Page 41 of Coming to Grips
“Then you’ll be mad for a while, Chase will get his head screwed on straight and do whatever he’s got to do to make amends, and you two will live happily ever after.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Simple, not easy.”
* * *
Kyle pulls up to the cabin and frowns. Chase should have been up and moving around by now. Blinds open, something. Where the hell is he?You went to an ex’s house, maybe he did the same...says an evil little voice. He shakes his head. The only ex Chase has is Anna, and considering she was the catalyst for their current situation, there’s no way he’d go to her.
Kyle hurries inside. The place looks exactly as it had the previous evening when they’d gone out. He taps on Chase’s bedroom door before pushing it open with one hand. It’s empty—the bed hasn’t even been slept in and his towel from yesterday’s shower lies in a heap on the floor. Kyle’s gaze lights on Chase’s keys sitting in their usual spot on his dresser, and he groans. Aw, hell. He isn’t here, not because he’d chosen not to be, but because he’d been locked out.
Okay, so… Where the hell would he go?
There’s that cute vet tech Chase had met. But no. He doesn’t know her well enough, never said much about her.
The bunk house? No, not after what happened at Black Gold. The possibility of people having witnessed his outburst too likely for his comfort. He’d want to wallow in his misery in private.
The barn then.
Kyle hustles to the barn Chase usually works from. A handful of other wranglers are busy with their daily tasks. Kyle loves his horse, Andromeda, loves horses in general, but the day-to-day grind of mucking stalls and carting horse crap around isn’t his bottle of beer.
“Anyone seen Chase?”
“Second to last stall, left side.”
“Thanks.” Kyle rushes down the hard-packed dirt floor of the barn’s wide aisle.
Chase lies rolled up like a taquito, his head sticking out of the striped blanket at one end, his long bare feet poking out of the other. His clothes hang from the stall wall. Kyle’s torn between wanting to feel bad and feeling slightly avenged that he’d suffered some sort of comeuppance.
Kyle kneels down and shakes his shoulder. “Chase. Wake up. C’mon.”
Chase blinks awake. His eyes focus and go wide. “Oh, God, Kyle...” He groans and turns his face away.
But not before Kyle sees the color rush over his face. Remorse and/or embarrassment. Good. Kyle stands and yanks Chase’s still-soggy clothes from the wall.
“C’mon. Get up. Home and into the shower with you. Then your bed.” As if there’s any question of whose bed Chase would hunker down in.
“Why are you doing this?” Chase asks, struggling to his feet. Kyle refrains from helping, but is granted a flash of light brown flesh in all of Chase’s flailing.
“Because you don’t need to catch a summer cold.”
“Kyle, I—”
“Whatever you have to say—” Kyle holds up a hand. “—I don’t want to hear it right now.” He may be royally pissed off, but he really doesn’t want Chase getting sick.
The walk back to the cabin transpires in silence except for the occasional clunk of Chase’s boots knocking together as he carries them and the hisses and gasps from Chase walking barefooted.
Kyle opens the door to the cabin, tosses Chase’s clothes into the bathroom with a splat, and then disappears into his bedroom with a firm click of the catch.
