Page 25 of Coiled Tight
Maybe I should hit up the local club. I hadn’t been there in a decade, and I couldn’t imagine they held the best opinion of me, but there were other Littles there, and they tended to team up, didn’t they? They might take him in.
Or maybe I could tone it down and just leave a pamphlet for their website somewhere he could see it. I had to have a few of those around.
It could help if he had someone—a few someones—to go out with on his days off or have playtime with. The Daddies and Mommies and other D-types there were trustworthy. Last time I’d been, anyway. Vetting had been thorough as fuck. It had annoyed the hell out of me when I’d applied to be a member.
For all the good that did me.
I could imagine the nightmare it would be if I tried to reapply.
No, thanks.
But it didn’t mean Cam shouldn’t.
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why there’sno gettin’ close to no one?” Was he trying to mimic my voice? I didn’t talk like that. It was beyond the point. “You’re a catch, man. Guys like Cameron are all over guys like you.”
I huffed. “And you know that now?”
“Well, yeah.” Dwight snorted. “Some things in the scene don’t change.”
“When’s the last time you’ve even been part of the scene, as you put it?”
The gay club scene. Dwight always referred to it as such, which had made me give more of a double-take at first. Scene was how I’d always thought of BDSM spaces, but goodol’ bisexual Dwight had a way with words. One came to learn that tidbit about him quickly.
“Christmas, I think? There was a special you would’ve liked. Some twinks trying their luck with a mechanical bull.”
I shook my head. Dwight had decided all on his own that twinks were my one and only type after he tried to proposition me one night and I’d turned him down. He didn’t make it weird or anything afterward, but from time to time, he liked to rib me with it, and keeping in mind he was the one ranch hand I still stayed closed with, I let him get away with it.
“Sure thing.”
“But seriously, Saúl.”
Dwight took off his hat, revealing the blonde hair he was teased for every now and again.
“Fuck off.”
Taking off his hat meant time for a heart to heart and I was not in the mood to rehash the past or flay myself open. What I needed to do was get out of my head, drive back to the house, and hope and pray that Cam hadn’t left and that he wasn’t back to being the spooked little thing he’d been when he arrived months ago.
Saddle Up was approaching, too, which meant I’d be gone for two weeks, and that would be time for him to stew some more—or an excuse for him to pack up without a single person to stop him.
And to think I’d been considering asking him to come with me. Sofía used to do it, but she couldn’t this year, and donations always surged when we had a proper vet giving updates on the animals and explaining fancy, doctor shit.
“Later, first you listen.”
“Fine.” If I didn’t have a choice, at least I could make it quick. “Get on with it.”
Dwight glared at me. Another day, I would recoil. Today, Iwouldn’t fight back if he decided a well-placed hit was what this day called for.
“You are not to blame for that shit with Roy.” He squared up as he spoke, because apparently, he was not pulling punches. “No one thinks you are, either. Well, fine, not anymore. The point is, he left, yeah, and he fucked us all up, and people were angry and they didn’t know shit about handlin’ their emotions and needed a punching bag, but they’re distant with you becauseyouare distant. You drove everyone away, and you’re not letting them in, and it’s fucking sad to see, but now you’re not even lettin’ newcomers in, even though they definitely have nothin’ to do with that mess.”
I grunted. “I am one hundred percent to blame for Roy.”
It had been my responsibility to see the signs, and I hadn’t. I hadn’t been able to react, and we almost lost the entire sanctuary and a bunch of the most critical animals because of it—because he had anepisode, even though I’d promised everyone it wouldn’t be an issue when word spread out about his diagnosis.
It wasn’t even the diagnosis. I knew that much, just… everything that was going on around that time. Roy had felt trapped. Overwhelmed. He didn’t feel like the rest of the workers liked him—and most of them didn’t—and I’d convinced him that they did and gaslighted him into believing it instead of addressing the issue or simply providing comfort.
