Page 38 of Coming to Grips
Chapter Thirteen
The cabin is dark. He’s here, and Kyle obviously is not. Disappointment drops his shoulders as Chase steps onto the porch, his boots echoing loudly. He wasn’t expecting, so much as hoping. He pats the front of his jeans for his keys, and his stomach sinks.
“Aw hell.” No keys. He’d left his behind because Kyle had driven.
With only one working hand, removing the screen on his bedroom window and climbing in that way is out of the question.
So...he’s insulted and hurt his best friend—and lover? —or is it boyfriend? He’s stuck outside with no way of getting into his house unless said best friend and wounded lover comes home, which seems highly unlikely any time soon. Can the night get any freaking worse?
A flash of lightning lights up the sky to the west and a crack of thunder follows, making him jump.
In his misery, he’d failed to notice the incoming weather. The wind whirls around him, and a string of expletives that would make his Navy grandfather proud erupts. The storm front has moved in and the temperature has dropped a little, but it’s still sticky as fuck.
A sonic boom of thunder crashes through the sky and the low, heavy clouds decide they can’t hold their load any longer. Chase is soaked in a matter of seconds. Well, shit. Looks like he’s sleeping in the horse barn.
There’s probably a spare bunk to be had in the bunkhouse; there usually is. But he isn’t in the mood to deal with people or the inevitable questions. He’d rather find a corner of the barn to sleep in, with the horses for company.
The barn’s empty when he arrives, thank goodness. He digs up a relatively clean horse blanket and finds an empty stall with clean hay to hunker down in. He fumbles open the buttons of his shirt with his left hand, all the while fighting shivers from the drenching as well as from images of Kyle’s fingers doing the exact same thing not five hours ago. The memory of Kyle’s fingers along his sternum and stomach sends a different kind of shiver through him. Will he ever get to feel Kyle’s touch again or has he ruined everything?
The struggle to pry wet denim from wet flesh is an effective buzz kill, however. The stuff sticks like burrs to his skin, but sleeping in wet jeans should be avoided whenever possible so he works the clinging fabric from his body. He has to save his boxers a couple times in the process, but he finally stands there in his wet shorts. He hangs his clothes on the stall wall. It takes a couple of attempts to get the blanket around himself, but he still trembles with a bit of a chill. He settles himself along the opposite wall from his dripping clothes and gets as comfortable as he can.
Ranch hands sleeping one off in the stalls isn’t a usual occurrence these days, but it isn’t unheard of, so no one should bother him.
Sleep, unfortunately, is a long time coming.
* * *
Kyle drives for a couple of hours, up and down local roads, along the other side of the fence line he’d been working the day of Chase’s accident, watching another wave of angry weather roll in and feeling its force inside and out.
Chase’s words echo in his head like gunshots in a canyon.
After everything that had happened between them, Chase’s words hurt and hurt badly. How could Kyle have misjudged him on such a spectacular scale?
Did you?asks a small voice. With a snort, he dismisses it. Of course he had. Because what the hell else could have happened?
Chase’s body had responded to Kyle’s touch, for fuck’s sake. And last week, Chase had finally reciprocated, had taken charge and it’d been better than Kyle’d imagined.
This past week of sharing a bed has been a dream come true. Waking up tangled in the bed sheets and each other is the best thing ever. The sex, such as it is at this point, is good too.
They live together, work together, play together—and for all those awful things to come out of Chase’s mouth... God, it just fucking hurts.
The green digital display on the dash flips over to 12:01. He can’t go home; he isn’t ready to face Chase yet. Kyle takes in his location and gets his bearing, pulls a quick u-turn. Fifteen minutes later, he pulls into the parking lot of an apartment complex that needs a little TLC.
Kyle pounds on the door of Tyler’s second-floor apartment. Yeah, it’s after midnight, but Tyler’s a night owl. Or he used to be, once upon a time. They both had been.
The door opens finally, and Tyler squints against the harsh fluorescent street light illuminating the parking lot below. “Well, look who we have here,” he drawls.
“Don’t fuck with me. Can I crash on your couch?”
Tyler’s eyebrows rise as he steps back, but he remains quiet and closes the door against the stiff wind and rumbling thunder.
He’s an old friend and occasional hookup. It’s been a couple of years though, and that isn’t why Kyle’s here. They know each other well enough for Tyler to understand. They’d dated while Kyle and Chase had been in college. Tyler had attended DeVry for a computer technology certification. Chase knows the nature of their relationship and would be hurt by Kyle’s choice of refuge. Kyle can’t deny it’d been deliberate.
Tyler fetches him some dry clothes and tosses a pillow and blanket on the sofa. “You’re more than welcome to share the bed. I’ll keep my hands and other things to myself.”
Kyle sends him a foul look and shakes his head.
Tyler’s bedroom door closes quietly. Kyle peels off his damp clothes, hangs them over the shower curtain to dry, and puts on the too-long sweats and too-snug tee shirt.
