Page 50 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
It was pitch black by the time Grady pulled away for good only to lean back in and press another firm kiss to Cole’s lips before sliding his hand down to tangle his fingers with Cole’s. He guided him out of the brush, letting him go once they were on the road.
“Go on then,” he said as he grabbed Red by the reins.
Cole hoisted himself up and shuffled forward. Grady came up behind him, and they cantered back to the house, Cole cradled snugly between Grady’s hands on the reins, his thighs on the saddle.
Once they were back and Red was unsaddled, Grady said, “You wouldn’t think we got another full day of it tomorrow.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m just messin’.” Grady grabbed Cole around the shoulders and tugged him into the house under the crook of his arm. Cole snorted a laugh and dropped his head down as they went in.
Grady let him go in the kitchen, and Cole set about making the dinner. Grady took a seat at the little table, got out his ledger, and calculated how many sheep they’d done, worked out how they’d look for the next two weeks if they kept this pace, and reckoned they’d be looking good.
29
C
ole was leaning againstthe counter when Grady went into the kitchen at five a.m. He was dressed and ready to go in all but his boots, one socked foot rubbing his calf, two mugs of coffee steaming by his elbow.
“Morning,” Cole said. He gave Grady a cautious smile from under the fall of his black hair, his face still sleepy.
Grady crowded into his space and kissed him. Cole made a little sound but then brought his hands up to Grady’s biceps tentatively and kissed him back. It was a slow kiss, morning lazy. Their lips brushed, parted, met again and lingered. Cole tasted like coffee and toothpaste. Grady kissed him one more time before pulling away.
“Morning,” he said and grabbed his coffee. He quirked his lips as he sipped.
Cole huffed a shy laugh, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He grabbed his mug and they went out to the porch, the horizon still dark in front of them. Grady listened as Cole said he’d always loved shearing time when JP and his crew came to the farm, howthey made shearing seem effortless, like art, flowing through the flock as one.
The morning began to wake up hazy, the clouds a light-gray vapor wrapping around the house and the shed on the hill above them, the swarm of cover engulfing the fields and pastures and trees on all sides. It was cooler, but the cloud cover felt warm nonetheless, the whole effect making it feel like they were cocooned in a mirage. The birds began to get up—twittering and cawing as they soared around the house before landing and taking some issue with one another, then turning to forage for food. The air was permeated with the comforting smell of sheep manure from having the whole flock so close, and as Grady listened to Cole’s words breeze over him—the soft yet serious cadence of his voice—he felt, and was surprised to feel it when he paused on it, content. It was as if he hadn’t realized he might not have been, and now here he was, seeing every decision he’d made up to this point as right, and he was only just now realizing it, seeing it in that new light. It was a feeling tinged with unease—these particular conditions made him content? Whatwerethese conditions?—but he wasn’t one to dwell, so he got up and said, “C’mon,” and tossed the dregs from his mug in the garden. “Let’s move some of them in.”
Cole said, “Yep.” He pulled his boots on, laced them, then stood and followed Grady out, a content smile on his lips, too.
The two weeks of shearing passed in a blur of weary-boned satisfaction. Grady stretched out with his legs on the coffee table, his head tilted back against the back of the couch on the night before the final day. Cole lounged lengthways next to him, reading a book.
Cole had been digging his heels into Grady’s thigh for a while.
“You wantin’ somethin’?” Grady asked. He rocked his head to the side and grinned.
Cole didn’t bring his book down, just dug his toes in.
Grady leaned over, grabbed him by the hips and hauled him up to straddle his waist. Cole blustered like he was annoyed, but his smile betrayed him. He tossed the book aside and got to kissing Grady like they’d done every night since shearing started. Grady was thinking it was a good thing they’d gotten into this kissing thing, since they’d been too tired to do much else at the end of each day.
Well, that’s what Grady was telling himself. He kissed Cole now, slow and deep, noting all the ways Cole had learned how to kiss and become demanding in his own way since they started. Braced over Grady, he brought his head down and kissed him like he too was happy to settle in and do it until they couldn’t put off sleep any longer. And Grady didn’t want to acknowledge that maybe they weren’t just making out for hours every night because they were too tired to take it further.
Like, it just felt damn good.
“You good?” Grady asked when he came upon Cole the next morning on the porch steps. He was sitting there, looking out at the horizon like he was about to lose the dawn for good to the sunshine.
Grady expected the usual platitude, but Cole surprised him with his honesty.
“I’m sad.”
Grady wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“Why?”
Cole rested his chin in his palm and tipped his face up to look at Grady.
“I always get sad when it’s the last day. It’s just… good, you know, havin’ JP around. It wasn’t always…”
