Page 2 of Saddle Studs
Would he still be there?
There was no way. Benny always had such a light inside him. That guy was set to save the world. He was smart, charismatic, kind, funny, good-looking—Benny had it all. There was no way he was frozen in time, traveling down the same dirt roads and eating at the same greasy diner spot we’d frequent as kids. No way…
“I don’t really know if I’m okay with it.” And then I smiled in that unhinged way that I’m sure no therapist liked to see. “But I guess we’ll find out.”
My entire apartmentwas packed up in boxes. Tomorrow, I’d bring them all to storage and dump them behind a heavy metal door, locking it up and leaving my current life to collect dust while I went back to my old one. Such a weird fucking feeling. I’d left Johnson Springs right out of high school. That time was nothing but terrible memories. Life got better once I was in college at Boston University, where I worked toward my degree in public relations. I went from living in a small town of a couple thousand to sending out press releases to a hundred thousand. I enjoyed the fast-paced and cutthroat life that the city brought, the flock of faceless people walking past, each on their own individual little missions. NPCs completed side quests I’d never find out about, all of them feeling like heroes of their own stories.
But that same enjoyment soured over the last few months. The city started to feel more and more like an empty facade.Nothing about anyone felt real. Most of the people I met drifted into my life like dust bunnies whipped up by a breeze and carried away, never to be seen or heard from again. Work was even worse, with stressful long hours and entitled clients, I was tiptoeing toward burnout before I made it to my thirtieth birthday. There were only four months left of my twenties, and I was barreling straight toward an early onset mid-life crisis.
Great, just fucking great.
I walked around a stack of boxes labeled “living room” and went for a beer from the fridge.
“Alexa, set the AC to seventy-two.”
Every single light in my apartment turned up to maximum brightness.
“That’s… that’s not what I asked.Alexa,” I said, with the added emphasis of an annoyed parent scolding a (digital) child. “Set the AC to seventy-two.”
The speaker dinged and the air conditioning turned off.
Good—that would warm things up. It was always chilly in my place, and it didn’t exactly help that I liked to be naked. At least it kept my electricity bill down.
Shit.
I was going to have to start wearing clothes now that I’d be sharing a space with other human beings.
I considered getting a hotel for at least half of my ninety-day stay requirement, but there wasn’t anything close to Rainbow Ranch that seemed worth it. I’d already spoken with Pris, who managed the property, and was told there’d be a room for me. I had the urge to ask her if it was the guest room near the back of the house or the one toward the front, but decided to find out when I arrived.
I also nearly asked her if Benny was still around. A curious, almost throwaway question that would have helped me decide whether I should have backed out of this crazy situation.
Benny…
He was the youngest of the Adams family, and had often acted like it. He basked in the feeling of being babied and enjoyed people taking care of him. A little spoiled, very-much loved—and could sometimes be a big-ass fucking brat. He loved horses and had a way around them that felt almost supernatural, like he could speak a secret language only he and the horse could understand.
He was also my first kiss.
A kiss that completely wrecked me. Annihilated our relationship. Threw my life into chaos.
Basically: it fucked everything up.
It was just two guys experimenting. We were horny, fooling around, comfortable around each other. But I wasn’t ready. I’d already been trying to sort out my emotions, which—spoiler alert—were all hormones. Never happened again. Nothing to see here. I’m totally straight—and the second our lips touched, I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I unfortunately reacted in a way that shocked us both. I pushed him off me so hard he fell backward and scratched up his hands on the concrete, nearly hurting his wrists with the impact.
His eyes—full of visceral pain and raw betrayal—still haunted me.
If Benny was at the ranch? Fuck. I’d have to back out. I’d forfeit the land and the horse. Whatever. I was reconnecting with my past to disconnect from the present.
But that didn’t mean I wanted to reconnect with Benny.
I popped open the tab of my IPA, the compressed air fizzing out. I took a drink as I wandered back to my living room, dropped onto the couch, and propped my feet up onto a box full of kitchen utensils. I set the beer down on the side table and replaced it with my phone. I used one hand to lazily scrollthrough social media and the other hand to lazily fondle my balls.
Damn, living with other people was going to be an interesting adjustment.
Maybe it’s also something I needed. The closest relationship I had over the last few years was Macy Hernandez, my girlfriend that lasted seven months before she slept with my best friend.
Clearly, I don’t talk to either of them anymore.
But I couldn’t deny that it was nice having someone around, someone who made it easy to just exist in the space. A girl who could volley inside jokes and random shit back at you like they were pro pickleball players.
