by Peter Styles
He licked his lips and nodded, arms crossing. He smiled and I had to look away.
The list in my hands was long. It took a lot of food to feed this many farmhands. And a lot of money we didn’t have to spend.
9
Oliver
As far as work was going, it seemed like everything was running smoothly.
At first.
Once James had come back around with spare parts, it was time for our next job: taking a look at the combine harvester. It was the last thing on James’s list for the day, and as we rode out, I began to feel the tiredness setting in. The fatigue built up from the growing days of hard work, and the extracurricular activity I’d taken up with Quinn. He wasn’t lying when he said it’d be hard work.
The tractors had been an easy fix, with the right parts and two sets of willing hands, but the combine harvester was a different monster. As the sun got around to setting, and there was only the buzzing floodlight in the barn, it became apparent we wouldn’t get her up and running today. The last of our hope for pushing through ended when I heard James curse, boot knocking into the tire.
“What?” I’d asked.
I watched him toss his wrench back into the toolbox. “We’re gonna have to call it a night, Oliver. There’s another busted engine piece we’re missing—I didn’t spot it the first time.”
No part meant no fixing.
I wiped my greased-up hands on the rag in my pocket. He stepped over the hay collected on the ground, making a that’s that gesture with his hands.
“Means I’m gonna have to swing back over, try to pick out the right piece.” James looked disappointed. We’d both been hustling all day to get the work done. Waiting just meant pushing everything else off.
“We’ll pick it up tomorrow?”
He nodded and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Sounds about right. I should have it by the time you roll around, if I get up early to scrap it.”
We saddled up, the work done for the day. Sundance and Dallas were ready to get back to the stables, and I’m sure James was ready to turn in for the evening, knowing he had to get up earlier than usual tomorrow. Part of me was ready to hit the sack and call it quits, but another part of me, the elastic part of my brain that kept snapping back, thought of Quinn and his maybe later promise.
I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
Drawing a deep breath, I looked up at the night sky, surprised by the beauty in it.
It had been forever since I’d seen a sky like that, the stars countless, the sky a black that just kept going, from one horizon to the other, and I remembered that it wasn’t a ceiling, but rather something that you could keep going and going and going on into, forever. I knew I was a free man, but seeing the wide open sky was what drove it home.
Even before I had been falsely accused, though, I hadn’t seen a sky quite like that since I was just a kid.
I’d grown up in Gaton and in Worthington, but before that, the last time I’d seen a sky without any light pollution was when I was coming over from Cuba. The memory was faraway, blurred by a long life since, but it was something I could never forget:
I was only five when I was stuck on a raft with a bunch of older kids, all of us huddled close in the dead of night. It was a small and crowded raft made of driftwood, and spare lumber and empty water bottles and jugs and whatever else was handy, and on the shore my mother kissed my goodbye, telling me to be strong for her, making me promise. I looked at her face, but even now, I couldn’t remember the details of it—only her eyes, big and brown and worried for me.
There was no way for her to know if I would make it to America once she let me go.
At the time, I didn’t understand it; I didn’t know that I would never see her again.
The boat had set off from Cuba, and the whole way the sea was rough. We could feel the rise and fall of the waves under the raft’s bottom, and several kids got seasick, including the one I stuck to like glue, an older boy who made sure I had enough water. I remembered thinking of him as an older brother, clinging to him when the wind picked up and the rain fell and all of us had to brace and hope for the best; it was the first time I had ever thought of dying, and that it could happen to me even though I was just a kid.
On the night before we sought asylum, making landfall in America, the sea had been calm, and I curled my tiny body up at the older boy’s side, watching the sky and thinking of my mom. It had been just as bright as it was when I rode out with James—and though now I was older, and grown, and had been through much more, the beauty of it wasn’t lost on me.
I had the feeling that was how the night sky was meant to be seen.
The walk from the stables to James’s place was quiet, pleasant.
Neither of us were talkative men, and I appreciated having a friend like that. Hell, I appreciated having a friend, plain and simple.
“Hey,” I said finally, the first word spoken as we headed towards his door.
“What’s up, partner?”
“You mind if I use your shower?” Alongside stars, I remembered the creeping feeling of Quinn’s fingers on my collar. Night had cooled me off, but the sweat of the day was still damp on my chest.
James popped the door open. “Yeah, of course.”
I think I saw more of a question in his face but he let it go, whatever it was, and I was happy for it. I stripped out of my clothes and showered quickly, the warm water soothing my muscles; I really could’ve used more of that tiger balm stuff. It felt wrong to dress back up in the day’s sweat-dried clothes, but I didn’t have anything else, and I wasn’t about to bum a set from James just for… a hookup? Whatever it was Quinn and I would end up doing. Hell, it might not have been anything more than talking, I told myself, so there was no reason to be nervous.
But, still, I was nervous. And I hoped it was more than talking.
I came out a few minutes later. James was kicked back on his bed enjoying a bowl of soup—I silently wondered how he’d whipped it up so fast.
He pointed at me with his spoon. “Welcome back. How was it?”
“Fine.” I rubbed the towel over my damp hair. “Thanks for letting me use it.”
James hummed, eyeballing me as I grabbed at my shoes. “Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but….” He raised a brow. “Why not wait till you got home to shower?”
“Uh….” My fingers stumbled on the knot. I tried again. “Technically I’m living with my nephew right now, and his boyfriend, so I figure it’d be good to give them the space. They, uh….” I smirked at him. “They need a lot of it.”
He scoffed out a laugh, getting the picture. “Right, say no more. You’re welcome to stay again. Sofa city, got your name on it.”
“Thanks, man.” I laced up my other boot. “I’m just gonna step out for a bit.”
James looked at me funny, like he was remembering his question from before. Only this time, I didn’t have the shower to hide out in.
“What for?” he asked like he might have already known the answer.
“I, uh….” Shit. I hadn’t thought of some cover story. My face was feeling particularly warm, and it wasn’t because of the fire in the stove. I opened my mouth for some bullshit excuse—
—but his laughing cut me off. “See Quinn, I’m guessing?”
“Y-yeah,” I stuttered out, telling myself to play it off while I still could. “Just about some, uh, ranch-related stuff. Nothing big.”
He smirked and dug in his bowl with the spoon. “Right. Ranch-related.”
“Yeah.”
“Go on,” he told me. With a roll of his eyes, he waved me off. “I’ll leave the door unlocked for you. And a blanket on the sofa.”
I headed for the door, knowing he was keen on whatever was about to go down. I might have spent some time in prison, sure, but that didn’t mean I was any better at lying.
“Thanks—”
“Unless this, uh….” We looked at each other and he grinned a little. “This ranc
h-related meeting goes on till morning.”
I was a grown-ass-man, but for some reason it felt like being caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to. Like I might get into trouble. It wasn’t a great feeling, even though he was only joking around. With a wave of his hand, he said his goodnights because, as he put it, “Either way, I’m gonna be asleep before you get back.”
That was all the sign I needed.
I left James’s place about as quick as I could, with a burning face, and only the cool night air to soothe it.
The Dyer homestead was nearly all dark when I got there, only the dim light in the kitchen lighting up the lower floor.
When I came in through the backdoor, Quinn was at the kitchen table, going over a folder full of papers. At the sound of the latch, his head snapped up.
“Hey.” I lingered at the other end of the table.
“Hey.” He grinned slowly, shutting the folder, whatever was inside forgotten for the moment. His voice was quiet and private. “I’m kind of surprised.”
I took a few lingering steps closer. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded amused as he stood slowly. “I wasn’t sure if you’d show, so I’m just… surprised you came, is all.”
He reached for me, fingers easily hooking in the bottom of my t-shirt. It towed me closer. We weren’t pressed up against each other flat, but we were in each other’s space. It was like teasing.
“I’m surprised, too,” I told him.
In the quiet that followed, I wondered what he was thinking about; being close to him was like drinking. It made it a little less easy to think clearly. His eyes flicked down to my mouth, and when I was sure he was about to lean in for another kiss, he backed away, tugging lightly on my shirt, a sign for me to follow after him.
The floor creaked under our feet as we stepped lightly through the living room. It felt secret and weirdly romantic because of it. I could feel all of it starting then, the second thoughts, the nerves. Maybe I was willing to believe it would be some making out and heavy petting earlier, but this was Quinn—the same Quinn who blew me my first day on the ranch, and just earlier that day, let me run my hands all over him. I thought of the kiss, neither of us expecting it—
“Hey,” I said again, both of us stopping in the hallway.
He looked up at me, leaning back against the wallpapered walls, fingers wandering again over my chest. It was like a spell; he drew me in like that, with a million little hooks I could feel but couldn’t see.
“I feel like I should tell you a couple things first.” I wasn’t about to get ahead of myself with whatever this was, but… I had a hunch.
In the dark, he nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“It’s just that….” I hated talking about this. I had rarely talked about this, if at all, with anyone. His hand drifted down my arm. “I grew up in… in the closet mostly, just because it would’ve been too dangerous for me to be, well… anything else.”
He was listening patiently, watching me. I looked down at our mingling feet.
“I know the world’s different now. People have been changing, times have been changing. Nico’s out,” and I saw him nod his head, “but I… it’s so deep in there, it’s hard sometimes for me to even think about it.”
I was beginning to think I might feel like shit no matter what I did.
There was the guilt and nervousness I felt in fooling around with another man, but there was that deeper desire. Quinn was here, and wanted me here with him. I wanted that; it was my choice to take it or waste it.
Quinn nodded again, tilting his head as we locked eyes, and he asked gently, “Does that mean you wanna stop?”
I thought about it.
It would be easy to stop. To say goodnight, to walk back to James’s place and have this all be over. Quinn seemed like an easygoing enough guy; if I said I wanted to stop, I don’t think he would take it personally.
But if I turned my mind, just a little, away from all of that and listened to his breath, felt the nearness of his body, and let whatever instinct lived inside answer for me?
“No,” I told him.
My fingers brushed over the sun-tanned curve of his cheek.
“But, uh….” I smiled a little as I added, “If I freak out a little, just know it’s not because of you.”
Quinn nodded, reflecting the happy look, though his was touched with desire; he was good at that. Slipping into being seductive one second, when he was just a regular cowboy in the one before.
His hand drew me in from the back of my neck as he sighed, “I won’t,” our lips brushing, light and electric. I parted my lips against his, hands holding tight to his hips, and he made a soft noise. “Wait.”
When we parted, I shot him a questioning look.
Quinn nodded his head to the side. “Not here. C’mon.”
Keeping quiet as we moved down the hall, Quinn led me the back deck: it was more like a three-season space or a sunroom, screened in but all windows. Out here, there was furniture for sitting and relaxing, wooden pieces with old cushions; you could smell the fresh air drifting in cool wafts from the windows, and hear the crickets out in the grass. A light was on somewhere down the farm, the stables maybe. Quinn was all outlines, dimly lit, as I sat on the back couch and watched him shut the door.
“Does that old thing lock?” I asked.
He turned, shot me a sly smile. “No.”
The house was silent, except for us. The ranch hands had gone home, gone to bed, gone someplace else. With the curtains drawn open, it was almost like we were outside again, this time under the stars.
Quinn sauntered over to me, looking me up and down like he couldn’t wait to tear me clean out of my clothes. I flushed with a rush of heat at the idea. I left room for him on the sofa, but he didn’t take me up on it, instead pressing a guiding hand to my chest, leaning me back as he slid easily into my lap.
“But no one will bother us out here,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth turning up.
It was the last thing he said before he kissed me.
This kiss wasn’t like the heated one we had shared in the field. This was slower, hot and open-mouthed, his hands wandering over my body like he knew it well, what I liked and what I didn’t. Maybe it was just intuition; maybe he’d done this so many times before it wasn’t just a guessing game to him. I thought of where to put my hands—his hips—but I wanted to be bolder.
I felt his breath, the heavy pant of it, as my hands, larger than his own, came around his ass and squeezed. He gasped, panted into my mouth and gave a quiet growl of approval, and need. The sound of it made my cock jump with want; did he know how hot he was?
“Fuck,” he whispered against my mouth. “Do that again.”
I did as he asked, kneading my fingers into the roundness of his skin, drawing the same reaction. I felt his hands move, away from me and towards his belt. I heard the rattling of it, the hiss of it being pulled from its loops. It dropped heavily to the wooden floor and I flinched at the sound.
Quinn laughed quietly.
“I thought we were supposed to be quiet,” I muttered, hands moving up under his shirt.
Quinn hummed—I gathered he was probably noisy in bed—arching into it. I felt his hands on my fly a moment later. “What’d I say about no one bothering us? Don’t worry, it’s just us.”
It took some mental coaching for me to believe it—it’s just us, repeating in my head—but I relaxed slowly, eventually. Quinn’s mouth was a good distraction, his tongue capable of saying teasing and foul things, but also capable of being soft. It rolled against mine like silk, the taste of him becoming permanent. I sucked his lip between my teeth; when I let go, it made a wet little snap.
His ass ground down into my lap with intent.
We looked at one another. His pupils were bigger, darker.
“You like it a little rough,” I said.
It wasn’t a question. He nodded. “Yeah.”
I rubbed over his knee, my
hand working up over the outline of his cock, thinking of how he had shown me. His eyes fluttered shut, and fuck if the sight of him wasn’t unfairly beautiful.
Quinn reached around himself, pulling his shirt over his head. In the cool air, I could see the little peel of goosebumps come over his arms. He was excited, bare and vulnerable. When his lips touched mine, he told me, “I’m sure you can handle it.”
We peeled each other’s clothes away quickly. It was my shirt that followed his, and then our pants, collecting on the floor, and as I went for the band of my boxers, he shook his head, crawling out of my lap.
“Wait,” he murmured, excitement in his voice; he liked doing this. I lay back when his hands guided me to, a visible tent in my shorts that was more prominent when I was stretched out like this; a noise fought its way out of my chest as he palmed at it through the fabric, possessively, head bending to mouth wherever his hand touched.
“Quinn—”
“We have to be quiet, remember?” He looked up at me, eyes sparkling. “Let me take care of you first,” and then, with mischief, “Uncle Ollie.”
I groaned at the name, hand covering my face, my smile. It was easy to forget our age difference—unless he brought it up.
He crawled onto the couch, something feline and hungry, and nudged at my tent with his nose, his cheek, until finally he plucked at the opening and let me slip out. The very tip of his tongue found the base of my cock and twitched back and forth, trailing a jagged lightning bolt of pleasure all the way to the tip. There, he planted a kiss right on the top, and that kiss softened, and then I was inside his lips and straining as my body thrust automatically to get deeper.
Quinn wasn’t having it yet. He raised up, so that I had to chase him, and held just that sensitive head trapped there, under the sway of his teasing, wet muscle as it flicked and swirled and made me want to start muttering prayers or filth, one or the other. “Quinn, please,” I hissed.