by E M Lindsey
Mat couldn’t stop his laugh. “I told you.”
“That’s Sonoran,” Miguel said quietly. “That’s where my family’s from.”
Mat laughed again. “Then I guess you got extra lucky today.” He sat back and drummed his fingers on the table. “My boyfriend’s Canadian. Uh…French-Canadian. There’s a term for it, but my brain never remembers how to say it. I think the only thing this little town doesn’t have is Canadian food.”
“Poutine?” Miguel asked, his lip pulling up in a half smirk.
Mat’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell no, everyone knew about fries with gravy and shit except me?”
“Finn and I have been on the road for almost two years, bro. I’ve seen just about every fucking thing.” Miguel laid both hands on the table, and Mat couldn’t help but trace the movement with his gaze. The moment his eyes locked on Miguel’s scarred hand, though, he dropped it back into his lap.
“If you think it freaks me out…” he started.
“I don’t,” Miguel barked.
“Okay. And I won’t pretend like I have any idea what it feels like. My shit doesn’t show up until I’m stressed out and trying to call a chair a lobster or some shit.” He absently reached up, rubbing at his scar. “But there’s a reason Irons and Works is a safe place for me to work. Shit, for all the guys to work. I know you went riding with James.”
Miguel grunted, shrugging as he flicked the corner of the menu with his thumb.
“He’s the person I love most, apart from Wyatt. He was already an amputee way before I met him, so that body he’s got—it’s the only one I know. I’m not asking you to trust any of us now, but you should know that this is probably the safest shop you can work in.”
Miguel swallowed thickly, then nodded, though he didn’t return his hand to the table. “I get that. I’m not saying it’s not, I just don’t like being stared at.”
“Can’t blame you. Fucking sucks. When you have more than just ink and piercings…” Mat trailed off with a shrug.
Miguel laughed. “Trust me, bro, I’d rather have them look at my gauges than my hand. Or this.” He stuck out his tongue, and Mat jolted in his seat to see his tongue had been split at the tip.
“Holy fuck,” he breathed out.
Miguel laughed again, the sound oddly pleasant and soothing. “I was eighteen. Had a really rough patch with my…with some family shit,” there was a tension in his voice that told Mat not to ask. “I just needed something drastic.”
Mat pressed his left thumb into the center of his right palm and thought about what it felt like to swallow that bottle of cleaner from the supply closet. The burn of chemicals, the desperation to just end it. “I get it.”
“You look like a man who does,” Miguel said after a beat.
They locked gazes, and Mat felt something settle in him in a way he hadn’t entirely expected. “I hope you stick around. A lot of the guys are moving on—hell I’ve got one foot out the door right now.”
Miguel looked surprised. “That so?”
“The assholes—and I love them, I fuckin’ do—they convinced me to try the whole med school thing again. I’ll be around, but my stall will be up for grabs pretty soon I think.” Miguel actually looked impressed, and for the first time in a long time, Mat felt a sense of satisfaction in his former job instead of just loss. “You won’t be rid of me, but there’s room, if you know what I mean.”
Miguel let out a soft breath, then nodded. “I don’t know where the hell I’ll be in a month’s time, but for now, this is good.”
“Then that’s all we’ll ask,” Mat told him. He had a feeling, though, that he might be seeing Miguel for a long while.
Wyatt breathed out, feeling a sense of calm come over him as he let his hand settle into Apollo’s soft fur. A two-year-old Golden Retriever who had initially been taken by a client whose other dog became aggressive with the guide. He was returned after a week and a half, and Wyatt sort of felt for him in a way he hadn’t expected to.
In truth, he hadn’t expected to bond with any of the dogs. He’d expected to meet and reject every single one, but something about Apollo just felt right. There had been a time he hadn’t expected to feel a harness against his palm, his pockets full of treats, commands on his lips as he trusted four paws to get him from place to place.
But he’d done it. He’d fought back every urge he had to call Mat, abandon this whole venture for home, and he worked through it. The center gave him a counselor to work through lingering grief over Pomme, and after the graduation ceremony, he knew he had one more trip to make.
“Hey, cowboy,” Mat said on their first call that week. Wyatt had tried to keep in touch as best he could, but he needed the distance. It meant everything, just how much Mat understood it. “Miss me?”
“More than I can say,” Wyatt told him.
Mat chuckled. “You sound super French right now, not gonna lie. It’s pretty hot.”
“Ah, ouais?” Wyatt murmured.
Mat groaned and Wyatt heard a soft thump as Mat dropped his head down against something hard. “Come on, cowboy, give me a break here. I haven’t touched you in weeks. You can’t speak to me in French when I can’t get my hands on you.”
Wyatt laughed, but he decided not to torture his boyfriend any further. “I just got the date of the graduation ceremony and I was hoping you could make it?”
“Seriously?” Mat asked, his voice taking on a note of excitement. “I can come to that? You want me there?”
Wyatt laughed again, feeling his cheeks ache from just how hard he was grinning. “Of course I want you here. I can get you a ticket and we can fly home together.”
“Hell yes, sweetheart. I can’t fucking wait. I thought it was going to be another five days. When can I come?” Mat was talking a mile a minute, and Wyatt felt that in his bones. It had been too damn long since he’d gotten his hands on Mat, and he didn’t want to wait any longer than he had to.
“Two days. You could stay with me here, but I think I’d prefer a bit more privacy,” Wyatt told him.
“I’m in. And I can buy the ticket, okay? You don’t need to…”
“Let me do this,” Wyatt asked him, his voice soft but commanding. “I asked a lot of you—waiting on me without much communication.”
“It wasn’t a lot,” Mat told him. “It was exactly what you needed.”
Wyatt closed his eyes, burying his fingers deeper into his dog’s fur. “I can’t wait for you to meet Apollo.”
Mat chuckled. “I’m guessing you didn’t get to name him?”
“Why would you say that?” Wyatt asked with a teasing smile.
“Because he’d probably end up called Huckleberry or Holliday if you had a choice,” Mat said, a grin in his voice.
Wyatt wanted to contradict him, but knew he had no leg to stand on. “Maybe we can get some pet fish, eh? Then I can name the entire crew.”
Mat laughed softly into the receiver. “They’ll have to be betta fish and fight each other, or it won’t be realistic.” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “Shit, Wyatt. I miss you so much. The house is almost totally done, and I can’t wait for you to be here so we can move in.”
That had been the only real argument between them—the fact that Mat refused to move in until Wyatt was home. Wyatt and Mat together had funded the updates—all of those cheaper than they should have been thanks to Tony’s contacts—but as much as Wyatt had insisted that Mat move in and settle, he refused to sleep a single night there without Wyatt by his side.
As much as it grated on Wyatt’s nerves that Mat was so stubborn, he also loved him for it. “Soon, mon âme. I’ll see you soon.”
They hung up after that, and Wyatt sent Apollo to his bed before climbing under his own comforter and taking his dick in his hand. He stroked himself to the memory of Mat’s warm skin, his eager mouth, his pliant body when Wyatt wanted to take some control. He felt an anxiousness deep inside him, and he knew he would only be sated the day he picked up Mat from the airport and got to hold him
in his arms again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Hey, cowboy.” The words drifted through the abstract space between where Wyatt stood and Mat approached, and it only became reality, tangible, when Wyatt had hands on either side of his face, and a warm mouth drinking in his kisses like Mat needed them to survive.
Wyatt kept Apollo’s leash looped around his wrist as he lost himself in Mat’s lips, and only pulled back when his head started to spin from lack of oxygen. “How was the flight?”
“Fucking long, but you know that. Um…can I say hi to Apollo or does it need to wait?” he asked, his voice a little nervous.
Wyatt recalled when he brought Pomme home—how Ioan had been disinterested, how he didn’t want to follow even basic etiquette. Wyatt had long since come to terms with the fact that Mat would never be like him, but he would never get tired of being reminded just how much.
“If you wait,” he said, “I can take him off the harness and you can meet him properly when we get to the house. Do you have your bags?”
“Got ‘em,” Mat said, and Wyatt heard him give the luggage a pat. “And uh… I got my license reinstated and everything, so I decided to rent a car. You cool with that?”
Wyatt nodded, then picked up the harness, reaching for Mat’s shoulder to give it a firm pat. “Follow,” he commanded.
Mat seemed to get it, because he took up his pace just a foot or so in front of Wyatt, and they made it to the car counter with an aching familiarity of home and safety. Wyatt let that settle deep in his gut, with Apollo at his side, with Mat a few steps ahead, with their future wide in front of them.
When they got to the car, Apollo sat between his legs, and Wyatt let himself lean against Mat’s shoulder, not wanting to be further than that, even if the drive was short. He’d found a little vacation rental just a block from the training center, which meant they could enjoy the neighborhood as Wyatt worked with Apollo in unfamiliar areas, but Mat having the car meant the drive to where he’d laid Pomme to rest wouldn’t be difficult to get to. He hadn’t told Mat about it yet, but he knew his boyfriend wouldn’t mind.
“What’cha thinking, cowboy? You have that pensive look on your face.” Mat asked.
Wyatt wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or not at just how well Mat could read him. “There’s just something I want to do before we go home,” he admitted. “When Pomme passed, I didn’t know what to do. They offered to cremate her, but I didn’t know where I was going to end up, so I paid for a little plot. I know it sounds ridiculous…”
“Don’t,” Mat said, a little sharper than Wyatt was expecting. He took a breath, and his tone was calmer. “Don’t act like it’s just a dog. It’s never just a dog, and especially right now. I would love to go visit her.”
Wyatt’s eyes closed and he felt a rush of old, stale grief take him over. Touching Apollo helped ease the pain, and leaning against Mat again kept him centered. “It’s not too far from here. I just…I just don’t know if I’ll be back. I want to do this one more time, just in case.”
“You got it, sweetheart,” Mat told him, and leaned in, brushing his lips over the top of Wyatt’s head.
He didn’t take Apollo with him, and it felt a bit strange to be without the dog after three long weeks of being nearly inseparable, but it felt strangely morbid to bring the dog to what would ultimately be his fate someday. If not there, somewhere, and long before Wyatt took his own last breath. It felt foolish, because Apollo wouldn’t have understood, but the dog was also adept in picking up on his moods and he wanted to allow himself sadness and grief.
With Mat by his side, it felt less overwhelming. Pomme had been given a plaque in a wall, her ashes entombed, a bit of braille at the bottom which he ran his fingers over and her name came to life under his hand.
“What’s it say?” Mat asked softly. Wyatt didn’t answer except to gesture for Mat to find out for himself, and he did. “That’s sweet. I’m sorry you lost her. Was it…I mean, that seems a little young.”
“It was, but there wasn’t any way to avoid it. I knew she was sick for a while too, but I was so wrapped up with my failing marriage I didn’t…” Wyatt let out a trembling breath and squeezed Mat’s hand. “When Ioan was found out, they dragged me into this meeting. Pomme was so sick—and I was waiting on her test results to see what was going on even though I knew she was in renal failure. It was the first time I got a glimpse of what my life was going to be like without her. My cane skills were…” He let out a bitter laugh. “They were so pathetic. It had been so long since I had done anything but rely on her for more than a trip out to get the mail, or the occasional outing with Ioan, which had been far less frequent by then.”
Mat stepped in close, wrapping his arm around Wyatt’s waist, and he kissed the side of his neck. “It’s alright, cowboy. You don’t need to do this.”
Wyatt shook his head. “I want to. I felt this really profound sense of guilt when I first got to Fairfield, because Pomme dying forced me to acknowledge that I’d let her become a crutch. Her death at the same time that my marriage ended forced me to take steps back to being independent.” Wyatt turned and pressed his face into Mat’s shoulder. “It wasn’t having a guide, it was having an excuse not to do things on my own. I won’t make that mistake with Apollo.”
Mat ran gentle fingers through Wyatt’s hair, making him shiver a little. “I like him.”
Wyatt couldn’t help his grin, because Apollo liked Mat too. He was a friendly dog—it was the breed, but it was more than that. When they’d settled on the sofa after dinner, Apollo hadn’t hesitated in making himself comfortable between Mat’s legs, reveling in the extra set of hands to pet him. Mat took Apollo for an evening walk, played fetch in the small yard, and it was at that moment Wyatt finally felt truly settled. This was their family—however official, however young.
“My parents tried to use her death as a way of making me stay. I was just so…tired,” he finished behind a sigh.
Mat made a soft, frustrated noise. “I don’t understand how they can know you and love you for your entire life and still not see the person you are.”
Wyatt laughed. “I guess blindness is hereditary.”
“Nerd,” Mat murmured, kissing the top of his head.
Wyatt’s laughter died off, and his shoulders slumped. “I need to see them again. I left it so angry.”
Mat made a considering noise, then brought Wyatt’s hand up to kiss his knuckles. “Whatever you want, I have your back. Even if that’s me hanging at the house while you do this.”
“I want you there,” Wyatt said, and there wasn’t a single second of hesitation in his mind. He wanted his parents to see the united front he and Mat made. Whatever their judgements, whatever their personal beliefs, he needed them to know that their trip out there hadn’t done anything except make them stronger. “I haven’t spoken to them since we left, but Declan sent me an email after Ioan was sent home and said he wasn’t welcome back at the house.”
“Is that because his ass got sent back to Wales?” Mat asked, some actual tension in his voice now.
Wyatt reached out, absently reading Pomme’s name again, the metal braille digging into the pads of his fingers. “Maybe. Or maybe they were forced to acknowledge that everything I’d said about him was right. Their reasons don’t matter to me. I’m not going over there to reconcile. I just need them to know that in spite of the way their love was meant to control me, it didn’t work.”
Mat brought his hand up, rubbing a few strands of Wyatt’s hair between his fingers and he made a soft noise, telling Wyatt he was thinking. They stood in silence for a long while before Mat spoke up again. “I sometimes think about trying to prove to my family that I’ve done alright—that I’ve come out of it better than I thought I ever would. But there doesn’t seem much of a point. I was never close to them the way you were, though. I was a role to fill, not a child.”
“Well, if you ever choose to go back…”
Mat held him a little tighter a
nd laughed. “Oh, trust me, cowboy, you’ll be riding that steed right along with me.”
Wyatt huffed. “Tabarnak, we’re watching the damn movie again. And again. Until you have it all right. He wasn’t a cowboy.”
“No, he was the law man,” Mat said, his voice inappropriately heated for being in a cemetery, though Wyatt couldn’t find it in him to care right at that moment. Mat turned him, gripping him by the hips, and brought his lips down so close they brushed Wyatt’s when he spoke. “You’re more than what people tried to make you believe about yourself, you know. You’re…” He sighed out a soft breath, then kissed Wyatt gently. “You’re everything.”
“I love you,” was all Wyatt could think to reply, but it was definitely enough.
Wyatt gripped Apollo’s harness so tight his palm ached, but he refused to back down. Mat was in the car waiting, a compromise since Wyatt wanted an excuse not to stay long, and Mat wanted to avoid any major confrontation. He hadn’t given anyone prior warning, so there was every chance no one would be around except his mother, maybe his father, and a couple of his nieces. He was hoping against hope none of the kids were there—he didn’t want to subject them to any of the things he wanted to say.
He breathed out, hearing Mat’s words echo in his head. “You got this, cowboy. Go show ‘em who’s their Huckleberry.”
He’d laughed, then kissed him, then smacked him on the shoulder before taking Apollo and making the trek to the front door. Now he stood there, his finger poised over the bell, and he wasn’t sure he had the courage. Then Apollo’s nose knocked against his calf and he almost laughed. He was definitely strong enough to do this.
It took only a minute for his mother to answer, and he heard her take in a gasp, saw a flurry of movement as she pressed a hand to her breast. “Maman,” he said.
“Wyatt you…your friend…is he leaving you here?” There was a hope in her voice that once would have made him feel guilty, but now only served to strengthen his resolve.