make time on the trail an uncomfortable proposition. They packed a lunch and drove down to one of the less popular swimming spots on the river, wasting a languid day there until they’d run out of food and energy. They laughed a lot, alternating swimming, teasing, and generally being fools with hungry kisses and sultry touches. It was a break from who and where they were. They weren't separated by a generation and the thousand mile drive that loomed in the near future, they were just be two people having a good time. Jesse didn’t realize how often and casual their touches had become until they returned home.
Mike’s glare was like ice as he came out on the porch to stare them down, Jesse with his back pressed against the hot, faded paint of the truck and Derek with a hand on either side of him, penning him in. When he realized they were being watch, Jesse ducked out of the makeshift embrace and bounced up the steps past his father, dragging Derek along by the hand behind his until they were both on the porch, even with Mike who seemed ready for a showdown.
He met his father’s icy stare with a smile and said, “Why don’t you take a walk? We’ll make dinner.” He shoved Derek ahead of him into the kitchen and around the corner, out of Mike’s sight.
Derek pulled him, in close, barely suppressing a burst of laughter, and asked, “Did you just protect me from your father?”
Jesse kissed him and teased, “If he knew what you’d spent the day doing to me he’d be digging the hole for your body already.”
They both gave up the fight against for a straight face at that, collapsing in fits of laughter that only grew louder when they heard the clomp of Mike’s boots on the porch steps. When their laughter died down, Jesse rested his head on Derek's chest and relaxed into the comfort of his arms. He'd be lucky if his heart only broke into a handful of pieces. When he thought about Derek leaving tomorrow, he felt like he'd shatter. This might be just a show they were putting on to smooth things over with his parents, but it felt real.
***
Derek gave the simmering pot of beans a quick stir and then tasted the corn cake batter he’d been carefully doctoring with the available ingredients. He wasn’t satisfied with it, but he declared it would have to be good enough unless they wanted to drive into town to the grocery store. Jesse had long finished the chopping duties for the salad he'd been assigned and had been watching and listening as Derek talked. He’d been chatty since they’d begun cooking, delivering a lecture first on pancakes around the world and then a verbal tour of the best cheeses he’d tasted on the road.
“You know anything about cheesemaking?” Derek asked.
“Nope.”
“Me either. Gonna have to learn. The place I’m buying comes with sheep. Most dude ranches have cattle, but the sheep set this place apart. It’s known for wool blankets on the beds, fresh cheese and eggs, and a garden out back. Eat local, farm to table, and all that. It’s nice. You'd like it.”
Jesse gave him a small, non-committal sound. He probably would to see Derek's new home at some point if his relationship with Mike and Rebecca ever recovered. Mom seemed to have forgiven him already, but it would take a while for his father to come around and even then they might never get back to where they’d been before. Maybe Jesse wouldn't even want to go. This felt too real. How long would it take to accept that it had all been a passing fling?
“I’ll put a pottery wheel out back for you,” Derek offered. “You'll feel right at home.”
Derek twisted the knobs on the stove, set the cast iron pan on the burner, and tossed in a bit of lard. He tested the heat by hovering his hand over the surface of the pan, and, when it was ready, he swirled it to distribute the oil and then dropped in batter by the scant quarter cup, making small, perfectly round cakes.
When the pan was full Jesse prodded, “How’d you learn to cook?”
“I’ve been grown for a while now. At some point you either learn to cook, go broke paying somebody else to do it well for you, or you accept that all your meals will come in a paper bag.”
“You could find somebody else to do it,” Jesse suggested. “Get married again.”
“You offering?” Derek asked. He was grinning, but it was a cautious smile, one that knew this conversation could turn on him quickly.
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“I can’t cook.”
“Don’t matter. I can.” He slipped a hand around Jesse's waist and pulled him in close against him then nipped his ear and whispered, “You could come play house with me.”
Jesse's stomach clenched at his words. Play house. Play. That’s what they were doing, right? Playing at being a couple so his parents could believe he was in a relationship instead of seeing that he was just drunk on sex. Anger at himself for falling into this mess burned. Everything but the sex was fake. This was all just a dirty little game. Derek was leaving in the morning.
“Why’d you get divorced?” Jesse asked. He'd never heard Derek's side of the story, although he knew Kayla's well enough. She claimed her ex-husband had fallen more in love with the excesses of the road than with her and he'd left her for a life of debauchery.
Derek released Jesse from his hug, sighed and then turned his focus back on the pan before he spoke, fiddling with the knobs and adjusting the heat. “We got married the Saturday after high school graduation. She knew I was headed out with the rodeo and, at the time, it didn’t seem gentlemanly to have his come with me without marrying his. That was my first mistake.”
“Marrying her or having her come with you?”
“Both. If the only reason you can find to do something is ‘it’s the right thing to do’ then it’s probably wrong thing to do. Anyway, she hated the road. The travel, the people, the animals, the day to day uncertainty. Hated every bit of it. We’d been out on the road six months, and I was doing decent but not great. Money was tight most of the time. We swung by her parents’ place for a visit and it when got to be time to leave and she said she wasn’t going. She said she'd tried it my way and I needed to try it hers, so I gave it a go. We got a little apartment in town and I got a job at the feed store. We were still broke, but now I was the one who was miserable. Next time there was a rodeo in town she told me to go and not come back. I went.”
Derek sighed before he continued. “No matter what she says, other people didn't come into it until later. I sent her the divorce papers a couple months after I left. Judging by the way she screamed at me on the phone I guess she expected me to come crawling back, but we wanted different lives. We couldn’t both be happy and I wasn’t willing to have one of us miserable for the next sixty years.”
“But now you’re done with the rodeo.”
“I'm done with the travel and getting thrown, but I still like horses and people. I think the ranch is going to work for me.” He flipped the pancakes over one by one with a slight smile and then turned to Jesse as they crisped on the other side. “What about you? What do you need to be happy?”
It was the crux of his problem. He wanted a place to call home with people he loved, but his parents liked a very quiet life and his brother was in the Army. He spent more time on assignments away from the barracks on Fort Hood than in them. New York hadn't worked out for him. There was nowhere he belonged. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Yeah, you do,” he said. “You said New York was too busy for you and the people were cold. You’ve complained since you could talk that the days out here are all the same and nothing new ever happens. You need to be somewhere with some people but not a ton of them and where things change a little all the time but life’s not rushing past you.”
Jesse took a sip of his water and weighed Derek's words. He wasn’t wrong. Jesse gave him a humorless smile. “I guess I’ll get a little apartment in town and a job at the feed store.”
Derek's voice was low and serious as he said, “If that’s what you want.” He turned his attention to the pan, slowly slipping the spatula under each cake, sliding them onto a cookie sheet and then putting that in the oven to stay warm while he dropped the next round into the pan. He gave the pot of beans a stir and said, “Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. Why don’t you go set the table?”
“OK, Dad,” Jesse snapped, regretting the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. It was supposed to be sarcasm, a little jab at him for assigning his chores, but the words landed like a bomb, reminding them both how they'd first come into each other's lives and one of the many reasons they shouldn't be together.
“Maybe I should leave after dinner,” Derek said.
Jesse' heart hammered in his chest. He’d known this was coming. He’d just been a lay to Derek and now that he’d stopped being fun, Derek was done. “Maybe you should.”
***
Jesse barely made it through the meal, choking down each bite through a throat that felt dry and swollen so it could land with a sick, heavy thud in his gut. After dinner, Derek went up to his room to pack, so Jesse was left with nowhere to retreat but the barn. He barely made it past the door before the tears started falling. Jesse took slow, deep breaths and willed his pulse to return to normal. He’d known it would turn out this way, ugly and over. Derek would go off to his glamorous life like he always did and Jesse would stay here, weed tomatoes, and wait for an opening at a job in town that might not ever even come. Derek had never promised him anything, and it was his own fault he'd let his heart get involved. Jesse knew who he was, knew that he never stayed and hadn't committed to a relationship in over twenty years. This day had been inevitable.
Jesse would go out and see him off and then it would be over. It had just been a dalliance, a way to pass time. It was all just sex. He’d lived out a fantasy but it was time to wake up.
“Jess?”
He turned to find his mother silhouetted in the doorway. “Honey, why’s Derek leaving early?”
Jesse countered, “Why does Derek do anything?”
“He’s always chased down what he wants. He’s a little crazy, but he loves hard. He’s always taken good care of you.”
Jesse swiped at his tears with the back of his hand. “I don’t think Dad sees it that way.”
“What do you think Dad sees?”
“We never should have gone near each other. He's Dad's friend, not mine. The whole thing was just wrong from the start.”
“You could see it that way,” his mother hedged. “Or maybe Derek loved you too much not to take a shot and figured he’d deal with the fallout later.”
“It’s not like that, Mom.”
“Maybe not for you, but find your manners and come out and say goodbye.”
“Mom,” he protested.
“If you’re going to have lovers then you’re going to have ex-lovers. You need to learn to deal with that or you’ll just end up bitter and shouting ugliness at the world like Kayla. I don’t want that for you.”
“But you want his ex-husband for me?”
“He added a thousand miles to his trip to home just so he could swing by here and say hi, risked his relationship with the closest thing to living family he’s got just for a shot at something with you, and when you told him to go he started packing. One day you might find a man you love more, but I don’t know that you’ll find another one who loves you like he does.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Mom.”
“Young man, I’m done with this argument. Come say goodbye. He’ll be gone soon.”
***
Jesse dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt of the driveway and tried not to watch as Derek loaded his bag into the back of his truck. He hadn’t thought through what it would be like when Derek left. That it would be awkward and he'd be fighting back tears hadn't occurred to him when soft lips and rough stubble played over his skin, but now, forced to face the moment, he was a messy riot of emotion. Whatever it was that he couldn’t find the words for would have to remain unsaid. Derek would be gone in the next few minutes and Jesse could start getting over him. It was going to take a while. No need to add to his misery by putting on a show.
Derek slammed the tailgate and turned to face the assembled group. Rebecca stepped up first, drawing him into a hug and giving him a firm pat on the back before she released him. “Drive safely,” she ordered. “Keep it under ninety, even out in the empty parts.”
“I
promise.”
He extended a hand to Mike. Mike shrugged but took it, and Derek pulled him into a rough hug. “Good luck with the baby. Really. Congratulations. That kid’s lucky. Coming into a great family.”
Mike gave him a pat on the back and then stepped away quickly to stand beside his wife and cast a protective glance at his son.
Derek approached Jesse cautiously, leaving some space between them but standing close enough to keep their conversation private as long as they spoke softly.
“It’s been a good few days,” Derek said. “But my future’s not in a small town Texas. I’ve already tried this.”
“Drive safely,” Jesse answered. It was a ridiculous thing to say, but there were no words for what he was feeling. He’d let his heart get drug into this situation. They were just old friends who’d been lovers for a few days. It had all been hot, frantic and needy, the end always visible even as the moments slipped past. If Derek had any soft thoughts about him, he hadn’t shown it. He'd never said “I love you.”