by A. M. Arthur
“That what happened last night at dinner?”
“Pretty much. I mean, it’s gorgeous out here for sure, but it keeps reminding me of bad things. Sorry.”
“Can’t help that.” Mack had left the city for the country for the same reasons—his history in Los Angeles had left the city toxic to him, too. “So I guess we’ve got an intense dislike of LA in common, huh?”
“I guess so. Anyway, thanks for the chat.”
“No problem.”
Mack watched Wes walk away and then leap across the creek, graceful as a gazelle. He seemed in better spirits, which helped Mack feel less awkward about his rioting feelings for the guy. Cheering up others wasn’t Mack’s best event, but he’d done it for Wes. Teased, gotten him talking. He hated that Wes had had his heart broken and his acting dream crushed. Protective feelings made him want to fix it for Wes, but it wasn’t a problem for Mack to fix. They were barely friends.
And yet, Mack couldn’t shake a sense that he’d seen Wes before. Maybe some bit part on a TV commercial, or walk-on in a sitcom? Wes was gorgeous as hell, and if he had a sprinkling of talent, then someone had booked him for something. For the first time since seeing his name on the guest register, Mack was tempted to search for the guy online. Tomorrow night, maybe, after they got home.
For now, he had six other guests and their horses to focus on. No time to dwell on tender feelings for the crazy-haired city slicker who wore his jeans like a second skin. And definitely no time to compare those feelings to things he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Not since Geoff.
Nope, definitely not thinking about Wes anymore.
Except that ass.
* * *
After spending two more hours on a horse, Wes wanted to cry. He hurt all over and he had to be on the damned thing for four hours again tomorrow, for the ride home. His thighs were burning by the time they arrived at the designated campsite, and he wasn’t too ashamed to ask Derrick for help getting down. Miller was the only other person who seemed as uncomfortable as him, so Wes sucked it up and tried to stand straight.
The site was gorgeous. Flat land near the base of a rocky crag that rose up to become part of a larger mountain. Stones had been laid out to create a fire pit, which was clean of old ashes. Another creek burbled nearby for the horses. A long wooden rail had been installed a few dozen feet from the fire pit, kind of like those places cowboys parked their horse outside the saloon in old Western movies.
Despite having worked on the show for two seasons, he’d never learned the technical terms for a lot of things, and he wished he’d paid as much attention to the set as he had to Drake’s ass. And abs. And award-winning smile.
Stop. Thinking. About. Drake.
All the horses were led to the creek for a drink. Then Mack and Reyes demonstrated how to un-tack their horses and stack the equipment neatly. “Your animal’s needs always come before yours,” Mack said.
Once all of the horses were naked except for their bridles and brushed down correctly at that rail, the cowboys produced these weird bags full of oats and helped each rider attach it to the horse’s head. Wes was a little worried about getting his fingers nibbled—Blizzard was seriously happy to smell those oats—but she was gentle with him.
“Sophie, Miles and Liam,” Reyes said, “come help me get the wagon unloaded. Everyone else is on firewood duty.”
“Firewood?” Miller parroted.
Reyes pointed to a wooded area to the...north? Wes wasn’t great with directions, but the sun was starting to sink at a certain point, and that was west, right?
“Plenty of wood out there,” Mack said. “Nice, dry stuff. Don’t snap nothing off a living tree, hear? It won’t burn and it hurts the tree.”
“Respect the land,” Wes replied.
That got him a smirk. “Exactly.”
“You gonna come protect us, big guy?”
“Yup.” Mack strode to the wagon and unlocked a compartment. He produced a long, shiny shotgun that looked a hundred years old.
Miles’s eyes widened at the gun. He tracked Mack’s movements, until he was respectably far enough away that Miles could return to unloading bedrolls without fear. Wes, on the other hand, started drooling over the sight of Mack standing there in full cowboy getup, a shotgun resting on one shoulder.
Wet dream fantasy come true.
One of his dirtiest, most secret fantasies involved a burly bear of a mountain man taking him captive at gunpoint and...doing things to him. All kinds of naughty things that always had Wes creaming his shorts.
“Wes, dude, you okay?” Conrad poked him in the shoulder. “Come on, we’ve got firewood to collect if we want to eat. I’m starving.”
“Of course he’s starving,” Derrick said. “I’d be more shocked if he ever said no thanks, not hungry.”
Conrad smacked Derrick upside the head, then bolted toward the wooded area. Derrick chased after him. Wes took his time, grateful that Mack was along with the gun. Mack wouldn’t send them anywhere that was dangerous, but he’d also admitted that wild animals lived on the land. A deer wouldn’t hurt them, but a coyote might.
“We need all sizes of wood,” Mack said to their group.
“But what if I only like big wood?” Wes asked with an innocent grin.
Mack nearly tripped. “Then collect big wood. But the rest of you, we need tinder, kindling, twigs and then larger branches.”
“Tinder, huh?” Wes couldn’t help smirking at that. “Didn’t figure you for a dating app guy.”
With a fierce glare that made Wes’s belly wobble in a “yes, daddy” kind of way, Mack turned and put a hand on Wes’s chest. Stopping him in his tracks. “Keep it up, and I’ll dunk you in the creek.”
“You’re just so much fun to tease.” His skin burned where Mack still touched him, and then seemed instantly cold when Mack pulled that lingering hand away.
“Well, quit. You gotta job to do. Go get your big wood and stop jawing.”
The big wood I want is standing right in front of me.
Wes kept his mouth shut and snapped off a salute.
Eventually, Mack declared they had enough of each kind of wood to get a good fire started. He even had a few sticks under the arm not supporting the shotgun. Nothing had mauled anyone, so Wes counted that as a win. Although Liam’s constant muttering about the task made Wes’s skin itch.
Back at the campsite, all the bedrolls had been neatly stacked next to the wagon, giving Reyes access to other things like cooking equipment. Canteens of water went around, too, and Wes gulped at his, not realizing how parched he was. Too busy focusing on Mack, probably, to notice.
“Anybody here built a fire before?” Mack asked once the wood had been sorted by size.
In an unexpected plot twist, Miles was the only person who raised his hand. Wes gaped at him. Miles shrugged. “What? My parents forced me into Boy Scouts for two years. I learned stuff.”
“Forced you?” Wes asked.
“Dad said it was character building.”
“Come on up here, then, Miles,” Mack said. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Cheeks blazing now that he was the center of attention, Miles squatted near the fire pit and started arranging the wood. The tiniest bits of dried grass and some newspaper was called the tinder, apparently. Over that, he used the small, skinny twigs to create a teepee shape over the tinder. Kindling. Huh. Funny how all the layers had names. Over the kindling went a few more of the larger twigs.
“What do you have to light it?” Miles asked. “I don’t want to bury the tinder if all you’ve got are matches.”
Reyes produced a long-necked grill lighter from the wagon and handed it to Miles. “Don’t worry about burning your fingertips.”
Miles took the lighter and put the flaming tip to the tinder. It caught fast. Miles fed it a few strips of newspaper that burned
quickly, until the kindling started to catch. Once the fire had a solid burn going, Miles and Mack both added larger branches to really fuel the flames.
Conrad and Derrick clapped their approval.
“Won’t big fires draw mountain lions toward us?” Miller asked. “They like light, don’t they?”
Miles’s eyes went wide and scared, and Wes wanted to thump Miller over the head with a piece of their firewood.
“We’re out in wide-open spaces,” Reyes replied. “Mountain lions prefer to stay in dense foliage so they can hide from their prey more easily. They won’t come close to a big group of human beings.”
The answer seemed to placate Miles for now, but that had still been an asshole thing to do. The campers were encouraged to explore while Reyes got dinner going, but warned not to wander out of eyesight of the camp. The sun had set far enough that it was hidden by the mountain, so Wes freed his hair of the cowboy hat. Without a mirror, he had no idea how it looked. He finger-combed it a bit, then gave up. No one but him cared what his hair looked like.
There wasn’t a whole lot to explore in the immediate area. Wes leaned against a boulder—he wasn’t sitting again until absolutely necessary—and watched Mack ignore him as best he could. Mack moved between assisting Reyes, watching the camp perimeter like a sentry, and trying not to stare back at Wes. The dance was endearing as hell. And while Mack had yet to say anything to explicitly state he was gay, the way he was flirting with Wes suggested he was at least bi.
A unique brand of flirting, to be sure, with all the growling and glares, and something about it really turned Wes’s crank. His preferred club type was tall, athletic hotties with waxed abs and styled hair. Mack was...well, not that. Wes’s height, but thick all over. And those hints of dark hair peeking out from the neck of his ranch polo? Yes, daddy.
Maybe I’ve been limiting myself all this time by ignoring the bear community. Mack is sexy as hell, and then some.
Dinner was, naturally, a hearty bean and beef chili with lots of crusty bread that Reyes toasted over the fire. It gave the bread a slightly smoky taste that really worked with the chili, which was spicy without scorching his mouth. They all ate out of these weird tin cups with long handles. The dude-bros made a bunch of fart jokes that proved their collective maturity maxed out at age six.
Wes wasn’t sure how they were supposed to entertain themselves until everyone was collectively exhausted enough to go to sleep—until Reyes produced a few decks of cards and a box of wooden matches to use as poker chips. Wes kind of sucked at poker, so he watched while Derrick, Conrad, Sophie and the dude-bros played hand after hand. Sophie’s pile of matchsticks grew bigger and bigger, while the boys’ piles shrank.
She caught his questioning look and mouthed college at him. Who knew higher education had turned his little sister into a cardsharp?
Conrad went out first, followed quickly by Miller. Sophie lost a few hands to Liam. After she knocked Derrick out on a bluff and Liam went all in on his next hand, Sophie called.
She beat his three sevens with a full fucking house, queens over nines.
Mack and Reyes applauded.
Conrad hugged her tight. “That’s my future wife, y’all!”
Liam made a face that Wes really wanted to smack off of him.
The sun had set completely by then, and Wes glanced up, shocked as hell by the sea of twinkling lights above him. Sure, he’d seen stars through the bunkhouse window, but nothing like this. Thousands, if not millions, of stars winked above their heads, more than anyone could count in a lifetime.
“Look at the stars,” he whispered.
Next to him, Miles did. “Damn. I wish I had a lens that could properly take pictures of that. It’s gorgeous.”
He sensed Mack behind him before the man’s hand appeared between them. “You see that arrangement of stars right there? Looks like a Y on top?” Mack connected various stars with his finger. “That’s Ursa Major.”
“Cool,” Miles said. He put a few inches of space between himself and Mack, then asked, “Do you know any others?”
“Sure.” Mack pointed out more arrangements. “That’s Sagittarius, the archer. And over there where you can see what looks like a V with a circle on one end? That’s Pisces.”
“How’d you learn so many constellations?” Wes asked.
Mack cleared his throat hard. “My ex used to know them. Taught me.”
Ex what? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?
“Do we really have to stargaze?” Liam asked. “Isn’t there anything less queer to do?”
The only reason Wes noticed how rigid Mack got at that crack was because of their proximity to each other. Mack’s face remained passive as he angled toward the pair of dude-bros. “You got some special talent you wanna share with the group?” he asked.
Liam scowled and looked away.
“We could tell stories,” Reyes said. “Campfire stories.” The reticent cowboy surprised Wes by continuing to speak. “For example, one time many moons ago, this group of tourists were camping in the middle of a wild nature preserve. Their only protection were two guides with shotguns. But one of the tourists became quite rude, not only to his fellow guests, but also to his guides. The guides were unamused by the behavior, so they offered the rude man a challenge: spend one night alone, with no fire and no guidance. The rude man, believing he knew everything, took the challenge.” Reyes paused, firelight making his eyes glint as he stared at Liam. “The rude man was never seen again.”
“I like that story,” Wes said. “It has a wonderfully happy ending.”
Liam glared at Wes. Wes blew him a kiss.
“You got a mouth on you,” Liam said. “You got a good story to tell, or do you only use that mouth to suck dick?”
Miles stiffened.
Wes laughed out loud. “Honey, you just woke the beast. And while I will not discount my dick-sucking skills, my acting abilities may outshine it by a smidge. I also do requests.” He flicked his ball stud at Liam.
“Ooh!” Sophie said. “Do the monologue from twelfth-grade drama class. Half the people in the room cried.”
“I don’t know, tears? Can’t I do something funny?”
“Please do something funny,” Mack said, a weird smile plucking at his lips. “Let’s see what you’ve got, city slicker.”
Wes picked a spot a few feet away from the group that gave everyone a good view of him, even if it did remove him from Mack’s intoxicating proximity. He cleared his throat, brain whirring for the perfect material to entertain his audience. This particular monologue worked better if he wore a pair of high heels and had his hair styled differently, but he could work with sneakers and hat-flattened hair.
He turned his back to his audience for a moment and finger-combed his locks into a more side-swept look, flexed both feet, and then spun back around, perched on his tiptoes. Flashed everyone a sunny smile. “‘So, the day after I turned eighteen...’” Wes launched into Val’s audition speech from A Chorus Line, one of his favorite musicals, complete with Midwestern hick accent.
The memorized words fell from his lips with ease, and Wes had fun with it. He “auditioned” for Mack and no one else, delighted to see Mack fighting back a smile. It had a lot of cussing, which made him glad that the Reynolds kids weren’t on the trip, and he ended the speech with a fancy bow to his clapping audience.
“Dude!” Miller said. “I knew you looked familiar. You were on that show. You outed that actor!”
Wes blinked at the guy, stunned at being recognized by someone who’d have been in middle school when the show had aired. And then his surprise shifted into anger. “I did not out him.”
“Sure you did, you leaked those pictures of you two together to the press. My big sister had a huge crush on Drake and was pissed that he was a fag.”
Mack growled, but Miller didn’t notice. He kept staring at Wes, open
mouthed, like he was some kind of alien.
“I’m sorry for your sister,” Wes snapped, “but none of that mess was my fucking fault, thank you.”
He stalked away from the fire before he said anything he couldn’t take back. Not that he gave a shit about insulting the dude-bros, but he didn’t need his past discussed in front of Mack. Especially those parts of his past. All of his friends knew, sure, but this was the first time in a long while that anyone had recognized him from his stint on Quick Draw. Drake Sellers had starred in the unexpected hit Western series about a retired bank robber who never lost a quick-draw challenge and had settled in as the deputy marshal of a booming gold rush town. His past kept coming back to bite him.
Just like Wes’s past on the show had come back to bite him. Not a sharp bite, but enough to sting. Maybe Drake’s career had taken a hit after the photos were leaked, but Drake had retaliated and destroyed Wes’s without ever listening to his side.
Asshole.
Except hating Drake didn’t lessen the pain of Wes’s ruined dream. Nothing could.
Chapter Eight
Their city slickers all settled into their bedrolls around ten o’clock. Some of them were asleep, others quietly chatting while they gazed up at the stars.
The stars were one of Mack’s favorite things about the ranch. Living in cities most of his life, he’d never had much of an appreciation for them until Geoff. On their second date, they’d gone to the Griffith Observatory. Geoff’s exuberance over the constellations and their stories had been infectious, and astronomy had become Mack’s new favorite hobby.
Many nights, he and Geoff would drive out of LA, all the way to the San Gabriel Mountains so they could see more stars without the light pollution of the city. They’d lie in the bed of Mack’s pickup and stargaze for hours. Fool around, too.
After leaving LA for good five years ago, Mack had initially hated how many stars he could see on a clear night. They’d been too painful, reminded him too much of his life with Geoff. The stars had also, eventually, helped his shattered heart begin to mend. He liked to think Geoff was up there, in one of those stars, watching over him. And now, endlessly teasing him about his weird dance with Wes.