Cowboy: The Mathesons Book 2

by Declan Rhodes

  As Hamish sat down across from me at the rented desk, he groaned. “Honestly, this is beneath you, Simon. You’ve got all of this noise, and the air smells like cheap bagels. We’ve got to get you into a professional place of your own soon.”

  I tapped the eraser end of a pencil on the desk. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used an actual graphite pencil, but someone left it behind on the desktop. “You know, I can’t disagree, but my business is doing well even without the office. I’ve got two other new clients beyond Matheson and Greene.”

  Hamish raised a hand into the air like he was placing letters on a marquee. “The clients you’ll get with your new digs will make M&G look like small potatoes.”

  I shook my head. “Honestly, it’s not that. They’re an advertising firm. They have connections to many other potential clients. It’s like they have long tentacles reaching out for me all across Manhattan.”

  “Are they MOMA? Lincoln Center? NYU?”

  “No, but you’re talking non-profit enterprises. Those organizations don’t have money for high-end renovations. Or if they do, it’s once in a blue moon.”

  Hamish leaned forward. “Prestige, Simon. I’m talking prestige. Once you have it, you can write your ticket into any boardroom.

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Leaning forward even more with his fingertips placed barely an inch from my arm, he said, “We’ll own the city, you and me.”

  I frowned, and I wanted to recoil. I didn’t like thinking about any kind of long-term you and me arrangement with Hamish. Unfortunately, I felt slightly trapped. His financial support was critical at the moment.

  I asked, “Isn’t that a little bit of an exaggeration?”

  He pulled back. The frenzied fire in his eyes diminished, and I exhaled. Sometimes he acted like a wild beast aiming to devour prey, but then he always backed off. So far.

  “Yep, it’s an exaggeration, but I want to light that fire. You can’t get far if you let it all happen to you. You have to create your opportunities. This city thrives on raw aggression. That’s how you get anywhere in Manhattan.”

  I tapped the pencil on the desk again and considered his statements. “My mom is a tremendously successful artist, and she’s not aggressive in the least. In fact, my other mom is the more forceful one, and she teaches for a living.”

  Hamish shook his head. “The arts are another animal entirely. Are you an artist, Simon?”

  I rubbed my chin and considered the question. “I suppose I like to think that I am. I work with colors and designs, and I think my artistry is that personal touch that isn’t provided by computer programs or science. Yep, I’m an artist, too.”

  I understood Hamish’s point, and he was talking about a cutthroat business world that I didn’t doubt existed. Still, I relished frustrating his arguments. I bit my lip and stifled any additional comments when I thought about the money again.

  Hamish was ready to jump on my words, but my cellphone chimed and interrupted him. I held up a finger and then pulled it from my pocket glancing at the screen. It was a text message from Tate. He’d bought Yankees tickets.

  My attention floated away from Hamish as effortlessly as dandelion fluff carried on a summer breeze. I stood up. “Just a sec. I have to respond to this.”

  Before Hamish could say anything in response, I backed away and leaned against a wall about fifteen feet away.

  I reread the message. Tate bought Yankees tickets. Our brief exchange caused me to smile from ear to ear. Remembering my howling anger at his Dodgers faux pas from years earlier, I teased about wearing the right jersey. If I could get Tate into a Yankees one, it would surely make me weak in the knees.

  After the conversation was over, I scrolled back to re-read Tate’s messages. We were beyond rekindling the sex. Tate was aiming squarely for my heart.

  Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long, slow exhale, I stuffed the phone back in my pocket and looked back at the desk. Hamish was waiting, but he wasn’t patient. He was drumming his fingers on the surface and watching me.

  I shook my head briefly and tried to re-focus my attention on the meeting. It was difficult because I was thinking about Tate looking like a home run hitter with his broad chest in a Yankees jersey.

  I knew that I had a slight swagger in my step as I returned. For a moment, I saw myself dressed as the cowboy again spotting an impossibly handsome sheriff on the opposite side of the saloon. That lawman was Tate.

  “What the hell, Simon? That was some message. Was it a million dollar contract? You look like you’ve drifted off into the clouds.”

  Seating myself again at the desk, I looked back at Hamish. I debated whether to tell him about rekindling the relationship with Tate. If Tate was right, Hamish had designs on me, but I still told myself his interest was about a financial return on his investment and little else.

  “It was Tate.”

  “Tate Matheson?”

  I nodded, and I couldn’t stop a grin from materializing.

  “So he liked your ideas about decorating their New York headquarters?”

  “He’s taking me to a Yankees game.”

  It was like watching a lightning bolt to the head. Hamish understood it all in an instant. For a few seconds, an expression of shock appeared, but it quickly changed into a frown. Within seconds it grew more intense and was almost like a scowl.

  When Hamish finally spoke, his words surprised me. He said, “You’re smarter than that.”

  I didn’t feel smarter than anything in particular. In fact, I thought I should congratulate myself for being smart enough to trust Tate this time around. He was busy with everything going on in the Matheson and Greene world. Their business was going great guns, but he was still taking time for me. He didn’t even like baseball, but he was splurging on both time and money to take me there.

  “It’s completely unethical to use a business contract to get to you.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “It’s not like that at all. He’s a professional. We keep the work and our personal lives separate.” I felt confident standing on the rock under my feet. We already thought through any legal and ethical concerns. Ally’s party was the catalyst for getting us back together as a couple, not any of the meetings at Matheson and Greene.

  Hamish surprised me again with his next move. He reached a hand across the desk and gripped my wrist. His hand was strong, and the clamp was firm. Hamish rubbed my flesh with his thumb pushing the tip slightly underneath the cuff of my dress shirt.

  Gazing directly at me, he said, “All I’m saying is there are other men out there who are better options. You told me what happened before. Workaholics don’t change. Not in a meaningful way. They’re like zebras trying to get rid of their stripes and leopards trying to lose their spots.”

  I raised a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I get your point, and yes, he’s still a hard worker. I don’t need to talk about that. Let’s get back to business. The relationship between you and me is a professional one. So, do you have some possible new leads?”

  Hamish looked at me in silence a few seconds longer. Then he pulled out three business cards from the breast pocket of his shirt. “I do. All three of these men owe me a few favors, and I told them about you. A quick message letting them know that Hamish made the connection is all you’ll need. These aren’t the big fish, but they’re not merely bait either.”

  I started to weigh in my mind the difference between Hamish’s business of personal favors, and his accusations about Tate using the advertising business to aid his heart. It was far too confusing to tease apart with Hamish holding three cards between thumb and forefinger.

  I took them from him and said, “I’ll get in touch. Is there anything else?”

  He shook his head. “No, not for today. I’ve got another business associate to meet.”

  In response to the statement, I told my only lie of the morning. “I’m sorry to see you go.”

  We both stood, and Hamish pounded a fist against
the left side of his chest. “Just be wary of Tate Matheson. There are other men that will take better care of this.”

  I offered a hand to shake and ground out another lie. “Thank you for the advice.”

  “And you’ll have that office in no time. Let me know if you need any assistance from me. We’re great partners, Simon, business I mean.”

  I thought I saw some sadness in his eyes as Hamish turned on his heel. Maybe Tate was right. Perhaps Hamish did have personal designs on me, but it was a losing battle. My heart was ready to take the big leap all over again—right into Tate’s arms. I smiled, sat at the rented desk, and pulled my phone back out. I had to reread the messages about the Yankees game one more time.

  Tate was making an effort, and that was all that I could ask. That was all that I wanted when we were together in the past. I knew that pursuing career success meant we’d have to spend inconvenient amounts of time apart, but I needed the reassurance that he was fighting against the current. I wanted him to try to minimize the surprises so that we could plan our time together.

  I settled in at the desk and tried to get to work. I pulled up online catalogs of possible furniture suggestions for the Matheson and Greene project. After ten minutes of struggling to focus, I knew that it was fruitless.

  I needed a walk. It was impossible to sit still while I thought about the future that could lay ahead with Tate. I packed up the computer and stuck the pencil in my bag for good luck. It was close enough to lunchtime, only an hour away, that I could use that as my excuse for abandoning work for the rest of the morning.

  Casting a furtive glance around the large room, I didn’t see anyone looking in my direction. Stepping from behind the desk, I indulged myself in my baseball obsession. I adopted a stance like I was in the batter’s box at Yankee Stadium. Twisting my face into a sneer at the pitcher, I pulled my hands back rocking the bat against my shoulder. I mouthed the words, “This one’s for you, Tate,” and then I swung for the fences. It was a home run. I stood still with a satisfied smirk on my face as I watched the imaginary ball sail over the imaginary wall more than four hundred feet away.

  I never was a baseball player. I didn’t even set foot inside a baseball diamond. The closest I came to it was playing softball in gym class at school. What I did have in my past were stories from Mom Missy about her uncle who played in the minor leagues and got called up to the big time with the Yankees for one week. He only batted twelve times, and he got only two base hits, but they were enough to bask in big league glory for the rest of his life. Uncle Mort was in his late 80s now, but he was still a baseball player to me.

  I strolled down Broadway dodging tourists and a few locals feeling light on my feet. We’re going to make this work, Tate. I can feel it. I decided on one of my favorites for lunch. Slipping into a cavernous tourist-focused Chinese restaurant just three blocks from the shared office building, I grinned when the host offered me one of my favorite small tables in a corner. The food was average, and the service was slow, but the people watching was always superb.

  After I poured myself a small cup of Chinese restaurant tea and ordered a crab rangoon appetizer, I watched a pair of men enter. As the door closed behind them, the taller of the two wrapped his arms around the waist of the other. While they waited for someone to show them to a table, they each turned their heads and shared a quick kiss. From a distance, it looked like two men madly in love. I took the sight as a good omen for Tate and me. We had a bright future ahead.

  15

  Tate

  Simon insisted on meeting me at my apartment before heading to Yankee Stadium. He said that way we wouldn’t have trouble finding each other in the teeming sea of fans in The Bronx, but I knew there was more to it than that. I invited him to spend the night before together in our old bed, but he turned the offer down explaining that he was sorry, but he had a ton of work on a Friday night. I hoped he could sleep over after the game, but I knew that I needed to be content with the fact that we were dating again whatever happened later in the night.

  A grin a mile wide spread across my face as I opened the apartment door to welcome Simon. He stood there in his Yankees jersey holding a hanger in his left hand with an opaque suit bag hiding what was underneath. As we hugged, I said, “I bet I can guess what’s in there.”

  With the shopping advice of Felix, my intern, I’d bought a Yankees t-shirt to wear to the game, but Simon was much more extravagant. I unzipped the bag to find an authentic Yankees jersey.

  Simon said, “Look on the back.”

  Turning the jersey around, I read the name Rivera along with the number 42. “You’ll have to tell me all about him. I don’t know who he is. Hopefully, he’s not someone we saw at a game, and I’ve forgotten about him.”

  “No, we never saw him together. He’s The Sandman. He’s only one step down from The Captain in the all-time list of great Yankees.”

  “Sandman? Seriously, they called him that?”

  “He was a relief pitcher. He put the other team’s bats to sleep.”

  I grinned. In the past, Simon’s devotion to baseball felt frustrating on occasion. I sometimes worried that he was more devoted to the Yankees in the summer than he was to me. My point of view was shifting. I understood that Simon’s love of the men in pinstripe uniforms wasn’t any more threatening than Kyle’s love of cats was for Mason or my country line dancing was for Simon.

  I handled the tickets, and when we got to the seats, Simon looked all around in a complete circle before turning to me. “Are you sure we’re in the right place? This is only three rows back from the field! I’ve never been this close before.”

  I held up my cellphone with the ticket image. “We’re where we’re supposed to be. That usher wouldn’t have let us in here otherwise. He would have glared at me and sent us on our way.”

  Simon hugged me tightly before we could sit down. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? I know baseball isn’t really your thing, but this is amazing. I can’t believe it.”

  I said, “You are my thing, and I want to share the experience of being here. I hope we win, too.”

  As the game started to unfold, it felt like I’d never been to Yankee Stadium before. I knew that I’d behaved like some sort of curmudgeon in the past and tried to ignore anything that was the least bit interesting. I hunkered down in my seat and thought about advertising clients while Simon shouted at umpires and stood to roar with the crowd every time the Yankees scored a run or executed an impressive defensive play.

  With a new attitude, the game made more sense, and I found many things to watch other than the game itself. We had a family of two parents and two children sitting to Simon’s right while an older pair of male partners sat to my left.

  To my surprise, in the third inning, the man beside me leaned forward and pointed at Simon. “I may open myself up for complete embarrassment in asking this question, but are the two of you…” His voice faded out.

  I grinned. “Yep, he’s my boyfriend.”

  The man said, “It brings back lots of memories of Frank and me. We had to be much quieter about our relationship when we were your age, but I think we were about your age when we came to the stadium together for the first time.”

  Simon ignored the conversation. His concentration was like a laser focused on the game. I said, “That’s exciting to know. I hope we’re like the two of you when we’re—oh fuck, I didn’t mean to say anything about…”

  I started to feel mortified both about my insinuation about their age and my foul language.

  The man laughed. “We’re old geezers. There’s no way around that. Frank is 73, and I’m two years older.” He held his hand out to shake. “I’m Will.”

  Simon disrupted the shake. He suddenly stood up and pointed an angry finger at the field. “C’mon ump! Are you blind or what? That’s a ridiculous call!”

  Frank started chuckling. I heard him say, “His passion brings back memories. Will had to hold me back to keep me from jumping onto the f
ield one time. We were sitting in the front row.”

  As Simon settled back into his seat, I tapped his shoulder and asked, “Can I interrupt?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry if I got a little carried away. It’s just that the call was kinda crazy. Did you see it? Your eyesight is probably better than the ump’s even without your glasses.”

  “Well, actually, I was meeting our fellow fans.”

  I saw a sparkle in Simon’s eyes as he leaned across me to shake hands with Will and then Frank. He suggested, “Maybe we should get a drink together after this is over—if that’s okay with Tate.”

  The rest of the game zipped by. I was shocked when Simon reminded me it was already the eighth inning. I chatted with Will about everything from the pain of living through the 80s to the joys of feeling open walking down the street hand in hand with Frank in so many different parts of the world. In the fifth inning, I switched seats with Frank so he could join Simon and carry on in-depth discussions about the subtler points of the game.

  It felt like we’d lived through about three days in The Bronx by the time we made it back to my apartment at 10:00 p.m. We’d not discussed plans for later in the night. As I closed the front door behind me, I was ready to ask about Simon’s opinion. Before I could speak, my phone rang.

  Simon said, “Go ahead and answer it. I need to use the bathroom.”

  It was Guy calling from California. He said, “Hey, big brother. I hope this isn’t a bad time. I know it’s a Saturday and all. We’re the old married couple that never goes out anymore.”

  Guy didn’t often call. I worried that there was a problem. I asked, “Is this something intense and personal?” When he did call, Guy was usually asking for advice, and I didn’t know whether I could concentrate with Simon in the apartment. He was my first priority.