Page 77 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
And he was off, detailing the addition of stalls, a tack room, the direction to be facing them so the horses got the best insulation in winter and the coolest places for summer. Grady nodded along and grunted in all the right places. He hadn’t thought on it that much, but Cole knew horses, so it didn’t matter much what Grady had been thinking.
“I reckon you’ll be salvaging more than we thought,” Cole said. He was sitting Chloe alongside Grady atop the biggest hill on the property, surveying the final field.
Grady spat. “Yeah.” He might break even. He might not.
They rode back to the house, the bodies of the locusts crunching under the horses’ hooves as they hit the road. Once they were inside, Cole got back to the plans for the stables, as he liked to call it, his ideas for the expansion sprawled over the dining room table. The table hadn’t been used since Grady’s daddy died and his mama went to the city; Grady always ate at the little table in the kitchen. It was in full use now—huge sheets of planning paper, drawings and rulers covering it while Cole explained how everything was going to work. Grady left him to it and got their dinner. He called Cole when it was ready.
“Just a sec.”
Grady went in to see what the holdup was this time. He found him with the pencil in his mouth, his brow deeply furrowed, his hair tied up in a bun on his head, both hands planted on the table where he studied the papers in front of him.
“It’s just a horse barn,” Grady said.
Cole looked up and narrowed his eyes at him. “It ain’t.”
Grady held his hands up and couldn’t help himself, he laughed. Anyone would think Cole was planning the invasion of Europe.
“C’mon, eat before it gets cold, then you can get back to it.”
“You gotta get it right,” Cole said, but he followed Grady to the table.
“You’ll get it right,” Grady said once they were eating.
“You sure about that?” Cole leveled him with those eyes. “You puttin’ a lotta trust in a boy who ain’t never built anything.”
Grady nodded. “Yeah, but I reckon you’d sooner sleep in the hail or a drought yourself before you’d let them horses do the same.”
Cole grinned and waved his fork at him. “You’re right about that, son.”
Grady snorted.
Once dinner was finished, Cole got up to do the dishes, but Grady could see he was itching to get back to it, so he sent him out with a swat on the ass as he bumped him away from the sink. “Go on, get.”
Cole laughed and bumped him back before skidding back into the dining room.
Grady turned in at the regular time, Cole saying he’d be up “in a sec” when Grady told him so. He woke up when Cole slid inbeside him, his body cold as it blanketed Grady’s. Grady’s arms came up, automatic, and held him close. Cole kissed his throat, and Grady tightened his arms, rolled them over so Cole was under him. He brought his hand up, pushed Cole’s hair out of his face, traced his fingers down his cheek and jaw. He dragged his thumb over Cole’s bottom lip and watched Cole’s eyes on his, steady but still with some uncertainty even after months of this in Grady’s bed. Grady kissed him, slow and deep, and as Cole opened up to him, his tongue tangling with Grady’s, Grady kissed him harder. He brought himself up on his elbows and bracketed Cole’s face between them.
By the time Grady was opening Cole up and pushing in, the sex felt like an afterthought to the main event; which was what, Grady couldn’t have said. But as he rocked his hips in and Cole arched his back to meet him, his gasp breaking their kiss as he threw his head back, Grady felt like they were doing more than fucking.
Grady slipped his hands down, took both of Cole’s in his own and brought them up over his head, pinning them to the bed. Cole gasped and met his eyes. Grady stilled and searched those eyes looking back at him. Cole squeezed both of his palms in Grady’s and Grady squeezed back, held his hands bone-crushingly tight. They started to move again in tandem. Cole sucked in a sharp breath before he came. Grady watched him, fucked him through it. Cole’s lids fluttered closed before they opened quickly so he could watch Grady fuck him deeper, harder, come too, come down. They never stopped kissing, and those dark eyes opened and searched Grady’s every time they broke the kiss. Grady hoped Cole found what he was looking for in Grady’s answering gaze.
40
I
t was well intospring, every shoulder bordering the pastures and fields brimming purple with flowers, and Cole was halfway through the build, directing Grady this way and that, sending him into town to get this supply and that one, before they heard another car coming down the driveway.
Cole stopped lifting the beam, his body in front of Grady where he was holding the other end, frozen by the sound of the drone on the horizon. Grady watched as Cole set the beam down in a jerky movement. He couldn’t see his face, just the back of his neck exposed from his hair up in one of those messy buns, the skin of his nape and shoulders, bigger since he’d arrived more than six months ago, slick with sweat from working.
“Ain’t expectin’ anyone,” Grady said and stepped in front of Cole.
Cole didn’t say anything. Grady listened. City car. He didn’t need to say it, Cole knew the distinction as well as he did. Grady planted himself right in front of him, felt his panic from behind him; it was in his breaths going short, but it was more in hisstillness. Cole, Grady was learning, was flee or freeze, wasn’t no fight in him. Grady reckoned he might need to teach him a thing or two on that score.
The puff of dirt appeared and emerging from within the cloud Grady made out the red of the sedan. Charmaine. Grady exhaled in relief and then felt all twisted up in a way he couldn’t explain. He’d almost forgotten he had a wife. And he reckoned that wasn’t a thing a man should be forgetting.
He heard Cole exhale behind him. Grady still spoke to Charmaine about once a week on the phone, and he noticed Cole made himself scarce when those calls occurred, but he reckoned the two of them would get along just fine if given the chance.
So Grady wondered why he was wondering when she’d be leaving as soon as she came to a stop and got out of the car.
