Page 25 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

The comment caught me off guard.

Right.

I hadn’t exactly updated Max on that situation.

“I’m not cheating on Lily,” I said. “Lily and I aren’t?—”

“Don’t tell me you’re in an open relationship. Lily is a one-man kind of person, even if she supports people who are poly.”

“Not what I was going to say, Baby Blue,” I told him. “We’re not together.”

I marveled at the way he defended his sister.

I wished I had a single family member who cared about me as much as Max seemed to care about Lily. She’d always told me that they’d grown up close, and she missed him all the time since moving off to Montana.

“Since when are you not together?” he asked.

“Last night.”

His brow knit. “Before or after you tried to rob my house and murder me?”

“You gave me the whiskey bottle. Itookthe whiskey bottle. Lily and I drank half of the whiskey bottle, and then she dumped me. That enough of a bedtime story for you?”

I didn’t bother explaining the finer details, like the fact that I had known we were going to break up at some point, and that I’d had confirmation about that before we arrived in Tennessee. Or that Lilyalsowas well aware of it—and that she certainly was fine with the idea that I could fuck anyone, anywhere I pleased.

Or that there were other reasons I’d left home which had nothing to do with following a girlfriend.

“Why are you still here?” Max asked.

That really is the question of the day, isn’t it?

“You can quit the good cop act,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you or Lily.”

“You caught me off-guard last night. Try me again and things wouldn’t end the same way.”

“I would love to try you again,” I told him, holding his gaze. “Doyouwant to take me home with you tonight?”

He picked up a bottle, rearranging more things that didn’t need it. “So that I can actually knock you out this time?”

“Because I want to know how your tongue feels.”

“Shut up.”

“And I want you to clean my cock with it.”

He set down the bottle on the wood with a thud.

“I’m straight, asshole. Not that I’d ever go for a prick like you if I wasn’t.”

For the first time, he’d really surprised me.

Straight.

Why hadn’t I thought he was? Something about his videos, or the way he looked at me, or maybe how he’d touched me, last night?

I was so used to raw physicality that I couldn’t tell the difference between aggression and desire anymore.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and when I pulled it out, I saw the name of the only person in Montana who still wanted to speak to me.

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